Paltschik + Langer

Paltschik + Langer



25.3.1943


Soviet paratroopers, Achim Tristan Paltschik (25.11.1910), a German communist émigré and electrical engineer, and Karel Polak (25.11.1910), a locksmith, and Arnost Langer (1900), both of Jewish origin, were dropped in the Tilsit - Insterburg area of East Prussia. This was an intelligence group that was to operate in Moravia. Their task was to establish an intelligence network and radio link for the benefit of the Soviet GRU. The use of several persons associated with the pre-war activities of the Soviet intelligence officer Leonid Mochov was also envisaged. They were arrested shortly after the parachute jump and, after interrogation in Königsberg and Berlin, were handed over to the Gestapo in Brno for further use in the LÖWE radio counter-game. Paltschik was the resident telegrapher and telegrapher, on whom the Gestapo's interest was fully focused after he agreed to cooperate. Langer was imprisoned at Mauthausen and Moscow was reported in the first telegram that he had killed himself in a parachute jump. In prison he lived to see the end of the war. Paltschik was held in special regime detention under the code name Pelikan. He encrypted and decrypted radio correspondence with Moscow headquarters and also broadcast on his own TENSOR radio station, controlled by a German radio operator. The Gestapo's attention was mainly focused on locating a few dead boxes, mostly at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Olomouc and Přerov. They were empty and no one showed up for the appointments. Most of them were already known to the Gestapo in 1941, from the interrogation of captured Soviet paratroopers. The Gestapo's conclusion was unambiguous: Soviet intelligence was unaware of the arrest of its paratroopers, had no other connection to the area, and was attempting to revive its pre-war network. This was confirmed by checking several contact addresses given to the paratroopers in Moscow. Some of the addressees had already been arrested or executed, such as Antonin Kos from Lusatia, who was in Moscow under the code name PEPI. However, other addresses remained and were being investigated. The Gestapo did not intend to release the captured resident for field work in any case, and used for these cases the paratrooper Jan Kasík, who had been working as a confidant of MO 79 for the Gestapo in Moravská Ostrava since 1941. He now posed as Paltschik. He gradually visited Metoděj Uherk Jr. from Vacenovice, who was listed in Moscow as an O-TO-BY agent, and Zdeněk Bohuslav from Brno - Žabovřesk, who had the code name JARO. Only in his case were cases of positive cooperation found and Bohuslav was imprisoned in Mauthausen. Kasík also contacted a German citizen, Walter Reiner, a factory worker from Horní Počernice. The GRU gave him the code name ADONIS. Paltschik was shown a photograph of him in Moscow and given a postcard of a Paris hotel and US$750 returned by a certain Laurenc to contact him. Reiner responded positively, was arrested and obtained for collaboration with the Gestapo. The false agents ZACHUBA and MEMFIS were then reported to Moscow headquarters. Under instructions from GRU Moscow headquarters, the Gestapo set up several dead boxes. The first was in the central cemetery in Brno, the second in the Brno stone quarry Na Svratce, the third in the railway station in Přerov and two more were set up in Moravská Ostrava. Only these were of practical importance, because the GRU couriers from Kraków brought money and spare parts for Paltschik's radio station to them. There were several of these deliveries. The radio counter-game was conducted by a criminal employee of the Brno Gestapo, Rudolf König, until 7 May 1945, when it was terminated in Jihlava, the documentation burned, Paltschik released and included in a transport of German refugees heading for Austria.
URL : https://www.valka.cz/Paltschik-Langer-t46103#179811 Version : 0
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