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Ignace Reiss

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Ignace Reiss
Ignace Reiss
Born
Nathan Markovic Poreckij

1899
Podwołoczyska (Pidvolochysk), then in Galicia, Austria-Hungary
Died4 September 1937
(aged 37 or 38)
Lausanne, Switzerland
Cause of deathAssassination by gunshot
Alma materFaculty of Law, University of Vienna
OccupationSpy
SpouseElsa Bernaut (a.k.a. "Else Bernaut" a.k.a. "Elisabeth K. Poretsky" a.k.a. "Elsa Reiss" )
Children1 son
AwardsOrder of the Red Banner
Espionage activity
AllegianceSoviet Union
Service years1919–1937
Codename
  • Ignace Reiss
  • Ignatz Reiss
  • Ignace Poretsky
  • Ludwik
  • Ludwig
  • Hans Eberhardt
  • Steff Brandt
  • Walter Scott

Ignace Reiss(1899 – 4 September 1937) – also known as "Ignace Poretsky,"[1]"Ignatz Reiss,"[2]"Ludwig,"[3]"Ludwik",[1]"Hans Eberhardt,"[4]"Steff Brandt,"[5]Nathan Poreckij,[6]and "Walter Scott (an officer of the U.S. military intelligence)"[7]– was one of the "Great Illegals"orSovietspieswho worked in third party countries where they were not nationals in the late 1920s and 1930s.[8]He was known as anevozvrashchenec( "unreturnable" ).

AnNKVDteam assassinated him on 4 September 1937 nearLausanne,Switzerland,a few weeks after he declared his defection in a letter addressed toJoseph Stalin.[9][10]He was a lifelong friend ofWalter Krivitsky;his assassination influenced the timing and method ofWhittaker Chambers' defection a few months later.

Background

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Reiss' brother died in thePolish-Soviet War in 1920(here, Polish soldiers display captured Soviet battle flags after theBattle of Warsaw)

Reiss was bornNathan Markovich Poreckij[6]in 1899 in Podwołoczyska (todayPidvolochysk),[11][12]then inGalicia,Austria-Hungary(nowUkraine). His mother was aLithuanian Jewbut his father was not Jewish.[13]

Their father had Nathan and Nathan's elder brother educated inLwow(nowLviv), the provincial capital. There, he formed lifelong friendships with several other boys, all of whom would become committedCommunistspies. These included Kalyniak, Willy Stahl, Berchtold Umansky ( "Brun" ), his brother Mikhail Umansky ( "Misha," later "Ilk" ), Fedia (later "Fedin" ), and the young Walter Krivitsky (born Samuel Ginsberg).[1][6]

DuringWorld War I,the friends traveled when they could to Vienna, where they gathered around Fedia and his girlfriend Krusia. The name Krusia (also "Kruzia" ) became a codename between these friends in later years. Reiss also visitedLeipzig,Germany,to meet, fatefully, German Socialist Gertrude Schildbach, who would later conspire in his assassination. He earned a degree from the Faculty of Law,University of Vienna.[1][6]

Career

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In 1918, Reiss returned to his hometown, where he worked for the railway. His older brother was killed during thePolish-Soviet War in 1920.[1]

Fourth Department: "Ludwig"

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Reiss received theOrder of the Red Banner(here, first variant, on red cloth (1918–1924))

In early 1919, Reiss joined the newly formedPolish Communist Party(the Communist Workers' Party of Poland or KPRP), since his hometown had become part of theSecond Polish Republic.The KPRP adhered closely to the policies ofRosa Luxemburg.Julian Marchlewski(a.k.a. "Karski" ) represented the KPRP at the1st Congress of the Cominternin March 1919.[1]

By the summer of 1919, he had received a summons toVienna,Austria,where he moved quickly from work with agencies of the newly formedCominternto "Fourth Department of the General Staff" — which became the SovietGRU.He then conducted party work in Poland. There he met Joseph Krasny-Rotstadt, a friend of bothRosa Luxemburg(already dead) and (more importantly) of fellow PoleFelix Dzerzhinsky.Having fought in theBolshevik Revolution,Krasny was already directing propaganda for Eastern Europe. During this time, Reiss published a few articles as "Ludwig" in one of Krasny's publications, calledThe Civil War.[citation needed]

In early 1920, Reiss was in Moscow, where he met and married his wife, Elisabeth (also "Elsa" ). During the Russian-Polish War in 1920, Willy Stahl and he received their first assignment, Lwow, where they distributed illegal Bolshevik literature. By 1921, as he took on the alias "Ludwig" (or "Ludwik" in his wife's memoirs), Reiss had become a Soviet spy, originally for theGPU/OGPU,and later theNKVD.In 1922, he was again working in Lwow, this time with another friend of Fedia and Krusia's from Vienna, Jacob Locker. Elisabeth was in Lwow, too. Reiss was arrested and charged with espionage, which carried a maximum five-year sentence. En route to prison, Reiss escaped his train inKraków,never to return to Poland.[1]

From 1921 to 1929, Reiss served in Western Europe, particularlyBerlinand Vienna. In Berlin, their house guests includedKarl RadekandLarissa Reisner,ex- wife ofFedor Raskolnikov(a Naval officer who chronicled theKronstadt rebellion).[14]

In Vienna, friends includedYuriy Kotsiubynsky,Alexander Schlichter,andAngelica Balabanov.In Amsterdam, Reiss and his wife knewHenriette Roland-Holst,Hildo Krop,PrincessJuliana of the Netherlands,"H. C. Pieck" (Henri Pieck), and most importantly "Henricus" or "Henryk Sneevliet" (Henk Sneevliet).[1]During this same period,Richard SorgebroughtHede Massingto Reiss for training.[3]

In 1927, he returned briefly toMoscow,where he received theOrder of the Red Banner.From 1929 to 1932, Reiss served in Moscow, where he worked in a nominal post of the Polish section of theComintern— already sidelined as "foreign" (non-Russian). Among the people whom Reiss and wife knew at that time were Richard Sorge (a.k.a. "Ika" ), Sorge's superior,Alexander Borovich,Felix Gorski,Otto Braun,Max Maximov-Friedman,Franz Fischer,Pavlo Ladan,andTheodore Maly.Valentin Markinreported to Reiss in Moscow, who in turn reported toAbram Slutsky.[1]

Break with Stalin and assassination (1937)

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TheGreat PurgebyJoseph Stalinof Bolshevik revolutionaries led Reiss to defect (here,Leon Trotsky,Lev KamenevandGrigory Zinoviev,all marked either for assassination or execution

From 1932 to 1937, Reiss was stationed in Paris. There, Reiss and his wife metEgon Erwin Kisch,Alexander Rado,Noel Field,Vasily Zarubin,Yakov Blumkin,Boris Bazarov,andYan Karlovich Berzin.[1]

By 1936, their friends were returning to Moscow one after the other, most of whom were shot or disappeared during theGreat Purge.Reiss himself received a summons back to Moscow but allowed his wife to travel there in his stead in late 1936, staying into early 1937. In early 1937, Krivitsky was recalled but managed to finagle his way out again on a foreign assignment.[1]

Upon Krivitsky's return, Reiss composed a letter to theCentral Committeeof theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union,addressed to Stalin and dated 17 July 1937. He returned the Order of the Red Banner with his letter, stating that to wear the medal "simultaneously with the hangmen of the best representatives of the Russian worker" was beneath his dignity.[8]He went on to condemn the excesses of Stalin'spurgesand the actions of Soviet state security services.[1]He also declared "I am joining Trotsky and the Fourth International".[15][16]While criticizing Stalin andYezhov,Reiss promised not to reveal any state security secrets.[17]

Reiss then fled with his wife and child to the remote village ofFinhaut,Valaiscanton, Switzerland, to hide. After they had been hiding for a month, Gertrude Schildbach contacted them. Schildbach acted on the instruction of Roland Lyudvigovich Abbiate, alias Francois Rossi, aliasVladimir Pravdin,codename LETCHIK ( "Pilot" ), a Russian expatriate, citizen ofMonaco,and a SovietNKVDagent. She refused a request by Abbiate to give Reiss a box of chocolates filled withstrychninebut agreed to set up a meeting with him. On 4 September, Reiss agreed to meet Schildbach inLausanne.His wife and son Roman boarded a train forTerritet,Vaudcanton, Switzerland. Reiss stayed with Schildbach and was then to board a train forReims,France, to meet Sneevliet (who was to publish Reiss's letter and news of his defection). Then he was to rejoin his family in Territet. He never made it to his train to Rheims.[1]

As Reiss's wife relates in her memoirs, she went toVeveyto meet Schildbach again on September 5, but the woman never showed up. On September 6, she saw a small article in a Lausanne newspaper about a dead man with a Czech passport in the name of "Hans Eberhardt" found dead on the night of 4 September on the road from Lausanne toChamblandes.She later identified the body carrying Eberhardt's passport as that of her husband.[citation needed]

Lausanne railway station,where Reiss met Schildbach, who led him to his death

Reiss, then using the alias "Eberhardt", was lured by Schildbach onto a side road near Lausanne, where Roland Abbiate was waiting for him with a SovietPPD-34submachine gun.[18]Realizing what was about to happen, Reiss lunged for Schildbach, grabbing a lock of her hair before Abbiate shot him. Reiss was hit by fifteen bullets from Abbiate's submachine gun, killing him instantly: he was found with five bullets in the head and seven in the body.[19]The two then dumped Reiss's body on the side of the road.[1][20]

Police investigations revealed that a long strand of grey hair was found clutched in the hand of the dead man. In his pockets were a passport in the name of Hans Eberhardt and a railway ticket for France. An American-brand automobile, abandoned on 6 September at Geneva, was found to contain abandoned clothing, which led to the identification of two men and a woman. One of the men was Roland Abbiate, who had registered on 4 September at the Hotel de la Paix in Lausanne with Schildbach, the two had fled without their baggage and without paying their bill.[19]The woman was none other than Schildbach, of German nationality, a resident of Rome, and in reality a SovietOGPUagent in Italy.[19]The other man was Etienne-Charles Martignat, born in 1900 at Culhat in the Puy-de-Dôme, living since 1931 at No 18 Avenue de Anatole France, Clichy, Paris.[19][21]Among the effects left by Schildbach at the hotel was a box of chocolates containing strychnine.[19]Soon thereafter, a deposit in a Swiss bank was made in Gertrude Schildbach's name in the amount of 100,000 Swiss francs (but it is unknown whether Schildbach ever withdrew this money, as she was never seen again).[8]However, as France's left-wingPopular FrontGovernment of the period did not wish to upset diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and Stalin, no arrests or announcement of the results of the police investigation were made at the time.[22]

In a 1951 French Ministry of Interior study titledA Soviet Counter-espionage Network Abroad: the Reiss Casethe French government analyzed the actions of Soviet state security forces involved in Reiss's abduction and liquidation. Published on 20 September, the study concluded that "the assassination of Ignace Reiss on 4 September 1937 at Chamblandes near Lausanne, Switzerland, is an excellent example of the observation, surveillance and liquidation of a 'deserter' from the Soviet secret service".[7]While Ignace Reiss could qualify as a victim ofSoviet political repressions,he was never officiallyexoneratedby the Soviet government because he was simply"liquidated"and never tried in a court.[7]

Aftermath

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On the first anniversary of Reiss's assassination, his wife (as "Elsa Reiss" ) described their situation:

He would wait no longer, he had made up his mind. And now I tried to dissuade him from being over-impulsive, to talk things over with other comrades. I was justifiably afraid for his life. I pleaded with him not to walk out alone, to make the break along with other comrades but he only said: "One can count on nobody. One must act alone and openly. One cannot trick history, there is no point in delay." He was correct – one is alone.
It was a release for him but also a break with everything that had hitherto counted with him, with his youth, his past, his comrades. Now we were completely alone. In those few weeks Reiss aged very rapidly, his hair became snow-white. He who loved nature and cherished life looked about him with empty eyes. He was surrounded by corpses. His soul was in the cellars of theLubianka.In his sleep-torn nights he saw an execution or a suicide.[17]

Personal life

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Between 1920 and 1922, Reiss married Elsa Bernaut (a.k.a. "Else Bernaut", a.k.a. "Elisabeth K. Poretsky", a.k.a. "Elsa Reiss"; 1898-1976)[23][24][25]in Moscow; at times, Reiss used her maiden name as another alias.[1][13](In French, her book received the titleLes nôtresby "Elisabeth K. Poretski" in theBibliothèque nationale de Paris[26]and by "Elizaveta Poretskaya" inThe Black Book of Communism.[27]) They had one child, a boy named Roman, born around 1926.[22]

Legacy

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1952:Witness,by Whittaker Chambers

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Whittaker Chambers(circa 1948) wrote about Reiss in his 1952 memoirWitness

Reiss appears in the 1952 memoirs ofWhittaker Chambers,Witness:his assassination in July 1937 was perhaps the last straw that caused Chambers not only to defect but to make careful preparations when doing so:

Suddenly, revolutionists with a lifetime of devoted activity would pop out, like rabbits from a burrow, with the G.P.U. close on their heels—Barminefrom the Soviet legation in Athens,Raskolnikofffrom the Soviet legation in Sofia,Krivitskyfrom Amsterdam, Reiss from Switzerland. Not that Reiss fled. Instead, a brave and a lonely man, he sent his single-handed defiance to Stalin: Murderer of theKremlincellars, I herewith return my decorations and resume my freedom of action. But defiance is not enough; cunning is needed to fight cunning. It was foredoomed that sooner or later the door of a G.P.U limousine would swing open and Reiss's body with the bullets in the defiant brain would tumble out—as happened shortly after he deserted. Of the four I have named, only Barmine outran the hunters. Reiss's death moved me deeply.[2]

Compared to Reiss, Chambers considered far more carefully how to elude the Soviets when he defected in April 1938, as described inWitness.

1995:Ignace Reiss,by Daniel Kunzi

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Daniel Kunzi(circa 2015) made a film documentary about Reiss

Swiss filmmakerDaniel Kunzimade a 53-minutedocumentary filmcalledIgnace Reiss: Vie et mort d'un révolutionnaireabout Reiss's life and death, following several years of research. The film includes testimonials, historical footage, a reconstruction of his assassination, all narrated by readings from his wife's memoirs.[28][29](Participating in the film areVanessa Redgrave,who reads from adaptations of Elisabeth Poretsky's memoirs, andGerard Rosenthal,who recounts his services as lawyer to bothLeon Trotskyand Elisabeth Poretsky.[30][31])

1998:Fear of Mirrors,by Tariq Ali

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Tariq Ali(circa 2006) wrote a novel about Reiss

"Ludwik" forms the background history ofTariq Ali's 1998 novelFear of Mirrors,set during German reunification in 1990. Ali was fascinated by the story of Ignace Reiss: "Ludwik became an obsession with me."[22]

See also

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Reiss's inner circle

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Reiss's assassins

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Reiss's outer circle

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References

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  1. ^abcdefghijklmno Poretsky, Elisabeth K. (1969).Our Own People: A Memoir of "Ignace Reiss" and His Friends.London: Oxford University Press. pp. 1–2 (Letter), 7–26 (Childhood), 27–36 (Polish Party), 37–52 (Lwow), 53–71 (Berlin/Vienna), 72-85 (Prague/Amsterdam), 86-129 (Moscow), 103-107 (Richard Sorge), 130-155 (Europe), 156-207 (Moscow), 208-226 (Switzerland), 243-270 (Afterward), 271-274 (Epilogue).LCCN70449412.
  2. ^ab Chambers, Whittaker (1952).Witness.New York: Random House. pp. 36 ( "like rabbits from a burrow" ), 47, 461.LCCN52005149.
  3. ^ab Massing, Hede (1951).This Deception.New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce. pp. 98 et al.LCCN51002483.
  4. ^ Krivitsky, Walter;Isaac Don Levine(1939).In Stalin's Secret Service.New York: Harper & Brothers. p. 252.LCCN40027004.
  5. ^ Kern, Gary (2004).A Death in Washington: Walter G. Krivitsky and the Stalin Terror.Enigma Books. pp. Natan 80, Steff Brandt 122 and 438.ISBN978-1-929631-25-4.
  6. ^abcd "Reiss, Ignatius".Project Chronos.RetrievedSeptember 8,2010.
  7. ^abc Volodarsky, Boris (20 January 2015).Stalin's Agent: The Life and Death of Alexander Orlov.London, New York: Oxford University Press. p. 44 (Walter Scott), 297 (French Ministry).ISBN978-0-19-965658-5.RetrievedFebruary 2,2015.
  8. ^abc Duff, William E. (1999).A time for spies: Theodore Stephanovich Mally and the era of the great illegals.Vanderbilt University Press. pp.58, 169, 170.ISBN0-8265-1352-2.
  9. ^Pg 457 -Trotsky, Leon; Naomi Allen(September 1976).Writings of Leon Trotsky: 1937-38(when ed.). Pathfinder Press.ISBN978-0-87348-468-8.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)- Total pages: 511
  10. ^"ICL Decrees: No More" Reiss Factions "".internationalist.org. March 2001.RetrievedSeptember 5,2010.
  11. ^ Pidvolochysk(Map). Wikimapia.RetrievedAugust 29,2010.
  12. ^ Pidvolochys'k(Map). Google Maps.RetrievedAugust 29,2010.
  13. ^ab Frank J. Rafalko."Chapter 4: Counter-intelligence Between the Wars: Attorney General Harlan Stone's Reforms".American Counterintelligence Reader: American Revolution to World War II.Federation of American Scientists (FAS).RetrievedAugust 30,2010.
  14. ^Raskolnikov, Feodor F. (1918).Tales of Sub-Lieutenant Ilyin.Sovetskaia Literatura.RetrievedAugust 30,2010.
  15. ^Frank, Pierre."Chapter X. Those Who Died So That the International Might Live".The Fourth International.Intercontinental Press, Vol. 10, Nos. 10-22 (1972).Retrieved1 March2014.
  16. ^Rogovin, Vadim Z. (2009).Stalin's terror of 1937-1938: political genocide in the USSR.Oak Park, MI: Mehring Books. pp. 322–323.ISBN978-1-893638-04-4.
  17. ^ab Reiss, Elsa (September 1938)."Ignace Reiss: In Memoriam".New International. pp. 276–278.RetrievedAugust 30,2010.
  18. ^ Andrew, Christopher;Vasili Mitrokhin(1999).The sword and the shield: the Mitrokhin archive and the secret history of the KGB.New York: Basic Books. pp. 78–79.ISBN978-0-465-00312-9.
  19. ^abcde Rosmer, Alfred;Victor Serge;Maurce Wullens(April 1938).L'Assassinat d'Ignace Reiss.Les Humbles.
  20. ^ Barmine, Alexander (1945).One Who Survived: The Life Story of a Russian Under the Soviets.New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.ISBN978-1-4067-4207-7.
  21. ^ Dewar, Hugo (1951).Assassins at Large: Being a Fully Documented and Hitherto Unpublished Account of the Executions Outside Russia Ordered by the GPU.London: Wingate Press.
  22. ^abc Ali, Tariq (20 February 1999)."The Spymaster's Son".Guardian.Manchester.Retrieved30 August2010.
  23. ^ "Elsa Bernaut".Social Security Death Master File. Archived fromthe originalon 18 February 2013.Retrieved10 October2012.
  24. ^ "Elsa Bernaut".Genealogy Bank.Retrieved10 October2012.
  25. ^ "Elsa Bernaut".Ancient Faces.Retrieved10 October2012.
  26. ^ "Elisabeth K. Poretski".Biblioteque nationale de France.Retrieved19 February2011.
  27. ^ Stéphane Courtois, ed. (1999).The Black Book of Communism.Translated by Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer. Harvard University Press. p. 293.ISBN9780674076082.Retrieved19 February2011.
  28. ^ "Ignace Reiss".ArtFilm.ch.RetrievedSeptember 2,2010.
  29. ^ "Ignace Reiss".Societe Productions Maison (DanielKunzi.ch). Archived fromthe originalon July 6, 2011.RetrievedSeptember 2,2010.
  30. ^ "Ignace Reiss"(PDF).PetiteFleur.net.RetrievedSeptember 2,2010.[permanent dead link]
  31. ^"Ignace Reiss".San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Archived fromthe originalon 2010-11-30.RetrievedSeptember 2,2010.
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Writings of Reiss's wife

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Elsa Reiss

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Elsa Bernaut

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  • Bernaut, Elsa (1951)."The Ukraine after the October Revolution (unpublished MSS)".Columbia University. p. 252.
  • Bernaut, Elsa; Nathan Leites; Raymond L. Garthoff (1951)."Politburo Images of Stalin".World Politics. Archived fromthe originalon 2010-04-22.
  • Bernaut, Elsa; Nathan Leites (1953).The Statutes of the Communist Party: Democratic Facade and Totalitarian Reality.Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation. pp. 22 (or 221?).LCCN55015862.
  • Bernaut, Elsa; Nathan Leites (1954).Ritual of Liquidation: Bolsheviks on Trial.Glencoe, IL: Free Press. p. 515.LCCN62048005.
  • Bernaut, Elsa; Nathan Leites (1956).Soviet collective leadership.Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation. p. 158.LCCN59032694.

Elisabeth K. Poretsky

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Images

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Other references

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