Since January 1941, Stalin had received increasing indications of Hitler's intention to invade. Reports from the British and US intelligence sources arrived in increasing quantities.
There were continuous reconnaissance flights by German aircraft over Soviet territory. Stalin regarded the information received from the Americans and British as merely a means of trying to provoke a war between him and Hitler, so he discounted it. Nevertheless, some organisation for the defence of the Soviet western borders was initiated.
On the 13 April 1941 the Japan-Soviet Neutrality pact was signed in Moscow, it was designed to last five years.
On the 5 June 1941 100 German divisions were deployed in the east mainly on the frontier of Russian-occupied Poland.
The Soviets were aware of these increasing concentrations, and in early May had produced a plan for the defence of their frontiers. But this assumed that the Germans would make a formal declaration of war and would initially commit only limited forces, thereby enabling the Soviet troops on the frontier to buy time while the bulk of the Red Army was mobilised. It should be realised that Soviet forces were in the midst of a major reorganisation, as a result of lessons learnt from the war against Finland. Stalin himself, at least on the surface, still discounted an imminent attack.
starrman
0 Comments