Russia at war 1941-1945

helped Poland when it came to the test. Without the strongest military commitments by France, Britain and Poland, the alliance offered no attraction to them. Short of such commitments, a last-minute deal with Hitler was almost certainly at the back of Stalin's mind from April or May onwards.

Chapter II THE SOVIET-GERMAN PACT

It is customary to look for turning points in history. Much has, of course, been read into Stalin's speech of March 10 with its phrase about the "chestnuts", suggesting a "curse on both your houses" and a desire to keep out of any military entanglements. Even more has been made of Hitler's speech of April 28, 1939, in which both the Polish-German non-aggression pact and the Anglo-German naval agreement were denounced, and in which

the Führer refrained from his habitual attack on the Bolshevik menace. A shrewd

observer like Robert Coulondre, the French Ambassador in Berlin, had at once

considered this omission as very significant, and, in his dispatches to the Quai d'Orsay, had quoted authoritative German sources in support of his assessment. Gafencu also

looked upon this Hitler speech of April 28 as a starting point: "Facing the failure of his Western policy, the Führer already contemplated an about-turn in his Eastern policy.

Such a change ... would obviously find support among the German General Staff... as

well as in German economic circles."

[ G. Gafencu, op. cit., p. 175.]

This was written in 1945 and since then there have been a variety of data to show that the matter was not as simple as that. We know, for instance, that it took Hitler a very long time to get used to the idea of a pact with Moscow, and that Ribbentrop, in particular, became enthusiastic about it some time before the Führer did. But none the less, it is probable that, already in April, after the British guarantee to Poland, he kept the

possibility of an agreement with Moscow up his sleeve.

Although there is evidence to show that there were earlier contacts, the Soviet History now claims that it was the Germans who made the first tentative approach to Russia on May 30, 1939, while the Anglo-Franco-Soviet talks "were already in full swing".

[ IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 174.]

On that day Weizsäcker, the permanent head of the German Foreign Office, told G. A.

Astakhov, the Soviet chargé d'affaires in Berlin, that "there was a possibility of improving Soviet-German relations". He pointed out that, in renouncing the Carpathian Ukraine—which had been handed over to Hungary in the partition of Czechoslovakia—

Germany had eliminated a casus belli with the Soviet Union. And he went on to say: "If the Soviet Government wishes to discuss an improvement in Soviet-German relations,

then it should know that such a possibility now exists. If, however, the Soviet Union wants to persist, together with Britain and France, in its policy of encircling Germany, then Germany is ready to meet the challenge."

The Soviet History reports that, at this stage, the Russians merely replied that the future of Soviet-German relations depended primarily on the Germans themselves, in itself a curious way of "rejecting" their advances. And then, on August 3, according to the Soviet History:

Ribbentrop told G. A. Astakhov that there were no insoluble problems between the

USSR and Germany "in the whole area between the Baltic and the Black Sea. All questions could be solved if the Soviet Government accepted these premises."

Ribbentrop made no secret of the fact that Germany had been conducting secret

negotiations with Britain and France, but declared that "it would be easier for the Germans to talk to the Russians, despite all ideological differences, than with the British and the French". Having said that, Ribbentrop then resorted to threats.

"If," he said, "you have other solutions in mind, if you think, for instance, that the best way of settling your problems with us is to invite an Anglo-French military