'Let's shoot top 50,000 Germans'

29th November 1943: Stalin proposes that the German High Command should be eliminated at the end of the war - but was he just 'teasing' ?

A Nazi poster (for a Polish audience) from 1944 depicting the massacre of Polish Officers in 1940. Stalin's written order for the atrocity did not become public until 1990. The same fate probably awaited many German officers if Stalin had got his way.

Marshal Kliment Voroshilov shows the ‘Stalingrad Sword’ to US President Franklin D Roosevelt in the conference room at the Soviet Legation in Teheran, Iran, on 28 November 1943 while Winston Churchill and Marshal Joseph Stalin look on. The bejewelled ceremonial longsword was presented to Stalin by Churchill in a formal ceremony on the 29th November. It is inscribed “TO THE STEEL-HEARTED CITIZENS OF STALINGRAD • THE GIFT OF KING GEORGE VI • IN TOKEN OF THE HOMAGE OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE”

Joseph Stalin, Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill pose for photographs during the Tehran Conference between 28 November and 1 December 1943.

In Tehran the 'big three', Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill were meeting for their first conference together. Stalin was to press Churchill on whether he was truly committed to the opening of a 'Second Front'. The decision to invade France had been made by the U.S. and Britain at the Quebec Conference in August. The planning and preparation for Operation Overlord was now proceeding apace. However, Stalin was not satisfied that the Allies were genuinely committed until he saw Churchill and Roosevelt in person.

The German General Staff, he said, must be liquidated. The whole force of Hitler's mighty armies depended upon about fifty thousand officers and technicians.

In the evening of 29th November there was a dinner hosted by Stalin. The Allies were already beginning to formally address how they were to deal with Germany after the war - and how the German army should be dealt with. During the evening Stalin and Churchill were to argue over the issue - after they had drunk 'many toasts'.