In 1948, when the Council of Ministers of the USSR resolved that most former members of the National Committee should be repatriated, it was decided that Kurt should also be sent back to Germany, where he could work for the Soviet secret service. But Kurt’s refusal to cooperate led to his planned repatriation being rescinded. Nevertheless, the following year the decision was taken to finally release Kurt from prison, since it had been discovered he had been sentenced to death by the Nazis for his involvement with the BDO and the National Committee. The secret service report then noted: ‘In the light of this, negotiations were reopened with “Kurt” to try to get him to engage in clandestine work after his repatriation, and “Kurt” agreed to this once more. Secret passwords and methods of contacting the Soviet authorities were all agreed.’ However, Kurt had then attempted to smuggle a manuscript he had written about the Battle of Stalingrad to Germany with the help of another returnee. At the border, the book had been found and impounded. This secret report, a unique example of an appraisal of the performance of clandestine agents in the field, sums up Heinrich Gerlach’s subsequent activities and the failed attempt to bring pressure to bear on him, as follows:
In the Western zones of occupation, ‘Kurt’ wrote to a German writer, asking for his assistance in trying to retrieve his impounded book on the ‘Battle of Stalingrad’. In this letter, he cast aspersions on the glorious Soviet press organs and claimed that he had been forced to agree to work with our secret services, and that he had no intention of keeping to the agreements he’d made and so would not set foot on the territory of the GDR. It has become evident that ‘Kurt’ is a sworn enemy of our country and an agent provocateur, whom we failed to uncover until it was too late.
We have decided not to return the impounded book, because a careful reading of the contents revealed its anti-Soviet character and the lack of evidence of any anti-fascist attitudes.
It was a major failure on our part to have tried to recruit ‘Kurt’ and to have repatriated him.
This report by the Soviet secret service confirmed all of Heinrich Gerlach’s suspicions and also reveals the reason he was not repatriated until 1950. Furthermore, after reading these documents, his fear of being abducted by the Soviet secret police does not appear to be remotely unfounded.
XIII. Heinrich Gerlach’s Breakout at Stalingrad under scrutiny by the Soviet leadership –
Malenkov, Beria, Suslov, Kruglov, Grigorian, Serov and Kobulov
In Brake, Heinrich Gerlach started out by renting two rooms, with shared use of the bathroom, from a widow living at Huntestraße 6. When the summer holidays of 1951 finished, the family moved into a larger flat at Breite Straße 117. Now, at the beginning of July 1951, Gerlach began trying to interest the press in his reconstruction of his Stalingrad novel. As we have already seen, he had already embarked on his first major attempt to recall his novel at Christmas 1950, after he realized that he was never going to get his original manuscript of the work back from the Soviet Union. His attempt to get to the manuscript by approaching the interior ministry through Professor Janzen had come to nothing. Gerlach could not have known that, as of December 1950, some very high-ranking Soviet officials had begun to take a keen interest in his Stalingrad novel.
Once again, earlier secret documents show how Breakout at Stalingrad became an issue of such burning concern to the confidential intelligence community in the Soviet Union. Gerlach’s request to the Soviet Ministry of the Interior to return his manuscript had been the catalyst for a great deal of discombobulation within the Russian party and state apparatus. On 29 December 1950, the secret police chief, Lavrenti Beria, aside from Stalin and jointly with Deputy Premier Georgy Malenkov, the most important man in the political hierarchy of the USSR at the time, received a letter, which reads as follows:
TO COMRADE L.P. BERIA,
Pursuant to the order of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued on 9 December 1950, please find attached information on the content of the book written by the former Lieutenant Colonel [sic!] of the German Army H. Gerlach, ‘Breakout at Stalingrad’.
The letter was signed by Mikhail Suslov and Vagan Grigorian and dated 28 December 1950. According to the distribution list, a copy was also sent to Georgy Maximilianovitch Malenkov. This suggests that in December 1950, the entire governing elite of the USSR was concerned with Heinrich Gerlach and his Stalingrad novel. In 1950, as acting chairman of the Council of Ministers and Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Malenkov was second only to Stalin. At that time, Mikhail Andreyevitch Suslov was Secretary of the Central Committee and likewise one of the most powerful politicians in the Soviet Union. Finally, at the time of this matter involving Heinrich Gerlach, Vagan Grigorian was active in foreign affairs. From 1949 to 1953, he was the chairman of the influential Foreign Policy Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Grigorian was also the first person to deal with the issue concerning Gerlach’s novel, and commissioned a report on its contents. He then forwarded this to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Suslov. Then, in January 1951, three other leading party officials became involved in scrutinizing ‘Breakout at Stalingrad’. On 23 January, the following ‘top secret’ communication was sent to Comrade Kruglov:
As instructed by Comrade G.M. Malenkov, we are sending herewith for your information the report on the content of the book ‘Breakout at Stalingrad’ by the first lieutenant of the former German army Heinrich Gerlach.
The attached four-page report is to be returned after reading.
This letter was signed by an assistant to the Secretary of the Central Committee. It was also countersigned and dated 25.01.1951 by Ivan Serov and Amayak Kobulov. These three top functionaries – Kruglov, Serov and Kobulov – complete the cast list of Soviet officials dealing with the case of Heinrich Gerlach’s novel. Sergei Kruglov was the USSR’s interior minister, and Ivan Serov a first deputy of the Ministry of the Interior. Amayak Kobulov was, from April 1950 on, the acting head and later head of the operational directorate of GUPVI (the Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees). The fact that Ivan Serov was involved in this matter once again prompts us to speculate that Heinrich Gerlach’s fear of being abducted was thoroughly justified. After the war, Serov became second head of state security and in this capacity was civil director of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD). His duties included tracking down spies, saboteurs and other hostile elements, and neutralizing those who were opposed to the institutions that were then being put in place within the Soviet Zone of Occupation. From 1945, Serov also built up an extensive network of agents within the Zone.