January 12, 1950 in the USSR by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR "On the application of the death penalty to traitors to the Motherland, spies, demolition saboteurs" "at the request of the workers" again introduced the death penalty for treason, espionage and sabotage. Today about the spies executed in the USSR.
Adolf Georgievich Tolkachev
Adolf Tolkachev was born on January 6, 1927 in the city of Aktobe, Kazakh SSR. From 1929 he lived permanently in Moscow. At 30 he got married. Tolkachev worked as an employee of the Research Institute of the Radio Industry and had access to highly classified military-type data. Adolf Georgievich was one of the developers of the stealth plane. He embarked on the path of betrayal for financial reasons.
In September 1978, Tolkachev left a note under the windshield wiper of an employee of the American Embassy in Moscow. In a note, he said that he could transfer extremely secret data to the United States that would change the balance of power on the world stage. The note got to the station of the Moscow intelligence department, where they demanded instructions from the Center. The center ordered the Moscow residency not to react to Tolkachev's proposal. The CIA also did not respond to Tolkachev's two subsequent attempts to establish contact, because it feared provocations by Soviet counterintelligence. Tolkachev achieved success only for the fourth time. A CIA officer called on the phone number he left and indicated the location of the cache. The first meeting took place on January 1, 1979.
For 6 years of his treasonous activity, Adolf Tolkachev handed over to the USA 54 top secret developments, among which were the electronic control system of MiG fighters and devices for bypassing radar stations. Tolkachev filmed top secret documents and handed them over to American intelligence officers. In return, he received cash, imported medicines, rock and roll cassettes for his son, books. In total, Tolkachev received 789.5 thousand rubles, and about 2 million rubles were accumulated on a foreign deposit in a foreign bank in case Tolkachev fled abroad. However, the traitor tried to live modestly, despite the enormous financial possibilities. Of the riches he had only a country dacha and a VAZ-2101, where he sold goods for currency, he did not go. This helped the traitor to conduct his activities for a long time.
The KGB was able to get on the trail of Tolkachev quite by accident. In 1985, Edward Lee Howard, Tolkachev's curator, was fired from the CIA for drug addiction and embezzlement. The offended Howard gave the KGB of the USSR a lot of top secret information and the name of Adolf Tolkachev as well. On June 9, 1985, Tolkachev was arrested. During the investigation, he confessed everything and begged him not to pass the death sentence on him. The court found him guilty and sentenced him to capital punishment - death by firing squad. On September 24, 1986, the sentence was carried out.
Petr Popov - double agent
Pyotr Popov was born in 1923 near Kostroma into a peasant family. He fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, had awards, ended the war as a supply officer. When the war ended, Popov became a guarantor under General Ivan Serov, Deputy Chief of the Soviet military administration in Germany for civil administration and concurrently Deputy People's Commissar of the NKVD of the USSR. In 1951 he graduated from the Military Diplomatic Academy and was assigned to Austria, to the contingent of Soviet troops. While serving in Vienna, his main task was to recruit agents from among Austrian citizens to work against Yugoslavia, with which the USSR was in conflict in those years.
Since 1954, Popov began to actively cooperate with the CIA as an agent for "Grayspace". The United States created a special CIA unit SR-9 (Soviet Russia) to work with Popov, which later directed the actions of all agents in the Soviet Union. The CIA generously paid for the services of the lieutenant colonel, and he turned over all known agents in Austria, revealed the training system for the GRU and the KGB of the USSR and the structure of these departments, passed on a number of valuable information about Soviet weapons and military doctrine, schemes for organizing motorized rifle and armored divisions in the Soviet Army ... The CIA received through Popov a report on the holding in 1954 of the first military exercises in the USSR using nuclear weapons in the Totsk region.
On December 23, 1958, the CIA made a mistake that cost Popov his life. The secretary misunderstood the instruction and sent instructions to Popov to his home address in Kalinin. After that, Popov was recalled to Moscow and closely watched over him. During January-February 1959, the KGB recorded several meetings between Popov and CIA agents. On February 18, he was detained at the Leningradsky railway station in Moscow. At Popov's house, they found 20 thousand rubles, codes, a Walter pistol and instructions for communicating with the US station. Popov was charged with treason. On January 7, 1960, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR announced the sentence - the capital punishment. The verdict was carried out in 1960.
Leonid Poleshchuk - twice traitor to the USSR
Leonid Poleshchuk (born in 1938) joined the foreign intelligence service of the KGB of the USSR in the early 1970s. He was sent to Kathmandu. There he became addicted to gambling and alcohol. Having lost about $ 300 taken from the box office at the casino, Poleshchuk began to think how to avoid punishment and did not find anything better than to offer his services to American residents in Nepal. John Bellingham, a CIA resident, agreed immediately. For certain information Poleshchuk received an impressive amount of money. In 1974 Poleshchuk was recalled from Kathmandu to Moscow. He told his curators that he no longer cooperated with the CIA, and contacts between him and American intelligence ceased for 10 years.
In 1984, Lieutenant Colonel Poleshchuk was sent to Nigeria, and after about a year, he decided to contact the CIA. In the department store, he pretended to sprained his leg. Poleshchuk told the doctor who arrived from the American embassy the password: “I am Leo, from the country of high mountains. Hello Bellingham. " Just 10 days later, Poleshchuk was contacted by Richard Ball, a CIA resident in Nigeria.
Poleshchuk handed over to the CIA all Soviet intelligence officers and agents in Nigeria, and after returning to the USSR he continued to work for the Americans. In the spring of 1985, Soviet counterintelligence found Poleshchuk's trail. His connections with the staff of the American embassy were revealed, the laying of a cache disguised as a stone was fixed. It contained money and instructions. On June 12, 1986, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR announced the death penalty by firing squad. The verdict was carried out.
Oleg Penkovsky is the most successful Western agent in the USSR
Oleg Penkovsky was born on April 23, 1919. In the fall of 1960, Colonel Penkovsky, an employee of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the General Staff of the USSR Ministry of Defense, offered his services to British intelligence, subsequently collaborating with MI-5 and the CIA.
From his first London trip in May 1961, Penkovsky brought back a transistor radio and a miniature Minox camera. He managed to transfer 111 Minox tapes to the West with 5,500 filmed documents totaling 7,650 pages. During his business trips to Paris and London, he was interrogated for a total of 140 hours, and the reports of the interrogations fit into 1,200 typed pages. According to the documents published in the West, 600 Soviet intelligence officers "burned" on Penkovsky's tip, 50 of them were GRU officers.
In 1963, Oleg Penkovsky was charged with espionage for the United States and Great Britain and treason. He was deprived of all awards and sentenced to capital punishment - execution.
Information about Penkovsky, about his work in the GRU and cooperation with Western special services is still considered secret today.
Vladimir Vetrov - killer and traitor
In 1965, Vladimir Vetrov visited France as a representative of the trade mission and met Jacques Prevost, a responsible employee of the Thomson TsSF firm, which was engaged in the manufacture of electronics. It turned out that he was cooperating with the French counterintelligence DST, and Vetrov became an object for recruitment. When Vetrov crashed a company car intoxicated, he, wanting to avoid proceedings at the embassy, \u200b\u200bturns to a new French friend for help. Prevost helped him, but warned counterintelligence that now Vetrov had something to hide. Then cooperation did not work out, since Vetrov's business trip ended. A Soviet citizen remembered his French friend in 1981. At that time, he worked in the “T” department of the KGB PGU, which was engaged in the analysis of scientific and technical information received from abroad.
For 2 years the agent "Farewell", such a nickname was assigned to Vetrov in the DST, transferred 4 thousand secret documents to the West, including a full official list of 250 Line X officers stationed under the guise of diplomats around the world. He also revealed the names of 450 Soviet intelligence officers who were collecting scientific and technical information.
In February 1982, while intoxicated, Vetrov killed a KGB officer. The tribunal found him guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced him to 15 years in a strict regime colony with deprivation of awards and military rank. But after 2 years, Vetrov was transferred to the Lefortovo prison (Moscow) and charged with treason. The court verdict - the death penalty was carried out on February 23, 1985.
On March 29, 1912, Elizaveta Mukasey was born; together with her husband Mikhail, she served in intelligence for over 50 years. The married couple, who worked under the callsigns "Elsa" and "Zephyr", traveled to foreign countries, obtaining the intelligence information necessary for the Center. In the late 1930s, they were sent to Los Angeles, where Mikhail was waiting for the post of vice-consul. The Mukaseis quickly joined the social life of the city, and soon Theodore Dreiser, Walt Disney, Charlie Chaplin and other famous Hollywood characters began to visit them for receptions.
After returning home, experienced scouts trained young spies. On the anniversary of the birth of Elizaveta Mukasey, Izvestia talked with experts and recalled the most successful intelligence officers who worked for the USSR.
"Cambridge Five"
In 1929, Kim Philby, considered in Britain as one of the greatest traitors in the country's history, entered the prestigious Trinity College of the University of Cambridge. There he met the legendary Soviet illegal intelligence agent Arnold Deutsch, who recruited him and attracted him to the so-called "Cambridge Five" - \u200b\u200bone of the most powerful and influential intelligence groups of the Second World War.
After graduating from university, Philby joined the British intelligence service MI6. It took him only four years to head the department in charge of Soviet and communist activities. Thanks to Kim, the Soviet authorities managed to catch dozens of British agents and informers. Philby has led a spy network in the UK for over 20 years. During this time, he leaked thousands of secret documents, and also, according to some sources, gave the USSR all the details of the German operation on the Kursk Bulge.
Philby's exposure took place in the 1960s. However, he managed to escape to the USSR in time, where he later received the Order of Lenin and a number of other state awards.
The writer and intelligence historian Gennady Sokolov noted in a conversation with Izvestia that the purpose of spies could be not only the extraction of secret intelligence, but also the hunt for compromising evidence.
The presence of incriminating evidence significantly changed the work between the connecting politicians in the West: they could be removed, but they could be made agents of influence. For example, the spy Yevgeny Belyakov seduced the wife of the Prime Minister of Norway Frau Gerhadsen, and the government of the country actually worked for us in the 1950s. There was also incriminating evidence on the composition of Harold Macmillan's government when six leading British ministers resigned, the expert said.
Nuclear secrets
Another notable pair of spies were the American communists Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. For several years, they managed to transfer data to the USSR on US military developments, including a nuclear bomb. In 1950, FBI agents exposed the Rosenbergs and took them into custody. The case of the spouses was made public, and this only further spoiled relations between the USSR and the United States.
As a result of the trial, the couple was sentenced to death. The world community urged to mitigate the punishment, and the scientist Albert Einstein, the writer Thomas Mann and even Pope Pius XII asked for pardon for the Rosenbergs. But the US authorities did not change their decision, and in 1953 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed.
History remembers many cases when both spouses were spies at once. Whether personal life interferes with such a dangerous profession, Izvestia found out from the colonel of foreign intelligence, candidate of historical sciences and writer Mikhail Lyubimov.
You can reduce your personal life to such work. Moreover, a good family helps in this matter, so the intelligence tried to prevent divorce. Everyone must have a solid footing. In some cases, agents were brought together, and if they liked each other, they could get married. Sometimes everything happened spontaneously: then, for example, the agent's beloved was taken through the preparation, made a radio operator. It is important that there is a normal and strong family. Many had such a marriage, - said the expert.
War
Richard Sorge was born near Baku in 1895. The boy grew up in Berlin, where the Sorge family moved a few years after his birth. When the First World War began, he went to the front and fought on the side of Germany.
Returning home, Sorge became interested in Marxism and joined the Communist Party. In the mid-1920s, he moved to the USSR, where he found a wife, received Soviet citizenship and got a job in the apparatus of the Comintern, and then joined the ranks of military intelligence. After some time, he was sent on a business trip, first to China, and then to Japan. There he got a job as a press attaché for the German embassy. According to some reports, while in this position, Sorge not only mined and transmitted secret information to the USSR, but also warned the country about the impending German attack.
According to historian Gennady Sokolov, domestic intelligence can rightfully be considered one of the best in the world.
We have staked out this title since the "Big Game". Princess Christopher Lieven, agent of Alexander I, did more than the sensational Mata Hari. She seduced the leaders of three leading countries: Austria, France and the UK. She even gave birth to a child from the English king, - the expert explained. - The personal life of spies is radically different from usual. This is dirty work - theft, deception, work on the edge of morality and even on the other side for the safety of your country. She destroys families. What kind of love is there?
"Kleptomania from intelligence"
Jan Chernyak was born on the territory of Austria-Hungary in 1909, and received his education in Prague and Berlin. One of the most successful Soviet intelligence agents was recruited in 1930, when he joined the Communist Party while in Germany.
During the reign of Adolf Hitler, Chernyak managed to deploy one of the largest espionage networks in Germany, called "Krona". Of the 35 members of the group, only a few names are known. Chernyak, in particular, recruited Hitler's favorite actress Olga Chekhova and Joseph Goebbels's mistress, the actress Marika Rekk.
On the account of Chernyak's reconnaissance group there are many feats. They managed to get a copy of the "Barbarossa" plan, a plan for the German offensive near Kursk and information about the latest weapons in Germany. The list of Krona's achievements does not end there. In 1945, Chernyak was sent to the United States, where he helped to obtain data on the atomic project.
According to Gennady Sokolov, victory in the war and the atomic project are "concrete results of domestic intelligence."
There is such a term "intelligence kleptomania", in other words - scientific and technical intelligence. We got many types of weapons thanks to her. Starting with the radars that Chernyak and his group "Krona" supplied to us. We were not protected from bombing, and we received the radars that worked around Moscow from him, ”the historian recalled.
Sometimes the hunt for the latest weapons turned into funny stories. The expert spoke about a case in 1856, when Colonel Alexei Ignatiev robbed the British Museum in broad daylight, where the latest cartridge was presented. He was immediately followed, but he managed to escape from his pursuers at the Russian embassy.
Bomb
The life of scouts is so eventful and unusual that often their biographies are embodied on the screen. This includes the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, to whom director Steven Spielberg dedicated the film in 2015.
Largely thanks to the efforts of Abel, the first atomic bomb appeared in the USSR. In the post-war period, he worked in New York under the name of the artist Emil Robert Goldfuss, secretly running an espionage network. And the work went smoothly until the radio operator Johannes Häyhänen was sent to help him. The latter did not differ in exemplary behavior, led a riotous lifestyle and once went to the FBI office and betrayed Colonel Abel. Rudolph was taken into custody, and only a few years later he was exchanged for the American pilot Francis Powers, whose plane was shot down near Sverdlovsk.
Obtaining the secrets of atomic weapons is the greatest success of Soviet intelligence, says Mikhail Lyubimov.
A huge number of people participated there. Mostly illegal spies, also agents working in the "Manhattan Project", England was connected. But all the scouts, of course, were ours. Work on the "Manhattan Project" took place in Los Alamos. Among our agents was the scientist Emil Fuchs. We managed to get samples of atomic weapons and, with the help of our scientists, finalize the project, - the writer noted.
Spies ... Such mysterious, brave and desperate personalities that appeared in the history of any country from its very first pages. Heroes for one state and traitors for another. By becoming a spy, a person lost absolutely everything - from a secure roof over his head to his pets. An incredibly dangerous job that required unthinkable courage and a lot of honed skills. They worked in the name of their Cause, in the name of their Faith, knowing that they could betray themselves at any moment, and realizing that even the smallest mistake can lead them to death. The most interesting personalities in all history. We present to you the top 10 most famous spies in the world!
Emil Julius Klaus Fuchs has been a member of the German Communist Party since the early thirties. The theoretical physicist has been working on the atomic bomb for a long time, developing models for the hydrogen bomb. When the Nazis came to power, he fled to England and there began to work for the Soviet Union. Transferred data on the production of uranium in the United States, the creation of a hydrogen bomb. Fuchs' activities in the USSR helped to significantly shorten the period of the atomic bomb creation. I would like to note that Klaus Fuchs worked for ideological reasons, and not for remuneration. He was convicted of transferring military secrets for 14 years, of which he served 9, returned to Germany, was awarded the highest award of the GDR - the Order of Karl Marx, and lived there until the end of his days.
The beautiful American Isabella Maria Boyd became a spy during her country's civil war in the 19th century, sided with the Confederacy. The girl's espionage career began quite abruptly and unusual: a group of drunken soldiers of the North rushed to her house, intending to plant the flag of the States on the roof. At the same time, they began to insult Isabella's mother, which the girl did not tolerate, and, grabbing a personal pistol, shot the impudent woman. She just turned seventeen that year. During the investigation, Belli was acquitted, however, she was placed under surveillance. Isabella was able to learn very important information about the enemy's forces, charming the enemy's military army. Many years later, she recalled: "From this young man I received some warm confessions, dried flowers and incredibly much important information." The girl told the secrets she heard to high ranks with the help of her servant, Eliza Hopewell. One evening in 1862, Isabella Boyd overheard a plan to weaken the military influence of the Northern Army in a place called Front Royal. Belli told the Confederate Army general that same evening. And on May 23 of the same year, the young spy witnessed the Battle of Front Royal, and was able to personally warn the soldiers of the South about the intentions of the enemies - the destruction of the crossings across the Shenandoah River. However, trying to convey these news in time, the girl came under fire and was awarded the Cross of Honor. Boyd was arrested on July twenty-ninth, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two. The reason for the arrest was the betrayal of one of Isabella's lovers. Soon, the girl was released, having spent only a month in prison. A little later, she was arrested again, however, she was released just as quickly. Isabella Boyd died of typhus at the age of fifty-six.
The boy was born into a family of scientists in 1922, after the death of his father he was sent to relatives in the United States. After living abroad for several years, Konon returned to Moscow and graduated from high school here. From the first days he took part in the Great Patriotic War, was awarded several medals and orders. After the army he graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Academy of Foreign Trade, and then stayed to teach Chinese there. He served in foreign intelligence since the middle of the twentieth century. He worked in Canada (there he received documents with a "new" name), in the USA, Great Britain. Young's task was to collect materials on the development of bacteriological weapons and nuclear reactors. While Konon Trofimovich lived in England, he became a successful businessman, his bank account reached a million, the goods invented at his enterprises receive gold medals at international exhibitions, he travels a lot and makes the necessary acquaintances. Lonsdale (that is, now the name of Molodoy) has for many years been transmitting to the USSR a lot of necessary and important secret information that saves our country billions of dollars. After the failure, the court failed to prove Lonsdale's involvement in Soviet intelligence.
One of the most famous and talented spies. His biography is filled with vivid and dangerous events, because it was thanks to him that the famous James Bond appeared! Many facts of Reilly's biography are known only from his words, however, people of this profession often have this. Rosenblum (his real name) was born in Odessa, at the end of the 19th century he left his home and went to America, and then to Europe. There he took on a new name and surname and began working for British intelligence. At the turn of the century, he appears in St. Petersburg and is engaged in espionage activities. Here he lives on a “grand scale” - he is engaged in antiques, financial scams, starts dizzying novels, etc. But his main goal is to fight the Bolsheviks. Throughout the country, he is trying to create an espionage network, organizing conspiracies against the Bolsheviks, trying to bribe Lenin's bodyguards with the aim of kidnapping him, seizing the State Bank, the telegraph office and other state institutions. All in all, Reilly's plans were grandiose. It was he who helped A. Kerensky escape from the country. Operation Trust was the last Reilly involved. Reilly was arrested in 1925, and so that no assistance from England could be announced his death at the border. Reilly was shot in November of that year.
The Rosenberg couple were American communists. The ideas of communism carried them along in their early youth. Ethel was already considered "politically unreliable", and Julius in 1936 was the leader of the Communist Youth League. In the early forties, Julius began working for Soviet intelligence, then he recruited his wife and her brother David, who worked at the nuclear center. David transmitted information through the Soviet intelligence liaison G. Gold, because he had access to top-secret documents, specifically, to documents containing information about the atomic bomb. Surprisingly, David managed to hold out in this classified facility for a long time. In 1950, after the failure of the Soviet spy network, many agents were arrested, including David Greenglass, and he had already betrayed his sister and her husband. Unlike all the arrested agents, the Rosenbergs completely refused to admit their guilt. But the Rosenbergs were found guilty and electrocuted. Although experts say that the documents that Greenglass handed over to the Rosenbergs were not particularly valuable and dangerous, and there are still doubts about the guilt of this married couple.
"Mata Hari" is the pseudonym of Margaret Gertrude Zelle, who was an exotic dancer and courtesan from Holland. Margaret took a pseudonym in 1915, after she divorced her husband and decided to start a career as an exotic dancer. "Mata Hari" meant "sun" or "eye of dawn". Zelle often agreed to pose in very revealing outfits, or even completely naked. And, despite this, the girl positioned herself as the princess of the whole island - Java, which, in principle, due to the obvious lack of telecommunications, was quite feasible and got away with it. Later, joining secular society, she becomes a courtesan at all. Having had connections with many high-ranking military men, politicians and other influential persons who were representatives of different countries at that time. This situation made Mata Hari just the perfect person to collect classified information. This she took advantage of. During the First World War, the Netherlands, which remained neutral, became for Margaret a convenient "guide" and a place for unhindered border crossing. When interrogated by the British secret services, Mata Hari admitted her espionage for France, however, and currently France continues to categorically deny their cooperation. Margaret Zelle was arrested on the thirteenth of February one thousand nine hundred and seventeen, after the French intelligence intercepted the German signal, which contained the coded name of the informer, which they decoded in favor of Mata Hari. The spy was shot on September 15 of the same year, when she was forty-one.
This man came to intelligence in 1962, but did not achieve success in the first years of service. Over time, Ames was transferred to the department in charge of operations in the USSR. He soon became the head of the Soviet department of the CIA's foreign counterintelligence department. Around the same period, O. Ames began to have problems in his personal life (difficult divorce proceedings), serious problems with alcohol and mindless huge spending. Accordingly, financial problems soon began. The search for a solution to the problem brought Aldrich to the Soviet embassy in Washington, where he offered his services for a good fee. He had full access to information about agents working on the territory of the Soviet Union in the KGB and the Soviet Army. The information that Ames provided was indeed invaluable, with his help all the CIA officers were identified, and some were even executed. The "work" of this person was highly paid, and this immediately affected his well-being. And when the CIA finally noticed the speed with which they were "losing their people" and started an internal investigation, Aldrich immediately became the main suspect. For the Soviet foreign intelligence, Ames was an invaluable frame, because he almost completely "bled out" the agent network not only in the United States, but also in some European countries. By the way, Ames received a lot of money from the USSR, more than four million dollars. In 1994, Aldrich Ames was sentenced to life imprisonment, which he serves to this day.
Harold Adrian Russell Philby was born in India in 1912. He grew up in a wealthy family and continued the old English family. While still very young, he received from his parents the "prophetic" nickname Kim in honor of the boy-spy from the work of R.Kipling. Philby finished school brilliantly, and went to college, where he became interested in the fashionable Marxism at that time. In 1934. Philby was invited to work for the intelligence of the country of the Soviets, and the goal of the young man was to get into the British Army Intelligence (SIS). And soon this goal was achieved. Thanks to Kim's service in the SIS of the USSR, he finally became aware of all her operations. The information Philby was gathering was invaluable. Even the CIA officers themselves later admitted that all the efforts of Western intelligence services during Philby's years were useless, it would probably be better if these intelligence services did nothing at all. Kim has built a brilliant career, he even headed the department for the "fight against communism"! When the threat of failure has arisen, he is secretly transported to our country. In the USSR, Kim was awarded several orders, received the rank of general, and sometimes he was involved to advise the special services. He died in 1988.
This man is one of the best intelligence officers who have worked in Japan. After being seriously wounded while serving on the German-Belgian front, he retired from the army and fled to the USSR. In the Soviet Union, he was recruited as a spy. He “became a journalist” and worked in various European countries. And from 1933 he was sent to Japan to create an agent network. Sorge transmitted important information about the plans of Germany and Japan, whether the USSR is in danger from these countries? During his time in Japan, Sorge learned the language, was well versed in the nuances of politics, economics, and culture of the country. He created a well-conspiratorial organization in Japan (more than thirty people, worked under his leadership). Sorge transmitted information about the preparation of the fascist aggression, he knew and reported to Moscow about the "Barbarossa Plan" (not yet approved). But this important information was ignored. During the period of work, Sorge has demonstrated his unsurpassed mastery of conspiracy. He worked with his organization for almost eight years, the circumstances of the failure of his group have not yet been clarified. Despite the terrible torture, Richard Sorge did not admit that he was working for the USSR. He was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously), although for a long time our country denied Sorge's participation in intelligence operations.
His real name is William Genrikhovich Fisher, his parents are Russian revolutionaries, exiled from Russia back in 1901. In 1920, the Fishers returned, but they did not give up their English citizenship. In the army, William became an excellent radio operator, later he gets into intelligence, where his knowledge and skills were appreciated. After 4 years, he and his family went to England on a special business trip, where he established many secret radio points. Then he worked in France and Belgium. During the war years, he trained radio operators for reconnaissance groups and partisan detachments that worked in the territories occupied by Germany. In the same years he met Rudolf Abel, whose data he would use later. After the end of the war, Abel was sent to the United States to obtain information on atomic research. He was arrested on a tip from a defector radio operator, but William did not agree to cooperate with the American special services and completely denied his connection with Soviet intelligence. He was sentenced to 32 years in prison, but five years later the USSR exchanged him for an American pilot. Returning to the Soviet Union, Fischer resumed his service in intelligence and trained youth. The bright life of V. Fischer, became the basis for the book "Shield and Sword" and the film "Dead Season". History is written by the winners, and therefore it is not customary for Soviet chroniclers to mention German spies who worked in the rear in the Red Army. And there were such scouts, and even in the General Staff of the Red Army, as well as the famous Max network. After the end of the war, the Americans transferred them to themselves, to share their experience with the CIA. Indeed, it is hard to believe that the USSR managed to create an agent network in Germany and the countries it occupied (the most famous is the Red Chapel), but the Germans did not.
And if German intelligence officers during the Second World War are not written about in Soviet-Russian stories, then the point is not only that it is not customary for the winner to admit his own miscalculations.
Reinhard Gehlen - the first, in the center - with the cadets of the intelligence school
In the case of German spies in the USSR, the situation is complicated by the fact that the head of the Foreign Armies - East department (in the German abbreviation FHO, he was in charge of intelligence) Reinhard Galen prudently took care of preserving the most important documentation in order to surrender to the Americans at the very end of the war and offer them a "product by face".
His department dealt almost exclusively with the USSR, and in the conditions of the beginning of the Cold War, the Gelen papers were of great value to the United States.
Later, the general headed the intelligence of the Federal Republic of Germany, and his archive remained in the United States (some copies were left to Gelena). Having already retired, the general published his memoirs “Service. 1942-1971 ", which were published in Germany and the USA in 1971-72. Almost simultaneously with Gehlen's book, his biography was published in America, as well as the book of British intelligence officer Edward Spiro "Gehlen - the Spy of the Century" (Spiro wrote under the pseudonym Edward Cookridge, he was a Greek by nationality, a representative of British intelligence in the Czech resistance during the war). Another book was written by the American journalist Charles Whiting, who was suspected of working for the CIA, and was called "Gehlen - German Master Spy." All of these books are based on Gehlen's archives, used with permission from the CIA and German intelligence BND. They have some information about German spies in the Soviet rear.
Gehlen's personal card
General Ernst Kestring, a Russian German born near Tula, was engaged in "field work" in Gehlen's German intelligence service. It was he who served as the prototype for the German major in Bulgakov's book "Days of the Turbins", who saved Hetman Skoropadsky from reprisals by the Red Army (in fact, the Petliurites). Kestring perfectly knew the Russian language and Russia, and it was he who personally selected agents and saboteurs from Soviet prisoners of war. It was he who found one of the most valuable, as it turned out, German spies.
On October 13, 1941, 38-year-old Captain Minishky was taken prisoner. It turned out that before the war he worked in the secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), and earlier - in the Moscow City Party Committee. Since the outbreak of the war, he served as political instructor at the Western Front. He was captured along with the driver when he was driving around the forward units during the Vyazemsky battle.
Minishky immediately agreed to cooperate with the Germans, motivating him with some old grievances against the Soviet regime. Seeing what a valuable shot they got, they promised, as the time came, to take him and his family to the west with the granting of German citizenship. But first - the case.
Minishky spent 8 months studying in a special camp. And then the famous "Flamingo" operation began, which Gehlen conducted in cooperation with the scout Baun, who already had a network of agents in Moscow, among whom the most valuable was a radio operator with the pseudonym Alexander. Baun's men ferried Minishki across the front line, and he reported to the very first Soviet headquarters the story of his capture and daring escape, every detail of which had been invented by Gelen's experts. He was taken to Moscow, where he was greeted as a hero. Almost immediately, mindful of his previous responsible work, he was appointed to work in the military-political secretariat of the State Defense Committee.
Real German agents; other German spies might have looked like this
Through a chain of several German agents in Moscow, Minishky began to supply information. The first sensational message came from him on July 14, 1942. Gehlen and Guerre sat all night, compiling a report on its basis to Chief of Staff Halder. The report was made: “The military conference ended in Moscow on the evening of July 13th. Shaposhnikov, Voroshilov, Molotov and the heads of the British, American and Chinese military missions were present. Shaposhnikov said that their retreat would be up to the Volga in order to force the Germans to winter in the area. During the retreat, all-encompassing destruction of the abandoned territory must be carried out; all industry must be evacuated to the Urals and Siberia.
The British representative asked for Soviet help in Egypt, but received the answer that the Soviet resources of mobilized manpower were not as great as the Allies believed. In addition, they lack aircraft, tanks and guns, in part because part of the supply of weapons destined for Russia, which the British were supposed to deliver through the port of Basra in the Persian Gulf, were re-targeted to protect Egypt. It was decided to conduct offensive operations in two sectors of the front: north of Orel and north of Voronezh, using large tank forces and air cover. A distracting attack must be carried out at Kalinin. It is necessary that Stalingrad, Novorossiysk and the Caucasus be held back. "
This is exactly what happened. Halder later noted in his diary: “The FHO provided accurate information about the enemy forces redeployed starting June 28, and the estimated strength of these formations. He also gave a correct assessment of the energetic actions of the enemy to defend Stalingrad. "
The aforementioned authors made a number of inaccuracies, which is understandable: they received the information a few hands and 30 years after the events described. For example, the English historian David Ken gave a more correct version of the report: on July 14, not the heads of the American, British and Chinese missions were present at that meeting, but the military attachés of these countries.
Secret Intelligence School OKW Amt Ausland / Abwehr
There is no consensus about the real name of Minishki. According to another version, his surname was Mishinsky. But it may not be true either. The Germans had it under code numbers 438.
Coleridge and other authors sparingly report on the further fate of Agent 438. The participants in Operation Flamingo were definitely working in Moscow until October 1942. In the same month, Gehlen recalled Minishkiya, arranging, with the help of Baun, a meeting with one of the advanced reconnaissance detachments of the Valley, which ferried him across the front line.
Later, Minishky worked for Gehlen in the information analysis department, worked with German agents, who were then thrown across the front line.
Minishkia and Operation Flamingo are also named by other respected authors, such as the British military historian John Ericsson in his book The Road to Stalingrad by the French historian Gabor Rittersporn. According to Rittersporn, Minishkiy really received German citizenship, after the end of the Second World War he taught at an American intelligence school in southern Germany, then moved to the United States, having received American citizenship. The German "Stirlitz" died in the 1980s at his home in Virginia.
Minishky was not the only super spy. The same British military historians mention that the Germans had many intercepted telegrams from Kuibyshev, where the Soviet authorities were based at that time. A German spy group worked in this city. There were several "moles" surrounded by Rokossovsky, and several military historians mentioned that the Germans considered him as one of the main negotiators in a possible separate peace at the end of 1942, and then in 1944 - if the assassination attempt on Hitler was successful. For reasons unknown today, Rokossovsky was viewed as a possible ruler of the USSR after the overthrow of Stalin as a result of a coup d'etat of the generals.
It looked like a unit of German saboteurs from "Brandenburg". One of his most famous operations was the seizure of the oil fields of Maikop in the summer of 1942 and the city itself
The British knew well about these German spies (it is clear that they know now). This is also recognized by Soviet military historians. For example, the former colonel of military intelligence Yuri Modin in his book "The Fates of the Intelligencers: My Cambridge Friends" asserts that the British were afraid to supply the USSR with information obtained thanks to the decryption of German reports, precisely because of the fear that there were agents in Soviet headquarters.
But they personally mention another German superintelligence officer, Fritz Cowders, who created the famous Max intelligence network in the USSR. His biography is presented by the aforementioned Englishman David Kahn.
Fritz Cowders was born in Vienna in 1903. His mother was Jewish and his father was German. In 1927 he moved to Zurich, where he began working as a sports journalist. Then he lived in Paris and Berlin, after Hitler came to power he left as a reporter for Budapest. There he found himself a lucrative job as an intermediary in the sale of Hungarian entry visas to Jews fleeing Germany. He made acquaintances with high-ranking Hungarian officials, and at the same time met the head of the Abwehr residency in Hungary, and began to work for German intelligence.
He makes acquaintance with the Russian émigré general A.V. Turkul, who had his own spy network in the USSR - later it served as the basis for the formation of a more extensive German spy network. The agents are thrown into the Union for a year and a half, starting in the fall of 1939. The annexation of Romanian Bessarabia to the USSR helped a lot, when at the same time dozens of German spies, previously abandoned there, were also "attached".
General Turkul - in the center, with a mustache - with fellow White Guards in Sofia
With the outbreak of war with the USSR, Cowders moved to the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia, where he headed the Abwehr radio post, which received radiograms from agents in the USSR. But who these agents were is still not clear. There are only scraps of information that there were at least 20-30 of them in various parts of the USSR. The Soviet super-saboteur Sudoplatov also mentions the Max intelligence network in his memoirs.
As mentioned above, not only the names of German spies, but also minimal information about their actions in the USSR is still closed. Did the Americans and the British convey information about them to the USSR after the victory over fascism? Hardly - they needed the surviving agents themselves. The most that was then declassified were secondary agents from the Russian émigré organization NTS.
(quoted from B. Sokolov's book "The Hunt for Stalin, the Hunt for Hitler", publishing house "Veche", 2003, pp. 121-147)
What do we know about these mysterious people living among us? It's not in vain that films are made about them, books are written ...
It is known that these cloak and dagger warriors are waging their war in peacetime. But for whom and for what do they act? Let's just say one thing: don't underestimate these people. Yes, they do not win wars, but they significantly change the balance of power on the military, political and economic map.
Information rules the world, so secret agents are still needed by every state.
(October 4, 1895 - November 7, 1944)
Perhaps one of the most famous spies can be safely called Richard Sorge. This is a Soviet intelligence agent from the Second World War. Moreover, he is considered one of the most outstanding scouts of the century.
Since he worked in Japan for many years, the Soviet Union did not recognize Sorge as its agent for 20 years. Only on November 5, 1964, Sorge was declassified and awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. However, posthumously.
They say that only thanks to Nikita Khrushchev, the name of Richard Sorge was immortalized in the USSR, posthumously conferring the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. It is also widely believed that the silence about Richard Sorge and his associates is a consequence of the personality cult of Stalin.
On October 18, 1941, Sorge was arrested by the Japanese police and in September 1943 sentenced to death by hanging from a piano string.
April 18, 1944
Robert Hanssen was an FBI officer. He was convicted of espionage for the USSR and Russia.
He began to cooperate with the Soviet Union in 1979, however, after its collapse, he continued to transmit a lot of classified information.
People who knew the super agent closely speak of him as an extremely bright and extraordinary person. This is how a woman who lived next door to the Hanssen family in Chicago and who knew Robert as a child recalls him: "When he played with my son, I was sure that nothing would happen to my child."
Hanssen collaborated with Soviet and Russian intelligence from 1979 until his arrest in 2001. The investigation was able to prove 13 episodes of espionage.
As a result, he was arrested only in 2001 in Virginia. When they were taking him to prison, he asked: "Why did you catch me for so long?"
Hanssen was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of pardon and is currently serving him in a high-security prison ADX Florence, in Colorado.
*(ADX Florence -Administrative Maximum Facility - super-maximum security prison)
(January 1, 1912 - May 11, 1988)
Kim Philby is one of the leaders of British intelligence, a communist, an agent of Soviet intelligence since 1933.
However, the British managed to understand that he was leading a double life only in 1963.
After the end of World War II, Philby is sent east. He becomes chief of the British intelligence headquarters in Istanbul. In the late 1940s, he begins close cooperation with the United States, the main goal of which is to destroy the communist regime. Largely due to the actions of this intelligence officer, many British and American operations directed against the Soviet regime were unsuccessful.
Philby died in 1988 in honor, Hero of the Soviet Union.
(September 26, 1907 - March 26, 1983)
Anthony Blunt is an English art historian and a double agent for the British MI5 and the Soviet NKVD, a member of the famous Cambridge Five, of which he was together with Kim Philby.
Through Blunt, the Soviet embassy received information in advance about all actions directed against the embassy workers. Blunt has been very successful in opening the diplomatic correspondence of foreign governments in exile. Several times Blunt reported the most valuable information about the strategy of the Wehrmacht in relation to Russia.
After the war, Blunt's connection with the KGB was practically cut off. He retired from MI5 and became curator of the Royal Picture Gallery in 1946, and in 1947 was appointed director of the Coultord Institute.
However, in 1979, he secretly confessed who he was all this time and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher publicly fired him. And Queen Elizabeth II stripped Blunt of his knighthood.
February 16, 1953
Christopher Boyes is an informant agent for the Soviet secret services. For two years he collaborated with the Soviet special services - he photographed secret documents about satellites and handed them over to the Soviet intelligence agencies for further transportation.
He worked for Soviet intelligence in protest against the US war with Vietnam. After his arrest in 1977, he was sentenced to forty years in prison for espionage for the USSR.
Meanwhile, in February 1980, he escaped from federal prison and was already preparing to be transported to the USSR, but was detained by FBI agents.
On January 21, 1980, Boyce escaped from prison and after that participated in 17 robberies on banks in the states of Idaho and Washington. Hiding from the law under the name of Anthony Edward Lester, Boyce was developing a flight plan to the Soviet Union, where, in his opinion, he could receive the rank of officer of the USSR Armed Forces.
Christopher Boyce was released on parole from prison on September 16, 2002, after serving just over 24 years. Boyce married Kathleen Mills in October 2002. In July 2008, Boyce was released from parole and was completely free.
May 26, 1941
Aldrich Ames - former head of the CIA counterintelligence unit, head of the Soviet department of the CIA's foreign counterintelligence department.
He worked for the USSR for almost 10 years. Thanks to his information, a whole galaxy of CIA agents in the ranks of the KGB and the GRU were arrested.
Later, the US Senate Intelligence Committee said in a report that Ames' activities "led to the loss of virtually all valuable sources of information in the Soviet Union in the midst of the Cold War."
On February 21, 1994, Aldrich Ames was arrested by the FBI in Arlington. "The Ames case" caused a high-profile political scandal in the United States. After numerous accusations against the CIA, its chief, James Woolsey, was forced to resign.
In 1994, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with confiscation of property, which he is currently serving in the Allenwood High Security Prison in Pennsylvania.
By the way, Ames came to intelligence because he did not have enough financial resources. Ames even tried to rob the bank one day to pay off debts. However, I decided that it would be much safer and more interesting to sell classified information to other countries. And so it started.
May 12, 1918 - June 19, 1953 (Julius)
September 28, 1915 - June 19, 1953 (Ethel)
It is impossible not to recall the famous married couple Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. These are American communists, accused of spying for the Soviet Union and executed for this in 1953.
Rosenberg worked for Soviet intelligence from the early 1940s. Then he recruited his wife Ethel, her brother David Greenglass and his wife Ruth. Rosenberg and his entourage constantly transmitted to Moscow information on the latest secret technologies in the American military industry.
The complete list of the information he passed on remains secret. Although it is known that in December 1944 he obtained and handed Feklisov detailed documentation and a sample of a finished radio fuse. This product was highly appreciated by our specialists.
Even after half a century, many details of the Rosenberg group's work continue to be kept secret. The point is not only in the traditional "closeness" of the special services. After all, if we officially admit that the group led by "Antenna" not only existed, but also actively worked, then we will have to take a fresh look at the history of the origin and formation of domestic radio electronics.
(January 1, 1908 - December 3, 1963)
In November 1945, Bentley, better known as "Fox" and "Myrna", became disillusioned with communist ideals and achieved a high meeting with the head of the FBI, Edgar Hoover.
After a conflict with her Moscow leadership, she herself went to the FBI and turned in over 100 agents.
February 23, 1982
Chapman is a former intelligence officer exiled from the United States. She was accused of not informing the American authorities about her cooperation with a foreign government.
The reason for the arrest was that she was seen several times in the company of a Russian official. According to intelligence agencies, Chapman transmitted information to this official over a wireless connection.
Chapman pleaded guilty to illegal cooperation with Russia and went home with nine other defendants in this case in exchange for four Russian citizens previously accused of spying for the United States and Great Britain.
By the way, while living in Great Britain, Anna got acquainted with one of the members of the House of Lords. Now the lords are trying to find out which of them was with her. However, none of them themselves admitted to having ties with Chapman.
Today Anna is actively involved in entrepreneurship, works on television, participates in fashion shows ... The Secrets of Anna Chapman program has been one of the most rated on REN TV for several years.
