Ignace Poretsky
Encyclopedia
Ignace Reiss, AKA "Ignace Poretsky," "Ignatz Reiss," "Ludwig," "Ludwik", "Hans Eberhardt," "Steff Brandt," and Nathan Poreckij (1899–1937) was one of the "Great Illegals" or Soviet
spies
who worked in third party countries where they weren't nationals in the late 1920s and 1930s. An NKVD
team assassinated him in September 1937 near Lausanne
, Switzerland
, a few weeks after he declared his defection in a letter addressed to Joseph Stalin
. He was a lifelong friend of Walter Krivitsky
; his assassination influenced the timing and method of Whittaker Chambers
' defection a few months later.
), then in Galicia, Austria-Hungary
, just across the river from Volochysk
, then in Podolia
, Tsarist Russia (now both in Ukraine
). His mother was "Russian" from "across the river." His father had his elder brother and him educated in Lwow (modern Lviv), the provincial capital. There, he formed lifelong friendships with several other boys, all of whom would become committed Communist spies. These boys included Kalyniak, Willy Stahl, Berchtold Umansky ("Brun"), his brother Mikhail Umansky ("Misha," later "Ilk"), Fedia (later "Fedin"), and the young Walter Krivitsky (born Samuel Ginsberg). During World War I
, the friends traveled when they could to Vienna, where they gathered around Fedia and his girlfriend Krusia. The name Krusia (also "Kruzia") became a codename between these friends in later years. Reiss also visited Leipzig
, Germany
, to meet German Socialists: there, he met Gertrude Schildbach, later involved in his assassination. He earned a degree from the Faculty of Law, University of Vienna
. In 1918, he returned to his hometown, where he worked for the railway. (His older brother was killed during the Polish-Soviet War in 1920
.)
. The KPRP adhered closely to the policies of Rosa Luxemburg
. Julian Marchlewski
(AKA "Karski") represented the KPRP at the Third International in March 1919.
By the summer of 1919, he had received a summons to Vienna
, Austria
, where he moved quickly from work with agencies of the newly formed Comintern
to "Fourth Department of the General Staff"—which became the Soviet GRU
. He then conducted party work in Poland. There he met Joseph Krasny-Rotstadt, a friend of both Rosa Luxemburg (already dead) and (more importantly) of fellow Pole Felix Dzerzhinsky. Having fought in the Bolshevik Revolution, Krasny was already directing propaganda for Eastern Europe. During this time, Reiss published a few articles as "Ludwig" in one of Krasny's publications, called The Civil War.
In early 1920, Reiss was in Moscow, where he met and married his wife, Elisabeth (also called "Elsa"). During the Russian-Polish War in 1920, Willy Stahl and he received their first assignment, Lwow, where they distributed illegal Bolshevik literature. By 1921, as he took on the alias "Ludwig" (or "Ludwik" in his wife's memoirs), Reiss had become a Soviet spy, originally for the GPU
/OGPU, and later the NKVD
. In 1922, he was again working in Lwow, this time with another friend of Fedia and Krusnia's from Vienna, Jacob Locker. Elisabeth was in Lwow, too. Reiss was arrested and charged with espionage, which carried a maximum five-year sentence. En route to prison, Reiss escaped his train in Cracow, never to return to Poland.
From 1921 to 1929, Reiss served in Western Europe, particularly Berlin
and Vienna. In Berlin, their house guests included Karl Radek
and Larissa Reisner, ex- wife of Fedor Raskolnikov
(a Naval officer who chronicled the Kronstadt rebellion
). In Vienna, friends included Yuriy Kotsiubynsky
, Alexander Schlichter
, Angelica Balabanov, Paul Ruegg, Ivan Zaporozhets, Alexander Lykov, and Emil Maurer. In Amsterdam, Reiss and his wife knew Henriette Roland-Holst, Hildo Krop
, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands
, "Professor Carvalho" (Ricardo Carvalho Calero
), "H. C. Pieck" (Henri Pieck
), and most importantly "Henricus" or "Henryk Sneevliet" (Henk Sneevliet
). In this same period, Richard Sorge
brought Hede Massing
to Reiss for training.
In 1927, he returned briefly to Moscow
, where he received the Order of the Red Banner
. From 1929 to 1932, Reiss served in Moscow, where he worked in a nominal post of the Polish section of the Comintern—already sidelined as a "foreign" (non-Russian). Among the people whom Reiss and wife knew at that time were Richard Sorge (AKA "Ika"), Sorge's superior, Alexander Borovich, Felix Gorski, Otto Braun
, Max Maximov-Friedman, Franz Fischer
, Pavlo Ladan, and Theodore Maly
. Valentin Markin
reported to Reiss in Moscow, who in turn reported to Abram Slutsky
.
, Alexander Rado
, Noel Field
, Vasily Zarubin
("Vasia"), Yakov Blumkin
, Boris Bazarov
, J. K. Berzin (Jānis Bērziņš
), and Arthur Stavchevsky.
By 1936, their friends were returning to Moscow one after the other, most of whom were shot or disappeared during the Great Purge
. Reiss himself received a summons back to Moscow, but allowed his wife to travel there in his stead in late 1936, staying into early 1937. In early 1937, Krivitsky was recalled but managed to finagle his way out again on foreign assignment.
Upon Krivitsky's return, Reiss composed a letter to the Central Committee
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
, addressed to Stalin and dated July 17, 1937. He returned the Order of the Red Banner with his letter, stating that to wear the medal "simultaneously with the hangmen of the best representatives of the Russian worker" was beneath his dignity. He went on to condemn the excesses of Stalin's purges and the actions of Soviet state security services. While criticizing Stalin and Yezhov, Reiss promised not to reveal any state security secrets.
Reiss then fled with his wife and child to the remote village of Finhaut
, Valais
canton, Switzerland, to hide. After they had been hiding for a month, they were contacted by Gertrude Schildbach at the instruction of Roland Lyudvigovich Abbiate, alias Francois Rossi, alias Vladimir Pravdin
, codename LETCHIK ("Pilot"), a Russian expatriate, citizen of Monaco
, and a Soviet NKVD
agent. Schildbach was a German Communist refugee who was persuaded to write to Reiss to request a meeting and ask his advice. Schildbach refused a request by Abbiate to give Reiss a box of chocolates filled with strychnine
, but agreed to set up the meeting. On September 4, Reiss agreed to meet Schildbach in Lausanne
. His wife and son Roman boarded a train for Territet, Vaud
canton, Switzerland. Reiss stayed with Schildbach before he was to board a train for Rheims to meet Sneevliet, who was to publish Reiss's letter and news of his defection. Then he would rejoin his family in Territet. He never made his train to Rheims.
As Reiss's wife Elisabeth (Elsa) related in her memoirs, she went to Vevey
to meet Schildbach again on September 5, but the woman never showed up. On September 6, she saw a small article in a Lausanne newspaper about a dead man with a Czech passport in the name of "Hans Eberhardt" found dead on the night of September 4 on the road from Lausanne to Chamblandes
. She later identified the body carrying Eberhardt's passport as that of her husband.
Reiss using the alias Eberhardt was lured by Schildbach onto a side road near Lasuanne where Roland Abbiate was waiting for him with a Soviet PPD-34
submachine gun. Realizing what whas about to happen, Reiss lunged for Schildbach, grabbing a lock of her hair before Abbiate shot him. Reiss was hit by fifteen bullets from Abbiate's submachine gun, killing him instantly. The two then dumped Reiss's body on the side of the road. Later police investigations revealed that a long strand of grey hair was found clutched in the hand of the dead man. In his pockets were a passport in the name of Hans Eberhardt and a railway ticket for France. An American-brand automobile, abandoned on 6 September at Geneva, was found to contain abandoned clothing, which led to the identification of two men and a woman. One of the men was Roland Abbiate, who had registered on 4 September at the Hotel de la Paix in Lausanne with Schildbach, the two had fled without their baggage and without paying their bill. The woman was none other than Gertrude Schildbach, of German nationality, a resident of Rome, and in reality a Soviet OGPU agent in Italy. The other man was Etienne-Charles Martignat, born in 1900 at Culhat in the Puy-de-Dôme, living since 1931 at No 18 Avenue de Anatole France, Clichy, Paris. Among the effects left by Schildbach at the hotel was a box of chocolates containing strychnine. Soon thereafter, a deposit in a Swiss bank was made in Gertrude Schildbach's name in the amount of 100,000 Swiss francs. However, as France's Popular Front
Government of the period did not wish to upset diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and Stalin, no arrests or announcement of the results of the police investigation were made at the time.
In a 1951 French Ministry of Interior study titled A Soviet Counter-espionage Network Abroad: the Reiss Case, the French government analyzed the actions of Soviet state security forces involved in Reiss's abduction and liquidation. Published on 20 September, the study concluded that "the assassination of Ignace Reiss on 4 September 1937 at Chamblandes near Lausanne, Switzerland, is an excellent example of the observation, surveillance and liquidation of a `deserter' from the Soviet secret service."
.)
They had one child, a boy named Roman, born around 1926.
, Witness: his assassination in July 1937 was perhaps the last straw that caused him not only to defect but to make careful preparations when doing so.
Compared to Reiss, Chambers considered far more carefully how to elude the Soviets when he defected in April 1938, as described in Witness.
called Ignace Reiss: Vie et mort d'un révolutionnaire about Reiss's life and death, following several years of research. The film includes testimonials, historical footage, a reconstruction of his assassination, all narrated by readings from his wife's memoirs.
Participating in the film are:
's 1998 novel Fear of Mirrors
, set during German reunification in 1990. Ali was fascinated by the story of Ignace Reiss: "Ludwik became an obsession with me."
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
spies
SPY
SPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...
who worked in third party countries where they weren't nationals in the late 1920s and 1930s. An NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
team assassinated him in September 1937 near Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, a few weeks after he declared his defection in a letter addressed to Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
. He was a lifelong friend of Walter Krivitsky
Walter Krivitsky
Walter Germanovich Krivitsky was a Soviet intelligence officer who revealed plans of signing Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact before defecting weeks before the outbreak of World War II....
; his assassination influenced the timing and method of Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
' defection a few months later.
Early life
Reiss was born Nathan Markovic Poreckij in 1899 into a Jewish family in Podwołoczyska (PidvolochyskTernopil Oblast
Ternopil Oblast is an oblast' of Ukraine. Its administrative center is Ternopil, through which flows the Seret River, a tributary of the Dnister.-Geography:...
), then in Galicia, Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, just across the river from Volochysk
Volochysk
Volochysk is a town located on the left bank of the Zbruch River in Khmelnytskyi Oblast of western Ukraine. It is the administrative center of Volochyskyi Raion .The current estimated population is 20 958 ....
, then in Podolia
Podolia
The region of Podolia is an historical region in the west-central and south-west portions of present-day Ukraine, corresponding to Khmelnytskyi Oblast and Vinnytsia Oblast. Northern Transnistria, in Moldova, is also a part of Podolia...
, Tsarist Russia (now both in Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
). His mother was "Russian" from "across the river." His father had his elder brother and him educated in Lwow (modern Lviv), the provincial capital. There, he formed lifelong friendships with several other boys, all of whom would become committed Communist spies. These boys included Kalyniak, Willy Stahl, Berchtold Umansky ("Brun"), his brother Mikhail Umansky ("Misha," later "Ilk"), Fedia (later "Fedin"), and the young Walter Krivitsky (born Samuel Ginsberg). During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the friends traveled when they could to Vienna, where they gathered around Fedia and his girlfriend Krusia. The name Krusia (also "Kruzia") became a codename between these friends in later years. Reiss also visited Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, to meet German Socialists: there, he met Gertrude Schildbach, later involved in his assassination. He earned a degree from the Faculty of Law, University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
. In 1918, he returned to his hometown, where he worked for the railway. (His older brother was killed during the Polish-Soviet War in 1920
Polish-Soviet War in 1920
The Polish–Soviet war erupted in 1920 in the aftermath of World War I. The root causes were twofold: a territorial dispute dating back to Polish-Russian wars in the 17–18th centuries; and a clash of ideology due to USSR's goal of spreading communist rule further west, to Europe...
.)
Fourth Department: "Ludwig"
In early 1919, Reiss joined the newly formed Polish Communist Party (the Communist Workers' Party of Poland or KPRP), since his hometown had become part of the Second Polish RepublicSecond Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
. The KPRP adhered closely to the policies of Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
. Julian Marchlewski
Julian Marchlewski
Julian Baltazar Marchlewski was a Polish communist. He was also known under the aliases Karski and Kujawiak....
(AKA "Karski") represented the KPRP at the Third International in March 1919.
By the summer of 1919, he had received a summons to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, where he moved quickly from work with agencies of the newly formed Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
to "Fourth Department of the General Staff"—which became the Soviet GRU
GRU
GRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
. He then conducted party work in Poland. There he met Joseph Krasny-Rotstadt, a friend of both Rosa Luxemburg (already dead) and (more importantly) of fellow Pole Felix Dzerzhinsky. Having fought in the Bolshevik Revolution, Krasny was already directing propaganda for Eastern Europe. During this time, Reiss published a few articles as "Ludwig" in one of Krasny's publications, called The Civil War.
In early 1920, Reiss was in Moscow, where he met and married his wife, Elisabeth (also called "Elsa"). During the Russian-Polish War in 1920, Willy Stahl and he received their first assignment, Lwow, where they distributed illegal Bolshevik literature. By 1921, as he took on the alias "Ludwig" (or "Ludwik" in his wife's memoirs), Reiss had become a Soviet spy, originally for the GPU
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
/OGPU, and later the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
. In 1922, he was again working in Lwow, this time with another friend of Fedia and Krusnia's from Vienna, Jacob Locker. Elisabeth was in Lwow, too. Reiss was arrested and charged with espionage, which carried a maximum five-year sentence. En route to prison, Reiss escaped his train in Cracow, never to return to Poland.
From 1921 to 1929, Reiss served in Western Europe, particularly Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and Vienna. In Berlin, their house guests included Karl Radek
Karl Radek
Karl Bernhardovic Radek was a socialist active in the Polish and German movements before World War I and an international Communist leader after the Russian Revolution....
and Larissa Reisner, ex- wife of Fedor Raskolnikov
Fedor Raskolnikov
Fyodor Fyodorovich Raskolnikov , real name Fyodor Ilyin , was a Bolshevik, participant in the October Revolution, commander of Red fleets on the Caspian and the Baltic during the Russian Civil War, and later a Soviet diplomat...
(a Naval officer who chronicled the Kronstadt rebellion
Kronstadt rebellion
The Kronstadt rebellion was one of many major unsuccessful left-wing uprisings against the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the Russian Civil War...
). In Vienna, friends included Yuriy Kotsiubynsky
Yuriy Kotsiubynsky
Yuriy Kotsiubynsky was a Bolshevik politician, activist, member of the Soviet government in Ukraine.-Until the Revolution:...
, Alexander Schlichter
Alexander Schlichter
Alexander Grigorievich Schlichter was a Ukrainian Bolshevik politician.Schlichter's grandfather, originally from western Germany, settled in what is the present-day Poltava Oblast of Ukraine in 1818...
, Angelica Balabanov, Paul Ruegg, Ivan Zaporozhets, Alexander Lykov, and Emil Maurer. In Amsterdam, Reiss and his wife knew Henriette Roland-Holst, Hildo Krop
Hildo Krop
Hildebrand Lucien Krop was a prolific Dutch sculptor and furniture designer, widely known as the city sculptor of Amsterdam, where his work is well-represented.-Life:...
, Princess Juliana of the Netherlands
Juliana of the Netherlands
Juliana was the Queen regnant of the Kingdom of the Netherlands between 1948 and 1980. She was the only child of Queen Wilhelmina and Prince Henry...
, "Professor Carvalho" (Ricardo Carvalho Calero
Ricardo Carvalho Calero
Ricardo Carvalho Calero was a Spanish philologist, academic and writer. He was the first Professor of Galician Language and Literature at the University of Santiago de Compostela. He was one of the main theorists of contemporary reintegracionism and his works on this field are considered a primary...
), "H. C. Pieck" (Henri Pieck
Henri Pieck
Henri Christiaan Pieck was a Dutch architect, painter and graphic artist.Pieck married twice. On 12 July 1922, he married Geziena van Gelder, with whom he had one son. This union was dissolved on 14 May 1928. His second wife, Bernharda Hugona Johanna van Lier, whom he married on 25 May 1928 in St...
), and most importantly "Henricus" or "Henryk Sneevliet" (Henk Sneevliet
Henk Sneevliet
Hendricus Josephus Franciscus Marie Sneevliet, known as Henk Sneevliet or the pseudonym Maring , was a Dutch Communist, who was active in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East-Indies...
). In this same period, Richard Sorge
Richard Sorge
Richard Sorge was a German communist and spy who worked for the Soviet Union. He has gained great fame among espionage enthusiasts for his intelligence gathering during World War II. He worked as a journalist in both Germany and Japan, where he was imprisoned for spying and eventually hanged....
brought Hede Massing
Hede Massing
Hede Massing, née "Hedwig Tune" was an Austrian actress in Vienna and Berlin, communist, and Soviet intelligence operative in Europe and the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. After the World War II, she defected from the Soviet underground...
to Reiss for training.
In 1927, he returned briefly to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, where he received the Order of the Red Banner
Order of the Red Banner
The Soviet government of Russia established the Order of the Red Banner , a military decoration, on September 16, 1918 during the Russian Civil War...
. From 1929 to 1932, Reiss served in Moscow, where he worked in a nominal post of the Polish section of the Comintern—already sidelined as a "foreign" (non-Russian). Among the people whom Reiss and wife knew at that time were Richard Sorge (AKA "Ika"), Sorge's superior, Alexander Borovich, Felix Gorski, Otto Braun
Otto Braun
This article is about the Prime Minister of Prussia. For the German Communist and once the Comintern military adviser to the Chinese Communist revolution see Otto Braun ....
, Max Maximov-Friedman, Franz Fischer
Franz Fischer
Franz Fischer may refer to:-* Franz Fischer , cellist and Hofkapellmeister in München* Franz Joseph Emil Fischer , chemist, famous for Fischer-Tropsch process-See also:...
, Pavlo Ladan, and Theodore Maly
Theodore Maly
Theodore Maly was an undercover Soviet intelligence officer who recruited and controlled spies in the 1930s. He lived illegally in the countries where he worked and was one of Russia’s most effective illegal recruiters and controllers...
. Valentin Markin
Valentin Markin
Valentin Markin was the chief illegal rezident and director of the espionage operations of the Soviet Union in the United States from 1933 to 1934...
reported to Reiss in Moscow, who in turn reported to Abram Slutsky
Abram Slutsky
Abram Aronovich Slutsky headed the Soviet foreign intelligence service , then part of the NKVD, from May 1935 to February 1938.-Biography:...
.
Defection and assassination (1937)
From 1932 to 1937, Reiss was stationed in Paris. There, Reiss and his wife met Egon Erwin KischEgon Erwin Kisch
Egon Erwin Kisch was a Czechoslovak writer and journalist, who wrote in German. Known as the The raging reporter from Prague, Kisch was noted for his development of literary reportage and his opposition to Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.- Biography :Kisch was born into a wealthy, German-speaking...
, Alexander Rado
Alexander Rado
Alexander Radó, born as Sándor Radó and also known as Alexander Radolfi , was a Hungarian cartographer and a Soviet military intelligence agent in World War II.-Life:...
, Noel Field
Noel Field
Noel Field , was an American citizen. While employed at the United States Department of State in the 1930s, he was a Soviet spy...
, Vasily Zarubin
Vasily Zarubin
Vasily Mikhailovich Zarubin Василий Михайлович Зарубин was a Soviet intelligence officer. In the United States, he used the cover name Vasily Zubilin and served as Soviet intelligence Rezident from 1941 to 1944. Zarubin's wife, Elizabeth Zubilin, served with him.Zarubin was born in Moscow...
("Vasia"), Yakov Blumkin
Yakov Blumkin
Yakov Grigoryevich Blumkin was a Left Socialist-Revolutionary, assassin, Bolshevik, Cheka agent, State Political Directorate spy, and adventurer, executed as Trotskyist.-Early life :...
, Boris Bazarov
Boris Bazarov
Boris Bazarov was a Soviet secret police officer who served as the chief illegal rezident in New York City from 1935 until 1937.-Early years:...
, J. K. Berzin (Jānis Bērziņš
Janis Berzinš
Jānis Bērziņš also Ian Karlovich Berzin or Yan Karlovich Berzin , Latvian and Soviet communist military official and politician.-Early years:...
), and Arthur Stavchevsky.
By 1936, their friends were returning to Moscow one after the other, most of whom were shot or disappeared during the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
. Reiss himself received a summons back to Moscow, but allowed his wife to travel there in his stead in late 1936, staying into early 1937. In early 1937, Krivitsky was recalled but managed to finagle his way out again on foreign assignment.
Upon Krivitsky's return, Reiss composed a letter to the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
, addressed to Stalin and dated July 17, 1937. He returned the Order of the Red Banner with his letter, stating that to wear the medal "simultaneously with the hangmen of the best representatives of the Russian worker" was beneath his dignity. He went on to condemn the excesses of Stalin's purges and the actions of Soviet state security services. While criticizing Stalin and Yezhov, Reiss promised not to reveal any state security secrets.
Reiss then fled with his wife and child to the remote village of Finhaut
Finhaut
Finhaut is a municipality in the district of Saint-Maurice in the canton of Valais in Switzerland.-Geography:Finhaut has an area, , of . Of this area, 3.2% is used for agricultural purposes, while 26.3% is forested...
, Valais
Valais
The Valais is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland in the southwestern part of the country, around the valley of the Rhône from its headwaters to Lake Geneva, separating the Pennine Alps from the Bernese Alps. The canton is one of the drier parts of Switzerland in its central Rhône valley...
canton, Switzerland, to hide. After they had been hiding for a month, they were contacted by Gertrude Schildbach at the instruction of Roland Lyudvigovich Abbiate, alias Francois Rossi, alias Vladimir Pravdin
Vladimir Pravdin
Vladimir Pravdin or Roland Lyudvigovich Abbiate codename LETCHIK was a senior NKVD assassin working in Europe during the Great Terror. He later became a KGB agent, stationed in the United States....
, codename LETCHIK ("Pilot"), a Russian expatriate, citizen of Monaco
Monaco
Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
, and a Soviet NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
agent. Schildbach was a German Communist refugee who was persuaded to write to Reiss to request a meeting and ask his advice. Schildbach refused a request by Abbiate to give Reiss a box of chocolates filled with strychnine
Strychnine
Strychnine is a highly toxic , colorless crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine causes muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia or sheer exhaustion...
, but agreed to set up the meeting. On September 4, Reiss agreed to meet Schildbach in Lausanne
Lausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
. His wife and son Roman boarded a train for Territet, Vaud
Vaud
Vaud is one of the 26 cantons of Switzerland and is located in Romandy, the French-speaking southwestern part of the country. The capital is Lausanne. The name of the Canton in Switzerland's other languages are Vaud in Italian , Waadt in German , and Vad in Romansh.-History:Along the lakes,...
canton, Switzerland. Reiss stayed with Schildbach before he was to board a train for Rheims to meet Sneevliet, who was to publish Reiss's letter and news of his defection. Then he would rejoin his family in Territet. He never made his train to Rheims.
As Reiss's wife Elisabeth (Elsa) related in her memoirs, she went to Vevey
Vevey
Vevey is a town in Switzerland in the canton Vaud, on the north shore of Lake Geneva, near Lausanne.It was the seat of the district of the same name until 2006, and is now part of the Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut District...
to meet Schildbach again on September 5, but the woman never showed up. On September 6, she saw a small article in a Lausanne newspaper about a dead man with a Czech passport in the name of "Hans Eberhardt" found dead on the night of September 4 on the road from Lausanne to Chamblandes
Pully
Pully is a municipality in Switzerland in the canton of Vaud, located in the district of Lavaux-Oron.It is one of the eastern suburbs of the city of Lausanne, located on the shores of Lake Geneva and at the foot of the vineyards of Lavaux on the road to Vevey and Montreux.-Prehistory:In 1826 a...
. She later identified the body carrying Eberhardt's passport as that of her husband.
Reiss using the alias Eberhardt was lured by Schildbach onto a side road near Lasuanne where Roland Abbiate was waiting for him with a Soviet PPD-34
PPD-40
The PPD is a submachine gun originally designed in 1934. The PPD had a conventional wooden stock, fired from an open bolt, and was capable of selective fire....
submachine gun. Realizing what whas about to happen, Reiss lunged for Schildbach, grabbing a lock of her hair before Abbiate shot him. Reiss was hit by fifteen bullets from Abbiate's submachine gun, killing him instantly. The two then dumped Reiss's body on the side of the road. Later police investigations revealed that a long strand of grey hair was found clutched in the hand of the dead man. In his pockets were a passport in the name of Hans Eberhardt and a railway ticket for France. An American-brand automobile, abandoned on 6 September at Geneva, was found to contain abandoned clothing, which led to the identification of two men and a woman. One of the men was Roland Abbiate, who had registered on 4 September at the Hotel de la Paix in Lausanne with Schildbach, the two had fled without their baggage and without paying their bill. The woman was none other than Gertrude Schildbach, of German nationality, a resident of Rome, and in reality a Soviet OGPU agent in Italy. The other man was Etienne-Charles Martignat, born in 1900 at Culhat in the Puy-de-Dôme, living since 1931 at No 18 Avenue de Anatole France, Clichy, Paris. Among the effects left by Schildbach at the hotel was a box of chocolates containing strychnine. Soon thereafter, a deposit in a Swiss bank was made in Gertrude Schildbach's name in the amount of 100,000 Swiss francs. However, as France's Popular Front
Popular Front (France)
The Popular Front was an alliance of left-wing movements, including the French Communist Party , the French Section of the Workers' International and the Radical and Socialist Party, during the interwar period...
Government of the period did not wish to upset diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and Stalin, no arrests or announcement of the results of the police investigation were made at the time.
In a 1951 French Ministry of Interior study titled A Soviet Counter-espionage Network Abroad: the Reiss Case, the French government analyzed the actions of Soviet state security forces involved in Reiss's abduction and liquidation. Published on 20 September, the study concluded that "the assassination of Ignace Reiss on 4 September 1937 at Chamblandes near Lausanne, Switzerland, is an excellent example of the observation, surveillance and liquidation of a `deserter' from the Soviet secret service."
Aftermath
On the first anniversary of Reiss's assassination, his wife (as "Elsa Reiss") described their situation:He would wait no longer, he had made up his mind. And now I tried to dissuade him from being over-impulsive, to talk things over with other comrades. I was justifiably afraid for his life. I pleaded with him not to walk out alone, to make the break along with other comrades but he only said: “One can count on nobody. One must act alone and openly. One cannot trick history, there is no point in delay.” He was correct – one is alone.
It was a release for him but also a break with everything that had hitherto counted with him, with his youth, his past, his comrades. Now we were completely alone. In those few weeks Reiss aged very rapidly, his hair became snow-white. He who loved nature and cherished life looked about him with empty eyes. He was surrounded by corpses. His soul was in the cellars of the Lubianka. In his sleep-torn nights he saw an execution or a suicide.
Family
Between 1920 and 1922, Reiss married Elsa Bernaut (AKA "Else Bernaut" AKA "Elisabeth K. Poretsky," AKA "Elsa Reiss") (1898-1976) in Moscow; at times, Reiss used her maiden name as another alias. (In French, her book received the title Les nôtres by "Elisabeth K. Poretski" in the Bibliothèque nationale de Paris and by "Elizaveta Poretskaya" in The Black Book of CommunismThe Black Book of Communism
The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression is a book authored by several European academics and edited by Stéphane Courtois, which describes a history of repressions, both political and civilian, by Communist states, including genocides, extrajudicial executions, deportations, and...
.)
They had one child, a boy named Roman, born around 1926.
1952: Witness, by Whittaker Chambers
Reiss appears in the 1952 memoirs of Whittaker ChambersWhittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
, Witness: his assassination in July 1937 was perhaps the last straw that caused him not only to defect but to make careful preparations when doing so.
- Suddenly, revolutionists with a lifetime of devoted activity would pop out, like rabbits from a burrow, with the G.P.U. close on their heels—Barmine from the Soviet legation in Athens, RaskolnikoffFedor RaskolnikovFyodor Fyodorovich Raskolnikov , real name Fyodor Ilyin , was a Bolshevik, participant in the October Revolution, commander of Red fleets on the Caspian and the Baltic during the Russian Civil War, and later a Soviet diplomat...
from the Soviet legation in Sofia, KrivitskyWalter KrivitskyWalter Germanovich Krivitsky was a Soviet intelligence officer who revealed plans of signing Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact before defecting weeks before the outbreak of World War II....
from Amsterdam, Reiss from Switzerland. Not that Reiss fled. Instead, a brave and a lonely man, he sent his single-handed defiance to Stalin: Murderer of the KremlinKremlinA kremlin , same root as in kremen is a major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...
cellars, I herewith return my decorations and resume my freedom of action. But defiance is not enough; cunning is needed to fight cunning. It was foredoomed that sooner or later the door of a G.P.U limousine would swing open and Reiss's body with the bullets in the defiant brain would tumble out—as happened shortly after he deserted. Of the four I have named, only Barmine outran the hunters. Reiss's death moved me deeply.
Compared to Reiss, Chambers considered far more carefully how to elude the Soviets when he defected in April 1938, as described in Witness.
1995: Ignace Reiss, by Daniel Kunzi
Swiss filmmaker Daniel Kunzi made a 53-minute documentary filmDocumentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
called Ignace Reiss: Vie et mort d'un révolutionnaire about Reiss's life and death, following several years of research. The film includes testimonials, historical footage, a reconstruction of his assassination, all narrated by readings from his wife's memoirs.
Participating in the film are:
- Vanessa RedgraveVanessa RedgraveVanessa Redgrave, CBE is an English actress of stage, screen and television, as well as a political activist.She rose to prominence in 1961 playing Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has since made more than 35 appearances on London's West End and Broadway, winning...
, who reads from adaptations of Elisabeth Poretsky's memoirs - Gerard Rosenthal, who recounts his services as lawyer to both Leon TrotskyLeon TrotskyLeon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
and Elisabeth Poretsky
1998: Fear of Mirrors, by Tariq Ali
"Ludwik" forms the background history of Tariq AliTariq Ali
Tariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...
's 1998 novel Fear of Mirrors
Fear of Mirrors
Fear of Mirrors is a novel by Tariq Ali published in 1998.The story is set in Germany after 1990 German reunification. While Germany may be reunited, the life of former East German dissident Vladimir Meyer has fallen apart....
, set during German reunification in 1990. Ali was fascinated by the story of Ignace Reiss: "Ludwik became an obsession with me."
See also
- Soviet defectors
- GRUGRUGRU or Glavnoye Razvedyvatel'noye Upravleniye is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation...
- NKVDNKVDThe People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
- Order of the Red BannerOrder of the Red BannerThe Soviet government of Russia established the Order of the Red Banner , a military decoration, on September 16, 1918 during the Russian Civil War...
- Great PurgeGreat PurgeThe Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
- Purges of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
- LiquidationCapital punishmentCapital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
- Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret servicesPoison laboratory of the Soviet secret servicesPoison laboratory of the Soviet secret services, alternatively known as Laboratory 1, Laboratory 12, and Kamera which means "The Chamber" in Russian, was a covert research and development facility of the Soviet secret police agencies,which notably also developed antidotes and internal...
- Terrorism in RussiaTerrorism in RussiaTerrorism in Russia has a long history starting from the times of the Russian Empire. Terrorism, in the modern sense, means violence against civilians to achieve political or ideological objectives by creating fear...
Reiss's inner circle
- Walter KrivitskyWalter KrivitskyWalter Germanovich Krivitsky was a Soviet intelligence officer who revealed plans of signing Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact before defecting weeks before the outbreak of World War II....
- Theodore MalyTheodore MalyTheodore Maly was an undercover Soviet intelligence officer who recruited and controlled spies in the 1930s. He lived illegally in the countries where he worked and was one of Russia’s most effective illegal recruiters and controllers...
- Elisabeth Poretsky
- Mikkhail Umansky ("Misha")
- Bertold Umansky ("Brun," "Ilk")
- Fedia ("Fedin," "Alfred Kraus")
- Willy Stahl
Reiss's assassins
- Nikolai YezhovNikolai YezhovNikolai Ivanovich Yezhov or Ezhov was a senior figure in the NKVD under Joseph Stalin during the period of the Great Purge. His reign is sometimes known as the "Yezhovshchina" , "the Yezhov era", a term that began to be used during the de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s...
- Sergey SpigelglasSergey SpigelglasSergey Mikhailovich Spigelglas or Spiegelglass or Shpigelglas was acting head of the Soviet foreign intelligence service, then part of the NKVD, from February to June 1938....
- Vladimir PravdinVladimir PravdinVladimir Pravdin or Roland Lyudvigovich Abbiate codename LETCHIK was a senior NKVD assassin working in Europe during the Great Terror. He later became a KGB agent, stationed in the United States....
- Gertrude Schildbach
- Renata Steiner
- Mark ZborowskiMark ZborowskiMark Zborowski was an anthropologist and an NKVD agent...
- Abram SlutskyAbram SlutskyAbram Aronovich Slutsky headed the Soviet foreign intelligence service , then part of the NKVD, from May 1935 to February 1938.-Biography:...
Reiss's outer circle
- Richard SorgeRichard SorgeRichard Sorge was a German communist and spy who worked for the Soviet Union. He has gained great fame among espionage enthusiasts for his intelligence gathering during World War II. He worked as a journalist in both Germany and Japan, where he was imprisoned for spying and eventually hanged....
- Alexander UlanovskyAlexander UlanovskyAlexander Petrovich Ulanovsky was the chief illegal "rezident" for Soviet Military Intelligence , who was rezident the United States from 1931 until 1934 and later, with his family, prisoner in the Soviet gulag.-Background:Born into a Jewish family in Kishinev, , as Izrail...
- Victor SergeVictor SergeVictor Serge , born Victor Lvovich Kibalchich , was a Russian revolutionary and writer. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks five months after arriving in Petrograd in January 1919 and later worked for the Comintern as a journalist, editor and translator...
- Henri PieckHenri PieckHenri Christiaan Pieck was a Dutch architect, painter and graphic artist.Pieck married twice. On 12 July 1922, he married Geziena van Gelder, with whom he had one son. This union was dissolved on 14 May 1928. His second wife, Bernharda Hugona Johanna van Lier, whom he married on 25 May 1928 in St...
- Henk SneevlietHenk SneevlietHendricus Josephus Franciscus Marie Sneevliet, known as Henk Sneevliet or the pseudonym Maring , was a Dutch Communist, who was active in both the Netherlands and the Dutch East-Indies...
- Franz FischerFranz FischerFranz Fischer may refer to:-* Franz Fischer , cellist and Hofkapellmeister in München* Franz Joseph Emil Fischer , chemist, famous for Fischer-Tropsch process-See also:...
- Valentin MarkinValentin MarkinValentin Markin was the chief illegal rezident and director of the espionage operations of the Soviet Union in the United States from 1933 to 1934...
- Hede MassingHede MassingHede Massing, née "Hedwig Tune" was an Austrian actress in Vienna and Berlin, communist, and Soviet intelligence operative in Europe and the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. After the World War II, she defected from the Soviet underground...
- Noel FieldNoel FieldNoel Field , was an American citizen. While employed at the United States Department of State in the 1930s, he was a Soviet spy...
- Isaiah OgginsIsaiah OgginsIsaiah Oggins was an American communist and spy in the Soviet underground who worked in Europe with his wife and in the Far East before being arrested, sentenced, and eventually executed under the orders of Joseph Stalin.-Early life:The third of four children, Oggins was born 1898 in Willimantic,...
- Whittaker ChambersWhittaker ChambersWhittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
- Alexander Gregory Barmine
Other references
- The New International: Victor Serge, "Portraying the men and events of our times," The Diary of Victor Serge – II (1937), January–February 1950, pp. 51–57
- New York Review of Books: Neil Ascherson, "Communist Dropouts" (August 17, 1970): review of Elisabeth Poretsky's Our Own People
- Persee: Paris dans les années 30 : Sur Serge Efron et quelques agents du NKVD (1991)
- ArtFilm. ch documentary: Ignace Reiss: Vie et mort d'un révolutionnaire (1995)
- Internationalsit: ICL Decrees: No More “Reiss Factions” (March 2001)
- DanielKunzi.ch: video clip of Ignace Reiss (undated)