Russian Bear
21st April 2025, 09:44
Translated from Russian to English via Google Translate by Russian Bear.
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Operation Unthinkable or Winston Churchill's Failed Blitzkrieg
THE BEGINNING OF THE COLD WAR
Operation Unthinkable, developed on the orders of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill by the British War Planning Staff in the deepest secrecy even from other staffs, envisaged a military campaign against the USSR immediately after the end of World War II. The plans for the operation included the defeat of Soviet troops on the territory of the former Nazi Reich and a new invasion of the Soviet Union, as well as the total destruction of Soviet cities from the air using nuclear weapons. The forces intended for a blitzkrieg on the German model would include both Anglo-American troops and German, Polish and Hungarian divisions.
The events and facts presented in this article may seem incredible. In fact, it is difficult to believe in them, just as it is difficult for a sane person to believe in the possibility of a vile betrayal of someone he considered an ally and friend.
And yet, a treacherous betrayal was planned and actually committed. For almost seven decades, information about him was kept in the strictest confidence and only recently became public knowledge. And this happened unintentionally. It all began with the British journalist T. Mayer publishing his book "When Lions Roar: Churchill and the Kennedy Clan". The book, in particular, discussed an FBI document declassified in the United States, in which British ex-Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1947 asked American Senator Samuel Bridges to convince the President of the United States Harry Truman to drop an atomic bomb on Moscow, and at the same time subject four dozen of the largest industrial centers of the USSR to nuclear bombing.
In this "radical" way, Churchill hoped to stop the "communist conquest" of the West. Documents confirming these truly cannibalistic plans are stored in the National Archives of Great Britain.
First, we need to remember how the situation developed on the fronts in the victorious spring of forty-five.
By April 1945, the Red Army had liberated the territory of Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and part of Czechoslovakia. Both Soviet and Anglo-American troops were rapidly advancing across the territory of the agonizing Nazi Reich. At the same time, there was an unspoken competition: who would approach Berlin faster and take it. In this regard, the Soviet troops had an undeniable advantage: on April 13, they occupied the capital of Austria, Vienna, and on April 16, they began an operation to take Berlin. On April 25, there was a historic meeting of American and Soviet troops on the Elbe near the city of Torgau.
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An American and a Soviet soldier shake hands in a friendly manner. Meeting on the Elbe, 1945
In the Pacific Ocean, Japanese troops were driven out of almost all the territories they had captured, and the Japanese navy was destroyed. However, the Japanese ground forces still represented a powerful force, the fight against which in China and on the Japanese islands themselves could, according to the calculations of the American command, drag on until 1947 and require great sacrifices. This made the United States vitally interested in the help of the Soviet Union, which at the Yalta Conference in 1945 had pledged to act against Japan after defeating Germany.
The secret development of a plan for war against the USSR – essentially, the unleashing of World War III – began in early April 1945, even before the signing of the Act of Surrender of Nazi Germany.
Sir Winston personally came up with a code word to describe it – Unthinkable, which translated into Russian means “Unthinkable”. What did Churchill mean by this name? That it was only a hypothetical possibility of a military clash with the Soviets in the event of an extreme aggravation of the situation? Or maybe (which is more likely) he simply understood that the Allies were committing an unthinkable meanness against the Soviet Union, which had borne the brunt of the fight against the fascist beast and saved the world, including, of course, the Western democracies, from the brown plague? In addition, being a sober realist, Sir Winston probably realized that it was impossible to crush the USSR and its Armed Forces in 1945, that this was an unthinkable and obviously doomed matter, and that is why he gave the plan to unleash the Third World such an exotic name, which was fundamentally at odds with the spirit and combat traditions of the British Army, which was accustomed to fighting only with an enemy that it could defeat. Of course, after the Prime Minister's order, top secret work began in London on the concept and details of a sudden, super-powerful strike against Soviet troops in Berlin and East Germany.
But the Soviet leadership learned about the planning of Operation Unthinkable, its far-reaching goals, the forces involved, the immediate, subsequent and final tasks only a few days after the start of this work.
As is clear from recently declassified documents of the Main Intelligence Directorate, already on May 18, 1945, the military attaché in London, Major General I.A. Sklyarov, sent a telegram to Moscow, to the Center (GRU GS RKKA), on which, in addition to the stamp "Top Secret", there was another stamp - "Super Lightning". This designation, not accepted in the attaché's everyday practice, indicated that the extraordinary telegram from London had to be deciphered first and immediately reported to the country's top leadership, namely I.V. Stalin and his closest associates in the State Defense Committee and the Supreme Command Headquarters.
The military attaché in England, Major General Sklyarov, reported to the Center absolutely reliable information received by his subordinate, Lieutenant Colonel I.M. Kozlov, from a secret agent coded as "X". According to the agent, on May 15, 1945, the Joint Planning Staff of the British War Cabinet began developing a war plan against the USSR - Plan "Unthinkable".
"X" (his real name is still strictly classified, and it is possible that the GRU will never reveal it!) informed Moscow that the development of Plan "Unthinkable" was being conducted under the cover of the strictest secrecy, and several high-ranking military planners were participating in it, including Generals Peake and Thompson, Deputy Chief of the Planning Department Colonel Barry, Colonel Tandzhi and some other authoritative employees.
Agent "X" was in constant contact with the employee of the USSR military attaché, Lieutenant Colonel Kozlov, and during the war he transmitted a large amount of important information to Moscow.
This information revealed the plans of both the Wehrmacht command and the bosses of Nazi Germany, as well as the allies of the anti-Hitler coalition. Thus, "X" reported on secret negotiations conducted in Switzerland by the representative of the American Office of Strategic Services (military and political intelligence) Allen Dulles with the SS General Karl Wolff. On May 18, 1945, "X" informed the Center that on May 15, in an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy, the first meeting on the development of Operation Unthinkable was held. The meeting was chaired by General Thompson, who was responsible for developing the plan. He began his speech by warning the participants of the working group that "all preparatory activities must be carried out in conditions of special secrecy" and that Winston Churchill wanted to "teach Stalin a good lesson, to impose an Anglo-American war on the Soviet Union, to deal the Soviets a sudden and terrible blow." The starting point for the developers of the Unthinkable plan, according to Agent X, was to be Churchill's intentions "to drive the Russians back to a line east of the Curzon Line and then make peace."
Agent X also reported that the Joint Chiefs of Staff immediately declared: "It is impossible to make a plan on the basis of such a limited operation, and they will have to make a plan for a total war against the Soviet Union." On special instructions from Churchill, the Anglo-American troops on the European continent were brought to full combat readiness and were to begin military operations against Soviet military units on July 1, 1945.
Literally until today, few people knew how Stalin managed to thwart the plans of the insidious "allies", why we were forced to hastily take Berlin, against whom the English instructors trained the unformed divisions of the Germans who had surrendered to them in April 1945, why Dresden was destroyed with inhuman cruelty in February 1945, and whom exactly the Anglo-Saxons wanted to intimidate with this.
The legend of the "honest allies - the USA and Great Britain" was welcomed in every possible way, both in the USSR and during the perestroika times. And few documents were published then - this period was hidden for many reasons. True, in recent years the British and Americans themselves have begun to partially open the archives of that period, because now there is no one to fear - the USSR no longer exists.
So, on July 1, 1945, 47 English and American divisions, without any declaration of war, were supposed to deal a crushing blow to the naive Russians, who did not expect such boundless meanness from their allies.
The attack was to be supported by 10-12 German divisions, which the "allies" kept undisbanded in Schleswig-Holstein and southern Denmark, they were trained daily by British instructors: they were prepared for war against the USSR. In theory, a war of united forces of the entire Western civilization against Russia was to begin - subsequently, other countries were to participate in the "crusade" against the "communist infection" - Poland, then Hungary... The war was to lead to the complete defeat and unconditional surrender of the USSR. The final goal was to end the war at approximately the same line where Hitler planned to end it according to the "Barbarossa" plan: Arkhangelsk - Stalingrad. The Anglo-Saxons intended to break us with total bombing terror - the savage destruction of the largest Soviet cities: Moscow, Leningrad, Vladivostok, Murmansk, etc. Devastating blows were to be delivered by armadas of "flying fortresses" - the notorious American B-29 bombers. How many millions of Soviet people were to perish in the most brutal "fire tornadoes" that wiped Hamburg and Dresden off the face of the earth, destroyed Tokyo... Now they were going to do the same to us, our loyal allies.
Later, in his memoirs, Churchill described the situation that had developed in the spring of 1945 as follows: "The destruction of Germany's military power entailed a radical change in the relations between Communist Russia and the Western democracies. They lost their common enemy, the war against whom had been almost the only link that held their alliance together. From now on, Russian imperialism and communist doctrine saw no limits and set no limits to their advance and their striving for final domination." From this, in Churchill's opinion, concrete practical conclusions for Western strategy and policy inexorably followed.
Soviet Russia, which had only grown stronger during the Second World War, had become a mortal threat to the entire "free" world; it was necessary to create a new front against its rapid advance.
This front in Europe was to extend as far east as possible; the main objective of the Anglo-American armies was Berlin; the capture of Czechoslovakia and the entry of American troops into Prague were of the utmost importance; Vienna, and better yet, all of Austria, must be governed by the Western powers...
Subsequently, agent "X" reported the details of the plan of operation. According to the information he had obtained, Churchill based it on the following key considerations: the Anglo-Saxons would strike at the Soviet troops approximately on July 1, 1945, without warning, with maximum surprise; the morale of the British and American armed forces and public opinion will certainly be "100 percent reliable"; the German army and the capabilities of the defeated Third Reich and its allies "will be used against the Soviets with maximum force"...
According to the agent, General Thompson decided to involve the head of British military intelligence, General Sinclair, and his trusted employee, Lieutenant Colonel Stockdale, in developing the "Unthinkable" plan.
"X" also reported that the "Unthinkable" plan, in general terms, "requires a surprise pincer movement by two army groups. One group moves from the north of Germany, the other from the Leipzig area as quickly as possible into the center of Poland. This will be accompanied by powerful air raids on the most important communication centers and key railway bridges on the main river barriers (Oder, Spree, Vistula). An additional offensive is to begin in Austria along the Linz-Vienna line. Special forces on aircraft carriers were to be transferred to the Black Sea to bomb the Caucasian and Baku oil refineries and oil fields (this had been planned by the British back in 1940, and the developers of Operation Unthinkable simply pulled out of the closet an old skeleton that had been waiting for its moment). Also considered, and very seriously, was "the possibility of an air and sea operation against St. Petersburg."
The plan for the land campaign involved two main attacks in North-Eastern Europe in the direction of Poland.
In general, according to Churchill's instructions, the total Allied forces involved in the operation were to be: 50 infantry, 20 armored, 5 airborne divisions, as well as the Wehrmacht and Polish troops. By the start of hostilities, the Allies planned to fully arm and reform at least 10 German divisions. In total, at least 83 divisions with a total strength of well over one million people were to take part in the implementation of the "Unthinkable" plan...
It was also planned to occupy vast Soviet territory in order to reduce the material and human potential of the USSR to a level at which "further resistance by the Soviets would be impossible." In political terms, the concept of the entire operation was an example of Anglo-Saxon goal-setting: imposing the political will of the British Empire and the United States on the Russians.
The news from London came as a complete and, obviously, discouraging surprise to our leadership.
To be convinced of this, it is enough to recall that in the first days of May 1945, Stalin and Churchill repeatedly exchanged personal, and sometimes secret and very confidential messages. Churchill, as is clear from the published correspondence, sent Stalin eight lengthy letters and received the same number in response. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the British Prime Minister thoroughly discussed the most serious problems of the post-war structure of Europe and attempted to coordinate the positions of their governments. In particular, the issue of allied control over the situation in the Italian province of Giulia was discussed, as well as the preparation of a conference on the zones of responsibility of the allies in Europe and the activities of the European Advisory Commission. In addition, the leaders of the victorious powers agreed on the time and procedure for declaring Victory Day.
Comparing the facts, one cannot help but be amazed at the truly boundless hypocrisy with which Sir Winston conducted an “interested” dialogue with the Soviet leader, while simultaneously hatching plans for his physical destruction. In a message dated May 9, Churchill, on behalf of the entire British nation, expressed to Stalin “heartfelt greetings on the occasion of the brilliant victory” that the Red Army and the peoples of the USSR had won, “expelling the invaders from their land and defeating the Nazi tyranny,” and also declared his confidence that “the future of mankind depends on friendship and mutual understanding between the British and Russian peoples.” Further, the British Prime Minister, as has now become clear, with feigned kindness, wrote: “Here in our island fatherland, we think of you very often today, and we send you from the depths of our hearts wishes for happiness and well-being. We wish that after all the sacrifices and sufferings in that dark valley through which we have passed together, we may now, bound together by true friendship and mutual sympathy, go forward under the shining sun of a victorious peace." Churchill concluded this message with the very eloquent words: "I ask my wife to convey to you all these words of friendship and admiration."
Stalin, already informed of the Allies' plans, responded to Churchill less emotionally, in a more constructive and businesslike manner, turning the discussion from enthusiastic outbursts to specific problems of the post-war structure of Europe, in particular, the need to give Poland, which had suffered so much from German Nazism, a significant share of land in German Silesia. But he conducted the conversation, we emphasize, in a no less friendly, welcoming tone.
Unfortunately, history has no documentary evidence of how the Soviet leader responded to the report of the military attaché from London that Winston Churchill, swearing eternal friendship to him, gave the order to develop a plan of attack on Soviet troops and the USSR. One can only assume that the document handed to him by the head of the GRU Kuznetsov caused Stalin to react with bewilderment and ask many questions...
By the way, during this period the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was also in lively correspondence with the US President Harry Truman. 8 personal messages were sent from Moscow to Washington to Truman and 5 were received from him.
Judging by the content of these letters, the correspondence was conducted in a constructive tone, and although its participants adhered to their principled positions, they demonstrated deep respect for the opinion of their partner-opponent and patiently sought ways to compromise solutions to the problems that arose.
It should be noted right away that Churchill's idea of delivering a surprise attack on Soviet troops was met with great disapproval in the circles of the British ruling elite. First of all, this idea was criticized at a secret meeting of the British military cabinet. For example, the head of British military intelligence, General Sinclair, directly called it "utter nonsense that cannot be seriously considered at all." Sinclair immediately emphasized that "the situation of Germany itself with its communications problem, millions of refugees, the problem of food and the state of industry make it impossible to wage a major war through Germany and Poland."
Agent "X" also brought to Moscow's attention the final results of the first meeting on the "Unthinkable" plan. "I think," he summed up, "that the most responsible of his advisers will now regard the idea of war against Russia as an adventure, but there are also many of its instigators who, like Thornton, say: "Now or never."
The military attaché in London Sklyarov concluded his urgent report to Moscow with the words: "In words, the source said that the final decision on this issue is not yet known."
The next report from London was accurately reported to Stalin by the head of the GRU Kuznetsov, so that he had the opportunity to become acquainted with both the objective information and the reasoning and assessments of agent "X." In the second and third ten days of May – June 1945, new reports on the development of Operation Unthinkable continued to arrive from the London GRU residency.
Thus, on May 19, agent "X" reported: "The Allies have actually betrayed the USSR with separate secret negotiations in Bern with the German commander-in-chief in Italy and ensured their advancement in Yugoslavia with a political trick, forcing Tito to fight a tough battle."
May 28 – another message from "X": "There are no new facts about the plan. The rumors are not reassuring. Beware of provocations for obvious political reasons." This was a very significant warning.
In essence, the informed agent recalled the provocation of the SS thugs led by Otto Skorzeny in the German town of Gleiwitz on the border with Poland on August 31, 1939, when, staging an attack on German territory, an SS man read into a microphone a statement broadcast to the entire world that "the time has come for Poland to wage war against Germany." "X," one must assume, not without reason, suspected that Operation Unthinkable - an attack on Soviet troops in Germany - could begin with a similar provocation in West Berlin.
Fortunately, there were still sober heads in the British Military Planning Headquarters.
Despite the involvement of German, Polish, and Hungarian troops, they came to the conclusion that Operation Unthinkable, given the obvious superiority of the Soviet forces, was doomed to failure. And no matter how many resources the Anglo-Americans deployed, they still would not achieve success - so strong was the grouping of Soviet troops in Germany and Poland.
On May 22, 1945, the War Planning Staff completed its calculations for the planned adventure operation and reported its findings to Churchill. Sir Winston generally agreed with them, but ordered that work begin immediately on a new plan for the same Operation Unthinkable, this time in a defensive version. And already on June 9, Churchill received the draft of the new plan from General Ismay for approval. The next day, the Prime Minister wrote to Ismay: “I have studied the draft of the Unthinkable plan, developed on June 8, 1945, which reflects the Russian superiority in ground forces as 2 to 1. If the Americans withdraw their troops to their zones and transfer their main forces to the territory of the USA and to the Pacific Ocean zone, then the Russians have enough forces to advance to the coast of the North Sea and the Atlantic. It is necessary to think out a clear plan of how we can defend our Island, taking into account that France and the Netherlands will not be able to resist Russian superiority.”
Concluding his message to the general, Churchill made the following conclusion, indicating that he had not yet completely lost his mind: "In keeping the code name of Operation Unthinkable, the command understands that this is only a preliminary sketch of what I hope is still a hypothetical probability...".
Nevertheless, on the same June 10, Churchill gave General Ismay new instructions and demanded that the plan of the operation be revised, which was soon carried out.
The new draft of the defensive plan indicated that "the Russians will be able to attack the British Isles using the following forms of war: by blockading all sea communications; by invasion; by air strikes by air forces; in the event of a missile strike on the British Isles or the use of other new weapons (that is, it was implied that the USSR could well acquire its own nuclear weapons)."
In the end, General Ismay summed up: "Only in the case of the use of missiles and other new weapons that the Russians may acquire will there be a serious threat to the security of our country. An invasion or serious attacks on our sea communications can be carried out only after a long preparation, which will take several years."
At this point, thank God, the "Unthinkable" plan was put to an end. It was hidden in the archive, where it happily gathered dust for several decades until researchers not committed to the ruling elite got to it.
However, unanswered questions nevertheless remain.
For example, what dividends did Churchill expect to derive from the implementation of the "Unthinkable" plan?
First of all, it should be noted that the British Prime Minister expected to involve the United States in a global war against the USSR, which by the summer of 1945 already had nuclear weapons. It becomes obvious that Sir Winston wanted to take advantage of the favorable moment and "saddle" H. Truman, who after the death of F. Roosevelt became the full-fledged American president. But despite the Masonic solidarity, during the preliminary secret discussion with the Americans of his plans for war against the USSR, Churchill was unable to convince Truman of the advisability of attacking Soviet troops in Germany in 1945. Since the USA was in the decisive phase of the war with Japan and counted on Soviet help, the notorious Atlantic solidarity could cost them too much. In any case, if Truman had supported Churchill then, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Yankees could have been at stake, and the American voter would not have forgiven his president for that.
Furthermore, American military intelligence could not help but notice that on June 29, 1945, literally a day before the planned start of the war, the opposing Red Army unexpectedly changed its deployment. Marshal G.K. Zhukov brought the troops of the Group of Occupation Forces in Germany to full combat readiness, and the vanguards of military units even moved into combat positions. Soviet soldiers, selflessly obeying the marshal (whom Stalin, of course, initiated into Churchill's plans), were ready to repel any provocation of the fickle allies with great losses for the enemy. It seems that this was also a significant circumstance that tipped the scales of history - the order to attack the Anglo-Saxon troops was never given. Before that, the capture of Berlin, which was considered impregnable, demonstrated the power of the Red Army, and military experts of the former ally came to the conclusion that it was inevitable to cancel the attack on the Red Army units.
But this happened in conditions when the allied coalition had a global superiority in forces and resources. Doesn't this remind you of the modern picture of the confrontation between NATO forces and Russian military groups?
Suffice it to recall that the naval forces of Great Britain and the USA in 1945 had absolute superiority over the USSR Navy: 19 times in destroyers, 9 times in battleships and large cruisers, and 2 times in submarines. Over 100 aircraft carriers and several thousand units of carrier-based aviation - against a complete zero on the part of the USSR. Yesterday's allies had 4 air armies of heavy bombers that could deliver crushing blows. Soviet long-range bomber aviation was incomparably weaker...
By the way, in April 1945 the allies imagined our troops as exhausted and depleted, and our combat equipment - worn out to the limit. Their military experts were greatly surprised by the power of the Soviet Army, which it demonstrated in the capture of Berlin, which was considered impregnable throughout the world. There is no doubt that I. V. Stalin's decision to storm Berlin in early May 1945 prevented World War III. This is confirmed by declassified documents. They show that Berlin would have been surrendered to the "allies" by the Wehrmacht without a fight, and the combined forces of all of Europe and North America would have fallen upon the USSR.
Stalin certainly did not have the opportunity to prevent World War II, but he managed to prevent World War III. The situation was extremely serious, but the USSR won again without flinching.
Now loud politicians and corrupt scribblers in the West are trying to present Churchill's plan as a "response" to the "Soviet threat", to Stalin's attempt to seize all of Europe.
Did the Soviet leadership have plans at that time to advance to the shores of the Atlantic and seize the British Isles? The only obvious answer to this question is a negative one. This is confirmed by the law on the demobilization of the army and navy, adopted in the USSR on June 23, 1945, and their gradual transfer to peacetime levels. Demobilization began on July 5, 1945 and was completed in 1948. The army and navy were reduced from 11 million to less than 3 million people, the State Defense Committee and the Supreme Command Headquarters were disbanded. The number of military districts in 1945-1946 decreased from 33 to 21. The number of troops in East Germany, Poland and Romania was significantly reduced. In September 1945, Soviet troops were withdrawn from northern Norway, in November from Czechoslovakia, in April 1946 from the island of Bornholm (Denmark), in December 1947 from Bulgaria...
As the leading expert on post-war foreign policy, Doctor of Historical Sciences Valentin Falin, writes, "it is difficult to find a politician in the past century equal to Churchill in his ability to confuse both his own and others. But the future Sir Winston was especially successful in his hypocrisy and intrigues with regard to the Soviet Union.
In his messages to Stalin, he "prayed that the Anglo-Soviet alliance would be a source of many benefits for both countries, for the United Nations and for the entire world," wishing "complete success to the noble enterprise." This was a broad offensive by the Red Army along the entire Eastern Front in January 1945, hastily prepared in response to the pleas of Washington and London to provide assistance to the Allies who had found themselves in a crisis situation in the Ardennes and Alsace. But this was in words. In fact, Churchill considered himself free of any obligations to the Soviet Union…”. It was then that Churchill gave orders to store captured German weapons with an eye to their possible use against the USSR, placing the Wehrmacht soldiers and officers who surrendered in subdivisions in the land of Schleswig-Holstein and in southern Denmark. Then the general meaning of the insidious undertaking started by the British leader will become clear. The British took under their protection German units that surrendered without resistance, sent them to the specified lands. In total, about 15 German divisions were stationed there. Weapons were stockpiled, and personnel were trained for future battles...
In the "Unthinkable" plan, according to Churchill's will, literally everything was clearly spelled out: the Soviet troops would be exhausted at that point, the equipment that had participated in the fighting in Europe would be worn out, food supplies and medicines would run out. Therefore, it would not be difficult to push them back to the pre-war borders and force Stalin to resign. "A change in the state system and the split of the USSR awaited us," writes V. Falin. "As a measure of intimidation - the bombing of cities, in particular, Moscow. According to the plans of the British, it would suffer the fate of Dresden, which, as is known, was razed to the ground by Allied aviation...".
American General Patton, commander of tank armies, openly stated that he did not plan to stop at the demarcation line along the Elbe agreed upon in Yalta, but to go further, to Poland, from there to Ukraine and Belarus – and so on to Stalingrad. And to finish the war where Hitler did not have time and could not finish it. “He called us nothing less than ‘the heirs of Genghis Khan, who must be expelled from Europe,’” notes V. Falin. “After the end of the war, Patton was appointed governor of Bavaria, and soon removed from his post for sympathizing with the Nazis...” London long denied the very existence of the “Unthinkable” plan, but several years ago the British declassified part of their archives, and among the documents were papers concerning Operation Unthinkable. Here it turned out that there was nowhere to dissociate further...
Eisenhower admits in his memoirs that the Second Front practically did not exist already at the end of February 1945: the Germans were rolling back to the east without resistance.
The German tactics were as follows: to hold, as far as possible, positions along the entire line of Soviet-German confrontation until the virtual Western and real Eastern Fronts closed, and American and British troops would take over from the Wehrmacht units in repelling the "Soviet threat", which supposedly inevitably hung over Central and Western Europe.
At this time, Churchill was trying to convince Roosevelt in correspondence and telephone conversations to stop the Russians at all costs, not to let them into Central Europe. This explains the significance that the capture of Berlin had acquired by that time.
It should be recalled that the Western Allies could have advanced eastward somewhat faster than they did if the headquarters of Montgomery, Eisenhower and Alexander (Italian theater of operations) had planned their actions better, coordinated their forces and resources more competently, and spent less time on internal squabbles and the search for a common denominator. Washington, while Roosevelt was alive, was in no hurry for various reasons to put an end to cooperation with Moscow, and Truman, at first, at least until the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, was in no hurry to break or at least spoil relations with the USSR. And for Churchill, "the Soviet Moor had done his job, and he had to be removed." Let us remember that Yalta ended on February 11. In the first half of February 12, the guests flew home. In Crimea, by the way, it was agreed that the aviation of the three powers would adhere to certain demarcation lines in their operations. And on the night of February 12-13, the Western Allies' bombers wiped Dresden off the face of the earth, then dealt a terrible blow to the main enterprises in Slovakia, in the future Soviet occupation zone of Germany, so that the factories would not be left intact. In 1941, Stalin proposed to the British and Americans to bomb the oil fields in Ploiesti using the Crimean airfields. But they did not touch them then. They were raided in 1944, when Soviet troops came very close to the main oil production center, which supplied Germany with fuel throughout the war.
One of the main targets of the raids on Dresden turned out to be the bridges across the Elbe. Churchill's directive, which was also shared by the Americans, was in effect - to delay the Red Army as far as possible in the East. The briefing before the British crews took off said: it was necessary to "visually demonstrate to the Soviets the capabilities of the Allied bomber aviation." And so they did. And not just once. In April 1945, they bombed Potsdam. They destroyed Oranienburg. We were notified that it turned out that the American pilots had simply "made a mistake." They were supposedly aiming at Zossen, where the headquarters of Marshal Goering and the German Air Force were located. A classic "diversionary statement," of which there are countless. Oranienburg was bombed on the orders of Marshall and Leahy, because there were laboratories there that worked with uranium materials. So that neither the laboratories, nor the personnel, nor the equipment, nor the nuclear materials themselves would fall into our hands, everything was turned to dust and ashes.
It is clear that during Operation Unthinkable Churchill expected to expel Soviet troops from Germany and Eastern European countries, beyond the Curzon Line (which has now been effectively restored by admitting Poland and the Baltic States to NATO and the fascist coup in Ukraine). The British Prime Minister believed that the Allied forces should occupy almost the entire European part of the Soviet Union. Thus, Sir Winston mentally saw himself as the liberator of Europe from both the fascists and the Bolsheviks. Incidentally, Churchill claimed the role of savior of European civilization, the entire "free world" from the "communist infection" back in 1918, having acted as the organizer of the Anglo-French-American-Japanese intervention in the young Soviet Republic.
And the last circumstance, which followed from the previous ones. Churchill, in persuading his fellow Mason Truman to carry out a "preventive" strike against the Soviets, implied air (and most likely nuclear) strikes against the most important objects on the territory of the USSR. In particular, he called for an air and naval operation against Leningrad and to inflict as much damage as possible on the Caucasian oil fields and refineries. But at the same time, the British Prime Minister intended to destroy the spiritual power of Russia (just look at the idea of razing to the ground the treasure trove of Russian national culture - Petersburg - Leningrad!). Fortunately, Churchill's attempts to draw the United States into a war against the USSR were not approved in Washington at that time. Eagerly awaiting the results of the test of the created atomic bomb, which would give the American armed forces unprecedented power, US President H. Truman was not at all eager to dance to Churchill's tune and act according to the plans being developed in London, especially since the Soviet Armed Forces still had to crush the Japanese Kwantung Army entrenched on the Asian continent.
In July 1945, Churchill, as if nothing had happened, headed the British delegation to the conference of the heads of the allied powers in Potsdam. However, after the victory of the Labourites in the parliamentary elections, the English delegation in Potsdam was headed by the Labourite K. Attlee instead of Churchill...
The plan for Operation Unthinkable was declassified by the British government only in 1999. But Soviet military intelligence learned its contents in advance, as the most important provisions were being developed, and promptly informed the Soviet leadership.
The finale of the Great Patriotic War, by the will of the wily British Prime Minister, could well have turned into the first act of a new world war. Fortunately, this did not happen. The plan for Operation Unthinkable was shelved. In all fairness, its implementation was thwarted by the military attaché in London, Major General Sklyarov, his subordinate Lieutenant Colonel Kozlov, and most importantly, the arch-intelligence agent under the pseudonym "X".
The story of the development and cancellation of Operation Unthinkable, which became public knowledge as a result of the publication of a recording of a conversation between the former British Prime Minister and American Senator S. Bridges, which was stored in the special archive of the US FBI, is yet another confirmation that during the years of the "cold war" peace on the planet was constantly exposed to dangerous threats from calculating political intriguers like Sir Winston Churchill.
Source: https://topwar.ru/78439-operaciya-nemyslimoe-ili-nesostoyavshiysya-blickrig-uinstona-cherchillya.html
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Operation Unthinkable or Winston Churchill's Failed Blitzkrieg
THE BEGINNING OF THE COLD WAR
Operation Unthinkable, developed on the orders of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill by the British War Planning Staff in the deepest secrecy even from other staffs, envisaged a military campaign against the USSR immediately after the end of World War II. The plans for the operation included the defeat of Soviet troops on the territory of the former Nazi Reich and a new invasion of the Soviet Union, as well as the total destruction of Soviet cities from the air using nuclear weapons. The forces intended for a blitzkrieg on the German model would include both Anglo-American troops and German, Polish and Hungarian divisions.
The events and facts presented in this article may seem incredible. In fact, it is difficult to believe in them, just as it is difficult for a sane person to believe in the possibility of a vile betrayal of someone he considered an ally and friend.
And yet, a treacherous betrayal was planned and actually committed. For almost seven decades, information about him was kept in the strictest confidence and only recently became public knowledge. And this happened unintentionally. It all began with the British journalist T. Mayer publishing his book "When Lions Roar: Churchill and the Kennedy Clan". The book, in particular, discussed an FBI document declassified in the United States, in which British ex-Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1947 asked American Senator Samuel Bridges to convince the President of the United States Harry Truman to drop an atomic bomb on Moscow, and at the same time subject four dozen of the largest industrial centers of the USSR to nuclear bombing.
In this "radical" way, Churchill hoped to stop the "communist conquest" of the West. Documents confirming these truly cannibalistic plans are stored in the National Archives of Great Britain.
First, we need to remember how the situation developed on the fronts in the victorious spring of forty-five.
By April 1945, the Red Army had liberated the territory of Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and part of Czechoslovakia. Both Soviet and Anglo-American troops were rapidly advancing across the territory of the agonizing Nazi Reich. At the same time, there was an unspoken competition: who would approach Berlin faster and take it. In this regard, the Soviet troops had an undeniable advantage: on April 13, they occupied the capital of Austria, Vienna, and on April 16, they began an operation to take Berlin. On April 25, there was a historic meeting of American and Soviet troops on the Elbe near the city of Torgau.
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An American and a Soviet soldier shake hands in a friendly manner. Meeting on the Elbe, 1945
In the Pacific Ocean, Japanese troops were driven out of almost all the territories they had captured, and the Japanese navy was destroyed. However, the Japanese ground forces still represented a powerful force, the fight against which in China and on the Japanese islands themselves could, according to the calculations of the American command, drag on until 1947 and require great sacrifices. This made the United States vitally interested in the help of the Soviet Union, which at the Yalta Conference in 1945 had pledged to act against Japan after defeating Germany.
The secret development of a plan for war against the USSR – essentially, the unleashing of World War III – began in early April 1945, even before the signing of the Act of Surrender of Nazi Germany.
Sir Winston personally came up with a code word to describe it – Unthinkable, which translated into Russian means “Unthinkable”. What did Churchill mean by this name? That it was only a hypothetical possibility of a military clash with the Soviets in the event of an extreme aggravation of the situation? Or maybe (which is more likely) he simply understood that the Allies were committing an unthinkable meanness against the Soviet Union, which had borne the brunt of the fight against the fascist beast and saved the world, including, of course, the Western democracies, from the brown plague? In addition, being a sober realist, Sir Winston probably realized that it was impossible to crush the USSR and its Armed Forces in 1945, that this was an unthinkable and obviously doomed matter, and that is why he gave the plan to unleash the Third World such an exotic name, which was fundamentally at odds with the spirit and combat traditions of the British Army, which was accustomed to fighting only with an enemy that it could defeat. Of course, after the Prime Minister's order, top secret work began in London on the concept and details of a sudden, super-powerful strike against Soviet troops in Berlin and East Germany.
But the Soviet leadership learned about the planning of Operation Unthinkable, its far-reaching goals, the forces involved, the immediate, subsequent and final tasks only a few days after the start of this work.
As is clear from recently declassified documents of the Main Intelligence Directorate, already on May 18, 1945, the military attaché in London, Major General I.A. Sklyarov, sent a telegram to Moscow, to the Center (GRU GS RKKA), on which, in addition to the stamp "Top Secret", there was another stamp - "Super Lightning". This designation, not accepted in the attaché's everyday practice, indicated that the extraordinary telegram from London had to be deciphered first and immediately reported to the country's top leadership, namely I.V. Stalin and his closest associates in the State Defense Committee and the Supreme Command Headquarters.
The military attaché in England, Major General Sklyarov, reported to the Center absolutely reliable information received by his subordinate, Lieutenant Colonel I.M. Kozlov, from a secret agent coded as "X". According to the agent, on May 15, 1945, the Joint Planning Staff of the British War Cabinet began developing a war plan against the USSR - Plan "Unthinkable".
"X" (his real name is still strictly classified, and it is possible that the GRU will never reveal it!) informed Moscow that the development of Plan "Unthinkable" was being conducted under the cover of the strictest secrecy, and several high-ranking military planners were participating in it, including Generals Peake and Thompson, Deputy Chief of the Planning Department Colonel Barry, Colonel Tandzhi and some other authoritative employees.
Agent "X" was in constant contact with the employee of the USSR military attaché, Lieutenant Colonel Kozlov, and during the war he transmitted a large amount of important information to Moscow.
This information revealed the plans of both the Wehrmacht command and the bosses of Nazi Germany, as well as the allies of the anti-Hitler coalition. Thus, "X" reported on secret negotiations conducted in Switzerland by the representative of the American Office of Strategic Services (military and political intelligence) Allen Dulles with the SS General Karl Wolff. On May 18, 1945, "X" informed the Center that on May 15, in an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy, the first meeting on the development of Operation Unthinkable was held. The meeting was chaired by General Thompson, who was responsible for developing the plan. He began his speech by warning the participants of the working group that "all preparatory activities must be carried out in conditions of special secrecy" and that Winston Churchill wanted to "teach Stalin a good lesson, to impose an Anglo-American war on the Soviet Union, to deal the Soviets a sudden and terrible blow." The starting point for the developers of the Unthinkable plan, according to Agent X, was to be Churchill's intentions "to drive the Russians back to a line east of the Curzon Line and then make peace."
Agent X also reported that the Joint Chiefs of Staff immediately declared: "It is impossible to make a plan on the basis of such a limited operation, and they will have to make a plan for a total war against the Soviet Union." On special instructions from Churchill, the Anglo-American troops on the European continent were brought to full combat readiness and were to begin military operations against Soviet military units on July 1, 1945.
Literally until today, few people knew how Stalin managed to thwart the plans of the insidious "allies", why we were forced to hastily take Berlin, against whom the English instructors trained the unformed divisions of the Germans who had surrendered to them in April 1945, why Dresden was destroyed with inhuman cruelty in February 1945, and whom exactly the Anglo-Saxons wanted to intimidate with this.
The legend of the "honest allies - the USA and Great Britain" was welcomed in every possible way, both in the USSR and during the perestroika times. And few documents were published then - this period was hidden for many reasons. True, in recent years the British and Americans themselves have begun to partially open the archives of that period, because now there is no one to fear - the USSR no longer exists.
So, on July 1, 1945, 47 English and American divisions, without any declaration of war, were supposed to deal a crushing blow to the naive Russians, who did not expect such boundless meanness from their allies.
The attack was to be supported by 10-12 German divisions, which the "allies" kept undisbanded in Schleswig-Holstein and southern Denmark, they were trained daily by British instructors: they were prepared for war against the USSR. In theory, a war of united forces of the entire Western civilization against Russia was to begin - subsequently, other countries were to participate in the "crusade" against the "communist infection" - Poland, then Hungary... The war was to lead to the complete defeat and unconditional surrender of the USSR. The final goal was to end the war at approximately the same line where Hitler planned to end it according to the "Barbarossa" plan: Arkhangelsk - Stalingrad. The Anglo-Saxons intended to break us with total bombing terror - the savage destruction of the largest Soviet cities: Moscow, Leningrad, Vladivostok, Murmansk, etc. Devastating blows were to be delivered by armadas of "flying fortresses" - the notorious American B-29 bombers. How many millions of Soviet people were to perish in the most brutal "fire tornadoes" that wiped Hamburg and Dresden off the face of the earth, destroyed Tokyo... Now they were going to do the same to us, our loyal allies.
Later, in his memoirs, Churchill described the situation that had developed in the spring of 1945 as follows: "The destruction of Germany's military power entailed a radical change in the relations between Communist Russia and the Western democracies. They lost their common enemy, the war against whom had been almost the only link that held their alliance together. From now on, Russian imperialism and communist doctrine saw no limits and set no limits to their advance and their striving for final domination." From this, in Churchill's opinion, concrete practical conclusions for Western strategy and policy inexorably followed.
Soviet Russia, which had only grown stronger during the Second World War, had become a mortal threat to the entire "free" world; it was necessary to create a new front against its rapid advance.
This front in Europe was to extend as far east as possible; the main objective of the Anglo-American armies was Berlin; the capture of Czechoslovakia and the entry of American troops into Prague were of the utmost importance; Vienna, and better yet, all of Austria, must be governed by the Western powers...
Subsequently, agent "X" reported the details of the plan of operation. According to the information he had obtained, Churchill based it on the following key considerations: the Anglo-Saxons would strike at the Soviet troops approximately on July 1, 1945, without warning, with maximum surprise; the morale of the British and American armed forces and public opinion will certainly be "100 percent reliable"; the German army and the capabilities of the defeated Third Reich and its allies "will be used against the Soviets with maximum force"...
According to the agent, General Thompson decided to involve the head of British military intelligence, General Sinclair, and his trusted employee, Lieutenant Colonel Stockdale, in developing the "Unthinkable" plan.
"X" also reported that the "Unthinkable" plan, in general terms, "requires a surprise pincer movement by two army groups. One group moves from the north of Germany, the other from the Leipzig area as quickly as possible into the center of Poland. This will be accompanied by powerful air raids on the most important communication centers and key railway bridges on the main river barriers (Oder, Spree, Vistula). An additional offensive is to begin in Austria along the Linz-Vienna line. Special forces on aircraft carriers were to be transferred to the Black Sea to bomb the Caucasian and Baku oil refineries and oil fields (this had been planned by the British back in 1940, and the developers of Operation Unthinkable simply pulled out of the closet an old skeleton that had been waiting for its moment). Also considered, and very seriously, was "the possibility of an air and sea operation against St. Petersburg."
The plan for the land campaign involved two main attacks in North-Eastern Europe in the direction of Poland.
In general, according to Churchill's instructions, the total Allied forces involved in the operation were to be: 50 infantry, 20 armored, 5 airborne divisions, as well as the Wehrmacht and Polish troops. By the start of hostilities, the Allies planned to fully arm and reform at least 10 German divisions. In total, at least 83 divisions with a total strength of well over one million people were to take part in the implementation of the "Unthinkable" plan...
It was also planned to occupy vast Soviet territory in order to reduce the material and human potential of the USSR to a level at which "further resistance by the Soviets would be impossible." In political terms, the concept of the entire operation was an example of Anglo-Saxon goal-setting: imposing the political will of the British Empire and the United States on the Russians.
The news from London came as a complete and, obviously, discouraging surprise to our leadership.
To be convinced of this, it is enough to recall that in the first days of May 1945, Stalin and Churchill repeatedly exchanged personal, and sometimes secret and very confidential messages. Churchill, as is clear from the published correspondence, sent Stalin eight lengthy letters and received the same number in response. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the British Prime Minister thoroughly discussed the most serious problems of the post-war structure of Europe and attempted to coordinate the positions of their governments. In particular, the issue of allied control over the situation in the Italian province of Giulia was discussed, as well as the preparation of a conference on the zones of responsibility of the allies in Europe and the activities of the European Advisory Commission. In addition, the leaders of the victorious powers agreed on the time and procedure for declaring Victory Day.
Comparing the facts, one cannot help but be amazed at the truly boundless hypocrisy with which Sir Winston conducted an “interested” dialogue with the Soviet leader, while simultaneously hatching plans for his physical destruction. In a message dated May 9, Churchill, on behalf of the entire British nation, expressed to Stalin “heartfelt greetings on the occasion of the brilliant victory” that the Red Army and the peoples of the USSR had won, “expelling the invaders from their land and defeating the Nazi tyranny,” and also declared his confidence that “the future of mankind depends on friendship and mutual understanding between the British and Russian peoples.” Further, the British Prime Minister, as has now become clear, with feigned kindness, wrote: “Here in our island fatherland, we think of you very often today, and we send you from the depths of our hearts wishes for happiness and well-being. We wish that after all the sacrifices and sufferings in that dark valley through which we have passed together, we may now, bound together by true friendship and mutual sympathy, go forward under the shining sun of a victorious peace." Churchill concluded this message with the very eloquent words: "I ask my wife to convey to you all these words of friendship and admiration."
Stalin, already informed of the Allies' plans, responded to Churchill less emotionally, in a more constructive and businesslike manner, turning the discussion from enthusiastic outbursts to specific problems of the post-war structure of Europe, in particular, the need to give Poland, which had suffered so much from German Nazism, a significant share of land in German Silesia. But he conducted the conversation, we emphasize, in a no less friendly, welcoming tone.
Unfortunately, history has no documentary evidence of how the Soviet leader responded to the report of the military attaché from London that Winston Churchill, swearing eternal friendship to him, gave the order to develop a plan of attack on Soviet troops and the USSR. One can only assume that the document handed to him by the head of the GRU Kuznetsov caused Stalin to react with bewilderment and ask many questions...
By the way, during this period the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was also in lively correspondence with the US President Harry Truman. 8 personal messages were sent from Moscow to Washington to Truman and 5 were received from him.
Judging by the content of these letters, the correspondence was conducted in a constructive tone, and although its participants adhered to their principled positions, they demonstrated deep respect for the opinion of their partner-opponent and patiently sought ways to compromise solutions to the problems that arose.
It should be noted right away that Churchill's idea of delivering a surprise attack on Soviet troops was met with great disapproval in the circles of the British ruling elite. First of all, this idea was criticized at a secret meeting of the British military cabinet. For example, the head of British military intelligence, General Sinclair, directly called it "utter nonsense that cannot be seriously considered at all." Sinclair immediately emphasized that "the situation of Germany itself with its communications problem, millions of refugees, the problem of food and the state of industry make it impossible to wage a major war through Germany and Poland."
Agent "X" also brought to Moscow's attention the final results of the first meeting on the "Unthinkable" plan. "I think," he summed up, "that the most responsible of his advisers will now regard the idea of war against Russia as an adventure, but there are also many of its instigators who, like Thornton, say: "Now or never."
The military attaché in London Sklyarov concluded his urgent report to Moscow with the words: "In words, the source said that the final decision on this issue is not yet known."
The next report from London was accurately reported to Stalin by the head of the GRU Kuznetsov, so that he had the opportunity to become acquainted with both the objective information and the reasoning and assessments of agent "X." In the second and third ten days of May – June 1945, new reports on the development of Operation Unthinkable continued to arrive from the London GRU residency.
Thus, on May 19, agent "X" reported: "The Allies have actually betrayed the USSR with separate secret negotiations in Bern with the German commander-in-chief in Italy and ensured their advancement in Yugoslavia with a political trick, forcing Tito to fight a tough battle."
May 28 – another message from "X": "There are no new facts about the plan. The rumors are not reassuring. Beware of provocations for obvious political reasons." This was a very significant warning.
In essence, the informed agent recalled the provocation of the SS thugs led by Otto Skorzeny in the German town of Gleiwitz on the border with Poland on August 31, 1939, when, staging an attack on German territory, an SS man read into a microphone a statement broadcast to the entire world that "the time has come for Poland to wage war against Germany." "X," one must assume, not without reason, suspected that Operation Unthinkable - an attack on Soviet troops in Germany - could begin with a similar provocation in West Berlin.
Fortunately, there were still sober heads in the British Military Planning Headquarters.
Despite the involvement of German, Polish, and Hungarian troops, they came to the conclusion that Operation Unthinkable, given the obvious superiority of the Soviet forces, was doomed to failure. And no matter how many resources the Anglo-Americans deployed, they still would not achieve success - so strong was the grouping of Soviet troops in Germany and Poland.
On May 22, 1945, the War Planning Staff completed its calculations for the planned adventure operation and reported its findings to Churchill. Sir Winston generally agreed with them, but ordered that work begin immediately on a new plan for the same Operation Unthinkable, this time in a defensive version. And already on June 9, Churchill received the draft of the new plan from General Ismay for approval. The next day, the Prime Minister wrote to Ismay: “I have studied the draft of the Unthinkable plan, developed on June 8, 1945, which reflects the Russian superiority in ground forces as 2 to 1. If the Americans withdraw their troops to their zones and transfer their main forces to the territory of the USA and to the Pacific Ocean zone, then the Russians have enough forces to advance to the coast of the North Sea and the Atlantic. It is necessary to think out a clear plan of how we can defend our Island, taking into account that France and the Netherlands will not be able to resist Russian superiority.”
Concluding his message to the general, Churchill made the following conclusion, indicating that he had not yet completely lost his mind: "In keeping the code name of Operation Unthinkable, the command understands that this is only a preliminary sketch of what I hope is still a hypothetical probability...".
Nevertheless, on the same June 10, Churchill gave General Ismay new instructions and demanded that the plan of the operation be revised, which was soon carried out.
The new draft of the defensive plan indicated that "the Russians will be able to attack the British Isles using the following forms of war: by blockading all sea communications; by invasion; by air strikes by air forces; in the event of a missile strike on the British Isles or the use of other new weapons (that is, it was implied that the USSR could well acquire its own nuclear weapons)."
In the end, General Ismay summed up: "Only in the case of the use of missiles and other new weapons that the Russians may acquire will there be a serious threat to the security of our country. An invasion or serious attacks on our sea communications can be carried out only after a long preparation, which will take several years."
At this point, thank God, the "Unthinkable" plan was put to an end. It was hidden in the archive, where it happily gathered dust for several decades until researchers not committed to the ruling elite got to it.
However, unanswered questions nevertheless remain.
For example, what dividends did Churchill expect to derive from the implementation of the "Unthinkable" plan?
First of all, it should be noted that the British Prime Minister expected to involve the United States in a global war against the USSR, which by the summer of 1945 already had nuclear weapons. It becomes obvious that Sir Winston wanted to take advantage of the favorable moment and "saddle" H. Truman, who after the death of F. Roosevelt became the full-fledged American president. But despite the Masonic solidarity, during the preliminary secret discussion with the Americans of his plans for war against the USSR, Churchill was unable to convince Truman of the advisability of attacking Soviet troops in Germany in 1945. Since the USA was in the decisive phase of the war with Japan and counted on Soviet help, the notorious Atlantic solidarity could cost them too much. In any case, if Truman had supported Churchill then, the lives of hundreds of thousands of Yankees could have been at stake, and the American voter would not have forgiven his president for that.
Furthermore, American military intelligence could not help but notice that on June 29, 1945, literally a day before the planned start of the war, the opposing Red Army unexpectedly changed its deployment. Marshal G.K. Zhukov brought the troops of the Group of Occupation Forces in Germany to full combat readiness, and the vanguards of military units even moved into combat positions. Soviet soldiers, selflessly obeying the marshal (whom Stalin, of course, initiated into Churchill's plans), were ready to repel any provocation of the fickle allies with great losses for the enemy. It seems that this was also a significant circumstance that tipped the scales of history - the order to attack the Anglo-Saxon troops was never given. Before that, the capture of Berlin, which was considered impregnable, demonstrated the power of the Red Army, and military experts of the former ally came to the conclusion that it was inevitable to cancel the attack on the Red Army units.
But this happened in conditions when the allied coalition had a global superiority in forces and resources. Doesn't this remind you of the modern picture of the confrontation between NATO forces and Russian military groups?
Suffice it to recall that the naval forces of Great Britain and the USA in 1945 had absolute superiority over the USSR Navy: 19 times in destroyers, 9 times in battleships and large cruisers, and 2 times in submarines. Over 100 aircraft carriers and several thousand units of carrier-based aviation - against a complete zero on the part of the USSR. Yesterday's allies had 4 air armies of heavy bombers that could deliver crushing blows. Soviet long-range bomber aviation was incomparably weaker...
By the way, in April 1945 the allies imagined our troops as exhausted and depleted, and our combat equipment - worn out to the limit. Their military experts were greatly surprised by the power of the Soviet Army, which it demonstrated in the capture of Berlin, which was considered impregnable throughout the world. There is no doubt that I. V. Stalin's decision to storm Berlin in early May 1945 prevented World War III. This is confirmed by declassified documents. They show that Berlin would have been surrendered to the "allies" by the Wehrmacht without a fight, and the combined forces of all of Europe and North America would have fallen upon the USSR.
Stalin certainly did not have the opportunity to prevent World War II, but he managed to prevent World War III. The situation was extremely serious, but the USSR won again without flinching.
Now loud politicians and corrupt scribblers in the West are trying to present Churchill's plan as a "response" to the "Soviet threat", to Stalin's attempt to seize all of Europe.
Did the Soviet leadership have plans at that time to advance to the shores of the Atlantic and seize the British Isles? The only obvious answer to this question is a negative one. This is confirmed by the law on the demobilization of the army and navy, adopted in the USSR on June 23, 1945, and their gradual transfer to peacetime levels. Demobilization began on July 5, 1945 and was completed in 1948. The army and navy were reduced from 11 million to less than 3 million people, the State Defense Committee and the Supreme Command Headquarters were disbanded. The number of military districts in 1945-1946 decreased from 33 to 21. The number of troops in East Germany, Poland and Romania was significantly reduced. In September 1945, Soviet troops were withdrawn from northern Norway, in November from Czechoslovakia, in April 1946 from the island of Bornholm (Denmark), in December 1947 from Bulgaria...
As the leading expert on post-war foreign policy, Doctor of Historical Sciences Valentin Falin, writes, "it is difficult to find a politician in the past century equal to Churchill in his ability to confuse both his own and others. But the future Sir Winston was especially successful in his hypocrisy and intrigues with regard to the Soviet Union.
In his messages to Stalin, he "prayed that the Anglo-Soviet alliance would be a source of many benefits for both countries, for the United Nations and for the entire world," wishing "complete success to the noble enterprise." This was a broad offensive by the Red Army along the entire Eastern Front in January 1945, hastily prepared in response to the pleas of Washington and London to provide assistance to the Allies who had found themselves in a crisis situation in the Ardennes and Alsace. But this was in words. In fact, Churchill considered himself free of any obligations to the Soviet Union…”. It was then that Churchill gave orders to store captured German weapons with an eye to their possible use against the USSR, placing the Wehrmacht soldiers and officers who surrendered in subdivisions in the land of Schleswig-Holstein and in southern Denmark. Then the general meaning of the insidious undertaking started by the British leader will become clear. The British took under their protection German units that surrendered without resistance, sent them to the specified lands. In total, about 15 German divisions were stationed there. Weapons were stockpiled, and personnel were trained for future battles...
In the "Unthinkable" plan, according to Churchill's will, literally everything was clearly spelled out: the Soviet troops would be exhausted at that point, the equipment that had participated in the fighting in Europe would be worn out, food supplies and medicines would run out. Therefore, it would not be difficult to push them back to the pre-war borders and force Stalin to resign. "A change in the state system and the split of the USSR awaited us," writes V. Falin. "As a measure of intimidation - the bombing of cities, in particular, Moscow. According to the plans of the British, it would suffer the fate of Dresden, which, as is known, was razed to the ground by Allied aviation...".
American General Patton, commander of tank armies, openly stated that he did not plan to stop at the demarcation line along the Elbe agreed upon in Yalta, but to go further, to Poland, from there to Ukraine and Belarus – and so on to Stalingrad. And to finish the war where Hitler did not have time and could not finish it. “He called us nothing less than ‘the heirs of Genghis Khan, who must be expelled from Europe,’” notes V. Falin. “After the end of the war, Patton was appointed governor of Bavaria, and soon removed from his post for sympathizing with the Nazis...” London long denied the very existence of the “Unthinkable” plan, but several years ago the British declassified part of their archives, and among the documents were papers concerning Operation Unthinkable. Here it turned out that there was nowhere to dissociate further...
Eisenhower admits in his memoirs that the Second Front practically did not exist already at the end of February 1945: the Germans were rolling back to the east without resistance.
The German tactics were as follows: to hold, as far as possible, positions along the entire line of Soviet-German confrontation until the virtual Western and real Eastern Fronts closed, and American and British troops would take over from the Wehrmacht units in repelling the "Soviet threat", which supposedly inevitably hung over Central and Western Europe.
At this time, Churchill was trying to convince Roosevelt in correspondence and telephone conversations to stop the Russians at all costs, not to let them into Central Europe. This explains the significance that the capture of Berlin had acquired by that time.
It should be recalled that the Western Allies could have advanced eastward somewhat faster than they did if the headquarters of Montgomery, Eisenhower and Alexander (Italian theater of operations) had planned their actions better, coordinated their forces and resources more competently, and spent less time on internal squabbles and the search for a common denominator. Washington, while Roosevelt was alive, was in no hurry for various reasons to put an end to cooperation with Moscow, and Truman, at first, at least until the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, was in no hurry to break or at least spoil relations with the USSR. And for Churchill, "the Soviet Moor had done his job, and he had to be removed." Let us remember that Yalta ended on February 11. In the first half of February 12, the guests flew home. In Crimea, by the way, it was agreed that the aviation of the three powers would adhere to certain demarcation lines in their operations. And on the night of February 12-13, the Western Allies' bombers wiped Dresden off the face of the earth, then dealt a terrible blow to the main enterprises in Slovakia, in the future Soviet occupation zone of Germany, so that the factories would not be left intact. In 1941, Stalin proposed to the British and Americans to bomb the oil fields in Ploiesti using the Crimean airfields. But they did not touch them then. They were raided in 1944, when Soviet troops came very close to the main oil production center, which supplied Germany with fuel throughout the war.
One of the main targets of the raids on Dresden turned out to be the bridges across the Elbe. Churchill's directive, which was also shared by the Americans, was in effect - to delay the Red Army as far as possible in the East. The briefing before the British crews took off said: it was necessary to "visually demonstrate to the Soviets the capabilities of the Allied bomber aviation." And so they did. And not just once. In April 1945, they bombed Potsdam. They destroyed Oranienburg. We were notified that it turned out that the American pilots had simply "made a mistake." They were supposedly aiming at Zossen, where the headquarters of Marshal Goering and the German Air Force were located. A classic "diversionary statement," of which there are countless. Oranienburg was bombed on the orders of Marshall and Leahy, because there were laboratories there that worked with uranium materials. So that neither the laboratories, nor the personnel, nor the equipment, nor the nuclear materials themselves would fall into our hands, everything was turned to dust and ashes.
It is clear that during Operation Unthinkable Churchill expected to expel Soviet troops from Germany and Eastern European countries, beyond the Curzon Line (which has now been effectively restored by admitting Poland and the Baltic States to NATO and the fascist coup in Ukraine). The British Prime Minister believed that the Allied forces should occupy almost the entire European part of the Soviet Union. Thus, Sir Winston mentally saw himself as the liberator of Europe from both the fascists and the Bolsheviks. Incidentally, Churchill claimed the role of savior of European civilization, the entire "free world" from the "communist infection" back in 1918, having acted as the organizer of the Anglo-French-American-Japanese intervention in the young Soviet Republic.
And the last circumstance, which followed from the previous ones. Churchill, in persuading his fellow Mason Truman to carry out a "preventive" strike against the Soviets, implied air (and most likely nuclear) strikes against the most important objects on the territory of the USSR. In particular, he called for an air and naval operation against Leningrad and to inflict as much damage as possible on the Caucasian oil fields and refineries. But at the same time, the British Prime Minister intended to destroy the spiritual power of Russia (just look at the idea of razing to the ground the treasure trove of Russian national culture - Petersburg - Leningrad!). Fortunately, Churchill's attempts to draw the United States into a war against the USSR were not approved in Washington at that time. Eagerly awaiting the results of the test of the created atomic bomb, which would give the American armed forces unprecedented power, US President H. Truman was not at all eager to dance to Churchill's tune and act according to the plans being developed in London, especially since the Soviet Armed Forces still had to crush the Japanese Kwantung Army entrenched on the Asian continent.
In July 1945, Churchill, as if nothing had happened, headed the British delegation to the conference of the heads of the allied powers in Potsdam. However, after the victory of the Labourites in the parliamentary elections, the English delegation in Potsdam was headed by the Labourite K. Attlee instead of Churchill...
The plan for Operation Unthinkable was declassified by the British government only in 1999. But Soviet military intelligence learned its contents in advance, as the most important provisions were being developed, and promptly informed the Soviet leadership.
The finale of the Great Patriotic War, by the will of the wily British Prime Minister, could well have turned into the first act of a new world war. Fortunately, this did not happen. The plan for Operation Unthinkable was shelved. In all fairness, its implementation was thwarted by the military attaché in London, Major General Sklyarov, his subordinate Lieutenant Colonel Kozlov, and most importantly, the arch-intelligence agent under the pseudonym "X".
The story of the development and cancellation of Operation Unthinkable, which became public knowledge as a result of the publication of a recording of a conversation between the former British Prime Minister and American Senator S. Bridges, which was stored in the special archive of the US FBI, is yet another confirmation that during the years of the "cold war" peace on the planet was constantly exposed to dangerous threats from calculating political intriguers like Sir Winston Churchill.
Source: https://topwar.ru/78439-operaciya-nemyslimoe-ili-nesostoyavshiysya-blickrig-uinstona-cherchillya.html