Message to W. Churchill (Correspondence Vol. 1, No. 419)

I have received your message of April 5.
I have already answered, in my message of April 7 to the President, which I am also sending to you, all the main points raised in your message in relation to the negotiations in Switzerland. As regards other points in your message, I think it necessary to say this. Neither I nor Molotov had any intention of "aspersing" anyone. It is not a question of our wanting to "asperse" anyone but of the fact that differences have arisen between us as to the duties and the rights of an Ally. You will see from my message to the President that the Russian view of the matter is correct, for it guarantees the rights of any Ally and deprives the enemy of any opportunity to sow distrust between us. 2. My messages are personal and most secret. This enables me to speak my mind frankly and clearly. That is an advantage of secret correspondence. But if you take every frank statement of mine as an affront, then the correspondence will be greatly handicapped. I can assure you that I have never had, nor have I now, any intention of affronting anyone.
April 7, 1945
I have received your message of April 5.
In my message of April 3 the point was not about integrity or trustworthiness. I have never doubted your integrity or trustworthiness, just as I have never questioned the integrity or trustworthiness of Mr Churchill. My point is that in the course of our correspondence a difference of views has arisen over what an Ally may permit himself with regard to another and what he may not. We Russians believe that, in view of the present situation on the fronts, a situation in which the enemy is faced with inevitable surrender, whenever the representatives of one of the Allies meet the Germans to discuss surrender terms, the representatives of the other Ally should be enabled to take part in the meeting. That is absolutely necessary, at least when the other Ally seeks participation in the meeting. The Americans and British, however, have a different opinion - they hold that the Russian point of view is wrong. For that reason they have denied the Russians the right to be present at the meeting with the Germans in Switzerland. I have already written to you, and I see no harm in repeating that, given a similar situation, the Russians would never have denied the Americans and British the right to attend such a meeting. I still consider the Russian point of view to be the only correct one, because it precludes mutual suspicions and gives the enemy no chance to sow distrust between us.
2. It is hard to agree that the absence of German resistance on the Western Front is due solely to the fact that they have been beaten. The Germans have 147 divisions on the Eastern Front. They could safely withdraw from 15 to 20 divisions from the Eastern Front to aid their forces on the Western Front. Yet they have not done so, nor are they doing so. They are fighting desperately against the Russians for Zemlenice, an obscure station in Czechoslovakia, which they need just as much as a dead man needs a poultice, but they surrender without any resistance such important towns in the heart of Germany as Osnabrück, Mannheim and Kassel. You will admit that this behaviour on the part of the Germans is more than strange and unaccountable.
3. As regards those who supply my information, I can assure you that they are honest and unassuming people who carry out their duties conscientiously and who have no intention of affronting anybody. They have been tested in action on numerous occasions. Judge for yourself. In February General Marshall made available to the General Staff of the Soviet troops a number of important reports in which he, citing data in his possession, warned the Russians that in March the Germans were planning two serious counter-blows on the Eastern Front, one from Pomerania towards Thorn, the other from the Moravskâ Ostrava area towards Lódź. It turned out, however, that the main German blow had been prepared, and delivered, not in the areas mentioned above, but in an entirely different area, namely, in the Lake Balaton area, south-west of Budapest. The Germans, as we now know, had concentrated 35 divisions in the area, 11 of them armoured. This, with its great concentration of armour, was one of the heaviest blows of the war. Marshal Tolbukhin succeeded first in warding off disaster and then in smashing the Germans, and was able to do so also because my informants had disclosed - true with some delay - the plan for the main German blow and immediately apprised Marshal Tolbukhin. Thus I had yet another opportunity to satisfy myself as to the reliability and soundness of my sources of information.
For your guidance in this matter I enclose a letter sent by Army General Antonov, Chief of Staff of the Red Army, to Major-General Deane. April 7, 1945
Dear General Deane,
Please convey to General Marshall the following:
On February 20 I received a message from General Marshall through General Deane, saying that the Germans were forming two groups for a counter-offensive on the Eastern Front: one in Pomerania to strike in the direction of Thorn and the other in the Vienna-Moravskâ Ostrava area to advance in the direction of Lódź. The southern group was to include the 6th S.S. Panzer Army. On February 12 I received similar information from Colonel Brinkman, head of the Army Section of the British Military Mission.
I am very much obliged and grateful to General Marshall for the information, designed to further our common aims, which he so kindly made available to us.
At the same time it is my duty to inform General Marshall that the military operations on the Eastern Front in March did not bear out the information furnished by him. For the battles showed that the main group of German troops, which included the 6th S.S. Panzer Army, had been concentrated, not in Pomerania or in the Moravskâ Ostrava area, but in the Lake Balaton area, whence the Germans launched their offensive in an attempt to break through to the Danube and force it south of Budapest.
Thus, the information supplied by General Marshall was at variance with the actual course of events on the Eastern Front in March. It may well be that certain sources of this information wanted to bluff both Anglo-American and Soviet Headquarters and divert the attention of the Soviet High Command from the area where the Germans were mounting their main offensive operation on the Eastern Front.
Despite the foregoing, I would ask General Marshall, if possible, to keep me posted with information about the enemy. I consider it my duty to convey this information to General Marshall solely for the purpose of enabling him to draw the proper conclusions in relation to the source of the information. Please convey to General Marshall my respect

and gratitude. Truly yours,
March 30, 1945