A double agent from the Abwehr, or Why intelligence agent Alexander Kozlov in the USSR was long considered a traitor

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The risky combat path of Alexander Kozlov, who for a long time was considered a traitor to the Motherland, became known only years after the Victory. The scout Kozlov was never a coward, having managed to deceive the fascist intelligence Abwehr and brought a lot of benefits for the Soviet Union. On the account of the lieutenant - the Order of the Red Star, the Patriotic War, the Red Banner. And it just so happened on the duty of double service that, along with high Soviet awards, Kozlov had distinctions for services to the Reich. It took Kozlov many years to prove his true commitment to the interests of the USSR.

Captivity and German blackmail

Alexander Kozlov was brought up in a poor family of peasants in Stavropol, dreaming of becoming a military man. The plans began to be implemented with the direction of the young man on the Komsomol ticket to the infantry school. A few days before Hitler's attack on the USSR, the young lieutenant was assigned to the Western Military District, where he was caught by the war. Kozlov immediately began to spin in heavy defensive battles and retreats. In 1941, unable to get out of the dense encirclement, Alexander Ivanovich put together a partisan detachment from the local. For many months Kozlov and his comrades waged an underground war. Their detachment, operating in the Dorogobuzh district of the Smolensk region, numbered a hundred people, gradually replenishing with volunteers. By the beginning of 1942, it was a large and well-organized partisan group.

Soon Kozlov's detachment entered the “Grandfather” partisan division, which fought in the Minsk direction. Alexander's battalion held defenses around the villages of Morozovo and Petranovo. During this period, the young commander met a girl with whom they soon started a family. Voluntary people's avengers carried out operations against punitive forces behind enemy lines, blew up bridges and derailed trains. For his courage during the defensive battles near Dorogobuzh, Kozlov was nominated for the Order of the Red Star. On June 22, 1942, Alexander Ivanovich with several soldiers was ambushed, wounded and taken prisoner. Together with him, they seized his pregnant wife Evdokia. At first they were kept in the Vyazemsky prisoner camp, until someone informed the fascists about Kozlov's command status. The Germans took advantage of the position of the wife of a Soviet officer and went to blackmail. Kozlov had to agree to the recruitment, but in his head he already wore a clear plan for a double game.

Kozlov - Abwehr employee

Kozlov was trained by instructors of the German intelligence school Abwehr for subsequent transfer to the Red Army rear. He was the perfect option for spying for the Germans - an experienced military specialist, officer, Russian-speaking. They decided to introduce him into the command staff of the Red Army, as their agent. Having disguised the prisoner in the uniform of the captain of the Red Army, Kozlov was sent to the Soviet rear. He had to find the German group and hand over money, documents and spare batteries for the radios.

Alexander acted somewhat differently. Having landed with a parachute near Tula, he unloaded his weapon and headed for the first Soviet unit that came across. There he insistently demanded a meeting with the chief of staff of the regiment, Major Ivanov. Kozlov did not play hide and seek and said that he had been abandoned by the Germans. He was immediately detained, but after reporting the details of the case to his superiors, SMERSH took over. Alexander described his situation in detail, expressing a desire to play a double game and, under the guise of working for the Germans, supply intelligence to his own. The Soviet side agreed to a deal, checking Kozlov through previous acquaintances and connections. He was released to carry out a German mission, after which he returned to the German location as a Soviet intelligence officer.

Authoritative "defector"

Returning with plausible misinformation, Kozlov left the Germans happy with his job. Soon, Alexander Ivanovich, who had lulled the enemy's vigilance, headed the educational unit of the intelligence school in the Abwehr, received the rank of captain and several awards from the Third Reich. Now Kozlov had access to classified information and personal files of the cadets. Choosing reliable companions among them, Kozlov recruited agents who delivered important information to the Soviet command. He worked in the Abwehr team almost until the very end of the war. In addition to his main activity, Alexander Ivanovich specifically rejected Soviet defectors, punishing them for anti-Soviet sentiments. And instead of a warm place in the German rear, the traitors received a ticket to a concentration camp. The war was drawing to a close, and the Abwehr reconnaissance school found itself in the zone of influence of American troops. Alexander and his wife were handed over to the Soviet representatives as fascist accomplices. And in the USSR they were deported as defectors.

Half a century of post-war misadventures

Kozlov, delivered to Moscow, prepared detailed reports on the work done in the role of a double agent and waited for well-deserved awards. But unexpectedly he was demobilized with a note on his military card about a three-year stay in German captivity. Intelligence activities were not mentioned anywhere. For Alexander Ivanovich, this was a blow. Apart from the military future, he did not see himself in anything. Kozlov began to write to various authorities demanding that the shameful entry be removed from the documents, but in vain.

He had to return to his native village in the Stavropol Territory and master the work of a painter, collective farmer, loader. The wife of such a situation could not stand it and left. Kozlov found the strength to start all over again. But a second blow followed: in 1949, Kozlov was arrested on charges of divulging classified information. The scout was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment in the Karaganda camp. After the release, the everyday life of the village handyman dragged on again. Despite the record of a dubious past, Kozlov managed to work over the years to become the head of the road maintenance section in Stavropol.

In 1963, Alexander Ivanovich was rehabilitated. The military tribunal asked the chairman of the State Security to consider awarding Kozlov the order. The petition noted that, as an employee of the German intelligence school, the intelligence officer recruited up to a dozen German agents, and also expelled from the school the most talented German agents devoted to the ideals of the German command. In 1945, he named dozens of Soviet traitors and identified German agents in his homeland. From that moment on, Kozlov's life changed dramatically, and justice was restored. Newspapers began to write about him, to make films. And although he remained a prisoner of war in archival documents for a long time, his name eventually took its rightful place in the annals of Soviet counterintelligence.

Naturally, men weren't the only spies. These 5 brave spies also killed the Nazis during the war.