‘There was obviously a vast concentration of troops in progress toward the 1939 demarcation line between Germany and the USSR. Discussions, speculations and bets were rife. On the one hand it seemed obvious that something was going to happen with the Soviets. On the other hand oil tank trains rolled continuously westward, past us, from the oil fields on the Soviet side.’
There appeared little point to invasion rumours despite obvious visual substance. Scharf ruefully admits, ‘I still owe some long vanished Leutnant a bottle of champagne for my wager that we would never attack the USSR.’(6)
Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov visited Adolf Hitler in Berlin in mid-November 1940, an event given much fanfare and some prominence in German public newsreels. The public would have felt less comforted if they had been aware of the real issues. One month before the visit, planning for ‘Otto’ (later redesignated ‘Barbarossa’) was well under way. Halder exuberantly noted that Russia’s calculation that it would profit from Germany’s war with Britain ‘went wrong’:
‘We are now at her border with 40 divisions, and will have one hundred divisions later on. Russia would bite on granite; but it is unlikely that she would deliberately pick a quarrel with us.’
‘Russia is ruled by men with horse sense,’ he scrawled as Hitler commented on the likely substance of future Russian resistance.(7) Molotov was a ruthless diplomat of Bismarckian proportions. Romania and Hungary had joined the Axis, leading Molotov to believe that Germany was violating the spirit of the August 1939 pact. The German Tripartite Pact Alliance with Italy and Japan, although aimed allegedly at the United States and Britain, did not convince Russia. Not surprisingly, and contrary to media coverage, the visit was a disaster for German-Soviet relations. Paul Schmidt, Hitler’s personal interpreter, described the vitriolic dialogue hidden from public view, claiming that Molotov:
‘…was blunt in his remarks and did not spare Hitler at all. Very uncompromising, hardly smiling at all, reminding me of my mathematics teacher, with hostile spectacles, looking at his pupil Hitler and saying: “Well, is our agreement last year still valid?”
‘Hitler, who thought it was a mistranslation, said, “Of course – why not?” Molotov said: “Yes, I asked this question because of the Finns. You are on very friendly relations with the Finns. You invite people from Finland to Germany, you send them missions there, and the Finns are a very dangerous people. They undermine our security and we will have to do something about that.”
‘Whereupon Hitler exploded and said, “I understand you very well. You want to wage war against Finland and this is quite out of the question. Listen – do you hear me – impossible! Because my supplies of iron, nickel and other important raw materials will be cut.”’
Schmidt concluded: ‘it was a very tough, almost heavyweight championship, in political discussion.’(8) Whatever the public perception, there appeared little holding the two ideologies together except for short-term national self-interest. Both countries mistrusted each other. Hitler and his dinner guests greatly relished the tale carried by his physician, Dr Karl Brandt, that Molotov’s Soviet Foreign Ministry staff had all plates and silverware boiled before use, for fear of German germs.(9) But public perception was important, if only in deception terms. Halder scrawled a note after the meeting: ‘Result: constructive note; Russia has no intention of breaking with us. Impression of rest of the world.’(10) The weekly transmission of the German Wochenschau relayed the type of message cinema audiences in Germany wanted to hear:
‘The Berlin discussions were transacted in an atmosphere of joint trust and led to mutual understanding in all important questions of interest to Germany and the Soviet Union.’(11)
‘The Führer has got it all in hand’
Soldiers in the divisions gathering in the east were not totally insensitive to a gradual deterioration of relations. One Leutnant wrote home in early March:
‘Do you know what I have picked up? That now for the first time since we have had closer relations with Russia, the Russians have not been represented in the Leipziger Messe [International Industrial Exhibition]. Last autumn and summer he held all the cards, big style, in Leipzig and the Königsberg Baltic Sea Messe also. And when you follow the foreign press statements over our invasion of Bulgaria, you would have noticed that this time Moscow was not included. Now we’re negotiating with the Turks to get into Syria where the Tommies have got one of their strongest armies. And do you think the Russians are going to keep quiet? That will be the day!’
Despite all these ‘interesting developments’ the junior officer concluded ‘there is no use in cracking our heads over it, the main point is inescapable. Final Victory will be ours.’(1) Another soldier confided in a similar letter the same month:
‘A Russian General, in a drunken state, stressed that Poland had been trampled over in 18 days, it would take eight days to do us! [ie Germany] That’s what one is able to say in the Mess today! Well and good, we are not so well informed about Russia (terrain, army, barracks, airfields, etc) as we were over Poland, Holland, Belgium and France, and now over England. Anyway, not to worry, the Führer has got it all in hand.’
This certainly appeared to be the case according to observations by rank and file. A whole communications network had developed pointing eastwards. ‘Barbarossa’, the code name for the envisaged invasion of Russia, was planned with typical Teutonic precision. 2,500 trains transporting the first echelon to the east had already been despatched by 14 March. The build-up continued inexorably: 17 divisions and headquarters moved from Germany and the West between 8 April and 20 May. Nine further divisions went over the following 10 days. Between 3 and 23 June, 12 Panzer and 12 Panzergrenadier divisions were moved from the interior of Germany from the west and south-east. The total was to rise to some 120 divisions on the eve of ‘Barbarossa’. ‘The imposing vastness of the spaces in which our troops are now assembling cannot fail but strike a deep impression,’ wrote Halder on 9 June. ‘By its very nature it puts an end to the doctrine of defeatism.’(3) Hauptmann Alexander Stahlberg, a Panzer officer, commented:
‘In June there came an order which clearly showed us what to expect. Every soldier, from simple private to commanding officer, had to learn the Cyrillic alphabet. Everyone had to be capable of reading Russian signposts and Russian maps. That told us something – but had not Hitler and Stalin ceremoniously signed a non-aggression pact less than two years ago? Had not Hitler received Molotov in November of the previous year, to discuss – it had filtered through later – the partition of the British Empire?’(4)
Leutnant F. W. Christians was convinced the forthcoming mission was to secure the oil wells at Baku against possible British attack. As they would, therefore, because of the pact, be passing through ‘friendly territory’, he packed his extra summer dress uniform and cavalry sabre.(5) ‘There were some rumours around we were perhaps going through Russia to Pakistan,’ declared Eduard Janke, a Krad Schütze (motorcycle soldier) in the 2nd SS Division ‘Das Reich’. Nobody knew.