Hard to believe considering the nervous breakdown Stalin suffered during the week after the German invasion. In spite of warnings from Churchill and his own intelligence services, Stalin and the Russians were completely unprepared for a couple million Germans massed on the border. Stalin was actually very intelligent and probably believed in his native Georgian Caucasus guile and refused to believe he could be fooled by a slobbering Austrian corporal. If so, he wasn’t the only one to fall prey to that assumption.
What saved Russia from being conquered during WWII was the brutal Russian winter.
According to the book, Stalin spent since August 1939 preparing to attack Germany and had 191 first line divisions in the first echelon positioned on his western frontier on 21 June, 1941. The second attack echelon Armies were on their way to the border when Hitler attacked. They were sitting ducks for the Wehrmacht. The book claims that the Soviets planned to move their top leadership to a giant combat CP they built at Vilnius on 22 June to run their planned attack but Hitlers attack canceled these moves. The Soviet plan was to attack with the largest army ever assembled on 6 July and they planned to go all the way to the Atlantic. The book says the Soviets were massed and ready for a massive strike but were situated horribly for defense. That explains to me how the Germans were able to take millions of prisoners at the very beginning of the war. Stalin and the rest of the Soviet leaders were firmly convinced that Hitler would not start a suicidal second front and discounted any evidence to the contrary. The book talks about Hitlers lack of preparations for winter fighting being a factor that reinforced Stalin’s beliefs. I think that is why it took them a while to recover from the shock. The book raises some interesting questions.
I have seen it claimed that the Purges were the result of a German misinformation campaign designed to make it appear the leadership of the Red Army were traitors, spies and plotters.
True? Sounds highly likely since Stalin was extremely paranoid.