248. Sudoplatov, Special Tasks, 123. See also Gorodetsky, Grand Delusion, 221–2. The Japanese ambassador to Moscow complained to Tokyo that Soviet counterintelligence was smothering, adding that “they steal suitcases from military attachés.” Khaustov, “Deiatel’nost’ organov,” 289 (TsA FSb, f. 3, op. 5, d. 82, l. 51), 304 (TsA FSB, f. 66, op. 1, d. 391, l. 55). Schulenburg reported to Berlin (May 24, 1941) that he had been received by Molotov with the familiar degree of confidence and in the same office as previously, albeit with the nameplate altered (to deputy chairman), but that Molotov effectively held the same position of power as previously—Stalin’s top deputy. The ambassador added that Soviet policy remained “directed at avoidance of a conflict with Germany,” which was “proved by the attitude taken by the Soviet government in the last few weeks, the tone of the Soviet press, . . . and the observance of the trade agreements concluded with Germany.” Nonetheless, he began to resign himself to having failed in his larger mission. He had finally acquired his dream castle, the Burg Falkenberg in the Upper Palatinate, in the late 1930s, and, after Molotov’s disastrous Nov. 1940 visit to Berlin, Hitler had ordered that the count be given a humongous bribe, 200,000 reichsmarks, which the count had used to renovate it. Herwarth, Against Two Evils, 95–6; Sontag and Biddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 344–5; Fleischhauer, Diplomatischer Widerstand, 312, 404n; DVP SSSR, XXIII/ii: 521 (Soviet assessment of Schulenburg, from the former KGB archive).
249. Fleischhauer, Diplomatischer Widerstand, 194.
250. Some have speculated that the aircraft delivered a letter from Hitler for Stalin, supposedly a response to an earlier Stalin letter requesting an explanation for the German troop build-up. Zhukov, in interviews in 1966, said: “Sometime in early June I decided that I should again try to convince Stalin of the accuracy of the intelligence reports on the approaching danger. . . . Together with Defense Commissar Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko we brought along general staff maps with the locations of enemy troops. I reported. Stalin listened attentively but silently. After my report he sent us away without giving us his opinion . . . A few days passed and Stalin called for me. When I entered he was seated at his desk. I approached. Then he opened the middle drawer and took out several pieces of paper. ‘Read,’ said Stalin. I began to read. It was a letter from Stalin to Hitler in which he briefly outlined his concern over the German deployments, about which I had reported a few days earlier.” Bezymenskii, Gitler i Stalin, 472. Zhukov told Simonov around the same time (1965–6) that at a Jan. 1941 meeting Stalin said he had “turned to Hitler in a personal letter advising him that this was known to us, that it surprised us, and that it created the impression among us that Hitler intended to go to war with us.” Hitler’s supposed reply: Yes, there are large military formations on the frontier, but they “are not directed against the Soviet Union.” Simonov, “Zametki k biografii G. K. Zhukova,” 50–1 (published twenty-one years after the conversation). No such documents have emerged from Soviet or German archives. Hitler did have a secret archive, but in the bunker on April 22, 1945, he would order his adjutant to liquidate the contents of two safes; other such safes were found in Berghof and in his Munich apartment; their contents would be destroyed, including Hitler’s correspondence with heads of state. But even so, copies would be expected to be in Soviet archives.
251. Sontag and Biddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 339–41; Fel’shtinskii, SSSR-Germaniia, II: 164–5. That same evening, Schulenburg received instructions from Berlin to inform the Soviets that the alleged seventy-one border violations by Germans were “being investigated,” and that the investigation would “require some time.” Sontag and Biddie, Nazi-Soviet Relations, 341–42. According to Zhukov, sometime in May 1941 Stalin told him and Timoshenko that German ambassador Schulenburg had requested that German officers be allowed to reconnoiter the Soviet border in what they presented as a search for the graves of German soldiers who went missing in World War I. Zhukov, Vospominaniia, I: 346–7; Ivanov, Shtab armeiskii, 98–9.
252. Mawdsley, “Crossing the Rubicon,” 849–53. See also Lota, “Alta” protiv “Barbarsossy,” 309–10.
