Echo operation stranglehold. Agent Werther's secret. Who in Hitler's headquarters helped us win the Battle of Kursk. Complete rejection of surprise

On August 23, 1943, the great battle ended on Kursk Bulge. For a month and a half of fighting with the Soviet troops, the army of the Third Reich bled to death - 500 thousand soldiers were killed and wounded, 1,500 tanks and 1,700 aircraft were destroyed. Nazi Germany never recovered from this defeat: the Germans began to retreat along the entire Eastern Front. In fact, our victory near Kursk was secured on April 12, 1943, when Soviet intelligence put on the table Stalin plan for the future operation "Citadel", signed by all the generals of the Wehrmacht, - himself Hitler I saw the same plan ... only three days later! It was thanks to the success of the intelligence officers that the USSR was able to prepare for the German tank offensive and crush the enemy. Meanwhile, the names of our agents surrounded by Hitler, who got the Citadel plan, have not yet (!) been declassified. Only their code names are known - Werther and Olga.

The richest spy

It is believed that the main role in the theft of documents from Berlin was played by owner of the modest Vita-Nova publishing house Rudolf Rössler. This 45-year-old German, who emigrated to Switzerland after Hitler came to power, in November 1942 offered his services to the Main Intelligence Directorate of the USSR General Staff, receiving the nickname Luci. Rössler handed over to the secret services of the Soviet Union not only the Citadel plan, but also the drawings of the German Panther tank and other valuable information. Alas, unlike most Soviet residents abroad, Rössler was not a staunch communist - he worked exclusively for money and was considered the highest paid agent in the history of Soviet intelligence. The exact figure is unknown, but Western newspapers assured that Rudolf received about $ 500 thousand for the Citadel.

- Roessler is a very mysterious person in the history of world espionage, - says Dietrich Mainz, research historian from the Swiss city of Basel. - From the beginning of the German invasion of Europe, he, like tomatoes in the market, traded secrets for the secret services of Britain, Switzerland and the United States, and then decided to help the USSR as well. According to him, "only the Soviet Union is capable of winning the war." Surprisingly, until May 1944, Soviet intelligence did not even know his real name! A participant in the First World War, he was familiar with a large number of senior officers of the Third Reich. It is assumed that Luci had established contacts at Hitler's headquarters, about two hundred (!) Agents worked for him: Werther, who supplied information about Wehrmacht operations, Olga (in the command of the Luftwaffe), Anna(at the Foreign Ministry of the Reich), Teddy and Bill.

And although in Moscow they repeatedly demanded to give the real names of the agents, Rudolf Rössler flatly refused to do so. There is an opinion that he called them the GRU of the USSR only before his death (December 11, 1958) - however, our special services do not comment on this. Even 70 years after the Battle of Kursk, the archives on the work of agent Luci are still classified, and this allows us to build a huge number of assumptions: who exactly was Agent Werther, who photographed the documents of the Citadel plan and transferred them to Switzerland through Olga ... and was he is he at all? The West German magazine Der Spiegel published an investigation in 1967, where it claimed that only one informant worked for Rössler in Berlin, and he simply invented the rest to emphasize his importance and "knock more money out of the Russians." Writer Helmut Rever in his book German and Soviet Espionage in World War II, he called Rössler a “hoaxer”: they say that Rudolf, obsessed with a thirst for fees, allegedly fabricated reports to Moscow and London from ... ordinary newspaper clippings. But neither "Spiegel" nor Revere bothered to explain - where did the "hoaxer" get the drawings of the Panther tank and the secret plan "Citadel" from? After all, even Colonel General Alfred Jodl, head of the operational leadership of the high command of the Wehrmacht, said at the Nuremberg trials: "Stalin received documents about our offensive near Kursk much earlier than they were on my desk."

Sex and intelligence

— The head of the Soviet intelligence group "Dora" in Switzerland Sandor Rado at one time he was also surprised: how can Rössler receive information from Hitler's headquarters with such speed? says Swiss journalist Pierre Laumier. - Later in his memoirs, he noted - it would take several couriers plying around the clock between Berlin and Lucerne, and this is physically impossible.

Rössler's apartment did not have a walkie-talkie, and he had not been trained as a radio operator. Possibly, Werther and Olga transmitted radiograms from Berlin to their confidant in Switzerland, who referred them to Rössler, and only then "Dora" sent the material to Moscow. The Germans, watching the work of Soviet intelligence on the German border, were furious. In 1943, they undertook a cunning maneuver: an Abwehr officer arrived in Switzerland. Hans Peters- a handsome man, who was called the "bed officer." Knowing how to court women professionally, Peters quickly seduced the Dora radio operator - 23-year-old Marguerite Bolly. During the night of love, she blurted out to him the name of the book used for ciphers - "It all started in September." On October 13, 1943, Bolli was arrested by the Swiss police, and in May 1944, the authorities detained Rudolf Rössler himself ...

Germany, foaming at the mouth, demanded that the Swiss authorities urgently extradite Luci - the secret services of the Third Reich were eager to find out the name of agent Werther, who ensured Hitler's defeat in the Battle of Kursk. However, during interrogations, Rudolph was silent, and by that time, things at the front had become very bad for Germany. Given this, the Swiss did not get involved with the USSR - after a few months, Rössler was fully acquitted. Margherita Bolli received a lenient sentence - 9 months probation and a fine of 500 francs.

For three days I tried to find Marguerite Bolli in Basel, where she moved with her husband in 1956. She must be 93 now. Whether the radio operator is still alive is hard to say, but there is no information in the press about her death. However, I could not find her address in the Basel help desk - perhaps she lives under a different name. Meanwhile, Bolli is the only (except Rudolf Rössler) member of the Dora group who knew the name and position of Werther's agent in Berlin. I have no doubt that this man existed. But what the hell is he?

“This is a person from the environment of the Fuhrer. Possibly a family friend." Adolf Hitler and Eva Brown introduced a Soviet agent? Read the continuation in the next issue of AiF.

A very pathetic order was issued by the commander of the 7th Infantry Division on July 4, 1943 on the following day: “Soldiers! It's time to attack. I know that each of you will do your duty to the last. You will cover with new glory the victorious banners of the division that crushed the enemy in Poland, France and at the gates of Moscow, and then, in the course of two years of defensive battles, repulsed all offensives on Russian soil. Our fallen soldiers are watching you from their graves. We salute Germany, we are devoted to her and her beloved Fuhrer.

Lieutenant General Fritz-Georg von Rappard was clear where he was sending his soldiers. His message of June 28 leaves no doubt about this: “The enemy opposing our corps is expecting a German offensive and has concentrated significant forces. It has exceptionally deep, well-prepared and well-managed positions, it has a strong, carefully distributed anti-tank defense system, and in addition, the enemy has unusually powerful artillery and a large number of multi-barreled rocket launchers, and he also has a strike reserve, in including tanks. We should expect stubborn resistance from the enemy ready for defense on the front line, and later also diversion operations and counter-offensives.

The German leadership was well aware of what would happen after the offensive, scheduled for 3 hours 30 minutes in the morning on July 5th. From the north, the 9th Army of Army Group Center under the command of Walter Model (Walter Model), and from the south the 4th Panzer Army of Army Group South under the command of Hermann Hoth (Hermann Hoth) were to advance towards Kursk in order to destroy Soviet troops, dug in on a ledge of a front section 200 kilometers long and 100 kilometers deep.

Just a limited offensive operation

Even if the exact numbers regarding the number of enemy forces were not known to the leadership, their order testified to an existing delusion. 625,000 German soldiers with 2,700 tanks and 1,300 aircraft were to attack a three times larger enemy, which had 17,000 earthen fortifications, 30,000 artillery pieces and turned the Kursk front into the largest field fortification of all time. It is no coincidence that the intelligence department of the Foreign Armies of the East (Fremde Heere Ost) warned: “Thus, it is unlikely that the German offensive will be able to break through the defenses ... On the German side, taking into account the situation as a whole, those reserves will be pulled up and used, which later will be urgently needed.

In principle, it was only about proving to ourselves, the home front and the enemy our ability to act and at the same time defeat as many formations of the Red Army as possible. “Operation Citadel ... should no longer be considered a strategic offensive, but a limited offensive operation within the framework of strategic defense,” emphasizes historian Karl-Heinz Frieser, one of the best experts on the world war in the east.

Complete rejection of surprise

Although the plans for operational deployment constantly emphasized the need to keep preparations for the offensive in the strictest confidence, the Soviet leadership unraveled the plans for the German operation no later than June. And German intelligence was also able to find out about this in a timely manner. Nevertheless, the Wehrmacht abandoned its biggest trump card, which until recently allowed in the course of lightning operations to achieve impressive success, at least on initial stage- that is, from suddenness. The enemy is “fully prepared for the defense,” emphasized the order quoted at the beginning, which, along with other documents of the 7th Infantry Division, can be found in the Military Archives of the Federal Archives in Freiburg.

This unit included the 9th Army, which was supposed to move from the north towards Kursk. The positions of the Red Army were stretched 30 kilometers in depth and consisted of trenches, as well as other field-type fortifications. Only once, on the first day of the offensive, was it possible to make a breakthrough to a depth of eight kilometers. Already on July 6, one day after the start of the operation, an order was received for a "temporary transition to the defense."