Stalin

87. The intense impatience in Berlin was conveyed by Schnurre to Schulenburg in a telegram sent on Aug. 2 and received two days later: “Secret: Politically, the problem of Russia is being dealt with here with extreme urgency. During the last ten days I have daily had at least one direct or telephone conversation with the foreign minister and know that he is also constantly exchanging views with the Führer on this. The foreign minister is concerned to obtain some result on the Russian question as soon as possible, not only on the negative side (disturbing the British negotiations) but also on the positive side (an understanding with us) . . . You can imagine how eagerly talks with Molotov are awaited here.” DGFP, series D, VI: 1047–8.

88. DBFP, 3rd series, VI: 762–89 (“Instructions to the British Military Mission to Moscow, Aug. 1939”); Izvestiia, Aug. 12, 1939; Tisminets, Vneshniaia politika SSSR, IV: 439.

89. Sipols, Tainy, 89; Pravda, Dec. 24, 1989. Haslam maintained that “given the lack of serious intent in London it was inevitable that the Russians would turn to the Germans.” Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 216.

90. DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 584 (AVP RF, f. 06, op. 16, pap. 27, d. 5, l. 38: Aug. 7, 1939); Sluch, “Germano-sovetskie otnosheniia,” 111.

91. Spiridonovka St. became Alexei Tolstoy St.; Litvinov resided on this street when he was people’s commissar for foreign affairs.

92. Dokumenty i materialy kanuna vtoroi mirovoi voiny, II: 212–8 (AVP RF, f. 06, op. 1a, pap. 25, d. 12, l. 3–12); God krizisa, II: 191–6. Drax suggested that if the negotiations were switched to London, he would be able to produce the desired confirmation of his plenipotentiary powers. Someone remarked, to general laughter, that it would be simpler to have the documents sent to Moscow than to bring all the delegations to London. Kuznetsov, Nakanune, 247.

93. Young, In Command of France, 239.

94. Overy, 1939: Countdown, 13 (Borthwick Archive, University of York, Halifax Papers, A4.410.12/1).

95. Dokumenty i materialy kanuna vtoroi mirovoi voiny, II: 218–23 (AVP RF, f. 06, op. 1a, pap. 25, d. 12, l. 13–22, Aug. 13, 1939), II: 239–47 (AVP RF, f. 06, op. 1a, pap. 25, d. 12, l. 48–59, Aug. 15, 1939); God krizisa, II: 196–202, 202–7, 220–8.

96. “He that commands the sea,” Sir Francis Bacon had explained of British strategy already in the seventeenth century, “is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.” Bacon, “Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates” [1612, enlarged 1625], as cited in Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, 55.

97. Ponomarev, Pokoriteli neba, 68–75.

98. Schorske, “Two German Diplomats,” 508. On Aug. 11, 1939, firm intelligence that Germany’s attack on Poland was imminent reached the war office in London, effectively rendering further British moves toward Berlin a show to ensure that responsibility for the outbreak of war fell on Germany. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence, I: 83n.

99. Schnurre summoned Astakhov on Aug. 13 (a Sunday) to convey agreement to conduct talks in Moscow. God krizisa, II: 185 (AVP RF, f. 06, op. 1, pap. 7, d. 70, l. 1–2); DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 603, 606–7; DGFP, series D, VII: 62–4 (Ribbentrop to Schulenburg, Aug. 14), 68–9 (Weizsäcker to Schulenburg, Aug. 15). Interactions with Astakhov in Berlin had indicated to the Germans that an agreement was likely. DGFP, series D, VII: 17–20 (Schnurre to Berlin, Aug. 10, 1939), 20–1 (Schnurre to Schulenburg in Berlin, Aug. 10), 58–9 (Schnurre to Moscow embassy, Aug. 14).

100. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 50–2 (Ribbentrop to Schulenburg), 52–3 (Schulenburg to German foreign ministry), 53–7 (Schulenburg), 57 (Schulenburg); Die Beziehungen, 55–7 (Ribbentrop’s original instructions and Schulenburg’s amendments); God krizisa, II: 229–31 (AVP RF, f. 0745, op. 14, pap. 32, d. 3, l. 33–6), 232–3 (l. 37–9); Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 353 (citing AVP RF, f. 0745, op. 15, pap. 38, d. 8, l. 126–8).

101. Also on Aug. 15, the Soviet military attaché in Tokyo reported that Japanese ruling circles remained gridlocked over a military alliance with Germany and Italy: the key players wanted the alliance to be directed solely against the USSR, while Berlin and Rome wanted to add Japan to their alliance against the Western powers. Gromyko et al., SSSR v bor’be za mir nakanune, 583; The attaché was L. A. Mishin.

102. Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbarossy,” 70, 72 (no citation).

103. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 61–3 (Ribbentrop to Schulenburg, received in Moscow at 5:45 a.m. on Aug. 19).

104. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 7 (citing RGVA, f. [unspecified], op. 9157, d. 2, l. 418–31, 447, 453–4).

105. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 64–5 (Schulenburg to foreign ministry, Aug. 19, 1939), 65–6; God krizisa, II: 269–71 (AVP RF, f. 0745, op. 14, pap. 32, d. 3, l. 40–3), 271–3 (l. 44, 45–6), 274–6 (l. 47–51), 277–8 (l. 52–3), 280–91 (AVP RF, f. 03a, d. 05 Germaniia); DGFP, series D, VII: 134 (Schulenburg to Berlin, Aug. 19, 1939); Read and Fisher, Deadly Embrace, 214. Britain knew as well: Group Captain Malcom Christie, a former British air attaché who had excellent contacts among senior German officers and others hostile to Hitler, reported secret leaks to Sir Robert Vansittart (the retired undersecretary of the foreign office), who relayed the reports to the government. On June 27, 1939, Christie conveyed that the German mobilization for Poland would begin from Aug. 1 and be completed by the 27th. On Aug. 17, Christie reported that the war would commence between Aug. 25 and 28. Overy, 1939: Countdown, 23 (citing Churchill College, Cambridge, Christie Papers, CHRS I/29B); Andrew, Secret Service, 429.

106. Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, 57–61; Trial of the Major War Criminals, XXXI: 233; DGFP, series D, VIII: 310–3 (Ritter and Schulenburg to the foreign ministry, Oct. 18, 1939); Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 83–5.

107. As late as Aug. 20, Drax had written to Voroshilov that he had not yet received an answer from his government: Volkogonov, Triumf I tragediia, II/1: 21–2 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1235, l. 73); Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 351.

108. The agreement, at Soviet insistence, mentioned German “industrial goods,” but had not specified what the term encompassed. In Oct. 1939, both Schnurre and Karl Ritter would deny this included armaments, perhaps as a way of bargaining for better terms of exchange. Wish lists the Soviets had passed on made abundantly clear industrial goods meant weaponry. Schwendemann, Die Wirtschaftliche Zussamenarbeit, 90–7.

109. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 66–7; Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik, VII: 131 (Russian translation, Volkogonov, Hoover Institution Archives, container 1); DGFP, series D, VII: 156–7 (Ribbentrop to the Moscow embassy, Aug. 20, 1939); God krizisa, II: 302 (AVP RF, f. 0745, op. 14, pap. 32, d. 3, l. 63–4); DVP SSSR, XXII/ii: 585 n172; Volkogonov, Triumf I tragediia, II/1: 28–9.

110. Fleischhauer, Diplomatischer Widerstand, 14–28. Stalin preserved the exchange with Hitler in his personal archive: RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 296, l. 1–3.

111. God krizisa, II: 303 (AVP RF, f. 0745, op. 14, pap. 32, d. 3, l. 65); DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 624.

112. Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 300; Hoffman, Hitler Was My Friend, 102; Speer, Erinnerungen, 176; Domarus, Hitler: Reden, III: 1233; Das deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg, IV: 142.

113. Watt, How War Came, 466–70; Meehan, Unnecessary War, 233–4; Maser, Der Wortbruch, 59–60.

114. Antonov, “Anatolii Gorskii.”

115. Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, 207; Baumgart, “Zur Ansprache Hitlers” (no. 2), esp. 126, 132–3 n53 and n55, 149n113; Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, 180; Albrecht, “‘Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier?’”

116. Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, 212–3; Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, I: 439–40 (Aug. 22, 1939). “Of all the big Nazi leaders, Hermann Gōring was for me by far the most sympathetic,” Henderson would write in 1940. He had certain attractive qualities; and I must say that I had a real personal liking for him.” Henderson, Failure of a Mission, 76. Prażmowska concluded that Britain’s “guarantee to Poland had more to do with obtaining leverage with Poland in order to force her to the negotiating table, than with the defence of Poland from aggression.” Prażmowska, Britain, Poland, 190.

117. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 225–6. On Aug. 22, 1939, with the TASS announcement of Ribbentrop’s pending arrival, the Comintern executive (Gottwald, Dimitrov, Kuusinen, Manuilsky, Marti, and Florin) assembled to map out a position defending against attacks by the “bourgeois” press in Britain and France. Lebedeva and Narinskii, Komintern i Vtoraia mirovaia voina, 69–71 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 18, d. 1291, l. 141–3).

118. Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 220.

119. Dilks, Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 199n. Sydney Cotton, an Australian pilot and aerial photography specialist who worked for British Air Intelligence, had been sent to Berlin to pick up Göring. DGFP, series D, VII: 235–6 (Woermann note, Aug. 23, 1939).

120. Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, II/i: 110. For an earlier such incident involving Lord Beaverbrook in 1933, see Thayer, Bears in the Caviar, 33–4.

121. Memoir accounts claim that the airfield was festooned with Nazi flags, retrieved from the anti-Nazi productions at Mosfilm studios, and that a Soviet military band struck up “Deutschland über Alles,” but the detailed Soviet newsreels show neither the flags nor the band. RGAKFD, ed. khr. 16332. The German planes were “locked up” in a hangar under NKVD guard, no doubt so that they could be thoroughly examined. Baur, Hitler’s Pilot, 95.

122. Teske, General Ernst Köstring, 142.

123. Stalin had gathered Molotov, Mikoyan, Zhdanov, Voroshilov, Beria, and Kaganovich in the Little Corner until 3:30 p.m. Na prieme, 270–1. Also, on Aug. 23, 1939, the Moscow city soviet resolved to award land around the main NKVD HQ at Lubyanka, 2, for the building’s expansion; several residential structures housing 440 people were slated for demolition. (The residents received a mere 2,500 rubles’ compensation and free moving costs, and had to find or build their own new housing on plots granted outside Moscow.) Construction would begin almost immediately even as plans were still being drawn up by the architect, Alexei Shchusev, who went through various designs. The war would interrupt construction, which would be completed in 1948. A lack of resources inhibited the blending of the facades of the existing building and the addition until later (1979–82). Pogonii, Lubianka, 2, 70–9.

124. Kalinin had told Schulenburg upon his appointment, “Don’t pay too much attention to the shoutings in the press. The peoples of Germany and the Soviet Union are linked by many different lines and to a great extent are dependent on each other.” Nekrich, 1941, 21 (citing German archives).

125. Berezhkov, At Stalin’s Side, 49–50.

126. “It was a move,” Hilger guessed, “that was calculated to put the [German] foreign minister off balance.” In fact, Stalin sought to demonstrate Moscow’s commitment to the new pact. Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 301. On Aug. 23, 1939, the logbook for Stalin’s office shows Molotov, Mikoyan, Zhdanov, Voroshilov, Beria, and Kaganovich (listed from 1:12 p.m. or so to 3:30 p.m., before the negotiations), then Molotov from 2:15 a.m. to 3:35 a.m. Na prieme, 270–1.

127. Chuev, Sto sorok, 257.

128. Shaposhnikov, Vospominaniia.

129. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 69.

130. Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, 210.

131. Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 303. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, using only German documents, attributed the Pact to Soviet initiative. This collection was immediately translated into Russian for Stalin and provoked his involvement in countervailing efforts, originally entitled “Answer to the Slanderers,” which in Stalin’s hands became Falsifiers of History, a work that would be published in Russian and English translation in 1948: RGASPI, f. 558, op. 2, d. 239–45. See also Nekrich, “Soviet German Treaty,” 9–13.

132. DGFP, series D, VII: 220 (Ribbentrop to the foreign ministry, Aug. 23, 1939), 223 (Kordt to Moscow embassy, Aug. 23, 1939); Herwarth, Against Two Evils, 165.

133. Van Creveld, Hitler’s Strategy, 186n8; Read and Fisher, Deadly Embrace, 488–9 (no citation).

134. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 72–3.

135. “Mr. Stalin and Molotov commented in a hostile way on the behavior of the British military mission in Moscow which had not told the Soviet government what it actually wanted.” Naumov, 1941 god, II: 580 (German record). See also Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 72–6.

136. Antonov, “Anatolii Gorskii.”

137. Naumov, 1941 god, II: 581 (Politisches Archiv des Auswärtiges Amtes. Bonn, Bestand Büro RAM F/110019–30); Chuev, Sto sorok, 19. An alert SS adjutant, Lieutenant Richard Schulze, claims he managed to have his glass refilled from Stalin’s personal flask, and that it contained not vodka but water. Read and Fisher, Deadly Embrace, 256. Schulze appears in the Pact photos.

138. For the text of the Pact, and the secret protocol, see DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 630–2 (AVP RF, f. 3a, d. 243; APRF, f. 3, op. 64, d. 675a, l. 3–4). Izvestiya carried the announcement of the Pact later that same day (Aug. 24, 1939).

139. Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, II/ii: 107 (no citation). Berezhkov writes that the cocktail party went on until dawn and that only after that was Ribbentrop able to inform Hitler. Berezhkov, At Stalin’s Side, 40.

140. “‘Avtobiograficheskie zametki’ V. N. Pavlova—perevodchika I. V. Stalina,” 99.

141. This was Andor Hencke, the under state secretary, who added: “The cordial and yet at the same time dignified manner in which Stalin, without losing face, attended to each one of us, left a strong impression on us all.” Rees, World War II behind Closed Doors, 18 (citing Hencke’s 1950 interrogation, DGFP, series D, VII: 225–9).

142. Bullock, Hitler and Stalin, 676. See also Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend, 102–14. Two German photographers were present, Hoffmann and Helmut Laux. Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend, 109.

143. Stalin’s logbook of visitors for Aug. 22 and 23 contains six names (aides were never logged in). On Aug. 24, Molotov alone is logged in (2:15 a.m. to 3:35 a.m.). Na prieme, 270–1. See also Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 96–7.

144. For the full Pact, see Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 76–8; and Naumov, 1941 god, II: 576–8, 585–93. Gaus appeared in the photos.

145. Degras, Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, III: 145 (Sept. 1935).

146. “Johnnie” Herwarth and his Bavarian wife, Pussi, spent time at Bohlen’s dacha, as Soviet intelligence and Stalin knew, but, officially, Herwarth was the chief contact at the German embassy in Moscow to Britain, the United States, and France. At the dacha they rode horses, played tennis, and sipped tea. Herwarth was one quarter Jewish. Bohlen, Witness to History, 69–83; Herwarth, Against Two Evils, 167.

147. Bezymenskii, “Secret Protocols of 1939,” 76; Bezymenskii, “Sovetsko-Germanskie dogovory,” 3, 20–1. Molotov would hold on to the Soviet original of the secret protocol until Oct. 1952, when it was belatedly placed in the “osobaia papka” of the party archives. Other 1930s agreements that contained secret protocols included the German-Polish nonaggression declaration of 1934, Franco-Italian and Anglo-Italian agreements of 1935 regarding Africa, the 1938 Munich Pact, the 1939 Anglo-Japanese Agreement on China, and so on.

148. Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, 181–4; Ribbentrop, Memoirs, 109–15 (composed in prison while waiting to be hanged after the Nuremberg trial in 1946); Schmidt, Statist, 452–4; Bloch, Ribbentrop, 249. Stalin rewrote the text of the communiqué regarding Poland, and Hitler judged it superior to the text drafted in Berlin. Hilger recalled: “‘The old Romans,’ Stalin said, turning to me, ‘did not go into battle naked but with shields. Today correctly worded political communiqués play the role of such shields.’” Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 302. Ribbentrop, who had conceded everything, later claimed to have been impressed by Stalin: “his sober, almost dry and yet so apt way of expressing himself, the hardness and yet generosity of his bargaining.” Ribbentrop, Memoirs, 113.

149. Na prieme, 271.

150. Simonov, “Zametki k biogfraii G. K. Zhukova,” 49. Khrushchev, who was at the Near Dacha on Aug. 23, 1939, recalled that Stalin said, “This is a game, who can outsmart and deceive whom.” Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 225-8. Stalin well understood that the Pact helped Hitler, too. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 115. Gaus claimed he overheard Stalin mutter “deception.” It is unclear if Gaus understood what could have been the Russian word (obman), though Stalin did know some words in German and might have uttered Täuschung; or Gaus could have misheard.

151. At the same time, complicating Japan’s attempt to conquer China, many Japanese forces were tied down in Manchukuo to deter the Soviet Union. Goldman, Nomonhan, 1939, 35 (citing U.S. Department of the Army, Forces in the Far East, Japanese Special Studies on Manchuria, 13 vols. [Tokyo, 1954–6], XI/3: 193).

152. Krasnov, Neizvestnyi Zhukov, 118–20.

153. Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 252.

154. Efimenko et al., Vooruzhennyi konflikt, 319–20 (RGVA, f. 32113, op. 1, d. 670, l. 57–9). Zhukov would claim that he acted on Aug. 20 also because he learned that the Japanese planned an offensive beginning Aug. 24, but there is no such plan in the Japanese documentation record. Coox, Nomonhan, 578–9.

155. Coox, Nomonhan, 582. The Japanese espionage network in Mongolia, which had never amounted to much, evidently missed this massive buildup.

156. Grechko et al., Istoriia vtoroi mirovoi voiny, II: 217; Zhilin, Pobeda na reke Khalkhin-gol, 18; Khalkhin Gol, 71.

157. Vorozheikin, Istrebiteli, 224.

158. Mongol troops had been pressed into fighting by both belligerents, but, supposedly, many on the Japanese side refused to fight or defected to the Soviets. Dylykov, Demoktraicheskoe dvizhenie mongol’skogo naroda, 39–40.

159. Coox, Nomonhan. See also the blistering critique of Japanese strategy: Wilson, When Tigers Fight.

160. Erickson, Soviet High Command, 522.

161. Krasnov, Neizvestnyi Zhukov, 136–7.

162. Voroshilov forwarded the Zhukov telegram to Stalin, with a note: “As one could have anticipated, no divisions turned out to be surrounded, the enemy having either managed to remove the main forces in time or, more likely, no major forces were in this region for a long time, instead there was a specially prepared garrison, which now is completely destroyed.” A concentration camp for two thousand Japanese POWs had been prepared in Verkhne-Udinsk, but only around one hundred soldiers had been captured and they were sent to the Chita prison. Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestevennaia, XVIII (VII/i): 127 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1225, l. 162), 139 (TsKhIK, f. 1t/p, op. 1, d. 5, l. 93–4). See also Krasnov, Neizvestnyi Zhukov, 137.

163. Coox, Nomonhan, 914; Rossiia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka, 177, 179; Goldman, Nomonhan, 1939, 101–53. For other numbers, see Krivosheev, Grif sekretnosti sniat’, 77–85. Mongolia suffered 556 casualties.

164. “Muzhestvo i geroizm,” Krasnaia zvezda, Aug. 30, 1939; Sokolov, Georgii Zhukov, 143.

165. Simonov, “Zmetki k biografii G. K. Zhukova,” 54.

166. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 163–4 (RGVA, f. 37977, op. 1, d. 91, l. 32–3: Sept. 1, 1939). Zhou En-Lai brought some of the captured Japanese army codes to Moscow in Sept. to Dimitrov, who passed them to Beria. Lebedeva and Narinskii, Komintern i Vtoraia mirovaia voina, 99 (RGASPi, f. 495, op. 74, d. 316, l. 12: note by Stern, Aug. 15); Sergutov, “Organizatsionnye aspekty deiatel’nosti vneshnei razvedki,” III: 241. “For the Japanese army, Nomonhan was the graveyard of reputations.” Coox, Nomonhan, 952; Ikuhiko, “Japanese-Soviet Confrontation,” 157–78.

167. Coox, Nomonhan, 1002 (Oct. 4, 1939); Coox, “The Lesser of Two Hells, Part 2,” 108.

168. Fesiun, Delo Rikharda Zorge, 100–3; Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 123 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 22407, d. 2, l. 417).

169. Weizsäcker, Memoirs, 210; Craigie, Behind the Japanese Mask, 71; DBFP, 3rd series, IX: 495–7; Iklé, German-Japanese Relations, 135 (citing International Military Tribunal for the Far East, Documents Presented in Evidence, exhibit 486: Ott to Weizsäcker, Aug. 25, 1939); Presseisen, Germany and Japan, 218 (citing exhibit 2735–A, 225, exhibit 3587); DGFP, series D, VII: 259–60 (Ott to foreign ministry, Aug. 24, 1939). The Soviet military attaché’s aide in Tokyo sent a quick report to Moscow on Aug. 26: Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia oteechestvennaia, XVIII (VII/i): 159 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 22410, d. 2, l. 131–2).

170. Robinson, Black on Red, 137. “It left us all stunned, bewildered, and groggy with disbelief,” recalled one loyal party member (who later defected). “Hatred of Nazism had been drummed into our minds year after year.” Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom, 332–5. Kravchenko, thirty-four years old in 1939, directed a factory in the industrial district of western Siberia.

171. Ehrenburg, Liudi, gody, zhizn’, II; 202. Vsevolod Vishnevsky, then in the Soviet Far East, also heard about the Pact over the radio and was similarly shocked. The Far East received central newspapers with delay, and after the Aug. 23 treaty he received the August 15–17 newspapers, which had continued to rage about “cannibals” (Nazis). “What about the general ideational-philosophical and political evaluation of fascism, the bloc of aggressors?” he wrote in his diary. Golubev et al., Rossiia i zapad, 200 (citing RGALI, f. 1038, op. 1, d. 2077, l. 39ob., 41).

172. Biulleten’ oppozitsii, no. 74 (1939): 4 (Trotsky, “Stalin’s Capitulation,” March 11, 1939), reprinted in Trotskii, Portrety revoliutsionerov, 147–9. Trotsky also asserted that Stalin was afraid. “The main source of the policy of Stalin himself is now fear in the face of the fear that he himself has begotten,” he wrote, apropos of Afinogenov’s old play Fear. “Stalin never trusted the masses; now he fears them.” Trotskii, “Iosif Stalin: opyt kharakteristiki (Sept. 22, 1939),” in Portrety revoliutsionerov, 46–60 (at 58).

173. Manuilsky tried to explain to Hernandez at the Comintern villa in Kuntsevo, “Everything has been taken care of. We can’t lose! . . . If the capitalists want to slit each other’s throats, so much the better. When the time is right, when they begin to get weary, we will undoubtedly be solicited by both sides and can chose the one which suits us best. Don’t worry, our army won’t pull the chestnuts out of the fire for any capitalist country.” Hernández, La grande trahison, 206–7.

174. Lebedeva and Narinskii, Komintern i Vtoraia mirovaia voina, 71–85 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 73, d. 67, l. 44–59), 88 (op. 74, d. 517, l. 43); Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov and Stalin, 150; “Komintern i sovetsko-germanskii dogovor o nenapedenii,” 206; Firsov, “Arkhivy Kominterna”; Firsov, “Komintern,” 21–2. Daniil Kraminov (b. 1910), assigned to draft the first editorial for Izvestiya about the Pact, had no idea what to write. The editor, Yakov Selikh, approached Voroshilov, who compared the Pact to the 1918 Brest-Litovsk treaty with Germany for providing a breathing space. Already on Aug. 24, Selikh knew that Ribbentrop had proposed to insert words about German-Soviet friendship into the text, but Stalin had refused to do so. Seilkh also knew the subjects of the toasts and the jokes exchanged. None of this information had been recorded in the Soviet documents. Kraminov, V orbite voiny, 55.

175. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 115–6 (Sept. 7, 1939). For the resultant new Comintern directive, dispatched abroad, see Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 117 (Sept. 8, 1939); Lebedeva and Narinskii, Komintern i Vtoraia mirovaia voina, 88–90 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 18, d. 1292, l. 47–8); and King and Matthews, About Turn, 69–70. More broadly, see also Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov and Stalin, 154–63.

176. Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 115–6 (Sept. 7, 1939).

177. An antifascist documentary, Ispaniya (Spain), by Esther Shub, had premiered on July 20, 1939. Short and Taylor, “Soviet Cinema.”

178. Anderson et al., Kremlevskii kinoteatr, 539. See also Luk’ianov, “‘Aleksandr Nevskii’: na s”emakh filma”; S. M. Eisenstein, “Zametkie rezhissera,” Ogonek, 1938, no. 22: 19, 20–1; and Izvestiia, Nov. 11, 1938. On Eisenstein’s self-critique of the film, whose commercial success puzzled him, see Eisenstein, Film Sense, 123–68. Five other recently made anti-German films were also pulled.

179. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 160, l. 1 (note to Dukelsky). The Comintern’s Dimitrov sent a long telegram admonishing Earl Browder, leader of the American Communists, that “now the issue is not just fascism, but the existence of the entire capitalist system,” and insisted there would be no more juxtaposing “democratic” capitalist countries to fascist ones. “This war is a continuation of the struggle between the rich great powers (England, France, the United States), which are the spine of the whole capitalist system, and the disadvantaged states (Germany, Italy, Japan), which in their struggle for a new division of the world are deepening and sharpening the crisis of the capitalist system.” Lebedeva, Komintern i Vtoraia mirovaia voina, 132–6 (RGASPI, f. 495, op. 74, d. 469, l. 108–12).

180. Quoted in Hosking, First Socialist Society, 218–9.

181. Leonhard, Betrayal, 90.

182. Uttitz, Zeugen der Revolution, 134.

183. Vishnevskii, “‘Sami peredem v napadenie,’” 104–5: Aug. 28, 31, and Sept. 1, 1939.

184. The Anti-Komintern agency inside Goebbels’s propaganda ministry, whose purpose was “a world anti-Bolshevik movement under German leadership,” was wound down with the signing of the Pact, but the Nazi regime’s identity remained founded upon German racial superiority and a crusade against “Judeo-Bolshevism.” Waddington, “Anti-Komintern,” 576, citing NA, GFM34/1265: Goebbels circular, Dec. 8, 1936. See also Waddington, Hitler’s Crusade.

185. Pravda, Sept. 1, 1939; Naumov, 1941 god, II: 581–3 (at 582); Mirovoe khoziaistvo i miroavaia politika, no. 9 (1939): 3; Degras, Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, III: 363–71. In connection with the Pact, the Soviets talked out of both sides of their mouths, allowing subsequent scholars on opposite sides to find quotes supporting their arguments about whether or not Stalin ever wanted a deal with the West. For example, Voroshilov said, via the Soviet press, that “military negotiations with England and France were not broken off because the Soviet Union concluded a nonaggression pact with Germany. On the contrary, the Soviet Union concluded a nonaggression pact with Germany because, among other reasons, the military negotiations with France and England had run into a blind alley because of insuperable differences.” (Those differences, he said, came down to a failure to guarantee western transit rights to Germany for the USSR in the event of an aggression.) But to the Germans, Stalin said that “the Soviet government”—i.e., himself—“never had sympathies toward England.” Stalin told Dimtrov, “We preferred agreements with the so-called democratic countries and therefore conducted negotiations. But the English and the French wanted us for farmhands and at no cost! We, of course, would not go for being farmhands, still less for getting nothing in return.” Of course, these words on the Pact were precisely what the staunch antifascist Dimitrov would have wanted to hear. Izvestiia, Aug. 27, 1939, and Pravda, Aug. 27, 1939, in Tisminets, Vneshniaia politika SSSR, IV: 444–5; Degras, Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, III: 361–2; DVP SSSR, XXII/ii: 606–17 (at 609, Schulenburg’s papers); Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 115–6 (Sept. 7, 1939). See also Nekrich, Pariahs, 137; Roberts, “Pact with Nazi Germany,” 94–5; and Fischer, Life and Death of Stalin, 162.

186. Fel’shtinskii, Oglasheniiu podlezhit, 92.

187. Seraphim, Das politische Tagebuch Rosenbergs, 89–90 (Aug. 22, 1939); Deutschland-Berichte der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, VI: 985–8; Hoffman, Hitler Was My Friend, 103.

188. D’iakov and Bushueva, Fashistskii mech kovalsia v SSSR, 364–5 (RGVA, f. 33987, op. 3, d. 1237, l. 413). Maisky fell into shock upon word of the Pact: “Our policy is clearly making a sharp turnabout, the sense and consequences of which are so far not entirely clear to me” (Aug. 24, 1939). DVP SSSR, XXII/i: 647 (AVP RF, f. 017a, op. 1, pap. 1, d. 6, l. 223: Aug. 24, 1939); Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, I: 441.

189. Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia, 314 (citing Chamberlain Papers, NC 18/1/1115).

190. Read and Fisher, Deadly Embrace, 147.

191. Bell, France and Britain, 224–5; Adamthwaite, France, 49–50. Toward the end of 1939, a falsified “transcript” of a supposed politburo meeting would be published in France depicting a devious Stalin, an effort to discredit him in Hitler’s eyes, and depicting the French Communist party as treasonous. Sluch, “Rech’ Stalina,” 113–39.

192. Just such a one-sided view of Chamberlain can be found in the once pro-appeasement foreign office official turned scholar E. H. Carr: German-Soviet Relations, 135–6. Carr’s influential history of international relations since 1919 mocked “the notion that the maintenance of British supremacy is the performance of a duty to mankind.” He sent his completed manuscript to the press in July 1939, and the book came out that Sept., when Nazism and Communism were together annihilating Poland. Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis, 72.

193. This priority on Chamberlain’s part, however self-serving, had a strategic dimension: British success in maintaining the Commonwealth and empire in the interwar period would prove to be of considerable significance in the Allied victory over the Axis. Clayton, British Empire as Superpower, 517.

194. Neville Chamberlain Papers, University of Birmingham Library, 18/1/1091 (Chamberlain to Ida, March 26, 1939).

195. Chamberlain, according to Eden, had feared that “Communism would get its clutches into Western Europe” via the Spanish civil war. Smyth, “Soviet Policy,” 105. It has been asserted that Chamberlain should have accepted Soviet expansionism into Central Europe if that could have avoided a war on the scale of World War II. Shaw, British Political Elite.

196. Overy, 1939: Countdown, 15 (citing Magdalene College, Cambridge, Inge papers, vol. 36, diary 1938–9, March 16, 1939).

197. Other Brits went even further in the Hitler apologetics than did Chamberlain, at the time and after. A. J. P. Taylor infamously wrote that Hitler “aimed to make Germany the dominant Power in Europe and maybe, more remotely, in the world. Other Powers have pursued similar aims, and still do. . . . In international affairs there was nothing wrong with Hitler except that he was a German.” Taylor, Origins, 293.

198. Kennan in 1935 deemed the idea that Hitler intended to expand into the Soviet Union “the wildest stretch of the imagination.” George Kennan, “The War Problem of the Soviet Union,” in George F. Kennan Papers, Box 1, Mudd Library, Princeton University, in Hochman, Failure of Collective Security, 178. Looking back, Kennan would admit that he misread Hitler and the Nazi threat. Kennan, Memoirs, 1925–1950, 70–3.

199. Haslam, Struggle for Collective Security, 206–7 (the letter is dated March 26, 1939).

200. Conversely, the British ambassador to Germany had written in his annual report for 1935, a document read by Stalin, that “demanding a guarantee from Hitler vis-à-vis the Soviet Union is equivalent to demanding from the Church obligations to the devil.” Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 234–5 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 2, d. 315, l. 136).

201. Aster, 1939, 281.

202. Roberts, Holy Fox, 157.

203. Documents and Materials Relating to the Eve of the Second World War, 190–1 (von Dirksen memo, Sept. 1939).

204. Overy, “Strategic Intelligence,” 455.

205. Shirer, Berlin Diary, 148.

206. Overy, 1939: Countdown, 11, 34.

207. Below, At Hitler’s Side, 29; Hill, Die Weizsäcker-Papiere, 160 (Aug. 25, 1939).

208. Henderson, Failure of a Mission, 259.

209. Documents Concerning German-Polish Relations, 122–3; DBFP, 3rd series, VII: 230, 235, 239; Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, VII: 77 (Aug. 26, 1939); Domarus, Hitler: Reden, III: 1257.

210. Hofer, Die Entstehung des Zwieiten Weltkriegs, 237, 274; Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II: 633–4; Das Deutsche Reich unde der Zweite Weltkrieg, II: 101–2.

211. Hartmann, Halder, 137.

212. Engelmann, In Hitler’s Germany, 150. Not all German units received the new order to stand down, which meant fighting erupted in a few places, notably in the Jablonka Pass on the Slovak-Polish border.

213. I documenti diplomatici Italiani, 8th ser., 13 vols. (Rome: Libreria dello Sstato, 1952–), XIII: 164–5. DGFP, series D, VII: 285–6 (Mussolini to Hitler, Aug. 25, 1939); Hill, Die Weizsäcker-Papiere, 160–1 (Aug. 25, 1939); Gibson, Ciano Diaries, 128–9 (Aug. 25, 1939); Ciano, Diary, 264–5.

214. Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, 215. Italy had already informed Germany, in general terms, on May 31, 1939, that it would not be ready for war before 1943. In June 1939, Chamberlain told the committee of imperial defence that “the Italians would be on the lookout for any excuse to keep out of the war.” DGFP, series D, VI: 617–20; Overy, “Strategic Intelligence,” 470 (citing PRO CAB 2/8: Minutes of CID meeting, June 22, 1939, 6).

215. Overy, 1939: Countdown, 36 (citing NA, PREM 1/331a: Strang to Cadogan, Aug. 26, 1939, 1; Halifax Papers, A4.4103/10 (i): Birger Dahlerus, 11; and Le Livre jaune francais: documents diplmatiques 1938–1939 [Paris, 1939]), 312 (Coulondre to Bonnet, Aug. 25, 1939).

216. Kershaw, Hitler: 1936–1945, 215; Hofer, Die Entstehung des Zwieiten Weltkriegs, 276.

217. Engel, Heeresadjutant bei Hitler, 60 (Aug. 27 and 29, 1939).

218. Cienciala, “Poland in British and French Policy,” 215–6; DGFP, series D, VII: 405–7 (Ribbentrop to Bernardo Attolico, Aug. 29, 1939). Joseph Kennedy, the U.S. ambassador to London, reported that Chamberlain was concerned that the Poles be “reasonable” vis-à-vis Hitler’s demands. FRUS, 1939, I: 392 (Kennedy telegram, Aug. 30, 1939).

219. De Felice, Mussolini, II: 670.

220. Naumov, 1941 god, II: 581 (German account); Chuev, Molotov Remembers, 12. Ribbentrop had first told Stalin of the joke making the rounds in Berlin that “Stalin will join the Anti-Comintern Pact.” Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 75.

221. Hillgruber, Die Zerstörung Europas, 212. The expression to play “va banque” (translated here as “go for broke”), from baccarat, connotes wagering an amount equal to that held by the banker of the game.

222. Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, VII: 85–6 (Aug. 31, 1939). On Sept. 1, Hitler launched a tirade at Dahlerus to the effect that he was prepared to fight Britain for a decade if forced to do so. Dahlerus, Der letze Versuch, 130–1. On Aug. 28, 1939, Clare Hollingworth, a British correspondent traveling by car from Katowice to Gleiwitz, had glimpsed the vast German arsenal in the valley poised to attack and broken the news. Daily Telegraph, Aug. 29, 1939.

223. Dederichs, Heydrich, 89; Schellenberg, Schellenberg Memoirs, 68–70. On the bomber: Homze, Arming the Luftwaffe, 231; Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II: 513–4.

224. DBFP, 3rd series, VII: 501 (Halifax to Phipps, Sept. 1, 1939), doc. 504 (Henderson Sept. 2, 1939).

225. French Yellow Book, 307 (François-Poncet in Rome to Bonnet, Aug. 31, 1939).

226. Dietrich, The Hitler I Knew, 47; Schmidt, Statist, 464; Eberle and Uhl, Hitler Book, 47–8.

227. Back on Aug. 22, 1929, in a secret speech to his military brass, Hitler had restated his original grand strategy preference for attacking the Western powers first, explained his reversal of that sequence, declared his intention to strike Poland even if the Western Powers upheld their vows to act, and concluded that his sole concern was that the Schweinhund Chamberlain would find a way to cheat him out of war, just as the PM had at Munich. Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II: 610–1, 643n80. See also Baumgart, “Zur Ansprache Hitlers”; and Meyer, Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, 184.

228. The prospect of Poland’s destruction and the “emancipation” of the ethnic German minority there beguiled the Wehrmacht brass as well, despite the latter’s concern about preparedness for a general conflict. Weinberg, Foreign Policy, II: 654; Tooze, Wages of Destruction, 321–2; Maiolo, “Armaments Competition,” 286–307.

229. Poland possessed only a provisional study for a western front, conducted in 1936. Prażmowska, Britain, Poland, 90–2, citing Polskie Siły Zbrojne w drugiej wajnie światowej, 3 vols. (London: Instytut Historyczny im. gen. Sikorskiego, 1951–86), I/i: 117–22, 209 (General Stachiewicz); Kirchmayer, 1939 i 1944 Kilka Zagadnień Polskich, 46–9; Colonel Jaklicz, typescript at the Polish Institute and the Sikorski Museum, London, 33, 121–2.

230. DGFP, series D, VII: 540–1; DVP SSSR, XXII/ii: 600; Sontag and Biddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 86, 90.

231. Zaloga and Madej, Polish Campaign, 145–9; Tooze, Wages of Destruction, 304–29.

232. Cienciala, “Poland in British and French Policy in 1939”; May, Strange Victory, 93; Frieser, Blitzkrieg Legend, 18. On Sept. 5, Halder recorded in his diary of Poland: “enemy practically beaten.” (Halder Diaries, I: 53.) In fact, Polish forces emerged victorious in a major engagement with Wehrmacht forces in southeastern Poland.

233. Bédarida, La Strategic sécrete, 95.

234. AVP RF, f. 06, op. 1, pap. 7, d. 68, l. 3–4, 5–6; God krizisa, II: 359–60; DVP SSSR, XXII/ii: 6–7; Na prieme, 270–1. Accompanying Shkvartsev to Berlin was Vladimir Pavlov, sent as the new first secretary of the embassy; a new NKVD station chief, Amayak Kobulov; and a new military attaché, Maxim Purkayev (“Marble”). Shkvartsev had been received in the Little Corner on Aug. 19 (only with Molotov), and on Sept. 1 (again with Molotov, Voroshilov, Mikoyan, Pavlov, Purkayev, Kobulov, and Dekanozov). Shkvarstev would be present in the Molotov’s office on Sept. 28 during Ribbentrop’s second visit. In late December 1940, Pavlov would be transferred to Moscow as head of the Central European desk at the foreign affairs commissariat—at age twenty-five—overseeing Germany, Hungary, and former Czechoslovakia (under German occupation).

235. Weinberg, Germany and the Soviet Union, 55.

236. Konstantin Simonov, then a writer at Red Star, would recall viewing the German invasion as an attack of the strong against the weak and not wanting to see a German victory. Simonov, Glazami cheloveka moego pololeniia, 309. See also Prishvin, Dnevniki, X: 276.

237. Semiriaga, “17 sentiabria 1939 g.”; DVP SSSR, XXII/ii: 25–6 (AVP RF, f. 011, op. 4, pap. 24, d. 5, l. 29: Molotov-Grzybowski, Sept. 5, 1939).

238. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 91, 100.

239. Shaposhnikov had crossed out the order’s date in red pen and written in Sept. 14. Pikhoia and Gieysztor, Katyn’: plenniki, 59–63 (TsAMO, f. 148a, op. 3763, d. 69, l. 1–3, 4–6); Mel’tiukhov, Sovetsko-pol’skie voiny (2004), 435–47.

240. “The distrust on my side toward Stalin,” Hitler would observe to Mussolini on Oct. 28, 1940, “is matched by Stalin’s distrust toward me.” Langer, Undeclared War, 136 (no citation). According to Zhukov, Zhdanov, too, said it was impossible to trust Hitler. Simonov, “Zametki k biogfraii G. K. Zhukova,” 49.

241. Legner held an NKVD officer’s rank. Rybin, Stalin v oktiabre, 65–6. In Legner’s workshop, Nina Matveevna Gupalo sewed the clothes for politburo and other high-placed spouses. Back in 1938, after half the government guard detail had been arrested in a single night, Alexei Rybin (b. 1908), a member of the construction team for the Nearby Dacha and once a bodyguard for Kaganovich, then Orjonikidze, became military commandant of the Bolshoi Theater. Radzinskii, Stalin, 401; Rybin, Kto otravil Stalina?, 59.

242. Sharapov, “Piat’sot stranits v den’”; Shefov, “Dve vstrechi,” 154; Ilizarov, Tainaia zhizn’ Stalina, passim; Medvedev and Medvedev, Neizvestnyi Stalin; Shepilov, Kremlin’s Scholar.

243. By some accounts, Radek had translated Mein Kampf for politburo members already in the early 1930s, before Hitler had come to power. The internal Russian translation of Mein Kampf would be published only after the fall of the Soviet Union: Adol’f Gitler, Moia bor’ba (Moscow: T-Oko, 1992).

244. Asada, From Mahan to Pearl Harbor, 168.

245. Kalinin’s copy has been preserved with marginalia about “a prolix, contentless” book “for petty shop owners”: RGASPI, f. 78, op. 8, d. 140; Ilizarov, Tainaia zhizn’ Stalina, 137; Ilizarov, “Stalin” (no. 4) 190–1.

246. Khrushchev, Vospominaniia, I: 219; Khrushchev, Memoirs, I: 216.

247. Gareev, Neodnoznachnye stranitsy, 20. Makhmut Gareyev (b. 1923) would rise to army general.

248. Heiden, Die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus; Geiden, Istoriia germanskogo fashizma, 60. Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumf i tragediia, II/i: 23–26; Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 352–3. Heiden also produced the valuable Hitler: eine Biographie, 2 vols. (Zurich: Europa, 1936–7).

249. Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, II/1: 25 (no citation); Volkogonov, Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, 352.

250. Khrushchev, Memoirs, I: 274–5.

251. Izvestiia, Sept. 16, 1939; Tisminets, Vneshniaia politika SSSR, IV: 446.

252. On the military orders, see Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XVIII (VII/i): 133 (RGVA, f. 33977, op. 1, d. 28, l. 36); and Efimenko et al., Vooruzhennyi konflikt, 409 (RGVA, f. 33977, op. 1, d. 28, l. 38). On July 18, 1940, Japan would effectively recognize the boundaries as claimed by the USSR. Ikuhiko, “Japanese-Soviet Confrontation,” 174–5.

253. Ikuhiko, “Japanese-Soviet Confrontation.” See also Sorge’s report of Sept. 10, 1939: Zolotarev, Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia oteechestvennaia, XVIII (VII/i): 159 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 22407, d. 2, l. 455–6).

254. DGFP, series D, VIII: 79–80 (Schulenburg, Sept. 17, 1939)

255. Biegański et al., Documents on Polish-Soviet Relations, I: doc. 69; DVP SSSR, XXII/ii: 94–96 (AVP RF, f. 011, op. 4, pap. 24, d. 7, l. 176–9: Potyomkin-Grzybowski, Sept. 17, 1939), 96 (f. 059, op. 1, pap. 313, d. 2155, l. 49–51: diplomatic note); Izvestiia, Sept. 18, 1939; Pikhoia and Gieysztor (eds.), Katyn’: plenniki, 65–7 (APRF, f. 3, op. 50, d. 410, l. 35–9: Potyomkin diary, Sept. 17, 1939); Cienciala et al., Katyn, 44–7; Official Documents Concerning Polish-German and Polish-Soviet Relations, 211–12. Schulenburg had been shown the note and allowed to suggest changes. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 96.

256. Liszewski, Polsko-sowiecka wojna, 24 (citing the prophetic words of Marshal Rydz-Smilga).

257. Pravda, Sept. 18, 1939; Izvestiia, Sept. 18, 1939, in Tisminets, Vneshniaia politika SSSR, IV: 446–8; New York Times, Sept. 18, 1939: 5. Zhdanov had written in Pravda (Sept. 14, 1939) that the Polish state was collapsing because of its repression of Ukrainian and Belorussian national minorities, which he blamed on the Polish bourgeoisie, capitalists, and landowners.

258. Zaloga and Madej, Polish Campaign, 131–8.

259. Kuznetsov, Krutye povoroty, 47.

260. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 86–7.

261. “Itinerar Hitlers vom 1.9.1939–31.12.1941,” in Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie, 659–98 (at 660–1); Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, 205.

262. DGFP, series D, VIII: 92.

263. DGFP, series D, VIII: 104–5; Weinberg, Germany and the Soviet Union, 55. On Sept. 20, having received assurances from Berlin, both Schulenburg and Köstring separately offered assurances to Soviet officials.

264. RGVA, f. 4, op. 19, d. 22, l. 62. Soon, rumors would spread of additional clashes. “In town there is more and more talk about the Russians returning and about battles between German and Soviet troops somewhere along the Bug River and other locations,” Dr. Zygmunt Klukowski recorded in his diary (Oct. 15, 1939). “Sorry to say, but some citizens are as equally brutal as the Germans toward the Jews.” Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation, 41–2.

265. Wheeler-Bennett, “From Brest-Litovsk to Brest-Litovsk.”

266. Domarus, Hitler: Reden, III: 1354–66 (Hitler’s Danzig speech).

267. DVP SSSR, XXII/ii: 28–9 (AVP RF, f. 059, op. 1, pap. 924, d. 2027, l. 19–20: Shkvartsev to Molotov, Sept. 5, 1939).

268. RGVA, f. 4, op. 19, d. 22, l. 60–3.

269. Molotov did allow that Germany might claim the Suwałki triangle (between East Prussia and Lithuania), except for Augustovo. Rossi, Deux ans, 75n1, 75–6n1 (Schulenburg to Ribbentrop, Sept. 20, 1939); Rossi, Russo-German Alliance, 62–3 (citing a telephone message from Ribbentrop to Köstring and a telegram from Schulenburg to Berlin, neither published in Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations).

270. Mel’tiukhov, Sovetsko-pol’skie voiny (2004), 496–7 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 19, d. 22, l. 60–1); Teske, General Ernst Köstring, 176ff.

271. “Itinerar Hitlers vom 1.9.1939–31.12.1941,” in Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie, 661.