During WWII the Abwehr station in Sofia thought they were receiving information from inside the SU through a network organized by a mr Richard Kauder and general Anton Turkul. After the war it became clear that this was a Soviet engineered deception.
From the sources I’ve seen it appears that the information coming from the ‘Max’ network was valued by the German leadership. Does anyone have actual knowledge of what this information was (from German reports) and how accurate it was at times?
Obviously some of it was Soviet OOB and troop movement data.
agent Max/Richard Kauder
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agent Max/Richard Kauder
A simple economist with an unhealthy interest in military and intelligence history.....
http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/
http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/
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Re: agent Max/Richard Kauder
This is an interesting exercise in disinformation by the Soviets onto German military intelligence via Richard Kauder alias Richard Klatt.
The British were decrypting the Klatt radio traffic from Sofia to Abwehr Vienna. The British were mystified about the sources employed by Klatt until it became apparent that it was a Soviet disinformation program. UK National Archives at Kew have a great deal of the radio messages and their analysis.
Robert W Stephan, "Stalin's Secret War. Soviet Counterintelligence against the Nazis, 1941-1945", University Press of Kansas, 2004, devotes 20 pages to examining the evidence from the Soviet operation entitled "Operation Monastery" and the provision of disinformation to Klatt.
In the same book, the author assesses Unternehmen Zeppelin - the German program of parachuting turned Russian nationals behind Soviet lines. The Soviets quickly caught most of these agents and soon began radio games back to Berlin.
The British were decrypting the Klatt radio traffic from Sofia to Abwehr Vienna. The British were mystified about the sources employed by Klatt until it became apparent that it was a Soviet disinformation program. UK National Archives at Kew have a great deal of the radio messages and their analysis.
Robert W Stephan, "Stalin's Secret War. Soviet Counterintelligence against the Nazis, 1941-1945", University Press of Kansas, 2004, devotes 20 pages to examining the evidence from the Soviet operation entitled "Operation Monastery" and the provision of disinformation to Klatt.
In the same book, the author assesses Unternehmen Zeppelin - the German program of parachuting turned Russian nationals behind Soviet lines. The Soviets quickly caught most of these agents and soon began radio games back to Berlin.
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Re: agent Max/Richard Kauder
The Brits found the information of the ‘Max’ network to be valuable and they actually informed the SU. So my interest is in finding out more on the information that was given to the Germans. Could you summarize the information from Stalin's ‘Secret War’ ?
A simple economist with an unhealthy interest in military and intelligence history.....
http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/
http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.com/
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Re: agent Max/Richard Kauder
paspartoo wrote:The Brits found the information of the ‘Max’ network to be valuable and they actually informed the SU. So my interest is in finding out more on the information that was given to the Germans. Could you summarize the information from Stalin's ‘Secret War’ ?
The book Stalin's Secret War by Robert W. Stephan (an ex-intel officer from CIA) was one of the best books on military intelligence during WW2. I highly recommend you get it and the author meticulously noted in the sources and notes section many of the NARA and UK National Archives related to the German and Soviet intelligence operations in WW2.
I did a book review on Stephan's book at Feldgrau sometime ago:
http://www.feldgrau.net/forum/viewtopic ... 33&t=31515
Stephan's book is the most authoritative book in English on the OperatioN Scherhorn 1944/45. The other book I highly recommend you to get is Perry Biddiscombe's The SS Hunter Battalion (2006) which I had written some reviews as well.
http://www.feldgrau.net/forum/viewtopic ... 33&t=30372