Note: Has obtained the original author "learn to live simple" distribution authorization, reprint please indicate the source.
The Soviet-German War in World War II, also known as the Eastern Front War by some historians in the West, was a crucial battlefield during World War II, and also determined the subsequent world pattern, and finally won the final victory under the heroic resistance of the Soviet military and civilians. It played a crucial role in the complete defeat of Hitler's Nazi Reich.
The history that many of us know today is that on June 22, 1941, Hitler gathered millions of troops and launched a surprise attack on the front of the Soviet-German border thousands of kilometers, and the unprepared and unprepared Soviet army lost its division and collapsed, and the German army broke through all the way to Moscow and stopped.
Many of today's documents have been declassified, and the Soviet side is not ignorant of the German invasion, but what many of us know is that it was Stalin's arbitrariness and misjudgment that led to the loss of land in the early days of the war. I believe that many friends have read a lot of information and articles in these aspects.
But is really that simple history?
The production of history is composed of countless people and countless people doing things, but many histories, future generations often can only see the appearance, and many of the truths and stories that happen behind it are mostly for various reasons, either for secrecy or to cover up, and finally gradually disappeared in the vast dust, so that many truths have finally become a mystery of mankind forever.
So for the outbreak of this war, many of the stories behind it are the same, and I am afraid that many friends still do not know. Here, we will restore some of the events that happened in the past that you may not know, perhaps this will make you more systematic and comprehensive understanding and interpretation of this war.
The British historian Rogers Mulhouse once wrote a book, The Alliance of Evil – Hitler and Stalin's Treaty of 1939-1941, which mainly recounts many of the little-known histories of world war ii history. Because it is only in English, our people rarely know about it. The eighth chapter of the book, "Riding on the Back of a Nazi Tiger," tells the story of countless stories that are still unknown to most people today before the outbreak of the Soviet-German war. After watching it, it may make you feel more emotions and sighs for no reason.
In human humor culture, there is a kind of humor called black humor. If you're not familiar with this, the following history is the best black humor of mankind, but this is not someone's invention, but Stalin and Hitler's real co-director.
We know that the German offensive against the Soviet Union began on June 22, 1941. And in the month before the outbreak of the war, let's look at the performance of the Soviet high-level:
At that time, the Nazi "Sea Lion Plan" to conquer Britain failed, and preparations for the attack on the Soviet Union were in full swing, but in the impression of many, Stalin did not know what the reason was, and any information about Germany's attack on the Soviet Union was considered to be false information to trick him.
For example, on June 14, TASS was authorized by Stalin to issue a proclamation that the news that Germany was about to attack the Soviet Union was false information spread by Britain. The intelligence that Germany would attack the Soviet Union was nonsense. Note that on June 14, the final attack was only a week away.
The proclamation was so overwhelming that every ordinary Soviet was convinced of this. By June 16, Soviet spies lurking in the upper echelons of the Luftwaffe urgently reported that the order for Germany's final attack on the Soviet Union had been issued. Faced with such intelligence, Stalin responded with a dirty word from his native Georgia.
Two days later, on 18 June, Zhukov hurried to the Kremlin to meet Stalin and demand that the troops on the border be put into a state of first-class combat readiness. Stalin still categorically rejected this request.
Even on the evening of June 21, the day before the offensive was about to be launched, a soldier from the German front swam across the river and told the Soviet military that along the entire border, an all-out offensive would be made tomorrow morning. Zhukov informed Stalin by telephone, and Stalin ordered Zhukov to shoot him.
The Soviet-made TV series The Great Patriotic War begins with a description of the German soldier's surrender, but does not describe the lamentation that he was finally shot.
These are the reactions of the supreme leaders of the Soviet side that we see on the surface. Many even later said that Stalin was completely short-sighted. However, as a scheming politician who threw himself into the army at a young age, experienced hundreds of battles and experienced countless political storms, how could Stalin's performance be so unwise, and even weak-minded, I believe this also made many friends very confused.
Let us restore the truth, which is that Stalin was doing everything possible to avoid this war. He did not want the war to come early because of the misfire.
By June 1941, Stalin had seen through Hitler's ambitions. In the face of the growing and ongoing German news of war preparations, he had little doubt. Despite Stalin's apparent utter disbelief in such information, the sheer secrecy of such a large-scale German operation in recent months was impossible, and he was quite certain that the threat to the western frontier was growing.
However, the Soviet Republic was still in the early stages of the founding of the country, although the Soviet army had experienced hundreds of battles at that time, but the domestic foundation was weak, the army was backward and the equipment was backward, dealing with the surrounding Finland. Small countries such as Romania were fine, but they were not strong enough in the face of a powerful German army, and Stalin knew these things very well in his heart.
Through the Spanish Civil War, Stalin saw the strong combat effectiveness of the German army, and at the beginning of World War II, the German army defeated France, the strongest army in Europe, in one month, which made Stalin clearly understand that although the Soviet army had a numerical advantage over the German army, the overall gap compared to the German army was still very large.
In addition, the historical data we know is that Germany took the lead in tearing up the contract and launching this war of aggression. What many friends may not know is that in fact, long before the German army began to prepare for the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union had long formulated a plan to attack Germany, which was described in the book "The Secret Archives of World War II" published by the Russian scholar Boris Vadymovich Sokolov, and Stalin called this plan of attacking Germany "The Great Thunderstorm Plan", which was even earlier than the German Barbarossa Plan.
It was just that Stalin did not expect that the Germans and Britain would not be able to get it done, and dared to attack the Soviet Union so quickly. So in this way, the Soviets' war preparations had not yet met the requirements of the offensive and were preceded by the Barbarossa plan of the Germans. This shows that the Soviet Union was not completely defenseless against Germany.
Stalin's real intention at the time was to win a summer's time by means of diplomatic efforts, through constant overtures to Berlin, to effectively postpone the German offensive until the following year. By then, the Soviet army should have basically completed the construction of comprehensive modernization, and should be enough to cope with the all-out offensive of the German army.
Stalin later said: "I do not need any warning. I know war is coming, but I'd like to get an extra 6 months, or more." At the same time, stalin was also seriously affected by the aforementioned misjudgment that Germany was in a state of war with Britain and that it was impossible to build a strong enemy and fight on two fronts. And before hostilities occur, Berlin will certainly issue demands, negotiations, or ultimatums. Until the war broke out, so he deduced that the war between the two countries had not yet slipped to the brink of the most dangerous cliff. At least not yet!
Stalin judged Hitler with the rationality he had had for many years in politics, but what he did not expect was that there was another kind of person in this world called: the madman. This kind of person is desperate to go crazy.
Signing ceremony of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact
In addition, Stalin was already firmly bound to the Soviet-German non-aggression pact and could not break free.
The first negotiations, which began with the treaty in August 1939, already represented Stalin's will and judgment of the future direction of the Soviet Union, and in the process Stalin had complete control over the direction of the negotiations and the trade-offs between the specific content of the treaty. As a German naval attaché in Moscow put it, Stalin was truly "the hub of Soviet-German cooperation."
In the signing of this treaty, all correspondence must be delivered to his desk, and all decisions must be made from orders he signs. This treaty fully embodies his judgment, his policy and his iq. Therefore, for Stalin, the negation of the treaty would be extremely risky politically. And there is no scapegoat to catch in this matter, and it is impossible to find anyone who can help him bear the wrong responsibility. His prestige in this country will have a great impact.
Thus we explain to some extent why Stalin was so stubborn in rejecting Zhukov's preparations for war; this is probably because he had already seen that he himself was deeply bound to the treaty. So, coupled with the previous judgment that the German army would not fight on both sides, he decided to make a desperate bet and bet that the war would not break out.
Stalin with German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop
After reading this, I believe that you are not surprised by stalin's performance before the war.
So, in the face of the news that the German army was about to attack in society at that time, in mid-June, Stalin decided to take measures. He drafted a government proclamation, which was transmitted to the public through TASS on 14 June to Soviet newspapers and radio stations. The proclamation declared: "Regarding that Germany has made territorial and economic claims to the Soviet Union, which the Soviet Union has refused. So the two countries are preparing for war. These are all patently ridiculous rumors."
The TASS message also claimed that Germany had not demanded anything from the Soviet Union and that no negotiations had taken place. Moreover, "according to the evidence available to the USSR that both the USSR and Germany were strictly adhering to the terms of the treaty, it was completely nonsense that Germany was trying to tear up the treaty and to attack the USSR against the widespread rumors circulating in the USSR." "
In addition, in addition to attacking London as a special rumor dealer in the announcement, TASS also implied that Berlin should openly cooperate with the Soviet Union's declaration, hoping that Hitler and others could also come forward to clarify these "rumors", and even expressed a long open negotiation. As a result, the soviet foreign minister at the time, Molotov, later admitted that this series of efforts was only exchanged for a silent answer from the German side.
In Germany, however, it is not completely silent.
Among them was the famous German journalist Friedrich, who helped many Jews persecuted by the Nazis during the darkest period of Nazi racism in Germany, providing accommodation, forged identification documents and food supply tickets. In 1977, at the age of 75, Friedrich committed suicide in Munich and was later posthumously recognized as an "International Righteous Soldier" by the Israeli Holocaust Memorial.
Friedrich
In 1947, Friedrich published a diary of Berlin Underworld, which reflected many of the state of German society and many little-known stories of what happened between 1938 and 1945. Among them was the delicate relationship between Sude and Sude, which she described in her diary:
On June 15, rumors that Stalin would personally come to Berlin for talks spread like wildfire throughout Berlin, the german capital. The initial news was heard by Friedrich from a milk worker.
Her diary also stated that at least two hundred German women were sewing soviet flags for welcome. Her neighbors repeated the story to her, but in the neighborhood's story Stalin would have come in a "specially armored train." Since Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov appeared in Berlin last fall, such news is indeed very possible. In particular, through her investigation, she also found that the source was from the office of Foreign Minister Ribbentrop.
We do not know the truth or falsity of this matter, nor do we know why Stalin did not make the trip, but here we are just presenting these materials to everyone truthfully, and the officials can read and judge for themselves.
On the Moscow side, we will revisit Stalin's specific performance in the events described earlier, and the evidence of the imminent German offensive is still accumulating. On 16 June, Merkulov, a member of the National Security Council, presented Stalin with a copy of the intelligence sent by Boysen, a KGB intelligence officer hiding in the Luftwaffe headquarters.
Merkulov
The report said that the german order to attack the Soviet Union for the last time had been issued. Stalin was enraged, and replied in a categorical manner: "Tell this luftwaffe eyeliner that he is a bastard!" He also wrote a few words and handed them to Merkulov, which said: "This is not intelligence, but bait!" "
Two days later, this time it was Zhukov who felt Stalin's wrath. On June 18, he and Tymoshenko attended a three-hour meeting with Stalin in the Kremlin. At the meeting, they explained the current urgent military situation on the western frontier and asked Stalin to allow the Red Army to make first-class combat readiness.
However, as Zhukov spoke, Stalin gradually began to be irritated, constantly knocking impatiently on the table with his pipe. At the end, Tymoshenko recalled, Stalin finally broke out, shouting at Zhukov, "What, did you come here to scare us with war?" Or do you want a war, and you feel that your rank is not high enough, your medal is not enough for you to show off? "
Zhukov was frightened, he flinched, but Tymoshenko continued to hold on. Stalin remained utterly oblivious. He also told the Politburo members next to him: "This is all a good thing Tymoshenko did, and he wants each of us to prepare for war." He deserves to be shot." Stalin went on to say, "You must realize that, according to the will of the Germans themselves, there will be no war with Russia, and you must recognize this. "
As he left the room, standing in the doorway, he turned back to give the crowd a grave warning: "If you provoke the Germans by moving your army without my orders, your heads will fall to the ground." Remember my words. With that, he slammed the door and left. Leave behind the generals in the room who look at each other.
By the day before the June 21 attack, the evidence was growing. The families of the German Embassy in Moscow began to leave with their belongings. Many documents were burned in the embassy's backyard. At the same time, information about the impending outbreak of war kept coming from London, the United States, and Zorg in Tokyo.
A woman in soviet-occupied Polish territory reported in early June that at the border, the shouts of soldiers' exercises were constantly heard, and that there might be war within a week. At the same time, the sharp increase in the number of spies, saboteurs and radicals crossing the border seems to confirm this information.
A junior Soviet commander stationed on the western border also reported that German soldiers were also beginning to change their attitude towards Soviet soldiers, and they were beginning to show increasing arrogance and unfriendliness. In the past, German sentries would stand up and salute when they saw Soviet soldiers. The german soldiers now saw the Soviet soldiers but turned their backs directly.
In Romania, rumors are also circulating, not only that a joint offensive between Romania and Germany is about to begin, but that after the liberation of Bessarabia from Soviet rule, the list of government officials in the region will be ready and that the appointment ceremony will be held at the National Theatre in the capital of Chisinau in the region. Rehearsals are already in full swing.
Antoniscu
It was also reported that Romania's leader, General Antonescu, wanted to enter the city on June 27, the first anniversary of the Soviet occupation of the city.
After the war, many people thought that the secrecy of the German offensive was very good, but we can see from the above examples that the German secrecy work is actually not so strict, but we can also understand that as such a large military operation, it is basically impossible to achieve complete secrecy. This is also in line with the old Chinese saying: there is no impermeable wall.
In the ten days leading up to June 22, Soviet intelligence had learned from 47 different intelligence sources that a German offensive was imminent. The Soviets did not do nothing about this information. The Soviets also secretly began to transfer many troops to the border to begin assembling, but in order to avoid angering Hitler, they did not issue combat readiness orders.
The German soldier who had surrendered earlier, whose name was Alfiredrisk, was a communist supporter, and on the night of the 21st he swam across the boundary river, warning that the Red Army's offensive would be at dawn the next day, and all German preparations along the border were fully prepared. Later his fate, as we already know, was shot by stalin's order.
In many historical sources, the Soviet-German war that many of us know was Hitler's blatant tearing up of the treaty and a completely undeclared war, but this sentence is strictly inaccurate, in fact, before the outbreak of the war, the Germans did note the Soviet side. It's just like Japan's trick of declaring war on the United States, so that the other side has no time to prepare, and it is close to a rogue.
Just three hours after the incident with the soldier above, the German ambassador Schulenburg was authorized to issue an official German note to the Soviets. He survived a long, sweltering night. He called Molotov's office early in the morning to arrange a meeting. Shortly thereafter, Molotov summoned him quickly.
Ambassador Schulenburg of Germany
The meeting quickly turned into an interrogation at the outset. Molotov constantly angrily asked the German ambassador: Why did the personnel of the German embassy leave Russia? Why did the German government ignore TASS's call? After not receiving any answers, Molotov angrily accused: "The Soviet government has done enough, and the German government has no reason to be dissatisfied with the Soviet government." "
Schulenburg waited quietly for Molotov to vent, took out the telegram from Berlin and began to read it, but he carefully skipped the dry condemnation that preceded it, and only expressed a "deepest regret". At the same time, Molotov was told that the German government declared its responsibility to respond to the Soviet military build-up on the western border and take military action.
He concluded by telling the Soviet foreign minister that he had done his best to "maintain peace and friendship", but at the same time he admitted with great reluctance that he believed it had "meant the beginning of war".
Schulenburg with Molotov was photographed in 1941
When Molotov heard this, he was stunned. His attitude changed rapidly, and he stuttered to explain to the German ambassador that the military buildup on the Soviet border had been lifted. But then he also began to understand that this war would be inevitable. He asked sadly, "Why is this so?" Did the German government really tear up our non-aggression pact? How could you betray it so easily? He concluded with an angry claim that "the German offensive was an unprecedented betrayal of the word trust in the history of mankind."
And Schulenburg, one of the most important builders of Soviet-German relations at that time, simply shrugged his shoulders and answered.
That night, 190 divisions and more than 5 million German troops launched an all-out attack on the Soviet Union from a border line more than 1800 kilometers wide, and the Great Patriotic War began...
These historical fragments have become moments that have been frozen by history. Today, when we look back at this history, it has long become a passing dust. But as I read it, I often wondered, many years later, whether Stalin would occasionally think of the German soldier who had been shot at his behest to report to him that the attack was coming? If he remembered, would there be a trace of uneasiness in his conscience flashing in his heart at this time? But all this we have never been able to know.....