The Second World War (98 page)
In the fourth week of November 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill met in Cairo on their way to Teheran. At this rather improvised conference, Roosevelt had privately arranged for Chiang Kai-shek to join the proceedings at the start and not at the end, as the British had imagined. They were rather put out. ‘
The Generalissimo
reminded me more of a cross between a pine marten and a ferret,’ Brooke wrote. ‘A shrewd, foxy sort of face. Evidently with no grasp of war in its large aspects, but determined to get the best of the bargains.’ To the added bemusement of British generals, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, dressed in a striking black cheongsam slit to the hip, intervened frequently to correct the translator’s version of what the generalissimo had said, and then proceeded to give her own interpretation of what he should have said. Stalin, still resenting the setback over Sinkiang, had refused to send a representative to the conference on the grounds that he still had a non-aggression pact with Japan.
Churchill was all too aware that his ‘special relationship’ with Roosevelt had been downgraded. This was partly due to his own reluctance to commit to Operation Overlord, and his yearning to strike into central Europe to pre-empt a Soviet occupation. Churchill was also out on a limb in his emotional attachment to the British Empire. Roosevelt, declaring his agreement with Chiang Kai-shek that western imperialism in Asia should come to an end with victory over Japan, promised that Indochina would not be returned to France, a proposal which would have infuriated de Gaulle if he had known of it. Throughout the conference the atmosphere was far from friendly, and at times it was openly hostile. The Americans were determined not to be led down any more ‘garden paths’, especially if they headed away from Normandy and towards the Balkans. The British found the Americans deaf to their arguments, and they became suspicious of how Roosevelt would play things at Teheran, when he would have Stalin to back him up on the key issues.
Roosevelt and Churchill
flew on from Cairo to Teheran for their meeting with Stalin, which began on 28 November. Roosevelt, at Stalin’s express request, was housed in part of the Soviet embassy, just across the road from the British embassy. Stalin went to see him dressed in his marshal’s uniform, with the trousers tucked into Caucasian boots built up to
make him look taller. The two statesmen set out to charm each other with a show of easy intimacy, which swayed only Roosevelt.
The President tried to curry favour with the Soviet dictator at Churchill’s expense. He raised the question of colonialism. ‘
I am speaking about this
in the absence of our comrade-in-arms Churchill, since he does not like discussing the subject. The United States and the Soviet Union are not colonial powers, and it is easier for us to discuss these matters.’ According to Stalin’s interpreter at this tête-à-tête Stalin was not keen on discussing such ‘a delicate subject’, but he agreed that ‘
India is Churchill’s
sore spot’. Yet for all the President’s efforts to establish mutual confidence, Stalin could not forget his disingenuous promise to open a Second Front in 1942, simply to keep the Soviet Union in the war.
Stalin did, however, express himself strongly on the subject of France, following unrest in Lebanon where Free French troops had tried to reassert colonial power. He regarded the majority of the French as collaborators and even said that France ‘
must be punished
for its aid to the Germans’. Stalin was no doubt still thinking of the way that the surrender of the French army in 1940 had furnished the Wehrmacht with the majority of its vehicles for the invasion of the Soviet Union a year later.
When the plenary session started late that afternoon, the main subject for debate was Operation Overlord. Stalin, with Roosevelt’s tacit support, dealt with Churchill’s desire for an operation in the northern Adriatic aimed at central Europe. He insisted on the primacy of Overlord, and agreed with the plan for a simultaneous invasion of southern France. He firmly rejected any other operation as a dispersal of force. Stalin greeted with amusement Churchill’s attempt to claim that his plan would help the Red Army. According to the Soviet interpreter, Roosevelt winked at the Soviet leader as he broke up Herzegovina Flor cigarettes to fill his pipe. Stalin felt able to torment Churchill quietly on this issue, because he knew that the Americans were against the idea, and in any case he held all the cards when it came to determining Allied strategy. His insistence on keeping the Allies to their promise of a major invasion of France in the spring of 1944 meant that their advance through northern Europe would, as Churchill feared, leave the Balkans and central Europe under the control of the Red Army.
Watching the three leaders interact, General Brooke was deeply impressed by Stalin’s handling of the discussion. The dictator remained dismissive of the campaign in Italy, probably because he was irritated that his allies had not involved the Soviet Union in the Italian surrender. This turned out to be a mistake on their part, because Stalin was able to use it later as an argument when it came to discussing the future of countries occupied by the Red Army. Stalin, very conscious of the fact that the
victories at Stalingrad and Kursk had turned the Soviet Union into a super-power, had already boasted to his entourage that ‘
Now the fate of Europe
is settled, we shall do as we like, with the Allies’ consent.’
He was also well briefed on British and American thinking and reactions. Before the meeting, Stalin had summoned Beria’s son Sergo and entrusted him with ‘
a mission that is delicate and morally reprehensible
’. He wanted to know everything that the Americans and the British said in private. Their every word would be recorded by the microphones hidden in their rooms, and each morning Sergo Beria had to report to Stalin on all the conversations. The Soviet leader was amazed by the naivety of the Allies in talking so openly, when surely they must realize that they were being bugged. He wanted to know the tone of voice used as well as the content. Did they speak with conviction or without enthusiasm, and how did Roosevelt react?
Stalin was pleased when Sergo Beria reported on the genuine admiration which Roosevelt had for him and on his refusal to listen to Admiral Leahy’s advice to take a firmer line. But whenever Churchill flattered Stalin during the conference, the Soviet leader retorted by reminding him of some hostile remark he had made in the past. The secret recordings also helped him exploit the differences between Churchill and Roosevelt. Apparently, when Churchill remonstrated in private with Roosevelt that he was helping Stalin to install a Communist government in Poland, Roosevelt had replied that Churchill was supporting an anti-Communist government, so what was the difference?
Poland was indeed a major issue for both Churchill and Stalin, while Roosevelt seemed concerned only with securing the American Polish vote in the next year’s presidential elections. This meant appearing to be tough with Stalin until after the results of the voting were established. Considering that Roosevelt had earlier rejected any idea of changing Poland’s frontiers on the basis of the Atlantic Charter, both he and Churchill now felt obliged to consider Stalin’s claim to the eastern part of the country, which he had absorbed in 1939 as ‘western Belorussia’ and ‘western Ukraine’. The rapidly approaching occupation of the region by the Red Army would make it a fait accompli. According to Stalin’s plan, Poland would be compensated with German territory up to the River Oder. The President and prime minister knew that they would never be able to force the Soviets to disgorge such a prize, but the manner in which Roosevelt conceded encouraged Stalin to believe that he would have no trouble in imposing a Communist government on the Poles.
Stalin succeeded in extracting a date for the invasion of France, but when the Americans and British were forced to admit that a supreme commander had not yet been appointed, he showed his contempt for such a
lack of serious planning. He agreed, however, to launch a major offensive soon after the landings and declared his intention to join the war against Japan as soon as Germany was defeated. This was exactly what Roosevelt had wanted, even though Chiang Kai-shek dreaded it. After the conference was over, Stalin considered that he had ‘
won the game
’. In private, Churchill would have agreed with that assessment. He was utterly dejected by Roosevelt’s constant siding with Stalin in the belief that he could handle him. ‘
Now he sees that he cannot
rely on the President’s support,’ the prime minister’s doctor Lord Moran wrote in his diary after Churchill had poured out his fears for the future. ‘What matters more, he realizes that the Russians see this too.’
After the humiliating moment about Overlord at the Teheran conference, Roosevelt was determined to appoint the supreme commander when he and Allied delegates returned to Cairo. He asked Marshall to summon General Eisenhower. As soon as Eisenhower and Roosevelt were installed in the President’s automobile, Roosevelt turned to him and said: ‘
Well, Ike, you are
going to command Overlord.’ Roosevelt had decided that he could not afford to lose Marshall as chief of staff because of his know ledge of all theatres, his superb talent for organization and above all for his skill in dealing with Congress. He was also seen to be the only person who could keep General MacArthur under control in the Pacific. Marshall was disappointed (although not as disappointed as Brooke had been), but loyally accepted the decision. Eisenhower’s good fortune seemed to bear out Patton’s private nickname for him, ‘Divine Destiny’, based on the initials of his two first names.
An irrational euphoria reigned among the Allied
chiefs of staff
in Cairo. They all seemed certain that the war would be over by March, or at the latest November, of 1944, and were prepared to place bets on it. Considering that they were over six months from launching Overlord, and that the Red Army was still several hundred kilometres from Berlin, this was over-optimistic to say the least. Churchill, on the other hand, was totally exhausted after all the bruising battles in Cairo and Teheran. He collapsed with pneumonia in Tunisia and came close to death. His recovery was aided over Christmas by a little brandy, and by the news that the Royal Navy had sunk the battle-cruiser
Scharnhorst
off northern Norway. Nearly 2,000 sailors of the Kriegsmarine perished in the freezing seas.
As Stalin had emphasized at Teheran, Vatutin’s forces were facing constant counter-attacks from Manstein’s Army Group South. Manstein, hoping to rework his coup at Kharkov earlier in the year, sent two panzer corps against the flanks of Vatutin’s renamed 1st Ukrainian Front. He wanted to
force the Soviets back to the Dnepr, retake Kiev and encircle a major Red Army formation near Korosten.
Hitler, who had aged dramatically over the last months and was suffering from stress, had entered an even deeper state of denial. He rejected any suggestion of retreat. Even his favourite, General Model, described their situation on the eastern front as ‘
fighting in reverse gear
’. A sense of fatalism was infecting the German army. An infantry officer captured on the Leningrad front acknowledged during his interrogation: ‘
We are living in filth. It is hopeless
.’ Yet while Hitler blamed his generals and a lack of will for every reverse, he was deeply unsettled by the propaganda disseminated at the front by the Soviet organization of ‘anti-fascist’ German prisoners of war, Freies Deutschland. This prompted him on 22 December to establish the post of National Socialist leadership officer in all units, as a counterpart to the Soviet commissar or political officer.
Three days later Manstein, who thought that he had stabilized the front, received a very unpleasant surprise. The Red Army had brought up the 1st Tank and 3rd Guards Tank Armies near Brusilov without being spotted, and on Christmas Day they charged through towards Zhitomir and Berdichev. Shortly afterwards Konev’s 2nd Ukrainian Front to the south also broke through, and soon two German corps still holding the line of the Dnepr south-east of Kiev were surrounded in the Korsun pocket. Hitler refused to allow them to retreat, and their fate was to be among the cruellest suffered by the Wehrmacht on the eastern front.
1942–1944
T
he scope of Heydrich’s plan outlined at the Wannsee conference in January 1942 had been breathtaking. As one of his close colleagues confirmed, he possessed ‘
insatiable ambition
, intelligence and ruthless energy’. The Final Solution was intended to encompass more than eleven million Jews, according to Adolf Eichmann’s calculations. This figure included those in neutral countries, such as Turkey, Portugal and Ireland, as well as in Great Britain, Germany’s undefeated enemy.
The fact that these deliberations took place within a few weeks of the Wehrmacht’s setback before Moscow and the entry of the United States into the war suggests either that the Nazis’ confidence in ‘final victory’ was unshaken or that they felt impelled to complete the ‘
historic task
’ before further setbacks rendered it impossible. The answer was probably a combination of the two. Certainly, the prospect of victory in the late summer of 1941 had contributed to the dramatic radicalization of Nazi policy. And now that world events had reached a critical point, there would be no turning back. The ‘Shoah by bullets’ thus advanced to the ‘Shoah by gas’.
As with the Hunger Plan and the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, the Final Solution contained a double purpose. As well as eliminating racial and ideological enemies, the other objective was to preserve food supplies for Germans. This was regarded as all the more urgent because of the huge numbers of foreign workers brought back to the Reich for labour. The Final Solution itself would consist of a parallel system of elimination through forced labour and immediate killing, both carried out by the SS
Totenkopfverbände
(Death’s Head Units). The only Jews exempted for the moment would be those elderly or prominent Jews selected for the show-ghetto of Theresienstadt, those who were workers with essential skills or half-Jews and those in mixed marriages. Their fates could be decided later.
