32. THE COUNTDOWN
22 June 1941
On 13 June, Timoshenko and Zhukov, themselves depressed and baffled, alerted Stalin to further border activities. “We’ll think it over,” snapped Stalin who next day lost his temper with Zhukov’s proposal of mobilization: “That means war. Do you two understand that or not?” Then he asked how many divisions there were in the border areas.
Zhukov told him there were 149.
“Well, isn’t that enough? The Germans don’t have so many…” But the Germans were on a war footing, replied Zhukov. “You can’t believe everything in intelligence reports,” said Stalin.
On the 16th, Merkulov confirmed the final decision to attack, which came from agent “Starshina” in Luftwaffe headquarters.[178] “Tell the ‘source’ in the Staff of the German Air Force to fuck his mother!” he scrawled to Merkulov. “This is no source but a disinformer. J.St.” Even Molotov struggled to convince himself: “They’d be fools to attack us,” he told Admiral Kuznetsov.
Two days later, at a three-hour meeting described by Timoshenko, he and Zhukov beseeched Stalin for a full alert, with the Vozhd fidgeting and tapping his pipe on the table, and the magnates agreeing with Stalin’s maniacal delusions or else brooding in sullen silence, the only way of protesting they possessed. Stalin suddenly leapt to his feet and shouted at Zhukov: “Have you come to scare us with war, or do you want a war because you’re not sufficiently decorated or your rank isn’t high enough?”
Zhukov paled and sat down but Timoshenko warned Stalin again, which aroused a frenzy: “It’s all Timoshenko’s work, he’s preparing everyone for war. He ought to have been shot, but I’ve known him as a good soldier since the Civil War.”
Timoshenko replied he was only repeating Stalin’s own speech that war was inevitable.
“So you see,” Stalin retorted to the Politburo. “Timoshenko’s a fine man with a big head but apparently a small brain,” and he held up his thumb. “I said it for the people, we have to raise their alertness, while you have to realize that Germany will never fight Russia on her own. You must understand this.” Stalin stormed out leaving an excruciating silence but then he “opened the door and stuck his pock-marked face round it and uttered in a loud voice: ‘If you’re going to provoke the Germans on the frontier by moving troops there without our permission, then heads will roll, mark my words’—and he slammed the door.”
Stalin summoned Khrushchev, who should have been monitoring the Ukrainian border, to Moscow and would not let him leave: “Stalin kept ordering me to postpone my departure: ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘Don’t be in such a hurry. There’s no need to rush back.’” Khrushchev held a special place in Stalin’s affections: perhaps his irrepressible optimism, sycophantic devotion—and practical cunning made him a useful companion at such a moment. Stalin was in a “state of confusion, anxiety, demoralization, even paralysis,” according to Khrushchev, soothing his anxiety with sleepless nights and heavy drinking at endless Kuntsevo dinners. “You could feel the static,” said Khrushchev, “the discharge of tension.” On Friday the 20th, Khrushchev finally said, “I have to go. The war is about to break out. It may catch me here in Moscow or on the way back to the Ukraine.”
“Right,” said Stalin. “Just go.”1
On the 19th, Zhdanov, who was running the country with Stalin and Molotov, left for one and a half months’ holiday. Suffering from asthma, and Stalin’s boa constrictor–like friendship, he was exhausted. “But I have a bad foreboding the Germans could invade,” Zhdanov told Stalin.
“The Germans have already missed the best moment,” replied Stalin. “Apparently they’ll attack in 1942. Go on holiday.”[179] Mikoyan thought he was naïve to go but Molotov shrugged: “A sick man has to rest.” So “we went on holiday,” remembers Zhdanov’s son Yury. “We arrived in Sochi on Saturday 21 June.”
On 20 June, Dekanozov, back in Berlin, warned Beria firmly that the attack was imminent. Beria threatened his protégé while Stalin muttered that “Slow Kartvelian” “wasn’t clever enough to work it out.” Beria forwarded the “disinformation” to Stalin with the sycophantic but slightly mocking note: “My people and I, Joseph Vissarionovich, firmly remember your wise prediction: Hitler will not attack us in 1941!”
At about 7:30 p.m., Mikoyan, the Deputy Premier in charge of the merchant navy, was called by the harbourmaster of Riga: twenty-five German ships were setting sail, even though many had not yet unloaded. He rushed along to Stalin’s office where some of the leaders were gathered.
“That’ll be a provocation,” Stalin angrily told Mikoyan. “Let them leave.” The Politburo were alarmed—but of course said nothing. Molotov was deeply worried: “The situation is unclear, a great game is being played,” he confided to the Bulgarian Communist Dmitrov, on Saturday 21 June. “Not everything depends on us.” General Golikov brought Stalin further evidence: “This information,” Stalin wrote on it, “is an English provocation. Find out who the author is and punish him.” The fire brigade reported that the German Embassy was burning documents. The British government and even Mao Tse-tung (a surprising source, via the Comintern) sent warnings.
Stalin telephoned Khrushchev to warn him the war might begin the next day and asked Tiulenev, the commander of Moscow: “How do things stand with the anti-aircraft defence of Moscow? Note the situation’s tense… Bring the troops of Moscow’s anti-aircraft defence to 75 percent of combat readiness.”2
Saturday the 21st was a warm and uneasy day in Moscow. The schools had broken up for the holidays. Dynamo Moscow, the football team, lost its game. The theatres were showing Rigoletto, La Traviata and Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Stalin and the Politburo sat all day, coming and going. By early evening, Stalin was deeply disturbed by the persistently ominous reports that even his Terror could not disperse. Molotov joined him again around 6:30.
Outside the Little Corner, Poskrebyshev sat by the open window, sipping Narzan water: he called Chadaev, the young Sovnarkom assistant. “Something important?” whispered Chadaev.
“I’d say so,” replied Poskrebyshev. “The Boss talked to Timoshenko, he was very agitated… They’re waiting for… you know… the German attack…”
At about seven, Stalin ordered Molotov to summon Schulenburg to protest about the German reconnaissance flights—and find out what he could. The Count sped into the Kremlin. Molotov hurried along to his office in the same building. Meanwhile[180] Timoshenko telephoned to report that a German deserter had revealed the German invasion plan for dawn. Stalin swung between the force of reality and the self-delusion of his infallibility.
In Molotov’s office, Schulenburg was relieved to see that the Foreign Commissar was still oblivious to the enormity of his country’s plight. The Russian asked him why Germany seemed dissatisfied with their Soviet allies. And why had the women and children of the German Embassy left Moscow?
“Not ALL the women,” said Schulenburg. “My wife is still in town.” Molotov gave what the Ambassador’s aide, Hilger, called a “resigned shrug of the shoulders” and returned to Stalin’s office.
Timoshenko then arrived, along with most of the magnates: Voroshilov, Beria, Malenkov and the powerful young Deputy Premier Voznesensky. At 8:15 p.m., Timoshenko returned to the Defence Commissariat whence he informed Stalin that a second deserter had warned that war would begin at 4 a.m. Stalin called him back. Timoshenko arrived at 8:50 with Zhukov and Budyonny, Deputy Defence Commissar, who knew Stalin much better than they did and was less frightened of the Vozhd. Budyonny admitted that he did not know what was happening at the frontier since he was only in command of the home front. The outspoken Budyonny had played an ambiguous role in the Terror but even then he was willing to speak his mind, a rare quality in those circles. Stalin appointed him commander of the Reserve Army. Then Mekhlis, newly restored to his old job—head of the army’s Political Department, Stalin’s military enforcer, joined this funereal vigil.
178
On 14 June, Hitler held his last military conference before the beginning of Barbarossa, with the generals arriving at the Chancellery at different times so as not to raise suspicion. On the 16th, he summoned Goebbels to brief him.
179
Perhaps Stalin had encouraged Zhdanov to bolster his own wavering confidence: when Dmitrov passed on an Austrian warning, Stalin replied that there could not be anything to worry about if Zhdanov, who ran the Leningrad Military District and the navy, had gone on holiday.
180
This account is based on the memoirs of Molotov, Mikoyan, Zhukov, Timoshenko, Hilger and others but the times are based on the Kremlin Logbook which is clearly incomplete but since the fear, uncertainty and chaos of that night ensured that everyone gave different times for their meetings, it at least provides a framework. Zhukov is not shown as attending the first meeting at 7:05 and Vatutin, who was deputy Chief of Staff and appears in Zhukov’s account, is not mentioned at all. Nor is Mikoyan. That does not mean they were not there: in the manic comings and goings, even Poskrebyshev could be forgiven a few mistakes.