NEMESIS personifies “the Goddess of Retribution, who brings down all immoderate good fortune, checks the presumption that attends it … and is the punisher of extraordinary crimes”.* We must now lay bare the error and vanity of cold-blooded calculation of the Soviet Government and enormous Communist machine, and their amazing ignorance about where they stood themselves. They had shown a total indifference to the fate of the Western Powers, although this meant the destruction of that “Second Front” for which they were soon to clamour. They seemed to have no inkling that Hitler had for more than six months resolved to destroy them. If their Intelligence Service informed them of the vast German deployment towards the East, which was now increasing every day, they omitted many needful steps to meet it. Thus they had allowed the whole of the Balkans to be overrun by Germany. They hated and despised the democracies of the West; but the four countries Turkey, Roumania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, which were of vital interest to them and their own safety, could all have been combined by the Soviet Government in January with active British aid to form a Balkan front against Hitler. They let them all break into confusion, and all but Turkey were mopped up one by one. War is mainly a catalogue of blunders, but it may be doubted whether any mistake in history has equalled that of which Stalin and the Communist chiefs were guilty when they cast away all possibilities in the Balkans and supinely awaited, or were incapable of realising, the fearful onslaught which impended upon Russia. We had hitherto rated them as selfish calculators. In this period they were proved simpletons as well. The force, the mass, the bravery and endurance of Mother Russia had still to be thrown into the scales. But so far as strategy, policy, foresight, competence are arbiters Stalin and his commissars showed themselves at this moment the most completely outwitted bunglers of the Second World War.
Hitler’s “Barbarossa” directive of December 18,1940, had laid down the general grouping and primary tasks of the forces to be concentrated against Russia. At that date the total German strength on the Eastern front was 34 divisions. To multiply that figure more than thrice was an immense process both of planning and preparation, and it fully occupied the early months of 1941. In January and February the Balkan adventure into which the Fuehrer allowed himself to be drawn caused a drain-away from the East to the South of five divisions, of which three were armoured. In May the German deployment in the East grew to 87 divisions, and there were no less than 25 absorbed in the Balkans. Considering the magnitude and hazard of the invasion of Russia, it was improvident to disturb the concentration to the East by so serious a diversion. We shall now see how a delay of five weeks was imposed upon the supreme operation as the result of our resistance in the Balkans, and especially of the Yugoslav revolution. No one can measure exactly what consequences this had before winter set in upon the fortunes of the German-Russian campaign. It is reasonable to believe that Moscow was saved thereby. During May and the beginning of June many of the best trained German divisions and all the armour were moved from the Balkans to the Eastern Front, and at the moment of their assault the Germans attacked with 120 divisions, seventeen of which were armoured and twelve motorised. Six Roumanian divisions were also included in their Southern Army Group. In general reserve a further 26 divisions were assembled or assembling; so that by early July the German High Command could count on at least 150 divisions, supported by the main striking power of their Air Force, about 2,700 aircraft.
Up till the end of March I was not convinced that Hitler was resolved upon mortal war with Russia, nor how near it was. Our Intelligence reports revealed in much detail the extensive German troop movements towards and into the Balkan States which had marked the first three months of 1941. Our agents could move with a good deal of freedom in these quasi-neutral countries, and were able to keep us accurately posted about the heavy German forces gathering by rail and road to the south-east. But none of these necessarily involved the invasion of Russia, and all were readily explainable by German interests and policy in Roumania and Bulgaria, by her designs on Greece and arrangements with Yugoslavia and Hungary. Our information about the immense movement taking place through Germany towards the main Russian front, stretching from Roumania to the Baltic, was far more difficult to acquire. That Germany should at this stage, and before clearing the Balkan scene, open another major war with Russia seemed to me too good to be true.
There was no sign of lessening German strength opposite us across the Channel. The German air raids on Britain continued with intensity. The manner in which the German troop concentrations in Roumania and Bulgaria had been glozed over and apparently accepted by the Soviet Government, the evidence we had of large and invaluable supplies being sent to Germany from Russia, the obvious community of interest between the two countries in overrunning and dividing the British Empire in the East, all made it seem more likely that Hitler and Stalin would make a bargain at our expense rather than a war upon each other. This bargain we now know was within wide limits Stalin’s aim.
These impressions were shared by our Joint Intelligence Committee. On April 7 they stated that there were a number of reports circulating in Europe of a German plan to attack Russia. Although Germany, they said, had considerable forces available in the East, and expected to fight Russia some time or other, it was unlikely that she would choose to make another major war front yet. Her main object in 1941 would, according to them, remain the defeat of the United Kingdom. As late as May 23 this committee from the three services reported that rumours of impending attack on Russia had died down, and that there were reports that a new agreement between the two countries was impending.
Our Chiefs of Staff were ahead of their advisers; and more definite. “We have firm indications,” they warned the Middle East Command on May 31, “that the Germans are now concentrating large army and air forces against Russia. Under this threat they will probably demand concessions most injurious to us. If the Russians refuse the Germans will march.”
It was not till June 5 that the Joint Intelligence Committee reported that the scale of German military preparations in Eastern Europe seemed to indicate that an issue more vital than an economic agreement was at stake. It was possible that Germany desired to remove from her Eastern frontier the potential threat of increasingly powerful Soviet forces. They considered it as yet impossible to say whether war or agreement would result.
I had not been content with this form of collective wisdom, and preferred to see the originals myself. I had arranged therefore, as far back as the summer of 1940, for Major Desmond Morton to make a daily selection of tit-bits, which I always read, thus forming my own opinion, sometimes at much earlier dates.
It was thus with relief and excitement that towards the end of March 1941 I read an Intelligence report from one of our most trusted sources of the movement and counter-movement of German armour on the railway from Bucharest to Cracow. This showed that as soon as the Yugoslav ministers made their submission in Vienna, three out of the five Panzer divisions which had moved through Roumania southward towards Greece and Yugoslavia had been sent northward to Cracow, and secondly that the whole of this transportation had been reversed after the Belgrade revolution and the three Panzer divisions sent back to Roumania. This shuffling and reversal of about sixty trains could not be concealed from our agents on the spot.
To me it illuminated the whole Eastern scene like a lightning-flash. The sudden movement to Cracow of so much armour needed in the Balkan sphere could only mean Hitler’s intention to invade Russia in May. This seemed to me henceforward certainly his major purpose. The fact that the Belgrade revolution had required their return to Roumania involved perhaps a delay from May to June. I cast about for some means of warning Stalin, and, by arousing him to his danger, establishing contacts with him like those I had made with President Roosevelt. I made the message short and cryptic, hoping that this very fact, and that it was the first message I had sent him since my formal telegram of June 25, 1940, commending Sir Stafford Cripps as Ambassador, would arrest his attention and make him ponder.
Prime Minister to Sir Stafford Cripps 3 Apr 41
Following from me to M. Stalin, provided it can be personally delivered by you:
I have sure information from a trusted agent that when the Germans thought they had got Yugoslavia in the net—that is to say, after March 20—they began to move three out of the five Panzer divisions from Roumania to Southern Poland. The moment they heard of the Serbian revolution this movement was countermanded. Your Excellency will readily appreciate the significance of these facts.
The British Ambassador did not reply till April 12, when he said that just before my telegram had been received he had himself addressed to Vyshinsky a long personal letter reviewing the succession of failures of the Soviet Government to counteract German encroachments in the Balkans, and urging in the strongest terms that the U.S.S.R. in her own interest must now decide on an immediate vigorous policy of co-operation with countries still opposing the Axis in that area. “Were I now,” he said, “to convey through Molotov the Prime Minister’s message, which expresses the same thesis in very much shorter and less emphatic form, I fear that the only effect would be probably to weaken impression already made by my letter to Vyshinsky.…”
I was vexed at this and at the delay which had occurred. This was the only message before the attack that I sent Stalin direct. Its brevity, the exceptional character of the communication, the fact that it came from the head of the Government and was to be delivered personally to the head of the Russian Government by the Ambassador, were all intended to give it special significance and arrest Stalin’s attention. I was eventually told that Sir Stafford had handed it to Vyshinsky on April 19 and Vyshinsky had informed him in writing on April 23 that it had been conveyed to Stalin.
I cannot form any final judgment upon whether my message, if delivered with all the promptness and ceremony prescribed, would have altered the course of events. Nevertheless I still regret that my instructions were not carried out effectively. If I had had any direct contact with Stalin I might perhaps have prevented him from having so much of his Air Force destroyed on the ground.
We know now that Hitler’s directive of December 18 had prescribed May 15 as the date for invading Russia, and that in his fury at the revolution in Belgrade this had been postponed for a month, and later till June 22. Until the middle of March the troop movements in the north on the main Russian front were not of a character to require special German measures of concealment. On March 13 however orders were issued by Berlin to terminate the work of the Russian commissions working in German territory and to send them home. The presence of Russians in this part of Germany could only be permitted up to March 25. During this time the 120 German divisions of the highest quality were assembling in their three Army Groups along the Russian front. The Southern Group, under Rundstedt, was, for the reasons explained, far from well found in armour. Its Panzer divisions had only recently returned from Greece and Yugoslavia. Despite the postponement of the attack till June 22 they badly needed rest and overhaul after their mechanical wear and tear in the Balkans.
On April 13 Schulenburg came from Moscow to Berlin. Hitler received him on April 28, and treated his Ambassador to a tirade against Russia. Schulenburg adhered to the theme which had governed all his reports. “I am convinced that Stalin is prepared to make even further concessions to us. It has already been indicated to our economic negotiators that (if we applied in due time) Russia could supply us with up to 5 million tons of grain a year.”* Schulenburg returned to Moscow on April 30, profoundly disillusioned by his interview with Hitler. He had a clear impression that Hitler was bent on war. It seems that he had even tried to warn the Russian Ambassador in Berlin, Dekanosov, in this sense. And he fought persistently in the last hours for his policy of Russo-German understanding.
Weizsacker, the official head of the German Foreign Office, was a highly competent civil servant of the type to be found in the Government departments of many countries. He was not a politician with executive power, and would not, according to British custom, be held accountable for State policy. He was nevertheless condemned to seven years’ penal servitude by decree of the courts set up by the conquerors. Although he is therefore classified as a war criminal, he certainly wrote good advice to his superiors, which we may be glad they did not take. He commented as follows upon this interview:
I can summarise in one sentence my views on a German-Russian conflict. If every Russian city reduced to ashes were as valuable to us as a sunken British warship, I should advocate the German-Russian war for this summer; but I believe that we should be victors over Russia only in a military sense, and should, on the other hand, lose in an economic sense.
It might perhaps be considered an alluring prospect to give the Communist system its death-blow, and it might also be said that it was inherent in the logic of things to muster the Eurasian continent against Anglo-Saxondom and its following. But the sole decisive factor is whether this project will hasten the fall of England.…
A German attack on Russia would only give the British new moral strength. It would be interpreted there as German uncertainty about the success of our fight against England. We should thereby not only be admitting that the war was going to last a long time yet, but we might actually prolong it in this way, instead of shortening it.
On May 7 Schulenburg hopefully reported that Stalin had taken over the chairmanship of the Council of People’s Commissars in place of Molotov, and had thereby become head of the Government of the Soviet Union. “… I am convinced that Stalin will use his new position in order to take part personally in the maintenance and development of good relations between the Soviets and Germany.”
The German Naval Attaché, reporting from Moscow, expressed the same point in these words: “Stalin is the pivot of German-Soviet collaboration.” Examples of Russian appeasement of Germany increased. On May 3 Russia had officially recognised the pro-German Government of Rashid Ali in Iraq. On May 7 the diplomatic representatives of Belgium and Norway were expelled from Russia. Even the Yugoslav Minister was flung out. At the beginning of June the Greek Legation was banished from Moscow. As General Thomas, the head of the economic section of the German War Ministry, later wrote in his paper on the war economy of the Reich: “The Russians executed their deliveries up to the eve of the attack, and in the last days the transport of rubber from the Far East was expedited by express trains.”
We had not of course full information about the Moscow moods, but the German purpose seemed plain and comprehensible. On May 16 I had cabled to General Smuts: “It looks as if Hitler is massing against Russia. A ceaseless movement of troops, armoured forces, and aircraft northwards from the Balkans and eastwards from France and Germany is in progress.” Stalin must have tried very hard to preserve his illusions about Hitler’s policy. After another month of intense German troop movement and deployment Schulenburg could telegraph to the German Foreign Office on June 13:
People’s Commissar Molotov has just given me the following text of a Tass dispatch which will be broadcast to-night and published in the papers to-morrow:
Even before the return of the English Ambassador Cripps to London, but especially since his return, there have been widespread rumours of an impending war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany in the English and foreign Press.…
Despite the obvious absurdity of these rumours, responsible circles in Moscow have thought it necessary to state that they are a clumsy propaganda manœuvre of the forces arrayed against the Soviet Union and Germany, which are interested in a spread and intensification of the war.
Hitler had every right to be content with the success of his measures of deception and concealment, and with his victim’s state of mind.
Molotov’s final fatuity is worth recording. On June 22, at 1.17 a.m., Schulenberg telegraphed once more to the German Foreign Office:
Molotov summoned me to his office this evening at 9.30 p.m. After he had mentioned the alleged repeated border violations by German aircraft … Molotov stated as follows:
There were a number of indications that the German Government was dissatisfied with the Soviet Government. Rumours were even current that a war was impending between Germany and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Government was unable to understand the reasons for Germany’s dissatisfaction.… He would appreciate it if I could tell him what had brought about the present situation in German-Soviet Russian relations.
I replied that I could not answer his question, as I lacked the pertinent information; that I would however transmit his communication to Berlin.
But the hour had now struck. At 4 a.m. on this same June 22, 1941, Ribbentrop delivered a formal declaration of war to the Russian Ambassador in Berlin. At daybreak Schulenburg presented himself to Molotov in the Kremlin. The latter listened in silence to the statement read by the German Ambassador, and then commented, “It is war. Your aircraft have just bombarded some ten open villages. Do you believe that we deserved that?”*
In the face of the Tass broadcast it had been vain for us to add to the various warnings which Eden had given to the Soviet Ambassador in London, or for me to make a renewed personal effort to arouse Stalin to his peril. Even more precise information had been constantly sent to the Soviet Government by the United States. Nothing that any of us could do pierced the purblind prejudice and fixed ideas which Stalin had raised between himself and the terrible truth. Although on German estimates 186 Russian divisions were massed behind the Soviet boundaries, of which 119 faced the German front, the Russian armies to a large extent were taken by surprise. The Germans found no signs of offensive preparations in the forward zone, and the Russian covering troops were swiftly overpowered. Something like the disaster which had befallen the Polish Air Force on September 1, 1939, was now to be repeated on a far larger scale on the Russian airfields, and many hundreds of Russian planes were caught at daybreak and destroyed before they could get into the air. Thus the ravings of hatred against Britain and the United States which the Soviet propaganda machine cast upon the midnight air were overwhelmed at dawn by the German cannonade. The wicked are not always clever, nor are dictators always right.
It is impossible to complete this account without referring to a terrible decision of policy adopted by Hitler towards his new foes, and enforced under all the pressure of the mortal struggle in vast barren or ruined lands and winter horrors. Verbal orders were given by him at a conference on June 14, 1941, which to a large extent governed the conduct of the German Army towards the Russian troops and people, and led to many ruthless and barbarous deeds. According to the Nuremberg documents, General Halder testified:
Prior to the attack on Russia the Fuehrer called a conference of all the commanders and persons connected with the Supreme Command on the question of the forthcoming attack on Russia. I cannot recall the exact date of this conference.… At this conference the Fuehrer stated that the methods used in the war against the Russians would have to be different from those used against the West.… He said that the struggle between Russia and Germany was a Russian struggle. He stated that since the Russians were not signatories of the Hague Convention the treatment of their prisoners of war did not have to follow the Articles of the Convention.… He [also] said that the so-called Commissars should not be considered prisoners of war.*
And according to Keitel:
Hitler’s main theme was that this was the decisive battle between the two ideologies, and that this fact made it impossible to use in this war [with Russia] methods, as we soldiers knew them, which were considered to be the only correct ones under international law.†
On the evening of Friday, June 20, I drove down to Chequers alone. I knew that the German onslaught upon Russia was a matter of days, or it might be hours. I had arranged to deliver a broadcast on Saturday night dealing with this event. It would of course have to be in guarded terms. Moreover, at this time the Soviet Government, at once haughty and purblind, regarded every warning we gave as a mere attempt of beaten men to drag others into ruin. As the result of my reflections in the car I put off the broadcast till Sunday night, when I thought all would be clear. Thus Saturday passed with its usual toil.
When I awoke on the morning of Sunday, the 22nd, the news was brought to me of Hitler’s invasion of Russia. This changed conviction into certainty. I had not the slightest doubt where our duty and our policy lay. Nor indeed what to say. There only remained the task of composing it. I asked that notice should immediately be given that I would broadcast at 9 o’clock that night. Presently General Dill, who had hastened down from London, came into my bedroom with detailed news. The Germans had invaded Russia on an enormous front, had surprised a large portion of the Soviet Air Force grounded on the airfields, and seemed to be driving forward with great rapidity and violence. The Chief of the Imperial General Staff added, “I suppose they will be rounded up in hordes.”
I spent the day composing my statement. There was not time to consult the War Cabinet, nor was it necessary. I knew that we all felt the same on this issue. Mr. Eden, Lord Beaverbrook, and Sir Stafford Cripps—he had left Moscow on the 10th—were also with me during the day. In the course of my broadcast I said:
“The Nazi régime is indistinguishable from the worst features of Communism. It is devoid of all theme and principle except appetite and racial domination. It excels all forms of human wickedness in the efficiency of its cruelty and ferocious aggression. No one has been a more consistent opponent of Communism than I have for the last twenty-five years. I will unsay no word that I have spoken about it. But all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding. The past, with its crimes, its follies, and its tragedies, flashes away. I see the Russian soldiers standing on the threshold of their native land, guarding the fields which their fathers have tilled from time immemorial. I see them guarding their homes where mothers and wives pray—ah, yes, for there are times when all pray—for the safety of their loved ones, the return of the bread-winner, of their champion, of their protector. I see the ten thousand villages of Russia where the means of existence is wrung so hardly from the soil, but where there are still primordial human joys, where maidens laugh and children play. I see advancing upon all this in hideous onslaught the Nazi war machine, with its clanking, heel-clicking, dandified Prussian officers, its crafty expert agents fresh from the cowing and tying down of a dozen countries. I see also the dull, drilled, docile, brutish masses of the Hun soldiery plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts. I see the German bombers and fighters in the sky, still smarting from many a British whipping, delighted to find what they believe is an easier and a safer prey.
“Behind all this glare, behind all this storm, I see that small group of villainous men who plan, organise, and launch this cataract of horrors upon mankind.…
“I have to declare the decision of His Majesty’s Government—and I feel sure it is a decision in which the great Dominions will in due course concur—for we must speak out now at once, without a day’s delay. I have to make the declaration, but can you doubt what our policy will be? We have but one aim and one single, irrevocable purpose. We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi régime. From this nothing will turn us—nothing. We will never parley, we will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his gang. We shall fight him by land, we shall fight him by sea, we shall fight him in the air, until, with God’s help, we have rid the earth of his shadow and liberated its peoples from his yoke. Any man or state who fights on against Nazidom will have our aid. Any man or state who marches with Hitler is our foe.… That is our policy and that is our declaration. It follows therefore that we shall give whatever help we can to Russia and the Russian people. We shall appeal to all our friends and allies in every part of the world to take the same course and pursue it, as we shall, faithfully and steadfastly to the end.…
“This is no class war, but a war in which the whole British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations is engaged, without distinction of race, creed, or party. It is not for me to speak of the action of the United States, but this I will say: if Hitler imagines that his attack on Soviet Russia will cause the slightest divergence of aims or slackening of effort in the great democracies who are resolved upon his doom, he is woefully mistaken. On the contrary, we shall be fortified and encouraged in our efforts to rescue mankind from his tyranny. We shall be strengthened and not weakened in determination and in resources.
“This is no time to moralise on the follies of countries and Governments which have allowed themselves to be struck down one by one, when by united action they could have saved themselves and saved the world from this catastrophe. But when I spoke a few minutes ago of Hitler’s blood-lust and the hateful appetites which have impelled or lured him on his Russian adventure I said there was one deeper motive behind his outrage. He wishes to destroy the Russian power because he hopes that if he succeeds in this he will be able to bring back the main strength of his Army and Air Force from the East and hurl it upon this Island, which he knows he must conquer or suffer the penalty of his crimes. His invasion of Russia is no more than a prelude to an attempted invasion of the British Isles. He hopes, no doubt, that all this may be accomplished before the winter comes, and that he can overwhelm Great Britain before the Fleet and air-power of the United States may intervene. He hopes that he may once again repeat, upon a greater scale than ever before, that process of destroying his enemies one by one by which he has so long thrived and prospered, and that then the scene will be clear for the final act, without which all his conquests would be in vain—namely, the subjugation of the Western Hemisphere to his will and to his system.
“The Russian danger is therefore our danger, and the danger of the United States, just as the cause of any Russian fighting for his hearth and home is the cause of free men and free peoples in every quarter of the globe. Let us learn the lessons already taught by such cruel experience. Let us redouble our exertions, and strike with united strength while life and power remain.”