On the 22d June 1941, German Armed Forces invaded Russia—without warning, without declaration of war. It was a breach of the Hague Conventions; it was a violation of the Pact of Paris of 1928: it was in flagrant contradiction of the Treaty of nonaggression which Germany and Russia had signed on the 23d August 1939.
But that Treaty, perhaps more blatantly than any other, was made without any intention of being observed and only for the purpose of assisting the German Government to carry out their aggressive plans against the Western democracies before eventually turning east in their own good time.
Hitler himself in referring to the Agreement said agreements were only to be kept as long as they served a purpose. Ribbentrop was more explicit. In an interview with the Japanese Ambassador in Berlin on 23d February 1941 he made it clear that the object of the Agreement had merely been to avoid a two-front war. (1834-PS)
In contrast to what Hitler and Ribbentrop were planning within the councils of Germany, we know what they were saying to the rest of the world.
On the 19th July Hitler spoke in the Reichstag:
“In these circumstances I consider it proper to negotiate as a first priority a sober definition of interests with Russia. It would be made clear once and for all what Germany believes she must regard as her sphere of interest to safeguard her future and, on the other hand, what Russia considers important for her existence.
“From the clear delineation of the sphere of interest on either side, there followed the new regulation of Russo-German relations. Any hope that now at the end of the term of the agreement a new Russo-German tension could arise is childish. Germany has taken no step which would lead her outside her sphere of interest, nor has Russia. But England’s hope, to achieve an amelioration of her own position through the engineering of some new European crisis, is, in so far as it is concerned with Russo-German relations, an illusion.
“British statesmen perceive everything somewhat slowly, but they too will learn to understand this in course of time.”
Yet it was not many months after that that the arrangements for attacking Russia were put in hand. Raeder gives us the probable reasons for this sudden decision in a note to Admiral Assmann.
“The fear that control of the air over the Channel in the Autumn of 1940 could no longer be attained, a realization which the Fuehrer no doubt gained earlier than the Naval War Staff, who were not so fully informed of the true results of air raids on England (our own losses), surely caused the Fuehrer, as far back as August and September, to consider whether, even prior to victory in the West, an Eastern campaign would be feasible with the object of first eliminating our last serious opponent on the continent. The Fuehrer did not openly express this fear, however, until well into September.”