Stalin's Romeo Spy

by Emil Draitser

  After some hesitation, Doris brought the material home. When she left, Mally quickly photographed the files, page by page. Of course, Doris knew she had bent the iron rules of guarding the material. But the files she looked in carried the “confidential” security classification; they were not marked “top secret.” And, as Bystrolyotov keenly observes, “a person who is accustomed to smoking while sitting on a gunpowder barrel doesn’t consider it especially dangerous to do it in a lumber warehouse.”24

  Certain measures were taken to cover the possibility that German counterintelligence might notice the frequent visits of “Herr Batory” to Doris’s apartment. To justify these visits, a pack of documents was prepared and brought in from Holland. According to them, “Lajos Batory” had been commissioned by his employer, “Count Perelly,” to talk to German banks and construction and repair firms regarding renovation of his family estate in Hungary. Dmitri left a few of copies of the papers, as if absentmindedly, on a shelf of Doris’s bookcase. If the Gestapo happened to search the place, finding these papers would help to calm them down.25

  While dealing with Doris, Dmitri managed to recruit another Zweighalle-5 employee. He obtained the lead by picking up just a few bits of information Doris had unwittingly shared with him. One day, during some pillow talk, Dmitri teased Doris for carrying around a pistol, part of her SS-Hauptscharführer uniform. But could she really shoot well? She flared up indignantly, stating with pride that it would be unthinkable for a true German woman not to know how to use a weapon. She even bragged about being the best markswoman in her Zweigstelle. And she would even be the best of the men, if not for that František Foster. “Who is he?” Dmitri asked out of curiosity. She replied that the man was an engineer in her department and the best marksman in the Berlin Marksmen’s Union. In fact, that year, he had won first prize in the city championship, although in her judgment, in all other aspects he was a fool and nincompoop.26

  That was more than enough information as a start for finding the man and beginning to cultivate him as a prospective agent. Dmitri charged his assistants, Leppin and Erica, with finding out as much as they could about the man. Knowing his name and place of employment, it was not difficult to obtain his address through the Berlin address bureau, where they also found the location of the Berlin Marksmen’s Union. Leppin paid a visit to the union office and inquired about when and where the union members practiced their beloved sport. Charged with finding any personal data on Foster, he chatted with the union’s secretary about their celebrity and picked up a bit of office gossip. A quiet and polite man, Herr Foster was still single and lived with his sick, elderly mother, who could no longer even walk by herself. Besides shooting, he had another, much quieter hobby—stamp collecting.

  With Mally’s blessing, Dmitri embarked on developing a new line of recruitment, and Foster was code-named ECONOMIST.27 Dressed as a sport shooter, in a light-colored shooter’s suit complete with checkered jacket, knee-length pants, thick socks, brown shoes, and a cap,28 he went to the shooting gallery. He did not know what Foster looked like, but that was hardly a problem: all members of the Berlin Marksmen’s Union knew their champion by sight.

  He waited in the foyer until Foster finished practicing and approached him respectfully. He opened with a compliment: “I was admiring your technique, Herr Foster. Did I pronounce your name right?”

  The question was intended to ensure that he had the right man.

  “Yes, I’m František Foster,” the man replied. “I’m satisfied with my results.”

  “You’re the pride not only of your union but of the whole Berlin population,” Dmitri said and introduced himself as “Count Perelly de Kiralyhaza.” And he asked whether Herr Foster would mind giving him ten shooting lessons.

  “I’m flattered,” Foster said but explained that he was not a professional trainer. Of course, if the count wished, he would indulge him, but he would not feel comfortable taking money for such a small favor.

  “Ah,” Dmitri said, “if only you collected stamps, as I do. Then . . .”

  “Why!” Foster said, “I’m a passionate stamp collector!”

  They shook hands in joy at having found a kindred soul.

  “What kind of stamps do you collect, Herr Foster?”

  “Only German ones. I’m a German patriot.”

  “I may be of use to you.” Dmitri decided to plant a name that could evoke associations in Foster’s mind. “I have a friend in London,” he continued. “Alexis von Putiloff—he’s also an avid philatelist. I’ll bet I could get some German stamps of the past century for you.”29

  It took Foster a minute to take the bait.

  “I’m very, very grateful,” he said. “I have all of the German stamps of the twentieth century. But the old stamps are a big problem. They’re hard to find and quite expensive.”

  “Well, a good turn for a good turn.”

  They shook hands again.

  “Excuse me, Count,” Foster said. “You mentioned the name of your friend. Does Herr Putiloff come from the family that formerly owned the metallurgical plant in St. Petersburg?”

  Dmitri described Alexis as the son of the plant’s lawful owner, who was disowned and emigrated. “Where did you hear this name?” Dmitri said, just to make the point that he knew nothing of Foster’s professional life.

  “I do research in the field of international economy,” Foster replied.

  “Ah, is that so?” The count smiled and added absentmindedly, “Well, let us return to more interesting things to talk about—marksmanship and philately.”

  It was the end of round one.

  Dmitri immediately dispatched Leppin to Hamburg to buy about a dozen German stamps of the nineteenth century, the rarest and most expensive.

  When, sometime later, he met Foster in a café, he presented him with a small album of stamps. Overwhelmed by the generosity of the present, Foster offered the count another forty lessons in sharpshooting. Understanding that Herr Foster wanted to reciprocate, the count graciously accepted the offer.

  Their acquaintance soon grew into friendship: after all, they shared the same passions.

  Later, “Count Perelly” accepted Herr Foster’s invitation to visit him and his sick mother at their home. The guest charmed the old lady with his manners and warmth. The count saw for himself that his friend truly needed extra income to take better care of his mother. One day, traveling to the shooting range in his luxurious limousine, complete with uniformed chauffeur, the count offered Herr Foster a way to obtain funds that could pay for his mother’s rehabilitation at some resort.30

  He explained that the father of his friend, “Alexis von Putiloff,” the same man who had graciously shared a few stamps from his vast collection, was eager to learn from whatever sources it would take about the current state of his plants in St. Petersburg. Herr Putiloff Sr. was ready to pay good money to know what modifications had been made to the plants to estimate their approximate market value. As an economist who followed economic development in various countries, including the USSR, could Herr Foster prepare a substantial report covering these points? Since it was quite clear that the war with the Bolsheviks was just a matter of time, their power overthrown, Herr Putiloff’s ownership of the plants would be restored; naturally, he would want to know the worth of his property.

  When Foster expressed his opinion that the collapse of Soviet power seemed quite far-fetched at this point, the count informed him that the Russian émigré Trade and Capital Union in Paris was taking these prospects seriously and had made a point that now was the time to set the records straight. Once the takeover had already taken place, it would be too late. It was important to have documents in hand at the moment of repossessing his stolen property.31

  Foster contemplated the offer and replied that such a report would require quite a bit of time and effort on his part. And the count told him that he should rest assured that his work would be adequately compensated.32

  After Foster delivered his report,
the count found another client for him—one Ukrainian landlord, Alexander Ivanovich Bobrinsky. (Of course, Dmitri made up the name; it may well be that the name of Count A. A. Bobrinsky, a well-known Russian historian, ethnographer, archaeologist, and art critic, came to mind because of one of his art books Dmitri may have read back in St. Petersburg in his youth.) According to the count, Herr Bobrinsky owned lots of land on both sides of the Dniepr River, by sheer accident, in the place where the Bolsheviks had recently built a dam and hydroelectric station. When Soviet power collapsed, Herr Bobrinsky intended to claim that the dam and the station the robbers had built on his land also belonged to him.

  Foster enjoyed his extra income. Soon he offered Finnish and Romanian sources, which he thought of obtaining from his friends who worked in those departments. But Mally suggested that Dmitri slow down, warning him not to accept the offer because too wide a net could run the risk that, sooner or later, Foster would suspect him of spying. He also advised against showing up with the man in public too often. All Zweighalle employees could well be under surveillance, if not constant, then at least random. Dmitri’s acquaintance with another employee in the same setting could be deemed suspicious.33

  Gradually, Foster developed a taste for extra income. He provided reports about the state of industrial production in the USSR, about the capacity of Soviet railroads, the mood of the population, and other information available to German intelligence. Studying these reports allowed Soviet counterintelligence not only to learn about the degree of transparency of Soviet defense capabilities but also to unearth German agents and their means of leaking information abroad.

  No matter how successfully the operation moved along, it was clear that the game could not go on forever without risking failure. Doris had been waiting long enough for her beloved count to deliver on his promise of marriage. Besides, other Center assignments to the illegal rezidentura in Berlin needed Dmitri’s participation.

  But he could not just one day disappear into thin air from Doris without raising the suspicion of foul play. Alarmed, Doris would most likely call the police to investigate her fiancé’s disappearance, thus attracting the attention of German counterintelligence as well. They would gradually get to the bottom of what had happened and what information had been leaked from the secret safe.

  To avoid this highly undesirable course of events, Bazarov came up with a “newspaper variant,” as he called it. One day, Dmitri told Doris that now, after some money had been made, there was no longer any reason to delay their marriage. But, as a responsible man, he needed to put things in order and place their future life together on a solid base. He would have to leave her for a couple of weeks in Berlin and go back to Hungary, where he had to settle up with his numerous creditors and put his estate in order. Then he would return to make all of the appropriate arrangements for their wedding.34

  He left. A week later, “Herr Batory” paid an emergency visit to Doris. He was pale and could barely move his lips. He gave her the copy of a newspaper with a highlighted news item: As the result of a tragic accident during a hunting outing in the Hungarian provinces, “Count Perelly” was shot dead. His body was sent in a sealed coffin to his relatives in New York.35

  Doris howled in despair. The deeply shaken and grief-stricken woman was saved from suicide with great effort. She went into mourning for her beloved and wore black not only as part of her SS uniform but with other attire.

  But Dmitri was destined to see his SS bride one more time. After he had disappeared from her sight, a few months later, he had to pay another visit to Berlin. As he recalled many years later, he was there to meet another Soviet intelligence operative. He was about to enter a café on Leipziger Strasse, where the meeting was arranged, when, right in front of him, on the other side of the glass door, he saw his “widowed bride” staring at him in total disbelief. It happened so suddenly that they both froze, unable to tear their eyes from each other. At that very moment, a patrol of SS officers approached Dmitri, who was blocking the entrance to the café, and respectfully moved him to the side. Doris suddenly produced a wild shriek, fell to the floor, and writhed in hysterical sobbing. The officers rushed to her and bent toward the poor woman lying on the floor. A crowd of curious onlookers began gathering around the glass door. Dmitri won a few minutes, which saved his life. “One word from her,” he recalls, “one slight cry or involuntary abrupt gesture [in my direction], and I would have perished.” Luckily, he came to his senses first, turned around, and at the nearest street corner, hailed a taxi, which whisked him away from trouble.36

  Meanwhile, with Germany and Italy speeding up development of their war machines, the Berlin rezidentura received an assignment from the Center to smuggle from Italy a sample of a brand-new model of Italian machine gun for aircraft (apparently, the newly developed model of the Breda-SAFAT series) and a sample of army gas-protection gear, complete with rubberized suit and mask. Since Italy had used mustard gas and phosgene in the course of the war with Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), which started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936, it was important for the Soviets to evaluate the effectiveness of this new means of troop protection.37

  The items to be taken across the borders were procured by a group of Soviet agents in Italy and brought by truck to a park near Villa Borghese in Rome. Although it was known that SS guards on the Ger man border behaved like mad dogs, there was no other way but to bring the picked-up items to Berlin’s illegal rezidentura, which had undercover weapon experts who could thoroughly examine the samples.

  A seemingly much less troublesome way was to take the items to the nearest Italian seaport and smuggle them aboard a Soviet cargo ship. But, by that time, the Germans had pressured the Italians to curtail trade with the Soviet Union. Soviet ships were under heavy surveillance around the clock; onboard searches were both frequent and thorough.

  Another logical way was to take the load across the French border and then bring it to one of the French ports for subsequent delivery to the USSR. Paradoxically, the chances that the items would be discovered were much greater at the French border than at the German one. According to Bystrolyotov, in making this assignment, his superiors explained that the operation had a chance of succeeding thanks to the German servility when it comes to those higher in rank: “When a German sees a general, he tiptoes around him, full of veneration. And a French border guard doesn’t give a damn about rank. On the contrary, he might intentionally turn a general’s belongings upside down, just to make a point—as if he were saying, ‘Watch and take it in, Monsieur General! In the barracks, you’re the boss, but here at the border, I am. And I’m going to prove it to you right now.’ ”

  All in all, it was a formidable task and a dangerous operation. On their way to Berlin, first the group had to clear Italian customs; then Swiss customs twice, upon entering and exiting the country; and finally, German customs. They chose the following route: board a passenger train in Rome to go north and cross the Italian border at Domodossola and the Swiss border at Brig. Then, passing through Switzerland, they had to reach the German border at Basel. The next stop was Berlin.

  Carrying out this assignment was entrusted to Theodor Mally as the operation head, with Boris Bazarov as his assistant. Dmitri was called in to play the central part in the operation. By that time, he had already established his reputation as an expert in crossing European borders without raising suspicion. He had done it many times, carrying ciphers, codes, and copies of secret cipher-telegrams, as well as copies of secret reports and instructions. He brought into the act his reliable assistants, Leppin and Erica.38

  From the outset, it was decided that the group could be successful only if they bluffed their way through in the most insolent way; the more bluffing the better.

  To play his part, Dmitri had to summon all his acting abilities. Using watercolor paints, they gave his face a yellowish hue, with a few purple spots here and there. To prevent the paint from occasional smearing, they sprayed his face with lacquer. They wrapped h
im in two lap robes, in which he learned to walk in a shaking manner. In turn, he gave acting directions to Erica, who was dressed as a nun. He instructed her to keep her head high but her eyes downcast.

  The group boarded the deluxe Rome–Berlin express. The nun and a uniformed aide from an American hospital in Rome (Leppin) led, supporting him under his arms on either side, a doubled-up patient, wrapped in lap robes, only his shaking yellow nose sticking out. Behind them, a tall porter (Mally) carelessly carried an elegant duffle bag, half-empty, and a suitcase. On his shoulder, he also transported a golf bag, packed with clubs. The porter, tall and athletic, put the suitcase and the duffle bag under the lower berth of the railroad car and the golf bag in a corner, accepted his tip, and left. The seeming ease with which he handled the luggage was a necessary ploy. He had to pretend that it was not much to carry, though the bag with the golf clubs, among which the machine gun barrel was hidden, and the suitcase with the gas-proof suit and the rest of the machine gun parts were too heavy for an ordinary porter, who might become curious as to the contents of the luggage.

  Upon boarding the train, the nun slipped the conductor a wad of liras and, speaking in German with a heavy American accent, explained that the patient was a British lord, who, while traveling in Italy, was bitten by a rabid dog. As a result, he had become dangerously ill and, from time to time, prone to violent outbursts, which could be provoked by sharp knocking and rattling.

  The conductor grabbed a bunch of towels and began to hastily tie down all objects that might make noise as the train moved: the water bottle, glasses, even the night pot. They turned the compartment into a makeshift isolation ward. They covered the walls with linens, lowered the window shades, and turned on the shaded night lamp. The hospital servant and the nun sat next to the patient, the servant watching over his every move. The nun sat next to the lamp and read the Gospel, her fingers running over her rosary beads.