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The Death of Stalin

Joseph Stalin died, aged 73, on this day, a victim of his own power. So frightened were his staff that having suffered a stroke he was left to fester for hours before anyone plucked up the courage to check on him.

“I don't even trust myself.”
In his latter years Stalin's health had deteriorated and towards the end of 1952 he suffered several blackouts and losses of memory. His sense of paranoia had reached absurd proportions. “I'm finished”, he said in his final days, “I don't even trust myself.”

Stalin was almost nocturnal, often going to bed in the early hours, obliging his Politburo colleagues to do likewise, and rising around noon. But on March 1, 1953, there was no sign of life all day at the great man's dacha. His personal staff although increasingly concerned were too fearful to check up on him. Finally, at 11 p.m. they did.

They found Stalin lying on the floor, unconscious and his pyjama bottoms soaked in urine. They rang Lavrentii Beria, Stalin's Chief of Police, who arrived and bellowed at the staff, "Can't you see Comrade Stalin is deeply asleep. Get out of here and don't wake him up."

But Stalin had suffered a severe stroke. Finally, next morning, on Beria's orders, a team of doctors arrived, but by then Stalin had been left unattended for twelve hours since the stroke.

"Extremely serious."
Stalin had become distrusting of doctors and had had most of his personal physicians arrested. So the doctors now on the scene examined their patient in extreme nervousness. They asked Beria's permission before proceeding with each part of the examination, even asking authorization to unbutton Stalin's shirt. They wrote a detailed report, summarising, "The patient's condition is extremely serious."

Cold compresses were applied, leeches placed behind the ears, various injections made, and medical staff placed on constant watch. Stalin's colleagues also stayed: Beria, Khrushchev, Molotov and others, pacing the anterooms worried whether their boss would ever wake up and probably more worried that he should wake up and their actions would have to be accounted for.

Stalin's son, Vasili, appeared briefly, screaming at Beria and the others, "You bastards, you're killing my father."

By March 5, Stalin's condition had worsened. His breathing had become erratic, his pulse and heartbeat weak, his complexion extremely pale.

The last moments
Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, described in almost religious terms, the last moments: "He suddenly opened his eyes and looked at everyone in the room. It was a terrible gaze, mad or maybe furious and full of fear of death... Then something incomprehensible and frightening happened. ... He suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse on us all. ... The next moment, after a final effort, the spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh."

Despite injections of adrenalin and the application of artificial respiration, at 21.50 Stalin was declared dead.

Everyone present knelt down and kissed the old man's hand.

The beaming Chief of Secret Police
Beria could not hide his glee and, having made sure the old man was really dead, bounced out of the dacha "beaming", according to Khrushchev. Stalin had not named or recommended a successor and Beria felt this was his moment. The fight to succeed Stalin had begun.

Rupert Colley
To read a summary of the Cold War, see The Cold War In An Hour at historyinanhour.com

The Fall of Singapore

World War Two: 68 years ago on February 15, Britain suffered the worst humiliation in its military history - the surrender of Singapore.

The photograph sums it up: General Arthur Percival, the British commander in Malaya, and fellow officers, walking forlornly towards the Japanese commanders to sign the dismal surrender. With their baggy shorts, knee-length socks and tin helmets, one carries the Union Jack, another - the white flag of surrender. Escorting them, three Japanese soldiers, or 'little men' as the British military elite referred to them.

The 'Gibraltar of the East'.
British Malaya was considered a strategic stronghold within the eastern Empire, and the island of Singapore, on the southern tip of Malaya, the 'Gibraltar of the East'. A huge naval defence system had been built during the 1920s facing south out to sea. To the north of the island lay 500 miles of dense Malayan jungle considered by the British to be impenetrable.

"I never received a more direct shock."
But on December 8, 1941, the day after their attack on Pearl Habor, the Japanese landed on the north-west tip of Malaya and from there headed south. Two days later, on December 10, the Japanese sunk two British warships off the east coast of Malaya – the HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse. Years later, Churchill wrote, “In all the war, I never received a more direct shock.”

Bad for morale
However on the mainland, the British were not, at this stage, overly concerned, overestimating the defensive nature of the jungle and underestimating the character of the Japanese soldier. Until early January Percival prohibited the building of defences on Singapore's north coast, believing that to do so would be bad for morale.

But within six weeks of landing in Malaya the Japanese were within striking distance of Singapore. Unaware of how numerically inferior the enemy, an impressive bluff perpetuated by the Japanese, the British and Commonwealth troops panicked at the speed of the Japanese advance, and retreated to Singapore, destroying the causeway between the mainland and the island. The Japanese merely built a new causeway and poured onto the island.

"The honour of the British Army is at stake."
On February 10, Churchill ordered: "The battle must be fought to the bitter end at all costs… Commanders and senior officers should die with their troops. The honour of the British Empire and the British Army is at stake."

But despite Churchill's unusually severe missive, British discipline broke, panic set in, and the cause was lost. On February 15, 1942, the British surrendered.

The myth of the invincibility of the European soldier was shattered and over 80,000 British and Commonwealth troops were to spend the rest of the war in captivity.

Rupert Colley
Read all about World War Two in just sixty minutes at historyinanhour.com

McCarthy and McCarthyism - Reds Under the Beds

Aggressive, intimidating, and unfazed by the truth, Joe McCarthy single-handedly whipped 1950s USA into a frenzy of anti-communist fear and paranoia.

It was near the beginning of the Cold War: the Soviet Union had surged ahead of America in the arms race, Chairman Mao had not long come to power in China, and Americans everywhere feared the presence of 'Reds Under the Beds' within their own communities. In stepped Joseph McCarthy to shock the nation with a sensational announcement that confirmed their worst fears.

McCarthy exposes the Reds
On this evening, sixty years ago, February 9, 1950, at a Republican Women's Club meeting in West Virginia, when 41-year-old McCarthy declared that he had in his hand a list of 205 names of State Department employees known to be members of the American Communist Party. (A month later, McCarthy had reduced the figure to fifty-seven.)

These informants, said McCarthy, were passing on information to the Soviet Union: "The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because the enemy has sent men to invade our shores, but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who have had all the benefits that the wealthiest nation on earth has had to offer."

And so began the era of the Communist witch-hunts. The eruption of the Korean War four months later with the Communist North invading the democratic South Korea, merely confirmed the aggressiveness of global communism.

McCarthy's rise
A Republican, Joseph McCarthy slandered his opponents on his way up the political pole, accusing them in turn of senility, financial irregularity, draft-dodging, and war profiteering. But when his own political career came under threat with claims that he had lied about his role during the war, McCarthy played on American's fear of Communism, and overnight became the most talked about politician in America.

Red Hollywood
Hollywood, already under suspicion, became the target of McCarthy's intense scrutiny. From the struggling novice to the stars, actors were interrogated. Those who confessed could wipe the slate clean by repenting and providing names of others. One screenwriter named 162 Hollywood actors, writers or directors who were Communist, ex-Commie, or sympathetic to the socialist cause. Many were purged, not to work again for years. Others fled abroad rather than face their turn in the McCarthy spotlight.

The studios, desperate to claw back the trust of the American people, turned out a series of propagandist films, I Married a Communist, or I Was A communist for the FBI (which won the 1951 Oscar for Best Documentary).

Next in McCarthy's glare came the universities, the "Reducators" of the impressionable American youth. Libraries were targeted and 30,000 anti-American titles banned from the shelves.

Joe and Ilk
Republican President candidate, Dwight Eisenhower, disliked McCarthy but needed his support to win the 1952 election. McCarthy had the gall to accuse George C. Marshall, originator of the post-Second World War Marshall Plan, of having communist leanings and being “part of a conspiracy so immense, an infamy so black, as to dwarf any in the history of man.” Eisenhower planned to defend Marshall but, concerned at losing McCarthy's support at such a vital time, failed to do so.

Once in power Eisenhower still felt reluctant to pull in the increasing excesses of McCarthyism, which by now were targeting members of Eisenhower's administration. "Attacking him," said one purged victim, "is regarded as a certain method of committing suicide.”

In 1953 a young New York couple, the Rosenbergs, were executed for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. The case intensified still further the paranoia of mid-50s America. McCarthyism was rampant.

McCarthy takes on the US Army
In 1954 McCarthy decided to take on the US Army, right up to the Secretary of the Army, Robert Stevens. The army, according to McCarthy, was full of "dangerous spies". The Republican Party tried to stop their renegade senator but too late - the subsequent investigations based on McCarthy's allegations were televised throughout a 36-day hearing.

The nation watched aghast as McCarthy shouted, heckled and bullied his way through the hearing, with little regard for etiquette or procedure and failing to back up his wild claims with any substantial evidence.

Fall from grace
This time he had gone too far. The media, for so long in awe of McCarthy, attacked him for his "degrading travesty of the democratic process". The Republican Party finally brought his misadventures to an end and in December 1954 stripped him of office, asking of McCarthy on live television: "You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

McCarthy faded into obscurity. "McCarthyism," said Eisenhower, "was now "McCarthywasm."

Already an alcoholic, McCarthy drank himself into hospital and on May 2, 1957, aged only 48, died of an inflammation of the liver.

Rupert Colley
To learn more about the Cold War, see the History In An Hour ebook The Cold War In An Hour

The biggest maritime disaster in history - the Wilhelm Gustloff

On this day, January 30, 1945 - nine hours after leaving port, and seventy minutes after being hit, the huge liner, the Wilhelm Gustloff, slipped under the waves and sunk.

A small fleet of ships and boats arrived on the scene, and managed to pluck a few from the icy waters and rescued many of those on the lifeboats. Over a thousand were rescued but… an estimated 9,343 people died, half of them children - six times the 1,517 that died on the Titanic.

It remains the biggest maritime disaster in history.

We have all heard of the Titanic. Almost a century after that fateful night, the disaster remains within our global consciousness. Even before James Cameron's epic 1998 film, we knew of the iceberg, the "women and children first", the band that played on.

But how many of us have even heard of the Wilhelm Gustloff?

The luxury liner

The ship was named after the assassinated leader of the Swiss Nazi Party (yes, Switzerland in the 1930s had its own Nazi Party), murdered in his own home in February 1936.

The ship, the Wilhelm Gustloff, weighing 25,000 tons and almost 700 feet in length, was an impressive sight, and could carry almost 2,000 passengers and crew. Launched in 1937, it began its life as a luxury cruise liner for the German workers of Hitler's Third Reich, and, to the outbreak of World War Two, had sailed over fifty cruises.

Wartime
For the first year of the war the Wilhelm Gustloff served as a hospital ship before being held in dock in the port of Gotenhafen (modern-day Gdynia) on the Baltic coast where, until early 1945, it served as barracks for U-boat trainees.

Hitler had launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, in June 1941 and the German juggernaut had fought all the way to within sight of Moscow. But then the tide of war turned against the Nazis, and Stalin launched his own counterattack.

By October 1944, the Soviet Union's Red Army had fought the Germans out of Russia and broken through into East Prussia.

The Red Army approaches
With the apocalyptic Red Army bearing down on them, the German civilians of East Prussia, desperate to get away, fled to the Baltic ports hoping to be evacuated out. Those caught in the maelstrom of the Soviet advance faced rape and murder.

The Wilhelm Gustloff , along with any other serviceable ship in the area, was pressed into service to aid the evacuation of German civilians. With forty-eight hours notice before departure, the scenes in frozen Gotenhafen were of panic as people, frantic for a place, fought on the dock and surged to board the ship.

Evacuation
By the time it left, on January 30, 10,582 people (40% of whom were children) had crammed onto a ship designed for less than 2,000. Of the three designated military escorts, two broke down, leaving one torpedo boat to accompany the huge liner. The ship had four captains who argued over the best course to take - shallow or deep waters, a straight line for speed or zig-zags to help avoid detection. Poor visibility, heavy snow and freezing temperatures further hampered progress.

When the captains were informed of a German minesweeper convoy coming towards them, they decided, after much argument, to switch on the navigation lights to avoid colliding into the convoy, but by doing so the ship also became visible to a Soviet submarine lurking nearby.

Hit
The submarine fired three torpedoes, each hitting its target. The ensuing scenes of panic cannot be imagined. Most of the lifeboats had frozen onto their davits, leaving only a few useable. As the ship listed to one side, there were people trapped below decks, others crushed in the stairways, more falling into the freezing waters, children drowned in lifejackets too big. People fought and clubbed each other to get onto the few lifeboats, whilst many jumped to their deaths.

It was, coincidentally, the birthdate of Wilhelm Gustloff, born January 30, 1895. The day the ship sunk would have been his 50th birthday.

For an excellent website devoted to this subject, see http://www.wilhelmgustloff.com/.

Rupert Colley.
Read all about World War Two and Nazi Germany in one hour at historyinanhour.com

Hitler is appointed Chancellor

1932 Germany saw the rise of the Nazi party into a prominent political force.

Failure of the Weimar Republic
The Weimar government had failed its people and, following the worldwide Depression, Germany was in economic ruin, people's livelihoods shattered, and the nation, still burdened with the humiliation of the post-First World War Treaty of Versailles, were fearful of Communists and Jews.

They looked for an alternative and that alternative lay in Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

"He can lick stamps with my head on them."
In the July Reichstag elections the Nazi gained almost 40% of the vote making it the most powerful party. There was a slight dip in the elections four months later but the Party still had enough electoral clout that Hitler, as dictated by the Weimar constitution, should have been appointed Chancellor.

But the Weimar president, the 85-year-old Paul von Hindenburg (pictured above with Hitler), was reluctant to appoint the former corporal: "That man a Chancellor?" he exclaimed, "I'll make him a postmaster and he can lick stamps with my head on them."

Papen's plan
Franz von Papen, Hindenburg's former Chancellor, who believed the Nazis were already a spent force after the dip in the Nazi vote in November 1932, decided to work with Hitler. Hitler would become Chancellor and Papen would serve as his Vice-Chancellor.

But the real power, Papen persuaded the aging president, would be himself. Hitler, Papen argued, needed to be contained and this would be far easier with Hitler working inside the government than agitating from outside. "In two months," said Papen, "we'll have pushed Hitler into a corner where he can squeal to his heart's content."

Reluctantly, Hindenburg agreed.

A moment of triumph
And so on January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor within a coalition government. He had done it - Hitler had achieved what he had striven for since 1923 - power through legitimate means.

That evening Hitler looked out from his balcony at the Chancellery. Below him filed passed thousands of torchbearing Nazis. This was their moment of triumph, the day of national exultation; the Nazi era had begun and their mood was jubilant.

Papen was to soon realise the folly of his intrigue - it was he, not Hitler, who was pushed into a corner and became an inconsequential figure.

Rupert Colley
Read about the rise of Nazism in Germany at historyinanhour.com

Only Tany left... Tanya Savicheva and the Siege of Leningrad

Today, 25 January 2010, Tanya Savicheva would have been eighty years old – had she lived. But she died, near her hometown of Leningrad in 1944, aged only 14.

The Russian Anne Frank
But who was Tanya Savicheva? The name in Russia is what Anne Frank is to the West – a young innocent victim of World War Two, who left behind a small but lasting legacy.

But whereas Anne’s diary is a carefully kept journal over a period of two years, Tanya’s was little more than a few scribbled lines over six sheets of notepaper.

The Leningrad Siege
Leningrad was in the midst of a devastating 900-day siege that lasted from September 1941 until January 1944. The German army had laid siege to it, bombarded it and cut off all supplies in its attempt to ‘wipe it off the map’, as Hitler had ordered.

On September 12 1941, the largest food warehouse was destroyed and the situation, already severe, became critical.

As the Lake Ladoga, to the east of the city, froze, supplies came through by convoys of trucks, a hazardous journey over thin ice and through enemy bombardment. What was brought in, although vital, was only ever a fraction of what was needed.

Within the city, as that first winter progressed, whatever could be eaten had consumed – pets, livestock, birds, vermin. And whatever could be burnt had been. Tanya had kept a diary but this, as with every other book in the household, had been used for fuel.

Tanya, her mother and her five siblings, in common with every citizen of Leningrad, suffered terribly from hunger and cold. One by one, members of Tanya’s family died, and it was recording of each death that constituted the notebook.

Evacuation
Tanya herself was eventually evacuated out of the city in August 1942, along with about 150 other children, to a village called Shatki. But whilst most of the others recovered and lived, Tanya, already too ill, died of tuberculosis on July 1, 1944.

Her notebook was presented as evidence of Nazi terror at the post-war Nuremberg Trials, and today is on display at the History Museum in St. Petersburg.

The text of Tanya’s notebook reads as follows:

Zhenya died on Dec. 28th at 12:30 P.M. 1941

Grandma died on Jan. 25th 3:00 P.M. 1942

Leka died on March 5th at 5:00 A.M. 1942

Uncle Vasya died on Apr. 13th at 2:00 after midnight 1942

Uncle Lesha on May 10th at 4:00 P.M. 1942

Mother on May 13th at 7:30 A.M. 1942

Savichevs died.

Everyone died.

Only Tanya is left.

Rupert Colley
Read all about World War Two in just one hour at historyinanhour.com