Louis Meulstee and Rudolf F. Staritz, Clandestine Radio. Wireless for the Warrior, Vol. 4, Wimborne Publ. Ltd., Ferndown/ Dorset, 2004, ISBN 09520 63360, £49.50

This volume is an important contribution in eliminating some of the smaller and larger gaps in the analysis of military and secret service history in the twentieth century. Agent radios from World War II until the end of the Cold War are depicted, for example some of the more modern equipment from the Ministry for State Security in the German Democratic Republic. Those who are familiar with the subject know how difficult it is to gain access to such radios and encoders, and will appreciate the book. The more than 200 different equipments, sorted according to country of production and use, provide the layman as well as the expert with an all encompassing overview of the subject. With 850 pictures and more than 350 circuit diagrams and over 400 tables, the depictions are not only numerous, but also are extremely detailed. The technical details include all available technical information of transmitters, receivers, and power supplies, years produced, manufacturers, weight and size as well as additional parts (keys, high speed transmission equipment, antennas, etc.). Furthermore they contain descriptions of the machines from agent radios, radio direction finders for counter measures, special electric generators, and secret radio beacons.
The material was gathered over a period of many years. The often parallel development of agent radios on the one hand and amateur radios on the other shows machines of the smallest possible measurement, small transmitters and for the largest possible distances. The book was primarily written by radio amateurs (there are 66 licenced radio amateurs from numerous countries, with their call signs, who served as authors, contributors, and sources). Additionally there were collectors, historians, and staff from military museums. It is known that many radio amateurs had ties to intelligence agencies in all countries involved in WW II and the Cold War because of their technical and operational knowledge. This book largely profited from the experienced competence of these amateurs, who are here called professionals. Not only is the content weighty, and heavy in ter literal sense of the term, weighing more than 2 kg, but it is easy to read and as a reference work, which it primarily is, it is easy to use. A comprehensive and unified structure give information finding.

Bernd Lippmann
Berlin
 

Robert W. Stephan, Stalin’s Secret War: Soviet Counterintelligence Against the Nazis, 1941-1945, Lawrence, KS: Univ. Press of Kansas, 2004, ISBN 0700612 793, $34.95

Since the USSR’s fall, a significant number of well-written histories have appeared that provide a more accurate view of the titanic struggle on the Eastern Front, infamous for its brutality and ruthlessness. Until now, however, the intelligence war in the East has remained relatively unknown due to a scarcity of documentation and an author with a thorough understanding of intelligence. Robert W. Stephan has filled this gap with his excellent study, Stalin’s Secret War: Soviet Counterintelligence Against the Nazis, 1941-1945.
Stephan’s initial chapters summarize this enormous struggle, which in terms of size and scope, manpower and materiel, and in the sheer number of casualties – German and Soviet, soldier and civilian – dwarfed World War II campaigns elsewhere. The June 1941 Wehrmacht blitzkrieg, involving some 3 million Axis troops, obtained stunning advances and seemingly irreversible Soviet defeats, as the Eastern Front stretched to 2,400 miles in length. Within months, the Red Army of 5 million lay in ruins, was then rebuilt, only to be ground down again in grueling attritional warfare extending ever deeper into the interior. Late 1941 found the Germans near Leningrad and Moscow, and deep in the Ukraine. The 1942 German campaign was less spectacular, yet placed Axis forces in the Caucasus’, and brought Soviet losses to 11 million killed, wounded, missing, and prisoner. Soviet intelligence and security forces suffered equally stunning losses in personnel and networks. Yet the USSR rebounded during late 1942 and1943, as manpower reservoirs were tapped, as industry shifted into high gear, and as the security services rebuilt their webs and augmented their numbers. In gigantic battles at Stalingrad in 1942, at Kursk in 1943, in the north, south, and central Soviet Union in 1944, the war went disastrously against Germany, ending in the Third Reich’s demise in 1945. Soviet intelligence and security services significantly contributed to this victory.
The intelligence war in the East represented a catastrophic German defeat, due both to Nazi mistakes and to Soviet expertise. Stephan examines the string of intelligence failures plaguing Germany, starting with their erroneous pre-war belief that the conflict would end in quick victory. This short-war illusion – the second in fifty years – deemphasized vital prewar intelligence collection, which translated into a woeful lack of accurate strategic and tactical information about the enemy they faced. As incredible as it seems, the Germans knew next to nothing about the true size and order-of-battle of the Red Army or its equipment, knew less of terrain and geography, were wholly ignorant of enemy resources and industrial potential, and entirely overlooked how weather could affect the campaign. They thoroughly underestimated the Soviets in nearly every category, including, perhaps most important, their resilience and recuperative ability, and the size, strength, and sophistication of the Communist intelligence apparatus.
As Stephan emphasizes, in intelligence matters the Germans were their own worst enemy. Nazi racial ideology discounted everything Slavic as inferior, for exploitation and elimination, but not as a worthy or equal adversary. Systemically, the intelligence services suffered the same ills shared by other military, political, and industrial institutions and engaged in counterproductive and debilitating rivalries for resources, manpower, and influence. The military intelligence service, the Abwehr, and the Sicherheitsdienst-Ausland, the SS security service, and the Gestapo, remained fragmented, amateurish, and uncoordinated, lacking formalized processes for centralized collection, analysis, coordination, dissemination, or counter-intelligence. The Wehrmacht as a whole, from the high command to the field, failed to integrate intelligence into tactical and strategic planning; cronyism in intelligence services was rampant, as was poor leadership, outright arrogance, and a stunning and near total disregard for quality end-to-end intelligence work. Germany failed to place agents within the Soviet Communist Party, in the military high command, or in the intelligence or security services. Although signals intelligence scored some successes, Germany never broke Soviet codes or had access to enemy communications as the Allies did with ULTRA. Germany recruited 44,000 agents, mainly from Russian POW ranks, but their operational success rate averaged a dismal10 to 20 percent. While counterintelligence units did eliminate half of the 130,000 Soviet agents infiltrated, and while some sabotage operations succeeded, these were isolated triumphs. This matters, Stephan states, because intelligence services are the eyes, ears, and noses of states and their armies. Counterintelligence and security services are the immune systems. If the immune system is absent, the risk of death increases. German military forces were thus surprised, countered, and battered, repeatedly, both tactically and strategically for their intelligence failures.
The diabolical, pervasive, and chillingly efficient Soviet security services compounded and exploited German errors and weaknesses. As Stephan shows, the Soviet state was a massive counterintelligence apparatus. Starting with the 1917 revolution, it honed both the forces and processes of internal security to a fine art. Established to protect the Communist Party, the revolution, and then the state against all threats real or imagined, the security services were experts at manipulation, stealth and deception, and in recruiting, hunting, and turning agents. Nearly 75 percent of their efforts were directed internally – toward Soviet civilian and military populations. The system recruited large numbers of informants, imposed tight restrictions on movement, implemented strict document requirements, and carried out a ruthless terror campaign. The latter device entailed mass arrests and deportations, and the planned deaths or summary executions of millions. During the war, factory workers were under the watchful eyes of agents or informants that often reached half of their number. Stephan estimates that as many as one in five Red Army soldiers were either security agents or informers, who were disturbingly active, reporting even the most mundane events. Between 20 and 40 million informants were recruited to keep the 3.4 million members of the security services aware of potential threats, most remaining on the rolls after the war in the USSR and Eastern Europe.
These organizations were a true force multiplier – a strategic weapon capable of producing huge tactical results. The Soviets penetrated the German high command and military down to field units, and even placed agents as instructors in German intelligence training schools. Thus Axis operations were usually compromised before agents crossed the lines, and those rare groups that did infiltrate were captured at one of the multiple check points behind the front, or were apprehended by thousands of security patrols that checked ever-changing documents and passes – arresting all who raised even the slightest suspicion. Even if an agent avoided immediate capture, the populace was so inundated with informants, and was so terrified and suspicious of outsiders, that collecting information became impossible.
Stephan conducted very thorough research in American, German, Soviet, and British archives to produce this work, and extensively mined the available published sources. The book contains a detailed bibliography, copious endnotes, and photo illustrations. The extensive appendices describing the composition and organization of Soviet and German intelligence organizations are especially useful. Stephan has created a very comprehensive work that is likely to remain the standard book on the subject for years to come. Professional historians, intelligence officers, and the public will find Stalin’s War a rewarding and informative read.
 

Clayton D. Laurie
Washington, D.C.