Viktor Suvorov

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Viktor Suvorov (2007)

Viktor Suvorov ( Russian Виктор Суворов , Eng. Transcription Viktor Suvorov ) is a pseudonym (author name), under which the former Soviet intelligence officers Vladimir Bogdanovich Resun ( Russian Владимир Богданович Резун ) (* 20th April 1947 in Barabasch , Primorye , Soviet Union ) since 1981 published his writings. These deal primarily with Josef Stalin's alleged aggressive war intentions in June or July 1941. The author thus represents the preventive war thesis refuted by historical scholarship .

Defector and author

Resun served as an officer in the Soviet Army and in the Soviet Union's military secret service GRU . While working as a Soviet diplomat at the UN in Geneva , he fled to Great Britain on June 10, 1978 , where he received political asylum. Thereupon, according to his own account, he was sentenced to death in absentia by Soviet judges . According to Russian sources, however, a corresponding criminal case against Suvorov was never carried out in a competent court.

In the UK he worked as a writer, intelligence advisor and lecturer. Since 1981 he has published autobiographical books, monographs and essays on the Soviet military, the GRU and the history of the Soviet Union , in which he linked personal experiences and historical-political theses. Rudolf Augstein suspected in 1996 that he had chosen the pseudonym "Viktor Suworow" to commemorate the victorious Tsarist Field Marshal Alexander Wassiljewitsch Suworow .

Suvorov wrote particularly about the Red Army, Soviet intelligence services, and Stalin's intentions before the German invasion of the Soviet Union . In two essays in a British military magazine (1985/86), he claimed that Stalin had planned an attack on Germany for June or early July 1941 in order to continue the westward expansion he had begun in 1939. Be that Adolf Hitler narrowly forestalled attack order. In his work Der Eisbrecher (German first edition 1989, Russian translation 1992) he expanded the thesis of a Stalin attack plan for June 1941. In two other works on this ( Der Tag M , 1995; Stalin's first strike prevented , 2000) Suvorov also relied on those that have since appeared Memoirs of High Soviet Military.

reception

In 1985/86 in Germany , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and Rheinischer Merkur created a media debate on Suvorov's essays with letters to the editor and articles. Right-wing conservative reviewers such as Günther Gillessen and the military historian Joachim Hoffmann , new -right and right-wing extremist authors such as Hans-Henning Bieg, Erich Helmdach, Max Klüver, Walter Post, Adolf von Thadden , Franz W. Seidler , Wolfgang Strauss and others in the context of the new-right weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit and the right-wing National-Zeitung supported Suvorov's theses. Some Holocaust deniers such as Jürgen Graf and Germar Rudolf also mentioned Suworow in their writings.

German historians on the Second World War, however, unanimously reject Suvorov's preventive war thesis and assess it expressly or mutatis mutandis as an unsubstantiated and counterfactual attempt to reinterpret the many secured historical facts, i.e. as historical revisionism : for example Bernd Bonwetsch , Gerd R. Ueberschär , Bianka Pietrow-Ennker , Bernd Wegner and Rainer F. Schmidt .

In western states, only Richard C. Raack and Albert L. Weeks supported Suvorov's theses. Gabriel Gorodetsky contradicted them since 1986 and published a Russian-language book in Moscow in 1995, in which he detailed many errors and mistakes in Suvorov's "Icebreaker". Since 1987, David M. Glantz has published research on the strategy, armament and deployment of the Red Army before and after the start of the war in 1941, which refuted Suvorov's theses in detail.

In Russia , Suvorov found partial approval from historians Valery D. Danilov, Vladimir A. Nevezhin, Michail Meltjuchow and Boris Vadimowitsch Sokolow . In 2006, the author of the history of architecture, Dmitrij Khmelnizki, published a collection of articles for the right-wing extremist publisher Dietmar Munier , whose Russian authors support some of Suvorov's theses; Suvorov was co-editor. In 2010, Khmelnizki promoted his book and Suvorov's preventive war thesis, which was widely circulated in it, with lectures at an event organized by the memorial library in honor of the victims of Stalinism in Berlin. At a conference at the ZZF in Potsdam under the title Post-Imperial Memories. To deal with history in Russian popular culture (2006), Suvorov's writings were classified in the field of pseudo or crypto history. These contributions and their partly positive reception in Russia should be understood in the context of the demise of "central Soviet myths about Lenin and the Second World War" and do not make any contribution to the writing of history.

The Stalin biographer Dimitri Wolkogonow , the Russian military historians Lev Alexandrowitsch Besymenski , Alexander Ivanovich Borosnjak , Juri Gorkov , Jurij Kiršin , Nikolaj M. Romanicev , Sergei Slutsch , Oleg Wischljov , Alexander Pechonkin and military scientist Machmud Garejew rejected Suworows in detail. At the latest since a historians' conference of German-speaking, English and Russian authors in Moscow in 1995, the preventive war thesis has been recognized internationally as historically refuted.

Falsified quotations

Hermann Graml summarized Suworow's verdict that the "quotations from memoirs of the Soviet military turned out to be audacious falsifications of the original texts."

Wigbert Benz analyzed a specific example of this in the specialist journal “Geschichteearn”. Suworow quotes General Alexander Michailowitsch Wassilewski in his book “The Icebreaker” as saying: “We had reached the Rubicon of war, and the step forward had to be taken with a firm mind.” He cites the source: “Military historical magazine 1978 , No. 2, p. 68. ”In fact, Wassilewski had written there:“ We had come to the Rubicon of War because the circumstances that did not depend on us had so willed it, and one had to take a decisive step forward. The interests of our homeland demanded this. "

Fonts

  • The Liberators. Hamish Hamilton, London 1981, ISBN 0241106753 .
  • Inside the Soviet army. Hamish Hamilton, London 1982, ISBN 0241108896 .
  • Aquarium. The career and defection of a Soviet military spy. Hamish Hamilton, London 1985, ISBN 0241115450 .
  • GRU. The spearhead. Espionage organization and security apparatus of the Red Army. Structure, goals, strategy, working method and management team. Scherz, Bern / Munich / Vienna 1985 (original title: Soviet military intelligence , translated by Jürgen Bavendam), ISBN 3-924753-18-0 .
  • Spetsnaz. Secret behind glasnost. Dissberger, Düsseldorf 1989 (original title: Spetsnaz. The Story Behind the Soviet SAS , translated by Uwe Gnad, Karl-Heinz Dissberger), ISBN 3-924753-25-3 .
  • The icebreaker: Hitler in Stalin's calculation , translated from the Russian by Hans Jaeger. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-608-91511-7 . (Originally published in 1992 under the title Ледокол: Кто начал вторую мировую войну? By Novoje Vremja. ( German  icebreaker: Who started the Second World War? ). Klett-Cotta published nine editions until 1996, since 2008 Der Eisbrecher has been published by Pour le Mérite , Selent, ISBN 978-3-932381-45-4 .)
  • Control Balashicha 1994, ISBN 5-88196-347-4 .
  • Der Tag M. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1995 (original title: Den '"M", translated by Hans Jaeger), ISBN 3608916768 .
  • Wybor. Nazran 1997, ISBN 5-15-000315-8 .
  • The purge. Nazran '1998, ISBN 5-237-00764-3 .
  • Samoubistwo. Nazran '2000, ISBN 5-17-003119-X .
  • Stalin's prevented first strike. Hitler stifles the world revolution. Pour le Mérite, Selent 2000 (original title: Poslednjaja respublika, translated by Winfried Böhme), ISBN 3-932381-09-2 .
  • Marshal Zhukov. Life path over corpses. Stalin's warmonger, “liberator” of Berlin, hero of the Soviet Union. Pour le Mérite, Selent 2002 (translated by Bernd Reimann), ISBN 3-932381-15-7 .
  • The pobedy. Donetsk 2003, ISBN 966-696-022-2 .
  • Poslednjaja Respublika ("The Last Republic"). AST, 2006, ISBN 5170078765
  • with Dimitrij Kmelnizki (ed.): Attack on Europe. Was the Soviet Union planning a war of aggression in 1941? Nine Russian historians incriminate Stalin. (Translated by Jochen Fürst). Pour le Mérite, Selent 2009, ISBN 978-3-932381-53-9 .

DVD

  • W. Sinelnikow & I. Schewzow: The Last Myth. Who Unleashed World War II? Viktor Streck, Bad Pyrmont 2006, ISBN 978-3-00-019402-3 ( documentary film based on Suvorov's books Der Eisbrecher and Der Tag M )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bernd Bonwetsch : The research controversy about the Red Army's preparations for war in 1941 . In: Bianka Pietrow-Ennker : Preventive War? The German attack on the Soviet Union. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., pp. 170-189, here p. 173.
  2. ↑ Parliamentary Gazeta newspaper, November 9, 2000; Interview with the Chairman of the Military College of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation Colonel General of the Judicial Service N. Petukhov, FSB website http://www.fsb.ru/fsb/smi/overview/single.htm!_print%3Dtrue&id%3D10342449@fsbSmi .html
  3. ^ Rudolf Augstein (Der Spiegel, February 5, 1996): Barbarossa once different
  4. ↑ Viktor Suvorov: Who Was Planning to Attack Whom in June 1941, Hitler or Stalin? In: Rusi. Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies, Volume 130, 1985, pp. 50-55; Viktor Suvorov: Yes, Stalin Was Planning to Attack Hitler in June 1941. In: Rusi, Volume 131, 1986, pp. 73 f.
  5. ↑ Hans-Jochen Vogel, Rita Süssmuth (Ed.): Warning and reminder. Yearbook of the association "Against Forgetting - for Democracy" Volume 2. KG Saur, 1998, ISBN 3598237618 , p. 13
  6. ↑ Holocaust Reference: Viktor Suvorov: Der Eisbrecher
  7. ↑ Bernd Bonwetsch: What did Stalin want on June 22, 1941? Comments on the “Short Course” by Viktor Suvorov. In: Blätter für Deutsche und Internationale Politik 1989, No. 6, pp. 687–695.
  8. ↑ Gerd R. Ueberschär: Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 and Stalin's intentions. The evaluation in German historiography and the more recent "preventive war thesis". In: Gerd Ueberschär, Lev A. Bezymenski (Hrsg.): The German attack on the Soviet Union 1941. The controversy about the preventive war thesis . 2nd edition 2011, pp. 52–54.
  9. ↑ Bianka Pietrow-Ennker (Ed.): Preventive War? The German attack on the Soviet Union. 2nd edition, Fischer TB, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3596144973 , introduction p. 11
  10. ↑ Bernd Wegner: Preventive War 1941? On the controversy about a pseudo-military history problem. In: Jürgen Elvert, Susanne Krauss (ed.): Historical debates and controversies in the 19th and 20th centuries. Franz Steiner Verlag, Essen 2002, ISBN 3-515-08253-0 , pp. 206-219
  11. ^ Rainer F. Schmidt: Appeasement or attack? A critical inventory of the so-called “Preventive War Debate ” on June 22, 1941. In: Jürgen Elvert, Susanne Krauß (Ed.): Historical debates and controversies in the 19th and 20th centuries. Essen 2002, pp. 220-233.
  12. ↑ Gabriel Gorodetsky : Stalin and Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union. An examination of the legend of the German preemptive strike . In: VfZ , Vol. 37, No. 4 (October 1989), pp. 645-672.
  13. ↑ Gabriel Gorodetsky: Was Stalin Planning to Attack Hitler in June 1941? In: RUSI Journal, Volume 131, 1986, No. 2; Gabriel Gorodetsky: Mif Ledokola, Nakanune vojny. ("The icebreaker myth"). Moscow 1995
  14. ↑ among others David M. Glantz: The Initial Period of War on the Eastern Front. June 22-August 1941. (1987) London 1997, ISBN 0714642983 ; The Military Strategy of the Soviet Union. A history. (1992) Abingdon 2001, ISBN 0714682004 ; Stumbling Colossus. The Red Army on the Eve of World War. Lawrence 1998, ISBN 0-7006-0879-6
  15. ↑ Ulrich Peters (Die Zeit, February 6, 2010): CDU cuddles with the right wing
  16. ^ Lars Karl, Igor Polianski (ed.): History politics and memory culture in the new Russia . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 3899716914 . In particular: Matthias Schwartz: Post-imperial memories. On dealing with history in Russian popular culture , pp. 215–236.
  17. ↑ Alexander I. Boroznjak : A Russian Historians' Dispute ? In: Gerd Ueberschär, Lev A. Bezymenski (Hrsg.): The German attack on the Soviet Union 1941. The controversy about the preventive war thesis . 2nd edition 2011, pp. 116-130.
  18. ↑ Alexander Pechonkin : Byla li wosmoshnost nastupat? In: Juri Afanasjew (ed.): Drugaja Vojna: 1939–1945 (“The Other War”), Moscow 1996, pp. 185–211
  19. ↑ Machmud Garejew: Gotowil li Sowjetski Soyuz upreshdajutschtscheje napadenije na Germaniju w 1941 godu? In: Woina i politika , pp. 270–279.
  20. ↑ Bernd Bonwetsch: Preparations for War of the Red Army 1941. In: Bianka Pietrow-Ennker (Hrsg.): Preventive War ? The German attack on the Soviet Union. 2nd edition 2000, pp. 180 and 188, footnote 40
  21. ↑ Gerd Ueberschär: Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union 1941. In: Gerd Ueberschär, Lev A. Bezymenski (Hrsg.): The German attack on the Soviet Union 1941. The controversy over the preventive war thesis . 2nd edition 2011, p. 56 ff .; Jürgen Förster: Summary. In: Bianka Pietrow-Ennker (Ed.): Preventive War? The German attack on the Soviet Union. Fischer-TB, 3rd edition 2000, pp. 208-214.
  22. ↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education: Arguments against right-wing extremist prejudices: Preventive war against the Soviet Union
  23. ↑ Wigbert Benz: The lie from the German preventive war 1941. In: Learn history: Legends - Myths - Lies. Friedrich-Verlag in collaboration with Klett, Issue 52, 1996, pp. 54–59; The Preventive War Thesis. On the causes and character of the "Operation Barbarossa" 1941. In: Forum "Barbarossa" of the Hagen Historical Center. Article 2/2004.
  24. ↑ Viktor Suvorov: The icebreaker. Hitler in Stalin's calculations. Stuttgart 1989, p. 339
  25. ↑ A. Vasilevsky: V te surovye gody. ("In those hard years"). In: Voenno-istoriceskij zurnal ("Militärhistorische Zeitschrift") 2/1978, pp. 65–72, here p. 68
personal data
SURNAME Suvorov, Viktor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Суворов, Виктор; Suvorov, Viktor; Резун, Владимир Богданович; Resun, Vladimir Bogdanovich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Soviet secret service officer, defector and author
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Barabash, Primorye Region , Soviet Union