Leopold Zakharovich Trepper was a Polish Communist and career Soviet agent of the Red Army Intelligence. With the code name Otto, Trepper had worked with the Red Army since 1930. He was also a resistance fighter and journalist.
The Red Orchestra was the name given by the Abwehr Section III.F to anti-Nazi resistance workers in Germany in August 1941. It primarily referred to a loose network of resistance groups, connected through personal contacts, uniting hundreds of opponents of the Nazi regime. These included groups of friends who held discussions that were centred on Harro Schulze-Boysen, Adam Kuckhoff and Arvid Harnack in Berlin, alongside many others. They printed and distributed prohibited leaflets, posters, and stickers, hoping to incite civil disobedience. They aided Jews and resistance to escape the regime, documented the atrocities of the Nazis, and transmitted military intelligence to the Allies. Contrary to legend, the Red Orchestra was neither directed by Soviet communists nor under a single leadership. It was a network of groups and individuals, often operating independently. To date, about 400 members are known by name.
Henry Robinson, sometimes known as Henri Robinson, was a Belgian Communist and later intelligence agent of the Communist International (Comintern). Robinson was a leading member of the Red Orchestra, a Soviet espionage group based in Paris. Robinson used a number of code names and aliases.
This is a list of participants, associates and helpers of, and certain infiltrators into, the Red Orchestra as it was known in Germany. Red Orchestra was the name given by the Abwehr to members of the German resistance to Nazism and anti-Nazi resistance movements in Allied or occupied countries during World War II. Many of the people on this list were arrested by the Abwehr or Gestapo. They were tried at the Nazi Imperial War Court before being executed either by hanging or guillotine, unless otherwise indicated. As the SS-Sonderkommando also took action against Soviet espionage networks within Switzerland, people who worked there are also included here.
Johann Wenzel was a German Communist, highly professional GRU agent and radio operator of the espionage group that was later called the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr in Belgium and the Netherlands. His aliases were Professor, Charles, Bergmann, Hans, and Hermann. Wenzel was most notable as the person who exposed the Red Orchestra after his transmissions were discovered by the Funkabwehr, later leading to his capture by the Gestapo on 29–30 June 1942.
Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle was a German special commission that was created by German High Command in November 1942, in response to the capture of two leading members of a Soviet espionage group that operated in Europe, that was called the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr. The Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle was an internal counter-intelligence operation run by the Abwehr and the Gestapo. It consisted of a small independent Gestapo unit that was commanded by SS-Obersturmbannführer Friedrich Panzinger and its chief investigator was Gestapo officer Karl Giering. Its remit was to discover and arrest members of the Red Orchestra in Germany, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy during World War II.
Leon Grossvogel was a Polish-French Jewish businessman, Comintern official, resistance fighter, communist agitator and one of the organizers of a Soviet intelligence network in Belgium and France, that was later called the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr. Grossvogel used the following code names to disguise his identity: Pieper, Grosser, and Andre. In the autumn of 1938, Grossvogel became associated with Leopold Trepper, a Soviet intelligence agent who would later run a large espionage network in Europe. Grossvogel established two cover companies, the Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company and later Simexco that would be used by Trepper as a cover and funding for his espionage network. Grossvogel who organised funding for the companies, would later become an assistant to Trepper, organising safehouses, couriers, cutouts and agents.
The Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company was the name of the Brussels company that was established in December 1938, by Polish-French Jewish businessman and ardent communist, Léon Grossvogel on behalf of Red Army Intelligence spy Leopold Trepper, as a cover organisation for Soviet espionage operations in Europe during Nazi Germany. The espionage network was later named as the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr.
Mikhail Varfolomeevich Makarov was a Russian national and career Soviet GRU officer with rank of lieutenant, who was one of the organizers of a Soviet intelligence network in Belgium and Netherlands, that was later called the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr. His aliases were Alamo, Carlos Alamo and Chemnitz. In March 1939, Makarov became associated with Leopold Trepper, a Soviet intelligence agent who would later run a large espionage network in Europe. Makarov was captured on the 13 December 1941 by the Abwehr and later executed in Plötzensee Prison in 1942.
Jules Jaspar was a diplomat of the Belgian Foreign Office and businessman. He belonged to an eminent family in Belgium and was famous in the Belgian political world. His brother, Henri Jaspar, was Prime Minister of Belgium from 1926 to 1931 and his nephew was the Belgian diplomat Marcel-Henri Jaspar. In 1939, he established the Brussels based Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company that was being used as cover for Soviet espionage operations. Following the German invasion of Belgium, Jaspar fled to Paris where he helped establish the black market trading firm of Simex. In December 1941 he moved to Marseille to open a branch of Simex. On 12 November 1942, he was arrested and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp and survived the war.
Karl Giering was SS-Hauptsturmführer and Criminal Councillor in the Geheimes Staatspolizeiamt Berlin (Gestapo) and later Head of Department IV A 2 in the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA). Giering is regarded as one of the most dangerous persecutors of the communist resistance against the Nazi regime. He commanded the Gestapo to smash the apparatus of the Betriebsberichterstattung (BB) of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and conducted investigations against the Soviet espionage network known as the Red Orchestra while part of the Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle.
Konstantin Lukitsch Jeffremov, also known as Konstantin Yeffremov, was a Soviet GRU intelligence officer, known as a scout in Soviet intelligence parlance, with the rank of captain. Jeffremov, an anti-Semite. was an expert in chemical warfare. Jeffremov used the aliases Pascal and Eric Jernstroem to disguise his identity in messages He had been working for Soviet intelligence since 1936. and the alias Bordo. He was the organizer of a Soviet espionage network in the Netherlands and the Low Countries In 1942, Jeffremov took over the running of a number of networks in Belgium and the Netherlands, that had been damaged in the months prior, after several members were arrested by the Abwehr. These networks was later given the moniker, the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr. Jeffremov was arrested in July 1942 and agreed to work for the Abwehr in a Funkspiel operation, after being tortured.
Hillel Katz was a Polish Jewish Communist, who was an important member of a Soviet espionage network in occupied France, that the German Abwehr intelligence service later called the "Red Orchestra". In the role of an underground executive and recruiter, he acted as both secretary and assistant to Leopold Trepper and liaised between Léon Grossvogel and Henry Robinson in matters relating to the running of the French covert black market trading company Simex. Katz had a number of aliases that he used to disguise his identity, including Andre Dubois, Rene and Le Petite Andre.
Malvina Gruber, née Hofstadterova was a Jewish Comintern agent, who was part of a Soviet intelligence network in Belgium and France, that was later called the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr, during Nazi regime. Gruber worked as a cutout, but her specialism was couriering people across borders. From 1938 to 1942, Gruber worked as assistant to Soviet agent Abraham Rajchmann, a forger, who provided identity papers, e.g. the Kennkarte, Carte d'identité and travel permits, for the espionage group. At the beginning of 1942, she was arrested in Brussels by the Abwehr.
Basile Maximovitch was a Russian aristocrat and civil mining engineer. He became a Soviet agent by choice and subsequently became an important member of the Red Orchestra organisation in France during World War II. Maximovitch was the son of a Cavalry officer Baron Maximovitch, who held the rank of General, on the staff of Imperial Russian Army.
Anna Pavlovna Maximovitch was a Russian aristocrat and neuropsychiatrist, who became an informer and important member of the Red Orchestra organisation in France during World War II.
Isidore Springer was Belgian diamond dealer and communist who became an important member of the Red Orchestra organisation in Belgium and later France during World War II. Springer worked as a recruiter and courier between Leopold Trepper, a Soviet agent who was the technical director of Soviet espionage in Western Europe, and Anatoly Gurevich, also a Soviet agent, in Belgium. He would later run the 6th network of Trepper's seven espionage networks in France, providing intelligence from US and Belgian diplomats. His aliases were Romeo, Verlaine, Walter van Vliet, Fred and Sabor.
Alfred Valentin Corbin was a French communist sympathiser, editor and reviewer, commercial director, and resistance fighter. Before the war, Corbin ran a poultry feed business with his brother. After serving in the French Foreign Legion in the lead up to the war, Corbin was recruited by Soviet intelligence to run a black market trading company. In 1941, Corbin worked as a director of the Paris-based, Simex black market trading company, that was in reality a cover for a Soviet espionage organisation, later known as the Red Orchestra.
Germaine Schneider was a Belgian communist and Communist International (Comintern) agent. During the latter half of the 1920s, Schneider worked predominantly for the Communist Party of Belgium. During the interwar period and early World War II, Schneider was a core member of a Soviet espionage group. She worked as a principal courier for the groups that were associated with the Comintern agent, Henry Robinson in the late 1930s in France and later the Soviet GRU officer, Konstantin Jeffremov in Belgium and the Low Countries, in the early 1940s. These groups were later identified by the Abwehr under the moniker the Red Orchestra. Schneider used the aliases Clais, Pauline, Odette, Papillon and Butterfly (Schmetterling) to disguise her identity.
Käte Lydia Voelkner also known as Kathe Voelkner was a German communist, anti-Nazi and resistance fighter. Voelkner became part of a Soviet espionage group that operated in Europe in World War II that would later be identified by the Abwehr as the Red Orchestra. Originally a circus acrobat, Voelkner managed to obtain a key position as a shorthand typist in the Parisian office of Fritz Sauckel of the Arbeitseinsatz where she operated as an informant to the Red Orchestra's group's director Leopold Trepper.
