On 20 June, Dekanozov, back in Berlin, warned Beria firmly that the attack was imminent. Beria threatened his protégé while Stalin muttered that ‘Slow Kartvelian’ ‘wasn’t clever enough to work it out’. Beria forwarded the ‘disinformation’ to Stalin with the sycophantic but slightly mocking note: ‘My people and I, Joseph Vissarionovich, firmly remember your wise prediction: Hitler will not attack us in 1941!’
