This is how the war ended

60 years ago, in early September 1955, the historic visit of German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to Moscow took place, which became a turning point in relations between our countries

Not everyone knows that the state of war with Germany was only ended on January 25, 1955, when the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a corresponding decree. Surprisingly, diplomatic relations with the GDR have existed since 1949.

There were practically no relations with West Germany. Moreover, Bonn did not recognize the state division of Germany, and there was a corresponding article in the country's Constitution. Germany claimed sole representation of all Germans - later the so-called Hallstein Doctrine

* * Walter Hallstein (1901-1982) - State Secretary of the German Foreign Ministry from 1951 to 1958. . This course was officially enshrined by the victorious Western powers in the Paris Agreements of 1954, which opened the way for the FRG to NATO, ended the country's occupation regime and lifted most of the restrictions in the military-industrial field. West Germany finally ceased to be a "zone", turning into a full-fledged Western European state.

By exchanging embassies with this state, Moscow automatically consolidated the status of its satellite - East Germany, opening the way for it to the international arena.

The Ghost of Rapallo On June 7, 1955, the first secretary of the Soviet embassy in Paris handed over a note from the USSR government to the diplomatic mission of the FRG. It spoke of the need to "normalize relations between the two countries" and "settle outstanding issues."

There was a commotion in Bonn. Does this mean the unification of the country in the future? In January, the Soviet Union once again mentioned the possibility of some "all-German elections under international control." True, subject to the recognition of the GDR and the rejection of NATO, that is, declaratively, which was in the tradition of Stalinist diplomacy.

Adenauer knew perfectly well that the United States, Britain and France would critically perceive any of his steps towards Moscow. In the West, they were afraid that the FRG would sooner or later continue the traditions of Rapallo

* The Treaty of Rapallo is an agreement between the RSFSR and Germany, concluded on April 16, 1922 in the city of Rapallo (Italy) and critically received by other Western countries. For Russia, this was the first full-scale treaty and de jure recognition as a state, and for Germany, the first equal treaty after the Treaty of Versailles. to hasten the moment of unification of the country. However, any step towards unification was initially an occasion for contacts for Adenauer.

At the end of July, after consultations with the allies, the chancellor decided to negotiate. Of course, his hands were broken: America in the Cold War did not need a “neutral Germany” - it needed a reliable ally. That is why Adenauer had to not deviate one iota from the letter of the Paris Agreements. True, he could "exchange views" on the issue of unification, but not negotiate about it. However, the chancellor now did not count on a quick unification, because he knew that after the July Geneva meeting of the victorious countries, the former allies formed a concept according to which the existence of two Germanys is the basis of security in Europe.

Small change For the chancellor himself, the main condition in the negotiations was: no diplomatic relations without the return of all prisoners of war and internees.

The fate of the internees was sometimes no less tragic than the fate of the prisoners. Immediately after the war, hundreds of thousands of Germans (according to some German data, over 700 thousand) were forcibly sent to work in the USSR without any explanation. They were not counted as prisoners of war. Many remained in the Union until 1955. In this case, the authorities could refer to the draconian order of the Allied Control Council of September 20, 1945 on the collection of reparations from Germany not only in the form of goods, equipment, etc., but also in the form of the use of labor. Thus, the Allies made it possible for the Soviet Union to detain German prisoners of war as labor force after the end of the war, as well as to deport civilians to the USSR for use in hard work.

The number of detainees was initially estimated by West Germany at 100-130 thousand people, which, apparently, was an exaggeration. True, the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, Nikolai Bulganin, argued that there were no prisoners of war in the country at all, but there were “war criminals” convicted of crimes during the war. In addition, about a hundred German atomic scientists remained in the USSR, working mainly in the Sukhum center. Adenauer knew about this.

To Moscow, to Moscow... Preparations for the visit took place in emergency conditions. In the German Foreign Ministry, for example, not only specialists on the USSR were practically absent, but also qualified simultaneous interpreters and interpreters with knowledge of the Russian language. Slavists had to be mobilized for monthly courses. Knowledge was tested by Prince Konstantin Andronikov from the French Foreign Ministry, who did not know a word of German.

Without having their representation in Moscow, the Germans nevertheless refused the services of the Americans and the British, who cunningly offered them communications and encryption equipment. A special train was formed from 14 cars, in which a conference room protected from wiretapping was placed, rooms were equipped for cryptographers, typists, telegraphers, analysts; attached to it were the chancellor's saloon car, a dining car with a week's supply of food, a mail car with safes, and a garage car. Even wheel sets for the wide gauge of 1520 mm were made, and an assembly train approached the Soviet-Polish border.

On September 7, Adenauer arrived at the Leningradsky railway station to the cordoned off platform, decorated with a flower bed and a fountain. The next day, two four-engine passenger Lockheeds, chartered by the German government from Lufthansa, landed at the Vnukovo airfield with a short interval.

At the highest level At the meeting at the airport, Bulganin and Adenauer pretended not to recognize each other, although they drank brotherhood back in 1931 during the visit of Bulganin, chairman of the Moscow City Council, to Cologne, where Adenauer was the mayor. During the negotiations, the chancellor, as before, called the prime minister in accordance with the German pronunciation - "genosse Bulyanin." Bulganin once fell for "my friend."

The delegation consisted of 142 people, 17 of them were officials. She was allocated the most luxurious Sovetskaya hotel by the standards of that time, and concert grand pianos were even installed in the apartments. In the restaurant, guests were served around the clock with tables laid with bowls of caviar and other delicacies. In addition, at the disposal of the chancellor was state dacha No. 4, where M. Gorky once lived. True, the Germans brought two Mercedes-300 limousines with them. Secretary of State Hans Globke seized another supply of olive oil, which he gave out to members of the delegation as an "antidote" before receptions - it was impossible to "lower oneself in the eyes of the Russians."

They drank and ate a lot. The first joint lunch lasted more than three hours. Banquets followed one after another. A grand reception for 600 people was given in honor of the chancellor in the Georgievsky Hall of the Kremlin. The head of the political department of the German Foreign Ministry, Herbert von Blankenhorn, recalled:

“Sometimes it was impossible to drive away the impression that we were sitting somewhere in distant Asia in the tent of the great khan.” Later, the head of the German Foreign Ministry, Heinrich von Brentano, would caustically complete the picture: "... like in a tent of a gang of robbers."

It was 1955. Half the country was still in ruins...

At the Gorky dacha, Adenauer gave a response with dishes emphatically unusual for Soviet taste: “goose liver pate”, “tortoise soup”, “Holstein ham with asparagus”, “salmon in hollandaise sauce”, “larded roe deer leg with juniper gravy”, "Black Forest Cherry Pudding". White Moselle and Rhine, red French. Bulganin, Khrushchev and Molotov received a box of Moselle (24 bottles each) as a gift.

"Cat and mouse" Khrushchev Negotiations were difficult and twice were on the verge of collapse. According to Heinrich von Brentano, they looked like "a conversation with extortionists." They didn't know how to do it differently in Moscow. The reason is the almost complete incompatibility of the mentality and life values ​​of the participants. But how clear everything was with Ribbentrop! This time Molotov, who shone in August 1939, was almost invisible. Despite the fact that Bulganin was considered the head of the delegation, the first violin belonged to Khrushchev.

Khrushchev's sharp intervention in foreign policy was a natural result of his growing influence in the country. British Prime Minister Anthony Eden wrote about Khrushchev in his diary: “How can this fat, vulgar, pig-eyed man, who does not stop talking for a minute, be the head, even the king of millions of people in this vast expanse?”

Nikita Sergeevich undoubtedly introduced his personal style of behavior and his "black and white" ideas about the world and partners into Soviet diplomacy. So, he inspired Adenauer that he himself was not a diplomat. And if respected partners are not ready to negotiate right away, you can wait - it won't blow your ass. True, he did not say so, but slapped his backside.

Khrushchev explained to German diplomats that diplomats are generally good for nothing, but, unfortunately, it is also impossible to do without them.

He was partly right. As you know, in the USSR, objectionable party functionaries were exiled to the diplomatic service. Khrushchev, like his teacher Stalin, played "cat and mouse" with people, and sometimes with peoples: he would press and let go. Until it devours. It was almost a mandatory Soviet ritual. The Germans, as a defeated nation, had to follow him. But they didn't follow. And this infuriated Nikita Sergeevich. He did not take into account the fate of the prisoners at all. And he sincerely wondered why the chancellor was so worried about this.

As the German researcher Susanna Schattenberg noted, Khrushchev lacked "conceptual schemes" to understand the meaning of his partner's behavior. So, seeing the wide cheekbones of Adenauer, he ordered the state security to find out if he was a Tatar. The KGB reported that Adenauer owed his facial features to a car accident that happened in 1917, after which his jaw bones did not grow together correctly.

Another detail. Khrushchev was informed that the chancellor got up early, worked 18 hours a day, demanded order in everything, and this also irritated the impulsive first secretary: he did not understand Adenauer and could not tolerate this “old crap” in advance.

The conversation was often not about business at all, but about prestige, as Khrushchev understood it, who each time tried to prove that he, as they would now say, is “cooler” than the chancellor, or, at worst, Adenauer is “not cooler” than he. While the Germans emphasized the plenary meetings, for Khrushchev, business was done in informal meetings. Khrushchev's diplomacy was not designed for substantive negotiations, but for personal contacts and symbolic politics.

For example, shaking hands in the royal box at the Bolshoi Theater at the play "Romeo and Juliet" to the standing ovation of the audience - all this was not an accompanying program, but the main stage in which Khrushchev played. The calculation was to put the Germans in a position where they needed to make a quick decision, because breaking off the negotiations without an agreement would be "gross arrogance towards the host." Such "mousetraps" Khrushchev constantly arranged.

Honest Kremlin Adenauer quickly realized that the language of Western protocols would not help him. But in the struggle for his compatriots, he was able to join Khrushchev's sign system - that is, to provoke, shout, even threaten. As Wilhelm Greve, a member of the delegation, recalls, the chancellor repeatedly managed to "confound Khrushchev." 79-year-old Adenauer even drank on a par with hardened fighters at Stalin's revels - Bulganin and Khrushchev. Once he convicted them of drinking water instead of vodka. Adenauer himself drank wine at the same time.

During one of the skirmishes over the number of prisoners remaining in the USSR, Khrushchev, threatening Adenauer with his fist, shouted: “Yes, they are all already in coffins! We are not to blame, we did not cross the borders, we did not start this war.” Then Adenauer also jumped up, stretched out his clenched fists in Khrushchev's direction and almost shouted: "Who then made an agreement with Hitler, you or me?"

One day, returning to the hotel, Adenauer complained about the stubbornness of the Soviet side, gave orders to leave and ordered planes, while using an open telephone line. Soon after, at the evening reception, Khrushchev and Bulganin took the chancellor aside and informed him that in exchange for establishing diplomatic relations, they would release all prisoners of war and internees. True, they refused to give written guarantees, offering to rely on their word of honor from the Kremlin. Adenauer relied. At the end of the talks, Khrushchev told the delegation's press secretary, Felix von Eckard, "The chancellor is a great man."

Return The exact number of German prisoners of war and internees is unknown. Three and a half or two and a half million? The number of dead is unknown. A million or one and a half? The number of returnees is also unknown. War statistics are the most confusing thing in the world.

It is believed that after Adenauer's visit to both Germany, 39,628 people were able to leave. Some of them were real war criminals, SS men, who were later tried in Germany.

Twenty-seven German nuclear scientists were banned from leaving on the proposal of the KGB as carriers of secrets. You need to ask about their fate at the Lubyanka.

Shortly after the publication of the Decree of September 28, 1955 on the amnesty of convicted German prisoners of war in the Voikovsky camp near Ivanov, the German generals sitting in it drank with the Soviet generals for a "new life".

The war is over.

Photo: wikimedia.org, AP, konrad-adenauer.de, Associated Press,