Richard Sorge
Richard Gustavovich Sorge was born on the 4th of October 1895 in the settlement of Sabunchi, a suburb of Baku. His father worked as a German mining engineer for the Deutsche Petroleum-Aktiengesellschaft and the Caucasian oil company Branobel. The family moved back to Germany in 1898 after his contract expired. Sorge attended Oberrealschule Lichterfelde when he was six years old. He described his father as having political views that were unmistakably nationalist and imperialist. He shared these early views as a young man. The household was cosmopolitan and very different from the average bourgeois home in Berlin. Sorge considered Friedrich Adolf Sorge to be his grandfather, but he was actually his great-uncle.
Sorge enlisted in the Imperial German Army in October 1914 shortly after the outbreak of the First World War. At eighteen he was posted to a reserve infantry battalion of the 3rd Guards Division. He served on the Western Front and was wounded at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. After convalescence in Berlin he transferred to the Eastern Front and rose to corporal. He suffered serious wounds again in April 1917 when shrapnel severed three fingers and broke both legs. This injury caused a lifelong limp. He received the Iron Cross Second Class for bravery before being declared medically unfit. During recovery he read Marx Engels and Rudolf Hilferding. He became a communist mainly through the influence of a nurse's father with whom he had developed a relationship. He studied philosophy and economics at universities in Kiel Berlin and Hamburg. He witnessed sailors' mutiny which helped spark the German Revolution. He joined the Independent Social Democratic Party and moved to Berlin.
In May 1933 the GRU decided to have Sorge organize an intelligence network in Japan. He received the codename Ramsay. He first went to Berlin to renew contacts and obtain a new newspaper assignment as cover. In September 1931 the Japanese Kwantung Army had seized Manchuria giving Japan another land border with the Soviet Union. Sorge insinuated himself into the Nazi Party and read Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. He attended so many beer halls that he gave up drinking to avoid saying anything inappropriate. His abstinence did not make his Nazi companions suspicious. It was an example of his devotion to his mission. Later his drinking came to undermine his work. He departed Germany after Joseph Goebbels attended his farewell dinner. He arrived in Yokohama on the 6th of September 1933. As the Japan correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung he became the most senior German reporter in Japan. His reputation as a Nazi journalist who detested the Soviet Union served as excellent cover for espionage.
Sorge formed a network of informants between 1933 and 1934. His agents included Red Army officer Max Clausen and Hotsumi Ozaki from the Asahi Shimbun. Ozaki developed close contact with Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe. Ozaki copied secret documents for Sorge. Sorge lived in a house in a respectable neighborhood in Tokyo. Hanako Ishii moved into his home in summer 1936 to become his common-law wife. She tried to curb his heavy drinking and suicidal motorcycle riding. An American reporter later wrote that he created the impression of being a playboy. Sorge befriended General Eugen Ott and seduced his wife Helma. Helma copied reports from her husband and gave them to Sorge. Ott sent reports back to Berlin containing assessments of the Imperial Japanese Army. In October 1934 Ott and Sorge visited Manchukuo where Sorge wrote the report submitted under Ott's name. This created a close friendship between the two men.
On the 20th of June 1941 Sorge reported that war between Germany and the USSR was inevitable. He stated that German attack would commence in the latter part of June. Moscow received the reports but Stalin ignored them. On the 1st of June Sorge sent a dispatch stating expected start of German-Soviet war around June 15 based on information from Lieutenant-Colonel Erwin Scholl. Sorge himself never claimed to have discovered the correct date of the 22nd of June in advance. He went to a bar to get drunk after learning of Operation Barbarossa. He repeated in English that Hitler was a criminal and murderer. In late June Sorge informed Moscow that Ozaki had learned the Japanese cabinet decided to occupy southern French Indochina. On the 6th of September an imperial conference decided against war with the Soviet Union. Sorge advised the Red Army that Japan would not attack until Moscow was captured or civil war started in Siberia. Stalin ridiculed Sorge and his intelligence before Barbarossa.
Sorge was arrested shortly thereafter on the 18th of October 1941 in Tokyo. The next day a brief Japanese memo notified Ott that Sorge had been swiftly arrested on suspicion of espionage. Ott assumed it was a case of Japanese espionage hysteria. He agreed to investigate fully. It was months later that authorities announced Sorge had been indicted as a Soviet agent. He was incarcerated in Sugamo Prison. Under torture Sorge confessed but the Soviet Union denied he was a Soviet agent. The Japanese made three overtures to trade him for one of their own spies. The Soviet Union declined all attempts. In September 1942 Sorge's wife Katya Maximova was arrested by the NKVD on charges she was a German spy. She died in the Gulag in 1943. Hanako Ishii was the only person who tried to visit Sorge during his time in prison. She expressed concern that he might name her under torture. He promised never to mention her name. He struck a deal with the Kempeitai to spare Ishii and other wives if he revealed everything.
The Soviet Union did not officially acknowledge Sorge until 1964. Initially Sorge's reputation in West Germany in the 1950s was highly negative. He was depicted as a traitor working for the Soviet Union responsible for deaths of hundreds of thousands of Wehrmacht soldiers. The first effort to present him positively occurred in summer 1953 when publisher Rudolf Augstein wrote articles in Der Spiegel. He argued Sorge was a heroic German patriot opposed to the Nazi regime. Hans Hellmut Kirst published a spy novel featuring Sorge as the hero. Hans-Otto Meissner wrote The Sorge Case blending fact and fiction. In 1954 Veit Harlan directed the film Verrat an Deutschland about Sorge's espionage. In November 1964 twenty years after death the Soviet government awarded Sorge the title Hero of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin gave much greater attention to signals intelligence than to Sorge's human intelligence but avoided mentioning codebreakers. Sorge became one of those selected for hero spy status in the 1960s.
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Common questions
When and where was Richard Sorge born?
Richard Gustavovich Sorge was born on the 4th of October 1895 in the settlement of Sabunchi, a suburb of Baku. His father worked as a German mining engineer for the Deutsche Petroleum-Aktiengesellschaft and the Caucasian oil company Branobel.
How did Richard Sorge become involved in espionage during World War II?
In May 1933 the GRU decided to have Richard Sorge organize an intelligence network in Japan under the codename Ramsay. He arrived in Yokohama on the 6th of September 1933 as the Japan correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung to serve as cover for his espionage activities.
What critical information did Richard Sorge provide about Operation Barbarossa?
On the 20th of June 1941 Richard Sorge reported that war between Germany and the USSR was inevitable with a German attack commencing in the latter part of June. He stated that the expected start of the German-Soviet war would be around June 15 based on information from Lieutenant-Colonel Erwin Scholl.
Why did the Soviet Union deny Richard Sorge was their agent after his arrest?
Richard Sorge was arrested on the 18th of October 1941 in Tokyo and confessed under torture but the Soviet Union denied he was a Soviet agent. The Soviet Union declined all attempts by the Japanese to trade him for one of their own spies while his wife Katya Maximova died in the Gulag in 1943.
When was Richard Sorge officially recognized as Hero of the Soviet Union?
The Soviet government awarded Richard Sorge the title Hero of the Soviet Union in November 1964, twenty years after his death. Initially his reputation in West Germany in the 1950s was highly negative before publisher Rudolf Augstein wrote articles presenting him positively in summer 1953.