bluemonday Posted October 19, 2008 Share Posted October 19, 2008 In todays Telegraph. Stalins Offer Assuming it's not a rerun of the 'Hitler Diaries' Would it have meant the iron curtain ran to the french coast or conceivably the UK? Would one evil just have been replaced with another more powerful one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manshimajin Posted October 19, 2008 Share Posted October 19, 2008 In todays Telegraph.Stalins Offer Assuming it's not a rerun of the 'Hitler Diaries' Would it have meant the iron curtain ran to the french coast or conceivably the UK? Would one evil just have been replaced with another more powerful one? An intriguing story. Given subsequent Russian aggression against Poland in 1939 one wonders how they would have behaved if they had entered Poland, ostensibly as an ally, to place their divisions on the German border. Stalin never forgave the Poles for defeating the Russian army push towards the West in 1920 (in which he was directly involved). 'What if' history is always intriguing (but a blind alley). Maybe the Germans would not have attacked Poland, Stalin would have held onto it and the British and French would have found themselves being called on to implement their mutual defence pact with Poland against the Russians - possibly with German help? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeddan Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 IMO it's not the 'what if' that's intriguing, it's the 'why' of what happened. Powers that be in Britain would have been aware of this offer. The reasons given for this offer not being taken up (limited authority of negotiators) is not sufficient (people report back on important developments - an offer like this gets sent up the chain). The fishy excuse suggests there might have been something more to this going on behind the scenes. So why did Britain not take up the Soviet offer? That's a matter of conjecture. I don't know details, but one guess is that Britain hoped that they would be able to remain neutral, and the policy was to move Germany and Russia into confrontation and damaging and weakening each other so badly that neither would be a threat to Western powers. Of course with hindsight we know about the Nazi-Soviet pact, but at that time there is no reason why they might have anticipated this rather than war. In a funny way that would be very old school. Less scrupulous would have entered into this pact with Stalin, and then arranged secretly with Hitler not to interfere if Germany attacks Russia, thus pushing Germany towards attacking east and fending off Nazi-Soviet pact. To be honest, it wouldn't surprise me if UK had a secret pact with Hitler - the 'phoney war' may have been just that. This might then have explained sell-out over Sudentenland, etc. (protecting Hitler from second front and arming him so he could attack Soviets). If so, then as we now know, almost certainly Stalin would have got wind of this. Now consider what Stalin and then Hitler might have done - pretty much history as we have it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemonday Posted October 20, 2008 Author Share Posted October 20, 2008 Interesting. As you say a lot of this is conjecture/speculation but I believe it's accepted that Hitlers original intention was not to make an enemy out of Britain and that he hoped to make an accommodation. As regards a resurgent Germany facing off to Russia, I agree that would probably have pleased quite a few european countries. As you say, they could have sat and watched the two principal threats weaken each other. On a side issue, if he hasn't decided to attack Russia, against his generals advice, Britain would have been in deeper trouble than it was. Regarding the possibility of a secret pact, I wonder if we will ever know the truth? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manshimajin Posted October 20, 2008 Share Posted October 20, 2008 Doubt ttat we will ever know the truth - assuming that this bit of news is not disinformation too. IMO asking 'why' something didn't happen inevitably requires looking into the 'what ifs' of the situation. The UK would have said 'what if' we accept the Russian offer. As you saty Skeddan that is a matter of conjecture. Maybe like you say the UK was hoping to stay neutral and let Russia and Germany fight it out. On the other hand they would have also been very conscious of the Anglo/French obligations to Poland. If Poland did not want Russian troops on their territory - which is I would guess about 99% certain - then the UK would not have seen the proposal as practical. They may also quite simply have believed that the French/Polish/British mutual defence Pact was sufficient to deter German aggression. It would be interesting to see if any Polish or French archives cover this situation - the Russians probably would have destroyed the Polish ones post-war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeddan Posted October 21, 2008 Share Posted October 21, 2008 Yes, it is conjecture, but one can make intelligent informed conjectures and piece together that way. (Too often people refrain from any conjecture, so only analyse evidence in very limited ways). There are pretty good methodologies developed for intelligence analysis which can help put tell-tale fragments together. There's a lot of fragments to the mosaic. manshimajin, I get what you mean by looking at 'what if' situation to understand why - have to see how decisions might have been arrived at by people in hotseat at the time, but not a counter-factual history with benefit of hindsight. However re Poland, I would have thought Soviet offer would have been negotiated. Personally I don't think Hitler actually wanted an accommodation with UK, rather I think he wanted to keep UK thinking he was 'on side' with them, and was playing Western Europe and Soviets against each other. I think it quite likely that Hitler was leading GB and Soviets on merry dance and misleading both. It looks like a game of bluff, and double bluff, with double crossing, treble crossing and so on. My guess would be that quite possibly Hitler had a secret pact with Russia that he would not keep his secret pact with the UK (that Stalin would likely have found out about anyway), but would secretly keep his open pact with the Soviets - and then of course betrayed this. i.e. he pretended to GB he was onside with them and planning to attack Russia despite Nazi-Soviet pact, and pretended to Soviets that his real ambitions were towards GB and colonies and secret pact with GB was really to deceive GB. In reality he was using fact both GB and Soviets hoped he would be on their side, and gained advantage through that duplicity. Given that notion, a lot of things seem to fall into place and fit into the framework of the hypothesis. Among other things this would explain why Hitler seemed to want to have accommodation with GB, and how he managed to gain so much from appeasement. It would also for example account for why Stalin was so taken by surprise at Operation Barbarossa. That fits with Stalin having been misled into thinking German preparations on the border were simply for 'show' so Hitler could fool GB into thinking his secret pact with them was still for real. Stalin's behaviour in the run up to Barbarossa has every indication he knew something his generals did not - but was deceived. Stalin was no fool, far more likely he was just outfoxed by being suckered into thinking a real attack was only a ruse. It's an old game. What tipped the balance was the Hess defection - that made UK realise they could not trust their secret pact with Hitler. Hess was old-school, and German aristocracy were seeing what a terrible mistake they'd made. That's why Hitler was so furious and upset over Hess defecting, and that's when the war began in earnest with no more pretences about secret pacts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemonday Posted October 21, 2008 Author Share Posted October 21, 2008 Mein Kampf indicated Hitlers intentions to expand eastward in pursuit of Lebensraum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeddan Posted October 21, 2008 Share Posted October 21, 2008 Mein Kampf indicated Hitlers intentions to expand eastward in pursuit of Lebensraum. Yes. Also take into consideration how much support for Germany in GB pre-war (including some very pro-Nazi members of England's German royal family, most notoriously Edward VIII - who was probably effectively a German asset via Wallis Simpson and Ribbentrop). Anti-communism, fear of soviets, and admiration for Hitler ran high. I don't think Stalin was under any illusion that Hitler would not expand eastward. Rather I think that he was gulled into thinking Hitler would be busy elsewhere for long enough that Soviets would be powerful enough to withstand that. I suspect had Hess not defected, GB would not have been active in supporting Russia (huge convoys sent there), and Hitler may well have been successful as he would really only have been fighting on one front. Once Russia was taken care of, he could then turn against GB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluemonday Posted October 21, 2008 Author Share Posted October 21, 2008 Perhaps also fortunate that Hitler ignored his generals advice so often and also failed to appreciate the lessons of histroy - Napolean springs to mind - that if you don't have it wrapped up by the start of the Russian winter you're in deep trouble, also the Russian tactic of falling back east of the Urals and waiting for the elements to do their job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeddan Posted October 21, 2008 Share Posted October 21, 2008 Perhaps also fortunate that Hitler ignored his generals advice so often and also failed to appreciate the lessons of histroy - Napolean springs to mind - that if you don't have it wrapped up by the start of the Russian winter you're in deep trouble, also the Russian tactic of falling back east of the Urals and waiting for the elements to do their job. I'm inclined to think a very key factor was that things become unstuck between Hitler and his generals, with early-mid 1941 as key point in that. There were very smart high up people who were 'good Germans', and I think more than a little was done to propel Hitler to foil himself, sowing mistrust for those he should have trusted, feeding false intelligence, sending snippets to allies etc. in very close kept manner. The importance of old-school loyalties in the military cadre and what might term a 'Bismark faction' of German nobility shouldn't be overlooked. Of particular note is that several were highly placed in German Military Intelligence (e.g. Hans Oster). This faction weren't strong enough to stage a coup, but it doesn't mean they did nothing. Plotting Hitler's assassination was by no means all they did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimbms Posted October 21, 2008 Share Posted October 21, 2008 Hitler's biggest mistake was not using Champ as an advisor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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