Roger Moorhouse - The Devils' Alliance - Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941

Even the ex- Lützow , grimly symbolic of the relationship, was in difficulties. At the end of September 1940, though only two-thirds completed and moored in her dock in Leningrad, the ship was formally incorporated into the Red Navy and given the name Petropavlovsk , commemorating a Russian victory against the British and French in the Crimean War. However, in a microcosm of the wider problems, the tentative cooperation on board the ship between the German and Soviet crew and engineers had all but collapsed, with interminable haggling effectively paralyzing any genuine progress on finishing the vessel. The Soviets requested that their training be carried out in Russian, for instance, with specialist officers being sent to German factories for instruction. They also demanded that a Red Navy training detail should be permitted to serve aboard the Admiral Hipper . Unsurprisingly, the German authorities refused. Then, when an article appeared in the Soviet newspaper Izvestia in October 1940 outlining the historical background of a number of Soviet warships, including the Petropavlovsk , the vessel’s German origins were not mentioned. The cynic might have surmised that the Nazi-Soviet Pact was already being airbrushed out of history.

In such circumstances, it naturally fell to Ribbentrop, as one of the progenitors of the Nazi-Soviet alignment, to attempt to revivify it. In mid-October, he addressed Soviet concerns with a letter sent to Stalin personally, in which he advocated inviting Molotov to Berlin for talks preparatory to a revision of the pact through a new “delimitation of mutual spheres of influence.” Stalin was evidently relieved by the invitation, smoothing a number of ongoing squabbles before replying with the hope that relations between the two would thereby be improved.

Molotov, meanwhile, was thoroughly briefed. His primary goal was not necessarily to secure an agreement, as Moscow saw the Berlin talks merely as the opening bout of a new round of negotiations; rather it was to divine Germany’s “real intentions” and the possible role for the USSR envisaged in Berlin’s “New Europe.” Furthermore, he was to ascertain what Hitler foresaw as their spheres of interest, both in Europe and in the Near and Middle East. Most importantly, however, Molotov was to express Moscow’s dissatisfaction with developments in Romania and address wider Soviet security concerns in the Balkans. “The main topic of the negotiations,” Stalin told him, was to be Bulgaria, which “must belong by agreement with Germany and Italy to the USSR’s sphere of interests, on the same basis as had been done by Germany and Italy in the case of Romania.”

Clearly some tough negotiations were in the offing. But it is telling that Stalin’s instructions to Molotov still stressed the principle of working in concert with Nazi Germany to achieve the Soviet Union’s strategic goals. For all the bluster and opprobrium, it appears that—from Moscow’s perspective at least—the Nazi-Soviet Pact still had some mileage left in it.

THE WEATHER DID NOT PROVIDE A POSITIVE OMEN FOR MOLOTOV’S arrival in Berlin on November 12, 1940. Leaden skies and rain welcomed the Soviet foreign minister to Hitler’s capital. Yet, aside from the elements, the greeting extended was warm enough, with the platforms and ticketing hall of the vast Anhalter Station festooned with Soviet flags and bouquets of pink and red flowers. The welcoming party was similarly extravagant, with an honor guard of the Wehrmacht standing to immaculate attention in the rain outside the station, while inside the platform was thronged with senior representatives of the Nazi state and military, including Ribbentrop and Army Supreme Commander Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, all with their crimson-lined uniform greatcoats buttoned up tight against the chill.

Molotov, meanwhile, had had a rather comfortable, if lengthy, journey. He had departed from the Belorussky Station in Moscow three evenings previously, in a special “European-designed” train, with a pistol in his pocket and an entourage of more than sixty people, including sixteen security guards, a physician, and three personal servants. His journey across the western Soviet Union and newly annexed Lithuania had given him ample time to contemplate his task: ascertaining Germany’s strategic intentions and, if possible, negotiating a follow-up to the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

If he had ever imagined that it would be an easy job, Molotov was perhaps reminded of the very real difficulties that persisted between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union by an incident at Eydtkuhnen on the German-Soviet border in East Prussia. The small town marked the extreme eastern end of the German rail system and the point where travelers from the east were obliged to change trains to the standard-gauge European network. However, in the highly charged atmosphere of 1940, with Europe’s two major totalitarian powers vying for supremacy, simply changing trains became a very political act. German diplomat Gustav Hilger discovered this early on in the journey. He had traveled with Molotov’s entourage from Moscow to act as an auxiliary interpreter in Berlin and had asked one of the senior members of the Soviet party, NKVD Deputy Commissar Vsevolod Merkulov, to remind him where the change of trains took place. Puzzlingly, Merkulov replied, “We shall change trains at such a place as will be designated by the chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars.” Bemused, Hilger attempted to argue that the location of the rail terminus was not within the gift even of Molotov, but to no avail, and eventually he had to console himself by making a mental note of the absurd ends to which the Soviet Union’s “excessive secrecy and stupid subordination” could lead.

Once Molotov’s train arrived at Eydtkuhnen, another incident served to highlight the political tensions. The interpreter Valentin Berezhkov was awoken by the sound of an argument on the platform and hurried to investigate. Interpreting between the Soviet train driver and a German official, he learned that the official was insisting that the Soviet delegation had to transfer to another train—as per regulations—while the driver claimed that he had been told to take the train directly to Berlin. Although the technical problem could be solved by changing the train’s running gear, the official still insisted that the carriages were too large to ride on standard German lines. However, after much measuring and heated discussion, it was agreed that two German saloon carriages would replace the larger Soviet examples. Berezhkov would later note in his memoirs that the German carriages were “very comfortable,” with “an excellent bar and restaurant,” “salons fitted with radios,” and even “vases of fresh roses in the compartments.” However, he added sourly, “it was not concern for our comfort that made the Germans so stubborn in insisting that we should change trains. Undoubtedly their carriages were not only equipped with a fine bar, but with a fine lot of bugging apparatus too.”

Whatever the truth of that assumption, Molotov’s train sped onward to Berlin, arriving in the German capital at 11.05 a.m. on November 12. There, Molotov and his immediate entourage alighted onto the packed platform of the Anhalter Station. In their Soviet suits and felt Homburg hats, they cut rather incongruous figures among the myriad military uniforms, like a group of provincial accountants who had inadvertently alighted at the wrong stop. They were welcomed by Ribbentrop, who gave a short address, and were introduced to the waiting dignitaries, Molotov doffing his hat extravagantly in greeting. Moving outside, the group processed past the guard of honor while a military band struck up the Prussian “Presentation March,” in preference to the Soviet anthem, the “Internationale,” which, it was feared, might induce some sympathetic Berliners to join in.