Best Intelligence Service of WW2

Best Spy Organization

  • NKVD

    Votes: 41 33.3%
  • Gestapo

    Votes: 4 3.3%
  • OSS

    Votes: 7 5.7%
  • M16

    Votes: 71 57.7%

  • Total voters
    123
If the NKVD was that good, why did Barbarossa take the Russians by surprise?

Because Stalin was insistent war would not come in 1942 and refused to listen to everyone from his own spies, to German deserters, to the USA and UK governments telling him otherwise. And if Stalin didn't want to hear nothing that anyone or anything said mattered. Stalin was trying desperately to appease Hitler and forestall war, and woe to the poor dumb fool who tried to convince the Vohdz that he was right and Stalin was wrong.
 
Because Stalin was insistent war would not come in 1942 and refused to listen to everyone from his own spies, to German deserters, to the USA and UK governments telling him otherwise. And if Stalin didn't want to hear nothing that anyone or anything said mattered. Stalin was trying desperately to appease Hitler and forestall war, and woe to the poor dumb fool who tried to convince the Vohdz that he was right and Stalin was wrong.

Was he that wrong, though? It had become the gospel truth during the Interwar years amongst the military caste of major European Powers that the Two-Front War was Germany's biggest mistake, never to be repeated. And he was eventually proven right, as the Third Reich did get buried under the Soviet and American colossi.
 
Was he that wrong, though? It had become the gospel truth during the Interwar years amongst the military caste of major European Powers that the Two-Front War was Germany's biggest mistake, never to be repeated. And he was eventually proven right, as the Third Reich did get buried under the Soviet and American colossi.

Yes, actually he was. He was insistent that war would not come until 1942 and he thus delayed Soviet reforms and ensured the USSR was caught in the worst of all worlds in June of 1941. He also misjudged the center of gravity of the German attack, which was in Army Groups North and Center, not Army Group South.
 
It didn't. Every Soviet commander who was "in the know" had heard the information and knew an invasion was imminent. Stalin, at some level, as knew it. However due to a series of contrived incidents along with his personal views of Nazi Germany and Hitler Stalin incorrectly believed that the information received was either misinformation by the British and Nazis trying to provoke war or simply false. Further, Stalin believed that if war was coming it wouldn't be a surprise attack; as in all past wars he believed it would involve a series of diplomatic incidents culminating in a German ultimatum which would signal the beginning of mobilization for war. This misappreciation of Hitler's plans was devastating. But Stalin never made the mistake of ignoring intelligence information twice, though he continued to misinterpret it for some time.

It was less contrived co-incidence and more Stalin's wishful thinking that appeasing Hitler was ever going to actually deter him from the invasion he was clearly aiming for. In the 1941 USSR with the Purge still a currently unfolding process, only the suicidal would have pointed out to Stalin that he was banking on something which was entirely wrong and a false premise.
 
Yes, actually he was. He was insistent that war would not come until 1942 and he thus delayed Soviet reforms and ensured the USSR was caught in the worst of all worlds in June of 1941. He also misjudged the center of gravity of the German attack, which was in Army Groups North and Center, not Army Group South.

I'm not sure I would put so much onus on him for those mistakes, mistakes that I think were understandable. I think my opinon on Stalin would depend largely on the details of the intel he got. I'm quite aware he was bombarded with intel on German intentions, but I'm curious as to their meat: How did they support their assertions? If it was merely a case of some spy #1 and leader of a country with dubious loyalty merely telling Stalin that Hitler was going to attack, I can't in all honesty blame Stalin for being skeptical. Really, until Barbarrosa, even the Wehrmacht was telling Hitler that a two-front war was not a good idea.
 
FAE was anally raped continuously by the NKVD. It never stood a chance.

Ahem, during or after the war?

I know Gehlen's operation eventually fell to pieces because it had been infiltrated massively by the KGB, but that was when it was under NATO command.

Was this a result of the stresses of "postwar conversion", what we might call all that turnover in personnel when the Reich collapsed? (IIRC, Gehlen during his pro-American phase relied on people who'd been captured during the war by the Soviets and released post-'45.)

I'd honestly like to know, because I was under the impression that Foreign Armies East was punching above its weight during the war, it wasn't compromised like Abwehr was. Maybe I'm relying too much on old historiography, while post-Cold War research has clarified things.

Okay, how did the NKVD do so well? Just that much experience with it or what?

Like I said above; the power of the Red religion, as preached by the missionaries of the Comintern parties. Lot of people were channeled towards working for Moscow Central because of that.
 
Top