It is customary to blame the tragic events of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War on the political myopia of J.V. Stalin, who did not allow organizing a worthy rebuff to Hitler’s invading army in advance. This point of view was accepted by Russian historical science almost immediately after Stalin’s death and was developed in numerous studies and memoirs. First of all, in “Memories and Reflections” by G.K. Zhukov. This point of view received an even stronger, even hysterical development during the period of Gorbachev’s “perestroika”. However, the opened archives and publications of previously banned memoirs of witnesses of those terrible events make it possible to realize that everything was far from so simple and the main part of the blame for the defeat of the Red Army in the summer of 1941 lies with completely different people. About the mysteries associated with the surprise of Germany’s attack on the USSR - documentary research by Vladimir Chunikhin.