Originally Posted by b0ned0me

I don't know about that. The impression I get is that his response was more along the lines of "ah well, that'll serve the b****r right for being so palsy with Hitler" closely followed by "damn! Now half the Lend-Lease shipments we've ordered are going to have to go East to prop up UJ"


The US was definitely 'neutral on the side of england' even quite early on, extremely so once the Lend-Lease acts came into being. However I'm not sure AH fully appreciated at the time that the US was able and willing to essentially provide the UK with whatever was required to beat Germany.
The impression I have is that AH made the decision to attack the USSR pretty much on it's own 'merits' - i.e. that it was high time to turn the invincible nazi war machine on the untermenschen. The senior staff had apparently been drawing up plans for demobbing large numbers of soldiers and returning to a smaller more professional army when he told them to forget all that and get ready for the Phase II on the eastern front.