The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy

by Adam Tooze

On their return home, the victorious troops were treated to wild celebrations.8 Following the Polish campaign, large parts of the population now expected France and Britain to be crushed by Christmas, an expectation encouraged by the well-publicized success of Guenther Prien and the crew of U-47 in penetrating the home-base of the British fleet at Scapa Flow and sinking the battleship Royal Oak.9 Over the weeks that followed, SS informants overheard children throughout the Reich reciting a blasphemous new version of the Lord’s Prayer addressed to ‘Our Father Chamberlain who art in London, erased be your name, your kingdom soon will be gone . . .’10 The priggish commentators of the SD were appalled, but Goebbels was only too happy to capitalize on the boisterous new anti-British mood.11 Hitler, too, demanded immediate action on the Western Front.