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First printing 1971 Second printing 1972
Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
[3]CONTENTS
Foreword.................,....... 5 Chapter One. SECRECY---THE WATCHWORD....... n 1. World Imperialism Is the Culprit.......... 11 2. The Secret Nazi Plans.............. 17 3. The Hidden Meaning of the Munich Deal ....... 26 4. Designs of the Abettors of Aggression Exposed .... 31 Chapter Two. GOVERNMENTS SURRENDER, THE PEOPLE FIGHT ON.................... 38 1. The Polish Tragedy......:........ 38 2. The First Nazi Retreat.............. 42 3. Behind the Scenes in the Phoney War........ 45 4. France Defeated................. 49 5. What Was ``The Battle for Britain''......... 55 6. The Unvanquished................. 59 Chapter Three. COLLAPSE OF THE BARBAROSSA PLAN . . 62 1. Secret Intents of the German Monopolies...... 62 2. Perfidy and Surprise.............., 69 3. The ``Secret'' of Soviet Resistance......... 72 4. Moscow, the Hero City.............. 79 5. The Pearl Harbor Secret............. 87 6. The Great Coalition............... 90 Chapter Four. FROM THE VOLGA TO BERLIN...... 95 1. The Stalingrad Exploit.............. 95 2. Anglo-American Military and Diplomatic Strategy Secrets..................... 102 3. German ``Tigers'' Smashed............ 108 4. The Teheran Conference............. 113 Chapter Five. THE ECONOMIC MIRACLE......... 121 1. Heroism in Battle and in Labour.......... 121 1* 4 2. The Economic Victory..............129 3. The Pen Is a Bayonet, the Camera a Rifle......136 Chapter Six. RETRIBUTION................152 1. He Who Draweth the Sword, Shall Perish by the Sword 152 2. Why the Second Front?..............160 3. Emergence of a New Poland............166 4. Explosion in the German General Headquarters . . .170 5. The Slovak Uprising...............174 6. Liberation of Southeast Europe ..........176 7. Hitler's Last Trump................186 8. The Crimea Conference..............190 Chapter Seven. THE SOVIET PARTISANS.........195 1. Invader Constantly Harassed...........195 2. Soviet System in the Enemy Rear .........211 Chapter Eight. VICTORY IN THE OFFING......... 215 1. Offensive Down the Line............. 215 2. In Beleagured Berlin............... 219 3. Victory Flag Over the Reichstag.......... 221 4. Soviet Tanks Race to Prague........... 229 5. Intolerance of Fascism, Humane Treatmen't of the People..................... 231 6. Seen and Unseen Strength of the Resistance Movement 234 7. The Enemy Surrenders ............. 237 8. The Conference in Potsdam............ 243 Chapter Nine. THE VICTORY OVER JAPAN .......248 1. Secret Plans of the Japanese Militarists....... 248 2. The Atomic Crime................ 252 3. Asian Peoples Fight for Liberation......... 256 4. The Victorious End ............... 259 CONCLUSION......................266 [5] __RUNNING_HEADER_LEFT__ __RUNNING_HEADER_RIGHT__ __NOTE__ No running headers: en/1972/SSWW277/ __ALPHA_LVL1__ FOREWORDThe Second World War (1939--1945) left a deep mark on the minds of all. It claimed a toll of more than 50 = million lives.^^1^^ Priceless treasures, the fruit of the labour and genius of many generations, were devoured by the names. Terrible was the suffering of the peoples of Europe, Asia and Africa.
Not surprisingly, a quarter of a century after the war people still want to know the truth: how it originated, what forces were to blame, how it ended and whose were the martial feats that forged the victory. The world will never forget the men who defeated fascism. Their daring inspires poets and artists, and writers of books such as this- one.
The title of this book, Secrets of the Second World War, was not selected merely to attract more readers. That is hardly needed. War books evoke a keen enough interest, no matter what their title. This author's motivation was anything but that.
It may appear to some that there were no secrets of the war. Could there indeed be secrets where tens of millions of people were involved? Yet secrecy often envelops the origins of war and many of the subsequent military developments. It will not be too much to say, in fact, that secrecy has been a satellite of the origin and course of war.
There are two kinds .of wars---just, liberative, progressive ones, and wars unjust, aggressive and reactionary. Lenin wrote: "... there are just and unjust wars, progressive and reactionary wars, wars waged by advanced classes and wars _-_-_
~^^1^^ Sovietskaya istoricheskaya entsiklopedia (Soviet Encyclopaedia of History), Vol. 3, p. 872.
6 waged by backward classes, wars waged for the purpose of perpetuating class oppression and wars waged for the purpose of eliminating = oppression....''^^1^^No secrets would have existed if the Second World War had been one of liberation from the beginning. Liberators waging a just war are legitimately proud of their exploit, and have nothing to hide.
A war may be unjust on both sides, if both pursue aims of conquest. A just war is just on one side only. If one side responds to aggression with a just war of liberation, the war of the other side is one of conquest and enslavement, and unjust. People are hardly likely to rally to that sort of war. That is why secrecy and deceit have a field day.
Unjust wars were always garnished with falsehood, deceit and provocation. Foul play necessitates foul means.
Those who pursue imperialist policy, of which war is but a continuation, choose to act in secrecy, especially in the preparatory stage. They dread publicity, knowing that it may boomerang. Those who pursue fair policies have a stake in public knowledge. Lenin said: "We must explain the real situation to the people, show them that war is hatched in the greatest = secrecy-----"^^2^^
Secrecy covered the preparations for the First World War, and likewise those for the Second. The direct war architects, the German imperialists, professed to be lovers of peace. Hitler's nazi party, which seized power in Germany in 1933, assured foreign statesmen that it had no concern more urgent than that of safeguarding peace. In the meantime, doing the will of its backers, the monopolies, it prepared frantically for a war for world supremacy.
The Munichites of Britain, France and the United States, eager to channel German aggression eastward, against the Soviet Union, encouraged the German fascists and pretended to accept Hitler's reassurances. They lifted their eyes to heaven and extolled peace, and also, in the same breath, praised the nazi methods against the disobedient. The voices of those cooking up war blended in singing specious paeans to peace.
This mixture of pacific oratory and bellicose intention needed the weapon of secrecy to be effective. In the name _-_-_
~^^1^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 343.
~^^2^^ Ibid., Vol. 33, p. 447.
7 of this secrecy the briefcases of German delegates to the disarmament conference were closely guarded, as were the doors of that Munich hall where the fate of Czechoslovakia was sealed, giving the green light to nazi aggression.The criminal Munich deal struck by Britain and France with Hitler Germany and fascist Italy was paraded as an act of peace, though it was really an act of encouraging aggression and, in that sense, an act of war.
Secrecy was an amenity for those that yearned for war, and for those, too, who were opening up the way for Hitler's conquests. The veils, at least many of them, have been lifted by now, but some still shroud the truth. Take a recent West German volume, Wahrheit Jur Deutschland, whose writer, Udo Walendy, pleads for justice, for a "truth for Germany'', denying her war guilt. Page through it and you will smell gunpowder, acrid smoke, and blood; you will see the secrecy that shrouded Hitler's war preparations used in a new way, for new ends.
Walendy quotes prplifically the pacific declarations of the war culprits. He strains to show that none of the German leaders wanted a world war. What they wanted was ``merely'' to extend German territory. Yet the other powers did not wish to meet Germany halfway. It is their fault the war broke out.
The drum-beaters of the neo-nazi National-Democratic Party of the Federal Republic of Germany, of whom Udo Walendy is one, repeat the Hitler clique's claims in explaining the causes of the Second World War, unmasking the NDP as successor and heir to Hitler's defunct National-- Socialist Party.
It may be proper to note that two phases are evident in West German historiography. During the first, from the war's end to approximately 1965, veteran historians (Walter Goerjitz), Hitler generals (Kurt von Tippelskirch, Erich Manstein and Heinz Guderian), and younger writers ( HansAdolf Jacobsen, Jurgen Rohwer and K. D. Erdmann) alike, endeavoured to exonerate the German General Staff and German imperialism of the war guilt and of the inhumanities of the nazi army. They put all the blame on Hitler. In the second phase, however, embracing the more recent years, with the National-Democratic Party stepping on to the FRG scene, Hitler, too, is being exonerated.
The West German revenge-seekers and militarists now 8 insist that Germany and her leaders were not to blame for the war. Czechs, Poles, Russians, Ukrainians and Byelorussians were guilty, for instead of acknowledging German territorial claims, instead of bowing to them, they put up a fight. The war was to their intransigence.
And what about the atrocities? The newly-fledged fascists reply there had been none, that no 12 million people had been exterminated in nazi death camps. They declare all documents testifying to atrocities to be false and the material evidence--- instruments of torture, gas chambers and the mountains of human ash---to have been fabricated postwar by Germany's enemies. In a collection of articles by NDP ideologists, Europe in Flames, atrocities are' blandly denied. Referring to Dachau, the neo-fascists say: "Until May 1945 it had no gas chambers. These were built later by German POWs on the orders of the American occupation = authorities."^^1^^ Yet it is common knowledge that the American occupation authorities and statesmen, and the British, too, chose to minimise the instances of nazi evil, and were certainly disinclined to exaggerate them. The neo-fascists follow Hitler's explicit advice: The more monstrous the lie, the better.
That literature of this sort has appeared is indicative. One wonders whether men of power are again, for the third time, trying to guide history along the vicious circle: secret war preparations, sudden attack, extermination of millions, total defeat and then again war preparations in secrecy, camouflaged with honeyed words of peace.
Secret diplomacy is the resort of those who pursue unpopular policy and have reason to conceal their intentions. When the October Revolution triumphed in Russia, the Soviet Government at once declared its rejection of secret diplomacy. It said in the historic Decree on Peace, drawn up by Lenin and adopted by the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets: "The Government abolishes secret = diplomacy."^^2^^ Ever since, publicity instead of .secrecy has been the basis of Soviet foreign policy. Genuinely democratic policy must be open.
To be sure Soviet measures related to defence were concealed in wartime. But once concealment was no longer necessary, the facts were instantly published. This was true, for example, of the Yalta Conference decision of the Soviet _-_-_
~^^1^^ Europa in Flammen 1939--1945, Bd. i, Vlotho-Weser, 1966, S. 421.
~^^2^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 250.
9 Union's joining the war against Japan, kept secret for a year. Publicity is part of honesty. When after the war ended many secrets were revealed, it was discovered that the Soviet Union had done nothing in secret from its wartime allies.Could the same be said of the other members of the anti-fascist coalition? It could of the Resistance Movement, but not of the governments of the United States and Britain. They represented countries that became combatants by virtue of the inexorable logic of history in a war that developed into a just war of liberation. But even in such a war, they would not disavow their selfish and ultimately anti-popular aspirations. The contradiction between the objective nature of the war and the subjective designs of the US and British rulers kept surfacing at every point. For a long time they sabotaged a second front, concealing the true purpose of the delay. Nor did they forego secret negotiations with nazi chiefs and chieftains. They manufactured their own plans for a postwar world arrangement contrary to the joint decisions of wartime allied conferences. Naturally, these plans were kept secret.
Apart from imperialist secrets related to the preparation and conduct of the war, there were ``secrets'' of a different kind. These were ``secrets'', or, more precisely, riddles related to the process of history, for the true sense of many historical developments is concealed from the casual observer. It is the task of the investigator to probe these developments and pinpoint the laws that impelled them.
To limit investigations to the superficial aspects of phenomena is not merely easier, but also, for many, more profitable. Some phases of the Second World War are reminiscent of scenes from old operas, where the actors chant, "We march, we march, we march!'', while marking time. In the meantime, others do the marching through raging enemy fire. Yet no sooner the war ended than those who talked big but did little, began declaiming that their shouting had made the enemy bastions collapse. And new secrets appear in place of the old.
Lastly, some ``secrets'' are ascribable to absence of information. This applies to the ``secret'', or rather the miracle, of the Soviet resistance and victory, which took many a friend of the Soviet Union, and certainly its enemies, by surprise. Those who knew of the intrinsic strength of the Soviet socialist society saw no miracle in that the Soviet Union withstood the incredible difficulties of a war against a strong enemy, 10 and ascended to victory. In a way, that victory was preordained. But even those who know, will do well to look back again on the wartime attainments of the Soviet people and review the factors that assured the Soviet triumph.
People were the makers of the victory---the people of the Soviet Union, who bore the brunt of the war, the peoples of the United States and Britain, the peoples of France, Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Greece, Italy, and all those countries that were the theatre of the Resistance. Glory to them!
[11] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter One __ALPHA_LVL1__ Secrecy---the Watchword __ALPHA_LVL2__ I. World Imperialism Is the CulpritIt took several decades ---from the conclusion of the AustroGerman Treaty in 1879 to the forming of the Entente in 1904--1907---10 prepare secretly for the First World War. Secret preparations for the Second World War began soon after the First ended, and consumed nearly two decades. Two military coalitions confronted each other long before the First World War: the Triple Alliance and the Entente. There was only one coalition before the Second World War: the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis. Britain, France and the United States did not gang up against Germany for the simple reason that they refused to lose hope .until the day the war broke out (and even after) of coming to terms with the nazis against the Soviet Union.
This difference in the prewar setup reflected deep-going changes in the world arrangement. On the eve of the First World War the globe was totally a capitalist playground, whereas before the Second World War the Soviet Union, the world's first socialist state, was well launched and developing rapidly. That was the new substantive point that distinguished the situation before the Second World War from that before the First. This time, the imperialist states were bent on resolving their contradictions at the expense of the USSR.
The second war, like the first, materialised due to the acute contradictions of the imperialist system---contradictions between the biggest capitalist powers, each of which was out to seize new territories, subjugate peoples and establish its supremacy. That was what led to the First World War, 12 which culminated in a redivision of the world in accordance with the existing balance of power. Defeated Germany was deprived of her colonies and of some of the neighbouring territories seized by German conquerors. Yet the social system in Germany withstood the revolutionary onslaught of the people.
The lessons of that war, of the disastrous defeat, were lost on the German monopolists. On the eve of the first war they clamoured for "a place in the sun'', whereas after it they also had a thirst for revenge. Revenge was what rallied all German aspirers of conquest. And by reason of the uneven economic and political development of capitalist countries, Germany soon caught up and then surpassed Britain and France, her European rivals, economically and militarily. This added fuel to the revenge-seeking ambitions of the German rulers.
The process was gradual and in the earlier stages a minimum of effort could have averted the subsequent course of events. But neither Britain nor France (nor the United States for that matter) did anything about it. On the contrary, their rulers displayed a "sense of affinity" with the German militarists. Their policy of abetment was camouflaged with assurances to the world that Germany had changed, become democratic, and would never again be a threat to her neighbours.
The American, British and French monopolies reckoned that German military revival would compensate for the old world's general debility contracted after socialism triumphed in the USSR. German militarism would not have recovered as swiftly as it did if international reaction, mostly the US monopolies, had not given it a helping hand. Monopoly quarters in the US, Britain and France hand-fed hitlerism, assisting the militarists in their new fascist cloak to prepare for the Drang nach Osten with the avowed purpose of destroying the Soviet Union.
The myopic anti-Soviet policy of the European and American imperialist bourgeoisie, steeped in hostility for the socialist system and backed by Right Social-Democratic leaders, bordered on outright betrayal of national interests, overstepping that border here and there, in face of the mounting nazi threat. The secret preparations of the Second World War are, in fact, a startling illustration of how the class limitations of the reactionary bourgeoisie and its blind hatred of communism delivered the European 13 countries to disaster and enslavement by German fascist invaders.
In the years preceding the war, the imperialist states converged along the anti-Soviet course. Yet, uniquely, their convergence blended with a further sharpening of the imperialist drives for world rule. That was why the Second World War at first broke out as a collision of two capitalist groups.
World imperialism was thus the sole culprit of the Second World War.
Once again imperialist Germany was its immediate initiator. After its defeat in 1914--1918, German imperialism became more aggressive. Its thirst for world power, an incurable disease, assumed monstrous proportions: it did not hesitate to begin plotting a new war.
The German monopolies sensed that resistance of the patriotic democratic section of the nation could spike their expansionist designs that gravely menaced the Germans themselves. So they delegated power to the Hitler clique, which, they saw, would impose acquiescence on the people by unmitigated terrorism.
The fascist coup took place early in 1933. The nazi seizure of power marked a realignment of strength among the monopoly bourgeoisie. The making of home and foreign policy fell under the total control of the moguls of the heavy and arms industry and the most aggressive and most reactionary segment of German finance capital.
The close alliance between the nazi clique and the German financial oligarchy was cemented by members of the former soon becoming millionaire monopolists. Hermann Goering was the foremost, amassing a fortune by plundering " nonArian" financiers. His concern had a capital of RM 6,000 million, with a fortune of over $3,500,000 in the = United States.^^1^^ Joseph Goebbels became a millionaire by marrying Magda Quandt, a banker's daughter. Adolf Hitler, too, the fascist dictator, was a capitalist of considerable means.
Even before coming to power the nazis were financed by monopolists. Afterwards, this financial support became a regular subsidy. An Adolf Hitler Fund for German Economy was founded on Krupp's initiative in May 1933, compounded from obligatory levies on wages and salaries. The workers _-_-_
~^^1^^ G. R.oza.nov,Germaniyapodvlastyufashizma (Germany under Fascist Rule), IMO Publishers, Moscow, 1961, p. 140.
14 were made to enrich their most bitter class enemy. The revenue amounted to RM 8,400,000 in the first year, and to RM 20,000,000 in the = second.^^1^^The nazis dealt ruthlessly with their political opponents long before they came to power, and shed all restraint once the bourgeois machinery of state fell under their control. Prisons and concentration camps densely dotted the country; camp barracks became a graphic architectural symbol of nazism. "The evolution from baroque to barrack was, in a way, a historical process illustrating the development of German culture under Hitler's = rule,"^^2^^ wrote Balis Sruoga, a Lithuanian writer and ex-inmate of a nazi death camp.
Nearly a million = people^^3^^ languished in prisons and camps, with 200,000 executed or tormented to death. The Communists were exposed to the most brutal treatment of all.
The main nazi aim was to prepare, trigger and prosecute a world war that would place the German monopolies into a position of unlimited power. Home and foreign policy was centred totally on this ultimate aim. Planning the ``total'' campaign, the hitlerites knew that in common their adversaries possessed superior strength. It, therefore, became their main diplomatic objective to keep them divided. Though reckless to the extreme, this policy paid off.
While the Soviet Union called unceasingly for a united front of peaceful nations to repulse the aggressive nazis, the rulers of the United States, Britain and France opposed this in every way. They were aware of the danger emanating from Germany, but assumed that it was insignificant compared with the advantages they would reap from an eventual war between Germany and the Soviet Union. Their plan was simple: let Germany destroy the Soviet Union and crush the labour movement in Europe, whereupon they would dictate terms to a Reich weakened by its effort in the East. The US rulers concealed their policy of encouraging German aggression in Europe and Japanese aggression in the Pacific behind a cloak of neutrality, and those of Britain and France behind non-interference.
The nazis were aware of the expectations of the US, British and French monopolists. They constructed their _-_-_
~^^1^^ G. Rozanov, op. cit., pp. 141--42.
~^^2^^ B. Sruoga, Les bogoo (Divine Forest), Vilnius, 1958, p. 7.
~^^3^^ Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, Bd. 5, Berlin, 1966, S. 235.
15 plans on an anti-communist foundation, Hitler and his lieutenants stressing constantly that their war plans concerned the Soviet Union only, not the reft of Europe, and that their purpose was to protect Europe from the "Bolshevik danger''. This, they kept saying, was why the West should help Germany fling off the Versailles constraints and rearm.Hitler put it in so many words to his closest associates: "I've got to play ball with capitalism and keep the Versailles powers in line by holding aloft the bogey of Bolshevism---make them believe that a nazi Germany is the last bulwark against the Red flood. That's the only way to come through the danger period, to get rid of Versailles and = re-arm."^^1^^
His secret manoeuvres succeeded. The US, British and French governments showed extraordinary zeal in clearing Germany's path. These upholders of Western democracy went so far as to aver that German fascism was a special kind of "democratic arrangement''. And Hjalmar Schacht, the German banker who toured the United States soon after the nazi coup, lecturing before financiers in the biggest cities, did his utmost to back up this specious propaganda. He said, among other things, that the fascist regime was the finest form of = democracy.^^2^^ His speaking tour firmed up the friendly feelings of the US monopolies towards Hitler and his regime. They stepped up their action, seeking to reinforce the military-industrial potential and the giant army establishment of nazi Germany. It stands to reason that their endeavours were anything but altruistic. General Motors, for one, cleared at least $30,000,000, and this according to minimised estimates, out of which $20,000,000 were reinvested in industries "owned or controlled by Goering and other nazi = officials".^^3^^
Economic ties of Anglo-US monopolies with Germany and their prominent part in restoring the armed forces of the German militarists, constituted the economic basis of the ``neutrality'' and ``non-interference'' officially professed by the United States and Britain, respectively.
No capitalist government bothered to act consistently for peace and security against the imminent fascist aggression. And not for a lack of Soviet warnings, which the capitalist press and bourgeois politicians classified as unfounded _-_-_
~^^1^^ K. Ludecke, / Knew Hitler, New York, 1938, p. 468.
~^^2^^ New York Evening Post, May 5, 1933.
~^^3^^ Congressional Record, Vol. 88, Part 10, p. AS 135.
16 ``propaganda'', on the grounds that the German Government had publicly declared its allegiance to peace and earned the trust of Western governments by its general activity. Nazi war preparations were indeed camouflaged with professions of peace, but their speciousness was obvious.The Soviet Union advanced the proposal of a united front of peoples and governments against a new world war. This, in fact, was the purport of the Soviet European collective security plan.
Yet the aggressors and their abettors poured scorn on the Soviet idea. The nazi government made its disapproval clear through official channels, announcing its hostility to all treaties of mutual aid against aggression. This was not surprising. Its repudiation of collective security was motivated by aggressive intents. But Britain and the United States, too, came out against it. Meanwhile' Mussolini countered with a plan for a united imperialist front, including Germany. He proposed a "quadripartite pact'', and accord by the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy to revise peace treaties, recognise Germany's ``right'' to rearmament and assure co-operation against the Soviet Union.
The four-power agreement of understanding and cooperation was concluded soon after the Hitler coup, on July I5> r933- But its architects went down in defeat in their respective parliaments, which refused to ratify it in face of the public outcry. This ended the first Anglo-French attempt, backed by the US imperialists, to build an antiSoviet front and prod the reviving German militarism eastward. However, though unratified, the four-power pact served as a prologue to the Munich deal, a. fateful factor of subsequent international developments.
The next encouragement of nazi aggression was Britain's and France's refusal to act effectively against the Hitler government in 1935, when it began its series of gross violations of the Versailles military articles and the building up of vast armed forces.
More, unilateral violations of Versailles treaties were followed by a bilateral violation: in June 1935 the British Government concluded a naval agreement with Germany, allowing her to reconstitute a powerful navy, with British firms promising financial and technical aid.
The US, British and French imperialists thought their cherished goal-a German attack on the USSR---very close. 17 However, far from relieving the imperialist contradictions, their policy of encouragement only added fuel to the fire. The rapid growth of Germany's military-economic potential, coupled with her war preparations, accentuated the" unevenness in the development of the capitalist countries, tilting the balance of strength in Hitler's favour. The split of the capitalist world into hostile groups of powers was imminent, paving the way for an armed conflict between them.
The war matured in the womb of the capitalist world. The eruption drew closer. But the process was veiled by the secrecy that impregnated the policy of the Western powers, which thought of war while chattering of peace. The knife to cut the throat of the peace dove was being whetted by the nazis, while the leaders of the United States, Britain and France turned the grindstone. At first, Hitler had not expected this. The German imperialists had every reason to be grateful, but their gratitude was a mere pretence. Their daggers were drawn against France, Britain and the USA, as well as the Soviet Union.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 2. The Secret Nazi PlansSetting its sights on a world war, German imperialism aspired to much more than mere revenge for the 1918 defeat. It craved for world rule, a world-wide colonial empire in which the German monopolies meant to embrace the developed European countries.
The German imperialists' racial theory advocating extermination or enslavement of all other peoples by the German Herrenvolk was the ideological groundwork for Hitler's programme of conquest. Hitler described subjugation of other nations as the historical mission of the Germans, destined to provide the world with "a class of new masters''. He said this in so many words:
"We want to make a selection for a class of new masters who will be devoid of moral pity, a class which will realise that because of its better race it has the right to dominate others, a class that will be able to establish and maintain without hesitation its domination over the = masses."^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ International Military Tribunal. Trial of the Major War Criminals, Vol. 7, Nuremberg 1947, p. 152 (further referred to as IMT. Trial...).
18Extolling aggression and violence, Hitler propaganda created a military cult, depicting war as the most noble of occupations for the German master race. "The divine essence of man (i.e., German---Deborin),'' wrote Rosenberg, the nazi theorist, "must be defended with = blood."^^1^^
The nazi ideology also rested on the theory of "insufficient living space''. Fanning chauvinism, nazi propaganda maintained that all German troubles (especially painful during the world-wide economic crisis of 1929--1933) stemmed from overpopulation. And the solution for this problem, allegedly created by the advancement of other peoples, was said to be conquest of foreign = land.^^2^^
Oswald Spengler, the German philosopher, said in a book in 1933 that immense colonial areas were available that could provide Lebensraum for the German = race.^^3^^ Hitler declared publicly: "We are overpopulated and cannot feed ourselves from our own land.... The final solution of the vital questions lies in expanding our living space.... If the Urals with their incalculable material resources, Siberia with its rich forests, and the Ukraine with its incalculable grain areas were part of Germany, the latter would attain abundance under National-Socialist = leadership."^^4^^
The German rulers were plotting conquest of European, even of overseas, countries, and the Soviet Union, which they regarded as an object for colonisation, stood high up in their list. One of the leading nazi journalists wrote: "The Germans consider Russia a future colony.... Russia is entering a new stage in her history: it is becoming a colonial = country."^^5^^
Direct war preparations began immediately on Hitler's assumption of power, gaining in intensity in 1936, when the nazi congress in Nuremberg adopted a four-year plan to build up Germany's war-making potential. In 1933, RM 700 million was invested in the war industry, investments rising to RM 9,000 million in 1936 and 15,500 million in 1938, and passing the 1933 level by as much as i, 1250 per cent in = 1939.^^6^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des so. Jahrhunderts, Munchen, 1942, S. 114.
~^^2^^ In dozens of countries population is denser than in Germany.
~^^3^^ O. Spengler, Politische Schriften, Miinchen, 1933, S. 124.
~^^4^^ Volkischer Beobachter, Sept. 13, 1936.
~^^5^^ Zeitschrift fur Geopolitik, Heft I, 1936, S. 10--11.
~^^6^^ R. Erbe, Die Nationalsozialistische Wirtschaftspolitik, Zurich, 1958, S. 25.
19Total cost of economic preparations for war passed the RM 90,000 million mark between 1933 and 1939. Out of this sum, 55,000 million was spent on arms* production, 10,000 million on acquiring or producing and building up a stockpile of strategic raw materials, and nearly 25,000 million on state military = investments.^^1^^
War production swallowed up tremendous financial and material resources, and a vast amount of labour. Between 1933 and 1939, for example, employment in the Junkers aircraft concern soared from 3,000 to 53,000 = workers.^^2^^
The armed forces for the contemplated aggressive war grew rapidly, as may be seen from the following table:
The Nazi Military Build-up^^3^^
~1932 ~1936 ~1939 Total divisions 7 36 ~103 incl.: Panzer - 3 ~6 Motorised --- --- ~8The German generals, who willingly acknowledged Hitler's leadership, primed for the war with extraordinary thoroughness. They knew it would be difficult for Germany to overcome the rest of the world. That was why they attached particular importance to the surprise element in attack, a factor yielding a distinct edge over the enemy. General Heinz Guderian wrote in an article in 1935, explaining the advantages of a sudden*attack: "One night the gates of the plane hangars and'army motor pools will swing open, the motors will break into song and the units will head forward. The first sudden strike will capture or destroy the enemy's important industrial and raw-material areas from the air, switching them out of war production. The enemy's government and military centres will be paralysed, and his _-_-_
~^^1^^ Istorijia Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny Sovietskogo Soyuza (History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union), Vol. I, p. 24 (further referred to as I.V.O.V.S.S.).
~^^2^^ IML, Dokvmenty i materialy Otdela istorii Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny (Institute of Marxism-Leninism. Documents and Materials of the Department of the Great Patriotic War), folio 19208, sheet 2207.
~^^3^^ Burkhart Mueller-Hillebrand, Das Heer 1933--1945,' Bd. i, Darmstadt 1954, S. 25, Bd. a, S. 102.
20 communications crippled. The first sudden strategic assault will carry the troops more or less far into enemy = territory."^^1^^The generals' accent on a lightning war completely suited Hitler: He told his closest associates that when his government decided war as propitious, he would not indulge in negotiations. "If ever I attack an adversary,'' he declared, "I would not do it like Mussolini. I would not negotiate month after month and indulge in protracted preparations. I would act as I have always acted: suddenly, streaking out of the night and hitting lightning-like at my = opponent."^^2^^
It was envisaged, moreover, that numerous German agents planted by the aggressor would help considerably in the sudden seizure of the countries concerned.
The nazis began fanning a war hysteria at home long before the hostilities. Speeches by leaders and generals, martial music over the radio, films and fascist songs combined with grandiose military spectacles consisting of stamping soldiers' boots, a rhythmic swaying of helmets, howls of Heil, were to inject faith that Germany was unconquerable, that her claims to world supremacy were justified.
Hitler's brazen behaviour actually covered up apprehensions and cowardice. Tearing down the restrictions set by the Versailles Treaty, the German Government was careful each time to leave itself avenues for hasty retreat. When they realised that resistance would not be forthcoming, however, they grew immeasurably bolder.
It was with second thoughts, teeth chattering from fear, that Hitler set to remilitarising the Rhine zone in March 1936. It seemed impossible that France would show no sign of outrage over this gross violation of treaty commitments by her dangerous neighbour. Yet the Hitler clique got away with it. "Hitler gazed tensely westward on that day, towards Paris and London. He waited 24 hours, then 48. When no intervention resulted, he breathed a sigh of relief.... He had gambled, and he won,'' wrote Otto Dietrich, Hitler's press chief, in his = memoirs.^^3^^
Hitler Germany was more sure of her ground when she intervened in Spain jointly with Italy, and thereafter began preparing new acts of aggression.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Heinz Guderian, ``Kraftfahrkampftruppen'', Militdrwissenschaftliche Rundschau, No. i, 1935, S. 75.
~^^2^^ A. Muller, Hitlers motorisierte Stossarmee, Paris, 1936, S. 31--32.
~^^3^^ O. Dietrich, is John mil Hitler, MUnchen, 1955, S. 44--45.
21What lay behind the inactivity of many of the states selected as objects of fascist aggression? There were two motives: firstly, the nazi government had prevailed on many statesmen that its war preparations were aimed ``solely'' against the Soviet Union and no Western powers were imperilled; secondly, and closely associated with the former, some statesmen thought German aggression advantageous, hoping to share in the spoils with the German monopolies. Take the utterances in the House of Lords in February 1937 of Labourite Sydney Arnold, a figure prominent in the AngloGerman Friendship Society. "If there is another war on the continent,'' he said, "and Great Britain stands aside, we are not likely to be in danger if Germany were amongst the victorious Powers or the defeated = Powers."^^1^^ Replying on behalf of the government, Lord Halifax, then Keeper of the Seal, fell in with this = view.^^2^^
Some years after the Second World War, Lyndon Johnson, the Senator who later became US President, admitted: "France could have stopped Hitler when he started into the Saar. France and England combined could have prevented the occupation of Austria or even later stopped the Nazis at Czechoslovakia. The tjnited States, England and France could have prevented the rape of = Poland..~.."^^3^^
But nothing of the kind was done.
Their earliest acts of aggression, committed with impunity, so encouraged the German imperialists that they went ahead with their war preparations. That was in 1937. The General Staff drew up a secret Directive for Unified Preparation for War, circulated among the troops on June 24. "Inasmuch as favourable political opportunities have appeared for Germany,'' it said, "the most must be made of them, implying such preparations of the Armed Forces as would enable them to begin the war suddenly... to catch the adversary by surprise and inflict a devastating lightning = stroke."^^4^^
Hitler endorsed the main points of the directive at a conference on November 5, 1937. In his three-hour speech he gave an exposition of war variants. "The question for _-_-_
~^^1^^ Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, Vol. 104, p.~303.
~^^2^^ Ibid., pp. 339--54.
~^^3^^ Congressional Record, Vol. 93, p. 4695.
~^^4^^ Tsentralnyi ^gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Oktyabrskoi revolyutsii (Central State Archives of the October Revolution), file 7445, case 1729, pp. 22--25 (further referred to as CSAOR).
22 MISSING : 24-26 scanned twice. 23 MISSING : 24-26 scanned twice. 24On the other hand, however, the Spanish war showed that in a world engagement invaders are bound to encounter powerful popular resistance. International brigades of antifascists from 54 = countries^^1^^ fought valiantly in Spain for peace and democracy against fascism. On the sun-scorched Spanish soil a broad international anti-fascist front defended the interests of the Spanish and all the peoples of Europe against the Italo-German troops.
That explains the hesitant German tactics in the early months of the Spanish war. Seeing this uncertainty, the Western governments decided to prod the nazis to new acts of aggression, for which a series of secret talks and conferences was held in November 1937.
Halifax conferred with Hitler in Obersalzberg ( Berchtesgaden) on behalf of the British Government and the French cabinet with the same degree of secrecy with Johannes Welczek, the German Ambassador in Paris. Besides meeting Eisenlohr Benes even stooped to meeting Gestapo representatives. In San Francisco, too, prominent US industrialists and politicians held a secret conference with German diplomatists.
The parleys were part of a Western scheme, a secret effort, to engineer a world war. Spokesmen of the Western " democracies" extolled Hitler for his terrorising Germany's best people and made pompous speeches about Germany's mission as a "fortress against Bolshevism''. Hinting transparently at an Eastern campaign, Washington, London and Paris urged Hitler to haste in seizing Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland.
The US monopolists went the farthest in their secret contacts with the nazis. In San Francisco they agreed that Germany and the United States should co-operate, for the potential markets, China and Russia, cannot be organised without the active collaboration of American = capital.^^2^^ That was a step toward a negotiated division of the world. However, the actual situation, highlighted by a sharpening of imperialist contradictions, prevented these plans from materialising.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain publicly, encouraged fascist aggression against Austria and Czechoslovakia. "I say,'' he declared in the House of Commons on _-_-_
~^^1^^ I.V.O.y\S.S., Vol. i, p. in.
~^^2^^ Congressional Record, Vol. 88, Part 10. pp. A-3134--35.
25 February 22, 1938, "we must not try to delude ourselves, and, still more, we must not try to delude small weak nations, into thinking that they will be protected by the League against = aggression."^^1^^ For the hitlerites this was tantamount to an assurance that they could go ahead with impunity.A week later, on March i, German troops poured into Austria, soon thereafter incorporated in the German Reich. The Anschluss was officially recognised by the British and French governments, which thereby betrayed the national interests of all the European peoples. Austria's annexation reinforced Germany's position in Central Europe, enabling it among other things to encircle Czechoslovakia.
The Soviet Government was the only one to denounce the German aggression and warn against its dangerous implications for peace. The Soviet statement said, in part: ".. .this time the violence has been perpetrated in the centre of Europe and has created an indubitable menace not only for the eleven countries now contiguous with the aggressor, but also for all European states, and not only European ones. So far the menace has been created to the territorial integrity and, in any case, to the political, economic, and cultural independence of the small nations, whose inevitable enslavement will, however, create the premises for pressure, and even for attacks against the large states as = well."^^2^^
The Soviet Government urged a discussion of practical measures either in or outside the League of Nations. It urged all governments, especially the big powers, to work together for the "collective salvation of = peace".^^3^^
The British Foreign Office, fearing that someone would jump ahead of it, sent a reply signed by a minor official, saying that any discussion of collective measures to prevent the spread of aggression was, of all things, unlikely to have a "favourable effect upon the prospects of European = peace."^^4^^
The British refusal coincided with those of the US and France. Heedless of the consequences, the West persisted in its disastrous policy of encouraging Hitler. Now, the fate of Czechoslovakia, one more independent state, hung in the balance.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Vol. 332, p. 227.
^^2^^ Documents and Materials Relating to the Eve of the Second World War, Vol. i, Moscow, 1948, pp. 90--91.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
~^^4^^ Ibid., p. 92.
26 __ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. The Hidden Meaning of the Munich DealCapturing Czechoslovakia was for Hitler Germany a far more difficult job than Austria. Apart from the absence of any valid pretext for crushing the sovereign Czech and Slovak state, the latter's international position was conspicuously stable. Czechoslovakia was an ally of the Soviet Union and France, and any head-on aggression would run into the resistance of Czechoslovak patriots and their allies. The biggest deterrent of all was the Soviet-Czechoslovak Mutual Aid Treaty, for there could be no doubt as to the USSR's living up to its commitments to the letter. The other factor was Czech and Slovak patriotism blending with the patriotic and internationalist sentiment of workers and other progressives in Britain and France, where a strong movement was in motion to protect Czechoslovakia.
These factors were a headache for the British and French rulers, convinced that the German government had made its future moves conditional on the outcome of its claims to Czechoslovak territory. A perfidious plan crystallised, assuming special prominence in the secret war preparations. In substance, it was designed to frighten the peoples with threats of war and, exploiting their peaceful aspirations, meet the German demands, clearing the path for the nazi war machine. The British and French governments wanted merely a guarantee that German guns were trained eastward, away from them.
Blackmail with war as a stake ---and this in order to unleash a war---was a novel dodge in the secret book of imperialist diplomacy. The blackmail began in May 1938, when nazi Germany failed to overcome at once the resistance to her plans of taking Czechoslovakia. In that critical hour, British and French diplomacy picked up the cue. They claimed that due to Czechoslovak reluctance to meet Germany half-way a war was likely to break out any day. This was tantamount to shifting the guilt on the victim of aggression. The British and French governments undertook a "peace-making mission".
To begin with, ex-Foreign Minister Lord Runciman was hastily dispatched to Prague as mediator. This amounted to outright incitement, for he was known as a nazi sympathiser. The move was to back up the German intentions, to avert a hazi retreat and portray the predatory fascist demands as legitimate and reasonable, forcing the Czechoslovak 27 Government to bow and reject French and Soviet assistance. The French Government, for its part, cast about frantically for a valid excuse to shirk its obligations. The Soviet Union, meanwhile, declared its determination and readiness to render every possible aid, including armed assistance, denying everything that was alleged to obstruct such aid. The Soviet stand was publicly announced, and also communicated to the governments of Czechoslovakia and = France.^^1^^
The USSR made the most of all opportunities to organise resistance to fascist aggression and render Czechoslovakia armed support, let alone political and moral aid. Regrettably, its efforts were rejected by the Czechoslovak Government under President Benes.
In the meantime, Chamberlain twice held secret talks with Hitler. His attitude delighted the nazi dictator. The Fuehrer could barely conceal his joy. During their second meeting in Bad Godesberg on September 22, 1938, the two came to terms on the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. But one point still had to be settled: the resistance of Czechoslovakia and of progressives in Britain and France had to be squashed.
That was when blackmail by suggesting war was used to the fullest. A partial mobilisation was carried into effect in France on September 21. Trenches were dug and antiaircraft guns stationed in Paris squares and streets. Evacuation of the French capital started. In Britain, the Navy was alerted, sandbags covered shop and office windows in Londpn, and schoolchildren were shipped out of the city. The US Government advised its citizens to leave Europe due to "imminence of = war".^^2^^ Pacifist books describing war horrors, heretofore banned in Britain and France, were run off the presses hastily. The Western governments made a show of lamenting that they might have to go to war against a ``guiltless'' Germany on behalf of ``intransigent'' Czechoslovakia. Chamberlain said this in so many words over the radio:
"How horrible, fantastic, incredible, it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know = nothing."^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Novyie dokumenty iz istorii Mywnkhena (New Documents Concerning the History of Munich), Moscow, 1958.
^^2^^ New York Times, Sept. 27, 1938.
^^3^^ Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. I, London, 1955,?. 283.
28That was how the groundwork was laid for betraying Czechoslovakia and European peace.
In those critical days, the Soviet Union renewed its proposal of a broad international conference to prevent further aggression: it would "search for practical measures to counteract aggression and save the peace by a collective = effort".^^1^^ If the Soviet proposal had been accepted, it would have effectively blocked fascist aggression. But that was farthest from the minds of Hitler's abettors.
Western intentions were not to repulse Germany, but to compel Prague to bow to her demands. Giving way to Western pressure, the Czechoslovak Government under President Bene§ surrendered unconditionally, accepting Hitler's extortionate demands. This was tantamount to national betrayal.
On September 29--30, 1938, the heads of government of Germany, Britain, France and Italy gathered in Munich. France and Britain burned their bridges: the idea of collective security lay buried. The conference that abandoned Czechoslovakia to the tender mercies, of the nazis was the main stepping stone to a second world war. The aggressor, who barely had time to digest Austria, could not believe his eyes. Munich prodded him on to new acts of brigandage. It wrote finis to the idea of a united front against Hitler and his ambitions, paving the way for a united front against the Soviet Union in the interest of German fascism. Eager to direct aggression eastward, the French and British governments sought pledges that no aggression would follow against them. On the second day of the Munich conference, September 30, an Anglo-German non-aggression declaration was signed, with a similar Franco-German declaration signed on December 6, 1938, consummating France's rejection of her mutual aid treaty with the Soviet Union.
Now, 30 years later, the vast majority of historians of different schools, assess the Munich deal in much the same terms as the Soviet Union did in the wake of the event. Herbert Feis, a US historian, writes: "The Munich agreement had allowed Hitler to tear Czechoslovakia apart, leaving Poland and the Soviet Union exposed to German = assault."^^2^^ Michael Freund, a West-German historian, chimes in: "With _-_-_
~^^1^^ Vneshnyayapolitika SSSR (USSR Foreign Polity), Vol. 4, Moscow, 1946, pp. 391--92-
~^^2^^ Herbert Feis, Churchill-Roosevelt-Stalin. The War They Waged and the Peace They Sought, London, 1957, p. 4.
29 Bohemian soil resounding to the tread of marching Germans, the whole world caved in. The cornerstone had been pulled out of the order erected by the Versailles Treaty. But that was not all. The path to the East had been paved for the = German Reich."^^1^^The Munichites saw to it that the secrecy shrouding the birth of war should become denser still. The critical war step was described as salvation from war. Chamberlain received a hero's welcome on his return to Britain. Girls in snow-white dresses presented him with flowers. His portraits, framed in laurel wreaths, were displayed in all respectable clubs. His umbrella was described as an emblem of peace. Medallions were on sale, depicting the umbrella crossed by a peace palm. Streets formerly named Peace were renamed Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain made a triumphant entry into Parliament. His claim that he had secured "peace for our = time"^^2^^ evoked an ovation. What Chamberlain did not say was what kind of peace he had secured.
Chamberlain assumed that having given Hitler the green light in the East, he had ruled out war in the West. But the nazi leaders had their own ideas. Ribbentrop, for one, said derisively to Hitler: "That old man has today signed the death warrant of the British Empire and left it to us to fill in the = date."^^3^^
After Munich the war drive was redoubled. At first Germany seized part of Czechoslovakia, then the rest of it. Then it grabbed Memel, now Klaipeda, from Lithuania, and saddled Rumania with an unequal economic treaty, turning her into Germany's economic appendage. In the meantime, Italy overran Albania.
The fascist rash spread over Europe. No longer was there any doubt left in anyone's mind as to the kind of ``peace'' achieved in Munich. Yet the governments of the United States, Britain and France still acted as neutral observers, letting no opportunity escape, however, to remind Hitler about his promised eastward crusade. If they ever intervened in the course of events, it was unfailingly in Germany's favour. Take Spain: helping the Italo-German _-_-_
~^^1^^ M. Freund, Deutsche Geschichte, Giittersloh, 1960, S. 623.
~^^2^^ Edgar Holt, The World at War 1939--1945, London, 1956, p. 10.
~^^3^^ Hugh Dalton, The Fateful Years. Memoirs 1931--1945, London, 1957, P- 195-
30 interventionists conclude the war, they untied the nazis' hands for new ventures.The Soviet Union was the only country that pulled no punches in exposing each act of fascist aggression and coming out in defence of the victims. In a note to Germany on March 19, 1939, the Soviet Government refused to acknowledge as lawful and consistent with the principle of self-- determination the rape inflicted on Czechoslovakia. It described her occupation as an arbitrary act of violence and = aggression.^^1^^
Far from bettering the international position of Britain and France, the Munich deal had lamentable consequences for those two countries, and for Poland. Before Munich the German leaders and generals wrangled behind the scenes over the direction of fresh armed campaigns. Some suggested the course of least resistance---starting the war for world supremacy by attacking Britain, France and Poland, the latter being the ally of the former two. Others, on the other hand, suggested war against the Soviet Union with Polish aid. The friends and foes of the second alternative equally feared Soviet strength. Diplomat Ernst von Weizsaecker revealed later that the nazis believed the Soviet Union to be more dangerous than any other = adversary.^^2^^
After Munich, the choice was clear: the Western countries would be attacked first, but to avoid a war on two fronts the German generals suggested crushing Poland first of all. Here was how they reasoned: in case of a German attack on Britain and France, their ally Poland would be more likely to come to their aid than if the reverse happened and Poland were attacked first. Hitler spoke with contempt of his Munich collocutors and their policy: "I have witnessed the miserable worms ... in Munich. They will be too cowardly to = attack."^^3^^
Besides, attacking Poland appeared more attractive to the German generals, because it would place their troops along the Soviet border, securing a staging area for a subsequent assault, envisaged after Germany's victory over the Western powers.
Prior to Munich, the Genera'l Staff worked on a war plan against Poland merely provisionally. After Munich, it was completed in double quick time. On April 11, 1939, it was _-_-_
~^^1^^ USSR Foreign Policy, Russ. ed., Vol. 4, p. 411.
~^^2^^ Weizsaecker, Erinnerungen, Munchen, 1950, S. 230.
~^^3^^ Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Vol. 7, Washington, 1946, p. 753.
31 endorsed by the government. War hovered over the continent. Yet it was not too late to block the avalanche by extraordinary collective action. __ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. Designs of the Abettors of Aggression ExposedThe veil of secrecy that covered the Munich deal did not delude the Soviet Union. The USSR evaluated Munich at once as a gross betrayal. Yet the Soviet leaders would not abandon the idea of uniting the peaceful European countries against nazi aggression.
That is why the USSR agreed to negotiate with Britain and France in 1939. With peace a vital stake in its grandiose plans of construction, the Soviet Union tried sincerely to reach agreement, and hammer out a treaty for effective mutual aid against aggression guaranteeing the security of countries in Central and Eastern Europe. That treaty would provide for the forms and magnitude of mutual aid against any attack. What Moscow did not want was a scrap of paper instead of a treaty. "They were in earnest,'' Arnold Toynbee, the English historian, wrote of the USSR, "in wishing to conclude a military convention as soon as = possible."^^1^^
But was that what the British and French governments wanted? At times, points of contact appeared between the Soviet and French positions, but none between the Soviet and British.
The British and French governments were in no way motivated by the desire to avert German aggression when consenting to negotiate with the USSR. As a matter of fact, what they wanted was the very reverse. The parleys with the USSR were only meant to allay and deceive home public opinion, which clamoured for an alliance with the USSR to repulse the nazis. But that, too, was secondary. The main objective was to put the choice before the German Government : either we, the British and French, erect a coalition with the Soviet Union against Germany if she imperils the Western powers, or you, Germany, better start your war against the USSR with our, British and French, support.
At the same time, the British and French governments hoped to saddle the Soviet Union with commitments, the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Survey of International Affairs, 1939--1946. The Eve of War, 1,936. Ed. by A. and V. Toynbee, London, 1958, p. 481.
32 fulfilment of which would inexorably draw the USSR into a war with Germany in the absence of any definite commitments on the part of the British and French. And in the event of Germany's turning westward, the British and French hoped to secure Soviet aid. The consent of the British and French governments to negotiate with the Soviet Union was, thus, merely another move in their double game, a projection in new garb of their Munich policy. They hoped that by going through the motions of coming to terms with the USSR, they would spur Germany into concluding a far-reaching agreement with them, which, while unprejudicial to the British and French monopolies in the world market, would ensure Germany's attacking the Soviet Union.This view of the Anglo-French stand in the 1939 parleys with the USSR is long known to progressive historians. Now it has been reconfirmed by many new documents, as the memoirs of men involved in those events.
Iain Macleod, Neville Chamberlain's biographer, says: "... Chamberlain was reluctant to acquiesce in the opening of negotiations with the Soviet. He did so only under strong pressure from the French Government and from public opinion at home as reflected in the Press, in Parliament and in the anxieties of his Cabinet = colleagues."^^1^^ On March 26, 1939, before the parleys began, Chamberlain put down in his diary: "I must confess to the most profound distrust = of Russia."^^2^^ Subsequently, Macleod wrote: "He was neither elated when the negotiations seemed to be going well, nor cast down when they seemed to be going badly... = "^^3^^ And Lord Halifax, then Britain's Foreign Minister, commented: "It was desirable not to estrange Russia but always to keep her in = play."^^4^^ Exactly! That was the official British line.
This policy, then secret, was reflected in Britain's memofandum to France on May 22, 1939. "It would seem desirable,'' it said, "to conclude some agreement whereby the Soviet Union would come to our assistance if we were attacked in the West, not only in order to ensure that Germany would have to fight a war on two fronts, but also perhaps for the _-_-_
~^^1^^ I. Macleod, Neville Chamberlain, London, 1961, p. 273.
~^^2^^ Keith Failing, The Life of Neville Chamberlain, London, 1946, p. 403.
~^^3^^ I. Macleod, op. cit., p. 273.
~^^4^^ Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919--1939, Third Series, Vol. 5, London, 1952, p. 331.
__PLATE__Ribbentrop greets Chamberlain on his arrival in Germany
__PLATE__Daladier signing the Munich agreement
33 reason ... that it was essential, if there must be a war, to try to involve the Soviet Union in = it."^^1^^ In other words, the idea was to secure Soviet aid and, if possible, expose the USSR to a German attack, while assuming no commitments to aid the Soviet Union in case it was attacked.This coloured the behaviour of the British and French governments in their negotiations with the Soviet Union; they were insincere to the extreme. And doubly so, because Anglo-French attempts were simultaneously made to obtain closer contacts with Germany. Secret Anglo-German talks took place in London in June-August 1939 concerning agreements formalising an alliance against the Soviet Union. During these talks, the British spokesman, Minister Robert Hudson, told his German opposite number, Helmuth Wohlthat, that if Britain and Germany were to come to terms, broad opportunities would arise for the two countries in the British Empire, China and Russia. Hudson stressed specially that in Russia "there was a possibility for Germany to take part in vast economic = activities".^^2^^ This was as much as saying that Britain was eager to slice up the world between herself and Germany, prodding Germany to engage in economic expansion and also attack the USSR.
Though every minute counted, Britain and France employed dilatory tactics in the talks with the USSR, and to speed them up the Soviet Government suggested parleys by military missions of the three countries in Moscow. The suggestion was accepted, and a French delegation came to London in order to depart for Moscow jointly with the British. This was when Ivan Maisky, Soviet Ambassador to Britain, had a very revealing talk with the head of the British delegation to Moscow. Here is Maisky's record of it:
"7: 'Tell me, Admiral, when are you leaving for Moscow?'
"Reginald E. Drax: 'That hasn't been settled, but in the next few days.'
"/: 'You are flying, of course? Time is precious: the atmosphere in Europe is extremely tense.'
"Drax: 'Oh no! We of the two delegations, including the technical personnel, are about 40, arid there is the luggage... It would be inconvenient to fly.'
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 646.
~^^2^^ Herbert von Dirksen, Moscow-Tokyo-London. Twenty Tears of German Foreign Policy, London, 1951, p. 338.
34"I: `If flying is unsuitable, perhaps you will go to the Soviet Union in one of your fast cruisers?... That would be forceful and impressive---military delegations aboard a warship.... Besides, it would not take too long from London to Leningrad.'
"Drax (with a sour expression): 'No, a cruiser won't do either. If all of us were to go aboard a cruiser, we should have to evict several dozen of its officers and take their place in their cabins.. ..Why cause inconveniences? No, no, we shan't go by cruiser.'
"7: 'In that case you will perhaps go by one of your speedy liners?... I repeat, time is short and you must get to Moscow as quickly as possible.'
"Drax (obviously reluctant to continue): 'I really can't say... Transportation is in the hands of the Ministry of Trade.... Everything is in its hands. I have no idea what will = happen.'"^^1^^
What happened, however, was that the delegations left London as late as August 5, 1939, aboard a combined freighter-passenger doing 13 knots and arriving in Leningrad on August i o.
When the talks began at last, it was discovered that the British delegation was not empowered to work out and conclude any pertinent convention. The secret was out!
The British and French spokesmen had no intention of concluding a mutual aid treaty with the Soviet Union. They referred to the Polish Government's refusal to join the USSR in any concerted measures repulsing German aggression. Yet it was they who had inspired Poland's refusal, just as they had inspired a similar refusal by the Baltic states. It was also discovered that in some cases the British and French negotiators did not even consult the governments concerned when they pleaded their refusal.
To make the negotiations founder was a preconceived Anglo-French plan. On July 10, Britain's Ambassador in Germany told the French Foreign Minister: "... the negotiations with the Soviets had reached a stage when they lacked a sense of realities.... The important thing was to end negotiations one way or another as soon as = possible."^^2^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ I. Maisky, Kto pomogal Gitleru (Who Helped Hitler), Moscow, 1962, pp. 152--53.
~^^2^^ Documents on British Foreign Policy 1913--1939, Third Series, Vol. 6, London, 1953, p. 331,
35The Soviet Union realised it could not succeed in reversing the Anglo-French stand by merely negotiating. Other assurances were required. Just when the talks of the military missions in Moscow were stymied by the British and French delegations, on August 20, 1939, the German Government offered to conclude a non-aggression treaty with the USSR. This was a renewal of previous proposals, turned down while hope still existed of a mutual aid agreement with Britain and = France.^^1^^ When this hope was dashed, the choice had to be made. The Soviet Union had to foil the German plan of attacking with Japanese involvement and supported by Britain, France and the USA. A meaningful step had been taken at Munich towards a united anti-Soviet front, while Japan, which feared missing the bus, made a try at grabbing a slice of the Mongolian People's Republic, a friend of the USSR.
These factors could not be left out of the reckoning. The situation in the Far East was still simmering, despite the crushing setback suffered by the Japanese at the hands of the Red Army. Japan's rulers were obviously waiting for Germany to attack the USSR.
Yet the nazis were still hesitant, inclining towards immediate war against the Soviet Union one day---which the rulers of the USA, Britain and France encouraged---and shying from the prospect of a war the next.
But this uncertainty, obviously, could not go on for ever.
If the Soviet Union rejected the German proposal or dallied with the reply, the balance could tilt against it. And this at a time when German aggression against the USSR had to be averted in order to frustrate the plans of a world ``crusade'' against the socialist country, to eliminate the threat of the bloc whose creation had been discussed in Munich and to win time and build up defences. In the circumstances, the choice had narrowed. But one thing could be done: the German proposal had to be accepted.
The non-aggression treaty between the Soviet Union and Germany was signed on August 23, 1939, effective for 10 years. On Moscow's part it was a natural reaction to the Western powers' deal with Germany in Munich.
During the Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations, the Polish Government took a highly negative view of co-operating with _-_-_
~^^1^^ I.V.O.V.S.S., Vol. I, p. 175.
36 the USSR in terms of mutual aid against aggression. Out of hand it refused all Soviet aid. So there was no question of Soviet commitments vis-a-vis Poland in the Soviet-German talks. "The only thing that could still be done,'' Pravda reported on September 23, 1939, "was to save-the Western Ukraine, Western Byelorussia and the Baltic republics from a German invasion. The Soviet Government received German assurances that the line formed by the rivers Tissa, Narev, Bug and Vistula would not be = crossed."^^1^^The Soviet-German non-aggression treaty greatly annoyed the Munichites in the USA, Britain and France. They realised that their designs had failed. The same annoyance is displayed in certain official publications seeking to conceal the true story behind the outbreak of the Second World War and keep a secret that had long since ceased to be = one.^^2^^ Attacks on the treaty and its misinterpretation are frequent among reactionary writers. West-German historian Kurt Assmann, for one, who endeavours to vindicate the nazi aggression and its abettors, swings out at the treaty and peddles the old lie about an alleged deal partitioning = Poland.^^3^^
Yet writers unafraid of the truth, no matter how distasteful to them, admit that the USSR had acted wisely. Arnold Toynbee holds, for example, that the head of the Soviet Government had not only "saved Russia from war, but he had done so without any sacrifice whatever---or rather, with immense gain. Without firing a shot, he had recovered for Russia much of the territory which she had lost in the days of her weakness, and which every Russian held to be part of the national = apanage."^^4^^
Ernst Niekisch, another bourgeois historian, wrote: "Soviet vital interests- required destroying the English-German relations so thoroughly and so conclusively as to end the fear of an Anglo-German conspiracy against Soviet existence. The Soviet-German non-aggression treaty was no doubt a bold, even reckless, undertaking. Yet the situation in the world was so complicated that it spelled the deliverance of = Soviet Russia."^^5^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ I.V.O.V.S.S., p. 176.
~^^2^^ E. g., Nazi-Soviet Relations, Washington, 1948.
~^^3^^ Kurt Assmann, Deutsche Schicksalsjahre, Wiesbaden, 1951, S. 113--18.
~^^4^^ Survey of International Affairs, 1939--1946. The Eve of War, 1939, p. = 594.
~^^5^^ Ernst Niekisch, Das Reich der niederen Damanen, Hamburg, 1953,8.292.
37The Soviet-German non-aggression treaty secured a temporary peace for a considerable portion of Europe, affording the Soviet Union a distinct gain in time. This largely predetermined the favourable outcome of the Second World War. Tire treaty altered the course of events and paved the way for the future alliance of the USSR, USA and Britain against Hitler Germany, contributing prominently to Germany's defeat in the context of the coalition of freedom-loving peoples.
As a side effect it compelled Japan to check her aggression against the Mongolian People's Republic and the USSR. The Hiranuma Cabinet, which insisted on continuing the aggression, was forced to resign and the Japanese Premier referred ruefully to the treaty as having caused the shift in the policy he had recommended to the = Emperor.^^1^^
* * *
Those were the secrets, that the governments of Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States, Britain and France resorted to as cover for engineering the war. Many of them, however, were exposed by Soviet foreign policy and progressives abroad at the time. The situation in which the Second World War was precipitated differed from that directly preceding the First World War.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The Times, Oct.. 4, 1939.
38 __NUMERIC_LVL1__ Chapter Two __ALPHA_LVL1__ Governments Surrender, the People Fight On __ALPHA_LVL2__ 1. The Polish TragedyThe German Government began its succession of wars for world rule with the intention of first crushing countries whose governments, prompted by anti-Soviet sentiment, condoned and comforted aggressors. A provocation typical of German militarist methods provided a pretext for attacking Poland.
The story of that provocation was a war secret guarded by the German Government under the code name of Operation Himmler. The ``operation'' was carried out by the military, which organised an attack by a group of SS-men and criminal elements disguised in Polish army uniforms on the town of Gleiwitz near the Polish border. Before dawn on September i, 1939, German radio stations interrupted their usual broadcasts to announce a "Polish attack''. They switched in Gleiwitz and listeners heard confused noises, revolver shots and Polish speech with strongly German overtones.
Not more than a few hours passed before the flames of war were alight. The battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the town and fort of Westerplatte, but neither artillery, air-raids nor unceasing groundattacks could subdue Polish resistance. The defenders repulsed 13 large-scale enemy attacks, making Westerplatte a symbol of Polish heroism.
The 57 German divisions (2,500 panzers and 2,000 planes) that lunged into Polish territory on September i at 04.45 hours consisted of two operational groups striking from north-west and south-west, with a frontal thrust from the west playing a secondary role. The two operational groups 39 converged swiftly on the capital, with orders to surround and destroy the Polish troops west of the Vistula.
Operational Group South under General Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt was to strike from Silesia in the general direction of Warsaw with General Walter von Reichenau's loth Army possessing half the available panzer force of 1,000 tanks, breaking through and capturing the capital.
The bulk of Poland's armed forces were east, not west, of Warsaw, massed against the Soviet Union in conformance with the Poles' pro-Western policy. Just 22 army formations were west of the capital, and as many as 30 east of = it.^^1^^ Trusting its allies, who had given assurances that Germany would not attack, the Polish Government did not order mobilisation until August 31. As a result, something like one-third of the Polish army had not been properly primed when the Germans attacked. Some divisions were still en route to assigned districts, others rail-borne. With the war at its height, only 33 divisions were deployed against the = aggressor.^^2^^ And the plight of the Polish army was made more desperate still by the fact that its Supreme Command, and the government for that matter, did not believe effective resistance possible.
The abyss that lay between the prewar reactionary Polish regime and the people was evident more than ever during the war. While the army and the people fought heroically, the government, stricken by panic, pleaded for British and French aid. The bourgeois-landlord regime proved unable of uniting the country in the hour of trial, while the people, hating the nazi invaders, were ready to fight, their patriotism fettered by the corrupt political system.
Anti-Soviet in foreign policy and anti-people in home policy, the Polish Government was in no condition to fight a just war of liberation. In contrast, the people rallied and fought for their freedom and independence from the beginning until the day the country was cleared of nazis. The war was not, a continuation of the unpopular politics of the ruling classes. It was rather a rejection of it and a token of its bankruptcy. The accent was on the traditions of Polish struggle for national liberation, which created a moral uplift.
Hitler Germany, on the other hand, was fighting a distinctly imperialist war of conquest. Bent on gaining world supremacy _-_-_
~^^1^^ PolskieSilyZbrojneivdrugieju!ojnitSviatmoej,Vo\. i, London, 1951, p. i.
~^^2^^ Ibid,, p. 267.
40 and enslaving all peoples of the earth, the German imperialists intended to destroy a large part of the population of overran countries, especially the Slav people. Their war threatened biological existence of entire nations. Polish patriots were aware of this, though official propaganda in Poland, Britain, France and the United States concealed, rather than revealed, Hitler Germany's true aims.Nazi historians and journalists portrayed the German aggression as "defence against" "Polish provocation'', making the most of the propaganda potential created by Operation Himmler, exposed at the Nuremberg trials. Hitler's specious version is still being exploited by some West-German writers. Udo Walendy, for example, asserts the world war did not begin on September i, 1939; "the German press,'' he says, "had been ordered to report 'retaliatory fire', not 'war', and everything was done to limit the = conflict."^^1^^ The writer's method is a devious one: he vindicates the war of conquest begun by Germany and blames its growth into a world war on Germany's adversaries. But the war was bound to become world-wide, for that was predetermined by Germany's aim: attainment of world rule. It is quite another matter that the German Government would have preferred to destroy one country before tackling the next, in order to avoid the emergence of an anti-fascist coalition.
Some West-German historians describe the German campaign in Poland as an outstanding feat of German arms, a model of precision in carrying through the preconceived plan. But that is not true. Polish resistance wrought havoc with the schedule set by the Wehrmacht command; this is borne out by the heroic defence of Warsaw, which began on September 8 and continued until September 28.
The 4th Panzer Division, loth Army, which reached the Polish capital on September 8 from the south-east, encountered unexpectedly stiff resistance by the garrison and volunteers. Four tanks of the forward group were put out of action instantly and a 3O-panzer drive was repulsed the following day. Some of the tanks fell into traps dug by Warsaw's citizens, and fire was set to many others with gasoline-filled bottles.
The Polish Government abandoned Warsaw on September 6. Soon it crossed the Rumanian border. The defence of _-_-_
~^^1^^ U.~Walendy, Wahrheit fiir Deutschland, Vlotho-Weser, 1965, 8.432.
41 Warsaw was organised by city President Stefan Starzynski and Magistrate Janusz Regulski. Polish Communists and Left Socialists, held in prisons and concentration camps until then, were in the front ranks, many having broken out of confinement, picking up whatever arms they could and going into battle.Left leaders had begun forming workers' battalions on September 5, three days before the Germans came to the walls of the city. In due course these became the main volunteer force fighting the invaders and were reorganised into a Workers' Brigade for the Defence of Warsaw. Command of the Brigade was in the hands of Communists and Left Socialists, specifically, Socialist Marian Kenig. Among its members were Wladyslaw Gomulka and other Polish Communists, as well as Pavel Marishchuk and other comrades of the West Ukrainian Communist Party. Poles, Ukrainians, Byelorussians and others fought shoulder to shoulder. The defence of Warsaw brought together patriots of different parties and classes, uniting the finest sons of the nation in the common fight against aggression.
In the first days of the defence of Warsaw a large part of the German force was drawn off by a large-scale battle west of Warsaw, lasting from September 9 to 18. Between the rivers Vistula and Baura, its tributary, General Kutrzeba, in command of the Polish Posznan Army, counter-attacked the German 8th Army in defiance of Supreme Commander Rydz-Smigly's order to the contrary. Early in the battle the Poles smashed the nazi 17th and 3Oth infantry divisions, opening the way into the rear of German troops advancing on Warsaw. The success could not be developed, however, due to contradictory High Command instructions and absence of coordination between commanders of the Posznan and Pomorze armies.
All the same, the battle on the Baura detained the nazi strike force for several days, drawing it away from Warsaw. German troops suffered considerable casualties, but after Polish resistance west of the Vistula was crushed, Warsaw became their main objective. The general assault was made by a large force, though day after day the vicious attacks were repulsed with heavy losses for the nazis. Defending the capital became a national mission for its populace.
On September 28 the city fathers signed the surrender instrument, but part of the troops and many of the inhabitants 42 would not accept defeat and continued to resist another two or three days. Not until the morning of October i did the German armies enter the half-destroyed city.
Hitler Germany turned Poland into a colony. The western provinces were incorporated into the Third Reich, and the rest converted into a governorship. The nazi governor, Hans Frank, wrote in his diary: "I was assigned to undertake the administration of the conquered areas and given a special order to devastate them mercilessly as a war theatre and a conquered land, reducing the region to a pile of rubble economically, socially, culturally, and = politically."^^1^^
Plunder of the Poles' national heritage began, their culture was destroyed, the population systematically exterminated and the able-bodied driven off to Germany to do forced labour. More than six million Polish lives was the toll of the war and fascist = occupation.^^2^^
The nazis, who thought their hard line would break the nation's resistance, did not reckon with the Polish people. The occupation was not the end, but rather the beginning of a new stage in the popular fight for freedom and independence. That this new stage of resistance was a continuation of the earlier stand is illustrated by the fact that the Workers' Brigade for the Defence of Warsaw survived and conducted guerrilla actions in and outside the city. The resistance movement spread rapidly throughout the nazi-occupied area.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ a. The First Nazi RetreatThe German invasion of Poland and the rapid advance eastward showed beyond a doubt that Hitler wanted to take up favourable positions along the Soviet border for a subsequent attack. Nothing could guarantee that, intoxicated by the conquest of Poland and encouraged by the Western powers, he would not attempt an immediate assault on the Soviet Union. Western reactionaries followed the developments with bated breath, hoping their aim was near.
' The Soviet Union was not going to be caught unawares. Reserves in six military districts were called up for training, while troops of the Kiev and Byelorussian military districts _-_-_
~^^1^^ S. Piotrowski, Dziennik Hansa Franka, Warsaw, 1957, p. 96.
~^^2^^ I.V.O.V.S.S., Vol.~I, p. 313.
43 were put on the alert. Special front commands were formed. The situation became most strained in the middle of September. The Germans went beyond the line where they were to have stopped under a Soviet-German understanding. They crossed the Western Bug and San and entered the Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia, annexed by Poland in 1921.The Soviet Union was compelled to take action. The German advance had to be halted and the nazi troops prevented from marching to the Soviet frontier. Neither could it be indifferent to the lot of its brothers, the Western Ukrainians and Byelorussians, deprived of equal rights in prewar Poland and then totally abandoned to their fate.
When the Polish state collapsed, Soviet troops were sent to liberate the Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia. This was an internationalist duty. It was the only possible help they could then render to the neighbouring peoples. Furthermore, the campaign had to be undertaken to prevent Germany from thrusting to the Soviet border, which could be expected in a matter of six to eight days, considering the rate of the nazi advance.
Soviet war historian D. Proektor wrote:
"In the circumstances, marching to halt the victorious aggressor and compel him to withdraw meant salvation in the nearest future for hundreds of thousands of people of nations soon to be drawn into the vortex of a world war; it meant salvation for hundreds of towns; it meant winning hundreds of days of peace, shortening the Second World War thereby, because the decisive event, the Great Patriotic War, began in circumstances far less favourable for Hitler than if the Red Army had not moved to meet his armies at the height of their = victories."^^1^^
The Soviet operation alarmed the nazi command, General Nicolaus von Vormann, a member of Hitler's Headquarters, recalls in his = memoirs.^^2^^ The Headquarters debated whether to come to blows with the Red Army or to bide its time and retreat. In the end, it decided on the latter course.
"That,'' Proektor writes, "was the first order of retreat issued by the Hitler Wehrmacht in the Second World War. _-_-_
~^^1^^ D. Proektor, Voina v Europe 1939--1941 gg (War in Europe 1939--1941), Moscow, 1963, p. 116.
~^^2^^ Nicolaus von Vormann, Der Feldzug 1939 in Polen, Weissenburg, 1958, S. 153--55-
44 Significantly, it was issued in connection with a Red Army advance, whose move westward was, kilometre by kilometre, a move towards the future still very distant victory of the anti-Hitler coalition. Who can tell how many people in different countries owe their lives to these kilometres marched west by the Red Army in those autumn days of = 1939?''^^1^^Few Western politicians saw the Soviet action in the proper focus. Winston Churchill was extremely perspicacious in this respect. Of the Red Army move to the western borders of the Ukrainian and Byelorussian territories, he said: "That the Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace. At any rate, the line is there, and an Eastern front has been created which Nazi Germany does not dare = assail."^^2^^
The German retreat had a strong bearing on the attitude of many European countries. For one thing, the bourgeois governments of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which had previously rejected Soviet proposals, agreed to conclude treaties of mutual aid against aggression, Estonia signing it on September 28, 1939, Latvia on October 5, and Lithuania on October 10. The signatories undertook to give each other every possible aid, including military, in the event of a direct attack or threat of attack by any European great power.
The treaties prevented seizure of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania by Hitler Germany, already poised to overrun them. In that part of Europe, too, the full power of the Soviet Union deterred German aggression. The Soviet line of defence moved farther west and Germany was again compelled to desist.
Regrettably, the Soviet efforts to firm up the peace front along its north-western frontier were resisted by Finland's rulers, 'whose endeavours to turn their country into an antiSoviet staging area accorded not only with German wishes, Unit also those of the British, French and US governments, which exerted unprecedented pressure on Finland. They hoped that a Soviet-Finnish conflict would pave the way for a deal with Hitler. That was the mainspring of the Soviet-- Finnish war, the blame for which lies not only on certain Finnish groups, but also on their Western abettors. Nor did the _-_-_
~^^1^^ D. Proektor, op. cit., p. 117.
~^^2^^ Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. i, London, 1948, p. 403.
45 attitude of these Finnish groups change after Finland's defeat in the resultant war against the Soviet Union and the conclusion of a peace treaty on March 12, 194.1, under the terms of which, among other things, the signatories undertook to refrain from any armed attack on each other.The objective sense of this succession of events is obvious: the Soviet Union blocked the road for the German troops, forcing them to stop. If the Soviet moves had been supported by the governments of the United States, Britain and France, the German road to aggression could have been blocked by collective measures both in East and West even in those opening months of the Second World War. But that went against the plans of those still trying to engineer a world crusade against the USSR.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 3. Behind the Scenes in the Phoney WarThe German attack on Poland put the British and French governments in difficulties. They were committed to assist their eastern ally in the event of an attack, but had no intention of living up to their obligations, still hoping that the German armies would confine their actions to the East only.
Mussolini, who used Chamberlain's and Daladier's mood, suggested a new conference, similar to that in Munich, on September 2, 1939. The British and French were quick to express consent, though with some reservations. So did the Polish Government. Again, political leaders of these states began speaking of "general = appeasement".^^1^^ Addressing the French parliament, Daladier assured the world no Frenchman would ever fight to conquer foreign = soil.^^2^^ Hitler understood this to be a reassurance that Poland's allies would leave her in the lurch. Berlin, having regarded Mussolini's initiative as a way of sounding out Britain and France, was now sure of its ground. The nazi government rejected the idea of a new international conference out of hand.
Chamberlain and Daladier, meanwhile, were faced with a public outcry they could not control. Discontent over _-_-_
~^^1^^ France. Ministere des affaires ttrangeres. Documents diplomatique*
Paris, 1939, p. 315 (quoted in Gelbbuch der Franzosischen Regienmg, Basel, 1940, S. 393).
~^^2^^ Weltges(hichte der Gegenwart in Dokumenten, Bd. Ill, Miinchen, 1956, 8.411..
46 their policy of appeasement, tantamount to encouragement of aggression, ran high. The more farsighted Western leaders saw the imminent danger of a nazi assault. Besides, to bow to Germany once more and flout the commitments given to Poland meant relinquishing important international positions and recognising Germany as victor in the imperialist struggle, as hegemon in bourgeois Europe, thus reducing Britain and France to second-class powers.It was impossible to continue the Munich policy by previous means. New methods were required. Britain and France declared war formally on September 3, 1939, giving as the reason their commitment to Poland, a lofty motive intended to give the Anglo-French war against Germany a just liberative complexion.
But continuing the Munich policy by new means could be .neither just nor liberative. It was an imperialist policy of phoney war, its purpose being merely to convince Germany that the British and French governments were determined to maintain their international position and compel her to accept a new deal with the ultimate aim of a world-wide imperialist crusade against the Soviet Union.
This war aim was revealed by top British statesmen. Chamberlain, for one, named Hitler's betrayal of his anti-- Soviet promises as the main cause of Britain's entry into the war. Hitler had sworn for years, he said, "that he was the mortal enemy of Bolshevism; he is now its = ally".^^1^^ And Halifax, speaking in the Commons on October 4, 1939, said that by signing the non-aggression treaty with the USSR, the rulers of Germany reversed "the most fundamental principles of their policy, which they had for long years most = vehemently proclaimed."^^2^^ The same idea was set out at greater length by Lord Lloyd in a brochure published in November 1939 in London with an introduction by = Halifax.^^3^^ Chamberlain, too, indicated, that Britain declared war on Germany because Hitler, who had promised war against Bolshevism, had "betrayed ... the whole Western civilisation" by concluding a non-aggression pact with the = USSR.^^4^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ The British War Blue Book. Documents Concerning German-Polish Relations, London, 1939, p. 195.
~^^2^^ The Times, Oct. 5, 1939, p. 3.
~^^3^^ Lord Lloyd of Dolobran, The British Case, London, 1939, pp. 53--60.
~^^4^^ The British War Blue Book, No.~144, p. 195.
47Thus, the British and French rulers were least of all concerned with combating fascism or halting its aggression,, but purely with channelling aggression in the direction they desired. This was the reason for their reluctance to aid Poland and the reason why they viewed her tragic plight so dispassionately.
Here is how Zbigniew Zaluski, the Polish war historian, describes Britain's and France's policy in September 1939: "Poland, the victim of Hitler Germany's brazen attack that threatened her biological existence, counted on the help of her allies, while these allies were bent on appeasing Hitler Germany and goading her to fight against the Soviet Union, to fight on Poland's ruins against the only country with a vested interest in defending Poland's independence, the only country that had for a long time endeavoured to safeguard that independence, the only country able to deliver Poland from the nazi = yoke."^^1^^
Regardless of the intents of the British and French governments, their declaration of war on Germany was also undeniable evidence of the sharpness of the imperialist contradictions. These contradictions between the United States, Britain and France, on the one hand, and Germany, Japan and Italy, on the other, obstructed their new deal against the Soviet Union.
The Anglo-French declaration of war was received differently by aggressor and victim. The former was quite sure that the Western powers would take no field action. "That they have declared war on us...,'' Hitler said, "does not mean they are going to = fight."^^2^^ Meanwhile, the Polish Government trusted that it would get help; doubly so on receiving an official reply to its specific operational proposals from the French Foreign Ministry. "Tomorrow, or at the latest in the morning of the day after,'' it said, "a strong attack by French and British bombers will be made against Germany, which may even be extended to hit the rear formations on the Polish = front."^^3^^ But in vain did Poland in her agony wait for help, even if only from the air. The few British and French planes that appeared over Germany confined themselves to dropping leaflets denouncing the policy of the Hitler _-_-_
~^^1^^ Zbigniew Zaluski, Przepustkado historii, and ed., Warsaw, 1963, p. 53.
~^^2^^ Erich Kprdt, Wahn und Wirklichkeit, Stuttgart, 1948, S. 218.
~^^3^^ Polskie Sify £brojne w dntgiej wojnie Swiatowej, Vol. i, Part II, p. 433.
48 government that had flouted the promise of acting jointly with the Western powers against the USSR.The Anglo-French betrayal of Poland was no casual act. It was part of a deliberate and planned policy. The British Chief of Staff had decided in July 1939, months before the nazi assault on Poland, that it would be undesirable to relieve German pressure on Poland at the beginning of the war and more advisable to wait for the final = outcome.^^1^^
'
The Anglo-French war against Germany between September 3, 1939, and April-May 1940, was contemptuously christened a "phoney war''. It was war without acts of war. While nazi troops sowed death and destruction in Poland, the Anglo-French command entertained its soldiers, passively installed in the front-line, with football matches.
The balance of strength in the West offered the British and French abundant opportunities. At the beginning of September, France had no divisions, with a British expeditionary corps of five divisions arriving to reinforce = them.^^2^^ Germany mustered but 23 poorly armed divisions against them, and after the war Hitler's generals admitted that if the allies had mounted a strong offensive, the Wehrmacht would have collapsed, because "the bulk of the combat-ready German formations had been flung against Poland, while the Western front was manned mostly by unready divisions incapable of offensive = action".^^3^^
German weakness in the West derived not only from the main forces having been deployed against Poland. There was a political reason. The underlying purpose was to persuade Britain and France that Germany had no intention of attacking in the West. The Western powers were inclined to accept this version. For their part, they gave to understand that they had no unfriendly intentions either, despite the state ,of war. This attitude had a corrupting influence on the army and rear in France, eroding faith in the need for repulsing the aggressor. Defence preparations were stepped down, with the "phoney war" and its politico-moral and military effects preparing the ground for France's defeat.
Progressives, all true patriots: in France and Britain denounced the "phoney war''. They saw through it. They saw _-_-_
~^^1^^ J. R. M. Butler, Grand Strategy, Vol. II, September ig3g-June 1941.
~^^2^^ Gamelin, Sertnr, Vol. 3, Paris, 1947, p. 35.
~^^3^^ Mirovaya voina 1939--1945. Sbornik statei (World War 1939--1945. Collection of articles), Moscow, 1957, p. 37.
49 its secret sense---the intention of the British, French and US governments to facilitate a German attack on the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and Germany's intention to secure favourable conditions for smashing her Western friends, now turned foe. Disclosing the secret went against the interests of either side. To conceal it, the French Government, for one, mounted a repressive offensive on the home ``front''.The anti-Soviet and anti-democratic campaign in France, Britain and the United States reached its peak during the Soviet-Finnish war. It seemed then that international reaction was close to achieving its aim: the launching of an anti-Soviet crusade. The general staffs in France and Britain were fitting out an expeditionary corps to help Finnish reaction and preparing an attack against the Soviet Union in the South. Neither did they scrap their war planning (against the Soviet Union) after the conclusion of the Soviet-Finnish peace treaty. The French General Staff had completed a plan for Operation Bakou, envisaging a sudden air assault on the Soviet Union's key economic centres, undermining the country's military-economic potential, to be followed by a ground invasion. The plan was submitted to the government on April 4, 1940, and soon thereafter the final date for the attack was set for the end of June or early July, = I94I.^^1^^ Britain's Chiefs of Staff Committee took part in drawing up the plan. It continued work on it even after France lay crushed, and even when the prospect of a German invasion loomed large for Britain herself. On June 12, 1941, the Committee decided on steps setting the stage for a swift air strike from Mosul against the oil refining plants in = Baku.^^2^^
At the height of the danger to the survival of the peoples of Eastern and Western Europe, instead of repulsing the enemy, the rulers of Britain and France dreamt of an alliance with it and plotted an attack on the Soviet Union---the only country capable of delivering the world from the brown plague of fascism.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 4. France DefeatedThe phoney war had a most demoralising effect on the army and people in France and Britain. It affected war production, basically no higher than in peacetime, with a _-_-_
~^^1^^ D. Proektor, op. cit., pp. 139--40,
~^^2^^ J. R. M. Butler, op. cit., pp. 543--44.
50 considerable quantity of arms, vehicles and equipment routed to Finland.Germany, meanwhile, lost no time in stepping up arms output, building up her armed forces and charting the plan of a war in the West.
On October 19, 1939, the German High Command completed the first variant of an offensive known under the code name of Fall Gelb (Operation Yellow), which by and large reproduced the German plan in the First World War, the Schlieffen Plan. The main blow against France was envisaged across the northern Belgium and southern Holland, hooking round the Maginot Line, and followed by an invasion of northern France.
By the end of December 1939 this variant was scrapped and replaced with a new one: Army Group B would pin down the enemy frontally in northern Belgium, drawing away the main forces, while Army Group A would break through in depth with a large mobile force to the Channel across Luxembourg, the Ardennes and northern France, cutting off the main mass of enemy troops.
Adopting this plan, the German High Command counted on the drooping morale of the British and French trqops, and especially the low morale of their commands. The largescale flanking manoeuvre would expose the German forces to possible encirclement. Success depended on the paralysis spreading swiftly among the British and French military leaders. Hitler's generals counted on it.
There was one more reason that prompted the German command to abandon the original Operation Yellow variant. The monopolies, eager to lay their hands on the Belgian, Dutch and French industries, wished them to escape the destruction that hostilities would be sure to wreak. They wanted them as a supply source for the subsequent phases of the war for world supremacy. A frontal assault in the industrial north would impair its economic potential; a flanking movement left the hope of averting destruction.
Success hinged largely on whether or not the French and British commands would deploy their main forces in Belgian and Dutch territory north-west of the planned Army Group A hooking manoeuvre. To mislead the allies, the nazi command decided to let one of the earlier variants of Operation Yellow, envisaging a frontal attack, fall into enemy hands, disregarding the fact that this would put the Anglo-French 51 leaders wise to nazi preparations of a Western offensive (which the allies were long inclined to consider unlikely). On January 10, 1940, a German aircraft with Helmut Reinberger, a liaison officer carrying blueprints of the early Operation Yellow variant, faked a forced landing near the Belgian town of Michelin. The pretext '• it had lost its bearings. Now the French and British were convinced that if Germany were to launch an offensive, she would strike in the north, though it would be more logical to surmise that the Germans would abandon the captured variant.
In the meantime, Berlin decided to conquer Denmark and Norway before launching out on Operation Yellow. The two countries were on the right flank. They were seafaring nations, and, besides, the German monopolists displayed a keen interest in the Scandinavian iron ore; also, the move was prompted by the obvious Anglo-French intention of introducing allied troops into Norway.
The Weserubung (Weser Exercise), code name for the invasion of Denmark and Norway, was launched on April 9, 1940. The Danish king and government abandoned every thought of resistance, ordering the Danish forces to lay down their arms. The Norwegians, however, resisted staunchly. Their shore guns sank a nazi heavy cruiser and two light cruisers. Fierce fighting broke out on land. But the nazi agents in the country---traitor Quisling, Norway's War Minister, among them---succeeded in disrupting the resistance. Quisling's name eventually became the synonym of treachery.
The British reacted by landing troops in Northern Norway. But these were soon defeated, Germany gaining complete control of the country. The nazi flank and rear were thus well covered, communications with Norway and Sweden protected, and the German air and naval forces gained new bases against France and Britain.
Having occupied Denmark and Norway, the Germans struck on May 10, 1940, invading Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and France. That was the end of the phoney war.
By then Operation Yellow had been completely reworked and replaced by the Sichelschnitt (Sickle Cut) plan, to which the German command committed 136 divisions against the 142 Allied divisions, 2,580 panzers against 3,000 Allied tanks and 3,500 aircraft against the Allies' mainland-based 2,738 52 (with another 1,246 stationed on the British = Isles).^^1^^ Army - Group A, the strike force, had 45 divisions, of which seven panzer and three motorised (all in all, Germany engaged ten panzer divisions against = France).^^2^^
Until May 10 Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg had been neutral countries. For want of a pretext to attack them, the hitlerites. again resorted to a provocation. Freiburg, a German university town, was bombed during the night and early, morning of May 10. The raiders' demolition bombs hit a girls' boarding school and a hospital. The casualties were appallingly high. Bomb fragments were dug up from the ruins of buildings and promptly placed on the Freiburg burgomaster's desk. He was horrified to see a German trade mark on them. After the war the secret came out: the raid was by the 5ist Luftwaffe squadron. It was to create the appearance that the German thrust into the neutral states was in response to the latter hitting' Freiburg from the
air.
The German invasion of Belgium and Holland spurred the Anglo-French command i&to action. Troops left their fortifications and marched to meet the foe. One of the weakest French armies, half of it poorly trained reservists (and Army of 5 infantry and 3 cavalry divisions), was deployed to cover the frontier with southern Belgium. The French gth Army (6 infantry, 2 cavalry and i motorised divisions), somewhat to the north of it, was no better prepared for = combat.^^3^^ In the breakthrough area, the nazi Army Group A held an overwhelming advantage in strength. Its panzer force breached a 90 kilometre frontage between Sedan and Namur and drove north-west to Paris, wreaking havoc in the rear of the French and British troops. The French Government discussed a possible German entry into the capital. But the nazis veered sharply north and headed for the Channel.
The rapidity of their advance exposed them to peril. General Rundstedt's forces cut a narrow corridor between the enemy armies. If the latter converged, the nazi breakthrough force would be between the hammer and the anvil. The matter was debated by the governments and military leaders of France and Britain, but nothing of practical value was _-_-_
~^^1^^ I.V.O.V.S.S., Vol. I, p. 219.
~^^2^^ D. Proektor, op. cit., p. 224.
~^^3^^ Ibid., p. 170.
53 done, although by then the intentions of the German command were clear.As soon as the nazi objective of breaking through to the coast ceased to be a secret, the British Admiralty ordered shipowners (on May 14) to prepare their vessels for a possible evacuation of the British expeditionary corps. The co-- ordination of French and British troops diminished visibly.
On May 21, Rundstedt reached the coast and on the following day captured Boulogne. By that time Army GroupB was approaching Ostend and Zeebrugge from the east. Forty-nine Allied divisions---22 Belgian (which surrendered on May 25), 9 British and 18 French---were pressed against the shoreline by the giant German horseshoe in the = Dunkirk area,^^1^^ facing the prospect of total annihilation.
At a critical hour for the Anglo-French, however, assault was called off. Visiting Rundstedt's headquarters in Charlesville on May 24, Hitler issued the order to desist. He did not explain why, thus creating one more secret of the Second World War.
Today, we have sufficient evidence to unravel the mystery known as the Dunkirk miracle. The ``miracle'' was the prelude to a nazi scheme: to obtain the surrender of France in a day or two, conclude an armistice with Britain, and then, with her support, attack the Soviet Union. A fairly transparent hint of this is contained in Fieldmarshal Erich von Manstein's = memoirs.^^2^^ Hitler's speeches of the last few months of the Third Reich contain a revealing statement to the same effect. "Churchill,'' the Fuehrer rued, "was quite unable, to appreciate the sporting spirit of which I had given proof by refraining from creating an irreparable breach between the British and ourselves. We did, indeed, refrain from annihilating them at = Dunkirk."^^3^^
The Dunkirk evacuation (Operation Dynamo) from May 26 to June 4, 1940, was carried out under the protective cover of the British Navy and the French ground army. Tens of thousands of British civilians ---fishermen, sportsmen and merchant sailors---helped save the British expeditionary troops, shipping 338,000 men who had abandoned all their _-_-_
~^^1^^ G. A. Deborin, The Second World War, Progress Publishers, Moscow, p. 80.
~^^2^^ E. Manstein, Verlorene Sieg, Bonn, 1955, S. 122.
!
~^^3^^ The Testament of Adolf Hitler. The Hiiler-Bormarm Documents ( FebruaryApril 1945), 1962, p. 108.
54 heavy arms, across the Channel. The bulk of the French soldiers, however, were abandoned to their fate.On June 5, the German offensive was resumed. By then the French had but 60 divisions left. Defeat and occupation was imminent. The evil flower of treason bloomed. Treason, in fact, had been implicit in the policy of the French government since the push-off of the German offensive as an outcome of its entire preceding policy. Men who favoured surrender were quickly inducted into the cabinet. VThe final step was taken on May 18, when Marshal Petain was made VicePremier. Already on May 15, the French cabled London: "We have lost the battle... The road to Paris is = open."^^1^^ On June 10, General Maxime Weygand, French Commanderin-Chief, said he saw hardly any way of preventing the enemy from overrunning all of France. He, Petain and Reynaud (who assumed the Premiership) rejected Churchill's advice of adopting guerrilla warfare rather than lay down = arms.^^2^^
On June. 10, fascist Italy joined the war against France and Britain. Her rulers wanted a share in the spoils. Count Ciano, Italy's Foreign Minister, said later that Mussolini, too, wanted to = pillage.^^3^^
In Canget, a castle near Tours, during a cabinet sitting on May 13, Weygand argued in favour of immediately abandoning Paris and of total surrender. He referred to the danger of ``anarchy'' and "social disorders'', resorting to the favourite ``argument'' of all traitors---the bogey of communism. "Maurice Thorez,'' he said, "has installed himself in the Elysee Palace.'' The Communists had begun seizing control of = Paris.^^4^^ His lie was instantly repudiated. Home Minister Georges Mandel telephoned the Paris Prefect, Langeron, who replied: "Paris is = calm."^^5^^ But the traitors in the government could not care less for the truth: they decided not to defend the capital. Surrender thus became a foregone conclusion.
William Bullitt, US Ambassador to France, undertook to mediate the surrender of Paris. On June 14, 1940, German troops entered the French capital unresisted. And on June 22 France signed an act of surrender. Displaying a sense for _-_-_
~^^1^^ P. Reynaud, La France a same ['Europe, Vol. 2, Paris, 1947, p. 94.
~^^2^^ D. Proektor, op. cit., p. 361.
~^^3^^ Pietro Badoglio, U Italic dans la guerre mondiale, Paris, 1946, pp. 47--48-
~^^4^^ P. Reynaud, op. cit., p. 323.
~^^5^^ R. Langeron. Paris, jfuin 1940, Paris, 1946, pp. 36--37.
55 the dramatic, the nazis staged the signing ceremony in the same railway carriage near Rethondes in Compiegne in which the French accepted the German surrender on November u, 1918.The national tragedy of France was a natural sequel to the preceding events. Not the Germans became the tool of the imperialist policy of the USA, Britain and France; it was the last-named that fell victim to the Germans, and it began to look like Britain would soon be next, and then the United States. Having isolated the USSR, the British and French governments destroyed every chance of unity against aggression and were then themselves isolated in face of the fascist German aggression. True, German military superiority and employment of new effective offensive tactics did play a certain part in the French defeat, but military superiority alone, without the political factors, was never decisive. But British and French military strategy was an offshoot of the Munich policy. The Munich ``appeasers'', preoccupied with hatching war against the Soviet Union, exposed their countries to nazi aggression, covering themselves with shame as traitors and gravediggers of their own peoples.
The betrayal of the French ruling group extended to long after the armistice. The invaders divided the country into two zones: the east, north and west of France, with the bulk of the nation's industry, was occupied by the nazis, while the south and part of the central territory comprised the unoccupied zone. The Petain government of this zone, installed ia Vichy, consisted of traitors and collaborators. The Vichy dictatorship centred its efforts on breaking the resistance of the people and furnishing the German fascists with every facility in the unoccupied part of the country. Petain and his ministers opposed the popular resistance and helped the nazis combat the patriots.
But neither the disgrace of surrender nor the Vichy regime could destroy the fighting spirit of the French. What had happened in Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and Holland, held true again: the government surrendered, the people fought on.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 5. What Was ``The Battle for Britain''In many histories that appeared postwar in Britain, France, and the United States, the war is broken down into ``battles''. There is the Battle for Poland, the Battle for 56 France and then the Battle for Britain. Yet luckily for her people, there was no ground fighting in British territory. Then, is the term, Battle for Britain, legitimate? To answer the question, turn to the facts.
The German High Command had been preparing to invade the British Isles since September 1939, having begun planning the operation soon after Poland's defeat. Its operational plan bore the code name Sea Lion. On July 16, 1940, the Wehrmacht received Directive 16 on preparing landing operations against Britain. The directive read: "This operation is dictated by the necessity of eliminating Great Britain ... and if necessary the island will be = occupied."^^1^^
On September 9, 1940, the OKW (High Command Armed Forces of Germany) drew up the Orders Concerning the Organisation and Functioning of Military Government in England, which left no doubt as to the fate the nazis prepared for the population of the British Isles. They intended to wipe out all known progressives, all political leaders and intellectuals. Able-bodied men were to be shipped out = of Britain.^^2^^ Sentence of death was to be passed for every form of resistance. The German monopolists, meanwhile, had a detailed plan ready of how they would strip and plunder England's economy. Those were -the aims for which the Military Government was to be set up.
Walther Darre'', Hitler's "expert on racial problems'', declared: "As soon as we beat England we shall make an end of Englishmen once and for all. Able-bodied men will be exported as slaves to the continent. The old and weak will be = exterminated."^^3^^
The hour after France's surrender was a critical one for Britain. She now stood face to face with Germany, without an ally and, certainly, was unable to go it alone, especially after most of her armaments had been lost in Dunkirk. Churchill was quite explicit on this score after the war: "Our armies at home were known to be almost = unarmed."^^4^^
Britain's plight was the result of her prewar policy, but also of the phoney war. Harold L. Ickes, the US statesman, commented: "Britain kept hoping against hope that she could _-_-_
~^^1^^ Peter Fleming, Invasion 1940, London, 1957, p. 15.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 261.
~^^3^^ Comer Clarke, England Under Hitler, New York, 1961, p. 51.
~^^4^^ Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Vol. II, London, 1955, p. 226.
57 embroil Russia and Germany with each other and thus escape scot-free herself. She got caught in her own toils and in so doing has lost the respect and the sympathy of the world = generally."^^1^^ The Germans were brazenly obvious with their preparations to invade the British Isles. A month after France's defeat 168 transports, 1,910 barges, 419 lighters and i,600 motorboats were concentrated along Europe's northern shores---the southern shore of the Channel; it seemed the invasion would begin any = day.^^2^^.But, in fact, the nazi government and generals had no intention of putting the invasion scheme into practice. They hoped to conquer Britain, to occupy her, without large-scale armed action. That was the upshot of the German ``peace'' proposals, made in quick succession after Hitler's speech in the Reichstag on June 19, 1940 on the occasion of the victory over France. Elucidating the proposals, Admiral Erich Raeder told his staff that Hitler "is firmly convinced that England's defeat will be achieved .even without = the landing."^^3^^
However, the German ``peace'' offers were in vain. London did not bite at the bait, although on the British Isles too, there were men of Petain's ilk. De Gaulle says in his memoirs that in Britain in those days "the initiated bandied the names of politicians, bishops, writers and businessmen, who if opportunity presented, would come to terms with the Germans in order to assume government under their = control."^^4^^
But the dominant sentiment was to reject German hegemony, tantamount to suicide for Britain as a great power. Despite pro-fascist tendencies, Britain's ruling class was opposed to surrender, and inclined to defy the nazi claim to world supremacy. The scales were tilted by the determination of the people to fight fascism and defend independence. In the existing political situation going against their will was for the rulers a risky proposition. They might have lost their class ascendancy.
Besides, they had everything to gain from the people's hatred of fascism, from open battle under the banner of British democracy against their bitterest imperialist rival.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary, Vol. 2, New York, 1954, p. 705.
~^^2^^ Kurt von Tippelskirch, Geschichte des zweiten Weltkriegs, Bonn, 1951, S. 117.
~^^3^^ Peter Fleming, op.cit., p. 116.
~^^4^^ Charles de Gaulle, "Memoires de Guerre'', L'Appel, Paris, 1954, p. 87.
58Expecting Britain to surrender without an invasion, Berlin gave priority to an entirely different course, finalised when the German success in France became a foregone conclusion: to strike next against the Soviet Union, the main barrier on the way to German supremacy. The German imperialists were afraid that the Soviet Union would grow stronger with the passage of time. Not only were they impatient to attack in the East. They had made up their minds to conserve the maximum possible strength for war against the Soviet state. That is why, with vessels concentrating along the Channel coast to. scare Britain with the prospect of invasion, German ground forces were being rail-borne in the opposite direction.
The Soviet Union saved England from invasion by just existing and strengthening its forces. Long before the Great Patriotic War, the USSR sluiced off considerable nazi strength from the West, delivering European peoples from fresh Wehrmacht incursions and facilitating the genesis of Resistance.
Abandoning the idea of invading the British Isles, the German chiefs decided on terrorist measures to bring the English to their knees. They rained bombs on British cities and blockaded Britain from the sea. In Directive No.~17, dated August i, 1940, Hitler described this as the overture to Britain's collapse.
The regular air-raids began early in August. At first, they came day and night, and in force. In the first raid on the British capital, the London docks were the main target, their huge warehouses filled with food and depots with materiel. Incendiary bombs caused a colossal fire. Eyewitnesses relate that flames leaped sky-high as artillery shells and cases of TNT exploded. Fire in a warehouse where pepper was stored filled the air with pungent particles. Flowing rum formed a flaming stream, merging with the ``lava'' of burning sugar. Flames of all colours leaped about the docks, while burning rubber emitted clouds of choking black smoke. Tea burned brightly, producing a peculiar sweetish, nauseating smell. Smoke from the burning grain overcast the skies. From September 7, 1940, London lived through 65 nights of unintermittent bombing. On November 14, five hundred nazi bombers demolished Coventry, the heart of Britain's aviation = industry.^^1^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ I.V.O.V.S.S., Vol. i, p. 290.
59In the aggregate, however, the air assault yielded but a meagre success. British anti-aircraft defences stiffened. In the tensest months of the air war, from August to October 1940, the Luftwaffe lost nearly twice as many planes as = the RAF.^^1^^ Though exposed to air attacks, the British aviation industry stepped up production.
The sea-blockade, consisting of piratic air, submarine and surface attacks on merchant vessels carrying freight to Britain, was a peril that had to be eliminated at all costs, for Britain's sea losses were near disastrous, exceeding the maximum capacity of her shipyards at least threefold. Marine communications were largely disrupted. And it was not until after July 194-1 that Britain's plight was visibly relieved thanks to stubborn Soviet resistance.
In sum, the main armed forces of Germany and Britain did not come to grips at all. Seen from that angle, no Battle for Britain ever occurred. That battle was fought in an entirely different area--chiefly the moral-political. The ordeal to which the British nation was subjected in those months was terrible. The war was visited on the Englishman's home in the full sense. People in the towns fought the fires and quickly repaired the havoc wrought by the air raids. The Home Guard was on the alert, ready to fight in the event of an enemy landing. Workers did not leave their benches even when enemy planes roared overhead. The merchant seamen took their ships out to the sea fearlessly, defying nazi submarines and learning the art of concealment from lurking periscopes.
Far from breaking their will, the trials of those days steeled the British nation. Their determination to fight on to the end was never stronger. For the British Government no policy was conceivable other than to survive, to win time. The phoney war and the political hide-and-seek with German fascism, on which Hitler had banked, were buried beneath the hail of German bombs.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ 6. The UnvanquishedThe nazi "new order" rested on the assumption that hyperbolised terror and the physical extermination of millions of people would bend the survivors to its will. And the slavish _-_-_
~^^1^^ Voyenno-istorichesly zkurnal, No. a, 1967, p. 33.
60 servility of the Quislings and Petains. seemed to bear this out. But the events soon dispelled the illusion.Powerful popular movements, later named the Resistance, began in all nazi-occupied countries. And the nazi dream of a vanquished Europe went up in the flames lit by the Resistance.
From the first days Czechoslovakia was occupied, before the outbreak of the world war, the people resisted the arrogant invader. In 1940 a wave of strikes swept Slovakia. And from the beginning of September a resistance movement gradually gained momentum in Poland.
The French surrender sparked a broad movement of national resistance. One trend in the movement consisted of sections of the bourgeoisie and ``middle'' classes who had had no part in treason and the cowardly capitulation. They responded to General de Gaulle, who issued his first appeal for resistance from London on June 18, 1940. The other trend was that of the working people, bqrn of their patriotic determination to save the nation from extinction. Political and economic resistance combined with a gradually mounting armed struggle.
Historians of the French Resistance tell of its beginnings. In the back room of a small caf\'e in Dechy (Nord department) a dozen people gathered at the beginning of August 1940 to swear vengeance. Heading this group was a ao-year-old Italian, Eusebio Ferrari, and FeUicien Joly, a Frenchman, also aged 20, was made his deputy. A red cloth streamer inscribed "Courage and Faith'', the slogan of the first French Resistance groups, appeared the following day on the