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«Сатурн» почти не виден
Эту повесть автор посвящает памяти советских разведчиков, погибших на незримом фронте Великой Отечественной войны. Подвиги живых и память о погибших молчаливо хранит архив.
Повесть `Сатурн` почти не виден` (1963) в свое время пользовалась огромной популярностью. Она несколько раз переиздавалась, на ее основе был снят многосерийный фильм.
Повесть `Сатурн` почти не виден` (1963) в свое время пользовалась огромной популярностью. Она несколько раз переиздавалась, на ее основе был снят многосерийный фильм.
- GenresRussian Literature
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1963
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 2, 2018
review of
Vasily Ardamatsky's Saturn is Almost Invisible
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 30 - November 1, 2018
For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
This bk was published by Raduga Publishers Moscow in the USSR. I got it at the same time as Yuri Medvedev's The Chariot of Time. That was Sci-Fi. I thought this was SF too b/c the cover labels it "Adenture & Fantasy" & the word "Saturn" is in the title. Instead, it's a novel based on purportedly true espionage & sabotage events between the Germans & the Russians during WWII & beyond. Both these bks were purchased at a bkstore in Frederick, MD, where the infamous Fort Detrick is. I call it "infamous" b/c that's where various notorious covert operations involving chemical & biological warfare originated. That's where the ill-fated Frank Olson worked as a scientist. He was unwittingly dosed w/ LSD & died under mysterious circumstances made to look like a suicide shortly thereafter.
That's also where germ warfare research used against the North Koreans was based. 65 yrs later there seems to still be denial about this. Tell that to the American soldiers who were in the Korean War, like my deceased stepfather, who contracted ALS as a result of exposure to the US's chemical.biological warfare agents. The government has admitted to the harms agains these soliders b/c there're financial settlements connected with it — including one that my widowed mother receives.
In other words, finding bks that originated in Russia at a used bkstore in Frederick carries a strong possibility that these bks were read by American military personnel. Such bks aren't exactly common household items in the US. I was lucky to find them.
In the beginning of the bk, the author claims that:
"This is the story of an operation aimed at penetrating into the very heart of the fascist spy centre known as Saturn. It is the story of a battle of wills and intellects and, as is often the case, the facts are more startling than fiction. This is a true story. Nothing has been invented." - p 7
I more or less take it for granted that all spy literature is propaganda. I may be overgeneralizing b/c I don't read many spy novels so there may be some that aren't nationalist. Nonetheless, what I expect from them are tales in which ultimately the nationality of the writer is the nationality depicted as having the most integrity, etc. In this case, the story is one of nazis vs communists — I have no problem accepting the communists as the least egregious of the 2 political philosophies but, let's face it, Stalin was no stranger to perpetrating genocide so he's hardly a healthy alternative to Hitler. It's probably worth mentioning that Stalin died on March 5, 1953, & that this bk was 1st published in 1967. In this bk, Stalin is almost never mentioned, this isn't a bk glorfying him. You'll find one of the only mentions I found when writing this review at the review's end. By way of further introduction to this review, it might be worth repeating part of the beginning of my review of The Chariot of Time:
"I've read a little from Russian political figures: Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, V. I. Lenin, L. I. Brezhnev & I've read a fair amt of more general Russian authors: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Mikhail Bulgakov, Vladimir Voinovich, etc; Vadim Shefner, Kirill Bulychev, Dmitri Bilenkin, the Strugatsky brothers, Vladimir Savchenko, Mikhail Emtsev & Eremei Parnov. The ones listed after Voinovich are all published as part of the excellent Collier Books series called "Best of Soviet SF" that SF writer Theodore Sturgeon was a prime mover in - & reading that series left me wanting even more Russian/Soviet SF. But everything except for the Lenin & Brezhnev I'd read had been filtered thru 'Western' publishing houses. This was the 1st time I'd read fiction published in English from Russia.
"B/c of this I was curious about what the work wd be like & what its political circumstances of publication wd be. I was born into the cold war era: raised on a sickening diet of "Russia only has propaganda, the United States has no propaganda; Communism is evil, the United States is free". &, of course, there're all sorts of 'thrillers', spy novels & the like, marketed to English readers in wch the Russians are diabolically plotting to overthrow the United States. Mickey Spillane's sensationalist crime novels thrived on lurid accounts of evil commies tying up naked white girls to torment them until Mike Hammer comes along to the rescue. It's always seemed logical to assume that Russia might have similar literature about the evil capitalists. Wd The Chariot of Time be something along these lines? Or was it published in English to try to more reach a diplomatically 'Western" readership? Wd this be underground literature? State approved? None of the above?"
- http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/2...
ANYWAY, my conclusion about this bk is that it probably gives a pretty good idea of the types of things that were going on even if it colors the Russians in a more heroic light than might be justified. Looking superficially online for any verification of the existence of Saturn I found very little except a bk advertised called The Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941-1944: A Critical Historiographical Analysis by Leonid D. Grenkevich. The relevant excerpt from the bk that was showed to me online states:
"According to Kozlov, a former Abwehr agent and graduate of the secret Nazi spy school named, 'Saturn', which was located in the Belorussian city of Borisov, during the war the NKVD network succeeded in detecting 127 agents prepared by this school."
- https://books.google.com/books?id=1PQ...
Further down the same page (133) of The Soviet Partisan Movement it's stated that:
"Quite often, the German used the nationalists in their servcie to commit the worst atrocities, for example, the terrible crime of burning the Belorussian village of Khatyn with all its inhabitants. Only recently it was revealed that Khatyn village was not destroyed by the Germans, but instead was destroyed by a police battalion made up of Ukranians and Belorussians."
I'm reminded of the Elim Klimov's 1985 film entitled Come and See & a scene described on Wikipedia thusly:
"Flyora is taken to the village of Perekhody, where they hurriedly discuss a fake identity for him, while the SS unit (based on the Dirlewanger Brigade) accompanied by Ukrainian collaborators surround and occupy the village. Flyora tries to warn the townsfolk they are being herded to their deaths, but is forced to join them inside a church. Flyora and a young woman bearing a strong resemblance to Glasha manage to escape; the young woman is dragged by her hair across the ground and into a truck to be gang raped, while Flyora is forced to watch as grenades are thrown into the church before it is set ablaze and shot." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_an...
I have a special interest in Belarus b/c I have friends there w/ whom I organized an online meeting called "Лiмpolysemiя (Limpolysemia)": https://archive.org/details/Iimpolysemia .
This bk might be called a literary equivalent to a movie I recently wtinessed & enjoyed called "Enemy at the Gates" (2001). Ultimately, I found it less nauseatingly propagandistic than "Pearl Harbor" (2001). At any rate, I read Saturn is Almost Invisible w/ a grain of salt but ultimately accepted it as probably more accurate than not.
A Russian spy infiltrates an area about to be occupied by the nazis & connects w/ the partisans:
""Is everyone gone?"
""If only they were!" the youth said and hit the steering wheel with his fist. "How could we evacuate everyone in such a short ime? Some stayed behind because of their belongings, and some are hoping they can go on living under the Nazis. Then there are the plain, simple rats."" - p 24
The leader of the German intelligence that included the Saturn spy school saw a problem:
"Canaris discussed the difficulty of finding agents who could work in Russia, for the language barrier was the biggest problem. Oh those backward Slavic languages! No European could ever learn to speak Russian without an accent. Hitler interrupted by jumping to his feet. He slammed his hand down on the table and rasped:
""Germans brought up by me can do anything!"
"Canaris said nothing. He saw it was impossible to continue a rational conversation with Hitler, as the latter was now in a state which Canaris himself termed so aptly several years later as "mad with his own importantance"." - pp 28-29
It's w/ passages such as this that novelistic technique belies claims by the author that "This is a true story. Nothing has been invented." How likely is there to be an historical record that describes such a scene as "Hitler interrupted by jumping to his feet. He slammed his hand down on the table and rasped"? That strikes me as an invention by the author to propel the narrative. That sd, the character of Canaris is interesting:
"Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and chief of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, from 1935 to 1944. Initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, by 1939 he had turned against the Nazis as he felt Germany would lose another major war. During World War II he was among the military officers involved in the clandestine opposition to Nazi Germany leadership. He was executed in Flossenbürg concentration camp for high treason as the Nazi regime was collapsing."
Saturn tried to recruit & train Russian speaking spies & saboteurs to infiltrate Russia:
"["]The agents of Russian nationality whom we can count on at present resemble the passengers in Noah's Ark. Besides, there is no possible way of distinguishing the saints from the sinners. Agents from among the old Russian emigrants and their children are a cowardly and motley crowd, dissipated by life in Europe. They'll do anything for money, but their abilities are nil. Besides, they don't know contemporary Russia. The prisoners we got from Mannerheim after the Russo-Finnish War are better goods, but there's not too many of them. That means that the chief recruits are to be gained after the start of the campaign, when we'll have both prisoners and native Russians to choose from.["]" - p 38
Imagining this, & applying it to any such situation, is fascinating for me. What wd the people be like in any war who might turn against their country of origin in favor of invaders? Obviously there wd be people who'd been ill-treated at home who'd want revenge, there'd be people ideologically opposed to the current government of their country of origin, & there'd be plain & simple opportunists out to make a buck w/o any sort of ethics one way or the other. Not surprisingly, I perceive any German who fled the nazis &/or turned against them as doing a good deed for the rest of the world. It's good to keep in mind that such a perception cd be applied to any act of 'treason'. There've certainly been Americans who sold top-secret information to the Russians b/c they felt that the Americans were leading the world into exploitative chaos. There've cerainly been Russians who sold top-secret information to the 'West' b/c they felt like the Russians were doing the same. The ideological people interest me, the opportunists repulse me — they're probably not always so separable. It all gets so twisted.
""One of our men, Rusakov, is an engineer. His assignment was to sign up as a Gestapo agent. He seems to have tried too hard, though, because when he went to his appointed meeting with one of the Gestapo men a week ago he was taken into the zone. They tried to talk him into working for the German Intelligence Service and offered him very good pay. They said he'd be dropped behind the Soviet lines. Once there, he was to find work at a war plant. His assignment would be to sabotage the plant.["]" - p 56
Can you imagine being in a situation like that?
"No one on the island was awaiting the onset of bad weather as anxiously as Rudin. His assignment—getting himself on the Saturn staff—would begin after everyone had left the island. A small group of Budnitsky's soldiers would then start a sham battle with the German garrison stationed in Nikolskoye Village. Rudin was to surrender to the Germans during the battle." - p 63
"By this time Kravtsov had also reached the city. His parallel and equally dangerous assignment was to worm his way into the Gestapo apparatus." - p 97
Dangerous is right. More about Canaris from Wikipedia:
"On 1 January 1935, a little less than two years after Hitler took total control of the German government in 1933, Canaris was made head of the Abwehr, Germany's official military intelligence agency. Records suggest that Canaris was approved in his role as Abwehr chief as a compromise candidate since commander-in-chief of the German navy Admiral Erich Raeder (a staunch navy man) was initially opposed to his appointment but caved when Patzig manipulated the situation by suggesting an army officer for the post if Canaris was rejected. Given the seemingly amicable relationship between SD chief Heydrich and Canaris which existed at the time according to former Abwehr secretary, Inge Haag, it is possible that Heydrich supported the installment of Canaris as head of the Abwehr, at least based on their behavior toward one another. The two remained "friendly" rivals, although Canaris considered Heydrich a "brutal fanatic" and was likewise aware that Heydrich's SD constantly monitored the telephone traffic of the Abwehr. Heydrich was suspicious of Canaris and referred to him as a "wily old fox", cautioning his colleagues never to underestimate the man. Just a few weeks into his role as head of the Abwehr, he met with Heydrich and some of his officials to divide out intelligence operations between the Abwehr, Gestapo, and SD. It is clear from sources that at this point, Canaris was a true devotee to Hitler according to former Gestapo officer, Gerhard Fischer, who claimed that the Führer's gentlemanly relationship with Canaris converted the Admiral into "an extreme exponent of Hitlerism."" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm...
"The direct telephone line from Berlin to Prague rang, interrupting Canaris's train of thought. It was Reinhard Heydrich, the new protector of Bohemia and Moravia. At the sound of the familiar voice Canaris winced as if he had a toothache, but he spoke in a friendly, pleasant tone. It was an old game: though they hated each other, they were as yet powerless to do anything about it and were thus forced to keep up appearances, even going so far as to pretend they were on friendly terms." - p 179. Saturn is Almost Invisible
Note the officialese duplicity of the language: "Reinhard Heydrich, the new protector of Bohemia and Moravia." "Protector"?! Hardly. That was a nazi euphemism. He was the head of the 'Final Solution' & as cold-blooded a mass murderer as you could get. Fortunately, he was assassinated.
"["]Do you understand? Our old struggle with the SD is coming to a head. The only good thing about it is Heydrich's death, but here the Czech partisans did us a tremendous favour."
""I heard that his killers were parachuted into Czechoslovakia by the British," Sombach said, watching the admiral closely.
""That's of no significance," Canaris replied casually. "The main point is that we were not behind it.["]" - p 355
The implication being that Canaris might've actually collaborated w/ the British on this. I'm potentially interested in reading a recent biography about him in which such things might be revealed.
Here we have a Russian author depicting a German's perception of the Russians during WWII:
"Undoubtedly, the Russians were a strange people. Their standard of living was very low, but they would go to the gallows singing, defending this kind of life." - p 196
A German spy/saboteur infiltrates into Russia disguised as a soldier & is stopped as a suspected spy but manages to elude initial capture:
"Nevertheless, he decided he would check on the soldier's papers, but never got around to it, because just at that moment Zilov presented him with a fresh pack of Kazbek cigarettes. The militiaman felt awkward about accepting a gift and then demanding to see the man's papers. After Zilov had gone, he dropped into the station-master's office to find out if the train would be on schedule. He treated the station-master to a cigarette, feeling pleased that he could do so, since he had often borrowed a smoke from him before. As he looked at the pack, he noticed a stamp on it which read: "Restaurant, Hotel Belorus, Minsk" and wondered how a soldier could be in possession of a brand new pack of cigarettes bought in Minsk a year after the war had begun." - p 211
Interesting, eh?! The slippery psychology of it all?! Despite this 1st slip-up, Zilov the spy gets captured soon thereafter.
""Then you realize that unlike your father, who's defending his country, you've become a traitor, an enemy, a Nazi slave?"
""It's a very complicated question," Zilov replied, looking straight at Aksyonov. "The Germans say exactly the same thing about you. They are people too, the same as you, only they have their own goals and you have yours, and people like me are always insignificant pawns."" - pp 223-224
Sad but true.
The Russian intelligence notices that the fraudulent ID papers that the German spies are provided w/ are oddly flawed:
"["]By the way, there's something very strange about their papers. On the whole, they're magnificent forgeries. That's just why it's so strange to find a crude mistake. Here, have a look,"" - p 227
Keeping in mind that this, like any spy novel, is propaganda for the favored side it's interesting to see what narrative is favored. One of them is that 2 Russian spies who've infiltrated the German occupation use their knwoledge & skills to steal from the opportunistic locals who've taken advantage of the German occupation to steal from their compatriots. The resultant loot is then handed over to the nazis to curry favor for the spies. The narrative is ripe with poetic justice.
"During his months in business, Babakin had come to know quite a few scoundrels who had robbed and plundered the city during the time of evacuation and who were now feverishly exchanging their stolen goods for valuables and gold.
"During the winter the Diamond group, with Babakin's help, carried out several operations. Kravtsov managed to hand a few "leftovers' to Savushkin, who continued his commercial dealings with Hormann." - p 283
Layer after layer of duplicitous criminality — but all for the cause of sabotaging the nazis. If someone like President Rump & his ilk were to construct such a narrative today wd they even bother to have a worthy cause be the ultimate motivator? Or wd the very stealing itself be the 'worthy cause'? The Russian spies & their dirty dealings w/ the nazis were ironically what enabled a deeper level of trust & infiltration.
For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
Vasily Ardamatsky's Saturn is Almost Invisible
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 30 - November 1, 2018
For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
This bk was published by Raduga Publishers Moscow in the USSR. I got it at the same time as Yuri Medvedev's The Chariot of Time. That was Sci-Fi. I thought this was SF too b/c the cover labels it "Adenture & Fantasy" & the word "Saturn" is in the title. Instead, it's a novel based on purportedly true espionage & sabotage events between the Germans & the Russians during WWII & beyond. Both these bks were purchased at a bkstore in Frederick, MD, where the infamous Fort Detrick is. I call it "infamous" b/c that's where various notorious covert operations involving chemical & biological warfare originated. That's where the ill-fated Frank Olson worked as a scientist. He was unwittingly dosed w/ LSD & died under mysterious circumstances made to look like a suicide shortly thereafter.
That's also where germ warfare research used against the North Koreans was based. 65 yrs later there seems to still be denial about this. Tell that to the American soldiers who were in the Korean War, like my deceased stepfather, who contracted ALS as a result of exposure to the US's chemical.biological warfare agents. The government has admitted to the harms agains these soliders b/c there're financial settlements connected with it — including one that my widowed mother receives.
In other words, finding bks that originated in Russia at a used bkstore in Frederick carries a strong possibility that these bks were read by American military personnel. Such bks aren't exactly common household items in the US. I was lucky to find them.
In the beginning of the bk, the author claims that:
"This is the story of an operation aimed at penetrating into the very heart of the fascist spy centre known as Saturn. It is the story of a battle of wills and intellects and, as is often the case, the facts are more startling than fiction. This is a true story. Nothing has been invented." - p 7
I more or less take it for granted that all spy literature is propaganda. I may be overgeneralizing b/c I don't read many spy novels so there may be some that aren't nationalist. Nonetheless, what I expect from them are tales in which ultimately the nationality of the writer is the nationality depicted as having the most integrity, etc. In this case, the story is one of nazis vs communists — I have no problem accepting the communists as the least egregious of the 2 political philosophies but, let's face it, Stalin was no stranger to perpetrating genocide so he's hardly a healthy alternative to Hitler. It's probably worth mentioning that Stalin died on March 5, 1953, & that this bk was 1st published in 1967. In this bk, Stalin is almost never mentioned, this isn't a bk glorfying him. You'll find one of the only mentions I found when writing this review at the review's end. By way of further introduction to this review, it might be worth repeating part of the beginning of my review of The Chariot of Time:
"I've read a little from Russian political figures: Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, V. I. Lenin, L. I. Brezhnev & I've read a fair amt of more general Russian authors: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Mikhail Bulgakov, Vladimir Voinovich, etc; Vadim Shefner, Kirill Bulychev, Dmitri Bilenkin, the Strugatsky brothers, Vladimir Savchenko, Mikhail Emtsev & Eremei Parnov. The ones listed after Voinovich are all published as part of the excellent Collier Books series called "Best of Soviet SF" that SF writer Theodore Sturgeon was a prime mover in - & reading that series left me wanting even more Russian/Soviet SF. But everything except for the Lenin & Brezhnev I'd read had been filtered thru 'Western' publishing houses. This was the 1st time I'd read fiction published in English from Russia.
"B/c of this I was curious about what the work wd be like & what its political circumstances of publication wd be. I was born into the cold war era: raised on a sickening diet of "Russia only has propaganda, the United States has no propaganda; Communism is evil, the United States is free". &, of course, there're all sorts of 'thrillers', spy novels & the like, marketed to English readers in wch the Russians are diabolically plotting to overthrow the United States. Mickey Spillane's sensationalist crime novels thrived on lurid accounts of evil commies tying up naked white girls to torment them until Mike Hammer comes along to the rescue. It's always seemed logical to assume that Russia might have similar literature about the evil capitalists. Wd The Chariot of Time be something along these lines? Or was it published in English to try to more reach a diplomatically 'Western" readership? Wd this be underground literature? State approved? None of the above?"
- http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/2...
ANYWAY, my conclusion about this bk is that it probably gives a pretty good idea of the types of things that were going on even if it colors the Russians in a more heroic light than might be justified. Looking superficially online for any verification of the existence of Saturn I found very little except a bk advertised called The Soviet Partisan Movement, 1941-1944: A Critical Historiographical Analysis by Leonid D. Grenkevich. The relevant excerpt from the bk that was showed to me online states:
"According to Kozlov, a former Abwehr agent and graduate of the secret Nazi spy school named, 'Saturn', which was located in the Belorussian city of Borisov, during the war the NKVD network succeeded in detecting 127 agents prepared by this school."
- https://books.google.com/books?id=1PQ...
Further down the same page (133) of The Soviet Partisan Movement it's stated that:
"Quite often, the German used the nationalists in their servcie to commit the worst atrocities, for example, the terrible crime of burning the Belorussian village of Khatyn with all its inhabitants. Only recently it was revealed that Khatyn village was not destroyed by the Germans, but instead was destroyed by a police battalion made up of Ukranians and Belorussians."
I'm reminded of the Elim Klimov's 1985 film entitled Come and See & a scene described on Wikipedia thusly:
"Flyora is taken to the village of Perekhody, where they hurriedly discuss a fake identity for him, while the SS unit (based on the Dirlewanger Brigade) accompanied by Ukrainian collaborators surround and occupy the village. Flyora tries to warn the townsfolk they are being herded to their deaths, but is forced to join them inside a church. Flyora and a young woman bearing a strong resemblance to Glasha manage to escape; the young woman is dragged by her hair across the ground and into a truck to be gang raped, while Flyora is forced to watch as grenades are thrown into the church before it is set ablaze and shot." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Come_an...
I have a special interest in Belarus b/c I have friends there w/ whom I organized an online meeting called "Лiмpolysemiя (Limpolysemia)": https://archive.org/details/Iimpolysemia .
This bk might be called a literary equivalent to a movie I recently wtinessed & enjoyed called "Enemy at the Gates" (2001). Ultimately, I found it less nauseatingly propagandistic than "Pearl Harbor" (2001). At any rate, I read Saturn is Almost Invisible w/ a grain of salt but ultimately accepted it as probably more accurate than not.
A Russian spy infiltrates an area about to be occupied by the nazis & connects w/ the partisans:
""Is everyone gone?"
""If only they were!" the youth said and hit the steering wheel with his fist. "How could we evacuate everyone in such a short ime? Some stayed behind because of their belongings, and some are hoping they can go on living under the Nazis. Then there are the plain, simple rats."" - p 24
The leader of the German intelligence that included the Saturn spy school saw a problem:
"Canaris discussed the difficulty of finding agents who could work in Russia, for the language barrier was the biggest problem. Oh those backward Slavic languages! No European could ever learn to speak Russian without an accent. Hitler interrupted by jumping to his feet. He slammed his hand down on the table and rasped:
""Germans brought up by me can do anything!"
"Canaris said nothing. He saw it was impossible to continue a rational conversation with Hitler, as the latter was now in a state which Canaris himself termed so aptly several years later as "mad with his own importantance"." - pp 28-29
It's w/ passages such as this that novelistic technique belies claims by the author that "This is a true story. Nothing has been invented." How likely is there to be an historical record that describes such a scene as "Hitler interrupted by jumping to his feet. He slammed his hand down on the table and rasped"? That strikes me as an invention by the author to propel the narrative. That sd, the character of Canaris is interesting:
"Wilhelm Franz Canaris (1 January 1887 – 9 April 1945) was a German admiral and chief of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, from 1935 to 1944. Initially a supporter of Adolf Hitler, by 1939 he had turned against the Nazis as he felt Germany would lose another major war. During World War II he was among the military officers involved in the clandestine opposition to Nazi Germany leadership. He was executed in Flossenbürg concentration camp for high treason as the Nazi regime was collapsing."
Saturn tried to recruit & train Russian speaking spies & saboteurs to infiltrate Russia:
"["]The agents of Russian nationality whom we can count on at present resemble the passengers in Noah's Ark. Besides, there is no possible way of distinguishing the saints from the sinners. Agents from among the old Russian emigrants and their children are a cowardly and motley crowd, dissipated by life in Europe. They'll do anything for money, but their abilities are nil. Besides, they don't know contemporary Russia. The prisoners we got from Mannerheim after the Russo-Finnish War are better goods, but there's not too many of them. That means that the chief recruits are to be gained after the start of the campaign, when we'll have both prisoners and native Russians to choose from.["]" - p 38
Imagining this, & applying it to any such situation, is fascinating for me. What wd the people be like in any war who might turn against their country of origin in favor of invaders? Obviously there wd be people who'd been ill-treated at home who'd want revenge, there'd be people ideologically opposed to the current government of their country of origin, & there'd be plain & simple opportunists out to make a buck w/o any sort of ethics one way or the other. Not surprisingly, I perceive any German who fled the nazis &/or turned against them as doing a good deed for the rest of the world. It's good to keep in mind that such a perception cd be applied to any act of 'treason'. There've certainly been Americans who sold top-secret information to the Russians b/c they felt that the Americans were leading the world into exploitative chaos. There've cerainly been Russians who sold top-secret information to the 'West' b/c they felt like the Russians were doing the same. The ideological people interest me, the opportunists repulse me — they're probably not always so separable. It all gets so twisted.
""One of our men, Rusakov, is an engineer. His assignment was to sign up as a Gestapo agent. He seems to have tried too hard, though, because when he went to his appointed meeting with one of the Gestapo men a week ago he was taken into the zone. They tried to talk him into working for the German Intelligence Service and offered him very good pay. They said he'd be dropped behind the Soviet lines. Once there, he was to find work at a war plant. His assignment would be to sabotage the plant.["]" - p 56
Can you imagine being in a situation like that?
"No one on the island was awaiting the onset of bad weather as anxiously as Rudin. His assignment—getting himself on the Saturn staff—would begin after everyone had left the island. A small group of Budnitsky's soldiers would then start a sham battle with the German garrison stationed in Nikolskoye Village. Rudin was to surrender to the Germans during the battle." - p 63
"By this time Kravtsov had also reached the city. His parallel and equally dangerous assignment was to worm his way into the Gestapo apparatus." - p 97
Dangerous is right. More about Canaris from Wikipedia:
"On 1 January 1935, a little less than two years after Hitler took total control of the German government in 1933, Canaris was made head of the Abwehr, Germany's official military intelligence agency. Records suggest that Canaris was approved in his role as Abwehr chief as a compromise candidate since commander-in-chief of the German navy Admiral Erich Raeder (a staunch navy man) was initially opposed to his appointment but caved when Patzig manipulated the situation by suggesting an army officer for the post if Canaris was rejected. Given the seemingly amicable relationship between SD chief Heydrich and Canaris which existed at the time according to former Abwehr secretary, Inge Haag, it is possible that Heydrich supported the installment of Canaris as head of the Abwehr, at least based on their behavior toward one another. The two remained "friendly" rivals, although Canaris considered Heydrich a "brutal fanatic" and was likewise aware that Heydrich's SD constantly monitored the telephone traffic of the Abwehr. Heydrich was suspicious of Canaris and referred to him as a "wily old fox", cautioning his colleagues never to underestimate the man. Just a few weeks into his role as head of the Abwehr, he met with Heydrich and some of his officials to divide out intelligence operations between the Abwehr, Gestapo, and SD. It is clear from sources that at this point, Canaris was a true devotee to Hitler according to former Gestapo officer, Gerhard Fischer, who claimed that the Führer's gentlemanly relationship with Canaris converted the Admiral into "an extreme exponent of Hitlerism."" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm...
"The direct telephone line from Berlin to Prague rang, interrupting Canaris's train of thought. It was Reinhard Heydrich, the new protector of Bohemia and Moravia. At the sound of the familiar voice Canaris winced as if he had a toothache, but he spoke in a friendly, pleasant tone. It was an old game: though they hated each other, they were as yet powerless to do anything about it and were thus forced to keep up appearances, even going so far as to pretend they were on friendly terms." - p 179. Saturn is Almost Invisible
Note the officialese duplicity of the language: "Reinhard Heydrich, the new protector of Bohemia and Moravia." "Protector"?! Hardly. That was a nazi euphemism. He was the head of the 'Final Solution' & as cold-blooded a mass murderer as you could get. Fortunately, he was assassinated.
"["]Do you understand? Our old struggle with the SD is coming to a head. The only good thing about it is Heydrich's death, but here the Czech partisans did us a tremendous favour."
""I heard that his killers were parachuted into Czechoslovakia by the British," Sombach said, watching the admiral closely.
""That's of no significance," Canaris replied casually. "The main point is that we were not behind it.["]" - p 355
The implication being that Canaris might've actually collaborated w/ the British on this. I'm potentially interested in reading a recent biography about him in which such things might be revealed.
Here we have a Russian author depicting a German's perception of the Russians during WWII:
"Undoubtedly, the Russians were a strange people. Their standard of living was very low, but they would go to the gallows singing, defending this kind of life." - p 196
A German spy/saboteur infiltrates into Russia disguised as a soldier & is stopped as a suspected spy but manages to elude initial capture:
"Nevertheless, he decided he would check on the soldier's papers, but never got around to it, because just at that moment Zilov presented him with a fresh pack of Kazbek cigarettes. The militiaman felt awkward about accepting a gift and then demanding to see the man's papers. After Zilov had gone, he dropped into the station-master's office to find out if the train would be on schedule. He treated the station-master to a cigarette, feeling pleased that he could do so, since he had often borrowed a smoke from him before. As he looked at the pack, he noticed a stamp on it which read: "Restaurant, Hotel Belorus, Minsk" and wondered how a soldier could be in possession of a brand new pack of cigarettes bought in Minsk a year after the war had begun." - p 211
Interesting, eh?! The slippery psychology of it all?! Despite this 1st slip-up, Zilov the spy gets captured soon thereafter.
""Then you realize that unlike your father, who's defending his country, you've become a traitor, an enemy, a Nazi slave?"
""It's a very complicated question," Zilov replied, looking straight at Aksyonov. "The Germans say exactly the same thing about you. They are people too, the same as you, only they have their own goals and you have yours, and people like me are always insignificant pawns."" - pp 223-224
Sad but true.
The Russian intelligence notices that the fraudulent ID papers that the German spies are provided w/ are oddly flawed:
"["]By the way, there's something very strange about their papers. On the whole, they're magnificent forgeries. That's just why it's so strange to find a crude mistake. Here, have a look,"" - p 227
Keeping in mind that this, like any spy novel, is propaganda for the favored side it's interesting to see what narrative is favored. One of them is that 2 Russian spies who've infiltrated the German occupation use their knwoledge & skills to steal from the opportunistic locals who've taken advantage of the German occupation to steal from their compatriots. The resultant loot is then handed over to the nazis to curry favor for the spies. The narrative is ripe with poetic justice.
"During his months in business, Babakin had come to know quite a few scoundrels who had robbed and plundered the city during the time of evacuation and who were now feverishly exchanging their stolen goods for valuables and gold.
"During the winter the Diamond group, with Babakin's help, carried out several operations. Kravtsov managed to hand a few "leftovers' to Savushkin, who continued his commercial dealings with Hormann." - p 283
Layer after layer of duplicitous criminality — but all for the cause of sabotaging the nazis. If someone like President Rump & his ilk were to construct such a narrative today wd they even bother to have a worthy cause be the ultimate motivator? Or wd the very stealing itself be the 'worthy cause'? The Russian spies & their dirty dealings w/ the nazis were ironically what enabled a deeper level of trust & infiltration.
For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
September 12, 2020
Pure and undiluted propaganda. A brave Russian intelligence officer infiltrates a Nazi orgnization that trains spies to send them to Russia. Lots of cliches, lots of tropes, lots of newsreel-style speeches, cardboard-cutout characters. The good guys are all handsome, clever and brave; the bad guys are ugly, fooling, greedy, and generally unpleasant. The book was published in 1963, at the height of Cold War, so the style is to be expected. Unfortunately, it makes for a boring read, even is the book is based on supposedly true events.
January 31, 2016
Советские граждане всегда знали, что среди них есть предатели — те, кого надо изобличить и сурового наказать. Они появились ещё до революции и мешали идти к коммунизму все последующие годы. И вот грянула Вторая Мировая война — подозрения усилились. Выявить иностранных агентов стало самой простой задачей, особенно учитывая, что они действительно являлись шпионами. Пусть в их поведении нет ничего подозрительного — доблестные граждане проявляли чудеса бдительности. Мог ли рассчитывать на успех немецкий центр вербовки славян для проведения подрывной деятельности на территории противника «Сатурн»? Может и действовал он удачно, но Василий Ардаматский так не думает. Он не позволил нанести вред Советскому Союзу.
(c) Trounin
(c) Trounin
October 12, 2014
The first book I ever read on espionage and counter-intelligence. And I think the best.
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