RED ORCHESTRA
By Anne Nelson
Random House, $27, 388 pages
THE SILENCE AND THE SCORPION
By Brian A. Nelson
Nation Books, $26.95, 355 pages
REVIEWED BY JOSEPH C. GOULDEN
Correction: Anne Nelson, the author of “Red Orchestra,” was misidentified in the original version of this story.
What could surpass the courage of individuals who resist a tyrannical regime, knowing that any miscue could lead to death by cruel torture? A handful of brave Germans receive their deserved credit in Anne Nelson’s study of the resistance to the Nazi regime in wartime Germany. She focuses on the intellectuals, artists and bureaucrats — half of them women — who comprised the German offshoot of the Rote Kapelle, or Red Orchestra, the name German security gave a broad European network aligned with Soviet intelligence.
These persons faced a cruel dilemma: Should they suffer Hitler’s barbarities in silence, as did the mass of the German populace, or oppose him by telling the outside world of his plans and abuses, and risk being branded as traitors to their country? Among the principal figures in her ensemble were Germans who met while studying at the University of Wisconsin, Greta Kuckhoff and Arvid Harnack. With spouses and friends, they were at the core of a network that worked within the Nazi bureaucracy, gathering information to smuggle out of Germany and running an underground network to publicize atrocities.
Harnack’s wife, Mildred, who had immigrated to Germany, became the only American woman to be executed by Hitler. Other dashing figures included Harro Schultze-Boysen, a communist from the early 1930s who relied on family connections to become a Luftwaffe intelligence officer. (His vivacious socialite wife, Libertas, was a favorite of Hermann Goering.) Schultze-Boysen was one of many sources who warned Moscow of the imminent German invasion in 1940, only to be ignored as circulating “British disinformation.” He, too, was eventually executed.
One dislikes faulting such a pioneering study, and especially one featuring brave persons, most of whom indeed were not communists. But Ms. Nelson goes a bit far in divorcing the entire effort from Soviet intelligence. She apparently chose to ignore the most authoritative overview of the Red Orchestra, a post-war CIA study based on interviews with veterans of the organization. She does not refer to the study in her text nor cite it in her extensive bibliography, even though a commercial reprint is readily obtainable via online used book dealers.
As the CIA history notes, “The Rote Kapelle was not, in fact, a wartime creation, but derived directly from the Soviet prewar networks in Europe.” It operated throughout Europe, not just in Germany. Rote Kapelle veterans interviewed by officers from the Army Counterintelligence Corps said the Soviets set up the organization as early as 1935 or 1936, drawing upon “specially trained and first-rate Red Army intelligence officers.” Not until 1940 did Nazi Germany become its main target. All the while, it was “the principal component of the Soviet Military IS [Intelligence Service].”
Alas, much of the Red Orchestra’s work went for naught because of Stalin’s paranoia. As the CIA study noted, “the Soviets deeply distrusted any information not supplied by their own agents through their own channels.” Horrible Soviet tradecraft — including the names of Orchestra agents in radio messages, for instance — had disastrous results. As Ms. Nelson writes of the German group, “it was hard to argue that they did any real damage to the Nazi war machine.”
But, in the end, the Soviet connection was irrelevant. The Red Orchestra resisted Hitler at a time when the rest of the world turned a blind eye [to Hitler]. Consider, for instance, the New York Times reviewer who in 1934 praised a Nazi propaganda film screened in New York as “genuinely entertaining.” Or Joseph Kennedy Jr., sent to Berlin by his London ambassador father, who reported that “the dislike of the Jews … was well-founded” because they “were at the head of big business, in law, etc.”
Greta Kuckhoff, one of the few survivors, lived on until 1981, and she wrote an autobiography. As Ms. Nelson aptly summarizes, “Greta had no time for the idle moralizing of those who waited out the regime in silence, safety, or exile. She didn’t distinguish between Communist or Socialist, Catholic or Jew. For her, the world was divided into two categories: those who took action, and those who did not.” A first-rate read.
Perhaps it is a bit premature to compare Venezuela under dictator-in-the-making Hugo Chavez as a remake of Hitler’s Germany. Nonetheless, it is disheartening to read an account of how a respectable broad-based opposition came within a hair of tossing him from office in 2002, only to fail because of awesomely stupid political decisions. After failing to seize power in an 1992 coup attempt, Chavez won a narrow presidential victory in 1998 and set about creating his “Bolivarian Revolution.”
Initially popular with persons disgusted with Venezuela’s economic plight, Chavez overreached. On one night in November 2001, he “enacted” 49 laws — without approval of the National Assembly — that radically transformed the powers of government, operations of the state-owned oil industry and land-use laws.
Concurrently, he formed a strong alliance with Cuba’s Fidel Castro and threatened to nationalize private businesses. Protest marches on the Presidential Palace in downtown Caracas increased in size and intensity, climaxing on April 11, when almost one million people filled the streets. Chavez ordered his military to disperse the crowds. Ranking officers refused, saying the people had a right to protest. But loyalist chavesista police fired, and in the end, 19 persons were dead and another 150 wounded.
Much of this carnage was captured by television cameramen, and the images outraged the nation. In a gripping minute-by-minute recounting of the crisis, drawn from extensive interviews and documentary records, Brian Nelson tells of how a stunned Chavez sought to save his neck. He telephoned his pal Castro at 1:39 a.m. He reported that he was down to 200 or 300 “exhausted men” who had withdrawn to their base in fear. (“Can I give you my honest opinion?” Castro asked. “Go ahead,” Chavez replied. Castro continued, “Lay down conditions for an honorable agreement and save the life of the men you have. Don’t sacrifice them or sacrifice yourself.” Castro suggested that Chavez come to Cuba so that, together, they could figure out how he could regain power.
Here things went horribly awry. Chavez was actually on an offshore island, awaiting a flight to Cuba, when a demagogic businessman named Pedro Carmona broke with the broad resistance coalition, declared a “coup within a popular uprising” and claimed the presidency. Rage now flowed in the opposite direction, and soon Chavez was back in power, eager for the next steps toward dictatorship.
Mr. Nelson, who lived in Venezuela as a Fulbright scholar and now teaches at the Johns Hopkins University, dashes Chavez’s loud claim that the CIA fomented the popular uprising. The CIA station in Caracas indeed informed Washington of what was brewing — an accepted intelligence function. One retired Old Boy did lament to me at the time, “Where is Allen Dulles when we needed him?” referring to the former director of central intelligence who directed coups in Iran and Guatemala. But President Bush wisely ordered the agency to stand clear of the uprising, one of his aides saying, in effect, “Let the Venezuelans carry out their own trash.”
The 2002 attempt failed. Will a more effective resistance ultimately upend Chavez’s dictatorship? Stay tuned; this saga is far from over.
• Joe Goulden is finishing a book on Cold War intelligence. His e-mail address is Joseph G894@aol.com.
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