Thank God I Found You

"Thank God I Found You" is a song by American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey, featuring guest vocals from R&B singer Joe and American boy band 98 Degrees. It was released on November 15, 1999, through Columbia Records, as the second single from her seventh studio album, Rainbow (1999). Written and produced by Carey alongside Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the song is a soulful pop power ballad with lyrics depicting a powerful love relationship in which the protagonist tells her lover "thank God I found you", that was inspired by a relationship Carey was going through at the time.

"Thank God I Found You" received mixed reviews from contemporary music critics; some felt it was a great album closer while others deemed it "un-listenable" and "forgettable". Nevertheless, the song became Carey's fifteenth number-one single on the United States Billboard Hot 100 and remained her last chart-topping single until her 2005 comeback single "We Belong Together"; it remains the only chart-topper to date for 98 Degrees and was the first of only two for Joe. The single was later certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Aside from its peak of number two in Canada, the song achieved moderate international charting, reaching the top-ten in Spain, Poland and the United Kingdom; and peaking within the top-thirty in Australia, Belgium (Wallonia), France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

A DJ Clue-produced remix titled "Thank God I Found You (Make It Last Remix)" uses re-recorded vocals from Carey and features guest vocals from Joe and Carey's label-mate, rapper Nas. The remix is a remake of Keith Sweat's song "Make It Last Forever" (1988), transforming it into a slow groove R&B number, while incorporating a few verses from the original version of "Thank God I Found You".

A music video for "Thank God I Found You", directed by Brett Ratner, features Carey, Joe and 98 Degrees performing the song at an outdoor concert. The Make It Last Remix had its own video commissioned, which was shot in a grainy fashion in Hamburg, Germany, and shows Carey and the song's featured artists performing at a small club. Carey performed the song's original version and accompanying remix live at the 27th Annual American Music Awards. It appeared on the set-lists of the Rainbow World Tour (2000) and The Adventures of Mimi Tour (2006), with Trey Lorenz serving as the male vocalist.

In September 2000, US songwriters Seth Swirsky and Warryn Campbell filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Carey claiming that "Thank God I Found You" borrowed heavily from the song "One of Those Love Songs" they composed for R&B group Xscape. Though initially the case was dismissed, in the precedent-setting Swirsky v. Carey decision, which clarified the standard for proving copyright infringement, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the initial 2002 dismissal of the case. The case was settled out of court in April 2006.

## Background and recording

Carey and her husband, Tommy Mottola, who was a Sony Music executive, separated in 1997. This resulted in a strained relationship with Sony. By the spring of 1999, Carey had begun work on her last album of her contract with Columbia Records, titled Rainbow. Her relationship with Sony had affected her collaboration with writing partner Walter Afanasieff, who had worked with her throughout the first half of her career. As a result, she worked extensively with many other songwriters and producers for the album, including the duo Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (known for their work with Janet Jackson), with whom Carey co-wrote and co-produced "Thank God I Found You". When Jam and Lewis first started working with Carey, they did not have a definite idea of what Carey expected from them. In an interview with Fred Bronson, Jam and Lewis explained:

> It wasn't like Janet [Jackson], where we all grew up together. Mariah had done her own thing and had been very involved with the arranging and production of her records, so we respected that and said, 'What can we do for you?' She would fly into town for five or six hours. She'd get on a plane and fly to whatever was the next thing she was doing.

One night, Jam and Lewis received a call from Carey's assistant telling them that Carey had an idea for a song. She asked them to meet her at the studio later that night, and when they arrived, Carey sang the song's melody for them. Normally when Carey was composing songs, James "Big Jim" Wright would play the chords. He was not present at the studio that night, so Lewis played the chords for Carey. After composing the melody, Carey recorded her vocals. When Carey requested male singers to sing along with her on the track, Jam and Lewis recruited R&B singer Joe. Although Jam and Lewis wanted to feature K-Ci & JoJo on the song, they dropped the idea because they are signed to a different record label. About the recording, Joe said:

> She [Carey] gave me a call, and she was like, "I would love to do a duet with you. Come by the studio." When I got there, she played the song for me. I didn't expect to record the song, but when I heard it, I said, "Man, there's no way I'm going to leave this studio without my voice being on that record." Everything just happened so fast. I didn't expect for it to be a single or a video. Everything was just great.

Jam and Lewis also asked the boy band 98 Degrees to join Carey and Joe on the track, as they wanted male harmonies. Carey talked about the collaboration in an interview with MTV. "It's like when I was writing 'One Sweet Day'. It really cried out for a group to be singing with me and for a strong male-female thing in terms of going back and forth, vocally. So you know, we just naturally came together." The vocals were recorded at Capri Digital Studios, Capri, Italy and Avatar Studios, New York City. The track was mixed by Supa Engineer Duo at Right Track Recording and mastered by Herb Powers.

## Composition

"Thank God I Found You" was produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and co-produced by Carey. The song is a moderately-paced R&B power ballad. Arion Berger of Rolling Stone noted that the song also exhibits influences of gospel music. The song carries an upbeat tone, backed by slow "manufactured pop beats". According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by EMI Music Publishing, "Thank God I Found You" is written in the key of B major. The beat is set in common time, and is set at a tempo of sixty-five beats per minute. The song follows the sequence of B–F/A–Gm7–F–E–F as its chord progression. Carey's and Joe's vocals in the song span over two octaves, from the note of D4 to the high note of D6. Composed in verse–chorus–bridge form, the chorus of "Thank God I Found You" is sung in the key of B major; Carey also makes use of melisma in the song. The final chorus is set a minor 3rd higher in the key of D major. The arrangement is similar to Carey's "One Sweet Day". Lyrically, the song is an inspirational love song, in which the protagonist thanks God for finding her the perfect partner. According to Carey, it was inspired by the relationship she was in with Latin singer Luis Miguel at that time. She stated that she was telling a story through the song.

### Remixes

Carey re-recorded her vocals for the song's main remix titled "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix). The remix is a remake of Keith Sweat's "Make It Last Forever" (1988), and bears few lyrical similarities to the original version of the song. Carey wrote new lyrics for the song, preserving the chorus of the original song. Produced by DJ Clue of Desert Storm Records, the remix is a midtempo tune backed by "R&B-savvy rhythms" over a slow groove. It features vocals from Joe and rapped verses by Columbia Records label-mate Nas. The remix is included on Joe's third studio album My Name Is Joe (2000). Jose F. Promis of Allmusic wrote that he felt the remix seemed unfinished. He added that could have "simply covered the song and kept its integrity intact, instead of meshing it into a sort of half-"Thank God I Found You"/"Make It Last Forever" creation." However, while reviewing My Name Is Joe, Matt Diehl of Entertainment Weekly picked the track as the best from the album. He wrote "Nas' grit and Carey's expert emoting make Joe sing with unexpected feeling." Derek Ali of Dayton Daily News commended the collaboration, saying "it works out well." The "Make It Last" remix is featured on Carey's first remix album The Remixes (2003). The Norwegian production team Stargate produced the UK Stargate radio mix.

## Critical response

"Thank God I Found You" garnered mixed reviews from music critics. Jose F. Promis of Allmusic wrote that the song is "[a] lush, classic Carey-styled adult contemporary ballad, with uplifting lyrics and a sea of soaring vocals." The Austin American-Statesman viewed the song as a "dramatic closer". Arion Berger of Rolling Stone praised the song's production and the harmony that 98 Degrees contributed. Chuck Campbell of The Daily News was also positive stating the song was a "grandiose" album-closer. Steve Jones of USA Today wrote that Carey excelled in the song. Melissa Ruggieri of the Richmond Times-Dispatch noted that Carey found solace in the song. Anthony Johnson, also of the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote that the track is a "surefire winner". However, a few other critics deemed the song as forgettable. Dan DeLuca of The Philadelphia Inquirer dismissed the song as a "colorless quality romance". Robert Hilburn of Los Angeles Times was also negative in his review, calling it as an "overwrought ballad" and wrote it was un-listenable. Dara Cook of MTV Southeast Asia named the song as "a big-production tragicomedy of hilarious histrionics and absurdly dramatic lyrics." While reviewing Carey's compilation The Ballads (2009), Chuck Campbell of The Press of Atlantic City wrote that at some point in Carey's career, the quality her songs got "iffier" and commented that "Thank God I Found You" is such an example. He went on to say that the song was a "trifle". In 2005 Andrew Unterberger of Stylus gave a negative review, writing the song was "a sub-par, extremely lazy example of an artist reaching the top spot almost solely on reputation." He wrote that the song would have been the end of Carey's career. At the 43rd Grammy Awards held in February 2001, the song was nominated in the category of the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, but lost to B.B. King and Dr. John for "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby". At the First BMI Urban Awards, held in 2001, Jam, Lewis, and Carey received BMI's Urban Songwriter Award.

## Commercial performance

In the United States, Columbia released "Thank God I Found You" to radio stations as the second single from Rainbow in November 1999. A physical single was later released on January 25, 2000, in the US and on February 28, 2000, in the United Kingdom. The issue dated December 11, 1999, debuted at number eighty-two on the Billboard Hot 100—Carey's lowest debut at the time. On the week dated February 19, 2000, the song reached number-one on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming Carey's fifteenth number-one single and marking her eleventh consecutive year with a number-one song. It remained Carey's last number-one hit in the US until 2005's "We Belong Together" and, to date, remains 98 Degrees' only number-one song; Joe, meanwhile, would only receive one more number-one hit later in his career: 2001's "Stutter". It was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in February 2000. By February 2001 the single had sold 687,000 copies in the US alone. In Canada, the single debuted and peaked at number two on the Canadian Singles Chart.

In Australia, it entered the Australian Singles Chart at its peak of number twenty-seven, on the week dated March 12, 2000. The next week it dropped to number forty-seven. In New Zealand, it debuted on the singles chart at a position of number thirty-four, the week dated April 2, 2000. The song went down to number thirty-five next week, before dropping to number forty-four. In Europe, "Thank God I Found You" charted in a few countries. In the United Kingdom, the single debuted and peaked at number ten on the UK Singles Chart on the week dated March 11, 2000. The single stayed on the chart for ten weeks, including one re-entry at number seventy-one on the week dated May 20, 2000. In the Flanders region of Belgium, the song debuted at number forty-seven and peaked at thirty-six. In the Wallonia region, it debuted at number thirty-five and peaked at number twenty-three three weeks after its debut. In France, the single entered the singles chart at number thirty-one, the week dated March 4, 2000. The next week it ascended to its peak of number twenty-eight. It stayed on the chart for fifteen weeks. In the Netherlands, "Thank God I Found You" entered the Single Top 100 at number fifty-five, before peaking at number twenty-three the next week. The song also peaked at number twenty-eight in Germany, forty-three in Sweden, thirty-one in Ireland, and at number seventeen in Switzerland.

## Music video

The music video for "Thank God I Found You" was filmed by Brett Ratner in Minneapolis. The video is a tape of the performance Carey, Joe and 98 Degrees gave at the Last Chance Summer Dance summer music concert, organized by 101.3 KDWB-FM. It premiered on October 14, 1999, on MTV's Total Request Live (TRL). The video opens with scenes of Carey and Joe in the studio. Carey is with her puppy and talking on a mobile phone. The video shows saturated blue skies and behind-the-scenes footage of Carey carousing with her dog Jack and writing lyrics on a notepad. As the song starts, Carey is shown lying on red sofa, writing the lyrics on the notepad. Then she performs the song on the stage, joined by Joe and 98 Degrees. Additionally, there is a video for the "Make It Last Remix" that features Carey with braids in a nightclub with Joe and Nas. Directed by Sanaa Hamri. The video is grainy; it was shot at Bar Rosso in Hamburg, Germany on October 16 and 17, 1999.

## Live performances

"Thank God I Found You" was performed a number of times between 2000 and 2005. Carey opened the 27th Annual American Music Awards, held at the Shrine Auditorium, with a medley of the original and remix versions of the song. After Carey appeared on stage wearing a black skirt with a high slit and sporting a blond and straightened hairstyle, Joe joined her with several male and female back-up dancers, all of whom who wore black outfits. After performing the first verse and chorus, Nas joined the duo on stage for the Make It Last Remix. Later on in the show, she was honored with the "Award of Achievement" for earning a number one single in every year of the 1990s. Vibe commended the performance, writing that it "offered an insight into how a little girl from Long Island, New York became hip hop's answer to Celine Dion." In 2000, Carey performed the song on the Italian television show Quelli che... il Calcio.

Aside from the several televised and the award show performance, Carey included the song on the set-list of her concert tours, starting with the Rainbow World Tour. During the tour, Trey Lorenz, her only male background singer, replaced Joe as the song's main male vocalist. At the show at Madison Square Garden on April 11, 2000, Carey wore a long orange cocktail gown with a long cascading neck line. Lorenz, wearing a black leather sports jacket and matching pants, made another featured appearance on the tour, performing his song "Make You Happy" during an interval of costume changes following the performance. Following the release of her tenth studio effort The Emancipation of Mimi in 2005, Carey embarked on The Adventures of Mimi Tour in mid 2006. On several stops of the tour, Carey performed the song as part of the set-list, usually towards the end of the show. Similar to the Rainbow World Tour, Lorenz performed the song alongside Carey instead of Joe. Carey, wearing a midsection-baring turquoise evening gown, introduced the song to the audience by telling of its conception, concept and featured artists, followed by a performance of the song's remix.

## Lawsuit

On September 15, 2000, US songwriters Seth Swirsky and Warren Campbell filed a lawsuit against Carey at the 9th Circuit for copyright infringement, "reverse passing off" and false designation, claiming that "Thank God I Found You" borrowed heavily from a song they composed called "One of Those Love Songs". It was recorded by the R&B group Xscape in 1998 for their album Traces of My Lipstick. The lawsuit claimed that Carey wrongfully gave the songwriting credits to Jam and Lewis. Swirsky and Campbell had sold the rights of the song to So So Def Recordings in 1998. "I'm a fan of Mariah Carey; this is nothing personal against her. But I really do believe there's accountability, and it's very clear what happened here. I've never sued anybody before", Swirsky said. According to the district court, an expert witness (chair of the Musicology Department at the University of California at Los Angeles) determined that the songs shared a "substantially similar chorus". The expert stated that although the lyrics and verse melodies of the two songs were different, the songs' choruses "shared a 'basic shape and pitch emphasis' in their melodies, which were played over 'highly similar basslines' and chord changes, at very nearly the same tempo and in the same generic style." He noted both the songs had their choruses sung in the key of B. The expert further remarked that "the emphasis on musical notes" on the two songs was the same, which "contribute[d] to the impression of similarity one hears when comparing the two songs." He presented a series of visual transcriptions of his observations. The transcriptions contained details about the pitch sequence of both the songs' chorus, melody, and bassline.

The district court labeled this evidence as insufficient to survive a motion for summary judgment. It noted the expert's methodology to be "flawed" and stated that through its own analysis, no instance of substantial similarity was found. The lawsuit was settled in favor of Carey by the US District Judge, who noted that there was no similarity in key, harmonic structure, tempo, or genre between the two songs.

However, this judgement was later reversed by a higher court. In the precedent-setting Swirsky v. Carey decision, which clarified the standard for proving copyright infringement, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the initial 2002 dismissal of the case, finding that Swirsky's expert did in fact adequately define the similarities between the two songs. The lawsuit was reinstated in 2004; Carey and Swirsky settled out of court in 2006.

## Track listing

- European maxi-CD single

1. "Thank God I Found You" – 4:17
2. "Thank God I Found You" (Celebratory Mix) – 4:19
3. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix feat. Joe & Nas) – 5:10
4. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix Instrumental) – 5:10

- UK 12-inch vinyl

1. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix feat. Joe & Nas) – 5:10
2. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix without Rap feat. Joe) – 5:10
3. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Instrumental) – 5:10
4. "Thank God I Found You" (Celebratory Mix) – 4:19

- UK CD single 1

1. "Thank God I Found You" (Stargate Radio Edit) – 4:20
2. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix) – 5:10
3. "Babydoll" – 5:06

- UK CD single 2 (limited edition)

1. "Thank God I Found You" (Celebratory Mix) – 4:19
2. "One Sweet Day" – 4:41
3. "I'll Be There" – 4:24

- US CD single and 7-inch vinyl single

1. "Thank God I Found You" – 4:17
2. "Thank God I Found You" (Celebratory Mix) – 4:19

- US maxi-CD single

1. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix Edit feat. Nas & Joe) – 4:13
2. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix without Rap feat. Joe) – 5:10
3. "Thank God I Found You" (Album Version) – 4:17
4. "Babydoll" – 5:06

- US 12-inch vinyl

1. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix feat. Nas & Joe) – 5:09
2. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix Instrumental) – 5:09
3. "Thank God I Found You" (Celebratory Mix feat. Joe & 98o) – 4:19
4. "Fantasy" (feat. O.D.B.) – 4:50

- Digital download (2020)

1. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix) – 5:09
2. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix Edit) – 4:12
3. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix w/o Rap) – 5:09
4. "Thank God I Found You" (Make It Last Remix Instrumental) – 5:09
5. "Thank God I Found You" (Celebratory Mix) – 4:16
6. "Thank God I Found You" (StarGate Radio Edit) – 4:19

## Credits and personnel

Credits adapted from Rainbow liner notes.

- Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis – writing, production
- Mariah Carey – writing, vocals, backing vocals, production
- Joe – vocals, backing vocals
- 98 Degrees – vocals, backing vocals
- Nicki Richards – backing vocals
- Trey Lorenz – backing vocals
- Melonie Daniels – backing vocals

- Daryl Skobba – cello
- Joshua Koestenbaum – cello
- Mike Scott – guitar
- Dana Jon Chappelle – engineering
- Pete Karem – engineering (98 Degrees' vocals)
- Steve Hodge – mixing
- Bob Ludwig – mastering

## Charts

### Weekly charts

### Year-end charts

## Certifications

## Release history

## See also

- List of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles of 2000
- List of number-one R&B singles of 2000 (U.S.)

1999 single by Mariah Carey

Song recordings produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis

Songs involved in plagiarism controversies

Songs written by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis


Heinrich Rau

Heinrich Gottlob "Heiner" Rau (2 April 1899 – 23 March 1961) was a German communist politician during the time of the Weimar Republic; subsequently, during the Spanish Civil War, he was a leading member of the International Brigades and after World War II a leading East German statesman.

Rau grew up in a suburb of Stuttgart, where early on he became active in socialist youth organizations. After military service in World War I, he participated in the German Revolution of 1918–19. From 1920 onward, he was a leading agricultural policy maker of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). This ended in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power. Shortly afterward Rau was thrown in jail for two years. As an enemy of the Nazi regime in Germany he was imprisoned, in total, for more than half of the time of Hitler's rule. After his first imprisonment he emigrated in 1935 to the Soviet Union (USSR). From there, in 1937, he went on to Spain, where he participated in the Spanish Civil War as a leader of one of the International Brigades. In 1939, he was arrested in France, and was delivered by the Vichy regime back to Nazi Germany in 1942. After a few months in a Gestapo prison, he was transferred to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in March 1943. While in the concentration camp he participated in conspiratorial prisoner activities, which led to a camp uprising in the final days before the end of World War II in Europe.

After the war he played an important role in the political scene of East Germany. Before the establishment of an East German state he was the chairman of the German Economic Commission, the precursor to the East German government. Subsequently, he became chairman of the National Planning Commission of East Germany and a deputy chairman of the East German Council of Ministers. He was a leading economic politician and diplomat of East Germany and led various ministries at different times. Within East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) he was a member of the party's CC Politburo.

## Origins and early political career

### Stuttgart

#### Early years until World War I

Rau was born in Feuerbach, now a part of Stuttgart, in the German Kingdom of Württemberg, the son of a peasant who later became a factory worker. He grew up in the adjacent city of Zuffenhausen, now also a part of Stuttgart. After finishing school in spring 1913, he started work as a press operator in a shoe factory. In November 1913 he changed his employer and moved to the Bosch factory works in Feuerbach. There he completed his training as metal presser and remained until autumn 1920, with interruptions due to war service during 1917-1918 and the subsequent German Revolution of 1918–1919.

From 1913 Rau also was active in the labour movement. In that year he joined the metal workers' union (Deutscher Metallarbeiterverband) and a social democratic youth group in Zuffenhausen. During the following years, which saw the beginning of World War I, Rau's youth group, whose leader he became in 1916, was significantly influenced by the left wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The leftists considered the war a conflict between "imperialist powers". A few local members of a far left SPD group, among them Edwin Hoernle and Albert Schreiner, who later became well-known members of the Spartacus League (Spartakusbund), visited the youth group in Zuffenhausen and gave lectures. In 1916, Rau joined the Spartacists as well and became a co-founder of their youth organisation. In accordance with the politics of the Spartacists, in 1917 he joined the left-wing Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) and in 1919 the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), which had been founded mainly by members of the Spartacus League.

In spring 1917, Rau, by this time an elected trade union official in his firm, participated in the attempt to organise a strike against the war. His action led to a reprimand from his employer, and may have hastened his conscription into the army in August 1917. In the army he was trained in the Zuffenhausen-garrisoned Infantry Regiment 126 and deployed to the Western Front as member of a machine gun company. In September 1918 a shell splinter penetrated his lungs. In the following weeks, he was treated in military hospitals in Weimar and in Stuttgart's neighbouring town Ludwigsburg. While in Ludwigsburg, Rau managed to get leave at short notice on 8 November 1918 and joined the in those days developing revolution in Stuttgart.

#### Revolution

The revolution in November 1918 led in Württemberg, like everywhere in Germany, to the end of the monarchy. King William II left Stuttgart on 9 November, shortly after a revolutionary crowd had stormed his residence, the Wilhelm Palais and flown a red flag above the building. On the very same day the demonstrators were also able to seize some of Stuttgart's barracks, where parts of the garrisons openly joined them. Rau took active part in the events in Stuttgart's streets on this and the following day.

These happenings were a first cumulation of a civil commotion, that had started a few days earlier with large strikes and demonstrations. On 4 November 1918, a first workers' council under the leadership of the 23-year-old Spartacist Fritz Rück had been established in Stuttgart. During the following days and weeks more spontaneously elected worker and soldier councils were formed, and took over a large part of Württemberg. Rau was elected leader of the military police in his home city of Zuffenhausen, a part of Stuttgart's urban area.

As early as 9 November, about 150 councillors gathered for a two-day meeting in Stuttgart. A majority of the councillors entrusted the leaders of the SPD and USPD political parties, who had been invited to the meeting, with the establishment of a provisional government in Württemberg. The Spartacist Albert Schreiner, then chairman of a soldier council, initially assumed the key position of Minister of War in this quickly established first government, which for the time being shared power with the councils. However, he resigned already a few days later, after disputes about the future course of the government. While the Spartacists considered as their ideal aim the kinds of results achieved by the previous year's October Revolution in Russia, the position of the other USPD politicians was unclear and the SPD leaders supported a parliamentary democracy and early elections in Württemberg.

During the ensuing months the communists tried repeatedly to seize power in Stuttgart and other cities in Württemberg through armed rebellion, accompanied by large-scale strikes. They seized public buildings and print offices. During one such an attempt - at the beginning of April 1919 when the Bavarian Soviet Republic was formally proclaimed in Munich - a general strike took place in the Stuttgart area. The government in Stuttgart imposed a state of emergency and 16 people died in street fights. At the time of these events, Rau used his position as chief of the military police in Zuffenhausen to shut down companies that remained operational while the strike was ongoing. However, when the strike collapsed, Rau was removed from office by the government.

Rau resumed his employment at Bosch in Feuerbach. During another general strike in several Württemberg cities, from 28 August to 4 September 1920, he led the strike committee in his firm, which resulted in his dismissal.

#### Influences

From 1919 until 1920 Rau was head of the local KPD group in Zuffenhausen, and chaired the KPD organisation in Stuttgart. The party leader in Württemberg at this time was Edwin Hoernle. Hoernle had visited Rau's youth group in Zuffenhausen and had become a long-standing friend; he was an influential teacher for Rau and made his voluminous library available to Rau to use.

The most outstanding ideological authority of the movement in Stuttgart, during the time of Rau's political involvement there, was however Clara Zetkin. She was a founding member of the Second International, about whom Friedrich Engels once had written, that he liked her very much, while emperor Wilhelm II is said to have referred to her as the "worst witch in Germany". She had been living in a Stuttgart suburb since 1891 and, since then, been gathering a circle of Württemberg Marxists around her, among them Rau's friend Hoernle, who had been editing with her the magazine Die Gleichheit. Her house, built in 1903 in Sillenbuch (now a part of Stuttgart), had become a meeting place of leading national and local left-wing and communist activists. It was also visited by international communist leaders like Vladimir Lenin, who stayed there overnight in 1907. In 1920, when Zetkin was elected to the Reichstag in Berlin, Hoernle and Rau moved to Berlin as well.

### Berlin

In November 1920 Rau became a full-time party functionary and the secretary of the agricultural division of the Central Committee of the KPD in Berlin. Between 1921 and 1930 he lectured at the Land and Federal schools of the KPD, and edited a few left-wing agricultural journals.

The head of the Central Committee's Division for Agriculture initially was Edwin Hoernle, with whom Rau had come from Stuttgart. Hoernle had been elected to the Executive Committee of the Comintern (ECCI) in November 1922 and Rau succeeded him as division chief the following year. Afterwards, Rau also became a leading member of various national and international left wing farmer and peasant organisations. From 1923 onward, he was a member of the Secretariat of the International Committee of the Agricultural and Forest Workers and beginning in 1924 of the executive committee of the Reich Peasant Federation (Reichsbauernbund). In 1930 this was followed with a membership on the International Peasants' Council in Moscow and in 1931 he became an office member of the European Peasant Committee. From 1928 to 1933 he was also member of the Preußischer Landtag, the Prussian federal state parliament. There he joined the committee on agricultural affairs of the parliament and became its chairman.

## Imprisonment, International Brigades, World War II

After Hitler's rise to power in January 1933 and the subsequent suppression of the KPD, Rau became a Central Committee's party instructor for southwest Germany and was active in building an underground party organisation there. On 23 May 1933 Rau was arrested and on 11 December 1934 convicted, together with Bernhard Bästlein, for "preparations to commit high treason" by the People's Court of Germany. He was sentenced to two years imprisonment. After his release from custody, he emigrated to the USSR in August 1935, via Czechoslovakia, and became a deputy chairman of the International Agrarian Institute in Moscow.

After the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and following the formation of the International Brigades, Rau attended a school for military commanders in Ryazan (USSR), and subsequently went to Spain. After his arrival in April 1937, he joined the XI International Brigade and participated in the civil war as political commissar, beginning in May 1937, then as chief of staff and finally commander of the brigade, until March 1938, when he was injured. Although the brigade achieved some temporary successes during these months, Francisco Franco's troops were already on the road to victory. Rau's brigade saw combat in the battles of Brunete, Belchite, Teruel and the Aragon Offensive, where Rau was wounded.

When Rau took charge of the XI Brigade, he might have been at odds with his predecessor, Richard Staimer, the future son-in-law of KPD leader Wilhelm Pieck. This was the time of the Great Purge which had its echos in Spain, and it could be perilous to have powerful enemies. André Marty, the chief commissar of the International Brigades based at Albacete, was also an executor of the Great Purge in Spain. Following Rau's injury, Marty managed to imprison him under a pretext for a brief time. A report, written in Moscow in 1940, described Rau as a "political criminal", who had had contact with the Spanish anarchists and members of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), which was demonized as "Trotskyist". These were serious allegations in this time, when accusations of Trotskyism frequently led to a death sentence if the accused was within reach of the authorities.

It seems, however, that Rau also had influential friends. He was released from prison and expelled from Spain. He moved to France in May 1938. There, he was in charge of the emergency committee of the German and Austrian Spain fighters and member of the KPD country leadership in Paris until 1939. At the beginning of 1939 Rau crossed the border to Spain again and subsequently led, together with Ludwig Renn, the remainders of the XI Brigade. Together with other remaining international units – now combined in the "Agrupación Internacional" – they fought on Spain's northern border after the fall of Barcelona, protecting the stream of refugees escaping to France. Thus the Agrupación enabled the escape of perhaps some 470,000 civilians and soldiers.

Rau was arrested by the French authorities in September 1939 and sent to Camp Vernet, an internment centre in France, and in November 1941 to a secret prison in Castres. In June 1942, he was handed over to the Gestapo by the Vichy regime and was held until March 1943 in the Gestapo prison in the Prince Albrecht Street. Afterwards he was sent to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, where he remained until May 1945, when he participated in a camp rebellion as one of the organisers of a secret military camp organisation.

## East Germany

### 1945–1949

#### New start in Brandenburg

When the war was over, Rau went to Vienna for some weeks and helped the KPD representatives in the city gather liberated political prisoners from Germany. He left Vienna in July 1945, when he led a car convoy with 120 former Mauthausen inmates to the Soviet occupied part of Berlin.

In September 1945, the Soviets appointed Rau a member of the provisional chairmanship of the Province of Brandenburg with the title of a vice-president and responsibility for food, agriculture and forests. Rau succeeded Edwin Hoernle, who had held this position since the end of June and became chairman of the central administration for agriculture and forests in the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ). In his new position, Rau was a member of the commission for the execution of the land reform in the province. In spring 1946 he assumed responsibility for economy and transport in Brandenburg. In this capacity, he was, from June 1946 onwards, chairman of the newly established sequester commission in the province. 1946 was also the year of the forced merger of eastern KPD and eastern SPD into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), resulting in Rau's membership in the SED. Important 1946 events in Brandenburg were in November elections, which preceded an official status change from a province to a federal state in the following year. Afterwards, from 1946 until 1948, Rau was state parliament delegate and Minister for Economic Planning of Brandenburg.

#### German Economic Commission

In March 1948 Rau became chairman of the German Economic Commission (Deutsche Wirtschaftskommission or DWK), which during this period became the centralised administrative organisation for the Soviet Occupation Zone and the predecessor of the future East German government. The organisation existed during a time of very difficult challenges coming from different sides. A particularly momentous event during this time was the currency reform of 1948. On 20 June 1948 the western German zones introduced a new currency, leaving the eastern zone to use the old common currency. In order to avoid inflation, the DWK under Rau's leadership, was forced to follow quickly with its own reform and issued an own currency too. In doing so, the DWK also exploited the currency reform to redistribute capital by using different exchange rates for private and state-run companies. The disagreement, which of the two new currencies should be used in Berlin, triggered the Berlin Blockade by the USSR and the western airborne supply of West Berlin.

Under Rau's leadership the DWK, still under supervision of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (German: Sowjetische Militäradministration in Deutschland or SMAD), quickly developed more and more into a partner of the SMAD with its own conceptions and intentions. This policy was also endorsed by the Soviet chief diplomat in Germany, Vladimir Semyonov, the future Chief Commissar of the USSR in Germany, who already in January 1948 correspondingly stated, that SMAD orders, (which accompanied DWK orders,) should have merely the purpose to back the authority of the German orders. One of Rau's aims during the meetings with the SMAD was, to come to agreements, which also obliged the Soviet side, including subordinate Soviet authorities, who still engaged in wild confiscations for reparation purposes. An important success in this direction was a half-year plan for the economic development in the second half of 1948, which was accepted by the SMAD in May 1948. It was followed by a likewise accepted two-year plan for 1949 and 1950.

The biggest obstacle to the plan's implementation soon proved to be the Berlin Blockade by the USSR, which was followed by a western counter-blockade of the Soviet occupation zone. As there were long-established economic ties between the western zone and the eastern, which was highly dependent on supplies from the West, the blockade was more damaging to the East. The West Berlin SPD newspaper Sozialdemokrat reported in April 1949, how Rau clearly criticized the blockade in a meeting of SED apparatchiks and there is reason to believe that he did the same in the meetings with the SMAD. According to the paper, Rau spoke of a "bad speculation" regarding the undervaluation of the dependence on western supplies, stating that the "broadminded Soviet help" turned out as insufficient and hinting that the blockade would soon be lifted. Finally the Berlin Blockade was lifted on 12 May 1949.

The DWK's increasingly centralised administration resulted in a substantial increase in its staffing level, which grew from about 5000 employees in mid-1948 to 10,000 by the beginning of 1949. In March 1949, Rau, like the representative of a state, signed a first treaty with a foreign state, a trade agreement with Poland.

### 1949–1953

#### Establishment and difficult first years of a new state

The time of Rau's German Economic Commission ended in October 1949 with the establishment of the East German state, the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The GDR was proclaimed on 7 October 1949, at a ceremony in the former Air Ministry Building in Berlin, until then the seat of Rau's organisation. Five days later, the DWK was formally abolished on 12 October 1949. Rau thereupon became a delegate of the People's Chamber, the newly established parliament of the GDR and joined the new government.

Likewise in 1949, the ruling SED implemented traditional leadership structures of communist parties and Rau became a member of the newly established Central Committee of the SED and candidate member of its Politburo; in 1950 he became a full member of the Politburo as well as deputy chairman of the East German Council of Ministers.

Between 1949 and 1950, Rau was Minister for Planning of the GDR and in 1950–1952 chairman of the National Planning Commission. In this position, as the key figure of the economic development, Rau came into conflict with SED General Secretary Walter Ulbricht. In the face of an imminent economic collapse, Rau blamed the "Bureau Ulbricht" for the wrong policy. In response East Germany's old president Wilhelm Pieck renewed the old accusation of Trotskyism against Rau. In a later letter to Pieck of 28 November 1951, Rau protested at the manner in which the Secretariat usurped the Politburo by censoring his speech on economic affairs.

In 1952–1953, Rau led the newly established Coordination Centre for Industry and Traffic at the East German Council of Ministers. The purpose of this office was effective control of the economy in order to overcome the difficulties, which were caused by a grown bureaucracy and unclear decision paths. Prime Minister Otto Grotewohl described this in a talk with Joseph Stalin.

After the death of Stalin in March 1953, the new collective Soviet leadership started to advocate a New Course. Moscow favored replacing East Germany's Stalinist party leader Walter Ulbricht and made inquiries about Rau as a potential candidate. In response, the leading SED party ideologist, Rudolf Herrnstadt, a candidate member of the Poliburo, with assistance from Rau drew up a concept for just such a New Course in East Germany. However, the workers' uprising, which was suppressed by the Soviet army on 17 June led to a backlash. Three weeks later, during a session of the then eight person Politburo (plus six candidate members) on 8 July 1953, Rau made a recommendation that Ulbricht be replaced, while Rau's Spanish Civil War comrade, Stasi chief Wilhelm Zaisser, who in Spain had been known as 'General Gómez', accused Ulbricht of having perverted the party. The majority was against Ulbricht. His only supporters were Hermann Matern and Erich Honecker. At that moment however there was no viable candidate who could replace Ulbricht immediately. Suggested were first Rudolf Herrnstadt and then Heinrich Rau, but both were hesitant, thus a decision was postponed. The very next day after the meeting Ulbricht went by plane to Moscow and the Soviet leadership, who in part also feared that deposing Ulbricht might be construed as a sign of weakness, now secured Ulbricht's position. Subsequently, five members and candidate members of the Politburo lost their positions.

### 1953–1961

#### Competition in the Politburo and economic reform

Unlike some other rebels in the leadership, Rau kept most of his positions. He remained a member of the Politburo and deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers. In the Politburo he continued to be responsible for the industry of the GDR. However, his position had been weakened. Bruno Leuschner, a follower of Ulbricht and Rau's successor as chairman of the National Planning Commission, now became a new candidate member of the Politburo. During the ensuing period, Leuschner, often supported by Ulbricht, gradually superseded Rau as the senior leader for the economy as a whole. The official GDR press never mentioned the dissension between Rau and Leuschner and always described their cooperation as a success story.

Concentrating on his tasks in the SED leadership and as a minister, Rau – despite occasional internal criticism – avoided giving the impression of any disagreement with Ulbricht, at least in public. In 1954, Rau received in the Order of Merit for the Fatherland (Vaterländischer Verdienstorden) in gold. Later, Ulbricht stated in a 1964 interview about the "introduction of socialism" in the GDR, that only three people were heavily involved in the economic development during that time, "namely Heinrich Rau, Bruno Leuschner and me. Others were not consulted!"

In 1953–1955 Rau led the new established Ministry for Machine Construction, which combined the responsibilities of three existing ministries. His deputy in this ministry was Erich Apel, who would, in the early 1960s, become an initiator and architect of an economic reform, which became known as the New Economic System (NES). This later reform was presaged by a reform in the middle of the 1950s; the economic historian Jörg Roesler considers the NES in the 1960s as a continuation of this reform. The origin of the reform in the 1950s was a scientific study, commissioned by Rau's ministry in 1953, to assess the need for greater economic efficiency in the factories. The subsequent results from this study promised enhanced economic efficiency by shifting more responsibility from the National Planning Commission to the enterprises themselves. Thenceforward, already in spring 1954, Rau advocated such a planning reform, while planning boss Bruno Leuschner quite consistently opposed it. In August 1954, Rau's ministry sent a concept for such a reform to Leuschner's State Planning Commission. Eventually this reform got under way, after Ulbricht, perhaps under the influence of his new personal economic adviser Wolfgang Berger, had approved such a policy at the end of 1954 too. Subsequently, the reform accelerated until 1956. It found however its early end in the generally aggravated political atmosphere in 1957. Unrests in other Eastern Bloc countries during the previous year 1956, in particular in Hungary, had awoken the desire for more central control again. The subsequent unsatisfying economic development, however, during the following years eventually led in the 1960s to the concept of a new planning reform, the NES.

#### Foreign trade and foreign policy

Between 1955 and 1961 Rau served as Minister for Foreign Trade and Inter-German Trade. The term "Inter-German Trade" meant the trade with West Germany. In this time both German states still saw German reunification as their own aim, but both envisaging different political systems. The West German position was that they, as the only freely elected government, had an exclusive mandate for the entire German people. In consequence of this, the GDR's official diplomatic relationships with other states were narrowed to the states of the Eastern Bloc. Practically no other states recognized the GDR. As a result, Rau's ministry established numerous new "trade missions" in other states, which served as a kind of surrogate for nonexistent embassies. It was a corollary, that Rau, in addition to his responsibility for the export-oriented industry, also chaired the Foreign Policy Commission of the SED Politburo (Außenpolitische Kommission beim Politbüro or APK) since 1955, in this period the actual decision-making body for foreign affairs, and visited other states in different parts of the world in this capacity. Among the visited states were, beside the core states of the Soviet Bloc, also then Eastern Bloc peripheral states, like China and Albania and leading states of the crystallizing Non-Aligned Movement like India and Yugoslavia (after the Bandung Conference). Between 1955 and 1957 he visited, as part of a diplomatic advertisement campaign in the Arab world, various Arabic states, among them repeatedly Egypt. One of his last deals, which he closed as minister, was a trade agreement with Cuba, signed by Cuba's minister Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, on 17 December 1960 in East Berlin.

Rau, in poor health during his final years, died of a heart attack in East Berlin, in March 1961. He was cremated and honoured with burial at the Memorial to the Socialists (German: Gedenkstätte der Sozialisten) in the Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery, Berlin.

## Aftermath and legacy

After his death, firms, schools, recreation homes, numerous streets, and a fighter squadron were named after him. The GDR issued a stamp with his picture three times.

Rau was married twice and had three sons and a daughter. Like the other members of the Politburo, he lived until 1960 in a secured area of East Berlin's district Pankow and moved in 1960 to the Waldsiedlung near Wandlitz. In Pankow he had lived in Majakowskiring no. 50. In 1963, Rau's widow Elisabeth moved to this street again.

When the prominent West German SPD politician and future President of Germany Johannes Rau visited an SPD rally in the East German city of Erfurt during the time of German reunification, he was introduced as "Prime Minister 'Heinrich Rau'". Thereupon Johannes Rau ironically commented on this lapse by observing that Heinrich Rau was a "Minister of Trade, a Swabian and a communist" and he was none of the three.

## See also

- International Brigades order of battle
- East German mark
- Hallstein Doctrine
- History of East Germany
- Medal for Fighters Against Fascism

German Communist politician (1899–1961)

Independent Social Democratic Party politicians

Members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany

Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold

Refugees from Nazi Germany in the Soviet Union


Russian military deception

Russian military deception, sometimes known as maskirovka (Russian: маскировка, lit. 'disguise'), is a military doctrine developed from the start of the 20th century. The doctrine covers a broad range of measures for military deception, from camouflage to denial and deception.

Deceptive measures include concealment, imitation with decoys and dummies, manoeuvres intended to deceive, denial, and disinformation. The 1944 Soviet Military Encyclopedia refers to "means of securing combat operations and the daily activities of forces; a complexity of measures, directed to mislead the enemy regarding the presence and disposition of forces..." Later versions of the doctrine also include strategic, political, and diplomatic means including manipulation of "the facts", situation, and perceptions to affect the media and opinion around the world, so as to achieve or facilitate tactical, strategic, national and international goals.

Deception contributed to major Soviet victories including the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Kursk, and Operation Bagration (in Belarus): in these cases, surprise was achieved despite very large concentrations of force, both in attack and in defence. The doctrine has also been put into practice in peacetime, with denial and deception operations in events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Prague Spring, and the annexation of Crimea.

## Development of the doctrine

The Russian doctrine of military deception has evolved with time, and it encompasses a number of meanings. The Russian term маскировка (maskirovka) literally means masking. An early military meaning was camouflage, soon extended to battlefield masking using smoke and other methods of screening. From there it came to have the broader meaning of military deception, widening to include denial and deception.

### Historical antecedents

The practice of military deception predates Russia. The Art of War, written in the 5th century BC and attributed to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tsu, describes a strategy of deception: "I will force the enemy to take our strength for weakness, and our weakness for strength, and thus will turn his strength into weakness". Early in Russia's history, in the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380, Prince Dmitry Donskoy defeated the armies of the Mongol Golden Horde using a surprise attack from a regiment hidden in forest. The tactics of that battle are still cited in Russian cadet schools.

### Before World War II

The Russian Army had a deception school, active in 1904, disbanded in 1929. Meanwhile, military deception was developed as a military doctrine in the 1920s. The 1924 Soviet directive for higher commands stated that operational deception had to be "based upon the principles of activity, naturalness, diversity, and continuity and includes secrecy, imitation, demonstrative actions, and disinformation."

The 1929 Field Regulations of the Red Army stated that "surprise has a stunning effect on the enemy. For this reason all troop operations must be accomplished with the greatest concealment and speed." Concealment was to be attained by confusing the enemy with movements, camouflage and use of terrain, speed, use of night and fog, and secrecy. "Thus 'in Soviet military art during the 1920s the theory of operational maskirovka was developed as one of the most important means of achieving surprise in operations.'"

The 1935 Instructions on Deep Battle and then the 1936 Field Regulations place increasing stress on battlefield deception. The Instructions define the methods of achieving surprise as air superiority; making forces mobile and manoeuvrable; concealing concentration of forces; keeping fire preparations secret; misleading the enemy; screening with smoke and technical deception; and using the cover of darkness. In the 1939 Russian invasion of Finland, white winter camouflage was worn by Soviet troops.

### 1944 concept

The 1944 Soviet Military Encyclopedia defines military deception as the means of securing combat operations and the daily activities of forces; misleading the enemy about the presence and disposition of forces, objectives, combat readiness and plans. It asserts that it contributes to achieving surprise, preserving combat readiness and the survivability of objectives.

### 1978 concept

The 1978 Soviet Military Encyclopedia defines deception similarly, placing additional stress on strategic levels, and explicitly including political, economic and diplomatic measures besides the military ones. It largely repeats the 1944 Encyclopedia's concept, but adds that

> Strategic maskirovka is carried out at national and theater levels to mislead the enemy as to political and military capabilities, intentions and timing of actions. In these spheres, as war is but an extension of politics, it includes political, economic and diplomatic measures as well as military.

### Modern doctrine

Russian military deception is broadly equated with maskirovka, but other Russian terms are also used in the area, including the "fog of war", tuman voyny. Khitrost means a commander's personal gift of cunning and guile, part of his military skill, whereas deception is practised by the whole organization and does not carry the sense of personal trickiness; nor need the Russian use of deception be thought of as "evil". Indeed, Michael Handel reminds readers, in the preface to the military analyst David Glantz's book, of Sun Tzu's claim in The Art of War that all warfare is based on deception; Handel suggests that deception is a normal and indeed necessary part of warfare. The goal of military deception is however surprise, vnezapnost, so the two are naturally studied together.

However, the military analyst William Connor cautioned that in the Soviet sense, the doctrine covered much more than camouflage and deception. It had, he suggested, the connotation of active control of the enemy. By the time of Operation Bagration in 1944, Connor argues, the Russian doctrine of military deception already included all these aspects. The meaning evolved in Soviet practice and doctrine to include strategic, political, and diplomatic objectives, in other words operating at all levels.

This differs from Western doctrines on deception, and from information warfare doctrines, by its emphasis on pragmatic aspects. According to the analyst James Hansen, deception "is treated as an operational art to be polished by professors of military science and officers who specialize in this area." In 2015, Julian Lindley-French described strategic maskirovka as "a new level of ambition" established by Moscow to unbalance the West both politically and militarily.

In military intelligence, the Russian doctrine roughly corresponds to Western notions of denial and deception. The United States Army's Glossary of Soviet Military Terminology from 1955 defined maskirovka as "camouflage; concealment; disguise." The International Dictionary of Intelligence from 1990 defined it as the Russian military intelligence (GRU) term for deception.

Robert Pringle's 2006 Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence defined it as strategic deception. Scott Gerwehr's The Art of Darkness summarized it as deception and operational security. The historian Tom Cubbage commented that military deception was enormously successful for the Soviets, and whatever the United States might think, for the Soviet Union it was something to make use of both in war and in peacetime.

An article in The Moscow Times explained: "But маскировка has a broader military meaning: strategic, operational, physical and tactical deception. Apparently in U.S. military terminology, this is called either CC&D (camouflage, concealment and deception) or more recently D&D (denial and deception). It is the whole shebang—from guys in ski masks or uniforms with no insignia, to undercover activities, to hidden weapons transfers, to—well, starting a civil war but pretending that you've done nothing of the sort."

In his comprehensive study, Soviet Military Deception in the Second World War, Glantz summarized the Russian doctrine as involving both active and passive deception and surprise. For the Soviets, deception permeated all levels of war. And since they thought of war as just an extension of politics by other means, deception could and should be used and constantly considered in politics before a war began, if it was to work effectively.

The American defence researcher Charles Smith identified different dimensions of Russian military deception. He divided it into multiple types—optical, thermal, radar, radio, sound/silence; multiple environments—aquatic, space, atmosphere—each involving active or passive measures; and organizational aspects—mobility, level, and organization. The levels are the conventional military ones, strategic, operational, and tactical, while organization refers to the military branch concerned. Finally, Smith identified principles—plausibility, continuity through peace and war, variety, and persistent aggressive activity; and contributing factors, namely technological capability and political strategy.

Smith also analyzed the Soviet doctrine, considering it as "a set of processes designed to mislead, confuse, and interfere with accurate data collection regarding all areas of Soviet plans, objectives, and strengths or weaknesses".

## In practice

### Beginnings

The Battle of Kulikovo in 1380 was cited by Smith as an early example of the successful use of deception; a regiment had hidden in the forest, and the battle is seen as the beginning of the freeing of the Russian lands from Tatar rule.

At least three elements, namely deception, concealment, and disinformation with false defensive works and false troop concentrations, were used by Georgy Zhukov in the 1939 Battles of Khalkhin Gol against Japan. The deceptions included apparent requests for material for bunkers, the broadcasting of the noise of pile-drivers and wide distribution of a pamphlet What the Soviet Soldier Must Know in Defence. In his memoirs Zhukov described them as such, noting that they were worked out at army group or "operational-tactical" level.

### Rzhev-Vyazma, 1942

The first offensive to have its own deception operation was in Zhukov's part of the attack on the Rzhev-Vyazma salient to the west of Moscow in July and August, 1942. The offensive was conducted by Ivan Konev's Kalinin Front on the north, and Zhukov's Western Front with 31st Army and 20th Army on the south. Zhukov decided to simulate a concentration of forces some 200 kilometres (120 mi) to the south near Yukhnov, in the sector of his 43rd, 49th and 50th Armies.

He created two deception operation staffs in that sector, and allocated 4 deception (maskirovka) companies, 3 rifle companies, 122 vehicles, 9 tanks and other equipment including radios for the deception. These forces built 833 dummy tanks, guns, vehicles, field kitchens and fuel tanks, and used their real and dummy equipment to simulate the unloading of armies from a railhead at Myatlevo, and the concentration of armour and motorized infantry as if preparing to attack Yukhnov. The radios communicated false traffic between the simulated armies and Front headquarters.

The real tanks and other vehicles made tracks like those of troop columns. When the Luftwaffe attacked, the deception units returned fire and lit bottles of fuel to simulate fires. The deception had the immediate effect of increasing Luftwaffe air strikes against the railhead and false concentration area, while the two railheads actually in use were not attacked, and the Wehrmacht moved three Panzer divisions and one motorized infantry division of XL Panzer Corps to the Yukhnov area. Meanwhile, the real troop concentration to the north was conducted at night and in thick forests.

Zhukov's attack began on 4 August, and the 20th and 31st Armies advanced 40 kilometres (25 mi) in two days. The Russians claimed that surprise had been achieved; this is confirmed by the fact that German intelligence failed to notice Zhukov's concentration of 20th and 31st Armies on Rzhev. Other small offensives on the same front had poorly planned and executed deception measures, but these were largely unsuccessful. The successful deception for the attack on Rzhev showed that military deception could be effective, but that only certain Red Army commanders applied it correctly.

### Battle of Stalingrad, 1942–1943

Military deception based on secrecy was critical in hiding Soviet preparations for the decisive Operation Uranus encirclement in the Battle of Stalingrad. In the historian Paul Adair's view, the successful November 1942 Soviet counter-attack at Stalingrad was the first instance of Stavka's newly discovered confidence in large-scale deception. Proof of the success of the Soviet deception came, Adair notes, from the Chief of the German General Staff, General Kurt Zeitzler, who claimed early in November that "the Russians no longer have any reserves worth mentioning and are not capable of launching a large-scale attack." This was two months before the German 6th Army capitulated.

Hitler's own self-deception played into this, as he was unwilling to believe that the Red Army had sufficient reserves of armour and men. Further, the many ineffective Red Army attacks to the north of Stalingrad had unintentionally given the impression that it was unable to launch any substantial attack, let alone a rapid army-scale pincer movement. Careful attention was paid to security, with greatly reduced radio traffic. The Germans failed to detect the creation of five new tank armies. Troop movements were successfully concealed by moving the armies up only at night, and camouflaging them by day on the open, treeless steppes.

Strategic deception included increasing military activity far away, near Moscow. At the sites of the planned attack, elaborate disinformation was fed to the enemy. Defence lines were built to deceive German tactical reconnaissance. Civilians within 25 kilometres (16 mi) of the front were evacuated, and trenches were dug around the villages for Luftwaffe reconnaissance to see. Conversely, along the uninvolved Voronezh Front, bridging equipment and boats were prepared to suggest an offensive there. The five real bridges that were built for the attack were masked by the construction of seventeen false bridges over the River Don.

To the south of Stalingrad, for the southern arm of the pincer movement, 160,000 men with 550 guns, 430 tanks and 14,000 trucks were ferried across the much larger River Volga, which was beginning to freeze over with dangerous ice floes, entirely at night. Overall, Stavka succeeded in moving a million men, 1000 tanks, 14,000 guns and 1400 aircraft into position without alerting their enemy.

Despite the correct appreciation by German air reconnaissance of a major build-up of forces on the River Don, the commander of the 6th Army, Friedrich Paulus took no action. He was caught completely by surprise, failing either to prepare his armour as a mobile reserve with fuel and ammunition, or to move it on the day of the attack. The historian David Glantz considered that the concealment of the scale of the offensive was the Red Army's "greatest feat".

### Battle of Kursk, 1943

Deception was put into practice on a large scale in the 1943 Battle of Kursk, especially on the Red Army's Steppe Front commanded by Ivan Konev. This was a deception for a defensive battle, as Hitler was planning to attack the Kursk salient in a pincer movement. The Soviet forces were moved into position at night and carefully concealed, as were the extensively prepared defences-in-depth, with multiple lines of defence, minefields, and as many as 200 anti-tank guns per mile. Soviet defences were quickly built up using deception techniques to conceal the flow of men and equipment.

This was accompanied by a whole suite of deception measures including feint attacks, false troop and logistics concentrations, radio deception, false airfields and false rumours. In mid-June 1943 German army high command (OKH) had estimated 1500 Soviet tanks in the Kursk salient, against the true figure of over 5100, and underestimated Soviet troop strength by a million. The historian Lloyd Clark observes that while the Wehrmacht was "feeding on intelligence scraps", the Soviets were "mastering maskirovka".

The result was that the Germans attacked Russian forces far stronger than those they were expecting. The commander of the Soviet 1st Tank Army, Mikhail Katukov, remarked that the enemy "did not suspect that our well-camouflaged tanks were waiting for him. As we later learned from prisoners, we had managed to move our tanks forward unnoticed." Katukov's tanks were concealed in defensive emplacements prepared before the battle, with only their turrets above ground level. Glantz records that the German general Friedrich von Mellenthin wrote

> The horrible counter-attacks, in which huge masses of manpower and equipment took part, were an unpleasant surprise for us... The most clever camouflage of the Russians should be emphasized again. We did not ... detect even one minefield or anti-tank area until ... the first tank was blown up by a mine or the first Russian anti-tank guns opened fire.

### Operation Bagration, 1944

The 1944 Operation Bagration in Belarus applied the strategic aims and objectives on a grand scale, to deceive the Germans about the scale and objectives of the offensive. The historian Paul Adair commented that "Once the Stavka had decided upon the strategic plan for their 1944 summer offensive [Bagration], they began to consider how the Germans could be deceived about the aims and scale of the offensive... the key to the maskirovka operation was to reinforce the German conviction that operations would continue along this [southern] axis".

In particular, the Stavka needed to be certain that the Germans believed the main Soviet attack would be in the south. The Soviet plan successfully kept the German reserves doing nothing south of the Pripyat marshes until the battle to the north in Belorussia had already been decided. Stavka succeeded in concealing the size and position of very large movements of supplies, as well as of forces including seven armies, eleven aviation corps and over 200,000 troop replacements. As for the strategic offensive itself, its location, strength and timing were effectively concealed. Stavka and the Red Army applied the doctrine of military deception at three levels:

- Strategic (theatre-wide): Stavka hid the location, strength, and timing of the attack, with dummy troop concentrations on the flanks displayed to the enemy before the battle, other offensives timed to work as diversions, and forces left where the enemy expected an attack (three tank armies in Ukraine), away from the true location of the attack (Belarus)
- Operational: the Red Army hid the locations, strengths and objectives of each force
- Tactical: each unit hid its concentrations of troops, armour and guns

The German Army Group Centre (where the main attack fell) underestimated Soviet infantry by 40%, mechanised forces by 300% and the number of tanks as 400 to 1800, instead of the 4000 to 5200 in fact arrayed against them. The German high command (OKH) and Adolf Hitler grossly underestimated the threat to Army Group Centre, confidently redeploying a third of its artillery, half its tank destroyers and 88% of its tanks to the Southern front where OKH expected the Soviet attack. Only 580 German armoured vehicles were in place for the battle.

In the battle, Army Group Centre was almost totally destroyed, losing its Fourth Army encircled east of Minsk, its 3rd Panzer Army (LIII Corps encircled in Vitebsk), and its Ninth Army encircled east of Bobruisk. In military historian Bruce Pirnie's view, "the Germans were more completely fooled prior to Operation Bagration than they had been prior to Operation Uranus [at Stalingrad]". Pirnie concluded, based largely on Bagration and Uranus with a look at other Second World War operations, that the Soviet military deception in Bagration was unsophisticated, but "clever and effective".

The Soviets succeeded in distorting OKH's intelligence picture, given that German intelligence had to rely mainly on radio intercept, aerial photography and agents left behind in the territory they had once held. Stavka deceived OKH by playing to their three sources of information; Stavka systematically denied the Germans real intelligence on Red Army forces as they concentrated for the attack, and revealed other real and simulated forces in other places. However Stavka may have come to do this, it "played well to the Germans' mental attitude".

Hitler's own reckless optimism and determination to hold on to captured territory at all costs encouraged him to believe the picture suggested by the Russians. Meanwhile, his advisors believed the Soviet Union was running out of men and materiel, with much less industrial production than it in fact had. Thus they underestimated the forces ranged against them, a belief encouraged by continued deception operations. Pirnie points out that it did not have to succeed in every aspect to be successful. In Belarus, the German armies involved had a good idea of the locations and approximate timing of Operation Bagration, but the higher levels, Army Group Centre and OKH failed to appreciate how strong the attacks would be, or the intention to encircle the Army Group. The "combination of display and concealment, directed at the highest command levels, typified their most successful deception."

### Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

The Soviet intelligence services and the Soviet military used deceptive measures to conceal from the United States their intentions in Operation Anadyr, which led to the Cuban Missile Crisis. According to CIA analyst James Hansen, the Soviet Army most likely used large-scale battlefield deception before the Cuban Missile Crisis "more frequently and with more consistent success than any other army."

The soldiers involved in Anadyr were provided with winter clothing and informed they would be going to the east of the Soviet Union. On board ship, intelligence officers allowed the 40,000 soldiers involved on deck only during the hours of darkness. The force, including missiles, reached Cuba before US intelligence became aware of it.

Anadyr was planned from the start with elaborate denial and deception, ranging from the soldiers' ski boots and fleece-lined parkas to the name of the operation, a river and town in the chilly far east. Once America had become aware of Soviet intentions, deception continued in the form of outright denial, as when, on 17 October 1962, the embassy official Georgy Bolshakov gave President John F. Kennedy a "personal message" from the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev reassuring him that "under no circumstances would surface-to-surface missiles be sent to Cuba."

Hansen's analysis ends with a recognition of the Soviet advantage in deception in 1962. In Hansen's view, the fact that the Killian Report did not even mention adversarial denial and deception was an indication that American intelligence had not begun to study foreign D&D; it did not do so for another 20 years. Hansen considered it likely that with a properly-prepared "deception-aware analytic corps", America could have seen through Khrushchev's plan long before Maj. Heyser's revealing U-2 mission. In Hansen's view, it would take four decades before American intelligence fully understood the extent of Soviet deception before the Cuban Missile Crisis, especially the way the Soviets hid the truth of its strategic missile deployment behind a mass of lies, on "a scale that most US planners could not comprehend".

### Czechoslovakia, 1968

The Soviet Union made substantial use of deception while preparing for their military intervention of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The historian Mark Lloyd called the effect on the Prague Spring "devastating". When the Kremlin had failed to reverse the Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubček's liberal reforms with threats, it decided to use force, masked by deception. The measures taken included transferring fuel and ammunition out of Czechoslovakia on a supposed logistics exercise; and confining most of their soldiers to barracks across the northern Warsaw Pact area. The Czechoslovak authorities thus did not suspect anything when two Aeroflot airliners made unscheduled landings at night, full of "fit young men".

The men cleared customs and travelled to the Soviet Embassy in the centre of Prague. There they picked up weapons and returned to the airport, taking over the main buildings. They at once allowed further aircraft to land uniformed Spetsnaz and airborne troops, who took over key buildings across Prague before dawn. Reinforcements were then brought in by road, in complete radio silence, leaving NATO electronic warfare units "confused and frustrated".

### Ukraine, 2014

The 2014 annexation of Crimea was described in the West as maskirovka. As the BBC writer, Lucy Ash put it: "Five weeks later, once the annexation had been rubber-stamped by the Parliament in Moscow, Putin admitted Russian troops had been deployed in Crimea after all. But the lie had served its purpose. Maskirovka is used to wrong-foot your enemies, to keep them guessing." The area was swiftly occupied by so-called little green men, armed men in military trucks who came at night, with no insignia, so that even pro-Russian activists did not understand what was happening.

They were later revealed as Russian special forces, but at the time Vladimir Putin denied this. Time magazine reported in April 2014 that the troops in eastern Ukraine described themselves as Cossacks, whereas analysts in Ukraine and the West considered at least some of them to be Russian special forces. Their obscure origins made them seem more menacing and harder to deal with.

The article observed that the wearing of face masks (actually, balaclavas) was typical of the Russian tradition of military deception, making asking why they were worn, as one masked separatist remarked, "a stupid question". In April 2014, the Huffington Post asserted that "President Putin's game plan in Ukraine becomes clearer day by day despite Russia's excellent, even brilliant, use of its traditional maskirovka".

The subsequent war in the Donbas region of Ukraine has also been described as a Russian maskirovka campaign. As with Crimea, the conflict began when armed 'rebel' forces without military insignia began seizing government infrastructure. Unlike the action in Crimea, there were no Russian military bases to deploy soldiers from. Support for Russia amongst the local population was not as high, and Donbas was larger and less isolated than the peninsula.

A variety of deceptions were practised. Russia sent "humanitarian" convoys to Donbas; the first, of military trucks painted white, attracted much media attention, and was described as "a wonderful example of maskirovka" by a US Air Force General. Regular Russian troops were captured by Ukraine numerous times, making denial of their involvement increasingly implausible.

## See also

- Active measures
- Fear, uncertainty and doubt
- Maneuver warfare
- Operational art
- Proxy war
- Salami tactics
- Soviet deep battle

Russian military doctrine


2010 Sylvania 300

The 2010 Sylvania 300 was a stock car racing competition that took place on September 19, 2010. Held at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, New Hampshire, the 300-lap race was the twenty-seventh in the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, as well as the first in the ten-race Chase for the Sprint Cup, which ended the season. Clint Bowyer of the Richard Childress Racing team won the race; Denny Hamlin finished second and Jamie McMurray came in third.

Brad Keselowski won the pole position, although he was almost immediately passed by Tony Stewart at the start of the race. Many Chase for the Sprint Cup participants, including Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch, and Hamlin, were in the top ten for most of the race, although some encountered problems in the closing laps. Stewart was leading the race with two laps remaining but ran out of fuel, giving the lead, and the win, to Bowyer. There were twenty-one lead changes among eight different drivers, as well as eight cautions during the race.

The race was Bowyer's first win in the 2010 season, and the third of his career. The result advanced Bowyer to second in the Drivers' Championship, thirty-five points behind Hamlin and ten ahead of Kevin Harvick, although he fell to twelfth in the standings after receiving a post-race penalty. Chevrolet maintained its lead in the Manufacturers' Championship, thirty-two points ahead of Toyota and seventy-four ahead of Ford, with nine races remaining in the season. Attendance was 95,000, while 3.68 million watched it on television.

## Report

### Background

New Hampshire Motor Speedway is one of ten intermediate tracks that hold NASCAR races. The standard track at New Hampshire Motor Speedway is a four-turn oval track, 1.058 miles (1.703 km) long. Its banking in the turns varies from two to seven degrees, while the front stretch, the finish line, and the back stretch are all banked at one degree.

Before the race, Denny Hamlin led the Drivers' Championship with 5,060 points, followed by Jimmie Johnson with 5,050. Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch were tied for third place with 5,030 points, and Kyle's older brother Kurt Busch had 5,020 points. Tony Stewart, with 5,010 points, was tied with Greg Biffle, and Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, Jeff Burton, Matt Kenseth and Clint Bowyer rounded out the top twelve with 5,000 points each. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Chevrolet was leading with 188 points, twenty-nine points ahead of their rival Toyota. Ford, with 120 points, was fifteen points ahead of Dodge in the battle for third place. Mark Martin was the race's defending champion.

A number of drivers competing in the 2010 Chase for the Sprint Cup entered the race optimistic about their chances of winning the championship. Biffle argued that he, Burton, or Stewart were "capable of winning it". Johnson, who already had eighteen previous wins in the Chase, observed that "those 10 races in the Chase is its own world. The people act and react differently under pressure, and for the last four years we have done a great job in that environment." Hamlin commented, "Reliability is the only thing we need to work on. It's taken us out of the last three Chases, not being reliable. You have to have it to be the champion." Ray Evernham also opined on Hamlin, "I think Denny knows that he has the talent to win the championship. I think that he's got focus right now and a good, veteran crew chief in Mike Ford. If Toyota gives him the speed, he could be a threat."

### Practice and qualifying

Three practice sessions were held before the Sunday race—one on Friday, and two on Saturday. The first session lasted 90 minutes, and the second 50 minutes. The final session lasted 60 minutes. During the first practice session, Stewart was fastest, placing ahead of Edwards in second and Marcos Ambrose in third. A. J. Allmendinger was scored fourth, and Kyle Busch placed fifth. David Ragan, Johnson, Brad Keselowski, Biffle, and Hamlin rounded out the top ten fastest drivers in the session.

Forty-five drivers attempted to qualify; due to NASCAR's qualifying procedure, only forty-three could race. Keselowski clinched his first pole position in the Sprint Cup Series, with a time of 28.515. He was joined on the front row of the grid by Bowyer. Stewart qualified third, Jamie McMurray took fourth, and Juan Pablo Montoya started fifth. Johnson, one of the drivers in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, qualified twenty-fifth, while Harvick was scored in twenty-seventh. The two drivers who failed to qualify for the race were Jeff Green and Johnny Sauter. Once qualifying concluded Keselowski said, "I felt I got a shot at the pole before I qualified but you never really know. When I ran the lap I knew I gave up a little bit of time right in the middle of both corners but I had a plan going into it and stuck to it and it worked. I’m really proud of that lap."

On Saturday morning, Stewart was fastest in the second practice session, ahead of Sam Hornish Jr. in second, and McMurray in third. Ryan Newman was fourth quickest, and Bowyer took fifth. Kurt Busch, who ended up receiving a penalty for using extra tires, managed sixth. Mark Martin, Johnson, Kasey Kahne, and Montoya followed in the top ten. Of the other drivers in the Chase, Hamlin was scored sixteenth fastest, while Harvick was scored in twenty-fourth. McMurray paced the final practice session, with Jeff Gordon and Johnson following in second and third respectively. Stewart was fourth fastest, ahead of Montoya and Bowyer. Hamlin was scored seventh, Kahne eighth, Dale Earnhardt Jr. ninth, and David Reutimann tenth. Other Chase drivers included Kyle Busch in twenty-first and Kenseth in thirtieth.

### Race

The race, the twenty-seventh of a total of thirty-six in the 2010 season, began at 1:00 p.m. EDT and was televised live in the United States on ESPN. Around the start of the race, weather conditions were partly cloudy with an air temperature around 70 °F (21 °C). Jonathan DeFelice, president of St. Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire, began pre-race ceremonies with the invocation. Anthony Gargiula performed the national anthem, and Mark Corcoran, VP of Industrial and Commercial Sales for Sylvania, gave the command for drivers to start their engines. During the pace laps, two drivers had to move to the rear of the grid due to unapproved changes: David Gilliland because of an engine change, and Andy Lally because of a transmission change.

Keselowski retained his pole position lead into the first corner, with Bowyer behind him. One lap later, Stewart passed Keselowski to become the new race leader; Montoya passed Keselowski for the second position on the next lap. By lap eight, Stewart had a lead of over one second. After starting the race in twelfth, Kurt Busch moved up to ninth position by lap nine. Paul Menard, who started in eighth, fell to eleventh position by lap twelve. After losing two positions early, Bowyer moved back up into third position by passing Keselowski. By the nineteenth lap, Johnson had moved up eight positions to seventeenth, and Harvick had moved up seven positions to twentieth.

Earnhardt, who began the race in thirty-second, had moved up ten positions to twenty-second by lap 22. Two laps later, Bowyer passed Montoya for second position. Scott Speed spun sideways and collided with the wall four laps later, causing the first caution of the race. On lap 28, Robby Gordon moved into the lead for one lap, delaying his pit stop until lap 29. Once the race resumed, Bowyer regained the lead followed by McMurray in second. McMurray led the next lap, but Bowyer reclaimed the lead on lap 32. Three laps later, Kyle Busch, in seventh place, collided with the wall, but escaped with minor damage. A collision involving Ambrose and Menard occurred on lap 39 and prompted the second caution.

Most drivers stayed on the track during the caution, allowing Bowyer to remain the leader on the restart. On lap 48, Michael McDowell drove to the garage because of engine problems. Five laps later, Bowyer led the race, with McMurray 1.3 seconds behind him. Landon Cassill went to the garage due to failing brakes on lap 56. Johnson moved into sixth, as Edwards passed McMurray five laps later for second. By lap 64, Bowyer's lead was over 3.5 seconds.

Four laps later, Johnson passed Keselowski to claim fifth position. On the 81st lap, Earnhardt Jr. moved into seventh after passing David Reutimann and Stewart. Two laps later, Kurt Busch and Jeff Burton passed Reutimann for ninth and tenth respectively. During lap 90, Earnhardt passed Keselowski for sixth, as Johnson claimed fourth from McMurray. After 93 laps, Bowyer's lead was over five seconds. Two laps later, green flag pit stops began, as Montoya was the first to pit. On lap 98, Edwards became the new leader after Bowyer came into the pits. One lap later, Kurt Busch became the new leader, followed by Jeff Gordon and Robby Gordon. On lap 102, Bowyer reclaimed the lead as the previous leaders made their stops. Bobby Labonte and Casey Mears were unable to continue the race after their pit stops.

On lap 113, Burton moved up to sixth, while Jeff Gordon passed Earnhardt for eleventh. Allmendinger fell to twenty-fifth after pit stops due to having run out of fuel on his way onto pit road. Three laps later, both Jeff Gordon and Earnhardt had passed Reutimann for tenth and eleventh respectively. By lap 120, Bowyer had a lead of about four seconds over Edwards. Four laps later, Harvick passed Montoya for fourteenth. On lap 132, Keselowski fell to ninth after being passed by Kurt Busch and Hamlin. On lap 147, Bowyer's lead of over seven seconds was reduced to nothing when the pace car moved on track. During the caution, which was caused by debris, most of the leaders made pit stops.

Bowyer maintained his lead on the restart. On lap 153, Kyle Busch moved into tenth position by passing Jeff Gordon. Seven laps later, Burton claimed fourth. On the 162nd lap, Ryan Newman moved up to eleventh, as Keselowski fell to twelfth. Two laps later, Jeff Gordon passed Kyle Busch to move into ninth, while Stewart passed Burton for fourth. On lap 177, Montoya passed Kyle Busch for tenth position. Afterward, Kyle Busch fell to twelfth after being passed by Newman. By lap 192, Bowyer had a 3.5 second lead over McMurray. One lap later, Montoya passed Kurt Busch for ninth. On lap 199, Harvick moved into fifteenth position. Two laps later, Hamlin passed Jeff Burton to claim fifth.

On lap 206, Martin's car suffered a flat tire and the fourth caution was given as a result. Bowyer led on the restart, although he was passed by Stewart within one lap. On lap 213, Hamlin spun sideways, prompting the fifth caution. Despite remaining undamaged, Hamlin fell from fourth to twenty-second position. Stewart led on the restart, as Jeff Gordon claimed second from Bowyer. By lap 221, a sixth caution came out as Kurt Busch, Johnson, and Kyle Busch all spun sideways. After the accident, Johnson fell to twenty-fourth; Stewart maintained his lead on the restart. Five laps later, Matt Kenseth spun out, causing the seventh caution. Stewart led the drivers back to the green flag, but was overtaken by McMurray one lap later.

On lap 241, the pace car came out for the eighth and final caution, after Joey Logano collided with the outside wall. McMurray led on the restart, but Stewart reclaimed the lead on lap 247. Seven laps later, Johnson was forced to pit due to a loose wheel. By lap 257, Stewart had a lead of over one second. Five laps later, Hamlin claimed sixth from Harvick. During the 263rd lap, Bowyer passed McMurray for second. Four laps later, Newman passed Kyle Busch for tenth position. After 269 laps, Stewart's lead over Bowyer was 1.6 seconds. Six laps later, Hamlin moved into fifth position after passing Earnhardt. During lap 290, Hamlin passed McMurray for third. With two laps remaining, Stewart and Burton both ran out of fuel, handing the lead back to Bowyer. Bowyer maintained the lead to win his first race of the 2010 season. Hamlin finished second, ahead of McMurray in third, Earnhardt in fourth, and Harvick in fifth.

### Post-race comments

Bowyer appeared in Victory Lane to celebrate his first win of the season in front of 95,000 people who attended the race. Bowyer also earned \$248,250 in race winnings. Stewart took his last-minute loss of the race with good humor, saying, "We went down swinging. I think I ran me out of fuel." In the subsequent post-race press conference, Hamlin said, "First thing I asked is how many cars on the lead lap, because I wanted to see how bad our day was going to be. I set a goal (of) top 15, and then it was top eight and then top six and, 'Holy cow, we can win this thing.' We just made a heck of a charge at the end." Bowyer was delighted with his victory: "[Crew chief] Shane [Wilson] built a brand new race car and we came here and we were fast right off the truck, and everybody had a lot of confidence, a pep in their step. And we showed it from the time we unloaded to qualifying, practice, we were one of the fastest cars here. That’s what it takes to run at this level, to be a part of that Chase, if we can go and continue to have as much fun as we did this weekend. I know it’s the key, I know it is to my success."

Johnson was candid about his performance: "We had a decent car and ran in the top five and top 10 but just didn't end up finishing there." Harvick was somewhat more upbeat, saying, "We didn't have a great day. We didn't have a great weekend, honestly, and (fifth) says a lot about this team. If we keep doing that on our bad days, we will be in good shape." The race result left Hamlin leading the Drivers' Championship with 5,230 points. Bowyer, who finished first, moved to second on 5,195, ten points ahead of Harvick and twenty-seven ahead of Kyle Busch. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Chevrolet maintained the lead with 197 points. Toyota remained second with 165 points. Ford followed with 123 points, fourteen points ahead of Dodge in fourth. 3.68 million people watched the race on television. The race took two hours, fifty-eight minutes and twenty-two seconds to complete, and the margin of victory was 0.477 seconds.

Although Bowyer's car passed initial inspection, NASCAR announced that they had "discovered issues with the car in a more thorough inspection at its research and development center". Three days after the race, two teams were given penalties: Richard Childress Racing for Bowyer's car, and Whitney Motorsports for McDowell's car. Richard Childress Racing's penalty, for unauthorized alterations to the rear bodywork of Bowyer's car, included a \$150,000 fine and a six race suspension for Wilson, and the loss of 150 owner and driver points for Richard Childress and Bowyer respectively. RCR's car chief, Chad Haney, was placed on probation until December 31, 2010, and suspended from NASCAR until November 3, 2010. Whitney Motorsports' penalty was for engine exhaust valves that did not meet NASCAR's weight requirements. The penalties for that included a \$50,000 fine and six race suspension for Jeremy Lafaver, while both McDowell and owner Dusty Whitney lost 50 driver and owner points respectively.

Childress and Bowyer were both upset with the penalties and almost immediately announced plans to appeal. Bowyer argued the penalties to be too severe, saying, "I don't think the penalty fits the crime. Sixty-thousandths of an inch, folks. Grab a quarter out of your pocket. Less than the thickness of that quarter right there is worth a 150-point fine?" He also argued that his car could have been damaged slightly after the race as his car was pushed by a wrecker after it ran out of gas on its way to victory lane. "Is it possible that a two-ton wrecker could bend the quarter-panel 60-thousandths of an inch? You have to ask yourself that." The team lost the initial appeal, forcing them to make a final appeal to NASCAR National Commissioner John Middlebrook. As a result of the final appeal, Wilson's fine was reduced to \$100,000 while he and Haney's suspensions were reduced from six to four races (they were allowed to work with the team during the appeal process); however, the points penalty administered to Bowyer and his team was upheld.

Asked if he thought Bowyer could still win the championship after this setback, Stewart argued, "It's possible for sure. The biggest thing is going to be going to the race track and having that stress of not having his crew chief, not having his car chief and those are two key people on a race weekend ... I can promise you that Childress has the resources to cover this ... it's definitely possible, but everyone else is going to have to have trouble." Bowyer did not lose the victory title for the race itself; NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton commented, "We don't consider taking away the win. If you ask some, they would consider a 150-point penalty with only nine races to go in the Chase a pretty hefty penalty."

## Results

### Qualifying

### Race results

## Standings after the race

- Note: Only the top twelve positions are included for the driver standings. These drivers qualified for the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Stock car race

NASCAR races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway