Max Otto von Stierlitz (German: Max Otto von Stierlitz; aka Maxim Maksimovich Isaev, real name Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov) is a literary character, the hero of many works of the Russian Soviet writer Julian Semyonov, an SS standartenfuehrer, a Soviet intelligence officer who worked in the interests of the USSR in Nazi Germany and some other countries.
A source: literary works by Yulian Semyonov, television film "Seventeen Moments of Spring".
The role was played by: Vyacheslav Tikhonov
Tatiana Lioznova's TV serial "Seventeen Moments of Spring" based on the novel of the same name, where he was played by Vyacheslav Tikhonov, brought all-Union fame to the image of Stirlitz. This character has become the most famous image of a spy in Soviet and post-Soviet culture, comparable to James Bond in Western culture.
Biography
Contrary to popular belief, the real name of Stirlitz is not Maxim Maksimovich Isaev, as it can be assumed from "Seventeen Moments of Spring", but Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov. The surname Isaev is presented by Yulian Semyonov as the operational pseudonym of Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov already in the first novel about him - "Diamonds for the dictatorship of the proletariat."
Maxim Maksimovich Isaev - Stirlitz - Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov - was born on October 8, 1900 ("Expansion-2") in Transbaikalia, where his parents were in political exile.
Parents:
Father - Russian, Vladimir Alexandrovich Vladimirov, "professor of law at St. Petersburg University, dismissed for free thinking and closeness to the circles of social democracy." Involved in the revolutionary movement by Georgy Plekhanov.
Mother - Ukrainian, Olesya Ostapovna Prokopchuk, died of consumption when her son was five years old.
The parents met and got married in exile. After the end of the exile, father and son returned to St. Petersburg, and then spent some time in exile, in Switzerland, in the cities of Zurich and Bern. Here Vsevolod Vladimirovich showed a love for literary work. In Bern, he worked part-time in a newspaper. Father and son returned to their homeland in 1917. It is known that in 1911 the paths of Vladimirov Sr. and the Bolsheviks parted. After the revolution, in 1921 - while his son was in Estonia - Vladimir Vladimirov was sent on a business trip to Eastern Siberia and there tragically died at the hands of White bandits.
Relatives on the mother's side:
Grandfather - Ostap Nikitich Prokopchuk, a Ukrainian revolutionary democrat, also exiled to the Trans-Baikal exile with his children Olesya and Taras. After exile he returned to Ukraine, and from there to Krakow. He died in 1915.
Uncle - Taras Ostapovich Prokopchuk. In Krakow he married Wanda Krushanskaya. In 1918 he was shot.
Cousin - Ganna Tarasovna Prokopchuk. Two children. Professional activity: architect. In 1941, her entire family died in Nazi concentration camps ("The Third Card"). She died in the Auschwitz concentration camp.
In 1920, Vsevolod Vladimirov worked under the name of captain Maxim Maksimovich Isaev in the press service of the Kolchak government.
In May 1921, the bands of Baron Ungern, having seized power in Mongolia, tried to strike at Soviet Russia. Vsevolod Vladimirov, disguised as a White Guard captain, infiltrated Ungern's headquarters and handed over to his command the enemy's military-strategic plans.
In 1921 he was already in Moscow, "working for Dzerzhinsky" as assistant to the head of the foreign department of the Cheka Gleb Bokiy. From here Vsevolod Vladimirov is sent to Estonia ("Diamonds for the dictatorship of the proletariat").
In 1922, a young Chekist underground worker Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov, on behalf of the leadership, was evacuated with white troops from Vladivostok to Japan, and from there he moved to Harbin (“No password needed”, “Tenderness”). Over the next 30 years, he was constantly in overseas work.
Meanwhile, in his homeland, he has his only love for life and a son, born in 1923. The son's name was Alexander (the operational pseudonym in the intelligence of the Red Army - Kolya Grishanchikov), his mother - Alexandra Nikolaevna Gavrilina ("Major Whirlwind"). Stirlitz first learned about his son in 1941 from an employee of the Soviet trade mission in Tokyo, where he went to meet with Richard Sorge. In the fall of 1944, SS Standartenfuehrer von Stirlitz accidentally meets his son in Krakow - he is here as part of a reconnaissance and sabotage group (Major Whirlwind).
From 1924 to 1927, Vsevolod Vladimirov lives in Shanghai.
In connection with the strengthening of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and the aggravation of the danger of Adolf Hitler's coming to power in Germany in 1927, it was decided to send Maxim Maksimovich Isaev from the Far East to Europe. For this, the legend was created about Max Otto von Stirlitz, a German aristocrat robbed in Shanghai, seeking protection at the German consulate in Sydney. In Australia, Stirlitz worked for some time at a hotel with a German owner associated with the NSDAP, after which he was transferred to New York.
From the party characteristics of a member of the NSDAP since 1933, von Stirlitz, Standartenfuehrer SS (VI Department of the RSHA): “A true Aryan. Character - Nordic, self-possessed. Supports with workmates a good relationship... Performs his official duty impeccably. Merciless to the enemies of the Reich. Excellent athlete: Berlin tennis champion. Single; he was not seen in connections discrediting him. Awarded with the Fuehrer's awards and thanks from the Reichsfuehrer SS ... "
During World War II, Stirlitz was an employee of the VI Department of the RSHA, which was headed by SS Brigadefuehrer Walter Schellenberg. In his operational work at the RSHA he used the pseudonyms "Brunn" and "Bolsen". In 1938 he worked in Spain ("Spanish version"), in March-April 1941 - as part of the group of Edmund Weesenmaier in Yugoslavia ("Alternative"), and in June - in Poland and in the occupied territory of Ukraine, where he communicated with Theodore Oberlander, Stepan Bandera and Andrey Melnik ("The Third Card").
In 1943, he visited Stalingrad, where he demonstrated exceptional courage under Soviet shelling.
At the end of the war, Joseph Stalin entrusted Stirlitz with a responsible task: to disrupt the separate negotiations between the Germans and the West. Since the summer of 1943, SS Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler, through his proxies began to maintain contacts with representatives of Western special services with the aim of concluding a separate peace. Thanks to the courage and intelligence of Stirlitz, these negotiations were thwarted ("Seventeen Moments of Spring").
Of the Americans who negotiated behind the scenes with the leaders of the Third Reich, Yulian Semyonov points to Allen Dulles, who headed the American headquarters in Bern, the Swiss capital.
The head of the 4th department of the RSHA was SS Gruppenfuehrer Heinrich Müller, who exposed Stirlitz in April 1945, but the coincidence of circumstances and the chaos that took place during the storming of Berlin thwarted Müller's plans to use Stirlitz in a game against the Red Army command ("Ordered to survive").
Stirlitz's favorite drink is Armenian cognac, his favorite cigarettes are Karo. He drives a Horch car. Unlike James Bond, Stirlitz treats women in cold blood. To the calls of prostitutes, he usually replies: "No, better coffee." Speech characteristic, repeated from work to work: the phrase often ends with the question "No?" or "Isn't it?"
Before the end of the war, Stirlitz was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. After the end of World War II, Stirlitz in an unconscious state, wounded by a Soviet soldier, was taken by the Germans to Spain, from where he went to South America. There he reveals a conspiratorial network of fascists who fled from Germany.
During and after the Second World War, he worked under several pseudonyms: Bolsen, Brunn and others. As a name I usually used variations of the name "Maxim": Max, Massimo ("Expansion").
In Argentina and Brazil, Stirlitz works with the American Paul Rouman. Here they uncover the conspiratorial Nazi organization "ODESSA", which is led by Müller, and then carry out the identification of the agent network and the capture of Müller. Realizing that after Winston Churchill's speech in Fulton and Hoover's "witch hunt" Mueller could escape punishment for his crimes, they decide to extradite him to the Soviet government. Stirlitz goes to the Soviet embassy, \u200b\u200bwhere he reports who he is, as well as information about Mueller's whereabouts. MGB officers carry out the arrest of Stirlitz and are transported by boat to the USSR. Isaev ends up in jail (Despair). There he meets Raoul Wallenberg and plays his own game. Meanwhile, his son and wife are being shot at Stalin's orders. After the death of Beria, Stirlitz is released.
A month after being awarded the Golden Star, he began to work at the Institute of History on the topic “National Socialism, Neo-Fascism; modifications of totalitarianism ”. After reviewing the text of the thesis, the secretary of the Central Committee Mikhail Suslov recommended conferring on comrade Vladimirov an academic degree of Doctor of Sciences without defense, and withdrawing the manuscript, transferring it to the special storage ...
One more time he will meet with his old acquaintances from the RSHA, former Nazis, in West Berlin in 1967 ("Bomb for the Chairman"). This time, aged, but not losing his grip, Isaev managed to prevent the theft of nuclear technologies by a private corporation and to face a radical sect from Southeast Asia ...
Jokes
Stirlitz is a character in one of the largest cycles of Soviet anecdotes, usually they parody the voice of the narrator, constantly commenting on Stirlitz's thoughts or the events of the film. In the series "Seventeen Moments of Spring" it was the voice of the BDT actor Yefim Kopelyan.
Interesting Facts
In reality, the German surname Sti (e) rlitz does not exist; the closest similar one is Stieglitz (Carduelis carduelis), also known in Russia. Also during the Second World War in the Third Reich was Vice Admiral Ernst Schirlitz - the commander of the German fleet in the Atlantic.
Being an impostor, Stirlitz really could not serve in the SS for such high officesince the Nazi security services have verified the identity of each candidate for several generations. To pass such a check, Stirlitz had not only to have genuine identity documents, but to replace the real German Max Stirlitz, who really lived in Germany and looked like him. Although such substitutions are practiced by the special services when introducing illegal agents, in reality, all the sources of Soviet intelligence in the upper echelons of the Reich, which are now known, were recruited by Germans or German anti-fascists.
Stirlitz graduated from the university, majored in quantum mechanics. This was also easy to verify. Quantum mechanics was a relatively young science at that time. The scientists involved were well known.
Stirlitz is the Berlin tennis champion. This fact is also easy to verify. This untruth would have been immediately revealed, but Stirlitz-Isaev certainly became the champion, without cheating. He had time for this.
Stirlitz is addressed as “Stirlitz”, not “von Stirlitz”. In principle, such an appeal is allowed, especially in cases where the bearer of the surname does not have a noble title (count, baron and others). But in those years in Germany there was less of such "democracy", the more strange it is to hear an appeal without a "background" from subordinates.
Stirlitz smokes, which is contrary to the anti-smoking policy in the Third Reich. In 1939, the NSDAP banned smoking in all its institutions, and Heinrich Himmler banned SS and police officers from smoking during working hours.
Stirlitz's favorite pub is Rough Gottlieb. In it, he dined with Pastor Schlag, rested with a glass of beer, after breaking away from the "tail" of Muller's agents. The famous Berlin restaurant “Zur letzten Instanz” (Last resort) was filmed in the “role” of this pub.
Prototypes
It is traditionally believed that the Soviet intelligence agent Richard Sorge became one of the prototypes of Stirlitz, but there are no facts of biographical coincidences between Stierlitz and Sorge.
Another possible prototype of Stirlitz is Willy Lehmann, SS Hauptsturmführer, employee of the IV department of the RSHA (Gestapo). German, passionate horse racing player, recruited in 1936 soviet intelligence, whose employee lent him money after the loss, and then offered to supply secret information for a good fee (according to another version, Willie Lehman independently went to Soviet intelligence, guided by ideological considerations). He bore the operational pseudonym "Breitenbach". In the RSHA, he was engaged in countering Soviet industrial espionage.
Willie Lehman failed in 1942, under circumstances similar to those described by Julian Semyonov: his radio operator Bart, an anti-fascist, during a surgery, under anesthesia, began to talk about codes and connections with Moscow, and the doctors signaled to the Gestapo. In December 1942, Willie Lehman was arrested and shot several months later. The fact of the betrayal of such a high-ranking SS officer was hidden - even Willie Lehman's wife was informed that her husband had died after being hit by a train. The story of Willie Lehmann is told in the memoirs of Walter Schellenberg, from which Julian Semyonov apparently borrowed it.
According to the newspaper "Vesti", the prototype of Stirlitz was the Soviet intelligence officer Isai Isaevich Borovoy, who lived in Germany since the late 1920s, and later worked in Himmler's department. In 1944, he was arrested, after Stalin's death he was the main prosecution witness at the trial of Beria.
A very likely prototype of Stirlitz could be Sergei Mikhalkov's brother, Mikhail Mikhalkov. Yulian Semyonov was married to Catherine, the daughter of Natalia Petrovna Konchalovskaya from her first marriage. Here are the facts of the biography of Mikhail Mikhalkov: at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War served in a special department Southwestern Front... In September 1941, he was captured, escaped and then continued to serve behind enemy lines as an illegal agent, supplying the intelligence agencies of the Red Army with important operational information. In 1945, during a battle in German uniform, he crossed the front line and was detained by the authorities military counterintelligence "SMERSH". On charges of cooperation with German intelligence, he served five years in prison, first in Lefortovo prison, later in one of the camps on Far East... In 1956 he was rehabilitated. Perhaps (and most likely) Julian Semyonov drew part of Stirlitz's story from the family stories of Mikhail Mikhalkov.
Film incarnations
In addition to Vyacheslav Tikhonov, who, of course, is the main "film face" of Stirlitz, this character was played by other actors. In total, five novels were filmed, where Stirlitz or Maxim Maksimovich Isaev acts. The role of Stirlitz in these films was performed by:
Rodion Nakhapetov ("No password needed", 1967)
Vladimir Ivashov (Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, 1975)
Uldis Dumpis ("Spanish version") (in the film the hero's name is Walter Schulz)
Vsevolod Safonov ("The Life and Death of Ferdinand Luce")
Daniil Strakhov (Isaev, 2009 - TV adaptation of the novels Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, No Password Needed, and the story Tenderness).
Quotes from the movie "Seventeen Moments of Spring"
Don't trust someone who scares you about bad weather in Switzerland. It is very sunny and warm here.
Have I ever given anyone a thrash? I am an old, kind person who gives up.
You have no cognac.
- I have cognac.
- So you don't have salami.
- I have salami.
- So, we eat from the same feeder.
And you, Stirlitz, I will ask you to stay.
I am Einstein in love!
Truly: if you smoke American cigarettes, they will say that you have sold your homeland.
Which products do you prefer - our production, or ...
- Or. It may not be patriotic, but I prefer products made in America or France.
You got the wrong number, buddy. You have the wrong number.
You know too much. You will be buried with honors after a car accident.
If you get shot down (in war, as in war), you must destroy the letter before you unfasten the straps of your parachute.
- I will not be able to do this, as I will be dragged along the ground. But the first thing I will do, unbuckling my parachute, is to destroy the letter.
Small lies create great distrust.
Don't you complain about memory?
- I drink iodine.
- And I - vodka.
- Where can I get money for vodka?
- Take bribes.
He will wake up in exactly twenty minutes.
Now you can't trust anyone. Even myself. I can.
A strange property of my physiognomy: it seems to everyone that they have seen me somewhere.
Don't have canned fish? I'm going crazy without fish. Phosphorus, you know, is required by nerve cells.
- Which production do you prefer, ours or ...
- Or. It may be unpatriotic, but I prefer products made in America or France.
Do your kidneys hurt?
- No.
- Very sorry.
Heil, Hitler!
- Come on. My ears are ringing.
A good adjutant is like a hunting dog. It is indispensable for hunting, and if the exterior is good, other hunters envy.
What two know, the pig knows.
I will play the Karakan defense, only you, please, do not bother me.
I know your testimony! I read them, listened to them on tape. And they suited me - until this morning. And since this morning they have ceased to suit me.
I love the silent. If this is a friend, then a friend. If it is the enemy, then the enemy.
I have asked for new Swiss blades to be delivered. Where? Where ... Who did the check?
I'll be right there, go write me a couple of formulas.
- Swear!
- So that I'm dead.
Clarity is one of the forms of complete fog.
; German StandartenfЭhrer Max Otto von Stierlitz) - legendary Soviet intelligence officer Maxim Maksimovich Isaev from the books of Yulian Semyonovich Semyonov. Under the name of Shtirlitsa Isaev worked in Nazi Germany. From novel to novel, Yu. Semenov traces the formation and maturation of Maxim Isaev, a communist, soldier, antifascist. We see Isaev-Shtirlitsa during the civil war in Spain, Belgrade and Zagreb; we will meet him in Krakow, doomed by the Nazis to destruction. The television series "Seventeen Moments of Spring", where Vyacheslav Tikhonov played his role, brought all-Union glory to the image of Stirlitz. The most famous image of an intelligence officer in Soviet and post-Soviet culture, comparable to James Bond in Western culture. In reality, the German surname Sti (e) rlitz does not exist; the closest similar one is Stieglitz, also known in Russia. Biography From the party characteristics of a member of the NSDAP since the year von Stirlitz, Standartenfuehrer SS (VI Department of the RSHA): "A true Aryan. Character - Nordic, self-possessed. He maintains good relations with his workmates. Impeccably fulfills his official duty. Merciless to the enemies of the Reich. Excellent athlete: champion Berlin in tennis. Single; in relations discrediting him, was not noticed. Marked by the Fuhrer's awards and thanks from the Reichsfuehrer SS ... "During the Second World War, Stirlitz was an employee of the Sixth Branch of the RSHA, which was headed by SS Brigadefuehrer Walter Schellenberg. The head of the fourth branch of the RSHA was SS Gruppenfuehrer Heinrich Müller, who "caught Stirlitz all the time, but never caught." At the end of World War II, Comrade Stalin entrusted Stirlitz with an important task: to disrupt the separate negotiations of the Germans with the West. Beginning in the summer of the year, Himmler, through his proxies, began to make contacts with representatives of Western special services with the aim of concluding separate peace ... Thanks to the courage and intelligence of Stirlitz, these negotiations were thwarted. Of the Americans who negotiated behind the scenes with the leaders of the Third Reich, Semyonov points to Allen Dulles, who headed the American headquarters in Bern, Switzerland. Stirlitz's favorite drink is cognac. He drives a Horch car. Unlike James Bond, Stirlitz treats women in cold blood. On the calls of prostitutes, he usually replies: "No, better coffee." According to Semyonov, before the end of the war, Stirlitz was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. After Stirlitz returned to his homeland, he was arrested by Beria's employees. Only Stalin's death saved Stirlitz from death. After that, Stirlitz works in South America - under the guise of a journalist, he hunts down the Nazis who have not been killed. Jokes Stirlitz is a character in one of the largest cycles of Soviet anecdotes, usually they parody the voice "from the author" constantly commenting on the events of the film. Many of these anecdotes are based on a language game: Stirlitz put the safe on the priest. Pastor Schlag grunted and walked towards the Swiss border. Stirlitz beat for sure. Probably no longer could resist. Then Stirlitz took out a pistol and fired point-blank. The emphasis broke. The lights suddenly went out. Stirlitz shot twice in the blind. The blind woman fell. The actors who played in the TV series "Seventeen Moments of Spring" are often played up: Stirlitz shot Mueller in the head. The bullet bounced off. "Armor" - thought Stirlitz. In a number of jokes, all SS employees turn out to be Soviet agents: Mueller suspected that Bormann was a Soviet spy. Together with Stirlitz, they pulled a rope in the corridor: Bormann would stumble and swear at native language... They sit and wait. Bormann walks, stumbles, says:
-- Oh damn!
Müller:
- Well, not a fig for yourself!
Stirlitz:
- Hush, hush, comrades! Many anecdotes mock Stirlitz's ability to get out of difficult situations: There is a meeting with Hitler. Suddenly a man runs into the room, grabs a secret card from the table and disappears. Everyone is dumbfounded.
-- Who was that? - asks Hitler
- Yes, this is Stirlitz from my office. He is actually a Soviet intelligence agent, Isaev, ”replies Mueller.
- So why don't you arrest him ?!
-- Useless. It will get out all the same. On the table
Characters who are so popular are not called cult otherwise. And the one we are talking about today is still “number one” in the post-Soviet space. The chief intelligence officer of Soviet television screens Max Otto von Stirlitz with the face of Vyacheslav Tikhonov is still in the ranks and is winning the hearts of new generations of viewers. Today we are looking for traces of his prototypes in history.
The fate of the resident
First of all, we will have to pay quite a lot of attention to the biography of the literary character himself. Indeed, despite the popular love, for the absolute majority of admirers, Stirlitz is a character in the TV movie of Tatyana Lioznova in 1973, where his role was played by Vyacheslav Tikhonov. Some will also recall the controversially greeted television series by Sergei Ursulyak "Isaev" in 2009 with Daniil Strakhov. Meanwhile, Yulian Semenov wrote thirteen novels and stories and one story about a brave intelligence officer. Moreover, there are six adaptations of these books - however, in one of them the hero never appears. But another book was filmed twice! But first things first.
Max Otto von Stirlitz, aka Maxim Maksimovich Isaev, but in fact Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov was born on October 8, 1900 in Transbaikalia. His parents met there while in exile for political reasons. The father of the character is Vladimir Aleksandrovich Vladimirov, professor of law at St. Petersburg University, Russian, lost his department for his political convictions.
Mother, Ukrainian Olesya Ostapovna Prokopchuk, died of consumption when Seva was five years old. Professor Vladimirov returned with his son to St. Petersburg, and then went with him to emigration - to Zurich, later to Bern. Here the future intelligence officer mastered German perfectly. In 1917, the Vladimirovs returned to Russia.
By this time, there was a political discord between the son and the father. Vladimirov Jr. was enthusiastic about the October Revolution and went to work in the Cheka. And the former professor, a convinced Social Democrat, in the past a good friend and colleague of Plekhanov himself, had a negative attitude towards the Bolsheviks.
In 1920, Vsevolod was introduced into the ranks of the White Guards of Admiral Kolchak. He first used the operational pseudonym Isaev and worked in the press service " Supreme ruler Russia ”, obtaining important information for the Center about all the plans of the admiral. A year later, with the same legend, he infiltrated the headquarters of Baron Ungern, who seized power in Mongolia, and transferred the enemy's plans to red Moscow.
Upon returning to the capital, our hero for some time worked as an assistant to the head of the foreign department of the Cheka Gleb Bokiya. At this time, he received the assignment to investigate the theft of diamonds from Gokhran, which were exported by a criminal group to the territory of Estonia. At the same time, his father Vladimir Vladimirov was sent to Eastern Siberia, where he died at the hands of white bandits, defending the Bolshevik.
In 1922, a young Chekist performs an assignment in Vladivostok, again returning to his legend "Captain Isaev" from the headquarters of Admiral Kolchak. At the end of the mission, he is ordered to evacuate with white troops to Japan, and later to Harbin (China). He will spend the next 30 years away from his homeland.
The love of his life remained in Soviet Russia - Alexandra Nikolaevna Gavrilina. During the evacuation, he never found out that she was pregnant. Their son Alexander was born in 1923. Isaev heard about the child only in 1941 in Tokyo, where he came to meet with Richard Sorge. From 1924 to 1927, Vladimirov lives in Shanghai among white emigrants and desperately wants to return to Russia, but the Center has completely different plans for him.
Moscow began to closely monitor the political situation in Germany, suggesting the potential rise to power of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and its leader, Adolf Hitler. In 1927, it was decided to introduce Isaev into the ranks german fascists... The legend of the German aristocrat Max Otto von Stirlitz, who was robbed in Shanghai, was developed. With this legend and documents, Vsevolod came to the German consulate in Sydney, where he received support and recognition. After spending some time in Australia and then in New York, he finally moved to Berlin. In 1933, Stirlitz joins the Hitlerite party.
With the outbreak of World War II, Stirlitz finds himself in a double status. Remaining a Soviet intelligence officer, continuously obtaining the necessary information and carrying out the tasks of the Center, he simultaneously "officially" serves in German intelligence. He is an employee of the VI Department of the Main Directorate of Imperial Security (RSHA) - the so-called "SD-Abroad". Isaev serves under the leadership of Walter Schellenberg and carries out his orders - in 1938 in Spain, in March-April 1941 - in Yugoslavia, and in June of the same year - in Poland and in the occupied territory of Ukraine, where he personally communicates with Stepan Bandera and Andrey Melnik. At the same time, he fulfills the instructions of Moscow, more than once getting into dangerous situations. So, in 1943, he visited Stalingrad, where he showed personal courage under shelling.
It was practically impossible to occupy high posts in the Reich and not be a member of the black order - the SS. Stirlitz also joins this organization and by the end of the war receives the rank of Standartenfuehrer (roughly corresponds to a Soviet colonel).
In the fall of 1944, in Krakow, Vladimirov accidentally ran into his son. Alexander followed in his father's footsteps - he served in the intelligence of the Red Army under the operational pseudonym Kolya Grishanchikov. As part of the reconnaissance and sabotage group of Major Vortex, he prevented the destruction of Krakow by the Germans.
At the end of the war, Stirlitz received the most famous assignment from the Center - to find out who from the top of the Reich behind Hitler's back is negotiating a separate peace with the West, and to disrupt them. Isaev managed to establish that SS Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler was engaged in this and to stop him. For this he received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. However, the chief of the IV department of the RSHA (secret state police of the Reich, "Gestapo") Heinrich Müller exposed Stirlitz as a Soviet resident in April 1945. Isaev managed to take his group out of the Reich, but he was ordered to return to Berlin in the most difficult for the intelligence officer, the last days of the war. Fortunately, Mueller was in no hurry to expose Stirlitz, and in the chaos of the storming of Berlin, Stirlitz managed to escape him.
Again, the double status is making itself felt. Stirlitz was wounded during the storming of Berlin by a Soviet soldier, and the Germans took him to Spain and then to South America. He remains without contact with the Center. Here Isaev exposes a criminal network of Nazis who took refuge from retaliation, led by Mueller. Stirlitz transfers this information to the Soviet embassy, \u200b\u200band at the same time informs who he is. Ministry state security arrests him and sends him to Moscow. At the same time, his wife and son were arrested in the USSR and then shot.
Vladimirov is released after the death of Stalin and Beria. Already an elderly scout goes on a scientific path. The topic of his dissertation at the Institute of History: “National Socialism, Neo-Fascism; modifications of totalitarianism ”. Mikhail Suslov, having familiarized himself with the text of the dissertation, recommends conferring on comrade Vladimirov the scientific degree of Doctor of Science without defense, and withdrawing the manuscript, transferring it to the special storage.
In 1967, Isaev met the former Nazis for the last time in West Berlin. He prevented the theft of nuclear technology.
Prototypes
Sadly, in reality there were no intelligence officers with such a difficult fate. There were a sufficient number of excellent saboteurs who carried out several successful operations, and residents who supplied information from the enemy camp for many years. But the combination of these functions, maneuvering between so many possible failures, introduction to the top in such difficult situations - this did not fall to the lot of one person.
Quite often we hear that the famous Richard Sorge became the prototype of our hero. However, close examination of their biographies does not reveal any similarities. It can be seen only in the fact that Sorge in our tradition is a real "intelligence officer No. 1", and Stirlitz is a literary and cinematic one. Sorge and Stirlitz lived in Shanghai for several years. It is believed that Sorge warned about the day of the start of the war against the Soviet Union, and Stirlitz was desperately looking for the same date. That's all that unites them.
In the late 90s, another version appeared in the Israeli and Baltic Russian-language press. According to her, the only and specific prototype of Stirlitz was Isai Isaevich Borovoy. The journalists referred to the recollections of a certain Veniamin Dodin, who was serving his Siberian exile with him. Allegedly, Beria, out of hatred for the rival secret service, decided to rot a military intelligence officer in the camps. Borovoy, according to this version, was a resident in Germany, rose to the rank of colonel, surrendered to the Americans by order of Moscow, they transported him to the USSR, where he ended up in prison.
This version is remembered from time to time to this day. Unfortunately, very little evidence has been found. Isaak Isaakovich Borovoy really served for a rather long time in Soviet intelligence, and later was in camps and exile. However, he was arrested back in 1938 and was not a resident in Germany during the war. And that's not to mention the fact that Borovoy was ... a purebred Jew.
And yet Yulian Semyonov did not write his novels from scratch. He studied a huge number of historical documents - that is why his books look reliable and convincing. And Stirlitz certainly had prototypes. They were just different scouts. And some episodes from the biography of Isaev-Stirlitz are borrowed from the life of real people. They will be discussed further.
The real Isaev
In October 1921, an employee of the Cheka Yakov Grigorievich Blumkin was tasked with uncovering the criminal connections of the Gokhran employees abroad and stopping their activities to steal precious stones. For these purposes, under the pseudonym Isaev (this was the name of his grandfather), he travels to Revel - present-day Tallinn - where, under the guise of a jeweler, he provokes business travelers to offer an illegal deal.
It was this episode that Yulian Semyonov took as the basis for the plot of the book "Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat", which allows us to say: Blumkin is the prototype of the young Isaev.
In this case, Semenov has a lot of documentaries. Indeed, in Gokhran, a group of thieves was exposed and severely punished. 64 people were involved in the case, 19 were sentenced to death, 35 - to various terms of imprisonment, and 10 - were acquitted. The main defendants were jewelers-appraisers Yakov Shelehes, Nikolai Pozhamchi and Mikhail Alexandrov. Semenov changed only the patronymics of the criminals.
It is noteworthy that Vladimirov is also found among Blumkin's pseudonyms. But for the rest, the biography of this scout only in some places resembles the life of the book Stirlitz. Although very entertaining.
Simkha-Yankev Gershevich Blumkin, aka Yakov Grigorievich Blumkin, was born on October 8, 1900 - if you believe his application form when he entered the Cheka. This coincides with the date of birth of Vsevolod Vladimirov according to Semenov's books. In the same questionnaire, the scout claimed that he was born in Odessa, Moldavanka; however, after his arrest in 1929, he named the town of Sosnitsa near Chernigov as his birthplace. According to the third version, Jacob spent his childhood in Lviv.
In any case, his youth coincided with the turbulent times of the Russian revolutions and the First World War.
In 1914, Yakov worked in Odessa as an electrician in a tram depot, in a theater, at a cannery of brothers Avrich and Israilson. His brother Lev was an anarchist, and his sister Rosa was a Social Democrat. Yakov was also carried away by politics, he joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party and participated in the Jewish self-defense units against the pogroms in Odessa. In January 1918, he took part in the “expropriation” of the State Bank's valuables by Moisey Vinnitsky (“Mishka Yaponchik”), and, according to rumors, he did not offend himself either.
In May 1918, Blumkin moved to Moscow. The Party of Left Social Revolutionaries delegated him to the Cheka as the head of the department for combating international espionage. Since June 1918, Blumkin was in charge of the counterintelligence department for monitoring the security of the embassies and their possible criminal activities. Blumkin deals with German spies.
Soon, on behalf of the party, he carried out the assassination of the German ambassador to Soviet Russia, Count Mirbach. On July 6, 1918, he appeared at the German embassy together with his employee Andreyev, ostensibly to discuss the fate of a distant relative of the ambassador arrested by the Cheka. During the meeting, Yakov fired several shots at Mirbach, and Andreev, fleeing, threw two bombs into the living room. The ambassador died on the spot.
The military tribunal sentenced Blumkin to death, but Leon Trotsky, who appreciated the talented young man, made sure that the death penalty was replaced by "atonement in the battles to defend the revolution."
Blumkin was sent to the German-occupied Ukraine, where he was engaged in the formation of the anti-German underground. Yakov was noted in the preparation of a terrorist attack against Hetman Skoropadsky, and in the attempt on the life of Field Marshal Eichhorn of the German occupation forces in Ukraine. When the revolution broke out in Germany and German troops left Ukraine, Blumkin returned to Moscow and throughout the Civil War served in the headquarters of the People's Commissar for Military Affairs Trotsky as the head of the personal guard. Then he was sent to study, and then again transferred to the organs of the Cheka.
In 1920, Blumkin finds himself in Persia. He participates in the overthrow of Kuchek Khan and promotes the coming to power of Khan Ehsanullah, who was supported by the local "left" and the communists, and then in the creation of the Iranian Communist Party. At the First Congress of the oppressed peoples of the East, convened by the Bolsheviks in Baku, he represents Persia.
In the fall of 1920, during the battles with the troops of Baron Ungern, who seized power in Mongolia, Blumkin, like Semyonov's character, infiltrates the headquarters under the guise of a White Guard officer and transfers the dictator's plans to the Center.
Blumkin is highly valued by Felix Dzerzhinsky and gives him a recommendation to join the Bolshevik Party. He is sent to study again - this time to the Academy General Staff Red Army at the Faculty of the East. After completing the course, Blumkin becomes Trotsky's official adjutant. In the fall of 1923, at the suggestion of Dzerzhinsky, Blumkin became an employee of the Foreign Department of the OGPU. He is sent as an intelligence resident to Palestine, but not for long.
Jacob visits Germany to instruct and supply weapons to German revolutionaries, and then again deals with the East. He works in the Transcaucasia as a political representative of the OGPU and a member of the collegium of the Transcaucasian Cheka, assistant to the commander of the OGPU troops in the Transcaucasus and an authorized representative of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Trade for combating smuggling.
Blumkin participated in the suppression of the peasant uprising in Georgia, commanded the storming of the city of Bagram-Tepe, captured by Persian troops in 1922, was a member of the border commission for the settlement of disputes between the USSR, Turkey and Persia.
By the way, Blumkin also lived in Shanghai in the 1920s, but on occasion. On various assignments, he visited many countries in the Middle and Far East, including Mongolia, China, Palestine.
In the summer of 1929, Blumkin came to Moscow to report on his work in the Middle East. His report was approved by members of the Central Committee and the head of the OGPU V. Menzhinsky. At the same time, Yakov established contacts with Trotsky, exiled from the USSR. Some researchers believe that he did it on behalf of the leadership as a provocateur, seeking to gain the trust of the fugitive. Nevertheless, in the late autumn of 1929, on the denunciation of his mistress Lisa Rosenzweig about ties with Trotsky, he was arrested while trying to flee abroad after a chase with shooting on the streets of Moscow.
The exact date of Blumkin's execution is unknown. Brought November 3 and December 12, 1929. According to one version, in the basement before the execution, he exclaimed "Long live Comrade Trotsky!", And according to the other, he sang: "Get up, branded with a curse, the whole world of hungry and slaves!"
RSHA employee
Undoubtedly, the most interesting period of Stirlitz's activity for post-Soviet readers and viewers is “German”. Willy Lehmann, SS Hauptsturmführer, is most often mentioned here as a prototype.
Stirlitz serves in a very serious department in Germany - in foreign intelligence, he is a high-ranking member of the SS. It would be daunting to introduce a scout to such a place. Racial purity and genealogy have been checked since 1750! But still, there were Soviet agents in similar positions. They were just purebred Germans.
In 1884, in the suburbs of Leipzig, a son was born to a simple school teacher Gustav Lehmann, who was named Wilhelm in honor of the heir to the throne of Germany. Willie graduated from high school, trained as a carpenter, and at the age of 17 volunteered for the Navy. It is noted that in May 1905 he observed a Russian-Japanese naval battle near the island of Tsushima and admired the courage of the Russian sailors.
In 1913, Willie came to Berlin. He met an old friend Ernst Kür, who served in the Berlin secret political police. Kur took Lehman to work as a patrol officer. A year later, he was transferred to the counterintelligence department of the police presidium of the city of Berlin. As a counterintelligence agent, he was not drafted into the army during World War I.
In 1918, a Soviet office was opened in Berlin, and Lehmann's office looked after its employees.
In the first publications they wrote about him that he loved horse racing and was recruited in 1936 by Soviet intelligence thanks to this pernicious passion. A Russian agent loaned him a large sum after the loss, and then offered a good fee for the classified information.
According to another, later version, Lehman himself was looking for contacts with Soviet intelligence, being an ideological opponent of fascism. According to her, Ernst Kur brought his former colleague to the Soviet station in Berlin. It is believed that he was recruited in 1929, received the agent number A-201 and the pseudonym "Breitenbach".
One way or another, but Lehman regularly transmitted information to the Center, which he obtained using his official position. On the advice of the resident, he joined the Nazi Party and later the SS. This allowed him, after the Nazis came to power, to be in the service of the Gestapo and gain access to more important information.
Since 1936, Lehman headed the counterintelligence department at the enterprises military industry Germany - his task was to resist Soviet industrial espionage. However, in fact, he helped him - he passed on information on the volume and timing of the production of armored personnel carriers and self-propelled guns, on putting all-metal fighters on the conveyor, on the laying of ocean-going submarines, on the development of nerve agents, on the production of synthetic gasoline, on the testing of liquid missiles. fuel. In addition, Lehman transmitted information about the development of the Nazi regime, the structure of the German special services, their personnel and methods of work, information about the agents embedded in the communist underground and about the counterintelligence operations of the Gestapo.
Considering the value of the agent, the Center prepared a passport for him in a false name and developed an operation to leave Germany in an emergency. Lehman suffered from diabetes and renal colic, he needed funds. The already mentioned winnings at the hippodrome in later publications are explained by the need to transfer a large amount of money for treatment.
In 1936, Lehman came under suspicion of connections in the Soviet trade mission. First he noticed the surveillance. Then his boss called him and asked a strange question: "Leman, do you have a mistress?" Breitenbach admitted that there is. However, a check by the Gestapo showed that his mistress had nothing to do with the lady who wrote the denunciation: "The Gestapo officer Wilhelm Lehmann, who left me, is a Russian spy." It was about his full namesake.
In 1937, repressions against the Chekists began in the USSR. Breitenbach's agents were recalled, he was left on his own. He saw preparations for war and, in despair, wished to continue his work as soon as possible in order to prevent it. However, this did not work out. The war began, and Lehman continued to extract information on the table. At the same time, he continued to serve the Reich, and after the inclusion of the Gestapo in the RSHA, he headed the abstract of the general counterintelligence. He was one of four officers who were then presented with autographed portraits of the Fuehrer and certificates of honor.
In despair in 1940, he contacted himself, dropping a letter into the box of the Soviet embassy. He asked to contact him immediately and left a password. "If this does not happen," he wrote, "then my work in the Gestapo will lose all meaning."
Lehman handed over to Soviet intelligence the most valuable materials collected over two years, including the keys to the Gestapo codes. In the spring of 1941, he informed Soviet intelligence officers about the upcoming invasion of the Wehrmacht into Yugoslavia, about a significant expansion of the staff in the military intelligence unit against the USSR. On June 19, 1941, Lehman informed the resident about the date of the expected start of the war - June 22.
On the morning of June 22, the building of the Soviet embassy on Unter den Linden in the center of Berlin was blocked by the Gestapo. The connection with Willie Lehman was lost forever.
For a long time, the further fate of Lehman was a mystery. At the end of the war, the missing agents were again interested. In the ruins of the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz Albrechtstrasse, among other documents, they found a charred account card for Wilhelm Lehmann, from which it followed that he had been captured by the Gestapo in December 1942. The reasons for the arrest were not specified.
Further investigation revealed details. In May 1942, Soviet intelligence agent Beck (German communist Robert Barth, who voluntarily surrendered to Soviet captivity) was thrown into Berlin to reestablish communication with Breitenbach. The Gestapo tracked him down and arrested him. During interrogation under torture, he turned Lehman over. On Christmas Eve 1942, Willie was urgently called to the service, from where he never returned.
Due to the fact that he occupied a rather responsible position, they decided to hide the information about the presence of a secret agent in the bowels of the Gestapo. In January 1943, a notice was published in the Gestapo official bulletin: Criminal Inspector Willy Lehmann in December 1942 gave his life for the Fuehrer and the Reich. The wife was told that Willie had died from a bout of diabetes.
His identity was also classified in the Soviet Union. Many documents related to the activities of Breitenbach's agent lost their "Top Secret" stamp only in 2009. So was he the prototype of Stirlitz? In general, no.
The fat, sickly German, torn between his wife and his mistress, was completely different from our hero - a Russian, an athlete, a monogamous Vladimirov. And in the years when Semenov wrote "Seventeen Moments of Spring", information about Lehman was classified. And yet there are two important nuances. Firstly, crumbs of information about the failure of agent Breitenbach, possibly false, were mentioned by Walter Schellenberg in his memoirs. He wrote that a Soviet spy had been exposed in the depths of the Gestapo, who for many years had been transmitting important information to the enemies of the Reich. It was declassified by accident. His contact was in need of medical attention. Under anesthesia, he started talking about codes and connections with Moscow, and the doctors reported to the Gestapo. Semenov was familiar with Schellenberg's memoirs. It was under him that the book Stirlitz served. And on the brink of failure, our hero found himself in a rather similar way, when his radio operator was accidentally exposed in a hospital.
In addition, of all the real Soviet agents, it was Lehman who held a position similar to Isaev's - a high-ranking SS officer, entered the holy of holies of the Reich, surrounded by those who decided the fate of Germany.
Arrested on return
Another prototype of Stirlitz is called Anatoly Gurevich.
He studied in Leningrad at the Railway Institute, then at the Intourist Institute with a degree in Working with Foreigners. Volunteered for civil war in Spain. Served as an adjutant to the commander of a submarine. The crew was supposed to include only the Spaniards, and he was called Antonio Gonzalez, Lieutenant of the Republican Navy.
After returning in 1938, he was offered to become a professional intelligence officer. At the GRU he was trained to work with ciphers and a radio station. With a Uruguayan passport in the name of Vincente Sierra in 1939 Anatoly went to Brussels. According to legend, he was the scion of a wealthy family from Montevideo who came to Europe to establish business ties. At the Office, he received the pseudonym Kent. This man was a member of the Red Chapel, an anti-Hitler movement that united intelligence groups in Germany, Belgium, France and Switzerland.
In March 1940, he reported to the GRU that Germany had begun preparations for an attack on the USSR.
In Belgium, Gurevich married the daughter of Czech refugees. The father-in-law, leaving the country, handed over to his son-in-law his enterprise "Simeksko", which became a cover for the intelligence officer and a source of funding. In the winter of 1941, his transmitter was tracked. Kent fled with his wife to France, then to Spain. In the fall of 1942, they were arrested in Marseille. Only then did Margaret Sierra find out that her husband was a Soviet intelligence officer. It became known that his codes were hacked and the Germans last year actively transmitted disinformation on his behalf.
At the end of the war, after parting with his wife, Gurevich returned to the USSR, where he was arrested. The verdict is 20 years in prison. After Stalin's death, he was released, but was soon arrested again. In total, he spent about 25 years behind bars in the USSR. Gurevich received the document on rehabilitation only in 1991, the charges of treason were dropped. Then his son Michel, a Spanish journalist, found him.
Perhaps it was these vicissitudes of his life that "got" to the hero of Yulian Semenov. Anatoly Gurevich passed away on January 2, 2009. He died at the ninety-sixth year of life after a serious and prolonged illness.
That was how these people were - and even if none of them was Stirlitz in itself, they were all together.
There is a story that at the end of his life the decrepit Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, reviewing once again the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring", after the next episode suddenly asked those present: "Have we awarded Stirlitz?" The answer was only embarrassed silence. Brezhnev got angry and ordered to immediately give Stirlitz the title of Hero. We found a way out - they awarded Vyacheslav Tikhonov and his colleagues.
Whether this actually happened is unknown. Those who retell this story with an indication of the source mention the book of the KGB foreign intelligence colonel E. Sharapov "Two Lives", where he refers to the story of Assistant Secretary General A. Alexandrov-Agentov.
Some curiosities
In Semenov's book, Stirlitz smokes. Vyacheslav Tikhonov in the film - too. However, it is known that this vice was eradicated in the Third Reich. Heinrich Himmler banned SS officers and police from smoking during working hours.
Stirlitz is single and childless, while the SS charter obliged each member of this organization to have a family and children by the age of thirty.
In the film, Gestapo and SD officers wear the famous black SS uniform of 1934. In reality, it fell out of everyday use by 1939. In the structures of the RSHA, which included and secret police, and the Reichsfuehrer Security Service (SD), wore uniforms of gray-green or ashy colors, modeled on the Waffen SS and the Wehrmacht.
To gain legal access to the case of the Russian radio operator Kat, Stirlitz explains to his boss, Walter Schellenberg, that he has been hunting for the transmitter for eight months. But his department - SD - is not engaged in counterintelligence in the territory of the Reich. This is the exclusive jurisdiction of the Gestapo.
In the characteristics of the Nazis, sounded in the famous film, the same words are repeated: "I had no connections that denigrate him." And only in Musk Otto von Stirlitz: "I was not noticed in connections that discredit him."
And some other countries.
All-Union glory to the image of Stirlitz was brought by the TV serial "Seventeen Moments of Spring" based on the novel of the same name, where his role was played by Vyacheslav Tikhonov. This character has become the most famous image of an intelligence officer in Soviet and post-Soviet culture, comparable to James Bond in Western culture.
Biography
Contrary to popular belief, Stirlitz's real name is not Maxim Maksimovich Isaev, as can be assumed from “ Seventeen Moments of Spring”, And Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov. The surname "Isaev" is presented by Yulian Semyonov as the operational pseudonym of Vsevolod Vladimirov already in the first novel about him - "Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat."
Isaev-Shtirlits - Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov - was born on October 8, 1900 (" Expansion-2») In Transbaikalia, where his parents were in political exile.
From the party characteristics of a member of the NSDAP since 1933, von Stirlitz, Standartenfuehrer SS (VI Department of the RSHA): “A true Aryan. Character - Nordic, self-possessed. He maintains good relations with workmates. Performs his official duty impeccably. Merciless to the enemies of the Reich. Excellent athlete: Berlin tennis champion. Single; in connections, discrediting him, was not noticed. Awarded with the Fuehrer's awards and thanks from the Reichsfuehrer SS ... "
Works where participates
| Title of the work | Years of action | Years of writing |
|---|---|---|
| Diamonds for the dictatorship of the proletariat | 1921 | 1974-1989 |
| Exodus (screenplay) | 1921 | 1966-1967 |
| No password needed | 1921-1922 | 1966 |
| Tenderness | 1927 | |
| Spanish version | 1938 | 1973 |
| Alternative | 1941 | 1978 |
| Third card | 1941 | 1973 |
| Major "Whirlwind" | 1944-1945 | 1968 |
| Seventeen Moments of Spring | 1945 | 1969 |
| Ordered to survive | 1945 | 1982 |
| Expansion - I | 1946 | 1984 |
| Expansion - II | 1946 | |
| Expansion - III | 1947 | |
| Despair | 1947 | 1990 |
| Bomb for the chairman | 1967 | 1970 |
Jokes
Stirlitz is a character in one of the largest cycles of Soviet jokes, usually they parody the voice "from the author" constantly commenting on Stirlitz's thoughts or the events of the film. In the TV series "Seventeen Moments of Spring" it was the voice of the actor of the Leningrad BDT Yefim Kopelyan:
Stirlitz insisted on his own. The tincture turned out to be very bitter
Stirlitz bent over the map - he was irresistibly vomiting to his homeland.
Stirlitz walked through the woods and saw eyes in the hollow.
- Woodpecker, - thought Stirlitz.
- You yourself are a woodpecker! Mueller thought.
Stirlitz walked with Kat through the woods. Suddenly shots rang out and Kat fell, bleeding. "They're shooting," thought Stirlitz.
Stirlitz walked along the corridor of the Reich Chancellery, suddenly Mueller with the guards ran towards him. Stirlitz tensed, and his hand involuntarily reached for the pistol, but Mueller ran past.
- Carried, - thought Stirlitz.
- You would be so carried away! Mueller thought.
Subsequently, the anecdotes were summarized in works of art Ass Pavel and Begemotov Nestor ("Stirlitz, or How Hedgehogs Reproduce"), Boris Leontyev (cycle of works "The Adventures of SS Standartenfuehrer von Stirlitz"), Andrey Shcherbakov ("Leaders of the Fourth Reich", "Operation" Hedgehogs "No. 2", "Adventures Stirlitz and other adventures of Bormann ", etc.) and Sergei Chumichev (" How koloboks breed, or Stirlitz versus the Superspy ").
Stirlitz began to suspect that he was going crazy. It seemed to him that some calm, impartial voice was constantly commenting on every action. He went to the mirror, looked at it carefully. No, it seemed. Never before has the film crew of Seventeen Moments of Spring been so close to failure.
Many of these anecdotes are based on puns:
Stirlitz fired blindly ... The blind woman fell ...
Stirlitz beat for sure. Probably shot at point-blank range. The emphasis fell backwards. Vznich ran away. The leak began to defend itself.
Stirlitz sat down vraskoryachku. Raskoryachka immediately started up and drove off.
Stirlitz was skipping and in a hurry - the skipping closed in half an hour.
Stirlitz came out of the sea and lay down on the pebbles. Sveta was offended and left.
Stirlitz arrived tipsy. He left the fun at Müller's house.
Müller shot Stirlitz in the head. "Explosive" - \u200b\u200bbrains Stirlitz.
Stirlitz fell from the balcony and miraculously caught on the cornice. The next day, the miracle was swollen and made it difficult to walk. Stirlitz decided to go to the doctor, got into the car and said to the driver: "Touch!" The driver touched it and said: "Wow!"
Stirlitz saw how the SS men put the car on the rush. "Poor Pastor Schlag!" - thought Stirlitz.
Müller ordered to block all exits in Stirlitz's house. Stirlitz had to leave through the entrance.
The personal data of the actors who played in the series "Seventeen Moments of Spring" are often played up:
Or situations from the film itself are played up:
Holtoff, would you like some brandy?
- No, he hits too much in the head.
Müller, would you like to walk along the lake shore?
- No, we have already seen this movie.
How much is twice two? Mueller asked. Stirlitz thought about it. He, of course, knew how much would be twice two, he was recently informed about this from the center, but he did not know if Mueller knew this. And if he knows, then who told him. Maybe Kaltenbrunner? Then negotiations with Dulles came to a standstill.
Many anecdotes mock Stirlitz's ability to get out of difficult situations:
There is a meeting with Hitler. Suddenly a man enters the room with a tray of oranges, puts the tray on the table, takes a secret card from the table and leaves. Everyone is dumbfounded.
- Who was that? - asks Hitler.
- Yes, this is Stirlitz from Schellenberg's management. He is actually a Soviet intelligence agent Isaev, ”replies Mueller.
- So why don't you arrest him ?!
- Useless. Anyway, he will get out - he will say that he brought oranges.
Sometimes interethnic relations are played up:
Müller:
- Stirlitz, are you a Jew?
- No! I am Russian!
- And I'm German.
Here's an example of Stirlitz being a fictional character:
Stirlitz wakes up in a prison cell, not remembering how he got there. He comes up with a way to get out of the situation: "If a Gestapo man comes in, I will say that I am SS Standartenfuehrer Stirlitz, and if the NKVDist comes in, I will say that I am Colonel Isaev." A Soviet policeman enters: "Well, you got drunk yesterday, Comrade Tikhonov!"
Another technique is to bring a dramatic situation to absurdity:
Anecdotes about Stirlitz went beyond the cultural space of the Soviet Union:
Late in the evening, Stirlitz enters his house, immersed in darkness. A voice is heard:
- Don't turn on the light.
- Is it already Shabbat? - Stirlitz was surprised.
Some anecdotes combined an international aspect, new trends and wordplay at the same time:
Müller and Stirlitz are sitting in Müller's office - Müller is at the table, Stirlitz is in a chair by the window - and look tensely at each other. Muller looks from Stirlitz to the open window, back to Stirlitz, to the window, to Stirlitz ... Suddenly he says sharply:
- Stirlitz, close the window, it's blowing!
Stirlitz responded:
- Do it yourself, motherfucker!
Prototypes
Film incarnations
In addition to Tikhonov, who is undoubtedly the main "film face" of Stirlitz, this character was played by other actors. In total, four novels were filmed, where Stirlitz (or Maxim Isaev) acts. The role of Stirlitz in them was performed by:
- Vladimir Ivashov ("Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat")
- Uldis Dumpis ("Spanish version")
- Vsevolod Safonov ("The Life and Death of Ferdinand Luce")
In the fall of 2009, the Rossiya TV channel plans to show the Isaev television series, where Daniil Strakhov plays the role of the young Soviet intelligence officer Maxim Isaev.
Domestic James Bond - Max Otto von Stirlitz is one of the most popular and beloved characters of the Soviet era. No other hero has even come close to his glory. Meanwhile, there is still no consensus about who could serve as a prototype for the famous Standartenfuehrer, so beloved by the inhabitants of our country (and especially its female half). The debate about who Yulian Semyonov took as a model, creating the central character of the famous epic, consisting of thirteen novels, does not subside to this day.
In fact, the figure of Maksim Maksimovich Isaev (in reality Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov), an elusive colonel of Soviet intelligence, is a literary cast from classified materials gleaned by the writer in the archives of the special services. Behind every line of stories about Colonel Isaev there are real people, Soviet intelligence officers who entered a deadly confrontation with fascism. The names of most of them have already been declassified. And each is a legend. And we must remember them.
You can speculate for a long time about the real prototype of the famous hero, but the only person who knew the truth to the end was actually the creator of Stirlitz, Julian Semenov. In the late sixties, he was entrusted with an honorable mission - to write a patriotic work about the exploits of a Soviet intelligence officer. To bring the plot as close as possible to real circumstances, by order of Yuri Andropov himself, the writer was allowed to familiarize himself with the archival documents of some Soviet residents. In later interviews, Semenov said that most of the events that take place with Stirlitz in his novels are taken from real life, but they all happened with different scouts. The writer skillfully combined them into one literary biography.
In one of the series of the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring" a brief description of Stirlitz, which states that he is the Berlin tennis champion. The only Soviet intelligence officer professionally involved in tennis and football was Alexander Korotkov, although he did not manage to get to the title of champion. In addition, it is almost impossible to be both a secret agent and a champion in any sport in real life. In addition to the need for constant training, the personality of an athlete is under the scrutiny of the public and special services. For Korotkov, the career of a secret intelligence officer began precisely from the tennis court, where the security officers first took notice of him. Later, on the recommendation of V.L. Gerson, he got a job at the Lubyanka as an ordinary elevator operator. Soon Korotkov was transferred to the position of a clerk in a foreign department, and later he was sent to individual training, which at that time every intelligence officer had to go through. Alexander was taught to drive a car, own various types, he perfectly learned german... After several years of hard work, he was sent abroad. Before the war, Korotkov worked in France, leading a group created specifically to eliminate traitors. He is credited with the destruction of Agabekov and Clement. At the end of the thirties, the name of Korotkov was recognized by many in a narrow circle of professional intelligence officers. On the eve of the new 1939 year, Beria summoned Alexander and several other agents to his place. However, instead of the expected congratulations, he informed them ... of his dismissal. The impulsive Korotkov did not want to put up with such an outcome and decided on a desperate act - he wrote a personal letter to Beria, in which, without any excuses or requests, he demanded that he be reinstated at work. Korotkov understood that such a step was tantamount to suicide, but he dared to argue in detail the entire groundlessness of his resignation. To everyone's surprise, after reading the letter, Beria reinstated him in the service. In 1940, Korotkov worked in Berlin as a secret agent, and in March 1941, perhaps he was the first to convey information about the inevitability of a German attack on the USSR. In the early forties Korotkov, in the conditions of the most brutal counterintelligence activities of the Nazis, managed to establish a reliable connection with the underground group "Red Chapel", which was engaged in undermining the Hitler regime. With the help of clandestine radio stations, this organization transmitted classified information to the USSR and the allied countries.
The famous Soviet spy Kim Philby said after watching the movie "Seventeen Moments of Spring": "With such a focused and tense face, the real Stirlitz would not last a day!" Critics have also put forward claims that the image of Nazi Germany created in the series is more reminiscent of the USSR of the Stalinist period. For example, according to the historian Zalessky, “such a Third Reich did not exist ... All relationships between characters, the whole spirit, has nothing to do with reality. Nazi Germany was different. Not worse and not better, just different. "
On June 19, 1941, an intelligence officer working under the pseudonym Breitenbach informed the Soviet leadership about the planned German attack three days later. According to many sources, this agent can also be considered as one of the prototypes of Stirlitz. Wilhelm Lehmann was hiding under a secret name, who, like Stirlitz, was an officer of the Gestapo, SS Hauptsturmführer and a spy of the Soviet Union. According to some sources, the initial initiative came from the German officer himself, he deliberately sought a meeting with Soviet intelligence until he was officially recruited. Lehman's desire to work for the USSR was dictated by his intransigence to the basic ideals of fascism. The good-natured and affable person Lehman was, at work (in the IVth department of the RSHA of the Gestapo) was called by many as "Uncle Willie." No one, including his wife, could even imagine that this bald, kind-hearted person suffering from renal colic and diabetes was a Soviet agent. Before the war, he transmitted information about the timing and volume of production of self-propelled guns and armored personnel carriers, the development of new nerve agents and synthetic gasoline, the beginning of testing liquid fuel missiles, the structure and personnel of the German special services, counterintelligence operations of the Gestapo and much more. Documents confirming the fact of the impending attack on Soviet UnionLehman sewed into the lining of his hat, which he then discreetly replaced with the same headdress when he met the Soviet representative in a cafe.
In 1942, the Germans managed to declassify the brave intelligence officer. Himmler was simply shocked by this fact. The employee, who had worked in the Gestapo for thirteen years, constantly supplied information to the USSR and was never even suspected of espionage. The very fact of his activities was so shameful for the SS that the Lehmann case was completely and completely destroyed until it reached the Fuehrer, and the scout himself was hastily shot shortly after his arrest. Even the agent's wife for a long time did not know about the true reasons for the death of her husband. His name was included in the list of those killed in the Third Reich. Of all the Soviet intelligence officers, it was Lehmann who held a similar position to Stirlitz as a high-ranking SS officer, surrounded by the rulers of the destinies of Germany and entering the very heart of the Reich.
Stirlitz hid his real marital status, according to Gestapo documents he was single, but his wife was expecting his return to the USSR. In fact, the Germans hired mostly married officers to work in the SS, and those who were single, as a rule, aroused undue suspicion. In addition, in the charter of this organization, each member was ordered to have a family and children by the age of thirty.
At the end of the nineties, a version was born that the real surname of the literary character of Stirlitz - Isaev - appeared thanks to the really existing intelligence officer Isaiah Isaevich Borovoy. Having slightly changed his name, Yulian Semenov created Maxim Maksimovich. And very little is known about Isaiah Borovoy himself, since the resident's personal file is still classified. The agent's relatives say that he, like Stirlitz, was in charge of Soviet military intelligence in Europe and was infiltrated into the upper echelons of the command of the Third Reich. However, Borovoy worked there even before the war, by order of the command he surrendered to the Americans, who transported him to the Soviet Union. Despite the enormous services to the Motherland, upon returning home Borovoy was exiled to Siberia instead of awards. The reason for the arrest of the agent remained a mystery behind seven seals. The measures to cleanse the scout from the filth of the rotten West were so cruel that before his death Borovoy's arms and legs were broken, his spine was damaged. Relatives never found out where his body was buried.
Some researchers are also inclined to believe that Mikhail Mikhalkov, the brother of the famous Soviet writer, who was an illegal agent during the Great Patriotic War, who supplied domestic intelligence agencies with important operational data, could well have been the prototype of Stirlitz. As a relative of Mikhalkov, Yulian Semyonov knew his life very well, and therefore could well use it partially in his works. In 1945, during the battle, Mikhail crossed the front line and fell into the hands of the "native" military counterintelligence. He was accused of collaborating with the Germans and was imprisoned first in the Lefortovo prison, and then in one of the concentration camps in the Far East. The scout was rehabilitated only in 1956.
Today, it is even difficult for Stirlitz's fans to imagine that the legendary character could have looked completely different, for example, if Oleg Strizhenov or Archil Gomiashvili won the casting for the cinema. Nevertheless, Tikhonov perfectly coped with one of the most difficult acting tasks - to play the role of a pensive, silent hero. When he simply keeps silence in the film, the viewer firmly believes that Stirlitz is thinking about something extremely important for the country, although, according to the actor himself, at that moment he was repeating the multiplication table in his mind. In one role, Tikhonov managed to combine best qualities Soviet intelligence officers: high intelligence, a subtle ability to understand human psychology, the art of controlling oneself and one's emotions, the ability to transform, quickly analyze the situation and make decisions at lightning speed.
The prototype of the young Stirlitz may be an employee of the Cheka Yakov Blumkin. It is interesting that among his pseudonyms there are the surnames Vladimirov and Isaev. They also have the same date of birth with Stirlitz - October 8, 1900. Blumkin's biography is extremely entertaining. He was highly regarded by Dzerzhinsky and Trotsky, he participated in the assassination of the German ambassador Mirbach, noted in the assassination attempt on Hetman Skoropadsky and German field marshal Eichhorn, “expropriated” the values \u200b\u200bof the State Bank together with Mishka Yaponchik, was engaged in overthrowing the Persian head Kuchek-khan and created the Iranian communist party. One episode from Blumkin's life almost completely became the basis for the plot of Semyonov's book "Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat." In the mid-twenties, Yakov graduated from the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army and was engaged in the eastern issue, traveled around China, Palestine, Mongolia, and lived in Shanghai. In the summer of 1929, Blumkin returned to the capital to report on his work, but was soon arrested for his old ties with Leon Trotsky. At the end of the same year, Blumkin was shot.
Another interesting historical fact... It is known that smokers were not particularly favored in the Third Reich. Himmler personally forbade SS officers from indulging in this vice at work. However, both in the book and in the film, Stirlitz often smokes.
Anatoly Gurevich is considered another prototype of Stirlitz. He volunteered for the war in Spain, and after returning to his homeland he received an offer to become a scout. After studying at the GRU, his specialization became ciphers and radio stations. Under the name of Vincent Sierra Anatoly began his work in Brussels, later he was a member of the "Red Chapel", had the pseudonym Kent. In Belgium, he married the daughter of a wealthy industrialist who transferred part of his enterprises to Gurevich. It was he who, in the fall of 1941, informed Moscow about the impending German strike at Stalingrad and in the Caucasus. Largely thanks to this information, the Red Army gained the upper hand in these operations, thousands of our compatriots survived. In 1941, Anatoly's transmitter was tracked. The scout and his wife had to flee to France, to the city of Marseille, where they were soon arrested. Only after that did the wife of Margaret find out that her husband was a Soviet spy. A big shock for the Soviet agent was the information that his codes had been hacked, and the German counterintelligence service was involved in a radio game. Nevertheless, Gurevich managed to survive. After the war, the spy who parted with his wife returned to Russia. The Soviet command did not hesitate with the sentence to Anatoly - they gave him twenty years in prison under the article "treason to the Motherland." In fact, he spent about twenty-five years in prison. The charges of treason were dropped only in 1991. Anatoly Gurevich died in January 2009 at the ninety-sixth year of life.
In the long list of prototypes of the popular hero, many historians include one of the most prominent scouts of the century, Richard Sorge. However, a detailed study of their biographies refutes this. The similarity can be found only in the fact that Sorge is recognized as the real intelligence agent No. 1 of our country, and Stirlitz is recognized as a literary and cinematic one. It can also be noted that both lived for some time in Shanghai. Sorge also warned about the start of the war, and Stirlitz tried to find out this date.
Regarding the character of Stirlitz, Yulian Semenov himself argued that his choice had stopped on Norman Borodin. The writer did not learn the adventures of the famous intelligence officer from secret archives, but from the agent himself, that is, firsthand. His life could become a separate exciting novel, Norman had a chance to go through a huge number of trials and dramas. The father of the future agent, Mikhail Borodin, was an associate of Lenin, a diplomat, a Soviet intelligence officer. Since 1923, under the pseudonym "Comrade Kirill", he worked as an adviser to the Chinese leader Sun Yat-sen. When Sun Yat-sen died after a serious illness, power in the country changed instantly. Stay in the form of a favorite former leader this country was extremely dangerous. Mikhail Borodin was arrested and exiled from the USSR. And his son, Norman, was secretly transported by Soviet diplomats as part of the touring ballet troupe Isadora Duncan. A handsome, black-haired sixteen-year-old boy was disguised as a woman, one of the participants in the performance.
At first in the Soviet Union, Norman felt like a foreigner. In his sixteen years, he was here only once, and was born and raised in the United States. Accordingly, the native language for Borodin Jr. was English. Fulfilling the behests of his father, Norman was preparing from an early age to become a scout. By the age of nineteen, he was already an employee of the INO NKVD, and received his first assignment at twenty-five. He was ordered to travel to the United States as an illegal resident. The position of illegal intelligence officers, who in a narrow circle were called "marathon runners of foreign intelligence", was extremely difficult, since they could not count on protection from the embassy in case of any problems, up to and including arrest. During his work in the United States, Borodin was assigned the operational pseudonym Granit, which perfectly characterized his character. According to the recollections of contemporaries, a real agent, like Stirlitz, made a very pleasant impression, was tactful and had a great sense of humor, knew how to remain calm and restrained in any situations, nothing could make him betray his true feelings. However, the rest of the scout's fate was similar to an obstacle course. Life, as if specially tested Borodin for strength. After the betrayal of one of the Soviet spies, Borodin, along with a number of other agents, was recalled from the United States. And soon, at the conclusion of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, he was expelled from foreign intelligence. During his resignation, Borodin worked in the foreign department of Glavlit, but with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he was again returned to intelligence. He was sent to Germany, to the very lair of the enemy - to Berlin, where Norman created a reliable branched network of agents. Simultaneously with espionage activities, under the guise of an American volunteer, he worked for the Swiss Red Cross.
The popular writer Georgy Vayner said in an interview: "Norman and his family are amazing material for a novel about the birth, formation and victory of ideas and views, their further transformation, the collapse and final destruction of all ideals."
In 1947, Norman returned to Moscow and got a job as a correspondent. Soon he, like many of his fellow front-line soldiers, was completely disillusioned with the Soviet system. In 1949, Norman wrote a letter to Stalin, in which he voiced only one question to the General Secretary: does he know what is happening in his environment, where and why the best agents, sincerely devoted to communist ideas, disappear without a trace? The scout did not receive an answer, but a few days later his father was arrested. Mikhail Borodin spent two years in Lefortovo, where, under torture, he signed a confession that he was an American spy. On May 29, 1951, Borodin Sr. could not stand the beatings and died in prison. After his father died, Norman was arrested. In the prison of Borodin, who suddenly turned from a valuable intelligence agent into an enemy of the country, torture was also expected. He was kept undressed in a punishment cell at a temperature slightly above zero degrees. After conducting the investigative process, the authorities decided to send the intelligence officer to Karaganda.
During the Karaganda exile, the leadership of the KGB allowed Norman Borodin to do the business that he liked. He became a journalist for a local newspaper. Here, the scout met the still unknown brothers Weiners and Yulian Semyonov. The story of Norman Borodin's life heard by Semyonov made a huge impression on the writer; he asked the intelligence officer for permission to use certain moments of his biography in his new novel about Stirlitz. But the most important thing was that Semyonov tried to endow his hero with the same character. Two years later, the Stalinist thaw came, the cult of the Leader was debunked, the charges were dropped from Borodin, and he was finally able to return to Moscow. The scout was reinstated in the party, and he again returned to work in the KGB. Subsequently, Borodin took part in the creation of the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring" under the assumed name of S.K. Mishin, which the viewer can see in the closing credits. Andropov forbade the real names of active intelligence officers to be indicated. The artist of the painting "Seventeen Moments of Spring", according to the stories of Borodin's daughter, was a frequent guest in their house and consulted with his father in order to achieve the maximum approximation of the artistic image of Stirlitz to a real scout. Norman Borodin died in 1974.
There is a legend that already in his old age Leonid Brezhnev, who was very fond of the film about the famous intelligence officer, having reviewed it once again, suddenly asked those present: "Have we awarded Stirlitz?" All were embarrassedly silent. Then Brezhnev ordered to give the scout the title of Hero. As a way out of the situation, it was decided to award Tikhonov with the Order of the Hero of Socialist Labor. Whether this happened in reality is unknown.
Sadly, despite the presence of a large number of experienced residents who have been supplying valuable information from the enemy camp for years, as well as saboteurs who have performed a number of successful operations, in real life scouts with such a rich biography as Stirlitz did not exist. And it could not exist. Maneuvering between possible failures, penetration into the very top of the Reich, salvation from the most difficult situations simply cannot fall to the lot of one person. In addition, we have to admit that the presence of such a person as Stirlitz in the highest echelons of the German command in real life would be impossible. If only for the simple reason that the genealogy of all Gestapo officers, by order of the Fuehrer, was checked until the middle of the eighteenth century. However, Semenov did not write his books from scratch. He studied a huge amount of historical materials. Perhaps that is why his work looks so reliable and convincing. Without a doubt, the image of Stirlitz was collected from various Soviet intelligence officers, and many of his actions, described in the pages of the novels, were borrowed from real life. And even though none of them was Stirlitz in itself, they were all taken together. And with the recognition of merits to the Motherland, the literary hero was much more fortunate than real prototypes. Many of them were undeservedly persecuted, accused of espionage and forgotten. Courageous people were recognized as heroes after their death.
Information sources:
http://www.kpravda.ru/article/society/006425/
http://operkor.wordpress.com/
http://reallystory.com/post/144
http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st\u003d1256677560
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