by Mikhail Kucherov
[REGNUM] "Yustas. According to our information, senior officers of the SD and SS security services appeared in Sweden and Switzerland, looking for access to the Allied residency. In particular, in Bern, SD people tried to establish contact with Allen Dulles' employees... A l e x s."
This cipher, which the Moscow Center sent to Berlin to SS Standartenführer von Stirlitz (aka Colonel Isayev), became the beginning of the main mission of the Soviet super-intelligence officer in "Seventeen Moments of Spring." The cipher was, of course, fiction, but the fears of the Soviet leadership were real.
The author of this book and the script of the same name for one of the most popular Soviet TV series, Yulian Semyonov, had access to archival documents, many of which will only be declassified in our time.
And - despite the fantasy of the figure of the Soviet "supermole" with access to the highest leaders of the Reich (from Heinrich Himmler to Martin Bormann ) - the eighth novel about Stirlitz was a "true detective" based on real events.
Just as, most likely, the conversation between Joseph Stalin at the nearby dacha in Kuntsevo with the curator of the “Soviet secret service abroad” that took place in the spring of 1945, reconstructed by Semyonov, had a basis.
That same Alex. Neither the book nor the film mentions this person's name, but most likely it was the head of the foreign department at the main department of the NKVD, Pavel Fitin. He signed his ciphers, if not with Alex, then with another short, common European name - Victor.
Stalin told Fitin: "Any attempt at an agreement between the fascists and the anti-Soviets of the West must be considered by you as a real possibility. Naturally... you must realize that the main figures in these possible separate negotiations will most likely be Hitler's closest associates, who have authority both among the party apparatus and among the people."
Meanwhile, in Berlin, which is being bombed by Allied aircraft and towards which the Red Army is inexorably approaching, the head of foreign intelligence of the security service (Department VI of the RSHA) Walter Schellenberg reminds his boss Himmler: "Reichsfuehrer, it is now the spring of '45, not the fall of '41." It is necessary to negotiate with the Anglo-Americans before the Russians take the citadel of the Reich, the head of intelligence hints.
This phrase was also invented by Semenov (by the way, it is in the script, based on which Tatyana Lioznova shot the film - but not in the book). But these words of Oleg Tabakov - Schellenberg are also based on real events.
Here is a real phrase from one of the last letters of Reich Minister of Armaments Albert Speer, sent to Adolf Hitler in the last days of March 1945: "You addressed me with words from which, if I understood you correctly, it clearly and unequivocally followed: if the war is lost, let the people perish too! This fate, you said, is inevitable."
Total war, the beginning of which was announced by Joseph Goebbels back in 1943, implied that the shame of November 1918 would not be repeated, Germany would perish, but would not capitulate.
But this obsession, significant for the corporal of the First World War Hitler and Goebbels, who did not have time to fight, but was poisoned by his own propaganda (including the myth of the “stab in the back”) - this suicidal idea in the spring lost all meaning for many of the top leaders of the Nazi state.
Especially when the Red Army took Königsberg and Danzig-Gdansk, advanced towards the Oder and developed an offensive on Vienna, and the Allies crossed the Rhine and pressed the Wehrmacht towards the Elbe.
THREE WERNERS AND THE SLY FOX
The first to become disillusioned with the idea of a suicidal war, along with “Russian Bolshevism” and “Anglo-American plutocrats,” were those who were not enchanted by it – the Prussian generals. They also remembered how the war on two fronts ended in 1918.
The first attempt to stop World War II took place before the war began.
In 1938, the Imperial Minister of War Werner von Blomberg (nicknamed "Siegfried with the monocle") and another Werner, the commander-in-chief of the ground forces von Fritsch, planned to remove "Corporal Hitler" and not get involved in a confrontation with the West.
"The Corporal" removed both military leaders from service - Blomberg went into retirement, and Fritsch very conveniently died at the very beginning of the Second World War.
But military conspiracies continued.
The most famous attempts to stop the war by eliminating Hitler were Major General Henning von Tresckow 's 1942 plan to blow up the Fuhrer's plane during his trip to the Eastern Front, and the famous Operation Valkyrie of 1944, inspired by the same von Tresckow.
The disagreements within the circle of conspirators are indicative.
The most famous hero of "Valkyrie", the perpetrator of the failed assassination attempt on Hitler, Claus von Stauffenberg, was sure: "We must use every opportunity to conduct political negotiations with Russia, which is our neighbor."
According to Count Stauffenberg, the last pre-war ambassador to the USSR, Werner von Schulenburg, was to become the liaison with Moscow.
But the political leader of the conspiracy, who aimed to become the chancellor of the new Germany, Carl Goerdeler, held a different opinion. As did the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, nicknamed the "Sly Fox", who was connected with the rebellious generals.
They were looking for a way out to the same Allen Dulles, a key employee of the US Office of Strategic Services, the future CIA, who worked on the German direction.
"The main principle of Goerdeler-Dulles-Canaris was the unilateral end to the war only in the West in the name of continuing the war against the Soviet Union. This caused a protest among young officers," noted the Soviet historian, Germanist and military translator Lev Bezymensky.
SWISS CANAL
But these were disgraced politicians, opposition-minded officers, high-ranking leaders of the Wehrmacht and military intelligence (people who were important in the structure of the Reich, but had no connection with its party-political elite). But long before the spring of 1945, treason began to mature in the Fuhrer's inner circle.
The most mysterious episode to this day remains the arrival in Britain in May 1941 of the Fuhrer's deputy for the party, Rudolf Hess. He, we recall, announced to the Lord Steward Douglas Hamilton : he had come to end the war and begin a common struggle between Germany and Great Britain against Bolshevik Russia.
Even if Hess was not “mad,” the Führer — judging by his reaction — did not sanction this adventure. As Speer recalled, Hitler, upon learning this, fell into a chair in confusion, saying: “Oh, my God! He flew over there!” and even uttered “an inarticulate, almost animal-like cry.”
Whether any of the Nazi bigwigs, other than Hess himself, were involved in his plan is something history is silent about.
The next episode looks more substantial.
In the summer of 1942, SS Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg began to push his boss Himmler, the head of the SS, towards a scenario of reconciliation with the West.
The head of foreign intelligence believed that a figure of Himmler's stature should initiate negotiations with the Anglo-Americans while the Reich still had the strength to fight, in order to obtain the most favorable conditions.
Himmler was furious when his subordinate first floated the idea, but they soon began to seriously discuss "trading" the occupied territories.
According to this plan, the Germans were to withdraw their troops from Belgium, Holland and Northern France, building close trade ties with the French people. Austria would remain part of the Reich, and the countries of Eastern and Southeastern Europe would be governed by sovereign governments, but with close economic integration with Germany.
Himmler supported the initiative, although he said that he would immediately get rid of Schellenberg if he made the slightest mistake in its implementation.
It should be noted that Moscow had already learned of Berlin's "interesting" initiatives back in 1942. Thus, the famous intelligence officer Kim Philby reported that the German ambassador to Ankara, former chancellor (and former vice chancellor in Hitler's first cabinet) Franz von Papen was trying to contact US intelligence resident George Earle in Turkey.
But Himmler was indecisive and did not try very hard to convey Schellenberg's concept to Hitler.
He came to his senses towards the end of the war, when he realized that in order to take up an acceptable position in the post-war country, he had to “wash himself clean” of the crimes of the SS. And for this he used the same channel as Professor Pleischner and Pastor Schlag – Switzerland.
In early 1945, at a secret meeting with former Swiss President Jean-Marie Musy, Himmler reluctantly agreed to transport 1,200 Jews every two weeks to a neutral country.
The plan failed due to political intrigue: the head of the Imperial Main Security Office, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, reported to the Führer that Himmler and Schellenberg were acting behind his back, and in the eyes of Hitler, the SS chief was discredited.
Schellenberg persisted and chose as a mediator another "neutral", Sweden, which at that time had become the center of secret peace negotiations and spy games.
He arranged for Himmler to meet with the Swedish king's nephew, Count Folke Bernadotte, who convinced the SS chief to begin transporting Danish, Norwegian, Polish and Jewish prisoners from concentration camps to Sweden.
At the end of April 1945, Himmler met with the representative of the World Jewish Congress, Norbert Masur, and agreed to stop the extermination of Jews.
But the head of the SS was in no hurry to fulfill his promises, and his image in the West was so monstrous that Winston Churchill and the recently appointed President Harry Truman refused to negotiate with him.
WILLY BRANDT'S DELUSIONS
A number of modern publications suggest that Joachim Ribbentrop and even someone from Himmler's circle allegedly sought access to Soviet representatives. The most compelling evidence is a quote from the memoirs of Willy Brandt (Chancellor of Germany in 1969-1974, and an anti-fascist emigrant during the war):
"It became known that an official from Ribbentrop's department had already met in Stockholm in 1943, testing the waters, with embassy adviser Vladimir Semenov. In the end, Himmler's apparatus also tried, as one colonel put it, to establish "non-binding contact with Russia" through Stockholm.
Willy Brandt seems to have been less informed than he would have liked.
But the emigrant Brandt, although he was in Stockholm (and communicated there with people who had connections to the "Valkyrie"), hardly had information circulating through secret diplomatic channels. His "became known" is more like a retelling of rumors thrown in by someone.
If the "contacts with Russia" were not a pure conspiracy theory, they resemble "disinformation" for potential Western counterparties: if we don't reach an agreement with you, we'll reach an agreement with Stalin. A sort of Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact 2.0.
Even though this sounded fantastic at the time of the Battle of Stalingrad, the winter of 1943 was not the summer of 1939, when Soviet-German agreements were still possible.
In addition, we note that Brandt in his memoirs clearly tried to whitewash the reputation of all the participants in the "Valkyrie": "The officers who decided to rebel and the political figures associated with them sought to conclude a separate peace with the Western powers in order to then continue the war with the Soviet Union - this is one of the many legends that have been created around the plot of July 20."
They say that not only the anti-Hitler conspirator Goerdeler, but also Hitler’s inner circle, allegedly advocated for peace with the USSR.
What was actually documented, unlike Willy Brandt's stories, was Operation Sunrise (called Operation Crossword by the British), which became the basis for the key episode of Seventeen Moments of Spring.
THE CROSSWORD PUZZLE IS SOLVED
In March 1945, General Karl Wolff (who was brilliantly played in the film by Vasily Lanovoy) met with the future head of the CIA, Dulles, in Switzerland, the SS commissioner for Army Group C in Italy. Dulles had been in Switzerland since 1943, heading the residency of the Office of Strategic Services.
Dulles was helped to establish contacts with the Germans by the OSS employee and German émigré Gero von Schulze-Gaevernitz, the son-in-law of the Ruhr coal magnate Hugo Stinnes.
On the other hand, an agent of the German secret service SD, who had been planted in the OSS residency under the operational pseudonym Gabriel, reported to Berlin: Dulles does not trust his Russian allies and, moreover, hates them and considers them the main opponents of the United States.
From the German side, people from the RSHA (Reich Main Security Office) began to appear in February 1945 – envoys from Schellenberg and even his immediate superior, Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
On March 8, the first high-level contact took place in Bern: on one side, Dulles, the American General Lehman Lemnitzer and the Chief of Intelligence of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the British General Terence Airey. On the other, Wolff.
The secret negotiations (of which Moscow was not informed, as expected) discussed a separate capitulation of the northern Italian group - a plan that had been discussed earlier through the Vatican representative, the papal chamberlain Luigi Parelli. This plan was also supported by the British.
When on March 12 the commander of the Allied forces in Italy, Field Marshal Harold Alexander, true to his allied duty, informed the Soviet ambassador about some contacts regarding the capitulation of the Italian Wehrmacht group, there was what is called an awkward pause.
Especially after the State Department and the Foreign Office refused Vyacheslav Molotov’s legitimate request to include our representatives in the negotiations.
But the main thing is that Moscow, through its own channels, knew in full about the preparation, progress and nature of Operation Crossword, in particular that these were essentially preparations for a separate peace on the Western Front – in conditions when the Red Army was preparing for the battle for Berlin.
On April 5, 1945, Stalin sent Roosevelt a message that was formally polite towards the Allies (“I have never doubted your honesty and reliability, just as I have never doubted the honesty and reliability of Mr. Churchill”), but full of reproaches for trying to organize a unilateral capitulation without the participation of the USSR.
The second point of the message is especially interesting: "As for my informants, I assure you that they are very honest and modest people who perform their duties carefully and have no intention of offending anyone. These people have been tested by us in practice many times."
Thanks to Stalin's informants, Operation Sunrise, also known as Crossword, was thwarted.
DULLES SAYS GOODBYE TO PLANS
On April 20, 1945, Dulles received, not without surprise, an order from the headquarters of the Allied forces: given the conflict with Moscow, contacts with the Germans were to cease and the operation was to be curtailed.
Hitler, who apparently did not know about Wolff and Kaltenbrunner's mission, summoned both of them to the carpet, but showed no anger, merely scolding Wolff for "disregarding the opinion of the leadership."
Moreover, the Fuhrer shared his own plan: the total war would continue in three “impregnable fortresses” – in the north – in Schleswig-Holstein, in Berlin and in the south, in the Alps. At the same time, as Hitler believed, the Red Army and the Anglo-Americans, meeting in the center of Germany, would enter into a conflict, which the Reich would take advantage of.
But this, fortunately, remained an “alternative history”.
On April 16, our troops began the Berlin offensive operation, on April 25, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front met peacefully in the city of Torgau on the Elbe with the Americans from General Hodges' 1st Army. Roosevelt acknowledged the story of the attempted negotiations as "an incident that has faded and receded into the past without having brought any benefit."
Despite all their differences, the leaders of the USSR, USA and Great Britain together brought to the end the fight against those who decided to openly renounce their monstrous views for personal gain. Most of the Berlin "peace seekers" had to answer for many years of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Himmler, however, managed to escape retribution - at the moment of his arrest by the British, he bit into an ampoule of poison. Kaltenbrunner and Schellenberg found themselves in the dock at Nuremberg, as did the first "peacemaker" Hess.
SS General Karl Wolff's retribution came after Dulles resigned as CIA director (the head of the American intelligence agency clearly favored his former negotiating partner). In 1964, a West German court sentenced Wolff to 15 years in prison for complicity in the Holocaust.