New book based on declassified documents about the beginning of WWII

An interesting article appeared in The Sunday Telegraph: Stalin 'planned to send a million troops to stop Hitler if Britain and France agreed pact'.

Papers which were kept secret for almost 70 years show that the Soviet Union proposed sending a powerful military force in an effort to entice Britain and France into an anti-Nazi alliance.

Such an agreement could have changed the course of 20th century history, preventing Hitler's pact with Stalin which gave him free rein to go to war with Germany's other neighbours.

The offer of a military force to help contain Hitler was made by a senior Soviet military delegation at a Kremlin meeting with senior British and French officers, two weeks before war broke out in 1939.

The new documents, copies of which have been seen by The Sunday Telegraph, show the vast numbers of infantry, artillery and airborne forces which Stalin's generals said could be dispatched, if Polish objections to the Red Army crossing its territory could first be overcome.

But the British and French side - briefed by their governments to talk, but not authorised to commit to binding deals - did not respond to the Soviet offer, made on August 15, 1939. Instead, Stalin turned to Germany, signing the notorious non-aggression treaty with Hitler barely a week later.

...

The Soviet offer - made by war minister Marshall Klementi Voroshilov and Red Army chief of general staff Boris Shaposhnikov - would have put up to 120 infantry divisions (each with some 19,000 troops), 16 cavalry divisions, 5,000 heavy artillery pieces, 9,500 tanks and up to 5,500 fighter aircraft and bombers on Germany's borders in the event of war in the west, declassified minutes of the meeting show.

But Admiral Sir Reginald Drax, who lead the British delegation, told his Soviet counterparts that he authorised only to talk, not to make deals.

(Read the full text here)

Lev Sotskov is the author of a number of books on Soviet history, including Operation Tarantella (about Soviet spies in the Cold War Britain) and Unknown Separatism in the Service of SD and Abwehr (on collaboration of separatist movements in Soviet republics with the Nazis). He also participated in the preparation of the collection of documents titled "Baltic Countries and Geopolitics". His books perfectly fit the mainstream of modern Russian interpretation of history: Soviet Union as a victim of the Western politicians who set Hitler at the innocent USSR by selling Czechoslovakia in Munich. In spite of this, the documents used in his books are usually reliable, as far as I know and his new book might be interesting. One just has to be careful with the conclusions.

Some WWII memorabilia

Some books printed in the USSR for the Soviet Army:

"В помощь партизану" (Instruction book for partisans) (1942, 140 pages) and "Спутник партизана" (Partisan's Guide) (1942-43, 358 pages) — how to find the enemy, to destroy a warehouse or an airdrome, to explode railways, bridges and locomotives, description of Soviet and German weapons.

Russian-German and Russian-Finnish phrasebooks (both — 1941). "Where are the German troops?" "Which direction?" "You lie!" "Calm down!" "You have nothing to be afraid of!" "The Red Army will come soon!"

All books are scanned in DjVU format and compressed with RAR archiver. You will need a DjVU viewer to open them. You can find one here or here. This program will help you extract files from the archive.

Moscow City Court orders to consider rehabilitation of Katyn massacre victims

A rare occasion -- good news from the official sources. RIAN press agency reports:

10.06.2008, 11.24

MOSCOW, June 10 (Itar-Tass) - The Moscow City Court on Tuesday overturned the decision by the city's Khamovniki court, which turned down the petition demanding rehabilitation of the Polish officers executed in Katyn. The Court thereby granted the injured parties' complaint.

"The case is being sent to the Khamovniki court for reconsideration," lawyer Anna Stavitskaya told Itar-Tass.

The issue of the Katyn tragedy has been opened for a long time. The first reports about mass graves of Polish servicemen in the Katyn forest near Smolensk appeared in 1943.

Some reports claimed the Polish prisoners-of-war were executed by firing squad back in the spring of 1940.

An international commission comprising specialists from Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, Italy, Croatia, Holland, Slovakia, Romania, Switzerland, Hungary, France and Czech republic, working under Nazi supervision, pointed the finger of blame at Russian secret service.

However, in January 1994, a Soviet commission led by academician N.Burdenko accused Germany of shooting the Poles.

In the late 1980, after the signing of the Soviet-Polish declaration on cooperation in ideology, science and culture, a Soviet-Polish commission was set up to investigate the issue.

In April 1990, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachyov passed to Poland the lists of prisoners-of-war (14,792 people).

Of course, this decision does not guarantee that the ruling will be positive and, moreover, that the organizers of the massacre will be officially proclaimed war criminals. However, this is first the step in the right direction since Mikhail Gorbachev admitted that the Polish officers were murdered by NKVD and Boris Yeltsin visited the Powązki Cemetery.

See also my article on the Katyn massacre: April 13 in Russian history

February 8 in Russian history

1945

The snowfall finally stopped at the German island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea. A group of ten Soviet prisoners from a forced labor camp was sent to repair the caponiers on the local military airdrome. During the dinner, when the German pilots and the technicians left to the canteen, they killed a watchguard and climbed to a Heinkel He 111 bomber. They kept an eye on this Heinkel for some months and they knew that it was fueled and ready for flight — even across the frontline. One of these ten Soviets was Mikhail Petrovich Devyatayev, a fighter pilot whose plane was downed on 13 July 1944.

He was captured near Lviv and sent to the Łódź concentration camp in Poland. Soon he was transferred to another concentration camp, called New Königsberg. He and a group of his fellow inmates began building an escape tunnel. They dug it with spoons and plates, but when only a few meters remained, the tunnel was found by the Nazi guards. Devyatayev and his friends were sent to the death camp Sachsenhausen. He had to die, but when he was in the quarantine barrack, another prisoner, local barber, saved him. The barber replaced Devyatayev's label ID that marked him as condemned to death with the label of man who was sentenced to forced labor, but was killed recently by the guards, teacher Grigory Nikitenko. In the end of October 1944 a large group of 1,500 prisoners of Sachsenhausen including Devyatayev was transferred to Usedom island. A village located on this island later became known world-wide. It's name was Peenemünde and Sturmbannführer of SS Wernher von Braun, the father of V2 rockets, was developing a new German Wunderwaffe there. He commanded a team of about 20,000 slaves who produced V2. Due to the secrecy of this program, of course, all of them had only one way to get out — through the crematorium furnace.

The Soviet prisoners began the preparations for the escape. They noticed that one He 111 bomber that was used for rocket test launches was always fuelled and ready for the flight. It was comfortably located at the edge of the airdrome and they decided that they could hijack it. The plan was thoroughly prepared and everyone knew his duties: one man had to free the wheels, another had to take away the clamps from the wings and so on. Devyatayev studied the controls of the German airplanes. His friends brought and translated the plates with the German inscriptions from the damaged airplanes lying around. Devyatayev even managed to get into these airplanes and learn the location of the controls and gauges. Once, when Devyatayev was watching from a safe distance a German pilot preparing for the flight, the pilot noticed him and performed the whole procedure demonstratively, showing to the stupid Russian the superiority of the Teutonic creative spirit.

The slaves were usually convoyed by one of the two Wachmanns, guards. One of them was very friendly and the prisoners didn't want to kill him. They even offered him to escape to the USSR with them. He refused saying that if he does, all his family, all his relatives will be executed. He did not betray them, though. The second Wachmann was a 200% Nazi. However, soon they had no choice. Some of the prisoners in the camp collaborated with the Nazis and they had a tradition called "ten days of life". The German officers or the guards chose a victim and that group of collaborators tortured the man for ten days and finally killed him. In February, Mikhail Devyatayev was chosen as the victim. Fortunately, on 8 February, they were escorted by the second Wachmann. When the pilots and the tech staff left the airfield, they set a small fire and when the Wachmann came closer, Ivan Krivonogov smashed his head. Pyotr Kutergin put the Wachmann's overcoat on and pretended that he was convoying the prisoners along the airfield. When they got to their Heinkel, Devyatayev climbed in. For the first time he saw the cockpit of He 111. He pressed the starter button, but it didn't work. Devyatayev recalled that there's a small knife-switch behind and turned it on. Pressed the button again and once again the engines did not move. There was no voltage in the network. Devyatayev wanted to plug the accumulators, but shocked to see that they were absent. Fortunately, the prisoners knew where the accumulators were stored and soon found them. Finally, he managed to launch the engines. Ivan Krivonogov released the brakes on the wheels and the airplane went forward. They were ready to move into the runway when a woman from the airfield staff raised the flags indicating that some planes were landing. A group of Junkers bombers were coming back. The hijacked Heinkel was standing quietly in the corner and waiting for the bombers to free the runway. Finally, they began the acceleration, but when the plane was ready to take off, Devyatayev found out that he cannot move the control column and the airplane will not take off. Fortunately, the runway was long enough and he managed to stop the airplane only some meters from the precipice at the end of the runway. Of course, the Germans noticed the unusual behaviour of the airplane and were already running to it.

There was no way back. Devyatayev began the second attempt in the opposite direction. Finally, he understood that the heavy bombers, unlike the fighters he was accustomed to, have trimmers on the wings. The trimmers had three positions: normal, landing and take-off. When they are in the landing position, they force the airplane down. Devyatayev did not know where the trimmer controls were located and he asked his friends to help him with the control column. By joint efforts, they moved it and the He 111 finally took off.

The Germans had no idea of what was happening — there were no pilots among the Soviet prisoners (Devyatayev was for them a teacher named Nikitenko) so what was happening? No matter what, they had to stop them. We don't know how many Messerschmitts and Fokke-Wulfs were sent after them. One FW found them and was quite near, but Devyatayev escaped in the clouds. Fortunately, but this time he had already found the trimmers controls. Later, after the war, they learned that that FW was returning from a mission and had no ammo at all. When flying over the sea, they noticed a sea convoy escorted by Messerschmitts, but the German fighters had their own orders and were not too interested in the lonely Heinkel.

One of the most difficult parts was, of course, the front line. The Soviet anti-aircraft guns attacked them immediately. They hit the airplane and the flight was over. Devyatov landed the Heinkel on the Soviet territory. When Sovet soldiers understood that they see the people who just escaped from a concentration camp, they immediately took them to the kitchen. The doctors warned the refugees that they can die if they eat too much, but they refused to listen and ate and ate and ate...

Here are the names of those ten people: Mikhail Devyataev, Ivan Krivonogov, Vladimir Sokolov, Vladimir Nemchenko, Fyodor Adamov, Ivan Oleynik, Mikhail Yemets, Pyotr Kutergin, Nikolay Urbanovich, Dmitri Serdyukov.

Sokolov was killed during the crossing of Oder. Urbanovich also was killed. Kutergin, Serdyukov and Nemchenko came to Berlin and were killed there. Oleynik fought against Japan in the Far East and was killed there. Adamov returned to his home in Belaya Kalitva. Devyataev, Krivonogov and Yemets spent the last months of the war in a hospital.

Wikipedia writes about what followed:

The NKVD did not believe Devyataev's story, arguing that it was impossible for the prisoners to take over an airplane without cooperation from the Germans. Thus, Devyataev was suspected of being a German spy and sent to a penal military unit. He was discharged in November 1945 and worked as a manual laborer in Kazan.

Soviet authorities cleared Devyataev only in 1957, after the head of the Soviet space program Sergey Korolyov personally presented his case, arguing that the information provided by Devyataev and the other escapees had been critical for the Soviet space program. On 15 August of that year, Devyataev became a Hero of the Soviet Union, and a subject of multiple books and newspaper articles. He continued to live in Kazan, working as a captain of first hydrofoil passenger ships on the Volga.

Devyataev was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of Red Banner twice, Order of the Patriotic War (first and second class), and many other awards. He became a honoured citizen of Mordovia Republic, the cities of Kazan, Wolgast and Zinnowitz (Germany).

He died in 2002 and is buried in an old Arsk Field cemetery in Kazan near a World War II Memorial.

There is a museum of Devyataev in his native Torbeyevo (opened on the 8 May 1975) and a monument in Usedom and Kazan. A small rocket ship (project 1234.1), serving the 166th Novorossian division, is named after him.

In 1968 Mikhail Devyataev came with his family to Usedom again and spent some weeks at a resort there.

Other blogs: Siberian Light on Soviet-Japanese conflict in 1939

Khalkhin-Gol: The Battle that shaped WW2:

In August 1939, just weeks before Hitler invaded Poland, the Soviet Union and Japan fought a massive tank battle on the Mongolian border - the largest the world had ever seen.

Under the then unknown Georgy Zhukov, the Soviets won a crushing victory at the batte of Khalkhin-Gol (known in Japan as the Nomonhan Incident). Defeat persuaded the Japanese to expand into the Pacific, where they saw the United States as a weaker opponent than the Soviet Union. If the Japanese had not lost at Khalkhin Gol, they may never have attacked Pearl Harbor...

…

June 22 in Russian history

For obvious reasons, today we will recall only one event.

1941: Below are four speeches delivered on 22-23 June 1941.

Hitler, German reichsfuehrer (excerpts):

While I made every effort to undertake a final attempt to pacify the Balkans and in sympathetic cooperation with Il Duce invited Yugoslavia to join the Tripartite Pact, England and Soviet Russia in a joint conspiracy organized that coup d'etat which in one night removed the then government which had been ready to come to agreement.

For we can today inform the German nation that the Serb Putsch against Germany did not take place merely under the British, but primarily under Soviet Russian auspices. As we remained silent on this matter also, the Soviet leaders now went still one step further. They not only organized the Putsch, but a few days later also concluded that well-known friendship pact with the Serbs in their will to resist pacification of the Balkans and incite them against Germany.

And this was no platonic intention: Moscow demanded mobilization of the Serb Army.

Since even now I still believe it better not to speak, those in power in the Kremlin went still further: The Government of the German Reich today possesses documentary evidence which proves that Russia, in order finally to bring Serbia into the war, gave her a promise to supply her via Salonika with arms, aircraft, munitions and other war materials against Germany.

And this happened almost at the very moment when I myself advised Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka that eased tension with Russia always was in hope, thereby to serve the cause of peace.

Only the rapid advance of our incomparable divisions to Skoplie as well as the capture of Salonika itself frustrated the aims of this Soviet Russian-Anglo-Saxon plot. Officers of the Serb air force, however, fled to Russia and were there immediately received as allies.

The victory of the Axis Powers in the Balkans in the first instance thwarted the plan to involve Germany this Summer in months-long battles in Southeastern Europe while meantime steadily completing the alignment of Soviet Russian armies and increasing their readiness for war in order, finally, together with England and supported by American supplies anticipated, to crush the German Reich and Italy.

Thus Moscow not only broke but miserably betrayed the stipulations of our friendly agreement. All this was done while the rulers in the Kremlin, exactly as in the case of Finland and Rumania, up to the last moment pretended peace and friendship and drew up an ostensibly innocent démenti.

Although until now I was forced by circumstances to keep silent again and again, the moment has now come when to continue as a mere observer would not only be a sin of omission but a crime against the German people-yes, even against the whole of Europe.

Today something like 160 Russian divisions are standing at our frontiers. For weeks constant violations of this frontier have taken place, not only affecting us but from the far north down to Rumania.

Russian airmen consider it sport nonchalantly to overlook these frontiers, presumably to prove to us that they already feel themselves masters of these territories.

During the night of June 17 to June 18 Russian patrols again penetrated into the Reich's territory and could only be driven back after prolonged firing. This has brought us to the hour when it is necessary for us to take steps against this plot devised by the Jewish Anglo-Saxon warmongers and equally the Jewish rulers of the Bolshevist center in Moscow.

German people! At this moment a march is taking place that, as regards extent, compares with the greatest the world hitherto has seen. United with their Finnish comrades, the fighters of the victory of Narvik are standing in the Northern Arctic. German divisions commanded by the conqueror of Norway, in cooperation with the heroes of Finnish freedom, under their marshal, are protecting Finnish soil.

Formations of the German Eastern Front extend from East Prussia to the Carpathians. German and Rumanian soldiers are united under Chief of State Antonescu from the banks of the Pruth along the lower reaches of the Danube to the shores of the Black Sea. The task of this front, therefore, no longer is the protection of single countries, but the safeguarding of Europe and thereby the salvation of all.

I therefore decided today again to lay the fate and future of the German Reich and our people in the hands of our soldiers.

May God help us especially in this fight!

Vyacheslav Molotov, Minister of foreign affairs, USSR:

Citizens of the Soviet Union! The Soviet Government and its head, Comrade Stalin, have instructed me to make the following announcement:

Today, at 4:00 a.m., without presenting any claims against the Soviet Union or issuing a declaration of war, German troops have attacked our country, assaulting our borders in many places and subjecting our cities of Zhitomir, Kiev, Sevastopol, Kaunas, and other of our towns to bombing by their aircraft. Air raids by enemy planes and artillery bombardment were also made from bases in Rumania and Finland.

This perfidious aggression against our country is a treachery without precedent in the history of civilized nations. The attack on our country has been made despite the fact of the Non- Aggression Pact between the U.S.S.R. and Germany, and despite the conscientious fulfillment by the Soviet Government of all the terms of this Pact. The attack on our country has been made despite the fact that the German Government had not submitted a single claim against the U.S.S.R. regarding observance of the Pact during the entire time it has been in force.

The full responsibility for this robber attack on the Soviet Union falls entirely on the German fascist rulers.

At 5:30 a.m., after the attack had already taken place, the German Ambassador in Moscow, von Schulenburg, handed me in my capacity as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs a statement to the effect that the German Government had decided to declare war on the U.S.S.R. because of the concentration of Red Army troops at the eastern German border.

I replied on behalf of the Soviet Government that up to the last minute the German Government had not submitted any claims against the Soviet Government, that Germany had attacked the U.S.S.R. in spite of the peaceful posture of the Soviet Union, and that therefore fascist Germany indisputably is the aggressor in this affair.

I must also emphasize, as spokesman for the Government of the Soviet Union, that our troops and our aircraft have committed no violation of the border at any point, and that therefore the announcement made this morning over Rumanian radio, alleging that Soviet aircraft had fired at Rumanian airports, is a complete lie and a provocation, attempting retroactively to cook up incriminating evidence against the Soviet Union for alleged non observance of the terms of the Soviet-German Pact.

Now, however, that the attack against the Soviet Union has already taken place, the Soviet Government has issued an order to our troops to repulse the robber attack and to drive the German troops from our Motherland.

This war has not been imposed on us by the German people, nor by the German workers, peasants, or intellectuals whose suffering we can well understand, but by the clique of bloodthirsty German leaders who have enslaved the French, the Czechs, the Poles, the Serbs, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Greece, and other nations.

The Government of the Soviet Union expresses its unshakable conviction that our valiant Army and Navy and the daring hawks of the Soviet Air Force will discharge with honor their duties towards the Motherland and the Soviet people and will deal a crushing blow to the aggressor. This is not the first time that our nation has had to deal with an arrogant, aggressive enemy. In its time our nation has risen to the challenge of Napoleon's campaign into Russian in the Patriotic War, and Napoleon suffered defeat and came to his undoing. The same fate will befall the arrogant Hitler, who has proclaimed a new campaign of aggression against our country. The Red Army and our entire nation will once again conduct a victorious Patriotic War for the Motherland, for honor, for freedom.

The Government of the Soviet Union expresses its firm conviction that the entire population of our country, the workers, the peasants and the intelligentsia, every individual man and woman, will regard their obligations and their work with full awareness. The whole country must now be joined and united as never before. Each one of us must demand from himself or herself and from each other the discipline, the organization, and the selflessness worthy of a real Soviet patriot in order to supply the Red Army, the Red Fleet, and the Air Force with the means necessary to assure victory over the enemy.

The Government appeals to you, citizens of the Soviet Union, to rally your ranks ever closer around our glorious Bolshevik Party and our Soviet Government.

Our cause is just. The enemy will be defeated. Victory will be ours.

Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom:

I have taken occasion to speak to you tonight because we have reached one of the climacterics of the war. In the first of these intense turning points, a year ago, France fell prostrate under the German hammer and we had to face the storm alone.

The second was when the Royal Air Force beat the Hun raiders out of the daylight air raid and thus warded off the Nazi invasion of our islands while we were still ill-armed and ill-prepared.

The third turning point was when the President and Congress of the United States passed the lease and lend enactment, devoting nearly 2,000,000,000 sterling of the wealth of the New World to help us defend our liberties and their own.

Those were the three climacterics.

The fourth is now upon us.

At 4 o'clock this morning Hitler attacked and invaded Russia. All his usual formalities of perfidy were observed with scrupulous technique. A non-aggression treaty had been solemnly signed and was in force between the two countries. No complaint had been made by Germany of its non-fulfillment. Under its cloak of false confidence the German armies drew up in immense strength along a line which stretched from the White Sea to the Black Sea and their air fleets and armoured divisions slowly and methodically took up their stations.

Then, suddenly, without declaration of war, without even an ultimatum, the German bombs rained down from the sky upon the Russian cities; the German troops violated the Russian frontiers and an hour later the German Ambassador, who till the night before was lavishing his assurances of friendship, almost of alliance, upon the Russians, called upon the Russian Foreign Minister to tell him that a state of war existed between Germany and Russia.

Thus was repeated on a far larger scale the same kind of outrage against every form of signed compact and international faith which we have witnessed in Norway, in Denmark, in Holland, in Belgium and which Hitler's accomplice and jackal, Mussolini, so faithfully imitated in the case of Greece.

All this was no surprise to me. In fact I gave clear and precise warnings to Stalin of what was coming. I gave him warnings, as I have given warnings to others before. I can only hope that these warnings did not fall unheeded.

All we know at present is that the Russian people are defending their native soil and that their leaders have called upon them to resist to the utmost.

Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. Not content with having all Europe under his heel or else terrorized into various forms of abject submission, he must now carry his work of butchery and desolation among the vast multitudes of Russia and of Asia. The terrible military machine which we and the rest of the civilized world so foolishly, so supinely, so insensately allowed the Nazi gangsters to build up year by year from almost nothing-this machine cannot stand idle, lest it rust or fall to pieces. It must be in continual motion, grinding up human lives and trampling down the homes and the rights of hundreds of millions of men.

Moreover, it must be fed not only with flesh but with oil. So now this bloodthirsty guttersnipe must launch his mechanized armies upon new fields of slaughter, pillage and devastation. Poor as are the Russian peasants, workmen and soldiers, he must steal from them their daily bread. He must devour their harvests. He must rob them of the oil which drives their ploughs and thus produce a famine without example in human history.

And even the carnage and ruin which his victory, should he gain it-though he's not gained it yet-will bring upon the Russian people, will itself be only a stepping stone to the attempt to plunge four or five hundred millions who live in China and the 350,000,000 who live in India into that bottomless pit of human degradation over which the diabolic emblem of the swastika flaunts itself.

It is not too much to say here this pleasant summer evening that the lives and happiness of a thousand million additional human beings are now menaced with brutal Nazi violence. That is enough to make us hold our breath.

But presently I shall show you something else that lies behind and something that touches very nearly the life of Britain and of the United States.

The Nazi regime is indistinguishable from the worst features of Communism. It is devoid of all theme and principle except appetite and racial domination. It excels in all forms of human wickedness, in the efficiency of its cruelty and ferocious aggression. Noone has been a more consistent opponent of Communism than I have for the last twenty-five years. I will unsay no words that I've spoken about it. But all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding.

The past, with its crimes, its follies and its tragedies, flashes away. I see the Russian soldiers standing on the threshold of their native land, guarding the fields which their fathers have tilled from time immemorial. I see them guarding their homes; their mothers and wives pray, ah yes, for there are times when all pray for the safety of their loved ones, for the return of the breadwinner, of the champion, of their protectors.

I see the 10,000 villages of Russia, where the means of existence was wrung so hardly from the soil, but where there are still primordial human joys, where maidens laugh and children play I see advancing upon all this, in hideous onslaught, the Nazi war machine, with its clanking, heel-clicking, dandified Prussian officers, its crafty expert agents, fresh from the cowing and tying down of a dozen countries. I see also the dull, drilled, docile brutish masses of the Hun soldiery, plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts. I see the German bombers and fighters in the sky, still smarting from many a British whipping, so delighted to find what they believe is an easier and a safer prey. And behind all this glare, behind all this storm, I see that small group of villainous men who planned, organized and launched this cataract of horrors upon mankind.

And then my mind goes back across the years to the days when the Russian armies were our Allies against the same deadly foe when they fought with so much valor and constancy and helped to gain a victory, from all share in which, alas, they were, through no fault of ours, utterly cut off.

I have lived through all this and you will pardon me if I express my feelings and the stir of old memories. But now I have to declare the decision of His Majesty's Government, and I feel sure it is a decision in which the great Dominions will, in due course, concur. And that we must speak of now, at once, without a day's delay. I have to make the declaration, but can you doubt what our policy will be?

We have but one aim and one single irrevocable purpose. We are resolved to destroy Hitler and every vestige of the Nazi regime. From this nothing will turn us. Nothing. We will never parley; we will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his gang. We shall fight him by land; we shall fight him by sea; we shall fight him in the air, until, with God's help, we have rid the earth of his shadow and liberated its people from his yoke.

Any man or State who fights against Nazism will have our aid. Any man or State who marches with Hitler is our foe. This applies not only to organized States but to all representatives of that vile race of Quislings who make themselves the tools and agents of the Nazi regime against their fellow-countrymen and against the lands of their births. These Quislings, like the Nazi leaders themselves, if not disposed of by their fellow-countrymen, which would save trouble, will be delivered by us on the morrow of victory to the justice of the Allied tribunals. That is our policy and that is our declaration.

It follows, therefore, that we shall give whatever help we can to Russia and to the Russian people. We shall appeal to all our friends and Allies in every part of the world to take the same course and pursue it as we shall, faithfully and steadfastly to the end.

We have offered to the Government of Soviet Russia any technical or economic assistance which is in our power and which is likely to be of service to them. We shall bomb Germany by day as well as by night in ever-increasing measure, casting upon them month by month a heavier discharge of bombs and making the German people taste and gulp each month a sharper dose of the miseries they have showered upon mankind.

It is noteworthy that only yesterday the Royal Air Force, striking inland over France, cut down with very small loss to themselves twenty-eight of the Hun fighting machines in the air above the French soil they have invaded, defiled and profess to hold.

But this is only a beginning. From now henceforward the main expansion of our air force proceeds with gathering speed. In another six months the weight of the help we are receiving from the United States in war materials of all kinds, especially in heavy bombers, will begin to tell. This is no class war. It is a war in which the whole British Empire and Commonwealth of Nations is engaged without distinction of race, creed or party.

It is not for me to speak of the action of the United States, but this I will say: If Hitler imagines that his attack on Soviet Russia will cause the slightest division of aims or slackening of effort in the great democracies, who are resolved upon his doom, he is woefully mistaken. On the contrary, we shall be fortified and encouraged in our efforts to rescue mankind from his tyranny. We shall be strengthened and not weakened in our determination and in our resources.

This is no time to moralize upon the follies of countries and governments which have allowed themselves to be struck down one by one when by united action they could so easily have saved themselves and saved the world from this catastrophe.

But, when I spoke a few minutes ago of Hitler's bloodlust and the hateful appetites which have impelled or lured him on his Russian adventure, I said there was one deeper motive behind his outrage. He wishes to destroy the Russian power because he hopes that if he succeeds in this he will be able to bring back the main strength of his army and air force from the East and hurl it upon this island, which he knows he must conquer or suffer the penalty of his crimes.

His invasion of Russia is no more than a prelude to an attempted invasion of the British Isles. He hopes, no doubt, that all this may be accomplished before the Winter comes and that he can overwhelm Great Britain before the fleets and air power of the United States will intervene. He hopes that he may once again repeat upon a greater scale than ever before that process of destroying his enemies one by one, by which he has so long thrived and prospered, and that then the scene will be clear for the final act, without which all his conquests would be in vain, namely, the subjugation of the Western Hemisphere to his will and to his system.

The Russian danger is therefore our danger and the danger of the United States just as the cause of any Russian fighting for his hearth and home is the cause of free men and free peoples in every quarter of the globe.

Let us learn the lessons already taught by such cruel experience. Let us redouble our exertions and strike with united strength while life and power remain.

Sumner Welles, US Secretary of state:

If any further proof could conceivably be required of the real purposes and projects of the present leaders of Germany for world domination, it is now furnished by Hitler's treacherous attack upon Soviet Russia.

We see once more, beyond peradventure of doubt, with what intent the present Government of Germany negotiates "non-aggression pacts." To the leaders of the German Reich sworn engagements to refrain from hostile acts against other countries-engagements regarded in a happier and a civilized world as contracts to the faithful observance of which the honor of nations themselves was pledged-are but a symbol of deceit, and constitute a dire warning on the part of Germany of hostile and murderous intent.

To the present German Government the very meaning of the word "honor" is unknown.

This government often has stated and in many of his public statements the President has declared that the United States maintains that freedom to worship God as their consciences dictate is the great and fundamental right of all peoples. This right has been denied to their peoples by both the Nazi and the Soviet Governments.

To the people of the United States this and other principles and doctrines of communistic dictatorship are as intolerable and as alien to their own beliefs as are the principles and doctrines of Nazi dictatorship. Neither kind of imposed overlordship can have, or will have, any support or any sway in the mode of life, or in the system of government, of the American people.

But the immediate issue that presents itself to the people of the United States is whether the plan for universal conquest, for the cruel and brutal enslavement of all peoples and for the ultimate destruction of the remaining free democracies which Hitler is now desperately trying to carry out, is to be successfully halted and defeated.

That is the present issue which faces a realistic America. It is the issue at this moment which most directly involves our own national defense and the security of the New World in which we live.

In the opinion of this government, consequently, any defense against Hitlerism, any rallying of the forces opposing Hitlerism, from whatever source these forces may spring, will hasten the eventual downfall of the present German leaders, and will therefore redound to the benefit of our own defense and security.

Hitler's armies are today the chief dangers of the Americas.

The transcripts are taken from http://www.mishalov.com/Hitler_22June41.html, http://www.mishalov.com/Molotov_22June41.html, http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1941/410622d.html and http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1941/410623a.html.

April 5 in Russian history

1242: Battle of the Ice. With the stupidity that deserves a better use, the law of the Russian Federation "On the days of the glory" orders to celebrate this date on April 18. In the autumn of 1240, the knights of the Teutonic order, assuming that Russians were weakened by Swedish and Tatar raids, attacked the Republic of Novgorod. Poor guys who miserably failed in the Holy Land thought that the northern savages would be an easier prey than the southern ones. After the initial successes against Prussians, Poles, Livonians and Estonians, they decided to christianize the Russian christians. They succeeded in occupying Russian cities of Pskov, Izborsk and Koporye and moved towards Novgorod. In 1241, knyaz Alexander Yaroslavich (who had already earned his name Alexander Nevsky after defeating the Swedes in 1240) drove them off and took Pskov and Koporye. Alexander led his army to Izborsk, but during the march one of the reconnaissance detachments was defeated by the knights. This allowed Alexander to determine the position and number of the Teutonic forces, which were moving towards a narrow straight between Chudskoye and Pskovskoye lakes (the lakes are known in English as one lake Peipus, from the Estonian name Peipsi). Alexander retreated in order to start the battle on a position that would be favorable for the Russian forces. The troops of the Teutonic Order included around 1,000-2,000 people, of whom about 500-700 were mounted knights. The number of Russians was about 4,000-5,000 people, including Alexander's druzhina, professional soldiers of the Novgorod garrison, militia from the "ends" of Novgorod and its prigorods and members of private militarized forces of boyars and merchants. About 800 of them were cavalry. The mounted knights followed by foot soldiers attacked the centre of the Novgorod army in their typical wedge-shaped "boar's head" formation and caused severe damages, but could not disrupt the order or get through the rows of the soldiers. Some time later, when the Teutonic troops began to grow tired, Alexander ordered the left and right wings to flank the enemy. The Novgorod archers killed many foot soldiers and forced the knights to flee. Heavy mounted knights stepped onto the ice, hoping to make to the opposite coast, but ice collapsed and many of them drowned. Russian chronicles reported of 500 killed knights, but the whole Order was smaller than that. A more reasonable estimation is that about 400 Germans (including 20 knights) were killed and 90 (including 6 "brothers") were captured. The losses of Novgorodians are unclear. Some historians, for example I.Danilevsky, assume that the importance of the battle was overestimated, but, after all, the Order never attempted serious attacks on Russian lands any more.

1797: Emperor Pavel I prohibits the land-lords to force the serfs to work on Sundays.

1941: Yugoslavia and USSR sign the friendship and non-aggression treaty. Only some days earlier, on March 25, Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact joining the Axis. The decision was not easy and resulted into resignment of four members of the cabinet of ministers. What is more important is that the Yugoslavians did not support the alliance. Immediately after the pact was signed, mass demonstrations began in Belgrade and the Yugoslavians overthrew the pro-fascist government and regent prince Paul. Peter II became the king of Yugoslavia and signed the friendship treaty with the USSR. On the very next day, on April 6, the Nazi Luftwaffe began furious attacks on Belgrade. What amazes me most is the reaction of the Yugoslavians. A lot of European countries either happily elected fascist governments or inclined to support nationalist dictatorships of a rather fascist-like type. For example, Bulgaria, Hungary and Italy, who invaded Yugoslavia after the German bombardments, or Romania, Lithuania, Estonia, Greece, etc. The reaction of the Yugoslavians to the alliance with the Axis was so strongly negative that it seems that they had some kind of immunity to fascism. This reaction was not limited to certain groups of population, but was rather universal: army, trade-unions, peasants and even clerics opposed any relationships with the Nazis. Of course, they had their own fascist-like movements, but the general rejection of the ideology is remarkable, IMHO.

1943: The first aerial battle of the fighter squadron Normandie-Niemen. The squadron comprised French pilots who came to the USSR to fight against the Nazi Germany. The idea of such a detachment belonged to Charle de Gaulle. The squadron was formed in September 1942 and departed to the front after some months of training on March 22, 1943, under commandment of Jean Tulasne (died on July 17, 1943). On April 5, the first German Fw 190 was shot down by Albert Préziosi (died on July 28, 1943 near Orel) and the second one by Albert Durand (died on September 1, 1943 near Yelna). The squadron was so successful that Wilhelm Keitel issued an order to execute all captured French pilots. During the war, the pilots of Normandie-Niemen shot down 273 German planes and damaged more than 80. 42 members of the squadron were killed during the war. In 1956, a memorial was built in Moscow with the names of all killed pilots. There are two squadrons named Normandie-Niemen in the Air Forces of France and Russia

1945: About 800 Georgian members of the Georgian Legion, ex-Soviet army soldiers, who were captured during the war and agreed to serve the Nazis, begin a rebellion on the Dutch island Texel. They expected the Allies to land on the island, but the Allies had other priorities. The Georgians failed to capture the artillery batteries on the coasts and Germans managed to land on the island and forced the Georgians to split into small groups and begin a guerilla-style war. The fighting did not stop after the capitulation of Germany and continued till May 20. Probably, neither Germans, nor Georgians would stop the battle because of hatred and fear of immediate execution. During the battle, about 800 German occupants were killed. 565 members of the Georgian battalion and 120 Dutch civilians were killed, too. For the natives of Texel, used to the comfort of the German occupation, the events were absolutely unexpected and frightening. However, they assisted the Georgians and after the war built a monument in the memory of this rebellion. 228 survivors returned to the USSR and, like many other POWs, were sent to the Gulag camps.

April 3 in Russian history

1933: The first kidney tranplantation was performed by Yuri Voronoy. Some sources give different dates, some even speak of the tranplantation being done in 1934 or 1936. His experiments started in 1929 and in 1930 he managed to transplant a kidney to a dog's neck. As the Ukrainian National museum of medicine reports:

Yu.Yu. Voronoy renounced the thought to take an organ from an alive man, since he thought that “one cannot make a healthy man invalid removing a necessary organ for the problematic saving of a patient”. He decided to use the kidney from a dead body. As we succeeded to establish, on April, 1933 (not in 1934, as it was informed in some sources, 1934 — is the year of publication of Yu. Yu. Voronoy’s work) the surgeon Yu. Yu. Voronoy made the transplantation of the kidney taken from a dead body. The recipient was a woman of 26 years, whose own kidneys did not function for 4 days because of acute poisoning with mercury biochloride. The donor’s kidney belonged to a man of 60 who died as a result of craniocerebral trauma, and was taken 6 hours after his death. ... She [the recipient] lived with the transplanted kidney more than 48 hours. Voronoy had every reason to think that the short-term transplant grafting (only during two days) does not compromise the kidney transplantation as the method of treatment under some forms of mercury biochloride poisonings. And what is more, he supposed that in case of dying off of the first implanted kidney, it is recommended to substitute it by a new, fresh kidney, i. e., he proposed the repeated transplantation. ... Yu. Yu. Voronoy outstripped for a long time the development of transplantology. Suffice it to say that clinical transplantations of the corpse kidney in most countries all over the world were made only in the 50–60’s of the 20th century. Professor Voronoy took part in development of other urgent trends of experimental and clinical surgery. He studied in detail the extremely important problem of the shock. But the problems of transplantology continued to remain the main ones in scientific activity of Voronoy. In 1950 he informed about 5 operations of the corpse kidney transplantation under severe nephrologic diseases.

1945: His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, King of Kings of Ethiopia and Elect of God, emperor of Ethiopia, transfers 10,000 pounds to the population of the USSR, suffering from the consequences of the Nazi occupation.

1945: The government of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic decides to build a monument in Babiy Yar, a gully in Kiev, used by the Nazis as the place of mass executions. On September 27, 1941, 752 patients of a mental hospital were killed. On September 29-30, 33,771 Jews, almost whole Jewish population of Kiev, were executed. In October, 17,000 more Jews were killed there. Later, 621 member of the Ukrainian nationalist organization OUN were also killed. The executions were continuing till autumn of 1943, when the Soviet troops liberated Kiev. The total number of victims is not clear, various sources estimate it between 70,000 and 200,000 people. It is not clear why, but the monument was not built. Moreover, the authorities of Kiev preferred to make a dump in Babiy yar. In 1950, a wall was built and the gully was turned into a collector for liquid waste of nearby brick plant. In 1961, the wall fell and the mudflow destroyed a district of Kiev known as Kurenyovka. About 3,000 people died in this tragedy. In 1965 a granite stele was built. Only in 1976, on July 2, a monument was erected with the inscription: "To the Soviet citizens, soldiers and officers of the Soviet army, killed by fascists in Babiy Yar". Later, in 1990s, more monuments were built commemorating not all victims, but only certain groups of them: Jews, members of OUN, patients of the mental hospital, etc. There's also a cross erected in the memory of German prisoners of war.

1966: Soviet spacecraft Luna-10 becomes the first man-made object ever to orbit another celestial body. It enters the Lunar orbit and begins to collect scientific data using a spectrometer, a magnetometer and a number of other tools. Among other things, Luna 10 discovers a strange objects under the surface of the Moon, called 'mascons' (mass concentrations). On May 29, 1966, Luna 10 fell onto the Moon. On April 3, during the XXIII CPSU congress (BTW, it was the first congress where L.Brezhnev was the general secretary of the Communist Party), Luna 10 transmitted back to the Earth a sound record of L'Internationale.

Came back from Volgograd

This is the article I wrote and posted at the Sima Qian Studio history forum in August, 2005, when I came back from Volgograd.

Last week the company where I work sent me to our office in Volgograd. During the first day I was busy with the office computer network, but on the second day I had 6 free hours at my disposal and I spent them walking and gazing around. Actually, I don't like the usual tourist attractions, and, even though Volgograd is the place of the famous Stalingrad battle, I planned to just walk and enjoy a warm summer day.

So, on Saturday, having finished with the cabling & wiring and all that dull work, I picked my backpack and went looking for a place to eat. The weather was fine and I didn't want to take a bus. At last, I found a good pizzeria and dropped in. The pizza was just the way I like it, with lots of pepper, and my next impulse was to get some beer. They had good Russian beer at the pizzeria, but I wanted to visit another remarkable place, the blues-rock bar 'White Horse'. We don't have such places in Samara and I just couldn't miss it. So, sitting in the 'White Horse' with a mug of beer, I tried to gather my wits and summarize my impressions about the city.

From the very start I was impressed with the architecture. Unlike the streets of Samara, Kazan, Saratov and other nearby cities, a typical street in the center of Volgograd is rather wide, about 70-100 meters, and lined with trees. Similar wide green streets I have seen, for example, in Togliatti and other relatively new cities. Volgograd, however, is different. First, the whole city is a preserve of the Stalin's imperial architecture. The number of columns and Parthenon's look-alike buildings is overwhelming. And second, as soon as you realize WHY this city looks like it was built on an empty place, the charm of these green streets obtains a tragic shadow. After the war (and don't even ask me which one -- when a Russian talks about 'The war', he means The War) there was not a single building in Stalingrad that was not damaged by bullets and bombs. The remaining separate walls were of no use and the city had to be rebuilt from scratch. So, when I walked these nice pavements, I couldn't stand the feeling that I actually walk above the ruined buildings and, most probably, the bones of the people who died here with weapons in their hands.

Although I didn't plan to visit the usual places of interest, at last I thought that I really have to see the Pavlov's house. If you've never heard about the house before, please, read here: Wikipedia:Pavlov's house. The house was reconstructed after the war and now it's just a commonplace 4-storeys high building, but it still retains some very special aura around it. Right across the street from the Pavlov's house there is a square where an old building of an ex-mill was left unreconstructed after the war. Now, it is a part of the Museum of the Stalingrad battle. This mill produces an amazing impression. That's the way it looks now: photos. If you walk around the building, you can see the difference between the eastern and the western facades of it -- the eastern side is just an old wall with empty square black holes, but the western side is so cankered with bullets that it's almost impossible to believe that defenders could survive there.

Well, since I happened to be near the Museum of the Stalingrad battle, I thought I could visit it. The museum is called 'the Panoramic Museum', because of the huge panorama of the battle which is displayed there. A very impressive picture, but only a picture. The more common museum-style exposition -- uniform, old newspapers, drawings made in 1943, soldiers' letters -- touched me much deeper. When you see a small sheet of paper with some words scratched on it and know that the author was killed soon after he wrote these words, you just can't tear your eyes off this paper and stop thinking about this man, his life, his family...

Besides the WWII display, the museum features a more modern exposition, devoted to the soldiers who died in Afghanistan and Chechnya. There may be different viewpoint on these wars, but there are two things I'd like to note. First, the 19-year old boys should not die. Never. Second, they didn't come there to kill and to destroy, they were there to help and to save. These boys are not to blamed for what happened next. So, they have deserved to be remembered for good.

The panorama in the museum shows the picture of the battle for Stalingrad as seen from the summit of the Mamaev Kurgan, a 102 meters high hill. Now, the hill is a huge memorial composition. I thought that after visiting the museum I could have a look at the stage of the battle from the hill and I took a trolley to the Mamaev Kurgan. Well, it's difficult to describe the scale of the composition. Have a look at the pictures of Mamaev Kurgan. The sculptures are very impressive and tragic. Unfortunately, it was not what I came there for. No matter how breath-taking this complex is, I lost the sensation of the link between the ages. I couldn't imagine a battle raging around. Anyway, it's probably a place which must be visited if you come to Volgograd.

I have to say here that this feeling of the link between the ages is very important for me. I search for it at every historical site I visit. Recall what you felt when touching an ancient stone in Rome and imagining a senator who touched it two thousand years ago. That's what I mean -- a dizzling feeling of similarity between you and the people who left the place a long time ago. I managed to find this link in Volgograd and what a grievous sensation it was...