What Stalin Knew: The Enigma of BarbarossaYale University Press, 2005 M06 11 - 340 pages This “riveting account of one of history’s greatest blunders” chronicles Russia’s tragic mishandling of Nazi Germany’s invasion during WWII (William L. O’Neill, The New Leader). On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany’s Operation Barbarossa was launched against Russia. Within days, the invading army had taken hundreds of thousands of Soviet captives while the Luftwaffe bombed a number of Russian cities, including Minsk. Though accurate intelligence about the plan had been available to Stalin before the attack, he chose not to heed the warning. In What Stalin Knew, historian and former chief of the CIA’s Soviet division David E. Murphy illuminates many of the enigmas surrounding the catastrophic invasion, offering keen insights into Stalin’s thinking and the reasons for his fatal error of judgment. A story of successful misinformation campaigns, and a leader more paranoid about threats from within his regime than from an aggressive neighbor, this authoritative history sheds essential new light on the most consequential event in the Eastern Front of World War II. “If, after the war, the Soviet Union had somehow been capable of producing an official inquiry into the catastrophe of 6/22—comparable in its mandate to the 9/11 commission here—its report might have read a little like [this book]. . . . Murphy brings to his subject both knowledge of Russian history and an insider’s grasp of how intelligence is gathered, analyzed and used—or not.” —Niall Ferguson, The New York Times Book Review “A fascinating and meticulously researched account of mistaken assumptions and errors of judgment . . . Never before has this fateful period been so fully documented.” —Henry A. Kissinger |
Contents
1 | |
7 | |
14 | |
CHAPTER 4 Soviet Borders Move Westward | 29 |
Proskurov Made a Scapegoat | 47 |
CHAPTER 6 Soviet Military Intelligence Residencies in Western Europe | 62 |
CHAPTER 7 Soviet Military Intelligence Residencies in Eastern Europe | 71 |
CHAPTER 8 Who Were You Dr Sorge? Stalin Never Heard of You | 84 |
Why Did Stalin Believe It? | 173 |
CHAPTER 18 Secret Letters | 185 |
CHAPTER 19 The Purges Revived | 192 |
CHAPTER 20 On the Eve | 204 |
CHAPTER 21 A Summer of Torture | 216 |
CHAPTER 22 The Final Reckoning | 232 |
Will the Future Be a Repeat of the Past? | 245 |
Organization and Functions of Soviet Military Intelligence | 253 |
CHAPTER 9 NKVD Foreign Intelligence | 91 |
CHAPTER 10 Fitins Recruited Spies | 97 |
CHAPTER 11 Listening to the Enemy | 108 |
CHAPTER 12 Working on the Railroad | 117 |
CHAPTER 13 The Border Troops Knew | 124 |
CHAPTER 14 Proskurov Is Fired | 137 |
CHAPTER 15 Golikov and Operation Sea Lion | 145 |
CHAPTER 16 We Do Not Fire on German Aircraft in Peacetime | 162 |
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