Sorge, never one to take no for an answer, began using Stein as a collaborator and part-time helper – albeit a reluctant one – regardless. Stein’s reticence was hardly surprising given the inordinate risks he was being asked to take. Sorge’s request to set up a transmitter in Stein’s house ‘visibly disturbed him’, but nonetheless he agreed. ‘Stein and I discussed radio and he drew a map to show me where he lived,’ Clausen later confessed. ‘I visited him several days later at his home … examined the house to see whether it was suitable for the installation of radio equipment, and decided, with his consent, to use two of his upstairs rooms’.31
Clausen began testing his equipment in February 1936. Because he could not, for obvious reasons, use an outdoor antenna, the radio man strung two tin-plated, seven-metre long copper wires across Stein’s ceiling. And though the transmitter was portable, the electrical transformer it required was not. Clausen therefore constructed a permanent transformer in Stein’s attic – and would create a new one in every location he would ever use to transmit. Aside from the bulk of the transformer, Clausen’s set-up was miraculously discreet. He could unpack it in ten minutes and dismantle it in five.32
Within a week of his first experiments, Clausen made his first contact with ‘Wiesbaden’, the familiar Soviet military transmitter at Vladivostok with which he had communicated from Shanghai.33 Since his device had no instrument for measuring wavelength, Clausen improvised with a wavelength of 37–39 metres for transmitting and 45–48 metres for receiving. His guess proved to be spot on.
Clausen’s timing was fortuitous, because Sorge had momentous news to report. On 26 February 1936 an ultra-nationalist faction in the Japanese Army attempted yet another murderous coup d’état. Officers of the First Division, under orders to ship out to Manchuria, rallied some 1,400 soldiers to assassinate top members of the government. Their hit list included the prime minister, Admiral Keisuke Okada, and the Minister of Finance, as well as the Imperial Grand Chamberlain, the Lord Keeper of the Imperial Seals and other moderates who had the emperor’s ear.34 Makoto Saito, the Keeper of the Imperial Seals, had just returned from dinner and a movie at the American embassy when the killers shot him and wounded his wife as she tried to shield him from the volley of shots. The prime minister escaped by hiding in a toilet. The murderers shot his brother-in-law by mistake. His family pretended that the killers had succeeded in their mission and Okada walked in disguise behind the hearse at his relative’s funeral. Count Nobuaki Makino, an intimate of the emperor, also survived an ambush at a country inn by diving down a hillside with his granddaughter and playing dead after they were wounded by rifle fire.
The rebels, despite their failure to kill their key targets, issued a chilling proclamation. ‘Now is the time to bring about an expansion of the power and prestige of Japan,’ they declared. ‘In recent years many persons have made their chief purpose in life the amassing of wealth regardless of the general welfare and prosperity of the people, with the result that the majesty of the Empire has been impaired … The Elder Statesmen, the financial magnates, the government officials, and the political parties are responsible.’ Claiming that it was ‘our duty to take the proper steps to safeguard our fatherland by killing those responsible’, the rebel officers declared that they had done their ‘duty as subjects of His Majesty the Emperor’.35
Was this the long-feared turning point when Japan’s militarists finally seized power? The German embassy was taking no chances. Food and furniture were carried to the cellar in case the fighting spread, and the confidential files carted down to the boiler room ready for incineration. Eugen Ott had to smuggle Ambassador Dirksen through narrow alleys to the embassy to avoid roadblocks of loyal troops who were guarding the nearby War Ministry.36
When Sorge arrived at the embassy the following day he found Ott bewildered by the coup attempt and unable to understand the failure of the government and the army’s top brass to control it.37 The rebels raised the standard of revolt (in fact a white tablecloth from the Peers’ Club, purchased for 100 yen) over the occupied prime minister’s residence.38
However the coup swiftly unravelled. In the provinces, suspect officers were quickly arrested before they could muster troops. The mutineers’ positions in Tokyo were surrounded by loyalist artillery. After four days the rising fizzled out in a typically Japanese face-saving way, with the surrender of the rebels under offer of Imperial pardon. A decorous two-hour pause followed the formal surrender during which the mutineers were expected to commit ritual suicide.39 Only two did. Fifteen of the ringleaders would eventually be executed – on charges of ‘using the army without Imperial sanction’ – but the War Ministry’s announcement of the end of the revolt contained no promise of an investigation nor any condemnation of the mutineers.40
Under a veneer of continuity, everything had changed. The coup attempt – euphemistically known as ‘the February 26th incident’ – showed that it was the army, not the government, that now held the balance of power in the Japanese Empire.41 In the days that followed the collapse of the putsch, Sorge struggled to make sense of what had happened for his masters in Moscow – and assess the impact of the new order on the security of the Soviet Union.
Miyagi, the artist and joker, began to show his skill at gleaning top-level intelligence from the gossip of soldiers. He told Sorge that he believed the revolt was doomed from its inception, as the Young Officers had only small arms to oppose the loyalists’ tanks, artillery and aeroplanes. Ozaki, who had recently returned to his research centre after his sojourn in Manchuria, was able to consult with some of the empire’s senior decision-makers to form a uniquely well-informed picture of what had happened.
Ozaki submitted a long dissertation to Sorge with his findings. He wrote that the rebellion had been spearheaded by officers from rural backgrounds who had a deep loathing for capitalism, inspired by the ‘revolutionary ideology’ of ultra-nationalist writer and propagandist Kazuki Kita.42 More practically, Ozaki predicted that it was only a matter of time before the right-wing officers took control of the army. Indeed, by 18 May 1936, after the resignation of the cabinet in the wake of the rebellion, the army further demanded that any ministers of war and the navy in any future government must be active-duty officers. Since these ministers were, by law, able to choose their own successors, the military had effectively freed itself from civilian government control. The only question worth answering in Japanese politics now became: what faction was in control of the army? The radical young Action Group, who advocated immediate war with the Soviet Union, or the more cautious Control Group?43 Miyagi, for his part, believed that the Control Group would hold power for a while yet – and choose to expand in China rather than immediately attack the USSR.44
In addition to Ozaki and Miyagi’s well-informed insights, Ott also showed Sorge a copy of the Japanese Imperial General Staff’s own confidential report into the February 26th incident. Using a special miniature camera, Sorge photographed the report in Ott’s office – the first, but by no means the last, time he would photograph the most secret documents of the Germans and Japanese for the Kremlin’s perusal. Ott also showed Sorge ‘very detailed reports on to what extent Japan had military force for an anti-Russian war’ that showed that Japan’s eight or nine divisions in Manchuria, or even the entire Japanese Army of about sixteen divisions, were insufficient to take on the the USSR – for the time being at least.45
The report that Sorge wrote for the German embassy was hailed as a triumph of informed analysis by Dirksen, Ott, and Wenneker. ‘In this way,’ wrote Sorge, ‘I accomplished the same effect of killing two birds with one stone, in that I gained trust from the Germans by studying and writing … And at the same time I spied valuable materials.’46 A copy was sent to General Thomas in Berlin, who officially requested more such excellent work. Thomas’s patronage gave Sorge an iron-clad excuse to peruse the embassy’s files for information that he then shared with Ozaki – and of course Moscow. To cap it all, Sorge also penned a l
ong article on ‘The Army’s Revolt in Tokyo’ that appeared in the May issue of Haushofer’s Zeitschrift für Geopolitik, as well other pieces for the Frankfurter Zeitung that cemented his status as an authoritative contributor to Germany’s most respected newspaper.47
All the elements that would make Sorge’s spy ring the greatest such espionage network of the age – Ozaki’s contacts among the Japanese elite, Sorge’s access to the secret Japanese military documents the army shared with Ott, Miyagi’s assiduous groundwork – were in place. More impressively still, every piece of information that passed back and forth served to buoy the reputations of Ott, Sorge and Ozaki in the eyes of their respective superiors. Information was power, not just to governments but to all the principals of the spy ring, both witting and unwitting.
Ott’s trust and admiration for Sorge in the aftermath of 26 February had grown so deep that it was to Sorge, rather than any other member of the embassy staff, that Ott turned to when he picked up a startling piece of gossip during a visit to the Japanese General Staff. Bursting into the office that Dirsken had allocated to Sorge in the embassy, Ott excitedly confided to his friend that he had just got wind of secret talks in Berlin between Major General Oshima Hiroshi – the pro-Nazi military attaché at the Japanese embassy in Berlin – and Germany’s foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop. The negotiations were being carried out behind Dirksen’s back and, Ott reported, brokered by Germany’s military intelligence chief, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris. Incredibly, Ott asked Sorge to help him compose a coded telegram to Berlin to ask what was going on, asking his friend to ‘swear that you will not tell this to anyone else’.48
It was a promise that Sorge, to put it mildly, did not keep.
The news of the secret Japanese–German talks was the first truly sensational espionage scoop of Sorge’s career. ‘I reported the development of these negotiations constantly to Moscow through wireless,’ he later confessed. ‘Since at that time nobody in the world knew about such negotiations except a limited number of related persons, the report to Moscow must have been highly sensational to them.’49
Berlin’s replies to Ott’s enquiring telegrams about the Ribbentrop–Oshima talks were suspiciously non-committal. But Ott’s further enquiries among his friends in the Japanese Imperial General Staff discovered that a political and military alliance was being mooted between Germany and Japan, unbeknownst to the foreign ministries of either country. Obviously alarmed by the consequences of such an entente for the Soviet Union’s security, Sorge took it upon himself to convince Dirksen and Ott that the pact would be both undesirable and dangerous.50 ‘Germany would be smart to tie in with Russia and so be able to cope with Britain and France,’ Sorge argued, adding that in the wake of the 26 February revolt the Japanese military was unstable and ‘could not be trusted’. For good measure Sorge also cast the talks as ‘an adventurous attempt by … Oshima and Ribbentrop to obtain their own advancement’.51
Sorge’s word may not have been decisive. Nonetheless, the ambas-sador was in strong agreement with Sorge in being ‘dead against the pact with Japan’, as Dirksen recalled in his memoir. Dirksen sailed for Germany via Vancouver on the Empress of Canada on 9 April 1936 to check on the rumours with his superiors in Berlin and attempt to reverse the mooted alliance before it was too late.52 The ambassador, along with the German Foreign Ministry and the General Staff, found Hitler’s pro-Japanese stance foolish and preferred to strengthen Germany’s ties with Chiang Kai-shek instead.53
When Ribbentrop sent a confidential agent, Dr Friedrich Wilhelm Hack, to Japan to confirm the details of a possible alliance, Sorge quickly sought him out in order to convince him of the folly of such a pact. Hack, officially an employee of the Heinkel Aircraft Company, was an old Japan hand. After being interned along with Papa Keitel and the rest of the German garrison of Tsingtao after its capture by the Japanese in 1915, Hack had returned to Japan often and was instrumental in persuading the Japanese Army and Navy to buy German armaments from 1921 onwards.54 Assured by Ott that Sorge was entirely trustworthy, Hack confided to Sorge that Soviet agents had been posted outside the Berlin homes of Oshima, Ribbentrop, and Canaris, and had ‘even taken pictures during the secret negotiations for the Anti-Comintern Pact’. Hack had been chosen as a go-between, he told Sorge, so that ‘the negotiations could continue without further Russian detection’.55 Hack could not have made a more unwise choice of confidant.
It is not clear exactly when Sorge received the news that he was about to become a father. But we do know that he wrote Katya a letter, photographed on microfilm, on 9 April 1936 expressing his excitement. ‘If it’s a girl I would like her to have your name … today I will arrange a second parcel of things for the baby.’ By this point the pregnancy must have been at least eight months advanced. ‘This is sad and, perhaps, cruel, as is our separation on the whole,’ he wrote. ‘But I know that you exist, that there is a person whom I love very much and about whom I can think, whether my affairs go well or badly. And soon there will be something that will belong to both of us … Of course, I am very worried about everything you are enduring, and if everything will be all right. Please take care to see that I receive the tidings at once, without delay.’ Sorge hoped that Katya’s family were not angry because he had left her alone. ‘Later,’ he promised, ‘I will try to rectify all this with my love and tenderness for you.’56
Despite his melancholy – or perhaps because of it – Sorge decided to celebrate the news of Katya’s pregnancy by redoubling his efforts to seduce Hanako Miyake. After taking Hanako to another one of their now-regular romantic dinners at Lohmeyer’s, accompanied by the gift of more phonograph records, Sorge suggested going back to his place. He claimed that he had ‘something to show’ her. Hanako agreed. They stopped off at German bakery for a box of chocolates and caught a taxi to the little house on Nagasaki Street. Hanako recalled being startled by the eccentric mixture of the Japanese and Western decor. The place was piled with books and papers and the walls were covered in maps. The tokonoma in the study – a niche traditionally used to display decorative objects – held not only the usual flower arrangement and scroll but also Sorge’s portable phonograph, a clock and a camera.57
Sorge brewed coffee over an alcohol burner while Hanako ate chocolate on the couch. German classics played on the record player. To amuse his nervous guest Sorge seized a samurai sword and began twirling it above his head in a parody of a traditional sword dancer, then he pushed her abruptly back on the couch and began trying to kiss her. ‘Dame-o, dame-o! – It is wrong, it is wrong!’ Hanako shrieked, offended, and bursting into tears. She told Sorge that she wanted to go home, so he walked her to the main road and put her in a taxi, giving her money for the fare. ‘His face looked very sad,’ Hanako remembered. Though shaken, she agreed to meet him again.
Sorge’s approach a few nights later was slightly more refined. This time there was no sword dancing. He invited Hanako once more to his house and persuaded her to try a Turkish cigarette. He wooed her with talk of his passion for ancient Japanese literature – especially his favourite, The Tale of Genji, a story of courtly love and the art of seduction. ‘What an extraordinary conversation!’ Hanako remembered of their first night together as lovers.
Sorge would be the love of Hanako’s life. The reverse, sadly for her, was not the case. Around the time he embarked on his affair with Hanako it transpired that another young woman, a waitress named Keiko (from the Die Fledermaus rather than the Das Rheingold) had fallen in love with Sorge. It is not clear whether they were already lovers, but when she saw her beloved show up at the bar with a beautiful European woman in tow – possibly Helma Ott’s friend, Anita Mohr – Keiko despaired and resolved to kill herself. She left a farewell note and a gift of flowers on Sorge’s doorstep and took a steamer for Oshima, where she planned to throw herself into a volcano. The Die Fledermaus’ German proprietor got wind of her plan and called the police, who tracked the lovesick girl down and brought her back home. She eventually r
ecovered from her heartbreak, and even brought herself to sit with Sorge when he visited, spitting into his dice cup for luck.58
Sometime in late spring, Katya sent news that she had lost the baby – possibly at an advanced stage of her pregnancy, though with an unpredictable delay of several months in their microfilmed corres-pondence it is hard to know more precise timings. ‘Everything turned out quite differently than I had hoped,’ Sorge wrote in a bleak letter that focussed more on his own despair than Katya’s feelings. ‘I am tormented by the thought that I am getting old. I am seized by the mood to come home quickly, but for the time being that is all dreams … it’s hard here, really hard.’59
‘What do I do? It is hard to say,’ he wrote to Katya in a letter that was probably delivered by Sorge himself to a courier in Shanghai in the summer of 1936. ‘It is hard to bear the heat here. It is as though you are sitting in a greenhouse covered in sweat. I live in a little house built in local style, inside mostly sliding doors and on the floor woven mats. The house is quite new and quite cosy. One old lady makes everything I need, boils me some lunch if I am at home,’ he told her. ‘I have acquired another bunch of books – you I know would be happy to search around in them and I hope that you will one day be able to. Sometimes I worry about you not because something will happen to you but because you are alone and very far away. I always ask myself … would you not be happier without me? Don’t forget that I would not blame you.’ He tried to explain, as gently as possible, that he would not be coming back soon. ‘I am en poste and know that this must be for some time. I don’t know who can take over from me in our important work. Be healthy my dear. Write more often.’60
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