The Second World War - Squarespace · Western Allies and would be resolved before the end of 1942. The People’s . E 4 4. History of the Second World War, The Second World War. 20.

Bulletin du Comité international d'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale

The Second World War in 20th Century History

Oslo — August 11-12, 2000

19th International Congress of Historical Sciences

n° 30/31 - 1999/2000

Bulletin of the International Committee for the History of the Second World War

The Second World War in 20th Century History

Contents

I - NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DIMENSIONS OF THE WAR

The End of the Grand Alliance. New Documents and Materials.......................... 11 Oleg RZHESHEVSKY, Mikhail Yu. MYAGKOV (Russia)

The Bitter Fruit of Victory: Churchill and an Unthinkable Operation, 1945 ..................................................................... 27

David DILKS (United Kingdom)

Between Self-Determination and Subordination: the Smaller Powers of East-Central Europe in the Policy of the Big Three.......................................... 51

Magdalena HULAS (Poland) New Conditions for the Development of Hungarian Society Before and During the Second World War (1938-1945) in Comparison with Central and Eastern Europe ................................................. 65

Péter SIPOS (Hungary)

Judicial Crimes as an Instrument of Internal Warfare and Subject of Post-War Justice in Austria, A comparison of WW I and II ............................. 75

Claudia KURETSIDIS-HAIDER, Hans HAUTMANN (Austria)

The Bomb, the People and the Media ..................................................................... 93 Tomoyoshi HIRAI (Japan)

The Sino-American Relationships in World War II: September 1940-May 1943....................................................................................103

SHI PING (China)

II- THE LEGACY OF THE WAR IN A LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVE

A Fourth Arm - Some Aspects of the British Experience of Special Forces and Irregular Warfare During and After the Second World War ..........115

Mark SEAMAN (United Kingdom)

The Place of the Second World War in the Internal Evolution of Post-War Slovenia and Yugoslavia ..................................................................127

BoÏo REPE (Slovenia) The Victory of World War II and Post-War World Peace and Development ...................................................................................................145

Li DIANREN (China)

Current Views of World War II in Japan .............................................................153 Takashi SAITO (Japan)

The Second World War in American History and Memory ................................161 Mark A. STOLER (USA)

La Seconde Guerre mondiale et la “Wehrmacht” dans la mémoire culturelle de l’après-guerre allemand (1945-1955) ............................................175

Jörg ECHTERNKAMP (Germany) Historiographie de guerre et historiographie du temps présent : cadres institutionnels en Europe occidentale (1945-2000).................................191

Pieter LAGROU (France)

Bibliographical essays

World War II in the Historiography of the GDR. A Selected Bibliography.......219 Margarete PIESCHE, Gerhart HASS, Werner RÖHR (Germany)

The Second World War Revisited. New Perspectives on the Eve of the 21st Century? Literature. 1995-2000 ..........................................................245

Dick VAN GALEN LAST (The Netherlands)

ABSTRACTS...........................................................................................................309 AUTHORS...............................................................................................................317 INDEX.....................................................................................................................323

BUREAU DU COMITÉ INTERNATIONAL D'HISTOIRE

DE LA DEUXIÈME GUERRE MONDIALE

PRÉSIDENT D'HONNEUR : Harry PAAPE (PAYS-BAS) PRÉSIDENT : David DILKS (ROYAUME UNI) VICE-PRÉSIDENTS : Dusan BIBER (SLOVÉNIE) Donald S. DETWILER (ÉTATS-UNIS) Gerhard HIRSCHFELD

(ALLEMAGNE) Oleg A. RZHESHEVSKY (RUSSIE) SECRÉTAIRE GÉNÉRAL : Henry ROUSSO (FRANCE) TRÉSORIER : Peter ROMIJN (PAYS-BAS) MEMBRES : Norman HILLMER (CANADA)

Magdalena HULAS (POLOGNE) Domokos KOSARY (HONGRIE) Ivar KRAGLUND (NORVÈGE) Viorica MOÏSIUC (ROUMANIE)

Président Professor David Dilks Wits End Long Causeway Leeds LS16 8EX (Royaume-Uni)

Secrétaire général Henry Rousso

IHTP-CNRS École normale supérieure de Cachan

61, avenue du Président Wilson 94235 Cachan Cedex (France)

Trésorier : Dr. Peter Romijn NIOD – Herengracht 380 1016 CJ Amsterdam (Pays-Bas)

Rédaction du Bulletin n° 30/31 Gabrielle Muc-Drigeard (IHTP - CNRS) École normale supérieure de Cachan 61, avenue du Président Wilson 94235 Cachan Cedex (France)

téléphone : 33 1 47 40 68 00 e-mail : [email protected]

[email protected]

Avant-propos*

Le lecteur trouvera dans ce numéro spécial du Bulletin du Comité

international d’histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale une série de contributions pour le congrès du CIHDGM d’août 2000, à Oslo, dans le cadre du XIXe Congrès international des sciences historiques.

Fort du succès rencontré par cette formule lors du précédent congrès, à Montréal, en 1995, le bureau a pris la décision de renouveler l’expérience du premier « Blue Book », et d’offrir un ensemble destiné à nourrir une discussion ouverte sur le thème retenu en cette fin de millénaire : l’histoire du second conflit mondial dans la perspective de l’histoire générale du XXe siècle.

L’ensemble comprend deux parties. La première porte plus spécifiquement sur la guerre elle-même, avec des contributions sur les aspects militaires, diplomatiques, et politiques, ainsi que sur les conséquences à court terme du conflit. Il s’intéresse également à des événements qui ont marqué la fin de la guerre et l’immédiat après-guerre.

La seconde partie porte sur les effets à long terme de la guerre, que ce soit dans le cadre des relations internationales, que ce soit dans le registre d’une histoire de la mémoire, des représentations et des usages du passé.

Le volume se clôt par deux essais bibliographiques. Il est important de rappeler que ces textes nous ont été adressés par nos

correspondants nationaux, qui sont au nombre d’une trentaine, situés dans toutes les régions du globe. Si le Comité a accepté de les publier, il rappelle que ces textes n’engagent que leurs auteurs, que ce soit par leurs options scientifiques ou méthodologiques, que ce soit par leurs éventuelles considérations politiques et idéologiques.

Tel quel, cet ensemble nous paraît constituer un reflet, certes incomplet, de l’historiographie actuelle de la Seconde Guerre mondiale dans toute sa diversité, mais il a pour vocation de nourrir une discussion qui n’est pas prête de se clore sur le sujet.

Pour le bureau, David Dilks, Peter Romijn, Henry Rousso

* Le bureau du comité remercie Marianne Ranson, ancienne secrétaire générale de l’Institut d’histoire du temps présent, pour son aide dans la relecture du manuscrit qui a été également revu par David Dilks, président du Comité.

Foreword*

The reader will find in this special issue of the Bulletin of the International

Committee for the History of the Second World War a series of contributions for the August 2000 congress of the ICHSWW, in Oslo, in the framework of the 19th International Congress of Historical Sciences.

Since this formula met with such success at the preceding congress in 1995 at Montreal, the executive board made the decision to repeat the experiment of the first “ Blue Book ”, and to offer a collection destined to nourish an open discussion on the theme reserved for the end of the millennium : the history of the Second World War in the perspective of the general history of the 20th century.

The collection comprises two parts. The first consists specifically of the war itself, with contributions on military, diplomatic, and political aspects, as well as on the short-term consequences of the conflict. It covers equally the events that marked the end of the war and the immediate postwar period.

The second part focuses on the long-term effects of the war, either in the framework of international relations, or in that of the record of a history of memory, representations, and the uses of the past.

The volume ends with two bibliographical essays. It is important to recall that these texts had been sent to us by our national

correspondents who, located all over the world, number about thirty. If the Committee has accepted to publish them, we remind you that these texts are the sole responsibility of the authors and reflect their scientific and methodological options whatever their eventual political or ideological considerations.

As it is, this collection appears to constitute a reflection, certainly incomplete, of the current historiography of the Second World War in all of its diversity, but it aims to nourish a discussion that is not ready to close the subject.

On behalf of the Executive Board David Dilks, Peter Romijn, Henry Rousso

* The executive board of the Committee expresses his thanks to Marianne Ranson, former general secretary of the Institut d’histoire du temps présent, for her help in re-reading the manuscript that was also looked over by David Dilks, President of the Committee.

The Second World War in the 20th Century History

I – NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DIMENSIONS OF THE WAR

The End of the Grand Alliance. New Documents and Materials

Oleg A. RZHESHEVSKY Mikhail Yu. MYAGKOV

The leaders of the States of the Grand Alliance, the Big Three, met once

again at Potsdam, near Berlin, in July 1945. Less than half a year had passed since the previous conference at Yalta, but the composition of the conference’s leadership had changed significantly. President Roosevelt, the acknowledged arbitrator in the discussions of the Big Three, died shortly before the Potsdam Conference, leaving the new president, Harry Truman, to represent the United States. Winston Churchill left the July 1945 conference soon after its opening and was replaced by Clement Attlee, the leader of the Labour Party which had won the British parliamentary elections. Of those who had built the coalition and led it to victory, only Stalin remained. The relations between the leaders of the three Great Powers changed perceptibly, as evidenced, in particular, from the Potsdam documents kept the in Foreign Policy Archives of the Russian Federation. The first document, dated July 17, 1945, was submitted by Truman and demanded immediate reorganisation of the existing governments in Rumania and Bulgaria (see annex 1). The second is the reply of July 20 submitted by the Soviet delegation. The memorandum refutes the arguments of the American document and points to the fact that “terrorism rages in Greece [occupied by British troops - Auth.], which is directed against the democratic elements that had borne the brunt of the struggle against German invaders for the liberation of Greece”1 (see annex 2). Measured by the international standard, the Potsdam Conference was an important and, for the most part, productive event, which exerted a positive effect on post-war peacemaking. Meanwhile, hardly any of the delegation heads cherished an illusion that it was not the last meeting of the Big Three.

The parties did collaborate, but they mistrusted each other (see annex 3). Sharp contradictions surfaced in such cardinal matters as the opening of the second front (strategy) and the post-war order in the Eastern European States bordering on the Soviet Union (geopolitics), and things took an irreversible character after the United States developed and mastered nuclear weapons.

1. Foreign Policy Archives of the Russian Federation, 0639/2/1/8, pp. 40, 148-149.

O. Rzheshevsky, M. Mjakov

12

Changes that have taken place on the international arena in the past decade and the availability of many documents declassified recently offer us an opportunity to take a fresh approach to evaluating the basis of the conflict of interests between the Allies in 1941-1945. All the more so since the ghost of a unipolar world brings us back to the dilemma facing Roosevelt in the years of the Second World War: he had no doubt that the security of nations depended on Allied Great Powers, but he was troubled by the question of who would control the observers themselves and how.2 For Great Britain and the United States, the opening of the second front was more a question of implementing their strategy whereas for the Soviet Union, it was also a problem of saving the lives of millions of Soviet people. The Allied forces landing in France helped decrease the losses of the Red Army and civilian population, and drive the enemy faster from the occupied lands. However, the second front was of critical significance for the Soviet Union at certain stages of warfare in 1941-1943. On his visits to London and Washington in May and June 1942, Vyacheslav Molotov was assured, in principle, by the US government and, with reservations, by the British, that the question of the Allied troops landing in Europe was an “urgent task” of the Western Allies and would be resolved before the end of 1942. The People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR remained sceptical about these assurances, but Stalin, as is evident from the documents found in his personal archives, believed at that stage of the war that aid from the Allies in the immediate future was really coming. With this in view, the Soviet leader even removed the demand to restore the 1941 Soviet frontiers after the end of the war from the agenda. Agreements on the opening of the second front in 1942 were far more important! 3

Time passed, but the second front had not been established. 1942, the hardest year for the Soviet Union, ended after the Battle of Stalingrad with its defeats and a glimpse of victory. It became clear after the British-US conference in Casablanca in January 1943 that the Allied forces would not launch an offensive in France even during that year. The joint message on the conference results sent by Churchill and Roosevelt to Stalin contained no information on concrete operations and dates, but hopefully said: « these

2. W. F. Kimball, “’Semeiny krug’ : poslevoyennyi mir glazami Ruzvelta”, Voprosy Istorii, 1990, n° 12, p. 5.

3. O. A. Rzheshevsky, War and Diplomacy. The Making of the Grand Alliance. From Stalin’s Archives (Amsterdam, 1996), pp. 123, 160-161.

THE END OF THE GRAND ALLIANCE

13

operations, together with your powerful offensive, will most likely bring Germany to her knees in 1943 ».4

Moscow understood the hidden motives of this vague utterance very well, as is manifest in the request made by Stalin to Churchill and Roosevelt in his message of January 30, 1943: “[...] I would be much obliged to you, he wrote, for informing us of concrete planned operations in this area and the scheduled terms of carrying them out”.5

Upon consulting with Roosevelt, the British Prime Minister sent a reassuring reply to the Soviet party: “We are also making energetic preparations, to the limit of our resources, for an operation of crossing the Channel in August, in which British troops and US units will be engaged... If the operation has to be postponed because of weather conditions or other circumstances, it will be prepared, with the participation of larger forces, for September”.6

Some Western historians call it deliberate deceit, and with good reason.7 While reiterating their willingness to open a second front in Europe in 1943, the Governments of the United States and Britain were actually preparing for further hostilities in the Mediterranean theatre of war. However, deception could not last long, and after his next meeting with Churchill in Washington in May 1943, Roosevelt communicated to Moscow that the opening of the second front had been postponed to 1944.

It was the same story over and over again: the Allies announced the postponement of the second front opening on the eve of the Wehrmacht’s summer onslaught in 1942. The same happened in 1943. The subsequent exchange of messages only exacerbated the situation, as the United States and Britain had exhausted convincing arguments in favour of the position they held.8

The Allies were facing a serious crisis in their relations. In addition to the postponed landing, the Lend-Lease supplies to the USSR were cut down. The diplomatic relations between the USSR and the Polish government-in-exile in London were actually severed in April, after German propaganda announced

4. Perepiska Predsedatelya Soveta Ministrov SSSR s Prezidentami SShA i Premier-Ministrom Velikobritanii vo vremya Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny 1941-1945 gg., vol. 1 (Moscow, Politizdat, 1986, 2nd ed.), p. 104.

5. Ibid., p. 108. 6. Ibid., p. 113. 7. A. Levine, British, American and Soviet Political Aims and Military Strategies

1941-1945. A Study in the Beginnings of the « Cold War » (1983), p. 772. 8. Perepiska Predsedatelya Soveta..., op. cit., vol. 1, p. 159.


14

that the bodies of Polish officers executed by NKVD in 1940 had been found near Katyn. The US diplomat, William Standley, criticised the Soviet Government for its inattentiveness to the aid the United States rendered the Soviet Union; the US Government hastened to replace him.

Soviet ambassadors Ivan Maisky and Maxim Litvinov were recalled from London and Washington soon afterwards. There is a version referring to that period that Molotov met with Ribbentrop in Kirovograd.9 Available indirect evidence suggests that it was in fact misinformation intended by the Soviet government for the leaders of Great Britain and the United States.10 Misinformation of this kind was useful to the Soviet Union in many aspects, urging its Western Allies to comprehend the danger of being left face to face with Hitler and accelerate the invasion of Europe.

The second front was established in 1944. Moscow hailed this momentous event wholeheartedly. The actions of the Red Army began to be co-ordinated with the actions of the Western Allies in Europe. Meanwhile, from May 1942 to June 1944, the irretrievable losses (killed, prisoners, and missing) of the Soviet Armed Forces alone reached more than five million people.11

As soon as the Red Army entered the territories of Eastern European countries, disagreement on their post-war settlement increased. To understand why this happened, the following circumstances should be taken into consideration. The Soviet Union saw the creation of a safety zone on its western borders in Europe, based on the 1941 frontiers with the friendly neighbouring States – Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Poland, Finland and Norway – as a major geopolitical goal to be achieved in the course of the war. Remaining independent, these States were to serve as a kind of watershed between the spheres of influence of the Soviet Union and other Great Powers. Western Allies were against such developments; they feared that the Soviet Union would go further and not confine itself to including Eastern European States into the sphere of its influence. It was important for Great Britain and the United States to bind the Soviet Union by treaty commitments before the Red Army reached Central Europe. At the same time, some Western politicians understood that the Soviet Union would

9. B. Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War (London, 1970), p. 488; Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, 9/31/46.

10. P. Sudoplatov, Razvedka i Kreml. Zapiski nezhelatelnogo svidetelya, Moscow, 1996, pp. 173-174; Foreign Relations of the United States. Diplomatic Papers, 1943, vol. III (Washington, 1963), pp. 683, 686, 695-697, 698-699.

11. Grif sekretnosti snyat. Poteri vooruzhennykh sil SSSR v voinakh, boevykh deistviyakh i voyennykh konfliktakh (Moscow, 1993), pp. 157-158.


15

not abandon the goal of securing its post-war frontiers and would not tolerate the restoration of a hostile “sanitary cordon” there.

The heads of the Soviet and British delegations did not reach mutual understanding about the issues of frontiers and spheres of influence during the visit of the British Foreign Secretary Eden to Moscow in December 1941. The Soviet additional protocols to the draft of the British-Soviet treaty of alliance required the acknowledgement of the 1941 western frontier of the Soviet Union, which was unacceptable to the Western Allies at that time.12

Churchill cautioned Eden against being sharp with Stalin.13 In principle, he was not against making certain territorial concessions to the Soviet Union. However, the official position of London, expressed in Churchill’s telegram of December 21, 1941 to Attlee boiled down to saying that the articles of the Atlantic Charter must be observed and that compromise on Finland, the Baltic States, and Rumania was impossible.14 But such a state of affairs did not satisfy the Soviet leaders.

Back in London, Eden and other members of the British government continued to examine the issue of restoring the 1941 Soviet frontiers and possible extension of Soviet influence over Eastern Europe. The British Foreign Secretary noted in a secret memorandum submitted to the Cabinet on January 28, 1942 that when Germany was defeated, there might be no other force left in Europe capable of withstanding Russia. Soviet policies should be evaluated in terms of the course of war. Taking into consideration the position of the United States, it was practically impossible to neglect the Atlantic Charter now. Moreover, there were no grounds to assume that Stalin’s demand was final. Eden proposed not to make any concessions to the Soviets unless getting something in return.

In Eden’s opinion, by making its demands, the Soviet Union was trying to test its Western Allies and find out whether they were ready to accept a compromise in the interest of establishing post-war collaboration. “Any proposal we are going to make must be based on the requirement of Russia’s ‘security’ which the Soviet Union has been striving for since 1917, i.e., creation of such strategic situation which would make it possible for the Soviet Government to complete social and economic corporation inside

12. O. A. Rzheshevsky, op. cit., pp. 22-26. 13. W. S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3: The Grand Alliance (Boston,

1978), p. 620. 14. See M. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 7: Road to Victory, 1941-1945

(London, 1986), p. 15.


16

Russia without being intimidated by foreign intervention or war [...]”15 Eden seemed to touch upon the very essence of the Soviet position. However, he proposed to put a ceiling on Soviet demands by offering Russia military bases in the Baltic States in exchange for the implementation of British plans (see annex 4).

After the German 6th Army was encircled at Stalingrad – which demonstrated that the Soviet Union was capable of crushing Germany unaided – the position of Western Allies on post-war Soviet frontiers underwent some changes. Informing the British Foreign Office of a conversation with the US Under-Secretary of State, Summer Welles, Lord Halifax wrote that Welles thought that if the German machine collapsed soon, the American and British Governments would witness the Red Army’s entry into Eastern Europe, and would be unable to bring pressure on Soviet leaders any more. “Such expansion of Bolshevism would produce an utterly unfavourable impact on American public opinion, let alone the damage to European reconstruction”. Welles found it imperative to reach joint British-American agreement with the Soviet Government beforehand. As for Roosevelt’s opinion, the US President thought that Stalin “would be satisfied with the acquisition of Estonia, Latvia, and Bessarabia, turning Petsamo into a Russian port, and creating a neutral zone in Karelia. Lithuania and Bukovina must not be attached to the Soviet Union... Wilno and Lwow must remain Polish [...]”.16

Western leaders watched the successes of the Red Army in the following months of the war with increasing alarm, and viewed them as a threat of European Bolshevisation. Speaking figuratively, “Behind the wartime screen of diplomatic formulae and propagandistic flourishes, ‘Big Three’ alliance politics were strained affairs barely concealing fundamental antipathies and animosities, at best momentarily smothering them in the interests of bargaining for or buying the immediate prospects of survival and possibly nurturing hopes for a better post-war world”.17

Soviet troops advanced to the territories of Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, and practically stood on the Greek border in the fall of 1944. Churchill arrived in Moscow in October, bringing a plan for dividing the spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, on which he had conducted

15. See the complete text of the memorandum in: Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi vneshnei razvedki, vol. 4: 1941-1945 (Moscow, 1999), pp. 552-558.

16. Ibid., pp. 592-593. 17. J. Erickson and D. Dilks, Barbarossa. The Axis and the Allies (Edinburgh,

1994), p. VIII.


17

preliminary negotiations with both Washington and Moscow.18 Information that Stalin rejected the plan, found in the literature of the Soviet period19, does not represent the facts.20 The recently declassified Soviet records of negotiations, as well as subsequent events, testify that Great Britain and the Soviet Union undertook certain steps for practical division of the spheres of influence (Britain in respect of Rumania, and the USSR in respect of Greece). It is our opinion that from the point of view of recent knowledge, it should be recognised that the two leaders tried to come to an understanding about this issue and searched for a compromise in the matters relating to the post-war order in Europe. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs plans to publish a collection of Foreign Policy Documents, dated 1944, where these subjects will be analysed objectively.

The year 1945 came. The Allied armies advanced swiftly from west and east to close in. The decisions of the European Consultative Commission on the occupation zones in Germany and the triumph of the Yalta Conference seemed to alleviate the growing discord. Meanwhile, British documents declassified in 1998 show that soon after the Yalta Conference, Churchill ordered preparations for military operation aimed at ousting the Russian troops by force from Eastern Europe – first from Poland – and to inflicting a defeat on the USSR (see annex 5). As the British Chiefs of Staff Committee, followed by the US military command, voiced their negative attitude to this plan by reason of the Red Army’s overwhelming superiority in Europe, the plan’s further development had been frozen.

Creation of a nuclear weapon by the United States and its employment at the end of the war were decisive factors in the growing controversy between the three Great Powers. The USSR State Committee for Defence learned about the Western Allies’ work on a nuclear project back in late 1941. Similar research was started in the Soviet Union a little later.

American policies toward the Soviet Union changed seriously after the United States achieved nuclear monopoly and Harry Truman acceded to the presidency. The Allied principles came to be replaced by claims and unilateral decisions. Churchill’s February 1946 speech in Fulton, attended by Truman, in which he attacked the Soviet Union, was evaluated in Moscow as “a dangerous act designed for sowing the seeds of contention between the Allied

18. See Churchill and Roosevelt. The Complete Correspondence. Edited with commentary by W. Kimball, vol. 3 (Princeton, 1984), p. 560.

19. Istoriya vtoroi mirovoi voiny 1939-1945, vol. 9 (Moscow, 1978), p. 472. 20. See M. Gilbert, op. cit., pp. 991-1083; A. Utkin, Churchill (Moscow, 1997), p.

501.


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States and impeding their collaboration”.21 The futile attempts to outlaw or establish control over nuclear weapons signified a cardinal change in the balance of the war potential of the Big Three – primarily the USA and USSR –, which resulted in the post-war arms race and a chain of international crises and local wars, and put the world on the brink of a nuclear war. In the early 1970s, when the Soviet Union and the United States attained a relative parity in nuclear weapons and weapon delivery means, the threat had been reduced and the international situation had been stabilised to an extent.

The Grand Alliance had neither been legalised nor disbanded by some particular decisions. Upon achieving its principal goal, it became an object of careful and protracted studies. Now, a century later, it can be stated with confidence that the Grand Alliance occupies a prominent place in the history of the 20th century.

21. I. Stalin, Sochineniya, vol. 16 (Moscow, 1997), p. 25.


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ANNEX 1

Proposal by the US Delegation on the Implementation of the Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe.

Submitted by President Harry Truman at the Meeting of Heads of Governments on July 17, 1945

(Foreign Policy Archives of the Russian Federation, 0639/2/1/8, p. 40). In the Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe, signed on February 11, 1945, the

three Governments assumed certain commitments to the liberated nations of Europe and the peoples of the States – former satellites of the Axis. The commitments assumed on the basis of this Declaration have not been carried out since the Yalta Conference. In the opinion of the Government of the United States, the continuing nonfulfillment of these commitments would be viewed in the whole world as proof of lack of accord between the three Great Powers and would undermine trust in the sincerity of the goals they proclaimed.

Therefore, the Government of the United States proposes the following measures to be coordinated at the present meeting with the aim of carrying out the commitments ensuing from this Declaration: 1. the three Allied Governments shall agree on the need for immediate

reorganisation of the existing governments in Rumania and Bulgaria, in compliance with the article “c” of the third paragraph of the Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe;

2. consultations shall be held promptly to work out any procedures that might be necessary for the reorganisation of these governments for the latter to include representatives of all significant democratic groups. As soon as the reorganisation takes place, these countries will be afforded diplomatic recognition, and peace treaties will be concluded with them;

3. in keeping with the commitments stipulated in the article “d” of the third paragraph of the Declaration on Liberated Europe, the three Governments shall consider the best ways of assisting any interim governments in holding free and unfettered elections. Assistance of this kind is required urgently in respect to Greece and will be required, in due time, in Rumania, Bulgaria and, possibly, in other countries.


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ANNEX 2

Memorandum of the USSR Delegation on the Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe. Submitted by Molotov

to Byrnes and Eden at the Meeting of Foreign Ministers on July 20, 1945 (Foreign Policy Archives of the Russian Federation, 0639/2/1/8,

pp. 148-149). In connection with the memorandum of the US delegation on the Yalta Declaration

on Liberated Europe, the Soviet Government finds it necessary to state that it cannot agree to the proposals concerning Rumania and Bulgaria set down in the memorandum.

The Soviet Government considers it necessary to draw the attention of the US Government to the fact that there have been proper order and legitimate governments enjoying authority and trusted by the population in Rumania and Bulgaria, as well as in Finland and Hungary, in the period since the governments of the said States signed statements of capitulation. The governments of these States faithfully perform the obligations they assumed under the acts of capitulation. Rumania and Bulgaria provided serious help in armed forces to the United Nations for the fight with German troops, each putting 10-12 divisions against our common enemy. In these circumstances, the Soviet Government sees no grounds to interfere in the internal affairs of Rumania and Bulgaria.

However, there is one country, Greece, where proper order has not been established, where law is not observed and where terrorism rages, which is directed against the democratic elements that had borne the brunt of the struggle against German invaders for the liberation of Greece. Moreover, the present Greek government violates peace with its neighbours and threatens war on Albania and Bulgaria. All these circumstances bring about the necessity of taking urgent measures to do away with such a situation in Greece.

In view of the above, the Soviet Government finds it expedient:

(1) to resume, within the next few days, diplomatic relations with Rumania, Bulgaria, Finland, and Hungary, since further delay in this matter is unjustifiable;

(2) to recommend the Greek Regent to take urgent measures for establishing a democratic government in the spirit of the agreement concluded in Varkiza on February 12, 1945 between the representatives of the then Greek government and the representatives of Greek democracy.

The Soviet Government expresses its confidence that the measures set above will be met with support by the Governments of the United States of America and Great Britain and will be put into effect.


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ANNEX 3

From the History of Soviet Intelligence [(Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi vneshnei razvedki,

vol. 4: 1941-1945, Moscow, 1999, pp. 275-277). Soviet intelligence had to do much work on the Allies – Great Britain and the

United States – in the years of the Second World War. This was necessitated by the interests of inflicting quicker defeat on Nazi Germany and its allies and creating a post-war world order which would exclude any possibility of a repeated aggression against the Soviet State.

The reader may ask a legitimate question: “why then should the Soviet Union spy on its own allies?”. The answer is that although the Allies had a common objective – to stop Hitler’s claims for world supremacy – their means of achieving this goal and approaches to how the world would be organised after the war were different.

While examining the wartime archive documents of the intelligence service, it cannot but come to mind that in those years the Soviet Union had to do more than disover the plans of the German army; it also had to be watchful of the behaviour of its allies – Britain and the USA – whose actual conduct diverged widely from the pledges they made in agreements of alliance. This becomes clear from the intelligence information collected over the war years.

On the night of June 22, 1941, speaking over the radio, Winston Churchill declared that the German attack on the Soviet Union was a next act of aggression and perfidy of the Nazis and a turning point in the world war. He spoke definitely in support of the Soviet Union in the war against Nazi Germany.

The US leaders took a similar stand. The US Under-Secretary of State, Summer Welles, made a statement and defined the German invasion of the Soviet Union as Hitler’s treacherous act of aggression, which directly affected the interests of US defence and security. President Roosevelt confirmed the judgement of Welles and declared that the United States would assist the Soviet Union in every possible way.

Were the official statements made by British and American leaders truly frank? To what extent could the Soviet Union rely on the military and economic aid of the Allies and their joint participation in military operations against Nazi Germany and its satellites?

It was very important for the Soviet leaders to have true information which would give them answers to these complicated questions.

On July 18, 1941, the Central Committee of the Communist Party passed a resolution specifying that the task of the Intelligence service in the period of war was : “to reveal the genuine plans and intentions of our allies, the USA and Britain in particular, in respect to warfare matters, the attitude to the USSR, and problems of post-war settlement”.

This general direction was detailed and concretised in instructions sent by the Centre to its fixed-post Intelligence agents. The Centre’s directive letter to Soviet agents in the United States of November 27, 1941 read: “The USA plays the leading role in the


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world policies of the capitalist countries today. Therefore, it is very important for us to disclose timely the political and diplomatic plans and activities of the USA with respect to the USSR, as well as to Britain, Japan, Germany, and other countries”. When Stalin received the chief of Soviet intelligence, V.M. Zarubin, before his departure for the United States, he stressed that the main task was to give close attention to the position of the US ruling circles and check the chances of their agreement with Nazi Germany with the purpose of ending the war with a separate peace.

As for Britain, the Centre asked the Soviet agents there, taking into account the available net of knowledgeable and reliable informers, to gather information on Germany and the countries it occupied, get themselves posted on the subversive plans and schemes of the pro-German elements in Britain, disclose the British Government’s plans regarding the USSR, and uncover subversive activities of British intelligence against the Soviet Union. Soviet agents were to keep up with the development of British relations with Polish, Czechoslovakian, Yugoslavian, and other governments-in-exile and the British-American relations, and to reveal disagreements on major international problems between Great Britain and the United States.

Even the earliest wartime intelligence information testified that the aims pursued by political leaders of Britain and the USA in that war differed from those of the Soviets. They thought more of weakening Germany as an imperialist rival than of defeating Nazism as soon as possible. They would like to see both Germany and the Soviet Union bled white as a result of war, and thereby achieve a post-war world order which would make it possible for them to impose their will on other countries, the Soviet Union first and foremost.

Already on July 15, 1941, the Intelligence service submitted the following statement to the USSR State Defence Committee: “Although the British Government is fully aware of the scale of danger to Britain in the event the USSR is defeated, and is willing to render assistance to the Soviet Government in compliance with Churchill’s declaration, all British calculations are nevertheless based on the inevitability of the Red Army’s defeat in the nearest future. At the beginning of the war, the Joint Intelligence Committee at the War Cabinet, comprising representatives of the army, navy, air, and political intelligence offices, arrived at the conclusion that the Germans would capture Moscow in three weeks; now they spread the term to five and a half weeks counting from the first day of the campaign”.

Similar information came from intelligence sources in the United States. The Chief of Soviet intelligence in Washington informed the Centre about the hostile tone of the American press in respect to the USSR in his report of August 19, 1941. As soon as the war began, Senator Truman pronounced: “If we see that Germany is winning, we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning, we ought to help Germany and that way let them kill as many as possible [...]” (See The New York Times, June 25, 1941).

Proceeding from information gathered in Britain and the USA, the Soviet intelligence service concluded that there was internal strife concerning the attitude to the Soviet Union’s war with Nazi Germany in these countries.


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ANNEX 4

Soviet Intelligence Report of February 27, 1942 (Ocherki istorii rossiiskoi vneshnei razvedki, vol. 4: 1941-1945, Moscow, 1999, pp. 557-558).

Top Secret. Communication from London. Text of Eden’s Secret Memorandum of January 28, 1942. Circulated among

Members of the Government for Consideration. Agent’s report. The policy regarding Russia [...]

1. We must ensure the acknowledgement by the Soviet Government of the right of Great Britain, reasoning from the foundations of security, to establish bases on the European continent, on the grounds of what Stalin told me on December 16, namely:

– “I think that if France is not restored as a Great Power in the nearest future, it is in your interests to have naval bases on the French coast, for instance, in Boulogne and Dunkirk. Belgium and Holland must be in an open military alliance with Great Britain which must use the right to have naval bases in these countries, as well as station troops if necessary.

– I think this is rather important for Great Britain and also for securing the independence of Belgium and Holland. The Soviet Union will be ready to support you in these plans, which it considers to be important from the point of view of Great Britain”.

2. We must demand that the Soviet Union should accede to paragraph 5 of the British draft agreement of December 16, 1941, namely: “In respect to territorial questions subject to discussion in the peace settlement, both Governments undertake to build their policies on the principle laid down in the joint declaration of the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom which reads that they ‘seek no aggrandisement, territorial or other’ as well as on the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations proclaimed by Stalin in his declaration of November 6, 1941”.

3. We must also ask the Soviet Government to approve formally the principles of federation in respect of the poor countries of Europe, particularly the Balkan ones, as well as in respect of Poland and Czechoslovakia.

4. We should ask the Soviet Government to collaborate with the US and British Governments and with other European nations in preparing the reconstruction of Europe on the basis of article 4 of the draft agreement proposed to Stalin by the Foreign Secretary, which reads:

“The two Contracting Parties undertake to work together for the reconstruction of Europe after the war with full regard to each other’s interests and adhering to the principles of non-aggrandisement of their territories and non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations. The objectives of reconstruction include:


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(a) the safeguarding and strengthening of the economic and political independence of all European countries either as unitary or federated States;

(b) the reconstruction of the industrial and economic life of those countries whose territories have been overrun by the Germans or their allies”.

ANNEX 5

Excerpt from the Plan of a Military Operation against the Soviet Union (See Public Record Office.

CAB 120/691/55911, pp. 1-29) Top Secret Final 22nd May, 1945 War Cabinet Joint Planning Staff Operation “UNTHINKABLE” Report by the Joint Planning Staff We have examined Operation UNTHINKABLE. As instructed, we have taken the

following assumptions on which to base our examination: (a) the undertaking has the full support of public opinion in both the British Empire

and the United States and consequently, the morale of British and American troops continues to be high;

(b) Great Britain and the United States have full assistance from the Polish armed forces and can count upon the use of German manpower and what remains of German industrial capacity;

(c) no credit is taken for assistance from the forces of other Western Powers, although any bases in their territory, or other facilities which may be required, are made available;

(d) Russia allies herself with Japan; (e) the date for the opening of hostilities is 1st July, 1945; (f) redeployment and release schemes continue till 1st July and then stop. Owing to the special need for secrecy, the normal staffs in Service Ministries have

not been consulted. OBJECT

2. The overall or political object is to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and British Empire.

Even though “the will” of these two countries may be defined as no more than a square deal for Poland, it does not necessarily limit the military commitment. A


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quick success might induce the Russians to submit to our will at least for the time being; but it might not. That is for the Russians to decide. If they want total war, they are in a position to have it.

3. The only way in which we can achieve our object with certainty and lasting results is by victory in a total war; but in view of what we have said in paragraph 2 above, on the possibility of quick success, we have thought it right to consider the problem on two hypotheses:

(a) that a total war is necessary, and on this hypothesis we have examined our chances of success;

(b) that the political appreciation is that a quick success would suffice to gain our political object and that the continuing commitment need not concern us.

TOTAL WAR 4. Apart from the chances of revolution in the USSR. and the political collapse of

the present regime – on which we are not competent to express an opinion – the elimination of Russia could only be achieved as a result of:

(a) the occupation of such areas of metropolitan Russia that the war-making capacity of the country would be reduced to a point at which further resistance became impossible;

(d) such a decisive defeat of the Russian forces in the field, as to render it impossible for the USSR to continue the war.

Occupation of vital areas of Russia 5. The situation might develop in such a way that the Russians succeeded in

withdrawing without suffering a decisive defeat. They would then presumably adopt the tactics, which they employed so successfully against the Germans and in previous wars, of making use of the immense distances which their territory provides. In 1942, the Germans reached the Moscow area, the Volga and the Caucasus, but the technique of factory evacuation, combined with the development of new resources and Allied assistance, enabled the USSR to continue fighting.

6. There is virtually no limit to the distance to which it would be necessary for the Allies to penetrate into Russia in order to render further resistance impossible. It is hardly conceivable that the Allies could penetrate even as far as, or as quickly as the Germans in 1942, and this penetration produced no decisive result.

Decisive Defeat of the Russian Forces 7. Details of the present strengths and dispositions of the Russian and Allied forces

are given in annexes II and III and illustrated on Maps A and B. The existing balance of strength in Central Europe, where the Russians enjoy a superiority of approximately three to one, makes it most unlikely that the Allies could achieve a complete and decisive victory in that area in present circumstances. Although


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Allied organisation is better, equipment slightly better and morale higher, the Russians have proved formidable opponents of the Germans. They have competent commanders, adequate equipment and an organisation which, though possibly inferior by our standards, has stood the test. On the other hand, only about one third of their divisions are of a high standard, the others being considerably inferior and with overall mobility well below that of the Allies.

8. To achieve the decisive defeat of Russia in a total war would require, in particular, the mobilisation of manpower to counteract their present enormous manpower resources. This is a very long term project and would involve:

(a) the deployment in Europe of a large proportion of the vast resources of the United States;

(b) the re-equipment and re-organisation of German manpower and of all the Western European Allies.

Conclusions 9. We conclude that:

(a) if our political object is to be achieved with certainty and lasting results, the defeat of Russia in a total war will be necessary;

(b) the result of a total war with Russia is not possible to forecast, but the one thing certain is that to win would take us a very long time.

The Bitter Fruit of Victory: Churchill and an Unthinkable Operation, 1945

David DILKS

When the documents about Operation Unthinkable were released recently

at the Public Record Office in London, the newspaper which first gave extensive coverage to them announced on its front page “Churchill’s plan for Third World War against Stalin” and explained that he had in May 1945 ordered “his War Cabinet to draw up contingency plans for an offensive against Stalin that would lead to the ‘elimination of Russia’ […]”.1

Echoes and reverberations were heard from every part of the world, often in scandalised tones. Many took the very notion of such a war as proof of Churchill’s entrenched hostility towards Russia. Some mistakenly imagined, as The Daily Telegraph had done, that all this was part of the business of the War Cabinet. It was widely assumed that nothing had previously been known on this subject. However, we have only to turn to the diaries of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, published 40 years ago, to find the following entry: “May 24th [1945] This evening I went carefully through the Planners’ Report on the possibility of taking on Russia should trouble arise in our future discussions with her. We were instructed to carry out this investigation. The idea is, of course, fantastic and the chances of success quite impossible. There is no doubt that from now onwards Russia is all-powerful in Europe”.2

That the alliance with Russia had been a troubled one from the beginning is well attested, and there is no need to recount the full saga here. It could hardly have been otherwise, since Russia had been at least a friendly neutral towards Germany until June, 1941, and had supplied the German war machine with essential raw materials for the better part of two years. Once Barbarossa began, and after Pearl Harbour a little less than six months later, the position was transformed. Britain and the Commonwealth no longer stood alone against Germany; the latent strength of the United States began to make itself

1. The Daily Telegraph, Thursday, October 1, 1998, pp. 1, 8-9. 2. A. Bryant, Triumph in the West (London, 1959), pp. 469-470. For the report by

the Joint Planning staff “Operation ‘Unthinkable’”, May 22, 1945 (signed by G. Grantham, G. S. Thompson and W. L. Dawson), see CAB 120/691, Public Record Office, London (hereafter PRO).

David N. Dilks

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felt; the new theatres of war embraced South and South-East Asia, the Far East, Australasia, the whole Pacific; and Russia bore on land, though not at sea or in the air, a far heavier burden than any other partner in the coalition. For roughly two years, from the summer of 1941 until the successful conclusion of the North African campaign, frictions and misunderstandings abounded, but were (as Churchill would have expressed it) drowned in the cannonade. Once the tide of the war had begun to turn, the issue of Russia’s post-war relations with the Allies attracted the attention of the planners in London. The sensitivities were only too obvious and when the Chiefs of Staff Committee in the autumn of 1943 accepted a proposal that a paper on this subject should be prepared, it was laid down that the enquiry should be conducted with the greatest secrecy and on the basis “that it remained the policy of HMG to foster and maintain the friendliest possible relations with the USSR”. More than seven months passed before the first version was produced; it was submitted to the Chiefs of Staff, partly re-written during the month of May, 1944, and returned in a revised version on June 6, the day upon which Overlord was launched.3 At that time, no one knew how quickly the war might end. Many good judges believed that it would be over before Christmas. So it might have been, if the attempt on Hitler’s life had succeeded, or if the Allies had been able to break out more swiftly and decisively from their bridgehead in Normandy; in which event the political situation in Europe after the war would have been utterly different, with the Red Army far to the east of the line which it eventually reached.

Given the possibility that the war might be over within a few weeks, and the near- certainty that it would be won within months, a tension developed in the Post-Hostilities Planning Sub-Committee. The representatives of the armed services believed that Britain must take account of the possibility, however remote, of Russia as an eventual enemy; whereas the chairman of the Sub-Committee, that rising star of the Foreign Office Mr. Gladwyn Jebb, felt certain that his department would not accept such a hypothesis, on the grounds that it would be politically dangerous and not in accordance with the facts.4 A draft paper had pointed out that apart from a resurgent Germany or Japan, only two nations could for the foreseeable future constitute a serious threat to

3. The papers are collected in CAB 121/64; see in particular extracts from the minutes of the Chiefs of Staff, 224th meeting, September 23, 1943; the report of May 1, 1944, PHP (43) 1 (0); minutes of the Chiefs of Staff 172nd meeting, May 24, 1944; and the revised version of the paper June 6, 1944, PHP (44) 132 (0) Final, PRO.

4. A. T. Cornwall-Jones to the Vice-Chiefs of Staff, June 13, 1944, CAB 121/64, PRO.

CHURCHILL AND AN UNTHINKABLE OPERATION, 1945

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the British Commonwealth: the USSR and the USA. “It is quite clear that it is not within the power of the British Commonwealth to support a war against the Soviet Union unaided by either the United States or Allies on the Continent of Europe”. The next sentence of the same paper indicates the balancing and theoretical nature of such studies, for it reads: “Neither is it conceivable that the British Commonwealth could go to war against the United States unless at least supported by the Soviet Union and assisted by the other European States. It would therefore appear to be idle for us to plan on the assumption that the British Commonwealth stands alone”.

The Post-Hostilities Staff argued that on balance relations with Russia were rather more liable to deteriorate than relations with the United States, and that a serious threat against Britain from Russia would amount also to one against the USA. It was probable that in the long run America would fight to maintain the existence of the United Kingdom, although that assumption could not be absolutely relied upon. The policy of the British government at that time assumed a tripartite alliance for the post-war period between the Commonwealth, the United States and the Soviet Union and to plan on that basis, or at any rate to assume a fairly close association between the three great powers “would accordingly seem to be the most reasonable course”. As the authors of the paper pointed out, Russia might at some stage break away from this alliance and become a potential or even an actual enemy; but they saw no evidence of a Russian desire to dominate the world. The Chiefs of Staff in the middle of June, 1944, approved a version which stated that ‘The British Commonwealth should maintain adequate naval and air strength to secure our vital interests vis-à-vis Russia”.5

In these assessments, no attempt had been made to deal with the possibility that Russia might try to extend her influence over Western Europe and thus dominate that continent, or Asia through the development of Siberia. The Vice-Chiefs of Staff mentioned as vital strategic interests, which might be threatened by Russia, the supply of oil from the Middle East; Mediterranean communications; sea communications (if Russia were to become after the war a naval and air power of the first rank); and the concentrated industrial areas of the British Isles (if Russia built up a large strategic bomber force). The Vice-Chiefs concluded, with the authority of the Chiefs of Staff themselves,

5. Draft paper ‘Basic Assumptions for Staff Studies and Post-War Strategical Problems’ attached to A. T. Cornwall-Jones to the Vice Chiefs of Staff, June 13, 1944 (see footnote 4); minutes of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, 195th meeting, June 15, 1944, CAB 121/46, circulated as C.O.S. (44) 527 (0) PHP, June 15, 1944, CAB 121/64, PRO.

David N. Dilks

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that the best means of avoiding friction would be “a real endeavour to secure the full and friendly participation of the USSR in any system of world security”. It followed that Britain should not oppose any reasonable demands of the USSR where these did not conflict with the crucial strategic interests of the United Kingdom itself. Russia in exchange would be expected “not to oppose our claims in areas vital to us”. It was rather uneasily acknowledged that the weakness of Europe after the war would leave a vacuum which Russia, if she wished, might fill and this was the context in which it was stated that the Commonwealth should maintain adequate naval and air strength to secure its interests. At the head of the document stood a note in capital letters: THIS PAPER IS A STAFF STUDY. IT IS PURELY EXPLORATORY, HAS NO MINISTERIAL AUTHORITY AND IS NOT INTENDED TO BE THE BASIS OF ANY EXECUTIVE ACTION.6

By the end of July, with the allied armies strongly established in France, we find the Chief of the Imperial General Staff discussing with the Secretary of State for War the crucial question, should Germany be dismembered or gradually converted into an ally to meet the Russian danger? The CIGS felt no doubt on the point. Germany to his mind was no longer the dominating power in Europe; Russia was, and with her vast resources could not fail to become the main threat in 15 years’ time: “Therefore, foster Germany, gradually build her up and bring her into a Federation of Western Europe. Unfortunately this must all be done under the cloak of a holy alliance between England, Russia and America. No easy policy, and one requiring a super Foreign Secretary”.7

In justice to Field-Marshal Brooke, it must be conceded that his prescription was close to the policy followed by Labour and Conservative governments alike after 1945; whereas in 1944, the view of the Foreign Office remained that providing the British Commonwealth and the Unites States gave reasonable consideration to Russian views and showed themselves determined to prevent any menace to Russia from Germany or Japan, the USSR would welcome a lengthy spell of peaceful relations. The grounds given were convincing enough; that Russia would need at least five years of rehabilitation and a prolonged further period for her internal development, during which time she would not be likely to risk the interruption of a major

6. C.O.S. (44/527) (0) (PHP) June 15, 1944, circulated to the War Cabinet together with an annex “The effect of Soviet Policy on British Strategic Interests”, and an appendix summarising the treaty engagements of the Soviet Union with foreign countries; the latter paper was prepared in the Foreign Office and dated March 28, 1944, all in CAB 121/64, PRO.

7.A. Bryant, op.cit., p. 242.


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war. All this depended, however, upon Russia’s being satisfied with the measures taken to render Germany and Japan innocuous; and if she were not thus satisfied, she might well become an intensely disruptive force within Europe and beyond its boundaries. The Foreign Office had predicted “with some confidence” that for at least five years after the end of the war Russia would constitute no menace to Britain’s strategic interests. “So far as can be judged at present” one of the Foreign Office papers remarked, perhaps with a certain grim humour, “she is most unlikely to be troubled by internal disorders”. The Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee, the purpose of which was to gather intelligence from a wide range of sources and over which a senior representative of the Foreign Office presided, had seen no occasion to disagree with those views; nor did that Committee change its view when it produced an assessment in late August, 1944. As it nevertheless pointed out, Russia would possess the capacity to wage war against the British Commonwealth. The area in which friction could most easily arise would be the Middle East, particularly in Persia and Iraq. If Russia struck in those two countries, she would be in a position seriously to threaten British communications through the Mediterranean to India and the Far East.8

As Germany’s defeat drew near, the politicians and the military alike had to reconsider their assumptions about Russia’s attitude. Certainly there was nothing consoling in the Russian government’s behaviour during the Warsaw uprising, though that was a matter which on their visit to Moscow that autumn Churchill and Eden put firmly behind them for the sake of good relations. The Prime Minister evidently believed that there was no point in pursuing such disputes when greater issues – including Britain’s capacity to secure decent treatment for Poland – were at stake. Stalin denied most earnestly that Russia wished to convert the world to communism. “We could not, if we wanted” he said to Churchill. “We Russians are not as clever as you think; we are simple, rather stupid. No one in Europe can be persuaded that England is either simple or stupid”.9 That was the visit during which Stalin and Churchill reached the “percentages agreement”. In London, the Chiefs of Staff had considered the threat to British security if Russia became aggressive; a meeting held in the Foreign Office in October, 1944 had come only to the conclusion that until directions were given by the War Cabinet, no firm assumptions could be made

8.Report by the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee, “Russian capabilities in relation to the strategic interests of the British Commonwealth”, August 22, 1944, J.I.C. (44) 366 (0) Final, CAB 121/64, PRO.

9.Lord Moran, Winston Churchill: The Struggle for Survival, 1940-1965 (London, 1966), p. 202.

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about Russia in documents dealing with the post-war period. The Chiefs of Staff were told to restrict to the narrowest possible limits any papers in which even the hypothesis of Russia as a possible enemy was mentioned.10

The British Ambassador in Moscow, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, normally at least fair and perhaps more than fair to the Russian government, remarked that the latter had since 1941 shown no jealousy of Britain’s strength as a great power. Indeed, Russian propaganda had abandoned almost all criticism of Britain on the score of Imperialist designs. The Ambassador believed that so long as Britain pursued an anti-German policy in collaboration with Russia, that attitude would persist. The Russians would claim to organise an orbit of power in the regions adjacent to their borders, and would leave the British at liberty to claim the right to pursue a similar policy along the Atlantic and Mediterranean seaboards.11

When the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee rendered another assessment just before Christmas, 1944, it confessed that the British had little evidence to show what view Russia took of her own strategic interests or what policy she intended to pursue after the war. Russia would at that stage present a phenomenon new in modern history: a land empire containing within its own frontiers a large and rapidly growing population, possessing nearly all the raw materials essential to a war economy and with an industry capable of sustaining armies larger than those of any other power in Europe. The Sub-Committee pointed to Russia’s immense advantages in depth of defence and dispersal of economically important targets, issues which the war in Europe since 1939 had thrown into sharp relief; and even the exceptions – the oilfields of the Caucasus, the industry and minerals of the Ukraine, the industrial areas of Moscow and Leningrad – were far less vulnerable to attack than the corresponding areas of any other country in Europe.

The Sub-Committee felt confident that Russia would at least experiment with a policy of collaboration after the war with America and Britain. She would regard Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria and to a lesser extent Yugoslavia as forming a protective screen, and would wish to dominate the Black Sea and control Northern Persia. If the Great

10. Extract from the minutes of the meeting held on October 4, 1944, in the Foreign Secretary’s room, “The study of post-war problems and the dismemberment of Germany”, CAB 121/64, PRO.

11. Sir A. Clark Kerr to Eden, November 19, 1944, No. 772, enclosing a “Memorandum respecting observations on the attitude of the Soviet Government towards possible formation of a group of Western European Democracies”; this paper was circulated by Eden to the Cabinet, PREM 3/396/14, PRO.


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Powers were prepared to accept Russia’s dominance in those areas and follow a policy designed to prevent a revival of German and Japanese military power, Russia would have achieved “the greatest possible measure of security and could not hope to increase it by further territorial expansion. Nor is it easy to see what else Russia could under such conditions hope to gain from a policy of aggression […] Russia’s relations with the British Empire and the United States will depend very largely on the ability of each side to convince the other of the sincerity of its desire for collaboration”.12

The Minister at the British Embassy in Moscow, Mr. Balfour, reminded the Foreign Office in January, 1945, that Russia looked upon South-East Europe, no less than upon Poland, as a zone in which it was to her peculiar interest to see there was no renewal of the German drive towards the east; self-confidence in the Soviet Union had been immeasurably increased by victory; but he took Stalin to be a shrewd realist who had no wish to overreach the limits within which he could prudently exercise autocratic power.13

Under the Anglo-Soviet Treaty of 1942, it had been agreed that the two governments would furnish each other with information about weapons. The agreement had never been entirely fulfilled by the British, chiefly because of the difficulty of obtaining the assent of the USA to the disclosure of information in which the United States was interested; but the British and Americans had done far more than the Russians, who in most cases had failed to reply to repeated requests for information. The situation at the time of the Yalta Conference was that since the summer of 1941 the British had disclosed about 300 major items, many of them of the first importance (such as radar), whereas the Russians had given practically no information of value. Thus it came about that British information about important items of Russian equipment was based upon German publications.14 It would not be difficult to multiply such instances, or to demonstrate the apprehensions of the Prime Minister. Nevertheless, the British delegation came home from Yalta convinced that they had secured the best terms obtainable for Poland and more generally of Russia’s good faith. Churchill proclaimed that view not

12.Report of the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee “Russia’s strategic interests and intentions from the point of view of her security”, J.I.C. (44) 467 (0), December 18, 1944, CAB 119/129, PRO.

13. Extract from a letter dated January 16, 1945 from Mr. Balfour (Moscow) to Mr. C. Warner, Head of the Northern Department of the Foreign Office, circulated to the War Cabinet under cover of a note “Soviet foreign policy” by Eden, March 12, 1945, W.P. (45) 156, CAB 121/64, PRO.

14 . Foreign Office to Sir A. Cadogan at Yalta, Fleece no. 128, February 4, 1945, PREM 3/396/14, PRO.

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only to Parliament but to the War Cabinet. On the evidence presently available to us, it was the events of late February and March, 1945, that brought about a reversal in the opinions of the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary alike and, no doubt, of other ministers and officials. It rapidly became apparent that Russia’s insistence upon a glacis or rampart of friendly states all round her Western borders would preclude the free and unfettered elections to which, especially in Poland, all parties had pledged themselves at Yalta.

We can now read in the Public Record Office at least some of the documents which passed daily to the Prime Minister from the Government Code and Cypher School through the head of the Secret Intelligence Service. On the face of it, these papers do not contain anything of sufficient importance to warrant the instructions which Churchill was soon to give for consideration of Operation Unthinkable. Most of the deciphered texts are concerned with military matters (troop movements, reinforcements, lorry traffic); there are also intercepted diplomatic messages. For example, the Japanese Ambassador in Berlin summarised several conversations which he held with the German Foreign Minister in the second half of March. Ribbentrop remarked that it would be very difficult with things as they were to separate Russia from Britain and America and to conclude a separate peace with the USSR. Some military success on the Eastern front was essential before this could be done and apparently Hitler was confident that he would be able to secure such a change in the position. Ribbentrop said also that it would be a long time before Britain and America again disposed of such enormous forces and the idea of destroying the USSR might “quite well spring from American desires for world domination or from British anxiety to prevent the bolshevisation of the British Empire”.

Believing that even Russia had little hope of standing out against the British and American navies and air forces, he clutched at the hope that Stalin would welcome the idea of making friends with Germany and Japan in order to stand up to Britain and America. Indeed, Ribbentrop apparently had in mind a journey to Moscow for direct negotiation with Stalin, on the lines of the visit which had produced the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August, 1939.

Most of this dwelt in the realms of fantasy; and as we shall see, the notion that the British and Americans could destroy the USSR “now at one blow” was utterly removed from the opinions which the British themselves entertained.15

15. These reports are contained in a series of files HW1, PRO; the report from the Japanese Ambassador in Berlin to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo,


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The Western allies also knew that Ribbentrop had instructed the German Minister in Dublin (and by implication German representatives in other major capitals) to argue that since Germany was about to be overrun by the Red Army, the West should ally with Germany, the only power able to stop the communists’ conquest of Europe. If the allies should refuse this last chance, Germany would find means of reaching an understanding, at their expense, with Russia. (We should note in passing, though the point is incidental to the main theme of this paper, that the British turned down an American proposal to pass this information to the Russians. The head of the Secret Intelligence Service had pointed out that the source could not be effectively disguised and that any leakage would be disastrous “at a moment when I have every hope of reconstructing the system used by the Germans for the bulk of their diplomatic communications, to which we have never before had access”. Churchill agreed wholeheartedly).16

Nor do we find anything in the minutes and papers of the War Cabinet which would provide an immediate and clear occasion of instructions to consider the possibility of war with Russia. In February and March, 1945, the War Cabinet received lengthy papers about Yalta, with glowing reports about Stalin and the Red Army. There followed documents on Poland; prisoners of war; Rumania; Czechoslovakia; Bulgaria; and preparations for the conference to be held at San Francisco, in all of which growing friction with the Russians is discernible. Churchill’s alarm about Russian behaviour was manifest. In the diary of the Foreign Secretary for March 23, we find remarks at once candid and bleak, which give a measure of Britain’s previous reliance upon good relations with Moscow:

“[...] I take the gloomiest view of Russia’s behaviour everywhere. [...] We don’t yet know how Russians will react to our last Anglo-American message, but if it is still negative a breakdown seems inevitable. Then there is Molotov’s refusal to go to San Francisco and Russian behaviour to Turkey. Altogether our foreign policy seems a sad wreck and we may have to cast about afresh”.17

summarising talks with Ribbentrop between March 17 and March 28, 1945, is in file HW1/3678.

16. ‘C’ to Churchill, C/8727, March 2, 1945; Churchill’s manuscript note, addressed to the Foreign Secretary, on the same document, March 8 1945, HW 1/3562; for Ribbentrop’s message to the German legation in Dublin, Feb. 16, 1945, see HW 1/3539; Foreign Office to British Embassy, Washington, March 10, 1945, no. 2310, HW 1/3562, PRO.

17. Sir A. Eden (The Earl of Avon), The Reckoning (London, 1965), pp. 525-526.

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Eden also wondered whether there were any means other than a public statement which could force the Russians to chose between mending their ways and the loss of Anglo-American friendship. He believed this was the only method by which “we can hope to attain anything approaching a fair deal for the Poles”.18 The events of the next week or two made it plain that “a fair deal for the Poles”, at least as conceived by the British, could not be secured thus. Early in April, Churchill learned from Roosevelt that Stalin had in effect accused the Western powers of deliberate treachery, in the form of secret negotiations with the Germans to make peace in the West while the fighting went on in the East. Even Roosevelt, who had been consistently more sanguine than Churchill about Russia, reacted furiously; or rather, someone else reacted furiously in his name. It seems clear that the British did not understand at the time how little work Roosevelt was doing, or that his telegrams were written by others. The Prime Minister at once sent a powerful blast in the direction of Moscow. The account of his Private Secretary Mr. Colville wonders whether the Germans had persuaded the Russians that something sinister was afoot.19 This is not implausible. As we have seen, the intercepts show that Ribbentrop had thought of making contact with the Russians if the West would not enter into an arrangement with Germany; and from that to the planting of false information on Russia would not have been a large step.

There followed the spiriting away of Polish leaders who had been invited to Moscow. It was clear that in Yugoslavia, Tito was looking almost entirely to Russia and the Western Powers therefore faced, admittedly on a smaller scale, an issue in Southern Europe comparable with that which they were facing in Central Europe; should they side with a recent enemy, Italy, in order to oppose Tito over Trieste?20 Eden handed to Molotov at San Francisco a memorandum which referred to the profound and disturbing cumulative effect of Soviet actions, and gave examples. The Russian reply brushed aside most of the complaints and refused to accept the “obviously one-sided and disproportionate pretensions expressed in this memorandum ignoring as they do the actual facts and responsibility of the British side for the majority of the instances referred to, as well as the constant endeavour of the Soviet organs to meet the legitimate wishes of the British side”.21

18. Ibid. 19. J. R. Colville, The Fringes of Power (London, 1985), p. 582. 20. Ibid., p. 591. 21. Eden (San Francisco) to the Foreign Office, May 4, 1945, No. 133; and May

14, 1945, No. 290, CAB 121/64, PRO.


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Meanwhile, Molotov had at last admitted the “arrest” of the 16 Polish leaders. In vain did Eden protest that the British knew these Poles to have been good patriots all through the period of German occupation, who desired close relations with Russia.22

What was the British government to make of such behaviour? The former Russian Ambassador in London, M. Maisky, asserted that what was happening was no more than a few ripples on the surface and spoke of the need to treat Russians with circumspection, to which the Ambassador replied robustly that “We have been at pains to be circumspect, frank and honest, and all we had got was a series of affronts”. Was it a matter, as the Russian Ambassador in Stockholm, Madame Kollontay, indiscreetly suggested to her old friend Clark Kerr, of Russian immaturity? She remarked that the Russians were as naïve, clumsy and blundering as the English had been in the age of Cromwell; they were children and must be treated accordingly; their present unruliness would pass; and meanwhile the British must practise patience and more patience. Clark Kerr added by way of comment, “The truth is that the Russians are in a hurry to be great, and that is uncomfortable”.23 Was Stalin now obliged, as Sir Orme Sargent of the Foreign Office wondered in early May, to handle the Russian Generals more cautiously than before and might the hardening of the Soviet attitude towards the British derive from the influence of these victorious warriors?24

But suppose such diagnoses were mistaken, or even deceptive? That was the risk which the Prime Minister and others in London had to measure. Eden rejoined, “We have shown great consideration and forbearance and have made ample allowances for the peculiarities of Russian mentality [...]. We have been shocked, recently, to have had evidence of the morbid suspicion with which the Soviet Government attributes to us the most sinister and disgraceful motives[...]. M. Maisky really must not ask us to extend our understanding and tolerance to cover, e.g., Soviet Government’s attitude on Poland and Rumania, which he knows as well as I do that the Prime Minister and I cannot possibly commend to Parliament”.25 Ten days later, Churchill sent to President Truman, whom he had never met, the celebrated telegram expressing his deep forebodings about the Russian misinterpretation of the

22. Sir A. Eden, op. cit., p. 536. 23. Sir A. Clark Kerr to the Foreign Office, April 6, 1945, No. 1137, CAB 121/64,

PRO. 24. Eden to Sir A.Clark Kerr, April 8, 1945, No. 1721,CAB 121/64, PRO. 25. Sir O. Sargent to Churchill, May 2, 1945, PM/OS/45/60, PREM 3/396/14,

PRO.

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Yalta decisions (as he politely termed what had happened since February), and the effect of the melting away of the allied armies in the near future. Unwittingly taking the phrase from Dr. Goebbels, of all people, Churchill wrote that an Iron Curtain was drawn down upon the Russian front.

The papers relating to Operation Unthinkable do not show with the usual clarity who was giving instructions to whom, or when. Even to contemplate such a subject would clearly require an order from the Prime Minister, and we must assume that he gave instructions at the very latest by the middle of May, since the documents could scarcely have been prepared in less than a week; it was probably in this interval that Churchill, exhausted in body but not in mind and spirit, told the Russian Ambassador in London, M. Gousev, in no uncertain terms about his anxieties and dissatisfaction. Churchill made a conversational tour of those capitals of Eastern and Central Europe from which Russia’s western allies were excluded; Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Vienna. When Poland was touched upon, M. Gousev (who took but a slight part in the conversation, a fact which may not have been due entirely to his limited command of English) said something about lines of communication and the Red Army. The Prime Minister recognised the point but remarked that the fighting was now over and a new situation had arisen. How were the Russians facing it? By dropping an iron screen across Europe from Lübeck to Trieste. “All we knew was that puppet governments were being set up about which we were not consulted and at which we were not allowed to peep”. He reminded Gousev that the Allied armies had checked their advance on Prague out of deference to Russian susceptibilities, but had been rewarded only by being refused admission to the town where Dr. Benes was trembling for the future of his country, while M. Masaryk was making a moaning noise in San Francisco. All this, Churchill went on, “was incomprehensible and intolerable. The Prime Minister and His Majesty’s Government objected in the strongest terms to being treated as if they were of no account in the after-war world. They felt that they still counted for something and they refused to be pushed about. Their determination not to see this happen had moved them to postpone the demobilisation of the Royal Air Force. They were resolved to enter upon discussions about the future of Europe with all the strength they had. They were perfectly willing to meet the Russians and to talk in the friendliest way but it must be on terms of equality, but the Russians seemed to wish to close down upon every place they had occupied and to shut if off from the rest of the world. This could not be allowed. Why could not the Russians content themselves with the Curzon Line and let us have a look at what was happening West of it?”.

Sir A. Clark Kerr noticed that M. Gousev listened “with a strained expression on his large face”. This we may well believe. The Ambassador


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could not judge how much Gousev had absorbed of the Prime Minister’s discourse, but thought it must have been sufficient for him to inform his government that Churchill was very irritated and concerned about what was happening, and determined to resist.26 A few days later, Gousev told the Foreign Secretary with some force that fears about Anglo-Russian relations were groundless, and of his surprise at the terms in which the Prime Minister had spoken to him; Eden thereupon made it plain that he entirely shared Churchill’s sentiments.27

We must take it that the grievances rehearsed to M. Gousev constitute the main reason for which the Joint Planning Staff had been asked to examine what was termed from the start “Operation ‘Unthinkable’”. The Final version of the report is dated May 22, 1945. It is not clear whether earlier drafts had been produced. What is certain is that it had been prepared in deep secrecy (“the normal staffs in the Service Ministries have not been consulted”); perhaps inessential parts of the files were destroyed at the time or later. What we have is a paper of six typed pages, to which were added some 20 pages by way of four appendices (Appreciation of Campaign in Europe; Russian Strengths and Dispositions; Allied Strengths and Dispositions; German Reactions), and four maps (Russians Strengths and Dispositions; Allied Strengths and Dispositions; the Campaign in North East Europe; Vulnerable Points of Russian Lines of Communication).

The first paragraph of the report remarks that “as instructed”, presumably by General Ismay on Churchill’s behalf, the Joint Planning Staff had been guided by certain assumptions: the undertaking had the full support of public opinion in the British Empire and that the United States and consequently the morale of British and American troops continued to be high; Britain and the USA would have full assistance from the Polish Armed Forces and could count upon the use of German manpower and what remained of Germany industrial capacity; no weight was given to assistance from the forces of other Western powers, though bases and other facilities in their territories would be made available; the hostilities would begin on July 1, 1945, until which date redeployment and release schemes would continue.

We should pause to weigh these assumptions. On all we know of the state of public opinion and war weariness in Britain and the United States alike, it

26. Record by Sir A. Clark Kerr of a discussion between the Prime Minister and the Soviet Ambassador at 10, Downing Street on May 18, 1945, PREM 3/396/12, PRO.

27. Memorandum by Sir A. Clark Kerr, May 25, 1945, recording a conversation of May 23, PREM 3/396/14, PRO.

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is most unlikely that short of flagrant Russian aggression, the operation would carry “the full support of public opinion”. Beneath this assumption lay a still more daring one, that whatever the state of public opinion, the United States would be prepared to fight in such a cause. That would have been contrary to everything Roosevelt had said, for he had always looked to the early withdrawal of the American forces from Europe; and Truman had then done nothing to contradict those assertions. To judge that the British and Americans could “count upon the use of German manpower and what remains of German industrial capacity” was also to make a considerable leap of imagination. But there was a still more startling assumption, namely that “Russia allies herself with Japan”. After all, Stalin had repeatedly promised, most recently at Yalta, that Russia would enter the war against Japan promptly after Germany was defeated. No one could fail to observe that Russia was making no haste to do anything of the kind. In the event, Russia remained in her state of neutrality with Japan until the last, and declared war only after the first of the atom bombs had been dropped. For Stalin to have allied himself with the Emperor of Japan would have required blatant and cynical reversals; but then, the same had been true of the Nazi-Soviet pact in 1939.

The object of the Operation would be to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire, which in this document and many others was treated as if it were a single entity. As the Prime Minister and others knew only too well, it was not. There lies another optimistic assumption; for the notion that troops from Canada to South Africa, Australia to New Zealand, Barbados to India would fight against Russia in Central Europe contains at least much that is questionable. The paper went on to remark that “Even though ‘the will’ of these two countries” (i.e. the USA and the British Empire, where we notice again the assumption that the British Empire was a unit) might be defined as “no more than a square deal for Poland”, that would not necessarily limit the military commitment. The Russians might or might not be induced to submit, at least for the time being, by a quick military success on the part of the West; and if the Russians wanted total war, they were in a position to have it. In other words, only by winning such a war could the West achieve its stated object with certainty and lasting results. The staff had considered that hypothesis, and the alternative that because a quick success might suffice to gain the political object, a continuing commitment need not be of concern. Leaving aside the chances of a revolution in Russia and the collapse of the regime, the elimination of the USSR in such a war could be achieved only by occupation of so much of the country that it would not be able to sustain further resistance, or such a decisive defeat as to render it impossible for Russia to continue the war; or, presumably, by both events. The paper pointed out that although in 1942 the


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Germans had reached the area of Moscow, the Volga and the Caucasus, the USSR had nevertheless been able to continue fighting and it was scarcely conceivable that the Allies could penetrate as far or as quickly as the Germans in 1942, a penetration which had produced no decisive result.

The annexes to this report examined in detail the balance of strength in Central Europe. There, Russia enjoyed a superiority on land of approximately three to one. This fact made it most unlikely that the Allies could achieve complete and decisive victory in that area. Allied organisation might be better, equipment slightly better, and morale higher, but the Russians had proved themselves formidable opponents of Germany; they had competent commanders, adequate equipment and an organisation which had stood the test. To achieve a decisive defeat of Russia in a total war would require the massive mobilisation of manpower. That would involve:

“(a) The deployment in Europe of a large proportion of the vast resources of the United States.

(b) The re-organisation of German manpower and of all the Western European Allies”.

Not surprisingly, the authors concluded that while they could not forecast the result of a total war with Russia, they could say with certainty that to win it would take “a very long time”.

As for the possibility of a rapid victory, even an early success on the part of the West might not cause Russia to submit; in other words, the West might be committed to a total war. It would be impossible to limit hostilities to one particular area and therefore necessary to think of a worldwide struggle. Even if a quick success were achieved, that would not necessarily bring a lasting result because the military power of Russia would not be broken and it would be open to her to resume a war whenever she thought fit.

With this somewhat unpromising preamble, the paper remarked that there would be no threat from Russian strategic bombers or submarines comparable to the earlier German threat; but there would be the Red Army, the main strength of which was concentrated in Central Europe. That Army might well overrun Turkey in Europe; South East Europe, including Greece, “would immediately become barred to our influence and commerce”. In Persia and Iraq an extremely dangerous situation would arise. It appeared to the planners almost certain that Russia would take the offensive there in view of the oil resources to be gained and the extreme importance of those areas to the West. Since there were some eleven Russian divisions available against an allied force of three Indian brigade groups, it was difficult to see how the region could be defended. If Russia and Japan allied, Japanese forces would be freed to reinforce the home islands or resume the offensive in China. The principal theatre would undoubtedly be Central Europe, however. Allied air superiority

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would be offset to some extent by the fact that the strategic bomber force would in the earlier stages have to be based in England. The only means of obtaining a quick success would be a land campaign making full use of air superiority both in tactical support and in attacks on the Russian lines of communication. The main effort of the land offensive would have to lie in North East Europe. A force of some 47 divisions, including 14 Armoured Divisions, could be made available for offensive operations (on the assumptions set out at the beginning of the paper). Against this the Russians would be able to produce a force amounting to the equivalent of 170 divisions, of which 30 would be armoured. The allies would therefore face odds of the order of two to one against them in armour, and nearly four to one in infantry. As the report remarks, without exaggeration, “the above odds would clearly render the launching of an offensive a hazardous undertaking”.

The main armoured fighting would probably develop east of the Oder-Neisse Line. On the outcome the campaign would probably depend. If the result were favourable.

“We might reach the general line Danzig-Breslau. Any advance beyond this, however, would increase the length of the front to be held during winter and increase the danger resulting from the salient formed by Bohemia and Moravia, from which the Russians would be under no necessity to withdraw. Unless, therefore, we have won the victory we require west of the line Danzig-Breslau it appears likely that we shall, in fact, be committed to a total war”.

The success of a land campaign, therefore, would depend upon the result of the fighting west of the above line before winter conditions set in. There is no inherent strength in our strategic position and, in fact, we should be staking everything upon one great battle, in which we should be facing very heavy odds.

We conclude that: (a) If we are to embark on war with Russia, we must be prepared to be

committed to a total war, which will be both long and costly. (b) Our numerical inferiority on land renders it extremely doubtful

whether we could achieve a limited and quick success, even if the political appreciation considered that this would suffice to gain our political object”.

One of the appendices dealt with the possibility of German assistance and estimated that 10 German divisions might be re-formed and re-equipped in the early stages. They could not, however, be available in any event by July 1st. These possible allies had not been included in the calculations.

Even a summary as lengthy as this cannot do justice to all the material in these papers. From a strictly British point of view, there were some hopeful assertions; for example, that the British navy, even without the help of the


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United States, was entirely adequate to deal with Russian naval strength, or that when aluminium from allied sources was denied to Russia and the allies inflicted heavy losses, Russian production of aircraft would be “totally inadequate to meet the demands”. Against such assertions, there had to be placed the overwhelming facts of Russia’s strength and proved record in the war. As the report pointed out, the Red Army had developed a capable and experienced high command; it was extremely tough, lived and moved on a lighter scale of maintenance than any western army, and employed bold tactics based largely on a disregard for losses.

The Chiefs of Staff, meeting on May 31, were convinced that the idea of such a war against Russia was indeed unthinkable. In notes written years later, Brooke recalled that Churchill had come to the Chiefs of Staff expressing anxiety at seeing the Russian bear sprawled all over Europe, phraseology which would again suggest that this enquiry had originated from a general fear rather than a particular incident. According to Brooke, the Chiefs of Staff had concluded that “the best we could hope for was to drive the Russians back to about the same line the Germans had reached. And then what? Were we to remain mobilised indefinitely to hold them there?”.28

The Chiefs of Staff put the bare facts to Churchill on June 8, by which time the election campaign was well under way. They estimated that because Russian divisions were not comparable in establishment with Allied divisions, the enemy forces would amount to a total of 264 divisions (including 26 armoured divisions) as against the allies’ 103 divisions (including 23 armoured divisions). In short, there were significant differences in the proportions as estimated by the Chiefs of Staff on the one hand, and the Joint Planning Staff, on the other. In respect of air strength, the allies would have a little over 6,000 tactical aircraft and some 2,500 strategic aircraft; the comparable figures on the Russian side would be nearly 12,000 and 960. The dominance in numbers of Russian aircraft would, the Chiefs of Staff stated, for a time be offset by the vastly superior handling and efficiency of the allied air forces, especially the strategic air forces. After some while, however, the lack of replacement aircraft and air crews would seriously impair the West’s strength in the air.

The situation on land made it clear that the allies would not be in a position to take the offensive with the view to achieving a rapid success. Since Russian and allied land forces were in contact on a long line stretching from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, there was no chance of avoiding land

28. Letter from Dr. Julian Lewis, M.P., “Churchill’s Unthinkable War”, The Daily Telegraph, October 5, 1998.

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operations: “Our view is […] that once hostilities began, it would be beyond our power to win a quick but limited success and we should be committed to a protracted war against heavy odds. Those odds, moreover, would become fanciful if the Americans grew weary and indifferent and began to be drawn away by the magnet of the Pacific War”.29

Major-General Hollis, Ismay’s deputy, submitted a draft reply which the Prime Minister on June 10 adopted in its entirety except for one important change at the end. In effect, it abandoned the notion of an assault, and pointed out that if the Americans withdrew to their zone in Germany and moved the bulk of their forces back to the USA or to the Pacific, the Russians would have the power to advance to the North Sea and the Atlantic. How then could Britain be defended, assuming that France and the Low Countries were powerless to resist a Russian advance to the sea? What naval, air and land forces would be required? The retention of the code word “Unthinkable” would cause the Staff to realise that “this remains a precautionary study of what, I hope, is still a purely hypothetical contingency”. Instead of the last four words, General Hollis’ draft had suggested “a highly improbable event”.30

On the next day, the Prime Minister gave to the Chiefs of Staff what Brooke’s diary describes as a long and very gloomy review of the situation in Europe. The Russians were all-powerful there; they could march across the rest of Europe and drive the British back into their island; and the Americans were returning home. The quicker they went home, Churchill said, the sooner they would be required back in Europe again. “He finished up by saying that never in his life had he been more worried by the European situation than he was at present”.31

The Joint Planners (again Grantham, Thompson, Dawson) examined on behalf of the Chiefs of Staff the Prime Minister’s minute of June 10. They concluded that the Russians would not be able to develop any immediate threat to Britain’s sea communications comparable to that which had been exerted by Germany; it would take Russia a period of years to develop a submarine fleet or a maritime airforce capable of producing a decisive threat to Britain’s sea communications; Russia would be greatly handicapped by lack of experience in planning an invasion either by sea or by air and the

29. Memorandum by the Chiefs of Staff to Churchill, June 8, 1945, enclosed with Ismay to Churchill, same date, CAB 120/691, PRO.

30. Churchill to General Ismay for the Chiefs of Staff Committee, June 10, 1945,CAB 120/691, PRO.

31. A. Bryant, op. cit., pp. 470-471.


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assessment ruled out a decisive invasion by airborne operations alone. The possession of bridgeheads on the continent would offer Russia a compact target, their defence impose a continuous drain and their retention bring no operational advantage. To defend the island and attack targets in Europe would require the full support of the United States. That prospect, needless to say, raised the question of the Japanese war. The planners concluded: “It is only by the use of rockets and other new weapons that the Russians could develop any serious threat to the security of this country in the initial stages. Invasion or a serious attack upon our sea communications could only be undertaken after a period of preparation which must last some years”.32

By the time those words were written, the Prime Minister was painting in the south of France, whence he travelled directly to the Conference at Potsdam. It is noticeable that the texts of this report of July 11, and the still more important initial paper about Operation Unthinkable of May 22, are both marked “No.15”. We cannot exclude the possibility that a copy or a summary reached Stalin. Had any such suggestion have been put to Churchill or Ismay, it would doubtless have been dismissed out of hand, for elaborate precautions had been taken to ensure the secrecy of the whole project. As one of Ismay’s notes to Churchill remarked, the Chiefs of Staff felt “that the less was put on paper on this subject, the better”.33

All the same, we now know what was not apparent to the Prime Minister, that a great deal of most secret information reached Russia because of penetration of the British public service by communist agents and sympathisers. Churchill’s celebrated description of the way in which Stalin received from Truman the news about the first successful testing of the atomic bomb does not suggest that the Prime Minister, writing long after the war, was aware even of a possibility that Stalin might have known the essential facts in advance.34 No less an authority than Professor John Erickson has suggested that the assessments connected with Operation Unthinkable may account for the decisive change in Russia’s military dispositions which occurred at the end of June, 1945.35 In other words, it is at least possible that there was at work a self-fulfilling, indeed self-reinforcing, process: because Russia was so

32. Report by the Joint Planning Staff “Operation Unthinkable”, July 11, 1945, CAB 120/691, PRO.

33. Ismay to Churchill, June 8, 1945, CAB 120/691, PRO. 34. M. Gilbert, “Never Despair”: Winston S. Churchill 1945-1965 (London,

1988), pp. 99-100. 35. “Churchill’s plan for Third World War against Stalin”, The Daily Telegraph,

October 1, 1998, p. 1.

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powerful and her attitude so menacing, the Prime Minister felt bound to discover whether the British and Americans had any serious chance of opposing her by military force; and if Stalin knew that such an enquiry had been undertaken, his own convictions of western hostility would certainly have been strengthened.

At Potsdam, Churchill remarked to Eden that Russian policy was now one of aggrandisement.36 All the same, the Prime Minister did not adopt an attitude of hostility to all Russian demands. According to Eden, whose impression is supported from other sources, Churchill had again fallen under the spell of Stalin, of whom he said repeatedly “I like that man”. The Prime Minister supported Russia’s claim to a substantial portion of the captured German fleet, and to at least one warm-water port. Stalin denied any intention that Russia would roll on westwards.

As the Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Planning Staff had shown, Russia’s strength in conventional forces outstripped anything which the British and Americans could bring to bear. When the planners wrote their memoranda, they did not know about the atomic enterprise, any more than Truman or Churchill knew whether the first trial would succeed. The American and British governments had assumed that a massive and bloody campaign in the Far East, perhaps lasting as much as 18 months, would follow the defeat of Germany. But as that pregnant conversation between Truman and Stalin had indicated, and as the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed within a few days, the new weapon had upset all those careful calculations about the numbers of divisions and submarines and aircraft. Here was something which might well transform the nature of warfare and of relations between the great powers, for a weapon of unimaginable power could now be delivered from bases lying at a great distance from the target and practically invulnerable; moreover, delivered with devastating effect, if necessary without declaration of war. Whereas it had taken years of relentless pounding to devastate the cities and industry of Germany, destruction over a vast area could now be achieved at a stroke. The point was immediately apparent to Churchill. He told the Chiefs of Staff on July 23 that “We now had something in our hands which would redress the balance with the Russians. The secret of this explosive and the power to use it would completely alter the diplomatic equilibrium which was adrift since the defeat of Germany […] now we could

36. Eden to Churchill, P.M./45/2/P, July 17, 1945, PREM 3/396/14, PRO; cf. Eden, op. cit., p. 545.


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say, ‘If you insist on doing this or that, well...’. And then where are the Russians!”.37

Two days after that conversation, Churchill left Potsdam for London. 24 hours later, he resigned as Prime Minister on learning of the Labour Party’s overwhelming victory in the General Election. Attlee and Bevin, the new Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, found themselves possessed of no more cards in negotiation than Churchill and Eden. They were perhaps, though not for long, more hopeful about Russia and the post-war situation. When Churchill uttered at Fulton, Missouri, in March 1946, truths which could hardly be denied by any serious observer, and accompanied by expressions of admiration for Stalin and the valiant Russian people, the British and American governments alike refused to support his speech.

But there is a twist to this tale, for the file relating to Operation Unthinkable is not concerned only with the period from late May to mid-July, 1945. Rather, it resumes in August, 1946, by which time the Chiefs of Staff in the United States judged that matters in Europe had reached a critical stage. If a war began with Russia, they believed that the British and American forces should withdraw from their zones of occupation into a bridgehead, the course which the planners had not recommended in the summer of 1945. Air cover and air striking forces would be available from bases in the United Kingdom; from the bridgehead in the Low Countries there would be short lines of communication with Britain. Messages were exchanged in deep secrecy during the autumn of 1946. Field-Marshal Montgomery, by then Chief of the Imperial General Staff, held conversations with Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada, President Truman and General Eisenhower. By the end of 1946, the British and American planners had agreed, as had the Chiefs of Staff in London, that in the event of Russian aggression, the best course would be to withdraw the British and American forces into the area of Zeebrugge and Dunkirk.38

These exchanges remind us that Operation Unthinkable was not merely the result of Churchill’s hostility to Russia, or of fevered imagination as the coalition crumbled into disarray in 1945 with the disappearance of the only factor which had held it together. Given the scale of American and British

37. A. Bryant, op. cit., pp. 477-478. 38. The papers are in CAB 120/691, PRO; see for example Joint Staff Mission,

Washington, to Cabinet Office, embodying a message from Field-Marshal Wilson to General Ismay, August 30, 1946, FMW 271; and Ministry of Defence to Joint Staff Mission, Washington, DEF. 96, embodying a message from General Hollis to Field-Marshal Wilson, January 16, 1947, CAB 120/691, PRO.

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demobilisation by the end of 1946, the disparity between them and the Russians in respect of conventional forces was no doubt greater than when the planners had reported in the early summer of 1945; but with the difference that the Americans now possessed the atomic bomb (the secrets of which they refused after the war to share with the British), and the Russians did not. Even two generations later, we do not know whether Russia was deterred from westward expansion by the knowledge that the other side had the bomb. What is clear is that within a few years, a vast reversal of British, American and European opinion was brought about by Russian policy and above all by Stalin. Churchill made this point with force in November, 1954, near the end of his last spell as Prime Minister, in the context of the policy – which would have seemed unthinkable even a few years before – of rearming Germany within NATO. The speech created an uproar at the time, because Churchill added that when the Germans were surrendering by hundreds of thousands in 1945, he had told Field-Marshal Montgomery to collect German arms so that they could easily be issued again to the German soldiers with whom the British would have to work if the Soviet advance continued.

There followed an embarrassed search for the text of this message. There is a probability, but even now not a certainty, that it was never sent. On the other hand, as Churchill’s published history of the war had already shown, he telegraphed to Eisenhower on May 9, 1945, that he hoped the policy of destroying German weapons and other equipment would not be adopted. Normally, Churchill’s memory was Napoleonic in its range and accuracy and the Prime Minister apologised to Parliament for his failure to observe the rule he had so often inculcated in others, “Always verify your quotations”. No trouble would have arisen with the Soviets in the summer of 1945, Churchill observed, unless they had continued their advance to a point at which they caused the outbreak of a new war between Russia and the Western Allies; and to prevent such a disaster it might have been helpful to warn the Russians that “we should certainly in that case rearm the German prisoners in our hands who all together, including those in Italy, numbered 2.5 million”.

Enquiry was naturally made of Montgomery; he in his turn consulted the two colleagues who had in 1945 been the heads of his Operations and Intelligence staffs. Montgomery informed Churchill that the message had come and “on a very secret link: which you sometimes used, to me. I remember that too. Messages sent on that link had to be destroyed at once, when read. You can therefore take it that the message was destroyed”.39

39. Numerous papers are preserved on this subject in PREM 11/915, PRO, including extracts from The Times, of November 24 & 25, 1954, from Hansard Nov.


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Whether Montgomery and his colleagues were accurate in every particular, almost ten years after the event, is beside the point. It is plain that ultra-secret messages went to Montgomery, and doubtless to others, of which the text was immediately destroyed by the recipient. In respect of Operation Unthinkable, we probably have a good deal to learn from Russian sources; and we do well to remind ourselves that even files apparently complete are not necessarily so.

25; note to Churchill from DK (Denis Kelly), November 27, 1954; Churchill’s statement in Parliament on December 1st, 1954; Montgomery to Churchill, December 6, 1954, enclosing a copy of Montgomery to C.I.G.S., June 14, 1945. A memorandum to Churchill from Denis Kelly, December 6, 1954, shows that between March 30 and July 26, 1945, Churchill sent or received 883 telegrams.

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Between Self-Determination and Subordination: the Smaller Powers of East-Central Europe

in the Policy of the Big Three

Magdalena HULAS

“No one wishes to impose some Great Power dictatorship on the rest of the world [...]. It is not by riding roughshod over the smaller Powers that the vital interests of the larger can in the long run best be protected”.1

Sir Alexander Cadogan, the permanent under-secretary of State at the Foreign Office, was quite right in predicting the long-term effects of the “Great Power dictatorship” policy. But was he equally right (and sincere) in declaring the wishes of the Great Powers? By the time the above-quoted words were spoken some of the most important decisions affecting the future of the smaller powers of Eastern Europe had been already taken. The nature of these decisions contradicted the very essence of Cadogan’s statement. Thus, it is difficult to consider it represented a declaration of true intentions. It is also difficult to assume that the under-secretary of State was misinformed. The explanation has to be sought elsewhere. The discrepancy between the verbal declarations and the policy actually adopted resulted from a clash of incompatibilities: on the one hand, the compulsion to conform (at least in public announcements) to the moral standards considered binding in politics of that time, and on the other, the conviction that the policy of following these standards was both ineffective and unprofitable.

The need for principles in politics seemed, paradoxically, to be strengthened during the Second World War, because of the special character of this conflict. It was considered by the Allied2 countries to be a war for

1. A. Cadogan’s speech, Dumbarton Oaks, August 21, 1944 see: “Calendar of authoritative statements on Peace Aims made by representatives of HMG (September 1939-July 1945)”, Public Record Office (hereafter PRO), FO 371/50946, U.10245/7171/70; cf. David Dilks (ed.), The Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan. 1938-1945 (London, 1971), p. 656.

2. The word “Allied” we use only in descriptive manner since not all the countries fighting against the Axis powers and their satellites were sensu stricto Allies. For interesting remarks on the subject see the correspondence between Ministry of Information, BBC and the Foreign Office, January, February 1942 – PRO, FO 371/30867, C. 680/680/62, FO 371/30870, C. 1205/1205/62.

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democracy, “a common struggle against savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world”.3 Democracy (contrasted with nazism, or totalitarianism) was not only a basis on which the allied war aims were defined, it was also a criterion of being a friend or a foe.4 Thus complying with the democratic rules served the Allied cause while any departure from them weakened the Allied war effort, alienated democratic public opinion and served Nazi propaganda. And since Great Power Dictatorship is by its nature inconsistent with democracy, therefore it could not be publicly acknowledged that such a policy was implemented by the Allied Powers.

But on the other hand the idealistic principles (self-determination, open diplomacy, equal rights for great and small nations) – established inter alia by Woodrow Wilson, his Fourteen Points, Four Principles, Four Ends, and Five Particulars – and the expectations based on them, proved to be delusive. Attempts to build, after the Great War, European order on the concept of nation-state were futile, particularly in Eastern Europe, where the concept of the ethnic nation prevailed, and where, even by means of plebiscites, it was impossible to attain the identity of the political and ethnic borders.5

The term “Eastern Europe” was never precisely defined6, and all the countries, from Finland to Greece, as well as the European part of the Soviet Union, could be identified with this region. But this is not a very precise and

3. “United Nations Declaration”, January 1, 1942; E. J. Osmanczyk, The Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements (Philadelphia/London, 1985), p. 841.

4. At an initial stage of war the British were more reluctant than the Americans to use the term “democracy”. In November 1940, during the preparations for the first meeting of the Allied Governments in St. James’s Palace in London, the Polish Prime Minister, General Wladyslaw Sikorski, proposed to make some amendments in the draft resolution which was to be adopted at the meeting. One of the amendments was to add word “democratic” to the phrase “free peoples”. A. Cadogan decided that it was “an impossible amendment” and explained: “we number amongst our actual and potential Allies certain countries which do not even desire to be designated as democratic”. A. Cadogan, November 18, 1940 – PRO, CAB 21/1379.

5. This is why the idea of self-determination was sometimes perceived in a distorted way, for example when Hitler’s “peaceful conquests” of territories populated by Germans (the Rhineland, Austria, “Sudetenland”) were thought to be the fulfillment of German right and need for self-determination, and only the occupation of Prague revealed that not “self-determination” but “domination” was the issue. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York, 1994), p. 317.

6. Attempts to clarify the problem, see Oscar Halecki, Borderlands of Western Civilization. A History of East-Central Europe (New York, 1952), pp. 3-7.

THE SMALLER POWERS OF EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE AND THE BIG THREE

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certainly not a very useful classification. It is more helpful to subdivide Eastern Europe into East-Central and South-Eastern Europe. In this paper the countries of East-Central Europe will be under discussion, i.e. the countries lying between Germany and the Soviet Union. The factors which determined their distinctiveness were, inter alia, historical experience, the stage of civilisation and economic development, the authoritarian and semi-authoritarian political systems (only Czechoslovakia was considered to be a country which adhered to western democratic criteria), and the fact that they were small countries (which was considered a destabilising factor) and at the same time new countries (which called their permanence in question).

The East-Central European policy of three big powers, who only in 1941 became the Big Three, could not be and was not uniform. In the period 1939-1941, the gap between them seemed impossible to bridge. After 1941 there was a certain community of interests created by Nazi aggression; after 1943 the decisions concerning the smaller powers taken by the Big Three were like-minded although, even then, their prerequisites differed. The decisions taken and their consequences for the future of East-Central European countries have been the subject of extensive historical research and analysis, and it seems there is no need to discuss them here in detail. What is, however, worth stressing is the fact that these decisions affected all three qualifications of the state: population, territory, and government (power). All the countries under discussion, both victorious and defeated, suffered from transfers of population on unprecedented scale. All the countries, both victorious and defeated, suffered the loss of territory. All the countries, both victorious and defeated, underwent not only changes of government, but changes of political and economic systems.

These were the immediate effects. The long-term consequences of those changes for the smaller powers, the well-being of their citizens, their national consciousness, political process, legal systems, etc. are and will be an intricate subject of historical research. But it is also important to look for the sources of the Great Powers’ policy. They have to be searched for in the period of time hitherto neglected, i.e. in the initial stages of war and the years 1939-1941. The most important decisions were being taken after 1943, but it is striking that these decisions were very much the reflection of earlier events. Their most important result – the division of Europe between East and West – ran more or less along the lines demarcating the German and Soviet spheres of influence. It looks as if the agreements between the Big Three practically replaced the no longer operative secret clauses of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, and the foundations for the after-war division of Europe were laid in the very first years of the war.

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The United Kingdom had no interests in East-Central Europe. As Stanley Baldwin put it in 1934: “when you think of the defence of England […] you think of the Rhine”.7 The fact that in March 1939 Great Britain “ moved her Baldwinian frontier of security from the Rhine to the Vistula ”8 altered the chain of events but did not alter the traditional understanding of Britain’s role in Europe. During the period of 1939-1941, the American attitude towards the whole continent was – to say the least – non-committal, and Eastern Europe was beyond any interest (some interest was manifested during the Presidential elections, when the candidates tried to win the votes of the Americans of East-European origin). The only power immediately interested in this region was the Soviet Union, and it assumed that great power status entailed the right to expand. By the end of 1940, six countries had fallen victim to this policy: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Rumania, and Finland. The door for such a policy was opened by the German-Soviet treaties9, according to which the eastern part of Poland, Finland and the Baltic States fell into the “sphere of influence” of the USSR, and “the Soviet side emphasise[d] its interest in Bessarabia”. Both the German and the Soviet interpretations of the words “sphere of interests” exceeded the generally accepted meaning.

The Soviet Union claimed that “l’État polonais et son Gouvernement ont […] cessé d’exister”10. This statement (and also the German one, to the same effect) was inconsistent with international law. There was no interruption of the continuity of the Polish state, because Poland did not undergo debellatio (the result of which is the loss of sovereignty). Debellatio is possible only in case of conquest and annexation of the conquered territory – in the case of Poland there was no conquest because there was no capitulation, and there was no annexation because annexation is not permissible durante bello, and the war – being the coalition’s war – was still being fought.11 Nevertheless,

7. Quoted from: Wesley K. Wark, The Ultimate Enemy. British Intelligence and Nazi Germany. 1933-1939 (Oxford, 1986), p. 40.

8. Pawel Starzenski, Trzy lata z Beckiem [Three Years with Beck] (Warsaw, 1991), p. 109.

9. Treaty of non-aggression between Germany and the USSR of August 23, 1939, its secret additional protocol, and also the secret additional protocol to the German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty of September 28, 1939, Documents on Polish-Soviet Relations. 1939-1945, vol. 1: 1939-1943 (hereafter: DPSR) (London, 1961), pp. 40, 53.

10. Note of the Soviet Government to the Polish Embassy in Moscow, September 17, 1939, ibid, p. 46.

11. Krystyna Marek, Identity and Continuity of States in Public International Law (Geneva, 1954), p. 103. It is interesting to note here that despite the utterly different


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despite the illegality of this act, the eastern provinces of the Polish state were annexed to the USSR.12 To cover up the fact that it was an unlawful move, elections to the so-called National Assemblies were organised in occupied territories (called by the occupant Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia). The National Assemblies asked the Supreme Soviet that their regions be incorporated into the respective Soviet republics. The Supreme Soviet agreed to accede to these requests and incorporated the territories into the Ukrainian SSR and Byelorussian SSR.13

The same procedure was adopted in 1940 in the cases of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but this time the Soviet Union did not claim the liquidation of these countries. Their “independence” within the Soviet Union was fictitious but they were not declared “non-existent”. Rumania had to surrender Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina. The Soviet claims to these territories went even beyond what had been agreed with the Germans in the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Bukovina was never mentioned there, nor had it even been part of the Russian Empire.14 After the Winter War, Finland lost about 9% of her territory to the benefit of the Soviet Union. official attitude of His Majesty’s Government some of the British politicians shared the Soviet conviction that the Polish state had ceased to exist. HM’s Ambassador to Moscow, Sir Stafford Cripps, in the memorandum handed to Andrei Vyshinski on October 22, 1940 used the term “former Polish State” (S. Cripps to FO, Telegram n° 913, October 22, 1940 – PRO, FO 371/24845, N.6875/30/38). When he was reminded by the Foreign Office that “in view of our relations and agreements with Poland, we cannot in an international agreement speak of ‘former Polish State’” (FO to S. Cripps, Tel. n° 720, October 30, 1940, ibid.), he answered: “I was not aware that His Majesty’s Government desired to maintain fiction that former Polish state (as distinct from the Government) still exists de facto. […] I appreciate however that it is undesirable psychologically to use the term ‘former Polish state’” (S. Cripps to FO, Tel. n° 944, October 31, 1940 – PRO, FO 371/24845, N.7046/30/38). His explanation was never approved by the Foreign Office (cf. the comments of Sir William Malkin, legal adviser to FO, November 4, 1940, ibid.).

12. Part of the Polish state territory – Wilno (Vilnius) and the Wilno region – was transferred by the Soviet Union to Lithuania (the Soviet-Lithuanian Agreement of October 10, 1939, DPSR, vol. 1, pp. 62-63). In July-August 1940 it was together with the whole Lithuanian Republic incorporated into the USSR.

13. Decree of the Supreme Council of the USSR on the annexation of Western Ukraine (November 1st, 1939) and Western Byelorussia (November 2, 1939), DPSR, vol. 1, pp. 69-70.

14. See: V. I. Vinogradov et al. (ed.), Bessarabiya na perekrestke Yevropieyskoi diplomatii. Dokumenty i materialy [Bessarabia at the crossroads of European diplomacy. Documents and materials] (Moscow, 1996), p. 343 ff.

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Soviet policy affected not only the states and their territories but also their population. Firstly, all the inhabitants of the territories annexed by the Soviets were regarded by them as having acquired Soviet citizenship (according to the decree issued by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on November 29, 1939). Secondly, the policy of extermination and deportation was applied to large groups and classes of inhabitants of the newly acquired territories.15

The policy towards the population of the annexed provinces and countries of Eastern Europe was kept secret and was presented by the Soviets as a policy being carried out in conformity with the democratic procedures. According to the Soviet official statements, the purpose of this policy was to ensure the security of the Soviet state, or to defend the population of the annexed territories, or to set to right the ethnic problems, or to make up for social injustice.16

The reactions of the Western Powers to the actions taken by the co-belligerent to-be are interesting. There was a strong opposition in the sole case of Finland, resulting in expulsion of the Soviet Union from the League of Nations and in plans for a military expedition to Finland. In the case of Poland, the only reaction of His Majesty’s Government was the statement issued by the Ministry of Information (The Times, September 19, 1939)17, and the note of September 18, handed by Ambassador William Seeds to

15. Historical research on the subject has intensified in recent years and here are just few examples of the books dealing with the problem: Keith Sword, Deportation and Exile. Poles in the Soviet Union, 1939-48 (London, 1996); S. Ciesielski, G. Hryciuk, A. Srebrakowski, Masowe deportacje radzieckie w okresie II wojny swiatowej [Soviet mass deportations during the Second World War] (Wroclaw, 1993); L. C. Jeremin.(ed.), Repressii protiv polakov i polskikh grazhdan [Repression against the Poles and the Polish citizens] (Moskow, 1997); Ewa Kowalska, Przezyc, aby wrócic! Polscy zeslancy lat 1940-1941 w ZSRR i ich losy do roku 1946 [Survive and you’ll return! Polish deportees of the years 1940-1941 in the USSR and their fortunes until 1946] (Warsaw, 1998); Daniel Bockowski, Czas nadziei. Obywatele Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej w ZSRR i opieka nad nimi placówek polskich w latach 1940-1943 [Time of hope. The citizens of the Polish Republic in the USRR and their protection by Polish diplomatic posts. 1940-1943] (Warsaw, 1999); and most recently numerous articles in K. Jasiewicz (ed.), Non-Provincial Europe. Changes on the Eastern Territories of the former Polish Republic (Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, eastern borderland of the III Republic) in 1772-1999 (Warsaw, London, 1999), pp. 949-1184.

16. See the Soviet note of September 17, 1939 where almost all those arguments were used (cf. footnote 10).

17. See: DPSR, vol. 1, p. 49.


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V. Molotov on September 19, in which it was stated: “[…] HM’s Government wish to formulate the most express reserves as to the statement that ‘the Polish State and its Government have in fact ceased to exist’, and as to the reasons the Soviet Government adduce for holding this view. […]”.18

In the case of the Baltic States there were no reserves of any kind. The attitude of the British towards Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania can be, to some extent, illustrated by what A. V. Alexander wrote to A. Cadogan in his report of the conversation he had had with Ambassador Ivan Maisky on September 17, 1940: “I had no feelings either way about the Baltic States – frankly I did not know enough about them, except that we bought butter and bacon from them”.19

The British policy towards the smaller powers of East-Central Europe was generally marked by the equivocal way in which they were treated: they were welcome comrades in the fight against Nazi Germany, but in relation to the Soviet Union, their position was less privileged. The first aspect manifested itself in the way the governments of these countries were dealt with. Great Britain, in 1940 facing alone the Nazi menace, welcomed all potential allies. London became the provisional home of the exiled governments which, at least formally, were treated as equals. Their sojourn in the United Kingdom was regulated by the Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Act of March 6, 1941.20 Initially, the only government of East-Central Europe that was recognised as a constitutional, legal government was the Polish one.21 Later on, the Czechoslovak Government was also granted full recognition.22

18. Quoted from Leopold Jerzewski (Jerzy Lojek), Agresja 17 wrzesnia [Aggression of September 17], Warsaw, 1982, p. XXIII. The fact is that the secret protocol to the British-Polish Agreement of Mutual Assistance of August 25, 1939 limited British obligations only to the case of German (not Soviet) aggression.

19. A. V. Alexander’s report, September 17, 1940 – PRO, FO 371/24845, N. 6630/30/38.

20. Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Act, 1941 – PRO, FO 371/26428, C.2575/84/62. The presence of the military forces of these countries in the British Isles was regulated by the Allied Forces Act of August 22, 1940.

21. Later it was joined for a short period of time (1941-1943) by the Yugoslavian and Greek Governments from South-Eastern Europe.

22. It started as the Czechoslovak National Committee formed in November 1939 in Paris. It was not recognised then as an organisation representing the Czechoslovak state (since the continuity of the state was broken in March 1939) but it was considered to be “qualifié pour représenter le peuple tchécoslovaque” (Maurice Flory, Le statut international des gouvernements réfugiés et le cas de la France Libre. 1939-1945, Paris 1952, p. 40). Following the French defeat it moved to London where it assumed

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Other East-Central European countries were not represented in the United Kingdom by their Governments. The pre-war governments of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia did not flee their countries, nor did any representatives of these countries form any émigré government. After the annexation of the Baltic States by the USSR their diplomatic representatives in London sent notes to Lord Halifax, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, protesting against the Soviet actions.23 The Foreign Office decided that: “Baltic Ministers [are to be] informed orally and privately that no official answer will be returned to their notes (though their names will remain on the diplomatic list)”.24 The Baltic States never received the status of an occupied country.

Austria did, and in December 1941, a Free Austrian Movement, representing numerous émigré organisations, was formed in London. It was decided that “while the Foreign Office [would] maintain with it such informal contact as may be appropriate, no measure of recognition [would], in present circumstances, be accorded to it”25, but on the other hand, “His Majesty’s Government […] sympathise with Austrians who aim at freeing their country

the title of the Provisional Czechoslovak Government (not: Government of Czechoslovakia). Its status still did not equal the status of the constitutional governments-in-exile functioning on the British soil, although it fell into the domain of the Diplomatic Privileges (Extension) Act. Also the position of President Eduard Benes did not equal the position of other heads of state residing in London, although in practice he enjoyed the same privileges and immunities (“Immunities and Privileges for the Heads of the Allied States in the United Kingdom and Their Personal Retinues. Annex I: Personal Status of President Eduard Benes of Czechoslovakia, February 1941” – PRO, FO 371/26428, C. 2062/84/62). Between the British and the Provisional Czechoslovak Government there was no exchange of regular diplomatic agents, the former merely appointing a “British Representative with the Czecho-Slovak Provisional Government” (Minute by William Strang, August 1, 1940 – PRO, FO 371/24289, C. 8267/2/12). Finally, when on July 18, 1941 the Soviet Government – freshly brought into the war on the side of the Allies – concluded a treaty with the Czechoslovak Government, recognising it without limitations, the British Government decided to grant it full recognition.

23. For the text of the Lithuanian note of July 23, 1940 see: La Lituanie et la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Recueil des documents par Bronis Kaslas (Paris, 1981), pp. 135-136.

24. Halifax to Stafford Cripps, August 13, 1940 – PRO, FO 371/24847, N.6105/40/38. See also: The Foreign Office List and Diplomatic and Consular Year Book; Llewellyn Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War (London, 1970), vol. 1, pp. 475-482.

25. FO telegram to Washington n° 1675, March 14, 1942 – ibid..


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from Nazi domination” and “are anxious to encourage the spirit of Austrian resistance to German domination”.26

Even the countries which could not claim that they were victims of German aggression tried to establish some sort of representation in London. Strong initiative was shown by some Hungarian politicians, but they were warned that the British attitude towards Hungary “would be influenced by the degree and manner in which the Hungarian Government had endeavoured to withstand Axis pressure and maintain a genuinely neutral attitude”.27 After British-Hungarian diplomatic relations were broken off (April 1941), attempts to form an émigré government in London aborted but a Hungarian Council was formed, led by Mihály Károlyi, which did not play any significant role.

Rumanians in London were also divided into various factions but two main groups could be singled out: the “Free Rumanian Committee” led by Viorel Virgil Tilea, former Minister in London, and the “Rumanian Democratic Committee” led by Victor Cornea. According to the Foreign Office instructions “His Majesty’s Government have been unwilling to recognise any Free Rumanian movement because none of the personnel available in this country appeared to be of sufficient calibre to appeal to Rumanians at home”.28

Although the free movements did not find any form of recognition from HMG, their presence in London was accepted, sometimes even supported. The presence of legal governments-in-exile was used by the British to strengthen their own position, to stress their leading role, and to underline the community of aims and interests of European countries fighting against the Nazis and their accomplices. This is the reason why the British did not want the exiled governments to leave Britain and look for asylum or support elsewhere – even when they became more of a burden than a blessing. What the British found particularly disquieting was the tendency of the smaller allies to turn for assistance to the United States, after the USA entered the war. For example, when the Polish Government planned in 1942 to settle the so-called Eight-Powers Declaration of Solidarity – a declaration of the exiled governments – and to issue it during Sikorski’s visit to the USA, it was agreed at the Foreign Office that “the Polish proposal was embarrassing, and it would

26. A. Eden’s confidential circular to His Majesty’s Representatives, June 18, 1941 – PRO, FO 371/30866, C. 2280/669/62.

27. Quoted from: Gyula Juhász, Hungarian Foreign Policy. 1919-1945 (Budapest, 1972), p. 182.

28. Foreign Office telegram to Washington N° 1677, March 14, 1942 – PRO, FO 371/30866, C. 2280/669/62.

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be particularly undesirable for Governments who were established in London to launch a declaration from Washington. This might even encourage some of them in the idea […] that they might transfer themselves to Washington”.29

A similar attitude was adopted in financial arrangements. When the renewal of the credit for the Polish Government was negotiated, the Treasury suggested “the possibility of the US Government sharing the expenditure with us”.30 The Foreign Office, taking into account not only the financial but also the political considerations, thought that it was a rather unfortunate idea. As Frank K. Roberts put it bluntly: “We naturally do not want Poles or our other Allies to look to the United States rather than to us as their patrons. This would be particularly undesirable in the case of the Poles, who regard the Americans as being more sympathetic than we are to their views on future arrangements in Eastern Europe. In our opinion, therefore, it would not be worth while for the comparatively small amounts involved to surrender the political control, which we automatically obtain by the provision of finance for the Allied Governments without resources of their own”.31

While the small allies played quite a significant role in the British policy of the time, it was evident that they were not a sufficient counterbalance to Nazi Germany. Great Britain – in need of a much stronger partner – tried on the one hand to strengthen the position of the small powers (e.g. by supporting the idea of East-Central European confederation), and on the other hand, to convince both the United States and the Soviet Union to join the Allies.32

All the attempts at drawing the USSR out of its collusion with the Third Reich entailed great expense, and it was to be met by the small powers. The first manifestations of this British policy were to be found in Winston Churchill’s letter to Stalin of June 24, 194033 and in subsequent conversations of Ambassador Stafford Cripps with Stalin (July 1st) and Molotov (August 7).34 The more specific proposals were embodied in a memorandum handed

29. Record of the meeting at the FO, February 26, 1942 – PRO, FO 371/30871, C. 2230/1543/62.

30. W. L. Fraser (Treasury) to R. M. Makins (FO), March 24, 1942 – PRO, FO 371/31107, C. 3145/3145/55.

31. F. K. Roberts (FO) to W. L. Fraser, March 29, 1942, ibid.. 32. It was impossible to reconcile those two objectives. The Soviet Union rejected

any idea of the confederation in Eastern Europe, seeing in it the revival of the cordon sanitaire.

33. Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War, vol. 3, The Fall of France (London, 1968), pp. 120-121.

34. Dokumienty vnieshniey politiki.1940 – 22 iyunia 1941 [Documents on Foreign Policy. 1940 – 22 June 1941], vol. 23/1 (Moscow, 1995), pp. 394-399, 485-488.


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by Cripps to A. Vyshinsky on October 22, 1940. The British were ready “to recognise […] de facto sovereignty of the USSR in Estonia, Latvia{ XE "Latvia" }, Lithuania, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and those parts of the former Polish State now under Soviet control”.35 Although the British proposal was rejected by the Soviet Government it was an important factor in ensuing British-Soviet negotiations. Stalin returned to this proposal, without naming it, in December 1941, in his conversations with Anthony Eden.36

The British attempts to create the Anglo-American Alliance resulted in August 1941 in a joint declaration soon to be named “Atlantic Charter”. Despite initial reservations, the governments of the smaller powers decided to support the Atlantic Charter. During the second meeting of the Allied representatives in St. James’s Palace, on September 24, 1941, they adopted the resolution by which they “[made] known their adherence to the common principles of policy set forth in that Declaration [Atlantic Charter] and their intention to co-operate to the best of their ability in giving effect to them”.37 The Soviet Union also associated itself with the Atlantic Charter and Ambassador Maisky made a statement on the policy of the Soviet Government in which the following passages were included: “The Soviet Union has applied, and will apply in its foreign policy, the high principle of respect for the sovereign rights of peoples. The Soviet Union was, and is, guided in its foreign policy by the principle of self-determination of nations. […] Accordingly, the Soviet Union defends the right of every nation to the independence and territorial integrity of its country, and its right to establish such a social order and to choose such a form of government as it deems opportune and necessary for the better promotion of its economic and cultural prosperity”.38 The text of this declaration had been known to the British before Maisky presented it in St. James’s Palace and it caused the following comment from Roger Makins at the Foreign Office: “There is nothing in this declaration to which we need raise objection, though I must observe that many of the statements in it, coming from a representative of the Soviet Union, will

35. Cf. footnote 11. 36. See: O. A. Rzheshevsky, Vizit A. Idena v Moskvu v diekabrie 1941 g.

Preregovori s I.V.Stalinym i V.M.Molotovym [A. Eden’s Visit to Moscow in December 1941. Conversations with I. V. Stalin and V. M. Molotov], Novaya i Noveyshaya Istoriya, 1994, n° 2, 3.

37. Inter-Allied Meeting held in London at St. James’s Palace on September 24, 1941. Report of Proceedings, PRO, CAB 21/1379.

38. I. Maisky’s statement, September 24, 1941, PRO, FO 3371/26425, C. 11645/14/62.

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reduce the proceedings to something perilously near a farce & will no doubt be most welcome to German propaganda”.39 But officially, nobody objected.

Beside the above-quoted words, Maisky added something else, something which was used later to justify the violation of the Atlantic Charter principles: “[…] the practical application of these principles would necessarily adapt itself to the circumstances, needs and historical peculiarities of particular countries […]”. This adaptation began very soon. In March 1942 Churchill was writing to Roosevelt: “The increasing gravity of the war has led me to feel that the principles of the Atlantic Charter ought not to be construed so as to deny Russia the frontiers she occupied when Germany attacked her. This was the basis on which Russia acceded to the Charter”.40 Such an interpretation was not so much a reaction to “the increasing gravity of the war” but above all a reaction to the growing Soviet territorial claims which intensified during the negotiations of the Anglo-Soviet Treaty (eventually signed on May 26, 1942).

The territorial claims of the Great Powers, namely the Soviet Union, were treated in a very special way. In his memorandum of March 15, 1943, circulated in the Foreign Office, Orme Sargent declared: “When we enunciated the principle that frontier questions must be reserved for the general peace settlement, we had in mind the frontier questions of the various lesser Allies. The position of the three Great Allies in this respect constitutes a very different problem”.41 He was referring to the recent visit of Anthony Eden to Washington. Before leaving, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had met Ambassador Maisky on March 10, 1943, who had again presented the Soviet point of view on the future western frontiers of the Soviet Union (a frontier with Poland approximately along the Curzon Line, and the Baltic States to be included in the USSR). He had also mentioned that the “future Polish government” should be “democratic and friendly” towards the Soviet Union, because only then could the relations between the two countries be good.42 Those opinions were repeated by Eden in his conversation with the

39. R. Makins, September 17, 1941, PRO, FO 371/26424, C. 10410/14/62. 40. W. S. Churchill to F. D. Roosevelt, March 7, 1942, Churchill and Roosevelt.

The Complete Correspondence, vol. 1: Alliance Emerging. October 1933-November 1942, ed. by Warren F. Kimball (Princeton, 1987), p. 394.

41. Orme Sargent’s memorandum, April 15, 1943, PRO, FO 371/34568, C. 4133/258/55.

42.A. Eden’s report of the conversation with Ivan Maisky, March 10, 1943, PRO, PREM 3/355/4, N. 1605/315/G. Maisky’s report is in: Sovetsko-angliyskiye otnosheniya vo vremiya vielikoy oteczestvennoy voiny. 1941-1945, [the Soviet-English


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American President on March 15, 1943.43 Roosevelt said that “United Kingdom, United States and USSR would have to decide at appropriate time what was the just and reasonable solution [to the problem of frontiers] and, if they agreed, Poland would have to accept”. The Soviets were informed about this attitude of President Roosevelt.44

After Soviet-Polish diplomatic relations were broken in April 26, 1943 over the Katyn Massacre, the Western Powers decided that it was not an “appropriate time” for such a solution; and nevertheless, the idea of such a solution paved the way for further demands. And the territorial claims were just the beginning. Questions concerning future governments of the smaller powers of East-Central Europe, just mentioned by Maisky in his conversation with Eden, later came back repeatedly in the negotiations between the Great Powers. They marked the road from self-determination to subordination, on which the smaller powers of East-Central Europe found themselves.

Relationship during the Great Patriotic War. 1941-1945], vol. 1: 1941-1943 (Moscow, 1983), p. 350 ff.

43. A. Eden’s report of this conversation in telegram (n° 1273) to W. S. Churchill, March 16, 1943, PRO, PREM 3/355/4.

44. FO to A. Clark Kerr, Telegram n° 310, March 27, 1943, PRO, FO 371/36954,N. 1847/66.

Magdalena Hulas

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New Conditions for the Development of Hungarian Society Before and During the Second World War (1938-

1945) in Comparison with Central and Eastern Europe

Péter SIPOS

The development of Hungarian society in the period of 1938-1945 was

influenced by the following new circumstances, shaped by changes in domestic and foreign policy:

1. the significant growth of the territory and population of the country between 1938-1945;

2.1938-1939 anti-Jewish laws in Hungary , and the Hungarian holocaust in 1944, after the German occupation;

3. the emerging economic boom as of 1938, especially industrial development;

4. the fact that the country became a seat of war between the fall of 1944 and the spring of 1945, the Soviet occupation, and the mass exodus;

5. the reforms and other measures of the new democratic government in 1945 and in the years immediately after the war.

All these events and developments were only partly influential during the war, but they significantly and permanently changed the living conditions of some classes of society, and modified the structure of society afterwards.

The European political situation, especially the support of the Axis powers, led to the reannexation of the major share of the territories that were lost as a consequence of the 1920 Peace Treaty of Trianon. By the return of South Upper Hungary (today South Slovakia) in November 1938 following the First Vienna Award, the occupation of Sub-Carpathia (today Carpathian Ukraine) in March 1939, the reannexation of Northern Transylvania following the Second Vienna Award in August 1940, and as a result of the participation in the armed attack against Yugoslavia in April 1941, the occupation of the “South” (essentially Voivodina and the Baranya triangle), in two and a half years, the territory of Hungary increased from the 93,073 km2 subsequent to the Trianon Treaty to 171,640 km2 (84.4%), and the population grew from 8,688,319 to 13,732,352, (58.05%).1

1.Hungarian Statistical Annual 1942 (Budapest, 1944), p. 2.

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The territorial growth resulted in important nationality changes. More than 50% of the population of the reannexed territories was not Hungarian, thus the percentage of other nationalities within the population more than doubled (from about 10% to 22.5%). Considering only nationalities with significant populations, there were 1,100,532 (7.5%) Rumanians, 719,762 (4.9%) Germans, 564,092 (3.8%) Ruthenians, 438,934 (3%) South Slavs, and 268,913 (1.8%) Slovaks living in the enlarged Hungary. The religious composition also changed; the number of Greek Catholics and Greek orthodox increased. The percentage of Jews did not change significantly, it remained around 5%, but their number grew from about 400,000 to 725,000, an increase of about 80%.2

The motherland proved to be unable to deal with these changes. This was not only because of the fairly short time involved; as a matter of fact, these territories were returned to the neighbouring countries in 1944-1945, and the return was confirmed in international law by the 1947 Peace Treaty of Paris. Although from its birth the most important aim of the counter-revolutionary regime was revision, the years of the Hungarian regime were full of incidents primarily due to the lack of a general project for the reintegration of the territories that had belonged to other states for two decades, and lived under different social, economic and political conditions.

As a result of that, not only did the nationalities suffer serious injustices, but soon the Hungarians' undoubted and natural happiness about returning to their home country turned into disappointment. The Hungarian state treated the reannexed territories with suspicion and distrust; it extended the applicability of the anti-Jewish laws and the method of dealing with the left wing opposition to these territories as well. Additionally, the change of power was accompanied by brutal atrocities, especially in Transylvania, on the part of Hungary and Rumania. 100,000 Rumanians fled from North Transylvania to South Transylvania, and 100-150,000 Hungarians moved from South Transylvania to the reannexed territories.

Hungarian rule started everywhere with the introduction of military administration, and even later, the influence of military leadership remained strong on the civil administration. Civil administration was carried out in such a way that the different positions were occupied by the members of the fast-growing middle class of the motherland (nicknamed “parachutists” in the returned territories), who brought with them the gentry mentality and the antidemocratic spirit, which not only offended the nationalities, but the Hungarians as well. The employees of the public and state administration

2. Hungarian Statistical Almanach 1942 (Budapest, 1943), p. 66.

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(postmen, railway employees, civil servants, teachers, professors) were summoned before certifying committees to determine their loyalty to the Hungarian nation, and the licences of the craftsmen and the merchants were revised.

The 1939 Decree (N° 2550) of the Prime Minister, providing for the revision of the land reform carried out under the Czechoslovak Republic which in reality meant the restoration of ownership to Hungarian landowners, caused years of confusion and insecurity. Because of the economic interests of the motherland, agricultural production and sales decreased in South Upper Hungary: after all, these landowners did not profit from the economic possibilities of the reannexed South Upper Hungary. The living conditions of the Hungarians in this area had deteriorated to such an extent that according to the Prime Minister, Mr. Pál Teleki, they endangered the chance of obtaining other territories.

Military administration operated in Northern Transylvania and Székely land (Eastern Transylvania, now Rumania) from the marching in of the Hungarian army until November 1940. Teleki – who resigned after the Second Vienna Award (August 1940) because, in his opinion, the military leadership influenced politics excessively, and its activity in the reannexed territories had been detrimental even from the Hungarian point of view – could only mitigate the abuses slightly. He did however secure that in Transylvania there were no loyalty certifying proceedings, and that the revision of the Rumanian land reform be started a little more carefully, even though it also brought about arbitrariness and confusion.

The military administration operated in the South until August 15, 1941. Even after that date, measures against the nationalities were not rescinded. Pursuant to a government decree, 150,000 Serbs were expelled from Bácska, because they had settled there after December 31, 1918; this had not happened in any other reannexed territory. After a horrible peregrination, 13,000 Székelys (csángós) whose ancestors had gone to Bukovina in the 18th century, settled in their place. Ten villages were created for them south of Subotica (Szabadka), mostly in the place from which the Serbs had been expelled. Their tragic fate did not end there; in the fall of 1944, they were forced to flee from the war, but after the Second World War, finally found a home in South Transdanubia, mainly in the place from which the German/Swabian population had been expelled. The Hungarian authorities persecuted people of “bunyevác” nationality, who claimed Croat national identity.

It was not only the nationalities, but also the Hungarians belonging to the civil left wing and the socialist movements who suffered from the change of power in the territories that had been returned to the Hungarian crown. The

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free masonic lodges were banned, and in 1942 a large show trial was organized against their members in Transylvania. Further hundreds of leftists and communists were arrested. In the South, razzias and trials ending in capital sentence became commonplace.

In 1942 already, part of the non-Hungarians nationalities leftists resisted more strongly there (in the South) than anywhere else. The most flagrant of all was the January 1942 massacre in Voivodina and in its surroundings.

The balance of the reannexation was disadvantageous and not only as regards political power. The territorial disputes were decisive factors in the competition of the interested countries for the patronage of the great powers – Germany and later the Soviet Union – that dominated the region in turn. Neither did the changes leave the society there with good memories. The lesson of these events was that being a majority group gives many chances to abuse minorities. And this, which is still prevalent, counters the only possible durable solution, i.e. the idea of coexistence.

An especially tragic fate awaited the Jews both in the motherland and in the reannexed territories in spite of the fact that their majority was devoted to the Hungarian nationalist ideology and the revisionist aims, and supported the Horthy regime. For historical reasons that I need not expound upon now, Jews played a very significant role in the different sectors of the economy and in the independent intellectual professions.

According to the 1930 census, the percentage of Jews among the self-employed industrial population was 10% (29.7% in Budapest), among civil servants 33.4% (40.6% in Budapest). In the commercial field, the percentage of self-employed was 45.5% (57.1% in Budapest), among the civil servants it was 52% (59.8% in Budapest). Among the wage earners 5.3% were Jews (19.1% in Budapest) while among the intellectuals the percentage was 22.1% (33.3% in Budapest), including the lawyers where the percentage was 49.2% (55.8% in Budapest) and among engineers 30% (36.1% in Budapest). In 1935, 50.9% of the owners and managers of the big industrial companies, 41.6% of the directors, 22.1% of the technical officers, and 38,3% of the commercial functionaries declared themselves Jewish3.

Act N° XV of 1938, the so-called first Anti-Jewish Act, was accepted in May 1938. It provided that the proportion of Jews (at that time they were defined as members of the Israelite denomination) had to be reduced to 20% in the independent intellectual professions, as well as in bank and in industrial and commercial companies with more than 10 employees. Act No. IV of 1939, the so-called second Anti-Jewish Act, used a race-based approach

3.Hungarian Statistical Annual 1935 (Budapest, 1936), p. 136.


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(taking into account the religion of parents and grandparents) to define to whom the regulations applied. According to this law, the proportion of Jews had to be decreased to 6% in all areas, and the “numerus clausus” was introduced in many sectors and professions. These Acts and other laws opened the way to the “changing of the guards” in favour of the Christian middle-class intellectuals and employees.

According to certain data, 26,000 jobs were opened up for Christian applicants in the fields of industry, commerce, the credit business and independent intellectual professions. In addition to this measure, the regulations on state licences may have brought up the total number of transferred jobs around 40,000 and the transferred income around 90-100 millions pengo.4 The reannexation and the growth of the military offered favourable job possibilities for intellectuals, civil servants and military officers of the “gentry middle-class”.

The major means for implementing the Anti-Jewish Acts was to have Christians associated with state bureaucracy monopolize public shipping, foreign trade and marketing of agricultural sales. In September-October 1939, under the “extraordinary powers”, decrees were passed on the application of the Anti-Jewish Acts to retail sales of wines and spirits, sugar manufacturing and more generally in areas requiring state licences. Special progress was made in agricultural trade. This completed the general process of “the changing of the guards” in agriculture, and strengthened the position of state bureaucracy in this field as well. The controlled economy that was introduced gradually, after the war had broken out, exerted a similar influence.

The major beneficiaries of the Anti-Jewish Acts were the higher ranking state bureaucrats, who penetrated the most deeply into the Jewish bourgeois positions. The new leading capitalist group consisted mainly of high ranking state officials, and maybe officials of Budapest, or professional politicians and public figures who were “most closely connected with the leading bureaucracy, the government party and the statesmen”.5

The above-mentioned measures mainly struck the lower and middle-class Jews.

The traditional positions of the great capitalists remained essentially untouched, but in the new sectors that emerged from war prosperity – precision engineering, electronics and heavy chemical industry –, the Christian upper middle-class occupied the key positions. More and more ex-

4.Hegedûs István, Az õrségváltás mérlege [The balance of the changing of the guards] (Budapest, 1943), p. 297.

5. Új Hang, February 1948, p. 1000.

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military officials, state officials and politicians, who did not come within the scope of the discriminatory regulations, got on the boards of directors or the supervisory boards of banks and industrial companies.

The final phase of driving out the Jews was deportation. In May and June of 1944 more than 400,000 Jews from the countryside were taken mostly to Auschwitz or to other extermination camps. In the capital, during the fall and winter of 1944, when the Hungarian “Arrow-cross” nazis ruled, an additional 150,000 people died who had to comply to the compulsory work service. In industry, commerce and independent intellectual professions, the annihilation of the Jews meant a grave loss for the bourgeois middle-class. Dynasties of shopkeepers, buyers of agricultural products, highly respected physicians’ families, as well as financiers and lawyers – who were not much liked but indispensable in the economy – disappeared for good from the provincial cities and villages. It was not only detrimental for the Jews; the Hungarian economic and commercial culture also suffered a great loss.

The final social result of the above-mentioned industrial development was an increase and structural change of the working class. Since most of this increase came from the landless agrarian proletariat, the process resulted in a regrouping of village and urban populations, and urbanization accelerated perceptibly.

Between 1930 and 1943, the average annual number of industrial workers increased from 288,000 to 391,000 (35%), and the number of workers in mining and metallurgy increased from 41,000 to 59,000 (42%), so the increase altogether was close to 37%. The fact that between 1929 and 1938 the increase was only 20% indicates the importance of these changes.6

The unemployed formed one of the fundamental bases for the increase. Unemployment almost ceased to exist during the Second World War. The employment agencies of the workers unions recorded 27,000 unemployed in 1933, and only 12,000 at the end of 1941. The state employment agencies recorded 37,000 unemployed in 1933 and 14,000 at the end of 1941. However, in 1941 the reason why people were unemployed was not lack of employment, but rather that they “picked and chose” among job opportunities, constantly looking for better wages and working conditions.7

6.Berend Iván T., Ránki György: Magyarország gyáripara a második világháború elott és a háború idoszakában (1933-1944) [The Hungarian Manufacturing Industry Before and During the Second World War (1933-1944)] (Budapest, 1943), p. 297.

7.Sipos Péter, Legális és illegális munkásmozgalom (Legal and Illegal Workers Movement), Gondolat Kiadó (Budapest, 1988), p. 206.


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The other important source of the increase that was also significant in number was the jobseekers flowing from the villages to the cities, and primarily to the capital. In 1941, the number of agricultural workers went down to 266,000 (23%). The population of Budapest grew from 1,006,184 to 1,164,963 between 1930 and 1941.The population of other cities, with independent self-government, increased from 774,945 to 855,349, and the population of the Pest county including the industrial suburbs grew from 1,360,283 to 1,537,884.8

Workers who moved to the cities may have lived on worse food in their new environment, but they had access to better health care, electricity, water supply, and in some cases even sewerage. They could read the newspapers, go the movies or listen to the radio regularly. In other words, the worker who moved to the city or to the suburbs received more intellectual information, heard news from wider sources, thus becoming altogether more informed about the world. Because of the rapid industrial development, the new working class settled into the outskirts of Budapest, and in many ways preserved their links with the rural lifestyle. However the new way of life, so different from that of peasants and village people, was decisive. It was a change of lifestyle which started with working in the industrial community and living together in working class districts.

Nevertheless, the gulf between the most skilled workers devoted to the socialist traditions and the most unskilled newcomers in respect of class-consciousness, political culture and the related organization, grew wider. The percentage of the former got smaller, although their number still exceeded 100,000. Between the second half of the 1930’s and the beginning of the 1940’s, the strength of the organization substantially decreased. In 1938, about 9% (14% in Budapest) of the industrial supporting staff belonged to a trade union, in 1941 this number increased to 17%, (55% in Budapest).

In the final phase of the Second World War and immediately afterwards, the war events, the Soviet occupation, the land reform of the new democratic system (the Temporary Government issued regulations to this effect in March 1945), and other socio-economic measures, influenced the situation of all classes of society.

The class of big landowners, whose estates covered more than 1000 cadastral holds9, ceased to exist in 1945 after being wholly expropriated (land and equipment). Companies and bank ownership by the tycoons remained

8.Hungarian Statistical Annual 1948 (Budapest, 1948), pp. 42-43. 9. A cadastral hold is a Hungarian square measure. 1 hold=1600 square fathom (1

square fathom=38,32 square feet).

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substantially untouched until the end of 1947, but in fact their control over the factories, mines and financial institutions was very limited or non-existent. At the beginning of 1945, production went mostly to supply the Soviet army and afterwards, reconstruction started without the owners and managers. The majority of Jewish origin people had been sent to concentration camps in early 1944, and the most important family – the Chorin-Weiss-Mautner – had left the country after making a deal with the SS. Many people had fled to the West.

The liberty of action of the owners and production managers who came back and officially took over the management of their company was restricted by the controlled state economy and the control institutionalized by the workers in the factory committees.

During the inflation the political propaganda of the Party made the “defaulters of currency regulations and the black-marketers” as well as the “hoarders of commodities” the scapegoats. In public opinion, speculation was considered part of commercial profit-making.

After the 1946 stabilization, the economic policy that made the accumulation of private capital impossible became permanent.

Ownership of big capital gradually crumbled away. At the end of 1945 the coal mines, and at the end of 1946 the six major heavy industrial companies (Weiss Manfréd, Rimamurányi-Salgótarján, Ganz Villamosság, Ganz Gép-, Vagon-és Hajógyár, Gyori Magyar Vagon-és Gépgyár) were appropriated by the state. In principle it had not affected the ownership, but in fact it meant nationalization.

The capitalist property was legally eliminated in more steps taken in a short period of time at the end of 1947 and in the beginning of 1948. By July 1948, 91% of the coal mines, 88% of the industry and 95% of the banks were under state ownership. In the 1944-1945 upheaval, almost the whole middle-class was ruined. Certain groups of the middle class were decimated or disappeared as a result of the war, legal and political persecution, and the turmoil of radical social change. Gyula Szekfû, the most prominent historian of the period, summarized the substance of the changes as follows, in his 1947 book entitled Forradalom után [After the Revolution] : “No other rational choice for the middle class remained but to recognize that the old times, when the middle class was really in the middle with a leading class above and a lower class below, had disappeared for good and could never be brought back.”

The 1945 land reform eliminated the means of living of the medium landowners who were the most distinguished and the wealthiest among the traditional middle class gentry, because they had influence in the national offices and institutions through their ruling positions in the provinces as well


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as their diverse acquaintances and contacts. 99.5% of the lands covering more than 200 cadastral holds had been divided up or became community property with all their assets: livestock, equipment and buildings (including about 1,500 castles and mansions) as well as agricultural and industrial plants. As a consequence of the land reform, the proportion of wealthy peasantry and remaining landowning gentry (former big and medium landowners) within the agrarian population decreased from 7% to 2.8%.

The state and municipal functionaries constituted the most significant part of the middle class. For them, the events of the war caused the first big shock. By the middle of December 1944, about 60% of the country – 35 cities out of 54 (not including Budapest), 15 county seats out of 25, 90 districts out of 150 – fell under Soviet control. As indicated previously, the territories that had been reannexed between 1938 and 1941 were lost again. These developments triggered two waves of flight: 70-80% of the functionaries fled with their families from the eastern part of the country to settle in the capital or in Transdanubia. From the reannexed territories the deluge of refugees headed to the middle part of the country. In virtue of a government decree of July 1945, the state and self-government civil servants' jobs did not cease to exist, and the civil servants still received their salaries even though they were not working anymore because their position and place no longer existed.

The number of civil servants exceeded 400,000 in 1943, 150,000 of them might have been functionaries. The apparatus had not decreased substantially by 1945, and its size was far bigger than in the 1937-1938 budgetary year.

There had been two politically motivated attempts at downsizing. In 1945, during the certifying process 3.1% of the civil servants were dismissed. During the “B list” campaign in 1946, about 40-50,000 people lost their jobs, including 20-25,000 civil servants.

The 1949 census reflected the diminished social importance of the middle class. In 1941, it was composed of 636,700 wage-earners and their families, that is 10.1% of the total population; however in 1949, 627,300 wage-earners and their families, that is 6.8% of the population, joined the share of the population who were not wage-earners or small producers (people with a land covering more than 25 holds, craftsmen with employees, other people living independently off their property, etc.).10 The structure of Hungarian society had changed substantially in the 1940’s. The former groups, who were at the top of the hierarchy with respect to property and income, disappeared, the

10.Petõ Iván, Szakács Sándor, A hazai gazdaság négy évtizedének a története 1945-1985 [History of the Four Decades of the Hungarian Economy 1945-1985], t. 1. 1945-1968, p. 206. Közgazdasági és Jogi Könyvkiadó (Budapest, 1985), pp. 144-145.

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middle classes became weaker, and the number of destitute village people decreased significantly.

The Second World War caused significant social changes not only in Hungary, but in other Central Eastern European countries as well. Just as in Hungary, land reform was the most important development in Poland and Czechoslovakia. Similarly to Hungary, the agricultural situation changed radically in Poland where additionally the land reform was accompanied by changes of territorial boundaries and population. The resettled population from the territories that had become part of the Soviet Union was established in the areas that had been annexed to Poland from Germany. As a result of the Polish land reform, all lands in German ownership and all estates covering more than 100 hectares, regardless of their owner's nationality, had been expropriated. The change in property concerned 20% of the country’s territory, and 788,000 new farms were created on 13.8 million hectares of expropriated property.

In Czechoslovakia the lands of the German and Hungarian populations who had been declared the “collective enemy” were expropriated in 1945. In 1947 an estate could not cover more than 150 hectares, in 1948 the maximum acreage was reduced to 50 hectares.

There had also been politically motivated land reforms in the Balkan countries where peasant farms dominated as a result of a land reform after the First World War, but it was not significant since it concerned less than 10% of the territory.

Expropriation had been carried out everywhere in the industrial and bank sectors between 1944-1948. It was fastest and most massive in Yugoslavia, but the other countries had been just as radical.

The radical changes in the most important sectors of the economy had fundamentally changed the structure of the society in every country in the region.

Judicial Crimes as an Instrument of Internal Warfare and Subject of Post-War Justice in Austria:

a Comparison of WWI and II

Hans HAUTMANN Claudia KURETSIDIS-HAIDER

The history of Austria in the twentieth century demonstrates a line of continuity that has hardly been considered by historians of the subject hitherto, and is, to all intents and purposes, also absent from the consciousness of the general public. The fact is that there was not only a dictatorship in Austria in the years 1939-1945 under the NS-Regime, but also as early as 1914-1917 under the Habsburg Monarchy, and this latter was a dictatorship that was far more distinctive than the war regulations of its ally, the German Empire. Additionally, during the First World War in the Austrian half of the empire (Österreichische Reichshälfte), the military judiciary formed the main instrument of repression of the “enemies of the state”, a practice which in many ways anticipated the judicial terror of the NS-Regime. This was the case because the Germans in power in Austria-Hungary saw themselves confronted with a cardinal problem such as had been unknown in Wilhelminian Germany, but which resembled Hitler’s Germany in WWII in one fundamental way. This involved the problem of politically controlling and oppressing the national tendencies of millions of people, especially Slavs, who were seen to be disloyal and, moreover, inferior. Under the conditions of an imperialist war and imperialist rule, with imperialist ideology involving a racist and Darwinian world view, the only possible way to do this was with the use of naked violence.

One of the instruments of “internal warfare” was the judiciary, and it is to this that we now devote our attention. In both wars, even nationals were not free from judicial threat if they were not prepared to submit to the requirements of the “national community”.

There was hardly any difference between the intention behind the emergency and exceptional law apparatus of the Habsburg Empire and the NS-Regime, and that of other states. Every state had regulations that allowed the government to declare a state of emergency and to suspend the constitutionally guaranteed rights of citizens in the case of unrest or war. There was, however, a new aspect to this in the NS-State, because the internal dictatorship was established in peacetime, as soon as Hitler came to power, and the state of emergency was retained until the very last day of the Third

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Reich. But Austria-Hungary also stood out during the First World War due to a number of distinctive features: nowhere else was such a vast range of state of emergency regulations available to those in power. Nowhere else was this apparatus put to such extensive use before 1914. And nowhere else were such wide discretionary powers conferred on the regime and the judiciary to enable them to enjoy an effectively arbitrary authority with an outwardly legal appearance, but which left hardly anything of the express statutory limits.

I

The instruments were: 1) Paragraph 14 of the Constitution of 1867.1 The Basic Law of State of 21

December 1867 conferred the right to issue emergency decrees, as per paragraph14. With the countersignature of the emperor, the government could enact regulations with provisional legal power. Emergency measures of this type were only permissible when “the urgent necessity for such arrangements, for which, according to the Constitution, the consent of the National Council is required, arises at a time when this council is not in session”.2 In the last decades of the Habsburg Empire, paragraph14 turned into more and more of a “dictatorship paragraph”3, which was aggressively employed in order to get rid of the inconvenience of the parliamentary legislative procedures. It was also a way of avoiding the opposition, delays and aggravations of Parliament. It was abused in such a way that it became the crucial turning point for the Austrian government and, at the outbreak of war in 1914, it was the most important device in the formation of the internal dictatorship.

2) The Suspension Law (Suspensionsgesetz) of 5 May 1869. It provided that: a) in the case of war, b) when armed conflict is imminent and c) if there is internal unrest or d) “when acts of high treason or other examples of subversive behaviour which threaten the Constitution or personal safety are revealed” then the regulations of article 8 (freedom of the individual); article 9 (inviolable right of a householder to forbid entrance or demand that someone leaves); article 10 (privacy of post); article 12 (right to hold meetings and form clubs); and article 13 (right to free speech, and freedom of the press) of

1.“Reichsgesetzblatt für die im Reichsrate vertretenen Königreiche und Länder” (hereafter, RGBl.), 1867, n° 141.

2.Ibid. 3.Joseph Redlich, Österreichische Regierung und Verwaltung im Weltkriege

(Vienna, 1925), p. 113.

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the Basic Law of State concerning the general rights of citizens, could be temporarily and locally, completely or in part suspended.4

3) The law of 23 May 1873 concerning the suspension of the right to jury trial. According to this, the effect of a jury’s decision could be overruled in a particular part of the national territory “when facts have emerged which make this appear necessary in order to safeguard the impartial and independent administration of justice”.5 In cases where the crime could carry a sentence of death or more than five years imprisonment, groups of six judges had to decide upon the verdict (Ausnahmegericht [exception court]). No other country in the world recognised such a measure that made it a simple exercise for the government to remove the jury as soon as their verdict was or threatened to become unsuitable.

4) The provision of the Military Criminal Code whereby, in the event of war, if there is “a crime against the state army” (inducing violation of the military service obligation; encouraging desertion, espionage or enemy activity), all persons, including civilians, were subject to military jurisdiction.6

5) The War Performance Law (Kriegsleistungsgesetz) of 26 December 1912. This concerned primarily the workers in the weapons and munitions factories, the coal-mining and metal-processing industries, and generally all businesses that produced any form of article needed by the army and the navy. Any of these businesses could be appropriated by the army administration and placed under its control. In the case of war, these firms’ staff, numbered in their hundreds of thousands, became subject to military disciplinary authority and, for grave offences, military criminal proceedings.

II

On 25 July 1914, the day Serbia’s 48 hour ultimatum ran out, nineteen paragraph 14 regulations came into force, which established a state of dictatorship in the Austrian half of the empire. Of these the ones that are particularly relevant to this essay comprise:

1) The promulgation of the Suspension Law. This saw the revocation of the articles of the constitution mentioned above. They could now be revoked not only “locally”, as is stated in the legal text, but in all kingdoms and

4.RGBl. 1869, n° 66. 5.RGBl. 1873, n° 120. 6.Ferdinand Schmid, Das Heeresrecht der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie

(Vienna/Leipzig, 1903), pp. 569f.


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provinces in the Austrian half of the empire represented in the National Council.7

2) Paragraph 14 of the imperial decree concerning the subordination of civilians to military jurisdiction in the entire Austrian half of the empire. Criminal proceedings against all civilians were transferred to the military court (Landwehrgericht) in the case of the following crimes: high treason, offence against the sovereign or one of his attendants, disturbing the peace, rebellion and revolution, amongst others. The military court still had to operate within the bounds of the general criminal law, but the procedure was that of the military criminal law.8

3) Paragraph 14 regulation in relation to the military criminal procedure of 1912. This subordinates all civilians in the entire Austrian half of the empire to military jurisdiction for the punishment of actions such as inducing or aiding violation of sworn military service obligation, espionage, or other enemy activities.9

4) The regulation of 25 July 1914 which suspended jury trial in the kingdom of Dalmatia for the period of one year.10 This was extended to Galicia, Bukowina, Cracow and the local administrative district of Teschen in Silesia and Neutitschein in North Moravia on 31 July 1914.11 On 29 August 1914, this decree came into force for the whole Austrian half of the empire.12 This suspension formed one of the premises for the transfer of all quasi-political offences from civilian to military jurisdiction. It was extended for a year in 1915 and 1916 according to paragraph14, an act which was nothing less than a flagrant and open breach of the law.

5) Paragraph 14 of the imperial decree. This granted the high commanders of the armed forces in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Dalmatia the authority “to preserve the military interests in the area of political administration [...] by issuing decrees, giving orders and enforcing observance of these”.13 This authority was extended to Galicia, Bukovina, Cracow, Silesia and North Moravia on 31 July 191414, and after Italy entered the war on 8 May 1915, it was also enforced in Tyrol, Vorarlberg, Salzburg, Carinthia, Styria, Krain,

7.RGBl. 1914, n° 158. 8.RGBl. 1914, n° 156. 9.RGBl. 1914, n° 164. 10.RGBl. 1914, n° 163. 11.RGBl. 1914, n° 189. 12.RGBl. 1914, n° 228. 13.RGBl. 1914, n° 153. 14.RGBl. 1914, n° 186.


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Istrien, Trieste, Görz and Gradisca.15 Thus, for most of the territories in the Austrian half of the empire “the legal existence of a civil government and civil administration was as good as abolished” and the civil administration was converted into a military one.16 Henceforth, the governors, district chief officers, police authorities and local councils were obliged “to follow exactly the regulations and execute the orders from the high commanders”.17 One of the consequences of this was that in the districts named, the authority to declare a martial law was transferred to the army commanders.

6) The decree of 25 July 1914. According to this the war performance law of 1912 was put into effect. From then on, members of staff, in industries which were deemed important for the war effort, had to follow all the military manager’s orders; they were obliged to remain in their employment (giving notice or changing jobs was not possible); contract terms concerning working hours, breaks, Sundays as a day of rest, etc., ceased to be enforced; salary levels were regulated by decree; strikes were forbidden; and most importantly, the workers were henceforth subject to military criminal and disciplinary authority.18

III

Two principles are apparent from the various regulations of 25 July 1914. The first was the transfer of all political offences from civil to military jurisdiction, so that they could be more strictly punished than previously.19 The other was the transfer of a civil public authority to an all encompassing military one. Thus, July 25 1914 marked the onset of a new quality of rule in Austria. On that date the dictatorship of the army supreme command started to be truly effective. The military caste was the most reliable agent of loyalty to the Habsburg state. By this measure it was able to give the state outward strength and internal stability by gagging rigorously the political and social rights of citizens. The severity and brutality with which the emergency war decrees were enforced, led to the most dreadful excesses by the military against the civilian population, and represented more than a temporary aberration. They were rather the logical consequence of the internal insecurity

15.RGBl. 1915, n° 133. 16.J. Redlich, op. cit., p. 118. 17.RGBl. 1914, n° 153. 18.Richard Riedl, Die Industrie Österreichs während des Krieges (Vienna, 1932),

pp. 10f. 19.Franz Exner, Krieg und Kriminalität in Österreich (Vienna, 1927), p. 9.


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and the repressive character of the Habsburg monarchy. The monarchy could only imagine one method of guaranteeing the continuance of the empire i.e. by giving dictatorial power to the military. It also preferred a system of rules willing to use war as an instrument of revenge against the opposition or potentially disloyal movements.

Let us look again into this and sum up the regulations of the legal wartime apparatus which were put into effect and where.

In the entire Austrian half of the empire, all newspapers and pamphlets were subject to military censorship and could be completely forbidden; undesirable clubs could be dissolved; no-one had the right of assembly any longer; letters could be opened and confiscated; houses could be searched and individuals could be arrested without the permission of a judge; suspects could be expelled from their district or forced to remain there unless they received official permission to leave.

In the entire Austrian half of the empire, all political offences could be judged by the military court according to the military criminal procedure.

In the entire Austrian half of the empire, jury trial was suspended and replaced by “exceptional courts”, which punished only the more “general” serious civil crimes (murder, robbery, manslaughter, etc.) – in so far as they were not committed against members of the military.

In the entire Austrian half of the empire, staffs of factories, deemed important for the wartime economy by the wartime performance law, were subject to military criminal and disciplinary authority.

Moreover, for part of the Austrian half of the empire (the larger share of the state territories since May 1915), the army commander in charge could impose regulations, issue orders and ensure that the civil authorities implement them “so as to preserve military interests”. The civil government and civil authorities in the named areas had absolutely no authority or control rights in respect of criminal jurisdiction. The army commander was the highest judicial authority and could promulgate special martial law (Standrecht) for all crimes which brought the civilian before the military court. Under this martial law, the sole alternative was either the death sentence or acquittal. This meant for example that one could be executed for “disturbing the peace” (paragraph 65 of criminal code) – a crime for which the military courts, in the so-called Hinterland, could only pronounce a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment


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IV In the 1914-1917 period, the practices of the Austro-Hungarian military

already amounted to the criteria of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”. This hypothesis is not only supported by the fact that 30 000 Ruthenes and 300 000 Serbs were shot or hanged in the summer and autumn of 1914; that tens of thousands of “political suspects” (Ruthenes, Serbs and Italians) were deported to detention camps; that hostages were taken and killed in the areas of Serbia, Montenegro and Albania occupied by the imperial army; and that hundreds of thousands of imperial army soldiers were subject to court martial for self injury, cowardice in the face of the enemy, refusal to obey and mutiny, but also that:

Ten members of the Austrian National Council (six Czechs, two Ruthenes, a Slovenian and an Italian), whose immunity was lifted at the beginning of the war, were put on military trial for high treason and sentenced to death. (None of the sentences was carried out because after Emperor Karl’s accession to the throne, a different course was adopted for domestic policies and in 1917 all political offenders were granted amnesty).

Many thousand Czechs, Ruthenes, Serbs, Slovenes, Italians and German Austrians were condemned to death by military tribunals for being enemies of the state and executed. Most of these proceedings were highly questionable and can be considered as “judicial murders”.

Thousands were also given long imprisonment sentences; hundreds of these offenders died in prisons, after suffering the frightful conditions of the military penal institutions of Theresienstadt and Möllersdorf.

V

These war crimes and crimes against humanity were never really reviewed after 1918 – a fact that remains true to this day. After 1918 (as was the case after 1945), there was a process of collective suppression in Austria in respect of its misdeeds. It went unnoticed (and is still today) that the young Republic, under the ægis of social democracy – the ruling power at the time – did try to resist this tendency and take action against those guilty. On 19 December 1918, the provisional German-Austrian National Assembly passed a law “to establish and prosecute the military’s violation of duty during the war”.20 A commission was appointed “to ascertain military violations of duty in the war”, and the people were called upon to make such cases known so that the

20.“Staatsgesetzblatt für den Staat Deutschösterreich” (hereafter, StGBl.) 1918, n° 172.


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culprits could be put on trial. The results of the commission are in files in the Austrian State Archive, and detailed reports exist in the enclosures of the stenographic protocols of the National Assembly, all of which offer historical scholarship extensive research material.

The success of the “Violation of Duty Commission” (Pflichtverletzungskommission) was rather modest. Only 484 cases were registered; of these, 325 were deemed “unsuitable” and the rest were transferred to the public prosecutor’s office. Two of these were subject to prosecution, and both led to acquittal.

There were two causes of this situation: on the one hand, it was a major error to construct only one investigative commission which had no authority to arraign the perpetrator and carry out the trial. The public prosecutor’s office and the courts, where the personnel’s mentality had not changed since the time of the monarchy, showed no interest in such proceedings. Indeed, they openly sabotaged them out of political and ideological sympathy for the culprits. On the other hand, it was an illusion to try to deal with this from “below”. The State should have taken the matter vigorously in hand and been active with special laws and tribunals.

A further fact, which renders the whole matter completely farcical: articles 173 to 176 of the Saint-Germain Peace Treaty lay down the demand that Austria should surrender to the victorious powers people who “acted against the laws and customs of the war” so that they could be tried before a military court. Although Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Italy addressed Austria with such a list of war criminals (which included the army high commander, Archduke Friedrich; the generals, Archduke Eugen, Archduke Joseph, Kövesz, Potiorek, Lütgendorf and Krauß; Colonel Kerchnawe, as staff leader for the military governor in occupied Serbia, and the commanders of Thalerhof, Theresienstadt and Möllersdorf, etc.), there was not a single extradition.

VI

The situation after the end of World War II was different. According to article 6, paragraph c, of the statute of the International Military Court in Nuremberg, any crime against “a civilian population” was a crime against humanity. Without a doubt, this included the involvement of the NS-State judicial apparatus in the intimidation and terrorisation in Germany, Austria and other occupied territories. Whoever opposed outright war or the outright claim to power of the NS-State, whether by active resistance, unconsciously by thoughtless remarks or by listening to foreign radio broadcasts etc., was subject to ruthless retribution – using methods cloaked by the supposed “rule


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of law”. In this way outright war was also waged internally. The “legal foundation” of the NS-State was the “national racial idea” and the national community which was organised according to the so-called “Führer-principle”. Only those who were of “aryan” or at least “related blood” could belong to the national community; they and only they were entitled to legal equality.21

As the fight against the “internal enemy of the state and the people” was declared a purely political question, the state of emergency could be indiscriminately used against all real and supposed opponents of National Socialism. Law was suspended in this political sphere. There were no general norms. Instead, measures were geared towards each individual case.22

VII

The fight on the “internal front” began immediately after the National Socialists seized power in 1933 pursuant to the “president of the Reich’s decree to fend off malicious attacks on the national government” of 21 March 1933.23 This was superseded by the “law to combat malicious attacks on the State and Party of 20 December 1934 (Heimtückegesetz).24 These proved to be, in the words of Bernward Dörner, “all purpose weapons” against criticism in everyday situations, and they became the most important criminal law norms used to suppress the daily exchange of information and opinions.25

The judicial apparatus contributed considerably to the fight against the “internal enemy”, as the Reichstag’s decree (Reichstagsbrandverordnung)26, which was originally to be used only to “ward off communist acts of violence endangering the state”, was gradually expanded to include non-communist groups and individuals. In this way, genuine and supposed opponents of the

21.It is not the aim of this essay to consider the gradual loss of rights and dehumanisation of the Jewish community, which anticipated their total eradication and destruction.

22.See: Ernst Fraenkel, Der Doppelstaat, Recht und Justiz im ‘Dritten Reich’ (Frankfurt /Main), 1984, pp. 21 and 26-87.

23.RGBl. 1933, p. 135. 24.RGBl. 1934, p. 1269. 25.Bernward Dörner, “Heimtück”’. Das Gesetz als Waffe. Kontrolle,

Abschreckung und Verfolgung in Deutschland 1933-1945 (Paderborn/Munich/ Zurich, 1998), p. 10.

26.“Verordnung des Reichspräsidenten zum Schutz von Volk und Staat” (28. 2. 1933), RGBl. 1933, p. 83.


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NS-Regime were automatically labelled communists, and all “enemies” of National Socialism faced unrestrained prosecution.

“The mechanisms for carrying out” the restrictive measures against the internal enemy were the “People’s Court” (Volksgerichtshof or VGH), which was set up specifically for this purpose; “Special Courts” (Sondergerichte); and the “Court of Appeal” (Oberlandesgerichte), which were part of the regular legal jurisdiction.

The “Special Courts” exhibited a line of tradition going back to the Weimar Republic, although they were “only” established on the “basis of emergency regulations”27, the need for which became obvious as the tensions and class conflicts within the German population erupted in the form of political street fighting. At first, the “Special Courts” were only responsible for passing judgement on political offences concerning the “Reichstag’s Fire Decree” and the “malicious attacks decree” (for example, high treason, arson or attacking a member of the Reich’s government). Apart from that, they only had jurisdiction in areas not covered by the “Court of Appeal» or the Supreme Court. At this stage, the Nazi “Special Courts” did not really differ from those of the Weimar Republic in respect of their composition and methods of procedure. What was new were the criteria for the choice of judges; the most important factors here were Party membership and political reliability. There is also the fact that the “Special Courts” remained in existence throughout National Socialist rule, even though they had initially been set up as a temporary measure. The reason for this was that the jurisdiction of the “Special Courts”, which had originally only encompassed a few political offences, was constantly being extended, especially after the outbreak of war. Due to the swiftness with which trials reached their conclusion and the brutal and heavy punishments, the official term “internal front court martial” was soon being used. Thus, the “Special Court” procedures moved to the centre of criminal justice in the war. They were exclusively called upon to act as the “tank force of the administration of justice” and were decisive in the “certain destruction of the known enemy”.28

27.See: Wilhelm Crohne, Bedeutung und Aufgaben der Sondergerichte, in: Deutsche Justiz 95, 1933, p. 384, quoted in: Dörner, op. cit., p. 36.

28.According to Roland Freisler, then Secretary of state in the Reich’s Ministry of Justice, on the occasion of a conference on 24 October 1939. Quoted in: Christian Pippan, Justiz ohne Ethik. Die Rolle der Justiz im nationalsozialistischen Herrschaftssystem und die frühen Deutungen Ernst Fraenkels in “Der Doppelstaat” (Dipl. Graz, 1993), p. 83.


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The NSDAP regarded the verdicts delivered at the so-called “Reichstag’s Fire Trial” (Reichstagsbrandprozeß) as being rather too mild, and thus used this as an opportunity to establish a “People’s Court”. This was to adjudicate in cases of high treason offences, as well as several other political offences. Like the “Special Courts”, the jurisdiction of the VGH was extended, on the grounds of “war need”, as the procedures against the “internal” enemy became stricter: besides the cases of high treason, it was now also responsible for the prosecution of “remarks undermining military strength” and “military service evasion”.29

Ralph Angermund proved that regular legal procedures also operated in a substantial share of prosecutions against opponents of the regime, as well as the “Special Courts” and the VGH. This was because the VGH transferred a lot of trials to the “Court of Appeal”, a not insignificant reason for this being overwork.30

VIII

Unlike what happened in Germany, there was no direct transition from a democratic state and form of government to dictatorship in Austria. Instead, the National Socialist seizure of power succeeded an authoritarian led Corporative State in which justice acted as the instrument of repression of political opponents. The reason why the judges, in both the Austrian fascist Corporative State (Ständestaat) and the NS-State, functioned as the lackeys of an unjust and class biased legal system, originated from their political and social orientation. Most of them were from middle class backgrounds and adhered to the model of the ruling classes. These judges collected “experiences”, particularly from the judicial disagreements with the socialist and communist opponents of the Corporative State. Thus, it is possible to trace the line of tradition from the Austrian fascist Corporative State to the National Socialist State, above all with regard to the police apparatus, the ties to substantive laws and the severity of punishments imposed. However, there were considerable differences of a qualitative nature and in respect of the number of prosecutions.

The National Socialist dictatorship did not instantaneously abolish the criminal code in force in Germany, but undermined and “amended” it with

29.For recent figures see: Klaus Marxen, Das Volk und sein Gerichtshof. Eine Studie zum nationalsozialistischen Gerichtshof (Frankfurt/Main, 1994).

30.Ralph Angermund, Deutsche Richterschaft 1919-1945. Krisenerfahrung, Illusion, politische Rechtssprechung (Frankfurt/Main, 1990), p. 134.


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special regulations. This process had not been concluded by the time of Austria’s annexation. The National Socialist rulers were similarly careful with their reorganisation of the Austrian legal system, which they did at the same time as cleansing the Austrian judicial authorities of “foreign races and politically unreliable elements”. One of the reasons they proceeded so hesitantly with the adjustment of Austrian to German law was that Austrian law was seen to be in some ways “more modern” than the German criminal code in force. Above all, Austrian Nazi jurists insisted that the “valuable parts” of Austrian law must be retained in the legal code for the whole “Third Reich”. The aforementioned experiences gained from the Austrian fascist Corporative State were one of the causes of argument during the implementation of justice in the fight against “Marxism”. A “Complete Reform” was to be developed for the whole German Reich with the assistance of Count Wenzeslaus Gleispach 31, a Viennese penologist who had been called to Berlin in 1933. However, this could not go ahead due to the outbreak of war, and it is for this reason that parts of Austrian criminal law remained in effect until 1945, although it became subject to political fragmentation as “National Socialist reforms” were introduced.32

Amongst those reforms instigated before the outbreak of war, were33: * Decree of 20 June 1938 concerning high treason34; * Decree of 23 January 1939 concerning the provisions of the “Law to

Combat Malicious Attacks on the State and Party” (Heimtückegesetz)35, and simultaneously, the German Reich’s provisions relating to punishment of clergymen for defeatist remarks; maliciously reviling or disparaging the Reich, the armed forces, or national flags; maliciously reviling or disparaging the NSDAP, its structures and national emblem.

And amongst those instigated after the outbreak of war:

31.See: Eduard Rabofsky, Gerhard Oberkofler, Verborgene Wurzeln der NS-Justiz. Strafrechtliche Rüstung für zwei Weltkriege (Vienna/Munich/Zurich, 1985).

32.See: Oliver Rathkolb, “ ‘Transformation’ der Strafprozeßordnung und das nationalsozialistische Regime in Österreich 1938-1940”, in: Erika Weinzierl, Oliver Rathkolb, Rudolf G. Ardelt, Siegfried Mattl (ed.) Justiz und Zeitgeschichte. Symposiumsbeiträge von 1976-1993, vol. 2 (Vienna, 1995), pp. 425-439.

33.See: Herbert Loebenstein, “Strafrecht und Strafenpraxis im nationalsozialistischen Staat”, in: U. Davy, H. Fuchs, H. Hofmeister, J. Marte, I. Reiter (ed.), Nationalsozialismus und Recht. Rechtssetzung und Rechtswissenschaft in Österreich unter der Herrschaft des Nationalsozialismus, Vienna, 1990, pp. 202-205.

34.RGBl. 1938, p. 640. 35.RGBl. 1939, p. 80.


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* Decree of 5 September 1939 against “Harming the People” (Volksschädlingsverordnung)36;

* Decree of 1 September 1939 concerning “the Broadcasting law” (Rundfunkgesetz).37

With the decree of 20 June 1938, the jurisdiction of the VGH was extended to include Austria. Its duties predominantly involved high treason and treason trials, and later serious cases of the undermining of military strength. Henceforth, German Reich regulations also applied to Austrian defendants. They were either transferred to the seat of the VGH in Berlin, or else an “itinerant senate” was sent from Berlin to Vienna. In order to relieve the seat in Berlin, certain political offences could be transferred to the “Court of Appeal” in Vienna. In this way, a “Special Senate” was established at the “Court of Appeal” in Vienna from 1 April 1939 to the end of the Nazi-regime in 1945, and its jurisdiction was temporarily limited to issues of high treason. However, in a regulation of 18 January 194338, its authority was expanded to include espionage, undermining military strength and military service evasion. The Senate consisted of professional judges who served on the committee of the “Court of Appeal” in Vienna.39

The “Special Courts”40 were introduced in Austria by the decree of 1 September 193941. They administered justice in senates with three professional judges, met at the district court of first instance and were responsible for all “less serious” offences, such as violation of the “law to combat malicious attacks on the State and Party”, “broadcasting offences”, “offences that could harm the people” and so-called “violent crimes”42.

In this way, the “internal” front was also established in Austria – with the help of Austrian jurists – and this was supposed to help gain victory in the outright war on the external front. Thorough research into the activities of the “special senate” at the “Courts of Appeal” and the VGH is still lacking in

36.RGBl. 1939, p. 1679. 37.RGBl. 1939, p. 1683. 38.RGBl. 1943, p. 72. 39.See: Oliver Rathkolb, “Anmerkungen zur EntNazifizierungsdebatte über

Richter und Staatsanwälte in Wien 1945-1946 vor dem Hintergrund politischer Obsessionen und Pressionen während des Nationalsozialismus”, in: Justiz und Zeitgeschichte, op. cit., pp. 83f.

40.See: Roland Staudinger, Politische Justiz. Die Tiroler Sondergerichtsbarkeit im Dritten Reich am Beispiel des Gesetzes gegen heimtückische Angriffe auf Partei und Staat (Schwaz, 1994).

41.RGBl. 1939, p. 1658. 42.See: Loebenstein, op. cit., p. 206.


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Austrian historical scholarship. These gaps are going to be filled by a joint German/Austrian research project called “Political Criminal Justice in Austria and Hessen”, by the University of Marburg/Lahn (Germany) and the Austrian Resistance Archive in Vienna.

IX

On the 31 July 1945 the provisional government in Vienna re-established Austrian criminal law and law of criminal procedures.43 Special courts – the so-called “People’s Courts” (Volksgerichte) – were created on the basis of the “Nazi banning law” (Verbotsgesetz or VG) of 8 May 194544 and the War Criminals Law of 26 June 1945 (Kriegsverbrechergesetz or KVG)45 to punish Nazi crimes.46 Those responsible for the development and execution of Nazi atrocities were expected to answer to these People’s Courts – which should not be mistaken for the Nazi “People’s Court” (VGH). However, the number of Austrian judges and public prosecutors brought to account before Austrian courts was low, and in no way did the sentences delivered correspond to the crimes of which the judicial apparatus in the unlawful National Socialist state was guilty. This is illustrated by the following case studies, although it is still not known how many proceedings against members of the Austrian judicial apparatus really took place.

Case 1: of the “People’s Court” in Vienna against Dr. Viktor Reindl, Dr. Johann Karl Stich, et al. [LG Vienna Vg 12 Vr 1181/45].47

. Dr. Victor Reindl became judge in the Vienna district “Court of Appeal” in 1930. In June 1935 he became public prosecutor in Vienna. In March 1940

43. StGBl. n° 105/45 44 .StGBl., n° 13/1945. 45.StGBl., n° 32/1945. 46.The Austrian “People’s Court” was a special form of jurisdiction, and only put

into practice by specially appointed senators of the district court. They were set up in Vienna and, from 1946, in Graz, Linz and Innsbruck. They were composed of two professional judges and three lay assessors. The “People’s Court” was abolished not long after the conclusion of the state treaty concerning the restoration of full Austrian sovereignty on 15 May 1955. During the ten years of its existence, proceedings were initiated against 136,829 people who were suspected of crimes according to the KVG and the VG. Charges were brought against 28,148 people, sentence was passed on 13 607 of them, 30 of the 43 death sentences were carried out. See: Karl Marschall, Volksgerichtsbarkeit und Verfolgung von nationalsozialistischen Gewaltverbrechen in Österreich. Published by the Ministery of Justice (Vienna, 1987, 2nd edition).

47. LG is the short form of the District Court – Landesgericht).


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he was named president of the Regional Courts in the district of Vienna. In 1941 he was appointed to the “Court of Appeal” in Vienna in a senate for matters of high treason. On 13 April 1945, Reindl was chairman at a special court martial (Standgericht) in St. Pölten (Lower Austria). Twelve of the 13 accused were sentenced to death and immediately executed – for which he was put to trial on 23 February 1948. His activities in the “Court of Appeal” were not the subject of this trial.

. Dr. Johann Karl Stich was public prosecutor in Krems (Lower Austria) in the 1930s. Disciplinary law inquiries pertaining to his National Socialist activities were instigated in 1934, as a result of which he was sentenced to three weeks imprisonment and relieved of his official duties. Shortly after the annexation of Austria in 1938, Stich was entrusted with the management of the public prosecutor’s office in Vienna and on 1 April 1939 he was appointed head of public prosecutions at the “Court of Appeal” in Vienna as Attorney-General.

He was also a member of the above mentioned “Standgericht” for which he was charged in the same way as Reindl, whereas his activity as Attorney-General was not the subject of this trial.

The main hearing of the accused took place from 10 May to 18 June 1948. Reindl was given a prison sentence of five years. Stich was sentenced to eight years imprisonment. He was only found guilty of having been a member of the illegal NSDAP before 1938. It was decided that both should forfeit their assets.

Case 2: of the “People’s Court” in Vienna against Dr. Friedrich Russegger [LG Vienna Vg 1f Vr 2731/48]:

. In the thirties Dr. Friedrich Russegger was a member of a district court of Steyr (Upper Austria) and later on at the district court in Vienna. He became chairman of a senate of the “Court of Appeal” in Vienna upon its establishment. He also had this function at the trial of eight men who were accused of illegal activities in the Austrian Communist Party. Five of the defendants were sentenced to death by Russegger. On 4 June 1947 he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment because he had been chairman of this trial. He had to forfeit his assets as well. The Supreme Court revoked the sentence on 13 March 1948 and sent the case back to the same “People’s Court” for re-trial. In the second main hearing, Russegger was acquitted on 21 May 1948.

Case 3: of the “People’s Court” in Vienna against Dr. Alois Bernwieser [LG Vienna Vg 12d Vr 2360/45]:

. Dr. Alois Bernwieser was a solicitor. In 1932-1933 he was regional manager of the “German Association of Jurists”. In 1933-1934 he was imprisoned in the internment camp in Wöllerdorf for illegal Nazi activities.


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He fled to Germany immediately after the Austrian Nazi putsch in July 1934. He acquired German citizenship and worked at the police headquarters in Berlin. In 1937 he became a senior-official in the Reich’s Ministry of the Interior. After the Anschluß he returned to Austria and re-opened his legal practice in Vienna. Bernwieser became permanent defence council at the “VGH”. Amongst others, he defended Father Karl Roman Scholz, leader of the Austrian Freedom Movement, who was sentenced to death by the “VGH” and executed. On 12 November 1948. Bernwieser was sentenced to two years and three months only because of having been a member of the illegal NSDAP.

Case 4: of the “People’s Court” in Vienna against Dr. Alois Wotawa [LG Vienna Vg 8a Vr 3058/46]:

. Dr. Alois Wotawa was appointed chairman of a senate for the “Special Court” in Vienna in 1940. Although he confessed to having sentenced a priest to death, he was freed from remand in 1947 and the proceedings against him were discontinued on 27 October 1948 as adequate grounds for prosecution could not be established by the court.

Case 5: of the “People’s Court” in Vienna against Dr. Gustav Tamele [LG Vienna Vg 11 Vr 1183/45]:

. Dr. Gustav Tamele was president of the District Court in Leoben (Styria) and was called to the Reich’s Court as Senate President in July 1942. In 1943 he was transferred to Vienna to become President of the “Court of Appeal”. At the end of the war, he received orders from the Reich’s Ministry of Justice to destroy the Viennese Court of Appeal’s administrative and personal files, and files containing information on political criminal cases and general political files. Dr. Gustav Tamele was only charged with membership of the illegal NSDAP and was acquitted on 17 November 1948.

Case 6: of the “People’s Court” of Vienna against Dr. Franz Hueber [LG Vienna Vg 11 Vr 409/46; resumed: LG Vienna Vg 1a Vr 460/50]:

. Dr. Franz Hueber was Minister of Justice for the Seyß-Inquart Nazi government in Austria. After the Anschluß, he became a member of the “Austrian Department” in the Reich’s Ministry of Justice. In December 1942 he was made President of the Reich’s Administrative Court.48 Hueber’s main hearing took place between 27 and 30 December 1948 in Vienna. Dr. Wilhelm Miklas, the last Austrian President before the Anschluß, was amongst those who gave evidence. Hueber was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment for high treason. It is not known how the 1950 re-trial ended, as the file has been missing from the archives of the District Court in Vienna for

48.See: Rathkolb, Transformation, op. cit., p. 428.


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some time. The length of his sentence is all the more astonishing as one of his jurist colleagues, Johann Suchomel, who played an important role in the legal adjustment between Germany and Austria, was able to continue his career in the Austrian Ministry of Justice in 1945 and later on.49

Case 7: of the “People’s Court” in Graz against Dr. Fritz Meldt [LG Graz Vr 13/45]50:

. Dr. Fritz Meldt became President of the “Court of Appeal” in Graz in 1938. On 17 November 1948, Meldt was sentenced to six years imprisonment for having been a member of the illegal NSDAP, and for drawing up a list of people in February 1938, who professed their faith in National Socialism as part of the “Patriotic Front” (Vaterländische Front).

It is only this latter case that has been considered by Austrian historical scholarship. Every other record is still awaiting analysis. In a stark contrast to the wealth of German literature, the involvement of members of the NS-judiciary in Austria has only been investigated in a few articles51 , and publications on the subject are scant.52 That there were legal proceedings against members of the judicial apparatus after 1945 is a fact that – despite the scandalous results – has fallen into oblivion. This applies generally to proceedings of the “People’s Court”. The “Austrian Research Centre for Post-war Justice” established in 1998, of which Claudia Kuretsidis-Haider is co-director, has taken on the task of systematically opening up these files and thereby making them accessible to a wider public. One can only hope that the subject of prosecution of the NS-judicial crimes in Austria will be researched in the future.

X

When the judicial crimes in Austria in the First and the Second World War are compared, it becomes apparent that there are both similarities and differences. As we have seen, the common feature lies in the intention to use

49.Ibid., p. 434. 50.Excerpt of verdict published in: Martin F. Polaschek, Im Namen der Republik

Österreich! Die Volksgerichte in der Steiermark 1945 bis 1955 (Graz, 1998), pp. 235-241.

51.I.e.: Rathkolb, EntNazifizierungsdebatte, op. cit., pp. 75-99. 52.Eva Handschur’s excellent dissertation “Kontinuität und Diskontinuität der

Rechtsentwicklung in Bezug auf die Stellung der Richter und die Gerichtsverfassung vor bzw. nach der nationalsozialistischen Machtergreifung, Diss. Salzburg 1997” should be especially mentioned in this connection. Likewise the commendable diploma dissertation of Christian Pippan (see note 28).


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the judicial apparatus to suppress all opposition or potentially disloyal factors, and to punish by criminal law every activity the regime found unpleasant.

The difference was that the Habsburg Monarchy still had to utilise military justice as the main instrument of repression, whilst the NS-Regime strove from the beginning to assert the premise that the judiciary was a suitable instrument of “internal warfare”. This happened to such an extent that even regular legal proceedings could be used to support them.

The fundamental difference lay above all in the dimensions of the injustice. This reached earth-shattering proportions in the NS-Regime with regard to the number of victims. This happened because the system of rule in the Habsburg Monarchy was, in contrast to Hitler’s Germany, still capable of correcting itself and moderating the practice of repression. Its most brutal blows were struck at the beginning of the war. The NS-Regime, on the other hand, successively increased, indeed had to increase, the terror with intrinsic logic, until this reached insanely monstrous proportions in the years 1944 and 1945. The imperial war dictatorship lacked the all encompassing, cast-iron, totalitarian character, the cold, systematic nature and bureaucratic perfection of the repression apparatus and the oppressive methods which characterised the NS-Regime.

The Bomb, the People and the Media

Tomoyoshi HIRAI

On August 6, 1945 one atomic bomb destroyed the city of Hiroshima and

killed tens of thousands of its people in an instant. After a half century the city has been marvelously reconstructed and has become a symbol of peace. An opinion poll conducted in this city in 1970 showed that 48% of respondents believed it an imperative to transmit the horrible experiences of the bombing from generation to generation forever. The percentage increased to 65% in 1985 (67% in the case of Nagasaki). In the same survey, almost half of Hiroshima citizens considered their city deserved more privileged treatment than other war-damaged cities in Japan. This is another expression of the same conviction.

Of factors affecting such widespread attitudes toward the bombing and peace, the role of the media, especially newspapers, is undoubtedly large. The Chugoku, the top Hiroshima newspaper which has the biggest circulation in the city (67% of all households subscribed to it in 1999) has played such a role.

The Chugoku has long been openly committed to nuclear abolition and world peace. As early as 1953, one of its editorials firmly asserted that Hiroshima had the natural right to denounce the world’s deplorable condition as well as the Japanese government’s timid policy concerning nuclear disarmament.1

Here arises a question: have the people of Hiroshima and the Chugoku consistently been observing the above mentioned position since the end of the Second World War? The answer is not always positive.

Immediately after the War, almost all Japanese people were preoccupied with daily subsistence. And between September 1945 and mid-1949, media such as broadcasting, newspapers, periodicals, books and films were put under harsh censorship by the occupation army. The Chugoku was forced to publish only materials about the bombing which were likely to pass the censors. No doubt such a task was really a torment.

1.Chugoku, August 6, 1953.

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At the same time, it should be noted that the Chugoku not only seems to have meekly obeyed the restrictions forced by censors but also to have censored itself. Of course, it was simply not this paper’s fault. Other Japanese newspapers took a similar stance. As a result, the wall of silence was not destroyed until the so-called Bikini incident in March 1954, when a Japanese fishing boat was tragically damaged by radioactive waste emitted from a hydrogen bomb which the United States was testing on a coral island in the South Pacific. The incident occurred six years after the removal of the censorship.

This study explains how a local newspaper struggled with censorship resulting from the occupation and contributed to the creation of a myth about Hiroshima as the city of peace.

I The occupation of Japan got underway officially on September 2, 1945.

On the same day the “Press, Pictorial and Broadcast Division” (PPB), subordinate to the “Civil Censorship Detachment” (CCD), started its activities. CCD belonged to the Civil Intelligence Section, headed by General C. Willoughby who was also the chief of G-2, one of the General Staff Sections aiding General D. MacArthur, Supreme Commander for Allied Power (SCAP).

The PPB took charge of censorship of mass media. Because of its limited number of censors, it initially could only publish the Nippon Times, an English language paper, and the Domei, an official news agency, under pre-publication censorship. The rest of the Japanese language papers were supervised through post-publication censorship.

On September 10, however, the first guidelines for the Japanese press were issued to the Japanese government. SCAP did not permit any information that could disturb public tranquillity to be published in the press. Among other bans: discussion of Allied troops’ covert movements, exposing the Allied Powers to “false or destructive” criticism, spreading rumors.2

The first paper to be condemned for violating these rules was the Domei. On September 14, SCAP directed the Domei to cease all its functions for 24 hours. Following the Domei, the Asahi, one of most prestigious papers in

2.Monica Braw, The Atomic Bomb Suppressed: American Censorship in Occupied Japan (N.Y. & London, 1991), p. 36. Eto Jun, Tozasareta Gengo Kukan: Sennryougun no Kenetsu to Sengo Nippon (A Closed Linguistic Space: Occupation Censorship and Postwar Japan) (Tokyo, 1994), pp. 169-170.

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Japan, and the Nippon Times underwent similar punishments, respectively.on September 18 for 48 hours and on September 19 for 24 hours.

The October 1, 1945 issue of the Toyo Keizai Shinpou, an economic review, was confiscated. The reason for each of these suppressions was the same, in that SCAP considered a certain article in these news media critical of or even insulting to the Allied Powers in general and the United States in particular. The Asahi, for instance, published an interview with Mr. Hatoyama, the future prime minister, in which he condemned use of the atomic bomb as “a war crime and violation of international law more vicious than an attack on a hospital ship or use of poison gas.” The New York Times of September 19, 1945 reported from Tokyo that SCAP had decided to take measures against the Asahi for its deliberately ignoring gruesome wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese army and instead, accusing the United States for using the atomic bomb.

Taking seriously the Japanese media’s “efforts to discredit the occupation”3, SCAP issued a directive on September 18, 1945 and gave explanations at a meeting of representatives of the press on September 21, 1945.

This directive known as the Press Code stated that: 1. News must adhere strictly to the truth. 2. Nothing shall be printed which might directly, or by inference, disturb

public tranquillity. 3. There shall be no false or destructive criticism of the Allied Powers. 4. There shall be no destructive criticism of the Allied Forces of

Occupation and nothing which might invite mistrust or resentment of these troops.

5. There shall be no mention or discussion of Allied troops movements unless such movements have been officially released.

6. News stories must be factually written and completely devoid of editorial opinion.

7. News stories shall not be colored to conform with any propaganda line. 8. Minor details of any news story must not be overemphasized to stress or

develop any propaganda line. 9. No news story shall be distorted by the omission of pertinent facts or

details.

3.General Headquaters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (ed.), History of the Nonmilitary Activities of the Occupation of Japan, vol. 5 : Civil Liberties-Part 4: Freedom of the Press (1945 to January 1951), p. 12.

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10. In the makeup of the newspaper, no news story shall be given undue prominence for the purpose of establishing or developing propaganda line.4

At the same time, CCD distributed instructions concerning the censorship procedure. It was pointed out that there should be no mention of censorship in the publications, nor any traces implying censorship.5

Evidently the Press Code was so comprehensive that whatever news story any censor disliked might not be allowed publication. Such arbitrariness inevitably increased because guidelines on applying the Code were also quite ambiguous. One guideline dated end of November 1946 listed 30 subjects to be deleted before publication or deemed unfit for publication. This list included criticism of SCAP, Tokyo Military Tribunal, the Allied Powers, the pre-war policies of the Allied Powers and the like.

In addition to application of censorship, from the beginning of January, 1946, SCAP headquarters organized special countermeasures against ultra-nationalistic propaganda and hostility to the atomic bombing among the Japanese people. Eto cited an interesting paper sent from the Civil Information and Education Section (CI & E) to G2 (the Civil Intelligence Section) of SCAP headquarters on February 6,1948, in which CI & E surveyed its own efforts to convince the Japanese people of their guilt in starting the war and recommended some effective ways to counterbalance hostile attitudes to the atomic bombing and ultra-nationalistic propaganda stimulated by the process of Tokyo Military Tribunal among the Japanese people.6

John Dower expounded the reasons for SCAP’s nervousness about news of the bombing as follows: first, to spread these news could incite “public unrest” against American occupying authorities; secondly, the brutality of the atomic bombing could be manipulated in the media to neutralize the war criminality of the Japanese army.7

Consequently, after September 18, 1945, when the Press Code was issued, the number of news articles on the atomic bombing dropped sharply. For instance, while 115 related items had been published in the Asahi between

4.M. Braw, op. cit., p. 41. Eto Jun, op. cit., pp. 193-94. General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (ed.), op. cit., p. 12.

5.M. Braw, ibid., pp. 41-42. 6.Eto Jun, op. cit., pp. 261-264. 7.John W. Dower, “The Bombed: Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japanese Memory”,

in: Michael J. Hogan (ed.), Hiroshima in History and Memory (N.Y., 1996), pp. 116-117.


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September 10 and 20, 1945, only 74 appeared between September 20 and 30 1945. The number for the whole year of 1946 was only 89!

Japan was divided into three censorship districts. The Hiroshima area belonged to District III with its head office in Fukuoka. Until July 1947, only 69 out of nearly 2000 newspapers were censored before publication, but this small category included all but two of the big dailies. Fortunately, only post-publication censorship was applied to the Chugoku. The official censorship over the media was not abolished until October, 1949. One copy of the Chugoku was sent daily to the PPB office in Fukuoka.

According to the evidence of one of its former editors, though the occupational censorship was more generous than the Japanese war-time one, the provisions in the Press Code were loose enough to permit different interpretations, so that he was obliged to adopt a rather severe self-regulation for fear of overstepping any imagined limits.8 As any news stories on the atomic bomb could not help implying American responsibility, verging on violation of the Press Code, such stories were often suppressed in advance by the editors themselves. This practice seems to have been applied by other newspapers as well. It is important to note that this practice of self-censorship was conducted subconsciously, since the Japanese press, at that time, was apparently dizzied by its great new post-war freedom. It was not until 1951 that the first editorial dealing with the nuclear problem was printed in a major newspaper in Japan (the Asahi, August 6, 1951).

However, the rigidity of the censorship depended to some extent upon individual inspectors. The Yukan Hiroshima, an evening paper affiliated with the Chugoku, first published in its issue of July 6, 1946, several photos of Hiroshima taken immediately after the bombing. As a matter of course, the cameraman who had taken these shots telephoned the American detachment in Hiroshima shortly afterwards, but he was only lightly reprimanded for his failure to get advance permission. On the other hand, several months before, a Mainichi cameraman who had taken similar shots was blamed for preparing the publication of his works and the occupational authorities threatened to suspend the paper for three days. The reason why the censor berated him was that his shots showing ruins after the bombing against the background of Torii (a gateway at the entrance of a Shinto shrine) were deliberately taken to send a secret message that Shintoism was much sturdier than the atomic bomb after all.9

8.Chugoku Shinbun Hatijunenshi [Eighty Years of the Chugoku] (Hiroshima, 1972), p. 320.

9.Imahori Seiji, Gensuibaku Jidai (The Age of Nuclear Bombs), vol. 1, pp. 79-80.

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It should be noted that such inconsistency in the censorship was also influenced by the change in American occupation policy resulting from upheavals in international politics such as the first explosion of the Soviet atomic bomb and the birth of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. One symptom of the changed occupation policy can be observed in the tone of General MacArthur’s message sent to the city of Hiroshima in commemoration of August 6 — the day of the bombing. While his first message in 1947 had sent a clear warning of the danger of annihilation of the human race by atomic bomb, the 1948 messages just wished the city a speedy reconstruction without referring to the devastating power of the bomb. In 1949, his message was even more laconic and formal.

II Then how did people in Hiroshima live under a kind of blackout

concerning the atomic bombing and how did the Chugoku report it? In principle, they gave precedence to reconstruction as against adherence to their own terrible experiences. It was natural, because people prefer dreaming about greater comfort rather than facing distress.

What is more important is how local newspapers would report how people led their lives. After recovering from serious damage caused by a big typhoon in September, 1945, the Chugoku published an editorial on November 11, 1945, declaring that Hiroshima should be rebuilt not as “a military metropolis as it was prior to the atomic destruction” but as “a peaceful center of education and science”.

In June, 1946, the Hiroshima municipal office planned a big ceremony, a variation of the traditional summer festival, in memory of the bombing. A committee was formed of representatives from the municipal office and the chamber of commerce and industry who had a heated discussion on the best path towards rapid economic reconstruction. Even the relics of the bombing like ceramics, roof-slates, bricks, burned and deformed by the enormously high temperature emitted during the bombing, were listed as exportable currency earners.

On August 6, the day of “Restoration Festival”, the newspaper asserted: “the war ended with the sacrifice of lives of citizens of Hiroshima. Innumerable lives must have been saved by this sacrifice”. In this way people tried to pray for the dead. Similar prayers were repeated by other papers. The Asahi, on August 15, confirmed that the explosion of the atomic bomb was undeniable evidence of “the power of people struggling for freedom in the world”, as stated in the Declaration at Potsdam.


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The reconstruction strategy of Hiroshima aimed first of all at transforming the city into a world famous tourist center. In the summer of 1947 for instance, the then mayor pointed out in his reconstruction program that Hiroshima’s unimaginable sufferings had contributed to the ending of the war, and that Hiroshima thus deserved to be called “the city in commemoration of restoration of peace”. He added that such fame together with its beautiful environment would be precious assets for prosperous tourism. With that purpose in mind, he pressed the Parliament to adopt a specific bill. In his petition to the Parliament he argued that the complete destruction of the city provided a unique chance to rebuild it completely and to develop it as a the cradle of peace which would be significant not only nationally but also internationally.10 Thus, the Act of the Hiroshima Peace Commemorating City Construction was born.

At any rate, “reconstruction” was a catchword in Hiroshima in the earlier years of the occupation. In 1947, a three days festival called “Peace Festival” was held in the city from 5 to 7 August. The ceremony shifted its emphasis to festivity rather than to mourning. Even the word “Restoration” did not remain any longer. People enjoyed pageants and floats. The Chugoku commented that a visible answer to “the task imposed by the atomic bomb on all human beings” had been embodied in Hiroshima citizens, and an expectation of the world had been now fulfilled (August 7, 1947). However, the festival proved to be so festive that it was soon criticized as a mere merrymaking, which outraged the hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors). An American magazine, Life, joined in the criticism by comparing it to “a carnival in a certain uncivilized land in South Africa” (the issue of August 15, 1947).

Such a repugnant reaction toward “reconstruction” or “peace “ festivals played a part in bringing the motive of the memorial function closer to prayers for peace. Nevertheless, as late as 1950, a clergyman, in a letter to the Chugoku, insisted that “though every year a vigorous peace ceremony is held, the most important thing seems to be the least respected” (the Chugoku, June 18, 1950). The present form of the peace memorial ceremony, with its stress on mourning and the peace movement, was not established until 1952.

Popular attitudes toward the atomic bomb were still ambivalent. On one hand, eager pleas continued to be raised for making Hiroshima a Mecca for the peace movement; on the other hand, occasionally, there were even voices favouring thorough demolition of the Genbaku Domu (a ruined building preserved as a memorial of the bombing) to improve the view of the city.

10.Hiroshima City, Hiroshima Shinshi [New History of Hiroshima], Section of Materials, vol. 2, 1982, pp. 236-238.

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Surely these voices expressed a clear wish to develop the tourism as a potential industry. The Hiroshima Tourist Society was reported to have selected thirteen sites which were badly damaged by the bombing (the Chugoku, July 13, August 1, 1948). It might have been a straw in the wind, because in the autumn of 1948, a drastic transformation occurred in the occupation: the thrust was shifted from the reform to the recovery of Japan. This was embodied in a NSC document, “Recommendation with respect to US policy toward Japan”.11

However, as an opinion poll conducted in the summer of 1948 showed, a great majority of the citizens were in favor of conserving the Domu. In 1953, the city office finally decided unenthusiastically to follow the public opinion. The city officers still adhered to the value of the Domu as a tourist resource (the Chugoku, February 15, 1953, May 21, 1954).

III In July 1951 the peace treaty was concluded between the Allied Powers

and Japan. In April 1952 the occupation of Japan formally ended, and the occupation censorship had been abolished before. It was approximately at that time that people in Hiroshima began earnestly to consider their city’s identity. The Chugoku wrote on the occasion of the first peace memorial ceremony after Japan’s recovery of independence (August 6, 1952):

“Hiroshima is facing a big turning point now. What is needed is to develop an idea of peace in Hiroshima and promote a just peace rather than to remember the A-bomb and memorialize that day, August 6,1945”.

A participant at a meeting said that considering the weakness of the peace movement in Hiroshima, the people had to ponder the cause of this weakness. Another participant, a medical doctor, stated that since seventy percent of Hiroshima residents were not hibakusha, they were not very serious about either peace or the bomb. 0n the other hand, the hibakusha had been so overwhelmed by their own tragedies that they had become fatalistic, void of any will to organize a strong peace movement (the Chugoku, August 4, 1953).

At about the same time, the Japanese media began to compete with each other to publish news stories and pictures on the living conditions of the hibakusha. As a matter of course, the Chugoku took the initiative. This change in position encouraged some papers to blame the United States for using the

11.Yui, Daisaburo, Nakamura, Masanori et. al. (ed.), Sennryo Kaikaku no Kokusai Hikaku [International Comparative Studies of Reforms under the Occupation] (Tokyo, 1994), pp. 94-96.


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atomic bomb. On August 6,1953, the Chugoku wrote the following appeal: “Atomic weapons should be condemned in the name of humanity as the war criminals have been. Hiroshima is entitled to call the world’s attention to the danger of the development of nuclear weapons, the need of prompt medical care and the right to a decent life for those who suffered from the aftereffects of the bombing”.

An annual gathering called the Hiroshima National Peace Conference grew bigger and bigger, attracting a large number of representatives from every corner of Japan and from abroad. Many movies were made on the bombing and its victims. An English paper, the Daily Sketch, commented on one of them that: “eight years after the end of the war, the Japanese were still trying to instigate old hatred”. Ironically enough, such opinions on the so-called “atomic movies” were felt not only in a former enemy country but also in Japan. One film company did not allow an atomic movie to be shown at its affiliated theatres because it could have seemed to be too anti-American.

As time passed, people blamed the United States more loudly for the bombing. In 1954, some efforts were even made to start a movement to claim compensation for the damage in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Chugoku protested on January 15, 1954: “What has the United States done for Hiroshima, the atomic city? While the problem of the justice of the bombing remains to be solved, it is a fact that the horrible scars of the bombing have not been eradicated yet, eight years after the death of more than two hundred thousand (sic) people.”

In 1954 the “Bikini incident” occurred. On March 1, a Japanese fishing boat suffered gravely from the radioactive waste emitted from American H-bomb experiments in the South Pacific. After the boat returned home, one member of the crew died from the after-effects. This incident brought about a huge anti-nuclear movement. After that, the number of editorials concerning nuclear bombs and nuclear energy increased rapidly in big newspapers. While two editorials appeared in the Mainichi and one in the Asahi in 1953, there were respectively nine and ten in the next year. This incident also helped to lift a kind of taboo on the atomic sufferings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.12

Throughout the Hiroshima prefecture, a petition campaign urging prohibition of nuclear weapons was organized by women’s associations. It spread like a storm and collected the signatures of about half of the population in this area. Two different peace memorial ceremonies were held in Hiroshima on August 6, 1954: one being sponsored by the municipality and

12.Ide Magoroku, Reportage Sengoshi [Postwar History Based on Reportage] (Tokyo, 1991), pp. 279-280.

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the other by the Center in charge of the Hiroshima prefectural campaign to abolish atomic and hydrogen bombs. Afterwards, the latter consolidated into annual conferences on the prohibition of all nuclear weapons, attended by representatives from many social and political organizations in Japan and abroad.

Generally speaking, the more the social movements grow, the more diffusive they will become in terms of internal integrity. Nuclear disarmament movements were no exception, especially at the height of the cold war. In its August 6, 1954 editorial, the Cugoku claimed that it depended upon people and politics whether scientific achievements would be utilized for the happiness of human beings, and urgently demanded the United States and Soviet Russia to cooperate in prohibiting all nuclear weapons.

The Hibakusha also began to express their views. A hibakusha complained that as the city had been outwardly rebuilt mainly by newcomers who had flowed in after the war, the original citizens, including the hibakusha, had been left behind. Here the reconstruction of the city was contrasted with the predicament of the victims of the bomb (the Chugoku, August 24, 1954).

A long process to sublimate Hiroshima into a peace city was approaching its end, the very existence of which meant an accusation against nuclear weapons. But this process was surely hindered by difficulties such as the occupation censorship, self-censorship by the press itself and human weakness in facing miserable realities. When we write and speak about this city, we must remember the zigzag path it followed.

The Sino-American Relationships in World War II: September 1940-May 1943

SHI PING

The 20th century saw a breakthrough in Sino-US relations, and in this

century, WW II and the time after the 70’s are two epoch-making periods. During the Second World War a powerful western power forged an alliance with a weak, semi-colonial, oriental country in order to fight the Japanese invasion. After the 70’s, the two countries walked out of the confrontation of the Cold War and modified their respective policies. With many obstacles still remaining to be overcome, the two countries established normal relations in the main on the basis of equality.

In this century, China has gradually grown out of a backward and poor country to become an important member of the international community. The hard work of the Chinese people is the main reason for such development. But it has also a lot to do with America’s policy to China and the modification of Sino-US relations. This paper will mainly discuss America’s policy to China and Sino-US military cooperation, between September 1940 and May 1943.

During the Second World War, China’s policy aimed at forging an alliance with America, winning her aid and making her a belligerent country. Between September 1940 and May 1943, America’s policy to China underwent critical modification, which influenced directly the Asia-Pacific structure and Sino-US military cooperation, and also had a strong impact on war in the Pacific and the Chinese anti-Japanese War.

September 1940 – December 1941

In order to avoid direct confrontation with Japan during this period, America treated China as a means to contain Japanese expansion. This was the beachhead of Sino-US military co-operation.

America’s policy to China was influenced by both internal and external factors. The internal factors included US interests in the Far East, domestic isolationism, Roosevelt’s “Europe-first and Asia-second Strategy”, and how well the country had been prepared for the war. The external factors were Japanese strategic intentions concerning the war, the situation of the Chinese

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anti-Japanese war, the Soviet Union’s attitude to China and Japan, and the interests of England and other countries.

In June 1940, France surrendered. In September, Germany, Italy and Japan signed their Tripartite Pact, which greatly threatened America’s strategic intention and position. America could no longer withdraw within the protection of the two bordering oceans, since it believed it might have to go to war with Japan in the East, and with Germany and Italy in Europe, at any time. Considering the whole situation of the world and the security of America, President Roosevelt put forth the general strategy as “Europe-first and Asia-Second” on September 28, hoping to control Japan’s expansion in the Far East and avoid direct confrontation with Japan at the same time.

The anti-Japanese War in China was important in restricting Japan and enjoyed a very high status in the general American strategy (“Europe-first and Asia-second Strategy”). So the United States changed its former attitude and Sino-US cooperation was put on the agenda. In November 1940, the United States began to discuss whether they should support China as a means of checking Japan. In December, “US Far Eastern Policy”, passed by Congress, said that the most important means to stop Japanese invasion of the south was to aid China in all possible ways and cause Japan to become trapped in China. It was clear that the US now considered that aiding China was an important strategic means to fight against Japan.

Both sides began to draw up plans for military cooperation at the end of 1940, but the main strategic aim for America at that time was only to seek ways to avoid the war, so American military cooperation with China was rather limited and military cooperation developed slowly. Sino-US military cooperation began with military aid. After China became a recipient country of the “Lend-lease Act” in May 1941, a semi-open, non-comprehensive military cooperation was established.

America’s military strategy towards China and especially the possibility of direct confrontation with Japan eased the task of China in seeking military cooperation. After October 1940, the Chinese government took many active diplomatic steps. Chiang Kai-shek met the American ambassador Nelson Trusler Johnson and military attachés; and Mr. Song Zhiwen carried on active propaganda in America; a military delegation was also sent to visit the United States. China made the proposal to set up a cooperative alliance between China, America and Great Britain. Military aid was also requested.

In the initial phase of military cooperation, the strategic interests of China and America were the same in some aspects and different in others. The United States tried to force Japan to give up the southern invasion by strengthening its aid to China and applying economic sanctions against Japan. But America’s purpose was to avoid war with Japan. Therefore, the United

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States refused the proposal to become an ally of China. It did not wish to see the Civil War in China influence and harm the anti-Japanese war efforts.

In order to obtain military aid from America, China reiterated that the situation of the anti-Japanese war was very serious, and it was hard to fight on alone. On the other hand, the Chinese government emphasized that if it obtained the aid, then Mainland China could be used as a strategic base for America so as to contain the Japanese invasion of the south. And in the future, Chinese naval bases could also be used by American naval forces to stop the expansion of communism. The purpose of Chiang Kai-shek in striving for military cooperation was not only to fight the Japanese but also to strengthen himself, which was not in harmony with America’s strategy to China at that time. This disparity existed from the very beginning of military cooperation. But in order to achieve cooperation, both sides turned a blind eye to this difference.

Though military cooperation was put on the agenda, it was still a long way from actual execution. The Civil War in China and the “Wan Nan Incident” influenced the progress of military cooperation. Since the American government was worried that the Civil War in China would devalue the anti-Japanese war, it passed the “Lend-lease Act” in January 1941. This Act meant that America regarded China as a partner against fascism. President Roosevelt ratified the Act, which made Sino-US military cooperation lawful.

From January to March of 1941, the execution of the “Lend-lease Act” was being discussed in America, while China tried diplomatically to obtain military aid. In the negotiation with the Americans, China demanded a broader and far-reaching military aid.

In April 1941, the signing of the “Japan and Russia Neutrality Treaty” pushed ahead the Sino-US military cooperation. By late April and May 1941, Sino-US military cooperation made a dramatic turn. Some demands to help China were passed and executed. On May 6, the American Government declared that China was a recipient country of the “Lend-lease Act”, which meant the establishment of Sino-US military cooperation. Aiding China to contain Japan was America’s indirect confrontation with Japan. Direct confrontation with Japan might occur at any time. In May and June of 1941, the ambition of the Japanese and the effort of China pushed America further forward to becoming a belligerent country. This situation made it necessary for America to adapt its policy to China and led to the normalization of Sino-US military cooperation.

The establishment of Sino-US military cooperation did not mean that America’s strategy to China had undergone radical changes. It only showed that America’s former strategy should be strengthened. After the establishment of military cooperation, both countries set up official

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cooperative institutions, which sometimes did not work well because of poor organization. In order to solve the problem of transportation of military supplies, a “Dian Mian Road Transportation Observation Committee” managed the development of military cooperation, and the transportation of military supplies. An expert subcommittee participated in this adaptation. An American military delegation was sent to China to examine how the military cooperation was getting on. From that time on, Sino-US military cooperation was strengthened. The focus of the cooperation was still the management, control and use of the military supplies. Cooperation was rather limited. Before the Pearl Harbor Attack, the negotiations between America and Japan were not designed to make peace but to postpone the time of war. And Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek knew this well.

From September 1940 to December 1941, Sino-US military cooperation was transitional in WW II. America’s strategy towards China was continuous. In May 1941, America realized that war with Japan was inevitable, so its former strategy of avoiding direct confrontation with Japan was replaced by a strategy of delay which led to the further establishment and rapid development of Sino-US military cooperation, and which confined the Sino-US military cooperation to military aid. America used China only as a means to contain and wear down Japan, while China wanted to make America declare war. This disparity was assuaged, and both sides tried to benefit from the military cooperation. America considered military aid to China something like an investment. The profits of the investment were to make the anti-Japanese war continue in China. This mutual interest was the basis of Sino-US military cooperation. Disparities in cooperation were not shown openly at this time because of limited cooperation.

Japan finally challenged America’s China strategy. The strategic aim of China, to make America a belligerent country, was achieved; and America’s strategy, to avoid war with Japan, failed. This was a turning point for Sino-US military cooperation.

December 1941 – May 1943

From December 1941 to May 1943, America’s attitude to China aimed to carry out the military cooperation, and to make China more effective in the oriental battlefield in the hope of checking and wearing out Japan. So Sino-US military cooperation developed very rapidly, and the scope of cooperation was widened.

When the war in the Pacific broke out, America could not get into war both in the Atlantic and the Pacific. America’s strategy in the Pacific could


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only be defensive. So America altered its policy towards China: military cooperation was replaced by military alliance. Then America’s strategy towards China was 1) effective military alliance, to make China the strategic base in fighting against Japan and a support on the Pacific Front; 2) faithful political alliance, to edge out the influence of other countries and to enlarge America’s privilege by making use of the war.

America’s adaptation of its policy towards China did not mean that its strategy was dramatically changed: its former strategy “Europe-first and Asia-second” never altered. China was not supposed to play the main role in the Pacific War, and the Chinese battlefield was subsidiary in the American’s eyes.

The publication of the “Declaration of the United Nations” in January 1942 signalled the formation of a Sino-US military alliance. In order to carry out its strategy towards China and to make China work strategically as a military ally, both sides began to seek ways of further cooperation.

Both sides welcomed Sino-US military cooperation. The harsh situation in China called for the support of a powerful ally. The outbreak of the Pacific War was a hidden blessing for China. And the Japanese would be defeated sooner or later.

China suggested the establishment of an “anti-Axis States military alliance” and the drawing up of a strategic plan to defeat Japan. Faced with the powerful Japanese invasion, America granted China’s demand to set up a comprehensive military alliance. In the meantime, there were some signs of accelerated Sino-US cooperation, and the nature of military cooperation – which comprised mainly military aid before the Pacific war broke up – began to change. Military cooperation included 1) direct cooperation in strategy; 2) open military aid on a certain scale; and 3) joint fighting in a certain region.

At the very beginning of the war, in April 1942, China took advantage of America’s passive defense situation and urged the US government to strengthen Sino-US military cooperation. Before the Battle of Midway, the existence of the China theatre pinned the Japanese forces down and held back Japanese attacks. The improvement of China’s operational capabilities was to be spectacularly helpful to America’s defense dispositions in the early period of the Pacific War, and also to the shift in its active defense. For this reason, America was quite willing to see China continue its war against Japan at any expense and considered China’s military issues from the political and economic point of view. With the actual formation of the Chinese War zone, the scope of military cooperation between the two countries grew gradually.

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Cooperation in the military command system In November 1941 a delegation composed of American military experts

arrived in China. In February of the same year, General Stilwell was appointed as the chief of staff of Chiang Kai-shek, commander-in-chief of the Chinese army in the hope of strengthening cooperation in the command area. General Stilwell had plenipotentiary powers in China since he supervised and controlled all the defense affairs concerning American aid to China, and enjoyed the power to command the Chinese army allocated by President Chiang Kai-shek. But unfortunately, Stilwell’s role in China became quite controversial since Chiang Kai-shek’s initial wish had been to obtain a military liaison officer from the US who would be under his control. But in fact America had sent him a general with double status, i.e. responsible to him, yet under the direct command of Washington headquarters. Although it was true that both China and the US were against Japan, their intentions regarding military cooperation were totally different. After the outbreak of the Pacific War, President Chiang Kai-shek thought America had already taken over the burden to defeat Japan. Fully dependent on his ally, and through such bilateral military cooperation, he hoped to free his own forces to deal with his domestic threat while America hoped China would play a full role in the Far East. Therefore, the dispute actually reflected continuous differences in Sino-US military cooperation, although they did not grow worse in the early period because both sides gave top priority to maintaining military cooperation. Cooperation in military equipment

Military aid had always been the main content of Sino-US military

cooperation. The fight for command was the main obstacle in military cooperation and also affected cooperation in other aspects. This cooperation was of prime importance to China. Facing the Japanese invasion, the two sides agreed that effective military cooperation was the most important matter. The US began to send a certain amount of military equipment by sea and along the Burma Road to China. In March 1942, the Burma Road was lost. In order to aid China to continue its operation, the US opened in April a Hump Route from India to Kunming. The US assisted China as much as possible by supplying military equipment and transportation, but its attitude towards the command and distribution was still very tough. First, the US government was war materials so that the US could restrict Sino-US military cooperation and yet guarantee Chinese the positive role for the Chinese on the battlefield. Second, in April the US refused the Chinese proposal to join MBA subordinate to US-British joint chiefs of staff. Third, the US emphasized that


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military aid should be applied on the Chinese war front and hoped to see Chiang Kai-shek reform the Chinese Army. By July-August 1942, the dispute between Chiang kai-shek and Stilwell concerning war materials and military equipment became more and more serious, so President Roosevelt sent Laughlin Currie to China to mediate. At this time, the attitude of the US towards Sino-US military cooperation began to change. Currie said: “I don’t think it is necessary for us to add additional conditions to our aid”. And President Roosevelt adopted Currie’s suggestion.

In the fight for holding the power to “release”, Stilwell and Chiang kai-shek had equal shares. Stilwell strengthened his control over the power of “releasing”, but he did not win Roosevelt’s support for his pressure policy. Although Chiang kai-shek did not recapture the controlling power, he obtained the military aid from the US by promising to continue military action. Though the dispute still remained, cooperation between the two sides was further developed before the situation in the Pacific improved. The main principle of Chiang Kai-shek presupposed guaranteed cooperation between the two sides. The fight for command was the main obstacle in the military cooperation and also affected cooperation in other fields. Cooperation in the combined operations

During World War II, the Sino-US combined operations were, in fact,

based on Chinese forces. The US forces were limited in such areas as operational command, airforce combat, military equipment and providing military advisors. At this time, the main action of the combined operations was participation by the US air-force group, “Flying Tigers”. The Burma Campaign, February-May 1942, guaranteed the intersection point of the Pacific and Chinese theatres.

The scale and role of the Flying Tigers was confined to co-ordinating operations in parts of the Chinese theatre. The Burma Campaign was of important strategic value for China, as well as for the US and the UK. Therefore, a fierce struggle for operational command arose. The Burma Campaign failed because the Sino-British Allied Forces had no cohesive operational project, or effective centralized directions. America could hardly realize combined operations just by using its power of leadership, supplying military advisors and war materials, but not sending in troops. Chiang Kai-shek would not permit it. After American-Japanese Coral Sea and Midway Naval Warfare, the US army gradually gained the upper hand in the Pacific theatre, and the Americans changed their view concerning the importance of the strategic status of the Chinese theatre. Indeed, from February 1943, after the Guam Island Campaign, the Japanese adopted a strategy of defense in the

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Pacific Theatre. In May, the American troops waged a strategic counterattack. And for America, the strategic status of the Chinese theatre began decline. Because of the change in the US strength and strategic situation in the Pacific theatre, Japanese troops had been forced to become defensive. The strategic importance of the Chinese theatre was no longer the same as in the first period of the Pacific War, when the US troops, in a state of passive defense, needed the role played in the Chinese theatre, and American strategy towards China still admitted the strategic status of Chinese theatre. But first, China had to wage an attack in the Burmese direction to prevent the Japanese troops in the Southern Pacific Ocean from being dispatched to Burma and to ensure the implementation of the US strategy in the Pacific Ocean. Second, China as a military base, should partly undertake the task of attacking the shipping line through the forward islands in Japanese sea territory and the Pacific Ocean, and directly waging air attacks against mainland Japan, which could coordinate with the US operations in the Pacific theatre.

In July 1942, after several months of military cooperation with China, Stilwell suggested that the key for China to defeat Japan did not lie in armament and technology, but in comprehensive military reform. In the first few months of 1943, the US government had realized the serious shortcomings of China’s political power and army, but the Americans would not make the Sino-US military cooperation conditional on China’s promise to carry out internal reforms and wage war against Japan. The bilateral military cooperation had proven US aid to be ineffective in altering the intrinsic qualities of age-old China and making it depend exclusively on US support. For the US, the strategic counterattack might benefit from China’s efforts in its war against Japan, and China might be transformed into a base for strategic attacks. So Roosevelt refused to force China to give in for fear that it would make China withdraw from the war, which might foil the strategy designed to triumph over Japan. In February 1943, the US started a strategic counterattack in the Pacific theatre. The strategic defense policy of the Japanese was to guarantee the key regions by relying on the dense forefront islands, to consolidate the back lines, and to scramble for one island after another. In view of this policy, Roosevelt explicitly pointed out that the US could not afford the slow moving and costly scramble for isles, because that would undoubtedly affect the war process as a whole. Transforming China into the base of counterattack was the key way to achieving triumph over Japan. In accordance with this strategy, the US government shared Chiang Kai-shek’s views and those of the pro-Chiang Kai-shek Americans at home. In support of General Claire Lee Chennault, who had been in favor of the Chinese, the US government developed and strengthened air power in China and undertook air operations so as to maintain China as a battlefield. At that time, the United


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States held a dominant position in the Pacific. As Japan shifted into strategic defense, the United States began to adjust its strategy to China, expecting China to be a strategic partner that would safeguard the American interests in the Pacific after the War. The United States thought it could overwhelm Russia politically “looking on China as a possible balancing power to deal with the Soviet Union”. As the War situation developed in March and April, the US made it clear that Sino-US military cooperation would lie mainly in air support and air operations. The Chinese troops provided ground support. And the US was responsible for the supply of military equipment. In May, the US initiated a strategic counterattack in the Pacific and soon felt the effects. This attack made the United States less dependent on the strategic position of the battlefield in China, so that it was able to attack Japan directly from the Pacific Ocean. The US then paid more attention to drawing Chiang Kai-shek, the most powerful man in China, over to its side, so that the US could play a big role and enjoy superiority in the Pacific and Far East after the War.

Thus, the adjustment of the American strategy on China determined the process of Sino-Asia military cooperation and the US understanding of the situation in China made it possible for the US to gain the greatest strategic value at that time. In August 1943, the Quebec Conference, held between American and British leaders, formulated plans for the allied forces’ strategic attack and counterattack. China gradually lost its significance as a strategic base and was confined to being an air base for the US After that, the United States set the norms for Sino-US military cooperation. But the development of the situation after the Second World War and the founding of the People’s Republic of China proved that the American strategic policy on China was superficial. The US did not realize its strategic goal through military cooperation with Chiang kai-shek. This shows that when developing relations with China, a country with a long history, the US should not impose its own philosophies, but respect the tradition of the country and have a clear idea of its national condition. This is the prerequisite for good cooperation between the two countries.