Basile Maximovitch

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Basile Maximovitch (2 July 1902 in Chernigov, 6 July 1944 in Plötzensee Prison, Berlin) was Russian aristocrat and civil mining engineer. He became a Soviet agent by choice and subsequently became an important member of the Red Orchestra organisation in France during World War II.[1] Maximovitch was the son of a Cavalry officer Baron Maximovitch, who held the rank of General, on the staff of Imperial Russian Army.[2]

Life[]

Maximovitch was a Russian émigré who left Russia with his sister Anna Maximovitch in 1922 to escape the Russian Revolution. He arrived via Constantinople to settle in Paris, France.[3][a] In Paris, the couple received help from Auxiliary bishop Emanuel-Anatole-Raphaël Chaptal de Chanteloup, who helped Maximovitch to train as civil engineer and enter the Lycée Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague as a teacher.[2] Through Chaptal, Maximovitch developed extensive connections with white émigré communities in Paris and abroad.[2]

On 31 May 1940, he was interned as a foreign suspect at Camp Vernet.[2][4] He became an interpreter for the German officer in charge, Wehrmacht colonel Hans Kuprian, who was on a committee that processed prisoners from the Vichy government for slave labour after the French armistice. He released Maximovitch in August 1940.[4] In prison, Maximovitch met Belarusian Samuel Erlik, who had links to Soviet Intelligence[2] and was encourage to recruit Maximovitch by the Soviet embassy.[5] Maximovitch became an informer out of a belief in Russian Nationalism and no love for the Soviet Regime or communism.[2]

Maximovitch had an affair with Margarete Hoffman-Scholz, secretary to Kuprian, and a niece to General Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel, military commander of Paris;[6] At the time, von Stülpnagel was Commander of Greater Paris and this gave Maximovitch access to intelligence that came from the German High Command.[1] Maximovitch help to steer Hoffman-Scholz through a number of different jobs in German agencies that enabled Maximovitch to access different types of intelligence.[7]

In November 1940, Maximovitch was introduced to Leopold Trepper, by a member of the French Communist Party.[8] At the time, Trepper was the technical director of a Soviet Red Army Intelligence unit in western Europe. Both Basil and Anna became very important to Trepper.[1] Maximovitch ran the 3rd network of Trepper's 7 networks in Europe, supplying intelligence garnered from White Russians emigrant groups as well as from groups in the German Wehrmacht.[9]

Arrest[]

Maximovitch was arrested with his sister on 12 December 1942[10] at 14 rue Émile Zola in Choisy-le-Roi[2] by French police and taken to be interrogated at Rue des Saussaies by members of the Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle, a special Gestapo and Abwehr commission establish to track down members of the Red Orchestra in France, Belgium and Low Countries.[11][12] When the interrogation was complete, then were sent to Fresnes Prison.[2] A trial was held on 8 March 1943 at 62-64 Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré by Luftwaffe Judge Manfred Roeder where he was sentenced to death by decapitation.[2] Along with his sister he was taken to Plötzensee Prison where he was executed on 6 July 1943. His sister was executed almost a year early on 20 July 1942.[2]

Bibliography[]

  • Langeois, Christian (2017). Les chants d'honneur : de la Chorale populaire à l'Orchestre rouge, Suzanne Cointe (1905-1943) (in French). Paris: Cherche midi. ISBN 9782749150697. OCLC 982018539.

Notes[]

  1. ^ Perrault refers to Basile Maximovitch as Vasili Maximovitch. Basile or Basile corresponds to the Russian name of Vasili.

References[]

  1. ^ a b c Kesaris, Paul. L, ed. (1979). The Rote Kapelle: the CIA's history of Soviet intelligence and espionage networks in Western Europe, 1936-1945. Washington DC: University Publications of America. p. 315. ISBN 0-89093-203-4.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pennetier, Annie (28 February 2021). "MAXIMOVITCH (de) Basile, dit Vassili , dit Professeur". Fusillés/Editions de l'Atelie (in French). University of Paris, Center for Social History of the 20th Century. Retrieved 5 October 2021.
  3. ^ Perrault, Gilles (1969). The Red Orchestra. New York: Schocken Books. pp. 171–172. ISBN 0805209522.
  4. ^ a b Perrault, Gilles (1969). The Red Orchestra. New York: Schocken Books. p. 174. ISBN 0805209522.
  5. ^ Bourgeois, Guillaume (24 September 2015). La véritable histoire de l'orchestre rouge (in French). Nouveau Monde Editions. p. 231. ISBN 978-2-36942-069-9. Retrieved 5 October 2021.
  6. ^ Perrault, Gilles (1969). The Red Orchestra. New York: Schocken Books. pp. 177–179. ISBN 0805209522.
  7. ^ Perrault, Gilles (1969). The Red Orchestra. New York: Schocken Books. p. 178. ISBN 0805209522.
  8. ^ Perrault, Gilles (1969). The Red Orchestra. New York: Schocken Books. p. 175. ISBN 0805209522.
  9. ^ Kesaris, Paul. L, ed. (1979). The Rote Kapelle: the CIA's history of Soviet intelligence and espionage networks in Western Europe, 1936-1945. Washington DC: University Publications of America. p. 89. ISBN 0-89093-203-4.
  10. ^ Kesaris, Paul. L, ed. (1979). The Rote Kapelle: the CIA's history of Soviet intelligence and espionage networks in Western Europe, 1936-1945. Washington DC: University Publications of America. p. 316. ISBN 0-89093-203-4.
  11. ^ Shareen Blair Brysac (12 October 2000). Resisting Hitler : Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra: Mildred Harnack and the Red Orchestra. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 441. ISBN 978-0-19-531353-6. Retrieved 6 October 2021.
  12. ^ Richard Breitman; Norman J. W. Goda; Timothy Naftali; Robert Wolfe (4 April 2005). U.S. Intelligence and the Nazis. Cambridge University Press. p. 310. ISBN 978-0-521-61794-9. Retrieved 6 October 2021.
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