The legendary Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov was born in 1911 in a family of ordinary peasants. The family was large - six souls of children. They lived in the village of Zyryanka near the city ...
The legendary Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov was born in 1911 in a family of ordinary peasants. The family was large - six souls of children. They lived in the village of Zyryanka near the city of Perm. The real name of the scout, given at baptism, is Nicanor.
After the seven-year school, the boy first went to study at the technical school of agriculture, but then changed his mind and went to gnaw the granite of science at the forest technical school. He knew German well before, but now he decided to take it more seriously. It should be noted that the ability to languages showed up from childhood. He made acquaintance with a certain German forester, from whom he "infected" with a penchant for the German language. A little later, Nikolai began to study Esperanto, and achieved great success, even translated Mikhail Lermontov's Borodino into it. Kuznetsov also found a rare book "Encyclopedia of Forest Science" in the library of the forest technical school and translated it from German for the first time.
Then the young polyglot mastered very quickly and soon the Polish, Komi-Permyak and Ukrainian languages. Nikolay learned the German language so much that he knew six dialects. In 1930, Kuznetsov got a job in the land administration. There, his colleagues committed a number of thefts, and since the material liability was joint and several, Nikolai was sentenced for one year for the company. It should be noted that having discovered the machinations of his colleagues, the guy himself reported this to the police.
After serving the prescribed year in a corrective labor colony, Kuznetsov went to work in an industrial artel. He had to help in forced collectivization, so the affected peasants attacked the future intelligence officer more than once. And the way Kuznetsov acted in crisis situations, and even his excellent knowledge of the local dialects of the Komi-Permyaks, made it possible to notice his abilities as state security figures. Soon he began to be involved in the work of the OGPU to destroy groups of bandits in the forests.
In the spring of 1938, Nikolai Kuznetsov was already listed as an assistant to the people's commissar from the NKVD M. Zhuravlev. And this Soviet chief called the NKVD department in Moscow and gave Kuznetsov a recommendation, pointing out that he was a very talented and courageous employee. The head of counterintelligence, L. Raikhman, accepted this attention, although Nikolai had a criminal record. As a result, P. Fedotov accepted Nikolai Kuznetsov as a secret special agent under personal responsibility and did not lose.
Kuznetsov was corrected with new documents under a different name - Rudolf Schmidt. First of all, he had to become his own in the circle of foreign diplomats in Moscow. Nikolai Ivanovich quickly and easily made acquaintances among foreign figures, attended social events and successfully collected information for the NKVD. He also successfully completed the most important task - he recruited several foreigners, convincing them to work for the USSR. Nikolai Kuznetsov worked especially carefully with German agents. To this end, he was introduced as a test engineer at an aircraft factory in Moscow, since a large number of German specialists worked there. Among them were Western spies. There, Kuznetsov also intercepted information from diplomats' mail.
When the Great Patriotic War began, Nikolai Ivanovich was assigned to the NKVD department, which specialized in reconnaissance and sabotage behind enemy lines. For a long time, Kuznetsov trained and prepared, studying the manners, characters and typical features for the Germans in the camp among captured fascists. After this thorough preparation, having received a document in the name of Paul Siebert, the scout was sent to the rear of the enemy. At first, he worked secretly in the city of Rovno, where the main headquarters of the Nazis in Ukraine was located. Every day he interacted with high officials among the Nazis and the local ruling elite. All valuable information was broadcast to the partisan formations located in this region.
One of the most important achievements of intelligence officer Kuznetsov was the capture of a German major, a courier who carried a secret map in his bag. After interrogating the captured major, and looking at the map, the Soviet troops received information that a shelter had been built for Hitler himself a few kilometers from Vinnitsa. Also in the fall of 1943, a secret agent was able to kidnap an important fascist general, who was sent to Rovno to organize reprisals against local partisans.
In his capacity as Paul Siebert, Kuznetsov's last business was to assassinate a major Nazi leader in the Ukraine, Oberführer Alfred Funk. Having interrogated this German "bump", Nikolai Kuznetsov received valuable information about the upcoming plan for the elimination of the heads of the "Big Three" at a conference in Tehran. At the beginning of 1944, the Russian special agent was ordered to depart with the retreating Nazis to Lvov and continue to carry out sabotage. There he was given several assistants. In Lvov, Nikolai Kuznetsov organized the liquidation of several key figures in the camp of the Nazis.
In the spring of 1944, the Nazis already realized that they were satisfied with various sabotage by the Soviet intelligence officer. Kuznetsov was identified and his description was sent to all patrols in Western Ukraine. Seeing this state of affairs, the scout and his two assistants decided to make their way into the forests and join the partisan movement, or, if possible, go behind the front line. In the first days of March, having already approached the front line, the special agents stumbled upon the troops of the Ukrainian rebels. A battle ensued, and in a firefight that broke out, all three Soviet intelligence officers were shot dead. Later, Soviet historians determined the approximate burial place of Nikolai Ivanovich and the hero was reburied in the city of Lvov, on the Hill of Glory.
Soviet writer Dmitry Medvedev in the late 1940s created books dedicated to the activities of Nikolai Kuznetsov. They were called "It was near Rovno" and "Strong in spirit", and after their release, the entire Soviet Union learned about the heroic intelligence officer. Dmitry Medvedev himself during the events described was the commander of the partisans with whom Kuznetsov worked, and therefore spoke about him firsthand.
In subsequent years, about fifteen novels and short stories were created on the subject of the biography and exploits of Nikolai Kuznetsov. Now there are already about ten films about the legendary intelligence officer, including adaptations of literary works. The most outstanding film is The Feat of the Scout (directed by Boris Barnet, 1947).
In addition, several monuments were dedicated to Nikolai Kuznetsov in Soviet times and museums named after him were opened.
1911 - Serdlovsk region. Talitsa. Born into a wealthy peasant family? which the reds have served as a volunteer. There was no cow or horse 1919 - Began to keep a record of books read. Learned to play chess and checkers, independently solves chess problems 1923 - He began to characterize the heroes of the books he read and draw up plans for his own actions. Planned must be fulfilled 1925 - Not bad plays the harmonica and balalaika. Dances waltz, polka, square dance, Russian and famously tap dance... Sings 1926 - Equally owned both hands, had excellent success in mathematics. His drawings went to exhibitions. The ball is accurate and accurate, never lied, even on trifles 1928 - 14 November. Talitsky Forestry College. Exhausted by need and hunger, he asked a special commission for a scholarship 1929 - Talitsky forest technical school. Komsomol cell purged from its ranks as the son of a fist 1932 - 04 June. Sverdlovsk, Lenin street, 8. House of Ignatiev A.V. The tenant's room was searched, and he himself was arrested. Interrogated for several months 1932 - Komi-Permyat Autonomous National Okrug. OGPU. Assigned pseudonym "Kulik" 1932 - 17 November. For negligence sentenced to one year of corrective labor at the place of service 1934 - Sverdlovsk. OGPU. Assigned the pseudonym "Scientist". Libit to dress with a pretense of being a foreigner 1935 - Sverdlovsk. . Design department. Design engineer. Passionate about German 1937 - OGPU. Assigned alias "Colonist" 1938 - People's Commissar of the NKVD in the Komi ASSR Mikhail Ivanovich Zhuravlev sent to Moscow to Leonid Fedorovich Raikhman, and then to Viktor Nikolaevich Ilyin 1938 - NKVD of the USSR. Enrolled as a highly classified special agent with a salary of upkeep at the rate of a personnel detective of the central office 1941 - March. Rudy's friend from the German embassy in Moscow said that the embassy was burning documents and packing valuables 1941 - 22 June. The Great Patriotic War. Requested to the front 1941 - September. Under the guise of a German soldier sent to the camp of German prisoners of war to carry out intelligence service 1941 - 16 October. In case of surrender of Moscow, included in the lists of the metropolitan underground 1942 - 03 June. Submits another report with an insistent request to send to the front 1942 - Kalinsky Front. For several days it was abandoned in the rear of the 9th German Army of the Center group. Received good reviews from superiors 1942 - Entered into disposal. Preparing for a guerrilla war in the Medvedev group 1942 - Krasnogorsk. Camp for German prisoners of war No. 27\11. "Probation" in the guise of a German lieutenant 1942 - August. Received solid documents in the name of Lieutenant Paul Wilhelm Siebert and sent to the front line 1943 - 07 February. Captured and deciphered a secret map, with the help of which the location of Hitler's headquarters near Vinnitsa was discovered 1943 - Received by Reichskommissar for Ukraine Erich Koch. We talked for 30-40 minutes. But there was no way to kill him. 1943 - 20 September. Exactly. He shot ministerial adviser Dr. Hans Gel and senior inspector of the Rivne Gebitskommissariat Adolf Winter 1943 - 09 November. Lemberg. November 09. Successful attack kills Lieutenant Governor Bauer and Dr. Schneider 1943 - 15 November. Exactly. General Ilgen was taken and liquidated in his apartment 1943 - 16 November. Exactly. Killed the main executioner of Ukraine Alfred Funk - an old Nazi, the owner of a gold party badge 1944 - 31 January. Lemberg. Lieutenant Colonel Hans Peters was shot dead in the air force building at Wallstrasse 11a 1944 - 02 March. Lviv region. Brody district. The village of Boratin. Together with his group, he ran into a unit ... 1959 - 17 September. From the decision of the senior investigator of the KGB CM of the Ukrainian SSR in the Lvov region, captain Rubtsov: ... it was not possible to establish his identity from the remains 1959 - 24 December. Institute of Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Professor M. Gerasimov: the skull sent for research really belongs to Kuznetsov Nikolai Ivanovich 1960 - 27 July. Lvov. Hill of Glory. Solemn reburial of the remains of the legendary scout 1961 - February. Exactly. Monument unveiled 1962 - September. Lvov. A monument was unveiled on the square formed by Striyskaya and Ivana Franka streets 1975 - The tract "Kutyki Ryabogo". At the site of the first burial, a titanium stele was installed, made on 1979 - Lviv region. Brody district. The village of Boratin. A labrodarite monument was erected at the place of death A letter from the FSB came to Cherkasy"Sowing panic among the Nazis and their agents. Nikolai Kuznetsov, acting under the name of German Oberleutnant Paul Siebert, inflicts daring blows one after another. It was he, risking his life, who committed acts of retaliation against high-ranking officials of the occupying power Gel and Winter. Among the white day in the city center with an anti-tank grenade, he seriously wounded the president of occupied Ukraine, General Paul Dargel. Then he made his way into the building of the Ministry of Justice and shot the Senate-President of Justice of Ukraine, General Alfred Funk ... ", - recalls intelligence officer Nikolai Strutinsky, who drove the "chief lieutenant" under the guise German soldier-chauffeur. They also have the kidnapping of the main punisher of Ukraine, Major General Ilgen, Count Gahan (scouts confiscated Hitler's headquarters card from the latter) and many other combat episodes. This year marks the 57th anniversary of the death of Nikolai Kuznetsov. But the whole truth about him has not yet been told ... At one time, the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, Eduard, turned to the President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma with a request to take the ashes of the legendary intelligence officer, Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Kuznetsov to the Urals and rebury there. The appeal appeared on the initiative of the authorities of Talitsa, the homeland of N. Kuznetsov, where a monument to the scout had already been transported from Lviv a few years ago. However, the intention to take out the ashes after the monument was opposed by the fighting associates of Nikolai Kuznetsov, brothers Georgy (unfortunately, now deceased) and Nikolai Strutinsky. They sent a letter to Eduard, in which they proved: although Kuznetsov was born in the Urals, he accomplished his military exploits on - "he is the son of Russia, the son of Ukraine." And therefore it is not necessary to disturb his ashes again. At one time, we ourselves contributed to the transfer of the monument to Nikolai Kuznetsov from Lviv to Talitsa, says Nikolai Strutinsky. - Before its installation and the reburial of the ashes of the scout in Lvov, we had to fight for many years, defending the good name of Kuznetsov, - some of the party leaders did not let his glory sleep peacefully. It took a lot of work to find the place of his first burial, and the identification of the remains is generally a detective story (which we will tell our readers about later - A.L.). It was necessary to investigate all the circumstances of his death, and this was very difficult in those conditions when many very influential people would prefer to forget about him and appropriate his merits. Finally, in December 1959, I was summoned from Lvov to Moscow to see Lieutenant General. He asked a few questions about our investigation and approved of our actions. Only after that the reburial of the ashes and the erection of a monument in Lvov became possible. Now N. Kuznetsov has new enemies. Considering the possibility of desecration of the monument, we contributed to its transfer to Talitsa. But we consider it blasphemy to disturb the ashes of Nikolai Kuznetsov. We are sure that his grave in Lviv will not be touched, which is what they wrote about. The Strutinsky brothers also asked the Ukrainian authorities to assist enthusiasts in Yekaterinburg, headed by Honored Worker of Culture of Russia Nina Pavlovna Erofeeva, in the creation of a museum-apartment of N. Kuznetsov. There is no answer from the Sverdlovsk governor yet, but the head of the Russian FSB department for the Sverdlovsk region, Lieutenant-General G. Voronov, responded. “The employees of the Sverdlovsk Directorate of the FSB of Russia are grateful to you both for the memory of your comrade-in-arms, our fellow countryman, Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov, and for your selfless work to preserve it,” the letter says. “It is people like you and others Internationalist patriots contribute to the fact that the current generation knows the heroes of our common Motherland. Lieutenant General G. Voronov told the Strutinsky brothers that the FSB supported the idea of creating a museum of N. I. Kuznetsov in an apartment at 52 Lenina Avenue, although "... our funding leaves much to be desired." The basis of the museum's exposition will be Ukrainian materials, collected by the Strutinsky brothers and their volunteer assistants (some of them paid their careers and lives for their participation in the investigation). These are 50 volumes of materials collected over decades of hard and dangerous work - opposition to the "truth seekers" turned out to be the toughest. And yet, there are still many white spots in the biography of N. Kuznetsov. “In the archives of our Office, we found a thin control file (5-6 sheets), which states that “N. I. Kuznetsov, who worked in the editorial office of the Uralmashevskaya newspaper before his arrest, was released from custody on October 7, 1936,” writes G. Voronov, - the criminal depot itself was deported to Rovno in 1962. These documents are the only thing found in the UFSB archive. There are no materials on the Sverdlovsk period in the “Colonist” case on Lubyanka: they were probably destroyed. "The Governor of the Sverdlovsk Region E., Director of the FSB of Russia and the Directorate of the FSB for the Sverdlovsk Region support the proposal of the All-Russian Commission of partisans, underground fighters and members of the Resistance to erect a bust of N. Kuznetsov on Poklonnaya Gora in Moscow: "... E.E. is ready to find the necessary 60 thousand rubles, the regional committee for architecture is to find a contractor and act as a customer" (after all, N. Kuznetsov is an Honorary Citizen of Yekaterinburg - AL.). More than 1 million rubles must be found for the resettlement of two apartments in the house where the future intelligence officer lived and where the museum's exposition is planned to be located. - We are grateful to E. and General Voronov for their careful attitude to the memory of the hero, - says N. Strutinsky. In his youth in Russia, Nikolai Kuznetsov suffered a lot of undeserved persecution: he was expelled from the Komsomol, from the Talitsky forestry technical school, which now, by the way, bears his name, was taken into custody ... His family and relatives have not yet been rehabilitated. And the installation of the bust of N. Kuznetsov on Poklonnaya Hill will mean the triumph of historical justice. ... As you can see, Russia has not forgotten about the superintelligence officer and is doing a lot to perpetuate his memory. But more and more publications appear in which Nikolai Kuznetsov is called a saboteur and questioned his merits to the country. According to N. Strutinsky, "these actions are planned and coordinated, possibly, by foreign special services." In the dispute about who should be considered the "scout No. 1" of the Second World War, the end has not yet been put. And, it seems, in this dispute they do not shy away from the methods of "secret war" - two years ago, N. Strutinsky's apartment was attacked by unknown people who behaved differently than robbers usually do. Then the situation was saved by one of the employees of the SBU, who just that day came to visit Nikolai Vladimirovich. The raiders retreated. Their identities, of course, have not yet been established. - The whole truth about Kuznetsov has not yet been told, - says N. Strutinsky. - There are forces actively preventing its publication. For example, it has not yet been possible to show Ukrainian television viewers a three-episode documentary film about the legendary intelligence officer, shot by Nina Erofeeva. Even the video cassette had to be transferred to Cherkassy from Yekaterinburg in compliance with all the rules of conspiracy - it did not reach the post office ... But still, N. Strutinsky is sure that "truth will ultimately triumph."
Two versions of the death of Nikolai Kuznetsov
A brochure by retired KGB colonel Andrey Gorban "Two versions of the death of the legendary Soviet intelligence officer, Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov" was published in Kyiv, based on "archival materials of the former KGB of the Ukrainian SSR." The author points out that "before the collapse of the Soviet Union, articles began to appear in the Soviet press" casting doubt on the official version of the death of Nikolai Kuznetsov on March 9, 1944 in the village of Boratin in the Lvov region.
Rivne journalist P. Yakovchuk put forward (in the newspaper "For Vilna Ukraine", 1991) two versions. First: the legend about the death of N. Kuznetsov was created by the state security agencies; a scout under a different name was sent to the West for further work. Second: Kuznetsov was killed not by Bandera, but by his own - as punishment for an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the Reichskommissar of the occupied Ukraine, Erich Koch. However, P. Yakovchuk finds it difficult to choose any of these versions, since, in his opinion, all archives on Kuznetsov "will be closed by the KGB until 2025."
Appeared (and still appears) and many other versions of the death of the famous intelligence officer. Moreover, the first false version was published long ago with a light hand ... the commander of the "Winners" detachment D. N. Medvedev. According to this version, N. Kuznetsov died on March 2, 1944 at the hands of militants in the forest near the village of Belgorodka in the Rivne region. The version is based on a lightning telegram to the Imperial Security Headquarters "to hand over the SS to Gruppenführer and Police Lieutenant General Müller - personally" (H.V. No. 9135). The telegram, signed by the head of the Security Police and the SD, Dr. Vityska, with reference to the information of the "Ukrainian delegate", reports that on March 2, 1944, one unit detained "three Soviet-Russian spies" in the forest, near Belgorodka, in the Verba (Volyn) region. , who, judging by the documents, reported "directly to G. B. NKVD - General F." Identified the identity of the three arrested - the head of the group under the nickname "Pukh", the Pole Yan Kaminsky and the shooter Ivan Vlasovets, under the nickname "Belov". They found a detailed report on undercover activities and terrorist acts in the territory of the Lviv region. "... As for the Soviet-Russian agent "Pooh" and his accomplices detained by the units, - says Dr. Vitiska, - we are talking about Paul Siebert, who in Rovno kidnapped, among others, General Ilgen, in the Galicia district shot Lieutenant Colonel of Aviation Peters, one senior aviation corporal, vice-governor, head of department Dr. Bauer and presidial chief doctor of the mayor's office Schneider, as well as Major Kanter of the field gendarmerie, whom we carefully searched for."From the telegram it follows that the detainees were shot, and is ready to hand over to the security police "all materials in copies, photocopies or even originals ... if instead of this the security police agrees to release Mrs. Lebed with the child and her relatives." The discovery of this telegram gave grounds to the Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitry Medvedev in his book "Strong in Spirit" to assert that Nikolai Kuznetsov and his comrades were shot by Bandera in the village of Belgorodka. An associate of Nikolai Kuznetsov, Nikolai Strutinsky, argued with this version.
It was he who drove in the form of a German soldier"Paul Siebert" through the streets of Rivne, the capital of German-occupied Ukraine, participating in acts of retaliation. It was he who gave ten years after the war to search for a place and clarify the circumstances of the death of N. Kuznetsov. He himself could die with him. But it so happened that before the departure of Nikolai Kuznetsov to Lvov, the scouts ... quarreled.Once, at the beginning of 1944, we were driving along Rovno in the "Adler", - says Nikolai Vladimirovich. - I was driving, Nikolai Kuznetsov was sitting next to me, Yan Kaminsky, a scout, was sitting behind. Not far from Vacek Burim's safe house, Kuznetsov asked to stop. Says: I now. He left, after a while he returned, something extremely upset. Yang asked: "Where were you, Nikolai Vasilievich?" (In the detachment, Kuznetsov was known under the name "Nikolai Vasilyevich Grachev" - A.L.).
Kuznetsov replies: "Yes, so ...". And Jan says: "I know - Vacek Burim." Then Kuznetsov came to me: "Why did you tell him?" Turnout is classified information. But I didn't say anything to Jan. And Kuznetsov flared up, uttered a lot of insulting things to me. Our nerves were on edge then, I could not stand it, I got out of the car, as I slammed the door - the glass shattered, fragments fell from it. Turned around and went. I walk down the street, I have two pistols - in a holster and in my pocket. I myself think: it’s stupid, I had to restrain myself, because I know that everyone is on my nerves. Sometimes, at the sight of German officers, he himself had a desire to shoot everyone, and then shoot himself. That was the state. I'm going. I hear - someone is catching up. I don't turn around. And Kuznetsov caught up, touched his shoulder: "Kolya, Kolechka, sorry, nerves." I silently turned - and to the car. Sit down, let's go. But then I told him - we no longer work together. And when Nikolai Kuznetsov left for Lvov, I did not go with him. Nobody knew about this at first. Few people even now know why Kuznetsov was sent to Lviv at all. And thus Dmitry Medvedev saved him from death. After all, Nikolai Kuznetsov had already been sentenced at the Lubyanka. He had a mission to kill Eric Koch. And he managed to get to him in Rovno for an appointment, along with scout Valya Dovger. Moreover, Koch "recognized" Siebert, decided that he had seen him as a teenager in the forests near Koenigsberg on a hunt. According to legend, "Siebert" was born and raised there in the family of a forester. And, having "learned", he trusted - he revealed the plan of the German offensive on the Kursk Bulge. Part of the "Paul Siebert", again, according to legend, was near Kursk. And Koch said: "Go back to your unit soon, it will be very hot there soon." Nikolai Kuznetsov was well aware of the value of this information. And he made a decision - not to shoot at Koch, to get out alive himself and transfer the received data to the Center. He could not but be aware that for failure to complete the task of eliminating Koch, he would most likely be shot. And yet he made the decision. The Center received the first message about the impending operation on the Kursk Bulge. But Kuznetsov was not forgiven at the Lubyanka; Kobulov instructed Medvedev to "resolve the issue with Kuznetsov." What that meant, you can understand. But Medvedev found a way out by sending Kuznetsov to Lvov. Having completed the assignment in Lutsk and Lvov, Kuznetsov would have been rehabilitated. But it so happened that due to the fault of some persons, about whom I will speak later, Kuznetsov's group in Lvov was left without contact and without appearances. Imagine this situation. And yet he committed a series of acts of retribution and began to withdraw to the front line. But even here it was left without "beacons". There was supposed to be such a "beacon" in Baratin, which is why Kuznetsov, Kaminsky and Belov ended up there. And the militants found them there. They did not shoot Kuznetsov - he blew himself up with a grenade. But in his death there is the fault of certain people, who therefore impeded the investigation. And then... After all, the Germans were looking for Kuznetsov very actively. Muller, the head of the IV Directorate of the SD in Berlin, personally gave the order to take Nikolai Kuznetsov alive. General Prutzmann, who oversaw the SS troops in Zapadnaya, contacted and received false information that Kuznetsov was captured alive and was handing over materials (Pooh report) to the Germans if they released Nikolai Lebed's wife and daughter - the Germans held them hostage so as not to turn against them . And General Prutzmann gave this false information to Berlin - that Kuznetsov was captured alive and shot. And then the German archives ended up in the NKVD. I didn't have access to them then. And Medvedev, I think, was just in a hurry. After the war, he traveled around the cities, spoke to people, talked about the "Winners" detachment. And he could not answer the question - what happened to Nikolai Kuznetsov? This pissed him off. He then took up the archives, saw the document - and wrote in his book that Kuznetsov died in the way that the OUN members falsely informed the Germans about it. This is how this version came about. And around her, and indeed around the name of Kuznetsov, there is still a struggle going on. They blame Kuznetsov for having a report on his undercover activities and terrorist attacks. Like, would a real intelligence officer do that? But he acted like a professional: if he dies, the report will go to the Germans, and then to the Lubyanka. Remember - he had no connection in Lviv. Kuznetsov assessed the situation on the territory of Galicia, where groups of German punishers, separate groups of the Polish Craiova Army and kurens, and hundreds - were operating: he understood that there were practically no chances to stay alive. Therefore, he prepared a report on his activities in the occupied territory, which he signed with one of his pseudonyms - "Pooh". This pseudonym was known only in the Lubyanka. Nikolai Kuznetsov calculated that whoever got his report would end up in the SD, and information about his death would leak out from there. And only in this way will the date and place of his death become known in the central apparatus of the NKVD of the USSR. Ultimately, it happened, which only confirms the highest professionalism of the intelligence officer. …Soon leading his investigation Nikolai Strutinsky became aware of the information that at the beginning of March 1944 in the village of Boratin (which is near the city of Brody) in the house of a member of the "Chernogora" detachment Stepan Golubovich, two unknown men in German uniform were captured, one of whom was blown up by a grenade he blew up and died. Then N. Strutinsky, at that time - an employee of the KGB department in the Lvov region - turned in June 1958 to the head of the KGB with a request to assist in establishing the time and place of the death of N. Kuznetsov and his comrades.
By order of the head of the KGB department for the Lviv region, an operational-investigative group was created, which received the corresponding task. The group did a huge amount of work, during which, by the way, several former members were exposed (one of them even managed to join the CPSU). Installation data were collected for comrades-in-arms N. Kuznetsov.He went to the front line with Yan Stanislavovich Kaminsky, born in 1917, a native of the village of Zhitin, Rovno district, Rovno region. By nationality, Jan Kaminsky was a Pole, before the war and during the occupation he worked in Rovno as a baker in a bakery of a mechanical plant. He was a reconnaissance officer of the "Winners" detachment, participated in the operation (under the leadership of N. Kuznetsov) of the abduction of General von Ilgen. The second fellow traveler on the last road of N. Kuznetsov is Ivan Vasilievich Belov, born in 1917, a native of the Mastyrsky district of the Saratov region, Russian. Until 1941 he served in the Red Army, in September 1941 he was taken prisoner near Kyiv, then he worked as a driver in Rovno, in the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine.
S. Golubovich was interrogated as a witness. Here is what he showed: "... at the end of February or at the beginning of March 1944, in addition to me and my wife, my mother - Golubovich Mokrina Adamovna (died in 1950), son Dmitry, 14 years old, and daughter 5 years old (later died.) There was no light in the house. On the night of the same date, at about 12 a.m., when my wife and I were still awake, a dog barked. My wife, getting up from her bed, went out into the yard. Returning to the house, she said that people are coming from the forest to the house. After that, she began to watch through the window, and then told me that the Germans were coming up to the door. Unknown people, having approached the house, began to knock. First on the door, then on the window. My wife asked what to do.
I agreed to open the door for them. When strangers in German uniforms entered the house, the wife switched on the light. Mother got up and sat down in a corner near the stove, and the strangers, coming up to me, asked if there were any Bolsheviks or participants in the village? One of them asked in German. I replied that there were none. Then they asked to close the windows. After that they asked for food. The wife gave them bread and bacon and, it seems, milk. I then drew attention to how two Germans could go through the forest at night if they were afraid to go through it during the day ... Before eating, one of the strangers explained to me in German and on his fingers that they had not slept for three nights and had not eaten for three days. That there were five. Three people went by car to Zolochiv, but two of them remained. ... Both were dressed in the uniform of the German army - short jackets, caps with the "SS" badge on their heads, that is, skulls and bones. I don't remember shoes. One of them was above average height, at the age of 30-35 years old, his face was white, his hair was blond, one might say, somewhat reddish, he shaved his beard, had a narrow mustache. His appearance was typical of a German. I don't remember any other signs. He talked to me for the most part. The second was shorter than him, somewhat thin, with a blackish face, black hair, and shaving his mustache and beard. ... Sitting at the table and taking off their caps, the unknown began to eat, keeping the machine guns with them. Approximately half an hour later (and the dog was barking all the time), as unknown people came to me, an armed participant with a rifle and a distinguishing mark on his hat “Trident”, whose nickname, as I learned later, was “Makhno”, entered the room. “Makhno”, without greeting me, immediately went up to the table and offered his hand to the unknown, without saying a word to them. They were also silent. Then he came up to me, sat down on the bunk and asked me what kind of people. I replied that I did not know, and after about five minutes other participants began to enter the apartment, which included about eight people, and maybe more. One of the participants gave the command to leave the house to civilians, that is, to us, the owners, but the second shouted: no need, and no one was let out of the hut. Then again one of the participants in German gave the command to the unknown “Hands up!”. A tall unknown man got up from the table and, holding a machine gun in his left hand, waved his right hand in front of his face and, as I remember, told them not to shoot. The weapons of the participants were directed at the unknown, one of whom continued to sit at the table. “Hands up!” The command was given three times, but the unknown hands were never raised. The tall German continued the conversation: as I understand it, he asked if it was the Ukrainian police. One of them replied that they were, and the Germans replied that this was against the law. Before that, someone called participant nicknamed "Makhno" to go for "Chernogora", while they asked if "Skiba" was here, someone answered that he was here. ... I saw that the participants lowered their weapons, one of them approached the Germans and offered to hand over their machine guns, and then the tall German handed him over, and after him gave the second one. Tobacco began to be crushed on the table, participants and strangers began to smoke. Thirty minutes have passed since the unknown met with the participants. Moreover, the tall unknown was the first to ask for a cigarette. … A tall unknown, rolling up a cigarette, began to light a cigarette from the lamp and put it out, but in the corner near the stove a second lamp burned faintly. I asked my wife to bring the lamp to the table. At this time, I noticed that the tall unknown became noticeably nervous, which was noticed by the participants, who began to ask him what was the matter ... The unknown, as I understood it, was looking for a lighter. But then I saw that all the participants rushed from the unknown towards the exit doors, but since they opened into the room, they did not open it in a hurry, and immediately I heard a strong grenade explosion and even saw a sheaf of flame from it. The second unknown before the grenade explosion lay down on the floor under the bunk. After the explosion, I took my young daughter and stood near the stove, my wife jumped out of the hut along with the participants, who broke the door by removing it from the hinge. An unknown person of short stature asked something of the second, who was lying wounded on the floor. He replied that he "I don't know", after which a short unknown person, knocking out a window frame, jumped out of the window of the house with a briefcase. My wife was slightly injured in the leg and my mother in the head by a grenade explosion. Four participants were wounded, including "Skiba" and "Chernogora", which I became aware of from conversations, it seems, a week after that. With regard to the unknown short stature, who was running through the window, for about five minutes I heard strong firing from rifles in the direction in which he fled. What his fate is, I do not know. After that, I ran away with the child to my neighbor, and in the morning, when I returned home, I saw the unknown person dead in the yard near the fence, lying face down in his underwear.As was established by the interrogation of other witnesses, during the explosion of his own grenade, Kuznetsov’s right hand was torn off and “heavy wounds were inflicted on the frontal part of the head, chest and abdomen, which is why he soon died” (A. Gorban, “Two versions of the death of N. And So, the place, time (March 9, 1944) and the circumstances of the death of N. Kuznetsov were established. It remained to find his grave and identify the remains.
The skull of a scout wanted to kidnap the KGB
So, Nikolai Strutinsky established the circumstances and place of the death of Nikolai Kuznetsov. Now it was necessary to find the burial place, exhume and identify the remains of the scout. All this had to be done, overcoming covert and overt resistance. "It should be emphasized that thanks to the incredible efforts, honesty, objectivity and coherence of the Chekists, in the process of this work we managed to reach the place of the first burial place of N. Kuznetsov, exhume the remains and on July 27, 1960 complete this most difficult long-term operation by reburial at the military cemetery" Hill Glory" in Lvov, - Nikolai Vladimirovich will write many years later (I quote from the manuscript - AL.). - The people triumphed and thanked us for this, in essence, civil feat.
Later, this activity will result in a provocative "sensation" of the discovery of "other" remains of the legendary intelligence officer - but more on that later. For now, let's return to the events of the post-war years and to the searches conducted by the group of N. Strutinsky. I ask Nikolai Vladimirovich how they managed to find the place of the first burial place of N. Kuznetsov. - Kuznetsov died in Golubovich's hut. His neighbors were in a gang. One of them had two sons in a gang, both died, - recalls N. Strutinsky. - The wife of one of the sons with her daughter was sent to Siberia, she was there.
And here in Western Ukraine they did not accept such people, they did not categorically take them back. I decided to take advantage of these circumstances to go to the grave of Kuznetsov. Agents, and informants, and archival materials, and operational departments of the Podkamensky district and Brodovsky city and regional departments of the KGB were connected. I had the right to involve any employee in work. And I decided that it was necessary to contact this neighbor Golubovich. He was hiding, but I got in touch with him.It took a lot of effort Nikolai Strutinsky to establish a trusting relationship with this person. Finally, he believed that he would not be deceived: if he indicated the place of burial of the scout, N. Strutinsky would achieve the return of his daughter-in-law and granddaughter to their homeland. And so it happened - by hook or by crook, N. Strutinsky achieved their return. Kuznetsov's grave was found.
It was still not so easy, - says Nikolai Strutinsky. - For a long time he probed me: if I wasn’t cheating, he drove around and around for a long time. Sometimes I had to press it and use special equipment. We recorded some conversations of witnesses, which later helped. After all, Golubovich also knew where the grave was, but he was afraid to say. He knew that he would be destroyed; he was not affiliated with the gang. And this one was tied up, his two sons died, and the bandits would not have dared to kill him. But he was also afraid. He was afraid of his own shadow... But he showed me the place in the end.
In the presence of witnesses, representatives of the authorities, the prosecutor's office and the KGB, the grave was opened and the remains removed. But how to prove that these are the remains of Kuznetsov? After all, a group of supporters of Medvedev's version carried out their excavations in the Verbsky district without any supporting data.
It was a crime, says N. Strutinsky. - They persuaded people who allegedly identified N. Kuznetsov in the coffin, at the funeral. Well, tell me, please: on the territory where Kuznetsov had never been in his life, who could identify him? He could have been identified by a close person who would have recognized him, but there were no such people there. They did not know about Kuznetsov at all! And they gave their names and surnames. Like, they buried in a coffin, with a priest. Who would bury Kuznetsov with a priest? Complete nonsense. But they also went for it - they dug up someone's graves, without having accurate data. They went to great lengths to disrupt our investigation...
Were you interrupted all the time?
- All the time. Individual employees of the central apparatus of the KGB of the USSR tried to interfere. And our local secretaries of the regional committees, Lvov and Rovno, took all measures to confuse this depot so that I would not go to the place where Kuznetsov died. And when I had already left, then all measures were taken so that I would not bring it to the end. And the leaders directly told me that even if you find the remains of Kuznetsov, you will not prove that these are his remains. - And how did you manage to prove it? - I reported to the head of the Lviv regional department of the KGB, Colonel Ivan Fedorovich Valuiko, who oversaw the work of our group, signed all the papers. I told him: "The remains have been found, let's do the reburial." At the end of September 1956, a detailed act was already drawn up. It was compiled and signed by the forensic expert of the city of Lvov V. M. Zelengurov and the senior investigator of the KGB captain Rubtsov - both of them were directly involved in the excavations. We no longer had any doubts that the remains of Kuznetsov were found. Then the second act was drawn up.
Steal a skull? How?
- When I returned from Moscow, I kept the skull in a box under my desk. This table - here it is - is still with me. And then one day a man called me and said: "Be careful, you have Kuznetsov's skull, look - they are going to kidnap him and replace him."
- Do you know the name of the person who warned you?
No, I didn't know then and I don't know now. But I am grateful to this man. If the skull had been replaced, I wouldn't have proved anything to anyone. Who - he did not say. But I had enough. And I took all measures, handed over the skull to the investigator Rubtsov, ordered him to keep it in a safe and not to hand over the keys to anyone. And the skull was kept after this call in a safe in the KGB department. In the same place, the first copy of M. Gerasimov's conclusion, which he signed on December 24, 1959, was filed into the file, and he certified his signature with the round seal of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
- And then what happened?
- Then there was a detective story, connected, by the way, with journalism. I was working on an essay on Kuznetsov. I sent him to Sverdlovsk, to the newspaper "Ural Worker" - I thought they would immediately take it there. But the editors were silent. I continued to work on the essay, greatly expanded it. The head of the department demanded that I report to Moscow on the entire course of the investigation. And I decided that I should first print an essay so that the public knows everything. Then it would be more difficult for my opponents to play their secret games. But how can I do this when I have such control, and I, as a KGB officer, did not have the right to print something without authorization, you understand? And they demand from me - give a report.
- And why did the journalists intercept you in Maloyaroslavets? Did you know that people from the Lubyanka would meet you in Moscow, and then you would not be able to take the text?
“Perhaps they thought so. In Moscow, they expected me at the Central Office of the KGB, but they did not meet me at the station. The essay was in the editorial office, but I was worried - would the journalists consult with the KGB? If they do, the essay will be taken away from them, and it will all be over. Zelengurov and I were waiting for the issue of Evening Moscow to come out. I was very worried. Volodya, apparently, decided to distract me, got tickets for Swan Lake. Let's go, but I hardly looked at the stage, I kept thinking - how will my material go? Or maybe he is already at the Lubyanka? In the morning we went to the kiosk. The queue, everyone takes "Vecherka". We buy - we have, an essay is printed! We bought 10 copies. And only after that I called the Lubyanka. They say to me: "Nikolai Vladimirovich, where are you, we keep a hotel room for you." I pretended to be a fool - they say, I'm not a Muscovite, I don't know Moscow, I thought there were no hotel rooms before the New Year. And they themselves spent the night with Volodya Zelengurov at VDNKh in a hotel, but they ordered us not to make any calls and not to give our phone number to anyone. At Lubyanka, it seems, they understood: something is not right, but what? I go there, and Volodya remained on the street to wait. At Lubyanka they tell me: "The head of the IV department (counterintelligence - A. L.) general is waiting for you." I enter. Who am I? A lieutenant from the periphery, for him I am like a speck of dust on this floor. I reported. I see the newspaper "Evening Moscow" on the table. Then I thought that I might never leave the Lubyanka. I broke all the rules, published the essay without approval. They can immediately rip off shoulder straps and put them on trial. The general looked at me gloomily and said: "Who gave you the right to print material?" I answer: "Lvov Regional Committee of the Party." And in Lvov, I talked about the essay by the head. department of the regional committee Fedor Tkachenko and asked - they say, "Lvovskaya Pravda" would give him? He then called the editor and said: "Print." That's how I outsmarted everyone. The first submission, by the way, was published in Lvovskaya Pravda, but there was no continuation. Kuznetsov Lvov Strutinsky is 81 years old. The editors of Pravda congratulate the intelligence veteran on his birthday and wish him health, happiness and optimism!
Kuznetsov was not a terrorist
Last year, in the name of the director of the Lviv Historical and Memorial Reserve " Lychakiv cemetery", on the territory of which the grave of the legendary intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov is located, a letter was received from the State Committee of Ukraine for Veterans Affairs with a request for assistance in reburial of the ashes of the intelligence officer in his homeland - the Urals. to bury his fellow countryman in his hometown "(in Talitsa - A. L.). Then nothing came of it, but the idea itself has not yet been abandoned. The Strutinsky family strongly opposes these plans, whose members fought side by side with N Kuznetsova Kuznetsova He gave his life for the freedom and the very existence of the Ukrainian people, and now they are trying to declare him an enemy of Ukraine But here are just a few facts that I myself witnessed. in the village of Tyutkovichi, on the outskirts of Rivne... There was a small river with a wooden bridge.Given the high rank of Funke, the coffin had to go the whole general. And the hearse had to drive over the bridge. We decided to blow up the bridge with all the generals. Everything was prepared - mines, fuses.
P.S. The other day, the order of the President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma was made public, by which Nikolay Strutinsky was assigned a life-long pension of 150 hryvnias. In total, there are one hundred such pensions throughout the country. According to the current situation, the payment of this pension may be terminated due to death, or in connection with the departure for permanent residence outside Ukraine of Major General Ilgen, Count Gahan (scouts confiscated a card from the latter that allowed declassifying Hitler's field headquarters " Werwolf "), acts of retaliation against high-ranking employees of the occupation authorities Gel and Winter, an attempt on the president of the occupied of Ukraine, General Paul Dargel, the liquidation of the Senate-President of Justice of Ukraine, General Alfred Funk, and many other military operations. After the war, Nikolai Strutinsky spent many years defending the good name of Nikolai Kuznetsov, first from the party nomenclature (which did not need "extra" heroes), then from the nationalists who declared Kuznetsov "an ordinary saboteur" and "terrorist".
Nikolai Strutinsky was born on April 1, 1920 in Tuchin, Rivne region. At the very beginning of the war, the Strutinsky family organized a partisan detachment that successfully operated in the occupied territory and in 1942 joined the famous special forces detachment of the 4th Directorate of the NKGB of the USSR "Winners", commanded by Colonel Dmitry Medvedev, Strutinsky was presented to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but the relevant Decree was never signed. Now history itself will put everything in its place. Nikolai Strutinsky won this fight. However, he soon had to defend the name of his comrade-in-arms and friend from the new scribes of history. Last years Nikolai Strutinsky lived in Cherkassy, in a two-room apartment of an ordinary five-story block building. Here he wrote books (Nikolai Strutinsky - laureate of the N. Kuznetsov Literary Prize, member of the National Union of Journalists and the Union of Journalists of Russia), did a lot of educational and military-patriotic work. Not everyone in the new independent party liked this activity: an attempt was made on the life of Nikolai Strutinsky, the intelligence officer was saved only by a fluke. The case, of course, remains uninvestigated. More than once, labor collectives turned to the city authorities with a proposal to confer on N. Strutinsky the title of honorary citizen of the city. The authorities agreed, but their promises remained empty words. In May of this year, the Prydniprovsky District Council of Cherkassy recommended N. Strutinsky's candidacy for the title of "Hero of Ukraine". Nikolai Vladimirovich himself was indifferent to honors and awards. He was more concerned about attempts by certain forces to rewrite history by declaring the liberators "occupiers" and the partisans "terrorists." Shortly before his death, he gave me the manuscript of his last book, complaining that in an independent spiesA brilliant intelligence officer, a polyglot, a conqueror of hearts and a great adventurer, he personally destroyed 11 Nazi generals, but was killed by UPA fighters.
Linguistic talent
A boy from the village of Zyryanka with four hundred inhabitants masters the German language perfectly thanks to highly qualified teachers. Later, Kolya Kuznetsov picks up profanity when meeting a forester - a German, a former soldier of the Austrian-Hungarian army. Studying Esperanto on his own, he translated his beloved “Borodino” into it, and while studying at a technical school, he translated the German “Encyclopedia of Forest Science” into Russian, at the same time he perfectly mastered Polish, Ukrainian and Komi. The Spaniards, who served in the forests near Rovno in the Medvedev detachment, suddenly became worried, reported to the commander: "Fighter Grachev understands when we speak our native language." And this was Kuznetsov's understanding of a previously unfamiliar language. He mastered six dialects of German and, meeting somewhere at a table with their officer, instantly determined where he came from, and switched to another dialect.
pre-war years
After studying for a year at the Tyumen Agricultural College, Nikolai dropped out due to the death of his father and a year later continued his studies at the Talitsky Forestry College. Later he worked as an assistant to the tax collector for the arrangement of local forests, where he reported on colleagues involved in registration. Twice he was expelled from the Komsomol - on charges of "White Guard-kulak origin" during his studies and for denouncing his colleagues, but already with a conviction to a year of corrective labor. He was fired from Uralmashzavod for absenteeism. Kuznetsov's biography was not full of facts that represented him as a trustworthy citizen, but his constant penchant for adventurism, his curiosity and hyperactivity became ideal qualities for working as an intelligence officer. A young Siberian with a classic “Aryan” appearance, who spoke German perfectly, was noticed by the local NKVD administration and in 1939 was sent to the capital to study.
Affairs of the Heart
According to one of the leaders of Soviet intelligence, Nikolai Ivanovich was the lover of most of the prima ballet of the Moscow ballet, moreover, "he shared some of them with German diplomats in the interests of business." Back in Kudymkar, Kuznetsov married a local nurse, Elena Chugaeva, but, leaving the Perm Territory, he broke up with his wife three months after the marriage, without filing a divorce. Love with the socialite Ksana did not work out in the 1940s due to a wary attitude towards the Germans, because Nikolai was already part of the legend and introduced himself to the lady of the heart as Rudolf Schmidt. Despite the abundance of connections, this novel remained the most important in the history of the hero - already in the partisan detachment, Kuznetsov asked Medvedev: "Here is the address, if I die, be sure to tell the truth about me to Ksana." And Medvedev, already a Hero of the Soviet Union, after the war found this very Ksana in the center of Moscow, carried out the will of Kuznetsov.
Kuznetsov and UPA
Over the past ten years, a number of articles have appeared in Ukraine that sought to discredit the famous intelligence officer. The essence of the charges brought against him is the same - he fought not with the Germans, but with the Ukrainian OUN rebels, members of the UPA and the like. Archival material refutes these claims. For example, the already mentioned submission to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with an attached petition to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, signed by the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKGB Pavel Sudoplatov. The justification for the award refers to the elimination of eight high-ranking German military officials by Kuznetsov, the organization of an illegal residency, and not a word about the fight against any Ukrainian independents. Of course, the Medvedevs, including Kuznetsov, had to fight against the detachments of Ukrainian nationalists, but only as allies of the Nazi occupation regime and its special services. The outstanding intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov died at the hands of the OUN.
Doom
German patrols were aware of the search for Gautman in the regions of Western Ukraine. In March 1944, UPA fighters broke into the house of the village of Boratin, which served as a refuge for Kuznetsov and his associates - Ivan Belov and Yan Kaminsky. Belov was hit with a bayonet at the entrance. For some time, under guard, they waited for the commander of the rebels, centurion Chernogora. He identified in the "German" the performer of high-profile terrorist attacks against the Nazi bosses. And then Kuznetsov blew up a grenade in a room filled with UPA fighters. Kaminsky made an attempt to escape, but he was overtaken by a bullet. The bodies were loaded onto a horse-drawn wagon of Golubovich's neighbor Spiridon Gromyak, taken out of the village and, having dug up the snow, laid the remains near an old stream, covered with brushwood.
Posthumous glory
A week after the tragic clash, the Germans who entered the village found the remains of a soldier in the Wehrmacht uniform and reburied them. Local residents subsequently showed the place of reburial to the employees of the Lviv KGB M. Rubtsov and Dziuba. Strutinsky achieved the reburial of the alleged remains of Kuznetsov in Lviv on the Hill of Glory on July 27, 1960. The memory of one of the heroes of the war that shook the whole world and brought liberation from the brown fascist plague that flooded Europe with a dirty stream will remain in the milestones of history. Nikolai Kuznetsov was right when one day, discussing the cases of the people's avengers at a partisan fire, he said: “If after the war we talk about what and how we did it, they will hardly believe it. Yes, I myself, perhaps, would not have believed it if I had not been a participant in these cases.
Movie hero
Many believe that the famous film "The Feat of the Scout" directed by Boris Barnet tells about the fate of Nikolai Kuznetsov. In fact, the idea for the film came up even before the hero began working under the name of Rudolf Schmidt. The script of the film was changed many times, some facts really were a narrative of the events of his service, for example, the episode with the abduction of Kuhn was written from a similar abduction of General Ilgen by Kuznetsov. And yet, most of the plots of the picture were based on the collective image of the heroes of the war, the film reflected facts from the biographies of other scouts. Subsequently, two feature films directly about Nikolai Kuznetsov were staged at the Sverdlovsk Film Studio: "Strong in Spirit" (in 1967) and "Special Forces" (in 1987), but they did not gain such popularity as "The feat of a scout" .
© RIA Novosti
With intelligence officer Kuznetsov, not everything is clear
All his activities are a complete mystery.
Nikolai Kuznetsov occupies a special place among Soviet intelligence officers. His whole life is a collection of myths, carefully cultivated and widely disseminated. From how he became a scout to the circumstances of his death. Vladimir Horak, Candidate of Historical Sciences, wrote about the latter in The Day newspaper. It is not our task to analyze the facts presented by him. This is a separate topic, although it is related to the myth-making around Kuznetsov.
Let's start with the most common legend, launched by Dmitry Medvedev, the commander of the "Winners" detachment, in the book "It was near Rovno" and for some reason taken for granted without any reason - an impeccable knowledge of the German language. The fact that a boy from a remote Ural village could have phenomenal linguistic abilities is in itself quite possible and not surprising. Lomonosov, Gauss and many other scientists, writers or artists did not come from the highest circles at all. Talent is the kiss of God, and he does not choose on a social basis. But ability is one thing, and the ability to learn a language so that real native speakers do not feel a foreigner in an interlocutor is another. And here legends and omissions, and even absurdities begin.
According to some sources, Kuznetsov could have learned the language by communicating, as a boy, with captured Austrians. According to others - as a result of acquaintance with German specialists at the Ural factories. The third option - he was taught by the maid of honor of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna Olga Veselkina, head of the foreign languages department of the Ural Industrial Institute, now the Ural State Technical University - UPI named after the first president of Russia B. N. Yeltsin (USTU-UPI).
In the book of Kuznetsov's official biographer, KGB Colonel Teodor Gladkov, "The Legend of Soviet Intelligence - N. Kuznetsov," it is said that Nina Avtokratova, who lived and studied in Switzerland, taught him German at school. With the labor teacher Franz Javurek, a former Czech prisoner of war, he improved his German. The third mentor of Kuznetsov was the pharmacist of the local pharmacy, the Austrian Krause. Undoubtedly, Nikanor Kuznetsov (later he changed his name to Nikolai) could thus master the spoken and written language. And quite successfully - taking into account the undoubted abilities. What does the fact that he was fluent in the Komi language say. And even composed poems and short works on it. This Finno-Ugric language is rather difficult for Russians. Already in Ukraine, he mastered the Polish and Ukrainian languages, which confirms his linguistic abilities. However, the first inconsistency appears here. After all, these people could not teach him the East Prussian dialect. In particular, Krause could have taught him the Austro-Bavarian dialect of German, which is very different from Berlin, which is literary and normative.
Gladkov cites in his book the memoirs of the former head of the Soviet counterintelligence Leonid Raikhman, according to which, when applying for a job in the NKVD in his presence, an illegal agent who returned from Germany, after talking on the phone with Kuznetsov, noted: “He speaks like a native Berliner.” But not as a native of Koenigsberg. But according to legend, Paul Siebert was the son of an estate manager in East Prussia, according to other sources, the son of a landowner from the vicinity of Koenigsberg and a neighbor of the Gauleiter of Ukraine, Erich Koch. And no one found errors in his language. Strange and inexplicable. After all, along with the Austrian or Swiss version, he had to learn the corresponding articulation - exactly what distinguishes, along with vocabulary, speakers of dialects from each other. Practice shows that it is extremely difficult to get rid of dialectal articulation, even for native speakers. The famous Moscow radio announcer Yuri Levitan made truly heroic efforts to get rid of the okanya characteristic of the Vladimir dialect. The Moscow Art Theater stars helped him to master the culture of speech: Nina Litovtseva, appointed head of the announcer group, her husband, People's Artist of the USSR Vasily Kachalov, other famous masters - Natalya Tolstova, Mikhail Lebedev. As far as we know, no one specifically practiced Kuznetsov's pronunciation with him. The German ear accurately determines which region a person is from. To do this, you do not need to be the professor of phonetics Higgins from the famous work of Bernard Shaw. So the Austrian beginning in the study of the German language could become a formidable obstacle to the activities of Paul Siebert.
The second option is communication with German specialists. It also doesn't fit. In the middle of 1930s. relations between Germany and the USSR were very tense, and there were no more German specialists at the Ural factories. They had been there before, but then Kuznetsov did not work in Sverdlovsk. The German workers-communists remain. There were, but, firstly, it is unlikely that they were qualified technical specialists from agricultural East Prussia, and secondly, at this age it is possible to increase vocabulary and knowledge of grammar, but it is already difficult to correct pronunciation, if at all possible.
And, finally, training with Olga Veselkina. Undoubtedly, the former maid of honor knew German as a mother tongue. Like a real German, especially since she taught it from native speakers since childhood. Judging by the books she wrote on the methods of learning foreign languages, she was also a good teacher. Only Veselkina could not teach Kuznetsov for the simple reason that he never studied at this institute. Gladkov and other researchers directly write about this.
The experience of Stalin's translator, Valentina Berezhkova, speaks about how a foreign language is studied so that they cannot recognize you as a foreigner. In the German school of Fiebich on Lutheranskaya Street in Kyiv, they were given slaps on the back of the head for deviations from the correct pronunciation. Perhaps not entirely pedagogical, but very effective. The teachers were Germans and spoke the Berlin dialect, and in classical German literature they brought up the feeling of hoch Deutsch. When he translated Molotov on a visit to Berlin in November 1940, Hitler noted his impeccable German. And even surprised that he was not German. But Berezhkov taught him from childhood, and in the family of his father, a tsarist engineer, everyone knew German. Berezhkov had undoubted linguistic abilities. In parallel, he learned English and Polish, and was fluent in Spanish. In any case, he knew English in such a way that he advised American translators at the talks between Stalin and Harry Hopkins in July 1941, but no one ever took him for an American or an Englishman. You can always distinguish: the language for a person is native or learned, albeit well. Listen to our former Russian-speaking politicians. Many of them learned the Ukrainian language very well. And compare how they say and those for whom Ukrainian is native, even with an admixture of dialectisms and reduced vocabulary. The difference is audible.
Now about one, also somehow not mentioned fact. It is not enough to speak without an accent, you need to have the habits of a German. And not even a German, but from East Prussia. Moreover, perhaps, the son of the local landowner. And this is a special caste, with its own customs, habits and customs. And her difference from other Germans was cultivated and emphasized in every possible way. Such things cannot be learned even if you have the best teachers and the most diligent and attentive student. This is brought up from childhood, absorbed with mother's milk, from father, uncle and other relatives and friends. Finally, in children's games.
A foreigner is always easy to distinguish. Not only in accent, but also in habits and behavior. It is no coincidence that many famous Soviet intelligence officers in their host countries were legalized as foreigners. Sandor Rado in Switzerland was a Hungarian, Leopold Trepper in Belgium was a Canadian manufacturer Adam Mikler, and then in France a Belgian Jean Gilbert, other members of the Red Chapel. Anatoly Gurevich and Mikhail Makarov had Uruguayan documents. In any case, they presented themselves as foreigners in the country of their business trip and therefore did not arouse suspicion of imperfect command of the language and the realities of life around them. Therefore, the legend about Stirlitz is unreliable, not only in the fact that Soviet intelligence could not have such an agent in principle, but in the fact that no matter how much he lived in Germany, he did not become a German. Moreover, according to the stories of Yulian Semenov, in exile with his parents he lived in Switzerland, and there is a different German language. By the way, Comrade Lenin, who knew literary German quite well when he arrived in Zurich and Bern, understood little at first. The German-speaking Swiss, like the Austrians, have a different pronunciation and vocabulary from Germanic German.
In Moscow before the war, Kuznetsov acted for some time as the German Schmidt. But the fact is that he pretended to be a Russian German. Here it is necessary to clarify that the descendants of the German settlers in the Volga region, in Ukraine and in Moldavia retained to a large extent the language that their ancestors spoke. It could well become a special dialect of the German language, which has largely retained its archaic structure. Literature had already been created on it, with the Union of Ukrainian Writers in Kharkov in the 1920s and 1930s, when it was the capital of the Ukrainian SSR, there was a German section. In Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye and other regions there were German national regions, schools taught in German, and teachers were trained. Then it was all liquidated, the teachers were exiled, the writers were mostly shot, and the rest were rotten in the camps on charges of Ukrainian (?!) nationalism. Probably because many of them wrote in both German and Ukrainian. In the Volga region, the autonomous republic of the Germans held out a little longer, but its fate was just as tragic. The Soviet Germans could do little to help prepare Kuznetsov. Their language has not been spoken in Germany for a long time.
By the way, Kuznetsov was not the only such terrorist agent. In 1943, Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Khokhlov, acting under the guise of a German officer, brought a mine to the house of the head of the occupation administration of the General Commissariat of Belarus in Minsk, Wilhelm Kube, which was laid under his bed. Kube was killed, and the underground fighter Elena Mazanik received the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union for preparing an explosive device. For a long time we did not remember Nikolai Khokhlov, because after the war he refused to kill one of the leaders of the People's Labor Union and went over to the Americans. But Khokhlov posed as a German officer only occasionally. They want to assure us that Kuznetsov in Rovno, and then in Lvov, was only engaged in the breaks between terrorist attacks, which was to find out from chatty Germans their military and state secrets. And no one ever suspected him of anything, no one paid attention to his mistakes, which are quite natural for a foreigner. In addition to Gauleiter Koch, he did not meet a single resident of Koenigsberg and its environs, who simply could know the landowner Siebert and go to school with his son.
By the way, in order to get the rank of chief lieutenant, one had to either study at a military school, in our case, an infantry one, or graduate from a higher educational institution and undergo appropriate training. And Kuznetsov did not have the necessary bearing. And not Soviet, but German, and here there is a big difference, and it will immediately catch the eye of any prepared person. During the war, American counterintelligence exposed a deeply undercover Abwehr agent. He was no different from other American officers, only when he fired a pistol, he stood in the stance of a German officer, which caught the eye of his vigilant colleagues.
If Kuznetsov studied at a German university, he must have known special student slang. Moreover, different universities have their own. There are many small details, ignorance of which immediately catches the eye and arouses suspicion. One well-trained agent failed on ignorance of the habits of the professor, from whom, according to legend, he studied. He knew that the professor smoked, but did not know that it was cigarettes he smoked. In Germany, this was rare, and the professor was a great original. It is unlikely that Kuznetsov would not have met "his fellow students and classmates" in the process of wide acquaintances. There are quite a lot of students in German universities, and it was quite easy to meet the one with whom I “studied” in Rivne. Still, the capital of the occupied Ukraine. Either all Germans were blind and deaf, or here we are faced with another legend, designed not to explain, but to hide.
And once again about the little things in which the devil is hidden. England, late autumn 1940. A well-trained group of three Abwehr agents was successfully thrown onto the island. Everything seemed to be taken into account. And yet ... After a rather cold night, agents with impeccable documents, who were pretty cold, at 8 o'clock in the morning knocked on the door of a hotel in a small town, in the vicinity of which they landed. They were politely asked to come back in an hour as the rooms are being cleaned. When they reappeared, counterintelligence officers were already waiting for them... It turned out that during the war, visitors were accommodated in English hotels only after 12 noon. Ignorance of such a small, but well-known detail, alerted the receptionist, and she called the police. But not just specialists worked in the Abwehr, but aces, many of them have repeatedly visited and lived in England, but, for obvious reasons, they no longer knew the seemingly insignificant realities of military life. No wonder everyone noted that the counterintelligence regime in England was one of the most severe.
In fact, there are still many unsolved mysteries - and not only in the work of Kuznetsov and his employees. On October 27, 1944, in the village of Kamenka, near the Ostrog-Shumsk highway, the bodies of two women with bullet wounds were found. Documents were found with them in the name of Lisovskaya Lidia Ivanovna, born in 1910, and Mikota Maria Makarievna, born in 1924. The investigation established that at about 7 pm on October 26, 1944, a military vehicle stopped on the highway, in the back of which were two women and three or four men in the uniform of officers of the Soviet army. Mikota was the first to get out of the car, and when Lisovskaya wanted to give her a suitcase from the back, three shots rang out. Maria Mikota was killed immediately. Lydia Lisovskaya, wounded by the first shot, was finished off and thrown out of the car further down the highway. The car quickly left in the direction of Kremenets. It was not possible to detain her. Among the documents of those killed was a certificate issued by the NKGB department for the Lvov region: “The real comrade was issued. Lisovskaya Lidia Ivanovna that she is being sent to the disposal of the UNKGB in the Rivne region in the city of Rivne. Request to all military and civil authorities to provide all possible assistance in advancing comrade Lisovskaya to her destination. The investigation was carried out under the direct control of the head of the 4th department of the NKGB of the USSR Sudoplatov, but yielded nothing.
Lisovskaya worked in a casino in Rovno and introduced Kuznetsov to German officers, supplying information. Her cousin Mikota, on the instructions of the partisans, became a Gestapo agent under the pseudonym "17". She introduced Kuznetsov to SS officer von Ortel, who was part of the team of the famous German saboteur Otto Skorzeny. The story of Ortel is a separate legend, which we mentioned in the material about the Tehran Conference (The Day, November 29, 2008, No. 218). Let us pay attention to the fact that at that time UPA detachments were actively operating in the region, and sending valuable employees at night by car, risking their interception by militants, was careless, to say the least. Unless their demise was planned from the start. Sudoplatov and his employees did this with their own, but became unnecessary or even dangerous, repeatedly. And what resistance did the KGB authorities and party committees encounter, who worked with Kuznetsov, Nikolai Strutinsky, when he tried to establish the circumstances and place of his death! Although it seemed that he should have been given all kinds of assistance. This means that the competent authorities did not want this.
Inconsistencies, outright lies about the activities of the “Winners” detachment, and Kuznetsov in particular, suggest that in Rivne, under the name of Paul Siebert, there was not Kuznetsov, but a completely different person. And very likely a real German from East Prussia. And the militant who fired at the Nazi functionaries could indeed be the one we know as Kuznetsova. He could briefly act in a German uniform, but not communicate with the Germans for a long time because of a possible quick exposure.
Indirect confirmation of this version is the data reported in the film “Lubyanka. A Genius of Intelligence,” shown on Moscow's First Channel at the end of November 2006. It explicitly states that Kuznetsov's work in Moscow under the name of Schmidt is a legend. There was a real German named Schmidt, who worked for the Soviet counterintelligence. It may well be that it was this Schmidt who acted in the occupied Rovno. And it is quite possible that he also tried to get through the front line, but unsuccessfully. In general, it is not very clear why Kuznetsov compiled a written report on the work done not in a calm atmosphere after the transition to his own, but in advance, in the face of the danger of falling into the hands of the enemy. For such an experienced intelligence officer, this is an unforgivable oversight. It seems that this is unlikely.
Recently, the FSB of Russia declassified part of the documents on the activities of Kuznetsov. But very peculiar. They were handed over to the author of many books about the intelligence officer, Teodor Gladkov, a former KGB officer. He is also the author of numerous legends about Kuznetsov. So there is still a long way to go for clarity in this matter.
Andrey Lubensky, RIA Novosti Ukraine
The Life and Death of Intelligence Officer Kuznetsov: Elimination SpecialistA columnist for the Rossiya Segodnya news agency traveled across Western Ukraine, trying to understand whether the legendary intelligence officer of the Great Patriotic War, Nikolai Kuznetsov, who died in these parts, is remembered here. The first part of the essay.Wednesday, July 27, marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov. We have already written about him, his exploits and what is happening in Ukraine with his memory and his monuments. Kuznetsov's name is included in the list for "decommunization": in accordance with the laws of Ukraine adopted on April 9, 2015, both monuments and the memory of the Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Kuznetsov must be deleted from the history of Ukraine.
But the circumstances of his life and death are full of mysteries. As well as the post-war history of the search for the truth about him.
Not shot, but blown up
Visiting the places where Nikolai Kuznetsov fought, died and was buried, we were surprised at how bizarre the fate of the scout was during his lifetime and what happened to the history of his exploits after death.
One of the mysteries is the place and circumstances of Kuznetsov's death. Immediately after the war, there was a version according to which a group of scouts, along with Kuznetsov, were captured alive and then shot by militants of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in a forest near the village of Belgorodka, Rivne region. Only 14 years after the war, it became known that the group died in the village of Boratin, Lviv region.
The version about the execution of Kuznetsov by UPA militants was spread after the war by the commander of the Pobediteli partisan detachment, Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitry Medvedev, who was based on a telegram discovered after the war in German archives, sent by the head of the security police for the Galician district Vitiska personally to SS Gruppenführer Muller. But the telegram was based on false information given to the Germans by the UPA militants.
The UPA detachments operating in the frontline worked closely with the German occupation forces, but in order to ensure greater loyalty of the "Bandera" the occupation administration held hostage the relatives of the field commanders and leaders of the UPA. In March 1944, close relatives of one of the leaders of the UPA, Lebed, were such hostages.
After the death of Kuznetsov and a group of scouts, the UPA fighters started a game with the German administration, offering them to exchange the allegedly living intelligence officer Kuznetsov-Siebert for Lebed's relatives. While the Germans were thinking, the UPA fighters allegedly shot him, and instead of him they offered genuine documents and, most importantly, Kuznetsov's report on the sabotage he carried out in the German rear in Western Ukraine. That's what they talked about.
The UPA militants, apparently, were afraid to indicate the true place of death of the scout and his group, since during the German check it would immediately become clear that this was not the capture of the scout, who was searched throughout Western Ukraine, but Kuznetsov's self-explosion.
It is not so much the place that is important here, but the circumstances of the death of the scout. He was not shot, because he did not surrender to the UPA militants, but blew himself up with a grenade.
And after the war, the circumstances of Kuznetsov's death were investigated by his friend and colleague Colonel of the NKVD-KGB Nikolai Strutinsky.
Five minutes of anger and a lifetime
With Nikolai Strutinsky (April 1, 1920 - July 11, 2003), one of us happened to meet and take several interviews with him during his lifetime in 2001 in Cherkasy, where he then lived.
Strutinsky after the war for a long time figured out the circumstances of the death of Kuznetsov, and later, already at the time of Ukrainian independence, he did everything to preserve the monuments to Kuznetsov and his memory.
We think that Strutinsky's attachment to this, the last segment of Kuznetsov's life, is not accidental. Nikolai Strutinsky was at one time a member of Kuznetsov's group and participated with him in some operations. Shortly before the death of the scout and his group, Kuznetsov and Strutinsky quarreled.
Here is what Strutinsky himself said about this.
“Once, at the beginning of 1944, we were driving along Rovno,” says Nikolai Vladimirovich. “I was driving, Nikolai Kuznetsov was sitting next to me, Yan Kaminsky, a scout, was sitting behind. Not far from Vacek Burim’s safe house, Kuznetsov asked me to stop. ". He left, after a while he returned, extremely upset by something. Jan asked: "Where were you, Nikolai Vasilyevich?" ... "And Jan says:" I know: at Vacek Burim's. Then Kuznetsov to me: "Why did you tell him?" The turnout is secret information. But I didn’t say anything to Jan. And Kuznetsov flared up, said a lot of insulting things to me. Our nerves were on edge then, I could not stand it, got out of the car, slammed the door - the glass broke, fragments of it fell down like that. I turned around and went. I walk down the street, I have two pistols - in a holster and in my pocket. I think for myself : stupid, I had to restrain myself, because I know that everyone is on my nerves. Sometimes at the very sight of a German Some officers had a desire to shoot everyone, and then shoot themselves. That was the state. I'm going. I hear - someone is catching up. I don't turn around. And Kuznetsov caught up, touched his shoulder: "Kolya, Kolechka, sorry, nerves."
I silently turned - and to the car. Sit down, let's go. But then I told him: we don’t work together anymore. And when Nikolai Kuznetsov left for Lvov, I didn't go with him."
This quarrel may have saved Strutinsky from death (after all, the entire Kuznetsov group died a few weeks later. But it seems to have left a deep mark on the soul of Nikolai Strutinsky.
Protocol truth about the death of intelligence officer Kuznetsov
Immediately after the war, Strutinsky worked in the Lviv regional department of the KGB. And this allowed him to restore the picture of the death of intelligence officer Kuznetsov.
Kuznetsov went to the front line with Jan Kaminsky and Ivan Belov. However, according to witness Stepan Golubovich, only two people came to Boratin.
"... at the end of February or at the beginning of March 1944, in addition to me and my wife, my mother Golubovich Mokrina Adamovna (died in 1950), son Dmitry, 14 years old, and daughter 5 years old (later died) were in the house. In the house the light wasn't on.
On the night of the same date, at about 12 o'clock in the morning, when my wife and I were still awake, a dog barked. The wife got up from her bunk and went out into the yard. Returning to the house, she reported that people were coming from the forest to the house.
After that, she began to watch through the window, and then informed me that the Germans were coming to the door. The strangers approached the house and started knocking. First at the door, then at the window. The wife asked what to do. I agreed to open the door for them.
When strangers in German uniforms entered the house, the wife switched on the light. My mother got up and sat down in a corner near the stove, and the strangers came up to me and asked if there were any Bolsheviks or members of the UPA in the village? One of them asked in German. I replied that there were none. Then they asked to close the windows.
After that they asked for food. The wife gave them bread and bacon and, it seems, milk. I then drew attention to how two Germans could go through the forest at night if they were afraid to go through it during the day ...
One of them was above average height, at the age of 30-35 years old, his face was white, his hair was blond, one might say, somewhat reddish, he shaved his beard, had a narrow mustache.
His appearance was typical of a German. I don't remember any other signs. He talked to me for the most part.
The second was shorter than him, somewhat thin, with a blackish face, black hair, and shaving his mustache and beard.
... Sitting at the table and taking off their caps, the unknown began to eat, keeping the machine guns with them. About half an hour later (and the dog was barking all the time), as unknown people came to me, an armed member of the UPA entered the room with a rifle and a distinguishing sign on his hat "Trident", whose nickname, as I learned later, was Makhno.
Makhno, without greeting me, immediately went up to the table and offered his hand to the strangers without saying a word to them. They were also silent. Then he came up to me, sat down on the bunk and asked me what kind of people. I answered that I did not know, and after about five minutes other UPA members began to enter the apartment, which included about eight people, and maybe more.
One of the UPA participants gave the command to leave the house to civilians, that is, to us, the owners, but the second one shouted: no need, and no one was let out of the hut. Then again one of the UPA participants in German gave the command to the unknown "Hands up!".
A tall unknown man got up from the table and, holding a machine gun in his left hand, waved his right hand in front of his face and, as I remember, told them not to shoot.
The weapons of the UPA participants were directed at the unknown, one of whom continued to sit at the table. "Hands up!" the command was given three times, but the unknown hands never raised.
The tall German continued the conversation: as I understand it, he asked if it was the Ukrainian police. Some of them replied that they were the UPA, and the Germans replied that it was against the law...
... I saw that the UPA participants lowered their weapons, one of them approached the Germans and offered to hand over their machine guns, and then the tall German handed him over, and after him gave the second one. Tobacco began to be crushed on the table, UPA members and unknown people began to smoke. Thirty minutes have already passed since the unknown met with the UPA participants. Moreover, the tall unknown was the first to ask for a cigarette.
... A tall unknown, rolling a cigarette, began to light a cigarette from the lamp and put it out, but in the corner near the stove a second lamp burned faintly. I asked my wife to bring the lamp to the table.
At this time, I noticed that the tall unknown became noticeably nervous, which was noticed by the UPA participants, who began to ask him what was the matter ... The unknown, as I understood, was looking for a lighter.
But then I saw that all the UPA participants rushed from the unknown towards the exit doors, but since they opened into the room, they did not open it in a hurry, and right there I heard a strong explosion of a grenade and even saw a sheaf of flame from it. The second unknown before the grenade explosion lay down on the floor under the bunk.
After the explosion, I took my young daughter and stood near the stove, my wife jumped out of the hut along with the UPA members, who broke the door, removing it from its hinges.
An unknown person of short stature asked something of the second, who was lying wounded on the floor. He answered him that "I don't know", after which the unknown short stature, having knocked out the window frame, jumped out of the window of the house with a briefcase.
A grenade explosion wounded my wife lightly in the leg and mother lightly in the head.
With regard to the unknown short stature who ran through the window, I heard for about five minutes strong rifle fire in the direction in which he fled. What his fate is, I do not know.
After that, I ran away with the child to my neighbor, and in the morning, when I returned home, I saw the unknown person dead in the yard near the fence, lying face down in his underwear.
As was established during the interrogation of other witnesses, during the explosion of his own grenade, Kuznetsov's right hand was torn off and "heavy wounds were inflicted on the frontal part of the head, chest and abdomen, which is why he soon died."
So, the place, time (March 9, 1944) and the circumstances of the death of Nikolai Kuznetsov were established.
Later, having organized the exhumation of the intelligence officer's body, Strutinsky proved that it was Kuznetsov who died in Boratin that night.
But it turned out to be difficult to prove this for other reasons. Strutinsky, who took risks while searching for the place of death of the scout, had to take risks again, proving that the remains he found not far from this place really belong to Kuznetsov.
However, this is another, no less exciting story.
