Soviet military attaché to...

history · 21 June 1941 · 83 years ago

Soviet military attaché to France Major General Ivan Sousloparov warned his superiors in Moscow, Russia of a potential German invasion, which Joseph Stalin immediately disregarded as British provocation. Stalin's opinion was agreed by head of Soviet State Security Lavrentiy Beria, who told Joseph Stalin that Germany would not attack the Soviet Union in 1941. Georgy Zhukov disagreed, but it would not be until 1905 hours when the military attaché to Germany Mikhail Vorontsov provided concrete evidence of German movement when Stalin and the Politburo were finally convinced to organize two new wartime fronts (rather than peacetime military districts) to prepare the defenses. By the time the telegrams were deciphered many units would already be bombed by German aircraft. Elsewhere, in the evening, Soviet Foreign Minister Vycheslav Molotov met with German Ambassador Friedrich Werner von der Schulenburg and asked him regarding the rumors of invasion, which Schulenburg denied as false. Within hours, however, to Schulenburg's surprise, he would receive orders from his superiors to destroy documents, code books, ciphers, and communications equipment, and he would receive a declaration of war to be delivered to Molotov in the morning. 

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