Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941

43. Khrushchev, Memoirs, I: 269, 273–4, 287–91. Soviet military journals in 1940–1 presented a frightening picture of German capabilities. Glantz, Stumbling Colossus, 258–9; Konenenko, “Germano-pol’skaia voina 1939 g.”; Konenenko, “Boi v Finlandii”; Konenenko, “Kratkii obzor voennykh desitvii na zapade”; Khorseev, “VVS v germane-pol’skoi voine”; Desiatov, “Operatsii v Norvegii”; Ratner, “Pororyv na Maase”; Belianovskii, “Desitviia tnkovykh.” Zhukov would later state: “When I asked him [Stalin] to allow bringing the troops of the western frontier districts to full combat readiness . . . he brought me to the map and, pointing to the Near East, said ‘that’s where they [the Germans] will go.’” This could have been perhaps Stalin’s way of blunting Zhukov’s pressure without discussing with him the anticipated ultimatum. In any case, the despot had long abandoned any credence to an attack on British positions in the Near East. Anfilov, Doroga k tragedii, 195.

44. Kuznetsov, Nakanune, 357 (citing a conversation with Pronin) and in the first edition (1966), 329. See also Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 108. The Moscow province party committee was holding a plenum (June 20–1). Pravda, June 22, 1941. Yakov Chadayev, the government notary, was quoted as stating that Stalin “summoned them.” Neither Shcherbakov nor Pronin appear in the office logbook; they could have been received in the apartment, which seems unlikely given their low stature. The prohibition on use of electric lighting applied to residences as well. As of 1941, only 68 families, 239 people, still resided in the Kremlin, most of them widows and pensioners (such as the widows of Sverdlov and Orjonikidze); this was down from 374 people in 1935 (not including service personnel and guards) and 2,100 in 1925.

45. Voronov, Na sluzhbe voennoi, 175; Tiulenev, Cherez tri voiny (1960), 138. As Zhukov wrote, “The Soviet Government did everything possible so as not to give any justification for Germany to start a war. This determined everything.” Zhukov, Vospominaniia, I: 340.

46. As of June 1, 1941, Golikov estimated German divisions arrayed near the joint frontier at 120–2, along with 122–6 arrayed against Britain in the West, Norway, Italy, Crete, and Africa, plus 44–48 of reserves. He noted that in “transferring significant forces from Yugoslavia, Greece, and Bulgaria to Romania, the Germans are to a great degree strengthening their right flank”—in the direction of Ukraine. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 520, 646–7 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 7237, d. 2, l. 114–6).

47. These Soviet divisions, to reach full strength, needed more than 1 million reservists to join them. Zolotarev et al., Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XIII (II/i): 7–8, 11, 77, 581; Zhukov, Vospominaniia, I: 359. Another source gives a figure of 3,900 German aircraft, 60 percent of their air force, plus 1,000 planes of Romania and Finland. Pospelov, Istoriia Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, II: 9.

48. The totalitarian Soviet state, with its vast armed forces, was the only one not fully mobilized, “an absolutely impossible, improbable situation,” as one analyst noted. Mark Solonin, “Tri plana tovarishcha Stalina,” 71. On June 18, the Soviet Union observed the fifth anniversary of Gorky’s death. Pravda, June 18, 1941; Artizov and Naumov, Vlast’ i khudozhestvennaia intelligentsiia, 474 (RGASPI, f. 17, op. 3, d. 1041, l. 8). At the defense commissariat on June 19, Major General Mikhail Kazakov, commander of the staff of the Central Asian military district, who had been summoned to Moscow, and others were shown a German film of the Wehrmacht being greeted warmly in the Balkans by Slavic females bearing wine and flowers. Kazakov would recall that Vasilevsky told him, “We’ll be lucky if it doesn’t begin in the next fifteen to twenty days.” Kazakov, Nad kartoi bylykh srazhenii, 69–70; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 188–9.

49. The work was supposed to be completed by July 15, 1941. Zolotarev et al., Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XIII (II/i): 280–2 (RGVA, f. 4, op. 11, d. 62, l. 201–3, 204–5).

50. On the many local measures undertaken to bring Soviet forces to combat readiness, especially the initiatives in the Baltic region, and their countermanding under threat, see Sbornik boevykh dokumentov Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, XXXIV: 7–11 (f. 344, op. 2459ss, d. 11, l. 30–6), 21–4 (f. 221, op. 7833ss, d. 3, l. 17–21); Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 199–200 (Colonel General Kuznetsov); Kuznetsov, “Voenno-Morskoi flot nakanune Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny,” 72–3; Kuznetsov, Nakanune, 343–4; Voronov, Na sluzhbe voennoi, 175–8; Zhukov, Vospominaniia, I: 386–7; Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 82–3; Anfilov, “‘Razgovor zakonchilsia ugrozoi Stalina’,” 42. Zhdanov conspicuously departed Leningrad for holiday in Sochi on June 19; this had to be approved by the politburo.

51. Sudoplatov was not to allow “German provocateurs to stage actions like those against Poland in 1939.” He recalled that, at the office on the night of June 21, “I sensed the danger of military provocation or conflict but not the magnitude of the full-scale invasion that followed.” Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 123–5. See also Possony, “Hitlers Unternehmen ‘Barbarossa.’” Soviet intelligence was reporting that Ukrainian schools in German-occupied Poland were teaching the geography of a forthcoming independent Ukraine and that many Ukrainian nationalists, and even some Poles with eyes on Ukraine’s territory, were keen to stage provocations to provoke a German attack on the Soviet Union. Naumov, 1941 god, I: 135–6, 157, 174–6, 268–9, 324–6, 426–7, 462–5, 545–8, 656–8, 681–3; Iampol’skii et al., Organy, I/ii: 172–87 (May 31, 1941).

52. Iampol’skii et al., Organy, I/ii: 266–7; Naumov, 1941 god, II: 383; Primakov, Ocherki, III: 366; Grechko et al., Istoriia vtoroi mirovoi voiny, III: 254, 335–8.

53. Kumanev, Riadom so Stalinym, 23–4 (Mikoyan); Na prieme, 337 (Mikoyan is listed as arriving at 8:15 p.m. and leaving four hours later). The Soviet navy reported that German engineers and specialists working in Leningrad on a battleship acquired from Germany had left, but in response, Molotov told Admiral Kuznetsov, “Only a fool would attack us!” Zhdanov similarly assured Kuznetsov that the Germans were concentrating forces as a means of exerting psychological pressure and would never open a two-front war. Kuznetsov, “Voenno-Morskoi flot nakanune Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny,” 73; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 190–1 (Kuznetsov); Watson, Molotov, 187. Beria is not listed in the logbook for Stalin’s Kremlin office between appearances on June 10 and June 20.

54. They would be confiscated as war booty. Panteleev, Morskoi front, 36. By June 1941, Nazi Germany was heavily in debt to the Soviet Union.

55. This was the second time that day that Kegel had risked an in-person meeting with his handler. In June 1941 alone, he met his military intelligence handler Leontyev nine times in person. Separately, Beria was reporting to Stalin from his agents that the smoke from burning documents in German embassy inner courtyard could be seen from great distance; some thought it was a fire. Krasnaia zvezda, June 16 and 21, 2001; Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie, 2001, no. 22: 7. Leontyev (b. 1911) had not thought to arrange for contacts with Kegel after the predicted war broke out. Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbarossy,” 443 (V. V. Bochkarev).

56. How Stalin reacted to Kegel’s information remains unknown. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 711–3; Lota, Sekretnyi front, 58–60; Kegel, V buriakh nashego veka (the German original was published in 1983). Kegel had spoken directly with Walter Schellenberg, the head of political intelligence for the SS, who had evidently visited the USSR under the cover of a chemical industry representative. Kiknadze, “Gerkhard Kegel,” 124; Vasil’evich and Sgibnev, “Podvig v teni eshafota,” 106.

57. “The Master in an agitated state just talked to Timoshenko . . . Apparently something is expected . . . you yourself could guess . . . the German attack,” Poskryobyshev supposedly said to Chadayev. “A German attack is possible.” Kumanev, Riadom so Stalinym, 410. In a draft decree, written in pencil by Malenkov with many crossouts, dated, in someone else’s hand, June 21, and not entered into the approved protocols, Tyulenev was to be appointed commander of the “southern front” with two armies. Meretskov was to be named commander of the northwestern front; Zhukov, of the southwestern front, where the main German attack was expected. Zaporozhets was to become his deputy, and in the latter’s place Mekhlis would be restored to head of the Red Army political directorate. “Nakanune voiny: iz postanovlenii vysshikh partiinykh i gosudarstvennykh organov (Mai 1940 g.–21 iiunia 1941 g.),” 209–10 (with facsimile); APRF, f. 3, op. 50, d. 125, l. 75–6.

58. Zhukov does not name the defector, and more than one crossed that night into Soviet territory (perhaps as many as four). Zhukov, Vospominania, I: 386–9. See also Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 105–6; and Khrushchev, Vospominania, I: 299–301. See also Fediuninskii, Podniatye po trevoge, 10–2; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 241–2 (Fediunsky). Sevastianov, Neman-Volga-Dunai, 5; and Naumov, 1941 god, II: 279–82 (TsA SVR RF, d. 21616, t. 2, l. 389–97: May 30, 1941).

59. Na prieme, 337. Budyonny had not been in Stalin’s office for two months, according to the logbook.

60. On the evening of June 21, Meretskov would later recall, Timoshenko told him, “Gain whatever time we can! A month, a month and a half, another week. It is possible the war will start tomorrow.” Meretskov, Na sluzhbe narodu (1984), 205; Meretskov, Na sluzhbe narodu, 209–10.

61. Simonov, “K biografii G. K. Zhukova,” 106.

62. Zhukov, Vospominaniia, I: 387. Zhukov recalls that his deputy Vatutin accompanied them. Vatutin does not appear in Stalin’s logbook. Timoshenko and Zhukov were in Stalin’s office at least nineteen times in the last three months, including six in June, but the despot did not receive them between June 11 and 18. In that interval only Vatutin was in the Little Corner, on June 17 for half an hour (Molotov and Kagnovich were there); on June 18 Stalin received the military men for four hours and thirty-five minutes. Na prieme, 336–7.

63. Goebbels continued: “Should have been made six months ago.” (In fact, seven months ago Molotov had been in Berlin.) Goebbels added: “I read a comprehensive report on Russian-Bolshevik radio propaganda. It will give us some real problems, because it is not so stupid as the English material. Probably written by Jews.” Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, 1, IX: 391–93 (June 21); Taylor, Goebbels Diaries, 420. A request for Molotov to meet Hitler on June 18 was also recorded by Halder, Kriegstagebuch, II: 458–9 (June 20); Halder, Halder Diaries, II: 960.

64. Dekanozov appeared at 6:00 p.m. on June 18, but despite an audience of fifty minutes, managed only to complain about German delays in issuing exit visas for a Soviet consular official in Königsberg, ships at Baltic ports, and the costs of building a bomb shelter. Naumov, 1941 god, II: 386–7 (AVP RF, f. 082, op. 24, pap. 106, d. 7, l. 94–7).

65. Hill, Die Weizsäcker-Papiere, 260 (June 18); DGFP, series D, XII: 1050; Weizsäcker, Erinnerungen, 317.

66. The protest listed 260 flight violations between March 27 and June 19. On June 20, the NKVD border guard had reported that just since June 10, there had been 86 more unauthorized reconnaissance flights from Greater Germany, Finland, Hungary, and Romania. Solov’ev and Chugunova, Pogranichnye voiska SSSR, 755–6.

67. The play was a production of the Franko Ukrainian Academic Theater on tour in Moscow. Pravda, June 22, 1941. See also Dallin, Soviet Russia’s Foreign Policy, 375. Whether Stalin might have been ready to offer far-reaching concessions remains a matter of speculation. Mastny, Russia’s Road to the Cold War, 34.

68. Vishlev, Nakanune, 64–72 (citing Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts Bonn: Büro des Staatssekretär, Russland, BD. 5 [R 29716], Bl. 049 [113453]–053 [113457], 100 [113504], 103 [113507]–105 [113509], 112 [113516], 125 [113529]–126 [113530], 130 [113653]; Dienstelle Ribbentrop, Vertrauliche Berichte, 2/2 Teil 2 [R 27097], Bl. 30853; Dienstelle Ribbentrop, UdSSR-RC, 7/1 [R 27168], Bl. 26051, 26097–8; Dienstelle Ribbentrop, Vertrauliche Berichte über Russland [Peter], 2/3 [R 27113], Bl. 462607). Some of the information being spread was true: that the Soviet Union was making plans for population, industrial, and government evacuations eastward; that the USSR had refrained from forced collectivization in the Baltic states; that the regime was undertaking measures to stimulate Soviet patriotism. These whisperings about Stalin being Nazi Germany’s best hope, and under internal threat for that reason, were advanced “in strictest confidence” by Amayak Kobulov and Ivan Filippov to their German interlocutors in Berlin, by a Soviet intelligence operative in Stockholm, and others elsewhere.

69. Simonov, “Zametki,” 53. According to Zhukov, Stalin was aware of and to a degree accepted the argument of German propaganda that Wehrmacht forces were stationed on the border partly because Soviet forces were there and Germany had no ultimate guarantee that Stalin would not attack preemptively.

70. Zhukov later wrote that Stalin said: “Germany is up to its neck in war in the West, I believe Hitler would never risk creating a second front for himself by attacking the Soviet Union. Hitler is not such a fool that he fails to understand the Soviet Union is not Poland, not France and that it is not even England and all these taken together.” Timoshenko supposedly asked, “What if it does happen?” and requested bringing the frontier troops to a war footing and sending more westward, but Stalin refused, designating their proposal tantamount to “launching a war.” Zhukov, Vospominaniia (1995), I: 383–4; Naumov, 1941 god, II: 500 (RGVA, f. 41107, op. 1, d. 48, l. 1–58).

71. Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 353–4; DGFP, series D, XII: 1059; Taylor, Goebbels Diaries, 423; Berezhkov, S diplomaticheskoi missiei, 78–106; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 215–6 (Berezhkov).

72. Schulenburg was said to have observed of the Pact: “I gave my all in order to work toward good relations between Germany and the Soviet Union, and in some ways I have achieved my aim. But you know yourself that in reality I have achieved nothing. This treaty will lead us into the second world war and bring ruin upon Germany . . . This war will last for a long, long time, just as did the First World War.” Wegner-Korfes, “Ambassador Count Schulenburg,” 187–204; Fleischhauer, Der Pakt, 400.

73. Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 307 (citing UD:s Arkhiv 1920 ARS, HP/1557/LVII, Swedish ambassador in Moscow, June 16). According to the unpublished memoir of his daughter, American ambassador Steinhardt observed at the Moscow airport how von Walther, in tears, had had to part with his beloved boxer, which was being shipped back to Berlin. Lukes, On the Edge of the Cold War, 75–6 (citing Steinhardt Sherlock, “R.S.V.P.,” 65; interview with Laurene Sherlock and Peter Rosenblatt, Oct. 27, 2007).

74. Schmidt, Statist auf diplomatische Bühne, 214.

75. Naumov, 1941 god, II: 414–5 (AVP RF, f. 06, op. 3, pap. 1, d. 5, l. 8–11), 416 (l. 1: text of the protest); Iampol’skii et al., Organy, I/ii: 370–1; DGFP, XII: 1070–1; Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 355–6 (Schulenburg account); DVP SSSR, XXIII/ii: 751–2; Hilger and Meyer, Incompatible Allies, 335–6; Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 310 (citing AVP RF, f. 06, op. 3, pap. 1, d. 5, l. 6–7). Schulenburg’s summary reached the foreign ministry in Berlin at 2:30 a.m. on June 22. See also Vishlev, “Pochemu zhe,” 80; and Fel’shtinskii, Oglasheniiu podlezhit, 371–6.

76. Molotov’s departure to receive Schulenburg was not recorded. Na prieme, 337.

77. Kumanev, Riadom so Stalinym, 409–10 (Chadayev); Kuznetsov, Nakanune, 355.

78. Zolotarev et al., Russkii arkhiv: Velikaia otechestvennaia, XIII (II/i), 282 (TsAMO, f. 48–A, op. 1554, d. 90, l. 257–9); Naumov, 1941 god, II: 423; Pospelov, Istoriia Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, II: 11; Zakharov, General’nyi shtab, 224–5; Zhukov, Vospominaniia (1971), 233–4; Zhukov, Vospomininia (1995), I: 387. See also Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 110; and Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 311.

79. Beria at some point left and came back, but only his re-arrival was recorded in the logbook. Others present might have come and gone without their movements having been recorded.

80. Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 114–5; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 193 (Kuznetsov).

81. DGFP, series D, XII: 1061–3; Sontag and Beddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 353–4; Vishlev, “Pochemu zhe,” 80; Taylor, Goebbels Diaries, 423. Precisely when Dekanozov informed Moscow of his failure remains unclear. Berezhkov, the Soviet embassy employee who claimed he had been tasked with phoning the German foreign ministry to obtain the meeting with Ribbentrop, wrongly implied that no meeting had been arranged until the German foreign ministry itself called back at 3:00 a.m. Berlin time (5:00 a.m. Moscow time) with a summons for Dekanozov. Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 215–6 (Berezhkov).

82. “Stalin sought by the condition and behavior of troops in the border military districts to make it clear to Hitler that we had a quiet atmosphere, bordering on carelessness,” recalled army general Semyon Ivanov. He characterized this as a form of criminal self-demobilization. Ivanov, Shtab armeiskii, 104–6.

83. Lieutenant General Nikolai Klich, head of artillery in the Western special military district, told Colonel Ilya Starinov of Pavlov’s phone calls to Moscow about every ominous development: “Always the same reply—‘Don’t panic! Keep calm! “The Boss” knows everything.’” Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 222–3 (Starinov).

84. The defector was Alfred Liskow. (Nekrich writes that he crossed the border around 11:00 p.m.) The NKGB established that he was a lance corporal, thirty years old, a furniture joiner and Communist (before Hitler’s rise), who said that his unit had been told they would cross the Bug River on boats and pontoons in a few hours. Liskow was still being held by the NKGB when the German attack commenced. Naumov, 1941 god, II: 422; “Nakanune voiny (1940–1941 gg.),” 218; Nekrich, 1941, 22 iuinia, 197.

85. Germany continued to send military equipment to the Soviets in June, with Göring and others reasoning that the Soviets would never be able to make full use in time of the advanced technology that was delivered. Von Strandmann, “Appeasement and Counter-Appeasement,” 171 (citing HA Krupp, WA 40, B, C 381); Schwendemann, Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit, 265–79.

86. Pavlov, in testimony after his arrest, would not mention Timoshenko mentioning Directive No. 1, but he would note that when he hung up the phone, he (Pavlov) had ordered all units to combat readiness. http://liewar.ru/tragediya-22–iyunya/178–protoko ly-doprosa-d-g-pavlova.html (Pavlov testimony, July 7, 1941, with commentary). Pavlov might have spoken with Timoshenko earlier, from the theater, by a special telephone brought in for just such a contingency.

87. “Itinerar Hitlers vom 1.9.1939–31.12.1941,” 691. Hitler had written to Antonescu on June 14. Supposedly, already on June 12 Antonescu was let in on the closely guarded secret of the precise date of attack. Schmidt, Statist auf diplomatische Bühne, 233.

88. Goebbels added: “Feverish activity begins.” Fröhlich, Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels, IX: 393–7 (June 22).

89. Pospelov, Istoriia velikoi otechestvennoi voiny, I: 478–9; Sechkin, Granitsa i voina, 54.

90. Zoller, Hitler Privat, 142–3 (Frau Christa Schroeder). Hitler was said to have told Below before retiring: “This will be the hardest struggle that our soldiers have to endure this war.” Below, Als Hitlers Adjutant, 279.

91. Mertsalov and Mertsalova, Stalinizm i voina, 164–7.

92. Gorodetsky, whose account of Stalin’s approach to foreign policy stands above all others in English, overreacted to attributions of Soviet expansionism to ideology. “Stalin was little affected by sentiment or ideology in the pursuit of foreign policy,” Gorodetsky wrongly imagined. “His statesmanship was rooted in Russia’s tsarist legacy, and responded to imperatives deep within its history . . . Stalin’s policy appears to have been rational and level-headed.” Obviously, Sovietization of the Baltic states, eastern Poland, Bessarabia, and Bukovina, or Stalin’s obsession with Trotsky and his terror, had nothing to do with realpolitik or level-headedness. Indeed, Gorodetsky himself writes, two pages on, of the “paranoiac atmosphere in the Kremlin.” Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 316, 318.

93. Hillgruber, Hitlers Strategie.

94. Hitler had expected Britain, as he told one of his top military men already back on June 23, 1940, to “knuckle under,” conceding Germany’s free hand on the continent. Förster, “Hitler Turns East,” 117 (citing Notizen des Wehrmachtsführungsamtes, BA-MA, RW 4/v. 581).

95. Hitler had also misunderstood British anti-Communism. The phlegmatic British had always been interested only in containment, not an anti-Bolshevik crusade, since the latter, even if successful, would just bring Nazi domination of the continent, so London took a similar approach to Moscow as to Berlin: engagement to try to “moderate” the regime. Waddington, “Idyllis and Unruffled Atmosphere.”

96. Hubatsch, Hitlers Weisungen, 129–39. See also DGFP, series D, XII: 1012–6.

97. Overy, Why the Allies Won, 1–24.

98. To carry the consequences to their conclusion: Hitler would have either gone on to conquer the USSR, or been vanquished by the latter, which could have enveloped all of Europe. Catherwood, Balkans in World War Two, 170.

99. Schramm, Hitler, 125.

100. “The analyst can choose which problem he wishes to study, whereas the statesman’s problems are imposed on him,” Kissinger wrote. “The analyst can allot whatever time is necessary to come to a clear conclusion; the overwhelming challenge to the statesman is the pressure of time. The analyst runs no risk. If his conclusions prove wrong, he can write another treatise. The statesman is permitted only one guess; his mistakes are irretrievable.” Kissinger, Diplomacy, 27.

101. Gerwarth, Bismarck Myth, 128.

102. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, 135–9.