WITH The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service is the heir to a series of spy centers of the Cheka - OGPU - NKVD - KGB. The first such Center was the Foreign Department (INO). True, even before its organization, military intelligence was created - the so-called Register - Registration Directorate of the Field Headquarters of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, the predecessor of the current Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff. This is how these two main Russian spy agencies have survived to this day.
Their tasks were different, operations and methods of action were not always similar. But there was one factor that united the history of military intelligence and state security intelligence: for more than 35 years of their existence, Jews played a very significant role in the activities of these intelligence services.

State Security Intelligence

One of the first heads of the Foreign Department of the Cheka was Solomon Grigoryevich Mogilevsky, who took this post a year after the organization of the Foreign Department. But already in August 1921, the INO was headed by Mikhail (Meir) Abramovich Trilisser, who remained in this post for 9 years. No one has surpassed him in the length of his stay in such a “slippery” and responsible position.
He was born in 1883. A professional revolutionary, he spent almost 10 years in prison and exile. During the Civil War, he was a commissar in large military formations. After leaving his post as head of the INO, Trilisser was a member of the Presidium of the Comintern. In 1940 he was arrested and executed.
The years of his leadership of state security intelligence were marked mainly by the fight against white émigré organizations. With the help of false underground groups, operations “Syndicate”, “Trust”, “Syndicate-2” were carried out, which became textbooks for training Soviet spies. They made it possible to lure into the USSR and destroy a number of the most active White emigrant figures - Savinkov, Sidney Reilly and others.
During this time, illegal INO residencies were created and agent networks were deployed in most European countries, China and the USA. In 1926, the so-called Special Group was formed - a parallel foreign intelligence service for deep penetration of agents and preparation of sabotage in Western Europe, Turkey and China. It was led for more than 10 years by Yakov Isaakovich Serebryansky, a career intelligence officer and experienced illegal
A parallel INO spy service was also the Department of International Relations of the Comintern - (OMS). It was created by Joseph Aronovich Pyatnitsky. A former professional revolutionary, he led this powerful intelligence and subversive organization until 1934. Then Joseph Pyatnitsky worked in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and in 1937 he was arrested and shot.
By the way, as part of the Cheka, back in 1922, a counterintelligence department was created, which preceded the well-known 2nd Directorate of the KGB. Its first boss was the Odessa Jew, the famous terrorist Yakov Grigorievich Blyumkin, who was only 20 years old at that time. He then operated illegally for many years in Mongolia, India, Syria, Egypt and Palestine. In 1929, he was summoned from Turkey to Moscow and shot for his connection with Trotsky.

Under Trilisser, the main management system for overseas intelligence was formed: six regional directions, which, in principle, has been preserved today. One of the first leaders of the English direction was Joseph Yakovlevich Krasny (Rotstadt). He created an illegal station in London in 1923 and recruited agents. His wife Elena Adolfovna also worked with him. In 1925-1928 she was the head of the English department. In 1938, the Red spouses were shot.
An experienced illegal immigrant was Bertold Karlovich Ilk, a Viennese Jew who had done agent work in Austria and Germany even before arriving in the USSR in 1926. He was again sent to Berlin as a resident. Together with Moritz Iosifovich Weinstein, they formed intelligence groups not only in Germany, but also in Warsaw, Danzig and Riga.
Ilk was then sent to London and recruited a number of journalists and officials there. In 1930 he again became an illegal resident in Berlin. One of his most important achievements at that time was the recruitment of police commissar Lehmann, who later served in the Gestapo and had a high SS rank. His agent pseudonym was “Breitenbach”, and it was he who served as the prototype for Semenov’s Stirlitz.

Now we will talk about the “Great Illegal”. That's what they call the intelligence agencies Arnold Genrikhovich Deitch. He was born in 1904 into a Slovak Jewish family. Became a compulsory medical insurance agent in Vienna in 1928. After 4 years, he joined the NKVD INO, spied in Paris, Vienna and London.
In October 1933, Deitch settled in England and worked there for almost five years. During this time, he recruited more than 20 young representatives of the English establishment. Of these, the famous “Cambridge Five” played a special role in further espionage operations of Soviet intelligence: Kim Philby, D. Maclean, E. Blunt, G. Burgess, D. Cairncross.
These agents subsequently achieved very high social and official positions. For example, Kim Philby almost became the head of British intelligence and was one of the founders of the CIA. The Cambridge Five are considered one of the most successful intelligence groups in the history of Soviet espionage.
At the end of 1937, Deitch returned to Moscow. At this time, there was a real defeat of the Soviet special services. Their leaders changed almost monthly, agents were recalled and destroyed. Deitch was saved by the fact that he was fired from the NKVD. He sat without work, receiving a meager salary and asked to be returned to illegal activities.
Meanwhile, the Second World War was raging on the planet with might and main, the Germans invaded the USSR. But it was only in November 1942 that Deitch was sent to America for intelligence work. He sailed on the ship "Donbass". The ship was torpedoed in the Atlantic by a German submarine and Deutsch died. Thus ended the life and service of the “Great Illegal.”
When Deitch worked in London, another outstanding Soviet intelligence officer, Alexander Orlov, was a resident there. In fact, his name was Leib Lazarevich Feldbin. He was born in 1885 in Bobruisk. Since 1920 - in the Cheka. He became an illegal immigrant in 1926, worked in Paris, then from 1930 he was the head of the economic intelligence department of the INO.
From 1933 to 36 - resident in London. Then Orlov becomes the head of Soviet intelligence in Spain and at the same time an adviser to the republican government on security issues. He acted very successfully, as evidenced by the Orders of Lenin and the Red Banner.

In 1938, Orlov received an order to leave for Moscow. But, knowing that there is a general destruction of foreign agents there, he, his wife and daughter, flee to America. At the same time, he notifies Stalin in a special letter that if there are attempts to remove him, all agents in Europe will be exposed. And since Moscow knew that Orlov was aware of the composition of most spy groups, they left him alone. After Stalin's death, he published a sensational book, The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes. Orlov died in the USA in 1973.
After Orlov’s escape, intelligence activities in Spain were headed by his deputy Naum Isaakovich Eitingon. He was born in 1898 in Mogilev. Since 1919 - an employee of the Cheka, graduated from the military academy.
Since 1925, working illegally, first in China, then in Turkey and finally in Spain. Upon returning to Moscow, he received the task of destroying Leon Trotsky, who was then living in Mexico, at any cost. Eitingon organized two assassination attempts; as a result of the second, Trotsky was killed by Ramon Mercader.
During the Great Patriotic War, Naum Eitingon was Sudoplatov’s deputy and directly supervised the reconnaissance and sabotage activities of the NKVD in the German rear. He was awarded five orders and became a major general. Actively participated in the theft of atomic secrets.
However, Nahum Eitingon was arrested in 1951 on charges of Zionism. But after Stalin's death he was released. And he was arrested again the same year after the execution of Beria. Served 11 years, died in 1981.

Even more tragic is the ending of the career of Yakov Serebryansky, who led the Special a group that carried out sabotage against white emigrants. His people also ensured the supply of Soviet military equipment to the Spanish Republicans in 1936-1937, for which Serebryansky received the Order of Lenin. But in 1938 he was recalled to Moscow, through brutal torture he was forced to confess to treason and sentenced to death. But for some reason they didn’t shoot me.
The war began and the experienced saboteur was released from prison. Sudoplatov took him into his group and Serebryansky again took up familiar work - this time in the German rear. His units operated very successfully, he was awarded several times, but after the war he was immediately dismissed.
However, after the death of Stalin, Serebryansky was reinstated in service, but after the execution, Beria was again arrested and sentenced to 10 years. Three years later, Yakov Serebryansky died in prison.
In the 30s, the overseas intelligence of the NKVD was led by Abram Aronovich Slutsky. He was born in 1898, participated in the Civil War and since 1920 served in the Cheka-OGPU. Since 1930 - in the INO NKVD, illegal resident in Berlin.
Since 1934, Abram Slutsky headed the INO. This was the time of the most terrible repressions against agents and department leaders. And in February 1938, Abram Slutsky was poisoned right in Yezhov’s office and died on the spot.
His deputies were two Jews, experienced illegal immigrants. First, senior state security major (brigade commander) Moisei Savelyevich Gorb, who was arrested and shot in 1937. Then - Sergei Mironovich Shpigelglas, who since 1922 spied in France, exterminated White emigrants in Europe, and acted in Republican Spain. In 1937-38, Shpigelglas was Slutsky’s deputy, and after his death, he became the head of the INO. However, in 1939 he was arrested and shot.

By this time, almost the majority of the foreign agents of the NKVD were called to Moscow and died in the basements of the Lubyanka. Among the few who managed to return to their stations was Boris Nikolaevich Rybkin. His real name is Borukh Aronovich Ryvkin. He was an experienced intelligence officer who operated in Iran and Finland, where he had diplomatic cover, together with his wife Zoya Rybkina, later the famous writer Voskresenskaya.
During World War II, these spouses worked under the “roof” of the Soviet embassy in Sweden. After the war, Rybkin became a resident in Czechoslovakia, where he died under very strange circumstances in 1947.
The systematic extermination of foreign agents and the leadership of the INO by Stalin’s executioners before the Great Patriotic War led to the fact that during the war the NKVD intelligence service practically did not have any effective organizations or groups in Germany itself and the countries it occupied.
The sabotage detachments formed by the 2nd Department of the NKVD, headed by General Pavel Sudoplatov, were much more successful. One of the employees of his department was Colonel Isidor Maklyarsky, the head of Operation Berezino, during which he conducted a large-scale radio game with the German command in 1944-45.
It is considered the most effective of the entire war. It made it possible to intercept many German agents and military cargo dropped for the fictitious “Scherhorn group.” However, Colonel Maklyarsky did not receive any awards for such a successful operation. Moreover, he was arrested in 1951 and was released from prison only after Stalin’s death.

Only recently did it become known about the Jewish origin of one of the most outstanding partisan commanders of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel Dmitry Nikolaevich Medvedev. He was born in 1898 in Bezhitsa and worked in the Cheka-NKVD from 1920 to 1935.
Then he was fired and repressed. At the beginning of the war, Medvedev was released, and he became the commander of a special sabotage and reconnaissance detachment operating in Ukraine. This detachment, in particular, served as a base for the legendary saboteur Nikolai Kuznetsov.
It is also necessary, at least briefly, to dwell on the combat activities of another saboteur of the Great Patriotic War, Jew Yuri Kolesnikov. Unlike the cases of Kuznetsov, described in Medvedev’s books “Strong in Spirit” and “It Was Near Rovno,” Kolesnikov’s exploits are little known, although they are not inferior in importance to them.
Yuri Kolesnikov was nominated three times for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, but only in 1995 he became a Hero of Russia and received a Gold Star from Yeltsin.

Even during the war, NKVD spies were tasked with obtaining the secrets of the atomic bomb, which was being worked on in the United States. One of the main organizers of this operation was Grimmel Markovich Heifetz. He was born in Riga in 1899, became a Soviet agent in 1922, spied in Turkey, Italy, France, and the USA.
He was lucky: when he was recalled to Moscow and Yezhov ordered his arrest, for some reason this order was not carried out. And in 1941, Heifetz was sent to the United States, where he created an extensive network of agents, which was very useful for penetrating the uranium project.
Heifetz operated in San Francisco and managed to make connections in the circles of nuclear scientists. Heifetz’s main assistant in this was Semyon Mikhailovich Semenov (Samuel Taubman), a Riga Jew who was recruited in Latvia back in 1937.
Then he was transferred to the USA, graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was essentially the only recruiting agent who was professionally versed in scientific problems. He and the rest of the specialists Kheifetz was already recruited in the States.
Their network included a group of "Volunteers" - the spouses Morris and Leontine Cohen, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. It is not possible or even necessary to talk in any detail about their work. Let me give just an example: 12 days after the assembly of the first atomic bomb, a detailed description of its structure was received in Moscow. By the way, the credit for this also belongs to another Jew - the Italian scientist Bruno Pontecorvo.
After the arrest of the Rosenbergs, the Cohens and Pontecorvos managed to escape to the USSR. Heifetz returned there even earlier. In 1947-49 he was deputy executive secretary of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC).
When the entire composition of the JAC was arrested, Heifetz, one of the few, escaped execution. He received 25 years in prison, but was released after Stalin's death. However, torture and moral torment broke this seasoned agent, and he soon died.
The Cohens' fate was not much better. They were retrained and in 1954 sent to London, where they worked with the famous spy Konon Molodoy. After exposure in 1961, the Cohens received 25 years in prison, but were exchanged in 1969. Surprisingly, first Leontina, then Morris became Heroes of Russia, although posthumously - in 1994 and 97.

It seems that the story would be incomplete if we ignore the truly fantastic stories of Delito Karaite Joseph Grigulevich, who, being a seasoned Soviet spy, managed to become the ambassador of the Republic of Costa Rica to Italy and the Vatican. This happened in 1950. And in 1953 he was hastily recalled to Moscow and expelled from the MGB intelligence service as part of a campaign of its general “cleansing” of persons of Jewish nationality.
At that time, all Jews - employees of the central apparatus and intelligence workers - were imprisoned or executed. And after 1953, the notorious “Jewish question” was resolved finally and irrevocably in the state security intelligence services.

Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (GRU)

Long before the Cheka, intelligence structures were already functioning in the Red Army. In the system of its Field Headquarters, on November 8, 1918, the Registration Directorate (Registrupr) was created, which took over the leadership of the entire military intelligence system. Sergei Gusev was appointed its chief in June 1919.
In fact, his name was Yakov Davidovich Drabkin, who became a Bolshevik back in 1896. During the Civil War, he commanded the Moscow defense sector and was a member of the military councils of the fronts and the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (RVSR).
Gusev worked as head of the Register until the beginning of 1920. Then military intelligence was led by Jan Karlovich Berzin, a Latvian, until 1935. He was replaced by commander Semyon Petrovich Uritsky. He was born in Cherkasy in 1895. During the Civil War he commanded a cavalry brigade, graduated from the Military Academy and was sent to Germany to work illegally.
Upon his return, he commanded a division and a rifle corps. Then - the head of the GRU. Since 1937 - Commander of the Moscow Military District. Arrested and executed in August 1938.

Since September 1937 Until May 1938, military intelligence was headed by another Jew, Semyon Grigorievich Gendin. Then he was arrested and executed in February 1939. The same fate befell almost all deputy heads of the GRU, heads of departments and directions of the Jews: Abramov, Aleksandrovsky (Yukelzon), Arkus, Askov, Borovich (Rozenstahl), Bronin (Lichtenstal), Weinberg, Weiner, Woll. All of them were accused of treason and executed during the black years of 1937-1939.
But besides them, about 50 more Jews, heads of foreign stations, illegal agents were summoned to Moscow and executed. It should be added that they are only part of the entire military intelligence personnel, which was destroyed at that time on the orders of Stalin. All these people were experienced professional intelligence officers, who, as a rule, had pre-revolutionary experience in illegal work.
Thus, on the eve of the Second World War in the USSR, at the hands of Stalin’s executioners, not only the structure of the INO NKVD, but also military intelligence was destroyed. According to research over the past 15 years, in the flames of these repressions, about 90 percent of career intelligence officers operating abroad illegally and under diplomatic cover were eliminated.
Naturally, this had an extremely detrimental effect on the quantity and reliability of information absolutely necessary for making informed decisions, on which the policy and military strategy of the USSR leadership depended. Moreover, the landslide defeats of the first years of the Great Patriotic War are directly related to the shortage of operational intelligence information and the blind distrust of Stalin and his minions in the data that the few surviving illegal immigrants managed to obtain at great cost.

But what is even more significant is that these few were mainly Jewish military intelligence officers. It was they who managed to maintain the only network of illegal agents in Western European countries. In Germany, its foundations were laid by Max Maximov (Friedman), in France by Yakov Rudnik and Semyon Uritsky, in Switzerland by Leonid Anulov.
This network is often called the "Red Chapel". Actually this is not true. The “Red Chapel” was the name of the Gestapo Sonderkommando, whose chief was SS Sturmbannführer Friedrich Panziger.
The Sonderkommando was formed by order of Heydrich in the fall of 1941 in connection with the sharp increase in illegal radio transmitters in Western Europe. The Sonderkommando was equipped with the latest radio direction finders at that time, which made it possible to pinpoint the location of operating radios with high accuracy. Its units monitored all transmissions in Germany itself and the countries it occupied.
And there were 5 illegal intelligence groups operating there, consisting of agents of Soviet military intelligence. It can be said, sacramentally, that the leaders of all these groups were Jews. The first to note is Leopold Trepper, who was born in 1904 in the Galician town of Novi Targ.
As a very young guy, he joined the Zionists and in 1924 emigrated to Palestine, there he joined the Communist Party, and 5 years later he left for France. He was recruited by Comintern agents and in 1932 transported to Moscow, where he became a military intelligence officer.
In 1937, Trepper came to Belgium illegally and recruited a group of agents there, which became more active after the German occupation. The core of this group were local Jews. In August 1940, Trepper went to France. There he became a resident of a local intelligence group and began work on obtaining information at the headquarters of the occupation forces. The information he sent to the Center was highly appreciated.

In 1939, GRU officer Anatoly Markovich Gurevich arrived from Moscow to Brussels. He was born in Kharkov in 1913, recruited by military intelligence in 1936, and a participant in the Spanish Civil War. In Belgium, he took over the leadership of the station from Trepper and acted under the pseudonym "Kent".
Gurevich organized the Simeksko rubber products company, made connections in business circles and among Wehrmacht officers who bought his company's products. Its branches opened in Paris, Berlin, Prague, Marseille and other cities, which Gurevich traveled around, collecting information. This information was important and reliable, and the network of radio stations made it possible to send it to the Center in a timely manner.
Meanwhile, Moscow demanded more and more data. To transmit them, walkie-talkies in Paris and Brussels worked almost continuously. Thus, they violated the basic rules of secrecy, providing the Germans' mobile radio direction finders with ideal conditions for detection. Which happened soon.
On December 13, 1941, a unit of the Sonderkommando "Red Chapel" led by Fritz Panziger raided Gurevich's radio in Brussels and captured two radio operators and a cryptographer and - the worst thing! - encryption that the underground did not have time to destroy. The Brussels radio apartment was liquidated, and Gurevich himself only miraculously managed to avoid arrest.
Moreover, using decrypted radiograms, the Gestapo was able to establish the true addresses of the Berlin GRU intelligence network and arrested about 130 of its members. Almost all of them were executed or died in concentration camps. The failures continued. In June 1942, radio operators were arrested in Paris, and agents in Holland were captured.
But the main goal of the Sonderkommando was the arrest of the leaders - Trepper and Gurevich, about whom investigators learned from interrogations of those arrested. And in November 1942, the Gestapo arrested Gurevich, and a few days later - Trepper.
In total, more than 200 illegal agents of Soviet military intelligence were arrested in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany during the year, and 12 radios were seized. This was perhaps the greatest success of German counterintelligence in the fight against Soviet espionage. Only Stalin was able to inflict a more severe blow, destroying many times more of his most experienced intelligence officers.
Using captured radio operators and their radios, German counterintelligence launched the most delicious type of operations - radio games with the Moscow Center, which made it possible to misinform the Soviet command about German plans, the deployment and movements of troops. But these radio games were only partially successful - at the very beginning of the operation, because both Trepper and Gurevich were able to report that the radios were controlled by the enemy.
And then Trepper did the unthinkable - he ran away. This happened in September 1943 and the Gestapo never managed to capture him, as well as the chief radio operator of the Paris station, I. Wenzel, who escaped a month after Trepper.
In mid-1944, Gurevich managed to recruit his controller, SS Sturmführer Pannwitz, and the Germans' radio play began to bring them obvious damage, because in response they received well-prepared disinformation.

Thus, even in those extreme conditions, the leaders of the Paris and Brussels groups of Soviet intelligence were able to somehow work for Victory. How did the Soviet government thank them? After the liberation of Paris in January 1945, Leopold Trepper flew to Moscow on a special plane.
Right at the ramp he was arrested and taken to the Lubyanka. And the executioners there quickly forced him to admit to working for the Germans. Trepper received 15 years in prison and was released only after Stalin's death. He went to Poland, then to Israel, where he died in 1981.
Gurevich remained in captivity until the end of the war. Then he, with the Gestapo men Pannwitz, Stluchka and Kempa, whom he had recruited, captured many documents of the Sonderkommando "Red Chapel" and arrived in Moscow. There he suffered the same fate as Trepper; Gurevich was released in 1955. But he did not leave, because he was a Soviet citizen, but began to seek rehabilitation. And in 1958 he was arrested again, kept in prison for two years and released without being rehabilitated.
The other three GRU groups in Western Europe operated longer and more successfully than the Paris and Brussels ones.

Another powerful intelligence group in Switzerland was created by Leonid Abramovich Anulov, a Moldovan Jew born in 1897, a career GRU employee who worked in the central apparatus and in illegal stations. But in 1938 he was recalled to Moscow, arrested and received 15 years in prison. I spent 17 years in prison and survived, thank God! He was released as a disabled person and lived in freedom for almost 20 more years, without receiving any reward for his work.
And his residency in Switzerland was accepted by another Jew, a Hungarian, whose name was Sandor Rado. He became a GRU agent in 1935, carried out illegal work in Europe, settled in Switzerland, and after Anulov’s arrest, he headed his group, which received the name “Dora.”
This group had three powerful radio stations, received information from Germany and Italy, and acted very successfully, giving the Center a lot of valuable operational and strategic information.
Of course, such active work of underground radios on Swiss territory could not but alarm German counterintelligence. Its agents identified the main circle of people who were part of the Dora group and began to take steps to neutralize them. For this purpose, they handed over their radio direction finders to the Swiss, and already in October 1943, arrests began in Geneva. In the spring of 1944, the Swiss police practically crushed Dora, and its chief S. Rado was forced to flee to France.
On January 5, 1945, he and Trepper flew to Moscow. But Rado was well aware of why he was being taken to the Soviet capital and escaped during an intermediate landing in Cairo. However, in August he was detained by the British and handed over to the Soviet embassy in Egypt. In December 1946, Rado received 10 years in prison and was released only in 1954, went to Hungary, where he died in 1980.

The fate of Yan Petrovich (Yankel Pinkhusovich) Chernyak, who was born in 1909 in Austria-Hungary, was comparatively more prosperous. He became a Soviet military intelligence officer in 1930. From 1935 to 1946 headed the most effective intelligence group in Germany, which he created, which bore the code name “Krona”.
By the beginning of World War II, its members occupied prominent positions in the leadership of the Reich, and the strategic and military-technical information received from them was highly valued in Moscow. Let us especially emphasize that not a single agent of Chernyak was ever exposed by the Gestapo, and even today nothing specific is known about them.
After the Victory, Chernyak was recalled to Moscow and in 1950 dismissed from military intelligence. Being born abroad, he was not entitled to a military rank and began working as a translator at TASS. But in 1995, Chernyak was remembered and, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Victory, he was awarded the title of Hero of Russia. This happened in February, when he was in a Moscow district hospital. Jan Chernyak never learned about such a high honor, for he died without regaining consciousness.
If we talk about high awards, then the only Jewish intelligence officer who became a Hero of the Soviet Union was Lev Efimovich Manevich, a GRU colonel, who until 1936 was engaged in active illegal intelligence in Western Europe. He was arrested by Italian counterintelligence and sentenced to 12 years, dying in 1945. And only in 1965, in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Victory, Lev Efimovich Manevich became a Hero, posthumously.

However, in fairness, we should also talk about those Jews who received general ranks in the USSR and occupied quite high positions in military intelligence during the war years.
Rafail Pavlovich Khmelnitsky was born in Kremenchug in 1895. In the Red Army since 1918, he graduated from the Military Academy and commanded the famous Proletarian Division. Lieutenant General since 1940. During the war, he was the head of the intelligence department of the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement until 1943, when he was recalled to the command of the People's Commissar of Defense and retired in 1948.
Roman Samuilovich Pekurin was born in Belarus in 1896. In the Red Army in 1918. A specialist in long-range radio communications, he headed the Communications Center of the GRU General Staff from 1936 to 1946, that is, when this Center ensured the timely receipt of all intelligence information.
Apparently, Roman Samuilovich successfully coped with his duties if he was awarded 7 military orders and became a major general. However, already in 1946, General Pekurin was transferred from the GRU General Staff to another job.
Naum Semenovich Sorkin was born in 1899 in Zaporozhye. Since 1919 - in the Red Army. His military destiny is directly connected with the Far East. During the Great Patriotic War, Major General Naum Sorkin was the head of the intelligence department of the 1st Far Eastern Front. Awarded 6 military orders, since 1947 - teaching at military academies.
Mikhail Abramovich Milshtein, who was born in 1910, stayed in military intelligence the longest. Since 1930, he was an employee of the Main Intelligence Directorate and in the Great Patriotic War he was deputy head of the Western Direction of the GRU General Staff, lieutenant general, holder of 6 orders. In 1950 he was sent to teach at military academies.
As we can see, these four generals were the last Jews to serve in military intelligence after the war. Thank God, they were not shot, they were not put in prison, as they did with the heads of MGB intelligence at one time, they were simply expelled. But even before this, repressions in military intelligence were in full control among the Jews, as can be seen from the essay.
The elimination of such a powerful cohort of intelligence officers before the Great Patriotic War is one of the main reasons for the landslide defeats of the Red Army during its course. But no less striking is the blatant ingratitude of the leadership shown to those who, at the cost of terrible risk, difficult trials and great strain of all their strength and capabilities, managed to obtain all the necessary information, without which Victory over the Nazis would have been completely impossible.
M.Steinberg

This is an unusual book, a facsimile book. It is assembled, as in a kaleidoscope, from various pieces: pieces of the life of an unusual person. Odessa resident Mark Steinberg lives today in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva. And his melodies sounded and are heard in Siberian towns, and in the Kremlin hall, in the capital of Belarus, and, of course, in Odessa and Israel. I am glad that I was lucky enough to meet this man and work in creative tandem. Roman Aizenshtat, member of the Israel Writers' Union, poet

Mark Steinberg: “I’m originally from Odessa”

Towards the anniversary - the 80th anniversary of his birth

The composer's courage

The name of composer Mark Steinberg, as they say, is on the lips of many people - especially people of the older generation, since the time of special interest in jazz, which was persecuted for many years by the Soviet authorities. Steinberg loved and performed jazz a lot. But he didn’t come to jazz right away. Before there was a war - Mark was wounded as a child - and a military school for music students, the desire to study further, and many obstacles - often artificial. Major operations, illness, disability...

The man overcame all this courageously and with honor and became what he aspired to be - a great performer, composer. It became once and continues to be to this day, no matter what, no matter what life’s difficulties. Many plans were confused by a serious illness...

But, having lost the physical ability to reproduce his musical creations on the instrument, the composer writes them down on sheet music. Mark Steinberg is a man of great will. Struggling with a serious illness, he continues to work hard and write beautiful music. Hundreds of poems by famous and little-known poets have acquired a new sound, a new life thanks to the composer’s setting them to music. These songs are performed in many countries.

This is what poet Mikhail Rinsky from the Israeli city of Ramat Gan says about Mark Steinberg. With this introduction, he seems to give the beginning to our entire story.

– In the “credits” of my memoirs of the Israeli period of my life, Mark Steinberg is the author of many wonderful songs not only in Russian, but also in Yiddish, the author of musical collections, articles and stories. Mark Steinberg is often written about in the Israeli, Ukrainian and American press.

When I was introduced to this talented musician, I accepted it as a great honor. We were introduced by his equally talented and interesting colleague Yuri Kremer. Our union was sealed by the agreement of these people to write songs and romances based on my poems. I liked working with composers who were so organic in their joint creativity. Having undergone severe operations and therefore limited in his physical capabilities, Mark calls Yuri, who helps him in processing and performing his works, “my good angel.”

Having gotten to know Steinberg better, I found it simply necessary to ask fellow musicologists to tell me about this not only creatively interesting, but also courageous man, about the extraordinary development of this talented personality.

Stage one – school for musicians

As a boy, Marik Steinberg became a student of the Odessa Military School of Musicians, which is akin to the Suvorov School. Military musicians were trained there. At the same time, all general education subjects required by high school were there. The school was under the special attention of Marshal G.K. Zhukov, since it was he who proposed to Stalin the idea of ​​​​founding these educational institutions, and simply saving at least a few children from hunger and snatching them out of the web of homelessness.

1947 Mark takes part in a military parade in Odessa. Marshal Georgy Zhukov greets his beloved students.

“Zhukov often came to our school to check on life. After all, with his light hand, 13 schools of musical students were created throughout the country,” recalls Steinberg. “And this was the case one day. At the last rehearsal before the parade, Zhukov came up to our box - and we were opening the parade - and when he looked at what we were wearing, he became very angry. “What kind of army is this? The chief of the garrison to me, immediately!” he orders. We were dressed terribly, not all of us even had boots, some were wrapped in windings.

“Chief of the garrison, where are the Romanians?” Zhukov continues to shout.

“On the way to Dalnik, comrade commander,” the head of the garrison reported. Dalnik is a district of Odessa. “Catch up, undress and sew a uniform for my Suvorovites!”

Already in the evening, thirty tailors began to work and worked all night until the morning in our yard. In the morning everything was ready, we looked brilliant. At the parade, while touring the troops, the marshal drove up to us and seemed pleased! This time, in a beautiful uniform, with stripes, proudly striding, we opened the parade to the beat of drums and the solemn sounds of trumpets!

Not long ago I read in the modern newspaper “Odessa Listok,” which continues the traditions of a 19th-century newspaper with the same name, a message that the 60th anniversary of two Odessa special schools – the naval and the air force – will be celebrated. And memories immediately came flooding back... After all, our military music school (OMMSS), of which I was a student in 1947-1951, was created in the same model in 1937 in Odessa.

I remember well my friends from school and wonderful teachers who taught us the art of music, drill training, regulations and other wisdom necessary for future military musicians. Among the teachers there were women who surrounded us with maternal care, love, and warmed us with the warmth of their hearts. For many of us, the Odessa military music theater saved our lives and protected us from the terrible consequences of the war.

Life has scattered in different directions those who, together with me, learned the basics of musical notation and military discipline. But our soldierly friendship is strong...

Anniversary meeting

In 1976, in the premises of an ordinary Odessa school, where our military music school had previously been located, graduates of the Military Music School of different years gathered. At the anniversary meeting, everyone talked about their successes over the past 25 years. The people came with their wives, and our teachers were on the presidium. We honored the memory of those who have passed on to another world. I was offered the honor of starting the ceremonial part of the meeting. First of all, I thanked my wife Svetochka for her help in organizing the collection. “I didn’t help in any way!” - she burst out. “You helped by not stopping me from doing what I love!” Everyone applauded wildly, expressing their approval of my wife. For me it was an unforgettable, happy moment in my life.

Our meeting was accompanied by the brass band of military unit 18798 under the direction of Captain Alexander Firsov. The same orchestra in which in 1956 I served as a soloist under conductor Alexei Vasilyevich Zaitsev.

...We had all sorts of incidents at our school, sometimes unpleasant ones: former orphanages, pupils V. Lisitsa, T. Goncharov, A. Kurbatov, robbed the school cash desk. They, of course, were soon caught having candy. The head of the school did not allow the case to go to trial, thereby delaying his promotion to rank by two years...

I remember the words of the head teacher G.T. Soltanovsky: You will never forget these three names, and after many years when you meet you will say: “How can you not remember? These are the ones who robbed the cash register”...

And indeed, we remember these names years later: Lisitsa became an associate professor at the Odessa Conservatory, Goncharov was the coach of the USSR Olympic weightlifting team, Kurbatov worked as the chief engineer of the famous AZLK plant, produced the people’s favorite Moskvich, and then he worked at RAF. The last war forced half-starved boys to steal. But, fortunately, there were adults next to us who understood this perfectly and believed that real people would still grow out of us, and therefore did not allow the children’s lives to be ruined, even at the cost of their own careers...”

The years of studying at the Odessa military music school are memorable for the meetings with many outstanding people, which were organized by our boss, an excellent teacher named Palumbo. Our guests were Korolev - world boxing champion, heroes of the Soviet Union, Alexander Sveshnikov - famous choirmaster, famous musicians I.O. Dunaevsky, A.I. Khachaturian, D.D. Shostakovich, M.L. Rostropovich, R. M. Gliere.

To a great musical life

On July 3, 1951, the entire orchestra graduated from us, graduates of the OVMSH in 1947, which prepared Yu.P. Bondovsky for further orchestral service. It was on our course that training was transferred from 3 to 4 years. Naturally, in order to continue their studies, the management and teachers’ council left the most “agile” ones - in the sense, those who did well. They gave us certificates. In four days everyone had left for their destination. We took a group photo. As an excellent student, I had the right to choose and chose with great pleasure the orchestra of Senior Lieutenant Zaitsev. The orchestra he led took 1st place in the orchestra competition of the Odessa Military District.

They brought us to a military camp near Odessa “Chabanka”. I, like the others, was so prepared that in the evening I performed “Dawn” in the ranks. We lived in tents for 10 people, got up at 6.00, and at 8.00 we were already rehearsing A.K. Glazunov’s waltz from the ballet “Raymonda” on a cliff, above the sea.

I was seated in the row of clarinetists third from the flutists, that is, I played the part of the first clarinet. There are two ahead - super-conscript soloist Vladimir Sokolov and his assistant, also super-conscript Vadim Tsvetkovsky. A solo duet of clarinets comes up, Vadim (due to a hangover) has a “kick”, and I get a kick in the neck from him, like a kick from me.

The conductor repeats the episode, and again kicks... Again another portion on the neck, and here I showed my independent character - I launched my clarinet into the sea from a cliff. Zaitsev realized what was happening and ordered the entire orchestra to dive into the sea and catch the clarinet. When they pulled him out, all the pads had already fallen off. Zaitsev ordered to take another clarinet in the instrumental, I carried out the order and returned to the orchestra, but he made me (the student) a soloist, and the extra-conscripts were placed as assistants.

Soon a new competition was held, again first place, I was the soloist. Offended by his feelings, Sokolov transferred to serve in the orchestra of the Frunze Academy.

I served in the orchestra for six years - as a student, conscript, and superconscript. Despite the fact that the conductors were changing, Zaitsev still returned to this orchestra in 1955 after serving abroad, already as a major. Unfortunately, not for long, at the end of 1956, he died suddenly at a tram stop...

Mark names clarinet teacher Pyotr Semenovich Glushkin as his first teacher in music; he considers him the main teacher in his life. There were, of course, many others, the memory of whom is also alive in the heart, for example, Zinovy ​​Borisovich Pyatigorsky. But it is to Pyotr Semenovich that Mark owes his love of music. Glushkin had many talented students. Odessa residents say that only Odessa can produce such talented teachers.

...After college, Mark served in a military orchestra until 1957, when, as he writes, he “fell ill” with jazz. In the central Odessa cinema "Ukraine" there was a wonderful jazz orchestra, led by the famous jazz player and guitarist Evgeniy Tantsyura. Mark played saxophone and clarinet in the orchestra. And from 1977, Mark Steinberg led this orchestra for ten years.

Israeli muse. Responding to the good and the tragic

The composer responds with his creativity to everything good and everything tragic that happens in Israel. His song “The Soul Trembles” is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the terrorist attack at the Dolphinarium. Mark Steinberg wrote a song dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the city of Petah Tikva, in which he now lives. Mark collaborates with the city club "Odessit". He writes music based on poems by local amateur poets. He regularly “voices out” poems sent to him from Odessa, turning them into songs.

Mark works closely with poetess Sarah Singer. In collaboration with Yuri Kremer and Sarah Singer, he recorded many songs in Yiddish.

End of introductory fragment.

Who are you, Mark Steinberg?

From 1970 to 1982 - Head of the Special Service of the Turkestan Military District Headquarters. Retired colonel. For what merits were they awarded in 1970? a Jew for such a position on the border and kept there for 12 years, when Jews had long been no longer trusted even in smaller posts? I'm afraid that for very great and base merits. Then he retires. And he becomes an independent journalist in the very den of the enemy - AMERICA. Reforged or sneaked in, that is the question? However, that’s not the point; there are a dime a dozen of these people who have changed their skins hanging out at state grub. He’s sitting in the lair of a class enemy, but the independent’s tempering is visible and hasn’t let him down. “If we made nails out of these people, there would be no stronger nails in the world,” although not about homosovieticus it was written, but about the English fleet. Sapper Steinberg is ahead of the advancing column of Soviet-Russian propaganda! Someone must always go ahead, prepare the ground, shape consciousness.

Steinberg admires the INO OGPU agent in Palestine and the head of the “Yasha terrorist group”, who poisoned people with poisons, Yakov Serebryansky. So he writes at the end of the article “THE TRAGEDY OF THE GREAT SABOTIST”:

Serebryansky's merits during the Great Patriotic War are immeasurable. But even before the war, he carried out truly fantastic operations. Who hasn’t heard about James Bond today, about Stirlitz, hasn’t seen films about their exploits! What Yakov Serebryansky did was many times greater than these fictional stories. But until very recently, few people knew about his life and work. Only recently a documentary film appeared on Russian television, succinctly telling about some of the exploits of the intelligence officer, who was a man of average height, had an ordinary appearance and loved one woman all his life - his wife Polina Natanovna.

Just think, he loved one wife and had an unremarkable appearance! Merit indeed! He could have had 10, with such a crazy life, because he had to kill many, poison them, strangle them in different ways, but he, what a modest person he is - one, you hear, he had oh-d-n-all. What kind of woman this was, one can only guess; not everyone can share fate and bed with such a fiend of hell. And she herself took a direct part in the murders, accompanying him as a faithful friend. A Chekist is always a Chekist.

And if you think that you dedicated one article to such a killer, you are mistaken. He also dedicated others, for example:

“TRAGEDY OF FATE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE ERA.” Here is the outline of the fate of Stalin’s falcon, Stakhanov’s extermination of people:

In 1920, Yakov became an employee of the Special Department of the so-called Persian Red Army, which occupied the Iranian province of Gilan. After the evacuation of this army, Serebryansky leaves for Moscow, enters the Electrotechnical Institute, and works for the Izvestia newspaper. But in December 1923, a well-known terrorist and employee of the Cheka, Yakov Blumkin, recruited Serebryansky into his group, which was heading for illegal work in Palestine. From that moment on, Yakov Serebryansky became an intelligence officer - he was enrolled in the Foreign Department of the OGPU, which was engaged in espionage.

In Palestine Yakov creates a deeply secret network of 30 illegal immigrants, among whom were many members of the militant Jewish organization Haganah. It was among them that he selected several people who became his reliable assistants in subsequent sabotage activities: I. Kaufman, A. Turyzhnikov, R. Rachkovsky.
On the instructions of the head of the INO OGPU M. Trilisser, Polina, Yakov’s wife, was sent to Jaffa. And although she was not an official employee of the INO, she always accompanied her husband on his foreign business trips.

In December 1925, Serebryansky was transferred to Belgium, then to Paris, where he became an intelligence resident and operated until April 1929. Upon returning to Moscow, he was appointed head of the INO OGPU department, which included the illegal combat group he created, which received the unofficial name “Yasha’s group.” It was intended for deep penetration into military-strategic facilities in America, Europe and Asia in case of war, for carrying out sabotage and terrorist operations behind enemy lines. The group was an independent operational unit, reporting personally to the head of the OGPU.
The agent network created by Serebryansky covered the USA, Scandinavia, the Baltic states, the Balkans, France, Germany, China, Japan, Palestine and other countries. Yakov personally recruited about 200 people into its membership. And these were not only communists, but also pro-Soviet-minded Russian emigrants. However, for recruitment he used not only the ideological factor, but also material, and sometimes outright blackmail.
An example of the group’s activities is the kidnapping of General Alexander Kutepov, who headed the Russian All-Military Union, the most active White Guard organization against the USSR. Having received the task of kidnapping Kutepov, in the summer of 1930 Serebryansky, together with Turyzhnikov and Rachkovsky, arrived in Paris. Having quickly studied the situation, determined the general’s place of residence and habits, they grabbed Kutepov in broad daylight, forced him into a car and took him outside the city. But they failed to take the general to the USSR - he died from the shock he suffered.

The disappearance of the head of the organization practically blocked its activities. The penetration of the White Guards into the USSR sharply declined and almost ceased in the second half of the 1930s. For this operation, Yakov Serebryansky was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
In 1934, after the creation of the NKVD, “Yasha’s Group” was personally subordinated to the People’s Commissar of Internal Affairs and received the top-secret name SGON - Special Group for Special Purposes. Under her, Serebryansky formed a school of saboteurs, some of whose graduates during the war with Germany became famous for their actions behind Nazi lines. Unfortunately, there were many more who were destroyed by Stalin’s executioners during the pre-war repressions.

The trial took place two weeks after the start of the war, when it became clear that the reconnaissance and sabotage activities of the Soviet side were almost completely paralyzed, because there were now no regular sabotage units either in the Red Army or in the NKVD. And most importantly, the former leaders of such formations and almost all of their members, trained long before the war, were completely destroyed. Let's face it, if the Nazis had done this, they could not have come up with a better way to support the success of the invasion. Therefore, the question arises: for whom did Yezhov and Beria work?

The answer to Steinberg's question is simple: they worked for Stalin and for their careers. Steinberg himself worked for him, and subsequently for other tyrants. His question implies espionage for Hitler, but then who did Stalin himself work for?

Poor Yakov, a master of shoulder cases who killed others, had to taste his own medicine:

During the investigation, Yakov was forced to admit his connections with French intelligence and the preparation of an assassination attempt on the Kremlin leaders. He was subjected to the notorious “conveyor belt” method of inquiry. But Yakov rejected all slanderous accusations. And then Beria personally took part in the interrogation, which was conducted by the heads of the NKVD investigative department Bogdan Kobulov and Viktor Abakumov. They beat Serebryansky with rubber truncheons, and when he lost consciousness, they poured ice water on him and beat him again. They only spared his right hand so that he could sign the protocol. And Yakov signed...
He languished in the Lubyanka cellars for 2.5 years, awaiting trial. But at the trial, he categorically refused his confessions, saying that he was forced to make them under brutal torture. However, he was still sentenced to death, and Polina was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor. On the same day, Serebryansky's associates Samuil Perevoznikov and the secretary of the SGON school Vera Syrkina received capital punishment - they were shot immediately after the trial. Albert Syrkin and Andrei Turyzhnikov were executed even earlier - a year before the war.

But the executioner was lucky - Other executioners also needed him. And he gets into formation - to kill further whoever is ordered. A security officer is always a security officer, just as a terrorist is always a terrorist. Today - Germans, and tomorrow - Jews. Whom the party and the Cheka-NKVD-KGB order.

On August 9, less than a month after the verdict, the Serebryansky couple were amnestied, reinstated in the party, their property was returned to them, and Yakov was given titles and awards.
In October 1941, the Special Group was reorganized and soon became the Office of the People's Commissariat. The main task is the formation and deployment of reconnaissance and sabotage groups (RDG) to the German rear, as well as the management of their activities. During the war years, more than two thousand RDGs with a total number of almost 45 thousand well-trained reconnaissance saboteurs were abandoned. They destroyed more than 157 thousand Germans and their local accomplices, eliminated 87 generals and high-ranking officials, neutralized more than two thousand intelligence groups, disabled hundreds of military and industrial facilities, and blew up many military echelons.
And the role of Yakov Serebryansky is invaluable in the success of this large-scale activity. Five military orders - awards Yakov Isaakovich for his successful sabotage activities during the Great Patriotic War.

You feel the tone: no longer some comrade Serebryansky, but according to family, according to Russian custom, p.ch. Jews are not called by their patronymic name, - Yakov Isakovich. You deserve it!

In 1946, Viktor Abakumov became the Minister of State Security - the same executioner who beat Serebryansky, forcing him to sign a slander against himself. Yakov could not serve under his command and was forced to retire “for health reasons.” He remained in retirement for 7 years. During this time, Abakumov was shot, Stalin died, and in May 1953 Serebryansky was returned to service. But this return to the organs did not last long and ended tragically.

Viktor Avakumov is an executioner. Why? Yes, because he beat the executioner Serebryansky, and not because he beat Meretskov and other innocent people. Usually, after a beating, they return to service and continue to work for the benefit of the party - “only by the will of the wife who sent me,” but Serebryansky harbored a grudge, became capricious and was unable to work - to beat and kill others. And then the tyrant died, Abakumov was shot and the idealist Yasha Serebryansky returned to his native organs. But there was no luck here either - another tragedy. Greek or Shakespearean.

In four months on false accusations of participation in the “Beria conspiracy”“Colonel Serebryansky was arrested, but it was not possible to connect him with this conspiracy. Then an even more vile step was taken: the 1938 case was revived. In December 1954, the decision on amnesty made in August 1941 was canceled. And endless interrogations began. Even the heart of a seasoned intelligence officer-saboteur could not stand this. On March 30, 1956, during interrogation by the investigator of the military prosecutor's office, Tsaregradsky, Yakov suffered a heart attack, from which he died.

“A security officer, a slave of honor, died, (I apologize to M.Yu. Lermontov) fell slandered by rumor.” But he managed to live 65 bloody years. How much blood did he shed, how many souls did he destroy, how many orphans did he leave, and most importantly, how many Jewish souls were there among them? Steinberg is not concerned about this issue. But you and I should be concerned!

Steinberg writes about Jews in intelligence and the army, counting among them purely Russian bandits (Sudoplatov) or English traitors, communist underlings (Kim Philby and all five from Cambridge), converts Admiral Nakhimov and other famous military figures into Jews. It’s unpleasant: unfortunately, we have plenty of our own traitors and bandits. And there are enough admirals along with generals. But this is simply revisionism of history; something completely different is important: who writes all this. And it’s time to ask a question like “So who are you, Richard Sorge?” Sorge had no choice: he had to spy for several powers. And what will the respected reserve colonel, famous for his book “Jews in the Millennium Wars,” Mark Steinberg, tell us?

On June 10, Steinberg’s article “Who are you, Ariel Sharon?” appeared on Misha Goldenberg’s website. We know who Ariel Sharon is, but who Mark Steinberg is is not yet entirely clear.

6 years ago, at a speech in New York, a local journalist asked him: “Please tell us about how you trained Palestinian, Syrian and other Muslim terrorists.” Steinberg replied: “I will not answer this question.” The answer speaks for itself.

AI&PIISRAEL

In my opinion, the tactics of selectively killing terror leaders are unjustified and ineffective. It resembles the terror of the Narodnaya Volya in tsarist Russia. I believe that the main method of fighting terrorism in Israel should be the destruction of entire Palestinian settlements, along with their inhabitants. This will clearly demonstrate to the terrorists the inadequacy of their actions and will create fear of retaliation among the Arabs themselves, and not among the Jews.

Jews and Jewry occupied a central place in Hitler's worldview and activities for more than twenty years. He considered them a nation of destroyers and irrevocably linked himself, his party and the fate of the German people with the persecution of Jews, and then with their total extermination in Germany and Europe. Having gained power, Hitler moved from words to deeds - the sporadic persecution of Jews acquired legal justification. On September 15, 1935, at the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, two laws were adopted, immediately and unconditionally approved by the Reichstag: the “Reich Citizenship Law” and the “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor.” These laws and the subsequent 12 regulations were quite openly directed against the Jews of Germany. From now on, everyone who had? part of the blood was Jewish, that is, at least one grandfather or one grandmother was Jewish. Such people were automatically deprived of German citizenship. Sexual relations between Jews and Aryans were prosecuted as a criminal offense...

From the very beginning of Nazism, the Nazis argued that Jews and Jewish women posed a sexual danger to Germany. The main organ of anti-Semites, the magazine “Sturmer”, published by the pathological Judeophobe Julius Streicher, insisted that the masculine abilities of an Aryan could be greatly affected by a relationship with a Jewish woman. And a German woman caught having sex with a Jew was declared a criminal in Stürmer long before Nuremberg. And the matter was not limited to magazine propaganda. Already in the late 30s, German women who had sexual relations with Jews were forced to wear a sign on their chest with the inscription: “I have committed an abomination.” If a German woman became pregnant by a Jew, she was forced to have an abortion. Her seducer was hung on the neck of the same sign, differing only in the six-pointed star. There were also frequent cases of their sterilization. With the adoption of the Nuremberg Code, such relationships were prohibited by law. It is curious that after Kristallnacht on November 10, 1938, when the Nazis killed many Jews and raped many Jewish women, they were not punished for murder, but for rape they were punished as an act that violated the law “On the Purity of Aryan Blood.” Jews who violated this law were often punished with the death penalty. And hard labor in such cases was an inevitable punishment. By the way, some of these cases became the subject of interest to the Fuhrer himself, who demanded that court materials be sent to the Reich Chancellery. There were many trials of violations of the laws of racial purity: in the first year alone after the adoption of the Nuremberg Code, there were more than 500 of them.

According to this code, marriage with a Jew or Jewess was considered a crime for an Aryan, and they were forced to divorce, which often ended in tragedy. Thus, the famous German actor Joachim Gottschalk chose to commit suicide rather than part with his Jewish wife. She, however, immediately shot herself, killing her 8-year-old son. Aryans were punished even for relations with half-Jews. Moreover, one German was convicted of masturbating while looking at a naked Jewish woman. And so that a Jew could not “pick up” a German prostitute under cover of darkness, he was forbidden to leave the house after 8 o’clock in the evening. Nazism renewed the prohibitions of the Middle Ages. Since September 1937, it was legally prohibited in Germany to feed Jewish children to Aryan wet nurses. A similar ban applied to Jewish nurses. From a note from the Minister of Justice, Hitler learned that one of them was selling her milk to a German pediatrician's clinic. The legal case against her was initiated secretly, “so as not to traumatize her Aryan parents.” A similar ban applied even more categorically to Jewish donor blood. Many patients did not agree to a transfusion without an official certificate that the blood was Aryan.

It was unthinkable for the Nazis to even shake hands with a Jew. In 1942, Gauleiter Kube shook hands with a Minsk Jew for leading his luxurious Horch out of a burning garage. A denunciation to Berlin immediately followed from one of Gauleiter's close associates, and he had to make excuses to Himler. Beginning in 1936, “Aryans Only” signs were placed on all benches in public places. And for Jews, the benches were painted bright yellow; they were installed with German pedantry: for every 40 “Aryan” benches, there was one “Jewish bench”.

In Berlin, since 1934, a special anthropological institute for racial research began to function, which was engaged in setting standards for racial purity. At this institute, anthropometric tests were carried out on all human organs in order to establish the specific parameters of an Aryan and a Jew. For example, there were 22 such parameters for the ears alone. Even more parameters concerned the “Semitic” nose. It was believed that it was hooked and could easily be used to distinguish a Jew. One of the creators of racial theory, Rosenberg, published a whole manual for young people, teaching them to recognize Jews by their external signs, among which the nose was considered the main one. Hitler also categorically stated: “There is a trait common to all Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Moroccan bazaars: an aggressive nose with a cruel and vicious cut of the nostrils.” Another luminary of racial theory, Dr. Werschauer, argued that Jews have shifty eyes and large protruding ears. It was also believed that a typical Jew must have black hair, which is why in Nazi Germany it was not recommended to be a brunette. As you understand, in this country the Jew, with all the repulsive features attributed to him, especially in comparison with the Aryan standard appearance, was a deliberately ugly creature in appearance. To top it off, the Nazis blamed the Jews for the bad odor they gave off. The Fuhrer himself actively supported the myth about the stench of the Jews. In a speech given on November 29 in Munich, he stated: “The racial instinct of the Aryans allowed them to distinguish a Jew by their bad smell and prevented sexual relations with these subhumans. But they invented perfume so that they could smell like everyone else and not repel German women. This is what the Jews were counting on.” The Nazis looked for a scientific explanation for the “Jewish fumes” and found them in that they were similar to the smell of blacks. Nazi anthropologists argued that “a Jew is just a whitewashed black man... The specific smell of Jews betrays their Negroid roots.” This myth was used by the Nazis primarily to instill an aversion to sexual intercourse with Jews. For the same purpose, the Nazis spread the fabrication that Aryan women become infected with Jewish sperm during sexual intercourse.

Julius Streicher, in the New Year's issue of Stürmer for 1935, published a “study” in which it was proved that one intercourse with a Jew is enough for all the children of a German woman to be born ugly, weak and sickly. And Hitler was one of the most faithful supporters of Stürmer’s ideas, which were the basis for the Nuremberg laws of racial purity. However, long before them, the Fuhrer wrote in “Mein Kampf”: “The Jew defiles the Aryan with his blood, during sexual intercourse he poisons her blood.” To further fuel hatred of Jews, the Nazis revived the myth of their unbridled lust, which dates back to the Middle Ages. This myth became most widespread during anti-Semitic campaigns in Germany in the 1930s. Stürmer published a special book for children called “The Poisonous Mushroom,” in which they were warned against the slightest contact with Jews, because they were all sexual maniacs who only dreamed of violence against Aryan girls and boys. Other writings attributed incredible sexuality and perversity to Jews. In a completely reputable Berlin medical publication in 1936, one could read an article under the headline: “Jewish doctors rape patients under anesthesia.” The article listed the names of doctors exiled to a concentration camp for “desecrating young Aryans.” Another fabrication against Jews was their alleged reluctance to serve in the army during the First World War. Many newspapers carried materials from former front-line soldiers who claimed that Jews entrenched in the rear had fun with the wives and daughters of those who fought on the fronts. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that “The Jews, after the Germans left for the front, immediately took their places in the vacated beds.” By the way, today there is quite reliable evidence that Hitler was very poorly endowed by nature sexually and, naturally, was fiercely envious of the Jews, who, in his opinion, were too generously endowed sexually. In the same “Mein Kampf” he wrote: “Walking through the streets of Vienna, I observed many big-nosed Jews, to whom beautiful German women clung... At the sight of them, a chill ran down my spine, and I was overcome with rage.” In the Fuhrer's speeches and private conversations, one of his main accusations against the Jews was their obvious and secret sexual perversions. In the comprehensive anti-Semitic campaign launched by the Nazis, the sexual aspect occupied a very significant place and contributed no small part to inciting hatred and contempt for German Jews.

Already in 1936, Jews did not have the right to hold government positions, especially to serve in the army. Almost all professions became non-Jewish, their freedom of movement was limited, and soon the confiscation of real estate began. In Germany, a comprehensive framework was created to identify people of Jewish origin. In addition, Gestapo agents were rampant in the country, engulfing society in widespread surveillance and denunciation. According to scrupulous research by the Gestapo special service, there were about half a million people in Germany who were Jews under the Nuremberg Laws. Soon after Hitler came to power, Jews began to leave Germany. Racial laws caused a complete flight. According to the Jerusalem Institute Yad Vashem, by September 1939, 360 thousand Jews left Germany, after which the barrier fell. Finally, on October 9, 1942, Martin Bormann signed a decree that stated: “The permanent removal of Jews from German territory can no longer be carried out by emigration, but only by the use of ruthless force in special camps in the East.” According to the director of the Yad Vashem Institute, Professor Yitzhak Arad, more than 150 thousand German Jews were exterminated in such camps. Even before this, about 30 thousand died in concentration camps in Germany. Thus, Germany itself, the first European country to be completely cleared of people with a quarter of Jewish blood, became “Judenfrei” in the cynical expression of the Nazis. (From the article “Sexual Holocaust” - A.Z.)

Why is the name so pretentious – “Jewish Shield of the USSR”? Why not the Ukrainian shield of the USSR, Georgian, Tatar or Uzbek shields of the same Soviet Union? Yes, first of all, because such shields were not created by representatives of these ethnic groups. During the Great Patriotic War, Jews controlled a significant part of the military industry. Jews, mainly, after the war, created nuclear, thermonuclear, air defense and missile defense shields. They also made up a significant part of theorists and designers in strategic rocketry, military branches of aircraft and shipbuilding, military electrical engineering, chemistry, etc. To verify the validity of such a categorical statement, just read my book... I think that the story about these Jews is the great advantage of the book . I could cite here information from my book, which indicates that the Jews fought valiantly, that there were many heroes among them, but I will focus on the highest commanders. During the war, 235 Jews became generals and admirals. Of these, 110 directly led the military operations. The commanders were about 100 generals and admirals - Jews, whose names are mostly unknown even to the Jewish population of the USSR. The corps were commanded by 14 Jews; at different times they headed 23 corps. The armies were commanded by 8 Jews: generals Malinovsky, Kreiser, Kolpakchi, Skvirsky, Dashevsky, Broad, Gorodinsky and Pruss. Jews - 25 generals and the Marshal of the Soviet Union led the military operations of the fronts. There were 16 Jewish generals and admirals serving in the Supreme Headquarters, who were thus directly involved in the strategic management of the war as a whole.
The book talks about all these Jewish commanders. But in most detail - about Marshal of the Soviet Union Rodion Malinovsky, army generals Vladimir Kolpakchi and Yakov Kreiser, colonel generals Lev Kotlyar and Alexander Tsirlin, lieutenant generals Mark Shevelev, Aron Karponosov and some others.
The book also details the activities of outstanding intelligence officers Jan Czerniak, Leopold Trepper, Sandor Rado and Rachel Dübendorf; the largest saboteurs Yakov Serebryansky and Yevgeny Volyansky, partisan Alexander Pechersky and others, whose names are unknown to most Soviet citizens, not to mention foreigners...

The book talks about the peculiarities of Jewish military service in peacetime. These features boiled down mainly to discrimination against them in all aspects of the service. Jewish soldiers were subjected to “hazing” of particular cruelty. Officers were faced with the impossibility of entering the academy, they were squeezed in every possible way in promotion and assignment of new ranks, they were driven into the most terrible garrisons in terms of climatic conditions, without the prospect of transfer to more civilized places. Despite the fact that Jewish officers, as a rule, served quite conscientiously, they stood out for their diligence, initiative, courage and courage in carrying out the most dangerous tasks.
In such conditions, few Jews managed to become generals and admirals. Over the 46 post-war years, 79 officers received stripes. But already in 1990, there were only three of them left in the entire Soviet Army. Two of them - Lev Rokhlin and Alexander Rutskoy - took part in the Afghan War; Admiral Lev Chernavin was an outstanding naval commander. The book devotes a separate essay to each of these military leaders.
Of particular importance, I think, is Part Three, which tells about the Jews - the creators of the weapons of the Soviet Army in the post-war period. And first of all - about those who created nuclear and thermonuclear weapons. In addition to the story about the 36 direct participants in this process, there are separate essays about three times Heroes of Socialist Labor Boris Vannikov, Yulia Khariton, Yakov Zeldovich and Efim Slavsky. It is symbolic, by the way, that in total the title of Hero of Socialist Labor was awarded three times to 12 scientists and designers, four of them were Jews!
You will find almost no information about the Jews who created strategic missiles. For example, who has heard of the head of the first missile research institute - Major General Hero of Socialist Labor Lev Ruvimovich Honor? But Korolev himself was at first only the head of a department at NII-88. It seems that no more is known about the outstanding role in strategic rocket science of Semyon Kosberg, Boris Chertok, Boris Shaposhnik, Matus Bisnovat. All of them are Heroes of Socialist Labor, General and Chief Designers of rocketry. There are separate essays about them, but many other Jewish rocket scientists are also talked about. The Jewish creators of combat aircraft, Semyon Lavochkin and Mikhail Gurevich, and the creators of helicopters, Mikhail Mil, are widely known. It seems, however, that few people know that there were four more Jewish General Aircraft Designers: Heroes of Socialist Labor Matus Bisnovat, David Khorol, Isaac Iosilovich and Evgeniy Felsner. And also Chief Designers: Mark Weinberg, Naum Chernyakov, Alexander Borin, Semyon Vigdorchik, Zelman Itskovich and others. The book contains essays and detailed information about them. But what is certainly unknown is the prominent role of Jews in the post-war military shipbuilding of the USSR. In my book, a special essay is dedicated to Abram Samuilovich Kassatsier, General Designer of the first Soviet nuclear-powered strategic missile submarine, Project 667A (Navaga class). Other essays tell about the creator of the world's first hovercraft, Vladimir Izrailevich Levkov, about Boris Kupensky, the General Designer of the nuclear cruiser Peter the Great, the current flagship of the Russian surface fleet. It seems that few people know that Jews were at the head of the creation of modern air and missile defense systems. The most outstanding, perhaps, twice Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of many Stalin, Lenin and State prizes, Lev Veniaminovich Lyulev. It was Lyulev who created almost all Soviet, and now Russian, anti-aircraft missile systems: “Krug”, “Cube”, “Buk”, “S-300V”, “Antey-2500”. As we can see, almost all modern anti-aircraft missile systems, which Russia is proud of today and widely trades in, were created by Lev Lyulev. Anatoly Leonidovich Livshits. His name was classified because it was Anatoly Lifshits who was the General Designer of air defense and missile defense systems of the Soviet Union, with him and with his participation the protection belts for the cities of Moscow and Leningrad, the Far East, which are still functioning today, were made. Another Lifshits, but Mikhail Ilyich and his colleagues Loktev Lev Abramovich, Zalman Mikhailovich Benenson and others are the creators of not only anti-aircraft missile weapons, but also all air defense and missile defense control systems of the Soviet Union.
The Special Design Bureau team, headed by Alexander Emmanuilovich Nudelman, designed almost all air cannons - the main weapon of combat aircraft of the Soviet army. Most of the types of weapons developed by Nudelman are still used to supply the Russian army today. He is twice a Hero of Socialist Labor, twice a Stalin Prize laureate, three times a State Prize laureate, and a Lenin Prize laureate.
In order not to overload the interview, I will only name the names of those Jews who were the largest of all the creators of combat weapons of the Soviet Armed Forces. These include Joseph Yakovlevich Kotin. He led the creation of all heavy tanks and other armored combat vehicles for 30 post-war years. Colonel General. Hero of Socialist Labor, four times laureate of the USSR State Prize.
One of the creators of modern military radio technology should include, first of all, Alexander Lvovich Mints. Hero of Socialist Labor, two Stalin, Lenin and State prizes. Kabachnik Martin Izrailevich is the creator of Soviet nerve agents, as well as binary agents. Hero of Socialist Labor, State and Lenin Prizes.
As we see, these figures in the most important branches of science and the military industry were much less affected by state anti-Semitism. For the same reason - there was no one to replace such Jews. This is precisely what explains their outstanding, sometimes decisive role in the Soviet military-industrial complex after the Great Patriotic War. I am sure that by the end of this decade, the power of Russia as a military power will be based on the weapons created by the people described in my book... Many facts that relate to the contribution of Jews to the victory over fascism and the post-war arsenal of the USSR were hidden earlier and are not fully known and now. The start of such a vile policy was given by Stalin, who during the war years declared: “Jews are inferior soldiers... Yes, Jews are bad soldiers.” And although in this war the Jewish soldiers showed the greatest valor, the order of the tyrant was heard, understood and adopted, especially since it was to the liking of the executors - the Judeophobes. Confirmation is at least the terrible fate of Mirra Zheleznova - the literary pseudonym of Miryam Aizenstadt, a columnist for the only wartime Jewish newspaper of the USSR, Enikayt. She received, at an official request, information about Jews - Heroes of the Soviet Union and published this data in her newspaper. One hundred thirty-five Heroes of the Soviet Union are Jews! The lists from the newspaper were reprinted by the European and American press, and the resonance from these data was considerable: this radically changed the prevailing opinion about Jews as soldiers of the Soviet Army. Neither Stalin nor his Judeophobic circle could forgive this journalist. So they didn’t forgive me, they hid for the time being, in 1950 they arrested and shot. A certificate on the number and percentage of Jews awarded military decorations during the Great Patriotic War was issued by the USSR Ministry of Armed Forces to the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee Solomon Shpigelglas. Two months later, Solomon Spiegelglas was found dead. Apparently, the “specialists” of the NKGB could not have done it without them. What kind of criminal information was hidden in this document? It said that as of April 1, 1946, 123,822 Jews, or 1.4 percent of the total number of awards, were included in the statistical record of awards made during the Great Patriotic War. Thus, the Certificate quite officially testified that in terms of military awards, Jews took fifth place among the titular nationalities and ethnic groups of the Soviet Union. Almost two decades separate us from the collapse of the USSR. During this time, many Russian leaders have changed, but the state and public position of underestimating and outright denying the military activities of Jews has not changed. They are usually accused of cowardice, inability and unwillingness to serve in the army. Moreover, fight with weapons in hand. And speaking of peacetime, Jews were simply erased from the history of the armed forces, military science and industry. Dozens of works have appeared in Russia that in every possible way devalue the military component of the history of Soviet Jews. The start of this kind of fabrication was given by A. Solzhenitsyn in “Two Hundred Years Together.” He was joined by Platonov, Filatov, Mukhin, Mishin, Vladimirov, Zhevakhov, Gribanov, Glazunov and others like them, whose slanderous and false works fill the bookstore shelves. There are no books that refute these dirty slander and slander. “Jewish Shield of the USSR” is the first. It is very necessary against the backdrop of the stream of slander that constantly falls on our people. (From an interview in the magazine “Chaika” No. 11/190 1.06.2011 - A.Z.)

State Security Intelligence

One of the first heads of the INO VChK was Solomon Grigorievich Mogilevsky, who took this post a year after the organization of the Foreign Department. But already in August 1921, the INO was headed by Mikhail (Meir) Abramovich Trilisser, who remained in this post for 9 years. No one surpassed him in the length of his stay in such a “slippery” and responsible position.

He was born in 1883. A professional revolutionary, he spent almost 10 years in prisons and exile. During the Civil War, he was a commissar in large military formations. After leaving his post as head of the INO, Trilisser was a member of the Presidium of the Comintern. In 1940 he was arrested and executed.

During this time, illegal INO residencies were created and agent networks were deployed in most European countries, China and the USA. In 1926, the so-called Special Group was formed - a parallel foreign intelligence service for deep penetration of agents and preparation of sabotage in Western Europe, Turkey and China. It was led for more than 10 years by Yakov Isaakovich, a career intelligence officer and an experienced illegal immigrant.

These agents subsequently achieved very high social and official positions. For example, Kim almost headed British intelligence and was one of the founders of the CIA.

The Cambridge Five are considered one of the most successful intelligence groups in the history of Soviet espionage.

In 1938, Orlov received an order to leave for Moscow. But, knowing that there is a general destruction of foreign agents there, he, his wife and daughter, flees to America. At the same time, he notifies Stalin in a special letter that if there are attempts to remove him, all agents in Europe will be exposed. And since Moscow knew that Orlov was aware of the composition of most spy groups, they left him alone. After Stalin's death, he published a sensational book, The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes.

Orlov died in the USA in 1973.

After Orlov's escape, intelligence activities in Spain were headed by his deputy Naum Isaakovich.

He was born in 1898 in Mogilev. Since 1919 - an employee of the Cheka, graduated from the military academy. Since 1925, working illegally, first in China, then in Turkey and finally in Spain. Upon returning to Moscow, he received the task of destroying Leon Trotsky, who was then living in Mexico, at any cost. organized two assassination attempts, as a result of the second Trotsky was killed by Ramon..

Only recently did it become known about the Jewish origin of one of the most outstanding partisan commanders of the Great Patriotic War, Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel Dmitry Nikolaevich Medvedev. He was born in 1898 in Bezhitsa and worked in the Cheka - NKVD from 1920 to 1935.

Then he was fired and repressed. At the beginning of the war, Medvedev was released, and he became the commander of a special sabotage and reconnaissance detachment operating in Ukraine. This detachment, in particular, served as a base for the legendary saboteur

He was lucky: when he was recalled to Moscow and ordered to be arrested, for some reason this order was not carried out. And in 1941 he was sent to the USA, where he created an extensive network of agents, which was very useful for penetrating the uranium project.

After the arrest of the Rosenbergs, Coens and managed to escape to the USSR. I returned there even earlier. In 1947-49 he was deputy executive secretary of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (). When the entire train was arrested, one of the few escaped execution. He received 25 years in prison, but was released after the death of Stalin.

However, torture and moral torment broke this seasoned agent, and he soon died. Fate Koenov wasn't much better off. They were retrained and sent to London in 1954, where they worked with the famous spy Konon. After exposure in 1961, Cohen's

received 25 years in prison, but were exchanged in 1969. Surprisingly, first Leontina, then Morris became Heroes of Russia, although posthumously - in 1994 and 97.

It seems that the story will be incomplete if we ignore the truly fantastic deeds of the Lithuanian Karaite Joseph, who, being a seasoned Soviet spy, managed to become the ambassador of the Republic of Costa Rica to Italy and the Vatican. This happened in 1950. And in 1953 he was hastily recalled to Moscow and expelled from MGB intelligence as part of a campaign of its general “cleansing” of persons of Jewish nationality.

At that time, all Jews - employees of the central apparatus and intelligence workers - were imprisoned or executed. And after 1953, in the state security intelligence services, the notorious “Jewish question” was resolved finally and irrevocably )

Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff (

Gusev worked as head of the Register until the beginning of 1920. Then military intelligence was led by Jan Karlovich, a Latvian, until 1935.

He was replaced by corps commander Semyon Petrovich.

He was born in Cherkassy in 1895. During the Civil War he commanded a cavalry brigade, graduated from the Military Academy and was sent to Germany to work illegally.

Upon his return, he commanded a division and a rifle corps. Then - the boss. Since 1937 - Commander of the Moscow Military District. Arrested and executed in August 1938.

From September 1937 to May 1938, military intelligence was headed by another Jew, Semyon Grigorievich. Then he was arrested and executed in February 1939. The same fate befell almost all deputy chiefs, heads of departments and directions of the Jews: Abramov, Aleksandrovsky (Yukelzon), Arkus, Askov, Borovich (Rozenstahl), Bronin (Lichtenstal), Weinberg, Weiner, Woll. All of them were accused of treason and executed during the black years of 1937-1939.

As a very young guy, he joined the Zionists and in 1924 emigrated to Palestine, there he joined the Communist Party, and 5 years later he left for France. He was recruited by Comintern agents and in 1932 transported to Moscow, where he became a military intelligence officer.

In 1937, he came to Belgium illegally and recruited a group of agents there, which became more active after the German occupation. The core of this group were local Jews. In August 1940 he left for France. There he became a resident of a local intelligence group and began work on obtaining information at the headquarters of the occupation forces. The information he sent to the Center was highly appreciated. In 1939 from Moscow to Brussels

officer Anatoly Markovich arrived. He was born in Kharkov in 1913, recruited by military intelligence in 1936, and a participant in the Spanish Civil War. In Belgium, he took over the leadership of the residency from , acting under the pseudonym "Kent".

organized the Simeksko rubber products company, made connections in business circles and among Wehrmacht officers who bought his company's products. Its branches opened in Paris, Berlin, Prague, Marseille and other cities, which he traveled around collecting information. This information was important and reliable, and the network of radio stations made it possible to send it to the Center in a timely manner.

Meanwhile, Moscow demanded more and more data. To transmit them, walkie-talkies in Paris and Brussels worked almost continuously. Thus, they violated the basic rules of secrecy, providing the Germans' mobile radio direction finders with ideal conditions for detection. Which happened soon.

But the main goal of the Sonderkommando was the arrest of the leaders - and, which investigators learned about from interrogations of those arrested. And in November 1942, the Gestapo arrested, and a few days later - so did. In total, more than 200 illegal agents of Soviet military intelligence were arrested in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany during the year, and 12 radios were captured. This was perhaps the greatest success of German counterintelligence in the fight against Soviet espionage. Only Stalin was able to inflict a more severe blow, destroying many times more of his most experienced intelligence officers.

Using captured radio operators and their radios, German counterintelligence launched the most delicious type of operations - radio games with the Moscow Center, which made it possible to misinform the Soviet command about German plans, the deployment and movements of troops. But these radio games were only partially successful - at the very beginning of the operation, because both and were able to report that the radios were controlled by the enemy.