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Germany’s Strategic Resources and Stalin’s Plans y 151

was exactly the opposite. Before the occupation of the Baltic states, the Red Army had a di-
visive barrier in this region. Consequently, in the event of aggression Hitler’s armies had to
crush the armed forces of three independent states before meeting the Red Army. Even if he
had to spend only a few days in order to crush the armies of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia,
a surprise attack on Soviet airbases in this direction would have been out of the question.
e Red Army would have had the chance to put its forces on high alert and take its posi-
tions. After the destruction of the three states’ armies Hitler’s forces would have approached
Lake Chudskoe, which is impossible to cross. If they had tried to go around the lake, Hitler’s
armies would have come straight into Soviet fortified areas.
But everything unfolded according to a different scenario. e Red Army came out of
its fortified areas to the front lines in Lithuania, right up to the German border, and trans-
ferred there its air bases, staff headquarters, communication centers, and strategic supply
resources. For the people of the three Baltic states, Stalin’s army became the aggressor and
occupant, and Germany, if it decided to attack the USSR, would have become the liberator.
On June 22, 1941, the Red Army suffered a surprise attack from the German armies
along the entire stretch of the border, including the Baltic states. e command centers were
disrupted and Soviet aviation suffered significant losses on border air bases. Moreover, a wide-
spread popular uprising in the Baltic states flared up against the Red Army. e Soviet “lib-
erators” were shot at from every rooftop. e Red Army was left in the Baltic region without
any fortified regions, and behind their backs, on Russian territory, remained empty fortified
areas without any troops. German troops led by General Field Marshal von Manstein seized
them immediately.
Skeptics disagree: if Stalin had not occupied the Baltic states, Hitler could have seized
them without war, by simply moving his troops there as he did in Czechoslovakia. To this
theory, there is a rebuttal. It should have been explained to Hitler clearly that if German
troops attempted to enter the Baltic states area, the Soviet Union, without warning, would
begin sinking German transports of ore and wood in the Baltic Sea, setting up mines in the
entryways of German ports, and bombing Berlin. e Soviet Union would form internation-
al brigades and launch them into the Baltic states’ territory together with millions of Soviet
volunteers. And when Hitler’s forces grew weak in the war with the USSR, Britain and France
would use the opportunity and strangle Germany according to their best interests, eliminat-
ing it as a dangerous adversary and once again imposing retributions.
Such a declaration would have been correctly understood around the world. In such
an event the people of the Baltic states would not have been enemies of the Soviets, but
their allies. In such an event, the “forest brothers” (the Baltic states’ partisans) would have
been shooting the backs of German soldiers, not the Soviets. In such an event, international
brigades would have been fighting on the side of the Baltic states. ere were always enough
volunteers to be found around the world.
In August 1939 the Soviet Union’s position was announced loud and clear: Mongolian
territory will be defended from Japanese aggression as if it was our own. And that was done!
is position was correctly understood in the entire world, including Japan. As a result of this
decisiveness and strictness, Japanese aggression against the Soviet Union was averted. Why
did the Soviet Union, in 1939, not take the same position regarding the Baltic states?
e occupation of those states by the Red Army made sense only if there were plans for
an aggressive war against Germany. e Red Army came right up to the German border and