SPIES OF OPERATION CITADEL
“STALIN HAD A SPY RIGHT IN THE HEART OF BLETCHLEY – JOHN CAIRNCROSS… WHO WAS PASSING DECRYPTS TO THE SOVIET EMBASSY”
By 1943 the prognosis for the rejuvenated Red Army was good. This was despite friction between Churchill and Roosevelt on the one hand, and Stalin on the other over intelligence-sharing and the delivery of weapon supplies. The British Joint Intelligence Committee now doubted Hitler’s chances of victory, assessing that “the prospect of a German defeat of Russia has receded to vanishing point”. It also held the view that Hitler had passed the point where he could hope to reach a peace settlement with Stalin. Churchill was in agreement and wrote, “The Russians, both on land and in the air, had now the upper hand, and the Germans can have had few hopes of ultimate victory.”
Thanks to the decoders at Britain’s top-secret Bletchley Park, Churchill was forewarned that a battle was looming at Kursk that summer. Not only had Bletchley cracked Enigma, used by the German armed forces, but also the Lorenz system used by German High Command. He resolved to inform Stalin but was at pains to conceal the true source of this information. Captain Jerry Roberts, working at Bletchley, explained, “We were able to warn them what army groups were going to be used. And most important, what tank units were going to be used... We had to wrap it all up and say it was from spies, that we had wonderful teams of spies, and other sources of information.”
It has been speculated that Bletchley intelligence was also deliberately passed through Rudolf Roessler and his ‘Lucy’ spy network in Switzerland, but there is no evidence to support this. Churchill’s warning was simply sent via diplomatic channels on 30 April 1943 to Moscow. Stalin did not altogether trust Churchill and it is doubtful he took much heed of Britain’s efforts. After all, these simply confirmed what he already knew. Although Soviet military intelligence was aware of Bletchley Park, which they called ‘Krurort’, they were unaware of the exact nature or indeed the scale of the work being conducted there.
