On the Role of Soviet Intelligence During the Preparation of the Red Army for the Summer Campaign of 19431

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Battle of Kursk occupies a special place in the history of the Second World War. It is unique not only for its enormous influence on the victory of the Soviet Union and the entire anti-Hitler coalition over Nazi Germany, but also for the three-month ‘quiet’ period during which the opposing sides prepared for it. In the opinion of many historians, Soviet intelligence at this time played a most important role in the planning of combat operations. However, the problem of assessing the effectiveness of its work with respect to determining Berlin’s intention for the summer campaign of 1943 and exposing the preparation of the plan for Citadel, especially in March–May, i.e., when the opposing sides were developing their operations, is one of the most convoluted. This article is devoted to the problems of the reliability of the information gathered by Soviet military intelligence organs, foreign intelligence agents of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army General Staff, and the illegal network of informants of the USSR’s People’s Commissariat of State Security in March–June 1943, and the degree of effectiveness of its use by the Red Army command when planning and preparing for the Battle of Kursk. Three principal problems are examined on the basis of materials in recently declassified Soviet documents. First is the degree of the Red Army General Staff’s awareness of Germany’s plans and the precision of its forecasting of German armed forces operations in the spring of 1943 on the Eastern Front. Second is the degree of Moscow’s trust in its intelligence sources abroad (the residency in Switzerland and the intelligence network in Great Britain) and the timeliness of the arrival of the intelligence. Third, a parallel analysis is conducted of the principal reports of the special services that were sent to the Soviet High Command (Stavka) during the preparation for the Battle of Kursk and the decisions they made for the purpose of identifying the degree of influence of this information on Moscow’s key decisions on issues regarding the defense of the Kursk Salient and the readiness of the Germans for dynamic operations in this region and for the entire summer campaign of 1943 as a whole.