Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

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Otium

Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Otium » 3 years 9 months ago (Thu Sep 05, 2019 9:36 am)

Here is a massive chunk from Irving's 1977 Hitler's War, chapter 14 "A Bitter Victory" which proves further the knowledge of Hitler, Halder and others of Soviet invasion preparations. They at the very least had a belief in these Soviet preparations to attack Germany and acted accordingly to them. This can hardly be discounted as evidence in the planning and consideration process of Barbarossa. http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Hitler/1977/html_chapter/14.html

Finding a suitable incident was traditionally the difficulty of launching a premeditated preventive war, which is what Hitler’s eastern crusade had now become. Neither Hitler nor his military advisers were any longer in doubt as to Stalin’s long-term intentions. Halder was to state that if the Russian deployments were shown to an impartial military expert he would have to concede that they were offensive in design. Throughout March, Russian troop movements close to the frontier had been so intense, with a heavy flow of reinforcements from Moscow toward Smolensk and Minsk, that eventually Halder felt anxiety about the threat of a Russian preventive action. The danger would be acute at least until April 20, for until then the Russians would have great superiority in strength. “The disposition of Russian forces gives food for thought,” Halder wrote on April 7. “If we discount the catchword that the Russians want peace and won’t attack anybody themselves, then it has to be admitted that the Russian dispositions could allow them to convert very rapidly from defense into attack—and this could prove highly embarrassing for us.” He had Jodl ask Hitler whether the top-capacity “Barbarossa” transport plan should be thrown into action now, six weeks early, but Hitler was against it.

The Führer himself was in no doubt. Stalin’s pact with Belgrade, coupled with a communiquÈ of March 24,(5) provided further justification for “Barbarossa.” At the end of it all he was to say, “I didn’t take the decision to attack Moscow lightly, but because I knew from certain information that an alliance was being prepared between Britain and Russia. The big question was, Should we strike out first or wait until we were overwhelmed some time in the future ?” According to his army adjutant, Hitler’s decision was reinforced by Intelligence reports on feverish airfield and arms dump construction by the Russians throughout the spring ; there were also reports from Polish agents of Russian troop movements from as far away as the Far East, and of the creation and deployment of new armies for what could only be offensive purposes. The Russians were also instructing their commissars, for example in Leningrad, to get ready for a long and grueling war with Germany.

German Intelligence collected concrete evidence of long-range Soviet planning. The naval attachÈ reported from Moscow that the Soviet naval construction program was in the process of building three battleships, eleven cruisers, sixty-one destroyers, and nearly three hundred submarines ; most of this fleet would be concentrated in the Baltic. On April 4 the German naval code-breakers noticed that the Russians had suddenly adopted completely new radio- and code-systems for two days—evidently a test of war procedures. After April 7, the German embassy in Moscow observed a steady call-up of reservists and raw recruits. On the eighth, the families of the Russian trade mission began leaving Berlin. Trainloads of the paraphernalia of war were observed moving westward from Kiev to the Polish border. On the ninth, the military attachÈ in Bucharest reported that Marshal SemÎn Timoshenko, believed to be the only capable Soviet commander, had just held a council of war at Kiev and ordered an alert for all units on the western front. Rumors swept the General government that Russia would exploit her present brief superiority of arms to strike into Germany, destroying the “Barbarossa” assembly and capturing the huge arms dumps Hitler was moving into the front line. On April 13, Hitler was shown a Forschungsamt summary on the multiplying rumors of war with Russia. On the twenty-third there were fresh reports from Bucharest of immense Soviet reinforcements in Bukovina and Bessarabia, some of the reinforcements arriving from as far away as the Caucasus and Finland ; the next day the German military attachÈ in Bucharest reported that the Russians were evacuating the civilian population along their side of the Prut River front and that shiploads of Red Army troops were arriving at Odessa and being transported by rail to the Bug and Dniester. On the twenty-fifth the naval decoders intercepted the British military attachÈ’s report to London from Moscow. A thousand people a day were now being called up in Moscow alone, he said, many of them being sent to the Baltic states. “Our military attachÈ in Budapest, who was traveling to Moscow a few days ago, saw at Lemberg [Lvov] at least one tank brigade ... on the railway line between Lemberg and Kiev heading westward ; he passed seven troop trains of which four were conveying tanks and mechanized equipment and three troops.” The German attachÈs undertaking similar journeys also saw many military transports heading west between Minsk and Baranovichi. By May 5, Antonescu was able to tip off the Germans that Soviet troops were massing between Kiev and Odessa and that reinforcements were still pouring westward from Siberia. “The thing worth noting is that factories around Moscow have been ordered to transfer their equipment into the country’s interior.”

According to Hitler’s Luftwaffe adjutant, the Intelligence brought back by a team of Göering’s engineers from a tour of Soviet aircraft factories late in April convinced the Führer there was no time to be lost. These air ministry experts had been allowed to tour eight or nine of the biggest Russian factories producing ball bearings, alloys, aircraft, and aero engines, and to see the advances made by Soviet research. It was clear that the Soviet air force was a far greater menace than Hitler had bargained for—both in size and aircraft performance. The aircraft factories themselves were the biggest and most modern in Europe—and more were under construction. When the German experts attended a dinner party, the leading Soviet aircraft designer, Mikoyan (who later designed the MIG fighters), stated explicitly, “Now you have seen the mighty technology of the Soviet fatherland. We shall valiantly ward off any attack, whatever quarter it comes from !” Years later Hitler was to describe this commission’s report on the Soviet air force as having finally convinced him of the need to attack Russia now.


And this all makes sense. You do not, as these people pushing Soviet Patriot myths would have us believe, simply attack a country without assessing it's military capacity and movement of troops. Even if there was some kind of malicious intent in Hitler's view, what he saw, the reports he got cannot be denied, he was witnessing evidence that he must strike Russia hard and fast in a preventative strike.

The premise of this I find to be faulty anyway. Nobody pushing the standard narrative would deny the necessity to fight Hitler from day one. They think appeasement was a mistake and thought war was the only reasonable option to fight Hitler. These people thirst for it, they wanted war so much they write book after book about appeasement and how the British if they weren't blood thirsty enough should've slammed down the gauntlet and smashed Hitler before he could ever have a chance to act in favor of Germany to gain the living space he desired for his people. Norman Davies for instance writes in his 'A History of Poland' that

there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Pilsudski seriously considered a preventive war against Hitler, if only the western powers had shown willing. 'Strict mutuality' was the basis for relations with both great neighbours, and the Doctrine of the Two Enemies was never abandoned. - Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland Vol 2 1795 to the Present, (Columbia University Press, 2005), pp. 311


a new book on the Munich Agreement reviewed by Kirkus Reviews https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/pe-caquet/the-bell-of-treason/ wishes for war as well
War seemed imminent, which, Caquet emphasizes, might have been a good thing.


Accompanied by the classic claim in the books description that
The Czechoslovakian authorities were Cassandras in their own country, the only ones who could see Hitler's threat for what it was
something we've all heard before. Churchill was the only man, the Czechs, Schuschnigg etc. etc. and in many cases these same men the historians declare as unusually adept at seeing Hitler "as he really was" were all men of war, that wanted to fight a war and the historians see it morally correct to do so. It all comes down to a matter of perspective. Historians aren't the people to decide which preventative war was more moral. But apparently there are some people out there who see Hitler as uniquely evil as they hypocritically revel in the fantasy of their own heroic crusades against the Führer.

The British, Americans, French et al. all had their chances to claim lad, conquer it and kill whoever they needed to in order to keep it. But Hitler? No, he in the eyes of the Allied patriots is uniquely evil and deserving to be crushed for his bid for territory in a way no other man or power has ever been. And so what about Soviet Russia? A free hand in the east to take down the Communists doesn't hurt my feelings in the slightest, they're no saints, if Hitler did attack unprovoked I personally couldn't give a darn. Am I or anyone else supposed to sit here and retrospectively wish Hitler didn't make a decisive strike against such a true evil? No.

It has never been summed up better than by A.J.P. Taylor.

The historian A.J.P. Taylor once mischievously remarked that 'in international affairs there was nothing wrong with Hitler except that he was a German'. From this point of view, he was right. Taylor laughed at those who described the German dictator as a man of unique wickedness - Mark Mazower, Hitler's Empire Nazi Rule in Occupied Europe, (Penguin Books, 2008), pp. 182

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Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Lamprecht » 3 years 9 months ago (Sun Sep 08, 2019 10:23 am)

I don't believe this has been posted yet:

Stalin’s Preparations For An Offensive War In The Summer of 1941 To Make Europe A Soviet-Communist Continent
https://wearswar.wordpress.com/2018/01/ ... continent/ or https://archive.is/w8CHt

John Wear discusses Soviet preparations for Offensive war, mostly as a review/summary of Viktor Suvorov's work.

Metapedia summarizes Suvorov's work as:
- The Soviet Union (USSR) was intrinsically unstable. It had to expand to survive. According to Suvorov's interpretation of the “permanent revolution theory”, the communist system had to expand and occupy the entire world to survive. Otherwise, the system would fail in a peaceful and/or military struggle with surrounding "capitalist" countries. Stalin and other Soviet leaders had always understood this. They therefore started preparations for a large-scale war of aggression and conquest. To mislead the West, however, they officially declared an adherence to the more peaceful theory of "Socialism in One Country", according to which Socialism can win in a single country, without being overthrown. A related point is that one of the main differences between Trotskyism and Stalinism is criticism of Stalin’s "Socialism in One Country" policy. If Suvorov is right, then Stalin actually had views similar to Trotsky, but was more covert.

- The Soviet Union made extensive preparations for a future war of aggression during the 1920s and 1930s. Suvorov provided an extensive analysis of Stalin's preparations for war. According to Suvorov, there were supposed to be three Five Year Plan phases that would prepare the Soviet Union for war. The first one was to be focused on collectivisation, the second focused on industrialisation, and the third phase would emphasize the militarisation of the country.

- According to this, the collectivisation of agriculture (and possibly even the Holodomor) should be seen as partly being a preparation for the future war, aimed at crushing and controlling the peasantry, who had been a major problem during the Russian Civil War, with numerous peasant uprisings. The Great Purge is also seen partially as a preparation for the future war, replacing army leaders and others seen as inefficient and possibly disloyal, and reducing the influence of Jews and other ethnic minorities and increasing Russian influence, in order to increase the support of the Russian people for the regime during the coming war.

- Stalin escalated tensions in Europe by providing a combination of economic and military support to the Weimar Republic, and later to National Socialist Germany. After World War I, the Allies attempted to impose severe restrictions on the Weimar Republic to prevent it from rearming and again becoming a significant military threat. During "the early 1920s until 1933, the Soviet Union was engaged in secret collaboration with the German military to enable it to circumvent the provisions of the Versailles Treaty", which limited Germany's military production. Moscow allowed the Germans to produce and test their weapons on Soviet territory, while some Red Army officers attended general-staff courses in Germany. The basis for this collaboration was the Treaty of Rapallo, signed between the two nations in 1922, and subsequent diplomatic interactions. This collaboration ended when the anti-communist National Socialists took power in 1933. But, according to Suvorov, in the years 1932-1933, "Stalin helped Hitler come to power by forbidding German Communists to make common cause with the Social Democrats against the National Socialists in parliamentary elections". Suvorov claimed that Stalin's plan and vision was that Hitler's should play the role of "icebreaker" for the Communist revolution. By becoming involved in wars with European countries, Hitler would justify the USSR's entry into World War II by attacking National Socialist Germany and "liberating" and Sovietising all of Europe. When concluding the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939, Stalin "clearly counted on the repetition of the 1914–1918 war of attrition, which would leave the "capitalist" countries so exhausted that the USSR could sweep into Europe virtually unopposed".

- According to Suvorov and others, Stalin always planned to exploit military conflict between the capitalist countries to his advantage. He said as early as 1925 that "Struggles, conflicts and wars among our enemies are...our great ally...and the greatest supporter of our government and our revolution" and "If a war does break out, we will not sit with folded arms – we will have to take the field, but we will be last to do so. And we shall do so in order to throw the decisive load on the scale”.

- Stalin planned to attack National Socialist Germany from the rear in July 1941, only a few weeks after the date on which the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union took place. According to Suvorov, the Red Army had already redeployed from a defensive to an offensive stance. Suvorov also stated that Stalin had made no major defensive preparations.

- Hitler's intelligence identified the Soviet Union's preparations to attack Germany. Therefore, the Wehrmacht had drafted a preemptive war plan based on Hitler's orders as early as mid-1940. On 22 June 1941, Germany began the invasion of the Soviet Union.
https://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Soviet_of ... ontroversy
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
— Herbert Spencer


NOTE: I am taking a leave of absence from revisionism to focus on other things. At this point, the ball is in their court to show the alleged massive pits full of human remains at the so-called "extermination camps." After 8 decades they still refuse to do this. I wonder why...

Otium

Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Otium » 3 years 7 months ago (Sun Oct 13, 2019 11:27 pm)

Hektor wrote:
Werd wrote:https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2015/03/22/greece-wants-ww2-reparations-from-germany/
....

But this war happened nevertheless, so could it be that in reality is was precisely the other way around? That that long list of enemies was being lined up against Germany? That was indeed the case. WW2 was a conspiracy of Roosevelt and Stalin plus paid British stooge Churchill against Germany, using Poland as useful idiot. Churchill, who headed the British war party, managed to push Chamberlain aside and take over government. The US pushed Britain and France in the war against Germany, here Chamberlain’s confirmation. Britain pushed Norway, Holland, Belgium and Greece out of neutrality, Britain had Canada, Australia, India and others in their empire, France had Morocco, Algeria and others and finally the USSR supported the Yugoslav coup, directed against Germany. That’s what we mean when we say that all countries mentioned were lined up against Germany.
...
West front, same story, see map. Both the Dutch and Belgians, like the Norwegians, had given in to allied pressure to allow overpass to British and French troops on their way to the Ruhr area. The Germans preempted the attack and occupied Holland and Belgium, read Goering’s NMT testimony about why Germany invaded Holland and Belgium [avalon.law.yale.edu] or Dutch-Jewish court historian Lou de Jong with his late revelations. The upshot of the allied experiences at the north and west front was one of total surprise about the speed with which the Germans advanced. Stalin understood that in 1940 he was not yet ready for war against Germany.
....


Image

Here is what Lou de Jong wrote in his Magnum Opus "Het Koninkrijk Der Nederlanden In De Tweede Wereldoorlog" about the neutrality of the Netherlands:
https://archive.org/details/LoeDeJongHe ... al/page/n1
... and I think he's putting it mildly.
Bear in mind where the business interests of the Dutch Elites were at that time. Lots of joint ventures with British companies. On the other hand the overall economy of the Netherlands depends on a good relationship with Germany: Industrial goods came from there and Germany was a market that also imported via the Netherlands.

I think the whole affair may be worthwhile a thread on its own.

* Note: the wordpress post has been removed, but it's still available at archive.org:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150918110 ... m-germany/


The English translation of that heading is this:

HAD MILITARY LEADERS FOR
MAY 1940 CONTACT WITH ALLIED FORCES

Prof. De Jong: The Netherlands was not so neutral

The fact that the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry praised the government for its strict observance of neutrality is something Dr De Jong considers possible, because the image of the perfectly neutral Netherlands had become deeply rooted in the minds of the people who made up the committee. Shortly after the liberation, when everything was still seen in black and white, there was no room for dissenting opinions. The Committee's reports, together with further research, remind us once again of the equally important, and time and again fascinating, theme of the gulf between what the contemporary believes is happening and what is really happening in history, which is a joke and a joke.

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator


It's not a perfect translation, but you get the idea.

Otium

Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Otium » 3 years 7 months ago (Mon Oct 14, 2019 1:19 am)

Werd wrote:Let's have a translation via google of that one letter.



The Chief of the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht FH Qu . , D . May 11, 1941
WFST / Dept . L (I Op )
No. 00 886/41 g.Kdos .
Top secret
To the Reich Minister of Foreign Affairs

Dear Mr. Reich Minister

The High Command of the Wehrmacht observed for months with ever- increasing concern the development that takes the deployment of Russian forces along the eastern border of Germany .

After the messages present here befänden when the war broke out in 1939 about 77 Russian rifle divisions in European Russia, of which only a little more than half in the west-Russian border area. After completion of the Polish campaign, this number rose to 114. If the High Command of the Armed Forces at the time saw some justification of the measures in but almost bloodless occupation of East Poland by Russian troops, so it had to with all the greater surprise after the scheduled completion of these operations, a find still further increase this number to 121.

Since the beginning of this year, but ran almost daily the High Command of the Armed Forces from all parts of the border messages that showed a picture of a comprehensive Russian troops concentration at the eastern border of Germany in their overall evaluation. Under reckless removal of contactors, rnot.- and Panzer Divisions from Asia and the Caucasus - especially after the Russo-Japanese non-aggression pact - the number alone the identified rifle divisions in European Russia increased on 1 5 1941 143 . Of these, 119 divisions were in the Russo-German border area.

In the panzer panzer brigades and divisions this growing focus formation is considerably more pronounced. Since the beginning are almost all ever recorded Motor nom and armored units in western Russia. In addition, another 20 Cavalry divisions and several parachute battalions.

A similar trend can also be seen in the Russian Air Force. With the ever-increasing accumulation easier squadrons in support of the Army of the rapid progress of improvements at the bottom organizations reveals the preparation of major bombings strong fighter pilot units in the German Empire in near the border.

Furthermore, the High Command of the Wehrmacht again to the repeated utterances higher of Soviet officers out who openly spoke of an imminent Russian offensive in simulations and field exercises.

The High Command of the Armed Forces has come by these facts in connection with the Foreign Office continually communicated border violations of Soviet aircraft and soldiers to the conviction that this, a mobilization practically equal upcoming extent of the Russian march at the eastern border of Germany, only as a preparation for Russian offensive measures largest circumference can be interpreted. The danger of an armed conflict, therefore, engaged in dangerous proximity.
The nearly completed deployment of their armed forces of the Soviet governance allows a free choice of the attack began. German Corresponding countermeasures are now unavoidable.

Hail Hitler!
Yours very truly,
sgd. Keitel


It's a very good letter. Interesting and damning. But what is the source? The article doesn't say. Is it from a book? The Nuremberg Trials? What?

Otium

Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Otium » 3 years 7 months ago (Tue Oct 15, 2019 1:11 am)

From Werd

Now Michael Mills made a good point that though the German army wasn't fully mobilized until 1943, they still attacked Poland at least. And there does seem to be Soviet documentation that Stalin was planning to attack in 1941 as opposed to 1942 as Roberto implied while quoting Harrison Salisbury. But Roberto continues on...

There is much evidence indeed that Stalin was biding for time, but why would that necessarily make it time for preparing his own attack rather than time to have his forces in shape to withstand a German attack?


So just because Hitler and the Germans rushed forward, that does not automatically prove Stalin wanted to as well. However, if what Hoffman/Mills adducted above is true, Stalin clearly didn't give a damn about not being at full force in 1941 like Hitler apparently didn't give a damn about being at full force when he invaded Poland in 1939.


This is rubbish. Stalin wasn't preparing for anything less than an offensive war, we already know that in the way his forces were set up in offensive positions not indicative of preparing to 'withstand a German attack'. Stalin's reaction of utter surprise and disbelief we constantly hear about when Hitler's forces embarked into Russia should be ample evidence against Robertos assertion too.

There's also a part in this thread where Werd quotes Roberto quoting Shirer, Shirer, who I guess Werd considers to be a "Good Source" as he's referred to Robertos use of citations blows my mind.

This is that section Werd Quotes from Roberto:

William Shirer (The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, New York 1960, pages 795 and following)

It is clear from his acts and from the secret German papers that though Stalin was out to get all he could in Eastern Europe while the Germans were tied down in the West, he did not wish or contemplate a break with Hitler.
Toward the end of June [1940] Churchill had tried to warn Stalin in a personal letter of the danger of the German conquests to Russia as well as to Britain. The Soviet dictator did not bother to answer; probably, like everyone else, he thought Britain was finished. So he tattled to the Germans what the British government was up to. Sir Stafford Cripps, a left-wing Labor Party leader, whom the Prime Minister had rushed to Moscow as the new British ambassador in the hope of striking a more responsive chord among the Bolsheviks - a forlorn hope, as he later ruefully admitted - was received by Stalin early in July in an interview that Churchill described as “formal and rigid.” On July 13 Molotov, on Stalin’s instructions, handed the German ambassador a written memorandum of his confidential conversation.
It is an interesting document. It reveals, as no other source does, the severe limitations of the Soviet dicator in his cold calculations of foreign affairs. Schulenburg sped it to Berlin “most urgent” and, of course, “secret”, and Ribbentrop was so grateful for its contents that he told the Soviet government he “greatly appreciated this information”. Cripps had pressed Stalin, the memorandum said, for his attitude on this principal question, among others:

The British government was convinced that Germany was striving for hegemony in Europe . . . This was dangerous to the Soviet Union as well as England. Therefore both countries ought to agree on a common policy of self-protection against Germany and on the re-establishment of the European balance of power ...

Stalin’s answers are given as follows:

He did not see any danger of the hegemony of any one country in Europe and still less any danger that Europe might be engulfed by Germany. Stalin observed the policy of Germany, and knew several leading German statesmen well. He had not discovered any desire on their part to engulf European countries. Stalin was not of the opinion that German military successes menaced the Soviet Union and her friendly relations with Germany ...

Such staggering smugness, such abysmal ignorance leave one breathless. The Russian tyrant did not know, of course, the secrets of Hitler’s turgid mind, but the Führer’s past behavior, his known ambitions and the unexpectedly rapid Nazi conquests ought to have been enough to warn him of the dire danger the Soviet Union was now in. But, incomprehensibly, they were not enough.

From the captured Nazi documents and from the testimony of many leading German figures in the great drama that was being played over the vast expanse of Western Europe that year, it is plain that at the very moment of Stalin’s monumental complacency Hitler had in fact been mulling over in his mind the idea of turning on the Soviet Union and destroying her.

The basic idea went back much further, at least fifteen years - to Mein Kampf.

And so we National Socialists [Hitler wrote] take up where we broke off six hundred years ago. We stop the endless German movement toward the south and west of Europe and turn our gaze toward the lands of the East ... when we speak of new territory in Europe today we must think principally of Russia and her border vassal states. Destiny itself seems to wish to point our the way to us here ... This colossal empire in the East is ripe for dissolution, and the end of the Jewish domination in Russia will also be the end of Russia as a state.

This idea lay like bedrock in Hitler’s mind, and his pact with Stalin had not changed it at all, but merely postponed acting on it. And but briefly. In fact, less than two months after the deal was signed and had been utilized to destroy Poland, the Führer instructed the Army that the conquered Polish territory was to be regarded “as an assembly area for future German operations.” The date was October 18, 1939, and Halder recorded that day in his diary.
Five weeks later, on November 22, when he harangued his reluctant generals about attacking in the West, Russia was by no means out of his mind. “We can oppose Russia,” he declared, “only when we are free in the West.”
At that time the two-front war, the nightmare of German generals for a century, was very much on Hitler’s mind, and he spoke of it at length on this occasion. He would not repeat the mistake of former German rulers; he could continue to see to it that the Army had one front at a time.
It was only natural, then, that with the fall of France, the chasing of the British Army across the Channel and the prospects of Britain’s imminent collapse, Hitler’s thoughts should turn once again to Russia. For he now supposed himself to be free in the West and thereby to have achieved the one condition he had laid down in order to be in a position to “oppose Russia.” the rapidity with which Stalin seized the Baltic States and the two Romanian provinces in June spurred Hitler to a decision.
The moment of its making can now be traced. Jodl says that the “fundamental decision” was taken “as far back as during the Western Campaign.” Colonel Walter Warlimont, Jodl’s deputy at OKW, remembered that on July 29 Jodl announced at a meeting of Operations Staff officers that “Hitler intended to attack the U.S.S.R. in the spring of 1941.” Sometime previous to this meeting, Jodl related, Hitler had told Keitel “that he intended to launch the attack against the U.S.S.R. during the fall of 1940.” But this was too much even for Keitel and he had argued Hitler out of it by contending that not only the bad weather in the autumn but the difficulties of transferring the bulk of the Army from the West to the East made it impossible. By the time of this conference on July 29, Warlimont relates, “the date for the intended attack [against Russia] had been moved back to the spring of 1941.”
Only a week before, we know from Halder’s diary, the Führer had still held to a possible campaign in Russia for the autumn if Britain were not invaded. At a military conference in Berlin on July 21 he told Brauchitsch to get busy on the preparations for it.
That the Army Commander in Chief had already given the problem some thought - but not enough thought - is evident from his response to Hitler. Brauchitsch told the Leader that the campaign “would last four to six weeks” and that the aim would be “to defeat the Russian Army or at least to occupy enough Russian territory so that Soviet bombers could not reach Berlin or the Silesian industrial area while, on the other hand, the Luftwaffe bombers could reach all important objectives in the Soviet Union.” Brauchitsch thought that from eighty to a hundred German divisions could do the job; he assessed Russian strength at “fifty to seventy-five good divisions.” Halder’s notes on what Brauchitsch told him of the meeting show that Hitler had been stung by Stalin’s grabs in the East, that he thought the Soviet dictator was “coquetting with England” in order to encourage her to hold out, but that he had seen no signs that Russia was preparing to enter the war against Germany.
At a further conference at the Berghof on the last day of July 1940, the receding prospects of an invasion of Britain prompted Hitler to announce for the first time to his Army chiefs his decision on Russia. Halder was personally present this time and jotted down his shorthand notes of exactly what the warlord said. They reveal not only that Hitler had made a definite decision to attack Russia in the following spring but that he had already worked out in his mind the major strategic aims.

Britain’s hope [Hitler said] lies in Russia and America. If that hope in Russia is destroyed then it will be destroyed for America too because elimination of Russia will enormously increase Japan’s power in the Far East.

The more he thought of it the more convinced he was, Hitler said, that Britain’s stubborn determination to continue the war was due to its counting on the Soviet Union.

Something strange [he explained] has happened in Britain! The British were already completely down. Now they are back on their feet. Intercepted conversations. Russia unpleasantly disturbed by the swift development in Western Europe.
Russia needs only to hint to England that she does not wish to see Germany too strong and the English, like a drowning man, will regain hope that the situation in six to eight months will have completely changed.
But if Russia is smashed, Britain’s last hope will be shattered. Then Germany will be master of Europe and the Balkans.
Decision: In view of these considerations Russia must be liquidated. Spring, 1941.
The sooner Russia is smashed, the better.


The Nazi warlord then elaborated on his strategic plans which, it was obvious to the generals, had been ripening in his mind for some time despite all his preoccupations with the fighting in the West. The operation, he said, would be worth carrying out only if its aim was to shatter the Soviet nation in one great blow. Conquering a lot of Russian territory would not be enough. “Wiping out the very power to exist of Russia! That is the goal!” Hitler emphasized. There would be two initial drives: one in the south to Kiev and the Dnieper River, the second in the north up through the Baltic States and then toward Moscow. There the two armies would make a junction. After that a special operation, if necessary, to secure the Baku oil fields. The very thought of such new conquests excited Hitler; he already had in his mind what he would do with them. He would annex outright, he said, the Ukraine, White Russia and the Baltic States and extend Finland’s territory to the White Sea. For the whole operation he would allot 120 divisions, keeping sixty divisions for the defense of the West and Scandinavia. The attack, he laid it down, would begin in May 1941 and would take five months to carry through. It would be finished by winter. He would have preferred, he said, to do it this year but this had not proved possible.

The next day, August 1, Halder went to work on the plans with his General Staff. Though he would later claim to have opposed the whole idea of an attack on Russia as insane, his diary entry for this day discloses him full of enthusiasm as he applied himself to the challenging new task.
Planning now went ahead with typical German thoroughness on three levels: that of the Army General Staff, of Warlimont’s Operations Staff at OKW, of General Thomas’ Economic and Armaments Branch of OKW. Thomas was instructed on August 14 by Göring that Hitler desired deliveries of ordered goods to the Russians “only till spring of 1941.” In the meantime his office was to make a detailed survey of Soviet industry, transportation and oil centers both as a guide to targets and later on as an aid for administering Russia.
A few days before, on August 9, Warlimont had got out his first directive for preparing the deployment areas in the East for the jump-off against the Russians. On August 26, Hitler ordered ten infantry and two armored divisions to be sent from the West to Poland. The panzer units, he stipulated, were to be concentrated in southeastern Poland so that they could intervene to protect the Romanian oil fields. The transfer of large bodies of troops to the East could not be done without exciting Stalin’s easily aroused suspicions if he learned of it, and the Germans went to great lengths to see that he didn’t. Since some movements were bound to be detected, General Ernst Köstring, the German military attaché in Moscow, was instructed to inform the Soviet General Staff that it was merely a question of replacing older men, who were being released to industry, by younger men. On September 6, Jodl got out a directive outlining in considerable detail the means of camouflage and deception. “These regroupings,” he laid it down, “must not create the impression in Russia that we are preparing an offensive in the East.”
So that the armed services should not rest on their laurels after the great victories of the summer, Hitler issued on November 12, 1940, a comprehensive top-secret directive outlining military tasks all over Europe and beyond. We shall come back to some of them. What concerns us here is that portion dealing with the Soviet Union.

Political discussions have been initiated with the aim of clarifying Russia’s attitude for the time being. Irrespective of the results of these discussions, all preparations for the East which have already been verbally ordered will be continued. Instructions on this will follow, as soon as the general outline of the Army’s operation plans have been submitted to, and approved by, me.

As a matter of fact, on that very day, November 12, Molotov arrived in Berlin to continue with Hitler himself those political discussions.


Nothing Shirer has written will ever be trustworthy. A biased court historian who published a big book but nevertheless an abridgement of the Nuremberg Trials. Nothing to quote about, nothing of value. Although I found it interesting that Robertos quoting of Shirer seemed to be lacking any hint from Hitler that "lebensraum" was his motivation. In fact, his motivation seems to be making sure Britain and further the USA had no hope in Russia and thus killing two birds with one stone. Hitler, in this section of Shirer's book seems to be the man of peace we all know he is. Taking out Russia quickly to assure peace in Europe and limit conflict with the west. This motivation of Hitlers is no different to that of Britain or anyone else when as quoted by Shirer says:

The British government was convinced that Germany was striving for hegemony in Europe . . . This was dangerous to the Soviet Union as well as England. Therefore both countries ought to agree on a common policy of self-protection against Germany and on the re-establishment of the European balance of power ...


The war appears as nothing more than a bid for peace on the continent. The fact people like Roberto and other mainstream historians don't like to admit that Hitler and Britain simply saw peace differently and that's what caused a war and not one single act of 'aggression' speaks volumes. That somehow the 'German act of aggression' of invading Poland for territory rightfully theirs and pursued with peaceful methods was denied to them is up until the last minute, is somehow more immoral than the British act of aggression which was the threat of war if Germany didn't obey like a good little dog, which is somehow totally moral and praiseworthy because at least Britain's ultimatum gave the Germans a warning before declaring war, didn't the Germans know that if they didn't want war they should've just listened to the British and Americans!? Well, similarly goes for Britain. If they didn't want war they should not have interfered.

There's merely politically interest for these individuals for their side of what 'peace' should've constituted of. And they're just as aggressive about asserting it as Hitler was. Both sides were willing to fight a war to assert who was right in having continental dominance, it's simply that the "allies" were proponents of the status quo, and so today all these slick gits get off in asserting how righteous their war was that they also equally sought in the face of an 'unscrupulous' enemy that wanted to assert it's will over the same interested area. But because they lost, the Germans are now seen as the "threat to peace" when in actuality they were simply a "threat to the status quo" of the victors, hence why they needed to be crushed.

Barbarossa comes out in the same light here as quoted by Shirer. As another act for Hitler to be blamed for in his pursuit of peace, NOT of war. And what else was Hitler to do? The British denied his peace offers, they didn't declare war on Russia, they just wanted to keep fighting. Hitler had no choice but to keep fighting to find ways of securing peace. This is evidenced by this quote:

The more he thought of it the more convinced he was, Hitler said, that Britain’s stubborn determination to continue the war was due to its counting on the Soviet Union.

Something strange [he explained] has happened in Britain! The British were already completely down. Now they are back on their feet. Intercepted conversations. Russia unpleasantly disturbed by the swift development in Western Europe. Russia needs only to hint to England that she does not wish to see Germany too strong and the English, like a drowning man, will regain hope that the situation in six to eight months will have completely changed. But if Russia is smashed, Britain’s last hope will be shattered. Then Germany will be master of Europe and the Balkans. Decision: In view of these considerations Russia must be liquidated. Spring, 1941. The sooner Russia is smashed, the better.


Nothing else of what is quoted is necessarily relevant. I think it's to be expected, Hitler was going to attack the USSR and he told all the relevant people that this was the case, but he hardly told anyone the true reason why he was planning on doing such a thing. As was quoted a few posts prior, a post by myself in which I quoted Irving's 1977 chapter of Hitler's War it was clear that Hitler's true intention at a preventive strike was kept close to the chest for obvious reasons. Although of course the nature and suspicion of the Soviet buildup on the border could hardly be avoided by Generals or pilots as we've seen from the likes of Hans-Ulrich Rudel earlier in the thread.

What's important isn't how powerful one power was over another, it's how powerful Hitler, Stalin and their generals THOUGHT the enemy was that determined going to war with each other. This constant bickering over tanks, armies, guns, bullets etc. blah blah blah just seems utterly pointless when what really matters in determining the motivations for an attack is what the people involved thought themselves. Anything else is just hindsight which cannot do us any good in determining blame. After all, it makes all the difference if Hitler invaded the Soviet Union and it turns out they weren't planning anything, but he simply thought they were instead of invading the Soviet Union for the sake of it. But of course, nobody does something for simply one reason or none at all. The morality of Hitler's reasons will be determined on the fact that it was Hitler who gave them not the reasons themselves.

Otium

Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Otium » 3 years 7 months ago (Wed Oct 16, 2019 1:09 pm)

I came across a very interesting new book published about Operation Barbarossa in 2015. By an independent author by the name of 'Frank Ellis'. He's published a 624 page tome called 'Barbarossa 1941 : Reframing Hitler's Invasion of Stalin's Soviet Empire'
9780700626649-min.jpg


Here is a review of the book by Michigan War Studies Review http://www.miwsr.com/2016/downloads/2016-113.pdf

Some interesting parts from the review

Ellis offers a meditation on the nature of the Soviet state and, to a much lesser degree, the Third Reich, with the intent to, as his subtitle indicates, “reframe” the history of the German attack on the USSR. Specifically, he rejects the notion that the Soviet Union was the “victim” of Operation Barbarossa. National Socialist Germany and Stalinist Russia were, in his view, essentially identical regimes. “Both states were vying for the totalitarian domination of Europe” (xx). Although Ellis does not explicitly employ the theory of totalitarianism, its doctrines and propensities pervade his book’s narrative.

The Katyn murders are important for an examination of the Commissar Order because Soviet thinking behind the decision to murder Polish prisoners of war has much in common with Nazi thinking behind the decision to kill commissars. This is just one of several indices demonstrating the closeness of the two totalitarian regimes…. I propose to readers of this book that it is implausible (to put it mildly) to believe that the knowledge of this monstrous crime [mass death in the Ukraine] and others committed by the Soviet state did not shape German attitudes toward that state, never mind the attitudes of fanatical Nazis. And it was here that objective, veracious, and verifiable evidence of Soviet criminality combined with Hitler’s psychopathic hatred of Jews to form a fateful and utterly catastrophic union. (xii, xiv)


Obviously the anti-german polemics here are to be expected. As per usual we can dismiss that and simply look at the fact. The reviewer himself just asserts more of the same rubbish which can also be ignored.

Ellis revives the preventive war argument used to justify the German assault on the USSR in 1941, rejecting Victor Suvorov’s “icebreaker” thesis8 that Operation Barbarossa succeeded so dramatically because it caught Soviet forces unwisely preparing to attack Hitler’s empire instead of readying themselves to defend their homeland. But Ellis undermines his own work in granting that
“Based on … primary sources, Suvorov’s arguments and analyses are often robust, insightful, and not easily dismissed” (402). His determination to condemn the Soviet Union leads him to speculate that such a plan [to attack Germany] does exist, but it has not been declassified. If such a plan ever came to light, it would be a stunning vindication of Suvorov’s Stalin attack thesis…. But it would also mean that the Western view of World War II, especially the relationship between National Socialist Germany and the Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist Soviet Union, would be changed forever. (437)


I'm curious as to what revisionist takes on the work would be. I'm pretty sure the reviewer is accusing Ellis of having 'revived' the preventative war argument simply because he makes some very promising comments about Suvorovs research as quoted above. But Ellis probably, if this interview is anything to go by, dismisses the view overall because it 'lacks evidence' or something. Most likely he's totally ignorant of the literally dozens of writers that have not only confirmed what Suvorov has proven, but gone even further than him.

Now personally. I don't put much stock in this review, considering the reviewer is a total twat:

He seems unaware that many Western and Russian scholars have demolished Suvorov’s work.9

9. See, e.g., Gabriel Gorodetskii, Mif Ledokola: Nakaune voiny (Moscow: Progress-Akademiia, 1995); David Glantz, Stumbling
Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of the War (Lawrence: U Pr of Kansas, 1998); and Teddy J. Uldricks, “The Icebreaker Controversy: Did Stalin Plan to Attack Hitler?” Slavic Review 58.3 (1999) 627–44.


as he cites the usual Apostles of the Soviet Patriot mythology.

Here's a list of the writers that have confirmed what has been said by Suvorov, not counting Suvorov himself:

1. Albert Weeks
2. R.C. Raack
3. Werner Maser
4. Edvard Radzinsky
5. Ernst Topitsch
6. Constantine Pleshakov
7. Joachim Hoffmann
8. David Irving
9. Bernd Schwipper
10. Heinz Magenheimer
11. Mark Solonin
12. Erkki Hautamäki
13. Richard Tedor
14. Igor Bunich
15. Mikhail Meltyukhov
16. Russell H.S. Stolfi
17. Gregory Klimov
18. Leon Degrelle
19. Hans-Ulrich Rudel
20. Stefan Scheil
21. Y. Felshtinsky
22. V. Kiselev
23. V. Danilov
24. T. Bushueva
25. P. Bobylev
26. E. Mawdsley
27. B. Musial
28. Frank Ellis (yet to be seen fully?)

This list is huge and it is incomplete, I know for a fact that I've missed a few names, some have been mentioned in this thread earlier. Others have been quoted from Solonin and he has also said the list is incomplete http://www.solonin.org/en/article_comrade-stalins-three-plans

I guess somehow these dozens of historians have lost their collective minds to believe what the evidence from Soviet archives have to say, we should just ignore the truth, ignore what we find that contradicts the established view since 1945 and continue living in a fantasy world as these highly lauded 'academics' would have us do. In which their knee jerk reaction can only ever be "Hitler man bad" therefore "Hitler man bad all time". That is about as much brain power as these lobotomites can muster.

History and these academics who praise popular works cannot be trusted. They must be vehemently rejected, for they can never be objective. There is no room in academica for free thought and the conducting of honest and free research, for it is all marred by the entwined political interests in which our European world around the world has been based off for the past 80 years. That also means there can be no honest reviewing of research objectively when the absolute criteria that must be met is simply that "Hitler is bad a priori and must therefore always come out as responsible for all evils regardless of how you get there". The narrative has been decided before it was written, and now it is religious dogma that cannot be questioned. Thus these 'researchers' cannot be trusted to tell the truth about history or anything else.

Otium

Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Otium » 3 years 7 months ago (Thu Oct 17, 2019 6:28 am)

I'm making another post to add some additional information regarding this quote from the reviewer of the previous book I mentioned and to update the list of historians that have affirmed Suvorovs book and moreso validated it's ascent into historical fact changing the way we see WW2 forever.

The quote

He seems unaware that many Western and Russian scholars have demolished Suvorov’s work.9

9. See, e.g., Gabriel Gorodetskii, Mif Ledokola: Nakaune voiny (Moscow: Progress-Akademiia, 1995); David Glantz, Stumbling
Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of the War (Lawrence: U Pr of Kansas, 1998); and Teddy J. Uldricks, “The Icebreaker Controversy: Did Stalin Plan to Attack Hitler?” Slavic Review 58.3 (1999) 627–44.


Well. We know there was a plan

As Igor Bunich has proven, and has been stated on this thread a few times, the plan was called "Operation Groza" (Operation Thunderstorm)

Bunich published three volumes with the title "Operatsiya Groza"—"Operation Thunderstorm"—the first one in 1994, the last one posthumously in 2004. In these books he communicates a plan of Stalin for an invasion of whole Western Europe: "Operation Thunderstorm". It can be found in the so-called "Osobaya Papka", a file which contains about 100,000 Top Secret documents. In this file it is document Nr.103202/06. The paper is signed by Marshal Semyon Timoshenko and the chief of the General Staff at that time Meretskov. It is dated 18 September 1940, three months before the German "Operation Barbarossa" was signed. After Georgy Zhukov became chief of the general staff in February 1941, the plan was called MP 41 (Mobilisation Plan 41). Bunich points to the Russian military archives, where it can be found (ZAMO, f. 15A, op.2154, d.4,l. 199-287). This document contains information about the Soviet military power in June 1941: 300 divisions, 8 million soldiers, 27,500 tanks, 32,628 airplanes. The total number of the German warplanes at that time was only about 6,000 although the majority of the Soviet aircraft was obsolete.

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20191014030608/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Bunich


Russian historian Valeri Danilov and Albert Weeks have also referenced a particular war plan created by Georgy Zhukov and Semyon Timoshenko. The plan was called "Considerations to the plan of the strategic development of the armed forces of the Soviet Union" (May 15th 1941)

In his latest book, Professor Albert Weeks presents the reader with an analysis of a large amount of newly discovered secret information contained in documents from formerly closed Soviet archives. The documents reveal that Stalin was planning to wage offensive war against Germany and, in fact, the West as a whole as a "windfall" from a second world war.

Among the telltale documents are transcripts of Stalin's famous toast to graduates of the Soviet military academies, May 5, 1941. The author also reproduces the text of Stalin's previously hotly disputed secret speech to the Soviet Politburo of Aug. 19, 1939.

This was just days before the signing of the Hitler-Stalin pact, known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop, or Nazi-Soviet pact, which included secret protocols about the territorial division of Poland, the Baltics and Bessarabia.

The Stalin text was discovered in Russian archives and has been confirmed by diary entries of Comintern head Georgi Dimitrov. In his speech Stalin predicts that Germany will have to fight a long war against France and England that will allow the Soviet Union to sovietize not only defeated Germany but also France.

An even more important document is from the Soviet General Staff. It is a war plan drawn up against Germany. It calls outright for a pre-emptive strike against German forces. The document, titled "Considerations of the Plan for the Strategic Deployment of the Armed forces of the Soviet Union in Case of War with Germany and its Allies," is dated May 15, 1941.


The document was prepared by General, later Marshal, A. Vasilievsky, Deputy Head of the Operations Department of the Soviet General Staff (Stavka), and presented to Stalin by Commissar of Defense S. Timoshenko and Chief of the General Staff G. Zhukov. The 15-page document calls explicitly for a pre-emptive strike against German forces.

This fully conforms to the offensive military doctrine of the Soviets that called for "deep operations" into enemy territory (a fact confirmed by many Soviet officers and historians, but neglected and disputed by various foreign authors (e.g., David Glantz and historian Gabriel Gorodetsky, who tend to use pro-Soviet arguments throughout their books). Weeks, in fact, convincingly critiques Glantz's and Gorodetsky's arguments.

It seems clear to this reviewer that both of these authors were granted access to Soviet archives precisely because they stuck to the line of official Soviet historiography. Their books, moreover, are customarily given favorable reviews in Russian publications that hew to traditional views while ignoring the new findings of the younger, post-Soviet historians who were canvassed by Weeks.

Source: http://fpp.co.uk/online/03/04/Stalin_plans.html


Here are the full details about the document. I used DeepL translator, so excuse the problems, to look at the document for yourself i've provided a link: https://web.archive.org/web/20071029171948/http://osteuropa.bsb-muenchen.de:80/dig/1000doktest/0024_zuk/@Generic__BookTextView/502;cs=default;ts=default;pt=502

[Соображения Генерального штаба Красной Красной Армии по по плану плану развертывания Вооруженных Сил Советского Союза Союза на случай Германией войны стратегического союзниками и ее союзниками]The document is a manuscript comprising 15 pages of typewritten paper written in black ink by A.M. Vasilevsky. Page 1 is a form with the corner stamp of the People's Commissariat for Defence. The document is dated May 15, 1941 (1941 god. Dokumenty, vol. 2, Moscow 1998, p. 220) on the basis of the inscriptions on the appendices - the maps and schemas. The manuscript text contains corrections and corrections of a strategic, statistical and editorial nature, inserted with a simple pencil. V. Danilov thinks they come from the first deputy chief of the Red Army General Staff, General-Leutnant N.V. Vatutin (Danilov, Gotovil li Stalin nastupatel'nuju vojnu protiv Gitlera, p. 84). According to another version, G. K. Žukov made the corrections (1941 god. Dokumenty, vol. 2, p. 220).

Red Army General Staff Considerations on the Strategic Deployment Plan of the Soviet Union Armed Forces in case of war with Germany and its allies 1

not before May 15, 1941.

I report to you for your consideration the considerations on the plan of strategic deployment of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union in case of war with Germany and its allies.

I. At present, according to the data of the Red Army Intelligence Directorate 2, Germany has about 230 infantry, 22 tank, 20 motorized, 8 air and 4 cavalry divisions deployed, and a total of about 284 divisions.

As of 15.05.41, up to 86 infantry, 13 tank, 12 motorized and 1 cavalry divisions are concentrated on the borders of the Soviet Union, and only up to 112 divisions.

It is assumed that in the current political situation Germany will be able to expose up to 137 infantry divisions, 19 tank divisions, 15 motorized divisions, 4 cavalry divisions and 5 airborne divisions, and only up to 180 divisions in case of an attack on the USSR.

The remaining 104 divisions will probably be in the center of the country in reserve - 22 pd, 1 cd, 1 cd, 1 cd, 1 cd, 1 airborne division, 25 divisions in total; in Denmark, Belgium, Holland and France - 40 pd, 2 cd, 1 cd, 2 dd, 2 dd, total 45 divisions; Yugoslavia - 7 pd, total 7 divisions; Greece - 7 pd, 1 cd, total 8 divisions; Bulgaria - 3 pd, total 3 divisions; Africa - 5 pd, 1 cd, 1 td, total 7 divisions; Norway - 9 pd, total 9 divisions; total 93 pd, 5 cd, 3 td, 3 pd, total 3 pd. The total of 104 divisions [in the center of the country on the western borders, in Norway, in Africa, in Greece and Italy]. 3 Most likely, the main forces of the German army, consisting of 76 infantry, 11 tank, 8 motorized, 2 cavalry and 5 airborne divisions, and up to 100 divisions will be deployed south of Demblin to strike in the direction of Kovel, Rivne, Kiev.

This strike is likely to be accompanied by a strike in the north from East Prussia to Vilna and Riga, as well as short, concentric strikes from Suwalki and Brest to Volkovysk, Baranovichi.

In the south, one should expect strikes [simultaneously with the German army - an offensive in the general direction on Zhmerinka - the Romanian army, supported by German divisions.
The possibility of an auxiliary strike by the Germans from the San River in the direction of Lviv] a) in the direction of Zhmerinka - the Romanian army, supported by the German divisions; b) in the direction of Munchach, Lviv; c) Sanok, Lviv.

Probable allies of Germany can put up against the USSR: Finland - up to 20 infantry divisions, Hungary - 15 pd, Romania - up to 25 pd.

In total, Germany and its allies can deploy up to 240 divisions against the USSR.

Taking into account that Germany is currently keeping its army mobilised, with its rear deployed, it has the opportunity to warn us in the deployment and strike a surprise blow.

In order to prevent this [and defeat the German army], I consider it necessary in no case to give an initiative to the German command, to pre-empt the enemy in the deployment and attack the German army when it will be in the deployment stage and will not have time to organize the front and interaction of the troops. II. The first strategic goal of the Red Army troops is to defeat the main forces of the German army deployed south of Demblin and to reach the front of Ostrolenka, river Narev, Lovic, Lodz, Kreuzburg, Opeln, Olomouc by the 30th day of the operation. The next strategic goal is to defeat the major forces of the Center and the Northern Wing of the German front by an offensive from the Katowice region in the north or northwest direction and to seize the territory of the former Poland and Eastern Prussia.
The immediate task is to defeat the German army east of the Vistula River and in the Krakow direction, to reach the river. Narov, Vistula and Katowice District 6, for which purpose:

a) The main strike by the South-Western Front in the direction of Krakow, Katowice, cutting off Germany from its southern allies;

b) An auxiliary strike with the left wing of the Western Front in the direction of Sedlec, Demblin, in order to fetter the Warsaw group and assist the South-Western Front in defeating the enemy group of Lublin;

c) lead active defense against Finland, East Prussia, Hungary and Romania and be prepared to strike against Romania in a favorable environment.

Thus, the Red Army will begin offensive actions from the front of Chizhov, Motovisko by forces of 152 divisions against 100 divisions of the German ones. On other sites of the state border active defense of 7 .III is provided. Based on this strategic deployment plan, the following grouping of the USSR Armed Forces is envisaged:

1. The Ground Forces of the Red Army comprising 198 Sd, 61 Td, 31 Md, 13 Kd (a total of 303 divisions and 74 artillery regiments of the Russian Army) are distributed as follows: (a) The 163 Sd, 58 Td, 30 Md and 7 Kd (258 divisions in total) and 53 RNA artillery regiments in the West, of which The Northern, North-Western, Western and South-Western fronts include 136 cd, 44 td, 23 md, 7 cd (210 divisions in total) and 53 RGC artillery regiments; the reserve of the General Command behind the South-Western and Western fronts includes 27 cd, 14 td, 7 md (48 divisions in total);

b) The rest of the forces, consisting of 35 cd, 3 td, 1 md, 6 cd (45 divisions in total) and 21 ap RGCs, are assigned to defend the Far Eastern, Southern and Northern borders of the USSR, including

- in the Far East and the Transnistrian region - 22 cd, 3 td, 1 md, 1 cd (27 divisions in total) and 14 ap RGCs;

- Central Asia has 2 mountainous clay divisions and 3 cav. divisions (5 divisions in total);

- There are 8 shooting divisions and 2 cavalry divisions in Transcaucasia (10 divisions in total) and 2 ap RGCs;

- On the defense of the Black Sea coast of the North Caucasus and Crimea - 2 pages of the division;

- On the White Sea coast - 1 page division.

A detailed grouping of forces is shown on the attached map 8.

2. The Red Army's air force, which currently consists of 97 iap, 75 bbp, 11 shap, 29 dbp and 6 tbp (218 regiments in total), is distributed as follows:

a) The main forces, consisting of 66 ibn, 64 bbp, 5 bbp, 25 dbp and 5 tbp, are to be deployed in the West, including 165 air regiments:

- The Northern, North-Western, Western and South-Western fronts include 63 iap, 64 bbp, 5 shap, 11 dbp and 1 tbp - 144 regiments in total;

- As part of the reserve of the General Command behind the South-Western and Western fronts - 14 dbp and 4 mbp, a total of 21 regiments;

b) The rest of the forces, consisting of 31 ibn, 11 bbp, 6 shap, 4 dbp and 1 tbp, are to be left on the defense of the Far Eastern, Southern and Northern borders and air defense points of the mountains. Moscow, of them:

- In the Far East and in the ZabVO - 14 iap, 9 bbp, 5 shap, 4 dbp and 1 tbp, only 33 regiments;

- In SavO there are 1 iap and 1 cap, only 2 regiments;

- In the Factory there are 9 iap, 2 bbp, 11 regiments in total;

- In the Archbishopric - 1 Eastern Air Regiment.

There are 6 fighter regiments on the defense of Moscow.

A detailed group of forces is shown on the attached map 9.

In addition to the Air Force, there are currently 52 IAPs, 30 bbps, 4 balloons, 7 dBps and 22 discs, all in all 115 regiments, which can be fully ready by 1.1.42.

These regiments are scheduled to be distributed as follows when they are ready:

- To the West, assign 41 iPhones, 30 bps, 4 balls, 5 dvp, 14 discs, and a total of 94 regiments, of them:

- 41 iaps, 33 bbps, 4 balls, 7 discs, a total of 87 regiments;

- The reserve of the General Command includes 4 iaps, 3 dBp, and a total of 7 regiments;

- Leave 6 air regiments for the FEBR and ZabOVO 10 and for the FEBR;

- on the defense of Moscow - 5 Eastern air regiments.

Tentative dates of entry into service of these regiments - according to the table on maps 10.

IV. Composition and tasks of fronts to be deployed in the West (map 1:1,000,000) 11 :

The Northern Front (NFD) - 3 armies, consisting of 15 infantry, 4 tank and 2 motorized divisions, and a total of 21 divisions, 18 aviation regiments and the Northern Navy, with the main tasks - the defense of the city. In addition to the Leningrad, Murmansk port and Kirovskaya railway, together with the Baltic Navy, we will ensure our full dominance in the waters of the Gulf of Finland. For the same purpose, it is planned to transfer the defense of the northern and north-western coasts of the Estonian SSR to the Northern Front from the Pribovo-Ovozhdenie.

The frontier of the front on the left is Ostashkov, Ostrov, Võru, Viljandi and the hall. Matasalu, Ezel and Dago islands exclusively.

The front headquarters is Pargolovo.

The North-Western Front (PribOvo) - three armies, consisting of 17 infantry divisions [(6 national ones)], 4 tank, 2 motorized divisions, and only 23 divisions and 13 regiments of aviation, with the following tasks: - stubbornly cover Riga and Vilna directions, preventing enemy invasion from the East Prussia; defense of the west coast and the islands of Ezel and Dago to prevent the landing of enemy landings.

The frontier of the front on the left is Polotsk, Oshmyany, Druskeniki, Margerabov and Letzen. The front headquarters is Ponevezh.

Western Front (Western Front) - four armies, consisting of 31 rifle, 8 tank, 4 motorized and 2 cavalry divisions, and only 45 divisions and 21 aviation regiments.

Tasks: - Stubborn defense on the front of Druskenika, Ostrolenka, to firmly cover the Lida and Bialystok directions;

- With the transition of the South-Western Front armies to the offensive, the strike of the left wing of the front in the direction of Warsaw, Sedlec, Radom, to break up the Warsaw grouping and seize Warsaw [to facilitate] in cooperation with the South-Western Front to break the Lublin-Radom grouping of the enemy, to come out on the Vistula River and mobile units to seize Radom [and to ensure this operation from the side of Warsaw and East Prussia]. The frontier of the front on the left is the river Pripyat, Pinsk, Vlodawa, Demblin and Radom.

The headquarters of the front is Baranovichi.

Southwest front - eight armies, consisting of 74 infantry, 28 tank, 15 motorized and 5 cavalry divisions, and a total of 122 divisions and 91 aviation regiments, with the nearest tasks:

(a) Concentric strikes by the armies of the right wing of the front to surround and destroy the main enemy group east of the Vistula River in the Lublin area;

b) Simultaneously with a strike from the front of Seniawa, Peremyshl, Lutowiska to break up the enemy forces in the Krakow and Sandomiersko-Kielecki directions and to seize the area of Krakow, Katowice, Kielce, meaning to further advance from this area in the north or north-west direction to defeat the large forces of the northern wing of the enemy front and to seize the territory of the former Poland and East Prussia;

c) firmly defend the state border with Hungary and Romania and be ready to carry out concentric strikes against Romania from Chernivtsi and Chisinau districts, with the nearest aim to defeat the northern wing of the Romanian army and to reach the border of the river Moldova, Iasi 12.

In order to ensure the implementation of the above plan, it is necessary to carry out the following activities in advance, without which it is impossible to launch a surprise strike on the enemy both from the air and on the ground:

1. Carry out covert mobilisation of troops under the guise of training exercises;

2. Under the guise of entering the camps, make a hidden concentration of troops closer to the western border, first of all to concentrate all the reserve armies of the General Command;

3. It is hidden to concentrate the aviation on the field airfields from remote districts and now to begin to deploy the air rear;

4. Gradually, under the guise of training camps and rear exercises, deploy the rear and hospital base.

V. Grouping of General Command reserves.

To have 5 armies in the General Command reserve and to concentrate them:

- Two armies consisting of 9 infantry, 4 tank and 2 motorized divisions, 15 divisions in total, in the area of Vyazma, Sychevka, Yelnia, Bryansk, Sukhinichi;

- one army consisting of 4 infantry, 2 tank and 2 motorized divisions, and a total of 8 divisions, in the area of Vileika, Novogrudok and Minsk;

- one army consisting of 6 rifle, 4 tank and 2 motorized divisions, and a total of 12 divisions, in the Shepetivka, Proskurov, Berdichev and

- one army of 8 riflemen, 2 tank and 2 motorized divisions, and a total of 12 divisions, in the districts of Bila Tserkva, Zvenigorodka, Cherkassy.

VI. Cover of concentration and deployment.

In order to secure ourselves from a possible, sudden attack by the enemy, to cover the concentration and deployment of our troops and to prepare them for the transition to the offensive, it is necessary:

1. to organize a strong defense and cover the state border, using all the troops of the border districts and almost all the aviation assigned for deployment in the west;

2. Develop a detailed plan for the country's air defense and make the air defense system fully operational.

I have given orders on these issues, and the development of defense plans for the state border and air defense is fully completed by 01.06.41.

Composition and grouping of cover troops - according to the attached map 13 .

At the same time, it is necessary to speed up the construction and arming of fortified areas, to begin the construction of fortified areas in 1942 on the border with Hungary, as well as to continue the construction of fortified areas along the old state border 14 .

VII. The tasks of the Navy are set out in my previous reports.

VIII. The deployment of troops and their combat operations are ensured by the available supplies:

Ammunition - small-caliber shells for three weeks;

Medium-caliber - for a month;

Heavy-duty - for a month;

by mines for half a month;

by anti-aircraft gunshots

37 mm for five days;

76 mm - for a month and a half;

85 mm - for 11 days;

for airborne ammunition -

with high-explosive bombs for a month;

armor-piercing - for 10 days;

Concrete-piercing - for 10 days;

shrapnel - for a month;

incendiary - for half a month;

on fuels and lubricants -

with B-78 gasoline for 10 days

with B-74 gasoline for a month;

gasoline B-70 - for 2.5 months;

petrol - for 1.5 months;

diesel fuel - for a month.

Fuel reserves intended for the western districts are echelonized in significant amounts (due to lack of capacity in their territory) in the inner districts.

IX. Please:

1. To approve the presented plan of strategic deployment of the USSR Armed Forces and the plan of planned military operations in case of war with Germany;

2. Timely allow the consistent conduct of hidden mobilisation and concealed concentration, first of all, of all, of all the reserve armies of the General Command and Aviation;

3. Demand from the NKPS full and timely implementation of the construction of railways according to the plan for 41 years and especially in the Lviv direction;

4. to oblige the industry to fulfill the plan for the production of material part of tanks and planes, as well as the production and supply of ammunition and fuel strictly in due time.

Approve the proposal for the construction of new fortifications 15.

Annexes:

1. Deployment scheme on the map 1:1000.000 in 1 copy;

2. Coverage deployment scheme for 3 maps;

3. Scheme of the ratio of forces in 1 copy.

4. Three Air Force base maps in the west.
People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR
Marshal of the Soviet Union/S. Tymoshenko / Chief of General Staff K.A.
Army General /G. Zhukov/ Zhukov/

Hier nach: CAMO RF, f. 16, op. 2951, d. 237, l. 1-15. Original.

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator



Danilov says of the document as such:

"taking into account the concentration of power to Stalin's hand - it is highly implausible, that the Soviet defense commissar and the chief of staff could have prepared such a document without Stalin's authorization. Considering the 1937 purges of the higher officers, it is hardly possible that staff officers would have risked antagonised official Soviet policy" [...] and he is supported by Mikhail Meltyukhov, Vladimir Nevezhin and others - that this draft by Zhukov was actually basis for Soviet military planning in 1941.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valeri_Danilov



In the book 'Stalin, the Russians, and Their War : 1941-1945'
9780299195946.jpg
Marius Broekmeyer supports the view that the Russians were going to attack Germany, perhaps sometime in 1942, but in any case, he was going to. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=PGANqVNdjKQC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=Yuri+Gorkov&source=bl&ots=hkHLmN_NU_&sig=ACfU3U3vJhXVPgj1bRisPiotVbDksSK6uA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjPvub0-6LlAhWOfysKHUcUA8cQ6AEwBXoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

Pages 23 to 24 are not shown in this preview

War Approaches

"of the occupied countries, fragmentation of the Wehrmacht over several fronts, a brooding Japanese-American conflict-all this gave the Soviet leadership the unique chance to destroy Germany with a sudden blow and 'to liberate; Europe from 'rotting capitalism.' In my opinion, all the activities of the Soviet leadership between 1939 and 1941 were aimed at that objective."


This opinion, which Meltyukhov and others held, is strongly contested. Critics argue that those documents had not yet been approved by the top leadership nor had they been passed on to the troops. In my opinion, however, they do indicate the precise aim of the propaganda, and there seems little room for doubt that ideological preparation was under way. After all, it is impossible that the statements and phrasing quoted above did not have Stalin's approval, when his watchdogs were present at the very time the statements were being formulated and perhaps even suggested the wording themselves. One of those watchdogs, Shcherbakov, also stated on 20 May 1941,
"The land of Socialism is obligated to take advantage of the favorable developments in the international situation and to take the initiative for offensive action against the capitalist encirclement in order to expand the socialist front."
The historian Vladimir Nevexhin, whose book on all these propaganda documents was published in 1997 and extensively documented, concludes that an accurate analysis of such documents
"permits one to suppose, first, that they were founded on Stalin's instructions, given in his speeches to graduates of military academies on 5 May 1941; and, second, that they were formulated in mutual cohesion and contain the same views and positions. The guiding principle of all this material boils down to the necessity for an all-around, ideological preparation of the Red Army personnel and of the entire people for an offensive war. In some of these projects, the idea was directly postulated to take the initiative into their own hands and deal a fatal blow to the capitalist encirclement so as to bring about its definitive destruction and to achieve victory for socialism."
The writer Vsevikid Vishnevski, naturally, did not determine the policy. He does, however, indicate what the most aggressive members of the leadership were thinking. A typical example is his diary entry of 21 May 1941:
[i]"If the warring parties continue to spill blood, we should become the super arbitrator in Europe and Asia. Hitler is aware that we are aiming to give him a licking, preferably somewhere in 1941, once Germany has exhausted itself."


Hitler knows huh? Very interesting if I do say so myself. On page 26 Marius continues, and goes into some of the May 15th document which people like Werd have attempted to obfuscate the importance of earlier in the thread:

The "Considerations"

The first version of the Soviet strategy for 1941 was formulated on 14 October 1940. A revised version appeared on 11 March 1941, to which were added the "Considerations concerning the Plan for the Strategic Development of the Soviet Union's Armed Forces in the EVent of a War with Germany and Its Allies," dated 15 May 1941. Although the view was maintained, even by General Volkogonov, that no Russian plan of attack existed, after the publication of the "Considerations," this standpoint became entirely untenable, and one can only dispute the significance of that document. I quote:
As Germany is currently keeping its army mobilized, with a developed hinterland, it is capable of getting us first, once they set the wheels in motion, and dealing [us] a sudden blow. To prevent this eventuality, I believe we must not let the German commando take the initiative under any circumstances but must be one step ahead of the enemy and attack the German army at the point when they are at the development stage and still unable to form a front with any interaction with military units. . . .The first strategic objective of the Germany army, which is positioned to the south of the Brest Demblin Line and to arrive by the thirtieth day of the operation at the Ostrolenka front, at the river Narev, at Lovic, Lodz, Kreuzburg, Oppeln, and Olomouc. The following strategic objective is to destroy large forces from the center and the northern wing of the German front with an attack from the area of Katowice in a northerly or northeasterly direction and gain control of the area of former Poland and East Prussia. The next task is to destroy the German army to the east of the Vistula and in the direction of Krakow, come out at the Narev and Vistula rivers, and gain control of the area of Katowice, achieving this by a) launching the main attack with the forces from the south-west front in the direction of Krakow and Katowice and so cutting Germany off from its southern allies, b) launching a supporting attack with the left win of the west front in the direction of Seflec and Demblin, with the objective of uniting the Warsaw divisions and gaining control of Warsaw and also supporting the south front by destroying the enemy's Lublin division, and c) conducting active defence against Finland, East Prussia, Hungary, and Romania and being prepared to strike at Romania, circumstance permitting. In this way, the Red Army will begin offensive action from the Cizev-Letovisko front with a force of 152 divisions as against the Germans' 100. An active defense will be conducted at the other parts of the state border.


After several passages on numbers of divisions and which would be deployed where, the document continues:

In order to guarantee the execution of the plan set out above, it is essential to take the following measures in time, without which it is impossible to strike unexpectedly at the enemy, either from the air of overland:

1. A secret mobilization of troops under the guise of military exercises with the reserve;
2. Under the guise of leaving for the encampments realize a secret concentration closer to the western border, first concentrating all the armies of the Supreme Command;
3. Secretly bring together the air force from the distant districts at newly built airfields and make a start on the development of the air force hinterland;
4. Gradually develop a hospital base and the hinterland under the guise of maneuvers and hinterland "exercises."


Finally, the "Considerations" state:

'ix I request:

1. Confirmation of the proposed plan for strategic development of the USSR's armed forces and the plan for the proposed military action in the event of a war with Germany;
2. Permission for prompt, gradual execution of a secret mobilization and secret centration of, first, all reserve armies of the Supreme Command an the air force
3. That the people's Commissar of Railways be requested to carry out a complete and timely laying of railway lines in accordance with the plan of 1931 and, in particular, in the direction of Lvov.


The document is marked "top secret,", and "highly important," "strictly personal," and "only copy." it is handwritten, dated May 1941, and was probably formulated between 7 and 15 May 1941. Halfway through May, in the Kremlin, the future marshal Aleksandr Vasilevski, then vice chairman of the Chief of General Staff, handed it personally to Zhukov, who reported on the document to Stalin, as well as Timoshenko, the People's Commissar for Defense, according to Danilov.

P. N. Bobylev, historian and reserve-colonel writes: "The 'Considerations' are valuable and convincing proof of the response of the Red Army's general staff to Germany's action at that time. . . .The general staff considered a preventive strike a way of thwarting what a great deal of information pointed to as an inevitable German attack on the Soviet Union."

There is nothing in the "Considerations" about a mobilization after a German attack. What is absolutely new is the "preventive strike," which did not fit in with views on the beginning of a war until that moment.

Critics make use of the fact that Stalin did not sign this document to undermine its importance. The lack of his signature, however, means nothing; the most important orders were given verbally. In any event, the document was discussed on 24 May 1941 during a top-secret meeting between Stalin and the highest civil and military leaders, when the latest plans were discussed in detail. "It can no longer be doubted that the strategic planning of the war in the USSR was being realized to the full extent," writes Yuri Gorkov, according to whom, "absolutely no tasks of an offensive nature were assigned to the troops of the western military districts." Nor was there any known document "concerning the Soviet Union's preparation for an attack on Germany." Molodyakov, however, voiced the question, "Is absolutely nothing actually acknowledged in the documents, then, about the Russian plan of attack?" Both Gorkov and Molodyakov may very well be right that nothing was said about the plan of attack in those documents. Indeed, it is most unlikely that the Russians could have settled such a matter in a couple of weeks, when the German plans of attack required at least six months of preparation.

According to Zhukov, the idea of a preventive strike evolved "between Timoshenko and himself in connection with Stalin's speech of 5 May 1941, in which he spoke of the possibility of acting offensively."Zhukov later wrote that he had given Stalin a memorandum concerning a preventive attack, although a message was then passed on to him through Stalin's secretary, Aleksander Poskryobyshev: "Tell Zhukov not to write me any memorandums for which I need to call in a public prosecutor." Zhukov told military historian V.A. Anfilov Stalin's reply to the memorandum: "Have you gone mad?" These seem unlikely remarks to me, as the idea of a preventive attack was clearly present in the "Considerations," and one must assume that the "Considerations" were discussed thoroughly on 24 May with a large number of military and political leaders. Molotov later told the writer Ivan Stadnyuk that in May 1941, partly because of the arrival of Rudolf hess in Scotland, which caused Moscow great concern, a preventive attack on Germany had indeed been considered but that the decision had been made at the time "to wait a while." Erik van Ree writes in his manuscript of a Stalin biography Stalin and the Zhukov plan: "He may well have rejected it, or accepted it and postponed its execution. But that he was preparing for a stroke against the germans is the long run is almost certain."

A start was also made on the execution of the plans for the "Considerations." A total of 802,000 men were mobilized under the guise of maneuvers. On 10 July 1941 the Twenty-second, Sixteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-fifth, Twentieth, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-eighth Armies, "the second strategic echelon," were supposed to be transferred to the west. Supplies and hospitals were transferred to the border. 7,113 aircraft were stationed near the border, where airstrips were constructed.

In May and June 1941 an increasing number of troops were concentrated on the western borders: 77 divisions were already there, and now 114 more of the "first strategic echelon" joined them. Troops from the transbaikal area, Siberia, the Urals, and the Caucasus were directed westward and arrived at the Dnepr and Western Dvina.

Most remarkable is that the troops did not entecnh themselves, barriers were removed rather than installed, and bridges were not mined. Nor did the troops prepare themselves for winter they were often quartered in provisional encampments and other less suitable accommodation. Was the intention, perhaps, not to let the troops spend the winter there?

The strongest army, the ninth, was positioned opposite Romania with seventeen divisions and two mountain divisions (the Twelfth and Eighteenth Armies) in the Carpathian Mountains. None of the sixty-three Russian armoured divisions had any personnel for blowing up bridges, but they did have soldiers who were trained to built pontoons across rivers.

Pages 30 to 31 are not shown in this preview


So that's it. Wish I could read/quote more. But I think we all get the picture.

Nobody can truthfully suggest there were no plans. There had to be plans. The only thing the conventional proponents can do is try to shift the goal posts and explain away these inconvenient documents. Because clearly, the Russians didn't consider Germany to be much of an ally. Nor were they, particularly Stalin, so utterly blinded by 'peace' that they weren't avidly proposing offensive actions.

Even Roberto has had to admit this:

Michael Mills continues, "As a comment on the above, the material captured by the German Army strongly suggests that the Soviet forces were gearing up for a westward offensive at some time in the future. What is not clear is when that offensive was to take place, although if the Soviet Government really believed that Germany was on the point of collapse it may well have been prepared to risk an attack in the late summer of 1941. "


Roberto then replies regarding what I bolded above.
"I wouldn’t trust without having seen the full text of the document itself." He then says "the step from preparations, considerations and recommendations of a political propaganda department to an order and a plan of the Soviet high command to initiate military preparations for an all-out attack on the enemy is a big one, if you consider i.a. the state of readiness of Soviet military industry:" To which he quotes Harrison E. Salisbury, The 900 Days, 1970 Avon Books New York, page 90.


The strongest support for the conclusion that Stalin remained confident even on the eve of war in his ability to prevent its outbreak is provided by the fact that on June 6 [1941] he approved a comprehensive plan for the shift-over of Soviet industry to war production. This timetable called for completion of the plan by the end of 1942! It was an excellent detailed schedule, calling for the conversion of large numbers of civilian plants to military purposes and the construction of much-needed defense facilities.

Allowing Roberto to conclude that, "
So Stalin may indeed have had an attack on Germany in mind – after the end of 1942."


And again , but of course, the goal posts have been shifted again in order to preserve the Soviet apologetics.

Now Michael Mills made a good point that though the German army wasn't fully mobilized until 1943, they still attacked Poland at least. And there does seem to be Soviet documentation that Stalin was planning to attack in 1941 as opposed to 1942 as Roberto implied while quoting Harrison Salisbury. But Roberto continues on...

There is much evidence indeed that Stalin was biding for time, but why would that necessarily make it time for preparing his own attack rather than time to have his forces in shape to withstand a German attack?


So there was a plan, or at least an indication of a plan but don't worry, it was just 'defensive' :roll: . Yeah right :lol: .

Updated list of Authors that have proven Suvorov right.

1. Albert Weeks
2. R.C. Raack
3. Werner Maser
4. Edvard Radzinsky
5. Ernst Topitsch
6. Constantine Pleshakov
7. Joachim Hoffmann
8. David Irving
9. Bernd Schwipper
10. Heinz Magenheimer
11. Mark Solonin
12. Erkki Hautamäki
13. Richard Tedor
14. Igor Bunich
15. Mikhail Meltyukhov/Mikhail Melitiukhov
16. Russell H.S. Stolfi
17. Gregory Klimov
18. Leon Degrelle
19. Hans-Ulrich Rudel
20. Stefan Scheil
21. Y. Felshtinsky
22. V. Kiselev
23. V. Danilov
24. T. Bushueva
25. P. Bobylev
26. E. Mawdsley
27. B. Musial
28. Frank Ellis (yet to be seen fully?)
29. Vladimir Nevezhin
30. Boris Vadimovich Sokolov
31. Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof
32. Pyotr Grigorenko
33. Grigoriy Bordyugov
34. Wolfgang Strauss
35. John Wear
36. Adolf von Thadden
37.

http://www.solonin.org/en/article_comrade-stalins-three-plans We're at a petition at this point.

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Germany, Bastion of Europe: Stalin’s War of Conquest - John Wear

Postby Lamprecht » 3 years 7 months ago (Sat Oct 26, 2019 10:31 pm)

New John Wear article on the subject. I will only quote the introduction:
Germany, Bastion of Europe: Stalin’s War of Conquest

By John Wear
Published: 2019-10-26

Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 is widely presented by historians as an unprovoked act of aggression by Germany. Adolf Hitler is typically described as an untrustworthy liar who maliciously abrogated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact he had signed with the Soviet Union. Historians usually depict Joseph Stalin as a hapless victim of Hitler’s aggression who was foolish to have trusted Hitler. Many historians think the Soviet Union was lucky to have survived Germany’s attack.

This standard version of history does not incorporate information obtained from the Soviet archives by Soviet intelligence agent Viktor Suvorov. The Soviet archives show that the Soviet Union had amassed the largest and most-powerful army in history. Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union was a desperate preemptive attack to prevent the Soviet Union from conquering all of Europe.

Full article: https://codoh.com/library/document/6939/ or https://inconvenienthistory.com/11/4/6939
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
— Herbert Spencer


NOTE: I am taking a leave of absence from revisionism to focus on other things. At this point, the ball is in their court to show the alleged massive pits full of human remains at the so-called "extermination camps." After 8 decades they still refuse to do this. I wonder why...

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Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Lamprecht » 3 years 4 months ago (Sun Jan 12, 2020 2:23 am)

In 1941, Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov was the Soviet Navy minister, as well as a member of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. In his postwar memoirs, published in 1966, he recalled:
"For me there is one thing beyond all argument -- J. V. Stalin not only did not exclude the possibility of war with Hitler's Germany, on the contrary, he considered such a war ... inevitable ... J. V. Stalin made preparations for war ... wide and varied preparations -- beginning on dates ... which he himself had selected. Hitler upset his calculations."
- Nakunune, Moscow Voenizdat 1966, p. 321
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
— Herbert Spencer


NOTE: I am taking a leave of absence from revisionism to focus on other things. At this point, the ball is in their court to show the alleged massive pits full of human remains at the so-called "extermination camps." After 8 decades they still refuse to do this. I wonder why...

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Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Lamprecht » 3 years 4 months ago (Thu Jan 16, 2020 8:39 pm)

Erkki Hautamäki is a Finnish 'Councilor of Education', a 'major of the reserve' for the Finnish Defense Forces, a historian and a researcher who has focused mainly on the history of the Finnish Wars during World War II and the Soviet war plans related to World War II. Here are some summaries of his book: Suomi myrskyn silmässä - "Finland in the Eye of a Storm"

Finland in the eye of the storm - Inconvenient History | Revisionist Blog
https://codoh.com/library/document/4424/ or https://archive.is/6WUcE

Another:
Finland in the Eye of the Storm. Erkki Hautamäki’s book

Finnish author Erkki Hautamäki was a councillor of education and a reservist in the Finnish army, holding the rank of Major. Hautamäki has completed a lengthy process and fulfilled a historical task in his book “Finland in the Eye of the Storm”, which Marshall Mannerheim and his trusted aid Vilho Tahvanainen left for future generations. Driven by a need to bring out the historical truth for the Baltic Youth.
...
From 1932 onwards, Mannerheim kept original documents consisting of , for example, secret reports, letters, personal notes, into a file code named ”S-32”. Political reasons stopped Mannerheim from using this file as evidence after the war. I have used secret documents, which victor nations have suppressed for 50 years, in Marshall C.G.E. Mannerheim’s file ”S-32” as the basis of my research. This material can finally shed some light on the historical truth that was not published along with Mannerheim’s memoirs. I have strived to merge the dramatic content in file S-32 with other source material and to display it in chronological order to give a clear account of political and military development in Europe.
...
Now we know Comrade Stalin planned an attack operation (Thunder) against Germany on 6 July 1941. To execute this Plans Russia had entered into Two Treaties: the first on 23 august 1939(The Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact) with Germany and the second one on 15 October 1939 - The Stalin - Churchill Pact (with England) which was more favourable.
https://juliusmilaitis.blogspot.com/201 ... erkki.html or https://archive.is/UoQgF


And:
"FINLAND IN THE EYE OF THE STORM"

The book was published first in Swedish with the name ’Finland i stormens öga’. It is based on the contents of the so-called file S-32 of Marshal Mannerheim and is copied from there by the Marshal’s secret agent Vilho Tahvanainen, who worked with him during the war.

- File S-32 has been destroyed or hidden almost completely under Kekkonen’s regime. The book is going to be translated into many languages. Within a year another part is going to be published. This second part will also include more detailed argumentation about the happenings of the first book.
...
- Churchill and Stalin negotiated the starting of co-operation in a war of many fronts against Germany since April 1939. In July it was agreed that when Germany and the Soviet Union attack Poland, the declaration of war of the western allies would be focused only against German actions.
...
- On the 23rd of August 1939 Stalin and Hitler signed the so called Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement. Its secret extra protocol included the so-called concept of the sphere of interest that did not mean permission to conquer the Baltic states and Finland. It meant instead the right to demand strategic bases in case of war.

- On the 15th of October 1939 an agreement was signed between Stalin and Churchill (the allied forces). The core of it was the plan to destroy Germany both militarily and economically. Churchill’s old plan regarding the Scandinavian operation was also accepted.
http://prokarelia.net/en/?x=artikkeli&a ... &author=10 or https://archive.is/yCne3


Also:
The Secret Dossier of Finnish Marshal C.G.E. Mannerheim: On the Diplomatic Prelude of World War II

In addition to oral tradition, the knowledge and understanding of history is based on written sources. Therefore it is highly significant when research is able to introduce hitherto unknown material that can shed new light on inveterate truths. This was the case with the study “Finland at the Epicentre of the Storm” by Finnish historian Erkki Hautamäki. The study dealt with the diplomatic prelude to World War II, and was based on a secret dossier by Marshal C. G. E. Mannerheim. The dossier was transferred to President J. K. Paasikivi after the war, and then disappeared from public eye. Fortunately, its main items were either copied or a synopsis was made on the request of the Marshal by his long-time trustee, Vilho Tahvanaine. On the basis of these copies, Hautamäki was able to propose an entirely new view of the diplomatic manoeuvring which led to the outbreak of WW II.
...
Hitler’s preventive strike saved Germany from what the Soviet Union would experience in the first period of the war. The losses of the Red Army through German attack during the first months of the war were enormous: 85% of their ammunition stock was lost because it was concentrated in the border-zone in order to secure supplies for the assault troops which were to invade Germany. It can only be speculated what would have happened if Stalin had forestalled Hitler in the first strike. But one thing is fairly certain: the capitulation of Germany would have been a problem of, probably, a couple of months, not of five years.
http://web.archive.org/web/201807131731 ... 2016-4.pdf or https://archive.is/d16Cr
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
— Herbert Spencer


NOTE: I am taking a leave of absence from revisionism to focus on other things. At this point, the ball is in their court to show the alleged massive pits full of human remains at the so-called "extermination camps." After 8 decades they still refuse to do this. I wonder why...

Otium

Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Otium » 3 years 3 months ago (Fri Feb 28, 2020 4:30 pm)

Suvorov in his "The Chief Culprit" describes the hypocrisy of the Soviets and how it was them, not Hitler, who Started the Second World War, or the conflict between Germany and Poland which would be called (erroneously) the beginning of the Second World War.

It was the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that facilitated the entire thing and the Soviets in the end got to sit back and construct their kangaroo war crimes trials against the INNOCENT Germans who wanted nothing but unification for their people in the East. This is the true crime the Germans were persecuted for at Nuremberg. The Soviets were more than happy to supply the vial of poison and inject Germany with what they believed to be the antidote to their woes. But alas it wasn't, it was the shot of death provided by a fraudulent doctor who had their own aggressive war plans in mind. It was the Soviets. The nation who constructed Nuremberg, who interpreted the way history would be seen for 80 years. There was no justice and I defy anyone to tell me otherwise. Anyone who tried would be spewing disgusting Soviet lies.

Suvorov, in his masterful work describes this deceit:

Stalin was a war criminal who should have been tried at Nuremberg in 1946 along with the German deputy Fuehrer, Rudolf Hess—so argued Hess’s defense lawyer, Dr. Alfred Seidl, who opened the defense for Hess on March 22, 1946. Through a secret protocol, Hitler and Stalin had conspired to divide up between them countries conquered by their armies. Hitler was dead, but Stalin, according to the mandate of the Allied Military Tribunal, should have been indicted. The charges against him should have been similar to those against Hess, said Hess’s lawyer

[...]

In Hess: The Man and His Mission (London: David Bruce and Watson, 1970), the Czech-born journalist, diplomat, and writer J. Bernard Hutton described how Dr. Seidl learned of the secret protocol to the Hitler-Stalin pact signed by Soviet foreign minister Vacheslav Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, which implicated Stalin in war crimes. After a long and frustrating interview with Hess, who insisted he did not want to defend himself with a lawyer, Dr. Seidl was preparing to leave the prison. In the prison yard he overheard Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering and Von Ribbentrop talking.
Von Ribbentrop offered an astonishing piece of information to Goering. He said that when he visited Moscow in August 1939 to arrange the German-Soviet treaty with Molotov, he had also signed a secret treaty which was not made public. Von Ribbentrop told Goering: “This secret agreement defined spheres of interest in the event of any war.”

The two foreign ministers had drawn a line upon a map along the Vistula and the Bug, the two rivers that divide Poland. They had agreed that, should war come, the territory to the west of the two rivers should become a German sphere of interest, and the territory to the east would be under Soviet control. The Soviet sphere included Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the eastern part of Poland, and certain areas of Romania. Von Ribbentrop also told Goering that the Russians had assured him, since his arrest, that it would be made easier for him if he did not talk about this secret agreement in court. Stalin clearly wanted to keep his secret pact with Hitler—to carve up and share Poland and the Baltic states—from being made public at a time when the Russians were part of an international military court passing sentence on war crimes that included conspiracy to wage aggressive war and crimes against peace.

Dr. Seidl realized at once the significance of this secret pact to his client. After the military action of Germany and the Soviet Union against Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in June 1940, both Germany and the Soviet Union had denied that any political agreement existed, apart from the German-Soviet treaty concerning boundaries, which was concluded on August 23, 1939. It followed that if Dr. Seidl could prove such a secret plan did exist then Stalin and the Soviet Union were as guilty of waging aggressive war as any of the Nazis in the dock. Dr. Seidl would be able to argue that his client should be found not guilty or else Stalin and other Kremlin men should join him in the dock, explained Hutton.

[...]

The document not only exposed Stalin and Hitler’s political goals, but it was staggering evidence of their willingness to wage war and to share the spoils of war between themselves by dismembering smaller countries.

Suvorov, The Chief Culprit, Pp. 281-284


I myself fail to see what Germany really got out of these protocols besides the demarcation line in Poland extending further East. The lions share of the spheres of interest fell to the Soviets it seems. Lithuania was given up by Soviet demand in 1940 and a revision to the document.

Anyway, continuing on:

On March 30, 1946, Dr. Seidl produced his astonishing surprise when he cross-examined Von Ribbentrop about the secret German-Soviet agreement in 1939. Reluctantly, Von Ribbentrop admitted it existed. “If war broke out, occupation of these zones was to be undertaken by Germany and Russia. At that time, I heard expressions—both from Stalin and
Hitler—that Polish and other territories thus delineated were regions which both sides had lost in an unfortunate war.”

The shocked judges ordered Dr. Seidl to halt his cross-examination. He desisted, but told the court that the secret pact was an essential element in his defense of Hess and if the court did not allow the full details of the secret German-Soviet agreements to be called into evidence he would demand that Molotov, the Soviet foreign minister, be called as a witness. At least one of the prosecuting nations had been involved in the conspiracy that led to World War II, Dr. Seidl charged.

The Soviet prosecutor, General Roman Rudenko, jumped to his feet to protest and urged that the document be suppressed. “The court is investigating the case of the major German criminals. It is not investigating the foreign policy of the allies. This anonymous document . . . can have no value.”

The judges conferred and upheld Rudenko’s objection to the document being entered as evidence, but decided that Baron von Weizsäcker, a former secretary of state in the German foreign ministry, could be questioned about it. His testimony confirmed the existence of a secret pact and created a sensation when he told the court:

[...]

Dr. Seidl’s efforts bore bitter fruit. He had revealed to the world that a heinous secret pact existed, but the ruling to prevent him from producing the actual document in court prevented him from aiding the defense of his client. Rudolf Hess was not found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes, but he was found guilty of conspiracy to wage aggressive war and of crimes against peace.

Had Hess been released, his family and those who urged his release would have been free to draw attention to Stalin’s own guilt for crimes against peace and conspiracy to wage aggressive war.

Ibid. Pp. 284-285


And from the book "Stalin's Soviet Justice"
9781350083349.jpg
we read more about the deliberate Soviet falsifications:

Katyn was just one of the highly controversial issues that came up during the deliberations about the Indictment Act. When it came to thinking about the past, the basic details about international relations of the previous decade proved to be matters of contention. Soviet leaders voiced serious objections to the Indictment Act’s characterizations of the Munich Pact of 1938 and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 and their relationship to the start of the war—noting that the document gave a “disputable” political interpretation of events.35 In particular, they took great offense that the draft described the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as having facilitated the Nazi attack on Poland, while it skirted the issue of French and British appeasement regarding Czechoslovakia. Vyshinsky gave Rudenko firm orders to demand that the document be revised so that the nonaggression pact could “under no circumstances” be interpreted as “the springboard for” Nazi actions. At the same time, he instructed Rudenko to argue for a more accurate account of the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia: the Indictment Act’s suggestion that Germany had “intimidated” Czechoslovakia into “handing its fate and the fate of its people” over to Hitler in the wake of a “dispute” did not “correspond to the historical facts,” he noted, and was insulting to “the Czechoslovak people.”36

Soviet leaders, not surprisingly, cared most about the revisions relating to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and ordered Rudenko to push hard for them—even if it meant giving in on other issues.37 In the short term Rudenko and the other chief prosecutors did reach a successful compromise. The final version of the Indictment Act treaded with care around the issues of appeasement and collaboration. It made a link between the conclusion of the Munich Pact and the Nazi seizure of Czechoslovakia but let the Western powers off the hook by emphasizing that Hitler had acted counter to the pact’s provisions.38 To Moscow’s satisfaction, the final document omitted the line that had described the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact as the catalyst for the Nazi invasion of Poland. It described the nonaggression pact in neutral terms and characterized the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 as a treacherous crime against peace.39 Unfortunately for the Soviets, this was not the end of the matter. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact would continue to vex them at Nuremberg—with the German defense, the Western judges, and at least one member of the US prosecution attempting to force a public discussion about its secret protocols.

Stalin's Soviet Justice, Pp. 178


Here, the author admits that the Soviets were and should've been just as guilty at the Germans for the opening of hostilities between the Germans and Poles. I would go so far as to say it was PRIMARILY on the Soviets considering the line omitted in the Molotov Ribbentrop pact which openly admitted that the purpose of the pact was to ensure the German invasion of Poland.

And as we know, the Germans protested the Soviets from invading these countries because they were merely "spheres of interest"

The definition of “spheres of interest” was not considered to be equal to the right to invade and annex other countries, as a German protest note declared on Nov. 3, 1940.

See: Werner Maser, Fälschung, Dichtung und Wahrheit über Hitler und Stalin (Olzog, Munich 2004), Pp. 197


The truth is astonishing and it's blatantly ignored by propagandists for Russian and Soviet history.

Otium

Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Otium » 2 years 10 months ago (Thu Aug 06, 2020 8:05 pm)

A new book by Boris Sokolov was released late last year, for the first time in English. The book affirms the reality of the preventative war thesis. Check it out if you're interested. I may at some point post some excerpts from it.

91V1KX+vFAL.jpg

Otium

Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Otium » 2 years 10 months ago (Thu Aug 06, 2020 8:23 pm)

Here's another quote from David Irving's 1977 edition of Hitler's War (or the 1983 papermac edition):

30040533945.jpg


Admiral Canaris noted : “After my discussion with the chief of the OKW, General Jodl disclosed to me in a conference that they are greatly worried about the Russians’ soft and indulgent attitude toward us, and he added half in jest, in a reference to our No. 800 ‘Special Duties’ Training Regiment Brandenburg,(4) ‘If these chaps’—meaning the Soviet Russians—‘keep on being so accommodating and take offense at nothing, then you will have to stage an incident to start the war.’

Finding a suitable incident was traditionally the difficulty of launching a premeditated preventive war, which is what Hitler’s eastern crusade had now become. Neither Hitler nor his military advisers were any longer in doubt as to Stalin’s long-term intentions. Halder was to state that if the Russian deployments were shown to an impartial military expert he would have to concede that they were offensive in design. Throughout March, Russian troop movements close to the frontier had been so intense, with a heavy flow of reinforcements from Moscow toward Smolensk and Minsk, that eventually Halder felt anxiety about the threat of a Russian preventive action. The danger would be acute at least until April 20, for until then the Russians would have great superiority in strength. “The disposition of Russian forces gives food for thought,” Halder wrote on April 7. “If we discount the catchword that the Russians want peace and won’t attack anybody themselves, then it has to be admitted that the Russian dispositions could allow them to convert very rapidly from defense into attack—and this could prove highly embarrassing for us.” He had Jodl ask Hitler whether the top-capacity “Barbarossa” transport plan should be thrown into action now, six weeks early, but Hitler was against it.

The Führer himself was in no doubt. Stalin’s pact with Belgrade, coupled with a communiqué of March 24,(5) provided further justification for “Barbarossa.” At the end of it all he was to say, “I didn’t take the decision to attack Moscow lightly, but because I knew from certain information that an alliance was being prepared between Britain and Russia. The big question was, Should we strike out first or wait until we were overwhelmed some time in the future ?” According to his army adjutant, Hitler’s decision was reinforced by Intelligence reports on feverish airfield and arms dump construction by the Russians throughout the spring ; there were also reports from Polish agents of Russian troop movements from as far away as the Far East, and of the creation and deployment of new armies for what could only be offensive purposes. The Russians were also instructing their commissars, for example in Leningrad, to get ready for a long and grueling war with Germany.

David Irving, Hitler's War 1939-1942 (Papermac, 1983), Pp. 235-236


Walter Sanning also has a wonderful chapter affirming the preventative war in his book, of which we're probably all familiar, "The Dissolution of Eastern European Jewry". http://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?main_page=1&page_id=29

Sanning.PNG


See Chapter 3 "Scorched Earth".

The information within the chapter itself is best read from beginning to end without copy and pasting anything out of context, so I will refrain from doing so here.

Mortimer
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Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Mortimer » 2 years 4 weeks ago (Tue May 11, 2021 11:53 am)

A review of the book Stalin's War - A New History of World War II by Sean McMeekin. This author is in agreement with Viktor Suvorov on many points. The review is by Laurent Guyenot.
http://www.unz.com/article/barbarossa-s ... ainstream/
There are 2 sides to every story - always listen or read both points of view and make up your own mind. Don't let others do your thinking for you.

Otium

Re: Operation Barbarossa Was A Preventive Attack

Postby Otium » 1 year 11 months ago (Wed Jun 16, 2021 10:24 pm)

Something interesting I've noted:

Werner Maser quotes from Hitler's alleged 1945 table talk, the authenticity of which has been seriously disputed:

Hitler mused to Martin Bormann on February 26, 1945, eight weeks before his suicide: "The behavior of the Soviets in the summer of 1940 ... did not give rise to the slightest doubt as to their true aims. And if such had still existed, the visit of Molotov would have completely dispelled them.... Stalin ... could start the war any day. Throughout the winter, and especially in the first days of spring 1941, the thought that the Soviets might beat me to it deprived me of sleep.... So there was no other way out for me than to eradicate Bolshevism by force of arms, and I took this decision on the anniversary of the signing of the Moscow Pact ".

Werner Maser, Fälschung, Dichtung und Wahrheit über Hitler und Stalin (München: Ozlog-Verlag, 2004), Pp. 254-255.


Maser notes that a copy of these minutes were in his possession provided to him by François Genoud.

Such a quote from Hitler is certainly revealing, and it's unfortunate that the possibility exists that it may be a forgery, although there is corroboratory evidence that supports this entries authenticity. On April 25th, 1945, five days before Hitler's suicide, he expressed the exact same sentiments to Joseph Goebbels:

I now how it was in the winter of 1940. I didn't go to war against Moscow out of carelessness, but because on the basis of certain information, I knew that an alliance between England and Russia was being prepared. The question was whether we should begin to strike ourselves or whether we should wait and be crushed to death sometime. [—] Now, I became acquainted with Molotov at that time. The Russians hadn't achieved any overwhelming international successes at that time. They were defeated in Finland. Then they occupied a few areas. In the Polish campaign they waited too long—until we were well past the agreed demarcation line. Then came our campaign in the West, in which we achieved a huge victory. The Russians hadn't expected that at all. It was the biggest victory in the history of the world. Then came the various demonstrations by our Luftwaffe against England. And in this whole situation, Molotov demanded things from us in Berlin that were outrageous. [—] He demanded from us that we withdraw from bases on Danish territory at the exist to the North Sea. He had already announced a claim to that back then. He demanded Constantinople, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland—and we were the winners at that time! How will this Molotov act now toward the British and the Americans with such victories and after these catastrophic failures of the Allies.

David Glantz, Helmut Heiber ed., Hitler and His Generals: Military Conferences 1942-1945: The First Complete Stenographic Record of the Military Situation Conferences, from Stalingrad to Berlin (New York: Enigma Books, 2002), Pp. 724.


All essential points are confirmed. In 1940 Hitler was aware of information regarding Russia's intentions to attack Germany, and so he had to deliberate on whether he should attack the Soviet Union first, or wait and let the Russians beat him to it. Hitler's further suspicion was confirmed by the visit of Molotov.

I think this specific entry from the 1945 table talk is an accurate representation of Hitler's beliefs and motivations in 1940 to attack the Soviet Union, and doesn't at all lend credence to the idea that it was an attack purely motivated by an aggressive desire to seek Lebensraum (not that there's anything wrong with that). It was truly Hitler's fear that the Russians were plotting against Germany, and this was one of his primary motivations. Whether the Russians actually were planning an attack (they were) is another question of secondary importance to Hitler's motivation, seeing as it is that motivation that's the first port of call for those who would attempt to demonize Hitler for his decision to attack on the USSR.

I wouldn't at all be surprised to find further confirmatory evidence that supports this entry as as legitimate, and supports the fact that Hitler viewed the threat posed by the Soviets as being of primary importance to his decision to attack the Soviet Union. We already have, for example, Hitler's speech on October 3rd 1941, in which he again, expresses all the same points.

In the speech Hitler discusses the Molotov visit to Berlin and his ridiculous demands, and then he talks how he had to keep silent in order to reserve the element of surprise. Then he tellingly states:

I finally decided to take the first step myself. Because if I see an opponent bringing a rifle to his shoulder, then I am not going to wait for him to pull the trigger. Instead, I am determined to pull it before he does.

Max Domarus, Hitler: Speeches and Proclamations 1932-1945, Volume IV (Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers Inc., 2004), Pp. 2491.


There's no need to quote the speech further, it would make this post far too long. See this video of the speech if you want to hear more of it.
Stalin already expressed quite explicitly that it was his intention to invade Western Europe after inciting a conflict with Germany and the Western powers:

Bluntly he (Stalin) declared on August 19 during a meeting of the CC of the CPSU: If the USSR concluded the pact with Germany, Hitler would invade Poland, which in turn would inevitably force England and France to enter the war. We "could," Stalin said, "wait for our advantageous entry into the war'.

Maser, op cit., p. 254.


This fact has been supported most recently by the research of Sean McMeekin in his book Stalin's War (2021).

Hitler's suspicions were thus not without foundation. Even if they were, it only matters what Hitler truly believed to be the position Germany was in. All governments act based on reliable and unreliable information, having to deduce the correct course of action in a situation that could very well have been critical to your nations survival is just something that has to be done. In Hitler's case, he acted under the correct belief that he had to attack the Soviet Union in order to pre-empt an attempted invasion. That belief is what's important.


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