We are still with the intelligence operations that changed the history of the entire world, and the Second World War, in which 100 million soldiers took part, and in which nearly another 100 million died.. soldiers and civilians together. About 5% of the world's population.. at that time.

And a man of letters, born of a wealthy German father and a Soviet mother, took part in the First World War in the ranks of Germany as a young soldier, and despite his hatred of wars, he fought with his country with all patriotism and enthusiasm, until he was promoted to the rank of "corporal".. and afterwards he was wounded on the front in his legs, severely, and was treated, and honoured with the "Iron Cross".. and medically excluded from the ranks of soldiers.. but his wound left him with a permanent disability, with a slight limp.

He took up the work of journalism, and married a divorced German lady named "Christiane Gerlach".. and travelled with her to Frankfurt, leaving Berlin.. he had been influenced by communist thought and devoted himself to studying it alongside his work in journalism.

No one knows when the Soviets got their hands on him, or why.. but it most likely happened in the year 1924.. after he obtained a doctorate in political science, and travelled to Russia with his wife.. and there he separated from his wife, who had grown weary of his communist ideas and his personal preoccupations, and he became alone, free to draw close to the centres and the people of communist thought to learn more, and it was then that he fell into the Soviets' net.

In the year 1929.. the Soviets ordered him to return to Germany and join the Nazi Party.. while not engaging in any leftist activity. And with his charisma, his information and his skill in writing and speaking, he became a close friend of every centre in the joints of the Nazi Party.

And the man returned afterwards, only to be ordered to travel to China, so he applied at the German newspaper he used to work for to join its office in China. And they agreed.. and he stayed there until the year 1933.. after which he returned to Russia with his new young wife "Katya" on his arm. He returned and wrote a book about Chinese culture.. and then his travel to Japan, and his real activity began.. forming one of the largest and strongest spy networks in history.. called the "Ramzay network".

The man we are talking about entirely changed the course of the Second World War, and his name was "Richard Sorge". All the time he used to declare without shame that he hated war.. and wished that problems were solved by diplomacy.. and that peace would prevail across the whole world.

His network extended between Japan, Germany and China, and it was very large and extremely powerful; no one suspected him for a moment or sensed that he was a spy for the Soviets, to the point that he convinced the American consul in Shanghai to rent a floor of his villa to a German businessman and economist, and the consul agreed, and welcomed the young businessman, who was in truth nothing but a Soviet spy, from "Sorge's" own network, and who went on for two whole years transmitting coded wireless messages to Russia, from the consul's house, without the Americans suspecting him for a moment.

And information reached the Soviets from "Sorge" that Japan would occupy Chinese Manchuria.. and indeed the invasion happened, and Japan occupied Manchuria along with northern China, and then he informed the Soviets that the Japanese army would carry out a military coup, ten days before it happened.. and indeed the Japanese coup attempt took place, and history recorded it for us as the "February 26 Incident".

And highly dangerous secret information went on flowing to the Soviets, from Germany, China and Japan, and this made them give "Sorge" and his network extraordinary attention, and assign him a monthly allowance of 4,000 dollars.. and that was a huge sum in this era.

And then "Hitler" decides to take a bold step, and attack the Soviet Union, even though there was a non-aggression treaty between them, so he picks up the pen to sign the mistake of his life, a plan to attack the Soviet Union, bearing the code name "Operation Barbarossa".

And "Sorge" sends this terrifying piece of information to Russian intelligence, but it receives it with disbelief and disdain, and begins to suspect "Sorge" because he of all people had all along embraced the idea of hating war.. and they imagined it was a trick, to defeat Russia and end the war.. because it made no sense that "Hitler" would attack Russia and open a new front for himself, at a time when he was fighting Britain.

And with their disbelief, they ignore the information entirely.. only to wake up a few days later to a terrifying nightmare scene, of five million German soldiers, infantrymen, advancing along a front nearly three thousand kilometres long.. of Soviet territory, and "Hitler" throws in with them army, navy and air force units.. and even men of the armed elite forces, called the "Waffen-SS".

And because it was a surprise betrayal of the Soviet Union.. the blows were painful, and the Soviet forces withdraw, and "Hitler" occupies extremely sensitive areas of economic importance.. such as Ukraine.. and Germany's attack on the Soviet Union succeeds overwhelmingly.

And amid this destruction, confidence in "Sorge" returns.. and "Stalin" wonders about the position of the Japanese.. and whether they might fall upon him from behind in support of their ally Germany? Because if that happened, he would not be able to fight on two fronts, and the Soviet Union would fall into the grip of the Axis.

And the Russian intelligence men spring into action, and demand that "Sorge" try to find out the intentions of the Japanese.. so after a while he sends them, from his quiet home in the most upscale districts of Tokyo, a coded telegram of 3 words:

"Japan will not fight".

And the telegram reaches "Joseph Stalin".. so he moves on its basis, and secures against the Japanese threat, and withdraws his forces from the front facing them.. and throws into the confrontation with "Hitler" 10 army corps, and more than 1,500 aircraft, and 3,000 guns and 2,000 tanks.

But "Sorge" was in the heart of a group of the cleverest and most astute people on earth.. the Japanese.. who begin to suspect him and his movements, so they exploit his intense love of women, and send to him a beautiful young Japanese woman named "Honko Ishi", who draws close to him, and he falls in love with her.. and he takes her to his home, and she moves with him everywhere.

And the strange thing is that "Ishi" truly falls in love with "Sorge".. and loves him with real love.. despite her mission.. and she began in secret to wish that he were innocent, and that she could enjoy life with him for the rest of her life.

And once, while they were together in "Sorge's" car, a street vendor selling chocolate drives up to "Sorge", and sells him a bar; he opens it and pulls out a small slip of paper, in front of "Ishi's" eyes.. and at that time chocolate used to contain papers like a daily fortune, so he reads the slip attentively, and then tears it into small pieces, and throws them out of the car window, and shares the chocolate with his beloved.. who asks him about the content of the slip, so he laughs and tells her.. that he does not believe in luck.. and he kisses her and embraces her and drives the car and leaves with her.

And despite her love for him.. "Ishi" performs her duty to the fullest.. and informs the Japanese authorities of what happened, so the Japanese intelligence men move, without arousing any suspicion.. and collect every scrap of paper from the ground and from every wastebasket and rubbish bin, in a circle with a diameter of three kilometres from the place of the incident.. and they begin to gather all these torn papers, and glue them together like a jigsaw puzzle with extreme patience and care.. in order to find the slip that "Sorge" tore up.

And "Sorge's" slip falls into their hands.. and it was a coded telegram, they decipher it.. and they find in it a piece of information that had come to him from the men of his network.. which he neglected for the first time in his life and did not burn after reading it.. and it contained a second terrifying piece of information.. likewise capable of changing the course of the entire war.

It was the information that Japan would attack the United States at Pearl Harbor.

And this time.. "Sorge" was arrested before sending the information to the Soviets.. and "Sorge" did not care about his arrest.. he was certain that "Stalin" would not abandon him after all the services he had rendered him.. and would exchange him or demand his return.. after he had betrayed his own country for the sake of the Soviet Union.

But "Stalin" ignored him completely.. he did not respect traitors in general, no matter what services they rendered him, and considered them mercenaries who had taken their price and that was that. And "Sorge" was tried and Japan sentenced him to death.. and he was executed in the year 1944. And afterwards.. his Japanese lover, the one who had informed on him, recovered his remains, and buried him with a respectable, dignified burial in Tokyo, with a gravestone on which she wrote words expressing her grief and her devotion to him.

After the end of the war, the Soviet Union issued a commemorative postage stamp bearing the picture and name of "Sorge".. without whom the Soviet Union would not have been able to come down with all its strength, on the front facing the Germans.

"Sorge's" operations, which changed the face of the world, differ from the deadly mistake that "Churchill" made during the war itself, and which likewise almost changed its outcome entirely.

And this story is long, so we will tell it at a later time.

And there remains for the conversation.. a remainder.

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