Stalin полностью

Hitler remained volatile. As Warsaw was still burning, in mid-September 1939, the Führer had returned from his triumphal promenade in Danzig and ordered a gathering of his military brass to prepare for an attack against the West at the end of October—that is, within a few weeks. Even Göring was flabbergasted.³⁴⁰ A handful of old-line German conservatives began to whisper about somehow stopping Hitler—the very Chamberlain fantasy of a German palace coup. Halder, the Wehrmacht chief of staff, had taken to carrying a loaded revolver, but, though he saw the Führer often, Halder shrank from using it.³⁴¹ Still, a more resolute conspirator, acting alone, was found among Germany’s working classes. On November 8, 1939, at around 8:00 p.m., Hitler arrived at the Munich Beer Hall—where he had staged the failed putsch in 1923—to deliver his annual commemorative address to the old fighters and the Bavarian leadership. Goebbels, Heydrich, and Hess were in tow. This was one of the largest beer halls in the city, seating 3,000, and therefore ideal for political gatherings. Munich’s upper crust turned out in numbers: party men, military officers, bankers, business owners. The rite usually lasted from around 8:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. At 9:20, a time bomb exploded in the high-ceilinged, chandeliered hall, killing eight and wounding more than sixty. Many of the bleeding survivors thought a British warplane had dropped a bomb. In fact, a German cabinetmaker, Georg Elser (b. 1903), had planted the explosive in a pillar right behind the podium.

Elser held Hitler responsible for deceiving the workers and fomenting war. As he would explain, “I considered that the situation in Germany could only be changed by the elimination of the current leadership.”³⁴² During the course of some twelve months, he had planned and stolen explosives and a detonator from his workplace and begun taking his meals at the beer hall. Later, before closing time, he would hide in a storeroom, then come out and set to work by flashlight, creating a secret door in place of the pillar’s wood paneling, until the staff returned at 7:30 a.m. and he would sneak out the back. Elser spent more than thirty nights in the beer hall, and carried out cement and other debris, even sawdust, in a suitcase; at least once he was caught on the premises after closing but not turned over to the police. In the daytime he worked on the bomb and the timer. As fortune would have it, on the night of November 8, the fog was too thick to risk flying, and Hitler did not have his own separate train, so he would have to take the regularly scheduled one. This meant he had to begin his speech early, at 8:00 p.m., and end it early, and instead of staying for the usual chitchat, rush out to catch the train back to Berlin, where he was scheduled to finalize the approved battle plans for an offensive in the west. Only the musicians and the cleaning staff remained in the beer hall. The dais was crushed by the collapsed ceiling. The Führer’s speech had ended at 9:07 p.m.; he departed the venue no more than ten minutes before the deadly blast.

CHAPTER 12SMASHED PIG

Voroshilov is a fairy tale. His authority was artificially created by totalitarian agitation.

TROTSKY, Bulletin of the Opposition, fall 1939 ¹

It is clear now how Finland was prepared for a major war against us. They readied every village for that aim.

STALIN, January 21, 1940, following the annual commemoration of Lenin’s death at the Bolshoi Theater ²