The Most Decisive Battle of World War II?












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One day later, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.


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Jon Harrison

Khalkin Gol was important in that it made the Japanese wary of taking on the Soviets. However, it's unlikely that it stopped the Japanese from attacking Russia in 1941. The Germans did not let their Japanese ally in on their plan to attack Russia. Had they done so, they might have gotten the Japanese to strike in Siberia before the latter made their move to the south toward the resources of Indochina, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies.

Had Japan attacked Russia, the Siberian divisions which saved Moscow in Nov.-Dec. 1941 would not have been available to fight in European Russia, and the USSR might have collapsed, giving Germany victory in Europe. The error was in Germany's underestimation of the USSR's powers of resistance. Had Germany taken Japan into her confidence in the winter of 1940-41, she probably could have gotten Japan to join her. As it was, Japan, not knowing of Germany's plan, decided to conclude a nonaggression pact with Russia in April 1941.

One could go on and on discussing counterfactuals. I just wouldn't rate Khalkin Gol's importance quite so highly. Germany, after all, had opportunities to win the war against Russia on her own. The German leadership threw away precious weeks in the summer of 1941, debating whether its principal effort should be directed against Leningrad or Moscow. Had it chosen Moscow, the city probably would have fallen in early autumn, and the USSR would have collapsed as France before it had. Had it chosen to take Leningrad rather than simply encicle it, that victory combined with the big success in the south (Battle of Kiev) would have left Moscow's flanks exposed to a German rush in the spring of 1942.

Even in 1942, had the Germans struck northeast from Voronezh in July rather than making for Stalingrad and the Caucasus, the prospect of outflanking Moscow and bringing about a Soviet collapse was in the offing. Stalingrad was a major tactical defeat, with many excellent divisions destroyed, but it was not truly the turning point on the Eastern Front. The 1942 campaign was a major strategic blunder because the Germans wasted an entire campaigning season fighting battles that could not decide the war. Stalingrad was a turning point politically, and raised Allied hopes and morale, but from a military viewpoint Kursk in 1943 marked the battle that definitely doomed Germany. Soviet and Russian sources have always maintained this. Kursk and the defeat of the U-boats in the Atlantic in the spring of 1943 were the real turning points of WWII in Europe.

My understanding is that Stalin waited to attack Poland mainly because he wanted to see how the German campaign got on. When it became apparent that the Germans were going to overrun the country quickly, the Red Army was sent in to ensure that Germany didn't occupy the territory set aside for Russia. I'd never heard that the truce with Japan affected the timing of the Polish invasion.

Stalin did indeed despise the Western democracies, but he definitely did not depsise Germany or Hitler. To the contrary, he had the highest respect for Germany, while Hitler fascinated him. Even after the war, with Russia devastated and 20 million dead, Stalin lamented the fact that the two countries had not marched together against the West. He believed that Germany and the USSR together would have been unbeatable. And he was probably right.

Fred Mora

Hello Jon,

Thank you for the extra details! What you write here is corroborated by Victor Suvorov's excellent book, "The Chief Culprit".

According to Suvorov, Stalin waited a couple of weeks to invade his side of Poland so that Germany would look like the aggressor. It worked: When Stalin finally invaded, two weeks after Hitler, the Western press and leaders had other concerns (France and England were now at war with Germany), and the Soviet invasion was a footnote.

Hitler's decision to attack Russia was made overnight when German intelligence reported a concentration of troops, ammo and tanks on the German-Soviet border. Operation Barbarossa was started in the utmost precipitation, without clear strategic plan, and without time to stockpile winter supplies.

In June 1941, the German military hardware, from rifles to tanks, was still running on a thick summer oil formula that would turn into wax come winter. The Soviet monitored the Nazi's winter preparedness (by buying used oiling rags from the Wehrmacht, of all things!) and knew that the Germans weren't winterized. This allowed Stalin's intelligence chief to save his head: Barbarossa was a desperate gambit, not a predictable action.

This lack of preparedness, from strategic plans to hardware, contributed to the hesitations you mentioned.

Jon Harrison

Hi, Fred. If Suvorov's book says that "Hitler's decision to attack Russia was made overnight," then Suvorov's got it very wrong. The decision to attack Russia was taken informally in July 1940, formally in Nov. 1940. It was embodied in the Directive for Operation "Barbarossa" issued in Dec. 1940. Very careful preparation went into the German plan of campaign. It was by no means a sudden decision caused by any Russian buildup on the border. Originally scheduled to begin on May 15, 1941, Barbarossa was delayed four weeks by the German Balkans campaign in the spring. An addtional week's delay occurred for reasons unknown -- perhaps because Hitler wanted to attack on the anniversary of the armistice with France (June 22).

The Germans definitely underestimated the enormity of the task facing them. Nevertheless, their army was intially so superior in training, tactics, and leadership that they nearly pulled it off. The fatal flaw was the disagreement between the General Staff, which wanted to strike for Moscow, and Hitler, who favored first an attack on Leningrad, and then an advance in the south. When Hitler finally came round to the General Staff's viewpoint, it was just too late in the campaigning season.

I've only skimmed some of Suvorov's writings, but he has a reputation for going beyond the evidence. He needs to be read with considerable caution.

Fred Mora

Thank you for providing additional info. Suvorov's book says that the attack was precipitated by the Russian preparations. It doesn't say Hitler didn't have plans to attack Stalin. Hitler did, and Stalin knew it. After all, the conquest of "the East" (including Russia) for its Lebensraum was clearly outlined in "Mein Kampf". Ironically, in the "Eastern policy" chapter, Hitler warns that "those who currently hold power in Russia would never contemplate entering a honest alliance, much less uphold it".

Let's brush aside Suvorov's book for now. Consider this enduring mystery: Why wasn't the Wehrmacht winterized? If Barbarossa had been prepared for seven months, why weren't the German soldiers ready to face "General Winter", which is known to be the toughest opponent in any Russian war? Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign had been studied in German military academies for more than a century, so it's hard to believe that such an enormous factor would have been forgotten.

In Moscow, snow starts falling as early as October. Even if Hitler had foolishly banked on a quick victory within 6 months, any attack later than April would have pitted German troops against the Russian winter, thus requiring the warm clothes and freeze-resisting equipment that they lacked so cruelly.

So, considering your data and Germany's documented lack of adequate equipment, the conclusion seems obvious: Hitler didn't intend to start Barbarossa in 1941. If he had intended it, he'd have shelved his plans -- maybe due to the Balkans campaign, and maybe also due to the inconclusive campaign of Britain. Plans for a later attack, maybe 1942, would explain this picture.

In spite of his professed distrust of the Bolsheviks, Hitler probably hoped that they would honor the Stalin-Ribbentrop pact for a few more months.

Jon Harrison

That's just not correct, Fred. On the question of winter clothing, consult Guderian's memoirs, for example. The Germans were overconfident and thought the campaign would be over before winter. Halder, the Chief of the General Staff, wrote on July 3, 1941 that "the campaign against Russia has been won in 14 days." Both the US and British general staffs believed that Germany would win in 3 months. Whether overconfidence was the only reason for Germany's lack of preparation for winter is not absolutley certain, however. It may have been incompetence or even sabotage by officers opposed to the Nazi regime. I don't believe we have a definite answer to that particular question. Nevertheless, Germany did intend to attack Russia on in 1941 -- first in May, and then, for reasons I've already outlined, in June. The attack was not made off the cuff, as it were, because of a Soviet buildup. The primary documents -- Fuehrer directives, OKH and OKW orders, Army Group orders, diaries of leading German commanders, etc., etc., quite definitely settle the matter. The line you are pursuing here is simply bogus. That's the overwhelming consensus of historical opinion among German, Russian, and Anglo-American authorities on the subject. And the documents are there to back them up. There's simply nothing to the idea that Germany suddenly decided to attack based on Russian activities on the border.


Brillant article! This is the reason I first started reading Liberty.

To see articles you would not find anywhere else. Maybe it's just because it's an election year, but these days Liberty is like reading talking points from the RNC.

This is a refreshing reminder that maybe there is hope for this publication.

Allan Fifield


You have some of your chronology reversed. The Russo-Japanese war of 1905 happened 12 years before the 1917 Russian revolution.


Robert Miller

Yup, I screwed up. Though I certainly have the chronology straight in my mind. It was writing blip & editing oversight. So I'll pass half the blame on to Stephen Cox, my editor. Sorry.

Fred Mora

Hello Mr. Miller,

A very good article about a fascinating subject. Thank you for bringing that book to our attention.

In turn, I'd like to bring another book to your attention, namely, "The Venona Secrets" by Romerstein and Breindel. Venona was the name of a secret project that aimed to decode communications between Soviet diplomats in the US and Moscow. The numerous Venona messages were intercepted but only slowly decoded. In this important message stream were reports of discussions between pro-Soviet agents (Communist spies, to be blunt) and their handlers, who were Tcheka officers operating in the US under a diplomatic cover.

You mention that according to the "Nomonhan, 1939" book, Stalin "delivered" his attack of Japan innocently after, by the greatest coincidence, the US had started dropping atomic bombs on Japan. (By the way, Stalin used this opportunity to install Communist puppet governments in North Vietnam and North Korea. We are still dealing with the consequences today).

One can only marvel at how fortune smiled to Stalin. However, "The Venona Secrets" has a simpler explanation: Stalin knew everything about the atomic bomb research. Multiple spies kept him informed about the progress of the Manhattan project in Los Alamos. Moreover, as early as February 1943, he had the gall to request tons of Uranium as part of the Lend-Lease materials granted to the Soviets. General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan project, protested vehemently to Congress and to the Lend-Lease officials, but the Lend-Lease executives ignored him and shipped the uranium.

You read that right. The FDR administration started supplying Stalin with uranium in 1943.

How is that possible? Because the Lend-Lease project, which supplied all kind of material and equipment to the Soviet (from boots and grease to airplanes), was led by Harry Hopkins, later identified as a Soviet agent by multiple sources. Venona identified him as "Agent 19". In 1948, Major Georges Racey Jordan, one of the Lend-Lease logisticians, testified to Congress that Hopkins was the person who ordered the shipments (Jordan accused Hopkins to have betrayed his country in his book, "From Major Jordan's diaries". Later, defector Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB officer who spied for the British MI6 until CIA traitor Aldrich Ames denounced him to the Soviets, confirmed that Hopkins was considered the "most important of all Soviet wartime agents in the US". Venona messages from Iskhak Akhmerov, Hopkin's KGB handler, contain details of Hopkins' reports to the KGB.

Hopkins, as you might know, was a close friend and advisor of FDR, who seemed to have a real knack to pick the worst enemies of the nation for his cabinets. For example, the assistant secretary of the US Department of Treasury was expert economist Harry Dexter White, who spied for the Soviets and influenced US policies.

I hope this shed some light on Stalin's "luck" and "innocence".

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