Falsificators of History - Part 4
Operation Unthinkable and Western plans for war against the USSR
At the end of the Casablanca Conference on 24th January 1943, US President, Franklin Roosevelt, made a statement to the gathered press outlining the Western Allies’ strategy to defeat the Axis forces in Europe and the Pacific. The war would end only with the unconditional surrender of Germany, Italy and Japan. Roosevelt and British prime minister, Winston Churchill, had agreed unconditional surrender between themselves but had not discussed this demand with the third member of the ‘Big Three’, Soviet Premier, Josef Stalin. Stalin. When they heard, the Soviets were horrified by Roosevelt’s announcement, which they explained in detail at the subsequent Tehran Conference in November 1943.
“As a war time measure Marshal Stalin questioned the advisability of the unconditional surrender principle with no definition of the exact terms which would be imposed upon Germany. He felt that to leave the principle of unconditional surrender unclarified merely served to unite the German people, whereas to draw up specific terms, no matter how harsh, and tell the German people that this was what they would have to accept, would, in his opinion, hasten the day of German capitulation.”
http://www.wearswar.com/2022/01/28/the-mistaken-allied-demand-of-germanys-unconditional-surrender/
At this point in the war, the Soviets were bearing the brunt of the fight against Hitler’s Germany and had already suffered around 10 million casualties. Indeed, the Casablanca conference had been called by the Western Allies in response to Stalin’s accusation that they were not pulling their weight, having failed to open a second front in the west to relieve pressure on the Eastern Front. Stalin had expected British and US forces to launch an invasion in France, but the Western Allies had repeatedly demurred, claiming their forces were not ready. For the sake of Allied unity, the Soviets felt bound to publicly support Roosevelt and Churchill’s demand for unconditional surrender, even though they believed it could only increase German and Italian resistance and extend the war.
Soviet suspicions that Britain and the US were deliberately extending the war in an effort to exhaust both Germany and the Soviets received a boost when they read the Allies plans for 1943-44. Instead of the expected second front in France - the most logical and direct route to attack Germany - the Western Allies planned to invade Sicily.
The Allied invasion of French North Africa, Operation Torch, in 1942 had almost proved to be a debacle. Against second rate and exhausted Vichy French, Italian and German Eighth Army units, the Western Allies had come within a whisker of defeat. It was readily apparent to western strategists that a major undertaking like the invasion of France would require considerably more training and preparation than they had anticipated. This could only be achieved in secondary theatres where the Axis were already under pressure and reinforcements and supplies could be interdicted.
However, even a cursory look at a European theatre map would have highlighted that the invasion of Sicily would be nothing more than a sideshow. As an island in the central Mediterranean, Sicily was a threat to Allied convoy routes perhaps, but it could have been blockaded, trapping and isolating the Italian and German garrisons there. Sicily’s landscape was rugged and mountainous, difficult for tanks and, being a backward quarter of Italy, did not have adequate road or rail networks to support mechanized warfare. Most importantly - once conquered, then what? From Sicily the Allies would then need to mount another difficult amphibious landing on the Italian mainland. There were only limited places a large army could be landed in Italy itself, so any landings would be fiercely contested by prepared and dug in troops. Assuming that a footing was gained in Italy, the route north into Central Europe was blocked by mountains, restricted by limited road and rail routes, all easily defendable, before Allied forces arrived at the base of that great barrier to north-south invaders since time immemorial - the Alps. The ‘soft underbelly of Europe’ strategy that Churchill was so fond of appeared to the Soviets as nothing more than a deliberate plan to stretch out the war. The Soviets would continue pressing Britain and the US to open up a western front against Germany, but secretly they determined that they must destroy Germany themselves.
No Negotiations with Nazi Germany - except in Secret
While Roosevelt and Churchill were declaring a policy of “unconditional surrender” and assuring the world that they would never enter into any separate peace with Nazi Germany, secret negotiations were in fact going on behind the scenes in Lisbon and Switzerland. As documented in the Soviet “Falsificators of History, 1948 pg 56, captured documents from the Reich Foreign Ministry in Berlin revealed:
“….. that in the autumn of 1941 and also in 1942 and 1943, in Lisbon and in Switzerland, negotiations were carried on, behind the back of the USSR, between representatives of Britain and Germany, and later between representatives of the United States of America and Germany, on the subject of peace with Germany.
One of the documents - a supplement to a report by Weizsaecker, the German Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs - reviews the course of these negotiations in Lisbon in September 1941. This document shows that on September 13, there was a meeting between Aitken, the son of Lord Beaverbrook, an officer of the British Army and later a Member of Parliament, representing Britain, and Gustav von Koever, a Hungarian, who acted with the authority of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs; this can be seen from a letter addressed by Krauel, the German Consul General in Geneva, to Weizsaecker, the German Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs.
During the course of these negotiations Aitken posed the question directly: "Could not the coming winter and spring be used to discuss, behind the scenes, the possibilities of peace ?"
In fact, within only days of Roosevelt’s “unconditional surrender” declaration, Allan Dulles, US secret envoy in the negotiations with Nazi Germany carried out in Switzerland, was advising the German representative,
“In future, a situation will never again be permitted to arise where nations like Germany would be compelled to resort to desperate experiments and heroism as a result of injustice and want. The German State must continue to exist as a factor of order and rehabilitation. The partition of Germany or the separation of Austria is out of the question.”
Dulles stated his view that the future Europe required a strong, German-led anti-communist federation,
"... by extending Poland to the East and preserving Romania and a strong Hungary, the establishment of a cordon sanitaire against Bolshevism and Pan-Slavism must be supported"
The Soviets were well aware of western back-channel communications, as they too had their own back-channels with the Nazis. They also had numerous spies and socialist fellow-travelers in positions of power in Britain and the US - especially in Britain - who fed through important intelligence.
D-Day and the Race to the East
Since the outset of the war, there were many in the US, such as future US President Harry Truman, who hoped that the great Soviet-German conflict would exhaust both combatants, allowing the Western Allies to sweep in at the end and subdue both. Indeed, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler had been warning the British since 1941 the the German-British would only benefit the United States and the “international financiers” behind them. By the beginning of 1944, it was clear to everyone that the defeat of Hitler’s Germany by the Soviet juggernaut was all but assured. Western strategists reviewing their maps suddenly became worried that the Soviet’s would roll all the way to Paris, especially if the Germans continued fighting through the occupied territories. It suddenly became imperative that the Western Allies open the western front so as to limit the extent of the Soviet advance.
With the Germany army being crushed on the eastern front, the Western Allies expected to make a swift advance across western Europe after they broke out of the Normandy beachheads. Unfortunately this was wishful thinking. Although often second rate, under-strength and outnumbered, Germany’s western armies fought doggedly against US and British forces, who made repeated tactical and strategic errors. The Allies also found that the demand for Germany’s unconditional surrender made German resistance harder to break (this obvious fact is still debated by western historians as if there is some mystery here). Nevertheless, secret and increasingly desperate negotiations were being undertaken behind the scenes. Documentary evidence for these negotiations has been suppressed, but there is ample circumstantial evidence, for example:
The stated objectives of the Hitler assassination plot (Operation Valkyrie 1944) was to remove the Nazi leadership and negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies while continuing the war with the Soviets.
Reichmarshall Hermann Goering was involved in informal peace negotiations with the Western Allies from late 1944 through Swedish intermediaries.
Head of the SS Heinrich Himmler was involved in informal peace negotiations with the Western Allies from early 1945 through Swedish intermediaries.
Adolf Hitler’s replacement as Fuhrer, Grand Admiral Karl Donitz’, stated strategy was to negotiate a separate peace with the Western Allies in order to continue the war against the Soviets.
Within German leadership circles there was a firm belief that a separate peace with Britain and the United States would be achieved, followed by a combined German-Allied campaign to push the Soviets back from central and eastern Europe. Whilst one may argue that any such Allied negotiations may have been undertaken in bad faith to undermine Nazi resistance, these negotiations were taking place and in some detail.
That the Western Allies prepared a number of plans for a surprise attack on their former ally is now well known. On 22 May 1945 - only 14 days after the German surrender - the Joint Planning Staff presented to the British War Cabinet their assessment of Operation Unthinkable. The plan involved a combined attack by British, Commonwealth and US troops on the Soviet Union, supported by German and Polish divisions. In order to provide this assessment, which included the use of surviving German divisions, work on this plan must have begun in earnest prior to the German surrender. German unit strength, materiel, morale and operational planning must have been taken into account and this can only have come from the Germans themselves.
OPERATION UNTHINKABLE
REPORT BY THE JOINT PLANNING STAFF
We have examined Operation Unthinkable. As instructed, we have taken the following assumptions on which to base our examination:
The undertaking has the full support of public opinion in the British Empire and the United States and consequently, the morale of British and American troops continues high.
Great Britain and the United States have full assistance from the Polish armed forces and can count upon the use of German manpower and what remains of German industrial capacity.
No credit is taken for assistance from the forces of the other Western Powers, although any bases in their territory, or other facilities which may be required, are made available
Russia allies herself with Japan.
The date for the opening of hostilities is 1st July, 1945.
Redeployment and release schemes continue till 1st July and then stop.
Owing to the special need for secrecy, the normal staff in Service Ministries have not been consulted.
OBJECT
The overall or political object is to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and British Empire.
Even though ‘the will’ of these two countries may be defined as no more than a square deal for Poland, that does not necessarily limit the military commitment. A quick success might induce the Russians to submit to our will at least for the time being; but it might not. That is for the Russians to decide. If they want total war, they are in a position to have it.
The only way we can achieve our object with certainty and lasting results is by victory in a total war but in view of what we have said in paragraph 2 above, on the possibility of quick success, we have thought it right to consider the problem on two hypotheses:-
a. That a total war is necessary, and on this hypothesis we have examined our chances of success.
b. That the political appreciation is that a quick success would suffice to gain our political object and that the continuing commitment need not concern us.
TOTAL WAR
Apart from the chances of revolution in the USSR and the political collapse of the present regime – on which we are not competent to express an opinion – the elimination of Russia could only be achieved as a result of:
a) the occupation of such areas of metropolitan Russia that the war making capacity of the country would be reduced to a point at which further resistance became impossible.
b) Such a decisive defeat of the Russian forces in the field as to render it impossible for the USSR to continue the war.
Occupation of Vital Areas of Russia
The situation might develop in such a way that Russians succeeded in withdrawing without suffering a decisive defeat. They would then presumably adopt the tactics which they had employed so successfully against the Germans and in previous wars of making use of the immense distances with which their territory provides them. In 1941 the Germans reached the Moscow area, the Volga and the Caucasus, but the technique of factory evacuation, combined with the development of new resources and Allied assistance, enabled the U.S.S.R. to continued fighting.
There was virtually no limit to the distance to which it would be necessary for the Allies to penetrate into Russia in order to render further resistance impossible. It is far as, or as quickly as, the Germans in 1942 and this penetration no decisive result.
Decisive Defeat of the Russian Forces
Details of the present strengths and dispositions of the Russian and Allied forces are given in Annexes II and III and illustrated maps A and B. The existing balance of strength in Central Europe, where the Russians enjoy a superiority of approximately three to one, makes it most unlikely that the Allies could achieve a complete and decisive victory in that area in present circumstances. Although Allied organisation is better, equipment slightly better and morale higher, the Russians have proved themselves formidable opponents of the Germans. They have competent commanders, adequate equipment and an organisation which though possibly inferior by our standards, has stood the test. On the other hand, only about one third of their divisions are of a high standard, the others being considerably inferior and with overall mobility well below that of the Allies.
To achieve the decisive defeat of Russia in a total war would require, in particular, the mobilisation of manpower to counteract their present enormous manpower resources. This is a very long term project and would involve:-
The deployment in Europe of a large proportion of the vast resources of the United States.
The re-equipment and re-organisation of German manpower and of all the Western Allies.
Conclusions
We conclude that:-
That if our political object is to be achieved with any certainty and with lasting results, the defeat of Russia in a total war will be necessary.
The result of a total war with Russia is not possible to forecast, but the one thing certain is that to win it would take us a very long time.
QUICK SUCCESS
It might, however, be considered, as result of a political appreciation, that a quick and limited military success would result in Russia accepting out terms.
Before a decision to open hostilities were made, full account would have to taken of the following:-
If this appreciation is wrong and the attainment of whatever limited objective we may set ourselves does not cause Russia to submit to our terms, we may, in fact, be committed to a total war.
It will not be possible to limit hostilities to any particular area. While we are in progress, therefore, we must envisage a world-wide struggle.
Even if all goes according to plan, we shall not have achieved, from the military point of view, a lasting result. The military power of Russia will not be broken and it will be open to her to recommence the conflict at any time she sees fit.
Assuming, however, that it is decided to risk military action on a limited basis, accepting the dangers set out above, we have examined what action we could take in order to inflict such a blow upon the Russians as would cause them to accept our terms, even though they would not have been decisively defeated and, from the military point of view, would still be capable of continuing the struggle.
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/cold-war-on-file/operation-unthinkable/
The thinking behind Operation Unthinkable is extremely muddled, with many contradictory statements and assessments, and fortunately saner heads prevailed. It is interesting to note that the authors assess public opinion as being behind such a move.
“The undertaking has the full support of public opinion in the British Empire and the United States and consequently, the morale of British and American troops continues high.”
Given that this was a top secret plan, suppressed for decades, clearly no actual assessment of public support for such a move was undertaken. Morale was high at home and in the armed forces because the Allies were winning and the end of the war was in sight. Had the political leadership then decided to embark on what would have been an extremely long and likely catastrophic disaster of an attack on the Soviet Union, then morale would likely have collapsed.
The planners also under-estimate the likely moral backlash against any new alliance with Nazi Germany. The Soviets had been our allies and everyone knew the sacrifice they had made. No matter how suspicious people may have been about communism, they simply could not be transformed into monsters overnight. Certainly not monsters on the scale of the Nazis. As the Soviets had advanced across Byelorussia and Poland and liberated the camps, the horror of what had occurred to the Jews and other minorities had been exposed. While the western public had brushed aside news of mass starvation of Soviet prisoners and individual outrages in Soviet-Jewish villages, the concept of mass extermination in death camps sent waves of visceral horror and outrage around the world. Stories of industrial slaughter in gas chambers were most likely exaggerated by Soviet propaganda - the evidence is flimsy at best and most ‘gas chambers’ are now admitted as being post-war reconstructions - did their part to ensure that the Nazis could not simply be rehabilitated. That well had been successfully poisoned, like the millions of Nazism’s civilian victims. A multi-generation long campaign of Soviet - Russian propaganda would be required.
Himmler - and other leading Nazis - and their secret negotiations with the western allies is covered in Mark Felton's video. https://youtu.be/Zn38TLpvRp0?si=qo8WU_4CKezFRXRY