Kuznetsov Nikolai Ivanovich (July 27, 1911, village of Zyryanka, Ekaterinburg district, Perm province, now Talitsky district, Sverdlovsk region - March 9, 1944, near the city of Brody, Lvov region) - Soviet intelligence officer, partisan
Nikolai was born in peasant family. In 1926, he graduated from a seven-year school and entered the agronomic department of the Tyumen Agricultural College. In 1927, he continued his studies at the Talitsky Forestry College, where he began to independently study German, discovering extraordinary linguistic abilities, and mastered Esperanto, Polish, Komi, and Ukrainian. From 1930 he worked as a forest manager and led a political literacy circle. In 1932 he became a secret agent of state security, studied at the Ural Industrial Institute, continuing to improve his German (one of N. I. Kuznetsov’s German teachers was O. M. Veselkina).
With a short exception, I have spent the last three years abroad, traveling around all the countries of Europe, especially studying Germany.
Kuznetsov Nikolay Ivanovich
In the spring of 1938, Kuznetsov moved to Moscow and joined the NKVD, carrying out assignments in European countries. In 1942 he was sent to the detachment special purpose The “winners”, under the command of Colonel Dmitry Medvedev, showed extraordinary courage and ingenuity.
Kuznetsov, under the name of the German officer Paul Siebert, conducted intelligence activities in the occupied city of Rivne, led a reconnaissance group, constantly communicated with Wehrmacht officers, intelligence services, and senior officials of the occupation authorities, transmitting information to the partisan detachment. Kuznetsov managed to find out about the preparations for the German attack on Kursk Bulge, about the preparation of the assassination attempt on Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill in Tehran.
By order of the command, he liquidated the chief judge of Ukraine Funk, the imperial adviser to the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine Gell and his secretary Winter, the vice-governor of Galicia Bauer, kidnapped the commander of the punitive troops in Ukraine, General Ilgen, and committed sabotage. However, he failed to carry out his main task - the physical destruction of the Reich Commissioner of Ukraine Erich Koch.
On September 30, 1943, Kuznetsov made a second attempt on the life of E. Koch’s permanent deputy and the head of the administration department of the Reichskommissariat, Paul Dargel (during the first attempt on September 20, he mistakenly killed E. Koch’s deputy for finance, Hans Gehl, instead of P. Dargel). As a result of the action, from an anti-tank grenade thrown by Kuznetsov, Dargel received seriously injured and lost both legs. After this, P. Dargel was taken to Berlin by plane.
On March 9, 1944, Kuznetsov’s group was captured by UPA militants, who mistook the Soviet saboteurs for German deserters (they were wearing German uniforms). Fearing failure, Kuznetsov blew himself up with a grenade, and his companions (Belov and Kaminsky) were shot.
However, Ukrainian nationalists claim that Kuznetsov was captured by them and drowned in a well, and the version of Kuznetsov’s self-detonation with a grenade was officially disseminated by the Soviet authorities.
The war for the liberation of our Motherland from fascist evil spirits requires sacrifices. Inevitably we have to shed a lot of our blood so that our beloved homeland blooms and develops and so that our people live freely. To defeat the enemy, our people do not spare the most precious thing - their lives. Casualties are inevitable. I want to tell you frankly that there is very little chance that I will return alive. Almost one hundred percent for the fact that you have to make self-sacrifice. And I completely calmly and consciously go for this, because I deeply understand that I am giving my life for a holy, just cause, for the present and prosperous future of our Motherland.
In the history of world intelligence, few can compare in terms of the degree of damage inflicted on the enemy to the legendary man who was intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov. His biography, without any embellishment, is a ready-made script for a spy picture, next to which Bond looks faded and primitive. However, after the death of the hero, many books and articles appeared in which, as reliable information the authors' conjectures and their personal and not always objective view of who Nikolai Kuznetsov (intelligence officer) was were presented.
Biography: childhood
At the beginning of 1944, Kuznetsov and his group operated in the Lvov district and eliminated several important officials.
Death
Kuznetsov Nikolai Ivanovich is a scout, all the circumstances of whose death have not yet been disclosed. It is known for certain that in the spring of 1944, German patrols in Western Ukraine There were already landmarks with its description. Having learned about this, Kuznetsov decided to go beyond the front line.
Not far from the battle zone in the village of Boratin, Kuznetsov’s group came across a detachment of UPA fighters. Bandera's men recognized the scouts, although they were in German uniform and decided to take them alive. Scout Nikolai Kuznetsov (see photo in the review) refused to surrender and was killed. There is also a version that he blew himself up with a grenade.
After death
On November 5, 1944, for bravery and exceptional courage, N. I. Kuznetsov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union. His grave for a long time remained unknown. It was discovered in 1959 in the Kutyki tract. The remains of the hero were reburied in Lviv, on the Hill of Glory.
Now you know the biography of intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov, who died heroically in the struggle for the liberation of Ukraine from the fascist invaders.
On July 27, 1911, in the Urals, in the village of Zyryanka, the one who was to become the most famous illegal immigrant of the Great Patriotic War was born. NKVD counterintelligence officers called him Colonist, German diplomats in Moscow - Rudolf Schmidt, Wehrmacht and SD officers in occupied Rivne - Paul Siebert, saboteurs and partisans - Grachev. And only a few people in the leadership of the Soviet state security knew his real name - Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov.
This is how the deputy chief describes his first meeting with him Soviet counterintelligence(1941-1951), Lieutenant General Leonid Raikhman, then, in 1938, senior lieutenant of state security, head of the 1st department of the 4th department of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR: “Several days passed, and a telephone trill was heard in my apartment: it was calling “ Colonist". At that time, my guest was an old friend who had just returned from Germany, where he worked from an illegal position. I looked at him expressively, and said into the phone: “Now they will speak to you in German...” My friend talked for several minutes and, covering the microphone with his palm, said in surprise: “He speaks like a native Berliner!” Later I learned that Kuznetsov was fluent in five or six dialects of the German language, in addition, he could speak, if necessary, in Russian with a German accent. I made an appointment with Kuznetsov the next day, and he came to my house. When he first stepped on the threshold, I actually gasped: a real Aryan! I am above average height, slender, thin but strong, blond, straight nose, blue-gray eyes. A real German, but without such signs of aristocratic degeneration. And excellent bearing, like a career military man, and this is a Ural forest worker!”
The village of Zyryanka is located in Sverdlovsk region not far from Talitsa, located on the right bank of the picturesque Pyshma River. Since the 17th century here, on fertile lands Cossacks, Pomor Old Believers, as well as immigrants from Germany settled along the border of the Urals and Siberia. Not far from Zyryanka there was a village called Moranin, inhabited by Germans. According to one of the legends, Nikolai Kuznetsov comes from the family of a German colonist - hence his knowledge of the language, as well as the code name Colonist that he subsequently received. Although I know for sure that this is not so, because these villages - Zyryanka, Balair, the Pioneer state farm, the Kuznetsovsky state farm - are the birthplace of my grandmother. He is buried here in Balair brother my mother Yuri Oprokidnev. As a child, before school, I was constantly here in the summer, fishing with my grandfather in the same pond as little Nika, as Nikolai Kuznetsov was called in childhood. By the way, Boris Yeltsin was born 30 km to the south, and I will not deny that at first our family felt warm feelings for our fellow countryman.
Nika's mother Anna Bazhenova came from a family of Old Believers. His father served for seven years in a grenadier regiment in Moscow. The design of their house also speaks in favor of Old Believer origin. Although only sketches of the building have been preserved, they show that there are no windows on the wall that faces the street. And this is a distinctive feature of the hut of the “schismatics”. Therefore, it is most likely that Nika’s father, Ivan Kuznetsov, is also an Old Believers, and a Pomors at that.
Here is what Academician Dmitry Likhachev wrote about the Pomors: “They amazed me with their intelligence, special folk culture, culture vernacular, special handwriting literacy (Old Believers), etiquette for receiving guests, food etiquette, work culture, delicacy, etc., etc. I can’t find words to describe my admiration for them. It turned out worse for the peasants of the former Oryol and Tula provinces: they were downtrodden and illiterate due to serfdom and poverty. And the Pomors had a sense of self-esteem.”
The materials of 1863 note the strong physique of the Pomors, stately and pleasant appearance, BROWN hair, and firm gait. They are free in their movements, dexterous, quick-witted, fearless, neat and dapper. In the collection for reading in the family and school “Russia”, the Pomors appear as real Russian people, tall, broad-shouldered, of iron health, undaunted, accustomed to BARELY LOOKING DEATH IN THE FACE.
In 1922-1924, Nika studied at a five-year school in the village of Balair, two kilometers from Zyryanka. In any weather - in the autumn thaw, in rain and slush, blizzard and cold - he walked for knowledge, always collected, smart, good-natured, inquisitive. In the fall of 1924, Nika’s father took her to Talitsa, where in those years there was the only seven-year school in the area. There his phenomenal linguistic abilities were revealed. Nika learned German very quickly and this made him stand out among other students. German was taught by Nina Avtokratova, who was educated in Switzerland. Having learned that the labor teacher was a former German prisoner of war, Nikolai did not miss the opportunity to talk with him, practice the language, and feel the melody of the Lower Prussian dialect. However, this seemed to him not enough. More than once he found an excuse to visit the pharmacy to talk with another “German” - an Austrian pharmacist named Krause - this time in the Bavarian dialect.
In 1926, Nikolai entered the agronomic department of the Tyumen Agricultural College, located in beautiful building, in which until 1919 the Alexander Real School was located. My great-grandfather Prokopiy Oprokidnev studied there together with the future People's Commissar foreign trade USSR Leonid Krasin. Both of them graduated from college with gold medals, and their names were on the honor board. During the Great Patriotic War, on the second floor of this building in room 15 there was the body of Vladimir Lenin, evacuated from Moscow.
A year later, due to the death of his father, Nikolai transferred closer to home - to the Talitsky Forestry College. Shortly before his graduation, he was expelled on suspicion of kulak origin. After working as a forest manager in Kudymkar (Komi-Permyak National District) and taking part in collectivization, Nikolai, who by this time already spoke the Komi-Permyak language fluently, came to the attention of the security officers. In 1932 he moved to Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg), entered the extramural Ural Industrial Institute (by presenting a certificate of graduation from the technical school) and at the same time works at the Uralmashplant, participating in the operational development of foreign specialists under the code name Colonist.
At the institute, Nikolai Ivanovich continues to improve in German: now his teacher was Olga Vesyolkina, a former maid of honor of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, a relative of Mikhail Lermontov and Pyotr Stolypin.
A former librarian at the institute said that Kuznetsov constantly took technical literature on mechanical engineering, mainly on foreign languages. And then she accidentally got to defend her thesis, which was held in German! True, she was quickly removed from the audience, as were subsequently all documents indicating Kuznetsov’s studies at the institute.
Methodologist local history work Talitskaya district library Tatyana Klimova provides evidence that in Sverdlovsk “Nikolai Ivanovich occupied a separate room in the so-called house of security officers at the address: Lenin Avenue, building 52. Only people from the authorities live there now.” It was here that the meeting that determined him took place. future fate. In January 1938, he met Mikhail Zhuravlev, appointed to the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and began working as his assistant. A few months later, Zhuravlev recommended Colonist to Leonid Raikhman. We have already described Reichman’s first meeting with Colonist above.
“We, counterintelligence officers,” continues Leonid Fedorovich, “from an ordinary operative worker to the head of our department, Pyotr Vasilyevich Fedotov, dealt with real, and not fictitious, German spies and, as professionals, understood perfectly well that they worked in the Soviet Union as against a real enemy in a future and already imminent war. Therefore, we urgently needed people who could actively resist German agents, primarily in Moscow.”
Moscow Aviation Plant No. 22 named after Gorbunov, from which now only the Gorbushka club in Fili remains, traces its lineage back to 1923. It all started with those lost in forest area unfinished buildings of the Russian-Baltic Carriage Works. In 1923, they were granted a 30-year concession by the German company Junkers, which was the only one in the world to master the technology of all-metal aircraft. Until 1925, the plant produced the first Ju.20 (50 aircraft) and Ju.21 (100 aircraft). However, on March 1, 1927, the concession agreement on the part of the USSR was terminated. In 1933, plant No. 22 was named after plant director Sergei Gorbunov, who died in a plane crash. According to the legend developed for the Colonist, he becomes a test engineer at this plant, having received a passport in the name of the ethnic German Rudolf Schmidt.
The building of the Tyumen Agricultural Academy, where Nikolai Kuznetsov studied
“My comrade Viktor Nikolaevich Ilyin, a prominent counterintelligence worker,” recalls Raikhman, “was also very pleased with him. Thanks to Ilyin, Kuznetsov quickly acquired connections in the theater, in particular, ballet, Moscow. This was important because many diplomats, including established German intelligence officers, were quite drawn to actresses, especially ballerinas. At one time, the issue of appointing Kuznetsov as one of the administrators... of the Bolshoi Theater was even seriously discussed.”
Rudolf Schmidt actively gets acquainted with foreign diplomats, attends social events, and meets friends and lovers of diplomats. With his participation, in the apartment of the German naval attaché, frigate captain Norbert Wilhelm von Baumbach, a safe was opened and secret documents were copied. Schmidt takes a direct part in intercepting diplomatic mail and is part of the entourage of the German military attache in Moscow Ernst Köstring, having wiretapped his apartment.
However finest hour Nikolai Kuznetsov struck with the beginning of the war. With such knowledge of the German language - and by that time he had also mastered Ukrainian and Polish - and his Aryan appearance, he becomes a super agent. In the winter of 1941, he was placed in a camp for German prisoners of war in Krasnogorsk, where he learned the rules, life and morals German army. In the summer of 1942, under the name of Nikolai Grachev, he was sent to the special forces detachment “Winners” from the OMSBON - special forces of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR, whose chief was Pavel Sudoplatov.
With employees of the design department of Uralmash. Sverdlovsk, 1930s
On August 24, 1942, late in the evening, a twin-engine Li-2 took off from an airfield near Moscow and headed for Western Ukraine. And on September 18, along Deutsche Strasse - the main street of occupied Rivne, turned by the Germans into the capital of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, an infantry lieutenant with the Iron Cross 1st class and the “Golden Insignia for Wounds” on his chest, with a ribbon, walked leisurely at a measured pace Iron Cross 2nd class, pulled through the second loop of the order, wearing a cap jauntily tilted to one side. On ring finger On his left hand, a gold ring with a monogram on the signet gleamed. He greeted senior ranks clearly, but with dignity, slightly casually saluting in response to the soldiers. Self-confident, calm owner of the occupied Ukrainian city, the very living personification of the hitherto victorious Wehrmacht, Oberleutnant Paul Wilhelm Siebert. He's Pooh. He is Nikolai Vasilyevich Grachev. He is also Rudolf Wilhelmovich Schmidt. He is also the Colonist - this is how Theodor Gladkov describes the first appearance of Nikolai Kuznetsov in Rivne.
Paul Siebert received the assignment under the slightest possibility eliminate Gauleiter East Prussia and Reich Commissioner for Ukraine Erich Koch. He meets his adjutant and in the summer of 1943, through him, he seeks an audience with Koch. There is a good reason - Siebert's fiancée Volksdeutsche Fraulein Dovger is facing being sent to work in Germany. After the war, Valentina Dovger recalled that, preparing for the visit, Nikolai Ivanovich was absolutely calm. In the morning I got ready, as always, methodically and carefully. He put the pistol in his jacket pocket. However, during the audience, his every movement was controlled by guards and dogs, and it was useless to shoot. It turned out that Siebert was from East Prussia and was Koch’s fellow countryman. He so endeared himself to a high-ranking Nazi, a personal friend of the Fuhrer, that he told him about the upcoming summer of 1943 German offensive near Kursk. The information immediately went to the Center.
The very fact of this conversation is so amazing that there are many myths around it. It is alleged, for example, that Koch was an agent of influence of Joseph Stalin, and this meeting was pre-arranged. Then it turns out that Kuznetsov did not at all need an amazing command of German in order to gain the confidence of the Gauleiter. This is confirmed by the fact that Stalin reacted rather leniently to Koch, handed over to him by the British in 1949, and gave him to Poland, where he lived to be 90 years old. Although in fact Stalin has nothing to do with it. It’s just that the Poles, after Stalin’s death, made a deal with Koch, since he alone knew the location of the Amber Room, since he was responsible for its evacuation from Königsberg in 1944. Now this room is most likely somewhere in the States, because the Poles need to pay something back to their new owners.
Stalin, rather, owes his life to Kuznetsov. It was Kuznetsov who, in the fall of 1943, conveyed the first information about the impending assassination attempt on Joseph Stalin, Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill (Operation Long Jump) during the Tehran Conference. He was in touch with Maya Mikota, who, on instructions from the Center, became a Gestapo agent (pseudonym “17”) and introduced Kuznetsov to Ulrich von Ortel, who at the age of 28 was an SS Sturmbannführer and representative foreign intelligence SD in Rivne. In one of the conversations, von Ortel said that he was given the great honor of participating in “a grandiose business that will shake up the whole world,” and promised to bring Maya a Persian carpet... On the evening of November 20, 1943, Maya informed Kuznetsov that von Ortel committed suicide in his office on Deutschestrasse. Although in the book “Tehran, 1943. At the Big Three conference and on the sidelines,” Stalin’s personal translator Valentin Berezhkov indicates that von Ortel was present in Tehran as Otto Skorzeny’s deputy. However, as a result of the timely actions of Gevork Vartanyan’s “Light Cavalry” group, it was possible to eliminate the Tehran Abwehr station, after which the Germans did not dare to send the main group led by Skorzeny to certain failure. So no " Long jump" Did not work out.
In the autumn of 1943, several assassination attempts were organized on the life of Paul Dargel, Erich Koch's permanent deputy. On September 20, Kuznetsov mistakenly killed Erich Koch's deputy for finance, Hans Gehl, and his secretary Winter, instead of Dargel. On September 30, he tried to kill Dargel with an anti-tank grenade. Dargel was seriously injured and lost both legs. After this, it was decided to organize the kidnapping of the commander of the “eastern battalions” (punitive) formation, Major General Max von Ilgen. Ilgen was captured along with Paul Granau, Erich Koch’s driver, and shot at one of the farms near Rovno. On November 16, 1943, Kuznetsov shot and killed the head of the legal department of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, SA Oberführer Alfred Funk. In Lvov in January 1944, Nikolai Kuznetsov destroyed the chief of the government of Galicia, Otto Bauer, and the head of the government chancellery of the General Government, Dr. Heinrich Schneider.
On March 9, 1944, making their way to the front line, Kuznetsov’s group came across Ukrainian nationalists UPA. During the ensuing shootout, his comrades Kaminsky and Belov were killed, and Nikolai Kuznetsov blew himself up with a grenade. After the Germans fled in Lvov, a telegram with the following content was discovered, sent on April 2, 1944 to Berlin:
Top secret
National importance
TELEGRAM-LIGHTNING
To the Main Office of Reich Security to present the "SS" to Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of Police Heinrich Müller
At the next meeting on April 1, 1944, the Ukrainian delegate reported that one of the units of the UPA “Chernogora” on March 2, 1944 detained three Soviet-Russian spies in the forest near Belogorodka in the Verba region (Volyn). According to the documents of these three detained agents, we're talking about about a group reporting directly to the GB NKVD. The UPA verified the identities of the three arrested as follows:
1. Group leader Paul Siebert, nicknamed Pooh, had false documents as a senior lieutenant German army, was allegedly born in Königsberg, his photo card was on the ID. He was dressed in the uniform of a German senior lieutenant.
2. Pole Jan Kaminsky.
Z. Strelok Ivan Vlasovets, nicknamed Belov, Pooh's driver.
All the arrested Soviet-Russian agents had false German documents, a rich auxiliary material- maps, German and Polish newspapers, among them “Gazeta Lvovska” and a report on their intelligence activities on the territory of the Soviet-Russian front. Judging by this report, compiled personally by Pooh, he and his accomplices committed Act of terrorism. After completing the assignment in Rovno, Pooh headed to Lvov and got an apartment from a Pole. Then Pooh managed to sneak into the meeting where there was a meeting senior representatives authorities in Galicia under the leadership of the governor Dr. Wächter.
Pooh intended to shoot Governor Dr. Waechter under these circumstances. But due to the strict precautionary measures of the Gestapo, this plan failed, and instead of the governor, the lieutenant governor, Dr. Bauer, and the latter’s secretary, Dr. Schneider, were killed. Both of these are German statesman were shot near their private apartment. After the committed act, Pooh and his accomplices fled to the Zolochev area. During this period of time, Pooh had a clash with the Gestapo when the latter tried to check his car. On this occasion, he also shot and killed a senior Gestapo official. Available detailed description what happened. During another control of his car, Pooh shot one German officer and his adjutant, and after that he abandoned the car and was forced to flee into the forest. In the forests, he had to fight with UPA units in order to get to Rovno and further on the other side of the Soviet-Russian front with the intention of personally handing over his reports to one of the leaders of the Soviet-Russian army, who would send them further to the Center, to Moscow. As for the Soviet-Russian agent Pooh and his accomplices detained by the UPA units, we are undoubtedly talking about the Soviet-Russian terrorist Paul Siebert, who in Rovno kidnapped, among others, General Ilgen, in the Galician district shot aviation lieutenant colonel Peters, one senior aviation corporal, vice - the governor, the head of the department, Dr. Bauer and the presidial chief, Dr. Schneider, as well as the field gendarmerie major Kanter, whom we carefully searched for. By morning, a message was received from Prützmann’s combat group that Paul Siebert and his two accomplices had been found shot in Volhynia. The OUN representative promised that all materials in copies or even originals would be handed over to the security police if, in return, the security police agreed to release Ms. Lebed with the child and her relatives. It should be expected that if the promise of release is fulfilled, the OUN-Bandera group will send me much more large quantity informational material.
Signed: Head of the Security Police and SD for the Galician District, Dr. Vitiska, “SS” Obersturmbannführer and Senior Directorate Advisor
Meeting of the Colonist with the secretary of the Slovak Embassy G.-L. Krno, a German intelligence agent. 1940 Operational photography with a hidden camera
In addition to the “Winners” detachment, commanded by Dmitry Medvedev and in which Nikolai Kuznetsov was based, Viktor Karasev’s “Olympus” detachment operated in the Rivne region and Volyn, whose intelligence assistant was the legendary “Major Vikhr” - Alexey Botyan, who turned 100 this year years. I recently asked Alexey Nikolaevich if he had met Nikolai Kuznetsov and what he knew about his death.
— Alexey Nikolaevich, together with you in the Rivne region, Dmitry Medvedev’s “Winners” detachment operated, and among its members, under the guise of a German officer, was the legendary intelligence officer Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov. Have you ever met him?
- Yes, I had to. This was at the end of 1943, about 30 km west of Rivne. The Germans found out the location of Medvedev’s detachment and prepared against it punitive operation. We found out about this, and Karasev decided to help Medvedev. We arrived there and settled down 5-6 km from Medvedev. And it was our custom: as soon as we change place, we definitely arrange a bathhouse. We had a special guy for this case. Because people are dirty - there is nowhere to wash their clothes. Sometimes they took it off and kept it over the fire so as not to get lice. I've never had lice. Well, that means we invited Medvedev to the bathhouse, and Kuznetsov just came to him from the city. He arrived in a German uniform, they met him somewhere and changed his clothes so that no one in the detachment knew about him. We invited them to the bathhouse together. Then they organized a table, I got local moonshine. They asked Kuznetsov questions, especially me. He had an impeccable command of the German language, had German documents in the name of Paul Siebert, intendant German units. Outwardly, he looked like a German - so blond. He entered any German institution and reported that he was carrying out a task German command. So he had very good cover. I also thought: “I wish I could do that!” Bandera's men killed him. Evgeniy Ivanovich Mirkovsky, also a Hero of the Soviet Union, an intelligent and honest man, also operated in the same places. We later became friends in Moscow, I often visited his house on Frunzenskaya. His reconnaissance and sabotage group “Walkers” in June 1943 in Zhitomir blew up the buildings of the central telegraph, printing house and Gebietskommissariat. The Gebietskommissar himself was seriously wounded, and his deputy was killed. So Mirkovsky blamed Medvedev himself for the death of Kuznetsov because he did not give him good security - there were only three of them, they fell into a Bandera ambush and died. Mirkovsky told me: “All the blame for Kuznetsov’s death lies with Medvedev.” But Kuznetsov had to be taken care of - no one else did it.
— In Ukraine they sometimes say that Kuznetsov is a legend, a product of propaganda...
- What a legend - I saw it myself. We were in the bathhouse together!
— During the war, you met with the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD — legendary Paul Anatolyevich Sudoplatov?
— The first time in 1942. He arrived at the station, said goodbye to us, and gave instructions. He told Karasev: “Take care of people!” And I stood nearby. Then, in 1944, Sudoplatov handed me the officer's shoulder straps of a senior lieutenant of state security. Well, we met after the war. And with him, and with Eitingon, who made me a Czech. It was Khrushchev who later imprisoned them, the scoundrel. Which smart people were! How much they did for the country - after all, all the partisan detachments were under them. Both Beria and Stalin - whatever you say, they mobilized the country, defended it, did not allow it to be destroyed, and there were so many enemies: both inside and outside.
By Decree of the Presidium Supreme Council On November 5, 1944, the USSR posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for exceptional courage and bravery in carrying out the tasks of the command. The submission was signed by the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKGB of the USSR Pavel Sudoplatov.
Kuznetsov Nikolai Ivanovich was born on July 14, 1911 in the village of Zyryanka, Perm province (today it is the Sverdlovsk region). Parents of the future legendary scout were simple peasants. In addition to Nikolai (at birth the boy received the name Nikanor), they had five more children.
After finishing seven grades of school, young Nikolai entered the agricultural technical school in Tyumen, the agronomic department. After a short time, he decided to continue his studies at the Talitsky Forestry College, where he seriously began to study the German language, although he knew it quite well up to that point. The future intelligence officer showed phenomenal language abilities as a child. Among his acquaintances was an old forester - a German, former soldier Austro-Hungarian army, from whom the guy learned his first lessons. A little later I became interested in Esperanto, into which I independently translated Lermontov’s Borodino. While studying at a forestry technical school, Nikolai Kuznetsov discovered the “Encyclopedia of Forestry Science” in German there and translated it into Russian for the first time.
Further in his successful linguistic practice were Polish, Komi-Permyak and Ukrainian languages, mastered quickly and easily. Nikolai knew German perfectly, and could speak it in six dialects. In 1930, Nikolai Kuznetsov managed to get a job as an assistant tax collector at the Komi-Permyak district land administration in Kudymkar. Here Nikolai Kuznetsov received his first criminal record - a year of correctional labor with a deduction from wages as collective responsibility for the theft of state property. Moreover, the future secret agent himself, having noticed criminal activity colleagues, reported this to the police.
After his release, Kuznetsov worked in the Red Hammer promartel, where he participated in the forced collectivization of peasants, for which he was repeatedly attacked by them. According to one version, it is competent behavior in critical situations, as well as his impeccable knowledge of the Komi-Permyak language attracted the attention of the state security authorities, who involved Kuznetsov in the actions of the OGPU district to eliminate bandit forest formations. Since the spring of 1938, Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov was part of the apparatus of the People's Commissar of the NKVD of the Komi ASSR M. Zhuravlev as an assistant. It was Zhuravlev who later called the head of the counterintelligence department of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR L. Raikhman to Moscow and recommended Nikolai to him as a particularly gifted employee. Despite the fact that his personal data was not the most brilliant for such activities, the head of the secret political department P.V. Fedotov took Nikolai Kuznetsov to the position of a highly classified special agent under his responsibility, and he was not mistaken.
The scout was given a "fake" soviet passport addressed to Rudolf Wilhelmovich Schmidt and given the task of introducing him into the diplomatic environment of the capital. Kuznetsov actively made the necessary contacts with foreign diplomats, went to social events and obtained information necessary for the state apparatus of the Soviet Union. The main goal The intelligence officer was to recruit a foreign person as an agent willing to work in favor of the USSR. For example, it was he who recruited the adviser diplomatic mission in the capital of Geiza-Ladislav Krno. Special attention Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov devoted his time to working with German agents. To do this, he was assigned to work as a test engineer at the Moscow Aviation Plant No. 22, where many specialists from Germany worked. Among them there were also persons recruited against the USSR. The intelligence officer also took part in intercepting valuable information and diplomatic mail.
Scout Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov.
Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Nikolai Kuznetsov was enrolled in the fourth directorate of the NKVD, main task which was the organization of reconnaissance and sabotage activities behind enemy lines. After numerous trainings and studying the morals and life of the Germans in a prisoner of war camp, under the name of Paul Wilhelm Siebert, Nikolai Kuznetsov was sent behind enemy lines along the line of terror. At first, the special agent conducted his secret activities in the Ukrainian city of Rivne, where the Reich Commissariat of Ukraine was located. Kuznetsov communicated closely with enemy intelligence officers and the Wehrmacht, as well as local officials. All information obtained was transferred to the partisan detachment.
One of the remarkable exploits of the USSR secret agent was the capture of the Reichskommissariat courier Major Hahan, who was transporting in his briefcase secret card. After interrogating Gahan and studying the map, it turned out that a bunker for Hitler was built eight kilometers from the Ukrainian Vinnitsa. In November 1943, Kuznetsov managed to organize the kidnapping of German Major General M. Ilgen, who was sent to Rivne to destroy partisan formations.
The last operation of intelligence officer Siebert in this post was the liquidation in November 1943 of the head of the legal department of the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine, Oberführer Alfred Funk. After interrogating Funk, the brilliant intelligence officer managed to obtain information about the preparations for the assassination of the heads of the “Big Three” of the Tehran Conference, as well as information about the enemy’s offensive on the Kursk Bulge. In January 1944, Kuznetsov was ordered to join the retreating fascist troops go to Lvov to continue his sabotage activities. Scouts Jan Kaminsky and Ivan Belov were sent to help Agent Siebert. Under the leadership of Nikolai Kuznetsov, several occupiers were destroyed in Lviv, for example, the head of the government chancellery Heinrich Schneider and Otto Bauer.
By the spring of 1944, the Germans already had an idea about the Soviet intelligence officer sent into their midst. Referrals to Kuznetsov were sent to all German patrols in Western Ukraine. As a result, he and his two comrades decided to fight their way to the partisan detachments or go beyond the front line. On March 9, 1944, close to the front line, the scouts encountered Ukrainian fighters rebel army. During the ensuing shootout in the village. Boratin all three were killed. The supposed burial place of Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov was found in September 1959 in the Kutyki tract. His remains were reburied on the Hill of Glory in Lviv, July 27, 1960.
After the publication of Dmitry Medvedev’s books “It Was Near Rovno” and “ Strong-willed", the whole country learned about Nikolai Kuznetsov. These books were autobiographical in nature. As you know, in 1942, NKVD Colonel Dmitry Medvedev commanded a partisan detachment in Western Ukraine, to which Kuznetsov was assigned, and could tell a lot of interesting things about him. Later, about one and a half dozen works by various authors of documentary and artistic character, which discussed the life and exploits of the legendary intelligence officer. To date, about a dozen films about Kuznetsov have been made, including those based on these books. The most famous of them is “The Exploit of a Scout,” 1947, by Boris Barnet. Also in Soviet time, V different cities throughout the country, several monuments dedicated to Kuznetsov were erected and many museums were opened. In the post-Soviet era, the monument to Kuznetsov in the city of Rivne was moved from the city center to a military cemetery. And the monument in Lvov was dismantled in 1992 and, with the assistance of KGB General Nikolai Strutinsky, who personally knew Kuznetsov, was moved to the city of Talitsa, Sverdlovsk region, where Kuznetsov once studied at a forestry technical school. Of all the existing monuments to him, the most remarkable is located in Yekaterinburg. Funds for its construction were raised by employees of the Uralmashplant, where the future intelligence officer worked before the war. The twelve-meter bronze monument was inaugurated on May 7, 1985, opposite the factory cultural center. Kuznetsov’s face is covered on one side by a collar, which emphasizes the intelligence officer’s incognito, and behind his back a cape flutters like a banner, as a symbol of loyalty to the Motherland.
Andrey Lubensky, RIA Novosti Ukraine
The life and death of intelligence officer Kuznetsov: liquidation specialistA columnist for MIA Rossiya Segodnya traveled through Western Ukraine, trying to understand whether the legendary intelligence officer from the times of the Great Patriotic War was remembered here. Patriotic Nicholas Kuznetsov, who died in these parts. The first part of the essay.Wednesday, July 27, marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov. We have already written about him, about his exploits and about what is happening in Ukraine with the memory of him and his monuments. Kuznetsov’s name is included in the list for “decommunization”: in accordance with the laws of Ukraine adopted on April 9, 2015, both monuments and the memory of Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Kuznetsov must be erased from the history of Ukraine.
But the circumstances of his life and death are full of mysteries. As well as the post-war history of the search for the truth about him.
Not shot, but blown up
Visiting the places where Nikolai Kuznetsov fought, died and was buried, we were amazed at how bizarre the fate of the intelligence officer was during his life and what happened to the history of his exploits after his death.
One of the mysteries is the place and circumstances of Kuznetsov’s death. Immediately after the war, there was a version according to which a group of scouts, together with Kuznetsov, were captured alive and then shot by militants of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in a forest near the village of Belgorodki, Rivne region. Only 14 years after the war it became known that the group died in the village of Boratin, Lviv region.
The version about the execution of Kuznetsov by UPA militants was spread after the war by the commander partisan detachment“Winners”, Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitry Medvedev, who was based on a telegram discovered after the war in German archives, sent by the head of the security police for the Galician district, Vitiska, personally to SS Gruppenführer Müller. But the telegram was based on false information, which was given to the Germans by UPA militants.
UPA units operating in front line, collaborated closely with the German occupation forces, but to ensure greater loyalty of the “Banderaites,” the occupation administration held relatives hostage field commanders and UPA leaders. In March 1944, these hostages were close relatives of one of the leaders of the UPA, Lebed.
After the death of Kuznetsov and a group of scouts, the UPA fighters started a game with the German administration, inviting them to exchange the supposedly living intelligence officer Kuznetsov-Siebert for Lebed’s relatives. While the Germans were thinking, UPA fighters allegedly shot him, and in return they offered him genuine documents and, most importantly, Kuznetsov’s report on the sabotage he carried out in the German rear in Western Ukraine. That's what we agreed on.
The UPA militants, apparently, were afraid to indicate the true place of death of the intelligence officer and his group, since during a German check it would have immediately become clear that this was not the capture of the intelligence officer who was being searched throughout Western Ukraine, but the self-detonation of Kuznetsov.
What is important here is not so much the location as the circumstances of the scout’s death. He was not shot because he did not surrender to the UPA militants, but blew himself up with a grenade.
And after the war, his friend and colleague NKVD-KGB Colonel Nikolai Strutinsky investigated the circumstances of Kuznetsov’s death.
Five minutes of anger and a lifetime
One of us had the opportunity to meet Nikolai Strutinsky (April 1, 1920 - July 11, 2003) and interview him several times during his lifetime in 2001 in Cherkassy, where he then lived.
After the war, Strutinsky spent a long time figuring out the circumstances of Kuznetsov’s death, and later, during the time of Ukrainian independence, he did everything to preserve the monuments to Kuznetsov and his memory.
We think that Strutinsky’s attachment to this particular, last period of Kuznetsov’s life is not accidental. Nikolai Strutinsky was at one time a member of Kuznetsov’s group and participated with him in some operations. Shortly before the death of the scout and his group, Kuznetsov and Strutinsky quarreled.
This is what Strutinsky himself said about this.
“Once, at the beginning of 1944, we were driving along Rovno,” says Nikolai Vladimirovich. “I was driving, Nikolai Kuznetsov was sitting next to me, and intelligence officer Yan Kaminsky was behind me. Not far from Vacek Burim’s safe house, Kuznetsov asked to stop. He said: “I’m coming now.” ". He left, returned after a while, extremely upset about something. Ian asked: “Where have you been, Nikolai Vasilyevich?” (Kuznetsov was known in the detachment under the name “Nikolai Vasilyevich Grachev” - ed.). Kuznetsov replies: “Yes, so ..." And Jan says: "I know: Vacek Burim has it." Then Kuznetsov comes to me: "Why did you tell him?" Turnout is the same secret information. But I didn’t say anything to Ian. And Kuznetsov lost his temper and said a lot of insulting things to me. Our nerves were at their limit then, I couldn’t stand it, I got out of the car, slammed the door - the glass broke, and fragments started falling out of it. He turned around and walked away. I'm walking down the street, I have two pistols - in a holster and in my pocket. I think to myself: it’s stupid, I should have restrained myself, because I know that everyone is on edge. Sometimes at the very sight German officers I had a desire to shoot everyone and then shoot myself. This was the situation. I'm coming. I hear someone catching up. I don't turn around. And Kuznetsov caught up and touched him on the shoulder: “Kolya, Kolya, sorry, nerves.”
I silently turned and walked towards the car. We sat down and let's go. But I told him then: we don’t work together anymore. And when Nikolai Kuznetsov left for Lvov, I didn’t go with him.”
This quarrel may have saved Strutinsky from death (after all, the entire Kuznetsov group died a few weeks later. But it seems to have left a deep mark on the soul of Nikolai Strutinsky.
The protocol truth about the death of intelligence officer Kuznetsov
Immediately after the war, Strutinsky worked in the Lvov regional department of the KGB. And this allowed him to reconstruct the picture of the death of intelligence officer Kuznetsov.
Kuznetsov went to the front line with Jan Kaminsky and Ivan Belov. However, according to witness Stepan Golubovich, only two came to Boratin.
"... at the end of February or at the beginning of March 1944, in the house there were, in addition to me and my wife, my mother - Golubovich Mokrina Adamovna (died in 1950), son Dmitry, 14 years old, and daughter 5 years old (later died). In the house the light was not on.
On the night of the same date, at about 12 o'clock at night, when my wife and I were still awake, a dog barked. The wife got up from the bed and went out into the yard. Returning to the house, she reported that people were coming from the forest towards the house.
After that, she began to watch through the window, and then told me that the Germans were approaching the door. Unknown people approached the house and began knocking. First through the door, then out the window. The wife asked what to do. I agreed to open the doors for them.
When unknown people in German uniforms entered the house, the wife turned on the light. Mother got up and sat down in the corner near the stove, and unknown people came up to me and asked if there were any Bolsheviks or UPA members in the village? One of them asked in German. I replied that there were neither one nor the other. Then they asked to close the windows.
After that they asked for food. The wife gave them bread and lard and, it seems, milk. I then noticed how two Germans could walk through the forest at night if they were afraid to go through it during the day...
One of them was above average height, aged 30-35 years, white face, light brown hair, one might say somewhat reddish, shaves his beard, and had a narrow mustache.
His appearance was typical of a German. I don’t remember any other signs. He did most of the talking to me.
The second was shorter than him, somewhat thin in build, blackish face, black hair, shaving his mustache and beard.
... After sitting down at the table and taking off their caps, the unknown men began to eat, keeping the machine guns with them. About half an hour later (and the dog was barking all the time), when unknown people came to me, an armed UPA member entered the room with a rifle and distinctive sign on the “Trident” hat, whose nickname, as I learned later, was Makhno.
Makhno, without greeting me, immediately went up to the table and shook hands with the strangers, without saying a word to them. They were also silent. Then he came up to me, sat down on the bed and asked me what kind of people they were. I answered that I didn’t know, and after about five minutes other UPA members began to enter the apartment; about eight of them entered, and maybe more.
One of the UPA participants gave the command to civilians, that is, to us, the owners, to leave the house, but the second one shouted: no need, and no one was allowed out of the house. Then again one of the UPA participants gave the command in German to the unknown people “Hands up!”
Unknown tall rose from the table and, holding a machine gun in his left hand, waved his right hand in front of his face and, as I remember, told them not to shoot.
The weapons of the UPA participants were aimed at unknown people, one of whom continued to sit at the table. "Hands up!" The command was given three times, but the unknown hands were never raised.
The tall German continued the conversation: as I understood, he asked if it was the Ukrainian police. Some of them answered that they were the UPA, and the Germans replied that this was not according to the law...
... I saw that the UPA participants lowered their weapons, one of them approached the Germans and offered to give up their machine guns, and then the tall German gave it up, and after him gave up the second one. Tobacco began to crumble on the table, UPA members and unknown people began to smoke. Thirty minutes had already passed since the unknown people met with the UPA participants. Moreover, the tall unknown man was the first to ask for a cigarette.
... A tall unknown man, rolling up a cigarette, began to light a cigarette from the lamp and put it out, but in the corner near the stove a second lamp was burning faintly. I asked my wife to bring the lamp to the table.
At this time, I noticed that the tall unknown man became noticeably nervous, which was noticed by the UPA members, who began to ask him what was going on... The unknown man, as I understood it, was looking for a lighter.
But then I saw that all the UPA participants rushed away from the unknown towards the exit doors, but since they opened into the room, they did not open it in a hurry, and then I heard a strong explosion of a grenade and even saw a sheaf of flame from it. The second unknown person lay down on the floor under the bed before the grenade exploded.
After the explosion, I took my young daughter and stood near the stove; my wife jumped out of the hut along with the UPA members, who broke the door, removing it from its hinges.
The unknown man of short stature asked something to the second man, who was lying wounded on the floor. He replied that “I don’t know,” after which a short unknown man, knocking out a window frame, jumped out of the window of the house with a briefcase.
The grenade explosion injured my wife lightly in the leg and my mother lightly in the head.
Regarding the unknown short man running through the window, I heard heavy rifle fire for about five minutes in the direction where he was running. I don’t know what his fate is.
After that, I ran away with the child to my neighbor, and in the morning, when I returned home, I saw unknown dead in the yard near the fence, lying face down in his underwear."
As it was established during interrogations of other witnesses, Kuznetsova’s hand was torn off during the explosion of her own grenade right hand and “serious wounds were inflicted on the frontal part of the head, chest and abdomen, which is why he soon died.”
Thus, the place, time (March 9, 1944) and circumstances of the death of Nikolai Kuznetsov were established.
Later, having organized the exhumation of the intelligence officer’s body, Strutinsky proved that it was Kuznetsov who died in Boratin that night.
But proving this turned out to be difficult due to other circumstances. Strutinsky, who took risks while searching for the place where the scout died, had to take risks again, proving that the remains he found near this place really belonged to Kuznetsov.
However, this is another, no less exciting story.