Red Orchestra

Die Rote Kapelle (Red Orchestra) was the name created by the Gestapo for two supposedly Communist resistance rings in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. The Gestapo used the name Red Orchestra to refer to the Schulze-Boysen group, a ring of anti-Hitler Germans with only a tenuous connection to the Soviet Union. The Gestapo also used the name Red Orchestra to refer to the Trepper espionage group of European Communists.

The Trepper group

An actual Soviet espionage group was coordinated by then-NKVD agent Leopold Trepper. He travelled extensively. Trepper organized underground operations in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The Trepper network became successful, and managed to infiltrate the German military intelligence service Abwehr. Owing to the success of the Trepper group, the German government set up the "Red Orchestra Special Detachment" (Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle) with the intention of destroying Trepper's group.

Related Topics:
Leopold Trepper - Germany - France - Netherlands - Switzerland - Military intelligence - Abwehr

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The Trepper group made reports to the Soviet Union on German troop concentrations in German-occupied areas of the Soviet Union, air attacks on Germany, German aircraft production, and German fuel shipments. In France, they worked with the underground French Communist Party. Agents of this group even managed to successfully tap the phone lines of the Abwehr in Paris.

Related Topics:
French Communist Party - Abwehr

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Belgian-born socialite Suzanne Spaak joined the Parisian network of the Trepper Group after being appalled by the conduct of the Nazi occupiers in her country.

Related Topics:
Belgian - Suzanne Spaak - Paris

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Eventually the Abwehr triangulated the radio transmissions of Johann Wenzel, an agent of the Trepper group in Belgium, and arrested him. Wenzel agreed to turn double agent and then informed on the leaders of the network.

Related Topics:
Johann Wenzel - Belgium - Double agent

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Based on Wenzel's information Germans arrested Schulze-Boysen and his wife on August 30, 1942, and Arvid Harnack and his wife in September of that year (see below).

Related Topics:
August 30 - 1942 - Arvid Harnack

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Some persons are believed to have broken under torture and almost all persons accused of having been members of the Red Orchestra were sentenced to death and executed. Trepper was captured and forced into being a double agent until he escaped and joined the French underground, where he worked until the liberation of Paris.

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Operations by the Trepper group had been entirely eliminated by the spring of 1943. Most agents were executed, including Suzanne Spaak at Fresnes Prison just thirteen days before liberation in 1944.

Related Topics:
1943 - Fresnes Prison - 1944

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