Text A
Speech on Hitler s Invasion of the U .S .S .R .Winston S.Churchill When I awoke on the morning of Sunday, the 22nd, the news was brought to me of Hitler s invasion of Russia.This changed conviction into certainty.I had not the slightest doubt where our duty and our policy lay.Nor indeed what to say.There only remained the task of composing it.I asked that notice should immediately be given that I would broadcast at 9 o clock that night.Presently General Dill, who had hastened down from London, came into my bedroom with detailed news.The Germans had invaded Russia on an enormous front ,had surprised a large portion of the Soviet Air Force grounded on the airfields,and seemed to be driving forward with great rapidity and violence .The Chief of the Imperial General Staff added, “ I suppose they will be rounded up in hordes .”
I spent the day composing my statement.There was not time to consult the War Cabinet , nor was it necessary.I knew that we all felt the same on this issue.Mr.Eden, Lord Beaverbrook, and Sir Stafford Cripps - he had left Moscow on the 10th - were also with me during the day .
The following account of this Sunday at Chequers by my Private Secretary,Mr.Colville, who was on duty this weekend, may be of interest:
“On Saturday, June 21st , I went down to Chequers just before dinner.Mr .and Mrs.Winant, Mr.and Mrs.Eden , and Edward Bridges were staying .
During dinner Mr.Churchill said that a German attack on Russia was now certain and he thought that Hitler was counting on enlisting capitalist and RightWing sympathies in this country and the U .S .A.Hitler was, however, wrong and we should go all out to help Russia.Winant said the same would be true of the U .S .A .
After dinner , when I was walking on the croquet lawn with Mr.Churchill,he reverted to this heme, and I asked whether for him, the arch anti-Communist , this was not bowing down in the House of Rimmon.Mr.Churchill replied,‘Not at all.I have only one purpose, the destruction of Hitler, and my life is much simplified thereby.If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons .’
I was awoken at 4 a .m.the following morning by a telephone message from the F .O.to the effect that Germany had attacked Russia.The P .M.had always said that he was never to be woken up for anything but invasion ( of England).I therefore postponed telling him till 8 a .m.His only comment was,‘Tell the B .B .C .I will broadcast at 9 tonight .’He began to prepare the speech at 11 a .m ., and except for luncheon, at which Sir Stafford Cripps, Lord Cranborne, and Lord Beaverbrook were present , he devoted the whole day to it...The speech was only ready at twenty minutes to nine .”
In this broadcast I said:
“ The Nazi regime is indistinguishable from the worst features of Communism.It is devoid of all theme and principle except appetite and racial domination .
It excels all forms of human wickedness in the efficiency of its cruelty and ferocious aggression.No one has been a more consistent opponent of Communism than I have spoken about it.But all this fades away before the spectacle which is now unfolding .
The past , with its crimes, its follies, and its tragedies, flashes away.I see the Russian soldiers standing on the threshold of their native land, guarding the fields which their fathers have tilled from time immemorial.I see them guarding their homes where mothers and wivespray - ah , yes, for there are times when all pray - for the safety of their loved ones, the return of the bread-winner, of their champion, of their protector .I see the ten thousand villages of Russia where the means of existence is wrung so hardly from the soil,but where there are still primordial human joys, where maidens laugh and children play.I see advancing upon all this in hideous onslaught the Nazi war machine, with its clanking, heel-clicking,dandified Prussian officers, its crafty expert agents fresh from the cowing andtying down of a dozen countries.I see also the dull, drilled, docile, brutish masses of the Hunsoldiery plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts .
I see the German bombers and fighters in the sky still smarting from many a British whipping, delighted to find what they believe is an easier and a saferprey .
“Behind all this glare, behind all this storm , I see that small group ofvillainous men who plan, organize, and launch this cataract of horrors uponmankind.. .
“I have to declare the decision of His Majesty s Government - and I feelsure it is a decision in which the great Dominions will in due course concur -for we must speak out now at once without a day s delay.I have to make thedeclaration, but can you doubt what our policy will be?We have but one aimand one single, irrevocable purpose.We are resolved to destroy Hitler andevery vestige of the Nazi regime .From this nothing will turn us - nothing.Wewill never parley, we will never negotiate with Hitler or any of his gang.Weshall fight him by land, we shall fight him by sea , we shall fight him in theair,until, with God s help, we have rid the earth of his shadow and liberatedits peoples from his yoke.Any man or state who fights on against Nazidom willhave our aid.Any man or state who marches with Hitler is our foe...That isour policy and that is our declaration.It follows therefore that we shall givewhatever help we can to Russia and the Russian people.We shall appeal to allour friends and allies in every part of the world to take the same course andpursue it , as we shall faithfully and steadfastly to the end.. .
“This is no class war, but a war in which the whole British Empire andCommonwealth of Nations is engaged, without distinction of race, creed, orparty .It is not for me to speak of the action of the United States, but this I willsay: if Hitler imagines that his attack on Soviet Russia will cause the slightestdivergence of aims or slackening of effort in the great democracies who areresolved upon his doom, he is woefully mistaken .
On the contrary, we shall be fortified and encouraged in our efforts to rescue mankind from his tyranny .
We shall be strengthened and not weakened in determination and inresources .
