Page 253 - The Chief Culprit

214 y e Chief Culprit

Why didn’t all eight armies move simultaneously? In February, March, April, and May,
a grandiose secret transfer of Soviet troops—from the inner regions to the borders—was
conducted. It was concluded in time, but thousands of railroad cars had to return thousands
of kilometers back inland. erefore, on June 13, when the new, giant, secret movement of
troops began, there were not enough cars for all the armies. e Second Strategic Echelon
contained seventy-seven tank, motorized, and rifle divisions, not counting tens of separate
regiments and hundreds of separate battalions. ey all began their secret movement toward
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the western borders of the USSR under the cover of the TASS announcement. To the 114
divisions of the First Strategic Echelon, we must add seventy-seven divisions of the Second
Strategic Echelon that began to move toward the western borders from the central regions of
the country, from Siberia, and even from the Far East.
Everything that Soviet officers, generals, and marshals wrote about in their memoirs
was fully confirmed by reports of German intelligence to their commanders in the spring
and early summer of 1941: the Red Army was heading in giant surges toward the western
borders. Many independent sources confirm the same fact. e massive Red Army movement
toward the western borders was felt even in Soviet prisons. G. Ozerov, one of the deputies of
airplane designer A. N. Tupolev, at that time was in prison, together with Tupolev and his
entire design bureau. ey received an order to create the best dive-bomber in the world.
ey were told that if they designed the plane, they would be let out of prison. ey de-
signed behind bars, but had constant contact with engineers from airplane and automobile
factories, and with officials from the People’s Commissariat of Aviation Industry. Former
inmate Ozerov recounted: “Inhabitants of dachas along the Belorussian and Vindavsk roads
complain that they cannot sleep at night [because] trains with tanks and cannon are being
herded through!” 42
us, “right before the war, in accordance with orders from the General Staff of the
Red Army, certain units of the western special military district began to move to the state
border.” Having crushed the First Strategic Echelon and broken through its defenses, the
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first German units suddenly stumbled across new divisions, corps, and armies (for example,
the 16th Army near Shepetovka in late June), about whose existence the German command-
ers had no idea. e plan for the blitzkrieg was built on calculations of lightning-speed
destruction of the Soviet troops right along the borders. But having completed this plan,
the German army discovered a new wall of armies, which was coming out of the Northern
Caucasus, Volga, the Urals, Siberia, Trans-Baikal, and the Far East.
ousands of railroad cars are needed for the transfer of even one army. ey have to
be sent to the station of departure, loaded with the army, heavy weapons, and reserves, and
then cross thousands of kilometers. If the German troops encountered Siberian, Ural, and
Trans-Baikal armies at the end of June, then their transfer to the west had not begun on June
22, but earlier.
e movement of the Soviet navy began at the same time as the movement of ground
troops. Before the war, the Soviet Baltic fleet left the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland, head-
ing west. e fleet’s objective was to act on the naval communication lines of the enemy.
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Simultaneously with the transfer of ground troops and navy, an intensive relocation of
aviation was taking place. During the dark early hours of the day, aviation divisions and regi-
ments were transferred in small units to air bases, some of which were less than ten kilometers
from the border. In addition to operational air force units, a rigorous transfer of the newest