Леопольд Треппер: Кеңес тыңшысы және «Қызыл оркестр» жетекшісі

Polish Communist and career Soviet agent

Leopold Zakharovich Trepper (23 February 1904 – 19 January 1982) was a Polish Communist and career Soviet agent of the Red Army Intelligence. With the code name Otto, Trepper had worked with the Red Army since 1930. He was also a resistance fighter and journalist. Trepper and Richard Sorge, a Soviet military intelligence officer, were the two main Soviet agents in Europe and were employed as roving agents to set up espionage networks throughout Europe and in Japan. While Sorge was a penetration agent, Trepper ran a series of clandestine cells for organising agents in Europe. Trepper used the latest technology at the time—small wireless radios—to communicate with Soviet intelligence. Although the Funkabwehr's monitoring of the radios transmission eventually led to the destruction of Trepper's organisation, this sophisticated use of the technology enabled the espionage organisation to behave as a network with the ability to achieve tactical surprise and deliver high quality intelligence, such as the warning of Operation Barbarossa. In 1936, Trepper became the technical director of a Soviet Red Army Intelligence unit in western Europe. He was responsible for recruiting agents and creating espionage networks. Trepper was an experienced intelligence officer, and an extremely resourceful and capable man completely at home in the west. He was a man who could not be drawn in conversation, who lived a reclusive life, and had a talent of judging people that enabled him to easily penetrate significant groups. By the start of World War II, Trepper controlled a large espionage network in Belgium, that had links with Dutch, German and Swiss agents and operated seven separate espionage networks in France. His operation was known as the Red Orchestra to the Abwehr.

On 23 February 1904, Leopold Trepper was born to a large Jewish family of 10 children in Nowy Targ, Poland, which was part of Austria Hungary at the time. Trepper's father was a travelling farm machinery and seed merchant who later died when Trepper was almost twelve, leaving the family in financial straits. His parents sent him to school in Lwów, to escape the strongly militant and anti Semitic tradition in Poland. Orschitzer followed Trepper to Palestine. She was involved in an illegal communist demonstration, and was arrested and jailed; she would have been deported had she not married a Palestinian citizen. After moving to Tel Aviv in 1929, Trepper became a member of the central committee of the Palestine Communist Party. He was released after news of the hunger strike reached London and the British newspapers, and he and the hunger strikers were placed on stretchers outside the prison, as they were too weak to walk due to lack of food. He then travelled to Paris where he found work as a decorator living a poor existence. He came into contact with numerous left wing intellectuals and communist workers that eventually led him to become a member of the Rabkor, He continued to work for the organisation until French intelligence dismantled it in 1932. where he contacted the Soviet embassy. After several days, he was ordered to report to Moscow in the spring of 1932. Between 1932 and 1935, Trepper worked to become a GRU agent by learning his trade. After attending KUNMZ University, where he obtained a diploma, he studied history at the Institute of Red Professors and was awarded a degree, allowing him to work as a history teacher in Moscow. Trepper was in constant touch with the Russian intelligence instructors who taught him the practical skills of an espionage agent. At the same time, Orschitzer also attended KUNMZ University for a year. In the winter of the same year his training was completed. Grossvogel ran a small business called "Le Roi du Caoutchouc" or "The Raincoat King" on behalf of its owners. Trepper used provided money to create the export division of The Raincoat King called the Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company, As the business had to operate with the full knowledge of the state, shares had to be issued. Among the shareholders was former official of the Belgian Foreign Office, Jules Jaspar. Jaspar's brother, Henri Jaspar, was the former prime minister of Belgium, so Jaspar was seen as the ideal person to direct the company and provide it with a veneer of respectability. On 6 March 1939, Trepper used the alias Adam Mikler and identified as a wealthy Canadian businessman, traveled from Quebec while being accompanied by Orschitzer, who traveled as Anna Mikler. They moved to Brussels from Paris, making it their new base and settled in their apartment located at 198 Avenue Richard Neybergh, Brussels. After the company was created, Trepper used the circulation of gossip and rumours by his group to spread the word that a wealthy Canadian had funded the business to establish his cover in the Belgian business community. Makarov, a wireless telegraphy (WT) operator, forger, and expert on secret inks,

Makarov's original duty was to provide Trepper with forged documentation, but since Grossvogel had introduced Abraham Rajchmann, who became the group's forger, he became a WT operator for the group instead and was posted to Ostend to work at a branch of the Raincoat Company, which was sold to him to strengthen his cover. Makarov immediately started to train other operators in WT procedure. and contacted Trepper in Ghent on 17 July. To make contacts across different social strata, Gurevich familiarised himself with Belgian society and studied the country to learn about its economy. Gurevich took part in ballroom dancing and riding lessons, and as he travelled between luxury hotels, mail bearing the stamps of Uruguay awaited his arrival. In the months leading up to the war, Trepper's plans changed, and Gurevich ended up working as an assistant to Trepper. Gurevich performed the normal bureaucratic operations in an espionage network including being a cipher clerk, deciphering instructions from Soviet intelligence, and preparing reports with information forwarded from a contact in the Soviet Trade Representation of Belgium.

In July 1940, Trepper fled Belgium with Grossvogel and moved to Paris, where Grossvogel and Polish Jew Hillel Katz were Trepper's main assistants. Trepper changed his alias to Jean Gilbert and got in touch with General Ivan Susloparov, who was the Soviet military attaché in the Vichy government. On their first meeting, Trepper informed Susloparov of Adolf Hitler's plan to invade the Soviet Union, which the latter believed to be true. Trepper also arranged to have his wife and child returned to Moscow, and they left in August 1940. However, his main goal was to find and make use of a radio transmitter and a radio operator. Susloparov supplied the names of a couple who were Polish militant communists — Hersch and Miriam Sokol — as possible radio operators—but both the Sokols had to be trained in radio procedures by Grossvogel. At the same time, Trepper recruited civil engineer and Russian aristocrat Basil Maximovitch.

In March 1941, Simexco was established in Paris as a replacement cover company. The firm's profits were channelled to provide funding to the group, via its Department III. The firm made a considerable profit over the year that was used by both Trepper and Gurevich as a personal expense account. Additional funding came from Soviet intelligence, and was received in monthly sums of $8,000 to $10,000 through the Russian military attaché in Paris. When the war started, the funds were sent via Switzerland in dollar amounts that were agreed in advance with Soviet intelligence via radio and delivered to Trepper. The money was used to maintain the operations of the Trepper group and to cover the necessary expenses to carry out special assignments. Trepper spent lavishly on bribes, the upkeep of the Château de Billeron, sundries, and large daily expenses to maintain his cover as a successful businessman.

In September 1941, Trepper met with Comintern agent Henry Robinson, who was one of the most important sources of intelligence in Paris. He ran his own large espionage network, which had revealed to the Soviets that Hitler was inclined to call off Operation Sea Lion, the plan to invade the British Isles. The Comintern organisation had lost prestige with Stalin, who suspected it of deviating from Communist norms. Robinson was also suspected of being an agent of the Deuxième Bureau and was subsequently in ideological conflict with Soviet intelligence. It was unusual for two senior agents to meet, but an exception was made as it was felt by Soviet intelligence that Robinson's extensive contacts could help Trepper build his French network. Trepper learned of a radio transmitter that was being run by the French Communist Party in Paris from Robinson, and was ordered to take charge of Robinson's network. Anna was a psychiatric neurologist who opened a clinic in Choisy le Roi in the late 1940s. It was a moneyed area of Paris which enabled her to pick up gossip and recruit from her patients, some of whom were high ranking French nobility and administrative people including Rohan Chabot's husband, Alain Louis Auguste Marie de Rohan Chabot, who was a French officer and resistance fighter. One of those patients was Helene Claire Marie de Liencourt, Countess de Rohan Chabot, who rented out the empty 18th century Château Billeron located in Lugny Champagne to Maximovitch as a meeting place for the group.

On 30 November 1941, the house at 101 Rue des Atrébates in Brussels, run by Rita Arnould and Zofia Poznańska and used to transmit intelligence, was discovered by the Funkabwehr. By February 1942, Trepper re established communication with Soviet intelligence and was able to give a full report on the situation. The Soviets instructed Trepper to contact Soviet Army Captain Konstantin Jeffremov, who had been living in Belgium. In May 1942, a meeting was arranged between the two men in Brussels, where Trepper instructed Jeffremov to take over Gurevich's Belgian and low countries espionage network. He also instructed him to maintain radio silence for six months, and gave Jeffremov 100,000 Belgian francs for expenses. In May 1942, Wenzel began transmitting important traffic to the Soviet Union. On 29–30 June 1942, the house that Wenzel was transmitting from, 12 Rue de Namur in Brussels, was raided by the local police under the command of Abwehr officer Harry Piepe. Wenzel was interrogated and tortured by the Gestapo for six to eight weeks and confessed to everything, including the cypher keys he used and his code name, which allowed the Funkabwehr to decipher a large amount of back traffic belonging to the group. One of the names that Wenzel surrendered was Rajchmann, who was placed under surveillance and arrested on 2 September 1942. Almost immediately, Rajchmann agreed to cooperate with the Abwehr. On 12 October 1942, Malvina Gruber, Rajchmann's mistress was arrested by the Abwehr in Brussels, and she immediately decided to cooperate with the Abwehr. She spoke of Gurevich and exposed the Trepper espionage network in France. Jeffremov (sources vary) also exposed the Simexco company name and the Trepper espionage network in France to the Abwehr.

When the Sokols and Johann Wenzel were arrested, Trepper lost his radio link with Soviet intelligence. Trepper asked Robinson to arrange a radio link to Soviet intelligence, but the latter refused. Trepper turned to Gurevich in Marseille and visited him several times to establish contact with the Soviets, but Gurevich refused to use his transmitter and was effectively lost to the network. Trepper was forced to turn to Pierre and Suzanne Giraud, who were established to have a transmitter either at Saint Leu la Forêt or Le Pecq (sources vary) by Grossvogel and ordered to master the equipment. Suzanne had originally worked as a cutout for Trepper, and the couple were unprepared for the work; they failed and were arrested by the Gestapo. After being tortured, the French commercial director of the firm, Alfred Corbin, informed the Gestapo of the address of Trepper's dentist, Trepper was imprisoned on a third floor room on the Rue des Saussaies in Paris. He was allowed to take daily walks and go into town to buy necessities, but always accompanied by two Sonderkommando guards. In 2002, author Patrick Marnham suggested Trepper not only exposed Soviet agent Henry Robinson, but may have been the source that betrayed French resistance leader Jean Moulin. When Gurevich was arrested on 9 November 1942 in Marseille, he was moved to Paris and kept in the next room to Trepper. There was a mutual animosity between the two men.

On 25 December 1942, Trepper was informed that he would be running a Funkspiel operation with Gurevich. On 13 February, Trepper was moved to a house belonging to Karl Bömelburg at 40 boulevard Victor Hugo, Neuilly sur Seine. Over the next month, the Gestapo conducted a battle of wits with Trepper and Gurevich in the hope of exposing more members of the espionage network.

On 13 September 1943, Trepper escaped Gestapo custody under watch while visiting a pharmacy, Pharmacie Baillie, near the railway station at St. Lazare and avoided recapture. He contacted Georgie De Winter, and they both agreed to hide out in Le Vésinet, where he wrote to Heinz Pannwitz to explain his disappearance was not an escape, but merely an attempt to ensure he stayed alive as a move that designed to provide the maximum advantage for Soviet intelligence. At the time, Trepper was the subject of an Identification Order in France, German and Belgium as a "wanted dangerous spy". Trepper contacted Suzanne Spaak and Jean Claude Spaak through De Winter, using the alias Jean Gilbert, in the hope that he could send a message to the Soviet military attaché in London and make contact with the French Communist Party who could also possibly send a message. Suzanne had a wide range of contacts and it was through her influence that Trepper hoped to contact Moscow. While they were waiting, De Winter organised another location where they could hide on Rue Du Chabanais, and they moved in on the 24 September. Trepper sent De Winter several Sundays in a row, but no contact was made. The couple then moved to a guest house at Bourg la Reine. Trepper, who wanted to restart his clandestine activities, was wary of De Winter being identified by the Gestapo due to her constant visits to the Spaak household. He asked Jean Claude for 100,000 francs, En route, De Winter was arrested on 17 October 1943 by Pannwitz. At the same time, Trepper went to the church in Auteuil and noticed a black Citroën car — the signature car of the Gestapo — and fled. who had fallen out of favour and was dismissed in 1935. Lefortovo, and Butyrka prison.