What Stalin Knew (39 page)

has been decided. It is necessary to reckon with a surprise attack. It is not

known whether Germany will make some demands on the USSR before-

hand.’’ On June 16 Starshina reported that ‘‘all preparations by Germany

for an armed attack on the Soviet Union have been completed, and the

blow can be expected at any time.’’ There was no mention of an ultimatum

in his report.16

Still, Stalin appeared desperate to enter into negotiations—anything to

delay an attack. If negotiations had to be preceded by an ultimatum, so be

it. While the German deception machine was feverishly spreading word of

negotiations, however, it continued to rebuff all efforts by the Soviet gov-

ernment to open a dialogue on an official basis. This silence in the face of

rumors that negotiations were under way frustrated the Soviet leadership

and contributed to their paralysis of will.

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The Soviets were not without their own deception operation, of course.

Although, according to Barton Whaley, the Germans were the first to in-

stitutionalize deception when they created a disinformation service in the

German army shortly before the end of World War I, the new Soviet govern-

ment was not far behind. On January 11, 1923, a Special Bureau for Disin-

formation was created within the State Political Directorate (GPU), its task

to ‘‘break up the counterrevolutionary plans and schemes of the enemy.’’17

Aimed at domestic opponents as well as those abroad, it created notional

opposition organizations that identified and neutralized anti-Soviet ele-

ments within Soviet Russia and their links with Western intelligence ser-

vices and émigré organizations. These operations, or ‘‘active measures,’’ as

they were known to the Soviet services, continued through the 1920s and

1930s. One such operation was apparently directed at Germany in the

period before the German invasion of June 1941.

In early 1941, August Ponschab, the German consul in Harbin, began

forwarding messages to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin containing what

appeared to be German translations of circular telegrams sent from the

Foreign Affairs Commissariat in Moscow to its diplomatic missions in the

Far East. These telegrams included portions of messages from Soviet em-

bassies in Berlin, London, Paris, Washington, Ankara, and so forth. The

ostensible purpose of the telegrams seems to have been to keep Far East-

ern missions abreast of events affecting Soviet interests elsewhere in the

world.18 When these messages arrived in Berlin, they were placed in the

Russian section of the personal file of Ernst von Weizsäcker, state secretary

in the German Foreign Ministry. There were no marginal notes on the

messages, nor was there any indication that their content had any effect

on Hitler’s plans to invade the USSR or on the Germans’ own deception

program.19

Overall, the intent of the messages seems to have been to warn Ger-

many of the growing problems confronting it, while at the same time

making clear that the USSR would ‘‘resist’’ any ‘‘intimidation’’ by Germany

or Japan. We do not know how this operation was carried out, what NKGB

elements controlled it in Moscow, who actually prepared their detailed and

lengthy telegrams, and how these were cleared by Molotov or Stalin. In any

event, there is no indication the effort had the slightest impact on Hitler’s

determination to invade the Soviet Union.20

Parallel to these messages, the final acts of German deception were

being played out in Berlin with the initiation of unofficial secret talks

between Vladimir G. Dekanozov, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin, and

GERMAN DECEPTION

179

Otto Meissner, a longtime Russian specialist in the German Foreign Minis-

try. On the Soviet side, these negotiations, which covered many of the

questions raised in the Ponschab telegrams, reflected the hope that se-

rious, official talks would ensue. For Hitler, they served only to keep Mos-

cow’s hopes for delay alive until German forces had completed their move

into attack positions. Nothing concerning these secret talks between De-

kanozov and Meissner has ever appeared in official Foreign Affairs Com-

missariat communications or in foreign policy archives (AVP). The major

source of information on them is the memoirs of Valentin Berezhkov, a

Soviet diplomat who served in Berlin under Dekanozov. As the Dekanozov-

Meissner talks broke off, a Ponschab message referred, in one of the last

attempts at deception, to the temporary closing of the Siberian railroad.

Perhaps the threat was intended to persuade Berlin to renew the talks.

There was never any hope of that. Hitler had made up his mind.21

Soviet intelligence dissemination practices may have inadvertently

contributed to the success of the German deception program. Both De-

fense Commissar Timoshenko and Chief of the General Staff Zhukov com-

plained that they were not shown all the available intelligence.22 An exam-

ination of intelligence reports and summaries between February 1, 1941—

and June 22, 1941, reveals that both men received more than has been

generally known but that indeed they were not given all the information

they should have been. The problem was the chaotic dissemination sys-

tem. Timoshenko and Zhukov received sixteen reports as joint addressees.

As defense commissar, Timoshenko received ten reports while Zhukov was

the sole addressee on only two reports.23

Another collection of reports derived from border troop units. Of thir-

teen such reports, Zhukov was included as an addressee on only one, Timo-

shenko on seven. Beria sent one of these reports, on the apprehension of

German agents by border troops, only to Stalin. Given the counterintelli-

gence nature of the report, a limited distribution might have made sense.

Another report, however, also signed by Beria and sent only to Stalin,

contained details on the concentration of German and Hungarian troops

and air units on the Soviet frontier during May 1941. Certainly this infor-

mation would have interested Timoshenko and Zhukov. Stalin insisted on

reading individual agent reports sent to his office, dismissing them as

disinformation if they were at variance with his views.24

There was only one place in the Soviet intelligence world where anal-

ysis was supposed to be undertaken, and that was the Information Depart-

ment of Soviet military intelligence. That department was controlled by

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Golikov, who had demonstrated that he would accept Stalin’s direction

without question. Every report arriving at RU headquarters in Moscow

from a field residency source had to be passed on by him before it could be

disseminated—and only then as he directed. Two instances illustrate the

problem. First, a report from a source in the German embassy in Bucha-

rest ended with the comment that ‘‘a German move to the east in the near

future is excluded’’; rumors that Germany would attack the USSR ‘‘are

being spread deliberately with a view to causing uncertainty in Moscow.’’

Golikov ordered the report distributed to Stalin, Molotov, Timoshenko,

Voroshilov, Dimitrov, Beria, and Zhukov.25 By contrast, a May 6 report

from Richard Sorge contained this paragraph: ‘‘German generals evaluate

the combat readiness of the Red Army so low that they estimate the Red

Army will be destroyed in the course of a few weeks. They believe the

defense system on the Soviet-German border is extraordinarily weak.’’ Go-

likov ordered this paragraph excised before distribution of the report.26

Whereas neither Timoshenko nor Zhukov was on the distribution list

of every report produced by Military Intelligence, State Security, or the

border troops, Golikov made sure they received each of his special sum-

maries. Here Golikov persisted in repeating the German deception theme

that an invasion of England was Hitler’s primary objective. The penulti-

mate paragraph of the May 31, 1941, summary read: ‘‘The German com-

mand has rather quickly restored its main dispositions in the west, con-

tinuing concurrently its movement of troops to Norway, . . . having in view

the execution of the main operation against the English Isles.’’27

Some historians believe that Stalin readily accepted German decep-

tion and refused to heed his own intelligence warnings because of his own

secret plans for a preventive war against Germany. Naturally, these plans

and preparations had to be concealed from the Germans lest they dis-

rupt them. This is why he found so attractive the German insistence in

its deception program on defeating England before turning east and why

he rejected the advice of those who wished to respond forcefully to the

threatening German army buildup, the constant reconnaissance flights,

and so forth.

The idea that Stalin intended to attack Germany in July 1941 is put

forward by Viktor Suvorov in his book
Ledokol: Kto nachal vtoruiu voinu?

(
Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?
).28 Suvorov claims that

Stalin failed because Hitler got wind of the plan and launched Operation

Barbarossa, a preemptive strike. This thesis started a controversy that

continues, but most historians in Russia and abroad reject it as unsup-

GERMAN DECEPTION

181

ported by evidence, while there is overwhelming archival and other data

demonstrating that the Red Army was incapable of mounting an offensive

of the magnitude required. Nevertheless, some historians have defended

the idea. Those who do so in Germany, for example, see in it grounds for

supporting the view that Hitler’s Barbarossa was simply his reaction to

Stalin’s own plans.

Understandably, it has been in Russia that
Icebreaker
has had the

greatest impact. For many Russians the theory permits them to retain

their faith in Stalin, answering as it does, or at least appears to, the ques-

tion of how Stalin could have trusted Hitler.
Icebreaker
argues that he

didn’t trust him but, on the contrary, was preparing to do him in on a

schedule of his own choosing. For others, victims of Stalin’s terror,
Ice-

breaker
confirms their view that Stalin was intent on spreading commu-

nism throughout Europe.29

Mikhail I. Meltiukhov proposes that Stalin planned to attack German

forces in Poland and East Prussia in mid-June 1941. Another historian,

Boris Shaptalov, repeats the Suvorov theme that Stalin was completely

taken in by German deception that Hitler would never fight a two-front

war.30 Stalin was undoubtedly deceived by the Germans, whether or not he

ever intended to strike them first. Thus, those who advance the thesis of

Icebreaker
as a way of absolving Stalin from responsibility for the debacle

of June 1941 must also concede that he was totally fooled by German

disinformation.

Double agents and a dupe like Amaiak Z. Kobulov abetted Germany’s

designs. Appointed NKVD/GUGB resident in Berlin on August 26, 1939,

Kobulov had never served abroad, spoke no German, and lacked any expe-

rience in intelligence operations. But note the date of his appointment—it

was only three days after the signing of the Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact

and four days before the German invasion of Poland; in this critical period,

Stalin and Beria wanted to have a man in Berlin whom they could trust

completely. His fitness for the job was of little concern. Naturally, the pro-

fessionals in the German Section of Foreign Intelligence in Moscow ob-

jected, but since Fitin had been in charge of the department only since May

1939 and was still proving himself, there was little chance of stopping the

appointment.

Over the next year, the Gestapo had ample time to study Amaiak Kobu-

lov, to surveil his daily routine as he moved from his residence to his office

in the Soviet embassy complex on Unter den Linden, and to note the con-

tacts he made in diplomatic and press circles. He kept a high profile (he

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GERMAN DECEPTION

was promoted from secretary to counselor) and there is little doubt that

the Gestapo knew precisely who he was. As a resident he was fairly ineffec-

tual, but recalled to Moscow in June 1940 for a review of his work, he

rejected all criticism, apparently feeling that he had sufficient protection

from his brother, Bogdan, and from Beria to do as he pleased. Neverthe-

less, he was urged to try to develop new agent sources.

It came as something of a surprise, then, when in early August 1940

NKVD Moscow received an urgent message from him describing a meet-

ing he and a TASS correspondent had with a young Latvian journalist,

Oreste Berlinks. The TASS correspondent was I. F. Filippov (code name