Russian spy in Tokyo
Kamikazi
There was a German diplomat in Tokyo secretly worked for the Russians during
WWII. He was a staff in the German Ambassy. He passed many important
information to Stalin, including the Japanese decision of not attacking the
Soviet from Manchuria and the Germany's plan to invade Russia. In late 1944,
he was arrested by the Japanese secret police (Kempei-tai?) and summarily
executed.
Does anyone know his name? How was he discovered by the Japanese?
Since the Soviet was not at war with Japan at that time, and Germany was
Japan's ally. How could the Japanese execute a diplomat from an ally country?
Drazen Kramaric
His name was Richard Sorge. He was German but communist. He was sent to
Japan by Soviet secret service as a spy. His disguise was position of
foreign correspondent for several German newspapers and magazines. He
was very intelligent and dedicated to communist cause.
His group comprised of German couple (radio technicians), Yugoslav
journalist and two Japanese (one of them worked in Japanese foreign
ministry, but I am not sure).
Except for Japanese source, Sorge's main source was German ambassador in
Tokyo who though Sorge was his close friend. The critical information
about Barbarossa, Sorge obtained from German ambassador.
Japanese secret police broke the group through one of Japanese members
and after his recognition they arrested all others. Sorge and Japanese
were executed, Yugoslav and other German died in prison and German wife
survived and was liberated by Americans.
German ambassador was decorated and never officially blamed for leak of
information.
This is from the top of my head and I reccomend you to find some book
about this extraordinary brave and capable man.
Drax
David Stone (GD 1997)
Kamikazi (j...@delanet.com) wrote:
: There was a German diplomat in Tokyo secretly worked for the Russians during
: WWII. He was a staff in the German Ambassy. He passed many important
: information to Stalin, including the Japanese decision of not attacking the
: Soviet from Manchuria and the Germany's plan to invade Russia. In late 1944,
: he was arrested by the Japanese secret police (Kempei-tai?) and summarily
: executed.
: Does anyone know his name? How was he discovered by the Japanese?
: Since the Soviet was not at war with Japan at that time, and Germany was
: Japan's ally. How could the Japanese execute a diplomat from an ally country?
You're thinking of Richard Sorge (also spelled Zorge). He wasn't a German
diplomat, but a reporter. He had excellent friends and contacts at the
German embassy, up to and including the ambassador. As a result, there
was no question of diplomatic immunity. He was born in Russia to (if I
remember correctly) a German father and Russian mother, so it would be
dubious even to call him a German national.
There are many books on Sorge and Soviet espionage--the most accessible
starting point is probably Andrew and Gordievsky's _KGB_.
Dave Stone
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
David Stone available through email at:
International Security Studies david...@yale.edu
Yale University -or-
New Haven, CT 06520 sto...@minerva.cis.yale.edu
(203) 789-1028
c...@teleport.com
In article <623ehn$6...@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>, j...@delanet.com (Kamikazi)
wrote:
>
>
> There was a German diplomat in Tokyo secretly worked for the Russians during
> WWII. He was a staff in the German Ambassy. He passed many important
> information to Stalin, including the Japanese decision of not attacking the
> Soviet from Manchuria and the Germany's plan to invade Russia. In late 1944,
> he was arrested by the Japanese secret police (Kempei-tai?) and summarily
> executed.
>
> Does anyone know his name? How was he discovered by the Japanese?
>
> Since the Soviet was not at war with Japan at that time, and Germany was
> Japan's ally. How could the Japanese execute a diplomat from an ally country?
This was Richard Sorge. He was a German national born in Russia in 1895.
He became a journalist and was recruited by the Comintern intelligence
section in 1925. He had a drinking problem and would not have been a
candidate for KGB. In the early 1930's Sorge was sent to Germany where he
developed his cover as a correspondent of the Frankfruter Zeitung (and two
other papers) and was posted to Tokyo. There he teamed up with Ozaki
Hotsumi a brilliant man who became a journalist. Hotsumi had been
recruited by an American communist5 Agnes Smedley and wh introduced him to
Sorge at a Comintern bookshop in Shanghi. Hotsumi agreed to help Sorge
gather intelligence for the Comintern. By 1936 they had been joined by at
least two other communist agents and they began work. Sorge had wormed his
way into the German Embassy where he became very influential with the
Ambassador. Hotsumi had risen to a Cabinet adviser post and was an
intimate of Prince Konoye on both domestic and international matters.
Thus both Sorge and Htsumi achieved posts where they not only could easily
gather information, but were in position to influence decisions their
espionage was supposed to uncover. By this method, they were able to govi
the Russians solid information that the Japanese were going to go into the
south pacific toward Australia and had no intention of pushing westward
into Mongolia and Russia.
In summer 1938 the Japanese Kwantung Army occupied some Russian Territory
south west of Vladivostok. Using Sorges information the Russians were able
to have a hard stance on return of the territory.
--------------------------
Fas est et ab hoste docerii.
--------------------------
C. L. Waltemath
Donald Phillipson
Kamikazi (j...@delanet.com) writes:
> There was a German diplomat in Tokyo secretly worked for the Russians during
> WWII. He was a staff in the German Ambassy. He passed many important
> information to Stalin, including the Japanese decision of not attacking the
> Soviet from Manchuria and the Germany's plan to invade Russia. In late 1944,
> he was arrested by the Japanese secret police (Kempei-tai?) and summarily
> executed.
>
> Does anyone know his name? How was he discovered by the Japanese?
>
> Since the Soviet was not at war with Japan at that time, and Germany was
> Japan's ally. How could the Japanese execute a diplomat from an ally country?
The star Soviet spy in Japan was Richard Sorge. He was a newspaperman
and (memory suggests) attached to the German embassy as press attache
-- but not a diplomat, hence without diplomatic protection. He was
not "summarily executed" -- but after long interrogation and
a trial.
Several books describe Sorge's life and work. Memory also suggests
that, when Russia issued postage stamps portraying Russian spies,
Sorge was the first.
--
| Donald Phillipson, 4180 Boundary Road, Carlsbad Springs, |
| Ontario, Canada, K0A 1K0, tel. 613 822 0734 |
Scott Reynolds
Kamikazi wrote:
>
> There was a German diplomat in Tokyo secretly worked for the Russians during
> WWII. He was a staff in the German Ambassy. He passed many important
> information to Stalin, including the Japanese decision of not attacking the
> Soviet from Manchuria and the Germany's plan to invade Russia. In late 1944,
> he was arrested by the Japanese secret police (Kempei-tai?) and summarily
> executed.
You are thinking of Richard Sorge.
He was arrested by the Tokko (the "special political police" according
to Kenkyusha) as I recall. The Kempei-tai were the military police.
He was not "summarily executed," either. He was legally tried,
convicted, imprisoned, and later hanged. Also convicted and also later
executed was Ozaki Hotsumi [I could be wrong about his given name] who
was a member of Sorge's spy ring.
Both Sorge and Ozaki were well known journalists, and convinced
Communists.
> Does anyone know his name? How was he discovered by the Japanese?
Through good old-fashioned detective work, so far as I know.
> Since the Soviet was not at war with Japan at that time, and Germany was
> Japan's ally. How could the Japanese execute a diplomat from an ally country?
Sorge was not a diplomat, though he had close personal ties to many
diplomats working at the German embassy. (That's were he got all that
juicy info.)
Sorge is famous because (among other things) he supplied the date of the
upcoming German attack on Russia to Stalin. Stalin didn't believe him.
_______________________________________________________________
Scott Reynolds s...@gol.com
WMHOPWOOD
>There was a German diplomat in Tokyo secretly worked for the Russians during
>WWII. He was a staff in the German Ambassy. He passed many important
>information to Stalin, including the Japanese decision of not attacking the
>Soviet from Manchuria and the Germany's plan to invade Russia. In late 1944,
>he was arrested by the Japanese secret police (Kempei-tai?) and summarily
>executed.
>
>Does anyone know his name? How was he discovered by the Japanese?
>
>Since the Soviet was not at war with Japan at that time, and Germany was
>Japan's ally. How could the Japanese execute a diplomat from an ally country?
I believe you are a little off on the date and the spy's occupation. I believe
the individual to whom you refer was not a German diplomat but was Richard
Sorge, master Soviet spy in Tokyo who was a newspaper correspondent for the
prominent German paper Frankfurter Zeitung. He had free access to the German
embassy in Tokyo. He led a spy ring in Tokyo between September of 1933 until
his arrest by the Kempei in October of 1941, two months before Pearl Harbor.
When picked up by the Japanese he admitted that he was a communist and that he
had been a Soviet espionage agent. The U.S. was not aware of Sorge's spying
activities before his arrest but when he was arrested by the Japanese U.S.
intelligence went back over Sorge's many articles written for the Franfurter
Zeitung and also for Zeitschrift fur Geopolitik and found much useful
information.
W.J.Hopwood
W.J.Hopwood
sam...@inforamp.net
On 16 Oct 1997 15:32:36 GMT, ian.b...@myself.com wrote:
>
>Sorge and "le Grand Chef", Leopold Trepper - the head of the Red
>Orchestra in France and Belguim were two of a very few number of
>Soviet agents who survived Stalins purges during the thirties, tho
>their controllers were executed. Sorge is to the best of my knowledge
>the only spy who has been commemorated on a stamp, and his career and
>exploits were made much of by Soviet propagandists after the war.
>
to pick a very tiny nit, kim philby was commemorated on a soviet (or
maybe russian) stamp a few years ago.
-----------------------------------
Dan Bjarnason / Toronto, Canada
(To reply by email, remove x from samosx )
-------------------------------------
Paul Newman
Kamikazi (j...@delanet.com) wrote:
: There was a German diplomat in Tokyo secretly worked for the Russians during
: WWII. He was a staff in the German Ambassy. He passed many important
: information to Stalin, including the Japanese decision of not attacking the
: Soviet from Manchuria and the Germany's plan to invade Russia. In late 1944,
: he was arrested by the Japanese secret police (Kempei-tai?) and summarily
: executed.
:
: Does anyone know his name? How was he discovered by the Japanese?
Richard Sorge. He wasn't a diplomat but a journalist affiliated with the
German embassy. His exposure was a result of long and sophisticated work
of Kampei-tai. For short - the immediate reason of his exposure was an
"incidental leakage" of mock materials.
: Since the Soviet was not at war with Japan at that time, and Germany was
: Japan's ally. How could the Japanese execute a diplomat from an ally country?
It actually caused a diplomatic problem and the German ambassador Ott
opposed the idea to execute Sorge. Sorge was arrested in 1942 and spent
two years in Sugamo prison until he was exacuted on 7 Nvmber 1944. It
happened after Ott's dismissal. Besides Sorge was a Soviet citizen and
denied an affiliation with Germany, or rather - hitlerite Germany.
---
Paul Newman
pawe...@vcn.bc.ca
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~ifti/world.war.html
c...@teleport.com
In article <62han7$18k2$1...@nntp6.u.washington.edu>, pawe...@vcn.bc.ca (Paul
Newman) wrote:
> Sorge was not born in Russia. He was born in Germany and lived there until
> 1925. Both his parents were Germans.
We have a difference in opinion. What is your reference. Mine is Philip
Knightley who states that Sorge was born in Russia and educated in Berlin.
kr...@ids2.idsonline.com
Sorge was born in the village of Adjikent in Azerbaijan in 1895. His
family moved back to Germany when he was eleven. See Gordon Prange's
Target Tokyo.