What Stalin Knew (33 page)

Churchill, repeated his warning to Maisky of an increased concentration of

German troops on Soviet borders and reaffirmed the British government’s

position in the event of a German invasion of the USSR. The government

was prepared, Maisky said in his telegram to the Foreign Affairs Com-

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missariat, to ‘‘provide us with the full assistance of its air forces in the Near

East, which can be reinforced from Great Britain, send a military mission

to the USSR composed of people with experience of war with Germany for

the purpose of imparting that experience to us, and develop to the max-

imum economic cooperation, using for that purpose a route through the

Persian Gulf or through Vladivostok if the position of Japan will permit a

route through that city.’’ Eden, Maisky reported, had asked that his declara-

tion be immediately transmitted to Moscow.

On June 21, Maisky sent the Foreign Affairs Commissariat a statement

by Ambassador Cripps, now in London, to the effect that ‘‘an armed conflict

between Germany and the USSR is inevitable in the near future’’ and that

‘‘he considers it his duty to take all steps necessary so that in case of such a

conflict close contact between England and the USSR will be established

from the first moment, allowing the British government to render without

delay the assistance of which Eden spoke on June 13.’’ On June 16 Sir

Alexander Cadogan, acting on instructions from Eden, had given Maisky a

detailed briefing on the German troop units concentrated on the Soviet

border. The total came to 115 divisions, not counting those from the Roma-

nian army. Also included in the briefing were detailed descriptions of Ger-

man troop arrivals during April and May in Poland, Moldavia, and north-

ern Bukovina, as well as in Norway and Finland.12

The details on German troop deployments contained in the Eden-

Cadogan briefings were undoubtedly based on disguised versions of UL-

TRA matrial. The RU residency, however, had its own source or sources in

the British intelligence establishment, who obtained ULTRA items in their

original form. Theoretically, then, it might have been possible for Golikov’s

people to compare the original reports with the sanitized versions pro-

vided by Eden. If the RU Moscow had indeed been able to compare them, it

would certainly have tried, but in no case could Eden’s warnings have been

dismissed as ‘‘British disinformation.’’

In the category of diplomatic warnings there are also the messages

Ambassador Dekanozov sent to Moscow from Berlin. They would explain

the note Beria sent to Stalin on June 21, 1941, demanding the ‘‘recall and

punishment of our ambassador in Berlin, Dekanozov, who keeps on bom-

barding me with ‘disinformation’ about the alleged preparation of an at-

tack on the USSR. He has reported that the ‘attack’ will begin tomorrow.’’13

On December 5, 1940, even before he presented his credentials to Hit-

ler, Dekanozov had received an anonymous letter that began: ‘‘Next spring

Hitler intends to attack the USSR. The Red Army will be destroyed by

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numerous, powerful encirclements.’’ Voluminous details followed, many of

which considered the assistant air attaché, Nikolai D. Skorniakov, credible.

A report of the letter was sent to Molotov, who forwarded it to Stalin on De-

cember 24 with the comment ‘‘Comrade Stalin—for your information.’’14

On March 16, 1941, Dekanozov wrote to inform Molotov of increases

in German fortifications and troops on the Soviet border: ‘‘In mid-January

units of the Fourth Army arrived from Finland and were quartered on the

outskirts of Warsaw and closer to our border. . . . Every day trains pass

going east with armaments (weapons, shells, motor vehicles, and con-

struction materials).’’ In an attachment to the letter, Dekanozov sent a

‘‘German-Russian phrase book intended for German soldiers,’’ explaining

that ‘‘there is information that these phrase books have been distributed to

all German soldiers on the German-Russian border.’’15 On March 28, Deka-

nozov’s secretary received a call on the city telephone line. The caller said

in German, ‘‘Around May a war will begin against Russia,’’ and hung up.16

On April 4 an encoded telegram transmitted to Moscow the contents of

a letter prepared by Dekanozov the day before: ‘‘Prompted by recent report-

ing from Korsikanets and Starshina, Dekanozov wishes to give Molotov the

latest information bearing on German anti-Soviet activities.’’ He described

the increase in obvious surveillance of Soviet diplomats in Berlin and com-

plained that the Germans were engaged in a ‘‘war of nerves,’’ instilling in

the population at all levels rumors of an inevitable war with the USSR. He

listed several examples, five of which emphasized the Ukraine as the main

target and one that quoted a German officer as saying, ‘‘Let’s beat England

and then go against Russia.’’ These all reflected German deception themes.

The other examples reflected reality. One quoted a German officer who said

the ‘‘friendship’’ between Germany and the USSR would last less than three

months. Dekanozov also reported on increasing German military activity

as seen during a trip to Königsberg by an assistant attaché. Referring to the

German-Russian phrase book he earlier sent to Moscow, he noted the

presence of phrases like
hands up,
suggesting the book was not intended

as a guide for friendly tourists. Also, visitors to the Consular Section all

told stories of the growing danger to the USSR of Germany and of troop

movements east. In addition to the rumors, Dekanozov reported the in-

creasing difficulties the Soviet trade delegation in Berlin was having with

the German firms fulfilling orders; some had even stopped accepting or-

ders under the trade agreements. Dekanozov repeated his earlier theme

that the rumors reflected German efforts to put pressure on the Soviet

government, but he asked, ‘‘Is this all that the Germans are after? Judging

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by a number of factors, they are seriously considering an imminent con-

frontation with us, an invasion of the USSR, even during the war with

England.’’ Judging by this comment, Dekanozov appears to have broken

ranks with the Stalinist position that Germany would never attack the

Soviet Union until England was defeated.

Dekanozov then demonstrated that he followed intelligence matters

closely by discussing the cases of ‘‘K’’ and ‘‘S’’ (Korsikanets and Starshina).

He reported a conversation with their case officer (this would have been

Aleksandr M. Korotkov), who had persuaded him that they were devoted

to the Soviet cause. If their reports on the imminence of a military conflict

were believable, Dekanozov commented, ‘‘should we not, based on this,

envisage special tasks for them in the event contact is lost?’’ He suggested

that the NKGB residency provide better guidance to Moscow as to the

importance or value of individual reports. It is hard to imagine how Mo-

lotov received these comments, knowing that Stalin held these sources in

contempt precisely because they were predicting a German invasion.17

On June 4, 1941, Dekanozov told Molotov that beginning in early May

several new elements had been observed in the German press and in public

opinion. Parallel to the rumors of the imminence of war between Germany

and the USSR, other rumors were being quoted of a rapprochement, on

the basis of either extensive concessions to Germany by the USSR or a

division of ‘‘spheres of influence.’’ Dekanozov quoted a number of news-

papers in Germany and countries under German control. Singling out the

rumors about German ‘‘leasing of the Ukraine,’’ he asked, ‘‘What’s this

about? Why are the Germans spreading such rumors about the position of

the Soviet Union?’’ Dekanozov’s answer was that the Germans wished to

picture Soviet policy in a distorted form. In this way, Dekanozov claimed,

the Germans ‘‘are continuing to prepare the ideological (and actual) prepa-

ration for war against the USSR.’’18

On June 13 Dekanozov sent Molotov a telegram laying out the latest

views of the officers of the Soviet mission in Berlin on the growth of Ger-

man military strength in the Soviet border area. He began by suggesting

that responsibility for carrying on Germany’s war against England in Af-

rica would be given to Germany’s ‘‘vassals,’’ France and Italy, thereby pre-

serving its forces in Europe. He described the efforts of the mission to

observe German troop movements to the east by rail since the end of April.

There were at least 140–150 divisions on the Soviet Union’s western fron-

tiers, he contended, with another 30–40 divisions between the border of

the Government General and Berlin. He concluded by presenting the ob-

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servations noted between 7:00 p.m. on June 12 and 7:00 a.m. on June 13

along major rail routes. Trains moving east were loaded with troops and

equipment, and no troop trains were seen returning from east to west.

Dekanozov’s telegram reflected the combined efforts of the mission, the

RU, the NKGB, and the embassy and trade delegation officers, but there is

no indication if Molotov gave it further distribution.19

On June 15 Dekanozov followed up on his earlier messages ‘‘on the

concentration of German troops on the Soviet frontier’’ by citing state-

ments from foreign military attachés that confirmed these reports. The

Danish and Swedish attachés stated that there were more than one hun-

dred divisions along the Soviet frontier and that the movement of troops

was continuing without interruption. Some still believed these troop de-

ployments were to put pressure on the Soviet Union, but the Swedish

attaché had no doubt that they were serious preparations for war with the

USSR. Foreign observers also pointed to the movement of German troops

and material into Finland.20 Certainly this report and the others from De-

kanozov indicating the imminence of war with Germany would have been

enough to prompt Beria to write the letter he did to Stalin calling for

Dekanozov’s recall and punishment.

The last message from Dekanozov came on June 21, the day before the

invasion. A portion reads as follows: ‘‘Before dinner, I declared to Comrade

I. F. Filippov, TASS correspondent and embassy worker, that there was no

reason for alarm and panic; we cannot give our enemies cause for action

and we must distinguish between truth and propaganda. Neither Ribben-

trop nor his closest associates are in Berlin, where we have marvelous

summer weather. The NKVD representative, Akhmedov, received a report

from a source that states that allegedly tomorrow, Sunday the twenty-

second, Germany will invade the USSR. I told him and his chief, B. Kobu-

lov, not to pay any attention to this sort of false report and advised them to

go off on a picnic tomorrow.’’

If this message is genuine, there are several things wrong with it. First,

the tone is completely unlike that of the messages Dekanozov had been

sending to Molotov over the past two months. Next, Dekanozov would

have known that Filippov was an NKGB officer and contact for the source

Litseist, a double agent under Gestapo control. He would not have said

that he was a TASS employee. He also would have known that Akhmedov

was a member of the RU residency and not the NKVD or the NKGB.

Finally, Dekanozov would also have known very well that Akhmedov’s boss

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(had Akhmedov actually been NKGB rather than RU) would have been not

B. Kobulov but A. Kobulov. Thus, the errors must have been deliberate.

Perhaps Dekanozov could not encipher this message and had to send it

in the clear, knowing that the recipients in Moscow would focus on the

June 22 date and not worry about the errors, which were probably put

there to confuse the Germans.21

In addition to Dekanozov’s messages from Berlin, the Information

Department of the RU issued intelligence summaries once per month be-

tween July 1940 and June 1941. These were compiled and signed by the

chief of the department and then approved by the chief of the RU, Filipp I.

Golikov. The summaries were disseminated to all members of the Polit-

buro, the Defense Commissar, the general staff, the central military estab-

lishment, the staffs of military districts, and troop units, down to the staffs

of corps. The department also issued various reference books, manuals,

and reports on the military-economic potential of individual countries and

the possible scale of deployment of their armies, or ‘‘mobilization memo-

randa. Finally, there were special reports classified top secret (
sovershenno