Frick - Himmler (Very interesting document)
A report by the Reichsmistr of the Interior, Dr. Frick and the Reichsführer SS and the head of the German police, Himmler, to the German imperial government on the subversive work of the Soviet Union against the German Reich. from 10 June 1941 of the year.
It is well known that the Communist International, up to the conclusion of 23.08.1939 of the non-aggression pact and consultations between Germany and Soviet Russia, conducted subversive activities against the Axis powers, especially against National Socialist Germany. The hope that, after the conclusion of this pact, Soviet Russia would behave loyally in accordance with the agreements reached and stop the inflammatory work against the Reich, did not materialize. On the contrary, the communist subversive activities, acts of sabotage and terror, as well as the maximum speeding up of the work of military, economic and political intelligence remained unshakable - although known - the goals of the rulers of Soviet Russia.
The only thing that changed was the methods by which new tasks were constantly set before reconnaissance with the use of new forms and subtle disguise.
I. Structure and chains of the Comintern
The Communist International (Comintern) is an organization created in Soviet Russia (headquartered in Moscow) with the purpose (paragraph 1 of the Charter): "To unite the Communist Parties of all countries into one global party to fight for the interests of the working class, the principles of communism and the dictatorship of the proletariat." And today, the Presidium of the Comintern Executive Committee includes: Stalin, as 1 Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Molotov, German émigré Peak as a representative of the German section of the Communist International, leader of the French Communists Torez and Bulgarian Chairman Dimitrov known as arson of the Reichstag; .
For the official authorities of the Soviet Union, the Comintern is convenient as unofficial, i.e. not a state apparatus that can be used for any subversive work on a global scale. But the Comintern is used for these special tasks abroad in parallel with its intelligence and espionage activities, so that in the fight against it it is difficult to clearly separate one from the other. It was during the war that the subversive work of the Comintern intensified. Human and monetary resources are intensively spent on it. The whole of Europe is bombarded with calls and directives of sections of the Comintern, representing individual countries, the purpose of which is to inspire supporters of communist ideology to the most intense and patient subversive work against the “imperialist war being waged by Germany”, not least by compensating for this activity negative for the Soviet Union the consequences of the conclusion of a pact with National Socialist Germany.
Ii. New methods of illegal subversive work
1. Against the Reich
Due to the ruthless struggle against the Communist Party and its destruction in 1933, which was the result of the uncompromising installation of national socialism on this fight, in the period before the conclusion of the pact, all efforts made by the Comintern from abroad, as well as petty remnants of the Comintern, its departments of military policy and industrial espionage.
The increased pressure from the Comintern responded with methodological instructions on tactics of more subtle subversive activities. Even more intensive work was to be carried out from the inside using the “Trojan horse” method (Dimitrov talked about this at the VII World Comintern Congress 25 in July - August 30 in 1935), a classic example of which is the Spanish Civil War. After the conclusion of the 23.08.1939 Pact, this work was carried out without any propaganda that the Executive Committee of the Comintern wanted to compensate by strengthening the activity of updating the extensive apparatus of the military policy and industrial espionage departments. While in the occupied regions, the work of the Comintern was facilitated by the still strong Communist Party apparatus, its efforts against the Reich were promptly stopped and never left the stage of attempts.
Through constant observation, it was found that in European countries the network of Comintern communication centers has again developed strongly, the common goal of which is to strengthen the subversive and intelligence activities against Germany.
One of the main communication centers established under the Swedish Communist Party in Stockholm. This is one of the most active and dangerous centers of the Comintern. His methods of work against the Reich can be described in more detail below, due to the abundance of available materials.
For work against the Reich they prefer to use the former main activists of the German Communist Party, who for many years studied in Moscow and other European cities. They were first abandoned in Reich in 1939. One of the most dexterous managed to largely resume contacts with previously known to him comrades in Berlin, and as a result of systematic work, they again created communist factory cells at large Berlin enterprises that had fulfilled important military orders. The explicit purpose of this work was to disintegrate personnel and incite them to sabotage while maintaining industrial espionage.
Instructors of the Comintern from Stockholm and Copenhagen, using skillful methods, continuously delivered materials, directives and money with the help of couriers. The leading role in the leadership of this organization, which has grown to dangerous proportions, was played by the deputy of the Swedish Riksdag Linderot, who is the representative of the European Bureau of the Comintern in Stockholm. He carried out special assignments to the ECCI in selected countries. Linderot stepped up from Stockholm the work of Commissioners of the Comintern in Copenhagen against the Reich, such as Arthur Emmerich, born. 20.07.1907 in Niderviz, or Willie Gall, born 3.10.1908 in Falkenstein / Vogtland, or Rudolf Hallmeyer, genus. 3.02.1908 in Plauen, or Heinrich Schmeer, born 20.03.1908, from the security police (SD), the agents of Linderot taught them the methods of work that the police allegedly used. The training was led by the most famous here Commissioner of the GPU, which since 3.02.1941 has become part of the united People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs called the People's Commissariat of State Security, Dmitry Fedoseyevich Krylov.
Established by the aforementioned communist activists, the organization liaised with Moscow through a permanent courier center in Hamburg through Copenhagen and Stockholm. Money and instructions came from Moscow, and reports were sent to Moscow about the most important manufacturing centers and the level of production of the latest weapons in Germany
The organization was also engaged in the release of subversive leaflets. It is clear from the last instruction received by Emmerich at the end of May 1941 from Moscow from the Comintern that it was for the next two months that many new instructors were to be sent to separate areas of the Reich.
Since further observation due to the scale of the organization could no longer prevent the damage it was causing, at the end of May 1941, all its members were arrested in a timely manner.
2. Against the areas occupied by Germany.
The illegal subversive activities of the Comintern in the areas occupied by Germany are carried out in forms similar to those described above. Special mention should be made of this activity in the following areas:
A) In the protectorate of the Czech Republic and Moravia
Even before the occupation of the former Czechoslovakia, the Communist Party was very active, and after the establishment of the 16 protectorate in March, 1939 was completely underground. In recent years, communist activists from this area have been constantly sent to the Lenin school in Moscow for military-political training and training in the theory and practice of civil and terrorist war.
These trained activists were involved after the establishment of the protectorate. They immediately began to recreate the illegal KKE. Relations with the Comintern, as well as control and management of party work were carried out by the Consulate General of the USSR in Prague. The TASS correspondent and press assistant at the Soviet consulate general Kurt Beer (Jew) works as a liaison with the Soviet consulate general. As part of his functions, he receives from the diplomatic mission Russian newspapers and communist propaganda materials, which he passes, as directives, to the leading activists of the KKE. He was also an intermediary in transferring huge sums of money to support illegal party work.
In addition to this connection, through the Soviet consulate general, the Comintern also maintained direct radio communications from the protectorate with Moscow. Activists who were entrusted with the leadership of this Comintern radio station in Prague also took a special course in Moscow at the school of radio operators and telegraph operators (this school is under the control of the Comintern and the Red Army). Training is conducted on the widest basis, the name of the course is the MLA (“Organization of an international connection”).
Radio equipment in Prague, which worked until the last days, consisted of one large receiving and transmitting installation.
Wireless telegrams from Prague transmitted reports on the general domestic political situation, on the course of actions carried out by the party, on meetings of the central management and decisions made by it, as well as on the position, moods and activities of the party, orders and directives of the Executive Committee of the Comintern from Moscow were made. Intercepted bilateral radio talks are the best evidence that the Comintern has not abandoned its revolutionary ideas aimed at the destruction of national socialism.
B) In the occupied part of France.
The Comintern also paid special attention to the French Communist Party, since Lenin had assumed that France would become the Bolshevik bastion in Western Europe. With the modern fragmentation and internal weakness of France, the Communist International, which had numerous adherents there before the war, hopes to achieve success.
And in this case, we can certainly state that the Communists in France in various forms receive money and propaganda materials from diplomatic missions of the Soviet Union.
And in this case, the pact of 23.08.1939 did not play any role, moreover, from that moment the activity of the French Communists, directed against Germany, indirectly intensified. The most compelling and at the same time the most objective evidence of this is the Surté Nacional act (of the French secret police), which was found in the course of an inspection in Paris, concerning the French newspaper Ordre. As witnessed by the authentic documents of the French police, in a reorganization carried out in November 1939, apart from the head of the press service of the Yugoslav mission, Vitsevich and Jacques Ebstein, Lady Stanley's lover, Lord Darby's sister, participated the Czech Jew Otto Katz, also Karl Simon, who was Soviet service. In November 1939 of the year Soviet ambassador Surits (Yakov Zakharyevich Surits was ambassador in Paris before 26 in March 1940) together with the former red Spanish minister Negrin (socialist Juan Negrin from 18 in May 1937 of the year headed the Government of the Popular Front in Spain), and in January-February 1940 - with the embassy secretary Biryukov, visited the chief editor of the newspaper Bure in his villa in Saint-Cloud. During these visits, it was agreed that a certain Athenon would join the board of the newspaper Ordr as the official representative of the Soviet embassy. The financial assistance allocated to this was increased at the end of March to 800.000 francs per month. After the dissolution of their party in France, 28 September 1939, the communist leaders gave their supporters a categorical order to read Ordr as a body with a clear anti-German position.
B) In other occupied areas.
In Norway, the Soviet mission to Oslo is also the center of the Comintern’s subversive propaganda. Here the officers of this mission managed to catch up while they were performing criminal acts.
In Holland, Belgium and the former Yugoslavia, the use of the same methods of work that are used against the Reich has been proven.
We would have gone far beyond the scope of this brief report, if we had presented with comprehensive exhaustiveness extensive, documented witness and written material on the details of the Comintern’s subversive and intelligence work.
It is important to emphasize the consistently repeated conclusion that the behavior of the Soviet Union in relation to the Reich and the areas it occupied remained insincere, and from 1940 there was a feverish intensification of the subversive activities of the Comintern.
Iii. Sabotage carried out by the Comintern.
Ten years before the start of the war, the Comintern began to send tested communists from all sections to the Soviet Union and train them there in special schools, in particular, sabotage and explosives. So, with 1930, the year again earned with particular intensity the so-called. military-political training courses in Moscow and still have not stopped working. Since the Comintern, in its pursuit of global political domination, always took into account the possibility of military conflict, he gave directives at its world congresses that clearly directed his adherents to acts of terror and sabotage and justified these crimes with political necessity.
The multitude of groups of terrorists and saboteurs created by order of the Comintern, disclosed by the Security Police (SD) on the territory of the Reich, characterizes the attitude of the Soviet Union to the Reich. Preparations for acts of sabotage against important military installations, bridges, explosions of important railway lines, the destruction and paralysis of the work of large industrial enterprises - these were the goals of these communist groups, which, when conducting their actions, did not stop killing people. In addition to assignments to carry out acts of sabotage, criminals were also given assignments to commit attacks on the leaders of the Reich.
Although it was assumed that a series of these crimes committed by the Comintern or at the stage of preparation would end with the conclusion of the German-Russian non-aggression pact 23 of August 1939, extensive information, including from areas occupied by Germany, proves that the Comintern does not want to stop its criminal activities against the Reich.
Along with the groups of saboteurs created by the British secret service, whose goal in peacetime was to destroy the German courts, there was an even more extensive terrorist organization created by the Comintern, whose main task was to destroy the ships of those states that once joined the Anti-Comintern bloc.
It is proved that the members of this organization acted in Denmark until the end of 1940, and from there they tried to transfer their activities to the Reich territory again. The head of this organization was the German émigré Ernst Wollweber, who in 1931 was a member of the general German leadership of the RGO (Red Trade Union Opposition), and in November 1932 of the year was elected a deputy of the Reichstag from the CPG. After his emigration to Copenhagen in 1933, Wollweber became the leader of the International Proletarian Sailors and Port Workers, who carried out acts of sabotage by order of the Comintern, especially against German ships. He is largely responsible for the organization and active activities of the groups of saboteurs created in accordance with instructions from Moscow in Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the former Baltic states of the Frontiers. He carried out large-scale procurement and transportation of explosives and other materials for sabotage and had large sums of money allocated by the Comintern to finance this organization and to pay for agents. After the entry of the German troops in Oslo in May 1940, Wollweber fled to Sweden, where he is still under arrest in Stockholm. Steps have been taken by the Soviet government to induce the Swedish government to send Wollweber to Soviet Russia, since he obtained Soviet citizenship for his successful work in the Comintern.
The activities of these communist terrorist groups spread throughout Europe include acts of sabotage against 16 German, Italian 3 and Japanese 2 ships, which in two cases resulted in their complete loss. At first, the criminals tried to destroy ships by arson, but since this method did not usually lead to the complete loss of ships, they recently switched to the use of explosives against ships plying in the Baltic and North Sea. The main strongholds of the organization are located in the ports of Hamburg, Bremen, Danzig, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Oslo, Revel and Riga.
Created in Holland, Belgium and France, groups of communist saboteurs were led by the Dutch communist Josef Rimbertus Schaap, who was also the head of the Interclub in Rotterdam and had the closest ties with the main activists of the organization in the Scandinavian countries. He was directly subordinate to the former head of the Hamburg Roth Front, Karl Bargstedt, who was in charge of the entire organization of the organization of the device explosions. The explosives needed for sabotage were delivered from mines in the north of the Scandinavian Peninsula to groups of communist saboteurs in Holland, Belgium and France by Dutch sailors through the Norwegian port of Narvik and the Swedish fort Luleå. One of the main couriers delivering the explosives was the Dutch Communist Bill Van-van Weswijk, who was arrested in Rotterdam.
Both the Dutch and the Belgian groups had several laboratories where incendiary and explosive bombs were made. The acts of sabotage against the Italian steamer Boccaccio and the Japanese steamer Casia Maru are the work of these groups. The prepared acts of sabotage against the German ships in the ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam were promptly discovered and prevented.
As further information became available to the security police (SD), 24 communist terrorists were arrested, including the leaders of the Dutch and Belgian groups of saboteurs Achilles Begin and Alfons Fiktels.
Schaap himself was arrested by the Danish police 1.08.1940 of the year in Copenhagen, where he intended to intensify an organization already existing in Denmark that was engaged in acts of sabotage against sea-going ships.
How important it is for the Comintern to violate German shipping in the Baltic Sea through acts of sabotage is clear from the fact that from February to April, the security police (SD), together with the Danish police, managed to arrest a number of leaders of the Communist Party of Denmark, who actively supported groups of communist saboteurs. Among them are Richard Jensen, member of the Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Denmark and secretary general of the Proletarian Seafarers and Port Workers International, Teger Tegereren, editor of the Danish communist newspaper Arbeiterblatt in Copenhagen, and Otto Melchior, member of the board of the Union of Friends of the USSR in Denmark.
On account of the communist groups in Denmark, acts of sabotage against the German steamer Saar in the port of Revel and the German cargo steamer Phil in the port of Koenigsberg, and in the latter case, due to a strong explosion, a large hole in the wall of the bow of the vessel at the waterline level. Mina with a chemical fuse and clockwork was carried on board in the port of Riga.
The chemical-mechanical incendiary-explosives and Bickford fuse cords used by the Danish Communist Organization came from Sweden and were delivered to Copenhagen by special courier from Malmö, where they were kept in a men's clothing store. The most important information about the work of the Comintern against Germany is also contained in the testimony of other communist terrorists from Denmark.
Thus, the Comintern attached particular importance to recruiting as seafarers from the Scandinavian countries, as it was believed that in the future war only Scandinavian states would remain neutral and only citizens of these countries would have the opportunity to carry out attacks in German ports and on German ships. In addition, a clear instruction was given to destroy cargoes on ships of these countries with the help of arson and explosions, if this serves the interests of the Soviet Union. Wollweber himself instructed certain groups of saboteurs in the Baltic states and in the German ports on the North Sea to recruit at least one reliable employee in all ships in this area who would need to be best trained in future work at the 3 International.
At his direction, an attempt was made to create a group of saboteurs in Danzig.
Leading activists of the Proletarian Seafarers International and port workers from these groups, including Oslo-born Norwegian Arthur Samsing, who had lived in the Soviet Union for a long time, were arrested and gave detailed testimony about the acts of sabotage they carried out against Vollveber against the Reich.
On the instructions of the Comintern, Wollweber created strongholds on the islands of the Baltic Sea, Dago and Ösel. However, the personnel recruited on these islands were to take action only if during the war between Germany and the Soviet Union these islands were captured by the German army and the Navy. The object of acts of sabotage then had to become, first of all, the base of submarines, airfields and fuel depots.
The extent to which Bolshevism developed in the Reich itself is evidenced by the fact that, according to data collected from March 1941 by the Security Police (SD) in Upper Silesia and the Governor-General, the leadership of Polish organizations engaged in sabotage and terror was degree infiltrated by communist elements. And here the organization of the crimes committed lately indicates typical communist methods of execution in the form in which they were communicated by the Comintern to all sections when drawing up "theses on the war" at its VI and VII World Congresses in Moscow.
Iv. Soviet espionage (economic, military and political intelligence) against the Reich.
1. Methods of work of the GPU with immigrants from ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche).
When, thanks to the German-Russian border treaty from 28.09.1939, Russia received great benefits for itself, reaping the fruits of the German victory over Poland and significantly increasing its territory, she used the settlement of the issue of delimiting the spheres of German and Russian interests in order to use the newly emerging common the border with the Great German Reich as a gateway for sending countless spies to the territory of their partner in the non-aggression pact.
The Fuhrer’s generous action to return to the homeland of ethnic Germans living on Russian territory was shamelessly used for these purposes.
When the ethnic Germans, following the call of the Fuhrer, began to apply for relocation by the masses, the notorious GPU appeared on the scene, which from 3.02.1941 became part of the united People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs called the People's Commissariat of State Security to use many of these disgusting means Germans engaged in espionage activities against the country to which they, driven by love for their homeland, were about to return. Although the GPU cannot boast of any special practical successes, as people forced into espionage on German territory, most of them immediately reported this, however, this fact remains a shameful stain on the methods of the GPU and the rulers of Soviet Russia.
In such cases, German immigrants were summoned to the GPU, interrogated for hours and threatened to remove them from the lists for resettlement if they did not agree to the impudent demands of the GPU. Such a method was also a favorite: the newcomers were told that their remaining relatives would not be harmed, but they would be held hostage in case the departing people did not fulfill the obligations they were forced to, or dare to tell about it in Germany. They were also threatened that the long arm of the GPU would reach them in Germany. This threat made an impression on individual migrants from small people. Not only men, but also women were forced to sign up for cooperation in such a shameless way. Of the hundreds of such cases, only a few are listed below, which are typical examples of how the Germans were treated.
a) During the resettlement process in the Reich of the Bessarabian Germans (on the basis of an agreement of September 5 1940), Ms. Maria Bauman arrived from Chernivtsi, who showed under oath that the Russian secret service wanted to force her to spy in Germany. She was repeatedly summoned to the great heads of the GPU and acted upon her by all means in order to make her agree with the impudent demands of the GPU. Since she is a widow, the mother of five children left without a breadwinner, she was promised high wages, and they said that even 10.000 sums of Reichsmarks and higher were not a problem. She was supposed to engage in espionage activities in Prague and brought with her materials and documents that can be used to judge the level of specialized training.
b) A married, woman, Elizabeth Kreitel, whose husband had a dressing shop in Chernivtsi, was also called to the GPU to obtain a foreign passport. She had to do spyware assignments in Saxony. She also brought educational materials important to German counterintelligence. Hundreds of others can be added to these individual proven examples. It has been established that, according to a cautious assessment, about half of the total number of GPU displaced persons with the help of blackmail and threats or promising huge amounts of money forced them to cooperate.
Not only did the GPU try, with the help of abominable means, to make these Germans traitors to their homeland; In many cases, the authorities of the GPU simply robbed these people, robbed them of their documents, money and valuables. In 16 cases, there is evidence that the documents were stolen in order to supply Russian spies with them. Even in these cases there is a strong suspicion that the GPU killed several ethnic Germans for this purpose in order to use their documents for the invisible penetration of their agents into the Reich.
2. Soviet diplomatic missions as centers of economic and military espionage against the Reich with the clear goal of preparing for war.
After the conclusion of the pact, the work forms of the Russian espionage secret services became almost provocative. From her already shameless methods, she turned to the fact that she began to make extensive use of Russian missions in the Reich for her espionage purposes. When some time ago, the former Russian ambassador to Berlin Shkvartsev was recalled and replaced by Dekanozov (December 19 1940 was appointed Vladimir Georgievich Dekanozov, the new Ambassador of November 24 November, who also kept his post as Deputy Commissar of Internal Affairs, presented his credentials to the Führer) became a signal for even more intense espionage in the form of political, economic and military intelligence activities. Dekanozov, a confidant of Stalin, headed the Russian intelligence department of the NKVD, which was part of the GPU as a special espionage body. The task with which he arrived from Moscow was to find access to the Reich institutions through the extended network of trusted representatives and, above all, to give reports on the military strength and operational plans of the Reich. His loyal assistant was an employee of the GPU and the so-called. “Embassy Counselor” Kobulov, who has developed intensive espionage activities, shamelessly using his extraterritorial status. Russian espionage in the Reich was aimed, in addition to obtaining purely military intelligence, to find out about the political plans of the Reich and, having created a network of secret transmitters in many places in Germany, have ready points for transmitting important information to Russia using a complex system cipher. Thus, since 1940, large-scale mobilization training has been carried out in the field of espionage, with incredibly large amounts of money being spent on this. (German counterintelligence intervened in a timely manner).
The knowledge that Russian espionage is increasing, primarily in the East German regions - first of all, in the General Government and the Protectorate, was the occasion to pay particular attention to these threatened areas. At the same time, it was established that Leonid Mokhov, an employee of the Russian Consulate General in Prague, was the head of the Russian spy network created by the GPU in the Protectorate. Former espionage in favor of Russia was forced former soldiers of the Czech legion, who fought on the Polish side during the war against Poland, were recruited mainly in the circles of supporters of the former Czechoslovak Communist Party, and after the collapse of Poland they were captured. They were taught, above all, the use of secret transmitters. These people with false documents were sent to the Protectorate, where they worked under the guidance of the aforementioned officer - the Russian Consulate Mokhov. When the seizure was made, more than 60 people were arrested from this spy network and confiscated a dozen working secret transmitters (Note: this network worked completely independently of the illegal apparatus created in the Protectorate by the Comintern).
Meanwhile, in Berlin, the adviser to the Russian embassy and the employee of the GPU Kobulov also did not sit idle. It is interesting to quote here the words of the former Yugoslav military attache in Berlin, Colonel Vauhnik, who can not be suspected of a friendly attitude towards the Germans. He stated with reference to the assistant of the Russian military attache in Berlin, Kornyakov, that he was engaged exclusively in espionage affairs and had as much money for it as he needed. The goal of Kobulov, the Russian military attache Tulikov (Major General Tulikov was appointed military attaché in Berlin 9 January 1941) was to create a network of secret transmitters for the transfer of intelligence information in the Reich capital and all its main cities.
From the extensive material available on the activities of these gentlemen and the staff of their employees, let us cite two cases for example:
a) The baker Witold Pakulat from Mariampol in Lithuania, who was a member of the German Cultural Union in Lithuania and had relatives in the Reich, primarily in Berlin, was once summoned to Kaunas in the GPU, where he was threatened with a court for espionage. The fact that he was a member of the Cultural Union and, to visit his brother in Memele, traveled several times from Lithuania to Germany, was enough for the GPU to file a case of espionage against him. This frightened person was promised to release him from punishment only if he agreed to move to Berlin under the guise of a refugee-Volksdeutsche and work there on instructions from Russia. He was sent to the Reich, and his wife and child remained hostages in the hands of the GPU. He, too, was threatened that the GPU had long arms and, in the case of adultery, they would also get him in Berlin. Despite this threat and the fact that his relatives remained under the control of the GPU, this Volksdeutsche also fulfilled his duty and contacted the security police (SD). Thanks to this, it was possible to begin counterplay from the Russians, to hide all their plans and to keep their activities under control from the very beginning. In Berlin, Pakulat, through an intermediary from the GPU, received current instructions and orders from the Russian embassy. He had to rent an apartment here, where the GPU was going to install a large covert transmitter. He also had to purchase a small hotel with a beer house, where Russian agents and couriers could stop. He was constantly given assignments to make acquaintances with the workers of the military industry and extract materials from them, the transfer of which was treason. The Russian espionage service conducted targeted military preparations: outlined targets for future aerial bombardments, imperceptible caches in public places and at enterprises where materials for treason and sabotage could be kept in readiness so that they could be obtained at the right moment.
On everything only briefly listed above, the preparatory operations of the GPU spent 100.000 Reichsmarks. For its secret transmitter, the Russian intelligence service recruited a German radio operator from Siemens, who had been sent to her by the security police (SD), in the order of counterplay. The Russian intelligence service firmly hoped that Pakulat had created a reliable network of trusted people from German 60, who, in addition to numerous spyware tasks, could also be used for subversive activities. This network, which was controlled in the course of counterplay, has already grown to Koenigsberg, where it should have marked important military sites on the city plan.
b) Another case of blackmail, to which a citizen of the Reich was subjected, occurred also in Berlin. This man, originally from St. Petersburg (we can not name him for obvious reasons at the moment), after returning to Germany in 1936, he finally returned to Berlin. In Russia, he married under Russian law. From this marriage a daughter was born. Since, according to Russian law, a woman who married a foreigner remains a citizen of Russia, he was not allowed to take her with her to the Reich. In Berlin, he, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, began to bother to obtain the necessary documents so that his Russian marriage was recognized as legal in Germany. Since he suffers from a severe lung disease, and for this reason he would like to reunite with his family as soon as possible, he did not see any other way out in his position than to go to St. Petersburg again to get the necessary documents and finally take his wife and child to Reich . For this purpose, he appealed to the Russian Bureau Intourist with a request for an entry visa to Russia. When the head of this bureau, Shakhanov, understood from the visitor's story that this sick person was very concerned about the fate of his family, he began the most shameful, low game with him. Shakhanov promised him permission to enter Petersburg on the condition that he agreed to betray his German homeland. Shakhanov continued to press on a desperate man, so that he was already close to suicide. Shakhanov constantly played a card of his wife and child against him and emphasized that they remain hostages in the hands of the GPU. The citizen of the Reich in question finally admitted to the German counterintelligence. On her instructions, he pretended that he agreed to the request of the agent of the GPU Shakhanov and, on his instructions, rented a large apartment, which was also intended to install an illegal transmitter.
We note in conclusion the fact of the closest cooperation between Shakhanov and the “embassy counselor” Kobulov.
c) As a result of constant monitoring of a radio specialist from the Russian embassy in Berlin, who periodically traveled to Danzig, it was possible there, during counterplay, to take control of the installation of an illegal transmitter and the creation of a network of political and economic espionage. And in this case, the timely recognition of Danzig citizens, brother and sister by the name of Formel, who was forced to work for the GPU, prevented the success of the espionage enterprise.
A number of these examples can be continued ad infinitum, since the Russian intelligence service worked in the same way in all the German cities that it considered important.
V. Border Incidents
In conclusion, it should be pointed out that the Soviet side is continuously causing border incidents, the number of which has increased since February 1941. For the German population of the border areas in the East, they have become just a nightmare. The criminal killings of Germans and the constant shelling from the Soviet side of the territory under German domination, follow each other in an uninterrupted series.
VI. Summary
All the activities of the Soviet Union directed against national-socialist Germany, as shown by the examples cited from extensive material, indicate the extent to which illegal subversive activities, sabotage, terror, and military, economic, and political espionage were carried out in preparation for war. .
These hostile aspirations after the conclusion of the 23.08.1939 non-aggression pact, not only did not diminish, on the contrary, their volume and strength increased.
Signed: Heydrich
Head of the Imperial Security and Security Police
A series of: Reich Adolf Hitler.
Publisher: prof. Dr. FA Zyx
Volume 9, Part 1
German Institute of Foreign Studies.
The fight against the East. 1941. part of 1
Processed materials are Dr. Hans Foltz 1944.
Ed. Junker und Dünnhaupt Verlag, Berlin.
Chief of Security Police and SD
IVEL 17 / 41 g RS
Berlin, 10 June 1941.
The secret affair of the Reich.
Report to the Reichsfuhrer SS and the head of the German police
IVEL 17 / 41 g RS
Berlin, 10 June 1941.
The secret affair of the Reich.
Report to the Reichsfuhrer SS and the head of the German police
It is well known that the Communist International, up to the conclusion of 23.08.1939 of the non-aggression pact and consultations between Germany and Soviet Russia, conducted subversive activities against the Axis powers, especially against National Socialist Germany. The hope that, after the conclusion of this pact, Soviet Russia would behave loyally in accordance with the agreements reached and stop the inflammatory work against the Reich, did not materialize. On the contrary, the communist subversive activities, acts of sabotage and terror, as well as the maximum speeding up of the work of military, economic and political intelligence remained unshakable - although known - the goals of the rulers of Soviet Russia.
The only thing that changed was the methods by which new tasks were constantly set before reconnaissance with the use of new forms and subtle disguise.
I. Structure and chains of the Comintern
The Communist International (Comintern) is an organization created in Soviet Russia (headquartered in Moscow) with the purpose (paragraph 1 of the Charter): "To unite the Communist Parties of all countries into one global party to fight for the interests of the working class, the principles of communism and the dictatorship of the proletariat." And today, the Presidium of the Comintern Executive Committee includes: Stalin, as 1 Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Molotov, German émigré Peak as a representative of the German section of the Communist International, leader of the French Communists Torez and Bulgarian Chairman Dimitrov known as arson of the Reichstag; .
For the official authorities of the Soviet Union, the Comintern is convenient as unofficial, i.e. not a state apparatus that can be used for any subversive work on a global scale. But the Comintern is used for these special tasks abroad in parallel with its intelligence and espionage activities, so that in the fight against it it is difficult to clearly separate one from the other. It was during the war that the subversive work of the Comintern intensified. Human and monetary resources are intensively spent on it. The whole of Europe is bombarded with calls and directives of sections of the Comintern, representing individual countries, the purpose of which is to inspire supporters of communist ideology to the most intense and patient subversive work against the “imperialist war being waged by Germany”, not least by compensating for this activity negative for the Soviet Union the consequences of the conclusion of a pact with National Socialist Germany.
Ii. New methods of illegal subversive work
1. Against the Reich
Due to the ruthless struggle against the Communist Party and its destruction in 1933, which was the result of the uncompromising installation of national socialism on this fight, in the period before the conclusion of the pact, all efforts made by the Comintern from abroad, as well as petty remnants of the Comintern, its departments of military policy and industrial espionage.
The increased pressure from the Comintern responded with methodological instructions on tactics of more subtle subversive activities. Even more intensive work was to be carried out from the inside using the “Trojan horse” method (Dimitrov talked about this at the VII World Comintern Congress 25 in July - August 30 in 1935), a classic example of which is the Spanish Civil War. After the conclusion of the 23.08.1939 Pact, this work was carried out without any propaganda that the Executive Committee of the Comintern wanted to compensate by strengthening the activity of updating the extensive apparatus of the military policy and industrial espionage departments. While in the occupied regions, the work of the Comintern was facilitated by the still strong Communist Party apparatus, its efforts against the Reich were promptly stopped and never left the stage of attempts.
Through constant observation, it was found that in European countries the network of Comintern communication centers has again developed strongly, the common goal of which is to strengthen the subversive and intelligence activities against Germany.
One of the main communication centers established under the Swedish Communist Party in Stockholm. This is one of the most active and dangerous centers of the Comintern. His methods of work against the Reich can be described in more detail below, due to the abundance of available materials.
For work against the Reich they prefer to use the former main activists of the German Communist Party, who for many years studied in Moscow and other European cities. They were first abandoned in Reich in 1939. One of the most dexterous managed to largely resume contacts with previously known to him comrades in Berlin, and as a result of systematic work, they again created communist factory cells at large Berlin enterprises that had fulfilled important military orders. The explicit purpose of this work was to disintegrate personnel and incite them to sabotage while maintaining industrial espionage.
Instructors of the Comintern from Stockholm and Copenhagen, using skillful methods, continuously delivered materials, directives and money with the help of couriers. The leading role in the leadership of this organization, which has grown to dangerous proportions, was played by the deputy of the Swedish Riksdag Linderot, who is the representative of the European Bureau of the Comintern in Stockholm. He carried out special assignments to the ECCI in selected countries. Linderot stepped up from Stockholm the work of Commissioners of the Comintern in Copenhagen against the Reich, such as Arthur Emmerich, born. 20.07.1907 in Niderviz, or Willie Gall, born 3.10.1908 in Falkenstein / Vogtland, or Rudolf Hallmeyer, genus. 3.02.1908 in Plauen, or Heinrich Schmeer, born 20.03.1908, from the security police (SD), the agents of Linderot taught them the methods of work that the police allegedly used. The training was led by the most famous here Commissioner of the GPU, which since 3.02.1941 has become part of the united People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs called the People's Commissariat of State Security, Dmitry Fedoseyevich Krylov.
Established by the aforementioned communist activists, the organization liaised with Moscow through a permanent courier center in Hamburg through Copenhagen and Stockholm. Money and instructions came from Moscow, and reports were sent to Moscow about the most important manufacturing centers and the level of production of the latest weapons in Germany
The organization was also engaged in the release of subversive leaflets. It is clear from the last instruction received by Emmerich at the end of May 1941 from Moscow from the Comintern that it was for the next two months that many new instructors were to be sent to separate areas of the Reich.
Since further observation due to the scale of the organization could no longer prevent the damage it was causing, at the end of May 1941, all its members were arrested in a timely manner.
2. Against the areas occupied by Germany.
The illegal subversive activities of the Comintern in the areas occupied by Germany are carried out in forms similar to those described above. Special mention should be made of this activity in the following areas:
A) In the protectorate of the Czech Republic and Moravia
Even before the occupation of the former Czechoslovakia, the Communist Party was very active, and after the establishment of the 16 protectorate in March, 1939 was completely underground. In recent years, communist activists from this area have been constantly sent to the Lenin school in Moscow for military-political training and training in the theory and practice of civil and terrorist war.
These trained activists were involved after the establishment of the protectorate. They immediately began to recreate the illegal KKE. Relations with the Comintern, as well as control and management of party work were carried out by the Consulate General of the USSR in Prague. The TASS correspondent and press assistant at the Soviet consulate general Kurt Beer (Jew) works as a liaison with the Soviet consulate general. As part of his functions, he receives from the diplomatic mission Russian newspapers and communist propaganda materials, which he passes, as directives, to the leading activists of the KKE. He was also an intermediary in transferring huge sums of money to support illegal party work.
In addition to this connection, through the Soviet consulate general, the Comintern also maintained direct radio communications from the protectorate with Moscow. Activists who were entrusted with the leadership of this Comintern radio station in Prague also took a special course in Moscow at the school of radio operators and telegraph operators (this school is under the control of the Comintern and the Red Army). Training is conducted on the widest basis, the name of the course is the MLA (“Organization of an international connection”).
Radio equipment in Prague, which worked until the last days, consisted of one large receiving and transmitting installation.
Wireless telegrams from Prague transmitted reports on the general domestic political situation, on the course of actions carried out by the party, on meetings of the central management and decisions made by it, as well as on the position, moods and activities of the party, orders and directives of the Executive Committee of the Comintern from Moscow were made. Intercepted bilateral radio talks are the best evidence that the Comintern has not abandoned its revolutionary ideas aimed at the destruction of national socialism.
B) In the occupied part of France.
The Comintern also paid special attention to the French Communist Party, since Lenin had assumed that France would become the Bolshevik bastion in Western Europe. With the modern fragmentation and internal weakness of France, the Communist International, which had numerous adherents there before the war, hopes to achieve success.
And in this case, we can certainly state that the Communists in France in various forms receive money and propaganda materials from diplomatic missions of the Soviet Union.
And in this case, the pact of 23.08.1939 did not play any role, moreover, from that moment the activity of the French Communists, directed against Germany, indirectly intensified. The most compelling and at the same time the most objective evidence of this is the Surté Nacional act (of the French secret police), which was found in the course of an inspection in Paris, concerning the French newspaper Ordre. As witnessed by the authentic documents of the French police, in a reorganization carried out in November 1939, apart from the head of the press service of the Yugoslav mission, Vitsevich and Jacques Ebstein, Lady Stanley's lover, Lord Darby's sister, participated the Czech Jew Otto Katz, also Karl Simon, who was Soviet service. In November 1939 of the year Soviet ambassador Surits (Yakov Zakharyevich Surits was ambassador in Paris before 26 in March 1940) together with the former red Spanish minister Negrin (socialist Juan Negrin from 18 in May 1937 of the year headed the Government of the Popular Front in Spain), and in January-February 1940 - with the embassy secretary Biryukov, visited the chief editor of the newspaper Bure in his villa in Saint-Cloud. During these visits, it was agreed that a certain Athenon would join the board of the newspaper Ordr as the official representative of the Soviet embassy. The financial assistance allocated to this was increased at the end of March to 800.000 francs per month. After the dissolution of their party in France, 28 September 1939, the communist leaders gave their supporters a categorical order to read Ordr as a body with a clear anti-German position.
B) In other occupied areas.
In Norway, the Soviet mission to Oslo is also the center of the Comintern’s subversive propaganda. Here the officers of this mission managed to catch up while they were performing criminal acts.
In Holland, Belgium and the former Yugoslavia, the use of the same methods of work that are used against the Reich has been proven.
We would have gone far beyond the scope of this brief report, if we had presented with comprehensive exhaustiveness extensive, documented witness and written material on the details of the Comintern’s subversive and intelligence work.
It is important to emphasize the consistently repeated conclusion that the behavior of the Soviet Union in relation to the Reich and the areas it occupied remained insincere, and from 1940 there was a feverish intensification of the subversive activities of the Comintern.
Iii. Sabotage carried out by the Comintern.
Ten years before the start of the war, the Comintern began to send tested communists from all sections to the Soviet Union and train them there in special schools, in particular, sabotage and explosives. So, with 1930, the year again earned with particular intensity the so-called. military-political training courses in Moscow and still have not stopped working. Since the Comintern, in its pursuit of global political domination, always took into account the possibility of military conflict, he gave directives at its world congresses that clearly directed his adherents to acts of terror and sabotage and justified these crimes with political necessity.
The multitude of groups of terrorists and saboteurs created by order of the Comintern, disclosed by the Security Police (SD) on the territory of the Reich, characterizes the attitude of the Soviet Union to the Reich. Preparations for acts of sabotage against important military installations, bridges, explosions of important railway lines, the destruction and paralysis of the work of large industrial enterprises - these were the goals of these communist groups, which, when conducting their actions, did not stop killing people. In addition to assignments to carry out acts of sabotage, criminals were also given assignments to commit attacks on the leaders of the Reich.
Although it was assumed that a series of these crimes committed by the Comintern or at the stage of preparation would end with the conclusion of the German-Russian non-aggression pact 23 of August 1939, extensive information, including from areas occupied by Germany, proves that the Comintern does not want to stop its criminal activities against the Reich.
Along with the groups of saboteurs created by the British secret service, whose goal in peacetime was to destroy the German courts, there was an even more extensive terrorist organization created by the Comintern, whose main task was to destroy the ships of those states that once joined the Anti-Comintern bloc.
It is proved that the members of this organization acted in Denmark until the end of 1940, and from there they tried to transfer their activities to the Reich territory again. The head of this organization was the German émigré Ernst Wollweber, who in 1931 was a member of the general German leadership of the RGO (Red Trade Union Opposition), and in November 1932 of the year was elected a deputy of the Reichstag from the CPG. After his emigration to Copenhagen in 1933, Wollweber became the leader of the International Proletarian Sailors and Port Workers, who carried out acts of sabotage by order of the Comintern, especially against German ships. He is largely responsible for the organization and active activities of the groups of saboteurs created in accordance with instructions from Moscow in Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the former Baltic states of the Frontiers. He carried out large-scale procurement and transportation of explosives and other materials for sabotage and had large sums of money allocated by the Comintern to finance this organization and to pay for agents. After the entry of the German troops in Oslo in May 1940, Wollweber fled to Sweden, where he is still under arrest in Stockholm. Steps have been taken by the Soviet government to induce the Swedish government to send Wollweber to Soviet Russia, since he obtained Soviet citizenship for his successful work in the Comintern.
The activities of these communist terrorist groups spread throughout Europe include acts of sabotage against 16 German, Italian 3 and Japanese 2 ships, which in two cases resulted in their complete loss. At first, the criminals tried to destroy ships by arson, but since this method did not usually lead to the complete loss of ships, they recently switched to the use of explosives against ships plying in the Baltic and North Sea. The main strongholds of the organization are located in the ports of Hamburg, Bremen, Danzig, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Oslo, Revel and Riga.
Created in Holland, Belgium and France, groups of communist saboteurs were led by the Dutch communist Josef Rimbertus Schaap, who was also the head of the Interclub in Rotterdam and had the closest ties with the main activists of the organization in the Scandinavian countries. He was directly subordinate to the former head of the Hamburg Roth Front, Karl Bargstedt, who was in charge of the entire organization of the organization of the device explosions. The explosives needed for sabotage were delivered from mines in the north of the Scandinavian Peninsula to groups of communist saboteurs in Holland, Belgium and France by Dutch sailors through the Norwegian port of Narvik and the Swedish fort Luleå. One of the main couriers delivering the explosives was the Dutch Communist Bill Van-van Weswijk, who was arrested in Rotterdam.
Both the Dutch and the Belgian groups had several laboratories where incendiary and explosive bombs were made. The acts of sabotage against the Italian steamer Boccaccio and the Japanese steamer Casia Maru are the work of these groups. The prepared acts of sabotage against the German ships in the ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam were promptly discovered and prevented.
As further information became available to the security police (SD), 24 communist terrorists were arrested, including the leaders of the Dutch and Belgian groups of saboteurs Achilles Begin and Alfons Fiktels.
Schaap himself was arrested by the Danish police 1.08.1940 of the year in Copenhagen, where he intended to intensify an organization already existing in Denmark that was engaged in acts of sabotage against sea-going ships.
How important it is for the Comintern to violate German shipping in the Baltic Sea through acts of sabotage is clear from the fact that from February to April, the security police (SD), together with the Danish police, managed to arrest a number of leaders of the Communist Party of Denmark, who actively supported groups of communist saboteurs. Among them are Richard Jensen, member of the Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Denmark and secretary general of the Proletarian Seafarers and Port Workers International, Teger Tegereren, editor of the Danish communist newspaper Arbeiterblatt in Copenhagen, and Otto Melchior, member of the board of the Union of Friends of the USSR in Denmark.
On account of the communist groups in Denmark, acts of sabotage against the German steamer Saar in the port of Revel and the German cargo steamer Phil in the port of Koenigsberg, and in the latter case, due to a strong explosion, a large hole in the wall of the bow of the vessel at the waterline level. Mina with a chemical fuse and clockwork was carried on board in the port of Riga.
The chemical-mechanical incendiary-explosives and Bickford fuse cords used by the Danish Communist Organization came from Sweden and were delivered to Copenhagen by special courier from Malmö, where they were kept in a men's clothing store. The most important information about the work of the Comintern against Germany is also contained in the testimony of other communist terrorists from Denmark.
Thus, the Comintern attached particular importance to recruiting as seafarers from the Scandinavian countries, as it was believed that in the future war only Scandinavian states would remain neutral and only citizens of these countries would have the opportunity to carry out attacks in German ports and on German ships. In addition, a clear instruction was given to destroy cargoes on ships of these countries with the help of arson and explosions, if this serves the interests of the Soviet Union. Wollweber himself instructed certain groups of saboteurs in the Baltic states and in the German ports on the North Sea to recruit at least one reliable employee in all ships in this area who would need to be best trained in future work at the 3 International.
At his direction, an attempt was made to create a group of saboteurs in Danzig.
Leading activists of the Proletarian Seafarers International and port workers from these groups, including Oslo-born Norwegian Arthur Samsing, who had lived in the Soviet Union for a long time, were arrested and gave detailed testimony about the acts of sabotage they carried out against Vollveber against the Reich.
On the instructions of the Comintern, Wollweber created strongholds on the islands of the Baltic Sea, Dago and Ösel. However, the personnel recruited on these islands were to take action only if during the war between Germany and the Soviet Union these islands were captured by the German army and the Navy. The object of acts of sabotage then had to become, first of all, the base of submarines, airfields and fuel depots.
The extent to which Bolshevism developed in the Reich itself is evidenced by the fact that, according to data collected from March 1941 by the Security Police (SD) in Upper Silesia and the Governor-General, the leadership of Polish organizations engaged in sabotage and terror was degree infiltrated by communist elements. And here the organization of the crimes committed lately indicates typical communist methods of execution in the form in which they were communicated by the Comintern to all sections when drawing up "theses on the war" at its VI and VII World Congresses in Moscow.
Iv. Soviet espionage (economic, military and political intelligence) against the Reich.
1. Methods of work of the GPU with immigrants from ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche).
When, thanks to the German-Russian border treaty from 28.09.1939, Russia received great benefits for itself, reaping the fruits of the German victory over Poland and significantly increasing its territory, she used the settlement of the issue of delimiting the spheres of German and Russian interests in order to use the newly emerging common the border with the Great German Reich as a gateway for sending countless spies to the territory of their partner in the non-aggression pact.
The Fuhrer’s generous action to return to the homeland of ethnic Germans living on Russian territory was shamelessly used for these purposes.
When the ethnic Germans, following the call of the Fuhrer, began to apply for relocation by the masses, the notorious GPU appeared on the scene, which from 3.02.1941 became part of the united People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs called the People's Commissariat of State Security to use many of these disgusting means Germans engaged in espionage activities against the country to which they, driven by love for their homeland, were about to return. Although the GPU cannot boast of any special practical successes, as people forced into espionage on German territory, most of them immediately reported this, however, this fact remains a shameful stain on the methods of the GPU and the rulers of Soviet Russia.
In such cases, German immigrants were summoned to the GPU, interrogated for hours and threatened to remove them from the lists for resettlement if they did not agree to the impudent demands of the GPU. Such a method was also a favorite: the newcomers were told that their remaining relatives would not be harmed, but they would be held hostage in case the departing people did not fulfill the obligations they were forced to, or dare to tell about it in Germany. They were also threatened that the long arm of the GPU would reach them in Germany. This threat made an impression on individual migrants from small people. Not only men, but also women were forced to sign up for cooperation in such a shameless way. Of the hundreds of such cases, only a few are listed below, which are typical examples of how the Germans were treated.
a) During the resettlement process in the Reich of the Bessarabian Germans (on the basis of an agreement of September 5 1940), Ms. Maria Bauman arrived from Chernivtsi, who showed under oath that the Russian secret service wanted to force her to spy in Germany. She was repeatedly summoned to the great heads of the GPU and acted upon her by all means in order to make her agree with the impudent demands of the GPU. Since she is a widow, the mother of five children left without a breadwinner, she was promised high wages, and they said that even 10.000 sums of Reichsmarks and higher were not a problem. She was supposed to engage in espionage activities in Prague and brought with her materials and documents that can be used to judge the level of specialized training.
b) A married, woman, Elizabeth Kreitel, whose husband had a dressing shop in Chernivtsi, was also called to the GPU to obtain a foreign passport. She had to do spyware assignments in Saxony. She also brought educational materials important to German counterintelligence. Hundreds of others can be added to these individual proven examples. It has been established that, according to a cautious assessment, about half of the total number of GPU displaced persons with the help of blackmail and threats or promising huge amounts of money forced them to cooperate.
Not only did the GPU try, with the help of abominable means, to make these Germans traitors to their homeland; In many cases, the authorities of the GPU simply robbed these people, robbed them of their documents, money and valuables. In 16 cases, there is evidence that the documents were stolen in order to supply Russian spies with them. Even in these cases there is a strong suspicion that the GPU killed several ethnic Germans for this purpose in order to use their documents for the invisible penetration of their agents into the Reich.
2. Soviet diplomatic missions as centers of economic and military espionage against the Reich with the clear goal of preparing for war.
After the conclusion of the pact, the work forms of the Russian espionage secret services became almost provocative. From her already shameless methods, she turned to the fact that she began to make extensive use of Russian missions in the Reich for her espionage purposes. When some time ago, the former Russian ambassador to Berlin Shkvartsev was recalled and replaced by Dekanozov (December 19 1940 was appointed Vladimir Georgievich Dekanozov, the new Ambassador of November 24 November, who also kept his post as Deputy Commissar of Internal Affairs, presented his credentials to the Führer) became a signal for even more intense espionage in the form of political, economic and military intelligence activities. Dekanozov, a confidant of Stalin, headed the Russian intelligence department of the NKVD, which was part of the GPU as a special espionage body. The task with which he arrived from Moscow was to find access to the Reich institutions through the extended network of trusted representatives and, above all, to give reports on the military strength and operational plans of the Reich. His loyal assistant was an employee of the GPU and the so-called. “Embassy Counselor” Kobulov, who has developed intensive espionage activities, shamelessly using his extraterritorial status. Russian espionage in the Reich was aimed, in addition to obtaining purely military intelligence, to find out about the political plans of the Reich and, having created a network of secret transmitters in many places in Germany, have ready points for transmitting important information to Russia using a complex system cipher. Thus, since 1940, large-scale mobilization training has been carried out in the field of espionage, with incredibly large amounts of money being spent on this. (German counterintelligence intervened in a timely manner).
The knowledge that Russian espionage is increasing, primarily in the East German regions - first of all, in the General Government and the Protectorate, was the occasion to pay particular attention to these threatened areas. At the same time, it was established that Leonid Mokhov, an employee of the Russian Consulate General in Prague, was the head of the Russian spy network created by the GPU in the Protectorate. Former espionage in favor of Russia was forced former soldiers of the Czech legion, who fought on the Polish side during the war against Poland, were recruited mainly in the circles of supporters of the former Czechoslovak Communist Party, and after the collapse of Poland they were captured. They were taught, above all, the use of secret transmitters. These people with false documents were sent to the Protectorate, where they worked under the guidance of the aforementioned officer - the Russian Consulate Mokhov. When the seizure was made, more than 60 people were arrested from this spy network and confiscated a dozen working secret transmitters (Note: this network worked completely independently of the illegal apparatus created in the Protectorate by the Comintern).
Meanwhile, in Berlin, the adviser to the Russian embassy and the employee of the GPU Kobulov also did not sit idle. It is interesting to quote here the words of the former Yugoslav military attache in Berlin, Colonel Vauhnik, who can not be suspected of a friendly attitude towards the Germans. He stated with reference to the assistant of the Russian military attache in Berlin, Kornyakov, that he was engaged exclusively in espionage affairs and had as much money for it as he needed. The goal of Kobulov, the Russian military attache Tulikov (Major General Tulikov was appointed military attaché in Berlin 9 January 1941) was to create a network of secret transmitters for the transfer of intelligence information in the Reich capital and all its main cities.
From the extensive material available on the activities of these gentlemen and the staff of their employees, let us cite two cases for example:
a) The baker Witold Pakulat from Mariampol in Lithuania, who was a member of the German Cultural Union in Lithuania and had relatives in the Reich, primarily in Berlin, was once summoned to Kaunas in the GPU, where he was threatened with a court for espionage. The fact that he was a member of the Cultural Union and, to visit his brother in Memele, traveled several times from Lithuania to Germany, was enough for the GPU to file a case of espionage against him. This frightened person was promised to release him from punishment only if he agreed to move to Berlin under the guise of a refugee-Volksdeutsche and work there on instructions from Russia. He was sent to the Reich, and his wife and child remained hostages in the hands of the GPU. He, too, was threatened that the GPU had long arms and, in the case of adultery, they would also get him in Berlin. Despite this threat and the fact that his relatives remained under the control of the GPU, this Volksdeutsche also fulfilled his duty and contacted the security police (SD). Thanks to this, it was possible to begin counterplay from the Russians, to hide all their plans and to keep their activities under control from the very beginning. In Berlin, Pakulat, through an intermediary from the GPU, received current instructions and orders from the Russian embassy. He had to rent an apartment here, where the GPU was going to install a large covert transmitter. He also had to purchase a small hotel with a beer house, where Russian agents and couriers could stop. He was constantly given assignments to make acquaintances with the workers of the military industry and extract materials from them, the transfer of which was treason. The Russian espionage service conducted targeted military preparations: outlined targets for future aerial bombardments, imperceptible caches in public places and at enterprises where materials for treason and sabotage could be kept in readiness so that they could be obtained at the right moment.
On everything only briefly listed above, the preparatory operations of the GPU spent 100.000 Reichsmarks. For its secret transmitter, the Russian intelligence service recruited a German radio operator from Siemens, who had been sent to her by the security police (SD), in the order of counterplay. The Russian intelligence service firmly hoped that Pakulat had created a reliable network of trusted people from German 60, who, in addition to numerous spyware tasks, could also be used for subversive activities. This network, which was controlled in the course of counterplay, has already grown to Koenigsberg, where it should have marked important military sites on the city plan.
b) Another case of blackmail, to which a citizen of the Reich was subjected, occurred also in Berlin. This man, originally from St. Petersburg (we can not name him for obvious reasons at the moment), after returning to Germany in 1936, he finally returned to Berlin. In Russia, he married under Russian law. From this marriage a daughter was born. Since, according to Russian law, a woman who married a foreigner remains a citizen of Russia, he was not allowed to take her with her to the Reich. In Berlin, he, with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, began to bother to obtain the necessary documents so that his Russian marriage was recognized as legal in Germany. Since he suffers from a severe lung disease, and for this reason he would like to reunite with his family as soon as possible, he did not see any other way out in his position than to go to St. Petersburg again to get the necessary documents and finally take his wife and child to Reich . For this purpose, he appealed to the Russian Bureau Intourist with a request for an entry visa to Russia. When the head of this bureau, Shakhanov, understood from the visitor's story that this sick person was very concerned about the fate of his family, he began the most shameful, low game with him. Shakhanov promised him permission to enter Petersburg on the condition that he agreed to betray his German homeland. Shakhanov continued to press on a desperate man, so that he was already close to suicide. Shakhanov constantly played a card of his wife and child against him and emphasized that they remain hostages in the hands of the GPU. The citizen of the Reich in question finally admitted to the German counterintelligence. On her instructions, he pretended that he agreed to the request of the agent of the GPU Shakhanov and, on his instructions, rented a large apartment, which was also intended to install an illegal transmitter.
We note in conclusion the fact of the closest cooperation between Shakhanov and the “embassy counselor” Kobulov.
c) As a result of constant monitoring of a radio specialist from the Russian embassy in Berlin, who periodically traveled to Danzig, it was possible there, during counterplay, to take control of the installation of an illegal transmitter and the creation of a network of political and economic espionage. And in this case, the timely recognition of Danzig citizens, brother and sister by the name of Formel, who was forced to work for the GPU, prevented the success of the espionage enterprise.
A number of these examples can be continued ad infinitum, since the Russian intelligence service worked in the same way in all the German cities that it considered important.
V. Border Incidents
In conclusion, it should be pointed out that the Soviet side is continuously causing border incidents, the number of which has increased since February 1941. For the German population of the border areas in the East, they have become just a nightmare. The criminal killings of Germans and the constant shelling from the Soviet side of the territory under German domination, follow each other in an uninterrupted series.
VI. Summary
All the activities of the Soviet Union directed against national-socialist Germany, as shown by the examples cited from extensive material, indicate the extent to which illegal subversive activities, sabotage, terror, and military, economic, and political espionage were carried out in preparation for war. .
These hostile aspirations after the conclusion of the 23.08.1939 non-aggression pact, not only did not diminish, on the contrary, their volume and strength increased.
Signed: Heydrich
Head of the Imperial Security and Security Police
A series of: Reich Adolf Hitler.
Publisher: prof. Dr. FA Zyx
Volume 9, Part 1
German Institute of Foreign Studies.
The fight against the East. 1941. part of 1
Processed materials are Dr. Hans Foltz 1944.
Ed. Junker und Dünnhaupt Verlag, Berlin.
- http://www.hrono.ru/dokum/194_dok/1941frik.php"rel =" nofollow ">http://www.hrono.ru/dokum/194_dok/1941frik.php
Information