The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

by William L. Shirer

The coup in Belgrade threw Adolf Hitler into one of the wildest rages of his entire life. He took it as a personal affront and in his fury made sudden decisions which would prove utterly disastrous to the fortunes of the Third Reich. He hurriedly summoned his military chieftains to the Chancellery in Berlin on March 27—the meeting was so hastily called that Brauchitsch, Halder and Ribbentrop arrived late—and raged about the revenge he would take on the Yugoslavs. The Belgrade coup, he said, had endangered both Marita and, even more, Barbarossa. He was therefore determined, “without waiting for possible declarations of loyalty of the new government, to destroy Yugoslavia militarily and as a nation. No diplomatic inquiries will be made,” he ordered, “and no ultimatums presented.” Yugoslavia, he added, would be crushed with “unmerciful harshness.”