Scout of the Second World War Kuznetsov. How the blacksmith scout died

Kuznetsov Nikolai Ivanovich was born on July 14, 1911 in the village of Zyryanka, Perm province (today it is the Sverdlovsk region). The parents of the future legendary intelligence officer were simple peasants. In addition to Nikolai (at birth the boy received the name Nikanor), they had five more children.

After graduating from seven classes of school, young Nikolai entered the agricultural technical school in Tyumen, in the agronomic department. After a short time, he decided to continue his studies at the Talitsky Forestry College, where he seriously began to study the German language, although he knew it quite well up to that point. The future intelligence officer showed phenomenal language abilities as a child. Among his acquaintances was an old forester - a German, a former soldier of the Austro-Hungarian army, from whom the guy learned his first lessons. A little later I became interested in Esperanto, into which I independently translated Lermontov’s Borodino. While studying at a forestry technical school, Nikolai Kuznetsov discovered the “Encyclopedia of Forestry Science” in German there and translated it into Russian for the first time.

Further in his successful linguistic practice were the Polish, Komi-Permyak and Ukrainian languages, mastered quickly and easily. Nikolai knew German perfectly, and could speak it in six dialects. In 1930, Nikolai Kuznetsov managed to get a job as an assistant tax collector at the Komi-Permyak district land administration in Kudymkar. Here Nikolai Kuznetsov received his first conviction - a year of correctional labor with a deduction from wages as a collective responsibility for the theft of state property. Moreover, the future secret agent himself, having noticed the criminal activities of his colleagues, reported this to the police.

After his release, Kuznetsov worked in the Red Hammer promartel, where he participated in the forced collectivization of peasants, for which he was repeatedly attacked by them. According to one version, it was his competent behavior in critical situations, as well as his impeccable knowledge of the Komi-Permyak language, that attracted the attention of the state security authorities, who involved Kuznetsov in the actions of the OGPU district to eliminate bandit forest formations. Since the spring of 1938, Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov was part of the apparatus of the People's Commissar of the NKVD of the Komi ASSR M. Zhuravlev as an assistant. It was Zhuravlev who later called the head of the counterintelligence department of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR L. Raikhman to Moscow and recommended Nikolai to him as a particularly gifted employee. Despite the fact that his personal data was not the most brilliant for such activities, the head of the secret political department P.V. Fedotov took Nikolai Kuznetsov to the position of a highly classified special agent under his responsibility, and he was not mistaken.

The intelligence officer was given a “fake” Soviet passport in the name of Rudolf Wilhelmovich Schmidt and given the task of infiltrating the diplomatic environment of the capital. Kuznetsov actively made the necessary contacts with foreign diplomats, went to social events and obtained information necessary for the state apparatus of the Soviet Union. The intelligence officer's main goal was to recruit a foreign person as an agent willing to work in favor of the USSR. For example, it was he who recruited the adviser to the diplomatic mission in the capital, Geiza-Ladislav Krno. Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov paid special attention to working with German agents. To do this, he was assigned to work as a test engineer at the Moscow Aviation Plant No. 22, where many specialists from Germany worked. Among them there were also persons recruited against the USSR. The intelligence officer also took part in intercepting valuable information and diplomatic mail.

Scout Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov.

Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Nikolai Kuznetsov was enrolled in the fourth directorate of the NKVD, whose main task was to organize reconnaissance and sabotage activities behind enemy lines. After numerous trainings and studying the morals and life of the Germans in a prisoner of war camp, under the name of Paul Wilhelm Siebert, Nikolai Kuznetsov was sent behind enemy lines along the line of terror. At first, the special agent conducted his secret activities in the Ukrainian city of Rivne, where the Reich Commissariat of Ukraine was located. Kuznetsov communicated closely with enemy intelligence officers and the Wehrmacht, as well as local officials. All information obtained was transferred to the partisan detachment.

One of the remarkable exploits of the USSR secret agent was the capture of the Reichskommissariat courier, Major Gahan, who was carrying a secret map in his briefcase. After interrogating Gahan and studying the map, it turned out that a bunker for Hitler was built eight kilometers from the Ukrainian Vinnitsa. In November 1943, Kuznetsov managed to organize the kidnapping of German Major General M. Ilgen, who was sent to Rivne to destroy partisan formations.

The last operation of intelligence officer Siebert in this post was the liquidation in November 1943 of the head of the legal department of the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine, Oberführer Alfred Funk. After interrogating Funk, the brilliant intelligence officer managed to obtain information about the preparations for the assassination of the heads of the “Big Three” of the Tehran Conference, as well as information about the enemy’s offensive on the Kursk Bulge. In January 1944, Kuznetsov was ordered to go to Lviv along with the retreating fascist troops to continue his sabotage activities. Scouts Jan Kaminsky and Ivan Belov were sent to help Agent Siebert. Under the leadership of Nikolai Kuznetsov, several occupiers were destroyed in Lviv, for example, the head of the government chancellery Heinrich Schneider and Otto Bauer.

By the spring of 1944, the Germans already had an idea about the Soviet intelligence officer sent into their midst. Referrals to Kuznetsov were sent to all German patrols in Western Ukraine. As a result, he and his two comrades decided to fight their way to the partisan detachments or go beyond the front line. On March 9, 1944, near the front line, the scouts encountered soldiers of the Ukrainian insurgent army. During the ensuing shootout in the village. Boratin all three were killed. The supposed burial place of Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov was found in September 1959 in the Kutyki tract. His remains were reburied on the Hill of Glory in Lviv, July 27, 1960.

After the publication of Dmitry Medvedev’s books “It Was Near Rovno” and “Strong in Spirit” in the late forties, the whole country learned about Nikolai Kuznetsov. These books were autobiographical in nature. As you know, in 1942, NKVD Colonel Dmitry Medvedev commanded a partisan detachment in Western Ukraine, to which Kuznetsov was assigned, and could tell a lot of interesting things about him. Later, about one and a half dozen works by various authors of a documentary and artistic nature were published, which dealt with the life and exploits of the legendary intelligence officer. To date, about a dozen films about Kuznetsov have been made, including those based on these books. The most famous of them is “The Exploit of a Scout,” 1947, by Boris Barnet. Also, during Soviet times, several monuments dedicated to Kuznetsov were erected in different cities of the country and many museums were opened. In the post-Soviet era, the monument to Kuznetsov in the city of Rivne was moved from the city center to a military cemetery. And the monument in Lvov was dismantled in 1992 and, with the assistance of KGB General Nikolai Strutinsky, who personally knew Kuznetsov, was moved to the city of Talitsa, Sverdlovsk region, where Kuznetsov once studied at a forestry technical school. Of all the existing monuments to him, the most remarkable is located in Yekaterinburg. Funds for its construction were raised by employees of the Uralmashplant, where the future intelligence officer worked before the war. The twelve-meter bronze monument was inaugurated on May 7, 1985, opposite the factory cultural center. Kuznetsov’s face is covered on one side by a collar, which emphasizes the intelligence officer’s incognito, and behind his back a cape flutters like a banner, as a symbol of loyalty to the Motherland.

Biographies and exploits of Heroes of the Soviet Union and holders of Soviet orders:

On July 27, 1911, in the Urals, in the village of Zyryanka, the one who was to become the most famous illegal immigrant of the Great Patriotic War was born. NKVD counterintelligence officers called him Colonist, German diplomats in Moscow - Rudolf Schmidt, Wehrmacht and SD officers in occupied Rivne - Paul Siebert, saboteurs and partisans - Grachev. And only a few people in the leadership of the Soviet state security knew his real name - Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov.

This is how the deputy chief of Soviet counterintelligence (1941-1951), Lieutenant General Leonid Raikhman, then, in 1938, senior lieutenant of state security, head of the 1st department of the 4th department of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR, describes his first meeting with him: “Several days, and a telephone trill was heard in my apartment: “Colonist” was calling. At that time, my guest was an old friend who had just returned from Germany, where he worked from an illegal position. I looked at him expressively, and said into the phone: “Now they will speak to you in German...” My friend talked for several minutes and, covering the microphone with his palm, said in surprise: “He speaks like a native Berliner!” Later I learned that Kuznetsov was fluent in five or six dialects of the German language, in addition, he could speak, if necessary, in Russian with a German accent. I made an appointment with Kuznetsov the next day, and he came to my house. When he first stepped on the threshold, I actually gasped: a real Aryan! I am above average height, slender, thin but strong, blond, straight nose, blue-gray eyes. A real German, but without such signs of aristocratic degeneration. And excellent bearing, like a career military man, and this is a Ural forest worker!”

The village of Zyryanka is located in the Sverdlovsk region not far from Talitsa, located on the right bank of the picturesque Pyshma River. Starting from the 17th century, Cossacks, Pomor Old Believers, as well as immigrants from Germany settled here on the fertile lands along the border of the Urals and Siberia. Not far from Zyryanka there was a village called Moranin, inhabited by Germans. According to one of the legends, Nikolai Kuznetsov comes from the family of a German colonist - hence his knowledge of the language, as well as the code name Colonist that he subsequently received. Although I know for sure that this is not so, because these villages - Zyryanka, Balair, the Pioneer state farm, the Kuznetsovsky state farm - are the birthplace of my grandmother. My mother’s brother, Yuri Oprokidnev, is buried here in Balair. As a child, before school, I was constantly here in the summer, fishing with my grandfather in the same pond as little Nika, as Nikolai Kuznetsov was called in childhood. By the way, Boris Yeltsin was born 30 km to the south, and I will not deny that at first our family felt warm feelings for our fellow countryman.

Nika's mother Anna Bazhenova came from a family of Old Believers. His father served for seven years in a grenadier regiment in Moscow. The design of their house also speaks in favor of Old Believer origin. Although only sketches of the building have been preserved, they show that there are no windows on the wall that faces the street. And this is a distinctive feature of the hut of the “schismatics”. Therefore, it is most likely that Nika’s father, Ivan Kuznetsov, is also an Old Believers, and a Pomors at that.

Here is what academician Dmitry Likhachev wrote about the Pomors: “They amazed me with their intelligence, special folk culture, culture of the folk language, special handwriting literacy (Old Believers), etiquette for receiving guests, etiquette for food, work culture, delicacy, etc., etc. Not I find words to describe my delight in front of them. It turned out worse for the peasants of the former Oryol and Tula provinces: they were downtrodden and illiterate due to serfdom and poverty. And the Pomors had a sense of self-esteem.”

The materials of 1863 note the strong physique of the Pomors, stately and pleasant appearance, BROWN hair, and firm gait. They are free in their movements, dexterous, quick-witted, fearless, neat and dapper. In the collection for reading in the family and school “Russia”, the Pomors appear as real Russian people, tall, broad-shouldered, of iron health, undaunted, accustomed to BARELY LOOKING DEATH IN THE FACE.

In 1922-1924, Nika studied at a five-year school in the village of Balair, two kilometers from Zyryanka. In any weather - in the autumn thaw, in rain and slush, blizzard and cold - he walked for knowledge, always collected, smart, good-natured, inquisitive. In the fall of 1924, Nika’s father took her to Talitsa, where in those years there was the only seven-year school in the area. There his phenomenal linguistic abilities were discovered. Nika learned German very quickly and this made him stand out among other students. German was taught by Nina Avtokratova, who was educated in Switzerland. Having learned that the labor teacher was a former German prisoner of war, Nikolai did not miss the opportunity to talk with him, practice the language, and feel the melody of the Lower Prussian dialect. However, this seemed to him not enough. More than once he found an excuse to visit the pharmacy to talk with another “German” - an Austrian pharmacist named Krause - this time in the Bavarian dialect.

In 1926, Nikolai entered the agronomic department of the Tyumen Agricultural College, located in a beautiful building, which until 1919 housed the Alexander Real School. My great-grandfather Prokopiy Oprokidnev studied there together with the future People's Commissar of Foreign Trade of the USSR Leonid Krasin. Both of them graduated from college with gold medals, and their names were on the honor board. During the Great Patriotic War, on the second floor of this building in room 15 there was the body of Vladimir Lenin, evacuated from Moscow.

A year later, due to the death of his father, Nikolai transferred closer to home - to the Talitsky Forestry College. Shortly before his graduation, he was expelled on suspicion of kulak origin. After working as a forest manager in Kudymkar (Komi-Permyak National District) and taking part in collectivization, Nikolai, who by this time already spoke the Komi-Permyak language fluently, came to the attention of the security officers. In 1932, he moved to Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg), entered the correspondence department of the Ural Industrial Institute (having presented a certificate of graduation from the technical school) and at the same time worked at the Uralmashplant, participating in the operational development of foreign specialists under the code name Colonist.

At the institute, Nikolai Ivanovich continues to improve his German language: now Olga Vesyolkina, a former maid of honor to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, a relative of Mikhail Lermontov and Pyotr Stolypin, became his teacher.

A former librarian at the institute said that Kuznetsov constantly took technical literature on mechanical engineering, mainly in foreign languages. And then she accidentally got to defend her thesis, which was held in German! True, she was quickly removed from the audience, as were subsequently all documents indicating Kuznetsov’s studies at the institute.

Tatyana Klimova, a methodologist for local history work at the Talitsk regional library, provides evidence that in Sverdlovsk “Nikolai Ivanovich occupied a separate room in the so-called house of security officers at the address: Lenin Avenue, building 52. Only people from the authorities live there now.” Here a meeting took place that determined his future fate. In January 1938, he met Mikhail Zhuravlev, appointed to the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and began working as his assistant. A few months later, Zhuravlev recommended Colonist to Leonid Raikhman. We have already described Reichman’s first meeting with Colonist above.

“We, counterintelligence officers,” continues Leonid Fedorovich, “from an ordinary operative worker to the head of our department, Pyotr Vasilyevich Fedotov, dealt with real, and not fictitious, German spies and, as professionals, understood perfectly well that they worked in the Soviet Union as against a real enemy in a future and already imminent war. Therefore, we urgently needed people who could actively resist German agents, primarily in Moscow.”

Moscow Aviation Plant No. 22 named after Gorbunov, from which now only the Gorbushka club in Fili remains, traces its lineage back to 1923. It all started with the unfinished buildings of the Russian-Baltic Carriage Works, lost in the forest. In 1923, they were granted a 30-year concession by the German company Junkers, which was the only one in the world to master the technology of all-metal aircraft. Until 1925, the plant produced the first Ju.20 (50 aircraft) and Ju.21 (100 aircraft). However, on March 1, 1927, the concession agreement on the part of the USSR was terminated. In 1933, plant No. 22 was named after plant director Sergei Gorbunov, who died in a plane crash. According to the legend developed for the Colonist, he becomes a test engineer at this plant, having received a passport in the name of the ethnic German Rudolf Schmidt.

The building of the Tyumen Agricultural Academy, where Nikolai Kuznetsov studied

“My comrade Viktor Nikolaevich Ilyin, a prominent counterintelligence worker,” recalls Raikhman, “was also very pleased with him. Thanks to Ilyin, Kuznetsov quickly acquired connections in the theater, in particular, ballet, Moscow. This was important because many diplomats, including established German intelligence officers, were quite drawn to actresses, especially ballerinas. At one time, the issue of appointing Kuznetsov as one of the administrators... of the Bolshoi Theater was even seriously discussed.”

Rudolf Schmidt actively gets acquainted with foreign diplomats, attends social events, and meets friends and lovers of diplomats. With his participation, in the apartment of the German naval attaché, frigate captain Norbert Wilhelm von Baumbach, a safe was opened and secret documents were copied. Schmidt takes a direct part in intercepting diplomatic mail and is part of the entourage of the German military attache in Moscow Ernst Köstring, having wiretapped his apartment.

However, Nikolai Kuznetsov’s finest hour struck with the beginning of the war. With such knowledge of the German language - and by that time he had also mastered Ukrainian and Polish - and his Aryan appearance, he becomes a super agent. In the winter of 1941, he was placed in a camp for German prisoners of war in Krasnogorsk, where he learned the rules, life and morals of the German army. In the summer of 1942, under the name of Nikolai Grachev, he was sent to the special forces detachment “Winners” from the OMSBON - special forces of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR, whose chief was Pavel Sudoplatov.

With employees of the design department of Uralmash. Sverdlovsk, 1930s

On August 24, 1942, late in the evening, a twin-engine Li-2 took off from an airfield near Moscow and headed for Western Ukraine. And on September 18, along Deutschestrasse - the main street of occupied Rivne, which the Germans turned into the capital of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, an infantry lieutenant with the Iron Cross of the 1st class and the “Golden Insignia for Wounds” on his chest, with the ribbon of the Iron Cross of the 2nd, walked leisurely at a measured pace class, pulled through the second loop of the order, with his cap jauntily tilted to one side. A gold ring with a monogram on the signet glittered on the ring finger of his left hand. He greeted senior ranks clearly, but with dignity, slightly casually saluting in response to the soldiers. The self-confident, calm owner of the occupied Ukrainian city, the very living personification of the hitherto victorious Wehrmacht, Lieutenant Paul Wilhelm Siebert. He's Pooh. He is Nikolai Vasilyevich Grachev. He is also Rudolf Wilhelmovich Schmidt. He is also the Colonist - this is how Theodor Gladkov describes the first appearance of Nikolai Kuznetsov in Rivne.

Paul Siebert received the task at the slightest opportunity to eliminate the Gauleiter of East Prussia and the Reich Commissioner of Ukraine Erich Koch. He meets his adjutant and in the summer of 1943, through him, he seeks an audience with Koch. There is a good reason - Siebert's fiancée Volksdeutsche Fraulein Dovger is facing being sent to work in Germany. After the war, Valentina Dovger recalled that, preparing for the visit, Nikolai Ivanovich was absolutely calm. In the morning I got ready, as always, methodically and carefully. He put the pistol in his jacket pocket. However, during the audience, his every movement was controlled by guards and dogs, and it was useless to shoot. It turned out that Siebert was from East Prussia and was Koch’s fellow countryman. He so endeared himself to a high-ranking Nazi, a personal friend of the Fuhrer, that he told him about the upcoming German offensive near Kursk in the summer of 1943. The information immediately went to the Center.

The very fact of this conversation is so amazing that there are many myths around it. It is alleged, for example, that Koch was an agent of influence of Joseph Stalin, and this meeting was pre-arranged. Then it turns out that Kuznetsov did not at all need an amazing command of German in order to gain the confidence of the Gauleiter. This is confirmed by the fact that Stalin reacted rather leniently to Koch, handed over to him by the British in 1949, and gave him to Poland, where he lived to be 90 years old. Although in fact Stalin has nothing to do with it. It’s just that the Poles, after Stalin’s death, made a deal with Koch, since he alone knew the location of the Amber Room, since he was responsible for its evacuation from Königsberg in 1944. Now this room is most likely somewhere in the States, because the Poles need to pay something back to their new owners.

Stalin, rather, owes his life to Kuznetsov. It was Kuznetsov who, in the fall of 1943, conveyed the first information about the impending assassination attempt on Joseph Stalin, Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill (Operation Long Jump) during the Tehran Conference. He was in touch with Maya Mikota, who, on instructions from the Center, became a Gestapo agent (pseudonym “17”) and introduced Kuznetsov to Ulrich von Ortel, who at the age of 28 was an SS Sturmbannführer and a representative of SD foreign intelligence in Rovno. In one of the conversations, von Ortel said that he was given the great honor of participating in “a grandiose business that will shake up the whole world,” and promised to bring Maya a Persian carpet... On the evening of November 20, 1943, Maya informed Kuznetsov that von Ortel committed suicide in his office on Deutschestrasse. Although in the book “Tehran, 1943. At the Big Three conference and on the sidelines,” Stalin’s personal translator Valentin Berezhkov indicates that von Ortel was present in Tehran as Otto Skorzeny’s deputy. However, as a result of the timely actions of Gevork Vartanyan’s “Light Cavalry” group, it was possible to eliminate the Tehran Abwehr station, after which the Germans did not dare to send the main group led by Skorzeny to certain failure. So there was no Long Jump.

In the autumn of 1943, several assassination attempts were organized on the life of Paul Dargel, Erich Koch's permanent deputy. On September 20, Kuznetsov mistakenly killed Erich Koch's deputy for finance, Hans Gehl, and his secretary Winter, instead of Dargel. On September 30, he tried to kill Dargel with an anti-tank grenade. Dargel was seriously injured and lost both legs. After this, it was decided to organize the kidnapping of the commander of the “eastern battalions” (punitive) formation, Major General Max von Ilgen. Ilgen was captured along with Paul Granau, Erich Koch’s driver, and shot at one of the farms near Rovno. On November 16, 1943, Kuznetsov shot and killed the head of the legal department of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, SA Oberführer Alfred Funk. In Lvov in January 1944, Nikolai Kuznetsov destroyed the chief of the government of Galicia, Otto Bauer, and the head of the government chancellery of the General Government, Dr. Heinrich Schneider.

On March 9, 1944, making their way to the front line, Kuznetsov’s group came across Ukrainian nationalists UPA. During the ensuing shootout, his comrades Kaminsky and Belov were killed, and Nikolai Kuznetsov blew himself up with a grenade. After the Germans fled in Lvov, a telegram with the following content was discovered, sent on April 2, 1944 to Berlin:

Top secret

National importance

TELEGRAM-LIGHTNING

To the Main Office of Reich Security to present the "SS" to Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of Police Heinrich Müller

At the next meeting on April 1, 1944, the Ukrainian delegate reported that one of the units of the UPA “Chernogora” had detained three Soviet-Russian spies in the forest near Belogorodka in the Verba (Volyn) region on March 2, 1944. Judging by the documents of these three detained agents, we are talking about a group reporting directly to the NKVD GB. The UPA verified the identities of the three arrested as follows:

1. The leader of the group, Paul Siebert, nicknamed Pooh, had false documents as a senior lieutenant in the German army, was allegedly born in Königsberg, and his photo was on the ID. He was dressed in the uniform of a German senior lieutenant.

2. Pole Jan Kaminsky.

Z. Strelok Ivan Vlasovets, nicknamed Belov, Pooh's driver.

All arrested Soviet-Russian agents had false German documents, rich auxiliary material - maps, German and Polish newspapers, among them “Gazeta Lvovska” and a report on their intelligence activities on the territory of the Soviet-Russian front. Judging by this report, compiled personally by Pooh, he and his accomplices committed terrorist acts in the Lvov area. After completing the assignment in Rovno, Pooh headed to Lvov and got an apartment from a Pole. Then Pooh managed to sneak into a meeting where there was a meeting of the highest government officials in Galicia under the leadership of Governor Dr. Wechter.

Pooh intended to shoot Governor Dr. Waechter under these circumstances. But due to the strict precautionary measures of the Gestapo, this plan failed, and instead of the governor, the lieutenant governor, Dr. Bauer, and the latter’s secretary, Dr. Schneider, were killed. Both of these German statesmen were shot dead near their private apartment. After the committed act, Pooh and his accomplices fled to the Zolochev area. During this period of time, Pooh had a clash with the Gestapo when the latter tried to check his car. On this occasion, he also shot and killed a senior Gestapo official. There is a detailed description of what happened. During another control of his car, Pooh shot one German officer and his adjutant, and after that he abandoned the car and was forced to flee into the forest. In the forests, he had to fight with UPA units in order to get to Rovno and further on the other side of the Soviet-Russian front with the intention of personally handing over his reports to one of the leaders of the Soviet-Russian army, who would send them further to the Center, to Moscow. As for the Soviet-Russian agent Pooh and his accomplices detained by the UPA units, we are undoubtedly talking about the Soviet-Russian terrorist Paul Siebert, who in Rovno kidnapped, among others, General Ilgen, in the Galician district shot aviation lieutenant colonel Peters, one senior aviation corporal, vice - the governor, the head of the department, Dr. Bauer and the presidial chief, Dr. Schneider, as well as the field gendarmerie major Kanter, whom we carefully searched for. By morning, a message was received from Prützmann’s combat group that Paul Siebert and his two accomplices had been found shot in Volhynia. The OUN representative promised that all materials in copies or even originals would be handed over to the security police if, in return, the security police agreed to release Ms. Lebed with the child and her relatives. It should be expected that if the promise of release is fulfilled, the OUN-Bandera group will send me a much larger amount of information material.

Signed: Head of the Security Police and SD for the Galician District, Dr. Vitiska, “SS” Obersturmbannführer and Senior Directorate Advisor

Meeting of the Colonist with the secretary of the Slovak Embassy G.-L. Krno, a German intelligence agent. 1940 Operational photography with a hidden camera

In addition to the “Winners” detachment, commanded by Dmitry Medvedev and in which Nikolai Kuznetsov was based, Viktor Karasev’s “Olympus” detachment operated in the Rivne region and Volyn, whose intelligence assistant was the legendary “Major Vikhr” - Alexey Botyan, who turned 100 this year years. I recently asked Alexey Nikolaevich if he had met Nikolai Kuznetsov and what he knew about his death.

— Alexey Nikolaevich, Dmitry Medvedev’s “Winners” detachment operated with you in the Rivne region, and in its composition, under the guise of a German officer, was the legendary intelligence officer Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov. Have you ever met him?

- Yes, I had to. This was at the end of 1943, about 30 km west of Rivne. The Germans found out the location of Medvedev’s detachment and were preparing a punitive operation against it. We found out about this, and Karasev decided to help Medvedev. We arrived there and settled down 5-6 km from Medvedev. And it was our custom: as soon as we change place, we definitely arrange a bathhouse. We had a special guy for this case. Because people are dirty - there is nowhere to wash their clothes. Sometimes they took it off and kept it over the fire so as not to get lice. I've never had lice. Well, that means we invited Medvedev to the bathhouse, and Kuznetsov just came to him from the city. He arrived in a German uniform, they met him somewhere and changed his clothes so that no one in the detachment knew about him. We invited them to the bathhouse together. Then they organized a table, I got local moonshine. They asked Kuznetsov questions, especially me. He had an impeccable command of the German language and had German documents in the name of Paul Siebert, the quartermaster of the German units. Outwardly, he looked like a German - so blond. He entered any German institution and reported that he was carrying out an assignment from the German command. So he had very good cover. I also thought: “I wish I could do that!” Bandera's men killed him. Evgeniy Ivanovich Mirkovsky, also a Hero of the Soviet Union, an intelligent and honest man, also operated in the same places. We later became friends in Moscow, I often visited his house on Frunzenskaya. His reconnaissance and sabotage group “Walkers” in June 1943 in Zhitomir blew up the buildings of the central telegraph, printing house and Gebietskommissariat. The Gebietskommissar himself was seriously wounded, and his deputy was killed. So Mirkovsky blamed Medvedev himself for the death of Kuznetsov because he did not give him good security - there were only three of them, they fell into a Bandera ambush and died. Mirkovsky told me: “All the blame for Kuznetsov’s death lies with Medvedev.” But Kuznetsov had to be taken care of - no one else did it.

— In Ukraine they sometimes say that Kuznetsov is a legend, a product of propaganda...

- What a legend - I saw it myself. We were in the bathhouse together!

— During the war, did you meet with the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD, the legendary Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov?

— The first time in 1942. He arrived at the station, said goodbye to us, and gave instructions. He told Karasev: “Take care of people!” And I stood nearby. Then, in 1944, Sudoplatov handed me the officer's shoulder straps of a senior lieutenant of state security. Well, we met after the war. And with him, and with Eitingon, who made me a Czech. It was Khrushchev who later imprisoned them, the scoundrel. What smart people they were! How much they did for the country - after all, all the partisan detachments were under them. Both Beria and Stalin - whatever you say, they mobilized the country, defended it, did not allow it to be destroyed, and there were so many enemies: both inside and outside.

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of November 5, 1944, Nikolai Kuznetsov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for exceptional courage and bravery in carrying out command tasks. The submission was signed by the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKGB of the USSR Pavel Sudoplatov.

© RIA Novosti

Not everything is clear with intelligence officer Kuznetsov

All his activities are a complete mystery.

Among Soviet intelligence officers, Nikolai Kuznetsov occupies a special place. His whole life is a collection of myths, carefully cultivated and widespread. From how he became a scout to the circumstances of his death. Candidate of Historical Sciences Vladimir Gorak wrote about the latter in the Den newspaper. It is not our task to analyze the facts he presented. This is a separate topic, although it is related to the myth-making around Kuznetsov.

Let's start with the most common legend, launched by the commander of the "Winners" detachment Dmitry Medvedev in the book "It Was Near Rovno" and for some reason taken on faith without any reason - impeccable knowledge of the German language. The fact that a boy from a remote Ural village could have phenomenal linguistic abilities is in itself quite possible and not surprising. Lomonosov, Gauss and many other scientists, writers or artists did not come from the highest circles at all. Talent is the kiss of God, and it does not choose based on social criteria. But ability is one thing, and the opportunity to learn a language so that real native speakers do not feel that the interlocutor is a foreigner is completely different. And this is where legends and omissions, and even absurdities begin.

According to some sources, Kuznetsov could learn the language by communicating, as a boy, with captured Austrians. According to others, as a result of meeting German specialists at Ural factories. The third option - he was taught by Empress Alexandra Fedorovna's maid of honor Olga Veselkina, head of the department of foreign languages ​​at the Ural Industrial Institute, now the Ural State Technical University - UPI named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin (USTU-UPI).

The book by Kuznetsov’s official biographer, KGB Colonel Theodor Gladkov, “Legend of Soviet Intelligence - N. Kuznetsov,” says that he was taught German at school by Nina Avtokratova, who lived and studied in Switzerland. With labor teacher Franz Javurek, a former Czech prisoner of war, he improved his German. Kuznetsov’s third mentor was the pharmacist at the local pharmacy, the Austrian Krause. Undoubtedly, Nikanor Kuznetsov (later he changed his name to Nikolai) could thus master the spoken and written language. And quite successfully - taking into account his undoubted abilities. What does it mean that he spoke the Komi language fluently? And he even wrote poems and short works on it. This Finno-Ugric language is quite difficult for Russians. Already in Ukraine, he mastered the Polish and Ukrainian languages, which confirms his linguistic abilities. However, here the first discrepancy appears. After all, these people could not teach him the East Prussian dialect. In particular, Krause could teach him the Austro-Bavarian dialect of German, which is very different from Berlin, which is literary and normative.

Gladkov cites in his book the memoirs of the former head of Soviet counterintelligence Leonid Raikhman, according to which, when applying for a job in the NKVD, in his presence, an illegal agent returning from Germany, after talking on the phone with Kuznetsov, noted: “He speaks like a native Berliner.” But not as a native of Königsberg. But according to legend, Paul Siebert was the son of an estate manager in East Prussia; according to other sources, the son of a landowner from the outskirts of Konigsberg and a neighbor of the Gauleiter of Ukraine, Erich Koch. And no one found any errors in his language. Strange and inexplicable. Indeed, along with the Austrian or Swiss variant, he had to learn the corresponding articulation - precisely what distinguishes, along with vocabulary, speakers of dialects from each other. Practice shows that dialect articulation is extremely difficult to get rid of, even for native speakers. The famous Moscow radio announcer Yuri Levitan made truly heroic efforts to get rid of the okanya dialect characteristic of Vladimir. The Moscow Art Theater stars helped him master the culture of speech: Nina Litovtseva, appointed head of the announcer group, her husband, People's Artist of the USSR Vasily Kachalov, other famous masters - Natalya Tolstova, Mikhail Lebedev. As far as we know, no one specifically practiced Kuznetsov’s pronunciation with him. The German ear unmistakably determines which region a person is from. To do this, you don’t need to be Professor Higgins of phonetics from the famous work of Bernard Shaw. So the Austrian beginning in the study of the German language could become a difficult obstacle to overcome for the activities of Paul Siebert.

The second option is to communicate with German specialists. It doesn't add up either. In the mid-1930s. Relations between Germany and the USSR were very tense, and there were no longer German specialists at the Ural factories. They were there before, but then Kuznetsov did not work in Sverdlovsk. The German communist workers remain. There were such people, but, firstly, it is unlikely that they were qualified technical specialists specifically from agricultural East Prussia, and secondly, at that age you can build up your vocabulary and knowledge of grammar, but correcting the pronunciation is already difficult, if not impossible.

And finally, training with Olga Veselkina. Undoubtedly, the former maid of honor knew German like a native speaker. Like a real German, especially since she learned it from native speakers since childhood. Judging by the books she wrote on methods of learning foreign languages, she was also a good teacher. Only Veselkina could not teach Kuznetsov for the simple reason that he had never studied at this institute. Gladkov and other researchers directly write about this.

The experience of Stalin’s translator, Valentin Berezhkov, speaks about how a foreign language is studied so that you cannot be recognized as a foreigner. At the German Fiebig school on Lutheranskaya Street in Kyiv, people were given slaps on the head for deviations from correct pronunciation. Perhaps not entirely pedagogical, but very effective. The teachers were Germans and spoke the Berlin dialect, and they cultivated a sense of hoch Deutsch through classical German literature. When he translated for Molotov during a visit to Berlin in November 1940, Hitler noted his impeccable German. And he was even surprised that he was not German. But Berezhkov taught him since childhood, and in the family of his father, a tsarist engineer, everyone knew German. Berezhkov had undoubted linguistic abilities. At the same time, he learned English and Polish and spoke Spanish fluently. In any case, he knew English so well that he advised American translators at the negotiations between Stalin and Harry Hopkins in July 1941, but no one ever mistook him for an American or an Englishman. It is always possible to distinguish whether a person’s language is native or learned, albeit well. Listen to our former Russian-speaking politicians. Many of them learned the Ukrainian language very well. And compare how they speak and those for whom Ukrainian is native, even with an admixture of dialectisms and reduced vocabulary. The difference is audible.

Now about one, also somehow not mentioned fact. It’s not enough to speak without an accent, you need to have the habits of a German. And not a German at all, but from East Prussia. And, perhaps, the son of the local landowner. And this is a special caste, with its own foundations, habits and customs. And her difference from other Germans was cultivated and emphasized in every possible way. It is impossible to learn such things even if you have the best teachers and you are the most diligent and attentive student. This is brought up from childhood, absorbed with mother’s milk, from father, uncles and other relatives and friends. Finally, in children's games.

A foreigner is always easy to distinguish. Not only by accent, but also by habits and behavior. It is no coincidence that many famous Soviet intelligence officers in their host countries were legalized as foreigners. Sandor Rado in Switzerland was a Hungarian, Leopold Trepper in Belgium was the Canadian manufacturer Adam Mikler, and then in France the Belgian Jean Gilbert, other members of the Red Chapel. Anatoly Gurevich and Mikhail Makarov had Uruguayan documents. In any case, they presented themselves as foreigners in the country of their business trip and therefore did not arouse suspicion of imperfect command of the language and the realities of life around them. Therefore, the legend about Stirlitz is unreliable not only because Soviet intelligence could not have such an agent in principle, but because no matter how long he lived in Germany, he did not become a German. Moreover, according to the stories of Yulian Semenov, he lived in exile with his parents in Switzerland, and there the German language is different. By the way, Comrade Lenin, who knew literary German quite well when he arrived in Zurich and Bern, at first understood little. The German-speaking Swiss, like the Austrians, have different pronunciation and vocabulary from Germanic German.

In Moscow before the war, Kuznetsov acted for some time as the German Schmidt. But the fact is that he pretended to be a Russian German. Here it is necessary to clarify that the descendants of German settlers in the Volga region, Ukraine and Moldova have largely preserved the language that their ancestors spoke. It could well have become a special dialect of the German language, which has largely retained its archaic structure. Literature had already been created on it; at the Union of Writers of Ukraine in Kharkov in the 1920s - 1930s, when it was the capital of the Ukrainian SSR, there was a German section. In Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Zaporozhye and other regions there were German national districts, schools taught in German, and teachers were trained. Then they all liquidated it, the teachers were exiled, the writers were mostly shot, and the rest rotted in camps on charges of Ukrainian (?!) nationalism. Probably because many of them wrote in both German and Ukrainian. In the Volga region, the autonomous republic of the Germans lasted a little longer, but its fate was just as tragic. The Soviet Germans could do little to help prepare Kuznetsov. Their language has not been spoken in Germany for a long time.

By the way, Kuznetsov was not the only such terrorist agent. In 1943, Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Khokhlov, acting under the guise of a German officer, brought a mine into the house of the head of the occupation administration of the General Commissariat of Belarus in Minsk, Wilhelm Kube, which was placed under his bed. Kube was killed, and underground worker Elena Mazanik received the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union for preparing an explosive device. For a long time, we didn’t remember Nikolai Khokhlov, because after the war he refused to kill one of the leaders of the People’s Labor Union and went over to the Americans. But Khokhlov pretended to be a German officer only occasionally. They want to assure us that Kuznetsov in Rivne, and then in Lvov, did nothing but find out military and state secrets from the talkative Germans. And no one ever suspected him of anything; no one paid attention to his mistakes, quite natural for a foreigner. Apart from Gauleiter Koch, he did not meet a single resident of Königsberg and its environs who simply could know the landowner Siebert and study at school with his son.

By the way, in order to receive the rank of chief lieutenant, you had to either study at a military school, in our case an infantry school, or graduate from a higher educational institution and undergo appropriate training. But Kuznetsov did not have the necessary bearing. And not Soviet, but German, but there is a big difference here, and it will immediately catch the eye of any trained person. During the war, American counterintelligence exposed a deeply hidden Abwehr agent. He was no different from other American officers, only when he fired a pistol, he took the stance of a German officer, which caught the eye of his vigilant colleagues.

If Kuznetsov studied at a German university, he should have known special student slang. Moreover, different universities have their own. There are many small details, ignorance of which immediately catches the eye and arouses suspicion. One well-prepared agent failed due to ignorance of the habits of the professor with whom, according to legend, he studied. He knew that the professor smoked, but did not know that he smoked cigarettes. This was rare in Germany, and the professor was a great original. It is unlikely that Kuznetsov, in the process of making widespread acquaintances, would not have met “his fellow students and classmates.” There are quite a lot of students at German universities, and it was quite easy to meet someone with whom you “studied” in Rivne. After all, the capital of occupied Ukraine. Either all Germans were blind and deaf, or here we are faced with another legend, designed not to explain, but to hide.

And once again about the little things in which the devil is hidden. England, late autumn 1940. A well-trained group of three Abwehr agents was successfully dropped onto the island. Everything seemed to be taken into account. And yet... After a rather cold night, fairly chilled agents with impeccable documents at 8 o'clock in the morning knocked on the hotel in the small town in the vicinity of which they landed. They were politely asked to come back in an hour as the rooms were being cleaned. When they appeared again, counterintelligence officers were already waiting for them... It turned out that during the war, visitors were checked into English hotels only after 12 noon. Ignorance of such a small, but well-known detail, alerted the receptionist, and she called the police. But the Abwehr employed not just specialists, but aces; many of them had repeatedly visited and lived in England, but, for obvious reasons, they no longer knew the seemingly insignificant realities of military life. It was not for nothing that everyone noted that the counterintelligence regime in England was one of the most severe.

In fact, there are still many unsolved mysteries - and not only in the work of Kuznetsov and his employees. In the village of Kamenka on October 27, 1944, near the Ostrog-Shumsk highway, the corpses of two women with bullet wounds were discovered. Documents were found with them in the name of Lidiya Ivanovna Lisovskaya, born in 1910, and Mikota Maria Makarevna, born in 1924. The investigation established that at about 19:00 on October 26, 1944, a military vehicle stopped on the highway, in the back of which there were two women and three or four men in the uniform of Soviet army officers. Mikota was the first to get out of the car, and when Lisovskaya wanted to give her a suitcase from the back, three shots were fired. Maria Mikota was killed immediately. Lydia Lisovskaya, wounded by the first shot, was finished off and thrown out of the car further along the highway. The car quickly left in the direction of Kremenets. It was not possible to detain her. Among the documents of the killed was a certificate issued by the NKGB department for the Lvov region: “The present comrade was issued. Lidiya Ivanovna Lisovskaya in that she is being sent to the disposal of the UNKGB for the Rivne region in the city of Rivne. We request all military and civilian authorities to provide all possible assistance in moving Comrade Lisovskaya to her destination.” The investigation was carried out under the direct supervision of the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKGB of the USSR Sudoplatov, but did not yield anything.

Lisovskaya worked in a casino in Rivne and introduced Kuznetsov to German officers, supplying information. Her cousin Mikota, on instructions from the partisans, became a Gestapo agent under the pseudonym “17”. She introduced Kuznetsov to SS officer von Ortel, who was part of the team of the famous German saboteur Otto Skorzeny. The story with Ortel represents a separate legend, which we mentioned in the material about the Tehran Conference (Day, November 29, 2008, No. 218). Let us note that at that time UPA detachments were actively operating in the region, and sending valuable employees by car at night, risking their interception by militants, was careless, to say the least. Unless their demise was planned from the very beginning. Sudoplatov and his employees did this with their own, which had become unnecessary or even dangerous, repeatedly. And what resistance from the KGB and party committees Nikolai Strutinsky, who worked with Kuznetsov, encountered when he tried to establish the circumstances and place of his death! Although, it seemed, he should have been given every assistance. This means that the competent authorities did not want this.

Inconsistencies, outright lies about the activities of the “Winners” detachment, and Kuznetsov in particular, suggest that in Rovno under the name of Paul Siebert there was not Kuznetsov, but a completely different person. And very likely a real German from East Prussia. And the militant who shot at Hitler’s functionaries could really be the one we know as Kuznetsov. He could act for a short time in a German uniform, but not communicate with the Germans for a long time due to possible quick exposure.

Indirect confirmation of this version is the data reported in the film “Lubyanka. Intelligence Genius,” shown on Moscow’s Channel One at the end of November 2006. It directly states that Kuznetsov’s work in Moscow under the name of Schmidt is a legend. There was a real German named Schmidt, who worked for Soviet counterintelligence. It may well be that it was this Schmidt who acted in occupied Rivne. And it is quite possible that he also tried to get through the front line, but was unsuccessful. In general, it is not very clear why Kuznetsov compiled a written report on the work done not in a calm atmosphere after the transition to his own, but in advance, in conditions of danger of falling into the hands of the enemy. For such an experienced intelligence officer, this is an unforgivable oversight. This seems unlikely.

Recently, the Russian FSB declassified part of the documents about Kuznetsov’s activities. But very peculiar. They were handed over to the author of many books about the intelligence officer, Theodor Gladkov, a former KGB officer. He is also the author of numerous legends about Kuznetsov. So there is still a long wait for clarity in this matter.

A HERO WITH A TRAGIC SHADE

Nikolay Kuznetsov

Dozens of books have been written about Nikolai Kuznetsov, feature films and documentaries have been made. A comrade-in-arms of the legendary Dmitry Nikolaevich Medvedev and a fearless partisan, a Soviet intelligence officer who acted for 16 months under the guise of Chief Lieutenant Paul Wilhelm Siebert, and a fearless executor of death sentences for the fascist elite.

Let's remember the most famous and indisputable facts. Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov was born in 1911. By nationality - Russian. Became (we do not yet specify the specific year) a professional intelligence officer. During the Great Patriotic War, he led a reconnaissance and sabotage group in the city of Rivne, Ukrainian SSR. He worked under the guise of a Wehrmacht officer, Oberleutnant Paul Siebert. The group acted under the command of the commander of the “Winners” partisan detachment, security officer Dmitry Medvedev. From August 25, 1942 to March 8, 1944, Kuznetsov carried out a series of acts of retaliation. It was he who destroyed the executioner of the Ukrainian people, the chief German judge Funk, General Knut, Vice-Governor of Galicia Bauer, Vice-Governor Lvov Wechter and other high-ranking fascist executioners, kidnapped and destroyed the head of the so-called “Eastern Troops” General Ilgen. Prepared assassination attempts on the Gauleiter of Ukraine Erich Koch and General Dargel...

Conducted a number of reconnaissance operations and obtained strategic information. It was Kuznetsov who reported on the impending assassination attempt by the Germans, led by Otto Skorzeny, on the “Big Three” - Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill - in Tehran during the Conference of Leaders of the Anti-Hitler Coalition. Kuznetsov was killed by Bandera on the night of March 8-9, 1944. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded posthumously in 1944, and he was awarded two Orders of Lenin.

However, in the life of intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov, much still remains classified as “secret”. Researcher and intelligence historian Theodor Gladkov helped remove this stamp. This opened up new pages in Kuznetsov’s biography. Theodor Kirillovich passed away, but not all of my notes from long conversations with him have been deciphered.

Theodor Kirillovich, it seems that everything is known about Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov. But it is in the new, 21st century that so much is written and told about him... New features are added to the already established and established image of an impeccable hero. Kuznetsov was almost accused of snitching: before the war he allegedly denounced his own people. He is both a cold killer and a seducer - almost even a pimp, who introduced ballerinas from the Bolshoi to other people's diplomats.

Stop, stop... A lot of chatter, nonsense, speculation, deliberate distortion. Sometimes there is a desire to embellish. It happens that you can denigrate. But why is there such a huge interest in Kuznetsov? Probably because the figure is very unusual, completely atypical for its time. And, this is certainly not only heroic, but also tragic in many ways.

Who really was intelligence officer Kuznetsov?

Indeed, there is something unclear and unsaid in Kuznetsov’s biography, which they previously preferred to remain silent about. Maybe this, hidden for the time being, gave rise to gossip?

Theodor Kirillovich, in Medvedev’s still popular book “Strong in Spirit,” the author casually mentions that one of his subordinates brought Kuznetsov to him in February 1942. Medvedev’s new partisan detachment was just being prepared to be deployed behind the Nazi lines, and Nikolai Ivanovich, an engineer at a Ural plant, was introduced to Medvedev as a man who spoke excellent German and was capable of playing the role of a Wehrmacht officer. Let me ask you a direct question: did Kuznetsov collaborate with the authorities before the war or not?

Collaborated. When the partisan commander Dmitry Medvedev wrote the book “Strong in Spirit,” which glorified both him and Kuznetsov, who died in 1944, he did not have the opportunity to tell the whole truth about the intelligence officer. “...Medvedev’s detachment was supposed to fly near Rovno, and a Moscow engineer came to us and said that he knew German. And a month later Paul Siebert appeared...” - it is written in the book. This is a fairy tale for young children. Scouts are not born that way. But Medvedev, naturally, who knew the true biography of his subordinate better than anyone else, was shackled by secrecy. He could not, he did not have the right to write the truth in his book and he was very sad about this. In fact, Kuznetsov had been an unofficial employee of the state security service since the 1930s and worked at various enterprises in the Urals. And the fact that he studied at the Industrial Institute and wrote his diploma in German is nonsense. Only years later, in the 1970s, the KGB for the first time allowed it to be written, and only in one line, that Kuznetsov “since 1938 began to carry out special tasks to ensure state security.” From the mysterious and, in essence, nothing revealing wording, it follows that on August 25, 1942, on August 25, 1942, it was not a hastily prepared engineer from the Urals, an ordinary Red Army soldier Grachev, who landed in the German rear with a parachute, but a fairly experienced security officer, who had already worked for four years in the authorities. And relatively recently it was possible to find out that in fact, by that time, Nikolai Ivanovich’s professional experience was not four, but ten years.

But this also refutes all the common and familiar ideas about Kuznetsov.

Since June 10, 1932, Nikolai Kuznetsov has been a special agent of the district department of the OGPU of the Komi-Permyak Autonomous National District. He accepted the offer to work in the OGPU-NKVD because he was a patriot, and partly thanks to his youthful romanticism. Code nickname - "Kulik". Then in 1934 in Sverdlovsk he became a “Scientist”, and later, in 1937, a “Colonist”. In Medvedev’s detachment he acted under the name of Red Army soldier Nikolai Vasilyevich Grachev. And, for example, in Sverdlovsk, where he moved from Kudymkar in the summer of 1934, he was listed as a statistician in the Sverd-Les trust, a draftsman at the Verkh-Isetsky plant, and finally, a shop worker at the technical control bureau of the design department. In fact, he was on the secret staff of the Sverdlovsk department of the OGPU - NKVD. For four years as a route agent, he traveled the length and breadth of the entire Urals. The description of that period noted: “Resourceful and quick-witted, has an exceptional ability to make the necessary contacts and quickly navigate the situation. He has a good memory."

With whom did Kuznetsov make useful acquaintances for the OGPU?

In those years, many foreign engineers and craftsmen, especially Germans, worked at Uralmash and other factories. There weren't enough specialists of our own. Some came from Germany back in 1929 during the crisis to earn money - they were paid in hard currency. Others sincerely wanted to help the Land of Soviets. And there were also outright enemies: the chief fitter of the Borzig company defiantly wore a ring with a swastika.

Charming and sociable Kuznetsov knew how to easily get along with people of different ages and social status. I met with them at work and at home, talked in German, exchanged books and records. His sister Lida, who also lived in Sverdlovsk and did not have the slightest idea about her brother’s true profession, was worried about him: such communication with foreigners could come back to haunt her beloved brother Nika. But Nikolai just chuckled. None of his relatives ever guessed about his connection with the authorities - also a considerable achievement for an intelligence officer. And only on August 23, 1942, before being transferred to Medvedev’s detachment, “Winners” casually said at a farewell meeting to his brother Victor: if there is no news about him for a long time, then you can look at Kuznetsky Most, there in house 24 they will answer. After the war, Viktor Ivanovich Kuznetsov found out that this was the address of the NKVD reception.

And Nikolai Kuznetsov strove, as if sensing how his future fate would turn out, to adopt the style of behavior from the Germans. Sometimes he copied their style of dressing, learned to wear well-ironed suits, to which he matched shirts and ties by color, and showed off in a soft, slightly lopsided hat. I tried to keep abreast of new products in German literature, paying attention to scientific and technical books, and often looked into the reading room of the library of the Industrial Institute. Hence, by the way, the myth: Kuznetsov graduated from this institute and even defended his diploma in German.

Well, the young employee Kuznetsov communicated with foreigners and got along with them. What good does this do to the security officers?

Like which one? Special agent Kuznetsov did not sit idle. Imagine the same Uralmash - the center of the Soviet military industry. There are a lot of foreigners there, including Germans. It is clear that there were their intelligence officers and the agents they recruited. Many left, but those recruited remained. And Kuznetsov reported on moods and identified agents. There is a tip, and recruitment, and verification, and installation...

Kuznetsov also worked in agriculture: kulaks were exiled to the area where he worked in Komi. Of course, many were registered as kulaks in vain. But there were also kulak uprisings, and murders of activists, villagers, real, not fake sabotage. So taxi driver Kuznetsov received the right to carry weapons. Not just rifles, like all foresters. He had a revolver. The man went into the forest, and there they killed postmen, taxi drivers, and those who represented the authorities.

But how did Kuznetsov end up in Moscow? Who exactly recommended it?

Complicated story. He was found in Komi by the new People's Commissar of the NKVD, a former party worker, Mikhail Ivanovich Zhuravlev. He sent him to strengthen the ranks of the KGB, and he quickly rose to the rank of head of the republican ministry. He calls the Counterintelligence Department in Moscow and reports to his teacher Leonid Raikhman...

The same one who was accused of collaborating with Beria?..

I answer your question about Kuznetsov without going into details of the biography of Lieutenant General of the NKVD Raikhman, by the way, one of the ex-husbands of the famous ballerina Olga Vasilievna Lepeshinskaya. (He was the second and not the last husband of the ballerina. He was arrested, convicted, rehabilitated, but did not return to his wife after prison. - N.D.) Zhuravlev reports: “I have a guy here with fantastic acting and linguistic abilities. He speaks several dialects of German, Polish, and here he learned Komi, so much so that he writes poetry in this most complex language.” And Reichman just happened to have one of his illegal immigrants who came from Germany. I put Kuznetsov on the phone with him, we talked, and the illegal immigrant didn’t understand: he asked Reichman, did they call from Berlin? They made an appointment for Kuznetsov in Moscow. That’s how he ended up in the capital... But Kuznetsov never appeared at Lubyanka once in his life.

Were you afraid to let in?

There were few such agents. They were never illuminated. They could take a photo of a person entering the building and that would be the end of the job. The first meeting, as if according to tradition, was near the monument to the pioneer printer Fedorov. Then at safe houses, in the Park of Culture and in the Bauman Garden. They gave him housing on Karl Marx Street at number 20 - this is Staraya Basmannaya. The apartment is crammed with various equipment. All conversations of interest to Lubyanka were recorded.

Fishing with live bait

He was settled under the name of Rudolf Wilhelmovich Schmidt, a German by nationality, born in 1912. In fact, Kuznetsov, let me remind you, was born a year earlier. He pretended to be a test engineer at the Ilyushinsky plant and appeared in the uniform of a senior lieutenant of the Red Army Air Force.

But why the senior lieutenant?

Kuznetsov realized that his age, 29–30 years old, was just right for a lieutenant. A legend for strangers: he works in Fili, at a factory where airplanes are produced.

It’s surprising that Lieutenant Schmidt was so taken in by this.

Successfully invented - Rudolf Schmidt, that is, translated into Russian by Kuznetsov. He speaks German, was born in Germany, when he was two years old, his parents settled in the USSR, where the boy grew up. In hindsight, Kuznetsov was given a passport in this name and a “white ticket” so that he would not be dragged around the military registration and enlistment offices. It’s hard for any intelligence agency not to fall for such a tempting bait. In addition, the commander of the Red Army looks like a true Aryan. And what a bearing. Now photos of Nikolai Kuznetsov from those times are often published: he is in a flight suit. But here’s what’s interesting, or even characteristic. Nobody gave him that flight uniform with three head-to-toe senior lieutenant uniforms. He told Reichman that he got it himself, came up with a legend and acted on it. He never served in any army and had no military rank. But how smart he is in a German way, elegant in a European way. Now? we know: Kuznetsov was illegal in his own country.

But they could have awarded the title.

No title, no certificate. And when applying for a job, which was almost always fictitious, he wrote in his application form that he was exempt from military service due to illness. And he was absolutely healthy. True, when he underwent a thorough medical examination before being sent to Medvedev’s detachment, they discovered that he had a vision defect. But it is minor and does not interfere with operational work. And Kuznetsov always wrote that he didn’t know languages. And here’s what’s curious: if he had to, he could pass himself off as a foreigner who spoke Russian poorly. This was required several times.

Where did he work or at least what was he assigned to?

In Moscow, he was secretly on the staff and received a salary directly from the first department - the German one, created in 1940. Nikolai Kuznetsov even had the only position in the Soviet intelligence service: a highly classified special agent of the NKVD with a salary at the rate of a personnel detective of the central apparatus. And the salary is quite large. Everyone saw that he actively communicates with foreigners. There were so many denunciations. Lots of denunciations! I read them. Well, I’ll tell you, they did write. The most active one is the neighbor in his communal apartment: he takes foreigners and in general.

I guess the denunciations ended up in the same place.

In theory they should. But due to some confusion, our counterintelligence also took Kuznetsov into development and established surveillance on him. They even gave him nicknames: one was “Athlete” for his muscular figure, the other was “Front” for his elegance in clothes. I saw these denunciations signed by two different people from outdoor surveillance - “Kat” and “Nadezhda”.

It was probably the same women he used who were knocking.

Not at all necessary. Male agents also used female names to hide behind them. But Kuznetsov could be taken sooner or later.

Didn't intelligence chiefs warn their colleagues about him?

Never. This would be even more dangerous for him. The intelligence officer did not have the right to reveal his connections even to his office neighbor. But reports about Rudi Schmidt’s behavior ended up on the desk of NKGB People’s Commissar Merkulov. And he was faced with a dilemma - to arrest his own special agent or give the order to the outdoor surveillance not to respond to “Athlete”. Disclosing the agent was not part of the GB's plans. And Merkulov found the right solution, writing on the servant’s note: “Pay attention to Schmidt.” Which, in a language understandable to counterintelligence, meant: don’t touch, don’t arrest, don’t conduct conversations, but continue monitoring. So Kuznetsov was a cat that walked on its own. Otherwise it’s dangerous. They could, they could have grabbed it. Thus, Kovalsky, well-known in certain areas, who recruited General Skoblin in Paris, was shot by his own people. Although he told them, he swore to them who he was. It was in Ukraine, and the Center was looking for him, having lost contact with him. Kuznetsov left from observation. Did his job. Recruited Germans. Obtained secret documents. His task in counterintelligence was to get foreigners, primarily German intelligence agents, to fall for him. And General Reichman confirmed: “We didn’t teach him anything.” And Kuznetsov bought a camera and quickly took pictures of the documents handed to him by the agents - he learned to take photographs himself. And I also learned to drive a car myself. There was no time for studying at some intelligence school: by that time, Kuznetsov had been expelled from the Komsomol twice. First, for the fact that his father is supposedly a fist and even one of the former. Lies. Kuznetsov also had a criminal record. And a few years later, when he was already working in the authorities, there was another arrest. Not up to higher education - they didn’t even let him finish college.

Let's talk about the arrest a little later. But how did he manage to earn a criminal record in his young years?

When he was expelled from the Komsomol as the “son of a kulak,” he was expelled from the technical school a semester before graduation. There was nothing left until the end of his studies, and he was only given a certificate that he had attended the courses. And nineteen-year-old Kuznetsov rushed out of harm’s way, on the advice of his comrade, to the Komi-Permyak district. Where to go next? He served there as a forester, and someone from his direct superiors stole. Kuznetsov himself reported this to the police. And for his company, he was given a year of probation and again expelled from the Komsomol.

The biography is not the most suitable for a future organ worker. Am I right or wrong: on that first conviction, his organs were seized and recruited?

This is what usually happens. And with Kuznetsov, to my surprise, the story is somewhat different. Once in Komi, Kuznetsov famously fought off the bandits who attacked him. And he came to the attention of detective Ovchinnikov. A Komi-Permyak by nationality, he suddenly discovered that the young Russian who had recently arrived here was not only brave and strong, but also spoke, and fluently, in his native language. It was Ovchinnikov who recruited Kuznetsov, quickly realizing that he had accidentally landed on a nugget... And then in Komi, Mikhail Ivanovich Zhuravlev found strength, tore such talent away from himself, and gave it to Muscovites. But Kuznetsov could work in his distant place until the end of his days.

Why did he never take a course in the wisdom of the KGB?

Raikhman feared that upon admission to the KGB school, personnel officers would send Kuznetsov not to the exams, but to the detention center. But I had to work today. After all, the intelligence officers did not believe in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Reichman and his comrades even wrote a report about this. But Merkulov, their then boss, tore up the paper with the parting words: “They don’t like this at the top...” Moscow was flooded with German agents. They launched a very cunning combination, and certain circles approached Kuznetsov. And off we go. We managed to intercept two diplomatic couriers. Kuznetsov soon managed to compromise and recruit a certain Krno, a diplomat who actually replaced the envoy of Slovakia. He smuggled entire consignments of smuggled watches through diplomatic channels, part of the proceeds from their sale seemed to go to pay the agents, but in fact everything ended up in Krno’s pockets - he was such a greedy guy.

By the way, there were so many watches confiscated by intelligence that employees of our state security agencies were allowed to buy them at cost. And they bought it.

And Kuznetsov pressed hard on Krno, and the most valuable information came from him, who disappeared in the German embassy for days and nights.

Then, thanks to Kuznetsov, they found approaches to the German naval and military attache. Yes, he knew how to charm people. Here is a German delegation visiting ZIS - the famous automobile plant. And Rudolf Schmidt meets a member of the delegation, who in turn introduces the good-natured Rudi to his companion. The lady is beautiful, the advances of the Russian officer are pleasant to her. There is a rapprochement. And intelligence gets the opportunity to regularly read documents from the German Embassy, ​​where the beauty works in an inconspicuous but important purely technical position, through which many secret documents automatically pass. Kuznetsov managed to win over both the German ambassador’s valet and his wife.

Not quite clear.

There are many unknowns in his life. And before the war, thanks to Kuznetsov, they entered the ambassador’s residence in Teply Lane. Safes were opened, copies of documents were made, and the German intelligence network fell into the hands of Lubyanka employees. And the valet of the German ambassador, who considered Kuznetsov a real Aryan, a fascist, gave him a Nazi badge and the book “Mein Kampf” on the last pre-war Christmas and promised to formalize membership in the Nazi party after the end of the war.

Divorced, no children

There is a lot of gossip that Kuznetsov often used beautiful ladies in his work. Sorry for the rudeness, as if he put ballerinas and other artists in bed with foreigners. They even named the name of one people's artist, and other celebrities too.

It was, but, of course, not on the exaggerated scale that people talk about. Kuznetsov was a handsome man and enjoyed success with women. Including those who, in addition to him, also had wealthy fans, not only Soviet ones. The salary of ballerinas is not very high, but a foreigner will bring stockings and mascara from Paris, and throw in something else. So Kuznetsov didn’t set anyone up. The beautiful ladies knew their business even without him. Yes, among the ballerinas there were also his sources, who told Kuznetsov a lot of things.

He also had a serious affair with a lady artist. She was then about thirty, living in a luxurious apartment near Petrovsky Passage. Salon, bohemia - by the way, in that apartment Kuznetsov met actor Mikhail Zharov. And Kuznetsov, in my opinion, seriously fell in love with this socialite with a noble surname - Keana Obolenskaya. He was known to her as Rudi Schmidt. The beginning of the 1940s, and the pact is not a pact, the attitude towards the Germans is already wary, they could be punished for close ties with them. Little by little, the Germans began to be pressed down, evicted from Moscow, and the Republic of the Volga Germans was completely depopulated; its inhabitants were transported to the Kazakh steppes. And Ksana, so that God forbid nothing happens to her, took her love, to put it in modern terms, and abandoned her. Kuznetsov suffered. Already when he was behind the front line in a partisan detachment, vague rumors reached him about Ksana’s marriage. I asked Medvedev in January 1944 before leaving for Lvov: if I die, be sure to tell the truth about me to Ksana, explain who I was. And Medvedev, already a Hero of the Soviet Union, found this same Keana Obolenskaya during the war, in 1944, in Moscow, fulfilled the will of his friend, talked about the Hero, who loved her until the end of his days.

And a scene of repentance ensued?

Nothing like it. Complete indifference and indifference. Medvedev, a sincere, subtle man, was worried about his deceased intelligence officer.

Maybe Ksana was jealous? Kuznetsov had to sleep with other women.

For operational purposes. I had to bless Nicholas for these novels. As a result, valuable information was obtained. And Ksana turned out to be extremely soulless.

It’s such a shame for Nikolai Ivanovich. I didn’t know that such a love happened to him. Is it true that Kuznetsov was once married in his youth?

Pure truth. On December 4, 1930, the wedding took place, and, bam, on March 4, 1931, there was a divorce. My personal life didn’t work out, and I’ll never understand why. So it remained between two people who, apparently, loved each other at the beginning of their life together. His ex-wife Elena Chueva turned out to be an exceptionally noble and worthy woman. A graduate of medical school, she fought, saved the wounded and ended the war with the rank of major. She was demobilized after the victory over Japan. And, you know, I never boasted to anyone, saying that I am the hero’s wife, and I didn’t ask for anything.

There was some talk about children. More specifically, about my daughter.

There were no children. Rumors about the daughter really started to spread and they were verified. Kuznetsov only had a nephew.

Spies flew to us in batches

Kuznetsov began working in Moscow as an intelligence officer in difficult pre-war times.

Yes, and he had to communicate with different people.

He became a regular at the then famous jewelry consignment store on Stoleshnikov Lane. There he made acquaintances with both noble and unclean people. I knew many people in the artistic world. There was a moment when, in order to legalize Kuznetsov, they even wanted to make him the administrator of the Bolshoi Theater. But they were afraid to draw too much attention to him.

The Germans were most active in 1940 and 1941. At that time, German intelligence launched a truly frantic activity in the USSR. That's who got everything they could out of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. What delegations visit us often! Well, where has this happened - about two hundred people. And there was a constant change of employees - some worked for a month or three, and some showed up for a day or two, completed the task and were gone.

But little is written about this.

Not the best times. I don’t even want to remember them. There was a huge landing of Germans on the ZIL, many trade delegations. Go keep an eye on it. The most difficult years for our special services. It happened that among the terry spies our agents suddenly appeared in Moscow, for example Harnak, who went down in history as one of the leaders of the Red Chapel. Or they established air traffic, flew to Moscow from Berlin and Koenigsberg with landings in our cities by their Lufthansa. And instead of girls - flight attendants in aprons - only brave guys - stewards with excellent bearing. But they also changed: two or three flights, and a different team. This is how German navigators from the Luftwaffe studied the routes.

But I read in the memoirs of fascist intelligence officers that there were few permanent German spies in Moscow. And therefore in Berlin they took advantage of every chance to send in their own people, at least for a while. What about ours? Did you get to Berlin?

Ours also flew there. But in small groups. While the NKVD decides who can fly, who will be released...

I would like to ask you about the complicated story with the Soviet pilot Alekseev, who died mysteriously while testing a new aircraft model.

There was such a German squadron under the command of the world ace Theodor Rovel, which was named after the commander during his lifetime. And at altitudes inaccessible to pilots from other countries, she flew over all the countries that were subsequently attacked by Hitler.

German sources write modestly about her. We flew at enormous altitudes and took photographs. That's all. Who flew? Where? What kind of squadron is Rovel? At first, Hitler seemed to order her not to violate the borders of the USSR, so as not to suggest thoughts of non-compliance with the pact. Then, closer to the summer of 1941, all previous restrictions were lifted. If you believe the rumors, which one would like to call ridiculous, then Rovel’s squadron flew almost to Moscow. Just a young aviator Rust.

Yes, there is still work to be done by our researchers, including intelligence historians. And indeed there are photographs of Leningrad taken by Rovel’s pilots. But then our pilot Mikhail Alekseev appeared and, using experimental engines of the I-16 fighter, began to rise to altitudes close to German ones. And suddenly he died on one of the flights. Here, not the Germans, but the Japanese began to approach the test engineer, senior lieutenant Rudolf Schmidt, and were keenly interested in the fate of Alekseev. After all, Schmidt, according to legend, worked in Fili, at a factory built by the Germans. They are not here now, but who knows, perhaps they left behind agents or people who owed them something? By all indications, cautious Germans acted through the curious Japanese. Kuznetsov informed his superiors about the interest that arose and gave the Japanese a half-true version that suited them. True, perhaps he raised the ceiling that Alekseev reached. However, what actually happened to Alekseev and how he died is unknown.

Linguist from Mother Nature

Theodor Kirillovich, what is this confusion with Kuznetsov’s names? There is a myth that when he joined intelligence service, he received a new name.

But this is not entirely a myth, but the NKVD has nothing to do with it. Kuznetsov was born on July 27, 1911 in the village of Zyryanka, Kamyshlovsky district, Perm province. At birth he was named Nikanor, at home - Nika. The guy didn’t like the name Nikanor, and in 1931 he changed it to Nikolai. But some confusion and discrepancies did remain. Kuznetsov’s youth friend Fyodor Belousov told me that when Nikolai Ivanovich’s relatives and classmates learned that a certain Nikolai Kuznetsov had been awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, they thought it was a namesake. Even sister Lydia and brother Victor remained in the dark for a long time. He was believed to have gone missing. After all, there was no exact confirmation of his death: they didn’t even write in the decree that it was “posthumous.” Still, despite everything, there remained some faint hopes that the scout would be found. And in Moscow, Kuznetsov’s true biography was so secret that the Certificate of the Presidium of the Supreme Council awarding him the title of Hero remained undelivered to his relatives. At the end of the war, it was completely lost, and only in 1965 was a duplicate made.

Some biographers of Kuznetsov believed that Nikolai Ivanovich was allegedly an ethnic German, a native of a German colony, of which there were many before the Great Patriotic War. This explained his excellent knowledge of the language.

His father Ivan Pavlovich, like his mother Anna Pavlovna, are originally Russian people. Before the revolution, my father served in a grenadier regiment in St. Petersburg. But weaklings were not accepted as grenadiers. I pulled the strap for seven years. For accurate shooting, he was awarded prizes from the young Tsar Nicholas II: he brought a watch, a silver ruble and a bluish mug with portraits of the emperor and empress. However, he was not a nobleman or a white officer: he fought in the Red Army near Tukhachevsky, then near Eikhe. He beat Kolchak’s men, reached all the way to Krasnoyarsk, but caught typhus and was dismissed at the age of 45, as the clerk of the Fifth Army of the Eastern Front wrote, “in pursuance of the order to a primitive state.” And not a fist, as other everyday life writers claim. When Nikolai Kuznetsov was accused of hiding information about his wealthy family and expelled from the Komsomol for this, his mother gave her son a certificate. Even in those troubled times, local authorities were not afraid to confirm: “During his lifetime, Ivan Pavlovich Kuznetsov was engaged exclusively in agriculture, did not engage in trade and did not employ hired force.”

Where did Kuznetsov get such a talent for languages?

And from the same nature. A boy from the Ural village of Zyryanka with 84 households and 396 inhabitants mastered German perfectly. Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov was a brilliant linguist. And he was incredibly lucky with his foreign language teachers. This is how fate turned out - in his wilderness, from where the nearest provincial town is 93 miles away, educated people were brought who would teach in gymnasiums, and, fortunately, the village boy Nika Kuznetsov gained knowledge from them. At the Talitsk seven-year school, German and French were taught by Nina Nikolaevna Avtokratova. She received her education as a school teacher in a distant Ural village in Switzerland. Kuznetsov's passion for languages ​​was considered a whim. And therefore, his friendship with labor teacher Franz Frantsevich Yavurek, a former prisoner of war who settled in those parts, seemed mysterious to his classmates. I picked up colloquial speech, lively phrases and expressions from the soldier’s vocabulary, which could not have been in the dictionary of the most intelligent teacher. I chatted a lot with the pharmacist of the local pharmacy, the Austrian Krause. When I worked in Kudymkar, I surprisingly quickly mastered Komi, which is difficult, like all the languages ​​of the Finno-Ugric group. He even wrote poetry on it, as the ubiquitous security officers discovered. After studying for only a year in Tyumen, he joined the Esperantist club and translated his favorite “Borodino” by Lermontov into Esperanto. At the technical school, he came across the German “Encyclopedia of Forestry Science,” which no one had opened before him, and translated it into Russian. And already in Sverdlovsk, where he worked as a secret agent, he became friends with an actress of the city theater - a Polish national. The result of the novel is knowledge of the Polish language, which also came in handy for him. In the partisan detachment “Winners”, which operated in Ukraine, he spoke Ukrainian. The Spaniards, who served in the forests near Rivne in Medvedev’s detachment, suddenly became worried. They reported to the commander: soldier Grachev understands that when we speak our native language, he is not the person he claims to be. And it was Kuznetsov, with his linguistic talent, who opened up an understanding of a previously unfamiliar language. German has many dialects. In addition to the classic one, Kuznetsov owned five or six more. This helped Lieutenant Siebert more than once when communicating with German officers. It is clear that for the illegal Kuznetsov, who acted under a legendary biography, a meeting with a native of the German city where the intelligence officer was allegedly born would be almost a disaster. Kuznetsov-Siebert, quickly grasping which part of Germany his interlocutor was from, began to speak with a slight touch of the dialect of a land located at the other end of the country.

Or perhaps the conversation among fellow countrymen would have been more frank?

The worst thing for an illegal intelligence officer is to run into a fellow countryman: who taught chemistry at your favorite school? And now it’s a failure, very close. In Germany? Kuznetsov has never been.

Appearance of Chief Lieutenant Siebert

How did Oberleutnant Paul Siebert come into being?

For almost a year, Kuznetsov languished in our rear. He was indignant, wrote reports, asked to go to the front.

I was told that Nikolai Ivanovich, even before the “Winners,” managed to visit the German rear. But the story is vague and not entirely clear to me. The reconnaissance operation in the Kalinin area was mentioned.

More like the Kalinin Front. And its details are not clear to me. Kuznetsov was thrown behind German lines. He spent several days there, the military were satisfied with his activities. That's probably all I managed to find out. But they were in no hurry to throw Nikolai behind the Germans again. Finally, the intelligence officer was included in Medvedev’s group. The order was signed by the People's Commissar of the NKVD Merkulov - the highest level, which already speaks of what results were expected from Kuznetsov.

At the beginning of 1942, documents of killed German officers were found near Moscow. Signs of Paul Siebert - height, eye color, hair, even blood type - well, everything matched Kuznetsov’s. True, Siebert was born in 1913, and Kuznetsov was two years older. By the way, Siebert is from Koenigsberg, now our Kaliningrad.

Intense preparations went on for several months. Parachute jumping and shooting from different types of weapons were not the most difficult tests in it. Although it suddenly turned out that Kuznetsov, an excellent hunter, shoots excellently with a carbine and very poorly with a pistol. This was obvious to Kuznetsov as well. Three weeks later he was already hitting targets with both hands: from the Parabellum and from the Walter.

Kuznetsov had to understand the structure of someone else’s army and master a slang that was unusual even for him. It was not easy to delve into the intricate system of the German intelligence services.

He was shown films with movie star Marika Rökk. He saw the paintings of the Fuhrer's favorite Leni Riefenstahl, who devoted her talent to praising fascism (and suddenly in our time was proclaimed almost an opponent of the Hitler regime). He read primitive German novels found in the field bags of killed German officers. I learned to whistle the soldiers’ favorite melodies like “Lili Marlene.”

Then, under the guise of an infantry lieutenant, Kuznetsov was placed in an officer’s barracks in a Soviet prisoner of war camp located near Krasnogorsk. He behaved carefully. The slightest mistake - and the bunk neighbors would not have spared the decoy duck. And to Kuznetsov’s surprise, the discipline of the captured Germans was strong. And they were arrogant, confident that they would soon take Moscow anyway, that this imprisonment was temporary.

The special agent was tested, did not show up anywhere, and the Nazis took him for one of their own. In the camp drama club where he studied (Lord, there was one), he was set as an example to others for his purely literary pronunciation. He managed to pick up so much slang words. He even made friends with whom he agreed to meet after the war, the end of which “wasn’t long.” And, perhaps, he understood the main thing - the confrontation between two antipodean systems seriously and for a long time. Kuznetsov did not notice any traces of the decomposition of the German army, which suffered its first defeat near Moscow, about which our newspapers and radio broadcast.

The authorities were pleased with this “penetration”. After all, it was difficult to imagine how the “replant” would be received - a foreign trench language, unusual manners. And the acting gift of complete transformation that was revealed at the same time turned Kuznetsov into a real illegal immigrant.

He languished in anticipation of the case, his reports with a request to be sent to any task accumulated with his superiors, until, finally, the long-awaited decision was made.

Fighter Nikolai Vasilyevich Grachev appeared in Medvedev’s “Winners” squad. And in the city of Rovno - Chief Lieutenant Siebert. Due to two wounds, according to legend, he was “temporarily unfit for front-line service.” Kuznetsov was sent for a short period of time. No one could have imagined that he would last almost a year and a half. This is a unique case, a record - to withstand so much with fake documents. After all, a deep check would have revealed it instantly. And he gave no reason for the slightest suspicion. If they sent the documents to Berlin, that would be the end of the epic.

Why do you think Chief Lieutenant, and then Captain Siebert, who personally destroyed many fascist bosses, managed to hold out for so long?

He was a great scout. Yes, today it seems incredible: a Russian man, a civilian, who had never served in any army for a day and did not even have a military rank, who had never been to Germany, acted under an assumed name for 16 months. And the small city of Rivne was completely visible by Hitler’s special services - counterintelligence, secret field police, Feldgendarmerie, local military gendarmerie, and finally, SD. Kuznetsov not only carried out death sentences to fascist executioners, but also constantly communicated with officers of the Wehrmacht, intelligence services, and senior officials of the occupation authorities. How much valuable information he conveyed! What was the value of the data alone about the impending assassination attempt on Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill in Tehran!

What if the Germans still wanted to check Siebert’s identity? The quartermaster, even after being seriously wounded, remained in Rivne for too long.

Much depended on two factors. The first one is from a legend. The second factor is the skill of the scout. With skill - everything is clear. And the legend was developed brilliantly. According to her, Siebert was not at all one of the quartermaster rats, whom the front-line soldiers did not like. After all, he was wounded in heavy battles near Moscow, as evidenced by the patch on his jacket. What huge losses his unit suffered then, even the headquarters was completely destroyed! And he began to fight “since the Polish campaign,” in September 1939, when he earned the Iron Cross, which was always on his uniform, albeit of the second degree.

Soon Kuznetsov was lucky: “his” 76th division was destroyed in 1943 near Stalingrad. It is unlikely that any of Siebert’s former real fellow soldiers remained alive. Unless he was captured. And if we were to go to Berlin for an in-depth investigation, where we could properly delve into the archives, then we needed some specific reason, an obvious suspicion. But Kuznetsov-Siebert did not give them. He attended to the little things with a thoroughness that was surprising even for Medvedev. Somehow it seemed to him that the German officer’s uniform he was putting on was not ironed enough. There was no iron in the squad. And then the uniform was ironed... with an ax heated over the fire by Simone Krimker. For the future illegal intelligence officer, this was an excellent lesson: there can be no trifles in this profession. Or another episode. A man's ring with an intricate monogram fell into the hands of security officers in Moscow. And at Kuznetsov’s request, the jeweler redid the engraving on PS - Paul Siebert. Kuznetsov, going to Rovno in the uniform of a chief lieutenant, put expensive jewelry on his finger when he wanted to impress an important and necessary interlocutor. A tiny detail, but it also naturally and believably complemented the appearance of an illegal immigrant.

I met with Foreign Intelligence Colonel Pavel Georgievich Gromushkin, who straightened out the documents for Nikolai Ivanovich. He was already over ninety, and he remembered Kuznetsov-Siebert very well, but he thought that it was too early to reveal this military page. He told me something, but asked “not to publish it yet.” (This “for now” has passed and therefore I will allow myself to tell something in this book.) Former printing engineer Gromushkin prepared documents for virtually all illegal immigrants, including his friend Colonel Fischer - Abel. Although he was able to create a document in any language.

Dmitry Medvedev's former deputy for intelligence, Lukin, told me that, according to his calculations, Siebert's documents were checked more than seventy times on a variety of occasions. And Kuznetsov reported on each case.

But don’t think that Kuznetsov was such a lone wolf in Rovno. Under his command were the scouts who had been abandoned with him, Red Army soldiers who had escaped from captivity, and local residents. He was reliably covered by the most experienced security officers from Medvedev’s detachment.

In intelligence, especially illegal intelligence, not believing in your star means failing from the very beginning. Yes, Kuznetsov believed. Faith almost always helped. And when a real hunt began for Kuznetsov’s Siebert, Nikolai Ivanovich took it without much fear. Perhaps we should be even more careful here. But how? Hide, refuse to carry out acts of retaliation? No, it was not in his spirit, Kuznetsov did not agree to such a thing. Played Russian roulette with fate. He was a brilliantly resourceful man. One day, a German intelligence officer invited him to take a dip in the river. Kuznetsov quickly came up with an excuse for refusal.

According to legend, he had two wounds, but not a single scar on his body. Kuznetsov knew how much he was needed and never allowed himself to relax.

mission Impossible

Here I will interrupt the conversation with the respected Theodor Kirillovich. It is a pity that soon our frank friendly meetings were interrupted forever. But there were topics that I told Gladkov about with the greatest possible frankness at that time.

In this chapter, I do not aim to tell about all the exploits of Kuznetsov. Rather, I’m trying to show the actions of a great intelligence officer in the harshest military conditions, where the price of any mistake is death. I am disgusted by some modern books where fascist counterintelligence is portrayed as stupid, clumsy, constantly losing to ours. I also don’t like translated literature, such as Schellenberg’s memoirs, where the fascists justify themselves by blaming all the troubles and defeats on Hitler, and boast about the Russian agents they recruited - the vast majority of them being frames of the Soviet state security.

The Third Reich managed to create a total system of investigation and detection. It reminds me very much of the system of indirect signs that the German counterintelligence used, perhaps inherited from its compatriots, in the fight against the ubiquitous Stasi.

Is this why we did not have our own agents in the Gestapo except Lehmann-Breitenbach, who was discovered and killed back in December 1942? And attempts to send well-trained German anti-fascists to restore contact with the still active Red Chapel ended in the arrest of our agents and the tragic destruction of the entire Chapel.

Let us remember that the successful assassination attempts carried out directly in Germany on fascist bosses do not appear in the long list of successful operations. The liquidations of Heydrich, von Kube and those whom Kuznetsov punished were carried out not on German soil, but on foreign soil.

I place Nikolai Kuznetsov’s hunt for Gauleiter Koch in the same series of difficult retaliation operations. Soviet intelligence was obliged to destroy the sadist, executioner and punisher, as well as the Fuhrer's governor in Belarus, Cuba, on Stalin's personal orders. And if Troyan, Mazanik, Osipova coped with the task, then Kuznetsov did not succeed with Kokh. And I sincerely think it couldn’t have worked out. The mission was obviously impossible. Kuznetsov was aware of this, suffering painfully and reproaching himself for the failure.

How much effort was spent trying to find out when Koch would appear in Rivne. With great difficulty, Kuznetsov sometimes obtained outdated information: on February 2, 1943, he learned that on January 27, Koch flew to Rivne and on the same day flew to Lutsk. Or here’s a message from February 20 of the same year: instead of Koch, his deputy is in charge of all affairs in Rivne. Or Kuznetsov learns from a German officer he knows: the Reich Commissioner only occasionally travels to Vinnitsa from Königsberg.

Shortly before April 20, 1943, luck finally smiled on Kuznetsov. On Hitler's birthday, Reich Commissioner Erich Koch was supposed to speak in Rivne in front of a crowd of people. The plan seemed relatively simple - Kuznetsov’s group one by one makes its way closer to the podium, throws grenades at it and tries to escape. Nikolai Ivanovich left a farewell letter to Medvedev: it is physically impossible to commit an assassination attempt and leave the crowded square. But he, like his partisan scouts, is ready for self-sacrifice. However, Koch did not come to Rivne.

Another plan called “Amateur Performance” also failed - a group of two dozen partisans, dressed in German uniforms, approached Koch’s residence in Rovno, singing a song they had learned in German, stormed the house and killed the Reich Commissioner. But going to a well-guarded residence was pure suicide, without the slightest chance of success.

One day the exact date of Koch’s arrival in Rivne became known. A partisan ambush awaited him near the airfield. With some luck, the operation promised to be successful. But the fascist did not arrive. Instead of Rovno, he went to the funeral of a party comrade who died in a car accident.

Attempts to destroy Koch by military means could be continued, forgetting about the risk. The question was different. They did not promise any success. And then experienced security officers Medvedev, Lukin and Grachev began to quickly develop the assassination attempt. The opportunity to learn about Koch's plans came unexpectedly. Chief Corporal Schmidt, a dog handler by civilian profession, trained a dog to guard Koch. He himself had to hand over the black bloodhound to the Reich Commissioner, who was going to arrive in Rovno on May 25, 1943 and stay with the dog next to Koch for ten days.

Siebert and Schmidt developed a friendly relationship, the chief lieutenant fueled them by treating the greedy chief corporal in a restaurant. And Schmidt's dog also began to recognize Siebert. Having been taught not to approach strangers, she gradually got used to her master's friend and even began to take food from Siebert's hands. But it was not yet clear how this could be used in the future.

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Kuznetsov, Evgeniy 1981 - 86: student at Tyumen University, where he studies English; 1986 - 95: translator from English. In addition, throughout the second half of the 1980s, he was a drummer in almost all of the then Tyumen rock bands, “Instructions for Survival,” Cultural Revolution" and

From the book Dossier on the Stars: truth, speculation, sensations, 1934-1961 author Razzakov Fedor

Anatoly KUZNETSOV Anatoly Kuznetsov was born on December 31, 1930 in Moscow (the Kuznetsov family lived in a communal apartment on Medov Lane). His father - Boris Kuznetsov - was a singer and worked in Knushevitsky's jazz, then on the radio and in the choir of the Bolshoi Theater. In the footsteps

From the book Passion author Razzakov Fedor

Anatoly KUZNETSOV The future “Red Army soldier Sukhov” met his first and only wife in the mid-50s, when he was studying at the Moscow Art Theater School. The acquaintance took place at a youth party in Galina Volchek’s apartment. It was there that Kuznetsov “had his eye” on the pretty

From the book Mikhail Sholokhov in memoirs, diaries, letters and articles of contemporaries. Book 1. 1905–1941 author Petelin Viktor Vasilievich

K. Kuznetsov Three meetings The virgin soil has been raised A note was received by the presidium. The presiding officer, smiling, announced it: “We ask Comrade Sholokhov to tell us about the fourth book of “Quiet Don” and the work of “Virgin Soil Upturned.” The hall shook. The explosion splashed

From the book Naval Commander [Materials about the life and activities of the People's Commissar of the Navy, Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Nikolai Gerasimovich Kuznetsov] author Vasilievna Kuznetsova Raisa

Nikolai Gerasimovich Kuznetsov (1904–1974). Brief biography Born in the village of Medvedki, Arkhangelsk province, into a peasant family. He began working at the age of eleven after the death of his father. At the age of fifteen in 1919, he voluntarily joined the North Dvina military flotilla. Graduated with

From the book by Pirosmani author Kuznetsov Erast Davydovich

E. D. Kuznetsov PIROSMANI In memory of the artist Avtandil Varazi The end of Pirosmani was terrible. He returned to Tiflis in early 1918, in February or early March. For several months (maybe more than six months) he disappeared somewhere unknown, without saying goodbye to anyone before

From the book by Ivan Shmelev. Life and art. Biography author Solntseva Natalya Mikhailovna

VII Furious Shmelev Monarchist with a democratic touch Are the people a pig of a dog or a God-bearer? Do the people need a rein? In the 1920s, several collections of Shmelev's stories were published. Although Balmont wrote about him in 1927: “As an artist-psychologist, he, of course, was a fatalist and knew that

From the book People and Dolls [collection] author Livanov Vasily Borisovich

Helen is a female name Comedy with a tragic ending Herodotus, the father of history, says that the great poet Homer, when creating his Iliad, knew that Queen Helen the Beautiful was not in Troy, she was staying with the ruler of Egypt, Proteus. But Homer deliberately neglected

From the book The Main Enemy. The secret war for the USSR author Dolgopolov Nikolay Mikhailovich

A hero with a tragic connotation Much is known about the activities of our intelligence service during the Great Patriotic War, and, at the same time, oddly enough, little is known. A lot, because the set of famous names and accomplished feats is outlined quite broadly and accurately. Not enough, because only today

From the book Smersh vs Abwehr. Secret operations and legendary intelligence officers author Zhmakin Maxim

From the book Nikolai Gumilev through the eyes of his son author Bely Andrey

Nikolai Otsup (136) Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev I am proud to have been his friend in the last three years of his life. But friendship, like any neighborhood, not only helps, it also hinders one’s vision. You pay attention to the little things, missing the main thing. Random mistake, bad gesture obscured

From the book St. Tikhon. Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia author Markova Anna A.

Kuznetsov Nikolai Ivanovich (July 27, 1911, village of Zyryanka, Yekaterinburg district, Perm province, now Talitsky district, Sverdlovsk region - March 9, 1944, near the city of Brody, Lviv region) - Soviet intelligence officer, partisan.

Nikolai was born into a peasant family. In 1926, he graduated from a seven-year school and entered the agronomic department of the Tyumen Agricultural College. In 1927, he continued his studies at the Talitsky Forestry College, where he began to independently study German, discovering extraordinary linguistic abilities, and mastered Esperanto, Polish, Komi, and Ukrainian. From 1930 he worked as a forest manager and led a political literacy circle. In 1932 he became a secret agent of state security, studied at the Ural Industrial Institute, continuing to improve his German (one of N. I. Kuznetsov’s German teachers was O. M. Veselkina).

With a short exception, I have spent the last three years abroad, traveling around all the countries of Europe, especially studying Germany.

Kuznetsov Nikolay Ivanovich

In the spring of 1938, Kuznetsov moved to Moscow and joined the NKVD, carrying out assignments in European countries. In 1942, he was sent to the special forces detachment “Winners” under the command of Colonel Dmitry Medvedev, and showed extraordinary courage and ingenuity.

Kuznetsov, under the name of the German officer Paul Siebert, conducted intelligence activities in the occupied city of Rivne, led a reconnaissance group, constantly communicated with Wehrmacht officers, intelligence services, and senior officials of the occupation authorities, transmitting information to the partisan detachment. Kuznetsov managed to learn about the preparations for the German offensive on the Kursk Bulge, about the preparations for the assassination attempt on Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill in Tehran.

By order of the command, he liquidated the chief judge of Ukraine Funk, the imperial adviser to the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine Gell and his secretary Winter, the vice-governor of Galicia Bauer, kidnapped the commander of the punitive troops in Ukraine, General Ilgen, and committed sabotage. However, he failed to carry out his main task - the physical destruction of the Reich Commissioner of Ukraine Erich Koch.

On September 30, 1943, Kuznetsov made a second attempt on the life of E. Koch’s permanent deputy and the head of the administration department of the Reichskommissariat, Paul Dargel (during the first attempt on September 20, he mistakenly killed E. Koch’s deputy for finance, Hans Gehl, instead of P. Dargel). As a result of the action, Dargel was seriously injured from an anti-tank grenade thrown by Kuznetsov and lost both legs. After this, P. Dargel was taken to Berlin by plane.

On March 9, 1944, Kuznetsov’s group was captured by UPA militants, who mistook the Soviet saboteurs for German deserters (they were wearing German uniforms). Fearing failure, Kuznetsov blew himself up with a grenade, and his companions (Belov and Kaminsky) were shot.

However, Ukrainian nationalists claim that Kuznetsov was captured by them and drowned in a well, and the version of Kuznetsov’s self-detonation with a grenade was officially disseminated by the Soviet authorities.

The war for the liberation of our Motherland from fascist evil spirits requires sacrifices. Inevitably we have to shed a lot of our blood so that our beloved homeland blooms and develops and so that our people live freely. To defeat the enemy, our people do not spare the most precious thing - their lives. Casualties are inevitable. I want to tell you frankly that there is very little chance that I will return alive. Almost one hundred percent for the fact that you have to make self-sacrifice. And I completely calmly and consciously go for this, because I deeply understand that I am giving my life for a holy, just cause, for the present and prosperous future of our Motherland.