German intelligence. The world's most famous spies (25 photos) He has a higher education. Family, wife lived in

In the history of the twentieth century there were many specialists in sabotage. This is a story about the most famous saboteurs who carried out the most daring operations during the Second World War.

Otto Skorzeny


At the beginning of July 1975, Otto Skorzeny died in Spain; thanks to his memoirs and popularity in the media, he became the “king of saboteurs” during his lifetime. And although such a high-profile title, given his poor track record, does not seem entirely fair, the charisma of Skorzeny - an almost two-meter, stern man with a strong-willed chin and a brutal scar on his cheek - charmed the press, which created the image of a daring saboteur.
Skorzeny's life was constantly accompanied by legends and hoaxes, some of which he created about himself. Until the mid-30s, he was an ordinary and unremarkable engineer in Vienna; in 1934 he joined the SS, after which myths began to appear. A number of sources claim that Skorzeny allegedly shot and killed Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss, but it is now believed that another SS representative committed the murder of the chancellor during the putsch attempt. After the Anschluss of Austria, its chancellor Schuschnigg was arrested by the Germans, but even here it is impossible to unequivocally confirm Skorzeny’s participation in his arrest. In any case, Schuschnigg himself later stated that he knew nothing about Skorzeny’s participation in his arrest and did not remember him.
After the outbreak of World War II, Skorzeny found himself as a sapper in the active forces. Information about his front-line experience is quite contradictory and all that is known for certain is that he did not take part in hostilities for long: he spent only a few months on the eastern front and in December 1941 he was sent home for treatment of an inflamed gall bladder. Skorzeny did not participate in hostilities again.
In 1943, as an officer with an engineering education, he was sent to the Oranienburg camp, where a small group of saboteurs was being trained. At its base, the SS Jaeger Battalion 502 was later formed, which was commanded by Skorzeny.
It was Skorzeny who was entrusted with the leadership of the operation, which made him famous. Hitler himself appointed him as leader. However, he had little choice: there were practically no sabotage units in the Wehrmacht, since the officers, mostly brought up in the old Prussian traditions, treated such “gangster” methods of warfare with contempt.
The essence of the operation was as follows: after the Allied landing in southern Italy and the defeat of Italian troops at Stalingrad, Mussolini was removed from power by the Italian king and kept under arrest in a mountain hotel. Hitler was interested in maintaining control over the industrialized north of Italy and decided to kidnap Mussolini to install him as head of a puppet republic.
Skorzeny requested a company of paratroopers and decided to land at the hotel in heavy gliders, take Mussolini and fly away. As a result, the operation turned out to be twofold: on the one hand, its goal was achieved and Mussolini was taken away, on the other hand, several accidents occurred during landing and 40% of the company personnel died, despite the fact that the Italians did not offer resistance.
Nevertheless, Hitler was pleased and from that moment on he trusted Skorzeny completely, although almost all of his subsequent operations ended in failure. The daring idea of ​​destroying the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, failed at the negotiations in Tehran. Soviet and British intelligence neutralized German agents at distant approaches.
Operation Grif, during which German agents dressed in American uniforms were supposed to capture the commander-in-chief of the Allied expeditionary forces, Eisenhower, was also unsuccessful. For this purpose, soldiers speaking American English were searched throughout Germany. They were trained in a special camp, where American prisoners of war taught them about the characteristics and habits of soldiers. However, due to the tight deadlines, the saboteurs could not be properly trained; the commander of the first group was blown up by a mine on the very first day of the operation, and the second group was captured with all the documents on the operation, after which the Americans learned about it.
The second successful operation is "Faustpatron". The Hungarian leader Horthy, against the backdrop of failures in the war, intended to sign a truce, so the Germans decided to kidnap his son so that he would abdicate his position and Hungary would continue the war with the new government. There was nothing specifically sabotage in this operation; Skorzeny lured Horthy’s son to a meeting allegedly with the Yugoslavs, where he was captured, rolled into a carpet and taken away. After this, Skorzeny simply arrived at Horthy's residence with a detachment of soldiers and forced him to abdicate.
After the war: he settled in Spain, gave interviews, wrote memoirs, and worked on the image of the “king of saboteurs.” According to some reports, he collaborated with the Mossad and provided advice to Argentine President Peron. Died in 1975 from cancer.

Adrian von Felkersam


German saboteur No. 2, who remained in Skorzeny’s shadow largely due to the fact that he did not survive the war and did not receive similar PR. Company commander of the 800th Special Regiment Brandenburg - a unique sabotage special forces unit. Although the unit operated in close connection with the Wehrmacht, German officers (especially those brought up in the old Prussian traditions) treated with contempt the specifics of the regiment’s activities, which violated all conceivable and inconceivable canons of war (dressing in someone else’s uniform, refusal of any moral restrictions in waging war ), so he was assigned to the Abwehr.
The regiment's soldiers underwent special training, which made it an elite unit: hand-to-hand combat, camouflage techniques, subversion, sabotage tactics, learning foreign languages, practicing combat in small groups, etc.
Felkersam joined the group as a Russian German. He was born in St. Petersburg and came from a famous family: his great-grandfather was a general under Emperor Nicholas I, his grandfather was a rear admiral who died on a ship right on the way to the Battle of Tsushima, his father was a prominent art critic and curator of the Hermitage jewelry gallery.
After the Bolsheviks came to power, Felkersam's family had to flee the country, and he grew up in Riga, from where, as a Baltic German, he emigrated to Germany in 1940, when Latvia was annexed by the USSR. Felkersam commanded the Baltic Company of Brandenburg-800, which included Baltic Germans who spoke Russian well, which made them valuable for sabotage operations in the USSR.
With the direct participation of Felkersam, several successful operations were carried out. As a rule, these were the capture of bridges and strategically important points in cities. Saboteurs dressed in Soviet uniforms calmly drove across bridges or entered cities and captured key points; Soviet soldiers either did not have time to resist and were captured or died in a firefight. In a similar way, bridges over the Dvina and Berezina, as well as a train station and power plant in Lvov, were captured. The most famous was the Maykop sabotage in 1942. Felkersam's soldiers, dressed in NKVD uniforms, arrived in the city, found out the location of all defense points, seized the headquarters communications and completely disorganized the entire defense, sending orders throughout the city for the immediate retreat of the garrison due to the imminent encirclement. By the time the Soviet side figured out what was happening, the main forces of the Wehrmacht had already pulled up to the city and took it practically without resistance.
Felkersam's successful sabotage attracted the attention of Skorzeny, who took him to his place and made him practically his right hand. Felkersam participated in some of his operations, notably the removal of Horthy, as well as the attempted capture of Eisenhower. As for Brandenburg, in 1943 the regiment was expanded to a division and, due to the increase in numbers, actually lost its elite status and was used as a regular combat unit.
He did not live to see the end of the war; he died in January 1945 in Poland.

Junio ​​Valerio Borghese (Black Prince)


He comes from a famous Italian aristocratic family, which included popes, cardinals and famous industrialists, and one of his ancestors was related to Napoleon after marrying his sister. Junio ​​Borghese himself was married to the Russian Countess Olsufieva, who was a distant relative of Emperor Alexander I.
Captain 2nd rank of the Italian Navy. At his personal insistence, a special sabotage unit of “torpedo people” was organized in the 10th flotilla subordinate to him. In addition to them, the flotilla had special ultra-small submarines for delivering these torpedoes and boats filled with explosives.
Human-guided torpedoes, called "Maiale", were developed by the Italians in the late 30s. Each torpedo was equipped with an electric motor, breathing devices for the crew, a warhead of 200 to 300 kilograms and was controlled by two crew members sitting astride it.
The torpedo was delivered to the sabotage site by a special submarine, after which it sank under water, heading towards the victim ship. The warhead was equipped with a clock mechanism of up to five o'clock, which allowed swimmers to escape the scene of the explosion.
However, due to imperfect technology, torpedoes often failed, and breathing apparatus also broke down, which forced the submariners to terminate the mission early. Nevertheless, after the first failures, the Italians managed to achieve success. The most famous operation was the raid on Alexandria in December 1941, where the British naval base was located. Despite British precautions, Italian saboteurs managed to set off torpedoes, causing the mighty British battleships Valiant and Queen Elizabeth to be severely damaged and sent for major repairs. In fact, they were saved from flooding only by the fact that they were parked at a shallow depth. One destroyer was also heavily damaged and a cargo tanker was sunk.
This was a very serious blow, after which the Italian fleet for some time gained an advantage in the Mediterranean theater of operations due to its numerical superiority in battleships. The British found themselves in a difficult position, losing naval superiority, and this allowed the Italians and Germans to increase their supply of military forces in North Africa, where they achieved success. For the raid on Alexandria, the combat swimmers and Prince Borghese were awarded the highest Italian award - the gold medal "For Valor".
After Italy's withdrawal from the war, Borghese supported the puppet pro-German Republic of Salo, but he himself practically did not participate in the fighting, since the fleet remained in Italian hands.
After the war: Borghese was convicted of collaborating with the Germans (for activities in the Republic of Salo, when Italy had already withdrawn from the war) and was sentenced to 12 years in prison, however, given his exploits during the war, the term was reduced to three years. After his release, he sympathized with far-right politicians and wrote memoirs. In 1970, he was forced to leave Italy due to suspicion of involvement in an attempted coup. Died in Spain in 1974.

Pavel Sudoplatov


The main Soviet saboteur. He specialized not only in sabotage, but also in operations to eliminate political figures disliked by Stalin (for example, Trotsky). Immediately after the start of the war, a Special Group was created in the USSR under the NKVD, which oversaw and administered the partisan movement. He headed the 4th department of the NKVD, which specialized directly in sabotage behind German lines and in the territories they occupied. In those years, Sudoplatov himself no longer took part in operations, limiting himself to general management and development.
Sabotage detachments were thrown into the German rear, where, if possible, they united into larger partisan detachments. Since the work was extremely dangerous, much attention was paid to the training of saboteurs: as a rule, people with good sports training were recruited into such detachments. Thus, the USSR boxing champion Nikolai Korolev served in one of the sabotage and reconnaissance groups.
Unlike ordinary partisan groups, these DRGs (sabotage and reconnaissance groups) were led by career NKVD officers. The most famous of these DRGs was the “Winners” detachment under the leadership of NKVD officer Dmitry Medvedev, who, in turn, reported to Sudoplatov.
Several groups of well-trained saboteurs (among which there were many who were imprisoned in the late 30s or dismissed during the same period of security officers, amnestied at the beginning of the war) were dropped by parachute behind German lines, uniting into one detachment that was engaged in the murders of high-ranking German officers , as well as sabotage: blowing up railway tracks and trains, destroying telephone cables, etc. The famous Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov spent several months in this detachment.
After the war: he continued to head the sabotage department (now specializing in foreign sabotage). After the fall of Beria, Lieutenant General Sudoplatov was arrested as his close ally. He tried to feign madness, but was sentenced to 15 years in prison for organizing the murders of Stalin’s opponents, and was also deprived of all awards and titles. He served time in the Vladimir Central Prison. After his release, he wrote memoirs and books about the work of Soviet intelligence and tried to achieve his rehabilitation. He was rehabilitated after the collapse of the USSR in 1992. Died in 1996.

Ilya Starinov


The most famous Soviet saboteur who worked “in the field.” If Sudoplatov only led sabotage actions, then Starinov directly carried out sabotage, specializing in explosives. Even before the war, Starinov was involved in training saboteurs and himself “trained” abroad, conducting a number of sabotage operations during the Civil War in Spain, where he trained saboteurs from among the Republicans. He developed a special anti-train mine, which was actively used in the USSR during the war.
Since the beginning of the war, Starinov has been training Soviet partisans, teaching them explosives. He was one of the leaders of the sabotage headquarters at the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement. He directly carried out the operation to destroy the commandant of Kharkov, General von Braun. During the retreat of the Soviet troops, explosives were buried near the best mansion in the city, and in order to ward off the suspicions of German sappers, a decoy was placed in a visible place next to the building, which the Germans successfully cleared. A few days later, the explosives were detonated remotely using radio control. This was one of the few successful applications of radio-controlled mines in those years, since the technology was not yet sufficiently reliable and proven.
After the war: he was engaged in demining railways. After retiring, he taught sabotage tactics in KGB educational institutions until the end of the 80s. After that he retired and died in 2000.

Colin Gubbins


Before the war, Gubbins studied guerrilla warfare and sabotage tactics. Later he headed the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), which was probably the most global factory of terror, sabotage and sabotage in human history. The organization wreaked havoc and carried out sabotage in almost all territories occupied by the Germans. The organization trained personnel for resistance fighters in all European countries: Polish, Greek, Yugoslav, Italian, French, Albanian partisans received weapons, medicine, food and trained agents from SOE.
The most famous SOE sabotages were the explosion of a huge bridge over the Gorgopotamos River in Greece, which interrupted communications between Athens and the city of Thessaloniki for several months, which contributed to the deterioration of supplies for Rommel's Afrika Korps in North Africa, and the destruction of a heavy water plant in Norway. The first attempts to destroy the heavy water plant, potentially suitable for use in nuclear energy, were unsuccessful. Only in 1943 did SOE-trained saboteurs manage to destroy the plant and thereby practically disrupt the German nuclear program.
Another famous SOE operation was the liquidation of Reinhard Heydrich, Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia and head of the Main Directorate of Imperial Security (to make it clearer: it’s as if the Germans killed Lavrentiy Beria). Two British-trained agents - a Czech and a Slovak - parachuted into the Czech Republic and threw a bomb, mortally wounding the odious Heydrich.
The pinnacle of the organization's activities was to be Operation Foxley - the assassination attempt on Hitler. The operation was carefully developed, agents and a sniper were trained, who were supposed to parachute in German uniform and get to Hitler's Berghof residence. However, in the end, it was decided to abandon the operation - not so much because of its impracticability, but because the death of Hitler could turn him into a martyr and give additional impetus to the Germans. In addition, a more talented and capable leader could have taken Hitler’s place, which would have complicated the conduct of the war that was already coming to an end.
After the war: he retired and headed a textile factory. He was a member of the Bilderberg Club, which is considered by some conspiracy theorists to be something like a secret world government.

Max Manus


The most famous Norwegian saboteur who sank several German ships. After the surrender of Norway and its occupation by Germany, he went underground. He tried to organize an assassination attempt on Himmler and Goebbels during their visit to Oslo, but was unable to carry it out. He was arrested by the Gestapo, but was able to escape with the help of the underground and, in transit through several countries, moved to Britain, where he underwent sabotage training at the SOE.
After that, he was sent to Norway, where he was engaged in the destruction of German ships in ports using sticky mines. After successful acts of sabotage, Manus moved to neighboring neutral Sweden, which helped him avoid capture. During the war he sank several German transport ships, becoming the most famous fighter of the Norwegian Resistance. It was Manus who was entrusted to be the bodyguard of the Norwegian king at the Victory Parade in Oslo.
After the war: he wrote several books about his activities. He founded an office equipment sales company that still exists today. In post-war interviews, he complained that he suffered from nightmares and difficult memories of the war, which he had to drown out with alcohol. To overcome the nightmares, he changed his environment and moved with his family to the Canary Islands. He died in 1986 and is currently considered a national hero in Norway.

Nancy Wake


Before the war she was a journalist. She met the beginning of the war in France, where she married a millionaire and received money and ample opportunities for her activities. From the very beginning of the occupation of France, she participated in organizing the escape of Jews from the country. After some time, she ended up on the Gestapo lists and, in order to avoid falling into their hands, she fled to Britain, where she took a sabotage training course at the SOE.
She was parachuted into France with the task of uniting disparate detachments of French rebels and leading them. The British provided enormous support to the French resistance movement, sending them weapons and trained officers to coordinate them. In France, the British especially often used women as agents, since the Germans were less likely to suspect them.
Wake led partisan detachments and distributed weapons, supplies and money dropped by the British. The French partisans were entrusted with a responsible task: with the beginning of the Allied landings in Normandy, they had to do their best to prevent the Germans from sending reinforcements to the coast, for which they blew up trains and attacked German troops, pinning them down in battle.
Nancy Wake made a great impression on her charges, who, as a rule, were unprofessional. One day she shocked them by easily killing a German sentry with her bare hands: she snuck up behind him and broke his larynx with the edge of her hand.
After the war: she received many awards from governments of different countries. She took part in elections several times without success. She wrote memoirs, and several TV series and films were made about her life. She died in 2011.

German intelligence did not have many outstanding personalities in the field of intelligence, one of them was General Oskar Niedermayer

He is famous for

--participated in secret expeditions to Afghanistan

--discovered a lot in terms of relations between the Weimar Republic and the Soviet regime

--recruited all the traitors in the USSR starting from Radek and ending with Tukhachevsky

--suspected of betrayal under Hitler, of working for the West or the USSR, or generally for both sides

--fought in the USSR

--was arrested in 1944 by the Nazis for defeatism

Oscar von Niedermayer was born in 1885 in Bavaria, in the town of Freising. Oscar's father was an architect, but his son chose a military career and graduated from the artillery school in Munich in 1910.

At the same time, Oscar studied at the University of Munich at the Faculty of Geography, Ethnography and Geology.

And in 1912, artillery lieutenant Niedermayer went on a scientific expedition to the East, organized and financed by the University of Munich. For two years, Niedermayer visited India, Arabia, Egypt, Palestine, but spent most of his time in Persia.

In August 1914, Lieutenant Niedermayer, as part of the tenth artillery regiment, went to the Western Front, but already in October 1914 he was recalled to Berlin to carry out a secret mission in the East.

The military expedition to the countries of the Middle East was organized on the initiative of the Turkish Minister of War Enver Pasha by the German and Turkish general staffs.

Niedermayer himself spoke about it this way:

I began my service in the German army in 1905, and in the first [years] of my service I served in the 10th artillery regiment, which at that time was stationed in the mountains. Erlangen. I underwent initial military training with the regiment and in 1906, after graduating from school, I received the military rank of lieutenant.

Then I was sent from the regiment to study at an artillery school in the mountains. Munich, which he graduated from in 1910, and upon graduation was again sent to the 10th Artillery Regiment, where he served continuously until 1912.

From 1912 to 1914, I participated in a scientific military expedition and was in Persia, India, Arabia, Egypt, Palestine and Syria, the purpose of the expedition was to study the geography and geology of these areas. There was this expedition from the Munich Academy of Sciences. At the beginning of the First Imperialist War, I had the rank of chief lieutenant, and by that time I was in France on a business trip.

At the end of 1914, by order of the General Staff, I was assigned with a regiment to go on an expedition [to Persia] and Afghanistan to attack from the indicated sides on the British colonies, in particular on India.

At the same time, I had a task from the General Staff: to collect data about the British army in the indicated places."

It was undertaken with the aim of involving the countries of the Middle East in the war, in particular, to persuade Afghanistan to enter the war on the side of Germany, and also to raise an insurgency against the British in Persia, Afghanistan, Balochistan and India, which was supposed to distract from the main fronts large Allied forces.

Oscar Niedermayer second from right, Afghanistan, 1916

The expedition consisted of about 350 people, including 40 German officers. The rank and file was staffed by Persians, Afghans and Indians, who, as they knew the local situation well, were recruited from among prisoners of war. Some of the rank and file were Turkish soldiers. 29-year-old Lieutenant Niedermayer was appointed head of the entire expedition.

Taking advantage of the fact that there were no Russian troops in Luristan (a region in Central Persia), the expedition freely crossed the country from west to east, moving through deserted deserts - the same path that Niedermayer followed during the scientific expedition in 1912-1914.

Upon arrival in Kabul, he negotiated many times with Emir Habibullah Khan and representatives of Afghan government circles. Niedermayer, on behalf of the Kaiser, promised the emir, if he entered the war on the side of Germany, to help him create the so-called Greater Afghanistan, that is, to annex English and Persian Balochistan to it.

The emir, on the one hand, agreed to declare war on the allies, but on the other hand, he was afraid that he would not be able to resist the allies on his own.

And Habibullah Khan put forward a condition - to transport several German divisions to Afghanistan.

Habibullah Khan

However, Germany physically could not do this and the emir refused to oppose the Entente, declaring his neutrality, although he fulfilled it only formally. Niedermayer carried out a number of activities in Afghanistan that caused great concern among the British and forced them to maintain a group of troops of up to 80 thousand people in India on the Afghan border.

According to Niedermayer, almost the entire Persian gendarmerie worked for the Germans. The Persian gendarmerie was led by Swedish officers who had been recruited by the Germans even before the start of the war.

As a result, the Germans managed to create large armed detachments from individual tribes in Persia, Afghanistan and India, which, acting secretly, attacked groups of British soldiers. In particular, such detachments were created from Bakriars, Kashchays, Kalhors in Persia, Afrid-Mahmands, Baners in Afghanistan and India.

In agreement with the emir, Niedermayer and his officers began reorganizing the Afghan army and the General Staff. They organized several officer schools and even a military academy.

German officers served as teachers, as well as a significant part of the Austrian officers who fled to Afghanistan from Russian captivity.

From left to right: Lieutenant Günter Voigt, Oberleutnant Oscar Niedermayer, Lieutenant Commander Kurt Wagner

Under the leadership of German officers, a defensive line was built to protect Kabul, which was pointedly directed against India. Under the leadership of Niedermayer, maneuvers of Afghan troops were carried out, which also had a “demonstrative direction” against India. In addition, on the initiative of Niedermayer, an artillery range was set up on the border with India, where firing was constantly carried out

But, curiously, the interrogators did not even want to clarify what they were talking about and quickly moved the conversation to another topic.

Von Niedermayer did not raise the conversation further about his “broad communication” with Russian diplomats and military personnel. So we will never know about the secret negotiations between the Russian authorities in Persia and the German intelligence officer.

Afghanistan at the beginning of the twentieth century is the place where the career of General Niedermayer started. F

To get rid of "Afghan Lawrence", the British authorities bribed Emir Habibullah, starting to pay him an annual subsidy of up to 2.4 million rupees and paid him another up to 60 million rupees after the war. British gold forced Habibullah to decide to expel Niedermayer.

In May 1916, the Germans were forced to leave Afghanistan. Niedermayer's small detachment crossed all of Persia, flooded with Russian and Persian troops, and reached Turkey.

In March 1917, Niedermayer was received by Emperor Wilhelm II, who awarded him the order for his operations in Afghanistan and Persia.

Wilhelm II personally awarded Niedermayer for his services

But the First World War ended with the disgraceful Treaty of Versailles for Germany and Russia.

He himself recalled this:

“At the beginning of 1917, I returned from an expedition to Germany, and arrived only with some officers, since almost the entire regiment was put out of action in battles with the British.

Despite the fact that nothing was won by the operations in Persia and Afghanistan, the German command needed to draw back troops, and the command attached great importance to this.

For operations in India, I was personally appointed by the Kaiser to serve on the General Staff, received the rank of captain and from the General Staff was sent to the headquarters of General von Falkenheim *, this general was the commander-in-chief of the Turkish front in Palestine.

With this general I took part in an expedition against the Arabs, at that time I had the position of chief of staff, from 1918 until the end of the war I was on the French front as an officer of the general staff.

When the imperialist war ended, officers had nothing to do in Germany, and I went to study at the University of Munich and studied for some time in the faculties of philosophy and geography.

I must say that I didn’t have to study for long, since as Germany revived, the officer corps began to be used again for its intended purpose. Soon I was taken back into the army from the university, and I was appointed adjutant of the German War Ministry in Berlin. "

Looking ahead, we note that during interrogation in Moscow on August 28, 1945, Niedermayer stated that,

“while in Iran, I had extensive communication with representatives of the Russian ... diplomatic and military missions. In conversations with them, I found out the issues on which I informed Sanders” (General von Sanders - head of the German military mission in Turkey).

At the beginning of 1919, Niedermayer re-entered the geography department of the University of Munich. But it didn't take long to study. At the beginning of 1921, the Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr, General Hans Seeckt, took Niedermayer as his adjutant.

IN THE USSR

And in June 1921, Niedermayer arrived in Moscow as an employee of the German embassy of “Comrade Silbert”. It is worth noting that this camouflage was not for the OGPU. On the contrary, it was this office that provided Oscar’s “cover.” According to the draconian articles of the Treaty of Versailles, the German military was prohibited from traveling abroad on any missions.

Hans von Seeckt discovered a new Russia for Germany

Niedermayer arrived in the USSR accompanied by the Soviet charge d'affaires in Germany, Vitor Kopp. In Moscow, Niedermayer negotiated with the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Chicherin and the Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council Trotsky. Trotsky accepted Germany's offer to assist the Soviet Union in restoring the military industry on concession terms.

He told Niedermayer that

"The USSR is interested primarily in the development of those branches of the military industry that did not exist in the USSR, namely: aviation, automatic weapons, chemistry and the submarine fleet."

On this trip, Kopp introduced Niedermayer to his friend Karl Radek.

The German intelligence officer Niedermayer established the closest contacts with Karl Radek, who later recruited military personnel dissatisfied with the government

At the beginning of 1922, Seeckt sent Major Niedermayer to Moscow for the second time.

Paul, one of the directors of the Krupp company, is traveling with him. Niedermayer and Pohl spend four weeks in the Soviet Union. Together with representatives of the Supreme Economic Council, they inspected the Moscow Dynamo plant and the aviation plant in Fili, the Leningrad Putilov plant and shipyards, the Rybinsk engine plant, etc.

He himself recalled.

Protocol of interrogation of Major General O. von Niedermayer. May 16, 1945 [B/m, Active Army]

Niedermayer Oscar, born in 1885,

native of the mountains Freising, Bavaria. From the employees.

Father was an architect. German by nationality

German subject. Previously a member

National Socialist Party from 1933 to 1935.

Has higher education. Family, wife lived in

Germany in the mountains Munich. In military service in

has been in the German army since 1905. He has the rank of major general.

Question: What was the purpose of your visit to Russia and how long were you in Moscow?

Answer: I must say that I arrived in Russia as a personal representative of the German War Ministry with the task of identifying opportunities for the development of heavy industry and the military industry in Russia.

I was in Moscow for the first time for 2-3 weeks and, for the reasons stated above, had conversations with Trotsky, Rykov and Chicherin. Having identified the possibilities for the development of heavy and military industry, an agreement was established between me and representatives of various People's Commissariats of Industry in Russia that Germany would provide technical assistance in reviving Russia's heavy and military industry.

For the second time I arrived in the mountains. Moscow at the end of 1921, together with the Russian ambassador, a certain Kop**. The purpose of my second visit to Russia was the same, with the exception that I additionally had an assignment from the German Ministry of War Industry to identify in Russia where it would be most profitable to build an aviation, tank and chemical industry.

In addition, I was in Russia at different times in 1922 and 1923, also on issues of creating heavy and military industries in Russia.

All this was done by the German authorities in order to create a powerful military industry in Russia, since this could not be done in Germany itself according to the Treaty of Versailles. Germany did not mean that after the creation of a military industry in Russia [it would] purchase military products for Germany.

Question: Why were you authorized to negotiate on the restoration of Russian heavy and military industries?

.............

* So in the document, we are talking about Infantry General E. von Falkenhayn.

** So in the document, we are talking about the Soviet diplomat V.L. Coppe.

Answer: I was a member of the War Ministry commission and was in the industrial restoration sector. I personally was the first to take the initiative to provide assistance in restoring Russian industry, so that later we could export the necessary military products to arm the German army; I repeat, this was all caused by the Treaty of Versailles. In addition, by that time I had an almost perfect command of the Russian language, which is why Germany sent me to Russia on the issues mentioned above.

Question: In addition to the mentioned periods of stay in the mountains. Moscow, have you ever been to the USSR?

Answer: In addition to the above periods of stay in the Soviet Union and in the mountains. Moscow, I also lived continuously in the Soviet Union from June 1924 to December 1931. During this period, I also worked for the German Ministry for the creation of heavy and military industry in Russia, and also worked generally together with Soviet specialists on the creation of an aircraft plant in Fili, Moscow region, and also dealt with the organization of pilot schools and the equipment of air bases.

Question: While in the USSR, what was your connection with the German attache located in the city. Moscow

Answer: I must say that during the period of my stay in the Soviet Union I had no relation to the German attaché, and besides, he was not there during the period when I was in Russia. This was already provided for by the Treaty of Versailles.

Question: After 1931, did you ever visit the Soviet Union?

Answer: Yes, in January-February 1941, I was sent by the General Staff on a business trip to Japan and while passing there I was in the Soviet Union, because I had to go through the USSR. I went to Japan to give lectures on the military policy of that time and on the economy of the Soviet Union.

I still have the text of these lectures. I must say that [on] a business trip to Japan, the General Staff gave me the task on the way there to find out what railways there were and their capacity in the USSR and, mainly, in Siberia. But I didn’t have to study anything on this issue.

It was written down correctly, it was read aloud to me.

Niedermayer

Polunin

Central Asia of the FSB of Russia. R-47474. L.13-14ob. Script. Manuscript. Autograph. First published: Generals and officers of the Wehrmacht tell

After the third trip to Moscow, Seeckt and Niedermayer created the German industrial society "GEFU" - "Society for Conducting Economic Enterprises."

Under the guise of a concession, trade in weapons and military technologies took place. Thus, in 1924, the Reichswehr, through the Metachim company, ordered the USSR 400 thousand 76.2-mm (3-inch) cartridges for field guns.

It is necessary to indicate why the Germans needed Russian 76.2 mm shells when they had their own structurally different 75 mm shell for field guns.

The fact is that the Treaty of Versailles left a small number of 75-mm and 105-mm field guns for the Reichswehr, and the Allies demanded that the rest be surrendered.

The exact number of guns in the Kaiser's army was known, but the Germans managed to hide several hundred Russian 76.2-mm field guns of the 1902 model, which for various reasons the Allies did not take into account.

German 75-mm shells were not suitable for them, and therefore the Reichswehr turned to the USSR. Note that not only the Soviet Union supplied military equipment to Germany, bypassing the Versailles agreements, but, for example, the Czechs and Swedes.

And in June 1924, Mr. Neumann (aka Major Niedermayer) arrived on his sixth business trip to Soviet Russia, which would last until December 1931. The Treaty of Versailles prohibited Germany from having military attaches at its embassies.

And then von Seeckt proposed creating a representative office of the German General Staff in Moscow, which, by the way, was also prohibited and therefore was called the “military department.”

The representative office of the General Staff was named "C-MO" - "Center-Moscow".

In Berlin, under the General Staff, there was a special department “C-B” (Bureau for the Management of Work in Russia), to which “C-MO” was subordinated. Formally, "C-MO" was listed as the economic service of the German Embassy and was located in two buildings - on Vorovskogo Street, building 48, and in Khlebny Lane, building 28.

At first, the formal head of "C-MO" was Colonel Lit-Thomsen, and the actual head was his deputy Niedermayer. In 1927, Lit-Thomsen was recalled and Niedermayer became the head of Ts-MO.

As Niedermayer would later state:

“Upon arrival in Moscow, I first of all set about organizing schools for training German officers. A school for German pilots was organized in Lipetsk in 1924. In 1926, a tank crew school was organized in Kazan, and a chemical school was opened in 1927 near the city of Volsk. In addition, In 1924, by agreement with Baranov, special teams of German test pilots were created at the headquarters of the USSR Air Force to carry out experimental and test work on Air Force assignments."

In 1926, Niedermayer found himself on the verge of failure.

In 1925, under the name Strauss, he took part in the maneuvers of the Western Military District, where he recruited the commander of the Red Army Gottfried, a German by nationality, into cooperation. Gottfried supplied Niedermayer with very valuable information about the mood, political course and intrigues in the leadership of the Red Army.

In September 1926, the OGPU arrested Gottfried, and the following year he was shot. Niedermayer got off with a reprimand from von Seeckt, who categorically forbade him to engage in such undercover work. Indeed, for von Niedermayer (at the direction of the leaders of the OGPU, the Red Army and Soviet military intelligence) the doors of almost all defense enterprises of Soviet Russia were already open. He visited factories in Gorky, Kazan, Stalingrad, Rostov and other cities almost every year.

Niedermayer regularly met with Tukhachevsky, Uborevich, Yakir, Kork, Blucher, Radek, Rykov, Karakhan, Krestinsky and the leadership of the Air Force - Baranov and Alksnis, the head of the military chemical department Fishman, the head of the tank forces Khalepsky.

According to one version, since 1924, Oscar von Niedermayer supplied the head of the 4th (intelligence) directorate of the Red Army headquarters, Yan Karlovich Berzin, with strategic information about the military-economic potential, political plans of Great Britain, France and other countries directed against the USSR, including their anti-Soviet activities in the Middle East.

It should be especially noted that all of the above Soviet figures, without exception, were executed in 1937–1938. Is this related to their active contacts with von Niedermayer? Maybe they were also liquidated because they knew too much? As they say, “no person, no problem.” It is up to independent researchers to clarify this mystery.

The scout himself recalled:

Protocol of interrogation of Major General O. von Niedermayer. May 17, 1945 [B/m, Active Army]

Niedermayer Oscar, born 1885

Question. While working in the Soviet Union to restore industry, which German organization did you act for?

Answer: On the restoration of industry in Russia, I worked directly from the German General Staff, and was always directly connected personally on this matter with the Chief of the General Staff, General Hasse.

Question: And in the Soviet Union, with whom were you directly connected on the issues of restoring the military industry in the USSR?

Answer: On issues of restoring the military industry in the USSR, I was directly connected with the General Staff of the Red Army. I personally dealt on the above issues with the head of the air force Baranov, the head of the armored forces, I don’t remember his last name now *, and with the head of the Chemical Department Fishman. I had to resolve certain issues with Shaposhnikov and Voroshilov.

Question: How did you provide practical assistance to the Soviet Union in the restoration of industry?

Answer: The entire agreement on the issues of providing assistance to the Russian military industry by providing technical personnel to Russia came through me; In addition, I was responsible for providing newly constructed enterprises with drawings, designs, and plans.

I was also in charge of the delivery of new types of army weapons to Russia, both from Germany and from other countries, which the Soviet Union needed for samples. I was also in charge of contracts for the supply of various types of military materials, which by that time did not yet exist in Russia.

Question: While in the Soviet Union, did the German General Staff give you tasks, in parallel with your main business, to identify military and economic data about the Soviet Union?

Answer: No, I did not receive this kind of assignment from my General Staff. On the contrary, when sending me to Russia for the above purposes, my General Staff strictly warned me so as not to compromise myself, under no circumstances should I collect any information about the Soviet Union, either military or political in nature. I must say that in my entire life I have never done any kind of espionage work in any country.

* We are talking about corps commander I.A. Halep.

Question: While in the Soviet Union, who did you know among the persons assigned by the German authorities to carry out intelligence work in the USSR?

Answer: While still at the General Staff in Germany, I knew that at the headquarters for intelligence issues there was also an Eastern branch of Ab-Wera. I personally do not know any of the employees of this department, since I was not associated with it, especially since no one is known from the people who worked [on] intelligence issues in Russia at the time when I myself lived in the USSR.

For example, I know that in those years when I was in Russia, the Eastern Branch was almost inactive, since at that time destroyed Russia was of no interest to Germany.

In addition, we usually requested all the necessary data about the Soviet Union through official means, on the basis of which we developed the necessary plans for the restoration of Russian industry. It was written down correctly, it was read aloud to me.

Niedermayer

Interrogated by: deputy chief

4 departments of ROC "Smersh" 13 army [army] captain

Polunin"

The head of the ABTU, corps commander A. Khalepsky, was in close contact with the German intelligence officer Niedermayer

In December 1931, Niedermayer was recalled to Berlin. Perhaps this was due to the fact that Germany sent the military attaché General Holm to the USSR, and the functions of the Ts-MO began to decline.

According to a number of German sources, at the end of 1934, Hitler considered two candidates for the post of head of the Abwehr (military intelligence) - Wilhelm Canaris and Oscar Niedermayer. As you know, the choice was made in favor of the first.

Nibelung?

It is known that in 1936, Soviet military intelligence ordered the adviser to the USSR Embassy in Germany, Alexander Hirschfeld, to re-establish contacts with von Niedermayer, interrupted after the Nazis came to power in 1933.

Recruitment went surprisingly smoothly. Niedermayer agreed to inform Moscow and even contemptuously refused the 20 thousand marks offered to him.

He received the pseudonym "Nibelung" and subsequently, as a member of the "Black Chapel", regularly supplied Soviet intelligence with strategic information about Hitler's plans for the USSR and the mood in the German leadership.

Here is one piece of evidence from the NKVD archives, cited by Sergei Kondrashin in the material “Greetings to Marshal Voroshilov”:

“Niedermayer said that he recently had a long conversation with Hitler about the Soviet Union. However, he could not come to an agreement with him, since Hitler showed persistent misunderstanding... As for the position of the Reichswehrministry towards the Soviet Union, Niedermayer said that “we are firm.” "Niedermayer also intends to make sure that nothing stupid happens."

In 1936, Soviet intelligence learned that Niedermayer was accused of treason. But well-known “Easterners” - supporters of the alliance of Germany with the USSR - Field Marshal Blomberg and General von Seeckt came out in support of him.

Oscar Niedermayer worked closely with Soviet agents from 1936, receiving the code name "Nibelung"

And he almost got burned for this in 1936, he was accused of working for the Bolshevik enemy

The charges of high treason against von Niedermayer were never dropped, but he was awarded the rank of colonel and sent into retirement. What is noteworthy is that after these scandalous events, von Seeckt suddenly and unexpectedly died on December 27, 1936 in Berlin. According to one version, he was liquidated (poisoned) on Hitler's orders.

On November 3, 1939, the German General Staff received a memo from Niedermayer, “Politics and the conduct of war in the Middle East.” According to the author, in 1941, Germany and the USSR should together “organize an attack on the British Empire through the Caucasus.”

From the rear in Afghanistan, they should be supported by an uprising of “robber Pashtun tribes” in order to pin down British troops in India and prevent their transfer to the mother country. From declassified documents of Soviet foreign intelligence it is known that Niedermayer’s plan was called “Amanullah”.

Operation Amanullah included three stages. The first stage of the plan was implemented in the fall of 1939, when a group of Abwehr officers with a large sum of money was sent to Tibet through Afghanistan to carry out subversive work.

The second stage was planned to be carried out in the spring of 1941.

The Germans, with the assistance of Moscow, were to organize a “scientific expedition” to Tibet of 200 Abwehr and SS officers who would have a “base in one of the Soviet Central Asian republics.” This expedition was supposed to deliver a large shipment of weapons to the tribes of Tibet and residents of the areas of the so-called “independent strip” of British India.

The third stage provided for the restoration of Amanullah Khan to the throne. To fully guarantee success, Berlin was preparing to involve a Wehrmacht mountain division in Operation Amanullah, which could support the advance of Siddiq Khan’s detachment from the territory of Soviet Turkestan.

In the first half of December 1940, the details of Operation Amanullah were discussed in Moscow with the arriving German specialist on the East, P. Kleist. He, as it turns out, worked for Soviet intelligence.

On March 21, 1941, German intelligence managed to establish that the impending Operation Amanullah had become known in London. This was reported to Moscow, after which both sides began to actively calculate the sources of information leaks. Moreover, the English sources were surrounded by Hitler and Stalin.

He himself spoke about it this way:

Protocol of interrogation of Major General O. von Niedermayer. May 26, 1945 [B/m, Active Army]

"INTERROGATION PROTOCOL

I, the senior investigator of the Investigative Department of the UKR “Smersh” of the 1st Ukrainian Front, senior lieutenant Panov, through the translator junior lieutenant Petropavlovsky, interrogated the detainee

Niedermayer Oscar (installation data available in the case)

The interrogation began at 21:45.

The interrogation ended at 01:40.

The translator, Junior Lieutenant Petropavlovsky, was warned about liability for false translation under Art. 95 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.

[Petropavlovsky]

Question: What did you do during the war between Germany and the Soviet Union?

Answer: I learned about Germany’s impending war against the Soviet Union from the German ambassador in Moscow, Count Schulenburg, when I stopped with him while passing from Japan to Germany. Upon arrival in Berlin, I met with a number of General Staff officers I knew and from conversations with them I clearly understood that the war against the Soviet Union was about to begin.

After the outbreak of Germany's war against the Soviet Union, I was repeatedly asked to take command of one or another division. I refused.

At the beginning of 1942, I was asked by the personnel department of the ground forces headquarters to take charge of the training of the “volunteer forces”. I rejected it. Three months later, I received an order to take command of the 162nd Infantry Division 177. When I learned that “volunteers” would be trained in this division, I asked to cancel the order.

My request was rejected, and I was told in Berlin that this was a categorical order from Keitel and that I should take charge of the training of the “volunteers”, because I speak oriental languages, and the “volunteers” consist of Azerbaijanis and Turkestanis. I was forced to obey this order."

The protocol was read to me and translated into German. The testimony from my words was recorded correctly.

Niedermayer

Interrogated by: senior investigator of the Criminal Investigation Department

"Smersh" 1st Ukrainian] Front [senior] lieutenant

Panov

Translator: [junior lieutenant]

Petropavlovsky

Niedermayer returned to the USSR only at the beginning of 1941. He traveled along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Japan, where he stayed for two weeks. The official purpose of the trip was to conduct lectures for the Japanese military.

In Tokyo, Niedermayer met with Richard Sorge, to whom he informed about Hitler’s attack on the USSR and the direction of possible Wehrmacht attacks, and also gave him the notes he had obtained from part of the Barbarossa plan. Sorge hastened to convey the information to Moscow.

Richard Sorge personally met with Niedermayer and is believed to have told him important information

On the way back, Niedermayer spent several days at the German embassy in Moscow, ostensibly for conversations with Ambassador von Schulenburg.

Since the early 1990s, a number of articles have appeared in our media claiming that Niedermayer was recruited by Soviet intelligence back in the 1920s. It is curious that the authors of the articles are former KGB officers, citing documents that are not available to independent researchers.

It is alleged that the NKVD gave Niedermayer the pseudonym "Nibelung". In any case, Niedermayer provided Soviet intelligence with a large amount of information about the state of the armed forces of England, France and other states, and also revealed many of their political secrets.

Thus, according to Niedermayer, he personally handed over to representatives of the Red Army a plan for fortifications of the Bosporus and Dardanelles, drawn up by German engineers who built coastal batteries there in 1914–1917. By the way, even now this plan has enormous historical value. With its help, you can answer the question of whether the Russian fleet could have captured the Bosphorus in 1917.

All these materials are in our archives but classified as “top secret”.

In 1935, Niedermayer joined the Wehrmacht, and since October 1939 he has been a colonel at OKW headquarters. The outbreak of war with the USSR made Niedermayer an even stranger figure. This is what is written in the book by A.I. Kolpakidi "Double conspiracy. Stalin and Hitler: failed coups":

“To begin with, he was offered to accept the division. He refused. In 1942, a new offer followed - to train “volunteers” from among Russian prisoners of war, mainly natives of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Again a refusal. Then he was offered another post, which, upon closer examination turned out to be similar - all the same “volunteers”. This time the colonel agreed.”

In December 1941, the German 162nd Infantry Division was destroyed near Rzhev. And so, at the beginning of 1942, on the basis of the division’s management, the creation of the Muslim (Turkic) division of the Wehrmacht began, formed from among prisoners of war and volunteers - former citizens of the USSR - natives of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Officially it is called the 162nd Infantry Division.

In May 1943, Major General Oskar von Niedermayer, a specialist in the Middle East, a career intelligence officer, a member of the anti-Hitler organization Black Chapel, who maintained secret contacts with Soviet intelligence, took command of the Turkic division.

He himself recalled:

“From the autumn of 1942 to January 1943, I organized a training division in Ukraine from Turkestan and Caucasians. My headquarters was in the city of Mirgorod. The division was divided into separate legions.

The entire command staff was German. The success in my work was so insignificant that I flew twice to the Main Apartment*, where I asked to be used for another job.

I said at the main headquarters that the “volunteers” were in a bad mood due to the military situation at the front and the activities of the German civil authorities in Ukraine.

These statements of mine led to the fact that it was ordered to redeploy the division from Ukraine to Silesia, to the city of Neuhammer. After long conversations at the General Staff, the division was converted from training to field.

I must say that together with Colonel Stauffenberg, Generals Stief and Wagner**, a secret plan was drawn up to prepare the division for use in the event of an armed uprising against Hitler to help the rebels on July 20, 1943. *** Stauffenberg was shot, Stief was hanged as instigators of the uprising against Hitler. Wagner committed suicide.

In 1943, the division was relocated to Neuhammer and received reinforcements from the Germans, and a larger percentage of it were volunteers. Since at the end of 1943 the military situation became increasingly threatening for Germany, the division was transferred, despite my request not to do so, to eastern Italy, to the Udine-Trieste region.

The division remained in this area from November 1943 to March 1944, without conducting significant operations.

In April 1944, the division was redeployed to the Mediterranean coast at Livorno for defensive work, and I was relieved of my duties.

I was appointed advisor to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front, Marshal Rundstedt, on the affairs of “volunteer” formations. I found the situation on the Western Front completely hopeless in connection with the Anglo-American offensive, which I openly told my predecessor about.

I also expressed to him my dissatisfaction with the order of the command of the “volunteer” formations and Hitler’s Eastern policy. On October 14, 1944, in connection with this, I was arrested by the German authorities and transferred to a military court in Torgau.

I was in Torgau (in the city prison) until the evacuation of the city, and when the city was captured by parts of the Russian, American and British armies, I ended up with the Russians."

In total there were 17 thousand people in the division. Of these, 8 thousand are Germans and 9 thousand are Muslims from among former Soviet citizens. From November 1943, the 162nd Turkic Division was stationed in Italy in the Udine-Trieste region. Then she carried out coastal defense in the Fiume-Pola-Trieste-Herz-Tsdine section, and was engaged in the construction of coastal fortifications on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

In 1944, the 162nd Division fought against Anglo-American troops in the Rimini area, and in 1945, battles in the Bologna and Padua area. In May 1945 - after the surrender of Germany - the division surrendered to British troops.

With the assistance of the Black Chapel, on May 21, 1944, Oscar von Niedermayer received the post of adviser on the Eastern Legions to the commander of the troops in the West and left for France.

Actually, there were no Eastern Legions in the West, but there were over 60 battalions staffed by former Soviet prisoners of war from among volunteers.

Most of them were involved in the defense system of the Atlantic Wall. That is, in fact, von Niedermayer (“Nibelung”) became the curator of all the Eastern (“Vlasov”) battalions that were transferred from the Eastern Front to France to defend the Atlantic Wall, including the English Channel coast, from a possible landing of the Anglo-Americans.

This appointment was not accidental.

Oscar von Niedermayer, Claus von Stauffenberg, Henning von Treskow, Baron Vladimir von Kaulbars are some of the main key figures among the participants in the anti-Hitler conspiracy and the underground organization "Black Chapel".

Oscar von Niedermayer established direct contacts with the leader of the ROA, General A.A. Vlasov, a Soviet agent of strategic influence in the Third Reich, and also drew up a detailed plan for the use of the Eastern battalions in the action to overthrow the Nazi regime in Germany and the occupied countries.

Andrei Vlasov was quite close to Niedermayer; indirect facts say that Vlasov could manage an intelligence network of Soviet agents

Read about Vlasov’s subversive activities against the lll Reich and his ideological sabotage in the book “General Vlasov, Kremlin Intelligence Agent,” written with the participation of a group of veterans of the Soviet special services - Internet LINK.

If Operation Valkyrie (the assassination attempt on Hitler) was successful, von Niedermayer planned to personally lead the Eastern Battalions in France to neutralize SS units loyal to the Nazi regime.

The Black Chapel had two wings. The first is the “Westerners,” who were oriented towards an alliance with the Anglo-Americans against the USSR.

The second was the “Easterners,” who relied on concluding a continental union between Germany and the USSR against the Anglo-American “Atlantists.”

The ideas of the “Easterners” were shared by Claus von Stauffenberg - the main organizer of the assassination attempt on Hitler, Baron Vladimir von Kaulbars - a former white officer, Abwehr employee and adjutant of Wilhelm Canaris, Georg von Beselager - commander of the Cossack squadron and cavalry reserve unit in Army Group Center, Helmut von Pannwitz - commander of the Cossack division, as well as many other officers and generals of the Wehrmacht and Abwehr.

The head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, was arrested for spying for Western countries, and military intelligence officer Niedermayer was soon arrested as well.

Then inexplicable events occur. Major General von Niedermayer was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the Torgau prison for particularly dangerous state criminals. According to some sources, his arrest was made in August 1944, according to others - in January 1945.

One of the formal charges is "for expressing defeatist sentiments."

It should be especially noted that persons of this rank in the lll Reich were not arrested for idle chatter. But for some reason, Niedermayer was not only not executed, but not even tried. At the end of April 1945, von Niedermayer managed to escape, deceiving the guards, taking advantage of the confusion and panic that arose in connection with the approach of the Anglo-American troops.

From the American zone, Niedermayer voluntarily leaves for the Soviet occupation zone. There he voluntarily surrenders into the hands of SMERSH. He is arrested and sent to Moscow. Major General von Niedermayer was dragged around prisons for three years and intensively interrogated by MGB investigators.

Last years

The fate of Oscar von Niedermayer is in many ways similar to the fate of his comrade-in-arms, General Helmut von Pannwitz. According to one version, Niedermayer knew Pannwitz at least since 1928.

At that time, von Pannwitz worked in Poland as manager of the estate of Princess Radziwill. There he met Oscar von Niedermayer and Prince Janos Radziwill.

The latter also actively collaborated with the Foreign Department of the NKVD and the intelligence department of the Red Army Headquarters.

Apparently Helmut von Pannwitz also actively collaborated with Soviet military intelligence. It is known that, on the instructions of Niedermayer, von Pannwitz made several trips to the USSR, under the pretext of establishing commercial trade relations. There he (like Niedermayer) met with a number of fairly famous military figures in the country: Mikhail Tukhachevsky, Yan Berzin and others.

During the Second World War - in 1943 - von Pannwitz formed the Cossack Division in Poland from volunteers from the Don and Kuban and White emigrants, which fought until 1945 on the territory of Catholic Croatia (Yugoslavia).

Von Pannwitz was a member of the Black Chapel and, after an unsuccessful attempt on Hitler’s life in July 1944, he hid a group of officers who were participants in the anti-Hitler conspiracy in his Cossack division, refusing to hand them over to the Gestapo.

After the surrender of Germany, the same story happens to Pannwitz as to Niedermayer. Helmut von Pannwitz ends up in the British occupation zone in Austria. There he tries to get the British to send him to the USSR. In fact, voluntarily and of his own free will, von Pannwitz surrenders into the hands of SMERSH. He is sent to Moscow.

In January 1947, von Pannwitz was sentenced to death and executed (hanged) in the courtyard of the internal prison on Lubyanka along with Krasnov, Shkuro and other Cossack atamans. Details are published in the materials "Who are you Helmut von Pannwitz? Secrets of the Kremlin's Strategic Intelligence" - Internet LINK.

Oskar von Niedermayer will outlive von Pannwitz, a colleague in the Black Chapel, by only one year.

By decision of the Special Meeting of the USSR Ministry of State Security on July 10, 1948, Niedermayer was sentenced to 25 years in forced labor camps. On September 25, 1948, von Niedermayer dies under very mysterious circumstances (he was actually liquidated) in the Vladimir Central MGB.

According to the official conclusion of the then Soviet experts, he allegedly died “of tuberculosis.”

Individual researchers have read some of Niedermayer's interrogation transcripts. It seems that either he was interrogated by complete idiots, or some of the interrogation protocols were subsequently removed from the case, and some were falsified.

He was not asked about Tukhachevsky or his other Soviet “contacts” from 1928–1937.

Apparently, details about his visit to Japan, participation in Operation Valkyrie, cooperation with Soviet intelligence and much, much more will remain secret for a long time.

No less curious is the fact that Niedermayer was rehabilitated on February 28, 1998 by the Main Military Prosecutor's Office.

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

It was a complex, branched complex of intelligence organizations - a huge invisible mechanism, the interaction of all parts of which was ensured by the “Communication Headquarters”, headed by Hess, placed at the top of the pyramid. Each of these secret organizations created its own strongholds abroad and built links in the overall espionage chain with which Hitler’s Germany entangled many countries of the world. In short, in the short period from 1935 to the start of the Second World War, a fairly powerful system of intelligence organizations was created, completely focused on preparing for the “big war.” The rulers of the Third Reich believed that even before military action was launched, the defense potential of the future enemy must be weakened. The war, according to their ideas, was supposed to be the final open blow inflicted on the victim after its strength had been previously undermined from within.

This presentation does not talk about all the components of the intelligence system of Nazi Germany, the total number of which was in the dozens, but only about its main components, which played the main role in subversive activities directed against the Soviet Union.

Operation WEISS

Among the “total espionage” organizations of the Third Reich, the Abwehr, the intelligence and counterintelligence department under the Supreme Command of the German Armed Forces, came to the fore, for obvious reasons. Its headquarters were located in a block of fashionable buildings on the Tirpeschufer, where the War Ministry 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, over the course of several years, he had to provide the Nazi generals with intelligence information, on the basis of which it was planned to launch plans for 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 Wehrmacht High Command began developing military operations against the United States of America, the countries of the Near and Middle East and Africa.

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

That's exactly what happened. However, in the first years of the fascist dictatorship (1933-1934), virtually no one was able to seriously challenge the Abwehr's priority in intelligence and counterintelligence matters. 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 intelligence apparatus that was fully prepared for work in military conditions. By this time, the distinctive feature of the Nazi system of military espionage was already clearly defined - complete subordination to the task of serving the aggressive program of the rulers of the Third Reich. Information about the enemy was considered one of the most important means of warfare.

Having reached its greatest prosperity by 1938, at the time of open preparations for an aggressive war, the Abwehr, setting out to probe the strategic capabilities of the future enemy, was actively involved in collecting data on the state of its armed forces and defense industry. To do this, he systematically entangled with a network of agents the countries that Nazi Germany intended to attack.

In general, the Abwehr, which from the internal political body of the Reichswehr, which it had primarily been until now, in the conditions of the restoration of the armed forces, turned into a military and therefore mainly a foreign policy intelligence service. Taking on the role of the operational headquarters for directing the activities of ramified military intelligence bodies, he became an instrument of the most militaristic and reactionary forces of the military, in alliance with which German fascism was preparing the country and people for a war of conquest. Most Western and Soviet authors who study the history of the Abwehr come to this conclusion, although, as is known, accessible material - documents, protocols, operational reports, Abwehr service diaries - is missing. Many of the decisions made by the Abwehr leadership in the interests of concealing their criminal essence 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 of a coded nature. During the retreat of German troops and on the eve of the final defeat of Nazi Germany, individual Abwehr services destroyed almost all accumulated operational materials. Finally, a large number of documents were destroyed by the Gestapo during the death throes of the Nazi regime so that they could not be used as evidence. Nevertheless, the materials that have come to the attention of researchers allow us to get a fairly complete picture of the place of the Abwehr in the mechanism of aggression and, in particular, its role in the planning, preparation and outbreak of the Second World War.

... This happened on August 25, 1939. On that day, Hitler gave the Wehrmacht the order: on August 26 at 4:15 am to launch a surprise attack on neighboring Poland. A special detachment formed by the Abwehr, headed by Lieutenant A. Herzner, set off to carry out an important task for the high command. He had to capture a mountain pass through the Blankovsky Pass, which was of particular strategic importance: it was like a gateway for the invasion of Nazi 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, thwarting a possible attempt by the Poles to mine the railway tunnel and clear the railway section of artificial barriers.

But it so happened that the radios with which the detachment was equipped were unable to receive signals in very rough and wooded terrain. As a result, Herzner was unable to learn that the date of the attack on Poland was being moved from August 25 to September 1.

The detachment, which included Polish-speaking Volksdeutsche (that is, Germans living 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 captured, locked them in warehouses, blew up a telephone exchange and, as he was ordered to do, captured the mountain pass “without a fight.” . In the evening of the same day, Herzner's detachment retreated. The first victims of the Second World War remained lying on the pass...

The truth about the attack on the radio station in Gliwice

It is well known that before the start of the Second World War, one episode occurred: 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 started, 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 Lahousen, spoke about this to the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.

“The case about which I will testify,” Lahousen said then, “is one of the most mysterious carried out by intelligence. A few days, some time before this - I think it was in mid-August, the exact date can be established in the department's journal - the 1st department and my department, that is, the 2nd, were ordered to obtain Polish uniforms and equipment, as well as soldiers' books and other Polish army items for the action code-named “Himmler”. This instruction... Canaris received from the Wehrmacht headquarters or from the Reich Defense Department... Canaris told us that concentration camp prisoners, dressed in this uniform, were to carry out an attack on the 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, citing information he received in a confidential conversation with the then SD employee Melhorn. According to Melhorn, in the last days of August 1939, the chief of the imperial security service, Heydrich, called him and conveyed Hitler’s order: by September 1, at any cost, create a concrete reason for an attack on Poland, thanks to which it 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 charge of this operation. Polish uniforms have already been delivered from Wehrmacht warehouses by order of Colonel General Keitel.

When Schellenberg asked where they were planning to get 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 made in Poland and staging an attack on the radio station. It was decided to drive the attackers to the machine guns of the “security” specially installed for this purpose.

Some details of this criminal armed action were reported during interrogation by a US military investigator and another participant, the responsible security officer Alfred Naujoks, already mentioned by us. As is clear from his testimony given under oath in Nuremberg prison, the head of the main imperial security office, Heydrich, around August 10, 1939, gave him the task of staging an attack on the radio station building in Gliwice, making it appear that the attackers were Poles. “For the foreign press and for German propaganda,” Heydrich told him, “we need practical proof of these Polish attacks...” Naujoks had to occupy the radio station and hold it for as long as it took to read the text prepared in advance in the CD in front of the microphone. As planned, this should have been done by a German who knew Polish. The text contained the rationale that “the time has come for a battle between the Poles and the Germans.”

Naujoks arrived in Gliwice two weeks before the events and had to wait there for the conditional signal to begin the operation. Between 25 and 31 August he visited the Gestapo chief Müller, whose headquarters in connection with the preparation of the operation was temporarily located near the scene of action, in Opal, and discussed with him the details of the operation, in which more than a dozen criminals sentenced to death, called "canned goods" Dressed in Polish uniforms, they were to be killed during the attack and left lying at the scene so that it could be proven that they died during 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 informed Naujoks that he had instructions from Heydrich to allocate one of the criminals to him. On 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 his appeal to Müller for “canned goods,” the criminal allocated to him was brought closer to the scene of action. Although Naujoks did not notice gunshot wounds on him, his whole face was covered in blood, and he was in an unconscious state, 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 appointed time at dawn, the attack group occupied the radio station, and a three-four minute text message was transmitted over the emergency radio transmitter. After this, after shouting a few phrases in Polish and firing up to a dozen random shots from pistols, the raid participants retreated, having first shot their accomplices - their bodies were then displayed as the corpses of “Polish soldiers” who allegedly attacked the radio station. The big press played it up as a "successfully" repelled "armed attack" on a radio station in Gliwice.

On September 1 at 10 a.m., five hours after the raid on the radio station, Hitler, as planned, made a speech in the Reichstag addressed to the German people. “Numerous incursions of Poles into German territory, including an attack by regular Polish troops on the border radio station in Gliwice,” the Führer began his speech and then, referring to the events in Gliwice, made threats against Poland and its government, presenting the matter in this way: as if the reason for the military actions taken by Germany were “unacceptable Polish provocations.”

On the same day, the Reich Foreign Office sent a telegram to all its diplomatic missions abroad, informing them that “in order to protect against a Polish attack, German units began an operation against Poland today at dawn. This operation should not at present be characterized as a war, but only as skirmishes provoked by Polish attacks." Two days later, the ambassadors of England and France conveyed an ultimatum to Germany on behalf of their governments. But this could no longer stop Hitler, who set his goal at all costs to bring Germany to the borders of the Soviet Union, to take possession of the “barrier that separated Russia and the Reich.” After all, according to the plans of the Nazis, the territory of Poland was to become the main springboard 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 specific development and adoption of the strategic plan of armed aggression, called “Weiss,” dates back, according to Abwehr data, to April 1939; its basis should have been 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 secrecy. 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 2.5 thousand tanks and 2 thousand aircraft were ready for a surprise invasion. They were only waiting for the command.

On September 3, three special trains departed from Anhalt Station in Berlin towards the Polish border. These were trains with the headquarters of the Wehrmacht military branches, as well as the headquarters of Goering and Himmler. On Reichsführer SS Himmler's train was Schellenberg, who had just been appointed head of the Gestapo's counterintelligence department in the newly created Reich Main Security Office.

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 fairly complete data on the organization of its armed forces, knew a lot about plans for their strategic deployment in case of war, the number of divisions, their weapons and equipment with military equipment. The accumulated information clearly showed that 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 the amount of weapons and military equipment, it was significantly inferior to the fascist German army.

The subversive actions of the Nazis were not limited to military espionage on a large scale. The range of techniques and means used to disorganize the rear of the future enemy in advance and 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 bring to a state of readiness to capitulate through preparatory measures. “It is necessary,” said Hitler, “relying on agents within the country, to cause confusion, instill uncertainty and sow panic with the help of merciless terror and by completely abandoning all humanity.”

It is known that since the spring of 1939, the Abwehr and SD were actively involved in inciting “popular uprisings” in Galicia and some other Ukrainian regions that were under Polish control. The intention was to lay the basis for “Western Ukrainian statehood” with an eye to the subsequent Anschluss of Soviet Ukraine. After the attack on Poland, Kanaris received an order to organize a massacre of Poles and Jews living there under the guise of an “uprising” in the Ukrainian and Belarusian regions, and then begin to form an “independent” Ukrainian entity. Signed by Hitler on April 11, 1939, the Weiss Plan provided that upon completion of the defeat of Poland, Germany would bring 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 be convinced of the sinister role of the Abwehr and other secret services, which represented 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 British intelligence has ever played as important a role as German intelligence as an instrument for implementing the political course of the country’s leadership,” wrote Wilhelm Hoettl, an Austrian professional intelligence officer who entered the military in 1938, with full knowledge of the matter. SD and subsequently worked under Schellenberg. “In some cases, our secret service deliberately set up certain incidents or accelerated impending events if this suited the interests of the policy makers.”

May 11, 2013 marked 25 years since the death of perhaps the most famous and most important Soviet intelligence officer in history, Kim Philby. Anathema in his homeland in Great Britain, the ideological communist Philby did everything to ensure that the leadership of our country knew all the plans against it during the war and post-war periods.

The son of one of the most famous British Arabists, Harry St. John, a distant relative of the famous Marshal Montgomery, held the highest position of all who worked for us - since 1941, working as deputy chief of British counterintelligence. The “biggest mole” in British history, codenamed Stanley, uninterruptedly supplied all significant information to the Western leadership until the early 50s, when suspicions of espionage began to fall on him. The double life could not remain a secret forever, so the representative of the “blue bloods”, already working in MI6 in 1963, had to flee to the Soviet Union, where until his death in 1988 he lived in a modest Moscow apartment. Naturally, before “perestroika” there was no question of extraditing him to Britain, and when it came, the Western-minded Gorbachev still refused: “ Take pity on an elderly person" Philby died at the age of 76. Two years later, postage stamps with his photograph were issued in our country.

The aforementioned Philby was part of the so-called “Cambridge Five” - that was the name given to a group of high-ranking British people who worked for the Soviet Union. Donald Maclean was one of the five (besides him and Philby, it included Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross). Working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he brought the greatest benefit to the USSR during the Second World War and a little later. Under the code name Homer, he transmitted many secret documents, minutes of cabinet meetings, and most importantly, documents relating to atomic weapons. They played a role in the appearance of similar weapons in our country. He fled to the USSR in 1955 and lived in Moscow until his death in 1983. Just like Philby, before coming here, idealized our country. They say that when he was faced with reality, he began to drink heavily, but then got rid of this habit. By the way, actor Rupert Everett is his great-nephew.

Another intelligence officer was the British Rudolf Abel, whose real name was William Genrikhovich Fischer. Without him, it would have been impossible for us to create an atomic bomb. The peak of his activity occurred in the post-war period. While living in New York, he managed the Soviet intelligence network. Everything was going great until 1957, when his assistant went ahead and handed everyone over to the Americans. Abel was arrested and later sentenced to 32 years in prison. But in 1962 he was exchanged for American spy pilot Francis Powers, who was shot down over the Sverdlovsk region. He died in 1971 in Moscow.

The most important Soviet intelligence officer in West Germany was Heinz Felfe. It is curious that he became a former SS Obersturmführer, and as a child he was a member of the Hitler Youth. After World War II, he first worked for the British MI6, and when he got a job in the Federal Intelligence Service of Germany, he began working for the USSR and thanks to Felfe, there was not a single failure of Soviet intelligence in its entire history. During his years of service, he handed over 15 thousand documents and revealed the names of one hundred CIA agents. In 1961 he was arrested and sentenced to 14 years, but in 1969 the KGB exchanged him for as many as 21 Western agents. After his release, Felfe worked in Moscow and then returned to Germany, where he lived until his death in 2008. By the way, shortly before this, the Russian FSB sent him congratulations on his 90th birthday.

The name of Richard Sorge is known to our people more than anyone else. Because, firstly, it is beautiful, and secondly, its life is shrouded in some mystery. You could even say that we have mythologized him a lot. By the way, the name is real and thanks to my German father, who worked in Baku during Tsarist Russia. As a child, Richard moved to Berlin with his family, and when he reached conscription age, he fought for Germany in the First World War, for which he earned the Iron Cross, 2nd class.

After the war, he joined the Communist Party, but after it became banned in Germany, he moved to the USSR. He is sent to work first in China, then in Japan under the guise of a correspondent. By the way, he escaped death there. At the end of the 30s, purges began in the intelligence of the Soviet Union and Sorge was summoned by telegram to Moscow, but he simply did not carry out this order, although he continued to supply secret information. In 1940, he became press attaché at the German Embassy in Japan. And it was while in this position that he sent many confirmations to our country that Germany would definitely attack the USSR. True, his information was not always taken seriously because he always named a different date for the attack, ranging from March to June.

In our historiography and culture, there is an opinion that it was Sorge who announced the exact date of the attack - June 22. But many consider this to be untrue and the main feature of the mythologization of Sorge’s image in society. In October 1941, he was arrested and sentenced to death. Adolf Hitler was so shocked that the press attache of his country's embassy in the country of his ally was accused of espionage that he asked Japan to extradite Sorge to Germany, but they refused and executed him in 1944. For exactly 20 years, the USSR denied Sorge in every possible way that he was our spy, but in 1964 he admitted and was posthumously awarded the Order of the Hero of the Soviet Union.

This book is dedicated to Soviet intelligence officers 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 established itself as the most effective among all its fellow competitors. But our scouts were people too. Yes, extraordinary people, but not without their weaknesses and vices. They were not elusive and invulnerable, they made mistakes that cost them as much as the sappers. Often they lacked professionalism and skills, but all this comes with experience. But to gain this experience and survive in Nazi Germany, where the strongest counterintelligence agencies in the world operated, was very difficult. How it was? Read about it in our book.

A series: Secret intelligence wars

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by liters company.

LEGENDS AND MYTHS

MYTH ONE: INCREDIBLE SUCCESS

Perhaps the reader will find it somewhat strange to decide to begin the story about Soviet intelligence in Nazi Germany precisely by exposing the myths that exist regarding it. Probably, I would also think so if these myths had not recently become widespread and were not duplicated in “documentary” films and books purporting to be scientific. And if, in the end, the reader and viewer did not develop a completely wrong idea about the activities of our special services. So let's first look at the myths, especially since many of them are quite funny and interesting.

– Stirlitz, why couldn’t you arrange for 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, as you may have guessed, is another joke. Funny? Funny. But for some reason many people take it (or messages similar to it) at face value. Our intelligence service is considered so successful, moreover, possessing simply supernatural abilities, that it is constantly credited with recruiting one or the other senior officials of the Third Reich. Who did not fall into the category of “Soviet agents”: Reichsleiter Bormann, and Gestapo chief Müller, and the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Canaris, and - just think! - Adolf Hitler himself. I will quote an article that recently appeared in one of the newspapers on the occasion of the next anniversary of the Victory. It plainly states the following:

For some reason, the achievements of our intelligence during the war years are kept silent. This is partly understandable - the activities of intelligence services are always shrouded in a veil of secrecy that cannot be revealed even many decades later. But why not talk 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 wealth of information laid on their table and to 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. Key figures in the enemy camp - such as Bormann, Muller, and representatives of the German generals - became their agents. It was these people who tried to eliminate Hitler on July 20, 1944. After all, it’s no secret that the conspirators maintained contact with the most powerful Soviet intelligence structure 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. Every document signed by Hitler ended up on Stalin’s table within a few hours. This was the reason for the victories of the Red Army.

I don’t just want to quote further, and there’s nothing particularly new there. Complete nonsense. Take, for example, the introduction of our agents into almost all structures of the Third Reich. Including, probably, the “Jungfolk” - an organization that included all German boys aged 10 to 14 years, a kind of younger brother of the famous Hitler Youth. So you can imagine a young Soviet intelligence agent who, sticking out his tongue from diligence, diligently, albeit with grammatical errors, writes a report to the Center: “Today we went on a hike in the outskirts of Munich. The group lit a fire. The technology for lighting a fire is as follows...” And a few hours later this report is already 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 analogue of the Hitler Youth!.. Apparently, because of them, he missed the reports about Hitler’s preparations for an attack on the USSR. And what - there was no point in introducing agents into all structures! We could have done with at least the most important ones...

“Every document signed by Hitler ended up on Stalin’s table within a few hours.” Amazing! Probably the Fuhrer himself sent them. By fax. Or, having signed the document, he drove off in his personal “gelding” to the nearest forest and, like Stirlitz, turned on the radio station. The Gestapo men, busy catching the Russian “pianist,” instantly spotted him and shouted: “Aha, I got him!” they ran up to the car, recognizing the person sitting in it, and said in embarrassment: “Heil Hitler!” and left. This explains the amazing efficiency and elusiveness of Soviet agents. Come on, wasn’t Hitler the legendary Stirlitz?

An even longer bout of laughter is caused by the revelation that the Red Army won all its victories thanks to intelligence reports. Well, absolutely everything! It was in vain that the pilots, infantrymen and tank crews were awarded; it was in vain that Alexander Matrosov rushed into the machine gun embrasure. After all, intelligence has already won all the battles. In advance, back in 1935. 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 specially climbed into Stalingrad to be surrounded there, and capitulated. Or Manstein, who briefly simulated the attacks on the Kursk Bulge and retreated with a light heart. How many more of them were there, these agents?

The stupidity of the author of the article is obvious. Why do such materials appear in print and, moreover, why do they believe them? The fact is that they madly flatter patriotism. And not the real thing, but the leavened one, the same one that foams at the mouth and proves that Russia is the birthplace of elephants and that our jerboas are the best-stewed jerboas in the world! And so the gullible reader, closing the newspaper, looks with pride at the world around him: these are the kind of intelligence officers we had! Müller and Bormann themselves were recruited! Tremble, adversary, otherwise we will now recruit Condoleezza Rice, if we have not already recruited...

And the naive reader does not realize that the recruitment of a senior 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, but by the moral character of this very figure. Take, for example, Talleyrand, Napoleon Bonaparte’s foreign minister. An absolutely unprincipled and extremely selfish type, although you can’t deny his intelligence. Talleyrand secretly offered his services to Russian Emperor Alexander I in 1808, four years before Napoleon's invasion of Russia! Naturally, on a completely reimbursable basis. And even after this, Talleyrand cannot be considered a Russian agent, because he served only himself.

Moreover, astonishing as it may seem, there is absolutely no need for intelligence to recruit an important figure. It is enough to limit ourselves to junior officers, drivers, telephone operators... Of course, at first glance, the chief of the Gestapo and the telephone operator of the same department are two simply 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 own game is much less than in the case of the Gestapo chief.

None of us exists 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 is in the service hierarchy, the more “initiates” there are 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, even “small” person. After all, no one can guarantee that after recruitment he will not go straight to the Gestapo and 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 misinformation. And this, alas, happened - I’ll tell you about the unpleasant story with the agent “Lyceumist”. And yet there were more successful recruitments - so there is no need to attribute non-existent merits to our intelligence. She has enough existing ones.

It is interesting that myths about the recruitment of top officials of the Nazi elite by Soviet intelligence began to spread after the war... by the representatives of this elite themselves. Naturally, they spoke not about themselves, their loved ones, but about their enemies. It is no secret that the top of the Third Reich most of all looked like a jar of spiders, which were kept from obvious showdowns only by the presence of the main spider with antennae. When the main spider burned in Berlin (literally and figuratively), it was time to settle old scores. What better way to scold an old enemy than by presenting him as a Russian spy? So Schellenberg, for example, began to write stories about Müller, 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 chance could we have lost to the Russian subhumans?” The fact that today we are picking up and developing the myths of Hitler’s heirs does not honor anyone.

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

THE ADVENTURES OF THE IMPERIAL STAIRWAY

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 for the translation option “imperial ladder”, which was the reason for many jokes). Hitler's deputy for party affairs, which in a totalitarian state, as you understand, meant everything and even a little more. A man who stubbornly climbed to the top and by the end of the war became the Fuhrer's closest and indispensable assistant, perhaps more influential than Hitler himself. He was called "the leader's right hand." At the same time, he is the hero of many jokes about Stirlitz. Let's remember, for example, this one:

Muller tells Stirlitz:

– Borman is Russian.

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

They stretched the rope. Borman is walking, touches the rope and, falling, shouts:

- Your mother!

- Not a damn thing!

- Hush, hush, comrades!

As if trying to prove the veracity of this anecdote, many today are trying to portray Bormann as a Soviet spy. Or at least an agent of Soviet intelligence. I will not deny myself the pleasure of quoting 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, decided to introduce “its own man” into its echelons of power. It all started with the visits of the German communist leader Ernst Thälmann to the USSR (since 1921, he visited the Soviet Union more than ten times). It was Thälmann who recommended his good friend from the Spartak Union, the trusted guy Martin Bormann, known to German communists under the pseudonym “Comrade Karl”.

Arriving by ship in Leningrad, and then in Moscow, Borman was introduced to J.V. Stalin. “Comrade Karl” agreed to be infiltrated into the National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany. Thus began his path to the heights of power of the Third Reich.

Bormann's successful promotion was greatly facilitated 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 the confidence of the Fuhrer and from 1941 became his closest assistant and adviser, as well as the head of the party chancellery.

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

In addition, “Comrade Karl” took shorthand notes of the Fuhrer’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, Borman radioed a message to the Soviet command about his location.

At 2 p.m., Soviet tanks approached the Reich Chancellery building, one of which brought the head of USSR military intelligence, General Ivan Serov, who led the capture group. Soon the soldiers brought a man with a bag over his head out of the Reich Chancellery. He was put into a tank, which headed for the airfield...

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

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 spying for the Soviet Union, which he reported only to the head of the Abwehr, Canaris. It was decided that introducing this information to someone close to Hitler was dangerous: Bormann had strong power, and the informants could easily lose their lives.

- Not a damn thing! - like Muller from the joke, the amazed reader may exclaim. And then he will ask: “Is all this really true?”

But I would prefer to prolong the pleasure by first catching the authors of the article in petty lies. Firstly, Hitler, as has long been well known, never bore the surname Schicklgruber and had no reason to bear it. Secondly, Borman was never 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!" – the authors of the “version” exclaim with indignation. After all, the evil security officers keep their secrets behind seven seals and do not allow anyone to poke their truth-seeking nose into the archives. But we have collected a lot of indirect evidence confirming the version!

To understand what “indirect evidence” is and how much you can trust it, I’ll give a simple example.

Late in the evening a man was hit by a car at an intersection. The driver fled the crime scene. Do you have a car? Yes? This is indirect evidence that you are the same 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 cats are gray. And it doesn’t matter that there is no direct evidence, i.e., for example, witnesses to the incident who remembered the license plate number of your car.

This is roughly how the authors of the story about the Soviet spy Borman work. “Why! - the reader will exclaim. “And the gravestone in Lefortovo?!” I hasten to reassure you: there is no trace of such a gravestone there. At least no one has been able to find it yet. Of course, we can say that it was the damned KGB officers who removed the stone after the release of the revealing article. Then why did they install it at all and - especially - report it to Germany? Not otherwise, they sent a funeral message to the descendants: “We inform you that your father died a brave death...”. Maybe Gehlen again, as after her 23-year amnesia, will clarify this for us?

I would, however, ask a more intriguing question: “What important information did Bormann convey to the Russians?” Why is not a word said about this? After all, Reichleiter could, in theory, obtain any information in the country. Why were Stalin and the supreme military leadership unaware of many of Hitler’s plans? A mystery, and that's all.

Who was Martin Bormann really? The son of a small clerk 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, in 1919 he went to study agriculture, and at the same time joined the “Union against Jewish Domination” (not otherwise, on the personal instructions of Comrade Trotsky). He sold products on the “black market” and soon joined the German nationalist party and at the same time joined the counter-revolutionary “volunteer corps” (probably ordered by Tukhachevsky). In 1923, he killed a “traitor” who allegedly collaborated with the French - many similar political murders took place in those years. After serving a year in prison, Bormann became close to the Nazis and in 1926 became a member of the assault troopers (SA). His career advancement took place gradually; his marriage to the daughter of a major party leader helped him a lot - Hitler and Hess were witnesses at the wedding. Bormann always tried to stay close to Hitler, providing him with various kinds of services, and he was also a rather talented administrator and financier. Therefore, it is difficult to discern the “hand of Moscow” in his rise even with a strong desire. Since 1936, Bormann, having simultaneously eliminated his most important competitors, became Hitler’s “shadow”, accompanied him on all his trips, and prepared reports for the Fuhrer. Hitler liked Bormann's style: report clearly, clearly, concisely. Of course, Bormann selected the facts so that the Fuhrer would make a decision that was favorable to him. If this did not happen, the “gray cardinal” did not argue, but carried out 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 regulations passed through his hands. It was Bormann who in 1943 demanded that weapons and corporal punishment be used on a large scale against Soviet prisoners of war. Isn't it a strange step for a Soviet spy? Not otherwise, he was conspiring. Before his suicide, Hitler appointed Bormann as leader of 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 out of Berlin. His remains were not found immediately, so legends were soon born about Bormann’s “miraculous rescue” and that he was hiding in South America. However, such legends appear in every such case.

So, everything seems clear with Borman. What about the other candidate – “Grandfather Mueller”?

"ARMORED!" – STIRLITZ THOUGHT

The image of Muller 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. But the truth is that the real Muller was absolutely nothing like the Gestapo chief played by Bronev.

Firstly, the Gruppenführer was not any kind of “grandfather”. If only because on the day of the fall of Berlin he barely turned 45 years old. Like Hitler, Müller volunteered for the front during World War I, became a military pilot, was awarded several times, and after his defeat joined the Bavarian police. Before the Nazis came to power, Müller was an ordinary honest servant who kept an eye on all kinds of radical groups. After 1933, he understands which way the wind is blowing and moves into the famous “secret state police,” that is, the Gestapo. Müller was, it seems, quite a talented person, since 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 the Second World War. I think everyone can imagine what the Gestapo did throughout the six years of the war, and there is no need to talk about it again. I will emphasize only one thing: Müller has as much blood on his hands as few people in the Nazi leadership had. According to some reports, during the days of the storming of Berlin, Müller committed suicide. His body was never found.

Naturally, rumors soon spread that Muller 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” operated, 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, 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 wasn’t he arrested? The only answer on the tongue is the phrase from the joke: “It’s useless, he’ll get away with it anyway.”

Schellenberg's idea was picked up in the West, and recently here too. Books are being published that seriously prove that since 1943 Muller was an agent of Soviet intelligence. In principle, the Gestapo chief, being a smart man, could have foreseen the imminent inglorious end of the “thousand-year Reich” and tried 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 chief of this sinister organization. Just as she did not save another high-ranking Gestapo officer, the only one who in reality, and not according to legend, decided to cooperate with Soviet intelligence. His name was Heinz Pannwitz.

GESTAPO RECRUITMENT: HOW IT HAPPENED

SS Hauptsturmführer Heinz Pannwitz had 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 Kapelle, was practically destroyed, but the Gestapo also tried to use the captured intelligence officers to the fullest. For example, for the “radio game” with Moscow - that’s what they called the situation when a caught radio operator agreed to continue working under the control of the Gestapo and transmit disinformation to the Soviet Union.

There were several prisoners in the Paris department. 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 happening. The Gestapo, of course, did not know about this. In September, seizing the right moment, Trepper made an incredibly daring escape and found himself free. Pannwitz found himself 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 a scapegoat. Therefore, he quickly placed another prisoner at the transmitter - Vincent Sierra (real name Gurevich, code name "Kent"). However, Pannwitz had completely new hopes with Sierra: he soon began to transparently hint to his captive that he would not mind collaborating with the Soviet intelligence services in exchange for saving his life. Pannwitz did not dare to make contact with 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 with regard to the Soviet Union.

"Kent" thought deeply. On the one hand, the offer was very tempting. On the other hand, he suspected another trick of the enemy. However, after thinking logically, Gurevich realized that his jailer was not lying. In the summer of 1944, he directly invited Pannwitz to cooperate with Russian intelligence. The Gestapo man agreed. Over the next year, he carried out a number of actions to help 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 and Soviet intelligence officers, went into the mountains, where they surrendered to the French. On June 7, 1945, the entire group flew to Moscow.

The Soviet secret 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 man was sent to a forced labor camp. There he stayed until 1955, when he was transferred to the Federal Republic of Germany. It was in West Germany that he lived out his life as a completely prosperous and quiet pensioner, invariably refusing to meet with journalists.

This was a unique case: an intelligence officer who was in prison managed to recruit his jailer! There was simply nothing like this during the Second World War. Without denying Gurevich’s courage and will, I will add: a simple coincidence of circumstances helped him greatly. It is clear that something like this could not have happened to Bormann or Müller.

What about other representatives of the Nazi elite?

A GATHERING OF SOVIET SPIES

These are the words I want to say to this very elite after reading the articles of some overly zealous authors. Indeed, whoever was called a Soviet agent - right up to Hitler himself! Yes, that’s 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 raised a communist rebellion (he’s talking about the “beer hall putsch,” if anyone doesn’t understand), and then disguised himself as a nationalist and began to strive for power. In fact, Hitler needed this power for only one thing: to conquer all of Europe, and then throw it under Stalin’s feet. A kind of “icebreaker of the revolution,” according to Rezun himself. It’s a pity that the defector does not give Hitler’s agent name. “Aryan”, “Mustachioed”, or maybe “Wagner”? History is silent.

The version is so crazy that I think it doesn’t even make sense to analyze it. The same applies to 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 Hitler’s generals, who, with truly German pedantry and tenacity, plotted against their Fuhrer. But these generals dreamed of peace with England and America, and they were ready to fight with the damned Bolsheviks to the last soldier. Bad candidates for the role of Russian agents, aren't they?

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

“What about Stirlitz?” - you ask. Oh yes, Stirlitz. It’s worth looking into it in more detail.

MYTH TWO: LIVING STIRLITZ

As soon as a literary (or film) 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, inquired whether Stirlitz had been awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Since those close to the Secretary General did not understand what he meant, and were apparently afraid to ask again, they, just in case, awarded the artist Tikhonov the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

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 of Stirlitz was Willy Lehmann, an employee of Walter Schellenberg, who at the same time worked for Soviet intelligence as a particularly valuable agent nicknamed “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 started talking about the need to change the code and was indignant: “Why doesn’t Moscow answer?” The surgeon hastened to please Muller with the patient’s unusual revelations. Bart was arrested, and he handed over Lehman and several other people. Uncle Willie was arrested in December 1942 and shot a few months later. Under the pen of Yulian Semenov, a German radio operator turned into a Russian radio operator.

To put it mildly, not everything here is true. Firstly, 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 gave Leman away - this happened as a result of a tragic mistake. However, I’ll tell you about everything in order.

SS-Hauptsturmführer Willy Lehmann was indeed one of the most valuable Soviet agents. Working for the Gestapo, he was able to warn in a timely manner that Soviet agents were on the trail, about impending arrests and ambushes. And this is only a small part of the information that was received from him in Moscow.

Food for thought. "Breitenbach"

The story began in 1929, when Lehmann, who worked in the political police, sent his friend, unemployed policeman Ernst Kuhr, to the Soviet embassy to establish contacts. He did not act directly. Contact was established, and soon Leman, under the code name A-201, appeared on the pages of Soviet intelligence documents. After some time, Kur went to Sweden, where he bought a shop, which became one of his hideouts. Lehmann's cooperation with the Russians continued directly.

By that time, Leman was a senior assistant in the department. Of the 45 years of his life, he served 18 in the police and had extensive 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, Lehmann 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, Lehmann was appointed head of the unit for combating “communist espionage” - a curious joke of fate. After the Nazis came to power, Lehmann managed to hold on to his post, surviving waves of purges. From a political police officer, he turned into a Gestapo employee. Naturally, the information coming from him became more and more valuable.

The connection was maintained as follows: first, Vasily Zarubin, an employee of the illegal Berlin station, communicated with him directly. Then, after Zarubin was recalled to Moscow, a certain Clemens, the owner of a safe house, acted as a liaison. Through her, materials were sent to the Soviet embassy, ​​and assignments were transferred to Leman.

The Nazis did not waste experienced counterintelligence agents, and the Soviet agent quickly advanced through the ranks. In 1938 he had to join the NSDAP. After this, Lehmann was entrusted with counterintelligence support for the Reich's military industry facilities, and in 1941, with ensuring the security of military facilities under construction. All this time, risking his life every day, he supplied Moscow with valuable information. He transmitted data about the structure and personnel of the Abwehr and the Gestapo, obtained 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” of 1934 - Lehmann informed the Center that Hitler was preparing to deal with his recent associates. He also sent other information about the ups and downs of the struggle for power in the newly created Third Reich. Even more important was information about military developments at the facilities whose security Lehman oversaw. So, in 1935, he reported on the work of German scientists on the creation of combat missiles - the future V-Fau. Next came information about new armored personnel carriers, fighters, submarines... Of course, these were not drawings; in most cases, Leman 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 testing sites for testing new types of weapons. Subsequently, already during the war years, this helped to carry out attacks on training grounds by long-range bombers. Lehman also reported details about attempts to produce synthetic fuel from brown coal. And this list is far from complete.

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

Breitenbach should not be given any special tasks. It is necessary to take everything that is within 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.

Moscow understood the danger Leman was in and tried to protect him. In the spring of 1941, Breitenbach transmits data indicating that Germany is soon going to attack the USSR. On June 19, he reported that he personally saw the text of the order, in which the attack on the USSR was scheduled for the 22nd. And after the start of the war, he continued to work through the Bek radio operator.

How did the failure happen? Almost by accident - there are plenty of such absurd and tragic accidents in the history of any intelligence service in the world. In September 1942, the Gestapo got on the trail of “Beck” and soon captured him. This eventually happened to every radio operator - it was simply impossible to endlessly evade the Gestapo with its sophisticated radio intelligence equipment. During interrogation, “Beck” gave feigned consent to work for the Gestapo and participate in the radio game. In his very first radiogram, he gave a pre-agreed signal, which was supposed to inform Moscow that the “pianist” was working under control. But due to poor reception conditions, the signal was not heard. Lehmann's real phone was in the hands of the Gestapo. Then, as they say, everything was a matter of technique. In December 1942, "Breitenbach" was captured and hastily shot. It seems that Mueller was simply afraid to report “to the top” that there was a Soviet spy in the ranks of his service.

Does Lehman have anything in common with Stirlitz? Of course. Both of them wore SS uniforms, both transmitted information to the Center, and both, finally, had two legs and two arms. In general, that seems to be all. Leman was never the Soviet Colonel Isaev, who came up with a cunning legend for himself and diligently pretended to be a German. Let us remember the story of Stirlitz: in 1922, together with the remnants of the whites, he went to China to conduct reconnaissance among emigrants, and then went to Australia, where at the German consulate in Sydney he declared himself as a German who had been 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 it in principle possible for such a scout to exist? Many people think not. For example, Doctor of Historical Sciences Anatoly Malyshev answered a question asked him like this:

Perhaps the most important problem in the activities of an intelligence officer like Stirlitz is language. It is almost impossible for a non-native speaker to master it in such a way as to sound like a native speaker. Semenov has his own plot device in this regard: the future Stirlitz lived in Germany with his Menshevik father in early childhood. In this case, of course, Isaev could have had a complete reprimand. However, history knows more complex cases. One of the most famous Soviet illegal immigrants, Konon Molodoy is a village native who successfully posed as an American businessman.

Another big difficulty is that almost all Soviet superspies - and the same Molodoy and Philby - worked in states, albeit unfriendly, but 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 entirely right: the famous intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov, having never been to Germany, not only mastered the German language perfectly, but also mastered some of its dialects, which allowed him to wear the uniform of a Wehrmacht officer for a long time and communicate with the Germans. But this is a unique case. There really wasn’t a single Russian among the sources of Soviet intelligence in Germany.

MYTH THREE: RINK OF REPRESSION

In front of me lies a volume from the collected works of Yulian Semenov, published in 1991. It is here that his most famous work is “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 in the terrible thirties, when horror began at home, when Stalin declared him, Stirlitz, teachers, those who introduced him into the revolution, to be German spies; and - the worst thing is - they, his teachers, agreed with these accusations.<…>He understood that something terrible was happening in the country, beyond the control of logic - the Moscow trials were so vulgarly concocted and, worst of all, judging by the reports coming to the SD, the people of Russia fervently welcomed the murders of those who surrounded Lenin long before October.<…>It was here that he spent the entire day when Stalin signed a treaty of friendship with Hitler - crumpled, crushed, deprived of the strength to think.

Well, regarding the latter, there is an obvious stretch - such an intelligent person as Stirlitz could not have failed to understand that at that time there was no alternative to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Yulian Semenov could not understand this, Stirlitz could not. The question of repressions is more complicated, especially since they, as is often stated, dealt a terrible blow to Soviet intelligence. Stalin's executioners, as some authors unanimously declare, literally deprived the country of eyes and ears at the most critical moment.

In fact, everything is far from so simple. I will not talk here about the causes and scope of the “Great Terror.” I will not question the fact that many innocent people fell under the flywheel of terror (otherwise it cannot be otherwise). I set myself another goal - to consider how serious damage the repressions of the late 30s caused to intelligence. And I must say that the answer to this question may be unexpected for many.

The fact is that in 1932-1935, Soviet intelligence did not perform at its best. Failure followed failure, and the crash was often deafening. There were, of course, successes, but “spy scandals” often arose when intelligence officers turned out to be representatives of foreign intelligence services (not fictitious, but quite real). Discipline was frankly lame, the basic requirements of secrecy were often not observed, and internal conflicts of a personal nature completed the picture. In a word, by the beginning of the “Great Terror,” Soviet intelligence was by no means the monolithic community of classy professionals that they began to “present” during the perestroika years. In 1935, Moisei 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 intelligence efficiency. As a result of his intrigues, his deputy, Artur Artuzov, a truly high-class professional, was shot. Uritsky was quickly removed and then sent into retirement, but the loss was difficult to replace. Even the fact that Berzin, who had returned from Spain and had previously held 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 we were beaten like boys, like guys. This is our main weakness. There is no intelligence, no real intelligence.<…>Our military intelligence is bad, weak, and clogged with espionage.<…>Intelligence is the area where we suffered a severe defeat for the first time in 20 years. And the task is to get this intelligence service back on its feet. These are our eyes, these are our ears.

As you know, you can turn a bad house into a good one in two ways: by undertaking a long and careful overhaul or simply by demolishing the old house to the ground and then building a new one in its place. Intelligence problems could be solved quietly, behind the scenes, without being made public. But there was neither time nor energy for filigree work. The country's leadership took a tough path. In a short period of time, the entire intelligence leadership was literally mowed down, and more than once. The Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU)—military intelligence—changed five chiefs between 1937 and 1940. 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 service, which was under the jurisdiction of the NKVD. Major General V.A. Nikolsky later recalled:

By mid-1938, great changes had occurred in military intelligence. Most of the heads of departments and divisions and the entire command of the department were arrested. Experienced intelligence officers who speak foreign languages ​​and who have repeatedly gone on business trips abroad were repressed without any justification. Their extensive connections abroad, without which intelligence is unthinkable, in the eyes of the ignorant and political careerists were elements of a crime and served as the basis for false accusations of collaboration with German, English, French, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian and others, too many to list, spy services. An entire generation of ideological, honest and experienced intelligence officers was destroyed. Their connections with human intelligence have been severed. New commanders devoted to their homeland took over the positions of department heads and department heads. But they were absolutely unprepared to solve the tasks assigned to intelligence.

So, the complete abomination of desolation. All competent specialists were destroyed, and yellow-throated chicks took their place. There is no one in military intelligence with a rank higher than major. 31-year-old Pavel Fitin became the head of the NKVD foreign intelligence service. 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. There are much fewer failures, problems with discipline are solved on their own. Lost agent contacts are restored in full within a year and even expanded. Majors in military intelligence manage to do what major generals could not achieve over a longer period of time. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet intelligence services were deservedly considered the strongest in the world.

Therefore, there is no need to talk about any drop in the effectiveness of Soviet intelligence as a result of repressions; rather, on the contrary. With this, perhaps, let’s put an end to the myths and move on to the real work of Soviet intelligence in Nazi Germany. Its intelligence network worked properly 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 officers in Nazi Germany (Mikhail Zhdanov, 2008) provided by our book partner -