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would lose become null and void should one of the parties attack a third party.[118] Let us just keep this fact in mind and proceed. This piece of information will be very useful later.

      On 20^th August (at 2 a. m.) a trade and credit agreement was urgently signed. The USSR was to receive a loan of 200 million marks that the country could spend on German equipment and pay back with raw material and food.[119]

      So, Germany did what the Kremlin had been asking for: the economic agreement was signed. Hitler, completely exhausted, went to bed at seven in the morning on 20^th August. But there was still no clarity from the Russians and the only date proposed by them for the arrival of the German delegation remained the same: 26-27^th August, 1939. This was too late for Berlin. And then Hitler decided to speed things up. On 20^th August, 1939 he sat down and wrote a personal letter to Stalin. They had never been in correspondence or spoken before. But Hitler had no time to act according to the official procedures: the attack against Poland was planned for 26^th August and there was no time to spare. 'Nevertheless, I repeat my proposition to accept my Foreign minister on 22nd August or 23rd August at the latest'[120], said Hitler in his letter. On 21 August, 1939 at 15:00 the German ambassador, Count Schulenburg, presented Hitler's letter in Moscow. Just two hours later, at 17:00, Vyacheslav Molotov gave the German ambassador the response of the head of the USSR.[121] Stalin replied practically immediately.

      '21st August, 1939.

      To the Reichschancellor of Germany, Mr. A. Hitler

      Thank you for the letter.

      I do hope that the поп-aggression treaty between Germany and the Soviet Union will he a pivotal moment in the history of political relations between our countries and will contribute to their improvement.

      The peoples of our countries need peaceful relations. The agreement of the German government to sign a поп-aggression treaty will serve as a basis to eliminate political tensions and establish peace and cooperation between our two countries.

      The Soviet government authorised me to let you know that it agrees to see Mr. Ribbentrop in Moscow on 23rd August.

      J. Stalin'[122]

      The economic agreement that the USSR needed had already been signed and the funds would be received. A non-aggression pact with the Germans could now be signed, which the USSR also needed in order to avoid a possible war with Germany and finish the current war with Japan. Molotov hands Stalin's response to the German ambassador and… And here came the moment which was the reason, dear reader, why we made such a long introduction into the hot August of 1939. The most interesting and the least studied part of the story of the non-aggression pact begins. Pure miracles ensue…

      Story one

      Concerning inert Germans and Stalin's letter

      Let us imagine a situation. Adolf Hitler puts his prestige at stake and, in spite of diplomatic etiquette, addressed the head of another state, bypassing his foreign minister. No such thing had happened in German-Russian relations before. Having written that letter, Hitler put himself in a very vulnerable position. He showed how important it was for him to come to an arrangement. He revealed his cards. He exposed himself even before the negotiations started. And he is waiting for an answer. On 21st August, 1939 there is no news in the whole Third Reich which would be more important than Stalin's answer.

      Here is the question for you: how long did it take to pass the message from the Soviet government? As we know, at 5 p.m. the envelope with the message got into the German ambassador's hands. And when did it reach Hitler?

      Let us try to calculate. We will give fifteen minutes to Ambassador Schulenburg to say his goodbyes to Molotov and walk to the car, then, say, twenty minutes to drive to the Embassy. Around ten minutes to take his coat off and suchlike, about twenty minutes to cipher the message. Ten more minutes to send the message to Berlin – the document is tiny, there are only 14 lines. In total, we get 75 minutes. Let us round it up to 90, as the German ambassador is not very young and therefore does not walk very fast. So, an hour and a half in total. What are the time expenditures in Berlin? Deciphering would take 20 minutes, delivering to the Fuhrer another 20 minutes. Let it be an hour. An hour in Berlin and an hour and a half in Moscow. It means that passing Stalin's response from the Kremlin to Adolf Hitler could take two and a half hours at the most. And this would be without too much haste, in a very laid-back manner. Whereas Hitler must have ordered this material to be given top priority due to its urgency and importance. Everyone should have run! What happened in reality?

      Stalin's response was passed to Hitler nine hours later![123]

      How could it have happened that the most expected document in Germany was delivered to Hitler with such a delay? Did it get lost on the way? Just compare two and a half hours and nine hours. Who held the message up for so long? I think you will agree that it raises a lot of questions. Hitler must have asked these questions, too, as he really was looking forward to Stalin's answer. 'In utter anxiety, practically unable to control his nerves, Hitler was waiting for an answer. He could not sleep and that is why he called Hermann Goering in the middle of the night to share his worries with him and express his irritation about Russian stolidity'.[124] And the Fuhrer's misgivings concerning Stalin were completely unfounded, as the head of the USSR replied at lightning speed. So, where was the response? Who kept it from Hitler? And when Stalin's letter finally got through to the addressee, the Führer's reaction was rather peculiar. 'Hitler was given a note at dinner. He quickly ran through it, blushing thoroughly, stared in front of himself for some time and then hit the table in front of him so hard that it clinked and shouted in a failing voice, 'It's all right! It's all right!'[125] There is other evidence. When Hitler received the message that Ribbentrop could fly to Moscow on 23rd August, he exclaimed: 'This is one hundred per cent victory! And though I never do, I am going to have a bottle of champagne'.[126]

      Could Adolf Hitler take no notice of the strange delay in the delivery of this important information simply out of joy that Stalin had replied and agreed to move the negotiations closer? He could have done. But the senior officials of his secret services were obliged to examine the situation. Why? Because when the head of state runs around his residence in anxiety and is constantly on the phone, asking, 'Where is Stalin's answer?' a delay in delivering information by six – seven (!) hours has a very short and concise name: sabotage. Or maybe even a louder one: a diversion. This 'delay' could have resulted in a turning point in history. In fact, world history could have been completely different.

      Let us approach this question from a different point of view. It would seem that to entirely conceal from Hitler the fact that Stalin had replied would have been impossible. So what is the difference between delivering the message two hours later and nine hours later? The difference is enormous. The difference is as big as between the mornings of 10^th and 11^th September 2001. Let us pose another question: who would be interested in making it look like there had been no response from Stalin? Who would be interested in driving Hitler mad with Stalin's silence in response to Hitler's PERSONAL LETTER? What results would it produce? What could Adolf Hitler have done having not received Stalin's message? What would have happened had Hitler's patience snapped earlier?

      Curiously enough, it is pretty easy to answer these questions. The Fuhrer was a gambler. He played two boards at the same time, both the West and the East. When, six years later, Adolf Hitler shot himself in the Fuhrerbunker, Stalin was abundantly clear about it ('The scoundrel's game is over!'). These words tell us the whole truth of the Second World War. Hitler's game-playing with everyone at the same time led him to a defeat. He said more than once that fighting on two fronts would be disastrous and impossible for Germany, that such a war scenario was the biggest mistake made by Kaiser Wilhelm II. And

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