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Lucy Spy Ring
In World War II espionage, the Lucy spy ring was an anti-Nazi operation that was headquartered in Switzerland. It was run by Rudolf Roessler, a German refugee and ostensibly the proprietor of a small publishing firm, Vita Nova. Very little is clear about the Lucy ring, about Roessler or about Lucy's sources or motives. History Roessler, a German expatriate from Bavaria who fled to Geneva when Hitler came to power, was working as a publisher at the outbreak of World War II in Switzerland, producing anti-Fascist literature. He was employed by Brigadier Masson, head of Swiss Military Intelligence, who employed him as an analyst with Bureau Ha, overtly a press cuttings agency but in fact a covert department of Swiss Intelligence. Roessler was approached by two German officers, Fritz Thiele and Rudolph von Gersdorff, who were part of a conspiracy to overthrow Hitler, and had been known to Roessler in the 1930s through the Herrenklub. Thiele and Gersdorf wished him to act as a cond ...
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World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ...
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Cut-out (espionage)
In espionage parlance, a cutout is a mutually trusted intermediary, method or channel of communication that facilitates the exchange of information between agents. Cutouts usually know only the source and destination of the information to be transmitted, not the identities of any other persons involved in the espionage process (need to know basis). Thus, a captured cutout cannot be used to identify members of an espionage cell. The cutout also isolates the source from the destination, so neither necessarily knows the other. Outside espionage Some computer protocols, like Tor, use the equivalent of ''cutout nodes'' in their communications networks. The use of multiple layers of encryption usually stops nodes on such networks from knowing the ultimate sender or receiver of the data. In computer networking, darknets have some cutout functionality. Darknets are distinct from other distributed peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, as sharing is anonymous, ''i.e.'', IP address An Int ...
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Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established in January 1918. The Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations (especially the various groups collectively known as the White Army) of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. Starting in February 1946, the Red Army, along with the Soviet Navy, embodied the main component of the Soviet Armed Forces; taking the official name of "Soviet Army", until its dissolution in 1991. The Red Army provided the largest land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II, and its invasion of Manchuria assisted the unconditional surrender of Imperial Japan. During operations on the Eastern Front, it accounted for 75–80% of casual ...
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Battle Of Kursk
The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front engagement between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in the southwestern USSR during late summer 1943; it ultimately became the largest tank battle in history. The battle began with the launch of the German offensive Operation Citadel (german: Unternehmen Zitadelle), on 5 July, which had the objective of pinching off the Kursk salient with attacks on the base of the salient from north and south simultaneously. After the German offensive stalled on the northern side of the salient, on 12 July the Soviets commenced their Kursk Strategic Offensive Operation with the launch of Operation Kutuzov (russian: Кутузов) against the rear of the German forces on the same side. On the southern side, the Soviets also launched powerful counterattacks the same day, one of which led to a large armoured clash, the Battle of Prokhorovka. On 3 August, the Soviets began the second phase of the Kursk Strategi ...
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Operation Citadel
Operation Citadel (german: Unternehmen Zitadelle) was a German offensive operation in July 1943 against Soviet forces in the Kursk salient, proposed by Generalfeldmarschall Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Manstein during the Second World War on the Eastern Front that initiated the Battle of Kursk. The deliberate defensive operation that the Soviets implemented to repel the German offensive is referred to as the Kursk Strategic Defensive Operation. The German offensive was countered by two Soviet counter-offensives, Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev (russian: Полководец Румянцев) and Operation Kutuzov (russian: Кутузов). For the Germans, the battle was the final strategic offensive that they were able to launch on the Eastern Front. As the Allied invasion of Sicily began, Adolf Hitler was forced to divert troops training in France to meet the Allied threats in the Mediterranean, rather than use them as a strategic reserve for the Eastern Front. Germany's ex ...
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Allan Foote
Alexander Allan Foote (13 April 1905 – 1 August 1956) was a radio operator for a Soviet espionage ring in Switzerland during World War II. Foote was born in Liverpool, and raised mostly in Yorkshire by his Scottish born father and English mother. Life Foote completed his education at sixteen and after working in different professions, joined the Royal Air Force in 1935. However, he deserted while serving at Gosport Barracks on 23 December 1936. Following his desertion he sailed for Spain and served with the British Battalion of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War for two years. Serving with the rank of Sergeant, Foote was appointed transport officer and batman to Fred Copeman. He decided to continue his efforts against Fascism (and, perhaps, for Communism) and volunteered for clandestine work with Red Orchestra. He was put into contact with Ursula Kuczynski in Switzerland. He became a radio operator for the Soviet espionage operation run by Alexander ...
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Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically been considered as a natural barrier between Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Mount Elbrus in Russia, Europe's highest mountain, is situated in the Western Caucasus. On the southern side, the Lesser Caucasus includes the Javakheti Plateau and the Armenian highlands, part of which is in Turkey. The Caucasus is divided into the North Caucasus and South Caucasus, although the Western Caucasus also exists as a distinct geographic space within the North Caucasus. The Greater Caucasus mountain range in the north is mostly shared by Russia and Georgia as well as the northernmost parts of Azerbaijan. The Lesser Caucasus mountain range in the south is occupied by several independent states, mostly by Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, but also ...
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Stalingrad
Volgograd ( rus, Волгогра́д, a=ru-Volgograd.ogg, p=vəɫɡɐˈɡrat), geographical renaming, formerly Tsaritsyn (russian: Цари́цын, Tsarítsyn, label=none; ) (1589–1925), and Stalingrad (russian: Сталингра́д, Stalingrád, label=none; ) (1925–1961), is the largest city and the administrative centre of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. The city lies on the western bank of the Volga, covering an area of , with a population of slightly over 1 million residents. Volgograd is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, sixteenth-largest city by population size in Russia, the second-largest city of the Southern Federal District, and the Volga#Biggest cities on the shores of the Volga, fourth-largest city on the Volga. The city was founded as the fortress of ''Tsaritsyn'' in 1589. By the nineteenth century, Tsaritsyn had become an important river-port and commercial centre, leading to its population to grow rapidly. In November 1917, at the start of th ...
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Case Blue
Case Blue (German: ''Fall Blau'') was the German Armed Forces' plan for the 1942 strategic summer offensive in southern Russia between 28 June and 24 November 1942, during World War II. The objective was to capture the oil fields of the Caucasus for two purposes: to enable the Germans to re-supply their low fuel stock and also to deny their use to the Soviet Union, thereby bringing about the complete collapse of the Soviet war effort. After Operation Barbarossa failed to destroy the Soviet Union as a political and military threat the previous year, Adolf Hitler, the ''Führer'' of Nazi Germany, recognised that Germany was now locked in a war of attrition, and he was also aware that Germany was running low on fuel supply and would not be able to continue attacking deeper into enemy territory without more stock. With this in mind, Hitler ordered for the preparation of offensive plans for summer 1942 to secure the Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus. The operation involved a two-pr ...
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Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after Frederick Barbarossa ("red beard"), a 12th-century Holy Roman emperor and German king, put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans. The German aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories. Their ultimate goal was to create more (living space) for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the indigenous Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia, Germanisation, enslavement, and genocide. In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts for st ...
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Lucerne
Lucerne ( , ; High Alemannic German, High Alemannic: ''Lozärn'') or Luzern ()Other languages: gsw, Lozärn, label=Lucerne German; it, Lucerna ; rm, Lucerna . is a city in central Switzerland, in the Languages of Switzerland, German-speaking portion of the country. Lucerne is the capital of the canton of Lucerne and part of the Lucerne (district), district of the same name. With a population of approximately 82,000 people, Lucerne is List of cities in Switzerland, the most populous city in Central Switzerland, and a nexus of economics, transportation, culture, and media in the region. The city's urban area consists of 19 municipalities and towns with an overall population of about 220,000 people. Owing to its location on the shores of Lake Lucerne (german: Vierwaldstättersee) and its outflow, the river Reuss (river), Reuss, within sight of the mounts Pilatus (mountain), Pilatus and Rigi in the Swiss Alps, Lucerne has long been a destination for tourists. One of the city's landm ...
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Christian Schneider (editor)
Christian Schneider (19 November 1887 – 5 May 1972) was a German chemist, industrial manager and, in the Third Reich, a ''Wehrwirtschaftsführer'' (war economy leader). Early years The son of August Schneider, an electrician, and his wife, Babette Weiss, Schneider studied chemistry at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, completing his doctorate in 1911. He began working with Alwin Mittasch at the nitrogen laboratory at BASF in 1912 and remained in this role until joining the German Imperial Army in 1914, being injured during the conflict. Career at IG Farben Schneider became Carl Krauch's assistant at the IG Farben plant in Leuna in 1919 and soon rose through the corporate ranks. He was appointed an authorised signatory in 1921, a director two years later and became deputy manager of the Ammoniakwerke Merseburg plant in 1924. By 1928 he had been named an alternate member of IG Farben's managing board and was made plant manager at Merseburg in 1936. Under the Nazis Soon after Ad ...
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