Operation Unthinkable

The victorious volleys of guns died down. The bloody war ended with the defeat of fascism. A trial was coming for those who unleashed this massacre, which claimed millions of human lives and set back the development of mankind many years ago. However, not everyone dreamed of eternal peace and life without shots...

For a long time this information was kept secret and only now it is becoming available. Few people know this now, as well as how Stalin managed to frustrate the plans of “probable allies”, why we were forced to hastily take Berlin, against whom the British instructors in April 45 trained undisbanded German divisions that surrendered to them, why Dresden was destroyed with inhuman cruelty in February 1945, and whom exactly the Anglo-Saxons wanted to intimidate with this. This period was hidden for many reasons. AT last years the British began to partially open the archives of that period, there was no one to fear - the USSR no longer existed.

In April 1945, Churchill ordered the preparation of a plan for a war against the USSR. It was given to him on May 22, 1945 on 29 pages. The assignment was preceded by conclusions that Churchill presented in his memoirs:

• firstly, Soviet Russia became a deadly threat to the "free world";
• secondly, to immediately create a new front against its rapid advance;
• thirdly, this front in Europe should go as far as possible to the east;
• fourthly, the main and true goal of the Anglo-American armies is Berlin;
• fifthly, the liberation of Czechoslovakia and the entry of American troops into Prague is of the utmost importance;
• sixthly, Vienna, essentially the whole of Austria, should be ruled by the Western powers, at least on an equal footing with the Russian Soviets;
• seventhly, it is necessary to curb the aggressive claims of Marshal Tito towards Italy ...

The plan gives an assessment of the situation, formulates the goals of the operation, defines the forces involved, the directions of attacks by the troops of the Western allies and their probable results. The appendices to the plan contain information about the deployment of the Red Army troops (in English documents, as a rule, the term "Russian army" is used) and the Western allies, as well as cartographic material. The time of the Prime Minister's order to develop an operation plan is not indicated, but given the complexity of its preparation, the nature and volume of the documents themselves, there is every reason to assume that the Prime Minister's order was received by the planners in April 1945.

In 1999, the British government declassified the plan for Operation Unthinkable - "Unthinkable"developed on May 22, 1945 in case the USSR does not stop at the agreed boundaries of the zones of occupation, but continues its march to the West up to the Atlantic Ocean. Currently, this plan is stored in the National Archives of Great Britain. Churchill pointed out in comments on a draft plan submitted to him that the plan was a "precautionary measure" for what he hoped was a "purely hypothetical case."

The plan for Operation Unthinkable was first presented at a meeting of the chiefs of intelligence services in London on May 22, 1945: it began to be developed in April on the orders of Prime Minister Churchill. These documents are no longer a secret, and the cynicism of the allies is striking: on July 1, 1945, 47 British divisions were to invade the Soviet zone of occupation of Germany, occupy Dresden, Berlin and Breslau with the support of tanks, break into Poland.

The British were going to destroy the aviation of the USSR, block the Baltic from the sea and organize sabotage in the Soviet rear. The British even planned to use captured Germans - to form 10-12 divisions from SS and Wehrmacht soldiers and transfer them to the front: "They will be glad to fight against the Bolsheviks"; as if the prisoners still wanted to fight - after the devastating defeat of Germany!

By January 1, 1946, the Allies hoped to "cleanse Europe" and dictate terms of peace to Moscow. Reading all this, it is disgusting to realize that the British, shaking hands with the allies, congratulating them on the victory over Hitler, were preparing to stick a knife in the USSR's back - not disdaining the help of yesterday's SS enemies.

So why didn't Operation Unthinkable happen? The British Chiefs of Staff suggested that a blitzkrieg would not work - it would be a protracted war. "The Russians will occupy Norway, Greece and possibly Turkey and Iraq... Holland and France will be defenseless before them."

The Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram published an article on the results of World War II. "What would Europe be like now if in the summer of 1945 Churchill had put into action a plan for attacking the USSR - Operation Unthinkable?" - writes "Al-Ah-ram". - After all, Hitler did not expect that four years after the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Russians would raise a red flag over the Reichstag. It is possible that the Soviet troops would have occupied London, forcing the British to build socialism."

The idea of ​​an attack was lukewarm by the Americans, but not because they were more diplomatic than the British. The USSR, they believed, could conclude an alliance with Japan - in this case, a confrontation in the Pacific Ocean and the involvement of the United States in a protracted conflict are inevitable; not a sea will be shed - an ocean of blood. And most importantly, the plan for Operation Unthinkable became known in Moscow, where it was handed over by the "Cambridge Five" of Soviet intelligence officers in Britain with Kim Philby. However, on June 29, 1945, the day before the planned start of the war, the Red Army suddenly changed its location for the insidious enemy. This was the decisive weight that shifted the scales of history - the order was not given to the Anglo-Saxon troops. Prior to this, the capture of Berlin, which was considered impregnable, showed the power of the Soviet Army and the military experts of the enemy were inclined to cancel the attack on the USSR. Marshal Georgy Zhukov began the regrouping of Soviet troops in Germany, reinforcing its military equipment and manpower - the soldiers of Victory, who would not soon see their homeland and relatives. In London, they realized that they would have to refuse the strike ...

Meanwhile, only in May 1945 did the Red Army and the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition twice stand on the brink of conflict. The first time was when, on May 6, 1945, the 16th Armored Division of the US Third Army (under the command of General George Patton), ignoring agreements with the USSR, captured the city of Pilsen, located in the center of the Soviet occupation zone. The goal of the Americans was the Skoda factory complex - the drawings of the bureau of Hans Kammler, the SS Obergruppenführer responsible for the Nazi miracle weapon program, were stored there.

On May 12, the Red Army entered Pilsen, but Patton's officers refused to give up control of the city. One of the commanders of the Soviet special forces, Captain Evgeny Olesinsky, promised to "throw the Americans out with bayonets." The "war of nerves" continued for a day, until the allies left.

The second time - when on May 2, 1945, detachments of Yugoslav partisans captured the city of Trieste in Italy. The allies demanded that Trieste be transferred under their control, but the partisan leader and future holder of the Soviet Order of Victory with diamonds, Josip Broz Tito, said - "This land belongs to Yugoslavia." The British dug in outside the city - skirmishes broke out between the partisans and the British at night. The Allies brought tanks and artillery to Trieste. British General William Morgan proposed dividing the disputed territory into two parts by the so-called "Blue Line", but Tito did not agree - he knew for certain that Stalin had declared that he "would give Yugoslavia any support." On May 22, 1945 (when the "Unthinkable" plan was discussed in London), soldiers of the 13th British Corps began to occupy the quarters of Trieste. Not accepting the battle, the Yugoslavs retreated behind the Blue Line. It was on this day that the third world war could really begin ...

On June 8, 1945, British military leaders wrote a conclusion to the plan for Operation Unthinkable to his Prime Minister, in which he assessed the state of the troops of the opposing sides and drew conclusions about the prospects for the planned war:

"a) ground forces
The Russian division differs in its composition from the allied division. Therefore, we counted the Russian divisions to their British equivalent. Our assessment of the overall balance of power in Europe as of July 1:

Allies (number of aircraft)			Russians (number of aircraft)
	tactical aviation	strategic aviation	tactical aviation	strategic aviation
Britain and the Dominions
Poland
Total

The superiority in the number of Russian aviation will be compensated for a certain time by the significant superiority of the Allies in its control and efficiency, especially strategic aviation. However, after a certain period of time in operations, our air force will be seriously weakened due to a lack of replenishment of aircraft and crews.
c) Naval Forces
The Allies can certainly ensure the dominant superiority of their forces at sea.
3. It is clear from the ratio of the ground forces of the parties that we do not have offensive capabilities with the aim of achieving quick success. Given, however, that Russian and Allied ground forces are in contact from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, we must be ready for operations in the land theater ...
4. Therefore, we believe that if a war breaks out, it will be beyond our ability to achieve a quick limited success, and we will find ourselves embroiled in a long war against superior forces. Moreover, the superiority of these forces may increase exorbitantly if American fatigue and indifference increase and they are drawn to their side by the magnet of the war in the Pacific.

The document was signed by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff Field Marshal Alan Brooke and the Chiefs of Staff of the Navy and Air Force.

After the publication of materials about Operation Unthinkable, a well-known military historian, professor at the University of Edinburgh, John Erickson, expressed the opinion that "Churchill's plan" helps to explain "why Marshal Zhukov unexpectedly decided in June 1945 to regroup his forces, received orders from Moscow to strengthen the defenses and study in detail the deployment of the troops of the Western Allies. Now the reasons are clear: obviously, Churchill's plan became known to Moscow in advance and the Stalinist General Staff took appropriate countermeasures "...

Among military experts, there are two opinions about the outcome of a possible conflict in the summer of 1945 between the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and Britain and the United States, on the other. Some are sure that "the Russians would definitely have been unlucky" and the USSR would have left horns and legs. "The United States then had only three atomic bombs, - said the secretary of the union of former French special forces " The world is our fatherland" Jean-Pierre Kandani, who thinks differently. - And it would hardly have been possible to use them - after all, not a single plane would have flown to the cities of the USSR through the Soviet zone of occupation of Germany: they would have been shot down by anti-aircraft guns. The Red Army, which had a unique the experience of storming European capitals, would easily deal with the allies - in two or three months the Russians would have occupied Italy, France and Britain.

TOP SECRET

War Cabinet

Joint Planning Headquarters

OPERATION UNIMAGINED

Report of the Joint Planning Staff

1. We have analyzed the possibility of conducting Operation Unthinkable. As directed, the analysis was based on the following assumptions:

a) The action receives the full support of public opinion from both the British Empire and the United States, respectively, the morale of the British and American troops remains high.

b) Great Britain and the USA have the full support of the Polish troops and can rely on the use of German labor and the remaining German industrial potential.

c) We cannot rely on any help from the armies of other Western powers, although we have bases and equipment at our disposal in their territory, the use of which may have to be resorted to.

d) The Russians enter into an alliance with Japan.

f) Until July 1, the implementation of plans for the redeployment and demobilization of troops continues, then it stops.

In order to comply with the regime of increased secrecy, consultations with the headquarters of the ministries in charge of the types of armed forces were not held.

Target:

2. The general political goal of the operation is to impose the will of the United States and the British Empire on the Russians. Although the "will" of the two countries can be seen as a matter directly related only to Poland, it does not follow at all that the extent of our involvement in the conflict will necessarily be limited. A quick military success may or may not induce the Russians to submit to our will at least temporarily. If they want total war, they will get it.

By the end of the war, the Soviet army, although it had lost millions of its soldiers on the fronts, was able to pierce not only Berlin, but also take all of Europe under its protectorate - as some Soviet military historians say. However, in the spring of 1945, no one in Moscow even thought of violating the allied agreements, much less plotting how, after the storming of Berlin, to throw the allies into the Atlantic Ocean.

W. CHURCHILL TO THE JOINT PLANNING STAFF OF THE MILITARY CABINET ABOUT THE "UNTHINKABLE" PLAN

JOINT MILITARY CABINET PLANNING STAFF

I have read the commander's remarks on the Inconceivable Limoy, dated June 8th, which demonstrate a two-to-one Russian superiority on land.
2. If the Americans withdraw troops to their zone and transfer the bulk of the armed forces to the United States and the Pacific region, the Russians will be able to advance to North Sea and the Atlantic. A clear plan must be drawn up on how we can defend our Island, bearing in mind that France and the Netherlands will not be able to resist Russian superiority at sea. What naval forces do we need and where should they be deployed? What size army do we need and how should it be dispersed? The location of airfields in Denmark could give us a huge advantage and would allow us to keep open the passage to the Baltic, where the main naval operations should be carried out. Possession of footholds in the Netherlands and France should be considered.
3. Keeping the code name "Unthinkable", the command suggests that this is just a preliminary draft of what I hope is still a purely hypothetical possibility.

In April 1945, the allies presented our troops as exhausted and exhausted, and military equipment as worn out to the limit. Their military specialists were greatly surprised by the power of the Soviet Army, which it demonstrated in the capture of Berlin, which they considered impregnable. There is no doubt the correctness of the conclusion of the prominent historian V. Falin - Stalin's decision to storm Berlin in early May 1945 prevented a third world war. This is confirmed by recently declassified documents. Otherwise, Berlin would have been handed over to the "allies" without a fight, and the combined forces of all of Europe and North America would have fallen upon the USSR.

It was then that Churchill gave orders to stockpile captured German weapons with an eye to their possible use against the USSR, placing the soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht who surrendered into divisions in the land of Schleswig-Holstein and in southern Denmark. Then the general meaning of the insidious undertaking begun by the British leader will become clear. The British took under their protection German units that surrendered without resistance, sent them to South Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein. In total, about 15 German divisions were stationed there. The weapons were stockpiled, and the personnel were trained for future fights.

The American General Patton, the commander of the tank armies, directly stated that he did not plan to stop at the demarcation line along the Elbe, agreed upon in Yalta, but to move on. To Poland, from there to Ukraine and Belarus - and so on to Stalingrad. And end the war where Hitler did not have time and could not finish it. He called us none other than "the heirs of Genghis Khan, who must be expelled from Europe." After the end of the war, Patton was appointed governor of Bavaria, and was soon removed from his post for Nazi sympathies.

London denied the existence of such a plan for a long time, but a few years ago the British declassified part of their archives, and among the documents were papers relating to the Unthinkable plan.

Eisenhower admits in his memoirs that the Second Front already at the end of February 1945 practically did not exist: the Germans rolled back to the east without resistance. The tactics of the Germans 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 the American and British troops, as it were, would take over from the Wehrmacht formations in repelling the "Soviet threat" hovering over Europe.

Churchill at this time, in correspondence, telephone conversations with Roosevelt, is trying to convince at all costs to stop the Russians, not to let them into Central Europe. This explains the significance that the capture of Berlin had acquired by that time.

I must say that the Western allies could move east a little faster than they could if the headquarters of Montgomery, Eisenhower and Alexander (the Italian theater of operations) planned their actions better, coordinated forces and means more competently, spent less time on internal squabbles and finding a common denominator. Washington, while Roosevelt was alive, for various reasons, was in no hurry to put an end to cooperation with Moscow. And for Churchill, "the Soviet Moor did his job, and he should have been removed."

Remember, Yalta ended on February 11. In the first half of February 12, the guests flew home. In the Crimea, by the way, it was agreed that the aviation of the three powers would adhere to certain lines of demarcation in their operations. And on the night of February 12-13, Western Allied bombers wiped Dresden off the face of the earth, then walked through the main enterprises in Slovakia, in the future Soviet zone of occupation of Germany, so that we would not get the factories intact. In 1941, Stalin offered the British and Americans to bomb the oilfields in Ploiesti using Crimean airfields. No, they did not touch them then. They were raided in 1944, when Soviet troops approached the main center of oil production, which had supplied Germany with fuel throughout the war.

One of the main targets of the raids on Dresden were the bridges over the Elbe. The Churchillian directive, which was shared by the Americans, was in effect, to delay the Red Army as far as possible in the East. The briefing before the departure of the British crews said: it is necessary to demonstrate to the Soviets the capabilities of the allied bomber aviation. Here they demonstrated. And, not just once. In April 1945 Potsdam was bombed. Destroyed Oranienburg. We were notified - the pilots made a mistake. It seems that they were aiming at Zossen, where the headquarters of the German Air Force was located. The classic "distraction statement" that has never been numbered. Oranienburg was bombed on the orders of Marshall and Lehi, because there were laboratories that worked with uranium. So that neither the laboratories, nor the staff, nor the equipment, nor the materials fall into our hands, everything turned to dust.

Attempts were made to influence partners by good example. According to Vladimir Semyonov, a Soviet diplomat, I know the following. Stalin invited Andrey Smirnov, then head of the 3rd European Department of the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and part-time Minister of Foreign Affairs of the RSFSR, to discuss, with the participation of Semenov, options for actions in the territories assigned to Soviet control.

Smirnov reported that our troops, pursuing the enemy, had gone beyond the demarcation lines in Austria, as they had been agreed upon at Yalta, and suggested de facto staking out our new positions in anticipation of how the United States would behave in similar situations. Stalin interrupted him and said: "Wrong. Write a telegram to the Allied Powers." And he dictated: "The Soviet troops, pursuing units of the Wehrmacht, were forced to cross the line previously agreed between us. I want to hereby confirm that after the end of hostilities, the Soviet side will withdraw its troops within the established zones of occupation."

On April 12, the US Embassy, ​​government and military institutions received Truman's instruction: all documents signed by Roosevelt are not subject to execution. This was followed by a command to toughen the position in relation to the Soviet Union. On April 23, Truman holds a meeting in the White House, where he declares: “Enough, we are no longer interested in an alliance with the Russians, and therefore we may not fulfill the agreements with them. We will solve the problem of Japan without the help of the Russians.” He set out to "make the Yalta agreements as if they did not exist."

Truman was close to not hesitate to announce the break in cooperation with Moscow publicly. The military literally rebelled against Truman, with the exception of General Patton, who commanded the US armored forces. By the way, the military also thwarted the “Unthinkable” plan. They were interested in the entry of the Soviet Union into the war with Japan. Their arguments to Truman: if the USSR does not come out on the side of the United States, then the Japanese will transfer the millionth Kwantung Army to the islands and fight with the same fanaticism as it was on Okinawa. As a result, the Americans will lose only one to two million people killed.
In addition, the Americans at that time had not yet tested a nuclear bomb. Yes and public opinion in the States then would not have understood such a betrayal. American citizens then mostly sympathized with the Soviet Union. They saw what losses we are suffering for the sake of the common victory over Hitler. As a result, according to eyewitnesses, Truman broke down a bit and agreed with the arguments of his military experts. “Well, if you think so that they should help us with Japan, let them help, but we end our friendship with them,” Truman concludes. Hence such a tough conversation with Molotov, who was perplexed about what had suddenly happened. Truman here already relied on the atomic bomb.

In addition, the US military, as well as their British counterparts, believed that starting a war with the Soviet Union was easier than successfully ending it. The risk seemed too great to them - the storming of Berlin made a sobering impression on the British. The conclusion of the chiefs of staff of the British troops was unequivocal: a blitzkrieg against the Russians would not work, and they did not dare to get involved in a protracted war.

So, the position of the US military is the first reason. The second is the Berlin operation. Third, Churchill lost the election and was left without power. And finally, the fourth - the British military leaders themselves were against the implementation of this plan, because the Soviet Union, as they were convinced, was too strong.

The United States not only did not invite England to participate in this war, they squeezed her out of Asia. Under the 1942 agreement, the US line of responsibility was not limited to Singapore, but also concerned China, Australia, and New Zealand.

Stalin, and this was a major analyst, having brought everything together, said: “You show what your aviation can do, and I will show you what we can do on the ground.” He demonstrated the striking firepower of our Armed Forces so that neither Churchill, nor Eisenhower, nor Marshall, nor Patton, nor anyone else would have a desire to fight the USSR. Behind the determination of the Soviet side to take Berlin and reach the line of demarcation, as they were marked in Yalta, there was an extremely important task - to prevent the British leader's adventure with the implementation of the "Unthinkable" plan, that is, the escalation of the Second World War into the Third. If this happened, there would be thousands and thousands of times more victims!

The political scenario of the Berlin operation belonged to Stalin. The general author of its military component was Georgy Zhukov. Stalin insisted on carrying out the Berlin operation. He wanted to show the initiators of the "Unthinkable" the firepower and strike power of the Soviet armed forces. With a hint, the outcome of the war is decided not in the air and at sea, but on land. The battle for Berlin sobered many dashing heads and thus fulfilled its political, psychological and military purpose. And there were more than enough heads in the West, drugged by a relatively easy success in the spring of 1945.

The storming of Berlin, the hoisting of the banner of Victory over the Reichstag were, of course, not only a symbol or the final chord of the war. And least of all propaganda. It was a matter of principle for the army to enter the enemy's lair and thereby mark the end of the most difficult war in Russian history. From here, from Berlin, the fighters believed, the fascist beast crawled out, bringing immeasurable grief to the Soviet people, the peoples of Europe, and the whole world. The Red Army came there in order to start a new chapter in our history, and in the history of Germany itself, in the history of mankind ...

The Allies wanted to steal Victory Day from us by accepting the surrender of the Germans in Reims on May 7th. This, in fact, a separate deal, fit into the "Unthinkable" plan. It is necessary that the Germans capitulate only to the Western allies and be able to participate in the Third World War. Hitler's successor Dönitz at this time declared: "We will stop the war before England and the USA, which has lost its meaning, but we will continue the war with the Soviet Union as before." The capitulation at Reims was in fact the brainchild of Churchill and Dönitz. The surrender agreement was signed on May 7 at 2:45.

We had to work hard to force Truman to confirm the surrender in Berlin, more precisely, in Karlhorst on May 9 with the participation of the USSR and the allies, to agree on May 9 Victory Day, because Churchill insisted: to consider May 7 as the day the war ended. By the way, in Reims there was another forgery. The text of the agreement on the unconditional surrender of Germany to the Allies was approved by the Yalta Conference, it was sealed with their signatures by Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. But the Americans pretended to have forgotten about the existence of the document, which, by the way, was in the safe of Chief of Staff Eisenhower Smith. Eisenhower's entourage, under the leadership of Smith, drew up a new document, "cleared" of the Yalta provisions that were undesirable for the allies. At the same time, the document was signed by General Smith on behalf of the Allies, and the Soviet Union was not even mentioned, as if it had not participated in the war. Here is a performance played out in Reims. The document of surrender at Reims was handed over to the Germans before it was sent to Moscow.

Eisenhower and Montgomery refused to participate in the joint Victory Parade in the former capital of the Reich. Together with Zhukov, they were supposed to take this parade. The planned Victory Parade in Berlin nevertheless took place, but it was hosted by Marshal Zhukov alone. It was in July forty-fifth. And in Moscow, the Victory Parade took place, as you know, on June 24th.

Fortunately, the military of the West turned out to be smarter than their politicians. They calculated that if Churchill's Operation Unthinkable had begun, its ending would have been obvious: a victorious red flag would have been hoisted over Big Ben. With a hammer and sickle - the same as above the Reichstag.

Operation Unthinkable, developed at the direction of the British Prime Minister W. Churchill by the British Military Planning Headquarters in the deepest secret even from other headquarters, provided for a military campaign against the USSR immediately after the end of World War II. The plans of 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. Forces destined for a German-style blitzkrieg 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, how difficult it is for a sane person to believe in the possibility of a vile betrayal of someone whom he considered an ally and friend. And yet, a treacherous betrayal was planned and in fact was committed. For almost seven decades, information about him was kept in the strictest confidence and only recently became public. And it happened unintentionally. It all started with the fact that the British journalist T. Mayer published his book When the Lions Roar: Churchill and the Kennedy clan. In particular, the book dealt with an FBI document declassified in the United States, in which British ex-Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1947 asks US Senator Samuel Bridges to convince US President Harry Truman to drop an atomic bomb on Moscow, and at the same time subject four more nuclear bombs. ten largest industrial centers of the USSR.

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 you need to remember how the situation developed on the fronts in the victorious spring of 1945.

By April 1945, the Red Army had liberated the territory of Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and partially Czechoslovakia. Both Soviet and Anglo-American troops were rapidly advancing through the territory of the agonizing Nazi Reich. At the same time, there was an unspoken competition: who would quickly approach Berlin and take it. The Soviet troops had an undeniable advantage in this regard: on April 13 they occupied Vienna, the capital of Austria, and on April 16 they began the operation to capture Berlin. On April 25, there was a historic meeting of American and Soviet troops on the Elbe near the city of Torgau.

In the Pacific, Japanese troops were driven out of almost all the territories they captured, and the Japanese navy was defeated. However, the ground forces of Japan still represented a powerful force, the struggle 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 heavy sacrifices. This made the United States vitally interested in the help of the Soviet Union, which at the Yalta Conference of 1945 pledged to oppose Japan after the victory over Germany.

The secret development of a plan for a war against the USSR - in fact, unleashing the Third World War - 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 for its designation - Unthinkable, which means "Unthinkable" in Russian. What did Churchill mean by this title? That we are talking only about the hypothetical possibility of a military clash with the Soviets in the event of an extreme aggravation of the situation? Or maybe (which is most likely) he simply understood that the allies were committing an unimaginable meanness against the Soviet Union, which bore the brunt of the fight against the fascist beast and saved the world, including, of course, Western democracies, from the brown plague? In addition, being a sober realist, Sir Winston, perhaps, was aware that it was impossible to crush the USSR and its Armed Forces in 1945, that this was unthinkable and obviously doomed to failure, and therefore assigned such an exotic name to the plan to unleash the Third World War, in fundamentally contrary to the spirit and fighting traditions of the British army, accustomed to fighting only with the enemy over which it was possible to defeat. Of course, after the prime minister's order, top secret work began in London on the concept and details of a surprise superpowered 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 already a few days after the start of this work.

As is clear from the 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 of the General Staff of the Red Army), on which, in addition to the signature stamp “Top Secret”, there was another signature stamp - “Super Lightning”. This designation, not accepted in the everyday practice of the attaches, indicated that the extraordinary telegram from London should have been deciphered in the first place and immediately reported to the top leadership of the country, namely I.V. Stalin and his closest associates in the State Defense Committee and the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command.

The military attache 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 encrypted with the letter "X". According to the agent, on May 15, 1945, the Joint Planning Headquarters of the British War Cabinet began to develop a plan for a war against the USSR - the Unthinkable plan.

"X" (his true identity is still a closely guarded secret, and the GRU may never reveal it at all!) informed Moscow that the development of the "Unthinkable" plan was being carried out under the cloak of the strictest secrecy, and several high-ranking military planners were involved in it. , including Generals Peak and Thompson, Deputy. the head of the planning department, Colonel Barry, Colonel Tanji and some other authoritative employees.

Agent "X" was constantly in touch with an employee of the USSR military attache, Lieutenant Colonel Kozlov, and during the war he transferred to Moscow a large number of the most important information.

This information revealed the plans of both the command of the Wehrmacht and the bosses of Nazi Germany, and the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition. Thus, "X" reported on secret negotiations conducted in Switzerland by the representative of the US Office of Strategic Services (military and political intelligence) Allen Dulles with the SS General Karl Wolf. On May 18, 1945, "X" informed the Center that on May 15, in the strictest secrecy, the first meeting on the development of Operation Unthinkable was held. The meeting was chaired by General Thompson, who was in charge of developing the plan. He began his speech by warning the members of the working group that “all preparatory measures must be carried out in conditions of extreme secrecy” and that Winston Churchill wants to “teach a good lesson to Stalin, impose an Anglo-American war on the Soviet Union, deal a sudden and terrible blow to the Soviets ".

The initial postulates for the developers of the plan "Unthinkable", according to agent "X", should have been Churchill's intention to "drive the Russians to the 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 plan on the basis of such a limited operation, and he will have to plan for total war against the Soviet Union."

By special order of Churchill, the Anglo-American troops on the European continent were brought to full combat readiness and were to begin fighting 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 British instructors trained undisbanded German divisions in April 45, who surrendered to them, why he was with inhuman cruelty Dresden was destroyed in February 1945 and whom exactly the Anglo-Saxons wanted to intimidate with this.

The legend of “honest allies - the USA and Great Britain” was welcomed in every possible way, both in the USSR and in perestroika times. And few documents were published then - this period was hidden for many reasons. True, in recent years, the British and Americans themselves began to partially open the archives of that period, because now there is no one to fear - the USSR is no more.

So, on July 1, 1945, 47 British and American divisions, without any declaration of war, were to deal a crushing blow to the naive Russians who did not expect such boundless meanness from the allies.

The blow was supposed 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 preparing for war against the USSR. In theory, the war of the 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 supposed to lead to complete defeat and unconditional surrender of the USSR. The ultimate 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 had to perish in the most cruel "fire tornadoes" that wiped out Hamburg and Dresden, destroyed Tokyo ... Now they were going to do this with us, loyal allies.

Subsequently, in his memoirs, Churchill described the situation in the spring of 1945 as follows: “The destruction of the military power of Germany entailed a radical change in relations between communist Russia and Western democracies. They lost their common enemy, the war against which was almost the only link that bound their alliance. From now on, Russian imperialism and communist doctrine did not see and did not set limits to their advancement and striving for final domination. From this, according to Churchill, specific practical conclusions for Western strategy and policy inexorably flowed.

Soviet Russia, only strengthened during the Second World War, has grown into a deadly 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 goal of the Anglo-American armies is Berlin; the capture of Czechoslovakia and the entry of American troops into Prague is of the utmost importance; Vienna, or rather all of Austria, must be ruled by the Western powers...

Subsequently, Agent "X" gave details of the operation plan. According to the information he obtained, Churchill based it on the following most important considerations: the Anglo-Saxons strike at the Soviet troops approximately on July 1, 1945, without warning, with maximum surprise; British and American military morale and public opinion are bound to be "100 per cent 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, the head of British military intelligence, General Sinclair, and his trusted employee, Lieutenant Colonel Stockdale, were involved in the development of the Unthinkable plan, according to the decision of General Thompson.

"X" also relayed that the "Unthinkable" plan, in general terms, "requires the execution of a surprise pincer move by two army groups. One group is moving from the north of Germany, the other from the Leipzig region as quickly as possible to 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 should begin in Austria along the Linz-Vienna line. Special forces on aircraft should be transferred to the Black Sea in order to bomb the Caucasian and Baku oil refineries and oil fields (this was planned by the British back in 1940, and the developers of Operation Unthinkable simply removed an old skeleton from the closet, waiting in the wings). Also considered, and very seriously, "the likelihood of an air and sea operation against St. Petersburg."

The land campaign plan called for two main attacks in northeastern 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 troops of the Wehrmacht and Poland. By the opening of hostilities, the Allies planned to fully arm and reorganize at least 10 German divisions. In total, at least 83 divisions with a total number of much more than one million people were to take part in the implementation of the Unthinkable plan ...

The occupation of a vast Soviet territory was also planned, in order to reduce the material and human potential of the USSR to a level at which "further resistance of the Soviets would be impossible." Politically, the design 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 turned out to be a complete and obviously discouraging surprise for our leadership.

To be convinced of this, it suffices 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 eight lengthy letters to Stalin and received the same number in return. The Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the British Prime Minister discussed in detail the most serious problems of the post-war structure of Europe and made attempts to harmonize the positions of their governments. In particular, the question of Allied control over the situation in the Italian province of Giulia was discussed, and the preparations for a conference on Allied areas of responsibility in Europe and the activities of the European Consultative Commission were also discussed. In addition, the leaders of the victorious powers coordinated the time and procedure for announcing the Victory Day.

Comparing the facts, one involuntarily marvels at the truly boundless hypocrisy with which Sir Winston conducted an “interested” dialogue with the Soviet leader, while at the same time 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 won, "driving the invaders from their land and defeating Nazi tyranny", and also stated 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 it has now become clear, with feigned kindness, wrote: “Here, in our island homeland, today we think of you very often, and we send you from the depths of our hearts wishes of happiness and well-being. We want that after all the sacrifices and sufferings in that gloomy valley through which we passed together, now, bound by true friendship and mutual sympathy, we could go further under the shining sun of a victorious world. Churchill ended this message with very eloquent words: "I ask my wife to convey to you all these words of friendship and admiration."

Stalin, already aware of the plans of the allies, answered Churchill less emotionally, in a more constructive and businesslike manner, shifting the discussion from enthusiastic outbursts to specific problems of the post-war structure of Europe, in particular, the need to allocate Poland, which had suffered so much from German Nazism, with a significant share of land in German Silesia. But he conducted the conversation, we emphasize, in a no less friendly, affable tone.

In history, alas, there is no documentary evidence left of how the Soviet leader reacted to the report of the military attache 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 a reaction of bewilderment and many questions ...

By the way, during this period, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief also carried on a lively correspondence with US President Harry Truman. From Moscow to Washington, 8 personal messages were sent to Truman and 5 were received from him.

It should be noted right away that Churchill's idea of ​​inflicting a surprise blow on the 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, bluntly called it "sheer nonsense that cannot be taken seriously at all." Sinclair immediately emphasized that "the position of Germany itself, with its problem of communications, millions of refugees, the problem of food and the state of industry, makes it impossible to wage a great war through Germany and Poland."

Agent "X" brought to the attention of Moscow the final results of the first meeting on the "Unthinkable" plan. “I think,” he concluded, “that the most responsible of his advisers will now consider the idea of ​​a war against Russia as an adventure, but there are many of his instigators who, like Thornton, say: “Now or never.”

The military attache in London Sklyarov concluded an urgent report to Moscow with the words: “In words, the source said that the final decision on this issue is still unknown.”

Another report from London was reported by GRU chief Kuznetsov to Stalin exactly, so that he had the opportunity to get acquainted with both objective information and the reasoning and assessments of agent X.

In the second or third decade of May - June 1945, more and more new reports continued to arrive from the GRU's London residency about the development of Operation Unthinkable.

Thus, on May 19, agent X reported: “The Allies actually betrayed the USSR by separate secret negotiations in Bern with the German commander in Italy and secured their advance in Yugoslavia with a political trick, forcing Tito to fight a hard fight.”

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 fact, an informed agent recalled the provocation of 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 whole world that “ the time has come for the war of Poland against Germany. "X," one must think 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 sober heads in the British War Planning Staff.

Despite the involvement of German, Polish, and Hungarian troops, they came to the conclusion that Operation Unthinkable, due to the clear superiority of Soviet forces, was obviously doomed to failure.

And no matter how many resources the Anglo-Americans use, they still will not achieve success - the grouping of Soviet troops in Germany and Poland was so strong.

On May 22, 1945, the Military Planning Headquarters completed its calculations on the intended operation-adventure and reported its findings to Churchill. In general, Sir Winston agreed with them, but ordered to immediately begin work on a new plan for the same operation Unthinkable, this time in a defensive version. And already on June 9, Churchill received a draft of a new plan from General Ismay for approval. The next day, the prime minister wrote to Ismay: “I have studied the draft Unthinkable plan, developed on June 8, 1945, which reflects Russian superiority in ground forces as 2 to 1. If the Americans withdraw their troops to their zones and transfer the main forces to the territory USA and the Pacific Ocean, the Russians have enough strength to advance to the coast of the North Sea and the Atlantic. It is necessary to think over a clear plan for 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 this conclusion, indicating that he had not yet completely lost his mind: “By retaining the code name for 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 operation plan be finalized, which was soon executed.

The new draft defensive plan stated that “the Russians would be able to attack the British Isles using the following forms of war: by blockade of all sea lanes; by intrusion; by means of an air strike by aviation forces; in the event of a missile attack on the British Isles or the use of other new weapons (that is, it was understood that the USSR could well acquire its own nuclear weapons)».

As a result, General Ismay concluded: “Only in the case of the use of missiles and other new weapons that the Russians may have, will there be a serious threat to the security of our country. An invasion or serious attack on our sea communications can only be carried out after a long preparation, which will take several years.

Thank God, this was the end of the Unthinkable plan. It was hidden in the archive, where it was safely gathering dust for several decades, until researchers not engaged by the ruling elite got to it.

However, unanswered questions still 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 hoped to draw the United States into the global war against the USSR, which by the summer of 1945 already possessed 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 sovereign American president. But despite Masonic solidarity, in the process of a preliminary secret discussion with the Americans of his plans for a war against the USSR, Churchill was unable to convince Truman of the advisability of attacking Soviet troops in Germany in 1945. Because the US was in decisive phase 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, it could have been about the lives of hundreds of thousands of Yankees, and the American voter would not have forgiven his president for this.

Further, American military intelligence could not help but notice that on June 29, 1945, literally one day before the planned start of the war, the opposing Red Army suddenly 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 the military units even advanced to 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 volatile allies with great damage to the enemy. It seems that this was also a weighty circumstance that tipped the scales of history - the order to attack the Anglo-Saxon troops was never given. Prior to this, the capture of Berlin, which was considered impregnable, showed the power of the Red Army and the 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 preponderance in forces and means. 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 United States in 1945 had absolute superiority over the Soviet Navy: 19 times in destroyers, 9 times in battleships and large cruisers, and 2 times in submarines. Over 100 aircraft-carrying ships and several thousand carrier-based aircraft against complete zero from the USSR. Yesterday's allies had 4 air armies of heavy bombers that could deliver devastating blows. Soviet long-range bomber aviation was incomparably weaker ...

By the way, in April 1945, the allies represented our troops as exhausted and exhausted, and military equipment as worn out to the limit. Their military specialists 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 the decision of I.V. Stalin about the storming of Berlin in early May 1945 prevented the Third World War. This is confirmed by declassified documents. From them it is clear that Berlin would have been handed over by the Wehrmacht to the "allies" without a fight, and the combined forces of all of Europe and North America would have fallen upon the USSR.

Stalin, of course, did not have the opportunity to prevent the Second World War, but he managed to prevent the Third. The situation was extremely serious, but the USSR won again without flinching.

Now loud politicians and corrupt hacks 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 capture the British Isles? The only obvious answer to this question is in the negative. This is confirmed by the law adopted in the USSR on June 23, 1945 on the demobilization of the army and navy, their subsequent transfer to peacetime states. Demobilization began on July 5, 1945 and ended in 1948. The army and navy were reduced from 11 million to less than 3 million people, the State Defense Committee and the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command were disbanded. Number of military districts in 1945–1946 decreased from 33 to 21. Significantly reduced the number of troops in East Germany, Poland and Romania. 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 foreign policy post-war period, doctor of historical sciences Valentin Falin, “it is difficult to find in the past century a politician equal to Churchill in his ability to confuse strangers and his own. But the future Sir Winston was especially successful in terms of hypocrisy and intrigues regarding the Soviet Union.
In messages addressed to Stalin, he "prayed that the Anglo-Soviet alliance would be a source of many blessings for both countries, for the United Nations and for the whole world," wished "full luck to the noble enterprise." This meant the broad offensive of the Red Army along the entire eastern front in January 1945, hastily preparing in response to the plea of ​​Washington and London to help the allies who were in a crisis situation in the Ardennes and Alsace. But it's in words. But in fact, Churchill considered himself free from any obligations to the Soviet Union ... ".

It was then that Churchill gave orders to stockpile captured German weapons with an eye to their possible use against the USSR, placing the soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht who surrendered into divisions in the land of Schleswig-Holstein and in southern Denmark. Then the general meaning of the insidious undertaking begun by the British leader will become clear. The British took German units under their protection, which surrendered without resistance, sent them to the indicated lands. In total, about 15 German divisions were stationed there. Weapons were stored, and personnel were trained for future fights ...

According to the will of Churchill, literally everything was clearly spelled out in the Unthinkable plan: the Soviet troops at that moment would be exhausted, the equipment that participated in the hostilities in Europe would be worn out, food supplies and medicines would come to an end. Therefore, it will not be difficult to push them back to the pre-war borders and force Stalin to resign. “We were waiting for a change in the state system and the split of the USSR. - writes V. Falin. - As a measure of intimidation - the bombing of cities, in particular, Moscow. She, according to the plans of the British, was waiting for the fate of Dresden, which, as you know, was razed to the ground by Allied aviation ... ".

The American General Patton, the commander of the tank armies, directly 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 end the war where Hitler did not have time and could not finish it. “He called us nothing but “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 was soon removed from his post for Nazi sympathies ...”.

London denied the very existence of the Unthinkable plan for a long time, but a few years ago the British declassified part of their archives, and among the documents were papers relating to Operation Unthinkable. There was nowhere to dissociate further ...

Eisenhower admits in his memoirs that the Second Front already at the end of February 1945 practically did not exist: the Germans rolled back to the east without resistance.

The tactics of the Germans was as follows: to hold, as far as possible, positions along the entire line of the Soviet-German confrontation until the virtual Western and real Eastern fronts closed, and the American and British troops, as it were, would take over from the Wehrmacht formations in repelling the "Soviet threat ”, which allegedly inevitably hung over Central and Western Europe.

Churchill at this time, in correspondence, telephone conversations with Roosevelt, is trying to convince at all costs to stop the Russians, 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 move east somewhat faster than they could if the headquarters of Montgomery, Eisenhower and Alexander (Italian theater of operations) planned their actions better, coordinated forces and means more competently, spent less time on internal squabbles and search common denominator. Washington, while Roosevelt was alive, for various reasons, was in no hurry 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 should have been removed."

Remember, Yalta ended on February 11. In the first half of February 12, the guests flew home. In the Crimea, by the way, it was agreed that the aviation of the three powers would adhere to certain lines of demarcation in their operations. And on the night of February 12-13, Western Allied bombers wiped Dresden off the face of the earth, then struck a terrible blow at the main enterprises in Slovakia, in the future Soviet zone of occupation of Germany, so that we would not get the factories intact. In 1941, Stalin offered the British and Americans to bomb the oilfields in Ploiesti using Crimean airfields. But then they did not touch them. They were raided in 1944, when Soviet troops came close to the main center of oil production, which supplied Germany with fuel throughout the war.

One of the main targets of the raids on Dresden was the bridges over the Elbe. The Churchillian directive, which was shared by the Americans, was in effect - to detain the Red Army as far as possible in the East.

The briefing before the departure of the British crews said: you need to "visually demonstrate to the Soviets the capabilities of allied bomber aviation." Here they demonstrated. And, not just once. In April 1945 Potsdam was bombed. Destroyed Oranienburg. We were notified - it turns out that the American pilots simply “made a mistake”. They, de, were aiming at Zossen, where the headquarters of Marshal Goering and the German Air Force were located. The classic "distracting statement" that is innumerable. Oranienburg was bombed on the orders of Marshall and Lehi, because there were laboratories working with uranium materials. So that neither the laboratories, nor the personnel, nor the equipment, nor the nuclear materials themselves fall into our hands, everything was turned into ashes and dust.

It is clear that in the course of Operation Unthinkable, Churchill hoped to expel Soviet troops from Germany and the Eastern European states, beyond the Curzon Line (which is now actually restored due to the admission of Poland and the Baltic states to NATO, 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 Nazis and the Bolsheviks. By the way, Churchill claimed the role of the savior of European civilization, the entire “free world” from the “communist infection” back in 1918, acting as the organizer of the Anglo-French-American-Japanese intervention in the young Soviet republic.

And the last circumstance following from the previous ones. Churchill, in inciting fellow Freemason Truman to carry out a "preemptive" strike on the Soviets, meant air (and most likely nuclear) strikes against the most important objects in the territory of the USSR. In particular, he called for an air and sea operation against Leningrad and 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 (what is the idea of ​​razing to the ground the treasury of Russian national culture - St. Petersburg - Leningrad!).

Fortunately, Churchill's attempts to drag the United States into the war against the USSR did not meet with approval in Washington at that time. Impatiently awaiting the results of the test of the created atomic bomb, which gave the American armed forces unprecedented power, US President G. Truman was not at all eager to dance to the tune of Churchill and act according to the plans developed in London, especially since the Soviet Armed Forces still had to crush the entrenched in the Asian Continent of the Japanese Kwantung Army.

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 Laborites in the parliamentary elections, the British delegation in Potsdam was already headed by the Laborist K. Attlee instead of Churchill ...

The plan for Operation Unthinkable was only declassified by the British government in 1999. But Soviet military intelligence found out its content in advance, as the most important provisions were developed, and timely informed the Soviet leadership.

The end of the Great Patriotic War, at the behest of the insidious British prime minister, could well turn into the first act of a new world war. Fortunately, this did not happen. The plan for Operation Unthinkable has been archived. Its implementation was thwarted, in fairness, by the military attache in London, Major General Sklyarov, his subordinate Lieutenant Colonel Kozlov, and most importantly, the archaic agent under the pseudonym "X".

The story of the development and cancellation of Operation Unthinkable, which became public as a result of the publication of a recording of a conversation between the former British Prime Minister and US Senator S. Bridges, which was stored in the special archive of the US FBI, is another confirmation of the fact that in the years " cold war»Peace on the planet was constantly exposed to dangerous threats from prudent political intriguers like Sir Winston Churchill.

Special for the Centenary

The article was published as part of a socially significant project implemented with state support funds allocated as a grant in accordance with the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 11-rp dated January 17, 2014 and on the basis of a competition held by the All-Russian public organization Society "Knowledge" of Russia.

In the spring of 1945, Winston Churchill asked his military leaders to prepare a secret plan.

This was nothing new. The extremely energetic Churchill always came up with some kind of plan - sometimes sensible, sometimes a little crazy. However, this plan did not go to any comparison with the previous ones.

Churchill wanted a plan for a British attack on the Soviet Union.

In early 1945, America focused its attention on completing the defeat of Germany and then Japan. However, Churchill's eyes were envisioned as darkness descending on Europe. What will happen to this continent when the Red Army occupies its heart? Stalin had already abandoned earlier agreements that Poland - and it was because of her that Britain entered the war in 1939 - would be free. Instead, the Polish government was filled with Soviet supporters, while the Polish resistance fighters ended up in NKVD prisons. Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia were under Soviet control, while Greece and Turkey seemed to be under threat. After the inevitable surrender of Germany, the huge American armed forces in Europe will be transferred to the Pacific Ocean.

Who, then, can stop the Russians?

So British strategists developed Operation Unthinkable, a fitting name for what could be World War III. What could be an even more improbable task than trying to figure out a way for Britain - beaten and exhausted after two world wars - to launch a preventive war to defeat the Soviet colossus?

While Britain could no longer be considered "Great Britain" in 1945, an order is an order, and military planners were accustomed to suggesting options for the most unlikely situations. So they bravely set to work, and in 1945 came up with such a plan. The attack was to begin on July 1, 1945, so that the operation could be completed before the onset of winter. They believed that Soviet intelligence would notice the preparation of the Allies, and then conducting a surprise operation like the Barbarossa plan would be impossible. Therefore, the allied forces will be forced to fight hard battles from the very beginning.

Operation Unthinkable called for an offensive involving Anglo-American formations, as well as a Free Poland contingent (the Canadians were also informed of this plan). The combined forces were to break through the Soviet defenses in Germany. It was assumed that in this case the Soviets would concentrate their armored units along the Oder-Neisse line, which the Soviets made the new frontier between Germany and Poland. A giant tank battle similar to the Battle of Kursk will take place near the city of Stettin. If the allied forces are victorious, they can advance to the 400-kilometer line between Danzig and Breslau, where they will stop in order not to expose their flank to an attack from south direction Soviet troops stationed in Czechoslovakia.

Paradoxically, this plan was very reminiscent of Hitler's Operation Barbarossa, during which it was also supposed to defeat Soviet forces near the Russian border in order to avoid a long campaign in the depths of this huge state. “The planners reasoned that if they could reach the Danzig-Breslau line in the fall of 1945, then this might be enough to force Stalin to retreat,” emphasizes writer Jonathan Walker in his book Churchill’s Third World War : The British plan to attack the Soviet empire in 1945 (Churchill's Third World War: British Plans to Attack the Soviet Empire, 1945). - But if the Allies enter this line in the fall (despite the huge advantage of the Soviets in the number of military personnel), and Stalin will not relinquish control of Eastern Europe - what then? With the forces at their disposal, the Western Command will not be able to hold this line in the winter of 1945-1946, and they will either be forced to retreat or try to advance further into Poland and the Soviet Union. forward would undoubtedly lead to "total war".

Context

The Bundeswehr could unleash a third world

Die Welt 03.07.2017

Life under the threat of the third world

Lidovky 10/19/2016

Turkey stopped the third world?

Yeni Safak 08/03/2016 All-out war against Russia - months before the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan - was the result no one wanted.

Allied forces had about 4 million men in Europe at the time of the surrender of Germany, and most of them were Americans, who were soon to be sent to the Pacific. The Red Army had at its disposal almost 11 million soldiers and probably 20,000 tanks and self-propelled guns. The Allies undoubtedly counted on precisely those advantages that allowed them to defeat Nazi Germany. They had significant superiority at sea, which meant that they could provide an amphibious landing in the Baltic Sea area. The Allied tactical air force was two to one behind the Soviet tactical air force, but the Allies could rely on more trained pilots and the fact that the Soviets depended on the United States for high-octane aviation fuel. However, the real advantage in the air would come from the 2,500 Allied heavy bombers stationed in Europe, which would most likely include B-29s. The German air force was unable to stop them, and the Red Army had no experience in dealing with them.

However, Allied war planners fell into the same trap that led to the defeat of Napoleon and Hitler. How to force Russia to submit if she does not want to do this? If defeating the Red Army on German soil was not enough, then the only alternative would be to move east towards Poland and Russia. “The planners turned pale when they began to think about the colossal distance that the Allies had to overcome in order to secure victory,” Walker notes.

In the meantime, the Allies had to assume that the war would become larger after the Soviets attacked Norway, Greece and Turkey (the British planners had a premonition and expected a Soviet alliance with Japan). As for the atomic bomb, the United States only had two in the summer of 1945, and they were already destined for Japan. In 1946, America only had nine bombs. For all their might, they were only capable of inflicting a fraction of the damage the Nazis had inflicted on the Soviet Union, and yet the Russians fought on.

© AFP 2016, STF British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US General David Eisenhower and Lieutenant General Omar Bradley

It is not only the arrogance - or arrogance - of the British who planned an attack on Russia that is striking, although Britain has not done anything like this since the Crimean War. The ideas underlying this plan, generated by unfounded fantasies or outright despair, are striking.

Even as the death camps were being liberated, Britain considered rebuilding a German army to fight the Russians.

“The most controversial issue of the Unthinkable was the use of German military forces inside the allied camp,” Walker notes. - It was assumed that 10 German divisions could be used in offensive operations, but it would take time to re-equip them from the sources of the Allies themselves, and they would not be ready by July 1, but only in the fall, and indeed the question of their possible use was highly controversial." However, Nazi retooling paled in comparison to Operation Unthinkable's main idea, which was that the United States would join Britain and attack the Soviet Union. Roosevelt and initially Truman - until he changed his mind - were convinced that it was possible to negotiate with Stalin on post-war device. They were wrong, but they didn't know it until the spring of 1945. But then the victory over Japan was yet to be won, and for this the help of the Soviets was considered key. In other words, America has just completed a crusade in Europe against Nazism. And she was not going to immediately start a new campaign against communism.

Military history buffs like to speculate about how a war between the Western Allies and the Soviets would have ended (although it is commonly believed that the Soviets would have been the first to launch the offensive). Enthusiasts like to compare Sherman tanks to T-34 tanks, or P-51 Mustang fighters to Yakovlev fighters. All this is very interesting, but completely meaningless.

The main fact about a war that would drag the world into World War III is this: Operation Incredible called for democracies such as the United Kingdom and the United States to go to war against the Soviet Union. Its justification would be the need to push back the Soviet empire and deprive it of its gains in Germany and Eastern Europe.

In turn, the populations of Britain and America would have to bear the burden of a prolonged conflict, without having the means to force the enemy to capitulate. And instead of the relatively bloodless air and sea warfare that the Anglo-Americans preferred and continue to prefer, they would be embroiled in a land war with the most powerful land power on the wide and cold plains and swamps of Eastern Europe.

Operation Unthinkable was, in fact, unthinkable.

The materials of InoSMI contain only assessments of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editors of InoSMI.

I read that the British were developing some kind of secret plan, according to which the war could continue further. But are there any documents confirming this version?

V. Voronov, Kyiv

Knife in the back of the USSR

The plan for Operation Unthinkable was first presented at a meeting of the chiefs of intelligence services in London on May 22, 1945: it began to be developed in April by order. These documents are no longer a secret, and any visitor can view them on the website of the National Archives of Britain - Dossier No. CAB 120/691. The cynicism of the allies is striking: on July 1, 1945, 47 British divisions were to invade the Soviet zone of occupation of Germany, occupy Dresden, Berlin and Breslau with the support of tanks, break into Poland. The British were going to destroy the aviation of the USSR, block the Baltic from the sea and organize sabotage in the Soviet rear. They planned to use captured Germans - to form 10-12 divisions from SS and Wehrmacht soldiers and transfer them to the front: "They will be happy to fight against the Bolsheviks." By January 1, 1946, the Allies hoped to "cleanse Europe" and dictate terms of peace to Moscow. Reading all this, it's nice to realize that the British shook hands with us, congratulating us on the victory over Hitler, and their Prime Minister Winston Churchill was preparing to stick a knife in the USSR's back - not disdaining the help of the SS. So why didn't Operation Unthinkable happen? The British Chiefs of Staff assured that there would be no blitzkrieg - it would be a protracted war. "The Russians will occupy Norway, Greece, and possibly Turkey and Iraq ... Holland and France will be defenseless before them."

... Recently, the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram published an article on the results of the Second World War. “What would Europe be like now if in the summer of 1945 Churchill had launched a plan to attack the USSR - Operation Unthinkable?” writes Al-Ahram. - After all, I did not expect that four years after the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Russians would raise a red flag over the Reichstag. It is possible that the Soviet troops would have occupied London, forcing the British to build socialism.

The Americans reacted coolly to the idea of ​​an attack, but not because their conscience was eating them up. The USSR, as they believed, could conclude an alliance with Japan - in this case, a sea of ​​blood would be shed. And most importantly, the plan for Operation Unthinkable became known in Moscow, where it was transferred by the "Cambridge Five" of Soviet spies in Britain with Kim Philby. In June 1945, Marshal Georgy Zhukov began the regrouping of Soviet troops in Germany, reinforcing its military equipment. In London, they figured out that they would have to give up the strike ...

"War of nerves"

Meanwhile, only in May 1945 did the Red Army and the Allies twice stand on the brink of conflict. The first time was when, on May 6, 1945, the 16th Armored Division of the US Third Army (under the command of General George Patton), ignoring agreements with the USSR, captured the city of Pilsen, located in the center of the Soviet occupation zone. The goal of the Americans was the Skoda factory complex - the drawings of the bureau of Hans Kammler, the SS Obergruppenführer responsible for the Nazi miracle weapon program, were stored there. On May 12, the Red Army entered Pilsen, but Patton's officers refused to give up control of the city. One of the commanders of the Soviet special forces, Captain Evgeny Olesinsky, promised to "throw the Americans out with bayonets." The "war of nerves" continued for a day, until the allies left.

The second time - when on May 2, 1945, detachments of Yugoslav partisans captured the city of Trieste in Italy. The allies demanded that Trieste be transferred under their control, but the partisan leader declared - "this land belongs to Yugoslavia." The British dug in outside the city - skirmishes broke out between the partisans and the British at night. The Allies brought tanks and artillery to Trieste. British General William Morgan proposed dividing the disputed territory into two parts by the so-called "Blue Line", but Tito did not agree - the USSR declared that "it would provide Yugoslavia with any support." On May 22, 1945 (when the Unthinkable plan was discussed in London), soldiers of the 13th British Corps began to occupy the quarters of Trieste. Not accepting the battle, the Yugoslavs retreated behind the Blue Line. What would happen, start street battles - only God knows; but Stalin clearly would not stand aside. Maybe on this day the third world war would have begun ...

Among military experts, there are two opinions about the outcome of a possible conflict in the summer of 1945 between the Soviet Union, on the one hand, and Britain and the United States, on the other. Some are sure that "the Russians would definitely be out of luck."

The USSR was weakened by the war, its cities lay in ruins, says British expert William Hitford. - The British retained their military potential. The Allies would certainly have succeeded in driving you out of Germany and Poland, but at the cost of heavy losses, at least a million English soldiers would have died. Churchill did not set the goal of occupying the USSR: he was only going to stop the triumph of the communists after the capture of Berlin. If the Americans intervened in the matter, they would fall on Moscow and Leningrad.

However, other experts believe that the allies would have left horns and legs.

The United States then had only three atomic bombs, - said in an interview with AiF Secretary of the Union of Former French Special Forces "The World is Our Fatherland" Jean-Pierre Kandani. - And it would hardly have been possible to use them - after all, not a single plane would have flown to the cities of the USSR through the Soviet zone of occupation of Germany: they would have shot down anti-aircraft guns. The Red Army, which had unique experience in storming European capitals, would have easily dealt with the allies - in two or three months the Russians would have occupied Italy, France and Britain.

…I am not a fan. However, in the spring of 1945, it never occurred to anyone in Moscow to think: how, after the storming of Berlin, would they throw the allies into the Atlantic Ocean? Fortunately, the military of the West turned out to be smarter than their politicians. Otherwise, in the event of the start of Operation Unthinkable, its final would be obvious: a red flag would fly over Big Ben - the same as over the Reichstag.