Unlike Sorge’s reports on Japan, which were based on direct knowledge of government decisions, those on Germany were mostly gossip and speculation.279 In early May 1941, Clausen had sent a radiogram (coded bursts of data) with three of Sorge’s messages. They noted that “Ott declared that Hitler is full of determination to destroy the USSR and take the European part of the Soviet Union in his hands as a grain and natural resource base for German control over all of Europe.” Sorge also wrote, citing the opinions of Ott and the naval attaché, that, “after the conclusion of the sowing campaign, the war against the USSR could begin at any moment, and all the Germans will have to do will be to gather up the harvest.” The messages continued: “The possibility of an outbreak of war at any moment is very high because Hitler and his generals are sure that a war with the USSR will not in the least interfere with the conduct of war against England. German generals assess the Red Army’s fighting capacity as so low that the Red Army will be destroyed in the course of a few weeks. They consider that the defense system on the German-Soviet border is extraordinarily weak.” Much of this information came from Colonel Oskar Ritter von Niedermayer, of the high command, who had been sent to Tokyo to brief Ott, and with whom Sorge also spoke at length. Sorge further wrote that “the decision on the start of the war against the USSR will be taken only by Hitler either already in May or after the war with England.”280
On May 21, Clausen transmitted another Sorge message from two days earlier, stating that “new German representatives arriving here from Berlin declare that war between Germany and the USSR could begin at the end of May, since they received an order to return to Berlin by that time,” and that “Germany has 9 army corps consisting of 150 divisions against the USSR.” That was far beyond estimates at HQ, and betokened an invasion. But these visitors also said that “this year the danger might pass.” Sorge’s report added that “the strategic plan for an attack on the Soviet Union was taken from the experience of the war against Poland.”281
Stalin continued to view Sorge as a double agent working for Germany.282 Golikov forwarded the spy’s reports to the despot (who showed familiarity with them), while withholding them from his own immediate superiors, Timoshenko and Zhukov.283 There was considerable bad blood between Golikov and Zhukov, dating from the terror, when Golikov had been sent to destroy Zhukov.284 But Stalin’s skepticism was the key factor.
Two messages from Sorge on May 30 stated flatly that “Berlin has informed Ott that the German offensive against the USSR will begin in the second half of June. Ott 95 percent sure war will start.”285 The next day, a new German military visitor said that 170 to 190 German divisions were massed on the Soviet border and that war was imminent. “The expectation of the start of a German-Soviet war around June 15 is based exclusively on information which Lieutenant Colonel [Erwin] Scholl brought from Berlin,” Sorge wrote in a new message, adding, “Ott told me that he could not obtain information on this score directly from Berlin, and that he only has the information of Scholl.” Clausen transmitted both sets of dispatches on June 1, without reconciling the different dates. In the second, Sorge noted that he, too, had spoken with Scholl, an old friend, who in early May had departed Berlin to take up the post of German military attaché in Bangkok, and that Scholl told him the Soviets had committed “a great tactical mistake. . . . According to the German point of view, the fact that the USSR defense line is located, fundamentally, against the German line, without major offshoots, constitutes
Golikov requested clarifications, but he wrote on the document, “Add to the list of Ramsay’s dubious and disinformational communications.”287
PRESSURE
German intelligence picked up word that on June 1, 1941, Stalin received British and American ambassadors, returned Litvinov to the foreign affairs commissariat, reached an agreement with the United States, and was being pressured by his top brass to oppose Germany militarily. But this was disinformation spread by the Soviets. The Germans had Berlings (“Peter” to the Germans) check on rumors of Soviet-British negotiations, which he verified did not exist.288
