What Stalin Knew (4 page)

tonnage and permitted Germany to build a submarine fleet, forbidden

under Versailles. The agreement came as a shock to many, including Win-

ston S. Churchill, as with it the British government appeared to lend sup-

port to Hitler’s violations of the treaty. Admittedly, strict enforcement of its

provisions had never been popular in the United Kingdom, where sympa-

thy for Germany as the underdog was not inconsiderable. Furthermore, if

STALIN VERSUS HITLER

3

enforcement risked war, it is unlikely that the British public would have

stood for it. Memories of the trench slaughter of the 1914–18 war were

fresh in the minds of most families, and the British economy was still

suffering from the effects of the Great Depression. The naval treaty was

seen by some British politicians as an effort, therefore, to demonstrate to

Hitler that Great Britain was willing to work with him to ensure stability

in Europe. In this, of course, they completely misjudged their man. On

June 23, 1939, Hitler renounced both the 1936 naval agreement and a

subsequent version.

Despite the apparent similarities in their government structures, Fas-

cist Italy and Germany were not that close until October 1935, when the

Italian army invaded Ethiopia. The League of Nations labeled Italy an

aggressor and imposed economic sanctions, but to no avail. Ethiopian

resistance was overcome in May 1936 and the King of Italy was crowned

Emperor of Ethiopia. The prestige of the League of Nations suffered, as

did that of France and England. Meanwhile, Germany was the only Euro-

pean power that refrained from acting against Italy. The two ‘‘have not’’

powers drew closer after this experience. Military cooperation between the

two grew as they joined in supporting General Francisco Franco’s revolt

against the Spanish Republic, which began in July 1936.

This revolt had its origins in the long-standing tension between urban

workers and landless peasants on the one hand and extremely conservative

landowners and industrialists on the other. The latter groups and the Cath-

olic hierarchy upheld the monarchy, while the urban and rural poor sup-

ported those working to establish a republic. Victory in the municipal

elections of April 1931 was interpreted as a vote for a republic, and King

Alfonso went into exile. The new republic could not satisfy the demands of

the poor for social justice and at the same time persuade the upper middle

class that their rights would be respected. Frustrated, the poor engaged in

industrial strikes, seized land, and attacked Church property, prompting

a brutal army crackdown and, in turn, the creation of a Popular Front

formed of liberal republicans and socialists. In the elections of Febru-

ary 1936, the Popular Front gained control of the parliament. During the

months that followed, Spanish society split into two factions. The left grew

increasingly radical and opposition to the republic from the right was

centered in the Falange Party, a Spanish version of fascism. By July, large

elements of the army, particularly the officer corps, felt they had to save

Spain from communism.

It was this feeling that invited them to launch a rebellion under General

German Aggression, ∞Ω≥∏–≥Ω

LATVIA

BALTIC SEA

NORTH

LITHUANIA

N

Copenhagen

Memel

SEA

Memel

Free City

March 1939

of Danzig

EAST

Hamburg

PRUSSIA

HOLLAND

Berlin

Warsaw

Pinsk

GERMANY

BELGIUM

POLAND

Sudetenland

September 1938

LUX.

SAAR

SAAR

SAAR

Mar

Ma c

r

Mar h

c

Rhineland

1939

1939

1939

March 1936

CZECHOSLO

CZECHOSL V

O

CZECHOSLO AKIA

VA

V KIA

AKIA

FRANCE

Munich

Vienna

AU

A STRIA

US

U TRIA

STRIA

SWITZERLAND

Budapest

Mar

Ma ch

rc

Mar h

ch

1938

1938

1938

HUNGARY

ROMANIA

ITALY

0

100

200 mi

YUGOSLAVIA

0

100

200

300 km

Bucharest

As part of its policy to rectify the terms of the 1919 Versailles Treaty,

Hitler’s Germany remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936 and annexed

Austria in March 1938. In September 1938 it absorbed the Sudeten area

of Czechoslovakia, and in March 1939 the Bohemian and Moravian

areas of that country became a German protectorate. Slovakia became

independent although in reality it was a German client state. Also in

March 1939 the Memel area of Lithuania was made part of East Prussia.

STALIN VERSUS HITLER

5

Francisco Franco, who turned to Germany and Italy for help. They both

sent units of their regular forces lightly camouflaged as ‘‘volunteers.’’ The

republic also turned to England, France, and the United States for as-

sistance but these countries demurred, choosing instead a policy of non-

intervention, although some of their citizens participated as individuals.

Soviet Russia sent weapons and its own volunteers to support the republi-

can cause but tried to mask the extent of its aid (see chapter 2 for details on

the activities of Soviet volunteers in Spain). It also coordinated the opera-

tions of international brigades recruited from foreign communist parties.1

When the Spanish civil war ended in early 1939 with a Franco victory, it

was seen by many as a victory ‘‘over communism,’’ adding to the prestige

of the Tripartite Anti-Comintern Pact, which Italy had joined in Novem-

ber 1937.

While the Spanish conflict ground on, Hitler had been taking other

actions to expand German territory. In March 1938, when a Nazi, Arthur

Seyss-Inquart, was named Austrian chancellor, the Austrian frontier was

opened to the German army. There were no protests by France or Great

Britain. On March 13 Hitler announced the return of Austria to the Reich.

What happened in fact was the isolation of Czechoslovakia, Hitler’s next

victim.2

In Czechoslovakia, Hitler’s tactics were similar to those he used in

Austria. The Sudeten German minority, occupying territory along Czecho-

slovakia’s western border with Germany, was included in the state fol-

lowing the Versailles Treaty. This area was also the location of Czechoslo-

vakia’s new line of very modern fortifications, vital to that nation’s defense

against Germany. Throughout the summer of 1938, the Sudeten German

National Socialists continued to make impossible demands on the Czechs,

followed by Hitler’s threats of military action. At this point Prime Minister

Neville Chamberlain of Britain took over. On September 15 he visited Hit-

ler in Germany at Obersalzberg, and again on September 20–24 at Godes-

berg, offering to intercede with the Czechs. Hitler would not budge, but he

did say that ‘‘this will be the last territorial claim I shall have to make in

Europe.’’ On September 26 he issued a forty-eight-hour ultimatum. France

and Great Britain began to mobilize. Mussolini now intervened to agree

with Chamberlain’s proposal for a four-power conference, which was held

in Munich. Neither Soviet Russia nor the Czechs themselves were invited.

Britain and France accepted Hitler’s demands and on October 1 German

troops entered the Sudeten area. Chamberlain returned to London claim-

ing he had achieved ‘‘peace in our time.’’ On March 15, 1939, as the Spanish

6

STALIN VERSUS HITLER

Republic disintegrated, Hitler’s army entered Prague. On March 16 Hitler

proclaimed the ‘‘Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.’’ Slovakia declared

its independence; in reality it was a German client state.3

These events surely convinced Hitler that if he could be assured of

Soviet neutrality in a Polish-German conflict, the odds were good that

neither France nor Great Britain would intervene to help Poland. Stalin,

on the other hand, must have certainly known, after his rebuff in the Czech

crisis at the hands of the British and French, that he could expect little help

from them were he to oppose a German invasion of Poland. Consequently,

he would drive the best bargain he could with Hitler. He would look on his

negotiations with the British and French during the summer merely as a

negotiating device to obtain more from Hitler. Stalin never imagined that

in reaching an agreement with Hitler he would be deceived by the Führer

on a scale that rivaled that of the infamous Trojan horse.

≤

C H A P T E R

The Outspoken General

Ivan Iosifovich Proskurov

How could Stalin have trusted Hitler? Here fol-

lows the history by which Stalin, supplied by his own country’s intelligence

services with absolutely solid information on Hitler’s intentions, blindly

disregarded the intelligence in favor of Hitler’s lies.

The interwoven careers of three intelligence officers dramatize this

history and will enable the reader to determine what Stalin knew and how

he came to know it. The first of these was Ivan I. Proskurov, a talented

military pilot and air force commander who had fought in Spain. The

second was Pavel M. Fitin, who was assigned to the NKVD’s Foreign Intel-

ligence Service by the party and rose rapidly to become its chief in May

1939. The last was Filipp I. Golikov, who had served in the Red Army

since the postrevolutionary Russian civil war, primarily on political as-

signments. In July 1940, Stalin appointed Golikov head of the Soviet Mili-

tary Intelligence Service as Proskurov’s replacement.

Proskurov had no previous intelligence experience, but he was ideally

suited for the task given to him. A brave combatant and imaginative com-

mander, he was highly intelligent and had an excellent memory. Instinc-

tively honest, he refused to shade the truth in preparing intelligence re-

ports. He was also a modest, unassuming man devoted to his country,

wife, and children. Unusual for that time and place, he always showed

great concern for the welfare of his subordinates, protecting those who

feared repression (the purges) whenever he could. On the other hand, in

8

THE OUTSPOKEN GENERAL

the USSR under Stalin, where subservience to the ‘‘Boss’’ and the conceal-

ment of unpleasant truths were the rule, Proskurov’s qualities, especially

his independence of mind, were not ones that would endear him to Stalin.

Indeed, his outspokenness often enraged Stalin, who knew he couldn’t

control him.

Proskurov was born on February 18, 1907, in the village of Malaya

Tokmachka in what is now Zaporozhskaya Oblast of Ukraine.1 His father

was a railroad worker and Ivan attended the Aleksandrovsky Railroad

Academy in Zaporozhe and the Kharkov Institute of Mechanization and

Electrification of Agriculture during the unsettled years of World War I,

the February and October revolutions of 1917, the brief Ukrainian inde-

pendence period from 1918 to 1920, and the civil war. From 1924 to 1926

he worked at the Zaporozhe Cable Factory, where he belonged to the Kom-

somol. From 1926 to 1927 he was chairman of the district council of labor

unions, joining the Communist Party in 1927. In 1931 he joined the Red

Army air forces.

Some of Proskurov’s biographers characterize his entry into the Soviet

air forces as simply a party assignment (
partnabor
). Proskurov himself

reportedly agreed, saying that he did not become a pilot ‘‘from birth, but

rather by chance—I was even a bit afraid of the idea of flying.’’ But ‘‘at

the district committee they talked me into attending flight school.’’2 The

school was the Higher School for Pilots at Stalingrad, which he completed

in March 1933. He was fortunate in this assignment as it allowed him to

escape the severe famine conditions brought on in his native Ukraine by

Stalin’s decision to impose collectivization on the peasantry, an action

from which Soviet agriculture never recovered. Pilots in training, however,

enjoyed a reasonably nutritious diet.

Proskurov was assigned to the aviation brigade of the prestigious Zhu-

kosvky Air Academy in Moscow as a flight instructor. A year later he was

sent to the commanders’ course at the Stalin School for Naval Aviators at

Eisk, on the Sea of Azov in Krasnodarsky Kray, where he finished first

in his class. In May 1934 a special commission appointed him aircraft

commander in the Ninetieth Heavy Bombardment Squadron. Next he

was assigned to the Eighty-ninth Heavy Bombardment Squadron of the