Saturday, September 26, 2020

Agent Sonya,Moscow's most daring Wartime Spy by Ben Mc Intyre 2020 335pg

 

A Women who spied for the Soviets for years   25/9/20 and 9/3/22
1815 Napoleonic war the last time Switzerland saw war.
1919  Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg founded the German Communist Party KPD
1922 Walter Rathenau assassinated by ultra nationalist after signing a treaty with Russia.
1923 Sun Yatsen founding father of he Chinese Republic followed by Chiang Kai-shek who purged communists.
1924 There were 160 thousand Jews in Berlin roughly a third of Germany's Jewish population. Robert Rene Kuczynski was a distinguished demographic statistician.  "Kuczynski rate" and had the biggest private library in Germany. They spoke English and French also and Karl Liebknecht ( Marxist)Max Liebermann , Walter Rathenau and Albert Einstein were amongst their friends. During WW1 he calculated Germany's nutritional requirements.

1926 Jeugen her brother after studying economics studied at the Brookings institute in Washington

The KPD led by Ernst Thalmann got direct funding from Moscow and had Die Rote Fahne (Red flag) newspaper 

1926 Jozef Pilsudski the strong Polish leader died 
1927 Ursula worked in the archive for Ullstein publishers, Germany's largest newspaper and book publisher. She went to the US for an adventure and taught German to the children of a Quaker family and saw the depression there 
Henry Street Settlement NY founded by Lillian Wald . She became aware of issues of minority rights suffrage and racial integration
1929 Agnes Smedley "Daughter of Earth, Mike Gold "Jews without money"
1930 Married Rudolf Hamburger and he got a job in British  Shanghai as the municipal architect.They went there via the Trans Siberian Railway. Shanghai was the largest city in China. Germany lost her territory  in China at the end of WW1. Foreigners needed no passport and it was the spy capital of Asia. They had a son Michael.
Richard Sorge (fictional James Bond by Ian Fleming) He sent German and Japanese secrets to Moscow. While Rudi ws at work their home was used as a Party meeting place. 
Noulens was Yakov Rudnik a Ukrainian Jew, was arrested as a spy in China 
1932 Japan invaded the Chinese sections of Shanghai
1935 Reich Citizen Law< Jews could no longer be German citizens.
1933 Hitler took power this was 14 years after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II
1937 Sino -Soviet non aggression pact.Later Vassily Chukov was now senior advisor to Chaing Kai-shek. 

Nazi agents in Britian were all caught thanks to Blechley Park.but there were plenty of Soviet spies including the Cambridge 5
1938 -1938 Stalinist Purges many of the people she worked with were killed.
1938 Chaimberlan's Munich Agreement removed the last hope of anti Fascist Union in Europe so General Franco had a free hand in Spain to deal with the Republicans.
1938 Nov 1938 Kristallnacht
1938- 1940 17thousand Jewsih refugees fled to Shanghai on the Lloyd Triestino Line.
1939 August 23rd When Russia and Germany signed a pact a plan was almost ready to assassinate Hitler. Now all her work was put on hold. 
1939 November Russian invaded Finland the Winter war till Moscow Peace   March 1940
1939 1st Sept Germany attacked Poland 3rd Sept Britain declared war. 
1941 August  Britain and the Soviets invaded Persia to secure the oil fields.  
         August  Churchill gave the go ahead to do nuclear weapon  research.
1942 Dec Pearl Harbour
1942 German army surrounded at Stalingrad
1943August Quebec Agreement between Churchill and Roosevelt to make an atom bomb. 
Klaus Fucks was a leading Atomic scientist who fled Germany and handed over all nuclear information to Ursula to send to the Soviets .He was one of 17 British scientists to go to the US to work on the Manhattan project and handed in all information he got there. 
130,000 people worked on the Manhattan Project
Millicent Bagot was the spy catcher portrayed as Connie Sachs in John le Carre novels and she worked under Filby
Lieutenant Joseph Gould  American Army recruited spies to be dropped into Germany from anti Nazis exiles living in England these were put into POW camps in England to learn from German prisoners about current Germany, They discovered that many German soldiers still believed that Hitler would win the war.
 The OSS did not pay attention to the fact that they were communist workers connected via a "cutout " or intermediary to  Ursula. They dropped near Berlin and reported that 2/3rds of  German industry and power there was still working The newest US communication technology got to the Russian and as well as all they reported back
1945 2nd May the German forces surrendered to the Russian General Vasily Chuikov. 1941 He had been the Soviet defense attache in Chunking and had helped get Rudi out of Chinese prison there
1948 Johann Patra needed help getting out of China as all foreigners were fleeing, he had married a German woman and adopted a child. As an anti Nazi German felt he was entitled to repatriation. The GRU had severed contact with him, and he ended  up  in South America.
1949 the USSR first secret  nuclear test in Kazakhstan.
1950 Klaus Fuchs was arrested and mentioned that he dropped off messages to a lady in Banbury. The Americans had been decoding the Venona traffic and Ursula took her 2 younger children and flew to Berlin where her brother Jugens lived. She refused to do more spy work Len and her son Michael soon followed.  She became a writer of propaganda

1977 She wrote her autobiography called  "Sonya's Report", the Stasi wanted her to censor her unconventional love life but she refused . At the age of 84 she was  permitted to go to Britain to publicise her memoirs. MPs wanted her arrested but MI5 did not want an embarrassing trial
2000 Ursula Kuczynski died at the age of 93
# 1956 Soviet crushing Hungarian Revolt
#1961 Soviet Building of the Berlin Wall
#1968 Soviet crushed the Prague Spring
#1989 Fall of Berlin Wall
#2014 Russian invasion of Crimea
#2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
----------------------------------------------
Ursula read books by Lenin Luxemburg and radical novels by Jack London and Maxim Gorky. Her mother Bertha would not give her an academic education so she was sent to study typing and shorthand. Ursula was aware of the Weimar Republic's wealth of the small privileged and poverty and begging of the unemployed. She was also  involved inthe Henry street settlement under the progressive Lilian Wald. She worked at Prosnits books where she met American communists
For an adventure she went to America where she worked teaching German to a Quaker family
 The men in her life.
.Rudolf Hamburger did architectural modernism of the Bauhaus movement. Albert Speer (Hitlers architect)was at the same Berlin Technical University.
1930 Married Rudolf Hamburger and he got a job in British  Shanghai as the municipal architect.They went there via the Trans Siberian Railway. Shanghai was the largest city in China. Germany lost her territory  in China at the end of WW1. Foreigners needed no passport and it was the spy capital of Asia. Rudi could not get work in Germany when he qualified as an architect. He answered and add that told him if he got to Shanghai there was a job for him. They went via Siberia and Manchuria. Ursula was bored being the wife of a colonial .  They had a son Michael.
When she heard that Agnes Smedley was in Shanghai met up with her, and this brought her into the circle of espionage.
1929 Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley '' She was a troubled person and advised to write a story of her thoughts which ended up being a successful novel. Shanghai was the largest city in China and the birthplace of the CCP Chinese Comunist party.
.  

`Richard Sorge code name Ramsey  (fictional James Bond by Ian Fleming)He recruited Ursula. The spies were run by the Centre who used them and when they were no longer of value cast them aside.   He sent German and Japanese secrets to Moscow. While Rudi was at work their home was used as a Party meeting place. Ursula had a relationship with him and he took her for rides on the motorbike. He was the one whose friendship she never got over and always had a photo of him on her wall. He survived the purge of the Russian army as he refused to leave Japan and go to |Moscow at the time.
He informed the Soviets that Japan had not intention of invading Siberia. He was one of a few that informed  Germany were about invade Russia a report rejected by Stalin. His wife was arrested as a German spy and died in  a Gulag. He was hanged in Japan in 1944 where he was spying on German and Japanese secrets. While Rudi was at work the home was used as a secret meeting place for Soviet spies under Sorge
 Ursula and Agnes went out touring and brought back reports of what Japan was doing. She was invited to come to Moscow for a 6 month course to be a spy, here you made friends but  never ever knew their names. Meanwhile she took Michael to the Hamburger parents who were living in Czechoslovakia..After 6 months she fetched Michael and travelled back to Shanghai by ship. On the ship she made out that she just met up with her partner Johann Patra.
  was a seaman who could speak a number of languages
She told Rudi she was leaving him and took Michael to Mukdan (Shenyang today) with Johan Patra They got a cabin in the garden of a German aristocrat who worked at the German Embassy next door. He was a Nazi who dealt in arms with Japanese Military in Manchuria. and was extremely talkative. And promised he would look after Mischa if something happened to her. She and Johan Patra had a daughter  Nina together, Rudi was prepared to be the father if she was alone.
They also worked in Harbin, which was full of White Russians that they had no sympathy for. They saw famine and peasants abanding their children especially baby girls 
The Soviets considered Japanese expansion in China a threat. Meanwhile with the Stalinist purges you could never ask what happened to your previous boss.
1942 Rudolf worked in Tehran as an architect building the Persian Finance Ministry building. Russia and Britain had troops there so that the Germans could not get the oil fields. He was inept as a spy and asked for information and was arrested by the British and sent  to the Soviets who decided he was a double agent and put him in a Gulag for 10years.

 
 .  Otto, Rudi's brother, a refugee in Shanghai got a message that Rudi was at Bai Mansion prison. He contacted Johann Patra. After 9 month captivity he was put on a plane to Russia.
1935 most of Kuczynski's family had fled from Germany to Britain and she visited them there, then went off to Warsaw 1936 with Rudi and her nanny Olga Moth. Patra was pleased that Rudi was back with her for his child Nina. In Warsaw Rudi found work as an architect. Ursula went to work in Danzig(Gdansk) for 3 months a "Free City" but run by German  Nazi's, They set to work to sabatage the German Uboats.
1937 she received the highest award The order of the Red Banner given to her personally by Mikhail Kalenin. (Kalingrad named after him)  He was the one who signed the execution of the 22000 Polish officers in the Katyn massacre.
Alexander Allan Foote 1905 -1956 a  Spanish Civil War Veteran. He had got a girl pregnant and decided to take his chances in war in Spain. Ursula sent him to Munich where he had lessons in German and learned about the BMW factory and aircraft engines used by the luftwaffe. When Ursula fled from Switzerland he took her role. He was at a restaurant which was Hitlers favorite. here he saw the Milford sister and Oswald Mosely.. They had plans to assassinate Hitle but once the Ribontroff treaty  signed this was called off.   He later went to West Berlin and informed on the Soviet spies but never about Ursula.to M16
Len Beuton 1914 to 1997 a  Spanish Civil War Veteran  It was well known that Russia used these veterans of the International Brigade as a spuy recruiting ground. He had been a fighter in the Republic Army during the Spanish Civil war and one of the few survivors of his brigade he was fearless
 Ursula was in Switzerland where she worked and trained Len Beurton. He was in Munich studying German and frequented the restaurant that Hitler did and worked on a plan to assassinate Hiltler till the Ribbentrop Pact when this was called off he finally crossed into Switzerland after war was declared.
 She married Len and got a British passport. Himlers agents were combing Switzerland  
 to flee as she knew she was compromised. Olga Muth went into the British Embassy to tell them that Ursula was a spy as she could not go to England and wanted the baby who she had brought up. Ursula came  came via Vichy and Spain to Portugal. She took a ship to Liverpool and got there just before the port was bombed. In Oxford  she took a house in the Judge Neville Lazkis garden, a leader in the Jewish community.. Len gave the British embassy infomation about Nazi's and they gave him a false passport as he could otherwise not travel through Franco's Spain as he was a listed Republican fighters. Len and Ursula had a son Peter. Now she had 3 children   each with different fathers. Ursula's 4 sisters each married Englishmen and .settled 
Her brother Jeugen Cuxzynski also fled to East Germany.
Alexander Rado was a Hungarian Jew 
Melita Norwood
Milicent Bagot  was the one who realized that Usula was a spy but never succeeded in getting evidence; perhaps Filby managed to discourage this investigation. As a woman working under men while Usula appeared to be a housewife with children.
1950 When Karl Fuchs was arrested she knew she had to leave England
The Verone traffic was now decoded so all the spies were in danger but she had already left for East Germany. She was one of the few who told the authorities she was no longer working in espionage. Most Russian spies could not retire and usually died in disgrace. 
She became a writer under the name Ruth Werner.
She loved Rudi for his kindness, Petra for his revolutionary strength and Len for his long sweet comradeship.
 Agent Sonya,Moscow's most daring Wartime Spy by Ben Mc Intyre 2020 335pg 
A Women who spied for the Soviets for years   25/9/20 
Time line and history part of the story
1815 Napoleonic war the last time Switzerland saw war.
1919  Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg founded the German Communist Party KPD
1922 Walter Rathenau assassinated by ultra nationalist after signing a treaty with Russia.
1923 Sun Yatsen founding father of he Chinese Republic followed by Chiang Kai-shek who purged communists.
1924 There were 160 thousand Jews in Berlin roughly a third of Germany's Jewish population. Robert Rene Kuczynski was a distinguished demographic statistician.  "Kuczynski rate" and had the biggest private library in Germany. They spoke English and French also and Karl Liebknecht ( Marxist)Max Liebermann , Walter Rathenau and Albert Einstein were amongst their friends. During WW1 he calculated Germany's nutritional requirements.
1926 Jeugen her brother after studying economics studied at the Brookings institute in Washington
The KPD led by Ernst Thalmann got direct funding from Moscow and had Die Rote Fahne (Red flag) newspaper 
1926 Jozef Pilsudski the strong Polish leader died 
1927 Ursula worked in the archive for Ullstein publishers, Germany's largest newspaper and book publisher. She went to the US for an adventure and taught German to the children of a Quaker family and saw the depression there. 
Henry Street Settlement NY founded by Lillian Wald . She became aware of issues of minority rights suffrage and racial integration
1929 Agnes Smedley wrote"Daughter of Earth, Mike Gold "Jews without money"
1930 Married Rudolf Hamburger and he got a job in British  Shanghai as the municipal architect.
Noulens was Yakov Rudnik a Ukrainian Jew, was arrested as a spy in China 
1932 Japan invaded the Chinese sections of Shanghai
1935 Reich Citizen Law< Jews could no longer be German citizens.
1933 Hitler took power this was 14 years after the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II
1937 Sino -Soviet non aggression pact.Later Vassily Chukov was now senior advisor to Chaing Kai-shek. 
1938 -1938 Stalinist Purges many of the people she worked with her were killed.
1938 Chaimberlan's Munich Agreement removed the last hope of anti Fascist Union in Europe so General Franco had a free hand in Spain to deal with the Republicans.
1938 Nov 1938 Kristallnacht
1938- 1940 17thousand Jewsih refugees fled to Shanghai on the Lloyd Triestino Line.
Nazi agents in Britian were all caught thanks to Blechley Park.but there were plenty of Soviet spies including the Cambridge 5
1939 August 23rd When Russia and Germany signed a pact a plan was almost ready to assassinate Hitler. Now all her work was put on hold. 
1939 November Russian invaded Finland the Winter war till Moscow Peace   March 1940
1939 1st Sept Germany attacked Poland 3rd Sept Britain declared war. 
1941 August  Britain and the Soviets invaded Persia to secure the oil fields.  
         August  Churchill gave the go ahead to do nuclear weapon  research.
 1941 Zhukov had been the Soviet defense attache in Chunking and had helped get Rudi out of Chinese prison there
1942 Dec Pearl Harbour
1942 German army surrounded at Stalingrad
1943August Quebec Agreement between Churchill and Roosevelt to make an atom bomb. 
1945 2nd May the German forces surrendered to the Russian General Vasily Zhuikov.
1949 the USSR first secret  nuclear test in Kazakhstan.
1950 Klaus Fuchs was arrested, so Ursula knew she was exposed.
 #1989 Fall of Berlin Wall
 2000 Ursula Kuczynski died at the age of 93
 
----------------------------------------------
Ursula read books by Lenin Luxemburg and radical novels by Jack London and Maxim Gorky. Her mother Bertha would not give her an academic education so she was sent to study typing and shorthand. Ursula was aware of the Weimar Republic's wealth of the small privileged and poverty and begging of the unemployed. She was also  involved inthe Henry street settlement under the progressive Lilian Wald. She worked at Prosnits books where she met American communists
For an adventure she went to America where she worked teaching German to a Quaker family
 The men in her life.
.Rudolf Hamburger did architectural modernism of the Bauhaus movement. Albert Speer (Hitlers architect)was at the same Berlin Technical University.
They went there via the Trans Siberian Railway. Shanghai was the largest city in China. Germany lost her territory  in China at the end of WW1. Foreigners needed no passport and it was the spy capital of Asia. They had a son Michael.
Richard Sorge (fictional James Bond by Ian Fleming) He sent German and Japanese secrets to Moscow. While Rudi ws at work their home was used as a Party meeting place. 
1930 Married Rudolf Hamburger and he got a job in British  Shanghai as the municipal architect.They went there via the Trans Siberian Railway. Shanghai was the largest city in China. Germany lost her territory  in China at the end of WW1. Foreigners needed no passport and it was the spy capital of Asia. Rudi could not get work in Germany when he qualified as an architect. He answered and add that told him if he got to Shanghai there was a job for him. They went via Siberia and Manchuria. Ursula was bored being the wife of a colonial .  They had a son Michael.
When she heard that Agnes Smedley was in Shanghai met up with her, and this brought her into the circle of espionage.
1929 Daughter of Earth by Agnes Smedley '' She was a troubled person and advised to write a story of her thoughts which ended up being a successful novel. Shanghai was the largest city in China and the birthplace of the CCP Chinese Comunist party.
.  

`Richard Sorge code name Ramsey  (fictional James Bond by Ian Fleming)He recruited Ursula. The spies were run by the Centre who used them and when they were no longer of value cast them aside.   He sent German and Japanese secrets to Moscow. While Rudi was at work their home was used as a Party meeting place. Ursula had a relationship with him and he took her for rides on the motorbike. He was the one whose friendship she never got over and always had a photo of him on her wall. He survived the purge of the Russian army as he refused to leave Japan and go to |Moscow at the time.
He informed the Soviets that Japan had not intention of invading Siberia. He was one of a few that informed  Germany were about invade Russia a report rejected by Stalin. His wife was arrested as a German spy and died in  a Gulag. He was hanged in Japan in 1944 where he was spying on German and Japanese secrets. While Rudi was at work the home was used as a secret meeting place for Soviet spies under Sorge
 Ursula and Agnes went out touring and brought back reports of what Japan was doing. She was invited to come to Moscow for a 6 month course to be a spy, here you made friends but  never ever knew their names. Meanwhile she took Michael to the Hamburger parents who were living in Czechoslovakia..After 6 months she fetched Michael and travelled back to Shanghai by ship.
Johann Patra. On the ship she made out that she just met up with her partner  was a seaman who could speak a number of languages
She told Rudi she was leaving him and took Michael to Mukdan (Shenyang today) with Johan Patra. They got a cabin in the garden of a German aristocrat who worked at the German Embassy next door. He was a Nazi who dealt in arms with Japanese Military in Manchuria. and was extremely talkative. And promised he would look after Mischa if something happened to her. She and Johan Patra had a daughter  Nina together, Rudi was prepared to be the father if she was alone.
They also worked in Harbin, which was full of White Russians that they had no sympathy for. They saw famine and peasants abanding their children especially baby girls 
The Soviets considered Japanese expansion in China a threat. Meanwhile with the Stalinist purges you could never ask what happened to your previous boss.
1942 Rudolf worked in Tehran as an architect building the Persian Finance Ministry building. Russia and Britain had troops there so that the Germans could not get the oil fields. He was inept as a spy and asked for information and was arrested by the British and sent  to the Soviets who decided he was a double agent and put him in a Gulag for 10years.

 
 .  Otto, Rudi's brother, a refugee in Shanghai got a message that Rudi was at Bai Mansion prison. He contacted Johann Patra. After 9 month captivity he was put on a plane to Russia.
1935 most of Kuczynski's family had fled from Germany to Britain and she visited them there, then went off to Warsaw 1936 with Rudi and her nanny Olga Moth. Patra was pleased that Rudi was back with her for his child Nina. In Warsaw Rudi found work as an architect. Ursula went to work in Danzig(Gdansk) for 3 months a "Free City" but run by German  Nazi's, They set to work to sabatage the German Uboats.
1937 she received the highest award The order of the Red Banner given to her personally by Mikhail Kalenin. (Kalingrad named after him)  He was the one who signed the execution of the 22000 Polish officers in the Katyn massacre.
Alexander Allan Foote 1905 -1956 a  Spanish Civil War Veteran. He had got a girl pregnant and decided to take his chances in war in Spain. Ursula sent him to Munich where he had lessons in German and learned about the BMW factory and aircraft engines used by the luftwaffe. When Ursula fled from Switzerland he took her role. He was at a restaurant which was Hitlers favorite. here he saw the Milford sister and Oswald Mosely.. They had plans to assassinate Hitle but once the Ribontroff treaty  signed this was called off.   He later went to West Berlin and informed on the Soviet spies but never about Ursula.to M16
Len Beuton 1914 to 1997 a  Spanish Civil War Veteran  It was well known that Russia used these veterans of the International Brigade as a spuy recruiting ground. He had been a fighter in the Republic Army during the Spanish Civil war and one of the few survivors of his brigade he was fearless
 Ursula was in Switzerland where she worked and trained Len Beurton. He was in Munich studying German and frequented the restaurant that Hitler did and worked on a plan to assassinate Hiltler till the Ribbentrop Pact when this was called off he finally crossed into Switzerland after war was declared.
 She married Len and got a British passport. Himlers agents were combing Switzerland  
 to flee as she knew she was compromised. Olga Muth went into the British Embassy to tell them that Ursula was a spy as she could not go to England and wanted the baby who she had brought up. Ursula came  came via Vichy and Spain to Portugal. She took a ship to Liverpool and got there just before the port was bombed. In Oxford  she took a house in the Judge Neville Lazkis garden, a leader in the Jewish community.. Len gave the British embassy infomation about Nazi's and they gave him a false passport as he could otherwise not travel through Franco's Spain as he was a listed Republican fighters. Len and Ursula had a son Peter. Now she had 3 children   each with different fathers. Ursula's 4  in sisters each married Englishmen and .settled in England.
Her brother Jeugen Cuxzynski also fled to East Germany.
Alexander Rado was a Hungarian Jew 
Melita Norwood  depicted as Red Joan in movie British women Soviet spy exposed in 1992 but not prosecuted
Milicent Bagot  was the one who realized that Usula was a spy but never succeeded in getting evidence; perhaps Filby managed to discourage this investigation. As a woman working under men while Usula appeared to be a housewife with children.
1948 Johann Patra needed help getting out of China as all foreigners were fleeing, he had married a German woman and adopted a child. As an anti Nazi German felt he was entitled to repatriation. The GRU had severed contact with him, and he ended  up  in South America.
1950 When Karl Fuchs was arrested she knew she had to leave England 
1950 Klaus Fuchs was arrested and mentioned that he dropped off messages to a lady in Banbury. The Americans had been decoding the Venona traffic and Ursula took her 2 younger children and flew to Berlin where her brother Jugens lived. She refused to do more spy work Len and her son Michael soon followed.  She became a writer of propaganda
Klaus Fucks was a leading Atomic scientist who fled Germany and handed over all nuclear information to Ursula to send to the Soviets .He was one of 17 British scientists to go to the US to work on the Manhattan project and handed in all information he got there. 
130,000 people worked on the Manhattan Project
Millicent Bagot was the spy catcher portrayed as Connie Sachs in John le Carre novels and she worked under Filby
Lieutenant Joseph Gould  American Army recruited spies to be dropped into Germany from anti Nazis exiles living in England these were put into POW camps in England to learn from German prisoners about current Germany, They discovered that many German soldiers still believed that Hitler would win the war.
 The OSS did not pay attention to the fact that they were communist workers connected via a "cutout " or intermediary to  Ursula. They dropped near Berlin and reported that 2/3rds of  German industry and power there was still working The newest US communication technology got to the Russian and as well as all they reported back

1977 She wrote her autobiography called  "Sonya's Report", the Stasi wanted her to censor her unconventional love life but she refused . At the age of 84 she was  permitted to go to Britain to publicise her memoirs. MPs wanted her arrested but MI5 did not want an embarrassing trial
The Verone traffic was now decoded so all the spies were in danger but she had already left for East Germany. She was one of the few who told the authorities she was no longer working in espionage. Most Russian spies could not retire and usually died in disgrace. 
She became a writer under the name Ruth Werner.

She loved Rudi for his kindness, Petra for his revolutionary strength and Len for his long sweet comradeship.
Richard Sorge offered glamour and peril. Johan Patra's seaman was jealous and competitive, while Len needed her for simple, strong and unquestioning love.

Richard Sorge offered glamour and peril. Johan Patra's seaman was jealous and competitive, while Len needed her for simple, strong and unquestioning love.



  

Sunday, September 20, 2020

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand 2010

  A WW2 story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption about Louis Zamperini  398 pages  11/9/2020

by the writer of Seabiscuit 
1929 the dirigible Graf Zeppelin flew over. also went onto Tokyo.  The story starts in Torrance California 
Eugenics was in vogue in the states and undesirable or mental patients were sterilized.  
He was a bad boy looking for attention till his brother encouraged him to do track running. 
1934 He ran a race and did a  mile in 1 minute 18 in Southern California , this record was not broken for 15 years. and got the name the Torrence tornado. He tested and could stay under water for 1 minute 45seconds
1936 A heat wave in NY killed a thousand people, when he was in the US Olympic trials.
In Berlin he was complemented by Hitler for his fast finish.
1937Japan goes into China.
1940 Olympics were set to take place in Helsinki, Finland, the stadium destroyed by Soviet bombs.
1941 Dec7th Attack on Pearl Harbour. Thailand Shanghai , Malaya , Philippines Guam, Midway. Wake
1942 Doolittle raid on Tokyo,15 planes 80 men of which 60 were saved in China. 30 thousand Chinese troops and 250thousand Chinese civilians were executed as a result.
1942 Loie is now a bombardier 2nd Lieutenant on a B24 called "Superman". During WW2 35,933 Planes, that is 52,173 men of the AA F were lost in battle and training accidents.
  Fiorello de Guardiia was Civil Defence. Minister . 
Only about 30% of men who crashed landed at sea were saved. Many planes sent out to rescue also were lost.
1943 Life vests were called Mae West later after 1970 called Dolly Partens as they looked like big boobs.
They attacked Canton in Gilbert Islands and also Nauru, a phosphate island, they were based at Funafuti and were attacked there by the Japanese.  We are given details of a mission where they just had enough fuel to return after and the mechanics counted 594 holes in the plane's body. Half the crew were badly wounded and the Superman never flew again.
They were on the Green Hornet when an engine failed and they crashed the pilot Phil, Mac and Louis survived he was pulled down but managed to escape, he swam for the rafts lucking it hal along rope trailing behind and he grabbed it. The other 2 were wounded. All they found was D rathion of bitter chocolate,a brass mirror , flare gun, sea dye fishhooks, fishing line, screwdriver, pliers and a few tine of water, glue and patch kit.
Mac ate all the chocolate later on he died more through depression than other reasons. The Search missions passed and did not see their signals. Some rain they trapped and filled their tines. An albatross landed on his head and caught it and used it for bait but sharks stole their hooks. He managed to hook a pilot fish which swam with sharks.
A Japanese  plane flew over then straffed them; they repaired one raft and used the 2nd raft to cover them. At one stage sharks jumped and them and they hit them they caught smaller sharks and knew you can only eat the liver, the rest is ammonia poison.
After 47 days at sea at Kwajalein Marshall Islands they tried to land on a small island but were seen by a Japanese ship and taken into custody. They had travelled 2000 miles. Louis was locked in a prison cell on the wall he saw 9 American names of prisoners who were killed there. He added his own name later when the American captured the island it was recognised.  Japanese POW used to commit suicide or run into machine gun fire. On the island of Ballale 98 US POWS were executed as the Japs thought an invasion was imminent. The Japanese like the Nazi's did biological experiment on native islanders and US POWs. On the island of Tinian 5 thousand Korean slave conscripts were murdered before the US invaded.
He and Phil were transferred to Japan to Ashio camp. The book goes into detail of the cruelty of the Japanese, the starvation, the fact that they were allwoed to write letter that were never sent,Red Cross parcels arrived and were not given to them but distributed to the guards who were seen smoking US cigarettes. One particular guard took a dislike to Louie. There is a list of the diseases they fell victim to dysandtry beri beri, typhus, malaria. 
1944 at the end of the year Louie under guard was wheeling offal from the butcher under guard to the camp and noted that the village. There were no young men in the village not much food in the market and children were tearing down houses to make firebreaks and digging slit trenches. The starving population would fight to the last.
Tokyo Rose broadcast propaganda in English and was taken to broadcast a message that he was alive and well. This was picked up in South Africa and by a shortwave fan and transcribed it and sent a card. When asked again to read Japanese propaganda he refused.
1944July.B-29s  Superfortress  could fly at 445mph  started bombing Japan in mass
1945 May German capitulated and the Philippines were reoccupied.
1945 Sept 15 was the day that all POWs were to be eliminated and the guards were had plans and were waiting for instruction to do thisOn the Tinian island 5 thousand Korean captives were massacred. 
1945 Aug 6th Little Boy on Hiroshima , Fat Man on Aug 9th Nagasaki Atomic bombed. A Silverplate  B29 with fuel injection  Enola Gay piloted byPaul Tibbets from Tintian Island, of the Northern Mariana Islands.
1945 Aug 15thTheir guards were all in the office listening to the Emperor speech after that Louie received 5 letters  Now the Japanese spoke to them as friends who needed to fight the "Red Menace of the Soviets taking Japan's Kuril Islands.
A plane flew over and its light morse coded the war was over. They marked on the ground "We need food" A day later pallets of food started being dropped on a place they had marked.
1945 Sept2   Japan signed a treaty of surrender on the Missouri. MacAuthor and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigemitsu signed for the Japanese government, while Gen Umezu for the Japanese armed force. There were 215 thousand POWs under Japanese control.. 
In the villages in private homes they saw large industrial machines. Commander Fitgerald ask the railway official for a 10 coach train to take them to Tokyo and was told no. He punched the manager and the next day a train was waiting. They were flown to Hawaii where the got medical attention to be able to arrive home healthy.
5400 Japanese were tried for crimes against humanity,4400 were convicted and 920 were executed.
1948 He wanted to compete as a runner in the London Olympics but hurt his ankle in training.
By 1952 When the US ended her occupation of Japan it was agreed that war criminals who had not been executed would no longer be searched for and those in prison would be paroled.
In 1998 Louie was invited to carry the flame at the Tokyo Olympics.





Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945 by Tony Judt 2005

  Post War History of Europe by Tony Judt 2005

Europe became a union as nothing else would work. The separation of east and west was a contest between Communism and 'capitalism'
The post war history of Europe lasted a long time and ended with the end of the Cold War. Austria was considered Hitler's first victim and so this authorized Vienna to exorcise its past. The post war western Europe capitalist prosperity underpinned the welfare state and social peace.Vienna after 50 years of quiescence as well as the rest of Europe re-entered history.
1945was considered Stunde  nul or Zero hour by Germans. 
In WW1 Serbia lost half it male population between ages of 18 to 55 and resolved nothing. New countries that emerged from collapsed empires in 1918 were poor, unstable and insecure with no restoration of international  stability and equilibrium. Internal conflicts accompanied the collapse of European economy. The 30s were for Auden "low dishonest decade" Spain's Civil War. Stefan Sweig and Walter Benjamin took their own lives. The loss in European Civilization was implied in the works of Carl Kraus and Franz Kafka. Jean Renoir film "The Grand Illusion."
In the east was the peace of the prison yard under the Red Army .
East Europe Needed some sort of radical transformation. Communism may have been the wrong solution but it was responding to a dilemma that was real enough.
Western Europe had not liberated itself from Fascism alone could not keep Communism at bay.
European sea bourn empires had vanished back to the Europeana nuclei. Americanization of Europe of the 50s 60s is often exaggerated.
 Germany today like the rest of Europe is more conscious of 20C history than at any time in the past 50 years. WW2 was followed by civil wars and a social revolution, occupation eroded the legitimacy of local leaders.
Poland ,Baltic states Greece and Yugoslavia were occupied 3 times in 5 years.  with the Jews and Germans removed you had a very different social landscape.  
Under the Germans the Poles had a parallel underground of newspapers, schools and welfare and carried on outside the law at great personal risk.
Throughout German occupied areas everyone was afraid of everyone. Where Jews were stripped of business and property it was divided amongst Nazis, collaborators and friends. Returning survivors could not claim their property so many others were complicit in the Nazi genocide with wholesale de facto nationalization.  
Property seized from Sudeten German constituted a quarter of  Czechoslovakia's national wealth, their economy before 1937 had out performed Austria.
In liberated western Europe there was little German owned property for redistribution,
In 1941 Norway was occupied buy just 806 Nazi administrators while the German France only had 1500 to ensure compliance of 35 million population.  Contrast that to Yugoslavia where entire German divisions were needed just to contain the armed partisans.  In west Europe unless they were Jews or communist the population was left alone.  When the war ended Germany was in a state of total, social and economic collapse. 
It was Hitler as much as Stalin that drove a wedge into the continent.  Exiled governments in the west returned and were legitimate but in the east, they had all been swept away by the Nazi's transformative violence with an unrecoverable past.
Countries were occupied and then liberated by another occupier.  Greece, Yugoslavia, Poland or Ukraine had large numbers of real partisans. The Soviets did not like praise for  the partisan either anti Nazi or anti Communist.  Collaborator were those seen to work or sleep with the occupier and charged of treason.
In France you had a cycle of score settling with extra judicial killing of 1500 people. The Vichy reprisals surprised nobody. Many had not worked for the Nazis but for the Vichy regime. In northern Italy Emilia, Romagna and Lombardy 15000 were killed in the last few months of the war.  Belgium 265 and Netherland under 100 executed. There is some truth that women gave sexual services in exchange for food,  Jean Paul Satre described collaboration as submission. 
At this stage the first victims were minorities Jews were killed in Poland. In France and Prague returning victims had to fight squatters in their homes. 
In the East European States direction  of the economy did not start in 1945.  In   Liberation 
the Catholic church got of very lightly  in view of Pius XII warm relation with Fascists, and blind eye to Nazi crimes. General Lucius Clay was the US military commander. He found that amongst those associated with the Nazi's were the best qualified. Nazi teachers were removed, libraries were restocked and news print was only assigned to editors with genuine anti Nazi credentials 
Besides the well known Nuremberg trials, US French and British military courts tried lower down Nazis but most got off.   The Soviet went a lot further  by 1948 520000 civil servants were fired and "pro- communist replaced them.
1941-1942 60% of Switzerland's munitions industry,50% of their optical industry 40% engineering output was produced for Germany remuneration in gold. It was the Swiss authorities who asked that German passports indicate whether the holders were Jews. This stopped the Wehrmacht from invading the Swiss.
Swedish cooperation with the Nazis allowed Wehrmacht troops to start Operation Barbarossa.
1945 At  Volkswagen 91% of machinery survived the bombing.  The war time industries that Germany had invested in so heavily would lay their boom for the fifties.
One reason for food shortage in Europe was that they could no longer turn to eastern Europe's food granaries.
1947 Severe winter that froze canals and paralyzed rail networks and was followed by floods.

Playing the enemy : Nelson Mandela and the game that made the nation by John Carlin 2008 257pg

 This is the book that the movie Invictus 2009 was based on,by Clnt Eastwood starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. 30/8/20

Mandela described apartheid as moral genocide. When he handed Pele a lifetime award he said "sport has the power to change the world"  He won over people who applauded his imprisonment, wanted him dead and planned to go to war against him.
Niel Barnad head of SA intelligence service. General Constant Viljoen head of the military during the worst years of the struggle.  Kobie Coetsee minister of justice.
The Springboks an the white national anthem were both symbols of apartheid appression.
 A victory against the New Zealand All Blacks at the Rugby world cup in SA could be used to unite the nation. 95% of the crowd would be white and mostly Afrikaners.
When PW Botha offered to free him if he would renounce  terrorism. His daughter Zindizi told a crowd in Soweto " as long as Aparthied exists the people are not free"  
Mandela's, Xhosa name was Rolihlalha which means trouble maker and he was the first to burn his passbook.  As president of the ANC youth league in the 50s he claimed he would be the first black president of S. Africa.  In jail he decided to get to know the Afrikaner mentality, strudied Afrikaans and the jail warders served him very well in this aim.  
Afrikaners were apartheids lords and protectors; they were Calvinist of the Dutch Reformed Church and their secular religion was rugby. The opium of the Boers.
Law of Common Purpose. When a black collaborator with the white regime was killed, in 1976.  26 in the Uppinton demonstration were rounded up and sentenced to jail.
 1953 Verwoed as minister of Native Affairs drew up a school curricula  "for the nature and requirement of the black people'' The Pan African Congress PAC's  "one settler one bullet"main base was in Sharpville where 56 people were shot in the back in 1960 at a demonstration.
1980 to 1992 Neil Barnard was head of the National Intelligence Service. Only a political settlement could solve the problem. Mandela said he would not break with the Communist party. The fact that Botha was prepared to meet Mandela indicates that Botha could see no solution to the last 4 years of rioting. Botha had already indicated to the Afrikanes that they have to be pragmatic and "adapt or die"
Frederick van Zyl Slabbert headed the Progressive Party leading Afrikaans intellectuals against the current apartheidd situation. Breyten Breytenbach worked with him. Constand Viljoen became a general and the head of the SA defence force ,while Braam Viljoen his brother studied theology and came to destest the naive ,infantile biblical justification of apartheid.Went as  a delegation of 50 Afrikaans academics to Dakar to talk to the ANC. He joined the Institute of Democracy for SA set up by vanZyl Slabbert.
Mandela was released from Jail 3 months after the fall of the Berlin wall
1980 SADF joined with Jonas Savimbi's UNITA to fight the Marxist guerillas that came from Angola supported by Cuba with money from Russia. SA also raided against ANC bases in Botswana , Mozambique and Lesotho.
When Chris Hani was assassinated it was thought that the black population would cause a blood bath. Chris Hani was the leader of the Communist Party and the one who potentially was capable of being Mandela's deputy. Mandela quick;y went on TV to tell his supporters that he was sad. A white foreigner had killed him but a white Afrikaans woman realized and managed to get the killer's car number and he was picked up very quickly.  From then on Mandela was basically the one in charge of the country.
The negotiation at the World Trade Centre the AWB led by Eugene Terblanche broke in and decided not to create bloodshed and went away.The date of election was set there.April 27th 1994. Mandela kept the presidential staff for the next 5 years.
Constand Viljoen with 3 retired generals was brought to meet Mandela who pointed out that going back would cause a blood bath. Mandela saw in Constand  a man of honesty and integrity and courage. The Freedom Alliance was now working with Inkhata against the ANC that was taking the country into a civil war of power struggle.
When de Klerk received the Nobel prize he did not apologize for the tragedy of aparheid.
Mandela convinced the ANC that 2 national anthems were necessary, as you don't address people's brains but their hearts. A new national flag was chosen. Mandela said that the Springboks had to remain and the colors now had to represent all S.Africans, but they had to convince Afrikaners to put away the old flag. Morne du Plesis brought a neighbour to teach the Xhosa needed to sing the new national anthem. Mandela met up with Francios Pienaar and met the whole team before they played Australia and won.
Mandela arrived by helicopter at Silvermine where the Springboks were staying and told them the entire SA population wanted them to win.  Morney du Plessis took them on a trip to see Robben Island.
Mandela told supporters that Nation building comes with a cost and he wanted them to support the Springboks. Mandela's guards played touch rugby to learn and understand the game.
On the day of the game the Sewetan called the team  Amabokoboko and the ANC Youth League called for the team to bring home the cup. Black kids knew the names of the team members. At the last minute Mandela called Louis Luyt to get him a Springbok No 6  Francois Pinaars,the captains jersey. "Viva the Bokke " this was heard in black areas it came from supporting the Cuban revolution.
A rendition of "Shoshalozo" had just become a hit by Dan Moyana and he and he sang on stage with all joining before the NZ haka.  A SAA jumbo flew at 500 feet over the Ellis Park stadium  twice with "Good Luck Bokke"
The game was won by SA 15 -12 only with drop kicks by Joel Stransky and penalties and nobody could gain tries. Where old SA flags seen at the opening none were visible at the end. Mandela had liberated  the Afrikaners from fear. The following Sunday he visited the DRF church in Pretoria and spoke to the faithfull in Afrikaans. He beleived there were better angels in all people
2007 the Springboks again won the Rugby World Cup by beating England
2007 In London a bronze statue was unveiled of Mandela next to Churchill and Lincoln. 

A History of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr 2008 602 pgs.

   16/4/24 This book is a social History of Britain from the end of the WW2 till the book was written. .  I only made notes on the period en...