CHF
8th January 2008, 10:33 AM
We hear lots about the "9/11 warnings that were ignored" or the "NORAD stand down" and how it points to a LIHOP plot to give justification to expanding US power in the Middle East. Incompetence, arrogance and out-dated systems are explanations that truthers have no time for. After all, "how can the US spend billions on the military and intelligence and yet not intercept 19 hijackers?"
I'd like to pose a similar question regarding Operation Barbarossa – the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
Stalin's USSR was probably the most paranoid police state in history – a place saturated with spies and NKVD forces; a place where children denounced their parents; where an anti-government joke resulted in death or prison. So how is it then that Russia was caught so off-guard by one of the biggest military operations of all time?
Consider the obvious German hostility:
- Germany had invaded Russia in World War I, destabilizing the regime to the point where it was overthrown by the Bolsheviks.
- Nazis blamed the defeat of 1918 largely on "Jewish bolshevism" and openly vowed revenge.
- Nazis fought street battles with local communists in the 1920s and had them arrested and/or killed once in power.
- Jews were persecuted across the Reich and Hitler viewed the millions of Jews in the Russian Pale of Settlement as the center of Jewish power.
- Hitler’s Mien Kamph devoted an entire chapter to the need to conquer and destroy the "sub-human" Slavs in the east – areas that would then be resettled by Germans.
But rather than oppose Hitler, Stalin signed a non-aggression pact in 1939. The previous year, as part of the purges of the Great Terror, 30,000 military officers were executed on trumped-up charges of anti-revolutionary activity, severely weakening the Red Army.
Then came the warnings, some of which included....
- Agents reported in July 1940 that preparations were underway to shift German troops east. Stalin didn’t pass this info on to his generals.
- Soviet intel received numerous reports of a Nazi attack from sources planted in the German Economics, Air and Foreign ministries. Stalin dismissed them as "disinformers."
- British intelligence, having cracked the Enigma code, passed on info on German troop movements. Stalin received warnings from Roosevelt and Churchill starting in January 1941 that placed the invasion in spring.
- On April 17 an informant in Prague predicted an invasion "in the second half of June." Stalin scribbled "English provocation! Investigate!" on the bottom of the report.
- Spy Richard Sorge, based in Tokyo with contacts in the German embassy, sent a steady stream of intel beginning in November 1940. In March 1941 he provided a German telegraph indicating an attack would occur in mid-June; on May 15 he put the date as June 20 and later sent a copy of the German order of battle, as did the embassy in Berlin. Stalin dismissed Sorge as "a little sh*t" and warned his generals against "Germanphobia."
- In June intel reported that German embassy staff in Moscow were leaving the country with their families and German ships were leaving Soviet harbours.
- On June 21, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin confirmed the attack would happen the next morning as did the German ambassador in Moscow; Stalin dismissed the latter warning as a blackmail plot.
Barbarossa should also have been pretty obvious from front-line reports.
- From March 28 to April 18, 1941 German aircraft made 80 recon flights over Soviet territory, one of which crashed and was found to contain a camera, film and maps. Soviet air defenses was banned from shooting at the planes.
- For months border units reported a build-up of German troops. A commander in Kiev proposed moving troops into defensive positions and was reprimanded by Stalin for "provoking" the Germans.
- In the weeks before the invasion, Soviet troops reported a steady roar of engines coming from the German lines.
- One of the last warnings came on June 21 when a German soldier crossed the border into Soviet occupied Poland and warned of the impending invasion. Stalin had him shot! :eek:
All together Stalin received no less than 84 warnings!
At 4am on June 22, 1941, German planes blasted Soviet airfields and cities while over 3 million troops poured across the border.
Amazingly, when first told that German planes were bombing the USSR, Stalin attributed it to rogue generals and insisted that it all must be a "provocation" that was happening without Hitler’s knowledge! "The Germans are well known masters of provocation," he said. "They might even begin to bomb their own cities." :faint:
When told that the German government had in fact declared war, Stalin continued to hold out hope that it was not a real attack, before retreating to his villa where he sank into depression and stared off into space for two weeks. By the time he returned to regroup his forces, over a million Russians were already dead.
Within a few short months, millions more had been killed and SS death squads were ramping across the Baltics, Ukraine and Belarus. It was the worst military disaster in Russian history.
So how do we explain all this?
Was Stalin:
A) a foolish and incompetent dictator who put far too much faith in appeasement and not enough energy in looking out for the safety of his nation, or
B) did he stand-down his army and ignore the German threat in order to lose 20 million lives and achieve justification for expanding westward and enlarging his empire?
Using truther logic I suppose we’d have to go with B.
I'd like to pose a similar question regarding Operation Barbarossa – the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
Stalin's USSR was probably the most paranoid police state in history – a place saturated with spies and NKVD forces; a place where children denounced their parents; where an anti-government joke resulted in death or prison. So how is it then that Russia was caught so off-guard by one of the biggest military operations of all time?
Consider the obvious German hostility:
- Germany had invaded Russia in World War I, destabilizing the regime to the point where it was overthrown by the Bolsheviks.
- Nazis blamed the defeat of 1918 largely on "Jewish bolshevism" and openly vowed revenge.
- Nazis fought street battles with local communists in the 1920s and had them arrested and/or killed once in power.
- Jews were persecuted across the Reich and Hitler viewed the millions of Jews in the Russian Pale of Settlement as the center of Jewish power.
- Hitler’s Mien Kamph devoted an entire chapter to the need to conquer and destroy the "sub-human" Slavs in the east – areas that would then be resettled by Germans.
But rather than oppose Hitler, Stalin signed a non-aggression pact in 1939. The previous year, as part of the purges of the Great Terror, 30,000 military officers were executed on trumped-up charges of anti-revolutionary activity, severely weakening the Red Army.
Then came the warnings, some of which included....
- Agents reported in July 1940 that preparations were underway to shift German troops east. Stalin didn’t pass this info on to his generals.
- Soviet intel received numerous reports of a Nazi attack from sources planted in the German Economics, Air and Foreign ministries. Stalin dismissed them as "disinformers."
- British intelligence, having cracked the Enigma code, passed on info on German troop movements. Stalin received warnings from Roosevelt and Churchill starting in January 1941 that placed the invasion in spring.
- On April 17 an informant in Prague predicted an invasion "in the second half of June." Stalin scribbled "English provocation! Investigate!" on the bottom of the report.
- Spy Richard Sorge, based in Tokyo with contacts in the German embassy, sent a steady stream of intel beginning in November 1940. In March 1941 he provided a German telegraph indicating an attack would occur in mid-June; on May 15 he put the date as June 20 and later sent a copy of the German order of battle, as did the embassy in Berlin. Stalin dismissed Sorge as "a little sh*t" and warned his generals against "Germanphobia."
- In June intel reported that German embassy staff in Moscow were leaving the country with their families and German ships were leaving Soviet harbours.
- On June 21, the Soviet ambassador in Berlin confirmed the attack would happen the next morning as did the German ambassador in Moscow; Stalin dismissed the latter warning as a blackmail plot.
Barbarossa should also have been pretty obvious from front-line reports.
- From March 28 to April 18, 1941 German aircraft made 80 recon flights over Soviet territory, one of which crashed and was found to contain a camera, film and maps. Soviet air defenses was banned from shooting at the planes.
- For months border units reported a build-up of German troops. A commander in Kiev proposed moving troops into defensive positions and was reprimanded by Stalin for "provoking" the Germans.
- In the weeks before the invasion, Soviet troops reported a steady roar of engines coming from the German lines.
- One of the last warnings came on June 21 when a German soldier crossed the border into Soviet occupied Poland and warned of the impending invasion. Stalin had him shot! :eek:
All together Stalin received no less than 84 warnings!
At 4am on June 22, 1941, German planes blasted Soviet airfields and cities while over 3 million troops poured across the border.
Amazingly, when first told that German planes were bombing the USSR, Stalin attributed it to rogue generals and insisted that it all must be a "provocation" that was happening without Hitler’s knowledge! "The Germans are well known masters of provocation," he said. "They might even begin to bomb their own cities." :faint:
When told that the German government had in fact declared war, Stalin continued to hold out hope that it was not a real attack, before retreating to his villa where he sank into depression and stared off into space for two weeks. By the time he returned to regroup his forces, over a million Russians were already dead.
Within a few short months, millions more had been killed and SS death squads were ramping across the Baltics, Ukraine and Belarus. It was the worst military disaster in Russian history.
So how do we explain all this?
Was Stalin:
A) a foolish and incompetent dictator who put far too much faith in appeasement and not enough energy in looking out for the safety of his nation, or
B) did he stand-down his army and ignore the German threat in order to lose 20 million lives and achieve justification for expanding westward and enlarging his empire?
Using truther logic I suppose we’d have to go with B.