29. Fesiun, Delo Rikharda Zorge, 111. On Dec. 27, 1940, at a meeting of the high command, Raeder once again insisted on concentrating all forces against Britain, the main enemy, and “expressed the most serious doubts in the possibility of a war against Russia before England was destroyed.” Trial of the Major War Criminals, XXXIV: 714.
30. Golikov circulated this message to List no. 1. Gavrilov, Voennaia razvedka informiruet, 527 (TsAMO, f. 23, op. 24119, d. 3, l. 6–7); Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbarossy,” 449–50 (facsimile). In early 1941, the NKVD, military intelligence, and naval intelligence were ordered to submit their reports to the ambassador, who would coordinate them and inhibit rivalries. Neither the coordination nor the tamping down of rivalries happened.
31. SD chief of counterintelligence Schellenberger was not officially informed of Barbarossa until late Jan. 1941. Senior German field commanders would only be told that the deployments were a precaution against Soviet massing of forces. Both the high command and the foreign ministry would issue documents with false information. Hitler would oversee three major war conferences between Jan. and March 1941, the first two in Berchtesgaden, the third in Berlin. Warlimont, who had had a hand in drawing up Barbarossa, claims that on Jan. 18, at the Berchtesgaden, he had to ask General Jodl, the principal military adviser in Hitler’s entourage, whether Barbarossa was even still on. Jodl replied affirmatively, adding, “The Russian colossus will prove to be a pig’s bladder; prick it and it will burst.” Warlimont, Inside Hitler’s Headquarters, 140. See also Whaley, Codeword, 133. By the March 30 conference, 250 commanders were in the know. The Wehrmacht had 320,000 officers, including at least 3,000 generals.
32. Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbarossy,” 275–6; Lota, Sekretnyi front, 42. Tupikov arrived in Berlin on Jan. 8. His appointment reflected the recent report out of Berlin on Dec. 29 (and its follow-up on Jan. 4) about a supersecret war directive against the Soviet Union signed by Hitler. Before Tupikov, Maxim Purkayev (“Marble”), a village-born (1894) ethnic Mordvin on his first assignment abroad, had been in over his head, a circumstance Hitler himself had noticed at their initial meeting (Sept. 1939). On Feb. 14, 1940, German military counterintelligence had made an effort to compromise Purkayev to get him to work for them. He was replaced in Berlin by his deputy for aviation, Skornyakov, until Tupikov’s arrival. Lota, “Alta protiv “Barbarossy,” 210–25; Na prieme, 292–3.
33. Sipols, Tainy, 395.
34. Erickson, Road to Stalingrad, 1–9; Erickson, “Threat Identification,” 375–423. The immediate pre-Pact war plan, drawn up by Shaposhnikov in March 1938 and approved in Nov. of that year, had assumed a combined German-Polish assault, with Minsk-Smolensk-Moscow as the main axis, although a variant assumed a less likely thrust farther south, toward Kiev. Naumov, 1941 god, II: 557–71; Zakharov, General ‘nyi Shtab, 1.
35. An Aug. 1940 revised war plan under Shaposhnikov’s supervision, authored by Vasilevsky, who had become deputy chief of the operations department in April 1940, had anticipated that a German attack would most likely come north of the Pripet. It did not rule out enemy targeting of Ukraine (the southern axis), but proposed concentrating 70 percent of the 237 Red Army divisions on the Western frontiers north of the Pripet. Shaposhnikov dutifully wrote of “inflicting defeat on German forces” on their own soil (East Prussia and the Warsaw region), yet indicated that the Red Army would not finish mobilization until thirty days in. He implied that only surpassing intelligence on Germany and prewar covert Soviet mobilization could enable the Red Army to halt a deep German penetration that would preempt any Soviet counterattack and push the fighting entirely onto Soviet territory. Naumov, 1941 god, I: 181–93; Mikhalev, Voennaia strategiia, 309–11; Alt, “Die Wehrmacht im Kalkül Stalins,” 107–9. Shaposhnikov was removed before the plan was approved; an update (again authored by Vasilevsky) was submitted by Timoshenko and Meretskov on Sept. 18, 1940. Stalin evidently rejected their supposition, carried over from the previous plan, that the main German thrust would be north of the Pripet, insisting instead that the main German strike would occur to the south, because “Ukrainian grain and Donbass coal have special importance for the Germans.” Stalin had the politburo approve this plan on Oct. 14, 1940. Naumov, 1941 god, I: 236–53; Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediia, II/1: 132–5 (citing TsAMO, f. 16, op. 2951, d. 242, l. 84–90); Roberts, “Planning for War,” 1315–6 (citing TsAMO, f. 16. op. 2951, d. 239, l. 197–244); excerpts published in Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, 1992, no. 1: 24–8; Vasilevskii, Delo vsei zhizni, 102–5. Zakharov unpersuasively attempts to blame Meretskov and not Stalin for the shift toward the southern axis. Zakharov, General’nyi shtab, 219–25. Vasilevsky would recall that Georgy Anisimov had twice in 1940 brought the top secret operational plan (in its only copy) to the Little Corner for discussion. Both times, according to Vasilevsky, the plan was returned without any markings, changes, or an official stamp. The staff officers of the Leningrad, Baltic, Western, and Kiev military districts in the second half of 1940 and first half of 1941 were summoned to Moscow to work on the detailed operational plans for their theaters. Murin, “Nakanune,” 8–9 (memoirs of Vasilevsky).
36. Roberts, “Planning for War,” 1313–4 (citing RGVA, f. 37977, op. 5, d. 563, 564, 565, 568, 569, 570, 577); Bobylev, “Repetitsiia katastrofy”; Bobylev, “K kakoi voine gotovilsia General’nyi shtab RKKA,”; Bobylev, “Tochky v diskussii stavit’ rano,”; Menning, “Soviet Strategy,” I: 224–5.
37. Zhukov was named chief of staff on Jan. 14, 1941. The day before, Stalin and the Main Military Council heard the results of the war games. Meretskov gave the main report, but the date had been moved up a day and the written materials had not been finished, so he extemporized, badly. Stalin rebuked him. Kulik held forth about infantry divisions of 18,000 troops supported only by horses, ignoring mechanization, which infuriated Stalin still more. Shaposhnikov, one witness recalled, “sat there gloomily, glancing from time to time at the people next to him or toward the members of the politburo.” “Nakanune voiny: iz postanovlenii vysshikh partiinykh i gosudarstvennykh organov (Mai 1940 g.—21 Iiunia 1941 g.),” 197–8; Bialer, Stalin and His Generals, 141–5 (M. I. Kazakov), 146–51 (A. I. Eremenko). On Jan. 23 at the Bolshoi, Stalin, spotting Meretskov, said to him in front of others, “You are courageous, capable, but without principles, spineless. You want to be nice, but you should have a plan instead and adhere to it strictly, despite the fact that someone or other is going to be resentful.” Stalin also said: “Voroshilov is a fine fellow, but he is no military man.” Banac, Diary of Georgi Dimitrov, 145.