It is assumed in our historiography that the USSR and its allies – the United States, Britain and France – fought with Nazi Germany, which was supported by its allies – Hungary, Romania, Italy, and Japan. And the Soviet Union won this unbearably difficult war.
But it is very important to understand whether our allies were really sincere, on whose side were the so-called neutral countries, and why the war on the Eastern front was so violent with mass destruction of the population.
Without understanding who brought Hitler to power, who financed him, who earned money from the war, we will never realize the greatness of the feat of the Soviet people.
Without a deep understanding of the causes of the war and an analysis of diplomatic agreements, we will not see that the attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 was the result of a serious geopolitical process.
An important question is: who was behind Hitler, who in Europe needed such a Germany and why? Aggressive, militarized, anti-Bolshevik and anti-Russian.
What would Germany be without American loans? Without investment from American companies? Germany could not have fought in the East without receiving for free the top-notch factories of Czechoslovakia, which it gained by the Munich Conspiracy of 1938, when England and France gave up the whole country to Hitler. What for? What were the Western politicians planning?
Why did the allies take so long to open a Second front and what is the Bank for International Settlements? Why did its participants meet every month throughout the Second World War?
How many foreigners fought in the SS, and who defended the Reich Chancellery in May 1945? For whom in Europe were Hitler’s ideas so dear: nationalism, anti-Semitism and living space in the East.
The film “The Great Unknown War” is a story about what the Soviet Union actually faced. And the terrible cost at which we won a war that we were not supposed to win.
Please read the very relevant to this documentary, poignant, and important insights in President Vladimir Putin’s article The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II, published in The National Interest on the 18th of June 2020.
We published the first translation of this documentary 6 years ago, on June 20, 2020.
On March 16, 2022, YouTube freedom-of-speeched the Russian-language channel Rossia24, where the official untranslated video of the documentary was hosted, so we uploaded the film with embedded subtitles to Odysee platform.
Now, on May 8, 2026 we present an updated version with revised and corrected subtitles.
Backup at Rumble.
During the work on the translation, a lot of background checks were done, and every date and name was verified. Most quotes of the Western politicians are re-translations from Russian, except for a few, where open original sources were available. The links to the sources are added both to the transcript further down the page and the downloadable subtitles (as comments).
While watching the documentary, it was hard to shake off the feeling of the stark parallel of how the Nazi Germany was propped up, and how, in much the same way, the Nazi Ukraine is being propped up now. One example: just replace the name of Henri Deterding of the British-Dutch “Shell” with that of Biden Jr. to see the present-day play of interests. Or replace “Bank for International Settlements” (BIS) with the International Monetary Fund. But there are big differences, too. While Germany was heavily invested into, to make it into a battering ram against Russia, Ukraine is being turned into an ideological battering ram, while at the same time being plundered of its last Soviet industrial legacy.
However, the target was always Russia, and WWII was just a fifth act in a war that lasted for several hundred years, dotted by a few armistices. Here is a list of those wars (with some documentaries in Russian):
- The Napoleonic Wars of 1812
- World War 0 of 1853-1856, mis-nomered as “The Crimean War”, when that was but one of many battles. Just think of one simple fact: if Russia lost the Crimean War, why did Russia retain Crimea?
- The war with Japan and the first attempt to conduct a coup d’etat in Russia in 1905
- World War I, which was a suicide for Europe, started in 1914, and culminated in the capitalistic coup d’etat in Russia in February of 1917.
- World War II and the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945…
- …immediately followed by the Cold War, which was planned to not be that cold. Even before it started Winston Churchill ordered development of the “Plan Unthinkable”, the goal of which was to strike the USSR in July of 1945. I am not quoting The Guardian often, if ever, but this article from 2002 is worth the read: The Soviet threat was a myth
- This “Cold War” lead to another coup d’etat in Russia and a forced instalment of the bloody Yeltsin regime in November of 1993, the Wild 90’s that took the lives of over 30 million Russian and Soviet people over the course of 7 years of oligarchic rule; and the destruction of the Yugoslavia by NATO in the process.
It is all intertwined. But now, let as zoom in on the developments between WWI and WWII.
One other parallel that sprung to mind is how the German Weimar Republic and its achievements were appropriated and privatised by the Anglo-Saxon (or, rather, “Naglo-Saxon” West), while the Republic itself became demonised once West-sponsored Hitler took power. The same happened to the great legacy of the Soviet Union now, after the West-sponsored Yeltsin took power in Russia. For example, IG Farben Industries, which gave to humanity fertilisers, magnetic tape and magnetophones and many other things during the Weimar Republic, but once it got taken over by the Nazi state and developed the murderous gas “Zyklon B”, that’s all that remained, while origins of the prior works were earased and ascribed to the “victors” after WWII. More about it in the article “IG Farben – the main weapon of the XX-th century“.
Transcript
[ Aleksandr Galkin, Participant of the Great Patriotic War, Doctor of History Science ]
Four years of the hardest war.
During the final operation we fought in the South of Czechoslovakia,
I was organising an operation to work with the surrounded Germans.
When suddenly they call me from the campaign headquarters,
and tell me to immediately, on the next day, go to Moscow right from the front.
We were sitting [at home] in the evening of the 8th, and suddenly Levitan announces:
Citizens of the Soviet Union, do not turn off the radio,
an important government announcement will be made in ten minutes.
We all understood, it’s the Victory.
I don’t know if I was crying or not, but I grabbed my trench coat,
and rushed off, where to… well to the Red Square, of course.
People were rushing out of the house entrances and joining in.
When I ran out, we were about 15 people,
and once we reached the Red Square, there were about 300 of us.
And what was already happening there..!
I absorbed people’s gratitude for the Victory on behalf of the whole Soviet Army,
because there were only a few of us, uniformed officers.
Were were grabbed, thrown up in the air, kissed.
The price for our Victory is 27 million lives.
Soldiers, civilians, women, children, elderly.
But without understanding, who brought Hitler to power, who financed him,
who made money on the war,
we will never comprehend the greatness of the feat of the Soviet people.
Without a deep understanding of the causes for war,
analysis of the diplomatic negotiations,
we will not see that the aggression against the Soviet Union on the 22nd of June 1941,
was the result of a serious geopolitical process.
[ Michael Grandt, Historian and journalist ]
Without foreign aid, Hitler would not have been able to start the war.
This topic is a taboo in Germany.
Our schools teach history written by the victorious countries: USA, France and Great Britain.
At different times various representatives of the American elites extended support to the Nazis.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
Was Hitler, who unleashed the war,
“their own bastard” for the USA, as Saddam Hussein once was [referred to].
[ Wolfgang Zdral, Historian and journalist ]
Anti-Communism, fight with the global Judaism, and the expansion of the state to the East.
As a matter of fact, the military route was predefined.
There is a rule that “money rules the world”.
It applied both in those years and today.
The Great Unknown War
The only Colosseum in modern history.
Its construction started here, in Nuremberg, designed by
probably the most significant architect of the Third Reich, Albert Speer.
[ Andrey Medvedev ]
And it’s not a coincidence that the cornerstone
was put in place in 1935 personally by Adolf Hitler.
That probably held some special significance to him,
as according to his plans, Colosseum was to show the whole world
the succession of the Third Reich to the Roman Empire,
in addition, the Colosseum was intended to show everybody that
it was Germany that would be ruling the world in the coming 1000 years,
deciding the fates of countries, peoples and civilisations.
[ The Palace of Justice, Nuremberg (Germany) ]
This is the famous courtroom 600.
It was here, in Nuremberg, in Führer’s favourite city, on the 20th of November 1945,
began the court process over those,
who put into practice Führer’s mad and inhumane ideas.
This hall has been rebuilt now.
It looked somewhat different back then.
The judges worked here.
Here was the tribune for the witnesses for the prosecution.
Here stood the tables for the typewriters and stenographers.
The advocates worked here.
The state prosecutors were located next to the entrance.
And here were the defendants themselves, the leaders of the Third Reich.
They were brought to the hall by an elevator.
There’s a small door behind the benches.
the elevator is still in working order.
Journalists worked from the courtroom,
but more commonly, they took pictures of the process
from the balcony above the entrance.
The images from the Nuremberg Process, which we see most often, are taken from there.
Those images, when the gloomy leaders of the Third Reich
are depicted slightly from above.
The cinema booth was also on the balcony.
Filmed testimonials were projected from it,
documented crimes committed by the Nazis on the occupied territories,
as wells as documented war crimes committed in the concentration camps.
There, on the press pool balcony, one could always see two people,
who had nothing to do with journalism.
They were two American psychoanalysts.
Between the sessions and during the evenings they
worked with the defendants, with the leaders of the Third Reich.
They talked with them so as to maintain their mental and emotional balance.
From the Nuremberg interviews conducted by the American psychoanalyst Leon Goldensohn:
April 6, 1946.
Defendant: General Field Marshal, Wilhelm Keitel.
Hitler issued us orders, and we believed in him,
and after that he committed suicide, and left us to bear the blame.
He should have stayed alive to answer for his deeds.
Defendant: Joachim von Ribbentrop.
If only the allies left us a slimmest of chances in the Versailles Treaty,
then no one would have ever heard about Hitler.
You and everybody else knows that that treaty was utterly unfair.
Hitler appeared due to an exceptionally unfair treatment of Germany.
The Versailles Peace Treaty,
which the former Foreign Minister of the Third Reich is referring to,
was signed at the end of World War I.
Having read it, the French Field Marshal, Ferdinand Foch said:
This is not peace, but a ceasefire for about 20 years.
Because the conditions for peace laid such contradictions between the European state,
that were hardly solvable without a new war.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
Germany was stripped of some territories, of all of the overseas colonies,
and the configuration of the new Germany turned out to be completely unacceptable.
Germany returns Alsace and Lorraine to France,
parts of the territory to Belguim, a part of Schleswig to Denmark.
The industrial Eastern Prussia is separated from Germany
by a corridor, giving Poland sea access.
Danzig, an important industrial city of Germany, is excluded from the state.
And that, taking into account that Germany was not occupied by the opponents.
There was not a single foreign soldier on its territory
at the time when the armistice was signed.
The longing for revenge was implanted in Germany
by the very Versailles peace and the post-war world order.
In accordance with Versailles,
Germany also reduces its army to 100,000 people.
Germany is prohibited to have military airplanes, tanks and navy.
The sum of reparations constitutes 269 billion golden marks.
A catastrophic number for Germany.
The country, which had just newly been
one of the most rich and developed in the world,
pays part of its debt in kind: coal, wood, livestock.
[ Wolfgang Zdral, Historian and journalist ]
The industrial capacity of Germany
was completely in shambles by the end of WWI.
There were almost no jobs.
Germans were prepared to do any work for a couple of marks, or just for food.
There was a huge number of homeless in those years.
The country stood at the brink of collapse.
The country experiences hyperinflation in 1923.
A loaf of bread costs 428 billion marks,
while 1kg of butter costs about 6 trillion.
People are buried in paper sacks.
Emergency banknotes are introduced in Germany, with caricatures depicting
poor Germany being torn asunder by France, England, Poland and the USA.
In the same 1923, 60,000 Belgian and French soldiers occupy Ruhr,
where 78% of the German coal is being mined,
and 50% of cast iron and steel is produced.
The world community chided the French, but did not take any actions.
The Germans were being finished off.
Deprived of everything, squashed and humiliated Germany,
where hundreds of thousands front-line soldier feel themselves like nobodies,
turns into a political time-bomb.
Only a detonator is needed, and it appears.
Or, more precisely, such a detonator is being found.
Adolph Hitler and his ideas.
From the diary of Emil Holden, private of the 29th motorised infantry division
June 28, 1941.
On the road to Stolbcy we talked to the locals using the language of machine-guns.
Screams, moans, blood, and lots of bodies.
We didn’t feel any compassion.
In every village, every settlement, when I see people, my hands are itching,
I want to shoot at the crowd from my pistol.
I hope that the SS divisions will come here soon
and do what we didn’t have time to finish.
From the Nuremberg interviews conducted by the American psychoanalyst Leon Goldensohn:
27th of January 1946.
Goldensohn:
Could have Hitler known about the atrocities,
and if yes, could he have allowed it [to happen]?
Defendant von Ribbenthrop:
No, it seems unlikely.
Hitler was such a nice person,
so ascetic, he never ate meat,
always called me and the other colleges for ‘cadaver-eaters’.
According to the testimonials of Hitler’s colleges,
he never discusses or allows to discuss in his presence
his lineage, his childhood, and particularly his youth years,
the darkest years of his life.
Back then, he was literally wallowing in poverty.
He is barred from the exams at Vienna Art Academy.
He has neither friends, nor family, nor work, nor home.
He doesn’t even have a school certificate.
But he possesses a conviction.
From “Mein Kampf”, 1925:
[ Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, 1925 ]
I have fully seen through the Jews as the cold-blooded,
calculating, shameless lenders of depravity to the dregs of a big city.
Hundreds of thousand of Christian girls are seduced
by the despicable, crooked-legged Jewish bastards.
This will reflect most unfavourably on the coming generations.
Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, 1925.
His extreme hatred towards Jews and other, according to Hitler, inferior peoples
will become one of the key components in the program of his party, NSDAP.
Nuremberg, May 24, 1946.
Defendant Herman Göring:
Only the political program attracted me in the party.
I mean, the creation of the Greater Germany
and the cancellation of the Versailles armistice.
Of course, once you joined the party, you more or less had to
accept all the points of the program, including anti-Semitism.
[ Wolfgang Zdral, Historian and journalist ]
Hitler promised to fight with the so-called global Judaism and Communism.
[ Igor Shiskin, Historian, expert of the Institute of the CIS countries ]
Regardless of whether someone likes Communism or not,
Soviet Russia was a challenge to the very existence of the Western civilisation,
and not just Western, but the centuries-old one,
which is based on the division of humanity into the chosen elites…
and the rest.
And suddenly a country appears, where all this is completely swept aside.
The foundations of the world are crumbling.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
Soviet Union had the most progressive labour legislation of the time,
which guarantees an 8-hour work day,
social benefits, paid vacation, a day off.
All those things that many Western countries did not yet have.
It is a state of a new kind, which undertook active
attempts to support revolutionary worker movements across the whole of Europe.
This caused very serious alarm.
A socialist revolution of 1919 is suppressed in Germany.
A parliamentary democracy – Weimar Republic – is established.
But the Communist ideas are extremely popular in Germany of the ’20s.
The workers’ movement is strong as never before, and not just in Germany.
Across the whole of Europe.
And precisely because of this, capitalists are forced to make concessions:
shorten the working hours and raise wages.
[ Michael Grandt, Historian and journalist ]
The main concept of the Western financial circles was the fight against Bolshevism.
A fear of Bolshevism.
They understood that capitalism could be destroyed.
From the memoirs of Hitler’s press-secretary, Ernst Hanfstaengl:
In November 1922, Warren Robins, the senior staff member
of the American embassy in Berlin called me in Munich.
We will send you our military attaché, Captain Truman Smith,
so that he could take a look around.
Do introduce him to some people.
Over the course of a few days Smith visited crown-prince Rupprecht, Ludendoff,
as well as other influential people.
Soon he knew about the Bavarian politics more, than I did.
We dined together during his last day of stay in Munich.
– ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ Smith said,
– ‘I met the most amazing guy among all those whom I saw.’
– ‘Indeed’, I replied, ‘and what’s his name?’
– ‘Adolf Hitler.’
There are many posters announcing a meeting that will take place tonight.
They say, there is a subscript: ‘No entry to Jews.’
But at the same time he has the most convincing
line about the German honour,
workers’ rights and for the new society.
That same evening I met Hitler for the first time.
He resembled a countryside hairdresser on his day off.
I came up to him to introduce myself.
– ‘Well’, I said,
– ‘You have just fought in a war.’
– ‘We almost won in 1917, when Russia fell.’
– ‘Then why did we end up losing it?’
– ‘Because Americans meddled in it,’ answered Hitler.
– ‘If you acknowledge it, then this is all you need to know’, I said.
Ernst Hanfstaengl is an American of German descent,
and Roosevelt’s classmate in Harvard,
will for a long time consider Hitler as his political project.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
Hanfstaengl started tutoring Führer.
He taught him the etiquette,
and how to behave himself at a table in high society.
Hanfstaengl even built up NSDAP using his personal funds.
15 years later he will flee to the USA, fearing for his life,
but before that he’d manage to do a lot for the Führer.
Including, at the very beginning of Hitler’s ascent to power,
he will finance publishing of the main Nazi outlet, “Völkischer Beobachter”.
There were a lot of indirect connections and couriers between the USA and Germany,
however, at the time, USA did not see any reason to invest into the Nazis.
That was done by Henri Deterding.
Henri Deterding, the head of the British-Dutch company “Shell”,
already in the early ’20s saw in Hitler the potential of a novice politician.
Having returned from the fronts of WWI in 1919 due to wounds,
corporal Hitler joins the German Worker’s Party.
A nationalistic party.
In less than a year he becomes one of its leaders,
and then the one and only leader of the party,
which by then is called the National-Social German Worker’s Party (NSDAP).
In 1919 it counts 50 members.
In 1923 – fifteen thousand.
And by 1931 – almost a million people.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
Hitler very skilfully used the image of a “desecrated greatness”:
“I will return the you to greatness, I will build up great Germany.”
Hitler drew a number of conclusions from WWI.
The main conclusion was that Germany suffered a defeat
due to the shortage of food supplies.
The winter of 1916-17 got a by-name of “turnip winter”,
as there was no bread and people were eating turnips.
[ Sergej Solovjov, historian, lead researcher at the faculty of political science of Moscow State university ]
Famine. According to the calculations of the modern scientists,
about 800,000 people died in Germany of malnutrition during WWI.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
Therefore, for years to come he had a fixations on an idea
to acquire the endless bread resources of the Soviet South: Ukraine and Southern Russia.
The head of Shell, Henri Deterding, will be supporting Hitler until the end of WWII.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
He was the first influential supporter of the Nazis,
in whom the industrialist invested 55 million.
Deterding expected that after Hitler’s war
against the USSR, his financing would allow him
to gain access to the oil fields of Azerbaijan.
In 1919 Hitler is a regular customer at the charity soup kitchens.
Starting with autumn of 1923, he is a wealthy man.
At that time Hitler gets the first money for the needs of NSDAP.
He personally goes to Zurich and returns from there
with a suitcase filled with Swiss francs and US dollars.
After that, large sums are transferred to him
through the banks of Switzerland and Sweden.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
The financing scheme was very complex.
Here one must remember such figures as
brother Dulles, John McCloy or Henry Ford.
Since 1920, according to the official data,
Henry Ford started a large-scale support of NSDAP and Adolf Hitler.
[ Michael Grandt, Historian and journalist ]
The businessman helped anyone, who was declared war on Jews.
Ford was neither forgetting about the Führer during the years of WWII.
Every year he gave Hitler 50,000 marks as a birthday present.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
Henry Ford published the book “The International Jew”.
This book was translated to German and
was a compulsory curriculum for the SA storm troopers.
My father, who served in this division in those years, also got a copy.
However, no external intervention
would have helped Hitler to realise his plans
for the internal policies without domestic support.
[ Wolfgang Zdral, Historian and journalist ]
Fritz Thyssen, the heir to a well-known dynasty of metallurgists,
became acquainted with Hitler in 1923,
and was so impressed by this meeting,
that he soon after gave the leader of NSDAP 100,000 golden marks.
In the times of hyperinflation it was an astronomical sum of money.
Thyssen invited Hitler to hold presentations at meetings
attended by managers of the large factories.
Using round-about ways, though the Belgian Bank,
Thyssen gave the politician a credit to the sum of 400,000 marks.
This payment allowed Hitler to continue his rapid political expansion.
Another early follower of Hitler was Emil Kirdorf.
He introduced Hitler into the world of such industrial magnates as Krupp and Siemens.
Big business likes the ideas if the future Führer.
Especially the party program points about the “living space to the East”.
This idea appears in Germany long before Hitler.
The country has almost no colonies,
so the “Drang nach Osten”, or “Push to the East” idea turns up.
The potential colony: Russia.
[ Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, 1925 ]
When we are talking about conquest of new lands in Europe,
we, of course, first and foremost think only about Russia,
and those borderland states that answer to it.
Fate gave Russia into the hands of Bolsheviks.
Germany will start the assault on the East,
as it is from the East the real arch-enemy looms.
Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, 1925.
In 1925 “Mien Kampf” sold 9,500 copies.
In 1933 the book is translated into 11 languages.
More than 5 million copies are sold.
Hitler’s royalties amount to 1 million 200 thousand reichsmarks.
[ From William Lawrence Shirer’s book: “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” ]
No other book, except for Bible, sold in such quantities.
It was almost compulsory, and definitely sensible,
to present the newly-weds with ‘Mein Kampf’,
or give it to a pupil upon completion of any school.
Adolf Hitler, “Mein Kampf”, 1925
The huge empire to the East is nearing collapse.
Overthrow of the Jewish rule in Russia will put an end to Russia as a state.
Adolf Hitler, from the book “Mein Kampf”.
[ Ilja Altman, co-chairman of the “Holocaust” centre, professor of the Russian State Humanitarian University ]
That’s how it became possible – over just 6 years, from 1933 until 1939 –
to raise a new generation of people, with University degrees.
It was these people, who came to lead Einsatzgruppen,
which committed the most heinous crimes.
From the Nuremberg interviews conducted by the psychoanalyst Gustave Gilbert:
November 12, 1946. Defendant Jodl.
When we during our talks again touched upon
the topic of cruel ways of conducting a war,
Jodl raised his hands:
Tell me as a man to a man.
Have you ever before heard of bloodthirstiness and inhumanity of the Germans?
I can’t believe it.
This character traits are not inherent to the Germans.
These are typical Asian traits.
Nuremberg, December 21, 1945:
A fragment of a film, presented by the Soviet side of the prosecutors.
On February 14, 1943, when Red Army divisions entered the town of Rostov,
Soviet cameramen captured this picture in the yard of a German prison.
Before their retreat,
Germans organised here a mass execution of the prisoners.
Over a thousand tormented bodies
of the shot civilians were found in the prison yard.
In November 1925, Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, France,
Poland, and Czechoslovakia sign the Locarno Treaties.
The initiative comes from Austin Chamberlain, brother of the British PM Neville Chamberlain.
He would soon receive the Nobel Peace Prise
for his role during the Locarno negotiations.
[ Igor Shishkin, Historian, expert of the Institute of the CIS ]
According to the terms of the Locarno Treaties, Germany returns
into the club of the Western powers,
becomes acknowledged as one of them,
and from defeated turns into acceptable.
But for that, it had to guarantee the integrity of the western borders,
while at the same time, this Austin Chamberlain
simply “forgot” that Germany had eastern and southern borders.
It was a clear invitation to move eastwards, at the Soviet Union.
And immediately after, credits started flowing in,
the reparations were written off, etc…
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
The Americans said, “Guys, reparations would bring in nothing”
USA would not invest into a country, where chaos was reining.
A country, resembling today’s Syria.
[ Wolfgang Zdral, Historian and journalist ]
As Americans would have said,
Germany retained its “essence” – factories, machine, know-how, patents.
That’s very valuable.
Germany was naturally an attractive market.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
When Germany became so weakened,
that it was ready to share its state sovereignty
with the American banks,
the Dawes Plan was developed.
It consisted of two parts:
Firstly, restructuring of the reparations payments.
Secondly, allocation of credits
to the German communes for the infrastructure projects.
[ Wolfgang Zdral, Historian and journalist ]
This period became known in history as the “Golden ’20s”.
For the Americans and other countries, especially their banks,
this was a lucrative business in providing credits and loans.
In 1929 the world economy collapses at Wall Street.
After a few months, the unemployment in Germany reaches 3 million people.
Every third German finds himself on the street.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
The USA then placed their bets on Hitler and a radical solution.
Brothers Dullas started establishing business ties with Germany.
Averell Harriman did the same.
As did Prescott Bush,
the great-grand father of the Bush presidential dynasty.
These relations between Germany and the USA existed from the very beginning.
They tried to turn the Third Reich, as quickly as possible, into a state
that would serve at the front-lines of a war against the USSR.
In USSR they understand that the war in Europe is inevitable,
but Soviet Russia is not ready for a war.
In 1929 the portion of heavy industry
is only at 20% of what it was before WWI.
The Army and Navy, including the border guards, count about 500,000.
Production of tanks is non-existent.
Automotive and aviation industries are very weak.
The first Fire-Year Plan is announced in the USSR in 1929.
The task is to turn an agricultural country into an industrial power.
Who knows, if not for the looming war,
would there be collectivisation in the USSR,
which breaks up peasants’ communities?
For the industrialisation one needs specialists, technologies and machinery.
The USSR is paying with gold for machines,
motors, power plants, and even whole ready-made factories.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
The famous American engineer Cooper is invited for the construction of Dnieper hydro-power plant,
who for his consultancy work gets the Order of the Red Banner!
And so Cooper returns to America, gives there interviews, saying that
well, naturally, the best engineers in the world are Americans,
but in general, Dnieper Hydro-power is a huge technical construction.
Albert Kahn’s company is invited as part of the first Fire-Year Plan.
Over 4,000 Soviet specialists were trains by Kahn in two years.
He designed and organised the construction of 520 industrial facilities.
Tractor factories in Stalingrad, Chelyabinsk, Harkov.
Car factories in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod.
Metallurgical and aluminium plants at the Urals.
Americans have no care for the collectivisation in the USSR,
for the internal party struggle and repressions,
that the industrial sites are often built by prisoners.
First, it’s profitable to trade.
Second, the European and American manners were not much better.
Third, the Americans are making money both in the USSR and in Germany.
The party summit of the National-Socialists is held here in Nuremberg in August 1929.
It was to here, to this very railway station,
that the supporters of NSDAP were taken in 30 specially-charted trains.
About 200,000 people were brought here from all over Germany.
It was, understandably, very very expensive, but it wasn’t a single occurrence either.
Over the course of 10 years all party conferences, summits, all party function are being paid for Hitler.
The publication of the National-Socialist newspapers, the propaganda materials are likewise paid for.
After all, even sewing of the uniforms for the National-Socialist militants –
for the storm troopers – had to be paid for somehow.
Thousands of propagandists travel across the whole Germany for several years.
Hitler himself flies around the country in a dedicated airplane.
Among those who finance his election campaign are:
IG Farben Industry, 30% of which belong to its American partner, General Electric.
The propaganda film is made on Hitler’s orders by “The 20th Century Fox”.
[ Wolfgang Zdral, Historian and journalist ]
Hitler organised his election tours in an American style.
He copied all these technologies from the election campaigns in the US.
For Germany such events were something of an expensive novelty.
And, sadly, a successful one.
At the elections of 1932 NSDAP gathers 33% of votes.
Hitler, as the leader of one of the largest parties,
asks President Hindenburg to appoint him as a Chancellor.
Hindenburg refuses.
He says that maximum that Hitler can hope for, is a Postal ministry.
Hindenburg does not shares Hitler’s ideas, considering them dangerous.
In the meantime Communists, headed by Ernst Thälmann, gain strength.
Workers go on strike. Jobless are organising rallies.
Hitler promises the directors of the banks and large corporations
to not usurp private property.
He promises to rout out Marxism in Germany.
On the January 4, 1933 a group of German industrialists
demand from Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as the Chancellor.
Hindenburg refuses once more.
A few days later Hitler meets Hindenburg’s son, Oscar,
and show him documents exposing Oscar Hindenburg
in corruption and speculations with land.
On the January 30, 1933 Hitler becomes the Chancellor of Germany,
and immediately announces early parliamentary elections.
Nuremberg, 1946.
Defendant: the Minister of Economics of the Third Reich, Hjalmar Schacht.
Prosecutor: Robert Jackson.
Jackson: The following question was asked of you:
“Do you remember the meeting at Göring’s house?”
Schacht: Yes. It was a meeting on the financial topic.
Hitler’s elections were set on the March 5, and he needed money for this election campaign.
He asked me to provide him with money, and I did it.
Göring assembled all these people, and I held a speech.
I asked them what sum of money each of them can sign for the needs of the elections.
They signed for a cumulative sum of 3 million,
and divided it amongst themselves.
Jackson: Tell us who were those people that created this subscription list?
Schacht: I believe they were all bankers and industrialists.
They represented the chemical, metallurgical and textile industries.
In fact, they came from all industrial branches.
In March 1933 NSDAP holds 44% of the votes.
Before the elections, the Communists are chased out of the Parliament.
Later, Social Democrats are outlawed.
In November Hitler’s party has 100% of the votes in Reichstag.
[ Wolfgang Zdral, Historian and journalist ]
Once Hitler established a dictatorial regime,
many industrialists hastily joined the ranks of the Nazi party,
and opened up their purses in the hopes of not being cut off from the state contracts.
[ Michael Grandt, Historian and journalist ]
It was obvious that the Fuhrer would become a strong figure in Europe.
They also saw it abroad that Hitler would do everything
to protect the Capitalist West from Bolshevism.
That was one of the main motives of the American and British bankers.
The Bank of England supported Adolf Hitler.
Its head, Montagu Norman, issued a credit to the Nazi regime.
A loan under the title “For the Guarantee of the German Commercial Credit”
amounts to 4 million pounds.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
Suddenly, world leaders started seeking Hitler’s company.
Before that, during the time of the Weimar Republic,
the only state visit to Germany was done by the King of Afghanistan.
While the West was despising and ignoring the democratic Weimar Republic.
Suddenly Germany broke out of its isolation,
and started concluding one deal after another.
For example, with Poland in 1934.
The Non-Aggression Pact of 1934 between Poland and Germany,
becomes Hitler’s first international treaty,
which he sees as his personal achievement.
The importance of the pact for Poland,
which dreams of restoring the country of its 1772 borders,
would later be described by the Polish diplomat Jan Karszo-Siedlewski:
In a few years Germany will be fighting with the Soviet Union,
while Poland, either voluntarily or not, will support Germany in this war.
It is definitely much better for Poland
to side with Germany before the start of the conflict,
as Poland’s territorial interest in the East, first and foremost in Ukraine,
can only be guaranteed through a preliminary Polish-German agreement.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
Hitler was looked upon as a super-star.
All this happened to the backdrop of creation of cartels.
The core of the globalisation process started to form in those years.
On the American side there were “United Steel”, “Arcor”, and so on.
From Germany there naturally were the companies of “Vögler”, “Tiessen”, “Krupp”.
The global metallurgical cartels experiences a period of renaissance under Hitler.
Fuhrer gave them new life.
It is little known, but Hitler was privatising like crazy.
The placard on the man reads “I am a race defiler”
because he has a Jewish wife.
And here it is inscribed, “I am a German girl, and I let a Jew defile me”.
Here is a list…
of German women married to Jews, with their exact home addresses.
Below, it is written: “German girl, beware.”
The most shocking part in these photos,
is the glee with which some Germans are looking at the humiliation of the other Germans.
This entire Bacchanalia happened over the course of 1934 and 1935,
and was a prologue to the so-called Nuremberg Laws:
The law on the citizenship in the Reich,
and the law on the protection of the German blood and honour.
According to these laws, Jews were considered as a separate race,
Anthropologically, it’s a completely anti-scientific theory,
and yet, that’s what was in high demand in the Reich.
Jews were not allowed to get the Reich’s citizenship,
to marry Germans, so as not to “defile” the German blood.
Jews were prohibited from taking government positions,
and they were, naturally, barred from voting.
About 2,000 laws were later enacted,
limiting the rights of the Jews in the Reich,
and each new one was more humiliating, than the one before it.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
The Nuremberg racial laws of 1934
were copied from the racial laws of the American State Virginia,
which where in effect since the beginning of the 20th century.
By that time, USA already had racial laws prohibiting mixed marriages.
There was even a corresponding gradation:
a half-Negroid, a quarter-Negroid, and so on until the 1/128th part.
About 500,000 Jews were living in Germany at that time.
So mixed marriages between Germans and Jews were commonplace.
And therefore the specialists from NSDAP started tallying.
If someone’s parent is a half-Jew, then he can marry a German.
While if both parents are half-Jews,
then the marriage is only granted by a special government permit.
And, of course, one must not have any Jewish ancestors to be able to serve in the SS,
or simply become a member of NSDAP,
as a Jew is not seen as a human.
10 years of active Nazi propaganda,
and an even more forceful propaganda after their elections victory in 1933,
had thoroughly stirred up the minds of the Germans.
Just imaging, typical family fathers,
who on Saturdays of the ’30s would take their kids to circus,
to the theatre, give their kids ice-cream,
visit the church – they are Christians, after all.
While from Monday till Friday they would go to their labs
and research new ovens for the concentration camp crematoriums,
preparing the tender documentation,
proving that their ovens are better, than those of the competitors,
because they have new grates, new air injection systems,
so their ovens are better at burning people, than those of the competitors.
The construction contract for the Auschwitz crematoriums is won by the company “Topf and Sons”.
From the official correspondence of the company “Topf and Sons”.
To the central construction service of SS and the Police of Auschwitz.
Contents:
On the construction of crematoriums #2 and #3 for the camp.
We confirm reception of your order on 5 triple ovens,
including 2 electric lifts for hoisting of the bodies, and one reserve lift.
A serous battle is fought for deliveries to the concentration camps.
The factories of “Didier” are also marketing their ovens:
The installation will produce an excellent output.
The firm “SN Corey” is competing with them:
We have positive experience: 4 ovens were delivered to Dachau and 5 to Ljubljana.
The customer was fully satisfied.
The crystals of “Zyklon B”, which kills the inmates
are delivered by two German firms
that get the patent for their production from “IG Farben Industry”.
“Morgan” and “Rockefeller” trade the company’s stock
at the New York Stock Exchange through “Chase National Bank”.
[ Ilya Altman, co-chairman of centre “Holocaust”, Professor of Russian State University for the Humanities ]
It is very important to underscore that “Zyklon B” was tested on the Soviet PoWs.
And it was before the gas chambers
in the cellars of Auschwitz were built for that purpose,
that several thousand of the Soviet prisoners of war
were killed with this gas.
We have studied the history of liberation of Auschwitz in great detail,
and salvation of 7000 prisoners,
of whom the Jews constituted a relatively minor portion: about 300 people.
Five divisions – 25,000 Soviet soldiers and officers –
opened the doors of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945.
And just two days later, field hospitals arrived there,
followed by doctors with the experience of treating patients in the blockaded Leningrad.
It’s thanks to this, the majority of the prisoners were saved.
This is a letter on the formal paper of Auschwitz,
dated February 23, 1945 – the Day of the Red Army:
Otto Frank writes to his mother:
“I was saved and treated back to health by the Russians.”
This is a kind of an epilogue for tens of thousands of people,
who were saved by the Russians.
One of the divisions was called “Leningrad Division”.
The commander of the battalion, who died in the battle for the town of Oswiencim,
just a few hours before the camp was liberated,
was the officer from Leningrad, Semyon Bezprozvanyj,
who, before the War, was the director
of the Bolshoi Drama Theatre in Leningrad.
We want that they would be remembered in all corners of the world,
looking at the faces of these fallen in the battle for Oswiencim:
A Muslim, Mohamed Tankaev and his Armenian friend Nikolai Abazov,
we remember the cameramen, who filmed the Vistula–Oder Offensive, and died filming.
And those, who stayed at the camp for three months.
One of the cameramen, a Crimean Tatar, Kutub-zade,
thanks to whom the unique footage was preserved,
and presented at the Nuremberg Trials.
[ Michael Grandt, Historian and journalist ]
I want to mention the “IBM” company.
Thomas Watson, CEO of the company, met Hitler for the first time in 1937.
The German company “Dehomag” belonged to “IBM”,
which equipment helped counting the Jews in the country.
We are talking about the punch-card equipment.
Thomas Watson delivered to Germany 1.5 billion punch-cards.
Thus, а foreign company, IBМ, was a part of the bureaucratic system of the Nazis.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
It was impossible to organise movement of trains to the concentration camps
without the American equipment.
And it was equally impossible to tally all the things
that the prisoners arrived with to the death camps.
Including gold teeth, which were pulled from them, and then melted.
The precious metals were then shipped to Switzerland.
This was another venue by which Reich
acquired means to buy weapons and munitions.
The ideologists of National-Socialisms didn’t hide from the very start
that they would be fighting Jews, Slavs and other “inferior” peoples,
but the German people themselves became the first victim of the Nazis.
It is often forgotten that the first concentration camp, Dahau,
was opened two weeks after Hitler won the elections.
And immediately, German Communists were sent there.
This set in motion the dehumanisation of the opponent.
In other words, if you are a Communist, a “wrong” German
having wrong ideological beliefs, then you are practically not a human.
By mid-30s the German concentration camps, of which lots are opened by then,
are filled to the brim by Social-Democrats, Communists,
Monarchists, people who listened to a wrong radio station,
Baptists, Jehova’s witnesses, homosexuals,
or anyone who, from the point of view of the Nazi ideologists,
did not fall under the definition
of a correct, ethnic, racially-pure German.
At the end of the 30’s Germany implements the T4 program – “Aktion T4”.
It is a program for killing by involuntary euthanasia
of the so-called “defective” citizens:
invalids, people with psychiatry deficiencies, those with Down syndrome.
Over 70,000 people were disposed of during just the first year.
In Germany they printed and distributed propaganda materials:
A picture of an invalid and a subtext:
“Such patient costs the German treasury 60,000 marks over the course of his life.”
“This is your money, too, citizen. Think, do we need him?”
Just like the racial politics,
the Nazis import eugenics from the USA.
In 1934 a feature film
“Tomorrow’s Children” hits the American cinemas.
This is a story of a young American woman from a socially disadvantaged environment,
who is condemned to sterilisation by a court order.
However, at the last moment it becomes known that she is an adopted child,
and her biological parents are well-off people.
The operation is cancelled.
The laws in some of the American States on the compulsory sterilisation
of invalids, paupers and black people
are in effect since the beginning of the 20th century.
They are based on research,
financed by the funds of Rockefeller and Carnegie.
The same funds are also financing the German eugenicists.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
The Anglo-Saxon countries, without any scruples,
they counted how profitable is each individual person.
To which degree his life will be a burden to the state.
What profit he would bring to the society.
If the balance went into the negative,
then such a person did not have the right to live.
Naturally, it is various Protestant movements that lie at the roots of such thinking.
Let’s take a look at another term: “civilising”.
This term denoted the need to exterminate
the indigenous population of America: the Indians.
However, Heinrich Himmler used the same term,
understanding under “civilising” the settlement on the territory to the East.
In other words, USSR.
To that end, the Slavs and the Soviet peoples had to be killed off
in the interests of the Arian race.
When we see that USSR lost 28 million people killed,
that is not simply a consequence of heavy fighting,
but a purposeful implementation of a policy,
aimed at the destruction of a whole nation.
This war could have avoided millions of victims.
This war could have gone differently many times.
For example, if the so-called “Phoney War” (“Sitzkrieg”) did not happen,
when in response to the attack on Poland on September 1, 1939,
England and France declare war on Germany,
but for 8 months the troops stay put.
German generals would later say that in 1939
Wehrmacht would not have withstood the blow of the Anglo-French troops.
Which never happened.
There is a war at sea.
But the massive raids of the German aviation
on England start only in 1940 – a year later.
And abate before the attack on the USSR.
On the June 22, 1941 Churchill proclaims support for the Soviet Russia.
But Britain and the USA conclude the military alliances
with the USSR only in May and July of 1942.
At the same tim, in July, the Red Army suffers one defeat after another,
but Roosevelt and Churchill break their promise
to Stalin regarding opening of the Second Front,
and relocate their troops to Northern Africa.
The allies open the Second Front only in June 1944.
From the order of General Hoepner. May 2, 1941:
War against Russia is an essential part of the fight for the existence of the German people.
This is an ancient fight of Germans against Slavs.
A defence of the European culture against the Moscow-Asian domination.
The goal of this fight must be annihilation of today’s Russia,
and it must therefore be conducted with unparalleled harshness.
One must be particularly ruthless towards the carriers
of the current Russian-Bolshevik system.
The Anglo-German Naval Agreement is signed on June 18, 1935.
In accordance with it, and in violation of the Treaty of Versailles,
Germany is allowed to build its own Navy.
Next, Germany start to rebuild its air-force.
In March of 1935 Stalin meets the British Foreign Minister, Lord Eden.
During the tea, both are sitting next to a world map.
From the stenographic record:
Eden glanced at the place taken on the map by Britain,
and added that England is just a tiny island.
Comrade Stalin looked at the Great Britain and said:
Yes a small island, but much depends on it.
If this tiny island told Germany
that it would give it neither money, nor raw materials, nor metals,
then peace would have been assured in Europe.
[ Wolfgang Zdral, Historian and journalist ]
Hitler started an active preparation for war.
His intentions became apparent in 1936,
when during the NSDAP party congress
a 4-year plan for the armament of Germany was declared.
To understand the extent to which the economy was mobilised,
it is enough to remember that in 1934
the military spendings constituted 4% of the GDP,
while in ’37 – ’38 it was at 30-50%.
In the April of 1945,
the head treasurer of NSDAP Franz Schwartz,
burns most of the financial papers of the party,
which could compromise the companies of the USA and Britain.
On the December 2, 1947,
on the day of his release from the filtration camp,
Schwartz dies. From stomach problems.
[ Michael Grandt, Historian and journalist ]
Statements that no evidence of financing of Hitler
from abroad was preserved, are incorrect.
I myself found such documents.
They are bank statements and receipts for money transfers.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
Technically, the whole financial aspect was implemented
with the help of the Bank for International Settlements.
It was founded in 1930 by Hjalmar Schacht from the Reichsbank,
Montagu Norman from the Central Bank of England,
and Andrew Young, who represented the JP Morgan conglomerate.
The intention of the new bank was to ease the procedure
of reparations payments by the Germany.
A technical procedure, nothing more.
In reality, the bank had a different function.
All the countries, with the exception of the USSR, got together,
and agreed to give each other financial
aid through this new body.
Dr. Schacht, it is my pleasure, on behalf of the Mayor,
to wish you welcome in the city of New York.
I thank you very much for your kind words addressed to me.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
As a result, during the Second World War,
the Enemies and the Allies were united
under the roof of this financial organisation.
Once a year, the heads of the central banks of the USA,
France and Great Britain,
sat together at the same table with
the bankers of Germany, Italy and Japan.
Every month, the delegations from those countries
met each other so as to prevent bankruptcy
of one of the participants of the armed conflict.
The bank was needed so that the war against the USSR
would go without a hitch.
So that no one experienced any shortage of resources or money.
[ Michael Grandt, Historian and journalist ]
Rockefellers, just like any other businessmen, have only one goal:
to retain and grow their fortune.
And as a consequence comes the fight against Bolshevism.
It was the same to them who would perform this task.
They saw in Hitler someone,
who could shield Capitalism from another ideology.
In addition, war always brings in huge income and fortuitous business deals.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
Hitler was a “good guy” for the Americans.
Fuhrer marvellously warmed up the markets.
[ Wolfgang Zdral, Historian and journalist ]
We are talking here about billions.
NSDAP and Hitler acutely needed foreign currency,
as they were reliant on the shipments of mineral resources.
As an example, between 1936 and 1938,
the spendings on the purchase of materials increased to 2 billion marks.
Payments were done in foreign currency.
Hitler bought resources from all over the world:
South and North America, Europe.
Sweden and Norway were, for example, delivering steel to the Nazi Germany.
The officially neutral Sweden
is a reliable economic partner of the Reich.
Between 1938 and 1945 Sweden delivers to Hitler
over 2,000 cars and artillery units.
The famous company SKF supplies their best ball bearings.
But most significantly, the 58 million tonnes of iron ore over the 6 years.
It translates into hundreds of tanks, heavy guns, APCs.
Without Swedish ore, there would have been no Kursk Battle
or any other major operations.
The Wehrmacht would have simply not have enough tanks.
The Swedish banks are giving
German industry credits up until 1945.
Germany pays Sweden back with
the spoils, looted during the war.
By the end of 1932, the USSR finishes the first 5-year-plan.
Over 4500 large industrial complexes are built.
The West understands, it is now impossible to strangle Soviet Russia economically.
In 1934, during his 17th Party Congress address, Stalin puts it bluntly:
Again, as in 1914, the parties of militant imperialism,
the parties of war and revenge, come to the fore.
The situation is clearly heading for a new war.
In November 1936,
Germany and Japan sign an anti-Comintern pact.
From the memoirs of Reichminister Albert Speer:
One cannot say that Hitler rejected an alliance with Japan,
which was questionable from the racial perspective.
However, he spoke very reservedly about it.
Every time when the topic arose,
he expressed a regret that an eventual union
with the so-called “yellow race” evoked in him.
Later this pact is joined by:
Hungary, Italy, Manchuria, Spain, Finland,
Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Slovenia.
The document states:
In case of war, the parties must not take
any step that would ease the position of the USSR,
and not make with the USSR any political agreements,
which would contradict the spirit of the current agreement.
On November 19, 1937,
the chairman of the House of Lords, Count Halifax, arrives at Hitler’s Alpine residence.
They had a lengthy meeting.
The most important points stated by Halifax:
Britain sees Germany as a bastion against Communism.
And:
Britain does not object to Germany annexing Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Danzig.
In February of 1938, the British PM Neville Chamberlain
says in the House of Commons that one should not expect
from Britain support for the independence of Austria.
This is a signal.
On March 12, Hitler enters Austria.
[ Sergey Solovyov, Historian, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Political Science of MSU ]
The parade in Vienna had to be postpones
as the part of the German military equipment failed en-rout to Austria.
This is very important to understand:
Wehrmacht of March 1938 still consists of unproven hardware and untrained personnel,
untrained junior command staff, under-deployed logistics, etc.
On March 18, USSR appeals to Washington, Paris and London
offering to make a collective note of protests against The Anschluss.
The reply came on March 24,
from the House of Commons of Great Britain from PM Chamberlain:
…consequence of such action [as is proposed by the Soviet Government]
would be to aggravate the tendency towards the establishment of exclusive groups of nations,
which must, [in the view of His Majesty’s Government],
be inimical to the prospects of European peace.
A week later in Austria, starts the construction
of the concentration camp “Mauthausen”.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
Austria. The Anschluss of the state was a very profitable business.
The gold reserve of the Austrian National Bank fell into the hands of the Nazis.
From William Lawrence Shirer’s book: “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”
The former Austrian vagrant, having become a dictator,
erased his homeland from the political map.
Without a single shot,
using the absence of intervention from England and France,
whose armed forces could have overcome Hitler,
he increased the population of the Reich by 7 million people,
and acquired an advantageous strategic position,
which was exceptionally important for the fulfilment of his future plans.
William Lawrence Shirer: “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”.
From the memoirs of Reichminister Albert Speer:
Soon after the annexation of Austria,
Hitler sent for the map of Central Europe,
and started showing to his reverently listening entourage
Czechoslovakia, which ended up in pincers.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
Czechoslovakia is an artificial construct, created after WWI.
The predominantly German-populated Sudetenland ended up in it.
Czechoslovakia had defensive agreements with France and with the USSR.
And that allowed it to feel safe.
Because if Germany attacked Czechoslovakia,
then, in theory, the USSR would have come to the rescue,
while from the West, France would have struck Germany in the back.
But then Big Politics intervened.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
We must go all the way back to 1904.
Back then, many noted the report
of the British historian Halford Mackinder,
which he presented to the British Royal Geographic Society.
The author came to the following conclusions:
With the spreading of railways and cars,
the significance of the continental powers will be growing.
By that time, Britain held the world hegemony for 400 years,
and its dominant position was in peril.
Mackinder warned the elites of the country that first of all,
a cooperation between Russia and Germany must be prevented.
In case these countries unite
the intellectual potential and the resources,
then USA and Great Britain will fade to the background.
Secondly, Great Britain must retain control
over the central part of Eurasia, rich in natural resource.
Considering that Britain is a sea power,
it needs a junior partner on the continent.
Hitler offered the British his services as such a “junior partner”.
He said, “Hello, Germany will be useful to you.”
“British interests at sea and in the colonies are of no concern to us.”
“Germany will not interfere with the Imperial trade.”
“We will concentrate fully on the East.”
Now Hitler lays Reich’s claim to the industrially developed
and resource-rich Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.
However, he is not yet ready to fight neither the sufficiently
strong armed forces of Czechoslovakia,
nor the joint French-Russian forces,
should those come to its aid.
Hitler is bluffing, threatening Europe with war.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
The thing is, WWI left a very strong
impression on the generation that lived through it.
People in the 1930s, and especially in
the Western Europe, were very afraid of war.
So if Hitler goes East, that would be perfectly fine,
as long as it would not affect them,
and would not interfere with the British interests.
On March 17, 1938 the USSR declares that
it is prepared, together with France, to defend Czechoslovakia from the German aggression.
The French MFA replies that in case of an attack from Germany,
France and Britain would not offer any help.
The French and British ambassadors demand at the same time
that the official Prague accepts the Sudetenland ultimatum.
[ Michael Grandt, Historian and journalist ]
The British press of the time
had a friendly disposition towards the Nazis.
Newspaper publisher Lord Sydney Rothermere was a Hitler fan.
He even called him “Adolf the Great”.
The tycoon owned newspapers “Daily Mail” and “Daily Mirror”,
which published pro-Nazi articles.
“The Daily Mail” immediately publishes an editorial article,
where it calls Czechoslovakia for a despicable state,
which is solely populated by racists,
whose awful attitude towards the German-speaking inhabitants of the Sudetenland
can no longer be tolerated by Britain.
The USSR is still ready to send troops to the aid of Czechoslovakia.
The Soviet troops just need to be allowed to transit through Poland and Romania.
Poland says that it will declare war and will be shooting down Soviet airplanes.
[ Igor Shishkin, Historian, expert of the Institute of the CIS ]
I want to remind that our multi-volume collection of foreign policy documents
contains the agreements of the Polish and Romanian General Quarters.
They were quite seriously discussing how to partition the USSR
after a victorious Polish-Romanian war against the USSR.
And it stipulated that all of the territory north of Kiev
and up to Leningrad, would go to Poland.
While everything from Kiev and to the Black Sea coast would belong to Romania.
[ Sergey Solovyov, Historian, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Political Science of MSU ]
These states are weaker economically,
and could barely conduct an independent foreign policy.
They had to stay in the wake of
the more powerful states; they always had to choose sides.
Romania is not just an ally of the Reich.
The country has a Fascist regime of Ion Antonescu.
It has 35 concentration camps by 1940.
By 1941 it has the highest number of military divisions
among all of the German allies.
And of course, without the Romanian oil,
the war machine of the Wehrmacht could not
have prepared its attack on the USSR.
This is why, already in September of 1940,
German divisions arrive in Romania
in order to guard the oil fields in Ploiești.
The Polish stance is stated in the report
of the Head Intelligence Office of the Polish Army:
The dismemberment of Russia lies at the core of the Polish politics in the East.
Thus our possible stance will be expressed by the following formula:
Whoever will be taking part in the partitioning,
Poland must not stay passive at this wonderful historical moment.
The main goal is the weakening and defeat of Russia.
[ Sergey Solovyov, Historian, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Political Science of MSU ]
At that moment the USSR is cordoned off by a barrier of hostile small states.
In Hungary, there is the Fascist regime of Horthy,
installed in the early 1920s and being gradually strengthened.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
Basically all Baltic states set their sights on an alliance with Germany.
They had non-aggression pacts.
And it was getting to the point that
German troops would appear on the territory of the Baltic states.
On September 2, 1938,
Soviet Foreign Ministry issues a note to the governments of the UK and France,
with an appeal to immediately summon a council of the representatives
of the General Headquarters of the USSR, Great Britain,
France, and Czechoslovakia to prepare to repell the aggression.
On September 29, the delegations of France, Germany and Great Britain
meet in Munich to decide the fate of Czechoslovakia.
The USSR is not invited to the meeting.
The Czech delegation is not allowed to enter the meeting chambers
awaiting their fate in the corridor.
From William Lawrence Shirer’s book: “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”
From the memoirs of William Shirer:
It became clear to many of us, who spoke with the British and French delegations:
Chamberlain came to Munich in full confidence that no one,
neither the Czechs, nor even the French
would impede his quickest possible agreement with Hitler.
The communication was done informally.
The negotiations, which started at 12:45
in the so-called “Fuhrerhaus” were conducted calmly,
and reminded more of a formal transfer to Hitler
of the assets that he wanted to get by the time dictated by him.
From the Nuremberg diaries of the American psychoanalyst Gustave Gilbert.
February 16-17, 1946.
Defendant: the former Minister of Economics of the Third Reich, Hjalmar Schacht.
All requests of the Weimar Republic,
even the most innocuous ones,
were met by an resounding ‘NO’ from the allies.
We demanded a colony or two,
something to be able to conduct trade.
Оut of the question!
We demanded creation of a trade organisation
in a union with Austria and Czechoslovakia – ‘NO’!
But once such bandit as Hitler comes to power, then ‘YES’!
Then you are very much welcome.
You want Austria? Take the whole of it!
You want to re-militarise the Rein-region?
Go ahead!
Help yourself to Sudetenlad, and the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Take anything you want, we won’t say a word.
Before the Munich Agreement, Hitler couldn’t even dream of
going ahead and annexing Sudetenland to the Reich.
And then, those two fools, Daladier and Chamberlain,
pushed every last bit into his clutches.
From Chamberlain’s speech
The settlement of the Czechoslovakian problem,
which has now been achieved is,
in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement
in which all Europe may find peace.
Nuremberg, 1946.
A question from the representative of Czechoslovakia, Colonen Eger to Field-Marsha Keitel:
Would have Germany attacked Czechoslovakia in 1938
if the Western powers supported Prague?
Field-Marshal Keitel:
Or course not!
We were not strong enough in the military sense.
The goal of “Munich” was to push Russia out of Europe,
gain time, and complete the armament of Germany.
[ Edvard Beneš, President of Czechoslovakia, 1935 – 1938 ]
For 20 years our republic was one of the best
and happiest post-war democracies.
It was a bright and blooming country.
Czechoslovakia will once again become a free
and independent state in the new and free Europe.
[ Winston Churchill, “Memoirs” ]
Оn September 30, the Polish Government sent a twenty-four-hour ultimatum to the Czechs
demanding the immediate handing over of the frontier district of Teschen (Těšín, Cieszyn).
In 1919, [Poland is] a people restored by the victory of the Western Allies
after long generations of partition and servitude
to be an independent republic
and one of the main Powers in Europe.
Now, in 1938, over a question so minor as Teschen,
they sundered themselves from all those friends
in France, Britain, and the United States
who had lifted them once again to a national, coherent life.
We see them hurrying, while the might of Germany glowered up against them,
to grasp their share of the pillage and ruin of Czechoslovakia.
During the crisis the door was shut in the face of the British and French Ambassadors.
The Slovaks, who had been used as a pawn by Germany, obtained a precarious autonomy.
Hungary received a piece of flesh at the expense of Slovakia.
— From the “Memoirs” of Winston Churchill.
The head of the British, Montegue Norman
transfers 6 million Pounds to the Reichsbank –
the Czechoslovakian gold reserve
in the safekeeping of the Bank of England.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
The British elites viewed the developments with great enthusiasm.
In March of 1939, the Düsseldorf Agreement was signed
between the Imperial Industrial Group of the Reich
and the Federation of British Industries.
It was on that exact date that Wehrmacht completely occupied Czechoslovakia.
But the gentlemen in the West were not at all concerned by this.
No one was afraid to getting dirty,
no one feared that this adventure would end up in a war.
[ Adolf Hitler ]
Half of the Czechs must be assimilated,
predominantly through forced relocation to Germany as slave labour.
The other half, especially the intellectuals, is to be exterminated.
— Adolf Hitler.
The so-called “New Order” comes into effect.
[ From the memoirs of SS Brigadenfuhrer Walter Schellenberg ]
Hitler’s predilection for the old-German history,
the study of the old-Norse cultural sources,
especially of the Arian peoples,
became that foundation,
on which his racial theory was predominantly built,
and which served as a cornerstone for his rejection of mixed races.
This was also the foundation for his concept of unification with England.
This unification was supposed to oppose
the greatest enemy of the West:
the Communist sub-humanity.
At the same time Fuhrer was fully convinced that starting from 1924,
Stalin, in accordance to a gigantic top-secret program,
was conducting a systematic racial mixing of the peoples of the Soviet Union,
seeking the dominance of the mongoloid element.
And hence the conclusion:
The USSR, as a civilisation, has no value.
Russians are not humans, worse than Jews.
Thus such a difference between the war in Europe and in Russia.
When entering the territory of France, Belgium and Holland,
each Wehrmacht soldier has a memo
with 10 commandments of war conduct,
which prescribe to behave loyally towards the civilian population,
and to not break the international rules of war conduct.
When Wehrmacht breaks into the USSR,
the soldiers are given instructions to not spare anyone.
The SS troops have 57% foreigners in their ranks.
There are 7000 French volunteers in the “Charlemagne” division alone.
Its soldiers fight against the Red Army up until May 2,
defending the Reich Chancellery.
The SS divisions have Hungarians, Danes, Dutch, Norwegians,
Swedes, Belgians, Estonians, Latvians, Croats, Finns.
Hundreds of thousands of volunteers.
Posters “Together against Bolshevism” are seen across the whole of the occupied Europe.
For these Europeans, Russians are also sub-humans.
From a letter of Führer’s personal secretary Martin Borman, 1942:
[ From a letter of Führer’s personal secretary Martin Borman, 1942 ]
The purpose of the Slavs is to work for us.
When we stop needing them, they can simply die.
The procreation of Slavs is undesirable.
They can use preventives or make abortions.
The more, the better.
Education is dangerous.
From the speech of Reichskommissar of Ukraine, Erich Koch. Kiev, 1943:
[ From the speech of Reichskommissar of Ukraine, Erich Koch, Kiev, 1943]
We are the master race and must remember
that the last German worker, both racially and biologically,
is 1000 times more valuable, than the local population.
According to Hitler’s directives, 30 million people are slated for extermination in the USSR.
After the war the European politicians will be saying:
“We didn’t want to have any dealings with Hitler!”
While back then, in the 30’s,
Hitler was viewed in Europe not as a monster or a even bad guy.
Even after the racial laws were enacted in 1935,
the Europeans calmly went to the Olympic games in Berlin in 1936.
They didn’t see anything shameful in it, nor in the laws.
Racial laws? No big deal!
In the USA, there are signs “only for the white” everywhere, and it’s all fine.
One must understand that Europe of that time didn’t at all resemble
today’s tolerant and politically correct EU.
Europe of the time consists of colonial powers:
France has colonies, England has them,
Italy has colonies, Portugal has colonies,
even tiny Denmark has colonies.
Belgium has its own Congo,
Holland owns the huge Indonesia for a colony.
And so the European elites were largely staying within the context
of the “The White Man’s Burden”,
that there are races, created to rule, and those that must be ruled.
In their view, Hitler wasn’t saying anything new.
What the European elites saw as a real problem, was Bolshevism.
In Hitler they saw an ideal ram against Bolshevism,
Communist ideology and the USSR.
[ Wolfgang Zdral, Historian and journalist ]
Many large German conglomerates took part in the war preparations.
The most famous among these are such steel foundries as Tissen and Krupp.
Naturally, the companies delivered materials necessary for the production of tanks and cannons.
The mining company “Hermann Göring Werke” provided the Reich with ore and coal.
Such companies, as Siemens or Rheinmetall
specialised in electronics, munitions and spare parts for the tanks.
From the Nuremberg diaries of the American psychoanalyst Gustave Gilbert.
August 31, 1946.
Defendant: former Minister of Economics of the Third Reich Hjalmar Schacht.
If you are to convict all the industrialists who helped to re-militarise Germany,
then you should press charges against some of your own, he told me.
For example the factories of Opel, which produced nothing, but military equipment,
belonged to your General Motors.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
When it comes to the car industry, 70% of it was owned by the Americans.
Opel was a part of General Motors.
It was based on “Opel Blitz” that Gassenwagens were created,
the suffocation cars for extermination of people.
From the Investigative Committee’s report, on investigation of mass-murder
of disabled children by suffocation cars at an orphanage of town Yeysk.
During the exhumation we discovered
214 bodies of children, both boys and girls,
aged approximately 4 to 7 years.
Laying haphazardly atop one another.
Most have their hands tied in pairs.
Some held in their hand sticks and crutches.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
In 1939-1940, the head of the company, James Mooney himself
came to Berlin in order to discuss with Hitler and Goering
how to convert the Opel factories to the military needs.
Mooney himself was prepared to invest 100 million US dollars
to re-purpose the factories in Rüsselsheim.
[ Michael Grandt, Historian and journalist ]
By the start of WWII Ford’s factories
were at complete service of the German military-industrial sector.
The American owned another three factories in France.
After the country became occupied by the Nazis,
the factories delivered to the Wehrmacht 6000 trucks.
Up until 1945, Ford’s factories in Cologne produced in all 78,000 trucks,
and 14,000 half-tracks for the Wehrmacht.
At the same time the factories remained 100% owned by the American.
[ Hermann Ploppa, Political expert and publicist ]
The oil market of Germany became a part of the Western system.
90% of this entire market was controlled by the USA, UK and Holland.
“Standard Oil” would supply Hitler with oil also during WWII —
through the Canary Islands.
From there, German tankers would be bringing it to Hamburg.
In 1944, Germany would be getting an annual supply of 48,000 tonnes of the American oil.
[ Michael Grandt, Historian and journalist ]
The “International Telegraph and Telephone” company, ITT,
also transferred money to the Nazis at the end of the ’30s.
In exchange ITT got access to the German military industries,
like the aviation factory Focke-Wolf.
It is 1939, the 18th Congress of the Communist Party, Iosif Stalin:
In 1935, Italy attacked and captured Abyssinia.
In the summer of 1936, Germany and Italy organised a military intervention in Spain,…
In 1937, after the capture of Manchuria, Japan invaded North and Central China,
occupied Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai,
and began to drive out its foreign competitors from the occupation zone.
In early 1938, Germany captured Austria,
and in the autumn of 1938, the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia.
Thus the war, which had crept up unnoticed on the peoples,
drew into its orbit more than five hundred million people,
extending its sphere of action over a vast territory.
Starting with 1939, the USSR starts on the third 5-year plan.
It’s fully military.
Conscription service becomes compulsory for all for the first time.
Soviet leadership believes that the war would start already that year, in 1939.
[ Valery Artsybashev, Employee of the Russian State Archive, Candidate of Historical Sciences ]
This exhibition shows the so-called “Fall Weiß” — “Case White”,
the plan of the attack on Poland.
It was ratified by Hitler on April 11, 1939.
From Hitler’s directive before the invasion of Poland:
Poles, from their birth, are destined to do dirty work.
A low level of living standard must be maintained in Poland.
Poles are lazy, so coercion must be used to make them work.
All educational institutions must be closed,
especially the technical schools and colleges,
so as to prevent the development of a new Polish intelligentsia.
Poland will be treated as a colony.
Poles will become the slaves of the great German Reich.
The German General HQ were preparing Blitzkrieg for a swift demolition of the Polish state.
Moscow knew about the German preparations for an attack on Poland.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
If Germany attacks Poland and conquers it in its entirety, then
the old plan of the Nazi leadership comes to fruition:
To create a pro-Nazi puppet Ukraine on the border of the USSR.
Such figures as Stepan Bandera and Roman Shuhevich
had for a long time been on the Abwehr’s payroll.
The nationalistic Ukrainian underground was organised, financed and trained in Poland,
and that was the cornerstone for the future war.
In March, Maksim Litvinov, the Foreign Minister of the USSR,
suggests through the British ambassador in Moscow,
to convene a conference of 6 countries:
USSR, England, France, Romania, Poland, and Turkey,
in order to prevent further German aggressions.
[ Valery Artsybashev, Employee of the Russian State Archive, Candidate of Historical Sciences ]
At the end of July 1939, the British and the French
agreed to conduct military negotiations in Moscow.
Here we have a photograph.
It’s from August 5, 1939.
Our Political Representative to Britain, Majskij,
leads the British and the French military missions from London.
The French and the Brits could have flown to the USSR by plane.
The foreign negotiators chose
as their means of transportation a slow-going steamboat.
Consequently, they first used several days to reach Leningrad,
and only on August 11, 1939
they came to the Leningrad Railway Station in Moscow.
In his diaries Majskij wrote:
…and it happens at times like these,
when in Europe, ground start burning beneath our feet.
I am becoming more and more convinced that,
despite everything, Chamberlain continues to play his own game.
He needs not a three-party pact, but the negotiations about a pact,
in order to get a better price from Hitler for this card.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
The military mission, which arrived
to the negotiations in Moscow in the summer of 1939,
was very unrepresentative.
It was headed by a semi-retired General Reginald Drax,
who had no mandate to conclude a military agreement.
[ Valery Artsybashev, Employee of the Russian State Archive, Candidate of Historical Sciences ]
Until the very last moment Britain did not give up hope
to find some compromise with the Nazis,
So it’s no accident, that in parallel with the Moscow negotiations of summer 1939,
the secret British-German negotiations were conducted.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
They knew this perfectly well in Kremlin,
as the Soviet Intelligence had very good positions in London,
through the so-called Cambridge Five, the famous Soviet intelligence officers.
Stalin was informed that
the British side of the negotiations was highly likely a game.
[ Valery Artsybashev, Employee of the Russian State Archive, Candidate of Historical Sciences ]
As the temporary consul to Germany Astahov wrote:
The Germans are visibly worried by our negotiations with the English-French military.
To give up the Baltics, Bessarabia, Eastern Poland, not speaking of Ukraine,
is currently a minimum that the Germans would agree to
in a heartbeat for our promise not to get involved into their conflict with Poland.
On August 19, Poland informs that it would not allow
Soviet troops to pass through its territory to aid the allies,
if the agreement USSR-England-France takes place.
Then, the British Foreign Minister, Lord Hallifax, demands through his ambassador to Warsaw
that the Polish Foreign Minister revises the Polish stance,
as it torpedoes the military negotiations in Moscow.
Józef Beck remains steadfast:
I cannot allow even the discussions around the possibility
of letting foreign troops use a part of our territory.
We do not have a military agreement with the USSR.
And we do not want such an agreement.
The negotiations reach a deadlock.
From the testimonial of the Foreign Ministry lawyer in Berlin,
Friedrich Gauss, March 15, 1946:
One of the early summer days of 1939,
Mr. von Ribbentrop, to my surprise, handed me a document to read,
containing a draft of a special communique of the Reich government to the USSR,
and boiling down to a proposition for political negotiations on an agreement.
A telegram to the German ambassador in Moscow was sent.
[ Valery Artsybashev, Employee of the Russian State Archive, Candidate of Historical Sciences ]
There were two airplanes on stand-by in August of ’39.
Ribbentrop was to fly to Moscow, while Goering — to London.
From a note sent to Berlin by the German ambassador to the USSR, Schulenburg:
I am fully convinced that, considering complications in the international affairs,
Stalin set himself a goal to spare Soviet Union from a conflict with Germany.
At the Central airport on August 23rd.
Foreign Minister of Germany, Mr. Joachim von Ribbentrop, arrived in Moscow.
[ Valery Artsybashev, Employee of the Russian State Archive, Candidate of Historical Sciences ]
On the night of August 23 – 24, 1939,
a Soviet-German non-aggression pact was signed in Moscow.
[ Winston Churchill, “Memoirs” ]
The very fact that such an agreement was possible,
demonstrates the degree of failure
of the British and French politics and diplomacy of the past years.
Winston Churchill.
[ Igor Shishkin, Historian, expert of the Institute of the CIS ]
The very influential in Britain Lord Lloyd
used to say that Hitler is bad however you look at him, simply terrible, unacceptable,
but we would forgive him everything as long as he goes East,
and destroys this Communist infestation.
After the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed,
he said that after this, no more compromises can be made with Hitler.
That he betrayed the trust of his senior fellows.
[ Valery Artsybashev, Employee of the Russian State Archive, Candidate of Historical Sciences ]
For the first time the wider audience gets to see
the non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR,
and an additional secret protocol, accompanying it,
which covers the extent of the Soviet and German spheres of interest.
The Soviet sphere of influence would extend to:
Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Eastern Poland and Bessarabia.
If this pact was not signed,
then the German attack on the Soviet Union
would have happened from the Baltic territory.
[ Sergey Solovyov, Historian, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Political Science of MSU ]
While the negotiations are held in Moscow, the battles are raging at Halhin-Gol,
and the Soviet leadership has no guarantees
that the Halhin-Gol conflict would not turn into a full-blown war with Japan.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
Japan shows itself at that time as a very
aggressive state towards the Soviet Union,
It’s an ally of the Nazi Germany.
In 1937 Japan starts an overt invasion war in China.
The USSR support the Chinese people
and sends there volunteers and military advisors.
[ Igor Shishkin, Historian, expert of the Institute of the CIS ]
England de-facto recognised all Japanese conquests on Chinese territory,
and guaranteed Japan the freedom of action
in case the Japanese aggression went further North.
In other words, to the territory of the USSR.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
Naturally, the USSR didn’t want to lead a war on two fronts.
That would’ve been a nightmare for the Soviet leadership.
[ Valery Artsybashev, Employee of the Russian State Archive, Candidate of Historical Sciences ]
This is the decoded telegram from
the famous Soviet military intelligence officer, Richard Sorge.
He relayed that the Japanese strongly resented the Germans
for their signing of the non-aggression pact with the USSR.
Then in April of 1941 there appeared
the Soviet-Japanese non-aggression pact.
And the Japanese opted not to attack the USSR in the Far East,
when Moscow was in grave peril.
1,700 tanks, almost 2 million people,
over 14,000 guns and mortars,
1,500 air-planes are thrown by Hitler at Moscow.
General Günther Blumentritt writes:
We were opposed by an army,
which combat qualities exceeded that of all the other armies
ever faced by us on the battlefield.
However terrible was the Russian winter,
the deciding factor of the battle’s outcome was not the weather,
but the fierce resistance of the Soviet troops.
Their unyielding will to never surrender.
[ Yegor Yakovlev, Historian, writer ]
It was specifically the Molotov-Ribbentorp pact that later allowed
to transfer the Siberian troops to Moscow,
which was an important factor in the defence of our capital,
and, as a result, a successful counter-offensive of 1941.
From a letter of a German private Folt Haimer to his wife, December 1941:
It is hell here.
The Russians don’t want to leave Moscow.
They started an offensive.
I pray you, stop writing me about silks and rubber boots,
which I promised to bring you from Moscow.
Understand, I am dying, I will die. I feel it.
Nuremberg, the 56th day of the process.
The Soviet side is preparing to question one of the most important witnesses.
[ Andrey Medvedev ]
Of course, by the time the Nuremberg process started, everyone —
both the defendants and the allies — knew that
General Field-Marshal Friedrich Paulus was alive and is in the Soviet custody.
After all, he’d already spoken on radio
and signed leaflets urging the soldiers of the Wehrmacht
to either lay down their arms or turn them on Hitler.
He joined the committee “Free Germany”.
However, for many it was an open question whether
the Soviet side would risk to bring in as a witness for the prosecution someone,
who up until summer of 1944 called himself for an ideological National-Socialist,
and greeted the junior officers with the words “Heil Hitler”.
Nevertheless, on February 11, 1946, prosecutor Rudenko,
who was the prosecuting attorney from the USSR at the Nuremberg process,
asks to lead General Field-Marshal Paulus into the court for hearing.
The effect of these words were akin to an exploded bomb,
the leaders of the Third Reich froze up.
The thing is: no one knew where Paulus was held.
Three minutes later Paulus enters through this door,
and proceeds to walk to the place of the witness for the prosecution.
Please tell us, Mr. witness, what do you know about
the preparations by Hitler’s government of an armed aggression on the Soviet Union.
On September 3, 1940,
Among other cases that were within my competence,
I came across an unfinished strategic plan,
which spoke of an attack on the Soviet Union.
Geoffrey Lawrence, the President of the Judicial group,
asks the witness to name the exact date
of the start of the preparations for the attack on the USSR.
It was on the September 3, 1940.
[ From Adolf Hitler’s address ]
The Baltics must be annexed to Germany,
Crimea will be fully evacuated,
and populated exclusively by the Germans, becoming the territory of the Reich.
Kola Peninsula, rich in nickel, will go into German possession.
Leningrad will be razed to the ground.
— Adolf Hitler.
[ Michael Grandt, Historian and journalist ]
I want to tell you 4-5 numbers:
Standard Oil of New Jersey invested into the Third Reich 120 million dollars.
ITT — $30 million.
Ford — $17.5 million.
General Motors — $100 million.
If one sums up the investments of the 5,000 companies of the USA that
maintained the relations with the Reich,
you will get hundreds of millions of dollars.
Without the West pouring money into it,
Germany would not have been able to re-arm itself.
The war would not have lasted for 6 years without the foreign capital.
On September 1, 1939 Germany attacks Poland.
On September 2 and 3, England and France declare war on Germany,
but no military campaigns follow.
Between September 1, 1939 and until June 1941, the Nazi Germany conquers:
Denmark, using 6 hours;
Luxembourg, using 1 day;
Holland, using 5 days;
Yugoslavia, using 11 days;
Belgium, using 18 days;
Greece, using 24 days;
Poland, using 27 days;
France, using 1 month and 12 days;
Norway, using 2 months and 1 day.
On June 22, 1941, Germany attacks the USSR.
Soviet Union fought against Germany for 1418 days.
Оn the occupied territories of the USSR,
оver 14 million peaceful civilians were exterminated.
Almost 3 million Soviet POWs deliberately killed in the concentration camps.
2 million Soviet citizens died from forced labour in Germany.
In all, the USSR lost 27 million people in the Great Patriotic War.
Including over 1,100,000 people during the liberation of the Western countries.
Over 5 years of war, the profits of the American monopolies
in the oil, metallurgical, chemical and aviation sectors alone reached
57 billion dollars ($57,000,000,000).
The diplomatic and economical games of the elites of Great Britain, USA, France
cost the world 70 million… lives.
[ Andrey Medvedev ]
The 1000-year-Reich, proclaimed by Adolph Hitler in 1933, existed for 12 years.
While the Colosseum, which was to symbolise the greatness of the new Nazi Empire,
was, naturally, never completed after 1945.
The Germans actually wanted to demolish it,
but it turned out that it would cost too much,
and so it remained standing,
like a dilapidated, semi-abandoned memorial to a shameful epoch.
Today its yard quite symbolically looks like this:
some garbage, logs, wires… a backyard of a provincial storage.
And that’s what it is: one can rent storage space here on the ground floor.
And excursions are conducted daily over the ruins of the Nazi dream.
Whatever some may say in Europe or the world, we know it with certainty:
liberation of the European peoples,
including the Germans themselves, from the Nazi pestilence
was brought about by our Red Army, by our Soviet people.
[ Winston Churchill, writing about May 8, 1945. (Churchill W. Decree. Op. M., 1955. T. 6. C. 538.) ]
Japan was not yet defeated.
The atomic bomb was not yet born.
The world was in turmoil.
The basis of communication — the common danger that united the great allies — disappeared instantly.
In my eyes, the Soviet threat has already replaced the Nazi enemy.
— Winston Churchill, [writing about] May 8, 1945.
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Hello Stanislav,
I just downloaded yesterday, and will be looking forward to seeing the film.
I like to contribute, but I do not have bitcoins.
If you have a paypal account or bank account that I can transfer to, then pls send it my private email.
I have only starting looking at you site, I have much respect for your work.
All the best, Seeker.
Thank you, Seeker.
The intent and your kind words are appreciation enough for me. 🙂
If you want to make a difference in another way, I could suggest making a small donation to the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, which I am a supporter of myself. They are doing a very important work and are struggling now in these COVID-19 times.
Hello again Stanislav, Thank you! In that case, I just redirected your 50 UK pound to Durrell. Interestingly, I was quite fascinated by the story of the Dodo once, in school I wrote an essay about the dodo, borrowed old books from libraries far away to find information about it (long before there was any www). I did not know this organisation, looks very interesting.
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Thank you. There is history behind how I learned of Gerald Durrell, and it started in Russia. 🙂 I thought of writing about it in the reply here, but the topic lends itself to become a post of its own.
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