Rudolf Rössler - republics of the ussr. Agent Werther's secret

It would seem that more than enough has been written about Soviet intelligence officers. And yet, it turns out that we know nothing about many of them. And about those whose names are associated with the fateful pages of the war. And, oddly enough, German researchers first wrote about them. They gave them the highest rating.

In a two-volume study Paul Karel "Eastern Front" we are talking about a person who predetermined the outcome of many operations of the Great Patriotic War. In the USSR, they never wrote about him.

The agent's codename is "Werther". What kind of person he was, what is his real name, how he became an agent of Moscow - there are no answers to these and other questions to this day. The hunt for "Werther" has been going on for over 60 years. But so far no one has been able to track his trail. Even the author of the above study. But Paul Karel was close to Hitler throughout the war and was his personal translator. Today, all or almost all of the great scouts of the Second World War are known - Sorge, Cicero - Himmler's man in Ankara, Lieutenant Schulze - Boysen, who worked for Moscow in Berlin, "Dora "," Sisi "," Lucy "," Pakbo "and" Jim "- the mainstay of the" Red Chapel "in Switzerland and many others. Only the identity of "Werther" remains undisclosed to this day. And yet he was, of course, one of the most important agents whose intelligence helped to decide the outcome of the war.

Sorge, as they now say in Russia, won the battle for Moscow. "Werther" significantly influenced the course and outcome of the Battle of Kursk, which became a turning point of the entire war. And if you look for the prototype of Stirlitz from "Seventeen Moments of Spring", then it was undoubtedly "Werther". I do not exclude that Yulian Semenov knew about the existence of this agent, but was bound by the obligation not to mention his code name, since "Werther" at that time, and this is quite likely, was still working for Soviet intelligence. Paul Karel tried in his unique work on the history of World War II to answer some of the above questions. What the German historian and Hitler's personal translator told us will be discussed.

Around the time when German counterintelligence in Berlin surrounded the Soviet intelligence network "Red Chapel", "Koro" - Luftwaffe Lieutenant Harro Schulze - Boysen was seized by the radio security service. His excellent organization with contacts in several ministries was destroyed. Moscow has lost one of the best, most reliable and most fanatical agents.

But within a few weeks the gap was closed. “Corot” replaced “Werther”. And “Werther” informed even better and faster than “Koro”. Alexander Rado from Geneva sent his information in the first place. Rachel Dubendorfer, also known as Sisi, worked on the key in Geneva. The connection between the center and Werther was carried out by Rudolf Rössler, aka Lucy, a German émigré and publisher of humanitarian brochures in Lucerne.

Rudolf Rössler turned out to be one of the most mysterious figures in the history of world espionage

As is the case with many other scouts, the beginning of Werther's activities cannot be determined with absolute certainty. It is not even known when this name first began to be mentioned as a source in radiograms transmitted from Switzerland to Moscow. What is known for certain is that it began operating in the summer of 1942. Already in the spring of this year, German counterintelligence found ample evidence that the Soviet High Command was constantly receiving accurate information about the most closely guarded secrets regarding the conduct of the war by Germany. The Soviet leadership became aware of the volume of production of the military industry, new types of weapons and, most importantly, the plans and intentions of the German command. Colonel General Franz Halder, Chief of the General Staff of the Ground Forces until the fall of 1942, in the following words described the situation during the war in 1955, testifying as a witness at the trial: “Almost all German offensive operations became known to the enemy , as soon as the High Command of the Wehrmacht finished their development, even before the plans lay on my desk; all this is due to the betrayal of one of the employees of the General Staff of the ground forces. Throughout the war, we could not stop the leak of information. "

The heads of Soviet intelligence contacted the Swiss station as if they were requesting information from some kind of information bureau. And they got everything they were interested in. “Even a superficial analysis of the radio interception data shows that at all phases of the war in Russia the agents of the Soviet General Staff worked first-class. The Fuhrer's stakes, "notes Paul Karel.

And then he gives startling examples. On November 9, 1942, when Stalingrad was nearly taken and the Russians were preparing a counterstrike, German radio intelligence intercepted a coded message that read: "Dore. Where are the German rear defensive positions on the line southwest of Stalingrad and along the Don? Chief." A few hours later, an additional question came in: "Dore. Where are the 11th and 18th tank divisions and the 25th motorized division, which previously operated in the Bryansk area. Chief, are now located." The "chief" is the head of military intelligence in Moscow. The recipient is the chief of the Soviet spy network in Switzerland, codenamed "Dora". On November 26, 1942, when the ring at Stalingrad closed, the "Chief" signaled to "Dora": "Tell us about the specific steps planned by the General Staff of the Ground Forces in connection with the Red Army's offensive at Stalingrad."

On December 2 of the same year, the "Chief" from Moscow instructed his branch in Switzerland: "The most important task for the near future is to establish as accurately as possible all German reserves in the rear of the Eastern Front." On Christmas Day 1942, he demanded: "Werther must find out exactly how many replenishment training divisions will be formed from new recruits by January 1. Answer urgently."

Paul Karel notes that the most mysterious name of Soviet intelligence in Germany - "Werther", appears for the first time in this radiogram. On January 16, 1943, "Werther" was again mentioned in the radio message "Dore": "Immediately and first of all, send information to Lucy and Werther about the Caucasian Front, the Eastern Front, as well as the dispatch of new divisions to the Eastern Front. Werther's latest information was extremely valuable. Boss".

Let us remind readers that "Dora" is the codename of the head of the Russian intelligence network in Switzerland, Alexander Rado, a Soviet agent of Hungarian origin. His group consisted of devoted communists, superbly trained professional intelligence officers. Among them was Rudolf Rössler, who emigrated from Germany, whose code name was "Lucy".

Rössler was a real ace of Soviet military intelligence against Germany, comparable to the Soviet espionage star Dr. Sorge ... ", - reports Karel. Rössler's hour struck when the war broke out. It was then that he launched a carefully prepared machine into action. Until that time, he deliberately stayed in the shadows In Germany, he discovered sources, which he spent many years preparing. Rössler's best source was right at the General Staff of the Army. His main agent was Werther.

Rössler's story is also quite interesting. And after the war, he continued to engage in intelligence activities. He worked for the Eastern bloc, and specifically - for intelligence in Czechoslovakia, which could well be considered a branch of the Soviet. He sent unique information this time from West Germany, including about American troops in Europe. “In short, the same military secrets that he collected during the war from German military sources. For six years, from 1947 to 1953, Rösler transmitted 160 reports, about 20 pages each ...

He stumbled in 1953 ... He was tried for spying for a foreign country and sentenced to 12 months in prison. He served his sentence. He lived for several more years and died in 1958. He was buried in the village cemetery of Kriens in the canton of Lucerne, "says the author I am citing.

But he did not give the name of his agent "Werther" until the end of his life. It is likely that he continued to supply him with information in the post-war period. After all, many former Wehrmacht officers went after the Second World War to work in the Bundeswehr - the army of the FRG. But this is just a guess.

About Rössler, it can be reported that he, like Sorge, was a double agent. With the approval of Moscow, he also worked for Swiss intelligence, which had its own man in the German General Staff of the ground forces. So, in fact, information to Moscow came both from Rössler with the "Werther", and from the Swiss General Staff. For the Russians, this was quite good. But back to "Werther" again.

What was the man who did his desperately risky business right in the lion's den, at the Fuehrer's Headquarters, and for this he took the name of the tragic hero. German literature? The story of his more modern namesake, who played his dramatic role 150 years later on the stage of the Fuehrer's headquarters, is still waiting for its author "Werther" - the most mysterious man of Soviet military intelligence in the leadership of Germany. He supplied top-secret information that came directly from the High Command of the Wehrmacht and from the Headquarters of the Fuehrer himself - information available only to the initiated. From this we can conclude that he was in Hitler's inner circle.

It is unlikely, of course, that it was Bormann, about whom it was said that he also worked for the Soviet Union. But the fact that this was a person close to the Fuhrer is a fact. Moreover, Karel claims that Werther was more informed than Goebbels himself. This is what his reports testify.

There is no doubt that he survived to the end of the war. It is likely, in this case, that it could have been withdrawn to Moscow, and then again introduced into West Germany. Rössler's activities in the post-war period provide grounds for assumptions of this kind.

The fact that the agent of Soviet intelligence was next to Hitler is evidenced by a number of his reports. On April 15, 1943, Hitler signed Battle Order No. 6 for the Citadel. The first date for the offensive on the Kursk Bulge was determined on May 5. Then it changed several times. And all these changes immediately became known to the Soviet leaders, Stalin.

Finally, at the Fuehrer's Headquarters on July 1, 1943, a meeting of the elected military leaders was assembled, to whom Hitler informed that the start of the offensive near Kursk was in four days. At the same time, surprise was one of the most important trump cards of the Germans. Therefore, the Fuehrer asked the generals to keep this date in secret. None of the outsiders were present at this meeting. "This time we must be absolutely sure that not a single detail of our plan will go beyond these walls, either through negligence or carelessness," Hitler said. But 24 hours after the meeting at Wolfschanz, Vatutin and Khrushchev already knew and reported to the troops that "the Nazis were attacking between the third and fifth of July." Hitler's biggest secret, Operation Citadel, was no longer a secret. The data on the operation that evening, July 1, 1943, were transferred to Moscow. Consequently, the person who was present at this meeting was able to do it.

"In the first place is the factor that was decisive for Operation Citadel from the very beginning - treason. In the Battle of Kursk, she played an exceptional and dramatic role. The mystery that still surrounds the betrayal of this important secret remains one of the most exciting mysteries. still awaiting their decision. " - noted Paul Karel.

On June 12, 1943, before the first German soldier saw the new fairytale tank that Hitler hoped would determine the outcome of the Citadel, the "Chief" in Moscow already knew about the existence of the "Panther". In the radio message to Dore, he set the task: "Give the task to Lucy and other agents to collect all the data on the Panther heavy tank. The most important points: the design of the tank, the thickness of the armor. Is it equipped with flamethrowers and a smoke screen? Location of factories producing this tank" . Production volume per month.? "

As the author of the cited study notes, the audacity of the questions is dumbfounded. They encompass the alpha and omega of military secrets. Dora's reply was not intercepted. But there is no doubt that it was comprehensive. This was evidenced by the subsequent events at the Kursk Bulge.

The "chief" in Moscow knew the content of the conversations of the top leaders of the Reich, Hitler's closest circle and the ranks of the General Staff of the Ground Forces. And all this through "Werther". As already noted, Rössler received information not only from Werther, but also from the Swiss General Staff. That, in turn, had an informant at the General Directorate of the Ground Forces, codenamed "Teddy". The information content of "Teddy" and "Werther" did not coincide, which gives reason to assert that they were two different agents in the higher spheres of the Reich.

On March 28, 1942, a meeting was held at the Fuehrer's Headquarters, at which a plan for a summer offensive in Russia was considered. Three days later, the contents of this conversation and the opinions expressed were at the General Staff of Switzerland, and after another 24 hours it was already on the table at the "Chief" in Moscow.

And so all the time. The fantastic, colossal defeat of the German Army Group "Center" and the successful conduct of Operation Bagration in Belarus are also to some extent the result of the activities of "Werther" Another interesting fact testifies to the fact that "Werther" belonged to Hitler's inner circle. During the spring battles in 1943 between the Donets and the Dnieper, not only tactical, but also strategic decisions were made at Meinstein's headquarters, and not at the Fuehrer's Headquarters. Manstein did not allow interference and acted on the basis of the requirements of the moment, and not the intentions of the Fuhrer. In addition, the Fuehrer on these decisive days was not in Rastenburg, but in Vinnitsa with a small number of accompanying persons. Most of the German High Command and Führer's Headquarters remained in East Prussia - including Werther and his informants. And it was at this time that no messages were sent to the "Chief" in Moscow. Manstein successfully completed the operation to withdraw German troops from the alleged boiler. With the return of Hitler to Headquarters, information again began to flow to Geneva and Moscow.

So who is Werther? Paul Karel, like many others, believes that he was exclusively a Soviet agent. So exclusive that even Rössler did not dare to provide his information to the Swiss. The Russian agent Werther was, in all likelihood, a man trusted by Moscow. "Perhaps like Sveda Wennerstrom, who, as a major in the Swedish armed forces, worked for Soviet intelligence for fifteen years and had the rank of Soviet general. It was only by chance that he was detained on June 20, 1963, just when he hoped to slip out of the country." , - notes Paul Karel.

Werther, on the other hand, has not yet been exposed. It is possible that for many years he lived in some corner of the world, enjoying the fruits of his work. Or maybe he is still alive, although he must be almost a hundred years old.

True, Karel believes, there is another version according to which "Werther" was the collective name of many informants, whose separate reports Rössler combined and sent with reference to "Werther". In this regard, Karel gives some considerations. First and foremost, one person would hardly have been able to cover such a volume of information that was transferred to the "Chief". After all, among other things, this person had to fulfill his official duties. And to carry them out at the highest level in order to enjoy the appropriate trust of the authorities and to stay in office.

There are other points in favor of this version. But on the other hand, it was not typical for Soviet intelligence to send instructions to the phantom, direct the phantom, or present the phantom for special awards. "When Russians trust the agent's information, you can be sure that they know him perfectly. After all, familiarity with the source of information is crucial for its correct assessment," Paul Karel emphasizes. In addition, for me, personally, it is difficult to imagine that a whole organization existed in the German General Staff or in Hitler's entourage. No, it was still some one agent. If so, then Soviet intelligence was dealing with an extraordinary person, frankly speaking, a genius.

The information obtained by "Werther" was transmitted in a very interesting way. Apparently it was radio. But the whole feature was that the Germans could not track any illegal broadcasts. It can be assumed that the leak went through legal channels. It is likely that the information was transmitted from the usual transmitters of the Fuehrer's Headquarters, transmitters that communicated orders to army groups and armies. Or it can be directly from Rastenburg, or Berlin from a repeater transmitter. The radio operators received instructions about the frequency and already ciphered texts. What they were sending and where it was going - they did not know. Perhaps someone instructed the radio operator to send an encrypted message on a frequency that Rössler was listening to in Switzerland.

At first glance, this seems impossible. But there is no other explanation yet. “Only in this way,” notes Paul Karel, “in the most straightforward and at the same time cunning. Rössler, aka Lucy, could receive urgent information from the Fuehrer’s Headquarters and the General Staff of the Ground Forces.” But at the same time, it is clear that "Werther" had to be a man of high enough position so as not to arouse suspicion. And it had to be just a genius to use legal radio transmitters to send intelligence information.

This is the kind of riddle left to the descendants by an agent codenamed "Werther". It is unlikely that we will learn more about him during the lifetime of the present generation. Such secrets have been kept by the intelligence services for many decades, if not centuries. Maybe our children, grandchildren will learn about this strictly kept secret of the Second World War and the post-war period.

Everything that Paul Karel told us about was published in Germany back in the 60s of the last century. Yulian Semyonov undoubtedly knew about this. He was close to those in power, and therefore literature of this kind was available to him. I think that it was with "Werther" that he "sculpted" his superintelligence Stirlitz, lowering him a few steps down the career ladder, so as not to particularly draw attention to piquant details that could induce some viewers to engage in unnecessary searches for the truth. And attention was directed to a certain Lehman, who, naturally, had very limited access to information of interest to the Russians. Although he worked for the Gestapo. Here is how many interesting things Hitler's personal translator Schmidt, who is also the German military historian Paul Karel, told us.

So who is he, Lucy's source? Under this pseudonym was Rudolf Ressler, a German who was born to a Protestant Bavarian family in 1897. He was a journalist and until 1933 headed the People's Theater Union, when this organization, which attracted the attention of Alfred Rosenberg, was taken over by the Nazis. A liberal conservative and pacifist, Ressler became a staunch opponent of the Hitler regime.

While living in Berlin, Ressler was a member of the prestigious Herren Klubb, where he met and befriended several army officers. Some of them later became its sources. Another valuable contact was Javier Schniper, who in June 1933 insisted that the journalist leave Germany before it was too late and found an apartment for him and his wife, Olga, in Lucerne. He also helped Ressler establish Vita Nova Publishing Ltd with offices in the old quarter of Lucerne.

A road sign in Lucerne demonstrates not only Switzerland's position as the heart of Europe, but also its central role in the spy war on the continent

On May 30, 1939, Ressler visited two of his friends from Herren Klubb, General Fritz Thiel, deputy head of the encryption department of the Wehrmacht High Command, and his colleague, Baron, Colonel Rudolf von Gersdorff, who later became head of the intelligence department of Army Group Center on the Eastern Front ... The two brought with them the Enigma encryption machine and the latest German shortwave transmitter. Thiel intended to transmit critical information to Ressler, who was to decrypt messages using the Enigma. Thiel's office was at Bendlerblock on Bendlerstrasse, where the headquarters of the high command of the army were located. In the two huge halls of this building, hundreds of Enigma machines were operating around the clock, sending out encrypted messages. Thiel's boss, General Erich Fellgiebel, also joined the conspiracy, with whose permission Thiel recruited a small group of carefully selected telegraph operators to send messages to the call sign ILNB (Ressler). The telegraph operators were not privy to the secrets of the conspirators and simply did their job, not knowing what and to whom they were transmitting.

In September 1939, Ressler advertised an open vacancy for the post of proofreader at his Vita Nova publishing house. As luck would have it, Taylor (Schneider) responded to the ad. For 18 months - and maybe more - the two were unaware of each other's intelligence work. It was only in April 1941 - and again by chance - that Ressler made it clear to his proofreader that information from his contacts in Germany, coming to Bureau Ha, was still not being used properly against the Nazis. Schneider replied that he could help, since he was connected with Soviet intelligence agents operating in Switzerland, who would be able to use the intelligence more effectively. Ressler agreed with him, but insisted that his identity remain secret. Subsequently, Taylor made regular trips from Lucerne to Geneva, where he passed the information received from the source to his controller Snecy. She, in turn, transmitted information to Rado, and he, through Fout and Hameln, to the Moscow Center. On the eve of the German invasion of the Soviet Union (20-21 June 1941), Lucy / Dora submitted to the Center detailed data on the forces concentrated on the border, totaling 148 divisions, including 19 armored and 15 motorized. (The information is almost accurate. Against the USSR, the Germans deployed 153 calculated divisions (152 divisions and 2 brigades), including 33 tank and motorized ones. To this must be added 37 calculated (2 brigades are equal to 1 division) divisions of Germany's allies. A total of 190 divisions, 5.5 million people against 170.5 Soviet calculated divisions and 2.9 million people near the western borders of the USSR (the entire USSR had before the start of the war 303 divisions and 22 brigades, that is, 314 calculated divisions). - Ed.) The general plan of the war provided for the destruction of the Red Army west of the Dnieper and Dvina in order to prevent the Soviet troops from retreating to the east. A convinced communist and Stalinist, Rado passed on information, although he did not believe that the Germans would start a war against the USSR. He suspected Lucy as an Abwehr agent. In Moscow, the data received was marked as coming from an "unreliable source."

Germany's attack on the Soviet Union put an end to suspicion and doubt. Since June 23, 1941, Lucy / Dora have become the most reliable source of information about Germany for Moscow, messages from which were marked "Urgent, decrypt immediately." The Moscow Center paid Lucy 7,000 Swiss francs a month and kept a communication channel open around the clock. Taylor stopped working in the Geneva office and met daily with Ressler, who sat through the evenings and nights decrypting the information flowing from Bendlerblock. The decrypted information went further through two channels: to the SHAR (which, ignoring the policy of neutrality proclaimed by Switzerland, sent them to London) and, through Taylor / Sissi, to Rado. Moscow received data on the most recent orders for German troops on the Eastern Front. Lucy also confirmed that Japan had abandoned its intention to attack the USSR, which allowed the Soviet command to transfer reinforcements from the Far East and begin a counteroffensive near Moscow on December 5, 1941. In the spring of 1942, the flow of communications increased so much that Otto Punther had to mobilize his entire network. Rado recruited 22-year-old Margrit Boli, Sophie's agent trained by Foote to work on the transmitter. Sophie became the third and last "pianist" in the Swiss "Red Troika", as the Germans called them.

Seeing Germany as a potential enemy, the Swiss created defensive positions along their highly vulnerable borders, like the one shown in the photo.

- December 11th, Switzerland) - one of the most effective agents of the Second World War, collecting intelligence in favor of Switzerland, Great Britain, the USA and the USSR, an agent pseudonym Lucy(English Lucy). He was the highest paid Soviet intelligence agent in the entire Second World War.

Biography

Before World War II

He was friends with many representatives of the arts who were persecuted by the Nazis, and thus he himself became an enemy of the National Socialist regime. His publications from this period were of a conservative Catholic and anti-Nazi orientation. Because of this, in June 1933 he lost his position as a member of the Supervisory Board of the Südwestdeutschen Bühne G.m.b.H. and the position of director of the Bühnenvolksbundverlag G.m.b.H. Rössler was also banned from working as a playwright and publisher. In 1934 he was forced to emigrate to Switzerland. After settling in Lucerne, Rössler opened a small book publishing house "Vita-Nova".

Activities as a scout

It was Rössler who transmitted to Moscow data on the average (according to the Soviet classification - heavy) Panther tank, including information on the thickness of armor, features of weapons, production volumes, as well as the location of manufacturing plants.

In 1943, through Sandor Rado, he transferred information about Operation Citadel (Battle of the Kursk Bulge) to Soviet intelligence. The source of information appeared under the pseudonym "Werther" and remained unknown for a long time. According to Rössler, the data came from high-ranking members of the German command, whom Rössler had known since pre-war times.

(German: Rudolf Rößler; born November 22, 1897 in Kaufbeuren, Germany; died December 11, 1958 in Switzerland) is a German theater critic, creator and owner of a spy network codenamed Lucy, who transmitted World War II classified information of the Nazis to the Soviet Union and the Swiss intelligence service Bureau Ha.

Biography

Rudolph was the son of a Bavarian forestry officer. He received his education in Augsburg and was drafted into military service during the First World War.

After the war, Rössler began working as a journalist. He first worked as a reporter in Augsburg, and then moved to Berlin, where he became a literary critic. He maintained friendly relations with many artists and writers who were persecuted by the Nazis, and therefore also became an enemy of the Nazis.

In June 1933, Rudolf was removed from his posts as playwright and commercial director of the People's Theater Union (German: Bühnenvolksbund e.V.), as well as director of the publishing house of the People's Theater Union (Bühnenvolksbundverlag GmbH). As a result, he also lost his posts as chairman of the supervisory boards of theater companies Südwestdeutsche Bühne GmbH from Frankfurt, Schlesische Bühne GmbH from Breslau (now Wroclaw), Ostpreussische Bühne GmbH from Königsberg (Kaliningrad) and others, and in addition, he was banned from activities as an honorary member. The General Directorate for Film Censorship (German: Film-Oberprüfstelle) and the Committee for the Arts of the Berlin Police Department.

Espionage activities

These events marked the end of Rössler's literary activities in Germany, which included primarily work as publisher of the theater magazines Das Nationaltheater (National Theater) and Deutsche Bühnenblätter (German Theater Bulletins), publisher and compiler of the cycle articles on drama entitled "Schauspiel der Gegenwart" ("Contemporary Play"), as well as executive editor and publisher of the magazine "Theaterliteratur" ("Theater Literature"), published since 1928 by the publishing house of the People's Theater Union.

After that, he left Germany and moved to the Swiss Lucerne, where he organized the work of a small publishing house Vita Nova. To this end, Rudolph further expanded his circle of acquaintances, including in Germany, turning him into a whole spy network through which, despite the National Socialists' monopoly on the media, he managed to obtain information about the real situation in the Third Reich, and also about the military and technical secrets of the Germans.

In particular, it was allegedly Rössler who gave the USSR leadership detailed information about the operation of the German command called "Citadel", which provided for a decisive battle with the Soviet Army on the Eastern Front in the Kursk Bulge area. Based on this legend, the revanchist circles of the Federal Republic of Germany tried again and again to substantiate a new version of the false thesis about the fatal “stab in the back” for the Germans (which originally meant the defeat of Germany in the First World War as a result of the revolution), but this time it was transferred to the Second World War. , although the newspaper Der Spiegel proved in 1972 that “wherever Rössler found his informants, even in Germany, they could not occupy key military posts in the Wehrmacht. This is evidenced primarily by his erroneous reports to the Russians before the Battle of Kursk in July 1943 ”.

Rudolf's source of information, operating under the operational pseudonym "Werther", remained unidentified for a long time: according to Rössler's post-war statements, this information came to him from some high-ranking German military acquaintances he knew from the pre-war times who were opposed to the Nazis. In any case, Colonel-General Alfred Jodl, chief of the operational leadership of the Wehrmacht High Command, admitted during the Nuremberg trials that secret reports appeared in Moscow earlier than on his desk.

There is another explanation for the origin of the intelligence obtained by Rudolph, according to which he actually worked for the British government and transmitted German radio reports, decoded by the British, to Moscow, making it so that the Russians could not guess about the ability of British intelligence to read the encrypted secret correspondence of the Nazis. However, thanks to espionage in England, Soviet foreign intelligence was aware of the capabilities of the British.

From 1938/1939, Rössler, through Hans Bernd Giesevius, maintained contact with anti-war circles in Germany rallied around Hans Oster, and from 1940 also with the journalist Elisabeth Wiskemann from the press department of the British diplomatic mission in Bern.

Through Xaver Schneier, Rudolph reached out to Hans Hausamann, acquaintance with whom resulted in regular contacts between them and Rössler's work at the main information collection point of the Swiss military intelligence in Lucerne (meaning the Bureau Ha intelligence service headed by Hausamann).

last years of life

The German continued his espionage activities after the end of World War II, transferring classified information from West Germany to the Eastern bloc. This ruined him: he was arrested and sentenced for espionage to 1 year in prison.

In prison, Rudolf Rössler's health deteriorated greatly, and soon after his release he died.

Ressler Rudolph. 11/22/1897, Kaufbeuren, Germany - 12/11/1958, Kriens, Switzerland.

German. Of the employees. He graduated from the public school and gymnasium (1916) in Augsburg, near Munich.

Participant First world war as part of the German army (1916-1918).

After the war, he was actively involved in journalism and publishing. Correspondent for the newspapers Munich Augsburger Abendzeitung and Allgemeinen Zeitung. In 1922 he founded the Augsburg Literary Society, from 1925 he edited the magazine Form und Zinn, from 1929 he headed the Bunevolksbund, the People's Theater Union in Berlin, and published the magazine National Theater. After the Nazis came to power, he left Germany (1934) and settled in neutral Switzerland.

He founded and headed the Vita Nova publishing house in Lucerne, which published classical works. Collaborated with the Swiss intelligence unit "BureauHa" (1939-1944), where he was greatly appreciated. The German sources of his extremely valuable information remain unknown to this day, and the method of transmitting the information, which arrived in Switzerland very quickly, is also unknown.

In the summer of 1942, on his own initiative through intermediaries - Christian Schneider (Taylor) and Rachelle Dubendorfer(Sisi) - began to transfer his materials to illegal residency S. Rado(Dora), and from the fall of 1942 he already collaborated with her. His information, in particular, contributed to the victory at Stalingrad. 01/22/1943 The Center radioed Rado: “Express to Luci our gratitude for the good work. The information of your group about the Central sector of the front is very significant. " His data played a role in the defeat of the Nazis at Kursk and in ensuring the further offensive of the Red Army. The information provided also concerned, as S. Rado noted, "the political and diplomatic maneuvers of the rulers of Hitlerite Germany and its satellites."

Arrested by Swiss counterintelligence in connection with the Dora case in May 1944, but released four months later. In October 1945, a military court granted him amnesty.

Later he collaborated with the Czechoslovak intelligence (1947-1953), was again arrested on 03/09/1953 and brought to trial on 11/02/1953. Sentenced to one year in prison. Due to financial difficulties, he was forced to part with his publishing house.

Buried in the Kriensa cemetery, Switzerland.

Alekseev M.A., Kolpakidi A.I., Kochik V.Ya. Encyclopedia of Military Intelligence. 1918-1945 M., 2012, p. 650-651.

Read on:

"Persons in civilian clothes" (biographical reference book about the employees of the Soviet special services).

World War II 1939-1945 (chronological table).