An Impeccable Spy

October 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.

October 15, 2019
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.

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Starred review from November 1, 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

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