Red Orchestra (espionage)

This article is about the World War II espionage organisa- Brussels, an export rm with branches in many major
tion. For other uses, see Red Orchestra (disambiguation) European ports. Following the fall of Belgium in May
and Rote Kapelle (disambiguation).
1940, he moved to Paris and established the cover rms
of Simex in Paris and Simexco in Brussels. Both companies sold black market goods to the Germans and made
The Red Orchestra (German: Die Rote Kapelle) was
the name given by the Gestapo to an anti-Nazi resistance a prot doing so. Belgian-born socialite Suzanne Spaak
joined the Trepper group in Paris after seeing the conduct
movement in Berlin, as well as to Soviet espionage rings
operating in German-occupied Europe and Switzerland of the Nazi occupiers in her country.
during World War II.

Trepper directed seven GRU networks in France, and the

network steadily gathered military and industrial intelligence in Occupied Europe, including data on troop deployments, industrial production, raw material availability, aircraft production, and German tank designs. Trepper was also able to get important information through
his contacts with highly placed Germans. Posing as a
German businessman, he held dinner parties at which he
acquired information on the morale and attitudes of German military gures, troop movements, and plans for the
Eastern Front.

Name

The term 'Red Orchestra' was coined by the

Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), the counterespionage arm of the SS, which referred to resistance
radio operators as 'pianists, their transmitters as 'pianos, and their supervisors as 'conductors.[1] Compare
Schwarze Kapelle (Black Orchestra), coined by the
In addition, contacts between the Simex company and its
Gestapo for a dierent group.
main customer, the Todt Organization, provided information on German military fortications and troop moveAs a further bonus, these contacts supplied some
2 German counter-intelligence op- ments.
of Treppers agents with passes that allowed them to move
erations
freely in German-occupied areas.
In December 1941, German security forces shut down
Treppers transmitter in Brussels. Trepper himself
was arrested on 5 December 1942 in Paris.[2] He
agreed to work for the Germans, and began transmitting
disinformation to Moscow, which may have included hidden warnings. In September 1943 he escaped and went
The Lucy ring included British spy (either a double-agent into hiding with the French Resistance.
or, more likely, an accepted liaison ocer) Alexander Operations by the Trepper ring had been entirely elimiFoote, who later wrote about his role in his memoirs nated by the spring of 1943. Most agents were executed,
(Handbook for Spies).
including Suzanne Spaak at Fresnes Prison, just thirteen
In 1942 the RSHA established the Red Orchestra Special days before the Liberation of Paris in 1944. Trepper himDetachment (German: Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle). self survived the war.
The RSHA included three independent espionage networks in the Red Orchestra": the Trepper group in
Germany, France, and Belgium, the Lucy spy ring
(German: rote Drei) in Switzerland , and the SchulzeBoysen/Harnack group in Berlin.

It included representatives of the Gestapo, Abwehr, and

the SD.[1]

3.1 Commemorative events

On Tuesday, 6 December 2011, former MEP Mark F.
Watts organised a commemorative event in the European Parliament hosted by Peter Skinner, a senior British
MEP, to mark the 70th Anniversary of the raid by the
German Abwehr on the Red Orchestra Brussels headquarters. The Red Orchestra was probably the most successful spy network in World War II. The raid led to
the capture, torture, and execution of over 100 agents.

Trepper group

Leopold Trepper was an agent of the GRU. In early 1939,

he was sent to Brussels, posing as a Canadian industrialist, to establish a commercial cover for a spy network in
France and the Low Countries. Trepper established the
cover rm the Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company in
1

5 RED THREE

The event included a seminar with historian Hans Coppi,

Jr. an expert on the Red Orchestra whose parents were
members and were executed by the Gestapo, Natalia
Narochnitskaya Ph.D, Prof., a doctor of historical science, an expert on international relations around World
War I and World War II, and a prominent public gure in
Russia, Rabbi Avil Tawil, Director of the European Jewish Community Centre in Brussels, and Lital Levin, an
Israeli journalist and relative of Leopold Trepper. Other
experts and relatives of the Red Orchestra and the Resistance also contributed to the seminar. There was a commemorative reception. The Russian Ambassador to the
EU, H.E. Vladimir Chizhov, was guest of honour. The
British Ambassador to Belgium, H.E. Jonathan Brenton,
the Israeli Ambassador to Belgium H.E. Jacques Revah,
and the German Ambassador to Belgium H.E. Eckart
Cuntz attended.

Schulze-Boysen/Harnack group

The Schulze-Boysen/Harnack group in Berlin was formed

by Harro Schulze-Boysen, a Luftwae sta ocer, his
wife Libertas, Arvid Harnack, a lawyer and economist,
his American wife Mildred, and a number of sympathetic
friends and acquaintances.
Harro Schulze-Boysen
Arvid Harnack
Mildred Harnack

other anti-Nazis, including Libertas, whom he married in

1936.
Harnack also had a circle of anti-Nazi associates. He
joined the NSDAP in 1937 for cover.
In 1939, the two groups made contact, and began to work
together.
The combined group ran the gamut of German society,
including Communists, political conservatives, Jews, devout Catholics, and atheists. Their ages ran from 16 to
86, and about 40% were women.
Among its leading members were theatrical producer
Adam Kuckho and his wife Greta, pianist Helmut
Rolo, secretary Ilse Stbe, diplomat Rudolf von Scheliha, author Gnther Weisenborn, potter Cato Bontjes
van Beek, Horst Heilmann (an ocer in the Cipher Section of OKH), and photojournalist John Graudenz (who
had been expelled from the USSR for reporting on the
Soviet famine of 19321933).
The group gathered intelligence from many sources. The
group was not in contact with the USSR by radio.
For the remainder of 1941, the Schulze-Boysen/Harnack
group gave most of its intelligence to the United
States through the American embassys monetary attach,
Donald Heath.[3]
However, these eorts to inform other governments about
Nazi atrocities and war plans were only a small part of
their resistance eort.
Their primary activity was the distribution of leaets to
incite civil disobedience and cause the Nazis to worry
about subversion. They also printed and pasted up antiNazi stickers in large numbers, and they helped people
in danger from the Nazis to escape the country via an
Underground Railroad-like network.
The network began to unravel in 1942. The OKH Cipher
Section decoded some of Treppers radio trac, and on
30 July 1942 the Gestapo arrested radio operator Johann
Wenzel. Horst Heilmann tried to warn Schulze-Boysen,
but the warning was not in time. Schulze-Boysen was arrested on 30 August, and Harnack on 3 September. The
rest of the group was arrested within a few weeks, and
many were executed.[1]

5 Red Three
There was one part of the Red Orchestra which was outside the reach of German security forces: Die Roten Drei
(Sender) (the Red Three (stations)") in Switzerland. It
Counterintelligence Corps 1947 le on Red Orchestra member was headed by Alexander Rad (codename DORA), a
Maria Terwiel.
Hungarian migr, Communist, and geographer. The
Roten Drei was founded in 1936, when Rad arrived in
Schulze-Boysen had been active in opposition to the Geneva. By April 1942, the organization had been estabNazis before Hitler took power, but then joined the Luft- lished with Rad as group leader, and also had three subwae for cover. In private, he continued to meet with group leaders: Rachel Dbendorfer (codename SISSY),

3
Georges Blun (LONG), and Otto Pnter (PAKBO).[1] All
told, an estimated 5,000+ messages were sent by the Rote
Drei within the span of about 3 years.[4]
Rad's group collected much useful information in
Switzerland, and had some contacts inside Germany. Perhaps most importantly, Rad was also in touch with the
Lucy spy ring, which had very valuable contacts inside
Germany, and was linked to British intelligence.
Some people have speculated that the Lucy ring was used
by British intelligence to pass Ultra information to Soviet
intelligence without revealing the codebreaking operation
that was its source, but most historians don't agree with
this theory.[5]
In 19441945, Rad was recalled to the USSR, and
charged with spying for Britain and the U.S. He was imprisoned for eight years, but was released and rehabilitated after Stalin's death.

See also
Heinrich Mller
People from the Red Orchestra (espionage)
Pltzensee Prison
Schwarze Kapelle
White Rose Student anti-Nazi resistance group
Films about the Red Orchestra: GDR 1971, FRG
1972, FRG 2003

References

[1] Richelson, Jerey (1995). A Century of Spies: Intelligence

in the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press US. p.
126. ISBN 0-19-511390-X.
[2] Brysac, Shareen B. Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and
the Red Orchestra. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2000. 313.
[3] Brysac, Shareen Blair (2000). Resisting Hitler: Mildred
Harnack and the Red Orchestra. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 225. ISBN 0-19-513269-6.
[4] The Rote Drei: Getting Behind the Lucy Myth (PDF).
cia.gov. pp. 5253.
[5] The Lucy Spy Ring. spymuseum.com.

Trepper, Leopold (1977).

The Great Game
McGrawHill, Inc. ISBN 0-07-065146-9
Brysac, Shareen Blair (2000) Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513269-6

Anne Nelson: Red Orchestra. The Story of the Berlin

Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted
Hitler. Random House, New York 2009, ISBN 9781-4000-6000-9.

8 External links
Pltzensee Memorial Centre
BFCentral
on Sophia Poznanska
Book review of Red Orchestra by Anne Nelson.
Random House website. Retrieved April 7, 2010

9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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