What's Old Is New Again...

What is old is new again.  May 9^th was the anniversary of the end of World War II, and as expected the Russians had a big parade of tanks and ICBMs through Moscow’s Red Square.  And for the second year in a row, a Russian biker gang [the Night Wolves] sympathetic to Vladimir Putin tried to retrace the Red Army’s steps from Moscow to Berlin.  The Night Wolves were banned from Poland and Lithuania, and had to have their bikes airlifted to them to the Czech Republic, where they weren’t given a very warm welcome in Prague.  There was a video on RFE/RL’s website where these bikers were asked about the Soviet Union’s support to Hitler between 1939-41.  The biker being interviewed was incredulous at such a thing, claiming that it was fiction.  The Soviet Union denied the existence of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Agreement of 1939 for fifty years, and only because of Mikhail Gorbachev’s desire for openness was its existence acknowledged.  But that was then, this is now.  The Russians are falling back into old habits of re-writing history.  Ask Russians today about Soviet-German cooperation between 1939-41, you’ll get vehement denials that it ever happened.  Vladimir Putin remembers, and publicly said in public five years ago [in front of Angel Merkel] that the arrangements of 1939 were a good thing.  But the Russian “body politic” didn’t get the memo.

 

Here’s a reminder of what transpired between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany the first two years of World War II.  In the summer of 1939, the British and French tried to strike an alliance with Stalin, but they didn’t try very hard to get it done.  In August 1939, the Nazis approached the Soviets with a proposal – would you like a deal with us instead?  As surprised as Stalin was to be asked such a question by the Nazis, he gave an equally surprising answer “yes”.  And so it went that Joachim von Ribbentrop flew to Moscow and closed the deal.  What was in the deal?  The pact itself was very short that boiled down to this:  if you don’t attack us, we won’t attack you; if someone else attacks you, we’ll stay out of it; and we’ll stay in touch to compare notes about groups that create problems concerning our mutual interests.  There’s a secret protocol to the pact that divvied up Eastern Europe between the two countries.  The northern boundary of spheres of interest was the northern boundary of Lithuania.  The division of Poland ran along the rivers Narev, Vistula, and San.  In southeastern Europe, Germany told the Soviets they weren’t interested in Bessarabia.  And so when the time came, the Russians helped themselves there. 

Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.  Sixteen days later the Soviets helped themselves to eastern Poland.  On September 28, 1939, the secret protocols were amended – the Soviets would get all of Lithuania in exchange for the Germans getting a bigger piece of Poland.  After these niceties were taken care of, the Soviets invaded Finland in November 1939.  After a very bloody and bruising 105 days where Finland put up a much-stronger than expected defense, Finland sued for peace and Russia got what they wanted.  However, the Red Army performed so poorly during this short conflict that Hitler was convinced attacking the Soviet Union would be an easy endeavor. 

 

What else happened as a result of Molotov-Ribbentrop?  After the Winter War, the Soviets pressured the Baltic States into “mutual assistance” agreements which granted the Soviets basing rights in the Baltics.  Soon, pro-Soviet puppet governments were established and asked to “voluntarily” join the Soviet Union in the spring of 1940.  In actuality, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were forced at the point of a gun to join the Soviet Union.  In November 1940, the Soviets invaded Bessarabia.  But when you ask Russians about that today, “that never happened.”  They volunteered to join – just ask today’s Russians and they’ll tell you. 

Not only did the Soviets provide the Germans political cover to start World War II, they also provided materiel support.  On February 11, 1940 both sides signed a “Memorandum on the German-Soviet Commercial Agreement”, in which the Soviets were obligated to provide Germany the following: 

1,000,000 tons of grain for cattle, and of legumes, in the amount of 120 million Reichsmarks
900,000 tons of mineral oil in the amount of approximately 115 million Reichsmarks
100,000 tons of cotton in the amount of approximately 90 million Reichsmarks
500,000 tons of phosphates
100,000 tons of chrome ores
500,000 tons of iron ore
300,000 tons of scrap iron and pig iron
2,400 kg. of platinum ore, metals, lumber, and numerous other raw materials 

These deliveries continued until and including June 22, 1941, when the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa.  But this “never happened” either… 

In the 1920s, the two countries signed the Treaty of Rapallo [1922].  This treaty ended hostilities between Weimar Germany and the Soviet Union.  The treaty dealt mostly with political and economic concerns.  It restored full diplomatic relations and established trade relations.  It didn’t address any German-Soviet military cooperation, but it did break the ice.  In the years 1923-1933, there was extensive Soviet-German military cooperation. This included the training of German pilots in Russia (the cadres of Hitler's Luftwaffe); experiments in tank and gas warfare; the use of paratroops; the building of submarines and aircraft prototypes. This cooperation allowed the Germans to circumvent Part V of the Versailles Treaty, which prohibited German development and use of offensive weapons. For their part, the Soviets benefited from access to German military technology. 

Other German industrial organizations were active in Russia during the 1920's. The huge Rheimetall-Borsig firm, the largest armament plant in Germany besides Krupp, erected a most modern munitions plant in Leningrad, the Pulitow works, for the Russian Government with the support of the German General Staff. I. G. Farben, the Hugo Stinnes firm, and other concerns directed or owned plants in Russia, while the Reiehswehr ran experimental centers for artillery, aviation, tanks, motors," flame-throwers, and poison gas. In the field of poison gas Russia produced the gas and shipped samples to Germany to test for antidotes. Research in heavy artillery was carried on in collaboration with the Russians who were keenly interested in using German technical knowledge. In addition, large numbers of German engineers and technicians received Russian employment contracts. The agreements provided the Russians with skills needed for the development of their country, and at the same time gave surplus German experts a field to acquire valuable experience. All this was done at a time when Germany was supposed to be disarmed.

The leadership of Russia, and the great unwashed who followed them, like to crow about how the Soviet Union bore the brunt Nazi Germany’s war effort. But they conveniently ignore the facts that the Soviet Union enabled the Nazis, and the Weimar Republic before them, to re-organize, re-arm, and otherwise reconstitute their armed forces to launch World War II. Daniel Moynihan once famously said that one is entitled to their own opinions, but not entitled to their own facts. The Russians have their own facts – they’re just wrong. Nobody will convince them they are wrong.