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

But Stalin was not inclined to take the deal being offered. Like generations of Russian statesmen before him, he was intent on Moscow spreading westward, and—as Molotov’s discussions revealed—his ambition was most certainly not limited to those areas that had already fallen under his control. Indeed, Molotov’s mention of the Kattegat and the Skagerrak in the final round of negotiations must have rung alarm bells in the Reich Chancellery. Far from being satisfied with the return of her recent irredenta in Poland and the Baltic and the promise of vague gains in British India, Moscow was apparently intent on pushing even further westward.

This, then, was the strategic vision that would underpin Stalin’s formal response to Ribbentrop’s suggestion that the Soviet Union might join the Tripartite Pact. Delivered by Molotov to the German ambassador in Moscow, Friedrich-Werner von der Schulenburg, on the evening of November 26, the statement essentially reiterated the position outlined in Berlin two weeks before. To accept the draft of a four-power pact, the Soviet government demanded four conditions. First, Germany must withdraw from Finland, with recognition that the country belonged in the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. Second, Molotov requested the conclusion of a mutual assistance pact between the USSR and Bulgaria and the establishment of Soviet military bases within range of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Third, he demanded recognition that the area of the southern Caucasus “in the general direction of the Persian Gulf” was a “centre of the aspirations” of the USSR. Lastly, Moscow stipulated that Japan must renounce her rights to coal and oil concessions in northern Sakhalin. It was certainly an ambitious list, demonstrating not only that the Soviet Union retained her European ambitions but also that she had further demands relating to Persia and Japan. Molotov closed the discussion by stating that he would “appreciate a statement of the German view.” None would be forthcoming.

Although Stalin’s response would prove a severe setback for the advocates of a negotiated solution, it was not yet the end of the story. Indeed, in December Ribbentrop claimed to have discussed the Soviet proposal with Hitler. He advised agreement, stating that if Stalin were to join the Tripartite Pact, then Germany would be in an excellent position to neutralize the United States and further isolate Britain, forcing the latter to the negotiating table. The prospects for success, he claimed, “would be better than after Dunkirk.” According to Ribbentrop’s account, Hitler was not entirely against the idea. Although he raised concerns about Finland and permitting any extension of Soviet influence into Romania and Bulgaria, he did not reject the plan out of hand. Indeed, Ribbentrop considered that a compromise with Stalin was a possibility: “We have already achieved a lot together [with Russia],” Hitler told him. “Perhaps we will be able to bring this about too.”

For the moment, Hitler could comfort himself with the thought that Soviet ambitions in Europe were still mainly theoretical, expressed in abstract demands and diplomatic requests. His relationship with Moscow, therefore, was strained but not yet moribund. Before the end of 1940, however, the clash between his own worldview and that of his Soviet partner would become blatant. Hitler’s decision would be made for him by events at an obscure regional conference in Galați, Romania.

The International Danubian Commission was the sort of regional organization whose proceedings rarely troubled international affairs. For the previous eight or so decades, it had met periodically and in various iterations to regulate traffic on the Danube and provide a forum for neighboring powers to negotiate their differences. But, by 1940, that which had once been a parochial affair had become the plaything of Europe’s totalitarian dictatorships, with Germany and the Soviet Union—the latter herself now a “Danubian power”—vying for supremacy.

When the conference convened in late October 1940, tensions, which had been stoked over that most tumultuous of summers, were running high. Germany, already exercising a dominant role both in the region and at the conference table, was determined to maintain that position and ensure the effective exclusion of the Soviet Union. Moscow, on the other hand, saw the conference as the ideal arena in which to flex its muscles and realize its new Danubian role. The choice of Arkady Sobolev, Molotov’s deputy, to head the Soviet delegation underlined the importance of the mission. Sobolev then undertook something of a Balkan tour, stopping in Sofia to charm King Boris and personally inspecting the Bulgarian-Romanian border at Ruse, before proceeding to Galați on the Danube for the conference.

Once underway, the meeting essentially saw a rehearsal of many of the arguments aired by Molotov in Berlin in November, with Sobolev demanding—among other things—mooring rights on the Danube delta and joint Russo-Romanian administration of the area and complaining about Italian participation. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, debate swiftly degenerated into stalemate, and by mid-December negotiations had stalled entirely, with Berlin expressing its “astonishment” at the heavy-handed tactics of the Soviets and complaining of the “irreconcilable” positions of the two sides. If Hitler had harbored any remaining doubts about Soviet ambitions in the Balkan region, then the proceedings of the Danubian Commission conference would have provided him with a useful corrective. More than Molotov’s visit to Berlin the previous month, more than the sometimes tortured economic negotiations, more than the perpetual squabbling over Finland, the Danubian conference represented the first serious breach in Nazi-Soviet relations.

Berlin’s frustrations are understandable. To the German mind, her soldiers had engineered the great military victories of 1939 and 1940, and her statesmen had propelled Nazi Germany to a position of unchallenged superiority on the continent of Europe. The Soviet Union, in contrast, had made all her gains over the same period, directly or indirectly, through her collaboration with Berlin. Germany had run the risks alone, but the Soviets had reaped a sizeable share of the rewards. Seen in this way, the continued Soviet insistence on a role in Europe, whether on the Danubian Commission or as a player in Baltic or Balkan affairs, was little more than barefaced cheek. Small wonder, perhaps, that Hitler was becoming exasperated.

The Führer’s primary complaint against Moscow, therefore, was not ideological; it was strategic. The turn against the Soviet Union is generally described almost exclusively in ideological terms as the expression of a long-held and barely suppressed anti-Bolshevik prejudice. There is something in this, of course. Anti-Bolshevism was one of the primary articles of faith of every self-respecting Nazi, and racial-political justifications were certainly swift to come to the fore once the decision for war had been made. But strategic and geopolitical concerns still held sway over ideology, as indeed had been the case when the Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed in the late summer of 1939. Although both sides had held their noses when they made common cause, both had recognized the enormous practical advantages that the pact promised. Now, as their collaboration was beginning to falter, strategic concerns rather than ideology still played the dominant role.

Consequently, Hitler finally made his irrevocable decision to attack Stalin only in December, when at the Danubian Commission conference Moscow once again expressed insistence on its perceived European role, when the Soviet response to Ribbentrop’s Berlin proposals had been received, and when the prospects for a negotiated solution appeared to have been exhausted. This nexus is made abundantly clear by the timing of events. The Danubian Commission conference finally collapsed on December 17, with a fistfight breaking out between the Italian and Soviet delegations. The very next morning Hitler issued his Directive No. 21, ordering his forces to prepare “to crush Soviet Russia in a rapid campaign.” With that, the death knell of the Nazi-Soviet Pact was sounded, and “Operation Barbarossa” was born.