The activities of illegal intelligence officers, for objective and understandable reasons, have always been surrounded by a thick veil of secrecy. If you tell everyone about illegal immigrants and their methods of work, then what kind of illegal immigrants are they? Moreover, illegal intelligence, according to the unanimous opinion of historians of special services, is the holy of holies of intelligence activities in any country in the world, and therefore candidates for work in it are selected especially carefully, relying on people with special qualities.
HARD SELECTION
“We search for candidates and find them ourselves, going through hundreds and hundreds of people. The work is truly unique. To become an illegal immigrant, a person must have many qualities: courage, determination, strong will, the ability to quickly predict various situations, resistance to stress, excellent ability to master foreign languages, good adaptation to completely new living conditions, knowledge of one or more professions that provide an opportunity earn a living,” we read in the introduction to the book under review from the words of the former first deputy chief of foreign intelligence, Lieutenant General Vadim Kirpichenko, who for a number of years headed the illegal unit of domestic foreign intelligence.
At the same time, preparing an illegal intelligence officer, as well as providing him with reliable documents and then taking him, as the intelligence officers say, abroad to perform special tasks is a matter of exceptional complexity.
“Training an illegal intelligence officer is very labor-intensive and takes several years. It is aimed at developing professional skills and abilities on the basis of the employee’s existing personal qualities,” Vladimir Antonov quotes the words of another well-known head of domestic illegal intelligence, Major General Yuri Drozdov, who was directly involved in the development and implementation of the William Fisher (Rudolph) exchange operation Abel). – Of course, it includes mastering foreign languages, training an intelligence officer psychologically, which, in particular, allows him to act as a representative of a particular nationality, a bearer of certain national and cultural characteristics. Of course, this also includes operational training, which includes developing skills in obtaining and analyzing intelligence information, maintaining contact with the Center, and other aspects. An illegal intelligence officer is a person capable of obtaining intelligence information, including through analytical means.”
However, the complexity of training an illegal intelligence officer is more than compensated by the immeasurable practical benefits that he brings to his country, especially during periods of political or military confrontation. That is why the domestic foreign intelligence service has always paid increased attention to conducting intelligence activities from illegal positions.
“For almost a century now, this legendary unit has been making a special, sometimes invaluable contribution to ensuring state security and protecting the interests of the Fatherland,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking last year at a gala event at the headquarters of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service on the occasion 95th anniversary of the creation of its illegal administration. “Our country has had to go through many trials, and illegal intelligence officers have always been, as they say, “on the front line.” More than once, it was their decisive actions, obtained information, and delicately carried out operations that literally changed the course of history, made it possible to protect our people from threats and preserve peace.”
However, due to the specifics of the work of this department, which bears fruit in ensuring the national security of Russia, we do not always learn about what certain illegal intelligence officers have done for our country. It's safe to say that we don't even know the vast majority of them. And this is justified - otherwise, what kind of illegal immigrant is this that everyone knows about? All the more valuable are rare articles, books and films about these heroes - fighters of the invisible front. One of these works is a unique book by one of the long-time authors of NVO, a veteran of state security agencies, retired colonel Vladimir Sergeevich Antonov about the legendary Soviet illegal intelligence officer Konon Trofimovich Molodoy, which was recently published in the series “The Life of Remarkable People.”
The biography of the future legend of Soviet foreign intelligence is a real cross-section of the history of our country in the 20th century, full of grandiose achievements and irreparable tragedies. Konon Trofimovich was born on January 17, 1922 in Moscow in a family of scientists: his father, Trofim Kononovich, is a teacher at Moscow State University and the Moscow Higher Technical School, head of the scientific periodicals sector of the State Publishing House, and his mother, Evdokia Konstantinovna, is a general surgeon, during the Great Patriotic War - a leading surgeon. evacuation hospital, and after the Victory - professor at the Central Research Institute of Prosthetics, author of many scientific works.
The first period of the life of the future illegal intelligence officer was largely the same as that of his other peers. The only exception was a trip to the United States to visit his mother’s sister, where he lived from 1932 to 1938. By the way, the episode with the trip to the USA, in which the all-powerful Genrikh Yagoda, who then held the post of deputy chairman of the OGPU, took an active part, is one of the never fully revealed secrets in the life of Konon the Young. Upon returning to Moscow - studies, school graduation and conscription into the army in October 1940. This is probably how the life of, as they say, an ordinary Soviet boy (albeit, without a doubt, very gifted) would have gone on: he would have returned from the army, graduated from a civilian university and would probably have become a famous scientist or a first-class specialist in some branches of science. But then war broke out...
Konon Molody ended up in the Western Military District, in the reconnaissance artillery division, and in the first months of the war took part in many difficult battles, including Smolensk and the battles near Vyazma and Rzhev. “I was in the very first link of army intelligence, which operates directly on the front line,” the future illegal intelligence officer later pointed out in the book “My Profession is Intelligence.” “Take the “tongue”, scout out the location of firing points - such tasks were assigned to the soldiers of the unit in which I served.”
At the same time, Konon Trofimovich went through the ranks in the unit from a private to an officer, assistant chief of staff. And how he carried out the tasks assigned to him and led his subordinates is evidenced by a photograph of the young lieutenant Molodoy. It shows that the hero’s chest is decorated with the Order of the Red Star, two Orders of the Patriotic War, I and II degrees, and two medals (by the way, many of the photographs given in Vladimir Antonov’s book are being published for the first time).
Having joined the army as a boy, Konon the Young returned home after the Victory as a wise front-line soldier, matured and seasoned. “Perhaps it was during the war that he developed a taste for intelligence, an adventurism, without which a person cannot choose this profession,” Trofim Molodoy later recalled about his father.
FROM SCOUT TO SCOUT
After the war - demobilization, study at the Moscow Institute of Foreign Trade, and from December 1951 - work in state security agencies, in foreign intelligence. Three years later, he is already in Canada, where he was taken illegally, and from there, with documents in the name of Canadian businessman Gordon Lonsdale, he moves to the UK, where he heads an illegal station. Then - many years of fruitful work, but in 1961 - an arrest, which became possible due to the betrayal of a high-ranking Polish foreign intelligence officer, Colonel Mikhail Golenevsky, and a sentence of 25 years in prison. However, in 1964, Konon Molody was exchanged for British intelligence officer Greville Wine and then worked in the central apparatus of foreign intelligence.
The reader can learn more about all stages of the life and professional activities of Konon the Young from the presented book by Vladimir Antonov.
At the same time, it should be especially noted that the book contains two very voluminous appendices, which provide brief information about the heads of Soviet foreign intelligence during the period of Konon Molodoy’s work in it, as well as information about his military friends and comrades-in-arms. Among the latter are the legends of domestic foreign intelligence Ashot Akopyan, George Blake, Joseph Grigulevich, Vasily Dozhdalev, Leonid Kvasnikov, Leonid Kolosov, Nikolai Korznikov, Alexander Korotkov, Vitaly Pavlov, Semyon Semenov, Yuri Sokolov and William Fisher. Behind each of these names are years of hard work in the field of foreign intelligence, associated with solving complex problems in the interests of the national security of our state.
The famous Russian writer Theodor Gladkov, in his book “The King of Illegals,” dedicated to the famous Soviet intelligence officer Alexander Korotkov, who secretly received the title “King of Illegals,” wrote: “If you ask ten random passers-by on the street how they imagine an intelligence officer, nine will be named as an example. illegal... And this is not accidental, but natural. Because it is in the illegal immigrant that all the general and specific features characteristic of the intelligence profession are concentrated to the greatest extent.”
One of these legendary illegal intelligence officers is Colonel Konon Trofimovich Molodoy, about whose bright and rich in unique events life and work (within the limits of what is permitted, of course, since many episodes of the intelligence officer’s biography will remain classified “secret” for a long time) we can read in the new book by Vladimir Antonov, one of the best authors of “NVO”, who tells on the pages of our weekly about well-known or little known Russian foreign intelligence officers who gave all their strength for the good of the Motherland.
One of the outstanding military intelligence officers is Ursula Kuczynski. A person of unusual destiny, she worked with coolness and skill. Throughout her intelligence activities, she did not make a single serious mistake and never aroused suspicion among counterintelligence. The Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army, unlike many foreign intelligence services, did not consider the main thing in the work of female agents to be the use of beauty and sexual attractiveness to obtain the required information. In a number of cases, they were residents, radio operators, couriers, recruited using traditional methods, managed agents, and performed other complex tasks. Ursula was born in 1907 in Germany into the family of an economist of Jewish origin. She graduated from the Lyceum and trade school in Berlin. She worked in a bookstore, at the same time was engaged in trade union work, and after joining the Communist Party of Germany - also in party work. Due to the economic crisis in the country, she and her husband, the architect Rudolf Hamburger, moved to China. In Shanghai, both found well-paid jobs. Sorge's Man In 1930, Richard Sorge, a resident of Soviet military intelligence, met Ursula. Initially, Kuczynski was the owner of the safe house where Sorge met with his sources. Convinced of her reliability, he began to give her individual assignments, which after a while became more complex. Ursula processed the data obtained by the station agents, translated some important documents from English into German and photographed them. Ramsay taught her the rules of secrecy, and the woman began meeting with Chinese working for Soviet intelligence to obtain information about the confrontation between the Communists and the Kuomintang, and about the course of hostilities in a number of provinces of the country. This work did not stop even after the birth of his son in 1931. Sorge reported Ursula as a promising employee to the Center and recommended sending her to Moscow to take a course at an intelligence school. He also suggested the operational pseudonym Sonya, which Kuczynski used throughout her long service in the Intelligence Directorate. Training at a special intelligence school lasted six months. Kuczynski agreed to this, although she was not allowed to take her son with her - he could acquire a Russian accent, and she was being prepared for illegal work. In addition to the basics of intelligence work and the rules of secrecy, Sonya mastered the skills of a radio operator and learned how to independently assemble transmitters and receivers from individual components and parts sold in radio stores abroad.
After successfully completing intelligence school, Kuczynski was again sent to China, to Manchuria, occupied by Japan, which was fighting the liberation movement led by the CCP. The task of Sonya and the second intelligence officer sent with her to Mukden was to provide assistance to partisan detachments, as well as to collect intelligence information about the situation in the region and Japan’s intentions towards the USSR. The work was extremely difficult and dangerous. In addition to the Chinese and Japanese, there were many Russian White emigrants in the city. During the day, the streets were patrolled by police and Japanese soldiers, and at night only bandits, drug addicts and prostitutes could be found. Under these conditions, Sonya had to hold secret meetings with partisan contacts and sources. So, one day she went to the appearance scheduled for two evenings in a row on the outskirts of the city at the entrance to the cemetery. Helping the partisans make homemade explosives was that Sonya and her partner regularly visited pharmacies and specialty stores in Mukden, buying various chemicals there. This is how they extracted sulfur, hydrochloric acid, and nitrogen fertilizers, from which the partisans made bombs. Each transfer of such components to liaison officers was associated with the risk of not only being detected by Japanese counterintelligence, but also being harmed by dangerous substances. Twice a week, Kuczynski contacted the Center from her apartment in Mukden using a radio transmitter she had assembled herself. Information was sent to the Intelligence Directorate about the situation in Manchuria, the combat activities of partisan detachments, the state of affairs in them, the characteristics of leaders and commanders. In total, Sonya conducted more than 240 radio sessions. But in the spring of 1935, Ursula and her partner were forced to urgently leave China, since due to the arrest of one of their group’s contacts by the Japanese, there was a threat of failure. Kuczynski was pregnant again, but she had no intention of giving up her activities. She believed: “Where the diapers hang, hardly anyone expects to meet a scout.” Sonya's work in China was highly praised in Moscow, and she soon received a new assignment. In the second half of 1935, Ursula arrived in Warsaw with her first husband Rudolf Hamburger, who had also been trained at the military intelligence school. The main task is to provide radio communications to the military intelligence resident in Poland, as well as to assist a group of agents located in Danzig. Sonya again assembled a radio station with her own hands from parts purchased in local stores. The intelligence officer had a daughter, Kuczynski continued to work with two young children. After some time, she moved to Danzig, where six underground workers from among the German workers working for Soviet military intelligence were in touch with her. They collected information about the functioning of the port, the construction of submarines for the Polish Navy, the sending of military cargo to warring Spain to support anti-revolutionary forces, as well as about Nazi activities in the city. Ursula actually led this group. Its people managed to organize several acts of sabotage in the port in order to disrupt military supplies to the Franco regime.
At the same time, Sonya personally provided radio communication with the Center. She lived in an apartment building and regularly sent messages from herself. It so happened that a high-ranking official of the Nazi Party settled on the floor above, with whose wife Kuczynski established friendly relations. This helped avoid failure and arrest. One day, a talkative neighbor confidentially told Ursula that, according to her husband, there was a secret spy transmitter operating in their house, the broadcasts of which were detected by the German counterintelligence agencies. In this regard, next Friday the entire neighborhood will be cordoned off and thoroughly searched by police and Gestapo forces to find the enemy spy. The center, having learned about this from Sonya's report, ordered her to immediately leave Danzig. Soon she, her husband and two children, safely left Poland. Before this, the intelligence officer received a telegram in which the Director (head of the Intelligence Directorate) congratulated her on being awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Upon returning to Moscow, Ursula was summoned to the Kremlin, where Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin presented her with a well-deserved award. However, she could not wear it, so she deposited the order with the department. New assignment In 1938, Kuczynski began a new military intelligence assignment. This time she was sent to Switzerland as an illegal resident. Sonya had to organize the receipt of the data required by the Center from Nazi Germany. Ursula and her two children settled in a mountainous region, became legalized, and established direct radio contact with the Center (she still operated the radio herself). Acting proactively and purposefully, Sonya established a wide circle of contacts she needed, among whom was an Englishman who held a high position in the apparatus of the League of Nations. From him it was possible to obtain important information that was immediately sent to Moscow. In order to achieve the tasks set by the Center, Kuczynski decided to rely on the British, who had the opportunity to move freely throughout European countries. She contacted veterans who participated in the war in Spain on the side of the Republicans, who selected and sent two reliable people to Switzerland - Alexander Foot and Leon Burton, who fought as part of the international brigade against the putschists. Sonya met with them and, after a short study, recruited them to work for Soviet military intelligence. The 30-year-old woman enjoyed unquestioned authority among these experienced fighters. Soon Sonya's residency was replenished by another person sent from Moscow, Franz Obermanns, a German refugee who also fought as part of the international brigade in Spain. He helped collect the required information and could also work as a radio operator. Kuczynski decided to send Foote to Munich, where he, using his specialty as a mechanic, was supposed to get a job at one of the aircraft manufacturers that produced Messerschmitt fighters. Burton's task was to penetrate the I. G. Farbenindustri" in Frankfurt am Main, which produced military chemical products. The British moved to Germany, but did not have time to do anything there.
It should be noted that one day, Sonya’s assistants found themselves in a restaurant in Munich, where Hitler regularly met with Eva Braun, accompanied by a small number of guards. Experienced participants in the Spanish Civil War suggested that Ursula organize the liquidation of the Nazi leader, but the Center ordered Kuczynski to urgently return them to Switzerland and train them as radio operators. The situation in Europe was becoming more complicated; fascist Germany, which had already captured Austria and Czechoslovakia, did not hide further aggressive intentions. Under these conditions, the Intelligence Directorate was preparing its illegal stations for work in wartime conditions, which required ensuring uninterrupted communications with the Center. Ursula taught Foote and Burton how to operate a walkie-talkie and how to encrypt messages, as well as how to make a radio station from commercially available parts. In December 1939, Sonya received instructions from the Center to provide assistance to another illegal resident of military intelligence in Switzerland, Sandor Rado, who at that time had no radio contact with Moscow. Kuczynski began to regularly meet with him in Geneva (the journey there by car took about three hours), picked up information reports, returned back, encrypted them and transmitted them to Moscow at night. The work was both difficult and dangerous. In Switzerland, the authorities introduced a wartime regime and strengthened police control over all foreigners living in the country. In the capital, other large cities, and in areas bordering Germany, the Gestapo and Abwehr operated almost openly, looking for enemy agents and ill-wishers of the Third Reich. Each trip, regular broadcasts, prohibited by the authorities for all radio amateurs, were associated with great risk and the threat of arrest, but Ursula acted calmly. She did not arouse suspicion either from the police or from counterintelligence, which allowed her to carry out all the instructions of the Center. At the end of 1939, Sonya managed to successfully solve another extremely difficult problem. The Kremlin decided to help the family of the famous German communist Ernst Thälmann, who was held in prison in Germany, by transferring a large sum of money to his wife Rosa. All attempts made by the foreign intelligence agencies of the NKVD to make contact failed. And the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army assigned this task to Kuczynski. Ursula sent her children's nanny to Germany, whom she completely trusted. In her luggage there was a clothes brush with a built-in hiding place. Operation was successfully completed. Although Rosa Thälmann was unable to use the money, since she was under round-the-clock control of Gestapo agents, the very fact of material assistance provided Rosa with great moral support, and the entire amount was transferred to the wife of another arrested German communist. Meanwhile, Kuczynski’s own situation became more complicated. She had documents as a German emigrant of Jewish origin and could be deported to Germany with subsequent inevitable arrest. The Swiss police, following a tip from the Gestapo, have already detained a member of the station, Sonja Obermanns, and deported him. The center ordered Ursula to urgently leave the country. The intelligence officer prepared two more radio operators for Sandor Rado's group and handed him over Foot, who remained to work in Switzerland, since he had reliable cover. Sonya and Burton were offered to move to England. To get legalized there, Kuczynski divorced her first husband and formalized her marriage to Leon, receiving an English passport. At first their union was fictitious, but then they actually became husband and wife and lived happily ever after.
In December 1940, Sonya and her two children moved to England along a long and dangerous path under the conditions of the occupation of a large part of France by Nazi Germany. Ursula's parents, brother and wife and four sisters who had left Germany to escape the Nazi regime were already there. Red walkie-talkie In accordance with the Center's instructions, Sonya was supposed to create a new illegal reconnaissance group in England, capable of obtaining information on Germany and Great Britain. Ursula had to perform the duties of a resident and at the same time a radio operator. Life in the new place was safer than in Switzerland, but it was necessary to get accustomed to an unfamiliar environment, characterized by increased spy mania and control over the airwaves. Ursula began searching for sources of information, initially using members of her family. In addition to Leon, who was already working for Soviet military intelligence, she was helped by her father, brother and one of her sisters. In addition, Sonya actively made new acquaintances and found people ready to help her and share information. Every month the Center received four to six telegrams and reports from Sonya’s illegal station. They contained data about Nazi Germany, as well as the British armed forces, military equipment, and new products used for military purposes. After Germany’s attack on the USSR, Sonya went on air and sent a short message to the Center: “My new “Red Walkie-Talkie” sends warm wishes for Victory over fascism to you and the Soviet country.” I am always with you. Sonya.”Ursula continued to conduct active intelligence activities, finding new sources that were extremely important in war conditions. The center was interested in the possibility of concluding an anti-Soviet deal between London and Berlin. Sonya reported to Moscow the opinion of the influential English Labor member Stafford Cripps about the possible results of an attack by Nazi Germany on the USSR: “The Soviet Union will be defeated in no later than three months. The Wehrmacht will pass through Russia like a hot knife through butter.” The intelligence agency highly appreciated the results of Kuczynski's work. In one of the coded messages in April 1942, the Center informed Sonya: “Your information is reliable and valued. Continue to receive updates on the state of Germany from this source. We are interested in data on strategic reserves of the most important types of raw materials (oil, all fuels and lubricants, tin, copper, chromium, nickel, tungsten, leather, etc.) and the state of food supplies for the German army and population." In October 1942 On the last day, Ursula received a new important task - to reestablish contact with Klaus Fuchs, a German emigrant who worked in Birmingham in a closed laboratory involved in the highly secret Tube Alloys project to create nuclear weapons. The physicist had already been in contact with Soviet military intelligence, but then contact with him was lost.
Ursula successfully solved the task set by the Center, finding and establishing the level of relationship required for work with Fuchs. The German emigrant began to transfer valuable materials to Sonya. This is how Moscow learned about all the research work carried out in Great Britain under the Tube Alloys program, about the creation of an experimental station in Wales to study the diffusion of uranium-235. Due to the special importance of the information received, the Center instructed Sonya to work only with Fuchs in compliance with maximum precautions, and to stop meeting with other sources. At secret meetings, Ursula received from the physicist new collections of documents and reports that revealed the theoretical foundations of the creation of nuclear weapons and the progress of work on the manufacture of a uranium bomb. At the end of 1943, Fuchs moved to the United States, where, together with American scientists, he continued work on the atomic project. Before leaving, he met with Sonya several times and gave her a total of 474 sheets of classified materials, which were forwarded to the Center through a special channel. Ursula handed Fuchs the terms of communication with the Soviet liaison officer on American territory. Based on Fuchs' data, Sonya informed Moscow that Roosevelt and Churchill signed an agreement in Quebec on joint work on an atomic bomb and on the widespread involvement of British physicists in this project, which was being implemented in the United States, taking into account the large resources of the American side. Her own people in the OSS After Fuchs’s departure, Ursula continued active work at the head of her illegal station. She managed to achieve unique results. Moscow received top-secret documents, including the Review of United States Bombing Strategy in Europe, prepared by American intelligence.
Special calculations from British intelligence officers were obtained, which made it possible to draw conclusions about the state of weapons production in the Third Reich based on the serial numbers of German models of various military equipment disabled by the Western Allies. These calculations were intended for the high military command of the United States and Great Britain, and thanks to Sonya, they also ended up with the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army. Members of the station, with the knowledge of the Center, without revealing themselves, collaborated with the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was looking for candidates to be deployed behind German lines. In this way, a lot of important information was obtained about how American intelligence works, about the direction of training and equipment of agents. Descriptions of ciphers and codes, characteristics and operating features of the newest radio station, etc. were sent to Moscow. It should be especially noted that under the conditions of the most severe counterintelligence regime operating in England, no one ever suspected a resident of the pretty woman who lived in London with her children. Soviet military intelligence. She gave birth to a third child from Leon and for neighbors and acquaintances she was a caring mother, spending almost all her free time with her children. Even her regular broadcasts on an undercover radio station were not discovered by the British counterintelligence MI5. The Second World War ended, but Sonya's activities continued. The Western allies began to change their attitude towards the USSR, seeing it as an enemy. Moscow needed reliable information about what was happening in Europe, Great Britain, and the USA. However, after the betrayal of the Soviet cryptographer in Canada, working conditions became significantly more difficult. A wave of spy mania arose, Fuchs, Foote and other agents with whom Sonya worked were arrested. In 1947, she had to leave England. After picking up the children, Kuczynski flew by plane to the British zone of occupation of Germany, after which she arrived by taxi in the Soviet sector of Berlin. Here she was met by colleagues, including Lieutenant General Ivan Ilyichev, who headed the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army during the war. The fearless intelligence officer was awarded the second Order of the Red Banner. Thus ended the fifth foreign mission of Ursula Kuczynski, who, under the operational pseudonym Sonya, forever entered the history of the GRU. Author Vyacheslav Kondrashov
Like snow on your head. Heroes of foreign intelligence: legends with continuation
http://vpk-news.ru/articles/34372
A year ago in Chelyabinsk, on the Scarlet Field near the Palace of Pioneers and Schoolchildren, a monument to illegal intelligence officer Iskhak Akhmerov was erected. The place soon became popularly known as Chekist Square. The monument to the illegal immigrant was perceived as dedicated to all “soldiers of the invisible front.” This year, city council deputies renamed the Scarlet Field into Scout Square. Anatoly Shalagin, author of the book “And I’m Proud of This,” told the Military-Industrial Courier about those after whom it was named.
– The history of domestic intelligence services does not begin in 1917, as many believe. Intelligence originated and developed together with the state. Many great people of Russia were involved in it - Alexander Griboedov, Yan Vitkevich, Ivan Turgenev, Nikolai Gumilyov. Foreign or political intelligence is conventionally divided into legal and illegal. If a failure occurs, and no one is immune from it, then a legal intelligence officer has a chance to return to his homeland. The diplomat will simply be expelled from the host country. If you don’t have a diplomatic passport, you can be arrested, but the Motherland will actively fight for its citizen. Illegal immigrants have a more tragic fate. In the history of domestic intelligence there are examples when its employees were in foreign prisons for years and the USSR could not rescue them.
– Anatoly Vladimirovich, Iskhak Akhmerov is now known to everyone. What other names are revealed to readers of your book?
– The first person worth talking about is Stanislav Martynovich Glinsky. He was born in Warsaw. His father, a railway worker, was a Social Democrat and in 1906 he and his family were exiled to Siberia for revolutionary activities. His son followed in his footsteps and joined the RSDLP. At the age of 16 he left his parents. I met the October Revolution in Chelyabinsk. When the Civil War began, he volunteered for the Red Army, served in the Ural Regiment in front-line reconnaissance, and was in the rear of the Whites. At the age of 25 he became the military commissar of Troitsk. There he met Terenty Dmitrievich Deribas, who played an important role in the fate of Glinsky, recommending the young security officer to intelligence.
– How did he prove himself?
– If we talk briefly about the merits, this is, first of all, participation in the “Syndicate” operation. A movie was made about it, books were written, and although Glinsky’s name is not mentioned anywhere, it was he who ensured that Boris Savinkov crossed the border. The result of the operation was the defeat of a terrorist organization, which was responsible for attacks on Soviet diplomatic couriers and ambassadors, and terrorist attacks in Belarus and Russia. For this development, Glinsky received his first Order of the Red Banner.
In 1924–1926, he directly participated in Operation Trust, also well known from the feature film. In it, Glinsky played the role of “bait”: it was he who transferred photographs to our enemies, including from Chelyabinsk and Troitsk, confirming the existence of an underground Monarchist Union in the USSR.
In the 30s, Glinsky was transferred to the European direction. The country's leadership understood that they needed to prepare for war. Glinsky managed to introduce two agents into the circle of Hitler, who had just come to power in Germany. And they worked for the USSR for quite a long time. In 1937, Glinsky took part in the defeat of the Russian All-Military Union, a paramilitary organization with twenty thousand members that was preparing for a campaign against Soviet Russia. In the same 1937, he received the second Order of the Red Banner and became a senior major of state security, which is equivalent to the army rank of major general. This was the first time in Soviet foreign intelligence that an employee was awarded the second Order of the Red Banner.
It seemed that Glinsky had a great future ahead of him, but... That same year, Yezhov summoned Glinsky from abroad, supposedly for a consultation. He is arrested, accused of collaborating with Polish intelligence and shot. He was rehabilitated only in 1956.
Speaking about Stanislav Glinsky, we must also say about his wife Anna Viktorovna. She was born in the village of Nizhneuvelsky, Chelyabinsk region. At the age of 15, she voluntarily joined the Red Army, was also a scout, and went to the rear of the whites. In Chelyabinsk she was arrested by Kolchak’s men. They tortured me and sentenced me to death. And Stanislav Glinsky, her future husband, saved her from certain death. When he was shot, Anna Viktorovna, as a member of the family of a traitor to the Motherland, was sentenced to the camps. She served her sentence in the notorious Karlag, from where she returned ten years later, in 1947, to Moscow. She began to seek restoration of her husband’s honorable name. She is arrested again and sent to Vorkuta. She died on the way; her burial place is unknown. The only photograph of this tenacious woman has survived.
– Everyone knows the name Nikolai Kuznetsov. Books have been written about him and films have been made. In Yekaterinburg he is an honorary citizen of the city.
– Indeed, Sverdlovsk residents consider Nikolai Ivanovich their hero. But in fairness, it is worth saying that he was born in the Talitsky district, which until the early forties was part of the Chelyabinsk region. Even in the false passport with which Kuznetsov lived and worked when he was a secret NKVD employee, it is written that he was born in the Chelyabinsk region. In books and films, Kuznetsov’s sabotage activities are in the foreground. His work as a counterintelligence officer remained in the shadows. And these pages of the biography deserve a separate story.
– Let’s at least briefly fill this gap.
– It’s no secret that the Urals, with its industrial potential, have always been of interest to the intelligence services of other countries. In the 30s, when Kuznetsov was invited to work in the NKVD, he became a secret officer to identify foreign intelligence agents. Nikolai Ivanovich had a rare ability for languages and communicated a lot with the German colonists. By the way, his operational pseudonym at that time was Colonist. In 1940, Kuznetsov was transferred to Moscow, where he was involved in the development of German agents. There was a lot of it. A short time before the start of the war, Kuznetsov and his colleagues identified about twenty Abwehr and Gestapo agents.
When the Great Patriotic War began, Nikolai Ivanovich was transferred to the Fourth Directorate, which was engaged in reconnaissance and sabotage activities in the occupied territory. It was here that he became known from films and books as Oberleutnant Paul Siebert. The documents produced at Lubyanka were of such quality that he passed patrol checks hundreds of times and no one suspected forgery.
– As a researcher of the history of intelligence, what would you emphasize when speaking about the merits of Nikolai Kuznetsov?
“It was he who sent information to the Center about the top-secret Werwolf facility - Hitler’s headquarters in the occupied territory. He was the first to report that an assassination attempt was being prepared on the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition in Tehran and that in the summer of 1943 the Germans would attack near Kursk. Kuznetsov has a dozen of hardened Nazi criminals eliminated. He died on the night of March 8-9, 1944 in a battle with Ukrainian nationalists, when he and his group tried to cross the front line. On November 5, 1944, Nikolai Kuznetsov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. He became the first Soviet foreign intelligence officer to be awarded the Gold Star.
– I can’t help but ask about Iskhak Akhmerov.
– He visited the ocean twice. The first business trip to the USA was in the pre-war period. The next one was during the Second World War. More than 2,500 films with secret documents from various US government agencies - the State Department, the Department of Defense, and intelligence - passed through Akhmerov’s agent network, which was very wide and reached the Oval Office of the White House. In 1940–1941, Akhmerov was directly involved in the development and implementation of Operation Snow. Its goal was to involve the United States in the war on our side. America then fenced itself off from the whole world with the so-called neutrality law. It was not hidden - let the Germans fight the Russians, and then we will come to Europe as masters. Therefore, it was important that the coalition against Hitler that Stalin sought to take shape. This is why Operation Snow was developed. What Akhmerov wrote later, almost word for word, formed the basis of the so-called note by Hull, the then US Secretary of State. When the Japanese got acquainted with it, a final decision was made in Tokyo - not to attack the USSR. Then the attack on Pearl Harbor happened, and the United States had no choice but to enter the war. Our country has the opportunity to transfer significant forces from the Far East to the West.
In 1943–1945, materials on the uranium project, which would later be called the Manhattan project, passed through Ishak Abdulovich’s network. His agents obtained samples of materials that American and Canadian nuclear scientists had worked with. Through Akhmerov’s group, drawings were obtained that undoubtedly accelerated the process of creating atomic weapons under the leadership of Academician Kurchatov.
In addition, Akhmerov and his associates identified many fascist agents in the United States. When Hitler dreamed of a weapon of retaliation at the end of the war, he was convinced that with the help of new missiles it was possible to bomb any city in the world. They tried to launch rockets across the Atlantic, but they fell into the ocean. For accurate guidance, the installation of radio beacons was required. And two German agents were abandoned on a submarine in the United States. One was quickly captured by the FBI, but the other “disappeared.” They expected something terrible, but thanks to Akhmerov’s agents, they also managed to neutralize it. The plot for a real movie that may someday be made.
Akhmerov and his network were involved in the declassification of separate negotiations between the Nazis and the Americans in Bern. This story is well known to us from “Seventeen Moments of Spring.” At the end of the war, Akhmerov’s group reported on Operation Crossword, during which the Americans secretly smuggled scientists involved in the development of new weapons out of Germany.
For his work in foreign intelligence, Ishak Abdulovich was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner and the Order of the Red Star.
– Which other famous intelligence officers are from the Southern Urals?
- Colonel Boris Nikodimovich Batraev. He is from Nagaibaksky district. He talked about his work as much as he could. In particular, about participation in Operation Archive B, associated with the return of the archive of the Russian writer Ivan Bunin to the USSR. Batraev was a resident in many countries - India, Pakistan, Ceylon, and worked in scientific and technical intelligence in Italy and France. There were several agents in his practice whom he attracted to work on an ideological basis. And this is considered aerobatics in intelligence.
A native of the city of Asha, Colonel Vadim Nikolaevich Sopryakov worked in our intelligence residencies in the countries of Southeast Asia and Japan.
He was one of the first leaders of the legendary special forces detachment of the KGB of the USSR "Cascade". He and his subordinates did a lot of good deeds in Afghanistan - thousands of lives saved and not only of Soviet citizens. Unfortunately, Vadim Nikolaevich is also no longer with us.
I can’t help but name another of our fellow countrymen – Vladimir Ivanovich Zavershinsky. He, Colonel General of Foreign Intelligence, was born and raised in the Chesme region in the village of Tarutino. Nothing can be said about the work of Vladimir Ivanovich yet, everything is classified, and our generation is unlikely to find out anything. Even the list of his awards is still a secret.
Vladimir Ivanovich is more familiar to us as a local historian and the author of books on the history of the Southern Urals, including “Essays on the History of Tarutino”, “On the Creation of the First Red Cossack Regiment named after Stepan Razin in Troitsk” and others. He is one of the creators of the fundamental “Name Directory of Cossacks of the Orenburg Army, awarded state awards of the Russian Empire.”
The name of Naum Eitingon until recently remained one of the most guarded secrets of the Soviet Union. This man was involved in events that influenced the course of world history.
The childhood of the legendary intelligence officer
Naum Eitingon was born on December 6, 1899, near Mogilev, in Belarus. His family was quite wealthy; his father, Isaac Eitingon, worked as a clerk at a paper factory and was a member of the board of the Shklov Savings and Loan Partnership. The mother raised the children, Naum had another brother and two sisters. After graduating from 7 classes of a commercial school, Eitingon got a job at the Mogilev city government, where he served as an instructor in the statistics department. On the eve of the 1917 revolution, Naum becomes a member of the Left Social Revolutionary organization. The leaders of this group relied on terrorist methods of struggle. Social Revolutionary fighters had to be able to shoot well, understand mines and bombs, and also be in good physical shape. The militants used their knowledge and skills against the enemies of the party, among whom were the Bolsheviks.
1917 During the First World War, Mogilev found itself under German occupiers, and the city government was closed. Eitingon worked first at a concrete plant, then in a warehouse. In November 1918, the Germans left Mogilev and units of the Red Army entered the city. A new government has arrived. The idea of world revolution captivated Naum Eitingon, and he joined the ranks of the Bolshevik Party. Soon he was able to prove himself - clashes began in the city between the White Guards and Red Army soldiers, who only yesterday had been factory workers. Only, unlike them, Eitingon knew how to shoot, understood tactics and strategy - his Socialist Revolutionary past was telling. The rebellion was suppressed, and the new authorities paid attention to the young man. Eitingon dreamed of serving the state.
First, Eitingon was appointed commissioner of the Gomel district, and at the age of 19 he became deputy of the Gomel Cheka. Nikolai Dolgopolov notes that Eitingon was a tough person. Dzerzhinsky liked this quality, and it is believed that it was at his suggestion that Eitingon was summoned to Moscow.
In 1922 Eitingon was transferred to Moscow. He becomes an employee of the central apparatus of the OGPU, and at the same time enters and studies at the eastern department of the Military Academy of the General Staff.
In Moscow, Eitingon met his future wife Anna Shulman. In 1924, the couple's son, Vladimir, was born. But soon the young people separated.
In 1925, after completing his studies, Naum Eitingon was enrolled in the staff of the foreign department of the OGPU - this department was engaged in collecting intelligence on the territory of foreign countries. In the fall of 1925, Eitingon began his first assignment. He travels to China under an assumed name - Leonid Naumov, a name he bore until 1940. In 1925, he meets Olga Zarubina, and the young couple realizes that they are ideal for each other. He adopts Zoya Zarubina, who will be grateful to him all her life.
Beginning of intelligence activities
In 1928, Chinese General Giang Tsou Lin began secret negotiations with the Japanese. He wanted to create a Manchurian Republic on the border with Russia. Stalin only saw a threat in the negotiations. Eitingon received orders to destroy the general from Moscow. He prepared the explosion of the train in which Tsou Lin was traveling. After returning to Moscow, Naum Eitingon was transferred to a special department of the OGPU - the department for especially important and top-secret assignments.
Spanish Civil War
In 1936, Eitingon went on another business trip. At the same time, a civil war began in Spain between the Republicans and Franco's pro-fascists. The USSR sent help to the Republicans, among whom was Naum Eitingon - in Spain he worked under the name Leonid Kotov. He served as deputy head of the NKVD in Spain and also led the Spanish partisans, for which the Spaniards respectfully referred to him as “our General Kotov.”
In the summer of 1938, the Spanish residency was headed by Naum Eitingon. The appointment coincided with a turning point in the Spanish Civil War. The Frankists, with the combat support of units of the German Condor Legion, occupied the capital of the Republicans, Barcelona. Nahum Eitingon had to urgently save the Republican government of Spain and members of the international brigades - and all this with the constant threat of attack from the Francoists and German saboteurs. Eitingon accomplished the impossible - he helped evacuate the Republicans, volunteers, and Spanish gold, first to France, then to Mexico, where Spanish emigration existed.
Assassination of Leon Trotsky
Naum Eitingon returned to the USSR in 1939. At this time, the new People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Lavrentiy Beria, was getting rid of his predecessor's supporters. Most of Eitingon's colleagues and acquaintances with whom he worked in Spain were arrested or shot. Almost all the leaders of the foreign department of the NKVD and about 70% of the intelligence officers were subjected to repression. Eitingon was also close to arrest. They wanted to charge him with “squandering” public funds and working for British intelligence. But instead of prison, the intelligence officer was given a new task - Eitingon was ordered to kill Leon Trotsky.
In 1929, Leon Trotsky left the USSR after losing to Stalin. Already abroad, he began to express his anti-Soviet views, opposed the five-year plan for economic development, and criticized the ideas of industrialization and collectivization of agriculture. Trotsky predicted the defeat of the USSR in the war with Nazi Germany. Trotsky began to gather new supporters around himself, including abroad. Such active activity of Trotsky irritated Stalin. And the leader decided to physically eliminate his political opponent.
After the arrest of the Siqueiros group, Naum Eitingon launched a second plan to eliminate Leon Trotsky. A lone killer entered the picture, and Eitingon chose Ramon Mercader for this role. This is a Spanish aristocrat recruited in 1937. In the winter of 1940, Mercader, under the personal name of a rich playboy, met Trotsky’s personal secretary Sylvia Agelov. Gallantry, aristocratic manners and wealth made the right impression on Sylvia. Ramon proposed to her and Sylvia agreed. So Mercader began to enter Trotsky’s house as Sylvia’s fiancé.
On August 20, 1940, Ramon Mercader asked to evaluate his article for one of the newspapers. They went into the office together, and when Trotsky was bending over the papers, Mercader hit him on the head with a flying ax. Trotsky screamed, Trotsky’s guards ran to the cry and began to beat Mercader. Ramon's attacker was later handed over to the police. But the assassination attempt achieved its goal - the next day Leon Trotsky died. Operation duck was successfully completed.
Activities during the Great Patriotic War
After the start of the war, Naum Eitingon headed the organization of the First Patriotic Special Forces Units. On the basis of a special foreign intelligence group, a separate special-purpose motorized rifle brigade was formed - OMSBON. In a short time at the Dynamo stadium, scouts, athletes and members of foreign communist parties were trained as professional killers and saboteurs. They were prepared to be deployed to the rear of the Germans to perform special tasks.
At first, due to little time for preparation, poorly prepared groups of saboteurs were thrown behind the German lines. Everyone knew about this - both the special forces soldiers and their teachers. Eitingon, as a professional, understood this, and before leaving, he invited the fighters to his home to give personal instructions and support them.
Despite the losses, the soldiers of the special forces brigade were able to complete most of the tasks assigned to them. Among the most high-profile victories is the kidnapping of the former Russian prince Lvov, who worked closely with the Nazis. He was flown to Moscow and handed over to a military tribunal. Another high-profile operation - in the city of Rivne, Major General of the German Army Igen was kidnapped and killed.
Having completed the formation of the special forces brigade, Eitingon returned to fulfilling his direct duties - collecting intelligence and carrying out targeted sabotage. A new task is to organize sabotage in the Turkish Dardanelles Strait. Eitingon's group included six people - experts in the field of explosion technology and radio operators. They settled in Turkey under the guise of emigrants, and Naum Isaakovich arrived in Istanbul as the USSR Consul Leonid Naumov. Muza Malinovskaya played the role of his wife. Muse Malinovskaya is a famous “seven thousander”, a woman who jumped with a parachute from a height of 7 thousand meters. She made more than a hundred jumps and was a first-class radio operator. Muse Malinovskaya conquered Eitingon, after returning to Moscow they will begin to live together. In 1943, the couple had a son, Leonid, and in 1946, a daughter, Muse.
On the morning of February 24, 1942, Ambassador Franz von Pappen and his wife were walking along Ataturk Boulevard in Ankara. Suddenly, an explosive device went off in the hands of a stranger. The terrorist died, the police decided that the deceased was a Soviet agent. Historians of the special services name Naum Eitingon as the organizer of the assassination attempt on Franz von Pappen. But there is no exact evidence, the archives are closed. It is known that six months later Eitingon left Turkey, and in Moscow he received a promotion - he became deputy head of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD.
In his new position as one of the leaders of the sabotage department, Eitingon had to organize the largest counterintelligence operation of the Great Patriotic War.
In the summer of 1944, east of Minsk, Soviet troops surrounded a 100,000-strong German group. In Moscow, the idea arose to hold a “radio game” with the German Abwehr. It was decided to plant a legend on the Wehrmacht high command that a large German military unit was hiding in the Belarusian forests. This part is experiencing a shortage of weapons, food and medicine. Having deceived the Germans, Soviet counterintelligence intended to inflict significant material damage on them. On August 18, disinformation was sent to the Germans via radio, and the Nazis believed in the existence of such a military unit.
The first German paratroopers arrived in the area of Lake Peschanoe, they were caught and included in the radio game. The main goal of Operation Berezino is to catch as many enemy saboteurs as possible. German planes regularly dropped money, weapons, medicine, and propaganda leaflets. On December 21, 1944, at the Berezino site, Soviet intelligence officers captured a group of six people - saboteurs from Otto Skorzeny’s personal team. During the operation, Eitingon fought with the most famous saboteur of the Third Reich - and won this confrontation. Until the end of the war, Skorzeny believed in the existence of a German unit wandering in the Belarusian forests. Eitingon proved himself to be a brilliant counterintelligence officer.
A series of arrests
After the war, Naum Eitingon received another military rank of major general. What he did for the next six years is briefly stated in his biography - he was engaged in the liquidation of Polish, Lithuanian and Uyghur nationalist formations.
A new era has arrived, the “thaw”. The post of leader was taken by Nikita Khrushchev, who hated Stalin, Beria (who was shot) and everything connected with them. Eitingon was again under attack, because Beria freed him. In the summer of 1953, he was arrested as a participant in Beria's conspiracy, allegedly to destroy the Soviet government. Eitingon was sentenced to 12 years in prison. The legendary intelligence officer was sitting in the Vladimir Central Prison; Evgenia Alliluyeva, Konstantin Ordzhonikidze, and Pavel Sudoplatov were sitting in neighboring cells.
In prison, his stomach ulcer worsened and Eitingon almost died. But the prison doctors performed an operation and saved Eitingon.
Naum Eitingon was released on March 20, 1964. He was released from prison, stripped of his awards and military rank. Requests for rehabilitation went unheeded. But his authority among his colleagues remained very high, his merits were known and remembered. Thanks to the protection of the KGB, Eitingon received a Moscow residence permit and the position of editor at the International Relations publishing house.
The legendary intelligence officer was rehabilitated only in 1992, 11 years after his death. “The Last Knight of Soviet Intelligence” liked to repeat: “do what you must, and come what may.”
Legendary Soviet intelligence officerHe lived only 38 years and devoted the best of them to intelligence. During this short time, Stefan Lang managed to do so much that he was rightfully included in the classics of world intelligence art. The part of his intelligence legacy that became known to the general public - the "Cambridge Five" - is rightly recognized by professionals and historians of the world's intelligence services as "the best group of agents of the Second World War."
The First World War radically changed the worldview of Europeans. Colossal human sacrifices, hitherto unimaginable in the most terrible apocalyptic predictions, have rudely and visibly invaded reality. The line of development of civilization, which had previously suited the population of Europe by and large, was no longer perceived as natural and the only correct one. It was a time of confusion and social searching. Part of the war and post-war generation fell into depression.
But for the socially active and educated population of Europe, the ideas of socialism and communism turned out to be very attractive. Arnold Deitch is one of these people. He devoted his entire life to the struggle for social equality and the ideals of justice. And he selected comrades for his struggle from this category and according to the criteria of ideological proximity. It should be noted that not a single one of his comrades (and there were dozens of them) changed his views over time, much less took the path of betrayal.
I would not like to give an assessment of the hero’s ideological position in a biographical sketch. Wrong place and wrong reason. But the presence in Europe and overseas of a huge number of people who sympathized with the young Soviet Republic is an established historical fact. For some of these people, the Soviet Union became the Motherland to which they gave all their strength, and often their lives. So was Arnold Deitch, the legendary intelligence officer, whose life was amazing and whose professional destiny was unique.
He was born on May 21, 1904 in the suburbs of the Austrian capital in the family of a small businessman, a former teacher from Slovakia. In 1928 he graduated from the University of Vienna and became a Doctor of Philosophy. Having a talent for languages, he knew perfectly, in addition to his native German, English, French, Italian, Dutch and Russian. In the future, this significantly helped Deutsch in revolutionary and intelligence work.
Arnold's revolutionary activity began in the ranks of the youth movement - at sixteen he became a member of the Socialist Students' Union, and at twenty he joined the Austrian Communist Party. After graduating from university, he was sent to one of the underground groups of the Comintern. Active and dynamic in character, Deitch is appointed as a liaison officer, working in the south of Europe and the Middle East.
This work, entrusted only to especially reliable members of the Comintern, developed in Deutsch the qualities so necessary for the future profession of intelligence officer. These include the basics of conspiracy, the organization of secure communication schemes, and the skills of finding and attracting promising associates to work, orienting them to obtain the necessary information. In a word, he learned all the “technology” of intelligence activities in practice.
On the recommendation of the Comintern, Deitch was sent to Moscow, where he was transferred from the Communist Party of Austria to the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and went to work in the Foreign Department of the NKVD - the foreign political intelligence of the USSR. This marks the end of the stage of his life associated with his work in the Comintern. He becomes a personnel intelligence officer.
IN EARLY 1933, Deitch goes to work illegally in France as an assistant and deputy resident. His task is to carry out special tasks of the Center in Belgium and Holland, and after Hitler came to power in Germany.
From now on, Deitch's workmates know him under the name Stefan Lang. In his code telegrams and letters to the Center, he signs the pseudonym “Stephan”.
A year later, at the direction of the Center, Deitch leaves France with the task of settling in the British Isles. It was here that he would accomplish his legendary professional feat.
In London, Deitch becomes a student and then a teacher at the University of London, studying psychology. And he was one of the first Soviet intelligence officers to widely and scientifically use knowledge of psychology in intelligence work.
This significantly facilitates the process of purposefully reaching out to a promising contingent of people, studying them and attracting them to cooperation with intelligence on an ideological basis. Deitch’s in-depth analysis of the personality traits of a person of interest to intelligence was carried out so thoroughly that his “godchildren’s” devotion to communist and anti-fascist views remained with them until the end of their lives.
Studying and working at the university gives Deitch the opportunity to make broad connections among student youth. Deitch himself, being a gifted and meaningful person with a wide range of interests, a wonderful storyteller, an interesting conversationalist, and an attentive listener, attracts extraordinary people, and they, unnoticed by themselves, fall under his charm. Taking into account his deep knowledge of human psychology and a subtle sense of the inner world of his interlocutor, Deitch has the most effective abilities of an intelligence recruiter.
And he makes the best use of the opportunities presented to him. From the position of a teacher at the University of London, intelligence recruiter Deitch conducted the study, development and recruitment of more than ... - let's put it carefully - a whole group of anti-fascist-minded students.
His second discovery was conscious and purposeful work for the future. This was an innovative idea for INO, a new contingent of people and a new work environment. And life completely confirmed that he was right.
Deutsch focused his efforts on the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He was primarily attracted to students, who in the future could become reliable assistants in intelligence work for a long time.
It was time for his finest moment in his intelligence career. He managed to create, educate and prepare the famous “Big Five”, later called “Cambridge”. This is precisely where his invaluable service to the Fatherland lies.
"FIVE" was active in the 1930-1960s, having free access to the highest government spheres in Britain and the USA. It provided the Soviet leadership with highly relevant, reliable and classified documentary information on all aspects of international politics, as well as reported on military plans and scientific research in Europe and overseas.
During his three years of work in Great Britain, Deitch, who had years of underground work in the Comintern, managed not only to attract ideologically committed sources to our side, but also to seriously prepare and train them on a wide range of issues of intelligence activity.
His achievement as a practical intelligence officer lies in the fact that the members of the “Cambridge Five” themselves actively sought and recruited more and more new assistants - ideological fighters for social justice and against the fascist threat on the eve and years of the Second World War. These aides saw in the Soviet Union the real and only force that could resist and destroy Hitler's Nazism. This is Deitch's third discovery.
If we talk only about the “Five,” then, working as spotters, developers and recruiters, its members significantly expanded the network of new sources of information. They managed to penetrate British intelligence and counterintelligence, the Foreign Office, and the codebreaking service. The information received by Moscow was proactive in nature and allowed the Soviet side to make informed decisions during the difficult war years.
This was extensive information about the military-strategic plans of the Third Reich, including on the Soviet-German front. Documentary secret information concerned the position of our British and American allies in the anti-Hitler coalition in relation to Germany, as well as the West’s plans for the post-war development of Europe and the world as a whole.
The result of Arnold Deitch's work in England is impressive. In the second half of the 1930s, a group of pro-communist-minded British people created by Deitch, and during the war years - active anti-fascists, began to operate in England. These were progressive-minded students, coming from noble wealthy families, with a clear prospect of entering the highest echelons of power.
In one of his letters to the Center, Deitch wrote about his assistants: “They all came to us after graduating from universities in Oxford and Cambridge. They shared communist beliefs. 80 percent of the highest government positions in England are held by people from these universities, since studying at these schools involves expenses that are affordable only to very rich people. A diploma from such a university opens the door to the highest spheres of state and political life of the country...”
Three years of hard work and sources acquired by Deitch in England until the 1960s became the golden fund of Soviet foreign intelligence. The names of the members of the Five are now widely known and revered in our country. This is Kim Philby - a senior officer of British intelligence, Donald Maclean - a senior officer of the British Foreign Office, Guy Burgess - a journalist, a British intelligence officer, an official of the British Foreign Office, Anthony Blunt - an employee of British counterintelligence, John Cairncross - an employee of the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Finance and the British Codebreaking Service.
The intelligence capabilities of the members of the “Cambridge Five” and their activity are still surprising. There were no electronic documents or compact storage media back then. They worked with documents and retrieved them in suitcases. Due to such volumes, the risk exceeded all limits, but Deitch’s master class and the impeccable work of the London station staff made it possible to avoid even the slightest shadow of suspicion from the local intelligence services.
May 1 marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Soviet intelligence officer Arnold DEITCH
DURING the war, the “Cambridge Five”, who worked in the inner sanctum of the British state, received genuine documentary information regarding the results of the British deciphering the correspondence of the German high command, daily reports from the British War Cabinet on the planning of military operations on all fronts, information from British agents on operations and German plans around the world, documents from British diplomats and the War Cabinet.
Information received by Moscow covered the military situation on the Soviet-German front, in the North Atlantic, Western and Southern Europe; preparation by the Germans of attacks on Moscow, Leningrad, on the Volga and the Kursk Bulge; data on the latest German weapons - aviation, armored vehicles, artillery.
The members of the “Cambridge Five” should be spoken of as a special category of sources of information - as intelligence officers who, with all their essence, were imbued with the concerns of the Soviet country at war with the aggressors. They took the initiative to search for and obtain proactive information.
Even at the beginning of World War II, the “five” were aimed at searching for information about work in the West on atomic issues. And in September 1941, Donald MacLean, and then John Cairncross, transferred to the London station extensive documentary information about the fact and state of work on the creation of atomic weapons in England and the USA.
As a result, the intelligence officers trained by Deitch with their information attracted the attention of the Soviet government to the problem of the military atom. Therefore, the name of Deitch deservedly stands among the names of Soviet scientists and intelligence officers involved in the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb. Its appearance in the USSR 65 years ago and the test carried out on August 29, 1949, put an end to the American monopoly on atomic weapons and no longer allowed the United States to wave the “nuclear baton.”
Deitch's "Chicks of the Nest" ushered in the era of atomic energy in the Land of the Soviets. It was the “light of a distant star” - “Stephan”, which reached the Motherland years after the death of the scout.
IN SEPTEMBER 1937, Deutsch was recalled from London. In Moscow, the intelligence officer's work was highly appreciated. He was awarded the following recognition by the intelligence leadership:
“During the period of illegal work abroad, “Stefan” proved himself in various areas of the underground as an exceptionally proactive and dedicated worker...
In 1938, Arnold Deitch, his wife (also an illegal intelligence officer) and daughter applied for Soviet citizenship. While waiting for a decision in the summer, they lived at V.M.’s dacha. Zarubin, a talented intelligence officer who worked in Europe and Southeast Asia since the 1920s. His eighteen-year-old daughter Zoya was friends with the Deitch family. Many years later, Zoya Vasilievna recalled communicating with Arnold as an unusually interesting person, possessing an attractive force and inviting frankness.
She especially noted Arnold's attitude towards physical training. Deitch considered maintaining good physical shape to be the responsibility of a scout. Zoya Vasilyevna, an excellent athlete herself, recalled: “According to him, an intelligence officer must be physically resilient, which became clear to him while working underground under the Comintern.”
Deitch actively used his stay at the dacha with a Russian family to restore his skills and improve his Russian language. Zoya, also a future intelligence officer, a major linguist and the creator of a world school of simultaneous translation, tested her teaching skills on the Deitch family.
Deitch and his family received Soviet citizenship. He officially became Stefan Genrikhovich Lang. These pre-war years, according to Deitch, became the most difficult and sad period of his life. Deitch's active nature protested against a measured and monotonous life, but he was not involved in operational work.
And there was no one to do it. A total and unjust purge was taking place in the country, devastating the ranks of not only the intelligence service. Fortunately, the repressions bypassed Deitch and his family.
For almost a year, Deitch remained, as he regrettably noted, in “forced inaction.” Finally, he becomes a research fellow at the Institute of World Economy and World Economy of the USSR Academy of Sciences. His extensive knowledge, experience in analytical work and enormous capacity for work turned out to be in demand and appreciated.
AFTER Germany's attack on the Soviet Union, the intelligence leadership decides to immediately send an experienced intelligence officer to work illegally in Latin America. The place of intelligence activity is Argentina, which supported the Third Reich politically and economically during the Second World War.
In November 1941, Stefan's group was ready to leave. The route lay through Iran, India and further through the countries of Southeast Asia. But when the group had already left, Japan began military action against the United States with an attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base.
For many months the group was looking for an opportunity to move to Latin America. But in June 1942, Deitch was forced to inform intelligence chief P.M. Fitin:
“For 8 months now, I and my comrades have been on the road, but we are as far from the goal as at the very beginning. We're out of luck. However, 8 valuable months have already passed, during which every Soviet citizen gave all his strength on the battle or labor front.”
The group was returned to Moscow. A new route was proposed to penetrate Argentina from Murmansk by sea convoy through Iceland to Canada and beyond. Deitch stepped aboard the Donbass tanker...
Valentin Pikul in his novel “Requiem for the PQ-17 Caravan” talks about the death of this allied caravan. It also talks about the fate of the Donbass tanker. However, our wonderful historian and popularizer of Russian, Russian and Soviet history made a mistake.
The TANKER was indeed part of allied convoys several times, but it was not included in PQ-17. After the death of the PQ-17 convoy, Soviet ships were ordered to voyage alone. It was recommended to stick to the northern part of the Barents Sea, closer to the edge of the polar ice.
The Donbass tanker with Deitch on board went to sea in early November 1942. On November 5, the watchman reported to the captain that he had noticed a German squadron consisting of a cruiser and several destroyers heading for Novaya Zemlya. The captain of the tanker Zielke decided to break radio silence and warn other single ships, although the chance of leaving undetected was very high. The radio transmission reached its recipients, but the Germans also discovered the tanker.
I had the opportunity to meet with captain-mentor G.D. Burkov, president of the Association of Polar Captains, and he helped document the circumstances of the heroic unequal battle of the Donbass tanker with the German squadron. A destroyer was sent to destroy the tanker, with which the Donbass entered into battle, having only two 76-mm guns on board. The last message from the tanker was “...we are conducting an artillery battle...”. This signal came on November 7 - the day of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution.
Following the laws of naval brotherhood, the crew of the Donbass tanker saved dozens of other ships at the cost of their lives. The German squadron was then unable to detect a single target, although it traveled another 600 miles to the east after the battle with the tanker.
In his memoirs, the commander of the fascist destroyer wrote that he decided to sink the tanker from a distance of 2,000 meters with a fan attack of three torpedoes. The crew of the tanker avoided it with a competent maneuver. Then the destroyer fired at the tanker with its main caliber guns and, smashing the engine room, caused a fire on the ship. The tanker continued to conduct targeted artillery fire. Then, having reduced the distance to 1,000 meters, the destroyer fired several more torpedoes, one of which hit the tanker and split it in half.
More than forty crew members died, about twenty were captured and interned in concentration camps in Norway. Deitch was not among the survivors...
After the war, Captain Zilke, who returned from captivity, reported the details of the death of our scout. Deitch participated in the battle with the destroyer as part of the gunnery staff on the bow of the tanker. At the moment of the torpedo explosion, he was there with his legs broken. The depths of the Barents Sea swallowed up the outstanding intelligence officer. This happened three hundred miles west of the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya.
Soviet citizen Stefan Lang died uncharacteristically for a scout, in open battle with the enemy. And although he was a passenger, he could not stay away from the battle with the fascists, taking an active part in it.
The feat of the Donbass tanker crew did not go unnoticed. Ships with this name sail the seas. A Young Sailors Club called “Donbass” was opened in Donetsk.
In Vienna, on the house where Arnold Genrikhovich Deitch, aka Soviet citizen Stefan Genrikhovich Lang, lived, a memorial plaque was installed. The inscription “May the sacrifice he made be understood by people!” is embossed on it. It simultaneously serves as both an epigraph to his colorful life and an epitaph on his unmarked grave.
The unique intelligence officer Deutsch-Lang had neither professional nor government awards. It would be fair, even after many years have passed since his last feat - a mortal battle with the Nazis in a naval battle, to appeal to the Russian Government with a proposal to award Arnold Deitch - Stefan Lang with the Order of the Patriotic War, posthumously.
