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

Although not unimpressive, Molotov’s reception was a low-key affair; Joseph Goebbels described it with uncharacteristic terseness in his diary as “cool.” The poor weather may well have dampened Berlin spirits, and the Nazi authorities might have feared encouraging their citizens to wave the hammer and sickle. Nonetheless the effort expended for Molotov appears to have bordered on the bare minimum: no cheering crowds were organized, and beyond the Anhalter Station, few Soviet flags were in evidence. Interpreter Paul Schmidt certainly noticed the difference between Molotov’s arrival and other state visits, noting that ordinary Berliners were completely silent on the streets in the heart of the capital—the “Via Spontana,” as he sarcastically called it—in contrast to the usual reception, for which party functionaries organized cheering and flag waving. The American correspondent Henry Flannery concurred, noting that as Molotov’s sixty-vehicle convoy departed from the station, “there was almost no one, except for the Russian secret police, along the streets.” The Nazis tried to blame the weather for the low-key reception, he went on, but “they could not have known the weather in advance.”

The Nazi regime was almost certainly making a point—expressing its displeasure with its Soviet partner. Goebbels is said to have squashed Ribbentrop’s idea of an additional honor guard of SA men to greet the Soviet minister. Even the newsreel coverage was minimalist, comprising barely two minutes of that week’s program; surprisingly, French cinema audiences learned more about Molotov’s visit than German ones. The contrast to the elaborate reception organized six months later for the visit of the Japanese foreign minister, Yōsuke Matsuoka, is highly instructive.

Molotov would later claim to have no recollection of his arrival in Berlin, let alone whether he felt that he was being snubbed. After riding through the “half-empty streets” of the German capital, however, he would doubtless have been cheered by his arrival at the Bellevue Palace, the Third Reich’s “guest house” for visiting dignitaries. “Guest house” was in fact something of a misnomer. Bellevue Palace had originally been built in 1786 as a summer residence for Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia. Located in central Berlin, between the Tiergarten and the banks of the river Spree, it was an elegant neoclassical palace that had just undergone a 14 million reichsmarks renovation and expansion at the hands of architect Paul Baumgarten, whose other credits included Villa Minoux in Wannsee, made infamous by the eponymous conference that would take place there in 1942. Beautifully presented, with over 130 rooms—including four self-contained luxury apartments, as well as guest bedrooms, conference halls, and offices—the palace comprised a main central building and three perpendicular wings. Its exterior was complemented inside by countless paintings, including works by Titian and Tintoretto, as well as tapestries, sculptures, and items of furniture, most of which had come from the collection of the former diplomat Willibald von Dirksen. It was all very impressive, as Valentin Berezhkov testified: “A long avenue of limes led to the entrance. Inside we were amazed at the ostentation of the rooms. Everywhere we could smell the delicate scent of roses coming from the bouquets which stood in tall porcelain vases in every corner. The walls were decorated with tapestries and paintings in heavy gilt frames. There were statuettes and cases of the finest porcelain standing all around in exquisitely carved cabinets. The furniture was antique and the servants and waiters were garbed in gold-braided livery. All this lent the hotel an air of ceremonial pomposity.”

After settling in, the Soviets enjoyed an opulent lunch served by white-gloved staff and overseen by a “tall, grey-haired maitre d’hotel who silently conducted proceedings with nothing more than a barely noticeable gesture or look.” Thereafter, Molotov’s party climbed back into Mercedes limousines and made its way to the Wilhelmstrasse for the first round of talks. En route, small crowds of Berliners now watched proceedings on the streets; some dared to wave as the cars passed.

EVEN TO THOSE ACCUSTOMED TO THE POLITICAL CONTORTIONS OF THE previous year or so, the sight of the Soviet foreign minister in Berlin for talks with Hitler must have seemed a strange mirage. Yet, for all the apparent unreality of the scene, the meeting was no chimera. It had been called for hardheaded political reasons: to repair the fraying relationship between Berlin and Moscow and renegotiate the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

When he had written to Stalin a month earlier to extend the invitation, Ribbentrop had expressed the hope that Germany’s relationship with the Soviet Union might be established “on a broader basis” through a “demarcation” of their respective interests. The neutral tone of the letter belied the tension felt by its author. Berlin had grown increasingly frustrated with its Soviet partner: the economic relationship had not brought the expected windfall of raw materials, and Stalin had shown his continued European ambitions by annexing territory beyond the line agreed on in August 1939. From the German perspective, some sort of reckoning with Moscow was in the offing.

For his part, meanwhile, Molotov did not feel that he owed the Germans anything. Echoing the prevailing Soviet view, he was not coming to Berlin as a supplicant or a junior partner; rather he was negotiating from a position of strength. The Soviet Union, he believed, was very well placed. It had expanded its territory and advanced its economic position, and while its rivals were fighting one another in western Europe, it was at peace. As Politburo member Andrei Zhdanov noted in the late autumn of 1940, the Anglo-German war gave the USSR the opportunity to “go about its business” undisturbed. Molotov, like many of his confederates in Moscow, believed that while Germany was militarily engaged in the west, it was scarcely in any position to dictate terms to its eastern partner. Clearly, the discussions were not going to be easy.

The first meeting was held at the Foreign Ministry building on the Wilhelmstrasse. There, Ribbentrop and Molotov sat down together, with their respective interpreters and Molotov’s deputy, Vladimir Dekanozov, at a small round table to open discussions. Ribbentrop worked particularly hard to show his most obliging side to his guests, so smiling and affable, according to Schmidt, that his regular political partners would have “rubbed their eyes in amazement.” Molotov, meanwhile, was as inscrutable as ever. A notoriously difficult negotiating partner, he was untroubled by concepts such as affability or politeness. Wasting no superfluous words, he rarely allowed his poker face to slip. Clearly he had not earned the nickname “Stonearse” for nothing.

What followed might have reminded Molotov of interminable meetings in the Kremlin. Ribbentrop got matters underway. As one who never tired of hearing himself speak, Hitler’s foreign minister launched into a lengthy monologue, in an “excessively loud voice,” according to Berezhkov, about how “no power on earth could alter the fact that England was beaten” and it was only a matter of time before she would “finally admit her defeat.” Britain was certainly in dire straits. Although recently victorious in the Battle of Britain, she was confined to her island, her military hardware strewn across the beaches of Dunkirk, her civilian populations enduring the nightly aerial bombardment of the Blitz. From the perspective of Berlin, then, Britain was a spent force, awaiting only the coup de grâce from a superior enemy. Consequently, Ribbentrop was more bullish than usual. Germany, he said, was “extraordinarily strong” and so “completely dominated its part of Europe” that the Axis powers were considering not how they might win the war “but rather how rapidly they could end the war which was already won.”