Simon Montefiore - Stalin

On 20 April, Zhukov reached Berlin’s eastern suburbs. Both marshals fought, house by house, street by street, towards Hitler’s Chancellery. On the 25th, Koniev ordered an assault towards the Reichstag. Three hundred yards from the Reichstag building, Chuikov, who was leading Zhukov’s thrust, encountered Russian forces—Koniev’s tanks. Zhukov himself sped up and shouted at Rybalko, Koniev’s tank commander: “Why have you appeared here?”

Koniev, disappointed, swerved west, leaving the Reichstag to Zhukov, but Stalin offered another prize: “Who’s going to take Prague?”

Stalin waited at Kuntsevo, only appearing in the office for a couple of hours around midnight each day. On 28 April, in the Führerbunker , Hitler married Eva Braun, dictated his testament, and they drank champagne. [233] In the higher levels of the Bunker, Hitler’s secretary discovered “an erotic fever seemed to take possession of everybody. Everywhere even on the dentist’s chair, I saw bodies interlocked in lascivious embraces. The women had discarded all modesty and were freely exposing their private parts.” Two days later, as Zhukov pushed closer, Hitler tested cyanide ampoules on his Alsatian, Blondi. Around 3:15 p.m., to the distant buzz of partying upstairs, Hitler committed suicide, shooting himself in the head. Eva took poison. Goebbels and Bormann made a final Hitler salute before the pyre of Hitler’s body in the Chancellery garden. At 7:30 p.m., an unknowing Stalin arrived at the office to meet Malenkov and Vyshinsky for forty-five minutes before returning to Kuntsevo. 3

In the early hours of May Day, the German Chief of Staff visited Chuikov, announcing Hitler’s death and requesting a cease-fire. Ironically, this was Hans Krebs, the tall German officer whom Stalin, seeing off the Japanese in April 1941, had told: “We shall remain friends.” Chuikov refused a cease-fire. Krebs left and committed suicide. In a reverse of 22 June 1941, Zhukov, eager to break this world-historical news, telephoned Kuntsevo. Once again, the security refused to help.

“Comrade Stalin’s just gone to bed,” replied General Vlasik.

“Please wake him,” retorted Zhukov. “The matter’s urgent and cannot wait until morning.”

Stalin picked up the phone and heard that Hitler was dead.

“So that’s the end of the bastard.”

Too bad we couldn’t take him alive,” Stalin told Zhukov. “Where’s Hitler’s body?”

“According to General Krebs, his body was burned.” Stalin banned negotiations, except for unconditional surrender. “And don’t ring me until the morning if there’s nothing urgent. I want some rest before tomorrow’s parade.”

At 10:15 a.m., Zhukov’s artillery bombarded the city centre. By dawn on the 2nd, Berlin was his. On 4 May, a Smersh colonel discovered the wizened, charred remains of Hitler and Eva. The bodies were spirited away. Zhukov was not told. Indeed, Stalin enjoyed humiliating the Marshal by asking if he had heard anything about Hitler’s body. [234] The jawbone and a portion of skull were kept in Moscow; the rest of his cadaver was tested by Smersh and then buried beside a garage at a Soviet army base in Magdeburg where it remained until KGB Chairman Yury Andropov ordered it cremated and the ashes scattered in April 1970. Meanwhile Stalin was fascinated by the Nazi leadership: “I’m sending you… the correspondence of the top Germans… found in Berlin,” Beria wrote to him, listing Himmler’s letters to Ribbentrop.

After the war, during a late dinner on the Black Sea coast, Stalin was asked whether Hitler was a lunatic or an adventurer: “I agree that he was an adventurer but I can’t agree he was mad. Hitler was a gifted man. Only a gifted man could unite the German people. Like it or not… the Soviet Army fought their way into the German land… and reached Berlin without the German working class ever striking against… the Fascist regime. Could a madman so unite his nation?” 1

On 9 May, Moscow celebrated Victory Day but the curmudgeonly conqueror was wearily impatient with the jubilation. Stalin was furious when a junior general signed the German surrender at Reims and, pacing the floor, ordered Zhukov to sign a proper surrender in Berlin, “whence German aggression sprang.” But the glory days of the generals were over: Vyshinsky arrived to “handle political matters” and spent the entire ceremony “bobbing up to whisper instructions in Zhukov’s ear.” Stalin closely watched Zhukov and his supposed delusions of grandeur. Later in the year, he summoned him to the Kremlin to warn him that Beria and Abakumov were gathering evidence against him: “I don’t believe all this nonsense but stay out of Moscow.”

That was not a problem since Zhukov was Stalin’s proconsul in Berlin. Stalin despatched his satraps to rule his new empire. Mikoyan flew in to feed the Germans. Malenkov and Voznesensky arrived to fight about whether to loot German industry or preserve it to build a Soviet satellite regime. Zhdanov held court in Finland, Voroshilov in Hungary, Bulganin in Poland, Vyshinsky in Romania. When Khrushchev called to congratulate him, Stalin cut him off for “wasting his time.”

A call from Svetlana cheered Stalin: “Congratulations on victory, Papa!”

“Yes we’ve won,” he laughed. “Congratulations to you too!”

At 8 p.m. on 24 May, Stalin hosted a banquet for the Politburo and marshals, singers, actors and even Polish miners, in the Georgevsky Hall. There was a traffic jam of limousines all the way to the Borovitsky Gate. The guests found their seats and waited eagerly. When Stalin appeared, “ovations and shouts of ‘Hurrah’ shook the vaulted halls… with a deafening roar.” Molotov toasted the marshals who clinked glasses with the Politburo. When Admiral Isakov, who had lost his leg in 1942, was toasted, Stalin, still a master of the personal touch, walked all the way over to his distant table to clink glasses. Then Stalin praised the Russian people and referred to his own mistakes: “Another people could have said to the government: you have not justified our expectations, go away and we will install another government which will conclude peace with Germany and guarantee us a quiet life.”

Later, Stalin asked Zhukov and the marshals: “Don’t you think we should celebrate the defeat of Fascist Germany with a victory parade?”

Stalin decided to take the review on horseback. He could not ride but his hunger for glory still burned and he started secretly training to ride a white Arabian stallion, chosen by Budyonny. Around 15 June, a week before the parade, a spurred and booted Stalin in jodhpurs, apparently accompanied by his son Vasily, mounted the steed. He jerked his spurs. The horse reared. Stalin grabbed the mane and tried to stay in the saddle but was thrown, bruising his shoulder. Pulling himself to his feet, he spat: “Let Zhukov take the parade. He’s a cavalryman.” At Kuntsevo, he asked Zhukov if he had forgotten how to ride.

“I haven’t,” replied Zhukov. “I still ride sometimes.”

“Good… You take the parade.”

“Thanks for the honour. But… you’re the Supremo and by right you should take it.”

“I’m too old… You do it. You’re younger.”

Zhukov would ride a white Arabian stallion which Budyonny would show him. The next day, Zhukov was reviewing the rehearsals at the central airfield when Vasily Stalin buttonholed him: “I’m telling you this as a big secret. Father had himself been preparing to take the parade but… three days ago, the horse bolted…”

“And which horse was your father riding?”