Arnold German

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Arnold Deutsch (* 1903 or 1904 in Vienna ; † probably November 7, 1942 when the Donbass sank in the North Sea) was an Austrian chemist who worked as an agent for the Soviet Union . His greatest success was the recruitment of the future British top spy Kim Philby .

Life

The exact living conditions of Arnold Deutsch are partly unknown or contradictory due to his secret work as a Soviet agent under various aliases. It is commonly assumed that he was born in Vienna in 1903 or 1904 , the son of Heinrich Deutsch, a Jewish trader from what is now Slovakia . This is why he is usually referred to in literature as an Austrian, but sometimes also as a Czech, Slovak or Hungarian.

In 1923 he joined the Communist Youth Association together with Alfred Klahr and Arnold Reisberg , which had its center in Blumauergasse in Vienna- Leopoldstadt . In 1924 he joined the KPÖ and began to study chemistry and physics at the University of Vienna . There he was a colleague of Fritz Feigl (joint essay) and obtained his doctorate in 1928. In 1929 he married Josefine, who from then on accompanied him everywhere.

He then went to Moscow, where he also joined the CPSU in 1931 . At the suggestion of the Comintern , he was recruited by the Soviet secret police GPU . He was initially used as a courier and traveled to Greece, Romania, Syria and Palestine. In 1933 he was sent to Paris, from where he carried out missions in Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria and the German Empire under the pseudonym "Otto".

In 1933 he was briefly imprisoned in Germany , but was released with the help of Willy Lehmann , a Soviet agent in the Gestapo . In 1934 he was sent to London under the pseudonym "Stephan" , where he enrolled in the philosophy faculty of the University of London with the aim of subversive activities. In England he recruited several British students interested in communism, who later also made careers in the British secret service, including Kim Philby and his then wife Litzi Friedmann , who was from Vienna . He had met Philby through Edith Suschitzky , a Viennese who also lived in London. From 1933 to 1937 he was head of the agent ring later known as the Cambridge Five . During this time he should also evaluate an American recruit, Michael Whitney Straight , which he turned down. Later this should play an important role in unmasking the group.

In England, with the help of the agent Dimitri Bystroletov, he was able to crack the secret codes of the Foreign Office , which enabled the Soviets to discover British diplomatic secrets. He returned to the Soviet Union in August 1935, but was sent back to London in April 1936. Under the supervision of Theodor Maly, who also came from the former Austria-Hungary, he recruited new agents at Oxford University , including Arthur Wynn, and founded the Oxford Group, which operates independently of the Cambridge Five. In addition to his agent work, German continued to study regularly and was able to graduate in philosophy in 1936. His daughter Ninette Elisabeth was born on May 21, 1936. In September 1937, however, he was ordered back to the Soviet Union. Shortly before, the high-ranking Soviet agents Ignatz Poretsky and Walter Krivitsky defected , in whose operations he was marginally involved, so that it was feared that he could be exposed. At that time, however, the Stalin Purges were in progress , in the course of which his Viennese childhood friend Arnold Reisberg was arrested. But after long interrogations, Deutsch managed to divert suspicion from himself. In 1938 he and his wife received Soviet citizenship, with passports issued in the names of Stefan Grigoriewitsch Lang and Josefina Pawlowna Lang . However, he was sentenced to idleness for a further eleven months because the NKVD , headed by Lavrenti Beria , still mistrusted him.

Deutsch left his group of agents and instead worked as a researcher at the International Institute for Economics. Nevertheless, he was later employed again as an expert on manuscripts and forgeries, and after the outbreak of war in June 1941 he was reinstated as an agent. In November 1941 he was sent to Argentina with a group of agents. The route was planned over Persia and Central Asia. However, when war broke out between Japan and the United States in December 1941, the mission was canceled and the group returned to Moscow. Instead, the dangerous route across the Atlantic was dared and the group set off with the Soviet tanker Donbass (Donbas). However, this was torpedoed by the German destroyer Z 27 in the North Sea on November 7, 1942 and sank. The survivors later reported that Arnold Deutsch drowned.

The circumstances of his death, or whether Deutsch actually drowned in the sinking of the Donbass, remains historically controversial. According to other sources, Deutsch was not supposed to have been to the Donbass at all, but was later shot by the Nazis when he parachuted over Austria and was arrested there. Rufina Ivanovna Puchova, the last wife of Kim Philby, however, reiterated the drowning version in 2003, but made contradicting statements about the aim of this mission. The actual destination should not have been Latin America, but New York, where German was supposed to expand his work as a spy.

Interest in Arnold Deutsch did not increase until 1964, after the suspicion of Kim Philby became more and more concrete and he fled to the Soviet Union. Only then did the British MI5 and the American CIA begin detailed investigations into the agent group of the Cambridge Five and their formation before the Second World War. Important details, such as the possible death in 1942, did not become public until after the end of the Soviet Union.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alfred Klahr Society: Willi Weinert: For the 100th birthday of Arnold Reisberg
  2. ↑ KomInform: Arnold Reisberg: On the 100th birthday ( memento of the original from January 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Print version) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kominform.at
  3. ^ Fritz Feigl, Arnold Deutsch: About silver and mercury salts of amidobenzothiazole. In: Monthly magazine for chemistry. 49, 1928, p. 413, doi : 10.1007 / BF01518407 .
  4. ↑ University Library Vienna: About silver and mercury salts of amidobenzothiazole, as well as a new method for the quantitative determination of silver , dissertation by Arnold Deutsch, 1928.
  5. ↑ Christopher Andrew, Vasili Mitrokhin: The sword and the shield. The Mitrokhin Archive and the secret history of the KGB ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . New York 1999, p. 56  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.scribd.com
  6. ↑ Der Spiegel: Stalin's Man in the Gestapo (September 29, 2009)
  7. ↑ Christopher Andrew, Vasili Mitrokhin: The sword and the shield. The Mitrokhin Archive and the secret history of the KGB ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . New York 1999, p. 582  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.scribd.com
  8. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/42-11.htm

literature

personal data
SURNAME German, Arnold
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Дейч, Арнольд Генрихович; Lang, Stefan Grigoryevich (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian chemist and Soviet agent
DATE OF BIRTH 1903 or 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH uncertain: November 7, 1942
Place of death uncertain: North Atlantic