WI: Stalin given details of Barbarossa?

We all know Stalin's spy rings informed him of the coming German invasion, which he dismissed as counter intel. He didn't believe them, and feared calling up reserves would be interpreted as an act of aggression by Hitler.

But what if a copy of the operational details of Barbarossa landed on his desk on the morning of 22 June? Something like this is not ASB. During the Phony War a copy of German war plans for France fell into Allied hands, though the plan was radically changed afterwards. During Operation Market Garden the Allied battle plan landed in the hands of the German commander. And of course famously during the American Civil War, a copy of Confederate plans for Antietam was found by Union soldiers.

The war has already started, but now Stalin knows German objectives, time tables, and allocation of forces. How much good would this intel do for the Soviet response?
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Stalin knew pretty much everything about Barbarossa. He even knew the date; he just refused to believe it because he had a treaty with the Nazis, and Stalin knew only a fool would attack the USSR while still fighting the British (unfortunately, Hitler was just such a fool). Richard Sorge informed the Soviet leadership about the German invasion weeks in advance.

Stalin consciously dismissed Sorge's information and accused anybody who even suggested mobilizing as trying to antagonize the Germans into war (which shut folks like Timoshenko and Zhukov up pretty damn quick).


So the POD really isn't Stalin knowing about Barbarossa, it's Stalin deciding to act on Sorge's information and actually appreciate the immanent German threat.
 
So the POD really isn't Stalin knowing about Barbarossa, it's Stalin deciding to act on Sorge's information and actually appreciate the immanent German threat.

Stalin couldn't have known about the operational details. The point of this exercise is not prescience and prevention, but how to respond more efficiently with more detailed, actionable intel.
 
Intelligence was a characteristic weakness of the Reich. Actually, they were weak on pretty much every aspect of war besides maneuver.

It seems quite likely that Stalin could learn of the plan, and even diseminate it without Germany knowing it.

I still think that the Red Army commanders in place at the start would still react in all the wrong ways, but Barbarossa probably won't reach the extent it reached, and Typhoon is certainly out of the question.

Remember though that the success of Barbarossa even shocked the Germans. They expected victory in six months, but two weeks into the campaign they believed the war was won, but as usual, German intel didn't notice the called up Soviet reserves and the mass conscription that was to take place.
 
Stalin couldn't have known about the operational details. The point of this exercise is not prescience and prevention, but how to respond more efficiently with more detailed, actionable intel.

An acquaintance once asked me about what I thought the top military blunders of all time were. I put Barbarossa in its entirety squarely at the top. As for the OP, it's pretty clear that Stalin already had all the information he could have needed, and he willfully ignored it. One more piece of paper would have made zero difference to him.
 
An acquaintance once asked me about what I thought the top military blunders of all time were. I put Barbarossa in its entirety squarely at the top. As for the OP, it's pretty clear that Stalin already had all the information he could have needed, and he willfully ignored it. One more piece of paper would have made zero difference to him.

Whose blunder? On the strategic level, it was Stalin's blunder. On the level of grand strategy, it was Hitler's blunder. Each blunder was huge in its own category, but I would have to say that Hitler's blunder was the greatest military blunder of all time across all categories.
 
The USSR had plenty of warnings and even gained the right date for the German offensive as initially planned, and its armies were on full military alert on that day (15 May). Then the Germans went off and spent three weeks overrunning the Balkans and Stalin assumed Hitler would wait until 1942 and generals absent death wishes did not try to correct him on that assumption. Stalin's assumption, what's more, was that the German delay was from want of campaigning time.

The overall weaknesses of the USSR in the summer/spring of 1941 won't be fixed by simply knowing the attack is there, the enormous numbers of obsolete weapons, the issues of communication, the bulk of Soviet power in the south where the bulk of German power is in the north, the key difference would be the Germans having to turn qualitative advantages into victory and doing so against an enemy prepared to meet them, a process that will ultimately succeed but will take a rather longer time to do so than the Germans could afford and the ultimate results means their offensive will reach at its furthest points perhaps Latvia and Smolensk in the north, arguably not even Kiev in the south from mounting casualties, logistical disruption, and the Soviets having time to actually use their numbers somewhat more efficiently than as cannon fodder as per OTL.
 
Whose blunder? On the strategic level, it was Stalin's blunder. On the level of grand strategy, it was Hitler's blunder. Each blunder was huge in its own category, but I would have to say that Hitler's blunder was the greatest military blunder of all time across all categories.

Eh, the major strategic blunder on Hitler's part was to extremely badly underestimate the ability of the Soviets to tap into a manpower reserve while shifting much of their industry and shrug off defeats. From Hitler's point of view every single invasion he'd done thus far had enabled him to overrun multiple entire countries, including a France seen as more militarily powerful than it proved to be, so his arrogance had some understandable logic behind him. He'd never yet had an invasion fail, so the prospect of failure never really occurred to him.

Stalin's blunders had equally understandable roots, Stalin rightly figured the Germans would want Ukraine and the resources of the Soviet south, and he rightly did not want to hold to the Stalin line after having been his usual dickish, murderous self in his territories annexed in the first two years of the war. Unfortunately his means of resolving this issue was to order construction of a defensive line that was incomplete, neglecting the existing Stalin line, and leaving the bulk of Soviet troops both distributed improperly against the German advance and saddled with obsolete weapons too far forward for the Germans not to win big victories in the outset.

Allow the Soviets to shoot back, which Stalin did not due to wanting Hitler to clearly be the aggressor and to avoid looking the PR loser if Hitler was to adopt some kind of nebulous nibbling strategy (one of Stalin's odder ideas) then the Germans will still win in an inelegant and costly process what they gained in a very short, dramatic process IOTL.
 
Eh, the major strategic blunder on Hitler's part was to extremely badly underestimate the ability of the Soviets to tap into a manpower reserve while shifting much of their industry and shrug off defeats. From Hitler's point of view every single invasion he'd done thus far had enabled him to overrun multiple entire countries, including a France seen as more militarily powerful than it proved to be, so his arrogance had some understandable logic behind him. He'd never yet had an invasion fail, so the prospect of failure never really occurred to him.

This is all true, but I would add the biggest error of Hitler was fundamentally not understanding the Soviet regime. He was mentally trapped in his racial mindset that the Slavs were subhuman and couldn't govern themselves. He thought the only reason Russia had done as well as it had was due to its "Germanized" nobility that dated back to the days of the Viking Rus. Since this nobility had been wiped out in the revolution, there was no real leadership caste left.

When he said one only needed to kick in the door and the whole thing could come crashing down, he believed it. He seemed to think the Soviet government would just collapse and all organized resistance cease. Thus after a few weeks of fighting, all the Wehrmacht would need to do would be to walk to the Urals.

This inability to conceive that the Soviets could keep governing the country was a categorical error higher than simply not knowing how much of a reserve they had organized. The latter was simply one mistake of many that resuled from the former. This had direct implication in the Nazis not preparing for winter clothing or winterizing vehicles, authorizing Typhoon to keep advancing way too late, changing production schedules to priortize shipbuilding instead of tanks and aircraft, and other blunders that hurt the German war effort.
 
This is all true, but I would add the biggest error of Hitler was fundamentally not understanding the Soviet regime. He was mentally trapped in his racial mindset that the Slavs were subhuman and couldn't govern themselves. He thought the only reason Russia had done as well as it had was due to its "Germanized" nobility that dated back to the days of the Viking Rus. Since this nobility had been wiped out in the revolution, there was no real leadership caste left.

When he said one only needed to kick in the door and the whole thing could come crashing down, he believed it. He seemed to think the Soviet government would just collapse and all organized resistance cease. Thus after a few weeks of fighting, all the Wehrmacht would need to do would be to walk to the Urals.

This inability to conceive that the Soviets could keep governing the country was a categorical error higher than simply not knowing how much of a reserve they had organized. The latter was simply one mistake of many that resuled from the former. This had direct implication in the Nazis not preparing for winter clothing or winterizing vehicles, authorizing Typhoon to keep advancing way too late, changing production schedules to priortize shipbuilding instead of tanks and aircraft, and other blunders that hurt the German war effort.

Sure, and this is apparent during Barbarossa when the Germans met a whole bunch of Soviet troops they didn't even realize were there and it was downhill for their strategy from there. From the Nazi point of view everything Hitler had done had been golden both in terms of politically expanding Nazi authority and in terms of overrunning country after country. It wasn't until first Smolensk and especially Moscow that the Nazi golden streak got tarnished.
 
Sure, and this is apparent during Barbarossa when the Germans met a whole bunch of Soviet troops they didn't even realize were there and it was downhill for their strategy from there.

The point in the history of all this where I sit back and laugh myself silly is when the Germans get their first taste of the T34 and KV tanks. What wouldn't I give to have been there to hear some general saying, "Ach du lieber, those aren't the tanks we helped them design!"
 
The point in the history of all this where I sit back and laugh myself silly is when the Germans get their first taste of the T34 and KV tanks. What wouldn't I give to have been there to hear some general saying, "Ach du lieber, those aren't the tanks we helped them design!"

Now see, what makes me laugh in reading those histories is reading the one general who said "Well, war's over, now on to the next job" on the fourteenth day of the war and then after the German victory in the Battle of Smolensk actually predicted how the war would end. From "war's over" to "Aw fuck, there's no end to the Russian horde, our logistics are getting crappy and we smash one dozen armies and then another and then another, where will this all end". To which my mental reaction is "well, you shouldn't have invaded the USSR in the first place dimbulb." :D:cool:
 
Stalin had reason to be conscious about the warnings and to believe that the Germans wouldn't attack the Soviet Union at that time. Germany was defeated during World War I because it had to fight on two fronts and Hitler made the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union despite his hatred of Communism, because o his fear of fighting on two fronts. Stalin reasonably concluded that Hitler wouldn't attack the Soviet Union while he was still at war with Britain. Stalin also, couldn't be sure that Sorge hadn't been fed disinformation or had been coopted. Stalin's reaction to the information only seems wrong in retrospect.
 
Stalin's reaction to the information only seems wrong in retrospect.

It is all well and good to say that it was reasonable for Stalin to disbelieve that Hitler would attack. I disagree, but hey, that's me. What was NOT reasonable was for Stalin, with the responsibility for the lives and property of millions of Soviet citizens in his hands, to so discount the warnings as to refuse to prepare for the possibility of being wrong. So no, his decision was not only "wrong in retrospect."

How many times have I wondered how things would have turned out if the world leaders of the 30s had read Mein Kampf and understood that Hitler really meant what he said? IIRC, from having read it many years ago, he had quite a lot to say about forcible expansion into the east.
 
Stalin had reason to be conscious about the warnings and to believe that the Germans wouldn't attack the Soviet Union at that time. Germany was defeated during World War I because it had to fight on two fronts and Hitler made the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union despite his hatred of Communism, because o his fear of fighting on two fronts. Stalin reasonably concluded that Hitler wouldn't attack the Soviet Union while he was still at war with Britain. Stalin also, couldn't be sure that Sorge hadn't been fed disinformation or had been coopted. Stalin's reaction to the information only seems wrong in retrospect.

It is all well and good to say that it was reasonable for Stalin to disbelieve that Hitler would attack. I disagree, but hey, that's me. What was NOT reasonable was for Stalin, with the responsibility for the lives and property of millions of Soviet citizens in his hands, to so discount the warnings as to refuse to prepare for the possibility of being wrong. So no, his decision was not only "wrong in retrospect."

How many times have I wondered how things would have turned out if the world leaders of the 30s had read Mein Kampf and understood that Hitler really meant what he said? IIRC, from having read it many years ago, he had quite a lot to say about forcible expansion into the east.

One aspect of Stalin's reasons for ignoring the specific warnings of the actual Barbarossa invasion that, at a glance (forgive me if my glance, under some time pressure, overlooked it!) hasn't been mentioned yet is that the actual invasion was not the first time Stalin had gotten such warnings. There were, I believe, a fair number of much earlier false alarms. He also considered that after all the British would very much like for him to turn on Hitler and were scheming with all their infamous ingenuity in matters of intelligence and covert operation to persuade or trick him into doing so; he therefore attributed the latest reports, along with the earlier ones he also avoided reacting to, to such disinformation--relying of course on the aforementioned wisdom that Hitler would be insane to take on the USSR before coming to final terms with Britain.

Another consideration I've read, that shook me with its plausibility based on its arguments, is that Stalin was actually intending his own surprise attack on the Germans rather soon in the summer of '41; this is based on a Russian historian whose name I forget for the moment who has argued that his deployment of troops (and also, he claims, recently disclosed Kremlin documents which make his case conclusively) was a poor one for purposes of defense but a good one for purposes of attacking the Reich. That is, instead of developing the recently seized Polish and other Eastern European territories Stalin took at the time the Germans first attacked Poland as in-depth defense zones and retaining a strong concentration of Soviet forces behind their previously developed defensive borders on the old frontiers of the Soviet Union, which would be the proper anticipation of an invasion from the west, he pretty much abandoned the old frontiers and moved Soviet forces as far west as he could--which gave them no defensive depth but would be essential for a planned attack to the west.

I'm still not sure if I believe this as the "Stalin believed his treaty with Hitler was solid and wouldn't be violated for years" theory had been stressed by most scholarship I'd seen up that point; while earlier generations would not have seen Soviet documents now available they would surely have had enough knowledge of Stalin's force deployments to know, if these strategic arguments have weight, which way they pointed. Of course Stalin believing Hitler would not violate the treaty this early says nothing about whether Stalin would plan to violate it first!

Anyway the question in this thread is WI Stalin had known that this particular rumor of German intentions was, unlike the others, actually true and immediate.

If he really were convinced that the actual German attack was scheduled for very soon, given his front-line, aggressive deployments, the most effective defense would indeed have been to attack first, at whatever cost and despite his plans not yet being fully ripe. An alternative would have been to spike his own immediate war plans (if any) and using as much secrecy and misdirection as his regime could muster, withdraw much of his force back to the old frontiers and set about refortifying them, and redraw standing orders to the forces remaining forward to use the depth of the new conquests to buy time for the main defenders.
 
Stalin had reason to be conscious about the warnings and to believe that the Germans wouldn't attack the Soviet Union at that time. Germany was defeated during World War I because it had to fight on two fronts and Hitler made the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union despite his hatred of Communism, because o his fear of fighting on two fronts. Stalin reasonably concluded that Hitler wouldn't attack the Soviet Union while he was still at war with Britain. Stalin also, couldn't be sure that Sorge hadn't been fed disinformation or had been coopted. Stalin's reaction to the information only seems wrong in retrospect.

Yes, he did, the reason being that the actual date assigned to the initial offensive had produced not Barbarossa but Operations Marita and Punishment and Stalin was quite reasonably suspicious that Hitler would try belligerent brinksmanship if he could get away with it. The USSR was in the middle of military reforms and constructing a potentially formidable defensive line on their post-1940 border so they were hardly blind to the idea that an invasion was coming.

One aspect of Stalin's reasons for ignoring the specific warnings of the actual Barbarossa invasion that, at a glance (forgive me if my glance, under some time pressure, overlooked it!) hasn't been mentioned yet is that the actual invasion was not the first time Stalin had gotten such warnings. There were, I believe, a fair number of much earlier false alarms. He also considered that after all the British would very much like for him to turn on Hitler and were scheming with all their infamous ingenuity in matters of intelligence and covert operation to persuade or trick him into doing so; he therefore attributed the latest reports, along with the earlier ones he also avoided reacting to, to such disinformation--relying of course on the aforementioned wisdom that Hitler would be insane to take on the USSR before coming to final terms with Britain.

Another consideration I've read, that shook me with its plausibility based on its arguments, is that Stalin was actually intending his own surprise attack on the Germans rather soon in the summer of '41; this is based on a Russian historian whose name I forget for the moment who has argued that his deployment of troops (and also, he claims, recently disclosed Kremlin documents which make his case conclusively) was a poor one for purposes of defense but a good one for purposes of attacking the Reich. That is, instead of developing the recently seized Polish and other Eastern European territories Stalin took at the time the Germans first attacked Poland as in-depth defense zones and retaining a strong concentration of Soviet forces behind their previously developed defensive borders on the old frontiers of the Soviet Union, which would be the proper anticipation of an invasion from the west, he pretty much abandoned the old frontiers and moved Soviet forces as far west as he could--which gave them no defensive depth but would be essential for a planned attack to the west.

I'm still not sure if I believe this as the "Stalin believed his treaty with Hitler was solid and wouldn't be violated for years" theory had been stressed by most scholarship I'd seen up that point; while earlier generations would not have seen Soviet documents now available they would surely have had enough knowledge of Stalin's force deployments to know, if these strategic arguments have weight, which way they pointed. Of course Stalin believing Hitler would not violate the treaty this early says nothing about whether Stalin would plan to violate it first!

Anyway the question in this thread is WI Stalin had known that this particular rumor of German intentions was, unlike the others, actually true and immediate.

If he really were convinced that the actual German attack was scheduled for very soon, given his front-line, aggressive deployments, the most effective defense would indeed have been to attack first, at whatever cost and despite his plans not yet being fully ripe. An alternative would have been to spike his own immediate war plans (if any) and using as much secrecy and misdirection as his regime could muster, withdraw much of his force back to the old frontiers and set about refortifying them, and redraw standing orders to the forces remaining forward to use the depth of the new conquests to buy time for the main defenders.

From what I've seen with new scholarship Zhukov had made the proposal for a spoiling attack, which is what this refers to, and the Soviets were seeking to avoid being drawn into the war when there was the good probability that German propaganda would spin their war into an anti-Communist crusade and this be plausible. Stalin wanted Hitler to shoot first, and he had full alert of the initial date of attack, 15 May, his troops on full alert....and the Germans invaded the Balkans. He made big mistakes and they proved immensely costly both to the USSR and to his regime but they really did have some reasoning behind them.

Unfortunately for Germany Hitler was not quite the kind of man to resist the temptation to get what he'd wanted all along when the opportunity was available for him to do so. Fortunately for the Slavs he was not the kind of man to whom resisting temptation makes sense as a concept.
 
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