Leopold Trepper
Encyclopedia
Leopold Trepper was an organizer of the Soviet spy
ring Rote Kapelle (Red Orchestra) prior to and during World War II
.
Leopold Trepper was born to a Jewish
family on February 23, 1904, in Nowy Targ
, Poland
(part of Austria-Hungary
in that time). His family moved to Vienna
, Austria
, when he was child. After the October Revolution
he joined the Bolsheviks and worked in the Galician mines. In 1923, he organized a strike in Kraków
and was imprisoned for eight months.
Trepper moved from Poland to Palestine
in 1924 as a member of the Zionist socialist movement Hashomer Hatzair
. He joined the Palestine Communist Party
and worked against the British
forces in Palestine. He was identified as a communist agent and expelled in 1929. He went to France
and worked for an underground political organization called Rabcors until French intelligence broke it up in 1932.
Trepper escaped to Moscow
and worked as a GRU
agent for the next six years, traveling between Moscow and Paris
. He escaped the Stalinist purges with support from Soviet military intelligence, one of the few forces still relatively immune from Stalin's influence and where the influence of old Bolsheviks remained strong.
In 1938, Trepper was sent to organize and coordinate an intelligence network in Nazi-occupied Europe, based in Belgium
. The Nazis named it the Red Orchestra (Die Rote Kapelle). Prior to the German attack on the Soviet Union, he sent information about German troop transfers from other fronts for Operation Barbarossa
through a Soviet military attaché
in Vichy France
. Eventually, the Gestapo
uncovered the network and Trepper fled to France.
In France, Trepper established another network, but eventually the Abwehr
tracked him down. They arrested Trepper on November 16, 1942 from a dentist's chair. The Gestapo did not force him to betray most of his contacts, but treated him leniently in an attempt to make him a double agent
in Paris, but the GRU eventually figured out that he had been turned because Trepper managed to inform them by secret hints within his communications.
Eventually in 1943, Trepper escaped and went underground. He emerged with the French Resistance
after the liberation of Paris
. He later claimed that he had contacted the French communist resistance during his imprisonment by Germans.
The Soviets took him to Russia but instead of rewarding him, they locked him up in Lubyanka prison. He vigorously defended his position and avoided execution for unknown reasons, but remained in prison until 1955. Before that, he was personally interrogated by NKVD
chief Viktor Abakumov
. After his release, he returned to Poland to his wife and three sons. He became a head of the Jewish Cultural Society.
After the Six Day War Trepper decided to try to immigrate to Israel
. Initially, the Polish government refused permission until international protests forced Poland to allow a number of Jews to leave for Israel. He settled in Jerusalem in 1974. In 1975, he published his autobiography
, The Great Game. A few years before, a book about the Red Orchestra containing interviews with both Soviets and Nazis had appeared, written by Gilles Perrault
.
Leopold Trepper died - a convinced communist revolutionary - in Jerusalem in 1982. His funeral was attended by the highest echelons of the Israeli army, including Defence Minister Ariel Sharon
.
In the epilogue to The Great Game, Trepper wrote,
, a senior British MEP, to mark the 70th Anniversary of the raid by the German Abwehr
on the Red Orchestra Brussels HQ. It will include a seminar with Hans Coppi, Jr.
and other leading Red Orchestra experts, and a commemorative reception. The Russian Ambassador to the EU, H.E. Vladimir Chizhov, is guest of honour. The American and British Ambassadors to Belgium will attend together with a representative of the German Government.
Remembering Leopold Trepper & the Red Orchestra
SPY
SPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...
ring Rote Kapelle (Red Orchestra) prior to and during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Leopold Trepper was born to a Jewish
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
family on February 23, 1904, in Nowy Targ
Nowy Targ
Nowy Targ is a town in southern Poland with 34,000 inhabitants , and the historical capital of the mountain region . The town is situated in the confluence of the rivers Biały and Czarny Dunajec, in a valley beneath the Gorce Mountains. It's in Nowy Targ County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(part of Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
in that time). His family moved to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, when he was child. After the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
he joined the Bolsheviks and worked in the Galician mines. In 1923, he organized a strike in Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
and was imprisoned for eight months.
Trepper moved from Poland to Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
in 1924 as a member of the Zionist socialist movement Hashomer Hatzair
Hashomer Hatzair
Hashomer Hatzair is a Socialist–Zionist youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary, and was also the name of the group's political party in the Yishuv in the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine...
. He joined the Palestine Communist Party
Palestine Communist Party
The Palestine Communist Party was a political party in British Mandate of Palestine formed in 1923 through the merger of the Palestinian Communist Party and the Communist Party of Palestine...
and worked against the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
forces in Palestine. He was identified as a communist agent and expelled in 1929. He went to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and worked for an underground political organization called Rabcors until French intelligence broke it up in 1932.
Trepper escaped to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and worked as a GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
agent for the next six years, traveling between Moscow and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. He escaped the Stalinist purges with support from Soviet military intelligence, one of the few forces still relatively immune from Stalin's influence and where the influence of old Bolsheviks remained strong.
In 1938, Trepper was sent to organize and coordinate an intelligence network in Nazi-occupied Europe, based in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
. The Nazis named it the Red Orchestra (Die Rote Kapelle). Prior to the German attack on the Soviet Union, he sent information about German troop transfers from other fronts for Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
through a Soviet military attaché
Military attaché
A military attaché is a military expert who is attached to a diplomatic mission . This post is normally filled by a high-ranking military officer who retains the commission while serving in an embassy...
in Vichy France
Vichy France
Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...
. Eventually, the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
uncovered the network and Trepper fled to France.
In France, Trepper established another network, but eventually the Abwehr
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
tracked him down. They arrested Trepper on November 16, 1942 from a dentist's chair. The Gestapo did not force him to betray most of his contacts, but treated him leniently in an attempt to make him a double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
in Paris, but the GRU eventually figured out that he had been turned because Trepper managed to inform them by secret hints within his communications.
Eventually in 1943, Trepper escaped and went underground. He emerged with the French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
after the liberation of Paris
Liberation of Paris
The Liberation of Paris took place during World War II from 19 August 1944 until the surrender of the occupying German garrison on August 25th. It could be regarded by some as the last battle in the Battle for Normandy, though that really ended with the crushing of the Wehrmacht forces between the...
. He later claimed that he had contacted the French communist resistance during his imprisonment by Germans.
The Soviets took him to Russia but instead of rewarding him, they locked him up in Lubyanka prison. He vigorously defended his position and avoided execution for unknown reasons, but remained in prison until 1955. Before that, he was personally interrogated by NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
chief Viktor Abakumov
Viktor Abakumov
Viktor Semyonovich Abakumov , was a high level Soviet security organs official, from 1943 to 1946 the head of SMERSH in the USSR People's Commissariat of Defense, and from 1946 to 1951 Minister of State Security or MGB . Abakumov was a notoriously brutal official who was known to torture prisoners...
. After his release, he returned to Poland to his wife and three sons. He became a head of the Jewish Cultural Society.
After the Six Day War Trepper decided to try to immigrate to Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. Initially, the Polish government refused permission until international protests forced Poland to allow a number of Jews to leave for Israel. He settled in Jerusalem in 1974. In 1975, he published his autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, The Great Game. A few years before, a book about the Red Orchestra containing interviews with both Soviets and Nazis had appeared, written by Gilles Perrault
Gilles Perrault
Gilles Perrault is a left-wing French writer and journalist.He attended the Collège Stanislas de Paris and then studied at the Institut d'études politiques, eventually becoming a lawyer, a profession he worked in for five years....
.
Leopold Trepper died - a convinced communist revolutionary - in Jerusalem in 1982. His funeral was attended by the highest echelons of the Israeli army, including Defence Minister Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel’s 11th Prime Minister. He has been in a permanent vegetative state since suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006....
.
In the epilogue to The Great Game, Trepper wrote,
I do not regret the commitment of my youth, I do not regret the paths I have taken. In Denmark, in the fall of 1973, a young man asked me in a public meeting, "Haven't you sacrificed your life for nothing?" I replied, "No."
"No" on one condition: that people understand the lesson of my life as a communist and a revolutionary, and do not turn themselves over to a deified party.
Commemorative Events
On Tuesday 6 December 2011 former MEP Mark F. Watts of Luther Pendragon Brussels is organising a commemorative event in the European Parliament hosted by Peter SkinnerPeter Skinner
Peter Skinner is a Member of the European Parliament for the Labour Party for South East England. Educated at St. Josephs R.C. Secondary Modern School in Orpington, Kent, he attended Bradford University between 1979 and 1982 where he attained a BSc in Economics and Politics...
, a senior British MEP, to mark the 70th Anniversary of the raid by the German Abwehr
Abwehr
The Abwehr was a German military intelligence organisation from 1921 to 1944. The term Abwehr was used as a concession to Allied demands that Germany's post-World War I intelligence activities be for "defensive" purposes only...
on the Red Orchestra Brussels HQ. It will include a seminar with Hans Coppi, Jr.
Hans Coppi, Jr.
Dr. Hans Coppi, Jr. is a German historian. His parents, Hilde and Hans Coppi, were active in the German Resistance and were both executed by the Nazis.- Nazi victim at birth :...
and other leading Red Orchestra experts, and a commemorative reception. The Russian Ambassador to the EU, H.E. Vladimir Chizhov, is guest of honour. The American and British Ambassadors to Belgium will attend together with a representative of the German Government.
Remembering Leopold Trepper & the Red Orchestra