BUMP
wow, never heard of this before. Very interesting. What a con man. Played Stalin like a puppet.
Well, Stalin deserved Hitler and vice versa.
The only problem with this theory is that Hitler (or maybe it was Goebbels) announced the invasion of the USSR as soon as it happened in a national radio address. And Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov was informed right after it happened- he was visiting Berlin IIRC.
If they were trying to hoodwink Stalin they would have told Molotov, "it's all a big misundertanding- give us time to withdraw our troops."
Yep, pretty much says it all about Stalin.
Amazing, Stalin wouldn't trust anybody around him, but would trust the word of Hitler.
FDR's good friend 'Uncle Joe' was just proving the old adage: 'You can't cheat an honest man'.
Distrust of people was the dominating characteristic of Joseph Djugashvili [Stalin]; it was his only philosophy of life. He had not trusted his own mother; neither had he trusted God, before whom as a young man he had bowed down in His temple. He had not trusted his fellow Party members, especially those with the gift of eloquence. He had not trusted his comrades in exile. He did not trust the peasants to sow their grain or harvest their wheat unless he forced them to do it and watched over them. He did not trust the workers to work unless he laid down their production targets. He did not trust the intellectuals to help the cause rather than to harm it. He did not trust the soldiers and the generals to fight without penal battalions and field security squads. He had never trusted his relatives, his wives or his mistresses. He had not even trusted his children. And how right he had been!--Aleksander Solzenitsyn, The First Circle (1968)In all his long, suspicion-ridden life he had only trusted one man. That man had shown the whole world that he knew his own mind, knew whom it was expedient to like and whom to hate; and he had always known when to turn round and offer the hand of friendship to those who had been his enemies.
This man, whom Stalin had trusted, was Adolf Hitler.
It always amazes me that the only person Stalin ever trusted in his entire life was -- Adolf Hitler.
ping
Let's try that again and make sure I ping the right person ;-) Check this out.
in such an interesting turn of events as this, it seems to me that stalin if he had half a brain knew his betrayal was imminent. and having 70 divisions at the border, hitler definitely had the upper hand at the time. so stalin chose to let the germans in relatively easy, and consequently force them to fight the russian terrain as well. stalin "napoleoned" hitler, and the ussr was probably saved because so many german soldiers froze to death trying to reach moscow and the oil fields of the south. this wasn't helping hitler out. cross and double-cross.
"A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron."
Joseph Stalin
Birds of feather...