rise-and-fall-of-the-third-reich-william-shirer-pdf

Chapter 23BARBAROSSA: THETURN OF RUSSIAWhile Hitler was busy that summer of 1940 directing the conquest of the West,Stalin was taking advantage of the Fuehrer’s preoccupations by moving into theBaltic States and reaching down into the Balkans.On the surface all was friendly between the two great dictatorships. Molotov,acting for Stalin, lost no opportunity to praise and flatter the Germans onevery occasion of a new act of aggression or a fresh conquest. When Germanyinvaded Norway and Denmark on April 9, 1940, the Soviet Foreign Commissarhastened to tell Ambassador von der Schulenburg in Moscow that very morningthat ”the Soviet Government understood the measures which were forced onGermany.” ”We wish Germany,” said Molotov, ”complete success in her defensivemeasures.” 934A month later, when the German ambassador called on Molotov to informhim officially of the Wehrmacht’s attack in the West, which Ribbentrop hadinstructed his envoy to explain ”was forced upon Germany by the impendingAnglo-French push on the Ruhr by way of Belgium and Holland,” the Sovietstatesman again expressed his pleasure. ”Molotov received the communicationin an understanding spirit,” Schulenburg wired Berlin, ”and added that he realizedthat Germany must protect herself against Anglo-French attack. He hadno doubt of our success.” 935On June 17, the day France asked for an armistice, Molotov summonedSchulenburg to his office ”and expressed the warmest congratulations of theSoviet Government on the splendid success of the German Wehrmacht.”The Foreign Commissar had something else to say, and this did not soundquite so pleasant in German ears. He informed the German envoy, as the latterwired Berlin ”most urgent,” of ”the Soviet action against the Baltic States,”adding – and one can almost see the gleam in Molotov’s eyes – ”that it had becomenecessary to put an end to all the intrigues by which England and Francehad tried to sow discord and mistrust between Germany and the Soviet Unionin the Baltic States.” 936 To put an end to such ”discord” the Soviet government,Molotov added, had dispatched ”special emissaries” to the three Balticcountries. They were, in fact, three of Stalin’s best hatchetmen: Dekanozov,who was sent to Lithuania; Vishinsky, to Latvia; Zhdanov, to Estonia.713