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

PROLOGUE

xxi while a band played the “Internationale”: Testimony of Vasily Laskovich, in Yuri Rubashevsky, “Radost byla vseobshaya i triumfalnaya,” Vercherniy Brest, September 16, 2011, http://www.vb.by/article.php?topic=36&article=14200.

xxii to change their exhausted horses: Testimony of Bronisława Predenia, at Tadeusz Czernik, http://tadeuszczernik.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/wspomnienia-z-ziemi-brzeskiej-bronislawa-predenia.

xxii “I was perplexed”: Svetozar Sinkevich, quoted in Vasiliy Sarychev, “V poiskach utrachennogo vremeni,” Vercherniy Brest, http://www.vb.by/sarychev/content/75/main.php.

xxiii a defensive strongpoint for hard-pressed Polish forces: Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (London: Michael Joseph, 1952), 81.

xxiii paratroopers dropped behind Polish lines: Kriegstagebuch des Generalkommandos XIX AK über den Feldzug in Polen, September 1939, United States National Archives and Record Administration, Microfilm Series T-314, roll #611, frames 665–693, 126 (hereafter, “XIX Corps War Diary”).

xxiii propagated by elements of the Polish military: Georg Schmidt-Scheeder, Reporter der Hölle (Stuttgart: Motorbuch-Verlag, 1977), 95.

xxiii the Ukrainian and Byelorussian peoples living there: XIX Corps War Diary, op. cit., 168–169.

xxiii “Communists! Good!”: Romuald Bulas, quoted in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxiv demarcation line between the Soviet and German forces: XIX Corps War Diary, op. cit., 179.

xxiv recover their damaged vehicles: Guderian, op. cit., 81–83.

xxiv weary after their long march west: Janusz Magnuski and Maksym Kolomijec, Czerwony Blitzkrieg. Wrzesien 1939: Sowieckie Wojska Pancerne w Polsce (Warsaw: Pelta, 1994), 72.

xxv “the troops would be marching there”: Raisa Shirnyuk, quoted in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxv Red Army with flowers and cheering: German eyewitness account from a 1939 postcard, reproduced at http://riowang.blogspot.com/2009/09/brest-nazi-soviet-military-parade-23_25.html.

xxv “Langsam, langsam, aber deutlich!”: Shirnyuk in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxv not far from the reviewing platform: Shirnyuk in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxv “stunted and unsightly” horses with inferior harnesses: Stanislav Miretski, quoted in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxvi “What sort of a life will they bring to us?”: Boris Akimov, quoted in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxvi “Get back, woman!”: Shirnyuk in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxvi impressed by the display of German airpower: Semyon Krivoshein, Mezhdubure (Voronezh, RU: Chernozemnoe, 1964), 261.

xxvi out of tune, as one eyewitness recalled: Sinkevich in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxvi Krivoshein recalled sourly, “the parade was over”: Krivoshein, op. cit., 261.

xxvi more numerous than they really were: Krivoshein, op. cit., 260–261.

xxvii “after the victory over capitalist Albion”: Schmidt-Scheeder, op. cit., 101.

xxvii “meeting on the boundary of peace”: See, for instance, Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, September 25, 1939, 4

xxvii “scuppered the pious plans of the Western Democracies”: See the German newsreel transmission of September 27, 1939, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDIqzJgZNHM.

xxvii “uniting in order to jointly decide on the fate of Eastern Europe”: Frowein article, quoted in Fundacja Ośrodka KARTA, September 1939 (Warsaw: Karta, 2009), 44.

CHAPTER 1

1 poring over official documents and making copious notes: Paul Schmidt, Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne (Wiesbaden, DE: Aula, 1984), 441.

1 “slept like a babe” for the entire flight: Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend (Barnsley, UK: Frontline Books, 2011), 105.

2 “fought bitterly as the enemy of European culture”: Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin, 1939–1945 (Bonn, DE: Athenäum, 1950), 55.

2 considered inconceivable only days before: Hoffmann, op. cit., 105.

2 recently been used for anti-Nazi propaganda films: Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Deadly Embrace (London: M. Joseph, 1988), 248.

2 “especially when they start exchanging files”: Johnnie von Herwarth, Against Two Evils (London: Collins, 1981), 165.

2 symbolic of the unreality of the scene: Schmidt, op. cit., 442.

3 “Wonders will never cease!”: Hans Baur, Hitler’s Pilot (London: Frederick Muller, 1958), 95.

3 an “infernal abortion”: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1939), 539.

3 “instead wreaks only havoc”: Hitler’s speech to the Nuremberg Party Congress, September 13, 1937, quoted in Max Domarus, Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, 1932–1945 (London: Tauris, 1992), 2:941–942.

3 a man “possessed by a demon”: Pravda, No. 256 (7222), September 16, 1937, 1.

3 who would “drown in their own blood”: Working Moscow, no. 275, December 1, 1936, reporting a speech by V. M. Molotov; Working Moscow, no. 276, December 2, 1936, reporting a speech by N. S. Khrushchev. Herostratus was a character from fourth century BC Ephesus who sought fame by burning down a temple.

4 heirs of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin: Norman Davies, White Eagle, Red Star: The Polish-Soviet War, 1919–20 (London: Pimlico, 2003), 29.

5 shortage of living space—Lebensraum—would be rectified: Hitler, op. cit., 533, 536–537.

5 “zig-zags and roundabout ways”: V. I. Lenin, Collected Works (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1978), 13:22.

6 the “most beautiful” he had ever seen: Hoffmann, op. cit., 107.

6 Only very occasionally did I see a smiling face”: Schmidt, op. cit., 443.

6 the [secret police] would be on our heels”: Baur, op. cit., 97–98.

6 “it was forbidden to take tips”: Ibid., 98–99.

7 “butter from Denmark and the rest from various sources”: Hoffmann, op. cit., 105.

7 very soon, they all duly disappeared: Baur, op. cit., 95–96.

7 first session of discussions with the Soviets: Kleist, op. cit., 56.

7 “able to deal with any situation that comes up”: Gustav Hilger and Alfred G. Meyer, The Incompatible Allies: A Memoir-History of German-Soviet Relations, 1918–1941 (New York: Macmillan, 1953), 309.

8 “a man of extraordinary calibre”: Joachim von Ribbentrop, quoted in Rudolf von Ribbentrop, Mein Vater: Joachim von Ribbentrop, Erlebnisse und Erinnerungen (Graz, AT: Ares, 2013), 225, 228.

8 a tactic calculated to intimidate his guests: This is the inference drawn by Gustav Hilger; see Hilger and Meyer, op. cit., 301.

8 behaving with “jovial friendliness”: Ibid., 301.

9 “a common Eastern policy” against the USSR: Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945 (hereafter “DGFP”), Series D, Vol. VI (London: HMSO, 1956), no. 73, 85–87.

10 “That fellow Chamberlain has spoiled my entry into Prague”: Cited in Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2000), 164.

11 “Britain would come to their aid”: The text of the British Guarantee is in E. L. Woodward and R. Butler, eds., Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–1939, Third Series, (London: HMSO, 1951), 4:552. The best discussion of the subject is G. Bruce Strang, “Once More unto the Breach: Britain’s Guarantee to Poland, March 1939,” Journal of Contemporary History 31, no. 4 (1996): 721–752.

11 diplomatic equivalent of a game of “chicken”: D. C. Watt, How War Came (London: Heinemann, 1989), 185.

11 “‘I’ll brew them a devil’s potion’”: Canaris quoted in Hans-Bernd Gisevius, To the Bitter End (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947), 363. Although the English edition of Gisevius’s book translates Hitler’s curse as “a stew that they’ll choke on,” “a devil’s potion” is closer to the original German and so is retained here.

11 “should expect to burn his fingers”: Max Domarus, Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, 1932–1945 (London: Tauris, 1997), 3:1524–1534.

11 Hermann Göring playing a key role: D. C. Watt, “The Initiation of the Negotiations Leading to the Nazi-Soviet Pact: A Historical Problem,” in Essays in Honour of E. H. Carr, edited by C. Abramsky (London: Archon Books, 1974), 164–165.

12 “When Germany’s life is at stake”: Alfred Rosenberg’s diary, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 269 (www.ushmm.org).

12 “like a man one could do business with”: Quoted in Richard Overy, Interrogations (London: Penguin, 2001), 320.

12 cut a deal with Hitler at their expense: Adam B. Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–73 (New York: Praeger, 1974), 257–259.

12 at the expense of the “nonaggressor states”: Jane Degras, ed., Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy (New York: Octagon Books, 1978), 3:318.

13 “true face” of “the policy of non-intervention”: Ibid., 320.

13 “The USSR had wanted to change the old equilibrium”: Sir Stafford Cripps to the Foreign Office, July 16, 1940, National Archives, London (FO371/24846, f.10 N6526/30/38).

14 “must do everything to ensure that the war lasts as long as possible”: Text from Albert Weeks, Stalin’s Other War: Soviet Grand Strategy, 1939–41 (Oxford, UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 171–173.

14 intended to discredit the Soviet Union: See Sergej Slutsch, “Stalins ‘Kriegsszenario 1939’: Eine Rede die es nie gab,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 4 (2004): 597–635.

14 “He aimed to set Germany against France and Britain”: Sergo Beria, Beria, My Father: Inside Stalin’s Kremlin (London: Duckworth, 2001), 51.

14 “A war is on between two groups of capitalist countries”: Quoted in Ivo Banac, ed., The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 1933–1949 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 115.

15 “Today we support Germany”: Cited in Richard Raack, Stalin’s Drive to the West, 1938–1945 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), 24, with the full text of the conversation quoted at http://www.lituanus.org/1965/65_2_02_KreveMickevicius.html.

15 “to expand the borders”: Felix Chuev, ed., Molotov Remembers (Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993), 8.

16 refer to him mockingly as “Litvinov-Finkelstein”: Jeffrey Herf, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda During World War II and the Holocaust (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2006), 97–98.

16 “ensure the pursuance of the party line”: Documents quoted in Albert Resis, 16The Fall of Litvinov: Harbinger of the German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact,” Europe-Asia Studies 52, no. 1 (2000): 34–35.

16 an attempt to elicit some compromising information: Z. Sheinis, Maksim Maksimovich Litvinov: revoliutsioner, diplomat, chelovek (Moscow, 1989), 363–364, in Aleksandr M. Nekrich, Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German-Soviet Relations, 1922–1941 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 109.

17 he did not hesitate to recommend execution: Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003), 34.

17 “I signed most—in fact almost all—the arrest lists”: Ibid., 206.

17 “one of the most inexorably stupid men”: D. C. Watt, quoted in Chuev, op. cit., xix.

17 “Jews formed an absolute majority in the leadership: Ibid., 192.

18 “fixer” during the latter’s spell as ambassador in London: Michael Bloch, Ribbentrop (London: Bantam Press, 1994), 207.

19 “In place of the idea of world revolution”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VII (London: HMSO, 1956), No. 180, 189, Ribbentrop circular, August 22, 1939.

19 “Despite all the differences in their respective worldviews”: SSSR-Germania 1939. Dokumenty i materialy o sovetsko-germanskikh otnosheniiakh v aprele-sentiabre 1939 g. (New York, 1983), 23, quoted in Nekrich, op. cit., 115.

19 “differing philosophies do not prohibit a reasonable relationship”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VI, op. cit., No. 56, 63.

20 “The Führer believes he’s in the position of scrounging”: Elke Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Part 1 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1998), 7:75, entry for August 24, 1939.

20 “after Stalin’s death we will break the Soviet Union”: Quoted in Anthony P. Adamthwaite, The Making of the Second World War (London: Allen & Unwin, 1977), 220.

20 “by a whole lot of charming Russian gentlemen”: Pathé newsreel, August 21, 1939, available at http://www.britishpathe.com/video/moscow-aka-british-mission-to-the-soviet-union.

21 “I distrust her motives”: Cited in Frank McDonough, Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2010), 174.

21 instruction to “go very slowly”: A. J. P. Taylor, English History: 1914–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 447.

21 Never has an alliance been pursued less enthusiastically: Ibid., 448.

21 narrowly defeated at the gates of Warsaw: On this, see Norman Davies, White Eagle, Red Star, op. cit.

22 It was no great surprise, perhaps, that negotiations stalled: Text of negotiations reproduced in Adamthwaite, op. cit., 218–219.

22 “We were able to make a deal”: Quoted in Charles Bohlen, Witness to History, 1929–1969 (New York: Norton, 1973), 86.

22 “There exist no real conflicts of interests”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VII, op. cit., No. 56, 64, Ribbentrop to Schulenburg, August 14, 1939.

22 Ribbentrop was selected in his stead: Ibid., No. 62, 68–69, Weizsäcker to Schulenburg, August 15, 1939.

22 he “understood things better”: Ribbentrop, op. cit., 224.

22 Molotov found it “very flattering personally”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VII, op. cit., No. 88, 99, Schulenburg to Weizsäcker, August 16, 1939.

23 “near unanimity amongst the Western embassies in Moscow”: Herwarth, op. cit., 162.

23 draft treaties had already been drawn up: See, for instance, DGFP, Series D, Vol. VII, op. cit., Nos. 125, 132, 134, and 149, August 19 and 20, 1939.

23 Goebbels was unusually laconic in his diary: Fröhlich, op. cit., 71.

24 conspired to make Stalin’s mind up for him: Alexander Werth, Russia at War, 1941–1945 (London: Pan, 1965), 66.

24 tie up the final details without delay: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VII, op. cit., No. 142, 157, Hitler to Stalin, August 20, 1939.

24 a “turn for the better” in Soviet-German relations: Ibid., No. 159, 168. Schulenburg to Moscow, August 21, 1939.

24 “stared into space for a moment”: Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich (London: Macmillan, 1970), 234.

25 “If we agree to a hundred years”: V. N. Pavlov quoted in Laurence Rees, World War Two Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West (London: BBC Books, 2008), 10.

25 The initiative came from the Soviet side: Vladimir Karpov, Marshal Zhukov: Ego soratniki i protivniki v dni voĭny i mira (Moscow: Voennoe izdatel’stvo, 1992), 124.

25 “spheres of interest” in central and eastern Europe: Ibid., 124.

25 he asked that the meeting be adjourned: Ribbentrop, op. cit., 228.

25 “As we strolled up and down”: Nicolaus von Below, At Hitler’s Side: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Luftwaffe Adjutant, 1937–1945 (London: Greenhill Books, 2004), 28.

26 “Everybody was tense, they waited and waited”: Herbert Döhring, quoted in Rees, op. cit., 17.

26 testament to his eagerness to conclude the pact: Herwarth, op. cit., 165.

27 “If England has dominated the world”: Andor Hencke, Die deutsch-sowjetischen Beziehungen zwischen 1932 und 1941, unpublished protocol held at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, MA 1300/2, 11.

27 “The viewpoint of Germany”: Quoted in Nekrich, op. cit., 121.

27 Stalin himself was now considering joining the Anti-Comintern Pact: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VII, op. cit., No. 213, 227–228.

27 “Don’t you think,” he asked: Read and Fisher, op. cit., 252.

28 protocol was to be treated as “strictly secret”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VII, op. cit., Nos. 228–229, pp. 245–247.

28 only Stalin and Molotov knew of its existence: Derek Watson, Molotov: A Biography (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 170.

28 “our treat,” as Molotov would later recall: Chuev, op. cit., 12.

28 the atmosphere became “warmly convivial”: Hencke, op. cit., 13.

28 “I know how much the German nation loves its Führer”: Ibid., 13.

29 “a prehistoric camera and an antediluvian tripod”: Hoffmann, op. cit., 109.

29 he had signed the pact while drunk: Hencke, op. cit., 13.

29 he “trusted the word of a German”: Herwarth, op. cit., 165.

CHAPTER 2

31 “The whole course of world politics has suddenly changed”: Mihail Sebastian, Journal, 1935–1944 (Chicago: I. R. Dee, 2000), 230.

31 “the futility of it all is the thing that is frightful”: Terry Charman, Outbreak 1939: The World Goes to War (London: Virgin, 2009), 54, 55, 59.

32 “Poor weary world,” one diarist wrote: Diarist Vivienne Hall, quoted in Charman, op. cit., 56.

32 hailed his returning foreign minister as “a second Bismarck”: Quoted in Michael Bloch, Ribbentrop (London: Bantam Press, 1994), 250.

32 most impatient to learn as much as he could: Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend (Barnsley, UK: Frontline Books, 2011), 112–113; Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (London: HarperCollins, 1991), 685.

32 doctored by Hoffmann, with no cigarettes visible: Ibid., 113–114.

33 vital to leave “responsibility for the opening of hostilities”: Quoted in H. R. Trevor-Roper, ed., Hitler’s War Directives, 1939–1945 (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1964), 38.

33 “seeming very pleased with himself”: Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (London: André Deutsch, 1971), 111.

33 “Of course, it’s all a game”: Quoted in Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003), 276.

33 Soviet Union would maintain “absolute neutrality”: Adam Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 1917–1973 (New York: Praeger, 1968), 279.

34 “Close your hearts to pity”: Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945 (hereafter “DGFP”), Series D, Vol. VII (London: HMSO, 1956), No. 193, 205.

34 carry out over 700 mass executions: Richard Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation, 1939–1944 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986), 3.

34 alleged Polish killing of ethnic Germans: Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, 1939–1942 (London: Arrow, 2005), 29.

34 “The first victims of the campaign”: Quoted in Lukas, op. cit., 3.

34 death of two German horses in a “friendly fire” incident: Jochen Böhler, Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu w Polsce (Kraków, PL: Znak, 2009), 106–116. Jochen Böhler, Auftakt zum Vernichtungskrieg: Die Wehrmacht in Polen 1939 (Frankfurt am Main, DE: Fischer, 2006), 106.

35 12,000 Polish citizens in September 1939 alone: Szymon Datner, 55 Dni Wehrmachtu w Polsce (Warsaw: Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, 1967), 114–117.

35 secure those areas promised to him by the pact: See, for instance, Ribbentrop telegram to Schulenburg, September 15, 1939, at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/ns072.asp.

35 brigades with a total of nearly 500,000 men: Steven Zaloga, Poland 1939 (Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2002), 80.

35 Soviet intervention could be timed accordingly: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII (London: HMSO, 1954), No. 63, 60–61.

35 the note itself had been drawn up jointly: Ibid., No. 80, 79–80.

35 “cross the border and take under their protection”: Text in Sprawa polska w czasie drugiej wojny światowej na arenie międzynarodowej. Zbiór dokumentów (Warsaw: Panstwowy Instytut Naukowe, 1965), 83–84. Translated by Sebastian Palfi.

36 Soviet dishonesty and the blatant violation of international law: Tomasz Piesakowski, The Fate of Poles in the USSR, 1939–1989 (London: Gryf, 1990), 36.

36 Did anyone question Russia’s existence: Olaf Groehler, Selbstmörderische Allianz: Deutsch-russische Militärbeziehungen, 1920–1941 (Berlin: Vision Verlag, 1992), 116.

36 he was never seen again: David G. Williamson, Poland Betrayed: The Nazi-Soviet Invasions 1939 (Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2009), 119.

36 to meet the German invasion: Jan Gross, Revolution from Abroad (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 21–23.

36 “Two men shined flashlights in our eyes”: Janusz Bardach, Man Is Wolf to Man (London: Simon & Schuster, 1998), 19.

37 large banner reading, “We Welcome You”: Jan Gross, Neighbours (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 43.

37 “We ought to recognise in Russian Bolshevism”: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1939), 539.

38 forty armed clashes between the Poles and the Soviets: Groehler, op. cit., 136.

38 routed a Red Army infantry division in the process: Williamson, op. cit., 123.

38 executed by the Red Army upon capture: Piesakowski, op. cit., 38. See also the case file of the Institute of National Remembrance, Warsaw, available at http://www.ipn.gov.pl.

38 after their surrender and led away for execution: Halik Kochanski, The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War (London: Allen Lane, 2012), 80.

38 he would not survive German captivity: Richard Hargreaves, Blitzkrieg Unleashed: The German Invasion of Poland, 1939 (Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2008), 263–264.

39 maintain a twenty-five-kilometer distance: Groehler, op. cit., 121.

39 broadcast from Minsk to aid Luftwaffe navigation: Gross, Revolution, op. cit., 10.

39 collaborated in their neutralization: See Sergej Slutsch, “17. September 1939: Der Eintritt der Sowjetunion in den Zweiten Weltkrieg,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 48 (2000): 228–230.

39 “Hardly had they laid down their arms”: F. B. Czarnomski, quoted in Williamson, op. cit., 126.

39 “Germanski und Bolsheviki zusammen stark”: Hargreaves, op. cit., 201.

39 “In order to prevent any kind of groundless rumours”: Izvestia, September 20, 1939, 1.

40 “You and I are smoking Polish cigarettes”: Quoted in Slutsch, op. cit., 231. Translated by the author.

40 like being in a “circle of old comrades”: Quoted in Robert Conquest, Stalin: Breaker of Nations (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991), 224.

40 “should Germany unexpectedly get into difficulties”: Gustav Hilger’s reminiscences quoted in Ingeborg Fleischhauer, “Der Deutsch-Sowjetische Grenz-und Freundschaftsvertrag vom 28. September 1939,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 39 (1991): 458.

40 77,720 square miles and 12 million inhabitants: Kochanski, op. cit., 96.

44 “Is my signature clear enough for you?”: Andor Hencke, quoted in Laurence Rees, World War Two Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West (London: BBC Books, 2008), 33.

41 firing squads of the Einsatzgruppen and local ethnic German militias: See Browning, Origins, op. cit., 31–33.

41 50,000 Polish deaths in that first autumn and winter: Alexander B. Rossino, Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology and Atrocity (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 234.

42 AB Aktion cost around 6,000 lives: On the AB Aktion, see Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands (London: Bodley Head, 2010), 146–150.

43 branded a supporter of fascism: Keith Sword, “The Mass Movement of Poles to the USSR, 1939–41,” in Deportation and Exile: Poles in the Soviet Union, 1939–48, Keith Sword (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1994), 6–8.

44 never saw his family again: Author interview with Mr. Czesław Wojciechowski, London, September 8, 2011.

44 half of whom were sent to the Gulag: Grzegorz Hryciuk, “Victims, 1939–1941: The Soviet Repressions in Eastern Poland,” in Shared History, Divided Memory: Jews and Others in Soviet-Occupied Poland, 1939–1941, edited by E. Barkan, E. Cole, and K. Struve. Leipziger Beiträge zur Jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur (Leipzig, DE: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2007), 182–183.

44 “I couldn’t tell the difference”: Quoted in Jan Tomasz Gross, “The Sovietisation of Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia,” in Jews in Eastern Poland and the USSR, 1939–46, edited by Norman Davies and Antony Polonski (London: Macmillan, 1990), 72.

44 “Nie wiadomo kiedy wrócę do domu”: Niall Ferguson, The War of the World (London: Allen Lane, 2006), 418. In truth, it is the acronym of its name: Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs).

45 “the supreme punishment: shooting”: Quoted in Anna Cienciala, Natalia Lebedeva, and Wojciech Materski, eds., Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), 120.

45 “There was not the slightest suspicion”: Stanisław Swianiewicz, quoted in Allen Paul, Katyn, Stalin’s Massacre and the Triumph of Truth (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010), 107.

45 “We have been brought somewhere to a forest”: Quoted in J. K. Zawodny, Death in the Forest (London: Macmillan, 1971), 110.

45 prevent being sullied by his victims’ blood: Snyder, op. cit., 137.

45 limed to speed decomposition: On the methods employed at the various Katyn sites, see Cienciala, Lebedeva, and Materski, op. cit., 122–136.

45 and 1 woman, Janina Lewandowska: Figures quoted in ibid., 168.

46 “I die for the fatherland with a smile on my lips”: Snyder, op. cit., 149–150.

46 400,000 Poles had already been deported: Phillip T. Rutherford, Prelude to the Final Solution: The Nazi Program for Deporting Ethnic Poles, 1939–1941 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007), 211.

46 “The flat must be swept”: Mrs. J. K., quoted in Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe (London: Allen Lane, 2008), 82.

47 “Not all the deported persons”: Browning, Origins, op. cit., 51.

47 “then the forests of Poland would not suffice”: Hans Frank, Das Diensttagebuch des deutschen Generalgouverneurs in Polen 1939–1945 (Stuttgart, DE: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1975), 104.

47 requisite numbers of workers had “volunteered”: Quoted in Mark Spoerer, Zwangsarbeit unter dem Hakenkreuz (Stuttgart, DE: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 2001), 48.

47 laborers were already working in Germany: Ulrich Herbert, Hitler’s Foreign Workers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 84.

48 “treated worse than dogs”: Berliner Geschichtswerkstatt, ed., Zwangsarbeit in Berlin 1940–1945 (Berlin: Sutton Verlag, 2000), 74.

48 Soviet zone had not yet even been established: Robert Gerwarth, Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011), 143.

48 told to “go to Russia”: Christopher Browning, Remembering Survival (New York: Norton, 2010), 26.

48 ordered to march east and not to return: Gerwarth, op. cit., 158.

48 encourage them on their way: Schulenburg telegram to Foreign Office, Berlin, December 17, 1939, quoted in Hans Schafranek, Zwischen NKWD und Gestapo (Frankfurt am Main, DE: ISP-Verlag, 1990), 62.

48 “Thousands of young people went to Bolshevik Russia”: Chaim Kaplan diary quoted in Saul Friedländer, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007), 45.

49 “Bread is becoming a dream”: Friedländer, op. cit., 150.

49 less than 400 had running water: Ibid., 104.

49 including philatelists, postmasters, and even Esperantists: Piesakowski, op. cit., 50, quoting the original NKVD deportation orders.

49 intercepted correspondence with their doomed loved ones: Cienciala, Lebedeva, and Materski, op. cit., 121.

50 “Take it with you”: Testimony of Wiesława Saternus, in Teresa Jeśmanowa, ed., Stalin’s Ethnic Cleansing in Eastern Poland (London: Veritas Foundation, 2008), 131.

50 “No one dared move”: Quoted in Piesakowski, op. cit., 55–56.

50 “He tells us to listen”: Gross, Revolution, op. cit., 209.

50 a recipe book, and some Christmas decorations: Kochanski, op. cit., 134.

51 deported together to Kazakhstan: Author interview with Mr. Mieczysław Wartalski, London, September 8, 2011.

51 neither would survive the journey: Gross, Revolution, op. cit., 215.

51 “Moscow will put it right”: Author interview with Mr. Henryk Wieksza, Berkhamsted, UK, August 17, 2011.

51 provided for the passengers’ benefit.: Sword, “Mass Movement,” op. cit., 20.

52 the doors of the train were opened: Wartalski author interview, op. cit.

52 “Are there any frozen children?”: Gross, Revolution, op. cit., 218.

52 annual death rate of around 30 percent: Sword, “Mass Movement,” op. cit., 27.

52 Tam propadut kak rudaia mish: Quoted in Gross, Revolution, op. cit., 222.

52 assumed to total over 1 million: Zbigniew Siemaszko, “The Mass Deportations of the Polish Population to the USSR, 1940–1941,” in The Soviet Takeover of the Polish Eastern Provinces, 1939–41, edited by Keith Sword (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1991), 225.

52 recent scholarship has revised this figure downward: Revised figures are in Kochanski, op. cit., 137, and a more thorough statistical breakdown can be found in Hryciuk, in Barkan, Cole, and Struve, op. cit., 184–199.

53 a “very conservative estimate”: Correspondence with Professor Norman Davies, December 2013.

53 tense standoff with the local Wehrmacht units: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., No. 419, 489, memorandum by State Secretary Weizsäcker, December 5, 1939.

53 work camp in the Soviet Far North at Archangel: Browning, Remembering, op. cit., 27.

53 Remarkably, he survived the war: Video testimony of Wilhelm Korn, held by Yad Vashem archive and available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z61GKpqccxI.

54 settlers being welcomed at Przemyśl by Heinrich Himmler: Valdis Lumans, Himmler’s Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 18.

54 an arbitrary fashion: Ibid., 163.

54 “long lines of Jews waiting to register”: Khrushchev, op. cit., 141.

54 “Jews, where are you going?”: Quoted in Gross, Revolution, op. cit., 206.

54 “I have become a scoundrel”: Quoted in Yosef Litvak, “The Plight of Refugees from the German-Occupied Territories,” in Sword, Soviet Takeover, op. cit., 66.

55 deported in the opposite direction: Sword, “Mass Movement,” op. cit., 18.

55 unsuccessfully applied to leave the Soviet zone: Siemaszko, op. cit., 224.

55 Polish Jews were forced to make: Gross, Revolution, op. cit., 226.

55 zone from which it was trying to escape: This is cited in ibid., 207, and a variation of it is played out in Andrzej Wajda’s film Katyn (2007).

55 “We waited for them to ask”: Quoted in Gross, Revolution, op. cit., 50.

56 he lasted barely two weeks before escaping: Peter Raina, Gomulka: Politische Biographie (Cologne, DE: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1970), 22–23.

56 Władysław Gomułka, who had also fled: Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 2:452.

56 found themselves in Polish jails: Ibid., 545.

56 incompatible with good political relations between Moscow and the Reich: Ribbentrop memorandum to Schulenburg, November 26, 1939, quoted in Schafranek, op. cit., 58.

57 delivered back to the Reich in this way: Ibid., 67–69.

57 “The NKVD officials still stood there”: Margarete Buber-Neumann, Under Two Dictators (London: Pimlico, 2008), 143.

58 “dreamed of [his] triumphant arrival in Russia”: Airey Neave, They Have Their Exits (Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2013), 16.

58 Most of them were subsequently sent to Siberia: The National Archives (hereafter “TNA”), Kew, London, Official MI9 Camp Report, ref: WO 208/3281.

58 usually in solitary confinement: Experience of Pvt. R. Berry of the 1st Bn Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, MI9 Report 3311931, at www.conscript-heroes.com.

58 returned to Warsaw as prisoners of the Gestapo: Clare Mulley, The Spy Who Loved (London: Macmillan, 2012), 90.

58 “contacts with the Gestapo”: Khrushchev, op. cit., 124.

59 narrowly avoiding a British submarine on the way: Valentin Berezhkov, At Stalin’s Side (New York: Carol, 1994), 271–274.

59 German ships sought refuge from the attentions of the Royal Navy: Slutsch, op. cit., 234.

59 its brief existence was fraught with difficulties: On “Basis Nord,” see Tobias R. Philbin III, The Lure of Neptune: German-Soviet Naval Collaboration and Ambitions, 1919–1941 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 81–117.

59 “mentally malnourished, disingenuous”: Quoted in Rees, op. cit., 69.

60 name chosen for her was the Vyacheslav Molotov: See Tom Frame, HMAS Sydney: Loss and Controversy (Sydney: Hodder & Stoughton, 1993).

60 RMS Rangitane, before being torpedoed in 1942: Philbin, op. cit., 141.

60 “You can’t fake that”: Quoted in Rees, op. cit., 75–76.

61 “It falls to me to have the honour”: Ibid., 77.

61 “historic hours at the Kremlin”: Quoted in Alexander Werth, Russia at War: 1941–1945 (London: Pan, 1964), 89.

62 “the friendship between the peoples”: Ibid., 89.

CHAPTER 3

63 leaving a meeting with Molotov: Andor Hencke deposition, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, ref: MA 1300/2, 21.

64 “We are not going to force Communism”: Molotov-Selter negotiations, quoted in Albert Tarulis, Soviet Policy Towards the Baltic States: 1918–1945 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1959), 150.

64 “The Soviet Union is now a great power”: “Minutes of the Estonian-Soviet Negotiations for the Mutual Assistance Pact of 1939,” Litanus 14, no. 2 (1968): 4.

65 “I advise you to yield”: Ibid., 5.

65 “To refuse the Soviet proposal”: Ibid., 14.

66 “What is there to argue about?”: Ibid., 18.

67 “pursued a very hard line”: Felix Chuev, ed., Molotov Remembers (Chicago: I.R. Dee, 1993), 9.

67 “a division of spheres of interest”: Stalin quoted in Tarulis, op. cit., 154.

67 “throwing peas against a wall”: Alfred Erich Senn, Lithuania 1940: Revolution from Above (New York: Rodopi, 2007), 20.

67 standing armies of the three countries: Romuald Misiunas and Rein Taagepera, The Baltic States: Years of Dependence, 1940–1980 (London: C. Hurst, 1983), 15–16.

68 effectively abandoning that country: Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945 (hereafter “DGFP”), Series D, Vol. VIII (Washington, DC, 1954), No. 113, 112–113.

68 “If the Russians now march into the Baltic”: Alfred Rosenberg’s diary, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 297 (www.ushmm.org).

68 “refrain from any explanations on this subject”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., No. 213, 238.

68 implicit warning of the difficult times to come: Valdis Lumans, Himmler’s Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 160.

68 “that an old culturally European land”: Arved Freiherr von Taube, quoted in Richards Olavs Plavnieks, “‘Wall of Blood’: The Baltic German Case Study in National Socialist Wartime Population Policy, 1939–1945” (MA thesis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2009), 36n73.

68 “Everything for which we had lived”: Dr. Wolfgang Wachtsmuth, quoted in ibid., 37n77.

69 even attracted some Jewish applicants: Lumans, Auxiliaries, op. cit., 160.

69 “They [the Estonians] saw the danger from the east”: Werner von Glasenepp, quoted in Plavnieks, op. cit., 39n83.

69 “All we had to do was raise our voice”: Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (London: André Deutsch, 1971), 135.

69 “avoid any commitments which would disturb”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., Nos. 232 and 240, pp. 255, 267.

70 “since we civilians don’t seem to be making any progress”: William R. Trotter, A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939–1940 (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2000), 18.

70 “deplorable act of aggression”: Quoted in Robert Edwards, White Death: Russia’s War on Finland, 1939–40 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006), 106.

70 Finns could field only 21,000 men: Philip Jowett and Brent Snodgrass, Finland at War, 1939–1945 (Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2006), 6.

70 Soviet confidence was naturally high: Trotter, op. cit., 34.

71 85 percent of senior officers: See Stéphane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 198.

72 “Where will we find room”: Trotter, op. cit., 40.

72 Molotov breadbaskets”: Ibid., 72.

73 “After a while” an eyewitness reported: Edward Ward, Despatches from Finland (London: John Lane, 1940), 54–55.

74 amid the scattered remains of their equipment: Trotter, op. cit., 169–170.

74 “On the sides of the road”: Ward, op. cit., 63.

74 rank and file approved of the punishment: Bair Irincheev, War of the White Death (Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword, 2011), 117.

74 “We couldn’t see [the Finns] anywhere”: Soviet colonel quoted in Eloise Engel and Lauri Paananen, The Winter War (London: Scribner, 1973), 103.

75 “Belaya Smert”: On Häyhä, see Roger Moorhouse, “The White Death,” in The Sniper Anthology, edited by John L. Plaster (London: Frontline Books, 2012), 1–14.

75 “Finland must not be allowed to disappear”: Quoted in Martin Gilbert, Second World War (London: Fontana, 1989), 42.

75 “Only Finland,” he said in a radio address: Quoted in Roy Jenkins, Churchill (London: Macmillan, 2001), 567.

75 “Our task in this war”: Daily Sketch, December 22, 1939, quoted in Edwards, op. cit., 232.

75 500,000 hand grenades: Statistics from former defense minister Juho Niukkanen, quoted in Engel and Paananen, op. cit., 153–157.

75 over two hundred volunteers crowded into the Finnish consulate: Seppo Myllyniemi, “Consequences of the Hitler-Stalin Pact for the Baltic Republics and Finland,” in From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia and the World, 1939–1941, edited by Bernd Wegner (Oxford, UK: Berghahn Books, 1997), 86.

76 Germans were watching events with “undisguised glee”: Khrushchev, op. cit., 136.

76 “Her army is not much good”: Frederick Taylor, ed., The Goebbels Diaries, 1939–1941 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1982), 59.

76 “In these circumstances,” he wrote: Quoted in DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., No. 526, 651.

76 wisdom of Helsinki’s decision to stand firm: Heinz Boberach, ed., Meldungen aus dem Reich: 1938–1945 (Herrsching, DE: Pawlak, 1984), 3:514, 524.

77 “we now appear to be a big gang of robbers”: Ulrich von Hassell, The Ulrich von Hassell Diaries, 1938–1944 (London: Frontline Books, 2011), 61.

77 “In all Italian cities”: Hugh Gibson, ed., The Ciano Diaries: 1939–1943 (New York: Doubleday, 1946), 174–175.

77 “refrain from any expression of sympathy”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., No. 423, 494, December 6, 1939.

77 “the German Volk has nothing against the Finnish people”: Max Domarus, Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, 1932–1945 (London: Tauris, 1997), 3:1896–1897.

77 “The Finns are whining”: Taylor, op. cit., 46.

77 But then the Soviets seemingly got cold feet: Tobias R. Philbin III, The Lure of Neptune: German-Soviet Naval Collaboration and Ambitions, 1919–1941 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 129–131.

78 “accomplice of the Soviet Union”: German Foreign Office sources, quoted in Gerd Überschär, Hitler und Finnland: 1939–1941 (Wiesbaden, DE: Steiner, 1978), 91.

78 smashed a plate of food in fury: Khrushchev, op. cit., 137.

78 four hundred Soviet shells per minute rained down: Trotter, op. cit., 216.

78 perilous detour across the ice of Lake Ladoga: Ibid., 220.

79 as a naval base for a period of thirty years: David Kirby, Finland in the Twentieth Century (London: C. Hurst, 1979), 128.

79 estimated at over 200,000: Trotter, op. cit., 263.

79 “our people were never told the truth”: Khrushchev, op. cit., 139.

79 “These pacts are inspired by mutual respect”: Izvestia, November 1, 1939.

80 requested as a Soviet “military zone”: Valdis Lumans, Latvia in World War II (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006), 80.

80 right to establish a garrison in Vilnius: Leonas Sabaliūnas, Lithuania in Crisis: 1939–1940 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), 158.

80 “The Red Army knows only one government”: Select Committee on Communist Aggression (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1954), 3:232.

80 issued by Ivan Serov in the spring of 1941: The root of the confusion is the Select Committee proceedings of 1954, which published the text of the Serov Instruction but labeled it as “Order 001223.” The majority of writers and historians on this issue have since repeated the error.

80 “We are not going to seek their sovietisation”: Ivo Banac, ed., The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 1933–1949 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 120.

81 Soviet warships fired on an Estonian aircraft: Select Committee, op. cit., 241.

81 a local man was shot dead: Lumans, Latvia, op. cit., 85.

81 “a black cat [had] crossed the road”: Select Committee, op. cit., 318.

81 offered his country to the Germans as a protectorate: Misiunas and Taagepera, op. cit., 17–18; Myllyniemi in Wegner, op. cit., 87.

81 a “malevolent atmosphere” encouraged espionage: A. A. Gromyko and B. N. Ponomareva, eds., Istoriya vneshney politiki SSSR (Moscow: Nauka, 1980), 1:393.

82 “one of the greatest battles in history”: Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman, eds., War Diaries, 1939–1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (London: Phoenix Press, 2001), 59.

82 what came to be known as the blitzkrieg: See Karl-Heinz Frieser, The Blitzkrieg Legend (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2013).

83 “the neutrality of small states is a mere fantasy”: Izvestia, May 16, 1940.

83 “take the necessary steps to halt”: Select Committee, op. cit., 319.

83 hotbed of “pro-British propaganda”: Pravda, May 28, 1940, quoted in Select Committee, op. cit., 241.

84 obliged to return home ahead of schedule: Select Committee, op. cit., 242.

84 Red Army was already preparing its invasion: Ibid., 322–329; Senn, op. cit., 93.

85 picked up by a Soviet submarine: The Masļenki and Kaleva incidents are reported in German diplomatic sources: DGFP, Series D, Vol. IX (Washington, DC, 1956), Docs. 439 and 458, pp. 574–575, 589.

85 “splendid success of the German armed forces”: Gabriel Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), 25.

85 “I will stay in my place, you stay in yours”: Quoted in Sandra Kalniete, With Dance Shoes in Siberian Snows (Riga: Latvijas Okupācijas muzeja biedrība, 2006), 43.

85 “We, the Latvians, built ourselves a brand new house”: The original is at the Museum of Occupations, Riga: http://www.e-okupacijasmuzejs.lv/#!/lv/eksponats/0328.

85 he turned his trousers up to do so: DGFP, Series D, Vol. IX., op. cit., Doc. 533, 688.

86 “You must take a good look at reality”: Quoted in Misiunas and Taagepera, op. cit., 25–26.

86 did not want to participate in the burial of Lithuanian independence: V. Stanley Vardys, “The Baltic States Under Stalin: The First Experiences, 1940–41,” in The Soviet Takeover of the Polish Eastern Provinces, 1939–41, edited by Keith Sword (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1991), 277.

86 “Only enemies of the people stay at home on election day”: Misiunas and Taagepera, op. cit., 27.

86 97.2 percent of voters in Latvia: Figures from the Museum of Occupation, Riga, Latvia, October 9, 2012.

86 estimated at barely 16 percent: Figures quoted in Vardys, in Sword, op. cit., 278; Misiunas and Taagepera, op. cit., 28n28.

87 “great triumph” for the Baltic peoples: Khrushchev, op. cit., 131.

87 Estonian population would have asked to be resettled: Misiunas and Taagepera, op. cit., 41; Lumans, Auxiliaries, op. cit., 170.

87 “are the concern of Russia and the Baltic States”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. IX, op. cit., Doc. 465, 595–596.

88 “in a friendly manner”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. X, Doc. 219, 286.

88 “burst into tears and could not recover”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. IX, op. cit., Doc. 451, 583.

88 “Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia transferred”: Elke Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Part 1 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1998), 8:233, entry for July 23, 1940.

88 “the rule of reason, of justice and of law”: John Hiden, Vahur Made, and David J. Smith, eds., The Baltic Question During the Cold War (London: Routledge, 2008), 39.

88 “The US government,” Welles explained: Quoted in Dennis J. Dunn, Caught Between Roosevelt and Stalin (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997), 118; the Sumner Welles text is displayed in the Museum of Occupation, Riga.

89 “Bessarabia must be snatched”: Florin Constantiniu, O istorie sincera a poporului român (Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2008), 361.

89 reiterating the “political disinterest”: Nicholas Constantinesco, Romania in Harm’s Way, 1939–1941 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 136.

89 Northern Bukovina was to be transferred to Soviet control: Quoted in Jane Degras, ed., Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy (New York: Octagon Books, 1953), 3:458–459.

89 “Curse us all if we don’t fight!”: Quoted in Constantiniu, op. cit., 364.

90 “In order to avoid the serious consequences”: Constantinesco, op. cit., 149.

90 “you had the feeling that hell was upon the earth”: Quoted in Ioan Scurtu and Constantin Hlihor, Anul 1940: drama românilor dintre Prut si Nistru (Bucharest: Academiei de inalte studii militare, 1992), 85.

90 “Churches rang their bells”: Quoted in Dinu Giurescu, Romania in the Second World War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), 24.

90 he wanted to greet the soldiers personally “with flowers”: Lyn Smith, ed., Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust (London: Ebury Press, 2006), 91.

90 supposedly greeted as a returning hero: Khrushchev, op. cit., 145.

90 the annexations of that summer: Quoted in Degras, op. cit., 465.

91 their annexation caused a “deep-seated resentment”: Quoted in Constantinesco, op. cit., 150.

91 11 out of 12 mayors of principal cities: Misiunas and Taagepera, op. cit., 25.

91 arbitrary arrest and services disrupted by “atheist brigades”: On the Sovietization of the Baltic States, see ibid., 25–40.

91 jaunty marches incessantly played by Red Army bands: Kalniete, op cit., 47.

92 fifty-one of the fifty-three former ministers of the Estonian government: Peep Varju, “The Destruction of the Estonian Political Elite During the Soviet Occupation,” in History Conference of the Estonian Memento Association (Tallinn, 2007), 33.

92 the sole exception being social affairs minister Alfrēds Bērziņš: Museum of Occupation, Riga, Latvia.

92 deemed to be a potential threat: Leonas Sabaliūnas, Lithuania in Crisis: Nationalism to Communism, 1939–1940 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), 204.

92 He was tortured to death in Kaunas prison: Bronis J. Kaslas, “The Lithuanian Strip in Soviet-German Secret Diplomacy, 1939–1941,” Journal of Baltic Studies 4, no. 3 (1973): 217.

92 morally perhaps, he still was: Alan Palmer, Northern Shores (London: John Murray, 2005), 343.

93 “Commanders of battalions, companies and some platoons”: Quoted in Joseph Pajaujis-Javis, Soviet Genocide in Lithuania (New York: Manyland Books, 1980), 36.

93 “A quick death would have been”: Testimony of Arvīds Lasmanis, quoted in Astrid Sics, ed., We Sang Through Tears: Stories of Survival in Siberia (Riga: Janis Roze, 1999), 140.

93 fellows would survive the experience: Vieda Skultans, The Testimony of Lives: Narrative and Memory in Post-Soviet Latvia (London: Routledge, 1998), 188.

93 over 7,000 persons in Estonia: Figures quoted in Hiio, Maripuu, and Paavle, op. cit., 328; Artis Pabriks and Aldis Purs, Latvia: The Challenges of Change (London: Routledge, 2013), 27; Vardys in Sword, op. cit., 286.

93 some 48,000 are thought to have been arrested: Ion Constantin and Valeriu Florin Dobrinescu, Basarabia în anii celui de al doilea război mondial: (1939–1947) (Iaşi, RO: Institutul European, 1995), 215.

94 “NKVD official Sokolov began talking”: Pajaujis-Javis, op. cit., 27.

94 lapel ribbons in the Estonian national colors: T. Hiio, M. Maripuu, and I. Paavle, eds., Estonia, 1940–45: Reports of the Estonian Commission for the Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity (Tallinn, 2006), 309.

94 His precise fate is unknown: Ibid., 312.

94 Already frail, Baltagă did not survive: Andrei Brezianu and Vlad Spânu, Historical Dictionary of Moldova (London: Scarecrow Press, 2007), 46–47.

95 “You are charged under Section 58”: Menachem Begin, White Nights (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 81.

96 he could do nothing but seethe: Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Deadly Embrace (London: M. Joseph, 1988), 488.

96 looming clash of interests: Gorodetsky, op. cit., 33.

96 “the first Russian attack on Western Europe”: Read and Fisher, op. cit., 489.

96 “King Carol is a coward”: Fröhlich, op. cit., 196–197, 205.

99 “perhaps we will be forced to take steps”: Taylor, op. cit., 124.

CHAPTER 4

99 attending a party meeting in Liverpool: John Mahon, Harry Pollitt: A Biography (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1978), 116.

100 it stemmed from a deep emotional commitment: Kevin Morgan, Harry Pollitt (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1993), 96.

100 “a victory for peace and socialism”: The Daily Worker, August 23, 1939, 3.

100 a new “party line” had quickly crystallized: Ivo Banac, ed., The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 1933–1949 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 114.

100 calling for a “two-front war” against Hitler: The Daily Worker, September 2, 1939, 3.

100 “The Communist Party supports the war”: Harry Pollitt, “How to Win the War” (London: CPGB, 1939), passim.

101 “The Soviet leaders had a responsibility”: Douglas Hyde, I Believed (London: Heinemann, 1950), 68.

101 “a bombshell: We just did not know what to do”: Quoted in Nigel Jones, Through a Glass Darkly: The Life of Patrick Hamilton (London: Abacus, 1991), 219.

101 “one of the finest things”: Francis King and George Matthews, eds., About Turn: The British Communist Party and the Second World War (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990), 91.

102 “Communist Parties which acted contrary to these tactics”: Quoted in ibid., 69–70.

102 The party had “failed to understand”: Ibid., 73–77 passim.

102 “the Party is now on trial”: Ibid., 86–87.

103 “more unscrupulous and opportunist speech”: Ibid., 91–93 passim.

103 So he declared his resignation: Ibid., 197–209 passim.

104 Ten days later, the Times reported: “Communist Split,” Times, October 12, 1939, 10.

104 it became the duty of every Communist Party: Fridrikh I. Firsov, Harvey Klehr, and John Earl Haynes, Secret Cables of the Comintern, 1933–1943 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), 146.

105 “complete destruction of left-wing orthodoxy”: George Orwell, “London Letter,” January 3, 1941, in Orwell and Politics, edited by Peter Davison (London: Penguin, 2001), 101–102.

105 “would be the end of Germany”: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1939), 538.

106 war was “not the war we had expected”: Eric Hobsbawm, Interesting Times (London: Allen Lane, 2002), 153.

106 “No wonder Stalin prefers to keep his 170 million”: Norman and Jeanne Mackenzie, eds., “The Wheel of Life,” in The Diaries of Beatrice Webb (London: Virago, 1985), 4:438–440.

106 “the blackest tragedy in human history”: Ibid., 441.

107 “knocking the bottom out”: Dorothy Sheridan, ed., Among You Taking Notes: The Wartime Diary of Naomi Mitchison, 1939–1945 (London: Gollancz, 1985), 40.

107 “Bugger Uncle Joe, bugger Molotov”: Quoted in Hyde, op. cit., 69.

107 “they will have to suffer for it”: Mackenzie and Mackenzie, op. cit., 444–445.

107 “spat upon and assaulted in the streets”: Hyde, op. cit., 71.

107 newer recruits and the less ideologically convinced becoming disillusioned: James Eaden and David Renton, The Communist Party of Great Britain Since 1920 (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 75.

107 “inter-Imperialist aspect of the struggle”: Quoted in Angus Calder, The Myth of the Blitz (London: Pimlico, 1991), 79.

108 “You regarded Hitler-fascist aggression”: Victor Gollancz, Where Are You Going? (London: Gollancz, 1940), 1–2.

108 “running the terrible risk”: Ibid., 30.

108 Moscow-sponsored opposition to American entry: Robert Gellately, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe (London: Jonathan Cape, 2007), 359.

109 “redeeming more than half of Poland”: Earl Browder, Whose War Is It? (New York: Workers Library, 1939), 7–8, 13.

109 new memberships virtually collapsing in 1940: Fraser Ottanelli, The Communist Party of the United States (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991), 198.

109 temporarily disappeared from the political stage: James G. Ryan, Earl Browder: The Failure of American Communism (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1997), 182.

109 still saw themselves broadly as socialists: See George Watson, “Hitler and the Socialist Dream,” Independent on Sunday, November 22, 1998, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/hitler-and-the-socialist-dream-1186455.html.

110 Stalin “has a contempt for all arguments”: Kingsley Martin, “The Man of Steel,” New Statesman and Nation, December 9, 1939.

110 “effete liberalism of the pluto-democracies”: Henry Brailsford, quoted in George Watson, “The Eye-Opener of 1939,” History Today (August 2004): 51.

110 “friendship” in whose name he had committed treason: Nigel West, MI5: British Security Service Operations, 1909–1945 (London: Bodley Head, 1981), 254–255.

110 “new success of the Soviet Union”: From a declaration of the French Bureau Politique, quoted in Edward Mortimer, The Rise of the French Communist Party, 1920–1947 (London: Faber & Faber, 1984), 281.

111 “resounded like a thunderclap”: Adam Rajsky, Nos Illusions Perdues (Paris, 1985), 64; English text from Wolfgang Leonhard, Betrayal: The Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1939 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 110–111.

111 “extraordinary discipline, unique in the history of humanity”: François Furet, quoted in Gellately, op. cit., 358.

111 A group of dissidents even made a public appeal: Leonhard, op. cit., 115.

112 “imperialists of London and Paris”: Mortimer, op. cit., 292.

112 “blow for peace”: Quoted in Allan Merson, Communist Resistance in Nazi Germany (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1985), 213.

112 Mein Kampf would be withdrawn from publication: Illustrated by contemporary reports on German public opinion in Heinz Boberach, ed., Meldungen aus dem Reich: 1938–1945 (Herrsching, DE: Pawlak, 1984), 400, 415, 365.

113 declaring the pact to be a “diplomatic success”: Erich Honecker, From My Life (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981), 102.

113 “How could Stalin do that to us?”: Leonhard, op. cit., 96–97.

113 could not find enough milk and sugar: Egbert Krispyn, Anti-Nazi Writers in Exile (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010), 72.

113 “I do not think one can say more”: Quoted in Klaus Völker, Brecht: A Biography (New York: Seabury Press, 1979), 265.

113 “the stripping of ideological pretences”: Brecht journal entry for September 18, 1939, quoted in John Willett, Brecht in Context (London: Methuen, 1984), 193.

114 “the troubler of this poor world’s peace”: Bertolt Brecht, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (London: Methuen, 2013), 7, 59.

114 “a lurking suspicion of the similarities”: Katharine Hodgson, “The Soviet Union in the Svendborg Poems,” in Brecht’s Poetry of Political Exile, edited by Ronald Spiers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 79.

114 “there was no fundamental difference between the two”: Quoted in Horst Duhnke, Die KPD von 1933 bis 1945 (Cologne, DE: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1972), 343.

115 “strongest guarantee” for the hindrance: Quoted in Gollancz, op. cit., 30–35.

115 “starve Germany and extend the conflict”: Quoted in Duhnke, op. cit., 345.

115 “the baleful politics of the ruling classes”: Rote Fahne, “Macht Front gegen die imperialistischen Bestrebungen!” June 1940, reproduced in Margot Pikarski and Günter Uebel, Der Antifaschistische Widerstandskampf der KPD in Spiegel des Flugblattes, 1933–1945 (Berlin: Dietz, 1978).

116 Arrests followed a similar pattern: Statistics quoted in Detlef Peukert, Die KPD im Widerstand (Wuppertal, DE: Hammer Verlag, 1980), 333n.

116 “no longer speak of organised resistance”: Boberach, op. cit., 1305.

116 “the most shameful of Hitler’s accomplices”: H. R. Trevor-Roper, in his foreword to Terence Prittie, Germans Against Hitler (London: Hutchinson, 1964), 13.

116 170 Lux residents would disappear in this way: “Nachts kamen Stalin’s Häscher,” Der Spiegel 42 (1978).

117 “Marvellous, marvellous!”: Octavio Brandao, quoted in Leonhard, op. cit., 17.

117 “The scene I saw at the bus stop”: Castro Delgado, quoted in ibid., 16.

117 He told himself that “Stalin never errs”: Delgado in ibid., 18.

117 Another Spaniard recalled being “stupefied”: Jesus Hernandez, quoted in ibid., 14.

117 “as though the clock on the Kremlin tower stopped”: Ruth von Mayenburg, Blaues Blut und Rote Fahnen (Vienna: Molden, 1969), 268.

117 “It was actually shameful”: Von Mayenburg, quoted in Leonhard, op. cit., 23.

118 struggled to feed himself for several months: Katerina Clark, Moscow, the Fourth Rome: Stalinism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Evolution of Soviet Culture, 1931–1941 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 341.

118 “listened to me absent-mindedly”: Quoted in Alfred Senn, Lithuania 1940: Revolution from Above (New York: Rodopi, 2007), 66n120.

118 “The big treason trials”: Victor Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom (New York: Scribner’s, 1946), 332.

118 “meteorlike across our horizon and crashed headlong”: Ibid., 333.

119 audience sat “bewildered and silent”: Leonhard, op. cit., 54.

119 “The libraries, similarly, were purged”: Kravchenko, op. cit., 334.

119 “The German is a beast!”: Richard Taylor, Film Propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany (London: I. B. Tauris, 1998), 89.

119 some 23 million Soviet citizens had already seen: Kyril Anderson, Kremlevskij Kinoteatr, 1928–1953, Dokumenty (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2005), 539.

120 “Public opinion in our country”: Stalin quoted in Terry Charman, Outbreak 1939: The World Goes to War (London: Virgin, 2009), 52.

120 Eisenstein, meanwhile, was given the chance to redeem himself: Clark, op. cit., 341.

120 “richest legacy of the great German composer”: “Val’kiriia,” Pravda, November 23, 1940, 4.

120 he was otherwise vague and unconvincing: Charles Bohlen, Witness to History, 1929–1969 (New York: Norton, 1973), 89.

120 “For us to have explained our reasons”: Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (London: André Deutsch, 1971), 112.

120 “They were still the same fascists”: Quoted in Orlando Figes, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia (London: Allen Lane, 2007), 374.

121 archetypal “strong man,” who “fears no one”: See Sarah Davies, Popular Opinion in Stalin’s Russia: Terror, Propaganda and Dissent, 1934–1941 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 97.

121 “have agreed simply that there should be no leaders”: Ibid., 98.

121 “There they had their own little houses”: Ibid., 99.

121 sentiment even expressed by the Times of London: “The Russo-German Deal,” Times, August 23, 1939, 13.

122 “difficult to reconcile at such short notice”: “Portuguese Anger over Soviet-Nazi Pact,” Times, August 28, 1939, 9; “Hungary Suspends Judgment,” Times, August 23, 1939, 11.

122 “You, Duce,” he wrote: Hugh Gibson, ed., The Ciano Diaries: 1939–1943 (New York: Doubleday, 1946), 125.

122 “The Germans are treacherous and deceitful”: Ibid., 131.

122 saw the pact as a betrayal and tendered his resignation: Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945, Series D, Vol. VII (Washington, DC, 1956), No. 183, 191.

123 “do nothing to injure our country”: Quoted in Robert Skidelsky, Oswald Mosley (London: Papermac, 1990), 442–443.

123 “Naturally, we closed down on the outbreak of war”: Quoted in West, op. cit., 128.

123 Ramsay’s followers continued leafleting and bill-posting: Richard Griffiths, Patriotism Perverted (London: Constable, 1998), 237.

124 “Non-Aggression Pact with Moscow is a world sensation!”: Elke Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Part 1 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1998), 7:73.

124 “The trip of our minister to Moscow”: Alfred Rosenberg’s diary, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 267, entry for August 22, 1939 (www.ushmm.org).

124 Hitler had clearly gone to considerable lengths: TNA, CAB 65/4/22–123–4, Foreign Office Memorandum, November 29, 1939.

124 “I have the feeling,” he wrote: Rosenberg’s diary, op. cit., 277, entry for August 26, 1939.

124 “Stalin and I are the only ones who visualize the future”: Quoted in Hitler’s Obersalzberg speech in Anthony P. Adamthwaite, The Making of the Second World War (London: Allen & Unwin, 1977), 219–220.

125 meant nothing less than the “Finis Germaniae”: Fritz Thyssen, I Paid Hitler (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1941), 47, 56. Although the authenticity of this memoir is disputed, the letters quoted here are considered genuine.

125 “one of the most important turning points”: Völkischer Beobachter, August 25, 1939, 1.

126 So looked forward to a new era of collaboration: Schwarze Korps, August 31, 1939, 3.

126 editorial comments dutifully echoing the Soviet line: Völkischer Beobachter, September 1, 18 and 19, 1939.

126 “Our press is lacking all dignity”: Rosenberg’s diary, op. cit., 269, entry date unclear.

126 page of the Völkischer Beobachter was devoted: Völkischer Beobachter, August 26, 1939, 8; September 3, 1939, 9.

126 “a lot of negative stuff about the English”: Daniil Granin, Zubr (Moscow: Krizhnaia palata, 1989), 125.

126 “still rubbing their eyes”: William Shirer, This Is Berlin: Reporting from Germany, 1938–1940 (London: Hutchinson, 1999), 56.

127 “Everyone beaming with joy”: Karl Neumann, diary entry for August 24, 1939, ref: 1346/1,3, held at Deutsches Tagebucharchiv, Emmendingen.

127 “whether to heave a sigh of relief”: Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, Berlin Underground, 1938–1945 (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1947), 45.

127 “I just could not believe it”: Rainer Hamm, unpublished memoir, 25, ref: 1815,3, held at Deutsches Tagebucharchiv, Emmendingen.

127 “Machiavelli is a babe in arms in comparison”: Victor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness, 1933–1941 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998), 293.

127 “thunderstruckindignant beyond words”: Hans Gisevius, To the Bitter End (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947), 364.

128 “Russian colossus” had been “set in motion”: Jürgen Förster, “The German Military’s Image of Russia,” in Russia: War, Peace and Diplomacy, edited by Ljubica Erickson and Mark Erickson (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005), 122.

128 “he had doubtless expected me to express”: Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (London: Michael Joseph, 1952), 84–85.

128 “using Beelzebub to drive away the Devil”: Ulrich von Hassell, The Ulrich von Hassell Diaries, 1938–1944 (London: Frontline Books, 2011), 43, 40.

128 Rosenberg raged in his diary: Rosenberg’s diary, op. cit., 307, entry for October 5, 1939.

128 “growing dissatisfaction and disillusionment”: TNA, War Cabinet memorandum, CAB/66/4/11, December 7, 1939.

128 littered with the discarded party badges: Charman, op. cit., 48–49.

129 “must have appeared to be a rare old muddle”: H. R. Trevor-Roper, ed., Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944 (London: Phoenix, 2000), 481.

130 film was duly banned in September: David Welch, Propaganda and the German Cinema: 1933–1945 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2006), 212.

130 “I Accuse Moscow—the Comintern Plan for World Dictatorship”: Charman, op. cit., 57.

130 the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra devoted concerts: Erik Levi, Music in the Third Reich (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1994), 201–202.

130 “unique experience” of “Russian melodies”: Hamburger Tageblatt, advertisement for the “Siberian Cossack Choir,” May 29, 1940, 7.

130 Their show was cancelled: See Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, June 1941.

131 exclaimed that he stood by every word of it: Morgan, op. cit., 117.

CHAPTER 5

133 “broke upon the world like an explosion”: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War (London: Penguin, 1989), 158.

133 describing the event as “a complete bombshell”: Stephen Howarth, August 1939 (London: Curtis, 1989), 130.

133 judged a Nazi-Soviet pact “unlikely”: The National Archives (hereafter “TNA”), FO371/23686/N 4146/243/38, August 26, 1939.

134 “These crises really are too tiresome”: Henry “Chips” Channon quoted in Irene and Alan Taylor, eds., The Secret Annexe (Edinburgh, UK: Canongate, 2004), 436; Harold Nicolson quoted in Nigel Nicolson, ed., Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters, 1930–1939 (London: Collins, 1966), 411; Sir Alexander Cadogan quoted in David Dilks, ed., The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 1938–1945 (London: Cassell, 1971), 200.

134 figures had shifted little by the summer: Mass Observation Archive (hereafter “MOA”), University of Sussex, August 1941 file, ref: SxMOA1/2/25/4/A/3.

134 he would eventually come in on Britain’s side: MOA, ref: SxMOA1/2/25/4/A/3/6.

134 “I don’t want to seem alarmist”: Keith Jeffery, MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, 1909–1949 (London: Bloomsbury, 2010), 312.

134 “I heard his words”: Hugh Dundas, quoted in Patrick Bishop, Bomber Boys (London: HarperPress, 2007), 103.

135 “consistency and trustworthiness of Russian and of German diplomacy”: “The Russo-German Deal,” Times, August 23, 1939, 13.

135 possessed of an “Olympian manner”: Andrew Roberts, The Holy Fox (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991), 2.

136 “war of nerves”: Edward Raczyński, In Allied London (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962), 20.

136 guarantee was not extended to include aggression: Anthony Carty and Richard A. Smith, Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice and the World Crisis (Boston: Kluwer Law International, 2000), 286, quoting TNA FO 371/23130/C12124.

136 Polish “anxiety” was such that Warsaw: Cadogan minute, from FO 371/23130/C11884, quoted in Carty and Smith, op. cit., 286n139.

137 “This is not a question of fighting for Danzig”: Graham Stewart, His Finest Hours: The War Speeches of Winston Churchill (London: Quercus, 2007), 17, 21.

137 “Our world is committing suicide”: Robert Rhodes James, ed., Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967), 215.

137 “I’m willing to fight Fascism if necessary”: Mass Observation Diarist 5269–5, quoted in Juliet Gardiner, Wartime Britain: 1939–1945 (London: Headline, 2004), 5.

138 appearing on the SS special arrest list: Walter Schellenberg, Invasion 1940: The Nazi Invasion Plans for Britain (London: St. Ermin’s Press, 2000) 217.

139 Low summed up the confusions, fears, and absurdities: Low cartoons: “Uncle Joe’s Pawnshop,” Evening Standard, October 2, 1939; “Someone Is Taking Someone for a Walk,” Evening Standard, October 21 1939.

139 “Public opinion here is revolted”: “Stalin Shows His Hand,” Times, September 18, 1939.

139 “the French Government took the same view”: TNA, War Cabinet proceedings, CAB 65/1/18, September 17, 1939, 141–142.

139 “stink somewhat since August 23”: Cadogan minute from September 23, 1939, quoted in Paul W. Doerr, “‘Frigid but Unprovocative’: British Policy Towards the USSR from the Nazi-Soviet Pact to the Winter War, 1939,” Journal of Contemporary History 36, no. 3 (2001): 428.

139 Other commodities were also considered: TNA, War Cabinet, CAB 65/1/34, October 2, 1939, 271–272.

140 outgoing shipments to be torpedoed by German submarines: Ibid., 272.

140 “Russia’s abiding aim is to spread world revolution”: TNA, Chiefs of Staff Committee Memorandum, CAB 66/2/24, October 9, 1939, 196–206.

140 “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”: Quoted in Stewart, op. cit., 20–21.

141 merits and demerits of a British declaration of war: TNA, War Cabinet, CAB 65/1/57, October 23, 1939, 478.

141 “not sure how the matter should be handled”: TNA, War Cabinet, CAB 65/2/45, December 11, 1939, 383.

141 “drive a wedge”: Roberts, op. cit., 190.

141 “exports to the USSR were probably tantamount”: Halifax, quoted in Doerr, op. cit., 429.

142 with a cargo of tungsten, antimony, and tin: TNA, Economic Warfare weekly report, CAB 68/4/39, January 28, 1940, 8.

142 Soviets might be persuaded to restrict their deliveries: TNA, War Cabinet, CAB 65/6/22, March 29, 1940, 187.

143 “We should strike at Russo-Germany”: Quoted in Patrick Osborn, Operation Pike: Britain Versus the Soviet Union, 1939–1941 (London: Greenwood Press, 2000), 121. Patrick Osborn’s excellent book is the only authority on this fascinating episode.

143 “if only we could detach Russia from Germany”: Campinchi quoted in TNA, War Cabinet, CAB 65/6/22, March 29, 1940, 188.

143 “Russia is now allied to Germany”: Quoted in Jukka Nevakivi, The Appeal That Was Never Made: The Allies, Scandinavia, and the Finnish Winter War, 1939–1940 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1976), 109.

143 “would collapse from the slightest blow”: Charles Richardson, “French Plans for Allied Attacks on the Caucasus Oil Fields January–April 1940,” French Historical Studies 8, no. 1 (1975): 156.

144 War Office duly approved the construction: Osborn, op. cit., 141.

144 recorded as being German-built Messerschmitt Bf-109s: Ibid., 147. It is not impossible, but it is nonetheless unlikely, that the aircraft seen were really Messerschmitt Bf-109s. Only five such aircraft had been delivered to the USSR, so the chances of one being sighted over Baku are slim.

145 “manner in which the oil fields have been exploited”: Quoted in ibid., 108–109.

145 “they appear to have found a willing tool”: Quoted in Harry Hanak, “Sir Stafford Cripps as British Ambassador in Moscow, May 1940 to June 1941,” English Historical Review 94, no. 370 (January 1979): 55.

145 “the repercussions of the dislocation”: Quoted in Osborn, op. cit., 148.

146 one in four RAF crews could drop: Richard Overy, The Bombing War (London: Allen Lane, 2013), 267.

146 “It is an amazing idea”: Hansard, March 19, 1940, quoted in Osborn, op. cit., 118.

146 3 percent of Germany’s fuel stocks: Quoted in ibid., 247.

147 Stalin even ranked second as a “respected” leader: MOA, June 1939 Directive, ref: SxMOA1/1/6/8/36.

147 recognizing the need for cooperation with Stalin: Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang, eds., Listening to Britain (London: Vintage, 2011), 98, 130.

148 “accept Russian help”: Ibid., 193.

148 “Russia will be helpful to us in her own time”: Ibid., 222.

148 “playing her own game”: Ibid., 289, 292.

149 “ignorant cunning, shrewd, cruel and unscrupulous”: Mary E. Glantz, FDR and the Soviet Union (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005), 48, 51.

149 subversion of three independent states: Robert Dallek, Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 208.

149 “not only horrified, but thoroughly angry”: Quoted in ibid., 209.

150 signing Finland’s death warrant: Quoted in Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight over World War Two, 1939–1941 (New York: Random House, 2013), 95.

150 “unadulterated twaddle based on ignorance”: Quoted in Dallek, op. cit., 212.

150 Roosevelt was beginning to prepare the ground: Glantz, op. cit., 53.

150 “Mr. President,” he wrote, “with great respect”: Stephen Ambrose, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), 5, 7.

151 Although he declared himself “deeply moved”: Quoted in Churchill, op. cit., 303.

152 the two were duly found guilty and sentenced: Nigel West, MI5: British Security Service Operations, 1909–1945 (London: Bodley Head, 1981), 126.

152 “sympathies with the system of government”: Text cited in Aaron Goldman, “Defence Regulation 18B: Emergency Internment of Aliens and Political Dissenters in Great Britain During World War II,” Journal of British Studies 12, no. 2 (May 1973): 122.

152 representing almost the entire active party membership: Goldman, op. cit., 129.

152 allegedly attempting to undermine industrial production: Gardiner, op. cit., 295.

152 Labour Party’s entry into government: Goldman, op. cit., 129.

153 not to employ British Communist Party supporters: Gardiner, op. cit., 300.

153 keen for some rapprochement with Britain: TNA, War Cabinet, CAB 65/11/25, February 7, 1940, 222.

154 “I am sorry for Sir S. Cripps”: TNA, FO 371/24844 5853, June 23, 1940, quoted in Hanak, op. cit., 59.

154 “We did not at that time realize”: Churchill, op. cit., 280.

154 “We did not at that time realize”: Hanak, op. cit., 57.

155 seismic impact that Hitler’s aggression had wrought: Quoted in Gabriel Gorodetsky, Stafford Cripps’ Mission to Moscow, 1940–42 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 52.

155 driving Stalin into Hitler’s arms: Ibid., 76, 78.

155 Allied plan to bomb the Soviet oilfields: Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty’s Intelligence Service (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 194.

156 London and Moscow would sign a pact of nonaggression: TNA, FO 371/29464 1604, October 22, 1940, quoted in Hanak, op. cit., 66.

156 highlighting Moscow’s ongoing discussions with the British: Ibid., 67n3.

156 “Does the British Government imagine itself”: Ivan Maisky, Memoirs of a Soviet Ambassador: The War, 1939–1943 (London: Hutchinson, 1967), 142.

157 “Believe me we are tired”: Ibid., 143.

157 “it was up to the Russians”: Laurence Collier, head of the Northern Department of the Foreign Office, quoted in Gorodetsky, op. cit., 129.

157 temptation for Great Britain to come to some arrangement: Llewellyn Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War (London: HMSO, 1970), 1:607.

157 lacking the delicacy required for the task: Gorodetsky, op. cit., 131.

157 “nothing to do no chance of influencing events”: Ibid., 147.

158 “Neither dictator,” one memorandum noted: Ibid., 55.

159 “It was all so mad”: Ibid., 76.

CHAPTER 6

162 Prinz Eugen would be the only one: The Prinz Eugen would meet her end in 1946, when she was used as a test vessel for the US atomic test at Bikini Atoll, before being towed to Kwajalein Atoll, where she capsized.

162 German engineers had originally devised the Admiral Hipper class: Erich Raeder, My Life (New York: Arno Press, 1980), 199.

164 “comradeship in misfortune”: Quoted in Walter Laqueur, Russia and Germany: A Century of Conflict (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965), 123.

164 72 percent of her machinery imports from German firms: Statistics from ibid., 132, and Paul N. Hehn, A Low Dishonest Decade (New York: Continuum, 2002), 246.

164 10 percent of German exports went in the other direction: Statistics quoted in Hehn, op. cit., 245–246.

165 unsuccessfully floated the idea of a general normalization of relations: For details of the Kandelaki mission, see Lew Besymenski, “Geheimmission in Stalins Auftrag?” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 40, no. 3 (1992): 339–357.

165 build bridges between Moscow and Berlin: This is suggested by KGB defector Walter Krivitsky, In Stalin’s Secret Service (New York, 2000), 196, and is reported in the more reliable study by Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990), 187.

166 third largest source of crude oil and iron ore: Manfred Zeidler, “German-Soviet Economic Relations During the Hitler-Stalin Pact,” in From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia and the World, 1939–1941, edited by Bernd Wegner (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1997), 100–101.

166 prelude to the program unveiled in October 1938: Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction (London: Allen Lane, 2006), 659.

166 It was, Göring concluded, “a gigantic programme”: Quoted in ibid., 288.

166 perceived advantage in men and materiel still held good: William Carr, Arms, Autarky and Aggression (New York: Norton, 1972), 106.

167 amount of money in circulation was 40 percent higher: “Reich Is Accelerating Inflation of Currency,” New York Times, September 27, 1939, 1.

167 cash flow deficit of 2 billion RM: Tooze, op. cit., 296.

167 Germany was compelled “by dire necessity”: Max Domarus, Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations, 1932–1945 (London: Tauris, 1997), 3:1444.

167 highlighted the urgent need for imports: Edward E. Ericson III, “Karl Schnurre and the Evolution of Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1936–1941,” German Studies Review 21, no. 2 (May 1998): 265.

168 already clear in their essentials by the end of 1938: Ericson, “Schnurre,” op. cit., 268.

168 cost many thousands of civilian lives: Richard Bessel, Germany After the First World War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 41.

168 wider political pact with Hitler’s Germany: Zeidler in Wegner, op. cit., 98.

169 repaid in raw material shipments from 1946: Ibid., 99.

169 treaty as better than “all previous agreements”: Quoted in Jane Degras, ed., Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy (New York: Octagon Books, 1978), 3:367.

170 named in Soviet press reports as “Ambassador Baron von Schnurre”: Edward E. Ericson III, Feeding the German Eagle: Soviet Economic Aid to Nazi Germany, 1933–1941 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999), 71, 79.

170 “they smiled at us, shook our hands”: Alexander Yakovlev, quoted in Seweryn Bialer, ed., Stalin and His Generals: Soviet Military Memoirs of World War II (London: Souvenir Press, 1970), 117.

170 “In strict order, as though on parade”: Ibid., 117.

171 “Everything was impeccably organised”: Ibid., 118.

171 “I give you my word as an officer”: Ibid., 118.

171 prevented from even seeing the remainder of the workshop: Valentin Berezhkov, At Stalin’s Side (New York: Carol, 1994), 81–82.

172 not even been accepted for operational use by the Luftwaffe: See William Green and Gordon Swanborough, “Heinkel’s High Speed Hoaxer: The Annals of the He 100,” Air Enthusiast (January–April 1989).

172 Moscow was not accorded reciprocal privileges: Tobias R. Philbin III, The Lure of Neptune: German-Soviet Naval Collaboration and Ambitions, 1919–1941 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 68–70.

172 merely a cover for a concerted campaign: Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., 125.

172 including everything from cruisers to fighter aircraft: Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945 (hereafter “DGFP”), Series D, Vol. VIII (Washington, DC, 1954), 472–475.

172 “fully approved by Stalin”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., Doc. 442, 516–517, Ritter telegram to Schulenburg, December 11, 1939, .

173 “Negotiations are not proceeding favourably”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., addendum to Doc. 487, 575, Ritter telegram to Berlin, December 27, 1939.

173 “Germany is at war”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., Doc. 438, 513, Ribbentrop Memorandum, December 11, 1939.

173 objections and refusals from their own side: Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., 92.

173 “less sanguine” about the relationship: Quoted in Ericson, ibid., 98.

173 “Made in Russia”: William Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934–1941, ill. ed. (New York: Galahad Books, 1997), 131.

174 assuming a full quota of Soviet deliveries: Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., 205.

174 promise “given during the September negotiations”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., Doc. 594, 739, Ribbentrop telegram to Schulenburg, February 3, 1940.

174 800 million RM of business in the first two years: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., Doc. 607, 763–769, text of the German-Soviet Commercial Agreement, February 11, 1940.

174 “great economic and political significance”: Izvestia, February 16, 1940, 1.

174 “The Soviet Union sees this not merely”: Quoted in Zeidler in Wegner, op. cit., 96.

174 “more than a battle won”: The National-Zeitung, quoted in Bogdan Musial, Stalins Beutezug (Berlin: Propyläen, 2010), 27.

174 “first great step towards the economic programme”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., Doc. 636, 814–815, Schnurre Memorandum, February 26, 1940.

175 “a door to the East opened wide”: Gustav Hilger and Alfred G. Meyer, The Incompatible Allies: A Memoir-History of German-Soviet Relations, 1918–1941 (New York: Macmillan, 1953), 317.

175 Soviets also ordered ten single-seat Heinkel He-100 aircraft: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., Doc. 607, 763–764, “Economic Agreement,” February 11 1940.

175 various types of bombs and ammunition: D. A. Sobolev and D. B. Khazanov, “Heinkel He-100 for the USSR,” Aviation of World War II, www.airpages.ru/eng/ru/he100_2.shtml.

175 including plants for coal hydrogenation, vulcanization: See DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., Doc. 607, 762–769, “Economic Agreement,” and Doc. 636, 814–817, Schnurre Memorandum.

176 nearly twice what construction had cost: German offer of 152 million reichsmarks is in Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., 100; construction cost of Lützow is given as 83.59 million Reichmarks in Erich Gröner, German Warships, 1815–1945 (London: Conway Maritime, 1990), 1:65.

176 “to be delivered for completion in the USSR”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., Doc. 607, 763, “Economic Agreement.”

176 “not acceptable from a strictly commercial point of view”: Quote from Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., 115.

177 peaking at 37 million RM in December: Statistics quoted in ibid., Table 1.6, 192.

177 thereby avoiding the problem areas: Philbin, op. cit., 48.

177 peak at nearly ten times that in September: Statistics quoted in Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., Table 1.5, 191.

177 German exports to the USSR of 242 million RM: Statistics quoted in Heinrich Schwendemann, “German-Soviet Economic Relations at the Time of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, 1939–1941,” in Cahiers du Monde Russe 36, nos. 1–2 (January–June 1995): 176.

177 amounted to over 60 percent of monthly totals: See statistics quoted in Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., Table 4.1, 207. The average monthly percentage for July through December 1940 for German exports to the Soviet Union is 67.6 percent of the total.

178 “Guderian’s tanks operated largely on Soviet petrol”: Nikolai Tolstoy, Stalin’s Secret War (London: Cape, 1981), 188, quoted in Andrew and Gordievsky, op. cit., 202.

178 similar figure for grain of 103,000 tons: Statistics quoted in Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., Table 3.2, 202, and Musial, op. cit., 28–29.

178 last prewar orders were being filled: Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., 207.

178 less than 1 percent of German GDP: Statistics quoted in ibid., Table 4.1, 207, and Mark Harrison, ed., The Economics of World War II (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 10.

178 less than import totals from the USSR: Statistics quoted in Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., Table 1.1, 187.

178 nearly 53 percent of the USSR’s total exports: Zeidler in Wegner, op. cit., 110.

179 Soviet exports in the other direction fell short: Statistics quoted in Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., Tables 1.3 and 1.4, 189–190.

179 functioning prototype jet engine by 1938: These were the work of engineering designers Aleksandr Moskalyev and Arkhip Liul’ka, respectively. On the latter, see Mark Harrison, ed., Guns and Rubles: The Defense Industry in the Stalinist State (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 216–217.

179 even overfulfilled by the middle of 1941: Mark Harrison, Soviet Planning in Peace and War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 30–31.

180 import from Germany of 117 metal-processing tools: Musial, op. cit., 36–40.

180 nearly 20 million rubles were spent on machinery: Ibid., 53, 54.

181 Total oil supplies from the Soviet Union: Statistics quoted in Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., Tables 3.1 and 3.2, 201–202; and Heinrich Hassmann, Oil in the Soviet Union (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1953), Table 37, 148.

181 confiscated around 1 million tons of French oil stocks: Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., 124, 130n7.

181 Romania supplied over four times that amount: Dietrich Eichholtz, War for Oil: The Nazi Quest for an Oil Empire (Washington, DC: Potomac, 2012), 30.

181 less than 3 percent of Soviet annual production: Statistics quoted in Harrison, Soviet Planning, op. cit., Appendix 2, 253.

181 over thirteen times the total Soviet figure: DGFP, Series D, Vol. VIII, op. cit., Doc. 481, 564.

182 projected at around 9,000 tons per month: Burton Klein, Germany’s Economic Preparedness for War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953), 58.

182 would barely ease the shortage: Statistics quoted in ibid., 45; Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., Table 3.3, 203.

182 target production of 25,000 tons per annum: Bernd C. Wagner, IG Auschwitz: Zwangsarbeit und Vernichtung von Häftlingen des Lagers Monowitz, 1941–1945 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2000), 39.

182 plant would consume some 600 million RM: Wagner, op. cit., 281–282.

182 “Buna is as large as a city”: Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity (London: Pocket Books, 1996), 72.

183 bring home from abroad: See Roger Moorhouse, Berlin at War: Life and Death in Hitler’s Germany (London: Bodley Head, 2010), 74–99.

183 reliant on supplies from the Soviet Union: Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., Tables 3.5 and 5.1, 205, 210.

183 German participant described simply as “chicanery”: Ibid., 125.

183 “The negotiations were marked”: Hilger and Meyer, op. cit., 317.

184 “personal intervention of Stalin to prevent”: Andor Hencke, Die deutsch-sowjetischen Beziehungen zwischen 1932 und 1941, unpublished protocol held at the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, MA 1300/2, 32.

184 ordered that no further difficulties were to be made: Yakovlev in Bialer, op. cit., 119.

184 “The Russians are providing us”: Elke Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Part 1 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1998), 8:240, entry for July 27, 1940.

185 resell much of it at a healthy profit: See Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., 116, 120n80.

185 risen by 75 percent to 5.5 million RM: Statistics quoted in ibid., Tables 2.1 and 2.2, 195.

185 Soviet supplies for the month dropped: Ibid., 135–136.

185 unpredictable economic partnership with Moscow: Zeidler in Wegner, op. cit., 108.

186 Prinz Eugen had been completed: Berezhkov, op. cit., 90–91.

186 “raised a rumpus”: Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (London: André Deutsch, 1971), 114.

186 export trade in foodstuffs and fuel: Ericson, Feeding the German Eagle, op. cit., 125, 130n24.

187 would be reduced by two-thirds: Ibid., 126.

187 become “Germany’s tail”: Gabriel Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), 24.

187 “moral embargo” on trade: Zeidler in Wegner, op. cit., 103.

187 German military success had been a “great surprise”: Quoted in Gorodetsky, op. cit., 16.

188 poisoning already fraught relations as it went: See Bronis J. Kaslas, “The Lithuanian Strip in Soviet-German Secret Diplomacy, 1939–1941,” Journal of Baltic Studies 4, no. 3 (1973): 211–225.

188 “compensation” for historic Soviet losses at Romanian hands: Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 55.

188 Black Sea was potentially little more than a Soviet lake: This aspect is well covered in Gorodetsky, op. cit., 23–47.

188 “we would have been helpless”: A transcript of the Hitler-Mannerheim discussion is in Ahti Jäntti and Marion Holtkamp, eds., Schicksalschwere Zeiten: Marschall Mannerheim und die deutsch-finnischen Beziehung 1939–1945 (Berlin, 1997), 76–87. Translated from the German by the author.

189 memorandum was something like a warning shot: DGFP, Series D, Vol. X (London, 1957), Doc. 13, 12–13.

190 “Intoxicated by victory, the German Government”: Quoted in Gorodetsky, op. cit., 56.

190 Red Navy training detail should be permitted to serve: Philbin, op. cit., 122–125.

191 vessel’s German origins were not mentioned: “Istoriya boevich korablei,” Izvestia, October 13, 1940, 1.

191 “delimitation of mutual spheres of influence”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. IX, 291–297.

191 relations between the two would thereby be improved: Ibid, 353–354.

191 “The main topic of the negotiations”: Quoted in Gorodetsky, op. cit., 58.

CHAPTER 7

193 a special “European-designed” train: Gustav Hilger and Alfred G. Meyer, The Incompatible Allies: A Memoir-History of German-Soviet Relations, 1918–1941 (New York: Macmillan, 1953), 322.

193 “excessive secrecy and stupid subordination”: Ibid., 322.

194 “it was not concern for our comfort”: Valentin Berezhkov, History in the Making: Memoirs of World War Two Diplomacy (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1983), 19.

195 induce some sympathetic Berliners to join in: Paul Schmidt, Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne (Wiesbaden, DE: Aula, 1986), 514. This is disputed by eyewitnesses and consequently misreported by historians. Hitler’s interpreter Paul Schmidt recalls that only the “Presentation March” was played and that the “Internationale” was avoided, for fear that communist Berliners might be tempted to join in. Soviet interpreter Valentin Berezhkov, meanwhile, claims that the Soviet anthem was played. See Berezhkov, History, op. cit., 20. Newsreel footage available online shows the “Presentation March” clearly being played, so on that basis I consider Schmidt’s account to be more reliable.

195 uncharacteristic terseness in his diary as “cool”: Elke Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, Part 1 (Munich: K. G. Saur, 1998), 8:416.

195 party functionaries organized cheering and flag waving: Schmidt, Statist, op. cit., 515. It is also referenced in the edited English edition of the memoir; Paul Schmidt, Hitler’s Interpreter (New York: Heinemann, 1951), 209.

195 “could not have known the weather in advance”: Henry W. Flannery, Assignment to Berlin (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1942), 37.

196 to greet the Soviet minister: Karl-Heinz Janßen, “Wir müssen Freunde bleiben,” Die Zeit, June 14, 1991.

196 French cinema audiences learned more: The contemporary French newsreel of Molotov’s arrival is 2'47", whereas the German version is only 2'13". See http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=2dPLEOC-uUo&NR=1 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzanQARfV2Q.

196 no recollection of his arrival in Berlin: Felix Chuev and Albert Resis, ed., Molotov Remembers: Inside Kremlin Politics (Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993), 16–17.

196 After riding through the “half-empty streets”: Berezhkov, History, op. cit., 21.

196 former diplomat Willibald von Dirksen: Ernst A. Busche, Bellevue (Leipzig, DE, 2011), 105–134.

196 “A long avenue of limes”: Berezhkov, History, op. cit., 21.

197 some dared to wave: Ibid., 21–22.

197 “on a broader basis” through a “demarcation”: Ribbentrop letter quoted in Rudolf von Ribbentrop, Mein Vater: Joachim von Ribbentrop, Erlebnisse und Erinnerungen (Graz, AT: Ares, 2013), 318.

197 “go about its business” undisturbed: Albert Seaton, Stalin as Warlord (London: Batsford, 1976), 94.

198 The first meeting was held: Not, as is sometimes maintained, in the Reich Chancellery or the Bellevue Palace. See Schmidt, Interpreter, op. cit., 210.

198 rarely allowed his poker face to slip: Schmidt, Statist, op. cit., 516.

198 Germany, he said, was “extraordinarily strong”: Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918–1945 (hereafter “DGFP”), Series D, Vol. XI (London, 1961), 533, Ribbentrop-Molotov meeting, November 12, 1940.

199 “in the long run the most advantageous access”: Ibid., 533–537.

199 “the ideas which the Führer”: Ibid., 539.

200 break for a late luncheon: Ibid., 541.

200 “keeping his powder dry”: Schmidt, Interpreter, op. cit., 213.

200 “Two tall blond SS men”: Berezhkov, History, op. cit., 23.

200 “still without a word”: Ibid., 23.

201 a test of mettle: Richard Overy, The Dictators (London: Allen Lane, 2004), 20.

201 Hitler’s “surprisingly gracious and friendly manner”: Quoted in Gabriel Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), 74.

201 Hitler outlined Germany’s viewpoints: DGFP, Series D, Vol. XI, 544.

201 “intolerable and unjust” situation: Chuev and Resis, op. cit., 15.

201 “he wanted the i’s dotted”: Schmidt, Statist, op. cit., 519.

202 boundaries of the so-called Greater East Asian sphere: DGFP, Series D, Vol. XI, 548.

202 “The questions hailed down on Hitler”: Schmidt, Interpreter, op. cit., 520.

202 Hitler was “meekness and politeness itself”: Berezhkov, History, op. cit., 25; Schmidt, Statist, op. cit., 520.

202 “in view of a possible air raid alarm”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. XI, 548–549.

203 People had been shot for less: Valentin Berezhkov, At Stalin’s Side (New York: Carol, 1994), 157–158.

203 “tripping up” Hitler’s deputy: Chuev and Resis, op. cit., 20.

203 “It goes without saying”: Ibid., 16.

203 fundamental basis of Soviet-German relations: “Perepiska V. M. Molotova so I. V. Stalinym. Noiabr 1940g,” Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, no. 9 (1992): 18, quoted in Aleksandr M. Nekrich, Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German-Soviet Relations, 1922–1941 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 199.

204 “Our association with Moscow must be governed”: Fröhlich, op. cit., 8:418.

204 stationing German troops in Finland: The troops in question were predominantly located in supply bases along the route leading to the northern tip of German-occupied Norway.

204 “not a word in the agreements”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. XI, 550–553.

205 “no power on earth which could oppose”: Ibid., 554.

205 in her dealings with the Baltic states: Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, ed., The Halder War Diary, 1939–1945 (London: Greenhill, 1988), 282.

205 “a strain on German-Russian relations”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. XI, 556.

205 “solution of these problems”: Ibid., 558–559.

205 “Let’s divide the whole world”: Chuev and Resis, op. cit., 18.

206 Bulgaria had requested any such guarantee: DGFP, Series D, Vol. XI, 559–560.

206 “she would not need the Straits for that”: Ibid., 561.

206 “the main event”: Schmidt, Statist, op. cit., 523.

206 “I persisted. I wore him down”: Chuev and Resis, op. cit., 16.

206 “the main issues”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. XI, 562.

207 said his good-byes, and left: Berezhkov, History, op. cit., 42. A similar version of this exchange is related in the record of postwar interviews with Molotov; Chuev and Resis, op. cit.

207 “Under Lenin’s gaze”: Schmidt, Statist, op. cit., 524.

208 respect one another’s spheres of influence: DGFP, Series D, Vol. XI, 564–565.

208 in line with Soviet interests: Ibid., 565.

208 “to find a way out of the difficulties”: Quoted in Ribbentrop, op. cit., 319.

209 coming back to his “decisive question”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. XI, 566–569.

209 “Though not invited to join in the discussion”: Winston S. Churchill, Their Finest Hour (New York: Bantam Books, 1949), 516.

209 center of the city was targeted: Berlin Air Raid records, reproduced in Wieland Giebel and Sven Felix Kellerhof, eds., Als die Tage zu Nächten wurden (Berlin: Giebel Verlag, 2003), 217.

209 “why are we in this shelter”: The official DGFP record of the discussion makes no mention of this last exchange, and neither does the memoir of the interpreter present, Gustav Hilger. First mention of it comes, via Stalin, from Churchill, op. cit., 518. It is considered by some to be apocryphal.

209 to see his Soviet counterpart off: Berezhkov, History, op. cit., 42.

209 found it difficult to interrupt Hitler: Sergo Beria, Beria, My Father: Inside Stalin’s Kremlin (London: Duckworth, 2001), 63.

210 “swollen-headed and puffed-up”: Gorodetsky, op. cit., 76.

210 ought to have been more accommodating: Beria, op. cit., 63.

210 “some hope of action on the part of Russia”: Quoted in Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964), 113.

210 “destruction of the power of Russia”: Ibid., 135.

211 “no carefully thought-out plan”: Ibid., 135.

211 “If the plan succeeds”: Jacobsen, op. cit., 260.

211 “It is argued that without liquidating”: Ernst von Weizsäcker, quoted in Gorodetsky, op. cit., 70.

211 “Political discussions for the purpose of clarifying”: H. R. Trevor-Roper, ed., Hitler’s War Directives, 1939–1945 (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1964), 86.

212 “pushed into the background”: Jacobsen, op. cit., 286.

213 “appreciate a statement of the German view”: DGFP, Series D, Vol. XI, 714–715.

213 “We have already achieved a lot together”: Quoted in Ribbentrop, op. cit., 320.

214 Berlin expressing its “astonishment”: Quoted in Gorodetsky, op. cit., 85.

216 with a fistfight breaking out: “Fresh Tension Reported,” New York Times, January 1, 1941, 4.

216 “to crush Soviet Russia”: Trevor-Roper, op. cit., 95.

CHAPTER 8

217 would crown his career: See William Brumfield, Landmarks of Russian Architecture (Australia: Gordon & Breach, 1997), 230

218 British raids on Berlin and the Ruhr: Pravda, December 22, 1940, 5.

218 touring positions on the French coast: Pravda, December 25, 1940, 6; December 28, 1940, 5.

218 expected to attend: The list of participants for the conference is available at http://militera.lib.ru/docs/da/sov-new-1940/90.html.

219 “Results were generally satisfactory”: General M. I. Kazakov, quoted in Seweryn Bialer, ed., Stalin and His Generals: Soviet Military Memoirs of World War II (London: Souvenir Press, 1970), 139.

219 revealed “major shortcomings”: Text of Meretskov’s presentation is at http://militera.lib.ru/docs/da/sov-new-1940/02.html and Russian State Military Archive (hereafter “RSMA”), f. 4, Op. 18, 55, l. 3–45.

219 “energetic, decisive and bold offensive operations”: RSMA, f. 4. Op. 18, 56, l. 1–52.

220 recognizing the “chief trends”: Georgy Zhukov, Reminiscences and Reflections (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1985), 1:220–221.

220 “exaggerating the success of foreign armies”: RSMA, f. 4. Op. 18, 56, l. 85–92.

220 “like a kennel of mad dogs”: Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (London: André Deutsch, 1971), 145–146.

220 “The Use of Mechanised Forces in Offensive Operations”: RSMA, f. 4, Op. 18, 59, l. 1–41.

221 “Defence is not the decisive means”: Quoted in Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 71.

221 “boundless loyalty to the party of Lenin”: The text of Timoshenko’s speech is at http://militera.lib.ru/docs/da/sov-new-1940/88.html.

221 anonymous tip about the Führer’s aggressive intentions: Gabriel Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion: Stalin and the German Invasion of Russia (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), 124.

221 “War will be declared”: Quoted in ibid., 125.

221 “completed its full deployment”: Ibid., 125–126.

221 he had become “unhinged”: Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006), 302.

222 described antitank artillery as “rubbish”: Ibid., 295.

222 “For the time being, we should refrain”: Zhukov, op. cit., 224.

222 “victory in war will be won”: Ibid., 224.

222 “The government carries out a program”: Quoted in Bialer, op. cit., 144.

223 possible that this stayed his hand: Sebag Montefiore, ibid., 296.

223 establishment of three front headquarters: Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov (London: Icon, 2012), 91–92, 97.

224 outline of the “special tasks”: Quoted in H. R. Trevor-Roper, ed., Hitler’s War Directives, 1939–1945 (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1964), 129, and http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/12–10–45.asp, 339.

224 Hitler would have to be mad: Albert Seaton, Stalin as Warlord (London: Batsford, 1976), 94.

225 drag the politicians in Berlin unwillingly into war: Ibid., 95.

225 “If we show restraint”: Valentin Berezhkov, At Stalin’s Side (New York: Carol, 1994), 53.

225 a potentially provocative gesture: Zhukov, op. cit., 234.

225 twenty-eight mechanized brigades: John Erickson, The Soviet High Command: A Military-Political History, 1918–1941 (London: Macmillan, 1962), 557.

225 a limited call-up of reservists: Zhukov, op. cit., 234.

225 understrength and ill supplied: Roberts, Zhukov, op. cit., 92.

226 requiring the work of around 140,000 laborers: Neil Short, The Stalin and Molotov Lines: Soviet Western Defences, 1928–41 (Oxford, UK: Osprey, 2008), 38.

226 casemates of the new fortifications: David Glantz, The Military Strategy of the Soviet Union: A History (London: F. Cass, 1993), 75.

226 former chief of staff Boris Shaposhnikov: Gorodetsky, op. cit., 242.

226 total number built in the decade before 1939: Robert E. Tarleton, “What Really Happened to the Stalin Line?” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 6, no. 1 (1993): 43.

226 the historic road to Moscow: Short, op. cit., 14.

226 “overwhelmingly” such defenses were “not militarily ready”: Quoted in Gorodetsky, op. cit., 242.

227 describing negotiations as “quite cordial”: Quoted in Edward E. Ericson III, Feeding the German Eagle: Soviet Economic Aid to Nazi Germany, 1933–1941 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999), 147.

227 drink as much of the revised grain quota: Ibid., 149.

228 “the largest contract ever between two states”: Quoted in Manfred Zeidler, “German-Soviet Economic Relations During the Hitler-Stalin Pact,” in From Peace to War, edited by Bernd Wegner (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1997), 108, 109.

228 “solid foundation for an honourable and great peace: Quoted in Ericson, op. cit., 160.

228 given priority only to Wehrmacht orders: Heinrich Schwendemann, “German-Soviet Economic Relations at the Time of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, 1939–1941,” Cahiers du Monde Russe 37, nos. 1–2 (January–June 1995): 167.

228 the three years prior to the pact: Ziedler in Wegner, op. cit., 110.

229 shipments to the USSR were not to be publicized: Ericson, op. cit., 160.

229 used for stationing Axis troops: J. B. Hoptner, Yugoslavia in Crisis: 1934–1941 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), 240.

230 in support of an alliance with the Soviet Union: Gorodetsky, op. cit., 142.

230 “with merciless brutality”: Quoted in Trevor-Roper, op. cit., 107.

230 “waging war with bits of paper”: Frederick Taylor, trans. and ed., The Goebbels Diaries, 1939–1941 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1982), 307.

231 “peaceful and friendly relations”: Text of the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact is available at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/s1.asp.

231 a “diplomatic blitzkrieg”: Quoted in Gorodetsky, op. cit., 199.

231 “We’ve been friends with you”: Quoted in Sebag Montefiore, op. cit., 308.

231 “It seems that Stalin has no desire”: Taylor, op. cit., 315.

232 “threat to the general peace of the world”: Text of the Anti-Comintern Pact is available at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/tri1.asp.

232 national tasks must have priority: Ivo Banac, ed., The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 1933–1949 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 155–156.

232 coming May Day celebrations: Gorodetsky, op. cit., 200.

232 seventy-two elsewhere in Europe: Z. Medvedev and R. Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin (London: I. B. Tauris, 2006), 222.

232 eighty recorded German violations of Soviet airspace: David E. Murphy, What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of Barbarossa (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), 170.

233 German hegemony over the entire continent: The speech is put together from various eyewitness accounts, such as Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters: 1939–45 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964), 160–162, and Nicolaus von Below, At Hitler’s Side: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Luftwaffe Adjutant, 1937–1945 (London: Greenhill Books, 2004), 91–93. An interesting assessment of the various accounts is given in J. Förster and E. Mawdsley, “Hitler and Stalin in Perspective: Secret Speeches on the Eve of Barbarossa,” War in History 11, no. 1 (2004).

233 “an Asiatic way”: Quoted in Förster and Mawdsley, op. cit., 76.

233 it was to be exterminated: Below, op. cit., 92.

233 “arming on a grand scale”: Ibid., 92.

234 a catastrophe for the Nazi leadership: Pavel Sudoplatov, Special Tasks (London: Warner, 1994), 117.

234 “absolute unity in the work”: Medvedev and Medvedev, op. cit., 218.

234 “We possess a modern army”: M. J. Broekmeyer, Stalin, the Russians, and Their War: 1941–1945 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 21.

234 is very different from the way it was”: Vyacheslav Malyshev, quoted in Medvedev and Medvedev, op. cit., 219.

234 “There is no invincible army in the world”: is very different from the way it was: Quoted in Broekmeyer, op. cit., 21.

235 “we must act offensively”: Quoted in Förster and Mawdsley, op. cit., 101–102.

235 “This general has understood nothing”: Quoted in Broekmeyer, op. cit., 22.

235 addressing the ranks of academy graduates: Pravda, May 6, 1941, 1.

236 sometimes unreliable eyewitness accounts: The best analysis of the speech and the various sources is in Förster and Mawdsley, op. cit., 61–103.

236 planning a preemptive strike against Hitler: A theory popularized by the Russian author Viktor Suvorov.

236 vital component in Stalin’s defensive armory: See, for instance, Gorodetsky, op. cit., 208.

236 “been prepared for export”: Medvedev and Medvedev, op. cit., 221.

237 “It is all too stupid”: Taylor, op. cit., 364.

237 what the Hess mission might signify: See Lothar Kettenacker, “Mishandling a Spectacular Event: The Rudolf Hess Affair,” in Flight from Reality: Rudolf Hess and His Mission to Scotland, 1941, edited by David Stafford (London: Pimlico, 2002), 19–37.

237 the USSR was “completely hamstrung”: Cadogan quoted in David Dilks, ed. The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 1938–1945 (London: Cassell, 1971), 382.

237 fatally undermine the Nazi-Soviet Pact: Kettenacker, op. cit., passim.

238 “strangled in its cradle”: Robert Service, Spies and Commissars: The Bolshevik Revolution and the West (London: Macmillan, 2011), 184.

238 Hess’s flight being unauthorized by Berlin: Khrushchev, op. cit., 116.

238 “When Churchill sent us his personal warning”: Memoir of Yury Chadayev, quoted in S. Berthon and J. Potts, Warlords: An Extraordinary Re-creation of World War II Through the Eyes and Minds of Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin (New York: Da Capo Press, 2006), 72.

239 The imminent threat, Stalin concluded: On the Soviet reaction to the Hess story, see John Erickson, “Rudolf Hess: A Post-Soviet Postscript,” in Stafford, op. cit., 38–60.

239 “Don’t you see?”: Zhukov, op. cit., 268.

239 on May 5, it was estimated at 102 to 107 divisions: Roberts, Zhukov, op. cit., 91.

239 “in fear and trepidation”: Quoted in Seaton, op. cit., 95.

239 massing on the Soviet border: Gorodetsky, op. cit., 244.

239 “necessary not to give the initiative”: Quoted in Roberts, Zhukov, op. cit., 93.

239 even saw the Zhukov Plan at all: See, for instance, ibid.

239 brought up to combat strength: Short, op. cit., 39, 41.

240 “Train after train began to arrive”: Zhukov, op. cit., 263–264.

240 new contracts were agreed in April: Ericson, op. cit., 170.

240 backed up on the Soviet side of the frontier: Schwendemann, op. cit., 168.

240 “Is that all?”: On Kuznetzov, see Bialer, op. cit., 191.

241 Soviet desire to appease Berlin: Ericson, op. cit., 172.

241 “stop up his ears”: Quoted in ibid., 162.

241 “cold-blooded blackmailer”: Quoted in Robert Service, Stalin (London: Macmillan, 2008), 405.

241 “We must act”: Taylor, op. cit., 414.

242 “Poles and Jews” had already been “resettled”: Alfred Gottwaldt and Diana Schulle, Die “Judendeportationen” aus dem Deutschen Reich 1941–1945 (Wiesbaden: Marixverlag, 2005), 51.

242 officially declared Judenfrei (Jew free): Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, 1939–1942 (London: Arrow, 2005), 90.

242 difficulties forced a halt to the operation: Saul Friedländer, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939–1945 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007), 139.

243 “You can imagine what our prospects are”: Quoted in Herbert Rosenkranz, Verfolgung und Selbstbehauptung: Die Juden in Österreich, 1938–1945 (Vienna: Herold, 1978), 262.

243 “The stunning thing about the Bucharest bloodbath”: Quoted in Friedländer, op. cit., 166.

244 That territory was the Soviet Union: Browning, op. cit., 102–103.

244 those who had been arrested: Dumitru Nimigeanu, Însemnările unui ţăran deportat din Bucovina (Bucharest: Vestala, 2006), 26.

244 nobody recognized him: Testimony given in K. Pelékis, Genocide: Lithuania’s Threefold Tragedy (Germany: Venta Verlag, 1949), 47.

244 “Not only did they interrogate you”: Nimigeanu, op. cit., 31–32.

245 some of the groups believed to constitute a “pollution”: The Guzevičius order, November 28, 1940, quoted in Select Committee on Communist Aggression (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1954), 3:470–472.

245 list of so-called unreliable people: Arvydas Anušauskas, Terror and Crimes Against Humanity: The First Soviet Occupation, 1940–1941 (Vilnius: Margi raštai, 2006), 72.

246 Ina, was only five-years-old: Latvian State Archive, Fond No. 1987, No. 1-Madona, Case No. 16272, 2. With thanks to Nauris Larmanis for supplying the documentation and translation.

246 entire process from arrest to entrainment: The text of the “Serov Instructions” is quoted in Aleksandras Shtromas, Totalitarianism and the Prospects for World Order: Closing the Door on the Twentieth Century (Oxford, UK: Lexington, 2003), 292.

247 “You are a class enemy”: Testimony of Herta Kaļiņina, in Astrid Sics, ed., We Sang Through Tears: Stories of Survival in Siberia (Riga: Janis Roze, 1999), 72.

247 “We had to get ready so quickly”: Testimony quoted in K. Kukk and T. Raun, eds., Soviet Deportations in Estonia: Impact and Legacy (Tallinn: Tartu University Press, 2007), 165.

247 “The vehicle began to roll”: Tadeusz Piotrowski, ed., The Polish Deportees of World War Two: Recollections of Removal to the Soviet Union and Dispersal Throughout the World (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004), 30.

247 guards just laughed at her: Testimony of Lidija Vilnis, in Sics, op. cit., 91.

248 “Natural functions had to be taken care”: Sandra Kalniete, With Dance Shoes in Siberian Snows (Riga: Latvijas Okupācijas muzeja biedrība, 2006), 62.

248 “I remember a lot of soldiers”: Nicolae Enciu, “12–13 iunie. Primele deportari staliniste,” Art-Emis, http://www.art-emis.ro/istorie/1642–12–13-iunie-primele-deportari-staliniste.html

248 “Based on what we have seen so far”: Testimony quoted in Kukk and Raun, op. cit., 204.

249 “The dead were buried by the railroad”: Testimony of Herta Kaļiņina, in Sics, op. cit., 73.

249 “The entire experience left me numb”: Testimony quoted in Kukk and Raun, op. cit., 167.

249 dark blood at his feet: Testimony of Melānija Vanaga, in Sics, op. cit., 60.

249 inhospitable corners of the Soviet interior: Statistics quoted in Romuald Misiunas and Rein Taagepera, The Baltic States: Years of Dependence, 1940–1980 (London: C. Hurst, 1983), 42.

249 29,839 were deported from Bessarabia: The Commission for Study and Appreciation of the Totalitarian Communist Regime in Moldova, “Moldovenii sub teroarea bolşevică,” 2010, http://http://www.scribd.com/doc/51121384/Moldovenii-sub-teroarea-bolşevică, 40.

250 “I did not need any warnings”: Erickson, op. cit., 574.

250 “the pivot of the German-Soviet collaboration”: Quoted in Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War (London: Penguin, 1989), 452.

250 “according to the evidence in the possession”: Quoted in John Lukacs, June 1941: Hitler and Stalin (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 78–79.

251 very much “a last resort”: Felix Chuev, ed., Molotov Remembers (Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993), 31.

251 origin of the fable: Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, Berlin Underground, 1938–1945 (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1947), 67–68.

251 “This is no source, but a disinformer”: Sebag Montefiore, op. cit., 313.

252 “If you’re going to provoke the Germans”: Quoted in Gorodetsky, op. cit., 299.

252 previously stood to attention and saluted: Fediuninskii in Bialer, op. cit., 241.

252 since the province had been lost: Mihai Sebastian, Journal, 1935–1944 (London, 2003), 369.

252 forty-seven different sources: Details quoted in an interview with historian Arsan Martirosyan in Komsomolskaya Pravda, June 20, 2011, http://www.kp.ru/daily/25706/906806.

253 ordered Liskow shot for his disinformation: Wolfgang Leonhard, “Wer war Alfred Liskow, und was hatte er mit Dimitroff zu tun?” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, no. 278, November 29, 2000.

253 “there was no reason for the German government to be dissatisfied”: Gorodetsky, op. cit., 309.

253 could only shrug in response: See ibid., 311–313, and Sebag Montefiore, op. cit., 323–324.

CHAPTER 9

255 discuss “important business”: John Erickson, The Road to Stalingrad (London, 1993), 115–116.

256 even knew what was going on: Valentin Berezhkov, quoted in Seweryn Bialer, ed., Stalin and His Generals: Soviet Military Memoirs of World War II (London: Souvenir Press, 1970), 217–218.

256 “lay the fate and future”: Max Domarus, Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen 1932–1945 (Wiesbaden, DE: Süddeutscher Verlag, 1973), 8:1731–1732; English text from New York Times, June 23, 1941.

256 “I feel totally free”: Fred Taylor, ed., The Goebbels Diaries, 1939–1941 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1982), 424–425.

257 a “smile of satisfaction”: John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries, 1939–1955 (London, 1985), 481.

257 two discussed what was to follow: Anthony Eden, The Eden Memoirs: The Reckoning (London, 1965), 270.

257 “changed conviction into certainty”: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, abr. ed. (London: Cassell, 1959), 455.

257 Lermontov’s famous poem about the Battle of Borodino: Anatoly Liberman, ed., Mikhail Lermontov: Major Poetical Works (London: Croom Helm, 1983), 101.

257 looming anniversary of the poet’s death: Alexander Nekrich, 1941 22 iiunia (Moskva : Pamiatniki istoricheskoĭ mysli, 1995), 204.

257 “Permission not granted”: Constantine Pleshakov, Stalin’s Folly (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005), 6.

258 “Has anyone called?”: Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov, quoted in Bialer, op. cit., 197.

258 “terrorism, sabotage, espionage, Trotskyism”: Rodric Braithwaite, Moscow 1941 (London: Profile Books, 2006), 79.

258 confounding his expectations: Ivo Banac, ed., The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 1933–1949 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 166.

259 “Pobeda budet za nami”: Quoted in Catherine Merridale, Ivan’s War: The Red Army, 1939–1945 (London: Faber, 2005), 77; Geoffrey Roberts, Molotov: Stalin’s Cold Warrior (Washington, DC: Potomac, 2012), 51. Text is also available at http://www.emersonkent.com/speeches/our_cause_is_just.htm.

259 “a bit flustered”: Quoted in Braithwaite, op. cit., 75.

259 “hold firm” and “destroy” the enemy: Quoted in David Glantz, Barbarossa: Hitler’s Invasion of Russia, 1941 (Stroud, UK: Tempus, 2001), 242–243.

259 soldier died every two seconds that day: Pleshakov, op. cit., 130.

260 two tents, a few tables, and a telephone: Erickson, op. cit., 129.

260 “The only thing that was left”: Quoted in Merridale, op. cit., 76.

260 destroyed nearly 1,500 Soviet aircraft: Christer Bergström, Barbarossa: The Air Battle, July–December 1941 (London: Ian Allan Publishing, 2007), 20.

260 aircraft were parked in neat rows: Nicolaus von Below, At Hitler’s Side: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Luftwaffe Adjutant, 1937–1945 (London: Greenhill Books, 2004), 107.

260 sent him into an impotent rage: Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003), 326.

260 250 miles from their starting positions: Glantz, op. cit., 36.

261 twenty-three times without destroying it: Steven J. Zaloga, T-34/76 Medium Tank, 1941–1945 (Oxford, UK: Osprey, 1994), 12.

261 “The KV-1 and KV-2 were really something!”: Account from the 1st Panzer Division, quoted in Paul Carell, Hitler Moves East: 1941–1943 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1964), 23.

261 “tank terror” among Wehrmacht troops: Zaloga, op. cit., 12.

261 exploit their temporary advantage: Stephen Zaloga and James Grandsen, Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of World War Two (London, 1984), 127.

261 strongpoints that briefly offered resistance: R. Tarleton, “What Really Happened to the Stalin Line?” (Part II), Journal of Slavic Military Studies 6, no. 1 (March 1993): 51.

261 accompanying bunkers and antitank earthworks: J. E. Kaufmann and Robert M. Jurga, Fortress Europe: European Fortifications of World War Two (London: Greenhill Books, 1999), 362.

262 “The fortifications at Brest were out-of-date”: Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (London: Michael Joseph, 1952), 146–147.

262 a full month after the beginning of Barbarossa: Christian Ganzer and Alena Paškovič, “‘Heldentum, Tragik, Tapferkeit’: Das Museum der Verteidigung der Brester Festung,” Osteuropa 60, no. 12 (2010): 81–96.

262 shared a platform in Brest in 1939: Glantz, op. cit., 80.

263 indeed running on Soviet fuel: Total German oil stocks in the 1939–1941 period amounted to around 8 million tons, of which the USSR had supplied approximately 1 million.

263 “German soldiers fed by Ukrainian grain”: Edward E. Ericson III, Feeding the German Eagle: Soviet Economic Aid to Nazi Germany, 1933–1941 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999), 179.

263 “In the first days of the war”: Alexander Yakovlev in Bialer, op. cit., 170.

264 bow first, in the coal harbor: Tobias R. Philbin III, The Lure of Neptune: German-Soviet Naval Collaboration and Ambitions, 1919–1941 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1994), 128.

264 “you only have to kick in the door”: Quoted in Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 85.

264 inimical toward the idea of national independence: Romuald Misiunas and Rein Taagepera, The Baltic States: Years of Dependence, 1940–1990 (London: C. Hurst, 1983), 48.

264 “The German troops were at first met”: Boris Takk in Ene Kõresaar, ed., Soldiers of Memory: World War II and Its Aftermath in Estonian Post-Soviet Life Stories (New York: Rodopi, 2011), 188.

264 turned their guns on their former masters: Valdis Lumans, Latvia in World War II (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006), 155.

264 “no one was saying anything”: On L’vov, see Merridale, op. cit., 83; on Kovel, see Alexander Werth, Russia at War, 1941–1945 (London: Pan, 1964), 149.

265 the terror, finally being aired: Merridale, op. cit., 79–81.

265 “At last we can breathe freely”: Quoted in Braithwaite, op. cit., 77.

265 “I was astonished to detect no hatred”: Hans von Luck, Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck (New York: Praeger, 1989), 70.

265 shot by their own troops: Braithwaite, op. cit., 85.

265 “There was no-one to help”: Merridale, op. cit., 82.

266 fled east in a horse-drawn cart: William Spahr, Stalin’s Lieutenants: A Study of Command Under Duress (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1997), 265.

266 desperately protesting his innocence: Colonel I. T. Starinov, quoted in Bialer, op. cit., 237.

267 restore the army’s martial spirit: Georgi Zhukov, Reminiscences and Reflections (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1985), 1:309; Sebag Montefiore, op. cit., 330.

267 “What is the General Staff for?: Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin’s General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov (London: Icon, 2012), 106–107.

267 cursed all the way to his dacha: Mikoyan quoted in Sebag Montefiore, op. cit., 330.

267 Soviet Union was effectively “leaderless”: See, for example, Jonathan Lewis and Phillip Whitehead, Stalin: A Time for Judgement (New York: Pantheon Books, 1990), or Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (London: HarperCollins, 1991).

267 Stalin barely stopped: Zhores A. Medvedev and Roy A. Medvedev, The Unknown Stalin (London: I. B. Tauris, 2006), 232.

268 “Why have you come?”: See, for example, Sebag Montefiore, op. cit., 332.

269 “He wound up the whole business”: Sergo Beria, Beria, My Father: Inside Stalin’s Kremlin (London: Duckworth, 2001), 51.

269 gained a “definite advantage”: An English translation of Stalin’s July 3, 1941, speech is at http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1941/410703a.html.

269 “show Moscow that something was being done”: Lieutenant General Ivan Boldin, Pavlov’s deputy commander, quoted in Werth, op. cit., 157–158.

269 “panic mongering,” “dereliction of duty,” and “cowardice”: Erickson, op. cit., 176.

269 “We are here in the dock”: Quoted in Robert Gellately, Lenin, Stalin and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe (London: Jonathan Cape, 2007), 478.

269 the person whom Stalin saw most often: Michael Parrish, The Lesser Terror: Soviet State Security, 1939–1953 (London: Praeger, 1996), 77.

270 pour encourager les autres: Ibid., 81.

270 “compile lists of those”: Karel Berkhoff, Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine Under Nazi Rule (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2004), 14.

270 or anti-Soviet activity be executed: Quoted in Bogdan Musial, Konterrevolutionäre Elemente sind zu erschießen (Berlin, 2000), 101.

270 the chaos of the blitzkrieg: Grzegorz Hruciuk, “Victims, 1939–1941: The Soviet Repressions in Eastern Poland,” in Shared History, Divided Memory: Jews and Others in Soviet-Occupied Poland, 1939–1941, edited by Elazar Barkan, Elizabeth A. Cole, and Kai Struve. Leipziger Beiträge zur Jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur (Leipzig, DE: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2007), 193–194.

271 shot and dumped in the prison yard: Report of the Estonian Historical Commission, Phase I, “The Soviet Occupation of Estonia in 1940–1941,” Estonian Institute of Historical Memory, http://www.mnemosyne.ee/hc.ee/pdf/conclusions_en_1940–1941.pdf, 14.

271 half of them could not be identified: The Rainiai Tragedy: A Forgotten Soviet War Crime (Vilnius, 2007), 12, at http://www.e-library.lt/resursai/Mokslai/LRS%20mokslininkai/V.Landsbergis/Rainiai/Rainiai_EN_Book.pdf.

271 shot in the back of the head: Romanian National Archive, f. 680, inv. 1, d. 4232, 3, f. 545–546, cited in Iulian Chifu, Basarabia sub ocupatie sovietica si tentative contemporane de revenire sub tutela Moscovei (Bucharest: Politieia-SNSPa, 2004), 86.

271 around half would not survive: Musial, op. cit., 97, 138.

271 bayonetted or battered to death: For details, see ibid., 102 passim.

271 “Blood flowed in rivers”: Ibid., 115.

271 12,000 individuals were unaccounted for: Lumans, op. cit., 138.

271 the figure of 1,000 murdered: Rainiai Tragedy, op. cit., 9.

271 a figure of 2,000 has been estimated: Estonian Historical Commission Report, op. cit., 14.

271 a figure around three times that: Hryciuk, op. cit., 183. The higher figure of 20,000 to 30,000 is given by Musial, op. cit., 138.

272 across all of the Soviet borderlands: Jan T. Gross, Revolution from Abroad (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 228.

272 “On the concrete forecourt of the petrol station”: Ernst Klee, Volker Reiss, and Willi Dressen, eds., “Schöne Zeiten” Judenmord aus der Sicht der Täter und Gaffer (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1988), 35–36.

273 played the Lithuanian national anthem: Ibid., 39.

273 opening weeks of the German-Soviet war: Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands (London: Bodley Head, 2010), 192.

273 thirty towns saw pogroms against the local Jews: Musial, op. cit., 172.

273 forced to pull down the statue of Stalin: Ibid., 177, 179.

273 “I found myself in the middle”: Quoted in ibid., 188.

273 attitude aptly described as “anticipatory obedience”: Wendy Lower, “‘Anticipatory Obedience’ and the Nazi Implementation of the Holocaust in the Ukraine: A Case Study of Central and Peripheral Forces in the Generalbezirk Zhytomyr, 1941–1944,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 16, no. 1 (2002).

274 “The attempts at self-cleansing”: Stahlecker quoted in Richard Rhodes, Masters of Death (New York: A. A. Knopf, 2002), 45.

274 12 percent of those deported by the Soviets: Geoff Swain, Between Stalin and Hitler: Class War and Race War on the Dvina (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), 40.

274 relatives killed or deported by the Soviets: Zvi Gitelman, ed., Bitter Legacy: Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 266.

274 lost his parents to an NKVD murder squad: Klee, Riess, and Dressen, op. cit., 39.

274 “The day was hot”: Andrew Ezergailis, The Holocaust in Latvia, 1941–1945 (Riga: Historical Institute of Latvia, 1996), 104.

275 their supposed collaboration with the Soviet regime: Snyder, op. cit., 194.

275 “The war against Russia was the first”: Henry W. Flannery, Assignment to Berlin (London: Joseph, 1942), 259.

276 “They were dancing in the Toll House”: Victor Klemperer, I Shall Bear Witness, 1933–1941 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998), 373.

276 “And yet we are thunderstruck”: Marie Vassiltchikov, The Berlin Diaries of Marie “Missie” Vassiltchikov: 1940–45 (London, 1985), 55.

276 “Russia has never been suited to lightning wars”: Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, Berlin Underground, 1938–1945 (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1947), 68.

276 “It is terrible that we’re at war”: Quoted in “Himmler Letters: ‘I am travelling to Auschwitz. Kisses. Your Heini,’” Daily Telegraph, January 26, 2014, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10597344/Himmler-letters-I-am-travelling-to-Auschwitz.-Kisses.-Your-Heini.html.

276 to defeat Schalke 4–3: Author interview with Leopold Gernhardt, April 2008. See also Roger Moorhouse, “The Nazi Final,” BBC History Magazine, June 2008.

277 “Our propaganda can pick up”: Andreas-Friedrich, op. cit., 68.

277 a tenfold increase from the previous month: Quoted in Heinz Kühnrich, Die KPD im Kampf gegen die faschistische Diktatur 1933–1945 (Berlin: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1987), 180.

277 “Whoever had faith in Hitler”: Quoted in Braithwaite, op. cit., 75.

278 “The Germans are civilized people”: Molotov speech quoted in Werth, op. cit., 163; vox populi quoted in Braithwaite, op. cit., 80.

278 using it to signal to German aircraft: Werth, op. cit., 177–178.

278 “a great pull-yourselves-together speech”: Ibid., 168.

278 “As long as the Germans were engaged”: Alex Danchev and Daniel Todman, eds., War Diaries, 1939–1945: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (London: Phoenix Press, 2001), 166.

279 “It will have a bad effect on America”: Nigel Nicolson, ed., Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters, 1930–1939 (London: Collins, 1966), 173.

279 “that we would stand inactively”: Churchill, op. cit., 462; Eden, op. cit., 270.

279 “3 to 4 months, possibly slightly longer”: Nicolson, op. cit., 173; Danchev and Todman, op. cit., 166.

279 within as little as six weeks: Gabriel Gorodetsky, Stafford Cripps’ Mission to Moscow, 1940–42 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 168.

280 “If a crocodile came up”: Joseph P. Lash, Roosevelt and Churchill, 1939–1941: The Partnership That Saved the West (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1975), 343.

281 “We have but one aim”: Quoted in Graham Stewart, His Finest Hours: The War Speeches of Winston Churchill (London: Quercus, 2007), 102–105.

282 “a masterpiece” according to Harold Nicolson: Nicolson, op. cit., 173.

282 “If Hitler invaded Hell”: Colville, op. cit., 480.

282 railed against his supposed hypocrisy: Richard Toye, The Roar of the Lion (London: Oxford University Press, 2013), 107–108.

282 Churchill’s speech had been “agreeably surprising”: Quoted in ibid., 108.

282 “side by side with the Soviet Union”: John Mahon, Harry Pollitt: A Biography (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1976), 269.

283 expelled en masse on charges of espionage: Lynne Olson, Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America’s Fight over World War Two, 1939–1941 (New York: Random House, 2013), 334.

283 “If we see that Germany is winning”: Quoted in ibid., 346.

284 clearly demonstrate the difference in their ranks: Ivan Maisky, Memoirs of a Soviet Ambassador: The War, 1939–1943 (London: Hutchinson, 1967), 172.

284 advanced six hundred kilometers along the road: Glantz, op. cit., 40, 45, 53.

285 “light-heartedness” of his summer suit: Maisky, op. cit., 172.

285 expect Stalin to cancel the Nazi-Soviet Pact: Anna Cienciala, “General Sikorski and the Conclusion of the Polish-Soviet Agreement of July 30, 1941: A Reassessment,” Polish Review 41, no. 4 (1996): 413.

285 soldiers still thought to be in Soviet hands: Halik Kochanski, The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War (London: Allen Lane, 2012), 166.

286 “All that is past history”: Quoted in David Dilks, ed., The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, 1938–1945 (London: Cassell, 1971), 391.

287 neither side was willing to give: Kochanski, op. cit., 167.

287 premier’s handling of the negotiations: Cienciala, op. cit., 427.

287 “we had a strong obligation”: Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3: The Grand Alliance (London: Cassell, 1950), 349.

287 “insistence and flexibility of the Soviet government”: Maisky, op. cit., 174.

287 “patient diplomacy tinged with anxiety”: Eden, op. cit., 273.

287 “persuading him to grant an immediate amnesty”: Gorodetsky, op. cit., 132.

288 postponed until subsequent negotiations: The English-language text of the agreement is at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/polsov.asp.

289 “looked down rather disapprovingly”: Colville, op. cit., 502.

EPILOGUE

291 referring to Russia as “our India”: H. R. Trevor-Roper, ed., Hitler’s Table Talk, 1941–1944 (London: Phoenix Press, 2000), 24.

291 “You yourselves know best how honestly”: Text reported by the New York Times, October 4, 1941.

292 “The partnership with the Soviet Union”: Hitler to Mussolini, June 21, 1941, quoted in R. J. Sontag and J. S. Beddie, eds., Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939–1941: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Office, ed. Raymond James Sontag and James Stuart Beddie (Washington, DC: Department of State, 1948), 351, 353.

293 “bring out as much Russian dirty linen”: Quoted in Ann Tusa and John Tusa, The Nuremberg Trial (London: Macmillan, 1983), 194.

293 “a forged document”: Exchange quoted in James Owen, Nuremberg: Evil on Trial (London: Headline Review, 2006), 250–251.

293 charge of cynicism to that of gullibility: Tusa and Tusa, op. cit., 297, 179–180.

294 any of the defendants in the dock: Ibid., 410–412.

294 into the glare of public scrutiny: The collection is available online at http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/nsr/nsr-preface.html.

294 “in league with the Hitlerites”: Sovinformburo, “Falsifiers of History” (Moscow, 1948), 6, 27, 44.

294 profit from the ensuing conflagration: Ibid., 41.

295 “Thus the foundation was laid”: Ibid., 43.

295 “one of the most audacious enterprises”: John Erickson, “How the Soviets Fought the War,” Problems of Communism (November 1963): 53.

295 brought the USSR numerous favorable consequences: Matthew P. Gallagher, The Soviet History of World War II: Myths, Memories, and Realities (New York: Praeger, 1963), 169.

295 “We weren’t fooling ourselves”: Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (London: André Deutsch, 1971), 112.

296 “Such a naïve Stalin?”: Felix Chuev and Albert Resis, ed., Molotov Remembers (Chicago: I. R. Dee, 1993), 23.

297 “Of course, there is no secret here”: Ibid., 13.

297 in memory of Stalin’s victims: Ann Imse, “Baltic Residents Form Human Chain in Defiance of Soviet Rule,” Associated Press, August 23, 1989.

298 “nationalist, extremist groups” and their “anti-Soviet agendas”: David Remnick, “Kremlin Condemns Baltic Nationalists; Soviets Warn Separatism Risks ‘Disaster,’” Washington Post, August 27, 1989.

298 existence of the secret protocol: On this, see Keiji Sato, “Die Molotow-Ribbentrop-Kommission 1989 und die Souvernäitätsansprüche post-sowjetischer sezessionistischer Territorien,” in Der Hitler-Stalin-Pakt 1939 in den Errinerungskulturen der Europäer, edited by Anna Kaminsky, Dietmar Müller, and Stefan Troebst (Göttingen, DE: Picus, 2011), 199–215.

298 “could not be the slightest doubt”: Text of the commission’s report is reproduced in Gerhart Hass, 23. August 1939. Der Hitler-Stalin-Pakt (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1990), 300–301.

299 a resolution in support of the findings: Jerzy Borejsza, Klaus Ziemer, and Magdalena Hułas, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes in Europe (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2006), 521.

299 hollow-sounding expression of its “profound regret”: “Chronology 1990; The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,” Foreign Affairs, 1990, 212.

299 injustices of five decades earlier: See, for instance, Katja Wezel, “Lettland under der 23. August 1939: Vom ‘weißen Fleck’ der sowjetischen Geschichtsschreibung zum transnationalen Gedenktag?” in Kaminsky, Müller, and Troebst, op. cit., 309–325.

299 “We owe our parents and grandparents”: Siiri Oviir, quoted at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=CRE&reference=20090402&secondRef=ITEM-010&language=EN&ring=P6-RC-2009–0165#4–176 (accessed March 2014).

299 “acquitting fascism, slandering socialism”: Written submission of Athanasios Palfilis, recorded at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=CRE&reference=20090402&secondRef=ITEM-010&language=EN&ring=P6-RC-2009–0165#4–176 (accessed February 2014).

299 “an unpleasant effort by many Baltic”: Jonathan Steele, “History Is Too Important to Be Left to Politicians,” Guardian/CiF, August 19, 2009.

300 “undermine Russia’s authority”: Report from Rossiyskaya Gazeta, reproduced at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/rbth/6106486/The-Molotov-Ribbentrop-Pact-between-Nazi-Germany-and-the-Soviet-Union-70-years-on.html.

300 “ensure the Russian view prevails”: Sergei Markov, quoted in Andrew Osborn, “Medvedev Creates History Commission,” Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB124277297306236553?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB124277297306236553.html.