Stalin

U.S. intelligence had been able to confirm Respondek’s tips, for they had broken Japanese codes in September 1940 and, after Major General Hiroshi Ōshima, Japan’s onetime ambassador to Berlin, had been returned to the Nazi capital, thanks to Matsuoka, the Americans gleaned a mother lode of intelligence: the staunchly pro-German Ōshima, who spoke the language nearly perfectly, was taken into the confidences of Ribbentrop and Hitler. (Ōshima had been able, in February, to present his credentials at the Berghof.) In April 1941, U.S. cryptographers finished decoding long messages sent from Matsuoka’s late-March visit with Hitler. “Göring was outlining to Ōshima Germany’s plans to attack Russia . . . , giving the number of planes and numbers and types of divisions to be used for this drive and that,” recalled one of the cryptographers. “I was too excited for sleep that night.” The United States passed additional warnings to Umansky. But he would tell the press that “information presented to the Soviet Union in London and Washington is aimed at provoking a conflict between Germany and the USSR.”¹⁶³

ATTEMPTED DETERRENCE

Dekanozov, from Berlin, sent the foreign ministry a special report in April 1941 noting that rumors and information about a pending war between the USSR and Germany “are coming to us every day from various channels” and calling the pressure a deliberate “war of nerves.” Listing a dozen or so examples, he stated that the goal of Germany was “an attack on the USSR already during the course of the current war against England.”¹⁶⁴ On April 15, in the area of Rovno, in western Ukraine, after one German reconnaissance plane performed a forced landing, the crew was found to possess “a camera, some rolls of used film, and a torn topographical map . . . of the USSR, all of which gives evidence of the crew’s aim.” The NKGB detained four officers in leather coats lacking insignias; supposedly, they had been unable to destroy their film in time. Once developed, it showed bridges and rail lines along the Kiev axis, while the map turned out to be of Ukraine’s Chernigov province. It was as if the Germans wanted the Soviets to believe that Ukraine was their main target.¹⁶⁵

On April 21, the Soviet foreign affairs commissariat protested German violations of its airspace—some eighty incidents over the preceding three weeks alone. The German chargé d’affaires, Werner von Tippelskirch, who received the diplomatic note, warned Berlin “to expect likely serious incidents if German airplanes continue to violate Soviet borders.”¹⁶⁶ He was dead wrong. Stalin had begun to unblock shipments to Germany in mid-April—Soviet oil deliveries doubled from the previous month—signaling that the Germans could get what they needed without war (or, conversely, that if Hitler attacked, he would lose the valued goods the Soviets were supplying).¹⁶⁷ Stalin also abruptly ended Soviet objections to the German position demanding small changes to their common border.¹⁶⁸ To be sure, the despot understood that too many concessions would be perceived as weakness. And so, by not interdicting German overflights, he was effectively allowing the Germans to see what they would face.¹⁶⁹

“We must hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” Chamberlain had said of appeasement, which would have been a good idea, especially if he had done what he said and pursued both rearmament and diplomacy, but the former remained very partial.¹⁷⁰ Stalin pursued rearmament vigorously. As a result, the Soviet people stood in queues for hours upon hours to obtain necessities, and often they could still not meet their minimum needs.¹⁷¹ Germany had shown the Soviets their military production facilities, where the Soviets shopped as part of their bilateral trade agreement. Stalin, under no obligation to reciprocate, since the Germans were buying raw materials, nonetheless showed them Soviet military factories. He allowed a tour of the chief aviation factories, including the one building the Petlyakov Pe-8 bombers, which caused a sensation: it had a longer range than the German Junkers.¹⁷² In April 1941, during a visit to one such factory, the aircraft designer Artyom Mikoyan told Schulenburg—who, as expected, passed the words on to Berlin that same month—“You saw the awesome technology of the Soviet country. We will bravely repel any strike no matter where it might emanate from.”¹⁷³

Stalin was demonstrating not just his willingness to bargain, but also his possession of a mighty arsenal and weapons-manufacturing capacity.¹⁷⁴ “They let us see everything,” Krebs, the Russian-speaking German deputy military attaché in Moscow, wrote to Berlin in the middle of a tour of the five biggest Soviet aviation factories. “Clearly Russia wants to frighten possible aggressors.”¹⁷⁵ Schulze-Boysen (“Elder”), the spy in the Nazi air ministry, reported that “the Germans did not expect to encounter such well-organized and functioning industry. A number of the objects shown to them proved to be a big surprise. For example, the Germans did not know about the existence of a 1,200-horsepower plane engine. . . . A big impression was made by the mass of more than 300 I-18 planes. . . . The Germans did not suppose that in the USSR the serial production of such planes in such high numbers had been established.” Krebs concluded that the German general staff “was depressed.”¹⁷⁶ Stalin’s spies also told him that German war games had revealed to the German general staff the logistical problems of waging a prolonged war against the Soviets, and, in parallel, he ordered that Hitler’s military attaché be taken deep into the Soviet rear to be shown the mass production of T-34 tanks.¹⁷⁷

But Hitler, once apprised, was reinforced in his view that the USSR was arming on a massive scale and needed to be attacked before it was too late.¹⁷⁸ At the same time, whereas Germany’s military intelligence had had next to no useful information about the Red Army’s armaments or troop locations before it ramped up high-altitude reconnaissance flights, in January 1941, now they had it in abundance.¹⁷⁹

CACOPHONY

In Berlin, fewer and fewer German businessmen were appearing at the Soviet trade mission. The NKVD reported that over the past year and a quarter, it had captured 66 German spy handlers and 1,596 German agents, including 1,338 in western Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltics, with hundreds of incidents of live fire at the border. Over the first four months of 1941, at least 17,000 trains were reported to have ferried German troops and heavy weapons to Soviet frontiers.¹⁸⁰ Was it certain war? Internally, the British had dismissed the intelligence regarding Hitler’s preparations for a war against the Soviet Union, but now, thanks to the Enigma decoding, they had discovered that Hitler was ordering more and more of the Luftwaffe transferred eastward, away from bombing sites for the UK. Still, the British attributed the eastern buildup to a “war of nerves” being waged to force concessions from Stalin.

Stalin knew that the Germans had ceased using the Trans-Siberian to transport their diplomatic pouches to and from Tokyo, and Sorge reported (April 17) that the Germans would also cease to use the Trans-Siberian for the import of critical rubber from Japan. But Sorge undercut this message, noting that “the tension in relations between Germany and the USSR was decreasing,” which meant the Germans might not follow through on their intention to cease using the Trans-Siberian. He also wrote of supposed factionalism within Nazi ruling circles and suggested that the “pro-war faction” had not gained ascendancy. Sorge added: “The German embassy [in Tokyo] received a telegram from Ribbentrop stating that Germany would not launch a war against the USSR if the latter did not provoke it. But if the war turned out to be provoked, then it would be short and end with the severe defeat of the USSR. The German general staff has completed all preparations.”¹⁸¹

On April 22, Sándor Radó (“Dora”), a Hungarian Communist and Soviet military intelligence operative, reported from Geneva a date of June 15 for an attack on Ukraine. On April 23, Stalin and Molotov decreed the formation of large numbers of new artillery and parachute units with forced production of equipment.¹⁸² The next day, Stalin phoned Ilya Ehrenburg to tell him that the second and third parts of his anti-German novel, The Fall of Paris, would now be published. Only four days earlier, Ehrenburg had been informed that the censor had rejected it.¹⁸³ Rumors spread that the despot had personally approved the antifascist book.¹⁸⁴ On April 25, Golikov estimated the presence of 100 German divisions on the USSR’s western frontiers, an increase from the previous month. On April 25–26, some three and a half months into his work, Tupikov sent a long message to Golikov on Germany’s buildup in the east, stating plainly that the Soviets were the “next enemy” in German war planning, and that “the timing for the beginning of a conflict could possibly be near and, for sure, during the course of this year.”¹⁸⁵

A worried Schulenburg, in mid-April, had engaged his staff to draft a long memorandum arguing against a titanic war and, with the facilitation of Ribbentrop and Weizsäcker, who also thought the war a mistake, had traveled to Berlin, but Hitler put off seeing him for two weeks. Finally, on April 28, the Führer granted an audience. Schulenburg’s memo was sitting on Hitler’s desk (he made no mention of it). Schulenburg evidently stated that “Stalin was prepared to make even further concessions to us,” including ramping up to 5 million tons of grain the next year. In fact, Mikoyan could barely find, let alone transport, 2.5 million tons of grain, and it was not clear how the Germans could pay for more grain without yielding vital armaments. Hitler, noncommittal and discourteous, said at parting, “Oh, one more thing: I do not intend a war against Russia!”¹⁸⁶

In London, Maisky was effectively paralyzed by Stalin’s position vis-à-vis Britain. On April 30, Churchill’s private secretary told the Soviet envoy, “In Conservative circles, one hears the following argument. If Germany attacks the Soviet Union (as many now believe will happen), the USSR will come to us of its own accord. If Germany does not attack the USSR, it will do nothing for us anyway. So is it worth courting the USSR?” Maisky burst out laughing.¹⁸⁷

That same day, “Elder” reported to Moscow, based on conversations in Göring’s air ministry with the liaison to the foreign ministry, that “the question of the German attack against the USSR has been definitively decided and its onset can be expected any day. Ribbentrop, who until now had not been a supporter of an offensive against the USSR, knowing Hitler’s firm resolve on this question, has taken the position of support for an attack on the USSR.”¹⁸⁸ “Elder” was spot-on: that very day, Hitler settled on a date fifty-three days hence—June 22.

Neither the German invasion of Greece (“Marita”) to compensate for Mussolini’s failures nor of Yugoslavia (Operation “25”) had a material effect on Barbarossa. Many of the divisions earmarked to take part in the Balkans never saw fighting; some were never even sent. Before May was over, all German units that had taken part in the Balkan campaign were back at their positions on the Soviet border.¹⁸⁹ The delay by about five weeks from the original target stemmed mostly from deficits of key equipment in what, after all, was a colossal undertaking. Indeed, “Corsican” had reported (April 28) that Germany was experiencing severe shortages—and therefore would need to expand economic relations with Japan and the Soviet Union, in the latter case “by force.” He had heard one top German official state that “the Russians must supply Germany with more raw materials and foodstuffs, without demanding that Germany had to fulfill Soviet orders exactly or by short deadlines.”¹⁹⁰ “Elder,” too, reported the possibility of Germany engaging in blackmail. The ultimatum canard—which never formed part of Hitler’s plans—had contaminated even the best-placed, most reliable Soviet spies.¹⁹¹

NO ARMY IS INVINCIBLE

On May 4, Hitler delivered a peroration to the Reichstag detailing how he had smashed Poland, Norway, Belgium, Holland, France, Yugoslavia, and Greece. “The German armed forces have truly surpassed even themselves,” he bragged. “Infantry, armored, and mountain divisions, as well as SS formations, battled without rest, in bravery, endurance, and tenacity to achieve their goals. The work of the general staff has been outstanding. The air force has added new heroic deeds to its historic glory. . . . Nothing is impossible for the German soldier!” He concluded: “The German Reich and its allies constitute a power that no coalition in the world can surpass. German armed forces will unremittingly intervene in the course of events whenever and wherever it will be required.”¹⁹²

The signals were getting even more confounding.¹⁹³ In Tokyo, the day after Hitler spoke, Japanese foreign minister Matsuoka reassured German ambassador Ott that “no Japanese prime minister or foreign minister could ever be able to maintain Japan neutrality in the event of a conflict between Germany and the Soviet Union. In such an event, Japan, naturally, would be compelled to attack Russia right behind Germany.”¹⁹⁴ That would have violated the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact, and it did not comport with Japan’s internal deliberations. That same day, a dispatch from “Corsican” in Berlin went to Moscow indicating that a press person from the German economics ministry had told the staff that Germany wanted peace on its eastern frontiers, for it would soon attack the British-controlled Suez Canal. Germany would demand that the USSR attack Britain on the side of the Axis, and, as a guarantee that Moscow would follow through, Germany was going to occupy Ukraine and possibly the Baltics.¹⁹⁵

Stalin decided to send some signals of his own. Also on May 5, 1941, at 6:00 p.m., Timoshenko opened the graduation ceremony in the Grand Kremlin Palace’s combined Andreyev-Alexander hall (the venue for party congresses) for sixteen military academies and nine military departments in civil institutions, with some 1,500 attendees, including professors as well as defense commissariat, government, and Comintern personnel. The graduates had entered the academies in 1937 or 1938. When Timoshenko announced that Stalin would take the dais, the eruption would not die down until the despot glanced at Timoshenko, who quieted the hall. “Comrades, permit me in the name of the Soviet government and the Communist party to congratulate you on the completion of your studies and wish you success in your work,” Stalin began, going on to underscore, over the course of forty minutes, the enormous strides in the Red Army’s material base. But he criticized the academies’ curriculum. “I have an acquaintance who studied at the Artillery Academy,” Stalin noted. “I looked over his notes and discovered that a great deal of time is being spent studying cannons that were decommissioned in 1916.” This acquaintance was his elder son, Yakov, who was in the audience. “Is it like that, comrade artillerymen?” Shockingly, Lieutenant General Arkady Sivkov, head of the Artillery Academy, shouted from one of the front rows that the school’s curriculum was based on modern weaponry. “I ask that you do not interrupt me,” Stalin answered. “I know what I am saying. I read the notes of a student of your academy.”¹⁹⁶

Stalin devoted most of his remarks to the Red Army’s technological transformation. “Now we have 300 divisions in the army,” he asserted. “Of the total number of divisions, a third are mechanized. That is not general knowledge, but you need to know it. Of the 100 [mechanized] divisions, two thirds are tank [divisions].” Someone in the hall shouted, “This is for the removal of Hitler.”¹⁹⁷ Stalin’s numbers corresponded to the wishful thinking in MP-41 (all supposed to be in place somehow by January 1942).¹⁹⁸ The despot went on to boast that the newest aircraft were faster than ever and that frontline tanks had armor three to four times thicker and could “break through the front.” He also addressed the questions on everyone’s mind. “Why was France defeated, and Germany victorious?” he asked. “Is Germany really invincible? . . . Why did Germany turn out to have a better army? This is a fact. . . . What explains it?” Germany, he answered, had rearmed with the latest technology, and studied the new methods of war and the lessons of history. “The German army, having been soundly defeated in 1918, studied up,” he explained. “The German army’s military doctrine advanced. The army rearmed with the newest technology. It studied the newest methods of conducting war.” By contrast, he said, the previously victorious French got complacent. Stalin added one revealing observation: “In 1870, the Germans smashed the French. Why? Because they fought on one front. The Germans suffered defeat in 1916–1917. Why? Because they fought on two fronts.”¹⁹⁹

Stalin insisted that the current German army was not invincible. “There are no invincible armies in the world. . . . Germany started the war and initially did so under slogans of liberation from the Versailles peace. These slogans were popular, elicited support and sympathy from all those humiliated by Versailles. . . . Now the German army has . . . altered the slogan of liberation from Versailles to conquest. The German army will not be successful under a slogan of a war of conquest and annexation. . . . While Napoleon conducted a war under slogans of liberation from serfdom, he elicited support, sympathy, had allies, success. When Napoleon switched to wars of conquest, he accumulated many enemies and suffered defeat.” Stalin added: “In military terms, there is nothing special about the German army, neither in tanks, artillery, nor aviation.” Still, he concluded, “any politician, any political figure, who allows a feeling of self-satisfaction can succumb to surprise, like the catastrophe that befell France.”²⁰⁰

“It was a fantastic speech,” the government notetaker, an attendee, wrote in his diary. “The speech radiated confidence in our military people, in our strength, and dispersed the ‘aura’ of glory that enveloped the German army.”²⁰¹

A banquet followed in the St. George’s Hall, with overflow in the Palace of Facets, the St. Vladimir Octagon, and other spaces (where the toasts, broadcast over loudspeakers, were barely audible).²⁰² Timoshenko triumphantly entered the white-columned St. George’s; then, a bit later, came Stalin, followed by his entourage, provoking thunderous hurrahs. Vodka, champagne, fish, game, and myriad delicacies were laid out. The despot assumed his customary place at the Presidium table. Timoshenko proposed a toast to him; everyone downed their glasses standing.²⁰³ Stalin, Dimitrov noted, “was in an exceptionally good mood.”²⁰⁴ The despot offered an extended toast to the graduates and their teachers, again enjoining them to teach the new technology. Those in the St. George’s Hall stepped forward to clink glasses with the inner circle and marshals at the Presidium table.²⁰⁵ Some fifteen minutes later, Timoshenko announced that Stalin would make a second toast. This one turned out to be for those in artillery, which he called “the main force in war. That’s how it was earlier, that’s how it is today. . . . Artillery is the god of war.”²⁰⁶ Stalin continued, toasting tank drivers, aviators, cavalry, communications specialists, and infantry, whom he called “the lord of the battlefield.”

The evening’s concert commenced. Some twenty minutes later, Sivkov, evidently hoping to make amends, proposed a toast “to the Stalinist foreign policy of peace.” The despot waved his arms; the guard detail blocked Sivkin from moving forward. Then Stalin rose. As recently as the reception for the May Day parade (May 2), Timoshenko, in Stalin’s presence, had referred to the Soviet “peace policy,” a reference included in the newspaper account.²⁰⁷ But now, in his third comment of the evening, an agitated Stalin, his Georgian accent more pronounced, interjected, “Allow me to introduce a correction. A peace policy secured peace for our country. A peace policy is a good thing. For a while we conducted a defensive approach—until we rearmed our army, gave it modern means of fighting. But now that we have restructured the army, saturated it with the equipment for modern combat, now that we have become strong, now it is time to go from defense to offense. . . . We need to reconstruct our education, our propaganda, agitation, our press in an offensive spirit. The Red Army is a modern army, and a modern army is an army of offense.”²⁰⁸ Having that night accused Germany (rather than Britain and France) of starting the war, and having declared that Germany’s war of conquest would fail, Stalin, according to some witnesses, also stated—in a phrase excised from the informal transcript—that “there’s going to be war, and the enemy will be Germany.”²⁰⁹

EXCHANGE OF LETTERS?

Stalin’s last major speech on foreign policy, at the 18th Party Congress (March 1939), had been published in an enormous print run, but this time Pravda reported only that he had stressed “the profound changes in the Red Army in the past few years,” especially its rearming and reorganization “on the basis of modern war.” The brief account fanned rumors. (The German embassy failed to obtain the contents, until fed them by Soviet counterintelligence.)²¹⁰ Immediately after the evening, Zhdanov, Malenkov, and Shcherbakov oversaw meetings to introduce slogans of “offensive war” in propaganda. Red Star, the army newspaper, was to undermine the myth of German invincibility by publishing articles about German tactical and strategic shortcomings, and French weakness and mistakes.²¹¹ Stalin complemented these continued efforts to deter Nazi Germany, while also boosting Red Army morale, with an even bigger gesture: Soviet newspapers also announced his appointment as head of government.

The despot had recently sent the inner circle an angry note, complaining about a decision that Molotov had signed off on in relation to an oil pipeline for Sakhalin. Suddenly, the long-standing method of approving decisions by polling became “chancellery red tape and bungling.” Stalin complained about the absence of meetings in economic decision making, Molotov’s bailiwick (previously the despot had complained about an excess of meetings). “I think it is no longer possible to carry on ‘running things’ like this,” he wrote. “I suggest we discuss the matter at the politburo.”²¹² At the next politburo session, on May 4, Stalin had been unanimously voted to replace Molotov as head of the Council of People’s Commissars. He also remained general secretary of the party, with Zhdanov as his formal party deputy, and Molotov remained foreign affairs commissar.²¹³ But Voznesensky, the Zhdanov protégé, continued as first deputy of the government and, as a result, outranked Molotov (a mere deputy).²¹⁴ Beyond his frustrations, Stalin had signaled, in the words of Sudoplatov, that he was “ready for negotiations and that this time he would lead them directly.”²¹⁵

But how? The German press (on Goebbels’s instruction) carried no mention of the sensational news of Stalin’s assumption of the premiership.²¹⁶ Dekanozov, who had been unable to engage Hitler, was called back from Berlin to Moscow “for consultations.” During the May Day parade, Stalin had placed him front and center on the Lenin Mausoleum, a message to the Germans that Schulenburg picked up.²¹⁷ But the despot had been waiting upon Schulenburg’s return from his meeting with Hitler, expecting him to bring proposals, and although the count had conspicuously arrived (April 30) on Ribbentrop’s personal plane, he did not even call on the Kremlin. In a May 2 coded telegram from Moscow, Schulenburg complained to the German foreign ministry that he could not fulfill his assignment to tamp down the rumors about a pending war between Germany and the Soviet Union. “Everyone coming to Moscow or traveling through Moscow not only is bringing these rumors, but can confirm them by citing facts.”²¹⁸ More important was the information brought back from Moscow by acting military attaché Hans Krebs (substituting for Köstring, who had contracted severe pneumonia). Krebs, in Berlin on May 5, told chief of staff Halder that “Russia will do anything to avoid war and yield on every issue short of making territorial concessions.”²¹⁹

That same day, however, an ostensible breakthrough occurred: Schulenburg hosted Dekanozov at his single-story villa on Clean Lane for breakfast. The deputy foreign affairs commissar was accompanied by Vladimir Pavlov, the interpreter (who was now director of the German desk at the foreign affairs commissariat); also present was the Russian-speaking Hilger. The count told his Soviet interlocutors that relations needed to be improved; too many rumors were circulating about war. He discussed the May 4 speech by Hitler, mentioning that the Führer had found the Soviet-Yugoslav Pact “strange,” and noted that Hitler had pointed out that Balkan developments had compelled him to “undertake some precautionary measures on the eastern border of Germany,” because his “life experience had taught him to be extremely cautious, and the events of the past few years had made him even more cautious.” Schulenburg returned several times to the need to quell the rumors of war, but he offered no ideas about how to stop them; Hilger interceded to suggest they meet again.²²⁰

On May 7, the Soviet military intelligence agent Gerhard Kegel (“X”), deputy head of the economics section at the German embassy in Moscow, met twice with his handler, Konstantin Leontyev (“Petrov”), reporting that Germany’s “high command has given the order to complete readiness of the war theater and concentrate all forces in the East by June 2, 1941.” In one of his more than 100 communications about German war preparations, “X” gave the number of German and allied troops as 2 million in East Prussia, 3 million in former Poland, and 2 million in Hungary and the Balkans—7 million total—and insisted that the decision for war had been taken, irreversibly.²²¹

On May 9, “Elder” reported that “in the headquarters of German aviation, preparations for an operation against the USSR are being conducted at a reinforced pace. All data testify to the fact that an attack is set for the near future. In conversations among officers of the headquarters, May 20 is often mentioned as a date for the onset of war against the USSR. In these same circles they declare that initially Germany will present the USSR with an ultimatum for more expansive exports to Germany and abandonment of Communist propaganda.” To ensure fulfillment, he added, the Germans would station commissars at Ukrainian industrial and agricultural centers, and the German army would occupy some Ukrainian provinces. “The presentation of an ultimatum will be preceded by a ‘war of nerves’ aiming to demoralize the USSR.”^{222, 223}

Stalin offered another gesture toward Germany, formally breaking off diplomatic relations and ordering the embassies of the countries that had fallen under Nazi occupation—Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Norway, Yugoslavia—shuttered, and their envoys expelled. Dekanozov, meanwhile, reciprocated the breakfast at the Spiridonovka on May 9. Schulenburg urged the Soviets to take the initiative, advising Dekanozov to have Stalin send a personal letter to the Führer. Dekanozov suspected some sort of ploy, and badgered the count about whether Hitler had authorized such an exchange. Schulenburg, having placed himself, his family, and Hilger in danger with his unauthorized suggestion, backed off. Dekanozov brought the discussion back to a possible joint communiqué. Schulenburg said they needed to act with great alacrity and that if they forwarded a draft text for approval, Ribbentrop or Hitler might not be in Berlin, causing delays.²²⁴ The courtly, well-intentioned Prussian nobleman was trying to induce Stalin to launch a bold diplomatic initiative—precisely what Hitler most feared.

Also on May 9, the Council of People’s Commissars had its first meeting under the new configuration. “Stalin did not conceal his disapproval of Molotov,” according to the notetaker. “He very impatiently listened to Molotov’s rather prolix responses to critical remarks from members of the bureau. . . . It seemed as if Stalin was attacking Molotov as an adversary and that he was doing so from a position of strength. . . . Molotov’s breathing began to quicken, and at times he would let out a deep sigh. He fidgeted in his chair and murmured something to himself. By the end he could take it no longer. ‘Easier said than done,’ Molotov stated, sharply but quietly. Stalin heard him. ‘It has long been known who fears criticism,’ Stalin answered menacingly. Molotov winced but kept quiet. The others silently buried their noses in their papers. . . . At this meeting I once again saw the majesty and strength of Stalin,” the notetaker wrote. “Stalin’s companions feared him like the devil. They would agree with him on practically anything.”²²⁵

SENSATIONAL MISSION

In May 1941, Germans were hearing rumors that Stalin and Molotov had murdered each other.²²⁶ On May 10, “Alta” relayed to Moscow that the German war ministry had instructed all military attachés abroad to repudiate the rumors of imminent war with the USSR and to explain the troop concentrations in the east by a desire “to be ready to counter actions from the Russian side and exert pressure on Russia.”²²⁷ Here, finally, was an insight into the disinformation campaign.²²⁸

On May 12, a third breakfast took place, again at Schulenburg’s residence. Dekanozov immediately told him that Stalin was ready to exchange letters with Hitler and sign a joint German-Soviet communiqué. Schulenburg had tried to give himself some diplomatic cover for his initiative by telegramming Berlin with a suggestion that the German government offer congratulations to Stalin on his appointment to head the government, and a warning that the Soviet regime had likely prepared an evacuation capital farther east that would be difficult to seize (hints of Napoleon, who had captured Moscow yet still failed to win the war). But a reply from Weizsäcker, received just before Dekanozov’s arrival, indicated that Schulenburg’s proposal had not even been presented to Ribbentrop (“because this would not have been a rewarded matter”). A parallel letter from a contact in the Berlin foreign ministry warned Schulenburg that he was being closely watched. Dekanozov noted that Schulenburg was now “quite emotionless.” The count emphasized that he had acted “on his own initiative only and without authority” and implored them “several times not to reveal that he had made these proposals.”²²⁹

Schulenburg nonetheless again tried to impress upon the Soviets the gravity of the situation and the need for them to take proactive measures, urging, according to the Soviet notetaker, that “it would be good if Stalin himself on his own initiative and spontaneously were to approach Hitler with a letter.” Then, in a discussion of British bombing of Germany, he made a highly enigmatic observation: “In his opinion, the time is not far off when they (the two warring sides) must reach an agreement and then the calamity and destruction raining down on each of their cities will end.”

Stalin received Dekanozov in his office at night on both May 8 and 12, 1941, so he was apprised of the frustrating “talks.”²³⁰ Soon the despot came to see why. On May 13, although details were scarce, he learned of a sensation reported out of Berlin the previous night: Rudolf Hess, deputy to the Führer within the Nazi party, had flown to Britain.

Hess had once won an air race around Germany’s highest peak, but recently he had been forbidden to fly. Late on May 10, a date chosen on astrological grounds, in a daring, skillful maneuver, he piloted a Messerschmitt Bf-110 bomber across the North Sea toward Britain, some 900 miles, and, in the dark, parachuted into Scotland.²³¹ His pockets were filled with abundant pills and potions, including opium alkaloids, aspirin, atropine, methamphetamines, barbiturates, caffeine tablets, laxatives, and an elixir from a Tibetan lamasery (passed to him by the explorer Sven Hedin).²³² He was also said to be carrying a flight map, photos of himself with his son, and the business cards of two German acquaintances, but no identification. Initially, he gave a false name to the Scottish plowman on whose territory he had landed; soon, members of the local Home Guard appeared (with whisky on their breath). The British were not expecting Hess; no secure corridor had been set up. Those on the scene, breaching secrecy, brought in a member of the Polish consulate in nearby Glasgow to serve as interpreter; it was he who noticed that the captive was the spitting image of Hess. British air intelligence ignored the first reports of the captive’s evident importance.²³³

No one in the Nazi entourage outdid Hess for devotion. He had been in the forefront of the Beer Hall Putsch and had recorded Hitler’s prison dictations that became Mein Kampf, volunteering his own thoughts, too.²³⁴ Hess was among the small circle in the know about the firmness of Hitler’s intentions to invade the USSR.²³⁵ At the Berghof on May 11, Hitler received one of Hess’s adjutants, who delivered a sealed letter left by his boss. The Führer raged that he hoped the missing Hess had “crashed into the sea.”²³⁶ Germany disclosed his absence over the radio at 8:00 p.m. on May 12, mentioning a letter that exhibited “traces of mental derangement” and speculating that Hess had “crashed en route.”²³⁷ Finally, several hours later, the British issued a statement, with precious few details and no photographs but confirmation that Hess had landed in Scotland. The next day, Hitler summoned the sixty or so top Nazi officials to the Obersalzberg. “The Führer,” observed Hans Frank, head of the General Gouvernement (Poland), “was more completely shattered than I have ever experienced him to be.” Hitler stated that Hess had acted without his knowledge, and called him a “victim of delusions.”²³⁸ Ribbentrop was sent to assure Mussolini that there were no Anglo-German peace talks.²³⁹ “What a spectacle for the world,” Goebbels confided in his diary of the defection.²⁴⁰

Hess jokes proliferated. (“So you’re the madman,” Churchill says to Hess. “Oh, no,” Hess replies, “only his deputy.”)²⁴¹ He had lost his role in the Nazi regime to his private secretary, Martin Bormann, and seems to have wanted to reingratiate himself with the Führer, intending to land at the hunting lodge owned by the Duke of Hamilton, a commander in the Royal Air Force whom Hess had met at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. (He missed his property by around twelve miles.) Hess imagined that negotiations could take place with pro-German members of the British establishment, who might even overthrow Churchill. The British moved Hess to a military hospital as a POW and maintained public silence about his motivations or any secret revelations (of which there were none). “He had come without the knowledge of Hitler,” the report of Hess’s first interrogation established (May 13), “in order to convince responsible persons that since England could not win the war, the wisest course was to make peace now.” Hess proffered the old deal, publicly announced by Hitler, of a free hand on the continent in exchange for preservation of the British empire, and denied that Hitler planned to attack the USSR.²⁴²

Soviet intelligence tasked its entire network with sussing out the real story of Hess’s flight, and they duly reported that Hitler had expressly sent his deputy on a peace mission.²⁴³ Stalin needed no confirmation. That a second in command could undertake such a flight without permission was, for him, implausible. Hess had to have been sent to negotiate a separate peace with Britain and a joint attack on the Soviet Union, and in a way that cleverly allowed Hitler to deny it.²⁴⁴ Molotov had met Hess in Berlin in November 1940: he was not a madman. It all seemed to add up: Schulenburg tells Dekanozov that Stalin should exchange letters with Hitler, then suddenly backs off; Hess flies to the UK. Now, the most sinister interpretation crystallized of Churchill’s cryptic message to Stalin and Cripps’s written suggestion to Molotov that the British might come to terms with Germany.²⁴⁵

On May 13, behind the scenes, Cripps pursued the same tack, writing from Moscow to the foreign office proposing that the Hess windfall be used to disrupt suspected German-Soviet alliance talks and, more ambitiously, to induce Stalin to abandon Germany altogether. The foreign office thought this would drive Stalin deeper into Hitler’s arms.²⁴⁶ But then Eden and Alexander Cadogan, the foreign office permanent undersecretary, who was charged with coordinating the Hess problem across agencies, took up Cripps’s prompt. At a press briefing and in conversations with Soviet envoy Maisky, Eden hinted that Hess was bearing peace proposals, and that his flight proved the existence of a split in the Nazi leadership over the course of the war. The whispering campaign achieved the opposite effect of its aim, however, encouraging Stalin’s view that, given the divisions in the Nazi leadership, his own negotiations with Hitler to avert war remained possible.²⁴⁷

Even Schulenburg’s utter failure ended up contributing to that unshakable belief. Foreign couriers transporting diplomatic pouches overnighted at the Metropole Hotel, awaiting their transit out the next day, and the NKGB resorted to trapping couriers in the bathroom or jamming the lift, seizing their pouches, and photographing their contents while those trapped waited to be rescued. Thus was Stalin able to see that Schulenburg, in his secret correspondence with the German foreign ministry, continued to stress Soviet conciliatory moves and readiness to bargain.²⁴⁸ Soviet ingenuity combined with Schulenburg’s good intentions amplified German intelligence’s disinformation campaign about an ultimatum.²⁴⁹

PREEMPTION DENIED

May 15, 1941—much mentioned in Stalin’s intelligence—passed without a Nazi invasion. That same day, a Junkers 52 transport, either unobserved or unobstructed by Soviet air defenses, traveled more than 650 miles over Białystok/Belostok, Minsk, and Smolensk, landing at Moscow’s central aerodrome, Tushino, a few miles from Red Square. The pilot had been able to reconnoiter the entire German path to the Soviet capital. Whispers about the incredible incident spread. The Soviets allowed the German plane to depart, even refueling it.²⁵⁰ In Berlin that same day, in an internal memorandum, the German trade official Schnurre observed that the Soviets had made concessions to resolve difficult matters in bilateral trade and that, while Germany would have trouble meeting its obligations to the USSR with regard to new armaments, the Soviets were fulfilling the existing agreement punctually, even though it was causing them great difficulties. He pointed out that Germany could advance additional economic demands beyond the existing trade agreement.²⁵¹ (A record number of goods would cross the border in both directions that month.) Also on May 15, coincidentally, the Soviet general staff completed a new aggressive offensive war plan, with Stalin’s evident involvement.²⁵²

This was the fifteenth iteration of the main war plan since 1924, although far from all were formally approved. Like its immediate predecessor, it was drafted by Vasilevsky, with cross-outs and additions in the hand of Nikolai Vatutin (b. 1901), a peasant lad (like Timoshenko and Zhukov) who had graduated from the General Staff Academy in 1937 and been vaulted to a top position in the staff. Just as in the 1940 plan, this one envisioned a massive left hook using the full strength of the Red Army to cut off German forces from Romanian oil, then wheeling north, crossing all of German-occupied Poland and capturing East Prussia (a 450-mile thrust), in a colossal encirclement. But now the southwestern strike was to occur before a German attack. “Considering that at the present time the German army is mobilized, with its rear deployed, it has the capability to beat us to the punch and deliver a surprise attack,” the war plan explained, recommending that the Soviets “not leave the initiative to the German command, but forestall the enemy in deployment and attack the German army while it is still in the deployment stage and has not yet had the time to organize the front and the coordination among the service branches.” Timoshenko and Zhukov asked Stalin for authorization for hidden general mobilization and concentration of forces close to the frontier, both under the guise of training, accelerated railway construction and weapons production, and forced erection of new frontier fortifications.²⁵³

Preemption constituted a logical extension of Soviet military doctrine: if the Red Army was going to launch a counteroffensive immediately after absorbing the enemy’s initial attack, why not prevent that attack in the first place with “a sudden blow”?

The volatile Zhukov had formed a tight duo with the ponderous Timoshenko, another veteran of the civil-war-era First Cavalry Army, in whom he could cautiously confide, provided they could get out of earshot of their bodyguards, drivers, cooks, and maids, who closely observed them, on Beria’s orders. “The idea to preempt the German attack,” Zhukov would tell an interviewer, “came to Timoshenko and me in connection with Stalin’s speech of May 5, 1941 . . . in which he spoke of the possibility of an offensive mode of action.”²⁵⁴ Zhukov would also recall that he and Timoshenko did not sign the preemptive strike plan above their printed names, preferring to report on it preliminarily to Stalin. At an hour-long meeting on May 19, as Zhukov reported, Stalin apparently knocked his pipe nervously on the felt-covered table. “When he heard about a preemptive strike against the German troops he just boiled over,” Zhukov wrote, adding that Stalin blurted out, “What, have you lost your mind? You want to provoke the Germans?”²⁵⁵ Molotov, who was present, would recall that Stalin likely feared that a Soviet attack would induce Britain and even the United States to join Germany in a war against the USSR; at a minimum, the despot anticipated that a Soviet attack on Germany would drive London to make peace with Berlin, particularly in light of the Hess mission, clearing the way for attack in the east.²⁵⁶

In the meeting, Stalin explained away his May 5 (pre-Hess) speech as an attempt “to encourage the people there, so that they would think about victory and not about the invincibility of the German army, which is what the world’s press is blaring on about,” Zhukov recalled. “So that’s how our idea about a preemptive strike was buried.”²⁵⁷ In fact, the plan did not specify a date for launching a war, and did not motivate an immediate preemption: it estimated total German strength at 284 divisions, but only 120 were said to be concentrated near the frontier, a number not appreciably different from prior estimates.²⁵⁸ The feasibility of the plan, moreover, remained highly dubious. Alexander Zaporozhets, head of the army administration of political propaganda, wrote to Stalin after an inspection tour that “the majority of troops deployed in the fortified districts on our western frontiers are not battle ready.”²⁵⁹ Timoshenko, Zhukov, Vatutin (now Zhukov’s top deputy), and Vasilevsky (operations directorate) appear to have believed they could pull off the absurdly ambitious preemptive strike after further intensive preparations, despite their own inexperience with operations of this scale and the Red Army’s low level of organizational cohesion and training and its jumble of obsolete and modern (but untested) equipment. And yet massive logistical problems and railway incapacity bedeviled even the Red Army’s more gradual deployments.²⁶⁰