The Ruling Elite by Deanna Spingola

Author:Deanna Spingola [Spingola, Deanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781490734743
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
Published: 2014-05-27T04:00:00+00:00

Hitler had attempted to avoid another major war. Early on, he recognized that the Soviets intended to dominate Europe. In as much as peaceful measures and attempts to unite with other European countries against the Soviets had failed, he believed that the best way to minimize kindred fratricide was to strike Russia early and hard. A conquest of Russia would solve the population and food production challenges of Europe, the real Lebensraum, which meant sufficient food for all. The Soviets outnumbered Hitler in every respect—on land, sea and air. Germany, with limited resources, needed a short decisive victory. Now, after his air assault, with England in retreat and other European countries secured, he could focus on Russia. 1217

If Hitler waited until 1942, the Soviets would be even more indomitable. Stalin may have thought that as long as Hitler was warring with the West, he would have time to ramp up for the Soviet assault on all of Europe, beginning with Germany. However, on April 3, 1941, Winston Churchill sent a confidential warning to Stalin telling him about the impending German invasion. He received similar warnings from the U.S. Undersecretary of state, Sumner Welles, and from the Yugoslavian ambassador to Moscow, Milan Gavrilovic. 1218

On June 13, 1941, Richard Sorge, a key Soviet spy, obtained secret intelligence from his lover, Hanako Ishii, that he relayed to the Kremlin stating that Germany was going to launch an attack against the Soviet Union on June 22. Friedrich Sorge, an associate of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was Sorge’s great-uncle. Sorge, who worked as a journalist in both Germany and Japan, told the NKVD in Moscow that Germany had ten armies in 150 divisions for an attack along the whole frontier. Although Stalin had other warnings, including those from certain people on the German General Staff, he seemed to disbelieve them. Starshina, a spy delivered “highly sensitive information about German war plans.” The British also had the Enigma Machine and Ultra which they used to decipher all messages from the German High Command, including those from the Wehrmacht General Staff. Although the Soviets were aware of Operation Barbarossa, Stalin decided that, either his own agents were inefficient or naïve or that Britain and the United States were attempting to ensnare them in a war with Germany. 1219

According to Soviet intelligence, during the month of June, German envoys in Moscow began packing and shipping their property out of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Stalin did not believe that Germany was sufficiently prepared to invade the Soviet Union before 1942, whose country was so large that it encompassed eleven time zones. How could Hitler muster enough of an army to combat at least 6,000,000 soldiers, augmented by the potential of millions of reserve troops? The Soviet military had, per the recently-released statistics, a possible 300 armed divisions with 120,000 mines and cannons, 23,300 tanks, and 22,400 aircraft. The Soviets had twice as many planes, 10,000-11,000, compared to the number that Germany had, about 5,000. 1220

On June 14, 1941,

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