Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,994
Richard Sorge...
On November 7, 1944, the Soviet communist Richard Sorge ...
... is executed in Tokyo.
Sorge, born in the Azerbaijani capital Baku in 1895 as the child of the German oil worker Wilhelm and his Soviet wife Nina, grew up in Berlin and participated in the First World War in German uniform - in the photo he is on the left ...:
In 1924 the family moved to the Soviet Union - and Richard Sorge, who spoke perfect German and Russian, became a worker in the military secret service GRU - and the CPSU the following year.
After extensive intelligence training and a brief assignment in Shanghai (1930), he traveled back to Germany - with the assignment of getting to Japan disguised as a German journalist and reporting from there to the Soviet secret service.
In 1933 he arrived at Yokohama - as a camouflage he had previously joined the Nazi party NSdAP ...:
Officially, he worked as a correspondent for the German "Frankfurter Zeitung". In the following years he built up a network of informants that reached up to the highest levels of Japanese government.
So to speak officially, Sorge was an informant for the German intelligence service "Abwehr" and edited the information sheet of the German embassy.
Sorge also managed to have a major influence on the German ambassador Eugen Ott (in the next picture in the middle, next to Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop) ...
... exercise. This enabled him to check the reliability of his sources.
Ambassador Ott - who felt himself to be a trusted friend of Sorges - had given instructions to give Sorge access to the embassy files.
The second most important message from Richard Sorges to his actual boss, the chairman of the GRU, Colonel Jan Karlowitsch Bersin ...
... was that after joining the "three-power pact" with Nazi Germany and Mussolini's fascist Italy, Japan did not intend to attack the Soviet Union in the Far East, but would instead direct its warfare over the "East Asian sphere of prosperity" against the Western Allies.
This information from Sorge was indirectly decisive for the war, as in December 1941 the Soviets were able to withdraw masses of troops previously held back in the east - and with these well-equipped Siberian units stop the German advance in front of Moscow (which was about to fall!) and for the first time push back the Hitlerwehrmacht !
On the other hand, another important message from Sorge, which would have been even more decisive for the war, was not believed by Stalin:
Sorge had broadcast the exact date of the German attack ("Operation Barbarossa") on the Soviet Union, including the attack strength of the German troops and their deployment and advance directions to Moscow - two days before the German attack!
Stalin didn't believe him!
After two and a half years as an agent and 141 radio messages with a total of more than 65,000 words to the Moscow headquarters, Sorge was exposed by the Japanese secret police "Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu" (= "Special Higher Police"), arrested on October 18, 1941 and - together with his assistant , the Japanese journalist Ozaki Hotsumi ...
... executed on the gallows on November 7, 1944 Sugamo-Prison, Tokyo...:
In 1964 he was posthumously awarded with the golden star and the title "Hero of the Soviet Union" ...:
In addition, a station on the Moscow Central Railway Ring bears the name “Sorge” and was named after the “Sorge Street” (Ulitsa Sorge/Улица Зорге) that passed it in 1964 ...:
At the house Weidenweg 29, in Berlin-Friedrichshain, where he grew up, a memorial plaque to Richard Sorge was inaugurated with military honors during GDR times ...:
After all, they left the board hanging there even after the "Wende" ...:
... and a street in Friedrichshain named after him ...:
The former GDR high school that carried Sorge's name ...
... and the holiday home in Thuringia, however, have been renamed or have disappeared.
In his native country, the now independent Azerbaijan, Richard Sorge is still in great esteem! In his hometown of Baku, this monument commemorates him, although the bullet holes are due to the recent unrest there and are not part of the artistic concept ...:
On November 7, 1944, the Soviet communist Richard Sorge ...
... is executed in Tokyo.
Sorge, born in the Azerbaijani capital Baku in 1895 as the child of the German oil worker Wilhelm and his Soviet wife Nina, grew up in Berlin and participated in the First World War in German uniform - in the photo he is on the left ...:
In 1924 the family moved to the Soviet Union - and Richard Sorge, who spoke perfect German and Russian, became a worker in the military secret service GRU - and the CPSU the following year.
After extensive intelligence training and a brief assignment in Shanghai (1930), he traveled back to Germany - with the assignment of getting to Japan disguised as a German journalist and reporting from there to the Soviet secret service.
In 1933 he arrived at Yokohama - as a camouflage he had previously joined the Nazi party NSdAP ...:
Officially, he worked as a correspondent for the German "Frankfurter Zeitung". In the following years he built up a network of informants that reached up to the highest levels of Japanese government.
So to speak officially, Sorge was an informant for the German intelligence service "Abwehr" and edited the information sheet of the German embassy.
Sorge also managed to have a major influence on the German ambassador Eugen Ott (in the next picture in the middle, next to Nazi Foreign Minister Ribbentrop) ...
... exercise. This enabled him to check the reliability of his sources.
Ambassador Ott - who felt himself to be a trusted friend of Sorges - had given instructions to give Sorge access to the embassy files.
The second most important message from Richard Sorges to his actual boss, the chairman of the GRU, Colonel Jan Karlowitsch Bersin ...
... was that after joining the "three-power pact" with Nazi Germany and Mussolini's fascist Italy, Japan did not intend to attack the Soviet Union in the Far East, but would instead direct its warfare over the "East Asian sphere of prosperity" against the Western Allies.
This information from Sorge was indirectly decisive for the war, as in December 1941 the Soviets were able to withdraw masses of troops previously held back in the east - and with these well-equipped Siberian units stop the German advance in front of Moscow (which was about to fall!) and for the first time push back the Hitlerwehrmacht !
On the other hand, another important message from Sorge, which would have been even more decisive for the war, was not believed by Stalin:
Sorge had broadcast the exact date of the German attack ("Operation Barbarossa") on the Soviet Union, including the attack strength of the German troops and their deployment and advance directions to Moscow - two days before the German attack!
Stalin didn't believe him!
After two and a half years as an agent and 141 radio messages with a total of more than 65,000 words to the Moscow headquarters, Sorge was exposed by the Japanese secret police "Tokubetsu Kōtō Keisatsu" (= "Special Higher Police"), arrested on October 18, 1941 and - together with his assistant , the Japanese journalist Ozaki Hotsumi ...
... executed on the gallows on November 7, 1944 Sugamo-Prison, Tokyo...:
In 1964 he was posthumously awarded with the golden star and the title "Hero of the Soviet Union" ...:
In addition, a station on the Moscow Central Railway Ring bears the name “Sorge” and was named after the “Sorge Street” (Ulitsa Sorge/Улица Зорге) that passed it in 1964 ...:
At the house Weidenweg 29, in Berlin-Friedrichshain, where he grew up, a memorial plaque to Richard Sorge was inaugurated with military honors during GDR times ...:
After all, they left the board hanging there even after the "Wende" ...:
... and a street in Friedrichshain named after him ...:
The former GDR high school that carried Sorge's name ...
... and the holiday home in Thuringia, however, have been renamed or have disappeared.
In his native country, the now independent Azerbaijan, Richard Sorge is still in great esteem! In his hometown of Baku, this monument commemorates him, although the bullet holes are due to the recent unrest there and are not part of the artistic concept ...:
