After Hitler: The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe (14 page)

Hodges had followed news of the link-up at Torgau with much interest, noting: ‘contact was extremely friendly but military information was difficult to obtain because of language difficulties and general merriment’. On 30 April he had gone to Torgau himself to meet with the Russians. He was met at the river’s edge by a Russian major general, who promptly put Hodges in his car, a captured German black sedan, and without further delay whisked him across the bridge, where a banner proclaimed welcome ‘to our victorious allies’. He sped at 50 mph past Red Army soldiers standing to attention, before turning into a beautiful estate – commandeered for the occasion – which he learnt had been one of the largest stud farms in Germany. Here he met General Zhadov of the Russian 5th Guards Army, ‘a 50-year-old, heavy-set, handsome man’. The national anthems were played, short speeches were made praising Truman, Roosevelt and the American army, and then everyone retired to the dining room where the festivities started in earnest. Tables were laden with vodka, cognac, large loaves of black Russian bread, whole roasted pigs, geese, caviar – and a clear broth with a whole fish floating in it, which the bemused Americans were told ‘was considered a great delicacy’. After a long round of toasts, concerns about the fish receded into the background.

If the Americans were caught somewhat by surprise, the Russians were better prepared. On 18 April a report was passed back on a series of political meetings held to ‘popularize the successful operations of our allies in Germany’. Maps were used to show to soldiers the likely area where the link-up would take place and the position of the respective armies. There was a uniformly positive reaction to the progress of British and American forces, and the fact that it was achieved by rapid progress across a broad front. Sergeant Nikolai Churkin of the 169th Rifle Division said: ‘Now everyone can see that the decisions taken at the Crimean [Yalta] Conference are actually being implemented. Nazi Germany – caught in the vice-like grip of two fronts – is now tottering to its defeat and all of us are now convinced that the next concerted blows will bring the war to an end.’ ‘Once it was a dream – now it is a reality,’ added Lieutenant Sergei Odintsov of the 250th Rifle Division. ‘Our army has crossed the Oder; our allies the Rhine – now we know for sure that the Nazis are finished.’

While the speed of the Western advance was now a cause of great satisfaction – ‘our allies have now truly learnt to beat the Germans’ was a comment made again and again – it also gave rise to concern. A uniform reaction of Red Army officers and soldiers was that if there was any risk British and American armies might be tempted to advance on Berlin, Russia must take Hitler’s capital on its own and as fast as possible. ‘Our allies are sometimes moving 60 kilometres a day, with little or no opposition,’ said one officer. ‘If they were to launch a sudden strike and take Berlin before us, they could claim the major role in ending the war. We must speed things up, and redouble our efforts to get into the city first.’ Another added: ‘We must never let our allies get to Berlin. For us to take the city will demonstrate to the world everything our forces have achieved.’ The Red Army had kept to its timetable.

Amid awareness of the symbolic importance of Berlin was much discussion of the ceremonies that should be arranged when Russian troops linked up with those from the West. Time and time again it was stressed that the Red Army must not lose face. The remarks of Lieutenant Ivan Sokolov of the 250th Rifle Division were typical: ‘The world will be watching our link-up. We need to act in a way that will bring honour to the Red Army. Discipline needs to be tightened up.’

Although the Russians had prepared carefully for the link-up and wanted to be positive, it was hard for them to put their distrust of the West completely aside. Time and time again they were reminded by their political officers that no military secrets must be disclosed to British or American troops. The excitement remained. And now – on 25 April 1945, at Torgau, on the Elbe in central Germany – that link-up had happened. One of the best-known depictions of it was a photo taken by American Signal Corps photographer Bill Poulson of a Soviet and an American lieutenant – Alexander Silvashko and William Robertson – embracing each other in front of the sign ‘East meets West’.

The two divisions involved in that link-up were the US 69th and the Soviet 58th Guards. At the beginning of May the US 69th Division had pulled back from the Elbe to the vicinity of Colditz. It was there that the 271st Infantry Regiment’s anti-tank company met a young Russian POW, Rotefan Marcosovitch, who had been freed from a labour camp at Saalfeld several weeks earlier. No provision had been made for him – POWs like him, if strong enough to be able to walk, were now on the move all over Germany looking for food and shelter. Marcosovitch was willing to work for them. The anti-tank company needed extra help, and let him stay with their unit for a few weeks.

The American troops took an immediate liking to Marcosovitch, although communication was not easy: his English was limited, although his German – learnt during his time in the camp – was much more fluent. It took time to understand him, but the nineteen-year-old Russian was spirited and lively and he had a remarkable story to tell. British and American troops, on first meeting Russian soldiers, often described them as ‘tough’. But Marcosovitch offered a window for US soldiers to see what that ‘toughness’ might actually mean.

He had joined the Red Army in the autumn of 1941, even though he was only fifteen years old. Officially, the age of conscription was eighteen, but Moscow was in deadly peril in October 1941 and volunteer units were being formed from those who would not normally be eligible to fight. He was not forced to join up – he was a young patriot and wanted to do something for his country. Marcosovitch joined a volunteer regiment in the 140th Rifle Division with his older brother. Within weeks most of the regiment – including his brother – was wiped out in a battle with the Germans at Vyazma; Marcosovitch was wounded by a shell splinter in his thigh and taken prisoner, and spent the next three and a half years in the labour camp at Saalfeld.

Conditions inside the camp were harsh. In the summer of 1943 seventeen-year-old Marcosovitch organised an escape attempt – but he was recaptured and publicly beaten before all the camp inmates, after which he was unable to move for two weeks. Subsequently, he began to organise attempts to sabotage factory output. He was caught on one occasion and beaten with a bull-whip until he lost consciousness.

In a work accident in early 1944, Marcosovitch suffered a deep muscle cut and fractured his left arm in two places. While recovering in hospital, and able to acquire a pencil and some paper, he wrote a short piece in German entitled ‘All nations are equal’, and, having struck up a rapport with one of the nurses who had helped him recover, and who treated him with a measure of humanity, he gave it to her on leaving the hospital. In it, he said that Germany was wrong to believe it was a master race, superior to the Slavs. Marcosovitch believed that no one country should place itself above another. His work was discovered by the hospital doctor, who reported him to the camp police: the result was another beating with a rubber truncheon, causing him to fall and refracture his left arm.

In the autumn of 1944 Saalfeld was visited by the senior Nazi labour minister, Robert Ley, who ordered everyone to work harder. Marcosovitch responded to this exhortation with a further campaign of sabotage within the camp. The frequent beatings he received, and a daily work ration of 300 grams of soup, with a little bread and potatoes, never broke his spirit or his patriotism.

In January 1945 Saalfeld had another important visitor, a representative of the Russian general Andrei Vlasov, now actively recruiting men for his anti-Bolshevik army (one that would fight with the Germans on the Oder front against Soviet forces three months later). This high-ranking officer had been given permission by the camp authorities to address all the Russian prisoners. Those who wished to enlist in the new army would be immediately released.

The Vlasov Amy was described by this representative as a force of patriots – stressing that Bolshevism was their enemy, not Russia. There may have been truth in this, but Marcosovitch was suspicious. After Vlasov’s man had spoken to the Russian POWs he stood up and challenged him – asking for his credentials, demanding to know who had awarded him his medals, and who he really took his orders from. In a heated exchange, he then denounced Vlasov as an opportunist who was trying to save his skin and described his whole endeavour as a folly. Few POWs joined up.

On 13 April 1945 Saalfeld was liberated. Marcosovitch met the anti-tank company a little more than two weeks later – and worked as an auxiliary with the American unit for two months, before arranging for his return to the Soviet Union. His exceptional courage and perseverance – though demonstrated in a labour camp, not on a battlefield – told the US soldiers much about how Russia was able to win the war against the German invader. There were many Marcosovitches in the Red Army.

The Allied link-up at Torgau continued to be commemorated. Lieutenant William Robertson and his patrol were taken back to SHAEF HQ at Rheims on 2 May, where they met American Supreme Commander General Eisenhower. All the men were promoted on the spot. And Eisenhower would be the crucial guarantor of that link-up’s success.

General Eisenhower wrote of the Soviets: ‘The Russians are generous. They like to give presents and hold parties, as almost every American who has served with them can testify. In his generous instincts, in his love of laughter, in his devotion to a comrade, and in his healthy, direct outlook on the affairs of workaday life, the ordinary Russian seems to me to bear a remarkable similarity to what we call an “average American”.’

This response showed Eisenhower’s own generosity. He was not naive, and he knew that some Red Army troops behaved atrociously – but he did not want to tar all Russian soldiers with the same brush. He also knew first hand of the incidents and conflicts that had arisen between the Allies. And above all, he was aware how easily misunderstandings could arise, commenting: ‘Because of the difference in languages, no-one had available the instrument of direct and personal conversation to alleviate the ensuing arguments.’ In such a situation, Eisenhower resolved on an approach very different to Churchill’s:

‘We insisted that every firm commitment of our government should be properly and promptly executed. We felt that for us to be guilty of bad faith in any detail of operation would defeat whatever hope we had of assisting in the development of a broad basis of international co-operation.’ In essence, Eisenhower’s policy towards Russia was one of ‘firm adherence to the pledged word’.

The main obstacle that Eisenhower faced in his dealings with the Soviets was their inherent suspicion. The Soviet regime could never entirely rid itself of its fear of Western capitalist powers and its recollection that allies could suddenly become enemies. Throughout the war they were unwilling to entrust the Western Allies with much information concerning the Red Army’s activities. ‘We were struck by their incredible secrecy,’ Hugh Lunghi said. ‘During the battle of Kursk – the major tank battle in the summer of 1943 – they told us [the British Military Mission in Moscow] virtually nothing of what was going on.’

Eisenhower took the initiative. Shortly after the Normandy landings, an arrangement was made whereby SHAEF furnished the Soviet government with outlines of all Anglo-American operations and, when necessary, its plans for the future. The Soviet response was rather more modest. They promised to give the Allied military missions in Moscow copies of Red Army communiqués a short time before their release to the press. But for any serious attempt to coordinate military activities, Eisenhower had to transmit his wishes to the military missions themselves, who would then pass them on to the Red Army chief of staff. Then the whole laborious process was repeated in reverse. As the war neared its end, this lack of speedy and effective liaison was both exasperating and potentially dangerous, and would considerably impact on the final negotiations for an unconditional surrender with Germany.

Yet Eisenhower was not alone in seeing in the Russian character something of the American. US doctor Henry Swan wrote home about a visit to them on 2 May:

I took two of my men in a new car and went to see the Russkis! It was some trip, as contact in this army is still strictly tenuous. We saw Magdeburg … the two spires of the cathedral remain untouched, watching over the crumbled ruins of the city. For blocks on end, no house remains standing – only walls, chimneys and piles of brick and masonry. It seems like a sort of symbol, or judgment, to see these stately spires standing amidst the ruins.

Then, well on the east side of the river, we found these great big beautiful Russians! They are more like carefree, wild-western style cowboys on a spree than anything else I can think of. Hearty – rough and tough – full of the devil and friendly. They seem to be as American as possible, only more so. Of course, these are strictly their frontline fighting men, on a victorious campaign.

We had some schnapps with a captain – a large, powerful man with close-cut hair, a chest-full of medals and red ribbons, a booming laugh and a crushing handshake. And a major – a quieter man with a keen level eye and a crisp, decisive manner. Our visit was short. I had a colour picture taken of myself with them – then we had to get back, while we could. We couldn’t speak a word they understood, and vice-versa. But it was a friendly, exciting meeting and a fitting finale to our work here. When one thinks back and visualises the situation as it was at Stalingrad, then one realizes that we have come a long way over a rough road. Yes, it was satisfying to stand in the heart of Germany and shake hands with the Russians.

Such instinctive rapport was not shared by the new American president. President Truman was very different from Roosevelt. He had not been briefed by his predecessor on foreign policy and was best known to the Russians for his 1941 statement that the Nazis and the Bolsheviks should be allowed to kill each other off. The Soviet Union had been very suspicious of the Western Allies in the first half of the war. They had seen Churchill and Roosevelt’s friendship, their conferences on military strategy at Quebec, Casablanca and New York, from which the Russians were excluded, repeated postponements of the Second Front and the suspension of supply convoys at the height of the Nazi onslaught in the summer of 1942. By the spring of 1943 relations between Russia and the West had reached a low point. The Soviets did not trust Churchill – and believed that the US and Britain were ganging up against them. Teheran in November 1943 had marked a turning-point: Roosevelt and Stalin forged a good personal relationship.