Summary/Abstract |
Among the most controversial questions associated with the German-Soviet War (1941–1945) is the degree to which intelligence information received from his agents abroad influenced the decision making of Josef Stalin, the Chairman of the Soviet Council of People’s Commissars and soon Generalissimo of the Soviet Union, particularly during the summers of 1941 and 1942, when Adolf Hitler’s German Wehrmacht conducted its strategic offensives code-named Operations Barbarossa and Blau. This article assesses this question by assessing the impact of intelligence reports Stalin received from Richard Zorge (Sorge in German), a Soviet agent situated in Tokyo, Japan, prior to and during the Barbarossa invasion.
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