Even at this late hour, Stalin still made it clear that he was not interested in India or any other part of the British Empire. His primary concern was that Hitler should leave the Balkans and Finland strictly alone. No reply to these proposals was ever received from Berlin.
How was the Molotov visit presented to the Soviet people? The Soviet press certainly made a brave effort to show its readers that the Soviet-German Pact was still a good thing, and that relations with the Germans were still correct, if not cordial. And yet, the Soviet newspaper reader, well-trained to read between the lines, must have guessed that things had not gone too well, as he read the following items:
COMRADE V. M. MOLOTOV'S VISIT TO BERLIN, Berlin, November 12
(TASS):
Comrade Molotov was given a festive (torzhestvennaya) reception in Berlin...
[The Russian adjective is somewhere half-way between "festive" and "solemn". It might be translated as " V.I.P..]
Long before the arrival of his train at the Anhalter Bahnhof, there had assembled on the station platform the representatives of various German government organs,
the representatives of the German High Command, the Diplomatic Corps of Berlin,
members of the Soviet Embassy and Trade Delegation and foreign and German
journalists.
The platform was decorated with flowers and evergreens, and the main entrance of
the station with the State flags of Germany and the USSR. All the adjoining streets were crowded with people long before the arrival of the train.
Comrade Molotov was met by Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop; Commander of the
OKW, General Field-Marshal Keitel; the head of the Labour Front, Dr Ley; the
head of the German Police, Herr Himmler; the head of the German Government
Press Office, Dr Dietrich, State Secretary Weizsäcker, Herr Steeg, the Burgomaster of Berlin, and many others.
Herr von Ribbentrop then accompanied Comrade Molotov to his Bellevue
residence. The German press unanimously considers the arrival of Comrade
Molotov as a fact of first-rate political importance.
[ Pravda, November 13, 1940.]
And then:
In the afternoon of November 12 a conversation took place in the new Chancellery
between the Reichskanzler of Germany, Herr Hitler and Comrade Molotov, in the
presence of Ribbentrop and the Deputy Foreign Commissar, V. G. Dekanozov. The
conversation lasted more than two hours.
[ Pravda, November 13, 1940.]
On the following day, according to Pravda, Molotov had further conversations in Berlin, and left in the morning of November 14. The following communiqué was published:
In the course of his visit to Berlin on November 12-13, Foreign Commissar V. M.
Molotov had a conversation with the Reichskanzler, Herr Adolf Hitler and Foreign
Minister Herr von Ribbentrop. The exchange of views took place in an atmosphere
of mutual trust and established mutual comprehension on all the important
questions concerning the USSR and Germany. V. M. Molotov also had a
conversation with Reichsmarschall Goering and another with Herr Hitler's deputy
at the head of the National-Socialist Party, Herr Rudolf Hess.
On November 13, V. M. Molotov had a final conversation with Herr von
Ribbentrop.
[ Pravda, November 15.]
Then there was another story on the "festive atmosphere" in which Molotov was seen off from the Anhalter Bahnhof. After 10 a.m. Ribbentrop had collected Molotov at the
Bellevue Palace to accompany him to the station. Again the station was decorated with flags, flowers and evergreens, and Molotov and Ribbentrop reviewed a guard of honour.
Apart from Ribbentrop, Molotov and his party were seen off by Reichsminister Dr
Lemmers, Himmler, Ley, Dietrich, Weizsäcker; Himmler's deputy, Daluege;
General Thomas representing Keitel [etc.]. Comrade Molotov was also seen off by
members of the Soviet Embassy and Trade Delegation in Berlin, to whom he
warmly said good-bye. Having thanked Herr von Ribbentrop for the reception he
had been given, Comrade Molotov then took leave of the representatives of the
German government who had come to see him off.
[ Pravda, November 15.]
Nothing was revealed at the time about the real nature of the Molotov-Hitler-Ribbentrop talks and although, in the final communiqué, there was that phrase about the "mutual trust", Russian readers had an uneasy feeling that something was not quite right. There was a little too much about the flowers and evergreens at the Anhalter Bahnhof, but no mention of any "friendly atmosphere" in the first report on the Hitler-Molotov meeting, even though it had lasted "more than two hours".
Could something be read into the fact that Keitel had merely sent his deputy to see
Molotov off? And into the fact that Molotov had said good-bye "warmly" to the members of the Russian Embassy, but not to the Germans?
[Perhaps the "warmth" was deliberately omitted in the account of Molotov's leave-taking, since the Germans present included such particularly unsavoury characters as Himmler and Daluege. Curious, too, was the omission of any mention of Molotov's second
meeting with Hitler.]
Needless to say, there was nothing in the Soviet papers about the British air-raid on Berlin, which had forced Ribbentrop and his guest into a shelter, where Molotov had
made one or two caustic remarks. But these were to be quoted in Moscow sub rosa
before long.
On November 18 the Soviet press printed photographs of Molotov and Hitler in the new Chancellery; Molotov had a completely noncommittal expression, and Hitler one of those strained and oily semi-smiles, into which anything could be read. Molotov looked much the same in the photograph with Ribbentrop; but the latter at least tried to look a little more cheerful. It was exactly a month after the publication of these photographs that Hitler finally decided on Plan Barbarossa, i.e. the invasion of the Soviet Union.
Molotov's most unusual manner of talking to Hitler had certainly something to do with it.
Although Hitler had considered an attack on Russia as early as the summer of 1940, his final decision was not taken until after his infuriating meetings with Molotov.
Chapter VIII "1941— IT WILL BE A HAPPY YEAR"
On the face of it, nothing seemed to have changed in Russia as a result of Molotov's November visit to Berlin. And yet, all kinds of strange news items began to appear in the press: for instance, a TASS denial, on November 16, of an American report that Japan had offered the Soviet Union the whole or part of India in exchange for Eastern Siberia—
a curious coincidence, to say the least, so soon after Hitler's mention of India to Molotov.
Then, for two days (November 16-17), Pravda ran, for no apparent reason, two whole pages by André Maurois on "Why France Lost the War", which for all their crypto-Vichyism, were scarcely pro-German. On the next day there was a story about 400,000