World War II Behind Closed Doors Read Online Free PDF

that really touched him was the way Churchill presented that sword…. His voice wavered… and he just said thank you’. For Zoya, a Soviet intelligence officer who was helping with press arrangements, the ceremony had special significance. She knew that a group of Allied delegates – both military men and diplomats – had flown to the conference from Moscow, stopping en route at Stalingrad; and she recalls the delegates' ‘feeling of guilt’ when they saw the devastation of the city. Moreover, she believed they were ‘right’ to feel guilty – by delaying the second front, the Western Allies had let the Soviets carry the chief burden of the war. For her, the ceremony of the handing over of the sword of Stalingrad was almost open recognition by the Western Allies of their culpability. Yet she says she felt no bitterness: ‘I will tell you, the Russian people are a special type of people – they never expect too much of anybody’.
    At four o'clock that afternoon the three leaders sat down with their advisers – political and military – for the second plenary meeting of the conference. There were no surprises in substance – Stalin simply reiterated once again that he wanted a second front and he wanted it in May – but there were a few surprises in tone. When Stalin learnt that no commander had yet been appointed for Overlord he remarked dismissively that ‘nothing would come of the operation’. 21 Although it had been agreed that an American would be in command, Roosevelt had doubts about appointing the obvious candidate – General Marshall. So the American President was unable to commit to a name at the conference – much to Stalin's irritation.
    The Soviet leader grew still more annoyed when Churchill launched into his idea for an advance on both Rome and the island of Rhodes. Stalin finally asked point-blank: ‘Did the British believe in Overlord, or were they just saying so in order to pacify the Russians?’ Churchill replied that the British did believe in Overlord, but only if the right conditions were met – an answer, not surprisingly, that did little to appease Stalin.
    This heated exchange was the background to one of the most extraordinary moments in all of the conferences between Stalin,Roosevelt and Churchill, an incident that occurred that night at a dinner attended by all three leaders. The minutes of the encounter stress the ‘[bad] attitude of Marshal Stalin toward the Prime Minister’. 22 Stalin inferred that the British were trying to deceive the Soviets. ‘Just because Russians are simple people’, he said, ‘it was a mistake to believe they were blind and could not see what was before their eyes’. Stalin also implied that Churchill had a ‘secret affection’ for Germany. Stalin's remarks were thought at the time to be motivated by ‘his displeasure at the British attitude on the question of Overlord’. But the Soviet leader was also indulging in what might best be termed ‘tactical teasing’. He was watching to see not just Churchill's reaction to his remarks, but also the extent to which Roosevelt defended or supported him.
    Stalin gained his greatest insight that night into the respective characters of the two Western leaders when he remarked that, in order to subdue Germany after the war, ‘At least 50,000 and perhaps 100,000 of the German Commanding Staff must be physically liquidated’. Churchill, in his post-war writings, said that he had not resented any of Stalin's remarks until this last one about the killing of Germans at the end of the war. ‘The British parliament and public’, said the Prime Minister, ‘will never tolerate mass executions’. 23 And when Stalin still insisted that 50,000 ‘must be shot’, Churchill lost his temper. ‘I would rather’, he said, ‘be taken out into the garden here and now and be shot myself than sully my own and my country's honour by such infamy’.
    At this point Roosevelt intervened – but in an oblique way.