BARBAROSSA-HITLER'S PLAN TO INVADE RUSSIA
While Hitler was busy that summer of 1940 directing the conquest of the West, Stalin was taking advantage of the Führer's preoccupation by moving
BARBAROSSA-HITLER'S PLAN TO INVADE RUSSIA
While Hitler was busy that summer of 1940 directing the conquest of the West, Stalin was taking advantage of the Führer's preoccupation by moving into the Baltic States and reaching down into the Balkans. On the surface all was friendly between the two great dictatorships. Molotov, acting for Stalin, lost no opportunity to praise and flatter the Germans on every occasion of a new act of aggression or a fresh conquest. When Germany invaded Norway and Denmark on April 9, 1940, the Soviet Foreign Commissar hastened to tell Ambassador von der Schulenburg in Moscow that very morning that 'the Soviet Government understood the measures which were forced on Germany'. 'We wish Germany', said Molotov, 'complete success in her defensive measures'.
A month later, when the German Ambassador called on Molotov to inform him officially of the Wehrmacht's attack in the West, which Ribbentrop had instructed his envoy to explain 'was forced upon Germany by the impending Anglo-French push on the Ruhr by way of Belgium and Holland', the Soviet Statesman again expressed his pleasure. 'Molotov received the communication in an understanding spirit', Schulenburg wired Berlin, 'and added that he realised that Germany must protect herself against Anglo-French attack. He had no doubt of our success'.
On June 17, the day France asked for an armistice, Molotov summoned Schulenburg to his office 'and expressed the warmest congratulations of the Soviet Government on the splendid success of the German Wehrmacht'. Although he had other matters on his mind.
|Hitler with members of his General staff|
The Foreign Commissar had something else to say, and this did not sound so quite pleasant to German ears. He informed the German envoy, as the latter wired Berlin'most urgent', of 'the Soviet action against the Baltic States', adding 'that it had become necessary to put an end to all the intrigues by which England and France had tried to sow discord and mistrust between Germany and the Soviet Union in the Baltic States. To put an end to such 'discord' the Soviet Government, Molotov added, had dispatched'special emissaries' to the three Baltic countries. They were in fact three of Stalin's best hatchet-men: Dekanozov, who was sent to Lithuania, Vishinsky, to Latvia, Zhadanov, to Estonia.
They carried out their assignment with the thoroughness which one would expect from this trio, especially the latter two individuals. Already on June 14, the day German troops entered Paris, the Soviet Government had sent a nine-hour ultimatum to Lithuania demanding the resignation of its government, the arrest of some of its key officials and the right to send in as many Red Army troops as it pleased. Though the Lithuanian government accepted the ultimatum, Moscow deemed its acceptance 'unsatisfactory', and the next day, June 15, Soviet troops occupied the country, the only one of the Baltic States to border Germany. During the next couple of days similar Soviet ultimatums were dispatched to Latvia and Estonia, after which they were similarly overrun by the Red Army.
|Soviet tanks enter Riga on 17, July 1940|
Adolf Hitler was humiliated, but, busy as he was trying to organise the invasion of Britain, could do nothing about it. The letters from the envoys of the three Baltic States in Berlin protesting Russian aggression were returned to them by order of Ribbentrop. To further humble the Germans, Molotov brusquely told them on August 11 to 'liquidate' their legations in Kaunas, Riga and Tallinn within a fortnight and close down their Baltic consulates by September 1.
The seizure of the Baltic States did not satisfy Stalin's appetite. The surprising quick collapse of the Anglo-French armies spurred him on to get as much as he could while the getting was good. He obviously thought there was little time to lose. On June 23, the day after the French formally capitulated and signed the armistice at Compegne, Molotov again called in the Nazi Ambassador in Moscow and told him that 'the solution of the Bessarabian brooked no further delay. The Soviet Government was determined to use force, should the Rumanian Government decline a peaceful agreement'.