[pierrem15]

The whole article misses the point: the phrasebook and plans show that the Soviets would have joined not opposed, a Nazi invasion of Britain.

Why else would instructions be given on how to take English speaking prisoners?

[SteveMcKing]

For a country so fixated on uniform policy and mass production, could a forgotten little phrasebook be so important?

It would have been everywhere, were it not just another contingency plan out of hundreds of bizarre scenarios. We would have heard about it.

[Petronski]

The whole article misses the point: the phrasebook and plans show that the Soviets would have joined not opposed, a Nazi invasion of Britain.

Precisely. Unless I'm missing something fundamental here, I suspect the writer of this piece is an idiot.

[steve-b]

Another possibility is that Stalin was aware of British plans to hold Norway against the Germans, and was considering taking advantage of the situation to grab it himself.