In the history of world intelligence, few can compare in terms of the degree of damage inflicted on the enemy with a legendary man, such as intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov. His biography, without any embellishment, is a ready-made script for a spy picture, next to which Bondiana looks faded and primitive. However, after the death of the hero, a lot of books and articles appeared, in which the conjectures of the authors and their personal and not always objective view of who Nikolai Kuznetsov (scout) was presented as reliable information.

Biography: childhood

At the beginning of 1944, Kuznetsov and his group operated on the territory of the Lvov district and liquidated several important officials.

Doom

Kuznetsov Nikolai Ivanovich is a scout, all the circumstances of whose death have not yet been disclosed. It is known for certain that in the spring of 1944, German patrols in Western Ukraine already had orientations with a description of it. Upon learning of this, Kuznetsov decided to go beyond the front line.

Not far from the fighting zone in the village of Boratin, Kuznetsov's group came across a detachment of UPA fighters. Bandera recognized the scouts, although they were in German uniform and decided to take them alive. Scout Nikolai Kuznetsov (see photo in the review) refused to surrender and was killed. There is also a version that he blew himself up with a grenade.

After death

On November 5, 1944, N.I. Kuznetsov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for his bravery and exceptional courage. His grave remained unknown for a long time. It was discovered in 1959 in the Kutyki tract. The remains of the hero of the reburial in Lviv, on the Hill of Glory.

Now you know the biography of intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov, who died heroically in the struggle for the liberation of Ukraine from fascist invaders.

A brilliant intelligence officer, a polyglot, a conqueror of hearts and a great adventurer, he personally destroyed 11 Nazi generals, but was killed by UPA fighters.

Linguistic talent

A boy from the village of Zyryanka with four hundred inhabitants masters the German language perfectly thanks to highly qualified teachers. Later, Kolya Kuznetsov picks up profanity when meeting a forester - a German, a former soldier of the Austrian-Hungarian army. Studying Esperanto on his own, he translated his beloved “Borodino” into it, and while studying at a technical school, he translated the German “Encyclopedia of Forest Science” into Russian, at the same time he perfectly mastered Polish, Ukrainian and Komi. The Spaniards, who served in the forests near Rovno in the Medvedev detachment, suddenly became worried, reported to the commander: "Fighter Grachev understands when we speak our native language." And this was Kuznetsov's understanding of a previously unfamiliar language. He mastered six dialects of German and, meeting somewhere at a table with their officer, instantly determined where he came from, and switched to another dialect.

pre-war years

After studying for a year at the Tyumen Agricultural College, Nikolai dropped out due to the death of his father and a year later continued his studies at the Talitsky Forestry College. Later he worked as an assistant to the tax collector for the arrangement of local forests, where he reported on colleagues involved in registration. Twice he was expelled from the Komsomol - on charges of "White Guard-kulak origin" during his studies and for denouncing his colleagues, but already with a conviction to a year of corrective labor. He was fired from Uralmashzavod for absenteeism. Kuznetsov's biography was not full of facts that represented him as a trustworthy citizen, but his constant penchant for adventurism, his curiosity and hyperactivity became ideal qualities for working as an intelligence officer. A young Siberian with a classic “Aryan” appearance, who spoke German perfectly, was noticed by the local NKVD administration and in 1939 was sent to the capital to study.

Affairs of the Heart

According to one of the leaders of Soviet intelligence, Nikolai Ivanovich was the lover of most of the primas of the Moscow ballet, moreover, "he shared some of them with German diplomats in the interests of business." Back in Kudymkar, Kuznetsov married a local nurse, Elena Chugaeva, but, leaving the Perm Territory, he broke up with his wife three months after the marriage, without filing a divorce. Love with the socialite Ksana did not work out in the 1940s due to a wary attitude towards the Germans, because Nikolai was already part of the legend and introduced himself to the lady of the heart as Rudolf Schmidt. Despite the abundance of connections, this novel remained the most important in the history of the hero - already in the partisan detachment, Kuznetsov asked Medvedev: "Here is the address, if I die, be sure to tell the truth about me to Ksana." And Medvedev, already a Hero of the Soviet Union, after the war found this very Ksana in the center of Moscow, carried out the will of Kuznetsov.

Kuznetsov and UPA

Over the past ten years, a number of articles have appeared in Ukraine that sought to discredit the famous intelligence officer. The essence of the accusations against him is the same - he fought not with the Germans, but with the Ukrainian OUN rebels, members of the UPA and the like. Archival material refutes these claims. For example, the already mentioned submission to the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with an attached petition to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, signed by the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKGB Pavel Sudoplatov. The justification for the award refers to the elimination of eight high-ranking German military officials by Kuznetsov, the organization of an illegal residency, and not a word about the fight against any Ukrainian independents. Of course, the Medvedevs, including Kuznetsov, had to fight against the detachments of Ukrainian nationalists, but only as allies of the Nazi occupation regime and its special services. The outstanding intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov died at the hands of the OUN.

Doom

German patrols were aware of the search for Gautman in the regions of Western Ukraine. In March 1944, UPA fighters broke into the house of the village of Boratin, which served as a refuge for Kuznetsov and his associates - Ivan Belov and Yan Kaminsky. Belov was hit with a bayonet at the entrance. For some time, under guard, they waited for the commander of the rebels, centurion Chernogora. He identified in the "German" the performer of high-profile terrorist attacks against the Nazi bosses. And then Kuznetsov blew up a grenade in a room filled with UPA fighters. Kaminsky made an attempt to escape, but he was overtaken by a bullet. The bodies were loaded onto the horse-drawn carriage of Golubovich's neighbor Spiridon Gromyak, taken out of the village and, having dug up the snow, laid the remains near the old stream, covered with brushwood.

Posthumous glory

A week after the tragic clash, the Germans who entered the village found the remains of a soldier in the Wehrmacht uniform and reburied them. Local residents subsequently showed the place of reburial to employees of the Lviv KGB M. Rubtsov and Dziuba. Strutinsky achieved the reburial of the alleged remains of Kuznetsov in Lviv on the Hill of Glory on July 27, 1960. The memory of one of the heroes of the war that shook the whole world and brought liberation from the brown fascist plague that flooded Europe with a dirty stream will remain in the milestones of history. Nikolai Kuznetsov was right when, one day, discussing the cases of the people's avengers at a partisan fire, he said: “If after the war we talk about what we did and how, they will hardly believe it. Yes, I myself, perhaps, would not have believed it if I had not been a participant in these cases.

Movie hero

Many believe that the famous film "The Feat of the Scout" directed by Boris Barnet tells about the fate of Nikolai Kuznetsov. In fact, the idea for the film came up even before the hero began working under the name of Rudolf Schmidt. The script of the film was modified many times, some facts really were a narrative of the events of his service, for example, the episode with the abduction of Kuhn was written from the similar abduction of General Ilgen by Kuznetsov. And yet, most of the plots of the picture were based on the collective image of the heroes of the war, the film reflected facts from the biographies of other scouts. Subsequently, two feature films directly about Nikolai Kuznetsov were staged at the Sverdlovsk Film Studio: "Strong in Spirit" (in 1967) and "Special Forces" (in 1987), but they did not gain such popularity as "The Feat of the Intelligence Officer" .

In a fairly long gallery of heroes of the Soviet era, one of the most prominent places is occupied by the personality of the truly legendary Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov. Many informative books, articles and essays have already been written about this man, who fearlessly destroyed Nazi leaders in broad daylight, and several feature films have been shot. To date, there are practically no significant white spots left in his biography of a secret agent. True, the real circumstances of the death of someone who acted in the German rear under the guise of a Wehrmacht officer Paul Siebert are still covered in fog and sometimes cause very heated debate.

Not shot, but blown up

Visiting the places where Nikolai Kuznetsov fought, died and was buried, we were surprised at how bizarre the fate of the scout was during his lifetime and what happened to the history of his exploits after death.

One of the mysteries is the place and circumstances of Kuznetsov's death. Immediately after the war, there was a version according to which a group of scouts, along with Kuznetsov, were captured alive and then shot by militants of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in a forest near the village of Belgorodka, Rivne region. Only 14 years after the war, it became known that the group died in the village of Boratin, Lviv region.

The version about the execution of Kuznetsov by UPA militants was spread after the war by the commander of the Pobediteli partisan detachment, Hero of the Soviet Union Dmitry Medvedev, who was based on a telegram discovered after the war in German archives, sent by the head of the security police for the Galician district Vitiska personally to SS Gruppenführer Muller. But the telegram was based on false information given to the Germans by the UPA militants.

The UPA detachments operating in the frontline worked closely with the German occupation forces, but in order to ensure greater loyalty of the "Bandera" the occupation administration held hostage the relatives of the field commanders and leaders of the UPA. In March 1944, such hostages were close relatives of one of the leaders of the UPA - Lebed.

After the death of Kuznetsov and a group of scouts, the UPA fighters started a game with the German administration, offering them to exchange the allegedly living intelligence officer Kuznetsov-Siebert for Lebed's relatives. While the Germans were thinking, the UPA fighters allegedly shot him, and instead of him they offered genuine documents and, most importantly, Kuznetsov's report on the sabotage he carried out in the German rear in Western Ukraine. That's what they talked about.

The UPA militants, apparently, were afraid to indicate the true place of death of the scout and his group, since during the German check it would immediately become clear that this was not the capture of the scout, who was searched throughout Western Ukraine, but Kuznetsov's self-explosion.

It is not so much the place that is important here, but the circumstances of the death of the scout. He was not shot, because he did not surrender to the UPA militants, but blew himself up with a grenade.

And after the war, the circumstances of Kuznetsov's death were investigated by his friend and colleague Colonel of the NKVD-KGB Nikolai Strutinsky.

Five minutes of anger and a lifetime

With Nikolai Strutinsky (April 1, 1920 - July 11, 2003), one of us happened to meet and take several interviews with him during his lifetime in 2001 in Cherkasy, where he then lived.

Strutinsky after the war for a long time figured out the circumstances of the death of Kuznetsov, and later, already at the time of Ukrainian independence, he did everything to preserve the monuments to Kuznetsov and his memory.

We think that Strutinsky's attachment to this, the last segment of Kuznetsov's life, is not accidental. Nikolai Strutinsky was at one time a member of Kuznetsov's group and participated with him in some operations. Shortly before the death of the scout and his group, Kuznetsov and Strutinsky quarreled.
Here is what Strutinsky himself said about this.

“Once, at the beginning of 1944, we were driving along Rovno,” says Nikolai Vladimirovich. “I was driving, Nikolai Kuznetsov was sitting next to me, Yan Kaminsky, a scout, was sitting behind. Not far from Vacek Burim’s safe house, Kuznetsov asked me to stop. ". He left, after a while he returned, extremely upset by something. Jan asked: "Where were you, Nikolai Vasilyevich?" ... "And Jan says:" I know: at Vacek Burim's. Then Kuznetsov to me: "Why did you tell him?" The turnout is secret information. But I didn’t say anything to Jan. And Kuznetsov flared up, said a lot of insulting things to me. Our nerves were on edge then, I could not stand it, got out of the car, slammed the door - the glass broke, fragments of it fell down like that. I turned around and went. I was walking down the street, I had two pistols - in a holster and in my pocket. I think for myself : stupid, I had to restrain myself, because I know that everyone is on my nerves. Sometimes at the very sight of a German Some officers had a desire to shoot everyone, and then shoot themselves. That was the state. I'm going. I hear - someone is catching up. I don't turn around. And Kuznetsov caught up, touched his shoulder: "Kolya, Kolechka, sorry, nerves."
I silently turned - and to the car. Sit down, let's go. But then I told him: we don’t work together anymore. And when Nikolai Kuznetsov left for Lvov, I didn't go with him."

This quarrel may have saved Strutinsky from death (after all, the entire Kuznetsov group died a few weeks later. But it seems to have left a deep mark on the soul of Nikolai Strutinsky.

Protocol truth about the death of intelligence officer Kuznetsov

Immediately after the war, Strutinsky worked in the Lviv regional department of the KGB. And this allowed him to restore the picture of the death of intelligence officer Kuznetsov.

Kuznetsov went to the front line with Jan Kaminsky and Ivan Belov. However, according to witness Stepan Golubovich, only two people came to Boratin.

"... at the end of February or at the beginning of March 1944, in addition to me and my wife, my mother - Golubovich Mokrina Adamovna (died in 1950), son Dmitry, 14 years old, and daughter 5 years old (later died) were in the house. In the house the light wasn't on.

On the night of the same date, at about 12 o'clock in the morning, when my wife and I were still awake, a dog barked. The wife got up from her bunk and went out into the yard. Returning to the house, she reported that people were coming from the forest to the house.

After that, she began to watch through the window, and then informed me that the Germans were coming to the door. The strangers approached the house and started knocking. First at the door, then at the window. The wife asked what to do. I agreed to open the door for them.

When strangers in German uniforms entered the house, the wife switched on the light. My mother got up and sat down in a corner near the stove, and the strangers came up to me and asked if there were Bolsheviks or members of the UPA in the village. One of them asked in German. I replied that there were none. Then they asked to close the windows.

After that they asked for food. The wife gave them bread and bacon and, it seems, milk. I then drew attention to how two Germans could go through the forest at night if they were afraid to go through it during the day ...

One of them was above average height, at the age of 30-35 years, his face was white, his hair was blond, one might say, somewhat reddish, he shaved his beard, had a narrow mustache.

His appearance was typical of a German. I don't remember any other signs. He talked to me for the most part.

The second was shorter than him, somewhat thin, with a blackish face, black hair, and shaving his mustache and beard.

... Sitting at the table and taking off their caps, the unknown began to eat, keeping the machine guns with them. About half an hour later (and the dog was barking all the time), as unknown people came to me, an armed member of the UPA entered the room with a rifle and a distinguishing sign on his hat "Trident", whose nickname, as I learned later, was Makhno.
Makhno, without greeting me, immediately went up to the table and offered his hand to the strangers without saying a word to them. They were also silent. Then he came up to me, sat down on the bunk and asked me what kind of people. I answered that I did not know, and after about five minutes other UPA members began to enter the apartment, which included about eight people, and maybe more.

One of the UPA participants gave the command to leave the house to civilians, that is, to us, the owners, but the second shouted: no need, and no one was let out of the hut. Then again one of the UPA participants in German gave the command to the unknown "Hands up!".

A tall unknown man got up from the table and, holding a machine gun in his left hand, waved his right hand in front of his face and, as I remember, told them not to shoot.

The weapons of the UPA participants were directed at the unknown, one of whom continued to sit at the table. "Hands up!" the command was given three times, but the unknown hands never raised.

The tall German continued the conversation: as I understand it, he asked if it was the Ukrainian police. Some of them replied that they were the UPA, and the Germans replied that it was against the law...

... I saw that the UPA participants lowered their weapons, one of them approached the Germans and offered to hand over their machine guns, and then the tall German handed him over, and after him gave the second one. Tobacco began to be crushed on the table, UPA members and unknown people began to smoke. Thirty minutes have already passed since the unknown met with the UPA participants. Moreover, the tall unknown was the first to ask for a cigarette.

... A tall unknown, rolling a cigarette, began to light a cigarette from the lamp and put it out, but in the corner near the stove a second lamp burned faintly. I asked my wife to bring the lamp to the table.

At this time, I noticed that the tall unknown became noticeably nervous, which was noticed by the UPA participants, who began to ask him what was the matter ... The unknown, as I understood, was looking for a lighter.

But then I saw that all the UPA participants rushed from the unknown towards the exit doors, but since they opened into the room, they did not open it in a hurry, and right there I heard a strong explosion of a grenade and even saw a sheaf of flame from it. The second unknown before the grenade explosion lay down on the floor under the bunk.
After the explosion, I took my young daughter and stood near the stove, my wife jumped out of the hut along with the UPA members, who broke the door, removing it from its hinges.

An unknown person of short stature asked something of the second, who was lying wounded on the floor. He answered him that "I don't know", after which the unknown short stature, having knocked out the window frame, jumped out of the window of the house with a briefcase.

A grenade explosion wounded my wife lightly in the leg and mother lightly in the head.

With regard to the unknown short stature, who was running through the window, for about five minutes I heard strong firing from rifles in the direction in which he fled. What his fate is, I do not know.

After that, I ran away with the child to my neighbor, and in the morning, when I returned home, I saw the unknown person dead in the yard near the fence, lying face down in his underwear.

As was established during the interrogation of other witnesses, during the explosion of his own grenade, Kuznetsov's right hand was torn off and "heavy wounds were inflicted on the frontal part of the head, chest and abdomen, which is why he soon died."

So, the place, time (March 9, 1944) and the circumstances of the death of Nikolai Kuznetsov were established.

Later, having organized the exhumation of the intelligence officer's body, Strutinsky proved that it was Kuznetsov who died in Boratin that night.

But it turned out to be difficult to prove this for other reasons. Strutinsky, who took risks while searching for the place of death of the scout, had to take risks again, proving that the remains he found not far from this place really belong to Kuznetsov.

" With a measured step, unhurriedly, he walked along Deutschestrasse - the main street of Rivne, an ordinary infantry chief lieutenant with the Iron Cross of the first class and the "Golden Badge of Distinction for Wound" on his chest, the ribbon of the Iron Cross of the Second Class, threaded into the second loop of the service jacket, in famously shifted to one side cap. On the ring finger of his left hand gleamed a gold ring with a monogram on the signet. He greeted his seniors clearly, with dignity, a little casually saluting the soldiers in response. Self-confident, calm owner of the occupied Ukrainian city, the very living personification of the hitherto victorious Wehrmacht. Oberleutnant Paul Wilhelm Siebert. He is "Fluff". He is Rudolf Wilhelmovich Schmidt. He is Nikolai Vasilievich Grachev. He's the Colonist. He is Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov. Soviet spy and partisan.

Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov was born on July 27, 1911 in the village of Zyryanka, Talitsky District, Sverdlovsk Region. In 1918 he went to the elementary school of his native village, then continued his studies at the Talitskaya seven-year school.

In 1926 he entered the Tyumen Agricultural College, then studied at the Talitsky Forestry College. He began his career as a tax collector in the land administration of the city of Kudymkar (Komi-Permyatsky National District.

In 1934 he moved to Sverdlovsk. In 1935-36. worked at Uralmashzavod in the design department and at the same time studied at the evening department of the Ural Industrial Institute (now the Ural Federal University named after the First President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin).

Even in the years of study at school, he discovered extraordinary abilities for foreign languages. He studied German with interest, and later Esperanto. While working in Kudymkar, he learned the Komi language so well that the locals took him for their own. It was there that the security authorities drew attention to him. Communicating with German specialists at Uralmashzavod, I got good conversational practice, mastered several dialects of the German language, had the opportunity to get acquainted with their customs and traditions from the stories of the Germans.

In 1938 he moved to Moscow, where he lived on the passport of an ethnic German, Rudolf Schmidt, and, according to legend, was an engineer at an aircraft factory. He successfully communicated with representatives of the German and Czech embassies, receiving information that was extremely important in the face of an impending military threat.

In August 1942, N.I. Kuznetsov arrived in the partisan detachment of special purpose "Winners" under the command of D.N. Medvedev in the region of Rovno (Ukraine). In the detachment, he acted under the name Nikolai Grachev, and performed special tasks in the form of a German officer, Lieutenant Paul Siebert.

In 1942-1944. N.I. Kuznetsov:

1. transfers to the Center information about Hitler's headquarters in Vinnitsa "Werwolf";
2. receives an audience with the Reich Commissioner for Occupied Ukraine, the Gauleiter of East Prussia Erich Koch , during which he learns about the preparation of a major offensive on the Kursk Bulge;
3. liquidates in Rovno the imperial adviser to finance, General Gel;
4. organizes the abduction of General von Ilgen and Hauptmann Granau;
5. destroys the supreme judge of occupied Ukraine, SS Oberführer Funke;
6. obtains intelligence about an impending terrorist attack against the leaders of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition in Tehran;
7. destroys Lieutenant Colonel Peters and Corporal Seidel;
8. liquidates the vice-governor of Galicia Bauer and a high-ranking official Schneider.

On March 9, 1944, N.I. Kuznetsov and his associates I. Belov and Y. Kaminsky died in an unequal battle with Bandera in the area of ​​the Ukrainian village of Boratin.

Even during his lifetime in 1943, N.I. Kuznetsov was awarded the Order of Lenin, and posthumously he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

On July 27, 1911, in the Urals, in the village of Zyryanka, the one who was to become the most famous illegal immigrant of the period of the Great Patriotic War was born. NKVD counterintelligence officers called him Colonist, German diplomats in Moscow - Rudolf Schmidt, Wehrmacht and SD officers in occupied Rovno - Paul Siebert, saboteurs and partisans - Grachev. And only a few people in the leadership of the Soviet state security knew his real name - Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov.

This is how the deputy head of the Soviet counterintelligence (1941–1951), lieutenant general, describes his first meeting with him Leonid Raykhman, then, in 1938, senior lieutenant of state security, head of the 1st department of the 4th department of the GUGB of the NKVD of the USSR: “Several days passed, and a telephone trill was heard in my apartment: the Colonist called. At that time, I had an old friend visiting me, who had just returned from Germany, where he worked from illegal positions. I looked at him expressively, and said into the phone: “Now they will speak German with you ...” My friend talked for several minutes and, covering the microphone with his palm, said in surprise: “He speaks like a native Berliner!”. Later I learned that Kuznetsov was fluent in five or six dialects of the German language, in addition, he could speak, if necessary, in Russian with a German accent. I made an appointment with Kuznetsov for the next day, and he came to my house. When he just stepped on the threshold, I really gasped: a real Aryan! Above average height, slender, thin but strong, blond, straight nose, gray-blue eyes. A real German, but without such signs of aristocratic degeneration. And a wonderful bearing, like a regular military man, and this is a Ural forestryman!

The village of Zyryanka is located in the Sverdlovsk region near Talitsa, located on the right bank of the picturesque Pyshma River. Since the 17th century, here, on the fertile lands along the border of the Urals and Siberia, Cossacks, Pomor Old Believers, as well as immigrants from Germany settled. Not far from Zyryanka was Moranin farm, inhabited by the Germans. According to one of the legends, it is from the family of a German colonist that Nikolai Kuznetsov comes from - hence the knowledge of the language, as well as the subsequently received code name Kolonist. Although I know for sure that this is not so, because these villages - Zyryanka, Balair, the Pioneer state farm, the Kuznetsovsky state farm - are the birthplace of my grandmother. Here, in Balair, my mother's brother is buried Yuri Oprokidnev. When I was a child, before school, I was constantly here in the summer, fishing with my grandfather in the same pond as little Nika, as Nikolai Kuznetsov was called in childhood. By the way, Boris Yeltsin was born 30 km to the south, and I will not deny that at first our family had warm feelings for a fellow countryman.

Nicky's mother Anna Bazhenova came from a family of Old Believers. His father served seven years in a grenadier regiment in Moscow. The design of their house also speaks in favor of the Old Believer origin. Although only sketches of the building have been preserved, they show that there are no windows on the wall that faces the street. And this is a distinctive feature of the hut of the "schismatics". Therefore, it is most likely that Nika's father Ivan Kuznetsov also from the Old Believers, and Pomors.

Here is what Academician Dmitry Likhachev wrote about the Pomors: “They struck me with their intelligence, special folk culture, culture of the folk language, special handwritten literacy (Old Believers), etiquette of receiving guests, food etiquette, culture of work, delicacy, etc., etc. Not find words to describe my admiration for them. It turned out worse with the peasants of the former Orel and Tula provinces: there downtrodden and illiteracy from serfdom, need. And the Pomors had a sense of their own dignity.

In the materials of 1863, the strong physique of the Pomors, stateliness and pleasant appearance, BROWN hair, and a firm tread are noted. They are cheeky in their movements, dexterous, quick-witted, fearless, neat and dapper. In the collection for reading in the family and school "Russia", the Pomors appear as real Russian people, tall, broad-shouldered, of iron health, fearless, accustomed to BOLDLY LOOK IN THE FACE OF DEATH.
In 1922-1924, Nika studied at a five-year school in the village of Balair, two kilometers from Zyryanka. In any weather - in the autumn thaw, in rain and sleet, snowstorm and cold - he walked for knowledge, always collected, smart, good-natured, inquisitive. In the autumn of 1924, my father took Nika to Talitsa, where in those years there was the only seven-year school in the region. It was there that his phenomenal linguistic abilities were discovered. Nika quickly mastered the German language and this stood out sharply from other students. German taught Nina Avtokratova who was educated in Switzerland. Having learned that the labor teacher was a former German prisoner of war, Nikolai did not miss the opportunity to talk with him, practice his language, and feel the melody of the Lower Prussian dialect. However, this seemed to him not enough. More than once he found an excuse to visit a pharmacy in order to talk with another "German" - an Austrian pharmacist named Krause - already in the Bavarian dialect.

In 1926, Nikolai entered the agronomic department of the Tyumen Agricultural College, located in a beautiful building, which until 1919 housed the Alexander Real School. It's my great-grandfather Procopius Opokidnev studied together with the future People's Commissar for Foreign Trade of the USSR Leonid Krasin. Both of them graduated from college with gold medals, and their names were on the honor roll. During the Great Patriotic War, on the second floor of this building in room 15, there was the body of Vladimir Lenin, evacuated from Moscow.

A year later, in connection with the death of his father, Nikolai moved closer to home - to the Talitsky forest technical school. Shortly before his graduation, he was expelled on suspicion of a kulak origin. Having worked as a forest manager in Kudymkar (Komi-Permyatsky national district) and having participated in collectivization, Nikolai, who by this time was already fluent in the Komi-Permyak language, falls into the field of view of the Chekists. In 1932, he moved to Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg), entered the correspondence department of the Ural Industrial Institute (having submitted a certificate of graduation from a technical school) and at the same time worked at Uralmashzavod, participating in the operational development of foreign specialists under the code name Colonist.

At the institute, Nikolai Ivanovich continues to improve in German: now his teacher has become Olga Veselkina, former maid of honor of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, relative of Mikhail Lermontov and Pyotr Stolypin.

A former librarian of the institute said that Kuznetsov constantly took technical literature on mechanical engineering, mainly in foreign languages. And then she accidentally got to the defense of the diploma, which was held in German! True, she was quickly removed from the audience, as subsequently all documents testifying to Kuznetsov's studies at the institute were seized.

Methodologist for local history work of the Talitsky District Library Tatyana Klimova cites evidence that in Sverdlovsk "Nikolai Ivanovich occupied a separate room in the so-called house of the Chekists at the address: Lenin Avenue, house 52. Even now only people from the organs live there." Here the meeting took place, which determined his future fate. In January 1938 he met Mikhail Zhuravlev appointed to the post of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Komi ASSR, and begins to work as his assistant. A few months later, Zhuravlev recommended Kolonist to Leonid Raikhman. We have already told about the first meeting of Reichman with the Colonist above.

“We, counterintelligence officers,” Leonid Fedorovich continues, “from an ordinary operative to the head of our department, Pyotr Vasilyevich Fedotov, dealt with real, and not fictitious German spies, and, as professionals, we perfectly understood that they worked in the Soviet Union as against a real enemy in a future and already close war. Therefore, we urgently needed people capable of actively resisting German agents, primarily in Moscow.

The Moscow Aviation Plant No. 22 named after Gorbunov, from which only the Gorbushka club on Fili now remains, traces its pedigree since 1923. It all started with the unfinished buildings of the Russian-Baltic Carriage Works, lost in the forest. In 1923, they were granted a 30-year concession by the German company Junkers, which was the only one in the world to master the technology of all-metal aircraft. Until 1925, the plant produced the first Ju.20 (50 aircraft) and Ju.21 (100 aircraft). However, on March 1, 1927, the concession agreement was terminated by the USSR. In 1933, plant number 22 was named after the director of the plant, Sergei Gorbunov, who died in a plane crash. According to the legend developed for the Colonist, he becomes a test engineer of this plant, having received a passport in the name of an ethnic German Rudolf Schmidt.

The building of the Tyumen Agricultural Academy, where Nikolai Kuznetsov studied

"My comrade Viktor Nikolaevich Ilyin, a major counterintelligence worker, - recalls Reichman, - was also very pleased with him. Thanks to Ilyin, Kuznetsov quickly "overgrown" with connections in theatrical, in particular, ballet Moscow. This was important as many diplomats, including established German intelligence officers, gravitated towards actresses, especially ballerinas. At one time, the question of appointing Kuznetsov as one of the administrators of the ... Bolshoi Theater was even seriously discussed.

Rudolf Schmidt actively gets acquainted with foreign diplomats, attends social events, goes out to friends and mistresses of diplomats. With his participation in the apartment of the naval attache of Germany, frigate captain Norbert Wilhelm von Baumbach, a safe was opened and secret documents were retaken. Schmidt is directly involved in the interception of diplomatic mail, enters the circle of the German military attache in Moscow, Ernst Köstring, by bugging his apartment.

However, the finest hour of Nikolai Kuznetsov struck with the outbreak of war. With such knowledge of the German language - and by that time he had also mastered Ukrainian and Polish - and his Aryan appearance, he becomes a super agent. In the winter of 1941, he was placed in a camp for German prisoners of war in Krasnogorsk, where he mastered the order, life and customs of the German army. In the summer of 1942 under the name Nikolai Grachev he was sent to the special forces detachment "Winners" from the OMSBON - special forces of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD of the USSR, the head of which was Pavel Sudoplatov.

With employees of the design department of Uralmash. Sverdlovsk, 1930s

On August 24, 1942, a twin-engine Li-2 took off from an airfield near Moscow late in the evening and headed for Western Ukraine. And on September 18, along Deutschestrasse, the main street of occupied Rivne, turned by the Germans into the capital of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, an infantry chief lieutenant with an Iron Cross of the 1st class and a "Golden Badge of Distinction for Wounds" on his chest, a ribbon of the Iron Cross of the 2nd class, pulled into the second loop of the order, in a famously shifted side cap. On the ring finger of his left hand gleamed a gold ring with a monogram on the signet. He greeted the seniors in rank, clearly, but with dignity, a little casually saluting the soldiers in response. Self-confident, calm owner of the occupied Ukrainian city, the very living personification of the hitherto victorious Wehrmacht, Lieutenant Paul Wilhelm Siebert. He is Pooh. He is Nikolai Vasilyevich Grachev. He is Rudolf Wilhelmovich Schmidt. He is also a Colonist - this is how Nikolai Kuznetsov describes the first appearance in Rivne Theodor Gladkov.

Paul Siebert was given the task of liquidating the Gauleiter of East Prussia and the Reichskommissar of Ukraine, Erich Koch, at the slightest opportunity. He met his adjutant and in the summer of 1943, through him, sought an audience with Koch. The reason is solid - the bride of Siebert Volksdeutsche Fraulein Dovger is threatened with being sent to work in Germany. After the war, Valentina Dovger recalled that, preparing for the visit, Nikolai Ivanovich was absolutely calm. In the morning I got ready, as always, methodically and carefully. He put the pistol in his coat pocket. However, during the audience, his every movement was controlled by guards and dogs, and it was useless to shoot. At the same time, it turned out that Siebert was from East Prussia - a fellow countryman of Koch. He so endeared himself to a high-ranking Nazi, a personal friend of the Fuhrer, that he told him about the upcoming German offensive near Kursk in the summer of 1943. Information immediately went to the Center.

The very fact of this conversation is so amazing that there are many myths around it. It is alleged, for example, that Koch was an agent of influence of Joseph Stalin, and this meeting was prearranged. Then it turns out that Kuznetsov did not need at all an amazing command of German in order to gain confidence in the Gauleiter. In confirmation, the fact is given that Stalin reacted rather mildly to Koch, transferred to him in 1949 by the British, and gave him to Poland, where he lived to be 90 years old. Although, in fact, Stalin has nothing to do with it. It’s just that the Poles, after Stalin’s death, made a deal with Koch, since he alone knew the location of the Amber Room, since he was responsible for its evacuation from Königsberg in 1944. Now this room is most likely somewhere in the States, because the Poles need to pay something to the new owners.

Stalin rather owes his life to Kuznetsov. It was Kuznetsov who, in the fall of 1943, transmitted the first information about the impending assassination attempt on Joseph Stalin, Theodore Roosevelt and Winston Churchill during the Tehran Conference (Operation Long Jump). He was in touch with Maya Mikota, who, on the instructions of the Center, became an agent of the Gestapo (pseudonym “17”) and introduced Kuznetsov to Ulrich von Ortel, who at the age of 28 was an SS Sturmbannfuehrer and a representative of foreign intelligence of the SD in Rovno. In one of the conversations, von Ortel said that he had been given the great honor to participate in “a grandiose affair that would shake up the whole world,” and promised to bring a Persian carpet to Maya ... On the evening of November 20, 1943, Maya informed Kuznetsov that von Ortel had committed suicide in his office on Deutschestrasse. Although in the book "Tehran, 1943. At the conference of the Big Three and on the sidelines" Stalin's personal translator Valentin Berezhkov indicates that von Ortel was present in Tehran as Otto Skorzeny's deputy. However, as a result of timely actions of the group Gevork Vartanyan The "Light Cavalry" managed to eliminate the Tehran residency of the Abwehr, after which the Germans did not dare to send the main group led by Skorzeny to certain failure. So no "Long Jump" happened.

In the autumn of 1943, several assassination attempts were organized on Paul Dargel, Erich Koch's permanent deputy. On September 20, Kuznetsov mistakenly killed Erich Koch's deputy for finance Hans Gehl and his secretary Winter instead of Dargel. On September 30, he attempted to kill Dargel with an anti-tank grenade. Dargel was seriously injured and lost both legs. After that, it was decided to organize the abduction of the commander of the "eastern battalions" (punishers), Major General Max von Ilgen. Ilgen was captured along with Paul Granau - the driver of Erich Koch - and shot on one of the farms near Rovno. On November 16, 1943, Kuznetsov shot and killed the head of the legal department of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, Oberführer SA Alfred Funk. In Lvov, in January 1944, Nikolai Kuznetsov killed the chief of the government of Galicia, Otto Bauer, and the head of the office of the government of the General Government, Dr. Heinrich Schneider.

On March 9, 1944, making their way to the front line, Kuznetsov's group stumbled upon the Ukrainian nationalists of the UPA. During the ensuing skirmish, his comrades Kaminsky and Belov were killed, and Nikolai Kuznetsov blew himself up with a grenade. After the flight of the Germans in Lvov, a telegram was found with the following content, sent on April 2, 1944 to Berlin:

Top secret
State importance
Lvov, April 2, 1944
TELEGRAM-LIGHTNING
To the Main Directorate of Imperial Security to present the "SS" to Gruppenführer and Police Lieutenant General Heinrich Müller

At the next meeting on April 1, 1944, the Ukrainian delegate reported that on March 2, 1944, one of the units of the Chernogora UPA had detained three Soviet-Russian spies in the forest near Belogorodka in the Verba (Volyn) region. Judging by the documents of these three detained agents, we are talking about a group reporting directly to the NKVD GB. The UPA verified the identity of the three arrested as follows:

1. The head of the group, Paul Siebert, nicknamed Pooh, had false documents of a senior lieutenant of the German army, was born allegedly in Königsberg, his photo was on the certificate. He was dressed in the uniform of a German senior lieutenant.
2. Pole Jan Kaminsky.
Z. Shooter Ivan Vlasovets, nicknamed Belov, driver Pooh.

All the arrested Soviet-Russian agents had fake German documents, rich supporting material - maps, German and Polish newspapers, among them the Lvovska Newspaper and a report on their intelligence activities on the territory of the Soviet-Russian front. Judging by this report, compiled personally by Pooh, he and his accomplices committed terrorist acts in the Lvov region. After completing the assignment in Rovno, Pooh went to Lvov and got an apartment from a Pole. Then Pooh managed to get into the meeting, where there was a meeting of the highest representatives of power in Galicia under the leadership of the governor Dr. Wachter.

Pooh intended to shoot Governor Dr. Waechter under these circumstances. But because of the strict preventive measures of the Gestapo, this plan failed, and instead of the governor, the lieutenant governor, Dr. Bauer, and the latter's secretary, Dr. Schneider, were killed. Both of these German statesmen were shot dead not far from their private apartment. After the act, Pooh and his accomplices hid in the Zolochev area. During this period of time, Pooh had a clash with the Gestapo when the latter tried to check his car. On this occasion, he also shot a senior Gestapo official. There is a detailed description of what happened. With a different control of his car, Pooh shot one German officer and his adjutant, and after that he abandoned the car and was forced to flee into the forest. In the forests, he had to fight with UPA units in order to get to Rovno and further on the other side of the Soviet-Russian front with the intention of personally submitting his reports to one of the leaders of the Soviet-Russian army, who would send them further to the Center, to Moscow. As for the Soviet-Russian agent Pukh and his accomplices detained by the UPA units, we are undoubtedly talking about the Soviet-Russian terrorist Paul Siebert, who in Rovno kidnapped, among others, General Ilgen, in the Galicia district shot Lieutenant Colonel Peters of Aviation, one senior aviation corporal, vice -Governor, head of department Dr. Bauer and presidial chief Dr. Schneider, as well as Major Kanter of the field gendarmerie, whom we carefully searched for. By morning, a message was received from the Prutzmann combat group that Paul Siebert and both of his accomplices had been found shot dead in Volhynia. The OUN representative promised that all materials in copies or even originals would be handed over to the security police, if instead the security police agreed to release Mrs. Lebed with the child and her relatives. It is to be expected that if the promise of release is kept, the OUN-Bandera group will send me much more informational material.

Signed: Chief of the Security Police and SD for the Galician District, Dr. Vitiska, "SS" Obersturmbannfuehrer and Senior Advisor to the Directorate

Meeting of the Colonist with the Secretary of the Embassy of Slovakia G.-L. Krno, a German intelligence agent. 1940 Operative photography with a hidden camera

In addition to the “Pobediteli” detachment, commanded by Dmitry Medvedev and in which Nikolai Kuznetsov was based, the Olympus detachment of Viktor Karasev operated in Rivne and Volhynia, whose intelligence assistant was the legendary “Major Whirlwind” - Alexei Botyan, who turned 100 this year years. I recently asked Alexei Nikolaevich if he met Nikolai Kuznetsov and what he knew about his death.

Aleksey Nikolaevich, together with you, Dmitry Medvedev's detachment "Winners" operated in the Rovno region, and in its composition, under the guise of a German officer, the legendary intelligence officer Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov. Have you ever met him?

Yes, I had to. It was at the end of 1943, about 30 km west of Rovno. The Germans found out the location of Medvedev's detachment and were preparing a punitive operation against him. We found out about this, and Karasyov decided to help Medvedev. We came there and settled down 5-6 km from Medvedev. And it was customary for us: as soon as we change the place, we will definitely arrange a bath. We had a special man for this case. Because people are dirty - there is no place to wash clothes. Sometimes they took it off and kept it over a fire so as not to get lice. I have never had lice. Well, it means that we invited Medvedev to the bathhouse, and Kuznetsov just came to him from the city. He came in a German uniform, they met him somewhere, changed clothes so that no one in the detachment knew about him. We invited them to the bath together. Then they organized a table, I got local moonshine. They asked Kuznetsov questions, especially me. He also spoke impeccably German, had German documents in the name of Paul Siebert, the quartermaster of the German units. Outwardly, he looked like a German - such a blond. He went to any German institution and reported that he was fulfilling the task of the German command. So he had a very good cover. I also thought: “I wish I did!”. Bandera killed him. Mirkovsky Yevgeny Ivanovich, also a Hero of the Soviet Union, an intelligent and honest man, also acted in the same places. Later we became friends in Moscow, I often visited his house on Frunzenskaya. His reconnaissance and sabotage group "Walkers" in June 1943 in Zhytomyr blew up the buildings of the central telegraph office, printing house and gebitskommissariat. The gebitskommissar himself was seriously wounded, and his deputy was killed. So Mirkovsky blamed Medvedev himself for the death of Kuznetsov for not giving him good security - there were only three of them, they fell into a Bandera ambush and died. Mirkovsky told me: "All the blame for the death of Kuznetsov lies with Medvedev." But Kuznetsov had to be protected - no one else did it.

In Ukraine, they sometimes say that Kuznetsov, they say, is a legend, a product of propaganda ...

What a legend - I saw it myself. We were in the bath together!

Did you meet during the war with the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD - the legendary Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov?

The first time was in 1942. He arrived at the station, said goodbye to us, gave instructions. He told Karasev: “Take care of people!”. And I stood nearby. Then, in 1944, Sudoplatov handed me the officer's shoulder straps of a senior lieutenant of state security. Well, we met after the war. And with him, and with Eitingon, who made me a Czech. It was Khrushchev who planted them later, the scoundrel. What smart people they were! How much they did for the country - after all, all the partisan detachments were under them. Both Beria and Stalin - whatever you say, but they mobilized the country, defended it, did not allow it to be destroyed, and how many enemies there were: both inside and outside.

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of November 5, 1944, Nikolai Kuznetsov was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for exceptional courage and bravery in carrying out command assignments. The submission was signed by the head of the 4th Directorate of the NKGB of the USSR Pavel Sudoplatov.

Andrey VEDYAEV