The 900 Days (7 page)

ON THE MORNING OF JUNE 22 THE LENINGRAD MILITARY Command was housed, as it had been for more than a century, in the grandiose ensemble of the Russian General Staff building, ten years in construction —from 1819 to 1829—probably the finest of Rossi’s architectural achievements. Placed at the head of Nevsky Prospekt, opposite the Winter Palace, the General Staff building was formed of two wings, joined by an arch dedicated to the Russian victory over Napoleon in 1812. The central entrance was 40 feet wide and towered 75 feet high. Some 768 windows sparkled from three tierlike stories.

A week ago, on June 15, Colonel (now Lieutenant General) B. V. Bychevsky, chief of the Leningrad District Engineers, had returned to this monument to Russian military glory from a trip to inspect the fortified zone being built to protect Russia’s newly leased Hangö military base from attack from the Finnish mainland. He found the work progressing fairly well and, as he drove back to Leningrad, was happy to see that the Pioneer camps and children’s homes in Karelia were beginning to fill up with summer guests. The forest seemed particularly green and fresh after the cold, wet spring.

Bychevsky, young, vigorous, blue-iyed and slightly balding, knew that Leningrad had received disturbing intelligence, particularly from naval units and points along the Finnish border, of the arrival of German troops in Finland. However, the tempo of activity in the General Staff building did not seem to have quickened. Lieutenant General Markian M. Popov had gone off on a field trip, as scheduled. His departure left the building half-empty since most of the senior aides and lieutenants had accompanied him. When Bychevsky arrived at headquarters on Monday morning, June 16, he had never seen it more peaceful. His own deputy had gone off with General Popov. The weekend war news from Western Europe could not have been more dull. About the only item of passing note was an announcement by the U. S. State Department of the sinking of the freighter
Robin Moore
by a German submarine off the Brazilian coast.

What had eased the atmosphere in Leningrad (and throughout the Soviet Union) had been the publication in Saturday’s papers of an official statement by Tass, dated Friday, June 13.

The statement (given in advance to the German Embassy for transmission to Berlin) denied rumors of impending war between Russia and Germany. It said such rumors had been current before the recent departure from Moscow of the British Ambassador, Sir Stafford Cripps, and had become especially widespread since his arrival in London. The implication was that the rumors had been inspired by Cripps or the British.

The reports, Tass continued, alleged that Germany had made various territorial and economic demands on Russia; that Russia had rejected the demands; that as a result Germany had begun to concentrate troops on the Soviet frontier and that now Soviet troops were being gathered on the German frontier.

“Despite the obvious absurdity of these rumors,” Tass declared, “responsible circles in Moscow have thought it necessary, in view of the persistent spread of these rumors, to authorize Tass to state that they are a clumsy propaganda maneuver of the forces arrayed against the Soviet Union and Germany which are interested in the spread and intensification of the war.”

The statement added that

In the face of this declaration the worries of many commanders had been allayed. “Moscow knows what it’s doing,” some said. Others insisted that Stalin must be right because Stalin always had all the facts in his possession. Especially comforting was the circumstance that not even in the secret meetings of the Party elite had there been any mention, any warning, any suggestion that war might be near.

The atmosphere in Leningrad eased even more when word spread that Party Secretary Andrei A. Zhdanov, chief of both the Leningrad City and the Leningrad Regional Party organizations, member of the Military Council of the Leningrad District, secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and right-hand man of Stalin himself, was leaving for his summer vacation.

On Thursday, June 19, Zhdanov left by train for his favorite holiday spot, Sochi on the Caucasian Black Sea coast. Sochi, a resort of white villas, semi-tropical shrubbery and a rather stony beach, was also Stalin’s retreat. Zhdanov often joined him there for two or three weeks at a time. The fact that Zhdanov had gone to Sochi seemed to many a guarantee that nothing of consequence would happen. This view was supported by the press. The only news from Berlin in Thursday’s
Leningradskay a Fravda
was an announcement of the signing of a German-Turkish friendship pact.

Bychevsky drove out to Karelia every day to check on fortifications work. He was there on Friday when he got a call from Major General Dmitri N. Nikishev, Leningrad Chief of Staff.

“Come back immediately,” Nikishev said. “Hurry.”

“I’m glad I found you,” Nikishev said, when Bychevsky arrived at the General Staff building three hours later. “The situation, my friend, is getting a little complicated. The Finns along the Karelian isthmus are beginning to get ready for action. We have got to begin military protection of the frontier. Is that clear?”

“Not exactly.”

“Prepare your engineers to lay mine fields along the frontier.”

Bychevsky protested that his personnel were occupied in work on fortifications.

“Take them off that!”

“And do you have orders from Moscow to that effect?” Bychevsky rejoined. “I don’t see how I can halt work on the fortifications.”

“I don’t care what you think,” Nikishev snapped. “There’s no time to wait for orders. Just plain work is what’s needed. Collect all the mines there are in the stores and issue them to the troops. Meanwhile, we’ll write the orders to the army.”

Nikishev stalked off and locked himself in his office with his intelligence staff and operational chiefs. Bychevsky pulled out of his files the contingency plans for mining the frontier and began to draft orders for the Fourteenth, Seventh and Twenty-third armies. These were the forces of the Leningrad Military District which were deployed along the eight-hundred-mile Finnish frontier from the Barents Sea to the Gulf of Finland. It was no small task to mine this long border.

Meantime, Nikishev ordered Lieutenant General P. S. Pshennikov, commanding the Twenty-third Army, which covered the Karelian isthmus just north of Leningrad, to move one division from the rear to a forward position at Vyborg on the Finnish frontier.

The southern and western approaches to Leningrad Province were not the defensive responsibility of the Leningrad Military District. When the Baltic states were incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, these areas had been split off from the Leningrad Command and put under the new Special Baltic Military District with headquarters at Riga. The Leningrad Command had no troops south or west of the city except for some artillery units that had gone to summer training camps.

In recent weeks, however, on orders from the General Staff, Bychevsky had been concentrating his attention on building a fortified zone in the region of Pskov-Ostrov for the Special Baltic District. These fortifications lay about 180 miles southwest of Leningrad along the Velikaya River. The zone was designed as a defense in depth against attack on Leningrad from the southwest.

All day Friday Bychevsky worked on plans for the new mine fields on the Finnish frontier. Although he ordinarily kept in touch with Major General V. F. Zotov, chief of engineers of the Baltic District, he was too busy on Saturday to telephone him. Later Zotov told him that on Saturday he, too, was working on mine fields. He started to lay mines along part of the East Prussian border and mobilized some of the local populace to dig trenches and dugouts. However, he was compelled to halt when cows from a collective farm got into the fields and started touching off mines. He was told to quit for fear of spreading panic.

Bychevsky did not leave the General Staff building until late on Saturday. He had been home hardly an hour when the duty officer telephoned and said an alert had been announced. Back at General Staff, Bychevsky found officers milling around, trying to find the reason for the call. No one seemed to know. Nikishev made no announcement. Bychevsky did manage to learn that it was connected with an alarming situation on the frontier. He told his engineering aides to hold themselves ready to leave at a moment’s notice to join the units along the frontier.

What was going on behind the scenes?

With the Leningrad Military Commander, Lieutenant General Popov, in the field (along with most of his top commanders) and Party Secretary Zhdanov on vacation, the situation was difficult. No second- or third-echelon Soviet official was accustomed to acting without precise instructions from above. These had not been forthcoming.

The man in chargé of Leningrad on June 22 was Zhdanov’s deputy, Party Secretary Aleksei A. Kuznetsov, a thin intense man with dark, deep-set blue eyes. Intelligent and alert, Secretary Kuznetsov had become aware in the course of Saturday that a possibly dangerous situation was building up on the frontiers. He knew that for weeks the Germans had been continuously violating the air frontiers. He knew that the Soviet base at Hangö had reported landings of German troops in Finland. He knew that all German freighters to the last ship had cleared out of Leningrad, many of them not even waiting to load cargo. He had been consulted by the Baltic Merchant Shipping Administration about the apparent detention of Soviet ships in German waters, and it was he who had quietly approached the chief officials of the Leningrad Party as they left the meeting at Smolny on Saturday evening and warned them to stay close to their telephones in case of an emergency. He also went to Colonel Ye. S. Lagutkin, Chief of Antiaircraft Defense, and asked him where he was planning to be on Sunday.

“What’s the matter?” Lagutkin asked.

“We’ve got to be alert,” Secretary Kuznetsov replied. “The situation on the frontier is alarming.”

Further than that Kuznetsov did not feel he could go without exposing himself to chargés of panic, but he did ask several top officials to join him at Smolny about midnight. It was, he thought, a pity that Zhdanov should be on vacation.

Precisely what time the Leningrad Military District received the circular telegram from Defense Commissar Timoshenko and General Zhukov ordering a combat alert is not known. The standard Soviet sources assert the telegrams were not sent out by the Defense Commissariat in Moscow until 12:30
A.M.
They were dispatched to the Leningrad, Special Baltic, Western, Kiev and Odessa Military Districts. It seems likely that the alert reached the Leningrad military staff a little before 2
A.M.
¹

It was about 2
A.M.
when Leningrad staff officers began to be recalled to the General Staff building and General Nikishev and several of his aides went to Smolny, where Party Secretary Kuznetsov had summoned a meeting of the top officials of the city.

One after another the Party chiefs arrived. They quickly mounted the stairs to Kuznetsov’s third-floor office. It was brilliantly lit, but the shutters had been carefully drawo. Here were the oblast or regional Party secretaries, the City Party leaders, the Chairman of the Leningrad City Soviet, Mayor P. S. Popkov, General Nikishev and his associates.

As each man arrived, he was motioned to a place at the long table with its cover of crimson baize. Secretary Kuznetsov sat at the head of the table smoking quietly. He said nothing until all had arrived. Then, glancing at his watch, which showed almost 3
A.M.
, he said, “Let’s begin, comrades.”

Nikishev read to the assembled group the telegram transmitted from Moscow. It warned of the possibility of sudden attack on the twenty-second or twenty-third in a number of border areas, including the Leningrad region. The attack, the telegram stressed, might begin with a provocative action. Soviet military forces were strictly warned against giving any provocation, but must be in full preparedness to meet the blow of the Germans.

In contrast to the brief warning given to the navy, the land and air forces received detailed orders—all to be carried out before dawn. In the case of Leningrad, of course, dawn had arrived before the orders.

The orders provided:

• In the course of the night of 22.6.41 secretly occupy firing points in fortified regions on the state frontier.
  
• Before dawn 22.6.41 disperse to field airdromes all aircraft, including military, under careful camouflage.
  
• All units to be put on combat alert; troops to be dispersed and camouflaged.
  
• Antiaircraft defenses to be placed on combat alert without supplemental increase in staff. Prepare all measures for blacking out cities and objectives.
  Take no other measures without special authorization.
  

At the conclusion of the reading there was silence. Finally, someone asked, “How shall we understand the telegram? Does it mean war?”

“War—possibly,” was Secretary Kuznetsov’s cautious reply.

Obviously the Leningrad Military Command could not have carried out the orders during the 100 to 130 minutes that intervened between their receipt and the onset of German attack. The caution concerning secrecy and camouflage was made ludicrous by Leningrad’s “white nights.”