A Programme for Germany

Abstract

There were certainly some essentials which Soviet policy on Germany had to look at in any event. First of all was the goal of security against Germany. Actually a self-evident concern given that German aggression had been repulsed only with the greatest of efforts, this was often overlooked by those speculating over Soviet goals in Germany. Con-sidering deeply-rooted fears of Bolshevism, abhorrence of a Stalinist repression so contemptuous of humanity, and the widespread tendency of the Germans to evade their own responsibility, it was possible to lose sight of the fact that the Soviet Union was the victim of a German war of aggression and that the Wehrmacht had conducted this war with the goal of completely exterminating its Bolshevik opponents.¹ According to the most recent estimates, at least 27 million Soviet citizens became victims of this conflict, a figure representing 14 per cent of the prewar population.² The Soviet state had been driven to the edge of collapse, Stalin’s rule had been severely shaken, and the western Soviet regions which had fallen into German hands had been largely laid waste. In this situation, any Soviet government would have attempted to exploit military victory first of all to take preventative measures against further German aggression. Stalin received support in this goal from all those who speculated that Soviet victory would usher in a relaxation of the internal system of coercion.

What did the Soviet Union want for Germany in 1945? Neither the decisiveness with which the Soviet occupiers went to work beginning in the early summer of 1945 nor the opaqueness of Soviet decision making for outside observers should be allowed to conceal the fact that Josef V. Stalin himself — after victory in “the Great Patriotic War”, more than ever the final authority on decisions concerning German policy — for a time did not know exactly how he should deal with the defeated Reich. Those with influence over his decisions were often of diverse opinions. Decisions required time, and numerous essentially incompatible conceptions were frequently pursued parallel to one an-other, exactly as was the case with the Western occupying powers.