now we're going to shift a bit. we're move into our next session a panel on the evolving relationship between germany and the soviet union from the inner war years through the second world war. we have dr. ian johnson the pj morgan family assistant professor of military history at the university of notre dame. pretty cool and dr. sean makikan the francis floor and i professor of european history at bard college. welcome, we'll provide a new interpretation on this topic.

and then our very own dr. nick mueller awful comments before opening up the panel to the audience question answer. so with that over to you nick, right? well, good afternoon. it's great to see everybody again. thank you mike. it's but my pleasure to welcome our distinguished speakers here first time speakers at their international world war two conference ian johnson and sean mcmeekin. and it's always great to add new historians with the latest research and new discoveries. and so we're looking forward to it. now, i know you've all just had lunch a little while ago and this is the beginning of an afternoon of great sessions. so but if new perspectives on joseph stalin and the secret military collaborations and machinations between germany and russia, and the inner war years won't keep you awake. i don't know what will but your program has a bio so it won't mention much more than what mike

did but first. just let me say that ian johnson reached out to me several years ago as his book was being in going to press. and before it was published and he did so because he had found by some means that the new a little bit of my research and my dissertation university of north carolina on the road to apollo the german rushing relations from 1919 to 22. well covid delayed his publication a little bit, but he kept me posted on it and when it finally arrived, i was really just thrilled to see it. and immediately called him up and lured him to come to this conference. we had an opening and so we got both of these gentlemen because of that. he has his phd from ohio state university and is now pj moran assistant professor at notre dame. he's published a number of other articles. you can read that in your book, but this hot off the press the

faustian bargain the soviet german partnership and origins of the second world war has filled a major gap in the research in this area in the last 50 years. he's researches book far and wide digging deeply into 23 archives and five countries and three languages to bring the light a new knowledge and information and research on the soviet declassified collections in particular of this secret military dealings arms dealings between the red army and the german rice fair from 1919 to the outbreak of war when hitler's tanks and troops violated the non-aggression fact and with the soviets in stormed into russia in operation barbarossa. my own research on the subject. could did not have access to the soviet archives in those days, so i had to build a strong case

for what he later proved to be the case with the document. so it was very hard without the soviet archives to find the smoking guns in this relationship, but i can assure you that he is discovered all the smoking guns and and you'll be interested to hear some of them. so here's the book you can get it later. it's a beautifully written with surprises and revealing stories on just about every page. our other speaker sean mcmeakin whose new book here it is. now. this is a tome. and i understand that the store managers agreed if you buy one of these plus the fastian bargain, you don't have to buy three two more books to get free shipping. it's instead of instead of three so but any event, he says it's a new history of world war two stalin's war well, he kind of tips his hand in this larger than life.

study of stalin's role is the master manipulator of the allies and a much more central place in allied victory than thought before so in any event just mentioned again. he's the francis fornoi professor of european history at bard college with teaching stints far and wide as far as yale university of istanbul ankara and nyu before he went to bard winner of numerous prizes and his books on the origins of the first world war. germany's bid for world power now stalin's war has generated a lot of controversy and you'll see that in our questions in our discussion and his presentations that shifts your focus to look at the war from stalin's perspective far to the east instead of from washington and london and berlin, which is one of the interesting aspects of it. he makes a statement that rob i

know it's he's engaging too because i saw a webinar he did with our own rob satino and rob called one red one point on page 94. that was a startling to me as it was to rob. he said there was only one statesman in europe who truly relished the prospect of a general war breaking out over poland. and that was stalin. well, he's going to elaborate on that in his remarks, but it's a fast-paced book despite its size and pages. you'll find it fascinating reading and and already given you the the best bargain in terms of the shipping deal. so these two books are complementary ian's goes through the inner war years up to beginning of the war. and sean's covers stalin during the war, but there is some overlap in areas of significance and i'll leave it up to our discussion after their talks to examine where they are in alignment or not.

but one other statement, i just wet your appetite a little bit too on something that ian writes. he says. tortoise conclusion that quote the germans the soviet german partnership formed at rapalo in 1922. not only helped to explain the outbreak of world war of the second world war in europe. and also offers some insights into the course conduct and eventual conclusion of that conflict. offering some explanation for initial german successes the horrors of fighting on the eastern front. and the ultimate soviet victory quite a statement both of you set things up pretty well for us this afternoon. so adhering to the chronology the two books. i'll ask ian to go first and then followed by sean mcmeeken, they'll both speak 15-20 minutes and then we'll get onto the questions.

well, thank you nick for the introduction and the chance to come and join all of you here at the world war two museum. i'm grateful for the team has done such a terrific job with logistics and organization. i'd like to also have a shout out to my students at notre dame several of them have mentioned they're going to watch the live stream today and it's one of them very pointedly mentioned in an email to me this morning. i'm competing with a notre dame football game. so thank you for making the right choice. i hope you enjoy today. so today i'm going to be speaking. about my new book faustian bargain the soviet german partnership and the origins of the second world war the second world war in europe. began just before sunrise on september 1st 1939 when 50 divisions of the reborn german

army invaded poland from the west. great britain and france reluctantly declared war on germany 48 hours later and then to the surprise of much of the world the soviet soon invaded poland from the east two weeks. later. that the war began over poland and then the fact that it began with the soviets and germans working together was a product of the molotov ribbon drop pact. in august 1939 hitler and stalin had agreed to partition eastern europe between them. the story of that soviet german partnership in 1939 is often described as a moment of opportunism where two dictators who despised each other saw temporary advantage in aligning with each other. there's something to that but but in fact germany and the soviet union had actually been working together for most of the previous two decades. the invasion of poland actually marked the culmination of a partnership that had begun at the end of the first world war. in 1919 when cooperation between

the german army the reichsfair in the aftermath of the first world war and the new soviet state forming to the east when it began it was it was a difficult prospect to imagine for very many including its participants for its hard to overstate how much the two sides hated one another. in that year lenin would publicly refer to the german military as savages plunders and predators and credit the germans with having set all records in war atrocities in the first world war. as you see from these posters here the the one to the right. this is a depiction of a german soldier as a gorilla with the rather subtle caption kill him bolshevik propaganda poster from 1919. for much of the bolshevik leadership in moscow the right-wing military officers who dominated the interwar german army where the archetypes of counter-revolution the villains of their propaganda. for their part the german officer corps were about as fond of the bolsheviks in turn many german officers had put

participated in the quite brutal suppression of a communist revolution in early, 1919 one reich spare non-commissioned officer would write that quotes the rulers of present-day russia are common blood-stain criminals the scum of humanity carrying on the most cruel and tyrannical regime of all time. you get some sense of this from german propaganda in the same year. so why did two groups who saw each other as the literal embodiment of evil? strike a deal with one another the hostility to the international order in the aftermath of the first world war first brought them together. in the summer of 1919 the victorious allies issued the treaty of versailles. germany was to be forcibly disarmed to pay reparations and to give up over 10% of its its land area. the victoria's allies further completely dismantled the vaunted imperial german army reducing it from over five million to only a hundred thousand men of whom only 4,000 could be officers. germany was further banned from

possessing aircraft armored vehicles chemical weapons submarines all of the modern accoutrements of war and to oversee this process and guarantee. germany could not start a new world war the allies stationed inspectors across german territory to dismantle german military industry and demobilize the german army. the terms of versailles were so harsh when the german army initially learned of them that they held a secret conference in the summer of 1919 to discuss the possibility of reopening hostilities. but they concluded that resistance was impossible germany would lose if it tried to resume the war. instead the remnants of the german high command decided to embark upon a program surreptitiously to restore germany's military might concealed at first even from their own government. their stated aim was not just to overturn the treaty of versaille, but in fact overturn the outcome of the first world war. meanwhile to their east in 1919 the soviet union was not yet in existence. the bolsheviks were in the midst of a desperate fight for their

very survival against 18 allied armies then fighting on their territory as well as the forces of the various white factions the anti-bolshevik forces within the czarist empire. it was in this moment of of isolation and desperation in both germany and the ussr that the two sides began exchanging military envoys intelligence and technology at first quite subtly and a small scale in 1919. the first secret military conference was held not long thereafter in 1921 and the following year in 1922 soviet, russia and weimar. germany signed the treaty of rapala which normalized relations between the two states. in part thanks to the cover that that provided five months later the reichfarin and the soviet red army negotiated the first secret accord to begin relocating band german industries and training facilities to soviet soil. you see here a surreptitious picture taken by a soviet intelligence officer of one of these early meetings. what did these two arch enemies hope to achieve by working

together? well general hans von zaik pictured here. looking rather prussian with his monocle. wanted to rebuild german military power inside the soviet union away from the prying eyes of the inspectors and allied soldiers then occupying, germany. he had three specific means to this end first to relocate banned german military industries then in the process of being destroyed to the soviet union. second to train his officers again that small officer corps to train them and make them as professional as possible in the new technologies of war. but unfortunately for for that vision, this is how the german army was training and practicing tank warfare prior to cooperation with the soviets. we've got a couple of poor officers who for hours on end would have to hold up paper mache elements to make it look like they were in fact inside of a tank. it was even more humiliating when they had to practice aerial maneuvers and and poor german officers had to ride motorcycles with wings strapped to the side. this was harley an appropriate

means to rebuild german military power. the final element of zaik's vision involved actually developing new technologies of war themselves prototypes that could serve as the basis for a broad general rearment of germany, particularly aviation and armored warfare technologies. for his soviet partners, the aims were somewhat similar leon trotsky who headed the red army until 1925 sought to rebuild a devastated soviet union with german assistance. the red army was in disastrous conditions in the aftermath of the russian civil war. the majority of its men had no uniforms let alone working weapons a majority of the officer corps were untrustworthy czarest era officers many of them aristocrats who had to be monitored closely by political commissars lest. they commit treason the entire soviet air force was down to 73 aircraft in 1922 most of which were probably not safe to fly and it perhaps most humiliatingly much of the red army's rusting tank forces were

actually redeployed to with plows to assist farming in ukraine in the aftermath of the russian civil war. trotsky wanted german assistance in developing a new professional officer corps and new technologies with which to equip it lest the soviet union fall in the face of of capitalist and circlement. as a result of these shared aims the two sides began building a network of secret factories and military facilities throughout the soviet union to achieve their shared goals. the first element of their partnership and one that would continue fitfully until 1941 centered on relocating german industry german industries to the soviet union cooperation between german corporations and the red army you get some sense of the network and it's scope mostly in european russia. i'm going to note briefly what went on at some of these different facilities. here you can see a picture of feely a major aircraft factory located just outside of moscow. the german military and the yonkers corporation and major

aeronautical engineering firm in germany took over this factory on a lease in 1923. it was designed to produce fighters and eventually would produce the first soviet four engine bomber the tv three. several thousand russian workers were employed here working under german managers and joint german and soviet engineering teams. other facilities managed by german corporations worked on artillery tanks chemical weapons rifles machine guns submarines just about anything with military utility. the scale of this cooperation would grow to staggering proportions. the germans would become by far the soviet union's largest trading partner by 1931 and almost every major german firm would received contracts from the red army to build weapons or modernize or build factories more than 255 german firms in total. most of these contracts were in fact mediated by the german army who set up their own secret office in moscow known as moscow center to serve as a negotiating hub for german firms interested in relocating band operations to

the soviet union. to give some sense of how significant this effort was in the overall development of soviet military industry by 1940 more than half of all soviet tank production was dependent on german built designed or managed factories. as corporate projects took off. german military leadership also sought to expand direct military to military cooperation. the first of these arrangements centered on salvaging germany's air power in 1923 general von zaik began dispatching german pilots to a soviet air pace in and leapiesk in south central russia. there they trained soviet cadets on basic flight technique. in 1925 the germans acquired this entire base on a lease from the soviet government. the germans got a lot out of this facility. they trained new pilots developed new tactics. we wrote their training manuals. they also developed new technologies nearly a thousand

pilots mechanics and observers in total would be trained at this facility for context about the entire size of the luther when it in 1935. 22 future luftwaffe generals of three-star rank or above either taught trained or commanded this facility and it's time of operation. in fact one of its alumni general wilhelm scheidel would later write that quote the spiritual foundations of the entire future luftwaffe were developed on that russian aeronautical field. so what did the soviets get out of all of this in turn? well, they too trained pilots in mechanics and engineers in the german managed training courses, but they're most important aim was to borrow or steal german technology. seven out of eight german aviation firms that existed in 1925 would sign secret development contracts all of them illegal under german law with the rights fair to begin developing fighter prototypes for testing at libyansk. the soviets had access legally to any design that arrived at

this facility that we're allowed to fly photograph these aircraft etc. the soviets would go a little farther. they would take apart component parts break into hangers and warehouses at night. sure. the germans might be holding out on them. but the sum result was a great acceleration in the development of soviet aviation technology the soviets would in fact go from having almost no domestic aviation industry to one of the largest in the world by the mid-1930s largely thanks to technological theft and borrowing much of it alongside the germans. you can see here. one of the designs that was tested that would in fact lead to the junkers 87 stuka dive bomber first tested and developed at leapesk. bpx was not the only place where this sort of technological experimentation was underway. the germans and soviets established another joint base not far away code-named comma dedicated to tank warfare. much like leap ps could served as a training center testing ground in a place for tactical

experimentation. among the alumni of this facility were such notables in armored warfare as heinz gadarian aaron's volkheim oswald lutz and on the soviet side michiel to khachevski. perhaps the most famous soviet theoretician. the school graduated about 200 officers in total between both the germans and soviets, but they were of a higher rank than those training at leap hits. on the german side 17 of them would become division commanders by the outbreak of the war or above. and in addition nearly every tank the germany would deploy in combat between 1938 and 1943 had been developed based on testing at comma now the most secretive elements of soviet german cooperation centered on chemical weapons production and testing. two major laboratories and testing grounds were dedicated to soviet german cooperation on this point the first of them initially built in the suburbs of moscow only about seven miles from the kremlin this proved to be something of a problem when

they were dropping chemical agents from the air and unfortunately hitting people in the moscow suburbs. so the main base was actually moved out much further afield later on in this period relying on human testing sometimes on a huge scale the soviets and germans jointly experimented with new chemical agents and deployment techniques. i argue in the book that the research logs from from these facilities give some answer why chemical weapons weren't used in the second world war unlike the first the soviet and german research teams concluded by the conclusion of their cooperation together that chemical weapons did not work. well alongside high-speed mechanized warfare of the kind that both germany and the soviet union had had embarked upon in training and maneuvers. or with strategic bombing something they spent a great deal of time exploring. now, let me turn to some of the consequences of this first era of soviet german cooperation. hitler came to power in january 1933 helped in many ways by this

period of cooperation general werner von blanberg who assisted hitler in coming to power and shepherded the the german military into the nazi era told a fellow officer confused. perhaps about his loyalty to nazism about why he had become so dedicated to hitler. blomberg replied replied that i have seen in russia. what can be gotten out of the masses my trips to the soviet union turned me into a national socialist end quote. general hans von zake for his part who was dismissed for political reasons in 1926 and then embarked on his own career in politics would second blomberg's views telling hitler personally in 1935 that quote our paths may have been different but are ultimate aims were the same and quote. now interestingly once he came to power hitler did not immediately suspend military cooperation another testing season in the ussr would continue despite hitler's own hatred of communism. but soon most of the bases were closed as hitler felt confident enough to restart training and technological development in germany itself. he was no longer concerned about

the western allies. this was of course part of hitler's broader project of accelerating german rearmint expanding the army reestablishing the german air force and rapidly raising defense spending. by 1935 the luftwaffe had already received over 5,500 aircraft and more than 500 tanks had been issued to the vermont. in other words a window to halt german re-arm it without a war was rapidly shrinking. now there was broad awareness of the pace of german rearment by 1935 when hitler marched into the previously demilitarized rhineland in 1936 the chief of the french general staff informed a shocked french prime minister that military intervention would be disastrous as germany was in fact already the strongest army in europe. you get some sense of this from this cartoon from the famous david lowe appeasement illustrated the caption reads. how much will you give me not to kick in your pants for say 25 years now was surprising about this is the date 1936. well before the most infamous

acts of appeasement. the british head of course reached similar conclusions the british and french both concluded that they either needed to buy hitler off and delay him while they rear armed himself a process that would take four to six years or or convince hitler not of course not to start a war at all. in other words the foundation laid by 11 years of secret rearm and paid immediate dividends for germany deterring intervention against hitler as achieved one foreign policy goal after another through 1938 and solidified his domestic control of germany. now, of course the greatest and most disastrous consequence of secret rearment work came in april of 1939 at that juncture after years of rejecting quiet soviet overtures to renew their period of cooperation hitler suddenly decided a new partnership with the ussr was in fact in his interest. that month the german foreign ministry quietly told their soviet counterparts that quote hitler desired to quote renew

the old rapallo partnership of the 1920s and early 1930s again couched in terms of renewal not some sort of about face. in august 1939 is noted germany in the ussr would agree to the molotov ribbon drop pact. partitioning eastern europe between them and renewing elements of the early military partnership. but most importantly the renewed partnership paved the way for hitler's invasion of poland. stalin followed suit some 16 days later and they're two forces began to intermingle in central poland. not long thereafter. on september 22nd 1939 german general heinz gadarian and the center here and semian krievashane to his left met in the town of breast let offsk a town. the germans had taken but we're turning over to soviet custodianship. they may have in fact been acquaintances both had trained at comma in the ussr. here we can see them celebrating their mutual victory over poland the high point of the soviet german relationship. ultimate fulfillment of

cooperation that had begun 20 years earlier only 22 months later. however, the two states would be at war with one another. on june 22nd 1941 hitler launched operation barbarossa more than 30 million people would die in eastern europe over the next four years. what is remarkable is how much the two adversaries in fact had in common when they began the war? rarely in the annals of history of two opponents spent so much time arming each other for war. invading german forces marched on boots made with rubber imported from the soviet union. they ate rations including soviet grain, which had continued to arrive up until the day of the invasion their ammunition contained chrome nickel steel and manganese all mined in the ussr their vehicles and aircraft through heavily from the legacy of engineering work conducted in russia and were fueled in many instances by soviet oil. and some of the german field manuals in fact had been written in the ussr. many german officers too had learned their trade in soviet

russia. across the lines the story was much the same although few senior living soviet officers had trained alongside the germans because of the purges. most had been trained in facilities organized along german lines and in many instances staffed by german officers among german lectures who taught for extended periods in soviet military academies in the early period of cooperation where eric von monstein volta modal frederick from paulus and field marshal film title. soviet operations would be managed by a german soviet general staff modeled on its german counterpart and reporting to semione moshenko who had lived in germany in 1931. the tanks aircraft and artillery the red army used to resist the german invasion drew heavily on german designs and some instance is being actual copies of german vehicles many were powered by bmw designed engines and built in factories built or modernized by german engineers. as news of the german attack began to filter in from the west.

stalin reacted with disbelief surely. he asked his his close advisors hitler would not just attack like some brigand. he told foreign minister molotov to find the german ambassador as molotov sat quietly in his office german ambassador schulenburg began reading a memorandum accusing the soviet union. of breaking the terms of the german soviet pact schulenburg concluded his remarks in a pregnant silence hung in the air of molotov's office. molotov asked him. is this supposed to be a declaration of war? schulenburg merely shrugged he had been given no directions on that note. molotov replied heededly as it could be nothing else as german troops have already crossed the soviet border and soviet cities have been bombed by german aircraft for over an hour and a half. schulenburg said nothing. at the end of their interview all molotov could stutter was quote. what have we done to deserve this? thank you.

our first of all thanks to ian for setting the table. so ably it's going to be a difficult act to follow. i'd like to thank nick for a kind introduction into rob jeremy stephanie and others for organizing this splendid conference and inviting me here despite the fact my book is perhaps not the most cheerful. it takes a slightly more. shall we see sour tone regarding the conduct of the war at least in the part of some of the allies along with of course some of the results of that conflict. i realize now i need to clicker. oh here it is right next to me. so i'm actually not going to click yet. i want you just to look at this photo. and kind of puzzle over it for a few moments. try to figure out what it actually depicts. so we're learning for me and it was this rather odd legacy of soviet german cooperation. obviously various layers of irony. we have these two states that are set up almost as parayas conspiring against the

international system, and i'm going to come back to that. theme in a moment what they have in common, i mean, it's quite interesting then when you look at the literature on the war, i think they're always has been on the one hand this idea of inevitability. we're hearing about this earlier today in the debates about the holocaust the so-called functionalism versus intentionalism debate regarding hitler and stalin. will you have these two supposedly diametrically opposed ideologies. they are faded to clash if they're talks about leban's realm and so on in mind conf, there's there's always this kind of idea that it just kind of has to happen. faded to happen. i don't actually agree. i think there are a lot of ways in which the war might have turned out differently. i do agree though with some of the speakers today that that some kind of war was probably inevitable but not necessarily the precise war that broke out when it did nor the course of that war. i'm so to into this relationship. um again some of the projection i'm talking about what i think people often miss where they try to read soviet foreign policy and frankly. there's aren't that many books of the subject to begin with, you know compared to the vast

volume of tomes on on hitler and the germans and german foreign policy and german strategy such as it was and obviously german brutality war crimes etc. there are a lot of books on stalin in his domestic repression. there aren't really that many books that examine soviet foreign policy and to the extent anyone does it's usually in the context of the failures of collective security the failure to organize any kind of a coalition against hitler which frankly is usually blamed on british and french stubbornness naivete. what have you a lot of problems with this way of thinking though. i mean if you look at the lead up to the famous munich conference the discussions of chekle slovakia 1938 in the wake of the unschlus of march. well it is through the vein off the soviet foreign minister talk rather loudly about obviously his disdain. hatred for hitler and the anti-semitic regime in germany. there was no real serious silver soviet effort ought to take part in any of these negotiations that the so-called short course

is kind of bible of communism published that you're doesn't even mention the term collective security. it talks about the second imperialist war which is already broken out. in fact if you look at the map here, and i don't have a laser purple job of kind of highlighting what i'd like to highlight so you'll notice here that at the soviet union is going to help chekle slovakia. it would kind of be difficult to do so. they don't share a border. nor to the soviet share border with germany. so if the soviets are going to do anything against germany or four czechoslovakia the soviets would of course have to invade poland and romania. and/or romania. probably poland a country with which of course the soviets had an active in ongoing border dispute dating back to a rather vicious warfought in 1920. so this did not really like the idea of collective security. in fact when chamberlin famously proposed and that actually gave this so-called guarantee to

poland notoriously guaranteeing not the integrity of poland's territory, but rather the independence of poland less with all this kind of leeway could be interpreted opportunistically both by hitler and of course by the polls not only did the soviets not back this they explicitly repudiated it in public. they weren't particularly subtle about this. they actually denied press rumors and reports that they had actually made any arrangement to protect poland in fact the partition of poland which is carried out in september of 1939 was a soviet idea and a soviet proposal. not a german one. i think we actually heard from me in this interesting logic that it was actually the soviets in a lot of ways who who were keener to renew the partnership than the germans the germans were in a bit more rush because of course hitler's military time table in the need for better weather to carry out the invasion of poland in august turn out to be actually not even in august. they had to delay until september 1939. it was actually a soviet proposal. it was first mooded in theoretical journals eventually even in his vestia who's talked

about kind of dinner parties and banquets with various diplomats. and of course eventually reached the german ears now when hitler and ribbon trump, also gerbils, you finally got serious about this polish problem was interesting was stalin wasn't very subtle there either he gave a speech in march i call this. chestnut speech the idea being that he wasn't going to basically pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the western powers who were trying to incite a war between germany and the soviet union later on during the negotiations from in moscow for the multifripentral pack. they actually mentioned this and they said oh, yeah, we really liked your chestnut speech. we kind of saw where you were going with that. the next gesture was a little more blunt. this is when litvin off the jewish foreign minister or 41st commissar, excuse me term of art and the soviet sphere commissar. he's not simply fired by molotov molotov being of course a gentile not jewish. the orders are actually issued

to purge the entire survey soviet foreign ministry of --. this is an olive branch to hitler and recognized immediately as such and hitler actually asked gerbils to tell the german media to stop attacking the soviet union, which they do. i know it doesn't mean they had a deal right away. of course. they had to work out all the details and the fine print a lot of talk about kind of the trade agreements and how maybe the soviets could help the germans evade the british blockade by importing raw materials from the soviet union. they couldn't get from the rest of the world, etc. etc. but we actually look at the negotiations. there's a couple of interesting factors here. first of all, i mean this this map is a little bit cleaner than the other one so you can kind of get an idea for where the division line was supposed to be if you actually look at there are a number of different lines here. they later cause endless diplomatic mayhem because if the talk of the different lines of the soviets are constantly trying to fudge where the borders actually are. we're really only restoring the curves online now, in fact, the original line was not the curse online nor was of course the

line that actually happened in september 1939. i often have a lot of fun with my students when i teach late ottoman history when i talk about the so-called sikes pico agreement are so cold says on us like speaker agreement, which supposedly led to today's modern middle eastern borders. i show them today's modern middle eastern borders and i show them the sikes become app and they bear very little resemblance to one another. in this case, you can actually see that the whole thing gets screwed up because in fact the germans go way past the demarcation lines. why did they do that? well, they did that because the soviets delayed invading and it's quite interesting. why the german actually somewhat annoyed that the soviets weren't participating in this joint war of aggression. they kept delaying they said no. no, don't worry. we mobilized troops. we'll move when we're ready. we don't want to incite the enmity of the outside powers. in other words. they did not want france and britain to declare war on them, too. so they decided to pretend they weren't actually invading poland the way they actually spun it once they finally got around to invading poland was that it was

a protection mission and the way they even explained us to the germans was that they were gonna wait to poland cease to exist there. we're gonna wait until warsaw fell and then they would invade because then they wouldn't be invading a sovereign country because the country would no longer exist. now it turns out i actually got the timing wrong. they got into erroneous press report that warsaw had fallen. what about september 15th? so the invaded on september 17th, it turns out that wasn't true warsaw actually held out for another two weeks. but but meanwhile they did they gave the mullets off treatment as i call this and poland is not the last country to receive this treatment. they they summoned the ambassador they say you're no around ambassador your country no longer exists, then they arrest him and they send them to the gulag. they did the same. to consul in kiev what's called this though? is that precisely because the germans when pastor demarcation lines. and the soviets in the end that they had to do a little bit of kind of horse trading and horse swapping but you know in the end they agreed on this really interesting territorial swap. although the soviets were actually originally supposed to

get even more territory than the germans. they ended up conceding a lot of central poland including as you can see here warsaw and lublin to the germans parts that had been originally either bisected or in the soviet sphere in exchange. they get lithuania, which wasn't really polish and so then they have this wonderful spin for the western media. well, you see first of all, we didn't really invade poland because it didn't actually exist. and second of all you can see that in fact the germans they got kind of polish poland. we only really invaded the parts that used to be part of czarist russia. and so in fact, we haven't really invaded any. right on now. it's amazing about this argument is that it's actually endorsed by leading british politicians. including david lloyd george former prime minister including winston churchill who is called in by the soviet ambassador yvonne meiske who thanks him. for his support now admittedly britain was trying to figure out how to defeat germany. it hadn't really figured out the hand figured out even how to help poland let alone defeat

germany so you can understand why they don't want to take on a new enemy, but this allows the soviets to pose and again people will still make this argument. well, they didn't really invade poland. they weren't really allied to germany. they were neutral and as i was reminded by the russian foreign ministry when they denounced me on the fourth of july and it official tweet the soviet union was a peace loving empire. which invaded seven countries between 1939 and 1941 they were peace-loving and empire and they were neutral. um, it's an interesting pose and it's kind of amazing that they get away with it because in fact they deport even more people from poland and the germans do what's really a bit quite as blatant at times as hitler and kind of almost openly boasting about their crimes, but when it came to things like expropriation, they actually were they would literally boast improved about how many banks they looted in occupied poland and later romania. and the baltic states now i

think what this all shows when you actually look at the territorial swaps. i don't really have time to go into great detail about the soviet finish war some of the moves into romania as well what they really show aside from the nefarious consequences of the military pack for the people of eastern europe, which is rather obvious. is that the soviets were in the end of revisionist power just like the germans were just like the italians were for some reason no one really recognized this they were actually quite open about it if you even read some of the boring kind of dry literature the soviet foreign ministry they have that this wonderful way of talking about it, you know. oh, well, you know what? we're not we're not satisfied with best arabia. we want both of you know, too because there are lots of proletarians there and they count up the proletarians and their mouths are kind of beginning to water new subjects for the empire. you know, we've we've enlisted 25 new million subjects with our era of peaceful expansion. invasion of sovereign countries, you know.

germans actually initially didn't agree about book of vina because it hadn't even mentioned in the multiverpentro pack. they end up having this rather baroque argument where molotov strangely enough sounds a little bit like a sort of ethnic chauvinist and he says no no, it should be soviet because it's populated by ukrainians who are oppressed by the romanians and the german ambassador schulenberg actually pulls out a kind of the ethnographic encyclopedia and points at some of the errors and the reasoning and molotov says oh no. no, this is not the real. this is romanian encyclopedia not to be trusted. um now when it comes to this relationship and how it all goes, awry again this i think it's a really interesting way to think about it the functionalist versus the intentionalist debate that is to say the relationship. when does it finally come across or well, i actually think it is over remaining in the balkans, you know, if you're actually looking at what they're negotiating in late 1940 and what stalin demands i mean hitler does formally invite stalin to join the tripartite pact. this is the kind of touched up

cosmetically altered version of the old antique common turnpack directed of course against the evil anglo-saxon imperialists. with which of course the soviets also shared an enmity quite loudly at times expressed, you know, stalin is is overheard saying at times things like well, yes, we never asked to befriend the british and we do not now wish to befriend them the anglo-saxons the anglo-saxons are our enemies. well, so that's how they view it hit their invite stall into join in the end negotiations break down over stalin's demands that in order to join. he says the germans must agree with draw their troops from finland. we're in particular they they had a lot of interest in the nickel produced around pitsamo and the soviets one of the germans with draw military personnel from romania from which they got about half of their natural oil. they got about a third from the russians. they got half from romania and stalin also demanded the right to invade bulgaria and to station soviet troops at the ottoman straits at the bosphorus. they're all so concessions from

hand he wanted the germans to rest from them. now. i have to say one of the documents. i'm the most i'm most proud of finding in this book, although i don't think a single reviewer has noticed this yet. i actually discovered in the bulgarian archives of all places. i think that what the key moment was, you know when molotov presented this list of demands almost like an ultimatum to the germans on november 25th. 1940 hitler didn't get it right away because he was traveling he was always down in salzburg or somewhere down. he preferred austria really didn't spend a lot of time in berlin in those days. so hitler finally gets the news when he returns to berlin. the coals in the bulgarian minister and he unloads on him in a three and a half hour. monologue. december 3rd 1940 that is when i think hitler made the decision to invade the soviet union it shows up a couple weeks later in the formal documents regarding kind of planning for the war and soil now as for that war and ian is really i think laid out really interestingly the way the two sides kind of prepared each other for the war. i don't think he mentioned it today, but in his book, he makes a really interesting point about one of the ways in which the

germans maybe had almost in some ways too much intelligence some of them actually remembered their days of cooperation with the soviets, but it was a little out of date because some of them had actually been there much earlier if i have the point, correct, i think that's entirely true. we do know that the germans underestimated the basically what the soviets had in reserve in terms of armor on the island that have very good idea. what was near the frontier and just to go through it really really quickly because i don't want to go over time. the soviets had put a massive amount of material war material at the frontier of the 251 era drums or air base as they build in the first six months of 1941 80% of them. more in the frontier districts occupied since 1939 abutting the german reich. within several minutes to about 30 or 40 minutes flying distance and the germans knew about this because of course they were conducting over flights. so too were the soviets incidentally conducting over flights particularly vis-a-vis romania, and if you look at what the soviets are planning and here's where it really does get

interesting. there is this talk in the last war planet of may 15th 1941 about the need to print it productive nika to forsole the adversary the soviet seemed to think and admittedly there's a little bit like wishful thinking that the germans would telegraph their giant upcoming punch and somehow the soviets would have a grace period to prepare their own counter strike. so the phrase which keeps coming up the soviet documents is a powerful strike in the direction of lublin on this map. you can see they're focusing on southwestern front and western ukraine targeting both romania to the south of the oil fields and poland lublin in particular the armor concentration they have 24 mechanized divisions and 85 aviation regiments on that front alone in particular in these two salient strutting out at bialistic and levof and lemberg. they had very specifically insisted on having in the negotiations in september 1939. turned out to be a giant mistake

because of course those salience were exposed and they were nearly annihilated in the early days the german invasion. now what you see when you're actually look at the poet bureau special files, which i will probably never be allowed to see again. but luckily i did see them before i was banned from russia what you see in these files in the last days before barbarossa begins as a kind of creeping sense of dread. they do see what's coming. stalin does see what's coming. there's plenty of evidence. however, they're not ready at the last minute. there's a lot of talk of the desperate need for muscularovka for camouflaging all those new era. drums all the new air bases all the new tank parks. there's supposed to finish camouflaging the aerodromes and building the dummy air bases by about july 5th. there's supposed to finish camouflaging and building the dummy tanks and all the kind of the petrol stations by july 15th. which is of course more than two weeks too late.

now. we all know the war doesn't go particularly. well, you know if you just kind of very briefly, look at how far the germans make it and we've already kind of learned about how significant it was that they were repelled outside moscow in december 1941 in the remaining time i have which is not copious. i would like very briefly to look into these questions surrounding the material schlock. i think that ian raised a really interesting point again about how much the germans underestimated the scale of soviet armor. i don't want to overemphasize this however, because the germans still did a pretty good job of destroying the armor that was there. by december 1941 stalin had lost 91% of his tank park. out of 200 sorry 22,340 tanks now in that period the soviets had produced 5,400. a little less than 1/4 or 25% of losses. they had lost.

1,100 they'd build about 2,500 about 1/5 of losses. they had lost 7,200 out of their 8,400 bummers. they had built about 2,500, you know again about a quarter with fighters. it was a little better. they only lost 9,600 out of 11,500. on the other hand, they had produced 6,000. so there they were at least producing about one half of ongoing losses. now as we all know the service to improve they they evacuate the relocate a lot of their war industry to the ural mountains to the east however, even with the vaunted production of the famous t-34 and another soviet tanks. if you look at the monthly figures for example in 1942 and 1943 their peaks and valleys. they produce about 2,000 tanks a month and they lose about 2,000 tanks a month. where was the margin? the margin of course was

ultimately in the 625 lend-lease tanks a month that they are receiving from their allies even soviet war production and this these are very closely guarded secrets. believe me and in the soviet archives, i can't actually disclose my methods as to how i was able to this information, but yeah, it's hard to know how they were using all of the studebakers and the jeeps and the fords and the and and ultimately the harley davidson motorcycles. we know how much they valued certain things. they love the diesel tanks. we actually produced sherman m4a2 diesel's specifically for the soviets. we ended up producing most of the douglas a20 havoc bombers the soviets for peculi reasons called boston's most of those were actually produced for the soviet air force. most of all, of course stalin fell in love with the p39 eric cobra produced in bel aircraft in buffalo the brushka as the soviets called it and they got extremely angry whenever the americans would send any of these to britain because you know, they wanted all of the the cabarushka's in addition to this everyone has heard about the

spam. you might not have heard about the borscht. but in fact the united states also sent tens of millions of tiny little packets of dehydrated borscht, and i've actually looked at the ingredients included bay leaves a certain percentage of bay leaves, you know, so they got the formula just right along with crab butter. i mean the butter thing is kind of interest to me because this is what america was first sold on margarine because we were told we had to margarine because the butter was for the russians. 90 million pounds a year. so there's a lot in the book on lindley, so i'm not going to bore you with all the statistics, but i do want to just kind of raise this question to kind of leave a dangling in the air what the soviet war effort would have looked like without all of this. surplus which they were of course no longer producing again if their tank production is roughly equal to their tank losses. it's only at the margins. that they can win and it's only thanks to the allies of the march. so i'm just going to return now very briefly to the first picture and tell you what this is of. all right, so these are bearings

men stalin's polish stooges the puppets to go around hunting down the patriotic members of the polish home army army of cryova after the warsaw uprising of 1944 the riding around in harley-davidson motorcycles regifted to them by stalin who also gave barreling's men as they were called in poland. it's not a compliment 485 dodge trucks 300 willis chiefs 350 harley davidson motorcycles, and they promised 850 more 850 more american trucks by the end of 1944. so it was with this three gifted equipment that stalin's polish communist puppets were able to hunt down. all this polish home memory fighters, and i'm just going to leave that dangling. so thank you very much. okay, so let's have a few. i'll have a few questions here and and we'll turn it over to the crowd but know would be anxious to get into it.

but let me ask you a question. that's really kind of for both of you but one thing you'd get into a whole lot sean is that you have this gave us this picture of stalin as a center of the war effort and master war leader really of the war in the event. so it's more into the war than the pre-war and lindley's of course you you talked about there and and how that was so, you know critical to to the soviets. so there are different sources of soviet strength that you both point out in your in your different ways, ian you look at it from the point of view of the technology transfer of a training and technical support and technical advances that led to advances and the strengths of the red army in terms of sophisticate more sophisticated tanks and weapons and aircraft and and sean you you kind of make the case. it was really the aid from the

west at least and soviets. and silence a leadership here. so the question is which of these developments you think was was more important to soviet survival and 41 and ultimate counter-attacks against a german offensive either technology transfer and training and the advanced weaponry, or was it really the lindley's from the united states? so let he either one of you start coming to start. well, i mean look the easy answer. it was a bit of both. i do think that all of this prototypes in the practice at the service that acquiring even their own models. i mean, i don't want to poo-poo the successes they had particularly with the t34 tank which had a lot of excellent attributes though, of course not without flaws. what significant though. is that even the soviet production and of course, they're not going to win the war without their own production either which they relocate east but even not soviet production although it did depend a lot on what had been learned and the interwork cooperation. the neon talks about even that

continued production required the import of vast amounts of industrial inputs also from the united states particularly aluminum aluminum is really kind of the scenic one of soviet weapons production. unlike the germans everyone used illuminum in producing airplanes because you know, they didn't have the modern hyper light composites yet and they were lighter obviously than steel and so that's what you use for airplanes soviets used in tanks as well and stalin loses most of his box site production the teakfin outside lennon grodd. the reason the material stock was going so badly was of course the germans occupy all the soviet territory, and so they know they take over all these industrial regions and zones and also raw materials. so they the soviets lose vast quantities of things like raw iron and steel. so the americans are setting things like armored plate a lot of refined steel products bull bearings chrome in addition, of course petroleum and food stuff and lost their entire complex for boonton uniform supply which is mostly in the baltics all taken by the germans.

so that's why by the end of the war. they're requiring. they're relying almost exclusively. really on the americas i mean in certain things like food stuff like sugar. it's like 70% coming from the united states. uniforms cloth leather nearly all of it's coming from the americans. i didn't really talk about the pacific theater, but the us also ships 8.244 million tons of war material including a million tons of refined aviation and motor fuel aviation gasoline motor fuel mostly vladivostok, and that's what the soviets used to conquer northern asian 1945. along with all the weapons ammunition all the rest of it, you know, so the soviet production matters the soviet experience matters the learning curve obviously improves vastly between 1941 and 1945 and so what had been learned in that interwar period i think was a kind of essential precondition, but i still don't think they win the war without. lendlies well, i think they are very much complementary stories as sean noted the i argue in my book that the the soviets had develop a certain dependence on

foreign industry advisors military expertise primarily from germany until 1933 or 34 and then increasingly from the united states and that this dependence was one reason that stalin continuously in quietly courted the germans about renewing some sort of partnership this the soviets needed german assistance in different supply chains and technological development all sorts of different different areas, of course that was renewed in the molotov ribbon trop packed when the two economies collaborated more closely than ever before but but with operation barbarossa not only did the soviets of course suffer huge losses materially lose minds lose agriculture all of these things. they lost that german that the engineering expertise that it again resumed assisting them in 1939 len lease became that substitute essentially replacing german expertise in assistance after 41 a great cost it took a while as you demonstrating your booked for that to become and so so significant for the soviet war effort, but i really think

in some ways they're the same story with different players. yeah, the only guy that is it happens. again 1945-46 when the soviets start looting german industry. i mean, it's a really strange kind of a sequence, you know first. they relying so much on the german cooperation prototypes joint training maneuvers, then they lose that they after lie on the americans and then in 1945 once they pour into places like poland hungary in germany, they begin to loot all those factories and industrial and industrial property as well and they take a huge amount of their reparations. some of it is also of course human human reparations labor slave labor, but they also take vast amounts of industrial property and they ship it back to moscow. i have these special kind of looting units, you know inside the red army that actually ship back again tons and tons and tons of industrial equipment products intellectual property of german corporations the rest. well, i i was a fair to say that you think barbarossa would be the most looking at it from the other side. i mean the benefits to germany

of the secret collaboration and development of their own tanks and luftwaffe and so forth you think barbarossa is a the main consequence of that relationship and hitler's ability to rearm so fast. yes, i can't i mean the counterfactuals always always a difficult one but the timing of the second world war is impossible without all of the effort that had been made in the 1920s and early 30s it took four to six years to develop a tank prototype or aircraft from scratch and essentially when hitler took power in 1933 immediately. there were huge number of contracts issued german firms all of which had been working throughout this period on essentially preparing for general rearmont. the result was by 1938 or 39. the germans had advanced models being mass produced both in the air and on the ground armored vehicles. well the british and french who really did not begin fully mobilizing until 37 or 38. we're several years behind this created a window of opportunity that hitler used to start the war. and of course barbarosso was the

the bloodiest front in that war the ultimate culmination, but i also see elements both of barbarossa's failure in cooperation and and the way in which barbarossa was conducted so a lot of the german offic is that i study in this book they were being spied on of course by soviet intelligence personnel who are monitoring their political affiliations their thinking what they're reading their gambling habits the relationships with with local women etc and they notice a disturbing trend which is the longer that junior officers are in the soviet union the more anti-communists that they they became in part because a lot of these bases they were in the famine zone created by collectivization and there were starving people climbing over the you know, the gates trying to get access to food hardly, you know an encouraging picture of stalin's soviet union soviets tried to respond by bringing in lecturers to talk about how great the five-year plan was but for a lot of these 19 to 25 year old young men, it was hardly convincing and so we see a radicalization within the german army that fuels the warfare

conducted large part. could could i add just one small point there regarding ukraine? i mean, it is quite interesting. it's one of the many obvious just glaring mistakes the germans make i mean aside from the moral ones just talking about what effects the course of the war. is that in addition to the overall brutality of the campaign of the fact that even though a lot of you cranians initially welcome in the invasion many of them, of course just as horribly mistreated, as you know, as -- and russians and other groups the germans also undermine their own argument about a war of liberation of the camps and the khozi are collective farms because they decided it was effectively more efficient just to keep the collective farms in place because they had centralized grain collection and distribution and so they don't actually break up the collective forms which, you know completely undermines any possible political logic to what they're supposedly doing. um, okay and shawna another question. i mean you have painted a picture of of solomon as his master war leader and and yet indicate that he wasn't ready

missed the intel coming in how great a war leader and how much it was. he the manipulator and master war leader if he missed those basic intel and and was unready from a just a mobilization point getting troops and in place. yeah. it's a great question. i i certainly don't want to give the impression that he was kind of this infallible genius who always got things right? i mean in a lot of ways his gambling in europe backfires in 1941, i mean all of his plans what he really hoped in kind of helping to some extent to incite the war between hitler and the western powers with the molotov rip and throw pact is that they would bleed each other. you know, that is that they would fight a war of attrition which would weaken both sides and eventually the red army could just kind of intervene at a moment of his choosing and kind of sweep into the ruins and instead of course hitler and famously embarrassed nearly all of his opponents in the germans that routed everyone it really scarcely been weaken at all aside from liftoff in the battle of so we really does kind of miscalculate in a lot of ways and he's caught by surprise. not in the sense that i don't

think i think he definitely thought a war with germany was was coming. he just didn't really think the germans were going to be ready that quickly. i mean frankly a lot of the military buildup happens on the germans that happens at the last minute, you know, it's kind of this almost the shock of first that they're actually gonna do it. some of it is also that his intelligence is is so good. it's almost too good in some ways. i stalinos for example that the germans have not ordered up enough winter clothing and they don't have the right lubricants, you know for winter temperatures, so he thinks well, how could they be so stupid to invade russia without preparing for winter? and in fact part of the reason the russians let the germans have all this surveillance overflies as they figure look they're gonna see all of our equipment. they're gonna see all these tank parks and petrol stations in italy. they weren't the logistics were, you know, still kind of running behind you just physically they're all there all the air base and they're gonna they couldn't possibly invade us, you know, we outnumber them three four, five eight to one and nearly all essential. aspects of modern war making at least on paper. i mean obviously in practice with the logistics the soviets

were nowhere near ready. so he does miscalculi. i mean in asia again, not the subject we've talked about today, but i think it actually works out far better for him. he plays it perfectly japan the united states china and britain spend four years blooding each other up rather terribly and then stalin weights until literally the day that the second atomic bomb has dropped. on nagasaki and moves into sees his empire after japan had already moved back about a million troops. to the home islands. thus paving the way for the conquest of manchuria north korea corral saklin and all the rest of it. just maybe a question or two more but this question of war readiness. i mean i get it that they hadn't gotten everything to the borders and weren't ready to fight the petrol stations and everything was was unready from that point of view, but looking at the perspective in paints a picture of that technology transfer the training the advancing in their tanks technology, and they're plain technology and weaponry.

the question for both of you and do you think headed up in for those operational mistakes or missing the intel was the soviet red army really ready? perhaps based on what he and is saying about the training and technology transferred from the germans. were they ready or not? wait in my examination one of the key parts of the story and one we haven't mentioned yet was the role of the the purges in affecting the army's preparations for war. stalin of course had superintended much of the the soviet german partnership and the enormous role the germans had played in training the new elite of the red army about 180 officers of general rank had lived in germany for extended periods. almost every core and divisional commander been trained at least at some in some way by a german officer and in say 1937. this was a cause for concern as the war approached. he became suspicious and perhaps paranoid that all of these officers with all of their connections to germany might not prove loyal in the event of war

and and my book i argue. this is one of the reasons that the purge is unfolded in the late 1930s and so decimated the red army about 11% of the officer core being being removed in some way shape or form many shot thrown in prison and many of those individuals were ones who had not only trained alongside the germans, but understood the german playbook, i mean they had driven vehicles together. they'd had thrown new year's parties together. i mean, they knew they're german adversaries quite well the dec nation of the red army impart as a result was disastrous for soviet preparations and it showed immediately in the winter war when the red army performed so badly, so i think that was another critical factor in in the lack of soviet preparation and the poor response both the expansion of the red army between 1939 and 1941, which was quite haphazard as well as the fact that so many skilled and prepared officers disappeared on the eve of war. it would say that germany took more advantage of the training and the exchange then the

soviets did if you had to purges to that factor, is that in operational terms. yeah operational terms. somebody said, well the purchase clearly heard and clearly the soviets. they weren't ready. you're not as ready as they should have been one of the points that is kind of interesting though if again if you a comparative approach not just the germans, but you look at let's say the french in 1940 and i'm by no means an expert of the subject, but i've read enough in the literature to know that there's a lot of criticism of the french high command in 1940. example that the failure to really understand and properly deploy tanks that they're sort of an offensive weapon. they're not supposed to be just kind of sitting at strange intersections. i don't know kind of watching and observing that is kind of coordinating mobile warfare the soviets were they were more advanced, you know, they they didn't have their heads in the sand. you know, they they had both the experience of kind of watching and observing the campaigns in europe. they had their own recent experience in finland jukoff had some pretty serious experience the battle of calican gold against the japanese in the

summer of 1939. so while they definitely lost a lot of probably intellectual capital and preparation and the purges i know and there's a little bit of a sorting out that happens a very ruthless sorting out among the soviet generals in 1941 42 43 a lot of them. actually, of course get get executed among other things the same way that a lot of troops would have been shot for retreating. you know, there are a lot of no retreat orders. there's a ruthless sorting out and they obviously get better as there's there's a sharp learning curve and they definitely get better that soviet army of 1945. there's very little resemblance to the soviet army of 1941. i said, i think they should have been better prepared than they were. i do think that stalin while i don't buy the idea that he was, you know, completely shocked into this funk. i mean, we now have the the records we know for example, he was meeting regularly the first week after the invasion with everyone in the polit bureau. we creates the gk oats fairly standard in proforma. he doesn't suddenly disappear in a drunken stupor like people thought he did. no that said his not taking all of the the rumors and reports of

german preparations. seriously now if it did matter i'm you know, the orders given out to the front line troops. there had been an order to be essentially war ready, but without clear without clear instructions regarding the rules of engagement when to fire i mean that order was sent out early in the morning of the 22nd, but they should have been more prepared than they were but that said you can see all kinds of signs of preparation. i mean, they're canceling all furloughs. you know, they have everyone an extra guard duty. they're calling up pull it through the political officers. they're camoufl. it's not like they're not preparing. you know, it's they're not asleep. i mean, i think that's the the famous christopher clark metaphor about 1914. you know, they're not walking into it. but they definitely were i mean i think no one was was really prepared for what the kind of german onslaught actually meant. okay. well we so the the lindley's thing is still out there other people may want to ask questions about that. i don't know how you'd answer the question of how stalin on our counterfactual basis would have emerged as a as a great war

leader. they're not been a western front. so i don't know if we want to discuss that later on, but maybe jeremy you want to get the audience into the question. so we'll think about that and come back and round of applause for ian. johnson beacon. thank you for wonderful presentations. we'll start in the center here. in 1939 the french and british diplomats were trying to take advantage of the natural antithey between the nazis and the soviets and coming up with their own pack now about those efforts. i've read it viewed two opposite ways one that the british and the french missed a real opportunity to get a pact with stalin. and the other side is that no matter what the french and british would have promised stalin they could not offer as

good a deal as hitler. so i was wondering what your view on that was. i can take them your side. yeah, i'm so there there's a lot of discussion about collective security in this period you know how genuineous genuine was we're stalin's offers to partner with the british and french against germany. i think there there are not particularly honest or good faith efforts, even as with vinov is is broaching the possibility of collaboration with the british and french the soviets are consistently reaching out to the germans about how you know, renewing bringing back the good old times of earlier cooperation. they reach out to the germans multiple times in 34 35 36 and 38 about renewing military collaboration even as they're talking to the british and french if you actually look at the time line of negotiations in 39 already by december 1938 the soviet seemed pretty interested in a broad political and economic agreement with germany at that point one of the

documents. i found that's appears in my book the soviets come up with a list of 170 equipment purchases. they'd like to make from german industry including essentially every aircraft and tank. design that germany has there is no way the germans are going to sell them all of their high-tech stuff absent some sort of much broader political agreement. they provide this list to the germans in january 1939 and the germans say, oh, we're not sure if we're ready for that kind of commitment. it's the when the british and french then offer their guarantee to poland at that point the die is very much cast and i think really it's the germans and soviets are just dancing around seeing if they can trust each other and what the terms will look like in fact the very day that british and french negotiators arrive in moscow in august 1939 to conclude their own agreement with the soviets against nazi germany stalin. essentially, okay as a political agreement with the germans, so they're there in my opinion to drive up the price that stalin will get from from hitler. he's a you know, if nothing if not an effective poker player, but in terms of genuine efforts

after 1938, i see very little evidence of that from the soviet side. well, i fully agree with i'd be more interesting i didn't agree but no i fully agree the point here. the only thing i would add is that certainly the british and french didn't help their case. i mean, there's this famous story about how long it takes him to get there. they didn't fly, you know, they take this elderly steam or the city of exeter. drax doesn't even credentials. i mean, that is the british admirally literally does not have the authority to negotiate on behalf of britain, which is absurd the french took a much more. seriously there were much more desperate and do monk did have the credentials. i've seen some of the documents advanced and the french. yeah, there were realistic about it and they were really hoping they could cut some kind of a deal but that said it simply wasn't going to happen. i think just as ian said this was just about kind of driving up the price and i mean social life actually is stalin's kind of crony clear the one they named the kv tank after and kind of has some fun with them both with like, you know, he goes duck hunting and you know tells them he's too busy but no at one point. he also says, you know, so have you precurred permission from poland in romania for us to

violate the third vape basically and and how the french sorry? no, we don't and he says well, i'm sorry you have not procured this permission in advance the french our game enough. they sent an envoy quickly to warsaw to ask the polls if they're willing to permit the red army to invade poland. the answer is no the one other thing i'd know too is the soviets always knew they could get better terms from the germans the french and british would never have seed to the conquest of broad tracks of central and eastern europe and the germans were quite willing to consider that so at the end of the day stalin could always get more both economically and politically from a partnership with germany than he could from the british and french next question's with connie halfway back in the center aisle. hello gentleman, great talk. prior to you know, i guess starting the world britain. i mean germany knows it's greatly outnumbered at sea yet. they transfer. and complete hiper class cruiser to get lots of naval help to russia. yeah, i know style won't rebuilders navy.

knowing the imbalance in the wars getting ready to happen with britain. why me did the creek green know that we're going to invade a couple years later. it's like why do you give up whatever little bit you have? for whatever deal, they got out of it. do you sure well something to keep in mind as i do think there is some uncertainty in hitler's mind whether or not the british and french will honor their pledge to poland in in september 1939 up until essentially the moments of the british and french declaration of war he's being told by ribbon trop that i understand the british people. they're not there. you know, they're gonna back down there been behind the scenes diplomacy ongoing even after the german attack against poland. and so this is clearly playing a role that you know, there's a great hope that that naval forces will not become necessary and of course we see the great neglect of the german navy on the eve of war compared to the the army or luftwaffe part of a product. so i think this is part of the story the other thing i'd note is that this was something

stalin very much wanted. he had begun superintending the construction of the soviet navy in 1934 all the way down to calibers being procured for for different ships coastal defenses. this was something stalin wanted to manage personally. and so this was very much kind of a necessary part of an agreement if is going to get his his treaty very quickly in august 1939, which was his ultimate goal. the only thing i would add is that i mean the reason the germans do have to part with a lot of a lot of things which obviously germany didn't need is i mean, it was a bilateral deal and they were getting a lot from the russians. they're getting massive amounts of grain cotton manganese chrome as i think you mentioned and of course in particular petroleum, so the office are going to have to pony up something in exchange for all the raw materials and they're even getting rubber which is transcript which they cannot get otherwise, you know being trends shipped across the soviet union, so they have to give something, you know to get to get all this equipment and raw material which allows them to evade the british blockade. yeah, and perhaps one very final

note. the german navy does get certain things out of the molotov pact which are often forgotten. they are allowed to establish a naval base on soviet soil nor monsque soviet icebreakers will actually lead merchant raiders across the arctic only one actually makes it gets out in the pacific capture something like 18 british ships. it's flying a soviet flag some of the time to disguise itself. so there are elements of cooperation at sea that the germans are also getting in return for that naval assistance question here in the center, please. the us invaded russia interviewing the russian civil war in 1919 1920. and that question is how much did that drive the into the german camp? what do you write? i mean the us it was a somehow half-hearted intervention. i mean a very few us troops actually saw anything resembling combat that said you're right. i mean it was an important part of kind of the soviet both worldview foreign policy this allied intervention to be really honest. i don't think stalin remembered

or thought too seriously about the us intervention. however, he thought constantly about the british intervention particularly in the baltic. and so that's one of the big concerns visa v finland. i mean the pretext that the soviets used to invade finland is that it might be a launching pad for an invasion the soviet union when he's asked about this. who do you mean you know, he mentions britain, you know, britain is still seen as a potential adversary in 1939, 1940 and churchill significantly, even though you know my book he comes off. it's kind of rather soft on stalin until the end when he firms up. the churchill was of course an arch interventionist during the russian civil war. it was an office minister of war minister of munitions. he was a lot more firmly interventionist than lloyd. george was for example the british had also and this is quite significant. i didn't really talk about it today, but the baku plot said the soviets uncover where britain was, you know wargaming bombing baku in the spring of 1940 which effectively gave stall in the pretext for what an alcohol the cotton massacre. i don't have time to go into that.

you'll have to read the book, but the british had actually sent an expeditionary force to baku in 1918. and so in fact, he takes this quite seriously the threat of a british intervention even when they're talking about the balkans the reason he tells the germans, you know, we need bulgarian we need to station troops at the states is to keep the british navy out of the black sea where of course the british navy had gone in 1918 after the ottoman collapse. he's not really thinking about the american intervention. he's definitely thinking about the british intervention and the position because of course he was at the time, you know in a position of power and influence in 1918, and he knew what was going on with the british. yeah. absolutely. i would second that. the british were the the bigger threat from from stalin's viewpoint. and of course keep in mind, you know, the british also had an active combat force in the baltic during the russian civil war. they were assisting a number of these state seeking independence in the formers artist empire in addition. there's a plot at least from the soviet perspective that might involve the assassination of

senior leaders hatched out of the british embassy and petrograde during the russian civil war. they actually stormed the embassy kill a number of military officers. hold the rest hostage. they're seen as a much greater and longer term threat than the united states. thank you to our panelists dr. nick muellerdoug brinkley tell n

brinkley your mother.