Leopold Trepper
Leopold Zakharovitch Trepper was a Polish Communist, agent of the Red Army Intelligence, with the code name of Otto and had been working with them since 1930. He was also a resistance fighter and journalist of Jewish descent.
Trepper along with Soviet military intelligence officer, Richard Sorge were the two main Soviet agents in Europe and were employed as roving agents setting up espionage networks in Europe and Japan. Whereas Richard Sorge was a penetration agent, Trepper ran a series of clandestine cells for organising agents. Trepper used the latest technology, in the form of small wireless radios to communicate with Soviet intelligence. Although the monitoring of the radios transmissions by the Funkabwehr would eventually lead to the organisations destruction, the sophisticated use of the technology enabled the organisation to behave as a network, with the ability to achieve tactical surprise and deliver high-quality intelligence including the warning of Operation Barbarossa.
In 1936, Trepper became the technical director of a Soviet Red Army Intelligence in western Europe. He was responsible for recruiting agents and creating espionage networks. Trepper was an experienced intelligence officer, an extremely resourceful and capable man who was completely at home in the west, a man who could not be drawn in conversation, who lived a concealed life and whose special talent was a keen judge of people that enabled him to penetrate significant groups with ease. By the start of World War II, Trepper controlled a large espionage network in Belgium and seven separate espionage networks in France. His operation was known as the Red Orchestra to the Gestapo.
Life
On February 23, 1904, Leopold Trepper was born to a large Jewish family of 10 children in Nowy Targ, Poland that was part of Austria-Hungary in that time. His father was a travelling farm machinery and seed merchant, who died when Trepper was almost twelve. His parents sent him to school in Lviv in Ukraine to escape the strong militant and anti-Semitic tradition in Poland. Trepper met Sarah Orschitzer in Lviv, who was working in a chocolate factory and taking evening classes to train as a teacher. She was either the mistress or wife of Trepper and was also a Jewish communist who travelled under the alias Luba Brekson. After school, Trepper moved to Kraków to study history and literature at the Jagiellonian University. His lack of money lead him to left wing student groups. After the October Revolution he joined the Bolsheviks and became a communist.After the Polish war with the Soviet Union, Poland suffered an economic crisis and Trepper had to leave university for lack of funds. He found work first as a workshop locksmith, mason and later worked in the mines in Katowice. Two years later in 1926 he moved to Dąbrowa to work as a labourer in a foundry. In 1927, due to the extreme poverty and lack of food, he agitated the workers to strike. As one of the ringleaders he was caught and imprisoned for eight months.
Finding it impossible to get work after the uprising, Trepper applied for a visa for France but was refused. In the same year, Trepper then joined the Zionist socialist movement Hashomer Hatzair, members of whom helped him to emigrate from Poland to Haifa, Palestine via Brindisi to work on the roads, later in a Kibbutz Sarah Orschitzer followed Trepper to Palestine. She was involved in an illegal communist demonstration, was arrested and jailed. She would have been deported had she not married a Palestinian citizen.
In 1929 after moving to Tel Aviv, Trepper became a member of the central committee of the Palestine Communist Party. Between 1928 and 1930 Trepper was the organiser of the Eḥud or Unity faction, a Jewish-Arab communist labour organisation within Histadrut trade union body. Most of its members came from the Kerem HaTeimanim area and worked against the British forces in Palestine. In 1929 he attended a meeting of the International Red Aid, when he was identified as an agitator and militant communist by the British, who subsequently arrested and interned him for 15 days at the citadel's prison in Acre, Israel. Trepper organised a hunger strike after learning that the communist prisoners were to be deported. He was released after news of the hunger strike reached London and the British newspapers. Trepper and the hunger strikers were placed on stretchers outside the prison, as by that time they were too weak to walk with lack of food. In March 1930 after given the choice of leaving Palestine or face being forcefully deported to Cyprus. Trepper travelled via Syria to Marseille, France and worked as a dishwasher. Trepper then travelled to Paris where he found work as a decorator living a poor existence. He came into contact with numerous left wing intellectuals and communist workers that eventually led him to become a member of the Rabcors, an illegal political organisation that was dominated by communists who sent both men and intelligence to Moscow. He continued to work for the organisation until French intelligence broke it up in 1932. Trepper escaped by train to Berlin, where he contacted the Soviet embassy. After several days he was ordered to report to Moscow in the spring of 1932. Trepper left Paris on a Polish passport.
Between 1932 and 1935, Trepper worked to become a GRU agent by learning his trade. He initially attended the Kumns University where he obtained a diploma. Later he studied history at the Institute of Red Professors and awarded a degree, enabling him to work as a teacher. During that period in Moscow, Trepper was in constant touch with the Russian intelligence instructors who taught him the practical skills of an espionage agent. At the same time, Trepper's wife also attended Kumns University for a year. By the winter of 1935 and after spending several months teaching history at a school in Moscow, his training was completed. In 1935, Trepper submitted a column he wrote on the arts to the newspaper for Russian Jews called Truth.
Espionage career
In 1935 or 1936, Trepper was given the post of technical director of Soviet intelligence in Western Europe and was now known as the Big Chief. He subsequently returned to Paris, France on a passport under the name Sommer. On his return to Paris he spent five months investigating the extant network and accidentally exposed a double agent, a Dutch Jew who was the former head of the Soviet espionage network in the United States and who was turned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He returned to the Soviet Union under the passport Majeris to inform Soviet intelligence of his findings and returned five months later. In 1936 Trepper visited Scandinavia on short-term technical mission. In December 1936, he returned to Paris which remained his base until the end of 1938. For most of 1937, Trepper was concerned with extensive planning and re-organisation of Soviet intelligence operations in Western Europe. During that year he visited Switzerland, the British Isles and Scandinavia.Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company
In the autumn of 1938, Trepper made contact with the Jewish businessman Leon Grossvogel, whom he had known in Palestine. Grossvogel ran a small business called Le Roi du Caoutchouc or The Raincoat King on behalf of its owners. Trepper had a plan to use money that had been provided to him to create an business that would be the export division of The Raincoat King. Trepper financed Grossvogel to the sum of $8000 to create the new business, that was given an unidiomatic name of The Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company. The new business would deal in the export of raincoats and was considered by Trepper to be the ideal cover for the groups espionage network. As the business had to operate with the full knowledge of the state, shares had to be issued. Among the shareholders was former official of the Belgian Foreign Office Jules Jasper Jasper's brother, Henri Jaspar was the former prime minister of Belgium, so Jules Jaspar was seen as the ideal person to direct the company, providing it with a veneer of respectability. The company was created in December 1938.At the same time in 1939, Grossvogel spent most of the year travelling around seven major sea ports that were trading with the United Kingdom to establish branches of The Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company and putting in agents to run them. The ports were at Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven, Ostend and Boulogne. Owing to local regulations it was difficult to create the type of branch office that was required. In fact, only one branch was created in Stockholm.
On 6 March 1939, Trepper, now using the alias Adam Mikler, a wealthy Canadian businessman, travelling from Quebec, accompanied with his wife Sarah Orschitzer who was travelling as Anna Mikler moving from Brussels from Paris, making it his new base and settled at their apartment located at 198 Avenue Richard Neybergh, Brussels. After the company was created, Trepper instituted the circulation of gossip and rumours by his group, to spread the word that a wealthy Canadian had funded the business, so it became as no surprise to the Belgium business community when Trepper arrived in Brussels and became associated with the company. On 25 March 1939, Trepper met the GRU intelligence agent Mikhail Makarov in a café. Makarov, a wireless telegraphy operator and forger had been sent from Moscow via Stockholm and Copenhagen to Paris whilst travelling on a Uruguayan passport, under the alias Carlos Alamo. Makarov's was an expert in secret inks and forgery. His original remit was to provide Trepper with forged documentation, however Grossvogel had introduced Abraham Rajchmann, an criminal forger to the group, and henceforth had become the group's forger. Instead, Makarov started to work as a WT operator for the group and was posted to Ostend to work at a branch of the Raincoat Company. To increase his cover, the branch was sold to him. Makarov immediately start to train other operators in WT procedure. In July 1939 Anatoly Gurevich posing as the wealthy Vincente Sierra, arrived in Brussels while travelling on a Uruguayan passport. On 17 July 1939, Gurevich made contact with Trepper in Ghent It was arranged that Trepper would teach the operation of the Raincoat Company to Gurevich, who would then move to Denmark to establish a new firm. To make contacts in different strata of society, Gurevich started to familiarise himself with Belgium society and studied the country to enable the collection of economic knowledge. Gurevich took part in ballroom dancing and riding lessons and as he travelled between luxury hotels, mail bearing the stamps of Uruguay awaited his arrival. To improve his language skills in French, English and German, Gurevich enrolled at the Free University of Brussels. In the months leading up to the war, Trepper's plans changed with Gurevich having to be introduced into the Belgian network gradually, eventually ending up working as an assistant to Trepper and performing the normal bureaucratic operations in an espionage network including, as a cipher clerk, deciphering instructions from Soviet intelligence, preparing reports from information forwarded from a contact in the Soviet Trade Representation of Belgium. In the same year, Trepper met the American classical dancer, Georgie De Winter in Brussels. De Winter would go on to become the mistress of Trepper and had a child, Patrick De Winter. Historians are unsure if the child was Trepper's.
World War II
Belgium
France
In July 1940, Trepper fled Belgium along with Grossvogel and moved to Paris. In France, Trepper changed his alias to Jean Gilbert. He would make it his new base. Trepper got in touch with General Ivan Susloparov, who was the Soviet Military attaché in the Vichy government. On their first meeting, Trepper informed him of Hitlers plan to invade the Soviet Union, but Susloparov refused to believe him. Trepper also arranged to have his wife and child to return to Moscow, leaving in August 1940. However, Trepper's main aim was to find and make use of a radio transmitter and a radio operator. Susloparov supplied the names of a couple, who were Polish communists, Hersch and Miriam Sokol as possible radio operators.Simexco and Simex
In March 1941, Simexco was established in Paris, as a replacement cover company.The firms profits were channelled to provide funding to the group, via its Department III. The firm made a considerable profit over the year that was used by both Trepper and Gurevich as personal expenses. Additional funding was at their disposal from Soviet intelligence, that were received through the Russian Military attaché in Paris, in sums of $8–10000 per month. When the war started, the funds were sent via Switzerland in dollar amounts and were agreed in advance with Soviet intelligence via radio and delivered to Trepper. The money was used to maintain the operations of the Trepper group, his agents and provide expenses necessary to carry out special an assignment in the course of their duties. Trepper used to the money to spend lavishly. This spend included bribes and money spent for the upkeep of the Château de Billeron and large daily expenses to maintain the veneer of a successful businessman.
Robinson network
In September 1941, Trepper met with Comintern agent Henry Robinson in the house of Anna and Medardo Griotto. Robinson was one of the most important sources of intelligence in Paris. He ran his own large espionage network that had revealed to the Soviets that Hitler was inclined to call off Operation Sea Lion, the plan to invade the British Isles. The Cominterm organisation had lost prestige with Stalin, who suspected it of deviating from Communist norms. Robinson was also suspected of being an agent of the Deuxième Bureau and was subsequently in ideological conflict with the aims of Soviet intelligence. It was unusual for two senior agents to meet, but an exception was made as it was felt by Soviet intelligence, that Robinson's extensive contacts could help Trepper build his French network.Trepper learned from Robinson of a radio transmitter that was being run by the French Communist Party in Paris and by February 1942, Trepper had re-established communication with Soviet intelligence.
Rue des Atrébates
Reorganisation
After the arrests at Rue des Atrébates, Trepper realised that Gurevich was unsuitable for war work and decided to send him to Marseille to work with Jules Jaspar.Arrest
The premises of Simexco were searched on 25 November 1942 by the Abwehr and all known associates of the company were arrested. However no espionage material was found and the interrogation of prisoners failed to determine the whereabouts of Monsieur Gilbert, the alias that Trepper was using in his dealings with the firm. The French commercial director of the firm Alfred Corbin informed the Gestapo of the address of Trepper's dentist, after being tortured. Trepper was subsequently arrested on 5 December 1942 by Abwehr officer Freidrich Henry Piepe and Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle and Gestapo officer, Karl Giering, while he was sitting in a dentist's chair. Trepper was imprisoned on a third floor room at Rue des Sausasaies in Paris, his room separated from another which would later imprison Anatoly Gurevich. Trepper offered to collaborate with the Abwehr, who subsequently treated Trepper leniently, in the expectation that he would serve as a double agent in Paris. He was allowed to take daily walks and go into town to buy necessities, but always accompanied by two guards of the Sonderkommando. According to Piepe, when Trepper talked, it was not out of fear of torture or death, unlike e.g. Johann Wenzel, but out of duty. While he gave up the names and addresses of most of the members of his own network, he was sacrificing his associates to protect the various members of the French Communist Party, who he had an absolute belief in. In 2002 author Patrick Marnham suggested Trepper not only exposed the Soviet agent Henri Robinson but may have been the source that betrayed French resistance leader Jean Moulin. When Gurevich was arrested on 9 November 1942 in Marseille, he was moved to Paris and kept in the next room to Trepper. There was a mutual animosity between the two men.Playback
On 25 December 1942, Trepper was informed that he would be running a Funkspiel operation alongside with Gurevich. On 13 February, Trepper was moved to a house belonging to Karl Bömelburg at 40 boulevard Victor Hugo, Neuilly-sur-Seine.Escape
On 13 September 1943, although under guard, Trepper escaped Gestapo custody while visiting a pharmacy, Pharmacie Baillie, near the railway station at St. Lazare and managed to evade recapture. He contacted Georgie De Winter and they both agreed to hide out in Le Vésinet. While there, he wrote to Pannwitz, explaining his disappearance was not an escape, but merely an attempt to ensure he stayed alive, a move that was designed to provide the maximum advantage for Soviet intelligence. On the 18 September 1943, the couple moved to a house in Suresnes, that belonged to Mrs Queyrie with De Winter working as a courier to arrange the move. Trepper wrote to Pannwitz a second time, deploring the fact that in spite of his request, a search was being made for him, and that he was placed in a very uncomfortable position. At the time, Trepper was the subject of Identification Order in France, German and Belgium as a wanted dangerous spyTrepper then contacted Suzanne Spaak and Jean Claude Spaak through De Winter, using the alias Jean Gilbert, in the hope that he could send a message to the Soviet Military Attache in London and make contact with the French Communist Party who could also possibly send a message. Claude Spaak along with Charles Spaak, the Belgium screenwriter, were brothers to Belgium prime minister Paul-Henri Spaak. Suzanne Spaak had a very wide range of contacts and it was through her, that Trepper hoped to contact Moscow. While they were waiting, De Winter organised another location where they could hide, on Rue Du Chabanais and they moved in on the 24 September. Claude Spaak had not heard from Trepper since 1942, when agents of Trepper, the Sokols couple had left a large sum of money, identity and ration cards with Spaak, for safekeeping. He also asked Spaak to send a message: I will be at the church every Sunday morning between 10 and 11am. Signed Martik. Trepper hoped to make contact with an agent at a church in Auteuil. Trepper sent De Winter several Sunday's in a row, but no contact was made. The couple then moved to a guest-house at Bourg-la-Reine. Trepper, who wanted to restart his clandestine activities, was wary of De Winter being identified by the Gestapo due to here constant visits to the Spaak household. He asked Spaak for 100,000 Francs which he gave to De Winter for expenses and sent her to a hideout in a village near Chartres, in the hope that she could be smuggled to the non-occupied zone. De Winter was provided with a letter of introduction by Antonia Lyon-Smith, a friend of the Spaaks, to a local doctor in Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse. En route, De-Winter was arrested on 17 October 1943 by Pannwitz. At the same time, Trepper went to the church at Auteuil and noticed a black Citroën car waiting there, indicating the Gestapo and fled. Trepper learned that the Gestapo had visited all previous addresses and were close to capturing him. He warned Spaak, who sent both his wife and children to Belgium, and then travelled to Paris, where he hid out with friends until the end of the war. Trepper last saw Spaak before the liberation of 23 October 1943.