Stalin полностью

On July 29, Nevile Henderson, British ambassador to Germany, drove to Bayreuth to contrive a meeting with Hitler. (“Though absolutely unmusical,” Henderson would observe, “I like Wagner.”) His car broke down en route. Once finally there, during Die Walküre, he managed only to glimpse the Führer from afar. “If he had wanted to speak to me,” Henderson noted, “Hitler could have done so; for he must have been informed that I was there.”⁷³ But the envoy did not lose faith. “As I pointed out at the time to His Majesty’s Government, the Polish question was not one of Hitler’s making,” Henderson would write. “The Corridor and Danzig were a real German national grievance, and some equitable settlement had to be found.”⁷⁴

Britain had also been consulting in Baltic capitals, posing as the defender of small countries, but the Balts, perceiving fecklessness, more and more looked to Germany as the only realistic counterbalance to the USSR. Germany’s position, however, had shifted precipitously. On August 2, Ribbentrop invited in Astakhov and told him that, “from the Baltic to the Black Sea, there was no problem which could not be solved to our mutual satisfaction.”⁷⁵ The Soviet envoy, in his report to Molotov, surmised that the Germans were declaring their disinterest in the fate of former Russian Poland, the Baltic states (Lithuania excepted), and Bessarabia and repudiating any designs on Ukraine. In exchange, Germany sought Soviet disinterest in the fate of Danzig and the provinces of former German Poland, with former Austrian Poland a matter for further clarification. Germany’s ultimate aim, Astakhov concluded, was “to neutralize us in the case of war with Poland,” although, he added, any long-term acquiescence by Germany to the above arrangements was doubtful.⁷⁶

Schulenburg enjoyed more frequent access to Molotov than other ambassadors in Moscow, but still he found him largely inscrutable; the pair never developed chemistry. On August 3, Molotov acceded to the German’s request for an audience and heard the recent accommodating news from Ribbentrop firsthand. “Molotov abandoned his habitual reserve and appeared unusually open,” Schulenburg reported to Berlin the next day, but the Soviet government head nonetheless made a point of condemning the Anti-Comintern Pact and stated that “proofs of a changed attitude of the German Government were for the present still lacking.” Schulenburg further noted to Berlin that “my general impression is that the Soviet Government are determined to conclude an agreement with Britain and France, if they fulfill all Soviet wishes.” He added that the “negotiations, to be sure, might last a long time, especially since mistrust of England is also great.”⁷⁷ Hitler had become exceedingly anxious about a British-French-Soviet military convention.⁷⁸ Wittingly or unwittingly, Schulenburg was enhancing Stalin’s bargaining position.

PLAYED FOR A FOOL

To lead the long-awaited military-to-military talks with the two Western powers, Stalin appointed defense commissar Marshal Voroshilov, assisted by chief of staff Marshal Shaposhnikov, the naval commissar, and the air force head—the highest-level military group the Soviet despot could have assembled.⁷⁹ The British, after very long delay, finally indicated that they would send the Honorable Sir Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, commandant of Portsmouth. Beria, as per usual, prepared an NKVD dossier, which was unflattering to the unknown “commandant.”⁸⁰ In London, Maisky noted in his diary, in a tone of considerable optimism about Anglo-Soviet relations, that “a bloc is gradually coming together. . . . The trip of the military missions to Moscow is an historical stage.” And yet he also wrote to Moscow, “I think that, judging from the posts they hold, the delegates will not be able to make any decisions on the spot.”⁸¹ When the Western ambassadors informed Molotov who would be coming, he evidently launched a tirade, then stormed out of his own office.