Rote Kapelle (Red Orchestra), cryptonym used by the German
Abwehr and Sicherheitsdienst (see
RSHA) for a European-wide Soviet espionage network,
Kapelle being Abwehr jargon for secret wireless transmissions and the counter-espionage operations mounted against them. The term was first used to describe an Abwehr operation against a secret wireless transmitter detected in Brussels in August 1941 and was later extended to cover those operations which were largely directed by
Schellenberg against other transmitters in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland (see
Rote Drei), and elsewhere.
Headed by a Polish Jew and dedicated communist, Léopold Trepper, the Belgian network was first established during the 1930s by the Soviet espionage organization, Razvedupr (later known as
GRU), when it was led by another dedicated communist, a German radio and forgery expert called Johann Wenzel. This network was later extended to the Netherlands, and then to France—where Trepper settled—and occasional contact was also made with three groups, headed by Harro Schulze-Boysen, Arvid Harnack, and Rudolf von Scheliha, which were active in Germany. Von Scheliha, especially, was highly regarded by the GRU and during the course of the war a number of Soviet agents were parachuted into Germany to help the groups establish radio contact with Berlin. It was later estimated by the head of the Abwehr,
Admiral Canaris, and by others, that the Rote Kapelle in Germany cost the lives of 200,000 men. When Schulze-Boysen, a desk officer at the Reich ministry of aviation, was arrested a message he was about to encode gave detailed information of the whereabouts of 2,500 Luftwaffe aircraft gathered to support the German drive on
Stalingrad.
The network became of primary importance to Moscow after the Germans invaded the USSR in June 1941 (see
BARBAROSSA). It was inundated with questions from Moscow, which alerted the Abwehr to a number of transmitters, and the first arrests were made when agents transmitting from Brussels were caught in December 1941. Aware now of the network's existence, the Abwehr's hunt for its other members began.
Trepper himself proved elusive, but his radio was soon found in a Paris suburb. In July 1942 Wenzel was caught in the act of transmitting and revealed his codes. This enabled the Abwehr to decrypt messages they had already intercepted, leading to the arrest of Schulze-Boysen in August 1942, and by October members of all three German groups had been arrested. Of the 118 put on trial, 41 were beheaded, 8 were hanged, and 2 committed suicide.
After his capture, Wenzel began co-operating with the Abwehr by operating a
Funkspiel (radio game) as did two other captured agents. However, Moscow knew through Trepper that Wenzel had been arrested, and in November 1942 he escaped and was able to get word to Moscow about the
Funkspiel. Victor Sukolov, who ran the Belgian network after Trepper left, went to Marseilles in January 1942 to start a new network there. But when the Germans occupied
Vichy France in November 1942 Sukolov was arrested and under interrogation he revealed the existence of the Rote Drei in Switzerland.
Trepper was one of the last to remain at liberty but he was cornered at his dentist's surgery in December 1942. He then betrayed other members of the Rote Kapelle and co-operated with the Germans in a
Funkspiel. But he was probably a
triple agent, still under orders from Moscow, and by betraying some he may have saved others. In September 1943 he escaped and was not recaptured.
Soviet agents connected with the Rote Kapelle were also active elsewhere in Europe, including Scandinavia and the UK, and in the USA. After the war the myth was perpetrated that the organization had played a critical part in the
German–Soviet war. Communist propaganda also asserted that in Germany it had played an important part in the political resistance against Hitler (see
Schwarze Kapelle). But although Schulze-Boysen's group is regarded in Germany as part of this resistance the Rote Kapelle's real purpose was espionage by communists for communists.
Those Soviet agents who survived were not well rewarded. Several—Sándor Radó (the head of the Rote Drei), Trepper, Sukolov, and probably Wenzel—were imprisoned in the USSR after the war.
Bibliography
The Rote Kapelle: The CIA's History of Soviet Intelligence and Espionage Networks in Western Europe, 1936–1945 (Annapolis, Md., 1979).
Trepper, L. , The Great Game (London, 1977).
