740.0011 European War 1939/12320: Telegram
The Ambassador in the Soviet Union (Steinhardt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 4:25 p.m.]
1197. The announcement of the German attack was made by Molotov in a speech broadcast at 12:15 today. The high points were as follows:
He announced that Germany had attacked Soviet territory at 4 o’clock this morning and had bombed Kiev, Sebastopol, Kaunas and other cities where many were wounded. They had also attacked from Finland and Rumania. This attack was made despite the provisions of the Non-aggression Pact and Germany had never made any demands upon the Soviet Union or pretended that it had not fulfilled its part of the Pact.
Molotov said that Schulenburg68 had informed him of the attack at 5:30 this morning after military operations had started. He said that the announcement that Soviet aviation had attacked Rumanian airports was a lie. The Soviet Government had done everything it could to carry out the Pact. The Government had given the order to throw the German soldiers out of Soviet territory.
“We are making this fight not against the German people, German workers, intelligentsia and peasants. We are making it against the bloodthirsty leaders of Fascism who have fallen upon the people of Poland, Norway, Belgium, Holland, France, Yugoslavia and Greece. The defeat that Napoleon received led to his downfall, and this will happen to Hitler.
We must unite around our brilliant Bolshevik Party, around our Government, around our great leader, Comrade Stalin. Our cause is just. Victory will be for us.”69
- Friedrich Werner, Count Ton der Schulenburg, German Ambassador in the Soviet Union.↩
- See the statement of June 23, 1941, by Acting Secretary of State Welles on German aggression against the Soviet Union, sent in telegram No. 836, June 23, to the Ambassador in the Soviet Union, p. 767; or, Department of State Bulletin, June 28, 1941, p. 755.↩