The 900 Days

by Harrison Salisbury

Ordinary summer maneuvers began early in June. Kuznetsov and his staff set up a special field headquarters near Panevezys on the eve of the war.

  On the evening of June 21 a large group of political workers from the Central Political Administration of the Red Army visited almost every unit of the Eleventh Army, one of the three commanded by Kuznetsov. The political workers assured officers and troops that there would be no war and that the rumors were simple provocations. Influenced by these views, emanating from Moscow, some commanders canceled precautionary instructions which they had given earlier. Work on laying down a mine field near Taurage was suspended.

  At about 2:30 A.M., June 22, Kuznetsov, having received the alert sent out by Timoshenko, ordered his armies to occupy their forward positions, to issue live ammunition, to lay down mine fields and tank traps and prepare to repel any major action by the Germans—but not to fire on German planes or respond to provocations. Not many front units got the order before they found themselves engaged in what seemed to them completely mysterious combat.3

  Lieutenant General P. P. Sobennikov commanded the Eighth Army of the Special Baltic Military District. He was chargéd with defense of the East Prussian littoral, the coastal areas. To the greater part of his forces, Sobennikov was to recall, the attack came completely without warning. During the predawn hours he managed to issue orders to some units to begin moving up to the frontier. But the troops from the rear had no notion of what was going on to their west, where the German attack had already started.

  In the General Staff building in Leningrad the situation was not quite so catastrophic. General Nikishev rushed back to headquarters from Smolny and at about 5 A.M. called in his waiting commanders and staff.

  “It’s war, comrades,” he said. “Fascist Germany has attacked us. Proceed to carry out the mobilization plans.”

  The commanders dashed to their offices. With trembling hands they fitted keys into the locks of the big war safes and drew out the sealed red packets containing the mobilization orders and ripped them open.

  “Suddenly,” Bychevsky recalled, “there loomed before us heaps of unfinished business. Two engineer regiments and one pontoon regiment had to be reorganized into individual battalions and prepared for dispatch to reinforce army units. We had to break off work on laying the concrete in the fortified regions.”

  Even then not all the officers were prepared to act.

  Major Nikolai Ivanov said doubtfully, “Maybe we should not hurry with this? After all we haven’t any orders from Moscow.”

  Bychevsky sternly instructed Ivanov to carry out his orders. All available steel and cement must be thrown into second-line fortifications.

  Ivanov thought a minute. He cleaned his glasses with a white handkerchief. “That means it’s war!” he said decisively. “Allright. We’ll fight.”

  Another officer who had been summoned hurriedly to the General Staff building was General Mikhail Dukhanov, soon to become known as the heroic commander of the Sixty-seventh Army, one of the toughest fighting units on the Leningrad front. Dukhanov was an old cavalry man. His career dated back to czarist times. In recent years he had been an inspector of Soviet military academies.

  He was roused from sleep by a phone call and found a staff car waiting on the street outside his building before he was dressed. The streets were empty of traffic as he whirled down Profsoyuz Boulevard and past the Admiralty, sputtering about “fools who call training alerts in peacetime.”

  In his office he had hardly stopped sputtering when word was passed along of the German attack. Automatically he looked at his calendar and was surprised to see staring at him in red letters the new date: “June 22 Sunday.” The year, 1941, was in black letters. His adjutant had torn off Saturday’s leaf before leaving the previous afternoon.

  Within the hour Dukhanov had his orders. He was to go to Kingisepp, sixty-five miles to the southwest, with instructions for the 191st Infantry Division to deploy along the Finnish Gulf coast and protect the sandy shore from Kunda to Ust-Narva against possible troop landings.

  Dukhanov’s chauffeur awaited him outside the General Staff building. Dukhanov looked across the broad Palace Square, freshly washed. The rosy tints of sunrise were reflected from the windows of the Winter Palace and shafts of sunlight threw the gray statues into sharp relief. The tip of the Alexander I column was caught in the sun’s rays. Not a person was in sight.

  Dukhanov took his place in the front seat of his car, the driver beside him. From under the great arch of the General Staff building a boy and girl appeared. The boy put his arm around the girl and tenderly kissed her. The girl’s happy laughter sounded gaily in the quiet morning air.

  Soon, thought Dukhanov, that charming laugh will be stifled by the grim word “War!” He turned to his chauffeur. “Let’s go! It’s a long way.”

  It was still early morning when Dukhanov arrived at 191st Division headquarters. The duty officer mechanically saluted: “Nothing of importance has happened.”

  All through his discussion with the 191st Division commander Dukhanov could not get those words out of his mind. “Nothing of importance has happened.”

  It was a troubled night in the solid stone house on Leontiyevsky Pereulok, a narrow lane which leads from Gorky Boulevard through the old Moscow merchant quarter to emerge at the Nikitsky Gates. The house, at No. 10, with its sturdy columns guarding a massive door, was heavily curtained. From the street there was no sign of unusual activity, but there had been no sleep in the German Embassy that night. After returning from his mid-evening Kremlin conference with Molotov the Ambassador, Count von der Schulenburg, sat down with his trusted friend and confidant, Gustav Hilger, to draft what was to be his last dispatch from Russia.

  The task was a painful one. For days the embassy had been destroying its secret files and documents. Schulenburg knew that only a sudden and unexpected turn of events could keep Germany from going to war against Russia—in all likelihood before dawn. The prospect filled him with gloom. Hilger shared his despondency, indeed felt it even more keenly. Hilger had been born in Moscow, son of a prosperous German merchant family, and had devoted his life to Russia. He was almost as Russian as he was German. He and the Ambassador had done everything in their power to halt the onrush of war. They had even taken their lives in their hands and attempted to warn the Russian Ambassador to Berlin, Dekanozov, when he chanced to be in Moscow in mid-May. They told him as plainly as they dared that Hitler was preparing to attack. This was treason, they knew, and they would be shot if Hitler ever learned what they had done, but the danger to Germany of the prospective war was so great, in their belief, as to justify the risk. Dekanozov, with that stubbornness of which only Stalin’s best-trained lackeys were capable, shut his ears to von der Schulenburg. He insisted he could not talk of such matters; only Molotov was competent to listen.

  Finally, von der Schulenburg and Hilger, utterly balked, gave up their perilous effort.4

  Now on this evening of June 21–22 von der Schulenburg drafted a telegram to the Foreign Office in Berlin, reporting the curious conversation he had had an hour before in the Kremlin with Molotov, patiently explaining to his chiefs Molotov’s almost pitiful effort to open up at this hour (when Hitler’s armies already were moving to the frontier for their dawn assault) new conversations aimed at appeasing whatever appetites Hitler might have.

  Neither Schulenburg nor Hilger had hope that this cablegram would affect Berlin’s action. Both knew the die had been cast. Yet they were determined to play out the game.

  The cable was drafted, encoded and sent to the message center. It was timed at 1:17 A.M., and the Ambassador went to his residence to await events. One of his aides, Gebhardt von Walther, went with him. Hilger remained at the embassy. There were few persons left there. Not only the women and children and German businessmen, but the German experts in Russia on various missions (many of them in connection with the supplies Russia was providing to the Nazis) had gone back home. The German technicians who had been working
in Leningrad to supervise the completion of the new cruiser Lützow had vanished. The naval attaché, Captain von Baum-bach, in chargé of the Lützow work had left that very evening—the last to go. The consulates had packed up. Everyone had been rounded up except a small group of Germans aboard the Trans-Siberian express, bound from Tokyo to Moscow.

  Now it was the morning of June 22. The Ambassador had known for a week that this was the date set for the attack. He knew that the hour was supposed to be 4 A.M. Walther had brought this information from Berlin only the day before. Suddenly, the duty officer telephoned. A long telegram was starting in from Berlin. There was hardly any doubt what it might be. The Ambassador arose with a sigh and returned to his chancellery. The time was 3 A.M. The message was prefixed: “Very Urgent. State Secret.” It was for delivery to the Ambassador personally.

  As soon as von der Schulenburg read the opening words he knew what the remainder would say. It began:

  (1) Upon receipt of this telegram, all of the cipher material still there is to be destroyed. The radio set is to be put out of commission.

  (2) Please inform Herr Molotov at once that you have an urgent communication to make to him and would therefore like to call on him immediately. . . .5

  The weary Ambassador turned to Hilger and Walther. The men shook their heads. The message was long. It took nearly two hours to transmit and decode. A clerk was ordered to telephone the Kremlin. The Ambassador’s limousine was brought around front again.

  A little after 5 A.M. von der Schulenburg and Hilger were moving swiftly down Herzen Street toward the Kremlin. Their car swung right on the Mokhovaya and then made the left turn up the raised approaches beside the Alexandrinsky Gardens to the Borovitsky Gate of the Kremlin. The city slept, but it was already almost full daylight. Beyond the rose-brick Kremlin walls the Moskva River flowed softly and smoothly, its waters mirror-calm. The air was heavy with the scent of acacia and early roses from the Alexandrinsky Gardens.

  The Kremlin guards brought their hands up to their blue-and-red caps in a smart salute, glanced at the diplomats and waved them inside.

  Von der Schulenburg and Hilger entered Molotov’s offices in the cream-and-yellow Government Palace just about 5:30 A.M. Molotov, tired, worn and dour, showed them to seats at a long table covered by green baize. Von der Schulenburg drew out his message and began to read: “The Soviet Ambassador in Berlin is receiving at this hour from the Reich Minister for Foreign Affairs a memorandum—”

  Unable to contain himself Molotov blurted out: “Heavy bombing has been going on for three hours!”

  Von der Schulenburg looked up from his papers but said nothing. He droned on for ten minutes and concluded: “Thereby the Soviet Government has broken its treaties and is about to attack Germany from the rear, in its struggle for life. The Flihrer has therefore ordered the German armed forces to oppose this threat with all the means at their disposal.”

  Several moments of complete silence followed. Molotov seemed to be struggling to maintain his stony demeanor. Finally he said, “Is this supposed to be a declaration of war?”

  Schulenburg lifted his shoulders helplessly.

  Molotov then spoke with indignation. He said the message could be nothing but a declaration of war since German troops had already crossed the border and Soviet citizens had already been bombed. He called the Nazi action a “breach of confidence without precedent.” He said Germany had attacked Russia without reason, that the excuses given were nothing but pretexts, that the allegations of Soviet troop concentrations were sheer nonsense, that if the German Government had felt offense, it merely needed to send a note to the Soviet Government instead of unleashing war.

  “Surely we have not deserved that,” said Molotov.

  The Ambassador replied with a request that the embassy staff be permitted to leave the Soviet Union in conformity with international law. Molotov icily rejoined that the Germans would be treated with strict reciprocity.

  The Ambassador and Hilger shook hands with Molotov and re-entered their car. As it purred down the gentle slopes and out of the Kremlin compound, they saw, Hilger later recalled, a number of cars arriving. He thought he recognized several high-ranking generals in the machines.

  The Germans drove in silence back to the embassy, which lay less than five minutes from the Kremlin. It was a region of Moscow with which Hilger had been familiar since boyhood. As he passed through the streets, he thought with sinking heart that he would never see them again.6

  The telephone in the Soviet Embassy in Berlin rang at 3 A.M., awakening Counselor Valentin Berezhkov from a restless sleep. A voice that was unfamiliar said that Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was in his office and wished to see Ambassador Dekanozov immediately. The unknown voice and the official tone of the language struck a sudden chill into Berezhkov, but he shook off his apprehension and said he was pleased that the Foreign Minister was prepared to receive Dekanozov in response to his repeated requests.

  “We know nothing of any requests,” the voice said coldly. “I have been instructed to advise you that Reich Minister Ribbentrop wishes to see the Soviet representative immediately.”

  Berezhkov said it would take a little time to rouse Dekanozov and get the car sent around. He was told that Ribbentrop had sent a car which was already outside the Soviet Embassy.

  When Berezhkov and Dekanozov emerged on the Unter den Linden, they found a black Mercedes waiting. A uniformed officer of the SS Toten-kopf Division, death’s head gleaming on his cap, escorted them, together with a Foreign Office protocol officer, also in uniform. Over the Brandenburg Gates the first rays of the sun were already visible. It was going to be a fine, clear, warm day.

  Entering the Wilhelmstrasse they saw a crowd. Floodlights illuminated the entrance to the Foreign Office. There were cameramen, movie crews, journalists, officials. Berezhkov’s sense of alarm deepened. The two Russians walked up the long staircase and down a corridor to Ribbentrop’s suite. The corridor was lined with uniformed men who snapped to a smart salute and clicked their heels. They turned to the right into Ribbentrop’s office, a vast room with a desk at the far end where Ribbentrop sat in his gray-green minister’s uniform. To the right of the door was a group of Nazi officials. They did not move when the Russians entered. Dekanozov walked silently across the long room, and Ribbentrop finally rose, silently bent his head, offered his hand and invited the two Russians to sit at a round table nearby. Berezhkov noticed that Ribbentrop’s face was bloated. It was muddy in color and his eyes were bloodshot. He swayed a bit as he walked, and the thought entered Berezhkov’s mind: “The man is drunk.” As they sat at the table and Ribbentrop began to speak, slurring his words, it was obvious that he was, in fact, intoxicated.

  Dekanozov had brought the text of his latest instructions from Moscow with him. But Ribbentrop brushed the subject aside. It was another matter that he wished to discuss. The German Government had become aware of concentrations of Soviet troops along the German frontier. It was apprised of the hostile attitude of the Soviet Government and the serious threat this presented to the German state. The Soviet forces had repeatedly violated the German state frontiers. He presented Dekanozov with a memorandum detailing the Nazi allegations. The Soviet Government was preparing to strike a deadly blow at the Nazi rear at a moment when it was engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the Anglo-Saxons. The Führer could not endure such a threat and had ordered appropriate military countermeasures.

  Dekanozov interrupted. He said that he had been seeking an interview with Ribbentrop, that his government had instructed him to raise certain questions concerning Soviet-German relations which required clarification.

  Ribbentrop cut Dekanozov off sharply. He had nothing to add to what he had said except to say that the German action was not to be regarded as aggression. He rose a bit unsteadily and said: “The Führer ordered me to announce to you officially these defensive measures.”

  The Russians rose. Ribbentrop said that he was sorry that matters had
arrived at this pass for he had earnestly sought to put relations between the two countries on a sound and sensible basis. Dekanozov said he, too, was very sorry. The German Government had a completely erroneous conception of the position of the Soviet Union.

  As the Russians neared the door, Ribbentrop hurried after them. Speaking very rapidly, the words tumbling one after the other in a hoarse whisper, he said, “Tell Moscow that I was against the attack.”

  The Russians walked out into the street. It was fully light. The cameras clicked. The movie cameras whirred. Back at the embassy they tried to call Moscow. The time was 4 A.M. (6 A.M. in Moscow). The telephone connections had been broken. They tried to send a messenger to the telegraph office. He was turned back. Berezhkov slipped out the rear door in a small Opel Olympia. He managed to make his way to the main post office and handed in his telegram to a clerk.

  “Moscow!” the clerk said. “Haven’t you heard what has happened?”

  “Go ahead,” Berezhkov said. “Send it anyway.”

  The telegram never arrived in Moscow.

  What took place in the Kremlin once the formal declaration of war— despite its Hitlerian perversity—had been delivered is still not easy to determine.

  Directive No. 1 of the Defense Commissariat signed by Marshal Timo-shenko and General Zhukov was not issued until 7:15 A.M., after the German attack had been under way for nearly four hours. It was received in Leningrad at General Staff headquarters at 8 A.M. The order was a curious one. It did not define Russia and Germany as actually being in a state of war. It read like the document of men who were by no means certain that they were dealing with actual war. Little wonder that the Soviet armed forces were confused.

  The Soviet commanders were instructed to attack and exterminate enemy troops which had entered Soviet territory, but they were barred from crossing into German territory. They were permitted air reconnaissance and attacks but only to a depth of sixty-six to a hundred miles. Permission was given to bomb Königsberg and Memel. Flights over Rumania or Finland were forbidden without special permission.