All intelligence services in the world have actively used and continue to use beautiful women as secret agents. It is believed that sex has always been one of the most effective tools in collecting the necessary information. In his memoirs, Soviet and Russian intelligence officer Boris Grigoriev wrote: “Sex was, is and will be a powerful weapon for achieving one’s goals in all intelligence services in the world.”
However, some venerable intelligence officers believed that a woman was unsuitable for the role of an intelligence agent due to the fact that the intelligence profession requires great self-control and a constant willingness to take risks. The famous Soviet intelligence officer Richard Sorge is credited with saying: “Women have little understanding of high politics or military affairs. Even if you recruit them to spy on by their own husbands, they will have no real idea what their husbands are talking about. They are too emotional, sentimental and unrealistic."
Despite the fact that women have poor control over their feelings and most often willingly communicate only with those they like, Soviet intelligence services often and successfully used them in intelligence activities. Moreover, this use was not always combined with the principles of communist morality.
As an example we can give a story Soviet intelligence officer Dmitry Bystroletov. While working in a European country in the mid-thirties of the last century, he agreed that his wife, who was also an intelligence agent, marry an Italian intelligence officer in love with her. Through the spouse who successfully completed the task, a flow of important information obtained through bed went to the Center. It all ended with the Italian catching his wife in his bedroom while trying to break into a safe with documents. The Bystroletovs were forced to kill him and hide. The end result of the sex operation was that Bystroletov’s wife left her husband and left intelligence.
But not all Soviet intelligence officers gave their consent to carry out such operations. Zoya Rybkina (Voskresenskaya) worked in the thirties in Helsinki, officially listed as a representative of Intourist. But in fact, she was a deputy intelligence resident. When the new resident Boris Rybkin arrived in Helsinki, Zoya married him. 
Having received the task of becoming the mistress of a Swedish general who was in Finland, Rybkina replied that she would complete the task, but after that she would commit suicide. Having heard this answer, the Center canceled the operation. Its cancellation did not entail negative consequences for Rybkina. She continued to work in intelligence for many years, and after her retirement she became a children's author.
During World War II, the Germans also readily used the services of female intelligence officers. The German intelligence service Abwehr created special dens at intelligence schools, in which prostitutes, while serving clients, tried to reveal how loyal they were to the Third Reich. The Germans also sent female saboteurs into partisan detachments.
In 1965, the former commander of a partisan detachment, Vasily Kozlov, told the writer Viktor Andreev: “They [the Germans] sent a spy specifically for my soul. She was cunning.
What a beauty! She married one of our commanders and tried to recruit him to help her kill me. She believed that a man would do anything because of his love for her. And he grabbed her and took her where she needed to be.”
The Soviet underground also could not do without women’s help, sending female scouts to work with the occupiers. And they had to risk not only their honor, but also be under psychological pressure from their compatriots. This is what Ivan Sergunin, who was the commissar of the Fifth Leningrad Partisan Brigade during the war, wrote in his book: “Imagine: a girl was sent to work in an enemy establishment. She is young, pretty, more than one Nazi officer is following her, and she needs to get information for the partisans. Overcoming disgust, she walks with the fascist by the hand, smiling at him in front of her fellow villagers. And the children shout after her: “German shepherd! Fascist litter!
Many intelligence services around the world willingly resorted to the services of the fairer sex. For example, in the UK, more than 40% of intelligence officers are women. And most of them successfully cope with the assigned tasks.
The State Security Committee has always placed increased demands on female employees. Especially in matters of endurance and psychological endurance. High erudition and intelligence were also advantages for admission.
For example, state security agents who successfully worked abroad were Elena Zarubina, Doctor of Philosophy, and the State Prize laureate mentioned above, children's writer Zoya Voskresenskaya (Rybkina).
Some women held quite high leadership positions in the security forces. So, in the eighties of the last century, the head of one of the KGB units was Galina Smirnova, who had the rank of colonel.
To work in the Soviet special services, they tried to take mainly beautiful girls who passed a special selection committee. The girls selected by the commission were taught the skills of intelligence officers and introduced to various technical innovations used in intelligence. They also tried to give them deep knowledge of male psychology.
Women were selected with special care for illegal work abroad. Beyond knowledge foreign languages and intelligence work skills, mastery of the art of impersonation was welcomed - the intelligence officer had to have acting talent. The most striking example of such an intelligence officer is the actress Olga Chekhova, who lived in Germany since 1932 and carried out the assignment of the head of the Foreign Department of Counterintelligence of the USSR Ministry of State Security. The talented intelligence officer managed to become the mistress of Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering. In addition, from numerous admirers, including Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, she received information about the plans of Hitler himself.
Using acting skills, intelligence officer Irina Alimova carried out her work in Japan. She transmitted a lot of valuable information about American military bases and fortified areas along the Japanese coast to the center.
According to most intelligence historians, it was in the Soviet Union that the most powerful structure was created that trained female intelligence officers who knew how to seduce men. A defector named Vera told Western journalists how future agents were spared the feeling of shame. They taught the subtleties and nuances of the art of love, introduced them to pornography, which contained various perversions. And, during the training process, they emphasized that the intelligence officers are obliged to fulfill any assignment from the leadership.
The intelligence school located near Kazan trained not only female intelligence officers, but also young men with non-traditional orientation. In the name of completing the task, they simply turned a blind eye to communist morality and the article of the Criminal Code.
Agents were also recruited among women of easy virtue. The unit was named "Night Swallows". According to the former colonel of the 2nd Main Directorate of the KGB, Vasily Kutuzov, “Night Swallows” are “agents of the Second Main Directorate, which could have been set up for recruitment or other purposes to a foreigner who was of interest to our department.” 
In all large hotels, employees of the State Security Committee equipped rooms in which wiretapping and video recording were carried out. The client the KGB wanted was shown the footage and, through blackmail, was forced to cooperate.
This titanic work justified the efforts expended and always brought the results the intelligence services needed.
Mikhail Ostashevsky.
Hitler's mistress - Russian intelligence officer
I had seen this aristocratic-looking woman more than once at receptions at the Soviet embassy on Unter den Linden, where she was invited to surprise the guests and demonstrate loyalty to the Soviet government. I also met her in a nearby TV tower The Palace of the Republic, the former parliament of the GDR, which now, covered with a shroud, awaits its sad fate - it is destined for demolition. And every time, as soon as this woman appeared, strictly and elegantly dressed, despite her age, youthful, among the diplomats, politicians, journalists, and other guests, a whisper immediately ran through: look, look, this is Olga Chekhova. An amazing fate, an actress from Moscow, an emigrant who conquered all of Germany with her art. And even quieter - she was Hitler’s mistress, she was a Russian spy, Stalin awarded her... Ambassadors and government officials talked to her. All attention turned to her. Each of the invitees, no matter what position he held, tried to come up, look, and exchange a few phrases with Frau Chekhova. She always attracted the attention of both men and women. In his youth - with his appearance, refined beauty, later - with fame, in adulthood - with his very difficult past. She managed to create the image of a mysterious woman, strong-willed, self-sufficient, who miraculously managed, being Russian by nature, to live and work in a fascist state, to be close to the top leadership of Germany and not to taint herself with Nazi ideology. Hitler valued her very much. He watched all the films with her participation. He liked to invite her to receptions, he showed everyone his affection for Frau Chekhova, listened to her attentively, kissed her hands. She was friends with his mistress Eva Braun, argued with Goebbels, and sometimes allowed herself such statements for which others could end up in the ominous Gestapo building, No. 8 on Prinz Albrechtstrasse.
Olga Chekhova
Did she work for Soviet intelligence? This is a question... If it worked, then German intelligence, believe me, could not help but know about it, and if it knew, then it turns out that it was playing its own double game with it? But which one and why? Why on earth? Why would the Fuhrer and his associates be endangered? Any hint of her connections with the Soviets could cost her not only her career, but also her head. And with her career, her fame as an actress, achieved situation There was no need for her to take risks in society. Nevertheless, some questions remain without a clear answer. She was asked them immediately after the war.
First intelligence officers, then diplomats, politicians, historians and journalists. She lived double life? Strictly confidential? Did you meet Stalin? Preparing a terrorist attack against Hitler? She answered all such questions with one word - no. She generally did not like to talk about some pages of her past. She hid a lot. I embellished some things. She talked more about filming films, about old roles and about her cosmetic creams, which she has been developing in recent years.
Olga Chekhova arrived in Berlin in January 1921. She was barely twenty-three years old. She did not have any professional stage education. She really tried herself on the Moscow stage, was familiar with many artists, communicated with Stanislavsky, Chaliapin, but did not show any special talent. She entered the Moscow Art Theater for one good reason - her origin obliged: her aunt, the famous actress Olga Leonardovna Knipper, wife of A.P. Chekhov. Olga was born in Tbilisi, in the family of railway engineer Konstantin Knipper, the brother of the same famous actress of the Moscow Art Theater Olga Leonardovna. From Tbilisi, the Knipper family first left for St. Petersburg, then moved to Moscow, where Olga’s life did not work out; she married A.P.’s nephew at the age of seventeen. Chekhov, actor Mikhail Chekhov, took his last name, gave birth to a daughter from him, and four years later decided to break up with him. Why did you choose Germany? Obviously, the roots affected: the surname Knipper is of German origin. By the way, her famous aunt, Olga Leonardovna, during Stalin’s time was very afraid for her fate, and therefore did not want to have anything to do with her niece who fled to Germany and did not maintain any connections with her.
Olga Chekhova arrived in the capital of Germany with her second husband, Friedrich Jarosi, a former Austro-Hungarian subject, who, in fact, seduced her on this trip. Her daughter Olga (Ada, as her family called her) remained at home. She obtained permission to travel from Lunacharsky, who was the People's Commissar of Education in 1921. She was leaving not so much from Mikhail Chekhov, who by that time had begun to drink, but from hunger, devastation, an unsettled life, and hopelessness; she was leaving in the hope of finding her place in the country from which her ancestors came. In Berlin, she settled in the center, in the Kreuzberg district, on Grossbeerenstraße, in a small boarding house. By the way, today on this street at number 58 there is the Berlin Film Museum, where you can find out some details from the biography of Olga Chekhova. Of course, not everything immediately worked out for her in her new place. The first thing she decided to do was to divorce her second husband, which was done. Then you should think about choosing a profession. Russian emigrants help her, she is brought into the circle creative people. She is trying to play in run-of-the-mill theaters. But minor roles do not suit her ambitious and strong-willed nature. She feels the strength and ability to do more.
How to show herself, what is her calling? Is it on stage? She is poorly understood. This means that you must first learn the language. And then luck, at one of the parties for the young and beautiful woman German film producer Erich Pommer drew attention from Russia. The film director he hired is going to make a mystical film called Vogelod Castle. The main role was available - the mistress of the castle. Pommer took a liking to the Russian actress, a student of Stanislavsky, as Chekhov called herself. She has a cold, emotionless face (reminiscent of Greta Garbo). Is it not in him that the key to the Russian soul lies hidden? He invites Olga to enter into a contract, and she agrees. And immediately she faces a lot of problems. How to play without really knowing German, she can’t even read the script, where to start, what to do? Chekhova later admitted that she did not actually know cinema, she had never seen a single film, it all smacked of an adventure. But she had to get out, she had to establish herself in society. And there was no other way out. Perseverance in achieving goals, the ability to concentrate, and adapt to circumstances helped her. She began going to Berlin cinemas and watching all the films in a row. Her salvation was that all films were still silent. She watched the actors play, watched their facial expressions, gestures, and tried to imagine herself in their place. I began to remember all the advice and comments that I had heard during my acquaintance with Stanislavsky. Filming took place with great difficulty. More than once she was on the verge of despair and breakdown... And yet the film “Castle Vogelod” was completed on time, was released and immediately gained popularity. Newspapers vied with each other to say that “the Russian actress, Stanislavsky’s student, Olga Chekhova, a relative of the writer Anton Pavlovich, played a wonderful role in it.” And queues formed at the cinemas. Advertising is a great thing; a film career was essentially made.
Olga Chekhova has become a sought-after actress. Although, we must give her credit, she understood perfectly well that the first success would require new efforts from her, and whether the second success would be achieved remains to be seen. Thank God, while silent films existed, Chekhova had plenty of engagements, but what if sound appeared? She is invited to the German theater, she is already playing leading roles in Russian plays in German, she is invited to act in Paris, she has a luxurious apartment in the center of Berlin. He comes to Berlin with his new wife ex-husband Mikhail Chekhov, and again she helps him with getting on stage. In 1930, she was invited to act in Hollywood, Chekhova left for America, but there she was disappointed: firstly, a new language barrier, secondly, a completely different attitude towards artists, and thirdly, she realized that she would not have a career there She will not be able to do it, and returns to Germany.
In 1933, when Hitler came to power, the popular German actress Olga Chekhova had already starred in dozens of films. She could not imagine that the new Reich Chancellor of Germany, the future leader of the entire German people, had long been an admirer of her talent. And before he had time to take power into his own hands, he wanted to meet his favorite.
A phone call home, she is invited to the Ministry of Propaganda, where the Reich Chancellor, Reich Minister and Reichsführer SS are waiting for her. It was unexpected, it was new. Are Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler waiting for her? Why did the state leadership need it? A black Mercedes is sent for her, she is accompanied by a government official, she is taken to Wilhelmstrasse, and dropped off at Wilhelmplatz 8–9, right at the entrance to the former Order Palace, where the newly created ministry is located.
In 1973, in her book “My Clock Goes Differently,” Chekhova wrote about that first meeting and admitted that neither Hitler, nor Goebbels, nor even less Himmler made much of an impression on her then. Hitler was “...timid, awkward, although he behaves with the ladies with Austrian courtesy, nothing “demonic”, bewitching... It is amazing, almost incomprehensible, his transformation from a ranting bore into a fanatical instigator when he finds himself in front of the masses.” Goebbels, outwardly bypassed by nature - he had one leg shorter than the other - tried to create a relaxed atmosphere. And he sprinkled in witticisms and jokes. Himmler, with his round, bourgeois face, looks like a pensioner; he was clearly out of place. But Frau Chekhova gave all these caustic characteristics after the war, in the seventies, after all the above-mentioned Fuhrers had long since sunk into oblivion, when Nazism was condemned, after she herself had survived accusations of collaboration and visited Soviet Russia.
In 1933 and later, Olga Chekhova, along with other loyal German actors, tried not to irritate the new ambitious German leadership. She understood that an obstinate position could only mean for her exclusion from any work at all. She is invited again, this time to a Nazi restaurant, where all the guests - film and theater figures, along with the leadership of the Third Reich - drink wine, beer, and talk about the ways of development of German culture and art. The atmosphere at such receptions and parties was the most friendly. Photographs appear in the press that can be interpreted as intimate; Hitler and Chekhova are sitting in the front row. At the reception, Hitler kisses Chekhova's hand. And as a result, Chekhova becomes a “state actress”, this gives her the right to enjoy the great privilege of working in the theater and cinema of the Third Reich. Again photographs in magazines, she is among the Nazi elite. This is no accident. She is a lonely woman, and the Fuhrer is lonely, why aren’t they a couple? Frequent meetings with senior management give rise to gossip and rumors. It is indecent to remain alone for a long time in such a society, and in 1936 Chekhova married a Belgian businessman. He, a wealthy man, invites her to move to live in Brussels, she does not agree, and soon this marriage falls apart. The Second has begun World War, Germany attacked Poland, but theater and film life in the capital does not freeze, Chekhova continues to act in films, performs on stage, she is still invited to receptions, introduced to Mussolini and other foreign political figures. Could she have had contacts with Soviet intelligence at that time? Did any of the Soviet workers, even those deeply undercover, try to establish contact with her? Unlikely, although there could be a chance. For example, during her trips to Brussels, Paris, and Vienna. In Berlin, Chekhova keeps to herself, she is under the control of the German secret services, these people often visit her at unexpected times. Goebbels looks at her for a moment. And he reminds her more than once about trustworthiness; she herself sometimes comes to consult Hermann Goering. And everywhere they warn her - be loyal, do not cross the border, otherwise... With such a high sphere of communication, with such guardianship and with such almost daily reminders, any contacts with Soviet people in Berlin or even on German territory were practically excluded. Chekhova felt like a German, did not get involved in politics and did not particularly discuss any political issues. German troops carried out a treacherous attack on the Soviet Union, cities and villages are on fire, the enemy is on the outskirts of Moscow... Chekhova still performs in theaters, acts in films, goes to give concerts to German troops, she begins an affair with a German ace pilot, who tells her how he shoots down English planes. They hope for life together. But the ace pilot dies. And Chekhova is left alone again.
All amazing spy discoveries happen after the war ends. After 1945, Chekhova’s second life actually begins, her exposure is coming. She is found far from Berlin, in the small town of Kladova, where she lived in her own house. She tells the arriving Soviet officers that she is Russian, that she is a relative of Knipper-Chekhova, that her ex-husband is Chekhov’s nephew, that she... They listen to her, agree and send her to Berlin for verification, bringing her to the Karlshorst district, where the leadership of the Red Army was located. There she is interrogated by senior officers and literally a couple of days later she is sent to Moscow on a military plane. Settled in private apartment from one woman whose husband went missing in Germany. She does not go out anywhere, she is not allowed any meetings or calls. Periodically, she is taken to the Lubyanka, where she is politely asked about all her contacts with Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, and Himmler. She tells in detail everything she knows. Three months stay in Moscow. Three months of polite interrogation. She writes a detailed report and flies back to Berlin on July 26, 1945. Three months stay in Moscow famous actress led to a wide wave of gossip in her homeland. She was credited with meeting with Beria, with Stalin, and being awarded the Order of Lenin. She talked about all this in her book. And here is what Pavel Sudoplatov, the most authoritative source who was directly involved in the issues of foreign agents and terrorist attacks in the NKVD during the war years, said about her in another book. According to him, Soviet intelligence had an idea to contact Chekhova and involve her in the execution of certain plans. They really wanted to use it to reach Hitler. It is clear that plans were just being developed in Moscow to attract Chekhova to work for Soviet intelligence. But in fact, all these plans were never destined to come true. The author of these lines at one time met with the son of Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria, Sergo Gegechkorney, so he insisted that his father claimed that Chekhova worked for Soviet intelligence. And that’s all, he couldn’t give any other facts about her work, he only said that she didn’t go through the accounting department. That is, she was not a full-time employee. But if she did work, then what did she do? What feats did you accomplish? Not a word about this. Most likely, the myth about Chekhova’s work for Soviet intelligence was beneficial to Soviet intelligence itself. And, quite possibly, Beria wanted to brag to Stalin about his contacts and to the heads of foreign intelligence services, look what contacts we had. In fact, Olga Chekhova did not meet with Beria in Moscow. This is evidenced by the latest data. At Lubyanka they immediately became convinced that she could not be of any further interest, and they released her in peace. But after her return to Berlin, sensational revealing publications appeared in the Western press: about her meeting with Stalin, about her being awarded the Order of Lenin.
The post-war period was difficult in the life of Olga Chekhova. Soviet officers took care of her in Berlin and helped in any way they could - food, gasoline for the car, building materials. Her connections with the Soviet occupation forces, with representatives of the Soviet counterintelligence - Smersh, commanded by the notorious Abakumov, did not play the best role in her future fate. She did not want to stay in bombed Berlin; the Germans despised her and often openly spat after her. She nevertheless tried her hand at cinema, starred in several films, but did not have much success - her age affected her, and in 1960 she moved to Munich, lived separately, and tried not to appear in public. In 1965 she founded her own company, Olga Chekhova's Cosmetics. Things were going well for her, in general, they remembered her again and invited her to East Berlin, to the Soviet embassy. Of course, she wanted to visit Russia, but there was no one there to visit. Olga Chekhova died in 1980 from brain cancer, she was 83 years old.
Monuments to this 18-year-old girl from the Tambov region were erected in many cities: in Moscow Victory Park in St. Petersburg, on the platform of the Partizanskaya metro station in Moscow, in one of the parks in Kyiv, in Saratov, Chelyabinsk, Volgograd, Kazan. Films have been made and songs written about her courage and strength of character.
A member of the sabotage and reconnaissance group of the Western Front headquarters, she became the first woman to be awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War. Posthumously.
In literature, she is described as a romantic person who reacted sharply to life's injustices. After her family moved to Moscow, the girl joined the Leninist Komsomol, read a lot, was interested in history, and dreamed of entering the Literary Institute. But the war intervened in her plans for the future, and the former ninth-grader volunteered for the front.
On October 31, 1941, she became a fighter in a reconnaissance and sabotage unit called the “partisan unit 9903 of the headquarters of the Western Front.” Less than a month later she would be brutally murdered by German soldiers.
For several hours the girl was subjected to humiliation and sadistic torture. Photo: Public Domain
The girl was caught while carrying out an order stating the need to “destroy and burn to the ground all populated areas in the rear of German troops at a distance of 40-60 km in depth from the front line and 20-30 km to the right and left of the roads.”
On November 27, together with two partisans, she set fire to three houses in the village of Petrishchevo. Unable to meet her comrades at the appointed place, the girl returned to locality, deciding to continue setting fires. On November 28, while trying to burn down a barn, she was detained by one of the local residents, who received a reward from German soldiers for her capture - a glass of vodka.
For several hours the girl was subjected to humiliation and sadistic torture. Her nails were torn out, she was flogged, and she was paraded naked through the streets. The girl did not give out the names of her comrades.
The next day Zoya was awaiting execution. They hung a sign on her chest that read “house arsonist” and led her to the gallows. Already standing on the box with a noose around her neck, she shouted: “Citizens! Don't stand there, don't look, but we need to help fight! This death of mine is my achievement.”
The Nazis filmed the girl’s death in photographs. Later, near Smolensk, photographs of Zoya’s execution were found in the possession of one of the killed Wehrmacht soldiers.
The Nazis filmed the girl’s death in photographs. Photo: Public Domain
According to legend, Joseph Stalin, having learned about the girl’s martyrdom, ordered that the soldiers of the Wehrmacht infantry regiment involved in her death not be captured.
Posthumously, Kosmodemyanskaya was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal of the Hero of the Soviet Union.
Vera Voloshina
According to legend, Vera was the same model with whom Ivan Shadr created his famous sculpture “Girl with an Oar.” Photo: Public Domain
On the same day as Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, another partisan, Vera Voloshina, died. According to one legend, a student at the State Central Institute of Physical Culture was the very model with whom Ivan Shadr created his famous sculpture “Girl with an Oar.”
When the war began, Vera joined the Red Army. It was in military unit No. 9903 that she met Zoya. In November, when Kosmodemyanskaya’s group set off towards Petrishchevo, Vera and her comrades came under enemy fire. For a long time, the girl was listed as missing, until one of the journalists found her grave. Local residents told him that on November 29, Vera was publicly hanged at the Golovkovo state farm. According to eyewitnesses, before her death, the wounded girl, bleeding, behaved very proudly. When the Nazis put a noose around her neck, she began to sing “The Internationale”.
After the invaders left Golovkovo, the locals buried her body. Later the remains were transferred to a mass grave in Kryukov. Vera was 22 years old.
Valentina Oleshko
Valentina was 19 years old when she was shot by Wehrmacht soldiers.
A native of the Altai province, during the war she was trained in the intelligence department of the Leningrad Front. In the summer of 1942, she led a group of paratroopers who were sent to the Gatchina region in occupied territory to infiltrate a German intelligence group. However, almost immediately after landing the reconnaissance group was detained. Historians suggest that there could have been betrayal in this story, and the Nazis were already waiting for the scouts to arrive.
A native of the Altai province, during the war she was trained in the intelligence department of the Leningrad Front. Photo: Public Domain
Valya Oleshko and her comrades - Lena Mikerova, Tonya Petrova, Mikhail Lebedev and Nikolai Bukin - were taken to the village of Lampovo, where the counterintelligence department of the 18th Army, headed by Major Wackerbard, was located. The young people were ready that torture and death awaited them, but instead of interrogations they were placed in one of the huts and began to be put to work - they decided to recruit them. Then the reconnaissance group came up with a daring plan: Valya proposed to steal Wackerbard’s secret folder with lists of agents in Leningrad, and kidnap the major himself. She hoped to call a plane by radio, on which the chief of counterintelligence could be taken to her own people.
And the plan, which at first glance seemed completely fantastic, was practically carried out. The group was able to contact the reconnaissance radio operator working in Narva and agree on the place where the plane would be waiting for them. However, in their ranks there was a traitor who betrayed Oleshko’s plan to the fascists.
As a result, seven people, along with 19-year-old Valentina, were shot.
Maria Sinelnikova and Nadezhda Pronina
“I will never forget how they beat that girl with braids. The German has her with both the buckle and the heels of her boots, and she falls, and how she jumps up and keeps saying something to him in German, in German... But is she German, or what?.. And the other girl is sitting in corner and cries,” this is how Maria Sinelnikova and Nadezhda Pronina, a resident of the village of Korchazhkino in the Kaluga region, described the interrogation.
The girl scouts were detained near the village on January 17, 1942. On January 18, after many hours of torture, they were shot.
Maria and Nadezhda were 18 years old when they were killed by Wehrmacht soldiers. Photo: Public Domain
Maria was 17 years old when she achieved a referral to the Red Army from the Podolsk city Komsomol committee. Her father and older brother died in the first days of the war. A girl who knew how to handle weapons, was fond of parachuting and knew well German, was sent to the intelligence department of the 43rd Army of the Moscow Front.
There she met Nadezhda Pronina, who had previously worked at the Podolsk Mechanical Plant and had been trained at an intelligence school before the start of the war.
At the front, the girls were in good standing. They made fearless forays behind enemy lines and collected valuable information, which they transmitted to their comrades via radio.
Nina Gnilitskaya
The former mine worker amazed me with her strength, endurance and courage. Photo: Public Domain
Nina was born in the village of Knyaginevka (now Lugansk region) into a family of workers. After finishing seven classes, the girl went to work in a mine. In November 1941, her native village was occupied by Nazi troops. One day, without hesitation, she helped a Red Army soldier who was surrounded. At night, Gnilitskaya helped him return to the location of his military unit. Having learned that before the start of the war the girl had completed courses on the basics of air defense and chemical defense and was proficient in small arms and grenades, she was asked to volunteer for the army of the Southern Front. Nina agreed and was enlisted in the 465th separate motorized rifle reconnaissance company of the 383rd rifle division.
The girl turned out to be an excellent fighter. Her skills and courage amazed many of her colleagues. During one five-hour battle, she personally killed 10 German soldiers and treated several wounded Red Army soldiers. Thanks to her bold forays behind the front line, intelligence was collected about the deployment of enemy troops in the villages of Knyaginevka, Andreevka, Vesyoloye.
In December 1941, her group was surrounded near the village of Knyaginevka. Instead of captivity, the fighters chose death on the battlefield.
Posthumously, Nina was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.
Judging by the reviews of critics, not everyone believed it, and the portal iz.ru asked journalist Alexei Korolev to remember our film intelligence officers in domestic cinema. Real and fictional, but in any case - real.
10. Anya / Evgenia Lebedeva (Anastasia Voznesenskaya)
The young beauty Voznesenskaya surgically played the role of the big-eyed Moscow girl Anya-Zhenya, abandoned as part of a hastily assembled reconnaissance group near Krakow, and literally before the viewer’s eyes she develops muscles of steel and nerves of steel, and turns from a victim into a hunter, from a recruited one into a recruiter, and what a . In Semenov’s book, the character was described in more detail than in the script, but Voznesenskaya was not embarrassed by this, and she played the best film role of her career at the age of 24.
9. Marina Kazanich (Rita Gladunko)
In the late fifties, it was not yet customary to show real intelligence characters in films under their real names. Marina Kazanich is Elena Mazanik, the maid and executioner of the Nazi governor of Belarus, Wilhelm Kube. In organizing the famous operation to destroy Cuba, the leading role was played by NKGB agents Maria Osipova and Nadezhda Troyan (depicted in the film under the collective image of Ganna Chernaya), but it was the simple canteen server of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks, Mazanik, who planted the mine under the bed, whose inhuman composure and inhuman hatred of the Nazis more than compensated for the lack of any experience.
8. Elena “Birch” (Natalia Fateeva)
“I am Birch”, 1964
Film director Damir Vyatich-Berezhnykh made his debut at the age of 40 with a film adaptation of Boris Polevoy’s short story “We are Soviet People” and this debut remained in the history of cinema primarily due to the phenomenal casting. The main goddess of the then Soviet cinema, Natalya Fateeva, who had just made a splash throughout the country in “Three Plus Two,” plays a Soviet intelligence agent under the guise of a Russian language teacher at a German officer school. And the beauty of the heroine here is her curse, her cross and her weapon, much more formidable than a short-wave transmitter.
7. Nina “Spitsa” (Valentina Titova)
This film began the famous creative and personal union of Basov and Titova, which later took on somewhat excessive forms (for example, in “Days of the Turbins”). But here everything still looked fresh and beautiful, just like the actress herself. The touchingly lively assistant of Belov-Weiss looked dazzling even in a German uniform, even in a white robe thrown over a Red Army tunic.
6. Maria Glukhova / Marta Shirke (Elena Kuzmina)
"Secret Mission", 1950
For Stalin’s cinema, with its tank-like directness of statements and subcutaneous fear of giving away some important state secret (for example, details of intelligence work), “Secret Mission” is surprisingly plausible: after all, its outline is the story of separate negotiations between the Nazis and the allies in the spring of 1945. Mikhail Romm’s collisions were a success much less than 23 years later for Tatyana Lioznova, but “Stirlitz in a Skirt” was made by the great, but completely unappreciated by either her contemporaries-directors or descendants, Elena Kuzmina (and her early filmography included “Outskirts” and “New Babylon” ") came out absolutely wonderful: after all, she had to play not a tired intellectual from Schellenberg’s department, but a natural sadistic Gestapo woman.
5. Alba (Tatyana Samoilova)
Strictly speaking, this film is Hungarian-Soviet, and the invitation to main role Samoilova, whose fame at that moment was prohibitive, was of a somewhat agitated nature. But the actress pulled out, in general, rather mediocre material, outplaying not only her male partners, but also partly the director. The conventionality of the image of her heroine, a spy without a past or future, forced by the will of fate to act not in the openly aggressive, but rather in the restrained and hostile atmosphere of wartime Hungary, fit perfectly into the aesthetics of the sixties, when even films about intelligence officers were shot in dramatic out-of-focus.
4. Anna Morozova (Lyudmila Kasatkina)
Another real figure, the legendary Bryansk saboteur, who first operated in her native forests, and at the end of the war terrified the German rear in East Prussia. In the film by Sergei Kolosov, the heroine of Kasatkina turned out to be a little more melodramatic than Morozova, apparently, was in life, but the public outcry caused by the authorities forced the authorities to posthumously award the intelligence officer the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
3. Ekaterina Kozlova / Catherine Keene (Ekaterina Gradova)
“How long have you been with us?” - Maxim Maksimovich Isaev (here played by Vladimir Ivashov) asks the cafe singer and agent of the Tallinn Cheka residency Lida Bosse. "Three years. Can’t wait to ask why?” - Piekha’s heroine answers, but the interlocutor does not ask. The role is almost episodic, but these few phrases are more than enough to complete the rest: among those who collaborated with Soviet intelligence in European capitals, there were many people with biographies that cannot be recounted in a nutshell. Piekha can hardly be called an outstanding film actress, but her natural brilliance and charm were enough to play a woman whose mystery suited her randomly chosen profession of intelligence officer.
1. One of the stars of Russian foreign intelligence is Elizaveta Zarubina (pseudonym “Vardo”). She was engaged in illegal work for more than twenty years. In Paris, she was in touch with a proven agent of the Soviet secret services, former tsarist general P. Dyakonov, who in the past served as the Russian military attaché in England and had extensive connections among the Russian emigration. Through him, Lisa received information about the anti-Russian actions of French military intelligence. It was Zarubina, constantly risking her life, who restored contact in Germany with the most valuable source of Soviet intelligence in the Gestapo, Willy Lehmann (“Breitenbach”), who years later served as one of the prototypes for Colonel Stirlitz in the famous film “Seventeen Moments of Spring.” Through him “Vardo” received confidential information about the creation by Wernher von Braun of a fundamentally new type of weapon - FAU missiles.
Elizaveta Zarubina’s ability to work is evidenced by the fact that when during the Great Patriotic War she was already working in the legal residency of the Soviet Union in the United States, she had twenty-two agents in touch, including the most valuable sources of information. Lisa managed to regularly hold meetings with connections in Washington, New York, San Francisco and other American cities.
2. The first female hero Russian Federation became Leontine Cohen. She participated in operational activities to obtain secret documents on the creation of American atomic weapons. Reliably carried out risky tasks of the illegal Soviet station in New York. She was entrusted with difficult business trips to European countries to organize meetings with illegal intelligence officers. In Moscow, Cohen underwent additional special training, mastering the specialty of a radio operator-cipher operator. Professionally mastering many intelligence tricks, Leontina has more than once shown extraordinary resourcefulness.
There is a well-known episode when, getting out of a specially protected zone near the American nuclear facility Los Alamos, Cohen came across a dense cordon of police who meticulously checked the documents of passengers before boarding the train and the contents of their luggage. While she was being searched by agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Leontina pretended to look for her train ticket in her purse and politely asked the inspector to hold a small box of tissues during this time. Namely, it was in it that the top secret documents were hidden. The gallant counterintelligence officer willingly agreed to help the lady, exchanging flirtatious jokes with her. So the box with priceless papers escaped inspection. The most important materials were soon transported to Moscow and handed over to the leading nuclear scientist of the USSR, Academician Kurchatov. She, by the way, was the first intelligence officer to appear on Soviet postage stamps.
3. One cannot help but admire the fate of Irina Alimova (pseudonym “Bir”), called into intelligence from the cinema. Not every actress can become an intelligence officer. However, every intelligence officer, especially an illegal immigrant, should become an actress. Not necessarily professional, but in any case have artistic abilities that would allow her to transform into the character that she undertook to play. At the beginning of her working life, Irina charmingly played the main role in one of the first Turkmen films “Umbar”.
But that’s not why Soviet intelligence paid attention to her. In addition to her native Turkmen and Russian languages, she spoke Uyghur and Turkish, Persian, Japanese, German, and English to varying degrees of perfection. After several years of training in the unusual and exciting profession of intelligence officer and internship abroad, “Bir” was “brought out” to Japan. During her thirteen-year stay in that country, she oversaw its rearmament following the creation of the Self-Defense Forces in 1954 and the intensive development of bilateral ties with the United States. It was this intelligence officer who obtained aerial photographs of US bases and Japanese military airfields. The time has not yet come to talk about all the deeds and achievements of Alimova. Perhaps it is enough to note that the archives of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service contain twenty-two thick folders - seven thousand numbered pages - of extremely important military-political information received by Irina. She returned to her homeland neither failed nor deciphered, having completed all her tasks.
4. When did the Great Patriotic War, Nadezhda Viktorovna Troyan lived in Belarus. Immediately with the beginning of the German occupation, she became a member of an underground youth organization in the city of Smolevichi, Minsk region. Underground Komsomol members collected intelligence information about enemy troops necessary for the Soviet army, posted leaflets, and helped the families of those who joined partisan detachments in the Belarusian forests. In July 1942, Nadezhda Troyan also went to join the partisans. She was a scout and nurse in the “Stalin Five”, “Storm” and other detachments. The brave girl personally participated not only in collecting intelligence, but also in blowing up bridges, attacking enemy convoys and other combat operations. In 1943, Nadezhda Troyan accepted Active participation in the preparation and conduct of the operation to destroy the Gauleiter of Belarus Wilhelm Kube.
Already in the post-war period, the film “The Clock Stopped at Midnight” was made about this feat of Nadezhda Troyan and her comrades. In 2012, the operation to eliminate Wilhelm Kube formed the basis of the television series “The Hunt for the Gauleiter.” For her courage during this operation, Nadezhda Troyan was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in October 1943, received the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal.
5. The cult Soviet four-part film directed by Sergei Kolosov, “Calling Fire on Ourselves,” was probably watched by everyone. This is one of our best films about the war. The main female role was brilliantly played by Lyudmila Kasatkina. But not everyone knows that the movie heroine had a real prototype - intelligence officer Anya Morozova, a girl who became a legend.
Anna Afanasyevna Morozova was born in 1921. When the war began, a twenty-year-old girl lived and worked as an accountant in the Bryansk region. In May 1942, she headed the underground international Soviet-Polish-Czechoslovak organization in the village of Sescha as part of the 1st Kletnyanskaya Partisan Brigade. Morozova and her comrades collected valuable intelligence data about enemy forces and carried out subversive activities. From May 1942 to September 1943, two German ammunition depots, twenty aircraft and six railway trains were blown up on mines laid by Anna Morozova’s organization. With the help of intelligence obtained by Anya Morozova, on June 17, 1942, the partisans defeated the garrison of the German air base in the village of Sergeevka, destroying 200 flight personnel and 38 combat vehicles. In September 1943, underground fighters led by Anna Morozova managed to unite with regular units of the Soviet Army.
Anya completed radio operator courses. Considering her experience in the underground and intelligence abilities, in June 1944, the command assigned the girl to the Jack reconnaissance group. As part of this group, Anna Morozova was thrown into East Prussia. From there, Jack's fighters crossed into German-occupied Polish territory. Since the end of 1944, Morozova fought in a joint Soviet-Polish partisan detachment. On December 31, 1944, soldiers of the “Jack” detachment entered into battle with the Germans at the Nova Ves farmstead. Anya Morozova was wounded and, in order not to fall into the hands of the Germans alive, she blew herself up with a grenade. The feat of the Soviet intelligence officer became known after the war, when in 1959, former intelligence officer Ovid Gorchakov published an essay about Anna Morozova in Komsomolskaya Pravda. It was on the basis of this essay that the script for the film “Calling Fire on Ourselves” was written. In 1965, war veterans, having watched this film, turned to the country's leadership with a proposal to award Anna Morozova the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously, which was done on May 8, 1965.
