The Red Three (german: Rote Drei) was the Switzerland section of the so-called Red Orchestra. It was established and maintained by Soviet Military Intelligence Staff Division 4.

Name history, and activities

The terms ''Red Three'', and ''Red Orchestra'' respectively, were invented by the

Reichssicherheitshauptamt The Reich Security Main Office (german: Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA) was an organization under Heinrich Himmler in his dual capacity as ''Chef der Deutschen Polizei'' (Chief of German Police) and ''Reichsführer-SS'', the head of the Nazi ...

(RSHA), the counter-espionage arm of the SS. As an essential part of the ''Red Orchestra'', the ''Red Three (

radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...

s)'' (de: die ''Roten Drei (Funkstellen)'') were outside the reach of German security forces, located in Switzerland. It was headed by

Alexander Radó Alexander Radó (5 November 1899, Újpest, near Budapest – 20 August 1981, Budapest), also: Alex, Alexander Radolfi, Sándor Kálmán Reich or Alexander Rado, was a Hungarian cartographer and a Soviet military intelligence agent in World War ...

(code name: DORA), a Hungarian émigré, Communist, and

geographer A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society, including how society and nature interacts. The Greek prefix "geo" means "earth" a ...

. The ''Red Three'' was founded in 1936, when ''Radó'' arrived in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

. By April 1942, the organization had been established with ''Radó'' as group leader, and also had three subgroup leaders: Rachel Dübendorfer (code name: SISSY), Georges Blun (code name: LONG), and Otto Pünter (code name: PAKBO). After the imprisonment of

Leopold Trepper Leopold Zakharovich Trepper (23 February 1904 – 10 January 1982) 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 ...

(code name: GRAND CHEF) by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

in 1942, ''Radó's'' group became the most effective part of the ''Red Orchestra'' espionage network. It collected useful information in Switzerland and had some contacts inside Germany. Perhaps most importantly, ''Radó'' was also in touch with the

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 cle ...

, which had very valuable contacts inside Germany, and was linked to

British intelligence The Government of the United Kingdom maintains intelligence agencies within three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. These agencies are responsible for collecting and analysing foreign and do ...

. Some people have speculated that the ''Lucy ring'' was used by

to pass

Ultra adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. '' ...

information to

Soviet intelligence This is a list of historical secret police organizations. In most cases they are no longer current because the regime that ran them was overthrown or changed, or they changed their names. Few still exist under the same name as legitimate police fo ...

without revealing the codebreaking operation that was its source, but most historians do not agree with this theory. In 1944–1945, ''Radó'' was recalled to the USSR and charged with spying for Britain and the U.S. He was imprisoned for eight years, but was released and rehabilitated after

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

's death.

Roessler's sources in World War II

Bibliography

References

*Trepper, Leopold (1977). ''The Great Game'' McGraw–Hill, Inc. *Brysac, Shareen Blair (2000) ''Resisting Hitler: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra'' Oxford University Press.

External links

Plötzensee Memorial Centre

BFCentral

on Sophia Poznanska

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

website. Retrieved April 7, 2010 * {{DEFAULTSORT:Red Three (Espionage) World War II resistance movements World War II espionage German resistance to Nazism Spy rings

Name history, and activities

Roessler's sources in World War II

Bibliography

See also

References

External links