1. One of the stars of Russian foreign intelligence is Elizaveta Zarubina (pseudonym "Vardo"). She has been doing illegal work for over twenty years. In Paris, she was in touch with the experienced agent of the Soviet special services, the former tsarist general P. Dyakonov, who in the past held the post of Russia's military attaché in England and had extensive connections among the Russian emigration. Through him, Lisa received information about the anti-Russian actions of the French military intelligence. It was Zarubina who, constantly risking her life, restored contact in Germany with the most valuable source of Soviet intelligence in the Gestapo, Willi Lehmann ("Breitenbach"), who over the years served as one of the prototypes of Colonel Stirlitz in the famous film "Seventeen Moments of Spring". Through him, "Vardo" received confidential information about the creation of a fundamentally new type of weapon by Werner von Braun - FAU missiles.

Elizaveta Zarubina's ability to work is evidenced by the fact that when during the Great Patriotic War she already worked in the legal residency of the Soviet Union in the United States, she had twenty-two agents in touch, including the most valuable sources of information. Lisa managed to regularly hold meetings with connections in Washington, New York, San Francisco and other cities in America.

2. Leontine Cohen became the first female hero of the Russian Federation. She participated in operational activities to obtain secret documents on the creation of American atomic weapons. She reliably carried out the risky assignments of the illegal Soviet station in New York. She was entrusted with complex business trips to European countries to organize meetings with illegal intelligence officers. In Moscow, Cohen received additional special training, having mastered the specialty of a radio operator-cipher officer. Professionally proficient in many intelligence wisdom, Leontina has repeatedly shown remarkable resourcefulness.

There is an episode when, getting out of a specially protected area near the American atomic facility Los Alamos, Cohen stumbled upon a tight cordon of police officers who meticulously checked the documents of passengers before boarding the train and the contents of their luggage. While the agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation were inspecting her, Leontina pretended to be looking in her purse for her train ticket and at this time politely asked the inspector to hold a small box of napkins. Namely, top secret documents were hidden in it. The gallant counterintelligence officer willingly agreed to help the lady, throwing flirtatious jokes with her. So the box of invaluable papers escaped inspection. The most important materials were soon sent to Moscow and transferred to the leading atomic engineer of the USSR, Academician Kurchatov. By the way, she is the first of the scouts to appear on Soviet postage stamps.

3. One cannot but admire the fate of Irina Alimova (pseudonym "Bir"), called up for intelligence from the cinema. Not every actress can become an employee of the special services. However, every scout, especially an illegal, must become an actress. Not necessarily professional, but at least have artistic abilities that would allow her to reincarnate in the image that she undertook to play. At the beginning of her working life, Irina charmingly played the main role in one of the first Turkmen films "Umbar".

But this is not why Soviet intelligence drew attention to it. In addition to her native Turkmen and Russian languages, she was fluent in Uyghur and Turkish, Persian, Japanese, German, and English to varying degrees of perfection. After several years of training in the unusual and exciting profession of a scout and an internship abroad, "Bir" was "brought out" to Japan. During her thirteen-year stay in the country, she oversaw its rearmament following the creation of the Self-Defense Forces in 1954 and the intensive development of bilateral ties with the United States. It was this scout who obtained aerial photographs of US bases and military airfields in Japan. It is not yet time to talk about all the deeds and accomplishments of Alimova. Perhaps it is enough to note that twenty-two thick folders - seven thousand numbered pages - of extremely important military-political information received by Irina were included in the archives of the Russian SVR. She returned to her homeland not failed and not deciphered, having completed all her tasks.

4. When the Great Patriotic War began, Nadezhda Viktorovna Troyan lived in Belarus. Immediately after the beginning of the German occupation, she became a member of an underground youth organization in the city of Smolevichi, Minsk region. The Komsomol members of the underground collected the intelligence data about the enemy troops necessary for the Soviet army, pasted leaflets, helped the families of those who had gone to partisan units in the Belarusian forests. In July 1942, Nadezhda Troyan also went to the partisans. She was a scout and nurse in the "Stalin's Five", "Tempest" and others. The brave girl personally participated not only in collecting intelligence, but also in blowing up bridges, attacking enemy convoys and other military operations. In 1943, Nadezhda Troyan took an active part in the preparation and conduct of the operation to destroy the Gauleiter of Belarus Wilhelm Kube.

Already in the post-war period, the film "The clock stopped at midnight" was shot about this feat of Nadezhda Troyan and her comrades in arms. In 2012, the operation to eliminate Wilhelm Kube formed the basis of the television series The Hunt for the Gauleiter. For her courage during this operation, Nadezhda Troyan was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in October 1943, received the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.

5. Probably everyone watched the cult Soviet four-part film by director Sergei Kolosov "Calling Fire on Ourselves". This is one of our best war films. The main female role was brilliantly played by Lyudmila Kasatkina. But not everyone knows that the movie heroine had a real prototype - the scout Anya Morozova, a girl who became a legend.

Anna Afanasyevna Morozova was born in 1921. When the war began, a twenty-year-old girl lived and worked as an accountant in the Bryansk region. In May 1942, she headed an underground international Soviet-Polish-Czechoslovak organization in the village of Seshcha as part of the 1st Kletnyansky partisan brigade. Morozova and her comrades collected valuable intelligence data on the enemy's forces and carried out subversive activities. On the mines laid by Anna Morozova's organization, from May 1942 to September 1943, two German ammunition depots, twenty aircraft and six train echelons took off. With the help of intelligence obtained by Anya Morozova, on June 17, 1942, the partisans defeated the garrison of the German airbase in the village of Sergeevka, and killed 200 flight personnel and 38 combat vehicles. In September 1943, the underground workers led by Anna Morozova managed to unite with the regular units of the Soviet Army.

Anya completed courses for radio operators. Considering her underground experience and intelligence ability, in June 1944, the command assigned the girl to the Jack reconnaissance group. As part of this group, Anna Morozova was abandoned in East Prussia. From there, Jack's fighters crossed into German-occupied Polish territory. Since the end of 1944, Morozova fought in the united Soviet-Polish partisan detachment. On December 31, 1944, the Jack squadron fought the Germans on the Nova Ves farm. Anya Morozova was wounded and, in order not to fall into the hands of the Germans alive, blew herself up with a grenade. The feat of the Soviet intelligence officer became known after the war, when in 1959 the former intelligence officer Ovidiy Gorchakov published an essay about Anna Morozova in Komsomolskaya Pravda. It was on the basis of this sketch that the script of the film "Calling Fire on Ourselves" was written. In 1965, after watching this film, war veterans appealed to the country's leadership with a proposal to award Anna Morozova the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously, which was done on May 8, 1965.

For many years, historians have been arguing over what role does a woman play in intelligence?

"Scout" - this profession is associated with many exclusively with "Male factor"... Many are sure that only a woman can become a real scout. But this belief is easy to refute, since history provides us with such an opportunity. On the eve of the 71st anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War, I would like to note the contribution of female intelligence officers to the defeat of Nazi Germany. The standard, the main legend of women's intelligence is considered to be the famous Mato Hari or the heroine of the First World War Martou Richard... By the way, the latter was the mistress of the German attaché in Spain. She managed not only to obtain important intelligence, but also to paralyze the activities of an entire network of agents that operated in this country.

But the example of Martha Richard is rather an exception, only in rare cases are intelligence officers used as a "trap", that is, to seduce simpletons to obtain important information. Women come to exploration in different ways, but they are always carefully selected. They have high requirements - knowledge of foreign languages, psychological endurance, acting talents and much more. It is especially hard for those ladies who work abroad, who are, so to speak, in an "illegal position." They have to adhere to strict conspiracy, communicate only with certain people. Many have been in this “position” for 15 or even 20 years. 1930s forced many states to rethink the role of women in intelligence.

The scouts of the heroine of our time

By 1935, it became clear to many what danger Nazism posed. In the terrible years of the war, a lot of people chose to link their fate with intelligence, and to be honest, there were many women among them! Scouts performed many heroic deeds, completing tasks, dangerous tasks in different parts of the world. The assignments had to be carried out mainly in the territories of Europe and the USSR, occupied by Nazi Germany. For example, even before the war, important information was received from a scout who operated under the pseudonym "Alta". The agent announced the formation of three army groups, and that they would carry out their main attacks on Moscow. In 1943, the Alta was arrested by Gestapo officers and executed. Zarubina E., Cohen L., Modrzhinskaya E., Kitty Harris - they all worked for Soviet intelligence before and during the Second World War. They carried out very risky tasks. What motivated these women? Firstly, it is a sense of duty, secondly, a sense of patriotism, and of course, thirdly, it is to protect the world from the genocide of Hitlerite Germany. The work was carried out not only abroad, but also in the territory occupied by Nazi Germany. We all know the story of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Her act became a symbol of real courage. By the way, seventeen-year-old Z. Kosmodemyanskaya became the first woman to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Scout feat

A simple girl P. Savelyev from the small town of Rzhev committed a courageous act. She sent a sample of chemical weapons to her squad, which Hitler wanted to use against the Red Army. The girl was captured by the Gestapo and subjected to terrible torture. But, despite all this, she did not betray her comrades. On January 12, 1944 Pasha was burned alive in the courtyard of the prison in Lutsk.

Scouts eternal memory

Many more heroic deeds were committed by the scouts. The war years have passed, foreign policy has entered the stage of the "cold war". And here work continued to obtain important intelligence data. The Cold War has become history. The world is considered relatively safe today. Women are still being recruited into intelligence. Many experts have repeatedly noted that a woman is more observant than a man, moreover, she has a highly developed intuition. It is not for nothing that the scouts' basic rule is: “Beware of women! History knows many cases when women helped to capture male scouts. You should pay attention to a woman only if you suspect that she is an agent of the enemy's intelligence or counterintelligence service, and then only if you are confident that she is completely in control of herself. "

The word "intelligence" is feminine, but she herself was considered a purely masculine affair. Even during the Great Patriotic War. In the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring" the main character seems to be not the radio operator Kat, but SS Standartenfuehrer Stirlitz. However, it was the heroine of Yekaterina Gradova, like her colleagues, who made the impossible possible, playing on the sidelines.
These are on account of women the most dangerous intelligence operations, the most sophisticated moves, the most incredible recruiting.
Each of these women had a special natural gift. One was a great singer, whom Chaliapin himself worshiped, the second knew how to be invisible and enter any image (it was she who was entrusted with the attempt on Hitler himself), the third had the mind of a grandmaster and a unique ability to convince ... But above all, they had a talent for love. To love so much that their feeling changed the political convictions of specific people and the fate of entire nations. Three scouts, three exploits and three love stories. Some documents about them are published for the first time.

A still from the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring".
Operational alias of the Farmer. Secret weapon - voice
I look at old photographs ... They are almost a century old. And the young woman in these pictures seems to be from the beginning of the 21st century. A dazzling and luxurious singer who clearly knows the value of her talent. Are scouts really like that?

Nadezhda Plevitskaya was one of the most talented, - says the historian of the Foreign Intelligence Service and holds out the sheets. - Here, read her diaries, they will tell a lot about her character.
Nadezhda talks about her poor peasant family, where she was the 12th child. About how hard she had to work as a child, but at the same time how she loved her village life. About how she began to sing in the choir to feed her family, how she went to a monastery, how she returned “to the world” ... And all this time she sang and sang.
And here is the description written by the NKVD officers. Judging by her, Plevitskaya was considered an emotional, inspired, sublime person, ready to devote her whole life to art. I have no doubt that it was. What is just this excerpt from her diary: “Russian song does not know slavery. And there is no such musician who could record the music of the Russian soul: there will not be enough sheet music, sheet music signs. "
- If you ever decide to write about her, be sure to listen to her songs, - this was a covenant that was once given to me by the intelligence veteran Vladimir Karpov, who, unfortunately, has already passed away. He insisted that Plevitskaya was one of the most prominent figures in intelligence. - A woman with a big heart and a wonderful voice ... Before she was attracted to cooperation, she said that she was an artist and sings for everyone: "I'm out of politics!" And she really sang for the poor people and for the royal family. Emperor Nicholas II cried when he listened to her.
“The sovereign was sensitive and attentive. The choice of songs was left to me, and I sang what I liked. She also sang a revolutionary song about a wretched peasant who ended up in Siberia for arrears. Nobody made a comment to me. ... And songs about bitter and bitter, about the share of the peasant, who should sing and tell, if not to his father? He heard me, and I saw a sad light in the royal eyes. "
From the singer's diaries.
During the revolution, Nadezhda sang for the soldiers of the Red Army. And then she was captured by the White Guards, who took her abroad. General Nikolai Skoblin passionately fell in love with Plevitskaya, and she began to sing for whites. Red, white - what's the difference for a singer? And again a quote from her diary: "I can sing with the same feeling both" God Save the Tsar "and" Boldly we will go into battle. " It all depends on the audience. " But in emigration, Nadezhda greatly yearned for her homeland. Abroad, she was a stranger even to some Russians: the wives of her White Guards, a peasant by birth, were not accepted into their circle even after marriage (she became Skoblina). For her eyes they called her that - "little man".
And the intelligence of the Soviet government needed sources of information among the White Guards in order to destroy the terrorist and dangerous ROVS (Russian Combined Arms Union) by all means. They could not get to Skoblin and recruit him either with the help of his brother, or using close friends and classmates. The general was unshakable. And then they began to act through Hope. I don't know how she managed to do the impossible. Maybe she sang Russian songs to him with a particularly shrill, maybe she cried at night about her homesickness. But, probably, the whole point is that Skoblin loved his wife, like Russia, with all his heart and could not refuse her. In the center, he was given the operational pseudonym Farmer, Plevitskaya - Farmer.
“To the head of the foreign department of the USSR OGPU. Memorandum. The recruited "Farmer" and his wife became the main sources of information. The main results of the work boil down to the following:
First, he eliminated the combat squads created by Shatilov and General Fock.
Secondly, it brought to naught the nascent idea of \u200b\u200borganizing a special terrorist nucleus.
Thirdly, he got his hands on Zavadsky, the main agent of the French counterintelligence, and in addition to transferring information material, he exposed the agent-provocateur, slipped to us by the French and who had been working for us for 11 months.
Fourthly, he reported on the organization that was preparing the murder of the drug dealership comrade. Litvinov during a visit to Switzerland ... "
Plevitskaya acted as a liaison officer. I copied secret reports that my husband brought home, wrote intelligence reports. In general, Skoblin did not like to write and did not know how. And Nadezhda did it with obvious eagerness, since for her it was an opportunity to show her literary talent as well. The center knew about this, and the Farmers' reports were read with particular pleasure. By the way, they were full of details that only a woman could notice. Here's another report to the center:
“For four years of cooperation with“ Farmer ”and“ Farmer ”, on the basis of information received from them, 17 agents were arrested, abandoned by the ROVS in the USSR. 11 safe houses have been installed in Moscow ... "
Plevitskaya and Skoblin were arrested after the abduction of a white general, head of the Regional Military Alliance Yevgeny Miller. The center decided that it was Skoblin who had to make an appointment for him, at which he would be captured and taken to Moscow for trial. And Miller seemed to have a presentiment of such a denouement and left a note on the table: “I have a date with Skoblin today. Perhaps this is a trap ... "
Intelligence historians say that if not for her arrest, then during the Great Patriotic War she could have become one of the best scouts. The Nazis seemed to know this.
“There is every reason to believe that they poisoned her,” the Foreign Intelligence Service says. - And they did it after they saw the verdict and materials on her criminal case. It said that she was collaborating with Soviet foreign intelligence. She did not agree to work against Russia.
* Nadezhda Plevitskaya was sentenced in 1938 to 20 years for complicity in the abduction of Yevgeny Miller. The Gestapo took over the Rennes prison, where Nadezhda was held, in 1940. Soon Nadezhda died under mysterious circumstances.
Operational pseudonym Zina. Killer for Hitler
Remember the scene where Stirlitz is talking to the pregnant radio operator Kat?
“- How do you think to give birth, baby?
- It seems that a new method has not yet been invented.
“… You see, women scream during childbirth.
- I thought they were singing songs.
- They shout in their native language ... So you will shout "Mommy!" in Ryazan ".

Photo: EXTERNAL INTELLIGENCE SERVICE

Anechka Kamaeva did not scream in Russian during childbirth. But it was she who was the prototype of the radio operator Kat.
- Director Tatyana Lioznova came to Anechka (we still call her that) home, asked her about her work in intelligence, - recalls a close relative of Anna Kamaeva. - It was after she retired, but before she was "declassified." Anya lived in Moscow with her children, grandchildren and her beloved companion husband. In many ways, it was with her spouse - Mikhail Filonenko (and not only with agent Willie Lehman) - that Lioznova painted the image of Stirlitz. Actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov also came to visit them and became close friends with both scouts.
So, Anna Kamaeva. She's Zina. This is her operational pseudonym, by the way, is announced for the first time. Researchers cite facts from her biography that show her originality.
- At the age of 16, she, a weaver in a Moscow factory, was nominated by the working collective to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. The election commission was surprised and turned down the candidacy, citing obvious youth. And the second fact - in the very first days of the Great Patriotic War, Anna was included in the group of special tasks, subordinate to Beria personally.
For six years, the girl made a breathtaking career - from a weaver to one of the country's main military intelligence officers. How is this possible? Luck? Providence? Nobody can say for sure. Fighting, energetic, intelligent, smart girl. But how many of them were there? Perhaps the point is in her unparalleled courage. Here she was not afraid of anything, and that's it. Anna was one of the few special missions who survived this war. Although she was always ready to go to death.
- From the very beginning of the war, a sabotage plan was developed in case the Nazis occupied Moscow, - says the veteran intelligence officer. - All the details were thought out. So, for example, they calculated that in the event of a victory, the Germans would want to celebrate it in one of the landmark buildings for the USSR. They compiled lists of such structures - the Kremlin, the Bolshoi Theater, the Moscow Hotel, etc. They were all supposed to be blown up. Anya mined buildings both alone and in a group of other scouts. She knew all the subtleties of mine work after completing a special training course. In parallel, she was preparing for the assassination of Hitler. There were several options for how she should commit the "assassination attempt of the century." None of them imagined that she could survive.
BTW
All the scouts who mined Moscow in case of its capture by the Nazis, then went to the front or partisan. And when it became clear that there was no need to blow up the city, other specialists began to mine. However, the "bookmarks" were hidden so skillfully that not everyone could find. Some buildings have been cleared of mines recently! Among them is the Column Hall of the House of Unions. A secret room, where there were several boxes of explosives, was found there after a member of a special sabotage detachment showed the place.
Now think about what a girl should have been so that none of the commanders doubted that it was she (and perhaps only she!) Who could kill Hitler himself, sacrificing her life. However, according to some reports, several such "kamikaze" were prepared.
Then Kamaeva was sent to a partisan detachment. There she played the role of a liaison, again mined (now bridges and railways), together with others she attacked enemy headquarters.
Documents, documents ... From many intelligence operations that were during the war, the "secret" stamp was removed quite recently. And thanks to this, it is now known how the reconnaissance radio operator Anna undermined the columns, took out plans for offensives, recruited and destroyed serious German troops. The Nazis guessed about the existence of a scout with unique abilities (capable of sneaking into the rear of the enemy unnoticed and blowing everything up there). Any reward was given for her head. But they couldn't catch her. Because of her, the Germans, already on the outskirts of Moscow, lost the remnants of their fighting spirit: "If one young girl can do this, then is it possible to defeat this people at all?" The authorities reported about her dryly, but always presented them for awards (which were personally presented by Zhukov).
Report of the commander of the special purpose detachment of the 4th NKVD Directorate:
“Anna Kamaeva, radio operator. He is directly involved in carrying out special large-scale sabotage actions against the German fascist invaders on the near approaches to Moscow. "
After the war, Anna reincarnated again! From a partisan, she turned into a lady who knows several foreign languages \u200b\u200b(she again underwent serious intelligence training). She married scout Mikhail Filonenko, whom she met in the reception room of Marshal Zhukov, where he came, like her, to receive an award. The couple was sent to Mexico, then to Latin America, Brazil, Chile. Anna was an illegal spy in Shanghai. All life is on the road. Airports, railway stations, new passports and names, appointments, turnout passwords, encryption to the center ...
“At first, the children did not speak Russian and did not know that their parents were Russian,” says a family friend. - But when the scouts were returning forever by train to Moscow, both Anya and Mikhail sang songs in Russian. The children were shocked: "Dad, mom, are you Russian spies ?!" Then they quickly mastered Russian. By the way, Anechka was carrying a suitcase of money with her. It was ... the party dues that they were saving abroad.
* Anna Kamaeva (Filonenko) retired in 1963. However, only the leadership of the KGB knew about its existence and its exploits. Her name was declassified by the Foreign Intelligence Service in 1998, immediately after the death of the intelligence officer. Anna's spouse - scout Mikhail Filonenko - was the commander of the legendary reconnaissance and sabotage detachment "Moscow". Filonenko died in 1982.
Operational alias Helen. Agent love letters
Before me are letters. Hundreds of letters! This is the most wonderful and most touching correspondence I have ever read. And this is not at all the case when reading other people's letters is not good. Scout Leontina wrote them from an English prison, knowing full well that they would undergo strict censorship. Surely she would not mind if these letters were published in the newspaper of the country she was saving from a nuclear war.

Photo: EXTERNAL INTELLIGENCE SERVICE

You can talk endlessly about Leontine, ”the intelligence historian begins his story. And from the glowing eyes it is clear that Leontine Cohen is one of his favorite heroines. - Imagine an ordinary poor girl who earned a piece of bread in America as much as she could (housekeeper, waitress, factory laborer). At one of the anti-fascist rallies, she met her future husband, our agent Morris. She did not know that he was a Russian intelligence officer. And he, in turn, hesitated for a long time whether to talk to her about work or not. But soon it was reported from Moscow that Leontina was suitable for the service. And Morris brought her into his work. It happened about six months after their wedding.
NEW YORK RESIDENTURE CENTER, NOVEMBER 1941:
“Feature on Leontine Cohen. She possesses the qualities necessary for a foreign source: beautiful, courageous, smart, has an amazing property to win over the interlocutor. Sometimes overly emotional and straightforward, but we think this is a fixable thing. The main thing is that she is able to reincarnate and play the role assigned to her. "
It was thanks to Leontine that at one time a sample of the new American aviation machine gun was delivered to Moscow. To do this, she recruited an engineer from an aircraft factory and persuaded him to take out the weapons from the factory in parts. The machine gun was transported to the center in a double bass case.
One day she entered a closed town where nuclear weapons were being developed and took out secret documents in a box with paper napkins.
“At the train station, FBI officers carefully checked each passenger,” intelligence historians tell. - She thrust the box into the hands of one of the special services, pretended to rummage in her bag in search of a ticket. I “found” him when the train started. They put her in a hurry on the train without being examined and handed her that very priceless box with "napkins".
NEW YORK RESIDENTURE CENTER, DECEMBER 1945:
“Leontina is inventive, resourceful, brave and persistent in achieving her goal ... She treats intelligence with the utmost responsibility, ready to devote her whole life to it. A little emotional. But it may well work independently in illegal conditions. "
This was a new stage in the life of a "spy". Leontine was included in the residency of the legendary intelligence officer Rudolph Abel, where she provided a secret connection with those involved in the development of American nuclear weapons.
“It was largely thanks to her that the Cold War did not turn into a nuclear one,” Vladimir Karpov, an expert with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, repeated more than once.
In 1954, Leontine and her husband Morris, disguised as New Zealand businessmen from Moscow, arrived in England. And the center began to receive the most secret information about the NATO naval forces, about the development of missile weapons. British counterintelligence spent a lot of time and effort looking for "Russian spies." But in the end, the spouses were detained and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
These letters are the correspondence between Leontine and Morris. They were in different prisons in Britain, she is in the women's, he is in the men's. I read the letters and understand that the spouses did not betray anyone from the residency, they never recognized their involvement in Soviet intelligence (although MI5, the British security service, offered them freedom and a secure life in exchange for cooperation). But they confessed their love for each other in each letter ... They were allowed to write once a week for 4 pages.
“Today is Sunday evening, very quiet. The only sounds outside are sorrowful sighs and the creaking of beds in the neighboring "cage". I can't stop thinking about you. I still remember how your eyes glow like two pale blue lakes filled with liquid flame. I hear a nearby guard turn off the light. Good night, darling".
“There were so many things in your letter, dear, that I reread it many times! I'm a little sick, but don't worry. "
“If only we were allowed to write letters on 8 pages, not 4! Maybe someday, like curlers and nylon stockings, this will be allowed when the staff is increased. Even if you are sick, I will still take the opportunity to kiss you again and again. What a pity that I cannot sing you a serenade, my precious flower! "
"I hope that the day will come when couples will be allowed to share the same cell, but I'm getting used to the thought of living alone in a cramped cage."
Once a month (and then every three months) they were supposed to have a meeting lasting 1 hour. During it, the spouses were forbidden to touch each other. They could only watch, talk and drink tea and snack on cookies. And these were the most romantic dates that the royal prison once knew.
* In 1969, the efforts of the Soviet government and foreign intelligence were crowned with success. Morris and Leontine ended up in Moscow. Until her death, Leontine was a scout. Folders "Sov. secret ”, where materials about this are stored, are waiting in the wings. Leontina died in 1992, and in 1996 she was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Russia "for the successful completion of special missions to ensure state security in a life-threatening environment." Her husband, intelligence officer Morris Cohen, was awarded the title of Hero of Russia in 1995, posthumously.
Eva Merkacheva

© collage Inosmi

The most famous Russian and Soviet intelligence officer of all time is radio operator Kat from the movie "Seventeen Moments of Spring". She is a fictional character. She can.

Real scouts and scouts work, as they like to say themselves, "without the right to fame." However, something is still made public.

No sooner had the "spy scandal" in the United States, whose "face" was the Russian woman Anna Chapman, when a new one appeared, connected with the former assistant of the British deputy Michael Hancock, Ekaterina Zatuliveter.

Court hearings on the legality of her stay in Britain are nearing completion.

Apparently, there is no solid evidence of Zatuliveter's intelligence activities - otherwise they would not have tried to deport her, but would have been tried for espionage.

Perhaps she's just an ambitious person trying to make a career.

Meanwhile, the history of Russian and Soviet intelligence knows the names of women, whose role after years is beyond doubt. These were outstanding personalities whose fates were worthy of a thriller and a love story at the same time.

Femme fatale

Dorothea Lieven is a graduate of the Smolny Institute, the maid of honor of the wife of Paul I, Maria Feodorovna, the sister of the future chief of gendarmes Alexander Benckendorff and the wife of the Russian ambassador to Berlin and Britain Christopher Lieven.

After the death of her husband, she settled in Paris, where she opened a secular salon, in which politicians and diplomats had frank conversations.

Not being a classic beauty, but possessing a sharp mind and irresistible charm, Dorothea Lieven was consistently in romantic relationships with three of Europe's greatest statesmen - Austrian Chancellor Clemens Metternich, Foreign Office head George Canning and French Prime Minister François Guizot.

The most valuable agent was personally "led" by Alexander I, and then by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Karl Nesselrode - they were given assignments and analyzed the encryptions received from her.

“Dorothea Lieven became an agent solely out of a sense of patriotism,” says contemporary historian Lyudmila Mikhailova. “She had more than enough money and jewelry.”

Romance and abduction

The performer of Russian romances and silent film actress Nadezhda Plevitskaya enjoyed such popularity in emigration that newspapers wrote about "spit addiction".

Fans did not know about her second, secret life: in 1930, Plevitskaya and her husband, the white general Nikolai Skoblin, were recruited by the OGPU.

According to some reports, it was through them that German intelligence planted misinformation about Mikhail Tukhachevsky and other Soviet military leaders to Stalin.

The most famous operation of the spouses is the abduction in Paris of the head of the Russian All-Military Union, the former head of the white government in Arkhangelsk, Yevgeny Miller.

Skoblin invited Miller to a meeting supposedly with German intelligence officers who turned out to be NKVD agents. The general was put to sleep, placed in a container and taken out of Le Havre aboard the Soviet steamer "Maria Ulyanova".

The plan was to take Skoblin to Miller's place. However, he, apparently suspecting something, left a letter to his deputy Peter Kusonsky: if I don't return, then Skoblin is a traitor.

Kusonsky opened the envelope when the Maria Ulyanova had already left the port. The French intended to send a destroyer to intercept, but retreated after the Soviet ambassador Yakov Surits made it clear that the Chekists would not give up their victim alive anyway.

Miller was taken to Leningrad, and from there to the inner prison on Lubyanka. On May 11, 1939, he was shot. Shortly before his death, the general asked to be allowed incognito and accompanied by civilian guards to pray in the church, but was refused.

Skoblin fled to the USSR, where he lived for several months under supervision at a secret NKVD facility, sending letters praising Stalin to the leadership of Soviet intelligence. Then, under unclear circumstances, he ended up in republican Spain, where he died in 1938: according to official data, during the bombing of Barcelona by Franco aircraft, according to unofficial data, at the hands of the famous "terminator" Leon Eitingon, who two years later organized an attempt on Trotsky's life.

Plevitskaya was arrested by French counterintelligence. For espionage and participation in a kidnapping, she received 20 years in prison and died in a women's prison in Rennes on October 1, 1940.

Einstein's girlfriend

Soviet intelligence agent Margarita Konenkova (undercover pseudonym "Lucas") spent half her life in the United States - from 1924 to 1945.

The beauty was admired by Albert Einstein, whom she met in 1935 in New York. Taking advantage of the location of Einstein, Konenkova made friends with Robert Oppenheimer and other creators of the atomic bomb.

Among her acquaintances was the first lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt.

The FBI failed to expose Konenkova. She died in Moscow in 1980 at the age of 84.

What kind of relationship between Einstein and Konenkova is not known for certain. However, in 1998, at Sotheby's auction, several letters from the creator of the theory of relativity were sold, which began with the address: "Beloved Margarita!" and ending with the word "kiss".

After Konenkova's death, a sonnet was found in her papers, written by Einstein in 1943 in German and containing, in particular, the words: “You cannot escape from the family circle. This is our common misfortune. "

The piquancy of the situation was that the scout lived in the United States with her husband, the famous sculptor Sergei Konenkov, under whom she acted as a manager and translator.

When the couple went home in 1945, a whole steamer was allocated to transport Konenkov's works by order of Stalin, and in Moscow he was given a huge workshop on Gorky Street.

There was talk that Konenkov lived the most difficult time for the country overseas, and when he returned, he was showered with benefits.

A copy of Margarita Konenkova's letter to Lavrenty Beria has survived with a request “to protect the family from attacks, taking into account my merits and merits of S.T. Konenkov before the Motherland ".

The fact that it was not Konenkov himself who made the petition, but his wife, makes historians think that the “Russian Rodin”, having lived with his wife for about half a century, never learned about her special merits.

Waltz with the Ambassador

Zoya Voskresenskaya-Rybkina (undercover pseudonym "Irina") began working for the Soviet special services at the age of 14 back in the Civil War - as a secretary at the headquarters of special forces in the Smolensk province.

In the Foreign Department of the OGPU - since 1929. Has performed secret missions in China, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Turkey, Latvia, Finland and Sweden. She perfectly mastered the German language, posing as a Russian emigrant baroness.

On the eve of the war, Rybkina worked in Moscow as an analyst for the Zateya direction, trying to find out the intentions of Germany.

In May 1941, a scout under the name of Yartsev and the "roof" of an employee of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries was at a reception at the German embassy, \u200b\u200bwhere she was invited to a waltz tour by Werner von Schulenburg himself.

Rybkina drew attention to the light rectangles on the walls of the hall, left over from the pictures taken, and through the ajar door of the office she noticed a pile of suitcases. In the report, she wrote that the Germans were preparing the evacuation of the embassy, \u200b\u200band therefore war, but the warning, like many others, was ignored.

During the war, she trained scouts and saboteurs, and later recalled a funny episode in connection with this.

Two Komsomol volunteers were being prepared to be sent to the Germans under the guise of members of an anti-Soviet religious organization that allegedly existed in Kuibyshev. When one of them was asked at the exam if he had learned the prayers, he gave out: “Our Father - smear pancakes! If you do, carry it to the table! " "Veselchak" was sent to all four directions.

In 1935, while working in Helsinki, the scout married the Soviet resident Boris Rybkin. That, by the way, had an agent pseudonym Keane. It was this surname that radio operator Kat and her husband Erwin wore in the novel by Yulian Semenov and in the film by Tatyana Lioznova.

The words of the song were applicable to the scouts, like to no one else: "An order was given to him to the west, to her in the other direction." The couple parted for a long time. The first and last time they spent a vacation together was only 12 years later.

But love, apparently, was strong. Having received the task to become the mistress of a pro-German-minded Swiss general, Zoya Rybkina replied to the leadership that she would carry out the order, but after the operation was over she would shoot herself. The operation was canceled.

Shortly after his vacation in Karlovy Vary, Boris Rybkin, who worked as a resident in Prague, died in a car accident. Until the end of her life, the widow suspected that his former colleagues had killed him, and connected this with the anti-Semitic campaign unfolding in the USSR. Rybkin was a Jew.

When Rybkina's longtime boss Pavel Sudoplatov was convicted in the mid-1950s, she was fired from intelligence. Up to 25 years of service remained a year, and she was offered to work in the Vorkuta camp administration.

The appearance of a mysterious and beautiful colonel made a splash among the local officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. At meetings with her participation, they began to say "cooperate" instead of the usual "curse".

After retiring, Rybkina became a children's writer, signing stories and stories with her maiden name "Voskresenskaya", and even received a State Prize in 1968. She was allowed to write her memoirs only shortly before her death, already during perestroika.

By the way, another Soviet intelligence officer, having retired, proved that a talented person is talented in everything. Elena Kosova, who carried out secret assignments in the USA, the Netherlands and Hungary in the 1940s and 1950s, became a famous sculptor.

The mystery of the "star"

Olga Chekhova, nee Knipper, daughter of a railway engineer from the Russified Germans, niece of Anton Chekhov's wife Olga Leonardovna Knipper-Chekhova, a student of Stanislavsky, emigrated to her historical homeland after the revolution, where for 25 years she starred in several dozen films, mainly costume, with music and dancing.

She also worked in Hollywood, was well acquainted with Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper and Mary Pickford, but after the Nazis came to power, to the surprise of many, stayed in Germany, where she received the official title of "State Actress of the Third Reich."

Shortly before the revolution, she married the Moscow Art Theater actor Mikhail Chekhov, with whom she lived for only four years, but remained Chekhova forever, although Goebbels demanded that she return her German surname.

The propaganda minister hated her, according to rumors, due to the fact that she rejected his harassment, but the film star was patronized by the Fuhrer, who every year sent her baskets of flowers for her birthday and Christmas. Hitler's chosen one, Eva Braun, outwardly looked somewhat like Olga Chekhova.

In 1937, when the Moscow Art Theater troupe was returning through Berlin from a Paris tour, Olga Chekhova settled her aunt in her house for a few days and arranged a reception in her honor, to which the entire Nazi elite came. Neither this fact nor the regular correspondence with her niece had any consequences for Olga Leonardovna in the USSR.

On April 27, 1945, Olga Chekhova was arrested in Berlin by Soviet counterintelligence and taken to Moscow, but two months later she returned to West Berlin, and then left for Germany.

In 1955, she ended her film career and set up a cosmetics company. Olga Chekhova died in Munich in 1980 at the age of 83.

Even during her lifetime, rumors arose that during the war she was a Soviet "super agent".

German newspapers wrote that in 1945 she went to Moscow to secretly receive the Order of Lenin from Stalin's hands and to talk with Beria, Abakumov and Merkulov. The actress herself claimed that she was held in a safe house, where well-mannered young officers played chess with her, and was released to Germany without explanation.

Pavel Sudoplatov and Beria's son Sergo reported that Olga Chekhova allegedly participated in the preparation of the assassination attempt on Hitler, which was later canceled by Stalin out of fears that under the new Chancellor Germany would make peace with the Western allies.

According to unconfirmed reports, Olga Chekhova allegedly completed the last task of the Soviet intelligence in the summer of 1953: Beria, who set a course for the unification of Germany on the basis of its neutrality, tried to get in touch with Konrad Adenauer through the famous actress, and the already mentioned Zoya Rybkina played the role of a liaison.

Olga Chekhova, until the end of her life, denied any connection with Soviet intelligence. Moscow also does not officially confirm this information.

Atomic espionage

Ethel Rosenberg and her husband Julius (alias “Volunteers”) are the only civilians executed in the United States for espionage.

Children of Jewish emigrants from the Russian Empire and committed communists, they have collaborated with Soviet intelligence since 1938 for ideological reasons.

The couple recruited Ethel's brother David Greenglass, a US Army sergeant who worked as a mechanic at Los Alamos. Unlike his sister and son-in-law, he gave secrets for money.

The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service still does not disclose a complete list of information obtained through the mediation of the Rosenberg spouses.

However, it is known that they met at least 40 times with Soviet resident Alexander Feklisov, who was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for his role in atomic espionage, and handed over, in particular, working drawings of a plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki, a 12-page Greenglass report on his work in a nuclear center and a ready-made model of a radio fuse for an atomic bomb, the production of which was then set up in the USSR.

In February 1950 in Britain, according to information received from the FBI, the main Soviet "atomic spy" Klaus Fuchs was arrested. He betrayed his contact, Harry Gold, who had previously been in contact with Greenglass. Gold betrayed Greenglass, he betrayed the Rosenberg spouses.

Unlike Fuchs, Gold, and Greenglass, the Rosenbergs denied guilt to the end.

They attributed their persecution to "anti-communist provocation" and the alleged anti-Semitic sentiments of FBI Director Edgar Hoover and chairman of the Senate Commission to Investigate the Anti-American Activities of Joseph McCarthy. However, the judge and prosecutor at their trial were Jews.

The trial began in New York on March 6, 1951. The Rosenbergs were charged with "a conspiracy planned in advance with accomplices to give the Soviet Union information and weapons that it could use to destroy us." On April 5, they were sentenced to death.

Despite intercessions by Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and Pope Pius XII, on June 19, 1953, they were electrocuted in Sing Sing Prison.

“The execution of two human beings is a sad and difficult thing, but even more horrible and sad is the thought of millions of dead, whose death can be directly attributed to what these spies did. I will not interfere in this matter, ”President Eisenhower said.

The trial took place against the backdrop of the war in Korea, which, according to American politicians and the public, Stalin would not have dared without an atomic bomb.

In 1983, on the day of the 30th anniversary of the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the Izvestia newspaper called them "innocent people who fell victim to the ruthless mechanism of American" justice. "

Currently, Russia does not deny their cooperation with the USSR.

In the spirit of the times

On June 27, 2010, the FBI arrested ten Russians accused of "carrying out deeply conspiracy assignments."

In the old days, exposed intelligence officers everywhere in the world were expected to face tough interrogations, many years of imprisonment or death, and their native state renounced them. In our humane age, nothing bad has happened to anyone. A few days later, the illegal immigrants were exchanged for four Russian citizens previously convicted of espionage for the United States and urgently pardoned by the President of the Russian Federation for such a case.

Although there were reportedly more significant figures among the failed agents, the main heroine of the scandal was 28-year-old Anna Kushchenko-Chapman, who by that time had spent only four months in the United States and, according to the FBI, did not have time to cause significant harm to the American state.

Vice President Joseph Biden joked that it was a pity, they say, to send such a beautiful girl from America.

At home, Anna Chapman took part in a number of business and PR projects and took up politics in the ranks of the pro-Kremlin youth movement Molodaya Gvardiya.

Students of St. Petersburg University, whom she recently tried to campaign for United Russia, greeted her with posters: "Spy out of here!"

The transformation of Anna Chapman into a public figure contradicts age-old traditions, according to which information about the affairs of former intelligence officers, if made public, then after decades, and, as a rule, after their death.

In the opinion of many, Anna Chapman's popularization is a PR stunt.

Thus, they are trying to demonstrate to the Western public that Russian spies are not monsters, but nice people who should not be afraid and who can happily pass on the secrets of their state.

Long before the start of World War II, the man who unleashed it was serving a five-year sentence (in fact, he spent only 8 months behind bars. - BK) in the Landsberg fortress for participating in the "beer coup". It was Adolf Hitler. He spent his time in prison with great benefit for himself: the future Fuhrer of the Third Reich wrote his main work, which was to become the bible of National Socialism - "Mein Kampf".

Considering issues of marriage and family, he argued the following:

“Sins against blood and race are the worst sins in this world. A nation that indulges in these sins is doomed ... "

... It is necessary to understand that marriage is not an end in itself, that it should serve a higher purpose: reproduction and preservation of the species and race. This alone is the real meaning of marriage. Only in this is his great task "...

In the 30s of the XX century in the Soviet Union the film "The Rich Bride" was very popular, where the song "Come on, girls, and well, beauties!" Sounded. Soviet propaganda created the image of a patriotic woman, selflessly devoted to her homeland, ready to do anything for the sake of labor and military deeds. Simple human relationships seemed mundane, petty bourgeois, and even not quite decent.

The film "Hearts of Four" was not released on the big screen just before the war. He seemed to the Soviet leadership too frivolous and licentious.

Any, even a small mistake of the enemy is a boon for the opposing side. And Hitler's propaganda took advantage of it in the first months. In the article "Russian woman - martyr and heroine", addressed to the population of the occupied territory, the following was written:

“What happened in the family life of a Soviet family? What changes did Soviet life make to it? Under the influence of a rough, cruel reality, the romance of love, the romance of family life disappeared.

In the practice of the notorious Soviet equality, a woman had to do hard work for men in production, bear all kinds of social burdens, and, besides, devote some of her time to her family and household. In the absence of household appliances and technical equipment, household chores became a hard and thankless task.

The October Revolution and Soviet power did not fulfill their solemn promise to the Russian woman. They did not emancipate, but even more enslaved her. And yet, a Soviet woman unselfishly sacrificed time, her youth, her outfits in order to support her family and her children, to put them on their feet. "

The German propagandist wrote with pathos that “the share of the factory worker - this cheap labor force, called upon to fulfill the five-year plans at Stakhanov's pace - the gigantic plans for the militarization of the country, was heavy. Her life became grayer and more bleak.


Barber shop in occupied Pskov

Life was even more bleak, and even harder was the lot of a Soviet peasant woman forced from dawn to dawn to knock out workdays on the collective farm corvee. Courageous women of "dispossessed" families endured incredible suffering and drank the cup of grief to the dregs.

The lot of the great martyr, the Russian woman, was hard. But then came the war provoked by the Bolsheviks. New sufferings began, deprivation worsened, need and hunger arose at the very doorstep. The wife, who lost her husband in the dungeons of the NKVD, saw off her only son to a senseless war. The sister of an engineer exiled to Siberia, gave Moloch the war of her younger brother. The mother of the dispossessed family mourned the death of her sons at the front. Inexpressible grief flooded the families of Soviet women in a wide wave.

Further, the author angrily noted the fact that: “Of course, the family has its black sheep. In the Soviet Union, we will meet women who went for the sake of an easy life and maintenance orders to high officials, or women who, taking advantage of the ease of divorce, marry for the fourth or fifth time. Let's meet cheeky, rude women who became agents of the NKVD, accustomed to their male professions, who have lost their femininity. Some even went through schools of sabotage and espionage, became parachutists and are in gangs of the so-called "partisans". There is nothing sadder than the rudeness and licentiousness of a woman who has lost her feminine appearance and likeness. "

There was only one way out of all this: “A real Russian woman, meekly bearing all the burdens and humiliations, is the pride and adornment of the Russian people. We bow before the secret of the courage of a Russian woman who managed to keep herself clean and spotless in this age of rough materialistic calculation and undeserved suffering that fell to her lot.

We call her, and she must go to a joint struggle against common evil, against a common enemy tearing apart our unhappy, long-suffering Motherland. "

In the conditions of the outbreak of hostilities against the Soviet Union, Nazi propaganda sought to instill in the peaceful population of Russia that the German soldier brings them not only "liberation from the damned yoke of Jewish-Bolshevism", but is also a defender of "primordial Russian values, to which, in the first place, the family belongs. " Criticizing the family foundations in the USSR in the pre-war years, the occupation press wrote:

“What happened in the Soviet Union? A generation grew up, corrupted from an early age, accustomed from the cradle to espionage and deprived of all that was sacred. No wonder the ideal of the Soviet young generation was the vile and disgusting type - the pioneer Pavlik Morozov, who denounced his own father. "

The population of the occupied regions of Russia was taught that “the Judeo-Bolshevik authorities were in the hands of such depraved families: it was incomparably easier to manage the frosty peacocks than strong-willed people who grew up in firm family rules and foundations. Eliminating the spiritual estate and destroying the peasantry, the Bolsheviks thereby destroyed the biological fortress of the people. "

Officially, questions of marriage and family law were under the jurisdiction of the collaborationist "new Russian administration". In words, it was from the representatives of the Russian population that various proposals were put forward regarding marriage and family relations.

But in fact, all of these problems were tightly controlled by the Nazi occupation services.

Legal departments were created under Russian city administrations. They had tables for registering acts of civil status. The functions of the latter included registration of marriages, births and deaths.

In their actions, they were guided by various instructions and directives emanating from both the German and the collaborationist authorities. In the mass media, these documents were characterized as "rules that streamlined marriage and eliminate the chaos caused in this area by Bolshevism." They were adopted in almost all major Russian cities that found themselves under the Nazi occupation. So, in Pskov at the beginning of 1942, the civil registry department received from the city government detailed instructions on how to get married. It wrote that “marriage is not an ordinary contract or just a statement to an official in the ordinary sense. By their declaration, the marriages undertake not only to live together and support each other, but also to establish a life together spiritually. In a prosperous state, such a relationship cannot arise without the knowledge and assistance of state authorities. That is why the intervention of a state institution is necessary here, in this case - the civil registry desk. "

It was noted that the registry office was supposed to cover all changes in the civil status of each person individually. One of the main goals of the registry office was formulated as follows:

“In some cases, marriage may not be legal, undesirable, or unacceptable for the benefit of individuals. Therefore, prior to the conclusion of marriage, it should be determined exactly whether the marriage can be performed in this case. If, therefore, at the present time marriage is an act of outstanding importance, then its registration must be done in accordance with this meaning. "

Under the new rules, a marriage was recognized as valid only when it was registered according to all the rules in the civil registry office.

The marriage process involved several stages. First of all, those wishing to get married submitted a corresponding petition. At the same time, the identity card was checked. The head of the registry office was supposed to receive accurate evidence of the correctness of the testimony of the spouses. A marriage could not be properly contracted if the spouses could not prove their identity and origin. Thus, refugees, persons who did not reside permanently in the area before the outbreak of hostilities, and undocumented citizens did not have the right to marry.

One of the instructions of the Smolensk City Council said that "this measure will not allow Soviet agents to dissolve among the civilian population of our district ...".

Marriages were forbidden:

Between Jews and people from other groups of the population. The Jews were persons who profess Judaism or who have Jews in their family among relatives up to the third generation.

Between consanguineous in a straight line; siblings and half-siblings of marital or extramarital origin.

Men under 18 and women under 16.

Persons who are already legally married.

If the above reasons were revealed after the marriage was concluded, then the illegally registered marriage was declared invalid, and the record about this was destroyed.

If the officials did not have any doubts about the legality of the marriage registration, then the people who were married were assigned a time to "perform the sacrament of marriage." It was to take place no earlier than two and no later than three weeks after the filing of an application for permission to marry. During this period, the so-called "announcement" was made, which was placed in a special section of the newspaper and on a special board posted at the city administration. Signed by the burgomaster, it included certain information about both the groom and the bride: data on the place of birth, place of residence and profession.

If during these days no information was received that contradicted the one that citizens who were going to marry reported about themselves, the day of the "wedding" was appointed. The spouses and their witnesses were required to appear at a certain hour at the registry office in neat clothes.

The instruction dictated that the wedding took place in a special room. It was supposed to be festively furnished: "you need to take care of flowers and baskets ..." The instructions contained detailed instructions on how to get married: "The head of the registry office should sit at a beautiful table. The spouses are sitting in front of him, on both sides there are places for witnesses. Head the registry office first announces the names: appeared today (the names, surnames, place and date of birth of the spouses and witnesses are read out in full). They by mutual agreement declared their desire to get married. Then all present are invited to stand up. The registry office official also stands up and continues as follows: "I ask you (followed by the name of the groom) if the person present here (followed by the name of the bride) agrees to marry." After "Yes" - the groom and the bride, the head of the registry office announces to the spouses that, according to civil law, their marriage is concluded. "

Kursk girl and her "beloved"

During marriage, the bride was assigned the husband's surname. Officially, this was explained by the desire “to eliminate the bedlam that reigned under Soviet rule, when the husband had one surname, the wife another, and the children often had a third, that is, the surname of the wife's first husband. " In practice, however, this was intended to discourage Jews or people with similar Jewish surnames from changing them.

It was assumed that after that the young spouses were to receive a small gift from the city government. Mikhail Oktan, editor of the large collaborationist newspaper Rech, put forward a proposal that “the newlyweds should receive, as in Germany, the immortal book of Adolf Hitler, My Struggle. However, this idea was rejected with indignation by representatives of the Nazi occupation services. They considered it unacceptable to spread the Bible of National Socialism among the "Untermenshes" (subhumans).

It was possible to go to church and get married there according to a religious ceremony only after registering a marriage at the civil registry office. The order of the priests indicated the following: “According to the order of the German command, church weddings are allowed only after marriage registration in the registry office. Priests who celebrated a wedding without first registering a marriage in a registry office are subject to imprisonment or a fine. " In Pskov, the performance of the church rite could be carried out only after the marriage was registered in the city administration. Only the entries in the registers of the city administration had the force of a document. The clergy and laity were warned that "the certification of marriages in the church does not replace the indicated records in the registry office."

Dissolution of marriages in the German-occupied territory of Russia was prohibited. Such actions can be explained by the desire of the occupiers to exercise strict control over the population. So, in the instruction for magistrates' courts of July 2, 1943, it was noted that in exceptional cases, when resolving divorce cases, it is necessary to keep in mind the following: "The mutual desire of the spouses is not a legal reason for divorce." The new marriage of the spouse, through whose fault the divorce was made (as determined by the magistrate's court), was prohibited. Therefore, the court's decision was sent to the registry office, where a divorce stamp with the words “no fault” or “through fault” was put on the identity card.

In cases of changes in civil status, recorded in the registers, interested persons were issued certificates in the form of an extract from these books. Each certificate was subject to a fee of 20 rubles. Registration of marriage was paid by a fee in the amount of 100 rubles.

Any deviation from the rules related to marriage registration was punishable by a fine of up to 1,000 rubles and forced labor.

When analyzing various instructions and orders of collaborationist administrations concerning marriage and family issues in various cities in the occupied territory of Russia, it is clear that they are all very similar to each other. Consequently, these documents came from one center, in this case from Berlin. Considering the main features of marriage and family law in the occupied territory of Russia, it can be noted that all instructions, decrees and orders of both the German occupation services and the puppet “new Russian administration” were aimed at solving one global problem: total control over the population.

But in the conditions of many months of Nazi occupation of Russia, everyday life was far from the way Berlin officials saw it. In addition, there was an obvious shortage of Russian men in the occupied territory of Russia. Many of them fought in the Red Army and partisan detachments. It was they who were taken away first of all to work in Germany. And many German soldiers saw in the local girls and women, first of all, not representatives of "Untermenshes" (subhumans), namely girls and women.

Another Kursk girl and another "beloved"

In one of the issues of the collaborationist newspaper "For the Motherland", which was distributed in the territory of the North-West of Russia occupied by the Nazis, the poems "On the benefits of learning a language" were published:

Any science will always come in handy.
German and Russian are good stuff.
But the students' choice and taste are strange:
All girls teach - "their lib" and "kus".
But knowledge without practice is an empty matter.
And where there are two students,
Only you hear from girls' lips:
Oh dear, oh dear, another cousin.
And he answers, out of annoyance, even spit:
Oh medhen, oh medhen, noh ain ... kiss. "

For those who do not quite speak German, I translate: "their libe" - I love, "kus" - a kiss, "medchen" - a girl.

Why did such meetings take place? There are several reasons for this. Of course, in many cases German soldiers acted from positions of strength. It doesn't have to be rape. It was just that the invaders, through threats, intimidation and blackmail, could get the desired result. Material well-being also played a significant role. In the face of the daily threat of starvation, many women agreed to cohabit with the Germans for food. Their children and elderly relatives also needed food. Someone saw in the German lover protection from the harassment of other soldiers or Russian policemen.

There were cases when sincere feelings arose. Of course, these novels were doomed to a bad ending. But in the face of the daily threat of death, one day of relative happiness is very expensive.

But there were also women who wanted a "feast in time of the plague." Ilya Ehrenburg wrote about one such in his book "War":

“Cute girl. Plucked eyebrows. Carmine lips. She was a student before. She was seduced by handouts from German officers, dances, French champagne. Her countrymen fought bravely. People gave their lives. And she delighted the executioners of her people.

She is now sitting in her room and crying. Later repentance Betrayal, like rust, ate her heart. There is a holiday on the street - people laugh, hug the fighters. And she sits in a dark room and cries. She has become an outcast - for herself, there is no heavier punishment. "

Another episode from the book of a famous Soviet writer:

“I was sitting in the same house. I was surprised by the eyes of the hostess: they seemed to be made of opal glass, there was no life in them. The hostess was reluctant to answer my questions, and I asked her only to defuse the too heavy silence. A five-year-old boy was playing in the corner. I asked the hostess: "Did the Germans come to you?" She replied, "No." I said, "You're in luck." But then the boy shouted: "Otto came," and, stubbornly banging his fist on the chair, he repeated for a long time: "Otto came." The woman silently left the room. I could no longer sit in this house. It seemed to me that there was no air in the room. I ran out into the street. It was a frosty bright day. Hundreds of women squinted and smiled at the first red flag on the facade of the house damaged by the shell. The world lived and rejoiced. Only one tall blond woman with empty, opal eyes did not find a place for herself in this world. "

Lyudmila Giovanni, who survived the occupation of Novgorod, recalled that every morning German soldiers scattered from the apartments where the locals lived like cockroaches. They hurried to the barracks from their Russian friends.

In the memoirs of the chief of the Novgorod Gestapo Boris Filistinsky, which he published already as a professor at the University of Washington, life in Priilmenye in the winter of 1942 is described:

“Outside the wall, one could hear the monotonous playing of the accordion, the Russian-German dialect, squeals and smacking.

They are fattening, - the foreman, the former chairman of the collective farm "Zavet Ilyich", nodded somehow quite indifferently in that direction. And a minute later he added in the same indifferent tone, turning to the wall and loudly banging his fist on it:

Sanka, come here.

Kicking with new boots, the eldest daughter of the foreman, a plump, red-cheeked girl of nineteen, entered the room with a defiant look. Her blouse was rumpled, several buttons were unbuttoned.

Look at me, don't go overboard. Fat, but be careful: your Hauptmann is coming tomorrow. Do you hear? - the father warned in the same indifferent voice.

Get off, I know without you, - the girl snapped, and her eyes added: yourself, look, don't be bullshit: I know what you would be without me ...

So go. There is nothing to torment your guest. Whom do you have? The sergeant? "

In addition to the Germans, the Spanish soldiers of the "Blue Division" tried to find love on Novgorod soil:

“Two hundred paces away, in the only surviving house, in a hotly heated room sat at a table a Spanish lieutenant. He was half-naked, in front of him were several bottles of brandy and vodka, a frying pan with half-eaten fish, and coarsely chopped onions. Wonderful homemade fresh rye bread and oatmeal jelly, almost untouched, gave the feast a local flavor. The whole family of the owner of the house - both the owner himself and his wife, his young daughters, and the old woman - sat at the table with flushed faces and dull eyes. The owner's son, a guy of about fourteen years old, was tormented by the accordion, and the Spaniard batman played along with him out of tone on the guitar and howled something wild and inarticulate. I showed the officer my pass and my documents. He looked drunkenly at me and at the driver and thrust voluminous mugs of cognac into our hands:

Drink! Drink, they tell you! - he did not look at the documents.

They are nothing, the Spaniards, generous. All their soldiers have taken care of our girls. In the Orthodox way. And they go to our church. And the girls were given both cows and pigs as a gift. They were robbed from neighboring villages. A good people, suitable, - the owner of the house, the assistant to the headman of the district, explained to me in a tangled tongue ...

And again we are on the woods. The road winds around - monotonous and dull, and the driver tells me:

In Kuritsko, the Spanish commandant forbade the soldiers with the girls to walk ... Well, will the Spaniards listen to whom? They caught the commandant girls and women with soldiers at a party in a club. The girls' heads were shaved off, the women were shaved off half their heads, and the soldiers were whipped ... Laughter and sin! "

The Spaniards from the "Blue Division" were friends with the locals

The Nazi leadership was extremely concerned about the facts of "moral decay" of their soldiers. On June 8, 1942, "A memo to a soldier on behavior in the occupied eastern regions" was published. It, in particular, said the following:

“In the occupied areas, the German soldier is the representative of the German Empire and its power. He should feel it and behave accordingly. A protracted war and being in the garrison service are fraught with the danger that relations with the female half of the civilian population become closer than is desirable.

Maintaining the prestige of the military and the threat of harm to the purity of the race requires that serious attention be given to this issue and that in this respect the soldiers are constantly influenced.

The commander issued a decree prohibiting the further stay of German soldiers with local residents. All soldiers, without exception, must be accommodated together. Since this requires residential buildings, the civilian population must be evicted from them. In such cases, local residents move to other apartments or evacuate.

In the area of \u200b\u200bhostilities, in the conditions of developing military operations, when a parking space is required for a short time, there is no need to relocate local residents. "

It should be noted that this order, despite all the notorious love and respect of the Germans for the order and order, was practically not carried out. Most likely, the local "fathers-commanders" were annoyed by such demands of "Berlin bureaucrats" who could not understand the complexity of life of ordinary front-line soldiers.

When the German command realized that it was impossible to solve this problem by exclusively repressive measures, it took a number of measures. In particular, in March 1943, a decision was made, according to which, at the birth of a child from a German soldier, Russian mothers had the right to alimony:

“When registering children born out of wedlock who descend from German fathers, it is necessary at the same time to submit evidence that confirms the paternity of the German soldier. Each time, if the mother, when registering an illegitimate child in the registry office, indicates that the father of the child is a German soldier, the registry office official must take testimony from the mother who the father is (surname, name, rank or insignia, military unit, postal number, as a last resort , only the type of troops of the father) and what led to sexual intercourse (stay in the apartment, work of the mother in the military unit, etc.) and whether the soldier recognizes paternity. At the same time, you need to ask the mother with what other men she still had intercourse during conception.

Various proofs of paternity in the hands of the mother (letters, photographs of the father, or the like) must be attached to the act.

The volost foreman gives an opinion whether the testimony of the mother is trustworthy, interrogates any acquaintances who are still possible on the mother's side, takes all 10 fingerprints from the mother and, as soon as possible, sends materials with his opinion to the district burgomaster.

If there are special circumstances on the person, then the maintenance allowance at the request of the mother or guardian can be increased to 300 rubles. monthly. The amounts paid by the districts to such children should be taken from the general support fund, but posted to special accounts. The districts will receive instructions on their return in the future.

If the paternity of a German citizen is not established with sufficient certainty, then the current maintenance allowance is not paid. In this case, the mothers should receive assistance from the district administration from the general means of support. "

Pskov girl and soldiers

But if a child born of a German soldier could be a certain form of earnings under the occupation, the situation changed dramatically after the arrival of Soviet troops. And here it was not only about moral condemnation from neighbors. A more severe punishment was also expected.

In one of the partisan memoirs, the following case is described: in three years, while the North-West of Russia was occupied by the Nazis, a local resident "took root" from them two children. On the very first day after the liberation of her village, she went out onto the road, put her kids there and, shouting: "Death to the German invaders!", Killed them with a boulder.

To satisfy the sexual needs of soldiers and officers, brothels were opened in the occupied territory of Russia. Among them there were also fashionable ones: for example, in Smolensk, in a former hotel, there was a brothel exclusively for pilot officers. It employed professionals who came from Poland and France.

In other Russian cities everything was “simpler”. Soon after the liberation of Pskov from the Nazis, the regional party committee received an information note from the Chekists about the life of the city under occupation. It also dealt with brothels:

"Brothels or" Brothel Houses "in Pskov

In Pskov, on Gornaya and Detskaya streets, large brothels or "Brothel-houses", as the Germans themselves called them, were created. Even minor girls were often taken to these houses. Some of the girls went to these houses because of material insecurity, and some in order to earn extra "rags" with their bodies and live an idle and depraved life. "Brothel houses" were in great demand among the Germans, and there were days when queues lined up in front of these houses. Despite the weekly medical examination of all women in these houses, nevertheless, the infection with venereal diseases was mutual, and most of the women from these houses returned with venereal diseases.

Institute of Sanitary Supervised

Since the brothels in Pskov were not enough for the Germans, they created the so-called institute of sanitary supervised women or, simply put, revived free prostitutes who sold their bodies on the streets of the city. Periodically, they also had to appear for a medical examination, about which they received appropriate marks in special tickets that they received in their hands. Engaging in prostitution without special tickets was legally prohibited by the Germans, but in fact it flourished, because the Germans, with their licentiousness in debauchery, contributed to this.

The lists of sanitary supervised persons have been established, photographs of employees of brothel houses are available. "

Old Racomo. Great friendship of peoples

Ilya Ehrenburg wrote about the occupation of Kursk as follows:

“Schools were closed. The theaters were closed. The libraries were closed. What did they discover? House of Tolerance on Nevsky Street. Opened solemnly. Herr Dr. Vogt gave a speech: "We are bringing joy to the icy desert."

They weren't fun. They brought the infection. Syphilis completely disappeared in Kursk before the war. The Germans infected Kursk. According to German statistics, between 70 and 80 cases of venereal diseases were recorded among the civilian population in a decade. The patients were sent to the city prison. The Germans killed over a hundred of them. "

The last statement is not a fiction or an exaggeration of the writer. The archives contain registration cards with the names of the victims.

The work of brothels in the occupied territory attracted special attention of the Soviet state security organs. This can be explained by two reasons: firstly, in such establishments it was possible to carry out work to collect information that could be blabbed by drunken clients. Secondly, the opening of such establishments caused an extremely negative reaction among the Russian population, and this, in turn, played into the hands of the anti-fascist resistance. So in the memorandum to the head of the NKVD Directorate for the Kalinin region Tokarev wrote the following:

“In late October 1942, on the instructions of the military commander's office, the burgomaster of the city of Velikiye Luki Pomortsev began to create a house of tolerance called the House of Noble Maidens, which was supposed to“ serve ”German soldiers and officers.

The equipment of the brothel was entrusted to the head of the building department of the council, and the provision of furniture to the head of the housing department Snegotsky. A one-story brick building, located on Botvin Street, next to the 7th school, was selected for the premises in which this house should be located.The city government allocated 50,000 rubles from its budget for the equipment of the tolerance house and its repair and allocated the required amount of building materials. The house was designed for 20-25 people. The brothel staff was supposed to be next; managing the house of "noble girls", directly subordinate to the burgomaster Pomortsev, mentors and girls. In addition, there should have been: a doctor, doormen, manicurist, masseuse and other attendants.

According to the internal structure, the house of tolerance was supposed to represent the following: an acquaintance hall, in which a buffet, a stage, tables for snacks were supposed to be. There is a dance floor in the middle of the hall. Further, offices were equipped with separate entrances and exits, interconnected only by a common corridor. The offices were equipped in different ways and were divided into several classes. The first-class office had a nickel-plated bed, bathtub, and other amenities.

Pomortsev and the police chief Filippkov, in agreement with the field commandant's office, appointed a certain Drevich, who at one time was a brothel holder in Odessa. The house manager was supposed to recruit girls and women for this institution. All the persons selected by her had to go through the medical commandant's office, where they underwent a medical examination and an external examination. Those wishing to “work” in the “house of noble maidens” in the brothel house applied directly to the military commander's office.

First of all, such applications were submitted by persons previously engaged in prostitution. The Germans assumed that if the contingent they needed was not recruited from the volunteers, they would conduct a special recruitment of suitable girls for this purpose.

The impression among the population about the opening by the Germans of the brothel was the most disgusting. Citizen Vishnyakova Lydia Andreevna, born in 1890, housewife, spoke about the brothel as follows:

“When I found out that such a vile institution was being organized in our city, I said that I was glad that my niece was killed in the bombing, that she would not know about this terrible house and would not get into it.”

The Germans failed to open the House of Tolerance. It was destroyed by a shell and burned up. The manager Drevich, as a Jew, was shot by the Germans themselves. "

Brothel in Pskov

But not all Russian women met the invaders of their own accord. There were also those who, following orders from the Soviet command, collected various intelligence information. It was very difficult and difficult to do this in full view of fellow countrymen. The vast majority of them bore the nickname "fascist bedding". And in many ways it was worse and worse when the Center forgot or lost its agents.

KGB Colonel Zinaida Voskresenskaya in her memoirs “Now I can tell the truth. From the memoirs of a scout ”describes one of his meetings in Vorkuta in 1954:

“At the 2nd mine there was a ladies' atelier, where women from Vorkuta were sheathed. This atelier was headed by a deconvoyed prisoner sentenced to twenty-five years "for cooperation with the Nazi occupiers." Her name was Olya. She asked what she had done to get the highest term. “Oh, citizen chief. I’ll tell you, but you still won’t believe me. ” - "But still ..."

And she told me her story. Olya from Oryol. She was a Komsomol member. When the war began, she asked to go to the front. The Germans were approaching the city. At the military registration and enlistment office, the young man invited her to stay in Orel and, since she speaks German to some extent, try to earn the trust of the Nazis, find out their plans, mood, losses, in general, become a scout. Twice a month she had to appear in a conditional place and put her report in a cache and take out the next task from there (from the hollow).

Olya gave her consent, sent her mother to evacuation, told her that she was staying here on Komsomol affairs and would come later.

After the occupation of the city, Olya quickly and easily entered the officer's environment, spent evenings in restaurants, pretending that she only knew a few words in German. As agreed, she went to the cache on certain and control days and ... found there her reports and no assignments.

She was desperate. I tried to sneak out of the city, to avoid the dirty hands of the invaders. But she did not succeed.

The eagle was in the hands of the Nazis for more than twenty months, and all this time Olya did not lose hope that she would be found.

After the liberation of Orel from the invaders, the Soviet command received reports of the treacherous behavior of this "girl Olga", who danced with the SS men in restaurants, drank wine and vodka with them, and drove around in their cars. She was arrested and, as a war criminal, was brought before a military tribunal.

From her account of specific details familiar to me as a spy, I understood that she was telling the truth and advised her to describe her misfortunes in detail and ask the Supreme Court to review her case. I sent Olin's confession via feldsvyaz.

Several months passed, and then one evening, sorting out the mail, I opened the government envelope and, to my indescribable joy, read the decree on the complete rehabilitation of Olya "for lack of corpus delicti."

But not all such stories ended happily. And although usually a woman was not brought to criminal responsibility only for sexual intercourse, it was not easy to live with the stigma “fascist bedding”. Even worse was the case for children accustomed from childhood to the nicknames "fascist", "German" or "Spaniard".

If we talk about all the women who found themselves in the most difficult conditions of the enemy occupation, then, speaking humanly, the actions of most of them did not have that very "corpus delicti." The scripture says "Do not judge - that you will not be judged." And you can't judge a woman when she, without betraying anyone, wanted to feed her loved ones, wanted love and protection. Or maybe their own judgment on themselves was much more terrible and severe. But this is not for us to judge.

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