After Hitler: The Last Ten Days of World War II in Europe (51 page)

The Soviet Union had by now lost patience with the situation. On 20 May
Pravda
referred to the Dönitz administration as a ‘gang’, writing caustically: ‘Discussion of the status of the Fascist gang around Dönitz continues. Some in allied circles clearly deem it necessary to make use of the “services” of Dönitz and his Nazi collaborators.’

The following day the Supreme Allied Command and the Soviet High Command took a joint decision to dispense with the administration entirely. On 23 May British tanks and soldiers appeared on the streets of Flensburg and the Dönitz regime was escorted aboard the ship
Patria.
In front of American major general Lowell Rooks, British brigadier Edward Foord and Soviet major general Nikolai Trusov the so-called government was formally dissolved. Admiral Von Friedeburg committed suicide shortly afterwards; Dönitz, Jodl, Speer and the others went into captivity.

On the same day a dishevelled fugitive was captured by British soldiers on the bridge at Bremervörde in northern Germany. He had shaved off his moustache and was clumsily disguised with an eye patch. The man was taken into custody and his real identity became apparent. He was Heinrich Himmler. He killed himself during a medical examination by biting into a cyanide capsule embedded in one of his teeth. One of the most powerful men in Hitler’s Third Reich, the head of the SS and the architect of the Holocaust, he had spent his last few days sleeping rough in local railway stations.

In the twilight of Hitler’s rule, Himmler had tried unsuccessfully to divide the Grand Alliance, offering peace terms to the West but not to the East. His overtures had been spurned. But after the arrest of the entire Flensburg administration on 23 May, Sir Orme Sargent wrote: ‘We bungled the Dönitz business … By first playing with the Dönitz government we only aroused suspicion in Moscow.’

The Dönitz regime did indeed come close to creating a rift between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union in the last days of the war. But now its divisive influence was finally removed.

In the weeks after VE-Day President Truman’s attention firmly turned towards the Pacific. American forces were now in the midst of a bloody battle for the island of Okinawa, and he wanted to ensure that the Soviet Union joined the war against Japan – and that the difficulties at the San Francisco Conference were resolved. As a result, he was prepared to be more accommodating towards Russia.

Winston Churchill admired the courage of the Russian people but also saw the cruelty inherent in the Soviet system. He remained deeply concerned over eastern Europe’s political future. ‘An iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind it,’ the British prime minister had warned in a telegram to President Truman. Churchill was captivated by the phrase ‘iron curtain’, but should have thought more about its origins. He felt deeply for the fate of Poland – but was caught up in his own prejudices over Bolshevism.

Stalin was enmeshed in a web of prejudices of his own. In a reception given to honour the Red Army on 24 May the Soviet leader proposed a toast to the Russian people in which he fleetingly acknowledged the mistakes he and his government had made at the beginning of the war. A month later a magnificent Victory Parade was held on Moscow’s Red Square – where captured Nazi banners and standards were triumphantly cast at the foot of Lenin’s Mausoleum. But the repression of independent thinking – at home and in those countries under Soviet influence – intensified. Stalin ruled through fear – and at the war’s end he would not loosen his control over his own people or those in the states around him.

The Soviet leader did not trust the West – but nevertheless genuinely hoped that the hard-won spirit of cooperation would outlast the war. Russia had its own suspicions about Western intentions for post-war Europe. The chief of intelligence for the 2nd Belorussian Front had reported to the Soviet High Command:

Rumours abound about an upcoming clash between Britain and the Soviet Union. It is spoken about openly in German POW camps and also amongst the several thousand Poles in the area around Lübeck who are now enrolling in the Anders Army. At Neustadt – where a lot of Wehrmacht troops have surrendered – some German officers have not even been confined. One British captain remarked that sooon the Allies would be using Germans to fight against Russia.

After VE-Day the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Soviet General Staff (the GRU) intercepted Churchill’s instructions to Field Marshal Montgomery to collect and store captured German weapons for a possible rearming of Wehrmacht troops surrendering to the Western Allies. These were passed on directly to Stalin. According to a GRU senior official, General Mikhail Milstein, the report created a mood of deep suspicion within the Kremlin.

That suspicion could, however, be thawed.

At the end of May, on President Truman’s urging, the American Harry Hopkins paid a special visit to Moscow. Hopkins was a remarkable figure. An architect of the New Deal and a brilliant administrator, from the late 1930s – after an operation for stomach cancer – he suffered from constant ill-health. And yet he remained a gregarious and charismatic figure and during the war worked – at considerable cost to himself – as a tireless diplomat. He had held no official position within the administration of Franklin J. Roosevelt during the war years but his influence with the late president was enormous. And he won the respect of Winston Churchill. The British prime minister said of their first meeting:

Thus I met Harry Hopkins, an extraordinary man, who played, and was to play, a sometimes decisive part in the whole movement of the war. His was a soul that flamed out of a frail and failing body. He was a crumbling lighthouse from which there shone the beams that led great fleets to harbour. He also had a gift of sardonic humour. I enjoyed his company, especially when things went ill … Hopkins always went to the heart of the matter.

Harry Hopkins’ practicality was praised by the acerbic US chief of naval operations, Admiral Ernest King: ‘Hopkins did a lot to keep the President [Roosevelt] on beam,’ King said. ‘I’ve seldom seen a man whose head was screwed on so tight.’ And US Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall even wrote to Hopkins’ future wife (his third marriage, to Lucy Macy, a former editor of
Harper’s Bazaar
, which took place in 1942) expressing his concerns: ‘To be frank, I am intensely interested in Harry’s happiness, and therefore in your impending marriage,’ Marshall confided, ‘as he is of great importance to our national interests and he is one of the most imprudent people regarding his health that I have ever known. I express the hope that you will find it possible to see he takes the necessary rest.’

Marshall’s concern was well founded. On his return from one visit to Russia, Hopkins had to be given a blood transfusion and eighteen hours’ forced convalescence. His digestive tract was in such bad shape that he could hardly absorb nutrients – and he seemed to exist on a diet of whisky and cigarettes. And still he continued to work. General Sir Alan Brooke, the British Army chief of staff, wrote of his unorthodox yet highly effective style:

I met with Hopkins, expecting to be taken into his office. Instead, we went to his bedroom where we sat on the edge of his bed looking at his shaving brush and tooth paste, whilst he let me into some of the President’s inner thoughts. I mention this meeting as it was so typical of this strange man with no official position, and yet one of the most influential people with the President [Roosevelt]. A man who played a great and nebulous part in the war. A great part, that did him all the more credit when his miserable health was taken into account.

Throughout the war, Hopkins had been the top American dealing with the Soviet Union. He regularly met with Anastas Mikoyan, the Soviet trade secretary, over the administration of Lend-Lease. He had often explained Roosevelt’s plans to Stalin and other top Soviet officials, in order to enlist Russian support for American objectives, and in turn explained Stalin’s goals and needs to Roosevelt. He was the foremost decision-maker in Lend-Lease, and he gave priority to supplying the Soviet Union because they were bearing the brunt of the war. And of all the Americans involved in the relations between the two countries, Hopkins was the man the Russians most trusted.

On the death of Roosevelt, Hopkins attempted to retire because of his ill-health, but at the end of May 1945 President Truman persuaded him to make a last visit to Moscow. Truman wanted to achieve some sort of resolution over the issue of Poland. If anyone could do this, it was Hopkins. The American president wrote directly to Stalin. ‘I am sure you are as aware as I am of the difficulty in dealing by exchange of messages with the complicated and important questions with which we are faced,’ Truman stated, suggesting that Hopkins be sent to Russia to discuss matters personally with the Soviet leader. ‘I readily accept your proposal,’ Stalin responded warmly. Hopkins was given carte blanche at the negotiating table by the American president, Truman adding that ‘he was free to use diplomatic language or a baseball bat – whichever he felt was right’.

Hopkins preferred diplomatic language, but he was frank with Joseph Stalin and the Soviet leader was frank with him. Their discussions were forthright – but cordial and constructive. Averell Harriman, the American ambassador to Moscow, accompanied Hopkins, and he found proceedings far more positive than he had expected. Numerous misunderstandings were resolved.

At the beginning, there was a revealing interchange. Hopkins spoke of perceptions in the Western press about Poland. Stalin was irritated by this remark, and said in return that he would not cloak his own concerns behind a screen of ‘so-called public opinion’. The Soviet leader took little heed of public opinion within the Soviet Union and initially saw this as a negotiating ploy by the American. But when Hopkins visibly flinched he reconsidered his stance. In subsequent remarks, Stalin added that he had not meant to deride Hopkins’ observations.

The Bolshevik state had evolved in isolation from the international community and remained deeply suspicious of it. And yet it was willing to learn – and if it considered its attitudes unjustified, was prepared to correct them. Harry Hopkins was such an effective negotiator with the Russians because he dispensed with ideological differences as much as possible and focused on the issues themselves.

At the end of three days of meetings, from 26 to 28 May, a compromise over Poland was reached. The Lublin government would be recognised by the Western Allies. In return, four ministerial posts in the new Polish government would be offered to non-communists. It was a far cry from free and fair elections, but in the circumstances it was probably the best deal that could be obtained and Hopkins – ‘who always went to the heart of the matter’ – had pulled it off.

In a personal meeting with Stalin, Hopkins also raised the issue of the sixteen arrested Poles. The Soviet leader insisted that they would have to stand trial. Hopkins made it clear how badly this would come across in Western public opinion. Again, a compromise was reached. The majority of Poles would receive light sentences – a promise that was kept by the Russians.

Britain and America now cut off relations with the Polish government-in-exile. For many Poles, this was a most unpalatable solution. Even with the ministerial posts for non-communists, a government ‘friendly to the Soviet people’ had largely been imposed upon the country. The arrangements for Poland’s future were nevertheless ratified when the Big Three met for the last time at the Potsdam Conference, from 17 July to 2 August 1945.

Potsdam was only 26 miles south-west of Berlin. At the beginning of the conference President Truman and Prime Minister Winston Churchill took the opportunity to visit the war-damaged German capital. Truman arrived at the ruined Reich Chancellery first. He surveyed the seat of Hitler’s regime, commented on the scale of destruction and the plight of the city’s inhabitants, but remained in his military jeep and was soon driven off again. Churchill’s reaction was rather different. He clambered out of his vehicle, and accompanied by an escort of British and Russian soldiers proceeded to explore the depths of the Führer Bunker. Churchill wished to make a connection with Hitler’s last stand in Berlin – and he concluded his visit in the courtyard next to the bunker, where the corpses of the Führer and Eva Braun were carried out and cremated.

Stalin chose not to visit Berlin at all. The Soviet leader appeared to show no interest in the city his soldiers had fought so hard to win or the bunker where his great foe had met his end. Stalin was always disengaged from the human dimension but his nonchalance may have been a front. In the summer of 1941 Hitler’s surprise attack on Russia had left his country teetering on the brink of destruction and for a period of several days plunged the Soviet leader into total despair. He had then rallied – but that dark moment was something he probably wanted to avoid recalling. The ruined Reich Chancellery may well have been a painful reminder to him.

Now the brutal war had finally been won. Harry Hopkins understood how to deal with Russia better than any other Westerner. Nevertheless, on his return from Moscow, he expressed ‘serious doubts over long-term collaboration with the Soviet Union’. He realised that the two countries’ outlooks were very different, and predicted that ‘the American belief in freedom might well lead to insuperable differences between them’.

The world was moving on. The atomic bomb had been tested by the Americans and would shortly be used on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. At Potsdam President Truman acknowledged the existence of the bomb and his plans for it to Stalin only obliquely. In an interval between sessions he told the Soviet leader that America had discovered ‘a weapon of unusual destructive force’, without disclosing further details. The United States had chosen not to share this new technology with Russia.

It was a watershed moment. The Western Allies now held a powerful military advantage although the Soviets would obtain much of the information anyway, through their espionage system within the United States. In private, Soviet foreign minister Molotov told Stalin: ‘The Americans have been doing all this work on the atom bomb without telling us.’ ‘We were supposed to be allies,’ the Soviet leader retorted. Mistrust between East and West was growing. There would be no more meetings between Britain, America and the Soviet Union. The Cold War era was approaching.