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00:00:36,600 --> 00:00:39,760
When Hitler invaded
 the Soviet Union in 1941,

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00:00:39,760 --> 00:00:41,840
Stalin s spy network
 was thrown into disarray.

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00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:42,960
But Soviet intelligence soon
 began to fight back

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00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:48,400
Originally produced
 for Russian television in 2011,

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00:00:48,400 --> 00:00:51,160
this is the story
 of Russia s Great Patriotic War

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00:00:51,160 --> 00:00:52,520
and the Red Army s long road
 from defeat to victory.

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00:01:02,040 --> 00:01:06,000
21st June, 1941. Moscow.

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00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:12,160
An express train from Berlin
 arrived at the Byelorussky
 Terminal.

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00:01:17,560 --> 00:01:21,280
On board was Mikhail Vorontsov,
 naval attaché at the Soviet
 Embassy in Berlin.

10
00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:24,960
He was taking no chances
 with his briefcase.

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00:01:28,200 --> 00:01:31,920
Two days before, Vorontsov had
 received a high priority
 telegram

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00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:34,520
from Moscow ordering
 his immediate return.

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00:01:37,320 --> 00:01:40,120
An escort arrived to meet him
 on the platform

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00:01:40,120 --> 00:01:41,800
an official from the
 Commissariat of Foreign Affairs,

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00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:46,160
accompanied by two officers
 of the NKVD secret police.

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00:01:59,120 --> 00:02:02,280
A government car pulled up
 outside. Vorontsov was ushered
 onto the back seat,

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00:02:04,360 --> 00:02:09,520
between the two policemen. He
 could relax for the first time
 since leaving Berlin.

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00:02:11,160 --> 00:02:13,920
His precious briefcase
 was now someone else s concern.

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00:02:17,080 --> 00:02:22,000
Mikhail Alexandrovich Vorontsov
 fought with the Bolsheviks in
 the Russian Civil War,

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00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:26,960
before joining the Naval
 Academy. After graduation he was
 sent to the Far East,

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00:02:26,960 --> 00:02:30,720
where he rose to become Deputy
 Chief of Staff of the Pacific
 Fleet.

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00:02:30,720 --> 00:02:33,960
In 1939 he was sent to Berlin
 as the Soviet naval attaché.

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00:02:45,360 --> 00:02:49,840
The driver stopped outside the
 Spasskaya Tower, the entrance to
 the Kremlin.

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00:03:03,480 --> 00:03:06,720
Ten minutes later, Mikhail
Vorontsov entered Stalin s
 office.

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00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:11,920
Amongst the documents
 he d brought from Berlin,

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00:03:11,920 --> 00:03:14,520
was a copy of a message he d
 been given by the Swedish naval
 attaché.

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00:03:16,720 --> 00:03:19,120
The document was headed:
 Official enquiry from Berlin,

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00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:23,320
regarding the routes of Swedish
 ships and aircraft in the Baltic
 Sea,

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00:03:25,160 --> 00:03:31,320
after 22nd June 1941, to avoid
 engaging them during war with
 the USSR .

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00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:39,000
Soviet intelligence work
 was carried out both legally,

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00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:41,680
by agents travelling under
 Soviet passports, and illegally,

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00:03:42,760 --> 00:03:44,400
by agents with forged documents.

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00:03:50,120 --> 00:03:52,440
Foreign intelligence work was
 carried out by networks known as
 "residencies".

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00:03:54,320 --> 00:03:58,200
Each member of a residency,
 whether working legally or
 illegally,

35
00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:01,160
had a specialised role: One
 agent recruited and managed
 local agents;

36
00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:04,240
another was responsible
 for radio communications;

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00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:07,800
another acted as courier of
 secret or stolen documents;

38
00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:12,440
and the Resident himself oversaw
 all the group s operations.

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00:04:16,880 --> 00:04:21,200
In the early 1920s Soviet
intelligence began to establish
 legal

40
00:04:21,200 --> 00:04:24,960
and illegal residencies
 across Europe. After 1933,

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00:04:26,120 --> 00:04:27,080
and Hitler s rise to
 power in Germany,

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00:04:29,240 --> 00:04:32,040
it became clear which country
 posed the greatest threat to the
 Soviet Union.

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00:04:33,520 --> 00:04:36,040
Therefore many Soviet agents
 were reassigned to Nazi Germany,

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00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:40,800
to gather information on the
 country s military potential,
 and its intentions.

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00:04:46,200 --> 00:04:49,520
After war broke out in 1939,

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00:04:49,520 --> 00:04:53,400
the number of illegal Soviet
 residencies in Germany increased
 by 50%.

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00:04:57,960 --> 00:05:01,760
Similar networks were active in
 Belgium, the UK, the
 Netherlands,

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00:05:01,760 --> 00:05:05,880
Switzerland, France, Japan,
 Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.

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00:05:10,720 --> 00:05:13,720
Military intelligence
 residencies worked legally in
 many of the same countries.

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00:05:15,240 --> 00:05:17,080
Each agent had a cover job
 at the Soviet embassy

51
00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:19,840
or with some other
 Soviet delegation.

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00:05:23,440 --> 00:05:26,760
The agent might be a diplomatic
 official, a chauffeur or a
 technical expert.

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00:05:43,240 --> 00:05:48,360
In June 1941, the Military
 Intelligence Central Office
 employed 914 people abroad,

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00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:52,240
316 of whom worked
as part of legal residencies,

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00:05:53,240 --> 00:05:56,080
and 598 of whom were
 illegal agents.

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00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:02,440
Even Stalin knew most of these
 men only by their codenames.

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00:06:03,960 --> 00:06:07,680
He himself had enough experience
 of working in the underground

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00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:09,960
to know that the more times
 an agent s name was mentioned,

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00:06:10,920 --> 00:06:12,560
the greater the danger he faced.

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00:06:17,200 --> 00:06:21,960
From the autumn of 1940, an
 increasing number of reports
 began to warn

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00:06:21,960 --> 00:06:25,640
about the buildup of German
 forces along the Nazi-Soviet
 frontier in Poland.

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00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:31,480
Soviet military intelligence
desperately sought the answer to
 the questions:

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00:06:32,640 --> 00:06:35,520
would Hitler attack,
 and if so, when?

64
00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:43,040
The incoming reports offered
 many different dates for a
 German invasion of the USSR.

65
00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:48,200
Initially it was supposed to
 take place in March or April
 1941.

66
00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:52,920
Then new reports said it had
 been postponed to the summer,

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00:06:52,920 --> 00:06:54,600
but depended on
 Britain s surrender.

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00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:01,520
Then there was fresh information
 that it had been postponed until
 1942.

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00:07:05,160 --> 00:07:08,760
The situation was further
 complicated by the fact that
only one person knew

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00:07:08,760 --> 00:07:11,400
Hitler s exact intentions
 Adolf Hitler himself.

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00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:15,320
He only signed the order
 authorising Operation
 Barbarossa,

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00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:19,920
the invasion of the Soviet
 Union, on 10th June 1941

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00:07:21,040 --> 00:07:22,680
twelve days before
 it was launched.

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00:07:26,440 --> 00:07:29,640
On 18th June, Moscow began to
 receive reports from agents on
 the frontier

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00:07:31,240 --> 00:07:33,000
that German military units were
 preparing for something big.

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00:07:34,880 --> 00:07:38,080
It was clearly no longer a
 matter of months or weeks, but
 of days.

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00:07:41,720 --> 00:07:44,720
But despite the growing
warnings, Soviet intelligence
 failed to produce anything,

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00:07:45,920 --> 00:07:47,360
even Vorontsov s
 Swedish telegram,

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00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:50,600
that could persuade Stalin
 that war was imminent.

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00:07:58,600 --> 00:08:02,480
In just a few weeks,
 Vorontsov would be promoted

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00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:06,160
to Chief of Staff of Naval
 Intelligence, and by September
 he would be its Commander.

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00:08:07,800 --> 00:08:10,000
It was a job he would hold
 for more than 10 years.

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00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:14,400
But he would inherit an
 intelligence service rendered
 blind and deaf

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00:08:16,120 --> 00:08:21,240
by the sudden German invasion.
 Operation Barbarossa had begun,

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00:08:22,960 --> 00:08:27,440
and despite all the warnings,
 the Soviet Union was not
 prepared...

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00:08:41,920 --> 00:08:46,440
In the first days of the war,
 all Soviet legal residencies in
 Germany,

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00:08:46,440 --> 00:08:50,920
in the countries of her allies,
 and in countries occupied by the
 Axis,

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00:08:50,920 --> 00:08:55,120
were terminated, and all embassy
 workers were deported back to
 the Soviet Union.

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00:09:05,760 --> 00:09:09,840
Soviet military intelligence
 lost contact with its agents in
 11 European countries.

90
00:09:11,040 --> 00:09:14,040
The agents themselves
 remained at large.

91
00:09:14,040 --> 00:09:16,880
But if they couldn t contact
Moscow, they were of little use.

92
00:09:23,600 --> 00:09:27,200
A similar situation occurred
 with intelligence networks that

93
00:09:27,200 --> 00:09:31,520
had been established along the
 frontiers. As the Germany army
 swept forwards,

94
00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:34,960
contact with most of these
 agents was lost until the end of
 the war.

95
00:09:42,120 --> 00:09:44,840
Soviet agents working abroad did
 not have access to enough radio
 sets

96
00:09:46,760 --> 00:09:51,640
or skilled operators. The radio
 equipment they did have was
 bulky and unreliable.

97
00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:55,200
There was even
 a shortage of radio batteries.

98
00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:02,880
The range of these radio sets
was no more than 600 miles,

99
00:10:04,680 --> 00:10:06,800
which meant their signal could
 only reach the western Soviet
 Union.

100
00:10:08,320 --> 00:10:12,560
It wasn t strong enough to reach
 Moscow, let alone Kuybyshev,

101
00:10:12,560 --> 00:10:14,800
where military intelligence
 headquarters had been moved to.

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00:10:17,640 --> 00:10:21,240
The codes and encryption keys
 used by Soviet intelligence

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00:10:21,240 --> 00:10:23,680
at the start of the war were
 complex and difficult to work
 with.

104
00:10:26,040 --> 00:10:29,400
It took a long time to encode
 and decode even the simplest
 message.

105
00:10:33,960 --> 00:10:36,400
Radio transmissions could also
 be picked up by German
counter-intelligence,

106
00:10:37,760 --> 00:10:39,440
who patrolled the cities
 with direction finding equipment

107
00:10:40,360 --> 00:10:42,600
to locate illegal transmitters.

108
00:10:46,800 --> 00:10:50,680
Direction finding used
 directional antennae to
 establish the source of a radio
 signal.

109
00:10:53,160 --> 00:10:56,880
By the mid 1930s, it was in use
 by most counter-intelligence
 services.

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00:10:59,520 --> 00:11:01,760
Three vans, equipped with
 mobile directional antennae,

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00:11:03,240 --> 00:11:06,040
would patrol a city looking
 for unusual radio transmissions.

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00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:10,840
They would triangulate their
 findings to pinpoint the exact
 location

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00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:13,040
of the radio transmitter.

114
00:11:15,400 --> 00:11:18,320
Once the exact building was
 identified, police units would
 surround it,

115
00:11:19,560 --> 00:11:21,680
force their way in,
 and arrest the operator.

116
00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:45,720
German counter-espionage
 made it almost impossible

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00:11:45,720 --> 00:11:48,080
for Soviet agents to communicate
 directly with Moscow.

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00:11:50,280 --> 00:11:54,000
Communications with most Soviet
 prewar agents with only
 re-establish in 1945

119
00:11:55,280 --> 00:11:57,400
as the red army advance
 to Eastern Europe.

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00:12:01,200 --> 00:12:03,760
Improvised lines of
 communication, often using
 couriers,

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00:12:05,080 --> 00:12:07,240
were used to deliver
the most important information.

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00:12:23,800 --> 00:12:26,040
But while couriers could move
 across Europe with ease in
 peacetime,

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00:12:27,560 --> 00:12:28,840
during the war, it
 was another matter.

124
00:12:31,240 --> 00:12:33,320
They not only ran the risk of
 being arrested by the Gestapo,

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00:12:35,000 --> 00:12:38,240
but also of being killed in
 attacks on ships, trains and
 roads.

126
00:12:44,280 --> 00:12:47,360
In Japan and China,
 Soviet agents remained active.

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00:12:49,240 --> 00:12:51,960
A few illegal residencies
 continued to operate

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00:12:51,960 --> 00:12:54,280
in occupied France,
 Belgium, and Holland.

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00:12:57,520 --> 00:13:01,440
Soviet intelligence remained
 highly effective in the USA, the
UK,

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00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:03,600
and in neutral Sweden
 and Switzerland.

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00:13:08,200 --> 00:13:12,920
July, 1941, Stockholm, 3 weeks
 into the German-Soviet war.

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00:13:15,640 --> 00:13:19,120
From the outside, the fish
 warehouse near the docks of the
 Swedish capital

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00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:20,320
looked like any other
 building in the area.

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00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:29,080
But this one harboured a secret.
 It was the home of the code and
 cipher department

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00:13:29,080 --> 00:13:31,280
of the General Staff
 of the Swedish armed forces.

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00:13:35,440 --> 00:13:38,760
Allan Nyblad,
 a Swedish War Ministry courier,

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00:13:38,760 --> 00:13:39,840
was considered a
 master of his trade.

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00:13:42,440 --> 00:13:44,760
The General Staff trusted him
with their most urgent and
 important papers.

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00:13:46,680 --> 00:13:50,720
He was a stickler for the rules,
 only ever handing his package

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00:13:50,720 --> 00:13:53,760
to the exact person to whom it
 was addressed. It annoyed a lot
 people,

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00:13:55,560 --> 00:13:57,960
but the War Minister had been
 impressed by his punctilious
 courier.

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00:14:01,600 --> 00:14:03,320
What none of the Swedish
 authorities knew...

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00:14:04,800 --> 00:14:08,320
was that Nyblad was a secret
 Communist and Soviet agent.

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00:14:10,640 --> 00:14:13,480
To make it easier for the
 couriers to get around town,

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00:14:13,480 --> 00:14:15,160
their bicycles carried
 special license plates.

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00:14:16,680 --> 00:14:18,360
This meant they wouldn t be
 stopped by the local police.

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00:14:20,200 --> 00:14:23,760
One day, after receiving a
 package addressed to the General
 Staff,

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00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:28,240
Allan Nyblod set off on his bike
 through quiet Stockholm streets,

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00:14:28,240 --> 00:14:31,080
but then took an unexpected turn
 down a deserted alley, and
 dismounted.

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00:14:33,800 --> 00:14:36,640
After checking the coast was
 clear, he took off his special
 license plate...

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00:14:38,360 --> 00:14:40,000
and replaced it with
 an ordinary one.

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00:14:47,840 --> 00:14:50,960
He arrived at a two-storey
 house... and went in.

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00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:23,320
Semyon Starostin worked
officially for a Russian tourist
 agency

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00:15:23,360 --> 00:15:27,960
he also worked for Soviet
 military intelligence.

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00:15:27,960 --> 00:15:32,160
Semyon Kuzmich Starostin,
 codenamed Kent,

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00:15:32,160 --> 00:15:38,800
joined Soviet military
 intelligence in 1937, and was
 sent to Scandinavia in 1939.

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00:15:39,360 --> 00:15:43,040
His cover-story included a job
 as director of the Russian
 tourist agency

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00:15:43,040 --> 00:15:46,840
"Intourist" in Sweden,
 Norway and Denmark,

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00:15:46,840 --> 00:15:50,280
as well as a representative of
 Aeroflot, the Soviet state
 airline.

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00:15:52,520 --> 00:15:57,080
In November 1941, he returned to
 the USSR when one of his agents
was captured.

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00:16:06,680 --> 00:16:08,920
When all the documents
 had been photographed,

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00:16:08,920 --> 00:16:10,800
Starostin put the papers
 in a new envelope.

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00:16:14,200 --> 00:16:17,200
Rubber stamps from numerous
 Swedish institutions were at his
 disposal.

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00:16:24,160 --> 00:16:29,200
Thanks to Kent, Moscow received
 daily reports on enemy movements

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00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:32,320
along the entire Eastern Front
 because the Swedes were
 listening in on the Germans...

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00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:35,320
and had broken their codes.

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00:16:38,560 --> 00:16:41,920
In 1940, Sweden had suspected
 Germany of planning to occupy
 the country.

168
00:16:43,600 --> 00:16:46,000
Stockholm set out
to uncover Hitler s intentions.

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00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:51,000
Swedish maths professor Arne
 Beurling, working alone with
 just pad and pencil,

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00:16:52,840 --> 00:16:56,720
was able to crack German
 military and diplomatic ciphers
 in just 2 weeks.

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00:16:58,560 --> 00:17:01,080
It allowed the Swedes to
 intercept and decode German
 cable traffic,

172
00:17:02,520 --> 00:17:06,400
and what the Swedes saw...
 now also went to Moscow.

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00:17:09,560 --> 00:17:14,160
In January 1942, Nyblad was
 picked up by the Swedes

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00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:18,560
and sentenced to 12 years
 hard labour. But by then,

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00:17:18,560 --> 00:17:21,640
Moscow had information on how
the Swedes had broken the German
 encryption.

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00:17:23,760 --> 00:17:26,640
In June, when the Germans were
 tipped off that the Swedes were
 listening in,

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00:17:28,560 --> 00:17:32,120
Soviet cryptographers were able
 to decipher the new German codes
 themselves.

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00:17:39,080 --> 00:17:45,080
18th October, 1941.
 Tokyo. The Japanese empire

179
00:17:45,080 --> 00:17:49,160
and the Soviet Union observed an
 uneasy peace. But tension
 remained high.

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00:17:52,200 --> 00:17:56,080
At dawn, Japanese
 counter-espionage launched an
 operation

181
00:17:56,080 --> 00:17:58,280
to smash an illegal
 Soviet spy network.

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00:18:00,320 --> 00:18:04,240
One of the men they arrested
that morning was Richard Sorge,
 the group s resident.

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00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:10,960
As he was led away under heavy
 guard, a thorough search was
 made of his flat.

184
00:18:13,360 --> 00:18:18,560
The Japanese found incriminating
 documents, cameras and a
 Photostat copying machine.

185
00:18:27,920 --> 00:18:31,640
When they searched the house of
 Max Klausen, the group s radio
 operator,

186
00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:34,440
they found his transmitter
 and his codebooks.

187
00:18:42,520 --> 00:18:46,520
Richard Sorge, also known by
 codenames Sonter, Schwartz,
 Ramsay and Inson,

188
00:18:48,560 --> 00:18:51,520
was born in Tsarist Russia but
as a boy moved with his family
 to Germany.

189
00:18:53,200 --> 00:18:55,680
After fighting for Germany
 in the First World War,

190
00:18:55,680 --> 00:18:59,760
Sorge became an ardent Communist
 and moved to Moscow.

191
00:18:59,760 --> 00:19:03,040
There he was recruited
 by Soviet military intelligence,

192
00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:05,640
and sent back to Germany
 to build a cover story

193
00:19:05,640 --> 00:19:07,200
as a journalist and
 a Nazi sympathiser.

194
00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:13,480
It served him well
 until October 1941,

195
00:19:13,480 --> 00:19:16,480
when he was arrested by the
 Japanese. They hanged him 3
 years later.

196
00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:22,760
In 1964 he was posthumously
 awarded the state s highest
 award,

197
00:19:22,760 --> 00:19:24,680
the title "Hero of
 the Soviet Union".

198
00:19:27,920 --> 00:19:31,200
Sorge s network included
 32 Japanese agents, 4 Germans,

199
00:19:32,160 --> 00:19:33,800
2 Yugoslavians, and one Briton.

200
00:19:36,600 --> 00:19:39,800
They included German radio
 operator Bruno Wendt and his
 successor Max Klausen;

201
00:19:41,200 --> 00:19:42,480
Manchester Guardian
 journalist Gunter Stein;

202
00:19:44,480 --> 00:19:49,680
Yugoslavian journalist Branko
 Vukelic; Japanese journalist
 Miyagi Yotoku;

203
00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:54,520
And Japanese journalist Hotsumi
 Ozaki, an advisor to the
 Japanese prime minister.

204
00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:02,960
Another valuable source
 for the group was Eugen Ott,

205
00:20:02,960 --> 00:20:06,280
German ambassador to Japan,
 and confidante of Richard Sorge.

206
00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:13,040
Sorge s arrest and the
 dismantling of his Tokyo network

207
00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:15,960
was a bitter blow to
 Soviet intelligence.

208
00:20:18,080 --> 00:20:21,440
He had been an invaluable source
 on Japanese and German
 intentions in the Far East.

209
00:20:24,560 --> 00:20:28,720
Sorge s greatest coup had been
 to establish that Japan did not
 intend

210
00:20:28,720 --> 00:20:32,360
to attack the Soviet Union
 in 1941, as Stalin feared.

211
00:20:34,760 --> 00:20:37,120
He sent a telegram from
 Tokyo in September.

212
00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:42,400
According to the Secretary
 of the Cabinet Ozaki,

213
00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:45,480
the Japanese government has
 decided to take no action
 against the USSR this year,

214
00:20:48,040 --> 00:20:52,200
but armed forces will remain
 stationed in Manchuria for a
 possible attack next spring,

215
00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:56,560
if the USSR is defeated by
 Germany. After 15th September,

216
00:20:58,520 --> 00:21:02,200
the Soviet Far East can be
 considered safe from the threat
 of a Japanese attack.

217
00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:09,200
This vital information came as
 the Germans made their final
 push on Moscow.

218
00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:14,840
It allowed the Stavka High
 Command to rush 32 divisions

219
00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:17,880
from Siberia and the Far East
to help defend the capital.

220
00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:24,920
On 5th December 1941, these
 divisions spearheaded a massive
 counter-attack

221
00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:28,440
that threw the Germans back
 from the gates of Moscow.

222
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:34,320
It was a crucial victory, which
 owed much to Richard Sorge.

223
00:21:38,960 --> 00:21:42,040
Soviet military intelligence
 also had its eyes and ears in
 Washington.

224
00:21:43,880 --> 00:21:48,560
From there too, news reached
 Moscow about Japanese intentions
 in 1941.

225
00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:54,960
Lev Sergeev worked at the Soviet
 embassy as the military
 attaché s driver.

226
00:21:56,640 --> 00:22:02,080
He was also an intelligence
agent, codenamed Moris. All that
 summer,

227
00:22:02,080 --> 00:22:06,120
he sent messages to Moscow
 stating that Japan had no plans
 to attack the USSR.

228
00:22:07,560 --> 00:22:10,120
16th July 1941,
 Moris to Moscow:

229
00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:15,800
The attitude of Japan toward
 the USSR is wait and observe

230
00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:21,200
February 1942, Berlin.

231
00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:26,040
The Head of the German military
 intelligence service, the
 Abwehr,

232
00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:33,080
was a man named Admiral Wilhelm
 Canaris. That spring, he was in
 low spirits.

233
00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:39,760
Hitler blamed Canaris for not
 providing accurate information

234
00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:44,000
on the size of Soviet reserves,
 and for allowing the Wehrmacht

235
00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:46,560
to be caught off-guard by the
 Soviet counter-attack that
 winter.

236
00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:52,600
This, and the weather, was how
 German generals explained their
 failure.

237
00:22:56,880 --> 00:23:00,560
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris became
 head of the Abwehr in 1933.

238
00:23:01,720 --> 00:23:04,520
He was a dedicated
 anti-communist,

239
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:07,160
which is why he initially gave
 his support to Hitler and the
 Nazis.

240
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:12,520
But by 1938 he d become
 convinced that Hitler would lead
 Germany to ruin.

241
00:23:13,920 --> 00:23:17,280
He began to actively conspire
against the Fuehrer,

242
00:23:17,280 --> 00:23:21,040
and in 1942 established a secret
 line of communication to British
 intelligence.

243
00:23:22,320 --> 00:23:25,320
The SS had its suspicions
 about Canaris,

244
00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:27,800
and he was dismissed
 from his post in February 1944.

245
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:33,360
He was arrested following the
 July Bomb Plot against Hitler,

246
00:23:33,360 --> 00:23:35,680
and hanged in a concentration
 camp, one month before the end
 of the war.

247
00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:43,640
As an anti-Communist, Canaris
 still had a vested interest

248
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:47,200
in the war against
 the Soviet Union.

249
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:51,760
But the Abwehr failed to provide
the Army High Command with an
 accurate estimate

250
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:54,160
of Soviet military strength in
 the run up to the German
 invasion.

251
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:58,400
They also failed to place any
 agents within the Soviet High
 Command.

252
00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:04,400
The NKVD was extremely adept
 at exposing enemy agents.

253
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:09,240
Numerous Soviet prisoners-of-war
 were recruited

254
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:11,760
as spies by the Abwehr and
 smuggled back across the lines.

255
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:16,080
But almost all of them
 disappeared into the vast
 Russian hinterland.

256
00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:22,880
Some turned themselves in, some
were picked up by the NKVD,
 others simply went home.

257
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:31,760
Very few of these agents made it
 back, and their reports
 contained little of value.

258
00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:39,400
Canaris s mood improved in
 December 1941, when he received

259
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:42,800
an unexpected report from the
 Intelligence Chief of Army Group
 Centre:

260
00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,960
There exists in Moscow an
 underground anti-soviet
 organization

261
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:49,080
called "The Throne".

262
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:53,080
It is attempting to spread
 anti-Soviet feeling amongst the
 people.

263
00:24:55,120 --> 00:24:57,560
The leaders are Sadovski, a
royalist and poet, and his wife,

264
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:02,480
a former lady in waiting to the
 Tsarina. One of its members,
 Demyanov,

265
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:08,560
the grandson of a Cossack chief
 and former noble, risked his
 life crossing

266
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:10,680
the front line to tell us about
 the existence of "The Throne .

267
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:19,040
During his interrogation,
 Demyanov claimed to have been in
 contact

268
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:24,280
with German intelligence since
 1940. His contact had been a man
 named Stoltz.

269
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:33,000
After his story was rigorously
 vetted, Demyanov was given a
 codename,

270
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:35,760
Max, and sent back
 to the Soviet Union.

271
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:42,240
Max s mission was to organise
 underground anti-soviet cells in
 major cities,

272
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:48,160
to orchestrate a campaign of
 sabotage, and to establish a
 network

273
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:50,080
for gathering information about
 the movement of Red Army forces.

274
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:59,520
Most importantly, Max was to use
 his contacts in the Soviet
 General Staff

275
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:02,640
and the Ministry of Transport to
 find out about military
 movements by rail.

276
00:26:08,360 --> 00:26:10,760
At the end of the war, Richard
 Kauder, an officer of the
 Abwehr,

277
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:15,200
was captured by the Americans.
 During one of his
 interrogations,

278
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:21,040
he told them that in 1942 and
 43, Max supplied valuable
 information

279
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:24,440
that was often passed on
 to the Wehrmacht High Command.

280
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:30,400
The Germans believed
 that Demyanov had infiltrated

281
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:32,800
the Soviet General Staff
 as a junior signals officer.

282
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:40,320
Kauder further claimed that the
 "The Throne" had set up several
 cells

283
00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:43,480
in Moscow and Gorky, which
 communicated directly with the
 Abwehr in Berlin.

284
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:48,160
They did this using three
transmitters supplied to them by
 the Germans.

285
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:55,920
And all of this under the noses
 of the famed Soviet
 counter-espionage services.

286
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:04,680
The Germans did not discover
 until after the war that this
 underground,

287
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:08,520
anti-soviet organization had
 been created by the NKVD.

288
00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:18,760
Soviet intelligence had
 meticulously created plausible
 anti-Soviet agents,

289
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:21,920
which they then used to
 infiltrate the Abwehr.

290
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:25,640
These agents then fed
 the enemy misinformation.

291
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:29,520
It was called
 "Operation Monastery".

292
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:38,280
Since the 1930s, the poet Boris
 Sadovski had been used by the
 NKVD as bait,

293
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:41,200
to trick opponents of the regime
 into revealing their
 "anti-Soviet" sentiments.

294
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:46,640
On three occasions, the secret
 police had arrested his
 associates,

295
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:47,800
but the poet himself
 always remained free.

296
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:57,280
Alexander Demyanov was a former
 noble who became an NKVD agent
 in 1929.

297
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:00,600
He successfully infiltrated
 German intelligence in 1942,

298
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:02,840
and even received specialist
 training from the Abwehr.

299
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:07,160
He was later awarded
 the Order of the Red Star

300
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:09,400
for his exceptional service
 in Operation Monastery.

301
00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:17,160
Meanwhile, German intelligence
 continued its attempts to
 recruit Soviet prisoners of war.

302
00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:24,040
From the spring of 1942,
 Canaris s agents brought him
 regular reports

303
00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:27,480
about the progress made with
 former soldiers of the Red Army.

304
00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:32,120
German intelligence
 was well-versed in techniques

305
00:28:32,120 --> 00:28:35,040
for turning Soviet citizens
 against Stalin and Soviet
 Communism.

306
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:41,760
The Admiral hoped that these
recruits would provide valuable
 intelligence.

307
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:45,200
But he would be
 disappointed once again.

308
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:58,360
October, 1942. Poltava
 occupied Ukraine.

309
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:04,000
At the Intelligence school
 of Abwehr Group 102,

310
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,600
former Soviet soldiers
 were listening to a lecture

311
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,800
on how to gather military
 secrets whilst operating behind
 enemy lines.

312
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:21,360
The door opened, and the head
 of the school walked in.

313
00:29:59,960 --> 00:30:03,560
What no one in the Abwehr
 knew was that Pyotr Pryadko,

314
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,160
former depot commander
 of the Soviet 5th Army,

315
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:11,920
had infiltrated German military
 intelligence under the orders of
 the NKVD.

316
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:18,000
All the information he was
 giving them was in fact
 misinformation prepared in
 Moscow.

317
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:23,160
Pryadko s role in Abwehr Group
 102 was to forge papers for the
 students.

318
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:28,240
He always made small mistakes
 that would ensure the agent

319
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:30,000
was arrested when his papers
 were properly examined.

320
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:36,080
His misinformation also
 succeeded in compromising
 several

321
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:38,920
high-ranking German intelligence
 officers, who were dismissed
from their posts.

322
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,720
Pryadko sent back information on
 101 agents working for the
 Gemans,

323
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:48,640
and 24 members of the Abwehr.

324
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:56,280
In December 1942, he
 rejoined the Red Army.

325
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:59,880
He was subsequently awarded the
 Order of the Red Banner for his
 courage and heroism.

326
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:08,840
Over the course of the war, the
 Abwehr was infiltrated by
 hundreds of Soviet agents.

327
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:13,200
They gathered information
 about the enemy,

328
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:16,200
and planted false information
 about the Red Army and its
 intentions.

329
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:23,840
They had effectively succeeded
 in turning Germany s own
 intelligence services

330
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:27,280
into its High Command s biggest
 source of enemy
 misinformation...

331
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:35,840
13th September 1943, Paris.

332
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:42,960
A car carrying two passengers
 drove up to a pharmacist s shop
 on Rome Street.

333
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:45,720
One man left the
 car and went in.

334
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,280
After a few moments,
 the other man went in too.

335
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:05,440
The man on the run
 was Leopold Trepper,

336
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:09,840
a Soviet agent who d agreed to
 work for the Germans two weeks
 before.

337
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:14,880
But now he d given
his Abwehr handlers the slip.

338
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:19,640
The furious Germans launched
 a city-wide manhunt.

339
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:46,600
As early as 1938, Trepper had
 established a powerful Soviet
 intelligence network

340
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:52,640
across Belgium, the Netherlands,
 France, and Italy. It had about
 300 members,

341
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:56,200
and Trepper was its head until
 his arrest by the Abwehr in
 November 1942.

342
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:04,520
Through his group, the Soviets
 also received intelligence from
 Rudolph Rössler.

343
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:11,200
Rudolph Rössler, codename Lucy,
 was one of the most valuable
 agents

344
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:13,680
of the Second World War. A
 German refugee living in
 Switzerland,

345
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:17,480
he began working for Soviet
 intelligence for ideological
 reasons.

346
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:23,240
He supplied the Soviets
 with vital information

347
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:27,440
about the German Kursk
 offensive of 1943.

348
00:33:27,440 --> 00:33:30,320
Rössler s own source, codenamed
 Woerter, remains a mystery.

349
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:37,560
At the Nuremberg Trials, Alfred
 Jodl, of the German Armed Forces
 High Command,

350
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:39,320
said that information about the
 Kursk offensive reached Moscow

351
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:41,760
before it reached his own desk.

352
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:51,120
After the war Rössler continued
 to feed the USSR information
 gathered in West Germany,

353
00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:53,440
leading to his arrest
 and a year in a Swiss prison.

354
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:56,640
He died soon after
 his release in 1958.

355
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:04,560
After Trepper s arrest,
 German counter-intelligence

356
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:06,840
succeeded in shutting down
 most of his networks.

357
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:14,320
In Berlin, they referred to
 Soviet radio operators as
 "pianists".

358
00:34:17,720 --> 00:34:21,120
Trepper s network involved
 at least ten "pianists",

359
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:23,520
hence the nickname
 the Red Orchestra.

360
00:34:28,640 --> 00:34:32,640
German counter-intelligence
was able to force some

361
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:35,680
of the Red Orchestra s former
 radio operators, including
 Trepper himself,

362
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:38,800
to start feeding
 misinformation to Moscow.

363
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:47,200
Admiral Canaris had
 made a breakthrough.

364
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:53,160
The Soviets did not only believe
 the misinformation they asked
 for more.

365
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:16,120
After his escape, Trepper, with
 the help of French Communists,

366
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:19,120
managed to get word to Moscow
 that his network had been
 compromised.

367
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:25,160
The information coming in
 from its former radio operators

368
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:26,560
was finally seen
for what it was.

369
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:36,040
November, 1944.

370
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:41,640
Two Soviet agents were
 conducting round-the-clock
 surveillance

371
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:43,840
on the Norwegian coast.

372
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:16,560
Twelve hours later, a staff
 officer entered the office

373
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:18,640
of the Chief of Naval
 Intelligence, Mikhail Vorontsov.

374
00:37:00,720 --> 00:37:05,080
The Tirpitz was one of the few
 remaining threats posed by the
 German navy.

375
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:08,800
She had played little direct
 part in the war so far,

376
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:12,920
but her presence in Norway
 threatened the Arctic convoys to
 the Soviet Union,

377
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:15,560
and tied down a significant
number of British warships.

378
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:20,600
The sister-ship of the Bismarck,
 she might still prove a
 formidable adversary.

379
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:28,080
On 12th November 1944,
 British Lancaster bombers

380
00:37:28,080 --> 00:37:32,480
carrying 5-ton Tallboy bombs
 set off for the Norwegian fjord
 of Tromso.

381
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:41,680
The Germans had no warning of
 the raid the Luftwaffe was
 nowhere to be seen.

382
00:37:45,240 --> 00:37:48,400
Two of the huge bombs hit
 the port-side of the Tirpitz,

383
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:49,800
blowing a massive hole
 in the ship s hull.

384
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:54,440
As water poured in, she took on
 a heavy list, and capsized.

385
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:01,760
The destruction of the
 Tirpitz at Tromso

386
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:04,600
cost the lives of 1,000
 of her 1,700-man crew.

387
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:08,280
It was a final nail
 in the coffin of Hitler s navy.

388
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:24,600
Since the summer of 1941, the
 Soviets had had their spies in
 Norway,

389
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:27,040
including units gathering
 intelligence for the Soviet
 Northern Fleet.

390
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:30,640
They also recruited agents
 from the local population,

391
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:33,760
and worked with the
 Norwegian Resistance.

392
00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:42,120
Some Norwegian agents were sent
 to a Soviet training camp near
 Murmansk,

393
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,360
where they were given basic
 instruction in radio
 communications

394
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:47,640
and intelligence gathering.

395
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:55,800
The agents were then sent back
 to Norway by submarine.

396
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:03,640
After nightfall, they would be
 landed on a secluded stretch of
 coastline.

397
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,920
Groups would also be resupplied,
 and finally extracted, by
 submarine.

398
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:18,040
The agents orders were to
 observe German fortifications,
 troop movements,

399
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:19,320
and military supply depots.

400
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:23,960
They were also ordered to find
 German warships hidden in the
Norwegian fjords,

401
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:27,120
and transmit this information
 back to Murmansk.

402
00:39:32,040 --> 00:39:36,120
Soviet and British air forces
 were able to use this
 intelligence

403
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:39,560
to make raids against valuable
 German targets in Norway and
 Finland.

404
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:50,720
Following Germany s surrender in
 May 1945, for most, the
 celebrations could begin.

405
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:57,760
But there was not let up for the
 secret services. It was clear
 that in Washington,

406
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:01,360
and London, the rise of Soviet
 power aroused great mistrust.

407
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:07,280
Mutual suspicion came to the
fore now the common enemy had
 been defeated.

408
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:15,680
In April 1945, the British Prime
 Minister, Winston Churchill,

409
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:19,680
ordered his military staff to
 investigate the feasibility of
 an attack

410
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:23,920
against the Soviet Union,
 codenamed Operation Unthinkable.

411
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:33,000
The study was conducted by the
 British Armed Forces Joint
 Planning Staff.

412
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:38,800
Their report envisaged a
 scenario in which 47 British and
 American divisions,

413
00:40:40,160 --> 00:40:45,080
fighting alongside Polish
 forces, and 12 re-armed German
 divisions,

414
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:49,560
launched a surprise attack
 against the Red Army in
 Northwest Europe.

415
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:51,840
The Planning Staff
 concluded that Britain

416
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:53,720
would have to commit
 to a long and costly war,

417
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:59,240
and that even so, the prospect
 of success was "extremely
 doubtful".

418
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:08,880
In his comments on the plan,
 Churchill stated that it was

419
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:14,000
a precautionary measure for a
 highly hypothetical situation .

420
00:41:19,600 --> 00:41:23,360
On 18th May 1945 the Soviet
 Military attaché in London,

421
00:41:24,720 --> 00:41:28,320
Major General Ivan Skliarov,
 passed information

422
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:31,640
on the top-secret
Operation Unthinkable to Moscow.

423
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:40,360
Skliarov s source was Agent X
 - whose identity to this day
 remains a mystery.

424
00:41:42,240 --> 00:41:45,880
Over the next few weeks, this
 same agent was able to pass
 Skliarov

425
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:47,480
more details about
 Operation Unthinkable,

426
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:51,480
including the size of British
 and American forces involved.

427
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:58,680
In June 1945, Marshal Zhukov
 received details of the plan,

428
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:01,480
and immediately regrouped Soviet
 forces in eastern Germany.

429
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:06,560
He issued orders for the Red
 Army to strengthen its defences,

430
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:08,560
and to closely observe
 the western Allied forces.

431
00:42:13,360 --> 00:42:16,200
Churchill knew British and
 American forces were outnumbered
 by the Red Army.

432
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:20,880
More importantly, he knew that
 there was neither the public

433
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:23,640
nor political will for
 such a war in 1945.

434
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:27,680
The Americans were more
 interested in getting Soviet
 help

435
00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:30,160
in the war against Japan.

436
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:32,280
Operation Unthinkable
 remained... just that.

437
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:41,360
In July 1945, during the Potsdam
 Conference, American President
 Harry Truman,

438
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:45,240
as agreed with the British Prime
Minister, mentioned to Stalin

439
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:50,920
that the US had developed "a new
 weapon of unusually destructive
 force".

440
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:57,640
Truman was surprised by the
 reaction of the Soviet leader.

441
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:01,160
A few minutes later, as they
 waited outside for their cars,

442
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:04,080
Churchill asked Truman
 how it had gone.

443
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:07,720
He never asked a question ,
 replied the President.

444
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:14,680
The British and American
 leaders assumed simply

445
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:18,120
that Stalin had failed to
 understand the significance of
 what he was being told.

446
00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:23,800
But they were mistaken.
Since 1942, Soviet intelligence

447
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:27,640
had been gathering information
 on the Allies atomic bomb
 programme.

448
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:35,760
More than 10 agents were feeding
 information to the Soviets.

449
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:43,960
Thanks to their efforts, the
 USSR tested its first atomic
 bomb as early as 1949.

450
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:53,400
In February 1945, in a letter to
 Truman s predecessor President
 Roosevelt,

451
00:43:53,400 --> 00:43:56,800
Joseph Stalin had even hinted at
 the effectiveness of Soviet
 intelligence.

452
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:03,840
As to my informers, I assure
 you they are all very honest and
 modest people,

453
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:08,160
who carry out their duties
 carefully and without giving
 offence.

454
00:44:10,240 --> 00:44:13,880
These people have proven
 themselves by their deeds many
 times .