After Hitler: The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe (8 page)

It was no simple matter to take it. Groups of diehard SS troops resisted desperately. The building had been transformed into a fortress. And yet, finally it was achieved. The news of its capture spread like wildfire throughout the army – and everyone wanted to know who had been the first into the building, and who had planted the Victory Banner.

The Reichstag had been chosen as the symbol of the Russian victory. The imposing building had lain empty since the 1933 fire – a fire that the Nazis had blamed on a left-wing agitator and used as a pretext for a round-up of communists within the German state. The Reich Chancellery was the administrative centre of the Third Reich, but the Reichstag lodged itself in the Russian imagination – perhaps because of the sheer size of the building. It was imposing enough – standing apart from others in the government quarter of the city. Lieutenant Vasily Ustyugov of the Soviet 150th Rifle Division, one of those who stormed the Reichstag, never forgot his first sight of it: ‘It was dawn and I was about 400 metres away from it. As the light grew, I saw a massive dark grey building rising above me, pock-marked with shell-fire.’ When it became clear how important its capture was to the Red Army, SS troops defended it fanatically.

The investigation over who first planted the victory banner was conducted by the Red Army. The results were then vetted by political officers. A Georgian, Meliton Kantaria, was chosen – although his banner was planted later than others – to flatter Stalin, who came from Georgia himself.

By 1 May 1945 Stalin had emerged from the savage fight against Germany with considerable credit. The start of his war had been disastrous. He had failed to anticipate the German invasion on 22 June 1941 and for days afterwards was unable to respond to its threat. That autumn he made a catastrophic misjudgement, rejecting the advice of his military advisers and forbidding retreat from the Ukrainian capital Kiev, a blunder that led to the encirclement and capture of nearly 650,000 Red Army soldiers. But in mid October 1941, with Russia reeling from a succession of defeats and the fate of Moscow hanging in the balance, he decided to stay in the Russian capital rather than evacuate his government. This was both a genuinely brave decision and a politically astute one – for if the Soviet leader had left the city, Moscow would have almost certainly have fallen to the Germans. Instead, Stalin summoned his best commander, Georgi Zhukov, brought up fresh divisions from Siberia and stood firm against Hitler’s Wehrmacht. German forces were repulsed from Moscow in bitter winter fighting in temperatures below minus 30 degrees Celsius. It was the Führer’s first significant defeat – and Stalin’s first major victory.

The following year the tide of war turned at Stalingrad, the Soviet leader’s namesake city on the Volga. Stalin’s ‘Not a Step Back!’ order – in the summer of 1942 – galvanised his people just as Churchill’s defiant rhetoric had inspired the British after Dunkirk in May 1940. The Soviet leader made it clear there could be no further retreat – too much of the country’s land, people and economic resources were already lost to the enemy. Stalin, however, was no Churchillian orator and his order was backed by steely ruthlessness – ‘blocking detachments’ of security police were placed behind army units to prevent soldiers deserting. Nevertheless, he had caught the prevailing political mood with instinctive shrewdness.

The country had begun to lose faith in its army, but at Stalingrad all this would change, for Stalin resolved to hold the city whatever the cost. He showed a characteristic and ruthless disregard for the civilians trapped within it, but the decision to make a stand was the right one. The Germans were drawn into ferocious street fighting that bled away their strength. The raw courage of the defenders, in what increasingly became a prestige battle between Hitler and Stalin, bought the Soviet Union precious time. The Red Army built up its strength, counter-attacked and then surrounded its foe. On 2 February 1943 the broken remnants of the German 6th Army surrendered. It was the psychological turning-point of the war.

As that brutal war progressed, Stalin became more flexible in his thinking – willing to properly listen to his generals and in some measure to trust them. In stark contrast Hitler became increasingly dogmatic, unwilling to listen to any advice at all. At Kursk in July 1943 Stalin’s commanders Zhukov and Vasilevsky argued that they should let the Germans attack first – using up their precious reserves of tanks and armour – and only then move on to the counter-attack. Although the Soviet leader wanted to strike immediately, he listened to his military advisers and followed the course they recommended. The result was a stunning success that forced their opponent on to the defensive. Germany would never launch another major offensive in the east.

That autumn the Red Army regained much of the Ukraine, recapturing Kiev on 6 November, but allowing the news to be relayed only a day later – on the anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. On 27 January 1944 the 900-day siege of Leningrad was finally ended. And in the summer of 1944 came the greatest triumph of them all, Operation Bagration, which destroyed all the German forces in Belorussia. In its aftermath, captured German generals and officers were paraded through the streets of Moscow. Again, Stalin had shown the confidence to listen to his commanders, in this case Konstantin Rokossovsky, who had proposed a significant alteration to the original plan of attack – one that proved to be fundamentally correct. Stalin, impressed by the way Rokossovsky argued his case, agreed to the revised plan, at a time when Hitler had decreed a ‘fortress’ policy in the east that gave his commanders little or no freedom of manoeuvre. It was a striking calibration of this war that as the Soviet leader trusted his generals more, the Führer trusted his less.

By the autumn of 1944 Stalin’s Red Army had recaptured nearly all of the Soviet Union lost to Hitler’s Wehrmacht at the war’s onset. It had imposed terms on Finland – regaining the territory fought for in 1939–40 – and reoccupied the Baltic states, as it had done in 1940 before the German invasion. Only in Courland (in Latvia) were German and Latvian troops still holding out against Russian forces. In August 1944 Red Army troops moved into Romania, toppling the pro-German regime, and another of Hitler’s allies, Bulgaria, quickly came to terms with the Soviet Union. Russian troops then joined Tito’s communist partisans in Yugoslavia and recaptured Belgrade; by November 1944 the Hungarian capital Budapest was also under siege. In January 1945 a huge new offensive across the Vistula river brought Soviet troops surging into Poland. Stalin held hegemony in eastern Europe – one based on sheer military might.

On 1 May 1945 Berlin – and the fight for the Reichstag – was its apogee, the culmination of a stream of victories that expunged the shame of the beginning of the war and gave the Soviet leader heroic status – among his own people and also with many in the West. It was a remarkable triumph and the result of an astonishing military turn-around and a complete economic reorganisation on the part of Stalin.

Under his supervision, much of the heavy industry threatened by the German advance had been evacuated and relocated beyond the Ural mountains. The Soviet leader’s single-minded determination and an astonishing effort from the Soviet people – for whom the slogan ‘Everything for the Front!’ became a patriotic imperative – quickly brought it into production again. By the summer of 1943 Russia was producing considerably more planes, tanks and guns than its German opponent. It was also benefiting from significant industrial aid from Britain and America – America’s Lend-Lease programme (the economic programme through which the United States provided military aid to the Allies) being particularly valuable. Although the Red Army bore the brunt of the fighting, after D-Day the increasing economic aid and military support from the West brought the Allies closer together. As a result, the Big Three conference at Yalta in February 1945 was more outwardly harmonious than that of Teheran in November 1943 – the first time Britain, America and Russia had all met.

As Stalin had fought for survival, so he realised that communist ideology alone would not save his state. Astutely he had broadened the scope of the war, appealing to Russian patriotism and his people’s love of their Motherland. He heralded this in his speech to the nation on Red Square, on 7 November 1941, and again in his ‘Not a Step Back!’ order on 28 July 1942. Although the Bolshevik revolution derided the Tsarist history that had preceded it, now military orders and medals evoking Russia’s heroes of the past – Alexander Nevsky, Mikhail Kutuzov, men who had repelled foreign invaders – were revived. However, Stalin was never willing to relinquish any shred of control, and with the military crisis past and Red Army soldiers now fighting in eastern Europe, communist ideology was fully restored and security stepped up. Stalin feared his soldiers experiencing life outside the Soviet Union.

From his perspective, this was reasonable: a different world was opening up for Soviet troops, most of whom had never before travelled beyond their own country. Lieutenant Boris Martschenko wrote to his wife on May Day that he was inspired by the beauty of Vienna:

I spent yesterday visiting the city. I drove around it, and saw a lot, but much has still not sunk in yet. This is not just a city – it is an architectural fantasy. Budapest is a dirt-heap compared to Vienna.

I visited the Opera House. The back of it had burned down – but it remains a remarkable building. Who would have thought that I ever would have had a chance to see it. And, it is amusing to say, Vienna now resembles one of our own cities in holiday mood! From the windows of the houses red flags can be seen, hanging everywhere!

The civilians are cautious – they wait until they are in groups of 5–10 people before they approach us. But when they find I can speak some German, and make myself understood in conversation with them, they vie with each other in helpfulness!

As Red Army soldiers were sharing their impressions of life outside Russia, Westerners were trying to make sense of the riddle of the Soviet Union. Stalin the man had impressed many Western observers at the Big Three conferences at Teheran and Yalta. On occasions he could be personable and charming and he was a strong and effective negotiator – always on top of his brief. Roosevelt had struck up a measure of empathy with Stalin and there was grudging yet real respect between the Soviet leader and Churchill. Yet fundamentally these two men did not trust each other.

Churchill understood the ruthlessness of the Bolshevik state – and when Stalin made an apparent joke at the Teheran Conference about the need to purge the German officer corps after the end of the war, a comment that Roosevelt found innocuous, Churchill – with the massacre of Polish army officers at Katyn in his mind – left the room. Hugh Lunghi, a translator for Churchill at Teheran and Yalta, said the British prime minister was always aware of the secrecy of the Soviet state and its cruelty to those who stood in its way. ‘Whereas Hitler killed by categories,’ Lunghi remarked, ‘Stalin despatched by numbers.’ Stalin’s decision to halt his armies outside Warsaw in August 1944 – which allowed the Germans to crush the Polish resistance (opposed to Stalin’s puppet regime) – was seen by the British as clear evidence of both. ‘We were shocked by his callous refusal to let Allied planes use Soviet air bases to drop aid to the Poles,’ Lunghi stated. ‘He seemed indifferent to the suffering of the insurgents.’

Underneath Stalin’s restraint and self-control – the face he showed to the West – Hugh Lunghi remembered moments when the mask seemed to slip. Once, during a presentation by the Soviet Union’s foreign minister, the ice-cold Vyacheslav Molotov – whose impenetrable demeanour and immovable resolution during negotiations earned him (amongst the Western Allies) the nickname ‘Old Stone Ass’ – Stalin suddenly walked into the room. Lunghi noticed how Molotov began to stutter. On another occasion, when Churchill presented Stalin with the sword of Stalingrad at Teheran, the Soviet leader passed it to Kliment Voroshilov, who clumsily grasped the wrong end and let it fall from the scabbard. Stalin said nothing – but Lunghi noticed his clenched fists, white to the knuckle. After the ceremony was concluded, a mortified Voroshilov ran after Churchill and enlisted Lunghi’s help in making a fulsome apology. The British prime minister took it in good part and a hugely relieved Voroshilov (a long-standing but incompetent crony of Stalin’s) then wished him ‘Happy Birthday!’ Voroshilov was in fact a day early. ‘The old fool can’t even get that right!’ Churchill growled. Underneath the humour, Lunghi was struck by the raw fear that the Soviet leader instilled – even among his closest associates.

But even such ideological opponents as Stalin and Churchill could work together. The two had first met in Moscow in August 1942. Many of the discussions were difficult. The Germans had begun a new attack in the south, breaking through Russian defences and driving towards Stalingrad. The Soviet Union feared that Turkey and even Japan might enter the war in support of Hitler, who had already enlisted Hungarian, Italian and Romanian armies for his new offensive. Russia felt isolated and alone – and Churchill had to relay the difficult news that there would be no Second Front that year and the Arctic convoys had been suspended. At a banquet, Stalin taunted the British prime minister about his lack of resolve and made a slighting remark about his support for the White Russians in the civil war of 1918–20, a war that had ended in a communist victory. Churchill was not intimidated – and did not seek to appease Stalin: ‘I make no secret of my detestation of Bolshevism,’ was his frank rejoinder. Stalin was impressed by Churchill’s candour. ‘Better an honest enemy than a duplicitous friend,’ he observed to those around him.

At this first, August meeting, Stalin had insinuated that the British Royal Navy lacked courage. Churchill – well aware of the heroism shown by those in the Arctic convoys – was having none of this and abruptly ended the proceedings. Stalin realised that he had gone too far – and in a gesture of reconciliation invited the British prime minister to an impromptu supper in his private apartments in the Kremlin. It is hard to imagine a more unusual banquet. The Soviet and British delegations were simply abandoned as Stalin led Churchill through a succession of darkened rooms, struggling with a large bunch of keys, with one British interpreter in tow. A bewildered Churchill was then introduced to Stalin’s housekeeper and daughter Svetlana, a meat dish prepared and drinks poured. Later Molotov made an appearance, accompanied by a Soviet interpreter. The two leaders talked, joked and struck up a rapport. At the end of the evening Churchill said to his interpreter, Arthur Birse: ‘I can do business with this man.’