Quote:
Originally Posted by Adm.Lee
Did anyone read Viktor Suvorov's "Icebreaker"? It was his attempt to claim that the Soviets were getting ready to jump the Nazis in July 1941, but they got pre-empted by Barbarossa.
He did have the interesting tidbit that the Soviet military intelligence chief in June 1941 was *not* shot, like his predecessors. The chief's defense was to present some bits of evidence to Stalin.
1) Soviet agents were shadowing German encampments, digging up their trash piles. The rifle-cleaning cloths only had summer-weight oil on them.
2) Soviet agents were monitoring the price of mutton. If the price fell, that would mean that the Germans were slaughtering sheep to make sheepskin coats for winter fighting.
3) His men were buying German-made stoves, and analyzing the heating fuel within. If winter fuel was being held off the market, it would show up in the civilian economy.
Since none of these things indicated the Germans were going to attack in June 1941, he got to keep his neck, and Stalin got to work on planning for a winter attack.
I have no idea if all of the above is true, but it makes an interesting case for how to perform long-term intelligence gathering.
BTW, if you play large East Front WW2 wargames like me, try experimenting with a Soviet offensive instead of a German one in 1941. It's a lot of fun.
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That's a VERY interesting case indeed. I knew Sururov had written on the subject but I haven't read the book and didn't know those details.
With that said, I did just finish Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and it seems that Hitler tipped his hand a bit with the invasion of Yugoslavia and the (costly) delay in Barbarossa it caused; if they (the Soviets) were going to get the jump on 'em, why not then when the Nazis' pants were around their ankles as they pissed on the Balkans?
I'm not doubting you (or Sururov) just adding more speculation to an already interesting scenario!