What could the shaken and disillusioned Schulenburg, who had devoted the best years of his life to improving German–Russian relations and who knew that the attack on the Soviet Union was unprovoked and without justification, say? Arriving back at the Kremlin just as dawn was breaking, he contented himself with reading the German declaration.* Molotov, stunned at last, listened in silence to the end and then said: “It is war. Do you believe that we deserved that?”
