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

ANY BOOK OF BREADTH AND AMBITION INVOLVES A DEGREE OF collaboration, and this one is no exception. For every word that makes it onto the page, dozens have been unearthed from archives, retrieved from libraries, translated, or transcribed. Hence, a number of debts must humbly be acknowledged.

First, this project required a considerable degree of foreign-language research assistance, sometimes in parts to which the shrinking author’s advance will scarcely stretch. Consequently, help was ably tendered by Evgeny Panin in Russia, Oleg Medvedevsky in Belarus, Neringa Pangonyte in Lithuania, Dr. Jakub Tyszkiewicz in Poland, Axel von Wittenberg and Philipp Rauh in Germany, and Andreea Minca and Andreea-Lavinia Mocanu in Romania. In addition, James Simpson, Saskia Smellie, Sebastian Palfi, Vicky Davis, and Owen Emmerson did sterling work in the United Kingdom.

Second, thanks must also be extended to colleagues and friends who gave advice, answered questions, read chapters, and otherwise gave their time and knowledge, including Jaroslaw Garlinski, Mel Huang, Dr. Alex Drecoll, Professor Edward Ericson, Bill Russ, Nauris Larmanis, Nigel Jones, Heather McCallum, Dr. Martin Folly, Professor Richard Overy, Dr. David Kirby, and, as ever, Professor Norman Davies.

Having worked in many archives, libraries, and academic institutions, I would like to single out two—where much of this book was researched and written—for special praise: the German Historical Institute in London and the library of the University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Whereas other institutions put up obstacles and present an uncaring face to their readers, these two make the sometimes onerous task of researching and writing a genuine pleasure.

I would also like to thank those of the surviving community of Kresowcy and Sybiracy—the Poles deported to Siberia and elsewhere by the Soviet Union in 1940 and 1941—whom I met in researching this book. It was a truly humbling experience to hear their stories of unimaginable hardship, stories that, sadly, rarely receive an airing in “the West.” Although this book is not strictly about their enforced exile, I hope that I have nonetheless done them justice in, at least in part, bringing their plight to a wider audience. Thanks are also due to the Polish Social and Cultural Centre (POSK) in West London for arranging the meetings.

All of this would be for naught, of course, were it not for the commitment, passion, and persuasion of my agents, Peter Robinson in the United Kingdom and Jill Grinberg in the United States, and the vision of my respective commissioning editors: Stuart Williams at Bodley Head in London and the brilliant Lara Heimert at Basic Books in New York. Roger Labrie did an excellent job of tidying up the US manuscript. An honorable mention must also be made for my inestimable editor in London, Jörg Hensgen, who has had the dubious honor of working on all of my previous books and brought his valuable insights and expertise to this one as well. Jen Kelland exercised her considerable talents in honing the US edition.

Lastly, convention dictates that an author should close with a saccharine paean to his or her family. Mine is as simple as it is heartfelt. To my wife, Melissa and to our children, Oscar and Amelia, I offer my profound thanks; thank you for your perennial enthusiasm for the book that has taken shape in your midst, and thank you for the patience, the love, and the understanding that you have shown to its occasionally ill-tempered author. “This time next year!”

Morzine, April 2014

xxi while a band played the “Internationale”: Testimony of Vasily Laskovich, in Yuri Rubashevsky, “Radost byla vseobshaya i triumfalnaya,” Vercherniy Brest , September 16, 2011, http://www.vb.by/article.php?topic=36&article=14200.

xxii to change their exhausted horses: Testimony of Bronisława Predenia, at Tadeusz Czernik, http://tadeuszczernik.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/wspomnienia-z-ziemi-brzeskiej-bronislawa-predenia.

xxii “I was perplexed”: Svetozar Sinkevich, quoted in Vasiliy Sarychev, “V poiskach utrachennogo vremeni,” Vercherniy Brest , http://www.vb.by/sarychev/content/75/main.php.

xxiii a defensive strongpoint for hard-pressed Polish forces: Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (London: Michael Joseph, 1952), 81.

xxiii paratroopers dropped behind Polish lines: Kriegstagebuch des Generalkommandos XIX AK über den Feldzug in Polen, September 1939, United States National Archives and Record Administration, Microfilm Series T-314, roll #611, frames 665–693, 126 (hereafter, “XIX Corps War Diary”).

xxiii propagated by elements of the Polish military: Georg Schmidt-Scheeder, Reporter der Hölle (Stuttgart: Motorbuch-Verlag, 1977), 95.

xxiii the Ukrainian and Byelorussian peoples living there: XIX Corps War Diary, op. cit., 168–169.

xxiii “Communists! Good!”: Romuald Bulas, quoted in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxiv demarcation line between the Soviet and German forces: XIX Corps War Diary, op. cit., 179.

xxiv recover their damaged vehicles: Guderian, op. cit., 81–83.

xxiv weary after their long march west: Janusz Magnuski and Maksym Kolomijec, Czerwony Blitzkrieg. Wrzesien 1939: Sowieckie Wojska Pancerne w Polsce (Warsaw: Pelta, 1994), 72.

xxv “the troops would be marching there”: Raisa Shirnyuk, quoted in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxv Red Army with flowers and cheering: German eyewitness account from a 1939 postcard, reproduced at http://riowang.blogspot.com/2009/09/brest-nazi-soviet-military-parade-23_25.html.

xxv “Langsam, langsam, aber deutlich!”: Shirnyuk in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxv not far from the reviewing platform: Shirnyuk in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxv “stunted and unsightly” horses with inferior harnesses: Stanislav Miretski, quoted in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxvi “What sort of a life will they bring to us?”: Boris Akimov, quoted in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxvi “Get back, woman!”: Shirnyuk in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxvi impressed by the display of German airpower: Semyon Krivoshein, Mezhdubure (Voronezh, RU: Chernozemnoe, 1964), 261.

xxvi out of tune, as one eyewitness recalled: Sinkevich in Sarychev, op. cit.

xxvi Krivoshein recalled sourly, “the parade was over”: Krivoshein, op. cit., 261.

xxvi more numerous than they really were: Krivoshein, op. cit., 260–261.

xxvii “after the victory over capitalist Albion”: Schmidt-Scheeder, op. cit., 101.

xxvii “meeting on the boundary of peace”: See, for instance, Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, September 25, 1939, 4

xxvii “scuppered the pious plans of the Western Democracies”: See the German newsreel transmission of September 27, 1939, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDIqzJgZNHM.

xxvii “uniting in order to jointly decide on the fate of Eastern Europe”: Frowein article, quoted in Fundacja Ośrodka KARTA, September 1939 (Warsaw: Karta, 2009), 44.

1 poring over official documents and making copious notes: Paul Schmidt, Statist auf diplomatischer Bühne (Wiesbaden, DE: Aula, 1984), 441.

1 “slept like a babe” for the entire flight: Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend (Barnsley, UK: Frontline Books, 2011), 105.

2 “fought bitterly as the enemy of European culture”: Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin, 1939–1945 (Bonn, DE: Athenäum, 1950), 55.

2 considered inconceivable only days before: Hoffmann, op. cit., 105.

2 recently been used for anti-Nazi propaganda films: Anthony Read and David Fisher, The Deadly Embrace (London: M. Joseph, 1988), 248.

2 “especially when they start exchanging files”: Johnnie von Herwarth, Against Two Evils (London: Collins, 1981), 165.