← WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
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- [00:02]
Al Murray
Thank you for listening to we have ways of making you talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well. Plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com wehaveways.
- [00:24]
Marvel Studios Promo
The summer is heating up with Marvel Studios the Fantastic Four.
- [00:28]
James Holland
Light em up Johnny.
- [00:32]
Marvel Studios Promo
On July 25th.
- [00:33]
James Holland
Time to save the planet. What's the plan? Trust me, I hate that plan.
- [00:37]
Giles Milton
It's a bad plan.
- [00:37]
James Holland
Come on. Terrible. That's a stupid plan.
- [00:39]
Marvel Studios Promo
Prepare for fantastic.
- [00:42]
James Holland
We will face this together as a family.
- [00:46]
Marvel Studios Promo
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- [01:24]
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- [02:05]
Al Murray
Welcome to we have ways of making you talk with me, Al Murray and James Holland. And James. We have a very special guest today because we want to get our teeth into nearly War's End stuff, don't we?
- [02:16]
Giles Milton
Nearly War's End stuff the high level.
- [02:18]
Al Murray
Power play at Potsdam. And so who have we got to talk to us about that? Jim, a very special guest.
- [02:25]
Giles Milton
Very special guest. Great friend of the show, brilliant historian, brilliant writer, brilliant storyteller and the author of the Stalin Affair, which is just is absolutely rip snorting and urgent everyone to rush out and buy it. And he's the perfect person to guide you and me through the intricacies of the Potsdam conference to the west of Berlin in July 1940.
- [02:47]
James Holland
5.
- [02:48]
Al Murray
Well, welcome Giles. Thanks very much for joining us.
- [02:51]
James Holland
Thanks. Having me on again.
- [02:52]
Al Murray
Well, the thing is, I look briefly at the Potsdam conference in the way it was received by the Japanese government, Mokusatsu and all that stuff. You know, I took the declaration and went from there. But it would be really, it would be fascinating to actually get our teeth into exactly what, what's going on. I mean, some of the extraordinary drama with people appearing and disappearing and new new hands on deck, as it were, and also one very old hand trying to dominate proceedings. So where's the best place to start with this? I mean, Tehran do you think?
- [03:21]
Giles Milton
Or why Potsdam?
- [03:23]
James Holland
Well, why put some. I mean, I suppose it's worth setting the, the scene is that this is going to be the last of the, the big three conferences. So, you know, people will probably be familiar with Tehran, where Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt met for the first time. You know, and then you get Yalta, which, you know, has had a lot of coverage recently. We just had the 80th anniversary of the Yalta conference, which was the attempt for the big three leaders to plan the architecture of the post war world. And in all of this, Potsdam, the last of these three conferences, always gets a bit overlooked, partly because I think there's been a change at the top. The big three have changed. Only Stalin is still surviving at the end because, you know, Roosevelt has inconveniently died in April 1945 and been replaced by his Vice President Truman moment. And Churchill, as we'll discover, is going to lose the British general election halfway through the conference. Only the British will put a general election halfway through a major conference to plan the future of the world. You know, it's amazing.
- [04:24]
Giles Milton
You would have thought they could have postponed it a month, wouldn't you?
- [04:27]
James Holland
I know. In fact, what happened, the election was quite some weeks before the conference, but because so many millions of troops were still abroad, they needed to count all their votes and that was going to take a lot of time. So yeah, you get halfway through the conference and Churchill discovers, oh, I've just lost and he has to go back to England. Yeah, it's incredible.
- [04:46]
Al Murray
I mean, because Labour have pulled the plug on the government basically is what it is. They've had, they've had enough of being in coalition.
- [04:52]
James Holland
Although I think the British people were, you know, had a lot of support a lot of time, obviously for Churchill who'd pulled them through the war. I think just there was a feeling as the war is coming to its end, you know, we just want to change and you know, you have this very impressive program from the new Labour government and people just buy into it. So it's a massive landslide. I mean, you know, Labour win just hands down across the board and the Conservatives have just decimated. And that brings Clement Attlee to power as Prime Minister and his pugnacious Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin.
- [05:27]
Al Murray
Yes. This is a very important part of the story, isn't he? After all, opinions on Stalin in the British left are glowing.
- [05:33]
James Holland
Really.
- [05:33]
Al Murray
But dealing with the man in reality is a different question, isn't it?
- [05:37]
James Holland
Yeah, this was something that really surprised me. You know, look, reading about Stalin throughout the Second World War and particularly reading the accounts of, of the, the diplomats and bureaucrats, the people, British and Americans who were in Moscow working alongside Stalin. So they were, you know, they were seeing him every day on a daily basis. They were going into the Kremlin, they were helping, having planning meetings with him and everything. And you know, in Washington and Whitehall, there was an idea, I think, that Stalin was an ignorant peasant, you know, and could just be dismissed. And what these guys in Moscow realize is that Stalin is the ultimate malevolent negotiator. He's absolutely brilliant. He's master of his brief. He knows exactly what he wants, he knows how he's going to get it. And they keep, you know, I was reading telegram after telegram from these guys in Moscow saying to their bosses in Whitehall and Washington saying, do not underestimate this man. He's. If you do, he's going to get the better of you.
- [06:35]
Giles Milton
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's interesting, isn't it, because the, the American ambassador to Mosc, Avril Harriman, who's, who's independently a very, very wealthy man. He's incredibly good looking, he's suave, he's urbane, he's very clever. He's all those things. He's got George Kennan underneath him, who's working with him. And both those guys are completely disillusioned, aren't they? By starlet and obviously post war, you then get the Kenan Long telegram, don't you? You know, it's not as though the warnings aren't there.
- [07:05]
James Holland
No. Avril Harriman is a fascinating character. As you mentioned, he's Roosevelt's chosen ambassador to Joseph. More than that, in a way, he's Roosevelt's personal emissary, if you like, to the court of Joseph Stalin. And so Avril, and as you rightly say, he's fabulously wealthy. He's the fourth richest man in America.
- [07:25]
Giles Milton
I mean, it's a Kind of saying something, isn't it?
- [07:28]
James Holland
I mean, you know, it kind of quite amuses me that, you know, Roosevelt chooses a multi millionaire to go and deal with Stone. He's the sort of the ultimate capitalist, the sort of guy that Stalin spent most of his political career trying to destroy, you know, dismantle men like Harryman. So he's sent into the Kremlin. And you're right. From the moment he meets Stalin, he thinks, oh my God, we're dealing with somebody who's quite brilliant here and, and who, as I said, he's been completely underestimated in the corridors of power back in the west, you know. And so yes, he sees Stalin at his malevolent best and worst, if you like. He sees him close up on a day to day basis and then he has to watch Roosevelt and Churchill at Tehran and at Yalta being kind of, you know, Stalin is running rings around these guys and they're really deeply worried, people like Harriman about the future of the post war world. If Stalin behaves like this, you know, with his Western allies, what's going to happen post 1945?
- [08:28]
Giles Milton
Yeah, absolutely. And this all comes to the fore at Yalta, doesn't it? I mean, you know, suddenly it's been, I mean I always find it absolutely astonishing that they hold it in Yalta when everyone knows how poorly Roosevelt is. You know, he's in his 60s, his arteries are throwing up, he's in a really, really bad state. Churchill has, you know, only the pre, the previous winter almost killed himself going to the Tehran, then the Cairo conference and with his pneumonia and all the rest of it. You know, these guys have traveled a lot already. Surely it's Stalin's turn. And Stalin sort of goes, well, I'm scared of flying. I don't like flying. You know, I'm not moving. Everyone just goes, okay, fine, well we'll come to you then. I mean, you know, what is Roosevelt doing flying all the way to Yalta? It's insane.
- [09:09]
James Holland
The thing is, Stalin absolutely refused. Well, first of all, Stalin was absolutely terrified of flying. I think only time he ever took a plane, I think, was to the Tehran conference and he vowed never again. But also, I think, you know, Stalin was a master of theatricals as well and he loved the idea of having the President of America and the Prime Minister of Great Britain flying to him almost as a supplicant. You know, it was, it looked good in the world, in the world's press, you know. So yeah, but it was terrible. Roosevelt was deeply sick, man. He was dying, and he was forced to fly across the world, you know, into this. This, you know, half demolished city. I mean, Yalta was in a terrible state. So it was a pouring place to hold this conference anyway. And, yeah, it was, you know, just Roosevelt was so sick, they had to have one of these sessions of the conference had to be held in his bedroom. You know, they were sitting around his.
- [09:57]
Giles Milton
So why. Why on earth did they agree to this?
- [10:00]
James Holland
Well, I think Stalin simply wouldn't budge, you know, and got no choice. Yeah, yeah, I think they had felt they had no choice. I mean, Churchill was prepared to go. I think Churchill would have gone anywhere to. To buddy up with Stalin. I mean, there's also this curious interplay going on that they all. Both Roosevelt and Churchill want to be best buddies with Stalin. And so the theatricals of it all are quite extraordinary, really. And they. They're constantly scoring points off each other. And that, I must admit, that was something I had not realized when I was researching my book was that, you know, they're pretty devious. Roosevelt was constantly trying to get one up on Churchill. Churchill was going to try to get one up on Roosevelt. And so. And you have sort of Stalin in the middle of this, rather. Rather enjoying himself, really. These two powerful men trying to be mate.
- [10:48]
Giles Milton
So what. What is his negotiating technique? I mean, what makes him so completely brilliant and Machiavellian at this?
- [10:54]
James Holland
I think one of the things that, you know, certainly Avril Harriman says is that he was absolutely master of his brief. He had an extraordinary capacity to hold information in his head. He knew exactly what was taking place on the battlefield. He knew where individual, you know, regiments were, what they were doing. Yeah, he was also, of course, he was a dictator. So he had the advantage over Churchill and Roosevelt that he just. He took all the decisions. You know, they'd come to these conferences with dozens, scores of advisors, you know, from Whitehall, from Washington. Stalin didn't need that. He had Molotov, his foreign secretary and foreign commissar, and he took all the decisions. But what I think I found fascinating was reading the accounts of the interpreters at these conferences. These are the guys that really understand that how Stalin is acting is that Stalin completely changed his language when he was talking to his Western counterparts. So with his own team, with his own people, he was utterly ruthless. He was direct, who was like, this is what I want, and this. This is how we're going to do it. When he talked to Roosevelt and when he talked to Churchill, it was very conciliatory. He'd sort of say, well, what do you think if we do this? How about this? You know, should we perhaps try this? And the interpreters were astonished because they said, that shows an incredible ability to manipulate conversations. And all of those people, the interpreters say, wow, you know, we're. We could be in trouble here because Churchill's rambling. He delivers these long, you know, monologues. And Roosevelt, as well, could be a complete bore. He bore on about his time in Germany in the 1920s and stuff. Stalin was always focused, knew what he wanted. And of course, at the Yalta conference, he knew he was going to get what he wanted because the Red army is already in possession of most of Eastern and Central Europe. You know, it's gone through Poland. It's knocking on the doors of Berlin. He thinks, I've won this. You know, I'm going to get everything.
- [12:43]
Giles Milton
And he just.
- [12:44]
James Holland
All he has to do is make sure he retains it at the end of the war.
- [12:47]
Giles Milton
The Western Allies haven't really got a leg to stand on, have they? Because the only alternative is to go to war again and with the Soviet Union. And that just isn't going to happen.
- [12:53]
James Holland
That isn't going to happen. But, of course, I don't know if you've ever covered this, actually, on your. On your podcast, Operation Unthinkable, which is an absolutely extraordinary battle plan that Winston Churchill gets his chiefs of staff to draw up a plan to basically turn on the Soviet Union at the very end of the Second World War. And he thinks we've got a unique moment where the US and the Americans can turn on the Red army and try and destroy it. And his chiefs of staff draw up this battle plan. You know, it's in the National Archives. You get this big file up of every detail of operations. Operation Unthinkable. What's extraordinary is the chiefs of staff realized that this could never work unless they used the remnants of the Wehrmacht and, very controversially, the ss. So they basically turned them around and they become our allies, you know, and the reason why the chiefs of staff put Operation Unthinkable on the front page of this file is they said, this is. You can't sell this to the British public. You've just been saying that Stalin and the Red army are our loyal allies, have been our loyal allies for the last five years. You can't now just rearm the SS and the Wehrmacht and turn on the Soviet Union. So that's a non starter, Charles.
- [14:03]
Al Murray
I mean, one of the things here is that Roosevelt's style generally, politically, is to sort of say yes to people and be vague. And we've talked about this in terms of unconditional surrenders. The brilliance of that idea is it's vague. There are no terms attached. So when it comes to encountering Stalin, who's got things he definitely wants, does this put the Allied leaders at a disadvantage? Because, as you say, Churchill's sort of verbose, trying to be pals, Roosevelt's out of steam, trying to foster a friendly relationship, but actually, the Western allies haven't really figured out what they want. They haven't really got beyond we want Germany defeated, you know, because there's the Morgenthau Plan and things like that kicked around in America. Is that the weakness they bring to this negotiation, that really, in the end.
- [14:44]
Giles Milton
They'Re a bit woolly?
- [14:45]
Al Murray
Yeah, they want Joe Stalin on their side, but beyond that, they haven't really thought, well, he's going to. To want or got beyond. He's going to want Poland, and there's nothing we can do about that. Do you think that's a part of what's happened?
- [14:56]
James Holland
It's a really good point, and I think so, for example, if you take the Baltic states, which the Red army is by now in control of, you know, by the end of the war. So Roosevelt says, you know, to Stalin, he says, well, I think, you know, we really need to have free democratic elections in. In the Baltic states. And Stalin says, well, of course, you know, we're going to have them. You know, we'll have a plebiscite. We'll see who they want to be ruled by. And Roosevelt says, oh, that's. Well, that's all very good then. And you all the advisors are thinking, hold on a minute. Does Roosevelt not realize that any plebiscite held by Joseph Stalin is quite likely to go the way that Joseph Stalin wants it to go? Likewise, you've got Churchill coming out with these lofty statements. So for Churchill, Poland is a really, really important, you know, part of all of these conferences, in fact, because, you know, Britain's gone to war over Poland. So for Churchill, this is vitally important. Churchill's hosted the Polish government in exile for the dur. Duration of the war. And, you know, he.
- [15:57]
Giles Milton
Britain's funded Polish corps in. In Italy, who fought courageously and brilliantly all the way through the campaign. You've got Polish armored divisions in Second army, etc. Etc. Etc.
- [16:08]
James Holland
Exactly. And. And so then Churchill comes out, I think it was at Yalta, he comes out with this rather lofty statement. He said, you know, for For Britain and for me personally, you know, Poland is a matter of honor. And this is where Stalin's so brilliant, you know, because it's quite difficult when you're talking with Churchill and with all this guff and everything, Stalin just turns to Churchill, he says, well, if it's a matter of honor for Mr. Churchill, it's a matter of life and death for the Soviet Union. And constantly you get that he's able to turn these fabulous quotes from Churchill on their head. That not many people were able to do that. And it just shows you that how he was able to master these conferences and really turn them all to his own advantage.
- [16:49]
Al Murray
And he's not lying either. It was a matter of life or death, the Soviet Union when Barbarossa came, the suffering and slaughter that the Germans have inflicted on Soviet republics. Yes, he's a ruthless negotiator. Yes, he's got this ability to sort of to come at the Allies and overpower them in argument. But he's not lying either, is he?
- [17:07]
James Holland
No.
- [17:07]
Al Murray
And that's what they, that's what they can't. Why in the end they have to concede.
- [17:10]
Giles Milton
Eastern Poland has been Russian between, well, 1795 and 1919, I think.
- [17:16]
Al Murray
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
- [17:17]
Giles Milton
Or 1917, rather.
- [17:19]
James Holland
I think we often forget from the sort of Western perspective that, you know, the entire sort of whole swathe of the Soviet Union has been utterly destroyed, you know, not only by Denmark, but also by the Soviets themselves, dismantling all their industries and moving east and everything. So. And you know, millions of people have lost their lives and there's. And we mustn't forget that, I think, when to see, from Stalin's point of view, you're absolutely right. Poland from, in his point of view has to be a buffer zone so that no one can ever invade again, you know, and so he clings this idea throughout. So while Churchill has got the Polish government in exile in London, Stalin forms a rival government in exile in Moscow, which is then going to be parachuted into Poland. And this of course, will ultimately take control of Poland. So bingo, Stalin's got a communist dominated Poland, which is exactly what he wants. And he's also shifted the borders massively, you know, so he gets his buffer zone, you know, he gets, yet again, he gets what he wants.
- [18:20]
Giles Milton
Possession is four fifths of, you know, whatever, whatever that phrase is, isn't it?
- [18:24]
Al Murray
I mean, that's nine tenths of the law, isn't it? Yeah. The key sort of portfolio of decisions then from Yalta is that Germany's going to be divided into the occupation zones which I think a thing everyone's familiar with now still. Even Berlin's going to be split in two. And interestingly France is included in this, in the Yalta.
- [18:41]
Giles Milton
Yes, but, but reluctantly Britain is actually pushing for it. But not everyone's keen on having the French there.
- [18:46]
James Holland
Can I just interrupt, I love Stalin's comment there. When Churchill and Roosevelt saying well maybe you know, France should have a bit of the cherry, you know here they should get something. And Stalin just goes why they let the enemy in. He's complet uncompromising. He says if you insist that France, France has a slice of Germany and, and a slice of Berlin. He said well they can have it but you take it out of your shirt, your part, you know, I'm not giving them anything. And that's why the French bit of Berlin and the Frenchman of West Germany was taken out of the British and American zones.
- [19:16]
Giles Milton
Yeah, amazing.
- [19:18]
Al Murray
And then as you mentioned, Poland gets its Eastern and Eastern Europe. They're going to get their elections in the Soviet sphere of influence. Haha.
- [19:25]
Giles Milton
That's the inverted commas concession that Stalin gives. But of course it's, it's as you pointed out Charles, it's completely hollow, isn't it?
- [19:32]
James Holland
Free and fair elections. Yes, that's what's promised. Well that ain't gonna happen under Stalin. There's a couple of other big things that come up at Yalta. One is reparations of course that Germany is going to be forced to pay for the destruction it's reaped on, on Western Europe but most particularly on the Soviet Union. And Stalin is going to, you know, drive a very hard bargain here. He wants, he wants vast amounts of money and he wants a lot of it to come, come from Western occupied Germany because you've got to remember that American Britain have got all the richest industrial heartlands of Germany, you know, the coal producing areas and everything. So Stalin says well I want that to pay to rebuild the Soviet Union. So reparations is a sort of key thing. The other two, two things really is United Nations. Of course this is Roosevelt's sort of dying wish really. The new global order is going to be kind of overseen by the United Nations. It's his pet project which Stalin we can come back to. But Stalin's quite suspic of. And the final thing is of course that Roosevelt particularly wants the Soviet Union to join the war against Japan which of course even during Potsdam conference is, is still ongoing. We mustn't forget that. And it's, you know, proving massively costly in American lives. And so he gets an agreement from Stalin to, to sign up to join the war in the Far east, which of course Russia does, but at the very, very end. Yeah. So that I think those are the probably key points, but of all of them at Yalta, really Germany and Berlin, the division of the country and the division of the capital are the kind of biggies because if you like, they're the ones that are gonna spark the Cold war, which is going to really be born out of the end of the second World War.
- [21:13]
Giles Milton
Do you think Churchill and Roosevelt really have been hoodwinked or do you think they've kind of, they've just run out of steam and they know that they've got no real negotiating power? Or do you think there's a little bit of sort of wishful thinking from their point, you know, trying to put a good gloss on it. I mean, surely once they get to the altar, they must start to see the cut of Stalin's jib. And you know, and don't forget, get that Churchill has been to Moscow the previous October to have face to face talks with Stalin.
- [21:39]
James Holland
I think that Stalin and sorry, Churchill and Roosevelt at the Yalta conference, they genuinely believed that there was a new world order was going to be born out of the ashes of the second World war. There was an incredible feeling of optimism at the end of the Yalta conference. And you've got endless accounts of people who were there saying we really, we think we've cracked this. You know, we think. And of course one of the important things that both Churchill and Roosevelt wanted to do was to preserve the wartime alliance into the post war period. They wanted to keep Soviet, the Soviet Union on side. They were hoping to bring it into the sort of rules based order that was going to be born out of the second World War. They wanted Stalin to be part of that, not to be outside it. And this is why Roosevelt was so, was fighting so hard for Stalin to join the United nations, which Stalin was wavering. Then he said he wasn't going to join and then he eventually sent Molotov over to America. So it did come about. But I think that took precedence over everything was to keep the alliance going. The problem, I think from Churchill's one of Churchill saw the problem already at Yalta is that Roosevelt wanted to demob his troops as quickly as possible, clear American troops out of Europe. And Churchill is terrified by this because he realizes if American troops are bob sent back home, there's going to be no military power left in Europe, except for the Red army, you know, and so that is one problem. But another problem, of course, is there are resurgent communist parties all across Europe, in France, in Italy, in, you know, in. In Scandinavia. They're on the rise and they've got the moral high ground. They've been the ones, you know, fighting against Hitler from the. From before the war even started. So millions of people are flocking to these parties, and that's an additional headache, particularly for Winston Churchill. So, you know, these are very, very uncertain times.
- [23:33]
Al Murray
Yeah. So what changes between Yalta and Potsdam, apart from personnel? By the time we get to Potsdam in July's, In February. By the time we get to Potsdam in July, there's a very different attitude, isn't there, on the Allied side? They know that basically Stalin is. Isn't going to see any of this through.
- [23:52]
James Holland
I think the key thing, if you had to pick out one event, it's really the fact that Red army takes Berlin. You know, Berlin had been seen throughout the war as the ultimate prize. You know, there were guys landing on D day and they'd be writing to Berlin in chalk on their tanks. And then Eisenhower gets deflected from this great prize. He says, we've got the goal. The primary goal for the Western armies is to destroy the German army wherever it is. And this allows Stalin and his Red army, in April, you know, towards the end of April 1945, they move into Berlin, this vast pincer movement of millions of men coming into Berlin to capture the kind of shattered ruins of Hitler's Third Reich. And it's a fabulous propaganda coup for Stalin. And, you know, a lot of people will be familiar with the very, very famous iconic photograph of the red flag flying over the Reichstag. Fascinating story behind that. Of course, that was no accident, that flag being hung there. The photographer, Evgeny Kaldai, had seen the equally famous photo of the stars and Stripes being raised over Iwo Jima, and he thinks, God, that's such a fantastic photo. That is an iconic shot. I'm going to do exactly the same. So he's in Berlin at the end of April, beginning of May, and he's looking around. Shit, we haven't got. We haven't got a big red flag anywhere. So he flies back to Moscow and his uncle's a tailor and he has a big. Gets a big red tablecloth, gets his uncle to sew on the hammer and sickle and all that flies back to Berlin, goes to the Reichstag, gets a bunch of soldiers and goes up to the top of the building and gets them to hold it out and takes this fabulous picture. And that picture is used mercilessly by, by Joseph Stalin. He makes, you know, gets it onto the front pages of pretty much every newspaper in the world. It's such a good picture, but it does exactly what Stalin wants. It says, what Stalin wants it to say is that the Soviet army, the Red army and the Red army alone captured Berlin. We didn't need the help of you Western Allies. You're still miles away. More importantly, importantly, the Red army is now in control of Berlin. This is meant to be a divided city with the Americans and the Brits and the French in the western half of the city. Well, hold on a minute. How are they going to get into the city now? The Red army controls not only Berlin, but all of much of Germany as well. You know, so this is, this is the big problem that faces the Western Allies post Yalta. And you know, we're very coming to the very, very end of the Second World War in the West. Here is the, that actually the Red army is in control of some of the land that has already been on paper given to the Western Allies. And so this is going to be the focus of mines, as Al and.
- [26:32]
Giles Milton
I have discussed at great length on the podcast this year. You know, the reason for that is not because the Allies couldn't have got to Berlin, the Western Allies, it's because they have made a conscious decision to kind of try and save lives because they know they've got Japan and they're all having to expect to invade the Japanese home islands. So Eisenhower makes the understandable decision to kind of halt at the, at the Elbe. There's this big player. The fact February 1945, the Red Armory is only kind of 50 miles or so for Berlin, but the Western allies are 250. But by the middle of April, before the launch of the all out assault on Berlin on the 16th of April, they're both about 50 miles away. And there's absolutely no question that the Western Allies would have had a far easier ride into Berlin than the Soviet Union did. A, because they're more efficient at marshalling their resources and less costly in terms of lives, but also because the Germans have been far more willing to surrender to them. So you know, it isn't that the Western Allies couldn't have got to Berlin, it's just that they choose not to. But obviously that has enormous post war implications which I guess we will discuss in part two.
- [27:32]
Al Murray
Yes, we'll take a quick break. And the fact that the Conference is essentially held on Soviet territory. I think tells us which tail is wagging which particular dog. So we'll see you after the break in a moment.
- [27:44]
James Holland
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- [27:59]
Giles Milton
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- [28:01]
James Holland
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Giles Milton
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James Holland
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Giles Milton
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James Holland
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Giles Milton
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- [28:21]
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- [29:04]
Al Murray
Welcome back to Way of Ways of Making youg Talk with me, Al Murray, James Holland and our very special special guest, Giles Milton. Now the scene is set then for the Potsdam conference. The smouldering ruins of Berlin, I suppose. Are fires still burning when they convene in Potsdam?
- [29:17]
Giles Milton
You're not going to be having a conference in the middle of Berlin, are you? But actually Potsdam is comparatively, in the big scheme of things, unscathed. And Charles, I'm sure you've been there, but you know, Potsdam itself is very genteel. It's sort of gently curving boulevards with huge villas and all the rest of it and they're fine.
- [29:33]
Al Murray
Get the chance to visit Frederick the Great's palace Sans Souci and wander along those corridors that are that mimic of Versailles and the gardens that stretch down below. I mean you, you can't beat it. Potsdam is a wonderful genteel palace city outside the main.
- [29:48]
Giles Milton
It's very like Versailles, isn't it? I mean, very, very like Versailles.
- [29:52]
James Holland
It's just sort of the leafy suburb, if you like. Yeah. Full of very bourgeois houses and as you say, Sans Souci, the Frederick the Great palace. But, but of course you also have the Sicilianohof palace and this was the, the last residence of the Kaiser until 1918. It's an utterly bizarre place. I was ago I don't know if you probably. I guess you've been there, but it's weird. It was. The Sicily palace was built as a fake Tudor manor house and it really, it looks like it's kind of just dropped out of Kent or something and been parachuted into, into, you know, the suburbs of Berlin. And so they decide this is where they're going to hold the, the final big three summit of the Jars.
- [30:33]
Giles Milton
It's because it's all intact, isn't it? It hasn't been flat.
- [30:36]
James Holland
Yeah, it's worth perhaps just rewinding. Berlin is a city in absolute ruins. So when the Soviets come into the city, look, this is a city in ruins. It's a city without running water, without gas, without electricity, without any form of government. You know, it's absolute chaos. And so the first thing the Soviets have to do is try and impose some sort of order on the place. And they do that relatively effectively, but obviously with hideous consequences for the population of Berlin. The looting, the rape, absolutely appalling. This unruly mob of Red army soldiers. But as you say, no question that they cannot have a conference in the, in the heart of Berlin. So they choose Potsdam. Yeah, this genteel suburb where the big three leaders are going to gather for the first time. Of course, Potsdam is not even when they divided up Berlin and, and Germany, Potsdam is now sits in the Soviet zone of eastern Germany. So as al you pointed out, I mean, this is a conflict conference on Soviet soil. They've decided where it's going to be. They've controlled everything. They've set the conference up, they've put the table into the main conference room and they've done everything. They planted bugs in all the, you know, rooms where all the Western delegations are staying. They're fully in control. They're masters of the situation before the conference even opens.
- [31:57]
Al Murray
Yeah, Very interesting in your notes that Potsdam was the White Russian colony before the war, that that's where exiles had fled the revolution. Revolution, yeah, it's, it's.
- [32:07]
James Holland
I don't know if you've ever seen it. There's an extraordinary bit of Potsdam just outside the center of Potsdam. And you what, you're walking along and you suddenly think, my God, I'm in Russia. There's a Russian Orthodox Church. All the houses look like, you know, Thatchers from, from Russia. And you're right. So when, after the 1917 revolution, the Russian Revolution, lots of Russians fled the country and these were Russians who hated the Bolsheviks and hated the new regime. And a lot of them ended Up. Yeah, in this. In leafy Potsdam. And of course, during the course of the third Reich, they sort of been left alone really. You know, if anything, they're, they're not supporters of Hitler, but they're vehement, vehemently opposed to Stalin and the Soviet Union. So they've been left alone. But now this community thinks, oh my God, now the Red army's coming in, we're in serious trouble here. And actually I, I focused on one family in the book because they, they live in England now and the elderly mother was a little girl at the time. And actually when the Soviet army, when the Red army came into Berlin and into Potsdam, they took she in the Sicilianoff palace and all that. A lot of these Russian White Russians were in the cellars of the Sicilianoff listening to these booming guns. And as the red army got closer and closer, really worried about their, Their personal fate.
- [33:23]
Giles Milton
Well, I'm sure. And what did happen to them?
- [33:25]
James Holland
Well, the terrible, tragic story of the family I wrote about is that the. Very soon after the Red army took Potsdam, the father of the family was taken away and was never seen again. The family tried to trace him for years and years afterwards and they believe he died in a Kazakhstan prison camp.
- [33:42]
Giles Milton
This is awful, isn't it?
- [33:43]
James Holland
That was the fate of a lot of these white Russians who taken ref. Refuge there.
- [33:48]
Al Murray
So the, the conferences, first of all, you. The western allies are in Berlin, aren't they? They do, they are present. So you can go to Berlin, can't you? If you there are. Because there are lots of stories of Americans and Brits going to Berlin, but they're sort of viewed with great suspicion, aren't they, as Berlin is divided into sectors, sort of coagulating, isn't it?
- [34:06]
James Holland
But by this point, the western islands have only recently come into Berlin because the red army wouldn't let them in. And the Soviet commandant of Berlin kept stalling and saying, we're not ready for you, we're not ready for you. Why was he doing that? Because the Red army and the Soviets were intent on looting absolutely everything they could from the western districts of Berlin, which had quite a lot of the manufacturing industries, those that hadn't been destroyed by the allied bombers. And so you have this extraordinary campaign of looting, not just industrial equipment and fridges and God knows what. You know, the sockets were ripping taps out of people's houses. Completely ridiculous really. But they were also looting, you know, the museums. Berlin, one of the great capitals of the world, you know, have they have some of the great works of western civilization. In their museums. And of course the Nazis, to protect all these great works of art, had put them all into flak tombs. Made it very convenient for the Soviets because they simply unlocked the door and, and marched out with all the works of, of art, the paintings, the manuscripts, the sculptures and everything loaded onto trains sent to Moscow.
- [35:10]
Giles Milton
I did a TV series on this. I remember going into the, into the Humboldt Flak tower and, and that's where a lot of them, a lot of the art was being kept and was absolutely, you know, absolutely spot on. I mean, just completely half inched by the Soviets.
- [35:23]
Al Murray
Yeah.
- [35:24]
James Holland
So they were looting the museums, they were looting the factories and this. I actually got a, a telegram from one of the, one of the Red army generals. He said, take everything from the western districts of Berlin. He said, don't le anything. Not even a pot to pee in.
- [35:38]
Giles Milton
That's right, yes. It's amazing.
- [35:40]
Al Murray
It is entire factories, isn't it as well? Absolutely everything down to the last nut and bolt of entire industrial plants. I mean, they're taking literally everything, aren't they? They are, yeah.
- [35:52]
James Holland
Every nut and bolt that they can take. They're taking, you know, washing machines, they're taking, they get the citizens of Berlin, they have to hand in all their radios. You know, it's, all their wirelesses are shipped back to, to Moscow. But even I mentioned tap. I mean, what's ridiculous is a lot of these young, you know, Soviet conscripts were taking taps home with them back to their villages in Mongolia. They didn't even have running water. It's completely absurd. But they were, they were shocked, they were horrified. They were astonished to see the levels of luxury that people were, the Germans were living in, you know, in, in Berlin and Potsdam, they, they'd never seen anything like it. And there was a, just, there was a sort of bitter jealousy as well. And they just thought, well, we're just going to take everything. So there were train loads after train of stuff being taken back by the Soviet authorities. But also you've got individual generals. Zhukov had his own train taking back tapestries and manuscripts and oriental carpets and whatever they could get, they were taking back to Moscow. And of course a lot of it remained in Moscow. I mean, some of it remains in Moscow to this day. A lot of it remained until the 1990s and I think it was Boris Yeltsin did a deal at the time and a lot of the stuff came back at that point. But in some of the Berlin museums to this day, they have empty cabinets and there's a sign inside Saying this was, this was stolen, looted in 1945 by the Red Army.
- [37:10]
Giles Milton
Well, and to be fair, there are also, you know, lots of museums and art galleries in Poland, for example, where there are still missing stuff that was looted by the Nazis. So most most famously the portrait of a young man by Rubens, where they just have, they have the original frame in the, in the museum in Krakow with a black and white image of the portrait. And it hasn't been seen since, you know, since the end of the war, really.
- [37:32]
James Holland
Just one thing it's worth pointing out because we're always the good guys on the west, you know, I bet you, you must have seen the money, the film Monuments Men, you know, and it' these heroic Americans saving the works of art and everything. Price's works of art. Well, of course, not all of those were good guys. Some of them were squirreling the odd old master into their backpack and taking it back to America and selling it off. I followed the story of one guy who actually got court martialed in the end because he was doing it on quite a grand scale. His specialty was, I think it was Chinese porcelain. Wherever he could get it, he'd put it into his, you know, take it back, get it back to America and he was flogging it off to dealers in America. So, you know, okay, it was a much smaller scale operation in the, in the west, but it was happening. And of course, you know, it wasn't just about physical objects. It wasn't just about factories and, you know, taps from people's houses. It was about personnel as well. Of course, a lot of people will know Operation Paperclip, you know, where the Americans and the Brits, of course, were rounding up German scientists, physicists and particularly nuclear scientists, rocket engineers. You know, the Americans got to the moon because Werner von Braun designed the rocket. Yeah, but of course the Soviets were doing exactly the same thing. They had Operation Osoviakim, I think it was called, where they were also rounding up as many, particularly rocket engineers as they could find, taking them back to Moscow. And most of them spent the rest of their lives, you know, in the Soviet Union.
- [38:51]
Giles Milton
Well, and these guys are all thinking, what do I want? Do I want the rest of my life in the Soviet Union or do I want to be in Florida? Tricky one that, you know. Why on earth is Werner von Braun in Bavaria other than to hand himself over to the sick army group?
- [39:06]
James Holland
Most of them fled West. You're absolutely right. They certainly didn't want to end up in the Soviet Union. The British, you know, played A key role in this as well. They actually had their own bureau in Berlin whose task was to simply to look out anyone that could be of use to Great Britain and America in the, you know, after the war. And they were then going and literally poaching these people and saying, look, do you want to come to come to London? Fancy a few years in London. And they rounded up hundreds and hundreds of people like that.
- [39:33]
Giles Milton
Yeah, yeah, we can set you up in a very nice, well appointed house in Cambridgeshire.
- [39:38]
Al Murray
Key thing is here though is as the conference approaches, so you've got a British commandant and American commandant coming to Berlin starting to set the city all with mad nicknames. Yes, yes. Colonel Frank Howling, Mad Howley, who's the American commandant and then the British Robert Looney Hind, a brigadier Looney Hind, who's an Indian army officer. I think what's interesting though is there's no doubt really if you're the Soviet Union that you've won the second world war in your mind. So you're going to go into these negotiations. Without a doubt, you're the supreme power in continental Europe, aren't you? You know that this informs their attitude from top to bottom. Not only have they destroyed as they only have they destroyed the third Reich, they've seized its capital, they've seized its stuff, They've. They've done what they want with its people. They're going to rearrange its borders. You know, their expression of victory is very, very front foot, as it were.
- [40:29]
James Holland
And, and look at the arrival of Stalin into Berlin because I think it's absolutely fascinating. So he's coming for the conference. What does he do? First of all, he's now generalissimo. He's designed a new uniform. So he looks, I mean, he looks a bit like a tim pot dictator, actually, but he thinks he's looks pretty cool in his white, white, you know, military jacket. He comes, he dusts off the czarist imperial train which is in a museum in Moscow and decides to pull into Moscow in that. I mean, this is making a big statement that I'm, I've won this, you know, and in a sense he has. Well, you're right in saying, you know, his troops are everywhere, he controls everything he wants anyway. But look at what's happened in the intervening time. Roosevelt has died. The big three, as it was, is about to be completely transformed. Roosevelt's dead. His place has been taken by his vice, Truman, Harry Truman, a man with virtually no experience of foreign affairs whatsoever. Churchill is deeply worried, actually sends his foreign secretary Eden off to America in advance of the Potsdam conference just to sort of check him out, you know. And actually, Eden comes back and says, no, he's. He's a guy we can do business with.
- [41:34]
Giles Milton
The other irony about it is, is that Truman gets up to speed in very, very quick order and very quickly becomes pretty hardened to the Soviet Union. I mean, he's conciliatory to start off with, but one of the first people he meets, he sees once he takes over is Avril Harriman, who comes back ahead of his meeting with molotov in April 45. You know, he knows what he's up against, and he's nothing like as generous in his attitude and approach and in his ideals towards the Soviet Union as Roosevelt has been. So actually, I think he's a much tougher negotiator than Roosevelt would have been, is my hunch.
- [42:08]
James Holland
I think you're absolutely right. And I actually think that Truman is one of the sort of great underrated presidents residents, actually.
- [42:14]
Giles Milton
Big fan.
- [42:15]
James Holland
I'm a big fan as well. Yeah, you're absolutely right. He took on board what Avril Harriman and others were telling him, that this is a monstrous guy you're dealing with here. Be extremely careful. And so he arrives. His style is so different. You know, he arrives. He looks like the sort of chairman of an international corporation. You know, he arrives in a rather natty suit. He's got his little polka dot bow tie on, and he doesn't want to be there. He really doesn't want to be there, and he doesn't want to spend long there. He certainly doesn't want to listen to Churchill banging on for hours and hours with his long monologues and everything. He kept a diary throughout the conference. It's wonderful to read because you just think, oh, my God, there goes Winston again. You know, but he. He plays the part really well. He's the President of the United States. You know, he comes with his, you know, his motorcade with outriders. He creates a great impression as he wants to. So, you know, those two have arrived, and then Churchill comes. Churchill, much more understated. You know, he just has his sort of personal detective, but church. Churchill is really. You sense from all the writings of his aides and diplomats around him that Churchill is old, he's tired, he's not reading any of his briefs whatsoever, and he's drinking extremely heavily. This is commented on by all the people close to him that he's drinking far too much. And I think his own team are thinking, oh, my God, Stalin's going to walk all over us.
- [43:35]
Al Murray
He says in his memoir that this by this stage sometimes has to be carried down the stairs in a litter by guardsmen that he's so done, he's so exhausted. Physical and mental toll has finally caught up with and in a way after V E day it all like sort of collapses on him. It's you know, it's like the end of term when you suddenly realize how tired you are or the end of a long job. That thing that can happen to you.
- [43:56]
Giles Milton
End of a five match test series.
- [43:58]
Al Murray
Exactly. He must also know that his goose is cooked electorally at this point because all the polling has made it pretty clear that while the public might like him that as you said, as we said right at the beginning, they want to change. They don't like the Conservative party. It's Conservative parties war as they see it their fault. And that Labour offer a better future. And he must know, he must be carrying that with him too. He must just know.
- [44:20]
James Holland
Yeah, I wonder. I think he was a bit deluded. I think a lot of people were saying you're going to lose this and he sort of half of him thought he was actually going to win but of course because there was a very real chance he'd lose and Labour would win. Of course. Clemente, leader of the Labour party has come to Potsdam as well. Yeah. So you have this slightly weird British delegation, two political parties, you know, at the conference. So the other thing Churchill wanted to do, he wanted to meet Truman before the conference, buddy up to him if you like and sort of present a united front. He feels that this is going to be very important when they're dealing with Stalin. Truman refuses, he doesn't want to meet Churchill beforehand and and you know, set out their negotiate joint negotiating position. So I think this probably weakens the Western, you know, the Western Allies as well I suppose if you'd like. They've each got their kind of ace card to play at the conference and Stalin's is obvious. His ace card is the Red army which is everywh, you know, they dominate everything he wants already. Churchill sees his ace card as being the fact that Britain has captured the German fleet and he's in charge of it. You know, he intends to play that. And Truman's ace card of course is the fascinating one. And he doesn't yet know if his ace card is going to work because he's awaiting the test, the Trinity test, the nuclear tests in America to see if America has got an atomic bomb. He gets a memo, he gets A telegram sent to him at the conference on the 16th of July, and it's in, says in the telegram is all about the patient. All it says is, this operated on this morning. It says, diagnosis not yet complete, but results seem satisfactory, and everything already exceeds expectations. That patient was the atomic bomb. And with that memo, this changes everything. America is now a nuclear power. And so Truman has got a fantastic ace card to play at the conference, which he will play.
- [46:12]
Al Murray
Fleets matter a little less when they're atomic weapons.
- [46:15]
James Holland
Yes, listen, listen to this, though. Churchill, I mean, this is an example of Churchill, I mean, where his aides were in despair. He says to Stalin, he says, because the fleet is meant to be divided equally between the three, between America, Britain and Russia. And Churchill says to Stalin, you know, warships are terrible things. Let's sink the fleet. And Stalin says, let's divide it up. And if Mr. Churchill wants to think sink his third, then he's perfectly willing to do so. You know, once again, that Stalin just turns this sort of grandiose, you know, gesture of Churchill on its head.
- [46:51]
Al Murray
Yeah, let's stop here and come back for our next episode. We've set the scene for the conference. We have these three big players, each prepared to play their cards. Stalin's very much in the driving seat, but Truman has something else up his sleeve. He also wants a commitment from the Soviets that they will go east. That's a thing he's also really desperate to get his hands on. And we will return. Joel. This is absolutely fascinating stuff, by the.
- [47:14]
James Holland
Way, ladies and gentlemen.
- [47:14]
Al Murray
If you want to hear all these in one go, if you can't wait, then subscribe to our Apple Officer Class podcast channel or become a Patreon and then you can watch Jim and I have this exact kind of conversation. Or you could join us at. We have Waze Fest in September 12th to the 14th. We have waistfest.co.uk is it.co.uk I can never.
- [47:32]
Giles Milton
I think it is. Yeah.
- [47:33]
Al Murray
You can use Google, you people. Anyway, we will see you shortly. Thank you, Giles. Thanks, Jim. We'll be back with the next episode immediately because we know you want to hear it. Bye.
- [47:41]
Giles Milton
True.
- [47:41]
James Holland
Bye.