Englishman Kim Philby - legendary scout who managed to simultaneously work for the governments of two competing countries - England and the USSR. The work of the brilliant spy was so highly appreciated that he became the only owner in the world of two awards - the Order of the British Empire and the Order of the Red Banner. Needless to say, maneuvering between two fires has always been very difficult ...
Kim Philby is considered one of the most successful British intelligence officers, he held a senior position in the SIS intelligence service and his main task was to track down foreign spies. "Hunting" for specialists sent from the USSR, Kim at the same time was recruited by the Soviet special services. Work for the Land of the Soviets was due to the fact that Kim ardently supported the ideas of communism and was ready to cooperate with our intelligence, refusing to be rewarded for his work.
Philby did a lot to help the Soviet Union during the war years, his efforts intercepted sabotage groups on the Georgian-Turkish border, the information received from him helped prevent the American landing in Albania. Kim also provided assistance to Soviet intelligence officers, members of the Cambridge Five, who were on the verge of exposure in foggy Albion.
Despite the numerous suspicions put forward by Kim Philby, the British secret services did not succeed in obtaining a confession of cooperation with the USSR from their intelligence officer. Kim spent several years of his life in Beirut, officially he worked as a journalist, but his main task, of course, was to collect information for British intelligence.
In 1963, a special commission from Britain arrived in Beirut, which nevertheless managed to establish Kim's proximity to the Soviet Union. It is very interesting that the only irrefutable evidence turned out to be a bas-relief presented to the intelligence officer ... by Stalin. It was made of noble woods and inlaid with precious metals and stones. Mount Ararat was depicted on the bas-relief, which made it possible for Philby to come up with a legend that this curiosity was allegedly acquired in Istanbul. The British managed to guess that the point from which the majestic mountain was captured could only be located on the territory of the USSR.
After the exposure, Philby disappeared. It was not possible to find him for a long time, but then it became known that Khrushchev had granted him political asylum. Until his death in 1988, Kim Philby lived in Moscow. The fascination with the Soviet Union passed when the intelligence officer settled in the capital, much remained incomprehensible to him. For example, Philby genuinely wondered how the heroes who won the war could lead such a modest existence.
Another legendary Soviet intelligence officer who made a lot of efforts to defeat fascism is.
World War II began for the anti-aircraft gunner, non-commissioned officer Alexei Botyan on September 1, 1939. He was born on February 10, 1917, back in Russian Empire, but in March 1921 his small homeland - the village of Chertovichi, Vilna province - went to Poland. So the Belarusian Botyan became a Polish citizen.
His calculation managed to shoot down three German " Junkers when Poland ceased to exist as a geopolitical entity. The native village of Botyan became Soviet territory, Alexei also became a citizen of the USSR.
In 1940 on a modest teacher elementary school drew the attention of the NKVD. Speaking Polish as a native, a former non-commissioned officer "pilsudchik"... no, he is not shot as an enemy of the working people, but quite the opposite: he is accepted into an intelligence school, and in July 1941 he is enrolled in the OMSBON of the 4th department of the NKVD of the USSR. So for Alexei Botyan began new war, which ended only in 1983 - retirement.
Many details of this war, for the exploits in which he was presented three times to the title of Hero Soviet Union are still secret. But individual well-known episodes say a lot about this person.
For the first time he was in the German rear in November 1941 near Moscow, becoming the commander of a reconnaissance and sabotage group. In 1942, he was sent to the rear of the enemy, to the regions of Western Ukraine and Belarus.
Under his leadership, a major sabotage is being carried out: on September 9, 1943, the Nazi gebitskommissariat was blown up in Ovruch, Zhytomyr region, and 80 Nazi officers were killed in the explosion, including the gebitskommissar Wenzel and the head of the local anti-partisan center Siebert. 140 kilograms of explosives, along with meals, were dragged to Yakov Kaplyuka, the supply manager of the Gebietskommissariat, by his wife Maria. To insure against searches at the entrance, she always took with her the two smallest of her four children.
After this operation, the Kaplyuki were taken out into the forest, and Botyan was first introduced to the Hero - but received the Order of the Red Banner.
At the beginning of 1944, the detachment received an order to move to Poland.
It should be recalled: if on Ukrainian soil the Soviet partisans had problems with Bandera, which had to be solved sometimes by negotiations, and sometimes by weapons, then three different anti-Nazi forces acted on Polish soil: the Krayova Army (“ akovtsy", formally subordinate to the emigrant government), the People's Army (" alovtsy”, supported by the Soviet Union) and the rather independent Khlopsky Battalions - that is, peasant ones. The ability to find a common language with everyone was required for the successful solution of the tasks at hand, and Botyan succeeded superbly.
On May 1, 1944, a group of 28 people headed by Botyan is heading to the outskirts of Krakow. On the way on the night of May 14-15, together with the AL unit, Botyan's detachment takes part in the capture of the city of Ilzha and frees a large group of arrested underground workers.
On January 10, 1945, in a blown up headquarters car, one of the Soviet reconnaissance groups operating in the Krakow region found a briefcase with secret documents on mining objects in Krakow and the neighboring town of Nowy Sanch. Botyan's group captured an engineer-cartographer, a Czech by nationality, who reported that the Germans kept a strategic stock of explosives in the Royal (Jagiellonian) castle in Nowy Sącz.
The scouts went to the warehouse of Major Ogarek of the Wehrmacht. After talking with Botyan, he hired another Pole, who carried an hour mine embedded in boots into the warehouse. On January 18, the warehouse exploded; more than 400 Nazis died and were wounded. On January 20, Konev's troops entered practically the whole of Krakow, and Botyan went to the second presentation to the Hero. (Subsequently, Botyan became one of the prototypes " Major Whirlwind from the novel of the same name by Yulian Semyonov and a TV movie based on his script.)
After the war, Alexei Botyan becomes the Czech Leo Dvorak (he did not know the Czech language; he had to master it vigorously " immersion method", fortunately, his legend explained the poor possession of" relatives» language) and graduated from a higher technical school in Czechoslovakia. There, by the way, he met a girl who became his faithful life partner - not yet knowing about the multi-layered life of Pan Dvorak.
The post-war activity of the intelligence officer is covered with an understandable fog. According to open information from the SVR and avaricious (“ permitted”) according to Botyan’s stories, he performed special tasks in Germany and other countries, worked in the central office of the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR, participated in the creation of a group special purpose KGB of the USSR Pennant". And after his resignation, already as a civilian specialist, he helped prepare for another six years " young professionals».
Alexey Botyan was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner, Orders of the Red Banner of Labor and Patriotic War I degree, high Polish and Czechoslovak awards. In post-Soviet Russia, he was awarded the Order of Courage, and in 2007 President Putin presented him with a gold star of the Hero of Russia.
Simultaneous game session with cadets of the Vympel Military Patriotic Club, 20.02.2010.
Alexey Botyan still surprises everyone who knows him with his cheerfulness and optimism. He plays chess superbly, works out on an exercise bike, remembers the details of his eventful life to the smallest detail (but, of course, does not talk about what cannot be told). He is proud of the fact that for the entire time of "work" he was only once scratched on the temple by an enemy bullet - without even leaving a scar.
Yesterday the Scout Hero turned ninety-five.
The history of modern Russian military intelligence begins on November 5, 1918, when the Registration Directorate of the Field Headquarters of the Red Army (RUPShKA) was established by order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, the successor of which is now the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia (GRU GSH).
About the fate of the most famous military intelligence officers of our country. Richard Sorge
Certificate issued by the OGPU to Richard Sorge for the right to carry and store the Mauser pistol.
One of the outstanding intelligence officers of the 20th century was born in 1895 near Baku in a large family of German engineer Gustav Wilhelm Richard Sorge and Russian citizen Nina Kobeleva. A few years after Richard's birth, the family moved to Germany, where he grew up. Sorge took part in the First World War both on the western and eastern fronts, was repeatedly wounded. The horrors of the war affected not only his health, but also contributed to a radical break in his worldview. From an enthusiastic German patriot, Sorge turned into a convinced Marxist. In the mid-1920s, after the German Communist Party was banned, he moved to the USSR, where, after marrying and receiving Soviet citizenship, he began working in the apparatus of the Comintern.
In 1929, Richard moved to the Fourth Directorate of the Red Army Headquarters (military intelligence). In the 1930s, he was sent first to China (Shanghai), and then to Japan, where he arrived as a German correspondent.It was the Japanese period of Sorge that made him famous. It is generally accepted that in his numerous cipher messages, he warned Moscow about the imminent German attack on the USSR, and after that he brutalized Stalin that Japan would remain neutral towards our country. This allowed the Soviet Union, at a critical moment for it, to transfer new Siberian divisions to Moscow.
However, Sorge himself was exposed in October 1941 and captured by the Japanese police. The investigation into his case lasted almost three years. On November 7, 1944, the Soviet intelligence officer was hanged in Tokyo's Sugamo prison, and 20 years later, on November 5, 1964, Richard Sorge was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Nikolai Kuznetsov
Nikanor (original name) Kuznetsov was born in 1911 into a large peasant family in the Urals. Having studied as an agronomist in Tyumen, in the late 1920s he returned home. Kuznetsov showed outstanding linguistic abilities early on, he almost independently learned six dialects German language. Then he worked in logging, was twice expelled from the Komsomol, then took an active part in collectivization, after which, apparently, he came to the attention of the state security agencies. Since 1938, after spending several months in a Sverdlovsk prison, Kuznetsov became the detective of the central apparatus of the NKVD. Under the guise of a German engineer at one of the Moscow aircraft factories, he unsuccessfully tried to infiltrate the diplomatic environment of Moscow.
Nikolai Kuznetsov in the uniform of a German officer.
After the outbreak of World War II in January 1942, Kuznetsov was enrolled in the 4th Directorate of the NKVD, which, under the leadership of Pavel Sudoplatov, was engaged in reconnaissance and sabotage work behind the front line in the rear of the German troops. Since October 1942, Kuznetsov, under the name of a German officer Paul Siebert, with documents of an employee of the secret German police, conducted intelligence activities in Western Ukraine, in particular, in the city of Rivne, the administrative center of the Reichskommissariat.
The intelligence officer regularly communicated with officers of the Wehrmacht, special services, senior officials of the occupation authorities and sent the necessary information to partisan detachment. For a year and a half, Kuznetsov personally destroyed 11 generals and high-ranking officials of the occupation administration of Nazi Germany, but, despite repeated attempts, he failed to eliminate Erich Koch, the Reichskommissar of Ukraine, known for his cruelty.
In March 1944, while trying to cross the front line near the village of Boratin, Lviv region, Kuznetsov's group ran into soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). During the battle with Ukrainian nationalists, Kuznetsov was killed (according to one version, he blew himself up with a grenade). He was buried in Lviv at the memorial cemetery "Hill of Glory".
Jan Chernyak
Yankel (original name) Chernyak was born in Chernivtsi in 1909, then still on the territory of Austria-Hungary. His father was a poor Jewish merchant, and his mother was Hungarian. During the First World War, his entire family perished in Jewish pogroms, and Yankel was brought up in an orphanage. He studied very well, even at school he mastered German, Romanian, Hungarian, English, Spanish, Czech and French, which he spoke without any accent by the age of twenty. After studying in Prague and Berlin, Cherniak received an engineering degree. In 1930, at the height of the economic crisis, he joined the German Communist Party, where he was recruited by Soviet intelligence, which operated under the guise of the Comintern. When Chernyak was drafted into the army, he was appointed as a clerk in an artillery regiment stationed in Romania.At first, he passed on information about the weapons systems of European armies to Soviet military intelligence, and four years later he became the main Soviet resident in this country. After the failure, he was evacuated to Moscow, where he entered the intelligence school of the Fourth (intelligence) Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army. Only then did he learn Russian. Since 1935, Chernyak traveled to Switzerland as a TASS correspondent (operational pseudonym "Jen"). Regularly visiting Nazi Germany, in the second half of the 1930s, he managed to deploy a powerful intelligence network there, which received the code name "Krona". Subsequently, the German counterintelligence failed to uncover any of its agents. And now, out of 35 of its members, only two names are known (and there are still disputes about this) - this is Hitler's favorite actress Olga Chekhova (wife of the writer Anton Chekhov's nephew) and Goebbels' mistress, star of the film "The Girl of My Dreams", Marika Rekk .
Jan Chernyak.
In 1941, Chernyak's agents managed to obtain a copy of the Barbarossa plan, and in 1943, an operational plan for the German offensive near Kursk. Chernyak transferred to the USSR valuable technical information about the latest weapons of the German army. Since 1942, he also sent information to Moscow on atomic research in England, and in the spring of 1945 he was transferred to America, where he was planned to be included in the work on the US atomic project, but because of the betrayal of the cryptographer, Chernyak had to urgently return to the USSR. After that, he was almost not involved in operational work, he received the position of assistant to the GRU General Staff, and then a translator at TASS. Then he was transferred to a teaching job, and in 1969 he was quietly retired and forgotten.
Only in 1994, by the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation "for the courage and heroism shown in the performance of a special assignment," Chernyak was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation. The decree was passed while the intelligence officer was in a coma in the hospital, and the award was presented to his wife. Two months later, on February 19, 1995, he died, never knowing that the Motherland remembered him.
Anatoly Gurevich
One of the future leaders of the "Red Chapel" was born in the family of a Kharkov pharmacist in 1913. Ten years later, the Gurevich family moved to Petrograd. After studying at school, Anatoly entered the Znamya Truda No. 2 plant as a metal marker apprentice, where he soon grew to be the head of the factory civil defense.
Then he entered the Institute "Intourist" and began to intensively study foreign languages. When, in 1936, Spain began Civil War, Gurevich went there as a volunteer, where he served as an interpreter for the senior Soviet adviser Grigory Stern.
In Spain, he was given documents in the name of Lieutenant of the Republican Navy Antonio Gonzalez. After returning to the USSR, Gurevich was sent to study at an intelligence school, after which, as a citizen of Uruguay, Vincent Sierra, he was sent to Brussels under the command of GRU resident Leopold Trepper.
Anatoly Gurevich. Photo: from the family archive
Soon Trepper, because of his pronounced Jewish appearance, had to urgently leave Brussels, and the intelligence network - the "Red Chapel" - was headed by Anatoly Gurevich, who was given the pseudonym "Kent". In March 1940, he reported to Moscow about the impending attack by Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union. In November 1942, the Germans arrested "Kent", he was personally interrogated by Gestapo chief Müller. During interrogations, he was not tortured or beaten. Gurevich was offered to participate in the radio game, and he agreed, because he knew how to communicate that his ciphers were under control. But the Chekists were so unprofessional that they did not even notice the prearranged signals. Gurevich did not betray anyone, the Gestapo did not even know his real name. In 1945, immediately after his arrival from Europe, Gurevich was arrested by SMERSH. At the Lubyanka, he was tortured and interrogated for 16 months. The head of SMERSH, General Abakumov, also participated in torture and interrogations. A special meeting at the Ministry of State Security of the USSR "for treason" sentenced Gurevich to 20 years in prison. Relatives were told that he "disappeared under circumstances that did not entitle him to benefits." Only in 1948 did Gurevich's father find out that his son was alive. The next 10 years of his life "Kent" spent in the Vorkuta and Mordovian camps.After his release, despite Gurevich's many years of appeals, he was regularly denied a review of the case and the restoration of his honest name. He lived in poverty in a small Leningrad apartment, and spent his tiny pension mainly on medicines. In July 1991, justice prevailed - the slandered and forgotten Soviet intelligence officer was completely rehabilitated. Gurevich died in St. Petersburg in January 2009.
Legendary Soviet spyHe 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."
First World War 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 officer, whose life was amazing, and whose professional fate was unique.
He was born on May 21, 1904 in the suburbs of the Austrian capital in the family of a small businessman, a 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 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. Taking into account the deep knowledge of human psychology, a subtle sense of the inner world of the interlocutor, Deutsch has the most effective abilities of a scout-recruiter.
And he makes the best use of 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 reliable intelligence assistants for a long time.
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. She supplied the Soviet leadership in the highest degree up-to-date, reliable and secret documentary information on all aspects of international politics, as well as reporting on 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. A diploma from such a university opens the door to the highest spheres of the state and political life of the 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 was 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” showed himself in various sections of the 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 communicating with Arnold as an unusually interesting person, possessing an attractive force and calling for 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 the naval base at 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 Novaya Zemlya. 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 since 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 of the Patriotic War, posthumously.