Soviet military intelligence

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Toivo
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Soviet military intelligence

#1

Post by Toivo » 09 Aug 2016, 07:12

From book by Vladimir Lota "Secret Operations of Second World War. Book about military intelligence. 1944.", published in 2006.
(In Russian Лота В. Тайные операции Второй мировой. Книга о военной разведке. 1944 год.)
Lota has written quite a few books about soviet military intelligence but I do not know what's his background or how reliable his books are.

He writes (p.90-91) that Colonel A. Sizov, Soviet military attache in London, code name "Eduard", got a lot of information regarding German military from former head of intelligence of Czechoslovakia, Colonel František Moravec, code name "Baron". In a NY Times article about Hess it was claimed that Soviets gave Moravec code name "Assistant".
For some reason KGB is named but as KGB was created only in 1954 I can only guess if it's a mistake or he got another cover name after war.

Here's the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/08/world ... tales.html

Moravec wrote memoirs "Master of Spies" which is unavailable for me. Can anyone please tell if he wrote anything to confirm this Russian author?
I found nothing of the sorts elsewhere.

Lota writes that the source from where Moravec got this information remains secret.

He publishes also several documents of messages from "Eduard" from 1944 addressed to the head of Main Intelligence Directorate.
EDITED out mistake of making it ГРУ ГШ, lead by Kuznetsov, while in this case it was addressed to Главное разведывательное управление, lead by Ivan Ilyichev. I have leafed through documents addressed to Kuznetsov for the last week, thus the mistake.

Those documents were made public in 2004. They are from Central Archive of Ministry of Defense but to my knowledge these are not yet published at among other documents made available via internet (germandocsinrussia.org)

Here's one example.

Image

I have mixed feelings about this - if it's true what Lota suggests then it's very interesting WHO was the German source of this information.
If Moravec was not working for Soviets then where did Sizov get his information.
Last edited by Toivo on 09 Aug 2016, 12:24, edited 1 time in total.

paspartoo
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Re: Soviet military intelligence

#2

Post by paspartoo » 09 Aug 2016, 11:34

Can you translate that report?
A simple economist with an unhealthy interest in military and intelligence history.....
http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/


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Toivo
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Re: Soviet military intelligence

#3

Post by Toivo » 09 Aug 2016, 13:23

Ok.

Edited out mistake in original post, it was addressed not to Kuznetsov but to Ilyichev of course.

Translation:

From London. 22.4.1944
By radio.

To the Head of Main Intelligence Directorate of Red Army.
To Director.

BARON reported:

"1. At the end of March Hitler and Rommel made inspection tour, during which they visited the command headquarters from Kjoga (Denmark) and ending with Estonia*. Rommel paid a special interest to availability to operational troops transportation in Zeeland and in Northern Estonia. The tour was secret. (According to yet unconfirmed reports Rommel was appointed commander of the ground forces.)

2. At the end of March german military intelligence passed to Himmler's subordination. Direct deputy for Himmler with intelligence is SS Gruppenführer Kaltenbrunner. Currently german intelligence has lost it's military nature. Admiral Canaris was dismissed from intelligence a month ago, as were all the close coworkers of Canaris, including Bentivegni."

EDUARD

* NOTE (by me): Hitler visiting Estonia with Rommel and everything else in the first part seems to be disinformation picked up by whoever was the source for Baron->Eduard and passed on to them. Sure, Rommel might have been interested in Zeeland but in April of 1944 visiting Estonia with Hitler? Even when put in the time frame when it was sent it makes very little sense.

The second part is accurate, more or less. Only 2 months old information.

Well, if the important bits within second part of the document are true then these (Canaris taken off his post and Abwehr under SD) were really important news to Stalin and General Staff of the Red Army as they were planning op. Bagration and directive for maskirovka was given out to 3rd Ukrainian Front and 3rd Baltic Front in May. (I am yet to find this document but it's quoted by Gen. Sergei Shtemenko in his memoirs.)

paspartoo
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Re: Soviet military intelligence

#4

Post by paspartoo » 09 Aug 2016, 14:19

Thanks. As you said this doesn't seem to be very reliable information. Regarding Moravec i think several books mention his as giving information to the Soviets.
A simple economist with an unhealthy interest in military and intelligence history.....
http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/

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