Soviet Intelligence, Lucy, and Ultra

[Enoch]

In "Enemy at the Gates" William Craig mentions a Soviet spy ring based in Switzerland codenamed 'Lucy'. This ring was apparently headed by a man named Rudoph Rossler and had a contact within the German High Command that was able to feed info on German strategy and tactics to the Soviets very quickly. Rossler apparently never revealed who his source.

I haven't done a ton of reading on the Eastern Front so I can't claim to be an expert but this is the first I've heard of this spy ring. I did know that the British did share some Ultra information with the Soviets.

I believe that Enemy at the Gates was written before the exsistence of Ultra was known. Does anyone have more info on 'Lucy'? Is it possible this is simply some sort of cover story for Ultra? If Lucy really did have contacts within the German High Commmand has anyone ever tried to figure out who it was?

Thanks.

[kryptha]

Hi

I have once read a book about a spy ring which had its transmitter located in switzerland somewhere. (Geneve IIRC) I think it was written by Accoce, Pierre and is called something like "the war was won in switzerland". don't know the publisher nor the year it came out. If not all is true what he writes it was still very interesting to read(years ago).

mhh should read that one again soon.

Try this link for a bibliographie about switzerland in WWII (site is in french)

never linked to a site before ....

CH in WWll

....

there are a least 3 titles mentioning "lucy"

not much information that is

kryptha

[Breakthrough]

Go to the 'Ukraina' thread on this board for recent information concerning KGB (NKVD) activities during WW II.

[Grisha]

Lucy wasn't a spy ring, but an agent (Rudolph Rossler) who was part of another agent's ring. This agent was called Dora (Alexander Rado). One rumor has it that Lucy had access to a key German intelligence source call Werther. Another rumor claims that Lucy was the pipeline from which ULTRA intelligence was delivered to the Soviets. The official history of British Intelligence rejects this claim, and besides most of the information regarding these 'spy rings' is journalistic in nature and undocumented. Wrt to actual Soviet intelligence, either by NKVD or GRU, certainly these spy rings existed, but nothing conclusive can really be said until Soviet archives on these issues are accessible. The general consensus within Soviet military history is that these agent activities were largely unproductive. Information received was of a general strategic nature, lacking in detail, and dated. Some historians of Soviet military history even claim that many if not most of these spy coups, i.e. Kursk intel, were just cover stories for what was actually much more comprehensive and military-oriented intelligence/reconnaissance (razvedka) work.

[ August 10, 2002, 12:04 PM: Message edited by: Grisha ]

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Enoch:

Is it possible this is simply some sort of cover story for Ultra?

Yes, a very good chance, in fact IMHO this is the most likely explanation. About a year and a half ago I read a book on the subject. As mentioned in Grisha's post, it was written by a journalist, so it carries no official sanction. But it was so carefully researched and so detailed that until I come across a point by point refutation I am sold.

I just did a search through my library to try to find it, but alas the chaos from my last move still prevails. I am sure that I saw it somewhere in the great pile of my belongings not too long ago, however, and when I come across it again (soon I hope) I will post title and author in this thread.

Michael

[Enoch]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Enoch:

Is it possible this is simply some sort of cover story for Ultra?

Yes, a very good chance, in fact IMHO this is the most likely explanation. About a year and a half ago I read a book on the subject. As mentioned in Grisha's post, it was written by a journalist, so it carries no official sanction. But it was so carefully researched and so detailed that until I come across a point by point refutation I am sold.

I just did a search through my library to try to find it, but alas the chaos from my last move still prevails. I am sure that I saw it somewhere in the great pile of my belongings not too long ago, however, and when I come across it again (soon I hope) I will post title and author in this thread.

Michael</font>

[Tarquelne]

On ULTRA vrs. agent info: I've read (not that I remember where) that information gained via ULTRA (or other signals work) was almost always better than information gained or leaked.

ULTRA was generally more up to date, reflecting what the Germans were really doing or thinking, not what was being planned or considered.

Trustworthiness is a big part of judging information quality. The Allies trusted ULTRA far more than they trusted info gathered via spies or leaks:

1) The British had been badly burned by a German counter-intel operation at the opening of the war, and were thus "twice shy" of trusting anything volunteered by a German source.

2) The British knew they had effectively "turned" a bunch of German agents in Britain. (After the war the discovered they probably got 'em all.) The Germans were not anywhere near as successful with counter-intel - that op. refered to above may have been thier biggest success of the war. But the Brits. couldn't know that, and thus had to worry about misinformation and traps.

3) The German Resistance, and many German would-by spies claimed a multitude of contacts very high up in the German Army. This was usually true, but the British understandably found it hard to believe.

Overall, ULTRA was just easier, safer, and more reliable than conventional spying.

[Michael Emrys]

ULTRA did have its limitations however. In addition to the time the Kriegsmarine added rotors to their Enigma machines, making it impossible to decode the message traffic to their U-boats for several critical months, there was the fact that the Germans quite sensibly preferred to use landlines whenever possible. Messages sent via landline of course could not be intercepted, and if not intercepted they could not be decoded. The Luftwaffe however for whatever reason sent a lot of information over the air and it was frequently possible to make estimates of what the Heer was up to by monitoring Luftwaffe activity.

Michael

[Grisha]

One thing to remember is that nearly the entire German spy network in the U.K. were comprised of British double agents. It was one of the biggest intel coups of the war.

[Michael Emrys]

Right. British intel played German intel like a violin, and the XX Committee was one of its primary strings. Via turned spies they were able to feed credible tidbits to Abwehr and other intelligence agencies that put together and combined with other sources gave a totally misleading picture of Allied capabilities and intentions.

Another nifty pre-D-Day trick was to allow German photo-recon planes over select parts of southeast England where they could take snapshots to their hearts' content of dummy tanks, guns, vehicles, tent cities, and all the other accouterments of war. All this in support of the notional First US Army Group.

Michael

[Enoch]

Just a self-serving bump to see if anyone who wasnt' here over the weekend might have some info or insight to add about 'Lucy'.

[Flesh]

Ultra seems to fit the bill alright. However, don't forget that the Soviets had an absolutely *MASSIVE* spy operation in pre-war Germany. In fact, German counter-intel radio operators, who were attempting to intercept the radio traffic of these soviet spies, dubbed them the "Red Orchestra", due to the huge volume of signals. I wonder if this network continued to operate during the war?

Also, there is the possibility of anti-Nazi Germans having fed information to the Allies. There was a large underground network known as the "Black Orchestra".

[John Kettler]

The Soviets were given certain excerpts from Ultra by their British allies, but in reality had their own direct pipeline, in the form of the little known Fifth Man (others were Philby, Burgess, MacLean, Blunt) John Cairncross, who worked at Bletchley Park in Air Intelligence. It was he who provided the information enabling the Red Air Force to preempt the Luftwaffe by attacking its bases before the Kursk attack. For details, please see THE SWORD AND THE SHIELD, by Christopher Andrews and Valeri Mitrokhin. Mr. Andrews is a well known

espionage historian, while Mr. Mitrokhin is a KGB defector who brought with him a devastating set of notes cribbed from some of the KGB's ultrasensitive Central Registry, where he worked through the 1970s, during which he personally supervised the moving of the operational files to the new KGB facility on the Moscow Ring Road. The British SIS

exfiltrated him from the Soviet Union, and he brought his volumes of notes with him. These identify hundreds of agents and blow huge holes in the carpets of lies woven by both sides. The relevant chapter also comments on the sources for the so-called Lucy Ring, as well as other Soviet WW II espionage activities. Makes astounding reading.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ August 23, 2002, 04:14 AM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Chad Harrison]

I dont know much about Lucy, but I have always been impressed by the Allied efforts with Ultra. Just as the German paratroopers who attacked Crete . . .

What amazes me is that the Germans never caught onto the fact that we could break most of their codes/coding machine language. Does anyone know if the Germans ever suspected it?

Chad Harrison

[Flesh]

Well, the amount of secrecy that surrounded the German preparations for the Battle of the Bulge suggests (at least to me) that they had started to smell a rat...

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Chad Harrison:

What amazes me is that the Germans never caught onto the fact that we could break most of their codes/coding machine language. Does anyone know if the Germans ever suspected it?

Yes, in fact they did. There was a mid-war investigation by, I believe, Abwehr. Its report though was reassuring and aside from some detail tightening up, nothing was done.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Flesh:

Well, the amount of secrecy that surrounded the German preparations for the Battle of the Bulge suggests (at least to me) that they had started to smell a rat...

I question that. Barring anything specific that you can cite, I would say that it was due simply to the standard Wehrmacht practice of giving preference to teletype and landline as the means for transmitting operational orders when ever that was possible.

The times when Ultra was most fruitful were when a landline was not available. These included transmissions to sea, to Africa, whenever landlines had been cut either by air attack or partisan activity (such as was the case during the Normandy fighting), or during situations where the fighting was particularly fluid, either advancing or retreating rapidly. Obviously, a set piece attack following a period when the front was stable, such as the BotB, would have had landlines readily available.

Michael

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Enoch:

If Lucy really did have contacts within the German High Commmand has anyone ever tried to figure out who it was?

Check this out:

Before he died Rössler told a confidant who these sources were (though there is no means of knowing if he was telling the truth). Three of them were prominent conspirators against Hitler: Hans Gisevius, an Abwehr agent stationed in Switzerland; Carl Goerdeler, a former mayor of Leipzig; and a German 'major' who, from what Rössler told his confidant was probably Maj-Gen Hans Oster, the Abwehr's seond-in-command. The fourth, a 'General Boelitz' has never been identified.

This is from the Oxford Companion to World War II, in an article based on Tote Kapelle: the CIA's History of Soviet Intelligence and Espionage Networkds in Western Europe, 1936-45, Washington, DC, 1979

[ August 18, 2002, 02:51 PM: Message edited by: CMplayer ]

[Chad Harrison]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Chad Harrison:

What amazes me is that the Germans never caught onto the fact that we could break most of their codes/coding machine language. Does anyone know if the Germans ever suspected it?

Yes, in fact they did. There was a mid-war investigation by, I believe, Abwehr. Its report though was reassuring and aside from some detail tightening up, nothing was done.

Michael</font>

[Potential Italian Player]

Enoch, try Stephen Budiansky's book "Battle of Wits".

A very fascinating story about the codebreaking activity, ULTRA system and so on.

The book was a revelation for me especially when the author describe how Bletchley Park and not Montgomery defeated Rommel.

Bye.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Chad Harrison:

Wasnt Ultra a secret until years after the war? One of those, 'oh by the way, 40 years ago we had this'. Do you know Michael? (you seem to be the source of all other knowledge here! )

You flatter me, sir, and your statement is far from the truth. Nevertheless, you need not cease.

Well, it wasn't forty years, more like thirty before the cat got all the way out of the bag. I think one of the first books to mention it was Bodyguard of Lies by Anthony Cave Brown (a new edition, BTW, is apparently due out in a couple of months). This is an excellent book that covers the whole intelligence war between the Germans and Allies (mostly British). Then, in the mid '70s, beginning I think with Winterbotham's The Ultra Secret, a veritable river of books began appearing on the subject. some of them deal specifically with the handling of the Ultra materials, others focus more on analyzing their operational impact. Then there are a large mass of operational histories that have been essentially, though not necessarily dramatically, rewritten to show the part that Ultra played in the war.

Michael

[Chad Harrison]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

You flatter me, sir, . . .

Its no secret that you know all these little details hidden in the depths of many books.

Thanks for the answer though! My favorite code breaking story is when were had suspicions that the Japanease were going to attack Midway and so we said they had water problems. Clever little suckers, and being that clever was one reason the Japanease lost four carriers there.

Chad Harrison

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Chad Harrison:

My favorite code breaking story is when were had suspicions that the Japanease were going to attack Midway and so we said they had water problems.

That is a great story. Something I learned about it recently is that it took that detail to convince King and the rest of the crowd in Washington that Midway was the target. Nimitz was already sold.

Michael

[Flesh]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Flesh:

Well, the amount of secrecy that surrounded the German preparations for the Battle of the Bulge suggests (at least to me) that they had started to smell a rat...

I question that. Barring anything specific that you can cite, I would say that it was due simply to the standard Wehrmacht practice of giving preference to teletype and landline as the means for transmitting operational orders when ever that was possible.

The times when Ultra was most fruitful were when a landline was not available. These included transmissions to sea, to Africa, whenever landlines had been cut either by air attack or partisan activity (such as was the case during the Normandy fighting), or during situations where the fighting was particularly fluid, either advancing or retreating rapidly. Obviously, a set piece attack following a period when the front was stable, such as the BotB, would have had landlines readily available.

Michael</font>

[Sig]

Originally posted by Enoch:

Just a self-serving bump to see if anyone who wasnt' here over the weekend might have some info or insight to add about 'Lucy'.

Hello,

Found a place were many books about the soviet spy rings are cited. It includes documents about the Rote Drei (the Red Three) who operated in Switzerland. Here is the link: Soviet spy rings in Europe

Another place with some information about Sandor Rado, alias Alexander Radolfi. Contains alot of links: A master spy in Switzerland during WWII

I looked around, but could not find additional information.

Sig