With every passing week, Stalin’s mistrust of the Western Allies grew, strongly influencing Soviet military plans. Wehrmacht units clearly preferred to surrender in the West, while in the East they fought to the bitter end. Stalin had every reason to fear the possibility, if not of a separate peace, at least that the Allies might make certain separate agreements with the Germans. During the final months of the war, everyone understood what the advances of Allied armies meant for postwar Europe’s political landscape. Negotiations in March 1945 in Bern between U.S. intelligence agents and representatives of the Nazis to discuss Germany’s capitulation in Italy only heightened Stalin’s suspicion.
Had it not unfolded amid other conflicts between the Soviet leadership and the Western Allies, especially in regard to Poland, the Bern incident might not have provoked open confrontation. After lengthy wrangling, on 3 April 1945 Stalin sent Roosevelt a sharply worded letter in which he questioned whether it would be possible to “preserve and strengthen trust between our countries.” Now that the archives have been opened, we can see that this letter, unlike many others that went out over his signature, was written entirely by Stalin himself and that he revised it to achieve a sterner tone.154 Despite the growing friction, Roosevelt, who was committed to cooperating with Stalin, responded with restraint. A letter received by Stalin on 13 April 1945 sought to assure him that “minor misunderstandings of this character should not arise in the future.”155 This letter was one of Roosevelt’s final political acts and is part of his testament in regard to relations with the Soviet Union. By the time Stalin received it, Roosevelt was already dead. Stalin appears to have been genuinely saddened by this loss. Nevertheless, he was soon distracted by new and urgent matters.
Worried about his fellow Allies’ rapid advance, Stalin decided to speed up the Soviet takeover of the German capital as much as possible. The attack on Berlin began on 16 April 1945, one month earlier than the date Stalin had given his allies.156 Despite the Soviet forces’ overwhelming advantage in manpower and hardware, this key battle was not easy. Out of more than 2 million soldiers of the Red Army and Polish Second Army who took part in the Berlin operation, more than 360,000 were killed, wounded, or went missing in action.157 German units put up a determined fight in defense of their capital.
The politically motivated decision to push forward the operation created great hurdles for the Red Army. Although delaying the offensive slightly would have made little difference to its outcome, Stalin required the front commanders to rush the advance of their forces at any cost. This accelerated pace, given the need to break through well-defended enemy positions, meant heavier casualties. The record speed of the operation and the concentration of a huge force directed against Berlin necessitated constant adjustments to the overall plan and field directives. According to the head of the General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate, General Sergei Shtemenko, Supreme Command Headquarters was in a state of turmoil throughout the Berlin operation. The General Staff leadership was summoned to Command Headquarters several times a day, sometimes at odd hours; many instructions were drafted under extreme time pressure; and the lightning speed of events made organized operations difficult.158 But no matter how hurriedly things were done at Headquarters, some historians believe that Stalin could not possibly “react to the changing situation in time.”159 It is unclear whether this lag in the flow of information to and from Headquarters had any real consequences. The performance of the Soviet Supreme Command and Stalin in the Berlin operation has received little scholarly scrutiny.
But no matter how many obstacles were thrown in the Red Army’s path, they were not enough to save the Nazis. On 25 April, Soviet units coming from one direction met U.S. forces coming from the other on the Elbe River. The victors’ absolute numerical superiority and high morale sealed the fate of the Third Reich. Early in the morning on 1 May, Stalin learned through an urgent telephone message from Marshal Zhukov that Hitler had committed suicide in his Berlin bunker the day before.160 On 2 May, the Berlin garrison capitulated. During the night of 8–9 May, the final surrender was formulated and signed by Germany. On 24 June, Moscow held a long-awaited and impressive victory parade. Then, on 27 June, Stalin was awarded the title of generalissimo.
Now the leader of a major world power, in July 1945 Stalin set out for a vanquished Berlin for yet another Big Three conference. No firsthand accounts of Stalin’s last trip outside the Soviet Union have been preserved. What did he see through the windows of his train? With whom did he meet or spend time during this journey? Undoubtedly he knew the upcoming meeting with his fellow leaders would not be an easy one. With victory, the disagreements among the Allies had only grown more contentious. The Soviet dictator would have his first meeting with the new American president, Harry Truman, among whose advisers advocates of a hard line toward the USSR were gaining ascendancy. The Western Allies were displeased by the sovietization of Romania and Bulgaria, to say nothing of unresolved arguments about the Polish government. Stalin did not trust the Americans and British. This mistrust was fanned when Truman privately informed him of American atom bomb tests. The principles of German demilitarization, de-Nazification, and democratization were unanimously approved, but the Allies argued bitterly about everything else. The search for compromises and mutual concessions was spurred by fears that the war-weary world could be plunged into a new confrontation, by Soviet hopes for economic cooperation with the West, and by Western hopes that the USSR would enter the war against Japan. In the end, Stalin managed to finalize an agreement allowing Poland to expand its territory at the expense of Germany and the Soviet Union to incorporate the Konigsberg area. He did not, however, get his way on reparations or on the creation of Soviet bases on the Turkish Straits and the Mediterranean.
Having achieved what he could in Europe, Stalin turned his attention to acquiring Japanese lands and gaining footholds in northern China. In Yalta he had agreed to join the war against Japan two or three months after Germany surrendered. Knowing how eager the United States was for Soviet help, he had been able to extract very advantageous terms. The “status quo” was preserved in the Mongolian People’s Republic, keeping it under de facto Soviet control. The USSR regained the southern portion of Sakhalin, which Russia had lost in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, and a commercial port and military base in northern China, along with the railroad line leading to it. Of fundamental significance to the USSR was the Allies’ agreement to recognize Soviet sovereignty over the strategically important Kuril Islands.
These agreements all remained in force up to the Berlin Conference, but now, for the first time in history, the nuclear factor came into play. The fact that the Americans had an atom bomb gave them much greater leverage. For one thing, fear of this powerful new technology could lead Japan to surrender even before the Soviet Union entered the war. Stalin preferred not to take the risk. He applied the same strategy in the Far East that he had used in Europe, where actual military possession of territory was more meaningful than agreements at the bargaining table. After the United States used its atom bombs against Japan, Stalin ordered the Red Army to launch an urgent offensive, giving his forces a deadline of 9 August 1945 to turn the Yalta concessions into a reality on the ground. The Soviet numerical advantage coupled with high morale and a seasoned fighting force brought about a quick victory. Even after Japan’s capitulation, Soviet forces continued to advance until all territories granted to the USSR at Yalta had been occupied. Then Stalin tried to take a little extra. In the Far East this meant pretentions to jointly occupy Japan proper and share in governing the country using a model similar to the one being applied in Germany. This effort was probably more a test of the new American president’s will than an actual demand, but it was accompanied by military preparations. After being decisively rebuffed by the Americans, Stalin quickly backed off, but not without some resentment. Disputes over Japan remained an irritant in Soviet-American relations for months. Japan itself did not recognize the Soviet capture of the Kuril Islands as legitimate.