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

Economic negotiations between the two sides had stuttered on, occasionally peaking in the run up to a headline agreement or dwindling almost to nothing. As was not uncommon, the talks had stalled again in the autumn of 1940, partly because the two sides were some way apart and partly as it made sense to await the outcome of Molotov’s visit to Berlin. However, in the aftermath of that meeting, a curious shift became evident. In late November 1940 the normally sober German negotiator, Karl Schnurre, was describing negotiations as “quite cordial” and praising what he called the “surprising indication of good will on the part of the Soviet government.” Accordingly, the two regimes signed a Tariff and Toll Treaty on December 1, 1940.

Somewhat trickier, however, were the broader talks regarding “Year Two” of the economic relationship, which included a number of points on which the two sides seemed as far apart as ever. Yet, even here, although there were inevitably conflicts, the Soviets demonstrated an uncharacteristic willingness to compromise: they agreed to compensation terms over the Lithuanian Strip, for example, and promised to meet property claims for those Volksdeutsche who had emigrated from their newly gained western districts. The German negotiators were delighted and attempted one evening to drink as much of the revised grain quota (in its distilled form) as they possibly could.

Sobriety restored, the final points of a new treaty were hammered out in the month that followed, and on January 10, 1941, a new German-Soviet Border and Commercial Agreement was signed in Moscow. It was, Schnurre enthused, “the greatest [economic agreement] Germany had ever concluded.” His colleague Karl Ritter concurred, praising it as “the largest contract ever between two states.” Given all that had gone before—every bone of contention, every tit-for-tat squabble, and every failed compromise—a Soviet concession such as this can only have had a tactical motive behind it. Having rejected Germany’s offer of the previous autumn, Stalin may have felt obliged to appease Hitler and used economics to effect some sort of political rapprochement.

It is worth clarifying that neither side was yet laboring in the knowledge of an inevitable attack in June 1941. The Soviets, for their part, were receiving a growing volume of evidence of a German buildup and of German intentions, but Stalin was still confident that diplomatic maneuvers could deflect any crisis, postponing a possible showdown into 1942 or beyond. His negotiators, therefore, while mindful of the political need to throw a concession or two Berlin’s way, certainly did not yet feel that they were bartering for the USSR’s life. In that sense, therefore, the tone of negotiations was still largely in line with what had gone before.

The German side was similarly unencumbered by coming events. Like many of his fellow “Easterners,” Schnurre—although ignorant of the order for an attack—was well aware of the broad anti-Soviet shift in Berlin and sought to use the economic relationship as a reason to reverse it. Hence, once the new treaty was signed, he traveled to Berlin to preach the gospel of economic cooperation with the Soviets, proclaiming that the treaty provided the “solid foundation for an honourable and great peace for Germany.” While the majority of senior Nazis nodded sagely, large sections of German industry and bureaucracy went into overdrive to fulfill Soviet orders, whereas before they had given priority only to Wehrmacht orders. Not even the Italians received such favorable treatment. Such was the German commitment, indeed, that deliveries to the Soviets in the first half of 1941 alone—over 150 million reichsmarks—would exceed those from the three years prior to the pact. It is not clear whether this was part of a deliberate campaign of deception, but it is perhaps more plausibly explained as a symptom of a communication failure between Hitler and the German Foreign Office, where the latter was responsible for most of the lower-level negotiations and tended to be much less anti-Soviet in outlook than its political master. Whatever its precise origin, it would nonetheless prove expensive to Germany, so much so that Hitler ordered that details of the shipments to the USSR were not to be publicized.

Up until March 1941 at least, Stalin’s diplomatic game with Germany had progressed quite favorably. Despite the hiccups of France’s precipitate defeat of the previous summer and Molotov’s inconclusive visit to Berlin the previous autumn, the Soviet leader had remained confident that he could keep Hitler on a tight leash. That confidence would be profoundly shaken in the weeks that followed.

A key battleground in the diplomatic chess game had been the Balkans. Bulgaria and Turkey had loomed large for Molotov in his talks in Berlin, not only as the two held the key to the straits—and thereby to one of Russia’s perennial strategic interests—but also because the erection of obstacles to German expansion in the Balkans would serve to frustrate Hitler’s more ambitious plans. However, in the aftermath of Molotov’s visit, that Balkan policy had begun to unravel. In quick succession in the weeks that followed, Hungary and Romania had adhered to the Tripartite Pact, thereby falling definitively into Germany’s sphere of influence. By early March 1941, Bulgaria had finally followed suit, spurning Soviet overtures in the process. Stalin suddenly faced the uncomfortable prospect of Soviet influence being excluded from the Balkans altogether. With Turkey resolutely neutral, only Yugoslavia remained as a potential ally.

By late March 1941, Yugoslavia was completely isolated. Surrounded on all sides by Axis-aligned countries, it was hamstrung domestically by internal ethnic divisions and militarily unprepared to resist outside aggression. Hitler’s terms for accession to the Tripartite Pact, articulated during numerous meetings with Yugoslav leaders earlier that spring, were comparatively generous, extending to a guarantee of territorial integrity and an assurance that Belgrade would not be required to provide military assistance or be used for stationing Axis troops. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Prince Regent Paul agreed, sending his emissaries to Vienna to sign the agreement on March 25, 1941.

Scarcely was the ink dry on the Yugoslav accession to the Axis, however, when Paul was overthrown in a bloodless military coup, forced into exile, and replaced as premier by former chief of the General Staff General Dušan Simović. The coup—sponsored by Britain’s clandestine Special Operations Executive and applauded by Pravda in Moscow—broadly reflected the majority anti-Axis attitude in the country, bringing thousands of ordinary Yugoslavs, predominantly Serbs, out onto the streets in protest of German machinations and in support of an alliance with the Soviet Union. Sensing an opportunity to shore up his faltering position in the Balkans, Stalin moved fast, seeking to dampen anti-German rhetoric in Belgrade while opening negotiations in the hope that an expression of solidarity with Yugoslavia would checkmate Hitler’s expansion. The result would be the Soviet-Yugoslav Treaty of Friendship and Non-Aggression, signed in Moscow in the early hours of April 6.

If Stalin thought this would deter Hitler from a fresh adventure, he was mistaken. Even as the treaty was being signed, Hitler’s Luftwaffe was already preparing its attack on Belgrade, code-named “Retribution.” Outraged by the coup, Hitler had ordered that Yugoslavia be hit “with merciless brutality”—no “diplomatic inquiries” were to be made, “no ultimatum presented.” That same morning, heavy air raids on Belgrade heralded a military occupation of Serbia and the collapse of the Yugoslav state, with Croatia declaring itself independent even before the capital fell less than a week later on April 12.