German intelligence agents in the USSR. "Important and necessary work": what role did Smersh play in the victory over fascism
(Reinhard Gehlen - the first, in the center - with cadets of the intelligence school)
History is written by the victors, and therefore it is not customary for Soviet chroniclers to mention German spies who worked behind the lines in the Red Army. And there were such scouts, and even in the General Staff of the Red Army, as well as the famous Max network. After the end of the war, the Americans transferred them to their place, to share their experience with the CIA.
Indeed, it is hard to believe that the USSR managed to create an agent network in Germany and the countries occupied by it (the most famous is the Red Chapel), but the Germans did not. And if German intelligence officers during the Second World War are not written in Soviet-Russian histories, then the point is not only that it is not customary for the winner to confess his own miscalculations. In the case of German spies in the USSR, the situation is complicated by the fact that the head of the Foreign Armies - East department (in the German abbreviation FHO, it was he who was in charge of intelligence) Reinhard Galen prudently took care of preserving the most important documentation in order to surrender to the Americans at the very end of the war and offer them a "goods face".
His department dealt almost exclusively with the USSR, and in the conditions of the beginning " cold war» Gehlen's papers were of great value to the United States.
Later, the general headed the intelligence of the FRG, and his archive remained in the United States (some copies were left to Gehlen). Having already retired, the general published his memoirs “Service. 1942-1971", which were published in Germany and the USA in 1971-72. Almost simultaneously with Gehlen's book, his biography was published in America, as well as the book of British intelligence officer Edward Spiro "Ghelen - Spy of the Century" (Spiro wrote under the pseudonym Edward Cookridge, he was a Greek by nationality, a representative of British intelligence in the Czech resistance during the war). Another book was written by the American journalist Charles Whiting, who was suspected of working for the CIA, and was called Gehlen - German Master Spy. All of these books are based on the Gehlen archives, used with the permission of the CIA and the German intelligence BND. They contain some information about German spies in the Soviet rear.
(Gelena's personal card)
General Ernst Kestring, a Russian German born near Tula, was engaged in "field work" in Gehlen's German intelligence. It was he who served as the prototype of the German major in Bulgakov's book Days of the Turbins, who saved Hetman Skoropadsky from reprisals by the Red Army (in fact, the Petliurites). Koestring was fluent in the Russian language and Russia, and it was he who personally selected agents and saboteurs from Soviet prisoners of war. It was he who found one of the most valuable, as it turned out later, German spies.
On October 13, 1941, 38-year-old Captain Minishkiy was taken prisoner. It turned out that before the war he worked in the secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and earlier in the Moscow City Party Committee. Since the beginning of the war, he served as a political commissar at Western front. He was captured along with the driver when he was driving around the advanced units during the battle of Vyazemsky.
Minishky immediately agreed to cooperate with the Germans, citing some old grievances against the Soviet regime. Seeing what a valuable shot they got, they promised, when the time came, to take him and his family to the west with the provision of German citizenship. But first, business.
Minishki spent 8 months studying in a special camp. And then the famous operation "Flamingo" began, which Gehlen carried out in collaboration with the intelligence officer Bown, who already had a network of agents in Moscow, among which the radio operator with the pseudonym Alexander was the most valuable. Baun's men ferried Minishkiy across the front line, and he reported to the very first Soviet headquarters the story of his capture and daring escape, every detail of which was invented by Gelen's experts. He was taken to Moscow, where he was hailed as a hero. Almost immediately, mindful of his previous responsible work, he was appointed to work in the military-political secretariat of the GKO.
(Real German agents; other German spies could look something like this)
Through a chain through several German agents in Moscow, Minishki began to supply information. The first sensational message came from him on July 14, 1942. Gehlen and Gerre sat all night, drawing up a report based on it to the Chief of the General Staff, Halder. The report was made: “The military conference ended in Moscow on the evening of July 13th. Shaposhnikov, Voroshilov, Molotov and the heads of the British, American and Chinese military missions were present. Shaposhnikov declared that their retreat would be as far as the Volga, in order to force the Germans to spend the winter in the area. During the retreat, comprehensive destruction should be carried out in the territory being abandoned; all industry must be evacuated to the Urals and Siberia.
The British representative asked for Soviet assistance in Egypt, but was told that the Soviet manpower resources were not as great as the Allies believed. In addition, they lack aircraft, tanks and guns, in part because part of the supply of weapons destined for Russia, which the British were supposed to deliver through the port of Basra in the Persian Gulf, was diverted to protect Egypt. It was decided to offensive operations in two sectors of the front: north of Orel and north of Voronezh, using large tank forces and air cover. A distraction attack must be carried out at Kalinin. It is necessary that Stalingrad, Novorossiysk and the Caucasus be kept.”
It all happened. Halder later noted in his diary: “The FCO has provided accurate information on the enemy forces newly deployed since June 28, and on the estimated strength of these formations. He also gave a correct assessment of the energetic actions of the enemy in the defense of Stalingrad.
The above authors made a number of inaccuracies, which is understandable: they received information through several hands and 30 years after the events described. For example, the English historian David Kahn gave a more correct version of the report: on July 14, the meeting was attended not by the heads of the American, British and Chinese missions, but by the military attaches of these countries.
(Secret intelligence school OKW Amt Ausland/Abwehr)
There is no consensus on real surname Minishkia. According to another version, his surname was Mishinsky. But perhaps it is not true either. For the Germans, it passed under the code numbers 438.
O future fate Agent 438 Coolridge and other authors report sparingly. The participants in Operation Flamingo definitely worked in Moscow until October 1942. In the same month, Gehlen recalled Minishkiy, arranging, with the help of Bown, a meeting with one of the leading reconnaissance detachments of the Wally, which ferried him across the front line.
In the future, Minishkia worked for Gehlen in the information analysis department, worked with German agents, who were then transferred across the front line.
Minishkia and Operation Flamingo are also named by other respected authors, such as the British military historian John Eriksson in his book The Road to Stalingrad, by the French historian Gabor Rittersporn. According to Rittersporn, Minishkiy really received German citizenship, after the end of the Second World War he taught at an American intelligence school in southern Germany, then moved to the United States, having received American citizenship. The German Stirlitz died in the 1980s at his home in Virginia.
Minishkia was not the only super spy. The same British military historians mention that the Germans had many intercepted telegrams from Kuibyshev, where the Soviet authorities were based at that time. A German spy group worked in this city. There were several "moles" surrounded by Rokossovsky, and several military historians mentioned that the Germans considered him as one of the main negotiators for a possible separate peace at the end of 1942, and then in 1944 - if the assassination attempt on Hitler would be successful. For reasons unknown today, Rokossovsky was seen as a possible ruler of the USSR after the overthrow of Stalin in a coup of the generals.
(This is how the division of German saboteurs from Brandenburg looked like. One of his most famous operations is the capture oil fields Maykop in the summer of 1942 and the city itself)
The British knew well about these German spies (it is clear that they know now). This is also recognized by Soviet military historians. Yes, former colonel military intelligence Yuri Modin, in his book The Fates of Scouts: My Cambridge Friends, argues that the British were afraid to supply the USSR with information obtained through the decoding of German reports, precisely because of the fear that there were agents in the Soviet headquarters.
But they personally mention another German superintelligence officer - Fritz Kauders, who created the famous Max intelligence network in the USSR. His biography is given by the aforementioned Englishman David Kahn.
Fritz Kauders was born in Vienna in 1903. His mother was Jewish and his father was German. In 1927 he moved to Zurich, where he began working as a sports journalist. Then he lived in Paris and Berlin, after Hitler came to power he left as a reporter in Budapest. There he found himself a profitable occupation - an intermediary in the sale of Hungarian entry visas to Jews fleeing Germany. He made acquaintances with high-ranking Hungarian officials, and at the same time met the head of the Abwehr station in Hungary, and began working for German intelligence. He makes acquaintance with the Russian emigre general A.V. Turkul, who had his own intelligence network in the USSR - later it served as the basis for the formation of a more extensive German spy network. Agents are thrown into the Union for a year and a half, starting in the autumn of 1939. The annexation of Romanian Bessarabia to the USSR helped a lot here, when at the same time they “attached” dozens of German spies, abandoned there in advance.
(General Turkul - in the center, with a mustache - with fellow White Guards in Sofia)
With the outbreak of war with the USSR, Kauders moved to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, where he headed the Abwehr radio post, which received radiograms from agents in the USSR. But who these agents were has not been clarified so far. There are only fragments of information that there were at least 20-30 of them in various parts of the USSR. The Soviet super-saboteur Sudoplatov also mentions the Max intelligence network in his memoirs.
As mentioned above, not only the names of German spies, but also the minimum information about their actions in the USSR is still closed. Did the Americans and the British pass information about them to the USSR after the victory over fascism? Hardly - they needed the surviving agents themselves. The maximum that was then declassified was secondary agents from the Russian émigré organization NTS.
(quoted from the book by B. Sokolov "Hunting for Stalin, hunting for Hitler", publishing house "Veche", 2003, pp. 121-147)
Even in the Interpreter's Blog about the accomplices of the Germans during the Second World War.
"Tell me who your friend is and I'll tell you who you are"
Euripides
To date, materials that would name the names of Soviet and German spies during the Second World War for the most part not available. But this does not mean that the names of spies cannot be revealed.
If not with 100% accuracy, then at least approximately it can be done.
Now we can say that the German spy(s) in the USSR had the following features
-- they held high positions, from the headquarters of the front and probably up to the highest ranks of the NPO
- they had access to the strategic plans of the Red Army
--they had access to the materials secret negotiations with allied countries
Already these conclusions make it possible to narrow the circle of the search, the spies were from the highest command staff. Until now, the truth is, there are two versions of who and what it was. -- agent 438 is it one spy or is it a group of spies in the Red Army
- Refine spying opportunities
- Clarify which of the commanders of the Red Army fought badly
- to clarify the names of all the friends of those who were repressed for espionage in the years 37-38 of the military
Who were they?
No. 1. Semyon Timoshenko, People's Commissar of Defense in 1940-41, commander of the Western Front, South-Western Front in 41-42.
In 1930-37. was a close friend of I. Yakir and I. Uborevich, convicted of spying for Germany
No. 2. Kliment Voroshilov, was a member of the Politburo, GKO
Voroshilov was a close friend of Y. Gamarnik, A. Egorov, convicted of spying for Germany and was a friend of V. Blucher, convicted of working for Japanese intelligence
3. N. Khrushchev, secretary of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian SSR, during the Second World War, a member of the council of military fronts
Khrushchev was a Trotskyite, he was close friends with I. Yakir, convicted of espionage, and then in 1956-57. rehabilitated all German-Japanese spies
Battle performance
As far as we know from the materials of the 1937-38 trials of high-ranking leaders of the Red Army, among the ways to undermine the defense capability was not only the transfer of specific military plans to the Red Army.
The traitors were, among other things, by means of specific actions, to destroy the defenses of the front during the enemy offensive and, on the contrary, make sure that the retaliatory offensive actions of the Red Army were a failure.
And now it’s worth looking at what defeats the Red Army had and whose command they fell on.
--First defeat ZF teams. General Pavlov
--the second defeat of ZF, teams. S. Timoshenko
--defeat ZF near Smolensk, teams. S. Timoshenko
--defeat of the South-Western Front, teams. M. Kirponos, S. Timoshenko
--retreat of the NWF to the outskirts of Leningrad, teams. M. Popov, K. Voroshilov
--The defeat of the South-Western Front near Vyazma, teams. I. Konev, M. Lukin (betrayed)
--the defeat of the South-Western Front near Kharkov, teams. S. Timoshenko
--retreat of the South-Western Front to Stalingrad, teams. With Tymoshenko
In total, the Red Army suffered the most terrible defeats under the command of Timoshenko.
And here is a list of slightly less significant defeats:
- Mikhail Kirponos, contributed to the defeat of the Red Army in the battle for Kyiv
- General I. Kuznetsov, commander of Pribovo, lost the Baltic States in a few days
- Marshal Kulik, contributed to the loss of Kerch
- Admiral Oktyabrsky, contributed to the loss of Sevastopol
- Rodion Malinovsky, contributed to the loss of Rostov-on-Don, opened the way for the Wehrmacht to the Caucasus
…………………..
Pure English warning
The Soviet military command and counterintelligence felt the leakage of strategic information. And they weren't the only ones who felt it.
As the legendary Soviet intelligence officer Yuri Ivanovich Modin recalls, this idea was suggested by our then allies in the anti-Hitler coalition - the British.
The fact is that during the war, the British managed to capture the German Enigma cipher machine and decipher the secret codes used by the German military.
So, once they managed to intercept the negotiations of important Wehrmacht officials, from which it became clear that they had a reliable top-secret agent in Moscow. After that, writes Modin, the British refused to share their military and political information with our side, believing that the Germans might have this information.
The British military command was afraid to transfer the intelligence received from Enigma to the USSR, because they believed that there were German spies in the Red Army who would report this to Berlin
Yuri Ivanovich Modin, in his book The Fates of Scouts: My Cambridge Friends, argues that the British were afraid to supply the Soviet Union with information obtained through the decoding of German reports, precisely because of the fear that there were German agents in the Soviet headquarters:
“The Germans used a very good, light and fast Enigma cipher machine, invented immediately after the First World War ... Stuart Menzies, head of British intelligence (MI-6), attracted the talented mathematician Alan Turing to study Enigma. Cooperation between England, France and Poland (in deciphering German codes) continued until the start of the war in Europe ... During the war, the Poles managed to capture several badly damaged Enigmas as trophies. But the Germans continued to improve their system.
In the summer of 1940, Turing and his colleagues at Bletchley Park (the government cipher school where Soviet agent John Cairncross worked ..), using one of the earliest computers (Colossus), eventually cracked the Enigma code. The importance of this success cannot be overestimated, because it gave the Allies access to all the transmissions that went on the radio between the German government and the high command of the Nazi army. All units of the German troops were equipped with Enigma.
During Battle of Stalingrad Soviet troops captured at least twenty-six Enigmas, but they were all damaged, for German operators were given strict orders to destroy them in case of danger. After German prisoners of war gave out the cipher used on these machines, Soviet specialists were able to decipher several passages from German telegrams, but they never found the master key to the Enigma system, which Bletchley Park's experts had already received by that time. Between themselves, British experts called the interception of coded texts "ultraintelligence."
The British Secret Service, who also knew the codes naval forces and the German Air Force, allowed only a few operators who enjoyed absolute trust to engage in "ultra". The decoded telegrams were sent to strictly limited addresses: intelligence chiefs, the prime minister and some members of the government ...
To hide the fact that the Enigma code had been deciphered, the British used to say that this kind of work was done for them by German agents in Germany or in Nazi-occupied countries. They made inscriptions on documents: “received from X from Austria” or “from Y from Ukraine”
Only a limited number of Bletchley Park employees were aware of the actual origin of these materials. In addition to Turing and his assistants, Churchill, one or two intelligence chiefs, and - thanks to our British agents - the Soviet Union were also privy to the secret.
The British refused to share their information with us, not only for political reasons. They were sure that
"German spies infiltrated the highest echelons of the Red Army."
This confidence had some basis. The NKVD had its own suspicions about this. During the war, two or three employees of the Soviet General Staff arrested and shot as German agents; others may have gotten away with it."
1943-1944
After the defeat of the 6th Army of Friedrich Paulus near Stalingrad and the failure of Operation Citadel, Agent 438 continued to send his reports.
In the book of John Erickson "The Road to Berlin", published in 1983, there is a report of an unknown agent presented by Gehlen to the General Staff on May 3, 1944 that
“At the end of March, at the Soviet headquarters, under the chairmanship of Stalin, two options for the Soviet summer offensive were discussed.
The first provided main blow in the region of Lviv, Kovel with a simultaneous attack on Warsaw and a Polish uprising in the German rear.
According to the second option, which was accepted, the main blow was delivered in the direction of the Baltic, and in the course of it it was planned to capture Warsaw and the armed action of the Poles was calculated.
The auxiliary strike was planned to the south, in the direction of Lvov.
Agent 438 reported to the German command about the details and the approximate date of Operation Bagration, the preparation and conduct of which was no longer a secret for the Germans.
It is easy to see that this is exactly how the Soviet troops acted in the summer of 1944, when the main offensive - the famous operation "Bagration" - led to the defeat of the enemy army group in Belarus and Lithuania and led the Red Army to the Vistula near Warsaw and to the Baltic coast, to the approaches to East Prussia.
An auxiliary attack on Lvov made it possible to occupy part of Eastern Galicia and seize the Sandomierz bridgehead beyond the Vistula.
Hitler could have tried to prevent the defeat of his forces in Belarus if, back in May, believing the intelligence report, he had withdrawn the troops of Army Group Center from the so-called “Belarusian balcony” that protruded far to the East.
However, they would have to retreat very far - at least to the Bug, and even to the Vistula.
Hitler did not accept this decision, realizing what it was fraught with.
And it is fraught with the fact that in this case the Red Army by June would be on the outskirts of the borders of Germany. But then Hitler was no longer fighting for victory, but only for gaining time, hoping either for a split in the coalition opposing him, or for the invention of some kind of “wonder weapon” that could radically change the course of the war in his favor.
In terms of gain in time, even the loss of significant German forces in Belarus it was justified, because thereby the advance of the Red Army to the borders of the Reich was delayed at least one and a half to two months.
Therefore, Hitler forbade the withdrawal of Army Group Center and, despite the risk of encirclement, decided to defend on the former lines.
Adolf Hitler, knowing from agent 438 about the Bagration plan, did not withdraw the troops, thereby dooming them to defeat.
Hitler, in fact, he sacrificed the armies of the GA "Center" in order to save precious time
There was another case when the German command, most likely, received reliable information from an agent who sat at least in the headquarters of the front, and based on it made a strategic decision.
In addition, the actions of the German generals point to its existence.
On August 8, Marshals G.K. Zhukov and K.K. Rokossovsky proposed a plan for an operation to liberate Warsaw, which could begin on August 25th.
However, Stalin, having soberly judged that it would not be possible to take it so easily, having assessed the availability of forces and means, he did not give the order to carry it out.
And almost certainly the German command also learned about this in a timely manner.
At the same time, the Germans concentrated five tank divisions.
But then all these tank divisions were sent north in the second decade of August to carry out an operation to restore land communications between Army Groups Center and North, disrupted by the Soviet breakthrough to the Baltic Sea near Tukums.
The operation began on August 16, and by the end of the month the Germans managed to hold back Soviet troops from the Baltic coast and restore land communications with Army Group North.
This was very beneficial for the Germans, because if at that time the Red Army had launched an offensive on the Vistula, the German counterattack in the north would have lost all meaning.
In this case, the Wehrmacht would have practically no chance to keep Warsaw. We would have to retreat at least to the Oder.
In August 1944, Hitler ordered 5 tank divisions to advance against the Rokossovsky front, thereby exposing the Warsaw direction
But from agent 438, Hitler knew for sure that the Red Army would not attack Warsaw these days, and he transferred tanks to the north without risk
The Germans had no chance to hold their positions from the Baltic to the mouth of the Oder; for such a vast front, they simply would not have had enough troops. And the Oder line, which had not yet been prepared for defense by the fall of 1944, would also have been very difficult for German troops to hold, and the Red Army could already really threaten Berlin.
On such a risky maneuver as the transfer of tank divisions from near Warsaw to the north, the German command could only decide if it was firmly convinced that the Soviet troops on the Vistula would not budge in the coming weeks.
For such confidence, one statement by TASS was, of course, not enough.
So a reliable German agent informed his people about the plans of the Red Army.
Stalin, on the other hand, delivered the main blow in Romania in order to establish control over the long-desired Balkan Peninsula before the Allies.
Agent 438's last report
In December 1944, Gehlen managed to “predict” quite accurately that
"The Red Army will now deliver the main blows in the direction of Berlin and East Prussia"
So what
The head of the FHO even suggested
"evacuate troops from East Prussia in advance in order to concentrate maximum forces for the defense of the capital of the Reich"
So, but this time did not meet Hitler's understanding. Gelen relied on a report from an agent from some Soviet headquarters no lower than the front.
Reinhard Gehlen received from agent 438 the most accurate directions of the Red Army strikes and even the exact date of the start of the operation in East Prussia and in the direction of Berlin
Agent 438's reports and Gehlen's conclusions that in January 1945 the main blow of the Red Army would fall on East Prussia were completely justified.
This created problems for the advancing troops of the Red Army.
The former commander of the 2nd Belorussian Front, Marshal K.K. Rokossovsky, noted in his memoirs:
“In my opinion, when East Prussia was finally isolated from the west, it would be possible to postpone the liquidation of the grouping of Nazi troops surrounded there, and by strengthening the weakened 2nd Belorussian Front speed up the interchange in the Berlin direction. The fall of Berlin would have happened much earlier.
But it turned out that at the decisive moment 10 armies were involved against the East Prussian grouping ... and the weakened troops of the 2nd Belorussian Front were not able to fulfill their task.
The use of such a mass of troops against the enemy, cut off from his main forces and remote from the place where the main events were decided, was clearly inappropriate in the situation that had developed by that time in the Berlin direction.
Note that this initially withdrawn fragment of memoirs was restored only in the 1997 edition.
Konstantin Rokossovsky wrote that his troops in East Prussia were in a very disadvantageous position, and the Wehrmacht, on the contrary, knowing about the deployment of the Red Army, concentrated significant forces there
All this was again explained by the fact that Agent 438 informed Hitler of information about the actions of the fronts of the Red Army, but in this case there were other sources.
................
I will give one more curious addition to the rather meager data on German agents that could supply information about the strategic plans of the Soviet command.
Walter Schellenberg, in the American version of his memoirs, published posthumously in 1956 under the title "Labyrinth", wrote that through one of the centers for collecting and processing information on Russia,
"the existence of which was known only to three persons in the Main Directorate, we were able to make direct contact with two officers from the headquarters of Marshal Rokossovsky."
Later, when the military intelligence department of Admiral Canaris came under my control (this happened after the resignation of the “land admiral” in February 1944), I added another very important intelligence center. His boss was a German Jew who used completely unusual methods of work.
His staff consisted of only two people; all work was mechanized. His network covered several countries and had an extensive network of agents in all walks of life.
He managed to get the most accurate information from sources who worked in the highest echelons of the Russian army, and the intelligence department of the headquarters German army(FHO. -.) gave them appreciated. This man did a really good job.
He could report both major strategic plans and troop movements, sometimes even separate divisions. His reports usually arrived two or three weeks before the predicted events, so that our leaders had time to prepare appropriate countermeasures, or rather they could have done so if Hitler had paid more serious attention to such reports.
I had to fight desperately to protect such a valuable employee from Müller (Chief of the Gestapo -.), and also to protect him from the envy and intrigues that existed in my office and in the headquarters of the Luftwaffe.
Behind the backs of Kaltenbrunner and Müller, there was a clique that decided to eliminate the "Jew". It was not only Jewish origin that was blamed on him. His enemies resorted to the most insidious tricks, trying to prove that he was secretly working for Russian intelligence, which supposedly provides us with reliable information so far in order to mislead us at the decisive moment.
Walter Schellenberg wrote that in the Red Army he had his own residency (Gehlen had another) and his spies were, among other things, at Rokossovsky's headquarters
AT German version Schellenberg's memoirs specifies that
"communication with two officers of the General Staff seconded to the headquarters of Marshal Rokossovsky" was maintained through one of the "particularly important informants" and that
“after the merger of the department of Canaris with the 6th department of Schellenberg, another very Schellenberg, "another very valuable informant, led by a German Jew, came to his disposal." ............................
Indeed, it is hard to believe that the USSR managed to create an agent network in Germany and the areas occupied by it (the most famous is the Red Chapel), and the Germans - pipes. That doesn't happen...
In the case of German spies in the USSR, the situation is complicated by the fact that the onion of the “Foreign armies - East” department (in the German abbreviation FHO, in fact, he was in charge of reconnaissance) Reinhard Galen prudently worried about preserving the most majestic documentation in order to fall into captivity to the Americans in the very coffin of the war and offer them a "goods face".
History is written by the victors, and therefore it is not customary for Soviet chroniclers to mention German spies who worked behind the lines in the Red Army. And there were such scouts, and even in the General Staff of the Red Army, as well as the famous Max network. After the end of the war, the Americans transferred them to their place, sharing their experience with the CIA
Reinhard Gehlen - first, in the center - with cadets of the intelligence school
Indeed, it is hard to believe that the USSR managed to create an agent network in Germany and the countries occupied by it (the most famous is the Red Chapel), but the Germans did not. And if German intelligence officers during the Second World War are not written in Soviet-Russian histories, then the point is not only that it is not customary for the winner to confess his own miscalculations. In the case of German spies in the USSR, the situation is complicated by the fact that the head of the Foreign Armies - East department (in the German abbreviation FHO, it was he who was in charge of intelligence) Reinhard Galen prudently took care of preserving the most important documentation in order to surrender to the Americans at the very end of the war and offer them a "goods face". His department dealt almost exclusively with the USSR, and in the conditions of the beginning of the Cold War, Gehlen's papers were of great value to the United States.
Later, the general headed the intelligence of the FRG, and his archive remained in the United States (some copies were left to Gehlen). Having already retired, the general published his memoirs “Service. 1942-1971", which were published in Germany and the USA in 1971-72. Almost simultaneously with Gehlen's book, his biography was published in America, as well as the book of British intelligence officer Edward Spiro "Ghelen - Spy of the Century" (Spiro wrote under the pseudonym Edward Cookridge, he was a Greek by nationality, a representative of British intelligence in the Czech resistance during the war). Another book was written by the American journalist Charles Whiting, who was suspected of working for the CIA, and was called Gehlen - German Master Spy. All of these books are based on the Gehlen archives, used with the permission of the CIA and the German intelligence BND. They contain some information about German spies in the Soviet rear.
General Ernst Kestring, a Russian German born near Tula, was engaged in "field work" in Gehlen's German intelligence. It was he who served as the prototype of the German major in Bulgakov's book Days of the Turbins, who saved Hetman Skoropadsky from reprisals by the Red Army (in fact, the Petliurites). Koestring was fluent in the Russian language and Russia, and it was he who personally selected agents and saboteurs from Soviet prisoners of war. It was he who found one of the most valuable, as it turned out later, German spies. On October 13, 1941, 38-year-old Captain Minishkiy was taken prisoner. It turned out that before the war he worked in the secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and earlier in the Moscow City Party Committee. From the moment the war began, he served as a political instructor at the Western Front. He was captured along with the driver when he was driving around the advanced units during the battle of Vyazemsky.
Minishky immediately agreed to cooperate with the Germans, citing some old grievances against the Soviet regime. Seeing what a valuable shot they got, they promised, when the time came, to take him and his family to the west with the provision of German citizenship. But first, business. Minishki spent 8 months studying in a special camp. And then the famous operation "Flamingo" began, which Gehlen carried out in collaboration with the intelligence officer Bown, who already had a network of agents in Moscow, among which the radio operator with the pseudonym Alexander was the most valuable. Baun's men ferried Minishkiy across the front line, and he reported to the very first Soviet headquarters the story of his capture and daring escape, every detail of which was invented by Gelen's experts. He was taken to Moscow, where he was hailed as a hero. Almost immediately, mindful of his previous responsible work, he was appointed to work in the military-political secretariat of the GKO.
Through a chain through several German agents in Moscow, Minishki began to supply information. The first sensational message came from him on July 14, 1942. Gehlen and Gerre sat all night, drawing up a report based on it to the Chief of the General Staff, Halder. The report was made: “The military conference ended in Moscow on the evening of July 13th. Shaposhnikov, Voroshilov, Molotov and the heads of the British, American and Chinese military missions were present. Shaposhnikov declared that their retreat would be as far as the Volga, in order to force the Germans to spend the winter in the area. During the retreat, comprehensive destruction should be carried out in the territory being abandoned; all industry must be evacuated to the Urals and Siberia. The British representative asked for Soviet assistance in Egypt, but was told that the Soviet manpower resources were not as great as the Allies believed. In addition, they lack aircraft, tanks and guns, in part because part of the supply of weapons destined for Russia, which the British were supposed to deliver through the port of Basra in the Persian Gulf, was diverted to protect Egypt. It was decided to conduct offensive operations in two sectors of the front: north of Orel and north of Voronezh, using large tank forces and air cover. A distraction attack must be carried out at Kalinin. It is necessary that Stalingrad, Novorossiysk and the Caucasus be kept.”
It all happened. Halder later noted in his diary: “The FCO has provided accurate information on the enemy forces newly deployed since June 28, and on the estimated strength of these formations. He also gave a correct assessment of the energetic actions of the enemy in the defense of Stalingrad. The above authors made a number of inaccuracies, which is understandable: they received information through several hands and 30 years after the events described. For example, the English historian David Kahn gave a more correct version of the report: on July 14, the meeting was attended not by the heads of the American, British and Chinese missions, but by the military attaches of these countries.
There is no consensus about the real name of Minishkia. According to another version, his surname was Mishinsky. But perhaps it is not true either. Among the Germans, he passed under the code numbers 438. Coolridge and other authors report sparingly about the further fate of agent 438. The participants in Operation Flamingo definitely worked in Moscow until October 1942. In the same month, Gehlen recalled Minishkiy, arranging, with the help of Bown, a meeting with one of the leading reconnaissance detachments of the Wally, which ferried him across the front line. In the future, Minishkia worked for Gehlen in the information analysis department, worked with German agents, who were then transferred across the front line.
Minishkia and Operation Flamingo are also named by other respected authors, such as the British military historian John Eriksson in his book The Road to Stalingrad, by the French historian Gabor Rittersporn. According to Rittersporn, Minishkiy really received German citizenship, after the end of the Second World War he taught at an American intelligence school in southern Germany, then moved to the United States, having received American citizenship. The German Stirlitz died in the 1980s at his home in Virginia. Minishkia was not the only super spy. The same British military historians mention that the Germans had many intercepted telegrams from Kuibyshev, where the Soviet authorities were based at that time. A German spy group worked in this city. There were several "moles" surrounded by Rokossovsky, and several military historians mentioned that the Germans considered him as one of the main negotiators for a possible separate peace at the end of 1942, and then in 1944 - if the assassination attempt on Hitler would be successful. For reasons unknown today, Rokossovsky was seen as a possible ruler of the USSR after the overthrow of Stalin in a coup of the generals.
(This is how the unit of German saboteurs from Brandenburg looked like. One of its most famous operations was the capture of Maykop oil fields in the summer of 1942 and the city itself)
(General Turkul - in the center, with a mustache - with fellow White Guards in Sofia)
With the outbreak of war with the USSR, Kauders moved to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, where he headed the Abwehr radio post, which received radiograms from agents in the USSR. But who these agents were has not been clarified so far. There are only fragments of information that there were at least 20-30 of them in various parts of the USSR. The Soviet super-saboteur Sudoplatov also mentions the Max intelligence network in his memoirs. As mentioned above, not only the names of German spies, but also the minimum information about their actions in the USSR is still closed. Did the Americans and the British pass information about them to the USSR after the victory over fascism? Hardly - they needed the surviving agents themselves. The maximum that was then declassified was secondary agents from the Russian émigré organization NTS.
The tasks of German intelligence at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War
Just before the attack on the Soviet Union, the Wehrmacht Supreme High Command held one of the last briefings with senior Abwehr officials. It was about the contribution of military intelligence to the fastest achievement of victory over the Soviets in an already prepared war. Arguing that everything was over and that the gigantic battle that was just ahead had been won, Colonel-General Jodl, the chief of staff for the operational leadership of the armed forces, Hitler's most senior military adviser, formulated new requirements for intelligence. At the present stage, he said, the General Staff is least of all in need of information about the doctrine, condition, and armaments of the Red Army as a whole. The task of the Abwehr is to closely monitor the changes taking place in the enemy troops to the depth of the border zone. On behalf of the high command, Yodl actually diverted the Abwehr from participating in strategic intelligence, limiting its actions to the narrow framework of collecting and analyzing specific, almost momentary operational-tactical information.
Having adjusted the program of his actions in accordance with this installation, Pickenbrock began organizing targeted espionage. The tasks of each division of the Abwehr were carefully worked out, and it was planned to involve the largest possible number of agents in reconnaissance operations. Special and combined arms reconnaissance units individual armies and army groups stepped up the deployment of agents across the demarcation line defined by the secret protocols of the 1939 pact. They were mostly scouts who had been trained in the Abwehr schools that existed in Stettin, Konigsberg, Berlin and Vienna even before the attack. Nazi Germany on the USSR. The total number of agents involved grew - it numbered in the hundreds. From time to time, entire groups of German soldiers, dressed in Red Army uniforms, under the guidance of intelligence officers, crossed the border for reconnaissance on the ground. As outlined in Yodl's briefing, the penetration into Soviet territory was not deep, the task was only to collect information about the latest changes taking place in the deployment Soviet troops and military installations. There was an unspoken rule: do not move to the hinterland of Russia, do not waste time and effort on collecting information about the total power Soviet country, in which the German high command, which already considered itself fully prepared for an attack, did not feel much need. Even such an unlikely case from the point of view of common sense was recorded. One agent sent what seemed to him an important report to Berlin: “When the Soviet state has to confront a strong enemy, the Communist Party will collapse with amazing speed, lose the ability to control the situation in the country, and the Soviet Union will fall apart, turning into a grouping of independent states” . The assessment of the content of this report in the central apparatus of the Abwehr was the best way to characterize the mood of the Wehrmacht. The Abwehr leadership recognized the agent's findings as "very accurate."
A researcher who, after almost half a century, analyzes the system of "total espionage" of Hitler's intelligence, is struck by the lack of logic in Jodl's installation, given to him on behalf of the Supreme High Command, and in how scrupulously the military carried it out, neglecting strategic goals. In fact, why, setting a specific task, to severely limit its borders and actually refuse to further replenish information about the power, weapons of the Red Army, the mood of the personnel, and finally, about the military-industrial potential of the country. Didn't they understand in Berlin that there was going to be a war not only of armies, but also of states, not only of weapons, but also of the economy? Now we know: we understood. But in advance they assessed their capabilities and the capabilities of the enemy as incomparable values. On the side of the attacker - mobilization and surprise, a feeling of invincibility after so many victories in Europe in 1939-1941, the economic and industrial potential of all the occupied states. What about the enemy? An army decapitated by Stalinist repressions, an unfinished reconstruction of the armed forces, an "unstable multinational state" capable (according to Hitler's calculations) of crumbling under the first blows. Add to this the psychological effect of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. It has long been known that the Nazis from the very beginning did not put a penny on this treaty, continuing the forced preparations for war.
So, the Abwehr concentrated its main efforts on reconnaissance support for combat operations of the troops, bearing in mind the tasks of the first stage of the Barbarossa plan. The matter, of course, was not limited to the collection of espionage information. In an effort to contribute to the successful implementation of the initial offensive operations, the Abwehr launched terror against the commanders and political workers of the Red Army, destructive actions in transport and, finally, ideological sabotage aimed at undermining morale. Soviet soldiers and the local population. But the territory on which all such operations were to be carried out was to be limited to the front-line zone. It is significant that Jodl's directive had long-term consequences, about which, shortly after the capitulation during interrogation on June 17, 1945, Field Marshal W. Keitel, who had been the chief of staff of the German High Command since 1938, had to state: “During the war, the data received from our agents concerned only the tactical zone. We have never received information that would have a serious impact on the development of military operations. For example, we never managed to get a picture of how the loss of Donbass affected the overall balance of the SSSL military economy. Of course, such a categorical statement by the Chief of Staff of the High Command of the German Armed Forces should also be seen as an attempt to shift the responsibility for failures at the front onto the Abwehr and other “total espionage” services.
Collection of information by Germany about the Soviet troops in 1941
All of the above does not allow Jodl to be attributed the authorship of the directive, by virtue of which, for an indefinite period, the Abwehr received an unprecedented freedom of action of any nature in a narrowed territory. The instruction of the chief of staff of the operational leadership of the high command of the armed forces only in the most concentrated, concise form reflected the prevailing mood in the political leadership of Germany - on June 22, 1941, it began a "blitzkrieg" that "unconditionally promised success."
As can be judged on the basis of archival documents, in the pre-war weeks and the first weeks of hostilities, the largest number of Abwehr and SD agents prepared in advance were sent across the demarcation line, and then beyond the front line. In 1941, compared with 1939, the volume of droppings increased 14 times. Some of the results of this work were summed up by Canaris in a memorandum to the Wehrmacht High Command dated July 4, 1941, that is, already two weeks after the start of the perfidious aggression: “Numerous groups of agents from the indigenous population were sent to the headquarters of the German armies - from Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Georgians, Finns, Estonians, etc. Each group consisted of 25 (or more) people. These groups were led by German officers. The groups used captured Soviet uniforms, military trucks and motorcycles. They were supposed to seep into our rear to a depth of 50-300 kilometers in front of the front of the advancing German armies in order to report the results of their observations by radio, paying special attention to collecting information about Russian reserves, about the state of railways and other roads, as well as about all activities carried out by the enemy.
Canaris's emphasis on the abandonment of undercover groups can be seen as evidence of the Hitlerite leadership's confidence in that. that with the first failures of the Soviet troops on the border and further to a rather large operational depth, the time will come for the "collapse of the state." Hence the “national composition of the abandoned agents and a large number of espionage and sabotage groups formed from the personnel of the specialized unit "Brandenburg-800", and armed gangs of bourgeois nationalists. But even in this period lone agents prevailed. Under the guise of refugees, soldiers of the Red Army emerging from the encirclement, Red Army soldiers who had lagged behind their units, they relatively easily infiltrated into the nearest rear of the Soviet troops. Naturally, large Abwehr agents sent to perform some particularly important task were also sent alone.
During the first half of 1941, the Abwehr agents managed to collect a lot of information about the composition of the Soviet troops in the zone of upcoming combat battles and in the immediate rear. Several sabotage groups and detachments operated successfully. Only for 14 days of August 1941 on Kirovskaya and Oktyabrskaya railways they committed seven acts of sabotage. The saboteurs repeatedly disrupted communication between the headquarters of units and formations of the Red Army. Objectively, the success of the Abwehr in fulfilling Jodl's directive was facilitated by the situation at the front, which unfavorably developed in the initial, tragic period of the war, not least because of the miscalculations of the Soviet political leadership. Undoubtedly, the circumstance that the state security organs of the USSR had not yet found experience in a wartime environment. Many special departments were filled with personnel already in the difficult conditions of the retreat, the Germans encircling entire formations and even armies. An analysis of the forms and methods of subversive activities of enemy agents was late, many operational measures hit the target.
Nevertheless, by the end of 1941, as a result of the crushing of Hitler's Operation Typhoon, the Nazi blitzkrieg strategy was seriously defeated. The Nazi leaders themselves became more and more convinced of this, for whom the resistance of the Soviet people and its Red Army turned out to be a shock after the “strange war” in Europe and especially after the fleeting conquest of France in 1940.
“According to the report of our intelligence agencies, as well as the general assessment of all the commanders and leaders of the General Staff,” Keitel pointed out at the interrogation mentioned above, “the position of the Red Army by October 1941 was as follows: in the battle on the borders Soviet Union the main forces of the Red Army were defeated; in the main battles in Belarus and Ukraine, German troops defeated and destroyed the main reserves of the Red Army; The Red Army no longer has operational and strategic reserves that could offer serious resistance ... The Russian counteroffensive, which was completely unexpected for the High Command, showed that we had deeply miscalculated in assessing the reserves of the Red Army.
The role of German intelligence in a protracted war with the USSR
The defeat of the fascist German troops near Moscow confronted Germany with the prospect of a protracted war, in which the possibility and ability of the belligerents to constantly build up their forces acquired decisive importance.
The German generals, in parallel with conducting operations on the main and only front so far for themselves, carefully worked out plans for the continuation of anti-Soviet aggression, as before, a significant place was given to "total espionage", but they already tried to shift the center of gravity in this area to the deep Soviet rear, increasing " spatial scope of their operations. Representatives of the command and military intelligence prepared a document "Calculation of forces for an operation against an industrial region in the Urals." It said: “... hostilities, in general, will develop along railway and highway routes. Surprise is desirable for the operation, all four groups will act simultaneously in order to reach the industrial area as soon as possible, and then - judging by the situation - either hold the occupied lines or leave them, after destroying all vital objects.
In the reorientation of the "total espionage" services, a significant role was played by the results of the inspection trip of Canaris and his closest assistants to the Eastern Front, undertaken in September 1941 at the direction of Hitler. Getting acquainted with the work of the units subordinate to the Abwehr, Canaris then came to the conclusion that the resistance that the blitzkrieg stumbled upon, the support of the world public opinion courageous struggle of the Soviet people against fascist aggression require a serious revision of the intelligence strategy in general and many tactics in particular.
Returning to Berlin, Canaris issued an order obliging all Abwehr units to take measures to rapidly increase intelligence activity outside the front line, purposefully and stubbornly move into the hinterland of the Soviet Union. Increased interest was shown in the Caucasus, the Volga region, the Urals and Central Asia. In the rear of the Red Army, it was supposed to intensify sabotage and terrorist activities. The implementation on Soviet territory of a series of widely conceived espionage and sabotage operations to weaken the rear was intended to help create a turning point in the armed conflict in favor of the aggressor, up to the Reich achieving "major military success".
The leaders of the secret services made no secret of the fact that the goals of the "colonization" of the Soviet Union, pursued by Hitler, were criminal in nature, involving the use of equally criminal methods and means. “For the conquest of Russia,” writes the prominent American historian W. Shearer, “there were no unlawful methods - all means were permissible.” The restrictions imposed by international law were deliberately thrown overboard. Thus, in the order of Field Marshal Keitel of July 23, 1941, it was indicated that any resistance would be punished not by the prosecution of those responsible, but by the creation of such a system of terror on the part of the armed forces that would be sufficient to eradicate from the population any intention to resist. From the respective commanders, the order required the use of draconian measures.
The Nazis deliberately violated international law, resolutely spreading violence, deceit and provocation, encouraging the massacres of civilians. And the secret services, which were entrusted with the organization of "total espionage" in its most monstrous manifestations, were not accidentally recognized as criminal five years later.
Victor Abakumov was born on April 24, 1908 in the family of a laborer and a seamstress. After graduating from four classes of the city school, he left to serve as a volunteer nurse in the 2nd Moscow brigade of special forces, from which he resigned in 1923. After working for several years as an auxiliary worker, packer and shooter of the VOKhR, Abakumov joined the Komsomol organization in 1927, and in 1930 - in the CPSU (b).
As part of the campaign to promote workers to the Soviet apparatus, Abakumov was sent to serve in the People's Commissariat of Trade of the RSFSR, and then to the Press plant and to "liberated" work in the Komsomol - to the post of head of the military department of the Zamoskvoretsky district committee of the Komsomol.
Since 1932, Abakumov was in the service of the units of the economic bloc of the OGPU-NKVD. For extramarital affairs, he was transferred for some time to serve in the Gulag, but already in 1937 he was transferred to the Main Directorate of State Security, where he soon headed the department as part of the secret political department. In 1939, Abakumov was approved for the post of head of the NKVD department for the Rostov region, and in 1941 - deputy people's commissar of internal affairs of the USSR.
- Viktor Abakumov
- Wikipedia
“Viktor Abakumov is a child of his time. He came to the authorities from a simple family quite young, went all the way from a detective to a high-level leader, ”said Anatoly Tereshchenko, a military writer, colonel of the Soviet military counterintelligence, in an interview with RT.
“Abakumov was not an ideal person. He had his weaknesses, like women. But he was an excellent leader with special charisma and organizational skills,” said writer and historian of the special services Alexander Kolpakidi.
"Death to Spies"
At the initial stage of the war, the Soviet leadership had questions about the organization of the actions of military counterintelligence, for which the NKVD bodies were responsible until 1943.
“The information received from prisoners and from documents captured during the Battle of Stalingrad made Joseph Stalin doubt that the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs should be involved in counterintelligence,” the candidate told RT historical sciences writer Alexei Isaev.
As a result, Stalin decided to make military counterintelligence part of the People's Commissariat for Defense (NPO) and subordinate it directly to itself. The new special service was given a loud name - "Death to spies." In short, Smersh.
On April 19, 1943, by a decree of the Council of People's Commissars, the main department of Smersh was created as part of the NPO and the department of Smersh on Navy. On May 15, Smersh's own department, dealing exclusively with internal security, appeared as part of the NKVD. In April-May 1943, Stalin signed the regulations and orders on conferring ranks in the military counterintelligence system. Viktor Abakumov was appointed head of the Main Directorate of the Smersh NPO.
Effective, mysterious and underestimated
“Smersh's contribution to the victory over Nazism is enormous. And today he is greatly underestimated, ”Alexander Kolpakidi is sure.
According to the historian, Smersh was not only engaged in counterintelligence, but was also responsible for ensuring that the soldiers were dressed, shod and fed, ensured the security of the front line, monitored the mood in the army, and identified acute problems. “Vladimir Bogomolov, in his famous novel The Moment of Truth, showed only 5% of Smersh’s work,” the expert noted.
In addition to spies and saboteurs, military counterintelligence fought bandits and deserters operating in the front line. In addition to the German Smersh, Finnish, Romanian, Hungarian and especially powerful Japanese special services opposed. And they were all destroyed in the end.
“The effectiveness of the Soviet military counterintelligence was, although not one hundred percent - even in 1945, a German agent was still operating at Konev's headquarters - but extremely high. It was very effective,” said Alexei Isaev.
The historian drew attention to the fact that, in addition to his other duties, Smersh had to check former prisoners of war and residents of the occupied territories, among whom many German agents were found.
Several million people passed such checks, and not everyone treated them with understanding, which made the work of counterintelligence officers even more difficult. According to Alexander Kolpakidi, an important aspect of Smersh's work was also off-line counterintelligence, shown in the famous Soviet TV series Saturn.
“During the period from April 1943 to February 1944, Smersh employees managed to infiltrate 75 of their agents into the Abwehr (German military intelligence) and SD (Reichsführer SS security services) schools.
Returning to Soviet territory, they provided the Smersh leadership with information about 359 German intelligence officers and 978 saboteurs. In the first three months of 1944 alone, Smersh employees recruited 22 German intelligence agents, ”said Nikolai Ponomarev, candidate of historical sciences, in an interview with RT.
According to the expert, in 1941-1945, military counterintelligence operatives conducted from 181 to 250 radio games, which resulted in the exposure of at least 400 German intelligence officers (almost one in five of total number enemy agents identified by counterintelligence). The success of these operations was directly related to the high performance Soviet intelligence officers in the fight against paratrooper agents abandoned on Soviet territory: together with their masters, 376 shortwave radio stations fell into the hands of the Chekists.
In total, over the years of the war, Smersh identified more than 30 thousand German agents, 4 thousand saboteurs, 6 thousand terrorists.
“All the work of Smersh was important and necessary,” Alexei Isaev emphasized.
In the event of the death of the commanders of front-line units, Smersh officers often took command of military personnel in battle. Contrary to the historical myths of their troops, who would “drive soldiers armed with cuttings from shovels into battle with machine guns,” the military counterintelligence did not have. At the front headquarters level, Smersh had only one battalion at his disposal, and one company in the army.
In the competent and at the same time humane organization of the work of military counterintelligence, experts see Viktor Abakumov personally as a great merit. “Abakumov was very worried about his subordinates, he helped at all levels - from private to general. I recall the story of Ivashutin, he was then only appointed head of counterintelligence of the Crimean Front. He came for an appointment, Abakumov asks him: “Peter Ivanovich, where is your family?” “I only know that I was evacuated, but I don’t know where.” Abakumov found out that the family was in Tashkent and said: “Take my plane, fly, I will call the local authorities to help arrange everything.” This is just one of the examples. And there were many of them,” Anatoly Tereshchenko said.
“Today they say that Smersh Abakumov repressed someone. Yes, he repressed: spies, saboteurs, terrorists, bandits - the same ones that law enforcement agencies are now fighting against, ”Alexander Kolpakidi recalled.
According to Alexei Isaev, the actions of counterintelligence officers were adequate to the prevailing situation at that time. “Imagine, there is a battle on Kursk Bulge and the person has lost the secret cards. They will fall to the Germans - and it will cost many thousands of lives. What to do with this? Only under the tribunal. As well as those commanders who, without hesitation, disclosed secret information, ”the expert emphasized.
Arrested and shot
After the victory over the Third Reich and militaristic Japan, the need to maintain military counterintelligence in the structure of the defense department disappeared.
In 1946, Viktor Abakumov was promoted to head of the USSR Ministry of State Security. The Ministry of State Security was also transferred to its offspring - military counterintelligence. As well as the police and internal troops.
Abakumov became one of the most powerful people in the country. However, a secret war in peacetime turned out to be more difficult for him than in wartime. Due to participation in political processes in the summer of 1951, Abakumov was removed from his post and arrested. He was accused of high treason, participation in a conspiracy and an attempt to obstruct the investigation of high-profile cases.
After Stalin's death, the charges against Abakumov were changed, imputing to him the fabrication of criminal cases. On December 19, 1954, the head of the most effective special service during the Great Patriotic War was shot.