Sorge in Tokyo: The Net Tightens
, a German journalist and secret agent of Soviet military intelligence (GRU), runs an elite network in Tokyo — including , an adviser close to the circles of power. In 1941 he transmitted the date of Barbarossa (which ignored), then the decisive intelligence: Japan would "strike south," toward the Pacific, and not north against the USSR.
In the autumn of 1941, the special police (Kempeitai) trace the chain: arrests yield names. Sorge senses the danger. Continuing to transmit the final confirmations — which would let Moscow strip the Far East of its forces — means staying exposed; survival would require him to fall silent, flee, or sabotage his own network.
Between the mission and his own skin, the spy must choose.
As the Japanese police tighten their grip, should Sorge keep transmitting, fall silent and disappear, or destroy his network?
Sorge carried on with his work; he and some thirty members of the network were arrested from 18 October 1941. His intelligence — combined with Soviet codebreaking — assuring that Japan would attack in the south allowed the Siberian divisions to be transferred to Moscow, decisive for the December counter-offensive. Sorge was hanged in Tokyo on 7 November 1944; the USSR recognised him as a hero only in 1964.
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