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).