The Second World War

by Antony Beevor

  There were, however, Ukrainians who did not welcome the return of Soviet rule. Many had collaborated with the Germans, forming their militias or even serving as soldiers or concentration camp guards. And the Ukrainian nationalists in the UPA (Ukrainska povstanska armiia), who had turned against the Germans, were now ready to fight a guerrilla campaign against the Red Army. Their most famous victim would be General Vatutin himself, killed in an ambush.

  Grossman’s worst nightmares were exceeded by the reality of what he discovered. The capture of Kiev confirmed reports of the massacre at Babi Yar. The Germans had tried to conceal the crime by burning and removing bodies, but there were too many for them. After the initial massacre in September 1941, the site had continued to be used for executions of other Jews, Roma and Communists. It was estimated that by the autumn of 1943 almost 100,000 people had been killed there.

  Grossman found the statistics of the great void numbing. Lacking the names of individuals, he tried to give a human face to this previously unimaginable crime. ‘This was the murder of a great and ancient professional experience,’ he wrote, ‘passed from one generation to another in thousands of families of craftsmen and members of the intelligentsia. This was the murder of everyday traditions that grandfathers passed to their grandchildren, this was the murder of memories, of a mournful song, folk poetry, of life, happy and bitter, this was the destruction of hearths and cemeteries, this was the death of a nation which had been living side by side with Ukrainians over hundreds of years.’ He recounted the fate of a much loved Jewish doctor called Feldman, who had been saved from execution in 1941 when a crowd of Ukrainian peasant women pleaded with the German commandant. ‘Feldman continued to live in Brovary and treat the local peasants. He was executed in the spring of this year. Khristya Chunyak sobbed and finally burst into tears as she described to me how the old man was forced to dig his own grave. He had to die alone. There were no other Jews alive in the spring of 1943.’

  Stalin, understandably proud of the Soviet Union’s great military achievements that year, finally agreed to a Big Three meeting with Roosevelt and Churchill. In late November 1943, they would come together in Teheran, which like most of Iran was still occupied by Soviet and British troops, to secure the oilfields and the overland supply route to the Caucasus. Stalin had chosen the Iranian capital so that he could stay in direct touch with the Stavka.

  To prepare for the Teheran conference, there would first be a meeting in October of foreign ministers in Moscow. The agenda in the Spiridonovka Palace was enormous. British concerns ranged from the Polish question to post-war international relations, the treatment of enemy states, a European Advisory Commission on Germany, trials of war criminals, and arrangements for France, Yugoslavia and Iran. Cordell Hull, the American secretary of state, emphasized Roosevelt’s wish for a successor to the discredited League of Nations. This was a sensitive issue for Molotov and Litvinov, the deputy commissar for foreign affairs, following the Soviet Union’s expulsion because of its invasion of Finland in 1939. Roosevelt’s project of the United Nations, which would come into being at the end of the war, would have the victor nations at its core to give it greater strength.

  The Soviet side insisted that the British and Americans put detailed proposals on the table which could then be dealt with at Teheran. They were giving nothing away about their own position, and insisted on only one item: ‘measures to shorten the war against Germany and its allies in Europe’. That is to say, they intended to extract a precise date for the invasion of France. They also raised the question of bringing Turkey into the war on the Allied side and suggested putting pressure on neutral Sweden to allow the establishment of Allied air bases on its soil. Overall, the conference was deemed by both sides to have gone well.

  The greatest success in Moscow, according to the Australian Godfrey Blunden, came in the form of a ‘little wooden box with two eye pieces’. It was ‘in all respects similar to peep-show boxes you used to see at a funfair, except that instead of dancing girls there was a series of startling stereoscopic pictures of bombed Germany’. This brainchild of Air Chief Marshal Harris fascinated and impressed Red Army generals in Moscow with its three-dimensional images of urban destruction.

  Blunden heard all this from Harris himself when he went to see him at Bomber Command headquarters. Harris showed him the large photograph albums he had had specially bound in RAF blue leather to impress visitors. Each series of aerial photographs on the same scale was covered by a sheet of tracing paper showing the outline of the industrial and residential areas. The first in the book marked the destruction of Coventry. Harris then turned the pages one by one showing the German cities. At one point, Blunden exclaimed at the extent of the damage: ‘There must be at least six Coventrys there.’

  ‘No, you are wrong,’ Harris replied with satisfaction. ‘There are ten.’ When they reached another town where the damage was not so widespread, Harris remarked: ‘Needs another good raid and that will finish it off.’

  ‘These photographs’, Blunden wrote, ‘show very graphically indeed how area bombing as first practised by Germans has developed into a weapon of immense power. The damage done to Coventry three years ago–which led Germans to coin the word “Coventrate” meaning to obliterate a city–is now almost insignificant beside this vaster damage done to German cities.’

  The Americans at this time were also trying to promote Nationalist China’s membership of what should become a ‘Big Four’ alliance. Roosevelt, knowing Chiang Kai-shek’s ambitions in this direction, hoped that this would help to keep the Nationalists in the war despite their disappointment over the shortage of supplies for their armies. Chiang played the same game with the United States as he had played earlier with the Soviet Union: he used subtle threats of a separate peace with Japan to obtain more support. Although a card of deliberate weakness, Chiang’s gambit still had some effect since Chinese forces were, at least in theory, tying down more than a million Japanese troops on the mainland. Yet Roosevelt was also looking towards a post-war world in which he saw China’s inclusion as vital in the leadership of the United Nations. It was an idea which Churchill and his entourage certainly did not encourage. The Soviets were even more reluctant after Chiang’s pressure to expel them from Sinkiang province, but an agreement in principle was reached at the Moscow conference.

  Chiang had changed his position in one important way. He now wanted American support to ensure that the Soviet Union did not secure areas of northern China if it entered the war against Japan. Having done everything he could earlier to persuade Roosevelt to push Stalin into a declaration of war, Chiang now wanted to see Japan defeated without Soviet help. He feared, with justification, that Soviet involvement would boost the power and armament of the Chinese Communists.

  In the fourth week of November 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill met in Cairo on their way to Teheran. At this rather improvised conference, Roosevelt had privately arranged for Chiang Kai-shek to join the proceedings at the start and not at the end, as the British had imagined. They were rather put out. ‘The Generalissimo reminded me more of a cross between a pine marten and a ferret,’ Brooke wrote. ‘A shrewd, foxy sort of face. Evidently with no grasp of war in its large aspects, but determined to get the best of the bargains.’ To the added bemusement of British generals, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, dressed in a striking black cheongsam slit to the hip, intervened frequently to correct the translator’s version of what the generalissimo had said, and then proceeded to give her own interpretation of what he should have said. Stalin, still resenting the setback over Sinkiang, had refused to send a representative to the conference on the grounds that he still had a non-aggression pact with Japan.

  Churchill was all too aware that his ‘special relationship’ with Roosevelt had been downgraded. This was partly due to his own reluctance to commit to Operation Overlord, and his yearning to strike into central Europe to pre-empt a Soviet occupation. Churchill was also out on a limb in his emotional attachment to the British E
mpire. Roosevelt, declaring his agreement with Chiang Kai-shek that western imperialism in Asia should come to an end with victory over Japan, promised that Indochina would not be returned to France, a proposal which would have infuriated de Gaulle if he had known of it. Throughout the conference the atmosphere was far from friendly, and at times it was openly hostile. The Americans were determined not to be led down any more ‘garden paths’, especially if they headed away from Normandy and towards the Balkans. The British found the Americans deaf to their arguments, and they became suspicious of how Roosevelt would play things at Teheran, when he would have Stalin to back him up on the key issues.

  Roosevelt and Churchill flew on from Cairo to Teheran for their meeting with Stalin, which began on 28 November. Roosevelt, at Stalin’s express request, was housed in part of the Soviet embassy, just across the road from the British embassy. Stalin went to see him dressed in his marshal’s uniform, with the trousers tucked into Caucasian boots built up to make him look taller. The two statesmen set out to charm each other with a show of easy intimacy, which swayed only Roosevelt.

  The President tried to curry favour with the Soviet dictator at Churchill’s expense. He raised the question of colonialism. ‘I am speaking about this in the absence of our comrade-in-arms Churchill, since he does not like discussing the subject. The United States and the Soviet Union are not colonial powers, and it is easier for us to discuss these matters.’ According to Stalin’s interpreter at this tête-à-tête Stalin was not keen on discussing such ‘a delicate subject’, but he agreed that ‘India is Churchill’s sore spot’. Yet for all the President’s efforts to establish mutual confidence, Stalin could not forget his disingenuous promise to open a Second Front in 1942, simply to keep the Soviet Union in the war.

  Stalin did, however, express himself strongly on the subject of France, following unrest in Lebanon where Free French troops had tried to reassert colonial power. He regarded the majority of the French as collaborators and even said that France ‘must be punished for its aid to the Germans’. Stalin was no doubt still thinking of the way that the surrender of the French army in 1940 had furnished the Wehrmacht with the majority of its vehicles for the invasion of the Soviet Union a year later.

  When the plenary session started late that afternoon, the main subject for debate was Operation Overlord. Stalin, with Roosevelt’s tacit support, dealt with Churchill’s desire for an operation in the northern Adriatic aimed at central Europe. He insisted on the primacy of Overlord, and agreed with the plan for a simultaneous invasion of southern France. He firmly rejected any other operation as a dispersal of force. Stalin greeted with amusement Churchill’s attempt to claim that his plan would help the Red Army. According to the Soviet interpreter, Roosevelt winked at the Soviet leader as he broke up Herzegovina Flor cigarettes to fill his pipe. Stalin felt able to torment Churchill quietly on this issue, because he knew that the Americans were against the idea, and in any case he held all the cards when it came to determining Allied strategy. His insistence on keeping the Allies to their promise of a major invasion of France in the spring of 1944 meant that their advance through northern Europe would, as Churchill feared, leave the Balkans and central Europe under the control of the Red Army.

  Watching the three leaders interact, General Brooke was deeply impressed by Stalin’s handling of the discussion. The dictator remained dismissive of the campaign in Italy, probably because he was irritated that his allies had not involved the Soviet Union in the Italian surrender. This turned out to be a mistake on their part, because Stalin was able to use it later as an argument when it came to discussing the future of countries occupied by the Red Army. Stalin, very conscious of the fact that the victories at Stalingrad and Kursk had turned the Soviet Union into a super-power, had already boasted to his entourage that ‘Now the fate of Europe is settled, we shall do as we like, with the Allies’ consent.’

  He was also well briefed on British and American thinking and reactions. Before the meeting, Stalin had summoned Beria’s son Sergo and entrusted him with ‘a mission that is delicate and morally reprehensible’. He wanted to know everything that the Americans and the British said in private. Their every word would be recorded by the microphones hidden in their rooms, and each morning Sergo Beria had to report to Stalin on all the conversations. The Soviet leader was amazed by the naivety of the Allies in talking so openly, when surely they must realize that they were being bugged. He wanted to know the tone of voice used as well as the content. Did they speak with conviction or without enthusiasm, and how did Roosevelt react?

  Stalin was pleased when Sergo Beria reported on the genuine admiration which Roosevelt had for him and on his refusal to listen to Admiral Leahy’s advice to take a firmer line. But whenever Churchill flattered Stalin during the conference, the Soviet leader retorted by reminding him of some hostile remark he had made in the past. The secret recordings also helped him exploit the differences between Churchill and Roosevelt. Apparently, when Churchill remonstrated in private with Roosevelt that he was helping Stalin to install a Communist government in Poland, Roosevelt had replied that Churchill was supporting an anti-Communist government, so what was the difference?

  Poland was indeed a major issue for both Churchill and Stalin, while Roosevelt seemed concerned only with securing the American Polish vote in the next year’s presidential elections. This meant appearing to be tough with Stalin until after the results of the voting were established. Considering that Roosevelt had earlier rejected any idea of changing Poland’s frontiers on the basis of the Atlantic Charter, both he and Churchill now felt obliged to consider Stalin’s claim to the eastern part of the country, which he had absorbed in 1939 as ‘western Belorussia’ and ‘western Ukraine’. The rapidly approaching occupation of the region by the Red Army would make it a fait accompli. According to Stalin’s plan, Poland would be compensated with German territory up to the River Oder. The President and prime minister knew that they would never be able to force the Soviets to disgorge such a prize, but the manner in which Roosevelt conceded encouraged Stalin to believe that he would have no trouble in imposing a Communist government on the Poles.

  Stalin succeeded in extracting a date for the invasion of France, but when the Americans and British were forced to admit that a supreme commander had not yet been appointed, he showed his contempt for such a lack of serious planning. He agreed, however, to launch a major offensive soon after the landings and declared his intention to join the war against Japan as soon as Germany was defeated. This was exactly what Roosevelt had wanted, even though Chiang Kai-shek dreaded it. After the conference was over, Stalin considered that he had ‘won the game’. In private, Churchill would have agreed with that assessment. He was utterly dejected by Roosevelt’s constant siding with Stalin in the belief that he could handle him. ‘Now he sees that he cannot rely on the President’s support,’ the prime minister’s doctor Lord Moran wrote in his diary after Churchill had poured out his fears for the future. ‘What matters more, he realizes that the Russians see this too.’

  After the humiliating moment about Overlord at the Teheran conference, Roosevelt was determined to appoint the supreme commander when he and Allied delegates returned to Cairo. He asked Marshall to summon General Eisenhower. As soon as Eisenhower and Roosevelt were installed in the President’s automobile, Roosevelt turned to him and said: ‘Well, Ike, you are going to command Overlord.’ Roosevelt had decided that he could not afford to lose Marshall as chief of staff because of his know ledge of all theatres, his superb talent for organization and above all for his skill in dealing with Congress. He was also seen to be the only person who could keep General MacArthur under control in the Pacific. Marshall was disappointed (although not as disappointed as Brooke had been), but loyally accepted the decision. Eisenhower’s good fortune seemed to bear out Patton’s private nickname for him, ‘Divine Destiny’, based on the initials of his two first names.

  An irrational euphoria reigned among the Allied chiefs of s
taff in Cairo. They all seemed certain that the war would be over by March, or at the latest November, of 1944, and were prepared to place bets on it. Considering that they were over six months from launching Overlord, and that the Red Army was still several hundred kilometres from Berlin, this was over-optimistic to say the least. Churchill, on the other hand, was totally exhausted after all the bruising battles in Cairo and Teheran. He collapsed with pneumonia in Tunisia and came close to death. His recovery was aided over Christmas by a little brandy, and by the news that the Royal Navy had sunk the battle-cruiser Scharnhorst off northern Norway. Nearly 2,000 sailors of the Kriegsmarine perished in the freezing seas.

  As Stalin had emphasized at Teheran, Vatutin’s forces were facing constant counter-attacks from Manstein’s Army Group South. Manstein, hoping to rework his coup at Kharkov earlier in the year, sent two panzer corps against the flanks of Vatutin’s renamed 1st Ukrainian Front. He wanted to force the Soviets back to the Dnepr, retake Kiev and encircle a major Red Army formation near Korosten.

  Hitler, who had aged dramatically over the last months and was suffering from stress, had entered an even deeper state of denial. He rejected any suggestion of retreat. Even his favourite, General Model, described their situation on the eastern front as ‘fighting in reverse gear’. A sense of fatalism was infecting the German army. An infantry officer captured on the Leningrad front acknowledged during his interrogation: ‘We are living in filth. It is hopeless.’ Yet while Hitler blamed his generals and a lack of will for every reverse, he was deeply unsettled by the propaganda disseminated at the front by the Soviet organization of ‘anti-fascist’ German prisoners of war, Freies Deutschland. This prompted him on 22 December to establish the post of National Socialist leadership officer in all units, as a counterpart to the Soviet commissar or political officer.