Office of the Historian

The Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union (Stalin) to President Roosevelt 25

[Translation]

I have received your message regarding the appeal to the German people.26

Taking into consideration the whole experience of war with the Germans and the character of the Germans, I think that the proposed by you appeal cannot bring positive effect, since it is timed to the moment of the beginning of the landing but not to the moment of sign of serious successes as a result of the landing of Anglo-American troops and as a result of the coming offensive of the Soviet Armies.

We could return to the question of character of the appeal itself when favorable circumstances for such an appeal arrive.

May 26, 1944.
  1. Copy of telegram obtained from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y.↩
  2. See footnote 5, p. 513.↩