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Hitler’s purpose in attacking the Soviet Union derived from a concrete situation. In June 1941, the Soviets annexed Bessarabia and North Bukovina. They were thus threateningly near the Romanian oil wells, from which Germany, to a great extent, was supplied. At the time, 6 German divisions, on the border between Poland and the Soviet Union, faced 170 Russian divisions. Hitler reacted. In July 1940, he gave instructions for the first time to the High Command of the Armed Forces and of the Army to explore the possibility of an attack on the Soviet Union. (Simultaneously, Stalin in Moscow gave the same instructions for an attack against Germany.)
When the German government made the attempt, in September 1940, to incorporate the Soviet Union in the recently created triple alliance between Germany, Japan and Italy, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov was invited to Germany. However, to the surprise of the German side, he declared to Hitler (12 November, 1940) in Berlin that the “secret understanding” of August 1939 over the division of areas of interest in Eastern Europe was superannuated and that new boundaries must be negotiated. To this end he demanded the following states and waters for the Soviet Union: Finland, the Danube, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey with egress to the Black Sea, Iran, Greece, Jugoslavia, egress from the Baltic and Spitzbergen.
As the Soviets had meanwhile already annexed all the states which they had been awarded according to their sphere of interest, the German side had to conclude that the Soviet Union now also intended to conquer these cited states. That would have robbed Germany of its purveyors of raw materials, its trade partners in south-eastern Europe and its freedom of movement in the Baltic, and admitted Communism to the borders of Italy and Germany. (Gerd Schulze-Rhonhof, “Der Krieg der viele Väter hatte,” Seite 570/571)
How could Molotov have had the assurance and the impudence to assert such a position?
The Admiralty is hereby making a declaration of readiness regarding the reached agreements on October 15, 1939 for waging war, signed and delivered by Mr. Stalin on January 28, 1940, the agreement to read as follows:
1. As soon as the Soviet Union publicizes its occupation of Finland in its entirety, including its bays, coastline and islands, the maritime ministry is prepared to send marines and other forces no later than the night of May 14-15, 1940 to occupy important objects in Norway. In addition, England will occupy Denmark. In cooperation with French troops, England will occupy Swedish Göteborg as well as southern Sweden. At the same time British naval forces will control the North Sea and block access to it from the Baltic Sea for German ships and submarines.
2. Agreement was reached during negotiations between France and England concerning Finland’s “often asked for” assistance in its fight against the Soviet Union, which our governments had promised. This promised assistance, which Finland had asked for, will be redirected to Sweden and Norway where it will be placed on hold, even if those countries proved willing to allow the transit of troops. France promised 50,000 to 100,000 troops, to be stationed in Sweden to tie up the Swedish forces, to allow the Soviet Union to occupy Finland and intern its forces. English forces will be stationed in Norway, about 5,000 to 8,000 troops will land in Göteborg, Sweden.
3. Following the occupation of Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden, agreement can be reached between English and Soviet forces as to the distribution of troops and their targets, as well as the timing of the attack against Germany; that according to already established plans, so that:
Troops of the English and French expedition force will jointly initiate an attack along the Cherbourg-Rotterdam line with the Siegfried-Line as their target, while at the same time Poland and Czechoslovakia are attacked by Soviet forces.
The defense forces of Holland and Belgium have agreed to join British/French troops.
French and English naval forces will close the North Sea, as well as the English Channel, to any naval traffic of German ships until Germany’s forces are defeated and Germany is forced into a peace agreement.
4. For the main attack from the Baltics and the Scandinavian Peninsula, the plan for the supply of the troops will be worked out in a joint effort in Paris, at the time of your choosing, according to your suggestions.
5. The joint committee of the French-English air force agreed to immediately invite a representative of the Soviet air force for the purpose of cooperation in an effort to once and for all eliminate the German air force, even before an attack by sea and land begins [emphasis added].
6. The assurance of assistance of military support to Finland, mentioned in Art. 2, is based on the Crimea negotiations between the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and England’s Winston Churchill, to obtain a troop transit agreement from Sweden, Norway and Denmark to help Finland militarily. If those Nordic countries agree to this transit of troops, English and French troops can be moved onto the Scandinavian Peninsula without encountering any resistance. The occupation of the Scandinavian Peninsula, and the interment of its forces, could thus be achieved by making it appear as a bloodless coup. The Soviet Union would thus be relieved of concern about the English/French troops posing a danger to it. The occupation of the Scandinavian Peninsula will take place even if said transit agreement for the support troops is not granted. The Soviet Union will be invited to send a military expert to observe operations for occupying Scandinavia, as well as the preparations of those operations. It would be beneficial if this expert could arrive as soon as possible.
7. As to the request to set up mine fields along the coast of Norway by the Soviet Union, a map five (5) is attached showing the mine field as agreed to. English naval forces will expand this mine field and extend it starting April 5-6, according to attachment six (6). The unmined areas will be shown in attachment 6.
Attachments 5 and 6 were not found when this document was copied on January 19 and 21, 1950 (author’s note).
Significance and implications of this agreement
With this agreement Churchill and the Western Powers allowed the Soviet Union to bring all of the small adjoining countries under its control. This went far beyond what was agreed to under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact concerning “regions of interest.” At the same time Churchill granted himself the right to interfere with the sovereignty of many neutral countries (Island, Faeroe Islands, Norway, Sweden, Greece, etc.). (Errki Hautamäki, “Finland in the Eye of the Storm,” 2005, Chapter 10, Inconvenient History)
Hitler, whose intention through the recent pact with Stalin had actually been to bring Great Britain to accept a repeated offer of peace, perceived himself suddenly to be exposed to a British-Russian pincers. His fears of this trend increased from late autumn 1940 with the constant arrival of new reports of further concentrations of the Red Army, which he himself, in a conversation with Romanian head of state Antonescu described as “the greatest deployment in history.” Only in view of this new danger did Hitler decide on the attack against the Soviet Union. The war in the Soviet Union, later fought with such brutality, arose from this situation in November 1940. From its inception, the war against the Soviet Union had nothing to do with Hitler’s concept of living space or with a “Great Plan.” (deutsche-zukunft.net/hintergrundwissen, author’s translation)
The threat of a Russian attack permits no further hesitation. (Im Kriegstagebuch des OKW in einer Kurznotiz, 19. Juni 1941. Schramm, Percy E. (Hrsg.). Kriegstagebuch des OKW 1940-1941, Band I, Halbband 2. München: Bernard & Graefe, 1982. S. 406).
“Everyone was listening intently to determine if the Germans were already on the way.” In June and July of 1941 those living in the regions of eastern Poland occupied by the Red Army - Polish farmers, the bourgeoisie, the clergy, ex-soldiers, and intellectuals - all awaited the invasion of German troops. This quote is from the Polish Jewish historian J. Gross, author of the book Neighbours: The Murder of the Jews of Jedwabne.
Solzhenitsyn explains why Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians, Ukrainians, Estonians, Belorussians, Bukowina-, and Moldava-Romanians could hardly wait for the Germ
ans to invade. (Quoted by Wolfgang Strauss, Solzhenitsyn’s 200 Years Together)
The minorities in Poland are to disappear, and it is Polish policy that they shall not disappear only on paper. This policy is being pushed forward ruthlessly and without the slightest regard for public opinion abroad, for international treaties, and for the League of Nations. The Ukraine under Polish rule is an inferno -- White Russia is an even more hellish inferno. The purpose of Polish policy is the disappearance of the national minorities, both on paper and in reality.” (Manchester Guardian, December 14, 1931, special report from Warsaw).
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Only when I felt increasingly, week after week, that Russia now saw the hour come to proceed against us; at a time when we had only three divisions in East Prussia, twenty-two Russian divisions had gathered there; when I gradually sustained the subordinate position, as one airfield after another sprung up on our borders; as one division after another was assembled here out of that enormous empire, then I myself was forced to be concerned. For there is no excuse in history for an oversight, for forgiveness which consists of the belated explanation: I didn’t notice that, or I did not believe it. (Hitler speech, October 3, 1941)
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For four years in a hero’s battle without parallel, Germany mobilized its remaining energies as a bulwark for Europe and thus for the world against the red flood. It could have protected Europe against Bolshevism, if it had had its back covered. (Johann Ludwig Count Schwerin von Krosigk, radio broadcast as foreign minister, May 3, 1945)
Contrary to this faith in German rectitude, goodwill and decency—in short, in the German character-- influential American Jews, in 1941, were agitating for the genocide of Germans.
Germany Must Perish, by a Mr. Theodore Kaufman, proposed the extermination of the German people in the literal sense of the law of the Talmud-Torah. Mr Kaufman proposed that “German extinction” be achieved by sterilizing all Germans of procreation age (males under 60, females under 45) within a period of three years after the war’s end, Germany to be sealed off during the process and its territory then to be shared among other people, so that it should disappear from the map together with its people. Mr. Kaufman calculated that, with births stopped through sterilization, the normal death rate would extinguish the German race within fifty or sixty years. (Douglas Reed, “The Controversy of Zion,” p. 481)
For those with the stomach for it, there is a fine collection of 1940s subhuman anti-German rant, from high church officials, parliamentarians and the press in general, at research.calvin.edu/german...archive/niemals.htm. It shows the apparently vital need to maintain a climate of hatred for the enemy, an Anglo-Saxon people, only a few hundred kilometres distant, of whose real character most insular Britons were completely ignorant, and yet which was supposed to embody a fiendish barbarity.
The U.S. view at the time is exemplified in then-U. S. Senator Harry Truman’s statement in 1941 regarding the Nazi invasion of Russia: “If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible.” (David McCullough, Truman, Simon & Schuster. p. 262. Wikipedia)
In 1939, both Britain and France had been eager to come to a similar agreement with Stalin, precisely to prevent a German rapprochement with the USSR. The Anglo-Polish Military Alliance of March 31, 1939, in which France held a secondary position, was designed to exert pressure on Germany. (General Gamelin of France, on his own initiative, had signed a secret military agreement with Poland, which pledged to mobilize French troops 3 days after any German action that “threatened Poland’s vital interests in Danzig,” and, within 15 days, to start a major offensive against Germany-- Protocol Gamelin-Kasprzycki, May 19, 1939).
In fact, Churchill and Stalin had negotiated a secret pact of co-operation in a war of four fronts against Germany already on 15 October 1939, while Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty and a member of the War Cabinet. In July it had been agreed that when Germany and the Soviet Union attacked Poland, the declaration of war of the western allies would be focused only against German actions. Stalin signed the pact on 28 January 1940 and Churchill on 8 February 1940. This information is “...based on the contents of the so-called file S-32 of Marshal Mannerheim and is copied from there by the Marshal’s secret agent Vilho Tahvanainen, who worked with him during the war.”
File S-32 has become secret or is destroyed. There are Finnish scientists who have been in Moscow, but all Stalin’s and NKVD’s archives are closed. No one is admitted to investigate the documents.Under the negotiations of the Paris treaty the Finns were not allowed to present any details of file S-32. Churchill’s archives are closed at least until 2017. In Nürnberg the Germans were not permitted to render anything of the Churchill-Stalin materials, nor was that information given to the prosecution.
According to the plans worked out after August 23, the aim was to create new fronts to disperse and tie down German troops. Later, a concentrated attack from different directions against Germany was planned: after all the resources that were needed had been assembled. In light of Churchill’s extremely close contact earlier (after September 3, channeled into Chamberlain’s cabinet) Stalin was now willing to sign an agreement with the Western Powers. Disinformation was needed to keep this a secret. (Major Erkki Hautamäki, Finland in the eye of the storm, 2005)
Stalin’s position is clear from his secret speech to the Central Committee of Communist Party of August 27, 1939, of which a few excerpts:
“If we accept Germany’s proposal over the agreement of a non-agression pact, they will naturally attack Poland, and the entry of France and England into this war will be unavoidable. Western Europe will be gripped by serious unrest and disorder. Under these circumstances, we will have a great opportunity to stay outside the conflict, and we can hope for a favourable entry into the war…In the case of Germany’s defeat, there will inevitably follow the sovietization of Germany and the creation of a communist government…In this way our task consists in Germany carrying on a long war, with the goal that England and France will be so tired and weakened that they will not be in the position any more to be a menace for a Sovietized Germany. While we maintain a neutral position and await our moment, the USSR will help the present Germany, in that we will furnish it with raw materials and food…The priority in this case is that we must agree to conclude Germany’s proposed pact and work towards prolonging the war which must break out one day for the maximum possible extent.”
By guaranteeing Poland assistance in the event of a German attack, Britain (and France) intended to provoke Hitler to war, according to the plan to complete the destruction of Germany, hindered by Hitler’s success at negating the terms of the Versailles Treaty. Poland’s discord with Germany had been assured by the 10% of German territory awarded it after WWI, by which Germany lost not only a large part of its eastern population, but also the great majority of its regional coal mines. Poles regularly terrorized the German population of West Prussia, Silesia and Pomerania. Poland missed no opportunity to humiliate Germany over territorial disputes and stonewalled all attempts to resolve the problem of access to the German city of Danzig by compromise.
By 1939, as the English and the French had anticipated, time had run out for Hitler. He was faced with the choice either to ignore the persecution of the German minority, including restrictions on Danzig’s citizens and regular anti-aircraft fire at Lufthansa civil flights, or to go to war against Poland. Hitler was reluctant to go to war as long as diplomatic negotiations offered any alternative. However, far from accepting Germany’s terms, Poland spoke openly of attacking Berlin. Already in 1939, apparently unaware of its proper station as a minor power among Central European states and driven by delusions of grandeur not satisfied by the enormous German territory it had unjustifiably gained through the Versailles Treaty, Poland fostered megalomaniacal plans to overrun the Baltic States, part of the Soviet Union and Germany, as far as Berlin.
After the im
minent war..., Poland should annex Danzig, East Prussia, Upper and Central Silesia including Breslau and Central Pomerania; Poland should additionally create a row of buffer states under its protection and rule, along the Oder and Neisse. (Jedrzej Giertych, newspaper article, summer 1939, quoted by historian Stefan Scheil, Polen 1939, 2013). Poland only waited for support from Britain and France to launch this enterprise, which support however was not immediately forthcoming. “Poland wants war with Germany and Germany will not be able to avoid it even if she wants to.” (Polish Marshal Rydz-Smigly as reported in the Daily Mail, August 6th, 1939)
On August 24, Poland instituted a partial mobilisation. Confident of England’s and France’s support, coupled with a fantastical over-estimation of their own military prowess -- already in 1934, Polish postcards portrayed a Greater Poland which incorporated Lübeck, Berlin and Leipzig -- Poland’s political and military leaders, encouraged by their British counterparts to play for time, had rejected repeated and increasingly generous German offers for solutions to the Danzig question. These offers continued right up to the last hours before hostilities began, culminating in Germany’s 16-point plan for a settlement of the dispute over Danzig and the Corridor. Poland rejected this plan without even reading it, handing it over to Britain, where it was broadcast on August 31, 1939, by the BBC. Instead, Poland announced full mobilisation on August 30, 1939.
As this was tantamount to a declaration of war, Germany attacked on September 1. The campaign lasted only about five weeks. On October 6, 1939, the last Polish troops capitulated.
The battle for Norway (April 8 to June 8, 1940) notwithstanding, no major military offensive took place until May 10, 1940 (the day Churchill took office as Prime Minister), with the German invasion of France.
Even before the campaign was over, it was perceived to have gone so badly that there was a vote of no confidence in the British Parliament. The government suffered a reduced majority, and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned. The main architect of the Norway campaign, the British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, who had been responsible for many of the mistakes of the campaign, was the main beneficiary of these political events. He was the favoured candidate to take over as prime minister, and thus became Britain’s war leader. Such are the ironies of history. (BBC history)
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