Least of all Stalin and Beria
The question in the title of this article has been debated for decades, but to this day there is no honest, accurate and complete answer. However, for many people it is obvious: of course, the main responsibility for the tragic start of the Great Patriotic War is borne by Joseph Vissarionovich and Lavrenty Pavlovich. However, below are the facts, without taking into account which, in my deep conviction, an objective analysis of the then situation is impossible.
I will start with the memoirs of the former commander of Long-Range Aviation, Chief Marshal of Aviation AE Golovanov (the title, by the way, directly repeats the title of one of the sections of the book). He writes that in June 1941, commanding a separate 212nd long-range bomber regiment subordinate directly to Moscow, he arrived from Smolensk to Minsk to present to the commander of the Air Force of the Western Special Military District, I. I. During a conversation with Golovanov, Pavlov contacted Stalin via HF. And he began to ask the general questions, to which the commander of the district answered the following: “No, Comrade Stalin, this is not true! I have just returned from the defensive lines. There is no concentration of German troops on the border, and my scouts are working well. I'll check it again, but I think it's just a provocation …"
At the end of the conversation, Pavlov threw Golovanov: “The owner is not in the spirit. Some bastard is trying to prove to him that the Germans are concentrating troops on our border."
Alarm messages
Today it is not possible to establish exactly who this "bastard" was, but there is every reason to believe that the USSR's People's Commissar of Internal Affairs LP Beria was meant. And that's why … On February 3, 1941, by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, a separate People's Commissariat of State Security was allocated from the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, headed by Vsevolod Merkulov. On the same day, Beria was appointed deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, leaving as head of the NKVD. But now he was not in charge of foreign intelligence, since the NKGB was in charge of it. At the same time, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs was still subordinate to the Border Troops, which had their own intelligence. Her agents did not include the "cream of society", but she was helped by simple train drivers, lubricants, switchmen, modest villagers and residents of near-Cordon towns …
They collected information like ants, and it, concentrated together, gave the most objective picture of what was happening. The result of the work of this "ant intelligence" was reflected in Beria's notes to Stalin, three of which are given below in extracts from the 1995 collection "Hitler's Secrets on Stalin's Desk", published jointly by the FSB of the Russian Federation, the SVR of the Russian Federation and the Moscow City Association of Archives. Bold text is mine everywhere.
So … The first note was immediately addressed to Stalin, Molotov and the People's Commissar of Defense Tymoshenko:
«No. 1196./B April 21, 1941
Top secret
From April 1 to April 19, 1941, border detachments of the NKVD of the USSR on the Soviet-German border obtained the following data on the arrival of German troops at points adjacent to the state border in East Prussia and the General Government.
To the border strip of Klaipeda region:
Two infantry divisions arrived, an infantry regiment, a cavalry squadron, an artillery battalion, a tank battalion and a scooter company.
To Suwalki-Lykk area:
Arrived up to two mechanized mechanized divisions, four infantry and two cavalry regiments, a tank and engineer battalions.
To the area of Myshinets-Ostrolenka:
Up to four infantry and one artillery regiments, a tank battalion and a motorcyclist battalion arrived.
To the area Ostrov-Mazovetskiy - Malkinya-Gurna:
One infantry and one cavalry regiment arrived, up to two artillery divisions and a company of tanks.
To the region of Biala Podlaska:
One infantry regiment, two sapper battalions, a cavalry squadron, a company of scooters and an artillery battery arrived.
To the Vlodaa-Otkhovok area:
Up to three infantry, one cavalry and two artillery regiments arrived.
To the area of Kholm:
Arrived up to three infantry, four artillery and one motorized regiments, a cavalry regiment and a sapper battalion. More than five hundred vehicles are also concentrated there.
To the Hrubieszow district:
Up to four infantry, one artillery and one motorized regiments and a cavalry squadron arrived.
To Tomaszow district:
The headquarters of the formation arrived, up to three infantry divisions and up to three hundred tanks.
To the Pshevorsk-Yaroslav area:
We arrived before an infantry division, over an artillery regiment and up to two cavalry regiments …
The concentration of German troops near the border took place in small units, up to a battalion, squadron, battery, and often at night.
A large amount of ammunition, fuel and artificial anti-tank obstacles were delivered to the same areas where the troops arrived …
During the period from April 1 to April 19, German aircraft violated the state border 43 times, making reconnaissance flights over our territory to a depth of 200 km."
On June 2, 1941, Beria sent a note (No. 1798 / B) to Stalin personally:
“… In the Tomashov and Lezhaisk districts two army groups were concentrated. In these areas, the headquarters of two armies were identified: the headquarters of the 16th Army in the town of Ulyanuv … and the headquarters of the army in the Usmezh farm … the commander of which is General Reichenau (requires clarification).
On May 25 from Warsaw … the transfer of troops of all kinds was noted. The movement of troops takes place mainly at night.
On May 17, a group of pilots arrived in Terespol, and a hundred aircraft were delivered to the airfield in Voskshenitsa (near Terespol) …
Generals of the German army make reconnaissance near the border: on May 11, General Reichenau - in the area of the town of Ulguvek … on May 18 - a general with a group of officers - in the Belzec area … on May 23, a general with a group of officers … in the Radymno area.
Pontoons, tarpaulins and inflatable boats are concentrated in many points near the border. The greatest number of them was noted in the directions to Brest and Lvov …"
Three days later, on June 5, Beria sends Stalin another note (No. 1868 / B) on the same topic:
«The border detachments of the NKVD of the Ukrainian and Moldavian SSR additionally (our No. 1798 / B dated June 2, this year) obtained the following data:
Along the Soviet-German border
May 20 p. in Biało Podlaska … the location of the headquarters of the infantry division, the 313rd and 314th infantry regiments, the personal regiment of Marshal Goering and the headquarters of the tank formation were noted.
In the Janov-Podlaski region, 33 km north-west of Brest, pontoons and parts for twenty wooden bridges are concentrated …
May 31 at st. Sanhok arrived with tanks …
On May 20, up to a hundred aircraft took off from the Modlin airfield.
Along the Soviet-Hungarian border
In the city of Brustura … there were two Hungarian infantry regiments and in the Khust area - German tank and motorized units.
Along the Soviet-Romanian border …
During May 21-24, they proceeded from Bucharest to the Soviet-Romanian border: through st. Pashkans - 12 echelons of German infantry with tanks; through st. Craiova - two echelons with tanks; at st. Dormanashti arrived three echelons of infantry and at the station. Borshchov two echelons with heavy tanks and vehicles.
At the airfield in the Buseu area … up to 250 German aircraft were recorded …
The General Staff of the Red Army has been informed."
Beria, and in the half month remaining before the start of the war, sent to Stalin the accumulating data as they were obtained by agents of the NKVD border troops. By June 18-19, 1941, it was clear to them: peacetime counts, if not for hours, then for days!
But maybe I'm wrong? After all, the original Stalin's visa is known on the special message of the People's Commissar of State Security VN Merkulov No. 2279 / M dated June 16, 1941, containing information received from "Sergeant Major" (Schulze-Boysen) and "Corsican" (Arvid Harnak). I am quoting from the collection of documents Lubyanka. Stalin and the NKVD-NKGB-GUKR "Smersh". 1939 - March 1946 ":" Comrade. Merkulov. Maybe send your "source" from the German headquarters. aviation to fucking mother. This is not a "source", but a disinformer. I. St. ".
This visa is now often cited as an argument against Stalin, overlooking the fact that he divides the informants and expresses distrust to only one of them - from the Luftwaffe headquarters - "Sergeant Major" (Schulze-Boysen), but not "Corsican" (Harnack). Whether Stalin had grounds for this, let the reader judge for himself.
Although Harro Schulze-Boysen was an honest agent, his report of June 16 looks frivolous already because it confused the date of the TASS report (not June 14, but June 6), and the second-rate Svirskaya hydroelectric power station, Moscow factories, were named as the primary targets of German air raids. "Producing individual parts for aircraft, as well as auto repair (?) Workshops." Of course, Stalin had every reason to doubt the conscientiousness of such "information".
However, having imposed a visa, Stalin then (information from the collection of documents "Secrets of Hitler on Stalin's Desk") summoned VN Merkulov and the head of foreign intelligence PM Fitin. The conversation was conducted mainly with the second. Stalin was interested in the smallest details about the sources. After Fitin explained why the intelligence trusts "Corsican" and "Sergeant Major", Stalin said: "Go ahead, clarify everything, double-check this information and report to me."
Flight June 18
Here are two facts, without knowing which, it is simply impossible to form a correct view of the events of that time.
There is a book "I am a fighter" by Major General of Aviation Hero of the Soviet Union Georgy Nefedovich Zakharov. Before the war, he commanded the 43rd Fighter Air Division of the Western Special Military District with the rank of colonel. He had experience in battles in Spain (6 aircraft personally shot down and 4 in a group) and in China (3 personally shot down).
Here is what he writes (the quote is extensive, but every phrase is important here): “… Somewhere in the middle of the last pre-war week - it was either the seventeenth or the eighteenth June of the forty-first year - I received an order from the aviation commander of the Western Special Military District to fly over the western border. The length of the route was four hundred kilometers, and it was to fly from south to north - to Bialystok.
I flew to U-2 together with the navigator of the 43rd Fighter Aviation Division, Major Rumyantsev. The border areas west of the state border were filled with troops. In the villages, on the farmsteads, in the groves, there were poorly disguised, or even not at all disguised, tanks, armored vehicles, and guns. Motorcycles swooped along the roads, cars - apparently, staff - cars. Somewhere in the depths of the vast territory, a movement was arising, which here, at our very border, slowed down, resting on it … and was about to spill over it.
The number of troops, fixed by eye, by eye, did not leave me any other options for reflection, except for one thing: the war was approaching.
Everything that I saw during the flight layered on my previous military experience, and the conclusion that I made for myself can be formulated in four words: "From day to day."
We flew then for a little over three hours. I often landed the plane at any suitable site (my emphasis is everywhere - S. B.), which might seem random if the border guard did not immediately approach the plane. The border guard appeared silently, silently saluted (that is, he knew in advance that our plane would land soon with urgent information! - S. B.) and waited for several minutes while I wrote a report on the wing. Having received the report, the border guard disappeared, and we again rose into the air and, having covered 30-50 kilometers, sat down again. And I again wrote the report, and the other border guard waited in silence and then, having saluted, silently disappeared. In the evening, in this way, we flew to Bialystok and landed at the location of the division of Sergei Chernykh …"
By the way … Zakharov reports that the commander of the air force of the district, General Kopets, took him after the report to the commander of the district. Then again a direct quote: “D. G. Pavlov looked at me as if he had seen me for the first time. I got a feeling of dissatisfaction when at the end of my message he smiled and asked if I was exaggerating. The intonation of the commander openly replaced the word "exaggerate" with "panic" - he obviously did not fully accept everything that I said … With that we left."
As you can see, the information of Marshal Golovanov is reliably confirmed by the information of General Zakharov. And everyone keeps telling us that Stalin "did not believe Pavlov's warnings."
Zakharov, as I understand it, sincerely does not remember when he flew on the instructions of General Kopets - June 17 or 18? But most likely he flew on June 18. In any case, no later … And he flew on the instructions of Stalin, although he himself, of course, did not know about it, just as Kopets did not know it.
Let us think: why, if the task was given to Zakharov by the commander of aviation ZAPOVO, that is, a person from the department of the People's Commissar of Defense Timoshenko, did the border guards from the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the People's Commissar Beria accept reports from Zakharov? And they accepted in silence, without asking questions: who, they say, are you and what do you want?
Why weren't there any questions? How it is?! In a tense border atmosphere near the border, an incomprehensible plane lands, and the border guard is not interested: what, in fact, does the pilot need here?
This could have happened in one case: when at the border under each, figuratively speaking, bush, this plane was expected.
Why were they waiting for him? Who needed Zakharov's information in real time? Who could have given the order that united the efforts of the subordinates of Tymoshenko and Beria? Only Stalin. But why did Stalin need it? The correct answer - taking into account the second fact, which I cited a little later - is one. This was one of the elements of the strategic probing of Hitler's intentions, carried out personally by Stalin no later than June 18, 1941.
Imagine once again the situation of that summer …
Stalin receives information about the impending war from illegal immigrants and legal foreign residencies of Merkulov from the NKGB, from illegal immigrants General Golikov from the GRU General Staff, from military attachés and through diplomatic channels. But all this can be a strategic provocation of the West, which sees its own salvation in the clash between the USSR and Germany.
However, there is the intelligence of the border troops created by Beria, and her information is not only possible to believe, but also necessary. This is integral information from such an extensive peripheral intelligence network that it can only be reliable. And this information proves the closeness of war. But how to check everything finally?
The ideal option is to ask Hitler himself about his true intentions. Not the Fuehrer's entourage, but himself, because the Fuehrer more than once, unexpectedly, even for the encirclement, changed the timing of the implementation of his own orders!
Here we come to the second (chronologically, perhaps the first) key fact of the last pre-war week. Stalin on June 18 appeals to Hitler about the urgent sending of Molotov to Berlin for mutual consultations.
Information about this proposal of Stalin to Hitler is found in the diary of Franz Halder, Chief of the General Staff of the Reich Ground Forces. On page 579 of the second volume, among other entries on June 20, 1941, there is the following phrase: "Molotov wanted to talk to the Fuehrer on 18 June." One phrase … But it reliably records the fact of Stalin's proposal to Hitler about an urgent visit by Molotov to Berlin and completely turns the whole picture of the last pre-war days. Fully!
Hitler refuses to meet with Molotov. Even if he began to delay the answer, this would be proof of the imminence of war for Stalin. But Hitler refused at once.
After Hitler's refusal, it was not necessary to be Stalin to draw the same conclusion that Colonel Zakharov made: "From day to day."
And Stalin instructs the People's Commissariat of Defense to provide urgent and effective aerial reconnaissance of the border zone. And emphasizes that reconnaissance should be carried out by an experienced high-level aviation commander. Perhaps he gave such an assignment to the commander of the Red Army Air Force Zhigarev, who visited Stalin's office from 0.45 to 1.50 on June 17 (actually, already 18), 1941, and he called Kopets in Minsk.
On the other hand, Stalin instructs Beria to ensure the immediate and unimpeded transmission of the information collected by this experienced aviator to Moscow …
The day before
Realizing that Hitler had decided to go to war with Russia, Stalin immediately (that is, no later than the evening of June 18) began to give appropriate orders to the People's Commissariat of Defense.
The chronology is very important here, not only by day, but even by hour. For example, quite often - as proof of Stalin's alleged "blindness" - it is reported that on June 13, SK Timoshenko asked him for permission to put on alert and deploy the first echelons according to cover plans. But permission was not received.
Yes, on June 13, so, I suppose, it was. Stalin, realizing that the country was not yet ready for a serious war, did not want to give Hitler a single reason for it. It is known that Hitler was very unhappy with the failure to provoke Stalin. Therefore, on June 13, Stalin could still hesitate - is it time to take all possible measures to deploy troops? Therefore, Stalin began his own probes, starting with the TASS statement of June 14, which, most likely, after a conversation with Tymoshenko, he wrote.
But then the sounding described above followed, which completely changed Stalin's position no later than by the evening of June 18, 1941. Accordingly, all post-war descriptions of the last pre-war week should be considered fundamentally distorted!
Marshal Vasilevsky, for example, later declared that "… it was necessary to boldly step over the threshold", but "Stalin did not dare to do this." However, the events of June 19, 1941 in Kiev and Minsk (as well as in Odessa) prove that by the evening of June 18, 1941, Stalin made up his mind. Today it is known for sure that on June 19, 1941, the administrations of the Western and Kiev special districts were transformed into front-line ones. This is documented and confirmed in memoirs. Thus, Marshal of Artillery ND Yakovlev, appointed head of GAU from the post of commander of artillery of the Kiev OVO before the war, recalled that by June 19 “he had already finished handing over his successor's affairs and almost on the move had said goodbye to his now former colleagues. On the move, because the headquarters of the district and its management these days just received an order to relocate to Ternopil and hastily curtailed work in Kiev."
Actually, already in 1976 in the book by G. Andreev and I. Vakurov "General Kirponos", published by the Politizdat of Ukraine, one can read: "… in the afternoon of June 19, the People's Commissar of Defense sent an order to the field administration of the district headquarters to relocate to the city of Ternopil."
In Ternopil, in the building of the former headquarters of the 44th Infantry Division, the front command post of General Kirponos was deployed. FKP General Pavlov at this time was deployed in the Baranovichi area.
Could Timoshenko and Zhukov have ordered this without Stalin's direct sanction? And could such actions be taken without backing them up with Stalin's sanction to increase combat readiness?
But why did the war begin as a strategic failure? Isn't it time, I repeat, to answer this question fully and honestly? So that all that is said above does not remain outside the brackets.
