After Hitler: The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe (46 page)

Military correspondent Alexander Ustinov ran out on to the street. ‘People were pouring out of their homes,’ Ustinov remembered, ‘congratulating each other on the long-awaited victory. Red banners appeared – a spontaneous celebration began. Joyful people sang and danced to the accordion.’

‘The sun shone down graciously on jubilant Moscow,’ Grigory Klimov said. ‘People embraced and kissed each other on the street. Strangers invited one another into their homes. Life had been difficult but now it was all over. We had held out and won.’ Klimov described some episodes that happened spontaneously among the crowd:

As we walked along, a group of girls in bright spring clothes came towards us, happy and excited. They had flowers in their hands. Just in front of us a group of airmen were chatting animatedly – they were obviously members of the Moscow air defence force. One of them was in civilian clothes; his right sleeve was empty.

The left side of his jacket was studded with military orders and above the pocket shone two five-cornered gold stars: the stars of a ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’.

One of the girls thrust her flowers into the wounded man’s hand and he awkwardly pressed them against his chest. The girl embraced him – and did not want to release him. They did not say a word to each other and yet this gesture said everything: ‘Thank you for defending our city’.

We saw an old woman in a white kerchief, peering about her uncertainly, as though looking for someone in this seething torrent of human beings. She was not accustomed to the bustle of the city – just a homely Russian mother.

We had come across hundreds of such mothers as we entered villages evacuated by the retreating Germans. And hardly had we taken one step across the thresholds of their cottages than we were calling them ‘mother’. Without a word they would thrust a hunk of bread into our greatcoat pockets and surreptitiously sign the cross over us as we turned away.

Two elderly soldiers in ragged frontline uniforms were leaning against a house-wall. Their faces were unshaven; packs hung over their shoulders. You could see that they had either come straight from the front or were on their way back to it. But they were in no hurry; today they had no reason to fear the military police patrols.

They warmed themselves peacefully in the sun and rolled themselves cigarettes. What more does a soldier need than a piece of bread in his pack, some tobacco in his pocket and the sun shining?

The old woman in a kerchief pushed uncertainly through the crowd and went up to the two soldiers. She spoke to them in an agitated voice and tried to pull them by the sleeves. The soldiers looked at each other and nodded.

How many sons had she given for the sake of this sunny morning? The sons who were to have been her comfort and support in her old age had been taken from her. Her son Kolya had been killed at Poltava; Peter the sailor had died in a sea-fight. All through the war she had held on to an expensive bottle of vodka, not exchanging it even for bread. She had suffered hunger and cold, but that bottle of vodka was sacred. And now her heart was no longer suffering. She had gone into the street to find her ‘sons’, to invite the first soldiers she met to celebrate the victory with her.

As the afternoon went on, more and more people appeared. In terms of turnout, it was without doubt the biggest anywhere in the world that week. The
Manchester Guardian
correspondent was struck by this, explaining: ‘The victory celebrations are popularly regarded as the greatest moment in the history of this country since the Revolution. Never has Moscow seen such crowds, and never before during this war have the Soviet people shown their whole-hearted appreciation of allied help so freely and emphatically.’

These comments were important, because the Russians had often been accused in the Western press – with some justification – of being ungrateful for the sacrifices made on their behalf and suspicious of – and determined to stay aloof from – Western influence. But on Victory Day it was very different. ‘It was sufficient to look like a foreigner,’ continued the
Manchester Guardian
reporter, ‘to be kissed, hugged and generally feted. In Red Square all foreign cars were stopped and their occupants dragged out, embraced and sometimes even tossed in the air.’

Among those to suffer this boisterous treatment was Hewlett Johnson, the ‘Red Dean’. Leaving the British embassy after the victory service that morning, Johnson saw ‘a dense crowd, enthusiastic and genial, [which] released at last from the long strain of war, blocked our road and engulfed us – cheering every Englishman or American. They seized General Younger, a British officer in full uniform, and tossing him in the air, caught him as gently as if he were a babe. My turn came next.’

A crowd gathered outside a big hotel where many British and Americans stayed, and pounced on anyone leaving, demanding a speech. Carrying a Briton shoulder high was another popular tribute. Bob Dunbar was the Moscow editor of
British Ally
, a Russian-language weekly that informed its readers about the British way of life. Towards the end of the war, demand for it had grown and grown. Dunbar received one faded copy, returned by front-line Red Army soldiers, with a simple accompanying message: ‘Send us more!’ Such was the interest in British culture that Dunbar took a subtitled version of Sir Laurence Olivier’s
Henry V
(produced, with the encouragement of Winston Churchill, a year earlier to coincide with the D-Day landings) to Leningrad to show to audiences there.

‘The atmosphere in Red Square was amazing,’ Dunbar recalled. ‘The Russians were singing all the songs they knew the British sang. As they struck up “Tipperary” we were all flung high into the air. We had defeated Fascism together – and for an extraordinary moment it seemed that our peoples had forged an enduring friendship.’

The United States was equally popular. A large crowd gathered outside the American embassy, where the correspondent of the
New York Herald
heard repeated shouts of ‘Long live America!’, ‘Long live Truman!’, ‘Long live the memory of Roosevelt!’ and ‘Long live the American people!’

Robert Tucker was one of the staff in the American embassy. He recalled:

Our embassy stood just across the square from the Kremlin. And when the news reached the Muscovites that the war was over, the surrender had taken place and that the long-awaited day of victory had come, hundreds, then thousands, then many thousands gathered in front of our embassy. It was a five-storey building, with an American flag out in front, and it seemed that all these people were just standing there, looking up at us. It was something unthinkable in Stalin’s Russia – a spontaneous demonstration. All these Russians had gathered to say thank you for being with us, for sending us the munitions, the trucks, the jeeps, the tinned food. Thank you for being in the same war that we were in – for all these terrible years, for fighting with us as allies. Thank you, America. These were the words that nobody spoke, but everybody, by their presence there, communicated to us.

Tucker remembered how George Kennan – the chargé d’affaires in the absence of Ambassador Harriman – sent for someone to get a Soviet flag, and he hung it side by side with the American one. ‘There was a huge roar of approval. Then he stepped out on a balcony in front of one of the lower windows of the embassy and spoke in flawless Russian in a loud voice. He congratulated everyone – all Russians – on our common victory. The mood was euphoric. And whenever anyone left the building, they were hoisted onto the shoulders of those in the crowd and carried into Red Square, which was the centre of all the jubilation.’

George Kennan had earlier written: ‘News had reached us of terrible atrocities committed against the German civilian population in East Prussia. Not so much by the frontline troops, it seemed, as those following behind. Many of these stories had been told by Red Army soldiers themselves, disgusted at the behaviour of their comrades. And yet it left me thinking: “Is this the kind of victory we have strived for?”’

Now Kennan, like all the others, was caught up in the emotion of the day. Russia’s triumph against Nazi Germany had its flaws, most certainly, but it was a triumph nonetheless.

These expressions of appreciation were striking, for it was known, from the Orders of the Day, that Russian soldiers were still fighting the Germans, whereas all actions involving the Americans and British had ceased. Military communiqués of 9 May reported that there was still fighting in Czechoslovakia between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht – and this would continue for several more days. The joy transcended this.

Grigory Klimov recollected:

I had witnessed many Moscow parades and celebrations. The strongest impression I got from them was that the people would rather have really enjoyed themselves than be forced to demonstrate their merriment and joy. They were simply puppet shows and one could not rid oneself of a sense of hypocrisy. Most of the participants tried not to acknowledge their reason for being there – corrosive fear of being put on a list, of giving offence by being absent.

9 May 1945 was completely different. There was no organized demonstration, nor was it necessary to have one. The streets of Moscow were packed with people everywhere, on the pavements, in the roads, at the windows, on the roofs. In the city centre the streets were so crowded that all traffic came to a standstill. All the population had taken to its feet.

Aircraft navigator Nikolai Kryuchkov said simply: ‘It is impossible to describe everything that happened that day. Everybody, young and old, rejoiced. It was difficult to even walk past all the people who wanted to enthusiastically greet and kiss the soldiers. We drank to the victory – and remembered all those who were killed. We prayed we would never see such a loss of life again.’

Alexander Werth added: ‘The spontaneous joy of the two to three million people who thronged the Red Square that evening, from the Moskva River embankments all the way up to Gorky Street, had a quality and depth that I had never seen in Moscow before. The crowds were so happy that they did not even have to get drunk.’

On the evening of 9 May Clementine Churchill broadcast her husband’s message ‘to Marshal Stalin, to the Red Army and to the Russian people’:

From the British nation I send you heartfelt greetings on the splendid victories you have won in driving the invader from your soil and laying the Nazi tyrant low. It is my firm belief that on the friendship and understanding of the British and Russian peoples depends the future of mankind. Here in our island home we are thinking today about you all. We send you – from the bottom of our hearts – our wishes for your happiness and well-being and that, after all the sacrifices and sufferings of the Dark Valley through which we have marched together, we may also, in loyal comradeship and sympathy, walk in the sunshine of victorious peace.

One senses a measure of strain in Churchill’s use of language. He wanted to reach out to Russia but was also fearful of her. Later that night, Stalin’s own message to his people was dignified yet cautious:

Comrades, fellow countrymen and women, the great day of victory over Germany has come. Fascist Germany has been forced to her knees by the Red Army and by the troops of her allies … Being well aware of the subterfuges of the German leaders, who consider their treaties as mere scraps of paper, we had no reason to accept their word. Nevertheless, this morning German troops have begun to surrender en masse to our Soviet armies. This fact is no longer a scrap of paper but what is happening on the ground. It is the actual capitulation of their armed forces. It is true that one of their army groups, in Czechoslovakia, is still trying to avoid surrender. But I trust that the Red Army will bring it to its senses… . The age-old struggle of the Slav peoples for their existence and independence has ended in victory over the German invaders and their tyranny… . The Great Patriotic War has ended with our complete victory… . Glory to our heroic Red Army. Glory to our great people. Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the struggle… .

This was a candid acknowledgement of the untrustworthy Dönitz regime. The Soviet Union had not been able to win a complete surrender from its foe. That afternoon, at 4.00 p.m., General Alexei Antonov, chief of the Red Army general staff, had sent General Eisenhower a concerned message:

The German forces of Army Group Centre and a southern group of troops [those in Yugoslavia] did not cease resistance at 23.01, 8 May 1945, the time fixed by the act of military surrender, did not remain in their places and did not lay down their arms – and thus have violated that agreement. It is now 16.00 on 9 May and these forces are not capitulating.

The central and southern groups, while resisting the Red Army, are moving off to the west, evidently with the purpose of giving themselves up to the Americans.

In connection with this, please issue an order to your troops not to take prisoner these forces and kindly advise what measures you consider it necessary to take against them for breaking the agreement.

General Eisenhower ordered his commanders to block the way. In western Czechoslovakia, General George Patton wrote in his diary: ‘General Bradley called up and told me to be prepared to place road blocks on all roads leading south-east or north-east. We are to put signs in front of them saying that in accordance with the terms of surrender all German military personnel will remain beyond that point – that is east of this line. The message was immediately passed on to Corps commanders.’

There was a renewed spirit of cooperation between Russia and the West. And this spirit resolved a potential flashpoint in their relations, the Danish island of Bornholm, in the Baltic, 92 miles east of Copenhagen and 155 miles west of Danzig. General Dietrich von Saucken’s Army Group of East Prussia was continuing to use the island as an evacuation point for its soldiers, even though such actions breached the terms of surrender at Lüneburg Heath (which included all Danish possessions) and the subsequent surrenders at Rheims and Karlshorst.