There are not many spies who can be said to have changed the course of history. But one who did was Richard Sorge.
Born in 1895, Sorge grew up in Germany, reaching adulthood just in time to serve in the First World War. Fighting on both fronts, he became disillusioned. Having gone into the army a nationalist, he came out a communist.
Moving in German communist circles in the early '20s, Sorge was recruited by the GRU, the Soviet military intelligence arm. He adopted the cover of a journalist, which gave him latitude to travel and ask questions.
The GRU sent him to Japan in 1933, with instructions to create a spy cell there. This was an important assignment. Japan had invaded Manchuria; they now shared a long, uneasy land border with the Soviets. Prominent Japanese voices were calling for war against the USSR. The Soviets kept a large army there to deter them. Sorge's task was to keep Moscow informed about Tokyo's intentions.
He accomplished this by building a broad network of spies and sources. One unwitting informant was the Nazi ambassador to Japan, General Eugen Ott, who came to rely on his counsel, sharing highly classified information with him. Another was Ott's wife, with whom Sorge was having an affair. Ott knew and let it pass. He valued Sorge too much to lose him.
Sorge discovered in 1941 that the Germans were planning to invade the USSR. He warned Moscow, which ignored him. Then, of course, the Germans struck.
Now locked in a life-or-death battle, Moscow worried whether the Japanese would take advantage and strike in Manchuria. Sorge told them not to worry. He had learned that Japan instead planned to push into the Pacific, against the old colonial powers and the United States. No Eastern invasion loomed.
This time, Stalin listened. The Soviet troops in the Far East were sent racing west, arriving just in time to meet the advancing Germans at the gates of Moscow. Their arrival saved the Soviet capital, and, possibly, the Soviet Union itself.
Sorge's reward was to be thrown to the winds. His spy ring was uncovered by the Japanese in late 1941. The Soviets offered nothing to get him back. He was hanged by his captors on November 7, 1944.
