Soviet spymasters were under pressure to provide the information that Stalin wanted: “We never went out looking for information at random,” recalled one spy. “Orders to look for specific things would come from above.”
Stalin reacted to this uneasiness by aggressively pushing the traditional Russian interests in the Balkans which in itself alarmed Hitler, who was weighing up whether to attack his ally. He decided to invite Molotov to Berlin to sidetrack the Soviets into a push for the Indian Ocean. The night before Molotov left, he sat up late with Stalin and Beria, debating how to maintain the Pact. In his handwritten directive, Stalin instructed Molotov to insist on explanations for the presence of German troops in Romania and Finland, discover Hitler’s real interests and assert Russian interests in the Balkans and Dardanelles.10 Molotov meanwhile told his wife, “my pleasure honey,” that he was studying Hitler: “I’ve been reading Rauschning’s
31. MOLOTOV MEETS HITLER
Molotov set off late on 10 November 1940 from the Belorussia Station with a pistol in his pocket and a delegation of sixty which included Beria’s two proteges, Dekanozov, Deputy Foreign Commissar, and Merkulov, sixteen secret policemen, three servants and a doctor. This was Molotov’s second trip to Europe. In 1922, he and Polina had visited Italy in the early days of Fascism. Now he was to observe Fascism at its apogee.
At 11:05 a.m., Molotov’s train pulled into Berlin’s Anhalter Station, which was festooned with flowers sinisterly illuminated with searchlights and Soviet flags hidden behind swastikas. Molotov dismounted in a dark coat with his grey Homburg hat and was greeted by Ribbentrop and Field Marshal Keitel. He spent longest shaking hands with Reichsfuhrer-SS Himmler. The band deliberately played the
Molotov sped off in an open Mercedes with outriders to his luxurious hotel, the Schloss Bellevue, once an imperial palace, on the Tiergarten where the Soviets were dazzled by the “tapestries and paintings,” the “finest porcelain standing round exquisitely carved cabinets” and, above all, the “gold-braided livery” of the staff. Molotov’s entire delegation wore identical dark blue suits, grey ties, and cheap felt hats, obviously ordered in bulk. Since some wore the hats like berets, some on the back of their heads like cowboys and some low over the eyes like Mafiosi, it was clear that many had never worn Western headgear before. The tepidity of the visit became obvious when Molotov met Ribbentrop in Bismarck’s old office and gave little away. “A rather frosty smile glided over his intelligent, chess-player’s face,” noticed a German diplomat who was amused that, in the gilded Bismarckian chairs, little Dekanozov’s feet barely touched the floor. When Ribbentrop encouraged Russia to seek an outlet for her energies in warm oceans, Molotov asked: “Which sea are you talking about?”
After lunch at the Bellevue, the open Mercedes drove Molotov to the Chancellery, where he was led through bronze doors, guarded by heel-clicking SS men, into Hitler’s magnificent study. Two blond SS giants threw open the doors and formed an archway with impeccable Nazi salutes through which this plain, stalwart Russian marched towards Hitler’s gargantuan desk at the far end. Hitler hesitated, then walked jerkily to greet the Russians with “small, rapid steps.” He stopped and made a Nazi salute before shaking hands with Molotov and the others with a “cold and moist” palm, while his “feverish eyes” burned into them “like gimlets.” Hitler’s theatrical rigmarole to terrorize and impress his guests did not affect Molotov, who regarded himself as a Marxist-Leninist and therefore superior to everyone else, particularly Fascists: “There was nothing remarkable in his appearance.” Molotov and Hitler were exactly the same height—“medium” as the small Russian put it. But Hitler “was very smug… and vain. He was clever but narrow-minded and obtuse because of his egotism and the absurdity of his primordial idea.”
Hitler showed Molotov to a lounge area where he, Dekanozov and the interpreters sat on the sofa while Hitler occupied his usual armchair, whence he treated them to a long soliloquy about his defeat of Britain, generosity to Stalin, and disinterest in the Balkans, none of which were true. Molotov retorted with a series of polite but awkward questions on the relationship between the two powers, pinpointing precisely Finland, Romania, Bulgaria. “I kept pushing him for greater detail. ‘You’ve got to have a warm-water port. Iran, India—that’s your future.’ And I said, ‘Why that’s an interesting idea, how do you see it?’” Hitler ended the meeting without providing the answer.
That night, Ribbentrop hosted a reception for Molotov at the Kaiserhof Hotel attended by Reichsmarschall Goring, sporting a preposterous sartorial creation of silver thread and jewels, and Deputy Fuhrer Hess. The Russian interpreter Berezhkov, observing Molotov talking to Goring, could not imagine two more different men. A telegram from Stalin awaited him, insisting again on the Balkans and Straits. The next morning, Molotov sent Stalin a telegram: “I’m leaving for lunch and talk with Hitler. I will press him on the Black Sea, the Straits and Bulgaria.” First he called on Goring at the Air Ministry where he asked Hitler’s “paladin” more embarrassing questions which the Reichsmarschall simply doused with his pinguid heartiness. He then visited Hess.
“Do you have a Party programme?” he asked the Deputy Fuhrer, knowing the Nazis did not. “Do you have Party rules? And do you have a Constitution?” The Bolshevik ideologue was contemptuous: “How could it be a Party without a programme?”
At 2 p.m., Hitler received Molotov, Merkulov and Dekanozov for a dinner with Goebbels and Ribbentrop. The Russians were disappointed by Hitler’s austere menu that read simply: “Kraftbruhe, Fasan, Obstsalat”—beef tea, pheasant and fruit salad.
“The war is on so I don’t drink coffee,” Hitler explained, “because my people don’t drink coffee either. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink liquor.” Molotov added later: “It goes without saying that I was abstaining from nothing.”
Their second meeting, after the meal, lasted for a “bad-tempered” three hours. Molotov pressed Hitler for answers. Hitler accused Russia of greed. Nothing dented the stolid persistence of “Iron-Arse.” Molotov obeyed Stalin’s telegraphed instructions to explain that “all events from the Crimean War… to the landing of foreign troops during the Intervention [Civil War] mean Soviet security cannot be settled without… the Straits.”
Hitler almost lost his temper about his troops in Finland and Romania: “That’s a trifle!”
Molotov tartly commented that there was no need to speak roughly. But how could they agree on big issues when they failed to do so on small ones? Molotov noticed that Hitler “became agitated. I persisted. I wore him down.”
Hitler drew out his handkerchief, wiped the sweat off his upper lip and saw his guest to the door.
“I’m sure history will remember Stalin’s name forever,” he said.
“I don’t doubt it,” replied Molotov.
“So we should meet…” suggested Hitler vaguely, a meeting that never happened. “But I hope it will remember me too,” he added with mock-modesty, for he had just two days earlier signed his Directive No. 18 that moved the Soviet invasion to the top of his agenda, an enterprise that would guarantee his place in history.
“I don’t doubt it.”
Goring, Hess and Ribbentrop were the star guests at Molotov’s banquet, with caviar and vodka at the grand but faded Soviet Embassy, which was interrupted by the RAF.
“Our British friends are complaining they have not been invited to the party,” joked Ribbentrop as Goring stampeded like a bejewelled, scented bison through the crowd, out to his Mercedes. There was no air-raid shelter at the embassy so most of the Russians were driven back to the hotel. Several got lost and Molotov was shepherded to Ribbentrop’s private bunker. Here, to the music of the RAF bombs, and the cackle of AA-guns, the stuttering Russian sliced through the German’s florid promises. If, as Hitler said, Germany was waging a life-and- death struggle against England, Molotov suggested this must mean that Germany was fighting “for life” and England “for death.” Britain was “finished,” answered Ribbentrop.
“If that’s so, then why are we in this shelter and whose bombs are those falling?” Molotov responded.
Molotov departed next morning, having, as he told Stalin, achieved “nothing to boast of but… it does clarify the present mood of Hitler.”
Stalin congratulated Molotov on his defiance of Hitler: “How,” he asked, “did he put up with you telling him all this?” The answer was that Hitler did not: Molotov’s obstinate Balkan ambitions convinced Hitler that Stalin would soon challenge his European hegemony. Having wavered over attacking Russia, he now accelerated his plans. On 4 December, Operation Barbarossa was set for May 1941.
