N and Kuznetsov short biography. How the blacksmith scout died. Why did the executioner survive?

On July 27, 1911, in the Urals, in the village of Zyryanka, the one who was to become the most famous illegal immigrant of the Great Patriotic War was born. NKVD counterintelligence officers called him Colonist, German diplomats in Moscow - Rudolf Schmidt, Wehrmacht and SD officers in occupied Rivne - Paul Siebert, saboteurs and partisans - Grachev. And only a few people in the leadership of Soviet state security knew his real name - Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov.

This is how the deputy chief of Soviet counterintelligence (1941–1951), lieutenant general, describes his first meeting with him Leonid Raikhman, then, in 1938, senior lieutenant of state security, head of the 1st department of the 4th department of the GUGB NKVD of the USSR: “Several days passed, and a telephone trill was heard in my apartment: “Kolonist” was calling. At that time, my guest was an old friend who had just returned from Germany, where he worked from an illegal position. I looked at him expressively, and said into the phone: “Now they will speak to you in German...” My friend talked for several minutes and, covering the microphone with his palm, said in surprise: “He speaks like a native Berliner!” Later I learned that Kuznetsov was fluent in five or six dialects of the German language, in addition, he could speak, if necessary, in Russian with a German accent. I made an appointment with Kuznetsov the next day, and he came to my house. When he first stepped on the threshold, I actually gasped: a real Aryan! I am above average height, slender, thin but strong, blond, straight nose, blue-gray eyes. A real German, but without such signs of aristocratic degeneration. And excellent bearing, like a career military man, and this is a Ural forest worker!”

The village of Zyryanka is located in the Sverdlovsk region not far from Talitsa, located on the right bank of the picturesque Pyshma River. Starting from the 17th century, Cossacks, Pomor Old Believers, as well as immigrants from Germany settled here on the fertile lands along the border of the Urals and Siberia. Not far from Zyryanka there was a village called Moranin, inhabited by Germans. According to one of the legends, Nikolai Kuznetsov comes from the family of a German colonist - hence his knowledge of the language, as well as the code name Colonist subsequently received. Although I know for sure that this is not so, because these villages - Zyryanka, Balair, the Pioneer state farm, the Kuznetsovsky state farm - are the birthplace of my grandmother. My mother’s brother is buried here in Balair Yuri Oprokidnev. As a child, before school, I was constantly here in the summer, fishing with my grandfather in the same pond as little Nika, as Nikolai Kuznetsov was called in childhood. By the way, Boris Yeltsin was born 30 km to the south, and I will not deny that at first our family felt warm feelings for our fellow countryman.

Nika's mother Anna Bazhenova came from a family of Old Believers. His father served for seven years in a grenadier regiment in Moscow. The design of their house also speaks in favor of Old Believer origin. Although only sketches of the building have been preserved, they show that there are no windows on the wall that faces the street. And this is a distinctive feature of the hut of the “schismatics”. Therefore, it is most likely that Nika’s father Ivan Kuznetsov also from the Old Believers, and Pomors.

Here is what academician Dmitry Likhachev wrote about the Pomors: “They amazed me with their intelligence, special folk culture, culture of the folk language, special handwriting literacy (Old Believers), etiquette for receiving guests, etiquette for food, work culture, delicacy, etc., etc. Not I find words to describe my delight in front of them. It turned out worse for the peasants of the former Oryol and Tula provinces: they were downtrodden and illiterate due to serfdom and poverty. And the Pomors had a sense of self-esteem.”

The materials of 1863 note the strong physique of the Pomors, stately and pleasant appearance, BROWN hair, and firm gait. They are free in their movements, dexterous, quick-witted, fearless, neat and dapper. In the collection for reading in the family and school “Russia”, the Pomors appear as real Russian people, tall, broad-shouldered, of iron health, undaunted, accustomed to BARELY LOOKING DEATH IN THE FACE.
In 1922–1924, Nika studied at a five-year school in the village of Balair, two kilometers from Zyryanka. In any weather - in the autumn thaw, in rain and slush, blizzard and cold - he walked for knowledge, always collected, smart, good-natured, inquisitive. In the fall of 1924, Nika’s father took her to Talitsa, where in those years there was the only seven-year school in the area. There his phenomenal linguistic abilities were discovered. Nika learned German very quickly and this made him stand out among other students. German taught Nina Avtokratova, who was educated in Switzerland. Having learned that the labor teacher was a former German prisoner of war, Nikolai did not miss the opportunity to talk with him, practice the language, and feel the melody of the Lower Prussian dialect. However, this seemed to him not enough. More than once he found an excuse to visit the pharmacy to talk with another “German” - an Austrian pharmacist named Krause - this time in the Bavarian dialect.

In 1926, Nikolai entered the agronomic department of the Tyumen Agricultural College, located in a beautiful building, which until 1919 housed the Alexander Real School. My great-grandfather is in it Procopius Oprokidnev studied with the future People's Commissar of Foreign Trade of the USSR Leonid Krasin. Both of them graduated from college with gold medals, and their names were on the honor board. During the Great Patriotic War, on the second floor of this building in room 15 there was the body of Vladimir Lenin, evacuated from Moscow.

A year later, due to the death of his father, Nikolai transferred closer to home - to the Talitsky Forestry College. Shortly before his graduation, he was expelled on suspicion of kulak origin. After working as a forest manager in Kudymkar (Komi-Permyak National District) and taking part in collectivization, Nikolai, who by this time already spoke the Komi-Permyak language fluently, came to the attention of the security officers. In 1932, he moved to Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg), entered the correspondence department of the Ural Industrial Institute (having presented a certificate of graduation from the technical school) and at the same time worked at the Uralmashplant, participating in the operational development of foreign specialists under the code name Colonist.

At the institute, Nikolai Ivanovich continues to improve his German language: now his teacher has become Olga Veselkina, former maid of honor of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, relative of Mikhail Lermontov and Pyotr Stolypin.

A former librarian at the institute said that Kuznetsov constantly took technical literature on mechanical engineering, mainly in foreign languages. And then she accidentally got to defend her thesis, which was held in German! True, she was quickly removed from the audience, as were subsequently all documents indicating Kuznetsov’s studies at the institute.

Methodologist for local history work at the Talitsk regional library Tatiana Klimova provides evidence that in Sverdlovsk “Nikolai Ivanovich occupied a separate room in the so-called house of security officers at the address: Lenin Avenue, building 52. Only people from the authorities live there now.” Here a meeting took place that determined his future fate. In January 1938 he met Mikhail Zhuravlev, appointed to the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and begins to work as his assistant. A few months later, Zhuravlev recommended Colonist to Leonid Raikhman. We have already described Reichman’s first meeting with Colonist above.

“We, counterintelligence officers,” continues Leonid Fedorovich, “from an ordinary operational worker to the head of our department, Pyotr Vasilyevich Fedotov, dealt with real, and not fictitious, German spies and, as professionals, understood perfectly well that they worked in the Soviet Union as against a real enemy in a future and already imminent war. Therefore, we urgently needed people who could actively resist German agents, primarily in Moscow.”

Moscow Aviation Plant No. 22 named after Gorbunov, from which now only the Gorbushka club in Fili remains, traces its lineage back to 1923. It all started with the unfinished buildings of the Russian-Baltic Carriage Works, lost in the forest. In 1923, they were granted a 30-year concession by the German company Junkers, which was the only one in the world to master the technology of all-metal aircraft. Until 1925, the plant produced the first Ju.20 (50 aircraft) and Ju.21 (100 aircraft). However, on March 1, 1927, the concession agreement on the part of the USSR was terminated. In 1933, plant No. 22 was named after plant director Sergei Gorbunov, who died in a plane crash. According to the legend developed for the Colonist, he becomes a test engineer at this plant, having received a passport in the name of an ethnic German Rudolf Schmidt.

The building of the Tyumen Agricultural Academy, where Nikolai Kuznetsov studied

"My comrade Viktor Nikolaevich Ilyin, a major counterintelligence worker,” recalls Reichman, “was also very pleased with him. Thanks to Ilyin, Kuznetsov quickly acquired connections in the theater, in particular, ballet, Moscow. This was important because many diplomats, including established German intelligence officers, were quite drawn to actresses, especially ballerinas. At one time, the issue of appointing Kuznetsov as one of the administrators... of the Bolshoi Theater was even seriously discussed.”

Rudolf Schmidt actively gets acquainted with foreign diplomats, attends social events, and meets friends and lovers of diplomats. With his participation, in the apartment of the German naval attaché, frigate captain Norbert Wilhelm von Baumbach, a safe was opened and secret documents were copied. Schmidt takes a direct part in intercepting diplomatic mail and is part of the entourage of the German military attache in Moscow Ernst Köstring, having wiretapped his apartment.

However, Nikolai Kuznetsov’s finest hour struck with the beginning of the war. With such knowledge of the German language - and by that time he had also mastered Ukrainian and Polish - and his Aryan appearance, he becomes a super agent. In the winter of 1941, he was placed in a camp for German prisoners of war in Krasnogorsk, where he learned the rules, life and morals of the German army. In the summer of 1942, under the name Nikolai Grachev he was sent to the special forces detachment “Winners” from the OMSBON - special forces of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR, whose chief was Pavel Sudoplatov.

With employees of the design department of Uralmash. Sverdlovsk, 1930s

On August 24, 1942, late in the evening, a twin-engine Li-2 took off from an airfield near Moscow and headed for Western Ukraine. And on September 18, along Deutsche Strasse - the main street of occupied Rivne, turned by the Germans into the capital of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, an infantry lieutenant with the Iron Cross of the 1st class and the “Golden Insignia for Wounds” on his chest, with the ribbon of the Iron Cross of the 2nd, walked leisurely at a measured pace class, pulled through the second loop of the order, with his cap jauntily tilted to one side. A gold ring with a monogram on the signet glittered on the ring finger of his left hand. He greeted senior ranks clearly, but with dignity, slightly casually saluting in response to the soldiers. The self-confident, calm owner of the occupied Ukrainian city, the very living personification of the hitherto victorious Wehrmacht, Lieutenant Paul Wilhelm Siebert. He's Pooh. He is Nikolai Vasilyevich Grachev. He is also Rudolf Wilhelmovich Schmidt. He is also the Colonist - this is how he describes the first appearance of Nikolai Kuznetsov in Rivne Theodor Gladkov.

Paul Siebert received the task at the slightest opportunity to eliminate the Gauleiter of East Prussia and the Reich Commissioner of Ukraine Erich Koch. He meets his adjutant and in the summer of 1943, through him, he seeks an audience with Koch. There is a good reason - Siebert's fiancée Volksdeutsche Fraulein Dovger is facing being sent to work in Germany. After the war, Valentina Dovger recalled that, preparing for the visit, Nikolai Ivanovich was absolutely calm. In the morning I got ready, as always, methodically and carefully. He put the pistol in his jacket pocket. However, during the audience, his every movement was controlled by guards and dogs, and it was useless to shoot. It turned out that Siebert was from East Prussia - a fellow countryman of Koch. He so endeared himself to a high-ranking Nazi, a personal friend of the Fuhrer, that he told him about the upcoming German offensive near Kursk in the summer of 1943. The information immediately went to the Center.

The very fact of this conversation is so amazing that there are many myths around it. It is alleged, for example, that Koch was an agent of influence of Joseph Stalin, and this meeting was pre-arranged. Then it turns out that Kuznetsov did not at all need an amazing command of German in order to gain the confidence of the Gauleiter. This is confirmed by the fact that Stalin reacted rather leniently to Koch, handed over to him by the British in 1949, and gave him to Poland, where he lived to be 90 years old. Although in fact Stalin has nothing to do with it. It’s just that the Poles, after Stalin’s death, made a deal with Koch, since he alone knew the location of the Amber Room, since he was responsible for its evacuation from Königsberg in 1944. Now this room is most likely somewhere in the States, because the Poles need to pay something back to their new owners.

Stalin, rather, owes his life to Kuznetsov. It was Kuznetsov who, in the fall of 1943, conveyed the first information about the impending assassination attempt on Joseph Stalin, Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill (Operation Long Jump) during the Tehran Conference. He was in touch with Maya Mikota, who, on instructions from the Center, became a Gestapo agent (pseudonym “17”) and introduced Kuznetsov to Ulrich von Ortel, who at the age of 28 was an SS Sturmbannführer and a representative of SD foreign intelligence in Rovno. In one of the conversations, von Ortel said that he was given the great honor of participating in “a grandiose business that will shake up the whole world,” and promised to bring Maya a Persian carpet... On the evening of November 20, 1943, Maya informed Kuznetsov that von Ortel committed suicide in his office on Deutschestrasse. Although in the book “Tehran, 1943. At the Big Three conference and on the sidelines,” Stalin’s personal translator Valentin Berezhkov indicates that von Ortel was present in Tehran as Otto Skorzeny's deputy. However, as a result of the timely actions of the group Gevork Vartanyan The “light cavalry” managed to eliminate the Tehran Abwehr station, after which the Germans did not dare to send the main group led by Skorzeny to certain failure. So there was no Long Jump.

In the autumn of 1943, several assassination attempts were organized on the life of Paul Dargel, Erich Koch's permanent deputy. On September 20, Kuznetsov mistakenly killed Erich Koch's deputy for finance, Hans Gehl, and his secretary Winter, instead of Dargel. On September 30, he tried to kill Dargel with an anti-tank grenade. Dargel was seriously injured and lost both legs. After this, it was decided to organize the kidnapping of the commander of the “eastern battalions” (punitive) formation, Major General Max von Ilgen. Ilgen was captured along with Paul Granau, Erich Koch's driver, and shot at one of the farms near Rovno. On November 16, 1943, Kuznetsov shot and killed the head of the legal department of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, SA Oberführer Alfred Funk. In Lvov in January 1944, Nikolai Kuznetsov destroyed the chief of the government of Galicia, Otto Bauer, and the head of the government chancellery of the General Government, Dr. Heinrich Schneider.

On March 9, 1944, making their way to the front line, Kuznetsov’s group came across Ukrainian nationalists UPA. During the ensuing shootout, his comrades Kaminsky and Belov were killed, and Nikolai Kuznetsov blew himself up with a grenade. After the Germans fled in Lvov, a telegram with the following content was discovered, sent on April 2, 1944 to Berlin:

Top secret
National importance
Lvov, April 2, 1944
TELEGRAM-LIGHTNING
To the Main Office of Reich Security to present the "SS" to Gruppenführer and Lieutenant General of Police Heinrich Müller

At the next meeting on April 1, 1944, the Ukrainian delegate reported that one of the units of the UPA “Chernogora” had detained three Soviet-Russian spies in the forest near Belogorodka in the Verba (Volyn) region on March 2, 1944. Judging by the documents of these three detained agents, we are talking about a group reporting directly to the NKVD GB. The UPA verified the identities of the three arrested as follows:

1. The leader of the group, Paul Siebert, nicknamed Pooh, had false documents as a senior lieutenant in the German army, was allegedly born in Königsberg, and his photo was on the ID. He was dressed in the uniform of a German senior lieutenant.
2. Pole Jan Kaminsky.
Z. Strelok Ivan Vlasovets, nicknamed Belov, Pooh's driver.

All arrested Soviet-Russian agents had false German documents, rich auxiliary material - maps, German and Polish newspapers, among them “Gazeta Lvovska” and a report on their intelligence activities on the territory of the Soviet-Russian front. Judging by this report, compiled personally by Pooh, he and his accomplices committed terrorist acts in the Lvov area. After completing the assignment in Rovno, Pooh headed to Lvov and got an apartment from a Pole. Then Pooh managed to sneak into a meeting where there was a meeting of the highest government officials in Galicia under the leadership of Governor Dr. Wechter.

Pooh intended to shoot Governor Dr. Waechter under these circumstances. But due to the strict precautionary measures of the Gestapo, this plan failed, and instead of the governor, the lieutenant governor, Dr. Bauer, and the latter’s secretary, Dr. Schneider, were killed. Both of these German statesmen were shot dead near their private apartment. After the committed act, Pooh and his accomplices fled to the Zolochev area. During this period of time, Pooh had a clash with the Gestapo when the latter tried to check his car. On this occasion, he also shot and killed a senior Gestapo official. There is a detailed description of what happened. During another control of his car, Pooh shot one German officer and his adjutant, and after that he abandoned the car and was forced to flee into the forest. In the forests, he had to fight with UPA units in order to get to Rovno and further on the other side of the Soviet-Russian front with the intention of personally handing over his reports to one of the leaders of the Soviet-Russian army, who would send them further to the Center, to Moscow. As for the Soviet-Russian agent Pooh and his accomplices detained by the UPA units, we are undoubtedly talking about the Soviet-Russian terrorist Paul Siebert, who in Rovno kidnapped, among others, General Ilgen, in the Galician district shot aviation lieutenant colonel Peters, one senior aviation corporal, vice - the governor, the head of the department, Dr. Bauer and the presidial chief, Dr. Schneider, as well as the field gendarmerie major Kanter, whom we carefully searched for. By morning, a message was received from Prützmann’s combat group that Paul Siebert and his two accomplices had been found shot in Volhynia. The OUN representative promised that all materials in copies or even originals would be handed over to the security police if, in return, the security police agreed to release Ms. Lebed with the child and her relatives. It should be expected that if the promise of release is fulfilled, the OUN-Bandera group will send me a much larger amount of information material.

Signed: Head of the Security Police and SD for the Galician District, Dr. Vitiska, “SS” Obersturmbannführer and Senior Directorate Advisor

Meeting of the Colonist with the secretary of the Slovak Embassy G.-L. Krno, a German intelligence agent. 1940 Operational photography with a hidden camera

In addition to the “Winners” detachment, commanded by Dmitry Medvedev and in which Nikolai Kuznetsov was based, the “Olympus” detachment of Viktor Karasev operated in the Rivne region and Volyn, whose intelligence assistant was the legendary “Major Whirlwind” - Alexey Botyan, who turned 100 this year years. I recently asked Alexey Nikolaevich if he had met Nikolai Kuznetsov and what he knew about his death.

Alexey Nikolaevich, together with you in the Rivne region, Dmitry Medvedev’s “Winners” detachment operated, and in its composition, under the guise of a German officer, was the legendary intelligence officer Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov. Have you ever met him?

Yes, I had to. This was at the end of 1943, about 30 km west of Rivne. The Germans found out the location of Medvedev’s detachment and were preparing a punitive operation against it. We found out about this, and Karasev decided to help Medvedev. We arrived there and settled down 5–6 km from Medvedev. And it was our custom: as soon as we change place, we definitely arrange a bathhouse. We had a special guy for this case. Because people are dirty - there is nowhere to wash their clothes. Sometimes they took it off and kept it over the fire so as not to get lice. I've never had lice. Well, that means we invited Medvedev to the bathhouse, and Kuznetsov just came to him from the city. He arrived in a German uniform, they met him somewhere and changed his clothes so that no one in the detachment knew about him. We invited them to the bathhouse together. Then they organized a table, I got local moonshine. They asked Kuznetsov questions, especially me. He had an impeccable command of the German language and had German documents in the name of Paul Siebert, the quartermaster of the German units. Outwardly, he looked like a German - so blond. He entered any German institution and reported that he was carrying out an assignment from the German command. So he had very good cover. I also thought: “I wish I could do that!” Bandera's men killed him. Evgeniy Ivanovich Mirkovsky, also a Hero of the Soviet Union, an intelligent and honest man, also operated in the same places. We later became friends in Moscow, I often visited his house on Frunzenskaya. His reconnaissance and sabotage group “Walkers” in June 1943 in Zhitomir blew up the buildings of the central telegraph, printing house and Gebietskommissariat. The Gebietskommissar himself was seriously wounded, and his deputy was killed. So Mirkovsky blamed Medvedev himself for the death of Kuznetsov because he did not give him good security - there were only three of them, they fell into a Bandera ambush and died. Mirkovsky told me: “All the blame for Kuznetsov’s death lies with Medvedev.” But Kuznetsov had to be protected - no one else did it.

In Ukraine they sometimes say that Kuznetsov is a legend, a product of propaganda...

What a legend - I saw it myself. We were in the bathhouse together!

During the war, did you meet with the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD - the legendary Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov?

The first time was in 1942. He arrived at the station, said goodbye to us, and gave instructions. He told Karasev: “Take care of people!” And I stood nearby. Then, in 1944, Sudoplatov handed me the officer's shoulder straps of a senior lieutenant of state security. Well, we met after the war. And with him, and with Eitingon, who made me a Czech. It was Khrushchev who later imprisoned them, the scoundrel. What smart people they were! How much they did for the country - after all, all the partisan detachments were under them. Both Beria and Stalin - whatever you say, they mobilized the country, defended it, did not allow it to be destroyed, and there were so many enemies: both inside and outside.

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of November 5, 1944, Nikolai Kuznetsov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for exceptional courage and bravery in carrying out command tasks. The submission was signed by the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKGB of the USSR Pavel Sudoplatov.

Andrey VEDYAEV

In the rather long gallery of heroes of the Soviet era, one of the most prominent places is occupied by the personality of the truly legendary Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov. Many informative books, articles and essays have already been written about this man, who fearlessly destroyed Nazi leaders in broad daylight, and several feature films have been made. Today, there are practically no significant blank spots left in his biography as a secret agent. True, the real circumstances of the death of the one who acted in the German rear under the guise of Wehrmacht officer Paul Siebert are still shrouded in fog and sometimes cause very heated debate.

Not shot, but blown up

Visiting the places where Nikolai Kuznetsov fought, died and was buried, we were amazed at how bizarre the fate of the intelligence officer was during his life and what happened to the history of his exploits after his death.

One of the mysteries is the place and circumstances of Kuznetsov’s death. Immediately after the war, there was a version according to which a group of scouts, together with Kuznetsov, were captured alive and then shot by militants of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in a forest near the village of Belgorodki, Rivne region. Only 14 years after the war it became known that the group died in the village of Boratin, Lviv region.

The version about the execution of Kuznetsov by UPA militants was spread after the war by the commander of the partisan detachment “Winners”, Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitry Medvedev, who was based on a telegram discovered after the war in the German archives, sent by the head of the security police for the Galician district, Vytiska, personally to SS Gruppenführer Müller. But the telegram was based on false information given to the Germans by UPA militants.

The UPA detachments operating in the frontline zone collaborated closely with the German occupation forces, but in order to ensure greater loyalty of the “Banderaites,” the occupation administration held relatives of field commanders and UPA leaders hostage. In March 1944, these hostages were close relatives of one of the leaders of the UPA, Lebed.

After the death of Kuznetsov and a group of scouts, the UPA fighters started a game with the German administration, inviting them to exchange the supposedly living intelligence officer Kuznetsov-Siebert for Lebed’s relatives. While the Germans were thinking, UPA fighters allegedly shot him, and in return they offered him genuine documents and, most importantly, Kuznetsov’s report on the sabotage he carried out in the German rear in Western Ukraine. That's what we agreed on.

The UPA militants, apparently, were afraid to indicate the true place of death of the intelligence officer and his group, since during a German check it would have immediately become clear that this was not the capture of the intelligence officer who was being searched throughout Western Ukraine, but the self-detonation of Kuznetsov.

What is important here is not so much the location as the circumstances of the scout’s death. He was not shot because he did not surrender to the UPA militants, but blew himself up with a grenade.

And after the war, his friend and colleague NKVD-KGB Colonel Nikolai Strutinsky investigated the circumstances of Kuznetsov’s death.

Five minutes of anger and a lifetime

One of us had the opportunity to meet Nikolai Strutinsky (April 1, 1920 - July 11, 2003) and interview him several times during his lifetime in 2001 in Cherkassy, ​​where he then lived.

After the war, Strutinsky spent a long time figuring out the circumstances of Kuznetsov’s death, and later, during the time of Ukrainian independence, he did everything to preserve the monuments to Kuznetsov and his memory.

We think that Strutinsky’s attachment to this particular, last period of Kuznetsov’s life is not accidental. Nikolai Strutinsky was at one time a member of Kuznetsov’s group and participated with him in some operations. Shortly before the death of the scout and his group, Kuznetsov and Strutinsky quarreled.
This is what Strutinsky himself said about this.

“Once, at the beginning of 1944, we were driving along Rovno,” says Nikolai Vladimirovich. “I was driving, Nikolai Kuznetsov was sitting next to me, and intelligence officer Yan Kaminsky was behind me. Not far from Vacek Burim’s safe house, Kuznetsov asked to stop. He said: “I’m coming now.” ". He left, returned after a while, extremely upset about something. Ian asked: “Where have you been, Nikolai Vasilyevich?” (Kuznetsov was known in the detachment under the name “Nikolai Vasilyevich Grachev” - ed.). Kuznetsov replies: “Yes, so ... "And Jan says: “I know: Vacek Burim has it.” Then Kuznetsov came to me: “Why did you tell him?” Appearance is secret information. But I didn’t tell Jan anything. And Kuznetsov flared up and said a lot of insulting things to me. Our nerves were at their limit then, I couldn’t stand it, I got out of the car, slammed the door - the glass broke, fragments started falling out of it. I turned around and walked away. I’m walking down the street, I have two pistols - in a holster and in my pocket. I think to myself : stupid, I had to restrain myself, because I know that everyone is on edge. Sometimes, when I saw the German officers, I had a desire to shoot everyone, and then shoot myself. This was the situation. I'm coming. I hear someone catching up. I don't turn around. And Kuznetsov caught up and touched him on the shoulder: “Kolya, Kolya, sorry, nerves.”
I silently turned and walked towards the car. We sat down and let's go. But I told him then: we don’t work together anymore. And when Nikolai Kuznetsov left for Lvov, I didn’t go with him.”

This quarrel may have saved Strutinsky from death (after all, the entire Kuznetsov group died a few weeks later. But it seems to have left a deep mark on the soul of Nikolai Strutinsky.

The protocol truth about the death of intelligence officer Kuznetsov

Immediately after the war, Strutinsky worked in the Lvov regional department of the KGB. And this allowed him to reconstruct the picture of the death of intelligence officer Kuznetsov.

Kuznetsov went to the front line with Jan Kaminsky and Ivan Belov. However, according to witness Stepan Golubovich, only two came to Boratin.

"... at the end of February or at the beginning of March 1944, in the house there were, in addition to me and my wife, my mother - Golubovich Mokrina Adamovna (died in 1950), son Dmitry, 14 years old, and daughter 5 years old (later died). In the house the light was not on.

On the night of the same date, at about 12 o'clock at night, when my wife and I were still awake, a dog barked. The wife got up from the bed and went out into the yard. Returning to the house, she reported that people were coming from the forest towards the house.

After that, she began to watch through the window, and then told me that the Germans were approaching the door. Unknown people approached the house and began knocking. First through the door, then through the window. The wife asked what to do. I agreed to open the doors for them.

When unknown people in German uniforms entered the house, the wife turned on the light. Mother got up and sat down in the corner near the stove, and unknown people came up to me and asked if there were any Bolsheviks or UPA members in the village? One of them asked in German. I replied that there were neither one nor the other. Then they asked to close the windows.

After that they asked for food. The wife gave them bread and lard and, it seems, milk. I then noticed how two Germans could walk through the forest at night if they were afraid to go through it during the day...

One of them was above average height, aged 30-35 years, white face, light brown hair, one might say somewhat reddish, shaves his beard, and had a narrow mustache.

His appearance was typical of a German. I don’t remember any other signs. He did most of the talking to me.

The second was shorter than him, somewhat thin in build, blackish face, black hair, shaving his mustache and beard.

... After sitting down at the table and taking off their caps, the unknown men began to eat, keeping the machine guns with them. About half an hour later (and the dog was barking all the time), when unknown people came to me, an armed UPA member entered the room with a rifle and a distinctive sign on his hat “Trident”, whose nickname, as I learned later, was Makhno.
Makhno, without greeting me, immediately went up to the table and shook hands with the strangers, without saying a word to them. They were also silent. Then he came up to me, sat down on the bed and asked me what kind of people they were. I answered that I didn’t know, and after about five minutes other UPA members began to enter the apartment; about eight of them entered, and maybe more.

One of the UPA participants gave the command to civilians, that is, to us, the owners, to leave the house, but the second one shouted: no need, and no one was allowed out of the hut. Then again one of the UPA participants gave the command in German to the unknown people “Hands up!”

A tall unknown man rose from the table and, holding a machine gun in his left hand, waved his right hand in front of his face and, as I remember, told them not to shoot.

The weapons of the UPA participants were aimed at unknown people, one of whom continued to sit at the table. "Hands up!" The command was given three times, but the unknown hands were never raised.

The tall German continued the conversation: as I understood, he asked if it was the Ukrainian police. Some of them answered that they were the UPA, and the Germans replied that this was not according to the law...

... I saw that the UPA participants lowered their weapons, one of them approached the Germans and offered to give up their machine guns, and then the tall German gave it up, and after him gave up the second one. Tobacco began to crumble on the table, UPA members and unknown people began to smoke. Thirty minutes had already passed since the unknown people met with the UPA participants. Moreover, the tall unknown man was the first to ask for a cigarette.

... A tall unknown man, rolling up a cigarette, began to light a cigarette from the lamp and put it out, but in the corner near the stove a second lamp was burning faintly. I asked my wife to bring the lamp to the table.

At this time, I noticed that the tall unknown man became noticeably nervous, which was noticed by the UPA members, who began to ask him what was going on... The unknown man, as I understood it, was looking for a lighter.

But then I saw that all the UPA participants rushed away from the unknown towards the exit doors, but since they opened into the room, they did not open it in a hurry, and then I heard a strong explosion of a grenade and even saw a sheaf of flame from it. The second unknown person lay down on the floor under the bed before the grenade exploded.
After the explosion, I took my young daughter and stood near the stove; my wife jumped out of the hut along with the UPA members, who broke the door, removing it from its hinges.

The unknown man of short stature asked something to the second man, who was lying wounded on the floor. He answered him that “I don’t know,” after which a short unknown man, knocking out a window frame, jumped out of the window of the house with a briefcase.

The grenade explosion injured my wife lightly in the leg and my mother lightly in the head.

Regarding the unknown short man running through the window, I heard heavy rifle fire for about five minutes in the direction where he was running. I don’t know what his fate is.

After that, I ran away with the child to my neighbor, and in the morning, when I returned home, I saw the unknown man dead in the yard near the fence, lying face down in his underwear.”

As it was established during interrogations of other witnesses, Kuznetsov’s right hand was torn off during the explosion of his own grenade and he was “severely wounded in the area of ​​the frontal part of the head, chest and abdomen, which is why he soon died.”

Thus, the place, time (March 9, 1944) and circumstances of the death of Nikolai Kuznetsov were established.

Later, having organized the exhumation of the intelligence officer’s body, Strutinsky proved that it was Kuznetsov who died in Boratin that night.

But proving this turned out to be difficult due to other circumstances. Strutinsky, who took risks while searching for the place where the scout died, had to take risks again, proving that the remains he found near this place really belonged to Kuznetsov.

Illegal intelligence officer of the USSR No. 1
When 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, according to legend, is a Hungarian; the intelligence officer living in New York, according to his documents, is 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 of 1944-1945, the 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 represented the government in any way. 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 several 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 three-quarters 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.

70 years ago, on March 9, 1944, in the village of Boratyn, Lviv region, a sabotage group of the legendary Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov died. She was captured by UPA militants. Kuznetsov blew himself up with a grenade, and his companions were shot.

Shortly before the start of the Great Patriotic War, Nikolai Kuznetsov began preparing to work abroad from illegal positions. However, the outbreak of war made adjustments to this preparation. In the first days of Nazi Germany’s attack on our country, Nikolai Kuznetsov submitted a report with a request to be used in “an active struggle against German fascism at the front or in the rear of the German troops invading our land.” In the summer of 1942, having undergone special training, he was enlisted in the special purpose detachment “Winners,” commanded by D.N. Medvedev.

In accordance with the withdrawal plan, Kuznetsov was parachuted deep behind enemy lines - in the Sarny forests of the Rivne region.
In the city of Rivne, turned by the Germans into the “capital” of temporarily occupied Ukraine, Nikolai Kuznetsov appeared under the name of Chief Lieutenant Paul Wilhelm Siebert, holder of two Iron Crosses. The intelligence officer's good professional training, brilliant knowledge of the German language, amazing will and courage were the basis for his performance of the most complex reconnaissance and sabotage missions.
Acting under the guise of a German officer, Nikolai Kuznetsov carried out the people's sentence in the center of the city of Rivne - he destroyed the imperial adviser to the Reichskommissariat of Ukraine Gell and his secretary Winter. A month later, in the same place, he mortally wounded Deputy Reich Commissioner General Dargel. Together with his comrades, he kidnapped and took from Rovno the commander of the punitive troops in Ukraine, General von Ilgen, and his personal driver E. Koch Granau. Soon after this, in the courthouse he destroyed the cruel executioner, the president of the supreme court in occupied Ukraine A. Funk.


Conspiracy meeting between Kuznetsov (left) and the secretary of the Slovak Embassy Krno, an agent of German intelligence. 1940, operational filming with a hidden camera.

An interesting episode was the liquidation of the commander of the special forces, General Ilgen. Kuznetsov proposed a plan not just to liquidate the general, but to capture him and deliver him to the detachment. The implementation of this plan, in addition to Kuznetsov, was entrusted to Strutinsky, Kaminsky and Valya Dovger.
General von Ilgen occupied a substantial house in Rovno, which had a permanent sentry. The moment for the operation to capture Ilgen was chosen well. Four German soldiers, who constantly lived in the general’s house and served as his guard, were sent to Berlin, where the general sent suitcases with looted goods with them. The house was guarded by local police.
On the scheduled day, Valya went to Ilgen’s house with a package in her hands. The orderly suggested that Valya wait for the general, but she said that she would come back later. It became clear that von Ilgen was not at home. Soon Kuznetsov, Strutinsky and Kaminsky appeared there. They quickly eliminated the guards, and the chief lieutenant explained to the orderly that if he wants to live, he must help them. The orderly agreed.
Nikolai Ivanovich and Strutinsky selected documents of interest from von Ilgen’s office, folded them and packed them together with the weapons they found in a bundle. About forty minutes later von Ilgen drove up to the house. When he took off his overcoat, Kuznetsov came out of the next room and said that there were Soviet partisans in front of him.

The general was forty-two years old, healthy and strong, he did not want to obey the intelligence officer’s commands. I had to tinker with him. When they managed to “pack” the general, it turned out that officers were coming to the house. Nikolai Ivanovich came out to meet them. There were four of them. The scout's mind worked feverishly: what to do with them? Interrupt? Can. But there will be noise. And then Kuznetsov remembered the Gestapo badge that he had been given back in Moscow. He had never used it before.
Nikolai Ivanovich took out a badge and, showing it to the German officers, said that a bandit in a German uniform had been detained here and therefore asked to see documents. Having carefully examined them, he asked three to follow their path, and invited the fourth to enter the house as a witness. He turned out to be Erich Koch's personal driver.
So, along with General von Ilgen, Officer Granau, the Gauleiter’s personal driver, was also brought into the detachment.


The merit of Nikolai Kuznetsov was that he simultaneously purposefully collected intelligence information important for the Center. Thus, in the spring of 1943, he managed to obtain extremely valuable intelligence information about the enemy’s preparations for a major offensive operation in the Kursk area using the new Tiger and Panther tanks. He also became aware of the exact location of Hitler’s field headquarters near Vinnitsa, codenamed “Werewolf.” Kuznetsov was the first to report on the preparation of an assassination attempt on the heads of government of the Big Three, who were gathering for a historic meeting in Tehran. His task also included collecting information about the movement of military units, about the plans and intentions of the Gestapo and SD services, about the trips of high officials of the Reich, which was successfully used in the fight against the enemy.


From left to right: Nikolai Kuznetsov, commissar of the partisan detachment Stekhov, Nikolai Strutinsky

At the end of December 1943, N.I. Kuznetsov received a new task - to expand intelligence work in the city of Lvov. Carrying out acts of retaliation, he carried out the verdict of the people and destroyed the Vice-Governor of Galicia, Otto Bauer, and Lieutenant Colonel Peters. The situation in Galicia became extremely complicated after this. Kuznetsov and his two comrades - Yan Kaminsky and Ivan Belov - managed to escape from Lvov. It was decided to make our way to the front line. However, on the night of March 8-9, 1944, they were ambushed in the village of Boratin, Lviv region and died in an unequal battle with Ukrainian nationalists; Kuznetsov blew himself up with a grenade, and his companions were shot.

Monument to Nikolai Kuznetsov in Tyumen.
On November 5, 1944, a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was published on awarding the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to members of the special forces of the NKGB of the USSR who operated behind enemy lines. In the list of those awarded, along with the name of D.N. Medvedev, there was also the name of Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov - posthumously.
In 1990-1991 A number of protests by members of the Ukrainian nationalist underground against perpetuating the memory of Kuznetsov appeared in the Lviv media. Monuments to Kuznetsov in Lviv and Rivne were dismantled in 1992. In November 1992, with the assistance of Strutinsky, the Lviv monument was taken to Talitsa.
Vandals have repeatedly tried to desecrate the grave of Nikolai Kuznetsov. By 2007, activists of the initiative group in Yekaterinburg had carried out all the preparatory work necessary to move Kuznetsov’s remains to the Urals.
The case of Nikolai Kuznetsov is stored in the archives of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation and will be declassified no earlier than 2025.