The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941

^{CHAPTER 7} COMRADE “STONEARSE” IN THE LAIR OF THE FASCIST BEAST

THE WEATHER DID NOT PROVIDE A POSITIVE OMEN FOR MOLOTOV’S arrival in Berlin on November 12, 1940. Leaden skies and rain welcomed the Soviet foreign minister to Hitler’s capital. Yet, aside from the elements, the greeting extended was warm enough, with the platforms and ticketing hall of the vast Anhalter Station festooned with Soviet flags and bouquets of pink and red flowers. The welcoming party was similarly extravagant, with an honor guard of the Wehrmacht standing to immaculate attention in the rain outside the station, while inside the platform was thronged with senior representatives of the Nazi state and military, including Ribbentrop and Army Supreme Commander Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, all with their crimson-lined uniform greatcoats buttoned up tight against the chill.

Molotov, meanwhile, had had a rather comfortable, if lengthy, journey. He had departed from the Belorussky Station in Moscow three evenings previously, in a special “European-designed” train, with a pistol in his pocket and an entourage of more than sixty people, including sixteen security guards, a physician, and three personal servants. His journey across the western Soviet Union and newly annexed Lithuania had given him ample time to contemplate his task: ascertaining Germany’s strategic intentions and, if possible, negotiating a follow-up to the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

If he had ever imagined that it would be an easy job, Molotov was perhaps reminded of the very real difficulties that persisted between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union by an incident at Eydtkuhnen on the German-Soviet border in East Prussia. The small town marked the extreme eastern end of the German rail system and the point where travelers from the east were obliged to change trains to the standard-gauge European network. However, in the highly charged atmosphere of 1940, with Europe’s two major totalitarian powers vying for supremacy, simply changing trains became a very political act. German diplomat Gustav Hilger discovered this early on in the journey. He had traveled with Molotov’s entourage from Moscow to act as an auxiliary interpreter in Berlin and had asked one of the senior members of the Soviet party, NKVD Deputy Commissar Vsevolod Merkulov, to remind him where the change of trains took place. Puzzlingly, Merkulov replied, “We shall change trains at such a place as will be designated by the chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars.” Bemused, Hilger attempted to argue that the location of the rail terminus was not within the gift even of Molotov, but to no avail, and eventually he had to console himself by making a mental note of the absurd ends to which the Soviet Union’s “excessive secrecy and stupid subordination” could lead.

Once Molotov’s train arrived at Eydtkuhnen, another incident served to highlight the political tensions. The interpreter Valentin Berezhkov was awoken by the sound of an argument on the platform and hurried to investigate. Interpreting between the Soviet train driver and a German official, he learned that the official was insisting that the Soviet delegation had to transfer to another train—as per regulations—while the driver claimed that he had been told to take the train directly to Berlin. Although the technical problem could be solved by changing the train’s running gear, the official still insisted that the carriages were too large to ride on standard German lines. However, after much measuring and heated discussion, it was agreed that two German saloon carriages would replace the larger Soviet examples. Berezhkov would later note in his memoirs that the German carriages were “very comfortable,” with “an excellent bar and restaurant,” “salons fitted with radios,” and even “vases of fresh roses in the compartments.” However, he added sourly, “it was not concern for our comfort that made the Germans so stubborn in insisting that we should change trains. Undoubtedly their carriages were not only equipped with a fine bar, but with a fine lot of bugging apparatus too.”

Whatever the truth of that assumption, Molotov’s train sped onward to Berlin, arriving in the German capital at 11.05 a.m. on November 12. There, Molotov and his immediate entourage alighted onto the packed platform of the Anhalter Station. In their Soviet suits and felt Homburg hats, they cut rather incongruous figures among the myriad military uniforms, like a group of provincial accountants who had inadvertently alighted at the wrong stop. They were welcomed by Ribbentrop, who gave a short address, and were introduced to the waiting dignitaries, Molotov doffing his hat extravagantly in greeting. Moving outside, the group processed past the guard of honor while a military band struck up the Prussian “Presentation March,” in preference to the Soviet anthem, the “Internationale,” which, it was feared, might induce some sympathetic Berliners to join in.

Although not unimpressive, Molotov’s reception was a low-key affair; Joseph Goebbels described it with uncharacteristic terseness in his diary as “cool.” The poor weather may well have dampened Berlin spirits, and the Nazi authorities might have feared encouraging their citizens to wave the hammer and sickle. Nonetheless the effort expended for Molotov appears to have bordered on the bare minimum: no cheering crowds were organized, and beyond the Anhalter Station, few Soviet flags were in evidence. Interpreter Paul Schmidt certainly noticed the difference between Molotov’s arrival and other state visits, noting that ordinary Berliners were completely silent on the streets in the heart of the capital—the “Via Spontana,” as he sarcastically called it—in contrast to the usual reception, for which party functionaries organized cheering and flag waving. The American correspondent Henry Flannery concurred, noting that as Molotov’s sixty-vehicle convoy departed from the station, “there was almost no one, except for the Russian secret police, along the streets.” The Nazis tried to blame the weather for the low-key reception, he went on, but “they could not have known the weather in advance.”

The Nazi regime was almost certainly making a point—expressing its displeasure with its Soviet partner. Goebbels is said to have squashed Ribbentrop’s idea of an additional honor guard of SA men to greet the Soviet minister. Even the newsreel coverage was minimalist, comprising barely two minutes of that week’s program; surprisingly, French cinema audiences learned more about Molotov’s visit than German ones. The contrast to the elaborate reception organized six months later for the visit of the Japanese foreign minister, Yōsuke Matsuoka, is highly instructive.

Molotov would later claim to have no recollection of his arrival in Berlin, let alone whether he felt that he was being snubbed. After riding through the “half-empty streets” of the German capital, however, he would doubtless have been cheered by his arrival at the Bellevue Palace, the Third Reich’s “guest house” for visiting dignitaries. “Guest house” was in fact something of a misnomer. Bellevue Palace had originally been built in 1786 as a summer residence for Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia. Located in central Berlin, between the Tiergarten and the banks of the river Spree, it was an elegant neoclassical palace that had just undergone a 14 million reichsmarks renovation and expansion at the hands of architect Paul Baumgarten, whose other credits included Villa Minoux in Wannsee, made infamous by the eponymous conference that would take place there in 1942. Beautifully presented, with over 130 rooms—including four self-contained luxury apartments, as well as guest bedrooms, conference halls, and offices—the palace comprised a main central building and three perpendicular wings. Its exterior was complemented inside by countless paintings, including works by Titian and Tintoretto, as well as tapestries, sculptures, and items of furniture, most of which had come from the collection of the former diplomat Willibald von Dirksen. It was all very impressive, as Valentin Berezhkov testified: “A long avenue of limes led to the entrance. Inside we were amazed at the ostentation of the rooms. Everywhere we could smell the delicate scent of roses coming from the bouquets which stood in tall porcelain vases in every corner. The walls were decorated with tapestries and paintings in heavy gilt frames. There were statuettes and cases of the finest porcelain standing all around in exquisitely carved cabinets. The furniture was antique and the servants and waiters were garbed in gold-braided livery. All this lent the hotel an air of ceremonial pomposity.”

After settling in, the Soviets enjoyed an opulent lunch served by white-gloved staff and overseen by a “tall, grey-haired maitre d’hotel who silently conducted proceedings with nothing more than a barely noticeable gesture or look.” Thereafter, Molotov’s party climbed back into Mercedes limousines and made its way to the Wilhelmstrasse for the first round of talks. En route, small crowds of Berliners now watched proceedings on the streets; some dared to wave as the cars passed.

EVEN TO THOSE ACCUSTOMED TO THE POLITICAL CONTORTIONS OF THE previous year or so, the sight of the Soviet foreign minister in Berlin for talks with Hitler must have seemed a strange mirage. Yet, for all the apparent unreality of the scene, the meeting was no chimera. It had been called for hardheaded political reasons: to repair the fraying relationship between Berlin and Moscow and renegotiate the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

When he had written to Stalin a month earlier to extend the invitation, Ribbentrop had expressed the hope that Germany’s relationship with the Soviet Union might be established “on a broader basis” through a “demarcation” of their respective interests. The neutral tone of the letter belied the tension felt by its author. Berlin had grown increasingly frustrated with its Soviet partner: the economic relationship had not brought the expected windfall of raw materials, and Stalin had shown his continued European ambitions by annexing territory beyond the line agreed on in August 1939. From the German perspective, some sort of reckoning with Moscow was in the offing.

For his part, meanwhile, Molotov did not feel that he owed the Germans anything. Echoing the prevailing Soviet view, he was not coming to Berlin as a supplicant or a junior partner; rather he was negotiating from a position of strength. The Soviet Union, he believed, was very well placed. It had expanded its territory and advanced its economic position, and while its rivals were fighting one another in western Europe, it was at peace. As Politburo member Andrei Zhdanov noted in the late autumn of 1940, the Anglo-German war gave the USSR the opportunity to “go about its business” undisturbed. Molotov, like many of his confederates in Moscow, believed that while Germany was militarily engaged in the west, it was scarcely in any position to dictate terms to its eastern partner. Clearly, the discussions were not going to be easy.

The first meeting was held at the Foreign Ministry building on the Wilhelmstrasse. There, Ribbentrop and Molotov sat down together, with their respective interpreters and Molotov’s deputy, Vladimir Dekanozov, at a small round table to open discussions. Ribbentrop worked particularly hard to show his most obliging side to his guests, so smiling and affable, according to Schmidt, that his regular political partners would have “rubbed their eyes in amazement.” Molotov, meanwhile, was as inscrutable as ever. A notoriously difficult negotiating partner, he was untroubled by concepts such as affability or politeness. Wasting no superfluous words, he rarely allowed his poker face to slip. Clearly he had not earned the nickname “Stonearse” for nothing.

What followed might have reminded Molotov of interminable meetings in the Kremlin. Ribbentrop got matters underway. As one who never tired of hearing himself speak, Hitler’s foreign minister launched into a lengthy monologue, in an “excessively loud voice,” according to Berezhkov, about how “no power on earth could alter the fact that England was beaten” and it was only a matter of time before she would “finally admit her defeat.” Britain was certainly in dire straits. Although recently victorious in the Battle of Britain, she was confined to her island, her military hardware strewn across the beaches of Dunkirk, her civilian populations enduring the nightly aerial bombardment of the Blitz. From the perspective of Berlin, then, Britain was a spent force, awaiting only the coup de grâce from a superior enemy. Consequently, Ribbentrop was more bullish than usual. Germany, he said, was “extraordinarily strong” and so “completely dominated its part of Europe” that the Axis powers were considering not how they might win the war “but rather how rapidly they could end the war which was already won.”

Given that Ribbentrop evidently considered the war as good as over, he moved seamlessly to the issue of dividing up the spoils of the soon-to-be-defunct British and French empires. Echoing his master, he opined that the time was right for a broad delineation of “spheres of influence” between the Soviet Union, Germany, Italy, and Japan. This phrase doubtless would have piqued Molotov’s interest, but he would have been bemused by what followed. A wise policy, Ribbentrop suggested, was that each power should direct its expansion southwards, thereby avoiding points of possible friction. Thus Italy was already expanding to the southern coast of the Mediterranean in North and East Africa, he explained, Japan was pushing south into the China Sea and the western Pacific, and Germany—having defined her sphere of influence with the USSR—was to seek her Lebensraum in Central Africa. Would the Soviet Union, Ribbentrop wondered aloud, not “also turn to the South” for the “natural outlet to the open sea” that was so important to her? Momentarily confused, Molotov interrupted Ribbentrop’s flow to ask which sea he was referring to. After another lengthy discourse on the benefits of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the Reich foreign minister asked whether “in the long run the most advantageous access to the sea for Russia could not be found in the direction of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea?” Molotov said nothing and merely stared back at Ribbentrop, as inscrutable as ever.

Unfazed, Ribbentrop pressed on with his monologue, making a brief though rambling foray into the subject of Turkey, a topic he knew was close to Soviet hearts. As a sop to Moscow, he advocated reopening the “straits question” via an Axis-sponsored revision of the Montreux Convention, which since 1936 had regulated military and civilian traffic through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles and recognized Turkish control of both areas. Still, Molotov studiously kept his counsel. Ribbentrop wound up his exposition with an airy summary, dangling the idea of some Soviet alignment with the Tripartite Pact, alongside Germany, Italy, and Japan, and floating the prospect of another visit to Moscow to discuss matters further. Tellingly, however, he stopped short of any specific proposals, restricting himself instead to an outline of “the ideas which the Führer and he had in mind.”

In response, Molotov was as laconic as Ribbentrop had been loquacious, agreeing that an exchange of ideas “might be useful” and asking for clarification on a couple of points: the significance and purpose of the Tripartite Pact and the precise meaning of the phrase “Greater East Asian Sphere,” which had arisen in the preparatory conversations. He was right to query them. But, in response, Ribbentrop was less than enlightening. The phrase “Greater East Asian Sphere,” he admitted, was “new to him, too” and had “not been explained to him either.” So he could offer little explanation beyond the unconvincing assurance that it had “nothing to do with the vital Russian spheres of influence.” Explaining the Tripartite Pact would have done nothing to ease Ribbentrop’s discomfort. Although not explicitly anti-Soviet, the pact—which had been signed by Germany, Italy, and Japan only two weeks before in Berlin—had nonetheless grown out of the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936, which had been directed against Moscow. The new agreement pledged cooperation between the three powers in the establishment and maintenance of the “new order” in Europe and East Asia, forming the basis of the Axis. Predictably, perhaps, Ribbentrop eased his embarrassment by suggesting that the Soviet party might like to break for a late luncheon.

In the hour or so that Ribbentrop had spoken, Molotov had asked only three brief questions; Dekanozov had said nothing at all. Paul Schmidt believed that Molotov was “keeping his powder dry,” preserving his strength for the main event with Hitler later that day. However, he may also have recognized that he needed to speak to the organ grinder rather than the monkey.

After lunch, Molotov got his chance. Chauffeured into the austere neoclassical courtyard of the new Reich Chancellery, past an honor guard of the SS-Leibstandarte, he was led through vast, polished marble halls, lined by people attired in the myriad uniforms of the Nazi state. Berezhkov suspected that the visitors were deliberately taken by the most circuitous route so as to impress upon them the size and grandeur of the building. When they finally reached the door to Hitler’s office, a last piece of political theatre was enacted: “Two tall blond SS men in black tightly-belted uniforms with skulls on the caps clicked their heels and threw open the tall, almost ceiling-high doors with a single well-practiced gesture. Then, with their backs to the door jambs and their right arms raised, they formed a kind of arch, through which we had to pass to enter Hitler’s office, a vast room that was more like a banqueting hall than an office.”

Seated at his desk, Hitler hesitated for a moment, then rose to greet his visitors. He moved with “small, rapid steps” before stopping in the center of the room and raising his arm in the Nazi salute, “bending his palm unnaturally.” Then, Berezhkov recalled, “still without a word, he came up close and shook each one of us by the hand. His palm was cold and moist to the touch, and his feverish eyes seemed to bore through you like gimlets.” As one of his entourage would later recall, it was Hitler’s habit to silently hold a newcomer’s gaze for a time as a test of mettle, and it seems from this account that he might have tried this method with his Soviet visitors. Molotov, however, was apparently unmoved and later merely noted Hitler’s “surprisingly gracious and friendly manner.”

After the formalities, the small group, joined by Ribbentrop, interpreter Paul Schmidt, and adviser Gustav Hilger, got down to business seated in the armchairs at one end of Hitler’s office. As before, the meeting began with a monologue. Hitler stated his goal of continued “peaceful collaboration” between the Soviet Union and Germany and stressed the “considerable value” that had already accrued to both countries through their connection. However, he added—alluding to the points of friction that had arisen between the two—neither country could expect to get everything it wanted from the relationship, and in war Germany had been compelled to react to events, to “penetrate into territories remote from her and in which she was not basically interested politically or economically.” Consequently, one had to look toward a settlement of European relations after the war, in “such a manner that, at least in the foreseeable future, no new conflict could arise.” To this end, Hitler outlined Germany’s viewpoints, stressing a need for Lebensraum, colonial expansion in Central Africa, and certain raw materials—the supply of which would be safeguarded “under all circumstances”—as well as her determination not to permit unnamed “hostile powers” to establish military bases “in certain areas.”

In response to this catalogue of vagueness, Molotov finally stirred himself. He had eagerly agreed with much of what Hitler had said up to this point, concurring on the need for Germany and the Soviet Union to “stand together” and chiming with his host on the “intolerable and unjust” situation that the “miserable island” of England should own “half the world.” However, he wanted specifics; as Schmidt recalled, “he wanted the i’s dotted.” Taking the initiative, Molotov gave a brief survey of the benefits gleaned by both sides from the German-Soviet agreement, then moved on to the essential business of his visit. He asked Hitler, first of all, if the letter of the pact was still being honored with regard to Finland. Before the Führer could answer, he went on, demanding to know the significance of the Tripartite Pact and what role would the USSR be given in it. And what of Soviet interests in the Balkans and the Black Sea region? The Soviet government would like, he added, to know the precise form of Hitler’s “new order” in Europe and what the boundaries of the so-called Greater East Asian sphere might be. According to Schmidt, “The questions hailed down on Hitler. No foreign visitor had ever spoken to him in this way in my presence.”

Hitler was taken aback. Berezhkov claimed that the effect of this tirade on him was “like a cold shower” and that he “could not disguise his confusion.” For Schmidt, however, Hitler was “meekness and politeness itself,” and he noted with praise that the Führer did not “jump up and rush to the door” as he had been known to do during previous difficult negotiations. Rather, it seems, he calmly explained the principle behind the Tripartite Pact, stressing the importance of Soviet cooperation, and reassured Molotov that the USSR was “by no meansto be confronted with a fait accompli.” Although momentarily mollified, Molotov calmly restated his questions, pushing for more detail and demanding that matters be “more closely defined.” With that, it seems, Hitler decided that he had had enough. He looked at his watch and drew the meeting to a close, stating that discussions should be postponed “in view of a possible air raid alarm.” So, in his first day of talks in the German capital, Molotov had already endured many hours of negotiations, yet was no nearer to finding an agreement with his hosts; indeed, the two sides barely seemed to be reading from the same script.

That evening, the strains were already beginning to show. Molotov and his entourage repaired to the Bellevue Palace to inform Stalin of the day’s proceedings by telegram. Berezhkov, as part of his remit as interpreter, was obliged to type up his notes and was just about to begin dictating to a secretary when Molotov appeared in the doorway, stuttering with alarm: “What d-d-do you think you are doing? How many pages have y-y-you already transcribed?” Ripping the still-blank pages from the typewriter, Molotov admonished, “Consider yourself lucky. Can you imagine how many ears might have heard what Hitler and I spoke about one-on-one?” Fearing that the rooms of the Bellevue were bugged, the pair disappeared into Molotov’s bedroom, where they worked on the transcript in strict silence, passing notes to one another to address queries. Berezhkov knew he had had a lucky escape. People had been shot for less.

After the telegram had been sent to Moscow, Molotov was driven to the Kaiserhof Hotel, close to Hitler’s Chancellery, for a small reception hosted by Ribbentrop. Although the event was amiable enough, the political differences between the two sides were soon mirrored in other spheres. According to Molotov’s later recollections, he grilled the hapless deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess, on the structure of the Nazi Party. “Do you have a party programme?” he asked. “How could it be a party without a program?” “Do you have party rules?” he demanded, though he claimed he knew that the Nazis had neither. He went on “tripping up” Hitler’s deputy, asking if the Nazi Party had a constitution. Hess, it seems, had not expected a Soviet inquisition.

Neither was Hitler spared scrutiny. As Molotov would later recall, the Führer’s puritanical eating habits were swiftly made manifest. “The war is on,” he told Molotov, “so I don’t drink coffee now because my people don’t drink coffee either. I don’t eat meat, only vegetarian food. I don’t smoke, don’t drink liquor.” Molotov was bemused by such abstemiousness. “I looked,” he said, “and it seemed a rabbit was sitting next to me eating grass.” He was not minded to join his host in self-denial. “It goes without saying,” he boasted, “that I was abstaining from nothing.”

If Molotov felt elated by such exchanges, he was soon brought back down to earth upon his return to the Bellevue. There, at around midnight, Stalin’s response to his earlier telegram had arrived, and the Soviet leader spared his foreign minister few criticisms. He was especially angered by a passing comment that Molotov had made to Hitler that the 1939 agreement was “exhausted.” Stalin was concerned that such a formulation might lead the Germans to conclude that the nonaggression pact had fulfilled its purpose, when in fact it was important to append further treaties to that agreement. Far from being defunct, Stalin reminded his minister, the Nazi-Soviet Pact still represented the fundamental basis of Soviet-German relations.

The following morning, over breakfast at the Reich Chancellery, Goebbels got a close look at Molotov and his entourage for the first time. He would later confide his observations to his diary. The Soviet foreign minister, he wrote, “made an intelligent, astute impression, very reserved. [O]ne gets almost nothing out of him. He listens attentively, but nothing more, even with the Führer.” Essentially, he noted, Molotov was little other than “an outpost for Stalin, upon whom everything depends.” Goebbels was much less complimentary about Molotov’s entourage. “Very average,” he noted sourly of the assorted advisors, translators, and NKVD commissars, “not a single man of calibre. As if they wanted to thoroughly confirm our insights into the nature of Bolshevik ideology.” He went on: “One can’t have a sensible talk with any of them. Fear of each other and an inferiority complex are written on their faces. Even an innocuous chat is as good as impossible. The GPU [secret police] is watching. It’s terrible. In their world life is no longer worth living.” Goebbels drew his own political conclusions: “Our association with Moscow must be governed by pure expediency. The closer we get politically, the more distant we become in spirit and worldview. And rightly so.”

Despite such increasingly apparent differences, the meeting on that second day proceeded in a similar vein to that which had gone before, with both sides essentially talking past one another, but without particular rancor or controversy. Hitler kicked off the proceedings by returning to the issue that Molotov had raised the previous evening. Against Molotov’s assertion that Germany was violating the existing Nazi-Soviet agreements by stationing German troops in Finland, Hitler countered that Germany had “no political interest there” and had “lived up to the agreements” by not occupying any territory that was within the Soviet sphere of influence, which—he added testily—could not quite be said for the Russian side. Lengthy, inconclusive discussions followed, with German actions in Finland contrasted with Soviet actions in Bukovina, about which, Hitler complained, there had been “not a word in the agreements.”

When Molotov claimed that matters such as Bukovina were “irrelevant” to the wider relationship, Hitler showed a flash of irritation. “If German-Russian collaboration was to show positive results in the future,” he said, “the Soviet Government would have to understand that Germany was engaged in a life and death struggle, which she wanted to conclude successfully.” Consequently, Germany wanted to secure a number of economic and military prerequisites that “did not conflict with the agreements with Russia.” He assured Molotov, “If the Soviet Union were in a similar position,” Germany would “demonstrate a similar understanding for Russian needs.” Stressing the benefits of united German-Soviet action, Hitler stated that there was “no power on earth which could oppose the two countries” if they fought side by side.

Molotov agreed with that sentiment but, sticking doggedly to his theme, demanded a clarification of what he called the “Finnish question.” Criticizing the presence of German troops in Finland, he launched into a stinging rebuke of German actions in the region, ignoring Hitler’s protests that he had “always exerted only a moderating influence” on the Finns. Molotov pressed his case, asking for definitive recognition from Hitler that Finland lay in the Soviet sphere of influence and that Moscow had the same freedom of action in dealing with Helsinki as she had enjoyed in her dealings with the Baltic states. Hitler was evasive in response, denying any political ambitions in the region but stressing repeatedly that war in the Baltic was to be avoided at all costs. Such a war, he warned, would put “a strain on German-Russian relations with unforeseeable consequences.” Hitler then suggested that they move on to more important problems.

Finally Hitler had managed to drag talks around to his favored subject, the imminent collapse of the British Empire. “Thus far,” he said, “a minority of 45 million Englishmen had ruled 600 million inhabitants of the British Empire.” But he was soon to “crush” that minority. What would be left thereafter, he bragged, would be a “gigantic world-wide estate in bankruptcy of 40 million square kilometres,” which naturally gave rise to “world-wide perspectives.” A key issue, therefore, was to decide what the USSR’s participation should be in the “solution of these problems,” and to this end Hitler advocated the creation of a “coalition” of Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and the USSR to partition that “bankrupt estate” between them. According to Molotov, Hitler’s ambition was unlimited: “Let’s divide the whole world,” he said.

Molotov was unmoved by such wide vistas of possibility, and although he concurred that it was time to come to a broader agreement between the USSR and Germany, he first wanted to “discuss a problem closer to Europe”: Turkey. Part of his brief for the Berlin talks was to air Moscow’s traditional concerns regarding the straits and related ambitions toward Turkey and Bulgaria. What would Germany say, Molotov asked, “if Russia gave Bulgaria, that is, the independent country located closest to the Straits, a guarantee under exactly the same conditions as Germany and Italy had given to Rumania?” Hitler initially sought to dodge the question—mentioning the same possible revision of the Montreux Convention that Ribbentrop had floated the previous day—but when pressed, he grew irritated, snapping that he was unaware that Bulgaria had requested any such guarantee.

Molotov persevered, however, reiterating that the USSR had “only one aim” in this regard—securing control of the straits to prevent enemy attack via the Black Sea—and stating that agreement with Turkey and the “guarantee” to Bulgaria would “alleviate the situation.” Tiring of the Führer’s platitudes, he restated the question, asking Hitler directly—as “the one who was to decide on the entire German policy”—what position Germany would take with regard to a Soviet guarantee to Bulgaria. Again Hitler avoided the question, saying that he would have to consult with Mussolini, as Bulgaria was of only peripheral interest to Berlin. However, he added in a barbed aside, if Germany were looking for sources of friction with the Soviet Union, “she would not need the Straits for that.”

In his recollection of the Berlin meetings, Paul Schmidt repeatedly employed boxing metaphors, describing Hitler and Molotov’s discussions as “the main event,” for instance, or the talks on that second day as an “exchange of blows,” with Molotov’s questions raining down and Hitler ducking them as best he could. To stretch the analogy somewhat, one could suggest that Hitler was “saved by the bell.” Although he tried one last time to wrench the conversation around to the subject of the imminent disintegration of the British Empire, Molotov would not be deflected; as the Soviet minister later recalled, “I persisted. I wore him down.” Consequently, Hitler glanced again at his watch and suggested that, given the possibility of a Royal Air Force (RAF) raid, the talks should be brought to a close. After all, he added, “the main issues” had “probably been sufficiently discussed.”

According to Valentin Berezhkov, it seems that Hitler was not yet so exasperated with Molotov that he could not muster up a few last pleasantries. As he showed his guest to the door of his office in the Reich Chancellery, he made a surprising suggestion. “Stalin is undoubtedly a great man,” he said, “an historical personality. I too flatter myself with the hope that I shall go down in history. Therefore, two statesmen like us ought to get together and I am ready for such a meeting to take place as soon as possible.” In this, Hitler may well have been attempting to employ Ribbentrop’s trick of appealing to the very top to ease difficult negotiations, or perhaps the Nazi-Soviet relationship had indeed piqued his curiosity. Either way, Molotov was nonplussed. He merely promised to convey the suggestion to Stalin, said his good-byes, and left.

That evening, Molotov threw a farewell reception in the Soviet embassy on Unter den Linden. It was a lavish affair, made all the more glamorous by the opulent tsarist-era decor of the building, as well as by a few more modern additions. As Paul Schmidt recalled, “Under Lenin’s gaze, whose bust decorated the embassy, all the finest of Russia’s produce—above all caviar and vodka—was presented. No capitalist or plutocratic banqueting tablecould have been more impressively laden.” Despite the language barrier, the atmosphere was most convivial, with both sides drinking to each other’s health, almost à la russe. But when Molotov proposed a toast to his German counterpart, Ribbentrop could barely reply before the RAF crashed the party and the air raid siren wailed into life. As the guests hurriedly departed, Ribbentrop escorted Molotov the short distance to the Wilhelmstrasse and to his own bunker beneath the Reich Foreign Ministry, where they could continue their discussions.

Gamely, Ribbentrop attempted to put some flesh on the very bare bones of the agreement suggested by Hitler and to explain his conception of a possible “joint policy of collaboration between Germany and the Soviet Union” and how it might be reconciled with the provisions of the Tripartite Pact. To this end, he produced a draft agreement from his pocket, which he thought might form the basis of any future negotiations. In three rather anodyne paragraphs, the draft expressed the mutual desire to establish natural boundaries, the willingness to extend their collaboration to other nations, and the intention to respect to respect one another’s spheres of influence.

True to form, Ribbentrop suggested that the agreement should be appended by not one but two secret protocols. The first of these would establish the territorial aspirations of the four powers. Japan’s wishes were still to be clarified, but Ribbentrop explained that Germany’s aspirations would center on Central Africa, Italy would concentrate on North and Northeast Africa, and the Soviet Union would focus its expansion “in the direction of the Indian Ocean.” With the second protocol, Ribbentrop proposed recognizing Soviet ambitions in southeastern Europe by promising a concerted effort by the signatory powers to persuade Turkey to allow a revision of the Straits Convention, in line with Soviet interests. Ribbentrop concluded his proposal with an offer to convene a foreign ministers’ conference at which all relevant questions could be discussed and finalized, and he advocated a Soviet rapprochement with Japan, stating that the latter was eager for a “broad understanding” with Moscow.

He then invited Molotov to respond. In his own recollection of the discussion, Ribbentrop painted a picture of an affable final meeting in which Molotov assured him that he would discuss the possible Soviet accession to the Tripartite Pact with Stalin, while Ribbentrop promised to raise the issue of the German-Soviet relationship with Hitler, as he put it, “to find a way out of the difficulties.” The official record gives a little more detail, however. Molotov, it seems, was certainly cheered by the prospect of an understanding with Japan but was determined not to be seduced by nebulous German promises of “jam tomorrow” at the expense of British India. In response to Ribbentrop’s offer of turning south toward the Indian Ocean, therefore, he instead listed a succession of European matters in which the Soviet Union demanded to have her say: the straits, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Yugoslavia, the future of Poland, the issue of Swedish neutrality, the Kattegat and the Skagerrak at the western end of the Baltic Sea, and the still unresolved “Finnish question.” Ribbentrop was flustered and obfuscated valiantly, sometimes defending German actions and sometimes claiming that he would have to consult with others before answering. But he kept coming back to his “decisive question”: whether the “Soviet Union was prepared to cooperate with us in the great liquidation of the British Empire.”

The RAF’s raid on Berlin that night was relatively short. According to Churchill, it had been deliberately timed to coincide with Molotov’s presence in the German capital. “Though not invited to join in the discussion,” the British prime minister later joked, he “did not wish to be entirely left out of the proceedings.” It is possible, of course, that this is an example of Churchill rewriting history to suit his purposes, but it is certainly clear that the raid started very early, with the siren sounding shortly after 8:30 p.m., and that the center of the city was targeted.

As Molotov and Ribbentrop discussed their division of the world beyond the bunker, therefore, they would most certainly have heard the ongoing cacophony of the air raid, particularly the undulating wail of the sirens and the outgoing firing of Berlin’s flak batteries. In such circumstances, Ribbentrop’s repeated assertions that the British were finished and that the war against Britain had “already been won” must have seemed rather premature. According to Stalin, Molotov halted Ribbentrop’s boasts with a well-aimed riposte: if Britain really is defeated, he asked, “why are we in this shelter, and whose are those bombs that fall?” Ribbentrop was finally silenced; he had no answer.

The following morning, as Molotov and his entourage left the German capital, the same Wehrmacht honor guard as had been present two days before was drawn up in the square outside the Anhalter Station, and the same train—complete with its German saloon and restaurant cars—raised steam beneath the huge glass and steel frame of the station canopy. Yet this time there were few fanfares, and only Ribbentrop himself appeared to see his Soviet counterpart off. It would be their last meeting.

DESPITE THE APPARENT FINALITY OF MOLOTOV’S DEPARTURE FROM Berlin, there was little sense in the immediate weeks afterward that a die had been cast. In fact, though Molotov claimed that he had found it difficult to interrupt Hitler, he was nonetheless rather pleased with himself and, at a party thrown for his return to Moscow, was described as “swollen-headed and puffed-up.” He had good reason for satisfaction. Having rebuffed German efforts to deflect the USSR southward and firmly stated the Soviet Union’s strategic ambitions in Europe, he had carried out the task outlined for him by Stalin to the letter. Stalin, naturally, was more critical and expressed his dissatisfaction with Molotov’s inflexible attitude during the meeting, suggesting that his minister ought to have been more accommodating. But, as far as Moscow was concerned, the negotiations would continue. The Berlin talks were merely the opening stage in that ongoing process.

Hitler, meanwhile, was not quite so sanguine. Having become increasingly exasperated with the Soviet alignment as the year progressed, he was clearly beginning to think that the connection with Moscow had run its course and that a final reckoning with Bolshevism was in the offing. More seriously, he was also under the impression that Stalin was somehow spurring continued British resistance. As Chief of the Army High Command General Franz Halder noted in his diary, in the front of Hitler’s mind that summer and autumn was Britain’s puzzling unwillingness to make peace in the face of apparently insuperable odds. Hitler’s answer to that conundrum was that Churchill was holding out in “some hope of action on the part of Russia,” and with this assumed nexus, the issue of “what to do” with the Soviet Union had begun to climb the agenda. On July 22, for instance, General Halder recorded Hitler as stating that “the problem of Russia must be dealt with,” and “we must begin thinking about this.” Hitler would reiterate this sentiment before his generals at the Berghof on July 31, giving those present a brief rundown of his views on the main operations involved in the “destruction of the power of Russia.”

This exchange is traditionally taken as the moment when Hitler made his unalterable decision to attack the Soviet Union. Yet that interpretation is too neat. After all, as any politician would attest, an order for preparatory planning is not the same thing as an irrevocable decision, and as we know, Hitler was a supreme opportunist who had made his career reacting to events rather than committing himself long in advance, wholeheartedly and irrevocably, to a specific policy. Moreover, as General Staff officer Walter Warlimont noted, the planning that followed this meeting was initially rather desultory and halfhearted, resulting in “no carefully thought-out plan as a basis for action.”

It makes better sense, therefore, to view Hitler’s July order to prepare for an attack on the Soviet Union as part of a multitrack policy, with the military option a backup to a diplomatic approach that had not yet been abandoned. Certainly, at the time of the July conference at the Berghof, the summit meeting with Molotov still lay more than three months in the future. And though the Berlin summit was engineered primarily by the Russophile “Easterners” of the German Foreign Office, who had gotten wind of Hitler’s growing belligerence toward Moscow and sought to bring Molotov to Berlin to smooth tensions, one should not imagine that Hitler was completely disingenuous in his negotiations.

Hitler was clearly still considering all possibilities. Indeed, two weeks before Molotov’s arrival, he had sent a letter to Stalin personally in an attempt to enroll his help in the war against the British, raising the prospect of a joint division of the empire’s spoils. “If the plan succeeds,” Halder wrote in his diary, “we could go all out against Britain.” Another option was aired by the “Easteners” of the German embassy in Moscow, to be circulated among the upper levels of the Foreign Ministry. As the senior official Ernst von Weizsäcker noted, within Wilhelmstrasse at least, the idea of a military attack on the USSR, far from being fixed, was not considered especially favorably. After all, there were other ways to ensure Moscow’s subjugation, not least by containing the USSR and allowing it to slowly collapse: “It is argued that without liquidating Russia there will be no order in Europe. But why should it not stew next to us in its damp Bolshevism? As long as it is ruled by bureaucrats of the present type, this country has to be feared less than in the time of the tsars.”

Even as Molotov was being shuttled around Berlin on that rainy Tuesday, Hitler was issuing a war directive reviewing the various strategic possibilities available to him. His short paragraph on “Russia” is instructive: “Political discussions for the purpose of clarifying Russia’s attitude in the immediate future have already begun,” he wrote; yet, “regardless of the outcome of these conversations, all preparations for the East for which verbal orders have already been given will be continued.” As much as the military planning then ongoing, therefore, the Berlin talks formed part of a multitrack German effort to neutralize the Soviet Union and leave Germany as the undisputed master of all of Europe.

This is made further evident by the deal that Molotov was offered in the German capital. Hitler clearly wanted Stalin’s Soviet Union out of Europe, unable to meddle any further in Balkan affairs or in those of the Baltic Sea or the Bosporus. By turning the USSR south, to direct her ambitions toward the Indian Ocean and the “bankrupt” British Raj, he would not only attain that goal but also lure the Soviet Union into conflict with the British, thereby destabilizing the USSR and rendering any putative Anglo-Soviet rapprochement impossible. In all, it was a rather ingenious solution to the predicament that Hitler imagined he faced, achieving both of his strategic ambitions in one fell swoop. The Berlin negotiations, therefore, should not be seen as a bizarre charade or a diplomatic veneer to hide preparations for war; rather they were a genuine—if cynical—exchange of views between two treaty partners. Indeed, a couple of days after Molotov’s departure, on November 18, General Halder noted in his diary that the “Russian operation” had apparently been “pushed into the background.” The negotiated solution, it seems, was still very much on the table.

But Stalin was not inclined to take the deal being offered. Like generations of Russian statesmen before him, he was intent on Moscow spreading westward, and—as Molotov’s discussions revealed—his ambition was most certainly not limited to those areas that had already fallen under his control. Indeed, Molotov’s mention of the Kattegat and the Skagerrak in the final round of negotiations must have rung alarm bells in the Reich Chancellery. Far from being satisfied with the return of her recent irredenta in Poland and the Baltic and the promise of vague gains in British India, Moscow was apparently intent on pushing even further westward.

This, then, was the strategic vision that would underpin Stalin’s formal response to Ribbentrop’s suggestion that the Soviet Union might join the Tripartite Pact. Delivered by Molotov to the German ambassador in Moscow, Friedrich-Werner von der Schulenburg, on the evening of November 26, the statement essentially reiterated the position outlined in Berlin two weeks before. To accept the draft of a four-power pact, the Soviet government demanded four conditions. First, Germany must withdraw from Finland, with recognition that the country belonged in the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. Second, Molotov requested the conclusion of a mutual assistance pact between the USSR and Bulgaria and the establishment of Soviet military bases within range of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Third, he demanded recognition that the area of the southern Caucasus “in the general direction of the Persian Gulf” was a “centre of the aspirations” of the USSR. Lastly, Moscow stipulated that Japan must renounce her rights to coal and oil concessions in northern Sakhalin. It was certainly an ambitious list, demonstrating not only that the Soviet Union retained her European ambitions but also that she had further demands relating to Persia and Japan. Molotov closed the discussion by stating that he would “appreciate a statement of the German view.” None would be forthcoming.

Although Stalin’s response would prove a severe setback for the advocates of a negotiated solution, it was not yet the end of the story. Indeed, in December Ribbentrop claimed to have discussed the Soviet proposal with Hitler. He advised agreement, stating that if Stalin were to join the Tripartite Pact, then Germany would be in an excellent position to neutralize the United States and further isolate Britain, forcing the latter to the negotiating table. The prospects for success, he claimed, “would be better than after Dunkirk.” According to Ribbentrop’s account, Hitler was not entirely against the idea. Although he raised concerns about Finland and permitting any extension of Soviet influence into Romania and Bulgaria, he did not reject the plan out of hand. Indeed, Ribbentrop considered that a compromise with Stalin was a possibility: “We have already achieved a lot together [with Russia],” Hitler told him. “Perhaps we will be able to bring this about too.”

For the moment, Hitler could comfort himself with the thought that Soviet ambitions in Europe were still mainly theoretical, expressed in abstract demands and diplomatic requests. His relationship with Moscow, therefore, was strained but not yet moribund. Before the end of 1940, however, the clash between his own worldview and that of his Soviet partner would become blatant. Hitler’s decision would be made for him by events at an obscure regional conference in Galați, Romania.

The International Danubian Commission was the sort of regional organization whose proceedings rarely troubled international affairs. For the previous eight or so decades, it had met periodically and in various iterations to regulate traffic on the Danube and provide a forum for neighboring powers to negotiate their differences. But, by 1940, that which had once been a parochial affair had become the plaything of Europe’s totalitarian dictatorships, with Germany and the Soviet Union—the latter herself now a “Danubian power”—vying for supremacy.

When the conference convened in late October 1940, tensions, which had been stoked over that most tumultuous of summers, were running high. Germany, already exercising a dominant role both in the region and at the conference table, was determined to maintain that position and ensure the effective exclusion of the Soviet Union. Moscow, on the other hand, saw the conference as the ideal arena in which to flex its muscles and realize its new Danubian role. The choice of Arkady Sobolev, Molotov’s deputy, to head the Soviet delegation underlined the importance of the mission. Sobolev then undertook something of a Balkan tour, stopping in Sofia to charm King Boris and personally inspecting the Bulgarian-Romanian border at Ruse, before proceeding to Galați on the Danube for the conference.

Once underway, the meeting essentially saw a rehearsal of many of the arguments aired by Molotov in Berlin in November, with Sobolev demanding—among other things—mooring rights on the Danube delta and joint Russo-Romanian administration of the area and complaining about Italian participation. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, debate swiftly degenerated into stalemate, and by mid-December negotiations had stalled entirely, with Berlin expressing its “astonishment” at the heavy-handed tactics of the Soviets and complaining of the “irreconcilable” positions of the two sides. If Hitler had harbored any remaining doubts about Soviet ambitions in the Balkan region, then the proceedings of the Danubian Commission conference would have provided him with a useful corrective. More than Molotov’s visit to Berlin the previous month, more than the sometimes tortured economic negotiations, more than the perpetual squabbling over Finland, the Danubian conference represented the first serious breach in Nazi-Soviet relations.

Berlin’s frustrations are understandable. To the German mind, her soldiers had engineered the great military victories of 1939 and 1940, and her statesmen had propelled Nazi Germany to a position of unchallenged superiority on the continent of Europe. The Soviet Union, in contrast, had made all her gains over the same period, directly or indirectly, through her collaboration with Berlin. Germany had run the risks alone, but the Soviets had reaped a sizeable share of the rewards. Seen in this way, the continued Soviet insistence on a role in Europe, whether on the Danubian Commission or as a player in Baltic or Balkan affairs, was little more than barefaced cheek. Small wonder, perhaps, that Hitler was becoming exasperated.

The Führer’s primary complaint against Moscow, therefore, was not ideological; it was strategic. The turn against the Soviet Union is generally described almost exclusively in ideological terms as the expression of a long-held and barely suppressed anti-Bolshevik prejudice. There is something in this, of course. Anti-Bolshevism was one of the primary articles of faith of every self-respecting Nazi, and racial-political justifications were certainly swift to come to the fore once the decision for war had been made. But strategic and geopolitical concerns still held sway over ideology, as indeed had been the case when the Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed in the late summer of 1939. Although both sides had held their noses when they made common cause, both had recognized the enormous practical advantages that the pact promised. Now, as their collaboration was beginning to falter, strategic concerns rather than ideology still played the dominant role.

Consequently, Hitler finally made his irrevocable decision to attack Stalin only in December, when at the Danubian Commission conference Moscow once again expressed insistence on its perceived European role, when the Soviet response to Ribbentrop’s Berlin proposals had been received, and when the prospects for a negotiated solution appeared to have been exhausted. This nexus is made abundantly clear by the timing of events. The Danubian Commission conference finally collapsed on December 17, with a fistfight breaking out between the Italian and Soviet delegations. The very next morning Hitler issued his Directive No. 21, ordering his forces to prepare “to crush Soviet Russia in a rapid campaign.” With that, the death knell of the Nazi-Soviet Pact was sounded, and “Operation Barbarossa” was born.