Читать книгу Rouble Nationalization – the Way to Russia’s Freedom - Николай Стариков - Страница 5

Let us imagine a situation. Adolf Hitler puts his prestige at stake and, in spite of diplomatic etiquette, addressed the head of another state, bypassing his foreign minister. No such thing had happened in German-Russian relations before. Having written that letter, Hitler put himself in a very vulnerable position. He showed how important it was for him to come to an arrangement. He revealed his cards. He exposed himself even before the negotiations started. And he is waiting for an answer. On 21st August, 1939 there is no news in the whole Third Reich which would be more important than Stalin's answer.

Here is the question for you: how long did it take to pass the message from the Soviet government? As we know, at 5 p.m. the envelope with the message got into the German ambassador's hands. And when did it reach Hitler?

Let us try to calculate. We will give fifteen minutes to Ambassador Schulenburg to say his goodbyes to Molotov and walk to the car, then, say, twenty minutes to drive to the Embassy. Around ten minutes to take his coat off and suchlike, about twenty minutes to cipher the message. Ten more minutes to send the message to Berlin – the document is tiny, there are only 14 lines. In total, we get 75 minutes. Let us round it up to 90, as the German ambassador is not very young and therefore does not walk very fast. So, an hour and a half in total. What are the time expenditures in Berlin? Deciphering would take 20 minutes, delivering to the Fuhrer another 20 minutes. Let it be an hour. An hour in Berlin and an hour and a half in Moscow. It means that passing Stalin's response from the Kremlin to Adolf Hitler could take two and a half hours at the most. And this would be without too much haste, in a very laid-back manner. Whereas Hitler must have ordered this material to be given top priority due to its urgency and importance. Everyone should have run! What happened in reality?

Stalin's response was passed to Hitler nine hours later![123]

How could it have happened that the most expected document in Germany was delivered to Hitler with such a delay? Did it get lost on the way? Just compare two and a half hours and nine hours. Who held the message up for so long? I think you will agree that it raises a lot of questions. Hitler must have asked these questions, too, as he really was looking forward to Stalin's answer. 'In utter anxiety, practically unable to control his nerves, Hitler was waiting for an answer. He could not sleep and that is why he called Hermann Goering in the middle of the night to share his worries with him and express his irritation about Russian stolidity'.[124] And the Fuhrer's misgivings concerning Stalin were completely unfounded, as the head of the USSR replied at lightning speed. So, where was the response? Who kept it from Hitler? And when Stalin's letter finally got through to the addressee, the Führer's reaction was rather peculiar. 'Hitler was given a note at dinner. He quickly ran through it, blushing thoroughly, stared in front of himself for some time and then hit the table in front of him so hard that it clinked and shouted in a failing voice, 'It's all right! It's all right!'[125] There is other evidence. When Hitler received the message that Ribbentrop could fly to Moscow on 23rd August, he exclaimed: 'This is one hundred per cent victory! And though I never do, I am going to have a bottle of champagne'.[126]

Could Adolf Hitler take no notice of the strange delay in the delivery of this important information simply out of joy that Stalin had replied and agreed to move the negotiations closer? He could have done. But the senior officials of his secret services were obliged to examine the situation. Why? Because when the head of state runs around his residence in anxiety and is constantly on the phone, asking, 'Where is Stalin's answer?' a delay in delivering information by six – seven (!) hours has a very short and concise name: sabotage. Or maybe even a louder one: a diversion. This 'delay' could have resulted in a turning point in history. In fact, world history could have been completely different.

Let us approach this question from a different point of view. It would seem that to entirely conceal from Hitler the fact that Stalin had replied would have been impossible. So what is the difference between delivering the message two hours later and nine hours later? The difference is enormous. The difference is as big as between the mornings of 10^th and 11^th September 2001. Let us pose another question: who would be interested in making it look like there had been no response from Stalin? Who would be interested in driving Hitler mad with Stalin's silence in response to Hitler's PERSONAL LETTER? What results would it produce? What could Adolf Hitler have done having not received Stalin's message? What would have happened had Hitler's patience snapped earlier?

Curiously enough, it is pretty easy to answer these questions. The Fuhrer was a gambler. He played two boards at the same time, both the West and the East. When, six years later, Adolf Hitler shot himself in the Fuhrerbunker, Stalin was abundantly clear about it ('The scoundrel's game is over!'). These words tell us the whole truth of the Second World War. Hitler's game-playing with everyone at the same time led him to a defeat. He said more than once that fighting on two fronts would be disastrous and impossible for Germany, that such a war scenario was the biggest mistake made by Kaiser Wilhelm II. And that he, Hitler, was not going to make the same mistake. Therefore, in August, 1939 Hitler was to come to an agreement either with the West or with the East. And it would be even better if he managed to make an arrangement with one side and then with the other centre of power, as well. And should the proposal of the English prove more interesting, the friendship with the Kremlin could be forgotten about again.[127]

But let us go back to the question of what Hitler would have done had Stalin's response been some five hours later. The answer is that he would have continued negotiating. But not with Russians. With whom then? There is only one answer to this: with the English. It is an historical fact that on 21st August, 1939 the German ruler asked London to have a meeting with Goering on 22nd August and received a positive answer.[128] In those fateful August days there were two aeroplanes at the Berlin airfield. One of them, the Fuhrer's personal Junkers, was waiting for the Foreign Minister, Ribbentrop, in order to take him to Moscow. And the other plane was a Lockheed A-12 of the British secret service.[129] Hermann Goering was ready to board it and fly to London. Both flights and both visits were planned for the same day, 23rd August, 1939. Goering's flight was organised personally by the head of the British intelligence in order to avoid publicity.

Fatman, which was Goering's nickname, was to meet not just anybody but Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. And the whole arrangement was kept under a veil of complete secrecy. He was to fly not straight to London but first land at a small airfield near a town called Bonvington in Herefordshire. From there Goering was to be delivered straight to Chequers, the official residence of the British Prime Minister. It was planned to dismiss Chamberlain's staff for the sake of secrecy, and replace all its members with officers of the British secret service. It was also planned to disconnect all the phones…[130]

This was not the first occasion when, at crucial political moments, one of the leaders of the Third Reich would fly to London in order to make arrangements in real time and in person. For example, when German troops invaded Austria in spring, 1938, Ribbentrop was in the British capital. The excuse not to make this visit official was found in the process. Ribbentrop, who used to be the German ambassador in London, now became the head of the Foreign Ministry. And in this new position he just wanted to see his all friends and throw something akin to a farewell party.[131] As a result, England recognised the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria to Germany despite having a treaty with Austrians in which the British promised to protect their independence.

In August 1939 only one flight could take place. And it is exactly where Hitler's envoy would fly and which country the Fuhrer chooses to make an arrangement with that the flight was for.[132] Having no response from Stalin was supposed to prod Hitler into negotiating with the English. The German leader simply did not have any other options. This is why we can state that the supposed lack of response from Stalin could have meant an entirely different scenario for Europe. And this scenario would have been even more tragic for Russia, as straight after defeating Poland the German troops would have turned up at the Russian borders and the Russian Army would have had to fight the Wehrmacht on its own and two years earlier and France or England would not have been obliged to reinforce Russia.

Who would have found it profitable if a war between Russia and Germany had started in September 1939? England. Who would have found it profitable to pit two peoples against one another in order to then join the battle second when the rivals had bled white? England. And a nine-hour delay in delivering the urgent and important letter is an historical fact which no one can deny. So, who could have tried to impede negotiations between Germany and Russia through holding up a message from one head of state to the other? The answer is obvious. There is one thing I do not understand: why has no one else tried to answer this fascinating question before, since answering it makes a lot of things clear. Even too clear. This was a question of national importance and Great Britain used the help of the secret service apart from all diplomatic sources…

Who could have provided the 'extra' six hours for Stalin's letter? English agents in German institutions. What institution exactly is not really that important; Foreign Ministry, intelligence, ciphers, Ribbentrop's deputies. If you want to know who exactly was responsible, get hold of German archives; they must have the answer. Such a blunder could not have remained unpunished. Either the German secret service or Ribbentrop himself must have reacted to this obvious sabotage. There must have been a reaction – severe but concealed. Within a month someone must have drowned, died in a car crash or of a sudden heart attack. Quietly. With no publicity. With nothing but a portrait at work with a black ribbon. Some crying colleagues. A true Aryan. Blind Death has taken him away. With a pension for the heartbroken widow.

I do not know what happened to the British agent who put everything at stake performing the task of his bosses in London; I do not know his name. But I do know names and surnames of other real foreign agents who were in Germany back then.