151-599: Red Orchestra may refer to: Red Orchestra (espionage) , a name given by the Gestapo to an anti-Nazi resistance movement in Berlin and to Soviet espionage rings in German-occupied Europe and Switzerland during World War II Red Orchestra: Combined Arms , a modification of the video games Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Tournament 2004 Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 ,
302-636: A border and commercial agreement addressing several open issues in January 1941. According to historian Robert Service , Joseph Stalin was convinced that the overall military strength of the Soviet Union was such that he had nothing to fear and anticipated an easy victory should Germany attack; moreover, Stalin believed that since the Germans were still fighting the British in the west, Hitler would be unlikely to open up
453-597: A 12th-century Holy Roman Emperor and Crusader , put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goals of eradicating communism and conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans . The German Generalplan Ost aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories, including Ukraine and Byelorussia . Their ultimate goal
604-600: A 2006 video game based on Red Orchestra: Combined Arms Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad , a 2011 sequel to Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Red Orchestra . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Red_Orchestra&oldid=1082066124 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
755-463: A German military attaché and sent word to Zhou Enlai . The Chinese maintain the tipoff helped Stalin make preparations, though little exists to confirm the Soviets made any real changes upon receiving the intelligence. In early 1941, Stalin's own intelligence services and American intelligence gave regular and repeated warnings of an impending German attack. Soviet spy Richard Sorge also gave Stalin
906-470: A Soviet counteroffensive along with the remaining forces of the first echelon. But on 22 June 1941 the first echelon contained 171 divisions, numbering 2.6–2.9 million; and the second strategic echelon contained 57 divisions that were still mobilising, most of which were still understrength. The second echelon was undetected by German intelligence until days after the invasion commenced, in most cases only when German ground forces encountered them. At
1057-534: A figure greater than the number of Red Army soldiers killed in battle by then. German army commanders cast Jews as the major cause behind the " partisan struggle." The main guideline for German troops was "Where there's a partisan, there's a Jew, and where there's a Jew, there's a partisan" or "The partisan is where the Jew is." Many German troops viewed the war in Nazi terms and regarded their Soviet enemies as sub-human. After
1208-630: A free and socially just Germany after the end of the National Socialism ' regime. The dancer Oda Schottmüller and Erika Gräfin von Brockdorff were friends with the Kuckhoffs. In 1937 Adam Kuckhoff introduced Harnack to the journalist and former journalist railway worker John Sieg , a former editor of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) newspaper the Die Rote Fahne . As a railway worker at
1359-566: A front extending from the Arctic Ocean southward to the Black Sea , were all controlled by the OKH and organised into Army Norway , Army Group North , Army Group Centre and Army Group South , alongside three Luftflotten (air fleets, the air force equivalent of army groups) that supported the army groups: Luftflotte 1 for North, Luftflotte 2 for Centre and Luftflotte 4 for South. Army Norway
1510-463: A key role in planning for Operation Barbarossa since both Jews and communists were considered equivalent enemies of the Nazi state. Nazi imperialist ambitions rejected the common humanity of both groups, declaring the supreme struggle for Lebensraum to be a Vernichtungskrieg ('war of annihilation'). On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact in Moscow known as
1661-657: A major escalation of World War II, both geographically and with the Anglo-Soviet Agreement , which brought the USSR into the Allied coalition . The operation opened up the Eastern Front , in which more forces were committed than in any other theatre of war in human history. The area saw some of history's largest battles, most horrific atrocities , and highest casualties (for Soviet and Axis forces alike), all of which influenced
SECTION 10
#17328559165941812-728: A memorandum to Hitler on the dangers of an invasion of the Soviet Union. They argued that the eastern territories ( Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic , the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic , and the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic ) would only end up as a further economic burden for Germany. It was further argued that
1963-561: A million Soviet Jews as part of the Holocaust . The failure of Operation Barbarossa reversed the fortunes of Nazi Germany. Operationally, German forces achieved significant victories and occupied some of the most important economic areas of the Soviet Union (mainly in Ukraine) and inflicted, as well as sustained, heavy casualties. The German offensive came to an end during the Battle of Moscow near
2114-505: A new store in Copenhagen . Operation Barbarossa Frontline strength (22 June 1941) Frontline strength (22 June 1941) Total military casualties: 1,000,000+ According to German Army medical reports (including Army Norway ): Other involved country losses Total military casualties: 4,500,000 Based on Soviet archives: Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Air war Operation Barbarossa
2265-616: A number far greater than the Germans had at their disposal. The Soviet Union had around 23,000 tanks available of which 14,700 were combat-ready. Around 11,000 tanks were in the western military districts that faced the German invasion force. Hitler later declared to some of his generals, "If I had known about the Russian tank strength in 1941 I would not have attacked". However, maintenance and readiness standards were very poor; ammunition and radios were in short supply, and many armoured units lacked
2416-596: A number of publications, the groups that these two people represented were seen as traitors and spies. An example of these was Kennwort: Direktor; die Geschichte der Roten Kapelle ( Password: Director; The history of the Red Orchestra ) written by Heinz Höhne who was a Der Spiegel journalist. Höhne based his book on the investigation by the Lüneburg Public Prosecutor's Office against the General Judge of
2567-476: A plan to use money that had been provided to him, to create a business that would be the export division of The Raincoat King . The new business was given an unidiomatic name of Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company . Trepper's plan was to wait until the company gained market share, and then when it was of sufficient size, infiltrate it with communist personal in positions such as shareholders, business managers and department heads. On 6 March 1939, Trepper, now using
2718-407: A potential Soviet entry into the pact . After two days of negotiations in Berlin from 12 to 14 November 1940, Ribbentrop presented a draft treaty for a Soviet entry into the Axis. However, Hitler had no intention of allowing the Soviet Union into the Axis and in an order stated, "Political conversations designed to clarify the attitude of Russia in the immediate future have been started. Regardless of
2869-653: A racial war between the disciplined Germans and the Jewish, Romani and Slavic Untermenschen . An 'order from the Führer' stated that the paramilitary SS Einsatzgruppen , which closely followed the Wehrmacht ' s advance, were to execute all Soviet functionaries who were "less valuable Asiatics, Gypsies and Jews." Six months into the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Einsatzgruppen had murdered more than 500,000 Soviet Jews,
3020-452: A radio operator. In July 1939, Trepper was joined in Brussels by GRU agent Anatoly Gurevich posing as the wealthy Uruguayan Vincente Sierra Gurevich has already completed his first operation by meeting Schulze-Boysen in order to reestablish him as an intelligence source and to arrange courier service. Gurevich's original remit was to learn the operation of the raincoat company and establish
3171-412: A representative of TASS . Von Scheliha's position in the information department exposed him to reports and images of Nazi atrocities, enabling him to verify the veracity of foreign reports of Nazi officials. By 1941, von Scheliha had become increasingly dissatisfied with the Nazi regime and began to resist by collaborating with Henning von Tresckow . Scheliha secretly made a collection of documents on
SECTION 20
#17328559165943322-526: A research article for the Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand . The Red Orchestra, as historically viewed in the world today, are mainly the resistance groups around the Luftwaffe officer Harro Schulze-Boysen , the writer Adam Kuckhoff and the economist Arvid Harnack , to which historians assign more than 100 people. Harnack and Schulze-Boysen had similar political views, both rejected
3473-616: A two-front war and subsequently delayed the reconstruction of defensive fortifications in the border regions. When German soldiers swam across the Bug River to warn the Red Army of an impending attack, they were shot as enemy agents. Some historians believe that Stalin, despite providing an amicable front to Hitler, did not wish to remain allies with Germany. Rather, Stalin might have had intentions to break off from Germany and proceed with his own campaign against Germany to be followed by one against
3624-467: A very narrow military view. Hillgruber argued that because these assumptions were shared by the entire military elite, Hitler was able to push through with a "war of annihilation" that would be waged in the most inhumane fashion possible with the complicity of "several military leaders," even though it was quite clear that this would be in violation of all accepted norms of warfare. Even so, in autumn 1940, some high-ranking German military officials drafted
3775-577: A war of Weltanschauungen ['worldviews']... totally a people's war, a racial war ". On 23 November, once World War II had already started, Hitler declared that "racial war has broken out and this war shall determine who shall govern Europe, and with it, the world". The racial policy of Nazi Germany portrayed the Soviet Union (and all of Eastern Europe) as populated by non-Aryan Untermenschen ('sub-humans'), ruled by Jewish Bolshevik conspirators. Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf that Germany's destiny
3926-642: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Red Orchestra (espionage) The Red Orchestra ( German : Rote Kapelle , pronounced [ˈʁoːtə kaˈpɛlə] ) was the name given by the Abwehr Section III.F to anti-Nazi resistance workers in Germany in August 1941. It primarily referred to a loose network of resistance groups, connected through personal contacts, uniting hundreds of opponents of
4077-490: Is moving through the people! ). The master copy was arranged by the potter Cato Bontjes van Beek and the pamphlet was written up by Maria Terwiel on her typewriter, five copies at a time. The paper describes how the care of Germany's future is decided by the people... and called for the opposition to the war, the Nazis, all Germans who now threaten the future of all. A copy survives to the present day. The text first analysed
4228-503: The Einsatzgruppen were assigned to the Wehrmacht ' s units, which provided them with supplies such as gasoline and food, they were controlled by the RSHA. The official plan for Barbarossa assumed that the army groups would be able to advance freely to their primary objectives simultaneously, without spreading thin, once they had won the border battles and destroyed the Red Army's forces in
4379-796: The Deutsche Reichsbahn , Sieg was able to make use of work-related travel, enabling him to found a communist resistance group in the Neukölln borough in Berlin. He knew the former Foreign Affairs Minister Wilhelm Guddorf and Martin Weise . In 1934 Guddorf was arrested and sentenced to hard labour. In 1939 after his release from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Guddorf worked as a bookseller, and worked closely with Schulze-Boysen. This network grew up after Adam and Greta Kuckhoff introduced Harro and Libertas Schulze-Boysen to Arvid and Mildred Harnack, and
4530-522: The Donbas second, Moscow third;" but he consistently emphasized the destruction of the Red Army over the achievement of specific terrain objectives. Hitler believed Moscow to be of "no great importance" in the defeat of the Soviet Union and instead believed victory would come with the destruction of the Red Army west of the capital, especially west of the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers, and this pervaded
4681-587: The Funkabwehr would eventually lead to the organisations destruction, the sophisticated use of the technology-enabled the organisation to behave as a network. During the 1930s, Trepper had worked to create a large pool of informal intelligence sources, through contacts with the French Communist Party . In 1936, Trepper became the technical director of Soviet Red Army Intelligence in Western Europe. He
Red Orchestra - Misplaced Pages Continue
4832-549: The German High Command began planning an invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1940 (under the code-name Operation Otto ). Over the course of the operation, over 3.8 million personnel of the Axis powers—the largest invasion force in the history of warfare —invaded the western Soviet Union, along a 2,900-kilometer (1,800 mi) front, with 600,000 motor vehicles and over 600,000 horses for non-combat operations. The offensive marked
4983-722: The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa —who drowned in Asia Minor while leading the Third Crusade —was not dead but asleep, along with his knights, in a cave in the Kyffhäuser mountains in Thuringia , and would awaken in the hour of Germany's greatest need and restore the nation to its former glory. Originally, the invasion of the Soviet Union was codenamed Operation Otto (alluding to Holy Roman Emperor Otto
5134-585: The Luftwaffe and Nazi apologist Manfred Roeder who was involved in the Harnack and Schulze-Boysen cases during World War II and who contributed decisively to the formation of the legend that survived for much of the Cold War period. In his book Höhne reports from former Gestapo and Reich war court individuals who had a conflict of interest and were intent on defaming the groups attached to Harnack and Schulze-Boysen with accusations of treason. The perpetuation of
5285-464: The Main Directorate of State Security (GRU) . Trepper ran a series of clandestine cells for organising agents. He used the latest technology, in the form of small wireless radios, to communicate with Soviet intelligence. Although the monitoring of the radios' transmissions by the Funkabwehr would eventually lead to the organisation's destruction, the sophisticated use of the technology enabled
5436-506: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . A secret protocol to the pact outlined an agreement between Germany and the Soviet Union on the division of the eastern European border states between their respective " spheres of influence ," Soviet Union and Germany would partition Poland in the event of an invasion by Germany, and the Soviets would be allowed to overrun Finland , Estonia , Latvia and the region of Bessarabia . On 23 August 1939
5587-477: The Nazi regime . These included groups of friends who held discussions that were centred on Harro Schulze-Boysen , Adam Kuckhoff and Arvid Harnack in Berlin, alongside many others. They printed and distributed prohibited leaflets, posters, and stickers, hoping to incite civil disobedience. They aided Jews and resistance to escape the regime, documented the atrocities of the Nazis, and transmitted military intelligence to
5738-574: The Treaty of Versailles of 1919, and sought alternatives to the existing social order. Since the Great Depression of 1929, they saw the Soviet planned economy as a positive counter-model to the free-market economy. They wanted to introduce planned economic elements in Germany and work closely with the Soviet Union without breaking German bridges to the rest of Europe. Before 1933, Schulze-Boysen published
5889-802: The Wilmersdorf waiting room of Dr. Elfriede Paul, they began distributing the first leaflet on the Spanish Civil War. In the same year, Schulze-Boysen had compiled a document about a sabotage enterprise planned in Barcelona by the Wehrmacht "Special Staff W", an organisation established by Helmuth Wilberg to analyse the tactical lessons learned by the Legion Kondor during the war. The information that Schulze-Boysen collected included details about German transports, deployment of units and companies involved in
6040-612: The Winter War against Finland in 1939–40 also convinced Hitler of a quick victory within a few months. Neither Hitler nor the General Staff anticipated a long campaign lasting into the winter and therefore, adequate preparations such as the distribution of warm clothing and winterisation of important military equipment like tanks and artillery, were not made. Further to Hitler's Directive, Göring's Green Folder , issued in March 1941, laid out
6191-503: The myth of the "clean Wehrmacht, " upholding its honor in the face of Hitler's fanaticism, the historian Jürgen Förster notes that "In fact, the military commanders were caught up in the ideological character of the conflict, and involved in its implementation as willing participants". Before and during the invasion of the Soviet Union, German troops were indoctrinated with anti-Bolshevik , anti-Semitic and anti-Slavic ideology via movies, radio, lectures, books, and leaflets. Likening
Red Orchestra - Misplaced Pages Continue
6342-734: The 22 June start date was sufficient for the German offensive to reach Moscow by September. Antony Beevor wrote in 2012 about the delay caused by German attacks in the Balkans that "most [historians] accept that it made little difference" to the eventual outcome of Barbarossa. The Germans deployed one independent regiment, one separate motorised training brigade and 153 divisions for Barbarossa, which included 104 infantry, 19 panzer and 15 motorised infantry divisions in three army groups, nine security divisions to operate in conquered territories, four divisions in Finland and two divisions as reserve under
6493-624: The Allies. Contrary to legend, the Red Orchestra was neither directed by Soviet communists nor under a single leadership. It was a network of groups and individuals, often operating independently. To date, about 400 members are known by name. The term was also used by the German Abwehr to refer to associated Soviet intelligence networks, working in Belgium, France, United Kingdom and the low countries, that were built up by Leopold Trepper on behalf of
6644-801: The Belgian authorities refused him permission to remain, so he moved to the Netherlands in early 1937, where he made contact with Daniël Goulooze , who was director of the Communist Party of the Netherlands (CPN) and who acted as the main liaison officer between the CPN and the Communist International in Moscow. Leopold Trepper was an agent of the Red Army Intelligence and had been working with Soviet intelligence since 1930. Trepper along with Soviet military intelligence officer , Richard Sorge were
6795-532: The German Society of intellectuals . John Rittmeister's wife Eva was a good friend of Liane Berkowitz , Ursula Goetze , Friedrich Rehmer , Maria Terwiel and Fritz Thiel who met in the 1939 abitur class at the secondary private school, Heil'schen Abendschule at Berlin W 50, Augsburger Straße 60 in Schöneberg . The Romanist Werner Krauss joined this group, and through discussions, an active resistance to
6946-499: The German war effort by circumventing the British blockade of Germany . Despite the parties' ostensibly cordial relations, each side was highly suspicious of the other's intentions. For instance, the Soviet invasion of Bukovina in June 1940 went beyond their sphere of influence as agreed with Germany. After Germany entered the Axis Pact with Japan and Italy, it began negotiations about
7097-714: The German campaign in France, in late 1940 they began to reorganise most of their armoured assets back into mechanised corps with a target strength of 1,031 tanks each. But these large armoured formations were unwieldy, and moreover they were spread out in scattered garrisons, with their subordinate divisions up to 100 kilometres (62 miles) apart. The reorganisation was still in progress and incomplete when Barbarossa commenced. Soviet tank units were rarely well equipped, and they lacked training and logistical support. Units were sent into combat with no arrangements in place for refuelling, ammunition resupply, or personnel replacement. Often, after
7248-446: The German defense. Libertas's cousin, Gisela von Pöllnitz placed the letter in the mailbox of the Soviet Embassy on the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. After the Munich Agreement , Schulze-Boysen created a second leaflet with Walter Küchenmeister, that declared the annexation of the Sudetenland in October 1938 as a further step on the way to a new world war. This leaflet was called Der Stoßtrupp or The Raiding Patrol , and condemned
7399-492: The German resistance to Nazism had been known to the public within Germany and the world at large. This included the groups that took part in the 20 July plot and the White Rose resistance groups. In the 1970s there was a growing interest in the various forms of resistance and opposition. However, no organisations' history was so subject to systematic misinformation, and as little recognised, as those resistance groups centered on Arvid Harnack and Harro Schulze-Boysen . In
7550-454: The Germans were fighting for "the defence of European culture against Moscovite–Asiatic inundation, and the repulse of Jewish Bolshevism ... No adherents of the present Russian-Bolshevik system are to be spared." Walther von Brauchitsch also told his subordinates that troops should view the war as a "struggle between two different races and [should] act with the necessary severity." Racial motivations were central to Nazi ideology and played
7701-496: The Germans were unprepared. Following the heavy losses and logistical strain of Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht ' s diminished forces could no longer attack along the entire Eastern Front, and subsequent operations to retake the initiative and drive deep into Soviet territory—such as Case Blue in 1942 and Operation Citadel in 1943—were weaker and eventually failed, which resulted in the Wehrmacht ' s defeat. These Soviet victories ended Germany's territorial expansion and presaged
SECTION 50
#17328559165947852-437: The Gestapo start to arrest and imprison them, their friends and relatives. In 2002, the German filmmaker Stefan Roloff , whose father Helmut Roloff was a member of one of the Red Orchestra groups, stated of them: In his research, the historian Hans Coppi Jr. , whose father was also a member, Hans Coppi , emphasised that, in view of the Western European groups: The German political scientist Johannes Tuchel summed up in
8003-407: The Great 's expansive campaigns in Eastern Europe), but Hitler had the name changed to Operation Barbarossa in December 1940. Hitler had in July 1937 praised Barbarossa as the emperor who first expressed Germanic cultural ideas and carried them to the outside world through his imperial mission. For Hitler, the name Barbarossa signified his belief that the conquest of the Soviet Union would usher in
8154-403: The Mobilisation Plan 1941 (MP-41), called for the deployment of 186 divisions, as the first strategic echelon, in the four military districts of the western Soviet Union that faced the Axis territories; and the deployment of another 51 divisions along the Dvina and Dnieper Rivers as the second strategic echelon under Stavka control, which in the case of a German invasion was tasked to spearhead
8305-420: The Nazi " Thousand-Year Reich ". As early as 1925, Adolf Hitler vaguely declared in his political manifesto and autobiography Mein Kampf that he would invade the Soviet Union , asserting that the German people needed to secure Lebensraum ('living space') to ensure the survival of Germany for generations to come. On 10 February 1939, Hitler told his army commanders that the next war would be "purely
8456-404: The Nazi government and argued against the government's propaganda. A document that was used at the trial of Schulze-Boysen indicated that only 40 to 50 copies of the leaflet were distributed. From 1942 onwards, the group started to produce leaflets that were signed with AGIS in reference to the Spartan King Agis IV , who fought against corruption for his people. Naming the newspaper Agis ,
8607-511: The Nazi propaganda that the Red Army would murder all German soldiers who surrendered. In order to educate them about propaganda lies and Nazi crimes, the group copied and sent letters to soldiers on the Eastern Front, addressed to a fictitious police officer. In autumn 1941 the eyewitness Erich Mirek reported to Walter Husemann about mass murders of Jews by the SS and SD in Pinsk . The group announced these crimes in their letters. The Berlin group undoubtedly provided valuable intelligence to
8758-505: The Nazi regime grew. Ursula Goetze who was part of the group, provided contacts with the communist groups in Neukölln . From 1932 onwards, the economist Arvid Harnack and his American wife Mildred assembled a group of friends and members of the Berlin Marxist Workers School (MASCH) to form a discussion group that debated the political and economic perspectives at the time. Harnak's group meetings, in contrast to those of Schulze-Boysen's group, were considered rather austere. Members of
8909-407: The Red Army was developed and promulgated in the 1936 Field Regulations in the form of the Deep Battle Concept . Defence expenditure also grew rapidly from just 12 percent of the gross national product in 1933 to 18 percent by 1940. During Joseph Stalin's Great Purge in the late 1930s, which had not ended by the time of the German invasion on 22 June 1941, much of the officer corps of the Red Army
9060-416: The Schulze-Boysen group. Through Walter Küchenmeister, the Schulze-Boysen group began to discuss more concrete actions, and during these meetings would listen to foreign radio stations from London, Paris and Moscow. A plan was formed to take advantage of Schulze-Boysen's employment, and through this, the group was able to get detailed information on Germany's support of Francisco Franco . Beginning in 1937, in
9211-455: The Soviet Union in Mein Kampf and Hitler's belief that the Red Army would need four years to ready itself. Stalin declared "we must be ready much earlier" and "we will try to delay the war for another two years". As early as August 1940, British intelligence had received hints of German plans to attack the Soviets a week after Hitler informally approved the plans for Barbarossa and warned the Soviet Union accordingly. Some of this intelligence
SECTION 60
#17328559165949362-410: The Soviet Union's "most important and strongest enemy," and as early as July 1940, the Red Army Chief of Staff, Boris Shaposhnikov , produced a preliminary three-pronged plan of attack for what a German invasion might look like, remarkably similar to the actual attack. Since April 1941, the Germans had begun setting up Operation Haifisch and Operation Harpune to substantiate their claims that Britain
9513-501: The Soviet Union. However, a Soviet memo dated 25 November 1941 and recently discovered by Shareen Blair Brysac , details the organisational problems in evaluating the intelligence. Reports were forwarded to Lavrentiy Beria , who was unable to act on their contents, which resulted in the Red Army being unable to form a cogent response. Ultimately, the groups' efforts had no effect on Soviet military strategy. The cavalry officer, diplomat and later resistance fighter Rudolf von Scheliha
9664-484: The Soviet border even before the campaign in the Balkans had finished. By the third week of February 1941, 680,000 German soldiers were gathered in assembly areas on the Romanian-Soviet border. In preparation for the attack, Hitler had secretly moved upwards of 3 million German troops and approximately 690,000 Axis soldiers to the Soviet border regions. Additional Luftwaffe operations included numerous aerial surveillance missions over Soviet territory many months before
9815-400: The Soviet intelligence service cannot be underestimated according to general judgement. All persons who had to deal with this material in their official capacity agree that it was the most dangerous treason organisation uncovered during World War II.... In no... case, however, it is certain that those convicted were only sentenced for high treason and favouring the enemy. The Schulze-Boysen group
9966-448: The Soviet invasion including details of Hungarian airfields containing German planes. On 17 June, the People's Commissariat for State Security presented the report to Stalin, who harshly dismissed it as disinformation. In December 1941, John Sieg published The Home Front (German:Die Innere Front) on a regular basis. It contained texts by Walter Husemann, Fritz Lange , Martin Weise and Herbert Grasse , including information about
10117-463: The Soviet regime's brutality when targeting the Slavs with propaganda. They also claimed that the Red Army was preparing to attack the Germans , and their own invasion was thus presented as a pre-emptive strike. Hitler also utilised the rising tension between the Soviet Union and Germany over territories in the Balkans as one of the pretexts for the invasion. While no concrete plans had yet been made, Hitler told one of his generals in June 1940 that
10268-495: The Soviets to the forces of Genghis Khan , Hitler told the Croatian military leader Slavko Kvaternik that the "Mongolian race" threatened Europe. Following the invasion, many Wehrmacht officers told their soldiers to target people who were described as "Jewish Bolshevik subhumans," the "Mongol hordes," the "Asiatic flood" and the "Red beast." Nazi propaganda portrayed the war against the Soviet Union as an ideological war between German National Socialism and Jewish Bolshevism and
10419-405: The Soviets, in their current bureaucratic form, were harmless and that the occupation would not benefit Germany politically either. Hitler, solely focused on his ultimate ideological goal of eliminating the Soviet Union and Communism, disagreed with economists about the risks and told his right-hand man Hermann Göring , the chief of the Luftwaffe , that he would no longer listen to misgivings about
10570-442: The action, Harnack asked the Kuckoffs to revisit the exhibition to determine whether any damage had been done to it, but they found little damage was visible. The Invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, was seen as the beginning of the feared world war, but also as an opportunity to eliminate Nazi rule and to invoke a thorough transformation of German society. Hitler's victories in France and Norway in 1940 encouraged them to expect
10721-428: The agenda for the next step after the anticipated quick conquest of the Soviet Union. The Hunger Plan outlined how entire urban populations of conquered territories were to be starved to death, thus creating an agricultural surplus to feed Germany and urban space for the German upper class. Nazi policy aimed to destroy the Soviet Union as a political entity in accordance with the geopolitical Lebensraum ideals for
10872-416: The alias Adam Mikler , a wealthy Canadian businessman, moved, with his wife, to Brussels to make it his new base. In March 1939, Trepper was joined by GRU agent Mikhail Makarov posing as Carlos Alamo , who was to provide expertise in forged documentation e.g. preparation of Kennkartes . However, Grossvogel had recruited Abraham Rajchmann , a criminal forger, to the group and thenceforth Makarov became
11023-399: The annexation of the eastern part of the country. As a result of the pact, Germany and the Soviet Union maintained reasonably strong diplomatic relations for two years and fostered an important economic relationship . The countries entered a trade pact in 1940 by which the Soviets received German military equipment and trade goods in exchange for raw materials, such as oil and wheat, to help
11174-705: The atrocities of the Gestapo, and in particular, on murders of Jews in Poland, documents which also contained photographs of newly established extermination camps. He informed his friends first before later attempting to notify the Allies, including a trip to Switzerland with information on Aktion T4 that was shared with Swiss diplomats. His later reports exposed the Final Solution . After Operation Barbarossa severed Soviet lines of communication in Berlin, Soviet intelligence made attempts to reconnect with von Scheliha in May 1942, but
11325-528: The attack. Although the Soviet High Command was alarmed by this, Stalin's belief that Nazi Germany was unlikely to attack only two years after signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact resulted in slow Soviet preparation. This fact aside, the Soviets did not entirely overlook the threat of their German neighbor. Well before the German invasion, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko referred to the Germans as
11476-483: The author). Until the outbreak of war with the Soviet Union, the focus of their work was on domestic policy. After that, it shifted more to the field of treason and espionage in favour of the Soviet Union. At the beginning of 1942, the Schulze-Boysen group was finally integrated into the widely ramified network of Soviet intelligence in Western Europe. The value of the intelligence passed on by the Schulze-Boysen group to
11627-528: The benefit of future generations of the " Nordic master race ". In 1941, Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg —later appointed Reich Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories—suggested that conquered Soviet territory should be administered in the following Reichskommissariate ('Reich Commissionerships'): German military planners also researched Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia . In their calculations, they concluded that there
11778-462: The border area. In 1930, Mikhail Tukhachevsky , a prominent military theorist in tank warfare in the interwar period and later Marshal of the Soviet Union , forwarded a memo to the Kremlin that lobbied for colossal investment in the resources required for the mass production of weapons, pressing the case for "40,000 aircraft and 50,000 tanks." In the early 1930s, a modern operational doctrine for
11929-643: The case of the Brussels stations Rote was used to differentiate from other enterprises conducted by Ast Belgium. In July 1942, the case of the Red Orchestra was taken over from Ast Belgium by section IV. A.2. of the Sicherheitsdienst . When Soviet agent Anatoly Gurevich was arrested in November 1942, a small independent unit made up of Gestapo personnel known as the Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle
12080-447: The couple collected young intellectuals from diverse backgrounds, including the artist couple Kurt and Elisabeth Schumacher , the writers Günther Weisenborn and Walter Küchenmeister , the photojournalist John Graudenz (who had been expelled from the USSR for reporting the Soviet famine of 1932–1933 ) and Gisela von Pöllnitz , the actor Marta Husemann and her husband Walter in 1938,
12231-598: The couples began engaging socially. Their hitherto separate groups moved together once the Polish campaign began in September 1939. From 1940 onwards, they regularly exchanged their opinions on the war and other Nazi policies and sought action against it. Through such contacts, a loose network formed in Berlin in the early weeks of 1942, of seven interconnected groups centred on personal friendships as well as groups originally formed for discussion and education. This disparate network
12382-566: The course of World War II and the subsequent history of the 20th century . The German armies eventually captured five million Soviet Red Army troops and deliberately starved to death or otherwise killed 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, and millions of civilians, as the " Hunger Plan " worked to solve German food shortages and exterminate the Slavic population through starvation. Mass shootings and gassing operations , carried out by German death squads or willing collaborators, murdered over
12533-602: The creation of military units. Beginning in July 1940, the Red Army General Staff developed war plans that identified the Wehrmacht as the most dangerous threat to the Soviet Union, and that in the case of a war with Germany, the Wehrmacht ' s main attack would come through the region north of the Pripyat Marshes into Belorussia, which later proved to be correct. Stalin disagreed, and in October, he authorised
12684-589: The current situation: contrary to the Nazi propaganda , most German armies were in retreat, the number of war dead was in the millions. Inflation, scarcity of goods, plant closures, labour agitation and corruption in State authorities were occurring all the time. Then the text examined German war crimes: In May 1942, Joseph Goebbels held a Nazi propaganda exhibition with the ironic name of The Soviet Paradise (German original title "Das Sowjet-Paradies") in Lustgarten , with
12835-458: The decade progressed they increasingly served as identity-preserving forms of self-assertion and cohesion as the Nazi state became all-encompassing. Formats of the meetings usually started with book discussions in the first 90 minutes, were followed by Marxist discussions and resistance activities, and were interspersed with parties, picnics, sailing on the Wannsee and poetry readings until midnight as
12986-469: The defamation from the 1940s through to the 1970s that started with the Gestapo was incorporated by the Lüneburg Public Prosecutor's Office and evaluated as a journalistic process that can be seen by the 1968 trial of Nazi judge turned far-right Holocaust denier Manfred Roeder by the German lawyer Robert Kempner . The Frankfurt public prosecutor's office, which prosecuted the case against Roeder, based its investigation on procedure case number "1 Js 16/49" which
13137-520: The development of new plans that assumed a German attack would focus on the region south of Pripyat Marshes towards the economically vital regions in Ukraine. This became the basis for all subsequent Soviet war plans and the deployment of their armed forces in preparation for the German invasion. In the Soviet Union, speaking to his generals in December 1940, Stalin mentioned Hitler's references to an attack on
13288-491: The direct control of OKH . These were equipped with 6,867 armoured vehicles, of which 3,350–3,795 were tanks, 2,770–4,389 aircraft (that amounted to 65 percent of the Luftwaffe ), 7,200–23,435 artillery pieces, 17,081 mortars, about 600,000 motor vehicles and 625,000–700,000 horses. Finland slated 14 divisions for the invasion, and Romania offered 13 divisions and eight brigades over the course of Barbarossa. The entire Axis forces, 3.8 million personnel, deployed across
13439-457: The dissemination of the Nazi racial plan, as he informed the 4th Panzer Group that the war against the Soviet Union was "an essential part of the German people's struggle for existence" ( Daseinskampf ), also referring to the imminent battle as the "old struggle of Germans against Slavs" and even stated, "the struggle must aim at the annihilation of today's Russia and must, therefore, be waged with unparalleled harshness." Hoepner also added that
13590-623: The doctors Elfriede Paul in 1937 and John Rittmeister in Christmas 1941, the dancer Oda Schottmüller , and since Schulze-Boysen held twice-monthly meetings at his Charlottenburg atelier for thirty-five to forty people in what was considered a Bohemian circle of friends. Initially, these meetings followed an informatics program of resistance that was in keeping with its environment and were important places of personal and political understanding but also vanishing points from an often unbearable reality, essentially serving as islands of democracy . As
13741-464: The economic dangers of a war with the USSR. It is speculated that this was passed on to General Georg Thomas , who had produced reports that predicted a net economic drain for Germany in the event of an invasion of the Soviet Union unless its economy was captured intact and the Caucasus oilfields seized in the first blow; Thomas revised his future report to fit Hitler's wishes. The Red Army's ineptitude in
13892-520: The economic situation in Europe, references to Moscow radio frequencies, and calls for resistance. It was produced in several languages for foreign forced labourers in Germany. Only one copy from August 1942 has survived. After the attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, Hilde Coppi had secretly listened to Moscow radio in order to receive signs of life from German prisoners of war and to forward them to their relatives via Heinrich Scheel. This news contradicted
14043-536: The effort failed. Other small groups and individuals, who knew little or nothing about each other, each resisted the National Socialists in their own way until the Gestapo arrested them and treated them as a common espionage organisation from 1942 to 1943. Belgium was a favourite place for Soviet espionage to establish operations before World War II as it was geographically close to the centre of Europe, provided good commercial opportunities between Belgium and
14194-482: The end of 1941, and the subsequent Soviet winter counteroffensive pushed the Germans about 250 km (160 mi) back. German high command anticipated a quick collapse of Soviet resistance as in the invasion of Poland , analogous to the reaction Russia had during World War I, but instead the Red Army absorbed the German Wehrmacht ' s strongest blows and bogged it down in a war of attrition for which
14345-466: The eventual defeat and collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945. The theme of Barbarossa had long been used by the Nazi Party as part of their political imagery, though this was really a continuation of the glorification of the famous Crusader king by German nationalists since the 19th century. According to a Germanic medieval legend, revived in the 19th century by the nationalistic tropes of German Romanticism ,
14496-467: The exact German launch date, but Sorge and other informers had previously given different invasion dates that passed peacefully before the actual invasion. Stalin acknowledged the possibility of an attack in general and therefore made significant preparations, but decided not to run the risk of provoking Hitler. In early 1941, Stalin authorised the State Defence Plan 1941 (DP-41), which along with
14647-432: The exploit, believing it to be reckless and unnecessarily dangerous. On 18 May, Herbert Baum , a Jewish communist who had contact with the Schulze-Boysen group through Walter Husemann , delivered incendiary bombs to the exhibition in the hope of destroying it. Although 11 people were injured, the whole episode was covered up by the government, and the action lead to the arrest of 250 Jews including Baum himself. Following
14798-574: The express purpose of justifying the invasion of the Soviet Union to the German people. Both the Harnacks and Kuckhoffs spent half a day at the exhibition. For Greta Kuckhoff particularly and her friends, the most distressing aspect of the exhibition was the installation about SS measures against Russian "partisans" ( Soviet partisans ). The exhibition contained images of firing squads and bodies of young girls, some still children, who had been hung and were dangling from ropes. The group decided to act. It
14949-514: The group included the German politician and Minister of Culture Adolf Grimme , the locksmith Karl Behrens , the German journalist Adam Kuckhoff and his wife Greta and the industrialist and entrepreneur Leo Skrzypczynski. From 1935, Harnack tried to camouflage his activities by becoming a member of the Nazi Party working in the Reich Ministry of Economics with the rank of Oberregierungsrat. Through this work, Harnack planned to train them to build
15100-498: The invasion. Buell adds that an unusually wet winter kept rivers at full flood until late spring. The floods may have discouraged an earlier attack, even if they occurred before the end of the Balkans Campaign. The importance of the delay is still debated. William Shirer argued that Hitler's Balkan Campaign had delayed the commencement of Barbarossa by several weeks and thereby jeopardised it. Many later historians argue that
15251-573: The judgments of the National Socialist judiciary for "treason" and rehabilitated the members of the group. The name Rote Kapelle was a cryptonym that was invented for a secret operation started by Abwehrstelle Belgium (Ast Belgium), a field office of Abwehr III.F in August 1941 and conducted against a Soviet intelligence station that had been detected in Brussels in June 1941. Kapelle was an accepted Abwehr term for counter-espionage operations against secret wireless transmitting stations and in
15402-762: The mood took. However, as the realisation that the war preparations were becoming unstoppable and the future victors were not going to be the Sturmabteilung, Schulze-Boysen, whose decisions were in demand, called for the group to cease their discussions and start resisting. Other friends were found by Schulze-Boysen among former students of a reform school on the island of Scharfenberg in Berlin-Tegel . These often came from communist or social – democratic workers' families, e.g. Hans and Hilde Coppi , Heinrich Scheel , Hermann Natterodt and Hans and Ina Lautenschlager. Some of these contacts existed before 1933, for example through
15553-518: The most comprehensive collection of biographies that exist are from the GDR, by Karl Heinz Biernat and Luise Kraushaar Die Schulze- Boysen- Harnack- Organisation im antifaschistischen Kampf (2002) and they represent their point of view, through the lens of ideology. In the 1980s, the GDR historian Heinrich Scheel , who at the time was vice president of the East German Academy of Sciences and who
15704-562: The negotiations differently and were willing to make huge economic concessions to secure a relationship under general terms acceptable to the Germans just a year before. On 25 November 1940, the Soviet Union offered a written counter-proposal to join the Axis if Germany would agree to refrain from interference in the Soviet Union's sphere of influence, but Germany did not respond. As both sides began colliding with each other in Eastern Europe, conflict appeared more likely, although they did sign
15855-493: The next within clandestine communist cells and had seen how easily such connections were lost if a meeting did not materialise due to one party being arrested. In a relaxed group of friends and discussion with like-minded people, it was easy to find supporters for an action. From 1933 onwards, the Berlin groups connected to Schulze-Boysen and Harnack resisted the Nazis by: From mid-1936, the Spanish Civil War preoccupied
16006-557: The non-German populations in the East. Himmler believed the Germanisation process in Eastern Europe would be complete when "in the East dwell only men with truly German, Germanic blood." The Nazi secret plan Generalplan Ost , prepared in 1941 and confirmed in 1942, called for a "new order of ethnographical relations" in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany in Eastern Europe. It envisaged ethnic cleansing , executions and enslavement of
16157-542: The non-partisan leftist and later banned magazine German : Gegner , lit. 'opponent'. In April 1933, the Sturmabteilung detained him for some time, severely battered him, and killed a fellow Jewish inmate. As a trained pilot, he received a position of trust in 1934 in the Reich Ministry of Aviation and had access to war-important information. After his marriage to Libertas Schulze-Boysen in 1936,
16308-453: The officers dismissed during the Great Purge were reinstated by 1941. Also, between January 1939 and May 1941, 161 new divisions were activated. Therefore, although about 75 percent of all the officers had been in their position for less than one year at the start of the German invasion of 1941, many of the short tenures can be attributed not only to the purge but also to the rapid increase in
16459-674: The operation was to be carried out. Hitler also renamed the operation to Barbarossa in honor of medieval Emperor Friedrich I of the Holy Roman Empire, a leader of the Third Crusade in the 12th century. The Barbarossa Decree , issued by Hitler on 30 March 1941, supplemented the Directive by decreeing that the war against the Soviet Union would be one of annihilation and legally sanctioned the eradication of all Communist political leaders and intellectual elites in Eastern Europe. The invasion
16610-562: The operational objective of any invasion of the Soviet Union. This assault would extend from the northern city of Arkhangelsk on the Arctic Sea through Gorky and Rostov to the port city of Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga on the Caspian Sea . The report concluded that—once established—this military border would reduce the threat to Germany from attacks by enemy bombers . Although Hitler
16761-441: The organisation to behave as a network, with the ability to achieve tactical surprise and deliver high-quality intelligence, including the warning of Operation Barbarossa . To this day, the German public perception of the "Red Orchestra" is characterised by the vested interest in historical revisionism of the post-war years and propaganda efforts of both sides of the Cold War . For a long time after World War II , only parts of
16912-401: The outcome of these conversations, all preparations for the East previously ordered orally are to be continued. [Written] directives on that will follow as soon as the basic elements of the army's plan for the operation have been submitted to me and approved by me." There would be no "long-term agreement with Russia" given that the Nazis intended to go to war with them; but the Soviets approached
17063-415: The phone book. Extensive precautions were taken, including wearing gloves, using many different typewriters and destroying the carbon paper . John Graudenz also produced, running duplicate mimeograph machines in the apartment of Anna Krauss . On 15 February 1942, the group wrote the large 6-page pamphlet called Die Sorge Um Deutschlands Zukunft geht durch das Volk! ( Anxiety about Germany's future
17214-452: The plan for Barbarossa. This belief later led to disputes between Hitler and several German senior officers, including Heinz Guderian , Gerhard Engel , Fedor von Bock and Franz Halder , who believed the decisive victory could only be delivered at Moscow. They were unable to sway Hitler, who had grown overconfident in his own military judgment as a result of the rapid successes in Western Europe. The Germans had begun massing troops near
17365-616: The populations of conquered countries, with very small percentages undergoing Germanisation, expulsion into the depths of Russia or other fates, while the conquered territories would be Germanised. The plan had two parts, the Kleine Planung ('small plan'), which covered actions to be taken during the war and the Große Planung ('large plan'), which covered policies after the war was won, to be implemented gradually over 25 to 30 years. A speech given by General Erich Hoepner demonstrates
17516-506: The private sector. For instance, Schulze-Boysen and Harnack shared some ideas with the Communist Party of Germany, while others were devout Catholics such as Maria Terwiel and her husband Helmut Himpel . Uniting all of them was the firm rejection of national socialism. The historian Heinrich Scheel, a schoolmate of Hans Coppi, judged these groups by stating: As early as 1934, Scheel had passed written material from one contact person to
17667-412: The rapid defeat of France at the hands of the "invincible" Wehrmacht and by traditional German stereotypes of Russia as a primitive, backward "Asiatic" country. Red Army soldiers were considered brave and tough, but the officer corps was held in contempt. The leadership of the Wehrmacht paid little attention to politics, culture, and the considerable industrial capacity of the Soviet Union, in favour of
17818-458: The replacement of the Nazi regime, above all from the Soviet Union , not from Western capitalism. They believed that the Soviet Union would keep Germany as a sovereign state after its victory and that they wanted to work towards a corresponding opposition without domination by the Communist Party of Germany. Around 13 June 1941, Harro Schulze-Boysen prepared a report that gave the final details of
17969-403: The rest of Europe and most important of all, the Belgian government was indifferent to foreign espionage operations that were conducted as long as they were against foreign powers and not Belgium itself. The first Soviet agents to arrive in Belgium were technicians. The Red Army agent, communist agitator and radio specialist Johann Wenzel arrived in January 1936, to establish a base. However,
18120-509: The rest of Europe. Other historians contend that Stalin did not plan for such an attack in June 1941, given the parlous state of the Red Army at the time of the invasion. Stalin's reputation as a brutal dictator contributed both to the Nazis' justification of their assault and to their expectations of success, as Stalin's Great Purge of the 1930s had executed many competent and experienced military officers, leaving Red Army leadership weaker than their German adversary. The Nazis often emphasized
18271-457: The rest of the world learned of this pact but were unaware of the provisions to partition Poland. The pact stunned the world because of the parties' earlier mutual hostility and their conflicting ideologies . The conclusion of this pact was followed by the German invasion of Poland on 1 September that triggered the outbreak of World War II in Europe , then the Soviet invasion of Poland that led to
18422-456: The role of political commissars at the divisional level and below to oversee the political loyalty of the army to the regime. The commissars held a position equal to that of the commander of the unit they were overseeing. But in spite of efforts to ensure the political subservience of the armed forces, in the wake of Red Army's poor performance in Poland and in the Winter War, about 80 percent of
18573-627: The southern section was in Romania. The German forces in the rear (mostly Waffen-SS and Einsatzgruppen units) were to operate in conquered territories to counter any partisan activity in areas they controlled, as well as to execute captured Soviet political commissars and Jews. On 17 June, Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) chief Reinhard Heydrich briefed around thirty to fifty Einsatzgruppen commanders on "the policy of eliminating Jews in Soviet territories, at least in general terms". While
18724-553: The start of the invasion, the manpower of the Soviet military force that had been mobilised was 5.3–5.5 million, and it was still increasing as the Soviet reserve force of 14 million, with at least basic military training, continued to mobilise. The Red Army was dispersed and still preparing when the invasion commenced. Their units were often separated and lacked adequate transportation. While transportation remained insufficient for Red Army forces, when Operation Barbarossa kicked off, they possessed some 33,000 pieces of artillery,
18875-496: The trucks for supplies. The most advanced Soviet tank models—the KV-1 and T-34 —which were superior to all current German tanks, as well as all designs still in development as of the summer 1941, were not available in large numbers at the time the invasion commenced. Furthermore, in the autumn of 1939, the Soviets disbanded their mechanised corps and partly dispersed their tanks to infantry divisions; but following their observation of
19026-412: The two main Soviet agents in Europe and were employed as roving agents setting up espionage networks in Europe and Japan. Whereas Richard Sorge was a penetration agent , Trepper ran a series of clandestine cells for organising agents. Trepper used the latest technology, in the form of small wireless radios to communicate with Soviet intelligence. Although the monitoring of the radios transmissions by
19177-520: The use of forced labour to stimulate Germany's overall economy and the expansion of territory to improve Germany's efforts to isolate the United Kingdom. Hitler was further convinced that Britain would sue for peace once the Germans triumphed in the Soviet Union, and if they did not, he would use the resources gained in the East to defeat the British Empire . We only have to kick in the door and
19328-497: The victories in Western Europe finally freed his hands for a "final showdown" with Bolshevism. With the successful end to the campaign in France , General Erich Marcks was assigned the task of drawing up the initial invasion plans of the Soviet Union. The first battle plans were entitled Operation Draft East (colloquially known as the Marcks Plan ). His report advocated the A-A line as
19479-515: The war began, the Nazis issued a ban on sexual relations between Germans and foreign slaves . There were regulations enacted against the Ost-Arbeiter ('Eastern workers') that included the death penalty for sexual relations with a German. Heinrich Himmler , in his secret memorandum, Reflections on the Treatment of Peoples of Alien Races in the East (dated 25 May 1940), outlined the Nazi plans for
19630-419: The whole rotten structure will come crashing down. Hitler received the final military plans for the invasion on 5 December 1940, which the German High Command had been working on since July 1940, under the codename "Operation Otto." Upon reviewing the plans, Hitler formally committed Germany to the invasion when he issued Führer Directive 21 on 18 December 1940, where he outlined the precise manner in which
19781-471: Was Fritz Thiel and his wife Hannelore who printed stickers using a child's toy rubber stamp kit. In a campaign initiated by John Graudenz on 17 May 1942, Schulze-Boysen, Marie Terwiel and nineteen others, mostly people from the group around Rittmeister, travelled across five Berlin neighbourhoods to paste the stickers over the original exhibition posters with the message: The Harnacks were dismayed at Schulze-Boysen's actions and decided not to participate in
19932-470: Was appointed director of an information department in the Foreign Office, that was created to counter foreign press and radio news by creating propaganda about the German occupation policy in Poland. This necessitated a move back to Berlin, and Stöbe followed, attaining a position arranged by von Scheliha in the press section of the Foreign Office, that enabled her to pass documents from von Scheliha to
20083-405: Was based on Ultra information obtained from broken Enigma traffic. But Stalin's distrust of the British led him to ignore their warnings in the belief that they were a trick designed to bring the Soviet Union into the war on their side. Soviet intelligence also received word of an invasion around 20 June from Mao Zedong whose spy, Yan Baohang, had overheard talk of the plans at a dinner with
20234-408: Was composed of over 150 Berlin Nazi opponents, including artists, scientists, citizens, workers, and students from several different backgrounds. There were Communists , political conservatives, Jews , Catholics , and atheists . Their ages ranged from 16 to 86, and about 40% of the group were women. Group members had different political views, but searched for the open exchange of views, at least in
20385-585: Was executed or imprisoned. Many of their replacements, appointed by Stalin for political reasons, lacked military competence. Of the five Marshals of the Soviet Union appointed in 1935, only Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny survived Stalin's purge. Tukhachevsky was killed in 1937. Fifteen of 16 army commanders, 50 of the 57 corps commanders, 154 of the 186 divisional commanders, and 401 of 456 colonels were killed, and many other officers were dismissed. In total, about 30,000 Red Army personnel were executed. Stalin further underscored his control by reasserting
20536-518: Was first and foremost a spy organisation for the Soviet Union. Since the outbreak of war with Russia, internal resistance took a back seat to espionage work, and it can be assumed that all members were used directly or indirectly for intelligence gathering. From the perspective of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) the Red Orchestra were honoured as anti-fascist resistance fighters and indeed received posthumous orders in 1969. Accordingly,
20687-542: Was formed in Paris in the same month and led by SS-Obersturmbannführer (Colonel) Friedrich Panzinger . The Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), the counter-espionage part of the Schutzstaffel (SS), referred to resistance radio operators as "pianists", their transmitters as "pianos", and their supervisors as "conductors". Only after the funkabwehr had decrypted radio messages in August 1942, in which German names appeared, did
20838-498: Was little danger of a large-scale retreat of the Red Army into the Russian interior, as it could not afford to give up the Baltic countries, Ukraine, or the Moscow and Leningrad regions, all of which were vital to the Red Army for supply reasons and would thus, have to be defended. Hitler and his generals disagreed on where Germany should focus its energy. Hitler, in many discussions with his generals, repeated his order of "Leningrad first,
20989-554: Was originally a name chosen by Libertas Schulze-Boysen . The pamphlets had titles like, The becoming of the Nazi movement , Call for opposition , Freedom and violence and Appeal to All Callings and Organisations to resist the government . The writing of the AGIS leaflet series was a mix of Schulze-Boysen and Walter Küchenmeister , a communist political writer, who would often include copy from KPD members and through contacts. They were often left in phone booths or selected addresses from
21140-578: Was part of the anti-Nazi Tegeler group (named after the area they met in, in Berlin) that included Hans Coppi from 1933, conducted research into the Rote Kapelle and produced a paper which took a more nuanced view of the Rote Kapelle and discovered the work that was done to defame them. Scheel's work led to a re-evaluation of the Rote Kapelle, but it was not until 2009 that the German Bundestag overturned
21291-481: Was recruited by Soviet intelligence while in Warsaw in 1934. Although a member of the Nazi party since 1938, he took an increasingly critical stance against the Nazi regime by 1938 at the latest. He became an informant to journalist Rudolf Herrnstadt . Intelligence from von Scheliha would be sent to Herrnstadt, via the cutout Ilse Stöbe , who would then pass it to the Soviet embassy in Warsaw. In September 1939, Scheliha
21442-570: Was responsible for recruiting agents and creating espionage networks. During early 1938, he was sent to Brussels to establish commercial cover for a spy network in France and the Low Countries . In the autumn of 1938, Trepper approached a Jewish businessman and former Comintern agent Léon Grossvogel , whom he had known in Palestine. Grossvogel ran a small business called Le Roi du Caoutchouc or The Raincoat King on behalf of its owners. Trepper had
21593-467: Was tentatively set for May 1941, but it was delayed for over a month to allow for further preparations and possibly better weather. the purpose of the Russian campaign [is] the decimation of the Slavic population by thirty million. According to a 1978 essay by German historian Andreas Hillgruber , the invasion plans drawn up by the German military elite were substantially coloured by hubris, stemming from
21744-399: Was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies , starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II . It was the largest and costliest land offensive in human history, with around 10 million combatants taking part, and over 8 million casualties by the end of the operation. The operation, code-named after Frederick I "Barbarossa" ("red beard"),
21895-759: Was the real target. These simulated preparations in Norway and the English Channel coast included activities such as ship concentrations, reconnaissance flights and training exercises. The reasons for the postponement of Barbarossa from the initially planned date of 15 May to the actual invasion date of 22 June 1941 (a 38-day delay) are debated. The reason most commonly cited is the unforeseen contingency of invading Yugoslavia and Greece on 6 April 1941 until June 1941. Historian Thomas B. Buell indicates that Finland and Romania, which weren't involved in initial German planning, needed additional time to prepare to participate in
22046-497: Was the trial case number defined by the Lüneburg Public Prosecutor's Office. The whole process propagated the Gestapo ideas of the Red Orchestra and this was promulgated in the report of the public prosecutor's office which stated: In the course of time, a group of political supporters of different characters and backgrounds gathered around these two men and their wives. They were united in their active opposition to National Socialism and in their support for communism (emphasis added by
22197-424: Was to create more Lebensraum (living space) for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the native Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia , Germanisation , enslavement, and genocide . In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts for strategic purposes. Following the Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina ,
22348-758: Was to follow the Drang nach Osten ('turn to the East') as it did "600 years ago" (see Ostsiedlung ). Accordingly, it was a partially secret but well-documented Nazi policy to kill, deport, or enslave the majority of Russian and other Slavic populations and repopulate the land west of the Urals with Germanic peoples, under Generalplan Ost (General Plan for the East). The Nazis' belief in their ethnic superiority pervades official records and pseudoscientific articles in German periodicals, on topics such as "how to deal with alien populations." While older histories tended to emphasize
22499-480: Was to operate in far northern Scandinavia and bordering Soviet territories . Army Group North was to march through Latvia and Estonia into northern Russia, then either take or destroy the city of Leningrad , and link up with Finnish forces. Army Group Centre, the army group equipped with the most armour and air power, was to strike from Poland into Belorussia and the west-central regions of Russia proper, and advance to Smolensk and then Moscow. Army Group South
22650-489: Was to strike the heavily populated and agricultural heartland of Ukraine, taking Kiev before continuing eastward over the steppes of southern USSR to the Volga with the aim of controlling the oil-rich Caucasus . Army Group South was deployed in two sections separated by a 198-mile (319 km) gap. The northern section, which contained the army group's only panzer group, was in southern Poland right next to Army Group Centre, and
22801-421: Was warned by many high-ranking military officers, such as Friedrich Paulus , that occupying Western Russia would create "more of a drain than a relief for Germany's economic situation," he anticipated compensatory benefits such as the demobilisation of entire divisions to relieve the acute labour shortage in German industry, the exploitation of Ukraine as a reliable and immense source of agricultural products,
#593406