The 900 Days (9 page)

Unable to contain himself Molotov blurted out: “Heavy bombing has been going on for three hours!”

Von der Schulenburg looked up from his papers but said nothing. He droned on for ten minutes and concluded: “Thereby the Soviet Government has broken its treaties and is about to attack Germany from the rear, in its struggle for life. The Flihrer has therefore ordered the German armed forces to oppose this threat with all the means at their disposal.”

Several moments of complete silence followed. Molotov seemed to be struggling to maintain his stony demeanor. Finally he said, “Is this supposed to be a declaration of war?”

Schulenburg lifted his shoulders helplessly.

Molotov then spoke with indignation. He said the message could be nothing but a declaration of war since German troops had already crossed the border and Soviet citizens had already been bombed. He called the Nazi action a “breach of confidence without precedent.” He said Germany had attacked Russia without reason, that the excuses given were nothing but pretexts, that the allegations of Soviet troop concentrations were sheer nonsense, that if the German Government had felt offense, it merely needed to send a note to the Soviet Government instead of unleashing war.

“Surely we have not deserved that,” said Molotov.

The Ambassador replied with a request that the embassy staff be permitted to leave the Soviet Union in conformity with international law. Molotov icily rejoined that the Germans would be treated with strict reciprocity.

The Ambassador and Hilger shook hands with Molotov and re-entered their car. As it purred down the gentle slopes and out of the Kremlin compound, they saw, Hilger later recalled, a number of cars arriving. He thought he recognized several high-ranking generals in the machines.

The Germans drove in silence back to the embassy, which lay less than five minutes from the Kremlin. It was a region of Moscow with which Hilger had been familiar since boyhood. As he passed through the streets, he thought with sinking heart that he would never see them again.
⁶

The telephone in the Soviet Embassy in Berlin rang at 3
A.M.
, awakening Counselor Valentin Berezhkov from a restless sleep. A voice that was unfamiliar said that Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was in his office and wished to see Ambassador Dekanozov immediately. The unknown voice and the official tone of the language struck a sudden chill into Berezhkov, but he shook off his apprehension and said he was pleased that the Foreign Minister was prepared to receive Dekanozov in response to his repeated requests.

“We know nothing of any requests,” the voice said coldly. “I have been instructed to advise you that Reich Minister Ribbentrop wishes to see the Soviet representative immediately.”

Berezhkov said it would take a little time to rouse Dekanozov and get the car sent around. He was told that Ribbentrop had sent a car which was already outside the Soviet Embassy.

When Berezhkov and Dekanozov emerged on the Unter den Linden, they found a black Mercedes waiting. A uniformed officer of the SS Toten-kopf Division, death’s head gleaming on his cap, escorted them, together with a Foreign Office protocol officer, also in uniform. Over the Brandenburg Gates the first rays of the sun were already visible. It was going to be a fine, clear, warm day.

Entering the Wilhelmstrasse they saw a crowd. Floodlights illuminated the entrance to the Foreign Office. There were cameramen, movie crews, journalists, officials. Berezhkov’s sense of alarm deepened. The two Russians walked up the long staircase and down a corridor to Ribbentrop’s suite. The corridor was lined with uniformed men who snapped to a smart salute and clicked their heels. They turned to the right into Ribbentrop’s office, a vast room with a desk at the far end where Ribbentrop sat in his gray-green minister’s uniform. To the right of the door was a group of Nazi officials. They did not move when the Russians entered. Dekanozov walked silently across the long room, and Ribbentrop finally rose, silently bent his head, offered his hand and invited the two Russians to sit at a round table nearby. Berezhkov noticed that Ribbentrop’s face was bloated. It was muddy in color and his eyes were bloodshot. He swayed a bit as he walked, and the thought entered Berezhkov’s mind: “The man is drunk.” As they sat at the table and Ribbentrop began to speak, slurring his words, it was obvious that he was, in fact, intoxicated.

Dekanozov had brought the text of his latest instructions from Moscow with him. But Ribbentrop brushed the subject aside. It was another matter that he wished to discuss. The German Government had become aware of concentrations of Soviet troops along the German frontier. It was apprised of the hostile attitude of the Soviet Government and the serious threat this presented to the German state. The Soviet forces had repeatedly violated the German state frontiers. He presented Dekanozov with a memorandum detailing the Nazi allegations. The Soviet Government was preparing to strike a deadly blow at the Nazi rear at a moment when it was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the Anglo-Saxons. The Führer could not endure such a threat and had ordered appropriate military countermeasures.

Dekanozov interrupted. He said that he had been seeking an interview with Ribbentrop, that his government had instructed him to raise certain questions concerning Soviet-German relations which required clarification.

Ribbentrop cut Dekanozov off sharply. He had nothing to add to what he had said except to say that the German action was not to be regarded as aggression. He rose a bit unsteadily and said: “The Führer ordered me to announce to you officially these defensive measures.”

The Russians rose. Ribbentrop said that he was sorry that matters had arrived at this pass for he had earnestly sought to put relations between the two countries on a sound and sensible basis. Dekanozov said he, too, was very sorry. The German Government had a completely erroneous conception of the position of the Soviet Union.

As the Russians neared the door, Ribbentrop hurried after them. Speaking very rapidly, the words tumbling one after the other in a hoarse whisper, he said, “Tell Moscow that I was against the attack.”

The Russians walked out into the street. It was fully light. The cameras clicked. The movie cameras whirred. Back at the embassy they tried to call Moscow. The time was 4
A.M.
(6
A.M.
in Moscow). The telephone connections had been broken. They tried to send a messenger to the telegraph office. He was turned back. Berezhkov slipped out the rear door in a small Opel Olympia. He managed to make his way to the main post office and handed in his telegram to a clerk.

What took place in the Kremlin once the formal declaration of war— despite its Hitlerian perversity—had been delivered is still not easy to determine.

Directive No. 1 of the Defense Commissariat signed by Marshal Timo-shenko and General Zhukov was not issued until 7:15
A.M.
, after the German attack had been under way for nearly four hours. It was received in Leningrad at General Staff headquarters at 8
A.M.
The order was a curious one. It did not define Russia and Germany as actually being in a state of war. It read like the document of men who were by no means certain that they were dealing with actual war. Little wonder that the Soviet armed forces were confused.

The Soviet commanders were instructed to attack and exterminate enemy troops which had entered Soviet territory, but they were barred from crossing into German territory. They were permitted air reconnaissance and attacks but only to a depth of sixty-six to a hundred miles. Permission was given to bomb Königsberg and Memel. Flights over Rumania or Finland were forbidden without special permission.

If this was war, then surely it was limited war. When the Leningrad commanders read the prohibition on flights over Finland, they were dumf ounded. They had already shot down at least one German plane based in Finland.

Colonel Bychevsky met one of his old Leningrad colleagues, P. P. Yevstigneyev, chief of intelligence, in the General Staff corridor.

“Have you read the order?” Yevstigneyev asked.

“I read it,” Bychevsky said. “What do you think, Pyotr Petrovich, will the Finns fight?”

Yevstigneyev snorted. “Of course they will. The Germans are heading for Murmansk and Kandalaksha. And Mannerheim is dreaming of revenge. Their aviation is already in action.”

In Moscow Admiral Kuznetsov grew more and more nervous as the hours rolled by. He had two major concerns—possible landing attempts in the Baltic behind the Soviet lines and German air attacks on his Baltic naval bases. And what was most alarming was the silence of the Kremlin. The last communication he had had was Malenkov’s surly call displaying anger and distrust of Kuznetsov’s report of the German attack on Sevastopol. No orders came to Kuznetsov from the Kremlin, none from the Defense Commissar. Although on his own responsibility he had ordered his fleets to oppose the German attack, it was not enough simply to “oppose the enemy.” It was time to direct the Soviet forces to strike counterblows as swiftly and effectively as possible.

Yet he, the most independent of the Soviet commanders, was not willing to order this on his own responsibility.

“The fleet could not do this alone,” he noted. “There had to be agreed plans and unity of action by all the armed forces.”

He knew his fleets were ready; he was confident they would meet the challenge. But what really was going on in Libau, in Tallinn, in Hangö arid throughout the Baltic approaches to Leningrad?

The morning flowered—beautiful, sunny, fresh. Finally about ten o’clock Kuznetsov could no longer contain himself. He decided to go in person to the Kremlin and report on the situation. He found the traffic light as he drove down Komintern Street. Not too many people in the center of town. Everyone* he thought, was already on his way to the country. A normal peacetime scene. Here and there a fast-moving car, sending pedestrians scurrying with the horn.

At the Kremlin it was quiet. The flowers, newly set out in the Alexandrin-sky Gardens, blazed with purple and red. The walks had been freshly raked with reddish sand for the benefit of Sunday strollers. Elderly babushkas with their grandchildren were already sunning themselves on the park benches. The guards at the Borovitsky Gate, in their parade white jackets and blue trousers with the wide red stripes, snapped to a salute, glanced into the car and waved it on. The Admiral’s machine speeded up the incline and whirled into the courtyard outside the Government Palace.

Kuznetsov peered in all directions. No cars. No strollers. No signs of activity. Nothing. One car was coming out. It halted to let the Admiral have the right of way in the narrow drive.

“Apparently the leadership has met somewhere else,” Kuznetsov decided. “But why hasn’t there yet been any official announcement about the war?”

Where could the leaders be? What was going on?

He was still pondering this question when he got back to the Naval Commissariat.

“Did anyone call?” Kuznetsov asked his duty officer.

“No,” the officer replied. “No one called.”

Kuznetsov waited all day. No one called from the government. He did not hear from Stalin. Not until evening did Molotov telephone to ask how the fleet was making out.

¹
The navy alert telegram took one to two hours for delivery. The army telegrams probably took longer. The warning did not arrive at Fourth Army headquarters at Kobrin until nearly 5:30
A.M.
One source claims the telegrams were sent at 11:45
P.M.
but in cipher, which caused further delay. (V. Khvostov, A. Grylev,
op. cit
.)

²
The authors of the official fiftieth anniversary volume on the Soviet armed forces make the assertion that commanders of border districts were ordered between June 14 and 19 to put their frontier troops into field dispositions and instructed on June 19 to camouflage airports and military installations. No source for this order is cited nor is a text given. The recollections of field commanders and the operational journals of border units indicate that when efforts were made to move to a higher degree of preparedness on the eve of the war, very sharp, very serious reprimands were forthcoming from Moscow. (V. D. Ivanov, editor, 50
Let Sovetskikh Vooruzhennykh Sil SSSR
, Moscow, 1967, p. 250.) V. Khvostov and A. Grylev
(op. cit.)
claim border commands were ordered to field headquarters June 19.

³
One German Army unit intercepted Soviet field messages saying, “We are being fired on. What shall we do?” Headquarters replied: “You must be crazy. Why is your signal not in code?” (John Erickson,
The Soviet High Command
, London, 1962, p. 587.)

⁴
V. I. Pavlov, who served as Stalin’s principal translator at the Big Three conferences in World War II, accompanied Dekanozov as interpreter. In personal conversation with Dr. Gebhardt von Walther, then a secretary of the German Embassy in Moscow (in 1967 West German Ambassador to Moscow), he still insisted twenty-five years later that the Russians thought the warning by von der Schulenburg was a “blackmail” attempt. Walther, who was present at the Dekanozov–von der Schulenburg talk, recalled that Pavlov telephoned him the day after the fateful interview, asking him “how the conversation should be understood.” Walther assured him the Ambassador’s words should be taken just as they had been spoken. (Walther, personal conversation, June 16, 1967.)