‘Not so long ago these guys were sleeping with their boots on, and now they’re getting ready to go off on leave! Why? The TASS announcement!’(3)
Soviet military archives clearly demonstrate that the commanders of the respective military districts bordering the frontier were aware of the German build-up. Reports from troops stationed on the border were giving clear indications of an impending German attack. Although mobilisations of interior districts were producing a partial deployment toward the western frontier, no concrete measures were ordered by the Soviet General Staff to raise readiness postures on the border itself. Indeed, where measures were taken on the initiative of individual staffs, they were ordered to be reversed.(4)
The background to this bizarre response is explained by Dimitrij Wolkogonow, then serving as a lieutenant, but later to become a general and historian. Stalin thought the war would occur much later than was to be the case. In discussion with his closest advisors 20 days previously he announced that ‘evaluation of intelligence suggests we cannot avoid war. It will probably begin early next year.’ Soviet perception, Wolkogonow feels, was moulded by Stalin’s view.
‘Stalin was like God on earth. He alone said, “the war will not happen now.” It was his isolated belief, and he wanted to believe it. And what is particularly important is that he was totally clear in his own mind that the Red Army was unprepared for war.’
Some 85% of Soviet officers serving in the Western Military District had only been in their appointment for a year; a direct consequence of the bloody purges of 1937–38 which had all but obliterated the officer corps. Stalin’s view prevailed. Nobody would dare question it. Wolkogonow commented:
‘It is likely that Stalin’s deception over the outbreak of war was directly related to the earlier suppression of information he did not want to hear. What should not happen was therefore unlikely to occur.’(5)
Logical developments, however, continued their inexorable course. On 20 June Kuznetsov, the commander of the Third Army in the Western Special Military District opposite the German Army Group Centre, reported the Germans had cleared the barbed wire on their side of the frontier north-east of Augustovy, near one of the border crossings. The forested area of the Suwalki region had been particularly tense, suited as it was for the passage of agents moving in both directions. German reconnaissance had been active in this area, producing detailed overviews of tracks, the road network, the state of bridges, Soviet defence positions and field landing strips for aircraft. The removal of the wire was clearly an indication of impending attack.
Similar suspicious activity had been identified on the border of the Kiev Military District. Nikolai Kirillovich Popel, the Chief Political Officer of the VIIIth Mechanised Corps, attending the usual Saturday evening entertainment in the Red Army Garrison House, was not enjoying the party. He was totally preoccupied with distracting and disturbing developments. ‘What’s happening now on the opposite bank of the San river?’ he constantly asked himself.
‘No, it wasn’t a premonition. How many times afterwards did I hear of that night “my heart told me” or “my mind felt it”? Neither my heart nor my mind told me anything. It was just that I – like many of the senior officers in the frontier formations – knew more facts than I could explain.’
The commander of the Sixth Army, Lt-Gen Muzychenko, decided to split up a running artillery competition. Only one regiment was allowed on the range at the same time. Infantry were also surreptitiously moved from barracks to fortified areas. The VIIIth Mechanised Corps was placed on high alert at dawn on 22 June by the Twenty-sixth Army commander, Lt-Gen Kostenko. The corps commander, Lt-Gen D. I. Ryabishev, was informed to ‘get ready and wait for orders’. He confided to Popov, his political officer, ‘I don’t know what this means, but anyway I’ve given the order to stand to, and commanded the units to go out to their areas.’ Staff officers alerted by the call-out appeared at headquarters to man their desks. They carried ‘alarm-cases’, so called by families, holding two changes of underwear, shaving gear and a small stock of food; the minimum necessary to go off to war without returning home. Popov noticed:
‘The staff officers were grumbling. Really, what can be more unpleasant than an alarm on the eve of Sunday. The day is spoiled, the plans which the family has been making all week are broken. How could they not grumble!’
Popov was concerned. ‘Our corps was not ready to fight.’ They were in the process of regrouping. Newer KV and T-34 tanks were still arriving to replace obsolete T-26, T-28 and T-35 tanks. Some had arrived that week. The new arrivals lacked repair equipments and spare parts. ‘How could our minds reconcile themselves to beginning a war in such unfavourable conditions?’ Popov opined.(6)
Back in Brest, the weather conditions were idyllic. Colonel Starinov declared:
‘On the warm evening of 21 June 1941, the staff officers of the Fourth Army, which was covering the approaches to Brest, were following a typical Saturday routine.’
Starinov’s exercise had been cancelled, so ‘we wandered around the picturesque town for a long time’. Georgij Karbuk, also in Brest that night, described how:
‘On Saturday, the day before the war, we met with friends in the park. It was about ten or ten-thirty in the evening. Many people were in the park. In fact, it was the only place where you could get together. Orchestras and brass bands played, people danced, and we were happy. It was lovely and pleasant.’
But lurking beneath this carnival atmosphere ‘was a certain tension within the town’. Like the anxiety prevalent along the frontier, a paradoxical feeling of pending unpleasantness was incongruously juxtaposed with glorious weather. Karbuk noticed as the evening wore on that:
‘Groups of men in uniform began to surface. They all seemed alike, and attentive. They entered the park. We stayed at the entrance, and everything carried on with the bands playing. Just as we were leaving the park, within five to ten minutes, the electric lights suddenly went out. That had never happened before. We continued on further to Pushkin street, about half a kilometre away, and the lights went out there, too. Only a few lights remained now in the street, where at the cross roads there were a few groups. Later we discovered this had been caused by infiltrating German saboteurs.’(7)
Nothing further happened. Karbuk returned home and went to sleep. Meanwhile, to the north in the Third Army area there was a sudden and wild outbreak of shooting in the darkness. Tension, which had already been high in this forested border region, now manifested itself in gunfire, as German ‘Brandenburger’ soldiers from ZbV 800 dressed in Russian uniforms clashed with Soviet outposts they were attempting to infiltrate.(8)
Colonel Nikolai Yeryomin, a staff officer in the 41st Rifle Division, was awoken at 02.00 hours on Sunday, 22 June. He was concerned as he hurried from his small house in the camp. ‘Ever since I had been stationed here, near Lvov,’ he declared, ‘this was the first time the frontier guards had called me out at night.’ The summons appeared serious. Picking up the telephone, he heard a worried voice:
‘Comrade Colonel, this is the commandant of the Lyubycha-Krulevkaya sector speaking. All along the state boundary the posts of my sector are reporting unusual behaviour by the Germans. Troops and armour movement can be heard on their side. Our listening posts have discovered that infantry has been massing since dusk. We’ve never had such a situation and I decided to report to you. Will there be any instructions?’(9)