Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov

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Pavel Sudoplatov

Pavel Sudoplatov ( Russian Павел Анатольевич Судоплатов , scientific. Transliteration Pavel Anatol'evič Sudoplatov * 7. July 1907 in Melitopol , Taurida Gubernia , Russian empire , now Zaporizhia Oblast , Ukraine ; †  26. September 1996 ) was a high-ranking employee of the Soviet Secret service NKVD , where he last held the rank of lieutenant general . The operations he was involved in include the murdersLeon Trotsky and the Ukrainian nationalist Yevhen Konovalets, as well as obtaining information about the US nuclear program , the Manhattan Project .

Life

Sudoplatov was born to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother. When his father died early and the family fell into poverty, he joined the Red Army in 1919 at the age of twelve and fought on the side of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War . Through his work in the transmission of messages, he made his first experiences with the secret service work and was finally transferred to the secret political department of the Ukrainian OGPU in 1927 .

As early as 1933 he was transferred to the OGPU headquarters in Moscow and used for covert operations in several European countries. As part of one such operation, Sudoplatov murdered the Ukrainian nationalist Yevhen Konowalez in Rotterdam on May 23, 1938, on Stalin's direct orders, using a booby trap disguised as a gift .

In the autumn of 1938 he was appointed managing director of the foreign department of the NKVD after his predecessor Sergei Spigelglas fell victim to the purges carried out within the secret service at the time, which were initiated by the secret service chief Nikolai Yezhov and which should ultimately lead to his overthrow. After Yezhov was replaced by Lavrenti Beria in December 1938, Sudoplatov himself narrowly escaped the purge of " Yezhov supporters " within the NKVD by Beria when Stalin acquitted him of all charges in March 1939 and promoted him to deputy director of the foreign department. In this position he was tasked with organizing the assassination of Trotsky, carried out on August 20, 1940 by Ramón Mercader .

From June 1940, Sudoplatov's task was to organize special tasks within the NKVD. Sudoplatow is the first commander of the Soviet form of special forces in World War II . In addition to sabotage operations behind enemy lines in the event of war, these special tasks also continued to include the murder of dissidents abroad. During the Second World War, his unit was entrusted with the organization of the partisan war behind the Wehrmacht . It also carried out acts of sabotage and attacks directed against the Wehrmacht.

During the Second World War, Sudoplatov worked with Ilyin, another high-ranking employee of the NKVD , a plan to liquidate Hitler. Hitler was supposed to be liquidated by a group of Soviet agents led by Igor Miklaszewski - who was smuggled into Germany for this purpose in 1943. Olga Chekhowa and Janusz Radziwiłł were supposed to establish the agents' access to Hitler . At the last moment, by order of Stalin, the plan was dropped. Stalin feared that if Hitler were successfully liquidated, Germany would conclude a separate peace with the Allies - without the participation of the Soviet Union. From autumn 1944 until the end of the war, Operation Berezino (in Russian : Операция Березино) was carried out under his leadership . A German combat group dispersed behind the front under the supposed command of Lieutenant Colonel Heinrich Scherhorn, who had actually been taken prisoner by the Soviet Union, was faked by radio for the German Wehrmacht in order to induce them to supply the group from the air and thus obtain essential war resources.

In February 1944, Beria appointed Sudoplatow head of a newly created Department S, in which all intelligence activities of the GRU and the NKVD with regard to nuclear armament were bundled. At the same time he was given a leading position in the Soviet atomic bomb project , where he primarily performed coordination tasks. He was released from both functions in the summer of 1946. Instead, he was assigned to head a group in the MGB whose task it was to carry out acts of sabotage in western countries. In November 1949 he was briefly assigned the task of crushing the Ukrainian Insurgent Army , which had been formed there by the Ukrainian nationalist Stepan Bandera before and during the Second World War .

In the spring of 1953 Sudoplatow was again entrusted with the management of the office for special tasks. Again he was responsible for acts of sabotage abroad. In addition, networks of foreign agents were set up to carry out attacks on NATO facilities in the event of war .

With the fall of Beria in June 1953, Sudoplatov's career also ended. He was removed from his post and arrested. After five years in prison, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison in the fall of 1958 for alleged involvement in a Beria-led conspiracy to overthrow the government.

After his release from prison, where he had spent his days with some prominent followers of Stalin, Sudoplatov worked from 1968 as a translator of German and Ukrainian texts. He also wrote a novel and some papers about his activities in World War II. In 1992, Sudoplatov was rehabilitated after using the glasnost policy in a public campaign and acquitted of all offenses for which he had been convicted.

In 1994 his autobiography Special Tasks was published, which he wrote together with his son and two American authors. The book caused a remarkable uproar because, in addition to a detailed description of various secret service operations and the internal organization of the secret service, it also contained the claim that several Western scientists who were involved in the US nuclear program had supplied the Soviet Union with classified information. This claim has been questioned several times.

Sudoplatov was buried in the Donskoy Cemetery in Moscow.

Publications

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Судоплатов П. А .: "Спецоперации. Лубянка и Кремль 1930-1950 годы."
personal data
SURNAME Sudoplatow, Pavel Anatolyevich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Судоплатов, Павел Анатольевич (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian secret agent
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Melitopol
DATE OF DEATH September 26, 1996