The Russo-German Alliance: August 1939 – June 1941, by A. Rossi (Angelo Tasca) 1949
Hitler and the Nazi chiefs all considered that their Lebensraum lay in the East. Hitler was also of the opinion, after he wrote Mein Kampf, that the decisive victory which alone could ensure access to the Eastern plains would have to be in the West.
His first idea was therefore to attack in the West and to settle with Poland and Russia later on, when conditions would be very much more in his favour. The war would in any case have to be fought on a single front, starting in the West.
But at about the end of March or, at the latest, the beginning of April 1939, Hitler knew Poland would not give in to his demands and that if he attacked her he ran the risk, this time, of war with the Western powers. After informing his General Staff on 23 May 1939 that Poland must be attacked at the first favourable opportunity, he added: ‘We cannot expect that the Czech affair will be repeated. It will be war.’ [1] Up to the last minute before the offensive Hitler tried hard to avoid the risk of war with the Western powers, especially through his offer to cooperate with Britain in imperial affairs; but he had made up his mind to eliminate Poland by armed force. There had been no response, either to his advances or to his threats, and he was prepared to accept the consequences.
In these circumstances, how was he to remain faithful to the concept, so firmly rooted in German military circles, of war on a single front? The only way was by turning the Blitzkrieg on Poland and crushing her before the Anglo – French forces could intervene effectively. This was a technical question to which Hitler and his General Staff already had the key. But it was also necessary to isolate Poland in the East so that she could be knocked out brutally and quickly. This was a political question, and it too was on the way to being solved, for in April, and especially in May, Hitler had first the hope and then the certainty that he would be able to neutralise Russia.
Hitler Plans to Neutralise Russia and to Attack Poland: War with Poland was thus almost inevitable. The documents prove that the two ideas of war and collaboration with the USSR originated simultaneously in the spring of 1939, and that the certainty of war increased as this collaboration developed. To speculate on what Hitler would have decided to do if in March Stalin had made a declaration similar to Chamberlain’s and had assumed the same obligations is a task which is outside the province of an historian working on documents.
We must confine ourselves to establishing the fact that Hitler regarded the war with Poland and the agreement with Russia as complementary, like two closely-related expressions which cannot be considered apart. Stalin’s volte-face had, moreover, deprived Britain and France of all the pressure which they might have brought to bear on Hitler to make him see reason. It is now known why Chamberlain, the cautious man of Munich, hastened to offer Britain’s aid to Poland on 31 March. It was because this conservative gentleman, who was honest if not very imaginative, not only sustained a moral shock when the Nazis swept into Prague but, like other members of his cabinet, he could not forget 1914. Rightly or wrongly, he thought that if Britain had then made her own position more clear William II might not have gone to war. In any case, Chamberlain and his friends, backed by the French government, wished this time to avoid any such ‘tragic misunderstandings’. The following passage in the letter which Chamberlain sent to Hitler on 22 August is very characteristic of this state of mind:
It has been alleged that, if His Majesty’s Government had made their position more clear in 1914, the great catastrophe would have been avoided. Whether or not there is any force in that allegation, His Majesty’s Government are resolved that on this occasion there shall be no such tragic misunderstandings. [2]
Thus the warnings to Hitler were explicit. But this very forthright statement had no effect because Hitler knew that he had all the same avoided a war on two fronts. He also knew that he could in future count on economic aid from the Soviets which, in the event of a war in the West, would allow him to fight under conditions much more favourable than in 1914 and would place him out of reach of the blockade. Indeed, during his conversation with Sir Nevile Henderson on 25 August 1939, he declared that:
In contrast to the last war, Germany would no longer have to fight on two fronts. Agreement with Russia was unconditional and signified a change in the foreign policy of the Reich which would last a very long time... Apart from this, the agreements reached with Russia would also render Germany secure economically for the longest possible period of war. [3]
With M Coulondre, the French Ambassador, who went to give him the same warnings as his British colleague, Hitler took refuge in the certainty of victory which the Russian agreement gave him. ‘I have concluded an agreement with Moscow’, he told him, ‘which I venture to say is not theoretical but positive... I believe I shall win.’ [4]
Stalin Bets On War: The attack on Poland was first fixed for 26 August [5] but was postponed for a few days. It began on 1 September, in accordance with a strategical plan which Hitler had helped to draw up and which was to be completed earlier, not later, than was called for in the timetable.
The attack could not, and in fact did not, come as a surprise to Stalin. He knew perfectly well that it had been decided on by Germany, and it was with this knowledge of things to come that he had made the agreement with Berlin. On 12 August, Ribbentrop told Ciano that ‘the Russians had been kept fully informed of Germany’s intentions towards Poland’. [6] According to the evidence of the German agents who maintained liaison between Hitler and Stalin, Stalin was quite aware that ‘the non-aggression pact would result in war between Germany and Poland, a war which was bound to become general’. [7] Moreover the impatience of Hitler and his chiefs during the last stages of the Moscow deal gave away not only what they were after but their actual plans, and Stalin used this knowledge to force his conditions on them. When the two partners signed the secret protocol of 23 August with a view to ‘changing the politico-territorial’ status of the countries in question (the Baltic states and Poland), they knew that this was not just a vague clause held in reserve for some future eventuality but an agreement worked out to settle a definite problem which they would soon have to face. They were in entire agreement on this point. ‘Russia and Germany’, Ribbentrop explained later at Nuremberg, ‘considered they had a right to recover the territories which they had lost after the last war: that is all.’ Moreover on 23 August Ribbentrop had himself informed Molotov of the Reich’s intention to attack if their differences with Poland were not smoothed out. [8] Henceforth both knew that they would not be smoothed out, and with the agreements in his pocket Stalin was no longer concerned that they should be, for all his tactics had contributed to prevent a settlement. Goering was not wrong in supposing that by accepting an agreement during the Polish crisis the Russians ‘aimed at getting Germany more deeply involved in the conflict by leaving her free on that side’. [9] If at the last moment the Western powers had given way and accepted the agreement put forward by Hitler, it could only have been reached through a second Munich in which Russia, who had been kept out of the first, would have had to be present. This being so, Russia as well as Germany would have submitted her claims. In his answer to the British government on 29 August Hitler expressed himself with brutal frankness:
The government of the Reich felt, however, bound to point out to the British government that in the event of a territorial rearrangement in Poland they would no longer be able to bind themselves to give guarantees or to participate in guarantees without the USSR being associated therewith. [10]
If, therefore, the Allies had wished to stage another Munich by accepting a ‘rearrangement’ of Polish territory, the new Polish frontier would no more have been guaranteed by this solution than was the new frontier of Czechoslovakia by the agreement of 1938. The Allies were informed by Hitler himself that since 23 August they had to reckon on having to meet the Soviet’s claims as well as Germany’s.
After 23 August the German and Soviet governments had no need for new agreements. Once war had broken out they both relied on the secret protocol of the 23rd and regarded it as applying perfectly to the specific case of the partition of Poland after a victorious armed conflict.
Ribbentrop Asks the Soviet to Intervene: In the documents which have been examined there is no trace of a military plan drawn up jointly by both governments for the war with Poland. The idea of military collaboration must, however, have been considered, since on 27 August, after rumours that the Soviet troops had crossed the Polish frontier, von Schulenburg was instructed, in the event of the rumours being confirmed, to request the Moscow government to withdraw its troops as the diplomatic preparations for the war had not yet been completed. [11] But on 3 September 1939 – the day on which France and Britain declared war on Germany – Ribbentrop invited the Soviet government to move its troops into Poland in order to occupy the territory allotted to it in the secret protocol of 23 August. [12]
The documents provide evidence which allows one point of historical interest to be cleared up beyond all shadow of doubt. In their propaganda the Communist parties have done their best to justify the entry of the Soviet troops into Poland, their main argument being that the occupation of Eastern Poland was necessary to forestall the Germans and to defend the USSR against a possible German attack immediately afterwards from territory near the Soviet frontier.
The truth was quite the reverse. The Soviet government wanted to let the Wehrmacht first crush the Polish army, even if, as Ribbentrop had foreseen on 3 September, this involved the entry of German forces into the area beyond the ‘four rivers’ in the territory reserved for Russia under the secret protocol.
On 4 September Molotov replied that the Soviet government agreed it would have to intervene at a suitable time in Poland but that it was still too early. He went on to say that if during the military operations the German – Russian line of demarcation was crossed, this was not important as the partition arranged on 23 August could not be changed. [13]
The Kremlin in Quest of a Political Justification: Ribbentrop renewed his invitation on 9 September. On that date Molotov gave an undertaking that the Russians would intervene ‘in a few days’, [14] but went back on his promise the following day with a statement that, although they were ready for the military side of the operation, a political justification still had to be found. As von Schulenburg was insisting on the ‘vital’ need for immediate action by the Red Army, Molotov explained to him that:
... the Soviet government had intended to take the occasion of the further advance of German troops to declare that Poland was falling apart and that it was necessary for the Soviet Union, in consequence, to come to the aid of the Ukrainians and the White Russians ‘threatened’ by Germany. This argument was to make the intervention of the Soviet plausible to the masses and at the same time avoid giving the Soviet Union the appearance of an aggressor. [15]
Today, the underlying cause for Molotov’s anxiety can be correctly explained. Through the protocol of the 23rd Russia acquired some very important territorial gains without having to join in the war. Stalin was therefore under no compulsion to pay for his share of the spoils by giving military support. He was, moreover, convinced that the Wehrmacht would win the battle on its own, and this gave him considerable freedom of action. If he had come in immediately, as Ribbentrop had asked him to do, his intervention would have seemed too obvious a break with the policy of ‘neutrality’ which he had ostensibly adopted. Stalin’s neutrality was invented and practised in such a way as to combine the advantages of peace with those of war, and he would have sacrificed it only if absolutely forced to do so.
On the other hand, in spite of his contempt for public opinion in his own and other countries, he was not unaware of its importance and was anxious not to aggravate the feelings of indignation which his ‘treason’ of 23 August had aroused on all sides. He had therefore built up his tactics like a precision instrument so that his intervention in Poland would come at exactly the moment when it no longer had an openly ‘military’ character.
State of Alarm in Moscow: But on 11 September a grain of sand got into the machinery and came near to throwing everything out of gear. This was the DNB communiqué announcing that military operations in Poland were almost over and that an armistice might be signed at any minute. The communiqué described what was in fact the true situation, but it is quite possible that the German authorities put it out with the intention of forcing Russia’s hand.
This caused a great commotion in Moscow, where they had expected the war to last a few weeks longer at least. On 10 September Molotov had already told von Schulenburg that the Soviet government had been taken completely by surprise at the unexpected speed of the German military successes. ‘The Red Army’, he said, ‘had counted on several weeks, which have now shrunk to a few days...’ [16] And scarcely 10 days after operations had begun, the end was already in sight! If the Poles asked for an armistice before the Soviet troops entered their country, Stalin risked not being on the spot at the right moment, and although he was guaranteed by the secret protocol, he would find it more difficult to change the line of demarcation into a line of partition. And if the Soviets intervened after an armistice concluded by a Polish government which was still in being, their action would take on an openly aggressive character before the whole world.
They had to move, therefore, before the armistice was signed. Von Schulenburg reassured the Russian leaders on this point on 12 September, when he told them that there was as yet no question of an armistice. [17] But as the military situation was changing rapidly, the problem remained the same. The Russians were anxious to start neither too early nor too late. To hit on the moment best suited to their own interests they needed information about what was happening to the Polish army, the state it was in, and its movements. They went to the Germans for it, and General Jodl, after consulting Hitler, ordered the High Command to supply them with all the military information they required. [18]
On 14 September Molotov explained to von Schulenburg that ‘in order to justify the Soviet’s action politically it was of the greatest importance’ for his government ‘not to take action until the governmental centre of Poland, the city of Warsaw, had fallen’ – clearly for the same reasons as would force it to intervene before an armistice. He accordingly asked ‘to be informed as nearly as possible when they could count on the capture of Warsaw’ by the Wehrmacht. [19] During the same conversation Molotov assured the German Ambassador that the Red Army had completed its preparations earlier than was expected and was therefore ready to go into action. Ribbentrop was delighted, [20] and Goering was able to announce to Count Magistrati, a high official in the Italian Embassy in Berlin, that as this was the case Russia could ‘absorb a part of Poland’. [21]
Ribbentrop answered Molotov’s request for information in a special message on 15 September which stated that ‘the Polish army will soon be destroyed and Warsaw will be occupied in a few days’. At the same time he confirmed that everything would be done within the framework of the secret protocol and asked for the date of the Soviet army’s advance. [22]
Ribbentrop’s news about Warsaw was premature, although based on accurate information from the German High Command. This was the second miscalculation it had made, for it had already given out that Warsaw had fallen as early as 9 September. Molotov had then rushed to the telephone to exchange congratulations with von Schulenburg. ‘I have received your communication’, he told him, ‘regarding the entry of the German troops into Warsaw. Please convey my congratulations and my greetings to the German Reich Government.’ [23] The truth was that the heroic city held out until the 27th, but its resistance could not change the course of events. The false report of its impending fall, however, spurred the Soviet government into action and induced it to put its invasion plans into operation without delay.
The Quarrel Over the Joint Communiqué: Between 16 and 17 September, the date of the Soviet advance fixed on the basis of military information supplied by Ribbentrop, a discussion arose between the two governments concerning a joint communiqué announcing the entry of the Soviet army into Poland.
It is worth digressing for a moment, for this dispute is not without interest. Molotov had hinted to von Schulenburg on 10 September that to provide a political justification for her intervention Russia was obliged to allege that she had to go to the aid of the Ukrainians and White Russians threatened by the German advance. Even von Schulenburg, a most accommodating man, thought that this was going too far. He remarked that Germany could not possibly accept such a justification, since Moscow knew perfectly well that no threat of this kind existed. [24] Ribbentrop again took up this point in a personal message to Molotov on 15 September, when he observed that the argument which the Soviet government wished to use ran counter to both the treaty of non-aggression and the secret protocol signed by both countries. In the same message he submitted the text of a communiqué which might satisfy both parties. [25] On 16 September Molotov acknowledged that the line he had proposed taking was not very friendly towards Germany and apologised, but gave as his excuse the fact that he could see no other way of justifying the action they had in mind. [26]
If the Germans wanted Russia to act – and obviously they did, so as to commit her more thoroughly to the new policy arising out of the pacts of 23 August – they would have to put up with a gross distortion of the truth, and a slight tweak to their own prestige.
The quarrel over the communiqué was settled only on 18 September. On the previous day, in the afternoon, the German Foreign Office had telephoned a new draft [27] which was handed over to Molotov by Schulenburg at 11.30pm. Stalin came into Molotov’s office shortly after the German Ambassador arrived and rejected it because in his opinion ‘it presented the facts all too frankly’. He thereupon wrote out in his own hand the version which was accepted by the Wilhelmstrasse next day and issued in both capitals. [28] If the ‘liberation’ of their brother Ukrainians and White Russians was not mentioned in the communiqué, the Soviet government made great play with it in its propaganda – discreetly at home, but more freely abroad – through the various Communist parties.
Stalin’s Note to M Grzybowski: At 2.00am on 17 September Stalin received von Schulenburg in the presence of Molotov and Voroshilov and announced that the Soviet army would cross the frontier that morning at 6.00am. He also read Schulenburg the note which was about to be handed to the Polish Ambassador, and accepted a few alterations which the Reich Ambassador asked him to make. [29]
The Polish Ambassador in Moscow, M Grzybowski, is known to have rejected this note in the name of his government. M Grzybowski was expecting this communication. When Marshal Voroshilov was interviewed by Izvestia after the departure of the French and British military missions he had declared, so as to give some semblance of reality to the Russian pose of ‘neutrality’, that Russia was willing to provide Poland with raw materials and armaments. And, to cover up their tracks still more, as late as 2 September the Soviet Ambassador in Warsaw had suggested that the two governments should begin negotiations. But when M Grzybowski went, on 8 September, to the Soviet government with the request that it should implement Voroshilov’s promise, Molotov himself replied that the situation had changed; the USSR had first of all to safeguard her own interests, and would not only refuse to increase the supplies called for by previous agreements but would even forbid the transit over Russian territory of war material which might come from Poland’s allies. [30]
The whole drift and tone of this conversation of 8 September gave the Polish Ambassador the feeling that there would be a sudden change in the policy of the USSR in the very near future, and at the expense of his country. After 14 September, the day on which Molotov had definitely undertaken to bring in the Soviet troops, the Russian press began to mention incidents on the Polish – Russian frontier. ‘How unimaginative people are’, Ciano noted in his diary apropos of this, ‘when they intend to quarrel.’ [31] This did not prevent him from doing the same thing himself when, little more than a year later, he had to find some excuse for Italy’s onslaught on Greece.
German – Soviet Military Collaboration: During this period Germany and Russia worked together in complete harmony. Berlin was delighted with the Soviet intervention; one of the military chiefs considered it an event of the highest importance, with ‘particularly favourable’ consequences for Germany. [32]
An occasional squall blew up, but it soon died down again, like the ‘map incident’. Colonel, afterwards General, Warlimont, one of the most active members of Hitler’s military circle, showed a map to the Soviet Military Attaché at German Headquarters in which the town of Lvov and the Drohobycz oilfields appeared in the German zone of occupation. The Russian Attaché informed Moscow, and Stalin became annoyed; [33] however, everything was smoothed over by definite assurances from General Köstring, the German Military Attaché in Moscow, and from Ribbentrop himself. But the High Command received a severe reprimand from Ribbentrop for this incident.
The Soviet troops met only scattered resistance when they entered Poland. The fate of the Polish army was settled. Its resistance was shortened by the Soviet intervention, whatever else might have happened; but, more important, it was prevented from carrying on the fight in the Eastern marches and from withdrawing part of its strength towards the south and continuing the struggle on other fronts. The concerted movements of the German and Russian armies rapidly effected its complete encirclement. The Red army’s tactics were especially designed to ‘make the formation of a Polish army abroad impossible’, and thus involved ‘the loss of at least 200,000 to 300,000 soldiers who later would have been of great service in the West’. [34]
The total Soviet losses were 737 killed and 1862 wounded – enough for Molotov to be able to praise the importance of Russia’s military contribution in his speech to the Supreme Soviet on 31 October. [35] And enough for Stalin, a few weeks later in December, publicly to salute German – Soviet friendship as being ‘sealed in blood’. [36]
An agreement for the military occupation of the conquered territories was concluded by General Köstring and Voroshilov on 22 September and was carried out on the spot by a joint military commission stationed at Białystock. The Soviet troops were to advance to the four-river line, as fixed in the secret protocol of 23 August, and the German troops who had crossed this line in pursuit of the Polish army were to fall back to the West. These troop movements occupied the last few days of the ‘Polish campaign’, after which the line dividing the German and Soviet zones of influence became a military frontier pending the political settlement; and on this the documents found in Germany throw a good deal of light.
1. Quoted by Jackson, Chief of the Prosecution Counsel for the United States, in his statement at the Nuremberg trial, Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 2 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 134; cf Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 7 (Washington, 1946), p 84.
2. Misc no 8 (1939), Correspondence between HM Government in the UK and the German Government, August 1939 (London, 1939), document 1, p 2.
3. Misc no 8 (1939), Correspondence between HM Government in the UK and the German Government, August 1939 (London, 1939), document 3, p 6.
4. Documents Diplomatiques français, 1938-39 (Paris, 1939), p 259.
5. Goering, in his deposition quoted at Nuremberg by Mr Griffith-Jones, prosecuting counsel, spoke of 25 August; the order postponing the operation was said to have been issued on the afternoon of the 24th (Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 3 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 247; cf Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 8 (Washington, 1946), pp 534-35). But Goering himself stated that Hitler postponed the invasion ‘on the day when England officially guaranteed Poland’, that is, on 25 August. See also Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 9 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 596; and General Jodl’s deposition, Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 15 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 422.
6. See above, Chapter III, section ‘A Decisive Day’.
7. Interrogation by the American Mission.
8. Ribbentrop’s deposition at Nuremberg, Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 10 (Nuremberg, 1947), pp 268, 316.
9. Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Volume 9 (Nuremberg, 1947), p 345.
10. Misc no 8 (1939), Correspondence between HM Government in the UK and the German Government, August 1939 (London, 1939), document 5, p 12.
11. Telegram from Berlin, no 218, 27 August, not published in Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948).
12. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 86.
13. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 87.
14. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), pp 89-90.
15. Telegram from von Schulenburg, 10 September, Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 91.
16. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 91.
17. Telegram from von Schulenburg to Berlin, no 334, 12 September, not published in Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948).
18. Note no 30 in the telegram from Moscow, not published in Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948). See the assurances given by Ribbentrop on 13 September, Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 92.
19. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), pp 92-93.
20. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 93.
21. Ciano’s Diary, 1939-43 (London, 1947), p 152.
22. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), pp 93-94.
23. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 89.
24. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 91.
25. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 94.
26. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 95.
27. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 100.
28. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), pp 99-100.
29. Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948), p 96.
30. Livre Blanc Polonais (Paris, 1940), nos 171, 172 and 184.
31. Ciano’s Diary, 1939-43 (London, 1947), p 152.
32. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume 6 (Washington, 1946), p 978.
33. Shulenburg’s telegram of 19 September, no 394, not published in Nazi – Soviet Relations 1939-41 (Washington, 1948).
34. Lieutenant-General Anders, An Army in Exile (London, 1949), p 11.
35. Bulletin périodique de la presse russe (Paris), no 290, p 20.
36. In his reply to Ribbentrop’s telegram congratulating him on his sixtieth birthday.