THE HIDDEN FRONT OF THE BATTLE OF KURSK: SOVIET INTELLIGENCE OPERATIONS AHEAD OF THE GERMAN 'CITADEL' OFFENSIVE

In reality, the date and place alone are not enough. You need to know the entire logistics of a planned operation if you want to disrupt it. And this involves Everests of data on numbers, kilometres and tonnes. You have to operate a big coordinated network of intelligence gatherers. 

Berlin, March 22 1943. The Reich leadership received a coded message from a German agent within the staff of the senior Soviet General, later Marshal, Konstantin Rokossovski. A decoded version immediately reached the Abwehr chief Admiral Kanaris and Adolph Hitler. 

According to some accounts, Hitler had the transcript in his folder at a leadership meeting on March 24th at which he and his senior commanders conceived Operation 'Citadel'. The Fuhrer did not quote the report but kept it in his mind. What follows is a plausible reconstruction of that intelligence message. 
 
Stalin held about a dozen secret meetings in February and March. The agenda is unknown. According to some reports, Stalin's closest military commanders Generals Zhukov and Rokossovski were assigned to fill senior positions on the battlefronts around Leningrad. 

The message was very well known to Joseph Stalin and was in fact perfectly true. 

Countless leadership meetings in Moscow that spring revolved around strategic plans for the following summer. Stalin expected a decisive crunch in the war with Germany. He knew very well that he could not afford to blunder. 
 
Ahead of a major battle, armies of secret agents are hard at work, top secret papers get copied or stolen and clandestine radio transmitters fill the air with their beep-beeps. Professor Anatoli Sudoplatov is a renowned historian of secret service operations: 

"We didn't enter the summer campaign with a folder around our eyes. In April and May 1943, we possessed exhaustive reports about the enemy's objectives, strategic options and plans to use newly-developed heavy armour on the Eastern front." 
 

For the first time in two years of bloody struggle, the Soviet High Command got a chance to turn the tide of the war against the Nazis. Let Hitler perceive Joseph Stalin as jittery. Let he retain trust in his priceless mole in Moscow. The crunch would come the following summer when military maps reflected a curious frontline curve around Kursk. 

A suburb of London, 1943. A special technical services centre of Britain's secret intelligence service used an automatic code-cracker to read high-level intercepts from the Nazi side. Beginning with early spring, Operation 'Citadel' was mentioned with increasing frequency. Every mention attracted great attention at the centre, because experts there suspected that 'Citadel' was the codename of a summertime German offensive on the Eastern Front. 
 

Moscow Kremlin, April 12 1943. Joseph Stalin received a Russian translation of Wehrmacht Command Directive Six on Operation 'Citadel'. Hitler would sign the Directive on the 15th. A pre-emption unheard of in war history! 

The Hitler directive read as follows: "I have ruled to start the first major offensive this year as soon as the weather permits. This Operation 'Citadel' is seen as absolutely crucial. It must result in a quick and decisive success. The planned offensive must return strategic initiative to our hands. This means that all necessary preparations must be carried out with utmost care and energy." 

The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was playing his own strategic game which would not become clear before the Teheran Conference in late 1943 long after the German debacle near Kursk. He wanted another Stalingrad on the Soviet-German front, with a predictable result that allowed the Brits to move forces to Italy without encountering strong Axis resistance there. He believed this would be in the best interests of Great Britain. 
 

Hitler, Stalin and Churchill each pinned great hopes on the upcoming battle. 

Berlin, April 15 1943. Hours after enacting Directive Six, Hitler received a new message from the Abwehr mole within the Soviet High Command. The spy was saying the Russians were unaware of German preparations near Orel, Belgorod and Kursk and their defence lines in the area were quite weak. The Fuhrer was happy. 

From Directive Six: "I set the task as follows: by a decisive and quick pincer movement of two crack armies -- one advancing from around Orel in the north and the other from around Belgorod in the south -- to encircle the enemy forces around Kursk and wipe them out in a series of blitz cutting strikes." 

Moscow, Lubyanka house, April 15 1943. Summoned to Interior Minister and Member of the State Defence Committee Lavrenti Beriya, head of the 4th Intelligence Department Pavel Sudoplatov was ordered to send special reconnaissance groups to Orel and Belgorod. Stalin and the High Command needed information about German troop concentrations in those areas. 

Anatoli Sudoplatov remembers: 

"An experienced officer named Andrei Alexakhin led a team to Orel on a mission to cross-check, visually or through agents, reports about German troop concentrations in the area. He was expected to rely on intelligence-gatherers who were planted in Orel ahead of the city's fall to the Nazis in 1941. 

Alexakhin accomplished everything with utmost brilliance. He forwarded two exhaustive reports to his superiors in which he accurately assessed the potential of German armour around Orel. He also used his outstanding skills to spot all turncoats to Abwehr among the Soviet intelligence moles in the city. This allowed the Soviet command to cut off deliberate German misinformation from Orel and enabled Alexakhin himself to avoid a Nazi trap by not turning up where he was supposed to." 

Radio reports about the German 'Citadel' plan reached Moscow not only from military reconnaissance officers and agents on Nazi-occupied Soviet territory, but also from Szandor Rado in Switzerland and from the famous Cambridge Five and Dr George Kerncross in Great Britain. Dr Kerncross was working for the Government Telecommunications Headquarters. He was a long-time Soviet sympathizer and Soviet agent from 1935. 

For the first time since the start of the war, Stalin and his Generals were able to accurately track German preparations for a major offensive long in advance. Long before losing the Kursk battle on the actual battlefield, the Germans lost it on the intelligence front. That intelligence clash ahead of Kursk has yet to be scrutinized by historians. There would be three months before new German tanks rumbled into battle near Orel and Belgorod. Much could still change on the battlefronts and in the world at large. 

Historian Professor Anatoli Sudoplatov again: 

"Reports from Rado on Hungary and Kerncross in London were particularly significant in that they contained copies of Wehrmacht directives and transcripts of intercepts of high-level Wehrmacht communications. Experts in Moscow carefully collated those reports with what they got from Soviet military intelligence, including secret German papers seized by operatives behind enemy lines. Reports from abroad introduced corrections and helped the Soviet command plan concrete action to crush the Nazi 'Citadel'." 

Summoned to the Supreme Commander, the Soviet intelligence chief observed Stalin in a less sombre mood than before and he even noticed a spark of cunning joy in Stalin's shifty yellowish eyes. There was confidence and strength in everything that Stalin was saying or doing. 

-- Please, take your seat, Comrade Sudoplatov, -- quietly nodded Stalin and took his behind his desk. -- I remember I spoke with you about the role of intelligence operations ahead of Stalingrad. What about the German mole inside our High Command ? How fares he ? 

Response by Pavel Sudoplatov, after some coughing to clear his throat: 

-- Very well, Comrade Stalin. The agent codenamed 'Heine' is in his place and continues his radio game with Abwehr. He performs superbly and we value him very highly. So does Admiral Kanaris. He has even awarded his man in Moscow. 

-- Good, -- said Joseph Stalin and started strolling back and forth, with his hands behind his back. -- I want to discuss the situation on the battlefront... The Germans have amassed forces for a major offensive near Kursk. We are shaping a counterforce, but the Germans are running ahead of us. We are a bit late. They have military superiority on their side. We would greatly benefit if we delayed the start of the battle. Can special operations be of help ? -- Stalin asked. 

-- The question takes me aback, -- Sudoplatov answered. He was ill at ease and was feeling tense. -- I think we could try misinformation again. 

Stalin stopped strolling and said: 

-- We cannot repeat the trick that we played on Field Marshal Paulus in Stalingrad. The Germans will not swallow it. What else can you offer ? 

Sudoplatov said it would take him some time to find an answer. 

-- Then articulate your proposals in a week from now, -- Stalin said. 

Back in the Lubyanka House, Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov ordered his closest aides to cook a piece of misinformation for the Germans that could induce them to put back their 'Citadel' offensive by a month or two.