26. Did Hitler Invade the Soviet Union to Preempt a Soviet Attack on Germany?
Among the many false World War II narratives is one, peddled by some conspiracy theorists and fringe scholars of the Eastern Front, asserting that Hitler attacked the USSR in 1941 as a preemptive strike. Supposedly, Stalin was about to invade the Third Reich, so the Fuhrer simply beat him to the punch. The theory originated with Viktor Suvorov, a Soviet military intelligence officer who defected to Britain in 1978. He contended that Stalin had lowered the conscription age to ramp up the Red Army’s manpower, and issued maps of Germany to soldiers in the field as a prelude to an imminent invasion. Most historians dismiss Suvorov’s thesis outright, for lack of any historic support.
In 1941, the Red Army was in bad shape, and Stalin knew it. His 1930s Military Purge had wrecked the senior command: victims included 13 of 15 army commanders, 8 of the 9 most senior admirals, 50 of 57 corps commanders, 154 out of 186 division commanders, all 16 army commissars, and 25 of 28 corps commissars. The results were visible in the Red Army’s dismal performance in the 1939-1940 Winter War against tiny Finland. Between that and observing the frightening effects of the German blitzkrieg in Poland and Western Europe, the Soviet military was in the midst of a massive overhaul in 1941, to modernize its obsolescent equipment and tactics.