Security Service release

Soviet Intelligence Agents

Figures connected to the Rote Kapelle spy ring

This release includes further files on figures connected with the Rote Kapelle, the Russian intelligence network in western Europe penetrated by the Germans in the early 1940s and subsequently investigated by the western Allies after German papers on the ring were captured at the end of the war. Among these are files on the head of the Rote Kapelle, Leopold Trepper (KV 2/2074), the Polish-born Palestinian who was exiled to France in the 1920s, where he was recruited by the Russians and headed the spy ring until his arrest by the Germans. He escaped in 1945 and made his way to the Soviet Union, and subsequently published an account of his activities. Other Rote Kapelle figures featured in this release include Trepper's petit chef, Victor Sokolov (KV 2/2068) and his mistress Marguerite Barcza (KV 2/2070-2071); Waldemar Ozols (KV 2/2069), the Latvian agent who with Sokolov penetrated the French resistance and whose radio transmitter was later used by the Germans in a playback operation; and the courier between the Rote Kapelle in Paris and the Rote Drei spy ring in Switzerland, Maurice Aenis-Hanslin (KV 2/2072).

Also included in this release (see above under German Intelligence Agents) is the file of Heinz Pannwitz, the man who arrested Leopold Trepper and whose playback operation was originally given the name Rote Kapelle, only later applied to the Russian spy ring.