5 September 2005 releases: Soviet intelligence agents

"Rote Kapelle" (the "Red Orchestra") was a name given to the Soviet intelligence network in western Europe. The name was coined by the Germans, who penetrated the network in the early 1940s. The western Allies subsequently investigated it after German papers on the spy ring were captured at the end of the war.

The Security Service kept files on a number of key figures in the Rote Kapelle. Among these were the head of the network, Leopold Trepper (file KV 2/2074), a Polish-born Palestinian who was exiled to France in the 1920s. He was recruited there by the Russians and headed the spy ring until his arrest by the Germans. He escaped in 1945 and made his way to the Soviet Union, where he subsequently published an account of his activities.

Other Rote Kapelle figures featured in this release include:

• Trepper's petit chef, Victor Sokolov (KV 2/2068);
• his mistress Marguerite Barcza (KV 2/2070-2071);
• Waldemar Ozols (KV 2/2069), a Latvian agent who with Sokolov penetrated the French resistance and whose radio transmitter was later used by the Germans in a playback operation;
• Maurice Aenis-Hanslin (KV 2/2072), who was the courier between the Rote Kapelle in Paris and the Rote Drei spy ring in Switzerland.

Also included in this release is the file of Heinz Pannwitz, the German official who arrested Leopold Trepper. His playback operation was originally given the name "Rote Kapelle", which only later was applied to the Soviet spy ring.