on july the 6th 1940 in berlin adolf hitler celebrated his victory in [Music] europe his army chief called him the greatest warlord in history from moscow hitler's collaborator the russian leader joseph stalin had sent his congratulations in london the british prime minister winston churchill was isolated in washington the american president franklin roosevelt stood aloof in the coming five years everything in the relationship between these four men would change in ways that seemed unimaginable [Music] while their nations fought a war of weapons these four great warlords of the 20th century fought a war of the mind
what started as a european war has developed into a war for world domination at the heart of this private war was a series of psychological duels in which they lied schemed charmed flattered and deceived to win was curious was that these duels took place not between enemies but between men who at the time were allies yet their behavior was egotistic tempestuous monstrous and politically despite the rosy glow in which some are seen today always selfish we shall never cease the duels of the warlords decided the strategy for the greatest battles in history they were also
the epicenter of a seismic shift in world power from the age of european empires to the age of two ideologically opposed superpowers with devastating consequences for hundreds of millions of people [Music] over salzburg in southern germany one of the world's loveliest places it was here in august 1939 that adolf hitler was thinking the unthinkable hitler had set his heart on invading poland and his generals had told him he must attack before the autumn reigns came but britain and france had said they would go to war for poland one thing stood in hitler's way the fear
that russia would also turn against him and propel him into a war on two fronts this was the very thing imprinted in hitler's mind as having helped to lose germany the first world war twenty years before there was only one way out a pact with his greatest ideological enemy joseph stalin hitler put out feelers to moscow though he little realized it he was instigating a mental duel with stalin which over the next two years would decide the destiny of the second world war [Applause] stalin was deeply suspicious of hitler's approach he spent hours reading minecamp
written 15 years before underlining key passages like hitler's views of the bolshevik leaders men such as stalin himself never forget that the rulers of present-day russia are common bloodstained criminals that they are the scum of humanity but stalin could see that hitler was now desperate for a deal and offering to send his foreign minister riventrop to moscow stalin decided he would go with hitler hitler's propaganda chief joseph goebbels noted in his diary 22nd of august 1939 non-aggression pact with moscow perfect ribbon trap in moscow on wednesday that is something we're on top again now we
can sleep more easily on august the 23rd ribbon truck landed in moscow but hitler needed one piece of reassurance he sent his personal photographer heinrich hoffman to film stalin's earlobes to see whether they were ingrown and jewish or separate and aryan they were separate stalin passed hitler's test [Music] shortly after midnight on august 24 1939 the nazi soviet pact was signed and with it a secret protocol under which germany and russia would carve poland into two hitler phoned ribbon trump this will hit like a bombshell but as gerbils noted it was not strength but fear
of stalin knifing him in the back that had forced hitler into history's biggest u-turn the fearer believes he's in the position of scrounging for favors and beggars can't be choosers in times of famine the devil feeds on flies [Music] in the kremlin stalin proposed a toast i know how much the german nation loves its fuhrer i should therefore like to drink his [Music] health but like hitler stalin was also acting from fear that hitler would attack him that evening he told his inner circle of course it's all a game to see who can fool whom
he thinks he's outsmarted me but actually it's i who's tricked him [Music] stalin had found a bedfellow for whose cunning he had held a long and sneaking admiration [Music] back in 1934 stalin had observed hitler eliminated rivals within the nazi party in the so-called night of the long knives he remarked did you hear what happened in germany some fellow that hitler splendid that's a deed of some skill hitler had felt no such mutual admiration in his early years in power he was set on the dreams of minecamp an alliance with britain's sea empire while he
expanded to the east and built his german land empire on the continent only when that plan had clearly failed did hitler begin to see in stalin someone he might do business with stalin was the first of the two to be a mass murderer his terrors killed millions he once compared his victims with the boyar landowners massacred by ivan the terrible 400 years before who's going to remember all this riffraff in 10 or 20 years time no one who remembers the names now of the boyars ivan the terrible got rid of no one a week before
he invaded poland hitler made an eerily similar remark to his generals genghis khan had millions of men and women killed by his own will and with a gay heart history sees him only as a great state builder and who after all speaks today of the annihilation of the armenians for both men mass murder was just another weapon in the ideological struggle the state whether communist or nazi was supreme individuals were its disposable tools they even extended this idea to their domestic lives hitler had secret mistresses most notably ava brown but in public no woman could
come between him and his nation one of his secretaries recalled that he emphasized again and again my lover is germany stalin did marry twice and had children but the suicide of his second wife nadia in 1932 further brutalized him echoing hitler he told an associate a true bolshevik shouldn't and couldn't have a family because he should give himself holy to the party stalin told his son vasily i'm not stalin stalin is soviet power now in august 1939 these two great ideologically opposed warlords were inextricably linked eight days after the signing of the pact hitler invaded
poland britain declared war winston churchill rejoined the british cabinet stalin publicly supported his nazi collaborator he told the world it is not germany who has attacked england and france but england and france who have attacked germany the enslavement of poland further united the two extreme proponents of totalitarian violence ss units killed 60 000 jews and members of the polish ruling class it was hitler's first experience of mass murder and profoundly influenced him it showed him his followers would actually do it stalin's secret police the nkvd long versed in mass killing would carry out similar massacres
in the east of poland among their victims were more than 20 000 polish officers and political prisoners whose bodies would be discovered three years later as their secret police mutilated poland the two dictators faced their destinies hand in hand over the next two years in a mined war unparalleled in world history they would both become gripped by a series of delusions that would lead them into colossal error and the bloodiest conflict there has ever been stalin had entered his pact with hitler with open eyes he never doubted he was something with the devil but he
believed the pact would give the soviet union both protection and opportunity just a week after the nazis invaded poland he told his inner circle a war is on between two groups of capitalist countries hitler without understanding it or desiring it is shaking and undermining the capitalist system we can maneuver pit one side against the other to set them fighting with each other as fiercely as possible stalin was also eyeing up a further desirable outcome the chance to expand his communist empire what would be the harm if as a result of the route of poland we
were to extend the socialist system onto new territories and populations for hitler the pact also opened the door to conquest he could now turn all his energy and attention to planning the invasion of france joseph goebbels noted hitler's hopes for a long-term collaboration with stalin 1st of october 1939 conference with the fire in private he is convinced of russia's loyalty after all stalin is set to pocket a huge profit but stalin saw no such loyalty in hitler mein kampf was etched in his mind above all hitler's youthful ambitions to conquer russian territory for the new
german reich if we speak of territory in europe today we can primarily have in mind only russia and her vessel border states because he calculated that hitler might still one day turn on him stalin set out to build a line of buffer zones to protect himself against possible nazi attack he forced the baltic states lithuania estonia and latvia to accept russian garrisons he told a latvian delegation there has been an unexpected turn but one cannot rely upon it we must be prepared in time others who were not prepared paid for it the germans might attack
stalin also tried to bully finland into giving him a swathe of territory as a further buffer the finns refused stalin invaded their country it was a disaster within days thousands of frozen rushing corpses littered the snow [Music] finally the fins were beaten but not before killing 125 000 russian soldiers stalin sent in his political commissars to shoot the soviet commanders but the real fault was his own his terror had got rid of the red army's best officers as gerbils noted the red army's incompetence offered hitler yet more comfort 15th of march 1940 the russians can
never become dangerous for us if stalin shoots his own generals we won't need to do it so far we've had nothing but advantages from our alliance with russia [Music] on may the 10th 1940 hitler with his eastern front secured by stalin launched his blitzkrieg to the west [Music] the german army sliced through france belgium and holland the british were driven from the continent for hitler it was a triumph a stalin a disaster nikita khrushchev later russia's prime minister recalled stalin's reaction to hitler's lightning victories i remember being with stalin he was extremely nervous he was
racing around cursing like a cab driver he cursed the french he cursed the english how could they allow hitler to defeat them to crush them stalin not only saw the superiority of the german army he knew that the germans sensed our weakness because of the war we had fought with finland on june the 17th 1940 the french government sued for peace the long lasting and mutually destructive war of the capitalist and fascist states which stalin had so gleefully anticipated was over in a trice [Music] the next day as hitler celebrated in munich with the italian
dictator mussolini stalin with gritted teeth send his congratulations on the via mark's splendid success [Applause] for hitler victory had lanced a boil germany's defeat in the first world war had been avenged now for the first time in his political life he wanted a rest from conquest and reverting to his old instincts peace with britain the italian foreign minister calgaliazociano was also in munich an observed hitler's state of mind italy makes many reservations on the desert ability of dismantling the british empire which he considers even today to be an important factor in world equilibrium hitler is
now like the gambler who having made a big win would like to leave the table risking nothing more but stalin feared that hitler having won his victory in the west might immediately be tempted by his long-held ambition of expanding to the east [Music] stalin now embarked on a hugely risky double strategy going on a 10-day land grab to expand and protect his empire while also trying not to provoke hitler he occupied the baltic states and bessarabia the northern province of romania this was allowed under the nazi soviet pact but he also decided to invade another
romanian province bacavina it was not assigned to stalin under the pact hitler's chief of staff general franz halda noted hitler's alarm in his diary 25th of june 1940 the issue of bukovina raised by russia is new and goes beyond our agreements with the russians [Music] at precisely this moment stalin's duel with hitler took a second unexpected twist the soviet leader received his first letter from winston churchill who'd become british prime minister on the day hitler launched his blitzkrieg it was an appeal to stalin to beware of hitler and come over to britain's side [Music] stalin
did not reply instead to show hitler his loyalty he reported churchill's approach to berlin hitler now began to make his own interpretation of these two pieces of evidence stalin's opacity in romania and churchill's approach [Music] before the war hitler had described to his adjutant his secretive mental processes bear in mind that my brain works like a calculating machine each person who makes a presentation to me introduces into this calculating machine a small wheel of information there forms a certain picture or a number on each wheel i press a button and there flashes into my mind
the sum of all this information now the hitler calculating machine began to build a conspiracy theory which would have devastating consequences [Music] on july the 6th 1940 hitler the victor in europe returned to berlin to a hero's welcome our wonderful july sun shines all over the place an unimaginable ecstasy fills the city the crowd roars the station looks like a great banqueting hall then the fire arrives a roar of joy fills the station on this day hitler's army chief general keitel called him the greatest warlord in history but amid his triumph hitler was increasingly tormented
by one overriding thought as far as he was concerned he had won the war so why did the british not recognize that fact and make peace with him he began to convince himself that there must be some external factor that britain and churchill were relying on [Applause] a week after the day of glory in berlin general halda recorded a momentous development in hitler's reasoning 13th of july 1940 the fuhrer is greatly puzzled by britain's persistent unwillingness to make peace he sees the answer in britain's hope in russia [Music] [Applause] [Music] on july the 19th 1940
in a speech to the reichstag hitler made his final plea for peace to britain churchill and the british were not interested later that day a further wheel of information from the united states entered hitler's mind [Music] franklin roosevelt was nominated by the democrat party to run for president for the third time his acceptance speech contained an attack on nazi aggression [Applause] hitler was now seeing specters across the globe 22nd of july 1940 fuhrer's view reasons for continuation of war by britain one it hopes for a change in america two it puts hope in russia stalin
is flirting with britain to keep her in the war and tie us down hitler retreated to the mountains of obersalzberg the delusion was building [Music] here the summer before he'd been dreaming up his pact with stalin now he suspected him [Music] at the end of july he announced to his generals the result of weeks of agonized reflection 31st of july 1940 1130 berkov furor concludes russia is the factor on which britain is relying the most something must have happened in london the british were completely down now they have perked up again with russia smashed britain's
last hope would be shattered the sooner russia is crushed the better if we were to start in may 1941 we would have five months to finish the job it was as yet only an idea but two enormous delusions the first that he had already won the war and the second that some secret deal was brewing between britain and russia were leading hitler down the road to catastrophe for hitler the invasion of russia was still only a contingency plan should all other means of forcing the british to make peace fail the autumn of 1940 now brought
four long months of frustration the raf defeated the luftwaffe in the battle of britain plans for a cross-channel invasion were quietly shelved yet despite these setbacks hitler kidded himself that he'd done enough 15th of october 1940 fuhrer on military situation war is won rest is mere question of time but hitler could still not force the british to come to terms and he had become split-minded about russia moving troops nearer her borders but also wanting stalin to join him in the fight against britain [Music] hitler's adjutant major gerhart engel noted in his diary 4th of november
1940 fewer visibly depressed he conveys the impression that at the moment he does not know how things should proceed then came the defining moment on november the 12th 1940 the russian foreign minister vyacheslav molotov arrived in berlin at hitler's invitation molotov was given the full nazi fanfare but the conversations that followed were tense hitler's purpose in summoning molotov was to offer russia a share in the spoils of victory if it helped him finish off the british he told him england's final capitulation is just a matter of time fragments of its empire will be left all
over the world it's time to think about the vision of this property without a master after our victory but stalin wasn't interested in joining hitler's war or speculative carve-ups of the british empire his instructions to molotov were to find out what hitler's troops were up to in finland and romania places right on his doorstep molotov put the questions bluntly hitler gave vague reassurances despite the superficial courtesies molotov's cold arrogance and his needling on the question of territory in eastern europe infuriated hitler and it reinvigorated him 15th of november 1940 the talks had shown where the
russian plans were heading molotov had left the cat out of the bag fewer was really relieved it would not even remain a marriage of convenience when molotov reported back to moscow on the talks in berlin stalin realized that hitler was turning against him in early december he told his generals we know that hitler is intoxicated by his victories and believes that the red army will need at least four years to prepare for war obviously four years would be more than enough for us but we must be ready much earlier we will try to delay the
war for another two years but hitler was moving at a pace stalin could not imagine [Music] on december the 18th 1940 he issued war directive number 23. the german vermont must be prepared before the ending of the war against england to crush soviet russia in a rapid campaign [Music] the invasion date was set for may 1941 but behind the order lay uncertainty 18th of december 1940 i'm convinced that the fuhrer himself does not know how it would turn out he's very concerned at the lack of clarity as regards the strength of the russians hopes for
an english surrender does not think america will enter the war [Music] hitler had finally made the momentous decision a war on two fronts the very thing he'd sought to avoid when he first made his pact with stalin but he deluded himself that one front britain was already won it simply required a knockout blow against russia for the british to understand their defeat [Music] hitler's line of reasoning never began to occur to stalin he believed that hitler either had to beat churchill or make a deal with him before he could think of turning against russia in
early 1941 he told polo bureau members we must cherish no illusions fascist germany is clearly preparing for an attack on the soviet union why does hitler want to make an agreement with england because he wants to avoid war on two fronts stalin was trusting hitler to act rationally and to fight britain and russia at the same time was clearly irrational but stalin failed to realize that despite their similarities there was one profound difference between him and hitler which made his perfect logic irrelevant he himself was a methodical calculating hard-working man a master of detail personally
signing death lists at one extreme and at the other keeping the tiniest details of gold production in his notebook hitler by contrast was at heart and idle dreamer he once described why he'd love the mountains of oba salzburg when i go to obersalzberg i'm not drawn there merely by the beauty of the landscape i feel myself far from petty things my imagination is stimulated when i study a problem elsewhere i see it less clearly i'm submerged by the details by night at the bear cove i often remain for hours with my eyes open contemplating from
my bed mountains lit up by the moon it's at such moments that brightness enters my mind for hitler the big idea was never to be disrupted by small facts and having made up his mind to attack russia for tactical reasons the original and biggest idea of all was reasserting itself the ideological struggle against jews and bolsheviks [Music] throughout 1940 hitler had hardly mentioned the jews but on january the 30th 1941 in his traditional speech marking the anniversary of the nazi's rise to power he repeated a chilling threat he'd first made before war broke out at
a series of conferences with his generals in the spring of 1941 hitler made his aims brutally clear 3rd of march 1941 the forthcoming campaign will lead to a showdown between two different ideologies the jewish bolshevik intelligentsia must be eliminated 30th of march we must forget the concept of comradeship between soldiers this is a war of extermination [Music] while hitler planned his annihilation stalin still believed he had at least a year to prepare on april the 13th 1941 he moved to protect his back signing a pact with hitler's ally japan stalin was thrilled with his coup
and got happily tipsy with the japanese foreign minister matsuoki but he was still following his double strategy as he said goodbye to matsuoki the german military attache in moscow was present stalin told him we must remain friends and you must now do everything to that end we will stay friends with you whatever happens but stalin knew such long-term friendship was a fantasy soon after he told graduates of moscow's military academy there will be war and the enemy will be germany but that war would not happen yet up until this point stalin's reasoning was irreproachable he'd
foreseen the eventual conflict with germany and was steadily preparing for it [Music] but a bizarre twist would now propel him into his own huge delusion in april 1941 stalin received his second letter from winston churchill like the first it would have an electrifying effect on his duel with hitler churchill told him the british had received intelligent reports of german troop movements which could only be preparations for a nazi attack on russia stalin was instantly suspicious not of hitler but of churchill he told his army chiefs britain is threatening us with the germans and threatening the
germans with the soviet union they're playing us off against each other then on may the 10th 1941 in one of the war's strangest moments hitler's deputy rudolf hess took off from germany and a messerschmitt fighter flew across the north sea and parachuted to the ground in scotland at that time stalin's assistant present at his key meetings was yuri chidaya who noted down and later typed up everything stalin said from jidayaf's secret unpublished record it is possible to piece together how churchill's message and hesse's flight began to lead stalin towards a conspiracy theory which would have
immensely destructive consequences for his country three days after hess landed chidayaf recorded the interpretation stalin gave at these two events on the one hand churchill sends us a personal message in which he warns us about hitler's aggressive intentions and on the other hand the british meet hess who is undoubtedly hitler's confidant what is the conclusion then apparently when churchill sent us his personal warning he believed that we would activate our military machine then hitler would have a direct and fair reason to launch a preventive crusade against the soviet union in stalin's eyes churchill's warning was
deliberately designed to provoke a war between germany and russia and churchill was meeting hess to tell germany it should strike first as he brooded on this idea stalin concluded that churchill was not the only provocateur on june the fifth he told his military chiefs england france and america see in germany the only hope to get rid of bolshevism and therefore help the nazis in all possible ways in their crusade to the east [Music] this deduction that the democratic nations of europe and america were ganging up on him became a blinding article of faith throughout may
and june intelligence reports gave warning after warning of imminent german attack stalin dismissed every one of them as part of the great conspiracy to provoke him on june the 12th he told his generals i am certain that hitler will not risk creating a second front by attacking the soviet union hitler is not such an idiot millions of german troops gathered within striking distance of russia's borders operation barbara rossa as it was now called was scheduled for 10 days time june the 22nd the duel between hitler and stalin was reaching its endgame as operation barbarossa drew
near hitler convinced himself he was fulfilling his destiny on june the 16th 1941 with six days to go he told goebbels that which we have spent our lives fighting we will now annihilate whether right or wrong we must win and when we have won who will ask about the method [Music] that day a soviet spy in the luftwaffe sent yet another warning of imminent german attack stalin retorted tell the source in the staff of the german air force to his mother on june 18th stalin's two top generals zhukov and timochenko pleaded with him for a
full alert stalin reminded them that hitler could not attack without first doing a deal with britain you have to realize that germany will never fight russia on their own you must understand this on june the 20th two days to go hitler chose his fanfare for victory a passage from list's symphonic poem they prelude [Music] though stalin still refused to see it coming it was now apparent to his closest associates that the nazis were on their way on june the 21st one of them gyorgi dimitrov was in moscow rumors of an impending attack on multiplying on
all sides have to be on guard called molotov this morning molotov says the situation is unclear there is a major game underway on june the 22nd the same day napoleon had once invaded russia hitler followed in his footsteps [Music] at 3 30 a.m the attack begins the greatest deployment in world history the fera is as if released from a bad dream the nearer we get to the decisive moment all his tiredness seems to disappear and given a deep insight into his thoughts we have no option but to attack this cancerous abscess must be cauterized stalin
will fall at seven a.m i was urgently summoned to the kremlin germany has attacked the ussr the war has begun stalin to me they attacked us without declaring any grievances without demanding any negotiations they attacked us viciously like gangsters stalin's great conspiracy theory that the democracies were plotting to provoke him was shattered his misreading of hitler the man he'd viewed as a rational strategist was total hitler had completed an extraordinary mental journey a year before he had seen the invasion as a tactic to make britain crumble now the ideology with which he had set out
20 years before had once again taken pride of place he wrote to his italian ally benito mussolini let me say one more thing duchy since i struggled through to this decision i again feel spiritually free the partnership with the soviet union was often very irksome to me for in some way or other it seemed to me to be a break with my whole origin my concepts and my former obligations i am happy now to be relieved of these mental agonies while operation barbarossa cleansed hitler it only shocked and depressed stalin his fury was directed equally
at hitler and at his own generals whose positioning of their forces insisted upon by stalin himself had allowed the germans to smash through russian defenses this is a monstrous crime those responsible must lose their heads nkvd units were sent to the front to arrest the guilty men the commander general pavlov was shot [Music] five days later stalin remarked lenin founded our state and we've [ __ ] it up [Music] the red army taken by surprise because stalin had refused to allow it to prepare was in headlong retreat [Music] two weeks after the invasion general halda
noted in his diary third of july 1941 it is probably no overstatement to say that the russian campaign has been won in the space of two weeks militarily barbarossa turned the war on its head and his experience with hitler also had a vital psychological effect on stalin he later remarked when you're trying to make a decision never put yourself into the mind of the other person because if you do you can make a terrible mistake stalin had lost the mind game hitler had outwitted him but hitler would be the eventual loser his decision to attack
russia signed the death warrant of his own dreams of empire and of european imperialism in general [Music] and it would create an unlikely coalition of three ideologically opposed warlords to fight him but the relationship between the two great democrats in that coalition began with another mental duel which ran in parallel with the duel of the dictators it too was riddled with mutual suspicions false promises and evasion it too would shape the destiny of the world
