Agent Sonya
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Klaus Fuchs: internment card for the German-born physicist, who would become Ursula’s spy inside the atomic weapons program.
Ursula dressed in her best suit before heading to London to meet her Soviet handler Nikolai Vladimirovitch Aptekar, alias “Sergei.”
Erich Henschke, alias “Karl Kastro,” the “cutout” between Ursula and her spies recruited by the OSS, America’s military intelligence service.
Lieutenant Joe Gould, the American film publicist turned intelligence officer, who ran the Tool missions.
The “Joan-Eleanor system”: a revolutionary new technology that enabled American intelligence to make direct radio contact from the air with spies inside Nazi Germany.
The Hammer spies Toni Ruh and Paul Lindner, who parachuted into Berlin on March 2, 1945.
The railway bridge over the road west of Great Rollright. The dead-drop site was in the hollow root of the fourth tree on the left after the crossroads beyond the bridge.
The Firs, Great Rollright. “Our first real home,” wrote Ursula.
Ursula with her children in the garden of The Firs.
Milicent Bagot, MI5’s veteran communist hunter.
William “Jim” Skardon, the legendary interrogator.
Roger Hollis, who joined MI5 in 1937 and rose to become its director general in 1956.
Melita Norwood, “Hola,” the longest-serving Soviet spy on British soil.
Ursula with officers of the East German Ministry of State Security, beneath a portrait of Erich Honecker, the country’s hard-line communist leader.
Russian and Chinese stamps commemorating three of the most important communist spies: Kim Philby, Agnes Smedley, and Richard Sorge.
URSULA KUCZYNSKI WROTE EXTENSIVELY ABOUT her life, in both fiction and nonfiction. Her memoir, Sonjas Rapport, was published in German in 1977, with an English-language version in 1991 (Sonya’s Report) and a fuller edition in German in 2006. The original unexpurgated manuscript, complete with cuts and comments made by the Stasi censor (and her acerbic handwritten responses), is in the Stasi archives in Berlin. In addition, as Ruth Werner, she wrote thirteen works of fiction (see bibliography for a selection), three of which are essentially autobiographical: Ein ungewöhnliches Mädchen (An Unusual Girl), Der Gong des Porzellanhändlers (The Porcelain Mender’s Gong), and Muhme Mehle (a nickname for Olga Muth). She also wrote hundreds of letters (extensively extracted in Panitz, Geheimtreff Banbury) and a childhood diary. I am grateful to her sons, Peter Beurton and the late Michael Hamburger, for permission to translate and quote from these. Rudolf Hamburger’s memoir Zehn Jahre Lager (Ten Years in the Camps) was published in 2013, more than three decades after his death, with an introduction by Michael Hamburger. Additional material is derived from Nina Blankenfeld’s book Die Tochter bin ich (I Am the Daughter), Peter Beurton’s unpublished recollections, Michael Hamburger’s unfinished memoir, interviews with Ursula’s sons and other family members, and the various radio and television interviews she gave in later life.
The MI5 files on the Kuczynski family in the National Archives (TNA) are Ursula and Len Beurton: KV 6/41–45; Jürgen and Marguerite: KV 2/1871–1880 and HO 405/30996; Robert: HO 396/50/28; Berta: HO 396/50/25; Renate: KV 2/2889–2893 and HO 396/50/27; Barbara: KV2/2936–2937; Bridget: KV 2/1569; Sabine: KV 2/2931–2933; Rudolf Hamburger: KV 2/1610.
Ursula’s files in the Bundesarchiv (the Ruth Werner legacy papers) are filed under NY 4502. The Kuczynski/Werner files in the Stasi archives (Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik) can be found under Bfs HA IX/11 FV 98/66 (eighteen thousand pages in total, comprising some ninety individual files).
Selected significant quotations are cited below, along with a guide to the principal sources for each chapter.
1. WHIRL
“Everything shimmering brown and gold”: See Werner, Ein ungewöhnliches Mädchen. The other key sources on Ursula’s early life are Werner, Sonya’s Report, letters and diaries cited in Panitz, Geheimtreff Banbury, and the recollections of Peter Beurton and the late Michael Hamburger.
“Kuczynski always forms”: Quoted in Green, A Political Family.
“I have no country”: Smedley, Daughter of Earth.
“the mother of women’s literary radicalism”: Cited in Price, The Lives of Agnes Smedley.
“Go tell Mike Gold”: Baker, Ernest Hemingway.
2. WHORE OF THE ORIENT
“An accordion sounded”: Werner, Sonya’s Report.
“anything was possible”: Ballard, Miracles of Life.
“She spent her afternoons”: Hahn, China to Me.
“an Art Deco masterpiece”: Austin Williams, The Architectural Review, October 22, 2018.
Hamburger’s early life and architecture are described in Kögel, Zwei Poelzigschüler; see also Hamburger, Zehn Jahre Lager.
Descriptions of Ursula’s life in Shanghai are from Werner, Ein ungewöhnliches Mädchen and Sonya’s Report, and letters cited in Panitz, Geheimtreff Banbury.
Principal sources on the life of Agnes Smedley are Price, The Lives of Agnes Smedley, and MacKinnon, Agnes Smedley: The Life and Times of an American Radical. Smedley’s MI5 files are TNA KV 2/2207–2208; the Agnes Smedley archive, comprising forty-six boxes of material, is held by Arizona State University: http://www.azarchivesonline.org/xtf/view?docId=ead/asu/smedley.xml;query=agnes%20smedley;brand=default.
3. AGENT RAMSAY
For the life of Richard Sorge, see Matthews, An Impeccable Spy; Whymant, Stalin’s Spy; and Willoughby, Shanghai Conspiracy.
“purging the party of spies”: “The Man from Moscow,” Time, Feb. 17, 1947.
“I realize how rotten”: Werner, Ein ungewöhnliches Mädchen.
“miserable, drinking heavily”: Barlow, I Myself Am a Woman.
“the tiger’s bench”: Wakeman, Policing Shanghai. For Tom Givens, see also Hergé’s The Blue Lotus.
For 1920s Shanghai, see Sergeant, Shanghai, and Snow, Random Notes on China.
4. WHEN SONYA IS DANCING
“The White Terror is ghastly”: Quoted in Price, The Lives of Agnes Smedley.
Descriptions of Sorge’s spy network are in Werner, Sonya’s Report; Matthews, An Impeccable Spy; Whymant, Stalin’s Spy.
“a recruiting station for the 4th Bureau”: Willoughby, Shanghai Conspiracy.
“whose stock phrase was ‘my Prince, ples’ ”: Quoted in Wakeman, Policing Shanghai.
“When Sonya is dancing”: See Stasi file NY/4502/sig 14393.
“When word of the affair reached”: Matthews, An Impeccable Spy.
For the Noulens case, see Wakeman, Policing Shanghai, and Litten, “The Noulens Affair”; Noulens’s MI5 files, TNA KV 2/2562.
“having no parallel in history”: Harold Isaacs, quoted in Wakeman, Policing Shanghai.
5. THE SPIES WHO LOVED HER
“one of the guests”: Matthews, An Impeccable Spy.
Sources on the Hollis affair may be divided into two camps. His most notable accusers are Wright, Spycatcher; Pincher, Treachery: Betrayals, Blunders and Coverups; and Paul Monk, https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2010/04/christopher-andrew-and-the-strange-case-of-roger-hollis/. His defenders include Andrew, Defence of the Realm, and MI5, https://www.mi5.gov.uk/sir-roger-hollis.
The subject is explored extensively by Antony Percy at www.coldspur.com. See also Tyrer, “The Unresolved Mystery of ELLI.”
“We now have a longing”: For this and other letters, see Panitz, Geheimtreff Banbury.
“nobody would dare touch”: Statement of the steering committee of the Central Jewish German organization (Centralverein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens)
.
“an almost blind loyalty”: See Green, A Political Family.
6. SPARROW
“cold-bloodedness of the Centre”: See Foote, Handbook for Spies.
For Ursula’s experiences in Moscow, see Werner, Ein ungewöhnliches Mädchen and Sonya’s Report.
“Candidates were accepted”: Cited in Price, The Lives of Agnes Smedley.
“You are soon going to be sent away”: The period in Mukden is described in Werner, Der Gong des Porzellanhändlers.
The careers of Soviet intelligence officers, including Tumanyan, Patra, and Mamsurov, are described in detail in Bochkarev and Kolpakidi, Superfrau iz GRU. Unreliable in parts, this source nonetheless benefits from access to GRU files.
7. ABOARD THE CONTE VERDE
The voyage aboard the SS Conte Verde is described in Werner, Der Gong des Porzellanhändlers and Sonya’s Report, letters cited in Panitz, Geheimtreff Banbury, unfinished manuscript by Michael Hamburger, and intercepted correspondence in MI5 files.
8. OUR WOMAN IN MANCHURIA
Ursula’s intelligence operations in Mukden and her relationship with Patra are described in Werner, Der Gong des Porzellanhändlers.
9. VAGABOND LIFE
“Last month anti-Japanese groups”: These and subsequent letters are quoted in Panitz, Geheimtreff Banbury; “Hans von Schlewitz,” “Shushin,” “Wang,” and “Chu” (Werner, Der Gong des Porzellanhändlers) are probably pseudonyms.
“Ich kann nicht mehr”: For the life and death of Elisabeth Naef, see Price, The Lives of Agnes Smedley, and Fuechtner, Haynes, and Jones, A Global History of Sexual Science.
“the last Victorian Communist”: See Green, A Political Family.
10. FROM PEKING TO POLAND
For the life and career of Rudolf Hamburger, see his MI5 file, TNA KV 2/1610, and the Stasi file on Hamburger, MfS HA IX/II. FV 98/66. See also Kögel, Zwei Poelzigschüler, and Hamburger, Zehn Jahre Lager.
The career of Nikola Zidarov is described in Bochkarev and Kolpakidi, Superfrau iz GRU.
The Hoffman network is described in Werner, Sonya’s Report.
11. IN FOR A PENNY
“Who is going to remember this riffraff”: For Stalin’s purges, see Conquest, The Great Terror, and Kuromiya, The Voices of the Dead.
“The whole Fourth Directorate”: See Matthews, An Impeccable Spy.
under the name “Eriki Noki”: Franz Obermanns’s MI5 file, TNA KV 6/48.
“I understand that should I overstay”: See Ursula’s MI5 files, TNA KV 6/41–45.
“restless sales manager”: See Foote, Handbook for Spies; Foote’s MI5 files, TNA KV 2/1611–1616.
12. THE MOLEHILL
“Before us the meadows”: For the GRU network in Switzerland, see Werner, Sonya’s Report, and Foote, Handbook for Spies.
“The British Prime Minister”: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/september/30/newsid_3115000/3115476.stm.
“He should be beaten”: The life of Olga Muth is described in Werner, Muhme Mehle.
“No foreign propagandist”: The Times, November 11, 1938.
“It is possible that F[oote] had a flirtation”: Foote’s MI6 files, TNA KV 2/1611–1616.
Lillian Jakobi and Frau Füssli: See Werner, Muhme Mehle; they are probably pseudonyms.
“Eggs and mayonnaise”: For Osteria Bavaria, see TNA KV 2/1611–1616; notes in Stasi file Bfs HA IX/11 FV 98/66 Bd 19; Foote, Handbook for Spies; and the Mitford Society: https://themitfordsociety.wordpress.com/tag/osteria-bavaria/.
“I was twenty-five”: Unpublished account written by Len Beurton, courtesy of Peter Beurton; see also Beurton’s MI5 files, TNA KV 6/41–45. For Beurton’s service in Spain, see Baxell, British Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War and Unlikely Warriors.
13. A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE
For the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, see Moorhouse, The Devils’ Alliance.
“Style, elegance, restraint”: Len Beurton, unpublished address, courtesy of Peter Beurton, private archive.
“spreading defeatism”: Home Office file, TNA HO 396/50/28.
“Everyone knows”: The battle over Jürgen’s internment is described in Green, A Political Family, and Kuczynski’s MI5 files, TNA KV 2/1871–1880.
“at all times, whatever happens”: Quoted in Leitz, Nazi Germany and Neutral Europe.
“misbegotten branch of our Volk”: Quoted in Bormann, Hitler’s Table Talk.
14. THE BABY SNATCHER
“It was just like the movies”: Hahn, China to Me.
“one of the few places”: See Kögel, Zwei Poelzigschüler, and Hamburger, Zehn Jahre Lager.
For the Rote Drei, see https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol13no3/html/v13i3a05p_0001.htm; Tarrant, The Red Orchestra; Read and Fisher, Operation Lucy; Nelson, Red Orchestra. See also Hamel’s MI5 file, TNA KV 2/1615.
“thickset, verging on the plump”: Werner, Sonya’s Report; Sandor Radó’s MI5 files, TNA KV 2/1647–1649.
“a tall, slender, almost fragile-looking woman”: Radó, Codename Dora.
“If anyone says something nice”: Werner, Muhme Mehle.
“Her ravings in broken English”: Foote, Handbook for Spies.
15. THE HAPPY TIME
“Wake Arms. Epping 1 & 15”: See TNA KV 6/43. For MI5 tracking of the Beurtons, see TNA KV 6/41–45.
“H’s Bruder als Späher”: Hamburger, Zehn Jahre Lager.
“She staggered like a stumbling horse”: Prysor, Citizen Sailors.
16. BARBAROSSA
“They unpack their supper”: Werner, Sonya’s Report.
“Jürgen was angry about Sonia’s”: Foote, Handbook for Spies.
“a tough looking man”: Haslam, Near and Distant Neighbours.
“We only have to kick the door in”: Quoted in Hardesty and Ginberg, Red Phoenix Rising.
“I unhesitatingly recommend Jürgen Kuczynski”: For this and other messages to and from the Center decoded by Venona, see Vassiliev, Yellow Notebooks, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Vassiliev-Notebooks-and-Venona-Index-Concordance_update-2014-11-01.pdf. See also Haynes, Klehr, and Vassiliev, Spies, and West, Venona.
“Inactive, missing his wife”: Ashdown, Nein!
17. THE ROAD TO HELL
The most detailed and recent analysis of the Fuchs case is in Close, Trinity. Other biographical treatments include Williams, Klaus Fuchs; Rossiter, The Spy Who Changed the World; Moss, Klaus Fuchs; Moorehead, The Traitors; and Montgomery Hyde, The Atom Bomb Spies. Fuchs’s MI5 files are TNA KV 2/1245–1270.
Frisch-Peierls memo: http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Begin/FrischPeierls.shtml.
“Klaus naturally came to me”: Kuczynski, Memoiren.
“would put humanity on the road to hell”: Quoted in Close, Trinity.
Melita Norwood’s life and career are described in Burke, The Spy Who Came in from the Co-op.
“She would remove files”: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/melita-norwood-x2lrfkj7vm5.
“our illegal station chief”: Vassiliev, Yellow Notebooks.
Len Beurton interview and investigation TNA KV 6/41–45.
18. ATOMIC SPIES
“It was pleasant”: Werner, Sonya’s Report.
“discuss his feelings”: Obituary of Ruth Werner, The Economist, July 13, 2000.
“it was via Fuchs and Sonya”: Close, Trinity.
“Above all, British Jews’ primary obligation”: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057%2F9780230598416_2.
“considerable bundles of Russian traffic”: Pincher, Treachery.
“My past as an International Brigader”: Len Beurton, unpubl
ished address, courtesy of Peter Beurton, private archive.
Hans Kahle’s MI5 files, TNA KV 2/1561–1566.
“With the help of duplicate keys”: Bochkarev and Kolpakidi, Superfrau iz GRU.
“My task”: Hamburger, Zehn Jahre Lager.
“he was Russian”: Hamburger’s MI5 file, TNA KV 2/1610.
19. MILICENT OF MI5
“She was slightly touched”: Wright, Spycatcher.
“a vague supervisory role”: Cited in Smith, The Secret Agent’s Bedside Reader.
“We have a great deal of information”: Jürgen Kuczynski’s MI5 files, TNA KV 2/1871–1880.
“could smell a rat at twenty paces”: Close, Trinity.
“any day that is convenient”: See the Beurtons’ MI5 files, TNA KV 6/41–45.