Stalin's Fatal Denial

Stalin had been warned again and again — by his own spies, by Churchill, even by a German deserter the night before. He ignored them all.

The first hours were a catastrophe. The Soviet air force lost 1,200 aircraft on the first day, most of them destroyed on the ground before pilots could even take off. German tanks tore deep into Soviet territory while Moscow's commanders waited for orders that never came. By the time Stalin accepted the truth, the invasion was already days old.