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nobody believed him. Sorge was a very able intelligence officer, but he told Moscow nothing
of significance about the German invasion. What was more, he fell victim to disinformation
and fed the GRU false reports. On April 11, 1941, he sent Moscow a telegram: “ e repre-
sentative of the [German] General Staff in Tokyo has stated that war against the Soviet Union
will begin immediately after the war in Europe ends.”
Hitler prepared the invasion, spreading lies that looked very much like the truth. Hitler
knew that it had already become impossible to conceal his preparations to invade the Soviet
Union. erefore, he said in secret, in a way that Stalin could hear, “Yes, I want to attack
Stalin . . . after I have finished the war in the west.” If Sorge’s telegram from April 11 (and
other similar telegrams) were to be believed, there was no need to worry: the war against
Great Britain was going on with no end in sight.
e GRU did not need Sorge. Based on extensive studies of all the economic, political,
and military aspects of the situation, the GRU concluded that Germany could not win a war
on two fronts; Hitler would not begin a war in the east without first finishing the war in the
west. e first conclusion proved correct; the second did not.
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Even before Sorge’s “warning,” the new head of the GRU Lieutenant General F. I.
Golikov submitted a detailed report to Stalin on March 20, 1941, which concluded that “the
earliest possible date on which operations against the USSR may begin is the moment follow-
ing victory over England or after an honorable peace for Germany has been achieved.” But
Stalin knew this simple truth without Golikov having to tell him. Stalin replied to Churchill’s
letter from June 25, 1940, that Hitler might begin a war against the Soviet Union in 1941 if
Britain had ceased to resist by that time.
But Hitler, whom Stalin had driven into a strategic impasse by the Molotov-Ribbentrop
Pact, suddenly realized that he had nothing to lose and that inevitably Germany had two
fronts: if he did not attack Stalin, Stalin would stab him in the back. erefore, Hitler at-
tacked first. Neither Golikov nor Stalin anticipated this. It was a suicidal decision, but Hitler
had no choice. Stalin simply could not understand that having found himself in a strategic
impasse, Hitler would take such a suicidal step. General Golikov, head of the GRU, had not
contemplated that either. Sorge (and several others) simply confirmed this view with the false
information in their telegrams.
Some argue that later, on June 15, 1941, Sorge correctly named the date of the German
invasion as June 22. But was Richard Sorge to be believed? First, he had said that Hitler
would not fight against Stalin without finishing the war against Great Britain, and then, soon
after, reported a date for the invasion, June 22, thereby saying that Hitler would invade the
Soviet Union after all without ending the war against Britain. Sorge’s reports canceled each
other out.
Intelligence is the most thankless work in the world. ose who fail and get hanged—
like Sorge, for example—become famous. Stalin also had military intelligence officers whose
achievements were truly outstanding, but precisely because they were so successful, they
remain unknown to us. One Soviet intelligence officer had access to some of Hitler’s real
secrets. According to Marshal of the Soviet Union A. A. Grechko, “eleven days after Hitler
approved the final plan for the war against the Soviet Union (December 18, 1940), this fact
and the basic details of the decision taken by the German High Command became known
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to our intelligence organs.”