Table Of ContentLEOPOLD TREPPER
MEMOIRS OF THE SPY HITLER COULDN'T SILENCE
MCGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY
New York, St. Louis, San Francisco, Dusseldorf, Mexico, Toronto
Radford
Public
Library
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Book design by Judith Michael.
English translation copyright © 1977 by McGraw-Hill, Inc.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
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without the prior written permission of the publisher.
1 2 3 4 5 6 78 9 DOD0798 7
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Trepper, Leopold, 1904-
The great game.
Translation of Le grand jeu.
Includes index.
1. Trepper, Leopold, 1904- 2. World
War, 1939-1945—Secret service. I. Title.
D810.S8T65713 940.54'86'0924 76-7537
ISBN 0-07-065146-9
Originally published in French under the title Le Grand Jeu,
© Editions Albin Michel, 1975. Written by Leopold Trepper
in collaboration with Patrick Rotman.
\
To Luba, courageous companion of my life
Acknowledgments
4 should like to express my gratitude to all those people, all
over the world, who joined forces to enable me to leave
w Poland. Without the militants in the committees "for the
liberation of Trepper," without the parties, labor unions, and
organizations that took part in this struggle, and the private
individuals, I would not have been able to write this book.
I should also like to express my appreciation to the
following official and private organizations, which helped me
with my research:
Mrs. Braem and her staff at the Division of Research,
Documentation, and Death Records of the Belgian Ministry
of Public Health and Family;
The directors of the Memorial at Breendonk, especially
Professor Paul M. C. Levy of the Department of Economic,
Social, and Political Sciences at the Catholic University of
Louvain;
Mr. J. Vanwelkenhyzen, director, and Messrs. Jean
Dujardin and Jose Gotovitch of the Belgian Center for
Research and Historical Studies on the Second World War;
Professor Jean-Leon Charles of the Belgian Royal Military
Academy.
Thanks to them, this book is more complete and more
accurate.
Finally, I want to extend to all the survivors of the Red
Orchestra and their families my fraternal greetings and my
continued gratitude for the help they gave me by their
testimony.
L.T.
Contents
Foreword, xi
PART ONE: APPRENTICESHIP
1 Two Images, 3
2 Novy-Targ, 5
3 Palestine, 13
4 France, 25
5 Moscow at Last, 35
6 Face to Face with Reality, 41
7 Fear, 47
8 The Hunting of the Jews, 57
9 The Murder of the Red Army, 65
10 The Chocolate House, 69
11 In Search of Fantdmas, 77
12 The Origin of a Myth, 83
PART TWO: THE RED ORCHESTRA
1 The Birth of the Orchestra, 87
2 The Foreign Excellent Trenchcoat Company, 96
3 The Great Illusion, 102
4 The Battle Begins, 107
5 First Steps, 113
6 In the Heart of the Reich, 121
7 Stalin's Illusion, 125
8 The Orchestra Plays, 130
9 Fernand Pauriol, 134
10 My Double Life, 139
11 101, Rue des Atrebates, 145
12x The Mistakes of the Center, 156
13 77ze Sonderkommando on Our Trail, 163
14 "So, Herr Otto 168
15 Warning Signals, 179
16 The Great Game, 186
17 Six Defeats for Karl Giering, 193
18 Black Days, 199
19 A Special Prisoner, 209
20 "Vengeance Is at Hand," 216
21 Four Meetings with Juliette, 220
22 Hell in Breendonk, 230
23 The Center Takes the Initiative, 240
24 The Sonderkommando Falls into the Trap, 246
25 The Butcher of Prague, 260
26 "The Big Chief Has Escaped!," 270
27 A Close Duel with the Gestapo, 288
28 Hunted by All the Police, 301
29 The Sonderkommando under Surveillance, 309
30 The Butchers Leave Their Mark, 316
PART THREE: THE RETURN
1 A Remarkable Journey, 329
2 Lubianka, 339
3 Lefortovo, 348
4 The House of the Living Dead, 363
5 Some Lessons in History, 368
6 Amazing Encounters in the Prisons of Stalin, 372
7 Freedom, 384
8 Return to Warsaw, 393
9 The Last Battle, 398
Epilogue, 409
Appendix I: Farewells, 413
Appendix II: The Dead, 425
Appendix III: The Later Circumstances of Some Nazis, 435
Index, 437
Foreword
I
^he idea of writing my memoirs occurred to me while I
was waiting for authorization to leave Poland, during the
three years I spent in Warsaw in total solitude. As a "free
prisoner/' a condition which was very difficult to endure
psychologically, my mind was occupied solely with remem¬
bering what had gone before.
For every man who is approaching the end of his life, there
is always one period that leaves a more lasting impression
than any other. When I look back over the seventy years I
have lived, I feel that what happened to me between the ages
of thirty and forty—the period of the Red Orchestra—is
crucial. It is true that I lived then in a constant state of crisis,
and that danger was my most faithful companion; but if I had
to start all over again, I would do so with joy.
Today, at last, I no longer have anything to hide; I have no
other ambition than to tell the truth about the fifty years of
my life as a militant.
Here, then, is that truth.
PART ONE
mmxia/m
Two Images
J
ust now two images came into my mind that show quite
clearly the distance I have traveled. The first one takes
me back to my early childhood, and to Novy-Targ, the
little town in Poland where I was born. I can still hear a voice
shouting:
"They've arrested a Russian spy!"
In minutes the rumor was all over town. Rumors were
plentiful in those last days of July, 1914. From window to
window, and in the street, people spread the news: "They've
arrested a Russian spy in Poronin village, and they're bring¬
ing him here!"
Like all the children my age, I ran to the railroad station to
watch the arrival of the prisoner. The train pulled into the
station. A short, stocky man got out, flanked by two police¬
men. He had a little red beard and a big cap tilted over his
forehead. Along with the other youngsters, I followed the
strange trio across the central square, toward the town hall,
which was equipped with a single cell for noisy drunks. The
"spy" was locked up here. The next day the policemen took
him to the jail, which was directly across from the syna¬
gogue.
It was Saturday. The Jews walked out of the temple in the
midst of the service and stood around in front of the jail in
little groups, discussing the war and the "Russian spy." A
few days later, the prisoner was transferred to Cracow, and
the inhabitants of Novy-Targ, especially the Jews, made
jokes about a shopkeeper in Poronin who had extended credit
to the spy and his wife for several months. The credulity of
the Jewish shopkeeper remained a subject of amusement
until one day in 1918, when he received a letter; soon the
whole town knew what it said:
