Like "snow" on the head. Heroes of foreign intelligence: legends with a sequel

One of the prominent military intelligence officers is Ursula Kuczynski. A man of unusual fate, she worked coolly and skillfully. In all her intelligence activities, she did not make a single serious mistake and never aroused suspicion from counterintelligence. The intelligence department of the Red Army, unlike many foreign intelligence services, did not consider the use of beauty and sexual attractiveness to obtain the required information to be the main thing in the work of female agents. In a number of cases they were residents, radio operators, couriers, recruited traditional methods, led agents, performed other complex tasks. Ursula was born in 1907 in Germany to a Jewish economist. She graduated from the lyceum and trade school in Berlin. She worked in a bookstore, at the same time she was engaged in trade union work, and after joining the Communist Party of Germany, also in the party. Because of economic crisis in the country, together with her husband, architect Rudolf Hamburger, she moved to China. In Shanghai, both found well-paid jobs. Sorge's man In 1930, Richard Sorge, a resident of the Soviet military intelligence, met Ursula. Initially, Kuczynski was the owner of a safe house where Sorge met with his sources. Convinced of her reliability, he began to give her separate assignments, which after a while became more complex. Ursula processed the data obtained by the agents of the residency, translated some important documents from in English into German and photographed them. Ramsay taught her the rules of conspiracy, and the woman began to meet with the Chinese who worked for Soviet intelligence to obtain information about the confrontation between the Communists and the Kuomintang, about the course of hostilities in a number of provinces of the country. This work did not stop even after the birth of his son in 1931. Sorge reported Ursula as a promising employee to the Center and recommended that she be sent to Moscow to take a course at an intelligence school. He also suggested the operational pseudonym Sonya, which Kuczynski used all the time of her long service life in the Intelligence Agency. Training in a special intelligence school lasted six months. Kuczynski agreed to this, although she was not allowed to take her son with her - he could acquire a Russian accent, and she was trained for illegal work. In addition to the basics of undercover work, the rules of conspiracy, Sonya mastered the skills of a radio operator, learned to independently assemble transmitters and receivers from individual components and parts sold in radio stores abroad.

After successfully graduating from the intelligence school, Kuczynski was again sent to China, to Manchuria, occupied by Japan, which was fighting against the liberation movement led by the CCP. The task of Sonya and the second intelligence officer sent with her to Mukden was to assist the partisan detachments, as well as to collect intelligence information about the situation in the region and Japan's intentions towards the USSR. The work was extremely difficult and dangerous. In addition to the Chinese and Japanese, there were many White Russian émigrés in the city. During the day, the streets were patrolled by police and Japanese soldiers, and at night you could meet only bandits, drug addicts and prostitutes. Under these conditions, Sonya had to hold secret meetings with partisan liaisons and sources. So, once she went out to a turnout appointed on the outskirts of the city at the entrance to the cemetery for two evenings in a row. Helping the partisans in the manufacture of improvised explosives consisted in the fact that Sonya and her partner regularly visited pharmacies and specialized stores in Mukden, buying various chemicals there. So they mined sulfur, hydrochloric acid, nitrogen fertilizers, from which the partisans made bombs. Each transfer of such components to messengers was associated with the risk not only of being detected by Japanese counterintelligence, but also of being exposed to dangerous substances. Twice a week, Kuczynski contacted the Center from her apartment in Mukden using a radio transmitter she had assembled herself. Information was sent to the Intelligence Directorate about the situation in Manchuria, the combat activities of partisan detachments, the state of affairs in them, and the characteristics of leaders and commanders. In total, Sonya conducted more than 240 radio sessions. But in the spring of 1935, Ursula and her partner were forced to urgently leave China, as the threat of failure arose due to the arrest by the Japanese of one of their group's liaisons. Kuczynski was pregnant again, but she did not intend to give up her activities. She believed: "Where diapers hang, hardly anyone expects to meet a scout." Moscow highly appreciated Sonya's work in China, and soon she received a new assignment. In the second half of 1935, Ursula arrived in Warsaw with her first husband, Rudolf Hamburger, who had also been trained at the military intelligence school. The main task is to provide radio communication to the military intelligence resident in Poland, as well as to help a group of agents who were in Danzig. Sonya reassembled the radio station with her own hands from parts bought in local stores. The intelligence officer had a daughter, Kuczynski continued to work with two young children. After some time, she moved to Danzig, where six underground workers from among German workers who worked for Soviet military intelligence were in touch with her. They collected information about the functioning of the port, the construction of submarines for the Polish Navy, the dispatch of military supplies to the warring Spain to support the anti-revolutionary forces, as well as the activities of the Nazis in the city. Ursula actually led this group. Her people managed to organize several sabotage in the port in order to disrupt military supplies to the Franco regime.

At the same time, Sonya personally provided radio communications with the Center. She lived in an apartment building and regularly relayed messages from herself. It so happened that a high-ranking official of the Nazi Party settled on the floor above, with whose wife Kuczynski established friendly relations. This helped to avoid failure and arrest. One day, a talkative neighbor confided to Ursula that, according to her husband, a secret spy transmitter was operating in their house, the broadcasts of which were detected by the German counterintelligence agencies. In this regard, next Friday, the entire quarter will be cordoned off and carefully searched by the police and the Gestapo in order to find an enemy spy. The Center, having learned about this from Sonya's report, ordered her to leave Danzig immediately. Soon she, along with her husband and two children, safely departed from Poland. Before that, the intelligence officer received a telegram where the Director (head of the Intelligence Directorate) congratulated her on being awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Upon returning to Moscow, Ursula was summoned to the Kremlin, where Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin presented her with a well-deserved award. However, she could not wear it, so she handed over the order for storage to the administration. New Assignment In 1938, Kuczynski began a new military intelligence assignment. This time she was sent to Switzerland as an illegal resident. Sonya was supposed to organize the receipt of the data required by the Center from fascist Germany. Ursula and her two children settled in a mountainous area, legalized, established direct radio contact with the Center (she still worked on the radio herself). Acting proactively and purposefully, Sonya established a wide range of contacts she needed, among which was an Englishman who held a high position in the apparatus of the League of Nations. It was possible to obtain important information from him, which was immediately sent to Moscow. In order to achieve the fulfillment of the tasks set by the Center, Kuczynski decided to rely on the British, who had the opportunity to move freely around European countries. She contacted veterans who participated in the war in Spain on the side of the Republicans, who picked up and sent to Switzerland two reliable people - Alexander Foot and Leon Burton, who fought as part of the international brigade with the putschists. Sonya met with them and, after a short study, recruited them to work for Soviet military intelligence. A 30-year-old woman enjoyed unquestioned authority among these experienced fighters. Soon, Sony's residency was replenished by another person sent from Moscow, Franz Obermanns, a German refugee who also fought as part of an international brigade in Spain. He helped collect the required information, and could also work as a radio operator. Kuczynski decided to send Foot to Munich, where he, using the specialty of a mechanic, was supposed to get a job at one of the aircraft factories that produced the Messerschmitt fighters. Burton's task was to infiltrate the I. G. Farbenindustri" in Frankfurt am Main, which produced military chemical products. The British moved to Germany, but did not have time to do anything there.

It should be noted that one day Sony's assistants ended up in a restaurant in Munich, where Hitler regularly met with Eva Braun, accompanied by a few guards. Experienced Members civil war in Spain, Ursula was offered to organize the liquidation of the Nazi leader, but the Center ordered Kuczynski to urgently return them to Switzerland and train them as radio operators. The situation in Europe was becoming more complicated; fascist Germany, which had already captured Austria and Czechoslovakia, did not hide further aggressive intentions. Under these conditions, the Intelligence Directorate prepared its illegal residencies for work in wartime conditions, which required uninterrupted communication with the Center. Ursula taught Foote and Burton how to use the radio and the rules for ciphering messages, as well as how to make a radio station from commercially available parts. In December 1939, Sonya was instructed by the Center to provide assistance to another illegal military intelligence resident in Switzerland, Shandor Rado, who at that time had no radio contact with Moscow. Kuczynski began to meet with him regularly in Geneva (the road there by car took about three hours), took information reports, returned back, encrypted them and transmitted them to Moscow at night. The work was both difficult and dangerous. In Switzerland, the authorities introduced a wartime regime, strengthened police control over all foreigners living in the country. in the capital, other major cities, in the areas bordering Germany, the Gestapo and the Abwehr almost openly operated, looking for enemy agents and ill-wishers of the Third Reich. Every trip, regular broadcasting, prohibited by the authorities for all radio amateurs, was associated with great risk and the threat of arrest, but Ursula acted in cold blood. She did not arouse the suspicions of either the police or counterintelligence, which allowed her to follow all the instructions of the Center. At the end of 1939, Sonya managed to successfully solve another extremely difficult task. The Kremlin decided to help the family of the famous German communist Ernst Thalmann, who was kept in a prison in Germany, for which he would be transferred to his wife Rosa a large sum money. All attempts made by the foreign intelligence agencies of the NKVD to make contact failed. And the Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army assigned this task to Kuczynski. Ursula sent a nanny for her children to Germany, whom she completely trusted. Her luggage contained a clothes brush with a built-in hiding place. The operation was successful. Although Rosa Telman could not use the money, as she was under the round-the-clock control of Gestapo agents, the very fact financial assistance gave Rosa great moral support, and the entire amount was transferred to the wife of another arrested German communist. Meanwhile, the situation of Kuczynski herself became more complicated. She had the documents of a German emigrant of Jewish origin and could be deported to Germany with the subsequent inevitable arrest. The Swiss police, on a tip from the Gestapo, had already detained a member of the residency, Sonja Obermanns, and deported him. The center ordered Ursula to urgently leave the country. The intelligence officer prepared two more radio operators for Sandor Rado's group and handed him Futa, who remained to work in Switzerland, as he had a reliable cover. Sonya, along with Burton, was offered to move to England. To legalize it there, Kuczynski divorced her first husband and officially married Leon, while receiving an English passport. At first, their union was fictitious, but then they actually became husband and wife, lived happily ever after.

In December 1940, Sonya with two children, a long and dangerous path under the conditions of occupation Nazi Germany a large part of France moved to England. There were already Ursula's parents, a brother and wife, and four sisters who had fled Germany to escape the Nazi regime. Red Walkie-talkie In accordance with the assignment of the Center, Sonya was to create a new illegal intelligence group in England, capable of obtaining information on Germany and Great Britain. Ursula had to fulfill the duties of a resident and at the same time a radio operator. In the new place, life was safer than in Switzerland, but it was necessary to get used to an unfamiliar environment, characterized by increased spy mania and control over the ether. Ursula began to search for sources of information, initially using members of her family. In addition to Leon, who was already working for Soviet military intelligence, her father, brother and one of the sisters helped her. In addition, Sonya actively made new acquaintances and found people who were ready to help her and share information. Every month, the Center received four to six telegrams and reports from Sony's illegal residency. They contained data on fascist Germany, as well as the armed forces of Great Britain, military equipment, and novelties used for military purposes. After the German attack on the USSR, Sonya went on the air and transmitted a short message to the Center: “Hot wishes for Victory over fascism are sent to you and the Soviet country by my new Red Radio. I am always with you. Sonya.” Ursula continued to conduct active intelligence activities, found new sources that were extremely important in a war. The Center was interested in the possibility of concluding an anti-Soviet deal between London and Berlin. Sonya reported to Moscow the opinion of the influential British Laborist Stafford Cripps on the possible results of an attack by fascist Germany on the USSR: “The Soviet Union will be defeated no later than in three months. The Wehrmacht will pass through Russia like a hot knife through butter.” The Intelligence Directorate highly appreciated the results of Kuczynski's work. In one of the ciphers in April 1942, the Center informed Sonya: “Your information is reliable and appreciated. From this source, continue to receive information about the state of Germany. We are interested in data on strategic reserves the most important types raw materials (oil, all fuels and lubricants, tin, copper, chromium, nickel, tungsten, leather, etc.) and the state of food supplies for German army and population.” In October 1942, Ursula received an important new assignment: to re-establish contact with Klaus Fuchs, a German immigrant who worked in Birmingham in a closed laboratory involved in the top-secret Tube Alloys project to create nuclear weapons. The physicist had already been in contact with Soviet military intelligence, but then contact with him was lost.

Ursula successfully solved the task set by the Center by finding and establishing with Fuchs the level of relations required for work. The German emigrant began to transfer valuable materials to Sonya. This is how Moscow learned about all the research work carried out in the UK under the Tube Alloys program, about the creation of an experimental station in Wales to study the diffusion of uranium-235. Due to the special importance of the information received, the Center instructed Sonya to work only with Fuchs, observing the maximum precautions, and to stop meeting with other sources. At secret meetings, Ursula received new collections of documents and reports from the physicist, revealing theoretical basis creation of nuclear weapons, the progress of work on the manufacture of a uranium bomb. At the end of 1943, Fuchs moved to the United States, where, together with American scientists, he continued to work on the atomic project. Before leaving, he met Sonya several times and handed over to her a total of 474 sheets of classified materials, which were forwarded to the Center through a special channel. Ursula handed Fuchs the terms of communication with the Soviet liaison on American soil. Based on Fuchs' data, Sonya informed Moscow that Roosevelt and Churchill had signed an agreement in Quebec on joint work on the atomic bomb and on the broad involvement of British physicists in this project, which is being implemented in the United States, taking into account the large resources of the American side. Own people in the OSS After the departure of Fuchs, Ursula continued her active work at the head of her illegal residency. She managed to achieve unique results. Moscow received top-secret documents, including the "Review of the United States bombing strategy" in Europe, prepared by American intelligence.

Special calculations of British intelligence officers were obtained, which made it possible to draw conclusions about the state of arms production in the Third Reich from the serial numbers of German models of various military equipment disabled by the Western allies. These calculations were intended for the high military command of the United States and Great Britain, and thanks to Sonya they also got to the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army. Members of the residency, with the knowledge of the Center, without revealing themselves, collaborated with the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was looking for candidates to be thrown behind German lines. In this way, many important information about how American intelligence works, about the direction of training and equipment of agents. Descriptions of ciphers and codes, the characteristics and features of the operation of the newest radio station, etc. were sent to Moscow. Soviet military intelligence. She gave birth to a third child from Leon and for neighbors and acquaintances was caring mother spending almost all her free time with her children. Even her regular broadcasts on the undercover radio station were not opened by the British counterintelligence MI5. The Second World War ended, but Sonya's activities continued. Western allies began to change their attitude towards the USSR, seeing it as an enemy. Moscow needed reliable information about what was happening in Europe, Great Britain, and the USA. However, after the betrayal of the Soviet cryptographer in Canada, working conditions became much more difficult. A wave of spy mania arose, Fuchs, Foote and other agents with whom Sonya worked were arrested. In 1947 she had to leave England. Having taken the children, Kuczynski flew by plane to the British zone of occupation of Germany, after which she arrived by taxi in the Soviet sector of Berlin. Here she was met by colleagues, including Lieutenant General Ivan Ilyichev, who during the war headed the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army. The fearless scout was awarded the second Order of the Red Banner. Thus ended the fifth foreign trip of Ursula Kuczynski, who, under the operational pseudonym Sonya, forever entered the history of the GRU. Author Vyacheslav Kondrashov

He lived only 38 years and gave the best of them to intelligence. During this short time, Stefan Lang managed to do so much that he was rightfully enrolled in the classics of the world intelligence art. That part of his intelligence heritage that became known to the general public - the "Cambridge Five" - ​​is rightly recognized by professionals and historians of the world's intelligence services as "the best group of agents of the Second World War."

World War I radically changed the worldview of Europeans. Colossal human sacrifices, hitherto unimaginable in the most terrible apocalyptic predictions, rudely and visibly invaded reality. The line of development of civilization, which until then suits by and large the population of Europe, has ceased to be perceived as natural and the only true one. It was a time of confusion and social quest. Part of the war and post-war generation fell into depression.

But for the socially active and educated population of Europe, the ideas of socialism and communism turned out to be very attractive. Arnold Deutsch is one of those people. He devoted his whole life to the struggle for social equality and the ideals of justice. And he selected comrades-in-arms for his struggle from this category and according to the criteria of ideological proximity. It should be noted that none of his comrades-in-arms (and there were dozens of them) did not change their views over time and, moreover, did not embark on the path of betrayal.

I would not like to give an assessment of the worldview position of the hero in a biographical sketch. Not the right place, not the right reason. But the presence in Europe and overseas of a huge number of people who sympathized with the young Soviet Republic is an established fact. historical fact. For some of these people, the Soviet Union became the Motherland, to which they gave all their strength, and often their lives. So was Arnold Deutsch, the legendary intelligence agent, whose life was amazing, and professional fate- is unique.

He was born on May 21, 1904 in the suburbs of the Austrian capital in the family of a small businessman, former teacher from Slovakia. In 1928 he graduated from the University of Vienna and received a Ph.D. Having a knack for languages, he was fluent in, in addition to his native German, English, French, Italian, Dutch and Russian. In the future, this greatly helped Deutsch in revolutionary and intelligence work.
Arnold's revolutionary activity began in the ranks of the youth movement - at the age of sixteen he became a member of the Union of Socialist Students, and at twenty he joined the Austrian Communist Party. After graduating from the university, he was sent to one of the underground groups of the Comintern. Active and dynamic in nature, Deutsch is appointed as a liaison officer, works in southern Europe and the Middle East.

This work, entrusted only to especially reliable members of the Comintern, developed in Deutsch the qualities so necessary for the future profession of an intelligence officer. These are the basics of conspiracy, and the organization of secure communication schemes, and the skills of finding and attracting promising associates to work, orienting them to obtain the necessary information. In a word, he learned the whole "technology" of intelligence activities in practice.

On the recommendation of the Comintern, Deutsch is sent to Moscow, where he is transferred from the Communist Party of Austria to the CPSU (b) and goes to work in the Foreign Department of the NKVD - the foreign political intelligence of the USSR. This completes the stage of his life associated with work in the Comintern. He becomes a career intelligence officer.

EARLY 1933, Deutsch goes to work illegally in France as an assistant and deputy resident. His task is to carry out special tasks of the Center in Belgium and Holland, and after Hitler came to power in Germany.

From that moment on, fellow workers know Deitch under the name of Stefan Lang. In his cipher telegrams and letters addressed to the Center, he signs the pseudonym "Stefan".

A year later, at the direction of the Center, Deutsch leaves France with the task of settling in the British Isles. It is here that he will perform his legendary professional feat.

In London, Deutsch becomes a student and then a teacher at the University of London, studying psychology. And one of the first Soviet intelligence officers widely and on a scientific basis uses knowledge of psychology in intelligence work.

This greatly facilitates the process of targeted access to a promising contingent of people, their study and involvement in cooperation with intelligence on an ideological basis. Deitch's in-depth analysis of the personality traits of a person of interest to intelligence was so thorough that the devotion of his "godchildren" to communist and anti-fascist views remained with them until the end of their lives.

Studying and working at the university give Deutsch the opportunity to make wide connections among student youth. Deitch himself, being a gifted and meaningful person with a wide range of interests, a wonderful storyteller, an interesting interlocutor, an attentive listener, attracts extraordinary people, and they imperceptibly fall under his charm. With deep knowledge human psychology, fine sense inner world interlocutor, Deutsch has the most effective abilities of a scout-recruiter.

And he the best way uses the opportunities presented to him. From the position of a lecturer at the University of London, intelligence recruiter Deutsch conducted the study, development and recruitment of more ... - let's be careful - a whole group of anti-fascist students.

His second discovery was conscious and purposeful work for the future. It was an innovative idea for INO, a new contingent of people and a new working environment. And life has fully confirmed his correctness.

Deutsch concentrated his efforts on Oxford and Cambridge universities. He was primarily attracted to students, who in the future could become long time reliable intelligence assistants.

The time has come for his stellar moment in his intelligence career. He managed to create, educate and prepare the famous "Big Five", later called the "Cambridge". This is precisely his invaluable service to the Fatherland.

The FIVE was active in the 1930s and 1960s, with free access to the highest public spheres in Britain and the United States. It provided the Soviet leadership with highly up-to-date, reliable and classified documentary information on all aspects of international politics, as well as military plans and scientific research in Europe and overseas.

For three years of work in Great Britain, Deutsch, who has years of underground work in the Comintern behind him, managed not only to attract ideologically devoted sources to our side, but also to seriously prepare and train them on the widest range of issues of intelligence activities.
His achievement as a practical intelligence officer lies in the fact that the members of the "Cambridge Five" themselves were actively looking for and recruiting more and more assistants - ideological fighters for social justice and against the fascist threat on the eve and years of World War II. These assistants saw in the Soviet Union the real and only force that could resist and destroy Hitler's Nazism. This is Deutsch's third find.

If we talk only about the Five, then, working as tipsters, developers and recruiters, its members have significantly expanded the network of new sources of information. They managed to infiltrate British intelligence and counterintelligence, the Foreign Office, the decryption service. The information coming to Moscow was of a proactive nature and allowed the Soviet side to make informed decisions in difficult war years.

This was extensive information about the military-strategic plans of the Third Reich, including on the Soviet-German front. Documentary secret information concerned the position of our British and American allies in the anti-Hitler coalition in relation to Germany, as well as the plans of the West for the post-war development of Europe and the world as a whole.

The result of Arnold Deutsch's work in England is impressive. In the second half of the 1930s, a group of pro-communist-minded Britons, created by Deutsch, began to operate in England, and during the war years - active anti-fascists. They were progressive-minded students, coming from noble wealthy families with a clear prospect of entering the highest echelons of power.

In one of his letters to the Center, Deutsch wrote of his assistants: “They all came to us after graduating from universities at Oxford and Cambridge. They shared communist beliefs. 80 per cent of the highest government posts in England are held by people from these universities, because education in these schools involves expenses that are available only to very rich people. The diploma of such a university opens the door to the highest spheres of state and political life country…"

Three years of hard work and sources acquired by Deutsch in England until the 1960s became the golden fund of Soviet foreign intelligence. The names of the members of the Five are now widely known and revered in our country. These are Kim Philby - a senior British intelligence officer, Donald Maclean - a senior British Foreign Office official, Guy Burgess - a journalist, British intelligence officer, British Foreign Office official, Anthony Blunt - a British counterintelligence officer, John Cairncross - an employee of the Foreign Office, the Treasury and the decryption service of Britain.

The intelligence capabilities of the members of the "Cambridge Five" and their activity are still surprising. Then there were no electronic documents, compact storage media. They worked with documents and got them with suitcases. Because of such volumes, the risk exceeded all limits, but Deutsch's master class and the impeccable work of the London residency staff made it possible to avoid even the slightest shadow of suspicion from the local intelligence services.

May 1 marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Soviet intelligence officer Arnold DEYCH

DURING the war, the Cambridge Five, which worked in the holy of holies of the British state, received authentic documentary information regarding the results of the decryption by the British of the correspondence of the German high command, daily reports from the British military cabinet on the planning of military operations on all fronts, information from British agents for operations and German plans around the world, documents from British diplomats and the War Cabinet.

The information received by Moscow covered the military situation on the Soviet-German front, in the North Atlantic, Western and Southern Europe; preparation by the Germans of attacks on Moscow, Leningrad, on the Volga and the Kursk salient; data on the latest German weapons - aviation, armored vehicles, artillery.

The members of the "Cambridge Five" should be spoken of as a special category of sources of information - as intelligence officers who, with their whole essence, were imbued with the concerns of the Soviet country at war with the aggressors. They showed initiative in seeking and obtaining preemptive information.
Even at the beginning of the Second World War, the "five" was aimed at finding information about work in the West on nuclear issues. And in September 1941, Donald MacLean and then John Cairncross handed over to the London residency extensive documentary information about the fact and state of work on the creation of atomic weapons in England and the USA.

As a result, the intelligence officers brought up by Deitch drew the attention of the Soviet government to the problem of the military atom with their information. Therefore, the name Deutsch deservedly stands among the names of Soviet scientists and intelligence officers involved in the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb. Its appearance in the USSR 65 years ago and the test carried out on August 29, 1949, put an end to the American monopoly on atomic weapons and no longer allowed the United States to brandish a “nuclear baton”.

Deutsch's "Chicks of the Nest" opened the era of atomic energy in the Land of the Soviets. It was the "light of a distant star" - "Stefan", which reached the Motherland years after the death of the scout.

IN SEPTEMBER 1937 Deutsch was recalled from London. In Moscow, the work of a scout was highly appreciated. From the leadership of intelligence, he was awarded the following recognition:

“During the period of illegal work abroad, “Stefan” proved to be different areas underground as an exceptionally enterprising and dedicated worker...

In 1938, Arnold Deutsch, his wife (also an illegal intelligence agent) and daughter applied for Soviet citizenship. In anticipation of a decision in the summer, they lived at the dacha of V.M. Zarubin, a talented intelligence officer who worked in Europe and Southeast Asia since the 1920s. His eighteen-year-old daughter Zoya was friends with the Deitch family. Many years later, Zoya Vasilievna recalled her communication with Arnold, as with an unusually interesting person, possessing attractive power and causing frankness.

She especially noted Arnold's attitude to physical training. Deitch considered keeping fit as a scout's duty. Zoya Vasilievna, herself an excellent athlete, recalled: “According to him, a scout must be physically hardy, which became clear to him while working underground along the lines of the Comintern.”

Deutsch actively used his stay at the dacha in a Russian family to restore his skills and improve his Russian language. Zoya, in the future also a scout, a major linguist and creator of the world school of simultaneous translation, tried her pedagogical skills on the Deutsch family.
Deutsch and his family received Soviet citizenship. He became officially Stefan Genrikhovich Lang. These pre-war years, according to Deutsch, became the most difficult and dreary period of his life. Deutsch's active nature protested against the measured and monotonous life, but he was not involved in operational work.

Yes, and there was no one to do it. In the country, devastating the ranks of not only intelligence, there was a total and unrighteous purge. Fortunately, the repression bypassed Deutsch and his family.

For nearly a year, Deutsch remained, as he lamented, in "enforced inactivity." Finally, he becomes a researcher at the Institute of World Economy and World Economy of the USSR Academy of Sciences. His extensive knowledge, experience in analytical work and enormous capacity for work proved to be in demand and appreciated.

AFTER the German attack on the Soviet Union, the intelligence leadership decides to immediately send an experienced intelligence officer to work illegally in Latin America. The place of intelligence activity is Argentina, which supported the Third Reich politically and economically during the Second World War.

In November 1941, "Stefan's group" was ready to leave. The route lay through Iran, India and further through the countries of Southeast Asia. But when the group had already left, Japan began hostilities against the United States by attacking naval base Pearl Harbor.

For many months the group was looking for an opportunity to move to Latin America. But in June 1942, Deutsch was forced to inform the head of intelligence, P.M.Fitin:

“For 8 months now, I have been on the road with my comrades, but we are as far from the goal as we were at the very beginning. We're out of luck. However, 8 valuable months have already passed, during which every Soviet citizen gave all his strength on the military or labor front.
The group was returned to Moscow. A new route was proposed for penetration into Argentina from Murmansk by sea escort through Iceland to Canada and beyond. Deutsch stepped on board the Donbass tanker...

Valentin Pikul in his novel “Requiem for the PQ-17 Caravan” tells about the death of this allied caravan. It also talks about the fate of the Donbass tanker. However, our remarkable historian and popularizer of Russian, Russian and Soviet history made a mistake.

The TANKER indeed was repeatedly part of the allied caravans, but it was not part of the PQ-17. After the death of the PQ-17 caravan, solo voyages were ordered to Soviet ships. At the same time, it was recommended to stick to the northern part of the Barents Sea, closer to the edge of the polar ice.

The tanker "Donbass" with Deutsch on board went to sea in early November 1942. On November 5, the watch officer reported to the captain about the German squadron he had noticed, consisting of a cruiser and several destroyers, heading for New Earth. The captain of the tanker Zilke decided to break the radio silence and warn other single ships, although the chance of getting away unnoticed was very high. The broadcast reached the addressees, but the Germans also found the tanker.

I happened to meet with the captain-mentor G.D. Burkov, president of the Association of Polar Captains, and he helped to document the circumstances of the heroic unequal battle of the Donbass tanker with the German squadron. A destroyer was sent to destroy the tanker, with which the Donbass entered the battle, having only two 76-mm guns on board. The last message from the tanker was "... we are engaged in an artillery battle ...". This signal was received on November 7 - the day of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution.

Following the laws of the naval fraternity, the crew of the Donbass tanker saved dozens of other vessels at the cost of their lives. The German squadron was then unable to detect a single target, although it passed another 600 miles after the battle with the tanker to the east.

In his memoirs, the commander of the Nazi destroyer wrote that he decided to sink the tanker from a distance of 2,000 meters with a fan attack of three torpedoes. The crew of the tanker evaded her with a competent maneuver. Then the destroyer fired at the tanker from the main battery guns and, having broken the engine room, caused a fire on the ship. The tanker continued to conduct aimed artillery fire. Then, having reduced the distance to 1,000 meters, the destroyer fired several more torpedoes, one of which hit the tanker and split it in half.

More than forty crew members died, about twenty were captured and interned in concentration camps in Norway. Deutsch was not among the survivors ...

After the war, Captain Zilke, who returned from captivity, reported the details of the death of our scout. Deutsch participated in the battle with the destroyer as part of the artillery servants on the bow of the tanker. At the time of the torpedo explosion, he was there with broken legs. The depths of the Barents Sea swallowed up an outstanding intelligence officer. It happened three hundred miles west of the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya.

Soviet citizen Stefan Lang died uncharacteristically for a scout, in an open battle with the enemy. And although he was a passenger, he could not stay away from the fight with the Nazis, taking an active part in it.

The feat of the crew of the Donbass tanker did not go unnoticed. Vessels with this name sail the seas. In Donetsk, a Young Sailors Club was opened, called "Donbass".

In Vienna, a memorial plaque was installed on the house where Arnold Genrikhovich Deutsch, aka Soviet citizen Stefan Genrikhovich Lang, lived. The inscription “May the sacrifice made to them be understood by people” is engraved on it! It simultaneously serves as an epigraph to his bright life and an epitaph on his nameless grave.

The unique intelligence agent Deutsch-Lang had neither professional nor government awards. It would be fair even after many years from the date of his last feat - a deadly battle with the Nazis in a naval battle, to apply to the Government of Russia with a proposal to award Arnold Deutsch - Stefan Lang with the Order Patriotic War, posthumously.

The name of Nahum Eitingon until recently remained one of the most guarded secrets. Soviet Union. This man was involved in events that influenced the course of world history.

The childhood of the legendary scout

Naum Eitingon was born on December 6, 1899, not far from Mogilev, in Belarus. His family was quite wealthy, his father, Isaac Eitingon, served as a clerk at a paper mill, and was a member of the board of the Shklov Savings and Loan Association. The mother raised the children, Naum had another brother and two sisters grew up. After graduating from the 7th grade of a commercial school, Eitingon got a job at the Mogilev city government, where he acted as an instructor in the statistics department. On the eve of the revolution of 1917, Naum becomes a member of the organization of the Left SRs. The leaders of this group staked on terrorist methods of struggle. The SR fighters had to be able to shoot well, understand mines and bombs, and also be in good physical form. The militants used their knowledge and skills against the enemies of the party, among whom were the Bolsheviks.

1917 During the First World War, Mogilev was under the German occupiers, the city government was closed. Eitingon worked first at a concrete plant, then at a warehouse. In November 1918, the Germans left Mogilev and units of the Red Army entered the city. A new government has arrived. The idea of ​​a world revolution fascinated Naum Eitingon, and he joined the ranks of the Bolshevik Party. Soon he was able to prove himself - clashes began in the city between the White Guards and the Red Army, who had been factory workers yesterday. Only unlike them, Eitingon knew how to shoot, understood tactics and strategy - the Socialist-Revolutionary past affected. The rebellion was crushed, and young man new authorities took notice. Eitingon dreamed of serving the state.

At first, Eitingon was appointed a commissioner of the Gomel region, at the age of 19 he became a deputy of the Gomel Cheka. Nikolai Dolgopolov notes that Eitingon was a hard man. Dzerzhinsky liked this quality, and it is believed that Eitingon was summoned to Moscow at his suggestion.

In 1922, Eitingon was transferred to Moscow. He becomes an employee of the central apparatus of the OGPU, at the same time enters and studies at the eastern faculty of the Military Academy of the General Staff.

In Moscow, Eitingon met future wife Anna Shulman. In 1924, the couple's son, Vladimir, was born. But soon the young people broke up.

In 1925, after graduating, Naum Eitingon was enrolled in the staff of the foreign department of the OGPU - this department was engaged in collecting intelligence on the territory of foreign countries. In the autumn of 1925, Eitingon begins his first assignment. He leaves for China under a fictitious name - Leonid Naumov, this name he bore until 1940. In 1925, he meets Olga Zarubina, and the young couple realizes that they are perfect for each other. He adopts Zoya Zarubina, who will be grateful to him all her life.

The beginning of intelligence activities

In 1928, Chinese General Jang Zou Lin began secret negotiations with the Japanese. He wanted to create the Manchurian Republic on the border with Russia. Stalin only saw a threat in the negotiations. Eitingon received an order to destroy the general from Moscow. He prepared to blow up the train in which Zou Lin was riding. After returning to Moscow, Naum Eitingon was transferred to a special department of the OGPU - a department for especially important and top-secret assignments.

Spanish Civil War

In 1936, Eitingon leaves for another business trip. At the same time, a civil war began in Spain between the Republicans and Franco's pro-fascists. The USSR sent help to the Republicans, among whom was Naum Eitingon - he worked in Spain under the name of Leonid Kotov. He served as deputy head of the NKVD residence in Spain, and also led the Spanish partisans, for which the Spaniards respectfully spoke of him as "our general Kotov."

In the summer of 1938, the Spanish residency was headed by Naum Eitingon. The appointment coincided with a turning point in the course of the Spanish Civil War. The Francoists, with the combat support of parts of the German legion "Condor", occupied the capital of the Republicans, Barcelona. Nahum Eitingon had to urgently save the Republican government of Spain and members of the international brigades - and all this under the constant threat of attack from the Francoists and German saboteurs. Eitingon did the impossible - he helped to evacuate the Republicans, volunteers, Spanish gold, first to France, then to Mexico, where there was Spanish emigration.

Assassination of Leon Trotsky

Naum Eitingon returned to the USSR in 1939. At this time, the new People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, Lavrenty Beria, was getting rid of the supporters of his predecessor. Most of Eitingon's colleagues and acquaintances with whom he worked in Spain were arrested or shot. Almost all heads of the foreign department of the NKVD and about 70% of intelligence officers were repressed. Eitingon was also close to arrest. They wanted to charge him with "squandering" public funds and working for British intelligence. But instead of prison, the intelligence officer was given a new task - Eitingon was ordered to kill Leon Trotsky.

In 1929, Leon Trotsky left the USSR after losing to Stalin. Already abroad, he began to express his anti-Soviet views, spoke out against the five-year plan for the development of the economy, criticized the ideas of industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture. Trotsky predicted the defeat of the USSR in the war with Nazi Germany. Trotsky began to gather new supporters around him, including those abroad. Such vigorous activity of Trotsky irritated Stalin. And the leader decided to physically eliminate his political opponent.

After the arrest of the Siqueiros group, Naum Eitingon activated the second plan to eliminate Leon Trotsky. A lone killer entered the case; Eitingon chose Ramon Mercader for this role. This is a Spanish aristocrat recruited in 1937. In the winter of 1940, Mercader met Trotsky's personal secretary, Sylvia Agelov, under the personal influence of a wealthy playboy. Gallantry, manners of an aristocrat and wealth made the right impression on Sylvia. Ramon proposed to her and Sylvia agreed. So Mercader became a member of Trotsky's house as Sylvia's fiancé.

August 20, 1940 Ramon Mercader asked to evaluate his article for one of the newspapers. Together they went into the office, and when Trotsky bent over the papers, Mercader hit him on the head with a summer axe. Trotsky shouted, Trotsky's guards ran to the shout and started beating Mercader. Ramon's assailant was later handed over to the police. But the assassination attempt achieved its goal - the next day, Leon Trotsky died. Operation "duck" was successfully completed.

Activities during the Great Patriotic War

After the outbreak of the war, Naum Eitingon led the organization of the First Patriotic Special Forces detachments. On the basis of a special foreign intelligence group, a separate motorized rifle brigade was formed. special purpose- OMSBON. In a short time, professional assassins and saboteurs were trained from scouts, athletes and members of foreign communist parties at the Dynamo stadium. They were prepared for being thrown into the rear of the Germans, to perform special tasks.

At first, in the rear of the Germans, because of the short time for preparation, poorly trained groups of saboteurs were thrown. Everyone knew about this - both the special forces soldiers and their teachers. Eitingon, as a professional, understood this, and before leaving, he invited the fighters to his home to give personal instructions and support them.

Despite the losses, the fighters of the special purpose brigade managed to complete most of the tasks assigned to them. Among the most high-profile victories is the kidnapping of the former Russian prince Lvov, who worked closely with the Nazis. He was taken by plane to Moscow and handed over to a military tribunal. Another high-profile operation - in the city of Rovno they kidnapped and destroyed Major General of the German army Igen.

Having completed the formation of a special forces brigade, Eitingon returned to his direct duties - collecting intelligence and carrying out targeted sabotage. The new task is the organization of sabotage in the Turkish Dardanelles. Eitingon's group included six people - experts in the field of explosives and radio operators. They settled in Turkey, under the guise of emigrants, and Naum Isaakovich arrived in Istanbul as the consul of the USSR Leonid Naumov. Muza Malinovskaya acted as his wife. Muse Malinovskaya is a famous "seven thousandth", a woman who jumped with a parachute from a height of 7 thousand meters. She made more than a hundred jumps, was a first-class radio operator. Muse Malinovskaya conquered Eitingon, after returning to Moscow they will begin to live together. In 1943, the couple had a son, Leonid, in 1946, a daughter, Muza.

On the morning of February 24, 1942, Ambassador Franz von Pappen and his wife were walking along Atatürk Boulevard in Ankara. Suddenly, an explosive device went off in the hands of a stranger. The terrorist died, the police decided that the deceased was a Soviet agent. Historians of the special services name Naum Eitingon as the organizer of the assassination attempt on Franz von Pappen. But there is no exact evidence, the archives are closed. It is known that six months later, Eitingon left Turkey, and in Moscow he received a promotion - he became deputy head of the 4th department of the NKVD.

In the new position of one of the leaders of the sabotage department, Eitingon was to organize the largest counterintelligence operation of the Great Patriotic War.

In the summer of 1944, east of Minsk Soviet troops surrounded by a hundred thousandth group of Germans. In Moscow, the idea arose to hold a "radio game" with the German Abwehr. It was decided to plant a legend to the Wehrmacht high command that a large German military unit was hiding in the Belarusian forests. This part is experiencing a shortage of weapons, food and medicine. Having deceived the Germans, the Soviet counterintelligence intended to inflict significant material damage on them. On August 18, disinformation was sent to the Germans by radio, and the Nazis believed in the existence of such a military unit.

The first German paratroopers arrived in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bLake Peschanoe, they were caught and included in the radio game. The main goal of Operation Berezino is to catch as many enemy saboteurs as possible. German planes regularly dropped money, weapons, medicines, campaign leaflets. On December 21, 1944, at the Berezino site, Soviet intelligence officers captured a group of six people - saboteurs from the personal team of Otto Skorzeny. Eitingon, during the operation, joined with the most famous saboteur of the Third Reich - and won this confrontation. Until the end of the war, Skorzeny believed in the existence of a German unit wandering in the Belarusian forests. Eitingon proved to be a brilliant counterintelligence officer.

A string of arrests

After the war, Naum Eitingon received another military rank of major general. About what he did for the next six years, his biography says briefly - he was engaged in the liquidation of Polish, Lithuanian and Uighur nationalist formations.

A new era has begun, the “thaw”. The post of leader was taken by Nikita Khrushchev, who hated Stalin, Beria (who was shot) and everything connected with them. Eitingon was again under attack, because Beria freed him. In the summer of 1953, he was arrested as a member of the Beria conspiracy, allegedly to destroy the Soviet government. Eitingon was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Legendary Scout I was imprisoned in the Vladimir Central, Evgenia Alliluyeva, Konstantin Ordzhonikidze, Pavel Sudoplatov were in the neighboring cells.

In prison, a stomach ulcer worsened, Eitingon almost died. But the prison doctors performed an operation and saved Eitingon.

Naum Eitingon was released on March 20, 1964. Released from prison, deprived of awards and military rank. Requests for rehabilitation went unheeded. But his authority among colleagues remained very high, his merits were known and remembered. Thanks to the patronage of the KGB, Eitingon received a Moscow residence permit and an editorial position at the International Relations publishing house.

The legendary scout was rehabilitated only in 1992, 11 years after his death. "The last knight of Soviet intelligence" liked to repeat - "do what you must, and come what may."

70 years ago, on March 9, 1944, a sabotage group of the legendary Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov died in the village of Boratyn, Lviv region. She was captured by UPA militants. Kuznetsov blew himself up with a grenade, and his companions were shot dead.

Shortly before the start of the Great Patriotic War, Nikolai Kuznetsov began to prepare for work abroad from illegal positions. However, the outbreak of war made adjustments to this preparation. In the first days of the attack of Nazi Germany on our country, Nikolai Kuznetsov filed a report with a request to use it in "an active struggle against German fascism at the front or in the rear of the German troops that invaded our land." In the summer of 1942, having undergone special training, he was enrolled in the special-purpose unit "Winners", commanded by D.N. Medvedev.

In accordance with the withdrawal plan, Kuznetsov was thrown out with a parachute deep behind enemy lines - in the Sarny forests of the Rivne region.
In the city of Rivne, turned by the Germans into the "capital" of the temporarily occupied Ukraine, Nikolai Kuznetsov appeared under the name of Lieutenant Paul Wilhelm Siebert, holder of two Iron Crosses. Good professional training scout, brilliant knowledge of the German language, amazing will and courage were the basis for him to perform the most difficult reconnaissance and sabotage tasks.
Acting under the guise of a German officer, Nikolai Kuznetsov in the center of the city of Rovno carried out the people's sentence - he destroyed the imperial adviser to the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine Gell and his secretary Winter. A month later, in the same place, he mortally wounded the Deputy Reich Commissar, General Dargel. Together with his comrades-in-arms, he kidnapped and removed from Rovno the commander of the punitive forces in Ukraine, General von Ilgen, and the personal driver E. Koch Granau. Soon after that, in the courthouse, he destroyed the cruel executioner, the president of the supreme court in the occupied Ukraine, A. Funk.


Secret meeting of Kuznetsov (left) with the secretary of the Slovak embassy Krno, a German intelligence agent. 1940, operational filming with a hidden camera.

An interesting episode with the liquidation of the commander of the special troops, General Ilgen. Kuznetsov proposed a plan not just to eliminate the general, but to capture him and deliver him to the detachment. The implementation of this plan, in addition to Kuznetsov, was entrusted to Strutinsky, Kaminsky and Valya Dovger.
General von Ilgen occupied a solid house in Rovno, which was constantly guarded. The moment for the operation to capture Ilgen was well chosen. Four German soldiers, who permanently lived in the general's house and guarded him, were sent to Berlin, where the general sent along with them suitcases with stolen goods. The house was guarded by local policemen.
On the scheduled day, Valya went to Ilgen's house with a package in her hands. The orderly suggested that Valya wait for the general, but she said that she would come later. It became clear that von Ilgen was not at home. Soon Kuznetsov, Strutinsky and Kaminsky appeared there. They quickly eliminated the guards, and the chief lieutenant explained to the batman that if he wants to live, he must help them. The attendant agreed.
Nikolai Ivanovich and Strutinsky selected documents of interest in von Ilgen's office, folded and packed them together with the weapons found in a bundle. Forty minutes later von Ilgen drove up to the house. When he took off his overcoat, next room Kuznetsov came out and said that in front of him were Soviet partisans.

The general was forty-two years old, healthy and strong, he did not want to obey the commands of the scout. I had to deal with him. When the general was “packed”, it turned out that officers were coming to the house. Nikolai Ivanovich went out to meet them. There were four of them. The intelligence officer's mind worked feverishly: what to do with them? Interrupt? Can. But there will be noise. And then Kuznetsov remembered the Gestapo badge, which he had been given back in Moscow. He has never used it before.
Nikolai Ivanovich took out a token and, showing it to the German officers, said that a bandit in a German uniform had been detained here and therefore asked to see documents. After carefully reviewing them, he asked three of them to follow their path, and invited the fourth to enter the house as a witness. It turned out to be Erich Koch's personal chauffeur.
So, together with General von Ilgen, officer Granau, the Gauleiter's personal chauffeur, was also brought to the detachment.


The merit of Nikolai Kuznetsov also consisted in the fact that, at the same time, he purposefully collected intelligence information important for the Center. So in the spring of 1943, he managed to obtain extremely valuable intelligence information about the preparation by the enemy of a major offensive operation in the Kursk area using new tanks "Tiger" and "Panther". He also became aware of the exact location of Hitler's field headquarters near Vinnitsa, which received the code name "Werwolf". Kuznetsov was the first to report on the preparation of an assassination attempt on the heads of governments of the "Big Three", who were going to a historic meeting in Tehran. His task also included collecting information about the movement of military units, about the plans and intentions of the Gestapo and SD services, about the trips of high officials of the Reich, which was successfully used in the fight against the enemy.


Left to right: Nikolai Kuznetsov, Commissar partisan detachment Stekhov, Nikolay Strutinsky

At the end of December 1943, N.I. Kuznetsov received a new task - to deploy intelligence work in the city of Lvov. Committing acts of retribution, he carried out the sentence of the people and destroyed the Vice-Governor of Galicia Otto Bauer and Lieutenant Colonel Peters. The situation in Galicia after that became extremely complicated. Kuznetsov and two of his comrades-in-arms - Yan Kaminsky and Ivan Belov - managed to escape from Lvov. It was decided to make their way to the front line. However, on the night of March 8-9, 1944, they were ambushed in the village of Boratin, Lviv region, and died in an unequal battle with Ukrainian nationalists, Kuznetsov blew himself up with a grenade, and his companions were shot dead.

Monument to Nikolai Kuznetsov in Tyumen.
On November 5, 1944, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was published on awarding the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to employees of the special forces of the NKGB of the USSR operating behind enemy lines. In the list of those awarded, along with the name of D.N. Medvedev, was the name of Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov - posthumously.
In 1990-1991 a number of protests by members of the Ukrainian nationalist underground against perpetuating the memory of Kuznetsov appeared in the Lviv media. Monuments to Kuznetsov in Lvov and Rovno were dismantled in 1992. In November 1992, with the assistance of Strutinsky, the Lviv monument was taken to Talitsa.
Vandals repeatedly tried to desecrate the grave of Nikolai Kuznetsov. By 2007, the activists of the initiative group in Yekaterinburg had done all the preparatory work necessary to move Kuznetsov's remains to the Urals.
The case of Nikolai Kuznetsov is stored in the archives of the Federal Security Service Russian Federation and will be declassified no earlier than 2025.

Gevork Andreevich Vartanyan was born on February 17, 1924 in Rostov-on-Don in the family of Andrey Vasilyevich Vartanyan, an Iranian citizen, director of an oil mill.

In 1930, when Gevork was six years old, the family left for Iran. His father was connected with the Soviet foreign intelligence and left the USSR on her instructions. Under the guise of commercial activities, Andrei Vasilievich conducted an active intelligence undercover work. It was under the influence of his father that Gevork became a scout.

Gevork Vartanyan connected his fate with Soviet intelligence at the age of 16, when in February 1940 he established direct contact with the NKVD station in Tehran. On behalf of the resident, Gevork led a special group to identify fascist agents and German intelligence agents in Tehran and other Iranian cities. In just two years, his group identified about 400 people, one way or another connected with German intelligence.

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