Discussions about who was the prototype of Isaev-Shtirlitsa, in fact, only confuse the issue of the activities of Soviet agents at the top of the Third Reich. How great were the possibilities of Stirlitz and his prototypes, if people worked for the Kremlin who had a short contact not with Bormann-Müller, but with Hitler himself? True, they were just agents, not regular intelligence agents.
Yulian Semyonov, the "literary father" of Stirlitz, made his hero a Chekist, who, under a false name and biography, was introduced into the power structures of Nazi Germany. In fact, illegal residents usually run recruited agents - people who live and pursue careers under their own names.
"Lucy" and "Werther"
Such a man was Rudolf Ressler (1897-1958), often referred to as "the most effective spy of World War II". This bespectacled intellectual earned his living by publishing and lived as an émigré in neutral Switzerland. He sincerely did not like the Nazis, which the Nazis knew about and did not worry at all. What harm can a person do to the Reich who, even at the front, could not bring himself to shoot people and went into battle with an unloaded rifle?
And he did colossal harm.
In Switzerland, Ressler offered services to the Soviet resident Shandor Rado, and categorically insisted that he would not name his sources of information, hiding them behind pseudonyms.
The first batch of secrets he passed on concerned Hitler's planned offensive on the Kursk Bulge (Operation Citadel) and was of exceptional value. At the Nuremberg trials, the chief of staff of the Wehrmacht's operational command, Alfred Jodl, admitted that he had a general plan of operation later than the Russians.
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“Lucy” (Ressler's operational pseudonym) did not disappoint even later. At the same time, he could not independently and directly receive such information. Well, really, how did the design drawings of the top-secret Panther tank get to him?
On attempts to find out sources of information "Lucy" explained that he has friends in the command structures of the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe. The code name "Werther" sounded more often than others.
The information received was transmitted from Switzerland by a radio network known as the Red Chapel. The employees of the German special services intercepted these messages, partially deciphered them and grabbed the heart. Paul Karel, Hitler's personal translator, recalled: “The leaders of Soviet intelligence contacted the Swiss station as if they were requesting information from some information bureau. And they got everything they were interested in. Even a superficial analysis of the radio intercept data shows that the agents of the Soviet General Staff worked first-class at all phases of the war in Russia. Some of the information transmitted could only be obtained from the highest German military circles - it seems that the Soviet agents in Geneva and Lausanne were dictated by key directly from the Fuehrer's Headquarters.
The technical analysis of the radio intercepts showed amazing things. It turned out that many messages were transmitted from powerful equipment, which could only be found in structures at the level of the Reich Chancellery, the Nazi Party Chancellery, the Wehrmacht High Command, and the Gestapo headquarters.
For the role of "Agent Werther", the researchers proposed candidates for Martin Bormann and Heinrich Müller, who disappeared without a trace at the end of the war and supposedly hid under the wing of the Soviet special services. The first of them led the Nazi party apparatus, the second - the Gestapo. But even with their widest awareness, they could hardly have access to such a wide range of secrets - from military operations to new weapons designs.
The version according to which Ressler had his own people in all the power structures of the Reich looks more convincing, however, not in the first roles, but in the second and third. In general, "Agent Werther" is a collective character.
One of the leaders of Soviet intelligence, Pavel Sudoplatov, expressed the opinion that Ressler received information from British intelligence, which knew many of the secrets of the Reich thanks to the "Ultra program", which made it possible to decrypt German messages. The British did not want to reveal all the possibilities of the Ultra, although they threw off some of the information to the allies as if directly from the Germans. But this does not remove the main questions. Whose radio transmitters provided secret information from Berlin to Moscow? And, most importantly, who worked for them?
As for Ressler, after World War II, a Swiss court sentenced him to a year in prison for espionage that could damage Switzerland's defenses. When he was released, he was no longer seen in suspicious contacts.
Strategic Intelligence?
The concept proposed by the son of Lavrenty Beria, Ser-Gegechkori, could clarify the reasons for Moscow's awareness of the secrets of the Third Reich: “Hundreds of names have not been passed through the files of the State security agencies, I know for sure. The father believed that a real illegal immigrant must not be allowed through the apparatus. This was the generally accepted system of Soviet strategic intelligence, which was headed by my father for 15 years ….
It turns out that in addition to the intelligence agencies of the Red Army, the Comintern, the People's Commissariat of State Security (NKGB) and the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD), there was another, the most powerful, but officially nowhere figured intelligence structure, or, rather, a network of foreign informers, locked directly on Beria. The information received from them fell on the table for Stalin himself.
It is clear that the memoirs of Sergo Gegechkori are sustained in the spirit of a panegyric to his father, and since no documentary evidence of the existence of "strategic intelligence" has survived, serious researchers reject the very fact of its existence.
However, there is a rational kernel in this concept.
At the end of World War II, Beria was Stalin's deputy for the State Defense Committee, but formally he had nothing to do with intelligence. Back in February 1941, non-army intelligence structures were separated from the NKVD subordinate to him into the newly formed NKGB, headed by Vsevolod Merkulov. But Beria's army intelligence never obeyed.
On the eve of June 22, 1941, information flowed to Stalin from various intelligence structures, and not only confirming, but also refuting the fact of the preparation of Hitler's invasion. Stalin then chose to believe what he wanted to believe - there would be no attack. And he lost very big.
Trying to learn from his own mistakes, in the future the Supreme Commander-in-Chief preferred to listen to the one of his associates who had the most knowledgeable agents. It was Beria who was supposed to become such a character, who probably would not have passed on his best foreign informants to Merkulov, especially since they did not go through any card indexes. Stalin understood Beria's behavior in this case and had nothing against it.
But who were those "platinum" and "gold" agents of Beria, who preferred to work with him directly? We are talking about persons who had direct, although not permanent access to the body of the Fuhrer: brilliant representatives of the aristocracy and creative bohemia.
Our Soviet Radziwill
Janusz Radziwill represented a family that played a truly outstanding role in Polish history. In his personal possessions there was a guest "Nazi No. 2" - Hermann Goering, with whom the prince shared a common hobby - hunting.
In September 1939, the Red Army entered Western Ukraine. Radziwill was arrested and taken to Moscow, where, after communicating with Beria, he was released. The prince settled in Berlin and shone in high society, including in the company of his old companion in hunting fun.
It is clear that from this communication he could take a lot of value for the Soviet intelligence. The Nazi special services followed Radziwill, but they were afraid to touch him. He was arrested only in August 1944 in connection with the Warsaw Uprising.
Then, together with his wife, he somehow disappeared from the horizon and appeared already in Moscow, again in the position of an arrested person. At the same time, the "arrested" took part in confidential negotiations between Beria and US Ambassador Harriman. Princess Radziwill, according to official data, "died in custody in Krasnagorsk," although it is not entirely clear what kind of KGB prisons are located in Krasnogorsk near Moscow.
In the late 1940s, the prince returned to socialist Poland, where he died in 1967. It seems that the authorities persecuted him, but they organized a ceremonial funeral at state expense.
The eldest son of Prince Edmund mainly accompanied his father on these wanderings and outlived him by four years. Another son Stanislav has settled in Western Europe since 1939. Later he moved to the United States and joined the team of John F. Kennedy. The fact is that the American president and Stanislav Radziwill were married to their own sisters.
In general, if you delve into the details of this family-spy novel, one gets the impression that the Radziwills, allegedly eternally persecuted by evil communists, cooperated quite successfully with the Soviet special services, first in the German direction, and then in the American direction.
Boxer and actress
In Berlin, Radziwill's friend was actress Olga Chekhova. She received the Russian surname from her husband, Mikhail Chekhov, a famous actor and nephew of the classic of Russian literature. Her maiden name was Knipper, and she was the niece of Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, the writer's wife.
After divorcing her husband, in 1920 Olga Chekhova left for Germany, where she became a famous actress. At the same time, she did not refuse her Russian surname.
She was introduced to Hitler by an admirer from among the Nazi bosses - Martin Bormann. At first, the Fuhrer was wary and arrogant about "this Russian", but gradually melted away. Despite the fact that they did not have an intimate relationship, Hitler valued her as a friend. At receptions, she often paired him up and looked much more spectacular than the rustic Eva Braun. By the way, Olga was friends with Eva, as well as with Goering's wife Emma Sonnemann. In general, at friendly get-togethers, she could hear a lot. And for the Gestapo it was completely inaccessible. Moreover, many leaders of the Reich turned to Chekhova for help when it was necessary to get a particular decision from the Fuehrer. And this is already called an "agent of influence."
On April 27, 1945, after the capture of Berlin by the Red Army, Chekhov was sent by plane to Moscow, and on June 25, brought back.
Little is known about her pastime in the Soviet capital, but she met Beria. Perhaps it was introduced to Stalin himself, who awarded her the Order of Lenin.
Later she moved to West Germany, where she continued her acting career. Later she founded her own cosmetics company. She died at the age of 82 without commenting on her collaboration with Soviet intelligence. Her daughter and granddaughter also became famous actresses.
In 1942, Beria planned to use Olga Chekhova to organize an attempt on Hitler's life. As a performer, an NKVD officer and boxing champion of the Leningrad Military District Igor Miklashevsky was thrown across the front line.
When choosing a candidate, the fact that his uncle, actor Vsevolod Blumenthal-Tamarin actively collaborated with the Goebbels department, played a role. In addition, many prominent Nazis were interested in boxing.
Miklashevsky aroused serious suspicion among the Gestapo, but his uncle helped, dragged him to Berlin and brought him together with Olga Chekhova. The Soviet agent took part in amateur boxing fights.
In 1944, Moscow received his report on the possibility of organizing the elimination of Hitler, and at the same time Goering. But Miklashevsky was given a retreat, since the death of the Fuhrer could lead to a separate peace between Germany and the Western allies.
What the Chekist boxer was doing at the end of the war is not entirely clear, but it is likely that it was he who liquidated Blumenthal-Tamarin, who was found hanged on May 10, 1945 in a suburb of Berlin.
After the war Miklashevsky worked as a trainer in the Trudovye Rezervy society. He died in 1990.
The girl of his dreams
Probably, another German movie star, Marika Rbkk, and her husband, director Georg Jacobi, worked for the Soviet wiring. Presumably, this Hungarian woman with an admixture of German blood was recruited in 1937 by Jan Chernyak, the head of one of the most effective GRU residencies in Europe. She did not have access directly to Hitler, but enjoyed the patronage of Goebbels. Filmed in 1944, the musical "Girl of My Dreams" with Marika Rökk in the title role, despite its Nazi origins, was a great success in the Soviet Union.
Magazine: Mysteries of History №22. Author: Dmitry Mityurin