The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

by William Shirer

  Please bear in mind [he advised Berlin] that attempts to counteract these rumors here in Moscow must necessarily remain ineffectual if such rumors incessantly reach here from Germany, and if every traveler who comes to Moscow, or travels through Moscow, not only brings these rumors along, but can even confirm them by citing facts.100

  The veteran ambassador was getting suspicious himself. He was instructed by Berlin to continue to deny the rumors, and to spread it about that not only was there no concentration of German troops on Russia’s frontiers but that actually considerable forces (eight divisions, he was told for his “personal information”) were being transferred from “east to west.”101 Perhaps these instructions only confirmed the ambassador’s uneasiness, since by this time the press throughout the world was beginning to trumpet the German military build-up along the Soviet borders.

  But long before this, Stalin had received specific warnings of Hitler’s plans, and apparently paid no attention to them. The most serious one came from the government of the United States.

  Early in January 1941, the U.S. commercial attaché in Berlin, Sam E. Woods, had sent a confidential report to the State Department stating that he had learned from trustworthy German sources that Hitler was making plans to attack Russia in the spring. It was a long and detailed message, outlining the General Staff plan of attack (which proved to be quite accurate) and the preparations being made for the economic exploitation of the Soviet Union, once it was conquered.*

  Secretary of State Cordell Hull thought at first that Woods had been victim of a German “plant.” He called in J. Edgar Hoover. The F.B.I, head read the report and judged it authentic. Woods had named some of his sources, both in various ministries in Berlin and in the German General Staff, and on being checked they were adjudged in Washington to be men who ought to know what was up and anti-Nazi enough to tattle. Despite the strained relations then existing between the American and Soviet governments Hull decided to inform the Russians, requesting Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles to communicate the substance of the report to Ambassador Constantine Oumansky. This was done on March 20.

  Mr. Oumansky turned very white [Welles later wrote]. He was silent for a moment and then merely said: “I fully realize the gravity of the message you have given me. My government will be grateful for your confidence and I will inform it immediately of our conversation.”102

  If it was grateful, indeed if it ever believed this timely intelligence, it never communicated any inkling to the American government. In fact, as Secretary Hull has related in his memoirs, Moscow grew more hostile and truculent because America’s support of Britain made it impossible to supply Russia with all the materials it demanded. Nevertheless, according to Hull, the State Department, having received dispatches from its legations in Bucharest and Stockholm the first week in June stating that Germany would invade Russia within a fortnight, forwarded copies of them to Ambassador Steinhardt in Moscow, who turned them over to Molotov.

  Churchill too sought to warn Stalin. On April 3 he asked his ambassador in Moscow, Sir Stafford Cripps, to deliver a personal note to the dictator pointing out the significance to Russia of German troop movements in southern Poland which he had learned of through a British agent. Cripps’ delay in delivering the message still vexed Churchill when he wrote about the incident years later in his memoirs.103

  Before the end of April, Cripps knew the date set for the German attack, and the Germans knew he knew it. On April 24, the German naval attaché in Moscow sent a curt message to the Navy High Command in Berlin:

  The British Ambassador predicts June 22 as the day of the outbreak of the war.104*

  This message, which is among the captured Nazi papers, was recorded in the German Naval Diary on the same day, with an exclamation point added at the end.105 The admirals were surprised at the accuracy of the British envoy’s prediction. The poor naval attaché, who, like the ambassador in Moscow, had not been let in on the secret, added in his dispatch that it was “manifestly absurd.”

  Molotov must have thought so too. A month later, on May 22, he received Schulenburg to discuss various matters. “He was as amiable, self-assured and well-informed as ever,” the ambassador reported to Berlin, and again emphasized that Stalin and Molotov, “the two strongest men in the Soviet Union,” were striving “above all” to avoid a conflict with Germany.106

  On one point the usually perspicacious ambassador couldn’t have been more wrong. Molotov, at this juncture, was certainly not “well-informed.” But neither was the ambassador.

  The extent to which the Russian Foreign Commissar was ill-informed was given public expression on June 14, 1941, just a week before the German blow fell. Molotov called in Schulenburg that evening and handed him the text of a Tass statement which, he said, was being broadcast that very night and published in the newspapers the next morning.107 Blaming Cripps personally for the “widespread rumors of ‘an impending war between the U.S.S.R. and Germany’ in the English and foreign press,” this official statement of the Soviet government branded them as an “obvious absurdity … a clumsy propaganda maneuver of the forces arrayed against the Soviet Union and Germany.” It added:

  In the opinion of Soviet circles the rumors of the intention of Germany … to launch an attack against the Soviet Union are completely without foundation.

  Even the recent German troop movements from the Balkans to the Soviet frontiers were explained in the communiqué as “having no connection with Soviet–German relations.” As for the rumors saying that Russia would attack Germany, they were “false and provocative.”

  The irony of the Tass communiqué on behalf of the Soviet government is enhanced by two German moves, one on the day of its publication, June 15, the other on the next day.

  From Venice, where he was conferring with Ciano, Ribbentrop sent a secret message on June 15 to Budapest warning the Hungarian government “to take steps to secure its frontiers.”

  In view of the heavy concentration of Russian troops at the German eastern border, the Fuehrer will probably be compelled, by the beginning of July at the latest, to clarify German–Russian relations and in this connection to make certain demands.108

  The Germans were tipping off the Hungarians, but not their principal ally. When Ciano the next day, during a gondola ride on the canals of Venice, asked Ribbentrop about the rumors of a German attack on Russia, the Nazi Foreign Minister replied:

  “Dear Ciano, I cannot tell you anything as yet because every decision is locked in the impenetrable bosom of the Fuehrer. However, one thing is certain: if we attack them, the Russia of Stalin will be erased from the map within eight weeks.”*

  While the Kremlin was smugly preparing to broadcast to the world on June 14, 1941, that the rumors of a German attack on Russia were an “obvious absurdity,” Adolf Hitler that very day was having his final big war conference on Barbarossa with the leading officers of the Wehrmacht. The timetable for the massing of troops in the East and their deployment to the jumping-off positions had been put in operation on May 22. A revised version of the timetable was issued a few days later.109 It is a long and detailed document and shows that by the beginning of June not only were all plans for the onslaught on Russia complete but the vast and complicated movement of troops, artillery, armor, planes, ships and supplies was well under way and on schedule. A brief item in the Naval War Diary for May 29 states: “The preparatory movements of warships for Barbarossa has begun.” Talks with the general staffs of Rumania, Hungary and Finland—the last country anxious now to win back what had been taken from her by the Russians in the winter war—were completed. On June 9 from Berchtesgaden Hitler sent out an order convoking the commanders in chief of the three Armed Services and the top field generals for a final all-day meeting on Barbarossa in Berlin on June 14.

  Despite the enormity of the task, not only Hitler but his generals were in a confident mood as they went over last-minute details of the most gigantic military operation in history—an all-out attack on a
front stretching some 1,500 miles from the Arctic Ocean at Petsamo to the Black Sea. The night before, Brauchitsch had returned to Berlin from an inspection of the build-up in the East. Halder noted in his diary that the Army Commander in Chief was highly pleased. Officers and men, he said, were in top shape and ready.

  This last military powwow on June 14 lasted from 11 A.M. until 6:30 P.M. It was broken by lunch at 2 P.M., at which Hitler gave his generals yet another of his fiery, eve-of-the-battle pep talks.110 According to Halder, it was “a comprehensive political speech,” with Hitler stressing that he had to attack Russia because her fall would force England to “give up.” But the bloodthirsty Fuehrer must have emphasized something else even more. Keitel told about it during direct examination on the stand at Nuremberg.

  The main theme was that this was the decisive battle between two ideologies and that the practices which we knew as soldiers—the only correct ones under international law—had to be measured by completely different standards.

  Hitler thereupon, said Keitel, gave various orders for carrying out an unprecedented terror in Russia by “brutal means.”

  “Did you, or did any other generals, raise objections to these orders?” asked Keitel’s own attorney.

  “No. I personally made no remonstrances,” the General replied. Nor did any of the other generals, he added.*

  It is almost inconceivable but nevertheless true that the men in the Kremlin, for all the reputation they had of being suspicious, crafty and hardheaded, and despite all the evidence and all the warnings that stared them in the face, did not realize right up to the last moment that they were to be hit, and with a force which would almost destroy their nation.

  At 9:30 on the pleasant summer evening of June 21, 1941, nine hours before the German attack was scheduled to begin, Molotov received the German ambassador at his office in the Kremlin and delivered his “final fatuity.”* After mentioning further border violations by German aircraft, which he said he had instructed the Soviet ambassador in Berlin to bring to the attention of Ribbentrop, Molotov turned to another subject, which Schulenburg described in an urgent telegram to the Wilhelmstrasse that same night:

  There were a number of indications [Molotov had told him] that the German Government was dissatisfied with the Soviet Government. Rumors were even current that a war was impending between Germany and the Soviet Union … The Soviet Government was unable to understand the reasons for Germany’s dissatisfaction … He would appreciate it if I could tell him what had brought about the present situation in German–Soviet relations.

  I replied [Schulenburg added] that I could not answer his questions, as I lacked the pertinent information.111

  He was soon to get it.

  For on its way to him over the air waves between Berlin and Moscow was a long coded radio message from Ribbentrop, dated June 21, 1941, marked “Very Urgent, State Secret, For the Ambassador Personally,” which began:

  Upon receipt of this telegram, all of the cipher material still there is to be destroyed. The radio set is to be put out of commission.

  Please inform Herr Molotov at once that you have an urgent communication to make to him … Then please make the following declaration to him.

  It was a familiar declaration, strewn with all the shopworn lies and fabrications at which Hitler and Ribbentrop had become so expert and which they had concocted so often before to justify each fresh act of unprovoked aggression. Perhaps—at least such is the impression this writer gets in rereading it—it somewhat topped all the previous ones for sheer effrontery and deceit. While Germany had loyally abided by the Nazi–Soviet Pact, it said, Russia had repeatedly broken it. The U.S.S.R. had practiced “sabotage, terrorism and espionage” against Germany. It had “combated the German attempt to set up a stable order in Europe.” It had conspired with Britain “for an attack against the German troops in Rumania and Bulgaria.” By concentrating “all available Russian forces on a long front from the Baltic to the Black Sea,” it had “menaced” the Reich.

  Reports received the last few days [it went on] eliminate the last remaining doubts as to the aggressive character of this Russian concentration … In addition, there are reports from England regarding the negotiations of Ambassador Cripps for still closer political and military collaboration between England and the Soviet Union.

  To sum up, the Government of the Reich declares, therefore, that the Soviet Government, contrary to the obligations it assumed,

  1. has not only continued, but even intensified its attempts to undermine Germany and Europe;

  2. has adopted a more and more anti-German foreign policy;

  3. has concentrated all its forces in readiness at the German border. Thereby the Soviet Government has broken its treaties with Germany and is about to attack Germany from the rear in its struggle for life. The Fuehrer has therefore ordered the German Armed Forces to oppose this threat with all the means at their disposal.112

  “Please do not enter into any discussion of this communication,” Ribbentrop advised his ambassador at the end. What could the shaken and disillusioned Schulenburg, who had devoted the best years of his life to improving German–Russian relations and who knew that the attack on the Soviet Union was unprovoked and without justification, say? Arriving back at the Kremlin just as dawn was breaking, he contented himself with reading the German declaration.* Molotov, stunned at last, listened in silence to the end and then said:

  “It is war. Do you believe that we deserved that?”

  At the same hour of daybreak a similar scene was taking place in the Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin. All afternoon on June 21, the Soviet ambassador, Vladimir Dekanozov, had been telephoning the Foreign Office asking for an appointment with Ribbentrop so that he could deliver his little protest against further border violations by German planes. He was told that the Nazi Foreign Minister was “out of town.” Then at 2 A.M. on the twenty-second he was informed that Ribbentrop would receive him at 4 A.M. at the Foreign Office. There the envoy, who had been a deputy foreign commissar, a hatchetman for Stalin and the troubleshooter who had arranged the taking over of Lithuania, received, like Molotov in Moscow, the shock of his life. Dr. Schmidt, who was present, has described the scene.

  I had never seen Ribbentrop so excited as he was in the five minutes before Dekanozov’s arrival. He walked up and down his room like a caged animal …

  Dekanozov was shown in and, obviously not guessing anything was amiss, held out his hand to Ribbentrop. We sat down and … Dekanozov proceeded to put on behalf of his Government certain questions that needed clarification. But he had hardly begun before Ribbentrop, with a stony expression, interrupted, saying: “That’s not the question now” …

  The arrogant Nazi Foreign Minister thereupon explained what the question was, gave the ambassador a copy of the memorandum which Schulenburg at that moment was reading out to Molotov, and informed him that German troops were at that instant taking “military countermeasures” on the Soviet frontier. The startled Soviet envoy, says Schmidt, “recovered his composure quickly and expressed his deep regret” at the developments, for which he blamed Germany. “He rose, bowed perfunctorily and left the room without shaking hands.”113

  The Nazi–Soviet honeymoon was over. At 3:30 A.M. on June 22, 1941, a half hour before the closing diplomatic formalities in the Kremlin and the Wilhelmstrasse, the roar of Hitler’s guns along hundreds of miles of front had blasted it forever.

  There was one other diplomatic prelude to the cannonade. On the afternoon of June 21, Hitler sat down at his desk in his new underground headquarters, Wolfsschanze (Wolf’s Lair), near Rastenburg in a gloomy forest of East Prussia, and dictated a long letter to Mussolini. As in the preparation of all his other aggressions he had not trusted his good friend and chief ally enough to let him in on his secret until the last moment. Now, at the eleventh hour, he did. His letter is the most revealing and authentic evidence we have of the reasons for his taking this fatal step, which for so long puzzled the outside world a
nd which was to pave the way for his end and that of the Third Reich. The letter, to be sure, is full of Hitler’s customary lies and evasions which he tried to fob off even on his friends. But beneath them, and between them, there emerges his fundamental reasoning and his true—if mistaken—estimate of the world situation as the summer of 1941, the second of the war, officially began.

  DUCE!

  I am writing this letter to you at a moment when months of anxious deliberation and continuous nerve-racking waiting are ending in the hardest decision of my life.