There are still many white spots, secrets and even legends in the history of World War II. One of them is about the seemingly secret peace negotiations between Vyacheslav Molotov and Joachim von Ribbentrop in 1943.
The announcement of the meeting between Molotov and Ribbentrop in 1943 was a well-planned and skillfully launched disinformation by the special services of one of the belligerents. But which one? First of all, the military-political situation of that time will make it possible to say that the intelligence services of the Soviet Union could have been involved in this matter. This assumption is based on the following facts.
As you know, the problem of the second front and its early opening influenced the entire complex of relations between the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition up to June 1944. During his visit to London and Washington in May-June 1942, Molotov received fundamental assurances from the US leadership that the issue of the landing of allies in Europe is an "urgent task" and must be resolved before the end of this year. And if the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR was rather skeptical about such a possibility, then documents from Stalin's archives show that the Soviet leader believed that the help of the Anglo-Americans in the near future is quite real.
But as time went on, there was still no second front. The most difficult period of defeats for the Soviet Union was left behind, the Germans were defeated at Stalingrad, but the Anglo-American conference in Casablanca (January 1943) showed that the Allies were not going to undertake any serious offensive in 1943 either. The joint message of Churchill and Roosevelt to Stalin only expressed the hope that the forthcoming operations of the Anglo-American troops "together with your powerful offensive, can probably force Germany to kneel in 1943".
Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.
The Kremlin clearly saw the background to this vague wording. Declaring their desire to open a second front in Europe in 1943, the governments of the United States and England were really preparing only for the continuation of hostilities in the Mediterranean territory remote from Germany. But the deception could not last long, and after another meeting with Churchill in Washington in 1943, Roosevelt informed Moscow about the postponement of the opening of the second front to 1944. And this is on the eve of the next summer offensive of the Wehrmacht! As in the 42nd.
On June 11, Stalin sent the US President a reply to his report on the decisions taken in Washington. Churchill also received the text of this message. It indicated that the new postponement of the Anglo-American invasion of Europe "creates exceptional difficulties for the Soviet Union, which has been waging a war with the main forces of Germany and its satellites for two years with extreme exertion of all their forces …" In addition, Britain and the United States have -liza. In March 1943, they amounted to about half of the volume of the previous month. The overall backlog of the schedule stipulated by the joint protocol has increased.
It was at this time that the version about the alleged meeting of Molotov and Ribbentrop in Kirovograd belongs. After all, the ultimate goal of the policy pursued by the USSR was an attempt to finally force the allies to accelerate the landing in France. At every opportunity, Soviet officials reminded their Western colleagues that the Red Army, in fact, was fighting alone against Hitler's aggression, and this state of affairs could have the most serious consequences.
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If we assume that the report of the meeting was disinformation, then in many respects it was beneficial to the Soviet Union, helped to make the Allies realize the threat of being left alone with Hitler and, as a result, would accelerate the invasion of Europe while simultaneously increasing supplies under Lend-Lease.
Deliveries to the USSR under Lend-Lease during World War II.
We find indirect confirmation that the demonstration of "peace negotiations" between the USSR and Germany took place in the diplomatic correspondence of the United States Secretary of State with his officials in neutral European countries for August-September 1943. Through various channels, American diplomats then received information about the alleged secret Soviet-German meetings in Sweden. For example, Johnson, the US envoy in Stockholm, reported on August 10 that rumors had reached him about a possible separate peace between Moscow and Berlin. On August 14, he transmitted information from a "reliable source" to Washington about a meeting in the Swedish capital of two Germans posing as businessmen with people from the Soviet embassy. The Swedish secret police were able to track their movements. A week later, another meeting took place.
On September 14, a new message came from Stockholm that as early as April 30, 1943, Germany, through Japan, offered Stalin peace on the following terms: 1939 borders; agricultural supplies from Ukraine to Germany; Bessarabia returns to the USSR; Odessa is a free port; the entire Middle East, excluding Turkey, but including Egypt, goes into the Soviet sphere of influence; India is a joint sphere of influence of the USSR and Japan. The message said that allegedly Stalin, Zhukov, Shaposhnikov and Voronov are in favor of a peaceful settlement of the problems with Hitler, and Maisky, Molotov, Litvinov, Timoshenko and Budyonny are against. Contacts between the USSR and Germany through Japan were temporarily interrupted as Stalin studied the results of his summer offensive on the Eastern Front.
A meeting with Stalin.
We emphasize that there were other messages containing information about "secret negotiations" between the Soviet Union and Germany, in particular from Switzerland. Also noteworthy is the fact that the Soviet government did not conceal information about these contacts (or some of them) from the allies. Thus, the USSR Embassy in Washington on September 14, 1943, reported to the US State Department that the Japanese ambassador in Moscow called Molotov four days ago and announced the desire of the Japanese government to send a special envoy to the Soviet Union to discuss opportunities for improving relations between the two countries. This representative was supposed to “touch upon questions concerning the main and very important circumstances of the present time,” and then go through Turkey to the countries waging a war with the USSR, and return to Moscow to continue consultations. The Soviet government in Washington stressed that Molotov pointed out to the Japanese ambassador that no contacts between the USSR and Germany were possible and rejected the offer to accept an extraordinary representative from Tokyo. On September 29, Johnson relayed from Stockholm that the first secretary of the Soviet embassy in Sweden, Vinogradov, had confirmed that German agents had contacted Soviet diplomats. Attempts at peaceful sounding also came from the Bulgarian mission in the Swedish capital. But to any proposals received from the "axis" countries, the USSR responded with a refusal: "The only proposal that we will accept from Germany," the Soviet diplomats declared, is a proposal for her unconditional surrender. "that Molotov pointed out to the Japanese ambassador the impossibility of any contacts between the USSR and Germany and rejected the offer to accept an extraordinary representative from Tokyo. On September 29, Johnson relayed from Stockholm that the first secretary of the Soviet embassy in Sweden, Vinogradov, had confirmed that German agents had contacted Soviet diplomats. Attempts at peaceful sounding also came from the Bulgarian mission in the Swedish capital. But to any proposals received from the "axis" countries, the USSR responded with a refusal: "The only proposal that we will accept from Germany," the Soviet diplomats declared, is a proposal for her unconditional surrender. "that Molotov pointed out to the Japanese ambassador the impossibility of any contacts between the USSR and Germany and rejected the offer to accept an extraordinary representative from Tokyo. On September 29, Johnson relayed from Stockholm that the first secretary of the Soviet embassy in Sweden, Vinogradov, had confirmed that German agents had contacted Soviet diplomats. Attempts at peaceful sounding also came from the Bulgarian mission in the Swedish capital. But to any proposals received from the "axis" countries, the USSR responded with a refusal: "The only proposal that we will accept from Germany," the Soviet diplomats declared, is a proposal for her unconditional surrender. "that the first secretary of the Soviet embassy in Sweden, Vinogradov, confirmed the fact that German agents had contacted Soviet diplomats. Attempts at peaceful sounding also came from the Bulgarian mission in the Swedish capital. But the USSR refused to any proposals from the Axis countries: "The only proposal that we will accept from Germany," the Soviet diplomats said, is a proposal for her unconditional surrender. "that the first secretary of the Soviet embassy in Sweden, Vinogradov, confirmed the fact that German agents had contacted Soviet diplomats. Attempts at peaceful sounding also came from the Bulgarian mission in the Swedish capital. But the USSR refused to any proposals from the Axis countries: "The only proposal that we will accept from Germany," the Soviet diplomats said, is a proposal for her unconditional surrender."
Moscow's notification to its allies in the anti-Hitler coalition about the search for contacts by the "axis" countries with the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs indicates that the USSR ruled out the possibility of separate peace negotiations with Germany or with any of the Berlin satellites. However, it is possible that it was beneficial for the Soviet Union that these rumors continued to circulate, at least until the question of opening a second front was finally decided.
Molotov Vyacheslav Mikhailovich.
Vyacheslav Molotov himself, in a conversation with Professor Georgy Kumanev at his dacha in Zhukovka on May 13, 1985, when asked about a meeting between him and Ribbentrop in 1943, answered: “Judge for yourself, this is not the autumn of 1941. Behind - the victory near Moscow, the defeat of the Nazi armies in the Battle of Stalingrad, and suddenly I am going to a meeting with Ribbentrop, conducting some kind of peace negotiations, and even in Kirovograd, which at that time was on the territory occupied by the Germans. Absolute nonsense. In the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including in Molotov's official diary, no information about the negotiations could be found either.
On the other hand, it should be noted that one cannot completely exclude the possibility that misinformation about the meeting in Kirovograd could have come from the German side. This version is supported by the attempts of Hitler's propaganda to drive a wedge between the USSR and its allies with the help of the Katyn case. Whether the German "misinformation" took into account the real strategic situation on the Soviet-German front at that time is a big question. At the same time, it should be admitted that the time of the meeting - June 1943 - was chosen quite well: there were no major military operations in the East yet, the parties were preparing for a decisive battle near Kursk.
