History is rolled by the victors, and therefore the Soviet chroniclers are not met with mentioning German spies who worked hard in the rear in the Red Army. And there were such scouts, and even in the General Staff of the Red Army, as well as the famous Max network. After the end of the war, the Americans threw them to themselves, to share the experiment with the CIA.

Indeed, it is hard to believe that the USSR managed to create an agent network in Germany and the areas occupied by it (the most famous is the Red Chapel), and the Germans - pipes. And if German agents during the Second World War are not rolled around in Soviet-Russian stories, then the point is not only that the winner was not met with confessing his own miscalculations. In the case of German spies in the USSR, the situation is complicated by the fact that the onion of the “Foreign armies - East” department (in the German abbreviation FHO, in fact, he was in charge of reconnaissance) Reinhard Galen prudently worried about preserving the most majestic documentation in order to fall into captivity to the Americans in the very coffin of the war and offer them a "goods face".

(Reinhard Gehlen - initial, in focus - with cadets of the intelligence school)
His department dealt almost remarkably with the USSR, and in the circumstances of the beginning of the Cold War, Gehlen's papers saw tremendous value for the United States.

Later, the general led the reconnaissance of the FRG, and his archive remained in the United States (the share of the picture was thrown to Gehlen). Having already retired, the general published his memoirs “Service. 1942-1971", which saw the light in Germany and the USA in 1971-72. Read all of a sudden with Gehlen’s book in America, his biography was published, as well as the book of the British reconnaissance officer Edward Spiro “Ghelen - the spy of the century” (Spiro skated under the pseudonym Edward Cookridge, he was a Greek by nationality, a representative of the British reconnaissance in the Czech resistance during the war). Another book was written by the American journalist Charles Whiting, who was thought to be working for the CIA, and was called "Gehlen - German Spy Master". All these books are based on the archives of Gehlen, used with the permission of the CIA and the German reconnaissance of the BND. Some information about German spies in the Soviet rear in them to eat.

(Individual Gehlen card)
"Field work" in the German reconnaissance of Gehlen was carried out by General Ernst Kestring, a Russian German born near Tula. In fact, he served as the prototype of the German major in Bulgakov's book Days of the Turbins, who saved Hetman Skoropadsky from reprisals by the Red Army (in fact, the Petliurists). Koestring perfectly informed the Russian language and Russia, and in fact he individually took away agents and saboteurs from Soviet prisoners of war. In fact, he found one of the most valuable, as if later turned out to be, German spies.

On October 13, 1941, 38-year-old Captain Minishkiy was taken prisoner. It turned out that before the war he worked hard in the secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and earlier in the Moscow City Party Committee. From the moment of the ABC of the war, he occupied the post of political instructor at the Western Front. He was taken along with the driver when he traveled around the avant-garde units during the battle of Vyazemsky.

Minishkiy in one gulp agreed to cooperate with the Germans, motivating them with some old grievances against the Soviet order. Seeing what a valuable shot they got into, they promised, as if the time would come, to take him and his name to the West with the provision of German citizenship. However, before that, it happened.

Minishki spent 8 months studying in a special camp. And then there was the famous operation "Flamingo", which Gehlen whiled away in collaboration with agent Bown, who already owned a network of agents in Moscow, among which the radio operator with the pseudonym Alexander was the most valuable. People of Bauna transferred Minishkiy across the front line, and he reported to the very first Soviet headquarters the story of his captivity and defiant offspring, every detail of which was invented by Gelen's experts. He was taken to Moscow, where he was greeted like a hero. Read in one gulp, mindful of his old responsible work, he was appointed to work in the military-political secretariat of the State Defense Committee.

(Real German agents; other German spies could look like this)
Through a chain of several German agents in Moscow, Minishkiy undertook to supply information. The first sensational notice came to his senses from him on July 14, 1942. Gehlen and Guerre sat all night, drawing up a report on the basis of it to the patron of the General Staff, Halder. The report was made: “The military conference ended in Moscow on the evening of July 13th. Shaposhnikov, Voroshilov, Molotov and the heads of the British, American and Chinese military missions were present. Shaposhnikov announced that their retreat would be to the Volga in order to snatch the Germans to spend the winter in the area. During the retreat, comprehensive destruction should be carried out in the territory being abandoned; the entire industry should be evacuated to the Urals and Siberia.

The British representative asked for Soviet assistance in Egypt, but was told that the Soviet manpower resources were not as great as the Allies believed. In addition, they lack aircraft, tanks and guns, in part because a proportion of the Russian-assigned weapons that the British were supposed to drop through the port of Basra in the Persian Gulf were diverted to the defense of Egypt. It was decided to conduct offensive operations in two sectors of the front: north of Orel and north of Voronezh, using huge tank forces and air cover. A diversionary assault should be laid at Kalinin. It is necessary that Stalingrad, Novorossiysk and the Caucasus be kept.”

This is how it all happened. Halder later noted in his diary: “The FHO provided accurate information about the enemy forces newly deployed starting on June 28, and about the supposed power of these formations. He also gave a true assessment of the enemy's energetic actions in the defense of Stalingrad.

The above authors have drawn a line of inaccuracies, which is understandable: they received information through several right hands and 30 years after the events described. For example, the English historian David Kahn handed over a more correct version of the report: on July 14, not the heads of the American, British and Chinese missions, but the military attaches of these areas were present at that meeting.

(Confidential Intelligence School OKW Amt Ausland/Abwehr)
The pipes of a monolithic view are also about the true name of Minishkia. According to another version, his surname was Mishinsky. However, it is probably not true either. For the Germans, it ran under the code numbers 438.

About the further fate of agent 438, Coolridge and other authors report eagerly. The participants in Operation Flamingo carefully worked hard in Moscow until October 1942. In the same month, Gehlen recalled Minishkiy, having managed with the support of Bown to meet with one of the vanguard intelligence detachments of the "Valli", which transferred him through the front line.

In the future, Minishkia worked hard for Gehlen in the information analysis department, worked with German agents, who were later transferred through the front line.

Minishkia and the Flamingo operation are also called by other highly respected authors, such as the British military historian John Eriksson in his book The Road to Stalingrad, by the French historian Gabor Rittersporn. According to Rittersporn, Minishkiy really received German citizenship, after the end of the Second World War he taught at the American intelligence school in Half Day Germany, then moved to the United States, having received American citizenship. The German "Stirlitz" was bent in the 1980s in his home in Virginia.

Minishkia was not the only super spy. The same British military historians mention that the Germans owned an abyss of intercepted dispatches from Kuibyshev, where the Soviet authorities were based at that time. A German spy group worked hard in this city. There were several "moles" in Rokossovsky's entourage, and several military historians mentioned that the Germans themselves considered him as one of the main negotiators in a possible separate peace in the coffin of 1942, and later in 1944 - if the assassination attempt on Hitler would be successful. For reasons now unknown, Rokossovsky was considered as the likely ruler of the USSR after the overthrow of Stalin as a result of a coup of the generals.

(This is how the unit of German saboteurs from Brandenburg looked like. One of the most famous
his operations - the capture of the oil fields of Maykop in the summer of 1942 and the city itself)
The British were well informed about these German spies (it is understandable that they still know). This is also recognized by Soviet military historians. So much so, former colonel of military reconnaissance Yuri Modin, in his book The Fates of Scouts: My Cambridge Friends, claims that the British were afraid to supply the USSR with information obtained through the decoding of German reports, in fact because of the fear that agents would eat in the Soviet headquarters.

However, another German superintelligence officer is personally mentioned - Fritz Kauders, who created the famous Max intelligence network in the USSR. His biography is given by the aforementioned Briton David Kahn.

Fritz Kauders was born in Vienna in 1903. His mother was Jewish and his father was German. In 1927 he moved to Zurich, where he began to work hard as a sports journalist. Then he lived in Paris and Berlin, after Hitler came to power, he left as a reporter in Budapest. There he found a profitable business for himself - an intermediary in the sale of Hungarian entry visas to Jews fleeing Germany. He made acquaintances with high-ranking Hungarian officials, and at the same time met the head of the Abwehr station in Hungary, and began to work hard on German reconnaissance. He makes acquaintance with the Russian émigré general A.V. Turkul, who owned his own spy network in the USSR - later it served as the basis for the formation of a more extensive German spy network. Agents are thrown into the Alliance for a year and a half, starting with the dawn of 1939. The accession of Romanian Bessarabia to the USSR was greatly supported here, when dozens of German spies, forgotten in advance, were suddenly “attached” there.

(General Turkul - in focus, with a mustache - with fellow White Guards in Sofia)
With the outbreak of war with the USSR, Kauders moved to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, where he headed the Abwehr radio post, which received radiograms from agents in the USSR. But who these agents were has not been clarified so far. Eat only scraps of information that there were at least 20-30 of them in different parts of the USSR. The Soviet super-saboteur Sudoplatov also mentions the Max agent network in his memoirs.

As if it had already been said more sublimely, not only the names of German spies, but even the minimum information about their deeds in the USSR is still closed. Did the Americans and the British transfer information about them to the USSR after the victory over fascism? It is unlikely - they themselves needed the surviving agents. A lot of what was then declassified were secondary agents from the Russian émigré organization NTS.

Is it possible? Well, why not, on the other hand? The image of Stirlitz, although literary, has prototypes in reality. Who among those interested in that era has not heard of the “red chapel” - the Soviet intelligence network in the highest structures of the Third Reich? And if so, then why not be similar to the Nazi agents in the USSR?
The fact that during the war there were no high-profile revelations of enemy spies does not mean that they did not exist. They really couldn't be found. Well, even if someone had been discovered, they would hardly have made a big deal out of this. Before the war, when there was no real danger, espionage cases were fabricated from scratch to settle scores with objectionable people. But when a disaster struck that was not expected, then any exposure of enemy agents, especially high-ranking ones, could lead to panic in the population and the army. How is it so, in the General Staff or somewhere else at the top - treason? Therefore, after the execution of the command of the Western Front and the 4th Army in the first month of the war, Stalin no longer resorted to such repressions, and this case was not particularly advertised.
But this is a theory. Is there any reason to believe that Nazi intelligence agents really had access to Soviet strategic secrets during the Great Patriotic War?

Agent network "Max"

Yes, there are such reasons. At the very end of the war, the head of the Abwehr department "Foreign armies - East", General Reinhard Gehlen, surrendered to the Americans. Subsequently, he headed the intelligence of Germany. In the 1970s, some documents from his archive were made public in the West.
The English historian David Ken spoke about Fritz Kauders, who coordinated the Max network of agents in the USSR, created by the Abwehr at the end of 1939. The famous general of state security Pavel Sudoplatov also mentions this network. Who was a part of it is unknown to this day. After the war, when the chief of Kauders changed owners, the Max agents began to work for US intelligence.
It is better known about the former employee of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Minishkiy (sometimes called Mishinsky). It is mentioned in several books of Western historians.

Someone Minishky

In October 1941, Minishkiy served as a political worker in the troops of the Soviet Western Front. There he was captured by the Germans (or defected) and immediately agreed to work for them, indicating that he had access to valuable information. In June 1942, the Germans smuggled him across the front lines, staging his escape from captivity. At the very first Soviet headquarters, he was greeted almost like a hero, after which Minishkiy established contact with the Abwehr agents previously sent here and began to transmit important information to Germany.
The most important is his report on the military conference in Moscow on July 13, 1942, which discussed the strategy of the Soviet troops in the summer campaign. The meeting was attended by the military attaches of the United States, Britain and China. It was stated there that the Red Army was going to retreat to the Volga and the Caucasus, to defend Stalingrad, Novorossiysk and the passes of the Greater Caucasus at any cost, and to organize offensive operations in the regions of Kalinin, Orel and Voronezh. Based on this report, Gehlen prepared a report to the Chief of the German General Staff, General Halder, who then noted the accuracy of the information received.
There are several absurdities in this story. All those who escaped from German captivity were under suspicion and subjected to a lengthy check by the SMERSH authorities. Especially the political workers. If the political worker was not shot by the Germans in captivity, this automatically made him a spy in the eyes of the inspectors. Further, Marshal Shaposhnikov, mentioned in the report, who allegedly attended that meeting, at that time was no longer the chief of the Soviet General Staff.
Further information about Minishki says that in October 1942 the Germans organized his return crossing through the front line. Until the end of the war, he was engaged in the analysis of information in the department of General Gehlen. After the war, he taught at a German intelligence school, and in the 1960s he moved to the United States and received American citizenship.

Unknown agent in the General Staff

At least twice the Abwehr received reports from an unknown agent in the General Staff of the USSR about Soviet military plans. On November 4, 1942, the agent reported that by November 15, the Soviet command planned to launch a series of offensive operations. Further, the areas of offensives were named, which almost exactly coincided with those where the Red Army launched offensives in the winter of 1942/43. The agent made a mistake only in the exact place of strikes near Stalingrad. According to historian Boris Sokolov, this can be explained not by Soviet disinformation, but by the fact that at that moment the final plan for the operation near Stalingrad had not yet been determined. The original date of the offensive was really planned for November 12 or 13, but then was postponed until November 19-20.
In the spring of 1944, the Abwehr received a new report from this agent. According to him, the Soviet General Staff considered two options for action in the summer of 1944. According to one of them, the Soviet troops plan to deliver the main blows in the Baltic states and Volhynia. In another way, the main target is the German troops of the Center group in Belarus. Again, it is likely that both of these options have been discussed. But in the end, Stalin chose the second one - to strike the main blow in Belarus. Hitler decided that it was more likely that his opponent would choose the first option. Be that as it may, the agent's report that the Red Army would launch an offensive only after the successful landing of the allies in Normandy turned out to be accurate.

Who is under suspicion?

According to the same Sokolov, a secret agent should be sought among those Soviet military men who fled to the West in the late 1940s while working in the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SVAG). In the early 1950s in Germany, under the pseudonym "Dmitry Kalinov", a book by an allegedly Soviet colonel entitled "Soviet marshals have the floor" was published, based, as stated in the preface, on documents from the Soviet General Staff. However, it has now been clarified that the true authors of the book were Grigory Besedovsky, a Soviet diplomat, an émigré defector who fled the USSR back in 1929, and Kirill Pomerantsev, a poet and journalist, the son of a white émigré.
In October 1947, Lieutenant Colonel Grigory Tokaev (Tokaty), an Ossetian who was collecting information about the Nazi missile program in the SVAG, learned about his recall to Moscow and the impending arrest by the SMERSH authorities. Tokayev moved to West Berlin and asked for political asylum. Later he worked in various high-tech projects in the West, in particular - in the NASA Apollo program.
During the war years, Tokayev taught at the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy and worked on Soviet secret projects. Nothing says anything about his knowledge of the military plans of the General Staff. It is possible that the real agent of the Abwehr continued after 1945 to work in the Soviet General Staff for new, overseas masters.

History is written by the victors, and therefore it is not customary for Soviet chroniclers to mention German spies who worked behind the lines in the Red Army. And there were such scouts, and even in the General Staff of the Red Army, as well as the famous Max network. After the end of the war, the Americans transferred them to their place, to share their experience with the CIA.

Indeed, it is hard to believe that the USSR managed to create an agent network in Germany and the countries occupied by it (the most famous is the Red Chapel), but the Germans did not. And if German intelligence officers during the Second World War are not written in Soviet-Russian histories, then the point is not only that it is not customary for the winner to confess his own miscalculations.

In the case of German spies in the USSR, the situation is complicated by the fact that the head of the Foreign Armies - East department (in the German abbreviation FHO, it was he who was in charge of intelligence) Reinhard Galen prudently took care of preserving the most important documentation in order to surrender to the Americans at the very end of the war and offer them a "goods face".

His department dealt almost exclusively with the USSR, and in the conditions of the beginning of the Cold War, Gehlen's papers were of great value to the United States.

Later, the general headed the intelligence of the FRG, and his archive remained in the United States (some copies were left to Gehlen). Having already retired, the general published his memoirs “Service. 1942-1971", which were published in Germany and the USA in 1971-72. Almost simultaneously with Gehlen's book, his biography was published in America, as well as the book of British intelligence officer Edward Spiro "Ghelen - Spy of the Century" (Spiro wrote under the pseudonym Edward Cookridge, he was a Greek by nationality, a representative of British intelligence in the Czech resistance during the war).

Another book was written by the American journalist Charles Whiting, who was suspected of working for the CIA, and was called Gehlen - German Master Spy. All of these books are based on the Gehlen archives, used with the permission of the CIA and the German intelligence BND. They contain some information about German spies in the Soviet rear.

(Gelena's personal card)

General Ernst Kestring, a Russian German born near Tula, was engaged in "field work" in Gehlen's German intelligence. It was he who served as the prototype of the German major in Bulgakov's book Days of the Turbins, who saved Hetman Skoropadsky from reprisals by the Red Army (in fact, the Petliurites). Koestring was fluent in the Russian language and Russia, and it was he who personally selected agents and saboteurs from Soviet prisoners of war. It was he who found one of the most valuable, as it turned out later, German spies.

On October 13, 1941, 38-year-old Captain Minishkiy was taken prisoner. It turned out that before the war he worked in the secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and earlier in the Moscow City Party Committee. From the moment the war began, he served as a political instructor at the Western Front. He was captured along with the driver when he was driving around the advanced units during the battle of Vyazemsky.

Minishky immediately agreed to cooperate with the Germans, citing some old grievances against the Soviet regime. Seeing what a valuable shot they got, they promised, when the time came, to take him and his family to the west with the provision of German citizenship. But first, business.

Minishki spent 8 months studying in a special camp. And then the famous operation "Flamingo" began, which Gehlen carried out in cooperation with the intelligence officer Bown, who already had a network of agents in Moscow, among which the radio operator with the pseudonym Alexander was the most valuable.

Baun's men ferried Minishkiy across the front line, and he reported to the very first Soviet headquarters the story of his capture and daring escape, every detail of which was invented by Gelen's experts. He was taken to Moscow, where he was hailed as a hero. Almost immediately, mindful of his previous responsible work, he was appointed to work in the military-political secretariat of the GKO.

(Real German agents;
something like this could look like other German spies)

Not the only super spies

Through a chain through several German agents in Moscow, Minishki began to supply information. The first sensational message came from him on July 14, 1942. Gehlen and Gerre sat all night, drawing up a report based on it to the Chief of the General Staff, Halder. The report was made: “The military conference ended in Moscow on the evening of July 13th.

Shaposhnikov, Voroshilov, Molotov and the heads of the British, American and Chinese military missions were present. Shaposhnikov declared that their retreat would be as far as the Volga, in order to force the Germans to spend the winter in the area. During the retreat, comprehensive destruction should be carried out in the territory being abandoned; all industry must be evacuated to the Urals and Siberia.

The British representative asked for Soviet assistance in Egypt, but was told that the Soviet manpower resources were not as great as the Allies believed. In addition, they lack aircraft, tanks and guns, in part because part of the supply of weapons destined for Russia, which the British were supposed to deliver through the port of Basra in the Persian Gulf, was diverted to protect Egypt.

It was decided to conduct offensive operations in two sectors of the front: north of Orel and north of Voronezh, using large tank forces and air cover. A distraction attack must be carried out at Kalinin. It is necessary that Stalingrad, Novorossiysk and the Caucasus be kept.”

It all happened. Halder later noted in his diary: “The FCO has provided accurate information on the enemy forces newly deployed since June 28, and on the estimated strength of these formations. He also gave a correct assessment of the energetic actions of the enemy in the defense of Stalingrad.

The above authors made a number of inaccuracies, which is understandable: they received information through several hands and 30 years after the events described. For example, the English historian David Kahn gave a more correct version of the report: on July 14, the meeting was attended not by the heads of the American, British and Chinese missions, but by the military attaches of these countries.

(Secret intelligence school OKW Amt Ausland/Abwehr)

There is no consensus about the real name of Minishkia. According to another version, his surname was Mishinsky. But perhaps it is not true either. For the Germans, it passed under the code numbers 438.

Coolridge and other authors report sparingly on the further fate of Agent 438. The participants in Operation Flamingo definitely worked in Moscow until October 1942. In the same month, Gehlen recalled Minishkiy, arranging, with the help of Bown, a meeting with one of the leading reconnaissance detachments of the Wally, which ferried him across the front line.

In the future, Minishkia worked for Gehlen in the information analysis department, worked with German agents, who were then transferred across the front line.

Minishkia and Operation Flamingo are also named by other respected authors, such as the British military historian John Eriksson in his book The Road to Stalingrad, by the French historian Gabor Rittersporn. According to Rittersporn, Minishkiy really received German citizenship, after the end of the Second World War he taught at an American intelligence school in southern Germany, then moved to the United States, having received American citizenship. The German Stirlitz died in the 1980s at his home in Virginia.

Minishkia was not the only super spy. The same British military historians mention that the Germans had many intercepted telegrams from Kuibyshev, where the Soviet authorities were based at that time. A German spy group worked in this city.

There were several "moles" surrounded by Rokossovsky, and several military historians mentioned that the Germans considered him as one of the main negotiators for a possible separate peace at the end of 1942, and then in 1944 - if the assassination attempt on Hitler would be successful. For reasons unknown today, Rokossovsky was seen as a possible ruler of the USSR after the overthrow of Stalin in a coup of the generals.

(This is how the unit of German saboteurs from Brandenburg looked like. One of its most famous operations was the capture of Maykop oil fields in the summer of 1942 and the city itself)

The British knew about German spies in the Red Army

The British knew well about these German spies (it is clear that they know now). This is also recognized by Soviet military historians. For example, former military intelligence colonel Yuri Modin, in his book The Fates of Scouts: My Cambridge Friends, claims that the British were afraid to supply the USSR with information obtained by decoding German reports, precisely because of the fear that there were agents in the Soviet headquarters.

But they personally mention another German superintelligence officer - Fritz Kauders, who created the famous Max intelligence network in the USSR. His biography is given by the aforementioned Englishman David Kahn.

Fritz Kauders was born in Vienna in 1903. His mother was Jewish and his father was German. In 1927 he moved to Zurich, where he began working as a sports journalist. Then he lived in Paris and Berlin, after Hitler came to power he left as a reporter in Budapest. There he found himself a profitable occupation - an intermediary in the sale of Hungarian entry visas to Jews fleeing Germany. He made acquaintances with high-ranking Hungarian officials, and at the same time met the head of the Abwehr station in Hungary, and began working for German intelligence.

He makes acquaintance with the Russian emigre general A.V. Turkul, who had his own intelligence network in the USSR - later it served as the basis for the formation of a more extensive German spy network. Agents are thrown into the Union for a year and a half, starting in the autumn of 1939. The annexation of Romanian Bessarabia to the USSR helped a lot here, when at the same time they “attached” dozens of German spies, abandoned there in advance.

(General Turkul - in the center, with a mustache - with fellow White Guards in Sofia)

With the outbreak of war with the USSR, Kauders moved to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, where he headed the Abwehr radio post, which received radiograms from agents in the USSR. But who these agents were has not been clarified so far. There are only fragments of information that there were at least 20-30 of them in various parts of the USSR. The Soviet super-saboteur Sudoplatov also mentions the Max intelligence network in his memoirs.

As mentioned above, not only the names of German spies, but also the minimum information about their actions in the USSR is still closed. Did the Americans and the British pass information about them to the USSR after the victory over fascism? Hardly - they needed the surviving agents themselves. The maximum that was then declassified was secondary agents from the Russian émigré organization NTS.

(quoted from the book by B. Sokolov "Hunting for Stalin, hunting for Hitler", publishing house "Veche", 2003, pp. 121-147)

Why did Stalin and Hitler fail to conclude a separate peace?

In 1941-43, Germany and the USSR repeatedly tried to negotiate peace, but they were frustrated due to Hitler's stubbornness. Germany and the Anglo-American allies came much closer to a truce in World War II, but they also failed due to Hitler's fault.

In July 1941, through the departing Ambassador Schulenburg, Stalin addressed Hitler with a letter about the possibility of concluding peace. After that, one of the leaders of Soviet intelligence, General Sudoplatov, with the knowledge of Molotov, tried to negotiate through the Bulgarian ambassador in Moscow I. Stamenov, who was told that, according to the Soviet side, it was not too late to resolve the conflict peacefully.

But Stamenov, for some reason, did not inform the Germans about the proposals made to him. Through Beria and his agents, Stalin sought contacts with the Germans and sounded out the conditions for concluding peace in October 1941. G. Zhukov testified to this in an interview with the staff of the Military Historical Journal, Stalin's translator Berezhkov talks about this in his memoirs, and at the trial of Beria in 1953, these negotiations were brought against him as one of the charges.

According to Berezhkov, Germany was offered a "Brest-type" peace - the transfer of Western Ukraine, Western Belarus, Bessarabia, the Baltic states, the free transit of German troops through Soviet territory to the Middle East, to the Persian Gulf. But Hitler was in euphoria from his victories, and such conditions did not satisfy him.

Another attempt of this kind was made in September 1942 after Churchill's visit to Moscow and his refusal to open the Second Front in the near future. The former ambassador to Germany, V.G. Dekanozov, and his assistant, I.S. Chernyshev, met in Sweden with the adviser to the German Foreign Ministry, Schnurre, and again compromise options were offered with many concessions, and again the Germans were not interested in this.

In August 1942, Schellenberg and Himmler came up with plans for a separate peace in the West. They came to the conclusion that it is more profitable to conclude it while Germany is winning - soberly assessing the potentials of the Germans and the anti-Hitler coalition, both understood that the situation could soon change for the worse.

According to them, the first step for this was to discredit in the eyes of Hitler and remove the fanatic Ribbentrop, who was opposed to any kind of negotiations. Schellenberg, through his channels, established preliminary contacts with the Anglo-Americans and brought his proposals to them, assuring them of his unlimited possibilities and promising the imminent resignation of the Minister of Foreign Affairs - which supposedly was supposed to demonstrate to the West the change in the foreign policy of the Reich.

But all attempts to lay a mine under Ribbentrop failed. And Schellenberg's reputation with Western negotiating partners was undermined. They lost faith in his real capabilities and considered that they were either fooled by empty projects, or the proposals of the German special services were a provocation to spoil their relations with the USSR.

In December 1942, after the Allies landed in Africa, Mussolini put forward a proposal to make peace with the Russians and continue the war with the Anglo-Americans. And some contacts did take place. In 1942–43, negotiations with Soviet agents in Stockholm were conducted by Foreign Ministry official Peter Kleist, who acted on behalf of Ribbentrop.

But no data about them has been preserved, and, judging by subsequent events, no agreements could be reached. In 1942-43, Canaris also resumed negotiations with the Anglo-Americans, acting through their representatives in Switzerland and his colleague, the chief of Italian intelligence, General Ame, who, together with the chief of the General Staff, Marshal Badoglio, was already looking for a way out of the war for Italy.

But one of the couriers, the businessman Schmidthuber, was caught smuggling currency abroad. The case was taken up by the Gestapo, and he spoke about attempts to establish contacts with the West. Persons directly involved in the negotiations were arrested.

The introduction of a provocateur

Then they introduced a provocateur into the so-called "Frau Solf's tea salon", which gathered people from high society who maintained ties with representatives of the Western powers. And in December 1943 they took everyone en masse, which was one of the reasons for the fall of Canaris and the defeat of the Abwehr.

In 1943-44, Schellenberg, on behalf of Ribbentrop, again tried to contact the Russians through Sweden and Switzerland with proposals for a compromise peace. But according to his testimony, Ribbentrop himself thwarted the meeting with Soviet representatives with excessive ambitions and a lack of understanding of the changed situation - he began to make preliminary demands, to insist that there were no Jews among the participants in the negotiations, and everything went downhill. By the way, in circles close to Hitler, a very respectful attitude towards Stalin continued to be maintained during the war. Goebbels wrote in September 1943:

“I asked the Fuhrer if anything could be done with Stalin in the near future or in the long run. He replied that it was not possible at the moment. The Führer thinks it is easier to deal with the British than with the Soviets. At some point, the Fuhrer believes, the British will come to their senses. I am inclined to consider Stalin more accessible, since Stalin is a more practical politician than Churchill.

By the end of the war, the "peacekeeping initiatives" of the Nazis, of course, intensified. Schellenberg still focused on the Western powers, in the summer of 1944 he met in Sweden with Roosevelt's representative Hewitt, who promised to organize real business negotiations. At the beginning of 1945, Schellenberg's collaborator Hoettl, the head of the SD in Vienna, established contacts in Switzerland with the head of American intelligence, General Donovan, and Himmler's representatives Langben and Kersten were sent there for negotiations.

The questions of a separate peace were discussed if the Anglo-Americans weakened the pressure on the Rhine army group and made it possible to transfer troops to the Eastern Front. But according to radio intercepts, Muller found out about the dialogue that had begun. Relying on Kaltenbrunner, he immediately began an investigation, and Himmler, as soon as he learned from their reports that the game was lit up, got scared and cut it off.

Wolf's talks with Dulles

As for Wolf's negotiations with Dulles, the most famous in our country thanks to "Seventeen Moments of Spring", Y. Semenov added a large share of fiction to this story.

Firstly, Himmler and Schellenberg had nothing to do with these negotiations. The initiative came from Wolf himself, the chief commissioner of the SS and police in Northern Italy, and the industrialists Marinetti and Olivetti, who did not want Italy to become a battlefield with all the ensuing consequences.

Secondly, they were of a private nature, only for a given theater of operations - and conditions were proposed for discussion that seemed to be beneficial to both sides: the Germans surrender Italy without resistance, but without capitulation, and the Americans and the British allow them to freely leave for the Alps .

And Germany thus gets the opportunity to use these troops in the East. And thirdly, Wolf did not dare to take such a step until he agreed it with Hitler. On March 6, 1945, he made a report to the Führer in the presence of Kaltenbrunner, convincing him of the benefits of contacts. Hitler was skeptical about the idea, but allowed to act.

And only after that, in Zurich, meetings between Wolf and Dulles began. The Americans were throwing baits about the surrender of Army Group C, led by Kesselring, and Wolf, secretly from Hitler, played his game - he began to ventilate the possibility of a separate peace or an alliance with the Americans if he managed to get rid of the Fuhrer (he also sent Himmler overboard, as a figure too odious).

And the partners were so carried away in their fantasies that they even began to draw up lists of the future German government - Kesselring was expected to be the head, Neurath's foreign minister, and Wolff staked out the post of interior minister for himself. But his trips to Switzerland were spotted by the Gestapo, the information reached Himmler, and he gave Wolf a scolding for getting into such a case without his sanction, and forbade further actions.

The Soviet Union was not informed about these negotiations by “Standartenführer Stirlitz” at all - they were laid by the British themselves with the Americans. They didn’t want to spoil relations with Moscow at the end of the war, and after Wolf’s first meeting with Dulles, they became worried – what if Stalin finds out something and gets angry? And they decided to notify the USSR. Already on March 11, the US ambassador in Moscow officially notified Molotov of contacts with Wolf.

And the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs said that he would not object to the negotiations, provided that a Soviet representative participated in them. Then the allies realized that the Soviet emissary would surely scare off Wolf and thereby thwart the opportunity to occupy Italy without loss.

They began to get out, on March 16 they answered that there were no negotiations yet, but "preparation of the ground" for negotiations, and Russia's participation was premature. But it was not there, Molotov immediately took a pose - they say "the reluctance to admit the Soviet representative is unexpected and incomprehensible", and if so, the USSR cannot give consent to negotiations. On March 23 and April 4, two letters from Stalin to Roosevelt followed, and on April 13, General Donovan summoned Dulles to Paris and announced that the USSR knew about their negotiations, so behind-the-scenes games should be stopped.

In the meantime, clouds were gathering over Wolf. The Gestapo dug hard under him and proved to Kaltenbrunner that he was a traitor. He was again called to Berlin, and Muller was really going to arrest him right at the airport, but Himmler did not allow this - however, he did not send Schellenberg to meet him, but his personal doctor and assistant Gebhard. Before the Reichsführer SS, Wolf managed to justify himself, referring to Hitler's permission.

And on April 18, the Fuhrer resolved all disputes, giving permission to continue negotiations. With the condition that their main goal is to quarrel the West and the USSR. But he had already lost his sense of reality, on April 16 the Russians broke through the front on the Oder, and the situation was rapidly getting out of control of the Nazi leadership.

And the next stage of negotiations with Wolf already took place in the presence of the Soviet representative, General A.P. Kislenko, from the intrigues of the special services, they went to the level of the military command, and the bargaining for them was only about the conditions for the surrender of the Italian group.

Himmler was persuaded to take charge and start negotiations with the West through the Swedish Count Bernadotte only on April 19, when Germany was rapidly descending into chaos and it was too late to take any action.

It is curious that until the last moment Hitler retained the hope of reaching an agreement with the USSR. So, in the entry for March 4, 1945. Goebbels notes:

"The Führer is right when he says that it is easiest for Stalin to make a sharp turn, since he does not have to take public opinion into account."

He also notes that in recent days, Hitler "felt even greater closeness to Stalin", called him "a man of genius" and pointed out that Stalin's "greatness and steadfastness know in their essence neither the vacillation nor the pliability characteristic of Western politicians" .

And here is the entry dated March 5, 1945: “The Fuhrer is thinking of finding an opportunity to negotiate with the Soviet Union, and then with the most severe energy to continue the war with England. For England has always been a troublemaker in Europe. Soviet atrocities are, of course, horrendous and have a profound effect on the concept of the Fuhrer. But after all, the Mongols, like the Soviets today, were outrageous in their time in Europe, without having an impact on the political resolution of the then contradictions. Invasions from the East come and go, and Europe must deal with them.”

(Quotes - from the works of the historian Shambarov)

Trotsky could become the ruler of the USSR with the victory of Hitler

(Esteban Volkov in the house-museum of his grandfather)

Leon Trotsky was considered by the Germans in the late 1930s as the most realistic contender for the ruler of the defeated USSR. Trotsky's grandson Esteban Volkov spoke about this in the late 1980s.

In 1989, the correspondent of the Russian Yearbook, V. Leskov, met with the grandson of Leon Trotsky in Mexico. Leskov published a report on this meeting in the above-mentioned publication in 1990 (No. 2). We republish this report (with some abbreviations) from the paper edition of PE (it is not available on the Internet).

Esteban Volkov (Vsevolod Bronstein) was born in 1926. He was the son of Trotsky's daughter who died early (who committed suicide in a state of depression). The boy was then adopted by Trotsky's son, Lev Sedov. Esteban moved to live with his grandfather in Mexico in 1939.

Volkov completely forgot the Russian language, and the correspondent Leskov communicated with him in Spanish. Esteban trained as a pharmaceutical chemist, but devoted his life to looking after his grandfather's house-museum. Fortunately, he had something to live on - the Mexican government still subsidizes the activities of the house-museum.

(One of Leon Trotsky's guards is American James Cooper, photo - spring 1940)

Volkov recalls his grandfather's conversations with loved ones. Here is what he remembered from the main:

- It is necessary to create an independent, free Ukraine. In the event of a war, the USSR will face national uprisings.
- All real revolutionaries, opponents of Stalin will oppose him in the upcoming war (with Germany - BT). The enemy will be 70 km from the Kremlin, and that's when Stalin will surrender.
- With Hitler and Japanese it is possible to agree. For support to the Germans, Ukraine can be given under the protectorate, Japan - the Far East.
- The anti-fascist struggle is a Stalinist deceit and fiction, a coalition of countries against Hitler is alien to the interests of the Russian revolution; let Hitler crush the Western powers - he will unleash a revolution in Europe.
- The way to Paris and London lies through Afghanistan, Punjab and Bengal. Also, the normal life of the USSR is unthinkable through a revolution in Germany or even the unification of two states into one.

Leon Trotsky was considered by the Germans as a possible ruler of the USSR in the event of the fall of the Stalinist regime. Esteban Volkov claims that the United States also saw him in this role. True, allegedly, the Americans considered Trotsky as the ruler of the USSR, in the event of the liberation of our country - but from Hitler. Shortly before his death, Leon Trotsky and his lawyers petitioned the US authorities for resettlement in this country.

(On the left is Trotsky's wife Natalya, in the center is the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo)

But it is even more surprising that Trotsky was considered as the new ruler of the defeated USSR not only by Germany and the USA, but also by England, France and even Finland. Here are some secret intelligence reports from the above countries:

“In December 1939, the State Council of Finland discussed the formation of an alternative Russian government headed by Trotsky or A.F. Kerensky.

In connection with the information given in previous messages about the concentration of Anglo-French troops in Syria, the following reports and rumors, which were transmitted here by agents from France and Geneva, will probably also be of interest. According to them, England intends to deliver a surprise blow not only to the Russian oil regions, but will also try to simultaneously deprive Germany of Romanian oil sources in the Balkans.

The agent in France reports that the British are planning, through Trotsky's group in France, to establish contact with Trotsky's people in Russia itself and try to organize a putsch against Stalin. These coup attempts must be seen as closely related to the British intention to seize Russian oil sources.

Crauel"

“British plans regarding the disruption of the oil supply to Germany and Russia from Geneva are secretly reported:

The British side wants to make an attempt to cut off the Russians from oil sources and at the same time intends to influence Romania in one form or another and, by causing a conflict in the Balkans, to deprive Germany of oil supplies. Having cut off the USSR and Germany from oil, the British hope to quickly and radically solve the problem; it is assumed that in a sharply deteriorating conditions these countries will go over to an open struggle against each other ...

Further, the British side will attempt to mobilize the Trotsky group, that is, the Fourth International, and in some way transfer it to Russia. Agents in Paris report that Trotsky, with the help of the British, will have to return to Russia to organize a putsch against Stalin. It is difficult to judge from here (from Geneva) to what extent these plans can be implemented.

(In Mexico, Leon Davydovich Trotsky started a farm with rabbits and chickens, he worked on the farm himself (at least 2-3 hours every day). Work on the land seems to be contrary to Trotsky's theory that the peasantry is a reactionary, petty-bourgeois class. But Trotsky believed that only townspeople should work on the land - people who had cleansed themselves of peasant conservatism)

By killing Trotsky, Stalin may have prevented the collapse of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War. If Trotsky had remained alive then, by the winter of 1941/42 he could have headed the collaborationist Russian government. And there was a great chance that this faithful Leninist would be followed not only by the surrendered Red Army soldiers and residents of the occupied territories, but also by Soviet citizens who had rebelled in the rear.

And so Hitler had to use the services of a minor character - General Vlasov. We know very well the results of Vlasov's propaganda on the Soviet rear.

Corruption and "socially close" security forces in Stalin's MGB

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the Ministry of State Security was hit by mass corruption. The security guards stole wagons, opened underground workshops, closed cases for bribes. The head of the MGB, Abakumov, was eventually arrested. This example clearly shows how important it is to have competition among law enforcement agencies.

(In the picture: Abakumov, Merkulov and Beria)

In Russian public opinion (and earlier in the Soviet one) there is a strong opinion that "there was order under Stalin." However, the archives show that even the "Order of the Sword" and the "cadre elite" - the state security - was struck by corruption, arbitrariness, drunkenness and debauchery.

The Ministry of State Security (MGB) in 1946 was headed by Viktor Abakumov, who during the war headed SMERSH and worked as Deputy Minister of Defense (de jure - Stalin's deputy). KGB cadres Viktor Stepakov (the book "The Apostle of SMERSH"), Anatoly Tereshchenko, Oleg Smyslov (the book "Victor Abakumov: Executioner or Victim") in their biographies of the head of the MGB Abakumov recall how he and his apparatus went to domestic and official decay.

Victor Abakumov came from a working-class family, with virtually no education (4th grade at school). He was a product of the decomposition of the NEP system and the transition to a totalitarian state, combining a passion for a beautiful life and at the same time a rigid system. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Stalin, seeing how dangerous it was to delegate power powers only to state security (the NKVD of the times of Yagoda and Yezhov, which became in fact a state within a state), began to create a system of checks and balances. The NKVD was divided into two parts - in fact, the Commissariat of Internal Affairs itself and state security; a little later, SMERSH also appeared - formally the army counterintelligence, but in fact the Chekist control over the army. At the same time, the Party Control Committee was also strengthened.

The MGB, headed by Abakumov, mainly accepted army personnel, as well as "jackets" - civilians who graduated from humanitarian universities. A significant percentage of the new ministry was occupied by partisans and security officers engaged in sabotage during the war. Stalin, who gave the go-ahead for such a staffing of the MGB, was sure that the ministry, unlike the NKVD of the 1930s, with such personnel would be guaranteed from “rebirth”. However, reality taught the darkest lessons.

The new Stalinist system of checks and balances in the second half of the 1940s led to the fact that the security forces with tripled energy were looking for dirt on each other. The MGB of Abakumov was the first to fall, plunging into the mud of “rebirth”, for which, as a result, the minister himself was arrested in 1951, and in 1954 he was shot.

But at the same time, the new Stalinist system at that time clearly began to demonstrate both class degeneration and the introduction of class justice (as under the tsar). The vast majority of cases against Chekist criminals ended with symbolic punishments, and even if prison terms were applied to them, they could not be compared with how much people from other classes received for similar crimes.

The dry summaries from the archives cited by the aforementioned authors speak best.

Immediately after the Second World War, many cases of trophy atrocities arose against high officials of the MGB, but most of them were put on the brakes. So, the head of the counterintelligence department of the USSR Navy in 1943-1946, Lieutenant-General P.A. He also transferred three cars to the personal property of his deputies - Generals Karandashev, Lebedev and Duhovich, organized the purchase of property in commission stores and from private individuals for employees of the counterintelligence department of the Navy for 2 million 35 thousand rubles (with an average salary of 600 rubles in the country then ). In 1947, Gladkov got off with an administrative penalty.

In March 1947, the head of the UMGB in the Arkhangelsk region, A.I. Brezgin, was removed from his post by the decision of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and was soon expelled from the party because, until the summer of 1945, he was the head of the Smersh counterintelligence department of the 48th Army in East Prussia, first organized the delivery of trophies (mostly furniture) to his Moscow apartment by three trucks with two trailers.

Then Brezgin assembled a train of 28 wagons with furniture, pianos, cars, bicycles, radios, carpets, etc., which arrived from Germany in Kazan, where the Chekist received the post of head of the counterintelligence department of the Volga Military District. All this property was appropriated by Brezgin and his deputies - Pavlenko, Paliev and others. The Chekists openly sold the surplus. Paliev, years later, also had to answer for excesses: in May 1949, he lost his post.

"Trophy cases" were investigated for a long time, and the perpetrators were often repressed in connection with the struggle of the clans of the Minister of State Security Abakumov and Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs I.A. Serov. The arrest in December 1952 of Lieutenant General N.S. Vlasik, in 1946-1952. who worked as the head of the Main Directorate of Security of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, led to the subsequent conviction of the head of the Stalinist security (in January 1955) for official misconduct for 10 years of exile, after which an amnesty followed. In total, Vlasik was charged with stealing trophy property worth 2.2 million rubles. In 2000, he was fully rehabilitated (posthumously).

In the central apparatus of the MGB, not only the ministers and their deputies could count on receiving large illegal profits. It was not difficult for foreign intelligence officers to hide the expenditure of operational funds for their own needs.

The certificate of the Personnel Department of the MGB of the USSR dated January 30, 1947 indicated that the former deputy head of the 4th department of the MGB, Major General N.I. for the intended purpose of products and funds earmarked for operational purposes", about which the leadership of the MGB "with respect to Eitingon limited himself to analysis and suggestion." The accusatory certificate stated that Eitingon received only “gifts” for 705 thousand rubles.

The employees of the MGB abroad were also engaged in grabbing. The representative of the MGB task force on the Liaodong Peninsula, V.G. Sluchevsky, was expelled from the party in February 1949 for taking bribes from arrested Koreans from South Korea; The Chekist escaped with dismissal from the MGB. The adviser of the MGB in Czechoslovakia, Colonel V.A. Boyarsky, who had previously distinguished himself in robberies of the inhabitants of Manchuria, in February 1952 received a party reprimand for "excesses in the expenditure of funds for personal maintenance of himself and his apparatus" (about 500 thousand rubles). For Boyarsky, this episode did not have consequences - in 1951 he was transferred to the apparatus of the MGB-Ministry of Internal Affairs of Lithuania.

(Photo by Abakumov from the investigation file)

Some heads of local security agencies have been caught committing large speculative enterprises. K.O. Mikautadze, People's Commissar for State Security of the Adjara ASSR, was sentenced to 8 years in prison for malfeasance (released less than two years later due to amnesty and illness).

In 1944-1945, with the sanction of Mikautadze, his deputies Skhirtladze and Berulava, together with other NKGB officers, through the speculator Akopyan, carried out a number of frauds and speculative transactions.

Having provided Akopyan with a false certificate of a state security officer, the security officers sent him to sell fruit, and he, under the guise of gifts for front-line soldiers and workers of the Leningrad car repair plant, took 10 tons of tangerines and other fruits to other regions (at the same time, Akopyan took five more speculators with him, from which he received for this trip 100 thousand rubles). Having sold fruits, Hakobyan bought cars, motorcycles, clothes and other goods, which were then dismantled by employees of the republican NKGB. Mikautadze's wife received 50 thousand rubles from the resale of various goods.

In 1946, the newly appointed head of the MGB department, V.I. Moskalenko, took hams, sausages and other products from the warehouse, illegally organized a sewing workshop in the inner prison of the MGB, sewed four suits for free in this workshop and allowed other employees of the UMGB to sew suits for free. Moskalenko pleaded guilty only to the fact that he used a prisoner tailor to sew costumes. In the allied MGB, they limited themselves to explaining Moskalenko, appointing him Minister of State Security of the Estonian SSR as a "punishment".

It turned out that during 1943-1947, family members of a number of senior officials of the UMGB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, including the families of Borshchev and the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Major General I.G. etc.), foodstuffs”.

A frequent occurrence was the appropriation of secret amounts intended to pay for the services of agents. In June 1951, the head of the KRO UMGB in the Chita region, Z.S. Protasenko, was expelled from the party by the regional committee for the illegal expenditure of state funds: the KRO employees drank and squandered 9,000 rubles intended to pay for agents. The head of the Transport Department of the Ashgabat MGB A.G. Kochetkov was expelled from the party in July 1946 for misappropriation of state funds: he made 10 false receipts on behalf of informants and received 2,900 rubles on them. The punishment was light - three years probation.

A clear example of the low morality of the communists of the MGB was the frequent facts of theft of party contributions by party organizers of Chekist institutions. Party organizer of the UMGB in the Kemerovo region I.P. Emelyanov, a former experienced SMERSH counterintelligence officer, embezzled and squandered 63 thousand rubles in 1947-1949 by forging documents. party contributions. The party organizer (in 1949-1951) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the same region, B.I. Kholodenin, was expelled from the CPSU (b) for embezzling and drinking 3.662 rubles of party fees, removed from his post and then sentenced to 8 years in labor camp (left a year and a half later under an amnesty of 1953 of the year).

The party organizer of the Biysk city department of the UMGB for the Altai Territory, A.K. Savelkaev, was expelled from the party in May 1948 for embezzling 2.069 rubles. party fees "for drinking" and fired from the "organs".

The party organizer and head of the investigative department of the ROC of the MGB of the East Siberian Military District, V.I.

It came to very sophisticated methods of theft. Thus, in 1944-1951, the party functionary A.I. In June 1952, Pulyakh was expelled from the party because he illegally received 42,000 rubles in royalties from the editor of the regional newspaper Kuzbass, both for unpublished articles and for materials from other authors and TASS. The criminal case against Pulyakh was terminated due to the 1953 amnesty.

Several bribe takers and scammers

Several bribe-takers and swindlers from Abakumov's inner circle received significant terms. For example, Colonel A. M. Palkin, head of department "D" of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, received 15 years in the camps in October 1952 for theft (although he was released ahead of schedule in 1956). Colonel P.S. Ilyashenko, who worked as deputy head of one of the departments of the USSR Ministry of State Security, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in February 1953 for “theft of socialist property” (he was released in 1955).

Other corrupt officials got off much easier. The head of the counterintelligence department of the Central Group of Forces, Lieutenant-General M.I. Belkin, in the second half of the 40s, created a “black cash desk” and was engaged in speculation. In October 1951, he was arrested in connection with the defeat of Abakumov's entourage and was released in 1953. However, Belkin was then fired from the "bodies" "on the facts of discrediting."

Simultaneously with Belkin, Lieutenant-General P.V. Zelenin was arrested for embezzlement in Germany, in 1945-1947. worked as the head of the UKR "Smersh" - UKR MGB in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany. In 1953, he was amnestied, but then stripped of his general rank. And the former Commissioner of the MGB in Germany, Lieutenant-General N.K. Kovalchuk, who was promoted to the Minister of State Security of Ukraine, escaped repression, although in 1952 he was accused of “bringing two carloads of trophy items and valuables from the front”; however, in 1954 he was deprived of his title and awards.

(In the picture: Colonel-General S.A. Goglidze, Head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, officer and foreman of the security units of the Ministry of State Security of the USSR in transport. An officer in the form of the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) is visible behind. 1947-52)

The head of the personnel department of special workshops No. 4 of the USSR Ministry of State Security, Kuznetsov, was engaged in the theft of materials from the workshop and took bribes. So, in 1948, he received two bribes from the workers of the special workshops Vykhodtsev and Shevchuk in the amount of 850 rubles for issuing documents on their dismissal from the workshops. In the same year, for a bribe of 12 thousand rubles, Kuznetsov left the convicted Grinberg to serve his sentence in the Moscow region instead of deporting him to Vorkuta.

In 1947, he received 4,800 rubles from a certain Bogomolova for the transfer of her convicted husband from prison to a camp, and then early release. Also, Kuznetsov, for 20 thousand rubles, contributed to the release from the camp to freedom "as disabled" of two convicts under Article 58 - some Gorenshtein and Rivkin.

The arrest of the minister of the MGB Abakumov in July 1951 led to a massive purge in the leadership of the "organs". The data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Party Control Committee showed that up to 40% of the MGB staff fell under various kinds of punishment. It was the largest purge of the security agencies of the USSR during their entire existence (except for the “political” purges in the late 1930s and after the arrest of Beria; but in the case of Abakumov, these were punishments of the Chekists under non-political articles).

What lesson can be drawn from this story, besides the fact that it was at this time - in the late 1940s - early 1950s - that the establishment of class justice in the country (which is still in force now) was finally formalized? The system of checks and balances in law enforcement agencies contributes well to controlling them and preventing the final degeneration of the “organs”. "The war of all against all" - in the zero years, almost the same system was created by Putin.

Then each other was restrained by the prosecutor's office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Federal Drug Control Service and the FSB, the army and later - the Investigative Committee. We witnessed large-scale purges in the "organs" that did not allow any department to take over. Today, there is only one link in the system that balances each other: the superdepartment of the Investigative Committee and the FSB. Outwardly, such a system looks monolithic, “stable”, but, as we know from the history of Russia, “stability” (stagnation) is the first step towards “perestroika”.

Russia again has a rural-KPSS State Duma

The new State Duma still continues to be part of the Soviet system. As before, it is dominated by people from villages and towns, released workers of the Komsomol and the CPSU. Only one thing distinguishes it from previous compositions - sports wrestlers and people who were associated with Germany in the past were introduced to this State Duma.

Despite the quantitative changes in the new State Duma (a decrease in the representation of United Russia and, accordingly, an increase in the presence of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the SR and the Liberal Democratic Party), it remained the same - a village-KPSS. Just as nothing has changed in the country in recent decades, so within the walls of Okhotny Ryad everything remains the same.

The Interpreter's Blog has already analyzed the biographical characteristics of the deputies of the former State Duma, V convocation. Then we divided the entire composition of the parliament into several groups. By the same principle, we analyzed the new composition of the State Duma.

1-2) In the former State Duma, there were 124 and 33 people from villages and towns, respectively. The new one has 109 and the same 33 people. Rural - a decrease of 15 people. But still, their share - 24.2% of the total composition - is still even slightly higher than the total number of rural residents in the country (23%). And again there are deputies whose place of birth is difficult to classify, but we put them in the group born in the village. For example, Nikolai Makarov: he was born at stud farm No. 137 in the Saratov region. Well, then a standard Soviet-sovereign-democratic career: he worked in the prosecutor's office, as an instructor in the department of administrative bodies of the Saratov regional committee of the CPSU, and as a prosecutor in his native region.

As a rule, the deputies who come from the villages have a very rich professional experience, they have mastered several professions. Here is Ramazan Abdulatipov: he graduated from the medical and obstetric school, was in charge of the rural medical center, worked as a fireman, taught philosophy. And Alevtina Oparina was a laborer at the state farm, a cashier, an accountant, a pig farmer, a poultry keeper, a pioneer leader, and a teacher of the Russian language. From 1968 - secretary of the district committee of the Komsomol, from 1973 - head of the organizational department of the district committee of the CPSU, from 1976 - instructor of the Volgograd regional committee of the CPSU (well, further up the party line). Dmitry Vyatkin - worked as a turner, asphalt concrete worker, court clerk, teacher.

3) But the released workers of the Komsomol and the CPSU in the new State Duma even turned out to be more than in the previous one. It seems that the USSR is farther and farther away from us, and there are more and more people in power from that System. Previously, there were 62 partocrats on Okhotny Ryad, this time there are 65. Or 14.4% of the entire composition of the State Duma. The share of any secretaries of the CPSU or Komsomol on salary in Soviet times was no more than 1% of the total number of Russians. It turns out that there are now 14 times more Communist-Komsomol functionaries in parliament than there should have been "according to the proportional quota."

At the same time, many partocrats ended up in several of our groups at once. For example, the grandson of the Stalinist People's Commissar Molotov, Vyacheslav Nikonov, ended up in the group of partocrats and in the group of KGB siloviki. Here is a summary of his life path: after studying, he worked at the faculty as secretary of the Komsomol committee and the party committee, from 1989 he headed the sector of the ideological department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, in 1991-1992 he was assistant to the head of the apparatus of the president of the USSR and the chairman of the KGB.

4) Siloviki - people from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the KGB-FSB - there were 23 people on our list. There were 28 of them in the last State Duma. But here we must understand that these data are taken from the official biographies of the deputies, and the current members of the Okhrana (who are in the so-called "personnel reserve") are not very fond of making public information about themselves.

5) Indigenous Muscovites and Petersburgers in the new Duma - 43 and 16, respectively. In the past it was - 35 and 15, respectively. There are 8 more Muscovites, and this is progress: now their share of 9.5% even slightly exceeds the ratio of Muscovites and other Russians (8.1%).

6) The share of Chechens in the Duma is approximately 2 times higher than their ratio to the entire population of Russia - 8 people, or 1.8% of the parliament (whereas 1.4 million Chechens make up 1% of all Russians). There are also very respected people among them: for example, one of the streets in the Chechen village of Roshni-Chu is named after the now living deputy Vakha Agaev.

But the share of Dagestanis - 12 people, or 2.7% of the members of the Duma - approximately corresponds to their representation in Russia (2.3% of the Russian population).

7) A new social group, singled out by us - professional wrestlers who have become deputies. There are 8 of them in the new Duma. The trend is clear: since Vladimir Vladimirovich is a wrestler (judoka), we must show respect for him. Moreover, some fighters are directly connected with Putin. For example, Vasily Shestakov. He graduated from the VTUZ at the Leningrad Mechanical Plant (1976). He was a member of the Leningrad judo team, which included Vladimir Putin. And later he published, in collaboration with him, the textbook "Judo: history, theory, practice." Now knowledge of judo techniques helps him write laws.

8) Another new social group, and also associated with Putin's life path, are people, like the president, who have one or another relation to Germany. There are 7 such people in the Duma (this is with open biographies). Here are typical biographies of the Gerusses. Alexander Tarnaev: in 1982-1987 he served in the military counterintelligence department in Germany, today Gennady Zyuganov's chief bodyguard (head of his security service). Victor Shudegov - trained at the Technical University of Dresden (1986). Maria Maksakova-Igenbergs - born in 1977 in Munich, since 2011 - soloist of the Mariinsky Theater, member of the Public Council under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation.

What can be the conclusion from these statistics? He is the only one: since the State Dumas repeatedly reproduce the Soviet Union within themselves, then it is necessary to return to the main principles of the legislative system that existed in the post-Stalin USSR. Among them, the chief deputy is not a legislator released from his main work. He works at his workplace, and 2 times a year he comes to parliament sessions. The current activity is carried out by a small Presidium (15-30 people). The only material privilege of such a deputy is free travel (as well as a hotel during the session; well, travel allowance).

By the way, the deputies of the Stalin era had the same privileges as now. They, like the current State Duma members, received higher salaries. So, a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in 1938 received 600 rubles. monthly, and during the session 100 rubles. per day. Note that the average monthly salary of workers and employees then amounted to 330 rubles.

And one more provision needs to be returned: the right of citizens to write orders to their deputy on the ballots, and to the deputy to read these orders and carry them out (such ballots should be considered valid). How it then looked in practice, the deputy, writer and poet Tvardovsky wrote at one time:

“The elections were held on March 1, 1960. They voted for the candidate Tvardovsky with faith and hope that he would help, correct and improve, as evidenced by the inscriptions of voters on the ballot papers: “I vote for the best poet of our Motherland”; "Write more good poetry"; "Good man, let him go"; “Take care to keep the chickens in the village, not to take away the last piece of bread from the children. For example, I am not able to buy on the market, but here it is forbidden. I ask you to keep chickens in the village.

The late Walter Rathenau, who knew "Them" best, said: "They have such power that they can make half the world produce shit and the other half eat it." - What exactly is happening!

This planet is ruled by such creatures (meaning the Jews) who do not consider themselves one biological species with the rest of the people (non-Jews).

By supporting the development of the project called "Providenie" site "providenie.narod.ru" Yandex-wallet, you support yourself in the same way that you do not spend money on bad habits by buying Western poison, vicious hobbies, etc.

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Encyclopedia of delusions. Third Reich Likhacheva Larisa Borisovna

Spies. What ruined the German intelligence officers?

Something imperceptibly betrayed a German spy in him: either a parachute dragging behind his back, or a Schmeisser dangling around his neck ...

Thoughts aloud of a SMERSH worker

John Lancaster alone, mostly at night.

He clicked his nose - an infrared lens was hidden in it,

And then in normal light it appeared in black

What we appreciate and love, what the team is proud of ...

Vladimir Vysotsky

There is an opinion that in Nazi Germany they prepared perhaps the most invulnerable spies in the world. Say, with the notorious German pedantry, they could take care of all, even the seemingly most insignificant little things. After all, according to the old spy saying, it is on them that the best agents always “burn”.

In reality, the situation on the invisible German-Allied front developed somewhat differently. Sometimes the Nazi "knights of the cloak and dagger" were ruined by their scrupulousness. A similar story in the book "Spy Hunter" is given by the famous English counterintelligence officer, Colonel O. Pinto. At the beginning of World War II, British counterintelligence had a lot of work: refugees from European countries conquered by the Reich flocked to the country in an endless stream. It is clear that under their view of the land of foggy Albion, German agents and collaborators recruited in the occupied territories strove to penetrate. O. Pinto had a chance to deal with one such Belgian collaborator - Alfons Timmermans. By itself, Timmermans aroused no suspicions: the former sailor of the merchant fleet, in order to find himself in safe England, went through a lot of difficulties and dangers. In his simple belongings, too, there was nothing from the espionage arsenal. However, the attention of Colonel O. Pinto was attracted by 3 completely harmless, at first glance, things. However, we will give the floor to the counterintelligence officer himself: “The one who instructed him before the trip to England took into account every little thing and thereby betrayed the newcomer to the British counterintelligence. He supplied Timmermans with three things necessary for "invisible" writing: pyramidon powder, which dissolves in a mixture of water and alcohol, orange sticks - a writing medium - and cotton wool for wrapping the tips of the sticks, in order to avoid treacherous scratches on paper. The trouble with Timmermans was that he could buy all these things at any pharmacy in England and no one would ever ask him why he was doing it. Now, because his mentor was too scrupulous person. he had to answer some questions for me ... Timmermans - the victim of German scrupulousness - was hanged in Vandeworth prison ... "

Very often, German pedantry turned out to be fatal for agents who had to work under the guise of US Army soldiers. Being fluent in the "great and mighty" English, the fascist intelligence officers turned out to be completely unprepared for American slang. So, quite a few carefully conspiratorial and legendary spies came across that at army gas stations, instead of the typical jargon "ges", they used the literary name of gasoline - "petrol". Naturally, no one expected to hear such a clever word from a simple American soldier.

But the possible troubles of the German spies did not end there. As it turned out, the Yankee soldiers even renamed military ranks in their own way. The sabotage group, supervised by the most venerable German spy - Otto Skorzeny, was convinced of this on their own sad experience. Subordinates of the Scarred Man arrived on captured American self-propelled guns at the location of the 7th Armored Division near the Belgian city of Potto. The commander of a group of spies bravely jumped out of the car and introduced himself, according to the charter, introducing himself as a company commander. It could not have occurred to him that in the US Army such a name for a military rank has long become an anachronism, and various slang abbreviations are used instead. The Yankee soldiers immediately recognized the forgery and shot their pseudo-colleagues on the spot, led by their "company" ...

It was even more difficult for pedantic German agents to work in the USSR. Let's take an example. Nazi Germany was preparing a group of spies to be sent to Soviet territory. All scouts were thoroughly trained and were fluent in Russian. Moreover, they were even introduced to the peculiarities of the Soviet mentality and the mysterious Russian soul. However, the mission of these almost ideal agents failed miserably at the first check of documents. The treacherous trifle, "with the head" betraying the fighters of the invisible front, turned out to be ... passports! No, the “red-skinned passports” themselves, made by the best German counterfeiters, did not differ in any way from the real ones and were even worn and battered accordingly. The only thing in which the "pro-fascist" documents differed from their original Soviet counterparts was the metal staples with which they were sewn together. The diligent and punctual Germans made fake "ksivs" in good conscience, as for themselves. Therefore, the pages of the passport were fastened with staples made of high-quality stainless wire, while in the Soviet Union they could not even conceive of such a wasteful and inappropriate use of stainless steel - the most common iron was used for the main document of every citizen of the USSR. Naturally, over the long years of operation, such a wire oxidized, leaving characteristic red marks on the pages of the passport. It is not surprising that the valiant SMERSH became very interested, finding among the usual "rusty" passports little books with clean, shiny stainless steel clips. According to unverified data, only at the beginning of the war, Soviet counterintelligence managed to identify and neutralize more than 150 such spies - "staplers". Truly, there are no trifles in intelligence. Even if it is intelligence of the Third Reich.

From the book Great Secrets of Gold, Money and Jewelry. 100 stories about the secrets of the world of wealth author Korovina Elena Anatolievna

Dowry of the Infanta and wedding dresses of German princesses And the blue diamond, which, it would seem, was destined to remain forever in the monastery treasury, again ended up in the royal treasury. Velázquez saw him in 1660 when Philip IV decided to give one of his daughters away,

From the book Executioners and Killers [Mercenaries, terrorists, spies, professional killers] the author Kochetkov P V

PART III. SPIES FOREWORD Secret services existed at different times among different peoples. According to the calculations of the American researcher Rowan, the secret service is no less than the 33rd century. More precisely, it has existed for as long as there have been wars. To

From the book I know the world. Aviation and aeronautics author Zigunenko Stanislav Nikolaevich

Spies in the Stratosphere Another specialty of military aviation is reconnaissance. As already mentioned at the beginning of this book, the first thing that pilots began to do during hostilities was to look out from a height where the headquarters of military units are located, where

From the book The Author's Encyclopedia of Films. Volume II author Lurcelle Jacques

Spione Spies 1928 - Germany (4364 m) Mfr. UFA (Fritz Lang) Dir. FRITZ LANG Scene. Fritz Lang, Tea von Harbou based on the novel by Thea von Harbou Oper. Fritz Arno Wagner Cast Rudolf Klein-Rogge (Haigie), Gerda Maurus (Sonya), Lyn Dyers (Kitty), Louis Ralph (Maurier), Craigel Sherry (boss

From the book Intelligence and Espionage author Damaskin Igor Anatolievich

Successes of German saboteurs During the First World War, the only serious achievement of German intelligence was the acts of sabotage that it organized and carried out against the United States. It was a real war, started long before the US entered the

author Malashkina M. M.

Sea spies This story took place in our days. A Scottish trawler - a fishing vessel - tried to break away from his pursuers. A Danish frigate was chasing him, firing their guns. Despite the volleys of naval artillery, the trawler did not stop. Trawler team

From the book I know the world. Criminalistics author Malashkina M. M.

School for scouts The screening of a potential employee is very strict, but 99 people out of 100 can pass it. Intelligence work is very diverse and each person can show his talent and achieve success. A person who loves reflection, observation and

From the book I know the world. Criminalistics author Malashkina M. M.

Mistakes of scouts There are times when an experienced agent loses a briefcase with secret papers in the subway, taxi or train. No scout is immune from such cases, no matter how well prepared he may be. The "inexplicable" and "sudden" attack of absent-mindedness can be explained

One of the most important factors that led the Soviet people to victory in the Great Patriotic War was the prevalence of clandestine warfare. The unprecedented courage of Soviet intelligence officers, faith in the ideals of justice and love for the Motherland worked wonders. What was the system of special services of the Soviet state in the difficult years of 1941-1945?
I must say that it is quite simple and effective ...

GRU

In 1939, the intelligence department of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army was transformed into the Fifth Directorate of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR. In 1940, it was reassigned to the General Staff and, accordingly, received the name of the Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army. And on February 16, 1942, the world-famous abbreviation "GRU" was born. As part of the GRU, two departments were created: the first - undercover (departments: German, European, Far East, Middle East, sabotage, operational equipment, radio intelligence), the second - information (departments: German, European, Far East, Middle East, editorial and publishing, military information , deciphering). And besides, a number of independent departments that were not part of the First and Second Directorates.

Given the fact that "he who owns the information owns the world," Joseph Stalin drew the appropriate conclusions and further raised the status of military intelligence. In October 1942, an order was issued according to which the GRU was exclusively subordinate to the People's Commissar of Defense. The functional duties of the Main Directorate included the organization of undercover and reconnaissance and sabotage work, both on the territory of other countries and in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union.

Scouts of the 27th Guards Division

A group of scouts of the divisional reconnaissance of the 27th Guards Rifle Division.
Standing from left to right: Merkulov - died due to a wound; Vasily Zakamaldin; senior lieutenant Zhuravlev - went to study; -?; Leonid Kazachenko - died due to a wound;
sitting from left to right: Alexey Solodovnikov; Vorobyov - medical officer of the company, left due to a wound; Nikolai Pluzhnikov - died in Poland while repelling an attack on the division headquarters; ? - dead ;)
The photo was taken in Poland in the summer of 1944. From the personal archive of Vladimir Fedorovich Bukhenko, who also served as a scout in this unit.

Source: personal archive of V.F. Bukhenko.

In wars and armed conflicts, servicemen of the internal troops not only performed special tasks, but also directly participated in hostilities. One of the heroic pages of their service and combat activities was the contribution of the NKVD troops to the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. They participated in the battles against the Nazi invaders, provided protection for the rear of the active Red Army, guarded communications and industrial facilities, escorted prisoners of war, fought against saboteurs and spies, desertion and banditry, and solved a number of other tasks, including those that were not characteristic of them. .

The garrisons of the 9th and 10th divisions of the NKVD troops for the protection of railway structures, guarding transport communications on the territory of Ukraine, even surrounded, in the deep rear of the German troops, continued to defend objects for a long time to the last soldier. More than 70 percent soldiers and officers of these formations, who died in battle, remained missing. They fulfilled their military duty to the end.

Units of the 14th and 15th Red Banner motorized rifle regiments of the NKVD took part in the fighting against the German-Finnish troops in Karelia.

In the battle of the 15th Red Banner Motorized Rifle Regiment near Lake Märet on July 25, 1941, junior lieutenant A.A. Divochkin "took command of the battery, put out the fire at the ammunition depot with danger to his life and personally fired alternately from two guns at the enemy from an open position, repelled the attack, destroyed one gun, several machine guns and up to an enemy infantry platoon."

During the defense of the settlement of Hiitola, the propaganda instructor of the regiment, senior political instructor N.M., showed exceptional courage. Rudenko. He “personally destroyed 15 white Finns-“ cuckoos ”, being wounded, killed a German machine gunner, captured an easel machine gun and continued to smash the enemy with fire from it. Having received a second wound, he did not leave the battlefield, and at the third wound, bleeding, he lost consciousness. In the same battle ... the medical officer Kokorin appeared among the most fierce fights, assisting the wounded and personally taking part in the attacks. Being himself wounded, he made his way to the front lines to assist the senior political officer Rudenko. While fighting, the wounded Kokorin was surrounded, and the White Finnish officer tried to take him prisoner. Kokorin blew himself up and five White Finns, led by an officer, with a grenade.

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of August 26, 1941, junior lieutenant Alexander Andreevich Divochkin, senior political instructor Nikolai Mikhailovich Rudenko and Red Army soldier Anatoly Alexandrovich Kokorin were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Scout Heroes

With the outbreak of World War II, the main foreign intelligence forces were sent to work against Nazi Germany. The intelligence leadership took steps to establish contact with the existing agents in the Axis countries, acquire new agents, and select operatives to be deployed behind enemy lines.

Due to the unpreparedness of foreign intelligence to work in a war, caused by mass repressions against intelligence officers, at the initial stage, contact with agents was lost. It was not possible to organize intelligence work against Germany and its satellites from the territory of neutral countries, with the exception of Switzerland, where the illegal military intelligence officer S. Rado (“Dora”) acted effectively.

In this regard, it was decided to create special reconnaissance detachments to conduct reconnaissance activities in the rear of the German troops. Active intelligence work, in particular, was conducted by the "Winners" detachment of Colonel D.N. Medvedev. It included the famous intelligence officer N.I. Kuznetsov.

After careful preparation in the 1st Directorate of the NKGB, especially in improving the German language (it was planned to use it through illegal intelligence in Germany itself), N.I. Kuznetsov in 1942 was thrown behind enemy lines in the region of Rovno. With documents addressed to Paul Siebert, he was a member of various circles of the Nazi occupiers and used this circumstance to collect information of interest to Moscow.

During his stay in the rear of the Germans, N.I. Kuznetsov received and transmitted to Moscow information about the impending attempt by the German special services on the participants in the Tehran Conference, about the plans of the Wehrmacht command on the Kursk Bulge, and other information that was of great interest.

They destroyed the chief Nazi judge in Ukraine, Funk, the deputy Gauleiter of Ukraine, General Knut, and the vice-governor of Galicia, Bauer. With the help of other reconnaissance partisans, he kidnapped the commander of the German special forces, General Ilgen.

In 1944 he was killed by Ukrainian nationalists. For courage and heroism shown in the fight against the fascist invaders, N.I. Kuznetsov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Another reconnaissance and sabotage detachment "Fort", headed by V.A. Molodtsov, acted in Odessa and its environs. Molodtsov's scouts, based in the Odessa catacombs, obtained important information about the German and Romanian troops and the plans of the command of these countries. He was captured as a result of betrayal. He was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

On the eve of the occupation of Kyiv by the Nazi troops, foreign intelligence created an illegal residency in it, headed by intelligence officer I.D. Curly. This residency managed to infiltrate the Nazi intelligence center, which was headed by a seasoned Nazi spy, Major Miller, aka Anton Milchevsky. Information was obtained about 87 Abwehr agents, as well as a number of traitors. I.D. Curly was betrayed by a Gestapo agent and executed. He was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

"SMERSH"

In 1943, in the People's Commissariats of Defense and Internal Affairs, as well as in the navy, SMERSH military counterintelligence units were created, recognized by historians and experts in the field of special services, as the best counterintelligence units of the Second World War. The main task of this unit was not only to counteract the German Abwehr, but also the need to introduce Soviet counterintelligence officers into the highest echelons of power in Nazi Germany and intelligence schools, destroy sabotage groups, conduct radio games, and also in the fight against traitors to the Motherland.

It should be noted that I. Stalin himself gave the name to this special service. At first, there was a proposal to call the unit SMERNESH (that is, “death to German spies”), to which Stalin stated that Soviet territory was full of spies from other states, and it was also necessary to fight them, so it’s better to call the new body simply SMERSH. Its official name was the SMERSH counterintelligence department of the NKVD of the USSR. By the time the counterintelligence was created, the battle of Stalingrad was left behind, and the initiative in the conduct of hostilities began to gradually pass to the troops of the Union. At this time, the territories that were under occupation began to be liberated, a large number of Soviet soldiers and officers fled from German captivity. Some of them were sent by the Nazis as spies. The special departments of the Red Army and the Navy needed to be reorganized, so they were replaced by SMERSH. And although the unit lasted only three years, people talk about it to this day.

"Berezina"

“... Our radio picked up the answer. First, a tuning signal passed, then a special signal, which meant that our people got in touch without interference (not an extra precaution: the absence of a signal would mean that the radio operator was captured and forced to get in touch). And more great news: Sherhorn's detachment exists...” Otto Skorzeny. Memoirs.

On August 18, 1944, an Abwehr liaison, conspired on the territory of Belarus, radioed: a large detachment of the Wehrmacht survived in the Berezina region, miraculously escaping defeat and hiding in a swampy area. The delighted command parachuted ammunition, food and radio operators in the indicated coordinates. They immediately reported: indeed, the German unit, numbering up to two thousand, led by Colonel Heinrich Sherhorn, was in dire need of weapons, provisions and demolition specialists to continue the partisan struggle. In fact, it was a grandiose operation of our intelligence, code-named "Berezina", with the participation of real German officers who went over to the side of the Red Army and portrayed the surviving regiment, and paratroopers-liaisons were immediately recruited by SMERSH, included in the radio game. Germany continued air supply of "its" detachment until May 45th.

Risky game on the Bandura

According to the NKGB of the USSR, an underground organization of the Polish government in exile in London, the Delegation of Zhondu, operates on the territory of Southern Lithuania and Western Belarus, which has one of the main tasks of conducting operational intelligence in the rear of the Red Army and on front-line communications. To transmit information, the "Delagatura" has short-wave radio transmitters and complex digital ciphers.

In June 1944, near the city of Andreapol, SMERSH caught four just abandoned German saboteurs. The head and radio operator of the enemy detachment agreed to work for our intelligence and informed the Center that the penetration into enemy territory had been successful. Reinforcements and ammunition needed!

The radio game of the counterintelligence officers of the 2nd Baltic Front against Army Group North continued for several months, during which the enemy repeatedly threw weapons and new agents near Andreapol, who immediately fell into the hands of SMERSH.

The Great Patriotic War became a serious test for foreign intelligence. In incredibly difficult conditions, sometimes under bombs, scouts risked their lives in order to obtain important intelligence information. Intelligence informed Stalin about the plans of the German command near Stalingrad, on the Kursk Bulge, and about other plans of the German Wehrmacht. Thus, she contributed to the victory of our people over the most dangerous aggressor in the history of mankind.

An important place in its activities during the war years was occupied by clarifying the true plans of the USSR's allies in the anti-Hitler coalition regarding the timing of the opening of the "second front", their position at the meetings of the "Big Three".