Also on June 7, Colonel General Grigory Stern, chief of air defenses, was arrested, one of more than 300 officers incarcerated that month, 22 of whom had earned the highest military decoration, Hero of the Soviet Union.300 Under torture, Stern admitted to being a German spy since 1931.301 Stalin had been angry for some time about the loss of two to three planes daily from crashes in training.302 He also scapegoated air defenses for the border violations by Germany, precipitating a frenzy of mutual denunciation. Others arrested included a deputy chief of the general staff to Zhukov, Lieutenant General Yakov Smushkevich, who was taken into custody (June 8) while in the hospital for a major operation (he was conducted to prison on crutches), and armaments commissar Boris Vannikov (his nemesis, Marshal Kulik, was soon forced to step down but not incarcerated).303 The former head of the air force, the thirty-year-old Lieutenant General Pavel Rychagov, who had been sacked at Zhukov and Timoshenko’s insistence, was also arrested (June 8). Although a flying ace who had won the Hero of the Soviet Union, the Order of Lenin, and three Orders of the Red Banner, Rychagov was not fit for such a top post, but Stalin had murdered all the others. He was beaten with rubber truncheons but refused to confess to treason.304
Amid the arrests, Golikov (June 7) advised Stalin that, besides mobilization in Romania and the German right flank, “special attention should be given to the continuing reinforcement of German troops on the territory of Poland.”305 On June 8, the German foreign ministry received word that the Soviet envoy to Romania had said that there would likely be no war but instead negotiations, which could fail if the Germans put forth excessive demands.306
Soldiers in full combat kit and completely full fuel tanks saturated the German side of the border, as the NKGB knew.307 On June 9, Bogdan Kobulov forwarded to Stalin, Molotov, and Beria a memo from Fitin based on communications from “Elder” and “Corsican,” noting that the rumors about negotiations and an ultimatum “were being spread systematically by the German ministry of propaganda and the German army high command. The goal is to mask the preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union and maximize the surprise of such an attack.” This was correct. But the report also quoted the Soviet section head of the German air force staff that Hitler would present the Soviet Union “with a demand to turn over to Germany economic management of Ukraine, to increase the supplies of grain and oil, and to use the Soviet navy—above all, its submarines—against England.”308
That same day, Japan’s ambassador in Moscow, Lieutenant General Tatekawa, warned Tokyo in a telegram, which the Soviets intercepted and decoded, that Germany “could not conquer or crush the Soviets in 2 to 3 months,” and that “the possibility cannot be excluded that Germany would find itself stuck in a prolonged war.”309 In the Little Corner, also on June 9, Timoshenko and Zhukov unfolded maps of German troop concentrations and a packet of military intelligence reports predicting war, which Stalin leafed through, having already seen them and more. Trying to be droll, the despot, according to recollections by Timoshenko, alluded to a Soviet agent in Japan who was predicting a German attack—“a shit who has set himself up with some small workshops and brothels.”310 This was Sorge, of course, who had indeed cuckolded nearly the entire German community in Tokyo (while finding comfort most often in the bosom of his Japanese consort, Hanako Ishii). But neither Timoshenko nor Zhukov knew of Sorge’s existence, let alone his hearsay reports predicting war.
From Berlin on June 9, Ribbentrop telegrammed an order to the embassy in Moscow to secure its archives and organize the “inconspicuous departure of women and children.” Two days later, Bogdan Kobulov reported to Stalin, Molotov, and Beria on the evacuation directive and verified that documents were being burned.311 Also on June 11, Kobulov wrote that, based on information from “Elder,” in the air ministry, the decision to invade “has been definitively taken. Whether there will there be any prior demands to the Soviet Union is unknown, and therefore it is necessary to take into account the possibility of a surprise strike.” He further noted that “Göring’s HQ is moving from Berlin likely to Romania.” Germany’s battle plan was said to be an invasion from East Prussia in the north and Romania in the south, to create pincers to envelop the Red Army in the center.312 In fact, Germany’s main strike force was in the center.
DESPERATION
