YouTube link here.
By Ben Aris, Intellinews, 4/10/25
Thanks to the tangible thaw in US-Russian relations, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the government to work out the conditions for firms to return. The list is ready, The Bell reported on April 10.
A special government commission will assess all applications for market re-entry, with approval contingent on fulfilment of a range of industrial and political criteria. Without this authorisation, companies will not be permitted to resume operations in Russia. No one has applied to return so far, but a few firms have expressed an interest.
Putin opened the door for the return of Western companies towards the end of February, but made it clear that they could only return on the Kremlin’s terms and in a way that was beneficial to the Russian economy.
On the downside, any firm that took sides against Russia in the Ukraine conflict would be barred from operating.
On the upside, the Kremlin is going to force companies to localise production of inputs – something that the Kremlin was trying to get companies to do for years, especially in the automotive sector – without much luck. The goal is to accelerate the modernisation of Russia and promote import substitution, something the Kremlin has not made much progress with.
Specifically, the conditions, reported by Russian business daily RBC, include:
-Obtain approval from a special government commission (without which re-entry is not possible);
-Guarantee localisation of production within Russia;
-Commit to technology transfer and creation of research centres;
-Establish performance indicators for investment in development (KPIs);
-Comply with requirements for the level of robotisation in production;
-Form joint ventures with:
-Existing Russian shareholders of the former business, or
-Systemically important Russian enterprises;
-Prioritise inclusion of products in the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s list of 329 items for import substitution;
-Allow Russian businesses to pre-assess risks and vote on the advisability of a foreign firm’s return;
-Demonstrate previous compliance when exiting the Russian market:
-Fulfilled financial obligations (e.g. paid salaries, no outstanding debts)
-Did not support foreign agents, the Armed Forces of Ukraine or other hostile entities.
Many companies left Russia, selling their businesses to their local management in widespread MBOs, and many of these deals included a buy-back option should relations improve. However, the Kremlin has indicated these options will not be respected.
In the case of the Renault carmaker that was in a joint venture with Russian automotive titan AvtoVaz, the French firm sold its stake for a reported RUB2, but with an option to buy it back for the same price. However, a few days after Putin’s comments, AvtoVAZ president Maxim Sokolov said that Renault would have to pay $1.3bn if it wants its shares back, the amount of “extra” investment the Russian car company had to invest as a result of Renault’s departure.
In other sectors, especially retail, requests by foreign companies to retake control of their franchises will simply be ignored. McDonald’s, for example, spent three decades building up its chain, which was taken over by Vkusna i Tochka (Tasty. Period), including its flagship outlet on Pushkin’s Square in central Moscow. Since then the new owner has continued to invest, rolling out new stores in Russia’s regions and reported that the chain had become more profitable than the original after the first year of operations.
Most of the new owners have little incentive to sell them back to their original owners. During the exodus Russia saw one of the biggest transfers of wealth and property in its history, where entrepreneurs and managers picked up mature and profitable businesses with hundreds of thousands of dollars of turnover at very deep discounts. Franchises such as McDonald’s, if it returns at all, will be forced to start from scratch.
Encouraging foreign direct investment (FDI) is a classic goal of any government, as it brings not only the transfer of technology, but also management skills. But the Kremlin has been frustrated by the reluctance of international companies to set up full production lines in Russia. In the automotive sector just under two thirds of car parts continue to be imported from the European Original Equipment Manufacturers’ (OEMs) Western European parts plants as a way to prevent the authorities usurping their industry. In other businesses, like the French DIY retailer Leroy Merlin, the international companies have been more proactive, making investments in light manufacturing production after Chinese wages, a major source of product cost, overtook Russian labour wages. One of the most active foreign investors was Swedish furniture retailer IKEA – it refused to leave Russia after the invasion of Ukraine – which set up a credit scheme to finance the construction of Russia-based factories to make their products. However, the bulk of Russian FDI is the reinvestment of profits earned by multinationals operating in the market – a quirk of Russian national accounting is this reinvestment is counted as FDI, which is not the case in most markets – and not true FDI, which remains small by most emerging markets’ standards.
Now the Kremlin intends to force international firms that want to return to make these commitments by fiat rather than market forces.
In addition to the localisation of production, a key requirement includes the establishment of research centres, and the setting of specific investment performance indicators. Authorities will specifically evaluate technological contributions, such as the level of automation: Russia currently operates just 19 robots per 10,000 employees, compared with the global average of 162 and will set KPIs relating to the number of robots used in a new factory.
Foreign firms must also form joint ventures with Russian partners – either existing shareholders from their previous Russian operations or state-designated “systemically important” companies, but this will be done in terms of delivering as yet undefined “benefits” for the domestic economy.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade will prioritise applications from companies making products on the list of 329 items crucial for import substitution, but their domestic partners will also have a say in the process.
Applicants will also have to demonstrate their neutrality on sanctions and the Ukraine conflict. Moreover, they will need to prove they settled outstanding wages and cleared debts during their exit.
By Ian Proud, Substack, 5/3/25
Ian Proud was a member of His Britannic Majesty’s Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. He served as the Economic Counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow from July 2014 to February 2019. Prior to Moscow, he organized the 2013 G8 Summit in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, working out of 10 Downing Street. He recently published his memoir, “A Misfit in Moscow: How British diplomacy in Russia failed, 2014-2019.”
President Zelensky has threatened to attack the Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 9. This is disgraceful. And it is shocking that western politicians have not said so.
Amidst an ongoing war in Ukraine, countries involved in the defeat of Nazi Germany are preparing to mark the end of World War II, or the Great Patriotic War, as it is known in Russia. His Majesty the King will lead commemorations in Britain on 8 May. Russia and other former Soviet Countries such as Kazakhstan mark the end of the war on 9 May. The history is complex but boils down to a disagreement on the formal timing of Germany’s signature of the Instrument of Surrender.
As this is the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, the celebrations will be bigger than normal. A host of foreign dignitaries will be in Britain and in Russia, including the President Xi Jinping of China who’ll travel to Moscow.
Given the ongoing tussle over agreeing an end to the war in Ukraine, President Putin has announced a seventy two hour ceasefire covering the Victory Day period. That is to be welcomed.
Ukraine has been pressing for a more immediate 30 day unconditional ceasefire. However, as no concrete agreement has been reached on key sticking points, and with two separate and very different U.S. and European peace proposals in circulation, Russia has yet to agree to this.
I continue to hope for an end to this senseless war which has claimed over one million irrecoverable casualties already.
However, rather than taking up direct negotiations with Russia, something that the U.S. side has recommended and the Russian government has appeared receptive to, Zelensky has chosen instead to threaten an attack on Moscow on Victory Day. He said specifically:
“We are choosing precisely those sore points in Russia that will most prompt Moscow to diplomacy. Now they are worried that their parade is in question, and they are right to be worried.”
This is beyond contemptible. Zelensky claims that this threat is about pressuring Russia to agree to a diplomatic solution, but that is absurd. As Zelensky will well know, an attack on Moscow on Victory Day would lead to a sharp escalation of the war from the Russian side. It would destroy any hope of diplomacy.
For Russia and for other countries of the former Soviet Union, the 9 May commemoration is hugely symbolic and sacred, just as the 8 May commemoration is in Britain. The Soviet Union is thought to have suffered up to twenty seven million deaths during the war.
That’s an order of magnitude far in excess of casualties suffered by Britain, at around half a million people. I don’t say that to diminish British losses.
We honour the sacrifice of every civilian and member of service personnel who died during the war on May 8. My great uncle William Marrs was captured by the Japanese in Hong Kong and later died when a ship transporting him and 1800 other prisoners to hard labour camps in Japan was sunk off the coat of Korea on 1 October 1942. I remember his service to my country with pride tinged with sadness.
Russian people remember their losses with the same depths of emotion. When I lived in Moscow, I witnessed the Victory Day events each May and the pride and celebration among ordinary Russian people was identical to that I see among British people.
I also recall the Immortal Regiment, in which tens of thousands of citizens parade through Moscow holding photographs of their relatives who died during the war. When Nicholas Soames, grandson of Winston Churchill, visited Moscow ten years ago for the seventieth anniversary of the end of the war, the British Embassy posted an image on social media of him holding a photograph of his grandfather, our iconic wartime Prime Minister. Ahead of travelling to Moscow, Soames said, ‘We share in this Victory Day, as Britain and Russia stood together with our allies against the Nazis.’
Indeed, in 2010, British troops marched through Red Square to mark the 65th anniversary of the end of the war, though the thought seems impossible today.
Victory Day is a time for remembrance.
Zelensky has done a great discredit to his position as President of Ukraine and to the people of Ukraine. Around half of the Soviet losses took place in Ukraine at the hands of Nazi Germany.
But what concerns me as greatly is that western leaders have not distanced themselves from Zelensky’s comments. I have seen no words of rebuke from leaders in London, Berlin, Paris or Washington DC. Why have they not condemned Zelensky’s threat to attack a peaceful parade to mark the end of the twentieth century’s most devastating war? Indeed, since Zelensky’s outburst, Britain has announced, instead, that Ukrainian troops will take part in military commemorative parades in this country.
Had President Putin threatened to launch attacks on London on May 8, the British Army would be mobilising, and we’d be gearing up for World War III. Instead, Zelensky’s outburst is greeted with indifference.
How have we become so morally reduced that we have imbued Zelensky with such impunity that he can wage a war at our expense and take every step imaginable to prolong the war, with increasingly desperate and disgusting press stunts?
I hope that Zelensky is bluffing with his latest inflammatory threat. But what would we do if Ukraine did launch attacks on Moscow, on Victory Day? Would we condemn it?
I hope in that situation we would withdraw all support from Ukraine, pressure Zelensky to step down, ushering in long-overdue elections, while talking to Russia to prevent a quick escalation to World War III. I worry, however, that we would suck our teeth, deflect, and find some way to blame Russia.
By Patrick Armstrong, Website, 5/8/25
A couple of days ago I read a rather distressing discussion on X about US lend-lease to the USSR. Distressing because of the combination of impenetrable ignorance and unshakeable conviction. One side yelling that US lend-lease made no difference at all and you’re an idiot; the other yelling that it made all the difference and you’re the idiot. Like a bunch of drunks arguing about something in the Star Wars movies.
More ignorance on the Western side than on the Russian? Not sure actually in what I read although we have to agree that Trump just set the American bar pretty high. And it soon degenerated into who Hitler’s best friends were. Each was certain that he had all the facts and the other side had none.
Would the Soviets have beaten the nazis without US (and British and Canadian) aid? I’m inclined to think so although certainly at a greater cost and more years of struggle. Did the aid make a difference? Of course it did; in food and trucks especially. But you can make the argument that the Germans had lost their best chance after the Battle of Moscow in 1941 and after Stalingrad there was no chance. David Glantz has put it quite neatly I think: the Germans won the summers of 1941 and 1942 but the Soviets won the other summers and all the winters. Lend-lease took some time to build up and didn’t really peak until 1943 so less of an effect in those vital years of 1941 and 1942. (Years ago I was surprised to see a Canadian-made Valentine tank in a Berlin battle film. Apparently the Soviets liked the tank because it was well-armoured and easy to maintain, but I can’t think the 2-pounder gun was much use in 1945.)
Who won the war? The Allies did. But you can’t forget the 80/20 division. Who suffered the most? The Soviets undeniably. Where were the most important Axis defeats? On the Eastern Front, no question. (Except for the Battle of Britain.)
Who started the war? Well we all had a responsibility: Stalin spent six years trying to organise an anti-Hitler coalition but failed for various reasons and then became the last man to do a deal with Hitler. (It was infuriating in those X rants and counter-rants when some ignoramus threw out the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreement as if that were the final word. The certainty of facts without context.)
Probably the most noticeable thing on the Western side was the incomprehension of the gigantic scale of the fighting on the Eastern Front. I remember remarking when I first read Liddell-Hart’s history 40-50 years ago on the disproportionate space given to the North African fighting versus the Eastern Front. I have some sympathy for him because the Soviets weren’t telling us much then but still. And that disproportion persists in the West although there’s no excuse any more. And so does the view that the Soviets had no skill: on the contrary, once they got going, they beat the Germans strategically and operationally and surprised them almost every time. These people should be required to read at least one book by Glantz before they’re allowed to open their mouths again. And listen to the lecture by Jonathan House about the three German alibis.
And from the Russian side the tiresome conviction that D-Day only happened because the Western allies saw that the Soviets were winning and felt they’d better jump in. No, D-Day happened as soon as it could. I don’t think the Soviets had any idea of how difficult a seaborne invasion is against a defended coast. And how would they? Have the Russians or Soviets ever done one?
The Europeans secretly supported Hitler. Yes, many did, but they lost that argument in 1939.
Or Allen Dulles fooling around in Switzerland. He did but it was a personal initiative by a guy whose whole career was based on the assumption that the rules were whatever he said they were. Unconditional surrender was primarily Roosevelt’s initiative and he and Churchill agreed to it in January 1943. That, not Dulles’ fantasies, was and remained official policy.
Operation Unthinkable. Well, maybe the name gives you a clue.
But over the years much has been forgotten. The clearest example is that opinion poll record that shows the French in 1945 knowing the Soviets had played the biggest part (80/20) but these days believing the USA had.
As for Trump’s recent assertion, I have a horrible feeling that most of my neighbours, few of whom have ever heard of Canada’s Hundred Days, would agree with him.
********************************
I was there for the 50th. A different time. The Western Allies showed up to do honour. In those far-off days we knew the difference between Stepan Bandera and Lyudmilla Pavlichenko and which side which was on. Today the Canadian Parliament and British VE-Day ceremony organisers have forgotten.
Which, of course, feeds into the conviction many Russians already have that Marshal Zhukov got it right when he (reportedly) said “We have saved Europe from fascism and they will never forgive us for it”. (Did he actually say that? Certainly lots of Russians seem to think he did.)
***
World War II, the Ukraine Conflict, and the Bitter Truths of History
By Prof. Geoffrey Roberts, Brave New Europe, 5/8/25
A group called ‘Historians for Ukraine’ has published an ‘open letter to the people of the USA’ that denounces Russian disinformation about the Second World War. [https://historiansforukraine.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/20250406-EN-LETTER-historians-for-ukraine.pdf]
While such missives have become increasingly common since the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis in 2014, among this one’s signatories are reputable historians, whose names lend credibility to the letter’s strident denunciation of Putin’s ‘weaponization’ of World War Two history.
The letter is timed and designed to put a negative spin on Russia’s celebration and commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.
Eighty percent of all World War II combat took place on the Soviet-German front. During four years of war the Red Army destroyed 600 enemy divisions and inflicted ten million casualties on the Wehrmacht (75% of its total wartime losses), including three million dead. Red Army casualties totalled sixteen million, including eight million dead (three million in German POW camps). Adding to the attrition was the death of sixteen million Soviet civilians. Among them were a million Soviet Jews, executed by the Germans in 1941–2 at the beginning of the Holocaust.
The Soviet Union’s material losses were equally staggering: six million houses, 98,000 farms, 32,000 factories, 82,000 schools, 43,000 libraries, 6,000 hospitals, and thousands of miles of roads and railways. In total, the Soviet Union lost 25% of its national wealth and 14% of its population as a direct result of the war.
‘Historians for Ukraine’ claim support from the LRE Foundation, a worthy, Europe-based organisation, whose laudable mission is to promote “a multi-perspective understanding of the history of World War II. As each country had a different wartime experience, it is our goal to present each perspective in relation to each other.”1
‘Historians for Ukraine’, however, are interested in only one perspective – the tired, anti-Soviet story that has long been promoted by western cold warriors, a narrative that begins with the 1939 Stalin-Hitler pact and ends with communist subjugation of Eastern Europe in 1945.
The problem with this one-sided narrative is that the Soviets were far from being the first appeasers of Hitler and the Nazis. It was the British and French governments who pursed a deal with Hitler in the 1930s, while the Soviet Union campaigned for the collective containment of German expansionism. It was the Soviets who spent years trying to strengthen the League of Nations as a collective security organisation. It was the Soviet state that stood by Republican Spain during its fascist-initiated civil war. When London and Paris pressurised Czechoslovakia to concede the Sudetenland to Hitler, Moscow was ready to fulfil its mutual security commitments to Prague, provided the French did likewise. It was Poland that snatched a slice of Czech territory after Munich, not the Soviet Union.
The United States’ role in relation to these events was one of a bystander that passed a series of isolationist Neutrality Acts.
Before concluding his pact with Hitler, Stalin spent months negotiating a triple alliance with Britain and France that would have guaranteed the security of all European states under Nazi threat, including Poland. But the anti-communist Poles did not want or think they needed an alliance with the USSR when they had the pre-existing backing of Britain and France.
An Anglo-Soviet-French triple alliance might well have deterred Hitler from attacking Poland in September 1939, but London and Paris dragged their feet during the negotiations and as war approached Stalin began to doubt the utility of a Soviet-Western alliance. Fearful the Soviet Union would be left to fight Germany alone while Britain and France stood on the sidelines, Stalin decided to do a deal with Hitler that kept the USSR out of the coming war and provided some guarantees for Soviet security.
None of this complicated prewar history is alluded to in the ‘open letter’, let alone dealt with. Instead, its authors depict the Soviet Union as simply Hitler’s ally and as a co-belligerent in the invasion of Poland.
Actually, the short-lived Soviet-German alliance of 1939-1940 did not develop until after the partition of Poland. It was Germany’s crushing of Poland’s military power – and the failure of Britain and France to effectively aid their Polish ally – that prompted Stalin to occupy the territory allocated to the USSR under the terms of a secret Soviet-German spheres influence agreement – an action that Winston Churchill wholeheartedly supported: “We could have wished that the Russian armies should be standing on their present line as friends and allies of Poland instead of as invaders. But that the Russian armies should stand on this line was clearly necessary for the safety of Russia against the Nazi menace.”
The Polish territories occupied by the Soviets lay east of the so-called ‘Curzon Line’ -the ethnographical frontier between Russia and Poland demarcated at Versailles – mostly populated by Jews, Belorussians and Ukrainians, many of whom welcomed the Red Army as liberators from Warsaw’s rule. Such enthusiasm did not outlast the violent process of sovietisation and communisation through which these territories were incorporated into the USSR as part of a unified Belorussia and a united Ukraine.
Nonetheless, it was Stalin and the Nazi-Soviet pact that prised Western Ukraine from Poland. At the end of the war, Churchill pleaded for the return of Lvov to the Poles, but Stalin refused, saying the Ukrainians would never forgive him. As compensation for the loss of its eastern territories, Poland was given East Prussia and other parts of Germany – a transfer that resulted in the brutal displacement of millions of Germans from their ancestral lands.
Also allocated to the Soviet sphere of influence were Finland and the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. According to the open letter: “shortly after the start of the war, the Soviets also attacked Finland. Then in 1940 they invaded and annexed Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.” But, again, the story is not quite so simple.
Stalin’s preferred option was a diplomatic deal with the Finns, including an exchange of territories, his aim being to enhance Leningrad’s security. Only when those negotiations failed did the Red Army invade Finland in December 1939. Soviet losses were enormous but by March 1940 the Finns had been forced to accept Stalin’s terms. Finland could have sat out the rest of the Second World War as a neutral state but the country’s leaders chose, disastrously, to join Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union, besieging Leningrad from the north, and thereby contributing to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians in the blockaded city.
Stalin’s aims in relation to the Baltic States were initially quite modest – loose spheres of influence arrangements based on mutual assistance pacts and Soviet military bases. “We are not going to seek their sovietisation”, Stalin told his comrades, “the time will come when they will do that themselves!” However, by summer 1940 Stalin feared the Baltics were slipping back into the German orbit. There was also political pressure from local leftists who wanted the Soviets to make the revolution for them – to use the Red Army to overthrow the old regimes of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
As in Poland, the sovietisation of the Baltic States and their incorporation into the USSR was extremely violent, including the deportation of 25,000 ‘undesirables’. Such repression could not but feed into the widespread Baltic collusion with the Nazi occupation that followed Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
Somewhat grudgingly, the open letter admits the Soviet Union “suffered horrifying losses” during the war, including in Ukraine, and also notes the Red Army’s liberation of Eastern Europe in 1944-1945, but it bemoans the resultant repressive communist regimes. Unmentioned is that many of the countries occupied by the Red Army – Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia – and then taken over by the communists – were ex-Axis states.
Authoritarianism was the hallmark of Eastern European politics long before the communist takeover. The country that came closest to a western-style democracy was Czechoslovakia, where the communists and socialists won a majority of votes in postwar elections. Support for the left was weaker elsewhere but there is no doubting the mass popular basis of East European communism in the early postwar years.
The postwar international context is all important to understanding the transformation of the Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe into a tightly controlled Stalinist bloc. It was the polarisations and conflicts of the cold war that encouraged the radicalisation of Soviet and communist policy in Eastern Europe, not least in Czechoslovakia, where a communist coup in 1948 overthrew the broad coalition that had hitherto governed the country.
The one country able to find a way through these tensions was Finland – because its postwar leaders wisely refrained from involving western powers in their internal political struggles. Hence Finland remained unoccupied by Stalin and evolved into a semi-detached member of the Soviet bloc that was friendly to Moscow but in control of its domestic sovereignty. Absent the cold war, what came to be called ‘Finlandisation’ might have worked for other Soviet bloc states as well.
Among the Red Army’s most implacable enemies were those Ukrainian nationalists who actively collaborated with the Nazis, participated in the Holocaust, and ethnically exterminated tens of thousands of Poles. Those same nationalists are widely lauded as heroes and patriots in contemporary Ukraine – an inconvenient truth evaded by the authors of the open letter, who claim that “Putin’s assertion that Ukraine today glorifies the Nazis and their collaborators is notonly factually incorrect but insulting to this nation’s own tragic history.”
All politicians distort and manipulate the past for political purposes, and Putin is no exception. But the same is true of polemicizing propagandists.
The Nazi-Soviet pact is a fact but so is Polish collaboration with Hitler in the 1930s. The Soviet Union did cooperate with Nazi Germany but it also played the main role in the defeat of Hitler. Stalin was responsible for vast mass repressions but he was not a racist or genocidal dictator and nor was he a warmonger. The Red Army’s invasion of Eastern Poland was reprehensible but it also unified Belorussia and Ukraine. During the Second World War the Red Army was responsible for many atrocities but it did not commit mass murder and it did, together with its western allies, liberate Europe from the Nazis.
‘Historians for Ukraine’ hope for a suitable diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict but their letter’s shrill attack on the Russian perspective on the Second World War is inimical to the cause of peace.
By Kit Klarenberg, Substack, 5/4/25
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As VE Day approaches, Western officials, pundits and journalists are widely seeking to exploit the 80th anniversary of Nazism’s defeat for political purposes. European leaders have threatened state attendees of Russia’s grand May 9th victory parade with adverse consequences. Meanwhile, countless sources draw historical comparisons between appeasement of Nazi Germany throughout the 1930s, and the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to strike a deal with Moscow to end the Ukraine proxy conflict.
As The Atlantic put it in March, “Trump Is Offering Putin Another Munich” – a reference to the September 1938 Munich Agreement, under which Western powers, led by Britain, granted a vast portion of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany. Mainstream narratives of appeasement state that this represented the policy’s apotheosis – its final act, which it was believed would permanently sate Adolf Hitler’s expansionist ambitions, but actually made World War II inevitable.
Appeasement is universally accepted today in the West as a well-intentioned but ultimately catastrophically failed and misguided attempt to avoid another global conflict with Germany, for peace’s sake. According to this reading, European governments made certain concessions to Hitler, while turning a blind eye to egregious breaches of the post-World War I Versailles Treaty, such as the Luftwaffe’s creation in February 1935, and Nazi Germany’s military occupation of the Rhineland in May the next year.
In reality though, from Britain’s perspective, the Munich Agreement was intended to be just the start of a wider process that would culminate in “world political partnership” between London and Berlin. Two months prior, the Federation of British Industries (FBI), known today as the Confederation of British Industry, made contact with its Nazi counterpart, Reichsgruppe Industrie (RI). The pair eagerly agreed their respective governments should enter into formal negotiations on Anglo-German economic integration.
Representatives of these organisations met face-to-face in London on November 9th that year. The summit went swimmingly, and a formal conference in Düsseldorf was scheduled for next March. Coincidentally, later that evening in Berlin, Kristallnacht erupted, with Nazi paramilitaries burning and destroying synagogues and Jewish businesses across Germany. The most infamous pogrom in history was no deterrent to continued discussions and meetings between FBI and RI representatives. A month later, they inked a formal agreement on the creation of an international Anglo-Nazi coal cartel.
British officials fully endorsed this burgeoning relationship, believing it would provide a crucial foundation for future alliance with Nazi Germany in other fields. Moreover, it was hoped Berlin’s industrial and technological prowess would reinvigorate Britain’s economy at home and throughout the Empire, which was ever-increasingly lagging behind the ascendant US. In February 1939, representatives of British government and industry made a pilgrimage to Berlin to feast with high-ranking Nazi officials, in advance of the next month’s joint conference.
As FBI representatives prepared to depart for Düsseldorf in March, British cabinet chief Walter Runciman – a fervent advocate of appeasement, and chief architect of Czechoslovakia’s carve up – informed them, “gentlemen, the peace of Europe is in your hands.” In a sick twist, they arrived on March 14th, while Czechoslovakian president Emil Hácha was in Berlin meeting with Hitler. Offered the choice of freely allowing Nazi troops entry into his country, or the Luftwaffe reducing Prague to rubble before all-out invasion, he suffered a heart attack.
After revival, Hácha chose the former option. The Düsseldorf conference commenced the next morning, as Nazi tanks stormed unhindered into rump Czechoslovakia. Against this monstrous backdrop, a 12-point declaration was ironed out by the FBI and RI. It envisaged “a world economic partnership between the business communities” of Berlin and London. That August, FBI representatives secretly met with Herman Göring to anoint the agreement. In the meantime, the British government had via back channels made a formal offer of wide-ranging “cooperation” with Nazi Germany.
‘Political Partnership’
In April 1938, journeyman diplomat Herbert von Dirksen was appointed Nazi Germany’s ambassador to London. A committed National Socialist and rabid antisemite, he also harboured a particularly visceral loathing of Poles, believing them to be subhuman, eagerly supporting Poland’s total erasure. Despite this, due to his English language fluency and aristocratic manners, he charmed British officials and citizens alike, and was widely perceived locally as Nazi Germany’s respectable face.
Even more vitally though, Dirksen – in common with many powerful elements of the British establishment – was convinced that not only could war be avoided, but London and Berlin would instead forge a global economic, military, and political alliance. His 18 months in Britain before the outbreak of World War II were spent working tirelessly to achieve these goals, by establishing and maintaining communication lines between officials and decisionmakers in the two countries, while attempting to broker deals.
Dirksen published an official memoir in 1950, detailing his lengthy diplomatic career. However, far more revealing insights into the period immediately preceding World War II, and behind-the-scenes efforts to achieve enduring detente between Britain and Nazi Germany, are contained in the virtually unknown Dirksen Papers, a two-volume record released by the Soviet Union’s Foreign Languages Publishing House without his consent. They contain private communications sent to and from Dirksen, diary entries, and memos he wrote for himself, never intended for public consumption.
Documents And Materials Relating To The Eve Of The Second World War Ii
21.6MB ∙ PDF file
The contents were sourced from a vast trove of documents found by the Red Army after it seized Gröditzberg, a castle owned by Dirksen where he spent most of World War II. Mainstream historians have markedly made no use of the Dirksen Papers. Whether this is due to their bombshell disclosures posing a variety of dire threats to established Western narratives of World War II, and revealing much the British government wishes to remain forever secret, is a matter of speculation.
Immediately after World War II began, Dirksen “keenly” felt an “obligation” to author a detailed post-mortem on the failure of Britain’s peace overtures to Nazi Germany, and his own. He was particularly compelled to write it as “all important documents” in Berlin’s London embassy had been burned following Britain’s formal declaration of war on September 3rd 1939. Reflecting on his experiences, Dirksen spoke of “the tragic and paramount thing about the rise of the new Anglo-German war”:
“Germany demanded an equal place with Britain as a world power…Britain was in principle prepared to concede. But, whereas Germany demanded immediate, complete and unequivocal satisfaction of her demands, Britain – although she was ready to renounce her Eastern commitments, and…allow Germany a predominant position in East and Southeast Europe, and to discuss genuine world political partnership with Germany – wanted this to be done only by way of negotiation and a gradual revision of British policy.”
‘German Reply’
From London’s perspective, Dirksen lamented, this radical change in the global order “could be effected in a period of months, but not of days or weeks.” Another stumbling block was the British and French making a “guarantee” to defend Poland in the event she was attacked by Nazi Germany, in March 1939. This bellicose stance – along with belligerent speeches from Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain – was at total odds with simultaneous conciliatory approaches such as Düsseldorf, and the private stances and utterances of British officials to their Nazi counterparts.
In any event, it appears London instantly regretted its pledge to defend Poland. Dirksen records in his post-mortem how subsequently, senior British officials told him they sought “an Anglo-German entente” that would “render Britain’s guarantee policy nugatory” and “enable Britain to extricate her from her predicament in regard to Poland,” so Warsaw would “be left to face Germany alone”.
In mid-July 1939, Horace Wilson – an extremely powerful civil servant and Chamberlain’s right hand man – approached Göring’s chief aide Helmuth Wohlthat during a visit to London. Wilson “outlined a program for a comprehensive adjustment of Anglo-German relations” to him, which amounted to a radical overhaul of the two countries’ “political, military and economic arrangements.” This included “a non-aggression pact”, explicitly concerned with shredding Britain’s “guarantee” to Warsaw. Dirksen noted:
“The underlying purpose of this treaty was to make it possible for the British gradually to disembarrass themselves of their commitments toward Poland, on the ground that they had…secured Germany’s renunciation of methods of aggression.”
Elsewhere, “comprehensive” proposals for economic cooperation were outlined, with the promise of “negotiations…to be undertaken on colonial questions, supplies of raw material for Germany, delimitation of industrial markets, international debt problems, and the application of the most favoured nation clause.” In addition, a realignment of “the spheres of interest of the Great Powers” would be up for discussion, opening the door for further Nazi territorial expansion. Dirksen makes clear these grand plans were fully endorsed at the British government’s highest levels:
“The importance of Wilson’s proposals was demonstrated by the fact that Wilson invited Wohlthat to have them confirmed by Chamberlain personally.”
During his stay in London, Wohlthat also had extensive discussions with Overseas Trade Secretary Robert Hudson, who told him “three big regions offered the two nations an immense field for economic activity.” This included the existing British Empire, China and Russia. “Here agreement was possible; as also in other regions,” including the Balkans, where “England had no economic ambitions.” In other words, resource-rich Yugoslavia would be Nazi Germany’s for the taking, under the terms of “world political partnership” with Britain.
Dirksen outlined the contents of Wohlthat’s talks with Hudson and Wilson in a “strictly secret” internal memo, excitedly noting “England alone could not adequately take care of her vast Empire, and it would be quite possible for Germany to be given a rather comprehensive share.” A telegram dispatched to Dirksen from the German Foreign Office on July 31st 1939 recorded Wohlthat had informed Göring of Britain’s secret proposals, who in turn notified Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Dirksen noted elsewhere Wohlthat specifically asked the British how such negotiations “might be put on a tangible footing.” Wilson informed him “the decisive thing” was for Hitler to “[make] his willingness known” by officially authorising a senior Nazi official to discuss the “program”. Wilson “furthermore strongly stressed the great value the British government laid upon a German reply” to these offers, and how London “considered that slipping into war was the only alternative.”
‘Authoritarian Regimes’
No “reply” apparently ever came. On September 1st 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland, Britain declared war on Germany two days later, and the rest is history – albeit history that is subject to determined obfuscation, constant rewriting, and deliberate distortion. Polls of European citizens conducted in the immediate aftermath of World War II showed there was little public doubt that the Red Army was primarily responsible for Nazi Germany’s destruction, while Britain and the US were perceived as playing mere walk-on roles.
For example, in 1945, 57% of French citizens believed Moscow “contributed most to the defeat of Germany in 1945” – just 20% named the US, and 12% Britain. By 2015, less than a quarter of respondents recognised the Soviet role, with 54% believing the US to be Nazism’s ultimate vanquisher. Meanwhile, a survey on the 80th anniversary of D-Day in June 2024 found 42% of Britons believed their own country had done more to crush Hitler than all other allies combined.
The same poll identified a staggering level of ignorance among British citizens of all ages about World War II more generally, with only two thirds of respondents even able to place D-Day as having occurred during that conflict. The pollsters didn’t gauge public knowledge of Britain’s long-running, concerted attempts to forge a global Empire with Nazi Germany in the War’s leadup, although betting is high that the figure would be approximately zero.
Meanwhile, in 2009 the European Parliament instituted a day of remembrance on August 23rd each year, to “mark the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of All Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes”. This is just one of several modern-day initiatives to perversely conflate Communism and Nazism, while transforming Wehrmacht and SS collaborators, Holocaust perpetrators, and fascists in countries liberated by the Red Army into victims, and laying blame for World War II at Russia’s feet, by dent of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
What officials in London proposed to Hitler in 1939 far eclipsed the terms of that controversial agreement, but there will of course be no consideration of this when VE Day is celebrated in Western capitals in 2025. In Britain, the government has “encouraged” the public to host street parties, and attend a march by over 1,300 uniformed soldiers from Parliament Square to Buckingham Palace. It is a bitter irony the procession will start and end at the very places where, eight decades ago, support for Nazi Germany was strongest in the country.