On July 27, 1911, the future legendary intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov was born. And this spring the 70th anniversary of his heroic death was celebrated.
During the Great Patriotic War, Kuznetsov worked in Ukraine under the name of German infantry officer Paul Siebert and personally eliminated 11 high-ranking officials of the occupation administration.
But the information he obtained brought no less benefit to the Soviet command and his “bloodless” exploits. Kuznetsov died at the hands of Bandera. On March 9, 1944, near the village of Boratin, Brody district, Lvov region, he came across soldiers of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and was either shot or blew himself up with a grenade so as not to fall into their hands alive (in his fate, as in the fate of any intelligence officer, there are many unclassified and unsaid).
Kuznetsov was one of the prototypes for the hero of the film “The Exploit of a Scout” (1947, directed by Boris Barnet).
Subsequently, films were made directly about Kuznetsov: “Strong in Spirit” (1967, director Viktor Georgiev).
“Special Forces Squad” (1987, director Georgy Kuznetsov).
And this year Sergei Kozhevnikov’s series “On the Razor’s Edge” was released.
Today, when the word “Ukraine” is again inseparable from the word “war,” the image of Kuznetsov is more relevant than ever.
“Moskvichka” presents 11 interesting facts from the life of the legendary intelligence officer - according to the number of his exploits
Nikolai Kuznetsov had a brilliant command of German, Polish, Ukrainian, as well as Esperanto and... Komi. Despite the fact that I never studied to be a philologist, and was born and spent my childhood very far from Germany, Poland, and Ukraine. And even from the Komi-Permyak district. He just had an extraordinary ability for languages. Nikanor Kuznetsov (only at the age of twenty he changed his name to Nikolai) was born in the village of Zyryanka, Perm province, into a peasant family. I started studying German at a seven-year school - I was lucky with the teacher. And also with a labor teacher - he was a soldier of the Austro-Hungarian army, who was captured during the First World War and settled in the Urals. Having worked in the land administration of the Komi-Permyak district from 1930 to 1932, he realized that it was easier to find a common language with the local population if you learned this very language - but usually Russian officials neglected the languages of small nations. According to Kuznetsov’s biographer Theodor Gladkov, it was the fluency of the Komi-Permyak language (coupled with courage, of course) that attracted the attention of local OGPU operatives, and they recruited the future intelligence officer.
Kuznetsov’s relationship with Soviet law and order was not entirely smooth. When he was studying at a technical school, he was expelled from the Komsomol, as it turned out that his father had once been in the White Army. And while working in the land administration of the Komi-Permyak district, Kuznetsov betrayed his senior comrades who were engaged in registration to the police - they received 8 years in prison, and he received a year of correctional labor at his place of service. To become a scout with such spots in his biography, one had to have considerable talent.
Kuznetsov had never been abroad, yet he perfectly imitated a German officer - not only his accent, but also his gestures and bearing. He always made the most of his communication with foreigners who found themselves on the territory of the USSR. Working in 1935–1936 at the Uralmash design bureau, I constantly communicated with German engineers, of whom there were many. And at the beginning of 1942, he worked in a camp for German prisoners of war in Krasnogorsk, taking a closer look at their morals and manners. By the way, the fact that he did not serve in the Red Army also helped him. “In the Russian army, standing at attention, the arms were always pressed tightly to the body; in the German army, only the palms were pressed, while the elbows were turned outward, causing the chest to protrude like a rooster,” wrote Kuznetsov’s biographer Theodor Gladkov. “The fact that Kuznetsov was a civilian unexpectedly helped in some ways: for a career Soviet officer the most ordinary military greeting, which after many years of service is given under the visor with the whole palm, of course, completely mechanically, would be extremely difficult to convert into German.”
In the summer of 1942, Kuznetsov found himself in a partisan detachment near Rovno (this city was the “capital” of occupied Ukraine, the Reichskommissariat was located there) and began to prepare to go to the city. And then it turned out that the well-legendary Lieutenant Paul Siebert had a way of... talking in his sleep! Naturally, in Russian. Kuznetsov asked the detachment doctor, Albert Tsessarsky, to wake him up as soon as he started muttering something. And so on several times a night. And this helped - Kuznetsov weaned himself from talkativeness. And he said, according to Tsessarsky’s memoirs: “I’ll show them all who the real patriot is.”
On February 7, 1943, a partisan detachment in which Kuznetsov was a member set up an ambush and captured Major Gahan, a courier for the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine, and the Imperial Communications Advisor, Lieutenant Colonel von Rais. When the stunned Germans came to their senses, Kuznetsov began to interrogate them in the guise of Paul Siebert: they say that he realized that the war was lost, Hitler was leading Germany to a national catastrophe, went into the service of the Russians and also advises them not to persist. After being indignant for several days, Gahan and Rais split. Their testimony supplemented the secret topographical maps captured in their luggage. It turned out that Hitler’s bunker, codenamed “Werewolf,” was built 8 kilometers from Vinnitsa. The information was immediately transmitted to Moscow.
Since the spring of 1943, Kuznetsov made several attempts to kill the Reich Commissioner of Ukraine Eric Koch. In the summer, he turned to Koch with a request not to send his fiancée Valentina Dovger to Germany. Koch scheduled a personal audience for them on May 31, but Kuznetsov could not shoot him - there were too many witnesses and security. However, according to Theodor Gladkov, the meeting was not in vain - Koch took a liking to the dashing chief lieutenant, recognized him as a fellow countryman and confidentially told him that the Fuhrer was preparing a surprise for the Bolsheviks near Kursk. Thanks to this, Soviet troops were able to deliver a preemptive strike.
Kuznetsov had been hunting for a long time for the head of the administration department of the Reichskommissariat, Paul Dargel. On September 20, 1943, he shot at a lean general who came out of the gates of the chancellery, but it turned out that he had mistakenly killed another imperial official - Minister of Finance Dr. Hans Gehl. On October 8, during the second attempt, Kuznetsov’s pistol misfired, and on October 20, the intelligence officer blew up Dargel with an anti-tank grenade. The fascist had both legs torn off and was evacuated to Berlin. Kuznetsov was wounded in the arm by a fragment of his own grenade; according to the recollections of the partisan doctor, he asked to operate on himself without anesthesia in order to test his reaction to pain.
In the fall of 1943, according to Theodor Gladkov, Kuznetsov’s contact Maya Mikota reported that SS Obersturmbannführer von Ortel, who was not indifferent to her, was going to leave the city and bring her a Persian carpet upon his return. Kuznetsov became wary and passed on the information above. Thus, it was possible to prevent an assassination attempt on the leaders of the Big Three at the Tehran Conference.
On November 15, Kuznetsov and his comrades captured the commander of the formation of the “eastern battalions” (which included mainly Ukrainian punitive forces), Major General Max Ilgen. When the general was taken out of the mansion, he resisted. German officers passing by drew attention to the partisans. Kuznetsov was not taken aback and showed them the number badge of a Gestapo employee and stated that they had caught a Soviet intelligence officer who was “working” for a German general. I copied the names of the witnesses and discovered that one of them, Eric Koch’s personal driver Paul Granau, took him with him. After interrogation by the detachment, Ilgen and Granau found a grave in one of the suburban farms.
On November 16, 1943, Kuznetsov carried out his last liquidation in Rovno - he shot and killed the head of the legal department of the Reichskommissariat (in fact, the chief judge of occupied Ukraine), SA Oberführer Alfred Funk. The Nazis already knew that officials were being hunted by a man in the uniform of a German lieutenant. But Kuznetsov managed to stay in the city for a long time - he was given Hauptmann documents (that is, he was promoted to rank). And he even pretended to help look for the mysterious killer. But in January 1944, the detachment commander ordered Medvedev to go west following the retreating German troops. In Lvov, Kuznetsov committed another daring liquidation: in broad daylight he killed the vice-governor of Galicia, Otto Bauer, and the head of the office of the presidium of the governorate, Heinrich Schneider, on the street. But by the spring of 1944 it became too dangerous to remain in Lvov. Kuznetsov and two comrades left Lvov, hoping to break into a partisan detachment or behind the front line. On the way they met their doom.
During his lifetime, Kuznetsov did not have a single Soviet award. On November 5, 1944, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. And only in 1959 his grave was discovered on the outskirts of the village of Boratina. The following year, the hero’s remains were transferred to Lviv and buried with military honors on the Hill of Glory.
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 the authors’ conjectures and their personal and not always objective view of who Nikolai Kuznetsov (intelligence officer) was were presented as reliable information.
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 already had orientation notes 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 uniforms 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, N.I. Kuznetsov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for his bravery and exceptional courage. His grave remained unknown for a long time. 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.
A brilliant intelligence officer, a polyglot, a conqueror of hearts and a great adventurer, he personally destroyed 11 Nazi generals, but was killed by UPA fighters.
Linguistic talent
A boy from the village of Zyryanka with four hundred inhabitants masters the German language perfectly thanks to highly qualified teachers. Later, Kolya Kuznetsov picked up profanity when meeting a forester - a German, a former soldier of the Austrian-Hungarian army. While independently studying Esperanto, he translated his favorite “Borodino” into it, and while studying at a technical school, he translated the German “Encyclopedia of Forest Science” into Russian, and at the same time he perfectly mastered Polish, Ukrainian and Komi. The Spaniards, who served in the forests near Rivne in Medvedev’s detachment, suddenly became worried and reported to the commander: “Fighter Grachev understands when we speak our native language.” And it was Kuznetsov who opened up an understanding of a previously unfamiliar language. He mastered six dialects of German and, meeting their officer somewhere at a table, instantly determined where he was from and switched to another dialect.
Pre-war years
After studying for a year at the Tyumen Agricultural College, Nikolai dropped out due to the death of his father and a year later continued his studies at the Talitsky Forestry College. Later he worked as an assistant tax collector for the installation of local forests, where he reported on his colleagues who were involved in registration. He was expelled from the Komsomol twice - on charges of “White Guard-kulak origin” during his studies and for informing on his colleagues, but with a sentence of one year of correctional labor. He was fired from Uralmashzavod for absenteeism. Kuznetsov’s biography was not replete with facts that presented him as a trustworthy citizen, but his constant penchant for adventurism, his curiosity and hyperactivity became ideal qualities for working as an intelligence officer. A young Siberian with a classic “Aryan” appearance, who spoke excellent German, was noticed by the local NKVD department and in 1939 sent to the capital to study.
Matters of the heart
According to one of the leaders of Soviet intelligence, Nikolai Ivanovich was the lover of most of the principal dancers of the Moscow ballet, moreover, “he shared some of them with German diplomats in the interests of business.” While still in Kudymkar, Kuznetsov married a local nurse, Elena Chugaeva, but, leaving the Perm region, he separated from his wife three months after the marriage, without ever filing a divorce. Love with socialite Ksana in the 1940s did not work out due to a wary attitude towards the Germans, because Nikolai was already part of the legend and introduced himself to the lady of his heart as Rudolf Schmidt. Despite the abundance of connections, this novel remained the most important in the hero’s story - already in the partisan detachment, Kuznetsov asked Medvedev: “Here is the address, if I die, be sure to tell the truth about me to Ksana.” And Medvedev, already a Hero of the Soviet Union, found this same Ksana after the war in the center of Moscow and carried out Kuznetsov’s will.
Kuznetsov and the UPA
Over the past ten years, a number of articles have appeared in Ukraine seeking to discredit the famous intelligence officer. The essence of the charges against him is the same - he fought not against the Germans, but against Ukrainian OUN rebels, members of the UPA and the like. Archival materials refute these claims. For example, the already mentioned submission for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with an attached petition to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, signed by the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKGB, Pavel Sudoplatov. The justification for the award speaks of Kuznetsov’s liquidation of eight high-ranking German military officials, the organization of an illegal residency, and not a word about the fight against any Ukrainian independentists. Of course, Medvedev’s supporters, including Kuznetsov, had to fight against detachments of Ukrainian nationalists, but only as allies of the Nazi occupation regime and its special services. The outstanding intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov died at the hands of the OUN.
Death
German patrols were aware of the search for Hautmann in the regions of Western Ukraine. In March 1944, UPA fighters broke into a house in the village of Boratin, which served as a refuge for Kuznetsov and his comrades, Ivan Belov and Yan Kaminsky. Belov was hit with a bayonet at the entrance. For some time, under guard, they waited for the rebel commander, centurion Chernogor. He identified the “German” as the perpetrator of high-profile terrorist attacks against Hitler’s bosses. And then Kuznetsov blew up a grenade in a room filled with UPA fighters. Kaminsky attempted to escape, but was caught by a bullet. The bodies were loaded onto the horse-drawn cart of Golubovich's neighbor Spiridon Gromyak, taken out of the village and, having dug up the snow, they laid the remains near the old stream, covering them with brushwood.
Posthumous fame
A week after the tragic clash, the Germans who entered the village found the remains of a soldier in a Wehrmacht uniform and reburied them. Local residents subsequently showed the reburial site to employees of the Lvov KGB M. Rubtsov and Dzyuba. Strutinsky achieved the reburial of the alleged remains of Kuznetsov in Lviv on the Hill of Glory on July 27, 1960. The memory of one of the heroes of the war, which shocked the whole world and brought liberation from the brown fascist plague that flooded Europe like a dirty stream, will remain in the milestones of history. Nikolai Kuznetsov was right when one day, discussing the affairs of the people’s avengers around a partisan fire, he said: “If after the war we talk about what we did and how we did it, they will hardly believe it. Yes, I probably wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t been a participant in these cases.”
Movie hero
Many believe that the famous film “The Exploit of a Scout” directed by Boris Barnet tells about the fate of Nikolai Kuznetsov. In fact, the idea for the film arose even before the hero began working under the name Rudolf Schmidt. The script of the film was modified many times, some facts were indeed a narration of the events of his service, for example, the episode with the kidnapping of Kühn was written from a similar kidnapping of General Ilgen by Kuznetsov. And yet, most of the film’s plots were based on the collective image of war heroes; the film reflected facts from the biographies of other intelligence officers. Subsequently, the Sverdlovsk Film Studio produced two feature films directly about Nikolai Kuznetsov: “Strong in Spirit” (in 1967) and “Special Forces Detachment” (in 1987), but they did not gain such popularity as “The Feat of a Scout” .
Illegal intelligence officer of the USSR No. 1When specialists in the history of Soviet intelligence services or retired agents are asked to name the most highly professional illegal intelligence officer, almost everyone names Nikolai Kuznetsov. Without at all questioning their competence, let us ask the question: where does such unanimity come from?
Who is an illegal intelligence officer?
The recruited agent lives in a country familiar to him from childhood. His documents are genuine, he does not need to strain to remember certain moments of his biography. An abandoned illegal intelligence officer is another matter. He lives in a country foreign to him, whose language is rarely his native language; everyone around him recognizes him as a stranger. Therefore, an illegal immigrant always pretends to be a foreigner. A stranger can be forgiven a lot: he can speak with an accent, not know local customs, and get confused in geography. The intelligence officer sent to Germany pretends to be a Baltic German, the agent working in Brazil is, according to legend, a Hungarian, the intelligence officer living in New York is, according to documents, a Dane.
There is no greater danger for an illegal immigrant than meeting a “compatriot.” The slightest inaccuracy can be fatal. Suspicion will be aroused by pronunciation that does not correspond to the legend (as natives of Lvov and Kharkov speak the same Ukrainian language completely differently), an error in gesture (Germans, when ordering three glasses of beer, usually throw out their middle, index and thumb), ignorance of the national subculture (during the Ardennes operations 1944-1945 Americans split Skorzeny’s saboteurs with the question “Who is Tarzan?”).
It is simply impossible to predict all the subtleties of the legend: not a single reference book will write that Gretel, one of the many university laboratory assistants, is a local celebrity, and it is simply impossible not to know her. Therefore, every extra hour spent in the company of a “countryman” increases the risk of failure.
One among strangers
Nikolai Kuznetsov, communicating with the Germans, pretended to be a German. From October 1942 to the spring of 1944, almost 16 months, he was in Rivne, occupied by the Nazis, moving in the same circle, constantly expanding the number of contacts. Kuznetsov didn’t just pretend to be a German, he became one, he even forced himself to think in German. The SD and the Gestapo became interested in Siebert only after evidence emerged that the chief lieutenant was related to a series of terrorist attacks carried out in Rivne and Lvov. But Paul Siebert, as a German, never aroused suspicion among anyone. Fluency in the language, knowledge of German culture, customs, behavior - everything was impeccable.
And all this despite the fact that Kuznetsov has never been to Germany and has never even traveled outside the USSR. And he worked in occupied Rivne, where every German is visible, where the SD and the Gestapo are working to eliminate the underground, and almost everyone is under suspicion. No other intelligence officer was able to hold out in such conditions for so long, penetrate so deeply into the environment, or acquire such significant connections. That is why the “fighters of the invisible front” unanimously call Kuznetsov illegal intelligence officer No. 1.
Where did he come from?
Yes, really, where from? For most, the biography of the famous intelligence officer begins with his appearance in Medvedev’s detachment in October 1942. Until this moment, Kuznetsov’s life is not just white spots, but a continuous white field. But brilliant intelligence officers do not appear out of nowhere; they are nurtured and prepared for a long time. Kuznetsov’s path to the heights of professionalism was long and not always straightforward.
Nikolai Kuznetsov was born in the village of Zyryanka, Perm province in 1911 into a peasant family. There are no nobles or foreigners in his family tree. Where a boy born in the Perm outback got his talent as a linguist is a mystery. The winds of revolution brought Nina Avtokratova, who was educated in Switzerland, to the Talitsk seven-year school. Nikolai received his first lessons in German from her.
But this was not enough for the boy. His friends were the local pharmacist, the Austrian Krause, and the forester, a former prisoner of the German army, from whom Kuznetsov picked up profanity that is not found in any German language textbook. In the library of the Talitsky Forestry College, where he studied, Nikolai discovered the “Encyclopedia of Forestry” in German and translated it into Russian.
Blows of fate
In 1929, Kuznetsov was accused of concealing his “White Guard-kulak origin.” Now it is no longer possible to determine what kind of passions raged in the Talitsky technical school, what intrigues Kuznetsov was drawn into (his father was neither a kulak nor a White Guard), but Nikolai was expelled from the technical school and from the Komsomol. The future intelligence officer was left with incomplete secondary education for the rest of his life.
In 1930, Nikolai got a job in the land department. Reinstated in the Komsomol. Having discovered that the authorities were engaged in theft, he reported this to the authorities. The robbers were given 5-8 years and Kuznetsov 1 year - for the company, however, without serving time: the punishment consisted of supervision and withholding 15% of earnings (the Soviet regime was harsh, but fair). Kuznetsov was again expelled from the Komsomol.
Freelance OGPU agent
On duty, Nikolai traveled around the remote villages of Komi, along the way he mastered the local language, and made many acquaintances. In June 1932, detective Ovchinnikov drew attention to him, and Kuznetsov became a freelance agent of the OGPU.
Komi in the early 30s was a place of exile for kulaks. Ardent enemies of Soviet Power and those unjustly repressed fled to the taiga, formed gangs, shot postmen, taxi drivers, villagers - everyone who at least somewhat represented the authorities. Kuznetsov himself was also attacked. There were uprisings. The OGPU needed local agents. Forest manager Kuznetsov was responsible for creating an agent network and maintaining contact with it. Soon higher authorities paid attention to him. The talented security officer was taken to Sverdlovsk.
At Uralmash
Since 1935, Kuznetsov has been a workshop operator at the design bureau at Uralmash. Many foreign specialists, most of them Germans, worked at the plant. Not all foreigners working at the plant were friends of the USSR. Some of them demonstratively expressed their sympathies for Hitler.
Kuznetsov moved among them, made acquaintances, exchanged records and books. The duty of the “Colonist” agent was to identify hidden agents among foreign specialists, suppress attempts to recruit Soviet employees, and find among the Germans persons ready to cooperate with Soviet intelligence.
Along the way, Nikolai improved his German, acquired the habits and behavior characteristic of the Germans. Kuznetsov mastered six dialects of the German language, learned to determine from the first phrases which places the interlocutor was born and immediately switched to the native German dialect, which simply delighted him. Learned Polish and Esperanto.
Kuznetsov was not spared from repression. In 1938, he was arrested and spent several months in prison, but his immediate supervisor managed to recapture his charge.
“We must take him to Moscow!”
In 1938, one of the NKVD staff introduced a particularly valuable agent to a major Leningrad party official, Zhuravlev, who arrived on an inspection in Komi: “Brave, resourceful, proactive. Fluent in German, Polish, Esperanto, and Komi. Extremely effective."
Zhuravlev talked with Kuznetsov for a few minutes and immediately called the deputy of the GUGB NKVD Raikhman: “Leonid Fedorovich, there is a person here - a particularly gifted agent, he must be taken to Moscow.” At that moment, Reichman had an intelligence officer in his office who had recently arrived from Germany; Reichman handed him the phone: “Talk.” After several minutes of conversation in German, the intelligence officer asked: “Is this calling from Berlin?” Kuznetsov's fate was decided.
Illegal in home country
When the head of the secret political department of the GUGB NKVD Fedotov saw the documents of Kuznetsov who had arrived to him, he grabbed his head: two convictions! Expelled from the Komsomol twice! Yes, such a questionnaire is a direct road to prison, and not to the NKVD! But he also appreciated Kuznetsov’s exceptional abilities and designated him as a “highly classified special agent,” hiding his profile from personnel officers behind seven locks in his personal safe.
To protect Kuznetsov, they abandoned the procedure for assigning a title and issuing a certificate. The special agent was issued a Soviet passport in the name of Rudolf Wilhelmovich Schmidt, according to which the security officer lived in Moscow. This is how Soviet citizen Nikolai Kuznetsov was forced to hide in his native country.
Rudolf Schmidt
At the end of the 30s, German delegations of all kinds of colors became frequent in the USSR: trade, cultural, socio-political, etc. The NKVD understood that 3/4 of the composition of these delegations were intelligence officers. Even among the Lufthansa crews there were not beautiful flight attendants, but brave stewards with military bearing, changing every 2-3 flights. (This is how Luftwaffe navigators studied areas of future flights.)
In the circle of this motley public, the “longing for the Fatherland” Soviet German Schmidt moved, quietly finding out which of the Germans was breathing what, with whom he was establishing contacts, and whom he was recruiting. On his own initiative, Kuznetsov obtained the uniform of a senior lieutenant of the Red Army Air Force and began posing as a test engineer at a closed Moscow plant. An ideal target for recruitment! But often the German agent who fell for Schmidt himself became an object of recruitment and returned to Berlin as an NKVD agent.
Kuznetsov-Schmidt made friends with diplomats and became surrounded by the German naval attaché in the USSR. The friendship with frigate captain Norbert Baumbach ended with the opening of the latter's safe and photographing secret documents. Schmidt's frequent meetings with the German military attache Ernst Kestring allowed the security officers to install wiretapping in the diplomat's apartment.
Self-taught
At the same time, Kuznetsov, who supplied the most valuable information, remained an illegal immigrant. Fedotov nipped in the bud all proposals from management to send such a valuable employee to any courses, carefully hiding “Schmidt’s” profile from prying eyes. Kuznetsov never took any courses. The basics of intelligence and conspiracy, recruitment, psychology, photography, driving, German language and culture - in all areas Kuznetsov was 100% self-taught.
Kuznetsov was never a party member. Just the thought that Kuznetsov would have to tell his biography at the party bureau during the reception threw Fedotov into a cold sweat.
Scout Kuznetsov
With the beginning of the war, Kuznetsov was enrolled in the “Special Group under the NKVD of the USSR”, headed by Sudoplatov. Nikolai was sent to one of the camps for German prisoners of war near Moscow, where he served several weeks, getting into the skin of the German chief lieutenant Paul Siebert. In the summer of 1942, Kuznetsov was sent to Dmitry Medvedev’s detachment. In the capital of the Reichskommissariat, Rovno, in exactly 16 months, Kuznetsov destroyed 11 senior officials of the occupation administration.
But one should not perceive his work solely as terrorist. Kuznetsov's main task was to obtain intelligence data. He was one of the first to report the upcoming Nazi offensive on the Kursk Bulge and determined the exact location of Hitler’s Werewolf headquarters near Vinnitsa. One of the Abwehr officers, who owed Siebert a large sum of money, promised to pay him with Persian carpets, which Kuznetsov reported to the center. In Moscow, the information was taken more than seriously: this was the first news of the preparation by the German intelligence services of Operation Long Jump - the liquidation of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill during the Tehran Conference.
Death and posthumous glory
Kuznetsov could not “hold on” forever. The SD and the Gestapo were already looking for a terrorist in the uniform of a German lieutenant. Before his death, the official of the Lviv air force headquarters who was shot by him managed to name the shooter’s surname: “Siebert.” A real hunt began for Kuznetsov. The scout and his two comrades left the city and began to make their way to the front line. March 9, 1944 Nikolai Kuznetsov, Ivan Belov and Yan Kaminsky in the village. Boratin ran into a UPA detachment and died in battle.
N. Kuznetsov was buried on the Hill of Glory in Lvov. In 1984, a young city in the Rivne region was named after him. Monuments to Nikolai Kuznetsov were erected in Rovno, Lvov, Yekaterinburg, Tyumen, and Chelyabinsk. He became the first foreign intelligence officer to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
And lastly, bitter
In June 1992, the authorities of the city of Lvov decided to dismantle the monument to the Soviet intelligence officer. On the day of dismantling, the square was crowded. Many of those who came to the “closing” of the monument did not hide their tears.
Through the efforts of Kuznetsov’s comrade-in-arms Nikolai Strutinsky and former fighters of Medvedev’s detachment, the Lviv monument was transported to the city of Talitsa, where Kuznetsov lived and studied, and installed in the central park of the city.
Kuznetsov Nikolai Ivanovich was born on July 14, 1911 in the village of Zyryanka, Perm province (today it is the Sverdlovsk region). The parents of the future legendary intelligence officer were simple peasants. In addition to Nikolai (at birth the boy received the name Nikanor), they had five more children.
After graduating from seven classes of school, young Nikolai entered the agricultural technical school in Tyumen, in 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, a former soldier of the 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 the 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 conviction - 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 the criminal activities of his 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 was his competent behavior in critical situations, as well as his impeccable knowledge of the Komi-Permyak language, that 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 intelligence officer was given a “fake” Soviet passport in the name of Rudolf Wilhelmovich Schmidt and given the task of infiltrating 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 intelligence officer's main goal 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 to the diplomatic mission in the capital, Geiza-Ladislav Krno. Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov paid special attention 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, whose main task was to organize 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 Gahan, who was carrying a secret map in his briefcase. 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 go to Lviv along with the retreating fascist troops 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 soldiers of the Ukrainian 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.
