As soon as some archival materials about the head of the 5th department of the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR (from February 26, 1941, respectively, of the 1st Directorate of the NKGB of the USSR), that is, Soviet foreign intelligence, were declassified, newspaper articles and TV programs were full of headlines like: "Legendary Alex", "Chief of Stirlitz", "Pavel Fitin against Schellenberg", etc.
But let me ask you: if Pavel Fitin is Alex from the movie "Seventeen Moments of Spring", then who is Eustace? The only Soviet agent in the General Directorate of Imperial Security (RSHA) was SS Hauptsturmführer Willie Lehmann (agent A-201, aka Breitenbach). However, at the beginning of the war, communication with him was lost. After the war, it was revealed that Willie Lehmann had been arrested by the Gestapo in December 1942 and executed.
Luftwaffe Chief Lieutenant Heinz Harro Schulze-Boysen (undercover pseudonym Sergeant Major), about whom the head of the SD foreign intelligence SS Brigadenfuehrer Walter Schellenberg wrote in his memoirs that "this fanatic was the driving force of the entire spy organization in Germany", was arrested on August 31, 1942 and He was hanged on December 22 of the same year in the Berlin prison of Plötzensee, and his wife Libertas Schulze-Boysen was guillotined. The same fate befell Arvid Harnack (Corsican) and his wife Mildred.
So in this respect Schellenberg was the winner. But to whom he really lost was the military counterintelligence "Smersh". In March 1942, in the structure of the VI Directorate of the RSHA (SD-Abroad), a reconnaissance and sabotage organ "Zeppelin" (German Unternehmen Zeppelin) was formed to create separatist national movements in the Soviet rear and assassinate Stalin.
Although already in 1943, in order to penetrate the SD agent networks and misinform the enemy, the 3rd department of the Smersh GUKR of the NKO of the USSR conducted operational radio games with the Zeppelin code-named Riddle, Fog and others. In these games, the future head of the Second Main Directorate (counterintelligence) of the KGB of the USSR, Colonel General, and in 1943 Captain Grigory Grigorenko, deduced by Yulian Semyonov in the novel "TASS Authorized to Declare …"
Another myth associated with the name of Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin, a man of undoubtedly outstanding, is the assertion that he "revived" foreign intelligence. Numerous authors, referring to the nameless SVR officers, never cease to tell horror stories about the fact that intelligence officers were shot in those years "in batches" and that the term "firing intelligence" even appeared. In his memoirs, which remained closed for a long time, Pavel Mikhailovich also notes that "during 1938-1939, almost all the residents of the INO outside the cordon were recalled to Moscow, and many of them were repressed."
And there were reasons for that. In 1937, high-ranking officers of the French and German residencies of the NKVD of the USSR Ignatius Reiss (real name - Nathan Poretsky) and Walter Krivitsky (Samuel Ginsberg) flee to the West. Living in the United States since 1938, Krivitsky gives out more than 100 Soviet agents throughout Europe and publishes the book I Was Stalin's Agent. On February 10, 1941, he is found dead at the Bellevue Hotel in Washington. Reiss' corpse was discovered on September 4, 1937, on the road from Lausanne to Pully …
In July 1938, it became known about the flight to the United States of the resident of the NKVD in Spain, Alexander Orlov (Feldbin), and on June 14, 1938, an event occurs that almost led to the failure of the entire Soviet intelligence system. On that day in Manchuria, the plenipotentiary of the NKVD for the Far East, State Security Commissioner of the 3rd rank Genrikh Lyushkov, leaves for the Japanese. Therefore, appointed on September 29, 1938, the head of the Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB) of the NKVD of the USSR, Lavrenty Beria begins to check all Zakordon residences in order to identify Trotskyists involved in underground anti-Stalinist activities.
It was these issues that were dealt with by the operative, and then the head of the 9th department of the 5th department of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR, Pavel Fitin. In his memoirs, he writes:
“In October 1938, I came to work in the Foreign Department as an operational representative of the department for the development of Trotskyists and“rightists”behind the cordon, but soon I was appointed head of this department. In January 1939, I became deputy chief of the 5th department, and in May 1939 I became the head of the 5th department of the NKVD. He held the post of chief of foreign intelligence until mid-1946."
What was the reason for such a dizzying rise of a native of a distant Siberian village, a graduate of the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy, who until March 1938 was engaged in the mechanization of agriculture in Selkhozgiz? After all, experienced and, like him, employees with excellent external data served in the central intelligence apparatus: Pavel Sudoplatov, Vasily Zarubin, Alexander Korotkov and many others.
But all of them have already visited the cordon, worked in residencies, many of which were failed … And Beria opts for Fitin.
“At the head of the reconnaissance was Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin, a slender, calm, imposing blond. He was distinguished by his laconic speech and restraint,”writes Hero of Russia Alexander Feklisov, in those years an employee of the New York residency. “In the person of Fitin, Soviet foreign intelligence found the necessary, capable, decent and completely devoted to his duty Chekist, - notes in his book“Among the Gods”Hero of Russia, intelligence officer, employee of“Yasha's group”Yuri Kolesnikov. - The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs Beria treated him with a certain amount of sympathy and understanding. I was sure of him."
And the most important thing is not even that Pavel Mikhailovich never spoke badly about anyone, did not demean the dignity of reprimanding employees. He knew how to foresee the circumstances and firmly adhere to the occupied position.
“Knowing about Stalin's wary attitude to the intelligence information coming from abroad,” Kolesnikov recalls, “Fitin nevertheless continued to report it to the country's leadership without delay. Neither Fitin, nor Merkulov, nor even Beria could predict the General Secretary's reaction to the message received from Berlin … Here life was at stake."
To endure such an audience, and even for the benefit of the cause, is an outrageous thing. Here we need not just human, but superhuman abilities, which distinguished many of Pavel Mikhailovich's fellow countrymen - natives of the Tyumen region. Take, for example, such Tyumen residents as Grigory Rasputin from the village of Pokrovskoye. Or Nikolai Kuznetsov from the village of Zyryanka - a recent rural boy disguised as a German officer is seeking an audience with the Gauleiter of East Prussia and Reichskommissar of Ukraine Erich Koch himself and amicably saying goodbye to him like a fellow countryman with a fellow countryman, having received support and valuable information. There is something mystical in this, but only from these positions can one understand the essence of the power structures of that time.
“On June 17, 1941, together with the People's Commissar (State Security Commissar of the 3rd rank Vsevolod Merkulov - AV), at one o'clock in the afternoon, we arrived at Stalin's reception in the Kremlin,” writes Pavel Mikhailovich. - After the assistant's report on our arrival, we were invited to the office. Stalin greeted him with a nod of his head, but did not offer to sit down, and he did not sit down during the entire conversation. He walked around the office, stopping to ask a question or focus on the moments of the report or the answer to his question that interested him. Approaching a large table, which was to the left of the entrance and on which lay stacks of numerous messages and memorandums, and on top of them was our document, Stalin, without raising his head, said:
- I read your report. So Germany is going to attack the Soviet Union?
We are silent. After all, just three days ago - on June 14 - the newspapers published a TASS statement, which said that Germany was just as unswervingly complying with the terms of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, as was the Soviet Union. Stalin continued to pace his office, occasionally puffing on his pipe. Finally, stopping in front of us, he asked:
- Who is the person who reported this information?
We were ready to answer this question, and I gave a detailed description to our source (Harro Schulze-Boysen, Sergeant Major - AV). In particular, he said that he is German, close to us ideologically, together with other patriots, he is ready to help in every possible way in the fight against fascism. He works for the Air Ministry and is very knowledgeable.
After the end of my lecture, there was another long pause. Stalin, going up to his desk and turning to us, said:
- Disinformation! You can be free."
As Nina Anatolyevna, the wife of Pavel Mikhailovich, said, parting, Stalin added that if the information was not confirmed, he would have to pay with his head …
“Several days have passed,” recalls Pavel Mikhailovich. - At dawn I left the People's Commissariat. A busy week is behind. It was Sunday, a day of rest. And thoughts, thoughts are like a pendulum of a clock: “Is it really misinformation? And if not, then how? " With these thoughts, I came home and lay down, but I did not manage to fall asleep - the phone rang. It was five o'clock in the morning. In the receiver the voice of the person on duty at the People's Commissariat: "Comrade General, the People's Commissar calls you urgently, the car has been sent." I immediately got dressed and went out, being firmly convinced that exactly what had happened that Stalin spoke of a few days ago."
According to the relatives of Pavel Mikhailovich, at home he liked to joke: "There would be no happiness, but misfortune helped." The beginning of the war dotted all the i's.
By the way, Pavel Mikhailovich never said that on June 17, Stalin imposed on his report some kind of resolution, especially an obscene one, rumors about which periodically surface in the media. Moreover, as Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov writes, “on the same day when Fitin returned from the Kremlin, Beria, summoning me to his place, gave an order to organize a Special Group of intelligence officers under his direct subordination. She had to carry out reconnaissance and sabotage actions in case of war. Consequently, Stalin rather believed Fitin, giving all the necessary orders to bring the troops of the NKVD and the Red Army into full combat readiness. Another thing is that the former fulfilled the directive in full, while the latter only partially.
On January 18, 1942, by the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the 4th (reconnaissance and sabotage) NKVD Directorate was created on the basis of the Special Group, which was separated from the 1st NKVD Directorate. The head of the 4th Directorate is the senior major of state security Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov. The rest of the foreign intelligence staff under the leadership of the senior major of state security Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin was focused on covering the policy of the United States and England and conducting scientific and technical intelligence.
And again the memories of Pavel Mikhailovich:
“A great merit of foreign intelligence during this period, especially of the First Directorate residencies in the USA, Canada, England, was the receipt of scientific and technical information in the field of atomic energy, which greatly helped speed up the solution of the issue of creating an atomic bomb in the Soviet Union. I often met with Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov, who expressed great gratitude for the materials received from our intelligence on nuclear energy issues”.
American research into the development of nuclear weapons has been conducted in the S-1 Uranium Committee since 1939. On September 17, 1943, a program began, codenamed "The Manhattan Project", in which scientists from the USA, Great Britain, Germany and Canada took part. The main objects of the "Manhattan Project" were the Hanford and Oak Ridge plants, as well as the laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico. It was there that the design of the atomic bomb and the technological process of its manufacture were developed. The FBI counterintelligence took unprecedented security measures, and no intelligence in the world, except for the Soviet, was able to overcome them.
At the initiative of Pavel Mikhailovich, the deputy resident in New York, Major of State Security Leonid Kvasnikov was appointed responsible for intelligence for obtaining information on nuclear topics. In addition to Fitin and Kvasnikov, only a few people were allowed to perform this operation, which received the code name "Enormoz": the head of the 3rd department of the 1st Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR Gaik Ovakimyan, the translator of the English language E. M. Potapov, and in New York - resident Vasily Zarubin, his wife Elizaveta Zarubin, Semyon Semyonov (Taubman), Alexander Feklisov and Anatoly Yatskov. In addition to them, resident Anatoly Gorsky and his deputy Vladimir Barkovsky were admitted to the Enormoz project in the London residency. Many of them later became Heroes of Russia.
Of the foreign nationals, 14 particularly valuable agents were involved in the extraction of atomic secrets, including the German theoretical physicist Klaus Fuchs, his liaison Harry Gold, who was also associated with Morton Sobell of General Electric and David Greenglass, a mechanic from the Los Angeles nuclear laboratory. Alamos, and the Rosenberg couple, who were subsequently electrocuted. Contacts with the station were carried out by illegal agents Leontina and Morris Coen, who later became Heroes of Russia.
On August 20, 1945, a Special Committee was created, the chairman of which was appointed Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria. The committee was entrusted with "the leadership of all work on the use of the intra-atomic energy of uranium." Beria, on the one hand, organized and supervised the receipt of all the necessary intelligence information, on the other hand, he carried out general management of the entire project.
On December 29, 1945, Beria was released from the post of the USSR People's Commissar of Internal Affairs, and six months later, on June 15, 1946, Lieutenant General Fitin at the age of 38 leaves the post of chief of foreign intelligence. In an article by Eva Merkacheva in Moskovsky Komsomolets we read:
“There are many versions of this. According to one of them, all this was Beria's revenge. He was afraid that Fitin would start telling the whole world about how he had warned about the inevitability of war and how no one listened to him. Beria could not deal with Fitin at that moment, except simply by removing him from his leading posts and “expelling” him away from Moscow”(“MK”, December 19, 2014).
But how could Beria "remove" Fitin, if by that time he himself had no longer worked in the state security system?
Quite the opposite, much indicates that Beria supported Fitin even after the latter's resignation. On August 29, 1949, an atomic bomb was successfully tested at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan. At that time, Pavel Mikhailovich worked at the UMGB in the Sverdlovsk Region, and in 1951-1953, when the hydrogen bomb was being developed, he was the Minister of State Security of the Kazakh SSR.
He's writing:
“In the post-war years, for almost five years, I had to deal with issues related to the special production and launch of uranium plants, and in this regard … I have repeatedly met with Igor Vasilyevich, a talented scientist and a remarkable person. In conversations, he again emphasized what an invaluable service the materials obtained by Soviet intelligence played in solving the atomic problem in the USSR."
And only after on June 26, 1953 Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria was killed during a coup d'état committed by Khrushchev, Lieutenant General Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin was finally dismissed from the authorities on November 29, 1953 "for service inconsistency" - without a pension, since he did not have the required length of service …
In the last years of his life, Pavel Mikhailovich worked as the director of the photographic complex of the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. On December 24, 1971, he died in Moscow on the operating table. He is 63 years old. According to the relatives of Pavel Mikhailovich, there was no indication for an operation for a perforated ulcer …
However, the following is noteworthy: shortly before his death, in May 1971, on the initiative of the chairman of the KGB of the USSR, Yuri Andropov, Yakov Serebryansky, formerly the head of an active intelligence group ("Yasha's group") and an employee of the Special Group under the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs Beria, was rehabilitated. Apparently, someone feared that Pavel Mikhailovich, who had connections and personal charisma, could contribute to the further rehabilitation of the victims of Khrushchev's repressions.
In October 2015, at the initiative of Major General Vladimir Usmanov, who is an adviser to the governor of the Kurgan region, in the homeland of Pavel Mikhailovich in the village of Ozhogino, Kurgan region, a gathering of residents took place, at which they decided to petition the government to award Pavel Mikhailovich Fitin the title of Hero of Russia (posthumously) … After all, a peaceful sky over our country is preserved thanks to the nuclear shield, to the creation of which Pavel Mikhailovich made a significant contribution.
