German intelligence officers of the second world war. German spies in the red army during the wwii. Has a higher education. Family, wife lived in

Bartz Karl

The tragedy of the Abwehr. German military intelligence in World War II. 1935-1945

Foreword

While working on one theme of the Second World War, I constantly came across the names "Abwehr", "Division Z", the names Canaris, Oster and many others. I was soon able to establish that behind these names lies a great political and human tragedy. Human weaknesses clearly showed through the historical facts: delusions, hopes, dishonesty, remorse ... The subject captured me. An abundance of opportunities opened up before me to get to the bottom of new information, and then I decided in one work to collect and research historical information and facts about the Abwehr.

Without prejudice and only following Ranke's behests to display the course of history as it really was, I limited myself to identifying and interpreting the historical state of affairs. Only in this I saw my task, and not in clarifying the question of guilt or innocence of this or that person.

Soon I had to make sure that almost no documents were preserved about the reasons that led to the death of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris himself and many of his employees. Some isolated fragments do not provide historically unambiguous explanations. It is well known that the interrogation protocols were in the hands of the Americans until recently. They still cannot be used. In the same way, it turned out that the content of the extensive literature about Canaris and the Abwehr did not correspond to the factual circumstances of the case.

For two years, I met with all the witnesses of the tragedy available to me, regardless of which camp they belonged to. I critically compared and analyzed the testimonies of each of the respondents. If some of my principals are designated only by initials, then this was done either at the legitimate request of the interviewee, or due to the observance of ordinary human tact.

I do not pretend that my description is the ultimate truth. But I believe that I have succeeded in sketching a real picture that differs from the previous mythical stories. Today anyone who wishes has the opportunity to check my report, since the people involved in this tragedy are still alive. And even those sections or chapters that may seem constructed from dialogues have arisen from careful interviewing of eyewitnesses.

The task was to write the history of the Abwehr, but I investigated the reasons and processes that led to the fall of the Canaris entourage, the subordination of most of the Abwehr to the General Directorate of Imperial Security and the condemnation of many high-ranking officers of the service.

Canaris - a man and his business

Who was the man who, at the beginning of the war, headed the huge service of German military intelligence and counterintelligence? How was it built and who were Admiral Canaris's staff? Why did the Abwehr cease to exist?

Forty-seven-year-old Wilhelm Canaris, born in Aplerbek near Dortmund, was already of retirement age, when in 1934 he was summoned to Berlin and in January 1935 was appointed head of German military intelligence and counterintelligence - the Abwehr.

He made his usual career as a naval officer when he was transferred as commandant of the fortress at Swinemunde. This not-so-enviable post was usually seen as the last step before retirement.

During the First World War, Canaris served as chief lieutenant on the cruiser Dresden and was interned with the crew in Chile, where the prisoners were not kept too strictly. At the end of 1915, who spoke Spanish, he fled to Argentina and, using a false Chilean passport, left for Holland, and from there to Germany. A year later, he showed up in Madrid (from a submarine he was dropped on the Spanish coast). There he was supposed to collect information of an economic nature for the German naval attaché.

His biographers tell of a mysterious escape from Spain through the south of France, accompanied by a priest. On Italian soil, both were arrested and on death row. However, powerful friends saved them. Then, overcoming new serious dangers, Canaris on the ship again arrives in Spain. This adventurous escape is not documented. But it is known that Canaris, after completing his mission in a submarine, left Spain (either from Cartagena, or from Vigo) to Germany.

After the war, he was admitted to the Reichswehr and during the riots he became acquainted with such coup leaders and commanders of the volunteer corps as Captain Erhardt and Major Pabst, with whom he maintained close friendly relations throughout his life. True, once he suddenly refused to support Pabst.

Thanks to the patronage of the first Minister of War, Noske Canaris, fought against the Weimar Republic, in whose service he was, on the side of Kapp and Erhardt's brigade.

Surprisingly, this jump to the side did not lead to his dismissal from the service. In 1920 he was transferred to Kiel, where he served until 1922. He was then assigned as 1st officer on Berlin, a training cruiser for naval cadets. On the cruiser, he also met with the then naval cadet Heydrich.

A year later, Canaris was promoted to Captain 3rd Rank and continued his usual career as a naval officer. Like all officers, he made numerous overseas voyages and at that time got acquainted with many East Asian and Japanese ports.

In 1924, we see him as an employee of the headquarters of the command of the naval forces in Berlin. From here he often traveled to Spain.

Four years later, in June 1928, Canaris was the 1st officer of the old battleship Schleswig.

Four years later, Canaris assumed command of the Schleswig, then from October 1930 to 1932 he headed the headquarters of the garrison of the naval base on the North Sea. When Canaris became commander of the Schleswig in 1932, Hitler visited his ship. An enlarged photograph taken during this visit later hung in Canaris' home in Berlin. With the rank of captain of the 1st rank, Canaris was appointed commandant of the fortress in Swinemünde in 1934, and it seemed that he had finally landed in the safe haven of a retiring military man, when the former head of the then still small intelligence and counterintelligence department in the Imperial War Ministry , Captain 1st Rank K. Patzig, unexpectedly recommended him as his successor. Raeder approved the choice of Patzig, and on January 1, 1935, Canaris became chief of the Abwehr. With his arrival, the modest Abwehr quickly grew to enormous proportions.

From the moment Hitler came to power, all financial restrictions have disappeared. Hitler saw the Abwehr as an important tool. And since he favored Canaris, the new chef could manage without knowing anything about refusal.

When Blomberg left, the War Ministry was disbanded, then a main command was created under the leadership of Keitel, and Canaris with his Abwehr began to report directly only to Keitel and Hitler himself, to no one else. At the same time, as a senior chief in OKW, he was even Keitel's deputy. It was an imposing concentration of power in the hands of one man, who, moreover, was well informed - like no other. Canaris collected all the information worthy of attention; by nature he was a remarkably inquisitive person, and little escaped his visibility.

Since 1938, the department of military intelligence and counterintelligence began to be called the service group of the Abwehr. Later, in 1939, her huge apparatus was renamed the Abwehr Foreign Service. On Tirpitzufer Street, the giant swallowed one private building after another.

In 1938, the Abwehr service group was divided into five large departments, which survived until the end of the organization's existence.

Division I was a concentration of foreign espionage and included a service for collecting and sending classified information. This important work area was led first by Colonel Pickenbrock and later by Colonel Hansen. The department was subdivided into groups: army - IH; Air Force - IL; Navy - IM; equipment - IT; economics - IWi; secret service (photography, passports, sympathetic and special ink, etc.) - IG; radio service - IJ. The department obtained information, which was then passed on for analysis, albeit often with its own assessment, to the divisions of the General Staff for the army, naval forces, and the Luftwaffe. The headquarters of the operational leadership of the Wehrmacht, under the leadership of Colonel-General Jodl, also received information through the III and the foreign department.

Division II - sabotage center. Here representatives of disaffected minorities and Germans living abroad prepared for subsequent use. The tasks of the agents of this department were difficult and very dangerous. Sabotage in enemy countries, sabotage on ships, aircraft, in industry, blowing up bridges, etc. The competence of this department also included "riots" and work with national minorities in the enemy countries. The later formed Brandenburg division was subordinate to the department. It was created in 1939 under the code name "Brandenburg Construction and Training Company". The company soon reached the size of the regiment, and in 1942 it was deployed to a division.

Nathan Hale

Considered the first American spy. At home, he became a symbol of the struggle of his people for independence. As a young patriotic teacher, Hale joined the military at the outbreak of the American War of Independence. When Washington needed a spy, Nathan volunteered. He obtained the necessary information in a week, but at the very last moment he signaled not to his, but to the English boat, which resulted in the death penalty.

Major John Andre

The British intelligence officer was well known in the finest homes in New York during the American Revolutionary War. After he was caught, the scout was sentenced to death by hanging.

James Armistead Lafayette

Became the first African American agent during the American Revolution. His reports were instrumental in the defeat of British forces at the Battle of Yorktown.

Belle Boyd

Miss Boyd became a spy in her 17-year-old role. Throughout the American Civil War, she served the Confederacy in Dixie, the North and England. For her invaluable assistance during the campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, General Jackson conferred on her the rank of captain, took her as an adjutant and allowed her to be present at all reviews of his army.

Emeline Pigott

Served in the Confederate Army in North Carolina. She was arrested several times, but each time after her release she returned to her activities.

Elizabeth Van Liu

Elizabeth was the northerners' most valuable scout during the American Civil War in 1861. After retirement in 1877, until the end of her life, she was supported by the family of a federal soldier, whom she helped to escape at one time.

Thomas Miller Beach

Was an English spy who served in the Northern Army during the American Civil War. He was not officially caught, but he had to give up his espionage activities.

Christian Snook Gurronier

The Dutch traveler and Islamic scholar undertook a scientific trip to Arabia and spent a whole year in Mecca and Jida disguised as a Muslim lawyer.

Fritz Joubert Ducaine

For 10 years, he managed to organize the largest German spy network in the country. He himself explained this by the desire to take revenge on the British for the burning of his family estate. The spy spent the last years of his life in poverty in a city hospital.

Mata Hari

The modern prototype of the femme fatale. An exotic dancer, she was executed for espionage in 1917 for Germany.

Sydney Reilly

The British intelligence officer was nicknamed the "King of Espionage". The super agent organized many conspiracies, and therefore became very popular in the film industry of the USSR and the West. It is believed that it was from him that James Bond was written off.

Cambridge five

The core of the network of Soviet agents in Great Britain, recruited in the 1930s at the University of Cambridge. When the network was exposed, none of its members were punished. Participants: Kim Philby, Donald McLean, Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, John Kerncross.

Richard Sorge

Soviet intelligence officer during the Second World War. He also worked as a journalist in Germany and Japan, where he was arrested on espionage charges and hanged.

Virginia Hall

The American volunteered for special operations during the Second World War. While working in occupied France, Hall coordinated the activities of the Vichy Resistance, was a correspondent for the New York Post, and was also on the Gestapo's "most wanted" lists.

Nancy Grace Augusta Wake

With the German invasion of France, the girl and her husband joined the ranks of the Resistance, becoming its active member. Fearing being caught, Nancy left the country herself, ending up in London in 1943. There she trained as a professional intelligence officer and returned to France a year later. She was involved in organizing the supply of weapons and recruiting new members of the Resistance. After the death of her husband, Nancy returned to London.

George Koval

In the mid-1940s, a Soviet atomic intelligence officer obtained valuable information on the Manhattan nuclear project in the United States for Moscow in the mid-1940s and was recently posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Russia for this.

Elyas Bazna

He worked as a valet of the British ambassador to Turkey. Taking advantage of the ambassador's habit of taking secret documents home from the embassy, ​​he began to take photocopies of them and sell them to the German attaché Ludwig Moisisch.

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

Spouses Julius and Ethel, American communists, became the only civilians executed in the United States for transferring American nuclear secrets to the USSR.

Klaus Fuchs

The German nuclear physicist came to England in 1933. Klaus worked on the top secret British atomic bomb project and later on the American Manhattan Project. He was arrested and imprisoned after it became clear that he was transmitting information to the USSR.

It can be said with all certainty that the system of Nazi "total espionage" outwardly seemed very impressive. And a certain calculation was based on this.

It was a complex, ramified complex of intelligence organizations - a huge invisible mechanism, the interaction of all parts of which was provided by the "Communications Headquarters" led by Hess, placed at the top of the pyramid. Each of these secret organizations established their strongholds abroad and built links in the general espionage chain with which Hitlerite Germany entangled many countries of the world. In a word, in a short period of time from 1935 to the outbreak of World War II, a fairly powerful system of intelligence organizations was created, fully focused on preparing for a "big war." The rulers of the Third Reich believed that even before hostilities were unleashed, the defensive potential of the future enemy should be weakened. The war, in their view, was supposed to be the final open blow inflicted on the victim after its forces were previously undermined from within.

In this presentation, we are not talking about all the components of the intelligence system of Hitlerite Germany, the total number of which was in the tens, but only about its main components, which played the main role in subversive activities directed against the Soviet Union.

Operation WEIS

Among the organizations of "total espionage" of the Third Reich, for obvious reasons, the Abwehr, the intelligence and counterintelligence department under the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces, has come to the fore. Its headquarters were located in a block of fashionable buildings on Tirpeschufer, where the Ministry of War had been located since the coronation of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

The general purpose of the Abwehr was to pave the way for armed aggression by secret means. First of all, in a few years, he had to provide the German fascist generals with intelligence information, on the basis of which it was supposed to deploy the planning of aggression against Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark and Norway, France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg, England, Yugoslavia and Greece, Crete, Soviet Union, Switzerland, Portugal. At the same time, with the assistance of the Abwehr, the High Command of the Wehrmacht began to develop military operations against the United States of America, the countries of the Near and Middle East and Africa.

“Admiring the British traditions and institutions of the British world empire,” writes G. Buchheit, Hitler hatched plans to create a comprehensive secret service like the Intelligence Service. This intention should sooner or later result in the creation of the SS - SD security service. "

So it actually happened. However, in the early years of the fascist dictatorship (1933-1934), practically no one was able to seriously dispute the Abwehr's priority in intelligence and counterintelligence affairs. This was partly due to the fact that Hitler could not yet discount the Reichswehr, which was an important factor in the state. But only partially. The main reason was something else: by the beginning of the war, the Abwehr managed to get ahead of other secret services and create a well-functioning and fully prepared intelligence apparatus for work in military conditions. By this time, a distinctive feature of the Nazi system of military espionage was already clearly marked - complete submission to the task of serving the aggressive program of the rulers of the Third Reich. Information about the enemy was viewed as one of the most important means of warfare.

Having reached its peak by 1938, by the time of the open preparation of an aggressive war, the Abwehr, with the goal of probing the strategic capabilities of the future enemy, actively joined in collecting data on the state of its armed forces and the defense industry. To do this, he systematically entangled the countries that Nazi Germany intended to attack with an agent network.

In general, the Abwehr, which from the internal political body of the Reichswehr, which it was primarily until now, in the conditions of the restoration of the armed forces turned into a military and therefore mainly into a foreign policy intelligence service. Taking on the role of the operational headquarters to direct the activities of the ramified bodies of military intelligence, it became an instrument of the most militaristic and reactionary forces of the military, in alliance with which German fascism prepared the country and people for an aggressive war. The majority of Western and Soviet authors who study the history of the Abwehr come to this conclusion, although, as you know, there is no available material - documents, protocols, operational reports, service diaries of the Abwehr. Many decisions made by the leadership of the Abwehr in the interests of concealing their criminal nature were stated orally, or if they were expressed in writing, then due to the secret nature of the functions performed by military intelligence, they were coded. During the retreat of German troops and on the eve of the final defeat of Nazi Germany, individual Abwehr services destroyed almost all of the accumulated operational materials. Finally, a large number of documents were destroyed by the Gestapo when the Nazi regime was in agony so that they could not be used as physical evidence. Nevertheless, the materials that have come to the attention of researchers make it possible to form a fairly complete picture of the place of the Abwehr in the mechanism of aggression and, in particular, its role in planning, preparing and unleashing the Second World War.

... It happened on August 25, 1939. On that day, Hitler gave the order to the Wehrmacht: on August 26, at 4:15 in the morning, to make a surprise attack on neighboring Poland. A special detachment formed by the Abwehr, headed by Lieutenant A. Herzner, set off on an important mission of the high command. He was to seize a mountain pass through the Blankovsky Pass, which was of particular strategic importance: it was, as it were, a gateway for the invasion of Hitler's troops from the north of Czechoslovakia into the southern regions of Poland. The detachment was supposed to "remove" the local border guards, replacing them with their own soldiers dressed in Polish uniforms, disrupt a possible attempt by the Poles to mine a railway tunnel and clear a section of the railway from artificial barriers.

But it so happened that the radios with which the detachment was equipped could not receive signals in the conditions of highly rugged and wooded areas. As a result, Herzner was unable to find out that the date of the attack on Poland was postponed from August 25 to September 1.

The detachment, which included Volksdeutsche speaking Polish (that is, the Germans who lived outside the territory of the Reich), coped with the task assigned to it. Early in the morning of August 26, Lieutenant Herzner announced to more than two thousand unsuspecting Polish miners, officers and soldiers that they had been taken prisoner, locked them in storage rooms, blew up the telephone exchange and, as ordered by the order, "without a fight" seized the mountain pass ... In the evening of the same day, Herzner's detachment retreated. The first victims of the Second World War were left lying on the pass ...

The truth about the attack on a radio station in Gliwice

It is common knowledge that before the outbreak of World War II, there was one episode that German citizens in Polish uniforms attacked a German radio station in Gleiwitz (Gliwice), located on the border with Poland. The Nazis wanted to present their aggressive actions, with the help of which the war was unleashed, in the form of defensive measures. This trick of the Nazi elite remained a complete secret for a long time. For the first time, the former deputy chief of the Abwehr, General Lahusen, told the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.

“The case about which I will testify,” Lahuzen said at the time, “is one of the most mysterious ever carried out by intelligence. A few days, some time before that - it seems to me that it was in mid-August, the exact date can be set in the department log - department I and my department, that is, II, were instructed to get Polish uniforms and equipment, as well as soldiers books and other Polish army items for the action under the code name "Himmler". This instruction ... Canaris received from the headquarters of the Wehrmacht or from the Reich Defense Department ... Canaris told us that the prisoners of concentration camps, dressed in this uniform, were supposed to attack a radio station in Gliwice ... Even people from the SD who took part in this were removed, that is, killed. "

Walter Schellenberg also speaks about the operation in Gliwice in his memoirs, referring to the information he received in a confidential conversation with the then SD officer Melhorn. According to Melhorn, in the last days of August 1939 he was summoned by the chief of the imperial security service Heydrich and conveyed Hitler's order: by September 1, at any cost, create a concrete reason for an attack on Poland, thanks to which she would appear in the eyes of the whole world as the initiator of aggression. It was planned, Melhorn continued, to attack the radio station in Gliwice. The Fuhrer instructed Heydrich and Canaris to take over the leadership of this operation. Polish uniforms have already been delivered from the Wehrmacht warehouses by order of Colonel-General Keitel.

When Schellenberg asked where they thought to take the Poles for the planned "attack", Melhorn replied: “The devilish trick of this plan was to dress German criminals and concentration camp prisoners in Polish military uniforms, giving them weapons of Polish production and staging an attack on a radio station. It was decided to drive the attackers to the machine guns of the "guard" specially installed for this.

Some details of this criminal armed action were reported during interrogation by the US military investigator and another of its participants - the already mentioned senior security officer Alfred Naujoks. According to his sworn testimony at the Nuremberg prison, the head of the Reich's main security office, Heydrich, on August 10, 1939, gave him the task of staging an attack on the radio station in Gliwice, making it appear that the attackers were Poles. "For the foreign press and for German propaganda," Heydrich told him, "practical proof of these Polish attacks is needed ..." As planned, this was to be done by a German speaking Polish. The text contained the rationale that "the time has come for the battle between the Poles and the Germans."

Naujoks arrived in Gliwice two weeks before the events and had to wait there for a prearranged signal for the start of the operation. Between 25 and 31 August, he visited the chief of the Gestapo Müller, whose headquarters in connection with the preparation for the operation was temporarily located not far from the scene of action, in Opal, and discussed with him the details of the operation, in which more than a dozen sentenced to death criminals named "Canned goods". Dressed in Polish uniforms, they were to be killed in the attack and left to lie at the scene so that it could be proved that they had died in the attack. At the final stage, it was planned to bring representatives of the central press to Gliwice. This was, in general terms, the plan for the provocation, sanctioned at the highest level.

Müller told Naujoks that he had Heydrich's instructions to allocate one of the criminals to him. In the afternoon of August 31, Naujoks received an encrypted order from Heydrich, according to which the attack on the radio station was to take place on the same day at 20:00. After he asked Müller for "canned goods", the criminal assigned to him was taken closer to the scene. Although Naujoks did not notice the gunshot wounds on him, his whole face was covered in blood, and he was unconscious, in this form he was thrown at the very entrance to the radio station.

Successful capture of the Polish radio station by the Germans

As planned, at the set time at dawn, the attack group occupied the radio station, and a three-four-minute message was transmitted over the emergency radio transmitter. After that, shouting a few phrases in Polish and firing up to a dozen indiscriminate pistol shots, the participants in the raid fled, having previously shot their accomplices - their bodies were then shown as the corpses of "Polish soldiers" who allegedly attacked the radio station. The big press played it all up as a "successfully" repelled "armed attack" on a radio station in Gliwice.

On September 1 at 10 o'clock in the morning, five hours after the raid on the radio station, Hitler, as planned, delivered a speech in the Reichstag to the German people. “Numerous incursions by the Poles into German territory, including an attack by regular Polish troops on the border radio station in Gliwice,” the Fuehrer began his speech and then, referring to the events in Gliwice, he threatened Poland and its government, presenting the case in this way, as if the reason for the hostilities undertaken by Germany was "unacceptable Polish provocations."

The Reich Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the same day sent a telegram to all its diplomatic missions abroad, in which they were informed that “in order to protect themselves from a Polish attack, German units began an operation against Poland at dawn today. This operation should not be characterized as a war at the present time, but only as clashes provoked by the Polish attacks. " Two days later, the ambassadors of England and France delivered an ultimatum to Germany on behalf of their respective governments. But this could no longer stop Hitler, who made it his goal at all costs to bring Germany to the borders of the Soviet Union, to seize the "barrier that divided Russia and the Reich." Indeed, according to the plans of the Nazis, the territory of Poland was to become the main bridgehead from which the invasion of the USSR was to begin. But this was impossible to do without the conquest of Poland and an agreement with the West. Nazi Germany had been preparing the seizure of Poland since 1936. But the concrete development and adoption of the strategic plan of armed aggression, called "Weiss", refer, according to the Abwehr, to April 1939; its basis was to be the surprise and speed of action, as well as the concentration of overwhelming forces in decisive directions. All preparations for the attack on Poland were carried out in the strictest confidence. The troops secretly, under the pretext of conducting exercises and maneuvers, were transferred to Silesia and Pomerania, from which two powerful blows were to be delivered. By the end of August, troops, numbering more than 57 divisions, almost 2,500 tanks and 2,000 aircraft, were ready for a surprise invasion. They were only waiting for a command.

On September 3, three special trains departed from the Anhalt railway station in Berlin towards the Polish border. These were trains with the headquarters of the arms of the Wehrmacht, as well as the headquarters of Goering and Himmler. On the train of Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler was Schellenberg, who had just been appointed head of the Gestapo counterintelligence department at the newly created Reich's headquarters for security.

It should be noted that as a result of the long and systematic work of the Abwehr and other "total espionage" services, the German command at the time of the attack on Poland had sufficiently complete data on the organization of its armed forces, knew a lot about the plans for their strategic deployment in case of war. the number of divisions, their weapons and equipment with military equipment. The accumulated information clearly testified to the fact - the Nazis came to this conclusion - that the Polish army was not prepared for war. And in terms of numbers, and even more so in terms of the number of weapons and military equipment, it was significantly inferior to the German fascist army.

The subversive actions of the Nazis were not limited to military espionage delivered on a large scale. The set of techniques and means used in order to disorganize the rear of the future enemy in advance, to paralyze his resistance, was much wider.

First of all, the "fifth column" raised its head, which, according to Hitler's instructions, was supposed to psychologically decompose, demoralize and lead to a state of readiness to surrender by means of preparatory measures. "It is necessary," said Hitler, "relying on agents inside the country, to cause confusion, instill uncertainty and sow panic with the help of merciless terror and by completely rejecting all humanity."

It is known that since the spring of 1939, the Abwehr and the SD were actively engaged in instigating "popular uprisings" in Galicia and some other Ukrainian regions controlled by Poland. The idea was to lay the foundation for "Western Ukrainian statehood" with an eye to the subsequent Anschluss of Soviet Ukraine. Already after the attack on Poland, Kana-Ris received an order to arrange, under the guise of an "uprising" in the Ukrainian and Belarusian regions, a massacre among the Poles and Jews living there, and then to begin the formation of an "independent" Ukrainian entity. The Weiss plan, signed by Hitler on April 11, 1939, stipulated that after the defeat of Poland, Germany would place Lithuania and Latvia under its control.

Already on the example of the Polish, as well as the Austrian and Czechoslovak events that preceded them, it was easy to convince oneself of the sinister role of the Abwehr and other secret services, which were an integral part of the structure of the Hitlerite state apparatus. This, in fact, was recognized by the Nazis themselves - the organizers of the "secret war". “I don’t think that Brigan intelligence has ever played as important a role as German intelligence as a tool for implementing the political course of the country's leadership,” wrote Wilhelm Hettl, an Austrian professional intelligence officer who joined SD and later worked under Schellenberg. "In some cases, our secret service has deliberately set up certain incidents or hastened impending events if it was in the interests of policymakers."

This book is dedicated to Soviet intelligence agents in Nazi Germany, whose collective portrait was recreated in the image of Stirlitz, a fictional hero surrounded by truly popular love. During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet intelligence has established itself as the most effective among all its competing colleagues. But our scouts were also human. Yes, people are outstanding, but not devoid of their weaknesses and vices. They were not elusive and invulnerable, they made mistakes that cost them as much as the sappers. They often lacked professionalism and skills, but all this comes with experience. And getting this experience and surviving in Nazi Germany, where the world's strongest counterintelligence services were operating, was very difficult. How it was? Read about it in our book.

A series: Secret wars of intelligence

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company liters.

LEGENDS AND MYTHS

MYTH ONE: INCREDIBLE SUCCESS

Perhaps the reader will find it somewhat strange the decision to begin the story about Soviet intelligence in Hitlerite Germany precisely by exposing the myths that exist about it. Probably, I would also think so, if these myths had not received general distribution in recent years, would not have been duplicated in "documentary" films and books claiming to be scientific. And if, in the end, the reader and viewer did not have an absolutely wrong idea about the activities of our special services. Therefore, let's first understand the myths, especially since many of them are quite funny and interesting.

- Stirlitz, why couldn't you arrange our new resident in the Gestapo?

- The fact is that all the places there are already occupied by ours, and the staffing table does not allow us to introduce new positions.

This is, you guessed it, another anecdote. Funny? Funny. But for some reason, many people take it (or messages similar to it) at its face value. Our intelligence service is considered so successful, moreover, possessing just the same supernatural abilities, that every now and then it is credited with recruiting some or other senior officials of the Third Reich. Who just did not fall into the category of "Soviet agents": Reichsleiter Bormann, and the chief of the Gestapo Müller, and the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, and just think! - Adolf Hitler himself. I will quote an article that appeared recently in one of the newspapers for the next anniversary of the Victory. It says the following in plain text:

For some reason, the achievements of our intelligence during the war are hushed up. This is partly understandable - the activities of the special services are always shrouded in a veil of secrecy that cannot be disclosed even many decades later. But why not tell about our most outstanding, most brilliant successes, which helped us win the war? Perhaps the communists were simply afraid that the inability of the "leaders" to evaluate the richest information that was placed on their table and use it correctly would become obvious. But our intelligence officers managed not only to introduce their people into absolutely all state, party and Nazi structures without exception. Their agents were key figures in the enemy camp - such as Bormann, Müller, representatives of the German generals. It was these people who tried to eliminate Hitler on July 20, 1944. After all, it is no secret to anyone that the conspirators kept in touch with the most powerful structure of Soviet intelligence called the Red Chapel. The successes of our intelligence allowed Moscow to know absolutely all of Berlin's plans as if they had been developed in Moscow. Each document signed by Hitler in a few hours lay on the table to Stalin. This was the reason for the victories of the Red Army.

I just don't want to quote further, but there is nothing particularly new there. Complete nonsense. Take, for example, the introduction of our agents into almost all structures of the Third Reich. Including, probably, in "Jungfolk" - an organization that included all German boys aged 10 to 14 years old, a kind of younger brother of the famous Hitler Youth. So you imagine a young agent of Soviet intelligence who, sticking out his tongue out of diligence, diligently, albeit with grammatical errors, writes a report to the Center: “Today we went on a campaign in the vicinity of Munich. The detachment lit a fire. The technology of kindling a fire is as follows ... "And after a few hours this report already falls on Stalin's table! Can you imagine? And how Joseph Vissarionovich probably read the reports of agents from the Union of German Girls - the female counterpart of the Hitler Youth! .. Apparently, because of them, he missed the messages about Hitler's preparations for an attack on the USSR. And what - there was nothing to introduce agents into all structures! They could have done with at least the most important ...

"Each document signed by Hitler in a few hours lay on the table to Stalin." Wonderful! Probably, the Fuhrer himself sent them. By fax. Or, having signed the document, he left on a personal "gelding" to the nearest forest and, like Stirlitz, turned on the radio station. The Gestapo, busy catching the Russian "pianist", immediately spotted him and shouted: "Aha, got caught!" ran up to the car, recognizing the person sitting in it, embarrassedly said: "Heil Hitler!" and removed. This explains the amazing efficiency and elusiveness of Soviet agents. Completeness, was not Hitler the legendary Stirlitz?

An even longer fit of laughter evokes the revelation that the Red Army won all its victories thanks to intelligence reports. Well, absolutely everything! It was in vain to reward pilots, infantrymen and tankers; in vain did Alexander Matrosov rush to the embrasure of a machine gun. After all, reconnaissance has already won all the battles. In advance, a year still in the thirty-fifth. And as far as the Volga, the Russians retreated only so as not to inadvertently betray their agents and confuse the enemy. And Russian agents in the ranks of the German generals played along with them. Who was it? Probably Paulus, who deliberately climbed into Stalingrad to be surrounded there, and capitulated. Or Manstein, who slightly simulated the attacks on the Kursk Bulge and retreated with a light heart. How many more were there, these agents?

The stupidity of the author of the article is obvious. Why do such materials appear in print and, moreover, why are they believed? The fact is that they madly flatter patriotism. And not real, but leavened, the very one that foaming at the mouth proves that it is Russia that is the birthplace of elephants and that our jerboas are the most jerboas in the world! And now the gullible reader, having closed the newspaper, looks with pride at the world around him: these are the scouts we had! Mueller and Bormann themselves were recruited! Trembling, adversary, otherwise we'll recruit Condoleezza Rice, if we haven't recruited yet ...

And the naive reader is not aware that the recruitment of the highest statesman is so rare that they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. And then they are explained not so much by intelligence talents as by the moral character of this very figure. Take Talleyrand, for example, the foreign minister of Napoleon Bonaparte. Absolutely unprincipled and extremely selfish type, although he cannot be denied in his mind. Talleyrand secretly offered his services to the Russian Emperor Alexander I in 1808, four years before Napoleon's invasion of Russia! Naturally, on a completely reimbursable basis. And even after that Talleyrand cannot be considered a Russian agent, because he served only to himself.

In addition, astonishing as it may seem, the intelligence service does not need to recruit an important figure. It is enough to confine ourselves to junior officers, chauffeurs, telephone operators ... Of course, at first glance, the chief of the Gestapo and the telephone operator of the same department are simply two incomparable figures. But in fact, such a volume of information can pass through the telephone operator that her reports will not be inferior in importance to the reports of a high official. In addition, the risk that the telephone operator is playing her game is much less than in the case of the Gestapo chief.

None of us exist in a vacuum. Everyone - from a janitor to a dictator - is surrounded by many people with whom we communicate, who, to one degree or another, know our thoughts and plans. The higher a person stands in the service hierarchy, the more “dedicated” people around him. In order for the ministry to work well, the minister is forced to provide information to each of his subordinates. Even the most secret orders require couriers and executors. Therefore, a nondescript, “small” person at first glance may actually turn out to be a most valuable agent, whose recruitment is a great success.

And it is extremely difficult to recruit any such "smallest" person. After all, no one can guarantee that after recruiting he will not go straight to the Gestapo and will not report everything in detail. At best, the recruiter will be arrested or expelled from the country. At worst, the agent will play a double game, leaking disinformation. And this, alas, happened - I'll tell you about the unpleasant story with the agent "Lyceum". And yet there were more successful recruits - therefore, we should not attribute non-existent merits to our intelligence. She also has enough existing ones.

It is interesting that the myths about the recruitment of the first persons of the Nazi elite by Soviet intelligence began to spread after the war ... by the representatives of this elite. Naturally, they were not talking about themselves, loved ones, but about their enemies. It is no secret that the top of the Third Reich looked like a jar of spiders most of all, which were kept from obvious showdowns only by the presence of the main spider with antennae. When the main spider got burned in Berlin (literally and figuratively), it was time to settle old accounts. And what is the best way to curse a longtime adversary than to present him as a Russian spy? So Schellenberg began, for example, to compose tales about Mueller, his sworn friend. In addition, this made it possible to find a partial answer to the question that tormented all the "top officials" of Germany after the defeat: "By what absurd accident could we have lost to Russian subhumans?" The fact that today we are picking up and developing the myths of Hitler's heirs does no honor to anyone.

However, let's delve into these myths in more detail.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE IMPERIAL STAIRS

So, let's start with the most important thing. From Reichsleiter Bormann. His position is translated as "imperial leader" (however, the rich German language also allows the translation of "imperial ladder", which was the reason for many jokes). Hitler's deputy for the party, which in a totalitarian state, as you know, meant everything and even a little more. The man who stubbornly climbed upward and by the end of the war became the closest and irreplaceable assistant to the Fuehrer, almost more influential than Hitler himself. He was called "the right hand of the leader." Concurrently, he is the hero of many anecdotes about Stirlitz. Let's remember, for example, this:

Muller tells Stirlitz:

- Bormann is Russian.

- How do you know? Let's check it out.

Stretched out the rope. Bormann walks, touched the rope and, falling, shouts:

- Your mother!

- No shit to yourself!

- Hush, hush, comrades!

As if trying to prove the veracity of this anecdote, many today try to present Bormann as a Soviet spy. Or at least a Soviet intelligence agent. I will not deny myself the pleasure of citing another article that fully reveals the "red soul" of the Reichsleiter:

The leadership of the USSR, realizing that sooner or later the country would have to face Germany, made a decision to introduce “its own man” into its echelons of power. It all started with visits to the USSR by the leader of the German communists Ernst Thalmann (since 1921, he has visited the Soviet Union more than ten times). It was Thälmann who recommended his good friend from the "Union of Spartacus", a proven guy Martin Bormann, known to the German communists under the pseudonym "Comrade Karl".

Arriving by steamer to Leningrad, and then to Moscow, Bormann was introduced to J.V. Stalin. "Comrade Karl" agreed to join the National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany. Thus began his journey to the heights of power of the Third Reich.

Bormann's successful promotion was largely aided by the fact that he personally knew Adolf Hitler. They met at the front during the First World War, when Hitler was still Corporal Schicklgruber.

Despite the mortal risk, "Comrade Karl" managed to gain confidence in the Fuhrer and from 1941 became his closest assistant and advisor, as well as the head of the party office.

Bormann worked well with Soviet intelligence, and the Soviet leadership regularly received valuable information about Hitler's plans.

In addition, "Comrade Karl" stenographed the Fuehrer's table conversations, which are now known as "Hitler's Testament". It was under the leadership of Bormann that the bodies of the Fuhrer and his wife Eva Braun were burned after their suicide. This happened at 15:30 on April 30, 1945. And at 5 o'clock in the morning on May 1, Bormann transmitted a radio message to the Soviet command about his location.

At 14 o'clock, Soviet tanks approached the building of the Reich Chancellery, in one of which the chief of the USSR military intelligence, General Ivan Serov, who led the capture group, arrived. Soon the soldiers withdrew a man with a bag on his head from the Reich Chancellery. They put him in a tank, which headed for the airfield ...

The head of the office of the fascist party was buried in Lefortovo (Moscow region). There in the cemetery there is an abandoned monument with an engraved inscription: "Martin Bormann, 1900-1973". This can be considered a coincidence, but it was in 1973 in Germany that Bormann was officially declared dead.

By the way, in 1968, the former German general Gehlen, who headed the Wehrmacht's intelligence department "Foreign armies of the East" during the war, claimed that he suspected Bormann of espionage for the Soviet Union, as reported only to the head of the Abwehr Canaris. It was decided that it was dangerous to acquaint one of Hitler's close associates with this information: Bormann had strong power, and the informants could easily lose their lives.

- Damn yourself! - like Müller from an anecdote, the astonished reader might exclaim. And then he will also ask: "Is it all true?"

But I prefer to stretch the pleasure, for a start, catching the authors of the article on petty lies. First, Hitler, as has long been well known, never wore the name Schicklgruber and had no reason to wear it. Secondly, Bormann has never been a member of the Spartak Union. Thirdly, I did not communicate with Hitler at the front. However, these are all trifles - maybe the authors have convincing documentary evidence?

"There is none of them!" - exclaim the authors of the "version" with indignation. After all, the evil chekists keep their secrets behind seven seals and do not allow anyone to poke a truth-seeking nose into the archives. But we have collected a lot of circumstantial evidence supporting the version!

To understand what "circumstantial evidence" is and how much you can trust them, I will give you a simple example.

Late in the evening, a man was hit by a car at an intersection. The driver fled from the scene of the crime. Do you have a car? Yes? This is circumstantial evidence that you are the very driver. How, is it also gray? But eyewitnesses say that the criminal's car was just gray! Everything is clear, you can be knitted. What? Your car is not gray, but green? Nothing, it was in the dark, and at night all the cats are gray. It doesn't matter that there is no direct evidence, that is, for example, witnesses of the incident, who remembered the number of your car.

This is roughly how the authors of the story about the Soviet spy Bormann work. “How! - the reader will exclaim. - And the gravestone in Lefortovo ?! I hasten to reassure you: there is not even a trace of such a gravestone there. At least no one has yet been able to find it. Of course, we can say that it was the damned KGB officers who removed the stone after the publication of the exposing article. Then why did they install it at all, and - all the more - reported it to the FRG? Not otherwise did they send the funeral to the descendants: "We inform you that your father died a heroic death ...". Maybe Gehlen again, as after his 23-year-old amnesia, will clarify this for us?

However, I would ask a more intriguing question: "What important information did Bormann convey to the Russians?" Why isn't half a word said about this? After all, the Reicheleiter could, in theory, get any information in the country. Why did Stalin and the supreme military leadership find themselves not aware of many of Hitler's plans? A riddle, and nothing more.

Who was Martin Bormann really? The son of a small employee was born in 1900 in the city of Halberstadt. Drafted into the army in the summer of 1918, he served in the fortress artillery and did not take any part in hostilities. After demobilization, he went to study agriculture in 1919, at the same time he joined the "Union against the dominance of the Jews" (not otherwise, on the personal instructions of Comrade Trotsky). He sold food on the "black market", soon joined the party of German nationalists and at the same time - into the counter-revolutionary "volunteer corps" (probably, Tukhachevsky ordered). In 1923 he finished off the "traitor" who allegedly collaborated with the French - in those years there were many such political assassinations. After serving a year in prison, Bormann became close to the Nazis and in 1926 became a member of the assault squads (SA). The promotion took place gradually, he was greatly helped by his marriage to the daughter of a major party leader - Hitler and Hess were witnesses at the wedding. Bormann always tried to stay close to Hitler, providing him with various kinds of services, besides, he was a rather talented administrator and financier. Therefore, it is difficult to see the "hand of Moscow" in its elevation, even with a strong desire. Since 1936, Bormann, simultaneously eliminating the most important competitors, became Hitler's "shadow", accompanied him on all trips, and prepared reports for the Fuhrer. Hitler liked Bormann's style: to report clearly, clearly, concisely. Of course, Bormann selected the facts in such a way that the Fuehrer would make a decision that was favorable to him. If this did not happen, the "gray cardinal" did not argue, but did everything unquestioningly. Gradually, control over party finances passed into his hands. In 1941, Bormann became Hitler's secretary, and drafts of all German laws and statutes were passed through his hands. It was Bormann who in 1943 demanded the use of weapons and corporal punishment on a large scale against Soviet prisoners of war. Isn't it a strange step for a Soviet spy? Not otherwise, he conspired. Before his suicide, Hitler appointed Bormann to head the NSDAP. However, it seems that the Reichsleiter did not hold this post for long - according to the official version, on May 2, 1945, he died while trying to break through from Berlin. His remains were not found right away, so legends were soon born about Bormann's "miraculous salvation" and that he was hiding in South America. However, such legends appear in every such case.

So, with Bormann, everything seems to be clear. And what about the other candidate - "Grandpa Müller"?

"ARMORED!" - THOUGHT SHTIRLITS

The image of Müller in the eyes of our man is inextricably linked with the artist Leonid Bronev. The role in "Seventeen Moments of Spring" is really played so talentedly that it makes you forget about the truth. And the truth is that the real Müller was absolutely nothing like the Gestapo chief played by Bronev.

Firstly, the Gruppenfuehrer was not any "grandfather". If only because on the day of the fall of Berlin he was barely 45 years old. Like Hitler, Müller volunteered for the front in World War I, became a military pilot, was awarded several times, and after the defeat joined the Bavarian police. Before the Nazis came to power, Mueller was an ordinary honest campaigner who followed all kinds of radical groups. After 1933, he realizes where the wind is blowing, and goes to the famous "secret state police", that is, the Gestapo. Müller seemed to be quite a talented person, as he quickly made a career, although he joined the party only in 1939. In the same year, he became head of the IV Directorate of the Imperial Security Service (RSHA) - the same Gestapo. It was he who led the organization of the provocation in Gleiwitz, which gave Hitler a reason to attack Poland and thereby unleash World War II. What the Gestapo did all six years of the war, I think, everyone imagines, and there is no need to talk about it again. Let me emphasize only one thing: Mueller has as much blood on his hands as few in the Nazi elite had. According to some reports, during the days of the storming of Berlin, Mueller committed suicide. His body was never found.

Naturally, rumors soon spread that Mueller had been seen in South America. In principle, there would be nothing surprising in this, since after the war, with the connivance of the Western allies, a whole powerful organization "ODESSA" was operating, which was engaged in rescuing Nazi criminals from Europe and sending them to "safe" countries. Müller could have been among them. But almost immediately another version appeared - that the Gestapo chief was a Russian spy.

It was launched by none other than Mueller's worst enemy, the head of the VI Directorate of the RSHA (foreign intelligence) Walter Schellenberg. After the war, he wrote his memoirs, which looked more like a historical novel, and it was there that he discovered the "truth" about his eternal rival. It turns out that Mueller was a Soviet spy! This begs the question: why was he not arrested? As an answer, only the phrase from the anecdote spins on the tongue: "It's useless, it will get out anyway."

Schellenberg's idea was picked up in the West, and recently in our country. Books are published where they seriously prove that since 1943 Mueller was an agent of Soviet intelligence. In principle, the chief of the Gestapo, being not a stupid person, could foresee the imminent inglorious end of the "millennial Reich" and try to save his own skin. But for the same reason he could not turn to the Russians. The crimes of the Gestapo in the Soviet Union were too great and well known, and even the most valuable information could not save the head of this sinister organization. How did she not save another high-ranking Gestapo, the only one who, in reality, and not according to legend, decided to cooperate with Soviet intelligence. His name was Heinz Pannwitz.

RECRUITMENT OF THE GESTAPEAN: HOW IT WAS

SS Hauptsturmführer Heinz Pannwitz made a good career: in July 1943 he was appointed chief of the Paris branch of the Gestapo Sonderkommando "Red Chapel", which was engaged in the fight against Soviet agents. By this time, the network itself, known as the "Rote Capelle", was practically destroyed, but the Gestapo tried to use the captured scouts to the full. For example, for the "radio game" with Moscow - this was the name of the situation when the captured radio operator agreed to work further under the control of the Gestapo and transmit disinformation to the Soviet Union.

There were several prisoners in the Paris branch. One of them - radio operator Trepper - has long been used for radio games. But he was able to warn Moscow about his arrest, and the Center understood perfectly well what was what. The Gestapo, of course, did not know about this. In September, seizing the right moment, Trepper made an incredibly daring escape and was free. Pannwitz was in a terrible position: Trepper's flight threatened to bury the entire operation, and in this case there was no doubt that he, the SS Hauptsturmführer, would become the scapegoat. Therefore, he quickly put another prisoner at the transmitter - Vincent Sierra (real name Gurevich, codename "Kent"). However, Pannwitz connected completely new hopes with Sierra: soon he began to transparently hint to his captive that he would not mind cooperating with the Soviet special services in exchange for saving his life. Pannwitz did not dare to contact the British, he was afraid that they would not forgive him for the crimes in the Czech Republic, committed as punishment for the murder of Heydrich by British agents. There were no such constraints regarding the Soviet Union.

"Kent" thought hard. On the one hand, the offer was very tempting. On the other hand, he suspected another cunning of the enemy. However, thinking logically, Gurevich realized that his jailer was not lying. In the summer of 1944, he directly suggested that Pannwitz cooperate with Russian intelligence. The Gestapo man agreed. Over the next year, he carried out a series of actions that helped the French Resistance, and obtained important information of an economic, political and military nature. At the end of the war, Pannwitz and "Kent", along with several other Gestapo men and Soviet intelligence officers, fled to the mountains, where they surrendered to the French. On June 7, 1945, the whole group flew to Moscow.

The Soviet special services exactly fulfilled their promises: Pannwitz's life was saved. But not freedom. After all the useful information was extracted from him during interrogations, a trial was held, as a result of which the Gestapo was sent to a forced labor camp. He stayed there until 1955, when he was transferred to the FRG. It was in West Germany that he lived out his life as a completely prosperous and quiet pensioner, invariably refusing to meet with journalists.

It was a unique case: a scout who was in prison managed to recruit his jailer! There was simply nothing like this during the Second World War. Without denying the courage and will of Gurevich, I will add: a simple coincidence of circumstances helped him a lot. It is clear that this could not happen with Bormann and Müller.

And with other members of the Nazi elite?

COLLECTION OF SOVIET SPIES

These are the words I would like to say to this very elite after reading the articles of some overly zealous authors. Indeed, whoever was not called a Soviet agent - right up to Hitler himself! Yes, this is exactly what the defector Rezun, hiding under the pseudonym Viktor Suvorov, thinks (or at least writes in his little books).

According to the author of "Icebreaker", Hitler was a Soviet agent from the very beginning. In 1923, he started a communist rebellion (this is about the "beer coup", if anyone did not understand), and then disguised himself as a nationalist and began to strive for power. In fact, Hitler needed this power only for one thing: to conquer all of Europe, and then throw it at the feet of Stalin. A kind of "icebreaker revolution", according to the definition of Rezun himself. It is a pity that the defector does not mention Hitler's agent name. "Aryan", "Mustache", or maybe "Wagner"? History is silent.

The version is so delusional that I think it doesn't even make sense to analyze it. The same goes for other alleged agents. For example, Admiral Canaris, head of military intelligence (Abwehr). Canaris disliked the Nazis and was eventually executed for conspiratorial activities, but he actually had no ties to Soviet intelligence. The same applies to the Hitlerite generals, who, with truly German pedantry and tenacity, conspired against their Fuehrer. But these generals dreamed of peace with England and America, and with the accursed Bolsheviks they were ready to fight to the last soldier. Bad candidates for the role of Russian agents, aren't they?

There is nothing to say about the higher ranks of the SS. The SS men who fought on the Eastern Front knew perfectly well: it was useless to surrender, they would not take it. Those who remained in the Reich had the same sentiments. Therefore, the desire to cooperate with Soviet intelligence could arise only from a completely crazy SS man, and from such an agent, as you understand, there is little sense. So, we have to admit that the Soviet intelligence never had any agents among the Reich elite. As the intelligence of the British, American, French, Turkish, Chinese and Uruguayan did not have them.

"But what about Stirlitz?" - you ask. Oh yes, Stirlitz. It is worth dealing with it in more detail.

MYTH TWO: LIVE SHTIRLITS

As soon as a literary (or cinematic) hero begins to enjoy popularity, they immediately try to find a suitable prototype for him. However, many, and not only small children, believe that the person shown on the screen existed in reality. I have already talked about how Brezhnev, having watched the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring" for the first time, asked if Stirlitz had been awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Since the close secretary general did not understand what he meant, and apparently they were afraid to ask again, they awarded the artist Tikhonov the title of Hero of Socialist Labor just in case.

You can laugh at Leonid Ilyich, but the fact remains: many people believed that Stirlitz was a real character, and were very surprised to learn that this was not so. Others were looking for prototypes. Here is one such attempt:

The prototype for Stirlitz was Willy Lehmann, an employee of Walter Schellenberg, who also worked for Soviet intelligence as a particularly valuable agent named "Breitenbach". He was let down by the communist radio operator Hans Barth (nickname "Beck"). Bart fell ill and had to undergo surgery. Under anesthesia, he suddenly spoke about the need to change the code and was indignant: "Why is Moscow not responding?" The surgeon hastened to please Müller with the patient's unusual revelations. Bart was arrested, and he betrayed Lehman and several other people. Uncle Willie was arrested in December 1942 and shot several months later. Under the pen of Julian Semyonov, the German radio operator turned into a Russian radio operator.

To put it mildly, not everything is correct here. First, Breitenbach never worked for Schellenberg, but rather for Müller. Secondly, "Beck" never shouted about changing the codes (ask any anesthesiologist: do patients under anesthesia talk a lot?). Thirdly, the radio operator never betrayed Lehman - this happened as a result of a tragic mistake. However, I'll tell you about everything in order.

SS Hauptsturmführer Willie Lehmann was indeed one of the most valuable Soviet agents. Working in the Gestapo, he could promptly warn about going on the trail of Soviet agents, about impending arrests and ambushes. And this is only a small fraction of the information that was received from him in Moscow.

Information for thought. "Breitenbach"

The story began in 1929, when Lehmann, who worked in the political police, sent his acquaintance, an unemployed policeman Ernst Kür, to the Soviet embassy to establish contacts. He did not act directly. Contact was established, and soon Lehman, codenamed A-201, appeared on the pages of Soviet intelligence documents. After a while, Kur went to Sweden, where a shop was bought for him, which became one of the appearances. Lehman's cooperation with the Russians continued directly.

By that time, Lehman was the senior assistant of the department. Of the 45 years of his life, 18 he served in the police and had vast experience, as well as access to top secret documents. Why did a respectable Prussian official decide to make contacts with the Russians? History is silent about this. Most likely, Lehman clearly saw the prospect of the Nazis coming to power and saw in the Soviet Union the only force capable of resisting them. It is reliably known that he did not work for the sake of remuneration, although he did not refuse it. In 1932, Lehman was appointed head of the unit for combating "communist espionage" - a curious joke of fate. After the Nazis came to power, Lehman managed to hold on to his post, having survived waves of purges. From a political police officer, he turned into an employee of the Gestapo. Naturally, the information coming from him became more and more valuable.

They kept in touch in the following way: at first, Vasily Zarubin, an employee of the illegal Berlin station, communicated directly with him. Then, after Zarubin was recalled to Moscow, a certain Clemens, the owner of a safe house, acted as a messenger. Through her, the materials went to the Soviet embassy, ​​and Lehman was given assignments.

The Nazis were not scattered with experienced counterintelligence officers, and the Soviet agent was quickly promoted. In 1938 he had to join the NSDAP. After that, Lehmann was entrusted with counterintelligence support for the objects of the military industry of the Reich, and in 1941 - ensuring the security of the military facilities under construction. All this time, he, risking his life every day, supplied Moscow with the most valuable information. He transmitted data on the structure and personnel of the Abwehr and the Gestapo, obtained the keys to the ciphers used in Germany and the texts of the cipher telegrams themselves. Even before the massacre of the stormtroopers - the "night of the long knives" in 1934 - Lehman informed the Center that Hitler was preparing to deal with his recent associates. He also sent other information about the vicissitudes of the struggle for power in the newly created Third Reich. Even more important was information about military developments at facilities overseen by Lehman. So, in 1935, he reported on the work of German scientists on the creation of combat missiles - the future "Fau". Then there was information about new armored personnel carriers, fighters, submarines ... Of course, these were not blueprints, in most cases Lehman did not even know the technical details, but information about the general direction of development of military equipment was very important.

It was from Lehmann, who received the codename "Breitenbach", that Moscow learned about the location of five secret training grounds for testing new types of weapons. Subsequently, already during the war years, this helped to inflict long-range bombers on the ranges. Lehman also reported details about attempts to make synthetic fuel from brown coal. And this list is far from complete.

For all her courage, Breitenbach was not an “iron man”. He often came to meetings with representatives of the Soviet side very nervous, talked a lot about the danger he was exposed to. At his request, a passport was made for him in a different name - in case he had to urgently leave Germany. Communication with "Breitenbach" was often interrupted for various reasons, including because of the personnel leapfrog in the Soviet residency in Berlin. By 1938, for example, communication had almost ceased, and in 1940 Lehmann was forced to turn to the Soviet embassy with a sharp statement: if he was no longer interested in his services, he immediately resigns from the Gestapo. The Soviet resident Alexander Korotkov immediately met with him, about whom I will describe below. Korotkov had clear instructions from Beria himself, which read:

Breitenbach should not be given any special assignments. It is necessary to take everything that is in his immediate capabilities, and, in addition, what he will know about the work of various intelligence services against the USSR in the form of documents and personal reports of the source.

In Moscow, they understood what danger Lehman was in, and tried to protect him. In the spring of 1941, Breitenbach transmits data indicating that Germany is about to attack the USSR. On June 19, he said that he had personally seen the text of the order, in which the attack on the USSR was scheduled for the 22nd. And after the outbreak of the war, he continued to work through the radio operator "Bek".

How did the failure come about? Almost by accident - there are enough such ridiculous and tragic accidents in the history of any intelligence service in the world. In September 1942, the Gestapo got on the trail of "Bek" and soon grabbed him. This eventually happened to every radio operator - it was simply impossible to endlessly leave the Gestapo with its sophisticated means of radio intelligence. During interrogation, "Beck" gave a mock consent to work for the Gestapo and participate in a radio game. In his very first radiogram, he gave a prearranged conditional signal, which was supposed to inform Moscow that the "pianist" was working under supervision. But due to poor reception conditions, the conditioned signal was not heard. Lehman's real phone was in the hands of the Gestapo. Then, as they say, everything was a matter of technique. In December 1942, the Breitenbach was captured and hastily shot. It seems that Müller was simply afraid to report "upstairs" that a Soviet spy was in the ranks of his service.

Does Lehman have something to do with Stirlitz? Of course. Both of them wore SS uniforms, both transmitted information to the Center, both finally had two legs and two arms. In general, that seems to be all. Lehman was never a Soviet Colonel Isaev, who invented a cunning legend for himself and diligently mows like a German. Let us recall the story of Stirlitz: in 1922, together with the remnants of whites, he left for China to conduct intelligence among the emigrants, and then went to Australia, where in the German consulate in Sydney he declared himself as a German robbed in China. There he worked for a year in a hotel with a German owner, then got a job at the German consulate in New York, joined the NSDAP, and then the SS.

Was the existence of such a scout possible in principle? Many people think not. For example, Doctor of Historical Sciences Anatoly Malyshev answered the question asked to him as follows:

Perhaps the most important problem in the activities of an intelligence officer like Stirlitz is the language problem. It is almost impossible for a non-native speaker to master it in such a way as to appear to be a native speaker. Semyonov has his own plot on this score: the future Stirlitz lived with his Menshevik father in early childhood in Germany. In this case, of course, Isaev could have had a perfect reprimand. However, history also knows more complicated cases. One of the most famous Soviet illegal immigrants, Konon Molodiy is a village native who successfully masqueraded as an American businessman.

Another big difficulty lies in the fact that almost all Soviet super-spies - including Molodiy and Philby - worked in states, albeit unfriendly, with which at least there is no state of war. "Stirlitz" works in the camp of a real enemy: as far as I know, there were no precedents of this kind: all sources of Soviet intelligence in Nazi Germany were Europeans.

Of course, Malyshev is not completely right: the famous intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov, having never visited Germany, not only perfectly mastered the German language, but also mastered some of its dialects, which allowed him to walk in the uniform of a Wehrmacht officer for a long time and communicate with the Germans. But this is a unique case. Indeed, there was not a single Russian among the sources of Soviet intelligence in Germany.

MYTH THREE: REPRESSION RINK

In front of me is a volume from the collected works of Yulian Semyonov, published in 1991. It is in it that his most famous work - "Seventeen Moments of Spring". There are lines in this edition that are not in other, earlier ones. Here they are:

It was here that he came to the terrible thirties, when the horror began at home, when Stalin declared him, Stirlitz, teachers, those who introduced him to the revolution as German spies; and - the worst thing - they, his teachers, agreed with these accusations.<…>He understood that something terrible was happening in the country, beyond the control of logic - so vulgarly the Moscow trials were concocted and, the worst thing, judging by the reports that came to the SD, the people of Russia fervently welcomed the murders of those who had surrounded Lenin long before October.<…>It was here that he spent the whole day when Stalin signed a treaty of friendship with Hitler - crushed, crushed, deprived of the power to think.

Well, what about the latter is an obvious stretch - such an intelligent person like Stirlitz could not fail to understand that there was no alternative to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact at that time. Yulian Semyonov could not understand this, Stirlitz could not. The question of repressions is more complicated, especially since, as is often said, they dealt a terrible blow to Soviet intelligence. Stalin's executioners, as some authors say in unison, literally deprived the country of its eyes and ears at the most critical moment.

In fact, everything is far from so simple. I will not talk here about the reasons and the scope of the “great terror”. I will not question the fact that many innocent people have fallen under the flywheel of terror (otherwise it does not happen). I set myself a different goal - to consider how much damage was done to intelligence by the repression of the late 1930s. And I must say that the answer to this question may be unexpected for many.

The fact is that in 1932-1935 Soviet intelligence showed itself far from the best. Failure followed failure, and the crackle was often deafening. There were, of course, successes, but often there were "spy scandals" when intelligence officers turned out to be representatives of foreign special services (not fictitious, but quite real). Discipline was frankly lame, the elementary requirements of conspiracy were often not followed, the picture was completed by internal conflicts of a personal nature. In a word, by the beginning of the "Great Terror" Soviet intelligence did not at all represent the monolithic community of classy professionals, as it was "presented" in the perestroika years. In 1935, Moses Uritsky was appointed head of military intelligence - far from the best choice. The "old Bolshevik" quickly came into conflict with his subordinates, which, of course, did not add to the effectiveness of intelligence. As a result of his intrigues, Deputy Artur Artuzov, a truly high-class professional, was shot. Uritsky was quickly removed, and then sent to the expense, but the loss was difficult to replace. Even the fact that Berzin, who had already returned from Spain, who was already in this position, was appointed head of intelligence did not save the situation. On June 2, 1937, Stalin declared at a meeting of the Military Council under the People's Commissar of Defense:

In all areas we defeated the bourgeoisie, only in the area of ​​intelligence were we beaten like boys, like guys. This is our main weakness. There is no intelligence, real intelligence.<…>Our intelligence along the military line is bad, weak, littered with espionage.<…>Intelligence is an area where we have suffered a severe defeat for the first time in 20 years. And the task is to put this intelligence on its feet. These are our eyes, these are our ears.

As you know, you can make a good one out of a bad house in two ways: by undertaking a long and accurate major overhaul, or simply by demolishing the old house to the ground, and then building a new one in its place. Intelligence problems could be resolved quietly, on the sidelines, without making them public. But there was neither time nor energy for filigree work. The country's leadership took a tough path. In a short time, the entire intelligence leadership was literally mowed down, and more than once. In the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) - military intelligence - in the years 1937-1940, five chiefs were replaced. Almost all the specialists of the "old school" were declared "enemies of the people" and shot. The situation was no better in the "political" intelligence, which was under the jurisdiction of the NKVD. Major General V.A. Nikolsky later recalled:

By mid-1938, big changes had taken place in military intelligence. Most of the chiefs of departments and divisions and all command and control departments were arrested. Experienced intelligence officers who spoke foreign languages, who had repeatedly traveled on foreign business trips, were repressed without any reason. Their wide contacts abroad, without which intelligence is unthinkable, in the eyes of ignoramuses and political careerists were constituent elements of a crime and served as the basis for the false accusation of cooperation with German, English, French, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and others, you cannot name all of them, spy services. A whole generation of committed, honest and experienced intelligence officers was destroyed. Their ties with the intelligence service have been severed. New commanders devoted to their homeland came to the posts of head of department and heads of departments. But they were absolutely unprepared to tackle the tasks assigned to intelligence.

So, the complete abomination of desolation. All competent specialists were destroyed, and yellow-bellied chicks came in their place. There is no one in military intelligence with a rank higher than major. Pavel Fitin, 31, became the head of the NKVD's foreign intelligence. Complete collapse?

And then the strangest thing happens. In a matter of a few, no, not years, but months, foreign intelligence begins to work with high efficiency. Failures are becoming much less, discipline problems are solved by themselves. Lost agent contacts are restored in full and even expanded during the year. The majors in military intelligence manage to do what the major generals have failed to achieve in a longer period. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet special services are deservedly considered the strongest in the world.

Therefore, there is no need to talk about any decline in the effectiveness of Soviet intelligence as a result of repressions, rather, on the contrary. On this, perhaps, we will put an end to myths and move on to the real work of Soviet intelligence in Nazi Germany. Her agent network worked regularly from the first to the last day of the Great Patriotic War.

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The given introductory fragment of the book Soviet intelligence agents in Nazi Germany (Mikhail Zhdanov, 2008) provided by our book partner -