About Soviet spy rings operating in Germany, foremost “The Red Orchestra”.
Communism, as a form of government, can not co-exist with other forms of government, especially capitalist-, imperialist in Soviet slogan, democracies, V. Suvorov (W. B. Resun) explains in his “Stalins verhinderter Erstschlag”. This is why borders of communist countries were closed, no comparison allowed, only a selected few able to visit “The Capitalist West”.
The slogan: “Proletarians of the world, unite!” was intended to mean-, following the Bolshevik October revolution in Russia, “under Soviet banner”. That world domination was the goal is made clear when looking at that Soviet banner, with hammer and sickle superimposed over the globe. Also, Lenin and later Stalin, never made a secret of this intent, Stalin in his oath at Lenin’s funeral promised to “…solidify and expand the Union of Soviet Republics” (Suvorov, p.80). Germany was meant to play a leading role, Prof. Nolte provides details in “Der Europäische Bürgerkrieg 1917-1945” (The European civil war 1917-1945).
Communist ideology had many followers in Europe, including, of course, Germany. As mentioned in the preamble, almost 6 million Germans voted communist (KPD) in the November 1932 election, this translating into 100 seats in the Reichstag, the German parliament (Tony Howard, Twentieth Century History, p.93). Thus, the Soviets had support and through the Comintern (Communist International) made use of it. When Hitler came to power, many communist leaders were arrested, but the infrastructure, the Cadres, were never totally dismantled, remained largely intact. After the initial shock, those Cadres rebuild, operating in strict secrecy, independent from each other and not openly as communists, and were very effective in the opposition movement (Hans Rothfels, “Die Deutsche Opposition Gegen Hitler”, pp.59 ff).
The book “Deadly Illusions”, by John Costello and Oleg Tsarev, provides valuable information on Soviet spy organizations in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. O. Tsarev, as a KGB officer, had access to secret files, those files made available, partially, under Glasnost. The book is about Soviet master spy Alexander Mikhailovich Orlov, real name Leiba Lazarevich Feldbin, born into a family of Ashkenazim Jews (pp.13/4), but as mentioned gives a good overview of all operations, starting with the Comintern. From pp.44/5:
“The Comintern, as it was termed in Soviet Jargon, had been Trotsky’s brainchild. Set up under the chairmanship of Grigory Zinoviev, it had been packed by Moscow with international Communists eager to execute Lenin’s grand design for Comintern to ignite national Communist parties in a chain-reaction global revolution. But the collapse of the Communist insurrection in Germany in 1923, which Zinoviev had precipitately ordered, proved only the most glaring demonstration of the stubborn refusal of the international Proletariat to combust spontaneously. Nor had Comintern proved any more successful when it came to handling espionage[…]”
Thus, the first attempts at inspiring a “spontaneous” uprising of the international Proletariat, German Proletariat in particular, failed. But, Germany was the key to the envisioned communist Europe, according to Lenin, and all this failure did was force the Soviets to reorganize their efforts, and that they did. First, the Comintern was taken over, from July 1923 to July 1934, by the OGPU (Obyedinyonnoye Gosudarstvennoye Politicheskoye Upravleniye – Unified State Political Administration). From pp.47 ff:
“As the OGPU representative in France, Orlov commanded one of the largest Soviet intelligence networks in Europe, outside Berlin[…]When Orlov arrived at the Soviet Embassy (in Paris 1926. Wilf)[…]the OGPU was in the final stages of taking over the intelligence functions and “active measures” that had formerly been carried out through the Comintern network. They included penetration and provocation operations, the cultivation of sympathetic Communists as informers and running active agents. According to Orlov, misinformation – or disinformation as it is now called – was also on an OGPU rezident’s (Rezident – Soviet intelligence service station chief) agenda (Orlov, A Handbook of Counter-Intelligence and Guerrilla Warfare, p.21)[…]”
Tsarev also discovered info about the Heß flight and published it on May 13.1990 in “Trud”, at that time a large Soviet newspaper. But, this was not well received by historians. Tsarev writes, p.xv: “Not only was there an inherent disinclination to believe intelligence in the Soviet intelligence files, but many historians had build their reputation on what they had written and I realized how strongly they would resist accepting a new theory[…]”. Tsarev also admits that many files are still inaccessible, it remains to be seen how historians, who “…had build their reputation on what they had written “ will react when they are made available. This as an aside, back to the spies.
Many more makeovers of the Soviet intelligence agency followed, the aim remained the same, “cultivation of sympathetic Communists” as agents, etc. Those efforts were very successful in Germany, the Red Orchestra one of its creations. Louis Kilzer in his “Hitler’s Traitor” tackles this subject, as does V. E. Tarrant in “The Red Orchestra”. Other authors have also provided information, the aforementioned book by Costello/Tsarev (C/T) deals with the topic, all be it in passing. I consider the latter to be the best source, because of Tsarev’s access to KGB files, Oleg being an insider. In chapter 3, “Industrial Help, Not Espionage” C/T show how successful the Soviets were in obtaining German technology secrets, from IG-Farben, Krupp, Rheinmetall, Borsig, Mannesmann, AEG and Siemens, as well as others (p.57 f). All this achieved “…with the help of trusted members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD)” (p.59). This practice of operating through the various Soviet trade organizations which opened in the 1920s, closely tied to Soviet Embassies, was later abandoned because of various scandals involving Soviet “diplomats”, who were in fact industrial spies. Also later, when German agents were groomed for service by the Soviets, people who had no connection to the KPD-, who had no record of being communist sympathizers-, were preferred (much the same in Britain and elsewhere in Europe).
In chapter 4, “Dangerous Guesswork”, we find the beginnings of The Red Orchestra, C/T write, p.73:
“THE BERLIN SECTION of the Rote Kapelle had its genesis, according to the Soviet records, in the visit of a pro-Communist delegation of German academics to Moscow in August 1932[…]The secretary of this pro-Soviet group, which had been formed on the pretext of studying the planned economy of the USSR under the banner of Arbeitsgemeinschaft zum Studium der Sowjetrussichen or ARPLAN for short, was a thirty-one-year-old academic named Arvid Harnack[…]”
Not Tarrant nor Kilzer go back that far, the former beginning with the start of Barbarossa, the latter a little earlier. But this shows how early and under what circumstances traitors/spies were recruited, making it nearly impossible for any government to ferret them out. From pp. 73/74:
“[…]Arvid Harnack… left his unit (Freikorps. Wilf) in order to pursue a belated academic career, graduating four years later with distinction in legal studies[…]By 1931 Harnack and his wife had become committed Marxists. After studying the history of Lenin’s plan for building a Socialist state in the USSR, he had completed the transition from right-wing patriot to fervent, if not openly avowed, Communist[…]In common with many German intellectuals in the decade before Hitler came to power, Harnack chose not to wear his Communist political sympathies on his sleeve by openly joining the KPD (Kommunistische Partei Deutschland). Instead he became a member of the ARPLAN Society and a year later, in 1931, joined the Bund Geistiger Berufe (BGB), the so-called Union of Intellectual Professionals, one of the “cover” organizations set up by the KPD to extend its influence among academics, scientists and civil servants. According to a contemporary report received by the OGPU from Comintern sources, the BGB had been formed with the aim of “spreading ideological influence in those circles of the intelligentsia that, for various reasons, were hesitant to join a mass movement”[…]”
In April 1935, Harnack “joined the staff of the Ministry of the Economy”(p.74) and later on that year he agreed to become a NKVD informant, with “Balt”(later “Corsican”), his code name. Harnack was encouraged, by his first control officer Alexander Belkin, to establish “…a cast-iron cover for his underground activities” (p.75). He did this by joining the National Socialist Union of Lawyers and managed to become a member of the Herren Club, an exclusive circle of manufacturers, aristocrats, high ranking officers of the army, navy and air force, the latter providing valuable information, which Harnack passed on to Moscow via Belkin. Names are listed by C/T(p.77), names of prominent members of German society as well as the armed forces, including code names of those who worked for the Soviets. Harnack’s build up of his network was aided by Willy Lehman, a Gestapo officer and also a Soviet agent.
Contact to Moscow was interrupted in the summer of 1938, the reason Stalin’s purge of the NKVD, but re-established on September 17.1940, when Alexander Erdberg, nay Alexander Korotkov, knocked on Harnack’s door. At that time, as the KGB Corsican file shows, “…Harnack’s network had grown to encompass sixty strategically placed sources(p.80 )[…]”. From pp.80/81:
“Corsican[…]continued his proselytising work among the intelligentsia along the established lines of the BGB, avoiding any connection to the KPD[…]At present, within the larger circle, centres have been formed, each of which is dedicated to the education and training of a small group. Although CORSICAN himself cannot personally vouch for every person, every one of these sixty people, the whole network is
drawn exclusively from people who have the same background, think alike and come from the same social strata[…]CORSICAN himself tries to remain in the background although he is at the heart of the organization. The aim of them all is to prepare personnel to occupy administrative posts [in the German Government] after the coup d’etat. CORSICAN himself has had no contact with the Communist Party.
(Corsican file No. 34118, Vol. 1, p.108)[…]”
The aim of the Harnack group was to overthrow Hitler’s government, to use the Soviet Union as a means to that end. This “aroused concern” at Moscow Centre, but was eventually accepted for: “…Harnack would never have agreed to abandon his crusade against Hitler simply to become a channel for the transmission of the secrets of the Third Reich to the USSR[…](p.81)”. Harnack later send detailed plans about the buildup of German forces, prior to Barbarossa, to Moscow, as well as other information.
Now to the next Berlin group within the Red Orchestra, German officials never realizing just how extensive the Soviet spy ring was. From pp.82 ff:
“[…]Corsican’s file shows that the flow of accurate military information on German preparations for war against the Soviet Union increased dramatically after December 1940, when Harnack recruited a Luftwaffe lieutenant into his network. This important new source was Harro Schulze-Boysen[…]”
Harro, great-nephew and a godson of Admiral von Tirpitz, thus well connected, who had studied law and politics at the Universities of Freiburg and Berlin, embraced communism early on. He published an anti-Nazi magazine, “Der Gegner” (The Opponent), was arrested in 1934 and freed through the intervention of Göring, a close family friend. Harro, on Göring’s recommendation, enrolled in the School of Transport Aviation and later was posted in the Air Ministry, pursuing a career in Luftwaffe counter-intelligence. In 1936 he married Libertas, grand-daughter of Count Oldenburg und Hertfeld. Libertas also hated the Nazis and helped her husband “wholeheartedly”. Another list of names follows, men in high positions and members of Harro’s circle, among them counter-intelligence chief in the air ministry Gertz, as well as Major Gregor, liaison officer to Göring and also a communist. At the time Harnack and Harro agreed to co-operate, Harro headed a group of twenty (Through Harnack’s cousin, contact was established to Goerdeler, head of another large group of traitors/opponents). Harro also established contact with playwright Adam Kuckhoff, whose circle included (p.84):
“[…]Adolf Grimme, a leading Social Democrat and associate of the trade unionist named Wilhelm Leischer, whose own underground opposition group included Berlin’s Polizei-Präsident Graf Wolf von Helldorf[…] (Corsican File No. 34118, Vol I, p.327)[…]His network became the third major element in the Berlin section of the Rote Kapelle[…]”
In Appendix I, C/T give a list of Most Significant Messages relayed to Moscow in the six month before Barbarossa. Appendix II is titled “The Corsican and Senior Networks after June 1941”, providing details about the Red Orchestra and other anti-Hitler groups. It would make this too long to copy all of it, so, just portions of the last two paragraphs, p.405:
“One telling indication of the size and scope of the Soviet intelligence networks which had operated in Berlin was that the Gestapo round-up in 1942 resulted in the arrest of 130 members of the Berlin Rote Kapelle networks[…](Rote Kapelle File No. 80607, Vol. 6, p.17 RISA)
Soviet records show that the Gestapo round-up accounted for less than half the Underground membership of their CORSICAN, SENIOR and OLD MAN networks. The NKVD files indicate that the total figure for their Rote Kapelle networks came to close to 400 members, including a network in Hamburg, which was headed by Germans named Robert Abshagen, Franz Jacob and Bernhard Bästlein[…]”
Tarrant goes into detail about the Harnack/Schulze-Boysen groups and the arrests of some of the members. He shows that the Soviets had placed spies in many countries, including Belgium and France and that those circles were connected. Impossible to tell how many were spying for the Soviets. Tsarev writes that even today, aside from the fact that access to many archives is restricted again, it would be almost impossible to get that information, because of how files are archived. In footnote 15, p. 432, we read:
“[…]An occasional check on a name in registry would point to certain pages in these files, and then only those individual pages would be shown to the officer who would not have grasped the full dimensions”
Tsarev refers to the Orlov file here, but writes that this was/is generally the case.
And now a little from “Hitler’s Traitor”, by Louis Kilzer. Kilzer adds more names to the already impressive list of spies working for the Soviet Union, as well as names of other opponents. When Leopold Trepper, “Le Grand Chef” of one of the spy networks was arrested by the Gestapo (he later escaped), while keeping a dentist appointment, the Germans set him up in the “funkspiel”. Trepper was told to relay information to Moscow, via short wave, “funk”. This information was provided by people like Walter Schellenberg, intelligence chief of the SD, Heinrich Müller, Gestapo chief, as well as others. Kilzer claims that the information send was genuine, Schellenberg, Müller & Co. traitors, because the Soviets would have found out if it was bogus. But this gets me into the traitor issue, subject of the next article, so, back to the spies.
According to Kilzer, perhaps the most effective Soviet spy ring operated out of Switzerland, “Gisela’s Family in Switzerland”(p.23). Maria Poliakova, one of her code names “Gisela”, had assembled this group. Poliakova was made spy master, by the Soviets, during the second world war. Her “family” was extensive, here are some names as provided by Kilzer. BTW, this network was never put out of action completely.
Rachel Dübendorfer, code name “Sissy”, controlled Rudolf Rössler, known as “Lucy” during the war (she received information from at least 17 sources, p.71). Aleksandr Foote, code name “Jim” (and others), wireless transmitter for the Red Army operations in Switzerland (pp.31 ff). Ursula Hamburger, code name “Sonia” (Hamburger was in charge of sabotage against Germany prior to the German-Soviet pact. She had planned the Alexander Foote assassination attempt of Hitler. Later, she handled the Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs for Soviet intelligence, pp.26-28). Alexander Rado, code name “Dora”, administrative head of the Rote Drei in Switzerland (pp.20-21). Rudolf Rössler, code name “Lucy”, provided the bulk of the information (pp.3 ff).
Many more names supplied, but “Lucy” was the most efficient informant, because he received his information from “Werther”. A little about “Lucy”. Rudolf Rössler was a German journalist, who on the initiative of Rosenberg lost his job as manager of the Bühnenvolksbund (Theatre group), moved to Switzerland in 1933 and “…was transformed into a fervent anti-fascist” (Tarrant, p.158). At the start of Barbarossa, he was 44 years old, the Soviets paid him 7,000 Swiss Franks a month, a “millionaire’s wage”, according to Kilzer (p.3). The information provided by “Lucy” helped the Soviets win the war, Kilzer leaves no doubt.
As mentioned, “Lucy’s” source was “Werther”, and who was he? Kilzer makes a case for Bormann being Werther, Tarrant believes Lieutenant-General Thiele, second in command of the communications department of the German High Command, send the information to “Lucy”, provided, in part, by General Erich Fellgiebel, who was “…part of the conspiracy to overthrow Hitler” (Tarrant, p.160). A third possibility has surfaced, Oberleutnant (first lieutenant) d.R. Dr. Wilhelm Scheidt. This reserve officer had access to all the information and with the help of two female radio operators (Nachrichtenhelferinnen) the vital parts were passed on to “Lucy”. Scheidt had written a dissertation on Goethe’s “Werther”, thus his code name (Bernd Ruland, “Die Augen Moskaus”). Regardless of who it was, it was someone privy to highly classified information. And that information was up to date, from Kilzer, p.266:
“As early as 1949, accounts of the Lucy ring began appearing after French journalists interviewed Foote. ‘Lucy,” he told them, “was able rapidly to obtain intelligence of the highest secrecy. Between the time when the German General Staff made a decision and the time when the Center was informed of it there elapsed scarcely 24 hours—that is to say, hardly more than the time needed to code and decode the message in question. In order to act so quickly, Lucy must be able to maintain contact with the German high command”(RG [U.S National Record Group and archivist’s coordinate] 319, Box 60, Vol.1). General Halder concurred. He declared in dismay to Der Spiegel: “Almost every offensive operation of ours was betrayed to the enemy even before it appeared on my desk.”[…]”
It is clear that, with all those spies and traitors present in Germany and elsewhere, listening in and reporting, it would have been impossible to keep anything a secret. Heinrich Härtle, in his “Deutsche und Juden”, quotes minister Dr. Ohnesorge telling his friend Dr. Goldmann that since 1936 it has been impossible to have a plenary session of the parliament, because whatever was discussed would have been broadcast in England in the evening news. The communist sympathizers working directly for the Soviets, as well as the opponents/traitors, were looking for a way to discredit Hitler. Hitler was very popular with the common Volk, the NSdAP, the Nationalist “Workers” Party a party of the little people. The so-called intelligentsia, for the most part, had no use for that party and worked tirelessly to find a way to try and show the Germans that Hitler & Co. were criminals.
This then brings me to the Elephant in the living room, “The Holocaust”. With that many people involved in spying and treachery, and the fact that the mass murder of 6 million Jews could not have been kept a secret, why was no effort made to obtain details of this, alleged, mass murder, those details then made public in Germany and forwarded to Moscow or London? This was also an issue at the IMT, because most high ranking German officers, who should have known about this alleged mass murder of Jews, never heard of it. This is when the “only a few in the know” canard was invented. I already quoted Dr. Kaufmann and the 200-300, form July 9.1946, here is what Dr. Seidl had to say two days later, on July 11. http://avalon.law.yale.edy/imt/07-11-46.asp :
“In regard to the latter (the final solution. Wilf) it may be said here, on the basis of the testimony given by the witnesses Wisliceny and Hoess and of the documents presented by the Prosecution, that these measures were undertaken on Hitler’s express orders and that only a small circle of persons was concerned in their execution. This small circle was confined in the main to a few SS leaders of Department IVA, 4b of the RSHA and the personnel of the concentration camps that had been selected for the purpose.”
It is now admitted that at least 400 000 were directly involved in the alleged killings (“Spiegel” article of October 3.2008. http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/topicalbumbackground/1564/_ich_zielte_ruhig_auf_die_saeuglinge.html),
With that many in the know and the sites fairly easy accessible, why then were no details known? I have a list, compiled by a historian, detailing what was known about Auschwitz up to its liberation in January 1945. The list contains 12 items, 3 of them pertaining to Vrba-Wetzler who were discredited in the Zündel trial, leaving 9 dubious items, rumors at best, nothing of substance. Less was known about the AR-Camps.
There is another issue. Quite a few of the spies were Jewish, among them Trepper, Rado, Poliakova, Dübendorfer. The forced deportations of Jews to camps and ghettos was not a secret, efforts were made to keep it that, but they were in vain for obvious reasons. Is it not more than reasonable to assume that the Jewish members of the spy rings would have tried everything to find out what was happening to their brethren? Dübendorfer (D) was, according to Kilzer and he provides examples, perhaps the most independent minded of them all. When in 1943 D was unable to pass on information, in desperation she contacted a friend, Hermina Rabinowitch at the ILO (International Labor Office) in Montreal (another Soviet agent, Christian Schneider, worked as a translator for the ILO in Switzerland already in 1941). In 1943, Prof. Eugene Kulischer, working for the ILO in Montreal, published his work “The Displacement of Population in Europe”, which included data up to the middle of 1943. In this work, Kulischer devotes a whole chapter to “The Expulsion and Deportation of Jews” (p.96), yet, not one word of mass murder. D would have known about the mass murder, if it then happened, and would have send this information to her friend Hermina to have it passed on to their fellow Jew Kulischer.
Moscow knew nothing, or they would have made it public. In the Moscow Declaration of October 30.1943, not one word about “The Holocaust”. Sure, “Hitlerite atrocities” are mentioned, yet no details given. But with that many people having access to all sorts of information and passing it on, with 400 000 directly involved in the alleged mass murder, if “The Holocaust” would have happened, the Soviets, as well as the rest of the world, would have known about it from very early on. In fact , this is admitted to by Messrs. Rieger and Sagalowitz who rightly surmised that “Murder on such a gigantic scale could not possibly be hidden for long” (W. Laqueur, W. Breitman “Breaking the Silence”, p.140).
For me, the lack of information regarding “The Holocaust” at the time of it allegedly happening, 1941/42 to 1944 (?), is prove positive that what is alleged did not happen. If it did, details would have been known from very early on, Germans would have risen up and stopped it just as the euthanasia program had been stopped because of public pressure. Also, the Vatican was very well informed about all what happened in Germany and the occupied countries, but nary a word from Pius XII, other than some generalities based on rumors. But that will be an issue addressed separately.