We declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor. Then Hitler declared war on us. AFAIK, we didn’t declare war on Germany and didn’t intend to.
I know we were escorting British ships out of US ports (Neutrality Patrol) but we didn’t take them all the way to the UK. The Germans sank two of our destroyers. Still, Germany and USA were not formally at war. Why would Hitler deliberately bring us into the fight against him? Impatience? Craziness?
I mean, Japan didn’t declare war on the Soviet Union in June 1941, so Hitler didn’t have any obligation to reciprocate. Not that he was much on “honoring” anything.
Hitler wasn’t obligated to declare war under the Tripartite Act but he did hope that by doing so Japan would in return attack the Soviet Union and take some pressure off Germany. They didn’t.
It was a strategic mistake. Hitler thought that if he declared war on the US, then Japan would declare war on Russia (and hopefully attack) as part of the Tripartate agreement (which did not require either country to do this).
Japan is kind of right next to the Soviet Union. Well, to what was the Soviet Union at the time. You know what I mean.
Germany/Hitler probably figured the US, being waythefuckengone across the Atlantic and up to its red white & blue eyeballs with Japan-problems, wasn’t in much position to pose a threat to Germany. The US would probably fight Japan for awhile then sue for peace. Surely a nation so far away and with a 2nd-rate military was in no shape to fight a two-front war, especially with both fronts so far away from home base.
Per Wikipedia, Hitler felt he was upholding his end of the Tripartie Pact, even though, since Japan had not been attacked, he was technically under no obligation to do so.
aldiboronti and Gangtser Octopus are correct. Germany and Japan had an agreement that if either went to war against the Soviet Union or the United States, the other would declare war as well. But Hitler was not a very smart man, and the Japanese played him for a sucker.
With that said, war between the United States and Germany was probably inevitable after the Pearl Harbor attack. To win the war against Japan, America needed the cooperation of the British, and that meant that America would have to declare war on Germany eventually.
As the others have noted, the pact between the Axis powers was technically defensive. However, during the second half of 1941 there were various diplomatic moves towards a stronger agreement that would commit them to all declaring war on the US if it became involved. In the event, nothing had been signed by Pearl Harbor, but an understanding did exist and both Berlin and Tokyo were edging towards a formal agreement.
As to why Hitler thought this was a sensible commitment, his argument was that Japan would dominate a Pacific war, tying up both the US and Britain, thus improving his situation in Europe. Granted, he mainly trotted this line of reasoning out after the Japanese had attacked and one can read a large dose of self-delusion into it, but he did initially claim that the widening of the war was a good thing for Germany. Supporting and encouraging the Japanese by declaring war was thus supposedly in the country’s interests.
However, there’s another important set of factors deriving from his propaganda instincts. He’d already scheduled a major speech to the nation on how the war was going, largely to hide the fact that they were militarily bogged down in the Soviet Union. The speech thus largely became an attack on Roosevelt. Using the declaration of war as the climax of the speech then allowed him to present himself as the one in control of events.
One of many occasions in Hitler’s thinking where the propaganda effect was more important than reality.
Hitler believed that war with the United States was inevitable at some point. And he realized that the United States was going to build up its military for the war with Japan. So he figured the best time for a war with the US was 1942 while Japan was also fighting and before the US had an opportunity to gear up. Strategically speaking, declaring war when he did made sense.
Wasn’t FDR trying to convince an isolationalist public to go to war anyway? I’m not surprised in the least that Hitler thought war with the U.S. was inevitable.
Which kind of brings up another point on this. The other posters make good points about it maybe being the best strategic move at the time. I think that if the attack on Pearl Harbor had gotten our aircraft carriers, then things would have been much more dire for the USA.
So, was Hitler aware that the attack, while devastating, was not quite the complete success Japan had hoped for? That is, was he aware at that time (just prior to declaring war on the USA) that we still had our carriers?
unlikely that a full damage assessment was made available even to the British, much less the newpapers, at this time. Sometimes war losses were not announced until long after the ship in question had sunk, even though Next of Kin were individually informed.
I don’t know if this has anything to do with the reason he declared war on the United States at the same time as Japan, but I was watching a show on the History Channel about Hitler’s unpublished second book, which layed out his secret plans even more explicitly than Mein Kampf did. Hitler was jealous of the United States, because they had been coming out with all sorts of great new inventions. Hitler also believed that the fact that the U.S. had limited immigration from Asia and other foreign nations meant that America was the perfect breeding ground for future civilizations of Aryans emigrating from Europe. In Hitler’s mind, it would be bad for Germany to lose these possible Nazis to the Americans. This may not be the reason Hitler declared war on America, but it is interesting to think about.
*Although Germany on her part has strictly adhered to the rules of international law in her relations with the United States during every period of the present war, the Government of the United States from initial violations of neutrality has finally proceeded to open acts of war against Germany. The Government of the United States has thereby virtually created a state of war.
The German Government, consequently, discontinues diplomatic relations with the United States of America and declares that under these circumstances brought about by President Roosevelt Germany too, as from today, considers herself as being in a state of war with the United States of America.*
If you can make it through Hitler’s rambling Declaration of War to the Reichstag without completely losing your train of thought you are a better person than I. He gets to the USA about 1/3 of the way through and it certainly appears Hitler is blaming Roosevelt personally. Basically (I am over simplifying his rambling a bit), Hitler says Roosevelt has made catastrophic financial and policy blunders* and, in order to justify these blunders and in order to divert American attention, and in collusion with Britian to keep the Volk down, he is trying to start a war with Germany.
It is interesting, to me, how personal Hitler makes it and how far he goes several times to tie Roosevelt to Wilson, “the Men of October” and Germany’s humiliation in WWI.
*Hitler’s pointing up the New Deal “failure” vs. the “success” of National Socialism and his humble beginnings vs. Roosevelt’s privildge is worth the wade through in itself, in how it illuminates his thinking.
The USA was, however, already heavily involved on Great Britain’s side. Lend-Lease Acts had provided the USA the ability to render aid by trading older destroyers for promise of bases present and future. By mid 1941, some US forces had actually been involved in combat with German forces (U-boats) in the War for the Atlantic. However, there was still much debate in Congress as to just how involved in the European War the USA should be, even tho it appears FDR was definitley for active US involvement.
The debate over all this became moot with Hitler’s declaration against the US. No way could Congress deny FDR’s counter proposal, that the US enter the War on the side of the UK in the ETA, since a state of war already existed, initiated by the NAZI aggressors.
Disclaimer: This is from memory of various books I’ve read over lo these many years. Accept it at your own risk.
The Battle of Midway was the showcase for the aircrasft carrier. Prior to that , the Battlship was the most important ship in the navy. The fact that the US still had a full comlpement of carriers wouldn’t have altered the appraisal of the success of the attack.
Another factor in Hitler’s decision was the so-called Wedemeyer Plan. Officially named Victory Plan of 1941, it had been developed as a war planning operation by General Albert Wedemeyer. Acting on the assumption of a war between America and Germany, the plan outlined the build-up of troops and equipment and outlined an approximate schedule for how the US would attack and eventually invade Europe and conquer Germany. Bascially it was a plan for attacking Germany.
This plan was officially intended as a contingency plan and was not intended for public view. (In addition to being poor politics it would have been bad military strategy to reveal your planning in advance.) But the plan was leaked to the press (the identity of the leaker has never been revealed) and published on December 4, 1941. Isolationists howled that Roosevelt was planning on a war. Germany naturally said this was proof of American deceit. Then while tempers were already high, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
I’m of the view that Hitler deemed this a good time to declare war on the US so that the German U-boats could directly attack US warships and shipping. As noted in the quote, we were already involved in helping the British to Germany’s detriment and a free hand in fighting back would be a gain in Hitler’s view. In addition, he had a low opinion of the US as an opponent and no doubt greatly overestimated the time that would be required for the buildup of our armed forces after the Pearl Harbor disaster.