An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin's Master Agent

by Owen Matthews

Overview

SHORTLISTED FOR THE PUSHKIN HOUSE PRIZE

'The most formidable spy in history' IAN FLEMING
'His work was impeccable' KIM PHILBY
'The spy to end spies' JOHN LE CARRÉ

Born of a German father and a Russian mother, Richard Sorge moved in a world of shifting alliances and infinite possibility. In the years leading up to and during the Second World War, he became a fanatical communist – and the Soviet Union's most formidable spy.

Combining charm with ruthless manipulation, he infiltrated and influenced the highest echelons of German, Chinese and Japanese society. His intelligence proved pivotal to the Soviet counter-offensive in the Battle of Moscow, which in turn determined the outcome of the war itself.

Drawing on a wealth of declassified Soviet archives, this is a major biography of one of the greatest spies who ever lived.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781408857809
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	03/21/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	448
Sales rank:	952,105
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Owen Matthews studied Modern History at Oxford University before beginning his career as a journalist in Bosnia. He has written for the Moscow Times, The Times, the Spectator and the Independent. In 1997, he became a correspondent at Newsweek magazine in Moscow where he covered the second Chechen war, Afghanistan, Iraq and the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. His first book on Russian history, Stalin's Children, was translated into twenty-eight languages and shortlisted for The Guardian First Books Award and France's Prix Médicis.
Owen Matthews studied Modern History at Oxford University before beginning his career as a journalist in Bosnia. He has written for the Moscow Times, The Times, the Spectator and the Independent. In 1997, he became a correspondent at Newsweek magazine in Moscow where he covered the second Chechen war, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. His first book on Russian history, Stalin's Children, was translated into 28 languages and shortlisted for The Guardian First Books Award and France's Prix Medicis.
Owen's first book on Russian history was Stalin's Children, a family memoir, which was published to great critical acclaim in 2008. The book was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Orwell Prize for political writing, and selected as one of the Books of the Year by the Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator. It has been translated into twenty-eight languages and was shortlisted for France's Medici Prize and French Elle Magazine's Grand Prix Litteraire, as well as being selected as one of the FNAC chain's twenty featured titles for the Rentree Litteraire of 2009.

Owen is currently a contributing editor for Newsweek magazine, based in Istanbul and Moscow.

Table of Contents

Prologue: 'Siberians!' vii

Introduction 1

1 'From the Schoolhouse to the Slaughter Block' 9

2 Among the Revolutionaries 19

3 'A Fanatic Riff-Raff from a Ruined Century' 33

4 Shanghai Days 49

5 The Manchurian Incident 73

6 Have You Considered Tokyo? 93

7 The Spy Ring Forms 103

8 At Home with the Otts 119

9 Moscow 1935 139

10 Hanako and Clausen 151

11 Bloodbath in Moscow 171

12 Lyushkov 187

13 Nomonhan 201

14 Ribbentrop-Molotov 215

15 Attack Singapore! 229

16 The Butcher of Warsaw 247

17 Barbarossa Takes Shape 263

18 'They Did Not Believe Us' 277

19 Plan North or Plan South? 291

20 Breaking Point 313

21 'The Greatest Man I Have Ever Met' 337

Notes 353

Select Bibliography 406

Acknowledgements 417

Picture Credits 419

Index 423

Editorial Reviews

★ 11/01/2019

Richard Sorge (1895–1944) lived an extraordinary life at the forefront of the 20th century's great events. Born in present-day Azerbaijan to a German Russian family, Sorge served as a Soviet military intelligence officer before and during World War II, working undercover as a German journalist in Nazi Germany and Japan. Matthews (Stalin's Children) describes Sorge's risk-filled life of affairs, motorcycle races, and careless drinking. The carnage of World War I transformed Sorge's political beliefs and persuaded him to become a devoted Communist. This ultimately fueled his willingness to commit espionage in the service of the Soviet Union. The Soviets used Sorge's German background to have him spy within German expat circles first in China and then in Japan in the 1930s and 1940s. Sorge gained the trust of the German Embassy in Tokyo and got intel on the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Matthews expertly tells the story of one of the world's most decorated spies, who has been recognized posthumously decades after his execution in Tokyo. VERDICT A remarkable work about a complicated and relatively unknown individual. Highly recommended as a valuable contribution to Soviet spy literature and 20th-century history.—Jacob Sherman, John Peace Lib., Univ. of Texas at San Antonio

Library Journal

10/14/2019

Former war correspondent Matthews (Stalin’s Children) examines Soviet spymaster Richard Sorge in this vivid biography. Born in 1895 in Baku, Russia, (now Azerbaijan) to a Russian mother and German father, Sorge fought for the German Imperial Army in WWI. After the war, he joined the German Communist Party and made his way to Moscow, where he was recruited by the Red Army’s intelligence agency. He was sent back to Germany to spy on the Nazi Party, and then worked undercover in Shanghai as a foreign newspaper correspondent. Arriving in Tokyo in 1933, he infiltrated Japan’s military and political elite, forming a spy ring of communist sympathizers. His insights into Japan were valued by the German ambassador to Tokyo, who made the spy privy to Nazi plans. Sorge gave Moscow early notice that Hitler would betray the 1939 nonaggression pact he signed with the Soviet Union, and sent messages warning that Germany would invade Russia. Stalin dismissed those missives, however, and Sorge, according to Matthews, spiraled into alcoholism and engaged in such risky behavior as sleeping with the German ambassador’s wife. Arrested by Japanese police in October 1941, Sorge confessed under torture and was hanged. His intelligence proved crucial in the Soviet victory at the Battle of Moscow, however. This exhaustive, crisply written portrait of “one of the greatest spies who ever lived” will fascinate espionage fans. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

"this impressive biography has uncovered the loneliness and turmoil of Sorge’s inner life and widened our understanding of one of the most important — yet least known — Soviet spies." - The New York Times

“A remarkable work about a complicated and relatively unknown individual. Highly recommended as a valuable contribution to Soviet spy literature and 20th-century history.” —Library Journal, Starred Review

“[A] vivid biography… This exhaustive, crisply written portrait of “one of the greatest spies who ever lived” will fascinate espionage fans.” —Publishers Weekly

“A superb biography … Alive to Sorge's human flaws as much as to his professional competence, and with a salutary vein of anger running through it … More than a hundred books have been written about him and this is undoubtedly the best: detailed, wry, sympathetic and occasionally oddly moving” —Ben Macintyre, The Times

“A fascinating biography ... Owen Matthews tells the story of Sorge's extraordinary life with tremendous verve and expertise and a real talent for mise en scène. Shanghai in the 1930s and prewar Tokyo, Sorge's stamping grounds, come vividly alive in these pages and the portrait of Sorge himself that emerges is richly authentic” —William Boyd, New Statesman

“Fans of Alan Furst and similar authors will find this true-espionage story fascinating.” —Kirkus Reviews

"Matthews skillfully combines solid research in Japanese, German, and Soviet archives with a novelistic writing style to offer a gripping and at times astonishing biography of Soviet spy Richard Sorge." - Choice

“Magnificently written … An Impeccable Spy is packed with humour and insight and all served up with a rare lightness of touch … Ben Macintyre and John le Carré fans alike will find themselves very much at home” —Oliver Bullough, Observer

“Brilliant ... A clear-eyed, deeply researched and finely-judged portrait” —Saul David, Telegraph

“Gloriously readable… Every chapter of Matthews's superbly researched biography reads like something from an Eric Ambler thriller.” —Sunday Times

“A vividly told story, thoroughly researched and well-crafted … I love a thrilling spy story, especially one as superbly narrated as this, full of Bond-like drama about Sorge's brushes with death, his love of fast cars and women.” —The Financial Times

“Sorge's career trajectory makes An Impeccable Spy a solid introduction to the political turmoil gripping much of the world at the time … Matthews does an admirable job trying to peel back his mask … Sorge was a complicated man but an undeniably excellent spy.” —Shelf Awareness

From the Publisher

2019-09-24
The life of a master secret agent who, unique among modern spies, infiltrated the highest echelons of both the German and Japanese governments during World War II.

Journalist and historian Matthews (Stalin's Children: Three Generations of Love, War, and Survival, 2008) might be suspected of irony with his title, taken from an observation by the traitor Kim Philby, for though John le Carré considered Richard Sorge (1895-1944) "the spy to end spies," he was sometimes dangerously undisciplined. He praised Stalin in a room full of Nazis, got drunk in a Tokyo bar and called Hitler "a fucking criminal," and, while working in the German Embassy in Japan, loudly predicted that Germany would lose World War II. Born in the frontier town of Baku but raised in Germany, he served in the trenches on the Eastern Front, where he was converted to communism. Good with languages and charismatic, he became a spy for the Soviet Union, working in China and then Japan. His reports to his Soviet spymasters were not always believed, though they were accurate and full of dire warning. The spy ring that he put together in Tokyo had access to the highest levels of both Japanese and German intelligence. One key question centered on whether Japan would join with Germany to attack the Soviet Union; Japan concentrated its efforts on controlling Southeast Asia instead, as Sorge predicted, which allowed Stalin to free up thousands of tanks and planes and many divisions of troops to fight against the Germans. Eventually, Sorge slipped up and was imprisoned and executed. Matthews dismisses the long-held conspiracy theory that Sorge and the Soviets knew of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor before it happened. As he writes, although the Soviets benefited greatly from the work of Sorge, whom he calls "brave, brilliant, and relentless," Sorge was in danger of being forgotten in the post-Stalin era until he was "rehabilitated" under Khrushchev and elevated to the "official pantheon of Soviet saints."

Fans of Alan Furst and similar authors will find this true-espionage story fascinating.

Kirkus Reviews