Richard Sorge

The Soviet spy in Tokyo whose reporting saved Moscow in 1941

Overview

Richard Sorge ran a celebrated Soviet ring in Tokyo from the 1930s under cover of a German journalist, working inside the German embassy. He reported the exact date of the coming German invasion in 1941, a warning Moscow ignored, then confirmed that Japan intended to strike south rather than into Siberia, allowing Stalin to transfer divisions that helped save the capital. Japanese counterintelligence arrested him in late 1941 and he was hanged in 1944. The USSR honored him posthumously in 1964.