1941: World War II

The Background for 1941.

The year 1941 will remain forever one of the decisive years of world history. The Second World War which had started on Sept. 1, 1939, as a war between Germany and Poland, and which had widened during 1940 into a decisive struggle between Germany and the large and small democratic states of Europe, especially of western and northern Europe, not only continued unabated, during 1941, but steadily widened the scope of its operations, engulfing finally all six continents in direct warfare and broadening into a struggle for world dominion.

The year 1939 had witnessed the conquest of Poland by Germany according to the by now familiar 'pattern of conquest,' which had been employed by National Socialist Germany as by all other Fascist powers, and which had been analysed in an excellent and incisive way by Joseph C. Harsch, the former Berlin correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor, in his recent book Pattern of Conquest. On the first day of the surprise attack, before Poland could fully mobilize, the German air force had destroyed with one mighty blow the Polish air force and the Polish communications, and from that moment on had kept supremacy of the air. The conquest was followed by the Nazi policy of dominating subjected peoples within the 'New Order' which consisted for the Poles in the extermination of their leading classes and intellectuals and in the reduction of the masses to serfdom. This pattern of conquest and dominion was faithfully followed, wherever Fascist influence spread.

While the year 1939 witnessed the temporary extinction of one of the European nations reconstituted after the first World War, the year 1940 was notable not only for the continuation of this process, but also for the conquest, by the sudden and treacherous attacks of Germany, of some of the oldest and most renowned nations of western and northern Europe.

The war of 1940, still limited mainly to western Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, unfolded itself in four phases. The first period, down to April 9, 1940, was a period of relative quiet and of a tremendous speed-up in German military preparations, while the democratic nations, France, Great Britain and the United States, continued to feel secure behind their Maginot Line and Atlantic Ocean and counted upon their potential resources instead of mobilizing them in an all-out effort. The result of these different attitudes was seen in the second phase which began on April 9, when in the early morning hours, without any warning and in spite of repeated solemn declarations of friendship and non-aggression, Germany attacked and occupied the peaceful, neutral and isolationist democracies of Denmark and Norway, which had taken no part whatsoever in the preceding struggles of the European powers. This attack upon the two northern democracies was followed on May 10 by the similar invasion of Luxemburg, the Netherlands, and Belgium, and the sudden destruction of the positions of these countries put France and Great Britain into deadly peril. France succumbed, partly as the result of the inefficiency of its General Staff, and partly as a result of defeatism and treachery, and asked, on June 17, 1940, for an armistice. The defeat gave the internal enemies of French democracy the opportunity to seize power in France and to establish a pro-Fascist government of appeasement and of cooperation with Germany. The disintegration and humiliation of France became for other democratic nations an object lesson of the destructive work which Fascist propaganda of appeasement, anti-Semitism and neutrality can play in the downfall of a once proud nation. Several books, among which Arthur Koestler's Scum of the Earth may rightly claim a high artistic value, have rendered a graphic account of the tragic events of May and June 1940.

With the fall of France, Hitler and many of his sympathizers in all lands were convinced that the war was practically over and that the 'wave of the future,' as Fascism liked to call itself, was really irresistible and destined to become the fate of mankind. Italy had entered the war as an active belligerent on the side of Germany on June 10, when France already lay prostrate and when the British collapse at home and in the Mediterranean was thought imminent by all Fascist sympathizers. The fact that the British people did not succumb to the propaganda of Fascism, terror and appeasement, will forever remain one of the great heroic deeds of history. In spite of England's inferior armaments — the result of a long-standing policy of appeasement and pro-Germanism — the British resistance broke the so-called 'wave of the future' and thus gave the United States the time to realize the threat to its existence and to begin to arm. By saving themselves, the British, under the leadership of Winston Churchill, may be credited with saving all other free peoples. In the famous 'air blitz' of Britain, in September 1940, the British air force frustrated the attempt of the vaunted German Luftwaffe to bomb Britain into submission. Many British cities were destroyed, causing enormous industrial damage, yet the spirit of England not only remained unbroken, but according to all observers underwent a thorough process of regeneration. Of the many eye-witness reports of the new England which arose from the ruins, the brief account, This Is England Today, by Allan Nevins, one of the leading American historians, could be mentioned. The actual story of the Royal Air Force in the first great air battle in history was well presented in the official British Air Ministry Record under the title The Battle of Britain.

The fourth phase of the war brought Italy into play with her sudden and treacherous invasion of Greece on Oct. 28, 1940, and her attempt to conquer Egypt and the Suez Canal. Both these attempts ended in dismal failure. It was proven that the Fascist régime, contrary to all its propaganda, did in no way represent efficiency or superiority over a democratic régime even in the chosen field of Fascist activity, military organization and fighting spirit. In spite of the long preparations of the Fascists, who had been in power for 18 years, and in spite of all their quantitative superiority, the Italian armies were badly defeated by the heroic yet small Greek army and by the weak British forces in Egypt. By the end of 1940 the successful survival of Great Britain on the English Channel and the defeat of Italy in the Mediterranean had fundamentally changed the situation. The majority of the American people were beginning to awaken to the dangers which a German control of Europe and Africa and of the Atlantic Ocean would involve for America's survival as a great democratic power. Surprised by Britain's resistance and afraid that the war might in spite of his plans continue into 1941, Hitler concluded on Sept. 27, 1940, an alliance between Germany, Japan and Italy which was openly directed against the United States (See NEW WORLD ORDER). Thus the basis was created for the fusion of the European war which Hitler had started for the conquest of Europe, Africa and the Atlantic, and of the Asiatic war which Japan had started for the conquest of the Far East and the Pacific Ocean, into a World War for the conquest of the world by Germany and Japan. Backed by this union with Japan, and encouraged by the indecision of America and the isolation of the democracies, Hitler at the beginning of 1941 still promised the German people that the new year would bring full and complete victory. On Sept. 4, 1940, he had addressed the Germans: 'Whatever may come, England will break down. I recognize no other termination than this one alone. The people of England are very curious and ask: why in the world don't you come? We are coming.... All of England's allies will not help her — neither Haile Selassie, nor King Zog, nor King Haakon, nor even Queen Wilhelmina.' And in his New Year's message he said that under the blows of the German army 'the last boastings of the war-mongers will collapse, thus achieving the final conditions for a true understanding among the peoples. The democratic elements interested in war must be annihilated.... Whatever may happen, Germany will take with cool determination all the steps necessary to reach this goal. Every power which eats of democracy will die of it.' And in his proclamation to the German army he said: 'The year 1941 will bring the completion of the greatest victory in our history.' All these prophesies remain unfulfilled. By the end of 1941 no completion of the greatest victory was yet in sight for the Germans. England still continued unconquered, the English people were still very curious and asking: why in the world doesn't he come? But England had found more allies than those with which Hitler's aggression in 1940 had provided her, Norway and the Netherlands. Haile Selassie was back on his throne in Addis Ababa by the end of 1941, and Hitler's conquests had provided Great Britain with the two potentially most powerful nations on earth, the Soviet Union and the United States, as allies.

The Four Phases of the War in 1941.

This was the background against which the momentous events of the year 1941 took place. The stage of the war was no longer confined to western Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. As its second phase opened, its center shifted to the Mediterranean and the Near East, and with the opening of the third phase at the beginning of the summer, to the immense plains of Russia from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea and the Caucasian Mountains. Before winter had set in however, the war had spread to the Pacific Ocean and had involved the western hemisphere and the Far East in an immense chain which now girded the whole circumference of the globe.

Although the year 1941 ended, at least for the time being, rather unfavorably for the United States and for the whole area of the Far East, the war in Europe had taken a definite turn for the better and Hitler found himself on the defensive in Russia as well as in Africa, without having been able, by the end of 1941, to undertake successful counter-operation anywhere in Europe. On the other hand Germany and Japan found themselves faced for the first time not by victims in isolation, but by a united front of nations struggling for survival as free nations. This collaboration, unfortunately, had not been brought about by the free will or the intelligent understanding of the nations involved: both the Soviet Union and the United States had been forced into the war by German and Japanese aggression, so that it may be said that by the end of 1941 Hitler himself had forged against himself a powerful coalition of great nations having at their command immense and formidable resources. Thus the alignments were clearly drawn for the greatest war of all human history, a war which not only truly deserved the name of World War, but which in fact was a war to decide the future of the whole world for generations to come — whether men were to live according to the Fascist pattern of life under the domination of the German and Japanese master races, or whether they were to live according to the Anglo-American democratic principles of liberty and justice for all.

The First Phase.

Battle of the Atlantic.

On Christmas Eve 1940, the supreme commander of all the German armed forces, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, addressed his armies triumphantly from the Channel Coast: 'A great and proud year has passed. Once again I speak to you under a Christmas tree. The last time was before the Maginot Line, which was supposed to protect France and could not. Today we are before a sea wall that will protect England only so long as it suits us. England now stands alone. So we have only one more task to do: beat this last and most embittered opponent to the ground and therewith win peace.'

Germany's efforts during the first part of the year 1941 were directed towards this goal set her by the commander-in-chief. The battle of the air in which Great Britain had won an unexpected victory in the fall of 1940, was replaced in the first part of 1941 by the great battle of the Atlantic. Again as in the summer and fall of 1940, Hitler announced coming decisive victories in such a determined way, that many of his sympathizers all over the world were convinced that Germany's preparations for the naval struggle were so grandiose that England's sea power would be broken and that the small but tenacious island would be forced into submission by starvation and by the loss of all the raw materials on which its defense industries depended. On Feb. 24 he delivered an address to the early party members in the famous Hofbrauhaus in Munich, in which he triumphantly reported that he had just received the news that in two days 215,000 tons of British shipping had been sunk, of which 190,000 tons were accounted for by submarines. 'Our struggle at sea only now can begin. Those gentlemen must be prepared for still bigger events in March and April. Wherever British ships cruise we shall set against them our submarines until the hour of decision.'

Undoubtedly the threat to Britain's sea-lanes was most serious. The sinking of British ships began to assume proportions as high as 150,000 tons and more a week. It became clear that Great Britain could not long withstand such losses. Fortunately, however, the British Admiralty was soon able to devise protective measures which defeated Germany's relentless submarine warfare in 1941 as they had done in 1917. The situation of Great Britain, however, was much more serious than it had been in 1917. Not only had the German navy many additional bases at its disposal, from Norway to Spain, which she did not hold in 1917, but the threat of the submarine was increased by the threat of the long-range bomber. On the other hand, England had lost the important naval bases in Ireland which the British Government in 1938 had ceded unconditionally to Mr. de Valera's government, relying apparently on Ireland's cooperation in case of war. Even more serious was the fact that the British Navy had to spread its strength over immense areas and could not concentrate, as in the First World War, on the Northern Atlantic. While in the First World War Italy had been an ally, and thus the Mediterranean was kept safe by the combined efforts of the Italian and French navies, this time Italy was an enemy and the French fleet, after the French defection under Pétain in June 1940, was at best a neutral factor, at the worst a potential open enemy. Thus part of the British fleet had to protect the Mediterranean, and part had to be dispatched to the Far East, to be on guard against a possible act of Japanese hostility. In the First World War Japan was an ally of Great Britain. This perilous situation which threatened the establishment of German control over the Atlantic, was somewhat eased during 1941 by the increased collaboration of the American and British navies in the interests of American self-defense, which depended fundamentally on a control of the Atlantic ocean by America or friendly nations.

Italian Reverses in Albania and Libya.

While the Battle of the Atlantic threatened to take a dangerous turn for the allies, the Greek campaign against the Italians in Albania and the British campaign against the Italians in Libya continued to develop successfully. In spite of the fact that a large part of the German air force was sent to the Mediterranean to help Italy stave off shattering defeats, and in spite of the fact that German dive bombers successfully attacked a British convoy near Sicily, sinking the cruiser Southampton and damaging the airplane carrier Illustrious, the British continued their victorious African campaign. Their numerically inferior forces captured more than 150,000 war prisoners, among them 19 generals and one admiral. The Italian armies, though they had long prepared for desert warfare under the command of Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, seemingly melted away before the British drive which in quick succession took one important point in Libya after the other; on Jan. 5 Bardia, on Jan. 22 the heavily fortified Tobruk, on Jan. 30 Derna, and finally on Feb. 6 the capital of eastern Libya or Cyrenaica, Bengasi. By Feb. 12 the whole of eastern Libya was in British hands. The British had been helped valiantly by Free French forces acting from the Tchad region in French Equatorial Africa. This was of utmost importance because it secured the left flank of the advancing British army in Libya, while the Free French themselves attacked important oases in southern Libya.

British Invasion of Italian East Africa.

Thus while the Italian Empire in northern Africa threatened to collapse under the impact of British forces, Great Britain started simultaneously an invasion of Italian East Africa, invading the old Italian colonies of Eritrea and Italian Somaliland from the north and from the south, and aiding Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, to recapture the empire from which the Italians had driven him in the spring of 1936. On Jan. 20 British troops began the invasion of Eritrea, on Feb. 12 they had advanced decisively in Italian Somaliland, on March 26 they recaptured Harar, second city and a strategic key-point in Ethiopia, and by April 1941 all important points of Ethiopia, including the capital, Addis Ababa, and the old Italian colonies, including Asmara, chief city of Eritrea, were in British hands. Isolated Italian garrisons held out until the fall, but by the end of 1941 Britain was undisputed master of Italian East Africa, and many thousand Italians, among them the Viceroy, the Duke of Aosta, were British prisoners.

The strengthened position of Great Britain on land was also reflected in the air. Though Britain was still unable to launch a large-scale offensive against Germany, nevertheless the British air force was no longer confined to purely defensive action, but able to raid industrial centers of western Germany and, with greater success and power, the German naval bases on the French and Belgian coast and in northwestern Germany. New hope came to Great Britain and the oppressed peoples of Europe from the American Lend-Lease Bill, which pledged ships to win the battle of the Atlantic and to assure the supply of goods to besieged Britain, and airplanes to give to Great Britain air superiority in the combat with Germany.

German Penetration of the Balkans.

Meanwhile however, attention was drawn more and more to the Balkans. There German penetration went apace. In Rumania, where the native Fascist organization, the Iron Guard, revolted in January against what it regarded as the sell-out of Rumania to Germany, the suppression of this revolt delivered the country and its government under Gen. Antonescu completely into German hands. Simultaneously with strengthening her grip on Rumania, Germany also got complete control of Hungary. Secret negotiations went on between Germany and Bulgaria, and though the government of Bulgaria denied any intention of joining Germany, on March 1 the Bulgarian prime minister signed his country's adherence to the German controlled Axis, and allowed the occupation of Bulgaria by German troops. Thus, with Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria having been turned into German satellites and occupied by German troops, Yugoslavia found herself encircled on three sides and Greece found herself in danger of a German attack from the north. Under these conditions leading British statesmen and strategists were in consultation with the three still independent Balkan governments, Turkey, Greece and Yugoslavia. The English foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, and the chief of the British General Staff, Sir John Dill, visited the first two of these countries.

In view of the danger of a German attack upon Greece, the British were faced with the decision whether to continue their victorious advance in Libya into Tripolitania, thus to liquidate completely the Italian hold on north Africa and gain from Tripoli a base to attack southern Italy, or whether to weaken their forces in Libya by dispatching a large part of them to Greece, there to help to stem a possible German advance. The British commander-in-chief, Gen. Archibald Wavell, decided on the second course in view of Britain's commitments to help Greece. Thus the British in Libya did not advance beyond El Aghelia, south of Bengasi, and allowed German reinforcements to come to the help of the Italian troops still existing in western Libya or Tripolitania. The Germans sent large numbers of tanks under the command of Gen. Erwin von Rommel, and the fact the British troops had withdrawn from Libya to Greece made it possible for German and Italian armored forces to occupy El Agheila on March 24 and to launch a drive which forced the British to evacuate Bengasi on April 3. Thus the first phase of the war in 1941 ended without any weakening of the position of Great Britain. On the contrary from a purely defensive position, Great Britain had changed to one of offensive, not so much in the air or on the European continent as in the African theatre. While Great Britain had been badly battered by the German air offensive, she was still standing; while a dangerously large number of ships were sunk, the lines of communication had been kept open in the Atlantic and British naval control in the Mediterranean had never been seriously shaken by the combined efforts of the Italian navy and the German and Italian air forces.

Before Bulgaria threw in her lot with Germany in a campaign of conquest, Churchill in a broadcast of Feb. 9 warned her not to underestimate the prospects of a British victory: 'One of our difficulties is to convince some of these neutral countries that we are going to win. We think it astonishing that they should be so dense as not to see it as clearly as we do ourselves. I remember in the last war, in July 1915, we began to think that Bulgaria was going wrong, so Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Bonar Law, Sir F. E. Smith, and I asked the Bulgarian Minister to dinner to explain to him what a fool King Ferdinand would make of himself if he were to go in on the losing side. It was no use. The poor man simply could not believe it or his government believe it. So Bulgaria, against the wishes of her peasant population, and against all her interests, fell in at the Kaiser's tail and got steadily carved up and punished when the victory was won. I trust that Bulgaria is not going to make the same mistake again. If they do, the Bulgarian peasantry and people, for whom there has been much regard both in Great Britain and the United States, will for the third time in 30 years have been made to embark upon a needless and disastrous war.' And in the same speech Prime Minister Churchill gave on behalf of the British people the following answer to President Roosevelt: 'Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessing and under Providence all will be well. We shall not fail or falter. We shall not weaken or starve. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job.'

The Second Phase.

German Conquest in the Balkans.

The second phase of the war year 1941 stood under the sign of the great German victories in the Balkan peninsula. It is true that these victories were achieved against forces which, while fighting heroically, nevertheless were doomed to defeat from the beginning by their vastly inferior mechanical equipment and by their lack of united command. In his speech on Feb. 24, Hitler proclaimed that 'the German people are winter-proof. They have survived thousands of winters in their history, and they are going to survive this one. They said there would be famine. We think however, that it is our enemies rather than us who are going to have famine. They also said, 'Time will help.' Time, however, helps him who works. Nobody is working more industriously than we. I have taken on many democrat enemies in the past, and so far have always emerged victoriously from the struggle. Just now, in fact, I feel so fit. Spring is coming which we all welcome. The time is coming again when one can measure strength against strength.'

This 'spring' came on April 6 when the German armies simultaneously invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. As a result of the German breakthrough to the middle and lower Vardar river in southern Yugoslavia the issue of the campaign was decided in the first two days. The Germans succeeded in separating the Yugoslav army from the Greek army, and by April 8 they occupied Skoplje in southern Serbia and Salonika in northeastern Greece. From that moment on the German advance through Yugoslavia from the north and from the south was irresistible. They were helped by treachery within Yugoslavia and by the defection of the Croats. Though organized military resistance in Yugoslavia came to an end by April 18, the Serbs did not surrender. Like other European peoples, but even with greater courage and will to sacrifice, they continued the struggle by well organized guerrilla warfare, and until the end of 1941 Serbia could in no way be regarded as really conquered. Centers of resistance continued throughout the country, and many towns were occupied again and again by the insurgents. Though the Germans proceeded with a savage system of reprisals and mass executions, they could not establish their administration in the land and were continually challenged by victorious guerrilla troops.

The official struggle lasted somewhat longer in Greece. By April 12 the British and Greek troops had to abandon Macedonia completely and had fallen back to a line running around Mount Olympus. By April 16 they had to abandon this defensive line and by April 19 the Germans captured Larissa and Mount Olympus. A last stand of British forces at the famous Pass of Thermopylae occurred on April 25 and on April 27 Athens was in the possession of the German army. The Greek government and the last remnants of the British troops withdrew to the island of Crete, but on May 20 the Germans invaded the island by air-borne troops and by June 1 the last British troops were withdrawn from the island, after the Greek king and government had escaped to Egypt.

While thus the war in the Balkans ended disastrously for the British and their allies, complications were piling up for them in many other parts. The Germans resumed the air war on Britain in the spring; Plymouth was subjected to a ferocious attack which lasted three days at the end of April, and at the beginning of May, Liverpool became the chief target of the German bombers, who staged also on May 10 a heavy raid on London. But the British were able to answer in June with an air offensive of their own against the industrial and railway centers of western Germany. A great blow was struck to the British fleet when on May 24 the British battle cruiser Hood was sunk by the new German battleship Bismarck near Greenland. But the British chased the Bismarck across the Atlantic, located the ship on May 27 and sank it. More important, however, were the complications in the diplomatic field. In France the so-called Vichy government, which had been established under Marshal Pétain as a result of the breakdown of the French army in June 1940 and which had pursued a policy of collaboration with Germany, reorganizing France on a Fascist basis, had come more and more under the influence of Admiral Darlan, second in command to and heir-designate of Marshal Pétain. Admiral Darlan had expressed in several speeches his intense enmity for Great Britain and his ardent desire for open participation in the war on the side of Germany. It was especially the question of the disposition of the French fleet and the use, for a German attack upon British and Allied positions, of the French Colonial Empire in Syria and North Africa, which was the center of attention. In the naval battle in the Atlantic and especially in the Mediterranean, the still powerful French fleet could have been an important factor, while the French position in Syria and in North Africa could become of decisive importance for the German plans of attack against the Suez Canal, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.

British Occupation of Iraq and Syria.

After the conquest of Crete by the Germans, it was generally supposed that the Germans would use the nearby air bases in Syria for an attack against the British position in Palestine on the eastern flank of the Suez Canal, and in Iraq with its very valuable oil fields and its approach to the Persian Gulf and India. This danger was even increased, when by a military coup d'état a pro-Nazi government came to power in Iraq. In view of the dangerous situation the British saw themselves forced on May 2 to enter into open hostilities against the Iraq government with the view of restoring the legitimate, pro-British Iraq government. The Iraqis succeeded in besieging the British garrison in the air port of Habbaniyah, but the British relieved the siege, at the same time moved their troops northward from Basra, and by the end of May the hostilities in Iraq had come to an end. The pro-Nazi premier had fled, and a new government was instituted in Iraq.

But the French bases in North Africa, especially in Tunisia, seemed as important as the Syrian bases. In the month of April, German and Italian forces had succeeded in recapturing eastern Libya with the exception of Tobruk, where an Australian garrison held out until finally relieved in December 1941. British troops found themselves thrown back again to the borders of Egypt and had to abandon, except for Tobruk, all the gains achieved during the winter 1940-41. The occupation of French Tunisia with its important naval base, Bizerta, would have given the Germans an immense advantage for the control of the sea lanes of the Mediterranean and for the supply of their own troops in North Africa. Likewise, French cooperation with the Germans would not only have threatened the British position in the Mediterranean, it would also have had a disastrous effect upon the security of the southern Atlantic, in the event that the French should extend the collaboration to the coast of northwest Africa, with its important ports of Casa Blanca and Dakar.

This danger of a close collaboration between Vichy France and Germany against the democracies became acute when Admiral Darlan went to Berchtesgaden to meet Chancellor Hitler on May 11, and when 3 days later it was reported that the Vichy cabinet had approved Hitler's terms of German-French collaboration, although these terms were not disclosed. And although Marshal Pétain declared that collaboration with Germany was to be only political and economic, and that the Vichy government had no intention of fighting Great Britain or the United States, nevertheless collaboration meant putting French resources at the disposal of Germany. It was in view of this situation that British and Free French forces invaded Syria on June 7, to forestall the use of this country as a German basis for an attack upon the Suez Canal. Crete, which had been evacuated a week before by the British, appeared as a convenient jumping-off ground for air-borne troops to be landed on the Syrian air fields which, as the British charged, the French had put at the disposal of the Germans. The British and Free French proceeded only slowly with their advance into Syria, so as to avoid any unnecessary bloodshed, but on June 15 they reached Saida on the Mediterranean shore south of Beirut, and on June 21 they occupied the Syrian capital of Damascus. By July 12 an armistice gave Syria to the British, and the Free French proclaimed the independence of Syria which now collaborated with the Allies in helping to create a united defense line stretching from the western border of Egypt to the Turkish frontier.

Reasons for German Attack on Russia.

By these measures Great Britain seemed better prepared to resist a German attack in the Near and Middle East. But the attack did not materialize. Chancellor Hitler suddenly turned his attention from the southeast to the east. The Japanese foreign minister Matsuoka visited Berlin and Rome in March where he entered into long drawn consultations with the two Fascist governments. On his way back he stopped in Moscow, and there, on April 13, Japan and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact. This pact seemed to all observers to confirm the impression of close collaboration of the Soviet government with Berlin and Tokyo. On May 9 the Soviet Union even went so far in its diplomatic cooperation with Germany as to withdraw its recognition of governments like Yugoslavia and Greece which had been occupied by the German army, and on May 12 it recognized officially the pro-Nazi government in Iraq. The fact that Joseph Stalin, who until then had been only Secretary. General of the Communist Party, assumed on May 6 the position of Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, did not shed any further light on the Russian position, but on June 12 the non-aggression pact with Japan was followed by a trade treaty between the two countries. Thus the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22 came as a surprise, although rumours of such an invasion had persisted for some time. Was it the impossibility of defeating Great Britain by a frontal attack which drove Hitler to invade the Soviet Union? Was it the desire to release the German troops guarding the Russian frontier for active duty elsewhere, by disposing of a possible Russian threat, which brought him to add another enemy? Was it sheer overconfidence in the might of the German army and underestimation of the Russian forces? Was it also a desire for all of the rich and immense Russian resources in oil and industry? Whatever the reasons, Germany's aggression against the Soviet Union in the early morning hours of Sunday, June 22, began an entirely new phase of the war.

It is possible that he was motivated by the desire to impress certain circles in Great Britain and the United States and to win them over to a junior partnership in a Nazi-world and to cooperation against the 'bolshevist menace.' It is possible that such a motive was behind the strange flight of Rudolph Hess to Scotland on May 10. But it may also be that Hitler wished above all to increase dissension and confusion in the United States, especially after President Roosevelt's address of May 27, in which he had said to the governing board of the Pan-American Union: 'Our national policy today therefore is this. First, we shall actively resist wherever necessary and with all our resources every attempt by Hitler to extend his Nazi domination to the Western Hemisphere or to threaten it. We shall actively resist his every attempt to gain control of the seas. We insist upon the vital importance of keeping Hitlerism away from any point in the world which could be used or would be used as a base for an attack against the Americas. Secondly, from the point of view of strict naval and military necessity we shall give every possible assistance to Britain and to all who with Britain are resisting Hitlerism or its equivalent with force of arms. Our patrols are helping now to ensure the delivery of needed supplies to Britain. All additional measures necessary for the delivery of the goods will be taken. Any and all further methods or combination of methods which can be utilized are being devised by our military and naval technicians, who with me will work out and put into effect such new additional safeguards as may be needed. The delivery of needed supplies to Britain is imperative. This can be done. It must be done. It will be done.'