The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

by William L. Shirer

  The emphasis is Ribbentrop’s.

  There was some delay in the German Embassy in Moscow in getting this letter to its destination, which made Ribbentrop livid with rage and inspired an angry telegram from him to Schulenburg demanding to know why his letter had not been delivered until the seventeenth and why, “in keeping with the importance of its contents,” it was not delivered to Stalin personally—Schulenburg had handed it to Molotov.27 Stalin replied on October 22, in a remarkably cordial tone. “Molotov admits,” he wrote, “that he is under obligation to pay you a visit in Berlin. He hereby accepts your invitation.”28 Stalin’s geniality must have been only a mask. Schulenburg wired Berlin a few days later that the Russians were protesting the refusal of Germany to deliver war material while at the same time shipping arms to Finland. “This is the first time,” Schulenburg advised Berlin, “that our deliveries of arms to Finland have been mentioned by the Soviets.”29

  A dark, drizzling day, and Molotov arrived, his reception being extremely stiff and formal. Driving up the Linden to the Soviet Embassy, he looked to me like a plugging, provincial schoolmaster. But to have survived in the cutthroat competition of the Kremlin he must have something. The Germans talk glibly of letting Moscow have that old Russian dream, the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, while they will take the rest of the Balkans: Rumania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria …

  Thus began my diary entry in Berlin on November 12, 1940. The glib talk of the Germans was accurate enough, as far as it went. Today we know much more about this strange and—as it turned out—fateful meeting, thanks to the capture of the Foreign Office documents, in which one finds the confidential German minutes of the two-day sessions, all but one of them kept by the ubiquitous Dr. Schmidt.*30

  At the first meeting between the two foreign ministers, during the forenoon of November 12, Ribbentrop was in one of his most vapid and arrogant moods but Molotov quickly saw through him and sized up what the German game was. “England,” Ribbentrop began, “is beaten and it is only a question of time when she will finally admit her defeat … The beginning of the end has now arrived for the British Empire.” The British, it was true, were hoping for aid from America, but “the entry of the United States into the war is of no consequence at all for Germany. Germany and Italy will never again allow an Anglo-Saxon to land on the European Continent … This is no military problem at all … The Axis Powers are, therefore, not considering how they can win the war, but rather how rapidly they can end the war which is already won.”

  This being so, Ribbentrop explained, the time had come for the four powers, Russia, Germany, Italy and Japan, to define their “spheres of interest.” The Fuehrer, he said, had concluded that all four countries would naturally expand “in a southerly direction.” Japan had already turned south, as had Italy, while Germany, after the establishment of the “New Order” in Western Europe, would find her additional Lebensraum in (of all places!) “Central Africa.” Ribbentrop said he “wondered” if Russia would also not “turn to the south for the natural outlet to the open sea which was so important for her.”

  “Which sea?” Molotov interjected icily.

  This was an awkward but crucial question, as the Germans would learn during the next thirty-six hours of ceaseless conversations with this stubborn, prosaic, precise Bolshevik. The interruption floored Ribbentrop for a moment and he could not think of an answer. Instead, he rambled on about “the great changes that would take place all over the world after the war” and gabbled that the important thing was that “both partners to the German–Russian pact had together done some good business” and “would continue to do some business.” But when Molotov insisted on an answer to his simple question, Ribbentrop finally replied by suggesting that “in the long run the most advantageous access to the sea for Russia could be found in the direction of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea.”

  Molotov sat there, says Dr. Schmidt, who was present taking notes, “with an impenetrable expression.”31 He said very little, except to comment at the end that “precision and vigilance” were necessary in delimiting spheres of interest, “particularly between Germany and Russia.” The wily Soviet negotiator was saving his ammunition for Hitler, whom he saw in the afternoon. For the all-powerful Nazi warlord it turned out to be quite a surprising, nerve-racking, frustrating and even unique experience.

  Hitler was just as vague as his Foreign Minister and even more grandiose. As soon as the weather improved, he began by saying, Germany would strike “the final blow against England.” There was, to be sure, “the problem of America.” But the United States could not “endanger the freedom of other nations before 1970 or 1980 … It had no business either in Europe, in Africa or in Asia”—an assertion which Molotov broke in to say he was in agreement with. But he was not in agreement with much else that Hitler said. After the Nazi leader had finished a lengthy exposition of pleasant generalities, stressing that there were no fundamental differences between the two countries in the pursuit of their respective aspirations and in their common drive toward “access to the ocean,” Molotov replied that “the statements of the Fuehrer had been of a general nature.” He would now, he said, set forth the ideas of Stalin, who on his departure from Moscow had given him “exact instructions.” Whereupon he hurled the book at the German dictator who, as the minutes make clear, was scarcely prepared for it.

  “The questions hailed down upon Hitler,” Schmidt afterward recalled. “No foreign visitor had ever spoken to him in this way in my presence.”32

  What was Germany up to in Finland? Molotov wanted to know. What was the meaning of the New Order in Europe and in Asia, and what role would the U.S.S.R. be given in it? What was the “significance” of the Tripartite Pact? “Moreover,” he continued, “there are issues to be clarified regarding Russia’s Balkan and Black Sea interests with respect to Bulgaria, Rumania and Turkey.” He would like, he said, to hear some answers and “explanations.”

  Hitler, perhaps for the first time in his life, was too taken aback to answer. He proposed that they adjourn “in view of a possible air-raid alarm,” promising to go into a detailed discussion the next day.

  A showdown had been postponed but not prevented, and the next morning when Hitler and Molotov resumed their talks the Russian Commissar was relentless. To begin with, about Finland, over which the two men soon became embroiled in a bitter and caustic dispute. Molotov demanded that Germany get its troops out of Finland. Hitler denied that “Finland was occupied by German troops.” They were merely being sent through Finland to Norway. But he wanted to know “whether Russia intended to go to war against Finland.” According to the German minutes, Molotov “answered this question somewhat evasively,” and Hitler was not satisfied.

  “There must be no war in the Baltic,” Hitler insisted. “It would put a heavy strain on German–Russian relations,” a threat which he added to a moment later by saying that such a strain might bring “unforeseeable consequences.” What more did the Soviet Union want in Finland, anyway? Hitler wanted to know, and his visitor answered that it wanted a “settlement on the same scale as in Bessarabia”—which meant outright annexation. Hitler’s reaction to this must have perturbed even the imperturbable Russian, who hastened to ask the Fuehrer’s “opinion on that.”

  The dictator in turn was somewhat evasive, replying that he could only repeat that “there must be no war with Finland because such a conflict might have far-reaching repercussions.”

  “A new factor has been introduced into the discussion by this position,” Molotov retorted.

  So heated had the dispute become that Ribbentrop, who must have become thoroughly frightened by this time, broke in to say, according to the German minutes, “that there was actually no reason at all for making an issue of the Finnish question. Perhaps it was merely a misunderstanding.”

  Hitler took advantage of this timely intervention to quickly change the subject. Could not the Russians be tempted by the unlimited plunder soon to be available with the collapse
of the British Empire?

  “Let us turn to more important problems,” he said.

  After the conquest of England [he declared] the British Empire would be apportioned as a gigantic world-wide estate in bankruptcy of forty million square kilometers. In this bankrupt estate there would be for Russia access to the ice-free and really open ocean. Thus far, a minority of forty-five million Englishmen had ruled six hundred million inhabitants of the British Empire. He was about to crush this minority … Under these circumstances there arose world-wide perspectives … All the countries which could possibly be interested in the bankrupt estate would have to stop all controversies among themselves and concern themselves exclusively with the partition of the British Empire. This applied to Germany, France, Italy, Russia and Japan.

  The chilly, impassive Russian guest did not appear to be moved by such glittering “world-wide perspectives,” nor was he as convinced as the Germans—a point he later rubbed in—that the British Empire would soon be there for the taking. He wanted, he said, to discuss problems “closer to Europe.” Turkey, for instance, and Bulgaria and Rumania.

  “The Soviet Government,” he said, “is of the opinion that the German guarantee of Rumania is aimed against the interests of Soviet Russia—if one may express oneself so bluntly.” He had been expressing himself bluntly all day, to the growing annoyance of his hosts, and now he pressed on. He demanded that Germany “revoke” this guarantee. Hitler declined.

  All right, Molotov persisted, in view of Moscow’s interest in the Straits, what would Germany say “if Russia gave Bulgaria … a guarantee under exactly the same conditions as Germany and Italy had given one to Rumania”?

  One can almost see Hitler’s dark frown. He inquired whether Bulgaria had asked for such a guarantee, as had Rumania? “He (the Fuehrer),” the German memorandum quotes him as adding, “did not know of any request by Bulgaria.” At any rate, he would first have to consult Mussolini before giving the Russians a more definite answer to their question. And he added ominously that if Germany “were perchance looking for sources of friction with Russia, she would not need the Straits for that.”

  But the Fuehrer, usually so talkative, had no more stomach for talk with this impossible Russian.

  “At this point in the conversation,” say the German minutes, “the Fuehrer called attention to the late hour and stated that in view of the possibility of English air attacks it would be better to break off the talk now, since the main issues had probably been sufficiently discussed.”

  That night Molotov gave a gala banquet to his hosts at the Russian Embassy on Unter den Linden. Hitler, apparently exhausted and still irritated by the afternoon’s ordeal, did not put in an appearance.

  The British did. I had wondered why their bombers had not appeared over Berlin, as they had almost every recent night, to remind the Soviet Commissar on his first evening in the capital that, whatever the Germans told him, Britain was still in the war, and kicking. Some of us, I confess, had waited hopefully for the planes, but they had not come. Officials in the Wilhelmstrasse, who had feared the worst, were visibly relieved. But not for long.

  On the evening of November 13, the British came over early.* It gets dark in Berlin about 4 P.M. at this time of year, and shortly after 9 o’clock the air-raid sirens began to whine and then you could hear the thunder of the flak guns and, in between, the hum of the bombers overhead. According to Dr. Schmidt, who was at the banquet in the Soviet Embassy, Molotov had just proposed a friendly toast and Ribbentrop had risen to his feet to reply when the air-raid warning was sounded and the guests scattered to shelter. I remember the hurrying and scurrying down the Linden and around the corner at the Wilhelmstrasse as Germans and Russians made for the underground shelter of the Foreign Ministry. Some of the officials, Dr. Schmidt among them, ducked into the Adlon Hotel, from in front of which some of us were watching, and were unable to get to the impromptu meeting which the two foreign ministers now held in the underground depths of the Foreign Office. The minutes of this meeting were therefore taken, in the enforced absence of Dr. Schmidt, by Gustav Hilger, counselor of the German Embassy in Moscow, who had acted as one of the interpreters during the conference.

  While the British bombers cruised overhead in the night and the antiaircraft guns fired away ineffectively at them, the slippery Nazi Foreign Minister tried one last time to take the Russians in. Out of his pocket he pulled a draft of an agreement which, in substance, transformed the Tripartite Pact into a four-power pact, with Russia as the fourth member. Molotov listened patiently while Ribbentrop read it through.

  Article II was the core. In it Germany, Italy, Japan and the Soviet Union undertook “to respect each other’s natural spheres of influence.” Any disputes concerning them would be settled “in an amicable way.” The two fascist countries and Japan agreed to “recognize the present extent of the possessions of the Soviet Union and will respect it.” All four countries, in Article III, agreed not to join or support any combination “directed against one of the Four Powers.”

  The agreement itself, Ribbentrop proposed, would be made public, but not, of course, its secret protocols, which he next proceeded to read. The most important one defined each country’s “territorial aspirations.” Russia’s was to “center south of the national territory of the Soviet Union in the direction of the Indian Ocean.”

  Molotov did not rise to the bait. The proposed treaty was obviously an attempt to divert Russia from its historic pressure westward, down the Baltic, into the Balkans and through the Straits to the Mediterranean, where inevitably it would clash with the greedy designs of Germany and Italy. The U.S.S.R. was not, at least at the moment, interested in the Indian Ocean, which lay far away. What it was interested in at the moment, Molotov replied, was Europe and the Turkish Straits. “Consequently,” he added, “paper agreements will not suffice for the Soviet Union; she would have to insist on effective guarantees of her security.”

  The questions which interested the Soviet Union [he elaborated] concerned not only Turkey but Bulgaria … But the fate of Rumania and Hungary was also of interest to the U.S.S.R. and could not be immaterial to her under any circumstances. It would further interest the Soviet Government to learn what the Axis contemplated with regard to Yugoslavia and Greece, and likewise, what Germany intended with regard to Poland … The Soviet Government was also interested in the question of Swedish neutrality … Besides, there existed the question of the passages out of the Baltic Sea …

  The untiring, poker-faced Soviet Foreign Commissar left nothing out and Ribbentrop, who felt himself being buried under the avalanche of questions—for at this point Molotov said he would “appreciate it” if his guest made answer to them—protested that he was being “interrogated too closely.”

  He could only repeat again and again [he replied weakly] that the decisive question was whether the Soviet Union was prepared and in a position to co-operate with us in the great liquidation of the British Empire.

  Molotov was ready with a cutting retort. Hilger duly noted it in the minutes.

  In his reply Molotov stated that the Germans were assuming that the war against England had already actually been won. If therefore [as Hitler had maintained] Germany was waging a life-and-death struggle against England, he could only construe this as meaning that Germany was fighting “for life” and England “for death.”

  This sarcasm may have gone over the head of Ribbentrop, a man of monumental denseness, but Molotov took no chances. To the German’s constant reiteration that Britain was finished, the Commissar finally replied, “If that is so, why are we in this shelter, and whose are these bombs which fall?”*

  From this wearing experience with Moscow’s tough bargainer and from further evidence that came a fortnight later of Stalin’s increasingly rapacious appetite, Hitler drew his final conclusions.

  It must be set down here that the Soviet dictator, his subsequent claims to the contrary notwithstanding, now accepted Hitler’s offer to join the fascist
camp, though at a stiffer price than had been offered in Berlin. On November 26, scarcely two weeks after Molotov had returned from Germany, he informed the German ambassador in Moscow that Russia was prepared to join the four-power pact, subject to the following conditions:

  1. That German troops are immediately withdrawn from Finland, which … belongs to the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence …

  2. That within the next few months the security of the Soviet Union in the Straits is assured by the conclusion of a mutual-assistance pact between the U.S.S.R. and Bulgaria … and by the establishment of a base for land and naval forces by the Soviet Union within range of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles by means of a long-term lease.

  3. That the area south of Batum and Baku in the general direction of the Persian Gulf is recognized as the center of the aspirations of the Soviet Union.

  4. That Japan renounce her rights to concessions for coal and oil in northern Sakhalin.33

  In all Stalin asked for five, instead of two, secret protocols embodying his new proposals and, for good measure, asked that, should Turkey prove difficult about Russian bases controlling the Straits, the four powers take military measures against her.