The intelligence kept pouring in.87 On February 28, 1941, the Berlin military intelligence station reported that “Alta” had learned from “Aryan,” who had spoken to a person in Reich marshal Göring’s inner circle, that German military officials were cocksure a war against the USSR would be launched in 1941. “Aryan” had been the one to deliver early word of Barbarossa’s existence, and the details he now supplied were as accurate as any that would emerge about the German plan: three army groups for attacks on the axes of Leningrad (under the command of Field Marshal Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb), Minsk-Smolensk-Moscow (Field Marshal Fedor von Bock), and Kiev (Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt). Russian-speaking officers had been deployed to the general staff of each group. Armored trains of special gauge, capable of using Soviet rail lines, were under construction. “Hitler intends to export from Russia about 3 million slaves, in order to bring his productivity capacities to full tilt,” “Alta” further relayed from “Aryan” and “he supposedly intends to divide the Russian colossus into 20–30 different states, without concern for the retention of all the economic links within the country.” The likely invasion date was given as May 20.88
That was not the only kind of report Stalin was receiving, however. On March 1, 1941, Nikolai Lyakhterov (“Mars”), in Budapest, reported to Moscow that “everyone considers an attack by the Germans against the USSR at the present time unimaginable before the destruction of England. The military attachés of America, Turkey, and Yugoslavia emphasize that the German army in Romania is in the first instance directed against an English invasion of the Balkans and as a countermeasure, if Turkey or the USSR moves.” He added, “After the destruction of England the Germans will attack the USSR.”89 That same evening, Colonel Grigory Yeremin (“Yeshenko”), the peasant-born (1904) military intelligence station chief in Bucharest under cover of embassy third secretary, reported to Moscow about a recent trip to Berlin by the Soviet agent Kurt Welkisch (“ABC”), now serving as press attaché of the German legation in Romania.90 “In foreign ministry circles and the headquarters of the German command, where he had the opportunity to speak to some people, uncertainty prevails in the political and military position of Germany, just as lack of information does in Germany’s future intentions in the political and military spheres,” “Yeshenko” noted. “Everyone with whom [ABC] spoke expressed a different view on the plans and future course of developments in the present war.”91
All serious intelligence work involves sifting through an overwhelming flood of noise; almost never is anything “clean.” Rumormongering aims to amplify the cacophony; disinformation, to establish a false certainty. Stalin had no filter to wring out the hearsay and scrutinize the patterns of disinformation. Nor were the voluminous Soviet intelligence reports systematized anywhere. The NKGB did not even have an analytical department; military intelligence had had its department for analysis restored, but Stalin insisted on receiving the intelligence more or less directly, leaving the analytical work to himself.92 He obviously suspected that his adversaries were engaged in disinformation, but that suspicion, too, failed him. One of the core planks of the German whispering campaign was that Britain was trying to escape the war by provoking an armed German-Soviet clash. Stalin had assumed that for years, but now it colored his perception of all the intelligence suggesting that Hitler would attack.93
To be sure, Stalin’s intelligence service was playing its own games, exaggerating American preparations for war against Germany and British strength in the Balkans.94 But whereas Soviet deception efforts reflected Stalin’s thinking, not his adversary’s, Hitler’s disinformation caught Stalin’s thinking to a tee. Mostly, however, Soviet intelligence was spreading genuine arguments for Germany to abide by the 1939 bilateral nonaggression pact. Indeed, Stalin had little need for his own disinformation campaign. Just as in the case of Finland, only with infinitely more at stake, he was not trying to deceive. He was not seeking to cut a deal behind Hitler’s back with Churchill. He was trying to avoid war and attain a new deal with Hitler. In that context, Germany’s instigated chatter stressed that Germany’s top leadership was divided over whether to attack the USSR, and that any provocative acts by the Soviets could play into the hands of the “militarists.”
