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August 22, 2020 --
No. 31
No to
the Anti-Communist Monument! No to Black Ribbon
Day!
Information
Picket Against the
Glorification of Nazism
Information picket against the glorification of
Nazism, Ottawa, August
21, 2020.
• Slanders
and Lies to Glorify Nazism
- Louis Lang -
The
Soviet-German
Non-Aggression Pact, August 23, 1939
• Falsifications About the
Origins of the Second World War
-
Dougal MacDonald -
• The Role of
Anglo-American Financiers
- Valentin Katasonov -
For Your
Information
• Falsificators
of History Chapter 3: The Isolation of the
Soviet Union
and The Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact
- Soviet Information Bureau, February 1948
-
No
to the Anti-Communist Monument! No to Black Ribbon
Day!
Youth
for Democratic Renewal organized a picket in
Ottawa on August 21 to
provide information on
the so-called Black Ribbon Day the Parliament of
Canada adopted and
observes on August 23 every year. This is the
day in 1939 when the
Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with
Hitler Germany after
Britain, France and the U.S. refused to enter
into a collective
security agreement with the Soviet Union and it
found itself alone to
fend off the coming Hitlerite invasion.
The
proponents of Black Ribbon Day, including Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau
himself, accuse the Soviet Union, which
liberated Europe from
Nazi-fascism during World War II, of starting
World War II, dividing
Europe and imposing communist tyranny.
 All of
this lets the British and French governments off
the hook for their
betrayal of Czechoslovakia and Poland in Munich
on September 30, 1938,
with the support of both the American and
Canadian governments. Why is
that date not "Black Ribbon Day"?
Youth
for Democratic Renewal is also opposed to the
anti-communist monument
the Government of Canada is erecting and
financing in the Garden of the
Provinces and Territories across from Library
and Archives Canada on
Wellington Street in Ottawa.
The
monument the Trudeau government is helping build
to the "victims of
communism" glorifies Nazis and Nazi
collaborators as freedom fighters against the
communists.
There
is no monument to the 27 million Soviet citizens
and soldiers who gave
their lives to defeat Nazism or to the 60
million people who died at
the hands of the Nazis, fascists and militarists
during World War II.
This
includes many Canadians who sacrificed their
lives to defeat Hitler and
whose children have great respect for the
death-defying achievement of
the Soviets at Stalingrad and throughout the
war. This anti-communist
project is an insult to all Canadian men and
women and peoples of the
world who sacrificed their lives to defeat
Nazi-fascism and Japanese
militarism.
At a time
the peoples of the United States, Canada,
Britain, France, Germany,
Belgium and many other countries including the
mercilessly enslaved and
exploited African peoples are bringing down
monuments which exalt
slavery, genocide and those who have committed
crimes against humanity,
for Canada to erect such a monument based on
fanatical ideological
beliefs is unacceptable.
Canada
must be a refuge for all the victims of slavery,
genocide, colonial
conquests, imperialist wars and coups d’état.
How
about a monument to them?
No to the Glorification of
Nazism!
No to the Anti-Communist Monument! No to Black
Ribbon Day!
-
Louis Lang -
At
a mass action on Parliament Hill on September 19,
2015, Canadians
reject the Harper government's attempt to impose
its anti-communist
monument and its anti-social offensive
as Canadian values.
On
August 23, the Trudeau government intends to mark
the anniversary
of Black Ribbon Day, a memorial day concocted by
the ruling circles of
Europe in 2009 to promote anti-communism through
slanders and lies, and
to glorify Nazism.
The real historical significance
of August 23
is deliberately covered up by the anti-communist
campaign. August 23 is
the date that the Soviet-German Non-Aggression
Pact (the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) was signed in 1939. The
Soviet Union had no
alternative but to sign a non-aggression pact with
Germany because the
British, French and Americans refused to enter
into a collective
security agreement with the Soviet Union against
Nazi Germany. Instead,
they sought to isolate the Soviet Union, egging on
Hitler to achieve
the aims he clearly set forth in his book Mein Kampf
which
advocates
the superiority of the so-called Aryan race and
capture of land in
Eastern Europe and Soviet Russia to be used as
"living
space" for the
German people.
 Amongst other
crimes the Anglo-French
forces
committed during the pre-war years was to sign the
Munich Agreement
with Hitler on September 30, 1938 which ceded the
Sudetenland from
Czechoslovakia to Germany and, more broadly,
approved the strategy of
appeasing Hitler. The non-aggression agreement the
Soviet Union signed
with Germany gave the Soviets an extra 22 months
to build up their
defences against the expected Nazi invasion.
Standard
Anglo-American imperialist anti-communist
propaganda equates the Nazis,
who are well-known as the biggest war criminals of
that time, with the
Soviet Union, which played the major role in
defeating the Hitlerites
and freeing the world of the scourge of Nazism. It
deliberately
promotes the view that the Hitlerite Nazis and
their collaborators, who
slaughtered the peoples of Europe and the Soviet
Union amongst others,
were freedom fighters because they fought against
communism, and the
anti-fascist forces who fought them to the death,
especially the
communists, should be erased from the historical
record.
Trudeau
also intends to complete Jason Kenney and the
Stephen Harper
government's pet project which seeks to glorify
Nazis and
Nazi
collaborators as freedom fighters against
communism. It is a publicly
funded monument officially called "Memorial to
Victims of
Communism
-- Canada, a Land of Refuge." The project is based
on and
linked to the
U.S. Victims of Communism Memorial, dedicated in
2007, whose honourary
chairman is war criminal George W. Bush and whose
benefactors include
monopolies such as defence contractor Lockheed
Martin and the Amway
Corporation owned by the dominionist DeVos family.
The
National
Capital Commission, ignoring the opposition of
many sectors of society
in Ottawa and all across the country, has approved
an architectural
design and is proceeding to build the monument in
downtown Ottawa.
 The
private organization on whose behalf the Trudeau
government is acting
is Tribute to Liberty, an anti-communist
organization led by various
individuals with very shady pasts linked to the
holocaust against the
Jews and others considered "inferior races." Since
2009 Tribute to
Liberty has been trying to raise money from
Canadians but has failed
miserably. The funding for the anti-communist
monument is coming from
the Canadian government as well as several East
European governments
who are virulent anti-communists and support the
criminal activities of
pro-Nazi movements within their countries.[1]
At this
time when
people all over the world are tearing down statues
and symbols
commemorating slavery, colonial genocide and
imperialist oppression,
Canadians will not accept the actions of the
Trudeau government acting
on behalf of private interests to build monuments
glorifying Nazis and
their collaborators which reverse the verdicts of
history.
The
people of Canada support genuine freedom and
democracy. What is needed
is a monument commemorating the countless millions
of victims of
colonial conquest, slavery and genocide and
imperialist wars of
aggression, coups d'état, sanctions and "regime
changes."
Why is there
no monument to honour the victims of the
centuries-long state genocide
against the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island?
Photo shows thousands
participating in Vancouver on February 14, 2014 in
the annual memorial
march for missing and murdered Indigenous
women
and girls.
Note
1. Foreign financial
contributions
to Tribute to Liberty for the anti-communist
monument have been
received from the governments of Hungary, Latvia,
Estonia, Georgia,
Poland, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Taiwan.
Latvia, Estonia and
Ukraine in particular are known for public
celebrations of Nazi
collaborators or those who were part of Nazi
formations in World War
II. Many governments in Eastern European countries
have sought to
distort the role of the Soviet Red Army in their
liberation from the
Nazis. Taiwan, as the seat of power for the
reactionary Kuomintang (KMT), deposed by the
communists in the
Chinese civil war, established the Asian Peoples'
Anti-Communist League
in 1954 with the governments of the Philippines
and south Korea, known
today as the World League for Freedom and
Democracy with its offices in
Taiwan.
The
Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, August 23, 1939
- Dougal MacDonald -
Information picket
against the glorification of Nazism, Ottawa,
August 21, 2020.
The
government of Canada declared August 23 Black
Ribbon Day to spread lies
which blame the former Soviet Union for starting
the Second World War.
The
Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with
Hitler Germany on August
23, 1939 which the government of Canada claims
was a "military
alliance" to take joint military action against
some third
country. But the pact contained no such
agreement. The agreement was
only that the two countries would not attack
each other.
Blaming
the Soviet Union for starting the Second World
War also serves to
divert
attention from the facts about the Munich
Agreement the British and
French signed with Hitler Germany on September
30, 1938 which gave
Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland to Germany and the
Hitlerites a
green light to take over Czechoslovakia, invade
Poland and unleash the
war crimes and atrocities they carried out
against the peoples of
Europe during the Second World War.
 Reactionaries
today use the anniversary of the non-aggression
pact not to acclaim the
great victory of the world’s people over Nazi
Germany but to
slander the great deeds of the Soviet Union by
repeating claims which
falsify history. To his shame, Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau on August
23, 2019 called the signing of the
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact a "sombre
anniversary," and said
"Signed between the
Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in 1939 to divide
Central and Eastern
Europe, the infamous pact set the stage for the
appalling atrocities
these regimes would commit."
Equating
the Soviet Union’s unrelenting battle to defeat
Nazi
aggression
with Nazi war crimes is for what purpose? In
actuality, the two main
factors leading to the Nazi Germany-initiated
Second World War were the
huge U.S. investments to rebuild the German
economy, beginning with the
1924 J.P. Morgan-led U.S. Dawes Plan which
financed the rebuilding of
Germany’s industries, especially their war
industries, and
the
treacherous policy of appeasing Germany by
renouncing collective
security followed by Britain and France with the
tacit agreement of
Canada, while the U.S. was busy financing German
war production.
The
big lies about a so-called Soviet-German
"alliance" began
in January 1948. The U.S. publication of
material from the diaries of
Hitlerite officials, in collaboration with the
British and French
foreign offices, started a fresh wave of slander
and lies in connection
with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact.
We are to ignore that
the German documents were all written from the
standpoint of the Hitler
government and were without independent
verification. It was a
deliberate Cold War campaign against the Soviet
Union by the U.S. and
its allies to cover up their own nefarious post
war deeds.
The
Soviet Union did not treat these lies lightly.
The Soviet Information
Bureau almost immediately published a very
important document, Falsificators of History,
to refute them.[1]
These same lies about the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact should also not be
treated with indifference
today. They aim to present the values of those
who are prompted by
narrow ideological beliefs as Canadian values.
In fact, the proponents
of Black Ribbon Day are descendants of the very
same Nazi forces that
spread death and destruction across Europe. They
present their
forebears -- who were Nazi collaborators that
sent Jews, Poles,
Roma and many others to their deaths in
concentration camps -- as
freedom fighters because they fought against
communism. Their values
are not Canadian values.
There
is no place for a monument which espouses these
values based on narrow
anti-communist ideological beliefs in a space
called The Garden of the
Provinces and Territories. Canadians fought in
the Second World War to
defeat the Nazis. They sacrificed their lives to
win freedom, democracy
and peace. Their sons and daughters had nothing
but admiration for the
sacrifices of the communists led by the Soviet
Union. To suggest we
need a monument to the "victims of communism,"
not to the
victims of Nazi-fascism and U.S. imperialist
wars of aggression, coups
d’état, sanctions and crimes against humanity
since
colonial times, is not worthy of Canada or what
Canadians stand for.
If
signing a non-aggression pact in 1939 was
"helping Hitler" then the
British and French had already been "helping
Hitler" since
signing such pacts a year earlier and Poland had
been "helping
Hitler" since 1934. It is also significant that
these same
reactionaries never once mention the filthy
pro-Nazi role of U.S.
corporations such as Ford, General Motors,
Standard Oil, Texaco, Dupont
and ITT which supplied the Nazi war machine with
essential equipment
and materials that enabled their invasion of
Europe.[2]
Britain
and France issued a joint declaration of
non-aggression with Germany in
1938, not to mention a "Pact of Accord and
Cooperation"
signed in 1933 when Hitler came to power. Poland
signed a
non-aggression pact with the Nazis in 1934, five
years before the
Soviet Union did, yet this is never mentioned as
a cause of war. Of all
the non-aggressive Great Powers in Europe, the
Soviet Union was the
very last to agree to a pact with the Germans, a
decision it was forced
into by Britain and France’s rejection of
collective security.
The
history of events in 1938 -- both before and
after Hitler’s
occupation of Austria in March -- show that the
Soviet Union, as
it had done in earlier years, made many efforts
to persuade Britain and
France to maintain collective mutual assistance
and in particular to
carry out their undertaking to defend
Czechoslovakia against
aggression. The Soviet Union was not only
willing to join forces with
France to defend Czechoslovakia if France would
keep her word, but was
prepared to defend Czechoslovakia on her own,
even if France refused.[3]
All
the efforts by the Soviet Union to build
collective security were
shunned by the British, French and Americans.
The British and French
refused to sign any collective mutual assistance
pact with the Soviet
Union because their rulers still hoped Germany
would attack and destroy
the Soviet Union. One last effort by the Soviet
Union in April 1939 was
again rejected, even though polls in both
countries showed massive
popular support for it. Instead, Britain and
France had signed the
traitorous September 30, 1938, Munich Pact with
Germany and Italy which
permitted Germany to dismember Czechoslovakia
and incorporate the
Sudetenland, ordered the Czechs not to resist
Nazi aggression, and gave
the Nazis the green light to launch their
attacks across Europe.
The
reactionaries never want to discuss the Munich
Pact because it was such
a blatant betrayal of the world’s people that
even Winston
Churchill accused Prime Minister Chamberlain in
the British Parliament:
"You were given the choice between war and
dishonour. You chose
dishonour and you will have war." It is
indisputable that faced
with the British and French betrayal, the Soviet
Union had no choice
but to take whatever measures it could to defend
itself and the cause
of peace.
Left to right: Chamberlain, Daladier,
Hitler, Mussolini, and Ciano at signing of sellout
Munich Agreement in
1938.
All
these facts can be verified. They are all
available in reports,
speeches, accounts and documents of that time.
One example of the
policy of appeasement of Hitler is Memo #8604,
sent to Moscow by
Russian intelligence from Prague several days
before the signing of the
Munich Agreement. It reads: "On September 19,
British Ambassador
Newton and French Ambassador De Lacroix conveyed
to [Czechoslovak prime
minister] Milan Hodza the following on behalf of
Chamberlain and
Daladier,
respectfully: 'Guided by the lofty principles of
preserving peace
in Europe, they consider it necessary for
Germany to incorporate the
Sudeten region. A system of mutual aid pacts
with other countries
should be cancelled.’"[4]
Supposedly this betrayal of the
Czech people which led to German occupation was
"guided by the
lofty principles of preserving peace." Yet
within a year of
marching into Czechoslovakia, Germany had
invaded Poland, Denmark,
Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and France, and
bombed Britain.
Another
oft-repeated lie is that the Soviet Union and
Nazi Germany agreed in
the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to "divide Poland,"
again
falsely implying that the pact included a
commitment to joint military
action against a third country. While it is true
that the Nazis invaded
Poland on September 1, 1939, committing one of
the worst war crimes the
world has ever seen by killing about six million
people, the role of
the Soviet Union was entirely different. The
Soviet Army marched into
the territory of Poland on September 17, only
after the Polish state
had collapsed, the Polish army had
disintegrated, the government had
ceased to function, and its leaders had fled the
country. Further, the
Soviet Union marched into the territories of the
Ukraine and
Byelorussia which had been part of Soviet Russia
until Poland forcibly
annexed them during the Polish-Russian War of
1919-20, when Poland was
one of the 14 invading imperialist countries,
including Canada, that
attempted but failed to strangle the newborn
Soviet socialist republic.
In fact, only about eight per cent of the people
in the Ukraine and
Byelorussia were of Polish origin.
What
was the result of the Soviet Army marching into
Poland? As a result of
the Soviet Union’s timely entry into what had
been
territories of
the Polish state, Hitler was forced to accept a
line of demarcation
between his troops and the Red Army, a long way
west of the then
Polish-Russian frontier.[5]
The Red Army saved millions of people
inhabiting the Ukraine and Byelorussia from the
fate which Hitler
reserved for the Polish people. Even the known
anti-communist Winston
Churchill publicly justified the Soviet march
into eastern Poland as
necessary not only for the safety of the people
of Poland and the
Soviet Union but also the people of the Baltic
states and Ukraine. On
October 1, 1939, Churchill said in a public
radio broadcast: "That the
Russian armies should stand on this line
[Curzon] was
clearly necessary for the safety of Russia
against the Nazi menace. At
any rate, the line is there, and an Eastern
Front has been created
which Nazi Germany does not dare assail. When
Herr von Ribbentrop was
summoned to Moscow last week it was to learn the
fact, and accept the
fact, that the Nazi designs upon the Baltic
states and upon the Ukraine
must come to a dead stop."
And,
of course, it was the Soviet Red Army which in
January 1945 led the
final freeing of Poland from the Nazi
occupation, liberating Warsaw and
then breaking through the formidable Nazi
defences on the Vistula-Oder
which marked the border of Poland and Germany.
The complete success of
the latter operation created the favourable
conditions for entering
Germany on January 20 and advancing deep into
the heart of Germany,
mopping up the Nazi forces, taking Berlin, and
ending the existence of
the Third Reich forever.
The Soviet Red Army liberates Poland in 1945.
Acknowledging
this huge contribution, on February 6, 1945, the
President and Prime
Minister of Poland wrote to J.V. Stalin: "The
Polish people will
never forget that in the most difficult and
trying time of their
history they received fraternal help from the
Soviet people not only in
the form of blood and arms of the Red Army but
also bread as well as
tremendous assistance of an economic nature."[6]
The
nefarious actions of the Anglo-Americans and the
French behind the back
of the Soviet Union destroyed the existing
elements of the collective
security system against Nazi Germany. It was the
Munich Pact signed by
Great Britain, France, Germany, and Italy which
was the final cowardly
act that triggered the Second World War, the
killing of millions of
people, and the European Holocaust. The judgment
of history points to
the truth about the Anglo-American and French
betrayal of the
world’s people and to the truth about the heroic
role of the
Soviet Union and J. V. Stalin in defeating the
Nazis. No falsifiers of
history can change those facts.
Some
50 million people died and another 35 million
were seriously wounded
during the Anti-Fascist War, with the peoples of
the Soviet Union
bearing the brunt of the casualties. This is the
truth of the matter.
Notes
1. Falsificators
of History by Soviet Information Bureau
(Moscow: 1948).
2. See, for
example, Nazi Nexus: America's Corporate
Connections to
Hitler's Holocaust by Edwin Black
(Washington, DC: Dialogue
Press, 2009), and Big Business and Hitler
by
Jacques R. Pauwels (Toronto: James Lorimer &
Co., 2017).
3.
"Stalin 'planned to send a million troops to stop
Hitler if Britain and
France agreed pact:' Stalin was 'prepared to move
more than a million
Soviet troops to the German border to deter
Hitler's aggression just
before the Second World War,'" by Nick Holdsworth,
Telegraph
(London, UK), October 18, 2008.
4. "Russian
Foreign Intelligence
Service Declassifies Munich Agreement Papers" by
Valery Harmolenko, RIA
Novosti, September 29, 2008.
5. Causes
and Lessons of
the Second World War by Hardial Bains
(Toronto: MELS, 1990).
6.
World War II: Decisive Battles of the Soviet
Army by
V. Larionov, N. Yeronin, B. Solovyov &
V. Timokhovich
(Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1984).
- Valentin
Katasonov -
This article was
originally published in 2015 by Strategic
Culture Foundation and also
reproduced by TML Weekly at that time. TML
Weekly is republishing it today to enlighten
readers on the
role played by international financiers in World
War II and debunk the
Anglo-American falsification which blames the
Soviet Union for that
tragedy so as to exonerate themselves.
The article also clearly examines the origins
of the
international financial institutions at a time
the Trudeau government
and provincial governments are once again
indebting the country to
private interests to unprecedented levels based
on the fraudulent claim
that this is how to achieve economic recovery.
Not only that, the
Trudeau government likes to claim that Canada's
adherence to these
international financial institutions makes it
democratic and provides
proof of its multilateralism. The material in
this article provides
ample information which shows that there are
obviously various kinds of
multilateralism with various kinds of aims and
not all of them serve
Canada. This the Trudeau and other governments
in Canada do not want
discussed.
Part One
The
war was not unleashed by a frenzied
Führer who happened to be ruling Germany at the
time. World
War II was a project created by the world
oligarchy or Anglo-American
financiers. Using such instruments as the U.S.
Federal Reserve System
and the Bank of England they started to prepare
for the next global
conflict right after World War I. The USSR was the
target.
The Dawes and Young Plans; the
creation of the Bank for International
Settlements; Germany's
suspension of reparations payments it had to pay
according to the Paris
Peace Treaty and the acquiescence of Russia's
former allies in this
decision; large-scale foreign investments in the
economy of the Third
Reich; the militarization of the German economy
and the breaches of the
Paris Treaty provisions -- these all were
important milestones on the
way to preparing the war.
There were key figures
behind the plot: the Rockefellers, the Morgans,
Lord Montagu Norman
(the Governor of the Bank of England) and Hjalmar
Schacht (President of
the Reichsbank and Minister of Economics in
Hitler's government). The
strategic plan of the Rockefellers and Morgans was
to subjugate Europe
economically, saturate Germany with foreign
investment and credits and
make it deliver a crushing blow against Soviet
Russia so that it would
return to the world capitalist system as a colony.
Montagu
Norman (1871-1950) played an important role of
go-between to keep up a
dialogue between American financial circles and
Germany's business
leaders. Hjalmar Schacht organized the revival of
Germany's defence
sector. This operation conducted by the
Anglo-American financiers was
covered up by politicians such as Franklin
Roosevelt, Neville
Chamberlain and Winston Churchill. In Germany the
plans were carried
out by Hitler and Hjalmar Schacht. Some historians
say Hjalmar Schacht
played a more important role than Hitler, but
Schacht simply kept out
of the spotlight.
The Dawes Plan was an attempt
following World War I for the Triple Entente to
compromise and collect
war reparations from Germany. The Dawes Plan (as
proposed by the Dawes
Committee, chaired by Charles G. Dawes) was an
attempt in 1924 to solve
the reparations problem, which had bedeviled
international politics
following World War I and the Treaty of Versailles
(France was
reluctant to accept it got over 50 per cent of
reparations). In
1924-1929 Germany received $2.5 billion from the
United States and $1.5
billion from Great Britain, according to the Dawes
Plan. In today's
currency it is a huge sum, equal to U.S.$1
trillion. Hjalmar Schacht
played an active role in the implementation of the
Dawes Plan. In 1929
he summed up the results, saying that in five
years Germany got more
foreign loans than the United States in the 40
years preceding World
War I. As a result, by 1929 Germany had become the
world's second
largest industrial nation leaving Great Britain
behind.
In
the 1930s, the process of feeding Germany with
investments and credits
continued. The Young Plan was a program for
settling German reparation
debts after World War I, written in 1929 and
formally adopted in 1930.
It was presented by the committee headed (1929-30)
by American
industrialist Owen D. Young, founder and former
first chairman of the
Radio Corporation of America (RCA). At the time,
Young also served
concurrently on the board of trustees of the
Rockefeller Foundation,
and also had been one of the representatives
involved in the previous
war reparations restructuring arrangement -- the
Dawes Plan of 1924.
According to the plan, the Bank for International
Settlements (BIS) was
created in 1930 to make Germany pay reparations to
the victors. In
reality the flow of money went in quite a
different direction -- from
the United States and Great Britain to Germany.
The majority of
strategically important German companies belonged
to American capital
or were partly under its control. Some of them
belonged to British
investors. German oil refining and coal
liquefaction sectors of the
economy belonged to Standard Oil (the
Rockefellers). The major chemical
company I.G. Farbenindustrie AG was put under the
control of the Morgan
Group. Forty per cent of the telephone network and
30 per cent of
aircraft manufacturer Focke Wulf shares belonged
to American company
ITT Corporation. Major industrial concerns Radio
and AEG, Siemens and
Osram were put under the control of General
Electric. ITT and General
Electric were part of the Morgan empire. One
hundred per cent of
Volkswagen shares belonged to the Ford Motor
Company. By the time
Hitler came to power, U.S. finance capital
practically controlled all
the strategically important sectors of German
industry: oil refining,
synthetic fuel production, chemical production,
auto production,
aviation, electrical engineering, the radio
industry, and a large part
of the machine manufacturing sector (a total of
278 companies). The
leading German banks -- Deutsche Bank, Dresdner
Bank, Donat Bank and
some others -- were also under U.S. control.
***
On January 30, 1933 Hitler was named
the Chancellor of Germany. Before that his
candidacy had been
thoroughly studied by American bankers. Hjalmar
Schacht went to the
United States in the autumn of 1930 to discuss the
nomination with
American colleagues. Hitler's appointment was
finally approved at a
secret meeting of financiers in the United States.
Hjalmar Schacht
spent all of 1932 trying to convince the German
bankers that Hitler was
the right person for the position. He achieved the
goal. In
mid-November 1932, 17 of Germany's biggest bankers
and industrialists
sent a letter to President Hindenburg expressing
their demand to make
Hitler the Chancellor of Germany. The last working
meeting of the
German financiers before the election was held on
January 4, 1933 in
Kölnat, the home of banker Kurt von Schröder.
After
that the National Socialist Party came to power.
As a result, Germany's
financial and economic ties with the
Anglo-Americans were elevated to a
higher level.
Hitler
immediately made an announcement that he refused
to pay the post-war
reparations. It put into doubt the ability of
England and France to pay
off World War I debts to the United States.
Washington did not object
to
Hitler's announcement. In May 1933 Hjalmar Schacht
paid another visit
to the United States. There he met with President
Franklin Roosevelt
and big bankers to reach a $1 billion credit deal.
In June the same
year Hjalmar Schacht visited London to hold talks
with Montagu Norman.
It all went down smoothly. The British agreed to
grant a $2 billion
loan. The British offered no objections related to
Germany's decision
to suspend debt payments.
Some historians say that
the American and British bankers were
accommodating because by 1932 the
Soviet Union had fulfilled its five-year economic
development plan to
achieve new heights as an industrial power. A few
thousand enterprises
had been built, especially in the field of heavy
industry. The USSR's
dependence on imported mechanical engineering
expertise was greatly
reduced. The chances of strangling the Soviet
Union economically were
practically reduced to zero. They decided to rely
on war and launched
the runaway militarization of Germany.
It was easy
for Germany to get American credits. By and large,
Hitler came to power
in his country at the same time as Franklin
Roosevelt took office in
the United States. The very same bankers who
supported Hitler in 1931
supported Roosevelt in the presidential election.
The newly elected
President could not but endorse large credits to
Germany. By the way,
many noticed that there was a big similarity
between Roosevelt's "New
Deal Policy" and the economic policy of the German
Third Reich. No
wonder. The very same people worked out both
policies and consulted
with both governments at the time. They mainly
represented U.S.
financial circles.
Roosevelt's New Deal soon
started to stumble. In 1937 America plunged into
the quagmire of
economic crisis. In 1939 the U.S. economy operated
at 33 per cent of
its industrial capacity (it was 19 per cent at the
worst of the
1929-1933 crisis).
Rexford G. Tugwell, an economist
who became part of Franklin Roosevelt's first
"Brain Trust," a group of
Columbia University academics who helped develop
policy recommendations
leading up to Roosevelt's New Deal, wrote that in
1939 the government
failed to achieve any success. There was an open
sea until the day
Hitler invaded Poland. Only the mighty wind of war
could dissipate the
fog. Any other measures Roosevelt could take were
doomed to failure.[1]
Only a world war
could save U.S. capitalism. In 1939 the financiers
used all the
leverage at their disposal to put pressure on
Hitler to make him
unleash a big war in the east.
Part Two
The BIS played an important role during
World War II.
It was created as an outpost of American interests
in Europe
and a link between Anglo-American and German
businesses, a kind of
offshore zone for cosmopolitan capital, providing
shelter from
political processes, wars, sanctions and other
things. The BIS was
created as a public commercial entity, its
immunity from government
interference and such things as taxation was
guaranteed by an
international agreement signed in the Hague in
1930.
The
bankers of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York
were close to the
Morgans, and the Governor of the Bank of England
Montagu Norman, as
well as the German financiers: Hjalmar Schacht
(President of the
Reichsbank and Minister of Economics in the Hitler
government), Walther
Funk (who later replaced Hjalmar Schacht as
President of the
Reichsbank) and Emil Puhl. All of them played an
important role in the
efforts to establish the BIS. The central banks of
Great Britain,
France, Italy, Germany, and Belgium and some
private banks were among
the founders of the BIS. The Federal Bank of New
York did its best to
establish the BIS, but it was not listed as a
founder. The U.S. was
represented by the private First National Bank of
New York, J.P. Morgan
and Company, and the First National Bank of
Chicago -- all parts of the
Morgan empire. Japan was also represented by
private banks. In
1931-1932, 19 European central banks joined the
BIS. Gates W. McGarrah,
a banker of Rockefeller's clan, was the first BIS
chairman of the
board. He was replaced by Leon Fraser, who
represented the Morgans.
U.S. citizen Thomas Huntington McKittrick was
President of the BIS
during the war years.
A lot has already been
written about the BIS' activities serving the
interests of the Third
Reich. The bank was involved in deals with
different countries,
including those Germany was at war with. Ever
since Pearl Harbour, the
BIS has been a correspondent bank for the Federal
Reserve Bank of New
York. Despite the bank being under Nazi control
during the war years,
the American McKittrick was the bank's President.
Soldiers were dying
on the battlefields while the BIS leadership held
meetings in Basel
with the bankers of Germany, Japan, Italy,
Belgium, Great Britain and
the United States. There, in the Swiss offshore
zone, all was peaceful;
the representatives of the belligerents quietly
worked in the
atmosphere of mutual understanding.
Switzerland
became the place where gold seized by Germany in
different corners of
Europe was transported to for storage. In March
1938 when Hitler
captured Vienna, part of Austria's gold was
transferred to the BIS
vaults. The same thing happened with the gold from
the Czech National
Bank (U.S.$48 million). As the war started, gold
poured into the BIS.
Germany obtained it from concentration camps and
by plundering the
occupied countries (including civilian property:
jewels, gold crowns,
cigarette cases, utensils). It was called the Nazi
Gold. The metal was
processed into ingots to be stored in the BIS,
Switzerland or outside
of Europe. Charles Higham in his book Trading With The
Enemy: An
Exposé of The Nazi-American Money Plot,
1933-1949
wrote that during the war, the Nazis transferred
$378 million into BIS
accounts.
A few words about the Czech gold, about
which details surfaced after the Bank of England's
archives were
declassified in 2012.[2]
In March 1939, Germany captured Prague. The Nazis
demanded U.S.$48
million from Czechoslovakia's national gold
reserves. They were told
that the sum had already been transferred to the
BIS. It later became
known that the gold was transferred from Basel to
the Bank of England.
At the command from Berlin, the gold was
transferred to the
Reichsbank's BIS account. Then the Bank of England
was involved in
transactions done on the orders of the Reichsbank
given to the BIS. The
commands were retransmitted to London. There was
collusion between
Germany's Reichsbank, the BIS and the Bank of
England. In 1939 a
scandal broke out in Great Britain because the
Bank of England executed
the transfer of Czech gold on the commands from
Berlin and Basel, not
the Czech government. For instance, in June 1939,
three months before
the war between Great Britain and Germany started,
the Bank of England
helped the Germans stuff their accounts with
440,000 pounds sterling
worth of gold and transfer some gold to New York
(Germany was sure that
in the case of a German intervention in Poland,
the United States would
not declare war).
The illegal transactions with
Czech gold were implemented with tacit approval of
the government of
Great Britain which was aware of what was going
on. Prime Minister
Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer
Sir John Simon and
other top officials did their best to hide the
truth, including telling
outright lies (that the gold had been returned to
its lawful owners or
had never been transferred to the Reichsbank).
Recently declassified
materials from the Bank of England reveal the
truth that the government
officials lied to provide cover for themselves and
the activities of
the Bank of England and the BIS. It was easy to
coordinate the joint
criminal activities because Montagu Norman, the
head of the Bank of
England, served as the chairman of the board of
the BIS. He never made
a secret of his sympathy for the fascists.
The
Bretton Woods Conference, formally known as the
United Nations Monetary
and Financial Conference, was a gathering of 730
delegates from all 44
allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel in
Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, to regulate the international monetary
and financial order
after the conclusion of World War II. The
conference was held from July
1 to 22, 1944. Suddenly the issue of the BIS hit
the agenda. It was
reported that the bank had collaborated with
fascist Germany. Leaving
many details aside, it was with great difficulty
that the delegates
reached an agreement to close the BIS (some U.S.
delegates opposed the
motion). The decision of the international
conference has never been
enacted. All the discreditable information related
to the BIS' wartime
activities was classified. Today it helps to
falsify the history of
World War II.
Finally, a few words about
Hjalmar Schacht (1877-1970). He was a key figure
controlling the
economic machine of the Third Reich, an
extraordinary and
plenipotentiary ambassador representing
Anglo-American capital in
Germany. In 1945, Schacht was tried at Nuremberg
and was acquitted on
October 1, 1946. He got away with murder. [...]
For some unexplained
reasons he was not on the 1945 leading wartime
criminals list.
Moreover, Schacht returned to his profession as if
nothing had happened
and founded Schacht GmbH in Düsseldorf. This
detail may go
unnoticed, though it serves as further testimony
to the fact that
Anglo-American financiers and their
plenipotentiary representatives in
Germany prepared and, to some extent, influenced
the outcome of World
War II. The financiers want to rewrite the history
of the war and
change its results.
Notes
1. P. Tugwell, The Democratic
Roosevelt, A
Biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt, New
York, 1957, p. 477.
2.
See here.
For
Your
Information
-
Soviet Information Bureau, February 1948 -
After
the seizure of Czechoslovakia fascist Germany
proceeded with her
preparations for war quite openly, before the eyes
of the whole world.
Hitler, encouraged by Britain and France, no
longer stood on ceremony
or pretended to favour the peaceful settlement of
European problems.
The most dramatic months of the prewar period had
come. At that time it
was already clear that every day was bringing
mankind nearer to the
unparalleled catastrophe of war.
 What was, at
that time, the policy of the Soviet Union on the
one hand, and of Great
Britain and France on the other?
The attempt of the
falsifiers of history in the United States of
America to avoid
answering this question merely goes to prove that
their consciences are
not clear.
The truth is that even during the fatal
period of the spring and summer of 1939, on the
threshold of war,
Britain and France, supported by ruling circles in
the United States,
continued the former course of their policy. This
was a policy of
provocative incitement of Hitler Germany against
the Soviet Union,
camouflaged not only with pharisaical phrases
about their readiness to
cooperate with the Soviet Union, but also with
certain simple
diplomatic manoeuvres intended to conceal the real
character of their
policy from world public opinion.
Among
such manoeuvres were, in the first place, the
1939
negotiations which Britain and France decided to
open with the Soviet
Union. In order to deceive public opinion, the
ruling circles in
Britain and France tried to depict these
negotiations as a serious
attempt to prevent the further extension of
Hitlerite aggression. In
the light of all the subsequent developments,
however, it became
perfectly clear that so far as the Anglo-French
side was concerned,
these negotiations were from the very beginning
nothing but another
move in their double game.
This was also clear to
the leaders of Hitler Germany, for whom the
meaning of the negotiations
with the Soviet Union, undertaken by the
Governments of Britain and
France, was certainly no secret. Here, for
example, is what the German
Ambassador to London, Dirksen, wrote in his report
to the German
Foreign Ministry on August 3, 1939, as is evident
from documents
captured by the Soviet Army during the defeat of
Hitler Germany:
"The prevailing impression here was that
[Britain's] ties with
other states formed during the recent months were
only a reserve means
for a real reconciliation with Germany and that
these ties would cease
to exist as soon as the one important aim, worthy
of effort -- an
agreement with Germany -- was achieved."
This
opinion was firmly shared by all German diplomats
who watched the
situation in London.
In another secret
report to Berlin, Dirksen wrote:
"By means of
armaments and the acquisition of allies, Britain
wants to gain strength
and to catch up with the Axis, but at the same
time she wants to try to
reach an amicable agreement with Germany by means
of negotiations."[27]
The
slanderers and falsifiers of history are trying to
keep these documents
hidden since they shed a bright light on the
situation during the last
prewar months, without correct assessment of which
it would be
impossible to understand the true prehistory of
the war. By undertaking
negotiations with the Soviet Union and giving
guarantees to Poland,
Romania and certain other states, Britain and
France, with the support
of the ruling circles in the United States, played
a double game
calculated to lead to an agreement with Hitler
Germany, for the purpose
of directing her aggression to the East, against
the Soviet Union.
The negotiations between Britain and France on
the one hand,
and the Soviet Union on the other, began in March
1939, and continued
for about four months.
The whole course of these
negotiations showed with perfect clarity that
whereas the Soviet Union
was trying to reach a broad agreement with the
Western Powers on the
basis of equality, an agreement capable of
preventing Germany, even
though at the last moment, from starting a war in
Europe, the
Governments of Britain and France, relying on
support in the United
States, set themselves entirely different aims.
The ruling circles in
Britain and France, accustomed to having others
pull their chestnuts
out of the fire, on this occasion too attempted to
foist obligations
upon the Soviet Union under which the USSR would
have taken upon itself
the brunt of the sacrifice in repulsing a possible
Hitler aggression,
while Britain and France would not bind themselves
by any commitment to
the Soviet Union.
If the rulers of Britain and
France had succeeded in this manoeuvre they
would have come
much closer to attaining their basic aim, which
was to get Germany and
the Soviet Union to come to grips as quickly as
possible. The Soviet
Government, however, saw through this scheme, and
at all stages in the
negotiations it countered the diplomatic trickery
and subterfuges of
the Western Powers with its clear and frank
proposals intended to serve
but one purpose -- the safeguarding of peace in
Europe.
There
is no need to recall all the vicissitudes through
which the
negotiations went. We need only bring to mind a
few of the more
important points. It suffices to recall the terms
put forward during
the negotiations by the Soviet Government: the
conclusion of an
effective pact of mutual assistance against
aggression between Britain,
France, and the USSR; the granting of a guarantee
by Britain, France,
and the USSR to states of Central and Eastern
Europe, including all the
European countries bordering on the USSR, without
exception; the
conclusion of a concrete military agreement
between Britain, France,
and the USSR on the forms and volume of immediate
effective aid to each
other and to the guaranteed states in the event of
an attack by
aggressors.[28]
At
the Third Session of the Supreme Soviet of the
USSR on May 31, 1939, V.
M. Molotov pointed out that some of the
Anglo-French proposals moved
during those negotiations had contained none of
the elementary
principles of reciprocity and equality of
obligations, indispensable
for all agreements between equals.
"While
guaranteeing themselves," said V. M. Molotov,
"from direct attack on
the part of aggressors by mutual assistance pacts
between themselves
and with Poland and while trying to secure for
themselves the
assistance of the USSR in the event of an attack
by aggressors on
Poland and Romania, the British and French left
open the question of
whether the USSR in its turn might count on their
assistance in the
event of its being directly attacked by
aggressors, just as they left
open another question, namely, whether they could
participate in
guaranteeing the small states bordering on the
USSR and covering its
northwestern frontier, should these states prove
unable to defend their
neutrality from attack by aggressors. Thus, the
position was one of
inequality for the USSR."
Even when the British and
French representatives gave verbal consent to the
principle of mutual
assistance on terms of reciprocity between
Britain, France, and the
USSR in the event of a direct attack by an
aggressor, they hedged it in
with a number of reservations which rendered this
consent fictitious.
In addition to this, the Anglo-French proposals
provided for
help on the part of the USSR to those countries to
which the British
and French had given promises of guarantees, but
they said nothing
about their own help for the countries on the
northwestern frontier of
the USSR, the Baltic States, in the event of an
aggressor attacking
them.
In view of the above-mentioned
considerations, V. M. Molotov announced that the
Soviet Union could not
undertake obligations with respect to some
countries unless similar
guarantees were given with respect to the
countries situated on the
northwestern frontier of the Soviet Union.
It
should also be remembered that when, on March 18,
1939, Seeds, the
British Ambassador to Moscow, asked the People's
Commissar of Foreign
Affairs what the Soviet Union's position would be
in the event of
Hitler's aggression against Romania -- concerning
the preparation of
which the British possessed information -- and
when the question was
then raised by the Soviet side as to what
Britain's position would be
under those circumstances, Seeds evaded reply,
stating that Romania was
geographically closer to the Soviet Union than it
was to England.
Thus, from the very first step, it was already
quite clear
that British ruling circles were endeavouring to
bind the Soviet Union
to definite obligations, while they themselves
would stand aloof. This
artless method was then again and again repeated
regularly throughout
the whole course of the negotiations.
In reply to
the British inquiry, the Soviet Government
suggested that a conference
be called of representatives of the most
interested states -- namely
Great Britain, France, Romania, Poland, Turkey,
and the Soviet Union.
In the opinion of the Soviet Government, such a
conference would offer
the best opportunities for ascertaining the real
state of affairs and
for determining the positions of all the
participants. The British
Government, however, replied that it believed the
Soviet proposal to be
premature.
Instead of calling a conference which
would have made it possible to agree on concrete
measures to combat
aggression, the British Government on March 21,
1939 proposed to the
Soviet Government the signing, together with it as
well as with France
and Poland, a declaration in which the signatory
governments would
undertake to "consult together as to what steps
should be taken to
offer joint resistance" in the event of a threat
to "the independence
of any European state."
In arguing that this
proposal was acceptable, the British Ambassador
laid particular
emphasis on the point that the declaration was
couched in terms which
involved hardly any commitments.
It was
quite obvious that such a declaration could not
serve as an effective
means of fighting the impending threat on the part
of the aggressor.
Believing, however, that even a declaration
promising so little might
constitute at least some step forward in the
matter of curbing the
aggressor, the Soviet Government consented to the
British proposal. But
already on April 1, 1939 the British Ambassador in
Moscow communicated
the information that Britain considered the
question of a joint
declaration as having lapsed.
After two more weeks
of procrastination, the British Foreign Secretary,
Halifax, through the
medium of the Ambassador in Moscow, made another
proposal to the Soviet
Government to the effect that the Soviet
Government should issue a
declaration saying that "in the event of an act of
aggression against
any European neighbour of the Soviet Union, who
would offer resistance,
the assistance of the Soviet Government could be
counted upon if
desired."
What this proposal meant was mainly that
in the event of an act of aggression on the part
of Germany against
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, or Finland, the Soviet
Union would be
obliged to render them assistance without any
obligation on the part of
Britain to render assistance -- i.e., for the
Soviet Union to become
involved in a war with Germany singlehanded. In
the case of Poland and
Romania, too, who did receive Britain's
guarantees, the Soviet Union
was to render them assistance against an
aggressor; but even in their
case Britain refused to assume any obligations
jointly with the Soviet
Union, leaving herself a free hand and a field for
manoeuvres of any
kind, not to mention the fact that, according to
this proposal, Poland
and Romania as well as the Baltic States assumed
no obligations
whatever with respect to the USSR.
The Soviet
Government, however, did not want to miss any
opportunity to bring
about agreement with other Powers for a joint
struggle against Hitler's
aggression. Without the least delay it presented
to the British
Government its counterproposal which consisted of
the following:
(1) That the Soviet Union, Britain and France
should mutually
undertake to render one another immediate
assistance of every kind,
including military, in the event of aggression
against one of these
states;
(2) That the Soviet Union, Britain, and
France should undertake to render any kind of
assistance, including
military, to the states of Eastern Europe situated
between the Baltic
and the Black Seas and bordering on the Soviet
Union, in the event of
aggression against these states; and
(3) The Soviet
Union, Britain and France were to undertake to
determine within a short
space of time the volume and forms of military
assistance to be
rendered to each of these states in both cases
mentioned above.
These were the most important points of the
Soviet proposal.
It is not hard to see that there was a fundamental
difference between
the Soviet and British proposals, inasmuch as the
Soviet proposal
provided for really effective measures for joint
counteraction to
aggression.
No reply to that proposal came from the
British Government for three weeks. This caused
growing anxiety in
Britain, owing to which the British Government
felt constrained in the
end to resort to a new manoeuvre in order to
deceive public
opinion.
On May 8 the British reply, or, to be more
exact the British counterproposals, were received
in Moscow. It was
again proposed that the Soviet Government should
make a unilateral
declaration in which it "would undertake that in
the event of Great
Britain and France being involved in hostilities
in fulfillment of
these obligations" [to Belgium, Poland, Romania,
Greece, and Turkey]
"the assistance of the Soviet Government would be
immediately available
if desired and would be afforded in such manner
and on such terms as
might be agreed."
Once again the Soviet Union was
expected to assume unilateral obligations. It was
to undertake to
render assistance to Britain and France who on
their part assumed no
obligations whatever to the Soviet Union with
regard to the Baltic
Republics. Britain thus suggested that the USSR be
placed in an unequal
position, unacceptable to and incompatible with
the dignity of any
independent state.
It is easy to see that actually
the British proposal was addressed not so much to
Moscow as to Berlin.
The Germans were invited to attack the Soviet
Union, and were given to
understand that Britain and France would maintain
neutrality if only
the Germans attacked through the Baltic States.
On
May 11 the negotiations between the Soviet Union,
Britain, and France
were further complicated by a statement made by
the Polish Ambassador
in Moscow, Grzybowski, to the effect that "Poland
does not consider it
possible to conclude a pact of mutual assistance
with the USSR..."
Naturally, such a statement could only be made by
the Polish
representative with the knowledge and approval of
the ruling circles of
Britain and France.
The behaviour of the British
and French representatives in the Moscow
negotiations was so
provocative that even in the ruling camp of the
Western Powers there
were some who sharply criticized this crude game.
Thus, Lloyd George
published a sharp article in the French newspaper
Ce Soir
in the summer of 1939 directed against the makers
of British policy.
Referring to the causes of the endless
procrastination in which the
negotiations between Britain and France on the one
hand, and the Soviet
Union on the other, were stuck, Lloyd George wrote
that there could be
only one answer to that question : "Neville
Chamberlain, Halifax, and
John Simon do not want any agreement with Russia
whatever."
It
goes without saying that what was obvious to Lloyd
George was no less
obvious to the bosses of Hitler Germany, who
understood perfectly that
the Western Powers had no intention of reaching a
serious agreement
with the Soviet Union, but were pursuing an
entirely different aim.
That aim was to spur Hitler on to hurry with his
attack upon the Soviet
Union, guaranteeing him a premium, as it were, for
such an attack by
placing the Soviet Union in the least favourable
conditions in the
event of a war with Germany.
Furthermore, the
Western Powers dragged out the negotiations with
the Soviet Union
endlessly, seeking to drown major issues in a
swamp of minor amendments
and innumerable versions. Each time the question
of some real
obligations came up, the representatives of these
Powers pretended not
to understand what it was all about.
Toward the end
of May, Britain and France made new proposals
which somewhat improved
the previous version, but still left open a
question of essential
importance to the Soviet Union -- namely, the
question of guarantees
for the three Baltic Republics situated on the
northwestern frontier of
the Soviet Union.
Thus, the rulers of Britain and
France, while making certain verbal concessions
under the pressure of
public opinion in their countries, stuck to their
previous line and
hedged in their proposals with such reservations
as they knew would
make them unacceptable to the Soviet Union.
The
behaviour of the British and French
representatives in the negotiations
at Moscow was so intolerable that on May 27, 1939,
V. M. Molotov had to
tell British Ambassador Seeds and French Chargé
d'affaires
Payard that their draft agreement for joint
counteraction to an
aggressor in Europe did not contain a plan for the
organization of
effective mutual assistance of the USSR, Britain,
and France, and that
it did not even indicate that the British and
French Governments were
seriously interested in a corresponding pact with
the Soviet Union.
It was further plainly stated that the
Anglo-French proposal
led one to think that the Governments of Britain
and France were not so
much interested in the pact itself as in talk
about a pact. Possibly
Britain and France needed this talk for some aims
of their own. The
Soviet Government did not know what these aims
were. The Soviet
Government was interested, not in talk about a
pact, but in organizing
effective mutual assistance of the USSR, Britain,
and France against
aggression in Europe. The British and French
representatives were
warned that the Soviet Government did not intend
to take part in talk
about a pact, the aim of which the USSR did not
know, and that the
British and French Governments might find more
suitable partners for
such talk than the USSR.
The Moscow negotiations
dragged on endlessly. The London Times
blurted out
the reasons for this inadmissible procrastination
when it wrote:
"A hard and fast alliance with Russia would
hamper other
negotiations."[29]
In
referring to "other negotiations" the Times
apparently
implied the negotiations which Robert Hudson,
Minister of Overseas
Trade, was conducting with Dr. Helmut Wohltat,
Hitler's economic
adviser, on the possibility of a very large
British loan to Hitler
Germany, of which more anon. Besides, as is known
from press reports,
on the day that Hitler's army entered Prague, a
delegation of the
Federation of British Industries conducted
negotiations in Dusseldorf
with a view to concluding an extensive agreement
with big German
industries.
A circumstance that attracted attention
at the time was that men of secondary importance
were sent to conduct
the negotiations on behalf of Great Britain in
Moscow, while
Chamberlain himself went to Germany to carry on
negotiations with
Hitler, and that on several occasions. It is also
important to note
that the British representative for the
negotiations with the USSR,
Strang, had no authority to sign any agreement
with the Soviet Union.
In view of the demand of the Soviet Union that
the parties
should proceed to concrete negotiations concerning
measures to fight a
possible aggressor, the Governments of Britain and
France had to
consent to send their military missions to Moscow.
But it took those
missions an unusually long time to get to Moscow,
and when they did get
there, it transpired that they were composed of
men of secondary
importance who, furthermore, had not been
authorized to sign any
agreement. That being the case, the military
negotiations proved to be
as futile as the political ones.
The military
missions of the Western Powers demonstrated at
once that they even had
no desire to carry on serious conversations
concerning means of mutual
assistance in the event of aggression on the part
of Germany. The
Soviet military mission proceeded from the fact
that, since the USSR
had no common border with Germany, it could render
Britain, France, and
Poland assistance in the event of war only if
Soviet troops were
permitted to pass through Polish territory. The
Polish Government,
however, declared that it would accept no military
assistance from the
Soviet Union, thus showing that it feared the
growth of strength of the
Soviet Union more than Hitler's aggression. Both
the British and French
missions supported Poland's position.
In the course
of the military negotiations, the question also
came up as to the
strength of the armed forces which should be put
in the field at once
by the parties to the agreement in the event of
aggression. The British
named a ridiculous figure, stating that they could
put in the field
five infantry divisions and one mechanized
division. That was what the
British offered at a time when the Soviet Union
declared that it was
prepared to send to the front against the
aggressor one hundred and
thirty-six divisions, five thousand medium and
heavy guns, up to ten
thousand tanks and whippets, more than five
thousand war planes, etc.
The above shows with what an utter lack of
seriousness the British
Government treated the negotiations for a military
agreement with the
USSR.
The facts cited above fully bear out the
conclusion that suggests itself, and this
conclusion is as follows:
(1) Throughout the negotiations the Soviet
Government strove
with the utmost patience to secure agreement with
Britain and France
for mutual assistance against an aggressor on a
basis of equality and
on the condition that the mutual assistance would
be really effective,
i.e., that the signing of a political agreement
would be accompanied by
the signing of a military convention establishing
the volume, forms,
and time limits of the assistance, as all the
preceding events had
shown clearly enough that only such an agreement
could be effective and
might bring the Hitlerite aggressor to his senses,
encouraged though he
was by complete impunity and by the connivance of
the Western Powers
during the course of many years.
(2) Britain's and
France's behaviour during the negotiations with
the Soviet Union fully
confirmed that a serious agreement was farthest
from their thoughts,
since British and French policy was guided by
other aims which had
nothing in common with the interests of peace and
the fight against
aggression.
(3) The perfidious purpose of
Anglo-French policy was to give Hitler to
understand that the USSR had
no allies, that the USSR was isolated, that he
could attack the USSR
without running the risk of encountering the
resistance of Britain and
France.
It was no wonder, therefore, that
Anglo-French-Soviet negotiations ended in failure.
There
was, of course, nothing fortuitous about that
failure. It was becoming
ever more obvious that the breakdown of the
negotiations had been
planned beforehand by the representatives of the
Western Powers in
their double game. The point was that, along with
open negotiation with
the USSR, the
British
conducted backstage negotiations with Germany,
and they attached
incomparably greater importance to the latter.
Whereas,
by their negotiations in Moscow, the ruling
circles of the Western
Powers sought primarily to lull the vigilance of
the public in their
countries, to deceive the peoples that were being
drawn into war, the
negotiations with the Hitlerites were of an
entirely different nature.
The program of the Anglo-German negotiations was
formulated
plainly enough by the British Foreign Secretary,
Halifax, who was
addressing unequivocal appeals to Hitler Germany
at the very time his
officials continued negotiations in Moscow. In a
speech at a banquet of
The Royal Institute of International Affairs on
June 29, 1939, Halifax
expressed a readiness to come to terms with
Germany on all the problems
"that are today causing world anxiety." He said:
"In
such a new atmosphere we could examine the
colonial problem, the
problem of raw materials, trade barriers, the
issue of Lebensraum,
the limitation of armaments and any other issue
that affects the lives
of all European citizens."[30]
If we recall how the conservative Daily Mail
which is close to Halifax, treated the problem of
Lebensraum
as far back as 1933 when it suggested to the
Hitlerites that they
should wrest Lebensraum from the USSR,
there
remains not the slightest doubt as to what Halifax
really meant. It was
an open offer to Hitler Germany to come to terms
for a division of the
world and of the spheres of influence, an offer to
settle all the
questions without the Soviet Union and mainly at
the expense of the
Soviet Union.
As early as June, 1939, British
representatives inaugurated strictly confidential
negotiations with
Germany through Hitler's Commissioner for the Four
Year Plan, Wohltat,
who had come to London. Conversations were carried
on with him by the
Minister of Overseas Trade, Hudson, and
Chamberlain's closest adviser,
G. Wilson. The substance of those June
negotiations is still buried in
the recesses of diplomatic archives. But in July,
Wohltat paid another
visit to London and the negotiations were resumed.
The contents of that
second round of negotiations are now known from
captured German
documents in the hands of the Soviet Government,
which will soon be
made public.
Hudson and G. Wilson suggested to
Wohltat, and later to the German Ambassador in
London, Dirksen, the
starting of secret negotiations for a broad
agreement, which was to
include an agreement for the division of spheres
of influence on a
world-wide scale, and for the elimination of
"deadly competition in the
general markets." It was envisaged that Germany
would be allowed
predominating influence in southeastern Europe. In
a report to the
German Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dated July 21,
1939, Dirksen
pointed out that the program discussed by Wohltat
and Wilson comprised
political, military, and economic issues. Among
the political issues a
special place, along with a pact of
non-aggression, was assigned to a
pact of nonintervention which was to provide for a
"delimitation of Lebensraum
between the great Powers, particularly between
Britain and Germany."[31]
During the
discussion of the questions involved in these two
pacts, the British
representatives promised that, in the event these
pacts were signed,
Britain would renounce the guarantees she had just
given Poland.
In case an Anglo-German agreement was signed, the
British were
prepared to let the Germans settle the Danzig
problem and that of the
Polish Corridor with Poland alone, undertaking not
to interfere in the
settlement.
Further -- and this too finds a
documentary confirmation in Dirksen's reports
which will shortly be
published -- Wilson reaffirmed that in case the
above-mentioned pacts
between Britain and Germany were signed, the
British policy of giving
guarantees would be virtually abolished.
"Then
Poland," says Dirksen on this point in his report,
"would be left, so
to say, alone, face to face with Germany."
All this
meant that the rulers of Britain were prepared to
surrender Poland to
Hitler as his prey, at a time when the ink with
which Britain's
guarantees to Poland had been signed had not
dried. At the same time,
if the Anglo-German agreement had been concluded,
the purpose which
Britain and France had set themselves in starting
the negotiations with
the Soviet Union would have been achieved and the
possibility of
expediting a clash between Germany and the USSR
would have been further
facilitated.
Lastly, it was proposed to supplement
the political agreement between Britain and
Germany by an economic
agreement which would include a secret deal on
colonial questions, on
the distribution of raw materials, on the division
of markets, as well
as on a big British loan for Germany.
Thus, the
rulers of Britain saw an alluring picture of a
stable agreement with
Germany and the so-called "canalization" of German
aggression toward
the East, against Poland to whom they had but
recently given a
"guarantee" and against the Soviet Union.
Is it to
be wondered at that the slanderers and falsifiers
of history carefully
hush up and try to conceal these facts of decisive
importance to an
understanding of the situation in which war was
thus becoming
inevitable?
By this time there was already no doubt
left that, far from intending to make any serious
attempt to prevent
Hitler Germany from starting the war, Britain and
France, on the
contrary, were doing everything within their
power, by means of secret
deals and agreements, by means of every possible
kind of provocation,
to incite Hitler Germany against the Soviet Union.
No
forgers will ever succeed in wiping from history
or from the
consciousness of the peoples the decisive fact
that under these
conditions, the Soviet Union faced the
alternative: either to accept,
for purposes of self defence, Germany's proposal
to conclude a
non-aggression pact and thereby to ensure to the
Soviet Union the
prolongation of peace for a certain period of
time, which might be used
by the Soviet State better to prepare its forces
for resistance to a
possible attack on the part of an aggressor; or to
reject Germany's
proposal for a non-aggression pact and thereby to
permit war
provocateurs from the camp of the Western Powers
immediately to involve
the Soviet Union in armed conflict with Germany at
a time when the
situation was utterly unfavourable to the Soviet
Union and when it was
completely isolated.
In this situation, the Soviet
Government found itself compelled to make its
choice and conclude a
non-aggression pact with Germany.
This choice was a
wise and far-sighted act of Soviet foreign policy
under the conditions
which then obtained. This step of the Soviet
Government to an enormous
extent predetermined the favourable outcome of the
Second World War for
the Soviet Union and for all the freedom-loving
peoples.
It
would be a gross slander to assert that the
conclusion of a pact with
the Hitlerites was part of the plan of the foreign
policy of the USSR.
On the contrary, the USSR strove at all times to
have an agreement with
the Western non-aggressive states against the
German and Italian
aggressors for the achievement of collective
security on the basis of
equality. But there must be two parties to an
agreement.
Whereas
the USSR insisted on an agreement for combating
aggression, Britain and
France systematically rejected it, preferring to
pursue a policy of
isolating the USSR, a policy of concessions to the
aggressors, a policy
of directing aggression to the East, against the
USSR.
The
United States of America, far from counteracting
that ruinous policy,
backed it in every way. As for the American
billionaires, they went on
investing their capital in German heavy
industries, helping the Germans
to expand their war industries, and thus supplying
German aggression
with arms. They might as well be saying: "Go on,
Messrs. Europeans,
wage war to your hearts' content; wage war with
God's help; while we,
modest American billionaires, will accumulate
wealth out of your war,
making hundreds of millions of dollars in
super-profits."
Naturally,
with this state of affairs in Europe, there only
remained one way out
for the Soviet Union: to accept the German
proposal for a pact. This
was, after all, the best of all the possible ways
out.
Just
as in 1918, owing to the hostile policy of the
Western Powers, the
Soviet Union was forced to conclude the Brest
Peace with the Germans,
so in 1939, twenty years after the Peace of Brest,
the Soviet Union was
compelled to conclude a pact with the Germans,
owing to the same
hostile policy of Britain and France.
The claptrap
of slanderers of all hues to the effect that the
USSR should in no case
have allowed itself to conclude a pact with the
Germans can only be
regarded as ridiculous. Why could Poland, who had
Britain and France as
allies, conclude a non-aggression pact with
Germany in 1934, and the
Soviet Union, enjoying less favourable conditions,
could not conclude a
similar pact in 1939? Why could Britain and
France, who were the
dominant force in Europe, issue jointly with the
Germans a declaration
on non-aggression in 1938, and the Soviet Union,
isolated because of
the hostile policy of Britain and France, could
not conclude a pact
with the Germans?
Is it not a fact that of all the
non-aggressive great Powers in Europe the Soviet
Union was the last to
make a pact with the Germans?
Of course, the
falsifiers of history and other reactionaries are
displeased with the
fact that the Soviet Union succeeded in making
good use of the
Soviet-German pact to strengthen its defences;
that it succeeded in
moving its frontiers far to the West and in
barring the way of the
unhampered eastward advance of German aggression;
that Hitler's troops
had to begin their offensive to the East, not from
the Narva-Minsk-Kiev
line, but from a line hundreds of kilometres
farther west; that the
USSR was not bled to death in the Patriotic War,
but emerged victorious
from that war. This displeasure, however, should
be regarded as a
manifestation of the impotent rage of bankrupt
politicians.
The
vicious displeasure of these gentlemen can only be
regarded as a
demonstration of the indubitable fact that the
policy of the Soviet
Union has been and remains a correct policy.
Notes
27. Dirksen's memorandum On
the Development of Political Relations between
Germany and Britain
during my Term of Office in London,
compiled in September
1939.
28. Report
by V. M. Molotov to the Third
Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, May 31,
1939.
29.
Sayers and Kahn, The Great Conspiracy: The
Secret War against
Soviet Russia, Boston, 1946, p. 329.
30.
Viscount Halifax, Speeches on Foreign Policy
1934-1939,
Oxford University Press, London, 1940, p. 296.
31.
Memorandum of the German Ambassador to Britain,
Dirksen, of July 21,
1939. Archives of the German Ministry of Foreign
Affairs.
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