← Back to the front page

Historical Figures with Unforeseen Downfall and Misfortune

Khalid Elhassan April 9, 2020 33 min

Silver Thursday - United States — Nelson Bunker Hunt. Express News

27. A Catastrophic Failure to Heed Warnings

Stalin also failed to heed numerous warnings of an impending invasion. Those who raised the alarm were punished, as Stalin insisted it was fake news, and just a plot engineered by the British to instigate a war between the USSR and Germany.

Soviet commanders were prohibited from taking precautionary measures, lest they provoke Hitler. Indeed, hours after the invasion had begun, Stalin disbelieved Soviet commanders reporting that they were being overrun, insisting that they were experiencing border incidents, not war.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.