The Russian Agent: A Secret Mission To Penetrate the Russian Liberation Army

By Franz Taut and Graham Harris

Lieutenant General Andrey Andreyevich Wlassow (or Vlasov) was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, the Soviet Union’s first, and at the time highest, military decoration. This was in recognition of his handling of the 37th Army when Hitler’s forces invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, and for his efforts in the defence of Moscow. But during the siege of Leningrad in 1942 he was taken prisoner. During his time in captivity, Wlassow defected to the Germans. He went on to establish the Russian Liberation Army, a movement to support the Germans in defeating Stalin’s Bolshevism. Stalin’s intelligence services would undoubtedly sought to have disrupted and infiltered the RLA. In this book, the author Franz Taut reveals one plausible, but fictious, attempt to infiltrate Wlassow’s organisation and report back to Moscow on those ‘traitors’ who sought the collapse of the communist regime. The agent in question Taut has named Lieutenant Sonja Rasumowa. Adopting a different persona for each situation, this former employee of the Soviet embassy in Berlin was able to make her way back into the German capital. She was soon approached by a member of the Russian Liberation Army – though there were those in Wlassow’s group who were highly suspicious of this clearly highly intelligent and well-informed young woman. How would Rasumowa gain their trust, and once fully accepted into the treacherous group how could she transmit their subversive intentions back to Mother Russia? Though the activities of Sonja Rasumowa are entirely fictitious, the story of Wlassow’s Russian Liberation Army is a factual one. In The Russian Agent, the complexities of the political situation are revealed as the German armies in Russia crumbled and the fear of reprisals for those who had turned against the country of their birth became more acute with the passing of each week. This is a story that explores an intriguing element of the Second World War, one that is little known of outside Russia and Germany.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781526748614

Book preview

Chapter 1

General Ushbar pushed the rest of his Kasbek cigarette into the ashtray. His broad Kalmuck face went bright red as though he was about to have a stroke. He pulled at the collar of his tunic. No, it was not only his seething rage, but also the leaden heat. The temperatures had fallen so low in the past winter and had risen so high in the summer of 1942 in Moscow. Admittedly, now it was no longer summer. It was the end of September, but the thermometer was already reading 28 degrees at this early hour.

‘Do you know who you rescued Moscow for?’ said Ushbar with his rusty, asthmatic voice which only appeared tormented due to the mass of flesh on his heavy body. ‘Do you know for whom, Colonel Michailow?’

The little glittering eyes like Cuban pebbles stared at the Commander.

‘No, Comrade General,’ stammered Michailow. His hand, which held the raspberry red band of his blue cap, the headwear of all members of the ‘Special Section’, trembled noticeably.

General Ushbar pressed down hard on the upholstered office chair.

‘For himself and his pals, the Hitler fascists,’ he bemoaned.

His glance slipped from Michailow’s disturbed face to the papers on his desk: the document titled ‘Andrej Andrejewitsch Wlassow’. At the very top lay the leaflet that, earlier in the day, had been picked up on Red Square – yes, on Red Square!

‘To my Russian brothers, on either side of the front.’

Ushbar growled like an irritable bear. Suddenly, he raised his large, pale, hands.

‘I could crush you,’ he murmured threateningly. ‘We have flown you into the Wolchow cauldron and, instead of bringing me the man, you let him go over to the Germans. Enough with murder! After such altercations he was ripe for physical destruction. Why didn’t you shoot him, Colonel Michailow?’

‘I …,’ stuttered the Colonel, ‘an experienced General, holder of the Order of the Red Flag – sacrosanct. Besides him was Mironow, Commander of the Bodyguard.’

‘You are a failure; you will suffer the consequences,’ uttered General Ushbar grimly.

The Colonel let his cap fall on the floor and bent down clumsily to retrieve it. Was there still hope for him? Perhaps, because why would the General have called on him otherwise?

General Ushbar pushed the confounded leaflet, with General Wlassow’s appeal for the removal of the Soviet regime, to one side. From a list he read out the names.

‘Wassilij, Fedorowitsch, Malyschkin, Lieutenant General Fedor Ivanovitsch Truchin, Major General Grigorij Nikolajevitsch Schilenkow, Major General and Political Commissar Blagoweschtschenskij, Major General Viktor Ivanovitish Malzeu, Colonel Sykow, Captain Bucharin, assistant editor of the Iswestija – what a select company! Truchin, a former member. Malyschkin heavily incriminated in the Tuchatschewskij affair.’ Suddenly, Ushbar raised his mighty bald head. ‘Something will occur to you, Colonel Michailow, in 24 hours you will provide me with useful suggestions for effective counter measures. The Wlassow movement must be stopped before this would-be cleric can cause damage.’

A quick movement of the hand told Colonel Michailow that he needed to leave. He exited the room in a hurry, determined to do something to save his neck.

The telephone buzzed at Colonel Michailow’s desk. The Colonel lifted the receiver, his hand no longer trembling. A voice announced, ‘Lieutenant Sonja Petrowna Rasumowa.’

‘I must ask,’ said the Colonel, in an unusually patronising tone. His suggestions were approved by General Ushbar. He used all the powers at his disposal for its realisation and was proud of it. For now, he would be writing a page of Soviet history, him – Iwan Ignatjewitsch Michailow, Colonel of the ‘Special Section’.

The door opened. Lieutenant Rasumowa entered the sunlit room briskly. The earth-coloured uniform emphasised her femininity provocatively. The gently tailored jacket with the red collar patches accentuated the curve of her small, firm breasts. The skirt reached to just above her knee. The extremely thin silk stockings which exposed her slim legs more than disguised someone who had just been delivered via Murmansk from the United States. The small shoes had been made in a special workshop close by the Kasaner station. the blue/red cap of ‘The Special One’ sat diagonally on her black hair, which hung down gypsy like onto her shoulders.

Colonel Michailow consciously stroked his sandy moustache. What was just so gripping and exciting about this slightly unsymmetrical yet fair skinned face? Was it the look of the hazelnut eyes which always appeared a little mocking of the amazement and badly hidden covetousness of the men or some tremendous amusement? Or was it the lure of the softly curved lips? The discreetly worn make-up blended anyhow with the colour of the cap band.

The Colonel had got up with sweeping chivalrous gestures, he pointed to a chair. ‘Please, Comrade Rasumowa.’ ‘Thank you, Comrade Colonel.’

Rasumowa bent down hardly noticing his head and sat down. She was determined not to show any trace of curiosity.

Colonel Michailow opened his silver cigarette case and offered the beautiful agent one of his Kasbek cigarettes. The lice-ridden Red Army soldier on the front smoked Machorka, when anything smokable was available at all, but in the ‘Special’ department there was no such tobacco.

Rasumowa gripped it with her slim, freshly manicured fingers and, again, came this slightly amused ‘Thank you, Comrade Colonel’ to her lips.

‘You know, no doubt, of the machinations of the previous General Wlassow, Comrade?’ Colonel Michailow began without a prolonged introduction. ‘In short, General Ushbar has decided to accept this, so-called, Russian liberation movement. You speak German. You were at our embassy in Berlin and have, since the outbreak of the Soviet/German war, fulfilled the less than easy task of fighting your way through the combat area. We are convinced that, with the same skill, you will find your way back to Berlin. If necessary, disguised as a man.’

‘That would be somewhat difficult, Comrade Colonel,’ smiled Rasumowa while seemingly and unintentionally stroking her hips.

Colonel Michailow, irritated, replied to her smile.

‘I joke, of course’, he said, ‘that is entirely up to you, Comrade. You are doing an inestimable service to your Fatherland, the great Soviet Union. I can reveal to you: the turning point of the war looms in the Volga. We can, at this moment, not tolerate any dangerous disruptive action from outside. Your special instructions, Comrade, I am giving you in writing. You must memorise every point conscientiously, then immediately destroy the paper. There is a codeword in these instructions amounting to your name by which the counterintelligence of Hitler’s fascists will not know you. In five hours you must be ready to go. You will be making your journey on a special plane. At Tichoretzkaja, at the Kuban Steppes, you will make a parachute jump. You know the area; your clothing must be inconspicuous yet tasteful. The size and importance of your task is clear to you. Any questions, Comrade Rasumowa?’

Lieutenant Sonja Rasumowa took a deep breath. ‘No, Comrade Colonel.’ She rose as the Colonel got up and assumed an erect posture.

‘Good luck for your operation, Comrade. Sa Rodinu sa Stalina!’

Rasumowa repeated the solemn greeting, took the envelope at reception that contained her orders and codeword, and left the service room in the NKWD block in Lubljanka.

During the night of 1 October 1942, while the special aircraft lingered on a southerly course with the most resourceful and most beautiful secret agent of the Soviet Union on board, pale light was emitted from the bay window in the murky municipal building of the Soviet Colonel. Nightly calm lay over the Kremlin. The stars above the onion dome were glowing in sombre redness. In the bay room, the ivory telephone rang quietly. The ageing, creepy wolf, who some called a marshal and generalissimo, and others ‘The big wise father’, picked up the receiver with a heavy hand.

General Ushbar’s rusty voice announced, with obsequiousness, that Andrej Andrejewitsch Wlassow would carry out the ordered execution.

Jossip Dschugaschwili, named Stalin, put down the receiver in silence and went back to studying the map. It was the area between Donbogen and Wolgaknie which caught the attention of the grey-haired one.

Schukow and Rokossowskij intended to carry out, in this region, the decisive reprisal against the aggressors.

Hundreds of thousands were on the move. With heavily laden two-wheeled carts or carrying bundles of different sizes, they moved backwards and forwards from Kiev to Charkow, from Melitopol or Stalino to Dnjepropetrowsk; mostly women, many with children. Even from Tichoretzkaja to Bataisk and Rostow a continuous train of travellers moved. Whoever was in a hurry tried to secure a space in an empty carriage of the German army, however, most had time.

To the German occupiers this coming and going on the streets was incomprehensible and equally frightening. But there was no one who would not have dealt with this continuous movement of countless people. What good would it have done if the military commander, the local commanders or even the Reich’s Commissar had passed laws? The fronts were forever widening and in the massive hinterland those in power who should have carried out an effective control of the streets failed to do so.

Sonja Rasumowa knelt in the shadow of an elm tree at the edge of the road, she chewed a piece of bread from her rucksack and observed the clouds which slipped like a swelled sail across the pale-blue autumn sky. Before dawn she had landed unscathed and unnoticed on the treeless steppes. She had folded her parachute and hidden it in the waterhole of a half dried-up river. Even if someone found it, they would not suspect a walker resting by the roadside was one of Stalin’s partisans who had floated down from the sky. At sunrise, she was on the road. Now it was midday, and she was taking a break under the elm tree. Six German lorries had gone past her – four to the south in the direction of the Caucasus front and two to the north. There lay Rostow na Danu – the town on the Don. It was a long way off if you were travelling on foot, but she had not landed on the off chance in this remote area. In the orders which had been burnt to a cinder in the oven of her Moscow quarters it had said she should make her way north as here, in this thinly populated steppe countryside, there was the possibility of an unnoticed landing of larger parachute groups. In the view of the Germans, this chance was unlikely. Sonja intended to pass through Moscow as soon as she had contacted the base ‘Krasnij Lutsch’ in Rostow. There was much to consider. Nothing could be missed or forgotten.

Sonja lifted her left hand and glanced at the simple ring that had been given to her before departure. Under the blue stone there was a tiny cavity and within was a capsule to be taken when there was no other option. She closed her eyes and laid her head on the thin rucksack; she had tied her hair over her neck. Her white headscarf, knotted under her chin, leant her oval face an expression of awakened innocence. She knew and smiled softly. This appearance would give her the benefit of continually gaining the assistance of men. Suddenly she started and opened her eyes. A lorry had braked abruptly in front of her. A young face sporting soft stubble leant out of the window of the driver’s cab and a boy’s voice asked in German whether she wanted a lift.

‘Don’t understand’, she answered, giving the appearance of rustic simplicity.

The young soldier exchanged a few words with his colleague sitting at the wheel and the latter made communication easier with a few Russian words.

Hesitantly, Sonja accepted the invitation of the soldiers. However, as she sat below the tarpaulin in the bed of the truck on a pile of munitions crates, she laughed contentedly. Here she was not controlled, and valuable time had been gained. Through the slit in the tarpaulin, she peered out attentively. The dust that the wheels threw up did not disturb her. She felt well and strangely hidden. The idea that the soldiers might try to demand sexual favours in return for passage was far from her mind. These two harmless ‘Fritzes’ certainly had no thoughts of this nature. The air under the tarpaulin was warm and sticky. Sonja’s head bent to the side. She fell asleep. When she awoke, the lorry was stationary. The tarpaulin was pulled to one side and the young soldier said ‘Kurtschews-Kaja, the journey’s now over.’

Sonja understood, she got up and nodded her head in thanks. The lorry stopped at the edge of a small town by a camp in which the empties of the German artillery were piled up. Nearby a stream flowed through pale-yellow meadows. The bushes on the banks were still green. Sonja had remembered her way well. If the little town was Kurtschews-Kaja then the river was the Yeja and flowed into the Sea of Azov. Sonja quickly moved away from the lorry and made for the meadows. The dust burned on her face, and she felt tired. A bathe in the river would refresh her. She disappeared behind one of the bushes, undressed and waded through the reeds into the water. Without thinking she had taken off her dress and underwear. At home, on the Desna, she had never bathed any differently. Suddenly, she felt, however, that she was being observed from the bushes. She bent down and covered her breasts with her hands. How stupid she had become, so close to the town, in which there were obviously soldiers, to go into the water. The blood flushed hot in her cheeks. Now her enemies saw her naked. Angrily, she leapt up. Her white body positively flew onto the bank. However, before she reached her clothes, she parted the bushes and the face of the young soldier from the lorry came into view as bright red as her own. Embarrassed, he turned round and disappeared. Now her anger quickly receded. This boy had intended nothing sinister. A strange thought occurred to her that you could not feel mortal hatred toward everything or toward every enemy.

She got dressed quickly and hurried on her way to Kurtschews-Kaja. A bridge led over the river and here she crossed, the place having all the appearance of a German communication station as wheels of crushed tape stretched out to the north in the steppes.

‘To Berlin,’ said Sonja quietly to herself. However, now her destination was Rostow. There she would assume the role of wandering peasant girl who had become an intellectual having fled the persecution of the NKWD. It would not be difficult for her to play a member of the Komsomol with individualistic tendencies in front of the Germans. Basically, she had always played such roles. Otherwise, how would she have risen so highly in the ‘Special Ones’? How would she have otherwise become ‘Stalin’s partisan’ who enjoyed all the privileges of the Soviet elite? A ‘Special One’ with full powers which no general had at his disposal …

Unchallenged, Sonja had crossed the pontoon bridge over the Don which had been blown up by the Germans. She had produced her codename at the post and the soldier had let her pass with a bored ‘Charascho’. In her little mouse-grey dress that was not shabby but poor and, on top of everything, was too light for the season, she moved along the busy Angel Street. Since December 1941 much had changed in Rostow. Of numerous houses, now only the outside walls remained, towering over the streets. She looked in empty windows and at the grey, overcast October sky.

The fires in Angel Street and other suburbs, the roaring of shots, the desperate attacks of the Soviet ‘Ratas’ on the much superior aircraft of the German Luftwaffe. This was all in the past for Rostow. In Sonja’s eyes, however, the town resembled a hastily readied beauty carrying the embryo of death. In December 1941, the Germans had hurriedly retreated. Now they had settled again, and they didn’t appear to suspect that the sharp sword of revenge hung over them. Sonja felt a hot wave of pride at this thought, that she would have participated in the mortal blow of revenge. Hurrying busily or casually strolling German soldiers populated the pavements which were the property of the Soviet people. Also, on crutches, hobbling wounded men moved along with German girls in pleasant uniforms or in the care of nurses. On a ruin that was in danger of collapsing, masculine-looking female Red Army soldiers worked with pick and shovel.

‘I am here for you,’ thought Sonja.

She had taken off her headscarf and cast off her headband. Her rucksack lay in a bomb crater filled with water. In one of the few intact windowpanes, she hastily scrutinised her reflection. Little Soviet teacher. One would think that was her.

She turned to the left. The base ‘Krasnij Lutsch’, the house in which Polwuchin lived, was undamaged. Only a few windows were nailed up with cardboard and planks. She climbed the creaking staircase. It smelt stuffy from coal and poverty. On the third landing she took a breath and knocked quickly and sharply on the door with half-peeling paint. She remembered the icy December day when she had stood here for the first time. As then, she now heard shuffling steps. The door was opened a little. Polwuchin’s eyes peered out. The door flew open, and Sonja darted into the hall.

Polwuchin took her in his arms and gave her a brotherly kiss on both cheeks.

‘I am informed,’ he said, ‘that it is lucky you are here, Comrade.’

Sonja laughed softly. ‘Were you in trouble, Ignatij Pawlowitsch? The Fritz are blind. The Romanians are even more simple. I have travelled quicker than back then in the winter.’

‘One like you,’ interjected Polwuchin, ‘your beauty is your best asset, Comrade.’

Sonja waved this away with a shake of the hand. ‘Let us get on, Ignatiij Pawlowitsch. I need to get a move on, I have to go to Berlin.’

Polwuchin gasped for breath. ‘The devil! To Berlin? But how – how, Comrade?’

She entered the half-darkened room. The radio was hidden under the floorboards. On the wall between the two windows stood a sofa covered in black cloth.

Polwuchin produced cigarettes. They were not the usual Papyrossi but a German brand without filters.

‘The black market is blooming,’ said Polwuchin.

He was old, over 60. His false teeth were full of holes. His thick brush-like hair was snow-white. His left eye looked rigidly. It had been blinded in a Soviet dungeon. The right one had retained its vision.

Sonja sunk down into the sofa, laid her legs, which were now hidden in cheap woollen stockings, one on top of the other and bobbed up and down with one of her worn out shoes.

‘Are you connected to a German section?’ she asked the old partisan.

Polwuchin considered for a moment. A smile produced a series little folds over his, otherwise, very tight face.

‘There is, of course, something like that,’ he mumbled. ‘Comrade Saburow is interpreter of propaganda which provides us with radio, cinema, and newspapers. Perhaps that would be a way. Would they fight with the rebels for certain, Comrade? My instructions don’t go like that.’

‘Yes, roughly.’ Sonja lent back sleepily. She had a long march behind her. However, she did not feel hungry. If it had not been for their Russian compatriots, German or Russian soldiers would not have provided them with food. Admittedly, the Russians would have looked at it favourably if sexual favours had been readily available in return.

They promised everything that was supposed to be radioed over there. Polwuchin then took his worn-out proletariat cap and went away without another word. He closed the hall door before he went down the stairs.

Saburow sat at a small table in the restaurant ‘Zum Don’, whose only decoration was a selection of lush, proliferous rubber trees. Where the picture of Stalin had hung, there was now a bright rectangle on the dirty wall. However, for Saburow and Polwuchin, who came in just at this moment, Stalin was as present as before.

‘Greetings, Iwan Jurjewitsch,’ murmured Polwuchin and leaned clumsily down towards the other person. His bones were stiff with rheumatism.

Saburow looked briefly out of his slanting slit eye. ‘Tschad!’ he called.

‘Sejtschas,’ answered the blonde-haired waitress in the pantry. She dragged herself over and put a glass of tea on the table in front of Polwuchin. There was no sugar.

In the opinion of the German authorities, they did not need to sweeten the life of the Russian sub-humans. ‘It will soon be autumn,’ murmured Polwuchin as he put the glass to his wrinkled lips and slurped, with enjoyment, the thin tea.

‘It will also soon be winter,’ Saburow answered casually. He was a little deformed. His spine was curved and his left shoulder lopsided. His pale face was pockmarked. Sparse ash-coloured stubble covered his chin, cheeks and upper lip. A wonder that this ugly person had found employment with the Germans. But he spoke German and interpreters were needed.

Polwuchin emptied his glass, Saburow put a few coins on the table and the pair left the restaurant.

The sun had broken through the clouds. In the mild light, the two wandered over to the park which was dug through with shell holes. The trenches had been prepared the previous July by the population on the order of the Red Army. Now they were dilapidated. The grey army of the Germans thought the Red Army shattered and defeated.

‘The red star is in the town,’ said Polwuchin softly. ‘We are here to give you every support. You know that, Iwan Jurjewitsch.’

Saburow nodded. ‘What can I do?’

‘Take it to your Fritzes. You must go to Berlin.’

Saburow grinned with delight.

‘Start a little fire, how?’

‘I don’t know,’ murmured Polwuchin. ‘Will you manage?’

Saburow shrugged his lopsided shoulders even higher.

‘I already am. After that, it depends on the little dove. Damn, she has courage …’

‘… and that certain something,’ added Polwuchin.

‘Men become as soft as butter in her hands. Do you know, back in December?’

Saburow grinned.

‘The SS man whimpered like a dog in front of her. And what did she give him? Nothing! But what did she get? Everything that he knew. Even whether he had fed the fish in the Don?’

‘Perhaps the eels and crabs,’ said Polwuchin unmoved. ‘So, when is she going?’

‘Fetch her down, I will take her there. The lieutenant is on a visit from the Caucasus; they are drinking wine from Maikop.’

‘Our wine, damn dogs,’ grumbled Polwuchin angrily.

They turned back towards the corner of Proletarskaja. Polwuchin moved away and shortly afterwards Sonja Rasumowa appeared. She knew Saburow from December.

‘What are you playing at, Comrade?’ he asked in place of a greeting.

‘I have fled the NKWD in Saratow,’ answered Sonja and brushed back a strand of her black hair that the stiff east wind had blown across her forehead.

They went across the street on which, on 25 July, the first German tank had emerged. On the right-hand side in an overgrown garden lay a small house with a veranda and on this sat a German lieutenant and a special guide with some golden wine.

Saburow pushed open the garden gate and walked along the path to the house. Rasumowa followed him. She was fearless, just a little curious and was very keen to accomplish her aim.

Saburow raised his cap. The officer glanced at him.

‘I have something for you,’ said Saburow in his hard-sounding German. ‘She comes from Saratow on the Volga. Fled from the NKWD.’

The lieutenant was no youngster, his light-brown hair had thinned out. He scrutinised the modest, reticent woman by the steps up to the veranda from pale-blue, yet bulging eyes. He got up awkwardly. What a face! This Russian girl! He had just spoken with Special Guide Freilinger about her. At the last check for suitable civil workers for Germany it had shown that 80 per cent of the girls were still virgins.

Involuntarily, Lieutenant Simmroth bowed a little when he asked the girl at the bottom of the steps her name.

‘My name is Sonja Petrowna Rasumowa,’ said the girl with a voice whose bitter, dark tone attracted every man. ‘I was a teacher in Saratow.’

Only now did the lieutenant become aware that the beautiful Russian girl had spoken German. He beckoned her to come closer.

Saburow moved to one side. Rasumowa came up the steps. The Special Guide also got up, he had a narrow face, particularly unmilitary long hair and wore horn-rimmed glasses.

The lieutenant moved back to his chair and with a wink indicated to Saburow to go away.

Rasumowa sat down, took a tiny sip of wine and began her moving tales. Her eyes glimmered moistly, and her voice faltered at times while she told of her experiences in Saratow.

It happened fifteen days ago. One of her schoolchildren had innocently given her a leaflet that she had picked up on her way to the school. The teacher of foreign languages, German and English, had skimmed over the text of the leaflet and then, because it was a remarkable appeal from the famous, and equally notorious, General Andrej Andrejewitsch Wlassow, she had hidden it in her glove. At home, she had discussed the appeal with some friends. Late at night a child of a friend had appeared and had reported that her father, because of his remark about General Wlassow, had been arrested by the NKWD. The desperate mother had sent the child to her teacher. At the same time, she fled the town. She had been on the move for fifteen days straight, tortured with fear.

‘To where does a Soviet in such poverty flee?’ she whispered. ‘To the Germans. Now I am here, and you know everything.’

She showed her codename from Saratow, but the lieutenant looked at it fleetingly.

He lifted his head and took a hefty swig from his glass. The idea of asking her why she had gone to Saburow did not occur to him. The simple tale of this frightened soul had moved him more deeply than the film with Heidemarie Hatheyer, which he had recently seen in the field hospital.

‘Wlassow,’ he said, ‘yes I know of the appeal which you speak of. I have circulated it myself here in the town. The response surpassed my expectations. You will hardly believe it. A few hundred men reported on the same day to join the Russian Liberation Army. I believe we are standing at a turning point of the war.’

‘I believe that too,’ thought Rasumowa. She recalled the words of Colonel Michailow: between the Don and the Volga …

Lieutenant Simmroth scratched behind his ear, as he always did if he felt stressed. This girl was not only enchantingly beautiful but obviously also unusually intelligent. A foreign language teacher! Was it not a twist of fate that she had been brought to him, of all people? Only a short time ago Captain von Trollsfeld, the main initiator of the Wlassow movement in the supreme command, had been stationed here. He had asked, with all urgency, for it to be communicated to him immediately if persons, even women, who could speak German should be located as they could be useful to him in his work, and here was a woman of which this could certainly be true.

Lieutenant Simmroth stood up. The strong wine before lunch had an exhilarating effect on him. Furthermore, urgency was needed. If this Wlassow did not get a look in before the beginning of the winter, the war in the East was lost. The nearing storm was already becoming clearly apparent to objective observers.

Special Guide Freilinger was of the same opinion. He was attached to the artillery command of the 49th. He had been a well-known mountain skier and had taken part in the battles involving heavy losses in the Caucasus Forest. Now it was no longer a question of quick victories.

When Lieutenant Simmroth had disappeared into the house to conduct his conversation with OKW/WPR Department 4, Freilinger said to Sonja Rasumowa: ‘Remarkable – we are sitting here on a Russian veranda at a Russian table and you, as a Russian girl, come to us as a refugee.’

‘Don’t you like Russia?’ asked Sonja.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but above all the Caucasus appeals to me. But I am freezing – even in the greatest heat. Do you understand that, miss?’

‘Sonja Petrowna Rasumowa,’ she smiled pensively. ‘Yes, officer, I believe I can understand it. So foreign and so far from home.’

He nodded silently. This Russian girl from Saratowa had summed up the situation aptly. Relieved, he thought how he would take off in the afternoon with the courier machine. This entire country seemed to him as if it were undermined and could rise at any minute. No, rather North Africa or the Balkans, just never again this endlessness in which the whole army could be lost!

Rasumowa cast a fleeting sidelong glance at the officer’s serious face. ‘These Germans,’ she thought scornfully, ‘such miserable opponents!’ If they were all like this and wore their hearts on their sleeves, it would be an easy game! Hadn’t she already got the impression that she had landed in the right place? They had believed every word from her. Even back then in December, when Hitler’s personal bodyguards had