equipment, nothing. He hurried off to army headquarters on Frunze Street and told Malenkov he would telephone him as soon as he had a staff put together. 10
At that time, or so Admiral Kuznetsov believes, Stalin must have decided to put Soviet armed forces on a state of combat alert and to order them, in case of need, to oppose a German attack by force.
Such a decision by Stalin, Kuznetsov concluded, would explain the pile of telegraph blanks which he saw in front of Timoshenko and Zhukov when he was summoned to the Defense Commissariat at 11 P.M. Saturday evening. They had been working for hours at Stalin’s instructions, Kuznetsov believed, drafting orders to put the commands on the alert. These orders were not actually dispatched until about 12:30 A.M. on the twenty-second. So the possibility exists that whatever instructions Stalin may have given at the Politburo meeting were contingent on developments in the course of the evening, such as a possible talk with Ribbentrop. 11
One more action was taken. Special representatives of the High Command were dispatched to border military districts and to the fleets to warn them of the dangers and instruct them to put their units on combat alert.
It was this mission which put General Meretskov on the Red Arrow to Leningrad Saturday night. But since the High Command’s emissaries were sent by railroad trains which would not arrive at the command points before some hour on Sunday (and in some cases not before Monday) 12 it would hardly seem that the Kremlin was convinced that German attack was only hours away.
Indeed, the texts of the warnings which Timoshenko and Zhukov sent out (many of which arrived hours after the German attack) were only cautionary. They instructed the units to be alert, but they prohibited forward reconnaissance into enemy territory. And they warned sternly against provocations.
A serious question arose in Admiral Kuznetsov’s mind that Saturday night.
“I could not throw off some grievous thoughts,” he recalled. “When had the Defense Commissar [Timoshenko] learned of the possible attack of the Hitlerites? What time had he been ordered to put the forces on combat alert? Why had not the government [Stalin] instead of the Defense Commissar given me the order putting the fleet on combat alert? And why was it all semiofficial and so very, very late?”
Twenty-five years later the Admiral’s questions still awaited a full answer.
----
1 Khozyain is the old Russian word for “master” or “landlord.” This is what serfs called their owner. It was customary for bureaucrats to use this term in referring to Stalin.
2 Dekanozov, for many years an official of the Soviet Security Service and close associate of Lavrenti P. Beria, Soviet security chief, was named Soviet Ambassador in Berlin after accompanying Molotov to Berlin for the conference with Hitler and Ribbentrop in November, 1940. Dekanozov was executed with Beria on December 23, 1953.
3 The figure of 152 violations of the Soviet air frontier from January 1, 1941, to the beginning of the war is given in the official Soviet military history. (P. N. Pospelov, Istoriya Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny Sovetskogo Soyuza, 1941–1945 , Moscow, 1961, Vol. I, p. 479.) The Ukrainian and Byelorussian commands reported 324 overflights from January 1 to June 20, 1941. (V. V. Platonov, Eto Bylo Na Buge, Moscow, 1966, quoting Krasnaya Zvezda , April 14, 1965.)
4 According to Izmail Akhmedov, a Soviet security agent assigned to the Berlin Embassy in May, Dekanozov got a report from an agent on Saturday naming the next day, Sunday, as the time of attack but told his staff to forget it and go on a picnic Sunday. (David Dallin, Soviet Espionage , New Haven, 1955, p. 134.)
5 Berezhkov omits any mention of Dekanozov’s name or of the Dekanozov-Weizsäcker meeting. Because of his execution in 1953 Dekanozov apparently has become an unperson.
6 His most recent warning had been on Wednesday, June 18.
7
At that time, or so Admiral Kuznetsov believes, Stalin must have decided to put Soviet armed forces on a state of combat alert and to order them, in case of need, to oppose a German attack by force.
Such a decision by Stalin, Kuznetsov concluded, would explain the pile of telegraph blanks which he saw in front of Timoshenko and Zhukov when he was summoned to the Defense Commissariat at 11 P.M. Saturday evening. They had been working for hours at Stalin’s instructions, Kuznetsov believed, drafting orders to put the commands on the alert. These orders were not actually dispatched until about 12:30 A.M. on the twenty-second. So the possibility exists that whatever instructions Stalin may have given at the Politburo meeting were contingent on developments in the course of the evening, such as a possible talk with Ribbentrop. 11
One more action was taken. Special representatives of the High Command were dispatched to border military districts and to the fleets to warn them of the dangers and instruct them to put their units on combat alert.
It was this mission which put General Meretskov on the Red Arrow to Leningrad Saturday night. But since the High Command’s emissaries were sent by railroad trains which would not arrive at the command points before some hour on Sunday (and in some cases not before Monday) 12 it would hardly seem that the Kremlin was convinced that German attack was only hours away.
Indeed, the texts of the warnings which Timoshenko and Zhukov sent out (many of which arrived hours after the German attack) were only cautionary. They instructed the units to be alert, but they prohibited forward reconnaissance into enemy territory. And they warned sternly against provocations.
A serious question arose in Admiral Kuznetsov’s mind that Saturday night.
“I could not throw off some grievous thoughts,” he recalled. “When had the Defense Commissar [Timoshenko] learned of the possible attack of the Hitlerites? What time had he been ordered to put the forces on combat alert? Why had not the government [Stalin] instead of the Defense Commissar given me the order putting the fleet on combat alert? And why was it all semiofficial and so very, very late?”
Twenty-five years later the Admiral’s questions still awaited a full answer.
----
1 Khozyain is the old Russian word for “master” or “landlord.” This is what serfs called their owner. It was customary for bureaucrats to use this term in referring to Stalin.
2 Dekanozov, for many years an official of the Soviet Security Service and close associate of Lavrenti P. Beria, Soviet security chief, was named Soviet Ambassador in Berlin after accompanying Molotov to Berlin for the conference with Hitler and Ribbentrop in November, 1940. Dekanozov was executed with Beria on December 23, 1953.
3 The figure of 152 violations of the Soviet air frontier from January 1, 1941, to the beginning of the war is given in the official Soviet military history. (P. N. Pospelov, Istoriya Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny Sovetskogo Soyuza, 1941–1945 , Moscow, 1961, Vol. I, p. 479.) The Ukrainian and Byelorussian commands reported 324 overflights from January 1 to June 20, 1941. (V. V. Platonov, Eto Bylo Na Buge, Moscow, 1966, quoting Krasnaya Zvezda , April 14, 1965.)
4 According to Izmail Akhmedov, a Soviet security agent assigned to the Berlin Embassy in May, Dekanozov got a report from an agent on Saturday naming the next day, Sunday, as the time of attack but told his staff to forget it and go on a picnic Sunday. (David Dallin, Soviet Espionage , New Haven, 1955, p. 134.)
5 Berezhkov omits any mention of Dekanozov’s name or of the Dekanozov-Weizsäcker meeting. Because of his execution in 1953 Dekanozov apparently has become an unperson.
6 His most recent warning had been on Wednesday, June 18.
7
Similar Books
