The Rote: Kapelle

CLASSIFIED STUDIES IN
TWENTIETH-CENTURY DIPLOMATIC
AND MILITARY HISTORY
Series Editor: Paul L. Kesaris
THE ROTE KAPELLE

THE
ROTE KAPELLE
The CIA's History of
Soviet Intelligence and Espionage Networks
in Western Europe, 1936-1945
UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS OF AMERICA, INC.

Copyright © 1979 by University Publications of America, Inc.
Washington, D.C.
ISBN: 0-89093-203-4
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-51270
Manufactured in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION xi
Diagram of the Rote Kapelle xiv
PART ONE
Narrative History of the Rote Kapelle
BELGIUM
Chronology 1
Diagrams
The Trepper Group 1938-1940 8
The Sukolov Group 1940-1941 9
The Jeffremov Group September 1939- May 1942 10
The Jeff remov Group May 1942 -August 1942 11
Narrative 13
Early Development 13
Leopold Trepper 15
The Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company 16
Trepper's Documentation 18
Mikhail Makarov 20
Victor Sukolov 21
Konstantin Jeffremov 22
Communications 23
The German Invasion 24
Simexco 25
The First Arrests 27
Reorganization 28
vi Contents
The Second Arrests 28

The German Version 30
The Playbacks 37
Translation of Statement by Abraham Rajchmann
Introductory Note 38
Contacts with Grossvogel 1934-1939 38
Services for the Trepper Network 1939-1940 39
Flight to France 1940 42
Services for the Sukolov Network 1940-1942 43
Services for the Jeff remov Network 1942 47
Arrest and Collaboration 1942-1944 50
HOLLAND
Chronology 57
Diagram
The Winterink Group in Holland 63
Narrative 65
Background 65
Anton Winterink 66
Daniel Gouwlooze and the Dutch Information
Service 69
The Emigre Group of Alfred Knochel 71
The Liquidation of the Gouwlooze Group 72
|
FRANCE
Chronology 73
Diagrams
The Rote Kapelle in France in 1940-1944 78
Group "Andre" 79
The Cover Firm (Simex) 80
The "Professor" and "Arztin" Groups 81
The "Harry" Group 82
Lyons Group 83
Marseilles Group 84
Contents vii
The Ozols Network 1940-1944 85

Narrative 87
Leopold Trepper 87
Simex 88
The Seven Networks 89
Finances 90
Henri Robinson 92
The Robinson Papers 96
Communications 101
Victor Sukolov 104
Trepper's Arrest 105
The Playback 106

Trepper's Escape 109
An Evaluation of the Playback Ill
The Ozols and Mithridate Networks 117
Jean Claude Spaak 122
The Return to Moscow 128
GERMANY
Chronology 131
Diagrams
The Schulze-Boysen Group 136
The Harnack Group 137
The Von Scheliha Group 138
Narrative 139
Background 139
The Schulze-Boysen Group 140
The Harnack Group 146
The Von Scheliha Group 150
The Role of Victor Sukolov 153
The Communist Underground Group of
Anton Saefkow 155
The Arrests and Trial 159

Postscript 163
viii Contents
SWITZERLAND
Chronology 165
Diagrams
The Rote Drei 169
The "Sissy" Group 170
The "Long" Group 171
The "Pakbo" Group 172

Narrative 173
The Radio Messages Examined 173
Vera and the Beginnings of the Red Three 174
Sonia 175
Sissy and Paul 175

Sissy's Fight with Moscow 180
Dora 182
Lucy and Taylor 184

Lucy's Sources in World War II 185
General Hans Oster 185
Hans Bernd Gisevius 189
Ex-Chancellor Josef Wirth 189
Carl Goerdeler 192
The Unknown Boelitz 193
Sissy's Other Sources , 193
Long 199
Agnes 199
Kurz 201
Grau 203
Rot 203
Feld 205
The Background of Josef Wirth 205
Pakbo 209
Jim 211
The Structure of the Rote Drei 212
The Role of Karel Sedlacek 212
Vladimir Sokolin 217
Contents ix
Phase II: Lucy's Post-War Operation 218

The Return of Agnes 220
Dr. Werner Thormann 220
Professor Max Horkheimer 220
Lucy the Mercenary 222
The Peddlers 222
The Stage and the Actors 224
THE ROTE KAPELLE ELSEWHERE

Austria 227
Bulgaria 228
Canada 229
Czechoslovakia 230
Italy 231
Poland 232
Portugal 232
Rumania 233
Scandinavia 233
Yugoslavia 234
PART TWO
Modus Operandi of the Rote Kapelle
General 237
Cover and Security 239
Finances 242
Motivation 243
Documentation 245
Contacts and Personal Meetings 245
Communications 248
Conclusion 252
x Contents
PART THREE
Personalities
Personality Sketches 255-390

INTRODUCTION
The term "Rote Kapelle" ("Red Orchestra," "Red Band," "Red
Choir," or "Red Chapel") was a cryptonym coined by the German
central security office, the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), to
designate the Soviet networks of espionage and subversion discov-
ered in Western Europe after the outbreak of the Russo-German war
in 1941. The espionage reports were transmitted primarily by radio.
The "music" on the air had its pianists (radio operators), a maestro
in the field (the Grand Chef), and its conductor in Moscow (the Di-
rector). This analogy was not new to German counterintelligence.
"Kapelle" was, in fact, an accepted Abwehr term for secret wireless
transmitters and the counterespionage operations against them. The
term "Rote Kapelle" was originally applied only to the secret opera-
tion started by Ast Belgien (Abwehr III F.) 2 in August 1941 and con-
1
ducted against a station of the Soviet intelligence service which had

been detected in Brussels by the Funkabwehr (W/T intercept and
cryptanalytic component of German military counterintelligence).
The Germany,
investigation, however, soon extended into Holland,
France, Switzerland, and and the designation "Rote Kapelle"
Italy;
was adopted for these expanded operations also.

In July 1942 the investigation of the Rote Kapelle was taken
over from Ast Belgien by Section IV. A. 2. of the Sicherheitsdienst
(SD, the security service of the RSHA). After the arrest of the two
leading Russian agents, Leopold Trepper and Victor Sukolov, a small
independent Gestapo 3 unit, "Sonderkommando 4 Rote Kapelle," was
1
Ast: abbreviation of Abwehrstelle, a major field office of the Ab-
wehr, the German military counterintelligence service.
2
Abwehr III F.: Section III (counterintelligence) working against the
intelligence services of the enemy.
3
Gestapo: Geheime Staatspolizei, or Secret Federal Police.
4
Sonderkommando: a special detail or task force.
xii Introduction
formed in Paris in November There has been some misunder-

1942.
standing about the term "Rote Kapelle" because it was also used to
denote this special counterespionage group of the Gestapo, which

was responsible for penetrating the Soviet apparatus and doubling its
agents. As commonly used, therefore, the term "Rote Kapelle" could
mean both the Soviet networks and the branch of the GIS responsi-
ble for combatting these agents. In the course of this study the term
"Rote Kapelle" will be used exclusively to designate the Soviet
networks.The term "Sonderkommando" will be used to designate a
German counterespionage group.
Rote Kapelle case was an inter-
Strictly speaking, therefore, the
nal security investigation by the Abwehr and the Gestapo of Soviet
spies in Germany, Belgium, Holland, France, Switzerland, and Italy
during World War II. But several of the Soviet agents in the wartime
networks were recruited and became active years before World War
II. Many of them had survived the great purges of Stalin and the dif-
ficult period of the non-aggression pact between Germany and the
USSR. The Rote Kapelle was not, in fact, a wartime creation, but de-
rived directly from the Soviet prewar networks in Europe. This
study, therefore, includes the origins of the prewar networks; the
period covered is approximately 1936-1945.
In addition, the activities of the Rote Kapelle agents were not
limited to the countries mentioned above. Several connections with
the Rote Kapelle were found in England, Scandinavia, Eastern Eu-
rope, the United States, and elsewhere. This study contains frequent
references to the ties that existed between these areas and the major
networks of the Rote Kapelle in Belgium, France, Germany, Holland,
Switzerland, and Italy.
Most of the information about the Rote Kapelle was obtained

from statements made by Soviet intelligence officers who belonged
to the organization and who were seized in the course of the German
counteraction in 1941-1943. Some information derives from observa-
tions made by German security agencies around 1941-1942. The lead-
ing Soviet Rote Kapelle officers independently gave corroborating
testimony to the effect that Moscow began to set up the first Rote
Kapelle nets in Europe as early as 1935 and 1936. For this purpose,
specially trained and first-rate Red Army intelligence officers were
employed. Some matriculated as students in European universities,
whereas others applied for positions as technicians and as merchants
in need of practice and experience abroad. Some former Comintern
agents were also induced to participate in the nets being established
Introduction xiii
by the Rote Kapelle organizers.

The Soviet intelligence networks in Europe before World War
II had as their targets the United States and all the countries of West-
ern Europe, particularly England. In the beginning they were pri-
marily engaged in establishing and building up agent nets, installing
radio and other communication facilities, and training the various
units. Later, specific targets of Soviet intelligence were assigned: the
development of aviation in the Western countries; the development
of heavy weapons; and comprehensive information about the great
fortification lines in the West. The broad objectives of the Rote Ka-
pelle presupposed the existence in all the countries involved of a spe-
cial apparatus of thoroughly trained and qualified intelligence offi-
cers, agents, and auxiliary workers, and an entirely original system of

intelligence transmission services.
Early in 1940 the main Rote Kapelle was changed
target of the
to Germany, despite the non-aggression pact then in effect between
the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. In the course of the war the
Rote Kapelle expanded to such a degree and took on such propor-
tions with respect to personnel, technical aspects, and increasingly
comprehensive assignments that at the peak of its development in
1942-1943 it had become the principal component of the Soviet Mil-
itary IS. The Rote Kapelle, considered as a whole, was a tremendous
undertaking; it provides one of the best examples so far available of
the intricate working methods of Soviet espionage as then conducted.
The chart on the next page depicts the basic organizational
structure of the Rote Kapelle in Belgium, Holland, France, Germany,
and Switzerland during the period 1938 to 1945. Only the main
individuals and lines of communication are shown here; detailed
charts for each country appear later in the study.
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PART ONE
NARRATIVE HISTORY
OF THE ROTE KAPELLE
CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROTE KAPELLE IN BELGIUM
January 1936 Comintern agent Johannes Wenzel arrived in Bel-

gium from Germany. He later provided technical
assistance to the Trepper, Sukolov, and Jeffremov
networks.
1936-1939 Soviet intelligence officer Konstantin Jeffremov

was active somewhere in Western Europe, prob-
ably in the Low Countries.
1936 Franz and Germaine Schneider were recruited as

Soviet agents in Brussels, possibly by Jeffremov.
1936 Leopold Trepper was made technical director of

RU intelligence in Western Europe. In December
1936 he established a base for himself in Paris.
1936- 1938 Trepper engaged in organizing missions for So-

Western Europe. He paid sev-
viet intelligence in
met with
eral visits to Scandinavia (1936-1938),
Leon Grossvogel in Brussels (1937), and visited
the British Isles (1937 and 1938).
1937- early 1939 Victor Sukolov, a Soviet intelligence officer, prob-

ably resided in France.
Autumn, 1938 Trepper made several visits to Brussels.
December 1938 Leon Grossvogel founded the Foreign Excellent

Raincoat Company as a cover for intelligence op-
erations.
early 1939 Mikhail Makarov, was

a Soviet intelligence officer,
sent from Moscow Stockholm and

to Paris, via
Copenhagen. In Paris Makarov was provided with
new identity papers and $10,000.
2 Narrative of the Rote Kapelle
6 March 1939 Trepper (alias Adam Mikler) officially arrived in

Belgium with his wife and child. His cover was as
a Canadian businessman associated with the new
firm, Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company.
25 March 1939 Makarov (alias Carlos Alamo) arrived in Belgium

to assist Trepper.
April 1939 Makarov became proprietor of the Ostende

branch of the Excellent Raincoat Company, re-
placing Mrs. Grossvogel.
April 1939 Sukolov, presumably stationed in France, went to

Germany to reactivate the Schulze-Boysen net-
work and to establish a courier link.
1939 Anton Danilov was sent to Paris as a clerk in the

Soviet Embassy. He worked at Vichy with a
later
Captain Karpov. Danilov would eventually be

transferred to Belgium to assist the Sukolov net-
work.
Spring, 1939 Grossvogel introduced Abraham Rajchmann, an

expert forger, to Trepper. Grossvogel had been
acquainted with Rajchmann since at least 1934.
Spring and Grossvogel visited Denmark, Sweden, Norway,

Summer, 1939 and Finland on Foreign Excellent Raincoat Com-
pany business.
17 July 1939 Sukolov (alias Vincent Sierra) arrived in Belgium

and met with Trepper at Ghent.
Summer, 1939 Sukolov visited Switzerland.
Fall, 1939-1941 Sukolov studied languages and commercial sub-

jects at the University of Brussels. He also learned
coding from Trepper and was ordered by Moscow
to build a radio set and to establish communica-
tions.
6 September Jeffremov (alias Eric Jernstroem) arrived in Bel-

1939 gium. He was to work independently, and Trepper
was not aware of his activities.
October 1939- As "Clement," Sukolov probably utilized the

c. January 1940 Gouwlooze W/T link between Holland and Mos-
cow.
Belgium 3
March-April Sukolov made a three-week visit to Switzerland
1940 and saw Alexander Rado while there.
10 May 1940 The Germans invaded Belgium, Holland, and Lux-

emburg.
May 1940 Rajchmann lied from Belgium and went to

France.
May 1940 Jules Jaspar fled to France. He salvaged 200,000

Belgian francs from the Foreign Excellent Rain-
coat Company. Escaping with him were Mrs. Jas-
par, Mrs. Grossvogel, and Nazarin Drailly with
his family.
May 1940 The Ostende branch of the Excellent Raincoat

Company was destroyed by German bombing.
Makarov moved to Brussels and established there
a W/T link with Moscow.
mid-May 1940 Trepper made a tour of the combat zone in the

company of Grossvogel and Durov, the Bulgarian
consul in Brussels. He prepared a lengthy report
based on his observations and sent it to Moscow.
28 May 1940 King Leopold III surrendered to the Germans.
from c. June Sukolov probably supplied Moscow with Schulze-

1940 Boysen's and Trepper's material by W/T.
early July 1940 Grossvogel and Trepper, in the automobile of the
Bulgarian Petrov, left Belgium for France. Sukolov
became the leader of the Belgian organization.
August 1940 The wife and child of Trepper went to France,

and then to the USSR with Soviet assistance.
late September Rajchmann returned to Belgium at Trepper's re-
or early quest and with the assistance of Malvina Gruber.

October 1940 He resumed his duties as the group's documenta-
tion expert.
Fall, 1940 Simexco was founded by Sukolov in Brussels as a
cover for intelligence operations. The firm was

not officially registered until March 1941.
c. December Johannes Wenzel was probably transmitting to

1940 Moscow for Jeffremov. These two may have
4 Narrative History of the Rote Kapelle
worked together as early as 1936.
early 1941 Sukolov made a visit to Switzerland to inspect the

network there.
early 1941 Jeffremov had a contact in Switzerland. His go-

between was "Chimor," possibly Franz Schneider.
5 January Nazarin Drailly was persuaded by Trepper to re-
1941 turn to Belgium to collaborate with Sukolov in the

organization of Simexco.
27 March Simexco was officially registered in Brussels.

1941 Sukolov and Nazarin Drailly were listed as the
principal stockholders.
28 June 1941 The Germans began to intercept Sukolov's W/T

traffic to Moscow.
June or July Danilov Desmets) arrived in Brussels to

(alias
1941 assist Makarov. He was escorted from France to

Belgium by Malvina Gruber, the mistress of
Rajchmann.
c. Summer The German penetration agent Mathieu (alias
1941 -Sept. Carlos) was in close contact with Rajchmann. It
1942 was rendezvous with Mathieu in July 1942

at a
that Jeffremov was arrested. Trepper's repeated

orders to Rajchmann to break off contact with
Mathieu were ignored.
October 1941 Sofie Posnanska was sent to Belgium to serve as

an encipherer for Makarov. She was escorted from
France to Belgium by Malvina Gruber.
Oct.-Nov. Sukolov travelled to Germany to aid the networks

1941 there. He probably also visited the Leipzig Fair
during this trip. Sukolov then met with Maria
Rauch at Raudnitz, Czechoslovakia, and with
another contact in Prague.
12-13 Dec. Makarov, Danilov, Sofie Posnanska, and Rita

1941 Bloch were arrested at 101 Rue des Attrebattes,
Brussels. Bloch immediately turned informant.
c. 15 December Sukolov and Isidore Springer fled from Brussels

1941 to France. The rest of the Belgian network went
Belgium 5
into hiding. Nazarin Drailly took over as the man-

ager of Simexco.
c. 15 May 1942 The Belgian network was turned over to Jeffre-

mov at a meeting in Brussels, held in the Schnei-
der home.
May 1942 Wenzel began transmitting for the new Jeff remov
group.
June 1942 Trepper began to use Wenzel's W/T link after the
arrest of the Sokols in Paris.
c. June 1942 Jeffremov introduced Maurice Peper to Rajch-

mann. Peper was to be liaison between Jeffremov
and Rajchmann.
24 June 1942 John Wilhelm Kruyt, Sr., a Soviet agent, was para-
chuted into Belgium to assist the Jeffremov net-
work. His accommodation was to be provided by
Elizabeth Depelsenaire. Kruyt had two meetings
with Irma Salno.
30 June 1942 Kruyt was arrested by the Gestapo. Information

obtained from him led to the arrests of the Depel-
senaire sub-group.
early July 1942 Martha Vandenhoeck was arrested and under du-
ress helped the Germans stage other arrests.
early July 1942 Elizabeth Depelsenaire was arrested by the Ge-

stapo in Brussels, betrayed by Vandenhoeck.
13 July 1942 Jean and Jeanne Otten were arrested by the Gesta-
po in Brussels.
22 July 1942 Jeffremov was arrested in Brussels at a meeting

with the German-controlled agent Mathieu. This
meeting had been set up by Rajchmann.
late July 1942 Wenzel and Jeffremov agreed to collaborate with

the Germans. A large amount of back radio traffic
was deciphered. Information in this traffic led to
the first arrests in the German networks.
c. 25 July Isbutskiand Peper were arrested in Brussels; they
1942 were betrayed by Jeffremov.

30 July 1942 By direction-finding techniques the Germans lo-

cated Wenzel and arrested him in Brussels. Ger-
maine Schneider, implicated by letters in Wenzel's
possession, convinced the Germans of her inno-
cence and was released. She immediately went to
Paris to give warning to Trepper. Franz Schneider
was also interrogated and then released.
early August Augustin Sesee was arrested in Brussels; he was

1942 betrayed by Peper.
6 August 1942 The radio playback of Wenzel ("Weide") began.
18 August 1942 Anton Winterink was arrested in Amsterdam; he

was also betrayed by Peper.
mid-August The Germans had Jeffremov write a letter to

1942 Rajchmann, stating that all was well. Rajchmann
received the letter and passed the information to
Grossvogel. This was a deception tactic by the
Germans designed to conceal Jeffremov's arrest
from the rest of the network.
2 September Rajchmann was arrested by the Gestapo in Brus-

1942 sels and agreed to collaborate.
22 September The Winterink playback ("Tanne") was started in

1942 Brussels.
end of Sofie Posnanska committed suicide in a military

Sept. 1942 prison at Brussels.
12 October Malvina Gruber was arrested in Brussels. At the

1942 urging of Rajchmann she agreed to collaborate.
Rajchmann and Gruber were later used in Paris to
break up Trepper's network there.
17 Oct. 1942 The Jeffremov playback ("Buche-Pascal") was

started.
24 Oct. 1942 The Isbutsky playback ("Buche-Bob") was started.
November 1942 Germaine Schneider was arrested in Lyons, where

she was working with the Springer group. Franz
Schneider was arrested in Brussels.
November 1942 The Germans, after months of surveillance, raided

Simexco and arrested the officers and employees.
Belgium 1
17 Nov. 1942 Wenzel escaped from the Germans. He probably

went to Holland, but his exact whereabouts after
his escape are unknown.
11 Dec. 1942 Jeanne Ponsaint was arrested.
December 1942 Edward Vanderzypen was arrested. He had been

one of Jeffremov's most important agents because
of his employment with the Hentschel Works in
Kassel.
January 1943 Jean Janssens and Josephine Verhimst were ar-

rested by the Germans.
6 Jan. 1943 Nazarin Drailly was arrested.
7 Jan. 1943 Joseph and Renee Blumsack were arrested in

Brussels. Yvonne Poelmans was also arrested.
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Belgium 1
NARRATIVE OF THE ROTE KAPELLE

IN BELGIUM
I. Early Development
Belgium was a favorite base for Soviet intelligence operations

before World War II. It was geographically ideal because of its prox-
imity to all the other major countries of Western Europe. It provid-
ed good cover possibilities because commercial contacts between
Belgium and the rest of Europe were widespread; Belgian business-
men could travel extensively on the Continent and in the British
Isles without attracting notice. Even more important, however, was
the fact that the Belgian government was indifferent to espionage
carried on within its territory so long as it was directed against other
powers. The Belgian Penal Code provided penalties only for espio-
nage conducted against the Belgian government itself. For these
reasons, Belgium was widely used in the 1930s by Red Army intel-
ligence as a training ground and depot for agents trained and as-
signed to work in and against various countries.
A fairly simple procedure was followed to establish the first So-
viet intelligence organizations in Belgium. Moscow headquarters
sent out through the Soviet diplomatic representative in Belgium
prepared lists of names of persons considered useful for the Belgian
intelligence network. The lists contained all the necessary back-
ground information on these people. As a rule, strict care was ob-
served not to include people who had appeared in public as Com-
munists or Communist sympathizers. Every kind of investigation as
to their suitability and dependability had already been undertaken
by the Director in Moscow. They were to be "mobilized" by a kind
of induction order and summoned to appear at a certain place and
time, for which they had been given detailed instructions as to rec-
ognition signals, methods of procedure, and cover. The Soviet intel-
ligence officers whom these people were to contact had received
similar instructions. This system proved very practical and effective;
it solved the problem of filling slots in the agent nets with almost
clocklike precision. Persons of different backgrounds and varying
motivations were joined together to form a vast and effective intelli-
gence organization.
The Belgian networks of the Rote Kapelle were made up of:
(1) Agents who had been working for the Comintern for many
years, such as:
Johannes Wenzel,
Franz and Germaine Schneider,
Abraham Rajchmann,
Malvina Gruber, nee Hofstadjerova, and
Leon Grossvogel;
(2) Soviet officers, such as:
Leopold Trepper (alias Mikler),
Victor Sukolov (alias Sierra),

Mikhail Makarov (alias Alamo),
Anton Danilov (alias Desmets), and
Konstantin Jeffremov (alias Jernstroem); and
(3) Agents recruited by Trepper, Sukolov, Makarov, and Jeffre-
mov, such as:
Rita Arnould, nee Block,

Sofie Posnanska,
Herman Isbutsky,
Elizabeth Depelsenaire, nee Sneyers,
Isidore Springer,
Margarete Barcza, nee Singer,
Augustin Sesee,
Maurice Peper, and many others.
The important Soviet agents to arrive in Belgium were
first
and among them was Johannes Wenzel, who came to

technicians,
Belgium from Germany in January 1936. He had previously served
with the clandestine military section of the German Communist
Party. He was taken over by Red Army intelligence, and his princi-
pal use was to be as a wireless technician able to operate a radio and
to train new operators.
Wenzel, a former Comintern agent, probably entered into rela-
tions with Franz and Germaine Schneider of Brussels in 1936. The
Schneiders were new RU recruits in 1936, but they had previously
been managers of a safe house and couriers for the Communists and
the Comintern. Their first direct RU assignment was as couriers.
Franz Schneider was employed by Unilever, an affiliate of Lever
Brothers, and he occasionally went through Belgium to Switzerland,
Belgium 15
his county of origin. He was probably used as a courier in that direc-
tion.
II. Leopold Trepper
Leopold Trepper, who was later to take over the direction of

the Belgian network of the Rote Kapelle, had already visited Bel-
gium in 1931. In fact, there is a record of him at the Free University
of Brussels, where he was allowed to follow a political science course
during 1931.
Trepper was born 23 February 1904 at Neumark, Poland. He
did not arrive in Belgium officially until 6 March 1939, but he
seems to have made several visits there in 1937 and 1938. He may
already have been using cover as a businessman.
Trepper was an old-time intelligence officer who had mastered
his craft completely. His knowledge was not only theory learned at
Soviet intelligence schools, but was also the product of many years
of experience in Palestine and France. His actions were disciplined
by careful deliberation, and he never said one word more than was
absolutely necessary. Drawing him into conversation was almost im-
possible. He was completely at home in the West; there was little
chance that he would betray his Soviet and Eastern European back-
ground.
Trepper lived well, but his private life was always concealed.
Good conspiratorial working methods were observed, and there was
no one who could give precise information on his private life. In
public his manner was modest, and he blended almost invisibly into
the background. He had complete control over his subordinate?,
and some of them actually worshipped him. They believed anything
he told them and were so accustomed to obeying him that they be-
trayed their comrades unhesitatingly when he ordered them to do
so.
Trepper 's special talents and greatest strength were his organi-
zational ability and ability to penetrate significant social groups. He
was a very keen judge of people, even of people from backgrounds
foreign to him. He had built up an unbelievably large reservoir of
potential and working sources of intelligence in the West through
his many years' association with the French CP. He had been well
supported financially and had been allowed the freedom to develop
his own work.
III. The Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company
Trepper began to build his cover some time before his opera-
tion was launched. He was of the belief that satisfactory work could
be accomplished only with the use of commercial cover. Further-
more, such cover should be able to finance the espionage activities
undertaken. He surveyed the situation on his trips to Western Eu-
rope, reported back to Moscow, and was told to organize a commer-
cial enterprise would suit his purpose. There is considerable evi-
that
—
dence that cover firms so-called "shadow enterprises" had al- —
ready been set up in several Western European countries many years
before the beginning of World War II. In this procedure the Soviets
followed a practice which had already been employed during World
War I by the Central Powers and the Allies and which had proved
successful then.
In order to establish his cover, Trepper turned to his old friend,
Leon Grossvogel, whom he had known in Palestine. Grossvogel, a
former Comintern agent, had been employed by the Brussels firm,
Roi du Caoutchouc, since 1929 and in 1935 was manager of its for-
eign subsidiary, the Excellent Raincoat Company.

In 1937 Grossvogel, who had lived in Belgium since 1926, was
transferred from the post of General Manager of the Excellent Rain-
coat Company to that of traveling inspector for the firm. It is signi-
ficant that Trepper had met Grossvogel in Brussels the same year.
The next year Grossvogel was to become an important figure in
Trepper' s long-term plans against the United Kingdom, then the
primary target of Soviet intelligence operations in Western Europe.
Grossvogel had become unpopular with his employers, the
owners of the Excellent Raincoat Company. Though they recognized
and though he was related to one of them, Louis Kapelo-
his ability
witz,by marriage, they knew that he had Communist sympathies;
and they found him awkward during a strike which took place at
their Brussels plant in 1938. Accordingly they accepted with relief
Grossvogel' s proposal that he set up an independent (or subsidiary)
company in the same line of business.As a matter of fact, his em-
ployers subscribed half the funds (about eight or ten thousand dol-
lars) toward the new firm and held, between them, half the shares
issued. The other half was held by Grossvogel himself. The directors
of the company were Louis Kapelowitz ( Grossvogel 's brother-in-
law), Abraham Lerner, Moses Padawer, and Jules Jaspar.
Belgium 17
Actually, Trepper had persuaded Grossvogel to form this com-

pany, which was created in December 1938 and was known as the
Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company. It is certain that Grossvogel
was supported in his endeavor by Trepper on behalf of the RU.
Grossvogel became manager of the new concern, which was express-
ly designed to deal in the export of raincoats to Denmark, Finland,
Norway, and Sweden (the territories in which Trepper planned to

set up bases for his operations against the United Kingdom).
With the creation of the new firm, intentional rumors were cir-
culated in business circles in Brussels to the effect that the financial

backer was a wealthy Canadian, Adam Mikler, who provided ten
thousand American dollars as capital. Thus, it was no surprise when
Trepper (alias Mikler) became associated with the firm. The firm
was established with the full sanction of the Belgian authorities.
Belgian records show that a certain Mikler, with his wife and child,
arrived in that country, from Quebec, 6 March 1939, and settled in
Brussels.
The "Grand Chef — as the name implied — was to function as
supreme chief. He immediately assumed rigid control of the agent
groups, reorganized them, and started the work of setting up instal-
lations for the radio network. His assignment was to inspect prepa-
rations already made by other intelligence officers, to expand the in-
telligence network still further, and to activate large-scale cover
firms as bases for intelligence operations. With Trepper' s arrival in
Belgium the Rote Kapelle began to assume definite shape.

By 1940 Trepper was well-rooted. He gave Belgian authorities
and business acquaintances the impression that he intended to stay
in Belgium about two years only and that he had put only a portion
of his capital into this export company. In the meantime he was ac-
tively engaged in recruiting agents for his intelligence network. (See
diagram 2.)
At about the time Trepper came to Brussels, Grossvogel made a
tour of the Scandinavian countries, with the object of establishing
branch offices of the Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company. Local
regulationsmade it difficult to create the type of branch company
required.One office, however, was set up in Stockholm. It was put
under the charge of a Belgian named Boellens, who was recom-
mended by the Belgian Consulate in Sweden.
The business of the firm was handled overtly; local regulations
were closely followed, and contact with local government officials
was maintained. It was Trepper's intention that persons engaged in

the purely commercial aspects of the business were to be kept in
complete ignorance of its true purpose. Intelligence officers, sent
from or recommended by Moscow, were only to be brought in after
the commercial company was well established in its own right.
Then, little by little, intelligence agents would be inserted as share-
holders, business managers, or heads of departments. Trepper was
setting about building a strong cover organization slowly but secure-
ly. Because of the imminence of war, however, his plans were dis-
rupted by Moscow, and he was instructed to set to work collecting

intelligence immediately.
IV. Trepper's Documentation

As stated above, Trepper used the alias Adam Mikler when he
arrived in Belgium. He carried Canadian passport #43761, issued in
Ottawa 12 July 1937. Canada is one of the few countries which is-
sues passports by mail and does not require a personal appearance
before an official. Broadly speaking, all anyone needs to pose as a
Canadian citizen, complete with passport, is the initiative to visit a
travel agency, to have a reasonable cover story, to lie under oath,
and to pay a $5 fee. Accordingly, Soviet "illegals" like Trepper are
easily documented in Canada.
The records of the Belgian Police show that Adam Mikler, his
wife, Anna, and their son, Edgard, entered Belgium on 6 March
1939, traveling ostensibly from Quebec, Canada. Their papers indi-
cated that Adam Mikler was born 5 April 1903 at Rudki, Poland.
His father was Andre Mikler, born in 1875 in Rudki; his mother was
Maria Jagodrinski, born in 1870 in Tarnov, Poland; and his wife was
Anna Orschitzer, born 25 May 1908 in Drohobucz, Poland. They
were married 15 May 1928 in Rudki. Their son, Edgard Mikler, was
born 4 December 1936 in Vancouver, Canada. It was indicated that
Adam Mikler, his wife Anna, and son Edgard were Canadian na-
tionals. Their address in Quebec was 131 rue St. Louis. The Mikler
family established itself at 198 ave. Richard Neyberg, in Brussels.
Trepper's wife had Canadian passport #45584, issued in Ottawa on
5 August 1937. Her son used her passport.
The records of the Canadian authorities tell a different story.
According to the immigration authorities, no person by the name of
Adam Mikler has ever entered, resided in, or left Canada. The ad-
Belgium 19
dress given in Quebec is fictitious. The Department of Vital Statis-

tics has no record of the birth of Edgard Mikler.
Canadian passport #43761 was issued on 7 July 1939 to one Mi-
chael Dzumaga, born in Winnipeg on 2 August 1914. This man
fought in the Spanish Civil War as a volunteer in the Mackenzie
Papineau Brigade. In 1946 Dzumaga was not in possession of his
passport, which he claimed was lost while he was in Spain. The
Spanish Civil War produced a bonanza in passports for Soviet espio-
nage. Members of the International Brigade invariably had their
passports confiscated "for safekeeping" when they arrived in Spain,
and usually these had been "lost" when they wanted to return
home.
Canadian passport #45584 was issued on 5 August 1937 to Mrs.
William Syme, nee Agnes Lockie, who is reported to have been in-
volved with the Dutch Communist Party in Amsterdam and to have
escaped arrest in the summer of 1942. During an investigation made
by Canadian authorities about 1946 it was claimed that Agnes Syme
still had her passport in her possession.
It appears that passports #43761 and #45584 were authentic
Canadian passports, fraudulently altered by the Soviets and then

used by Trepper, his wife, and son. Trepper's wife was Sarah Or-
schitzer, nee Broide, born at Radzivilov, Poland, in 1904. Their son
with them in Belgium was born at Moscow in 1936. They also had
another son, born at Paris in 1931. The older son had been left in
the Soviet Union for schooling.
many years Trepper operated for the Soviet intelligence
In the
serviceshe used a great number of passports, each one in a different
name. The first to come to attention is an old Polish passport, in the
name of Trepper, visas for which were procured in Belgium. He
used this one in 1932 to travel to the USSR. In 1936 he was sent to
France from the USSR on an intelligence mission. He then used an
Austrian passport in the name of Sommer. This passport, which in-
dicated that he had come from the USSR, was exchanged for him in
Paris to conceal the fact that he had connections with the USSR, and
he assumed the identity of Herbst, an Austrian. In 1937 he returned
to Moscow, via Berlin, carrying a Luxemburg passport in the name
of Majeris. After his cover firm had been established in Brussels,
Trepper was ready to take his place in the organization and
appeared in Belgium as Adam Mikier. Thus he traveled between the
USSR and Western Europe many times, by different routes and
using different identities. He had about twenty aliases and used

Austrian, Polish, Luxemburg, French, and Canadian papers.
V. Mikhail Makarov
On 25 March 1939 Trepper was joined in Brussels by the Soviet
intelligence officer Mikhail Makarov, who had been sent from Mos-
cow viaStockholm and Copenhagen to Paris at the beginning of
1939. In Paris Makarov, who had been an aviator in the Spanish
Civil War, was given $10,000 and a Uruguayan passport in the
name of Carlos Alamo. The Uruguayan passport, issued in New
York on 16 October 1936, indicated that Alamo had been born in
Montevideo on 12 April 1913. Makarov went with the Alamo pass-
port to Belgium, where he operated in that name.
His primary purpose was to assist Trepper with documentation.
He was an expert in the preparation of false documents and in the
use of secret inks. Soon after Trepper arrived in Brussels, however,
Grossvogel managed to introduce Abraham Rajchmann to the
group. An accomplished forger, Rajchmann had procured for Gross-
vogel in 1934 or 1935 two Syrian visas for a Polish passport, and in
1937 he was able to supply Grossvogel with two Polish passports.
Rajchmann was henceforth used as the group's forger of documents,
and Makarov was released for other duties. Rajchmann was able to
procure false identity cards and papers for couriers and for other
agents, as needed. Documents for traveling were particularly neces-
sary when Trepper was developing his cover firm in Brussels and
when Grossvogel was visiting outlying areas to establish branch com-
panies.
Makarov started to work as a W/T operator, and his posting to
Ostend by Trepper in April 1939 suggested that he was intended to
serve in the front line of Trepper 's communications with the British
Isles. Makarov 's cover in Ostend was fortified by the "sale" to him
of a branch of the Excellent Raincoat Company, hitherto managed

by Grossvogel' s wife, Jeanne, nee Pesant. Makarov immediately set
about establishing a wireless link and training operators. He recruit-
ed Augustin Sesee, who assisted him with transmissions. In May
1940 the Ostend branch of the Excellent Raincoat Company was de-
stroyed by German bombing, and Makarov moved back to Brussels.
From May 1940 to December 1941 Makarov's transmitter in Brussels
was the only unofficial link Trepper had with Moscow.
1
Belgium 2
VI. Victor Sukolov
Victor Sukolov, another Soviet intelligence officer, arrived in

Brussels in July 1939, appearing as Vincente Sierra and traveling on
a Uruguayan passport, which had been issued in New York 17 April
1936. It gave the holder's date and place of birth as 3 July 1911,
Montevideo, and listed his parents as Spanish. His permanent ad-
dress was noted as Calle Colon 9, Montevideo.
Sukolov had probably been active as a Soviet agent in France
from 1937 to early 1939- There are records to indicate that in 1938,
and during the first half of 1939, money was sent from Mexico to a
bank in Marseilles for Sukolov. Who sent the money, how it was
transmitted, and for what it was to be used are not known.
In April 1939 Sukolov visited Berlin on instructions from Mos-
cow to revive Schulze-Boysen as a source and to arrange communica-
tions with him via courier. Sukolov was given Schulze-Boysen's tele-
phone number and was told to phone him and arrange for a rendez-
vous. On no account was he to meet him at his home. When Suko-
lov made the telephone call, Mrs. Schulze-Boysen answered. Since
Sukolov had been informed that she, as well as her husband, was to
be involved in the work for the Soviet intelligence services, he ar-
ranged a rendezvous with her. Sukolov and Mrs. Schulze-Boysen

met on the platform at the underground station, and Schulze-Boy-
sen joinedthem there a little later. Then the three went to a cafe in
the vicinity to discuss their business. Sukolov was probably posted to
Brussels to establish a reception point for Schulze-Boysen's informa-
tion and a means of from Belgium to Moscow.
relaying it
The first meeting between Trepper and Sukolov took place at

Ghent shortly after Sukolov' s arrival, in accordance with instructions
from Moscow. was arranged that Trepper would instruct Sukolov
It
At the same time Suko-

in the export business until the fall of 1939-
lov was to take lessons in languages and business administration. It
is also known that in 1939 Trepper gave coding instructions to Su-
kolov.
Sukolov' s original cover was that of a student of languages trav-
eling through Europe, with temporary residence in Belgium. Using
the alias Vincente Sierra and carrying his Uruguayan passport, he
posed as the son of a rich South American. Under this cover Sukolov
was able to make a trip to Switzerland shortly after his arrival in Bel-
gium. After this journey he enrolled as a part-time student at the
Universite Libre in Brussels. His registration as a student made it
possible for him to obtain a six months' resident's permit which he

extended for further periods of sixmonths.
According to German sources Sukolov had been originally des-
tined for Copenhagen. The outbreak of war, however, caused the
cancellation of the plan to send him to Denmark, and he stayed on
in Belgium. then became necessary to incorporate him gradually
It
into the Belgian network. Orders to this effect were received from
Moscow.
In March and April 1940 Sukolov made a three weeks' visit to
Switzerland to see Alexander Rado. It is known that one purpose of
this trip was for Sukolov to deliver $3,000 to Rado for the financing
of the Swiss network.
During part of 1939 and 1940 Sukolov was associated with
Trepper, but he handled his own traffic with Moscow. There is no
doubt, however, that in all matters Sukolov was subordinate to
Trepper.
VII. KONSTANTIN JEFFREMOV

The foundations of another independent network in Belgium
were laid by the arrival of Konstantin Jeffremov in Brussels from Zu-
rich on 6 September 1939. He came under a Finnish alias, Eric Jern-
stroem, as a student of chemistry, ostensibly to study at the Ecole
Polytechnique in Brussels. He carried a Finnish passport, issued in
New York 22 June 1937, indicating that he had been born 3 No-
vember 1911 in Vasa, Finland, and had lived in the United States
since 1932. It is notknown where he obtained the passport; it is
possible that it was issued to him in the USSR. It is also not known
how Jeffremov and a half, but he
lived his cover for the next year
appeared to have plenty of American currency and a U.S. passport.
No information suggesting that he had ever been in the United
States is available.
Jeffremov had been employed before the war in the collection
of technical information about chemicals, and chemistry may have
been the immediate interest of his mission. The target and outcome
of the mission are unknown. Jeffremov 's arrival in Belgium a few
days after the outbreak of war was too opportune to be wasted on a
short-term mission, however, and he was instructed to build up a
network. For this purpose he was put in touch with Wenzel, whom
he may have known before, and he also made use of his friends, the
Schneiders, who had been recruited for the RU in 1936. The Schnei-
Belgium 23
ders were possibly recruited by Jeffremov, who from 1936 to 1939

had somewhere in Western Europe, probably in the Low
lived
Countries.From September 1939 to May 1942 Jeffremov ran his
own RU service from Brussels. (See diagram 4.) Wenzel in Belgium
and Anton Winterink in Holland had established W/T links with
Moscow by December 1940, and Jeffremov used them to pass his
traffic.
Jeffremov 's team seems to have maintained its independence in

the Low Countries until 1942. There were, however, connections be-
tween Jeffremov' s group and the Trepper-Sukolov group. Johannes
Wenzel, for example, worked as a radio operator for Jeffremov but
also provided technical assistance and instruction to members of the
Trepper-Sukolov network. Herman Isbutsky performed services for
Trepper as early as 1939, and in 1941 he worked for Jeffremov as
well. Maurice Peper was simultaneously a member of the Jeffremov
and Sukolov networks, although his primary responsibilities were to
Jeffremov. It is known, also, that Jeffremov was aware of Sukolov's
operation, at least by 1941. Likewise, it must be presumed that
Trepper and Sukolov eventually knew of Jeffremov 's presence, even
though his arrival in September 1939 had not been announced to
them. There is even evidence that Mikhail Makarov and Jeffremov
had been classmates together at a Soviet intelligence school in Mos-
cow and had met completely by chance one day on a street in Brus-
sels.
Only infrequently did Jeffremov provide Moscow with intelli-
gence of good quality, and he was frequently reprimanded for his

lack of activityand poor production. On the other hand, his top
agent, Germaine Schneider, was a competent courier and organizer.
Another of his agents, Elizabeth Depelsenaire, headed a sub-group
which was primarily responsible for the accommodation of Soviet
agents parachuted into Belgium. One of these, John Kruyt, para-
chuted into Belgium 24 June 1942 and was captured by the Ger-
mans six days later. Information obtained from him led to the ar-
rests of members of the Depelsenaire sub-group.
VIII. Communications
Soviet diplomatic offices in the Low Countries were available to
the Rote Kapelle, and there is evidence that Trepper did on occasion
refer to the Soviet Embassy in Brussels. However, regular use of the
diplomatic links could have endangered his cover, and he must have
been anxious to establish his private line of communication. It is not

known whether Trepper during 1939-40 had any quantity of intelli-
gence to pass, because his operations against the British were still in
the early stages. Because the Schulze-Boysen line was his, Sukolov
must have been under some pressure, and it is likely that it was he
who sought out a link with the Dutch Communist Party. Once this
link was working, Trepper may have used it too. The networks in
Belgium also maintained a communications link with Moscow
through the Soviet Trade Delegation in Brussels.
By the time World War II broke out in Western Europe, the
Rote Kapelle had an efficient radio organization at its disposal. In
—
Northern Europe England and Scandinavia this intelligence ap- —
paratus was supplemented by an auxiliary agent and radio network
which at the time (mid- 1940) was still comparatively small-scale but
which functioned well. Detached from the political intelligence
service of the Comintern, it served the "Grand Chef for a long
time as an alternate routing system for messages, via London and
Stockholm.
IX. The German Invasion

When the Germans invaded Belgium in May 1940, several per-
sons connected with the Rote Kapelle in Belgium escaped to France.
One of these was Jules Jaspar. Arrangements were made to supply
Jaspar with about two hundred thousand francs, money salvaged
from the Belgian firm, so as to enable him to establish a new and
secure base in unoccupied France by creating a fresh commercial
company as soon as the opportunity arose. Abraham Rajchman also
fled from Belgium to France in May 1940.
Through his contacts with Bulgarian diplomatic circles Trepper
was able to tour the war-torn areas of Belgium in mid-May 1940, on
the assumption that he was checking the damages to his business re-
sources. He then wrote a lengthy report on his observations and the
discussions he had had with people enroute, and forwarded it to
Moscow.
The Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company and its parent firm
were taken over by the Germans not long after the occupation of
1940 Trepper and Grossvogel fled to France in the
Brussels. In July
automobile of the Bulgarian Petrov.
Before leaving, Trepper made arrangements for his wife and
son to go to France also. In August 1940 Sarah Orschitzer and her
Belgium 25
son were able to reach Marseilles, and from there they returned to
the Soviet Union, supposedly with the assistance of Soviet officials
in France. Later, in March 1941, Trepper had his American-born
mistress, Georgie de Winter, come from Brussels to join him in Par-
is. Trepper had met Georgie in Brussels in 1938 or 1939. It is prob-
able that he is the father of her son, Patrick de Winter, born 29
September 1939 at Brussels.
After the invasion of the Low Countries, Sukolov anticipated
no difficulties from the German authorities, since he was passing as
a Uruguayan. When Trepper and Grossvogel had to flee to France,
Trepper made Sukolov the head of the Belgian network and turned
over to him the agents who were active in this network, including a
W/T operator (Makarov), several couriers, and a number of sub-
agents. As soon as things quieted down, Sukolov began to reorga-
nize the network. (See diagram 3.) He thereafter referred to Trepper
only on fundamental points of policy.
X. SlMEXCO
A new cover firm was urgently needed by the network to re-

place the "Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company," which had been
seized by the Germans. This company, called Simexco, was founded
by Sukolov in the fall of 1940.
The firm was established as a genuine business and was even
granted telephone and telegraph facilities by the German authori-
ties. Like its sister firm, Simex, in Paris, Simexco was designed for
general dealings and contracting in support of the German occupa-
tion, and it provided regular and privileged means of communica-
tion between Trepper and Sukolov. It is likely that Sukolov passed
over his wireless transmitter a good deal of Trepper' s intelligence
and business messages to Moscow, even before the Soviet embassies
were withdrawn from France in June and July 1941. After that date
Sukolov' s transmitter was probably the sole means of communica-
tion for both Trepper and his new partner, Henri Robinson. There
is no evidence of an alternative line through Rado's service in Switz-
erland during this period, although in June 1941 Robinson ex-

pressed the hope of a regular contact with Rachel Duebendorfer.
Early in 1941 Sukolov, as head of Simexco, made a business
trip to Switzerland on Moscow's instructions, probably to inspect
Alexander Rado.
The official Soviet establishments in Belgium having been
closeddown, one of the most important problems became wireless

communications. Sukolov was supplying Moscow with Schulze-Boy-
sen's intelligence through his W/T station in Brussels. He may also
have contributed intelligence collected in the Low some
Countries,
from his own agents in Belgium, such as Isidore Springer, and some
from agents bequeathed to him by Trepper in July 1940. Makarov,
transmitting for Sukolov in Brussels, had more traffic than he could
handle.
In the summer of 1941 Moscow, seeking to alleviate these diffi-
culties, sent Makarov an assistant, Anton Danilov, formerly a clerk
in the Soviet Embassy and then Vichy. He went to Brussels
at Paris
to receive W/T from Makarov and to assist with transmis-

training
sion work for Sukolov' s network. Even this aid, however, was not
enough, and in October 1941 Sofle Posnanska was transferred to
Brussels from Paris to do enciphering work for Makarov. Both Dani-
lov and Posnanska worked diligently for Makarov until their arrest in
December 1941.
In late October 1941 Sukolov went to Germany on orders from
Moscow. Among other assignments, he was to check the transmitter
sets of Schulze-Boysen and Harnack to see why their communica-
tions were not getting through to Moscow and, if possible, to repair
the sets. He
was not able to make the repairs.
On this trip Sukolov was also supposed to deliver a cipher key
to Use Stoebe, but she had moved to Dresden, and he was unable to
locate her. He delivered the key instead to Kurt Schulze, who was
directed to establish a W/T link with Moscow. The trip to Germany
was made through the assistance of Sukolov 's German contacts, who
arranged for him to visit the Leipzig Fair. Sukolov had been in-
structed to hide 1,000 marks at 2 Eichen, Leipzig. For whom this

money was intended and whether it was recovered or not has not
been determined. Sukolov apparently surveyed the situation of the

German networks during this trip and sent a report on the topic to
Moscow. He was also able to report to Moscow on the political situa-
tion in Germany. Sukolov had one final mission to accomplish while
he was in Germany. He was to arrange for the dispatch of an agent
to the Soviet Trade Delegation in Istanbul and of another to the
Soviet Consulate in Stockholm. It is not known whether Sukolov
successfully completed this last assignment.
Sukolov then proceeded to Czechoslovakia, where in early No-
vember 1941 he met Maria Rauch, the wife of Simexco employee
Belgium 27
Henri Rauch, at He had also been instructed by RU head-

Raudnitz.
quarters to visit Wojatschek and Frantischek, picture dealers in
Prague, in order to be put in touch with one "Rudi." This individ-
ual had probably been working for Moscow through the Soviet Mili-
tary Attache in Prague, but he had not been heard from since June.
Sukolov failed to contact Frantischek or Wojatschek because they
had been captured by the Gestapo shortly before his visit.
XI. The First Arrests
In the course of 1941 a direction-finding service working in

Berlin reported the existence of a secret radio transmitter operating
in contact with Moscow. Around October or November 1941 Henry
Piepe of the Abwehr was ordered to take charge of the investigation
of this station, believed to be located somewhere in Belgium. As a
result of Piepe' s D/F activities, the Abwehr narrowed the search
down to the Etterbeck section of Brussels.
Sukolov' s W/T operator, Danilov, was arrested early in the
morning of December 1941 while transmitting from a safehouse
13
at 101, rue des Attrebates, Etterbeck. The two women who ran the
house, Rita Arnould and Sofie Posnanska, were arrested at the same
time. The day after Danilov' s arrest Makarov went to the safehouse
and was taken into custody by the Germans.
Trepper, too, happened to be in Belgium at the time of the ar-
rests and went unsuspectingly to the house on 13 December. His
cover (a businessman from France) and his documentation were so

authentic that he was released immediately. He was thus in a posi-
tion to forewarn others in the network of the impending dangers.
Sukolov was among those warned by Trepper. His first concern
was for the safety of his mistress, Margarete Barcza, and he asked
Abraham Rajchmann to arrange for her to go to France. Rajchmann
was eventually able to do so; and with the help of Malvina Gruber,
Barcza and her son, Rene, reached France in late December 1941.
Sukolov hid in the house of Nazarin Drailly for a few days while he
made arrangements for the closing of his affairs at Simexco. He also
visited Robert Christen and left with him a radio set. Approximately
15 December 1941 Sukolov fled to France. His agent Isidore Spring-
er went with him. The minor characters in the organization were in-
structed to lie low for several months. They were all in great danger,
particularly since Rita Arnould had turned informant shortly after
her arrest.
At the time Sukolov pulled out, Simexco was not only provid-
ing him with good contacts but was a well-established, thriving, and
profitable enterprise. According to the records the profits for the
year 1941 amounted to a million ninety thousand francs. Sukolov
was able to withdraw most of the assets from Simexco. Later, in July
1942, he completed the sale of the firm's holdings to a person who
was probably entirely outside the espionage organization, Louis
Thevenet.
XII. Reorganization
In May 1942 Trepper met Jeffremov in the Schneiders' house in

Brussels at a rendezvous arranged by the RU. Trepper handed over
to Jeffremov the surviving parts of the network that Sukolov had
—
had in the Low Countries a network which embodied parts of the
organization established by Trepper between 1938 and 1940.
Probably the most important and urgent part of Jeffremov'
new commission was to continue the transmission of Schulze-Boy-
from Germany. According to the
sen's material, received by courier
Dutch agent Goulooze, Jeffremov had been in wireless communica-
tion with Moscow through Wenzel and his assistants since December
1940. It is not impossible that Jeffremov' s traffic, including the
Schulze-Boysen material, was routed through Trepper himself from
February to April 1942, for Trepper during this period was in touch
with Moscow through a French CP transmitter, and he is known to
have been visited during this period by Germaine Schneider as a
courierfrom Jeffremov. Johann Wenzel was working only infre-
quently for Jeffremovat this time, but he agreed in May 1942 to re-
sume full-time work as the W/T operator for the new group.
XIII. The Second Arrests
While he was in the act of transmitting, Wenzel was arrested

by the Germans in Brussels on 30 July 1942. Letters found at his res-
idence incriminated Germaine Scnrieider, the courier and safehouse
keeper for the network. She, too, was arrested; but with the aid of
her husband, Franz Schneider, she masqueraded as Wenzel' s mis-
tress and was released as of no intelligence interest. She quickly fled
to Paris, where she reported the news to Trepper.
Under interrogation Wenzel was broken to a point where he
was regarded as "turned" to German purposes. At no time does
"
Belgium 29
Wenzel appear to have resisted too much, and by August 1942 he

was being played back by the Germans.
With Wenzel' s information on codes and enciphering tech-
niques the Germans were able to make use of previously intercepted
wireless traffic. They had been intercepting Sukolov's W/T traffic
since 28 June 1941. After Wenzel's collaboration they were able to

decipher almost all of it. Samples of the decrypted messages, taken
from captured German documents, reveal how damaging these mes-
sages were to the entire Rote Kapelle organization, particularly to
the German networks. A message intercepted on 28 August 1941 by
the German short wave station at Prague, for example, instructed
the Soviet agent "Kent" (Sukolov) in Brussels to seek out "a certain
Use Stoebe, alias Alte, at Wielandstr. 37, Berlin-Charlottenburg.
She was described as an important agent. As a result of this message
and the subsequent German investigation Stoebe was arrested in
Berlin on 12 September 1942. Other messages led to even earlier ar-
rests, such as that of Harro Schulze-Boysen on 30 August 1942. The
networks in Germany owed their demise to Johann Wenzel.

It may be that Wenzel had made with Moscow previous ar-
rangements whereby it was agreed that, if he was arrested, he could

divulge certain information to the Germans. If so, these arrange-
ments may have included an escape plan, for on 17 November 1942
Wenzel escaped from his captors and was never heard from again.
No further information is available on Wenzel's escape, except for
one unconfirmed report that he was in Holland in 1943. It may be
that his escape, like Trepper's several months later, was part of a
triple-cross plan. On the other hand, if he betrayed all he knew to
the Germans, without previous approval from Moscow, it is possible
that he fled in fear of both sides and retired from the field of intel-
ligence.
After the arrest of Wenzel the rest of the Belgian network soon
fell. Trepper, who had received word of the disaster from Germaine
Schneider, sent word to Jeffremov to establish for himself a new
identity as soon as possible. For this purpose Jeffremov naturally ad-
dressed himself to the group's documentation expert, Abraham
Rajchmann, who agreed to provide Jeffremov with new identity doc-
uments.
Rajchmann, however, had been under close observation by the
Gestapo for several months. The German penetration agent Charles
Mathieu was even supplying Rajchmann with false documents for
members of Rajchmann arranged a meeting be-

the organization.
tween Mathieu and Jeffremov on 22 July 1942, at which time Jeffre-
mov was new documentation. Jeffremov was arrested a
to receive his
short distance away from the rendezvous spot.
Jeffremov was almost immediately regarded as "turned" by the
Germans. From prison he was induced to write to Rajchmann a let-
ter stating that he had been hiding recently but that all was well
and that Rajchmann should not be concerned about his absence.

This information, as the Germans had hoped, was passed from
Rajchmann to Grossvogel and then to Trepper. The Germans were
planning radio playbacks and were attempting to conceal Jeffre-
mov' s arrest from the rest of the network.
Apparently the Germans tried to operate both the Wenzel and
Jeffremov transmitters, but Moscow had certainly been warned
about Wenzel' s arrest. The W/T deception through Wenzel and
Jeffremov may therefore have been played back by the RU, with or
without the prisoners' connivance. It is, nevertheless, a fact that
Wenzel and Jeffremov not only betrayed a number of their fellow
agents but also revealed what was far more damaging to the RU,
their W/T cipher.
After Jeffremov was arrested by the Germans, he gave them de-
tails of his various rendezvous with subagents, so that a few days lat-
er two of them, Isbutsky and Peper, were arrested. Peper revealed

and that he
that he was the liaison officer with a network in Holland
had scheduled a rendezvous with the leader of the Dutch network,
Anton Winterink, for a few days later. The meeting was to take
place in the afternoon at a point in a busy street in Amsterdam.
Winterink attended the meeting and was arrested by the Germans.
The arrest took place in Holland, and possibly because of Wenzel'
evidence, the Germans were under the impression that Winterink's
station had been operated under Wenzel' s indirect control.
XIV. The German Version

The German version of the capture of the Soviet agents in
Brussels, taken from the final report on the Rote Kapelle that was
submitted by Abwehr III F. Ast Belgien and dated 24 March 1943,
follows:
"Chemnitz' [Makarov's] radio activity in Brussels led to it that

on 12 and 13 December 1941, the transmitting system was seized
1
Belgium 3
during work by the police radio detachment. The report by the Bel-
gian Office of 31 December 1941, No. 1290/41 g. Kdos III
Br. B.
F, should be pointed out in this respect.The arrests made had en-
dangered the position of the Belgian group. The Grand Chef, who
arrived at the place of action the day after the seizure and was ar-
rested, could prove with the aid of the credentials at his disposal
thathe was harmless and he was released. In this manner he had
been able to get a picture of the situation and was in the position to
warn all participants who had not yet been arrested. One of these
was Kent [Sukolov]. As the outbreak of war with the United States
was imminent, it did not attract any special attention at Simexco
when he disassociated himself from the firm under the pretext that
he wanted to avoid internment as South American. And so it did
not astonish anyone when he withdrew a part of his allegedly invest-
ed fortune from the firm and fled with his mistress, Mrs. Barcza, to
France.The Simexco firm was well-established and has been able to
do good business with the aid of its commercial representatives, es-
pecially with theGerman authorities. In this connection, Kent also
tried tomake personal contacts with the various group leaders of the
German Government departments. He succeeded only in part, how-
ever. He made the personal acquaintance only of staff paymaster
Kranzbuehler and of his secretary, Miss Amann. He has been able
to use them only to a very small extent for intelligence purposes. It
is interesting in this connection to repeat the statements of the
Grand Chef verbatim:
Ihave never tried, indirectly or directly, to get

information from a German officer. On the one
hand Ihave to admit that German officers gen-
erally are not a good subject in this respect, for
they are very uncommunicative. On the other
hand one can state the opposite for the officials
of officer rank and other followers of the Wehr-
macht. The officer is mostly taciturn, but ad-
ministrative officials and other personnel are
gossips in my opinion.
"Romeo [Springer] who had been recognized as an intelligence

courier, was able to escape with Kent. All other lesser members of
the organization stayed at first in hiding and were told to keep quiet
for a few months. The Grand Chef intended to set up immediately
a reserve group that Moscow had placed at his disposal. The fact,
recognized by counter-espionage, that there must be still other

groups and very small groups in Belgium led to a III-F type of game
that was executed by four contact people. With the aid of a contact-
man itwas possible to get near the 'Fabrikant' [Rajchmann]. After
the dispersion, the latter had received from Grossvogel of the Kent
group a spare wireless communication set which then was kept hid-
den in the house of our contact man. Other contact-men had in-
formed the AST that a section of the group had gone to Marseille
and Nice. Another contact person found out where they received
their mail. Ill F Ast Belgium thus was very well informed. In this re-
spect we also want to refer to the report of Ast Belgium III F of 12
October 1942 Br. 8 No. 4/42 g. Kdos. The Grand Chef found out
by couriers about the further development of the inquiries and de-
cided, in spite of the danger involved, to continue the existence of
'Simexco' in Brussels, for with the exception of Drailly all other as-
sociates were true dummies, and the departure of Kent had been
connected with the fact of the imminent war between Germany and
the United States. The legal status of the Simexco firm also was ab-
solutely solid, for it was recognized as a conservative firm with the
aid of German and on the recommendation of
service departments,
command it had through III
the administrative staff at the military
N Ast Belgium even been granted long distance and telegram com-
munications. Drailly, who gradually had recognized the true nature
of the business, reproached the Grand Chef and threatened to be-
tray him. The Grand Chef said that, despite this threat, he did not
eliminate and liquidate him, for he still needed him as a commer-
cial expert.
"Radio direction findings in June 1942 showed the renewed

presence of a red transmitter in Brussels. Contact-man Charles [Ma-
thieu] had brought the news earlier that the group had been re-es-
tablished and was working again. The greatest activity of the above-
mentioned contact-men could merely establish that Germans or
German-speaking people were participating in the new group. Po-
lice action related to the new transmitter took place on 30 June 1942
and led to the arrest of the wireless operator 'Hermann' [Wenzel].

The first short interrogations established the surprising result that he
was a Communist leader who had been sought by the Reich since
1929 and whose dangerousness was an established fact. As the con-
tact-man had reported that serious resistance could be expected,
troops had been activated, besides the GFP, under the direction of
Belgium 33
III F officers of Ast Belgium, and a short shooting engagement took

place. The new group had been eliminated was soon
fact that the
reported to theGrand Chef in Paris. Hermann's papers showed that
he had contacts with a Mrs. Germaine Schneider, with whom he
maintained intimate She was arrested by the GFP but was
relations.
able to deceive the arresting officials and was released. Mrs. Schnei-
der really was the 'Schmetterling' mentioned in the first situation
plan, who went under the name of 'Odette.' As it turned out
later
later, Hermann's assistant, but was the courier of
she was not only
Harry [Robinson]; was arrested in Paris; and made trips on behalf of
the French and Belgian organization to the Reich and to Switzerland
and England. Immediately after her release she fled to Paris and in-
formed the Grand Chef of the situation. (Report of Ast Belgium of
12 October 1942 Br. B. No. 4/42 Kdo. g. 13 Rote Kapelle). The
Grand Chef realized the dangerousness of the situation and instruct-
ed the successor of Kent, 'Paul' or 'Pascal' Qeffremov], to prepare
new forged papers with the aid of the Fabrikant. By the able contact
work of a III F contact-man it was possible to induce Fabrikant to let
the necessary papers be manufactured by our contact-man. Photo-
graphs etc. were handed over to our contact-man and thus also
reached the III F Ast Belgium. Fabrikant had received a very de-
tailed description of one man. It was possible to arrange a meeting
between our contact-man Carlos and this person. After the delivery of
the papers produced by Ast Belgium, this person was inconspicuous-
ly arrested 500 meters from that spot in a side street. He was soon
recognized as the above-mentioned 'Paul'

—
'Pascal.' Pascal had
been sent to Belgium by Moscow, without the knowledge of the
Grand Chef, as a relief troop leader. As the Grand Chef was with-
out direct communication to Moscow after 13 December 1941, fur-
ther information from Moscow reached him via a technical auxiliary
line in Paris. This is a radio circuit of the French Communist Party,
with which the military Russian intelligence generally must never be
connected. (We shall report about this auxiliary line within the
framework of the groups ascertained in France.) Moscow had in-
structed the Grand Chef to arrange for a meeting with Pascal in Bel-
gium. The meeting took place at the residence of Mrs. Schneider. It
was agreed that Pascal now should take over the remainder of the
group dispersed on 13 December 1941, and he did. For this purpose
Pascal received 100,000 Belgian francs from the Grand Chef. Pascal
was known by a Finnish name and had Finnish identification pa-
pers. He allegedly was in Brussels for study purposes and was en-
rolled at the Brussels University. His main subject was chemistry
(Report Ast Belgium Br. B. No. 4/42 g. Kdo. 3 December 1942).
The Grand Chef informed Pascal about the existence of the 'Simex-
but forbade him to establish contacts with this firm for
co' firm,
conspiratorial reasons, for it was possible that the 'Simexco' Direc-
tor, Drailly, would also betray him if Pascal ever went there. Pascal,
who had concealed himself completely since his arrival in Belgium,
—
now established in accordance with the orders received — the con-
tact with the remaining part of the group. Hermann, who already in
the full group had acted as a technical adviser and was known under
the cover name of 'Professor,' was connected with Pascal by the
Grand Chef on orders from Moscow. Another meeting took place
with Bob [Isbutsky], who for his part contacted Fabrikant again with
Pascal. Romeo, who in the meantime had learned that the police
were looking for him, dropped out of the residual group. It was now
possible to establish a new group. Hermann was in the possession of
a transmitter and was also able to make some auxiliary devices him-
self, as he did in his spare time, and he also instructed Bob and Se-
see, who has been mentioned with the first Kapelle, in the activities
It was intended to form again, next to the ex-
of a wireless operator.
isting working group, a relief group for cases of emergency. Pascal
received the assignment to establish wireless communication with
Moscow as quickly as possible. This occurred approximately in May
1942. Pascal generally worked independently, but under the super-
vision of the Grand Chef. A standard meeting was arranged every
month with the Grand Chef and Pascal, which Pascal was to keep in
any case, while the Grand Chef would put in an appearance only
whenever he believed it necessary. During the next weeks Grossvogel
was brought together with Pascal and Hermann, so that the total
communication of the Belgian group with France now seemed to be
sufficiently assured. At the beginning of June 1942 Pascal, who un-
tilthen had occupied himself mainly with organizational questions
and the technical reconstruction of his group, received the assign-
ment from the Grand Chef to send intelligence via the wireless
transmitter of Hermann to Moscow. This had become necessary, for
the Sokol transmitter in Paris had been seized. We shall discuss So-
kol to a greater extent later in connection with the French group.
During the night from 29 to 30 June 1942 the transmitter of Her-
mann was seized. (Report Ast Belgium of 12 October 1942 Br. B.
Belgium 35
No. 4/42 g. Kdo.). In the meantime, four contact-men of III F Ast

Belgium worked together with Fabrikant and other small figures of
the group. The contact-men had the full confidence of Fabrikant in
particular. However, the Grand Chef already had expressed doubts
about our contact-man Carlos, who concealed the above-mentioned
apparatus at his residence. Fabrikant dispelled this suspicion, and
the contact continued to exist with the approval of the Grand Chef,
for Fabrikant urgently needed our contact-man Carlos for his for-
ging activities. Further shadowings and surveillances of meetings by
contact-men of III F established the letter-reception places and the
standard meetings of individual members of the group. Fabrikant,
who in themeantime had been recognized as an important man,
was constantly shadowed, so that a clear picture had evolved about
his individual meetings.
"The first brief questionings of Paul-Pascal after his arrest
showed that the young man was unable to stand up under severe in-
terrogation and that he broke down. He soon revealed his cover
name, 'Bordo,' used in wireless communications, and also his trans-
mission code. He also revealed standard meetings with his deputy
agents, and on the Bob and Wassermann
third day after his arrest
[Peper] were arrested on the street during the holding of such a
meeting. Bob remained silent, but it was possible to get something
out of Wassermann. The brief statements revealed that Wassermann
was the contact agent to a group in Holland. He also revealed that
he would have a meeting with the Dutch group leader in a few
days. The operating III-F officer and some officials transported Was-
sermann in a police car to Amsterdam for the holding of the meet-
ing. The meeting was to take place on an afternoon at a predeter-
mined place on a busy Amsterdam street. Under the observance of
great precaution and security measures, Wassermann was released
and sent to the meeting. However, the group leader did not appear.
Wassermann returned. Other questionings of Wassermann in Am-
sterdam showed that he was able to name the residence of the Neth-
erlands group leader with a Dutch family. It was therefore decided
to send Wassermann to the family in question and to arrange a
meeting for the same evening. Again under strict security measures,
Wassermann was sent to the house and returned with the news that
the meeting was to take place in the evening between 8 and 8:30 in
the IS-Dutch regular restaurant in Amsterdam. Wassermann was
again alone in the restaurant during the meeting, while security per-
sonnel were sitting nearby in the same restaurant. At about 9

o'clock a person appeared, went toward Wassermann, and took a
seat on his table. At an agreed upon sign they were seized and ar-
rested. On the way to the police car that was standing by, the arrest-
ed person put up considerable resistance, and a brief scuffle took
place. During the arrest the person had called out a name into the
crowd that had assembled, so that it had to be assumed that he had
arranged to be shadowed during the meeting and was warning those
who shadowed him by calling out a name. The identification papers
found on his person did not give any information about his address.
It was therefore necessary to take action at the above described cover
place and to arrest the occupants of the dwelling. It was a couple by
the name of Hillbolling. The cover name of the person was learned
through the couple. It was Tino' [Winterink], a Communist official
already known to the Executive. With the aid of the Hillbolling

couple it was possible to find the clandestine residence of Tino,
which was searched the following night. The search of the residence
showed that Tino was not only the group leader of the Holland
group but also its wireless operator. His mistress, who had lived with
him, apparently had fled, warned by the arrest. A complete wireless
apparatus, including all technical data, was seized at the residence.
(See also the report of Ast Belgium of 12 October 1942, Br. B. No.
4/42 Kdo. Rote Kapelle.) Tino was taken to Brussels and at first
g.
remained silent. The action with Pascal was continued. Pascal was
induced to write to Fabrikant from the prison. The deception suc-
ceeded. Fabrikant informed the Grand Chef that Pascal had not
come to several meetings but that he was at large and was remaining
in hiding for the time being. After it had become known that Mrs.
Schneider was not only Hermann's mistress but a very important
collaborator and courier, Pascal was induced to arrange a meeting
with her husband at a streetcar stop. That also was successful.
Schneider did not give any information about the whereabouts of
his wife, and only later was it learned that Schneider was playing a
double role and that he had sent word to the Grand Chef that Pas-
cal probably was the informer. Fabrikant, who very adroitly had
questioned the guards at the prison, was able to find out that Pascal
really had been arrested and that Bob and Wassermann were also
imprisoned.
"Fabrikant had given our contact-man Carlos at the same time
another assignment for the manufacture of forged papers for a worn-
Belgium 37
an. The papers were produced with the assistance and approval of
III F,and police action was to take place again during the transfer of
the forged papers. Only Fabrikant appeared at this meeting and not
Grossvogel, who, as was learned later, had been requested to pro-
cure the papers for Mrs. Schneider and deliver them to her. Fabri-
kant was arrested on this occasion. He was a very weak Jew and soon
admitted his relationship with his mistress, Malvina [Gruber].
From prison he persuaded her to work from now on with us. Bob
confessed during further interrogations that Grossvogel was theAn-
dre we knew from the wireless messages. Everything now depended
on breaking up the group in France, for Malvina had learned in the
meantime that a far-spread group existed in Paris under the leader-
ship of the Grand Chef. The known cover firm of Simexco in Brus-
sels was at first permitted to continue, but mail and telephone sur-
veillances were introduced and soon produced incriminating materi-
al. It could be discerned that the coproprietors and associates of the
firm had become concerned and were warning each other. Through
Malvina it was learned that Mrs. Grossvogel had been delivered of a
child at a Brussels clinic. Malvinaand another contact- woman of III
F were continued on the case, and it became clear that other women
were informed about the organization. There was no further police
action for the time being. All reports from contact-men showed that
the Russian intelligence organizations which had existed for a long
time had been destroyed and, above all, that further radio commu-
nications, even with the aid of the radio interception group, could
no longer be perceived." [Report of Abwehr III F Ast Belgien, 24
March 1943.]
XV. The Playbacks
From August October 1942 the Germans instituted a series

to
of W/T playbacks. Wenzel was made to operate a "Funkspiel" called
"Weide" in his own character in August, and in September a sub-
stitute for Winterink was set up with another transmitter. This
station was called "Tanne." In October there were two more insti-
tuted: one operated by Jeffremov, called "Buche-Pascal," and the
other by a substitute for Herman Isbutsky, called "Buche-Bob."
Not one of these playbacks is likely to have achieved any success
with Moscow. Apart from the early warning of Wenzel's arrest, de-
Trepper by Germaine Schneider, there is evidence that
livered to
Moscow was given news of the disaster from Bulgaria. Wenzel, too,
may have sent a warning to Moscow after his escape in November

1942. According to one report, Wenzel joined a Dutch resistance
group and was able to inform the Soviet Embassy in London, via a
British communication line, that Jeffremov had been doubled and
that the radio playbacks were being conducted to confuse Moscow.
TRANSLATION OF A STATEMENT MADE BY

ABRAHAM RAJCHMANN
TO THE BELGIAN AUTHORITIES
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Abraham Rajchmann worked successively for the Trepper, Su-

kolov, and Jeffremov networks of the Rote Kapelle in Belgium. He
was arrested by the Belgian authorities 23 July 1946 and tried for es-
pionage and collaboration. The following is a statement made by
him shortly after his arrest. The material in brackets has been insert-
ed by the Rajchmann' s statement corresponds well with
translator.
the known and is an important source of information on the
facts
operations and working methods of the Rote Kapelle.
STATEMENT BY ABRAHAM RAJCHMANN
[I. Contacts with Grossvogel (1934-1939)]
I wish to express myself in French.

About 1934 or 1935, while I was having a meal in a little Jew-
ish restaurant on the Rue des Tanneurs in Brussels, run by a certain
Reinstein, two gentlemen came to ask for me. I do not know who
had sent them to me. All that I can say is that they knew my nick-
name, "Adash," the Polish diminutive of Adam, a first name cor-
responding in French to Abraham. They asked me if I could get
them visas for Syria to attach to two Polish passports. I procured
these visas for them for a few hundred francs.
A few months later, if my memory is correct, they asked me to
get them a visa for a country in South America. I got them this visa.
I did not know the identity or the place of residence of these
gentlemen.
About 1937 one of them came to see me again and this time
asked me if, on the basis of official documents, I could get Polish
Belgium 39
passports for some people without their being obliged to go to the

Polish Consulate. He also asked me to accompany some people, who
he said were Jewish refugees, to act as interpreter so they could ob-
tain passports more easily. These people were in possession of offi-
cial documents, such as birth certificates and certificates of national-
ity. I accepted this proposition. After this conversation he arranged
another meeting with me. I was supposed to see him again at the
Cafe Metropole in Brussels. On the set date I went to the rendez-
vous and met him. I knew him at this time by the name of "Leo-
pold." During our conversation, at the Cafe Metropole my friend,
Lejzor Bugajer, walked by and said hello to "Leopold." The latter,
noting that we had a common friend, then admitted to me that he

was related to the directors of the Excellent Raincoat Company [Le
Roi du Caoutchouc]. Later my friend Bugajer told me that "Leo-
pold" was really named Leon Grossvogel. He told me also that this
man was involved in politics and that I should be careful.
A short time later I had another rendezvous with Grossvogel.
Because of what I had learned, I hesitated to help him this time. To
conquer my fears Grossvogel appealed to my feelings and reminded
me that I myself had been in difficult situations. He told me that
the people he wanted me to help were in the same condition as I
was because of their racial backgrounds. I was convinced by his ar-
guments and got for him what he wanted. There was then a long in-
terruption in our relationship.
In 1938 I associated myself in Brussels with my friend, Lejzor
Bugajer, and a certain Max Unikowski for the purpose of running
jointly a business dealing in simulated leather. Our offices were in
the City, Rue Neuve, Brussels. This enterprise was liquidated late in
1938 or early in 1939 because of disagreement among the associates.
[II. Services for the Trepper Network (1939-1940)]
I again met Grossvogel at a rendezvous

In the spring of 1939
arranged by Bugajer. In the course of the conversation he very clev-
erly let me understand that hands and that I would have
I was in his
to provide him with services. Then he
he wanted to intro-
said that
duce me to someone whose identity he did not reveal to me, for
whom I would have to render the same services I had already ren-
dered to him. I accepted, and he gave me a rendezvous for about
two weeks later. I went to this rendezvous, and Grossvogel intro-
duced to me a man whom he called "Uncle," a heavy-set man, very
calm, with a very serious look [Trepper]. "Uncle" told me that my

business would not be to procure visas. My role would be that of an
expert who would be consulted on the validity of documents sub-
mitted to him. It was agreed that liaison between "Uncle" and me
would be through a certain "Charles" [Makarov], whom I met in a
cafe at another meeting. "Charles" gave me a telephone number
where I could reach him if needed. I no longer remember this tele-
phone number.
On 16 September 1939 I went to the Commissariat of Police to
register as required by the local laws in effect for foreigners residing
in Belgium. I was immediately arrested and interned at St. Gilles
Prison as a foreigner under suspicion. I learned later, through my
family, that "Charles" had gone to my house shortly after my im-
prisonment and, hearing of my arrest, declared that he would come
back to receive news about me. Moreover, he told a member of my
family that after my liberation I should call the telephone number
he had given me.
About the end of October or the beginning of November
[1939] I was released from prison. I called "Charles" to tell him of
my liberation. He arranged a rendezvous for a few days later in a
cafe downtown. I remember neither the name nor the location of
this cafe. I went to the rendezvous and met "Charles." Right away
he reprimanded me for having gone to the Commissariat to register
and said that I should have been more careful. He also said I should
prepare a new identity for myself. I replied that this was not possi-
ble because I was too well known in Brussels. It was then agreed be-
tween us that I would hide in a quiet house with a garden where
they would come to consult with me, as had been arranged with
"Uncle." After this conversation I found a place to stay in Brussels,
Rue du Progres, with a Jewish family named Rybski or Rybsky. I do
not remember whether it was "Charles" or I who found this place.
"Uncle" and "Charles" came to see me from time to time for ad-
vice. It was thus that one day "Uncle," having found a person sup-
posedly able to obtain visas in a certain manner, which he explained

to me in detail, asked me if this procedure conformed to the regula-
tions then being followed in the various consulates. Another time
"Uncle" came to explain to me that a person in possession of a Po-
lish passport had obtained a visa to go to Mexico. It was, however,
necessary for this person to get a visa of transit from the American
authorities. An individual whose name I do not know was given the
Belgium 41
job of procuring this visa, but claimed that the passport had been
kept by the American Consulate. He undertook to get it back for
the sum of $800. "Uncle" asked my opinion. I replied that he had
been "tricked"; then "Uncle" gave "Charles" the order to have
the passport destroyed.
A little before the declaration of war against Belgium "Uncle"
proposed that I should leave for Brazil. I did not want to go to that
country because I really suspected that if I accepted his proposition I
would be required to perform services I did not wish to perform. I

know, however, that for the purpose of this departure "Uncle" and
"Charles" undertook to get for me a regular passport from the Pol-
ish Consulate. It is true, as you point out to me, that the Consulate
at my request then approached the Surete Publique to obtain au-
thorization for me to go to Brazil or to any other foreign country. I
learned later from "Uncle" and from "Charles" that their project
to get me a Polish passport had failed because of some trouble with
a certain Malvina Hofstadjerova, the wife of Adolf Gruber. In order
tobe complete, I should say that I had introduced this woman to
"Uncle," and especially to "Charles," before I went to hide with
the Rybskys. "Uncle" had in fact asked me to introduce to him
someone who could perform certain services for him, notably going
to the different consulates to find out what formalities were neces-
sary to obtain visas.
When 'Uncle' told me about Malvina's trouble, which resulted
'
'
in my getting the passport, he said that in a short time Belgium and

France would be attacked by Germany, but that in any event I
should stay in Belgium and not become frightened. On that occa-

sion he advised me to prepare for myself a new identity. During this
conversation he made known to me manner that he
in an official
was part of a secret Soviet organization. Because I wanted to know

more details, in view of the fact that the Soviets had signed a non-
aggression pact with Germany, "Uncle" explained to me that the
Russians and the Germans would never get along together, and that
the activity of his organization was directed against Germany. I told
"Uncle" that if his work was against the Germans, I was completely
ready to help him if I could. At the time of the invasion of Poland
by the Germans my whole family had been killed, and for that rea-
son I decided to do everything possible to hurt the Germans if the
occasion ever arose. "Uncle" told me that one day perhaps I would
have the chance to do just that.
[III. Flight to France]
On 10 May 1940 [the day of the German invasion of Belgium]

I was still in hiding with the Rybskys. The area had been bombed;
so I went to find my wife at her parents' house
avenue Jean — 32,
Volders in St. Gilles — and advised her to
was decided that flee. It
the wife and child of Lejzor Bugajer would leave with my wife for
France. Bugajer took from me the sum of five thousand francs with
the promise to procure for us an automobile, in which we could es-
cape together. I never again saw Bugajer. I recently heard that dur-
ing the occupation he had been deported to Germany and was never
seen again. In any event, not seeing Bugajer with the automobile he
had talked about and for which I had given him the five thousand
francs, I left by train for France with my father-in-law and brother-
in-law. My brother-in-law left us at Tournai. My father-in-law and I
after several days Mont-Rejeau in the South of

of travel arrived at
France. In accordance with the Mandel Law I was interned at the
Camp de St. Cyprien. My father-in-law, whose papers were in order,
was not interned. I was liberated at the time of the French armistice,
after succeeding in getting in with a group of Italians and in that
manner receiving a hearing from the Commission.
Once free, that is, in July or August 1940, I went to Revel, near
Toulouse, where my father-in-law was staying. I had received his ad-
dress through the intermediary of the family of my brother-in-law,
Henri Borman, living in Paris at 58, rue Vieille du Temple.
In about August 1940 I received in Revel a letter from "Un-
cle," mailed from Vichy, in which he asked me to let him know
how I was. I wrote back to him, as previously agreed, by a letter ad-
dressed in the name of Peiper, I believe, in care of General Deliv-
ery, Vichy.
A week later he wrote me a second letter, asking me to phone
him at the Poste Centrale on a particular day and time. I was sup-
posed to ask that they call a Monsieur Peiper to the phone. I am not
at all certain about this name or its spelling. I called, as he asked,
and in the course of the conversation he gave me orders to leave for
Paris as soon as possible. I was supposed to meet him there two
weeks later at a place he indicated and which I no longer remember.
At that time I had been planning to flee to Portugal in order to es-
cape the Germans. I did not do anything about this, however, and I
decided to leave for Paris as I had promised.
Two or three days later I learned at Revel that a woman was try-
Belgium 43
ing to find me. She wanted to take me back to Belgium. At least
that is what she said when I met her at Toulouse. This woman was
Malvina Hofstadjerova, whom I have already mentioned. She as-
sured me that she had in her possession repatriation permits for sev-
eral persons to return to Belgium. Since I knew that these permits
cost a lot of money, I pointed out to Malvina that my father-in-law
and I had no money at all. Malvina told me that that did not make
any difference.
A few days later we left by train with her and other refugees to-
ward the first demarcation line, where we were turned back. We
then headed for Bordeaux by another route and succeeded in cross-
ing the demarcation line, thanks to Malvina, who convinced the
Germans at the control point to let us pass. I then left for Paris,
where I joined my wife at the Caron Hotel, Place Caron, in the

third arrondissement. At this hotel, Bob [Isbutsky], whom I had
never met before, came to
say that "Uncle" wanted to see me. I was
supposed to meet him in a restaurant located opposite the Hotel de
Ville, on the first floor. I went to this rendezvous and saw "Uncle,"
who asked me to change a thousand dollars for him, which I agreed
to do. I was to give him the equivalent in French francs at a metro
station a few days later.
I took care of this matter and met "Uncle" as we had planned.

During this meeting he told me that I would have to find some way
of returning to Belgium. Since I knew that Malvina handled the
transporting of refugees into Belgium, I went to my home at 32,
avenue Jean Volders, St. Gilles. I wish to point out that these events
took place at the end of September or the beginning of October
1940.
[IV. Services for the Sukolov Network (1940-1942)]
After my return to Brussels, Charles came to see me at my

home and again insisted that I take a new identity. I refused.
In January 1941 I obtained a temporary identity card in my
own name.
In February 1941 I received on several occasions from a person
named Rosenberg in Antwerp, for Charles, blank identity cards with
seals attached, certificates of good conduct, etc.
On was arrested by the Belgian Police for
19 February 1941 I
violation of the expulsion order and was sentenced to two months in

prison.
On 20 April 1941, after my from prison, Charles con-

release
tactedme and said that would have to participate ac-
henceforth I
tively in the fight against the Germans.

I expressed to Charles my desire to get my family into safety,
but he replied that this was not necessary.
The first thing he asked me to do was to get together some
identity documents for members of the organization. Then he gave
me the job of finding out which German unit was stationed in
Ghent at the time.
I accepted and successfully completed these assignments.
Later Charles asked me to learn Morse code, but a few days af-
terwards he said not to do so.

He then asked me him
a list of persons sought by the
to get for
Germans. It was at this thought of Chief Inspector Ma-
time that I
thieu of the P.J.P., and I asked him to get these lists for me. Before
doing so, however, I tested his loyalty by having him try to get sev-
eral identity cards for me, which he did to my complete satisfaction.
Mathieu promised to try to get the lists I needed. He was successful
and continued to furnish them to me at irregular intervals. Our pur-
pose was to warn the persons being sought and to protect them from
the risk of being taken by the Germans. I also obtained from Ma-
thieu information on units stationed in the rural areas. I knew Ma-
thieu 's name and he knew mine. We also knew each other's ad-
dresses. In my group Chief Inspector Mathieu was known by the ali-
as "Cousin." My superiors knew that he was an inspector in the
P.J. P. At about this same time Mathieu gave me photos of German

atrocities in Russia, such as collective hangings. I remind you that
the events described above took place in 1941.
One day Charles gave me the job of bringing from France to
Belgium, with maximum security, an individual [Anton Danilov]
for whom he would hold me responsible. I proposed Malvina for
this job, nevertheless making reservations to Charles about her dis-
cretion. My proposition, however, was accepted and here, if my
memory is correct, is how the operation was carried out. Charles
gave me the address of a cafe in Paris where Malvina was supposed
to be contacted by a member of the group. I no longer remember
the address of the cafe, and the identity of the person was never re-
vealed to me. This person would indicate to Malvina the address of
a dentist in Paris, where the unknown person to be conducted to
Belgium was staying. My assignment was to contact this person at
the home of Malvina upon his arrival in Brussels and to give him a
s
Belgium 45
telephone number by which he could get in contact with Charles.

Everything went as planned. This took place in the summer of 1941.
I cannot you from memory the name or the alias of the un-
tell
known person brought into Belgium by Malvina. I know, however,

that he was a "musician," that is, a radio operator. I also know that
he was arrested in December 1941, at the same time as Charles. It
was "Uncle" who reported this to me much later.
Next I was given the job of bringing from France a foreign
woman [Sofie Posnanska]. She was also a "musician." This woman
was also arrested in December 1941,
same time as Charles.
at the
After the entry of the United States into the war I had a meet-
ing with Charles. We agreed to meet again a few days later. But the
same day [probably 13 December 1941], while I was at Malvina'
house on the Rue du Marche du Pare, "Uncle" came to announce
that some members of our organization, including Charles, had
been arrested. Contrary to his habit, "Uncle" had gone without
warning to their address and had been taken by the Gestapo. He
had declared to the Germans that he had gone to the wrong house
and that the house he was looking for was that of a firm dealing in
automobile parts. As if by chance, there was a garage nearby. Be-
cause "Uncle's" papers were in order and he could prove the truth
of his statement, he was released by the Germans.
In view of the circumstances I advised "Uncle" to return to
Paris by an indirect route.
After the arrest of Charles I had no further direct contact with
the group. This situation did not last very long, though, because at
the beginning of 1942, I think, I had a new superior, replacing
Charles, in the person of Bob [Isbutsky], whom I had already met in
Paris.
One day Bob came to get me at six o'clock in the morning to

take me meet a so-called Argen-
to Place Venderkindere, Uccle, to
tine, who by was certainly a Russian [Sukolov]. After
his accent
complaining about "Uncle," who had left just when everything was
in a "mess," the Argentine asked me to do whatever was necessary
to take his wife and child to France [Margarete Barcza and her son,
Rene]. He also gave me twenty thousand francs, forbidding me to
use it without his instructions. He told me he was a director or
shareholder in a company called Simexco.
I gave to Malvina the job of taking the Argentine's wife, as well
as her little boy, across the French border. Malvina took them to
Paris and put them into the hands of a second person belonging to
our group, who would see that they were transferred to the non-
occupied zone. The passport of this woman was Czechoslovak and
stated that she was "Aryan" or "Catholic." I personally assured
myself that Malvina actually left with the wife and little boy of the
Argentine.
During my first meeting with the Argentine, he asked me to
find a place where would be possible to hide a radio transmitter.
it
After looking around, I found no secure place except at the home of

Chief Inspector Mathieu. I talked to him about it, and he agreed to
hide the transmitter. Bob was supposed to bring me the set about a
hundred meters from the Barriere of St. Gilles. I went there, and he
handed over to me the suitcase containing the transmitter. This was
a large traveling suitcase, measuring approximately 90 x 50 x 20
cm., dark brown in color, and fairly well-used. This suitcase be-
longed to Bob, whom I did not tell where I intended to hide the
transmitter that was inside. I then carried the suitcase to the Barriere
of St. Gilles and gave it personally to Chief Inspector Mathieu, who
took it to his home. I saw him get on streetcar number nine with
the suitcase.
Two I met Chief Inspector Mathieu, who told me
days later
that the place in which he had planned to hide the suitcase was not
large enough to hold it. I therefore bought for him three smaller
suitcases, and it was decided that the transfer of the transmitter
from the large suitcase to the three small ones would take place in
my presence one day when Mathieu 's wife was not home.
In January or February 1942 I was invited by Mathieu to make
the transfer with him. I went for this purpose to his home, 65 Ave-
nue des Tilleuls. The transfer was carried out in a front room. I be-
lieve that the large suitcase was locked up in a closet, which I think
was a clothes closet. When the transfer was completed, I carried
away the large suitcase and gave it back to Bob.
During subsequent meetings with Bob he asked me to get word
to "Uncle" that he was out of money. I had a chance to send this
message by the intermediary of a woman who came on behalf of
"Uncle" to find out from Malvina whether Vera had arrived safely.
Let me explain myself. Malvina previously had brought from France
a woman named Vera and had failed to send news of her arrival in
Brussels. If I remember correctly, this Vera told me that she was
staying with a friend [masculine]. [Vera is probably Annemarie van
der Putt, who worked for Trepper in France in 1941 and 1942.]
The woman sent by "Uncle" informed me that he wanted to
Belgium 47
see me week or ten days at the Cafe Boule d'Or or

in Paris in a
Boule d'Argent, not far from the St. Michel metro station. She told
me also that I could dispose of the twenty thousand francs given to
me by the Argentine [Sukolov] in the following manner: two thou-
sand francs for Bob; four thousand francs for Vera; four thousand
me; and ten thousand francs to give to Bob for the use of
francs for
"Prof" [Johannes Wenzel]. This latter, according to what I learned
later, was an expert in codes who had disappeared after the first ar-
rests in December 1941. I point out in passing that it was possible

for me Vera by going every three or four days to the cafe
to contact
"Le Grillon," rue de l'Ecuyer, Brussels.
As "Uncle" had asked me, I went to Paris and met him at the
agreed place. We talked at first about unimportant things; then we
left the cafe to take a short walk. While walking, "Uncle" an-
nounced to me that he would see me the next day. Then he turned

me over to a person who took me to an apartment, the location of
which I could not determine because of the darkness. The next day
"Uncle" came to see me at the apartment. We stayed inside all
day, discussing several matters relating to our clandestine work. In

the evening "Uncle" suggested that I return to Brussels, promising
that he would come to see me shortly.
[V. Services for the Jeffremov Network (1942)]
When I saw "Uncle" in Brussels he told me that, from then

on, my direct superior would no longer be Bob but Bordo [Jeffre-
mov]. I think I made contact with Bordo as follows: Bob came to get
me, and together we met "Uncle," who was waiting for us in the
Pare du Cinquantenaire, Brussels. Two or three hours later "Uncle
'
introduced me to Bordo, not far from there, if my memory is cor-

rect. In the course of our conversation "Uncle" asked me about the
person to whom I had given the transmitter given to me by Bob. I

replied that I had given it to "Cousin." He also asked me to find
out what had happened to a certain Gilbert, who had lived at Mo-
lenbeck. For this I went to Mathieu and learned through him that
the man in question had left his home without leaving a new ad-
dress. It seems to me that "Uncle's" desire was "to double" this
Gilbert, because while talking he asked me if I had not procured for
him an identity in this name. After I gave the result of Mathieu 's
inquiries to "Uncle" he asked me to establish an identity for him in
the name Gilbert. He insisted that the paper and seals be authentic.
For this I Antwerp, to a shop on Rue du Pelican run by a

went to
certain Lebenthal, whom Malvina had recommended to me, I think.
This store was a candy shop or a pastry shop. Lebenthal promised to
furnish me with authentic documents, as well as certificates of good
conduct and morals. He kept his word, and I had Malvina take the
documents to "Uncle," who was at that time in Paris. Returning
from Paris, Malvina was accompanied by a woman whom I knew by
the name of Jeanne [probably Jeanne Grossvogel]. This woman was
about forty years old, of average size, and slightly greying hair,
spoke with a Flemish accent, and had quite an ordinary look about
her. She stayed one or two days in Brussels, then returned to Paris
with Malvina, who on this occasion carried secret information hid-
den in a button of her blouse, as well as false identity papers for
"Uncle."
After that I regularly saw Bordo, who insisted upon being in-
formed about and troop movements in Belgium. One day he
train
asked me if I could find a way to get a job for one of his men in the
Usines Gevaert at Antwerp. I could not help him in this last matter.
Another time he told me he was happy to have found again "Prof
[Wenzel], who was a code specialist. A short time later Bordo told
me that "Prof" had been arrested with another person whose name
I do not know [probably a reference to Germaine Schneider]. The
entire area had been surrounded; and "Prof," who had tried to es-
cape by the roof of the building from where he was transmitting,
was captured. Bordo had found out about this by asking a few ques-
tions around the neighborhood where this had occurred. He did not
know, however, whether the Germans were able to seize the code.
The code was frequently changed, especially in 1942. Bordo, I
think, was able to recover a reserve transmitter that had been hid-
den in Profs house.
During the summer of 1942 Bordo introduced me to a Dutch-
man called Peper who was supposed to serve as liaison between him
and me because Bordo, for reasons of security, did not want to see
me except in cases of emergency. In those cases I was supposed to go
to the corner of Rue Berckmans and Chaussee de Charleroi about
noon; and if Bordo saw me, we would meet an hour later in a street
according to a procedure determined in advance. One day Bordo
asked me for a new identity for himself. For this I went to see Ma-
thieu, who got it for me. I know that he proceeded as follows to get
identity papers of this kind: He sent a written request to the local
administration of a place that had been destroyed in order to find
Belgium 49
out whether a certain person at a certain address was known. They

answered that the records had been destroyed and it was not possi-
ble to furnish the desired information, except to say that the address
had existed. On this basis the identity card was delivered a few days
later. It was thus that Bordo went to get his identity card at the Mai-
son Communale of St. Josse Ton Noode.
had followed him with-
I
out his knowledge to make sure that everything went all right. I
did, in fact, see him come out holding in his hands different papers
which looked exactly like food stamps. He left in the direction of
the Gare du Nord. I followed him for a few more minutes but then
stopped because I had not noticed anything suspicious. I did not see
him reach the Rue Royale. I was supposed to see Bordo the same af-
ternoon to confirm that there had been no difficulty. He did not
come to the meeting. This took place about July 1942. Since I was
very worried about not having seen him again, I spent several days
in the neighborhoods where I knew I could run across him. I never
saw him again. On the other hand, I met Peper, who was also look-
ing for him. This was the first time I had seen Peper since Bordo
had introduced us. Two or three weeks later I saw Grossvogel com-
pletely by chance. He told me he had no money for me because the
organization was going through a bad period. He also asked me if I
had any news from Bordo. Now, I had just found in my mailbox a
few days before a letter from Bordo worded approximately as fol-
lows: "Dear I had to leave for Lieges to take care of a very
friend,
urgent matter. have been delayed and will return to Brussels in a
I
few days. Signed, 'Bordo.' " I was very concerned because it was
not Bordo' s habit to act that way. I told Grossvogel about this, but
he did not think that it was in any way unusual. [The Germans had
induced Jeffremov to write this letter to Rajchmann in an attempt to
conceal his arrest from the rest of the network.] Grossvogel asked
me to get him some identity cards. They were, he said, for some
very important agents [one of whom was Germaine Schneider]. He
toldme that the photos would be given to me the next day by Bob,
about noon, and he left after giving me a small sum of money for
my personal use. The next day I went to the rendezvous arranged
for the delivery of the photos, but Bob did not come.
I was sup-
posed to see Grossvogel a few days later, so in order not to waste any
time I went to find Mathieu and asked him to prepare two false
identity cards for which I would furnish the photos later. A few days
later I met Grossvogel and told him that I had not seen Bob as
planned. Grossvogel promised to get me two other photos that af-

ternoon. He gave me these photos hidden in a pack of cigarette pa-

pers. I delivered this pack to Mathieu a little later somewhere down-
town. When I gave him the photos, I told him not to take them out
of the pack until he was ready to put them on the cards. A few days
later saw Grossvogel again, and he wanted the identity cards for
I
the next day. I promised to give him an answer that afternoon and
agreed on a rendezvous for that purpose. I then telephoned Ma-

thieu, who told me he would be able to have the cards for the next
day. I informed Grossvogel of this at our meeting. Grossvogel at
that time gave me a calendar in which I was supposed to hide the
identity cards.
[VI. Arrest and Collaboration (1942-1944)]
On 2 September 1942 I had a rendezvous with Mathieu at the

Cafe Isy, Avenue de la Porte de Hal, Brussels. He came and handed
over to me the two identity cards he had promised. I hid them in
Grossvogel' s calendar. Then, for security reasons, I decided to have
Malvina take the identity cards to the meeting had arranged withI
Grossvogel. This meeting was supposed to be on the Avenue Albert,

near the Police Station of Forest. After dining at my place, I went
on foot by way of the Chaussee de Waterloo to make sure I was not
being followed. At the Barriere de St. Gilles I got on streetcar num-
ber fourteen to go to Avenue de Fleron, number one, where Mal-
vina lived, with the intention of giving her the identity cards and
her new assignment. After changing streetcars at Place Wielemans
Couppons, I got off at Place St. Denis in Forest. I then went on foot
toward Malvina' s house, but en route a car of the Gestapo stopped
beside me, and I was told to get in. This car contained German po-
licemen in civilian clothing. They took me to Avenue Louise, where
they searched me. They found on me the calendar as well as the
identity cards which were hidden in it. I was immediately asked
where and to whom I was to deliver the identity cards. I answered
that I was to deliver them at the Coin de la Chaussee de Waterloo in
the place called "Ma Campagne" at six o'clock in the evening, to a
Jew whom I had met in the Cafe Metropole and who offered me a
large sumof money if I would get him these identity cards. I was
kept Avenue Louise until six o'clock, and then Colonel Wolf
at
came to say that I had been lying. I was taken the same evening to
Breendoncle. As soon as I arrived, I was taken to the torture cham-
ber. I was there interrogated and tortured. My interrogators were
1
Belgium 5
Colonels Wolf, Berg, and an individual they called "Doctor." They

were all in civilian clothing. They tried to get me to tell the real
place of the rendezvous and the name of whom I was
the person to
to deliver the identity cards. was interrogated three days without
I
interruption. To make me confess, they gave me whippings on the

back and blows on the they hung me up by the arms and
testicles;
tried to separate my gums

from my teeth; and finally, they blinded
me for several minutes with an extremely strong light which moved
back and forth. When I could take no more and fainted, they threw
buckets of cold water in my face or let drops of cold water fall into
my ears. After three days I told them the place of the rendezvous
was Avenue Albert in Brussels. There was at that time no chance for
the Germans meet Grossvogel, with whom I had agreed that in
to
case of at the first meeting there would be a second
non-appearance
the next day at the same time and place. Moreover, I always main-
tained that it was a woman, and not a man, whom I was supposed
to meet. Nevertheless, the Germans kept the place under surveil-
lance, but obviously they had no results. They were furious, and
then informed me that was not a woman, but a man named
it
"Leopold," whom I was to meet. I admitted this but declared I did

not know the real identity of this "Leopold." They answered that I
was lying and that I knew very well that his name was Grossvogel
and that he was one of the directors of the firm, "le Roi du Caout-
chouc." Two days later I was taken to Brussels, Avenue Louise,
at the headquarters of the Gestapo. From there they took me by car
to the Porte de Hai in St. Gilles, where we stopped. The car was
parked in such a manner that we could see the persons entering and
leaving the Cafe Isy. The Germans told me to point out to them
immediately any person whom I knew and who was entering or
leaving the cafe. A little later saw Inspector Mathieu arrive at the
I
cafe and go in. Since I pretended not to recognize him, the Ger-
mans gave me a slap and said, "You do not recognize the Inspec-
tor?" I answered that I was near-sighted and that I could not distin-
guish clearly from the distance we were. A few minutes later Mal-
vina also entered the cafe. The same scene was repeated because the
Germans knew her also. After an hour and a half Mathieu came out.
At that moment a German came to the car and told the driver to
follow the woman who would be coming out, and that he would
take care of the Inspector. When Malvina came out, the car followed
her all the way to her house. When she was going into her house,
the Germans said to me, "It is there that she lives." I did not an-
swer. I was then taken back to Avenue Louise, where Berg was wait-
ing for me. He interrogated me on the role played by Malvina, and
I said that we were only social acquaintances. He "That is what
said,
we will find out at Breendonck." I was taken there and again inter-
rogated. then learned that the Germans knew about Malvina 's role
I
in helping me cross the demarcation line and then the Franco-Bel-

gian border in 1941, as well as all she had done after that. I refused
to admit her role and was again tortured for about three hours. The
next day I was confronted with Malvina, and they asked me what I
had hidden at the Inspector's house. The Germans told me to tell

Malvina what I knew about Grossvogel. I stated that I knew nothing
more than what I had already told them. They showed me some
photos, among which were different members of the organization,
but I did not point out to them the photo of Grossvogel. The next
day I was subjected to another interrogation. This time the Germans
told me that it was a transmitter that I had left with Inspector Ma-
thieu. They even knew that the set had been transported in Bob's
suitcase and that I had transferred the contents of this suitcase into
three smaller ones at the home of Inspector Mathieu. Despite this, I
swore that I knew nothing about a radio set. A few days later I was
again confronted with Malvina. On this occasion the Germans
showed me coming from my group. According to
a letter supposedly
them, this letter, which requested news of me, had been received at
Malvina' s. The Germans forced me to write the following reply:
"For the moment it is impossible for me to show myself because
there is danger. If someone wishes to see me, he should go to the
Boulevard Botanique (Porte de Schaerbeck) on such a date and such
a time. He will there see Malvina, whom he must not accost, but in-
stead follow. She will lead him to me."
On the day set by the above letter I was taken to a cafe, Place
Communale de Laeken, at the corner of the Rue Marie Christine. I
no longer remember the date or the name of the cafe. All that I can
say is that it was in October 1942. I was taken under heavy guard to
the Maison Communale of Laeken. Then I was instructed to go
alone to the cafe mentioned above to have a drink and to wait for
three quarters of an hour. They gave me money to pay for my drink.
Inside the cafe there were three couples, obviously agents of the Ge-
stapo. I waited for three quarters of an hour, but nothing hap-
pened, and I returned to the car. I still do not know why they took me
to that place.
I was next taken back to Breendonck, where a few days later I
Belgium 53
was confronted with Bob. He admitted knowing me.

About 28 October 1942 I was taken to Brussels, where I was
put in the presence of a certain Giering [Karl Giering of the Gesta-
po]. He announced to me that I was going to be allowed to move
about freely, but that I would still be considered as a prisoner. Then
I had to write at his dictation a statement by which I agreed to di-
vulge nothing of what I had seen or learned, under penalty of re-
prisals which would be taken against my wife and three children,

who would be held as hostages. I was taken back to my home and
instructed that I should stay there and telephone twice a day to
Giering to let him know how things were going. I could communi-
cate with Malvina. I could not see the Inspector. If anyone came to
get in touch with me in any way at all on behalf of my organization,
I was to let Giering know immediately.
A few days later, while I was at Malvina's house, a German
came on behalf of Giering to tell her that she had to leave for Paris.
Malvina followed these instructions; and when she came back a few
days later, she told me that in Paris she was placed in prison, in a
cell with other prisoners. Her mission was to tell these prisoners that
she had been arrested for a was going to be freed, and could
trifle,
eventually deliver a message to the outside. According to Malvina,

she behaved in a manner to arouse mistrust, and because of that she
reported no message. About January or February of 1943 Malvina
came to tell me that I was supposed to accompany her to Paris. We
made the trip by train under the surveillance of a German. At Paris
this German took us to a German police station. I do not know the
address of this station. I was then shown the identity card I had pre-
pared for "Uncle" in the name "Gilbert." I admitted having made
this identity card. They also showed me some photos of persons who
had been brought to Brussels by Malvina. They told me that I had
been involved with these people. I did not answer, but Malvina ad-
mitted having brought them to me. I was then taken to a place
which I would not be able to locate again. They gave me a note
written by "Uncle," and I was told to send this note to an Italian
who lived in one of the nearby buildings.
After completing this task, I was driven to the outskirts of Paris
to a villawhere I saw a person named Andre [probably Hillel Katz],
whom had previously met in 1942 at the time of my conversation
I
with "Uncle" in Paris. I was able to talk with this Andre, who told
me that he had been tortured and confronted with "Uncle," who
was arrested and advised him to talk. He confided to me that in his
opinion it was the Soviet Military Attache in Paris in 1941 who had
been the traitor. After the conversation the Germans did not inter-
rogate me and took me back to Brussels at the same time as Mal-
vina.
Later I was again taken to Paris, this time to a villa where "Un-
cle" was. When I wanted to speak to him, the Germans stopped me
and Berg said: "Microphones are installed. Someone is supposed to

come here to talk with 'Uncle.' When 'Uncle' leaves with this per-
son, you will go with him."
We waited for three hours, but no one came. Berg then stated:
"I'm sure someone will come to see you because Moscow is interest-
ed in you."
This arrangement lasted for a week. After this time Berg de-
clared that ifno one came that evening, I would return to Brussels.
No one came that day, just like the other days.
The next day Berg came to see me very excited: "Uncle" had
just escaped [16 September 1943]. I saw that he had the intention
to torture me because he was convinced that I had helped "Uncle"
to escape. Nevertheless, he sent me back to Brussels in the hope that
"Uncle" would go to look for me there. I have had no news about
"Uncle" from that date until the present.
A short time later in Brussels I was called to an office on Ave-
nue Louise, where a German interrogated me on the subject of
"Uncle." He especially wanted to know where "Uncle" was hiding.
I remember that he showed me an identity card in the name of a
certain de Winter. The photo attached to the card was of a young

woman of twenty or twenty-two, with black hair, a long face, big
eyes, and a well-shaped mouth. The German asked me if it was I
who had prepared this card. I denied this, even though I remember
having made it. In fact, if my memory is correct, it was an identity
card in the name of a certain Georgette de Winter, to which I was to
attach the photo and to complete the seal by hand. It was probably
an authentic identity card to which I was supposed to attach the
photo of another person. I continued to see Malvina, who was earn-
ing a lot of money in the currency traffic. I went out with her often
and several times saw her do business in cafes.
After the Allied landing, on 11 July 1944, the Germans again
arrested me and imprisoned me at St. Gilles. I was interrogated
there several times, but not tortured. These interrogations mostly
concerned the places where "Uncle" could be hiding, and they
stopped five or six days before the total evacuation of the prison.
Belgium 55
On 2 September 1944 I was put on the last convoy, which nev-

er arrived in Germany.
I was freed 3 September 1944 at the Gare de la Petite He, Brus-
sels.
After reading, I verify and sign . . . witnessed ....

Holland 57
CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROTE KAPELLE IN HOLLAND
1935-1937 August Johannes van Proosdy, a Dutch commu-

nist, received training in Moscow as a W/T tech-
nician and operator.
January 1936 Johannes Wenzel was sent from Moscow to Bel-

gium as a W/T technician, instructor, and adviser
for the RU in the Low Countries.
1936-1937 Daniel Gouwlooze, a publisher and a leading

Dutch communist, helped form an undercover "in-
formation" service in Holland. Gouwlooze served
between this service and the Dutch
as the link
Communist Party (CPN).
1937 Gouwlooze visited Moscow to receive intelligence

training. Upon his return to Amsterdam he estab-
lished a W/T service between Amsterdam and
Moscow.
September 1937 Van Proosdy was appointed by Gouwlooze as the

W/T operator for the Dutch network. The trans-
mitter was hidden in van Proosdy's house at Or-
teliusstraat, Amsterdam. This set also handled
CPN traffic.
5 October 1937 Wenzel was denied permission to remain in Bel-

gium. He went to Holland, where he discussed
with Gouwlooze the plans for the construction of
an intelligence network in the Low Countries.
1938 Jan de Laar, a member of the CPN, received six

months Moscow. He re-
of intelligence training in
turned to Moscow and became van Proosdy's
assistant.
early 1938 Wenzel returned to Belgium, illegally and with an

assumed identity. He was sheltered by Germaine
and Franz Schneider in Brussels.
late 1938 Van Proosdy constructed a second transmitter for

Gouwlooze's service.
December 1938 Wenzel visited Gouwlooze in Amsterdam. Gouw-

looze introduced to Wenzel an official of the CPN,
Anton Winterink. Winterink returned to Brussels
with Wenzel to train as a W/T operator.
1939 Gouwlooze went to Moscow for final discussions

regarding the operation of the Dutch net. He was
given a reserve W/T code.
June 1939 Adam Nagel was recruited by Gouwlooze from

the ranks of the CPN to work with Wenzel in Bel-
gium.
1939 Jacobus Dankaart became Gouwlooze's deputy in

the information service of the Dutch CP. Dan-
kaart was in charge of finances for the service.
September 1939 Konstantin Jeffremov, a Soviet intelligence offi-
cer, arrived in Brussels under cover as a Finnish

student. His instructions were to build up a net-
work Belgium and Holland for the collection of
in
military, political, and economic intelligence. An-
ton Winterink was assigned to Jeffremov as a
W/T operator.
October 1939 Victor Sukolov, another Soviet intelligence officer

operating in Belgium, sought out Gouwlooze as a
contact with the CPN. Sukolov asked that a tem-
porary W/T link with Moscow be arranged for his
use. This line was used by Sukolov until about Jan-
uary 1940.
October 1939 Gouwlooze arranged, at a meeting in Belgium

with Clement (probably identical with Sukolov),
to relay the latter's reports to Moscow over the
CPN link in Amsterdam. The material was taken
by Clement or his couriers to Gouwlooze for trans-
mission.
Holland 59
Spring 1940 Gouwlooze travelled to Brussels on "publishing

business" and visited Wenzel.
May 1940 The establishment of Clement's own radio oper-

ator in Brussels (probably Makarov) terminated
Gouwlooze's responsibilities for relaying Clem-
ent's reports to Moscow.
mid- 1940 Alfred Knochel, the leader of a group of German

refugee communists in Holland, began to organize
a CP Germany. Knoch-
intelligence service inside
el remained Holland but developed a network
in
of informants in Germany.
July 1940 Sukolov again approached the CPN for a commu-

nications link with Moscow. Gouwlooze provided
Sukolov with the reserve code he had been given
in Moscow in 1939.
Summer 1940 Gouwlooze sent the W/T technician van Proosdy

on temporary loan to Clement in Brussels. Van
Proosdy's assignment was to train an operator for
Clement's service and to repair a transmitter
(probably Makarov's).
late 1940 The Dutch group was given the code name "Hil-
da" and placed under the direction of Winterink.
Winterink returned to Amsterdam, where he suc-
ceeded almost immediately in establishing radio
communications with Moscow. From this time un-
til May 1942 Jeffremov, in Brussels, was probably
dependent on Winterink for W/T communica-
tions. Adam Nagel also returned to Amsterdam to
assist Winterink.
late 1940- Maurice Peper (alias Wasserman) acted as a cou-

August 1942 rier between Jeffremov and Winterink.
early 1941 Van Proosdy gave a transmitter to a Frau fnu El-

ler-Meyer, a member of the CPN.
1941 Material obtained by Knochel from sources inside

Germany was transmitted to Moscow over the
W/T links of Gouwlooze and Winterink.
early 1942 Gouwlooze sent van Proosdy to Germany to help

60 Narrative HistQry of the Rote Kapelle
Knochel's net set up its own W/T link.
early 1942 Winterink and Adam Nagel disagreed on operat-

ing procedures and separated. Moscow attempted
was only par-
to bring about a reconciliation but
tially Winterink recruited Johannes
successful.
Luteraan to serve as his deputy. Winterink and
Luteraan had previously worked together for the
Rote Hilfe, a communist aid organization.
Spring 1942 Knochel himself went Germany, leaving

to his fi-
ancee, "Elly," as his deputy in Amsterdam.
mid- 1942 Lambertus Portegies-Zwart, a Dutch communist,

was recruited by Dankaart as an agent for Gouw-
looze's information service.
22 June 1942 Jan Kruyt, Jr., was parachuted into Holland at

Hulshortsche with a W/T set and false Dutch
identity papers. Kruyt made contact with Gouw-
looze, but apparently intended to conduct an inde-
pendent operation, probably for the MGB.
30 June 1942 By technical means the Germans located a clan-
destine transmitter in Brussels and arrested the
operator, Johannes Wenzel.
July 1942 Adam Nagel warned Gouwlooze of the arrest of

Wenzel.
Summer 1942 Van Proosdy trained Portegies-Zwart as a W/T

operator and provided him with a transmitter.
Portegies-Zwart installed the transmitter at the
home of a fnu Gnirrep. Portegies-Zwart trained
Gnirrep in W/T, and the latter became a reserve
operator for the group.
Summer 1942 Gouwlooze's service was operating at least five
transmitters in Amsterdam.
18 August 1942 Anton Winterink, betrayed by Maurice Peper, was

arrested by the Gestapo in Amsterdam.
late August Jakob and Hendrika Hilbolling, safehouse keepers

1942 and couriers for Winterink, were arrested in Am-
sterdam.
Holland 61
22 Sept. 1942 The Germans began a playback of Winterink's ra-
dio This station, called "Beam Tanne," was

set.
continued until March or April 1944. Moscow,

warned by Nagel or Gouwlooze of Winterink's ar-
rest, was not deceived.
Autumn 1942 Unable to recruit his own radio operator, Jan

Kruyt was supplied by Gouwlooze with Jan de
Laar. Gouwlooze also gave Kruyt a new transmit-
ter.
November 1942 Gouwlooze provided assistance to the Soviet para-

chute agent Peter Kousnetzov (alias Franz Cuhn),
who was intended for Knochel's service in Ger-
many. Gouwlooze was out of touch with Knochel
and suspected a German penetration of Knochel's
service, so he sent Kousnetzov to Jan Kruyt in-
stead.Kousnetzov replaced Jan de Laar, who had
proved to be an unsatisfactory operator. De Laar
returned to Gouwlooze's group.
17 November Wenzel escaped from his German captors and

1942 went into hiding, probably in Holland.
December 1942 Kruyt contacted an Anna Voute (unidentified).
December 1942 Van Proosdy was sent to Germany as a radio op-
erator for Knochel's service. His cover was as an

electrician for the Quastenberg firm in Berlin.
early 1943 Van Proosdy was probably arrested by the Ger-

mans and may have operated under control for a
short time.
Spring 1943 Kruyt trained agents for planned operations in-
side Germany.
Spring 1943 It became evident to Gouwlooze that van Proosdy

had been captured by the Germans. In fact, the
whole group in Germany under Knochel had
probably been liquidated. The interrogation of van
Proosdy, Knochel, and others led to the penetra-
tion of Gouwlooze's group in Holland.
mid- 1943 De Laar was arrested.
28 July 1943 Kruyt and Kousnetzov were arrested. Kousnetzov

may have committed suicide while in the hands of

the Germans.
July 1943 Portegies-Zwart succeeded in evading arrest at the

time of the German round-up in Holland.
c. August 1943 Jacobus Dankaart was arrested by the Germans.
Autumn 1943 With the assistance of Gouwlooze, Dankaart es-

caped from a hospital in The Hague.
15 Nov. 1943 Gouwlooze was arrested by the Gestapo in U-

trecht and deported to Germany.
Holland 65

IN HOLLAND
I. Background
Johannes Wenzel, a German communist refugee, entered Bel-
gium on 29 January 1936. According to Belgian police records,
Wenzel, who was born 9 March 1902 at Niedau near Danzig, car-
ried a tourist visa valid for one month. This visa was extended by
the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs until 8 October 1937, but
Wenzel was informed in September 1937 that he would receive no
further extensions. His request for a six-month extension for the
purpose of enrolling in a mechanics course in Brussels was refused.
Wenzel left Belgium on 5 October 1937.
Wenzel' s visit to Belgium was in accordance with instructions

he had received from the RU in Moscow. For about ten years he had
worked for the AM-Apparat (Military Section) of the Comintern in
Germany, but in 1935 he was recruited for the RU. After thorough
training he was sent to Belgium as the W/T technician, instructor,
and adviser for the RU network to be organized in the Low Coun-
tries.
A report from the French police dated 15 November 1939 de-

scribed Wenzel as a member of a group of saboteurs operating in
Belgium and Holland for the Soviet-inspired Internationale der See-
leute und Hafenarbeiter. This organization was founded in Ham-
burg in 1930 under the influence of the Comintern; it later estab-
lished branches in France, Belgium, Holland, and Scandinavia. Its
original purpose was to spread communist propaganda among sea-
men and associated workers, but after 1937 it was used as a vehicle
for sabotage directed against the merchant shipping of the Axis

powers.
These reports show clearly what Wenzel' s career must have
been. He was a communist political agitator of long standing who
was espionage duties. The Germans probably ex-
later transferred to
aggerated the importance of his position in the Soviet intelligence
service, but it is known that Wenzel was in touch at one time or

another with the networks of Soviet military intelligence in France,
Belgium, and Holland. He was probably not the "Technical Chief
for Western Europe," as the Germans claimed. He was certainly,
however, the most capable and experienced W/T technician for the
RU in Europe, and he provided assistance at various times to the
Jeffremov, Sukolov, Trepper, Robinson, and Winterink groups.
In October 1937, when Wenzel moved from Belgium, he went
to Holland and called on Daniel Gouwlooze, a leading Dutch com-
munist. He told Gouwlooze that he wanted to sectle in Holland and
to work for the Dutch Communist Party. Gouwlooze agreed to
help, but shortly thereafter Wenzel was instructed to report to Mos-
cow for additional training and a new assignment. Early in 1938
Wenzel returned illegally to Belgium. He lived with Franz and Ger-
maine Schneider in Brussels and probably used the alias Hegen-
barth.
II. Anton Winterink

Towards the end of 1938 Johannes Wenzel revisited Gouwlooze
and told him of his resettlement in Belgium. He asked for a man
from the Dutch Communist Party to help on some unspecified task;
Gouwlooze provided him with a young communist official, Anton
Winterink. It was not until later that Gouwlooze learned of Winter-
by Wenzel as a wireless operator.
ink's training
Anton Winterink (alias Tino) was born 5 November 1914 at
Arnhem, Holland. He was a leading functionary of the Rote Hilfe
organization in Holland, but in 1938 he gave up that job to devote
full-time attention to his intelligence duties. Winterink was taken
by Wenzel into Belgium for his W/T training. Winterink proved to
be an apt student, and in September 1939 he was assigned as a
W/T operator for the network then being organized in Belgium by
the Soviet intelligence officer Konstantin Jeffremov. Jeffremov, who
posed as a Finnish student, was trying to build up a network in Bel-
gium and Holland for the collection of military, political, and eco-
nomic intelligence.
Wenzel asked Gouwlooze for another recruit from
In June 1939
the Dutch Communist Party, and Adam Nagel, a photographer,
was sent to him in Belgium. Wenzel trained Nagel in W/T proce-
dures, just as he had trained Winterink. Nagel (alias Velo) and
Winterink worked for Jeffremov in Brussels throughout most of
Holland 67
1940, but it is likely that they continued to make frequent trips

back to Holland to recruit agents and to organize a network there.
Late in 1940 Winterink was ordered to return to Amsterdam to take
charge of the Dutch group. This step was probably taken upon the
recommendation of Jeffremov, who had quickly recognized Winter-
ink's potential for leadership. Nagel also returned to Amsterdam in
a role subordinate to Winterink's. In Amsterdam Winterink suc-
ceeded almost immediately in establishing radio contact with Mos-
cow.
The Dutch group, which operated under the code name "Hil-
da," continued to receive orders from Jeffremov, even after it had
its own communications channels with Moscow. Maurice Peper (alias
Wasserman) acted as the courier between Jeffremov in Brussels and

Winterink in Amsterdam. Johannes Wenzel went to Holland regu-
larly to provide technical assistance to the "Hilda" group. In addi-
tion to Nagel, Winterink's network included Wilhelm Voegeler, a

W/T operator, Jakob Hilbolling, a courier and a safehouse keeper,
Hendrika Smith, a member of the Dutch Communist Party. The
Winterink group provided information on German troop move-
ments in Holland and also sent by W/T to Moscow reports of politi-
cal and economic interest.
Early in 1942 Winterink and Nagel disagreed on operating pro-

cedures and on the role Nagel should play in the organization. Na-
gel insisted that he and Winterink were equals and should run the
network together. Winterink, on the other hand, was not willing to
share his authority and ordered Nagel to comply with his orders.
This disagreement developed into a bitter quarrel, and Moscow was
extremely concerned that the intelligence collection efforts of the
group would suffer Winterink and Nagel separated, de-
as a result.
spite the remonstrations from Moscow that a reconciliation should
take place. Johannes Wenzel was instructed to contact Nagel, and
by mid- 1942 he was successful in persuading him to return to work.
Nagel and Winterink, however, were irreconcilable and Moscow fi-
nally agreed that they should work independently. Winterink was
ordered to continue to provide communications services for Nagel,
which he grudgingly agreed to do. Winterink, without Moscow's
knowledge or approval, recruited as his deputy to replace Nagel Jo-
hannes Luteraan, whom he had known in the Rote Hilfe.
On 30 June 1942 the Germans in Brussels, using radio direc-
tion-finding equipment, located the transmitter operated by Wen-
zel and arrested him. On 22 July 1942 Konstantin Jeffremov was al-
so arrested in Brussels. Wenzel and Jeffremov both broke under the

German interrogation. Jeffremov revealed the names of his sub-
agents.On about 25 July 1942 Maurice Peper was arrested by the
Gestapo in Brussels. Peper agreed to collaborate.
The following is an excerpt from a report by Section III F
(Counterintelligence Service) of the Abwehr in Brussels, dated 24
March 1943:
"Wasserman [Peper] talked. His statements revealed that he was
the courier to a group in Holland. He also revealed that he would
have a meeting with the leader of the Dutch group [Anton Winter-
ink] in a few days. The III-F officer in charge [Henry Peipe] and
some other officials transported Wasserman in a police car to Am-
sterdam on the day of the meeting. The meeting was to take place
during the afternoon at a predetermined place on a busy Amster-
dam street. Under the strictest conditions of security Wasserman was
released and sent to the meeting. The group leader, however, did
not appear. Wasserman returned. Further questioning of Wasser-
man revealed that he knew the name of a Dutch family with whom
the group leader was in contact. was therefore decided to send
It
Wasserman to the family in question and to arrange a meeting for

the same evening. Again under strict security measures Wasserman
was sent to the house and returned with the news that the meeting
was to take place that evening between eight and eight-thirty at a
restaurant in Amsterdam. Wasserman sat alone at a table in the res-
taurant, with security personnel sitting nearby in the same restau-

rant.At about nine o'clock a person appeared, went toward Wasser-
man, and took a seat at his table. At an agreed-upon signal, this
man was seized and arrested. On the way to the police car that was
standing by he put up considerable resistance and a brief scuffle
took place. While being arrested, this man had called out a name to
the crowd that had assembled, so that it had to be assumed that he
had arranged to be watched at the meeting and was warning his
comrades who were there. The identification papers found on this
person did not give his address. was therefore necessary to arrest
It
the Dutch family mentioned above. They were a couple by the

name of Hilbolling. The alias of the arrested person was learned
through the couple. It was "Tino," a communist official already
known to the Gestapo. With the was

aid of the Hilbolling couple it
possible to find the clandestine residence of "Tino," which was

searched the following night. The search of the residence showed
Holland 69
that "Tino" was not only the group leader of the Holland group
but also its wireless operator. His mistress, who had lived with him,
had fled, apparently warned by the arrest. A complete W/T set, in-
cluding all technical data, was seized at the residence."
Winterink was taken to Brussels, where he resisted interroga-

tion for about two weeks before he agreed to cooperate with the
Germans. Beginning on 22 September 1942 the Germans played
Winterink 's radio back against the Soviets. This station was called
by the Germans "Beam Tanne." Moscow, however, was not de-
ceived by the playback, because both Nagel and Daniel Gouwlooze
had escaped and one or both of them had warned Moscow of
arrest,
Winterink's arrest. In an attempt to counter this situation the Ger-

mans instructed Winterink to report to Moscow that he himself had
barely escaped the Gestapo and that it must be assumed that some
members of his group, specifically Nagel and Gouwlooze, had been
arrested.
In thesummer of 1943 "Beam Tanne" asked Moscow for
funds to continue its work. After several evasive replies Moscow fi-
nally asked for an address where the money could be deposited. The
Gestapo in Amsterdam furnished the address of a former member
of the Communist Party, and this address was relayed to Moscow. A
few days later Moscow reproached "Tanne" for having sent the
address of a man who, according to their knowledge, was suspected
of having relations with the Gestapo. This incident reportedly infu-
riated the Gestapo chief, Heinrich Mueller, who strongly repri-
manded the senior Gestapo officer in Amsterdam.
In March or April 1944 Moscow ordered Winterink to discon-
tinue his transmissions and to join an active resistance group. Win-
terink's ultimate fate is not known, but it is presumed that he was
executed.
The Winterink group was closely associated from 1940 to 1942
with two other pro-Soviet groups operating in Holland. One of
these groups was the Dutch Information Service run by Daniel
Gouwlooze; the other was a group of German emigres led by Alfred
Knochel.
III. Daniel Gouwlooze and the Dutch Information Service
Daniel Gouwlooze was born 28 April 1901 in Amsterdam. He

was a Dutch Jew and had originally been employed as a carpenter.
In 1930 he became the manager of the publishing company Pega-
sus,which specialized in communist literature. Gouwlooze had

been an active communist since 1925, and in 1932 he became a
member of the Executive Committee of the Dutch Communist Par-
ty. In 1934 he was arrested in connection with a plot to assassinate
Queen Wilhelmina.
Gouwlooze helped to form the Dutch Infor-
In 1935 and 1936
mation group organized for the purpose of providing in-
Service, a
formation to Moscow. Gouwlooze served as the link between this
service and the Dutch Communist Party. Gouwlooze went to Mos-
cow in 1937 and received intelligence training. On his return to
Amsterdam he established a regular W/T service between Amster-
dam and Moscow. Gouwlooze utilized as W/T operators two mem-
bers of the Dutch Communist Party, August Johannes van Proosdy
and Jan de Laar, both of whom had received technical training in
Moscow. The transmitter of the Dutch Information Service also
handled traffic for the Dutch Communist Party.
Gouwlooze had contacts with KPD (German Communist Party)
members in Berlin and with Comintern members in Belgium,
France, and Great Britain. He rendered considerable assistance to
Johann Wenzel's communications service in the Low Countries, pro-
viding recruits from within the Dutch Communist Party and W/T
links with Moscow when Wenzel's own lines failed.
Gouwlooze went to Moscow in 1939 for final discussions before
the outbreak of war on the role his Dutch Information Service
should play and the support he should provide to the intelligence
networks in Western Europe. Gouwlooze was given a W/T code to
hold in reserve.
On two occasions Victor Sukolov, a Soviet intelligence
at least
officer operating in Belgium, visited Gouwlooze in Amsterdam to
request assistance. In October 1939 Sukolov requested that a tempo-
rary W/T link with Moscow be arranged for his use. Gouwlooze
provided Sukolov with this service until about January 1940. In July
1940 Sukolov again visited Gouwlooze and received from him the
reserve code which Gouwlooze had been given in Moscow the year
before.
Gouwlooze was used by the RIS as a receptionist for two para-
chute agents dropped into Holland in 1942. Jan Wilhelm Kruyt,
Jr., was parachuted into Holland on 22 June 1942 with a W/T set
and false papers. According to one report, Kruyt was dropped for
the Soviets by the British SOE (Special Operations Executive). He
s
Holland 71
made contact with Gouwlooze almost immediately after his arrival

in Holland. Kruyt, however, had received MGB training in Moscow
and probably intended to conduct an independent MGB operation
in Holland. In the autumn of 1942 Kruyt, who was unable to re-
cruit his own Gouwlooze with Jan
radio operator, was supplied by
de Laar. Kruyt also received a new transmitter from Gouwlooze.
On 30 November 1942 a Soviet agent named Peter Kousnetzov
(alias Franz Cuhn) was parachuted into Holland. Kousnetzov was
intended to reinforce the network of Alfred Knochel in Germany,

and he approached Gouwlooze for contact instructions. Gouwlooze
told Kousnetzov that he was out of touch with Knochel and that he
suspected that there had been a German penetration of the Knochel
group. Gouwlooze requested permission from Moscow to send
Kousnetzov to work with Jan Kruyt as a replacement for Jan de Laar.
De Laar, an extremely high-strung individual, had proved to be un-
suitable for clandestine W/T work. Moscow agreed to Gouwlooze'
proposal, and Kousnetzov joined Kruyt in about March 1943. To-
gether they trained agents in Holland for planned operations inside
Germany. Kruyt and Kousnetzov were arrested by the Germans on
28 July 1943. Kousnetzov may have committed suicide after his ar-
rest in order not to betray his comrades.
IV. The Emigre Group of Alfred Knochel
Gouwlooze provided assistance to Alfred Knochel, the leader of

a group of German refugee communists in Holland. About mid-
1940 Knochel organized the group, trained the members, and then
sent them back to Germany to collect intelligence. The material col-
lected by the agents in Germany was delivered by courier to Knoch-
el in Amsterdam. It was then forwarded by W/T to Moscow via the
transmitters of Gouwlooze' s Dutch Information Service. On several

occasions Knochel handed the material collected by his sources in
Germany to Anton Winterink, who sent it to Moscow over his own
W/T link.
Early in 1942 Knochel decided that he would try to establish in

Germany a separate W/T
link for the group. The risks and delays
involved in sending couriers with compromising information back
and forth between Holland and Germany were becoming too great.
Knochel asked Gouwlooze for help in establishing this link. Gouw-
W/T expert, van Proosdy, to Germany to help the
looze sent his
Knochel group. Van Proosdy returned to Holland after a few
months, and it appears that his trip to Germany was not completely
Knochel himself went to Germany in the spring of 1942
successful.
and reported back to Gouwlooze that there were still serious com-
munications difficulties. By the summer of 1942 Gouwlooze had
lost all contact with Knochel and suspected that the group had been
liquidated. Moscow sent the parachute agent, Kousnetzov, to Hol-
land in November 1942 with the mission of going to Germany as a
W/T operator for Knochel. As described earlier, however, Gouw-
looze convinced Moscow that the risks were too great, and Kousnet-
zov stayed in Holland. It is interesting, therefore, that in December
1942 Gouwlooze agreed to send van Proosdy back to Germany. Van
Proosdy had a cover position arranged with the Quastenberg firm in
Berlin, but both Gouwlooze and van Proosdy must have known that
the chances of coming back were very dim. Van Proosdy was, in
fact, arrested by the Germans shortly after his arrival in Berlin.
V. The Liquidation of the Gouwlooze Group

By the spring of 1943 Gouwlooze knew that van Proosdy and
most of the members of the Knochel group had been arrested. He
warned the members of his group and went into hiding.
The Germans broke van Proosdy by interrogation, doubled
him, and in July 1943 began a round-up of his communist contacts
in Holland. Jan de Laar was the first to be arrested. In August 1943
Gouwlooze's deputy, Jacobus Dankaart, was arrested. A W/T oper-
ator recruited by Dankaart, Lambertus Portegies-Zwart, escaped ar-
rest, as did Gouwlooze.
In the autumn of 1943 Gouwlooze learned that Dankaart was

interned in a hospital at The Hague. At great personal risk he assist-
ed Dankaart in escaping from the hospital. On 15 November 1943
in Utrecht Gouwlooze was arrested, probably because of the risks he
had taken in rescuing Dankaart. He was sent, along with other pris-
oners, to Oranienburg. He later stated that he had avoided rough
treatment in Oranienburg by using an alias at the camp. After the
liberation Gouwlooze returned to Holland, where he again became
active in communist politics, often in opposition to the leadership
of the Dutch Communist Party. Gouwlooze died in September
1965.
France 73
CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROTE KAPELLE IN FRANCE
1928 Leopold Trepper was expelled from Palestine and

went to Paris where he lived until 1932.
c. 1930 Comintern agent Henri Robinson arrived in Paris

and began intelligence operations against France,
Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and the United
Kingdom.
1935 Harry II (unidentified), a Red Army agent in Par-

is, took over the direction of Ernest Weiss in the
U.K. Harry II communicated with Moscow via the
military attache in the Soviet Embassy.
December 1936 Trepper completed his intelligence training in

Moscow and returned to France as technical direc-
tor for RU intelligence in Western Europe.
1936- 1938 Based in Paris, Trepper traveled to Belgium, Eng-

land, and Scandinavia, as well as inside France, or-
ganizing Soviet military espionage.
1937- early 1939 Victor Sukolov, a Soviet intelligence officer, prob-

ably resided in France.
1937 Harry II turned over his net, targetted against the

U.K., to Henri Robinson. Harry II returned to
Moscow; Robinson stayed in Paris.
early 1939 Mikhail Makarov was sent fromMoscow to Paris,

where he was provided with new identity papers
and 10,000 dollars.
March 1939 Makarov moved to Brussels, where he worked as a

W/T operator for the Belgian branch of the Rote
Kapelle.
Spring 1939- Trepper was in Brussels where, under cover as a

Summer 1940 Canadian businessman, he organized an RU net-
work.
April 1939 Victor Sukolov, presumably stationed in France,

went to Germany to activate networks there and
to establish a courier link.
July 1939 Sukolov moved to Brussels to work with Trepper.
1939 Anton Danilov went to Paris as a clerk in the So-

viet Embassy. He later worked at Vichy with Cap-
tain Karpov.
1939 Jean, living in London, was Robinson's chief agent

in England.
May 1940 The Germans invaded Belgium. Abraham Rajch-

mann, Jules Jaspar, Nazarin Drailly, and others
fled from Belgium to France.
June 1940 The fall of France.
June 1940- After theGerman occupation of France, Robin-

February 1941 son'scommunications with Jean failed. By Febru-
ary 1941 Moscow was still unable to establish
communications with Jean.
early July 1940 Trepper and Leon Grossvogel, in the automobile

of the Bulgarian, Petrov, left Belgium for France.
Trepper established contact with the Soviet mili-
tary attache in Vichy, who was his immediate su-
perior.
August 1940 As a security precaution Trepper arranged for his

wife and son to leave Belgium for France. With
Soviet assistance they then returned to the USSR
via Marseilles.
Autumn 1940 Leon Grossvogel, a key assistant to Trepper, was

instrumental in founding the Simex firm in Paris.
While Grossvogel concentrated upon the legiti-
mate business of Simex, Trepper developed its po-
tential as cover. In Belgium the sister company,
Simexco, was established. Trepper used the name
Jean Gilbert and posed as a Frenchman in his role
as director of Simex.
France 75
late 1940 or Robinson sent a courier to Rachel Duebendorfer

early 1941 (Sissy) in Switzerland. The courier brought her
2,000 dollars.
March 1941 Trepper's mistress, Georgie de Winter, and their

son, Patrick, joined Trepper in Paris.
22 June 1941 The Germans invaded the USSR. Trepper had

been communicating with Moscow via the Soviet
Military Mission in France, but now he established
direct W/T contact.
Summer 1941 Anton Danilov was transferred from France to

Belgium to assist Sukolov.
August 1941 Moscow Trepper to establish contact with

directed
Robinson, who had a very active network.
earlySeptember Trepper met Robinson. Thereafter Robinson re-

1941 ceived his incoming W/T via the Makarov set as a
result of a Trepper-Robinson agreement to share
this communications link.
end of 1941 The courier link by which funds had been received
from Switzerland was broken. Moscow made ar-
rangements by W/T for each subsequent trans-
mission of money.
13-14 Dec The Germans arrested Makarov, Danilov, Sofie

1941 Posnanska, and Rita Arnould. Trepper and Robin-
son were left without radio contact in France. The
Brussels network was broken up. Victor Sukolov
and Isidore Springer fled to France.
January 1942 Trepper ordered Sukolov to go to Marseilles to set

up a new network under the cover of a Simex
branch office.
February 1942 Trepper re-established W/T contact with Moscow

through a transmitter of the French Communist
Party located at Le Raincy.
April 1942 Hersog and Mariam Sokol, having been trained by

Grossvogel, tried to reach Moscow by radio but
They made contact, however, with London,
failed.
whence their messages were relayed to the USSR.

June 1942 The Sokols were arrested. Traffic from Treppers

network was then relayed by Wenzel, the W/T
operator for the Jeffremov Group.
30 July 1942 Wenzel was arrested while transmitting for the

Jeffremov network in Brussels. Thereafter Trep-
per was forced to revert to the radio link of the
French Communist Party, which he had wished to
avoid for security reasons.
12 Nov. 1942 Sukolov and his mistress, Margarete Barcza, were

arrested in Marseilles. It was the interrogation of
Sukolov that produced for the Germans their first
operational, non-intercept leads into the Rote

Drei in Switzerland. Abraham Rajchmann and
others were also arrested and turned.
November 1942 The premises of Simex in Paris were occupied and

searched. The known proprietors and associates
of the firm were arrested. Among them was the
firm's director, Alfred Corbin. The Germans be-
gan an intensive manhunt for Trepper (alias Jean
Gilbert).
1
5 December German intelligence trapped Trepper through a
1942 dental appointment. Trepper promptly offered to
collaborate. The Germans required proof of good
faith, and Trepper began to betray his associates,
beginning with the "kleiner Andre," Hillel Katz.
The betrayal of Robinson, Grossvogel, and others
soon followed.
25 December The Germans began to play Trepper back against
1942 the Soviets by means of a controlled W/T opera-
tion dubbed "Eiffel." It appears likely, however,
that Trepper had managed to warn the Russians
and that they were aware of the attempted decep-
tion from the outset.
June 1943 Through leads given them by Henri Robinson, the

Germans discovered at Le Raincy the W/T station
of the French Communist Party.
July 1943 Acting under German control, Sukolov reactivated

Waldemar Ozols (alias Solja).
France 77
16 Sept. 1943 Trepper escaped from German custody.
late Sept. 1943 Georgie de Winter brought Jean Claude Spaak in

contact with Trepper, who recruited Spaak for
support functions.
December 1943 Ozols got in touch with Paul Legendre, chief of a

French resistance organization called the "Mithri-
date" network.
January 1944 Ozols brought Sukolov and Legendre together.

The latter gave Sukolov the identities of all of his
people in Marseilles. The Gestapo was able to
penetrate the Mithridate network.
August 1944 The Germans retreated from Paris.
16 August 1944 Sukolov and Heinz Pannwitz of the SD Sonder-

kommando left Paris. They continued the radio
playback from various locations until May 1945.
7 November The DST arrested Ozols in Paris, but he was re-
1944 leased through the intercession of a Colonel Novi-

kov, who was a member of the Soviet Military
Mission. Legendre was similarly arrested and re-
leased.
January 1945 Trepper accompanied Alexander Rado and Alex-

ander Foote of the Rote Drei on their trip by air
from Paris to Moscow.
3 May 1945 Sukolov and Pannwitz were captured by a French

military force in a mountain hut near Bludenz,
Vorarlberg, Austria.
7 June 1945 Sukolov and Pannwitz were flown from Paris to

Moscow.
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France 87

IN FRANCE
I. Leopold Trepper
When Leopold Trepper fled from Belgium to France in July

1940 German invasion of the Low Countries, he had al-
after the
ready accumulated a great deal of experience in France. In 1928, af-
ter he was expelled from Palestine, he had gone to Paris and lived
there in poverty until 1932. Upon completion of his intelligence
training at Moscow in 1936, Trepper returned to France as the tech-
nical director for RU intelligence in Western Europe. His primary
mission seems to have been as a general technical adviser in Western
Europe, rather than as a collector of intelligence in any particular
country.
was Trepper' s base from 1936 to 1938 while he engaged
Paris
in planning and reorganization missions in France, Belgium, Eng-
land, and Scandinavia. In the spring of 1939 he moved to Brussels,
where under cover as a Canadian businessman he organized a Soviet
intelligence network.
Soon after Trepper reached France in the summer of 1940, he
renewed his direct contact with Moscow by getting in touch with the
Russian Military Attache in Vichy. We have proof that upon Trep-
he came under the supervision and control of
per' s return to Paris,
the Soviet Military Attache and was charged with building an orga-
nization with military intelligence targets.
Trepper arranged for his wife and son to return to the Soviet
Union August 1940 as a security measure. His mistress, Georgie
in
de Winter, stayed in Belgium with their son, Patrick, but in March
1941 she moved to Paris to be with Trepper.
In Paris Trepper 's assistants were Leon Grossvogel and Hillel
Katz, both of whom
he had known from his days in Palestine. Al-
though he was not the leader of any group, Hillel Katz (alias Andre
Dubois, alias Petit Andre), who was Trepper 's secretary, played a
leading role in the Rote Kapelle operations. Grossvogel, of course,

had founded the Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company and had
worked closely with Trepper in Brussels.
With the help of Grossvogel and Katz, Trepper began to devel-
op acquaintances with persons favorable to the Soviet Government
or sympathetic to the Communist cause, and recruited them as his
agents. Trepper also continued to exercise some control over the
Belgian network of the Rote Kapelle under Sukolov, and he made
many trips to Brussels, posing as a French businessman.
II. SlMEX
In the fall of 1940 a new

firm, Simex, was established in Paris
through Grossvogel' s (The name was derived from S for So-
efforts.
ciete, IM for import, and EX for export. ) It was set up on a grand
scale and, in addition to the funds salvaged from Belgium by Jules
Jaspar, it was heavily subsidized by Soviet funds.

In the new firm Trepper appeared as a Frenchman, named Jean
Gilbert. Actually was Grossvogel' s task to build the firm as a
it
sound and respectable business in France, while Trepper concentra-

ted on the development of the clandestine activities that were to use
this firm for cover. This firm eventually spread far afield, and at the
time of its collapse in 1942 it was said to have representatives in
Germany, Scandinavia, and the Balkans.
The new French firm and its sister firm in Belgium, Simexco,
were general dealers and contractors expressly set up to handle con-
tracts arising from the German occupation. They dealt extensively
with the Todt organization. The firm thus provided direct contact
with the Germans and obtained in the course of its business valua-
ble privileges, such as freedom of movement in occupied territory.
Through the firms of Simex and Simexco Trepper was brought
into contact with a number of industrialists and businessmen. He
was always careful to remain in the background. Before a business
deal he would prime the representative of Simex or Simexco with
suitable questions to put to the other side. In this way he heard
much while saying very little. He was careful to ensure that negotia-
tions were always conducted with persons in important or responsi-
ble positions. Here, Grossvogel was of great assistance to him.
From 1940 to 1942 Director "Gilbert" appeared to be a solid
businessman and the manager of a large export firm. He was a wel-
comed and much respected personage in the Paris and Brussels busi-
France 89
ness world. The "Grand Chef," moreover, played this role with
great skill and delicacy for years, without anyone's imagining that
he was dealing with a highly accomplished Soviet intelligence offi-
cer. The "Grand Chefs" instructions were always sent out as busi-
ness communications, or similarly disguised, so that there was no

evidence of their intelligence nature. He familiarized his business
partners with "progressive ideas" and soon succeeded so well that
they would inform him of all kinds of innovations to please him.
Maintaining that "a businessman who wants to be superior must be
informed about everything and must continually keep abreast," and
"without a sound inquiry service no business transaction can be car-
he acquired cheap, dependable sources of in-

ried out successfully,"
formation in Belgian and French business circles, which were already
equipped with excellent natural camouflage.
III. The Seven Networks
Trepper commanded seven separate groups or networks of So-

viet intelligence in France, each active in its own field and under its
own chief. Trepper' s seven groups were constructed centrally, with

parallel but completely independent networks in which only the
group leader had direct contacts with the "Grand Chef." The con-
tacts consistedof regular meetings and a system whereby the Grand
Chef could reach the group leaders at predetermined contact places.
This latter type of communication was not possible in the other di-
rection. Stringent measures of security and compartmentation were
built in everywhere.
The seven groups had the following tasks and leaders:
(1) "Andre" (Andre Grossvogel): Information concerning
economy and industry; the wireless communication of the organiza-
tion.
"Harry" (Henri Robinson): Information from French mili-

(2)
tary and political circles, from Vichy intelligence (Deuxieme Bu-
reau), from the Central Committee of the illegal Communist Party,
and from U.K. and Gaullist circles. (In contact with Trepper only
after September 1941.)
(3) "Professor" (Basil Maximovitch): Information from White

Russian emigrant circles; special contacts with various sections of the
German Wehrmacht.
(4) "Arztin" (Anna Maximovitch): Information from French
clerical and royalist circles; special contact with Bishop Chaptal.
"Simex" (Alfred Corbin): Information from German ad-

(5)
ministrative departments and firms; financing of the organization.
(6) "Romeo" (Isidor Springer): Leader of the Lyons group;
contacts with U.S. and Belgian diplomats.
(7) "Sierra" (Victor Sukolov): Leader of the Marseilles group;
information from circles around Darlan and Giraud; contacts with
French authorities and administrative departments.
Grossvogel, who was actually running the business end of the
Simex firm, feared that his status as a Jew might interfere with the
German contacts that the firm maintained. He therefore withdrew
from the firm and directed his efforts to the clandestine communi-
cations of the network. In his place a man named Alfred Corbin, a
Communist sympathizer, took over the directorship. At first Corbin
was not aware of the espionage activities of the firm; in time he be-
gan to suspect them. Ultimately he served as a courier with the net-
works in Lyons and Marseilles, using as cover his business journeys to
the unoccupied zone. He was on good terms with the German au-
thorities and in his capacity as director of Simex further maintained
this favorable relationship.
As part of his assignment in supervising communications for
Trepper's network, Grossvogel was responsible for finding houses
and lodgings which could be used as rendezvous sites, letter drops,
and so forth. Sometimes he would turn this task over to his agents.
For example, the Girauds were asked to find safe addresses to be
used by couriers and for housing wireless equipment.
IV. Finances
Trepper's network was financed by the profits returned from

the cover firms, as well as by additional funds provided by Moscow.
It is believed that from eight to ten thousand dollars monthly were
put at his disposal. Trepper told the Germans that no definite sums
of money were provided for financing the espionage organizations.
The amounts required were requested by wireless as each assignment
was undertaken.
Until the outbreak of the Russo-German war Trepper made his
requests through the Soviet Military Mission, and the funds were re-
ceived through the Soviet Military Attache in Paris. After the out-
break of war and the withdrawal of the Soviet Mission Trepper made
his requests directly to Moscow by wireless, and the funds are re-
ported to have been sent via Switzerland by courier in dollar curren-
France 91
cy. For a while a Swiss businessman handled these transactions. At

the end of 1941 this link broke, and thereafter Moscow indicated to
Trepper in W/T messages that the required cash had been assigned,
and told him where, when, and under what circumstances the mon-
ey was to be collected. A description of the person who was to hand
over the money, the password, and any other necessary data that
would ensure the safe transfer of the funds was also outlined in the
wireless messages.
The cash was used for the purpose of maintaining Trepper and
his agents, as well as for the expenses of carrying out special assign-
ments. Included were the maintenance of a social life in business
circles from which information and material were forthcoming, the
buying of special equipment, and the payment of rents for various
flats and safehouses. Trepper was responsible for the receipt and ex-
penditure of money received from Moscow.

Before the war Trepper received a salary of about three hun-
dred and fifty dollars a month, which was reduced to two hundred
and seventy-five dollars when his family returned to the USSR.
Grossvogel received about one hundred and seventy-five dollars a
month, which sum was later increased to two hundred and twenty-
five dollars. These salaries were supposed to cover normal expenses;
additional sums were available for exceptional circumstances and
travelling expenses.
After June 1941 considerable economies had to be made, and
salaries were radically cut, to about one hundred dollars a month.
At however, both Simex and Simexco were doing well,
this time,
were drawing substantial profits, and it is reasonable to assume that
the difference in salaries was made up from these profits.
The agents who were recruited locally, as opposed to those sent
out from Moscow, did not receive a regular salary. Instead, they re-
ceived occasional payments in proportion to the value of their work.

As a rule Trepper paid his women agents at the rate of about one
thousand French francs a month. This was more than his men
agents received because, he said, the women required more for their
clothes. Trepper also expended a total of between four thousand
and ten thousand French or Belgian francs on miscellaneous cutouts
and sub-agents.
Trepper made all of his calculations in U.S. currency or convert-
ed all of them to dollars, because during the war years U.S. currency
was stable, whereas Belgian and French francs were continually de-
preciating.
At the time of his arrest Trepper showed the Germans a bal-

ance sheet reflecting his receipts and expenditures, amounting to
over twenty thousand dollars each year for 1941 and 1942. The orig-
inal notes on which this balance sheet was based were hidden by
Trepper in a clock in one of his houses, but were recovered by the
Germans with Trepper' s assistance. The original receipts and finan-
cial statements were destroyed for security reasons, according to
Trepper, but he kept his notes as the basis of a future report to Mos-
cow.
A fund was built up for emergencies. As a matter of
reserve
fact, Trepper had two emergency funds, and possibly more. One
consisted of gold sovereigns, to the value of about one thousand

dollars, which were packed in cork in jam jars. These were in the
custody of one of Trepper's agents. (With Trepper's assistance these
caches were recovered by the Germans.) The other fund, of an un-
known amount, was certainly not brought to the attention of the
Germans. It had been left with Jean Claude Spaak, who kept the
money and some indentification papers for Trepper hidden in a
steel box for eighteen months. Trepper picked these up after he
made his escape from the Germans.
V. Henri Robinson
In August 1941 Moscow instructed Trepper to make contact

with the Soviet agent Henri Robinson, who was in charge of a very
network of his own. The first meeting between
active intelligence
Trepper and Robinson took place early in September 1941 at the
home of Anna Griotto. Henri Robinson had been working as a So-
viet agent in Western Europe since about 1930, when he was put in
Communist Party.
charge of the intelligence apparatus of the French
During the 1930s Robinson acted as head of the OMS, the Comin-
tern's Liaison Section, in Western Europe. He was well known dur-
ing the 1930s to Red Army intelligence and was probably equally
useful to the NKVD.
During the 1930s one of Robinson's agents in England had a
sub-agent who worked for the Royal Aircraft Establishment. The
sub-agent "borrowed" official documents and took them to his
home, where he photographed them before returning them to his
office.
Harry II, an unidentified Red Army intelligence agent, seems
to have been based in Paris, at least from the spring of 1934, when
France 93
he took over the management of Ernest Weiss as a secondary agent

in the British Isles. By March 1936 Harry II had his headquarters in
Paris. Harry II's link to Moscow seems to have been through the
military attache at the Soviet Embassy in Paris.
In the first half of 1937 Harry IIhanded over his net against
the U.K. to Robinson. Possibly Harry return to Moscow was con-
II's
nected with the general upheaval in Red Army intelligence at that

time. Paris appears to have remained Robinson's base, but he en-
gaged in widespread planning discussions. In Paris he discussed the
Scandinavian network; and on a visit to Switzerland he supposedly
took part in talks about Czechoslovakia, the Balkans, Greece, and
Italy. He seems to have continued his technical functions and to
have visited the British Isles for a similar purpose.
Robinson's agent in England was in contact with him through a
postal link, possibly combined with a courier service. A book code
was used to conceal the most secret parts of their correspondence.
Names used at the beginning and end of letters had no relation to
any of the agents in the network. It was customary, in letters of this
kind, to invent both an addressee and a signatory for each occasion.
The following book code used by Robinson and
instructions for the
his agent in England (Jean) were found in Robinson's apartment af-
ter his arrest:
"Each letter or each word is indicated by 6 figures:

E.G. 59 04 22
59- page 59
04- 4 lines from the top
22- 22 letters in the line
590422-Wings: The 22nd letter is the first letter of a word; the
whole word is therefore meant. If only one letter is
meant, then the first letter of a word must be avoid-
ed, e.g., 590423— i.
"In order to save time whole words are to be adopted as far as
possible. Figures are to be written out and enciphered, e.g., 9-nine.
In order to avoid mistakes, lines which contain figures (in the book)
ought not to be used. The same applies to pages of the book which
contain a chapter heading.
"The enciphered text must be in English; the uncoded, en clair
part of the message can be in French or German for deception pur-

poses.
"For greater security the page number is concealed as follows:
Before the beginning of the enciphered text three figures are
placed, e.g., 017. That means that page 17 of the book is indicated
in cipher by 01, and so on. In order to encipher the word "wings,"
therefore, you do not write 590422, but 430422 (if page 17 is repre-
sented by 01 and the 16 preceeding pages are to be ignored, which
means that they are subtracted from 59).
"In order to observe the system chosen, the figures can be bro-
ken into arbitrary groups. If the text is partly en clair every enci-
phered portion must have an individual three-figure key number.
EXAMPLE: Meeting permitted determined by letter for Saturday.
To encipher: 2. To conceal the
M— 1770409 page number:
E— 1541208 Key number, e.g.
E— 1272215 121, i.e., 120 to
T— 1650138 be subtracted.
1—1230405 570409 341208
N— 1622711 072215 450138
G— 1901822 030405 422711
permitted— 1591811 701822 391811
determined— 1913202 713202 620505
by— 1820505 431507 722617
letter— 1631507 270808
for— 1922617
Saturday— 1470808
3 . The key number is placed on top

and all figures are arbitrarily grouped.
E.g., 121
57040 934 120-
8072 221 5450
xl3 803040 54
2271 170182 239
1811713 20262 050
543150772 2617270
808"
On Robinson had Max Habjanic in Basle ob-
several occasions
tain passports for him through Anna
Mueller. These passports were
probably intended for his agents. It is possible, however, that Rob-
inson wanted them, or some of them, for his own use, because
when he was arrested by the Germans and an investigation was
France 95
made, was found that in addition to identification in the name of

it
Henri Robinson he also had the following documents: a Swiss pass-

port in the name of Otto Wehrli, issued in Basle in February 1935,
renewed in Basle in April 1938, and valid until April 1941; a Swiss
passport in the name of Albert Gottlieb Bucher, issued in Basle in
May 1938 and valid until September 1940; a Swiss passport in the
name of Alfred Merian, issued in Basle in May 1938, valid until May
1939, renewed in July 1939, and valid until July 1942. In addition,
name of Alfred Doyen, issued in Her-
he had an identity card in the
seaux, Belgium, in October 1921. He may have had additional
identification documents which did not come to light in the course
of the investigation.
There is evidence to indicate that Robinson had available a
source of funds which he kept as a reserve and that he disposed of
largesums of money, mostly as payment for agent work. For many
war he continued to pay one of his agents in Eng-
years prior to the
land at the average rate of eight to ten pounds a week, including
expenses.
At the end of 1940 or early in 1941 Robinson sent a courier to
contact Rachel Duebendorfer in Switzerland. On the basis of mater-
ial she had collected from her agents, for which she had no funds to
pay, Robinson sent her two thousand dollars from his reserves with-
out waiting for approval from Moscow.
Before September 1941 it appears that Robinson handed his re-
ports to a cutout who passed them on to the Soviet Embassy in Paris

for transmission to Moscow, possibly by diplomatic pouch. He prob-
ably met his cutout at fixed rendezvous points. Itseems, however,
that no arrangements for emergencies or for the handling of espe-
cially urgent messages were made; and during a period when Robin-
son was ill, toward the end of 1940, they were unable to keep up
the liaison.
After September 1941 Robinson's incoming messages came
over Makarov's set, in accordance with an agreement that had been
made between Robinson and Trepper when they met for the first
time. At that time they were forced to amalgamate and to share
their communication links until Robinson could put his set into op-
erating condition. Robinson's group had made no adequate prepa-
rations for long-range W/T traffic to Moscow. He had the equip-
ment and codes but no operator. He never did succeed in getting
his set to operate.
The office of the Soviet Military Attache in Paris was used to
transmit the material received from Robinson and possibly from sev-
eral other agents. In addition to his contact with the Paris Military
Attache, Robinson handed some of his reports to an intermediary
who passed them to the Military Attache in Vichy for transmission
to Moscow.
VI. The Robinson Papers
Betrayed by Trepper, Robinson was arrested by the Germans in

December 1942. He revealed a hotel address used by him. This
room was searched thoroughly by the Germans, and among the pa-
pers were some containing intelligence information which had been
concealed in a briefcase under the floorboards. The papers also in-
cluded his identity documents, reports, coding data, and messages
to and from him. The originals of these seized papers were never
obtained by the Americans. Probably they went to RSHA headquar-
ters and fell eventually into Soviet hands among the "Gestapo
files" seized by the Soviets and known to have been held after
World War II in Potsdam, East Germany.
Abwehr III F. (CE) in France had sent photostats of these
"Robinson papers" to Ast Belgien, the Abwehr station in Belgium.
These photostats in Belgium came into the custody of the British,
presumably in the course of the liberation of Belgium. They were
reportedly mislabeled or misfiled in processing by the CI War Room
(Joint British-OSS CE Center in London during and immediately af-
ter World War II) and "lost" until 1947, when they were rediscov-
ered by the British, who translated some of them.
The British commented in 1966 that:
the Robinson papers, apart from Weiss, did not

give any positive lead to spies in situ in the U.K.
They do, however, indicate that Robinson play-
ed an important part in the running of Russian
operations in the U.K. in the 1930s, and it
seems . . . that even at this late stage there are
a number of
points arising out of the Robinson
papers worthy of further study on both sides of
the Atlantic.
In transmitting the "Robinson papers" to Ast Belgien, the Ab-

wehr in Paris, in a report dated 19 January 1943, commented that
the Soviet agent known as "Harry" was being sent to Berlin at the
request of the RSHA
France 97
because he has been searched for in the Reich

since 1930 and his contacts in party-political cir-
cles reach into the Reich,
As regards partypolitics, he was an excep-
tionally important person and was at the time
of the occupation of the Ruhr already fully ac-
tive. At the outbreak of the Soviet-German war,
he also occupied himself with military intelli-
gence, according to his own admission. He ap-
and versatile, which is
pears to be intelligent
confirmed by Trepper, and was on the best
terms with the highest circles of the de Gaul-
list movement. When
he returns to Paris, Harry
should be closely questioned about this.
Among the several hundred documents in the Robinson papers

are the coded names of a number of persons, many of whom have
never been positively identified. But some of the identities have
been established. For example, "Sissy" has been positively identi-
fied as Rachel Duebendorfer, a Soviet agent operating in Switzer-
land against Germany during World War II.
Notes in Robinson's possession indicated that he had an agent

who used the cover name of "Jenny." She is probably identical with
Rose Reudi Luschinsky, nee Hepner, sister of Rachel Deubendorfer.
Rose Luschinsky and Dr. Heinz L. Luschinsky entered the
United States in 1941. On 4 January 1951 Rose Luschinsky and her
husband, Heinz, of 5555 Netherlands Avenue, New York City,
were interviewed by the FBI. Rose Luschinsky denied knowing Henri
Robinson and denied any involvement in Soviet espionage opera-
tions. She admitted that her sister, Rachel, was a Communist and
said that she had read of Rachel's work as a Soviet agent in Switzer-
land. She stated, however, that she had not seen her sister since the
late 1930s. Rose denied being "Jenny." Investigation disclosed,
however, that her address book contained the notation, "Dr. Z.
Angeluscheff, 120 East 86th Street, New York City."
He is probably identical with Dr. Schivko Angeluscheff, a
medical doctor who resides and maintains an office at 131 E. 93rd
Street, New York City. A report from an unidentified French intel-
ligence source which is described as an alphabetical listing of Soviet
agents in France prior to World War II reads in part:
Angeluscheff, Schivko, alias Angueloucher,

born 15 January 1897 in Meglish, Bulgaria. Par-
ents: Dimitri and Beslat Islka. Bulgarian nation-

ality, German citizenship by naturalization.
Married Helene Georgieff on 16 June 1926 in
Berlin. She was born 18 March 1902 in Philip-
poli, Bulgaria, and is also naturalized German.
Because of his anti-French activity he was ex-
pelled from France on 16 October 1938 and dis-
appeared from his home, 35 rue de Danzig,
Paris, where his wife remained.
Rose Luschinsky was also accompanied to the U.S. by Helene

Matouskova and Frantisek Studnicka. She said that she met Matous-
kova and Studnicka immediately before her embarkation for the
U.S. and welcomed their friendship. She admitted knowing that
Matouskova was employed at the United Nations. She did not know
Studnicka very well other than that he was a "boyfriend" of Ma-
touskova. She added that she knew that Matouskova was married to
one Frantisek Matousek, a painter who came to the U.S. shortly af-
ter the war for an exhibition of his paintings in New York City.
A comparison of the information in the Robinson papers about

Jenny and facts developed through the investigation of Rose Lus-
chinsky reflect that she is probably "Jenny," and that she lied when
interviewed.
names mentioned in the Robinson messages
Several other code
and related to"Jenny" have never been satisfactorily identified.
Among these are "Dubois" (male and female), "Sanger," and
"The Painter." It appears from the messages that Jenny knew San-
ger and The Painter and that she was at Mont Dore with the woman
Dubois, the man Dubois being in England at the time. On the basis
of available information seems that "The Painter" could be iden-
it
tical with Frantisek Matousek, and that "Sanger" and "Dubois"
could be Helene Sommerova Matouskova and Frantisek Studnicka.

Rose Luschinsky admitted being at Mont Dore during the pertinent
period.
The identification of Sissy and Jenny is important in the study
of the Robinson papers, because revolving around Sissy and Jenny
are "Jean," the "Professor," "M. P.," "Jerome," and others who
have not been positively identified to date.
Robinson's agent in England, who was named Jean, controlled
a subgroup, one member of which was the "Professor," whose field
of specialization was television.
France 99
On 6 April 1939 Jean wrote to Harry (Robinson):
Prof — Herewith some dozen weekly reports and

a variety of other material — his old friend Kall-
mann migrated altogether to the U.S.A. in Feb-
ruary and it was possible beforehand to take a
look into his most important plans/ draw-
ings. . . .
It appears from Robinson's 24 July 1940 message that "Jean"
had lacked contact with a superior since the beginning of the war.
In a 15 November 1940 message regarding his suggestions to the
management that the agent "M. P." should be sent to England,
Robinson remarked anxiously:
I don't know whether you have contact with

Jean, for he should have first-hand information.
His financial situation must be extremely bad.
The following are excerpts from Robinson's papers concerning

M. P.:
I should you that the friend of M. P. whom

tell
we have here is actually down there and

tried to
holds one of the highest and most important of-
fices from our point of view. My plan consists of
trying to find M. P., who should be a prison-
er .. making him come here and then you
.
would have to find the means of moving him

down there. [Robinson to Center, 24-7-40]
. . .
I have just found M. P. again and I have begun

to interest him in the work. [Robinson to . . .
Center, 10-9-40]
I have just you know that he was work-
. . . let
ing with informed you of my idea
me and I had
whether an attempt should not be made to send
him to England. ... He should also have a
chance of getting a place which could be of
great interest for us, next to one of the directors
of de Gaulle. Thorez knows that M. P. is
. . .
working with us what payment should I

. . .
make to M. P. [Robinson to Center, 15-11-40]

We have established a direct link with the friend
of M. P. We have agreed with you to call M. P.
Jerome, who is to be found at present with de
Gaulle . . . consequently it is useless to send Je-

rome to join him, more since his friend
all the
is at loggerheads with his management [the . . .
de Gaulle management] and he can no

. . .
longer produce much profit. We consider it a

better idea to use Jerome in your show [chez
vous] ... to acquire more clients in your coun-
try. We authorize you to give him 2,000 francs
a month. We will arrange things with his party
manager [direction du parti]. [Center to Robin-
son, 20-12-40]
In the light of information received from the DST in 1968 — in-

formation indicating that Robinson was once Kim Philby 's case offi-
cer — it is obviously important from a counterintelligence standpoint

to identify "Jean," "M. P.," and "Jerome." The Robinson traf-
shows that Jean was living in England and that there was
fic clearly
enciphered communication between Jean and Harry.

According to British sources, Jean, who lived in London, was
Robinson's chief agent in the U.K. in 1939. Further, Robinson's
traffic with Jean before their lines of communication were broken
may have been reproduced by Robinson for the management at a
later date. For example, in the message of 24 July 1940 Robinson
said that he sent various materials on his liaison with the U.K. to
the management "in his [i.e., Jean's] time."
On the basis of the above it would appear reasonable to assume
that Jean was in London during the 1939-40 period. But Philby was
not in England during the 1939-40 period, a fact which rules out
the possibility that Philby was Jean. Philby had been out of the
country almost continuously since early 1937. Between leaving the
Spanish war in July 1939 and setting off with the BEF as the
civil
Times No. war correspondent, Philby had only a little time to ar-
1
range the details of his divorce. By October 1939 he was at British

headquarters in Arras, and he stayed in Europe until the fall of
France in June 1940.
An earlier Rote Kapelle study states that Ernst David Weiss
(aliasWalter Lock), who worked for both Harry II and Henri Robin-
son, could have been Jean. A message in March 1941 from Robinson
to Moscow, apparently in response to questions, contained a refer-
ence to Ernst Weiss (with telephone number PAD 7501, which was
that of Weiss' London address since 1933) in conjunction with the
"Professor" and the Professor's wife, "Sheilla." Robinson's com-
France 101
munications with Moscow suggest that Robinson's agent, Jean, and

his network in England were in financial difficulties and that by
February 1941 Moscow had not been able to establish a link with
Jean in replacement of Robinson's own line of communication,
which failed after the German occupation of France. Despite Weiss'
denials, it is possible that he had connections with Jean in England
or even that he is identical with Jean.
During the past five years investigation has disclosed that 'Je-
rome" is probably Andre Labarthe; "M. P." is probably Marcel
Prenant or Marcel Perrault (who belonged to the Ozols network);
the friend of M. P. is probably Jacques Soustelle; Hans Gerhardt
Lubszynski is probably the "Professor"; Dr. Heinz Erwin Kallmann
is the colleague of the Professor. Biographical summaries of La-
barthe, Prenant, Perrault, Soustelle, Lubszynski, and Kallmann are
included in the personalities section of this study.
VII. Communications
Throughout the latter part of 1940 and most of 1941 Trepper at-
tempted to build up He had received a

a wireless station in France.
transmitter, call-signs, and codes, and it only remained to find a
suitable operator. He had selected one of the operators working with
the Belgian network; but before the operator could be transferred to
France, he was arrested by theGermans when they closed in on the
Makarov transmitter. At the same time Trepper and Grossvogel were
training several W/T operators in France.
Trepper was in Brussels on a business trip on 13 December
1941, the day that one of Makarov's operators was arrested by the
Germans. Makarov was apprehended the following day. As a matter
of fact, Trepper went to the safehouse the day after the arrest and
was taken into custody along with the others on the premises at the
time. With the assistance of his false papers and with a good cover
storyhe was able to secure his release. He thus had a full picture of
the situation and was in a position to warn those members of the
group, particularly Sukolov, who had not yet been arrested. Sukolov
fled to France almost immediately thereafter. After the arrests of
December 1941 Trepper forbade the communications staff in France
to have any personal contact with him or with other agents.
Makarov's arrest in December 1941 caused a breakdown in
communications and left Trepper in an embarrassing position. He
had no wireless communications in France, although he, like Robin-
102 Narrative Hispory of the Rote Kapelle
son, had the equipment and codes ready and was in the process of
establishing a line. The loss of the link through Makarov meant that
the traffic from both Trepper's and Robinson's organizations was
blocked. The Soviet missions had been evacuated, and the French
Communist Party had gone underground.
Trepper fell back on an emergency rendezvous in Paris that he
had pre-arranged with Moscow. The arrangements had indicated
that for the safety signal certain newspapers were to be carried to the
rendezvous spot, newspapers not normally sold on the streets.
Trepper did not succeed in making contact until February

1942. He recognized the agent who had been sent by the newspaper
he carried; the password was exchanged and contact was established.
Trepper learned that his contact was connected with the French
Communist Party and that he came prepared to make arrangements
for Trepper to use the Party channel wireless transmitter. Normally
there would have been no formalized association between the Soviet
intelligence services and the local Communist Party, but in an emer-
gency like this the Soviet intelligence services were forced to fall
back upon the services of the Party.

The Communist Party link is believed to have run through an
automatic transmitter in the press wireless station of the Comintern.
The normal function of the Party transmitter was to carry press mes-
sages,presumably for Tass, and it is unlikely that it ever was intend-
ed to be an undercover or illicit station.
Robinson, too, was eventually compelled to make use of the
French CP transmitter. When he had his first meeting with Trepper
in September 1941 it was agreed that he should set up a direct wire-
less link with Moscow immediately; he had been given his own
transmitter, code, and call signs. In the meantime, until he could
do incoming messages were to be routed via Brussels. Robin-
so, his
son's attempts to establish a wireless link were not successful, partly

for lack of materials and partly because he could not find reliable
operators. Accordingly, when the Brussels network was broken up in
December 1941, Robinson turned to the Party link and continued
to use it until Trepper's operators started to transmit from Paris.
Then Robinson transferred his signals to their set for transmission.
It is said that special arrangements for the transmission of Trep-
per's and Robinson's material over the Party channel were made
through the wireless expert of the Party. He and his assistant took
over the construction and development of transmitter and receiver
sets. On the outskirts of Paris they had a workshop fitted with all
France 103
modern machinery and are reported to have had a stock of about

twenty completed or partly completed sets.
The military attache in Vichy had assisted Trepper in recruiting
personnel for the network he was organizing in France. For example,
the military attache's office had drawn up a list of Soviet citizens
desiring repatriation. This list who selected
was shown to Trepper,
thename of a radio dealer as a possible agent recruit. Through the
Communist Party in France inquiries were made in Belgium, where
this previously resided. It was discovered that this man and his
man
wife,Hersog and Marian Sokol, had been active Communists and
had been expelled from Belgium for their activities. They had taken
no part in political work since their arrival in France. They were
eventually selected, recruited, and trained to be W/T operators for
Trepper 's Paris network.
Grossvogel had been given the task of establishing a reliable
wireless line and supervising the agents concerned in communica-
tions work. Three W/T sets had been made available to the organi-
zation, although only one was ever used. One set belonged to Rob-
inson, and it was never usable. The other was an American set
which was operated by the Sokols. The third was a set which had
been given to the Girauds by the French Communist headquarters
and which was never used.
One of Grossvogel' s functions was to train W/T operators. So-
kol was one of his trainees; Mrs. Sokolhad studied coding previous-
ly. By April 1942 the Sokols were ready to begin transmitting and
were given a W/T set. Their set apparently was not able to contact
Moscow directly, and their messages went to London, whence they
were relayed to Moscow. Trepper 's information was delivered to the
operators through his personal courier.
The Sokols were originally recruited through the French CP;
and although information on W/T service limited, they may
their is
have had connections with the Party's W/T service and system.
Some resemblance to the Party W/T links appears in Spaak's state-
ment that the Sokols were able to transmit messages to Moscow via
London. It is not known how much incriminating evidence was ob-
tained by their arrest in June 1942, but it is possible that Trepper
succeeded to a large extent in sealing off the incident, just as he had
done in the Low Countries in December 1941.
After the arrest of the Sokols the traffic of Trepper' s network
was transferred to the transmitter of the Jeffremov network in Brus-
sels, operated by Wenzel; the woman agent who was encoding for
Trepper fled, but the Girauds continued their courier services. Pos-
sibly the Sokols, if they had talked, could have compromised the
Party communications system, and this threat might account for
Trepper' s diverting his traffic for the USSR not to the French CP
but back to Jeffremov's station in Brussels. The new line lasted
hardly a month, becauseWenzel was arrested while transmitting for
Jeffremov on 30 July 1942.
After Wenzel' s arrest Trepper was forced to revert to the Com-
munist Party link. He was allowed to send only two to three hun-
dred groups over this link in any one week. He used the Girauds as
cutouts between himself and the Communist Party. For this purpose
the Girauds were in touch with Grossvogel. They collected reports
from him and passed them on. In the fall of 1942 they took a house
at Le Pecq. A transmitter was installed, and an operator was dis-
patched to operate it. The set did not work, however, and was later
found by the Germans, concealed in the garden.
It is strongly suspected that Trepper had contact with the Soviet
military attache in London. There are several substantiating indica-

tions. It will be recalled that Trepper 's organization originally was
designed to obtain information from and about England and, logi-
cally, would have come under the control of the military attache's
office in London. On the other hand, arrangements for contact be-

tween Trepper and London may have been made through the mili-
tary attache in Vichy in 1941.
One London may have been made when Trepper
contact with
was transmitting by W/T from Paris. There is some evidence that
his traffic was picked up in London by the wireless station at the So-
viet Embassy and was then relayed to Moscow. If so, the practice
may have come about for some purely technical reason; for example,
the transmitter in Paris may have had insufficient power to maintain
satisfactory communications directly with Moscow.
VIII. Victor Sukolov
When Victor Sukolov fled Belgium in December 1941, he

came January 1942 Trepper sent him to Marseilles with
to Paris. In
instructions to organize a new network there. In Marseilles Sukolov
lived with his mistress, Margarete Barcza, under the cover of a
branch office of Simex. Together they organized a network of Czech
agents, but they apparently were in constant fear of discovery and
limited their intelligence activities as much as possible. For a while
France 105
Sukolov and Barcza even considered discontinuing their work and

fleeing to Switzerland.
It was only after the arrest of Sukolov in Marseilles in Novem-
ber 1942 that the Germans managed do something about the
to
Rote Drei in Switzerland. Sukolov' s interrogation produced the fact
that in the summer of 1940 he had brought code books to Geneva
and that these books had been left in the rue de Lausanne. The ad-
dress, Alexander Rado's, housed the headquarters of the Soviet net
in Switzerland.
IX. Trepper's Arrest
The Germans in Paris suspected that there was espionage going

on in Simex, and they attempted deception with the help of a
member of the Todt organization, which had dealings with Simex.
After they had arrested Abraham Rajchmann and some of the peo-
ple in Jeffremov's network, the Germans decided to seize both Si-
mex and Simexco.

The premises of Simex in Paris were occupied and searched in
November 1942, and the known associates and proprietors of the
firm were arrested. No espionage material, however, was found. Im-
mediate interrogations of the subjects failed to determine the where-
abouts of "Monsieur Gilbert," who had not been found and who
could not be discovered. It was revealed later that none of the ar-
rested had ever known Gilbert's real address.

For conspiratorial reasons Trepper had ordered that no member
of the firm should ever know his whereabouts, and especially not his
address or cover addresses. Through a piece of good luck it was
learned from the arrested Director of Simex in Paris, Alfred Corbin,
that Gilbert had asked Corbin about the address of a dentist who
was supposed to live on the rue Rivoli. The dentist in question was
found, and his appointment book was inspected unobtrusively by
the Sonderkommando. One of the names found was that of a cer-
tain Gilbert, and it was learned that Gilbert had an appointment at
2 p.m. on 5 December 1942, at which time the "Grand Chef was
arrested in the dentist's chair.
Following his arrest Trepper was very communicative. He said
that he had never felt secure since the Germans first arrested the Su-
kolov group in Brussels in December 1941. He made an offer of col-
laboration with the Germans. Although they refused it, they told
him that the proposal would be reconsidered if he first gave concrete
proof of his intent to collaborate fully. Trepper then gave them the
name of "Kleiner Andre" as his chief assistant, and as further proof
of his good faith telephoned Hillel Katz in the presence of German
officials.
Trepper explained to the Germans that his motive for collabor-

ation was that he wished to save the lives of his relatives and family
in the USSR. He stated that he knew his entire family would be liq-
uidated if the fact of his arrest became known to the Soviets.
was finally agreed upon that Trepper should collaborate in
It
rounding up the organization which he directed in return for a

guarantee that his arrest should be concealed from the Soviets.
Trepper thereupon betrayed Robinson, Grossvogel, and other mem-
bers of his network.
During the next few weeks Trepper amply fortified the confi-
dence of the Germans. Directly or indirectly he had put his finger
on an impressive collection of agents, including Robinson and
Grossvogel in Paris and members of the Springer group in Lyons. By
Christmas Day Trepper seems to have lulled all the suspicions of the
Germans, and a playback to Moscow was started on a wireless trans-
mitter which Trepper was supposed to have set up in Paris.
X. The Playback
Trepper's W/T playback, orFunkspiel, known as "Eiffel," be-

gan transmissions on 25 December 1942. The interval between the
time of Trepper's arrest and the transmissions, the Germans
thought, could be explained by the fact that Trepper at the time of
his arrest did not have an effective transmitter. The Sokol set which
Trepper had used had been off the air since June 1942, and Trepper
is believed to have used the French CP transmitter between June
1942 and his arrest.

Although this playback began soon after Trepper's arrest he —
was arrested on 5 December 1942 and the playback started twenty
—
days later it is presumed that Moscow was aware of the deception
from the start. There are various reasons for supposing that the
manner in which Trepper handled his arrest and the situation dur-
ing the few weeks after his arrest were part of a preconceived plan.
Trepper's offer of collaboration was probably by pre-arrangement
with Moscow. Trepper had apparently kept Moscow informed of the
situation and the arrests up to the time of his apprehension; there-
fore, it is plausible that some agreement was made between Moscow
France 107
and Trepper him to follow a triple-cross plan. To preserve his

for
pose, Trepper was bound to divulge much information that was
true. Presumably he also fed the Germans deception material, con-
cealing some facts and distorting others. He was evidently untruth-
ful about his Communist Party connections, and he protected from
German discovery at least one agent, the person who was responsi-
ble for passing on the reports he smuggled out under the eyes of his
German guards.
Of all types of counterespionage operations, a W/T playback is
one of the most difficult to handle, although ordinarily it has excep-

development. Operations of this
tional capabilities for profitable
sort have long displayed a tendency toward disaster; in many in-
stances the attempted playback has been blown or suspected almost
from the time of its inception. The German playback of Trepper
provides an excellent example.
As a result of the arrests in the Low Countries Trepper un-
doubtedly had seen the handwriting on the wall and had realized
the probability of his own capture. He had ample time before his
arrest to discuss this likelihood with Moscow, and probable that
it is
he and his superiors drew up a "triple-cross plan" against such an

eventuality. His activities while working for the Germans show some
evidence of such a pre-arrangement. According to German accounts,
Trepper appeared neither surprised nor dismayed by his arrest. In-
stead he congratulated his captors on their skill and offered them his
wholehearted collaboration.
According to an RSHA member, Wilhelm Berg, Trepper made
the following suggestions without any prompting at his first interro-
gation after his arrest:
1. He stated that he was prepared to name all his assistants,

agents, and sources of information. He advised that after these per-
sons were checked, a decision should be made as to who should not
be arrested. (Later he did provide the names.)
2. Hewas insistent that wireless contact with the "Direktor"
(Direktor was the W/T code name for the Chief of Section I of the
Office of Operations of the RU) in Moscow should not be broken
off, but rather developed by setting up new transmitting stations.
This proposal is interesting in view of the fact that Trepper at the

time of his had no W/T station of his own and was using the
arrest
French CPW/T transmitter. The information which was to be sent
over the W/T station was to be obtained from the sources already
known by Moscow to be in the network.
Trepper's suggestions were discussed and approved by the

RSHA, which hoped to achieve the following objectives: the arrest
of remaining members of the organization or any other RU organi-
zations operating in Western Europe; the discovery of the French CP
transmitter and the penetration of Communist and Soviet intelli-
gence organizations in Switzerland; and the passing to Moscow of
misleading political and military reports about Germany and the oc-
cupied West, in the hope of disguising actual Ger-
territories in the
man intentions, especially as to operational plans on both the East-
ern and Western Fronts.
The arrests of the agents were made, and those arrested were
housed on the Boulevard Victor Hugo. According
in a villa in Paris
to Berg, Trepper secured the personnel who had been arrested
(largely through his information) as his assistants, and each of these
went to work without any difficulty.
After his escape in September 1943 Trepper told Claude Spaak,
who helped him get away undetected, that two or three weeks after
his capture he had been able to smuggle a message to the "Center"
in Moscow. Trepper told Spaak that on the pretext of learning Ger-
man he was able to obtain complete privacy for one evening shortly
after his capture. During this evening he wrote out (presumably in
code) a full account of his arrest, his situation, and his plans. His
understanding with the Germans was by this time so excellent that
he was able to forward this report undetected, under the pretense of
collaboration.
The Germans regarded the arrest of Trepper as one of their
most important operational achievements. In the beginning he
showed such deliberation in offering his services that his sincerity
was questioned. Shortly thereafter, however, Trepper gave his cap-
tors proof of his desire to collaborate by phoning, in the presence of
German officers, his aide and technical secretary, Hillel Katz. This
deed was accepted as a sign of good faith, and in the weeks that fol-
lowed Trepper aided the Germans in rounding up agents of his own
network and other RU agents in France.
Thus the confidence of the Germans in Trepper was rapidly es-
tablished, and their findings were colored deeply by his interpreta-
tions. To preserve the appearance of collaboration, Trepper had to
divulge a great deal of true information. In fact, as will be seen
from the traffic, the Germans took Trepper's opinions very serious-
ly. But if, as the evidence suggests, Trepper was carrying out a pre-
conceived triple-cross, plan, the Germans were undoubtedly duped

France 109
by him occasionally from the time of his arrest in December 1942

until his escape in September 1943, and it is very likely that he dis-
torted some facts and concealed others.
One of the things that Trepper told the Germans in the begin-
ning of the playback was that Moscow must remain unaware of his
arrest so that there would be no reprisals against his family. To as-
sure headquarters that he was allright, it would be necessary that he

appear from time to time in various parts of Paris for recognition
meetings. The Germans agreed to this proposal and were content to
watch such meetings from a distance. By visiting the Bailly Pharma-
cy, Gare St. Lazare, which was one of the rendezvous for these
meetings, Trepper was able to pass his report, without being seen by
the Germans, to a woman agent whom he had not betrayed to the
Germans. We have no knowledge of the length of time it took the
report to reach Moscow, but it is certain that any pre-arranged "tri-
ple-cross plan" between Moscow and Trepper could not have come
into effective operation until "The Center" knew the circumstances
and results of Trepper' s arrest.
XI. Trepper 's Escape
Trepper continued to work for the Germans until 16 Septem-

ber 1943, when he escaped. During this period he appears to have
had outside lines of communication with the RU, possibly through
the French CP transmitter which he had used prior to his arrest. Just
Trepper told Spaak that the reason he had fled was
after his escape
that he had learned during his captivity that the Germans had ac-
quired a "secret Russian code" and feared that as a result of that
code the Germans might uncover from previously intercepted traffic
the report which he had smuggled to Moscow.
In June 1943, through the leads given them by Henri Robin-
son, the Germans discovered the French CP W/T station at Le Rain-
cy. It is Germans showed Trepper the cipher from
possible that the
this station and that Trepper, recognizing it as a code used by the
French CP, decided to escape.
After Trepper' s escape the deception operation, of necessity,
was discontinued. In an effort to cover up Trepper 's escape the Ger-
mans sent a message in Sukolov's code over the W/T playback set,
Mars, to the effect that Trepper was missing and had probably been
captured by the Germans. Any possible success of this message,
even assuming that the real situation was not already known in Mos-
cow, must have been shortlived; for in October 1943. when the
Germans still had not captured Trepper, they circulated wanted-
person notices (including a photograph and description of him)
throughout France. Because there were separate unblown RU net-
works operating in France at the time, it seems likely that at least
one of these networks would have noticed the wanted circular and
relayed the information to Moscow. It is interesting to note that ac-
cording to Sukolov's mistress, Margarete Barcza, Sukolov appeared
to be the only person who was not upset or surprised at Trepper'
escape, a still further indication that Sukolov may have been a part
of Trepper's "triple-cross plan," if such a plan existed.
The generally accepted view that Trepper was engaged in a
triple-cross, though plausible, is not supported by Heinz Pannwitz,
who replaced Reiser after Trepper's arrest, or by some western au-
thorities on the Rote Kapelle. In his history of the Sonderkomman-
do Rote Kapelle, Pannwitz states that Trepper told "much more
than we [the Germans] ever hoped and much more than was neces-
sary under the circumstances." No physical means of persuasion
were used on Trepper; yet, according to Pannwitz, Trepper betrayed
Hillel Katz, the Robinson group, which was unknown to the Ger-
mans, the Maximoviches' groups, Voelkner, Podsiadlo, and others.
Pannwitz also claims that the result of Trepper's revelations and his
willing cooperation in the Funkspiel against Moscow was that the
Rote Kapelle was "completely exposed, totally paralyzed." Pann-
witz claims that he discovered no indication that Trepper's coopera-
tion with the Germans was pre-arranged with Moscow during his in-
terrogation by Soviet authorities after the war.
The alacrity with which Trepper agreed to cooperate with the
Germans might seem to support the triple-cross theory. However,
by the time of Trepper's arrest, Soviet nets in Belgium and Germa-
ny had, for the most part, been silenced. This left only the Rote
Drei, which was plagued with difficulties, to provide Moscow with
intelligence from Western Europe.
Consequently, the state of Soviet intelligence operations at the
time of Trepper's arrest raises two important — but still unanswered
— questions. What motive could Moscow have had for directing
Trepper to expose his net? If Trepper was acting on orders from
Moscow, why was he imprisoned by the Soviets after the war and
why are the Soviets still refusing (in 1973) to allow Trepper to leave
Poland? Until satisfactory answers to these and other questions are
forthcoming, it would seem that those who reject the triple-cross
France 111
theory have a strong case.
XII. An Evaluation of the Playback
After their decision to operate the playback the Germans built

two stations in the outskirts of Paris. These were wireless units of the
German Schutzpolizei and employed their apparatus and equip-
ment. Even if the Soviets had not been notified by Trepper of his
arrest and future plans, it must be assumed that their suspicions

would have been aroused immediately by the sudden ease with
which communications were now established after the difficulties
which Trepper had encountered in the past. The Germans failed to
take this change into consideration and during the playback did not
even attempt to invent communications difficulties. Set out below
are the various W/T stations used by Trepper from the fall of 1941
until his arrest. One cannot fail to note the contrast between the
difficulty he encountered in this period and the ease of his means of
communications after 25 December 1942.
1941, Fall
Until the roundup of the Sukolov network in Brussels in De-
cember 1941 Trepper passed his information to Moscow via Suko-
lov 's W/T set. The information was sent by courier from Paris to
Brussels, and vice versa.
1942, Early
After the arrest of the Sukolov group, Trepper used a W/T sta-
tion of the French CP, to which he had access through Henri Robin-
son. He used this link from February 1942 to April 1942.
1942, April
In April 1942 the Sokols got their W/T working condi-
set in
tion, and from April 1942 to sometime in June 1942 Trepper passed
his information over this station, which was located in a Paris sub-
urb.
1942, June
In June 1942 the Germans arrested the Sokols, and Trepper
again initiated a courier service to Brussels and passed his informa-
tion over the W/T link in Brussels which had replaced Sukolov' s.
The chief of this network was Jeffremov, and its radio technician was
Johann Wenzel. In the summer of 1942 the Germans arrested Wen-
zel while he was transmitting.
1942, Summer
After the breaking up of the Jeffremov group and up to the
time of his arrest Trepper used the W/T station of the French Com-
munist Party.
The Germans who were involved in drawing up the messages
and having them sent appear to have employed them carelessly, and
in several instances sent out the same material on different days. For
instance, parts one and two of a two-part message were sent to Mos-
cow on 22 March 1943. Part one was again sent out as a separate
message on 5 April 1943. Parts one and two went out as a two-part
message on 16 April 1943, and part two went out as a separate mes-
sage on 27 April 1943. On 27 February 1943 information purpor-
tedly coming from Fabrikant (Abraham Rajchmann) was sent to
Moscow. The same message, giving no source of information, was
repeated on 16 March 1943 and again on 23 March 1943.
In another instance, the Germans on 30 July 1943 sent out
through another playback a message which read word for word the
same as the message Trepper sent out on the same day, even though
one RU agent was supposed to be in Paris and the other in Mar-
seilles. The other agent, Sukolov, who was operated by the Germans
as playback Mars, had been brought by them to Paris in the summer

of 1943 and had been housed with Trepper. Even had Moscow been
unaware that Sukolov was also working under German control (he
may even have been included in Trepper' s triple-cross operation),
this duplicate message would have been enough to make the head-
quarters suspicious of both agents.
One of the vital achievements in any playback operation is the
successful passing of false information. Of necessity the information
must have enough validity to fool the recipient and yet, and espe-
where military information is concerned, it must be so sani-
cially
tized that it will not jeopardize any military operations or disclose

any important military secrets, such as numbers of military units,
their locations, strength, and arms. Against the Soviets this decep-
tion is especially difficult, because, as we know, the general practice
of the Soviets is to assign the same task to several completely differ-
ent networks, thereby cross-checking the validity of the information
received.
The Germans did not suceed in overcoming this problem.
Through the RU apparat in Switzerland, the Soviets were getting at
the time very high-level information from the OKW, OKH, etc., in
Berlin almost as soon as the various German high commands were
receiving the material. Moscow thus had an adequate cross-check
against German attempts to pass misinformation on military move-
France 113
ments and locations.

Throughout the Trepper W/T playback the Germans passed to
Moscow only general information, claiming for one reason or anoth-
er that more detailed information was impossible to ascertain. This
evasion was completely out of character for Trepper, who for years
had been passing the Soviets high-level information and whose work
had not been characterized by poor performance or excuses.
The false information which the Germans were passing to Mos-
cow could only be dispatched as general statements with no actual
disclosure of military OB. Moscow, on the other hand, presumably
knowing that the line was under German control, repeatedly asked
for detailed and precise information.
Moscow's demands for precise, concrete, and detailed informa-
tion became more and more insistent. The German intelligence of-
ficers of the Special Command who were handling the playback
were dependent upon the Chief of Command, West, for the release
of espionage material which could be passed to Moscow. The more
demanding Moscow became, the more grudging was the release of
information from the Chief of Command, West. On the fifth of
June 1943 the Chief of Command, West, advised by letter that he
was opposed to the release of espionage material for the continua-
tion of the SD's W/T playback, "Eiffel," beamed to Moscow. His
position was that the Moscow station had some time been put-
for
ting questions of a military type in such a precise form that a con-
tinuation of the playback was possible only if the precise questions
were also answered in a precise form, "since otherwise the Moscow
station will seethrough the Spiel." He thereupon advised that for
military reasonshe could no longer be responsible for answering, in
the form of espionage material, the questions sent by Moscow. He
also took the stand that there was no interest, considering the mili-
tary situation of the Germans in the West at that time, in a policy
of confusing Moscow.
The opinion of the RSHA Special Command which was run-
ning the playback was, of course, that there was a continuing Ger-
man interest in clarifying the RU organization of Trepper within
certain limits, and that the playback must, therefore, be continued
and confusion material prepared and passed. The SD and SIPO spe-
cialists on playbacks were informed of the conflicting views. The re-
sults are not known, but on 17 June 1943 the Chief of Command,
West, released additional material for the playback; and although
Operation Eiffel had to be discontinued after Trepper* s escape in
September 1943, the German playback of Sukolov (Operation

Mars) continued to the end of the war.
A review of the messages available for the Trepper playback re-
flects that theGermans on a number of occasions relayed to Moscow

information which had allegedly been collected by Fabrikant. This
sourcing in itself would have suggested to Moscow that Trepper was
operating under German control, for Fabrikant was a relatively un-
important cog in the RU apparat in Brussels. His primary function
in the network had been the procurement of false documentation
for members of the group; his motivation was primarily financial.
He had not often been assigned duties in direct procurement of in-
telligence information. In addition, Moscow — at least by the time
the playback was instituted — was probably aware of the fact that
both Rajchmann and his mistress, Malvina Gruber, had been arrest-
ed and turned by the Germans in 1942.
A further alleged intelligence source was one Rene, although it
seems unlikely that an RU agent with the cover name of Rene ever
was a member of Trepper 's group in either Belgium or France. Of
this fact the Germans should have been aware as a result of the in-
terrogations of the Rote Kapelle personnel arrested in both Belgium
and France.
Therefore, when the Germans suddenly activated a Rene who
appeared to be a fairly important member of Trepper' s network, the
Center, had they not been aware of the fact that Trepper was being
played back, probably would have raised numerous questions as to
the identity of this new source.
Although a few of the Special Command who were concerned
in the Eiffel playback eventually became suspicious that Moscow
might have seen through the operation, most of the German Intelli-
gence Officers connected with this operation regarded it as highly
successful. A review of the traffic, however, reflects that Moscow
profited much more than did Berlin.
On one occasion, at least, Moscow received valuable intelli-
gence from Trepper. In 1943 Trepper succeeded in obtaining from
German Intelligence an up-to-date report on the German knowl-
edge of British forces in the Mediterranean area. This information,
released by the Germans in order to bolster the confidence of Mos-
cow in the playback, was urgently needed at the time by the Soviets
in estimating the possibility of securing a second front.
A successful attempt at deceiving the Germans occurred in Au-
gust 1943. Moscow advised Trepper that headquarters was sending
France 115
an agent to Paris to contact him and wanted to know Trepper's op-

erational address and name so that a rendezvous could be effected.
The Germans were greatly intrigued by this prospect. Whatever
plan "the Center" had in mind was never disclosed, however, for
Trepper escaped from the Germans before the plan could be carried
out.
There is also evidence that Moscow, at least inone instance,
may have launched a psychological warfare attack on the Germans
through the playback. On 29 May 1943 Moscow sent to Trepper a
message urgently requesting that Fabrikant determine whether or
not theGerman occupation army was preparing to use poison gas,
and submitted various other questions relating to poison gas. As
soon as this information was received, it was forwarded to the Chief
of the SIPO and SD. On
June the Chief of the SIPO and SD for-
2
warded the message, by letter, to the Chief of the Army Amt. Aus-
land Abwehr, Abwehrabteilungen III and HID. The letter also con-
tained the following statement:
The urgency about the question of German

gases and preparation for gas war indicated the
possibility that the Soviets have ideas along this
line and maybe even the British and the Ameri-
cans. The Grand Chef (Leopold Trepper), who
was asked about it, says that because it is so ur-
gent, he thinks the Axis opponents could very
possibly soon begin to use poison gas and simi-
lar material. I inform you of this and ask you
for playback material for answering this message
from Moscow.
In his papers Pannwitz includes an apologia for running com-

plicated double-agent and radio playback operations as opposed to
arresting and imprisoning spies. Nevertheless, Pannwitz was prob-
ably wrong in his assumption that his Sonderkommando had almost
complete control of all Soviet and Communist espionage under-
ground nets in France and the Low Countries. The British advance a
fairly firm theory that the two Soviet principal agents, Trepper and
Kent, played back against the GRU headquarters in Moscow by the

Germans, were able to notify Moscow through French CP communi-
cations channels, unknown to the Germans, of German control of
the Soviet espionage networks.
Trepper made very elaborate plans for his getaway. Two things
are clear: first, that he had not told the Germans everything; and
second, that he had made provisions for escaping and living under-
ground. By letting the Germans in on some things, he was able to
throw them off the track on others.
Trepper had set aside two emergency funds. One consisted of
gold sovereigns to the value of about one thousand dollars, which
were packed in cork and kept in jam At the time of Trepper 's
jars.
arrest these jars were in the custody of Trepper's right-hand man.

With Trepper's assistance this sum of money was recovered by the
Germans.
The other emergency fund he had left in Spaak's safekeeping.
He made no reference to this fund, and the Germans had no reason
to know of its existence or to anticipate that Trepper could fall back
on such a fund in making his escape.
According to Pannwitz, only a fraction of Trepper's contacts in
France were uncovered:
because we simply did not have the opportunity

or means to carry out such an enormous investi-
gation. Only those were arrested who were abso-
lutely essential for the Funkspiel operation.
Those who were not vital to the operation were
not alerted or allowed to become suspicious, in
order to protect our operation. He had friends,
but they were also his agents and subordinates,
such as Grossvogel, (Hillel) Katz, etc. He did
not allow any other type of friendship. We
could learn nothing about his family and rela-
tives in the West. He himself would tell us
nothing about his family.
The W/T deception proceeded smoothly (or so the Germans

thought) until September 1943, at which time Trepper escaped and
was not recaptured.
After Trepper's escape from the Germans the playback was
continued with the assistance of Sukolov's transmitter, which was
known as the "Mars" playback. Until March 1943 Sukolov's set had
been operated from Marseilles. In the spring of 1943 Sukolov was
brought to Paris, and "Eiffel" and "Mars" were joined. In the
summer of 1943 Trepper and Sukolov were housed together and
had an adequate chance to discuss their future plans.
France 117
XIII. The Ozols and the Mithridate Networks
There is little doubt that Moscow knew in early 1943 that Su-
kolov had been arrested and that he had been doubled by the Ger-
mans. It is, therefore, interesting to note that on 14 March 1943 Su-
kolov received a message from Moscow giving information concern-
ing one Waldemar Ozols (alias Solja). The information included the
last known address of Ozols in Paris. The Germans finally located
Ozols in and in July 1943 Sukolov, using a pre-arranged word
Paris;
furnished by Moscow, contacted Ozols and reactivated him. He had

been out of contact with Moscow since July 1941. Sukolov did not
inform Ozols of his arrest by the Germans; and Ozols, believing Su-
kolov to be a bona fide Soviet agent, immediately furnished Suko-
lov with information concerning his activities from July 1941 to July
1943. The Sukolov playback continued well into 1944 and possibly
up to August 1944, when the Germans retreated from Paris and
took Sukolov with them.
Waldemar Ozols (alias Solja, alias Sokol, alias Marianne, alias
"The General") was born 17 October 1898 in Riga. Other reports
indicate that Waldemar Ozols-Priede was born 17 October 1884 in
Riga. He was a general in the International Brigades during the
Spanish Civil War, and according to one account he had been work-
ing for the GRU in France since 1926. He is said to have visited the
U.K. on occasion from 1934 to 1939; but he appears to have been
independent of Robinson and Trepper, although his direction, like
theirs, came through the Soviet military attache in Paris. During the
German invasion Ozols may have lost contact with the Soviet MA
after the withdrawal of Embassy officials to unoccupied France.
March 1943 Moscow requested Kent (Su-
In the message of 14
kolov) to contact Solja, a former Latvian generalwho had fought for
the Loyalists in Spain during the Civil War. The Center advised that
Ozols could furnish information about German troop movements
and had a W/T set, but the Center had not heard from Ozols after
the German occupation of France. Kent was told to be very careful
in contacting Ozols because the "Greens" (Nazis) were probably
still looking for him.
In this message, received four months after Trepper' s capture,
Karl Gierling, who was then directing the Sonderkommando and
reading the Soviet radio traffic, saw the possibility of getting his
hands on another Soviet network. With the facilities of the Gestapo
Ozols was located. Sukolov informed the Center. Pursuant to the
Director's instructions a meeting was arranged, and Ozols met Su-

kolov on 1 April 1943. Apparently Ozols had no reason to be suspi-
cious of Sukolov. Ozols noted that Sukolov spoke a modern Russian
and concluded that the latter was a young Soviet officer rather than
the son of an emigre working for Germany.
Ozols told Sukolov that he had sought refuge in France after
the Spanish Civil War. In 1940 he had been requested by the Air
Attache of the Soviet Embassy in Paris to organize an intelligence
network. Ozols had recruited about a dozen agents; and when the
Soviet diplomats left Paris, he was given a W/T set. But Ozols had
not been able to find an experienced radio operator, and his at-
tempts to contact Moscow had failed.
After the Germans arrived in France, Ozols had gone under-
ground in Normandy. Ozols did not mention to Sukolov that he
had been in contact with Trepper in 1940. This fact appeared to
him unimportant. He did not know that the Center had recom-
mended to Trepper that he be most prudent in his contacts with
Ozols; the latter was suspected of working for the Deuxieme Bu-
reau, the Gestapo, or both.
Sukolov ordered Ozols to reassemble the remnants of his net-
work and to bolster it by recruiting French technicians and officials
capable of furnishing intelligence of a political, economic, and mili-

tary nature.
Four months later, in December 1943, Ozols was placed in
contact by a common friend with Paul Legendre, a reserve captain,
age 65. For three years Legendre had been chief of the Mithridate
network for the Marseilles region. Mithridate was one of the most
important organizations of the French Resistance. Ozols recruited
Legendre, but the latter assumed that Ozols was working for the So-
vietsand that they were both working against the Germans. In Jan-
uary 1944 Ozols organized a meeting between Legendre and Suko-
lov. During this meeting Legendre mentioned that his wife had
been arrested and deported. Sukolov promised to get her released,
and he did; so Legendre concluded that the Soviet intelligence servi-
ces were indeed powerful.
Legendre was completely captivated by Sukolov and turned
over to him the complete list of his agents in Marseilles. This roster
permitted the Gestapo to penetrate the Mithridate network, to ex-
ploit it, and even to set up another clandestine organization under
the Kommando's control. Upon the advice of Sukolov, France was
divided into eight military regions, and Legendre was placed in
France 119
charge of the Marseilles and Paris regions. Legendre recruited nu-

merous agents, among them Maurice Violette, former Minister in
the Third Republic and Mayor of Dreux.
At first the Mithridate network, penetrated by the Germans,
was utilized in order to manipulate the French Resistance, but in
the spring of 1944 Pannwitz decided he would use the Mithridate
network to gather and relay information to the Gestapo from be-
hind Allied lines. Accordingly, Sukolov instructed Legendre to ad-
vise his contacts that:
Washington and London are not advising Mos-

cow of their military planning, and this is too
bad because it is impossible to formulate a com-
mon Allied strategy. We
don't even know if the
next disembarkation going to be a raid like
is
that at Dieppe or a Second Front. In advising us

of the number and nature of the landing forces,
you will permit the Soviet high command to
have a more precise idea of what is going on
and to harmonize its strategy accordingly and
thus advance the defeat of Germany.
Some of Legendre' s agents were skeptical about this request,

but others saw Sukolov 's logic and followed his instructions.
Ozols was arrested in Paris on 7 November 1944 by the DST.
He was indicted for espionage and imprisoned at Fort de Charen-
ton. A short time after his arrest he was liberated through the per-
sonal intercession of Colonel fnu Novikov of the Soviet Military Mis-
sion. Novikov was a working colleague of General Pierre Koenig
during this period. Arrested with Ozols and likewise charged with
espionage was Legendre, who was also freed upon the intercession of
Novikov. After his release Ozols remained in Paris and worked for
the Soviet Commercial Attache's office.
An American named Moses Gatewood became involved with
the Mithridate network in the summer of 1944. The following ex-
cerpt is from a 1945 OSS report:
"A naive young American airman named Moses Gatewood was

shot down over the village of Flexanville. He was given shelter by a
group of persons whom we can identify as members of Sokol's orga-
nization. These included a Mme. Bernoit; an old man named Vio-
lette, who is said to have been Governor of Algiers; a French general
described as having previously belonged to the Deuxieme Bureau;

and a Belgian army officer. This curiously assorted group arranged

for Gatewood to be taken to Paris, where he was lodged in a flat
near Les Invalides in the charge of a young textile engineer from Ly-
ons, named George. In Paris, Gatewood also met a man described
as Arthur, or Le Chef. A series of discussions followed in which it
was proposed that Gatewood should be smuggled out to Spain and

should take with him certain documents for transmission to the
American authorities. These included a codebook to be used in
communications between the Americans and the resistance group
who, it was implied, were already in contact with each other. Gate-
wood was also to carry a private letter from the Belgian officer to his
brother-in-law in England. It was impressed upon him that these
papers were to be handed to the American authorities only and not
to the British, for whom all the members of the group expressed
great dislike and distrust.
"Gatewood accepted these proposals. Shortly thereafter he set
out by car from Paris, accompanied by an individual named Jean,
the latter 's girlfriend, Pat, and a third person who went under the
name of George. We are able to identify these three persons. Jean
was a disreputable Frenchman, Jean Varon (alias Hans Mussig), who
was at that time employed by the Germans as a penetration agent;
Pat was his mistress; and George was a minor Gestapo official from
Sonderkommando Pannwitz named Rolf Werner Richter. Thus ac-
companied, Gatewood was conveyed to the Spanish frontier in cir-
cumstances which would have suggested to a more perspicacious
man that he was not in the hands of a simple resistance group. From
the village of Port Rameau on the French side of the frontier he es-
tablished contact with the U.S. Consul in Barcelona and was con-
veyed across into Spain.
"We must assume from Gatewood' s by June 1944
story that
Whether its mem-
the Sokol group had been very fully penetrated.
bers were aware of this, and how many of those whom Gatewood
saw were acting in good faith, must remain more doubtful. Gate-
wood's escape was clearly known to, and facilitated by, the Ger-
mans, presumably with the object of securing contact with other
Allied-run resistance groups and thus widening their sphere of pene-
tration. Why, in this case, Gatewood should have been warned
against the British authorities is less clear, unless it was merely an
oblique form of flattery. The incident of the letter is also curious. It
does not appear ever to have been delivered, and we do not know
the contents. The addressee has, however, been identified as M. J.
France 121
Fitzgerald, the present assistant secretary of the Chelsea Royal Hos-

pital. He has confirmed that his brother-in-law, who could claim
either French or Belgian nationality, was the principal figure in a
small resistance group which was later rounded up by the Germans.
His brother-in-law was arrested and finally shot in Buchenwald in
July 1944. Mr. Fitzgerald was able to provide the address of his
nephew, Marcel Droubaix, who was also active in the group, but
who survived and is now resident in Paris.
"The Gatewood story represents almost our last information
about Sonderkommando Pannwitz. The unit continued to operate
until almost the end of the war; but its activities became increasing-
ly nominal. Almost certainly the Russians had realized by the end of
1943, if not before, what was the real state of affairs, and it is prob-
able that the Germans were aware of this. It is said that in the latter
stages Pannwitz kept Kent's transmitter going although he knew —
that it —
was already a critical stage in the war as a channel of com-
munication between Russia and the Nazi authorities. He is said to
have been a convinced believer, as were many other RSHA officials,
in the necessity for a compromise agreement with Russia. In August

1944 the Sonderkommando withdrew from Paris. It retired by
stages, first to Tannenkirch in Alsace, then to Hornberg in the Black
Forest, and finally to Bregenz am Bodensee, where it was reported
at the end of April 1945. ..."
In the above report it appears that "Sokol's organization"

should read "Ozols' organization." The "French general" is un-
doubtedly Paul Legendre. Mussig's mistress, "Pat," is Georgette
Savin, nee Dubois.
The codebook mentioned in the OSS report was handed to the
U.S. Consul in Barcelona for onward transmission to OSS. In August
1944 the codebook was passed by OSS to the British-led SOE (Spe-
cial Operations Executive), which returned it as of no interest.
David Dallin mentions the Mithridate organization in his
book, Soviet Espionage. He states:
It is not certain just when Ozols and Legendre
were enlightened about the real meaning of

their performance, but in 1943-44 Ozols was
working directly for the Kommando, and Le-
gendre was collaborating with "Hotel Lutetia"
[the headquarters of the Abwehr in Paris].
Their connections with the resistance were the
main assets of this group. The German police

who were receiving information from the group
did not arrest all the underground militants; in-
stead they recruited its agents for their own
work and even controlled a number of radios of
the resistance group. It is paradoxical that when
Allied troops invaded Continent some
the
French resistance radio stations working from
behind the Allied lines communicated with
German headquarters.
The Ozols-Legendre network, wrote Colonel
Wedel of German counterintelligence, was
"controlled by the RSHA (headquarters of the
Himmler police) and served to keep Moscow
confident. In this way we succeeded in penetrat-
ing further into the organizations of the French
Communist Party and learning more about the
kind of messages in which Moscow was most in-
terested.
XIV. Jean Claude Spaak
After Trepper escaped from the Germans, he asked Jean

Claude Spaak to try to get a message through to the Soviet Military
Attache in London. Sending this message to London implies that
someone in England had the means of producing a safe and re-
sourceful contact in France, despite the extensive German penetra-
tion of the Trepper and Robinson organizations. It is conceivable
that such a contact might have been arranged or pre-arranged under
French resistance cover, since there are indications, as far back as
1941, that Robinson had access to French resistance communications

with England. The same facilities may have existed in the opposite
direction.
The following extract concerning the preparations made by
Trepper for and his activities thereafter is based on a
his escape
statement made by Claude Spaak to the Belgians during an interro-
gation in 1946:
"The Sokols were neighbors of Claude Spaak. At the end of

1941, or the beginning of 1942, in the course of a conversation with
Spaak, they indicated that they were involved in some clandestine
and asked Spaak to hold a sum of a hundred and fifty
activities
thousand French francs and some identity papers for them. They
France 123
told Spaak that, in case they would not be able to retrieve the mon-
ey and papers themselves, he was to give them to a person who
would give his name as 'Henri.'
"About a month after thevisit from the Sokols, Spaak, who
had had no further news about the Sokols, was visited by a man
who called himself 'Henri.' This man was Trepper. He told Spaak
that the Sokols had been arrested by the Germans while in the act
of transmitting, and he asked Spaak to continue holding the money
they had left with him.
"In September 1943 Spaak, who had not heard from Trepper
since his visit in 1942, was approached by Georgie de Winter, who
asked Spaak for money on 'Henri's' behalf. Spaak told her to have
'Henri' come for the money himself. When she explained that it
would be impossible for 'Henri' to travel, though he was in the vi-
cinity of Paris, Spaak accompanied de Winter to see Trepper.
"According to Spaak, Trepper admitted to him that he was
one of two chiefs of Soviet intelligence in Western Europe. He said
he directed the networks in France, while the other operated in Lon-
don, and they had both assumed their functions before the war.
"Trepper told Spaak he had been in business in Belgium, but
that the business had served merely as a cover for his clandestine ac-
tivities. He explained that he had to leave Brussels when the area
became too hot, and he fled to Paris, where he resumed his espio-
nage activities. The Sokols were his agents, and acted as liaison by
W/T with London.
"During 1942 one of his agents had been captured by the Ger-
mans and had talked. As a result, Trepper was arrested while in his
dentist's office in Paris, and forced to work under their control.
"Immediately after his escape, he went to the home of his mis-
tress. Trepper left almost at once to take refuge in Suresnes, which is
where de Winter escorted Spaak.

"After telling all this to Spaak, Trepper asked him for his co-
operation on several matters. he wanted some of the money
First,
and identification papers that had been left in his safekeeping.

Then, he wanted Spaak to place him in contact with the Commu-
nist Party in France, so that he could send a message to Moscow via
this channel. Finally, he wanted Spaak to see that the following
message reached the Soviet Military Attache in London: 'I will be at

the church every Sunday morning between 10 and 11 a.m. Signed
"Martik."'
"Spaak gave Trepper some money and one of the identity
cards, properly falsified. During the next few weeks he tried to han-
dle the last two requests made by Trepper. Spaak contacted the
French Communist Party, but they were skeptical about Spaak' s re-
quest.
"By the end of September, 1943, Trepper sensed danger in
Suresnes, and went to Spaak' s home with de Winter. Spaak hid
them for one night. The following day, Trepper and de Winter left
for Bourg La Reine, where Spaak knew a woman who arranged to
hide Jewish children. This woman was in contact with the owners of
a boarding house, where she placed Trepper and de Winter. Trep-
per, being a very active person, wanted to resume his clandestine
work, while his mistress, on the other hand, wanted him to stop this
dangerous activity. In order not to be hindered in his work by his
mistress, Trepper asked Spaak to get her through to the formerly
nonoccupied zone.
"Spaak recalled that a woman of his acquaintance had a link
with a certain doctor who lived at St. Pierre de Chartreuse and who
knew of a safe address. He got this woman to write a letter of in-
struction to the doctor. The note was sent with de Winter. Enroute,
she was arrested by the Germans, who found this letter on her.
"During this time Trepper used a woman, named Botsais, as
intermediary between himself and Spaak. Trepper went regularly,
every Sunday, to the Church d'Auteuil, where he hoped to meet
the contact sent by the Military Attache in London. He did not
know yet that the printer, who had been carrying his message to the
Military Attache, had been arrested by the Germans. When he de-
cided that he could no longer risk going to the rendezvous himself,
Trepper sent Botsais in his place.
"On Sunday, 17 October 1943, when Botsais failed to return
from the rendezvous, Trepper went to Spaak 's house, from where
he telephoned the boarding house where he was staying. He learned
that the Gestapo had been there and was on his traces.
"From this time on, Spaak was also in danger. Trepper advised
him to flee immediately but to leave word with the woman at Bourg
La Reine as to where he would be. Spaak did that.
"On Tuesday, 19 October 1943, Spaak sent his wife and their
two children to Belgium, to stay with his parents. He remained in
Paris. That day he met with some delegates from the French Com-
munist Party, at 1030 hours, at the Church de la Trinite, in Paris.
The meeting itself took place on the outskirts of Paris.
"Spaak saw Trepper for the last time before the liberation on
France 125
Thursday, 21 October 1943, and told him the result of his meeting
with the delegates of the French Communist Party.
"On Saturday, 23 October 1943, Spaak telephoned to his
home and spoke to his housekeeper. He had arranged with her that,
in case the Germans should be in his apartment, she was to answer
the phone with, 'Bonjour, Monsieur,' and, if they were not there,
she was to say, 'Bonjour, Monsieur Spaak,' at the beginning of the
conversation. It so happened that, at the moment he called, the
Germans were in the apartment. The housekeeper spoke the agreed
phrase and, during the conversation, gave Spaak to understand that
the Germans were and had been
there, physically, in his apartment,
for the past week. That day, the Germans arrested Spaak 's brother
and sister-in-law.
"On Monday, 25 October 1943, Spaak sent a message to his
wife in Belgium to inform her of his whereabouts. Then he returned
to Paris, where he hid out at the home of some friends, until the
end of the war.
"In November, 1944, Spaak saw Trepper again. At this meet-
ing, Trepper told Spaak he had just come back to Moscow, where he
had gone immediately after the liberation. Trepper saw Spaak sever-
al times during November and December, 1944, and, for the last
time, in December. As he bid him farewell, Trepper admonished
Spaak to keep silent about the affair in which he had become mixed
up, and to take care of de Winter's requests for money until the
money left with Spaak by the Sokols was all used.
"Since the end of December, 1944, Spaak had not seen or
spoken to Trepper. Spaak presumed Trepper had gone to Moscow."
There are three Spaak brothers: Charles Spaak is the well-

known cinema personality who has lived most of his life in France;
Paul Henri Spaak is the former Prime Minister of Belgium and Sec-
retary General of NATO; Jean Claude Spaak, the writer, is the one
who played an important part in the Rote Kapelle. Suzanne Spaak,
the first wife of Jean Claude, was executed by the Gestapo.
On 23 October 1943 Jean Claude's brother, Charles, was arrest-
ed. Jean Claude Spaak and Ruth Peters escaped and hid independ-
ently. Jean Claude's wife, Suzanne, was arrested in the Ardennes
and interned in Fresnes Prison until her execution on 12 July 1944.
Trepper had given Jean Claude Spaak one hundred and fifty thou-
sand francs for Georgie de Winter's use, and he handed this out to
Georgie, who drew on it after her release from prison until it was
exhausted in 1946.
Jean Claude Spaak's last known home address was 11 rue de
Beaujolais, Paris.
The British study of the Rote Kapelle places emphasis on
Claude Spaak as Trepper 's assistant:
The confidence which Trepper reposed in Spaak

suggests that he was a well-known and well-
tried friend of the USSR, if not of the GRU.
Ruth who lived with Spaak and assisted him in his work
Peters,
for Trepper, became Spaak's second wife early in 1946.
Concerning Suzanne Spaak, Pannwitz has commented as fol-
lows:
"In spite of her involvement with Trepper, Mme. Spaak was a

very likeable woman who made an unforgettable impression. She
was a serious, calm woman who looked at everyone with her large,
protruding eyes in a composed fashion. Obviously she had followed
her parlor-pink sympathies. She regarded all of her actions as an in-
tellectualgame and could never bring herself to sacrifice her com-
fortable living to become an effective and active worker for any
cause. She was above all an artist with very modern taste in paint-
ing, which the pictures, painted by her and hung in her apartment,
indicated. Although we felt a great pity for her, she was too deeply
involved for us to help her. She and Mme. May were brought to
court with the others and sentenced to death. Mme. May actually
received two death sentences, one for aiding the enemy and the oth-
er for concealing weapons. An order existed at that time that Hitler
must review every death sentence passed by the courts against for-
eign women. He changed Mme. May's into ten years in prison, but
let the death sentence remain for Mme. Spaak. It was evident to us
that his action resulted from the fact that Paul Henri Spaak was
leader of the Belgian Government in exile in London. I personally
petitioned Berlin to have the sentence commuted on the grounds
that Mme. Spaak was needed in the search for her husband, the
brother of the Minister President. My petition was immediately ap-
proved. proposed to Berlin that Mme. Spaak be asked to assist in
I
husband with the promise that the death sentence

the search for her
would never be carried out if her husband was found and both of
them remained in prison for the remainder of the war. Berlin agreed
clearly and unequivocally to this proposal. Mme. Spaak was in the
France 127
military prison of Paris, Fresnes, in which the security police kept all
their prisoners, but which was administered by the military authori-
ties. The only exception to the rule were the 'noble prisoners,' se-
curity police prisoners who were housed

Boemelburg's villa and in
those prisoners, Kent, Barcza, and Lyon-Smith, housed in my villa.
I proposed to Mme. Spaak that she send her husband a letter through
her children in which she outline the German She had asked
offer.
the prison officials prior to writing the letter whether we would and
could keep our word. The officials arranged for her to talk with me
once more. I once more wrote Berlin, asking for reassurance and
emphasizing that in this case I had to keep my word. I received a
firm, positive answer that the promise would be kept. After the sec-
ond assurance, Mme. Spaak wrote the letter as instructed and en-
closed two small dolls which she had made out of her own hair for
her children. The children, who were
living with their grandmother
in Brussels, received the letter. The father must have learned of the
contents of the letter but he had not appeared as of the time we
withdrew from Paris. At the time of the German withdrawal from
Paris the transportation of the Paris-Fresnes prisoners was handled
by the military prison administration. I knew positively that the
commutation of the death sentence into a prison sentence in Mme.
Spaak' s case was never revoked. I had always believed that she was
taken to a prison in Germany. This belief was supported by the fact
that toward the end of the war, in April 1945, I received a radio
message from Kriminaldirektor (Horst) Kopkow of the RSHA, while
I was in Heiligenberg on Lake Constance, asking my opinion of an
exchange of Mme. Spaak for German prisoners. Inasmuch as I had

no particular opinions, I did not express myself one way or the oth-
er, but from this letter I had always assumed that Mme. Spaak had
been exchanged before the end of the war. I was confronted in Mos-
cow with the accusation that Mme. Spaak had been executed while
still in Paris-Fresnes. I simply did not believe this. Since I returned
from the Soviet Union, however, I have heard that she was report-
edly executed. If that is a fact, a horrible mistake occurred some-
where, because as far
as my Kommando
and the Security Police were
concerned, the change of death sentence to prison sentence had
never been reversed. The responsibility can only lie with the admin-
istrative offices of the prison where the commuted death sentence
may have been overlooked in the files. It was neither possible for,
nor the responsibility of, my Kommando to supervise the prison
transport from Paris during the final hectic days of the withdrawal.
It is most regrettable that all of our efforts to save this woman's life
were in vain because of a stupid and horrible administrative mis-

take."
When Pannwitz was interrogated in Moscow, the KGB was very

interested in the case of Suzanne Spaak. Pannwitz states:
"In order to discredit me as a serious witness against him,

Trepper had told them that shortly before the German retreat from
Paris I had appeared in uniform in the company of several other
people at the cemetery near Fresnes Prison. He alleged that I had
introduced myself to the cemetery caretaker by true name, ordered
him to dig a grave, shot Mrs. Spaak in the caretaker's presence, and
then ordered him to close the grave. The Soviet interrogator tried
unsuccessfully for nine months to get me to sign a statement con-
fessing my responsibility for Mrs. Spaak 's death. During these inter-
rogations I learned that Mrs. Spaak had been carried in the Soviet
agent card files under the cover name of 'Intelligentka,' and had
once been a valuable and long-time agent. This came out repeated-
ly, and I am convinced it is true."
The case of Suzanne Spaak was extremely poignant. While

awaiting execution Suzanne knitted a necktie for her son, using two
toothpicks as knitting needles. The Germans suspected she had
somehow hidden a coded message in the necktie and refused to de-
liver it.
XV. The Return to Moscow
In January 1945 Trepper, Alexander Rado, and Alexander

Foote, travelling under aliases, left Paris for Moscow by plane. All
the passengers were supposedly Russian PW's who were being repa-
triated to the USSR, and all held Russian repatriation certificates
which had been furnished by the recently established Soviet Repa-
triation Mission.
Sukolov left Paris with Heinz Pannwitz of the Sonderkomman-
do on 16 August 1944. They continued the playback from various
locations until May 1945. They were captured by a French military
force in a mountain hut near Bludenz, Vorarlberg, Austria, on 3
May 1945. Sukolov declared that he was an RIS officer in the Red
Army and that Pannwitz was in the German underground. As proof
he showed to the French cables from the Center in Moscow.
Pannwitz and Sukolov were taken to Paris for interrogation. On
France 129
7 June 1945 they were flown to Moscow. Arrangements for the

flight were made by Colonel fnu Novikov of the Soviet Military Mis-
sion.
Germany 131
CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROTE KAPELLE IN GERMANY
1930 Arvid Harnack, a lecturer in economics at Giessen

University, began to organize groups of Commu-
nists and left-wing sympathizers. He was assisted
by his American-born wife, Mildred, nee Fish, also
a convinced Communist.
April 1933 Harro Schulze-Boysen, a young journalist, was

arrested and tortured by the SS for his political
views and activities and for his association with
the leftist publication Der Gegner.
1934 Schulze-Boysen, through family connections, was

appointed to the News Department of the Air
Ministry.
c. 1935 Alexander Erdberg, under the cover of the Soviet

Trade Delegation in Berlin, began laying the
groundwork for an intelligence network in Ger-
many.
1936 Schulze-Boysen married Libertas Haas-Heye, who

came from prominent German-Swedish family.
a
He organized and led a Communist group in Ber-

lin with the assistance of Libertas, who was deeply
implicated in his illegal work.
Schulze-Boysen, employed at the Air Ministry,

passed a report on plans for military operations
against Republican Spain to the Soviet Embassy in
Berlin. Gisela von Poellnitz, a well-known Com-
munist, acted as the intermediary.
1936 or 1937 Rudolf von Scheliha, a career diplomat in the Ger-

man Foreign Office, was recruited for Soviet intel-
ligence in Warsaw by the journalist Rudolf Herrn-

stadt. Von Scheliha used the stenographer Use
Stoebe as his cut-out to Herrnstadt.
April 1939 Victor Sukolov, the leader of the Belgian network,

traveled to Germany and probably made contact
with Alexander Erdberg.
August 1939 Rudolf Herrnstadt left Poland for Lithuania on

the eve of the German invasion, leaving with Use
Stoebe the responsibility for handling von Scheli-
ha's reports.
September 1939 Von Scheliha left Warsaw for reassignment at the
Foreign Office in Berlin. In Berlin he secured em-

ployment for Use Stoebe at the Press Office.
late 1940 Erdberg recruited Arvid Harnack for Soviet intel-
ligence. Erdberg had already been exploiting Har-

nack as a source of information for several years,
possibly since 1935. Harnack was instructed to
recruit sub-agents and to develop communica-
tions channels.
early 1941 Harnack introduced Harro Schulze-Boysen to Erd-

berg. Erdberg recruited Schulze-Boysen. Schulze-
Boysen set out to recruit several of his left-wing
friends for intelligence duties.
Harnack accepted a position in the German Min-

istry of Economics as an advisor on foreign ex-
change, probably at the urging of Alexander Erd-

berg.
January 1941 Schulze-Boysen was appointed to the liaison staff
of the Luftwaffe Chiefs of Staff.
Spring 1941 Erdberg gave Hans Coppi a small battery trans-

mitter. A few days later he gave him a more pow-
erful transmitter concealed in a suitcase. Coppi
was instructed to establish radio contact with Mos-
cow. The however, did not function properly,
set,
and satisfactory communications with Moscow

were not achieved.
22 June 1941 The Germans invaded the USSR. The Soviet Em-
Germany 133
bassy and the Trade Delegation were withdrawn.

There were no effective communications between
Moscow and the Berlin groups.
November 1941 Victor Sukolov made a trip to Germany with in-
structions to contact Schulze-Boysen, Harnack,

and Use Stoebe. The purpose of the trip was to re-
store a communications link between the German
groups and Moscow.
Kurt Schulze gave Hans Coppi a new radio set
(provided by Sukolov) and trained him as an oper-
ator. A courier channel established by Sukolov be-
tween Berlin and Brussels began to operate.
May 1942 Two Soviet parachute agents, Erna Eifler and Wil-
helm Fellendorf, were dropped in East Prussia
with instructions to contact Use Stoebe. They
could not locate Stoebe and took shelter with
Bernhard Baestlein in Hamburg.
5 August 1942 Two more parachute agents, Albert Hoessler and

Robert Barth, were dropped near Gemel. Their
mission was to go to Berlin and to provide as-
sistance to the Schulze-Boysen group. Hoessler
had several meetings with Schulze-Boysen in Ber-
lin.
August 1942 Schulze-Boysen attempted to establish a courier

link with Switzerland through Marcel Melliand, a
businessman with excellent connections there.

Johann Wenzel, the arrested radio operator of the
Belgian network, revealed his codes to the Ger-
mans. As a result, they were able to decipher mes-
sages they had intercepted earlier. One of these
messages contained the name and address of Use
Stoebe. Another contained the names of Harnack
and Schulze-Boysen.
30 August 1942 Schulze-Boysen was arrested in Berlin. A

warning
from Horst Heilmann, who worked in the Cipher
Section of the OKH (Army Chiefs of Staff), had
failed to reach him in time. The arrests of the
other members of Schulze-Boysen's group and of
Harnack's group followed shortly.
12 September Use Stoebe was arrested by the Gestapo in Berlin.

1942 After seven weeks of interrogation, she admitted
that she was a Soviet agent.
27 September Robert Barth established wireless communica-

1942 tions with Moscow and passed three messages an-
nouncing his arrival and his difficulty in finding
quarters.
early October Albert Hoessler was arrested by the Germans. His

1942 radio was used in a playback operation until Feb-
ruary 1943.
9 October 1942 Robert Barth was arrested.
20 October Wilhelm Guddorf, an important member of the

1942 Harnack and Schulze-Boysen groups, was arrested.
His interrogation led to the arrest of Bernhard
Baestlein and of several other Communists in
Hamburg.
23 October 1942 Heinrich Koenen (alias Koester), a Soviet agent,

was parachuted into Germany from the USSR. Af-
ter the failure of Erna Eifler to contact Use Stoebe
and to transmit von Scheliha's report, Koenen was
dispatched for this purpose. He was equipped
with a W/T set and the verbal recognition signal,
"greetings from Rudi" (Rudolf Herrnstadt). He
also carried a copy of a receipt for 6,500 dollars
signed by von Scheliha in 1938. This was to be
used, if necessary, to blackmail von Scheliha. Von
Scheliha, fearing for his safety, had become a re-
calcitrant source.
26 October At a stakeout of Use Stoebe's residence in Berlin,

1942 the Germans observed Koenen as he tried to make
contact with Stoebe. (A female employee of the
Gestapo impersonated Stoebe.) The Germans fol-
lowed Koenen and arrested him that evening in a
cafe.
29 October Von Scheliha was arrested by the Gestapo at the

1942 frontier control point near Konstanz.
Germany 135
late October Erna Eifler and Wilhelm Fellendorf, probably be-

1942 trayed by Wilhelm Guddorf, were arrested in
Hamburg.
December 1942 At a secret trial in Berlin, Rudolf von Scheliha and

Use Stoebe were convicted of treason and sen-
tenced to death.
19 December Thirteen members of the German network of the

1942 Rote Kapelle were convicted of treason at a court
martial in Berlin. Eleven of them received death
sentences. Mildred Harnack was sentenced to six
years in prison, and Erika von Brockdorf, to ten
years. Hitler confirmed the death sentences but
ordered new trials for Mildred Harnack and Erika
von Brockdorf.
22 December Harro and Libertas Schulze-Boysen, Arvid Har-

1942 nack, Hans Coppi, Kurt Schumacher, Elizabeth
Schumacher, Horst Heilmann, Kurt Schulze, Jo-
hann Graudenz, Use Stoebe, and Rudolf von Sche-
liha were executed at Ploetzensee Prison in Berlin.
In accordance with German law, the eight men
were hanged and the three women were beheaded.
(All future executions were by beheading.)
13 May 1943 Walter Husemann, Karl Behrens, Wilhelm Gud-

dorf, Walter Kuckenmeister, Philippe Schaeffer,
Hans-Helmuth Himpel, Erika von Brockdorf, and
six other members of the Berlin group were exe-
cuted.
5 August 1943 Marie Terwiel, Hilde Coppi, Adam Kuckhoff, Oda

Schottmueller, Eva Buch, Anna Kraus, Rose
Schloesinger, and eight others were executed in
Berlin.
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Germany 139

IN GERMANY
I. Background
A far-reaching Soviet espionage network was discovered in Ger-
many during World War II. This network was comprised of groups
led by Harro Schulze-Boysen, Arvid Harnack, and Rudolf von Sche-
liha. The separate groups were linked together in Germany and also
had occasional contacts with Rote Kapelle agents in other countries,
particularly in Belgium and in France. According to Guenther Wei-
senborn, an author-dramatist who was a member of the Schulze-
Boysen group, the Berlin branch of the Rote Kapelle had two hun-
dred eighty- three members. This figure cannot be verified. It may
be within reason for the total network, but more of the members of
the three nets were engaged in covert anti-Nazi propaganda, not in
espionage.
The first two active agents were Rudolf von Scheliha and his ac-
complice, Use Stoebe. They were both recruited in Warsaw by the
journalist Rudolf Herrnstadt, the former in 1937 and the latter per-
haps a The next in succession was Arvid Harnack, re-
little earlier.
cruited in Berlin by Alexander Erdberg of the Soviet Trade Delega-

tion either at the end of 1940 or the beginning of 1941. (Erdberg
was an alias. His true identity has not been ascertained.) The last of
the major figures to be recruited was Harro Schulze-Boysen. He was
introduced by Harnack to Erdberg and formally recruited by the lat-
ter early in 1941.
The organization as a whole was thus in three parts: Harnack'

group, Schulze-Boysen' s group, and the Stoebe- Scheliha group. Of
these, the first two were so closely intermingled as to form in effect
a single network. The third group, that of von Scheliha, functioned
independently of the other two. (It is probable, however, as is con-
firmed by various interrogation reports, that some contact among all
three groups did exist and especially between Stoebe and Schulze-
Boysen.)
Stoebe and von Scheliha were active as agents over a period of

more than five years. Schulze-Boysen and Harnack had much short-
er careers. Their lives as agents did not last much more than a year,
from a little before June 1941 until the end of August 1942. Al-
though Schulze-Boysen and Harnack were both ardent Communists
before 1941, they were not at that time recruited Soviet agents and
had no effective link with Moscow. Their political activities against
the Third Reich from 1933 to 1941 were therefore not carried out as
part of the Rote Kapelle organization. Like numerous groups in oth-
er parts of the world, however, the undercover political factions led
by Harnack and Schulze-Boysen later developed into espionage net-
works.
II. The Schulze-Boysen Group
Harro Schulze-Boysen was known to the Gestapo as early as
1933. While he was still a student, he founded a resistance group,

the Gegner Organization, with the object of bringing together dis-
contented elements from all parties. His next step was to leave the
Jungdeutschen Order for the Schwarze Front and to approach
Thomas Mann, Ludwig Renn, Paul Loebe, the former president of
the Reichstag, and other emigres. In 1933 Schulze-Boysen spent
three months in prison because of his political agitation.
After his release from prison, Schulze-Boysen resumed his ac-
tive opposition to the Nazi state. In Berlin he became the leader of
a Communist group composed of artists and workers. He collected
Communist propaganda pamphlets and leaflets, which he distribu-
ted to sympathizers and later to doctors, professors, and police offi-
cials in Berlin. These activities reached their peak at the time of the
outbreak of the Russo-German war. Schulze-Boysen 's pamphlets
were then being sent to members of the Wehrmacht serving at the
front.
At the time of the exhibition "Das Soviet Paradies," organized
in the Lustgarten in Berlin in 1942, Schulze-Boysen ran a rival post-
er campaign throughout greater Berlin under the slogan:
Exhibition: The Nazi Paradise

War — Hunger — Lies — Gestapo
How much longer?
The Schulze-Boysen network consisted of people belonging to
all classes of German society. His organization grouped together in-
Germany 141
dividuals who for one reason or another were in opposition to the

National With the help of his wife, Libertas, who
Socialist Party.
was a friend of Hermann Goering, Schulze-Boysen eventually suc-

ceeded in influencing intellectual circles along Communist lines.
The following persons were the most important members of the
Schulze-Boysen group:
Erwin Gehrts, a colonel in the Luftwaffe;
Johannes Graudenz, a salesman;
Helmuth Himpel, a dentist;
Gunther Weisenborn, a writer and drama
critic for the Berlin Schiller Theater;
Philip Schaeffer, a librarian;
Walter Husemann, an editor;
Walter Kuchenmeister, a writer;
Kurt Schumacher, a sculptor;
Hans Coppi, an errand boy;
Herbert Gollnow, a Luftwaffe officer;
Horst Heilmann, an employee in the cipher

section of the Abwehr;
Kurt Schulze, a postal worker;
Adam Kuckhoff, a film producer;
Wilhelm Guddorf, a writer;
Erika von Brockdorf, an employee in the
Ministry of Labor in Berlin.
These persons were all regular recipients of Schulze-Boysen' s pam-
phlets and read them with great interest. An example of Schulze-
Boysen' s skill as a pamphleteer was the political essay he wrote on
Napoleon Bonaparte, which was circulated to a large number of in-

tellectuals, Army officers, and other officials. Schulze-Boysen cited
historical authority to show that the policy on which Napoleon's
campaign in Russia was based and which led to his downfall was ex-
actly parallel to the policy of Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Schulze-Boysen and his wife, Libertas, held at their house fre-
quent evening discussions during which they sought to influence
their guests. Listening to enemy broadcasts was a matter of course.
Libertas was an impulsive woman of great personal ambition. She
was one of her husband's most active agents and exercised consider-
able influence over his opinions. She was fully aware of his activities
and took part in them as a courier, a writer of seditious pamphlets,
and a recruiter for the group. Whenever her husband was temporar-
ily absent, she acted as his deputy in the organization. After
Schulze-Boysen's arrest, Libertas attempted to conceal or to destroy

material evidence. She was also responsible for the warning given to
other members of the group in September 1942 when the roundup
began. Her warning, however, came too late.
Schulze-Boysen's intelligence-gathering activities began in the

year 1936. Then employed at the Air Ministry, he was able to obtain
information about the secret plans for military operations to be di-
rected against the Republican government in Spain. With the help
of his wife Schulze-Boysen passed a report on this matter to the Rus-
sian Embassy in Berlin through Gisela von Poellnitz, who was well
known for her Communist activities. As a result of this information,
the Republican authorities in Spain shortly afterwards took measures
in the neighborhood of Barcelona to counter a projected undertak-
ing by Franco forces.
In 1940, through Heinrich Scheel, an inspector in the Luft-
waffe's Meteorological Service, Schulze-Boysen was brought into
contact with a Communist composed of former
discussion group
students of the Scharfenberg-Augbau School in Berlin-Tegel. Hans
Coppi was a member of this group. Early in 1941 he was recruited
by Schulze-Boysen and became the latter 's wireless operator. In the
spring of 1941 Alexander Erdberg gave Coppi, with Schulze-Boy-
sen's knowledge, a battery transmitter. This was intended to act as a
mobile wireless station through which contact could be maintained
with various small boats owned by members of the group. The pow-
er and frequency range of the set were limited. The transmitter was
finally discovered in thehouse of a university professor, Dr. Gustav
Roloff, where it had been hidden by his son, Helmuth Roloff, the
well-known Berlin pianist.
A few days after the first transmitter was handed over, Erdberg,
again with Schulze-Boysen's knowledge, gave Coppi a second set.
This set was a modern transmitter and receiver concealed in a suit-
case. While Coppi was testing this set, however, he plugged it into
direct current and blew the transformer and the tubes. Coppi and
other technicians tried to put the set into working order, but they
were not entirely successful.
After these failures Coppi was put into touch with a certain
Kurt Schulze (alias Berg), a Communist official who was then a
driver in the postal service. Schulze had previously been a naval
wireless operator. Schulze-Boysen arranged this meeting, which took
place in November 1941, through Walter Husemann, the former
editor of a Communist paper in Mannheim who had spent many
s
Germany 143
years in prison because of his political activities. Schulze trained

Coppi as an operator and at the end of 1941 gave him a transmitter
and receiver of the most modern type.
In 1927 Kurt Schulze had been officially withdrawn from the
Communist Party and transferred to illegal work. In 1928 he visited
the radio school in Moscow and was afterwards employed in Berlin
as an emergency wireless operator. During the next ten years three
wireless sets delivered by the Russian Embassy in Berlin passed

through his hands. All the Soviet officials with whom he was in con-
tact were members of either the Embassy or the Trade Delegation.
He was paid a few thousand marks, and some part of this sum was
found when his lodgings were searched.
Using the set supplied to him by Schulze, Coppi made several
attempts to establish wireless communications with Moscow. He
worked first from his own house, then from that of Oda Schott-
mueller, and finally from that of Erika von Brockdorf. This last loca-
tion was used by him at the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942.
Both Schottmueller and von Brockdorf were on intimate terms with
Kurt Schulze and willingly placed their houses at Coppi' s disposal.
Johannes Graudenz, a salesman, was one of Schulze-Boysen'
most valuable informants. In addition, he produced a large number
of propaganda leaflets, which he printed on two machines. Early in
1942 Graudenz informed Schulze-Boysen that he knew Marcel Mel-
liand, a businessman who sympathized with their left-wing opinions
and who had very good contacts in Switzerland. Schulze-Boysen
then asked Graudenz to establish a link with Switzerland through
Melliand, and the latter agreed. This link was tried for the first time
in August 1942. Schulze-Boysen instructed Graudenz to ask Mel-
liand to make a trip to Switzerland for the purpose of forwarding a
report from there to England. This report contained the information
that the German Army was in possession of an English radio code,
knew that a convoy was assembling in Ireland, and also knew that it
would be sailing early in August for the north Russian ports. This
information did not in fact ever reach England because Melliand was
unable to obtain a permit for the trip.
Graudenz subsequently produced a number of other political,

military, and economic reports. He was, among other things, an
agent for the firm Blumhardt of Wuppertal, which built aircraft un-
dercarriages, and obtained his information through business and
personal contacts with members of the Air Ministry. His most im-
portant coup was to obtain the production figures of the Luftwaffe
for June and August 1942. He had managed to elicit these in a con-
versation with Hans Gerhard Henniger, an inspector in the Air Min-
istry.
Schulze-Boysen consistently tried to find new sources of infor-

mation among persons holding military or official positions. He was
successful in obtaining information from Horst Heilmann, a wireless
operator and cadet, and from Herbert Gollnow, a lieutenant in the
Luftwaffe. An active member of the Hitler Jugend and later of the
Party, Heilmann was employed until the time of his arrest as a deci-
pherer of English, French, and Russian conversations in the Cipher
Section of the OKH (Army Chiefs of Staff). He came to know
Schulze-Boysen, by whom he was much influenced, while the latter
was conducting a class at the Institute of Foreign Affairs in Berlin.
Schulze-Boysen took great pains with Heilmann and believed him
to be an efficient worker. They collaborated in preparing a docu-
ment which set out the general political problems of the First World
War and made several comparisons to the current war. This docu-
ment had Heilmann was fully aware of
a strong anti-Nazi bias.
Schulze-Boysen' s and offered to supply him with all
illegal activities
of the important information which he learned in the course of his

work. On the day of Schulze-Boysen' s arrest, Heilmann passed to
Libertas Schulze-Boysen a wireless message concerning the discovery
of the group. His office had deciphered a message which constituted
a warning to all the persons involved. Heilmann also managed to re-
cruit a certain Alfred Trexl, employed in the Western Section of the
Cipher Office.
Herbert Gollnow also came into touch with Schulze-Boysen
through the Institute of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, where he was
studying. Under the guise of assisting Gollnow in his work, Schulze-
Boysen was able to exercise a political influence over him and to
convert him to Communism, although he had previously been a
Nazi. Gollnow was also in close contact with the Harnacks and had
intimate relations with Mildred Harnack. Through his gross careless-
ness Gollnow gave away to the Harnacks a good part of the secrets of
the Abwehr, which found their way into the Schulze-Boysen wireless
messages sent to Moscow via Brussels. Later Gollnow became a wit-
ting source.
Schulze-Boysen was also a close friend of Colonel Erwin Gehrts
of the Air Ministry. They had both taken part over a period of years
in Communist discussion groups which had the goal of preparing
the ground politically for a new Germany. Schulze-Boysen gave
Germany 145
Gehrts pamphlets which he had prepared and kept him informed of

interesting events in the department of the Air Ministry where he
worked. In return he received from Gehrts all the information which
the latter received officially in his capacity as a staff officer. Schulze-
Boysen used part of this information in his own reports and passed a
part to Harnack. Gehrts, a member of the Confessional Movement,
leaned toward metaphysics and the occult. So superstitious was he
that he even resorted to Anna Kraus, a fortune teller, for advice on
official matters and allowed himself to be influenced by her. Anna
Kraus was later arrested. She also cast horoscopes for many of the
other persons in the group, including Johannes Graudenz, whom
she told that he would have a political role to play in the future. In
trance-like states Anna Kraus described the political structure of the
Reich after the collapse of the Nazi regime. She was fully informed
about the activities of Schulze-Boysen and his group and frequently
received pamphlets from them. She exercised a hypnotic influence
on many of the officials involved in the Berlin group and greatly
strengthened their attitude of opposition to the State.
The Schulze-Boysen group was having extreme difficulty in es-
tablishing a direct wireless link between Berlinand Moscow. Moscow
therefore decided in August 1942 to send to Germany parachute
agents who had received special training at schools in Moscow and
the Urals. Their mission was to intensify the work which was being
done and to establish a direct wireless link. On 5 August 1942 two
persons were dropped from a Soviet long-distance bomber in the vi-
cinity of Gemel: Albert Hoessler and Robert Barth, who both wore
the uniforms of non-commissioned officers in the German artillery.
The former was a Communist official who used the aliases Franz,
Helmuth Wiegner, and Walter Stein. Barth, who had previously
worked on the Communist newspaper Rote Fahne in Berlin, used
the aliases Beck and Walter Kersten. After their landing these two
travelled to Berlin, where they were to take up their work. Both
Hoessler and Barth had been recruited by Alexander Erdberg.
Hoessler emigrated from Germany to Czechoslovakia in 1933.
He laterworked as a Communist official in Belgium and Holland;
and in 1937 he fought in Spain on the Republican side. After the
war he went to the Soviet Union. There, after thorough training in
politics, intelligence, radio, parachute jumping, and sabotage, he
was selected for work in the Rote Kapelle organization in Berlin. A

few days after his arrival in Berlin, Hoessler made contact with one
of Schulze-Boysen' s closest associates, the sculptor Kurt Schumach-
er, and his wife. Schumacher gave Hoessler every assistance, shel-
tered him in his house at Tempelhof, and put him in touch with
Schulze-Boysen. Recognizing Hoessler' s importance, Schulze-Boysen
had a number of meetings with him, including one in a Berlin army
barracks, and introduced him to the W/T operator Coppi. From
that time until their arrest Hoessler and Coppi attempted to estab-
lish a wireless link with Moscow. They operated from the houses of
various Communists in Berlin and especially from the studio of Eri-
ka von Brockdorf. Satisfactory communications with Moscow, how-
ever, were never established.
The second agent, Robert Barth, was arrested in Berlin on 9
October 1942. During the war he had served as a soldier at the front
and had been wounded and decorated. Later he was taken prisoner
while fighting on the Eastern Front. He declared himself as an ex-
employee of the Rote Fahne and was eventually, after long training,
dispatched to Germany as a parachute agent. His mission was to re-
cruit further agents in Berlin and on the economic and po-

to report
litical situation in Germany. He was to remain in close touch with
Hoessler. By 27 September 1942 Barth had already established wire-

less communication with Moscow and had passed three messages an-
nouncing his arrival and his difficulty in finding quarters. Hoessler

and Barth had several meetings in Berlin, at which they exchanged
experiences in the matter of finding quarters and living under cover.
III. The Harnack Group

Dr. Arvid Harnack was the son of Otto Harnack, a professor at
Darmstadt who committed suicide in 1941 while of unsound mind.
Arvid Harnack had been interested in socialism for many years and
finally drifted to the Communist Party. His progress in this direc-
tion was accelerated by his friendship with various members of the
Soviet Embassy and the Soviet Trade Delegation. Har-
in Berlin
nack' s contacts with the Soviet Embassy were systematically exploit-
ed for intelligence purposes. His principal Soviet friends during this
period were Sergei Bessonov, a counselor at the Embassy, fnu
Hirschberg, one of the secretaries, and two other members of the
Embassy staff. In addition, the undercover member of the Soviet
Trade Delegation who used the name Alexander Erdberg exercised
great influence on Harnack until the outbreak of the Russo-German
war and was able to persuade him to act for the Soviets as an intelli-
gence agent.
Germany 147
Alexander Erdberg had been in Germany for several years prior

to the outbreak of the Russo-German war, possibly since 1935. At
some point he was directed to take charge of the German agent net-
works, probably as a replacement for Bessonov, who became a vic-
tim of the Stalinist purges. Bessonov disappeared from Berlin in
February 1937 under unusual circumstances and was sentenced in
1938 to fifteen years in prison. It is likely that when Sukolov went to
Germany in April 1939, he made contact with Erdberg. In October
1941 Moscow instructed Sukolov to make another trip to Germany
and to get in touch with Erdberg. Erdberg recruited agents, gave
them the necessary equipment and funds, and arranged for their
W/T training. He also sent several agents to Moscow from Germany
for training. Among these were the agents who were ultimately re-
turned to Germany by parachute and directed to contact the
Schulze-Boysen, Harnack, and von Scheliha groups. Erdberg may
have been responsible for arranging monthly payments of one hun-
dred two hundred fifty marks to owners of safehouses for
fifty to
harboring These arrangements were made just prior

illegal visitors.
to the withdrawal of the Soviet Embassy from Germany in June

1941.
Through Harnack, Erdberg was able to recruit without difficul-
ty Dr. Adam Kuckhoff, a man of Communist sympathies who had
been a friend of Harnack since 1930. In reply to a question about
his political intentions, Kuckhoff stated:
Harnack and I worked Communist Ger-

for a
many with a national planned economy. Our
view was that such Communist states should be
organized everywhere. In order to achieve this
objective, Harnack and I set for ourselves the
task of converting our friends to Communism.
Shortly before the outbreak of the Russo-German war in June
1941, Erdberg gave Kuckhoff, with Harnack's agreement, a com-
plete wireless transmitter. This set was returned to Erdberg a week
later because it could not be put in working order. The handing
over and subsequent return of the transmitter took place, like most
of the meetings of this group, in an underground railway station
under conditions of strict secrecy.
Erdberg gave Dr. Harnack twelve thousand reichsmarks and
Dr. Kuckhoff five hundred reichsmarks for the expenses of the
group. Harnack distributed the money he received among his agents
and acquaintances. Adolf Grimme received two thousand marks,

Karl Behrens, five thousand; Leo Skrzipczynski, three thousand;
and Rose Schloesinger, one thousand. The balance of the money
was used by Harnack himself.
Adolf Grimme had been brought into the group in 1937. He
had previously made the acquaintance of Kuckhoff during his peri-
od of office as Minister of Culture (1930-1933). Grimme, however,
was a strongly religious socialist, and it required a considerable ef-
fort to convince him to go over to the side of Communism. Harnack
and Kuckhoff finally succeeded, as the latter said, "in uniting
Grimme firmly with Communism."
Prior to 1933 Adam
Kuckhoff had been an editor of Tat. At
had been acquainted with Johann Sieg, a member of
that time he
the Communist Party and formerly a member of the Rote Fahne
staff. Sieg was brought into the organization in 1940.
Much hard work was done by the group in discussing and dis-
seminating Communist theories. Previously had

these discussions
been based on material supplied by the individual members from
their own resources —
for example, from the secret material available
to Harnack as a result of his employment in the Ministry of Eco-
nomics. Johann Sieg now took the initiative and created an illegal
newspaper, Die Innere Front, the first number of which had a large
sale in Berlin. The group also discussed the latest pamphlets distrib-
uted by Schulze-Boysen and his fellow workers, as well as various ec-
onomic essays produced by Harnack. It was the ultimate intention
of the group to prepare for the break-up of Nazi Germany, which
was expected to occur in 1943, and to organize the immediate crea-
tion of a Communist government which could then form an alliance
with the Soviet Union.
In the summer of 1942 Sieg recruited another member of the
troup, Wilhelm Guddorf, a Communist writer. He was born in
1902, the son of aGerman professor at the University of Ghent. He
had been a member of the Communist Party since 1922 and had
worked as the editor of the Communist newspaper, Rote Fahne. In
1930 he made a long visit to the Soviet Union. Sentenced in 1934 to
three years in prison for treasonable activities, he was sent to a con-
centration camp where he remained until 1939. As soon as he was
released, he resumed his illegal work, despite serious warnings. He
later wrote:
The outbreak of war in the autumn of 1939

Germany 149
was the starting point for my renewed political

activity. had the impression that the agree-
I
ment with the Soviet Union formed the basis

for fresh Communist work. I began at the same
time to collect material about Russia from the
German press and also from Russian and other
foreign newspapers supplied to me by Schulze-
Boysen. Through Schulze-Boysen I also obtain-
ed military information to which he had access
as a Luftwaffe officer . . . We intended to cre-
ate a Communist government in Germany . . .
We intended to destroy the Third Reich and to

create a Communist government which could
enter into negotiations with the enemy. We
hoped to hasten the end of the war by propa-
ganda. Our view of the general situation was
that the German Front would collapse at the
end of 1943 and that this would be our oppor-
tunity.
After Guddorf s arrest on 20 October 1942, he revealed his ille-
gal Communist contacts in Hamburg. As a result of this informa-

tion, approximately eighty-five arrests were made, mainly in North
Sea dockyards. Through Bernhard Baestlein, a Communist official
in Hamburg, Guddorf had been in contact with two Soviet para-

chutists who had been dropped into East Prussia in May 1942 and
had taken refuge with sympathizers in Hamburg. Guddorf suggest-
ed to Harnack the possibility of establishing a direct wireless link
with Moscow through these agents. Harnack agreed and handed
over to Guddorf a report on German plans for operations in the
Caucasus, which was to be passed to Moscow through the Hamburg
link. (This report never reached its destination because the Gestapo
captured the transmitter before the necessary arrangements could be

made.) It was intended to move the parachute agents from Ham-
burg to Berlin. Guddorf had already found quarters in Berlin and,
through Harnack and Sieg, had obtained travel permits and ration
cards. This plan failed. Erna Eifler, a former member of the German
Communist and Wilhelm Heinrich Fellendorf, the two agents
Party,
involved, were arrested in October 1942.
Harnack' s attempt to establish a wireless link with Moscow
through the two parachute agents was in accordance with his agree-
ment with Alexander Erdberg in 1941. Shortly before the outbreak
of the Russo- German war, he had put Erdberg, at the latter' s re-
quest, into contact with his friend Schulze-Boysen. Erdberg attached

great importance to Schulze-Boysen' s work and saw in it the possi-
bility of establishing a permanent wireless link with Moscow.
Schulze-Boysen himself was delighted at this idea because it gave
him the opportunity at last of doing really active anti-Nazi work.
Until his arrest, Dr. Harnack acted as an intermediary and also
enciphered the messages sent to Moscow by wireless. The reports
were brought to him by Schulze-Boysen or his wife; and Harnack
passed them on to Hans Coppi, the wireless operator of the group.
For this purpose he used as an intermediary Karl Behrens. When
Behrens was called up by the Army, the typist Rose Schloesinger,
whose husband was on the Eastern Front, took his place.
When Harnack 's contact with the Soviet Embassy in Germany
was disrupted and when he failed to establish a direct W/T link
with Moscow, he arranged for his communications to be transmitted
through the German Communist Party in Hamburg (Bernhard
Baestlein) to the Soviet Embassy in Stockholm. From there they
were sent on to Moscow. The subjects of reports sent by this means
included the following, among many others:
(1) The existence of an important truck repair works at Iverlo

in Finland.
(2) The operational and reserve strength of the Luftwaffe on

the Eastern Front.
(3) Luftwaffe dispositions on the Eastern Front.
(4) The plans for troop movements down the Dnieper.
Harnack was consistently urged by Moscow to extend his espio-
nage network. With this goal in mind he tried over a period of
many months to bring influence to bear on his nephew, Wolfgang
Havemann, an assessor at the Potsdam High Court who later entered
the Navy. Havemann was aware of his uncle's activities. After his
arrest, he said: "It is now clear to me that I was denounced because
of conversations I had with my uncle and leaflets I received from

him." There is no doubt that Harnack intended to recruit Have-
mann as an agent. In a radio message dated 30 August 1941, Har-
nack gave Havemann 's name to the RIS under the code-name of
"Italiener."
IV. The von Scheliha Group

On 28 August 1941 a coded wireless message was intercepted
by a German shortwave station in Prague. In August of 1942 Johann
Germany 151
Wenzel, the arrested radio operator of the Belgian network, revealed

his codes, and the Germans were able to decipher the message
they had intercepted the year before. The message instructed the
Soviet agent Sukolov in Brussels to seek out a certain Use Stoebe
(alias Alte) at Wileandstr. 37, Berlin-Charlottenburg, and to ask her
to get in touch with the group in Brussels. She was described as an

important agent.
Use Stoebe was arrested in Berlin on 12 September 1942. After
seven weeks of interrogation she admitted that she was a Soviet
agent and had regularly given information for money to her friend
Rudolf Herrnstadt, a former member of the Berliner Tageblatt.
Stoebe was Herrnstadt 's mistress. (She contracted a venereal disease
from him and eventually became a chronic invalid.)
From the beginning of 1940 until August of the same year, and
again from early 1942 until July 1942, Use Stoebe made contact with
the German career diplomat Rudolf von Scheliha. She received from
him information of all kinds which she passed to an attache in the
Soviet Embassy. She also passed back to von Scheliha instructions
given to her by Herrnstadt and made to him a payment of three
thousand reichsmarks for work he had done.
Von Scheliha was arrested on 29 October 1942. He admitted
that he had been employed as a Soviet agent since 1937 and had
been recruited by Herrnstadt in Warsaw. He had then been attached
to the German Embassy in Warsaw, where he served from 1930 un-
til 1939- Von Scheliha also admitted that he had consistently sold
to Herrnstadt political information obtained from the German Em-

bassy in Warsaw. The extent of the damage done to the Germans by
von Scheliha is difficult to assess, but it was undoubtedly grave. He
was instructed by Moscow to report on such matters as the German-
Polish situation, the outcome of the conversations between the Pol-
ish Foreign Minister and the German Ambassador in Warsaw, the
adherence of various European states to the Three Power Pact, and
the attitude of the Foreign Office towards the threat of an English
invasion.
VonScheliha was exploited as a source in Poland from 1937
until September 1939, when he returned to the Foreign Office in
Berlin after the outbreak of war between Germany and Poland. He
became chief of the Information Department in the Ministry of For-
eign Affairs and attended the daily meetings of the chiefs of depart-
ments, where he had access to much important information.
Von Scheliha succeeded in placing Use Stoebe with the Press
Section of the Foreign Office, where she had official relations with
the Tass representative in Berlin. Until June 1941 von Scheliha's in-
telligence passed through Use Stoebe to Tass and then to the Soviet
Commercial Attache at the Berlin Embassy.
Moscow seems to have thought it unsafe to bring von Scheliha
into the Schulze-Boysen or Harnack organizations. Apart from pos-
sible danger to the security of von Scheliha's delicate position, it
may have been thought that as a purely venal source he would not
blend well into the ideological background of the two main German
groups.
Von Scheliha visited Switzerland in February, September, and
October 1942 to bank part of his espionage income. He is supposed
to have been of such great value to the Soviet intelligence services
that the Germans calculated he was paid about fifty thousand dol-
lars for his services. The Germans believed that most of this money
was consumed by his domestic expenses, but at some of it
least
found its way into his account in the Swiss bank. Von Scheliha and
his family lived far beyond their means in Berlin.
There are records of two payments made for von Scheliha's es-
pionage work. In February 1938 he received six thousand five hun-
dred dollars, which was paid into his account at Julius Baer and
Company in Zurich by a check drawn on the Chase National Bank
in New York and One
cleared through the Credit-Institut in Lyons.
other payment known to have been made to von Scheliha, in Feb-
is
ruary 1941, when Stoebe gave him the three thousand reichsmarks
for work he had performed for the Soviet intelligence services.
The extent of Moscow's interest in von Scheliha's work is shown
by the employment of a special parachute agent, who was dropped
from a Soviet long-distance bomber over Osterode in East Prussia on
23 October 1942. He made his way to Berlin and there attempted to
get in touch with Stoebe (previously arrested), and through her with
von Scheliha. His instructions were to use his wireless transmitter for
the purpose of sending von Scheliha's information to Moscow. This
agent was arrested on 26 October 1942. His name was Heinrich
Koenen (alias Heinrich Koester), the son of Wilhelm Koenen, a
Communist member of the Reichstag and the Landstag. Heinrich
Koenen left Germany in 1933 and travelled through Denmark and
Sweden to Moscow, where he received training as an agent. His
principal mission was to pass on from Berlin all the material collect-
ed by von Scheliha and Stoebe, but he also had scheduled meetings
on various days of the month with another Soviet agent in Berlin.
Germany 153
These meetings did not take place because the agent concerned was
Erna Eifler, the Communist official who had been dropped into
Germany by parachute and who had already been arrested by the
Gestapo in Hamburg. Shortly after her arrest another parachutist,
Wilhelm Fellendorf, was taken into custody. As the result of these
two arrests a number of safehouses in Berlin were searched in Octo-
ber 1942, and an organization for preparing false papers was discov-
ered. The owners of the houses were all former Communist officials,
some of whom had been giving shelter to illegal workers since 1928.
For this work they received through the Soviet Embassy in Berlin
payments of from one hundred fifty to two hundred fifty reichs-
marks a month. The safehouse keepers were probably recruited and
paid by Alexander Erdberg prior to his departure from Berlin.
V. The Role of Victor Sukolov
On 28 August 1941 Victor Sukolov in Brussels received infor-

mation by radio from Moscow to contact Use Stoebe at an address in
Berlin-Charlottenberg. Sukolov was prevented from making the trip
immediately, however, because of the pressures of running his own
espionage network in Belgium.
On 18 October 1941 Sukolov received another message con-
cerning the proposed trip to Germany. His particular task was to re-
establish between Germany and Moscow the link which had been
severed by the outbreak of war. For this purpose he was given de-
tailed instructions and the names and addresses of persons whom he
was to contact in Germany. A summary of the actual wireless mes-
sage follows:
Moscow to Kent (Victor Sukolov) 18.10.41

Instructions for Kent's trip toGermany:
1. To search out in Berlin Adam Kuckhoff or his wife Greta
with the help of Alexander Erdberg.
2. To make contact with Arvid (Harnack) and Choro (Schulze-
Boysen) through Kuckhoff.
3. To arrange meetings with the "friends" of the Arvid group,
namely Italiener (Wolfgang Havemann), Strahlmann (Hans Coppi),
Leo (Leo Skrzipczynski), and Karl (Karl Behrens).
4. To request the dispatch of a man to the Soviet Trade Dele-
gation in Istanbul and of another to the Soviet Consulate in Stock-
holm.
5. To make preparations in Berlin for the reception of para-

chute agents.
6. To take steps to see that the transmitting sets available to
the Choro group were repaired and put into use again.
November 1941 Sukolov made the trip to Germany and

In
later Moscow that his tasks had been successfully com-
reported to
pleted. Through Adam Kuckhoff he made contact with both Har-
nack and Schulze-Boysen, to whom he handed over a new transmit-
ter for the use of Hans Coppi. He was also in touch with Kurt Schu-
macher and his wife and arranged with them for the transmission of
reports by post to Brussels. This link enabled Sukolov to receive re-
ports from the German groups and to relay them by wireless to Mos-
cow. At the same time Sukolov handed to Kurt Schulze a cipher to
be used for Stoebe's traffic. This circumstance indicates that Stoebe
was at least linked closely enough with the Harnack and Schulze-
Boysen groups to be sharing their wireless transmitter.
Among the reports produced by the German groups and passed
to Moscow by means of Sukolov 's transmitter in Brussels were the
following:
a. Information about the strength of the Luftwaffe at the out-
break of the Russo-German war.
b. The monthly production figures of the German aircraft in-
dustry for June and July 1941.
c. Advance information about the German attack on the Mai-
kop oilfields.
d. Figures on the losses of German parachutists in Crete.
The communications of the German groups and their links

with the network in Belgium require a brief summary. During the
period before June 1941 all three groups —
Schulze-Boysen's, Har-
nack's, and von Scheliha's —
had a channel of communication
through the Soviet Embassy or through the Soviet Trade Delega-
tion. Thereafter they had to depend on wireless or courier channels
of their own. The first transmitter that was available to Harnack or
to Schulze-Boysen and was capable of communicating with Moscow
was the set given to Coppi in June 1941. It was damaged shortly af-
terwards, though, and was never satisfactorily repaired. Some traffic

was passed via this transmitter, including Harnack's message of 30
August 1941 relating to Italiener. Until November 1941 this set was
the only one directly available to any of the three groups. After No-
vember 1941 all three groups used the courier channels to Brussels
Germany 155
set up by Victor Sukolov, possibly supplemented to some small de-

gree by the transmitters delivered later by the various parachute
agents.
In all, five parachute agents were involved. The first two, Erna
Eifler and Wilhelm Fellendorf, arrived in May 1942. They were orig-
inally intended to provide communications for the von Scheliha
group; but Harnack, having learned of their arrival through his con-
tacts in Hamburg, attempted unsuccessfully to make use of them.
The next pair, Albert Hoessler and Robert Barth, arrived in August
1942. Hoessler was intended to reinforce the Schulze-Boysen group
and did, in fact, join forces with Hans Coppi, the radio operator.
Barth remained in touch with Hoessler but was not otherwise con-
nected with the organization. Finally, in October 1942, Heinrich
Koenen arrived with instructions to make contact with Stoebe and
von Scheliha. He was arrested within a few days.
Hoessler' s radio set was run by the Germans as a playback from
9 October 1942 until 25 February 1943. The sets of Erna Eifler and
Heinrich Koenen were also activated and were still operative on 1
November 1943. Although Moscow had been warned that Wenzel's
cipher was compromised and must have known the danger in which
these German groups stood, it is possible that these playbacks had
some initial success.
VI. The Communist Underground Group of Anton Saefkow

In his book Germany's Underground Allen Dulles wrote that,
inJune 1944, when it became clear that the American and British
troops had secured a permanent foothold in France, Klaus Philip
Schenk, Count von Stauffenberg, a leader of the twentieth of July
group, looked for support from the Communists:
"He proposed that the Communists be taken into the coali-

tion. When he was advised against it he in-
for security reasons,
duced his Socialist friends to establish contact with the Communist
underground without the consent of the other key conspirators.
"On 22 June, (Julius) Leber and (Adolf) Reichwein, represent-
ing the conspiracy, and Anton Saefkow, Franz Jacob, and a third
man whose name is not known, representing the Central Committee
of the Communist underground, met clandestinely. The Commu-
nist ZK, or Central Committee, had only recently been reorganized.
Saefkow, a one-time metal worker, had been particularly active in
the Ruhr region and was a friend of Ernst Thaelmann, the head of
the Communist Party before Hitler came to power. When

Saefkow
was caught by the Gestapo in Hamburg in 1933, the infamous Ter-
boven, then Gauleiter of the Ruhr region and later of Norway, had
him brought to his native Essen, where he was so tortured that there
was grave doubt of his recovery. It is a miracle that he survived the
ten years of concentration camp life which followed. Some time in
1943 he and Jacob succeeded in escaping and in getting to Berlin.
Shortly before that time the Brandenburg leader of the Communist
underground had been executed. Saefkow and Jacob immediately
assumed leadership.
"At the 22 June meeting the proposal was made that the Beck-
Goerdler post-Nazi government would include Communists. Saef-
kow and Jacob and their unnamed comrade were given the names of
some of the leading conspirators. They asked for time to decide, and
another meeting was arranged for 4 July at which Stauffenberg was
to be present.
"The conference never took place. On 4 July the Gestapo ar-
rested Reichwein, and, the next day, Leber, as well ashundreds of

leftists who had relations with the Free Germany Committee. It was
clear that the Gestapo had penetrated the Communist under-

ground. Saefkow and Jacob were later executed."
A West German source stated in 1951 that the Saefkow group,

"an in Germany before and
anti-Hitler resistance organization"
during World War had no connection with Moscow. The Saef-
II,
kow group, however, was an important Communist underground

organization with direct ties to the Rote Kapelle through Bernhard
Baestlein,Wilhelm Guddorf, and Henri Robinson. In its ranks were
mainly military Communists organized, controlled, and directed by
the Third International.
The Saefkow group had many important contacts and main-
tained cells in at least thirty organizations in Hamburg and other
German cities, Sweden, and Switzerland. It was in liaison with Hen-
riRobinson and his group in France and coordinated and supported

a vast network of espionage with interlocking connections both in-
side and outside Germany.
The most important personality in the Saefkow group besides
Anton Saefkow ("Kurt"), Bernard Baestlein, and Franz Jacob was
Wilhelm Guddorf (alias Paul Braun), who had connections with
Hamburg and was a close associate of Arvid Harnack.
Baestlein in
Guddorf, who was born in Germany in 1902, joined the KPD at the
Germany 157
age of twenty. His father was a professor at Ghent University in Bel-

gium. In 1927 and 1928 Wilhelm was an editor and writer for the
Rote Fahne. In 1930 he left Germany for the USSR, where he re-
mained until 1933. He was arrested in Germany in 1934 and was
imprisoned until 1939. During his imprisonment he became ac-
quainted with Bernhard Baestlein and Johann Sieg. After his release
he became editor of the weekly Welt und Abend. He resumed his
illegal Communist activities. Through associations with fellow Com-
munists, especially Baestlein, he became a member of the espionage

network. In May 1942 Baestlein informed Guddorf of the arrival of
two new agents, Erna Eifler and Wilhelm Fellendorf, who had para-
chuted into the Hamburg area. The Gestapo arrested Guddorf in
the early fall of 1942, but he escaped with the help of Heinz Ver-
leih, whom Guddorf had also met in prison. He was soon reappre-
hended, however, and his interrogation led to the arrest of Baestlein
and, through the and Fellendorf. Guddorf was execu-
latter, Eifler
ted in 1943. Baestlein' s principal function had been to provide a

courier service between the Harnack group in Berlin and the Soviet
Embassy in Stockholm. Baestlein was executed in 1944.
Wilhelm Heinrich Hermann Fellendorf was born on 8 February
1903 in Hamburg. There he became a truck driver and a functionary
of the Red Front Movement. He was engaged in sabotage, the stag-
ing of ambushes, and the procurement of arms. He used the aliases
Welmuth, Willi Machmarov, and Eduard Heinrich Schramm. His
illegal activity forced him to flee to Sweden in 1933. From there he
went to Denmark, where he made contact with the Soviet Embassy.

He arrived in the USSR in 1938. Later that same year he arrived in
Spain, where he became a lieutenant in an armored tank corps. He
returned to the USSR after the Civil War ended. The Soviets trained
him in sabotageand related subjects. After the Gestapo arrested
Fellendorf, he became a double agent for the Germans.
Erna Eifler (alias Kaethe Glanz, Gerda Sommer, "Rosita," and
"Biene") was born in Berlin on 31 August 1908. By 1926 she was
already an experienced Comintern agent and courier. In 1928 she
was working for the Soviet Trade Delegation in Hamburg as a secre-
tary. Sometime after 1928 she went to the USSR. By 1936 she was
living in Vienna,and the following year she went to Harbin, China,
on an intelligence mission. For this purpose she used the alias of
Kaethe Glanz. About 1942 she and Fellendorf were members of the
same group of persons trained near Moscow in sabotage, W/T, and
parachute jumping. After her arrival in Germany she tried to reach
the Harnack or von Scheliha group but was arrested by the Gestapo
before she could do so. Like Fellendorf, she became a double agent
under German control. She operated a transmitter in a W/T play-
back operation until March 1945. Her subsequent fate is not known.
The Saefkow group was so well organized and had so many im-
portant contacts inside and outside Germany that the members had
little trouble in obtaining secret data for transmittal to Moscow. The
activities of this group were concentrated largely in two fields:
(1) The establishment of cadres in all businesses of military im-

portance in Berlin.
(2) The dissemination of propaganda to soldiers, both at home
and on the front.
Despite the obstacle of strict security measures in the Wehr-
macht, the Saefkow group succeeded in establishing sources on both
fronts and even in the OKW. These men supplied valuable infor-
mation and collected addresses of dissident soldiers, who then re-
ceived letters containing political indoctrination from the group.
Propaganda for the defection of entire units to the Free Germany
Committee played an important role on the Eastern Front.
Considerable time was devoted to making contact with other
organized anti-Fascist circles, including Social Democrats and labor
groups. Liaison was arranged in 1943 with the Ulrich group, but it
proved valueless when that group was arrested a short time later. In
1943 small groups of scientists and artists were being used as sources
of information. In the spring of 1944 contact was established with
the group of Dr. Leber and Professor Reichwein. The Saefkow group
also had excellent connections in the Ministry of Armament and
War Production, youth groups, the Luftwaffe Clothing Office, and
the post office.
After the main Rote Kapelle apparatus was destroyed by the ar-
rests of the Schulze-Boysen and Harnack groups, the Saefkow group
continued its operations. Furthermore, not all the members of the

group were liquidated when Saefkow, Baestlein, Jacob, and approx-
imately one hundred others were arrested in 1944. It is probable
that the Saefkow group continued to furnish information to Moscow
even after its organization and leadership had been decimated.
In a speech by Berlin City Councilman Ottomar Geschke on 22
September 1946 commemorating the deceased members of the vari-
ous resistance groups, the name of Anton Saefkow led all the rest.
Germany 159
VII. The Arrests and Trial
The Schulze-Boysen group was discovered as a result of German

CI action in Belgium. After the Abwehr's D/F equipment located
the clandestine W/T transmitter in Brussels and Johann Wenzel was
arrested, the Germans were able to read Moscow's messages of 18
October 1941 instructing Sukolov to proceed to Berlin; in the mes-
sage was the address of Harro Schulze-Boysen. During the search of
Wenzel' s apartment the Germans also found a message which had
not yet been coded. It gave precise information about two thousand
five hundred planes of the Luftwaffe at Stalingrad. Reportedly only
three people in Berlin knew that the Germans lacked aviation gaso-
line for these planes, and one of these was Schulze-Boysen.
Investigation disclosed that the Soviet agents had high level
contacts in governmental offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, and
elsewhere. The case was considered so important that Goering and
Himmler took personal charge of it, and a special group was orga-
nized to identify, arrest, and liquidate the Soviet spies in Germany.

The Gestapo's roundup of the organization began in the latter
part of August 1942. Schulze-Boysen himself was arrested on 30
August 1942, and the arrests of the other members of his group and
of Harnack's group took place in September. Use Stoebe was arrest-
ed on 12 September, but von Scheliha, the last or almost the last to
be taken, was at liberty until 29 October 1942.
There were one hundred eighteen prisoners in the Rote Kapelle
case in Berlin. The first to go on trial were Harro and Libertas
Schulze-Boysen, Arvid and Mildred Harnack, Hans Coppi, Kurt and
Elizabeth Schumacher, Horst Heilmann, Herbert Gollnow, Kurt
Schulze, Johann Graudenz, Erwin Gehrts, Erika von Brockdorf.
Libertas Schulze-Boysen behaved badly at the trial. She had re-
portedly cooperated with the Gestapo and thought she would be ac-
quitted. There was a Gestapo rumor that Libertas seduced a young
SS guard the night before she was executed.
All were convicted except Mildred Harnack and Erika von
Brockdorf, who new
got trials. Hitler refused to commute the sen-
tences. On December
22 1942, three days after the trial, the first ex-
ecutions took place. The executions of Herbert Gollnow and Colo-

nel Gehrts were postponed so that they could testify at the new trial
of Mildred Harnack and Erika von Brockdorf. Use Stoebe and Ru-
dolf von Scheliha, who had been convicted at a separate trial, took
their place. Official records reflect that the deaths in the Berlin
group of the Rote Kapelle consisted of two suicides, eight hangings,

forty-one beheadings.
Dr. Manfred Roeder, the presiding officer at the trials, reported
that of those condemned in the Schulze-Boysen and Harnack net-
works of the Rote Kapelle 29 percent were academicians and stu-
dents; 20 percent were professional soldiers and government offi-
cials; 21 percent were artists, writers, and journalists; 17 percent were
members of the armed forces; 13 percent were workers or laborers.

According to Roeder, German counterintelligence estimated the
number of additional losses caused by the Rote Kapelle agents in
Germany at two hundred thousand men. Admiral Canaris' estimate
was about the same.
Dr. AdolfGrimme, the former Prussian Minister of Culture,
wrote an indictment on 15 September 1945 to the British military
government in Hanover, accusing Dr. Manfred Roeder of crimes
against humanity for ordering the executions of the Rote Kapelle
members in Berlin. In addition to Grimme 's indictment to the Brit-
government, Guenther Weisenborn and Greta Kuckhoff
ish military
composed an indictment, dated 1 February 1947, containing similar
accusations which they submitted directly to the American military
tribunal in Nurnberg. In this indictment Greta Kuckhoff stated:
I am
convinced that a very thorough investiga-
tion should be done of Dr. Roeder. Through his
ruthless treatment of Dr. Harnack and Schulze-
Boysen, one of the most pronounced resistance
groups was destroyed. This group had tested the
possibility of destroying the Nazi regime with
internal measures and had come to the conclu-
sion that only collaboration with democratic
and socialistic peoples could successfully destroy
the regime. This group was the only resistance
group which had an American member (Mil-
dred Harnack), a woman who had the honor of
being the president of the American Women's
Clubs in Berlin prior to the outbreak of war.
Dr. Roeder feared that this group was endan-
gering Nazism, not Germany . . .
The brochure "Widerstand im Dritten Reich" (Resistance in

the Third Reich), published by the WN (Verband der Verfolgten
des Nazi Regimes — Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime),
Germany 161
made the following remarks on the role of the Rote Kapelle in Ger-
many:
The group increasingly adopted the practice

of assigning special tasks to certain members.
Dr. John Rittmeister was to listen to foreign
broadcasts. Information gleaned by him was
used in indoctrination courses, leaflets, and in
the journal Die Innere Front (The Internal
Front). Warfare in the ether played a significant
role during the last conflict. The Schulze-Boy-
sen/Harnack resistance group also broadcast to
the German people in an effort to convince the
latter of the hopelessness and criminal nature of
this war. It wanted to prove to the democratical-
ly-minded people of other nations that the
voice of freedom, of human dignity, had not
been silenced among the Germans despite Hit-
lerian terrorand persecution. In this manner
they fought heroically in the interest of Ger-
many.
Roeder has commented that there could be no worse distortion

of the facts than the above statement.
"Should one suppose that the radio messages were coded in an
effort to gain the ear of the German people? Was it so heroic and
was it so very much in the interest of Germany to relay coded infor-
mation on tactical and strategic measures to Moscow?"
Ulrich von Hassel, who was executed after the failure of the 20
July 1944 plot to kill Hitler, wrote that the Schulze-Boysen group
was "a vast Communist conspiracy":
In appearance, the fanatics (because of their

hate of the regime) pretend that their desire
was to create a substitute organization in the
eventuality of a Bolshevik victory ... In the
salons, in the antechambers of ministers, in the
corridors of the headquarters, there was talk of
this abcess, the smell of which was polluting the
air of the Third Reich. Each professed to know
it all; what one did not know, one invented.
The affair became a myth and the suspicions

knew no bounds.
The price of secrecy is when it is no longer abso-
lute. Berlin trembled with horror because over

there, on the banks of the Volga, at Stalin-
grad . . . How is it possible not to establish a
link of cause and effect between the poison at
Berlin and the deadly paralysis that seized the
Wehrmacht?
Greta Kuckhoff, one of the Rote Kapelle agents who survived
Hitler's executioner, wrote in an article in the New Times, Novem-
ber 19, 1966, that when one of the youngest members of their orga-
nization, Fraulein Cato Bontjes von Beek, learned that the death
sentence had been pronounced against her, she said, "I regret only
that I did not do more." Kuckhoff added that the words of von
Beek have stayed with her:
They are a command to those of us who have

remained alive. Today the German Democratic
Republic the heir of the cause for which the
is
warriors of the common anti-Fascist front

fought in the war. We
must spare no effort that
the entire German nation may grasp history's
lesson. Our struggle continues.
In June 1948 the Nurnberg Telegraf printed the following

item:
In the persecution of the members of the

Schulze-Boysen/Harnack resistance group, the
then-Judge Advocate, Colonel Manfred Roeder,
presently in the Neustadt internment camp,
played a particularly evil role. Roeder is to be
charged with crimes against humanity. All
members of the resistance movement are hereby
urged to submit reports on Roeder 's actions.
Photostats of documents which may support the
case against Roeder are also solicited. All mater-
ial is to be addressed to Attorney Dr. Heinke,
Nurnberg, Palace of Justice, Room 355.
In connection with the above, Dr. Roeder later wrote:
Iinformed Attorney Heinke that I considered

thisappeal of his as something irregular; he dis-
claimed any connection with it and explained to
me that this appeal had been made by the par-
ents of Horst Heilmann, who were now living in
Germany 163
the East Zone.

This shows that there are still others, besides
Grimme and Mrs. Kuckhoff, who are today
working hard to make themselves appear as
martyrs.
In conclusion it should be pointed out that the failure of the

Harnack, Schulze-Boysen, and von Scheliha groups was primarily
due to inexperience and on the part of the groups'
lack of training
leaders, to the inefficient and amateurish wireless communications,
and to the constant readjustments which were made necessary there-
by. The same thing was true of the Belgian network. It was the de-
tection, first of Makarov's transmissions, and then of Wenzel's,
which provided the Germans with the essential starting point in
their investigations. Wireless communications were without a doubt
the most vulnerable point in the Russian organization. Had it not
been for this weakness the Rote Kapelle organization might have
survived the war successfully.
VIII. Postscript
In 1967 the East German Government issued commemorative

postage stamps glorifying the heroism of the Rote Kapelle agents
who were executed as "traitors" by the Nazis during World War II.
The Communist "spies" honored as "heroes" for their anti-Fascist
work were Harro Schulze-Boysen (1909-1942), Arvid Harnack (1901-
1942), Mildred Harnack (1902-1943), Adam Kuckhoff (1887-1943),
Anton Saefkow (1903-1944), Bernard Baestlein (1894-1944), Franz
Jacob (1906-1944).
and his wife are
Several close relatives of Harro Schulze-Boysen
still alive and of intelligence interest. Among them are Hartmut
Wolfgang Schulze-Boysen, Ruth Schulze-Boysen, and Johannes

Haas-Heye.
is the brother of Harro. He
Hartmut Wolfgang Schulze-Boysen
was born 21 February 1922. In 1955 he was a counselor at the Ger-
man Embassy in Washington, D.C. He resided at 6609 Radnor
Road, Kensington. In 1961 Hartmut was chief German representa-
tive NATO Permanent Council
of the Political Commission of the
and assistant to the West German Ambassador to NATO.
in Paris
The following comment was made about Hartmut Schulze-
Boysen by an unidentified American source in 1955:
As far as young (Hartmut) Schulze-Boysen is

164 Narrative Hirtory of the Rote Kapelle
concerned, he was here (Washington) as Second

Secretary in the Embassy, charged with report-
ing extreme rightist American political develop-
ments. Young Schulze-Boysen is the younger
brother of the famous Schulze-Boysen of the
Rote Kapelle. He is an extremely bright man
and a very pleasant person and no doubt is
slated for a successful career in the German For-
eign Service. I believe young Schulze-Boysen is
as politically conscious as his brother was . . .
In 1963 Schulze-Boysen returned to Washington as the press

attache. In 1967 he was a counselor and the fourth ranking member
at the German Embassy. He returned to Germany in 1970.
Ruth Schulze-Boysen, nee Rudolf, is the wife of Hartmut
Schulze-Boysen. She was born 10 September 1923 in Pforzheim.
She was in contact with Hanna Liere, nee Schlegel, who was associ-
ated with Theodor Fink, a KPD member and a prominent Commu-
nist in southern Germany. Hanna Liere was a link to Theodor Fink
and Dr. Otto John, whose brother was executed after the 20 July
1944 plot against Hitler.
Johannes Haas-Heye was born 16 March 1912 in Paris. He is
the brother of Libertas Schulze-Boysen. In June 1953 he was an edi-

tor in the Frankfurt office of the United Press Agency and had been
employed there since 1946.
Switzerland 165
CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROTE DREI

IN SWITZERLAND
1936-37 Maria Josefovna Poliakova headed Soviet military

intelligence network in Switzerland.
May 1936 Alexander Rado moved to Geneva from Paris

with his wife and family to begin activities in be-
half of Soviet intelligence.
August 1936 Rado opened Geopress, a cartographic firm he

used as a cover for his intelligence activities.
October 1938 Alexander Foote arrived in Switzerland and began

work under Ursula Hamburger's direction.
March 1940 Victor Sukolov, an important figure in the Belgian

net, journeyed to Switzerland for a meeting with
Rado.
Summer 1940 Hamburger turned over her Swiss net to Rado.
August 1940 Edmond and Olga Hamel were recruited as W/T

operators.
October 1940 Rado journeyed to Belgrade for a meeting with a

courier sent by Moscow.
20 Dec. 1940 Hamburger left Switzerland for England.
February 1941 Hamburger arrived in England.
March 1941 Edmond Hamel began to transmit to Moscow for

the Rote Drei.
May 1941 Rado established contact with Rachel Dueben-

dorfer on instructions from Moscow.
October 1941 Georges Blun was recruited as a member of the

Rote Drei.
October 1941 ErnstLemmer was recruited as a source by Blun;

Lemmer was first noted in communications on 22
October 1941.
October 1941 Margaret Bolli was recruited as a W/T operator.
April 1942 Otto Puenter became a source of the Rote Drei ac-
cording to a message from Dora in July 1942.
April 1942 The Germans sent agents into Switzerland to

track down the Rote Drei transmitters.
Summer 1942 Duebendorfer recruited Christian Schneider.
Summer 1942 Rudolf Roessler begins reporting to Duebendor-

fer via Schneider.
July 1942 Leon Beurton arrived in England to join Ham-

burger.
September 1942 Bolli moved to Geneva and began to transmit for

Rado.
8 October 1942 This first reference to Schneider in a message sent

by Rado to the Director describes him as a new
source, although he is actually a cut-out.
mid-1943 Bolli began an affair with Hans Peters, a Gestapo

agent; it compromised her and other members of
the Rote Drei.
July-August Duebendorfer resists all attempts by the Center

1943 to identify Roessler or turn him over to Rado.
8 October 1943 Edmond and Olga Hamel were arrested by the

Swiss police.
13 Oct. 1943 Bolli was arrested by the Swiss police.
mid-October Rado and his wife went "underground" to avoid

1943 arrest by the Swiss police.
late October Through Foote, Rado sent a message to the Di-

1943 rector suggesting that he and Jim seek refuge
from arrest at the British Embassy; in early No-
vember the Director refused.
5 November Rado received word that he had been awarded the

1943 Order of Lenin for his intelligence activities.
Switzerland 167
5 November The Director expressed concern about the possi-

1943 bility of Rado's being arrested.
20 November Foote was arrested and imprisoned by the Swiss

1943 police.
May-June 1944 Rudolf Roessler, Schneider, Duebendorfer, and

Paul Boettcher were arrested by Swiss police.
July 1944 The Swiss released Edmond and Olga Hamel and
also Bolli.
September 1944 The Swiss released Duebendorfer and Schneider.
6 Sept. 1944 Roessler was released by Swiss police.
8 Sept. 1944 Foote was released on bail by the Swiss.
19 Sept. 1944 Rado and his wife arrived in Paris after fleeing
Switzerland to avoid arrest.
7 or 9 Nov. 1944 Foote arrived in Paris.
6 January 1945 Foote and Rado left Paris for Moscow via Cairo.
Rado disappeared enroute. He sought refuge with
the British in Egypt.
14 Jan. 1945 Foote arrived in Moscow.
July 1945 Rado arrived in Moscow.
23 July 1945 Duebendorfer and Boettcher, who escaped from

his internment camp, escaped to France to avoid
trial by the Swiss; they were sentenced in absentia.
1946-1955 Rado was imprisoned by the Soviets.
March 1947 Foote, prepared for a new mission by the Soviets,

turns himself in to British authorities in Berlin
and declares that he wishes to abandon his career
as a Soviet agent.
Summer 1947 Roessler agreed to resume intelligence work, this

time for the Czech Intelligence Service.
5 Nov. 1953 Roessler sentenced by a Swiss court to a year and

nine months for espionage.
1955 Rado returned to Hungary.
1956 Death of Foote.

Narrative History of the Rote Kapelle
Death of Roessler.
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Switzerland 173
NARRATIVE OF THE ROTE DREI

IN SWITZERLAND
I. The Radio Messages Examined

Any useful, accurate account of the Rote Drei must start with
the radio traffic exchanged between the Center in Moscow and the
network in Switzerland. The first question is quantitative: How
many messages did the traffic contain? Wilhelm F. Flicke, a Ger-
man cryptanalyst who worked on the traffic during the war, estima-
ted the total at some five thousand five hundred, about five a day
for three years. This estimate is not unreasonable. When Edmond
and Olga Hamel, two of the Rote Drei radio operators, were arrest-
ed by the Swiss police on 9 October 1943, a total of one hundred
twenty- nine messages were found in their flat. A comparison of
these with those in other holdings has shown that forty appear else-
where and eighty-nine are unique. The forty matching messages
were all transmitted between 3 September and 5 October 1943. If it
is assumed that the remaining eighty-nine were also sent to Moscow
during the same period, as seems possible, then it can also be sur-
mised that one hundred twenty-nine is the average number of trans-
missions per month. There have been a number of claims that the
Rote Drei network was functioning before the war and that Lucy, as
Rudolf Roessler was called, gave Moscow advance warning of Hitler's
attack. The traffic proves, however, that Sissy (Rachel Duebendor-
fer) did not establish a clandestine association with Taylor (Christian
Schneider) and Lucy until the late summer of 1942. More reliable
information on total volume and time-span of the traffic will be
forthcoming.
From various sources we have pulled together four hundred
thirty-seven messages that appear authentic. This collection, unfor-
tunately, contains only 8 percent of the presumed total. For this rea-
son we are obliged to be circumspect when drawing from the traffic
any quantitative conclusions. What is more important, the riddles
resolved by the 8 percent are cause to believe that the remaining

mysteries, or most of them, could be solved with the aid of the
missing 92 percent.
This account of the Rote Drei is drawn chiefly from the radio
messages. Supplementary research in classified files has yielded ad-
ditional information. Although there are still gaps in our knowl-
edge, we can at least present the first account of the Rote Drei that
is not based chiefly on speculation, fantasy, and falsification.
Our collection of messages contains references to fifty-five
sources. Most of them, of course, are listed only by a cover name. Of

these fifty-five we can identify fifteen with certainty and make edu-
cated guesses about sixteen more. The remaining twenty-four ap-
pear rarely and inconspicuously. We also know the identities of
some persons associated with the Rote Drei who do not appear in
the traffic.
Digging out the facts and telling the story would have been de-
cidedly easier if so much misinformation about the subject had not
been published in the past. Even the name Rote Drei, a German
appellation based on the number of transmitters or operators serving
the network, is misleading, because at times there were four and
even five.
II. Vera and the Beginnings of the Rote Drei

The Rote Drei begins with Maria Josefovna Poliako-
story of the
va, a highly intelligent Russian Jewess and a dedicated Communist,
born about 1910. When she was twenty-one, she was a very active
member of the central committee of the Komsomol. She was re-
cruited at that time by the IVthDepartment of the Soviet General
Her aliases were Mildred, Gisela, and Vera. She was fluent in
Staff.
German, French, and English. Her brother, father, and husband

were all executed in Communist purges; yet her devotion to the
cause was unshaken.
headed the Soviet military intelligence net-
In 1936-1937 she
work She made a quick trip back in 1941, when she
in Switzerland.
ordered certain changes in the command structure of the Rote Drei.
But mostly she spent the war years in Moscow, where she specialized
on the Rote Drei operation. (She was not the "Director," however.
All of the cables from Moscow to Switzerland were signed "Direc-
tor," an indicator showing that they came from the Center. It is
probable that Poliakova was the originator of many of these; her in-
Switzerland 175
formal, fervent, Marxian style is distinctive. But this tone is often

replaced by that of superiorswho are much more authoritative and
brusque.) At the end of 1944, when the Swiss operation had ended,
Poliakova, then a major, became chief of the GRU's Spanish sec-
tion. Alexander Foote suggests that she was purged less than two
years later.
The Director and Vera were removed from their

posts and replaced about May 1946. I never
in
saw them again, nor were they ever mentioned.
The Center has only one penalty for failure.
III. SONIA
In Handbook For Spies (second edition, 1964, Trinity Press,

Worcester and London), Alexander Foote recounts that in Switzer-
land he was first directed by a lady whom he calls Sonia. Her true
name was Ursula Maria Hamburger, nee Kuczynski. She was born
on 15 May 1907 in Berlin, one of four sisters. She also had a broth-
er, Professor Juergin Kuczynski, who introduced Klaus Fuchs to So-
viet intelligence officers. Ursula and Rudolf Hamburger were Red

Army espionage agents in Shanghai in 1930-1935. She went to
Switzerland in the latter 1930s, travelling alone because her hus-
band had been ordered to stay in China. In 1939 her position was
jeopardized by the arrest of Franz Obermanns, a German Commu-
nist with false Finnish documents and a transmitter. On 23 February
1940 she married Leon Charles Beurton, an Englishman whom
Foote called "Bill Philips." Beurton, a veteran of the Spanish Civil
War, was recruited for Soviet espionage by Brigette Lewis, who
turned him over to her sister Ursula on 13 February 1939. Ursula
Hamburger trained both Beurton and Foote in W/T. The marriage
to Beurton gave Ursula British citizenship, and she left Switzerland
for England in December 1940. Her husband remained in Switzer-
land, where he trained Edmond Hamel in operating a W/T set. In
July 1942, provided with a British passport in the name of Miller
and the blessings of the Red Army staff, Beurton went via Portugal
to England and his Ursula. In 1947 the Beurtons left England hur-
riedly for East Berlin.
IV. Sissy and Paul

A third person of importance in the swaddling days of the Rote
Drei (or four or five) was also a woman. Rachel Duebendorfer was
born on 18 July 1901 in Danzig. She became an active Soviet agent

in 1920.Soon thereafter she married one Curt Caspari, and on 8 Ju-
ly 1922 she gave birth to a daughter, Tamara, who eventually mar-
ried a Frenchman and who helped her mother with the housework,
as did her husband, by serving as a Rote Drei courier. In the late
1930s Rachel contracted a marriage of convenience with a Swiss citi-
zen named Duebendorfer. She took up residence in Bern, where she

lived as thecommon-law wife of a German Communist named Paul
Boettcher Hans Saalbach). Boettcher was born on 2
(alias Paul, alias
May Germany he had been a mem-

1891 in Leipzig. Before fleeing
ber of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Minister of
Finance in Leipzig, and editor-in-chief of the Arbeiterzeitung in
Leipzig. Escaping to Switzerland from Germany after the Nazis
came to power, he was twice expelled from Swiss territory, in 1941
and 1944, but managed to survive. Sissy not only took him into her
flat but also gave him the papers of her Swiss husband whose identi-
ty Boettcher assumed. Boettcher, Duebendorfer, Tamara Vigier (nee

Caspari), Roessler, and Christian Schneider were all arrested in May
1944. Neither Sissy nor Paul was present in the courtroom on Octo-
ber 22-23, 1945, when a Swiss military court sentenced each to two
years.Both had escaped to France in July of that year. Boettcher
went back to Saxony and in 1947 became editor of the Leipziger
Volkszeitung. For a time he was a professor of Russian in Halle.By
1958 he was again an editor in Leipzig. Sissy's fate is not known.
In our collection of W/T messages, Sissy appears twenty-eight
times between 8 October 1942 and 28 November 1943. These are
the highlights:
8 October 1942
Director to Dora (Alexander Rado) for Sissy:
You must learn a code and receive additional

instruction . Your new people Marius and
. .
Taylor are not bad workers, but one must al-

ways control them and keep them busy.
Two characteristics of this message are interesting. The first is that

Sissy is the only one of Rado's sources to whom the Center directed
messages by name and through Rado. Later, as is noted below, Mos-
cow even eliminated Rado, the resident director, from the commu-
nications channel for certain messages, which were sent to Sissy in
her own code. The second important element in this message is its
Switzerland 111
reference to Taylor (Christian Schneider) as a new source. As we

shall see, Taylor was first recruited by Sissy in the summer of 1942.
Because Lucy reported only through Taylor, this fact means that
Moscow received no messages from Lucy and his subsources until

that time. (Foote claimed that Lucy's material began going to the
Center in early 1941 and that he warned the Russians of Hitler's im-
pending attack some two weeks in advance. Others, including Ac-
coce and Quet in A Man Called Lucy, have copied the claim. But
the traffic proves it false.)
20 November 1942
The Director instructed Dora to have Sissy determine and re-
port the identities of the sources in the Lucy-Taylor group.
12 January 1943
Before this date Sissy had sent her first message in her own
code, because the Center answered,
We greet your first telegram.

Try to work atten-
tively andbe careful when working. Destroy
to
immediately all notes and working papers.
The ordinary traffic continued to be channeled through Rado.

But on 23 April 1943 Moscow sent its second message in Sissy's
code, this one addressed to her and Paul. (Moscow did not usually
use the true first name of an agent as his radio cover name, but evi-
dence in the traffic itself makes it plain that Paul was Sissy's com-
mon-law husband, Paul Boettcher.) The message read as follows:
1. Dear friends, since the summer of 1942
you have worked with the Taylor-Lucy group,

which has provided us with a great deal of var-
ied material, some of it valuable. But despite
the long cooperation this group remains wholly
unclarified for us . . .
2. Determine and inform us by radio exact

reports on Taylor, Lucy, Werther, Anna, Olga.
Especially important is a personality sketch of
Lucy. Who is he, what
his name, what were is
his circumstances earlierand what are they now,

for what motives does he work for others and
for us?
3. Answer this telegram in your own code.
You do not need to inform Albert of our tele-
gram or of your answer. He has received direc-
tions, as well as telegrams coming directly from

Sissy, without sending queries back (i.e., to
Moscow) . . .
4. To Sissy only: We send you the title of a

new book for your code; but, we shall give you
instructions about how to work according to the
book. Albert is not to know about the new
book. It is called Tempete sur la Maison . . .
5. How are
you? What is Mara doing? Greet-
ings to her and both of you from Gisela.
Although Sissy and Paul had their own code, it appears that
they did not have their own radio operator at this time and had to
go through Rado; hence Moscow's assurances that Rado was not be-
ing curious or testy but rather was accepting this traffic in a code
that he could not read without demur. Gisela was one of three code
names for Maria Josefovna Poliakova, the other two being Vera and
Mildred. Mara was Sissy's daughter, Tamara Vigier.
(Tamara had her own code name, Vita, and one may wonder at
Poliakova' s indiscretion in not using it; but such lapses were not
rare. On 6 December 1943message from Dora informed Moscow
a
that Foote had been arrested. He was named openly as Foote instead
of being designated as Jim.)
18 May 1943
Dora to Director:
Sissy has just reported that Maurice has been

arrested by German authorities. She fears that
the Gestapo will thus come across her trail.
Maurice knows Sissy's true name. I have initia-

ted discreet inquiries and shall report further.
24 May 1943
Director to Dora:
Sissy is to let us know immediately: How did

she learn of Maurice's arrest and to what extent
can his arrest be dangerous for her?
4 July 1943
Director to Dora:
We have been able to determine, just in the

past few days, that the courier from France, who
was supposed to pick up the money from Jim,
Switzerland 179
was arrested; and in his place a Gestapo agent

came to Jim and, it appears, followed him to
his apartment and in this way was able to learn
his name. At the same time, but independently
of this even, Maurice was arrested in France . . .
For the time being, you must break off your

connection with Sissy completely She can . . .
be persuaded that it is in Taylor's interest to

have a connection with someone else for a
while Try to convince Sissy. Tell her that it
. . .
will be for only three months Sissy could . . .
say it is because of Paul, who is under observa-

tion . She should keep her apartment abso-
. .
lutely clean and, above all else, not say a word

too much ... It is best that Paul not sleep in
the apartment.
It has been suggested that Maurice was Maurice Emile Aenis-

Haenslin, born 20 September 1893 in St. Denis, France. Aenis-
Haenslin, a Swiss citizen and an engineer, was a member of the
Central Committee of the Swiss Communist Party and later joined
the French CP. He was involved in courier and funding activity on
behalf of Soviet intelligence during World War
There are con- II.
flicting reports about the date of Maurice'sby the Germans, arrest

one account dating it 1943; another, 1942. The latter is both more
detailed and less derivative. It is therefore concluded that the Mau-
rice who knew Sissy and whom the Germans arrested in France may
have been someone else other than Aenis-Haenslin, who was re-
leased from a German concentration camp in Brandenburg in re-
sponse to a Swiss demand.

At any rate, the traffic continued to mention Maurice and to
reveal conflicting views about his arrest. On 8 July 1943 Poliakova
repeated to Sissy, in the latter' 5 code, some of the instructions radi-
oed to Dora four days earlier. (In so doing Poliakova referred not to
Maurice but to Marius, so that there is a possibility that the two
were identical. It has also been suggested, however, that Marius was
Marius Mouttet, a Frenchman and former Socialist minister.) She
directed Sissy to leave Bern and go to Tessin (Ticino) or a spa for
two or three months. Taylor and Lucy were to be turned over to
someone else.
V. Sissy's Fight with Moscow
Sissy's reaction was unambiguous. On 8 July 1943 Dora sent

the Director the following:
Sissy and her men do not believe the story

has anything to do with Maurice and the Gesta-
po. They believe that the man who asked about
them came from the Center and just handled
himself clumsily. They assume that the Center
wants in this way to take away the Taylor group,
and in such a manner that I too shall know
nothing about it.
Presumably there were further exchanges, with Moscow insist-

ing that Sissy identify Lucy and his sources and that she turn them
over to Dora or someone else, and with Sissy adamantly refusing.
But these are not in our collections. On 16 August 1943, however,
the Center sent Sissy, via Dora, a stern message which substituted
the formal second person for the intimate, and which appears to
have been drawn up not by Poliakova but by her superiors:
Dear Sissy,
We, the Center, which has its people every-
where and can determine what is happening in
other countries and around you, have told you
clearly and explicitly that we have hard evidence
that the Gestapo knows that you work for us
and will try to uncover your connections into
Germany. You, however, deny this possibility
and interpret it as an attempt to take the Taylor
group away from you. You must understand,
inasmuch as you assume this position, that you
know nothing of the danger which threatens
you and Taylor's people, especially those in
Germany. Your behavior is frivolous and irre-
sponsible. We demand that you recognize the
seriousness of the situation and place full confi-
dence in our statements. We repeat: The Gesta-
po knows that you have or had a connection
with us and will attempt all possible provoca-
tions . . .
But Sissy stayed tough. On 22 September 1943 Dora radioed to

the Director:
Switzerland 181
In answer to your No. 157 and No. 158.

Many thanks for your advice. I am myself con-
vinced that much more could be gotten out of
the Lucy group. However, I have no direct con-
tact with this group, as you know, and every

time I try to intensify the group's activity I en-
counter in Sissy and her man (this literal inter-
pretation of "man" has been used because Sissy
at this time was still married to Duebendorfer,
a Swiss citizen) a resistance that I do not under-
stand. I remind you that when I noted the pos-
sibilities of this group a year ago, I had to hold
with Sissy discussions that continued for months
before she was prepared to take it over and use
it.. . Sissy and her man ... say that they
.
cannot transmit criticisms to Taylor and Lucy

because both would consider it an insult and
would stop working. In accordance with your
advice, I wrote Lucy a very friendly letter, but
Sissy declared that Taylor could not pass it on
because Lucy, beyond doubt, is already doing
everything he can. Apparently Sissy and her
man view the letter as an attempt by the Center
or by me to set up a direct contact with the Lucy
group. Your telegram was handed over to
. . .
Paul. .Again he boasted in such a way that I

. .
had a hard time of it controlling myself. He re-

fuses to come to Geneva for meetings. . . .
Again I beg you to release me from further con-

tact with Paul (who) tried to establish con-
. . .
tact for the transmission of his material through

Pierre and Ignatz . . .
In other words, Sissy and Paul still had no radio operator of

their own but did not want to turn over their encoded messages to
Dora for transmission by Edward (Edmond Hamel) and Maud (Ed-
mond's wife Olga), by Rosa (Margarete Bolli) or by Jim (Alexander
Foote). One report identifies Pierre as Roger Vauthey of Lausanne,
supposedly a courier or cutout between Rado and Mario in France.
Foote, however, in a private interview held in 1953, said that Pierre
and Vita were Pierre Nicole and his wife. Our own view is that
Pierre was indeed Pierre Nicole, but that Vita was Tamara Vigier.
born in 1911, served as a cutout between the Rote
Pierre Nicole,
Drei and the Swiss Labor Party, which was extremely left-wing,
though not officially Communist. The head of this party was Pi-
erre's father, Leon, born in 1897 in Montcherend, Vaud. Leon Ni-

cole had recruited several members of the Rote Drei on behalf of the
GRU. He and Pierre were in touch with Dora, Sissy, and Jim. The
identity of Ignatzis not known. He could have been any one of sev-
eral other SwissCommunists.

By 5 November 1943 the danger signs had multiplied, and
Moscow feared that Rado might be arrested, leaving the Center cut
off from Lucy's information. It therefore repeated the proposal that
Sissy and Jim be placed in direct contact so that if anything hap-
pened to Dora, Jim could still maintain the flow of intelligence. On 10
November Dora replied that Jim was in serious danger. The reason,
although the cited message does not say so, was that Edmond and
Olga Hamel had been arrested by the Swiss police on or about 8 Oc-
tober 1943, as had another W/T operator, Margarete Bolli. (Sissy,
Paul, and Vita were arrested later —
in May 1944.)
On 28 November 1943 the Director instructed Dora to tell Sissy
and Pakbo to work independently for a time. The most important
information was to go through Jim. What Moscow obviously did not
know was that Jim had been arrested eight days earlier.
VI. Dora
The fourth key personality in the Rote Drei was Alexander Ra-
do, the Hungarian cartographer who took over the direction of the
net from Maria Poliakova and who assumed contact with Ursula
Hamburger's sources after she left Switzerland for England at the
end of 1940. Rado's story is well known and is retold here only in
the barest outline. He was born 5 November 1899 in Upjest, Hun-
gary. It is almost certain that he was working already for Soviet mili-
tary intelligence when he left Paris for Geneva in 1936. Rado and
Ursula Hamburger worked independently of each other until the
fall of France in June 1940 because Rado had been able until then
to send his reports to Moscow via microfilm carried by couriers to

Paris. When Germans occupied France, Moscow ordered Ham-
the
burger to make Rado and place the transmitter of her
contact with
new husband, Leon Charles Beurton, at Rado's disposal. Hambur-
ger had trained both Foote and Beurton in operating a transmitter,
and they in turn trained the Hamels and Margarete Bolli. In 1941
Moscow resolved a struggle for power by subordinating Duebendor-
fer to Rado. (One report has Poliakova going to Switzerland for the
—
Switzerland 183
purpose.) But Rado's authority was not absolute, and the fact that
the Center gave Duebendorfer a code of her own and sometimes by-
passed Rado when communicating with her shows that the Soviets
did not intend to let Rado consolidate his position completely.
Dora, a simple anagram for Rado, is the sender or recipient of
almost all the Rote Drei messages. The main exception are those
sent or received directly by Sissy, and those sent by Albert or by the
Center but mentioning Albert in the text. There is no doubt that
Albert, like Dora, is Rado; but efforts to find a pattern or signifi-
cance in Rado's choice of cover name for a particular message have

not been successful. Albert, like Dora, sends standard OB messages.
The names does not indicate a parallel shift in transmitters,
shift in
because both "Dora" and "Albert" messages were found at their

flat when the Hamels were arrested. The possibility that Dora is Ra-
do as chief of the Rote Drei, and Albert is Rado as an individual,

disintegrates when checked against the traffic. Flicke postulated a
secretarywho, as Albert, signed messages for Rado when he was
away; but no one else ever heard of such a secretary, and "Dora"
and "Albert" messages were sometimes transmitted on the same
day. So the mystery is unsolved.
Rado's story has been told by Foote (and others) and is not re-
peated here, although all concerned should be aware that Foote

who disliked Rado — minimized his role in the Rote Drei, attacked
on dubious grounds, and erroneously believed
his personal integrity
him executed in the USSR, whereas in fact Rado is flourishing as a
cartographer in Hungary and Foote is dead.
By the beginning of 1941, then, Ursula Beurton, nee Hambur-
ger, was in England; the desk chief for the operation, Poliakova, was
in Moscow; Rado was in Geneva as the chief Rote Drei member in
Switzerland; and Sissy and her friend Paul were in Bern (not Gene-
va, where Foote erroneously places them).
Dora had two other key sources who, like Sissy, provided him
with intelligence from sub-sources. They were Long and Pakbo,
identified and described at a later point in this study. But Sissy was
more important than either of them, for one reason only: Lucy and
his sub-sources.
The cutout between Lucy and Sissy was Taylor, whose true
name was Christian Schneider and whose story is well known.
VII. Lucy and Taylor

The Center thought highly of Taylor, chiefly because Moscow
misunderstood his role. The first reference to him in our holdings is
in a message sent by the Director to Dora on 8 October 1942. The
message terms him a new source, although in fact he was merely a
go-between. On 20 October 1942 the Director told Dora to identify
Taylor's sources, not knowing that the sources "belonged" to Lucy,
not Taylor. Another Moscow- to-Dora message, sent the same day,
refers to "Taylor's information" about OKW (German High Com-
mand) plans. A
week later Moscow again asked for the identities of
Taylor's sources. In December 1942 and January 1943 the Center
began to speak of Taylor and Lucy jointly. By February 1943 the
Center's follow-up questions were directed to Lucy, with scant men-
tion to Taylor. That the Soviets continued to overestimate Taylor's
importance is nevertheless evident in a Director-to-Dora message of
6 October 1943, which suggested that the work of the Lucy-Taylor
group might be continued after the war ended and which promised
Taylor an income for life if he agreed. Perhaps Sissy misrepresented
to Moscow the insignificant role that Taylor actually had; perhaps
she merely kept stubbornly silent about such facts; or perhaps she
misunderstood the true situation because she was in touch only with
Taylor and not with Lucy.
In only one sense was Lucy important. If Rudolf Roessler had
not been living in Switzerland during the Second World War, his
sources in Germany might have found it troublesome or even im-
possible to get their reports into Soviet hands. In fact, they might
not have cared much one way or the other about Soviet reception of
their material, as long as it went to the Western Allies. But as was
pointed out in the recent review of Accoce and Quet, the widely ac-
cepted story that Lucy was a master spy is nothing but a myth. As
we have and put Dora in
seen, the Center tried to eliminate Sissy
direct contact with Taylor and Lucy. If this maneuver had succeed-
ed, it is probable that Dora would have been instructed to pressure
Lucy to divulge his sources, whose identities Moscow had already re-
quested again and again. And if Lucy had yielded, then the truth
—
would have been apparent Lucy's true function was no different
from that of Taylor. Both were mere cutouts. What made Lucy and
Taylor important, what made Sissy important, and to a large extent
what made the Rote Drei important was a small band of Germans
allegedly live men — Lucy's sources.
—
Switzerland 185
VIII. Lucy's Sources in World War II
clearly shows that Lucy had four important sources:

The record
Werther, Teddy, Olga, and Anna. Of the three hundred thirty-two
messages from Dora to the Director of which there are copies in our
holdings, Werther is the source of sixty-nine (21 percent); Teddy, of
thirty-one (10 percent); Olga, of twenty-six (8 percent); and Anna,
of eleven (3V2 percent). These four were probably not the only
sources reporting to Lucy; Lucy was not the only source reporting to
Sissy; and Sissy was not the only principal agent funneling reports
from a network into Rado. Yet these four persons produced 42

percent of the total traffic from Switzerland to Moscow. (Assuming
as we do that our holdings are large enough so that projections are
mathematically sound.)
We do not know the identities of any of them. We can, how-
ever, dismiss the theoryof Foote and some other writers that these
cover names merely referred to the source's access rather than his
identity, so that Werther stood for Wehrmache; Olga, for Ober-
kommando der Luftwaffe; Anna, for the Auswertige Amt (Foreign
Office); etc. There is nothing in the traffic to support this theory,
which seems to be based on speculation only. All Rote Drei code
names for which true identities have been established were designa-
tors of individuals per se, not of types of cover or access.
Despite the printed assertions to the contrary, Rudolf Roessler
did divulge the identity of his sources, or at least of some of them.
Three and a half years before his death, he provided identifying in-
formation about four of his chief sources to a trusted friend. They
—
were, said Lucy, (1) a German major whom he did not name
who had been the chief of the Abwehr before Admiral Wilhelm Ca-
naris assumed command; (2) Hans Bernd Gisevius; (3) Carl Goer-
deler; and (4) "General Boelitz, deceased."
IX. General Hans Oster

Lucy's confidant garbled the first identification and may have
done the same with the fourth. Canaris took charge of the Abwehr
on 1 January 1935. His predecessor was not a major but another ad-
miral, Conrad Patzig. But Hans Oster was a major in the Abwehr at
that time, and he remained in the service, in which he served as the
chief of staff and also as the heart of the twentieth of July group
which conspired to overthrow Hitler and, finally, to assassinate him.
Hans Bernd Gisevius said that he first met Oster some time be-
tween August 1933 and April 1934. "At that time he was set- . . .
ting up the war ministry's counterintelligence organization . . .
known ... as the Abwehr." {To the Bitter End, Houghton Mifflin
Co., New York, 1947, p. 142)
A number of sources have noted how well-informed Oster was.
His knowledge of state secrets extended even to those held by the
bitterest enemies of the Abwehr: the Gestapo and the Nazi security
service, called the SD (for Sicherheitsdienst).
Oster was able, generally speaking, through

his contacts with Graf (Wolf Heinrich von)
Helldorf, the Berlin Prefect of Police, and with
(Arthur) Nebe, the Reichskriminaldirektor . . .
to learn quickly what was going on in the en-

tourage of Hitler and Goering and also in the
Gestapo headquarters in the Prinz-Albrecht-
Strasse.
(Karl Heinz Abshagen, Canaris, English edition, Hutchinson and

Co. Ltd., London, 1956, p. 122)
The fact that Oster was prepared to provide Germany's enemies
with information which was of crucial importance, even though they
lacked the power to make full use of it, is also well established. Even
Accoce and Quet, despite their denigration of the twentieth of July
group, concede that Oster told Colonel J. G. Sas, the Dutch Mili-
tary Attache in Berlin, that Germany intended to invade Norway.
Abshagen reported he gave Sas this warning on 3 April 1940 for re-
lay to Norway and also told Sas of the invasion of Holland before
the event, In fact, Oster had begun to send specific, factual warn-
ings to the West as early as 1938.
The man who had become a major in 1929, a lieutenant colo-
nel in 1935, a colonel in 1939, and a major general in 1942 was un-
swerving in his detestation of German fascism and in his conviction
that morality necessitated action. As time passed and Hitler's power
grew, Oster became convinced that the plots to eradicate the Nazis
through the internal intervention of German armed forces would
fail because of the waverings of the German generals. He warned
the West because he recognized that Hitler could not be brought

down inside the Reich until he had been defeated on the battle-
fields.
Most contemporary German historians boggle at this point.

They write in detail about the twentieth of July conspiracy but gloss
Switzerland 187
over the fact that from 1938 until his discharge from the Abwehr on
31 March 1944, when he was placed under house arrest in Schna-
ditz, near Leipzig, Oster was furnishing vital information to Germa-
ny's foes and was therefore — at least in Nazi eyes — engaged in high
treason.
How did Oster obtain information? Gisevius said,
Oster had formed a circle around himself

. . .
... he utilized the potentialities of the Abwehr

so cannily that he was able to establish a whole
network of confidential agents. Oster . . .
seemed to be organizing an intelligence service

of his own, within the counterintelligence serv-
ice. . .One of the most important of his activ-
.
ities was to install his own confidential agents in
the most diverse positions.
And Oster was on intimate conspiratorial terms with such persons as

General Ludwig Beck (who, with Oster, sent Dr. Josef Mueller to
the Vatican for peace negotiations with the British, negotiations at
which the Pope presided); General Georg Thomas, head of the Eco-
nomics and Armaments Branch of the OKW; Generals Fritz Thiele
and Erich Fellgiebel, respectively chiefs of communications for the
Army and the OKW; and General Friedrich Olbricht, chief of the
Allgemeine Heeresamt and permanent deputy to the commander-
in-chief of the Home Army. These men, and others like them, were
active members of the conspiracy; most of them were executed by
the Nazis. And they were in a position to have direct access to pre-
cisely the kind of information reported by Lucy's sources.
How did the information reach Lucy? Here too we can only
speculate. A biographic summary of Oster in the International Bio-
graphic Archives includes the following:
In addition to his military duties, Oster was si-

multaneously the technical center of the anti-
Hitler resistance in the Army. He spared neither
effort nor risk to set up connections between
military and civilian resistance groups.
Gisevius adds,
He once described to me in one sentence his

own conception of his function within the Re-
sistance movement. He was standing at his desk
looking down pensively at the four or five tele-

phones whose secret circuits connected him with
the most diverse authorities. "This is what I
am," he said. "I facilitate communications for
everyone everywhere."
Oster had the entire communications network of the Abwehr at

and he used
his disposal, it to support the anti-Nazi cause. Absha-
gen comments,
The so-called "A-net" (consisting of independ-

ent lines of communication at the disposal of
the Abwehr only) would ensure that the "con-
spirators" only would be able to transmit news
and orders.
He adds,
The Abwehr organization was the nerve center

from which General Staff, to
lines led to the
General (Erwin) von Witzleben ... to Goer-
deler, to Beck ... to (Baron Ernst von) Weiz-
saecker (the Under Secretary of State and for-
merly Minister in Bern), and through him to a
group of diplomats abroad. . . .
As was noted earlier in this study, the timing of Rote Drei mes-
sages would have permitted sending almost all of the traffic through
Abwehr courier channels from Germany to Switzerland. We know
that Gisevius had access at least twice and sometimes three times a
week to a courier pouch from the Foreign Office in Berlin to the
German Embassy in Bern. At least every other day Gisevius was also
serviced by an OKW
courier as the result of a procedure instituted
by Oster. And for urgent messages Oster or a cohort could safely use
an Abwehr telephone. How the Abwehr 's lines were shielded
against Gestapo and SD monitoring is not known, at least by this
writer; but that they were so shielded is demonstrated by the con-
spirators' uninhibited use of telephones and the survival of the
group until 20 July 1944.
In brief, even if Lucy had not listed "Canaris' predecessor,"
Gisevius, and Carl Goerdeler, all key figures in the twentieth of July
group, as having been among his sources, the characteristics of the
Lucy messages and of their transmission from Germany to Switzer-
land suggest that Werther and the others probably had Abwehr
communications channels at their disposal. There seems to be no
Switzerland 189
plausible alternative theory.
X. Hans Bernd Gisevius
Gisevius has told much of his own story in To The Bitter End,
but like other Germans he stresses the resistance activity of the un-
derground and says little about espionage. (There are a few excep-
tions. Speaking of the twentieth of July conspiracy, Gisevius says,
—
"We had our spies everywhere in the war ministry, the police
headquarters, the ministry of the interior, and especially in the for-
eign office. All the various threads came together in Oster's office."
But comments in this vein are rare.) He entered the Abwehr in 1939
or 1940; and when Paris fell, Canaris and Oster sent him to Zurich
with the cover of a vice consul.
But even before the war started, Gisevius had started to make
trips to Switzerland to meet with representatives of the Western Al-
lies. He says,
We had decided to meet in Switzerland after

the "March madness." (The term is a reference
to Hitler's seizure, with Western acquiescence,
of the Sudetenland in March 1939.) We
wanted
to establish closer connections with the British
and French, and it no longer seemed advisable
to do this in Berlin. (Hjalmar) Schacht had
business in Basle in any case. I was glad of the
opportunity to complete my notes on the
French crisis. Goerdeler intended to stay around
Berlin until the end of the Czech crisis; then he
planned to follow us as soon as possible.
In Ouchy, Gisevius met Goerdeler and an unidentified companion

who mentioned only
is as a person of considerable influence in Lon-
don and Paris circles.
XI. Ex- Chancellor Josef Wirth

Gerhard Ritter tells of another, similar meeting which occurred
some months later, in February 1940. He says that the ex-Chancellor
of Germany, Josef Wirth, had emigrated to Switzerland and had of-
fered to act as an intermediary between the British and the German
anti-Fascists.
In a document which Dr. (Reinhold) Schairer

took to London, he called Chamberlain's atten-

tion to the existence of an important opposition
group. ... In mid-February two Foreign Office
representatives, friends of (Sir Robert) Vansit-
tart, met Wirth at Ouchy and another man,
well known in London, who had, since war
broke out, lived in Lucerne and from there had
kept up his connections with friends in Britain.
The other man could have been Inchel, Freiherr von Godin, or
Lucy himself, or any of several other Germans who, like Wirth, were
living in Lucerne.
Wirth also appears in Rote Drei traffic. On 14 January 1943 the
Center sent the following message to Dora:
(a)Request reply about exact substance of

talks between Long (George Blun, a French
journalist and important member of the Rote
Drei) and Wirth. Especially interested in con-
tents of Wirth 's negotiations with the USSR.
What does he plan to do, as a practical matter,
to establish contact?
(b) Whatopinion does Long now have of
Rot's statements? Does he believe that they are
true? Long absolutely must report clearly about
the intent of Rot's group to orient itself toward
the Soviet Union. Is it possible that at the pres-
ent time there exists an organized opposition of
commanding officers against Hitler?
(c) Rot should report the location from which
Germany sent thirty divisions to Italy. What is
the picture in respect to reserves in Germany?

How does the OKW react to the Russian offen-
sive? What and intentions of the
are the plans
OKW for the next few months?
(d) Repeat, what documents does Rot intend
to publish? Because of their great importance,
request a good check on all these questions and
a prompt answer.
Six days later the Director asked some questions about the in-
tentions of the OKW, the German High Command. Moscow direct-
ed the requirements be levied upon Lucy's group and added, "if
feasible, Long should try to get relevant information from the Wirth
group."
Switzerland 191
On 20 April 1943 the following message from Dora was trans-

mitted:
From Rot.
Through the Director General coming here
. . .Mayor Goerdeler from Bendlerstrasse
. . .
(OKW Headquarters):
(a) The first fixed day for the German attack
on the East Front is 14 June. Only operations of
modest proportions are planned.
(b) The General Staff expects the event by
the end of April at the earliest; it could snowball.
The so-called second echelon of generals (liter-
ally, generals in second-best uniforms), who al-
ready wanted
to take action against Hitler in
January, has now decided to liquidate Hitler
and also his supporters. An earlier attempt fail-
ed because Hitler was warned by Manstein.
On 5 October 1943 the following went from Dora to the Direc-

tor:
On 27 September Salter talked with the former

German Chancellor Wirth in Lucerne. Wirth
rejects the German Liberation Committee (the
reference is to the "National Committee of Free
Germany," created by the Russians) in Moscow
because it hinders instead of hastening the dis-
integration of the Nazi regime. Those who feel
partially responsible for the establishment of
that regime will cooperate more closely with the
Nazi leaders. Bourgeois German Democrats are
prepared to collaborate with German Commu-
nists but not under Soviet guidance. Therefore,
they reject the Moscow Committee. According
to Wirth, the German Embassy in Bern is ex-
tremely interested in Sokolin. Krauel, a former
German consul in Geneva, serves as the inter-
mediary in this matter.
On the basis of these messages and of the scanty information

about the movements and activities of Gisevius in Switzerland, it is
suggested that Gisevius may have been Rot. Gisevius knew Roessler,
which may well explain why Lucy identified him correctly as a source
but failed to list Oster, whom he had never met, by name. Gisevius
also knew Wirth, whose link to the twentieth of July group had
been sanctioned by Generals Oster and Beck. He obviously knew
Carl Goerdler, one of the most important of the conspirators. Gise-
vius was sympathetic toward the Soviet cause, a fact which became
more apparent after the war than it was during it. He was thorough-
ly trained in clandestinity as a result of his role on the twentieth of
July group, his three and a half years as an agent of British intelli-
gence, and his work for OSS in Switzerland. It seems probable that
people like Goerdeler and Beck, who themselves favored the West-
ern solution — i.e., a postwar Germany oriented toward the United
States and the U.K. — believed that Gisevius felt as they did and
that those members of the twentieth of July who favored the Eastern
solution, people like Count Klaus Philip Schenk von Stauffenberg
and Adam von Trott zu Solz, thought that Gisevius shared their
views.
There is one difficulty inherent in the theory that Rot was Gise-
vius. As was said earlier, Lucy named Gisevius as one of his sources.
Rot, however, seems to have been a source of Long rather than Lucy.
But there may be no real contradiction here; Gisevius could have
been in clandestine contact with both Roessler and Blun, just as he
was in clandestine contact with many other people. Because Lucy
and Sissy succeeded in concealing the identities of the Lucy group
from the Russians, the dual role of Gisevius in the Rote Drei, if he
did in fact play such a role, could not come to light.
XII. Carl Goerdeler
The third man named by Roessler as one of his sources was Carl
Goerdeler, who had been Lord Mayor of Leipzig from 1930 to 1936,
when he resigned and broke with the Nazis. A conservative vision-
ary, a Protestant monarchist, a headstrong philosopher, Goerdeler
remained a civilian all his life. All of the information provided to
Moscow by Lucy could have been obtained more readily, more se-
curely, in greater detail, and at a higher level from leading military
figures in the resistance than from Carl Goerdeler. It seems probable
that Roessler named him just because he knew him personally as he
knew Gisevius. Whatever information Goerdeler provided, he must
have obtained it from fellow conspirators, not from direct access. It
is therefore not possible to draw any logical inferences about which
cover name, if any, referred to Goerdeler.

Switzerland 193
XIII. The Unknown Boeutz

The fourth source named by Lucy was "General Boelitz (de-
ceased)." Unfortunately, no record of a general named Boelitz has
been discovered. There was a Dr. Otto Boelitz, born a pastor's son
in Wesel in 1876, who became the Prussian Minister of Art, Science,
and Education. In 1934 he was a Culturrat (advisor on cultural mat-
ters) and a member of the German Foreign Institute. He was also
the first director of the Ibero- American Institute in Berlin. Some

time during 1934 Dr. Boelitz fell into the bad graces of the Nazis
and was replaced as head of the Ibero-American Institute by a gen-
eral named Faupel. Thereafter, one report suggests, the Institute
was used by the Nazis in support of espionage and subversion in
Latin America. Dr. Otto Boelitz died in Germany on 29 December
1951.
No record linking him to Roessler on the one hand, or to Os-
ter, Goerdeler, or any other member of the twentieth of July group
on the other, has been found thus far. There remains, however, the
possibility of another garble. A Colonel Friedrich (Fritz) Boetzel was
head of the German military intercept office in Munich before
1933. From 1934 to 1939 he headed the ciphers department (Chif-
frierstelle) of the OKW. Thereafter he was commanding officer of
the intelligence evaluation office of the Southeast Army group,

Athens, where he remained until 1944. He had ties to Canaris and
Oster. And a German First Lieutenant of the Signal Corps, interro-
gated in April 1945, described Colonel Boetzel as an anti-Nazi.
To summarize: We have Werther, Teddy, Olga, and Anna as
Lucy's principal sources and as the principal sources in the Rote Drei
network. We have Oster, Gisevius, Goerdeler, and Boelitz identi-
fied by Roessler as having been among his sources during World
War II. We have no basis for matching true and cover names, al-
though Oster seems the likeliest candidate for Werther.
XIV. Sissy's Other Sources
Let us next consider who worked for Sissy (Rachel Duebendor-

fer) besides Lucy and Taylor. Foote lists Isaac and one "Hofmeier"
of the Swiss Communist Party as contacts of Duebendorfer. Isaac,
who does not appear in any Rote Drei message at our disposal,
worked where Sissy hadbeen employed, at the International

also
Labor Office in Geneva. Foote lists him as Alexander A
The first name is correct; the true last name is Abramson. Apart
from playing a minor part in Sissy's ill-advised attempt to get help
from the RIS in Canada after Rado went into hiding, Isaac's chief
contribution to the Rote Drei was to provide safe storage for sensi-
tive materials, a side benefit that resulted from his diplomatic status
at the ILO. He either did not function as a source or was insignifi-
cant in that capacity. Karl Hofmaier, born 17 May 1897 in Basle, a
Swiss citizen and a journalist, was the leader of the left wing of the
Swiss Communist Party. He had been in the USSR in the early
1920s, had spent eight years in a prison in Italy, and was in Moscow
in 1939- He came into conflict with Julius Humbert-Droz, leader of
a more moderate faction of the Swiss CP. Both had Rote Drei con-
tacts after the war started, but we lack particulars about the reasons
for Hofmaier 's contacts with Sissy and Dora.
Several reports have linked Sissy with Maurice Emile Aenis-
Haenslin, a Swiss citizen born in St. Denis, France, on 30 February
1893. These reports allege that Aenis-Haenslin, a Communist of
long standing, served as a courier between Henri Robinson of the
Rote Kapelle and Sissy. (We have found no substantiation for this
assertion and are disinclined to accept it.) As best they could, the
Soviets avoided contaminating one network through contacts with
another. Exceptions seem to have occurred when Moscow tried to
transfer money from one country to another. But if Aenis-Haenslin
was used to bring funds to the Rote Drei from France, his contact
would logically have been with Rado or Foote rather than Sissy.
The assumption that Aenis-Haenslin was in contact with Due-
bendorfer seems to rest chiefly upon an exchange of traffic in May
1943. Sissy reported the arrest of Maurice in France. Maurice knew
Sissy's true name, and she feared that the Gestapo would learn of
her role in espionage. Aenis-Haenslin was arrested in Paris by the
Gestapo, but conflicting dates — —
1942 and 1943 have been report-
ed for this event.
It has been established that Tamara, the daughter of Sissy, and
a former husband named Curt Caspari served her mother in some

espionage capacity, probably as a courier. The first reference to her
in the traffic is from Gisela (Maria Josefovna Poliakova) to
a message
Sissy. The message, sent in Sissy's code and dated 23 April 1943,
ended with the following: '"How are you? What is Mara doing?
Greetings to her and both of you from Gisela." Mara is Tamara.
Switzerland 195
"Both of you" means Sissy and Paul.

Tamara had married a French Army captain, a militant Com-
munist named Jean Pierre Vigier; and either Tamara or her mother
seems to have brought the young man into the net. Some commen-
tators, including Dallin, have maintained that Vigier was alias
Braut, who appears in Rote Drei traffic in July, August, and Sep-
tember 1943. The claim seems weak. On 16 August 1943 the Center
told Sissy, "Give us an exact account of Braut. Is he truly a com-
rade?" But Jean-Pierre Vigier, like his father Henri, was well known
as a Communist. It seems likelier that he and Tamara are the Pierre
and Vita of the following message from Moscow, sent on 22 August
1942 to Dora:
Is Mario firm? Would he betray Pierre and Vita

if interrogated? Are you sure Pierre and Vita, if
they have a talk with the Swiss police, would
not betray Dora?
The best guess about Mario is that he was Otto Manning, a

Communist Party leader in Biel, Switzerland.
In addition to Mario, Sissy was linked to a Rote Drei source
called Marius. On 8 October 1942 the Director, in a message sent
through Dora to Sissy, said, "Your new people, Marius and Taylor,
do not work badly. One must always control them, however, and
keep them active." And a message of 5 July 1943, sent directly to
Sissy, referred to the arrest of Marius in France. The fact that Mario,
Marius, and Maurice were all arrested has caused some analysts to
guess that two of them of them were identical, but no basis
or all
for such an assumption has been found. We do not know who Mari-
us was, and lack even a clue, but the dates of arrest indicate that he
was not the same person as Mario. Moreover, both names appear
more than once in the traffic, so that the likelihood of error is not
great.
As was noted earlier in this account, the Paul who appears in

the radio traffic could hardly be anyone except Paul T. Boettcher,
Sissy's common-law husband. Born on 2 May 1891 in Leipzig, Ger-
many, Boettcher had been a member of the Central Committee of

the German Communist Party, a Minister of Finance in Saxony, and
the chief editor of the Arbeiterzeitung in Leipzig. He fled to Swit-
zerland after the Nazis came Whether he began living
to power.
with Rachel Duebendorfer before or after the Spanish Civil War, in
which Boettcher served in the International Brigade, she gave him
196 Narrative Hktory of the Rote Kapelle
her husband's identity papers, probably in 1941, when the Swiss

authorities ordered his expulsion from the country. He remained in
Switzerland illegally. He and Sissy were arrested on a charge of es-
pionage in December 1943 but escaped on 23 July 1945 and fled to
France. Both were sentenced in absentia to two years. Boettcher
went from France to East Germany, where he again edited a Leipzig
newspaper and where he also became a professor of Russian at Halle
University. Sissy apparently remained in France. But in 1947 she
vanished. Dallin maintains that she was "arrested, tried, and severe-
ly punished in Russia.
Although Foote maintained that Boettcher was not part of the

Rote Drei network, the traffic clearly indicates the contrary. A mes-
sage from Moscow, dated 23 April 1943 and transmitted in Sissy's
own code, was addressed to "Sissy and Paul." In a lengthy warning
of 4 July 1943, the Director warned that as a result of the arrest of
Maurice, Sissy was to "keep her apartment absolutely clean" and
added, "It is best that Paul not sleep in the apartment." Referring
to thesame event, Rado referred to "Sissy and her man."
Rado apparently found Boettcher hard to take. On 22 Septem-
ber 1943 Dora sent to Moscow a long lament which included the
following:
Your telegram was handed over to Paul . . .
Again he boasted in such a way that I found it

hard to control myself. He refuses to come to
Geneva for meetings. Again I beg you to
. . .
release me from further contact with Paul . . .
After had made S (presumably Sissy) under-

I
stand that I would not receive him, he tried to

establish contact for the transmission of his ma-
terial through Pierre and Ignatz.
(As was noted earlier, there are grounds for thinking that Pierre was
Jean-Paul Vigier, Sissy's son-in-law. It has also been asserted, how-
ever, that Pierrewas Pierre Nicole, a Swiss Communist and the son
of Leon Nicole, who headed the far-left, pro-Communist Swiss La-
bor Party. Both father and son were deeply involved in Rote Drei
work. They served as spotter, recruiters, couriers, fund raisers, and
in various other capacities. If Pierre is the son, then Ignatz could
well be the father. The conjecture is somewhat strengthened by a
message, date unknown, to the Director and almost certainly from
Dora:
Switzerland 197
Re: Pierre and Noel.

I have often pointed out that contact with
Pierre is dangerous for me. Therefore meetings
have been confined to those for the purpose of

transfer of money.
Both Pierre and Leon Nicole were associated with Noel Field during
the 1942- 1943 period. If this theory is right, then the likeliest cover
name for Jean-Paul Vigier is Braut, a French source who worked for
Sissy.)
Some confusion has resulted from an assumption by Flicke and

others that Paul was not Boettcher but rather a W/T operator work-
ing for Sissy. That this assumption is incorrect is shown by a message
sent from the Director to Dora on 5 November 1943:
In addition, Jim must immediately take care of

the training of a second W/T and you
operator,
may one working for Paul. We can
also use the
give him (Paul) an order that he is to place his
S/T operator at (your) disposition.
This message is also significant because it shows that the Hamels,

Margarete Bolli, and Foote were not the only radio operators work-
ing for the Rote Drei. On 28 June 1943 the Director granted per-
mission for the training of Harry as a radio operator. There are also
references to an operator or trainee whose cover name was Roger.
Harry is believed to have been Henrietta Bourgeois, an unmarried
Swiss stenographer born in Canton Vaud in 1917 and recruited in

1943 by Pierre Nicole. She was to have been trained by Foote as a
W/T operator, and after a quarrel with her parents she gave up her
job in Geneva. But Foote was arrested before the training could
start. Roger may have been a Swiss citizen, Jean Jacques Roger
Spiess, born 15 or 16 September 1916. Spiess and his wife, Josette,

lived in Lausanne during the war. He was a Communist or a sympa-
thizer and was associated with Foote. At last report, in 1965, he was
a manufacturer of woodworking machinery in Renens, Switzerland,
and was making frequent business trips to the Congo.
Another of Sissy's sources was her cousin Walter Fluckiger,
whose Rote Drei name was Brand. He was born in Bern in 1906,
travelled to the USSR, and married a Russian. During the war, or
part of it, he lived at the Richmond Hotel in Geneva. When he was
arrested is not known to us, but it has been reported that in Decem-
ber 1953 he was in prison in Switzerland because of espionage per-
formed for the Soviets. The similarity in cover names of some of Sis-
sy's sources (Mario, Marius, Maurice as noted above) reappears in

"Braut" and "Brand," erroneously considered identical by some
commentators. Braut 's information came chiefly from France;
Brand's, from Italy and Switzerland.
Sissy was also in touch with an unidentified person whose cover
name was Charly. On 5 May 1943 Moscow asked, "Why is Sissy
against recruiting Charly? He is an honest and good co-worker, but
we do not know his wife. A third station (i.e., transmitter) is neces-
sary." This last sentence is mysterious because three Rote Drei trans-
mitters were functioning when the message was sent unless there—
had been a temporary breakdown.
A Rote Drei source who is thought to have been a member of
Sissy's group was Diener, whose true name was Francois Lachenal.
In our holdings Diener appears but once in the following message of
30 July 1943 from Dora to the Director:
Diener from Vichy:

On 14 July de Brinon tried, with the help of
and
Berlin military circles, to overthrow Laval
form a new government including Deat,
fascist
Doriot, Benoist, and Mechin. The plot failed
because Petain is now protecting Laval.
Francois Lachenal, born 31 May 1918 in Geneva, was a Swiss

citizen who spent much of World War II in Vichy. It has been re-
ported that he passed his information directly to Sissy's son-in-law,
Jean Pierre Vigier, and that he remained a Soviet agent after the war
ended. He worked in the Political Department (Swiss Foreign Of-
fice) where he copied documents on behalf of the Soviets before he
was dismissed.
Rachel Duebendorfer's Rote Drei contacts fell into three cate-
gories. By most important group was Lucy's quartet of Wer-
far the
ther, Teddy, Olga, and Anna —
all in Germany. Sissy resisted stren-
uously every effort of Moscow and Rado to determine the identities

of the members of the Taylor-Lucy team, and it is fair to conjecture
that a major reason for her resistance was that, had she lost this re-
markable asset, she would have had little enough left. For the sec-
ond group was composed of peripheral people like Brand and Die-
ner, probably turned over to Sissy by Vera Poliakova before the war.
And the third element was made up of Sissy's own family: the man
with whom she was living, Paul Boettcher; her daughter and the
daughter's husband; and a cousin.
Switzerland 199
XV. Long
Alexander Rado had two other principal agents. One of them,

George Blun, was a French journalist whose sub-sources could not
match the production of Lucy's group in quality or quantity, but
who was nevertheless a valuable asset for the Soviets.
Blun, born on 1 June 1893 in Alsace-Lorraine, was married to
another reporter, Marthe Kentzel. During World War I he worked
for the British and French intelligence services. He was expelled
from Switzerland in 1920 for Communist activities. In addition to
the Rote Drei activity described below, his services as a World War
II agent were reportedly extended to the British and the Poles. He
also had Swiss intelligence contacts. He was in close contact with the
leadership of the Swiss Communist Party well before World War II;
in fact, this relationship began in 1925. He came to know many of
the key members of Swiss intelligence and the Rote Drei during
World War II. Like many other spies working in Switzerland at that
time, Blun served several masters. Among them were the Swiss, the
Soviets, the Poles, and the French.
Blun's alias for W/T purposes was Long. As such, he appears in
the Rote Drei traffic (or at least in our holdings) twenty-eight times
between October 1941 and mid-November 1943.
Blun spent much of this period in Berlin, although he also
travelled to Switzerland and France. His contacts ranged from key
Rote Drei personnel to the Swiss G-2, German journalists like Ernst
Lemmer of the Neue Zuercher Zeitung, the director of a Swiss air-
line, Swedish and engineers, German nobility and cap-

industrialists
tains of industry, Hungarian diplomats, French resistance circles, an
SS Lieutenant General, prelates of the Vatican, Austrian financiers,
and at least two German anti-fascists who play significant parts in
this story — Hans Bernd Gisevius and Josef Wirth.
This wide range of contacts at high levels seems at first blush to
be odds with Long's performance. The explanation is that his
at
sources were mostly unwitting and his contacts casual. The following
were probably witting, because they had radio aliases and because
the traffic so suggests.
XVI. Agnes
Agnes, whose true name was Ernst Lemmer, represented a Zu-

rich newspaper in Berlin and traveled to Switzerland repeatedly. He
was in contact with one Burckhardt, the Swiss military attache in
Berlin who had contacts in the twentieth of July group and who
also
served as a communications channel to Switzerland. He first appears
in our holdings in a message of 22 October 1941, Dora to Director.
Long is listed as the source and Lemmer, who is said to have ob-
tained the information from the Foreign Ministry, as the sub-source.
The information concerned the siege of Moscow. The message ends
with, "In the future I shall call him (Lemmer) Agnes." Our files,
however, contain only two more messages citing Agnes. The dates
are 13 August and 18 September 1943, and the messages are merely
reports of the lack of morale at the German home front. Lemmer is
nevertheless important because he served as a source for Lucy during

the second, post-war phase of Lucy's career in espionage. Lemmer
was born on 28 April 1898 in Remscheidt, Germany (although Dal-
lin, for some unknown reason, thought he was born in Odessa and
lived in Russia for seventeen years). He attended the Universities of

Marburg and Frankfurt am Main. He joined the German Democra-
tic Party (DDP), became chairman of the Young Democrats, and
was also secretary-general of a trade union. In 1924 he was elected as

a DDP representative to the Reichstag and thus became the young-
est member of the body. He lost three posts when the Nazis seized
power, and he was forbidden to write for any newspaper published
in Germany. He became the Berlin correspondent for the Pester
Lloyd of Budapest and the Neue Zuercher Zeitung, as well as a re-
porter in occupied Belgium for the Brussels Soir. After the war Lem-
mer was accused in West Germany of having collaborated with the
Nazis. He settled immediately after the war in the Berlin suburb of
Klein-Machnow, in the Soviet sector, where he owned a house. In
October 1945 he became the deputy chairman of the Christian
Democratic Party (CDU) in the Soviet Zone and a member of the
board of the Free German Trade Union Federation, the Communist
FDGB. He was also deputy mayor of Klein-Machnow. He was in
close and cordial contact with leading members of the Soviet mili-
tary occupation. On 20 December 1947, however, the Soviet author-
itiesremoved Lemmer from the vice-chairmanship of the CDU, os-
tensibly because of policy conflicts. He moved to West Berlin in
1949 and became editor of the anti- Communist Berlin Kurier. In
1950 he was elected to the five-man executive of the CDU in West
Berlin. In January 1952 he was elected as a CDU representative to
the Bundestag, and in December 1955 he became chairman of the
West Berlin CDU. In November 1956 he was appointed Minister of
Postal and Telecommunications. In October 1957 he became Minis-
Switzerland 201
ter for All-German Affairs. (One report of that period stated inno-
cently, "Lemmer ... is said to be opposed to the work of the Al-
lied and German intelligence networks in West Berlin.") In 1966
Lemmer was a special representative of Chancellor Erhard in Berlin.
He is currently listed as a retired Cabinet Minister who last held
public office in 1965.
The same source who repeated the identities of the four World
War II sources whom Lucy had named to him also said that Lemmer
was a source of Lucy's during the 1947-1953 period when Lucy and
Xaver Schnieper worked for Czech intelligence.
The postwar charges of collaboration with the Nazis, which
Lemmer denied and outrode, seem to have been true. During his
interrogation after the war, Walter Schellenberg said that Lemmer
had been an agent of Amt VI.
XVII. KURZ
Another source Long was an agent whose cover name was
for
Kurz (German for "short"). His true name was Clemens Bernhard
Alfermann. He was born on 25 January 1907 in Oberhausen, in the
Rhineland. He attended the Universities of Cologne, Paris, and Ber-
lin. In 1935 he emigrated to Switzerland. He settled first in Lau-
sanne and then in Zurich, at Seefelderstrasse 257; and he became an
editor of Europa Press. He also served as a reporter for Transocean of
the German Press Agency, the DNB. He became a leading member
of the Free Germany Committee, which was Soviet controlled. In
December 1943 an intercepted Polish message referred to Alfer-
mann as "a good man," and Clemens Alfermann was suspected of
being a Polish agent.
Several reports list him as having been an agent or representa-
tive of the Abwehr and specifically of Ast Breslau (of Amt III-F,
counterespionage). At the same time, however, he was closely linked
with Hans Daufeld, who worked for Amt VI of the SD (Walter
Schellenberg' s intelligence service) in Lausanne from 1942 to 1945
with cover According to Daufeld, Alfermann was eligi-
as a consul.
ble for the draft but Daufeld intervened in his behalf, and in ex-
change Alfermann wrote comprehensive reports for Daufeld.
It is possible that Alfermann served as a communications link
between the twentieth of July conspirators in Germany and the Rote

Drei network in Switzerland. Abwehr packages brought sealed from
Berlin to Geneva by courier were regularly received by Alfermann.
Some time during the war Alfermann approached the U.S.

Consulate General in Zurich through George Blun, who served as
his intermediary in offering to exchange information about Germa-
ny for a guarantee of postwar protection. The offer seems to have
been rejected.
In August 1944 Alfermann asked an unidentified Abwehr rep-
resentative inGeneva whether he would be willing to meet a mem-
ber of theDeuxieme Bureau. The Abwehr man agreed. The French-
man turned out to be George Blun, who quickly said that he had
nothing to do with the Second Bureau but worked instead for the
IVth Section of the Red Army Staff. He accused the Abwehr officer
of being partly responsible for the arrests of some Rote Drei mem-
bers in Switzerland and suggested that the arrests be stopped. He
asked the Germans to provide information about the Abwehr and
told him that doing so would stand him in good stead after the war.
The officer refused.
Soon after the war ended, Alfermann became involved with Jo-
sef Wirth in a project whereby packages of food and clothing were
mailed to East Germany. He made frequent postwar trips to the Brit-
ish zone of Germany, trips which were facilitated by the British au-
thorities. On Germany, taking up res-
31 March 1948 he returned to
idence first in Duesseldorf Bonn, but making frequent
and then in
trips to Belgium and Switzerland. In 1952 he was considered for
the post of press attache at the West German Embassy in Bern, but
the Swiss refused to accept him. He became the liaison representa-
tive of the Public Service and Transport Workers Union (OeTV),
which held meetings with representatives of Communist countries.
In March 1966 he was scheduled for a trip to the USSR.
The portion of traffic that we hold contains only two references
to Kurz. The first, dated 28 December 1942, directs Dora to ascer-
tain from Dux why the Swiss police issued a summons to Kurz and
searched his house. (We do not know the identity of Dux. He was
probably a Swiss police officer in touch with Pakbo.) The second
message, 27 January 1943, is Dora's reply. The police told Kurz that
the house search had resulted from the fact that a British agent
working in Switzerland had been using Kurz's true name. Dora said
that the explanation was "obviously untrue." Since the search,
Kurz had been under surveillance. Kurz also reported that no one
had appeared for a meeting with Georg on 12 December 1942. Al-
though the identity of Georg is not known, it is possible that the
reference may have been to George Blun, despite his having a well-
Switzerland 203
established cover name.
XVIII. GRAU
Athird source for Long was Grau, whose true name was Man-
fred von Grimm. Born in Vienna on 30 December 1911, von
Grimm fled to Switzerland on 19 March 1938. Before the war he
had worked as a sub-source for a French agent, Rudolf Lemoine (ali-
as Korff-Koenig). Von Grimm, whose information was going to the
Poles, used the cover name Schmidt. When Lemoine was arrested by
the Germans in October 1942, he identified von Grimm, whom the
Poles promptly dropped. In Switzerland von Grimm lived in Davos.
His work for the Rote Drei apparently began after his tie to the
Poles was severed. There are also reports that he was associated with
British intelligence during World War II. In 1947 he was living in
Holland.
Grau makes eight appearances in the messages included in our
holdings. The first of these, dated 22 January 1942, was from Dora
to the Director and read thus:
Long wants to use Manfred von Grimm, a parti-

san of the Austrian Schuschnigg, who lives
here, and pay him one hundred fifty francs
monthly. Von Grimm's father was an Austrian
general and consul in Holland. Request your
approval.
Another message, dated 8 October 1942, concerned a Finnish Lieu-

tenant named Aminoff, a relative of Marshal Mannerheim, who was
bearing a message from Mannerheim to the Pope. Grau, who was a
baron, was also a friend or associate of the Prince of Lichtenstein,
who in 1943 appeared in the radio traffic as Axel but who was prob-
ably unwitting.
XIX. ROT
A fourth source was Rot. Although the true identity of Rot has
not been determined definitively, a case can be made for the hy-
pothesis that he was Hans Bernd Gisevius. Our holdings contain
only three messages which mention Rot. The first, from the Director
to Dora, is dated 14 January 1943. It reads in part as follows:
(a) Request reply about exact substance of

talks between Long and (Josef) Wirth. Especial-
ly interested in content of Wirth 's negotiations

with the USSR. What does he think, practically
speaking, about how to establish contact?
(b) What opinion does Long now have of
Rot's statements? Does he believe that they are
true? Long absolutely must report clearly about
the intent of Rot's group to orient itself toward
the Soviet Union. Is it possible that there exists
at the present time an organized opposition by
commanding officers against Hitler?
Paragraph (c) concerned OKW plans. Paragraph (d) asked

about some documents which Rot intended to publish.
These comments and queries dovetail with the Gisevius theory.
Gisevius' group, the twentieth of July, seems clearly meant; and it
was, as has been mentioned earlier, split into pro- Soviet and pro-
Western factions. Gisevius knew Wirth, whom Goerdeler and Beck
had accepted as a confidant and representative in Switzerland. In
fact, both Gisevius and Wirth conducted wartime negotiations with
the British, although whether they did so jointly is not known to

this writer. The twentieth of July group did, of course, number
commanding officers, including generals and marshals, among its
members. As for publication, Gisevius was assembling documents
by the date of this message, as well as earlier, with the intent to
publish what later appeared in his book To the Bitter End.
The second message, 20 April 1943, Dora to the Director,
mentions Goerdeler by name and says that he or his information is
coming from the Bendelerstrasse, the location of the head- OKW
quarters in Berlin. Gisevius knew Goerdeler well, of course, because
both were members of the small inner circle of the twentieth of Ju-
ly.He also knew in advance when Goerdeler was coming to Switzer-
land. The message includes the following:
The so-called second rank of generals (literally,

generals in second-best uniforms), who already
wanted to take action against Hitler in January,
has now decided to liquidate Hitler and all
those who support him. An attempt

earlier
failed because Hitler was warned by Manstein.
The third message went to Moscow on 22 July 1943. It is
sourced to Rot via courier. It is chiefly concerned with a serious Ger-

man defeat on the East Front and the OKH reaction to that defeat.
Switzerland 205
Another Rote Drei source believed to have reported through

Long was Fanny, an unidentified journalist whose information con-
cerned military developments on the West Front.
XX. FELD
Still another source, Feld, was claimed after the war by Otto
Puenter, Rado's third major source, as an unidentified sub-source
who lived in Feldkirch, Austria,and repeatedly crossed illegally into
Switzerland on courier missions. But Puenter is more than unrelia-
ble; as will be explained later, he has confused the record through a
series of misstatements which he must know to be untrue. There is a
chance, though it is rather slim, that Feld was Karl Forstmann, who
lived in Feldkirch during the war and who did serve as an illegal
border-crosser into Switzerland, but who apparently served B kin's
network, not Puenter 's. The French arrested Forstmann as a Nazi in
1946, but Gisevius intervened in his behalf. He indicated that Forst-
mann Henry Goverts, a
carried out important courier missions for
Swiss publisher in Hamburg, but made no mention of the Rote
Drei.
Feld appears in three messages, in August and September
1943, which relayed low-level OB obtained mostly from soldiers on
leave.
To The sources who had aliases and who are known to
repeat:
have been members of Long's group were Agnes, Kurz, Grau, Rot,
Fanny, and possibly Feld. With the exception of the last-named, a
courier, the members of the group have a certain homogeneous
quality. They were not military professionals, like Werther, Teddy,
and the rest. Three of them, including Long, were professional jour-
nalists.Most of them worked for two or more intelligence services.

Their policital views and their motivation often seem ambiguous
and devious, if not opportunistic.
XXI. The Background of Josef Wirth
Apparently Dr. Josef Karl Wirth was not a witting Rote Drei
source, because he appears in the traffic by true name rather than
alias. The Soviet interest in him, however, and in establishing con-
tact with him, as well as other indications, strongly suggests that

whether he ever worked within the Rote Drei framework or not,
Wirth did maintain a clandestine relationship with the Soviets.
During a postwar interrogation Flicke said that by the beginning of
1943 Wirth had sources who gave him information that he, in turn,
passed to George Blun, and that Moscow was much interested.
Wirth' s career in World War II is still somewhat enigmatic.
Without the "government of fulfillment," which he headed as
Chancellor of Germany from May 1921 to November 1922, there
might not have been a Treaty of Rapallo, which re-established Ger-
man-Russian diplomatic relations after World War I. And without
the Treaty of Rapallo there might not have been "the spirit of Tau-
roggen," the friendship between the Soviet and German military
establishments which was vital to Germany's evasion of the restric-
tions of the Versailles Treaty through training given its nascent
armed on Soviet soil. Wirth is worth a longer look.
forces
He was born on 6 September 1879 in Frieburg in Breisgau,
where he taught school for seven years and served as a town council-
lor. By 1913 he was a member of the Baden Landtag as a member of
the Catholic Center Party. From 1914 to 1918 he served in the

Reichstag; from 1920 to 1921 he was the Federal Minister of Fi-
nance; and during his 1921-1922 period as Chancellor he also served
(except for five months) as Foreign Minister. He resigned and with-
drew from public service for seven silent years. In 1930-1931 he
served as Federal Minister of Interior. When the Nazis seized power
in 1933, he left Germany and established residence in Switzerland.
He and Washington, but usually stayed in
travelled, chiefly to Paris
his adopted hometown of Lucerne, where he lived at Haldenstrasse
7. (Rudolf Roessler also moved to Switzerland, in early 1934, and
also settled in Lucerne.)

Wirth 's Minister of Finance, Walter Rathenau, was assassinated
in June 1922. A speech which Wirth made at that time caught in
one sentence the essence of his political views: "Der Feind steht
rechts" —
The enemy is on the right.
What was Wirth doing in Switzerland during the war? Mr.
Dulles noted in Germany 's Underground'.
After the attack onNorway (9 April 1940) but

before the invasion of the Lowlands (10 May
1940) and France, the military conspirators, on
the initiative of General Beck, communicated
with the former Chancellor Josef Wirth, a con-
vinced anti-Nazi who was living in Switzerland,
and asked Wirth to make use of certain Anglo-
French contacts he had to ascertain the inten-
tions of the Western powers in the event that a
Switzerland 207
military putsch succeeded in overthrowing Hit-

ler. An ambiguous, noncommittal answer ar-
rived just as the offensive in the West began.
As was noted above, Wirth met with British representatives in
Ouchy a little earlier, in February 1940. He also had some contact
with Allen Dulles, both directly and through Gisevius.
But his role was by no means limited to serving as an emissary
of the twentieth of July group to the Western Allies. He was also in
touch with Walter Schellenberg's Sicherheitsdienst, the Nazi Securi-
ty Service, through Schellenberg's agent Richard Grossmann, whose
aliases were Director and Ludwig. Grossmann, whose V-Mann
(agent)number was 144/7959, was born in Pforzheim on 29 Sep-
tember 1902. From 1941 to late 1943 Grossmann worked in Swit-
zerland, ostensibly as a representative of a firm in Stuttgart called
Pintsch and Col. His duties included serving as a link between
Schellenberg and Wirth. In a statement of 23 November 1943
Grossmann termed Wirth a double agent but did not explain fur-
ther. Grossmann 's major target was the very church circles in Ger-
many with which Wirth was in contact. There is no reason, however,
to conclude that Wirth was informing the SD about them or that he
was betraying the plans and personalities of the twentieth of July
group. It is likelier that Schellenberg saw in Wirth the same poten-
tial discerned earlier by Oster and Beck: the capacity to serve as a
peace emissary. (By 1943 Schellenberg had concluded that Hitler's

Germany was finished and was seeking to persuade an ambitious,
crafty, and yet foolish Himmler that he should replace the Fuehrer.)
Wirth 's contact with Grossman ended some time in 1944, when the
latterwas arrested by the Gestapo.
Wirth, then, had contacts in Germany with both Nazis and
anti-Nazis, as well as ties to the Americans, French, and English.
But Grossmann suspected him of being a double agent (as Gross-
mann himself seems to have been), and he may well have meant
that the Soviets were at the other end of the line, because he made
the remark to a British intelligence officer.
Wirth' s postwar career clearly marked him as a henchman of
the Soviets. During the war he led in Switzerland a left-wing clique
which was planning for a postwar Socialist government which would
gain power in Germany through the defeat of the German armed
forces followed by assistance from the USSR. A paper written by
Wirth on 3 July 1945 contrasted the American, British, and French
zones of Germany unfavorably with the Soviet zone. He argued that

the Soviet zone had a great appeal (Anziehungskraft) for the patient
German people because it permitted the establishment of political
parties,whereas the Western Allies had thwarted his efforts to
found his own party, Democratisches Deutschland, in West Ger-
many. He was also engaged in a plan to send food packages to East
Germany. (This Hilfspakaetchen operation is interesting because
when Lucy and his colleague Xaver Schneiper went to work for
Czech intelligence after the war, they microfilmed their reports and
enclosed them in food packages sent to a cover address in Duessel-
dorf. The procedure seemed safe because thousands of food pack-
ages were going from Switzerland to Germany.)
On 1 May 1951 an anti-Communist group called "The Com-
mittee for the Liberation of Victims of Arbitrary Totalitarian Acts"
launched an attack on Wirth, as well as Martin Niemoeller and oth-
ers. The group was under the leadership of Margarete Buber-Neu-
mann, who had suffered at both Communist and Nazi hands. On
that day, the Communist Labor Day, the group sent to the office of
the Federal Chancellor a telegram demanding "ruthless measures
against former Reich Chancellor Dr. Josef Wirth, Hesse Church
President Niemoeller, and all henchmen of Moscow who are no
longer persons of good faith." The telegram, calling for the expul-
sion of Wirth and the others from West Germany, added:
The Soviet intention to establish a counter-

parliament against Bonn with Wirth as federal
chancellor, and thereby to realize by force the
holding of All-German talks on Ulbricht's or-
ders from Moscow, endangers security and or-
der .. .
Undeterred, Wirth went to East Berlin in December 1951 for

the first of a series of meetings with important Soviet functionaries.
During this initial visit he telephoned Ernst Lemmer, whose earlier
work for the Rote Drei has already been discussed. Although he had
been invited to East Berlin by Fritz Ebert, the mayor, and Karl
Schirdewan, Chief of Section West of the SED (Communist Party),
he reportedly spent more time with the Russians than with the Ger-
mans. One report states that during another trip, made one year la-
ter, Wirth held a secret meeting in Berlin with Lavrentiy Beria.
—
Switzerland 209
XXII. Pakbo
Rado's third principal source, Pakbo, was of less value to him
and the Soviets than was Long, just as Long and his group did not
measure up to Sissy and hers. Pakbo's true name was Otto Puenter.
Born 4 April 1900 in Staefa, Switzerland, Puenter was a lawyer and
a journalist who worked for the Socialist press in Bern. Reportedly
he was a secret member of the Swiss Communist Party. He was in
contact with the Swiss military intelligence service which used him
as a channel to pass to the Soviets selected items of intelligence.
Dallin has devoted an entire chapter to Puenter, but much of
what appears therein is false. Puenter has, in fact, made many false
statements. He said that information about the German General
Staff which he obtained during World War II came from General
Alfred Jodl. He asserted that he kept in a monastery in Switzerland
the entire plan for the German attack upon Stalingrad in October
1942, which he himself encoded before passing it to Rado. He al-
leged that Werther stood for Wehrmacht and Lucy for Luftfahrt-
ministerium (Ministry of Air). He said that Lucy was a Czech. He
wove a complex and fascinating tale about a young Austrian radio
operator who came from Dornbirn, near the Austro- Swiss border.
He had promised the home folks that he would transmit his location
every night just so that they would know where he was. He chanced
to be assigned to Hitler's headquarters, with the result that Pakbo
always knew the Fuehrer's whereabouts. The implausibility of this
fable is, however, no greater than that inherent in his explanation of
his cover name. He claimed that he had teams of agents in Pontrezi-
na, Aarau, Kreuzlingen, Bern, —
and Orselina hence PAKBO. Actu-
ally, it is unlikely that he had teams of agents anywhere, and cer-
tainly improbable that they would be located at the unimportant

places named by Puenter. By his own account, one of his teams was
at Feldkirch/ Dornbirn, but his cover name contains neither an "F"
nor a "D." As a matter of fact, most of his contacts lived in Bern
and Geneva.
Puenter has alleged that early in 1941 a de Gaullist reported to
him that the Swiss service had received accurate information about
Hitler's plan to attack the USSR in a month or a month and a half.
The de Gaullist said he was looking for a contact with Moscow to
pass on the information. Pakbo went to Rado to deliver the story
i.e., the attack was scheduled for 15 June 1941. Rado asked who was
the source. Pakbo in turn inquired and was told the man's name
was Roessler. Rado then decided to get in direct contact with Roes-
sler, and that connection continued thenceforth.
This is Pakbo's genius for fabrication at its best. In 1941 nei-

ther Lucy nor Pakbo himself had any connection with the Rote Drei.
A Dora-to-the-Director message of 15 July 1942 included the fol-
lowing: "At the beginning of April a new source of information ap-

peared; he has the cover name Pakbo . .
." As was noted earlier,
Lucy also joined the net in 1942. Secondly, Puenter has said in writ-
ing that he had never been in contact with Roessler and did not
know his true name. Thirdly, Lucy did not meet Rado through
Puenter for the simple reason that he never met Rado at all, as the
traffic shows.
The question that naturally arises, then, is this: If Pakbo has
told lies about important matters after the war, did he also lie to the
Soviets during the war? Apart from a challenge on 7 October 1942,
seem to have accepted Pakbo's reports as valid and to
the Soviets
have found them useful. The chances are that Pakbo, like Jim,
merely tried to exaggerate the importance of his role after the war
had ended.
Pakbo appears in twenty- two known messages, but only six of
these contain any substantive information. The time span
from 15 is
July 1942 to 8 January 1944. Apparently he learned something

about the Rote Kapelle arrests in Germany and reported according-
ly, because on 5 October 1942 the Director asked for more informa-
tion. And he also reported the arrest of Paul Boettcher, because on

8 January 1944 Moscow said, "As far as we know, Pakbo has never
heard of Paul. How does it happen that he has heard so certainly
about Paul's arrest?"
Like Lucy and Long, Pakbo had direct contact with the Swiss
G-2. His chief sub-source was Salter, whose identity has not been
firmly established but who may have been Louis Suss, born 6 Octo-
ber 1890 in Beblenheim, Alsace-Lorraine. A French citizen, Suss
died in Switzerland on 25 April 1955. As of May 1968 his widow,
Friedel, nee Kirschbaum, lived in Chene-Bourg, Geneva. There
were two children, Christiane and Louis Michel. Ghristiane married
an American ILO employee named Thompson. She was observed in
1955 at a meeting with a Soviet representative to the UN who is also
a suspected intelligence operative.
Salter appeared in ten messages. He was in contact with former
chancellor Josef Wirth and with British intelligence. He also knew
Long and Kurz; in fact, compartmentation was often breached in
Switzerland 211
the Rote Drei network.

One report says that a Professor Andre Oltramare and his son
Dr. Marc Oltramare both passed intelligence to Puenter during the
war and that he relayed their information to the Soviets. Andre Ol-
tramare was a professor at the University of Geneva, where he lived
with Jeanne Hersch, a philosopher much younger than he. At one
time he was president or vice-president of the Geneva chapter of the
Socialist Party. In 1933 he was a member of the Geneva Relief Com-
mittee for Political Prisoners, on which Pierre Nicole also served.
Among his associates in 1942 were Jean Vincent, Max Horngacher,
and Maurice Ducommun, all of whom were suspected of being So-
viet agents.
One Mario Bodenmann, a Swiss socialist and journalist, has
alsobeen reported as a sub-source for Pakbo.
A probable Pakbo source was Bruder, who appears in only two
messages, both from Dora to Director, dated 27 January and 10 May
1943. Both messages provide information about the production at
the Oerlikon Arms The president of Werk-
Factory in Switzerland.
zeugmaschinenfabrik Oerlikon, Buehrle, and Company was Emil
Georg Guehrle. In middle and late 1943, as Foote has also related,
the network was extremely short of funds. Pakbo and others solici-
ted funds from Swiss businessmen, promising profitable postwar

commercial orders from the USSR Pakbo approached
in exchange.
Buehrle, who did business with the USSR, on this basis; and
Buehrle contributed eighty thousand francs. After the war the So-
viets refused to honor the obligations incurred on behalf of the Rote
Drei. Most of the businessmen complained bitterly, and Pakbo has
alleged that he made some effort to repay the loans that he had per-
sonally solicited. Buehrle, however, merely wrote off the loss.
Whether Buehrle passed money to Pakbo or to Sissy, we have
solid grounds for surmising that he was the Bruder of the Rote Drei
traffic.
Despite published claims to the contrary, there is no reason to

believe that a source called "Lilly of the Vatican" ever existed. Pak-
bo has denied that he had a line to the Vatican.
XXIII. Jim
Foote claimed in Handbook For Spies that he and Rado were

equals, or nearly equals, each having his own network, code, and
communications system. The truth, however, is that Foote, like
Puenter, grossly exaggerated his wartime importance. The traffic
does not bear out Foote 's claim that he had sub-sources of his own.
On the contrary, Moscow clearly regarded him primarily as a W/T
operator, although the most senior member in that category, and
secondarily as a support man expected to give Rado help in prob-
lems of funding. Foote, whose cover name was Jim, appears twenty
times in the messages in our possession. The time span is 31 Octo-
ber 1942 to 14 April 1944. These messages contain no new informa-
tion, but they are of value in reducing Jim's self-portrait to its true,
minor dimensions.
XXIV. The Structure of the Rote Drei
Now, that part of the Rote Drei structure which has been par-
tially excavated and cleansed of distortions can be delineated. Alex-
ander Rado is at the apex of the network, having inherited the lead-
er's rolefrom Maria Poliakova and Ursula Beurton. Rado had three
principal sources: Rachel Duebendorfer, George Blun, and Otto
Puenter, listed in order of decreasing importance. Each of these had
a network of sub-agents. Through Christian Schneider and Rudolf
Roessler, Duebendorfer was in touch with the most important
sources in the entire network: Werther, Teddy, Anna, and Olga.
Others of Sissy's known contacts, by code name, were Paul, Pierre,
Vita, and Mario. Probable additional, though minor, members of
her net were Bill, Bircher, Brand, Diener, Fanny, Fernand, Schwer-
in, and Stefan. Among his sub-sources Roessler listed, by name or
description, General Hans Oster, Hans Bernd Gisevius, Carl Goer-

deler, and an unknown general named Boelitz.
The second principal agent, George Blun (alias Long), directed
a network which consisted chiefly of Agnes, Kurz, Grau, Rot, Fan-
ny, and perhaps Feld.
The third principal agent, Otto Puenter (alias Pakbo), headed a
net that included Salter and Bruder, as well as others whose cover
names are not known.
Alexander Foote (alias Jim) was the most important of the radio
operators. The others were Edmond and Olga Hamel (Eduard and
Maude), Margarete Bolli (later Bolli-Schatz, cover name Rosa),
probably Harry and Roger, and possibly others.
XXV. The Role of Karel Sedlacek

To this point we have viewed the Rote Drei network chiefly as
Switzerland 213
an apparatus which produced intelligence for the Soviet military

service. But Lucy's information, some or all of Long's, and probably
Pakbo's also went to the West. The vital product, Lucy's, reached
the Allies through a Czech colonel whose true name was Karel Sed-
lacek and whose alias was Uncle Tom. We have his story from Gen-
eral Frantisek Moravec, who, as Sedlacek's superior, had sent him to
Switzerland in the first place. In 1935 Sedlacek was working in
southern Bohemia as an intelligence officer whose targets were in
Bavaria. His talents and skill caught Moravec 's eye, and Sedlacek
was sent to Prague for a year's training in operating a W/T set, se-
cret writing and encoding, and decoding. He was already fluent in
German. In June 1937, his training completed and his cover pre-
pared, Sedlacek left Czechoslovakia as Karl Selzinger, a correspond-
ent of the Prague newspaper Narodni Listy For . more than a year he
built his cover in Zurich; then, by the fall of 1938, his first reports,
military and political, arrived in Prague. By then the Czech officer
was a friend of Major Hans Hausamann, the Swiss intelligence offi-
cer who directed the conveniently unofficial "Bureau Ha." In fact,

it was Hausamann who provided Sedlacek's information.
By the spring of 1939 Sedlacek had begun to feel uneasy in Zu-
rich, which was swarming with German agents. He moved to Lu-
cerne, where Lucy was living. The two met because both used jour-
nalism as cover. Beginning in September 1939, Sedlacek was report-
ing by W/T to the London Czechs on German OB, movements,
weapons, etc. His information came from Hausamann, who got it
from Lucy, who in turn decided what information would go to
which recipients. From 19 May to 6 September 1944 Lucy was un-
der arrest, charged with passing intelligence to the Soviet and Brit-
ish services. From the date of his arrest, the flow of Lucy's informa-
tion from Sedlacek to London stopped completely and finally. (It is
thus established that information from Lucy to both the East and
the West had ceased before the twentienth of July 1944 and that
therefore Lucy's sources could have been among the conspirators.)
Sedlacek did continue to transmit other information to London after
the war ended, but after Lucy's arrest Sedlacek's reporting deteriora-
ted rapidly in both quality and quantity. Promoted to lieutenant
colonel after the war, Sedlacek became the Czech military attache in
Bern, where he remained until recalled to Prague in early 1947.
How he was instrumental in launching Roessler upon the second
phase of his career in espionage is reported below.
Because of the clear identification of "Karl Selzinger" as the
alias under which Karel Sedlacek appeared in Switzerland, it was
somewhat surprising to find a number of derivate references terming

Selzinger an alias used by Rudolf Roessler. In The Secrets of a Soviet
—
Spy a French translation by Edition de la Paix in 1951, and based
upon the first edition of Foote's Handbook For Spies (1949) the —
claim is made that Lucy was Selzinger. Foote then mixed up Roessler
and Sedlacek so thoroughly that confusion has persisted ever since.
He said that Selzinger was a "man of the theater, probably a direc-
tor," which is fairly accurate for Roessler but not for Sedlacek. He
said that Selzingerwas never a German but rather had been born a
Czech national, a statement that is false for Roessler but true of
Sedlacek. He added that Selzinger was allowed by Swiss authorities
to remain in Switzerland in exchange for intelligence from Germany
with which he provided the Swiss, a statement that was true of both
men. Finally, Foote said, "Until the annexation of Czechoslovakia,
Lucy worked for the General Staff of Czechoslovakia; hence it is
possible that the secret of his mysterious sources is to be found in

Prague." (p. 86 — translation by the author) There is no reason to
believe that Roessler worked as an agent for Czechoslovakia until
World War II had ended, whereas Sedlacek was a staff officer of
Czech military intelligence.
One confusion was created not by Foote but by those who cited
him, with or without attribution. Foote did not say, in 1949-1951,
that Selzinger was an alias used by Roessler. It appears that at that
time he did not know or did not remember Roessler' s name. What
he said was that Lucy was Selzinger, with the clear implication that
Selzinger was Lucy's true name. Before the second edition of Hand-
book for Spies came out in 1964, Foote or his editors knew that the
truename of Lucy was Rudolf Roessler. But instead of correcting the
earlier errors, the 1964 edition compounded them by printing exact-
ly what the French version had said except for the substitution of
Thus Roessler now was called a
Roessler for Selzinger throughout.
Czech national and a member of the prewar Czech service, errors
picked up even by German newspapers.
Corroboration for General Moravec's identification of Selzinger
as one of the aliases used by Sedlacek appeared in an article by R.
Stroebinger, "The Man Whom No One Knows," Lidova Demokra-
cia, Prague, 23 July-17 September 1967. Stroebinger's account is
partially distorted by repetition of false statements made by Pierre

Quet and Pierre Accoce, whose unreliability the Czech writer does,
however, recognize. Stroebinger quotes an unidentified intelligence
Switzerland 215
colleague of Sedlacek's as saying that he began his intelligence work

on the Czech-German border in southern Bohemia. A very success-
ful operative, he had in both countries an agent network that includ-
ed a German Catholic priest and a member of the Abwehr, living
in Dresden, whose name was Paul Thummel and whose designator
as a Czech agent was A-54. (Comment: It appears possible that
Stroebinger is here attempting to play down the role played by
General Moravec. Thummel was his agent and not Sedlacek's as far
as we know.) According to Stroebinger, Thummel sent his valuable

information to a letter drop—Josef Jursa, Willa (Villa?), Canton Zu-
rich, Rosengarten, Switzerland. Thummel used as an alias the name
Josef Koehler. It is not clear whether Jursa was a separate person
used as a mail drop or was an alias under which Sedlacek picked up
this mail.
According to Stroebinger, Sedlacek functioned as a cutout be-
tween Roessler and Major Hans Hausamann, both of whom knew
him as Uncle Tom. In fact, Stroebinger asserts that after Munich,
Hausamann "invited a close collaboration with the Czechoslo-
. . .
vak intelligence service, the Second Department of the Ministry of

Defense." Sedlacek, however, had his own lines not only to London
and France but also to Prague. He had, according to Stroebinger, a
shortwave transmitter with which he maintained regular contact
from Zurich. His cover name for this traffic was Kazi.
Stroebinger' s assertion that Sedlacek served Roessler as a cutout
to Hausamann, for reasons of security, clashes with his claim that
Sedlacek and Roessler met Kastanienbaum, near
at the Villa Stutz,
Lucerne. The Villa Stutz was the headquarters of the Bureau Ha (for
Hausamann).
There are records of several cover names for Karel Sedlacek:
Uncle Tom, Kazi, Selzinger, Charles, and two others of particular
interest.
First the files consulted contain several references to a Karel Ba-
lecek or Palecek, who has been confused with Sedlacek but who is
probably not the same man. There are also references to Karel Sed-
lacek, born 24 August or 24 September 1894, who does not seem
identical; but these items add that as early as April 1953 the subject
used the alias Charles Simpson. A report of I960
Sedlacek as a lists
former journalist (correct) and former military attache in Bern (cor-

rect) and adds that during World War II he lived in Switzerland
(perhaps at St. Gallen during part of this period) with a British pass-
port and under the name of Charles Simpson. Clearly, more work
will be required to establish whether the Sedlacek who arrived in

Zurich as a Czech correspondent named Selzinger also appeared in
Switzerland at a later date as a British subject named Charles Simp-
son.
Also intriguing is a 1946 report that says that a Colonel Sedla-
cek, the military attache in Bern, had then been identified as an in-
who was "presumably working for the Russians."
telligence officer
This report added, "He came to Switzerland during the war as a
British agent, bearing a British passport in the name of Simon."
Obviously Simon could be a garble for Simpson. The Center in
Moscow, moreover, would be unlikely to use as a radio cover name
an alias appearing on a British passport. Therefore, several refer-
ences to Simon in Moscow-Paris traffic between July and Septem-
ber 1945 are probably coincidental. Such a conclusion, however,
would by no means exclude a working hypothesis that Sedlacek col-
laborated not only with the Swiss and British but also with Soviet
intelligence. Many people who worked inside the Rote Drei did the
same.
Stroebinger's piece contains several references to Rote Drei traf-
fic but, unfortunately, does not include the text of any of these
messages. Here are examples:
On Wednesday, 11 June 1941, Roessler

brought to Rado a sensational message received
from Dr. Ch. Schneider: a general assault on
the territory occupied by Russia will start on
Sunday, 22 June, at 3:15 a.m. Rado sent this
message immediately to the Director, his su-
perior ... in Moscow, via Foote's transmitter.
Several days later — 14, 16, 17, and 18 June
1941, Alexander Foote sent to Director all in-
formation received from Lucy. It was exhausting
work. Moscow's answer was short: We heard
you clearly. Over.
This message, which is not in our holdings, is spurious, an in-

vention possibly based upon Foote's account. Schneider was the cut-
out, not Roessler. And Schneider took Roessler's material to Sissy,
not to Rado. The clincher, however, is the fact cited near the outset
of this report. The holdings that we do have establish that Sissy's tie
with Taylor began in the fall A
message of 8 October 1942
of 1942.
from Director to Sissy includes the sentence, "Your new people
Marius and Taylor do not work badly." There is a theoretical possi-
Switzerland 217
bility that Lucy's information was going to Moscow much earlier,
through a different channel, and that Sissy was not cut in until late
1942; but the possibility seems remote and contrary to what we
know of the practices of Soviet military intelligence.
Stroebinger does cite two messages correctly, or nearly so. But
both were sent in February 1943, and both have appeared in overt
publications.
XXVI. Vladimir Sokolin
Earlier in this account, in a section dealing with Dr. Josef

Wirth, a message of October 1943, Dora to Director, was cited.
5
Included therein was this statement: "According to Wirth the Ger-

man Embassy in Bern is extremely interested in Sokolin." The re-
mark appears in a context chiefly concerned with the Free Germany
Committee, conceived and directed from Moscow.
in
Vladimir Sokolin (spelled Sokoline in some accounts) may have
been the alias of one Vladimir Shapiro or Schapiro, or Shapiro may
have been the alias and Sokolin the true name. We shall call him
Sokolin. The records which concern him are extensive but have not
been summarized here because all available information indicates
that he was not a part of the Rote Drei. Born in Geneva of Jewish
parents, the father a White Russian and the mother Scottish, Soko-
lin became in 1937 the Under Secretary of the USSR's Permanent
Delegation of the International Labor Office, League of Nations,

Geneva, as well as the Assistant Secretary General of the League of
Nations. There was a seeming break with Moscow after the USSR
was dropped from the League of Nations in December 1939 as a re-
sult of the invasion of Finland. But either the split was unreal, de-
signed to strengthen cover, or it was patched up and healed, be-
cause the reports of Sokolin 's wartime activities clearly indicate es-
pionage conducted on behalf of the USSR. He was in touch with Le-
on Nicole, Alexander Abramson, and perhaps others who were asso-
ciated with the Rote Drei. It was also reported that through one of
these contacts he asked Rado if he could be of service and that Rado
relayed the suggestion to Moscow, where it was rejected. There are
clear indications that Sokolin was engaged in economic espionage
for the USSR after the war ended. It appears then that in this in-
stance, as in others, Soviet intelligence tried not to mix their net-
works, the security of which required separation.
XXVII. Phase II— Lucy's Postwar Operation
Here our account would have ended if Karel Sedlacek had not
known Xaver Franz Josef Schnieper, a Swiss citizen born on 6 Janu-
ary 1910 in Emman, Lucerne Canton. He had attended the Univer-
sities of Koenigsberg, Berlin, and Vienna, majoring in drama and
intending to direct plays, an ambition which he had to abandon
when the Nazis seized power. He
met Rudolf Roessler, who was
first
equally interested in drama, in Berlin in 1933. By the beginning of

the following year, he had persuaded Roessler and his wife to move
to Lucerne. Schnieper also went back to Switzerland and found em-
ployment in Lucerne as a librarian. By October 1936 he was a mem-
ber of a leftist Catholic group which twice a month published a
newssheet called Entscheidung.
Sedlacek knew Schnieper well. He also knew that by the time
the war ended, both Schnieper and Roessler were plagued by finan-
cial problems. Both were struggling to make ends meet as free-lance
journalists. Some time before his departure for Prague, Sedlacek in-
troduced his successor as Czech military attache to Schnieper. The
successor, in turn, introduced Schnieper to Captain Rudolf Wolf of
Czech intelligence.
In the summer of 1947 Wolf asked Schnieper to ask Roessler
whether he was willing to resume intelligence work. Lucy agreed.
With Schnieper serving as intermediary, Roessler supplied the
Czechs — and thus the Soviets — with information, mostly military,
on the forces, dispositions, weapons, etc., of the United States,
England, and France in West Germany, budding West
as well as the
German military force. They were sentenced by a Swiss court on 5
November 1953 to a year and nine months, respectively; but the
time already spent in detention, nine months for each, was counted.
Released in early 1954, Roessler died in 1958.
This bald account sounds —
mundane a trivial, almost irrelevant
epilogue to the glamorous days of World War II. Yet a moment's
reflection shows that such a view is unjustified. Lucy's first phase
lasted for only a little more than two years, his second for six. The
second phase lacks the high drama of the first, but the fact remains
that Roessler and Schnieper delivered valuable classified information
to the Soviets, via the Czechs, in the postwar period as well. And
the intriguing question of sources looms as large in both phases.
Moreover, it is not likely that the two periods are unconnected.
Lucy obviously had human sources for his 1947-1953 reporting, even
Switzerland 219
though his defense heavily stressed the amount of information that

he had gleaned from the newspapers. If we can unearth some of
these people, we can expect to find links to the sources of 1941-
1944.
One newspaper accounts of the trial, was
contact, according to
a Mrs. Theresa Hildebrand of the staff of a Chicago magazine called
Common Cause. Roessler asked the Czechs if they wanted to add
1500 francs monthly to his pay so that he could extend his coverage
to the USA through Mrs. Hildebrand and her contacts. The indict-
ment of Roessler said, however, that he had merely copied the
names of Mrs. Hildebrand and others from Common Cause and
that they were not implicated.
A professional source who examined some of the microfilmed
reports prepared by Roessler and Schnieper for passage to Prague
concluded that part of these had come not only from the Blank Of-
fice (Federal Ministry of Defense, then headed by Theodore Blank)
but specifically from the office of Joachim Oster, the son of General
Hans Oster.
Joachim Oster, usually called Achim, was born on 20 February
1914 in Dresden. He entered the army in 1933 as an officer candi-
date with the Second Artillery Regiment. He was promoted to first
lieutenant in 1938, to captain in 1941, to major in 1943. He attained
general's rank during the postwar years.
In 1949 he began work as secretary to Dr. Josef Mueller, who
was a friend of and a member of the twentieth of July
his father's
group. Oster held this position for at least six years. During this per-
iod Mueller reportedly headed a group which worked for a neutral-
ist, pro-USSR Germany. Other members of the group, besides
Mueller and Oster, included Otto John and George Blun, whom we
have already mentioned as Long of the Rote Drei.
In 1950 Joachim Oster was appointed to the Blank Office. He
served as chief of the security section of Amt Blank (Department
IV /A6) and in this capacity conducted liaison with the British,
French, and Americans, as well as with other Germans. In January
1956 he was transferred to other, presumably less sensitive, duties in
the Ministry of Defense. About September 1958 he was posted to
Madrid as the military attache. There he reportedly established con-
tact with the old Spanish Loyalist, Gil Robles.
XXVIII. The Return of Agnes
The unidentified contact of Roessler, who reported in 1955 that

Goerdeler, Gisevius, "General Boelitz," and "the predecessor of
Canaris" were World War II sources of Lucy's, also said that as of
the reporting date Roessler was still in contact with one Lemmer,
who was either in the Blank Office or who had a contact therein.
Other Phase II sources were said to be one Thormann and a man
named Borchheimer, who was a professor at the University of Hei-
delberg.
There can be little doubt that the first of these is the same
Ernst Lemmer who, as Agnes, was a Rote Drei source during World
War II.
XXIX. Dr. Werner Thormann
Thormann is believed to be Dr. Werner Thormann. He was

born in Germany, acquired Austrian citizenship through naturaliza-
tion,but until 1933 remained mainly in Germany, where he was
chief editor of the weekly Deutsche Kepublik and the Rhein-Main-
ische Volkszeitung. At an undetermined time he served Dr. Josef
Wirth as his secretary, probably during Wirth's 1921-1922 period.
moved to Paris, and from Sep-
After the Nazis' seizure of power, he
tember 1939 to May 1940 he was an editor and speaker on the Ger-
man Freedom Government
Station there. In July 1940 the U.S.
granted him an emergency and he spent the war years in the
visa,
United States and Switzerland. As of April 1947 he was the editor

of Zukunft (Future). He died some time before 1958.
XXX. Professor Max Horkhedmer

"Borchheimer" appears to be a garble for Professor Max Hork-
heimer, born 14 February 1895 in Stuttgart. About 1928 he became
head of the Institute for Social Research, founded at the University
of Frankfurt to disseminate Marxist Studies. When Hitler came to
power, the Institute moved to Geneva. In 1934 Horkheimer came to
the United States and there established the main offices of the Insti-
tute under the sponsorship of Columbia University. By 1948 he was
attempting to re-establish a branch of the Institute in Frankfurt am
Main, and by the following year he was a member of the faculty of
the University of Frankfurt.
There are reports that he is or was a fellow-traveler, once closely
Switzerland 221
associated with the Lenin Institute of Moscow; that he has or has

had Soviet intelligence ties; and that he had been considered for the
position of psychological advisor to the West German Defense Min-
istry (Amt Blank) although he was an opponent of the Bonn Gov-
ernment.
There is no proof that Horkheimer provided Lucy with infor-
mation after World War II. And if he did so, the system of commu-
nication remains unknown. It is noted, however, that one Emile
Siegmund Grunberg was the son of Karl Grunberg, the first director
of the Institute for Social Research. He and his brother Karl were
translators for the International Labor Organization in Geneva.
Emile and his wife knew Alexander Abramson (alias Isaac), Rachel
Duebendorfer (alias Sissy), and Paul Boettcher, as well as probably
other members of the Rote Drei network.
There is, however, a difficulty, a blur in the logic, inherent in
the assumption that Josef Wirth, Joachim Oster, possibly Josef
Mueller, Ernst Lemmer, Werner Thormann, and Max Horkheimer
were Lucy's sources, or among those sources, during the period of
1947- 1953. During this period the Soviets could have established
contact with any of them much more simply and directly than
through a procedure whereby they met with Roessler in Germany or
Switzerland, Roessler passed reports to Schnieper and thus the
Czechs, and the Czech service gave the product to the Soviets. Lem-
mer, in particular, was far better placed than Roessler to serve as the
central collection point.
The question may be partly resolved by one of Roessler's major
courtroom arguments in his defense. He maintained that aimost
everything that he sold to the Czechs was compiled from overt
sources, chiefly newspapers, and that the information given him by
his German friends was much less important. The claim may be
true, for people who knew Lucy considered him a truthful man. The
remainder of the answer is that the act of providing Lucy with intel-
ligence would no way have precluded the direct provision of the
in
same or other information by the same sources to Soviet intelligence
officers, or to both German services, East and West, or to practically
anyone else. For these men, Lucy included, were great equivocators,
adept, as the German phrase has it, at carrying water on both shoul-
ders.
XXXI. Lucy the Mercenary
There can be no doubt that Lucy himself was motivated chiefly,

if not entirely, by mercenary considerations. Here are a few excerpts
from the traffic flowing between Moscow and Rado:
12.3.1943 Agree to buy Plan Ostwall for

. . .
5000 Does Lucy know whether these

francs.
documents are genuine and reliable?
and ll.ll.i943
10. Sissy states that Lucy. . .
group no longer works when the salary stops.

14.11.1932 . . . Please tell Lucy in our name
that ... his group will surely be paid according
to his demands. We are ready to reward him
richly for his information.
9.12.1943 ... Inform Lucy not to worry

about the money situation.
During the postwar phase Lucy submitted somewhat more than

one hundred reports. He and Schnieper were paid a total sum of be-
tween thirty- three thousand and forty-eight thousand Swiss francs.
Lucy kept three-fourths of this sum.
XXXII. The Peddlers
During his career Roessler provided intelligence to services of

the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, and England at a mini-
mum.
Malcolm Muggeridge commented in The Observer, 8 January
1967, on Lucy's cupidity:
I seem to detect a professional touch in the assi-

duity with which Roessler, when the Russians at
least realized his worth, screwed out of them
seven thousand Swiss francs a month by way of
retainer and a lot of generous supplementary bo-
nuses besides —
by Red standards, a very high
rate of remuneration.
And Wirth? His record suggests that he became a Soviet agent

of influence in the early 1920s. A year or two after the signing of
the Treaty of Rapallo, he made the first of several trips to the USSR,
where he conducted financial negotiations involving forestry rights
and the construction of a railroad. He was pleased that German men
—
Switzerland 223
and officers were being trained on Russian soil, in evasion of the

Versailles Treaty, even though his own regime was called the "gov-
ernment of fulfillment" because it was supposedly carrying out all
of its obligations under that treaty. The Rote Drei traffic itself shows
that Moscow at times directed Rado to obtain intelligence from

Wirth during World War II.
Yet he was also in contact with Walter Schellenberg, through
Richard Grossmann and perhaps in other ways as well. Was he,
then, withholding from the SD his relationship with the Soviets as
well as what he knew about the twentieth of July conspirators? The
answer to the first part of this question is probably yes, but the same
cannot be said about the second, at least not with much assurance.
Himmler was prepared to listen to proposals that were treasonable
from a Nazi point of view whenever he deemed the circumstances
secure. There are clear indications in the record that he envisaged
himself as Hitler's successor. He once told Canaris that he knew per-
fectly well the identities of all the anti-Hitler plotters. In short, if
Wirth and others were betraying the conspiracy to Schellenberg,

they were also being doublecrossed by a Himmler who hoped that
the plan to assassinate the Fuehrer would succeed.
—
The Soviets, the SD anyone else? Wirth 's major Rote Drei
contact appears to have been the French journalist, George Blun.
In 1940 he made a trip to Paris in order to inform the French gov-
ernment personally of the military situation in Germany after the
invasion of Norway. He made similar trips after the war. There is a
report of contact with the Deuxieme Bureau. And there was some
contact on the record, unproductive, with the OSS during the war.
Ernst Lemmer's intelligence contacts were discussed earlier
USSR, Swiss, and SD as a minimum.
Hans Bernd Gisevius joined the Nazis, worked in the German
police and the Ministry of the Interior, yet joined the twentieth of
July plotters. He supplied the British with intelligence for three and
a half years before the war and during its initial phase. Then he be-
came a major OSS contact.
There are only uncertain indications that he was linked to the
Rote Drei. One source reported that Gisevius had contact with Ra-
do. His relations with the Swiss police were excellent, and he was on
good terms with quite a few Swiss businessmen, one of whom was
Emil Georg Buehrle of the Oerlickon Machine and Tool Works. His
ties to the courier Karl Forstmann have been noted earlier in this ac-
count.
We know that Gisevius had intelligence contacts with the

Western Allies. Roessler listed Gisevius as a source. There are indica-
tions that he knew some members of the Rote Drei net and may
himself have been alias Rot of that group. But there are also valid
indications that despite the confidence which Hans Oster, Goerde-

ler, and others in the twentieth of July group seem to have accorded
him, he may have been an RSHA agent too. One report stated that
Himmler's secretary had so identified him. Some postwar interroga-
tions of German intelligence officers include their comments that
Ernst Kaltenbrunner, RSHA chief and Schellenberg's superior, re-
ceived reports from Gisevius as late as April 1945. The record con-
tains other references to links between Gisevius and Heydrich as well
as Gisevius and Schellenberg. Such reports, however, are likely to be

unreliable. All twentieth of July participants became unpopular
with most Germans. When Gisevius went to the Nuremburg War
Crimes Trials in 1946 Hjalmar Schacht, he became
as a witness for
also a highly effective witness for the prosecution,hence doubly un-

popular in postwar Germany. That some denunciations were in-
spired by rancor therefore seems highly probable. At first blush it
appears odd that he was allowed to remain a German intelligence
officer in Switzerland after the RSHA assimilated the Abwehr, de-
spite the fact that the Gestapo issued an arrest order for him in Au-
gust 1944. But it should be recalled that Goerdeler, sentenced on 8
September 1944, was not executed until February 1945 because
Himmler hoped that the contacts of such men with the Western Al-
lies might save his own skin later. On balance, then, it is considered
that Gisevius had intelligence contacts with the Americans, the Brit-
ish, the Swiss, and probably the Soviets, but not with Nazi Germa-
ny, except for his major role in the resistance.
XXXIII. The Stage and the Actors

This account has said next to nothing about the Swiss role in
the drama of the Rote Drei. Today Switzerland tends to seem just
the scenery of the story— the picture-postcard, snow-frosted back-
drop against which the action was played out. But this aura of pas-
of being uninvolved, is really illusory. The fact is that certain
sivity,
Swiss officers were very directly a part of the activity of the Rote
Drei. Understandably, this involvement remains a source of some
concern to the Swiss, even today, because it is at odds with that
strict neutrality which Switzerland has proclaimed for centuries as
Switzerland 225
buckler and breastplate.

The traffic, however — that obdurate record on which we have
tried to base as much of this account as possible — plainly reveals
Swiss involvement. When arrests were made, Moscow asked why
Rote Drei members in contact with the Swiss authorities — Lucy,
Pakbo, Long — did not get more information from them. The Swiss
General Staff was a sufficiently valuable source to have been given
the Rote Drei cover name of Luise. Lucy's contacts with the Swiss
military intelligence preceded his work in the Rote Drei, and the
same is very likely true of Pakbo and certain others.
At least two Swiss officers should be mentioned here. The first
is Brigadier Colonel Roger Masson, now dead, who was the chief of
Swiss wartime intelligence. The second is Major Hans Hausamann.
Before World War II began, Hausamann had recognized that Swit-
zerland, already teeming with the spies of other nations, was itself
sadly lacking in military intelligence and in sources to provide it. In
Teufen, near St. Gallen, he established an unofficial intelligence
center, funded actually or nominally by himself and certain friends.
When war came, this office, known as the "Bureau Ha," was linked
to the official Swiss Army intelligence structure. Quite deliberately,
however, the Swiss chieftains did not incorporate the office into the
Army but left it largely autonomous. It is reasonable to conjecture
that this preservation of unofficial or only semi-official status result-
ed chiefly from the significant fact that Bureau Ha outside the offi-
cial framework could be far freer of the shackles imposed by neutral-
ity than any part of the government could be.
Dr. Xaver Schnieper worked as a junior officer in the Bureau

Ha. He introduced Lucy to Major Hausamann. Only the Swiss know
today whether the vital information coming from Germany went
first to Lucy and then, via Hausamann, to Masson, or whether the
Swiss received the bulk of the information from their sources in

Germany and passed it to Sedlacek for relay to the British and to
Lucy for relay to the Russians. What we can be sure of is that Swit-
zerland was not just part of the World War II scenery; it had a small
piece of the action.
The story of theRote Drei remains nevertheless the tale, in es-
sence, of two firm camps, between which shuttled ambiguous and
uncommitted men. On the one side stood the anti-Hitler German
conspirators.There was an East- West schism in their ranks, but they
were united and unwavering in their resolve to rid Germany and the
world of Hitler. On the other were the Soviet armed forces and in-
committed to Hitler's destruction but only as

telligence services, also
a step toward the same domination of the earth that Hitler had
longed for. Both groups, the tiny and the vast, were made up for
the most part of dedicated activists. Between the two forces were
Roessler and certain of his associates: Wirth, Mueller, Lemmer, Gi-
sevius, Horkheimer, probably Thormann, perhaps Joachim Oster.
These are a different breed from such twentieth of July figures as
Hans Oster, Goerdeler, and Beck. During the 1943-1945 period, at
least, Lucy, Lemmer, et al., were psychologically much more akin to
Himmler, Kaltenbrunner, and Schellenberg than to the heroes of

the resistance, the Soviets, or even such Rote Drei figures as Rachel
Duebendorfer.
Lemmer is the pure type, and his postwar tenure as Deputy
Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union in East Germany is its
perfect symbol.
These are the men who posed as arbiters, as intellectuals who
had preserved their integrity by being above it all. But the truth is
that they did not say, "A plague on both your houses." They dick-
ered. They sought advantage — private material advantage — from
many quarters.
Lemmer, and the rest could have been replaced
Roessler, Blun,
by any others willing and able to live well in wartime Switzerland;
their roles were essential, though not very important; but they
themselves, as individuals, were not of consequence.
The true heroes of the tale are those few men who lived in an
age of appalling complexity, of rottenness at the highest levels of
their government, so that they were forced not only to risk a barbar-
ic death (some of them were executed by being strangled with piano

wire) but to deal unequivocally with the fact that what morality de-
manded of them was treason.
A few of them were Lt. General Ludwig Beck, suicide; Lawyer
Hans von Dohnanyi, hanged; General Erich Fellgiebel, hanged; Dr.
Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, hanged; Reichskriminal-direktor Arthur
Nebe, hanged; General Friedrich Olbricht, hanged; Major General
Hans Oster, hanged; General Fritz Thiele, hanged; Field Marshal
Erwin von Wilzleben, hanged.
Lucy and his Rote Drei associates lived on.
Austria 227
THE ROTE KAPELLE ELSEWHERE
The agents of the Rote Kapelle did not confine their activities
to Belgium, France, Holland, Germany, and Switzerland. There is
evidence that the Rote Kapelle organization extended its operations

into several other countries as well. The following is a country by
country summary of the contacts known to have existed between
these countries and the main networks of the Rote Kapelle. Specifi-
cally, Soviet intelligence operations in Bulgaria, Rumania, Yugosla-
via, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Austria, Poland, Portugal, Scandinavia,
and Canada had ties with the Rote Kapelle. Most of these connec-
tions were used as channels for financing and communications, but
there was also some operational interaction. This section of our
study is very thin. The fact that our accounts of Soviet espionage in
Western Europe are far more detailed than our records of such activ-
ity elsewhere will permit should not be construed as an indication of
the extent of operations but solely as a reflection of the extent to
which records of the operations have been available.
AUSTRIA
Manfred von Grim, an Austrian broker residing in Vienna, es-

tablished contact with Alexander Rado, probably in Zurich. Von
Grim suggested to Rado that they use von Grim's friend, Prince von
Lichtenstein, and the latter's high connections, for intelligence pur-
poses. Von Grim was given the code name Grau and from then on
was frequently mentioned in the Dora traffic to Moscow. Von Grim
made frequent trips to France and Italy, during which he engaged
in espionage under cover of some kind of business undertaking. In
Austria he developed a wide circle of contacts from whom he elicit-
ed information.
Margarethe Seidler was the cousin of Manfred von Grim and
worked closely with him. Margarethe Seidler maintained an inti-
mate relationship with Otto von Habsburg. It is not clear whether
von Grim had prevailed upon her to contract this relationship for
intelligence purposes. Von Habsburg was probably an unwitting
source.
Schneiderin was the code name of an unknown agent who

probably operated in Austria and had contact with the Rote Drei in
Switzerland. A
message from Moscow to Dora on 20 December 1942
stated that one or two transmitters for the Swiss group could be left
with Schneiderin, who presumably lived near the Austrian- Swiss
border.
BULGARIA
Germaine Schneider probably served during 1937 as a courier
to an unknown agent in Bulgaria. The establishment or reorganiza-
tion of a network in the Balkans was part of the agenda of discus-
sions attended by Trepper in Switzerland in 1937. By the autumn of
1940 the Stoinoff-Mirtscheff group was operating effectively in Bul-
garia. In the autumn of 1941 the Germans achieved their first inter-
ceptions of the Stoinoff-Mirtscheff W/T traffic between Bulgaria
and Moscow, but they were unable to decipher the messages.
Leopold Trepper told one of his German interrogators that

news of the compromise of Wenzel's cipher was sent from Bulgaria
to Moscow, presumably in July 1942. Since it was Germaine Schnei-
der who first brought the news to Trepper, it is possible that her old
courier connections with Bulgaria may have been used, though she
does not seem to have gone there herself. It seems likely that any in-
telligence traffic from Trepper' s contacts in Western Europe would

have been handled in Bulgaria by the Stoinoff-Mirtscheff network or
by the Russian Legation in Sofia, to which this network was linked.
The Stoinoff-Mirtscheff network was becoming progressively strong-
er during 1942, and by November 1942 the Germans had detected
twelve separate W/T links running from Bulgaria, some to Moscow
and some to Tiflis.
In January 1943 the Germans succeeded in deciphering the
code used in the Stoinoff-Mirtscheff traffic from Bulgaria to Moscow
and Tiflis. It is not known whether they were helped by the discov-
eries they had made in the Low Countries and France during 1942.
In February 1943 they seized the Stoinoff-Mirtscheff W/T station at
Varna in Bulgaria, but their follow-up was so slow that warning
reached Moscow from at least one of the several other lines.
Seven other Stoinoff-Mirtscheff stations were captured during
1943, and the Germans believed that the only remaining W/T con-
tact of the group with Moscow was through the Soviet Legation at
Canada 229
Sofia. Despite their belief that this line had survived, the Germans
attempted aW/T playback through Milka Stoinoff. At a later date,
but perhaps still in 1943, one agent of the Stoinoff-Mirtscheff group
escaped to Russia.
CANADA
In 1940 Hermina Rabinowitch left Europe via Portugal to work
at the headquarters of the International Labor Organization, which
had been transferred to Montreal. She had worked for the ILO since
1929, and from Igor Gouzenko's documents and her unwilling evi-
dence in the Canadian case it seems clear that she also qualified as a
member of "Gisela's family." ("Gisela" was Maria Josefovna Polia-
kova.)
In November 1943 Rabinowitch Dueben-
received from Rachel
dorfer an appeal for help in a letter sent under cover of the ILO
pouch. Duebendorfer asked for six thousand seven hundred dollars.
Following the arrest of the W/T operators Foote, the Hamels, and
Bolli, Duebendorfer appealed to Hermina for money through Alex-
ander Abramson, who also used the ILO pouch.

In January 1944 Duebendorfer again cabled Hermina for help,
and in March 1944 Duebendorfer sent Hermina another letter. Only
in April 1944 did Hermina finally get the interest of Nikolai Zabo-
tin, the Soviet Military Attache. On 5 May 1944 Hermina was visit-
ed in Montreal by Sergei Kudryaytsev, who had been detailed by

Motinov to handle the contact with her. She was shown a letter ad-
dressed to her signed "Gisel." This letter reads as follows:
Dear Hermina,
Thank you very much indeed for your care in
our affairs and we hope that you will help us in
future. important for us to send a letter to
It is
Geneva for Sissy. Can you send this letter with a

a reliable man whom you trust? All expenses
will be paid. Please let us know about your pro-
posals in this connection as soon as possible.
Please inform us about delivery of your service
mail to Geneva and why are you sure that it is
not censored? Please wire to Rachel or Alexan-
der that Gisel' s parents are interested about the
health of Sissy and Paul and that they will help
them. We ask you to forward ten thousand dol-

lars to that watch company according to Sissy's
instructions. Make arrangements with our repre-
sentative about forwarding this sum of money
to you in USA. All your personal expenses will
be paid.
With best regards,
Gisel.
Rabinowitch understood this letter to mean that she was au-

thorized by "Gisel" to arrange for the payment of ten thousand
dollars to the Helbein Watch Company in New York. Hermina ad-
mitted to the Royal Commission that she had made a trip to New
York in order to have the money conveyed to Geneva. On this occa-
sion, while in New York, Hermina was in touch with Rachel P. Pre-
gel, the wife of Alex Pregel, with Lydia Zagorsky, who lived with
the Pre gels, and with Mrs. Jacques Sherry.
In 1946 Igor Gouzenko testified at the trial of Edward M. Ma-
zerall, who was charged with violation of the Canadian Officials Se-
cret Act. Gouzenko stated that Hermina Rabinowitch, an important
Soviet agent, travelled in 1944 to New York, where she received ten
thousand dollars from Pavel Mikhailov, acting Soviet Consul in New
York City and a Soviet Army Intelligence officer. He also testified
that Rabinowitch then transmitted this money to "Sissy" (Rachel
Duebendorfer) in Geneva, Switzerland, using as an intermediary
the head of a watch company in New York.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
The organization or reorganization of an RIS network in Czech-
oslovakia was apparentlyon the agenda of discussions attended by
Leopold Trepper in 1937 or 1938 in Switzerland. It is possible that
the RIS network known as the Oskol group began its existence in
Prague during 1939, and Victor Sukolov may have visited the group
about the time of his visit to Berlin in April 1939. Very little is
known about the Oskol group, but it is presumed to have been con-
nected with the Soviet Embassy in Prague. During 1940 the Oskol
group was probably developing sources in Czechoslovakia and com-
municating with Moscow through the Soviet Embassy.
On 3 October 1941 the Germans captured a W/T station in
Italy 231
Prague and made seventy- three arrests. There seems little doubt that
this was the Oskol service, of which nothing more was heard. Al-
though Schulze-Boysen is reported to have had intelligence connec-
tions in Prague, the Germans do not seem to have found any evi-
dence of a link between the German and Czechoslovakian groups.
Towards the end of 1943 the Germans captured a Soviet W/T
agent in Bohemia. They claimed to have followed this arrest with a
successful W/T playback.
In an August 1941 radio message from Moscow Sukolov was in-
structed to deposit two thousand RM with Brantischeck and Wojat-

scheck or through them to contact and deliver the sum to Rudi.
Brantischeck and Wojatscheck were art dealers who operated a shop
in Prague. This shop served as an agent contact point and as a de-
pository for funds for other agents attached to the net. Rudi was the
cover name of an individual whose true name has not yet been as-
certained. Rudi's mission was to bribe persons around von Neurath,
the Reich Protector for Czechoslovakia, and to recruit or exploit
them for espionage purposes.
In early November 1941 Sukolov visited Czechoslovakia and
made contact with Maria Rauch in Raudnitz, Machagasse 14 14, and
with Fnu Urban, a hops dealer, in Prague. Sukolov is known to have
delivered a parcel to Maria Rauch, the wife of Heinrich Rauch, who
was an agent of Sukolov 's network in Belgium.
Margarete Barcza, the mistress of Sukolov, was a Czech na-
tional. When Sukolov and Barcza went to Marseilles in January
1942, they formed or reactivated a group of Czech agents under the
cover of a Simex branch office.
Bogdan Kobulov, a Soviet intelligence officer stationed in Ber-
lin from November 1940 until June 1941, probably distributed
transmitters to agents in Czechoslovakia and Poland.
ITALY
Henri Robinson paid two visits to Italy from France, via Swit-
zerland, in 1936 and possibly was managing a Red Army agent

somewhere in Italy. In 1937 or 1938 Trepper was scheduled to dis-
cuss the reorganization of a network in Italy. Rado may have been
conducting operations against Italy as early as 1937. In 1942 there
were clear signs of operations against Italy in which Rado may have
been involved. It is known that on one occasion in 1942 information
was passed to him via the Italian and Swiss Communist parties. At
another unknown date in the same year Foote received from Italy a
false passport in the name of Schneider. This was a Swiss confection,
and it was Foote' s task to renew it through Anna Mueller. Accord-
ing to Foote' s recollection, had been renewed once before at Mar-
it
seilles. The owner of the passport seems to have had no connection

with Christian Schneider or with Franz Schneider. Some time later
Foote identified the photograph in the Schneider passport with the
face of a man pictured in the Italian press because of his arrest for
espionage in Italy.
There an unconfirmed story that a diplomat in the German

is
Embassy in Rome was detected as a Russian agent as a result of the

arrests and interrogations in the Schulze-Boysen group.
According to another source, the 4th Section of the RU had in
1940 in Italy an illegal resident called Grigoriyev (Grigori), who was
arrested there in 1940, sentenced to thirty years, and may still have
been in jail in 1950.
POLAND
Rudolf von Scheliha, who had worked as a secretary in the Ger-
man Legation at Warsaw since 1930, was recruited as an agent for
Soviet intelligence in 1936 or 1937. His first case officer, if not re-
cruiter, was Rudolf Herrnstadt, a journalist employed on the Berlin-
er Tageblatt in Warsaw. Because Herrnstadt was a Jew, direct con-

tact with von Scheliha became unsafe under the Nazis; and Use
Stoebe, employed in Warsaw as a foreign correspondent for German

and Swiss newspapers, acted as a cutout. Herrnstadt passed von
Scheliha' s information to the Soviet Embassy in Warsaw, and von
Scheliha continued to supply valuable information through Use
Stoebe until September 1939, when war broke out between Germa-
ny and Poland.
PORTUGAL
At the end of October 1940 money was passed through Portu-
gal to Rado in Switzerland; three thousand five hundred dollars of
the total was intended for Ursula Hamburger. Trepper told his Ger-
man interrogators that during June 1941 an RU agent passed
Rumania 233
through Paris on his way to Portugal and relieved him of certain re-
sponsibilities in the peninsula. The story is reasonable because the
withdrawal of Soviet embassies at that time and the consequent scar-
city of communications disturbed much of the RU organization in

Western Europe. But there no evidence in Trepper's earlier career
is
of a Portuguese or Spanish connection, and it might be suspected

that here, as elsewhere, he exaggerated his importance in order to de-
ceive the Germans.
There are indications in 1944 and 1945 that Pannwitz, the
leader of the Sonderkommando which exploited the arrests of Trep-
per and his friends in 1942, extended his interests into Spain and
Portugal.
RUMANIA
In the spring of 1940Moscow proposed to Ursula Hamburger
that her group should be transferred to Rumania and that Foote
should go there as a forerunner to establish Rumanian contacts. The
proposal was not approved and seems to have been abandoned
when the Germans moved into Rumania.
Maria Ghiolu, a Rumanian national residing in Bucharest, was
in close contact with Alexander Foote. At one point she maintained
an intimate personal relationship with him.
Ghiolu 's sustained contact with Foote through Marius Antoine
Chamoutet, the official courier for the Swiss government's foreign
affairs office. Ghiolu passed to Chamoutet information about Mar-
shall Ion Antonescu's closest associates. As a relative of highly-placed

personalities in Antonescu's entourage, she moved about freely in
these circles.
In all probability Ghiolu used a second transmission channel to
Foote. This channel ran through her sister Grazia de Rham, nee
Ghiolu, who lived in Switzerland.
SCANDINAVIA
Leopold Trepper may have visited Sweden in December 1936
on a special mission to assess intelligence obtained there. The agents
he met may have been working for either Red Army intelligence or
the GUGB. Trepper is likely to have used his 1936 contacts in Scan-
dinavia as part of a long term operation which he planned against

the British Isles in later years.
Trepper told his interrogators he took part in discussions with a

Russian, a Swede, and a Norwegian in 1937 or 1938 on the estab-
lishment or reorganization of a network in Scandinavia. The discus-
sions were held in Paris.
In 1938 Trepper passed through Denmark, Sweden, and Fin-
land on his way to France from Moscow. He may have been able to
announce to his contacts in these countries the plans for the estab-
lishment of the Foreign Excellent Raincoat Co. and its proposed ex-
port business with Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.
Leon Grossvogel toured all four Scandinavian countries in the
spring of 1939, ostensibly for the Foreign Excellent Raincoat Com-
pany. In Stockholm Grossvogel set up fnu Boellens as an agent for
the company, but it is not known whether Boellens was even will-
ingly engaged in espionage.
From January to August 1942 Arvid Harnack passed the collect-
ed intelligence of his group through Bernard Baestlein of the Ger-

man Communist Party in Hamburg via Flensburg and Denmark to
the Soviet Embassy in Stockholm. seems probable that the Danish
It
and perhaps the Swedish Communist parties were intermediaries on

this line. It is possible that this link was also used by Schulze-Boysen
after his courier service to Belgium failed at the end of June 1942.
There is some support for this possibility in Schulze-Boysen' s claim
that he succeeded in passing certain vital information to Stockholm
just before his arrest. The Germans believed, however, that this
story was an attempt by Schulze-Boysen to postpone his execution.
He seems to have implied that the material could only be recovered
if he were given liberty to visit Sweden himself.
In 1942 branch offices of Simex were opened in Oslo and Co-

penhagen.
In 1942 Alexander Foote received a message from Moscow re-
questing his help in the delivery of a W/T set to a girl in the Swed-
ish Red Cross. Foote was unable to make the first contact for this
transaction in Switzerland, and the plan came to nothing.
YUGOSLAVIA
In the early spring of 1941 Alexander Rado was given an ad-
dress in Yugoslavia, but it is not known whether this was intended
Yugoslavia 235
to be an extension of Rado's service or an emergency link.

According to German reports branch offices of Simex were set
up in Belgrade and Sofia in 1942.
General 237
PART TWO
MODUS OPERANDI
OF THE ROTE KAPELLE
I. General
The exodus of large numbers of political and religious perse-
cutes from Germany and Nazi-controlled areas of Europe provided
the Soviets with an unexpected operational bonanza — the rapid and
non-attributable extension of Soviet IS capabilities into Europe
through the relocation of trained Soviet agents migrating as refugees.
The Soviets began the expansion of their intelligence networks
in the 1930s. The preparations had been made even earlier. Although
the intelligence organization had developed experience by 1939, only
after the beginning of World War II did it develop its operational
methods and techniques to the point of competence. Even then the
Soviet intelligence nets in Europe showed the weaknesses of extem-
porizing, of patchwork, that rarely characterize Soviet operations
today.
The following information about operational methods and tech-
niques is based on details from Rote Kapelle cases. On many subjects
the available information is inadequate. For example, very little is
known about how agents were spotted and recruited or about

couriers — their cover stories, how they carried their information or
what security measures they took. We have practically no informa-
tion about the day-to-day operations of the cover firms or how they
were intertwined with the espionage activities.
The Soviets considered most of the networks of the Rote Ka-
pelle as deep cover operations. Therefore, the support functions per-
formed by official Soviet installations and local Communist parties
were very important. The official installations, such as embassies,
consulates, military missions, and trade delegations supplied direc-
tions, communications, equipment, passports, visas, and other docu-
mentation. They also served as cover and transmitted funds.
Association with local Communist parties involved serious security
risksand was therefore avoided whenever possible. As this record
has shown, however, Soviet intelligence was ill-prepared for World
War II. The experiences of the times forced the leaders of the Euro-
pean nets to solicit help from Party members quite frequently despite
the risks.
238 Modus Operandi of the Rote Kapelle
Some general characteristics of Soviet intelligence methods and

techniques are worth emphasizing. The first concerns the availability
of personnel for the Soviet intelligence services. Recruitment is well
described in an Abwehr report dated 24 March 1943, which reads in
part:
The arrests of December 1941 made us realize for

the first time that we had come to grips with the
Soviet intelligence services in the West. The method
of recruitment of the agents arrested after the first
coup of 12-13 December 1941 differed so essentially
from that of other foreign agents that all previous
experience in the West was valueless. It soon became
clear that the Russians had been using skilled labor
and had drawn their recruits from politically trained
Communists, or at least from among persons of the
extreme left. It was therefore necessary for the Ger-
man officer concerned to acquaint himself with the
theories which underlay the training and estab-
lishment of Russian agents and which were then un-
known to Abwehr officers.
It is impossible to separate Communist ideology

from the work of the Soviet intelligence service. The
Comintern has no difficulty in recruiting suitable
agents, even in the West. Professed Communists are
well-accustomed to clandestine work since their
activities and even their residence are illegal in most
Western European countries. Tolerant laws and lax
frontier controls have also been to their advantage . .
As a result, the USSR and the Russian General Staff

have concentrated particularly on sending agents to
the West.
There is an interesting parallel between the operational covers

used by the Soviets in the espionage operations of the Rote Kapelle
and those of Soviet espionage operations in other parts of the world
—
and under varying conditions war or peace, cooperative or uncoop-
erative populations. Since the days of the Cheka, a far-flung complex
of reputable firms, banks, trusts, and holding corporations has been
used operationally by the Soviets to cover, to support, and to control
their agents throughout the world.
The final point concerns the shortcomings of the RU in the
handling of the Rote Kapelle networks and the resultant weakness in

operations. While Moscow was reasonably energetic in the provision
of money and material and gave sound security warnings from time
to time, on the whole it showed an academic attitude. Moscow made
little allowance for field problems or for the personalities of the var-
ious agents.
II. Cover and Security

According to a German interrogation report of Leopold Trep-
per, the "Grand Chef" made a distinction between two types of in-
telligence agents and described the cover each should have:
The first type has an assignment for a certain time

and must live completely illegally in order not to
leave behind personal traces. This type lives without
auxiliary aid. The Grand Chef recommends living in
a boarding house as a tourist for not longer than
three months.
The other type of intelligence agent lives legally and

arrives with allegedly lawful papers. If he plays the
role of a merchant, then he really must have a busi-
ness knowledge. If he plays the role of an architect,
then he must be proficient in that profession. In his
professional circles such a man must have a good
reputation. The name to be chosen for the forged
identification papers must be familiar in the country
in question.
He has to know the land and people of his alleged

birthplace well, so that he can answer all possible
questions, should that become necessary. He also has
to speak the dialect of his birthplace and must not
attract attention when speaking his mother tongue.
Acquaintances from the country of his birth, as well
and social gatherings where he might
as restaurants
meet people from his mother country, are to be
avoided.
Trepper was of the opinion that an espionage agent should not

use official cover. He felt that persons in official positions, because of
their restricted social were not well-placed to inform themselves
life,
thoroughly about military events or political movements. An inde-

pendent agent, on the other hand, could live with any group of peo-
ple and discover the views of every section of the population.
Trepper's opinion to the contrary, the evidence seems to indicate
that official Soviet establishments were consistently used to support
the Rote Kapelle, and there was a definite need for their assistance.
Their primary function was to aid the operation of the deep-cover
networks, and the Soviet intelligence agents assigned to these estab-
lishments served as contacts between the deep-cover agents and
Moscow.
Apparently at one point it was thought that official cover should
be in the guise of commercial representation, such as a delegate to a
trade commission, and that the covers of military attaches and diplo-
matic officials should not be used. If a commercial representative
were compromised, his activities could be dismissed as an isolated
instance without reflecting on the diplomatic staff. And there are
many indications that the Soviet intelligence services did use the
cover of official commercial representatives. But there seem to have
been as many or more Soviet intelligence agents who used military
attache cover and other SovietEmbassy cover. Until the outbreak of
the war between the USSR and Germany, one of the most important
support functions rendered by Soviet agents in official positions was
to assist the deep-cover agent with his communications.
A noteworthy characteristic of Soviet intelligence during World
War II was its dread that its organization and operations had been
penetrated. This dread was frequently extreme, and in some cases it
definitely prejudiced the efficiency of Soviet intelligence operations.

There were numerous examples of this fear in the Rote Kapelle. The
Soviets thought that Alexander Foote was working for the British,
and in Moscow he was flatly accused of having collaborated with
Rachel Duebendorfer in betraying the Rote Drei organization to the
British. The Soviets feared that Trepper had betrayed his country and
that Sukolov was working for the Gestapo. They believed that Robin-
son was working for the French and that Ozols was working for the
Germans. These fears were justified, of course, in the case of Sukolov,
but in the other cases they were groundless.
The Soviets seem to have had a genuine fear that the "Anglo-
Americans" would become privy to Russian intelligence operations
anywhere and use this knowledge to disadvantage the USSR. When
the Swiss police started to roll up the Rote Drei and Rado asked Mos-
cow's permission to seek sanctuary at the British Embassy, not only
for his safety but also as a means of restoring communications, the
Center's response was vehemently — almost vituperatively — nega-

tive. At the war's end, when Allied good faith had been demon-
strated, the Soviet Government continued to plug the propaganda
theme that the British and Americans had tried to conclude a sepa-
rate peace with Hitler, but this charge was levelled as part of the cal-
culated Soviet distortion of history. It is doubtful that knowledgeable
members of the Government and intelligence services of the USSR
ever believed this myth.
Despite their fears the security measures directed by the Soviets
were often incredibly lax and actually jeopardized operations. On 28
August 1941 Moscow wired Sukolov:
An important agent known as Use will in the future

be designated under the cover name Alte . . .
It Germans to identify Use Stoebe and then

did not take long for the
to round up the Rudolf von Scheliha group. In the Robinson papers,
the Rado traffic and other intercepted Soviet communications, there
—
were numerous clues including true and cover names for the same
person appearing in the same message — which produced useful
counterintelligence leads on the identities of Soviet agents.
When Trepper returned to Moscow in 1945, he had several
complaints to make about the Center's administrative blunders dur-
ing the war. He thought that Moscow had broken all the rules and
made an unforgivable error in sending messages to Sukolov order-
ing him to Berlin and giving the addresses of the three chiefs of the
German networks. When Trepper first heard about this mistake, he
reportedly exclaimed: "It's not possible. They have gone crazy!"
Trepper's grievances were not treated sympathetically by the Direc-
tor,and he was imprisoned.
Before the war the networks controlled by trained and experi-
enced Russian agents and staff personnel were kept isolated from
one another and were successful in maintaining the necessary level of
compartmentation. As the difficulties of operations, administration,
and communications in wartime increased, many of the security mea-

sures were sacrificed.
It should be noted that the agents and the radio operators sta-
tioned in the various European countries were usually not identical.
Although frequent overlaps and parallel operations did exist even on
the lower levels, the organizations merged at the top under one chief.
As a rule, a radio operator, technician, or other member of the radio
organization would know nothing about the overall organizational
structure. Sometimes members of a radio team and members of an

agent team lived on the same street and even in the same building
without ever coming into contact. There were of course exceptions,
especially 1943 and 1944, a rather critical period for the Rote
Kapelle, when more and more often dual functions pertaining to
both spying and communications were assigned to the same person.
Hence it could happen that a member of the radio organization was
also employed as an agent, and vice versa. This situation was brought
about by the fact that the loss of important personnelsomehow had
to be compensated. Replacements for the technicians, radio oper-
ators, and other were difficult to arrange.
specialists
The network was responsible for the smooth opera-
chief of a
tion of both the agent and radio organizations within a defined area.
This chief was almost invariably a specially trained intelligence
officer of the Red Army with many years of experience, like the
"Grand Chef" or "Kent." The obvious exception was in Germany,
—
where all three of the group leaders Schulze-Boysen, Harnack, and
—
von Scheliha were amateurs and received very little guidance from
professional intelligence officers.
In addition to the agent and radio organizations, various auxil-
iary units were at the disposal of the Rote Kapelle for support and
collaboration. Some of these units were subordinate to the Comin-
tern and the Party leadership in the various countries, while others
were activated and guided directly from Moscow.
III. Finances
According to information furnished by Foote, the head of a net-

work was responsible for paying the entire network and submitting
his accounts to Moscow once a year. He also had to send an estimated
budget for the next year's expenditures. This yearly grant was seldom
paid in one lump sum. At least twice a year, as a rule, an agent from
the network was sent to meet a courier from Moscow, who handed
over the money, usually in United States dollars.
The network chief could not put his money into a bank. He kept
the entire sum in dollars hidden and, from time to time, removed
what was necessary and changed it into local currency for immediate
expenses. Sometimes he was permitted to put the money into a safe-
deposit box.
It is interesting to note that a ten thousand dollar payment fre-
quently figured in the financing of the Rote Kapelle operations.

When Mikhail Makarov reached Paris from Moscow in 1939, he was
Motivation 243
given a Uruguayan passport in the name of Carlos Alamo and ten

thousand probably to set up a cover firm. Grossvogel's par-
dollars,
ticipation inLe Roi du Caoutchouc in 1939 and 1940 started with ten
thousand dollars, which Trepper had received from Moscow. Nor-
man Stein gave Alexander Rado ten thousand dollars in 1943 in
France. Hermina Rabinowitch was given ten thousand dollars in
New York in July 1944 to transmit via Helbein to Duebendorfer in
Switzerland. The figure of ten thousand dollars became a standard
sum in major RU financial transactions.
seems that the Soviets were generous in financing their intel-
It
ligence operations. But some of the networks were essentially self-

sustaining. Simex and Simexco became thriving concerns, and the
agents behind those cover firms helped to support their espionage
activities by their business earnings.
IV. Motivation
The organizational structure of the Rote Kapelle was bound to-
gether by the motivation of its agents. In view of the hardships they
endured and the which they were subjected, it is obvious that

risks to
the agents of the Rote Kapelle were very strongly motivated. Moti-
vation is a difficult factor to assess because it is typically a complex
melange of emotions, beliefs, convictions, and hatreds. Some general
remarks, however, can be made about the reasons for which the
members of the Rote Kapelle risked their lives and, in more than a
hundred instances, sacrificed them.
Most, but not all, of the key figures in the Rote Kapelle were
ardent Communists. Comintern agents like Henri Robinson and
Daniel Gouwlooze were loyal to the "workers of the world" and
gladly offered their services for Soviet intelligence activities. Leopold
Trepper, Victor Sukolov, Konstantin Jeffremov, and the other Soviet
intelligence officers were loyal tc the Center and to Stalin. Their
commitment was not so much to Marxist-Leninist theory as it was to
their service (the RU) and to their country. (Trepper was born in
Poland but claimed Soviet citizenship.) Sukolov at one time believed
in the "cause," but he became "soft," as Trepper said, and developed
bourgeois tastes in cigars, shoes, and the comfort and pleasure of
Margarete Barcza's company.
The ideological motivation was probably most fervent, though
also most muzzy, in the German networks of the Rote Kapelle. Al-
though it is difficult in many cases to distinguish between a loyalty to
Communism and a resistance to Hitler, it is clear that the common
tie in allof the German groups was a profound sympathy for Com-
munism. Schulze-Boysen and Harnack recruited exclusively on the
basis of a commitment to the Communist cause. Use Stoebe, who was
probably just as important as von Scheliha in that group, was a con-
vinced Communist as early as 1930.
A number of German and some non-German writers have
grappled with the problem of whether those Germans who worked
as spies for the Soviets were heroes or traitors. For the most part
these ruminations bog down in legalisms (Landesverrat vs. Hochver-
rat), abstractions, or emotionalism. In no case could those who
opposed the Nazis and actively sought their downfall be considered
traitors to theGerman heritage or peoples. But there is a clear moral
distinctionbetween those whose goal was the restoration of a repre-
sentative indigenous German government and those who sought to
exploit anti-fascism for the benefit of the Soviet Union.
Many of the members of the Rote Kapelle were Jewish and had
an intense hatred for Nazism. Although most of the Jews were also
Communists, like Trepper, Grossvogel, and Gouwlooze, there were
some who were probably motivated more by being Jewish than by
being Communists. This distinction seems especially valid for the
Sokols in Paris and probably for Anna and Basile Maximovitch.
Abraham Rajchmann was described in German reports as a "greedy,
sniveling Jew" — a sterotype repeated in all German reporting — but
he claimed in his interrogation by Belgian authorities after the war
that he was recruited because he had lost relatives to the Nazis and
not because of the money Grossvogel offered. According to Trepper
"the Jews had no other means to fight and they undoubtedly gave
Nazism its deadliest blows."
Very few members of the Rote Kapelle were motivated primari-
ly by monetary considerations. The most striking figure in this small
category, however, was Rudolf von Scheliha, who was recruited in
Warsaw after he had become hopelessly in debt through gambling.
Vlademar Keller of Simex, who made a fortune before his arrest by
dealing in industrial diamonds with the Todt Organization, may have
been another agent who worked mainly for money. And the record
clearly shows that Rudolf Roessler of the Rote Drei had a wide mer-
cenary streak.
Some of the members Rote Kapelle became implicated
of the
through family ties or through affection. Georgie de Winter, the mis-
tress of Trepper, had no political convictions but followed Trepper
because she loved him. Germaine Schneider recruited her two sisters,
Renee Blumsack and Josephine Verhimst; Henri Robinson prepared

his illegitimate son Victor Schabbel for a career in espionage. Marga-
rete Barcza was passionately attached to Victor Sukolov, and the Ger-
man spinster Margarete Hoffmann-Scholz provided information to
Basile Maximovitch after he showed a romantic interest in her and
proposed marriage. It is likely that these persons became involved in
intelligence activities chiefly because of their romantic or family
connections.
V. Documentation
The Soviets used various methods to obtain passports and visas.
They tried to use only first class papers and preferred not to forge
them. Whenever possible, they attempted to obtain actual documents
through fraudulent means and, if necessary, to alter the information
to fit the person who was going to use them. That they did not
always manage to meet professional standards is shown, however, by
the clumsy Canadian documentation with which Trepper and his
family arrived in Belgium.
Those agents who traveled from the USSR arrived at their sta-
tions with passports, although they were not necessarily the ones
with which they started their journeys. In many instances the agent
stopped off en route for a pre-arranged rendezvous with a contact
who would pick up his original passport and exchange it for another.
The new passport was usually in a different name and contained the
visas necessary to continue the trip.
In arranging for the use of false papers and a false identity,
Trepper insisted that the documents should be in a name which was
native to the country of origin and in common use, such as Smith,
Miller, or Schulz. Police investigations and inquiries were thereby
made more difficult. He also insisted that as far as possible agents
should avoid being photographed or giving specimens of their hand-
writing. If his agents had to resort to forged papers,Trepper insisted
that care be taken to insure that the impress of the stamp was not too
clear. He maintained that a genuine stamp was always worn and left
a blurred impress.
VI. Contacts and Personal Meetings

In the course of his interrogation by the Germans, Trepper
theorized on some points to be remembered in arranging contacts
and personal meetings. He had gleaned these theories from his many
years of operational experience. His observations included the fol-

lowing:
For making a first contact with an agent, Sundays

and holidays are best since on those days the police
are generally less alert. The most satisfactory method
of introducing two agents to each other is as
follows — the agent who is to meet the new members
arrives at the site of the rendezvous first. The person
making the introduction walks past with the second
agent but without approaching or pointing out the
agent to him. A later meeting is then arranged,
first
which the two agents concerned attend by them-

selves, the first agent now being in a position to rec-
ognize and to approach the second. The purpose of
this arrangement is that any third party who may be
watching the initial meeting cannot know with
whom the contact will be made.
Trepper recommended several types of places for holding per-

museums, and race courses are
sonal meetings. Post offices, churches,
good for personal meetings and for initial contacts. Railway stations,
he said, should never be used because the police are always active
there. Theaters make good meeting places, if the proper arrange-
ments are made. If the meeting takes place in a theater, Trepper sug-
gested that the agents obtain adjacent seats so that they could see
each other. There is no need for conversation. This technique is
excellent for initial meetings. It is also a secure rendezvous for the

handing over of reports. Of course, care must be taken to reserve ad-
joining seats or, if reservations are unnecessary, to attend the theater
at a time when it is not crowded.
The regular meeting place should be changed frequently. The
time and place should be such that the meeting appears natural. A
summer resort, for example, would not be selected for a meeting in
the winter. If a permanent rendezvous or cover address is required
for the delivery of reports, it should be in a place like a bookshop,
newspaper stand, or ticket office. It is not secure to select a place
where either of the agents is too well known.
The principal agent should always be as inconspicuous as possi-
ble and, if feasible, should not appear at a rendezvous at all. If he
must appear, the rendezvous area should be selected as far as possible
from where he lives. The principal agent should be able to contact his
agents regularly through pre-arranged meetings. Members of the

network routinely attended these meetings, but the head agent went
only if he felt it necessary. The network agents should not be able to
contact their chief in any way. They should have no address or tele-
phone number where he could be reached. Thus the principal agent
can maintain control and yet avoid unnecessary contact. In this man-
ner the risk of vertical compromise can be reduced.
Fruitless trips to the rendezvous site can be avoided by a system
of advance signals. The might be the placing of a mark in a tel-
signal
ephone book after a particular name if the meeting is to be held. If
the mark is not there, the meeting is cancelled.
Telephones, and especially private telephones, should not be
used in arranging personal meetings. They may be used, however, to
give warnings through either a ringing system or a conversation in
double-talk. In the former system no conversation takes place be-
cause the warning consists of the ringing of the telephone bell a
stated number of times. In the other system the wording of the con-
versation gives the warning.
One example warning was used by Spaak in
of the telephone
Paris in 1943. He phoned and his housekeeper replied,
his house,
"Bonjour, monsieur," if the police were there and "Bonjour, Mon-
sieur Spaak," if they were not. This system enabled Spaak to escape
arrest, even though the Germans occupied his house for many days.
The principal agent should arrange with Moscow for an emer-
gency rendezvous procedure that could be resorted to at any time.
(Trepper used to arrange emergency meeings with Moscow about

once a year.) The site of the proposed meeting should be described in
detail to Moscow. Trepper supplied picture postcards to pinpoint the
exact spot. Passwords and safety signals should be arranged. Certain
days of eachmonth should be selected on which to make contact.
These arrangements are made so that if ordinary contacts are broken
off, contact can be re-established at one of the pre-arranged emer-
gency meetings. This arrangement also enables Moscow to put

anyone in touch with the principal agent by sending him to the emer-
gency rendezvous.
Accommodation lodgings should be selected with great care,
preferably in the suburbs. boarding house
is used, it should be one
If a
having few boarders. The agent should make friends with fellow
lodgers in order to use such people as references in case he needs
them. Correspondence should be directed to the address, even if the
agent has to write cards and letters to himself, to suggest a reason-
able amount of normal correspondence. The principal agent and his
sub-agents should identify several hotels and other places in which

they can, if necessary, spend a night without being questioned. The
names of these places should be relayed to Moscow so that they can
be referred to and used.
Emergency meetings sites should never be used more than once.
(This precaution is apparently theoretical and was not followed by all
the networks.) For example, when Foote became involved with

first
the Hamburger network, he was he would be given a fixed emer-

told
gency rendezvous spot in a nearby country, probably Belgium or Hol-
land. He would be given certain days and hours, passwords and safety
signals to be used by him and by his contact. He was to use the same
meeting site whenever he lost contact with his group leader or on
orders from Moscow.
VII. Communications
Until the outbreak of war with Germany, most communications
between the Rote Kapelle networks and Moscow were directed
through the official Soviet installations. Couriers and postal links
connected the networks with these installations. From there the in-
formation went by wireless or by pouch to Moscow. Trepper used the
Soviet Embassy and the Soviet Chamber of Commerce in Belgium.
Later, when he went to France, he made use of the Military Attache's
office in Paris and then Vichy. Robinson used the communications
services of the Soviet Embassy in Paris. Von Scheliha's information
was transmitted through the Soviet Embassy in Poland and later
through the Soviet Embassy and the Tass representative in Germany.
Schulze-Boysen and Harnack communicated through the Soviet
Embassy in Germany and the Soviet Trade Delegation. Rado sent his
microphotographs by courier or by post to the Soviet Embassy in
Paris for onward transmission. When the official installations were
withdrawn, however, and wireless communications had to be used
almost exclusively, the transmitters proved to be inefficient and
required constant adjustment.
The wireless transmitters were the most vulnerable aspect of all
the Rote Kapelle operations. There were numerous problems: the

recruitment and training of operators, the procurement and mainte-
nance of W/T sets, the selection of suitable sites for transmitting,
and the delivery and concealment of codes and call signals.
The Germans began intercepting messages from the Rote Ka-
pelle transmitters in late 1940 or early 1941. With the aid of their
D/F equipment, they succeeded in locating the sites used for trans-
Communications 249
mission. In almost every series of apprehensions, the initial arrests

were of the W/T operators. This was the case of Makarov and Wen-
zel in Belgium, the Sokols in France, the Hamels and Foote in Swit-
zerland, and many others. Some of the captured W/T operators of-
fered to collaborate with the Germans; others refused to talk and
broke down only after intensive interrogation.
Sometimes, and particularly during the war years, such a mass of
information was submitted for wireless transmissions that it had to
be cut down and edited. Only the barest essentials of the material
could be sent. Otherwise all of an operator's time would have been
spent on communications work. Such lavish use of time was not fea-
sible because operators sometimes worked in other capacities as well.
Foote, for example, whose primary assignment was as a W/T opera-
tor, two of the agents in the network. He
acted as a cutout for at least
picked up messages at the agents' villas, reviewed the information,
and with the agents' aid tried to reduce it to a manageable length.
Contact with Moscow was usually made late at night or early in
the morning. Trepper's operators contacted Moscow between the
hours of 2300 and 0200. Foote contacted Moscow at 0100, and if con-
ditions were and the message short, he finished transmit-
satisfactory
ting in a couple of hours. If he had long messages and atmospheric
conditions were bad, he was often at the transmitter until 0600. Mes-
sages that passed between England and France were sent before
noon, usually between the hours of 1000 and 1200. Some of the fre-
quencies were used on even-numbered days and others on odd-
numbered days, according to a schedule.
Schedules detailing the time that a particular operator was to
transmit were arranged by Moscow and submitted to the operator. In
addition to the regular schedules the networks were given special
schedules and special wave lengths for emergency traffic. These
schedules were to be used in case messages had to be sent during the
daytime. Trepper, for example, had a wave length which could be
used every day at a particular time. Over this wave length he also re-
ceived special messages from Moscow for Robinson. Robinson had
no direct contact with Moscow because his transmitter had insuffi-
cient power, but he did have a special wave length for transmitting to
England. Foote, too, had an emergency schedule. This included sev-
eral days of each week when Moscow would be listening at pre-
arranged times for his call. On other days Foote would be required to
listen for a message from Moscow.
Call signs were usually fixed but did change from time to time
for security reasons. The signal for the change of call signs came
directly from Moscow. When Foote wished to call Moscow, he tapped
out his call sign in Morse on the assigned frequency. Moscow ac-
knowledged on the same frequency. On hearing Moscow's reply,
Foote switched to another wave length and different call signs to
send his material. Moscow, of course, also changed wave lengths and
call signs. This system somewhat minimized the possibility of radio
monitoring.
The messages were always in cipher. The cipher in theory —
could be read only by Moscow and the agent in the field who held the
cipher. Moscow regarded its ciphers as unbreakable unless the key
were known. The process of enciphering messages was divided into
two parts. The first was based on a keyword which had six letters and
was changed at intervals by Moscow. The second stage involved the
"closing" of the first simple encipherment against the text of a code
book. The enciphering phrase could be taken from anywhere in the
book starting at any word in the line. The process for deciphering
was the reverse procedure. It involved determining the passage in
the key book and subtracting the necessary number of letters.
According to Trepper the codes used for enciphering and deci-
phering messages were referred to as the "Talmud." They were taken
exclusively from literary works, and the series of letters was selected
at random. In all agents' messages and in all enciphered texts, only
cover names were supposed to be used to refer to sources, sub-agents,
and others. The messages were couched in a jargon which made them
difficult to interpret and readily comprehensible to the people in the
networks only. Even if the gist of the message could be made out, the
agent's identitywas ordinarily concealed by the use of a cover name.

Another link for transmitting messages to Moscow was the
Communist Party. This emergency channel was used only after the
other links had been disrupted. The Communist Party used couriers
as well as wireless transmitters. The networks of the Rote Kapelle
used the services of at least three Communist Parties — the Dutch,
the French, and the German. It is possible that the Swiss Communist
Party was also used.
Postal links were another means of communication. Very fre-
quently open codes were used. Sometimes operational or adminis-

trative matters, such as making or confirming meeting arrange-
ments, were handled in this way. At other times actual intelligence
was passed through the mails.
The chiefs of the networks usually sorted out, evaluated, and
Communications 251
edited the information that came to them. In some instances the doc-
uments were microfilmed and then given to couriers in microfilm
rolls.In this connection it is interesting to note that Henri Robinson

on 20 December 1940 received a message from the Center in Moscow
advising him that RU headquarters was sending instructions on
"micro-appareil." Whether this refers to microphotography as a
whole or only to microdots is not known.

After 1941 all Soviet Military Intelligence officers posted to the
field were well grounded in the technique of microphotography prior
to their departure from RU headquarters in Moscow.
Sometimes secret writing was used in an effort to insure greater
security in transmitting messages. When Trepper was planning his
operations for Western Europe, he arranged with the military at-
tache in Paris that reports be written in secret ink betwen the lines of
a simple message and sent through the diplomatic pouch. In 1938 the
RU sent an agent from the USSR to the Military Attache's office in
Paris as a clerk to be responsible for the proper handling of secret ink
communications. After the outbreak of war, this plan was discarded,
and the agent went to Brussels to be trained as a wireless operator for
Sukolov.
Trepper did not like to send secret writing through the regular
he told the Germans he never used this
post, and, as a matter of fact,
technique. He indicated, if secret inks were used, they
however, that
should be confined to preparations which could form part of an ordi-
nary medicine chest.
Rado probably made arrangements for communicating by secret
writing. In the spring of 1941 Moscow sent him an address in Yugo-
slaviawith which messages in secret writing could be exchanged.
There is no indication, however, that the link was ever established or
used.
Alexander Foote's first espionage assignment took him to
Munich. It was by means of secret writing concealed in a book that
his Munich address was sent to a contact in England.
Couriers were used very extensively in the Rote Kapelle net-
works. Most of the couriers were aware of what they were carrying,
but some were used as "dummies." The chief of the network would
usually send a courier or one of his trusted cutouts to a fixed rendez-
vous in a neighboring country to make contact with a courier from
Moscow. The courier system, though slower than most of the other
means of communications, was more secure for the transmission of
bulky documents and equipment.
Many techniques were used to camouflage the appearance of

intelligence material so that it could be delivered securely to the
proper parties. When Trepper was interrogated, he stated that an
agent should never appear to be handing over anything unusual to
his contact but should use some everyday object as camouflage. He
suggested the following articles as convenient for this purpose: foun-
tain pens, cigarettes, cigarette packets, coat buttons, compacts, medi-
cine bottles, pocket and wrist watches, match boxes, and so forth.
Some of these articles could also be used to store material. Reports

could be hidden between the pages of a newspaper which had been
pasted together, in the soles of shoes, underneath labels on trunks, or
in jam jars in their original packing. Small objects, when kept at
home, could be hidden in a flour bin or among vegetables. Members
of the Rote Kapelle networks used many of these concealment
techniques.
During Germans, Trepper gave the fol-
his interrogation by the
lowing additional information about couriers and cutouts. Reports
should always be passed through a cutout and not by the agent him-
self. Couriers and cutouts should not return directly to their own or
new lodgings after attending a meeting. They were to keep away for
at least six or seven hours to reduce the risk of being followed. When
the cutout received the report, he was to delay for at least twenty-four
hours before delivering it in order to be certain that the original
agent had not been followed. Under no circumstances was the agent
to carry the intelligence reports on his person during this period; he
was to put them in safekeeping until the time for further transmis-
sion. If records had to bemade, the documents were to be taken to
the proper person at the indicated safe address to be photographed
or microfilmed.
Trepper found it convenient to use married couples as cutouts
and couriers. One could receive the original report, and the other
could hand it over twenty-four hours later. The Girauds, for example,
were used in this way. Mme. Giraud picked up Kathe Voelkner's
reports, kept them for about a day, and then passed them to her hus-
band. Trepper found that women were very useful for courier work.
He used them for contacts between the Belgian and French networks
and in his dealings with the French Communist Party.
VIII. Conclusion
The Rote Kapelle had too many agents. Its most important
sources were, of course, in Germany. Most of them volunteered their
Conclusion 253
services or accepted recruitment after Germany attacked the USSR.

Until then, Soviet intelligence apparently lacked highly placed pene-
trations of the Germans and therefore had to quickly build large clan-
destine structures that transmitted such a quantity of data that the
sheer bulk of traffic became a hazard of itself. In general, Soviet
methods of operations, skills, and equipment were on a par with
those of the other major powers in World War II. But Stalin's deep
distrust of the Western Allies, a peculiar Soviet paranoia, permeated
the Russian intelligence services as well. Consequently, the Soviets
deeply distrusted any information not supplied by their own agents
through their own channels. This attitude inevitably magnified the
workload of the Rote Kapelle. A structure built too late and in haste,
a structure in which only some of the parts had been skillfully formed
and adequately tested, a structure that was then overloaded, was
bound to show cracks in the walls and come tumbling down.
Personalities of the Rote Kapelle 255
PART THREE
PERSONALITIES
KURT ABRAHAM
(alias V-Mann Abbe) penetrated first the Belgian and then the
French Rote Kapelle organization on behalf of the Germans. In 1947
he was under interrogation by the Belgian authorities.
ALEXANDER ABRAMSON
(alias Issak, in W/T traffic; aka Sascha, nickname; aka Ali-Us, pen
name) was born 12 January 1896 in Koenigsberg, Lithuania. A Lith-
uanian Jew, he chose Soviet nationality after the occupation of Lith-
uania.
Characterized as a social snob, scholarly, very intelligent, a quali-
fied lawyer and economist, he was an employee of ILO, Geneva. He
married Eugenie Auerbach (also called Greta Goldschmitt). He is a
first cousin of Hermina Rabinowitch and Dr. Robert Kempner.
In 1937, at Russian insistence, Abramson replaced M. Cortet in

the Russian information section of ILO. The author of pseudoscien-
tific pamphlets which were actually Communist propaganda, Abram-
son was a candidate, with Vladimir Sokolin, for a position in the
Russian Legation in Bern; but he was refused because he was Jewish
and remained at his ILO post.
In June 1941, according to letters which Rabinowitch wrote to
the Gruenbergs, Abramson, who was getting along well with the
Soviets, was all set to go to Russia. Then the Russo-German war
broke out, and he was forced to remain in Switzerland.
In October 1941 Carter of the Institute for Pacific Relations
tried to get him an emergency visa for America. In December 1942
Rabinowitch wrote:
Abramson is stuck in Switzerland. The charming

Vichy officials have refused to grant transit visas to
Jews. Something must be done, so I proposed to
Stein, Assistant Director of the ILO in Montreal, that
he go to New York and Washington and gather the
necessary documents.
256 Personalities cof the Rote Kapelle
Previously the ILO in Geneva had obtained an Argentinian visa

for Abramson with the idea that thereafter he could get to the USA
or Canada. But Rabinowitch wrote that she did not know "how he
seems that some persons in the U.S.
will get all the other visas. It
Government are interested in his history; perhaps he will be able to
come on the clipper." The "persons interested" were thought by
. . .
the Gruenbergs to be John Winant and Frances Perkins, both of

whom knew Abramson in Geneva.
In the summer of 1944 Abramson was involved in a payment to
a Swiss network by Russian military authorities in Canada. When
Abramson's role in these financial transactions was revealed in the
Canadian spy trial in 1946, he lost his job with the ILO.
In the autumn of 1944 Abramson was advisor to the Russian
Military Mission investigating internment camps in Switzerland. Af-
ter the breakup of the Rado network, most of the important Lucy
material was stored in his safe. It was picked up by Foote and taken to
Paris in November 1944.
autumn of 1946 Abramson attended a Geneva conference
In the
as Economic Affairs Officer for the UN and was reported to be one
of the key Soviet agents in Western Europe for "Russian directives
which he passed to Tamara Vigier when he is in Paris." In Paris in
1947 Abramson was in constant touch with Jean Pierre Vigier and
Bernard Bayer. In the fall he claimed to be working for the Federa-
tion Syndicale Mondiale. He used Vigier's apartment for headquar-
ters in the fall of 1947.
Later in 1947 he tried to get a job with the ILO in Geneva. As
the result of the Royal Commission Report, Abramson was interro-
gated. He admitted nothing, denied all personal knowledge of Wil-
liam Helbein, Mulvidson, and Puenter, and claimed that his knowl-
edge of Max Horngacher, well-known Swiss Communist in Geneva
with whom he was reported friendly, and of Edmond Ferenczi, was
very slight. He claimed he did not know the real nature of his work
when he was connected with Duebendorfer.
Some time prior to 1947 Abramson also served as liaison
between the International Labor Office and the USSR when the
Soviet Union was a member of this organization. Abramson was in
direct contact with Zabotin and Sokolin, both Russian agents, and
allegedly used Tamara Vigier for his contact with the French Com-
munist Party.
Henri Vigier, who lived very near Abramson in Geneva, re-
ceived frequent visits from his son, Jean Pierre Vigier. It was report-
ed that Abramson also received frequent visits from Captain Vigier.
He lived in Geneva for more than thirty years. He speaks French,

German, English, and Russian.
In 1947 Abramson was reported to be assistant and advisor to
Leon Jouhaux, General Secretary of the CGT.
Alexander Abramson is probably not identical with Alexander
Abramovitch Abramson, head of a Tientsin intelligence network
prior to 1932, and a Jewish CP member who started intelligence
work in 1927 as an organizer of a women's spy ring. This mission
was to observe activities of Chinese and U.S. forces through their
nationals and to gather minute details and report conversations. He
disappeared in southern China in 1932, and no further traces of him
have been found.
In 1950 Leon Jouhaux, the veteran trade union leader and presi-
dent of the French Economic Council, intervened on behalf of Ab-
ramson, Rabinowitch, and Norman Stein.
MAURICE AENIS-HANSLIN
(alias Maurice, alias Robin) was born 20 February 1893 in St. Denis
(Seine), France. He is a Swiss national living in France at Savigny-
sur-Orge. A long-standing Communist, he was once an official of the

Central Committee of the Swiss CP. He is an engineer employed by
the business enterprise Unipectine of Switzerland.
Aenis-Hanslin was Duebendorfer and was Henri
a sub-agent of
Robinson's man RIS network. He also assisted Rob-
in Paris for the
inson financially. He was involved in the Trepper network as the li-
aison man for transferring funds between Robinson in Paris and
Duebendorfer in Switzerland from 1940 to 1942. He made frequent
courier trips between France and Switzerland before and during
World War II for the Soviet Military IS and had some knowledge of
the Swiss network. In 1942 and 1943 he may have supplied intelli-
gence to Tamara Vigier for Duebendorfer. He is believed to have had
an important role in the Rote Kapelle and is linked with Hans
Schauwecker, Karl Hofmaier, and Franz Schneider.
Aenis-Hanslin maintained a lavish apartment in Paris which
was a safehouse with many secret hiding places. It served as an office
for Robinson as well as a meeting place.
Aenis-Hanslin married Gabrielle Schneider in 1928 and was
separated in 1933. He remarried after the war, but his second wife
died at an unknown He was arrested with his mistress, Edwige
date.
Couchon, by the Gestapo on 12 April 1943 and sentenced to death.
Couchon subsequently died in the Ravensbrueck camp, but the Swiss
258 Personalities of the Rote Kapelle
intervened in Aenis-Hanslin's behalf, and he was released.

Before the war, on Comintern instructions, Aenis-Hanslin es-
tablished a small factory in the outskirts of Paris and was used as a
channel for the distribution of Comintern funds to Western Europe-
an CP's. After the war he moved to Paris as chief engineer for Swiss
financier and businessman Hans Schauwecker, who is co-owner of
Unipectine, a dried fruit company with headquarters near Zurich.
Unipectine is a suspected cover enterprise because Schauwecker has
contributed large sums of money to local Communist organizations
and Aenis-Hanslin is probably a liaison agent between Swiss and
French Communist Parties and a distributor of secret Communist
funds for intelligence purposes.
In 1945 he attended the funeral of Germaine Schneider in Zu-
rich.
In 1948 Aenis-Hanslin was reportedly sending the publications

of Mundus Verlag to Germany in collaboration with Hans Schau-
wecker and Karl Hofmaier, once Secretary General of the Swiss CP.
Aenis-Hanslin is a member of the board of Intertechnica AG, and
Hofmaier is a technical advisor for that firm.
Aenis-Hanslin also reportedly had several contacts with Franz
Schneider, who acted as a courier for the Rote Kapelle network in
Western Europe.
RITA ARNOULD
(nee Bloch, alias Juliette or Julia) became Isidore Springer's mistress
while a university student in Brussels. She was married to (fnu) Ar-
nould, who died before the outbreak of the war.
She was a courier and W/T operator for Sukolov's organization
in Belgium and acted as a courier for Springer. It was Rita who had
rented the house at 101 Rue des Attrebates at Etterbeeck to accom-
modate Makarov and Sofie Posnanska. She had received instructions
in W/T from Wenzel and Danilov and attended two meetings with
Augustin Sesee, another W/T operator.
She was arrested on 12 December 1941 and immediately turned
informant for the Germans. She was reportedly executed.
OTTO BACH
was a member German Chamber of Commerce in Paris during
of the
the war. In the summer of 1944 he was closely connected with Pann-
witz, whose views on cooperation with Russia he shared.
He was supposed to go to Stockholm in July or August 1944 to
contact Russian representatives with a memorandum proposing col-

laboration among Germany, and Russia.
France,
He was threatened with expulsion from Paris by the Nazi Party.
Well known as a former Socialist, he was formerly at the Interna-
tional Labor Office in Geneva and a friend of Winant, later U.S. Am-
bassador to London.
He
accompanied Pannwitz to Constance in August 1944. In Ber-
lin from September to December 1944 he worked for Auslands Or-
ganization on economic inquiry. Later he was a driver at an Army

depot in Rathenow.
He was a contact of Duebendorfer.
BERNARD BAESTLEIN
was a leading Communist functionary in Hamburg and maintained
an active intelligence group there before World War II. Born in 1894,
he belonged to the illegal Saefkow group.
He supplied information to Wilhelm Guddorf, who ran a cou-
rier service to Moscow. Both Arvid Harnack and Harro Schulze-
Boysen made use of Baestlein's service. In May 1942 Baestlein as-
sisted Erna Eifler and Wilhelm Fellendorf. Eifler, a Russian agent,
was dropped by parachute into Germany with a W/T set and was in-
structed to find Use Stoebe and to re-establish communications with
Rudolf von Scheliha. Eifler was accompanied by Wilhelm Fellendorf,
also equipped with a W/T set. Both took shelter with Baestlein in
Hamburg and were arrested as a result of the capture of Wilhelm
Guddorf by the Gestapo.
In October 1942 Heinrich Koenen was parachuted into Ger-
many with similar instructions and provided with incriminating doc-
uments with which to blackmail von Scheliha, should this prove nec-
essary. Koenen was arrested shortly after his arrival, and neither he
nor Eifler succeeded in getting into contact with Use Stoebe. The
Germans operated both as W/T deception agents and were thus able
to capture von Scheliha and Use Stoebe in the autumn of 1942. The
Germans continued the playback until about 1943.
MARGARETE BARCZA
(nee Singer, alias La Blonde) was born 14 August 1912 in Saaz,
Czechoslovakia. She was Sukolov's "great love" and had a son by him
(Michel, born in April 1944 at Neuilly). Her mother, Elsa Singer,
lives in New York City. During World War II Sukolov sent her
money via Maurice Padawer.
Margarete married Ernst Barcza 7 April 1932 and lived in

Czechoslovakia, where her first son Rene Josei was born 22 Decem-
Her husband made a fortune in hops, and she herself had
ber 1932.
come from a wealthy family. The Barczas emigrated from Saaz to
Prague in 1938 and then entered Belgium as refugees on 24 April
1939. Margarete met Sukolov (alias Sierra) in 1940 in Brussels,
where he had a lot of money and lived in grand style. Ernst Barcza
died 16 March 1940, and Margarete became Sukolov's mistress in
May 1940.
Sukolov fled to France in December 1941; but before he left, he
made arrangements for Margarete and her son Rene to go to France
also. There are two accounts available of how this trip was made.
Abraham Rajchmann, the forger, told his story to the Belgian au-
thorities after the war. (See Rajchmann's statement which appears
earlier in this study.) Gilles Perrault, who visited Margarete in Brus-
sels in December 1965, provides a graphic account in L 'Orchestra
Rouge.
Margarete and Sukolov were arrested together at Marseilles 12
November 1942.
Margarete saw Sukolov for the last time in 1945, and despite
several attempts since then to locate him, she has not been able to do
so.
Margarete was tall (noticeably taller than Sukolov), well-built,

blonde, elegant, and attractive. She spoke Czech, French, and Ger-
man.
According to a I960 NATO Special Committee report, Marga-
rete was remarried in 1953 to Simon Brogniaux, born at Roux on 8
September 1895. In 1954 they were domiciled at 136 Rue de Ribau-
court, Molenbeek-St. Jean. Margarete had not been reported to the
Belgian authorities for political activities. She is still residing in
Belgium.
Margarete has an older brother, Bedrich Jaroslav Singer (alias
Fritz) who was engaged in Soviet intelligence activities in France
during World War II. In 1946 Bedrich Singer was reportedly living in
New York City with his mother Elsa.
WILLY BERG
(alias Huegel) was born on 1 March 1891 in Biesellen, Kreis Oste-
rode. He was a Kriminalinspektor and had been von Ribbentrop's
bodyguard in Moscow at the time of the Soviet-German pact. He
worked Karl Giering and then for Pannwitz and had the job of
for
surveilling Trepper and Sukolov.
Berg was also in contact with the

British reports indicate that
Soviets. Undoubtedly, Trepper and Berg trusted each other, and it is
possible that Berg permitted Trepper to escape German custody in
September 1943.
In 1954 Berg was living at 31 Luebeckerstrasse, Berlin.
HELENE BERGER
(nee Lieser) was born 16 December 1898 in Vienna, Austria. She is
an Austrian national. She was formerly of Yugoslav nationality by

virtue of her marriage to Charles Berger, born 28 March 1901 in
Munich, Germany, of Yugoslav nationality.
She resided at 52 Boulevard Malesherbes, Paris, and was
employed as a secretary and economist with the Organization for
European Economic Cooperation (Marshall Plan). She is the bearer
of an Austrian passport issued 17 September 1948 by the Austrian
Consulate General at New York City. She has made trips to Switzer-
land and Italy in connection with her employment with the OEEC.
Her passport carries an extension of her visa pending the issuance of
a Consular Card by the French Foreign Office at the request of the
OEEC.
Prior to April 1947 she resided at 68 Rue Montchoisy, Geneva,
Switzerland, during which time she was employed by the Unitarian
Service Committee, with headquarters at 37 Quai President Wilson
at Geneva, and Paris headquarters at 61 Rue Jouffroy, Paris. This
organization deals with the purchase and distribution of relief
supplies.
She was a contact of Duebendorfer.
At the time of her arrest, Duebendorfer carried important docu-
ments concealed in the soles of her shoes. After release on bail she
took a flat in 135 Rue de Lausanne, and through her fellow lodger,
Helene Berger, attempted at Roessler's instigation to pass portions
of the Lucy reports to the British.
Helene Berger Duebendorfer financially to the ex-
also assisted
tent of three thousand dollars on promise
of repayment of Berger's
sister, Annie Berger, in the United States.
Duebendorfer met Foote for the first time after his release in
October 1944 and introduced him to Berger.
MAURICE ROBERT BEUBLET

was a Belgian lawyerwho acted as legal adviser for Simexco in Brus-
sels. Before World War II he had been an important Communist
leader in Brussels, but he publicly resigned from the Party. Beublet

was arrested inNovember 1942. He may have turned informant
against other members of the Belgian network while in St. Gilles
prison, where he was reportedly found hanged in his cell.
LEON CHARLES BEURTON

(alias John William Miller, alias John, alias Fenton) was a British
subject, born 19 February 1914 in Barking, London. His father was a
naturalized British subject of French birth. He was in the Interna-
tional Brigade in Spain. When Foote was asked by Ursula Ham-
burger to name a suitable assistant, he suggested Beurton. However,
Beurton's actual recruitment was done by Brigitte Lewis (Long), sis-
ter of Ursula. Beurton was turned over to Hamburger in Vevey. Swit-

zerland, on 12 February 1939.
During the summer of 1939, after a briefing, Beurton was sent
to Frankfurt/Main to observe the IG Farben works at Offenbach. In
August, after the signing of the Russo-German pact, and because war
was imminent, he was recalled with Foote to Switzerland where both
men were given W/T training by Ursula. In 1940 Beurton married
Ursula Hamburger, thus giving her British citizenship.
It was thought by Moscow that Hamburger was compromised
by her maid. She was directed to leave Switzerland and to go to Eng-

land, as she did in December 1940. She left her code with Beurton
and at the same time gave Foote a new code, together with instruc-
tions and a new timetable that she had received from the Center.
After the spring of 1941 Beurton did little work, but he
remained with Rado's group until the summer of 1942. Then, with
the help of Captain Farrell, Eleanor Rathbone, and possibly Marie
Ginsberg, he obtained a British passport in the name of Miller and
went to the U.K. via Spain. In July 1942 Beurton arrived in the U.K.
from Lisbon. In 1948 he was employed as a machine fitter in Chip-
ping Norton and was active in the local CP.
DR. MARIO BIANCHI

was born on 27 April 1909 in Chiasso, Italy. His wife was Germaine,
nee Lienhard. Bianchi was an ear, eyes, nose, and throat specialist. In
1949 he lived in Geneva and may have lived there during the war as
well. His wife was the sister of Leon Nicole. Bianchi served the Rote
Drei as a safehouse keeper, as a point of contact for Leon Nicole and
his son Pierre as well as the Vigiers, and as a transmission point for
contacts with Italy (perhaps by way of his brother Emilio in Lugano).
Soon after the arrest of the Hamels in October 1943, Bianchi hid
Alexander and Helen Rado for two or three weeks.
JOSEPH BLUMSACK
was the husband of Renee Blumsack. He was recruited by Germaine
Schneider, his sister-in-law, for the courier service between Brussels
and March 1929 he was listed as a member of the foreign
Paris. In
workers' section of the Belgian Communist Party. In June 1942 he
sought refuge in the home of Yvonne Poelmans at Ixelles. He was
arrested in Brussels on 7 January 1943 and deported to Germany. He
escaped from the Birkenau Camp, and his ultimate fate is unknown.
RENEE BLUMSACK
(nee Clais, alias Nora) was recruited by her sister Germaine Schnei-
der for the courier service between Brussels and Paris. She was born
2 January 1907 at Anderiecht. After Germaine's arrest and interroga-
tion by the Germans June 1942, Renee, with her husband Joseph
in
Blumsack, took refuge in Yvonne Poelmans' house at Ixelles. She was
arrested in Brussels on 7 January 1943 and deported to Germany. In
1945 she died in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp.
GEORGE BLUN
(alias Long, aka Andre Choisy, pen name) was born 1 June 1893 in
Alsace-Lorraine, son of George and Lucie Corvisard (French). He is
married to Marie Kentzel, a journalist. He speaks French and Ger-

man fluently.
Blun worked for the British and French IS during World War I.
In 1920 he was expelled from Switzerland for his Communist activi-
ties. He
had been taken into the Comintern and was thought to be
directing Soviet espionage against Germany.
From 1925 through the 1930s he was in Germany, primarily in
Berlin, working as a correspondent for various papers, including
Paris' Le Soir and Journal.
In 1939 he moved his office to Zurich, where he was supposed
to have some good German contacts and was suspected of being in
the employ of both the French and Polish intelligence services. Later
documents show that Blun's first loyalty was to Russia, for whom "on
his own confession" he worked continually in connection with the
Rote Drei.
Just when Blun started to work for the Russians is not known,
although he was permitted in Switzerland in 1939 only under obser-
vation.His reports to the Swiss were mainly on political matters, al-

though they contained some military information. He gave reports to
the Swiss from January to September 1943. In 1942 Blun was
involved in the establishment of the Vorarlberg cache from which
Russian parachute agents in Austria were paid. At this time he was
denounced by a fellow agent at an unspecified place, interrogated by
the Gestapo, and subsequently released.
In 1943 Blun is said to have offered his services to the French,
but they could not afford to pay him what he wanted; and they also
suspected that he was working for the Russians.
While Allen Dulles was in Switzerland during World War II, he
was in contact with George Blun and a newspaper colleague of Blun's
named Walter Bosshard, both of whom were close to Dr. Josef
Wirth.
Blun, according to the Flicke material, is reported to have had a
source
— "Agnes" — in Ribbentrop's office. He also supplied informa-
tion to the Rote Drei from "Bruder," "Fanny," "Feld," "Rot," and
"Luise," the latter being a W/T name for the Intelligence Depart-
ment of the Swiss General Staff.
In 1946 Blun left Switzerland and eventually found his way to
the Russian Zone of Berlin where he worked for the Russians. In the
autumn of 1947 Blun was reportedly in touch with Japanese diplo-
mats in Berlin. He then went to Geneva, where he wrote for the Ga-
zette de Geneve.
Fnu BOELLENS
was appointed by Grossvogel as the agent for the Foreign Excellent
Raincoat Company in Stockholm in 1939. He had been recom-
mended for the post by the Belgian Consulate in Stockholm. Boellens
established an advertising and business agency for the company. He
may not have known of Grossvogel's actual purpose in establishing
this office in Sweden. Boellens was of Belgian nationality.
PAUL BOETTCHER
(alias Hans Saal-Bach, W/T cover name "Paul") was born 2 May
1891 in Leipzig. His common-law wife was Rachel Duebendorfer. In
1920 he was the editor of Sozial Demokrat, a USPD organ, and in
1922 editor of the Leipziger Volksleitung.
In May 1923 he went to a secret conference of German factions
were Heinrich Brandler,
called by the Politburo at Leipzig. Present
Ruth Fisher, Arcadi Moslov, and Ernst Thaelmann. On 10 October
1923 Boettcher became Minister of Finance of Saxony and a member

of the Saxon Cabinet. He was expelled about 1929.
In 1934 he went to Switzerland from Leipzig and lived under-
ground for a year. He appeared in Switzerland as Duebendorfer's
husband, whose identity he had assumed, and remained there ille-
gally, although he was the subject of a Swiss expulsion order.

In 1936 or 1937 he joined the International Brigade and fought
in the Spanish Civil War, at which time he had one Madeleine, a
French journalist, as his mistress. In 1938, proposing to set up busi-
ness in the U.K., he got a loan of five thousand pounds from Chris-
tian Schneider.
Communications difficulties necessitated the amalgamation of
the Duebendorfer net with the Rado group. It appears that in the
early part of the war Moscow was thinking of having Boettcher set
up a W/T station by the summer of 1943 and sent him a cipher for
that purpose. He was to have had at least one W/T operator. The
Rote Drei traffic indicates that Paul was sick in the early fall of 1943.
Later in the year he appears to have had a strained relationship with
Rado, as did Duebendorfer.
Boettcher was arrested by the Swiss for espionage on 6 April
1944 and on 31 May was transferred to a refugee camp at Siehem. On
23 July 1945 Boettcher escaped from this camp and fled with
Duebendorfer to France. In August they were in Paris. On 23 October
1945 he was sentenced in absentia by the Swiss to two years' impris-

onment, ten thousand Swiss francs fine, and fifteen years' expulsion
from Switzerland.
SUZANNE BOISSON
(nee Schmidt or Schmitz) was born 22 January 1918 at Pongkaton,
Dutch East Indies. In 1940 and 1941 she was probably used as a couri-
er for the Sukolov group. She was introduced by Guillaume Hoorickx
to Mikhail Makarov, whose mistress she became. She was a friend of
Hoorickx' mistress, Anna Staritsky, and of Anton Danilov. She was
arrested 13 December 1941 after Makarov's capture but was subse-
quently released for lack of evidence.
Suzanne Schmidt was arrested when she went to 101 Rue des
Attrebates, Brussels, the day after Makarov's arrest.
In 1944 Suzanne Schmidt married Pierre Georges Prosper Bois-
son, born 8 May 1919 in Brussels. He is by profession a doctor and
from 1950 to at least I960 was employed by the Brussels Education
Department as a school inspector. The Boisson's last known address
(1960) was 26 Rue Paul Lauters, Brussels.

According to a I960 NATO
Special Committee report, neither
Suzanne Boisson nor her husband were suspected of Communism.
They did not appear to be maintaining contacts with former
members of the Rote Kapelle.
MARGARET BOLLI
(alias Rosa, aka Schatz-Bolli and Schwarz-Boili) was born 15 Decem-
ber 1919 in Basle. (Another report states she was born 29 May 1912
in Beringen, daughter of Adolphe and Luise Schenk.)
She became acquainted with Alexander Rado in October 1941
while she worked as a waitress at a cafe in Bern. Rado advised her to
learn French and to study typing. Later, when living with relatives in
Lausanne, she met Foote, who taught her Morse code and the opera-
tion of a transmitter. When Bolli became proficient, Rado employed
her for four hundred francs a month.
In September 1942 she settled in Geneva, ready to carry out the
instructions of Rado, whom she knew as "Albert." From October
1942 to March 1943 Bolli transmitted from 4 Rue Soleure, Geneva.
In March 1943 she was established in an apartment on 8 Rue Henri
Mussard, where Rado sent her a transmitter via Hamel. The set was
cleverly hidden in a portable gramophone, and Bolli transmitted the
encrypted texts of messages between midnight and one in the morn-
ing two to three times a week. Her salary was increased to six
hundred sixty francs a month plus expenses and maintenance.
Around the middle of 1943 she fell in love with and became the
mistress of Hans Peters, a German penetration plant and member of
Abwehr III, to whom she disclosed the name of the book Es Begann
im September, used in the encipherment of Rado's traffic. She was
arrested with Peters on 13 October 1943 by the Swiss police but
pleaded that she had accepted work with Rado in full faith that she
was working against the Nazis.
Bolli was defended by Jacques Chamorel, a lawyer from Lau-
sanne, and was sentenced by the Swiss Military Tribunal to ten
months' imprisonment and five hundred francs fine. Otto Puenter
put up her bail, and the sentence was suspended.
In September 1947 she was reported to be visiting in Rome, ac-
companied by her husband, Arthur Schatz, a merchant. In 1956 she
and Shatz were living in Basle.
Fnu BOLLINGER
was an electrical engineer arrested in the Simexco roundup of
November 1942. He reportedly died at Dachau.
ERNST ALEXANDRE JULIEN BOMERSON

was born 1 1 October 1899 in Verviers, Belgium. He was an employee
of the firm Lever Brothers in Brussels and there made the acquain-
tance of Franz Schneider, a department head. Bomerson was sympa-
and the two became close
thetic to Schneider's political opinions,
friends. Bomerson also met Schneider's
wife, Germaine.
During the German occupation Bomerson, at the request of
Schneider, did bookkeeping for Jean Janssens, who was the lover of
Germaine Schneider's sister Josephine Verhimst.
After the arrest of Johannes Wenzel, Franz Schneider asked
Bomerson he could find lodgings for a certain Hofman without
if
registering with the police. Bomerson agreed to let Hofman stay at

his home in Forest. Hofman was actually Jeffremov, who was
arrested before he was able to move to Bomerson's house.
WhenFranz Schneider was repatriated to Belgium in 1945, he
returned to Brussels and found that all his possessions had disap-
peared. He thus accepted the hospitality of his friend, Bomerson,
with whom he stayed for about two weeks.
Schneider has visited Bomerson in Brussels several times since
1945, and they apparently correspond regularly.
HENRIETTE BOURGEOIS
(alias Harry) was born in 1917 in the Canton de Vaud, Switzerland.
She was unmarried and a stenographer. In 1943 Bourgeois was re-
cruited by Pierre Nicole to be trained as a W/T operator by Foote.
She gave up her job in Geneva, thereby precipitating a quarrel with
her parents.
Rado used this quarrel as an excuse to set Bourgeois up in a flat
so that her training could start. Foote was arrested before the train-
ing began, and after his release Nicole asked if something could be
done for her. Foote believes nothing was done. In November 1947
she was still living in Geneva.
MARCELLE CAPRE
(nee Lambert, alias Martha) was born 2 August 1914 in Paris. She
was the secretary and assistant to Henri Robinson at least from
October 1940 and probably a cutout to Robinson's agent "Jerome."
In the spring of 1941, apparently under Robinson's instructions,

she recruited agents from among French laborers to be deported to
Germany.
She controlled a source of intelligence on French aircraft. Al-
though she was arrested in December 1942, she was unbroken in
March 1943.
She was married to fnu Capre, a French Communist Party leader
who was arrested probably on the outbreak of the war.
According to an Abwehr report dated 19 January 1943, Marcelle
Capre had hidden Germaine Schneider in her house.
ROBERT JEAN CHRISTEN

was a shareholder in Simexco and a personal friend of Sukolov. He
may have provided help for Sukolov and Trepper in Brussels in 1940
and 1941. Christen was born on 22 May 1898 in St. Imier, Switzer-
land. He was the proprietor of the Florida nightclub in Brussels. At
the time of the general roundup of Simexco employees and officers in
November 1942, Christen was arrested and deported to Germany. In
March 1945 he was repatriated to Brussels.
After the arrests of December 1941 Sukolov went to see
Christen at his home. He told Christen that he was leaving imme-
diately for France and asked him to keep a box for him. Christen
agreed. A few weeks later Nazarin Drailly came by to pick up the
box. Christen claims that it was not until then that he learned the box
contained a radio set.
According to a I960 NATO Special Committee Report, Chris-

ten was the husband of Rolande Bertha Luckx, born 23 October 1910
in Bruges. He was described as a cafe proprietor, and his residence
was given as 675 Chaussee de Jette, Jette-St. Pierre. He had not been
reported for subversive activities or for contacts with former
members of the Rote Kapelle.
Christen is still residing in Belgium and in 1965 he was
interviewed by Perrault.
HANS KARL COPPI

Strahlmann) was born 25 January 1916 in Berlin. His father
(alias
was Robert Coppi, born 16 December 1882 in Leipzig. His brother

Kurt was born 14 May 1919. His wife Hilde Coppi, nee Raasch, was
born 30 May 1919 in Berlin. They had a child, Hans Robert Coppi,
born 14 May 1938.
The entire Coppi family was involved in Communist activity,
and Hans was one of the principal agents and radio operators of the
"Coro" group, using the cover name "Strahlmann." Hans Coppi was
the lover of Erika von Brockdorf, nee Schoenfeld.
Coppi and his wife were arrested 12 September 1942. He was
executed on 22 December 1942. She was executed on 5 August 1943.
ALFRED VALENTIN CORBIN

(alias Belleme) was born 26 February 1916 at Clichy (Seine), France.
A French national, he was married to Marie-Louise Dubois, born 11
January 1900 at Arcueil (Seine).
He was the director of Simex in Paris and was in contact with
Trepper and Grossvogel. He had probably been recruited by Hillel
Katz. He lived at 15 Rue Carnuschi, Paris.
In January 1942 he went to Marseilles to found a branch of
Simex and provide cover for Sukolov, who built an intelligence group
covering the south of France. He was able to undertake courier mis-
sions between Marseilles and Paris by virtue of his business cover.
He was arrested on 19 November 1942 and reportedly executed
in Berlin on 28 July 1943. His wife died in a concentration camp.
His brother, Robert Albert Corbin, born 10 October 1904, prob-
ably was not involved in clandestine activity but knew several of the
Simex group, notably Waldemar Keller.
BUNTEA CRUPNIC
(alias Irma Salno, alias Irene Sadnow, alias Andree, alias Yvonne)
was a member of the Jeff remov network and responsible to Elizabeth
Depelsenaire for the provision of safehouses for agents in the Brus-
She was probably concerned primarily with Communist
sels area.
was responsible for provid-
resistance workers, but in June 1942 she
ing John Kruyt with accommodations. Kruyt was parachuted into
Belgium to reinforce the Jeffremov network and had two meetings
with Crupnic (alias Salno).
Buntea Crupnic is a Rumanian Jew born 22 or 28 February 1911

at Soroki, Rumania. She is the widow of Oscar Smesman, born 19
March 1888 in Merelbeke, Belgium. Crupnic acquired Belgian citizen-

ship, presumably through her marriage to Smesman.
In 1946 Crupnic was on the staff of the newspaper Clarte,
Boulevard d'Anvers, Brussels. Her last known address (I960) was
167 Rue des Pommes, Liege. She was at that time employed as a so-
cial worker.
A I960 NATO Special Committee report states the following
about Crupnic:
Although it cannot be definitely stated that she

works for an intelligence service, she is considered
capable of doing so on behalf of a service behind the
Iron Curtain.
Buntea Crupnic has been described as having fair hair, dark eyes,
a short, thin build, and teeth widely separated in the upper jaw.
CHARLES FRANCOIS DANIELS

acted as a courier for Sukolov between Simexco in Brussels and Simex
in Paris. He was a business associate of Guillaume Hoorickx and
Heinrich Rauch. Daniels was born on 30 December 1911 in Schaer-
beck. He was married to Denise, nee Deuly, who, until March 1941,
was in touch with a member of the Soviet Embassy in Paris. From
early 1941 Daniels ran in Antwerp Atea dealing in
a factory called
household and telephonic equipment. About July 1941 Hoorickx and
Rauch withdrew from Simexco and joined forces with Daniels in a
business venture. Their offices were at 192 Rue Royale, Brussels, in
the same building as that of Simexco.
According to a I960 NATO Special Committee report, Daniels
was remarried Anna Catharine de Greef, born at Tourneppe on 21
to
January 1925. His employment was shown as a company director.
His domicile was at 9 Place du Petit Sablon, Brussels. The Daniels/de
Greef couple was at that time attracting no attention from the Bel-
gian authorities for intelligence activities.
ANTON DANILOV
(alias Antonio, alias Desmet [s], alias de Smet [s], alias de Smith [in
Belgium]) was a secret writing specialist and radio operator for the
Sukolov group from the summer of 1941 until his arrest in Brussels
the night of 12-13 December 1941. He was a Red Army Lieutenant
and had been posted in 1938 from the USSR, via the Balkans, to the
Soviet Military Attache's office in Paris. He later served at Vichy
under Captain Karpov. In June or July 1941 Danilov was sent by
Trepper to reinforce Sukolov's organization in Brussels, specifically
to assist Makarov with the radio transmissions. His false identity
papers in the name of de Smets were provided to him by Hoorickx,
who obtained them through de Reymaeker.
In his statement to the Belgian authorities, which appears ear-
lier in the study, Abraham Rajchmann described the arrangements
made for Danilov's trip from France to Belgium.

On 12 December 1941 Danilov was arrested while transmitting
at 101 Rue des Attrebates, Brussels. He resisted strongly and was
seriously injured during the course of the struggle. The Germans
attempted to use Danilov in their radio playbacks, but he apparently
cooperated very little. In 1943 he was deported to Germany and sub-
sequently executed.
Much of Perrault's information concerning Danilov is incorrect.
Perrault did not know, for example, that it was Danilov who was ar-
rested with Makarov at the Rue des Attrebates in December 1941.

He mistakenly believed that the radio operator arrested that night
was Hesekil Schreiber (alias Camille) who worked first for Trepper
in Paris and then in Lyons with Springer. Perrault is also wrong with
respect to the date of Danilov's arrival in Belgium. According to Per-

rault, Danilov arrived in Belgium in 1939, whereas the actual date
was 1941. Perrault himself recognizes that some of his statements re-
garding Danilov are contradictory.
ELIZABETH (BETTY) DEPELSENAIRE

(nee Sneyers) is a Belgian Communist of long standing. She worked
for theJeffremov group in Brussels during 1941 and 1942. In 1942
she was associated with Irma Salno and others in the provision of
accommodation and facilities for Soviet agents parachuted into Bel-
gium. Elizabeth is the widow of Albert Depelsenaire, who in 1940
was audit eur-milit aire in Brussels. In November 1941 he was
arrested and executed by the Germans for assisting Communists. Eli-
zabeth is by profession a lawyer. She was born 23 August 1913 at
Bonheyden. At one time she was an employee of the firm Philips,
Rue d'Anderlecht, Brussels, but she was dismissed because of her
Communist sympathies. In the autumn of 1941 she recruited Jean
Otten, Jeanne Otten, and others to provide safehouses for partisans
in hiding. Depelsenaire was arrested by the Germans in early July
1942, after the arrest of John Kruyt, Sr. She allegedly was betrayed by
Marth Vandenhoeck. Depelsenaire was associated with Franz
Schneider during the war, and in 1946 and 1947 she lived with him in
Switzerland as his mistress. On 2 August 1947 they were married, but
they have since separated. In I960 Depelsenaire had contacts in the
top circles of the Belgian Communist Party. Her address was 234 Rue
du Trone, Ixelles. Elizabeth Depelsenaire is the authoress of Sym-
phonie Fraternelle, an account of Miriam Sokol's experiences in
Breendonck.
272 Personalities, of the Rote Kapelle
RACHEL DOBRIK
was born May 1908
1 in Warsaw. She is Swiss by marriage to a Swiss
dentist named Jentet. Later she got a divorce. This marriage was for
the purpose of obtaining Swiss citizenship and concealing her origin
and past.
She helped Rachel Duebendorfer with funds via her sister, Berta
Helbein, in New York. Berta Helbein was married to Jacques Hel-
bein, the brother of William Helbein.
During the war large U.S. credits were placed in Berta Helbein's
account with the Swiss Bank Corporation in Geneva. This money was
said to be profits from the sale of watches exported from Switzerland
to the USA. At an unknown date Rachel Duebendorfer approached
Berta Helbein with a request for money, the equivalent of which
would be paid to Wilhelm Helbein in New York. Berta Helbein
agreed and carried out the transactions after hearing from William
Helbein that the money was in his possession. Sums paid were 21
June 1943: three thousand four hundred Swiss francs; 6 November:
five thousand Swiss francs; 3 January: twenty-eight thousand Swiss
francs.
It was Rachel Dobrik who warned Rado that the Swiss were
going to arrest the Rote Drei suspects in Switzerland.
CHARLES VICTOR EDGARD DRAILLY

born 1 December 1901 in Gilly (Belgium), was the brother of
Nazarin Drailly. He was employed in a bank and became a director of
Simexco in March 1941. He was probably aware of the activities of
the Belgian network, but he did not actively participate in them.
Charles Drailly was the husband of Lucienne, nee Carlier, who in
1946 sought Georgie de Winter to learn the fate of her family. Drail-
ly was arrested 25 November 1942 and deported to Germany. He
died of typhus at Mauthausen concentration camp 4 January 1945.
NAZARIN ADOLPHE EDOUARDE LEOPOLD LEON DRAILLY

had been a Brussels acquaintance of Grossvogel since 1934. He was
born 29 April 1900 at Gilly (Belgium). In May 1940, after the Ger-
man invasion, Drailly and his family fled to France. Early in 1941 he
was persuaded by Trepper to return to Belgium to collaborate with
Sukolov in the establishment of Simexco. According to the articles of
incorporation, Drailly's investment in Simexco amounted to two
hundred eighteen thousand five hundred Belgian francs.
After Makarov's arrest in December 1941, Drailly hid Sukolov
in his home for a few days. When Sukolov went to France, Drailly
became the managing director of Simexco. He was fully aware of
Simexco's real purpose and he collected military and industrial intel-
ligence from certain of Sukolov's agents, such as Jean Passelecq. At
the time of the roundup of Simexco employees in November 1942,
Drailly managed to evade capture. He took refuge in the house of a
woman friend, Jeanne Ponsaint. According to Perrault, Ponsaint was
arrested by the Germans on 11 December 1942, when she was sent
by Drailly to deliver a package to his wife.
was arrested 6 January 1943, tortured at Breendonck, and
Drailly
deported to Germany. He was executed in Plotzensee, Berlin, 28 July
1943. (Perrault states that Drailly died in Dachau of bubonic plague.)
Nazarin was the brother of Charles Drailly.
Drailly was married to Germaine, nee Temmermann, born 20
February 1899. She was arrested 26 November 1942 and eventually
deported to Germany. Madame Drailly was liberated 8 May 1945 and
repatriated to Brussels. In the summer of 1946 she and her sister-in-
law, Lucienne Drailly, sought out Georgie de Winter to learn the fate
of their family. In 1947 she was living in Anderlecht. She is a known
Communist.
The Draillys had a daughter, Solange Eva, born 1 February 1926
in Ixelles. She too was arrested in November 1942 in the Simexco
roundup. She was later released for lack of proof. In May 1946
Solange left Belgium, ostensibly for her health, but she stated pri-
hoped to make fresh contact with the organization for
vately that she
which her father worked. Solange has been described as an ardent
Communist.
MARCEL VINCENT DROUBAIX

(alias Hector) was born 16 May 1893 Antwerp. Educated in Eng-
in
land, he had been a captain in the British Royal Horse Artillery in
the 1914-1918 war. He died in the Buchenwald Camp in February
1945.
He was a member of the French resistance network Mithridate,
operated by Colonel fnu Bressac. This network incorporated a group
run by Ozols and was penetrated by Sukolov, working under German
control. Droubaix became aware of the German penetration of the
Mithridate network in June 1944.
He was arrested in Paris on 18 July 1944 at a pre-arranged ren-
dezvous with Sukolov.
His son, Marcel Marie Droubaix (alias Achilles) was also
involved in the Mithridate network.
(
RACHEL DUEBENDORFER
(nee Hepner) was born 18 July 1901 in Warsaw, Poland, daughter of
Arcadi Abraham Hepner and Regina Pines. She has a sister named
Rose Reudi Luschinsky, nee Hepner. Her first marriage, circa 1921,
was to Kurt Caspary, a German lawyer by whom she had a daughter,
Tamara, who later married Jean Pierre Vigier (alias Braut). She di-
vorced Caspary, who went to Australia, and then married Henri Due-
bendorfer, a Swiss mechanic, circa 1932, in order to get Swiss
citizenship.They separated almost immediately.
Her common-law husband was the German newspaperman
Paul Boettcher (alias Hans Saalbach, alias Paul) and she has been
known as Mrs. Paul Boettcher. She lived with Boettcher, who
assumed the name of Paul Duebendorfer, from 1934 until their arrest
in 1944.
From 1934 to 1944 she was employed in the translating section
of the ILO in Geneva. She and Boettcher frequented a cosmopolitan
social circle, openly expressing anti-Nazi views; but they were not
aggressively Communist in their speech, although known to their
friends as pro-Russian.
She lived at a standard far beyond her ILO salary, although when
she first settled in Geneva she was noticeably impoverished. While
working at the ILO, she paid frequent visits to her sister Rose in Zu-
rich and also travelled frequently to France, visiting her parents in
Nice.
During 1934 she was the recipient of correspondence for Boett-
cher from the U.S. Communist Jay Lovestone, through whom Boett-
cher sought assignments for left-wing U.S. journals.
In 1941, on orders from Moscow, Alexander Rado established
contact with Duebendorfer. In August 1943 Rado was warned by
Rachel Dobrick, sister of Berta Helbein, the wife of William Helbein
of New York, of the impending roundup of the Rote Drei.
With her lover Boettcher, Duebendorfer was arrested by the
Swiss police on 2 June 1944, but she was released or escaped shortly
thereafter. In July 1945 she escaped to France, but she was sentenced
in absentia to two years' imprisonment, a fine of ten thousand francs,
and fifteen years' expulsion from Switzerland.
Paul Tillard, the novelist and former L'Humanite correspondent
in Peking, published a novel, L'Outrage, Juilliard, Paris, 1958, which
is reportedly based on the life story of Duebendorfer and Paul
Boettcher. According to the story, Franz (Boettcher), after working
in Geneva as a Soviet agent during World War II, returned to Mos-
cow after the war accompanied by his wife (Duebendorfer) "in order
to get a few things straightened out about his work." The hero was
arrested and sentenced to Siberia for fifteen years. After Stalin's
death all foreigners were freed. He found that his wife had gone mad.
They were put face to face; she recognized him, but the look she gave
him was one of hatred, and she spat in his face. The known facts indi-
cate that this account is entirely false.

Duebendorfer was described by friends as untidy in appearance
and habits, and not highly cultured. She was openly opposed to the
Nazis but cautious in displaying the Communist sympathies she un-
doubtedly held.
Duebendorfer's radio code name was "Sissy." Her closest associ-
ates were:
Irene and Emile Grunberg, fellow employees at ILO, who now live
in the United States.

Lorre and Karl Kapp, who worked at ILO with Duebendorfer.
According to the interrogation report of Lorre Kapp, Rachel,
Rose, and Lorre were children together in Danzig.
Christian Schneider, an employee of ILO who is the Taylor of
Rote Drei and who served as cutout between Lucy (Ru-
traffic
and Sissy.
dolf Roessler)
Leon Steinig, born 6 June 1898 at Trembowla, Austria. Former
ILO and UN employee.
Horace Glickman, a Lithuanian, radio engineer, 131 Blvd. Brune,
Paris. Childhood friend. Duebendorfer lived at his house when
she escaped from Switzerland. Rabinowitch also stayed with the
Glickmans.
Otto Bach, who introduced the Kapps to Rabinowitch in Geneva,
was a former ILO employee who knew Pannwitz and Winant.
Henri Vigier (father of Jean-Pierre Vigier), who was in Rhodes as
personal representative of Dr. Ralph J. Bunche of the U.N.
Tamara and Jean-Pierre Vigier, daughter and son-in-law, who
knew many underground people in Switzerland, including Noel
Field.
The European press reported the death of Rachel Duebendorfer

in East Germany in 1973.
ALEXANDER ERDBERG
was the Russian who recruited Arvid Harnack around December
1940 in Berlin. Harnack introduced Schulze-Boysen to Erdberg, who
276 Personalities, of the Rote Kapelle
recruited him for active work early in 1941. Erdberg acted as a con-
tact between Moscow and the Harnack and Schulze-Boysen groups in
Berlin. About May or June 1941, shortly before the Soviet Embassy
was withdrawn from Berlin, Erdberg, of the Soviet Trade Delegation,
took steps towards the independent operational establishment of
both the Harnack and Schulze-Boysen groups. He gave Harnack two
thousand reichsmark and Adam Kuckhoff, five hundred reichsmark.
These funds were for financing the groups and the payment of
agents.
Erdberg was particularly interested in secret war production of
the firm Auer at Heiligensee Henningsdorf near Berlin. According to
Roeder, the husband of Rose Schloesinger was connected with Erd-
berg. So were both the Schumachers and Johannes Sieg.
It is possible that Erdberg is identical with Sergei Kudrayavtsev,
who was involved in the Corby case in Canada in 1946 and who in
1969 was Soviet Ambassador to Cambodia.
GRETE FALK
(aka Mrs. Friedrich Bernard Hermann Lenz; Margaret Charlotte
Luise Falk; Margaret Charlotte Luise Lenz; Dr. Grete Lenz, nee
Oevel) was born 5 March 1899 Germany. She married Dr.
in Siegen,
Fritz Falk, who was born 24 July 1898 in Cologne,on 10 August 1932.
He committed suicide in 1933. Dr. Falk was a Jew and was persecuted
by the Nazis.
After her first husband's death, Mrs. Falk left Germany with the
help of the Quakers. She proceeded to London in order to work with
the Society of Friends. Later she immigrated to the U.S. through the
assistance of the Society of Friends.She was employed in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, for about one year and then moved to Washington,
D.C., where she was employed in social welfare research.
She originally entered the LJ.S. on 29 June 1934 in New York,
and the records of the INS reflect that she was destined to Dr. Lud-
wig Bernstein, 17 Fernando Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She
filed a declaration of intention to become a U.S. citizen on 5 April
1935 and was naturalized on 7 May 1940 in the District of Columbia.

For several years Mrs. Lenz worked for the Council of Social
Agencies (USPHS). She left the U.S. about 25 October 1940 for Ger-
many in order to be with her husband, who was refused an extension
of his visitor's visa and was obliged to return to Germany.
While Mrs. Lenz was in Washington, D.C., she and Professor
Hertha Kraus of Bryn Mawr College arranged for Max Adenauer,
one of Konrad Adenauer's six children, to visit the United States.

Max Adenauer visited the U.S. on a tourist visa in 1936 and saw Mrs.
Lenz several times in her office.
On November 1946 Mrs. Lenz wrote to her friend Professor
24
Hertha Kraus that she had been a member of the German under-
ground movement and had also worked with the twentieth of July
group. She claimed that she and her husband had a number of narrow
escapes from the Gestapo.
I was on friendly terms with Dr. Mildred Harnack-

Fish (wife of Arvid Harnack) and have worked for
Dr. Adam von Trott, one of the leading men of July
twentieth; I was supposed to accompany Trott to the
Peace Negotiations.
Fnu FEYS
was the name of a W/T operator in Ostende working under Makarov
in 1941. According to Piepe's information, Feys was responsible for
transmissions to London. He was tall, good-looking, and employed
by the Police Commissariat in Ostende.
It is probable that Feys is identical with Augustin Sesee, known
to have been Makarov's assistant W/T operator in Ostende.
WILHELM FRANZ FLICKE

was born in Odessa, Russia, on 22 January 1897 of German parents.
He first entered the German army in 1915.
During World War II he did cryptographic work against Rote
—
Kapelle chiefly Rote Drei targets. —
Although Flicke posed as an expert and wrote a book on the sub-
ject (Die Rote Kapelle, Kreuzlinger, 1949), his information is some-
times inaccurate if not misleading. After the war, doubts arose about
his reliability, mainly because his and his estranged wife were
sister
both living in the Soviet Zone of Germany. Flicke died on 1 1 October

1957.
ALLAN ALEXANDER FOOTE

(alias Jim, alias Alfred, alias Major Granatow, alias Alfred Feodoro-
vich Capidus, alias Alexander Alexandrovich Dymov, alias John
South, alias Albert Mueller) was born 13 September 1905 at Kirk-
dale, Liverpool.
In December 1936 Foote went to Spain as a volunteer in the
International Brigade. His experiences are described in his book,
278 Personalities cof the Rote Kapelle
Handbook for Spies.

From 1938 to 1940 Foote was an agent of the RIS sabotage
group intended to operate against Germany. From 1941 to 1943 he
lived in Switzerlandand operated a W/T transmitter as a member of
the Rote Drei network, first under the direction of Ursula Beurton,
formerly Hamburger, nee Kuczynski (alias Sonia, sister of Mrs.

Bridget Lewis), and then under Alexander Rado. Ursula Beurton was
responsible for training Foote in the use of his W/T transmitter. In
addition to enciphering, deciphering, receiving, and transmitting
traffic with Moscow, Foote instructed other recruits in W/T. From
the summer of 1941 he utilized his social contacts in order to obtain
Swiss currency for the network against repayment of dollar sums in
the USA and South America.
In November 1943 Foote was imprisoned by the Swiss, who had
picked up his transmissions by D/F equipment. He was released in
September 1944 and shortly thereafter made his way to France,
where he contacted the Soviet Military Mission in Paris.
Given a cover name and story, Foote travelled from Paris to
Moscow in January 1945. His story was that he was a former Esto-
nian national, now a Soviet citizen, who had been deported from Tal-
lin to France by the Germans. Now, posing as a POW, he was being
repatriated to the USSR on the first plane to leave France.

In Moscow Foote was given new documentation, which repre-
sented him as Alexander Alexandrovich Dymov, a Russian born in
Madrid. That birthplace was used to explain his faulty Russian.
After he had spent about eighteen months in the USSR, RU
headquarters finally decided to return Foote to the field on a new
mission. This time he was to pose as a German named Albert
Mueller and was to operate from Argentina against the United
States. It was planned that he should arrive in Berlin, ostensibly as a
repatriated POW, and take up his new identity from there. In March
1947 Foote presented himself to the British authorities in Berlin, a
very sick man, and declared that he had become disillusioned and
wished to abandon his career as a Soviet agent.
He died in London in 1956.
SELMA GESSNER-BUEHRER
(alias May) was born 6 March 1913 in Switzerland. She was a book-
seller. She had married and divorced a certain Winter and then mar-
ried Robert Gessner-Buehrer (also spelled Buhrer), a designer, in
1939.
She had been active in Communist circles in Germany in the

early 1930s. By 1936 she was in Switzerland and working for Soviet
Military Intelligence as an agent under Maria Josefovna Poliakova
(alias Vera). In 1940 Gessner-Buehrer was operating a book store in
Zurich with Theodore Pinkus. The Runa office (newspaper agency

thought to have been in the service of the Comintern), with which
Pinkus had been associated, had been closed in late 1939.
She was recalled from retirement by Moscow in 1941 for the
purpose of giving assistance to Rado. She acted as a cutout between
Foote and Julius Humbert-Droz, to whom she handed a W/T set
around 1939. Her associates were Poliakova, Anna Mueller, Rachel
Duebendorfer, Pinkus, and Hans Jurgen Holm.
KARL GIERING,
born circa 1890, was the first head of the Sonderkommando in Paris
and a friend of Willy Berg. He was Kriminalrat in Amt IV, Abteilung
II, RSHA. He had worked on the Rote Kapelle investigation in Bel-
gium before coming to Paris.
Giering of the Gestapo and Piepe of the Abwehr were ordered
to collaborate in the investigation of the Rote Kapelle.
In August 1943 Giering was dying of cancer and was replaced by
Heinz Pannwitz, rather than Heinrich Reiser, who was in line to re-
place Giering.
Trepper has advised that he was glad to see Giering leave and
replaced by Pannwitz because, "Giering, with his great skepticism of
a policeman, thought that the Jews were not worth more than the
others. Pannwitz believed they were worth less than the others."
SUZANNE GIRAUD
was born 18 November 1910 at Pierrepont (Aisne), France. She is
probably identical with Lucienne Lenoyer, who was married to Pierre

Georges Giraud (alias Robert, alias Lucie) born 13 February 1914 in
the Rhone Department.
The Girauds were the custodians of a W/T set located at Le Pecq
(S & O). They were recruited by Grossvogel for the communications
section of Trepper's organization in France.
At first, in 1942, Suzanne shared with her husband the position
of Trepper's courier to the French CP, carrying reports for transmis-
sion over the CP line to Moscow. She then became a cutout for
Trepper to Kathe Voelkner. She picked up reports and other mate-
rials Voelkner had assembled. Giraud had been selected for this pur-
pose by Trepper because she spoke no German, and Voelkner's

French was very bad. They met in the evening, outside Metro sta-
tions, and were instructed not to speak to each other. In case her link
through Giraud should break down, Voelkner also had an emergency
rendezvous with another cutout for every two months.
Giraud was arrested in 1942 and may have been executed.
HANS BERND GISEVIUS

was born on 6 June 1904 in Arnsberg, Westphalia. In October 1940
he was assigned to the German Consulate in Zurich as a vice consul.
This position was cover for his work for the Abwehr. However, some
postwar statements by German intelligence personnel indicated that
as late as April 1945 he continued to send in reports to Ernst Kalten-
brunner, who was then the head of the SD. In so doing he may have
acted as a double agent for OSS, Switzerland.
General Hans Oster, deputy to Admiral Canaris, had instituted a
courier service which functioned at least every other day between the
OKW (General Staff) headquarters in Berlin and the German Em-
bassy in Bern. Gisevius had access to this pouch at least twice and
usually three times a week.
Gisevius had excellent relations with the Swiss police and,
through his mother, with British intelligence. But he also had
connections with at least two members of the Rote Drei. One of
these was Georges Blun (alias Long). The other was Rudolf Roessler
(alias Lucy), who after the war identified Gisevius to a confidant as
one of his (Roessler's) four sources. Because three of the four were
key members of the twentieth of July conspiracy (the fourth being
unidentified), it appears that General Hans Oster and others may
have sent to Roessler the information that the Rote Drei sources
were "Werther," "Teddy," "Anna," and "Olga."
DR. CARL FRIEDERICH GOERDELER

was born on 31 July 1884 in Schneidemuhl, West Prussia. For a num-
ber of years, until 1936, he was Oberbuergermeister (lord mayor) of
Leipzig. In the Nazi period he became Reichschancellor for Price
Control.
After he fell out with Hitler, Goerdeler joined the twentieth of
July conspiracy. He was hanged on or about 16 October 1944.
He is one of the four Rote Drei sources in Germany named by
Rudolf Roessler.
DANIEL GOULOOZE
(aliasDaan) was born 28 April 1901 in Amsterdam. His name is also
spelled Gouxlooze and Gouwlooze. A Dutch Jew, he was originally a
carpenter, later became a publisher, and in 1930 served as manager of
Pegasus, publishers of Communist literature in Amsterdam.
He received his training at the Karl Marx School in Moscow and
returned as a contact man for the Comintern, covering Western Eu-
rope. His work at Pegasus was his cover. He became a member of the
Executive Committee of the CP in 1932. In 1934 he was arrested in
connection with a plot to assassinate Queen Wilhelmina.
During the occupation he was a contact man, and at one time he
had fourW/T sets and one in reserve. He had contact with KPD
members in Berlin and with Comintern members in Belgium,
France, and Great Britain. He rendered considerable assistance to
Johann Wenzel's communications service in the Low Countries, pro-
viding recruits from within the CP and W/T links with Moscow
when Wenzel's own lines failed.
His reports were presumably only political in nature. Goulooze
was therefore not charged by the Germans as a "terrorist" but as a
spy. This fact apparently saved his life after his arrest in Utrecht on
15 November 1943. Before this date some of his contacts in Germany
had already been arrested by the Gestapo. The arrests resulted in the
liquidation of Goulooze's organizations in Amsterdam around July
1943. After "crazy Tuesday," Goulooze was sent, along with other
prisoners, to Oranienburg. He claimed that he was able to avoid any
further consequences in Oranienburg by using an alias in the camp.
After the liberation he returned to the Netherlands, where he was
not fully trusted by national Communists.
In 1957 Goulooze was working at De Vrije Katheder, and his
job there was considered a cover. In view of his training and his polit-
ical tendencies, the Dutch suspected that he was still working for
Moscow. Goulooze died in September 1965.

In the 9 September 1967 issue of Vrij Nederland (Socialist,
circulation 46,000) appeared a review by Igor Cornelissen of the book
by Ger Harmsen on Goulooze. According to his book Goulooze was
"in the service of the Comintern (1930-1945)" and was charged with
the protection of the Communist movement against infiltration
attempts by the police and with the maintenance of illegal ties. Not
only was the CPN involved, but also the Communist Party of Indone-
sia, "which was violently persecuted by the Dutch Government."
Harmsen states that, following the non-aggression pact, the organi-
zation of the Comintern, the KPD, and the French Communist Party
broke down; so the Central Office of the Comintern in Moscow
became still more dependent on Goulooze's organization. Only
through him could contact be maintained with the Communists in
Western Europe. For example, through his lines of communication
advice could be given concerning the liberation of the Italian Com-
munist leader Togliatti from a Paris jail. On 10 May 1940 Goulooze's
organization did not need to go under cover; it had never been any-
thing but illegal. In Chapter III of his book Harmsen deals with the
period 1945-1965 and paints a not very stirring picture which runs
parallel to this history of the CPN during this period. Goulooze came
in conflict with de Groot and other Communist leaders, was elimi-
nated, and in fact came to stand outside the Party. Goulooze kept
quiet. "He did not want to wash dirty linen in public and, moreover,
did not think it would benefit the movement if he revealed what he
really had done. It was the period of the Cold War!"
MANFRED VON GRIMM

(alias Grau, alias Schmidt), an Austrian, was born in Vienna on 30
December 1911. He went to Switzerland on 19 March 1938 and some
time thereafter began working for Polish intelligence under the alias
of Schmidt. He also worked for the French; he was a sub-agent of

Rudolf Lemoine (alias Korff-Koenig). Lemoine was arrested by the
Germans in October 1942 and betrayed von Grimm, who the Poles
then dropped. During that same year he was picked up by or for
Alexander Rado. His Rote Drei cover name was Grau. Von Grimm
lived in Davos during the war. In 1947 he was living in the Hague.
ADOLF GRIMME
was born 31 December 1889 at Goslar-Harz, Germany. He was an
associate of Arvid Harnack and had been involved with the Neues
Beginnen group with Hans Hirschfeld and Paul Hagen, a friend of
Alfred K. Stern.
In 1927 Grimme was Minister of Culture and was still in the
same post in 1930-1933 in the government of Braun. After Hitler
came to power, Grimme served several terms of imprisonment for
Communist activities.
He took part in illegal Communist meetings with Harnack and
Kuckhoff. Adam Kuckhoff gave Grimme money for safekeeping.
Grimme was arrested inSeptember 1942 and was sentenced in Janu-
ary 1943 to three years' imprisonment.
In 1948 Grimme was Minister of Cultural Affairs in Land

Niedersachsen, British Zone.
MEDARDO GRIOTTI
was born circa 1902. An Italian national, he was an engraver by
profession. He was an agent of Robinson's at least from 1940 and
possibly before the outbreak of war. As soon as he was settled in
France, Trepper arranged for Medardo Griotti, who operated a safe-
house in France, to start producing false documents. Robinson and
Trepper had their first meeting at his house, which remained a ren-
dezvous for these two key figures until Robinson's arrest at Griotti's
house in December 1942. Trepper and Robinson used Griotti's servi-
ces for the provision of false papers and stamps.
Griotti's wife Anna was also an agent of Robinson's. She was
used as a courier within Robinson's group in France and also assisted
in the illegal work of her husband.
According to a 1968 report, Griotti, who is now dead, had been a
much more important agent than was and in
originally thought,
effectone of Robinson's main assistants. His wife, who in February
1968 was living in Italy, was Robinson's personal secretary and liai-
son agent with numerous illegal assets.
JEANNE FERNANDE GROSSVOGEL

(nee Pesant, or Johanna Ferdinanda) was born 16 September 1901 at
Bevere-Audenarde (Belgium). She became French by her marriage to
Grossvogel, but also retained her Belgian nationality. The Grossvo-
gels were married at the Holborn Registry Office (London) in May
1938. She was the former wife of Robertus Ernstus Schouls, from
whom she was divorced. Until Makarov took over in the spring of
1939, Jeanne Grossvogel was the manageress of the Ostende branch
of "Le Roi du Caoutchouc." In late October 1942 at Uccle, she gave
birth to a daughter, Nicole Germaine Grossvogel. Jeanne was
arrested 25 November 1942 and taken to Moabit Prison in Berlin. In
the spring of 1943 she was transferred to Ravensbrueck Camp.
LEON GROSSVOGEL
(alias Pieper, alias Grosser, alias Andre) was born 27 November
1904 in Lodz, Poland. He also used the aliases Leo, Xavier,
and
Suchet. He wasFrench Jew of Polish origin. By occupation he was
a
an electrician and business manager.
He entered Belgium from Strasbourg in 1926. He first lived
with his sister in Gand. In 1928 he spent a month in Luxembourg
and then settled definitely in Belgium. On 2 June 1928 he was tried

for complicity in an adultery suit. He received as penalty a two
hundred and sixty franc fine or eight days in prison with three years'
probation. At the same time he was fined seven hundred francs or
thirty days in prison for aggravated assault and battery. As early as
1929 he was known in Belgium as an active Communist. From 1929
to 1938 he was employed by the Brussels firm "Roi du Caoutchouc,"
and in December 1938 he became the general manager of the For-
eign Excellent Raincoat Company, a subsidiary firm. He travelled to
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland for this firm, which was
used by Trepper as a cover.
Trepper had known Grossvogel in Palestine during the 1920s.
Under Trepper's direction Grossvogel established Makarov as man-
ager of the Ostende branch of the Excellent Raincoat Company. In
1939 Grossvogel utilized Abraham Rajchmann's services on Trep-
per's behalf and arranged a meeting between Rajchmann, Trepper,
and Makarov.
Before the war Grossvogel was paid by Russian intelligence the
equivalent of one hundred seventy-five dollars per month. Later this
was raised to two hundred twenty-five dollars monthly.
After the outbreak of war and abandonment of Trepper's cam-
paign against the U.K., Grossvogel probably ceased working for the
expansion of the raincoat company's overseas business. In 1940 he
retreated with Trepper to France, and in the fall of 1940 Grossvogel
laid the foundations of Simex in Paris. Grossvogel functioned as one
of Trepper's most trusted assistants and even organized his own

small group responsible for logistics and communications. In
December 1940 he visited Sukolov in Brussels. In 1941, after Simex
was well established, Grossvogel began to withdraw, handing over
management to Alfred Corbin. While in Paris, Grossvogel resided in
a house occupied by the film actor Georges Milton.
Grossvogel's assistants included Germaine Schneider, the Sok-
ols, Otto Schumacher, and the Girauds. His mistress, Simone Pheter,
used the mail of the Belgian Chamber of Commerce, in which she

was employed, for communications between Paris and Sukolov in
June 1942 contact was established between Grossvogel in
Brussels. In
Paris and Jeffremov and Wenzel in Brussels. In August 1942 he
visited Rajchmann in Brussels to procure false identity papers for
Germaine Schneider and another agent of the group.
In December 1942, following the German penetration of the
Belgian groups and the arrest of Rajchmann, Grossvogel himself was

arrested at a rendezvous with Rajchmann, Malvina Gruber, and
Mme. Griotto in the Cafe de la During 1943 he was inter-
Paix, Paris.
rogated by the Gestapo and was possibly used by them for further
penetration of French groups.
At the time of the Allied invasion, Grossvogel was probably still
held by the Gestapo in Paris. Grossvogel may have been evacuated to
Germany or executed in Fresnes Prison in July 1944, but another
source claims he was still alive somewhere in France at the end of
1946.
Grossvogel was married to Johanna, nee Pesant. Simone Pheter
was his mistress from about 1939 to 1942. He was the father of a
daughter born to Johanna Grossvogel in October 1942.
Grossvogel was the brother of Sarah Kapelovitz, whose hus-
band, Leon Kapelovitz, was the director of the "Roi du Caoutchouc"
and the Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company.
MALVINA GRUBER
(nee Hofstadterova) was born 6 December 1900 in Jamborkretz,
Czechoslovakia. She was the wife of Adolf Gruber, a Czech of Hun-
garian background, resident of the U.K. since 1938. She has six chil-
dren. One of them, Eugene Gruber, was arrested circa 1949, at Frank-
furt, for being in possession of forged U.S. passports and visas.
She was the mistress of Abraham Rajchmann, the forger.
From 1938 to 1942 she was the assistant and courier for Rajch-
mann and cutout between Rajchmann and Trepper; she acted as a
courier between Paris and Brussels, conducting illegal frontier cross-
ings. According to Perrault, Malvina also acted as a courier to Swit-
1938 she visited Antwerp to get false passports for
zerland. In
Rajchmann from Rosenberg, who is possibly identical with Victor
Rosenberg, the brother of Helen Zubilin. Victor Rosenberg worked
for Ignace Reiss in a photo laboratory used by the Soviets.
After the occupation of Belgium she worked as a courier for
Trepper and Rajchmann in the south of France. In June or July 1941
she escorted Anton Danilov from France to Belgium. In October
1941 she took Anne Marie van der Putt from Rajchmann to Trepper
in Paris and escorted Sofie Posnanska back to Brussels. In December
1941 she took Margarete Barcza and her son Rene from Brussels to
Paris.
She was arrested by the Abwehr in Brussels on 12 October 1942
and was used along with Rajchmann for penetration purposes by the
Germans in Brussels and Paris until 1944. She was protected from
deportation and execution by the Sonderkommando and allowed to
return to Belgium, but after the war she was ordered deported by the
Belgian authorities. She left for Czechoslovakia via Germany in
October 1945 but was arrested in Germany in August 1946. In
August 1947 she was in prison in Belgium, and in February 1949 she
was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment by a court martial in Brus-
sels. She was released in December 1951, and on or about 23
December 1951 Malvina Gruber arrived at the Jewish Home for the
Aged sponsored by the Juedische Kulturgemeinde, Munich, and
requested admission, stating that she was temporarily without funds.
She said she was Jewish, a former KZ inmate, and therefore fully
entitled to be given shelter there. She stated also that she had six
children, all of them in Israel, three of them serving as soldiers in the
Israeli army. She remained at the home until about 10 February 1952.
She reportedly left Belgium for Israel in order to rejoin her
children.
A 1952 report stated that Malvina Gruber was still engaged in
RIS activities.
MAX HABJANIC
(alias Cobbler Max), a Swiss citizen of Balkan extraction, was
employed for thirty-one years in the Department of Justice and
Police of the canton of Basle.
About 1937 and 1938 Habjanic provided Anna Barbara Mueller
with several illegal but genuine passports, all of which eventually
landed in the hands of Henri Robinson, who received them from

Franz Welti, a Basle lawyer. Habjanic "created" these passports by
filling them out on valid blanks and sending them to an unsuspecting
police chief for signature. Welti, whose mistress was Anna Mueller,
became acquainted with Habjanic during a lawsuit in 1926.
Habjanic was arrested at his home in Basle in October 1948 but
was provisionally released because of bad health.
URSULA HAMBURGER
(nee Kuczynski, aka Ursula Beurton, alias Sonia) was born 15 May
1907. She was originally Polish but became a German through mar-
riage with Rudolf Hamburger (alias Rudi). She became English by
marriage to Beurton. Her father, Rene Robert Kuczynski, German
born, became a lecturer at the London School of Economics. She has
four sisters, one of whom is Brigitte Lewis (Long), and a brother,
Juergen Kuczynski, who introduced Klaus Fuchs to Soviet intelli-

gence officers.
Prior to 1930 Ursula Hamburger worked for the Ullstein Press
in Berlin. From 1930 to 1935 she worked for Soviet military intelli-
gence in Shanghai, together with her first husband, Rudolf Ham-
burger. In 1938 she was sent to Switzerland on an espionage
assignment against Germany, having worked earlier for the KPD
under the alias Sonja Schultz.
Hamburger told Foote that she was entrusted to build up her

own espionage net in Switzerland and was left to her own resources.
She maintained that the only direct contribution which the GRU
made to her was money, a wireless apparatus, and one agent. She
gave Foote the impression that she selected and recruited her own
agents. In March 1940 she was visited by Rado with an agent from
Belgium — probably Sukolov.
In May 1940 she was instructed to move with Foote and Beurton
to Rumania, but Italy's move from
entry into the war prevented this
materializing. Early in 1940 she divorced Rudolf Hamburger, and on
23 February 1940 she married Leon Beurton (supposedly a marriage
of convenience).
In February 1941 Ursula Hamburger arrived in the U.K. The
Beurtons left England for East Berlin in 1947.
Associates of Ursula include Foote, Franz Obermanns, Alex-
ander Rado, Leon Nicole, Edmond Hamel, Olga Hamel, and Ilona
Suess.
EDMOND HAMEL
(alias Eduard) was born 20 April 1910 in Noiremont, Switzerland. A
long-standing Communist, he was trained in 1926 in Paris as a wire-
less specialist. In 1930 he went to Geneva and shortly thereafter re-
turned to Paris, where he received a radio electrician's certificate. In
1933 Hamel returned to Geneva and opened a radio shop, building

up a prosperous business. During this period he became active in
Nicole's political circles.
In the summer
of 1940 Nicole recommended Hamel to Moscow
for recruitment. InAugust 1940 Hamel started W/T training under
Foote and Beurton. It was carried on by Beurton when Foote left for
Lausanne in December.
In March 1941 Hamel, having become proficient in W/T opera-
tions, began transmitting to Moscow from his shop on Rue de Ca-
rouge. Everything went well until late in 1942, when the Swiss Can-
tonal Police, searching for Communist literature, raided Hamel's

shop. They uncovered a spare transmitter, but the operating set
passed undetected. Hamel was imprisoned for a few days, although
his real activities were not suspected at this time by the Swiss. Upon
his release he transferred his set to Chemin de Conches, where he
operated until his arrest in October 1943.
In April 1943 Hamel Rado and at
started his transmissions for
the same time was teaching Olga the Morse code. Appar-
his wife
ently, when Hamel started transmitting for "Albert" in 1941, he was
unaware of the identity of his employer. Even after meeting Rado,
Hamel was probably unaware that he had been working for Rado for
almost two years.
Upon his arrest, Hamel pleaded that he transmitted blindly
messages which were given to him, but he was sure they were not
prejudicial to the Swiss. The October 1943 arrest of Hamel also
resulted in a search of his house, which revealed to the Swiss police a
partial record of Rado's accounts.
In October 1947 Hamel presented himself to the Swiss Military
Tribunal for trial. He was sentenced to nine months further
imprisonment, but he was released six months later.
OLGA HAMEL
(nee Delez, aliasMaud) was born around 1907 in Valais or Noire-
mont, Switzerland. Her brothers were militant Communists. She
assisted her husband in the transmission of W/T traffic and received
large sums of money from Rado in 1942 and 1943 for her work. She
was sentenced by a Swiss court in 1947 to seven months' imprison-
ment.
ARVID HARNACK
was born in 1901 in Germany. He was the son of Otto Harnack, the
noted historian, and the nephew of Adolf von Harnack, a famous
theologian.
In the 1920s he studied economics at the University of Wiscon-
sin Madison and there met and married Mildred Fish. They
at
returned to Germany, where they both studied and taught economics

and philosophy. A doctor of philosophy and economics, he lectured at
Giessen University in 1929.
Leader of an intelligence group based in Berlin, Harnack worked
for Alexander Erdberg at least from the early summer of 1941 until
his liquidation in the autumn of 1942. It is possible that Harnack and
his circle of Communists and left-wing sympathizers were exploited

by Erdberg for the GRU for some years before the outbreak of the
Russo-German war. Through Harnack, Erdberg obtained control of
the Schulze-Boysen group.
In anticipation of the withdrawal of the Soviet Embassy, Erd-
berg supplied Adam
Kuckhoff with a wireless transmitter for Har-
nack's service attempted to organize the group into an
and
independent network having direct W/T communication with Mos-
cow. This aim was not achieved, however, and in August 1941 Victor
Sukolov visited Berlin to assist Harnack and the other groups in Ger-
many. The transmitter which he supplied for Harnack's group
proved unusable, and Harnack's only line to Moscow appears to have
been through Wilhelm Guddorf and Bernard Baestlein's courier
service.
Eventually Harnack arranged to communicate by courier from
the German Communist Party in Hamburg, through Denmark, to
the SovietEmbassy in Stockholm, whence messages would be relayed
to Moscow. Harnack also must have had some communications link
with Sukolov and later Jeffremov when the latter took over from
Sukolov.
Harnack is known to have employed the following agents in his
network:
Herbert Gollnow, an Abwehr officer at OKW headquarters;
Wolfgang Havemann, a lieutenant in German naval intelli-
gence;
Adam Kuckhoff and his wife;
Leo Skrzypczynski, proprietor of a firm manufacturing W/T
components for the Luftwaffe;
Adolf Grimme;
Johannes Sieg, the Rote Fahne journalist who was born in the
United States;
Karl Behrens and Rose Schloesinger, who were used as couriers
to Hans Coppi; and
Dr. Friedrich Lenz, who acted as a cutout between Harnack and
the Soviet Embassy in 1941.
Harnack was executed on 22 December 1942.
MILDRED ELIZABETH HARNACK

(nee Fish) was born about 1902 in the United States. An American
citizen, she was in the 1920s a student at the University of Wisconsin
when she met Harnack. She returned with him to Germany, where
they both taught economics and philosophy. She was in sympathy

with her husband's devotion to Communism. In 1939 she lectured at
Berlin University and the Foreign Office. She participated in her hus-
band's clandestine activities and was executed on 16 February 1943.
On page 352 of her book, Treason in the Twentieth Century,
Margret Boveri writes:
Louis Lechner came into contact regularly at the

. . . —
meetings of the German-American Chamber of
Commerce, of which he was president with Arvid —
von Harnack, who had the American desk at the
Ministry of Economics and whose wife, Mildred Fish
Harnack, was one of the most prominent American
women in Berlin society.
She helped Martha Dodd (Mrs. Alfred K. Stein)
organize those now legendary tea parties which were
such social events in Berlin in the 1930s. The
assumption that one of the codes which Lochner bore
concealed on his person upon his return to the U.S.
originated from the Rote Kapelle is far from fantas-
tic. . .
HORST HEILMANN
(alias Wilder) was born in 1923. He joined the Hitler Jugend in 1937
and the NSDAP in 1941. He was a student of Foreign Affairs in Ber-
lin until his enlistment in the Wehrmacht, where he worked in the
cipher section of the OKH. He was able to inform Schulze-Boysen of
the breaking of Wenzel's traffic. He was executed with Schulze-
Boysen.
Heilmann hid some of Schulze-Boysen's documents in the home
of the theater manager Oscar Ingenohl, who lived at the time with
Reva Holsey (real name Emma Holzey, now married to Ingenohl) in
the same house in which Horst Heilmann lived. Both Ingenohls sub-
sequently worked in the Rote Kapelle.
Hans Heilmann, brother of Horst, was also suspected of having
participated in the Rote Kapelle. Hans was a radio operator during
the war and served in France with the Wehrmacht.
Ingenohl and Guenther Weisenborn were in close contact in
1954. Ingenohl's wife was in contact with Michael Tschesno and
Greta Kuckhoff in 1954.
WILLIAM HELBEIN
(alias Gelmars, alias Helmars) was born 7 November 1888 at Berdit-
scheff, Russia. He is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He is married to Pearl

Helbein, nee Coleman. He is the brother-in-law of Berta Helbein and
the director of Helbros, a watch firm, 6West 48th Street, New York
City, and the biggest individual buyer of Swiss watches in the U.S.
In the summer of 1944 Helbein admitted receiving ten thousand
dollars from "an unidentified foreign woman" which he forwarded to
Abramson in Switzerland.
RUDOLF HERRNSTADT
an editor and was born 17 March 1903 in Gleiwitz. By
journalist,
origin he was a German-Jew and came from a trilingual family (Rus-
sian, German, and Polish). His father, a deputy and a lawyer in Glei-
witz, died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz in 1939. He had
defended in the courts numerous cases of accused Silesian and Polish
miners who were persecuted for participating in strikes.
Herrnstadt had had contacts in the KPD since 1925, although
he was a non-registered member. He was a collaborator of the AM
Apparat and worked in this matter with Susi Drechsler and Use
Stoebe, who both worked for the Berliner Tageblatt. In 1926 Herrn-
stadt worked for the Berliner Tageblatt in Prague and in 1932 in
Warsaw. In 1933 he was foreign correspondent in Moscow.
In 1928 or 1929 Herrnstadt was recruited by the Soviets and has
been working for them since that date. In 1933 he became a Soviet
citizen by naturalization. During his Warsaw activity he established a
number of important intelligence contacts. Among them were
Rudolf von Scheliha and Use Stoebe, who was executive secretary to
Theodor Wolff. Stoebe was the foreign correspondent for various
Swiss newspapers in Berlin from 1933 to 1939. From 1939 to 1942
she worked at the Foreign Ministry and collaborated with von
Scheliha.
Herrnstadt worked mostly for Red Army intelligence and used
journalism as a cover, participating in the reorganization of numer-
ous foreign groups. In 1942-1943 he was political instructor and
operational head of Soviet parachute groups. (The majority consisted
of Communist emigrants.) In 1943 he was co-founder of the NKFD
(National Committee, Free Germany). In 1945 he returned to Berlin,
founded the Berliner Verlag, and became chief editor of the Berliner
Zeitung. In 1949 he became chief editor of Neues Deutschland and
was put in charge of surpervising the press in the East Zone of Ger-
many. In 1950 he became a member of the Central Committee of the
SED and a candidate for the Politburo (elected by the Third Party
Congress of the SED) and a member of the People's Chamber.
Important Soviet officials consider Herrnstadt to be extremely
valuable and well informed (1958). He is regarded as unusually intelli-
gent, skillful, and loyal to the Kremlin. His current intelligence ac-
tivities are reportedly directed against West Germany.
ALBERT HOESSLER
(alias Helmut Wiegner, alias Stein, alias Franz) was born 11 October
1910 in Muhlau, Sachsen. He was a long-time KPD functionary and
served in the Loyalist Army in Spain. In 1938 he returned to the Soviet
Union where he was trained as an intelligence agent and parachutist.
In August 1942 Hoessler dropped into Germany and became
active in the Rote Kapelle. On 9 October 1943 he was arrested by the
Gestapo in Berlin.
Hoessler was introduced by Kurt Schumacher to Coppi, with
whom he attempted to establish a W/T link with Moscow, first from
the shelter of Erika von Brockdorff's house and then from that of Oda
Schottmueller. He was instructed to keep in touch with Robert Barth,
with whom he had been parachuted and who may have been intended
to render a similar service to Harnack's group.
He reportedly died at the end of the war, although this statement
is unconfirmed.
KARL HOFMAIER
(aka Hoffmaier) was born on 17 May 1897 in Basle, Switzerland. A
Communist and a journalist, he was in the USSR in the early 1920s. He
was imprisoned in Italy from 1927 to 1934, when his fifteen-year sen-
tence was commuted. He then went back to the USSR, lived in Mos-
cow, and survived the 1936 purges. He returned to Switzerland about
1939 and began work for the Rote Drei in 1939. He became a leader of
the left wing of the Swiss Communist party. He and Humbert-Droz
were bitter rivals until Hofmaier was expelled from the CP for finan-
cial irregularities in 1946. During the war he was in touch with both
Rachel Duebendorfer and Alexander Rado.

He had three brothers and a sister. One brother died in 1934;
another committed suicide in 1946. The sister, Karoline, married. The
third brother, Emil, born 21 March 1901, was also involved inespion-
Personalities of the Rote Kapelie 293
age on behalf of the Soviets but was not a member of the Rote Drei
network.
CAROLINE HOORICKX
(nee Sterck) was the wife of Guillaume Hoorickx. She gave assistance
to the Belgiannetwork from 1939 to 1941. Even though Caroline had
been separated from Hoorickx since before the war, she introduced
him to Makarov, by whom he was recruited as a courier for Sukolov.
Caroline Hoorickx was the mistress of Makarov in 1939 and 1940 at
Ostende while he was there in charge of a branch of the Excellent
Raincoat Company.
Caroline and Guillaume Hoorickx were the parents of a son who
was brought up by Hoorickx' mistress (and later wife), Anna Staritsky.
GUILLAUME HOORICKX
(alias Bill) was born in Antwerp on 12 April 1900. He was an agent of
the Sukolov network in Belgium from the autumn of 1940 until the
end of 1942. He was married to Caroline, nee Sterck, from whom he
was separated before the war. In 1940 his wife introduced him to
Makarov, by whom he was recruited as an informant and as a courier
on his visits to France for the Red Cross. In February or March 1941
Sukolov took him into Simexco as a buyer, a position which enabled
him to become a regular courier to Simex in Paris, carrying intelli-
gence material between Sukolov andTrepper. Hoorickx and his friend
Henri Rauch withdrew from Simexco about July 1941, probably on
Trepper's instructions to provide extra cover. Hoorickx, Rauch, and
new business venture with offi-
Charles Daniels then joined forces in a
ces at 192 Rue same building as Simexco. Late
Royale, Brussels, in the
in 1941 Hoorickx was in touch with Reymaeker, who supplied him
with identity cards for members of the organization.
Anna Staritsky, a Russian, was the mistress of Hoorickx during
the war; they later married.
Hoorickx was arrested in Rixensart with Rauch on 28 December
1942. He was deported to Mauthausen, where he worked as a doctor.
He was repatriated to Belgium 2 June 1945. After the war Hoorickx
tried to reorganize Simexco and was trying to recontact Trepper.
About April 1946 he collected from Claude Spaak the identity docu-
ments left in his possession by Hersz and Miriam Sokol. In Novem-
ber 1946 he was visited in Brussels by Georgie de Winter, Trepper's
former mistress. In April 1947 Hoorickx was using a Nice address for
mail and was in touch with Charles Daniels in Brussels.
Hoorickx was apparently sought in 1947 by the Soviet Embassy

in Brussels through Waltraud Heger, the step-daughter of Henri
Rauch.
In 1954 Belgian authorities were informed that Hoorickx and his
wife (Staritsky) were living at 150 Avenue Emile Zola, in Paris and
also had a flat at 14 Rue Cafarelli, in Nice, where they often went to
bad health. They made frequent trips to Belgium,
stay because of his
where they were in contact with various White Russian families. They
often stayed at the home of Nikita Koussoff, a known anti-Commu-
nist. The 1954 report indicated that Hoorickx was suspected of being
engaged in some kind of intelligence activity.
JULES FREDERIC HUMBERT-DROZ

(alias Droll) was born 11 January 1872 in Chaux de Fonds, Switzer-
land. He was a Swiss citizen and a journalist. He lived at 153 Albis-
strasse, Zurich. His wife was Jenny Humbert.
In the early 1920s Humbert-Droz was said to be a collaborator
with Willi Muenzenberg and Henri Robinson in the founding of the
Comintern Youth International in Switzerland. In 1924 he was editor
of Communist International and was political secretary of the Com-
munist group in 1924, 1926, and 1928. In 1928 he was also the member
of the Western European Bureau of the Comintern. He was im-
prisoned for a brief period in the late 1920s for his Communist activi-
ties in Switzerland. In 1926 he visited Moscow and in November 1927

was arrested by Swiss authorities for implication in the recruitment of
volunteers for the International Brigade.
Thought one of Poliakova's agents before the war, Hum-
to be
bert-Droz took over a transmitter and wireless parts from Mme.
Gessner-Buehrer, probably in 1939 or 1940. From May 1939 to the

spring of 1942, he was president of the Swiss CP. At this time he
approached an RIS agent (probably Alexander Rado) with an offer to
organize economic espionage in factories producing goods for Ger-
many. At the time he was a talent spotter for Rado.
Humbert-Droz was instructed by Dimitrov in Moscow to help
Foote, but the Swiss police arrested him (Droz) in Winterthur shortly
thereafter (June 1942) for illegal Communist Party activity, and he
was able to do little for Foote because he served a six-month sentence.
In 1942 Humbert-Droz was reputedly expelled from the Swiss
CP. In August 1946 he was in Zurich for the Swiss Socialist press, his
work not having been approved by the Communist Press. The same
year he was again imprisoned by the Swiss for his Communist
activities.
In 1948 Humbert-Droz was sued by Karl Hofmaier for having

libeled him concerning his Gestapo connections during the war.
HERMAN ISBUTSKY
(alias Bob, alias Lunettes), a Belgian Jew, was born 19 May 1914 in
Antwerp. He resided at 144 Langeleemstraat, Antwerp.
Isbutskywas an agent of the Trepper-Sukolov group as early as
1939 and was trained in W/T by Wenzel. In 1941 he was also perform-
ing services for the Jeff remov group. He was to have built up his own
network in the summer of 1942, but he was prevented from doing so
by his arrest in late July 1942. His arrest resulted when Jeffremov,
under German control, arranged a rendezvous with Isbutsky and
Peper in Brussels. Isbutsky was executed.
JEAN BAPTISTE JANSSENS

was recruited by Germaine Schneider to act as a courier between Brus-
sels and Paris for the Jeffremov network. He was born 9 December
1898 in Brussels and was by occupation a shoemaker. He was divorced

from his wife, nee Croyssaerts. He was the lover of Josephine Ver-
himst, nee Clais, the sister of Germaine Schneider.
In 1942 Janssens provided lodging for Johannes Wenzel at 97
Rue Artan, Schaerbeek. When Wenzel was arrested on 30 June 1942,
while transmitting from a building in the Laeken districtjanssens and
his mistress, Verhimst, were immediately taken into custody and in-
terrogated. They were released by the Germans a few days later.
In January 1943 Janssens and Verhimst were arrested. Janssens
died in Breendonck Concentration Camp.
JULES JASPAR
was born 1 March 1878 at Schaerbeek, Belgium. He was a former offi-
cial of the Belgian Foreign Office. His brother was once Prime Minis-
ter of Belgium. At one timejaspar was Belgian Consul in Indochina. In
1939 he became associated with Grossvogel as a director of the Foreign
Excellent Raincoat Company and probably became aware of its use as a
cover for Soviet espionage. Jaspar fled to France in May 1940 follow-
ing the German December 1941 Jaspar moved to Mar-
invasion. In
seilles, and 1942 he assited Sukolov in the establishment of
in January
the Marseilles branch of Simex. Jaspar became a director of the firm. In
the summer of 1942 Trepper proposed to send Jaspar to North Africa
on Simex business as cover for an intelligence mission. This plan was
not put into execution.
296 Personalities* of the Rote Kapelle
Jaspar was arrested 12 November 1942 in Marseilles and de-

ported to Germany. In June 1945 he was liberated and repatriated to
Belgium.
Jaspar either married or lived with Georgie de Winter after the
war, probably in southern France. According to one source, he was in
Brussels in November 1947, living with his widowed sister, Madame
Lacroix, at 77 Avenue Theodore Roosevelt, Brussels.
who was arrested by the Ges-
Jaspar was married to Claire Jaspar,
tapo in November 1942 and subsequently died in prison. She may have
assisted her husband in his Simex work and possibly in undercover
activities for Sukolov.
Jaspar propably died circa 1948-1949, but according to one report

he was still living in 1954.
KONSTANTIN JEFFREMOV
(alias Ericjernstroem, was born 15 May 1910 inSawotzki,
alias Pascal)
Russia. His name is also spelled He was a Soviet army cap-

Yeffremov.
tain, an expert in chemical warfare, and an engineer. An RU operative,
Jeffremov may have been active in Western Europe at least since 1936,
when he may have recruited Franz and Germaine Schneider in Bel-
gium on behalf of Henri Robinson. His activities at that time were,
therefore, probably directed at least in part against the United King-
dom. Jeffremov may also have lived in Switzerland some time during
the period 1936-1939, perhaps in Zurich.
In September 1939 Jeffremov arrived in Brussels, posing as a Fin-
nish student named Jernstroem. His prewar intelligence function was
alleged to have been the collection of technical information on chemi-
cals, and he may have been intended to operate quite independently of
Trepper and other RU agents in Western Europe. On the outbreak of
war he was instructed to build up a network in the Low Countries for
the collection of military, political, and economic intelligence. He uti-
lized the services of his former recruits, the Schneiders, and of Wenzel,
whom he may also have known personally. Jeffremov organized and
ran this network independently of Trepper and Sukolov, although
such agents as Wenzel, Isbutsky, and Peper worked for both groups
simultaneously. Using Wenzel and Peper as his intermediaries, Jef-
fremov also played a leading role in the organization and direction of
the Dutch network of the Rote Kapelle.
Wenzel may not have established a W/T service with Moscow on
Jeffremov's behalf until the end of 1940, when contact was probably
made through Winterink. During 1940, however, Jeffremov may have
used the services of an operator in Ostend. Before the war Jeff remov
had a contact in Switzerland and used a certain "Chimor" as his cou-
rier."Chimor" was probably Franz Schneider.
In May 1942, under RU instructions, Jeffremov met Trepper at
the Schneider house in Brussels and took over the Low Countries net-
work of Sukolov. This new task entailed the transmission to Moscow
of Schulze-Boysen's material. Wenzel agreed to become the W/T
operator for the new group.
Following Wenzel's arrest 30 July 1942, Franz Schneider asked
Ernst Bomerson to hide Jeffremov in his house at 25 Rue Alfred Or-
ban, Forest, introducing Jeffremov as "Hofman." Jeffremov was ar-
rested 22 July 1942 before he could move into the Bomerson house. He
was attending a rendezvous arranged by Rajchmann with a German
contact man to obtain false identity papers.
Apparently Jeffremov offered and was almost
little resistance
immediately used by the Germans for penetration and W/T playback.
He arranged a meeting with Isbutsky and Peper, at which time they
were arrested.
From October 1942 Jeffremov operated the W/T line "Buche-
Pascal" to Moscow under control, being held in Breendonck Prison
Camp until April 1944 when he was moved to Paris. There he was
housed with Sukolov at 63 Rue de Courcelles, but they were not per-
mitted to associate. The transmitter was run from Paris in July 1944.
In August 1944 Jeffremov was taken to Berlin, and the playback was
continued from Schoeniche, near Potsdam.
One good source of information concerning Jeffremov reported
that when Jeff remov was interrogated after his arrest, he tried to ad-
here to his Finnish cover story but gave contradictory statements and
spoke a broken Finnish. A search of his quarters resulted in the discov-
ery of a number from the United States. Apparently he
of postal cards
had been communicating with Soviet contacts in the United States.
Jeffremov's Finnish passport was issued in the United States, where
he received a visa prior to his entry into Belgium. His passport was
genuine. Jeffremov's intelligence activity could not be proven, but his
Russian origin was verified. He was confronted with Wenzel, who was
also under arrest. Jeffremov then admitted that he knew Wentzel, who
described Jeffremov as his superior.
According to same source Jeffremov had been a member of
this
the Komsomol and had studied chemistry in Moscow. He then did ser-
vice with the Soviet army as an officer. For several years he was
assigned to a technical staff of the Far East Army and was stationed at
the Soviet-Manchurian border. He was then ordered to Moscow,

where he was trained for intelligence work. After his training was
completed, he travelled via Odessa to Bucharest, where he received
new identity cards and an airplane ticket to Belgrade. There he re-
ceived his Finnish passport. He continued via Italy to Switzerland,
where he remained for a few weeks. He went on to Paris and stayed for
a short time before he left for Brussels.
Jeffremov regularly received funds from the United States. The

payments were at a normal, moderate level for a student and therefore
did not cause any suspicion. The postal cards which were found during
the search of his quarters were communications to Jeffremov from RU
representatives in the United States. In addition, Jeff remov received
money from the Soviet trade representative in Brussels. The latter
brought him in contact with a Belgian industrialist who provided him
with important espionage material concerning Belgian industry. His
name has not been determined.
There are three conflicting versions of his (Jeffre-

mov's) downfall:
1. According to one veteran of the Rote Kapelle
Kommando, persuading Jeffremov to turn traitor was
the simplest of tasks. He was Ukrainian and there-
a
fore prone was pointed out to him
to anti-Semitism. It
that all his superiors were Jews and that he would be
a real fool to sacrifice himself for such riffraff; he
agreed.
2. According to Fortner (Henry Piepe), Giering's
team of torture experts arrived in Brussels and set to

work on the prisoner. He held out for a few days; then
he was broken.
3. According to another Abwehr officer, Jeffremov
succumbed to a more subtle maneuver. His whole

family was in Russia —
including his young wife,
whom he adored. She was an engineer, specializing in
railway engines, and she was deeply patriotic. Jeffre-
mov was told that unless he cooperated, the Center
would be informed that he had betrayed Wenzel
which was, of course, quite untrue. This story would
cost him his wife's love and esteem, and she herself
would be exposed to reprisals by the Soviet authori-
ties. Jeffremov decided that love came before duty. (It
is known that Jeffremov had a wife and mother living
in the Soviet Union and that he was very devoted to

them.)
According to some sources, Simexco (raided in
November 1942) was the victim of Jeffremov's
treachery, not of . . . Henry Piepe's professional flair.
When Trepper had handed over control to Jeffremov,

he told him about Simexco, but he urged him to keep
away; after Kent's (Sukolov's) long spell as head of
the firm, the situation was extremely risky. (There is
evidence also that Trepper's warning to Jeffremov

was based on his lack of complete confidence in Naza-
rin Drailly's loyalty.) It is argued that Jeffremov ex-
posed Simexco when he gave away all his other se-
crets.
Jeffremov's ultimate fate is not known, but according to one

source he escaped at the end of 1944 and eventually reached Moscow
by way of Switzerland.
JQJO
was about thirty years old in 1942 and was probably of Spanish origin.
His true identity is unknown. He belonged to the French Communist
underground network and had been sent by Moscow to Trepper dur-
ing the end of 1942. He was a radio repairman.
His parents owned a restaurant in St. Denis, a suburb of Paris. He
was arrested shortly after Trepper but managed to escape from the
Germans in June 1943, and his whole family then disappeared.
HEINZ ERWIN KALLMANN

was born 10 March 1904 in Berlin-Charlottenburg. He is a physicist.
From 1929 1934 he lived in Berlin and worked as a research engi-
to
neer in C. Lorenz, A.G., Berlin-Tempelhof. In March 1934 he went to
London, where he worked as a research engineer in Electrical and
Musical Industries with Hans Gerhardt Lubszynski.
It appears that in England Kallmann was an unwitting source of
the "Professor," who provided information regarding television and
related subjects to Henri Robinson.
He went to the United States in 1939 and has lived at 417 River-
side Drive, New York City.
LOUIS KAPELOWITZ
(alias Kapel or Capel) was a director of the Foreign Excellent Raincoat
Company and may have been involved to some extent in his brother-
in-law Grossvogel's activities for the RU in Belgium. Kapelowitz' wife
Sarah was Leon Grossvogel's Kapelowitz was born 13 July 1891
sister.
in Kassa, Czechoslovakia. In June 1936 he became a director of the Ex-

cellent Raincoat Company, and in December 1938 he became a direc-
tor of its subsidiary, the Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company, used by
Trepper for cover purposes. Kapelowitz fled to France in May 1940
following the German invasion of Belgium. He subsequently returned
and lived underground in Brussels for two years. In 1943 he reportedly
went to Switzerland, but in November 1944 he returned to Belgium to
resume his business. At the beginning of 1947 Kapelowitz was in Pal-
estine with his wife, who returned to Belgium lOJanuary 1947. Kapel-
owitz himself left Palestine for Belgium 21 April 1947, but at the end
of 1947 he was attempting to return to Palestine.
Maurice Padawer and Adolf Lerner, co-directors of the Foreign
Excellent Raincoat Company, were both married to sisters of Louis
Kapelowitz.
Sarah Kapelowitz in 1947 was reportedly living at 89 Herzl
Street, Tel Aviv.
Kapelowitz has a brother, Maurice, who was interviewed by the
FBI in 1947:
Maurice Capel (brother of Louis Kapelowitz) was in-

terviewed He advised that Leon Grossvogel was
. . .
known as an outright Communist in Brussels all dur-

ing the 1930s, and he stated that Lerner, Padawer, and
Louis Kapelowitz were aware of this fact and for this
reason were very wary of Grossvogel.
Kapelowitz is reportedly the cousin of Harry Gold, the convicted

Soviet agent.
CAPTAIN NIKOLAYEVICH GENADIY KARPOV

was born 21 March 1906 in Moscow. In 1939 he was a clerk at the
Soviet Embassy in Paris and later at Vichy. He may have been con-
cerned with the welfare of Trepper's organization and probably ar-
ranged on Trepper's behalf the transfer of Danilov from Paris to
Brussels in the summer of 1941. In April 1943 Karpov was at the
Soviet Embassy in Teheran as an attache and NKVD representative.
Karpov was reportedly engaged in the recruitment of agents from
among Polish Jewish refugees. In July 1945 he was in Moscow. In April
1948 Karpov was in Berlin; but by August 1948 he had moved to Brus-
sels, where he was First Secretary in the Soviet Embassy, specializing

in problems of displaced persons.
HILLEL KATZ
was born 24 September 1905 in Chenzin, Poland. He used the aliases
of Andre Dubois, "Rene," and "Le Petit Andre." He was either mar-
ried to or lived in a common-law relationship with Cecile Fichtenweg
(alias Cecile Dubois).
A Polish Jew, he had been a member of the Communist Party in
Palestine and in contact with Syrian revolutionaries. During the occu-
pation of France he became one of the most important agents of the
French network of the Rote Kapelle as well as secretary and assistant
to Trepper. He was in charge of liaison between Grossvogel, Robin-
son, and Simex.
His brother Joseph Katz (aka Mayer ben Josef Katz) was part of
the Lyon network. Hillel Katz has also been known under the name of
ben Mordechai.
In December 1942 Hillel Katz was arrested during the Simex
roundup and was used for further penetration by the Germans into
other Soviet groups in France and into the French Communist Party.
There has been considerable confusion as to the identity of the
various Soviet agents named Katz. For example, Joseph Katz, born 15
March 1912 in Vilna, Lithuania (who is now in Israel), is not related to
Joseph Katz, born 17 September 1910 in Grodzick, Poland. The latter
was the brother of Hillel Katz; the former was Elizabeth Bentley's
superior. Alexander Katz, born 6 May 1 887 in Odessa, was a contact of
the Joseph Katz who is now in Israel. Otto Katz (alias Andre Simon),
born 27May 1895 at Jistenbnice, Czechoslovakia, the Comintern agent
who was executed in 1952, is not identical with Simon Katz, born 12
August 1902 in Paris.
In 1957 the French DST interrogated Cecile Fichtenweg (alias
Cecile Dubois), born 20 May 1904 in Czestokow, Poland. She was the
mistress or wife of Hillel Katz (alias Andre). Cecile advised that dur-
ing 1941-1942 she had contacted Georgie de Winter. Again in 1944 or
1945 she became interested in the state of health of the son of Georgie
and Trepper, who was being cared for by the Queyries at Suresnes.
Cecile claimed she wanted to contact the son of Georgie and through
him to recontact Georgie so that she could get news of Hillel Katz.
Cecile never admitted to the French services that she knew what
Katz was doing. The Germans claimed that in the course of time she
discovered it:
and her husband then used her for the maintenance of

contacts.She has not been arrested but is in hiding
with our help so that we can use her in our further
operations as a contact woman, which would enable us
more information on replacement
to get circles.
(Abwehr report, 24 March 1943)
HEINRICH KOENEN
(alias Heinz Koenen, Henrich Ludwig Koester, alias Karl Lud-
alias
wig) was born 12 May He was a German Jew but

1910 in Koenigsberg.
claimed Russian citizenship since 1940. His father, Wilhelm Koenen,
was a member of the Communist International in 1919. His sister is
Johanna Beker.
He belonged to the NPD and fled Germany in 1933. He went to
the USSR where he was trained at the intelligence centers in Moscow
and Kuibyshev (1934-1940). Before being dropped into Germany, he
had been trained at a Russian parachute school and in W/T. The Ge-
stapo had advance notice that Koenan was to be dropped. They gained
this knowledge from a message intercepted from Moscow. Koenen
was arrested by the Gestapo on 26 October 1942. Use Stoebe, whom he
was supposed to contact, had already been arrested by the Gestapo in
Hamburg.
Koenen was dropped by the Soviets over Osterode in East Prussia
and was intended for the Stoebe- von Scheliha group. He was supposed
to meet Erna Eifler and Henri Robinson's son, Victor Schabbel. He
was also to do some work with the Schulze-Boysen and Baestlein
groups. The password which Koenen was to use in contacting Stoebe
was "greetings from Rudi" (meaning Rudolf Herrnstadt). It was from
Koenen's papers captured after his arrest that the dollar transaction,
via Bank Julius Baer in Zurich, of seven thousand five hundred dollars
to von Scheliha was discovered.
Heinrich Koenen was reportedly executed toward the end of the
war, but according to another report he was in a concentration camp at
Sachsenhausen in 1945. According to an even later report, he was SED
Secretary for Saxony.
JOHN WILHELM KRUYT, SR.

(aliasvon Krumin, alias Henri Depotter) was a Soviet agent dropped
by parachute in Belgium 24 June 1942. He was equipped with a radio
set and was intended as a reinforcement for the Jeffremov network.
Kruyt's accommodation was to be the concern of Elizabeth Depelsen-
aire, and he had two meetings with one of her agents, Irma Salno.
Kruyt was born 8 September 1877 in Amsterdam and by occupation

was a Protestant minister. He was at one time a member of the Dutch
Second Chamber. In 1922 he was a member of the Third International.
In 1923 Kruyt went to Russia and for a time was a professor of Scan-
dinavian languages at Moscow University. In the early 1930s he was
attached to the Soviet Trade Delegation in Berlin, and from 1939-1942
he was back in the Soviet Union. Kruyt's wife committed suicide in the
USSR. He reportedly had an English mother.
His son, named after him, was parachuted into Holland on 22
June 1942.
Kruyt, Sr., was arrested by the Gestapo on 20 June 1942 after his
denunciation by Charles and Marie Bocar of 56 Avenue Charles Quint,
Bercheur-Ste-Agathe, an accommodation address recommended to
Kruyt by the RU, which had also supplied him with the emergency
postbox Stig Lindel, Bondegaten 60, Stockholm. After his arrest Kruyt
was successively detained in St. Gilles, Breendonck, and Moabit (Ber-
lin) prisons.
There is evidence that Kruyt was dropped into Belgium by the

British and that the British High Command may not have been aware
of Kruyt's true role. He may even have lived for a while as an immi-
grant in England, working for the RIS.
JOHN WILLIAM KRUYT

(alias Schouten), the son of John Wilhelm Kruyt, born 25 August
1926, was dropped in Holland with aW/T set and made contact with
Goulooze. According to one report, Kruyt, Jr., was dropped for the
Soviets by the British SOE. He spoke fluent Dutch, German, and
Russian.
ADAM KUCKHOFF
was born 30 August 1887 in Aachen, Germany. He was executed on 5
August 1943. He was married the first time to Marie Viermeyer, born
10 September 1891 in Wolfenbuettel. This marriage was dissolved on
6 June 1937 in Berlin. By his first wife he had a son, Armin-Gerhard
Kuckhoff born 13 March 1912 in Munich.
>
A family relationship exists between Adam Kuckhoff and the

woman Rote Kapelle agent Gertrud Viermeyer, nee Kuckhoff, born 7
May 1895 in Wolfenbuettel. The husband of the latter is the brother of
the first wife of Adam Kuckhoff (Marie Viermeyer).
A philosopher and writer on Communism and Marxism, Kuck-
hoff was a producer at Prague Films, A.G. His illegal Communist

activities dated back to 1932, and his intelligence work may have begun
during the prewar Nazi regime.
MARGARETE KUCKHOFF
(nee Lorke, aka "Greta"), born 14 December in Frankfurt/Oder, was
Adam Kuckhoff s second wife. They were married 28 August 1937 and
divorced — date unknown. Adam Kuckhoff s divorce from his first
wife, Marie, nee Viermeyer, apparently occurred because Margaret

Lorke was awaiting the birth of his child. Adam Kuckhoff had a son by
Margarete Kuckhoff, named Ula Hans Georg Kuckhoff, born 8 Jan-
uary 1938 in Berlin.
An economist, Greta Kuckhoff studied at the Universities of Ber-
Wurzburg, and Wisconsin. In the United States she and her hus-
lin,
band had known William Dodd and his daughter, Martha (Mrs. Alfred
K. Stern).
Arrested in 1942, Greta was sentenced to death in February 1943,
but the sentence was commuted to ten years in the penitentiary. She
remained Waldheim until May 1945.
in the prison at
From 1948 to 1949 Greta was a member of the Secretariat of the
Economic Commission, the German Volksrat, the Kulturbund, and
other Communist organizations, including the SED.
From 1949 to 1950 Greta was chief of a division in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and member of the provisional Volkskammer (Parlia-
ment). Since 1950 she has been president of the Deutsche Notenbank,
and as of 7 January 1957 she was still president of the Notenbank with
the rank of minister.
Greta was good friend of Schulze-Boysen and his wife, as
a very
well as of Arvid Harnack and his wife. She also had contact with
Guenther Weisenborn and other Rote Kapelle members.
Greta reportedly contacted the NKVD immediately after the
occupation. She was able to make immediate contact with Staff Section
IV of the Soviet army. Since then she has been doing work in her spare
time for this section and has constantly tried to revive old contacts in
West Germany and other countries of the West. She has been ex-
tremely active in "peace" groups and has frequently attended interna-
tional conferences, including Vienna (1961), Moscow (1962), Frank-
furt (1963), Stockholm (1963), New Delhi (1964), and Helsinki
(1965). In 1964 she became a vice president of the German Peace
Council and in 1968 a vice president of the League of Friendship
among Peoples. In 1968 she was awarded the "Star of International
Friendship." She became a member of the World Council of Peace in

1969.
HANS KURFESS
was born 3 October 1915 at Wohlau, Silesia. After studying law and
economics at the Universities of Munich, Koenigsberg, Geneva, and
Berlin, he practiced law in Linz in 1938. He obtained his doctorate in
February 1939 and began his official career as assistant magistrate at
Bergen, Ruegen. After war broke out, he moved to Breslau in Septem-
ber 1939, becoming a Referendar (junior attorney). In March 1940 he
was legal advisor to the German-Hungarian Chamber of Commerce in
Budapest. In 1941 he had to return to Germany to do his military ser-
vice, and in January 1942 he was transferred to the Interpreters' School
at Meissen, where he received instruction in English.
At the Interpreters' School he made the acquaintance of Otto
Lentz; and in June 1943, when Lentz was sent to Funkabwehr Aussen-
stelle in Paris for work with the Sonderkommando, Kurfess followed
him there andworked as a cryptographer attached to the Aussenstelle.
He eventually replaced Lentz, who had acquired good business connec-
tions and wished to leave.
From October 1943 to April 1944 Kurfess worked with the Son-
derkommando. His chief function was to encipher the texts prepared
by "Fritz" (Sukolov) for transmission. This work became more and
more a formalityand was eventually taken over by Pannwitz's secre-
tary. In April 1944 Kurfess accompanied Pannwitz to Madrid.
With the decrease of his duties (never onerous), Kurfess estab-
lished various small business connections and eventually worked in
the black market. In the course of visiting various firms and reporting
ontheir activities, he got to know Otto Bach, a former Socialist in Paris
who knew Pannwitz through Lentz.
From Bach, Kurfess heard various items of information about the
Sonderkommando and occasionally met Pannwitz socially. Kurfess
helped Lentz in his business enterprises in the south of France by
maintaining liaison with various firms and negotiating deals.
Kurfess left Paris on
August 1944 for Nancy, where he at-
17
tached himself to the Sonderkommando on Pannwitz. He then went
to Colmar and from there to Constance. He and Lentz were finally
picked up by Italian partisans in Milan in the summer of 1945 and
were turned over to CIC at Sondrio.
FRANCOIS LACHENAL
may have been Rote Drei agent (alias Diener) who was a sub-source
a
for Rachel Duebendorfer. He was born on 31 May 1918 in Geneva. He

became a lawyer, diplomat, journalist, and publisher. From 1942 to
1946 he served as an attache, first in Vichy, then in Berlin. He report-
edly passed his information directly to Jean Pierre Vigier, the son-in-
law of Rachel Duebendorfer. He
maintained close contact with
also
Leon Nicole and passed him secret information too. Lachenal spoke
some Russian.
MADAME Fnu LAMBERT

was used in 1940 as a contact point for meetings between "Clement"
(probably Sukolov) and Gouwlooze in Brussels. In the autumn of 1940
von Proosdy was sent to her house in Brussels to train aW/T operator
for Clement's service. Madame Lambert was the widow of a Belgian
sculptor who was killed during the war.
Fnu LEBENTHAL
is mentioned in the Rajchmann interrogation as the individual who
supplied Rajchmann with documents in the name of "Gilbert," to be
used by Trepper. This took place in approximately late May or early
June 1942.
The pertinent portion of Rajchmann's statement is as follows:
[H]e (Trepper) asked me to establish for him an iden-

tity in the name of "Gilbert" and insisted that the card
and the For this purpose I went to
seals be authentic.
Antwerp shop on Rue Pelican run by a certain
to a
Lebenthal, who had been recommended to me by Mal-
vina (Gruber), I think. The shop was a candy store or a
pastry shop. Lebenthal promised to furnish me
authentic documents as well as certificates of good
morals and conduct. He kept his word, and I had Mal-
vina take the documents to Uncle (Trepper), who was
at that time in Paris.
PAUL LEGENDRE
(alias Victor, alias Gros, alias Colonel Fernand) was born 29 April
1878 at Sens (Yonne). A French national, he was a retired army cap-
tain. He belonged to the Mithridate group French Resistance
in the
and was recruited into the Ozols network, which was controlled by the
Germans.
Even after the liberation Legendre continued to furnish informa-

tion to the Germans concerning the morale of the American troops.
Arrested by the French in 1944, he was freed upon the intervention of
Colonel (fnu) Novikov.
The whereabouts of Legendre are unknown, but his son Jacques
lived at last report at 5 Villa Chanex in Paris.
ERNST LEMMER
(alias Agnes) was born on 28 April 1898 in Remscheidt, Germany. He
attended the Universities of Marburg and Frankfurt. After the Nazis
seized power in 1933, Lemmer was denied permission to appear in any
newspaper published in Germany. He became a foreign correspon-
dent for Pester Lloyd in Budapest, Neue Zuercher Zeitung in Zurich,
and Le Soir in occupied Belgium. He appears in a 22 October 1941
message from Rado to Moscow. The message identifies him as a sub-
source of "Long" (Georges Blun), a member of the Ribbentrop Bureau,
and a Berlin correspondent who telephoned reports to the Neue
Zuercher Zeitung. This message also gave his true name and said that
in the future he would be called "Agnes."
After the war ended, Lemmer became one of the founders of the
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the Soviet Zone of Germany.
He held various official positions until he defected, actually or nomin-
ally, to West Germany in 1949.
It has been reported that when Rudolf Roessler and Xaver
Schnieper embarked on postwar espionage for Czechoslovakia, 1947-
1953, Lemmer was one of Roessler's sources. Our records contain indi-
cations of clandestine work for other services as well. For example,
Walter Schellenberg said during interrogation that Lemmer had been
an agent of Amt VI (foreign espionage) of the RSHA (main security
office in Nazi Germany).
OTTO HERMAN WALDEMAR LENTZ,

whose name is also spelled Lenz and Lencs, was born on 2 December
1909 at Darmstadt. He worked in Koenigsberg monitoring broadcasts
from the USSR from 1936 to 1938. His father, who was in the Soviet
Consulate at Danzig, was involved with the Schulze-Boysen group in
Berlin. Both father and son were suspected of RIS activity before the
war.
In 1942 Lentz was arrested, then released and sent to work under
Heinz Pannwitz, the chief of the Sonderkommando in Paris. He was
involved in Funkspiel (W/T playback) operations with Trepper and
Sukolov.
At the end of the war Lentz was again suspected of RIS activities.
He was in contact with Johannes Haas-Heye, the brother-in-law of
Harro Schulze-Boysen, in 1947. Weisenborn told Lentz that the
Soviets wanted him to keep in touch with Germans who were former
members of the Schulze-Boysen group.
Lentz and Hans Kurfess were picked up by Italian partisans in
Milan in the summer of 1945 and turned over to CIC at Sondrio. They
were then interrogated by CSDIC, CMF, OC Army Section, Allied
Group, Rome, in October 1945. They furnished detailed information
on the Rote Kapelle, the work of the Sonderkommando in Paris, the
OKH deciphering department, OKW
intercept stations France, Radio
Mundial, and numerous personalities in the Rote Kapelle.
In 1950 a report was received indicating that Otto Lentz, born 2
December 1909, was working as a journalist and radio reporter and
living in Italy. He was blacklisted on 17 February 1955 by the French
IS, which considered him a "dangerous adventurer, swindler, and mul-
tiple agent who willwork for the highest bidder."

In 1966 Lentz was collaborating with Pannwitz in producing a
book on the Rote Kapelle. It appears that Lentz also collaborated with
Perrault. Oscar Reile advised that Lentz had previously written on the
Rote Kapelle. Reportedly, Lentz has also been in contact with the
BND through the Bundespresseamt in Bonn. According to Reile,
Lentz was not employed by the BND, but he allegedly worked for the
French and tried to sell his services to most of the intelligence services
of the West.
FRIEDRICH BERNARD HERMANN LENZ

was born on 8 December 1885 at Marburg-Lahn, Germany. A German
national, he is a sociologist and author. His residence in 1954 was Bis-
markstrasse 15, Bielefeld, West Germany.
Prior to 1933 Lenz was a professor at the University of Giessen.
At that time he was in close contact with Arvid Harnack. His Soviet
principal was Sergei Bessonov, a functionary of the Soviet Embassy in
Berlin (who was at that time also the principal of Gunther Lubs-
zynski). According to an official French source, Lenz himself was in
contact with Lubszynski.
After the rise of Hitler, Lenz continued his special activity for
some time and then went first to England, later to the United States.
He was reportedly sent there by the Soviet intelligence service. In
1940, on orders from his employers, he returned to Germany, where
he immediately resumed his liaison activity between groups of intelli-

gence agents and the Soviet Embassy. During this same period, as
camouflage, he wrote some Nazi brochures.
After 1945 Lenz joined the German Communist Party and
resumed his activity in East Berlin. In addition he became a member of
the Kulturbund Zur Erneuerung Deutschlands, a pro-Soviet organiza-
tion.
Prior to 1933 Lenz was president of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft
Zum Studium Der Sowjetischen Planwirtschaft (Society for the Study
of Soviet Economic Planning). This society had been created on order
from the Soviet service to serve as a cover for them. Under this cover
Harnack, Friedrich Lenz, and others recruited technicians of high
standing under the pretext of studying the planned economy of the
Soviet Union. They later organized a trip to the USSR, the alleged pur-
pose of which was to study. While in the USSR, these technicians were
put in contact with the Soviet intelligence service through the inter-
mediary of WOKS (Association for the Maintenance of Cultural Rela-
tions Abroad). Upon the advent of Hitlerism, these individuals
hastened to liquidate this association in order to work individually or
in small groups until the time the Rote Kapelle network was
organized.
A German Who's Who published in 1948 lists Friedrich Bern-
hard Hermann Lenz as a professor, doctor of laws, and doctor of phi-
losophy. The listing indicates that Lenz received his education at the
Bismarck Gymnasium in Berlin, at the Universities of Lausanne,
Munich, Bonn, and Berlin, and at the American University of Wash-
ington, D.C., where he was granted an M.A. degree. It is likewise noted
that his wife, Dr. Grete Lenz, received her education in Koeln, Ger-
many, and in Washington, D.C.
An investigation of Lenz and his wife was conducted in the Uni-
ted States, and a report dated 26 July 1954 reflects that Lenz lived in
Washington, D.C, as a temporary visitor from October 1938 to July
1940. While in the United States, he reportedly conducted research at
Washington, D.C, and wrote a book. He enrolled at American Uni-
versity in September 1939 and in June 1940 received an M.A. degree.
He married Grete O. Falk on 18 March 1939 Mrs. Falk had been in the
United States from June 1934 and remained until October 1940. She
was employed by a welfare agency and was naturalized as an American
citizen on 7 May 1940. She returned to Germany via Japan and the
USSR on a German passport. Mrs. Lenz in 195 1 was in charge of social
affairs for the Foreign Office, German Federal Republic, Bonn. Fried-
rich Lenz has a brother who in 1954 was a judge in Hamburg — British
Zone of Germany.
ABRAHAM ISAAC LERNER

(alias Adolf) was born 13 September 1891 at Dukla, Poland. Lerner
had been a director of the Excellent Raincoat Company since June

1936 and a director of the Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company, used
by Trepper for cover purposes, since December 1938. Lerner escaped
from Belgium to France during the war, probably in May 1941, and
made his way to the United States via Portugal. By April 1946 he had
returned to Brussels and was still a director of the Excellent Raincoat
Company, also known as "Le Roi du Caoutchouc." His address in 1946
was 80 Avenue Boetendaal, Uccle. Lerner was married to Livia Ka-
pelowitz, the sister of Louis Kapelowitz.
Lerner, Maurice Kapelowitz, Maurice Padawer, and Harry Gold
were partners in the Lecap Rainwear Company, 27 East 21st Street,
New York City, which company was dissolved in 1948.
HANS GERHARDT LUBSZYNSKI

was born 30 August 1904 in Berlin. He is the first cousin of Gunther
Lubszynski, who lives in Paris. His mother lived at "Les Terrasses,"
Territat, Laud, Switzerland. Before Melinda Maclean disappeared
behind the Iron Curtain, she reportedly was in contact with Mrs. Lubs-
zynski. Hans was a member of the German CP and was employed by
the Telefunken Company. A radio engineer, he arrived in 1934 in Eng-
land, where he was closely associated with Dr. Heinz Erwin Kallmann,
both as a business colleague and personal friend.
ROSE LUSCHINSKY
(nee Hepner) was born 20 January 1903 in Danzig. She became Swiss
by virtue of a sham marriage with a man named Reudi, divorced him,
and married Dr. Heinz L. Luschinsky.
She and Rachel Duebendorfer, nee Hepner, her sister, made their
way together from Poland through Germany to Switzerland; both
erased the traces of their origin and their activity on behalf of Moscow
by contracting mock marriages.
Luschinsky has a medical background, and in 1937 she was on the
medical faculty of the University of Paris. In 1938 she took part in the
Spanish Civil War and was with the French Army in North Africa in
1939.
ANTONIA LYON-SMITH
(alias Marie Cormet, alias Antoinette Savier) is the daughter of an
English brigadier and reportedly a distant relative of the British royal
family. She was born 20 September 1925 in Toronto and is a British
subject.
A cousin of Ruth Peters, who became Jean Claude Spaak's second
wife, Lyon-Smith resided in France during World War II and was
acquainted with Claude Spaak, who procured false papers for her.
She was arrested by the Germans on 21 October 1943 and there-
after became the mistress of Karl Gagl, a member of the Sonderkom-
mando.
With respect to Antonia Lyon-Smith, Pannwitz writes as follows:
Antonia Lyon-Smith lived in my villa with the Kom-
mando, sharing a room with one of the secretaries for
more than three months. I did not allow her to be
brought to court, as stated above, because she would
have received a fairly severe sentence for helping the
enemy. Purely humane motives lead me to arrange
this, without Berlin's knowledge but with the appro-
val of the head of the military court which was han-

dling all Rote Kapelle cases. My motions were in-
spired, by neither an effort to obtain Lyon-Smith's
collaboration in an espionage operation nor by a sex-
ual interest in her. She had become involved in the
war machine through an unfortunate series of circum-
stances, and as the daughter of an English general, she
simply could not refuse to do whatever was asked of
her to assist, allegedly, the Allied cause. Her relatives
in Paris with whom she lived were extremely bitter
and filled with hatred (presumably against the Ger-
mans). She, on the other hand, did not share their bit-
terness, although they did not conceal their feelings
from her. She ate breakfast every morning with me
and those of my staff who worked most closely with
me. I undertook various psychological tests to deter-
mine exactly what her attitudes and feelings toward
Moscow were. By instinct she was definitely hostile to
the Soviets. She had never known the true nature of
the group she met through Mme. Spaak. I once of-
fered, joking but pretending to be very serious, to have
her put over the Spanish border so that she could

report to the English Consul in Spain, who would ar-
range for her transportation back to England. She
begged me not to do this because, she said, she would
immediately be imprisoned in England as a German
spy; no one would believe the truth. I then asked her if
she would report what good treatment she had re-
ceived in my Kommando. She replied that she would
certainly not make any such report during the first
three years because she would be imprisoned if she

did. I released her to her relatives toward the end of
1943 or early 1944 on her word of honor that she
would not leave Paris. We checked on her regularly,
and I know that she kept her word. She had made such
a good impression on me that I never doubted that she
would keep her word. We left her in Paris when we
withdrew. She is reported to have been treated much
worse by her own people than by us, the enemy. There
were various indications of this. Later in Berlin I ex-
plained the entire case and was never reprimanded for
my actions.
MIKHAIL MAKAROV
(alias Carlos Alamo, alias Chemnitz) was born 2 January 1905 in Len-
ingrad. He was a Russian national and had a Soviet passport issued 14
December 1933 in Moscow. He also had a Uruguayan passport issued
at New York 16 October 1936 in the name Alamo, born in Montevideo
12 April 1913. He was married to Alexandra Petrova, nee Firfarova,

but he lived with Suzanne Boisson, nee Schmitz or Schmidt, while in
Brussels. An engineer by profession, Makarov was a lieutenant in the
Red Army and received intelligence training in Moscow, with special
instruction in the preparation of false papers.
In March 1939 Makarov was sent to assist Trepper, travelling
from the USSR via Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Paris, where he was
supplied with false identity papers in the name of Alamo and given ten
thousand dollars. After Rajchmann's recruitment, Makarov was
relieved of the responsibility for producing forged documents and con-
centrated on W/T communications. He probably received training
from Wenzel. His cover was provided by Trepper, who arranged for
him to be placed as proprietor of the Ostende branch of the Excellent
Raincoat Company. He was directed to establish a transmitter in
Ostende, probably for communications with England. While in

Ostende, Makarov lived with Caroline Hoorickx, the wife of Guil-
laume Hoorickx. After the bombing of Ostende in May 1940, which
caused damage to the business premises, Makarov moved back to Brus-
sels. Trepper decided that Makarov was not qualified to recruit and
handle agents; so Makarov henceforth served primarily as the W/T

operator for the network. He succeeded in establishing a W/T link
with Moscow.
In the summer of 1941 Anton Danilov became an assistant W/T
operator in Brussels under Makarov. The transmitter was housed in
101 Rue des Attrebates, an establishment run by Rita Arnould and Jos-
efa Posnanska. The Germans arrested Danilov in the act of transmit-
tingon the night of 12-13 December 1941, and the next morning they
captured Makarov. According to Belgian police records, Makarov was
imprisoned at St. Gilles, sentenced to death, and executed at Plotzen-
see (Berlin) in 1942.
According to another report, Makarov had been sentenced to
death by a German was deferred
court-martial, but his execution
because he was a nephew of Vyacheslav Molotov. In August 1944
Francois Saar-Demichel of the DGER supposedly negotiated the re-
lease ofLeon Blum, Kurt von Schussnig, and Molotov's nephew from a
prison castle near Worgl, where they had been held.
It is probable that Makarov (alias Alamo) is identical with a
Makarov who entered Belgium for the first time 1 1 January 1934 en —
route for the United States —
under his own name, changed his identity
while there, and returned to Belgium five years later as Carlos Alamo.
CHARLES EMILE MARTIN

(alias Lorenz or Laurenz, Dubois) was born 29 July 1889 in Pet-
alias
rograd. He was a Swiss of Soviet origin and spoke fluent German,

French with a Marseilles accent, and Russian. He and his wife Elsa had
two children, Erich and Galja. He was an engineer and photographic
expert, supposedly from St. Croix, canton of Vaud.
Martin and his wife Elsa were RIS agents of long standing and
were almost certainly under NKVD control. He worked in the Far
East in China and Japan with his wife before the war. In 1939 he
entered Switzerland.
After the German attack, Martin with Moscow and
lost contact
worked through Louis, a former agent of his in
San Francisco, to re-
establish connections with Russia. In the summer of 1942 he was in
touch with Foote and gave low-grade intelligence on Western opera-
tions.
In July 1943 he refused a transmitter which Foote had been told to
give him. Foote thought Martin was an NKVD agent and not GRU.
He also suspected him of being a double agent on behalf of the Ger-
mans.
When Foote returned to Moscow, he was closely questioned about
Martin by an NKVD official who appeared to be going to Switzerland
to gain further information about Martin's activities.
Martin lived at 32 Chemin de la Fauvette, Chailly, near Lausanne,

and had a well-equipped laboratory in his villa. He had connections
with two sources of information in Germany whose cover names were
Barras and Lambert. Barras was in southern Germany. Both supplied
mainly information regarding troop movements and measures in
France. Martin supposedly had sources which extended to the French
Deuxieme Bureau. He also established a connection with Marius
Mouttet and acted as a go-between on this line.
ELSA MARIE MARTIN

March 1899 in Len-
(nee Maeder, alias Lora, alias Laura) was born 31
ingrad.She was the daughter of Bartholomeo and Marie Nuenuksela.
She married Charles Emile Martin on 31 December 1931. (Further
information about her appears in the sketch of her husband, which
precedes.)
According to one report Martin and Laura claimed they were
Swiss but both came from Russia. Before 1937 they had worked as
Soviet agents in Manchuria, where they made considerable money.
In 1937 they left Manchuria via Moscow, were "allowed out," and
then came to Switzerland.
In 1953 they were both still in Switzerland, though Russia was
bringing pressure to send them back to Russia. Laura had become psy-
chotic under strain and attempted suicide. The Martins were in-
vestigated by the Swiss and interrogated in 1955 and 1956. Reportedly,

they refused to talk.
On January 1956 Mr. and Mrs. Martin were sentenced to three

1 1
months' imprisonment at Lausanne. Afterwards, they were deported

to the USSR.
CHARLES MATHIEU
(alias Le Cousin, alias V-Mann Carlos) was a chief inspector in the Bel-
gian State Police. On behalf of the Germans he penetrated the Belgian
networks of the Rote Kapelle, supplying Rajchmann with false papers
for various members of the network. In July 1942 Jeffremov was

arrested at a rendezvous with Mathieu. Early in 1943 Rajchmanngave
Mathieu a reserve W/T set to be concealed in the latter's house. In
1947 Mathieu was interrogated by the Belgian authorities.
Mathieu's present whereabouts are unknown, but it is almost cer-
tain that Piepe's statement that Mathieu had been executed was
erroneous.
ANNA MAXIMOVITCH
was born 8 May 1901 in Tchernikoff, Russia, of Paul and Aglaide
Friedman. A Russian refugee and a nerve doctor, she was the un-
married sister of Basile Maximovitch. With the help of her brother she
directed a clinic at Choisey-le-Roi and later established a camp at
Vernet, near the Pyrenees. Her father was a Czarist general, and Anna
was Russian and Czarist.
a real
She entered France in 1922 and resided at 12 Rue de Viatau,
Colombes, and in the Chateau de Billeron at Lugny-Champagne
(Cher).
In 1941 Anna and Basile Maximovitch recruited Kathe Voelkner
for Trepper's service in Paris. Anna Maximovitch was arrested on 12
December 1942 and probably later deported and executed.
The Countess de Rohan-Chabot was a patient of Maximovitch
and was on very friendly terms with her. She rented the Chateau Bil-
leron,which she owned, to Dr. Maximovitch for a relatively low price.
The Rohan-Chabot family regarded itself as the future dynasty in Bre-
tagne, with the husband of the Countess as the pretender to the
throne. The husband was an active French officer and had contacts
with officer circles in Limoges. The Countess reiterated the statements
of monarchist French circles that with the approval of Marshal Petain,
France would again become a monarchy after the latter's death.
BASILE MAXIMOVITCH
was born 22 July 1902 in Tchernikoff, Russia. He was a civil engineer
and the brother of Anna. He arrived in France with his sister in 1922.
Reportedly he volunteered his services to Trepper and got the reputa-
tion of being the "Casanova" of the Rote Kapelle.
Margarete Hoffman-Scholz, who was secretary to Colonel Hans
Kuprian and also the niece of Heinrich Stulpnagel, Commander of
Greater Paris, love with Basile. Margarete gave him German
fell in
intelligence data. She became secretary to Otto Abetz.

Basile and Anna Maximovitch were very important to Trepper.
Basile, through Margarete, was at the heart of the Wehrmacht. Anna,

through Bishop Chaptal, was inside the Vatican. Anna wanted to poi-
son the German High Command with curare. Kathe Voelkner was a
friend of Margarete at the Chateau de Billeron. Kathe had been a
dancer recruited by Soviet intelligence. Basile proposed Kathe to
Trepper but did not know that she had already been recruited by the
Soviets.
Maximovitch was arrested with his sister on 12 December 1942
and was probably executed.
MARIUS MOUTTET
(alias Marius), a Frenchman, was a former Socialist Minister who took
refuge in Switzerland after the German occupation of France. He lived
in Montreux from 1942 His services had been recommended
to 1943.
to Moscow by his son Gustave in London.
He was a war-time informant of the Swiss group through Charles
Martin. His intelligence was passed by Martin to Foote for transmis-
sion to Moscow. Foote, as a Soviet Moscow instructions,
agent under
established contact with Mouttet through Martin, who posed as a Brit-
ish agent and deceived Mouttet. Rado dropped Mouttet, who does not
appear in the Rote Drei traffic after 1942.
After World War II Mouttet was a senior member of the French

Senate, and circa 1959 he became vice president of the Senate Commit-
tee for Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Armed Forces.
ANNA BARBARA MUELLER

(alias Anna, but not Rote Drei source "Anna" in the
identical with the
German Foreign Office) was born 9 April 1880 in Basle. A Swiss citi-
zen, she was at one time the proprietress of an appointments agency
and reportedly "the Burgess of Basle since 1920."
Mueller began working for the RIS shortly after the Russian
revolution, atwhich time she started helping persons cross the Swiss
border at Basle. In 1936 she was working for Maria Josefovna Polia-
kova, engaged in attempting to get Russian agents across the Franco-
Swiss frontier by obtaining false papers from the Swiss police officer
Max Habjanic. She also acted as a link between Robinson and Rachel
Duebendorfer.
Several of Mueller's relatives were implicated in the Schulze-
Boysen network in Germany. In 1943 she was enticed into Germany to
try to help her brother Hans. She was arrested, kept in custody, and
used in the interrogation of Robinson. The Germans sentenced her to
death, but the Swiss intervened, and she was given only a two-year
sentence. Liberated by the Soviets, she returned to Switzerland.
HANS MUSSIG
(alias Jean Varon, alias Rueff) was born 18 January 1904 in Mann-
heim, Germany. He was married to Use Bach. In February 1939 Mussig

was recruited by the French Intelligence Service. During the occupa-
tion he was surveilled by the Gestapo and was arrested in Grenoble.
Indicted for espionage, he was interogated thirty-five times by the
Germans, and in order to save his life agreed to collaborate with the
Sonderkommando.
Pannwitz explained to Mussig that the Germans had succeeded in
penetrating the French Resistance, and Mussig reportedly helped the
Sonderkommando in operating the Mithridate network for the benefit
of the Germans.
LEON NICOLE
was born 10 April 1887 in Montcherend, Vaud, Switzerland. He mar-
ried the sister of the wife of Dr. Mario Bianchi. In 1932 he was presi-
dent of the Swiss Socialist Party. He later became a prominent
member of the Swiss Labor Party (Communist). He maintained close
contact with Noel H. Alexander Rado, and Louis Dolivet. He
Field,
was also in touch with Rachel Duebendorfer. He served the Rote Drei
network as a spotter and recruiter. After World War II he maintained
open contact with the Soviet Embassy in Bern. In early 1952, however,
the Swiss Labor Party received orders from Moscow to expel him. He
died on 28 June 1965.
PIERRE NICOLE
the son of Leon, was born in Switzerland in 191 1. He served as a cut-
out between his father (and the Swiss Communist Party) and both
Alexander Rado and Alexander Foote. Pierre Nicole may have been
the alias Paul (not Paul Boettcher) who was trained as a W/T operator
but arrested in December 1943 before going on the air. This identifica-
tion, however, is far from firm.
ERICH NUTIS
(alias Andre) was born 16 December 1918 in Frankfurt am Main of
Russian refugee parents. His nationality was probably German. He

became a secretary at Simexco in January 1942. He was arrested in the
roundup of November 1942 and deported to Germany. In April 1945
he was released and returned to Belgium. His last known address was
Avenue de la Seconde Reine, Uccle (1947).
FRANZ OBERMANNS
(alias Eeriki Noki, alias Alex) was born 29 October 1909 in Elberfeld.
A German national, he spoke German, French, and His wife
Italian.
Alice, nee Ruesch, was born 27 November 1917.

He had received his intelligence training from the Red Army in
Moscow and arrived in Switzerland shortly before the war to reinforce
Ursula Beurton's network. He had a Finnish cover and passport as
Eeriki Noki, born 8 July 1906, in Somere, Finland.
After his arrest by the Swiss for carrying false documents, he was
held in a Swiss labor camp. The lawyer, Herzl Theodore Sviatsky, pro-
tected his interests and reported on his welfare to Beurton and sub-
sequently to Foote.
Repatriated to Germany in 1945, he was appointed a KPD offi-
cial in the French zone. In 1947 he visited Switzerland and sent a mes-
sage to Moscow through Sviatsky.
SARA HEYA ORSCHITZER

(nee Broide, alias Anna Mikler, alias Beila Yerushalmi, alias Luba
Alexayevna Brikson) was the wife or mistress of Leopold Trepper. She
was born in 1904 of Polish parents at Radzilficor, Poland. Trepper
first made the acquaintance of Orschitzer in 1924 while he was in Lem-
berg (Poland). She was then working in a chocolate factory and attend-
ing evening classes with the object of training as a teacher. She
remained in Warsaw emigration in 1924 but subse-
after Trepper's
quently followed him She arrived there in 1925 as a
to Palestine.
domestic servant. In Poland she had been active in Jewish leftist cir-
cles, and she was in complete sympathy with Trepper's political views.
In Palestine in February 1927 she took part in an illegal Communist

demonstration, was arrested, and served two months in prison. In June
1928 she was again arrested while soliciting funds for the Interna-
tional Red Air and served a further prison sentence in Jaffa. Trepper
and Orschitzer probably began living together as man and wife in
Palestine in 1927 or 1928. She was subsequently recommended for
deportation; but on 7 July 1929 she announced her marriage to Josef
Orschitzer, a Palestinian citizen, with the result that the deportation
order was stayed. During 1929 she was reportedly active as an illegal
Communist worker under the name Beila Yerushalmi, but she evaded
arrest. In 1930, in the name Orschitzer, she applied for and received a
Palestinian passport in order to travel abroad for her health. In the

summer of 1930 Trepper and his wife arrived in Paris together. In
April 193 1 their elder son was born. A birth certificate provided by the
hospital was not registered was registered later in
in France, but it
Moscow. In 1931 Orschitzer returned and resumed her

to Palestine
Communist activities. In November 1933 she was again arrested and
sentenced to two months' imprisonment. An attempt was then made
to set her Palestinian citizenship aside on the grounds that she had
been continuously engaged in seditious activities and that she had
never lived with or been supported by her nominal husband. The
application failed because there was no method of revoking a wife's
citizenship independently of that of her husband.
Orschitzer probably rejoined Trepper early in 1934 in Moscow
where he was undergoing intelligence training. Orschitzer herself
attended Kumns University for a year and also attended a school of
languages to learn French. In 1936 she gave birth to a second son.
In March 1939 Orschitzer, using the alias Anna Mikler, a Cana-
dian national, accompanied Trepper to Belgium. She was aware of
Trepper's intelligence activities and assisted him in them. In August
1940, following the German invasion of Belgium, she returned to
Moscow. She took with her the younger son. The other boy had been
left in Moscow to continue his schooling. Orschitzer reportedly wel-
comed Trepper on his rerurn to Moscow in April 1945. He apparently
showed a great deal of pleasure in the reunion, bringing her a present
from Cairo, where the plane had stopped en route.
An unconfirmed report states that Orschitzer "divorced" Trep-
per some time after 1945, when she learned the circumstances of his
relationship with Georgie de Winter.
GENERAL HANS OSTER

was Canaris' deputy, a key figure in the twentieth of July group. Gen-
eral Oster's story hasappeared in several published works. Although
Rudolf Roessler did not name Oster or identify him correctly, it seems
likely that it was Oster whom Roessler had in mind when he divulged
the identities of certain principal sources, as recounted in the body of
this study.
JEAN OTTEN
was recruited by Elizabeth Depelsenaire in 1940 or 1941 for Com-
munist or partisan activities in Belgium. He and his wife Jeanne, nee
Wynants, were part of the group responsible for the provision of safe-
houses for agents. In June 1942 he was involved in the arrangements

forJohn Kruyt's protection. Arrested 13 July 1942 after Kruyt's cap-
ture, he was imprisoned at St. Gilles, Brussels; but on 31 December
1942 he was released on payment of one hundred thirty thousand Bel-
gian francs. He was re-arrested 2 October 1943 and taken to Fresnes
Prison, Paris. In November 1943 he was sentenced to three years in
prison and was deported to Germany.
Otten was born 3 June 1911 in Koekelberg. By occupation he was
a salesman.
According to a I960 NATO Special Committee Report, Otten
and his wife were residing at 108 Avenue Brigade Piron, Molenbeck-
St. Jean. The report states: "The Ottens can be regarded as having
abandoned intelligence work owing to all the misfortunes they have
experienced and their bad state of health."
JEANNE OTTEN
(nee Wynants) was born 23 October 1914 at Molenbeck-St. Jean, Bel-
gium. She is the wife of Jean Otten. Jeanne Otten, like her husband,
was recruited by Elizabeth Depelsenaire to provide safehouses for the

Jeffremov network. In June 1942 she was involved in the arrange-
ments made for John Kruyt's welfare. With her husband she was
arrested by the Germans 13 July 1942. She was interned at St. Gilles
Prison but was released 28 August 1942 on the payment of fifty thou-
sand Belgian francs. She was re-arrested by the Gestapo 2 October
1943 and was taken to Fresnes Prison, Paris. She was sentenced to
death 3 November 1943 and was deported to Germany. She was subse-
quently liberated by the Allies.
Jeanne Otten at one time was a secretary for Phillips Radio Com-
pany in Brussels.
According to a I960 NATO Special Committee Report, Jeanne
Otten was then living with her husband at 108 Avenue Brigade Piron,
Molenbeck-St. Jean.
MAURICE PADAWER
(alias Moses Meier Padawer) was born 5 November 1897 at Mielic,
Poland. He is a U.S. citizen and the husband of Theresa, nee Kapelo-

witz.
Padawer became Belgium firm, the Excellent
a director of the
Raincoat Company (Le Roi du Caoutchouc) in 1924, and in 1938 he
was a director of its subsidiary, the Foreign Excellent Raincoat Com-
pany, used by Trepper for cover purposes. In the summer of 1940 he
—
fled to France, later returning to Belgium. In March 1941 he returned

to France, and from there he went a year later to the United States.
During the war Sukolov used Padawer to send money to Margarete
Barcza's mother, who was living in New York.
Padawer was the subject of an investigation in the United States,
and pertinent excerpts from a report dated March 1951 follow:
The Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company was es-

tablished in Belgium in 1938. This company had a net-
work of outlet stores throughout Europe which were
set up as fronts for members of a Soviet espionage
network described by the Germans as "Rote Kapelle."
On 20 September 1950 Maurice Padawer's wife was

interviewed in New York. She reported that Subject
(Maurice), Adolph Lerner —
aka Abraham Lerner
and Louis Kapelowitz, all brothers-in-law, had orga-
nized the firm, Le Roi du Caoutchouc, in 1924 in
Brussels, Belgium. Mrs. Padawer stated that the Sub-
ject (Maurice) presently holds the position of office
and manufacturing manager of Le Roi du Caoutchouc
and that this makes it necessary for him to spend con-
siderable time in Belgium. She further advised that
Subject had no investments of any type in the United
States at the present time.
Maurice Kapelowitz, Adolph Lerner, Maurice Pada-

wer, and Harry Gold were partners in the Lecap Rain-
wear Company, 37 East 21st Street, New York City,
which company was engaged in the manufacture of
raincoats Kapelowitz, Lerner, and Padawer were
. . .
all brothers-in-law, and Harry Gold was a cousin of
Maurice Kapelowitz.
On 15 August 1950 . . . Harry Gold, official of Pago

Originals, Inc., 222 West 37th Street, New York City,
advised that he was a former partner of Maurice Pad-
awer and other relatives in the Lecap Rainwear Com-
pany which was dissolved in 1948.
Gold stated that he left the Lecap Rainwear Company

in 1946, later forming the Pago Originals Company.
He advised that Maurice Padawer had been at one
time associated with Pago Originals but had had no
connection with that company since December 1949.
The extent of Padawer's involvement in intelligence activities is
not known, but he probably knew or at least suspected that Grossvogel

was using the Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company as a cover for
Communist or espionage activities.
ARMAND PALIVODA
was born 28 September 1906 in Bedzin, Poland. He was director of
—
RKO in Geneva. He has two brothers Henri, a Swiss citizen; and
Josef, a U.S. citizen. His sister, Ann Palivoda, is married to Howard
Charles Newton.
Investigations of the Rote Drei disclosed that he was involved in
a transfer of funds from New York to Geneva for the Soviets.
Palivoda was denied Swiss citizenship because he was suspected
of being an MVD agent. He was also denied a French visa for the same
reason.
HEINZ PANNWITZ,
whose true name is Heinz Paulsen, was born on 28 July 191 1 in Berlin.
As a youth he belonged to the Evangelical Church, and he once studied
theology. He gave up his studies for the ministry because of divisions
in the Evangelical Church regarding its attitude toward Hitler. He is
married to Hannah Bailer and has four children.
In 1937 he was appointed to the criminal police services through
the influence of Martin Mauck, and in June 1939 he passed his examin-
ations and became a criminal police commissioner with the Berlin
Kripo.
In 1940 he was posted with the Gestapo, and in 1942 he was
responsible for investigating the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich
in Prague (27 May 1942). Pannwitz had trouble in the Heydrich case.
He allegedly told his superiors: "Do you want retaliation or do you
want the facts?" He was reportedly against retaliation and was trans-
ferred to the Finnish-Russian front.
For unexplained reasons he was transferred to Paris to take over
the Sonderkommando (a combined counterintelligence unit) in March
1943. He was in charge of combatting Soviet military espionage nets
in Western Europe. He commanded the Paris Sonderkommando until
the last days of the war. He claims that as a result of his work "the
entire Rote Kapelle network lay in German hands."
On 2 May1945 he became a prisoner of war, having surrendered
in accordance with Soviet orders, and was flown to Moscow, where he
was interviewed by Abakumov of Smersh. Victor Sukolov accompan-
ied him. Abakumov was not convinced that Pannwitz had the ability to
play back Soviet agents against Moscow for two and a half years. Other
Soviet interrogators later told Pannwitz that it was impossible to
believe that he had unearthed Soviet nets and doubled them. Accord-
ing to the Soviets, there must have been a German penetration of the
NKGB at the highest level. Pannwitz admitted he willingly became a
Soviet prisoner through his fear of what would happen to him if he fell
into U.S. hands.
Pannwitz was sentenced work
to twenty-five years in a Soviet
camp Eugen Steimle, who was once

but was released in 1954. Dr.
Pannwitz's boss, believed that Pannwitz was an RSHA penetration of
the Rote Kapelle. Steimle reported that Richard Grossman and Pann-
witz were brainwashed and given cover for future espionage on behalf
of the RIS.
Since his return to Germany from Russia, Pannwitz has lived at
23 Kreuzaecker, Ludwigsburg bei Stuttgart. From time to time he has
worked for West German intelligence services.
JEAN CLEMENT GHISLAIN PASSELECQ

was born in Mons, Belgium. Before the war he was a member of the
Rexist Party in Belgium. In March 1941 he became a registered share-
holder of Simexco, through his association with Nazarin Drailly. As a
member of Simexco, Passelecq became an active agent in the Sukolov
network, supplying military intelligence to Sukolov himself, to
Isbutsky, and He was probably assisted in his clandestine
to Drailly.
work by Jeanne Ponsaint.
his secretary,
Passelecq was arrested 25 November 1942 and deported to Ger-
many. In April 1945 he was liberated and returned to Brussels. He
tried to get in touch with Georgie de Winter in the summer of 1946.
Passelecq divorced his first wife, Madeleine, nee Marendaz, and
later married his former secretary at Simexco, Jeanne Ponsaint.
According to a I960 NATO Special Committee report, the Pas-
selecqs were then living at 120 Avenue van Volxem, Forest. He was a
travelling salesman. The report concluded that "No longer engages in
any activities connected with an intelligence service. Jean Passelecq
should be regarded as an anti-Communist."
MAURICE PEPER
(aliasWassermann, alias Hollander) was a member of the Belgian net-
work under Sukolov in 1940. He later became active in Jeffremov's
group, acting as liaison between Brussels and Amsterdam. Peper also
served as a cutout between Jeffremov and Rajchmann.

Peper was born 12 December 1899 in Amsterdam. He was Jew-
ish. Until 1940 Peper was a wireless operator for a commercial steam-
ship company. He was a member of the Dutch Maritime Union and

the then illegal International Seamen's Union. For the Rote Kapelle
his primary duties were as a courier and liaison man, but according to
one source he supervised three sending and receiving stations. Peper
worked closely with Wenzel, and it is possible that he was originally
recruited by him.
Peper was arrested approximately 25 July 1942 as a result of
information given by Jeffremov. Peper and Herman Isbutsky were in-
structed by Jeffremov to attend a meeting; and when they appeared,
they were arrested. Peper was induced to speak and revealed that he
was the liaison officer with a network in Holland and that he had a
rendezvous in a few days with the leader of the Dutch network, Anton
Winterink. He was therefore escorted to Amsterdam by a III F officer
(Henry Piepe). Peper was allowed to attend the meeting under close
surveillance, buthe did not meet his contact and returned. Further
interrogation of Peper showed that he was also in a position to get in
touch with the leader through a Dutch family, the Hilbollings. It was
decided to send him to the house of this family, which was also one of
his contact's cover addresses, so that he might arrange a meeting for
the evening. Peper went to the house and arranged a meeting for 8:30
p.m. in a restaurant. The meeting took place as arranged, and both
men were arrested. At the time of his arrest, Winterink shouted out a
name to acrowd which had collected, and it was clear that he had been
followed to the meeting and was thus warning off his followers. The
Hilbollings were then arrested.
After his arrest Peper also furnished to the Germans information
which led to the arrest of Augustin Sesee in early August 1942.
According to a I960 NATO Special Committee report, Peper was
living at 60 Lange Kievitstraat, Antwerp, with his wife, Clemintina
Pelagia, nee De Cock. His nationality was given as Dutch and his occu-
pation as waiter. The Belgian authorities had no knowledge of political
activity by Peper.
MARCEL PERRAULT
(or Perrot, alias Paul) was an agent in the Ozols network. He lived at
86 Rue du Cherche-Midi in Paris in 1940-1941. His present where-
abouts are unknown.
RENEE PETITPAS
(alias Blanche; alias Biquette, CP cover name) was born circa 1912.
She was in the Soviet Union in 1932 and had worked for the
French CP for some years before the war.
A French national, she had been recruited from the ranks of the
French CP by Robinson to serve as a link with the French CP sources
and to provide a safehouse for the accommodation of a W/T
transmitter.
She was an associate of Maurice Aenis-Hanslin. Her arrest by the
Gestapo at the beginning of 1943 followed that of Robinson.
PETROV
was a Bulgarian engineer and business contact of Grossvogel in Brus-
sels in 1940. In May 1940, through the Bulgarian Consulate, Petrov
obtained a car for Trepper to make a journey through Belgium, osten-
sibly on business. The real purpose of the journey was to collect infor-
mation on the German advance.
HENRY FRIEDRICH WILHELM PIEPE

(alias Harry, alias Dr. Pieper) was born 25 July 1893 in Uelzer, Ger-
many. a captian in the German Army, having been in com-

He was
mand Ghent under the occupation of Section III F of the Abwehr.
at
When on 10 May 1940 the Wehrmacht attacked the West, Piepe was a
lieutenant in the armored division. He fought at Verdun in World War
II.
In the course of 1941 a radio location service working in Berlin

reported the existence of a secret radio transmitter operating in con-
tact with Moscow. Around October or November 1941 Piepe was
ordered to take charge of the investigation in view of the fact that the
transmissions were originating in the Ghent sector. As a result of
Piepe's D/F activities, the Abwehr located the Soviet transmitter at
101 Rue des Attrebates in Etterbeek, and there Piepe in December
1941 found Sukolov's transmitter and arrested Danilov and Makarov.
Other arrests followed, including Johannes Wenzel.
Soon after the arrest of Wenzel, orders were received from Berlin
directing Piepe to turn over the case of the secret Soviet transmitters
to a Special Commission created in Berlin for this purpose, and soon
thereafter Karl Giering arrived in Brussels and introduced himself to
Piepe in the name of the Special Commission. Piepe was ordered to
give up the documents he had collected regarding the case, to maintain
contact with Giering, and to keep informed abc-it the affair.
According to Piepe, Wenzel was taken to Berlin and after a short

period of time agreed to divulge the key which he used to encode and
decode the messages. In the back traffic was a message to "Kent"
which contained Schulze-Boysen's address in Berlin.
Piepe reported that he was not ignorant of the fact that the Ges-
tapo made some of the captured radio operators transmit under con-
trol. He did not know a great deal about the controlled transmitters
managed by the Special Commission. Instructions in this regard came
exclusively from Berlin.
After the operations appeared to have been completed in Bel-
gium, the Special Commission was transferred to Paris. Piepe was sent
to Paris after the arrest of Trepper with the aim of attending the inter-
rogations as an observer. According to Piepe, Trepper quickly con-
fessed and agreed to reveal to the Germans all the details of his
organization. Based on Trepper's information many transmitters
were discovered, and most of Trepper's colleagues were arrested.
According to Piepe, Trepper was never incarcerated by the Ger-
mans. He was placed under surveillance by the Special Commission in
Paris. He was, however, authorized to take walks under surveillance.
Trepper had requested permission to have sexual relations with a
woman for his health. This permission had been refused, and one day
in the course of a promenade with Willy Berg of the Special Commis-
sion, Trepper disappeared. A few days later he wrote to Berg explain-
ing that he had fled because they would not allow him to have relations
with a woman.
Piepe has furnished the American services with detailed infor-
mation concerning his investigation of the Rote Kapelle, but what he
has said does not coincide with what he reportedly told Perrault. Per-
rault attributes much of his information to a non-existent Franz
Fortner, a former Abwehr official, who is surely Piepe.
JOHANN PODSIADLO
was born 8 January 1894 at Danzig. He was an artist and art teacher.
He was Kathe Voelkner's lover.
Podsiadlo was almost certainly aware of, and implicated in, the
work of his mistress for Trepper's organization in Paris.
A German national, he was employed as an interpreter in the
labor recruiting section of the German Kommandantur in Paris.
He resided with his mistress at 5 Impasse Rolleboise, Paris. The
Gestapo arrested him on 13 January 1943, and he was later executed.
An Abwehr report dated 19 January 1943 states as follows:
Podsiadlo, the Reich's German who fled, was dis-

covered in a cafe on 13 January 1943 and arrested. To
date, he denies that he betrayed his country inten-
tionally . (he) admits the charge of having seen the
. •
typewriter of his mistress Voelkner in their common

dwelling . . . He also admits that on the request of his
mistress he stole blank forms from his German office
and handed them to her.
YVONNE CLEMENCE FANNY POELMANS

(alias Mouni) worked in a minor capacity for Jeff remov's group in Bel-
gium, under the direction of Germaine Schneider, by whom she was

recruited.
Yvonne Poelmans was born 21 November 1910 in Ixelles. She
was gymnast and masseuse. Following Germaine Schnei-
a qualified
der's escape into France in June or July 1942, Yvonne Poelmans shel-
tered Joseph Blumsack and his wife, Renee, also agents of Germaine.
She was arrested 7 January 1943 at the same time as the Blumsacks.
Detained in Mauthausen Concentration Camp, she was later trans-
ferred to Belsen, where she died.
Poelmans and the Blumsacks were betrayed by Franz Schneider,
who revealed to the Germans where they were hiding.
MARIE JOSEFOVNA POLIAKOVA

had the code names "Gisela," "Mildred," "Vera," and "Meg." She
appears in the Rote Drei traffic as "Vera." She was an RU officer who
played the principal role in organizing the network in Switzerland
before World War II.
She was born about 1910 of Russian Jewish parents. Her place of
birth is not in our records. Her father served for years as a representa-
tive of the People's He worked in
Commissariat for Foreign Trade.
various European countries, including England, Germany, and France.
She lived abroad with her family. She acquired a knowledge of foreign
countries and languages; she was fluent in English, German, and
French.
In 1931 the Central Committee of the Komsomol recommended
Poliakova to Soviet Military Intelligence. She attended the Higher
Intelligence School of the RU on Arbatskaya Ploschad in Moscow. The
course lasted nine or ten months. One of her classmates was Ivan Alek-
seyevich Bolshakov, who had been taken into the RU about 1935 or
1936. They became close friends, and perhaps more than friends.
She spent much time abroad in responsible assignments during

the 1930s. She was at one time an Illegal Resident from the Technical
Intelligence Unit (which until 1940 was a part of Section I of the RU's
Office of Operations). As such she served in Switzerland and France.
She Germany and Belgium under
also served as the Illegal Resident in
the direction of Section I (Europe) of the RU.
About 1937 Poliakova returned from Switzerland to Moscow.
While in Europe she had had interests not only in Switzerland but also
in France and possibly in Italy. Her connections in France had included
Henri Robinson, and in Switzerland her contacts had included Rachel
Duebendorfer, Anna Mueller, Selma Gessner-Buehrer, and perhaps
Julius Humbert-Droz.
Recalled to Moscow about 1937, Poliakova survived the purges;
but her father was liquidated. Her brother, who was studying at the
Zhukov Military Academy of Aviation, was arrested and may have
been executed. As a result she was embittered against Stalin's regime
and the State Security Service.
At an unknown than 1940, Poliakova mar-
date, probably earlier
ried a fnu Dobritzberger, a Hungarian Comintern agent who had
been active as such for several years. About 1940 he was transferred to
or recruited by military intelligence and was placed in the Special
Duties Section (Section V) of the Office of Operations. He had been a
leading member of the Schutzbund in Florisdorf/Vienna.
During the fall of 1940 Ismail Akhmedov arrived at RU head-
quarters and was made deputy chief of Section IV (Technical Intelli-
gence, Office of Operations, RU). Chief of Subsection I (Western
Europe) of Section IV was fnu Meleshchnikov. He was then on assign-
ment in Europe, and Poliakova was the acting chief. She was consid-
ered exceptionally able.
Early in 1941 Meleshchnikov left Moscow on another assign-
ment, and Poliakova was confirmed as the chief of Section I. Filip Ivan-
ovich Golikov had been appointed RU chief in 1940. He distrusted
old-line officers like Poliakova, who had been recruited in the time of
General Ian Berzin and who had served under Uritski, Yezhov, and
Proskurov (who had been dismissed because of failures that occurred
during the Russian-Finnish War). Poliakova had been Proskurov's
closest friendand adviser. She was too useful, however, to be dismis-
sed. She gave RU training programs. She was said to know
lectures in
by heart the files of illegal agents all over the world who worked for
Section I (Europe), Section IV (Technical), and Section VI (Research,
Development, and Training). She also knew some of the files of Sec-
tion III (Far East and America). In 1940 and 1941 Akhmedov was her
superior officer.
Among Poliakova's contacts were the following: Akhmedov;
Andreyev, former chief of Section I; Aseyev, Boris Pavlovich, chief
engineer of the NIIS RU RKKA; Arshansky, Section IV officer; Ber-
zin, General Ian, former RU chief; Baranov, Petr Ivanovich, Section
IV officer; Bolshakov, Ivan Alekseyevich, chief of Section VI and later
of Section I; Golikov, General Filip Ivanovich, RU Director from 1940
to mid- 1942; "Hans," illegal agent at RU headquarters in 1941; Ep-
shtein,Commissar, officer; Keane, Dorothea,
later colonel, Section I
wife of Arthur A. Adams; Konovalov, Dmitri, chief of Section IV;

Krutikov, Aleksei Dmitriyevich, chief of Personnel Directorate,
NKVT; Kuznetsov, Chief of Section I after Andreyev; Malenkov,
Georgi; Mansurov, Section V officer; Melnikov, Section V officer; Mi-
koyan; "Papa"; "Pikurin"; "The Seven Brothers"; Shaw (Show,
Boyle); Vinogradov, Section VII, male.
In February 1941 Poliakova went to Riga to help one fnu
Arshansky, a case officer of Section IV, to recruit one or more agents.
Two Jewish names unknown, were recruited in Riga in early
girls,
1941 by an espionage agent named Arshansky. They were to be dis-

patched to New York by way of the USSR, Japan, and San Francisco. In
New York they were to work for alias Faraway. They spent a week in
training with Poliakova in Moscow. They were then dispatched,
although Poliakova had not completed her work with them, because
alias Faraway was expected to complete their training in the United
States.
autumn
In 1941 the deputy chief of Section IV (from 1940 to the
of 1941)was alias Pavel Petrovitch Mikhailov. (Comment: The true
name was something like Menshikov.) At the end of 1940 or early in
1941 he left for the United States. His work was taken over by
Poliakova.
At some time who in Moscow was the respon-
in 1941 Poliakova,
sible officer for the Rote Drei, went to Switzerland to deal with prob-
lems there. On her orders Rachel Duebendorfer was subordinated to
Alexander Rado. She inspected an agent net in Germany while en
route to Switzerland.
By 1944, if not earlier, Poliakova had been promoted from cap-
At the end of 1944 she succeeded Lt. Colonel fnu Artio-
tain to major.
menko an RU subsection working against Spain.
as chief of
Poliakova received Alexander Foote and Leopold Trepper in
Moscow in January 1945. She interrogated Foote and met him twice a
week until she fell seriously ill in April 1946.

She remained active in Department IV until at least 1953.
JEANNE EMMA MADELEINE PONSAINT

worked in Simexco beginning in the spring of 1941 as a secretary to
Jean Passelecq. She was actively engaged in intelligence activities for
the Sukolov group.

Jeanne Ponsaint was born 15 January 1921 at Ixelles. Before the
war she was a member of the Rexist Party. At the time of the general
roundup of Simexco employees in November 1942, she escaped arrest;
and from 25 November 1942 until her arrest on 11 December 1942,
she provided accommodation for Nazarin Drailly, who was also being
sought by the Gestapo. According to Perrault, she was arrested while
attempting to deliver a package to Drailly's wife, who was in prison.
Jeanne Ponsaint was first detained at St. Gilles. In April 1943 she was
deported to Germany, where she was imprisoned at Mauthausen. She
was repatriated to Belgium 8 May 1945.
Jeanne Ponsaint is the authoress of a book,/^ Suis une Condam-
nee a Mort (I Am Condemned to Death).
In the summer of 1946 Ponsaint attempted to contact Trepper's
mistress, Georgie de Winter.
was the wife of Jean Passelecq, for whom she
In I960 Ponsaint
had worked at Simexco in 1941-1942, and they were living at 120
Avenue van Volxem, Forest.
LOUISE MARIE PAULINE PONSART

(nee Houvenaeghel) was born 23 January 1907 in Ixelles. From the
spring of 1941 until July 1942 she was employed as a secretary at
Simexco. There is no evidence that she engaged in intelligence activity.
Louise Ponsart was arrested 25 November 1942 during the gen-
eral roundup of Simexco employees. She was imprisoned in Brussels
but was released 16 April 1943.
Louise Ponsart is not identical with Jeanne Ponsaint, another
secretary at Simexco during the same period.
SOFIE or JOSEFA POSNANSKA or POTZNENSKA

(alias Anna Verlinder, alias Annette, alias Sara)was a Jewess from
Poland who worked for Trepper in Paris in 1940 and 1941. She may
have received training in cryptography in Moscow before the war. In
October 1941 she was sent to Brussels to serve as an encipherer for
Makarov. She was escorted across the Franco-Belgian frontier by Mai-
vina Gruber. Posnanska lived with Rita Arnould at 101 Rue des Attre-
bates, where Makarov's transmitter was housed.
Sofie Posnanska was arrested the night of 12-13 December 1941.
She committed suicide in St. Gilles Prison, Brussels, in September
1942.
According one report Sofie had a husband, Joseph Posnanska,
to
who was a member of the Lyons group of the Rote Kapelle under the
direction of Isidore Springer. Joseph Posnanska was reportedly
arrested in November 1942.
MARCEL PRENANT
French biologist and Communist leader, was born circa 1893. A well-
known political agitator in France, he was a member of a Bolshevik
group of Bessarabian emigres. Subsequently he became a professor at
the Sorbonne in Paris.
In 1933 he was associated with anti-Fascist congresses and other
left-wing movements. In 1940 he was staff officer in the French army
and subsequently a Franc-Tireur in the French resistance. Arrested
by the Gestapo in February 1944, he was deported to Neuengamme,
Germany, in June. In 1945 he was a deputy member of the Central
Committee of the French CP.
Prenant was a friend of Jacques Soustelle, who was attached to
de Gaulle's staff in England.
OTTO PUENTER
(alias Pakbo, aka Dr. Otto) was born 4 April 1900 in Staefa to Gott-
fried and Maria Bangerter. He is a Swiss citizen. A lawyer and jour-
nalist (head of INSA Press and Agence Puenter) and very wealthy,
he is married to Giacomina-Martina Neuroni.
As Pakbo he headed a Rote Drei group consisting of Salter,
Long, and a clandestine Communist organization in southern Ger-
many known as "Rot." He had liaison with the Swiss General Staff
(probably General Masson).
Most of Puenter's traffic was sent to Moscow through Bolli, for
whom he provided the bail when she was arrested.
At the time of Foote's arrest, Puenter was preparing to have his
own transmitter under Bourgeois. Upon Rado's departure for France,
he is thought to have taken over the Swiss net and allegedly trans-
mitted a message from Rado to Moscow after Foote's arrest, using
the Chinese MA in Bern.
Puenter is an accredited parliamentary reporter for the left-
wing of the Socialist Party, writing reports from the Bundeshaus for
Volksrecht and other papers.
Puenter has published articles about Soviet wartime espionage
in Switzerland, has granted a number of interviews, and has
appeared on Swiss television. His version of events magnifies his
own role and seriously distorts the record. He has not even told the
truth about his code name. He has ascribed its origin as an anagram
of the first letters of towns in which he had networks of sources,
whereas Rado has described Pakbo as a phonetic form of paquebot
(steamship), a name given Puenter because he was fat. Puenter's per-
sistent muddying of the waters appears to serve Soviet purposes as
well as his own.
HERMINA RABINOWITCH,
a Lithuanian Jewess, was born 5 October 1890 or 5 October 1891 in
Kaunas, Lithuania. Her name also is spelled Germina Rabinowitz,
Rabinovitch, Rabinowicz, and Rabinovicius. She has used the alias of
"Hermann." She is the daughter of Ephraim Rabinowitch and
Sophia Trachtenberg. Her father was a wealthy gynecologist who
died in a German concentration camp.
Her sister, Larissa, is the wife of Miguel de Echegary, a Spanish
diplomat who was once assigned in Washington, D.C.
Rabinowitch was seriously crippled in both legs by
as a child
infantile paralysis.She walks with the aid of two canes. About 5 feet
tall with brown eyes, dark hair, fair skin, and a stout build, she is
morbidly introverted and emotionally unstable. She speaks fluent

Russian, French, German, and English. She has a Ph.D. in economics
and social science from Heidelberg. She also has studied economics in
Paris and Geneva. She is unmarried.
Paul Massing recalled the name of Rabinowitch, a crippled
woman who used crutches and worked for the Soviet Trade Delega-
tion in Berlin in late 1929 or 1930.
From 1929 to 1940 she was employed as a research assistant in
the ILO, Geneva, and was an intimate friend of Rachel Duebendorfer
and Paul Boettcher. In 1927 she visited Moscow and was probably
interviewed by GRU officials.
On 21 August 1940 she Geneva by car for Barcelona and Lis-

left
bon and sailed from Lisbon to New York in September 1940. From
1941 to 1945 she was employed in the ILO, Montreal, paying fre-
quent visits to New York.
The publicity she received as the result of the Gouzenko disclo-
sures has been described in detail in Dallin's book. Dallin's version of

Rabinowitch's role in the Corby case, however, may not be com-
pletely accurate. He has written:
Even after the Director authorized the funds, the

mighty apparat could find no better way to transfer
the money to Switzerland than through the amateur-
ish Hermine. It was July 1944 before Hermine finally
received $10,000, which she handed over to William

Helbein. It was not until 3 November (approxi-
mately a year after the urgent request had first been
made) that the Helbein's branch in Geneva paid
28,000 Swiss francs to the Soviet network.
As a result of the Corby case, the ILO asked Hermina to resign.

She had to leave Canada. After failing in her attempt to get U.S. citi-
zenship, she went to France, where in October 1947 she worked for
the Office Nationale D'Immigration in Paris. In May 1948 she was
working for the American Joint Distribution Committee, 118 Rue St.
Dominique, Paris.
On 4 April 1950 the French services advised her orally that her
papers were no longer valid in France, and on 7 September 1950 she
and Norman Stein were deported from France. They went to Israel.
In 1959 it was learned that Rabinowitch was using the Hebrew
name Hermina Ron and was then employed in the Beilinson Hospi-
tal, Petahtkva, Israel, and resided in the same town. Reportedly, she
led an extremely secluded life in Israel but managed to travel fre-

quently to Europe to visit friends.
Among her contacts have been:
Charles Becker, an employee of the Economic Section of ILO,
Geneva. He is the "Confiseur" (alias Kuchenmann) of the Rob-
inson case. Robinson sent "Confiseur's" address in Mendoza,
received from Rachel Duebendorfer, to Moscow. Since 1940 he
has been in Argentina.
Itshak Cysin, born 16 December 1885 in Russia. A businessman,
he resides in Israel and has made frequent trips to France and
the U.S. He is a cousin of Esther Glickman, 131 Boulevard
Brune, Paris, the address given for Cysin in the address book of
Jacob Albam.
Jacques Sherry, owner of the Compass Travel Bureau.
Marie Ginsberg, who attempted to contact Abramson and Ra-
binowitch in Paris in 1949.
George Rabinowitch, who lives in South America. He is a cousin
of Hermina.
Otto Stein, Vice Director of ILO; probably a relative of Norman
and Ronald Stein.
Leon Steinig, U.S. citizen since 1948. From 1926 to 1930 he was
with ILO, Geneva. He, his wife, and Hermina were frequent
guests at the home of Dr. Ludvik Vitold Rajchman, a suspected
Soviet agent.
Lydia Zagorsky, a good friend of Hermina. She lived with the
Boris Pregels in New York.
Leon Jouhaux, the veteran trade union leader and president of
the Economic Council who intervened for Abramson, Rabino-
witch, and Norman Stein.
Joseph Haden, former OSS employee and later interpreter at
the UN. He worked at ILO, Geneva, and was suspected of
being a Communist. He is known to have been a close friend of
Abramson and Rabinowitch, particularly the latter, who was
frequently a guest at his home in Montreal and, in fact, lived
there for a while.
ALEXANDER RADO
was born in Ujpest, Hungary, on 5 November 1899. A Hungarian
Jew, he was the oldest child of Gabor and Malvina Rado. His father
was a wealthy merchant and prominent figure in Budapest. The son
has used the aliases of Dr. Sandor Rado, Weber, Ignati, Koulicher,
and Dr. Schmidt. His radio names in Rote Drei traffic were Dora, an
obvious anagram, and Albert.
He who was probably an agent of
has a brother, Francois Rado,
the RU in Budapest during World War II and who now lives in Paris.
He also has a sister, Elizabeth Klein, who now lives in Stockholm.
His wife, Helene Rado, nee Jansen, was an important Soviet
agent in her own right, and her case will be discussed separately.
They had two sons who now live in Paris. Helene died in Budapest
on 1 September 1958 and Rado married Erzebet Bokor in 1959.
While a student, reportedly a brilliant one, Rado became a
member of the Hungarian Communist Party in 1919 during the dic-
tatorship of Bela Kun. Reportedly Rado got to know Rosa Luxem-
burg and Karl Liebknecht, founders of the German Communist
movement, and through the influence of Hungarian and German
Communists, he went to work in the Secretariat of the Comintern
and became a friend of Zinoviev. While in Moscow, Rado met
Helene Jansen, who worked as a secretary for Lenin. The Rados were
married in Moscow in 1923 or 1924.
Rado studied geography in Jena, Germany; and while he com-
pleted his studies, it seems he received financial support from the
USSR.
The Rados made a trip to Moscow in 1931, presumably for
briefing and orientation. Upon
Germany in 1932, Rado
returning to
accepted employment as a geographer for the Almanac de Gotha in
Berlin, a position he held until 1933. On 28 March 1933 Rado
entered Vienna, after escaping the Nazi purge of Communists in
Berlin. On9 June 1933 he went to Paris with Kurt Rosenfeld and
established the Agence Impress.
In 1933 Rado was a member of the Communist group headed by
Willy Muenzenberg, and together with Dr. Kurt Rosenfeld, the late
Prussian Minister of Justice, Rado established an anti-Nazi news
agency under the name of Impress (Independent News Agency). He
was in touch with professors at the Sorbonne and also worked in the
Geographic Society of France.
In 1936, because Impress had not proved very successful, he
moved with his wife to Geneva and established Geopress, a news
agency which distributed maps and geographical data illustrative of
political and, later, military events. This business was very successful.
In Geneva the Rados lived at 113 Rue de Lausanne, and Geopress
was housed at 2 Rue Gustave Maymier.
From 1936 to 1943 Rado directed a Soviet intelligence network
in Switzerland. His activity during this period will be discussed
hereinafter.
In August 1943 Rado was warned by Dobrick of the impending
roundup by the Swiss police. From May to September 1943 Alex-
ander Rado is reported to have received ten thousand dollars from
Norman Stein, who is alleged to be a second cousin of Lazar
Kaganovich.
With his wife Rado arrived in Paris in September 1944 after
fleeing Switzerland to avoid arrest. Rado got in touch with the Soviet
Military Mission as soon as it arrived in Paris. Rado claims that he
approached the Soviet Mission with the intention of reporting, as
known to him, the condition of the organization known as the Rote
Drei in Switzerland. Rado was put in contact with Colonel fnu Novi-
kov, to whom he told his story; it was suggested that he go to Mos-
cow where a full inquiry could be made. He agreed to go, and
accordingly on 6 January 1945 he embarked on a Russian plane in
name of Ignati Koulicher. Also on

Paris with false papers under the
board this plane were Alexander Foote and Leopold Trepper, both
under assumed names.
During the plane trip Rado got into a conversation with his fel-
low passengers. As a result he decided to get off the plane in Cairo,
where he tried to commit suicide.
Rado was ultimately persuaded or induced by the Russians to

continue his journey and on 29 July 1945 finally left Egypt en route to
Russia accompanied by a Russian official.
In support of claims that Rado had actually been sincere in his

request for British aid in Cairo and that his turnover to the Soviets by
the British and subsequent forced transfer to the USSR were against
his wishes, there is considerable documentation available reflecting
extensive efforts on his own part, and on the part of his wife and
sister-in-law, to enlist help in his behalf. There is also evidence that
Mrs. Woolley, nee Jansen, wrote to the British Embassy in Moscow,
asking for intervention on behalf of Rado. Also available are copies
of Rado's will and his own letter of 1945 from Cairo, addressed to
Frederick Kuh, United Press correspondent in London, wherein he
made the following appeal:
Miss Martha Rajchman (now Mrs. Cranowski, aka

Czarnowski),who collaborated with me as a carto-
grapher, and her father, Ludwik Rajchman, would
help me if they were informed of my destiny and
whereabouts.
In his letter Rado provided Kuh with the Bethesda, Maryland,

address of Mrs. Czarnowski.
In 1946 Rado was sentenced by
a Soviet Court for treasonable
and everyone thought he had been exe-
activities against the state,
cuted. In August 1955 Helene was thinking of marrying a Swiss
named Alfonso Arnaud; but just before she could get married, she got
a message that Alexander was still alive and that "Grandfather has
confidence in him now and he will be sent West in six months."
Shortly thereafter, Rado appeared as a professor in Budapest, and in
March 1956 Helene joined her husband in Budapest.
As resident director of the Swiss network, Rado is said to have
held the secret Red Army rank of Major General. He was awarded
the Order of Lenin in 1943. The apparatus he directed the Rote —
—
Drei made significant contributions to the success of Soviet forces.
The hostile attitude of Beria may have figured importantly in
.
the handling of Rado's case. DuringWorld War II Beria sent his son
to Switzerland to work in Rado's network, a move intended to keep
young Beria from frontline army duty. The son, a playboy type,
wasted network funds, jeopardized security, and did no useful work.
Rado had him recalled to the USSR. Young Beria was eventually
killed while serving in the Red Army, and for this his father blamed
Rado.
A majority of the reports that deal with Rado since 1956 picture
him as a devoted Communist who goes out of his way to deliver map-
illustrated lectures on the spread of Communism, who teaches formal
university courses in Marxism-Leninism, and who zealously moni-
tors the political reliability of Hungary's younger generation of

cartographers and geographers. He has been the prime mover
behind the Bloc 1:2, 500,000 World Map program, and there are indi-
cations that he views this project as the crowning achievement of his
professional life.
Although he is now in his seventies, he continues to travel all

over the world in connection with his profession. He visited Mexico
City in 1966.
Alexander Rado's case is unique because he is among the few
living Soviet agents whose memoirs have appeared. They were pub-
lished in Hungary in 1971 and in the Soviet Union in 1972.
In an article entitled "Code Dora," by V. Chernyshev, special
Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent, dateline Hungary, 20 Febru-
ary 1968, Rado is identified as the "war chief of the Soviet intelli-
gence center in Switzerland, and presently a prominent Hungarian
scientist."
The last paragraph of the article included this praise for Rado:
The Rado group dealt much damage to the enemy . .
Soviet troops completed the job for which anti-

fascist intelligence agents fought. Europe was liber-
ated. Today, in recalling this, one must render what
is due to all those who did their part for the victory
over fascism.
HELENE RADO
(nee Jansen) was born 18 June 1901 in Frankfurt, Germany. As a
young girl Helene Jansen worked as a secretary to Lenin. She met
Alexander Rado in Moscow and married him there in 1923 or 1924.
Alexander Rado was a prominent member of the CP of Hungary in
1919, before and during the Bela Kun regime. Helene and Alexander
Rado are the parents of two sons: Imre, born in 1925; and Alexander,
Jr.,born 1930. Both sons are French citizens.

From 1933 to 1936 Helene Rado and Hertha Tempi, nee Som-
merfeld, worked for the Rassemblement de la Paix and for the Uni-
tarian Service Committee in Paris. She had been appointed by Noel
Field.
In 1936 Alexander Rado moved to Geneva, where he headed a
Soviet intelligence network in Switzerland. Geopress was his cover
for espionage work. Helene assisted him in this work.
In January 1945 Alexander Rado departed for Moscow, but
Helene stayed in Paris and continued to work for the Unitarian Ser-
vice Committee with Hertha Tempi. Helene also worked —
at some
point during her stay in Paris, and while Alexander Rado was in
—
Russia with Vladimir Pozner. They were close friends and had
been since their days in Germany and with Impress in France. Pozner
had worked with the maquis during the war and Helene, Alex, and
Pozner were together in the same resistance group. Helene trans-
lated some books for Pozner. They also published together and trans-
lated some German and French literary works. In 1948 Elsa Bernaut,
the former wife of Ignace Reiss, advised Paul Massing that she had
gotten a letter from Helene, who reported that Alexander Rado had
disappeared in Russia.
In 1949 Mrs. Rado lived with Johannes Adolph Holm in
Garches, France. Later she planned to marry Alfonso Bruno Arnaud,
a Swiss, but just before her intended marriage she was advised that
Alexander was still alive. She joined her husband in Budapest in
1956, where she died of cancer during the summer of 1958.
ABRAHAM RAJCHMANN
(alias Adam Kartenmann, alias Arthur Roussel, alias
Blanssi, alias
Fabrikant, alias Max) was born 24 September 1902 in Dziurkow, Po-
land. He was married to Esteva Fiedler, and Malvina Gruber, nee
Hofstadterova, was his mistress. Esteva Fiedler was born 28 Septem-
ber 1912 in Lodz; she died 6 June 1956 at Bordet Institute, Uccle.
An expert forger and engraver, Rajchmann had a long criminal
record. He had contacts in the Brussels and Antwerp passport offices.
Rajchmann admitted working for the RIS since 1934 or 1935,
and he had known Grossvogel since 1934. Grossvogel in 1939 intro-
duced him to Trepper, who took him over as forger for the Belgian
group. In the summer of 1940 Rajchmann fled to France, where he
was interned; but in September or October 1940 he returned to Bel-
gium on Trepper's instructions to work for the Sukolov group. Fol-

lowing Makarov's capture in December 1941, he was introduced by
Isbutsky to Jeffremov, for whom he obtained false papers. From
approximately the summer of 1941 Rajchmann had been in close
contact with the Belgian police inspector Mathieu, who was working
for the Germans as a penetration agent. Jeffremov was arrested in
July 1942 while attending a meeting with Mathieu. The meeting had
been arranged by Rajchmann. Rajchmann himself was arrested 2
September 1942. Willy Berg of the Gestapo stated that Rajchmann
immediately offered to cooperate with the Germans and rendered
Rajchmann was used with his mistress, Malvina
"excellent services."
Gruber, in penetrating and capturing further agents of the Brussels
and Paris groups.
In January 1943 Rajchmann was provided by the Germans with
false papers in the name of Arthur Roussel for residence in Brussels.
Rajchmann was arrested 23 July 1946 by the Belgian authorities and
sentenced by the Military Tribunal 18 February 1948 to twelve years
in prison for espionage. He was released 7 June 1956.
According to a I960 NATO Committee report, Rajch-
Special
mann was living at 32 Avenue Jean Voiders, St. Gilles. His national-
ity was given as "stateless." He was said to be suffering from heart
trouble. His occupations were listed as film operator, journalist, and
tailor. He had not been reported to the Belgian authorities for
further political activities.
JINDKICH HEINRICH "HENRI" RAUCH

was born 26 October 1891 in Vienna. He was a member of the
Sukolov group in 1940-1941 and may have continued to collaborate
with the survivors of the group under Jeffremov.
Rauch was married to Marie, nee Forster, formerly Friedrich,
born 23 July 1894. He had a step-daughter, Waltraud Heger, nee
Friedrich, and a step-son, Helmuth Friedrich. Rauch's mistress was
Renee Schwing, an employee at Simexco.
From 1925 to 1939 Rauch lived with his wife and children in
Aussig, Czechoslovakia, with a family named Singer. (Margarete
Barcza, nee Singer, the mistress of Sukolov, reportedly told Gilles
Perrault that Rauch had been
a friend of her family in Czechoslova-
kia.) Rauch, a Aussig for Brno 8 August 1938 after the
Czech Jew, left
annexation of the Sudetenland. As the Czech representative for the

Belgian firm "Poudrerie Royale de Wetteren," Brussels, he obtained
a visa for Belgium 20 July 1939. In September 1939 he was joined by
340 Personalities of uhe Rote Kapelle
his wife and daughter at 259 Avenue Albert, Forest. Rauch at this
time became active in giving assistance to Jewish refugees from

Germany.
Rauch was arrested by the Belgian authorities 10 May 1940 but
was immediately released. He left with his family for France to live
in the Czech colony at Ayde. At the end of September 1940 he
returned to Belgium, c/o Claesen, 108 Rue Rodenbeck, and began to
work for Sukolov.
At the beginning of December 1940 Rauch's wife and daughter
were repatriated to Prague.
In April 1941 Rauch became an employee of Simexco in Brus-
sels. In July 1941, however, he became associated with Guillaume
Hoorickx and Charles Daniels in a separate business at the same

address as Simexco —
192 Rue Royale, Brussels. This was probably
done at Trepper's direction to improve the cover of the group.
Early in November 1941 Marie Rauch, the wife of Henri, was
visited at Raudnitz, Czechoslovakia, by Sukolov, under cover as a hop
merchant.
In late 1941 Rauch obtained false documents from de Remaeker
for Danilov and other members of the network.
Pierre de Soete was an agent of Rauch and acted as a courier for
him to France.
Rauch was arrested with Hoorickx at Rixensart 28 December
1942. In April 1943 hewas transferred to Mauthausen, where he died
7 January 1944.
HEINRICH JOSEF REISER

was born circa 1895 and fought as a German soldier in World War I.
He was a POW in England. He became an engineer in North Ger-
many after World War I and at one time worked in South America.
Reiser was in line to replace Karl Giering of the Sonderkom-
mando in Paris in 1943, but Pannwitz arrived to replace Giering.
Reiser was then transferred to the Gestapo post in Karlsruhe during
the summer of 1943.
Reiser and Piepe arrested Robinson. In the interrogation of
Robinson, the Sonderkommando did not want the Abwehr to learn
of the "Grand Jeu" and the meaning of the Funkspiel.
real
According to Pannwitz, "Kriminalkommissar Reiser was appar-
ently a typical Gestapo type, interested only in arrests and with little
or no imagination." Under Pannwitz the work of the Sonderkom-

mando entered a new phase and became more subtle, steadily
developing the political side at the expense of the operational.

Reiser is probably the author of a study entitled Rote Kapelle —
Ruckblich Auf Aufbau Organisation Taetigkeit Bis Zum Zusammen-
bruch 1945.
HENRI JOSEPH DE REYMAEKER

(alias Rik, aliasRik van Janneke) was an agent of Sukolov's network
in Belgium, supplying information chiefly on the Flemish Nazi
Party. In late 1941 he obtained false identity cards on behalf of Rauch
and Hoorickx for Danilov and other members of the network. De
Reymaeker was born 6 April 1907 at Tervueren, Belgium. In August
1942, after two earlier interrogations, he was arrested and impris-
oned by the Germans. He was released about eighteen months later.
In the summer of 1944 after the liberation of Brussels, de Reymaeker
was arrested by the Belgian authorities but then released. In August
1945 he was rearrested. In August 1946 de Reymaeker was again at
liberty, holding a post in the local administration at Schaerbeek,
Brussels. In I960, still a municipal employee, he resided at 9 Jezus-
Eiklei, Tervueren.
HENRI ROBINSON
was probably a German Jew and identical with Henri Baumann, born
8 May 1897 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. According to Gestapo
files,Robinson (whose name is spelled Robinsohn by the Germans)
was born in St. Gilles, Brussels. Among his aliases were Otto Wehrli,
Albert Gottlieb Bucher, Alfred Merian, Harry Leon, Giacomo, Alfred
Duyen, Harry Merian, Andre, Lucien, and Leo. His father was report-
edly David Robinson, born at Vilna, Russia; and his mother was Ann
Cerhannovsky, born in Warsaw.
He lived with Klara Schabbel during the 1920s and 1930s and
had an illegitimate son by her, Victor Schabbel, born in 1921 in
Berlin.
Reportedly he could speak fluent German, English, French, Ital-
ian, and Russian. He was about 5 feet 8 inches tall with a dark com-
plexion, black greying hair, a high forehead, deep-set eyes, a big
curved nose, full lips, wore glasses and pince-nez, dressed well, had a
quiet appearance, and frequently carried an umbrella and briefcase
under his arm.
During World War I Robinson studied in Geneva, and after the
war he was associated with the German Communist Willy Muenzen-
berg and the Swiss Communist Jules Humbert-Droz in the Interna-
tional Communist Youth Movement. In 1923 he was in charge of the

AM Apparat for military-political work in the Rhineland and chief of
the youth movement in the Ruhr. He was a member of the KPD and
in the 1920s made several trips to the USSR with Klara Schabbel. He
was also head of the Communist Youth International in the
Comintern.
In 1924 he was technical chief of the AM
Apparat for Central
and Eastern Europe, and in 1929 he was an assistant under the Rus-
sian General Muraille, responsible for the administration of the
Soviet intelligence services in France. In 1930 he became chief of BB
Apparat with the IV section of Red Army intelligence in France, did
courier work and acted as liaison officer among the Russian espio-
nage organizations in France, Switzerland, and the U.K.
In 1936 he worked with the Military Attache of the Russian
Embassy in Paris, and in 1937 he took over Harry II's networks in
England and France. In 1940 he was head of the AM Apparat for
Western Europe, and until his arrest by the Germans on 21 Decem-
ber 1942 he directed an espionage network in France.
Not much older than Trepper, he was already the assistant to
the chief of Soviet espionage in France three years before Trepper
came to that country to learn his business with the "Phantomas."
During the 1920s and 1930s Robinson had continued to improve and
increase the number of his contacts in France, while during thesame
period Trepper had lived in Russia and Belgium. Nonetheless, it was
Robinson who became a subordinate to Trepper, and not the reverse,
when war broke out.
Trepper belonged to Red Army intelligence, which was then in
the forefront, whereas Robinson was a member of the Comintern ap-
paratus, which had lost prestige, was suspected by Stalin of devia-
tionism, and was regarded by the young technocrats of the Center as
inefficient and soft. In ordering Trepper to join forces with the
Comintern group, the Director had warned that Robinson had been
in ideological conflict with the Kremlin, that he was politically
untrustworthy, and that he was suspected of being an informant of
the Deuxieme Bureau. Therefore, the order was to use him with the
greatest prudence.
General Sousloparov arranged a meeting between Trepper and
Robinson on the eve of "Barbarossa," the German attack upon the
USSR. (Actually "Operation Barbarossa" was the subject of Hitler's
directive ordering the attack. The directive was issued on 18 Decem-
ber 1940.) Hiding his bitterness, Robinson obediently turned his
French and Belgian agents over to the disposition of the Rote

Kapelle, giving the "Grand Chef" his roster of informants. Robinson
had then many good contacts French officialdom and sources in
in
the German High Command. His agents furnished Trepper with

detailed and precise information concerning the escape of General
Giraud, the Dieppe raid, the results of the Allied bombardments on
France, the preparations prior to the disembarkation of the Anglo-
American forces in North Africa, and other information.
Robinson did not always obey Trepper. After Hersch Sokol and
Johann Wenzel were arrested, Robinson refused to use his transmit-
ter to relay messages.
Trepper, according to Perrault, assisted in the arrest of Robin-
son in Paris. Apparently they disliked each other intensely. Trepper
thought that Robinson and the Comintern were amateurish and that
Robinson was poorly documented. Robinson was arrested by Reiser
and Piepe. In the interrogation of Robinson the Kommando did not
want the Abwehr to know about the "Grand Jeu" and the real mean-
ing behind the Funkspiel or radio playback.
Robinson's arrest probably resulted from information provided
by Trepper. Robinson, like Trepper, quickly agreed to work for the
Germans. But when Trepper escaped from the Sonderkommando in
June 1943, Robinson was rearrested and transferred to Berlin. His
ultimate fate is uncertain, but there are numerous reports that he is
still alive.
According to Horst of the RSHA, AMT IV A2, Robin-

Kopkow
son was held in France for months, was then transferred to Ger-
six
many for interrogation, and was finally brought before the same
court martial as was Schulze-Boysen. He was then condemned and
executed. Admiral Manfred Roeder, chief prosecutor at the Schulze-
Boysen trials, however, that Robinson was tried before a
believes,
Feldgericht in June or July 1943, probably in Paris. According to
Willy Berg of the Sonderkommando, Robinson, after his arrest, was
kept in Paris in a villa on the Boulevard Victor Hugo, where he
worked for the Sonderkommando, and it was through his efforts that
other Rote Kapelle agents were drawn in by the Germans.
Robinson's mistress, Klara Schabbel, was reportedly executed
with members of the Schulze-Boysen network in 1943. Their son,
Victor Schabbel, also played a role in Soviet intelligence in Germany
during World War II.
Although he worked under the name of Robinson in France, he

also made use of three Swiss aliases: Alfred Merian, Otto Wehrli, and
Bucher. The two identities belonged to real people. One of them,

last
on instructions from Karl Hoffmaier, a Swiss Communist leader who

was in touch with the espionage operation, applied for a passport
that he did not need. That was the passport Robinson used.
According to the French IS, Robinson's chief agent was Maurice
Aenis-Haenslin, a citizen of Gelterkinden, Switzerland, and director
of the Schauwecker Unipektin Company in Paris. The French main-
tain that the agent triumvirate of Hans Schauwecker, Maurice Aenis-
Haenslin, and Franz Schneider is still operating on behalf of the
Soviets.
At the time of Robinson's arrest the Germans found in his pos-
session four false passports and the famous "Robinson papers."
RUDOLF ROESSLER
(alias Lucy) was born in Kaufbeuren, Germany, of German parents
on 22 November 1897. (The frequent references to his alleged Czech
origin and links to Czech intelligence before World War II are false.)
He was discharged from the German army without rank or decora-
He went to Augsberg, where his family was then liv-
tions in 1918.
ing,and there he edited a newspaper for some ten years before
becoming general secretary of the Buehnenvolksbund (Alliance of
Stage People) in Berlin.
In 1933 he left Germany as a political refugee and moved to
Lucerne, Switzerland, where he founded a publishing company, the
Vita Nova Verlag, the following year.
In the summer of 1939 Dr. Xaver Schnieper invited Roessler to
work for Swiss intelligence. Roessler accepted on the condition that
the offer was official. Schnieper then turned to Captain Hans Haus-
amann, who headed an unofficial Swiss intelligence organization
known as the Buero Ha. Hausamann had ties to Brigadier General
Roger Masson, chief of the Swiss (military) intelligence service. Hau-
samann sent one of his people, Dr. Franz Wallner, to deal with
Roessler. (Later, in July 1943, Hausamann broke off his contact with
Wallner, whom he suspected of doubling for an unidentified service.)
At the beginning of 1942 Roessler complained to a Swiss cap-
tain of the general staff, Dr. Bernhard Mayr von Baldegg, that the
work for Hausamann was not very interesting. Von Baldegg was the
deputy to Captain Max Waibel, chief of Noehrichtenstelle I, who also
reported to Masson. Both officers paid him. Noehrichtenstelle I gave
him two hundred fifty to four hundred francs a month. The Buero Ha
gave him one thousand a month initially and two thousand later. The
RU also paid him, initially seven hundred a month but later three
thousand, supplied by Rachel Duebendorfer via Christian Schneider.
These facts and the radio traffic show that Roessler was mercenary.
A number of published accounts claim that Roessler was among
the Soviet agents who warned Moscow about the German invasion of
the USSR, Operation Barbarossa, before its launching on 22 June
1941. Both the Rote Drei traffic and such informed sources as Hans
Rudolf Kurz (Nachrichenzentrum Schweiz, Huber and Co., Frauen-
feld, 1972) have shown, however, that Roessler's first contact with
the Rote Drei network was made in the late summer or early fall
(probably September) of 1942, more than a year after the invasion.
The Czechoslovakian government-in-exile had in Switzerland a
representative named Karel Sedlacek (alias Simpson) aka "Uncle
Tom," who received information from Hausamann and sent it by
radio to the London Czechs. Sedlacek lived in St. Gallen in the home
of Hausamann's mother-in-law. He and Roessler were cronies, and it
appears that they exchanged information. Two years after the war
ended, Sedlacek reactivated Roessler as a spy, this time for the Czech
intelligence service. The Swiss arrested Roessler and his partner in
the undertaking, Xaver Schnieper, at the beginning of March 1953,
because this time Roessler had been operating without the knowl-
edge of the Swiss authorities. Roessler drew a sentence of one year.
Roessler's value to the Rote Drei and the Center in Moscow
derived entirely from his extraordinary sources in Germany. (In this
context the word his is misleading. It seems probable that the Ger-
man sources gave their information to the Swiss General Staff, which
in turn passed to Roessler that information which the Swiss wanted
to relay to the Soviets.) The key German sources were Werther,
Teddy, Anna, and Olga. They have never been identified definitively
—
The Swiss police almost certainly unaware of the relationship
—
between Swiss intelligence and Roessler arrested him soon after
the arrest of Eduard Hamel in October 1943. The reason was that
Hamel had had in his flat information supplied Roessler by the Swiss
General Staff. Roessler was arrested on 2 June 1944, along with
Duebendorfer, but was released three months later. He was tried
again on 23 October 1945 on charges of espionage but was acquitted.
He died on 17 December 1958.
ROSENBERG
is the name of a person who supplied false documents to members of
the Rote Kapelle in Belgium. In 1938 Malvina Gruber visited Ant-
346 Personalities ofahe Rote Kapelle
werp to get false passports from Rosenberg for Rajchmann. Rajch-

mann, in his statement to the Belgian authorities, indicated that in
February 1941 he received on several occasions from a person named
Rosenberg in Antwerp, on behalf of Makarov, blank identity cards
with seals attached, certificates of good conduct, etc. Rosenberg is
possibly identical with Victor Rosenberg, the brother of Lisa Zarubin
(alias Helen Zubilin), a known Soviet agent. Victor Rosenberg
worked for Ignace Reiss in a photo laboratory used by the Soviets. He
has been described as a "photographic expert."
HENRI MARCEL AUGUSTIN DE RYCK or RIJCK

became a shareholder in Simexco in 1941. He was
born 7 June 1910
at St. Gilles and by profession was an editor/publisher. In mid- 1942
de Ryck worked in Germany for six months. At the end of 1942, on

his return to Belgium, he was questioned by the Germans about his
part in Simexco and was arrested. De Ryck reportedly died in the
Mauthausen concentration camp.
AENNE SAEFKOW
(nee Thiebes), widow
of Anton Saefkow, was born 12 October 1902
in Duesseldorf.She was formerly the secretary of Ernst Thaelmann
and Heinz Neumann, former German Politburo member. She was in
Moscow in 1931 and was a prewar member of the KPD. She became
Deputy Mayor of Berlin/Pankow in October 1946 and was elected a
representative to the Volkskammer in October 1950. She was
reported in Neues Deutschland of 11 April 1953 as chairman of the
Prenzlauer Berg Council. In July 1954 she attended the World Con-
gress of Mothers held in Lausanne, Switzerland.
In 1946 Aenne Saefkow was associated with Professor Robert
Havemann and gave radio talks on the European Union. Professor
Havemann in 1947 occupied a comfortable apartment in the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institut Building in the U.S. sector of Berlin. Until 1933 he
was a research assistant at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institut, but at that
time, because the directors under whom he had worked were chiefly
Jews who were forced to leave the Institut, he too was required to
sever his connections.
ANTON "KURT" SAEFKOW

was born 22 July 1902 in Germany. He had once been a colleague of
Ernst Wollweber and engaged in illegal activities after the dissolu-
tion of the Communist Party in 1933.
In his book Out of the Night, Jan Valtin (alias Richard Krebs)
refers to Anton Saefkow as "Tonio." According to Krebs, Saefkow
was a member of the Spitzengruppe (leadership) of the underground
organization of the party in Fuhlsbuettel. Krebs first met Saefkow in
Fuhlsbuettel but knows he had been the illegal Bezirksleiter of the
KPD ZX and had been sent to Hamburg to organize the illegal party.
When Saefkow was arrested, he pleaded guilty immediately, knowing
that under the existing law he could not get more than three years. In
1936 Saefkow started the trend among Communists serving prison
terms to write letters to the Gestapo asserting their change of heart;
Saefkow himself wrote the first such letter, which was shown to
Krebs by Paul Krauss one day during interrogation. It stated that
Saefkow had broken with the Communist Party and would have
nothing more to do with such work. At about this same time Herta
Jentsch mentioned that Saefkow's wife had been sent to Moscow for
training at the Lenin School (three-year course). It had been Saef-
kow's wife who brought in the instructions from the outside to write
the letter to Krauss. She passed it to him from her mouth during a
kiss, just before she left Germany.
The B.Z. Am Abend, No. 213 issue of 12 September 1959, pub-

Anton Saefkow and his comrades, entitled
lished the recollections of
"Unconquered by Death" (Vom Tode unbesiegt) and featuring a
photo of Aenne and Anton Saefkow taken in August 1941.
Saefkow was executed by the Gestapo in 1944.
GEORGETTE SAVIN
(nee Dubois, alias Patricia Delage, alias Anne Marie Rendiere) was
born 21 November 1918 at A French national, she
La Boule (L.I.).
was married Henri Savin, a jeweler at Lyons. She was Mussig's

to
mistress, "Pat," and worked with him in the black market, dealing in
gold traffic. She was also involved with Mussig in his collaboration
with the Sonderkommando in its infiltration of the Mithridate net-
work. It was Georgette who assisted Moses Gatewood in crossing the
frontier into Spain.
RUDOLF VON SCHELIHA,

a German national, was born 31 May 1897 in Tessel bei Oels. A
cavalry officer, he received training as a diplomat and had a long
career with theGerman Foreign Office, including posts as vice consul
in Kattowitz, Counselor to the German Embassy in Warsaw, and
member of the German Foreign Office in Berlin from 1939 to 1942.
As early as 1934 von Scheliha was recruited into a Soviet espio-

nage network. Until his recall to Berlin in September 1939, he pro-
vided intelligence obtained through his position in the German
Embassy in Warsaw. In Berlin he was posted to the Information Sec-
tion of the Foreign Office. He continued to furnish intelligence
through a cutout to the Soviet Commercial Attache until the with-
drawal of Soviet representation in June 1941.
While in the Foreign Office von Scheliha joined up with Use
Stoebe, who was Rudolf Herrnstadt's mistress, and furnished intelli-
gence in return for money, some of which was deposited in a Swiss

bank for safekeeping.
He was arrested on 29 October 1942, shortly after Use Stoebe,
and executed with her on 22 December 1942.
As early as 1952 extensive investigation of von Scheliha's sister,
Renata Johanna von Scheliha, was carried out in connection with her
application for a position as librarian in the Office of the Surgeon
General, Department of the Army. When interviewed on 26 Septem-
ber 1950 in Cleveland, Ohio, Miss von Scheliha stated that the ten
thousand dollars credited to her bank account at the Guaranty Trust
Company in New York in 1939 was inherited by Rudolf and his wife
from Wilhelm von Medinger, father of Rudolf's wife.

Another source stated, however, that Rudolf's wife, Mary Louise
von Scheliha, and her brother, Dr. Wilhelm von Medinger, said dur-
ing March of 1952 that they knew of no inheritance left by their
father to Rudolf or to Rudolf and his wife. Both professed little
knowledge of Rudolf's financial affairs, and von Medinger stated that
all the family properties and wealth in Czechoslovakia had been lost
or confiscated.
Renata von Scheliha, born 16 August 1901 in Germany, was re-
interviewed on 16 May 1952 at her place of employment, the Army
Medical Library, Cleveland, Ohio. She was asked to furnish specific
details of herknowledge concerning the source of the ten thousand
dollars acquired by Rudolf and deposited to her bank account. She
advised that she had assumed that her brother had inherited this
money because it would have been impossible for him to accumulate
it from his salary in the German diplomatic service. She denied
knowledge of her brother's espionage activities and stated that the

ten thousand dollars was credited to her account by her brother.
There is a possible connection between the von Scheliha and
Rudolf Roessler cases through the person of Renata von Scheliha,
who had family connections among the German generals. She
resided in Basle before coming to the United States during the

summer During the years 1938 to 1940 the account of
of 1948.
Rudolf von Scheliha with the bank of Julius Baer and Company,
Zurich, showed various transfers of dollar amounts, including some
under the name of Renata von Scheliha through the Guaranty Trust
Company of New York. At that time Rudolf von Scheliha was a
counselor at the German Embassy in Warsaw.
Isidor Koppelmann, a wartime agent of the Polish IS who had a
small banking firm in Basle (IKAP, Internationale Kapital-Anlagen
Gesellschaft, Rittergasse 12, Basle) rendered great service to the Pol-
ish IS by obtaining high class military information from Germany.
There seems Renata von Scheliha, and per-
to be a possibility that
haps Koppelmann, worked through Roessler for the Russian IS.
Rudolf von Scheliha's brother, Ernst Guenther, born 16 Decem-
ber 1909 at Schlawe, a former captain and now lawyer, has been liv-
ing since March 1950 was probably engaged in
in East Berlin. Ernst
the agent activity of his brother; and his move from West Berlin to
the area of party favorites, Hohenschoenhausen, in which the MGB
has numerous support points and hideouts as well as special prisons,
was regarded as suspicious by West German intelligence (1955).
CHRISTIAN SCHNEIDER
("Taylor") was born 15 October 1896 in Schierstein, Germany. Ac-
cording to Foote, he was a German Jew by origin. His parents, Chris-
tian Schneider and Anna Schmidt, reportedly came from Zurich. His
whereabouts during the 1930s are uncertain.
For a number was employed
of years Schneider, a Swiss citizen,
ILO in Geneva. His address was Rue Carteret,
as a translator for the
and he also resided on Rue des Alpes, Geneva (1938-1940).
Rudolph Roessler ("Lucy") sought out Taylor because he
believed that through Taylor he could find a means to get informa-
tion to Moscow. Intelligence from Germany went to the Swiss, who
passed it to Lucy for transmittal to the RIS.
In a message dated 6 October 1943 from Moscow to the Swiss
group, the Director advised Taylor that he could probably be useful
after the war, and Moscow would guarantee his future as long as he
lived, through any bank in Europe or the USA. According to Foote,
Schneider gave up his job with ILO on the promise of a salary for life
from Moscow.
Schneider was arrested with Rachel Duebendorfer and impris-
oned during the summer of 1944 by the Swiss authorities because of
his activities in the Rote Drei case. It is reported that he served only
one month in jail for his conviction on security and espionage
charges. According to British sources, after his arrest by the Swiss he
is said to have talked.
The Rado papers found at Hamel's flat reflected that Taylor was
paid a salary by Rado from June 1942 to September 1943.
According to the Sauter papers, Taylor was a Soviet agent before
the war and highly valued Moscow, but
in after his arrest by the
Swiss he fell into disfavor and was probably rejected for any future
intelligence assignment.
In 1948 Schneider was employed by UNESCO in Paris, but his
whereabouts or activities since then are unknown.
FRANZ SCHNEIDER
(alias Niggi) was in contact with Henri Robinson in 1929 and was
probably recruited for Red Army intelligence by Robinson through
Konstantin Jeffremov in Brussels in 1936. He was probably less
important than his wife, Germaine, nee Clais, who was recruited at
the same time. Franz Schneider was probably used solely as a courier,
particularly to Switzerland. He is probably identical with "Chimor,"
Jeffremov's courier to Switzerland.
Franz Schneider was born 19 February 1900 in Basle and was a
Swiss citizen. In June 1920 he moved to Belgium from Switzerland.
He was probably already a member of the Swiss Communist Party. In
1922 he was employed as commercial traveler for the Societe Natu-
a
ral, Le Contre et Cie., Antwerp. In January 1925 he married Ger-

maine and with her travelled to Switzerland, returning to Brussels
that same year. They undertook to provide services for the Comin-
tern, for which they were recruited by "Leon," probably Leon Nicole.
From 1925 to 1929 they were active in the Belgian Communist Party
and the Comintern and provided safehouses for travelers. In Febru-
ary 1929 Schneider was expelled from Belgium because of his politi-
cal activities, but he apparently remained in Belgium illegally. In June
1929 he left for Zurich and returned to Belgium in June 1930. In

March 1931 the expulsion order was rescinded, and he was allowed to
stay in Belgium.
The Schneiders were recruited for Soviet intelligence in 1936. In
1938 Franz Schneider visited Henri Robinson's mistress, Klara
He may also have had contacts with the Schulze-
Schabbel, in Berlin.
Boysen group before and during the war. In August 1939 Schneider,
on an intelligence mission for Henri Robinson, visited the United
Kingdom under cover as a commercial traveler for Lever Brothers.

Schneider's contact in London was one "Adolf."
Jeffremov began to organize his network in Belgium in 1939,
and the Schneiders agreed to work under his direction. At about this
time Herman Wenzel began to live in the Schneider home and prob-
ably served as their chief employer under Jeffremov.
In the spring of 1942 Schneider delivered a W/T set from Ger-
maine to Augustin Sesee.
After Wenzel's arrest in July 1942, Schneider received a letter
from Germaine admitting infidelity with Wenzel; this was probably
a prearranged story designed to establish his innocence and to under-
play her responsibilities in the network. Schneider remained in Bel-
gium Germaine fled to France, and in July 1942 he asked his
after
friend, Ernest Bomerson, to hide Jeffremov in his house at 25 Rue
Alfred Orban, Forest. Jeffremov was arrested before he could move
to the Bomerson house.
Schneider was interrogated but not arrested after the capture of
Jeffremov. He somehow was able to find out that Jeffremov had
agreed to work with the Germans, and he sent a warning to Trepper.
Nonetheless, Schneider attended meeting arranged by Jeffremov in
a
November 1942 and was arrested. In April 1943 he was transferred

to Germany. He was released from Brandenburg Prison by the Rus-
sians in May 1945. He was suffering from lung trouble and was in
poor general health. Lever Brothers, his former employer, continued
to pay him a salary while he convalesced. Schneider joined his wife in
Switzerland in October 1945 and stayed with her until her death in
November 1945. He moved back to Belgium, and in the spring of
1947 he lived with Elizabeth Depelsenaire at Anderlecht, Belgium. In
June 1947 Schneider left Belgium to join his mistress, Depelsenaire,
in Neuchatel, Switzerland. Schneider and Depelsenaire were married
2 August 1947. In October 1948 Schneider was living in Zurich. He
was reportedly bitter about his experiences with the Russians, blam-
ing them for Germaine's death. In 1948 Schneider was in contact
with Maurice Aenis-Hanslin, a former member of the Rote Kapelle
in France and Switzerland.
According to a I960 report, Schneider and his second wife were
separated.
GERMAINE SCHNEIDER
(nee Clais, alias Pauline, alias Odette, alias Papillon, alias Schmet-
terling) was born in Anderlecht, Brussels, 17 March 1903. In 1925
she married Franz Schneider, and they paid a short honeymoon visit
to Switzerland. It was there probably that they were first approached

by the Soviet Intelligence Service, for whom they agreed to work.
From 1925 to 1929 Mr. and Mrs. Schneider took part in Belgian
Communist Party affairs. They were also concerned in clandestine
work for the Comintern, providing a safehouse for travelers.
From 1929 to 1936 they abstained from open political activity,
but probably in that year they were approached by an agent of the
RIS and were recruited for courier work in the Rote Kapelle
network.
From 1936 to 1939 Germaine Schneider was known to have tra-
velled as a courier to France, Holland, Switzerland, the United King-

dom, Germany, and possibly Bulgaria. From 1939 to 1942 she was
active for the Rote Kapelle in the Low Countries. She was Henri
Robinson's link to the United Kingdom. In 1939 she became associ-
ated with Johannes Wenzel, possibly as his mistress, and was trained
by him in W/T.
Germaine Schneider was the head of a sub-group in the Jef-
fremov network which included her sisters, Renee Blumsack, and
Josephine Verhimst; Renee's husband, Joseph Blumsack; Josephine's
lover, Jean Janssens; and Yvonne Poelmans.
Germaine Schneider was present at a meeting of Trepper and
Jeffremov in her house in Brussels in May 1942, at which time Jeffre-
mov was placed in charge of the remainder of Trepper's and Sukol-
ov's networks in the Low Countries. She then became a courier
between Jeffremov's organization and Trepper's network in Paris.
After Wenzel's arrest, she was able to convince the Germans that she
was not involved in intelligence activities. They released her, and she
immediately fled to France to give warning to Trepper. She worked
for Trepper in Paris during the summer of 1942, making occasional
trips back to Belgium. On one of these trips she learned, probably
from Rajchmann, that Jeffremov was working with the Germans. In
late August 1942 Grossvogel asked Rajchmann to procure false iden-
tity papers for her, but Rajchmann was arrested before delivery could
be made. In the fall of 1942 Trepper sent Germaine to join the

Springer network in Lyons. She was arrested while working for this
group in November or December 1942. She was sent to a concentra-
tion camp, from which she was liberated by the Russians in May
1945.
Germaine Schneider went to Zurich, where she
In October 1945
was joined by her husband. She died of cancer in Zurich 12
November 1945.
KURT SCHULZE
(alias Berg) was born 28 December 1894. He was a member of the
KPD at the end of the 1920s. A postal employee, he had a country
home in Berlin-Gruenau. He had been a radio operator in the Ger-
man navy.
Between 1929 and 1931 Schulze worked for the Apparat in AM
Brandenburg. Finally he was recruited by the illegal Soviet apparatus
USSR, and there attached to the radio network of
"Klara," sent to the
His liaison man in the Soviet commercial setup was
that apparatus.
Maschkewitsch, one of the bosses of the Klara-Apparat.
When he started to work for the Soviets, Schulze officially quit
the KPD. Later he was put in touch with the Rote Kapelle organiza-
tion and worked for it as an operator and trainer of future operators,
including Hans Coppi.
Schulze's wife, Martha, also belonged to the same circles. She
was sentenced at a court martial in January 1943 to five years in
prison.
Schulze was executed on 22 December 1942.
HARRO SCHULZE-BOYSEN
was born 2 September 1909 in Kiel, Germany, and was married to
Libertas Schulze-Boysen, nee Haas-Heye, born 20 November 1913.
She was the granddaughter of Princess Eulenberg, and her parents
owned an estate at Giebenburg where important Nazis were frequent
visitors. He was the grand-nephew of Admiral von Tirpitz and the
nephew of "Grande Dame" von Hassell, who was the wife of Ulrich
von Hassell, German Ambassador to Rome, born 12 November
1881, executed February 1945.
By birth and destiny Schulze-Boysen seemed certain to have a
grand career in the Air Ministry. He had a wide circle of important
contacts who were ideal covers for secret work.
He spoke Swedish, English, French, and German, and in 1939
he learned Russian. He had been a Communist since 1933. As a
member of the Jungdeutsche Orden, he was arrested in 1933, but his
family succeeded in procuring his release. In pre-war days Herman
Goering, who was a friend of the family, used to visit the house of
Harro's parents-in-law; hence his introduction into the Luftwaffe. At
the Air Ministry he was in charge of counterintelligence.
After his recruitment as a Soviet agent, he was told by Alex-
ander Erdberg to form an espionage network. Shortly before Erdberg
left Berlin in May or June 1941, he supplied Harnack and Schulze-
Boysen with W/T sets for the groups they were to run. Neither W/T
set worked, and Harro continued to send his intelligence to Belgium
via courier.
Harro was able to recruit his student, Horst Heilmann, a crypto-
grapher in the Luftnachrichtentgruppe in Berlin, who passed
Abwehr messages to Schulze-Boysen. Heilmann carried on a love
affair with Mrs. Schulze-Boysen and told her of the cracking of the
code of the radio messages pertaining to the Rote Kapelle members.
Also belonging to the ring were a radio operator, Hans Coppi, and
Countess Erika von Brockdorf, who placed her apartment for radio
purposes at the disposal of Coppi, with whom she was carrying on a
love affair.
In 1938 Schulze-Boysen went to Switzerland, where he visited
Wolfgang Langhoff, a prominent Communist in the Freies Deutsch-
land movement. In 1941 he was appointed to the liaison staff of the
Luftwaffe. He was arrested on 30 August 1942, and he and his wife
Libertas, who had participated in his clandestine work, were executed
on 22 December 1942 at Berlin-Plotzensee prison.
OTTO SCHUMACHER,
(alias Roger) was born 12 November 1909 in Speyer am Rhein, Ger-
many. He fought for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War.
He later went to Belgium where he was a member of the Interna-
tional Bureau. He spoke fluent German, French, and Spanish.
According to one source Schumacher was a mechanic who had lived
in Worms. According to another source he was a book printer.
Schumacher was a member of the Jeffremov group in Belgium
in 1942 and had probably performed services for Sukolov as well.
Wenzel was living at Schumacher's house in Laeken when he was
arrested on 30 June 1942. Schumacher escaped to France and made
contact with Hillel Katz, who may have been the original recruiter of
Schumacher. Schumacher was sent Lyons to work under Isidore
to
Springer. He was a W/T technician and was able to construct and
repair transmitters for the network.
Following the arrest of Trepper and the latter's denunciation of
Schumacher fled to Paris with his mistress, Helene
the Lyons group,
Humbert-Laroche. They were captured there early in 1943. Schu-
macher was subsequently executed.
RENEE SCHWING
was an employee of Simexco and the mistress of Henri Rauch. She
was arrested in the general roundup of Simexco employees in

November 1942 and deported to Germany. In May 1945 she was
repatriated to Belgium.
HENRI MARIE SIDOINE GHISLAIN SEGHERS

was one of the original shareholders of Simexco when it was offi-
cially organized in March 1941. He had been a friend of Sukolov and
Margarete Barcza and was approached by them to invest in Sukolov's

new firm.
Seghers was born 23 March 1914 in Brussels and was employed
by the Belgian Civil Service. He was arrested at the end of 1942 in
Antwerp and deported to Germany. In May 1945 he was repatriated
to Belgium. Seghers was probably not involved in the intelligence
activities of the Sukolov network and may even not have known that
they were taking place.

Perrault writes that Seghers occupied the apartment across the
hallfrom Margarete Barcza on the Avenue Emile de Beco in Brussels
and was a frequent bridge partner of hers.
AUGUSTIN SESEE,
(alias Jules, alias Ostender, alias Musikant) was a W/T operator for
Trepper's Belgian network. He was subordinated to, and probably
recruited by, Makarov, with whom he worked at Ostende in 1939 and
1940. Sesee was stationed at Ostende almost certainly for the purpose
of establishing a W/T London, which may have been put
service to
into operation for the receipt and relay to Moscow of information
collected by the agents of the Rote Kapelle.
Sesee was a native of Antwerp and served in the Belgian
Mercantile Marine as a radio mechanic. According to Perrault, Sesee
was employed in Ostende as a police inspector. It is probable that
Sesee is identical with Feys, who, according to Piepe, was a radio
operator in Ostende for the network.
When Makarov transferred to Brussels in the summer of 1940,
Sesee kept a reserve set and was instructed to become active in the
event of Makarov's capture. Sesee may eventually have gone to Brus-
sels, where he assisted Makarov and Danilov in the operation of the
transmitter at 101, Rue de Attrebates.
After Makarov's arrest in December 1941, Sesee went into hid-
ing. When Jeffremov took charge of the network in May 1942, how-
ever, he was instructed to commence transmissions with his own
reserve set. It is unlikely that his line ever came into operation. Dur-
ing the period Wenzel sent Sesee a new transmitter by Franz

Schneider.
Sesee was arrested in his lodgings at Brussels in August 1942, as
Maurice Peper's betrayal. He was imprisoned at St. Gilles,
a result of
but in April 1943 he was deported to Germany, where he was
executed.
PIERRE JEAN DE SOETE

was an agent and courier to France for Henri Rauch on Simexco busi-
ness, and he may have performed other duties for the Sukolov net-
work. De Soete was an old friend of Hoorickx, by whom he was re-
cruited for Rauch. He was born 30 July 1886 at Molenbeek St. Jean,
Belgium. De Soete was the widower of Rosalie, nee Hofmanns, and
was divorced from Gabrielle, nee Coenen. In 1941 and 1942 he was
living with Marie-Therese Schippers in Brussels. De Soete was a
sculptor, and in 1941 or 1942 he visited Vichy to execute a bust of
Petain. He subsequently made a bust of General Falkenhausen.
HERSOG SOKOL,
(alias Hersz, alias Russko) was born 25 October 1908 in Bychitok,
Poland. He was a medical doctor. He held Polish Passport No. 36399,
issued in Berlin inSeptember 1924. He was the husband of Mariam
Sokol, with whomhe had been active as a Communist in Belgium.
From 1924 to 1931 he travelled in Belgium, France, England, and
Switzerland, at one stage on behalf of a South African firm. In 1938
he and his wife Mariam were expelled from Belgium. In 1939 he was
interned by the French as a Communist. In 1940 he was recruited by
Trepper and trained by Grossvogel as a W/T operator. He later
handled the transmissions of the Grossvogel group. In 1942 he was
in touch with Claude Spaak, with whom he left money and identity
papers. From April to June 1942 he acted as Trepper's only W/T link
to Moscow. He was arrested in Paris 9 June 1942 and reportedly died
in prison as a result of torture.
JACOB OR JACQUES SOKOL

was born 25 May 191 1 He is the brother of Her-
in Bialyatok, Poland.
sog Sokol. He was an and an active member of the Belgian
architect
Communist Party until his expulsion in 1938. He was arrested by the
Germans in about the autumn of 1942. His address was 72 Rue de
l'Ermitage, Brussels.
Jacob Sokol was suspected by the Germans of implication in
Trepper's espionage activities in France.
In I960 Sokol and his wife, Kira, nee Soloviegg, alias Kira de
Soene, alias Monique, born 26 October 1911 in St. Petersburg, were
living at 65, Rue deLangue Haie, Brussels. They previously lived at

la
28, Rue de l'Ermitage, Ixelles, which is known to have been a special

hideout of the BCP.
The Belgian authorities in 1958 were informed that Madame
Sokol was working in the secretariat of the Belgium-China Associa-
tion as assistant to Madame Deguent, nee Marthe Huysmans.
MARIAM SOKOL,
nee Rachlin (alias Madeleine) was born either 17 March 1908 or 6
October 1909 in Bychitok, Poland. She had a Ph.D. and was the wife
of Hersog Sokol. She held Polish Passport No. 950/1557 issued in
July 1929 and Polish Passport No. 1049/34 issued in Brussels on 23
July 1934. She arrived in Belgium in 1929, married Sokol in 1934, and
was active with Communist in Belgium. She was in touch
him as a
with Madame Spaak, whom she met in connection with her political
activities. She was recruited by Trepper and trained by Grossvogel as
a W/T operator. She was arrested in Paris on 9 June 1942 and later
executed in Belgium.
In 1939 Andre Labarthe, a suspected Soviet agent in France,
made a payment of 10,000 French francs to a woman named Sokol at
27 Rue Chevert, Paris (7), France. This address was the residence of
Hersog Sokol and his wife, Mariam Sokol.
JACQUES SOUSTELLE
was born 3 February 1912 in Montpellier, France, son of Jean Sou-
stelle and Germaine, nee Blatiere. He is married to Georgette, nee
Fagot, born 2 May 1909. A noted anthropologist of left-wing sympa-

thies, he is a friend and associate of Marcel Prenant.
In the 1920s he accompanied a French mission of scientists to

Mexico, and in 1927 he was appointed assistant head of the Paris
Anthropological Museum. In May 1942 he arrived in London from
Mexico and joined De Gaulle. In 1943 he was appointed head of
intelligence on De Gaulle's staff, and in March 1945 he was French
Minister of Information.
JEAN CLAUDE SPAAK

was born 22 October 1904 in Bruxelles-St. Gilles, Belgium. A noted
author (La Rose des Vents), he was a close friend of Trepper and
Georgie de Winter and a leading member of a resistance group in
France.
In 1943 the Gestapo tried to arrest Jean Claude Spaak, but he

escaped capture. His first wife, Suzanne Lorge, was arrested in Bel-
gium and extradited to France. She was imprisoned at Fresnes and
later executed.
After Trepper escaped from his Nazi captors, he recontacted
Jean Claude Spaak in 1944 and left 150,000 francs with Spaak for
Georgie de Winter, who was Trepper's mistress. While Jean Claude
was hiding from the Gestapo, he stayed in the Isere Department with
his brother Charles' mistress, Alice Perier.
Jean Claude Spaak's second wife is Ruth Peters, born 20 Decem-
ber 1903 in Toronto, Canada. They were married 30 January 1946 in
Paris. Ruth Peters was a cousin of Antonia Lyon-Smith, who was also
in contact with several members of the Rote Kapelle network.
During the occupation Trepper was anxious to protect his mis-
tress from the Nazis; so in this connection he contacted Antonia
Lyon-Smith, who had previously befriended Jean Claude Spaak. Miss
Lyon-Smith gave Trepper a letter of recommendation on behalf of
Georgie de Winter, and the latter was supposed to go to a safehouse
in the Isere Department in St. Pierre de Chartreuse, where a doctor
named de Joncher would watch over Georgie. But en route to see Dr.
de Joncher, Georgie was picked up by the Gestapo, who searched her
and found Miss Lyon-Smith's letter. Georgie was deported and spent
the rest of the war in a concentration camp; Miss Lyon-Smith was
arrested at Bourg-la-Reine on 21 October 1943.
Charles Spaak, the brother of Jean Claude Spaak, also played a
role in the Rote Kapelle, but the significance of his involvement has
not been determined.
Paul Henri Spaak, the other brother of Jean Claude Spaak, has
long been a member of the Bilderberg Group, an international
organization presided over by His Royal Highness, Prince Bernard of
the Netherlands. A source believed reliable advised that the KGB had
an important contact in Paris with access to files of the NATO Politi-
cal and Military Committees. This KGB contact produced photo-
graphs of NATO documents and reportedly had access to Paul Henri
Spaak.
JEAN JACQUES SPIESS

was born 15 September 1916 in Veuhausen. Educated in Paris, he
was employed in the Dreyfuss Bank before the war. In September
1939 Spiess went to Switzerland, and in 1943 he became a represen-
tative of a firm of Zurich machine brokers.
Spiess, a Foote associate with Communist sympathies, is
thought to be "Roger" in the Rote Drei traffic and was to have been
trained by Puenter as a W/T operator. The transmitter was to have
been concealed in the house of "Roger's" father.
ISIDORE SPRINGER
(alias Romeo, Walter van Vliet, alias Fred, alias
alias Verlaine, alias
Sabor) was a Belgian national, born 23 July 1912 in Antwerp. His

father was Simon Springer, and Irma Kuenlintger was his mother.
Rita Arnould, nee Bloch, was his mistress. She was also a Soviet
agent. Charlotte or Flora van Vliet, nee Velarts, was known as his
wife, but they were not married. She was associated with Springer,
working first for Sukolov in Brussels in 1941 and later as a member
of Springer's group in Lyons in 1942.
According to one source Springer was by origin a Polish Jew and
had been trained in Moscow to carry out Soviet intelligence activities.
He was at first sent to Palestine, where he worked with Trepper,
Grossvogel, and Joseph Katz. He was later sent to Belgium to work
with the Sukolov group.
Springer resided in Paris in 1930-1931, and according to Willy
Berg he worked for Trepper in Paris before the outbreak of war, act-
ing as liaison with the Soviet Embassy in Trepper's absence. He
probably also spent some time in Germany and belonged to the Ger-
man Communist Party. By 1940 he had moved to Belgium as an
active member of the Sukolov group; here he was probably mainly
concerned with recruitment and was a courier between Sukolov in
Brussels and Trepper in Paris. Springer was a diamond merchant in
Brussels in 1940 and 1941. After Makarov's arrest in December 1941,
he fled to Paris with Sukolov and was posted to Lyons, where he
established an intelligence group and attempted, but failed, to
achieve an independent W/T link with Moscow. His group of agents
included his mistress, Flora van Vliet, Germaine Schneider, Otto
Schumacher, Joseph Katz, and Jacques Blumsack.
The detection and liquidation of the Lyons group resulted from
Trepper's betrayal of certain addresses and a rendezvous which he
made with Springer under German orders. Springer was captured 16
December 1942 and reportedly executed 27 December 1942 in Paris.
Another source, probably incorrect, indicates that Springer was
able to escape to the United Kingdom with Rita Bloch and was still
living there in 1954.
360 Personalities ofc the Rote Kapelle
ANNA STARITSKY
was born 27 December 1907 in Poltawa, Russia. She was a Russian
national but resided in Belgium after 1932. Anna Staritsky was the
mistress of Guillaume Hoorickx and was introduced by him to Mak-
arov in the summer of 1941. She was probably used by Makarov as a
courier during the latter part of 1941. She was arrested 1 January
1942 by the Abwehr in Brussels, following the arrest of Makarov,
but was subsequently released.
Staritsky was by profession a draftswoman or designer. After
the war, probably about 1947, she married Hoorickx, and they are
now (1969) living together at 150 Avenue Emile Zola, Paris. In I960
they also owned a flat at 14 Rue Cafarelli, Nice, where they often
went to stay because of Hoorickx' bad health. They reportedly make
periodic trips to Brussels, where they have often visited Nikita Kous-
soff, a known anti-Communist.
ILSE STOEBE
(alias Alte) was born 17 May 1911. Her last residence was Berlin,
Saalestrasse 36.
Stoebe was the mistress of Rudolf Herrnstadt. She was a co-
worker of von Scheliha and was also associated with Schulze-Boysen
and Harnack.
Use Stoebe was executed on 22 December 1942.
VICTOR SUKOLOV
(alias Vincente Sierra, Kent, alias Fritz, alias Arthus Barcza,
alias
alias Simon Urwith, Manolo, alias Dupuis, alias Lebrun) was

alias
probably born in Leningrad 3 November 1911. It is possible, as

Pannwitz has reported, that his true name was Gurevitch and that he
was a Jew; however, a Uruguayan passport issued in New York 17
April 1936 in the name of Vincente Sierra gave his date of birth as 3
July 1911 and the place as Montevideo.
Heinz Pannwitz has described Sukolov's early years as follows:
Kent was born some time between 1911 and 1913.

He stated that he was a Russian. He was obviously
Jewish and obviously a Soviet national. His parents
lived in the Leningrad area where he had spent his
youth as a factory worker and Komsomol member.
He went into hotel service because of his gift for lan-
guages and diversified interests. He claimed that he
did this to study languages and to broaden his knowl-
edge of people in preparation for intelligence work,
which was his goal. The becoming an

original idea of
intelligence officer, he came to him through his
said,
Party work in the Komsomol. He volunteered for

fighting in the Spanish Civil War because, according
to him, anyone who wished
ahead at that time
to get
had to go to Spain. Allegedly he made the rank of
Captain in Spain.
Kent was thoroughly and extensively trained by
his military intelligence service, the GRU, in Mos-
cow. He was trained as a Soviet intelligence officer or
official both for the internal organization in the
Soviet Union and for the special foreign mission. His
specialized training for the foreign mission covered
more than a year and was carried out with strictest
observance of conspiratorial (operational) security

methods. The conspiratorial rules were so rigid that
he personally knew almost none of the teachers giv-
ing the specialized courses. He claimed that he had
never really worked in the GRU internal organiza-
tion in the Soviet Union.
He had been trained in every possible technique
needed in There was nothing,
intelligence work.
quite simply, which he could not do in the field of
technical equipment, in photography, in chemistry.
He knew all the techniques and had done practical
work in all of them.
After the Spanish Civil War, Sukolov was probably posted to

France, where he performed some kind of intelligence duties from
1937 to 1939. In 1938 and 1939 he received funds from Mexico, de-
posited in a Marseilles bank. Sukolov visited Berlin in April 1939
under Moscow's instructions to reactivate the Schulze-Boysen net-
work and to initiate a courier service between Germany and Belgium.
In July 1939 Sukolov entered Belgium and took up residence in
Brussels as Vincente Sierra, a Uruguayan student. From 1939 to 1941
he studied commercial subjects at Brussels University. In the summer
of 1939 he probably visited Switzerland, and inMarch 1940 he deliv-
ered money Alexander Rado in Geneva. Sukolov worked as
to
Trepper's assistant in Brussels until Trepper fled to France in July
1940. At that time Sukolov was placed in charge of the Belgian
network.
From about June 1940 the Belgian network had been relaying by
W/T to Moscow mostof Schulze-Boysen's and Trepper's material,

and was Sukolov's major task as the new head of the network.
this
He had one W/T operator of his own in Brussels, Makarov, and he
probably utilized also the link established in Holland by the Winter-
ink group.
In the fall of 1940 Sukolov established the firm Simexco to serve
As head of Simexco he was able
as cover for his intelligence activities.
to travel freely, and in 1940 and 1941 he made trips to France, Ger-
many, Switzerland, and Czechoslovakia on intelligence missions.
In December 1941, when four members of his network were ar-
rested in Brussels, Sukolov escaped to France. There he was joined by
his mistress, Margarete Barcza, with whom he had been living since
May 1940. In January 1942 Sukolov formed or reactivated a group of
Czech agents in Marseilles with cover of a branch of Simex, run by
Jules Jaspar and Alfred Corbin. Sukolov was visited occasionally in
Marseilles by Trepper. During this period Sukolov frequently discus-
sed with Barcza the possibility of discontinuing intelligence opera-
tions and fleeing to Switzerland.
Sukolov and his mistress were arrested in Marseilles 12 Novem-
ber 1942. He was taken first to Paris, then to Brussels, and finally to
Gestapo headquarters in Berlin for intensive interrogation. He was
returned to Paris 4 January 1943, having agreed to cooperate with the
Germans. In March 1943 Sukolov's W/T playback to Moscow
("Mars") was begun; and in July 1943, under Moscow's instructions,
he contacted Waldemar Ozols. German control was relaxed at this
time to give the appearance that Sukolov was still at liberty.
Sukolov was kept in a villa at 40 Boulevard Victor Hugo,
Neuilly; and he was joined there by Margarete Barcza, on 9 Sep-
tember 1943. Also living in this villa were Trepper, Hillel Katz, and
Otto Schumacher. About 20 April 1944 Margarete Barcza gave birth
to a son named Michel. According to Perrault, Michel Barcza is cur-
rently a magician in Brussels.
was put in touch with
In January 1944 Sukolov, through Ozols,
Legendre and his resistance group. At a meeting with Sukolov on 18
July 1944, Marcel Droubaix and two other members of the resistance
group were arrested by the Germans.
Sukolov left Paris with Pannwitz of the Sonderkommando 16
August 1944. They continued the playback from various locations
until May 1945. They were captured by a French military force in a
mountain hut near Bludenz, Vorarlberg, Austria, 3 May 1945.
Sukolov and Pannwitz were taken to Paris and interrogated. They
were finally turned over to the Soviet authorities in Paris and left by
plane for Moscow 7 June 1945.
According to Perrault, Sukolov was imprisoned at Vorkonta. He
was released in 1956 and is now living in Leningrad under the name
Gurevitch.
Pannwitz has given the following description of Victor Sukolov:
Kent was about 5 feet y/i inches tall and his build
was well proportioned for his height, neither too
thin nor too stout. His hair was dark but not black,
and his head was narrow, not at all a Slavic-type
head. His forehead was high and his ears protruded.
His lips were full, too full for a man, and the lower
lip protruded due to constant pipe smoking. He car-
ried his head forward, especially when standing still,
but also when walking. When he was relaxed, his full
lips made him look like a pouting child. As with all
Russians he loved to eat, so that when he was free he

was inclined to gain weight. He could not control his
hands and eyes during a tense situation. His hand
would begin to tremble slightly. His eyes clearly
spoke of whatever he was feeling anxiety, joy, —
concentration, or expectant questions. The medical
examination revealed that although he was a Jew, he
was not circumcised.
He was somewhat vain and could be brought out
of his shell by praise and recognition. His vanity also
caused him to brag, especially under the influence of
alcohol. Because he was a Russian who had been
accustomed to a poor standard of living, he liked
especially to eat well and much. He patronized
expensive restaurants, some even in the luxury class.
When the meat course arrived, he would reorder it
three times. Before his meal he would drink a phe-
nomenal amount, for the West, of very strong
alcohol — for example, a half bottle of vodka. This
always attracted the attention of the waiters. Such a
client was easy to track in restaurants because the
waiters remembered him. He also made himself con-
spicuous by his naivete in buying mass lots of
cigarettes and men's leather shoes, for which his
training was to blame. It should never have been
Personalities of the Rote Kapelle
risked during the training in Moscow that an agent

being prepared for a foreign mission was not told the
difference between the internal Russian propaganda
concerning the West and the reality of the West.
Kent honestly believed that only by chance had
leather shoes appeared in a shoe store, because ac-
cording to Russian propaganda workers in capitalis-
tic countries wore only paper or straw shoes. He had
also never been taught what the proper behavior was
in a restaurant.
He was endowed naturally with a lively imagina-
tion and the ability to put two and two together for
the right answer. He influenced people inconspicu-
ously and without any obvious effort and issued his
orders, when necessary, in a positive, commanding
manner which allowed no argument. At such times
the full force of his personality came into action.
General Ozols, Legendre, and others would uncon-
sciously stand at attention in his presence. This trait
was not the result of his training in Moscow but was
a part of the man's personality. He learned foreign
languages very quickly. He also possessed a good
understanding of psychology and had a high degree
of empathy, which became obvious in our discussion
of the tactical problems of the playback operation. I
tested him by asking him to analyze some members

of my Kommando, and his conclusions were always
accurate. He could always see the sensitive spots or
weaknesses of his fellow workers and would make
some casual observation which disclosed to the latter
what an accurate insight he had. His fellow workers
were always amazed and surprised that the "Chief"
knew such things.
He was not one of the revolutionary
certainly
types, and made the impression in his appearance
and manner of a bourgeois; but he had a definite
inclination for adventure, adventure governed by rea-
son. He was not bound by ideological or philosophi-
cal concepts, although he knew all the concepts. He
could be a well-indoctrinated Communist, but used
his Communist education as a chess player who
moves his pieces to carry out his strategy. He was an

independent thinker and capable of making his own
decisions. He felt that his own intelligence was his
only reliable guide.
Kent knew the Soviet system very well and did not
consider anything which happened to himself as es-
pecially tragic. life was that every
His attitude toward
man in the world had way and should be
to fight his
forced to strain his "little head" once in a while. At
the end of the war he believed that the Soviet Union
had finally abandoned its policy of isolation and
would then be capable of entering the political com-
munity of the world. Such ideas appealed to him
because he was a very restless and flexible man. He
immediately adapted himself to the new situation
when the interrogations began in Moscow. Every
interrogation would begin with, "After the victorious
Red Army had driven out the Fascists and freed the
homeland ." There was actually little opportunity
. .
in his interrogation to use such a militaristic, nation-

alistic style, but he was well acquainted with the
necessary formulas which could be used and he
always used them if the opportunity arose.
He was a strongly sexed man who had no inhibi-
tions about carrying out his sex life with Barcza when
they were sleeping in the hotel room with several
(German) In this regard he was fortunate
officials.
that he stayed with one woman Barcza and Kent

. . .
lived together as though legally married. She was a

handsome woman, but she was not the beauty subse-
quent publications have claimed. Most likely she was
Kent's first love affair in Western Europe and he re-
mained faithful to her. His work and the enforced
loneliness made such a relationship very necessary.
His choice of mistress was very wise because she
never caused him any problems. He must have
revealed, at some time, his true identity and the true
nature of his work to her. This must have occurred
before they were forced to flee to Marseilles. She
stayed with him through everything. They were
taken into custody together in Marseilles and they
remained together during the trip to Berlin, Brussels,

and finally to Paris. They were separated for very
short periods when they were in prison. All of Dal-
lin's descriptions of Barcza in his book, Soviet
Espionage, are utter nonsense. While the two, Barcza
and Kent, were in my Kommando in Paris, they had
a two-room apartment with all comforts. There a son
was born March or April 1944 who was baptized
in
Church and named for my oldest son,
in the Catholic
Michael. Kent selected the name and asked me to be
the godfather. Naturally, I agreed to this.
ILONA ROLF SUSS

(also Suess, Rolph) was born 27 September 1896 in Lodz,
alias
Poland. A Polish Jewess, she was the daughter of George and Rose,
nee Schindler. A militant left-wing journalist and author, she served
the cause of Chinese Communism.
She was educated in Poland, Silesia, Canada, and the United
States. She was employed by the U.S. Consulate in Nuremberg in
1916. From 1917 to 1919 she was in Lodz and from 1919 to 1921 she
was part of the Hoover Mission in Lodz and Warsaw. For the next
four years Suss was a secretary attached to the U.S. section of the rep-
arations committee in Berlin.
From 1925 to 1928 Suss was a secretary attached to the UFA
studios, Berlin, by the U.S. Commercial Attache, Berlin, and by
"American Film Trust," Berlin. In 1928 she was assistant to the Anti-
Opium Bureau, Geneva. In 1936 Suss went to China for the Keyston
Press Agency.
In thesummer of 1940 Suss was recruited by Ursula Ham-
burger, on the recommendation of Marie Ginsberg, as a prospective
W/T operator and received preliminary instructions from Foote,
who pronounced her inept, nervous, and unsuitable; she was dropped
within two months.
In 1941 she came to the United States and lived at 231 E. 54th
Street, New York (October 1944).
LOUIS SUSS
(aka Louis de Gaidey de Soos, aka Louis Suss, alias Salter) was born 6
October 1890 in Alsace-Lorraine. He died in Switzerland on 25 April
1955. It was not until after his death that it was determined that he
was identical with "Salter."
Suss was employed during World War II in the French Legation
in Bern, Switzerland, and was later Press Attache in the French Lega-
tion in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
He was a contact of Otto Puenter (Pakbo), a Swiss journalist
who was also active for the GRU in Switzerland, both during World
War II and in the postwar period.
Rado's financial transactions reflected that Salter was paid two
hundred Swiss francs each month from February 1942 to May 1943.
Foote was questioned about Salter on 3 July 1947, after Foote's
return from Moscow to Germany in March 1947, when he "came
over" to the British in Berlin. He advised that Salter was a sub-agent
of Pakbo and was in touch also with the British I.S. He was used by
Rado in the approach made in 1943 to the British Legation asking if
they would provide asylum for Rado in case of emergency.
His widow, Friedel, nee Kirschbaum, still resides (1968) in
Chene-Bourg, Chemin du Saut du Loup, Geneva.
WILLY LOUIS ANDRE ROLLAND THEVENET

was French national, born 4 January 1903 in Yzeure, France. In
a
December 1941 he was appointed a director of Simexco. He may

have provided some assistance to members of the Rote Kapelle in
Belgium. In July 1942 Sukolov completed the sale of Simexco to The-
venet. At the time of the general roundup of Simexco employees in
November was arrested and imprisoned in St. Gilles.
1942, Thevenet
According Thevenet had been a cigarette manufac-
to Perrault,
turer before the war. Perrault also states that Thevenet died in pris-
on, some time before April 1943.
LEOPOLD TREPPER
—
was born 23 February 1904 or some other date still unknown in —
Neumark, near Zakopane, Poland. Leiba ben Zeharya Trepper was
probably his true name. He was known in Warsaw by the name Leiba
Domb, but he has used many among them being Jean Gilbert,
aliases,
Adam Mikler, Vladislav Ivanovich Ivanowski, de Winter, Sommer,

Onkel Otto, "Le Grand Chef," Le General, Herbst, Peiper, etc.
A Polish Jew, one of ten children, he came from a family of mer-
chants. Still in his teens, he was obliged to leave school and to work
in the mines of Kattowicz. By the time he was twenty-two, he had
already been jailed for heading a revolt at Dombrova. After spending
eight months in prison, he could find no work in Poland; so he went
to Palestine, thanks to Hechalutz, a Zionist organization financed by
rich American Jews.
In Palestine Trepper became acquainted with the Grand Mufti

of Jerusalem, found his true vocation,and began his apprenticeship
as a spy.There he married Sarah Broide, who had previously been
married to Joseph Orschitzer. She is probably identical with Luba
Alexayevna Brikson, whom Trepper married in 1924. Reportedly he
had two sons by Luba, one born in 1931 in Paris; the other, in 1936 in
Moscow.
He joined the Zionist movement in the early 1920s and became
acquainted in Palestine with his faithful "Old Guard" who later
worked with him in Europe.
In 1928 he went to France and joined the Rabcors, a Commu-
nist-dominated group providing men and information to Moscow. In
February 1932 the famous French commissaire, named Charles Faux-
Pas-Bidet, dismantled the Rabcors when he
arrested the "Phanto-
mas," Izaia Bir, and Strom, both Polish Jews and
his assistant, Alter
important Soviet agents. Trepper escaped and proceeded to Moscow,
where he was taught that only by supporting Stalin and the Commu-
nist cause could the Jewish demands be realized. He learned at the
Red Army Academy, where (Alexander) Orlov taught, that war
against Fascism and Nazism could be successfully waged only under
the guidance of Communism and that support of the Soviet anti-
Fascist movement was obligatory for the Jewish masses. Trepper has
stated that it was during this period of his studies that his plans for
the future crystallized.
New possibilities for the RIS to renew its work in France pre-
sented themselves following political developments in that country
during the 1930s. These factors were the victory of the Popular Front
led by Leon Blum, the setting-up of government, and the
a left-wing
deterioration of French relations with Hitlerite Germany. Thirty to
forty thousand men were purged during the 1936-1937 period; the
GRU suffered the most, but Trepper remained loyal to Stalin
throughout the difficult purge years.
Five years after the arrest of his Rabcors friends in France,
Trepper was back in Paris with a false passport in the name of
Sommer. His first successful mission after his arrival in France was
the discovery of the traitor responsible for the arrest of the "Phanto-
mas." This traitor had been chief of a Soviet espionage network in
the United States and had been reportedly doubled by the FBI, which
notified the French police.
In July 1940 Trepper, then in Brussels, realized he was being
surveilled by the GIS. Keeping informed on the advance of the Ger-
man troops, he fled to France and later was joined by his American-
born mistress, Georgie de Winter, by whom he had a child, Patrick de
Winter, born in Brussels.
France's role in the framework of Soviet intelligence grew con-
siderably during the years of the Soviet-German friendship (1939-
1941). In June 1940 German armies moved into Paris, but half the
country remained under French rule. The Soviets moved to Vichy,
and the chaos of the Vichy regime proved advantageous for a team of
experienced underground agents. With the help of the veteran
Comintern agent Henri Robinson, of Leon Grossvogel whom —
—
Trepper had known in Palestine and of his secretary, Hillel Katz,
the "Grand Chef" organized his first headquarters in France. From
1940 to 1942 Trepper commanded seven networks of Soviet intelli-
gence, each active in its own field and subordinated to its own chief.
Certainly the "Grand Chef" succeeded in penetrating the enemy
at the highest echelons. A decoding by the Germans of the Soviet
W/T in Brussels showed that the Soviets had penetrated the OKW.
As a result of the information he obtained from Jeip Tours, Trepper
was able to figure out the German order of battle. When on 22 June
1941 Hitler attacked Russia, the Rote Kapelle had done its work
well. Trepper had notified Moscow through General Susloperof in
Vichy of the invasion, but Stalin did not believe "Otto." On 10
October 1941 a radio message from the Center to "Kent" (Sukolov)
exposed the Rote Kapelle; and this fact permitted the Germans to
identify, to arrest, and partially to control the RIS operations.
On 5 December 1942 Trepper was arrested by Henry Friedrich
Piepe of the Abwehr and Karl Giering of the Gestapo. According to
Gestapo reports Trepper betrayed his collaborators and was doubled
by the Nazis. David Dallin also has written that Trepper betrayed his
collaborators: Hillel Katz, Henri Robinson, Anna and Vassili Max-
imovitch, and others, and that the Nazis "destroyed the Paris net-
work." The Nazis and Dallin were probably mistaken, because it now
appears that Trepper was a triple agent while in Nazi hands. Hein-
rich Reiser of the Sonderkommando has advised: "Don't believe the
Gestapo reports if you want to get down to the facts in the Rote
Kapelle case." But he was probably also partially wrong because he
was unaware of the complicated "Funkspiel," or radio playback,
operations.
According to Piepe, if the "Grand Chef" talked it was not
because of fear or torture or to save his life. He was not like Johann
Wenzel and Abraham Rajchmann. Trepper talked, but he did so
upon orders. It was his duty; "he gave us a few morsels and while we
were picking them up, he salvaged the rest. He made monkeys of the
Germans." Piepe too might be wrong: The French specialists think
that Trepper sacrificed his associates to save the CPF underground.
Trepper was capable of duping "all the Corbins of the world" and
leading them to the execution post rather than compromising his
network.
Trepper was glad to see Giering transferred from Paris during
the summer of 1943. The "Grand Chef" knew that he could never
lower his guard with Giering; so he welcomed his departure and the
arrival of Pannwitz, convinced he was the winner in the exchange.
Trepper escaped from Willy Berg on 13 September 1943. According
to Trepper, Giering had asked him to cooperate in order to bring
about peace between Russia and Germany. Berg used to say: "I was a
cop under the Kaiser, a cop under the Weimar; I'm a cop under
Hitler; I'll be a cop if Thaelmann takes over."
After his escape Trepper wrote to Pannwitz telling him that CI
agents accosted him and he had to follow them; he re-
in a drugstore
quested that Pannwitz not punish Berg. Trepper advised that he
wanted to save the "Grand Jeu" and continue the "Funkspiel," but for
a reason different from Pannwitz's.
After his escape Trepper was hidden by Mrs. Queyrie in
Suresnes, and Moscow instructed Trepper to hide. Trepper doubted
that Moscow believed him; and he wrote to Pannwitz a second time,
expressing displeasure over the arrest of so many innocent people.
Trepper was the subject of an "identification order" in France, Ger-
many, and Belgium as a "wanted dangerous spy." In November 1943
Pannwitz sent a message to the Center via "Kent," who was under
control. In answer the Center advised Pannwitz through "Kent" to
stay away from Trepper
—
"he's a traitor."
In another letter to Pannwitz, Trepper threatened to break off
the "Grand Jeu" if arrested persons were not released. Pannwitz was
uncertain if Trepper had betrayed the Germans or Moscow; so he
was forced to go along with Trepper in order to keep out of trouble
himself.
Trepper went to Warsaw after his release from prison. Even
there he found no means of livelihood, and he finally decided to
emigrate.
His destination was France. After the failure of all efforts to
reach France legally, he approached an American emigration enter-
prise called Haljas, which at that time operated in Warsaw. The Pol-
a
ish government supported emigration, for it hoped to lessen

unemployment in this manner and to oppose the Communist danger
at the same time. Trepper obtained, with the assistance of the above-
named American committee, an emigration pass and arrived in
Vienna with a regular emigration train from Warsaw.
Since the age of eighteen Trepper has hidden behind a false
identity and worked clandestinely; and Pannwitz, the Gestapo chief,
sketched this portrait of the "Grand Chef" twenty-three years after

first meeting "his prisoner" in Paris.
When he knew he wasn't being observed, he looked

very tough and distrustful, cold and aloof. The
moment someone paid attention to him, his appear-
ance changed and he played the role of an actor. If
someone pressed him with questions, he would put

his hand on his heart in order to remind his listener
he had a heart condition. He was first of all a Jew.
The Russians were wrong to put so many Jews in
this network —
think of it, the Rote Kapelle was 90
percent Jewish —
because a Jew is much too malicious
to die for a lost cause . . .
Pannwitz claims the Germans succeeded not only in locating

and liquidating the clandestine networks in Brussels, Berlin, Amster-
dam, and Paris, but also in doubling the Soviet agents, and by virtue
of the Funkspiel in intoxicating the Soviets with false information.
What awaited Trepper when he arrived in Moscow in 1945 was
a cell in the Lubyanka instead of a hero's welcome. He emerged from
jail only after the death of Stalin, was then rehabilitated, and went
back to Poland, apparently disillusioned but not disheartened.
Trepper explains: "Stalinism was an epidemic. We had to wait for it
to pass. The trip from Moscow to Warsaw lasted eleven years . . .
trains are often late." Trepper left the Lubyanka as he entered it —

Communist.
Pannwitz has written that Trepper learned to speak Polish,
Russian, German, French, and Yiddish. In the beginning Trepper
worked in the Comintern field of interest but was also receiving
orders from the Military Attache of the Soviet Embassy in Paris. One
of his numerous missions was to prevent any scandal or crime result-
ing from Communist work in France from being brought before a
French court. He accomplished this by means of bribes or, if neces-
sary, by force.
Trepper was about 5 feet 7 inches with a broad, squat, stout

build.He had dark hair and a full face. His eyes had large dark circles,
often very swollen bags under them, which made him appear to be
suffering from heart trouble, which was actually true. His hands were
always busy. He was capable of great concentration, during which
times he had a withdrawn, hard look. His head was round and his lips
were normal, perhaps somewhat thin. He generally had a look of
alert expectation.
The New York Times, 28 March 1968, reported that Leopold
Domb, president of the Jewish Cultural Society, "who during World
War II ran a Soviet espionage ring in France and Belgium," was
among the Poles attacked for the "anti-Polish campaign staged by
Zionist centers in the West."
After the Corby case in Canada, the Director of the GRU was
fired. The KGB seized this opportunity to settle accounts with the
GRU. Three was an anti-Semitic wave in the USSR,
years later there
and Trepper was queried why he had surrounded himself with
as to
traitors —
Hillel Katz, Grossvogel, Springer, Rajchmann, etc.
Trepper was kept in jail incommunicado (no news from his
wife) until March 1953, when Stalin died and Beria was liquidated.
Then he was finally exonerated and rehabilitated. He left for Poland.
Perrault interviewed him in 1966 and learned that in April 1965
Trepper was at Auschwitz commemorating the liberation of the
camp. As Leiba Domb, president of the Jewish community of Poland,
he addressed the eighty thousand persons there.
It had been established that Trepper, Alexander Foote, and
Alexander Rado left Paris together on a Soviet plane 6 January 1945.

Upon his arrival in Moscow Trepper was reportedly arrested and
held in prison for several years. But he managed to convince the
Soviets that his behaviour when he fell into the hands of the Gestapo
was the only way to save himself and at the same time prevent his
network from being damaged to an even greater extent. According to
Trepper, his "collaboration" with the Nazis was a "big bluff," and his
persuading the Germans that he was collaborating with them
enabled him to hide numerous important items of information and
to stall for time until he was able to escape —
as he subsequently did.
Although Trepper was "cleared," it appears he was no longer
completely trusted by the RIS, and in 1957 he arrived in Warsaw as a
tourist. In Warsaw he has been managing the publication Yiddish
Buch.
Paris Match, 29 July 1967, carried an account of an interview
with "Le Grand Chef" by Gerard Periot. Trepper was then living in
Warsaw under the name of Leiba Domb.
With regard to the revolts that broke out in Dombrova in 1927,
and Trepper's part in them, an Abwehr report dated 24 March 1943

states that Trepper was arrested by the Polish authorities as one of
the leaders and thrown into prison. There he began a hunger strike.
He was released after eight months without a sentence and without
ever having a regular hearing. The time in prison, as he said himself,
"had awakened in him a deep hatred against the Polish feudal econ-
omy and changed him from then on into a full believer in the Com-
munist idea."
Trepper said he managed to continue "his resistance work" in
France all during the war and to implicate numerous members of the
Pfeffer group who wanted to negotiate with the West, with or with-
out the Fuehrer. The Nazis thought that the Rote Kapelle had pene-
trated the OKW, and many of the Schulze-Boysen group were
executed. Trepper made a report to Moscow in Hebrew, Yiddish, and
Polish. He sent this message via Jacques Duclos. Trepper claims he
also fooled "Kent" in case he was under control. "Kent" was fooled
and coded the messages to Moscow, not suspecting that Trepper was
playing a triple game.
After the war Novikov arrived in Paris to head the Soviet mil-
itary mission. The plane that brought Thorez back from Moscow
took Trepper to the Soviet Union 6 January 1945. Soviet intelligence
must have been delighted to see Trepper arrive in Moscow with
Foote and Rado. Then "Kent" and Pannwitz arrived, followed by
Ozols and Wenzel. The Director could not afford to have Trepper
loose in Moscow telling everyone he had on three occasions vainly
warned Stalin of the imminent German attack. Sorge would have suf-
fered the same fate as Trepper if the Japanese had not executed him.
The Center could not be persuaded that the Germans had located the
Rote Kapelle W/T sets so rapidly; so the Center thought there was a
German spy in the Kremlin. Trepper knew too much, and that is
why they put him in jail.
MARTHE ANGELE FRANCOISE VANDENHOECK

(nee Baumanns) was born 31 December 1918 in Woluwe St. Pierre,
Belgium. She was between Paris and Brussels for the Jef-
a courier
fremov network, working under Elizabeth Depelsenaire. She was

arrested by the Germans in July 1942 and was used to stage the arrest
of Depelsenaire. She probably assisted in other arrests also, under
German duress. In the spring of 1943 she was deported to Moabit

Prison, Berlin, with other members of the Belgian network.
Vandenhoeck was liberated from prison and returned to
In 1945
Belgium. In 1946 she was residing at 553/5 Chaussee de Wavre,
Etterbeck, Brussels. In November 1946 she attempted to join her
husband, a geologist, in Anyama, Ivory Coast, but she was prevented
from leaving Belgium by the confiscation of her passport.
ANNE-MARIE VAN DER PUTT

(alias Vera, alias La Noire) was probably recruited by Sukolov in
Brussels in 1940 or 1941 and trained by him in coding. In October
1941 she was escorted by Malvina Gruber across the frontier and
taken to Trepper in Paris, where she was utilized by the Sokols as an
encipherer until their arrest in June 1942. Van der Putt was then
transferred to Sukolov in Marseilles. She escaped arrest and probably
fled to Switzerland in November 1942.
Anne-Marie van der Putt was probably the assumed name of a
Belgian Jewess. She had been the mistress of one Ackermann, who
was killed fighting with the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War.
She reportedly spoke French, Flemish, and Spanish.
EDOUARD VAN DER ZYPEN or ZIJPEN

(alias Nelly) was a Belgian civilian employee of the Hentschel works
in Kassel,Germany, and one of Jeffremov's most important agents.
In December 1942 he was arrested by the Germans. In July 1943 he
was executed.
FLORA VAN VLIET

(nee Velarts, alias Frau Springer, alias Arlette Rochat) was associated
with her lover, Isidore Springer, in work for Sukolov in Brussels in
1941. In 1942 she was a member of Springer's group in Lyons.
Flora van Vliet was born 25 January 1909 in Brussels. Her father
was Francois Velarts, and her mother Therese, nee Duffy.
She was arrested 17 December 1942 inOrlienas, Rhone, France.
Her ultimate fate is unknown.
JOSEPHINE FRANCOISE VERHIMST

(nee Glais) was the sister of Germaine Schneider and Renee Blum-
sack. She was used by her sister, Germaine, as a courier for Jeffrem-
ov's service in Belgium.
Josephine was born 23 July 1887 in Brussels. She was the wife of
Pierre Verhimst, a Belgian, born 1 March 1880 in Anderiecht. She

was the mistress of Jean-Baptiste Janssens, with whom she lived in
1942.
She was arrested with Janssens in January 1943.
JEAN PIERRE VIGIER

(alias Braut) was born in Paris on 16 January 1910. He is the son of
Henri Vigier, former League of Nations delegate and representative
of the ILO. Jean Pierre obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Lau-
sanne and served in the French Army in World War II as a captain
under General Lattre de Tassigny. In 1947 he was attached to the
Atomic Energy Commission of France in Paris and served on the
staff of Francois Billoux, a known member of the CP of France.
During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Vigier resided in Switzer-
land, where he was in contact with Alexander Rado. Vigier became a
source of the Rote Drei, allegedly having been recruited by Tamara
Caspari, whom he later married. Tamara is the daughter of Rachel
Duebendorfer by her first marriage. Alexander Foote, in his book
Handbook for Spies, mentiones Tamara and relates how she acted as
a courier for the net. Her mother hid messages under her hair rib-
bons and Tamara delivered them to other agents.
Vigier provided Duebendorfer with rather unimportant infor-
mation from Gaullist circles. He and Tamara continued to act as
Soviet agents after World War II ended. Tamara considered that the
Soviets treated her mother harshly and unfairly after the war ended,
and she asked her husband to join her in denouncing them. Still an
ardent Communist, he refused, and she obtained a divorce.
About 1 March 1949 Jean Pierre was arrested by the Surete be-
cause he had unauthorized possession of French AEC documents.
Although he was not convicted, he was transferred to an obscure pro-
vincial post.
After the end of World War II President de Gaulle brought back
Maurice Thorez, head of the French Communist Party, from Moscow
and installed him as Vice President of France. Consequently, numer-
ous Communists were placed in high government positions in
France. Francois Billoux, previously mentioned, was one of those
seated. He headed the Ministry of Defense. Frederic Joliot-Curie, a
Communist, was another individual who was given a government
post; he headed the French Atomic Energy Commission, and his
chief of personnel was Jean Pierre Vigier.
Vigier is a personal friend of Alexander Abramson, who at one
time maintained liaison between French and Swiss Communists in

Geneva.
In 1967 Vigier was Secretary General of the Bertrand Russell
International War Crimes Tribunal. He went to Hanoi as the leader
of an investigationteam of the Tribunal to collect documentary proof
of U.S. crimes against Vietnamese civilians. Another member of the
Tribunal was Guillermo Frank Janes, a Cuban military expert. At a
press conference held in Hanoi, Vigier condemned the U.S. bomb-
ings of Haiphong as a very important step in genocidal attempts
against the population.
L'Humanite on 27 May 1968 announced the expulsion of former
Central Committee member Professor Jean Pierre Vigier from the
French CP, commenting that during the last few weeks Vigier had
taken a very active part in support of the French students, whose
demonstrations were condemned by the Communist Party. Vigier
had earlier clashed with the Communist Party leadership over the
Sino-Soviet conflict.
TAMARA VIGIER
(nee Caspari, alias Vita) is the daughter of Rachel and Curt Caspari.
Tamara was born on 8 July 1922. She worked for her mother as a
Rote Drei courier.
KATHE VOELKNER
was born 12 April 1906 in Danzig. A German national, she first
arrived in France in 1936. She was the mistress of Johann Podsiadlo,
who taught her painting. Kathe, an art student and daughter of a
Danzig artist, travelled extensively in Europe and Russia before the
war.
She was recruited in 1941 by Anna and Basil Maximovitch for
Trepper's service in Paris. She was a secretary in the German Kom-
mandantur, with offices in the Chamber of Deputies. One of her as-
signments for Trepper, in addition to collecting any information
availablefrom her office, was to provide blank forms, stamps, and
specimen signatures of the heads of departments. A number of blank
forms, with genuine stamps and signatures, were later found among
Trepper's papers. Voelkner may also have performed services for
Robinson's group.
Voelkner handed over her information on sheets of tissue paper
which were concealed in her compact, or between two pages of a
magazine which had been pasted together, or in a cake, or inside a
match box.
Trepper, for some reason, was suspicious that Voelkner might

be a "plant" and that the Germans might be using her. He therefore
arranged a meeting with her at a metro station. In order to make cer-
tain that he was not followed, he chose a station at the end of the line
which had only one exit, so that he could see if any of those who got
out there were persons whom he had spotted during the journey.
From time to time Trepper would instruct one of his agents to
invite Voelkner to dinner. Trepper would select the restaurant, one
in which there were plenty of mirrors, and attend the meeting him-
self, sitting nearby so that he could see whether there were any Ger-
mans shadowing them. Most of these meetings took place in the
evening.
Voelkner was arrested by the Gestapo on 7 January 1943 and
executed. Just before being executed she reportedly exclaimed: "I'm
happy that I performed some service for Communism."
Kathe Voelkner and Johann Podsiadlo were the parents of Hans
Voelkner, born 21 August 1928 in Danzig. Hans was arrested at Orly
Field outside Paris on 19 May 1969. He had disembarked from Ger-
many and was immediately picked up by the DST for espionage.
According to the French, Hans was in a German prison camp
during the war, was liberated, and then entered France on 1 June
1945. He was arrested in 1948 at Mayence in the occupied zone of
Germany and imprisoned in the Maison d'Arret at Fulda. The French
also reported that Hans had come back to France as a student after
World War II and had established contact with Trepper to get infor-
mation about his parents. He was expelled in 1948 "for signing a
Communist tract." Hans eventually settled in East Germany and
became an officer in the MFS, reportedly a colonel or lieutenant
colonel by 1969.
One of Hans Voelkner's contacts in Paris had been a journalist
named Jacques Leman, who over the years had made frequent trips to
East Berlin on business. A "friend" of Leman's was one Mme. Martha
Danilo, employed in the cultural section (also reported in the press as
the cipher section) of the Foreign Office, whom he urged to get a job
in NATO. When Leman died in January 1969 at the age of sixty-
seven, the French finally picked up Danilo in May and learned she
had been told to expect a visitor from East Berlin. This turned out to
be Hans Voelkner, travelling as West German businessman Hans
Martin Richter. The French arrested him.
Another contact Danilo had was a woman known to her as
Marise, apparently an EGIS courier or case officer. She may be identi-
cal with Marie-Rose Martin, a French national employed in Brussels

by a French financial newspaper. Martin was arrested and interro-
gated by the Belgians at the request of the French. She admitted
knowing no one but Leman, and him only nominally. The Belgians
said they had planted a story in the Belgian press about Voelkner in
the hope that readers knowledgeable of the case would come forward
with information.
Jacques Leman was a known "left-wing radical" and a suspected
Communist. He was secretary of the France-USSR society in 1952. In
February I960, when he was a he Monde journalist, he tried to con-
tact an eleven-man Chinese Communist technical team then visiting
France. Voelkner so far has told the French only what they have
shown him they already knew. The press has speculated that the
government hopes to hold him for a possible "spy swap" with East
Germany.
Voelkner's defense hinged on his claim that he never forgot the
memory of his mother, who died under the torture of Nazis who
later became members of the West German intelligence service (and
thus agents of NATO). He claimed that he did not spy against France
but only against NATO. Gilles Perrault appeared for the defense.
In February 1970 Marthe Danilo and Simone Leman, sister of
Jacques Leman, received suspended sentences. Voelkner received

twelve years.
The London Times on 12 February 1970 printed the following
account of the case:
Hans Voelkner, the East German national accused

of spying,was today sentenced to twelve years im-
prisonment by the state security court. Two women
charged with him, Marthe Danilo, a former typist in
the cipher office of the Quai d'Orsay, and Simone
Leman, members of the spy ring Voelkner directed
from East Germany, were given short suspended
sentences as accessories.
The court followed the summing up of the
Prosecutor General, who had yesterday declared him-
self utterly convinced of the guilt of the three but
allowed extenuating circumstances for the two wom-
en.
"Voelkner has lost. He must pay," he went on. "In
any case, I am not too concerned about his future. He
can, as is often the case with spies, benefit from an
exchange.
"Certainly, fate was exceptionally cruel to him

since youth. But he is, I am convinced, really a senior
secret service officer on a special mission and not an
occasional agent, as he claims. He constitutes a
potential danger."
The main witness for the defense was M. Gilles
Perrault, the author of a history of the "red orches-
tra," the Soviet espionage organization which op-
erated against the Germans during the war. Voelk-
ner's mother was a member of this organization in
Paris, and for her part in it she was tortured and exe-
cuted by the Nazis. Her husband had also been exe-
cuted.
Herr Voelkner had never got over the execution of
his parents, and he never stopped thinking about his
mother. M. Perrault told the court, "I do not share
his convictions, but as a Frenchman I feel a debt of

gratitude towards his parents."
He added that he got much of the information for
his book from former members of the Gestapo he
rediscovered in Germany. "What are they doing
now?" asked Mr. Joe Nordmann, defending counsel.
"They are well, and some have been taken on by the
secret service of the Federal Republic," was the reply.
Mr. Nordmann said in his plea for Herr Voelkner
that he had lived obsessed by the memory of his
mother. "He never tried to do anything against
France, for NATO is not France. Herr Voelkner was
accused of trying to get information from the NATO
headquarters. Imagine the grief of this man when he
learned that those very men who had arrested and
tortured his mother, those former Nazis, had become
agents of NATO."
Another article on the Voelkner case appeared in the London
Times of 13 February 1970:
There is a dramatic quality about the past of Hans

Voelkner, an alleged member of the HVA, the East
German intelligence organization, who appeared
today before the Court for State Security to answer
charges of espionage.
The keen eyes and angular features of this small,

round-shouldered, rather insignificant man testify to
his extraordinary life and suffering. Born in Danzig

in —
1928 of two acrobats a German mother whose
name he took and a father he presumes to have been
Polish —
he led all over Europe the hard, wandering
life of circus folk until the family came to settle in
France in 1937.
They Nazi Germany because, he explained to
left
the court today, his mother's people were convinced

Social Democrats, and an accident suffered by his
father at a Leningrad circus opened his mother's eyes
to the benefits of social security.
Then came the war and the German occupation.
His parents joined the "Red Orchestra," the Commu-
nist espionage organization, and because of her na-
tionality his mother also became secretary to the rep-
resentative in Paris of Sauckel, the head of the Reich
organization. The boy was sent to a labor camp in
Germany to be indoctrinated and toughened up.
There, in 1943, he learned his parents had been
arrested by the Gestapo and executed after torture.
He was sent to the Eastern Front in 1944, tried to
desert to the Russians, was caught, and sent to
Belsen. When the camp was liberated, he returned to
France, but he fell afoul of the police.
He was expelled and tried to get into East Ger-
many, but the Russians would not have him. He
smuggled himself in and was sentenced by a Russian
military court to twenty-five years in a labor camp on
charges of spying for France.
Freed by an amnesty in 1955, his health badly
damaged by his ordeal, he settled down and eventu-
ally obtained a post of responsibility in the official
East German which brought

travel agency in Berlin,
him into contact with French businessmen visiting
the Leipzig Fair. The indictment maintains that this
was a cover under which heset up an espionage ring
in France. Two alleged members of the ring, a
woman clerk at the Quai d'Orsay, and another
woman, are also on trial.
Herr Voelkner was arrested during a visit to Paris

last year. His dramatic tale is having its epilogue in a
small dingy court of the Palais de Justice, where the
Court for State Security holds its hearings. The presi-
dent of the court said today that he would be
considered "a soldier who has worked for his country
and is accused of working against ours."
Herr Voelkner said: "I agreed to do a number of
things for my country, but I never did anything
against France. would never have agreed to be the
I
cause of harm to France, to which I owe so much."
GUENTHER WEISENBORN
was born 10 July 1902 in Velbert in the German Rhineland. He stud-
ied medicine and philosophy at Cologne and Bonn Universities. He
became an author and dramatist and later the dramatic critic of the
Schiller Theatre in Berlin during World War II. He married Mar-
garet Weisenborn, nee Schabbel, who was reportedly a Soviet agent.
(Her relationship, if any, to Klara Schabbel, who was the mistress of
Henri Robinson, is unknown.)
Before World War II Weisenborn had been a member of the
"Klara Apparatus," which was a branch of the IVth Section of the
Red Army. During World War II he belonged to the closest circle
around Schulze-Boysen and Harnack.
Manfred Roeder stated that Weisenborn was sentenced to a
prison term for his role in the Rote Kapelle because he did not report
the treasonable activity of the Schulze-Boysen group.
Weisenborn has written book entitled Memorial, which con-
a
cerns the operations of the Rote Kapelle in Germany.
ERNEST DAVID WEISS

was born in Breslau, Germany, in 1902 and attended Breslau Univer-
sity from 1922 to 1927. In May or June 1931 he was contacted by a
party named Demetz whom he had met at Breslau University.

Demetz asked him if he would be interested in a job travelling abroad,
and Weiss advised that he would be. In January 1932, Weiss was
introduced to Harry I through Demetz in Paris. On 11 May 1932
Weiss arrived in England, where he commenced doing general
research work for Harry I. In 1932 he had various meetings with
Harry I, and in June 1932 he was introduced to two seamen couriers
with whom he had liaisons thereafter.
In December 1932 Harry I went abroad and may have visited

the United States. On 17 September 1933 Weiss was introduced to
Robert Gordon Switz from Kensington Gardens, England, by Harry
I. It was in December 1933 that Mr. and Mrs. Switz were arrested in
France as Soviet espionage agents. Weiss recognized their picture in

a newspaper as that of the people he had met in September through
Harry I and stated that for the first time he knew he was working for
a Russian espionage system. In the fall met Harry II in
of 1935 Weiss
Enge, Switzerland, and contacted him thereafter when he had any
messages to deliver.
In 1936 Weiss obtained confidential information concerning

production of airplanes and other war materials from "Vernon" and
"Meredith." In December 1936 Harry II asked Weiss to contact Sam
Barron and to ask him if he would be interested in employment
abroad. From 1936 to August 1941 Weiss continued to have contacts
with Harry II and with a party named Andre to whom he gave infor-
mation obtained from the seamen couriers and from "Vernon" and
"Meredith." In 1941 Weiss discontinued his work as a courier for this
Russian espionage group.
The British interrogated Weiss and, judging from the report, it
appears that the SIS had an operational interest in him after the
arrest of Robinson on 21 December 1942.
Weiss told the British that
(1) Andre was one of the aliases of Henri Robinson, a Soviet
intelligence officer of long standing. He is thought to have taken
over the U.K. network in 1937 and is known to have made many
trips to the U.K.
(2) Demetz is probably identical with Hans Demetz; this man's
name was given to the British by Krivitsky in 1940. Demetz was
born about 1907 and started to work in the Fourth Department in
1925.
Weiss met David Rockefeller through Saul Rae and played
(3)
squash with Rockefeller at Kensington Palace Mansions. David
Rockefeller is now president of Chase Manhattan Bank. He was in

OSS during World War II.
(4) Vernon is probably Wilfred Foulston Vernon, born 17 Octo-

ber 1912 in London, who was a "cipher contact" between the RAE
and CP headquarters in London. He was associated with scores of
persons with Communist sentiments, among them being Meredith,
with whom he was on close terms. Frederick William Meredith was
born 10 July 1895 in Killiney, Dublin, Ireland. Meredith with about
eight other people from the RAE left for Russia in May 1932, return-
ing in June 1932.
(5) Weiss knew Sam Barron at the London School of Economics,
where they first met. Harry II suggested to Weiss that he should
approach Barron and ask him whether he was interested in taking a
job abroad. Subsequently Barron was in the United States from 1938
to 1941 and working for the War Trade Department of the British
Embassy in Washington, D.C. Lauchlin Currie, former White House
secretary, was Sam Barron's reference.
The British commented that Weiss probably failed to tell the
whole truth or deliberately suffered a lapse of memory. Weiss met
Roger King when he was evacuated to Chorley Wood in 1940. Roger
King is probably Roger Andrew Ivan King, born 29 March 1922 in
Zurich. In 1946 he was working in the SIS. Also, when Vernon was
prosecuted, he was defended by D.N. Pritt, to whom, according to
Meredith (who was in Vernon's confidence), he told the full story of
his dealings with Weiss's organization. Pritt is probably Denis
Nowell Pritt, a Socialist member of Parliament who was outspokenly
sympathetic to the USSR and Communism.
JOHANNES WENZEL
(alias Hans, alias Herman, alias the Professor, alias Charles, alias
Bergmann) was born 9 March 1902 in Niedau, near Danzig. A Ger-

man national, he was a Communist in his youth and went to Moscow
in the 1920s, where he attended a school run by the AM Apparat of
the Comintern. In 1930 he was a student at the Political Military
School in Moscow.
Wenzel returned to Danzig as a KPD official and was probably a
member of the AM Apparat until 1935. During this period he almost
certainly was in contact with Henri Robinson.
Wenzel is said to have played a part in the Reichstag fire, and
after the Nazis came to power he was probably sought by the Ger-
man police. In 1935 he was ordered to Moscow, where he was given
an intensive course by the GRU preparatory to his appointment as
technical advisor in Western Europe.
In January 1936 he arrived in Brussels, where he posed as a stu-
dent of mechanics and took a course at the technical school. In
October 1937 he was denied permission by the Belgian authorities to
remain in their country; so he went to Holland, where he contacted
Daniel Goulooze, with whom he discussed plans for the construction
of a service in Belgium.
In early 1938 he returned to Belgium, probably illegally, and it is
probable that he lived with Germaine and Franz Schneider. In 1939

he became technical advisor to Sukolov under Trepper's direction,
and he trained a number of W/T operators for the Low Countries
and France. Wenzel also acted as technical advisor to Konstantin Jef-
fremov, whom he probably first met in 1936.
In June 1940 he may have been arrested by the German occupa-
tion forces as a German refugee, but he was released shortly after-
wards because he was not recognized as a Soviet agent. From
December 1940 to 1942 Wenzel transmitted intelligence to Moscow
via W/T. May 1942, following Makarov's capture, Jeffremov took
In
over Sukolov's Low Countries network and invited Wenzel's collabo-
ration in re-establishing a link with Moscow for Sukolov's service. In
May 1942, by arrangement with Grossvogel, who visited him from
Paris, Wenzel commenced transmissions; and following the capture
of the Sokols in France, Trepper also utilized Wenzel's W/T service.
By technical means the Gestapo located Wenzel's transmitter
and captured him 30 July 1942. He agreed to collaborate with the
Germans, and the playback to Moscow was begun on Wenzel's trans-
mitter ("Weide") 6 August 1942. It was Wenzel's disclosure to the
Germans of his W/T codes that enabled them to decipher a large
amount of back traffic and to make the first arrests in Germany.
Wenzel escaped from his captors 17 November 1942. According
to one report, he went to Holland and joined an underground group.
He was able to inform the Soviet Embassy in London, via a British
communications line, that Jeffremov had been doubled and that the
Germans were conducting playback operations.
According to Gilles Perrault, Wenzel eventually made his way to
Moscow, where he was imprisoned at Lubianka with Trepper, Pann-
witz, Sukolov, and Ozols. His ultimate fate is unknown.
Perrault interviewed Henry Piepe of the Abwehr in February
1965. Piepewas in charge of the investigations in Brussels in 1941
and 1942, and Perrault quotes him as follows:
"Naturally, it came as a most unpleasant surprise when Berlin

informed us that a transmitter was again operating in our area. No
agent had ever called to pick up the set concealed in Mathieu's gar-
age; so our trap had been a waste of time, and we had to start from
scratch, just as for the Rue des Attrebates.
"The tracking teams came back to Brussels, including my old
sergeant technician in charge of the 'suitcase' detector. The Funkab-
wehr spent the first few days taking the usual bearings from fixed
a
points. It must seem unbelievable, but it's true; the transmitter was
operating all night long, which obviously made our task much easier.
I must confess I could never understand the Russians' attitude. Were

they really so overworked? After all, an underemployed pianist is
more use than a pianist locked up

No, I think they simply
in jail.
weren't aware of the advanced techniques we were using. I can't see

any other possible explanation. Not unless they were cold-bloodedly
sacrificing radio operators.
"Anyway, we very soon discovered that the transmitter was
somewhere in the Laeken district. Unluckily, an electric railway ran
through the neighborhood. It jumbled the electric fields or some- —
thing like that —
and much to his annoyance my sergeant had to
admit that his 'suitcase' wouldn't work. We had to resort to a Funkab-
wehr van fitted with equipment powerful enough not to be jammed
by the railway. It was camouflaged as a military vehicle, but we hardly
had to worry about spotters, because we only operated after curfew.
On the other hand, there was a risk that we ourselves might be
stopped and questioned, and that was something I wanted to avoid at
all costs. I certainly didn't want reports leaking out that a mysterious
vehicle was roaming the streets at night, that the police weren't
interfering with it, and so on.
"[LJuckily, the transmitter continued to operate five hours a
night, and end we located the house where it was hidden
in the —
tall building with a lumberyard on one side and a shop on the other.
According to my sergeant the set was sure to be on one of the upper

floors. It was hard for him to be more specific. Anyway, the rest was
up to me.
"My first step, as in the Rue des Attrebates, was to recruit extra
manpower. We couldn't allow the bird to escape, and I preferred to
take too many was given twenty-
precautions rather than too few. I
five members of the secret police. In addition, I went back to the

Luftwaffe barracks and explained what I was up to. The airmen were
very young and enthusiastic; the scheme excited them, and they put
themselves at my disposal. I decided to launch the attack at 3 a.m. on
June 30.
"It was a marvelously clear, moonlit night, so I instructed the
airmen to hide in the lumberyard until zero hour; then they were to
emerge from cover and seal off the street. My squad of police and I
moved into the ground-floor apartment of the house in question. We
woke up the tenant, who proved to be very friendly, offering us cof-
fee and making conversation (Otto Schumacher). At 3 o'clock we
went into action. I assigned two men to each floor and told the rest to
stand by. We galloped up the stairs. Suddenly I heard a shout from
the attic: 'Hurry! Hurry! It's up here!' I raced to the attic. It was
divided into small compartments. I hurried to the part where a light
showed, and there I found my two men — alone! I ordered them to
search the other compartments, while I quickly took stock of the
scene. On a small table was the transmitter — still warm. Beside it lay
a bundle of documents written in German. Dozens of postcards were
strewn about the room, posted from various German towns. It was
enough to take one's breath away. On the floor, a jacket and a pair of
boots. The pianist must have felt very safe, to put comfort before
security. But how could he possibly have escaped? I glanced up and
noticed the dormer window was half open. poked my head out,
I
intending to take a look at the roof. There was a loud shot, and I
ducked quickly. Someone down in the street shouted, 'Look out. He's
crouching by the chimney!'
went downstairs with the documents. My airmen friends had
"I
moved out into the street, but they were taking cover in doorways;
the fugitive was shooting at them. He was clearly visible as he sprang
from roof to roof. He had a revolver in each hand and was blazing
away between leaps. I could sense that my boys were dying to get
him, but I told them, 'Whatever you do, don't shoot! I want him
alive.'
"Our man reached the last building in the block; he was cor-
nered. But he smashed one of the dormer windows and disappeared.
We heard a woman going on?' we shouted
calling for help. 'What's
up at her. She said a man had through her bedroom and
just raced
down the stairs. We sped to the house and searched every floor. No
sign of him! I began However, some of the airmen
to fear the worst.
went down up an overturned bathtub, and found
to the cellar, picked
him hiding underneath. They were so angry and worked up that they
started beating him with the butts of their rifles. I ordered them to
stop and took my prisoner to Gestapo headquarters. He seemed
panic-stricken. He was a short, stocky, hard-featured man, about
forty years old, terribly working-class. I must say, he didn't make a
great impression on me.
"He immediately wanted to know whether I was Abwehr or
Gestapo; I set his at rest. He
spoke French, but none too well
mind
and with a heavy accent. Next he asked me to fasten his hands in
front of him, instead of keeping them handcuffed behind his back.
'Oh, no,' I said, 'that's an old trick! You're just looking for a chance to
jump me and me over the head.' He insisted that he had no such

hit
intention, but remained

I suspicious. As a gesture, however, I laid my
gun on the table and said, 'There, you see, I'm unarmed. You have
nothing to fear.' He complained of the beating he had received, and I
felt obliged to point out that it was his own fault he ought not to —
have opened fire; troops never like being shot at when they can't
shoot back. He calmed down, and after a while we started chatting in
German; he spoke it perfectly.
"Eventually I informed him that I proposed to question him
about his identity. He stared uneasily at the two policemen in my
office. I ordered them out, removed his handcuffs, and said, 'Go
ahead; we're all alone, just the two of you can speak quite
us, so
openly.' Relaxing visibly, he told me that his name was Johann Wen-
zel and that he had been born in Danzig in 1902. A German! But he
added: 'I warn you here and now, I'm not the kind of man who makes
bargains. You needn't expect any disclosures or betrayals from me!'
'Now, now,' I said, 'you aren't being sensible.' But I couldn't get
another word out of him. So I packed him off to St. Gilles prison . . .
"Following Wenzel's departure, went I to report to my superi-

ors. They immediately telephoned the news to Berlin. Twenty min-
utes later, Berlin called back with intense excitement and informed
us: 'You've caught one of the most prominent members of the
prewar German Communist Party, one of the chiefs of the Comin-
tern's underground apparatus.' The capture was such a major and
miraculous event in their eyes that they could hardly believe it could
be the same man.
"To up with Wenzel, I should add that the Berlin Gestapo
finish
sent for few days later. He was out of his mind with fear, for
him a
obviously the Gestapo had old scores to settle with him. Giering and
his men set to work on him. They tortured him for six or eight
weeks, then sent him back to Brussels. When I saw him again, I
simply didn't recognize him. He was a broken man. He had revealed
everything to them, including his code and his cover name, 'the Pro-
fessor.' He was called that because he was a great specialist in radio
communication and had trained many pianists in his time. Giering

informed me that the prisoner was now prepared to work for us."
GEORGIE DE WINTER
(alias Elizabeth Thevenet) was born 29 May 1919 in New York City.
She was a professional dancer and met Trepper in Brussels in 1938
or 1939. She became his mistress and they had a son, Patrick de Win-
ter,born 29 September 1939 in Brussels. It is possible, as Perrault

claims, that Trepper was not the father of Patrick and that Georgie
was already pregnant when she met Trepper. Patrick de Winter
served in the U.S. Army in 1957. He is now a U.S. citizen and a pro-
fessor at Columbia University.
Georgie in all probability was not an agent herself, nor did she
know the exact nature or extent of Trepper's espionage activities.
Trepper fled from Brussels to Paris in July 1940, and in March
1941 Georgie moved to Paris to be with him, using her U.S. passport
in the name de Winter. In June 1941 she adopted the name Elizabeth
Thevenet and used false papers supplied to her by Trepper. After
Trepper escaped from the Germans in September 1943, he visited
Georgie at Le Vesinet for two days. She took him to the Queyries'
house in Suresnes, where he stayed a week. Trepper then left Georgie
and went to Claude Spaak. Georgie left for the unoccupied zone and
in about mid-October 1943 she was arrested by the Germans. She had
on her person a letter from Antonia Lyon-Smith, which exposed the
Maximovitch group. Georgie was transported to Fresnes Prison and
subsequently detained in Ravensbrueck Camp until her liberation by
the Allies 10 May 1945. She then rejoined her child with the Queyries
in Suresnes. From May 1945 until about April 1946 Georgie received
periodic payments, to a total of twenty-three thousand francs, from
Claude Spaak, this being money left for her provision by Trepper.
After the war Georgie lived with Jules Jaspar at St. Hippolyte du
Gard in the south of France, possibly until 1954. According to one
report, however, Jaspar died circa 1948-1949. In 1965 she married a
Polish aristocrat, Colonel de la Garde. They are now living in Lasalle
in the Cevennes mountains in southern France.
Gilles Perrault interviewed Georgie at Lasalle (actually in a
nearby hamlet called Les Horts) in the summer of 1965. Her husband
was at that time in a Montpellier hospital recovering from a heart
Georgie said that after her release from the concentration
attack.
camp she had gone to see her mother in Belgium. The Belgian secur-
ity police arrested and interrogated her. She reported that she had
also been interrogated in 1962 by the French DST.
ANTON WINTERINK
(alias Tino, alias Tanne) was born 5 November 1914 in Arnhem,
Netherlands. He was a Dutch national and an official of the Com-
munist Party of the Netherlands. He resided in Amsterdam.
Winterink was a leading functionary of the Rote Hilfe organiza-
tion in the Netherlands. In this organization there were factions of

the SND. Around 1938 Winterink started to work full-time for the
SND. In this capacity he established an agent network which was
later used by the Rote Kapelle. Konstantin Jeffremov was, for a time,
Winterink's supervisor.
Winterink established a radio technical section and at the begin-
ning of the war he took over the leadership of the group "Hilda" in
Holland. On 18 August 1942 he was arrested by the Sonderkom-
mando and since then his whereabouts are unknown. He is presumed
dead.
JOSEF KARL WIRTH

was born on 6 September 1879 in Freiburg in Breisgau. He became
successively a professor, town councillor, member of the Baden Land-
tag, member of the Reichstag, federal minister of finance, and federal
chancellor —
the last from May 1921 to November 1922. During part
of this period he also served as the minister of foreign affairs. The
major development during his tenure as chancellor was the signing
of the Treaty of Rapallo, which established diplomatic relations
between the USSR and Germany and which paved the way for the
secret agreement by which the two countries gave each other military
assistance in violation of the Treaty of Versailles.
For seven years, 1922 to 1929, Wirth ostensibly withdrew from
public life. In 1930 he accepted Bruening's offer of the Ministry of
the Interior. But in October 1931 President Hindenburg ousted him

from office.
When the Nazis seized power in 1933, Wirth went to Austria.A

year later he moved to Paris,where he remained until 1939. When
the Nazis seized Austria, he fled via Italy to Switzerland.
During the Second World War, Wirth was in contact with Vla-
dimir Alexandrovich Jokolin, who was appointed the Assistant
Secretary General of the League of Nations on 18 February 1937. He
also had contacts with "Long" and "Salter" of the Rote Drei. He lived
in Lucerne. He made rather grandiose plans for a postwar German
government strongly oriented toward Communism and supported
initially by the USSR. In 1951, in fact, a committee headed by Marga-
rete Buber-Neumann, who had suffered political persecution in both

the USSR and Germany, charged, "The Soviet intention to establish
a counter-parliament against Bonn with Wirth as federal chancellor
."
. .endangers security and order
. . .
Wirth appears in the Rote Drei traffic, Moscow to Switzerland,

by true name, not by cover name. A message from the Center on 14

January 1943 to Dora begins:
Request reply about exact substance of talks be-

tween Long (George Blun) and Wirth. Especially in-
terested in contents of Wirth's negotiations with the
Anglo-Saxons and his intentions regarding negotia-
tions with the USSR. What does he plan to do, as a
practical matter, to establish contact?
Six days later Moscow asked about OKW intentions, directed

that the requirement be levied on Lucy's sources but added, "if feasi-
ble, Long should try to get relevant information from the Wirth
group."
On 5 October 1943, Rado informed the Center,
On 27 September Salter talked with . . .Wirth in

Lucerne. Wirth rejects the German Liberation Com-
mittee in Moscow . . .According to Wirth the Ger-
man Embassy in Bern is extremely interested in
Sokolin.
Wirth seems to have been dealing, or trying to deal, with the

British, the Soviets, the Americans, and even the Germans in an
effort to obtain a major governmental position in postwar Germany.
It is known that through an SD agent, Richard Grossmann (alias
Director) and Ludwig, Wirth supplied information to Walter Schel-

lenberg. The topic, at least ostensibly,was usually peace feelers. But
Wirth also entertained strong personal ambitions.

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CLASSIFIED STUDIES IN

THE ROTE KAPELLE

UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS OF AMERICA, INC.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-51270

Manufactured in the United States of America

Diagram of the Rote Kapelle xiv

The Jeff remov Group May 1942 -August 1942 11

The Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company 16

The Second Arrests 28

The Liquidation of the Gouwlooze Group 72

The Ozols Network 1940-1944 85

The Playback 106

The Ozols and Mithridate Networks 117

Jean Claude Spaak 122

The Return to Moscow 128

The Arrests and Trial 159

The "Pakbo" Group 172

Sissy and Paul 175

Lucy and Taylor 184

Phase II: Lucy's Post-War Operation 218

THE ROTE KAPELLE ELSEWHERE

Personality Sketches 255-390

ducted against a station of the Soviet intelligence service which had

was adopted for these expanded operations also.

formed in Paris in November There has been some misunder-

denote this special counterespionage group of the Gestapo, which

ficult period of the non-aggression pact between Germany and the

Most of the information about the Rote Kapelle was obtained

by the Rote Kapelle organizers.

cers, agents, and auxiliary workers, and an entirely original system of

CHRONOLOGY OF THE ROTE KAPELLE IN BELGIUM

January 1936 Comintern agent Johannes Wenzel arrived in Bel-

1936-1939 Soviet intelligence officer Konstantin Jeffremov

1936 Franz and Germaine Schneider were recruited as

1936 Leopold Trepper was made technical director of

1936- 1938 Trepper engaged in organizing missions for So-

1937- early 1939 Victor Sukolov, a Soviet intelligence officer, prob-

Autumn, 1938 Trepper made several visits to Brussels.

December 1938 Leon Grossvogel founded the Foreign Excellent

early 1939 Mikhail Makarov, was

sent from Moscow Stockholm and

6 March 1939 Trepper (alias Adam Mikler) officially arrived in

25 March 1939 Makarov (alias Carlos Alamo) arrived in Belgium

April 1939 Makarov became proprietor of the Ostende

April 1939 Sukolov, presumably stationed in France, went to

1939 Anton Danilov was sent to Paris as a clerk in the

Captain Karpov. Danilov would eventually be

Spring, 1939 Grossvogel introduced Abraham Rajchmann, an

Spring and Grossvogel visited Denmark, Sweden, Norway,

17 July 1939 Sukolov (alias Vincent Sierra) arrived in Belgium

Summer, 1939 Sukolov visited Switzerland.

Fall, 1939-1941 Sukolov studied languages and commercial sub-

6 September Jeffremov (alias Eric Jernstroem) arrived in Bel-

October 1939- As "Clement," Sukolov probably utilized the

March-April Sukolov made a three-week visit to Switzerland

1940 and saw Alexander Rado while there.

10 May 1940 The Germans invaded Belgium, Holland, and Lux-

May 1940 Rajchmann lied from Belgium and went to

May 1940 Jules Jaspar fled to France. He salvaged 200,000