On May 13, behind the scenes, Cripps pursued the same tack, writing from Moscow to the foreign office proposing that the Hess windfall be used to disrupt suspected German-Soviet alliance talks and, more ambitiously, to induce Stalin to abandon Germany altogether. The foreign office thought this would drive Stalin deeper into Hitler’s arms.246 But then Eden and Alexander Cadogan, the foreign office permanent undersecretary, who was charged with coordinating the Hess problem across agencies, took up Cripps’s prompt. At a press briefing and in conversations with Soviet envoy Maisky, Eden hinted that Hess was bearing peace proposals, and that his flight proved the existence of a split in the Nazi leadership over the course of the war. The whispering campaign achieved the opposite effect of its aim, however, encouraging Stalin’s view that, given the divisions in the Nazi leadership, his own negotiations with Hitler to avert war remained possible.247
Even Schulenburg’s utter failure ended up contributing to that unshakable belief. Foreign couriers transporting diplomatic pouches overnighted at the Metropole Hotel, awaiting their transit out the next day, and the NKGB resorted to trapping couriers in the bathroom or jamming the lift, seizing their pouches, and photographing their contents while those trapped waited to be rescued. Thus was Stalin able to see that Schulenburg, in his secret correspondence with the German foreign ministry, continued to stress Soviet conciliatory moves and readiness to bargain.248 Soviet ingenuity combined with Schulenburg’s good intentions amplified German intelligence’s disinformation campaign about an ultimatum.249
PREEMPTION DENIED
May 15, 1941—much mentioned in Stalin’s intelligence—passed without a Nazi invasion. That same day, a Junkers 52 transport, either unobserved or unobstructed by Soviet air defenses, traveled more than 650 miles over Białystok/Belostok, Minsk, and Smolensk, landing at Moscow’s central aerodrome, Tushino, a few miles from Red Square. The pilot had been able to reconnoiter the entire German path to the Soviet capital. Whispers about the incredible incident spread. The Soviets allowed the German plane to depart, even refueling it.250 In Berlin that same day, in an internal memorandum, the German trade official Schnurre observed that the Soviets had made concessions to resolve difficult matters in bilateral trade and that, while Germany would have trouble meeting its obligations to the USSR with regard to new armaments, the Soviets were fulfilling the existing agreement punctually, even though it was causing them great difficulties. He pointed out that Germany could advance additional economic demands beyond the existing trade agreement.251 (A record number of goods would cross the border in both directions that month.) Also on May 15, coincidentally, the Soviet general staff completed a new aggressive offensive war plan, with Stalin’s evident involvement.252
This was the fifteenth iteration of the main war plan since 1924, although far from all were formally approved. Like its immediate predecessor, it was drafted by Vasilevsky, with cross-outs and additions in the hand of Nikolai Vatutin (b. 1901), a peasant lad (like Timoshenko and Zhukov) who had graduated from the General Staff Academy in 1937 and been vaulted to a top position in the staff. Just as in the 1940 plan, this one envisioned a massive left hook using the full strength of the Red Army to cut off German forces from Romanian oil, then wheeling north, crossing all of German-occupied Poland and capturing East Prussia (a 450-mile thrust), in a colossal encirclement. But now the southwestern strike was to occur
Preemption constituted a logical extension of Soviet military doctrine: if the Red Army was going to launch a counteroffensive immediately after absorbing the enemy’s initial attack, why not prevent that attack in the first place with “a sudden blow”?
