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DOCUMENTS ON GERMANY, 1944-5 9
armament into hands of new states, first of all to the Federal Repub-
lic of Germany, means in reality nothing other than preparation of
war. This aim is served and conducted in some countries by propa-
ganda which permeates with a lack of faith in the possibility for
preserving peace, nourishes feelings of enmity, estrangement and
downright hostility toward states and peoples which are located be-
yond their military groupings, have chosen different political and
social systems and are building their own life in accordance with their
ideals. Creation of opposing military groupings of states has given
birth on the European Continent to deep distrust and dangerous
situation of tension.
It becomes more apparent every year that a war in Europe, if it
unhappily should break out, and if at the same time special prohibi-
tive or, at least, delimiting measures are not taken, will be a war
using nuclear and ballistic means of annihilation. Despite the uni-
lateral halting of tests of all types of atomic and hydrogen weapons
by the Soviet Union, the USA and England continue to conduct such
tests, to reject the conclusion of an agreement concerning renuncia-
tion of their use and, at the same time, they draw their allies in the
North Atlantic Pact more and more into preparations for a ballistic
missile-atomic war.
The assertion that supposedly by creating and accumulating the
most deadly and destructive means of annihilation, mankind protects
itself from the danger of a war utilizing these means appears as a
challenge to good sense. The more atomic and hydrogen bombs in
the arsenals of states, the wider the circle of states having nuclear
and rocket weapons, the closer to each other the armed forces and
bases of these powers, the more likely is the occurrence of a military
explosion. To retain such a situation is just like holding a blow torch
in a gun-powder magazine.
It is not difficult to imagine what would take place if the country-
participants of the Warsaw Pact, instead of the measures which they
take for the purpose of reducing tensions in Europe, began to operate
in the same direction as the countries of NATO. It is understandable
that the danger of a military explosion would increase one hundred-
fold if they, in accordance with the example of NATO, in their turn
began to impose an armaments race on other states, to move their
military bases on foreign territories closer to the vital centers of the
states-participants in the opposite military grouping, to send into
the airspace of Europe to meet the American airplanes, which are con-
tinuously in the air and armed with atomic and hydrogen bombs,
their own such military airplanes.
Being the largest state in Europe which twice in the course of one
generation was subjected to invasion over its western borders, the
Soviet Union, naturally, cannot but show unremitting concern over
security in Europe which is inseparable from its own security. Mil-
lions of Soviet people did not give their lives on the field of battle
during thee Second World War in order that now the Soviet people
could indifferently observe how in Europe inflammable material for
a new war was being accumlated.
Like the other peace-loving states, the Soviet Union did and con-
tinues to do everything depending upon it to remove the danger of
war and to establish peaceful cooperation based on trust among all the
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