The Spectre of a Separate Peace in the East: Russo-German 'Peace Feelers', 1942-44

Abstract

In the volume British Foreign Policy in the Second World War of the official History of the Second World War, published in 1962, Sir Llewellyn Woodward informs us that in 1943 the British Foreign Office received rumours of Russo-German peace conversations and that Molotov stated when questioned about them that the Soviet Government had received no such approaches from the Germans. Strictly speaking, Molotov was telling the truth. Rumours in August of the same year emanating from Stockholm were regarded by the British Foreign Office as an attempt by the Germans to cause trouble between the British and the Russians.' When Captain Liddell Hart published his History of the Second World War in 1970 he revealed the astonishing fact that Molotov met the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, at Kirovograd in the German occupied southern Ukraine prior to the Kursk offensive in June 1943. Ribbentrop is alleged to have proposed as a condition of peace that Russia's 'future frontier should run along the Dnieper', while Molotov would not consider anything less than the restoration of her original frontier. The discussion became hung up on the difficulty of bridging such a gap, and was broken off after a report that it had leaked out to the western powers. The problem about this nothing short of truly sensational informaI wish to express my gratitude to the advice of Dr Anton Hoch of the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte, Munich, and also to my son Roger W. J. Koch and my colleague W. J. D. Trythal who by their suggestions have helped to improve the presentation of this article.