Germany Attacks USSR

ちょっと気を取り直して……。今後、「イェゾフ」は「エジョフ」とすることにした。理由は、米原万里さんがそう書いていたから。

ずっと風の強い日が続く。部屋の窓を数センチ開けていると、ヒューヒューと寒風のごとき音がする。さっきからは京劇（北京オペラ）の音楽が外から聞こえる。１週間ほど毎日続いている葬儀の音楽は今夜はなしかな。それにしても、毎日、太鼓とシンバルの伴奏付きで「ご詠歌風」の音楽を聞かされるのもいい気分ではない。

ドイツのソ連進攻

On 13 June, Timoshenko and Zhukov, themselves depressed and baffled, alerted Stalin to further border activities. … Stalin… next day lost his temper with Zhukov’s proposal of mobilization: ‘That means war. Do you two understand that or not?’

On the 16th, Merlulov confirmed the final decision to attack, which came from agent ‘Starshina’ in Luftwaffe headquarters. ‘Tell the “source” in the Staff of the German Air Force to fuck his mother!’ he scrawled to Merkulov…. Even Molotov struggled to convince himself: ‘They’d be fools to attack us,’ he told Admiral Kuznetsov.

Two days later, at a three-hour meeting described by Timoshenko, he and Zhukov beseeched Stalin for a full alert, with the Vozhd fidgeting and tapping his pipe on the table, and the magnates agreeing with Stalin’s maniacal delusions or else brooding in sullen silence, the only way of protesting they possessed.

‘… he uttered in a loud voice: “If you’re going to provoke the Germans on the frontier by moving troops there without our permission, then heads will roll, mark my words” – and he slammed the door.’

Stalin summoned Khrushchev, who should have been monitoring the Ukrainian border, to Moscow and would not let him leave…. Khrushchev held a special place in Stalin’s affections: perhaps his irrepressible optimism, sycophantic devotion – and practical cunning made him a useful companion at such a moment…. On Friday the 20th, Khrushchev finally said,

‘I have to go. The war is about to break out. It may catch me here in Moscow or on the way back to Ukraine.’

‘Right,’ said Stalin. ‘Just go.’

On 20 June, Dekanozov, back in Berlin, warned Beria firmly that the attack was imminent…. Beria forwarded the ‘disinformation’ to Stalin with the sycophantic but slightly mocking manner:

‘My people and I, Joseph Vissarionovich, firmly remember your wise prediction: Hitler will not attack us in 1941!’

At about 7.30 p.m., Mikoyan, the Deputy Premier in charge of the merchant navy, was called by the harbourmaster of Riga: twenty-five German ships were setting sail, even though many had not yet unloaded. He rushed to Stalin’s office where some of the leaders were gathered.

‘That’ll be a provocation,’ Stalin angrily told Mikoyan. ‘Let them leave.’ The Politburo was alarmed – but of course said nothing. Molotov was deeply worried: ‘The situation is unclear, a great game is being played,’ he confided to the Bulgarian Communist Dmitrov, on Saturday 21 June. ‘Not everything depends on us.’ General [Filip] Golikov brought Stalin further evidence: ‘This information,’ Stalin wrote on it, ‘is an English provocation. Find out who the author is and punish him.’ The fire brigade reported that the German Embassy was burning documents. The British Government and even Mao Tse-tung (a surprise source, via the Comintern) sent warnings. Stalin telephoned Khrushchev to warn him the war might begin the next day….

At about seven (of the 21st), Stalin ordered Molotov to summon (German Ambassador) Schulenburg to protest about the German reconnaissance flights…. Meanwhile Timoshenko telephoned to report that a German deserter had revealed the German invasion plan for dawn….

… At 8.15 p.m., Timoshenko returned to the Defence Commissariat whence he informed Stalin that a second deserter had warned that war would begin at 4 a.m…..

… The generals rushed back to the Defence Commissariat to transmit the order (of no provocation) to the military districts: ‘A surprise attack by the Germans is possible during 22-23 June… The task of our forces is to refrain from any kind of provocative action…’ This was completed just after midnight on Sunday 22 June.

‘I think Hitler’s trying provoke us,’ said Stalin, according to Mikoyan. ‘He surely hasn’t decided to make war?’

Zhukov phoned again at twelve-thirty: a third deserter, a Communist labourer from Berlin named Alfred Liskov, had swum the Pruth to report that the order to invade had been read to his unit. Stalin checked that the High Alert order was transmitted, then commanded that Liskov should be shot ‘for his disinformation’....

Far away, all along the Soviet border, Luftwaffe bombers were heading for their targets. On the same day that Napoleon’s Grand Army had invaded Russia 129 years earlier, Hitler’s over three million soldiers – Germans, Croats, Finns, Romanians, Hungarians, Italians and even Spaniards backed by 3,600 tanks, 600,000 motorized vehicles, 7,000 artillery pieces, 2,500 aircraft and about 625,000 horses, were crossing the border to engage the Soviet forces of almost equal strength, as many as 14,000 tanks (2,000 of them modern), 34,000 guns and over 8,000 planes. The greatest war of all time was about to begin in the duel between those two brutal and reckless egomaniacs. And both were probably still asleep. (pp. 311-318)

「口が堅い」と言われて、軽々に人には明かせない事実や自分にとってはどうでもいい話を打ち明けられたことが数度ある。あんまり誰からも褒めてもらったことないけど、これはきっと「信頼できるヤツ」という意味かなと思う。