What Stalin Knew (24 page)

perate to determine whether Rudolf Hess had brought specific proposals to

the British government for an Anglo-German accord, the center turned to

Söhnchen. In his first reply, on May 14, all Söhnchen could report was

secondhand information explaining why Hess had tried to contact the

duke of Hamilton and a comment by Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick to the effect

that, whereas Hess had brought peace proposals, their substance was not

known. Söhnchen’s next contribution, on May 18, 1941, was obtained from

Tom Dupree, deputy chief of the Press Department of the Foreign Office. In

the opening paragraph of that message, the London resident, Anatoly

Gorsky (code name Vadim), stated truthfully that he still did not have exact

information on the aims of Hess’s trip to England. After presenting the

information he had gleaned from Dupree, Söhnchen added his own opin-

ion that ‘‘this was not the time for peace negotiations’’ but that later Hess

might ‘‘become the center of intrigue for conclusion of a compromise peace

and would be useful to the peace party in England and to Hitler.’’ This

statement, plus the somewhat clumsy efforts later by the British govern-

ment, through the SIS, to persuade Stalin that Hess really did bear peace

proposals, had the effect of convincing the paranoid dictator that both the

British and the Germans were about to turn against him.15

Helsinki

Long before the German invasion, the Helsinki residency played a key

role in Soviet-Finnish relations. In April 1938 Stalin gave Boris A. Rybkin,

the former NKVD resident there, the task of conducting secret negotia-

tions with senior officials of the Finnish government on matters concern-

ing the Soviet-Finnish frontier. Rybkin had returned to Finland as Soviet

chargé d’affaires, still using the pseudonym Boris N. Yartsev. The negotia-

tions did not succeed and Rybkin left when the Winter War began in

November 1939.

After the war, Yelisei T. Sinitsyn arrived as resident. Like his prede-

cessor, he became Soviet chargé d’affaires. With this cover, his residency

was able to develop impressive sources and provide some of the best infor-

mation received by the center on the impending war and Finland’s role in

it. On April 26, 1941, the residency reported that highly placed German

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105

officers were convinced of the inevitability of a German attack on the

USSR after conclusion of the Balkan operations. It also reported that the

Finns believed that Finland’s support of Germany was inevitable. By early

May, concerns of Finnish involvement deepened. A May 7 report quoted

Finnish general staff officers as saying that Germany would do everything

it could to bring Finland into the war on its side. An attack against Mur-

mansk would begin by using German troops then stationed in northern

Norway, while German air and naval forces would support Finnish attacks

in the south. During the Easter season of 1941, German and Finnish staff

officers took part in discussions on Finnish army maneuvers. Another re-

port, dated May 10, informed the center that the Germans were actively

soliciting the support of Finnish refugees from Karelia (occupied by the

USSR after the Winter War), promising that Finland would not only re-

cover lost land but acquire new territories in eastern Karelia and the Kola

peninsula. A June 5 report from the residency source Poeta confirmed that

the number of German troops transiting Finland would be increased and

that German pressure on the Finns to participate in the war was growing.

Another source, Advokat, reported that, in response to German demands,

partial mobilization had been ordered, large numbers of German troops

were on their way, and the Germans had demanded the expulsion of all

British subjects from some regions of Finland.16

The last shoe dropped when Sinitsyn was told by source Monakh that

an agreement had been signed between Germany and Finland on the par-

ticipation of Finland in the German war against the USSR and that the

invasion would come on June 22, 1941. There was no response from Mos-

cow and not until Sinitsyn returned to Moscow from Helsinki did he hear

from Fitin what had happened. Fitin had accompanied Merkulov to see

Stalin about the contents of a report from Berlin (the report from Star-

shina). Fitin also presented the Monakh report, noting that this was a

reliable source who obtained the information from someone who had at-

tended the signing ceremony. All Stalin said was, ‘‘Check it all out and

report.’’ Merkulov made no effort to support Fitin.17

Warsaw

While none of the other NKGB residencies rivaled Berlin’s relentless warn-

ings of the impending German invasion, a few of them had special access

and produced items that confirmed the Berlin material. The legal resi-

dency in Warsaw fits this description.

106

FITIN’S RECRUITED SPIES

In November 1940 NKGB Foreign Intelligence established the resi-

dency under Petr I. Gudimovich (code name Ivan); his cover was chief

of the office dealing with Soviet property. He was assisted by his wife, Ye-

lena D. Modrzhinskaia (code name Maria), herself an experienced intel-

ligence officer, who arrived in Warsaw on December 15.18 Ivan’s cover

duties did not require a large effort. For his cable and pouch commu-

nications Ivan had to rely on the Berlin NKGB residency. Nevertheless,

Moscow had a very important reason for establishing the Warsaw resi-

dency. By the late summer of 1940 it was apparent that Warsaw was be-

coming the center in German-occupied Poland for the logistical side of the

Wehrmacht’s preparations for its invasion of the Soviet Union. By placing

Ivan and Maria there, Moscow could hope for the recruitment of sub-

sources; at a minimum, the center would have in Warsaw two experienced

observers who could move freely in the area. Gradually, the two acquired

reporting sources among Poles whose hatred of the German occupiers

exceeded their traditional dislike of Russians. By the spring of 1941, Ivan

and Maria had concluded that Germany was preparing for war with the

USSR. Ivan requested permission to report his findings in person to Peo-

ple’s Commissar for State Security Vsevolod N. Merkulov. After listening to

him, Merkulov replied: ‘ You are greatly exaggerating. All of this must be

verified again. Only after that, perhaps, can your information be reported

to the leadership of the USSR.’’19

On April 20, 1941, Ivan went to Berlin and prepared his regular report.

On May 5 Stalin, Molotov, Voroshilov, and Beria received the results:

Military preparations in Warsaw and throughout the Government

General are being carried out openly and German officers and sol-

diers speak completely frankly of an imminent war between Ger-

many and the Soviet Union as though it were already an agreed-upon

affair. The war will apparently begin after conclusion of the spring

planting season. German soldiers, quoting their officers, claim that

the conquest of the Ukraine by the German army will be guaranteed

from within through the work of a well-functioning fifth column on

USSR territory.

From April 10 to 20, German troops moved eastward through

Warsaw without stopping, both during the day and by night. Be-

cause of the uninterrupted flow of troops, all movement on the

streets of Warsaw was halted. By rail, trains were moving in an east-

erly direction loaded mainly with heavy artillery, trucks, and air-

craft parts. From the middle of April, military trucks and Red Cross

vehicles appeared on the streets of Warsaw. German authorities in

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107

Warsaw had been given orders to put air raid shelters in order, black

out windows, create first aid teams in each building, and mobilize

Red Cross detachments that had been disbanded earlier. All motor

vehicles belonging to private individuals and commercial firms,

including German ones, had been mobilized for use by the army.

Schools had been closed as of April 1 as their buildings were to be

used as military hospitals. . . . German troops here were occupied

with improving and building new highways leading east. All wooden

bridges on all roads to the East were being strengthened with iron

beams. River-crossing materials were being prepared along the

river Bug.

As long as the Warsaw residency stuck to facts pertaining to its own area, it

was right on target. The one false note in its long report was the statement

that ‘‘the Germans apparently are counting on taking the Ukraine by a

direct blow from the west and at the end of May will begin an offensive

against the Caucasus through Turkey.’’ This one sentence would have been

enough for Stalin to reject the entire message.20

∞∞

C H A P T E R

Listening to the Enemy

NKVD/NKGB foreign intelligence was not the only

component under State Security Commissar Merkulov that produced valu-

able information for Stalin on Germany’s intentions. We know from the

1977 official classified Soviet history of the organs of state security that in

the period leading up to the German invasion the counterintelligence com-

ponents ran extensive operations against foreign missions in Moscow.

These operations involved agent penetrations, telephone taps, the installa-

tion of listening devices, and efforts to suborn and recruit members of these

missions. Although their principal goal was to identify foreign intelligence

officers, monitor their activities, and investigate contacts with Soviet cit-

izens, these operations produced important intelligence as a byproduct.

While the ‘‘take’’ from the German embassy and those of Germany’s allies

was among the very best, operations against the American, the British, and

other embassies, as well as against the offices and residences of foreign

correspondents, provided supplemental, confirmatory data.1

In February 1941, the Chief Directorate for State Security (NKVD/

GUGB) became the NKGB, still under Vsevolod N. Merkulov. Its Third

Department became the Second Counterintelligence Directorate, as coun-

terintelligence operations continued and expanded.2 The head of coun-

terintelligence remained Petr V. Fedotov, a seasoned Chekist who had par-

ticipated in operations against Chechen tribesmen from 1923 to 1937. By

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109

1939, after the arrival of Beria as head of the NKVD, Fedotov became head

of the Secret-Political Department. In September 1940 he was transferred

to the Counterintelligence Department.3

Under Merkulov, the Third, or Secret-Political, Directorate also used

secret informants to uncover and act against anti-Soviet elements in the

general population. Those secret-political operations of greatest interest to

us in determining the extent of reporting on German intentions were the

ones described in chapter 4. These operations were conducted in the newly

acquired regions of the Moldavian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian union re-

publics, and the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, re-

cently incorporated into the USSR.

The Moscow operations of the Second Directorate produced the best

information on the intentions of Germany and its allies. At the end of April

1941, the directorate’s First, or German, Department sent Stalin a tran-

script of an April 25 conversation between Colonel Hans Krebs, assistant

German military attaché, and his assistant, Schubut. ‘ Well, we’ve finished

the Greeks. Soon a new life will begin—the USSR. Do we plan to call up the

entire army?’’ one voice asks. ‘ Yes.’’ ‘‘But they haven’t even noticed that we

are preparing for war.’’ These remarks and earlier ones in the conversation,

about the weaknesses of the Soviet rail and highway systems, should have

left no doubt in Stalin’s mind of German intentions. Still, this was a rather

frank discussion by German officers who must have been aware that they

were likely to have had their offices and quarters bugged. Previously their

conversations had been guarded. How did this change happen?

The speakers were having their talk in the home of German military

attaché General Ernst Köstring. It was a detached house, wholly occupied

by the German attachés, hence not as susceptible to normal microphone

operations as an apartment would have been. The Soviet counterintelli-

gence officers had earlier recognized the importance of the Köstring resi-

dence, and in late April 1941 they had decided to attempt a penetration.

They planned to use a neighboring house as a base, explaining to residents

of the area that workers were fixing burst pipes that required major re-

pairs. From this base they tunneled unnoticed into the basement of Kö-