Scout Nikolai Kuznetsov - killed once and slandered a hundred times

July 27 marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of one of the people belonging to the galaxy of the brightest and most extraordinary employees of the domestic special services - Nikolai Ivanovich Kuznetsov. His life path looks complicated and confusing even by the standards of the difficult fates of the "fighters of the invisible front", and his death seems like a solid ball of secrets, mysteries and contradictions that have not been unraveled to this day.

It is impossible not to mention the tragic history of the posthumous memory of this hero, whose ashes, as it happened, were buried on the territory of Ukraine, which is associated with almost all of his military exploits. Only one thing can be considered absolutely unambiguous - the outstanding contribution that Nikolai Kuznetsov made to the defeat of the most terrible enemy of our Motherland, to the Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

Scout from God

The most interesting thing is that the future Hero of the Soviet Union, holder of three Orders of Lenin, NKVD officer Nikolai Kuznetsov initially did not have the slightest reason to love Soviet power. Rather, by the standards of some of our contemporaries who have a clear "liberal-democratic" dislocation of the brain, he should have pathologically hated her. Indeed, in 1929 our hero, desperately striving for knowledge, was thrown out of the Talitsk forestry technical school with the wording "for concealing his kulak-bourgeois origin." And at the same time they were expelled from the Komsomol, which was already much more serious, since in those days it closed almost all the doors to the young man. By the way, he never received the diploma of the technical school, in which Kuznetsov eventually recovered. Nikolai got his Komsomol card back for himself - but he lost it again literally the next year, when he got involved in an extremely strange story with some postscripts in the forestry enterprise, where he got a job, having reached the Komi Republic on his travels. At the same time, there is a version that the “signal” about the outrageous situation in the “authorities” came from Kuznetsov himself, as a result of which he got off with a year of corrections, unlike other defendants in the case who got substantial prison terms.

Be that as it may, after that Kuznetsov's life went on, as they say, neither shaky nor shaky - the cities and offices in which he worked changed, but in general nothing significant seemed to happen. The positions he occupies do not at all fit with the idea of ​​a person who later became an embodied nightmare for the Nazis, who shot their generals and officers like rabbits - some sort of shopkeeper, accountant, appraiser ... However, from about the beginning of the 30s, the biography of Nikolai Kuznetsov was just and envelops the very "thick fog" through which we will have to wade, talking about his future life. The reason is simple - during this period, his cooperation with the state security authorities begins. Some of the researchers are inclined to believe that the "authorities" "took on a pencil" a guy with a heightened sense of justice even during the history of the postscripts. Personally, it seems to me more plausible a version in which the future Nazi fighter was noticed during the years of collectivization, when he took part in extremely risky affairs side by side with the OGPU employees. They were struck by Kuznetsov's incredible composure and his ability to act clearly and flawlessly in the most dangerous environment, without which any soldier of a secret war is doomed to death, and useless at that. One way or another, but very many later said about this person: "A scout from God ..."

Kuznetsov, Schmidt, Petrov, Siebert

The real biography of our hero can be written only on the basis of materials from the most secret "special depositories" of the State Security. And what kind of biography would you like to consider "real" if our hero had not even two lives, but much more? In the mid-30s, he was “working” with foreign experts at Uralmash under the pseudonym “Colonist” with might and main. In 1936 he was kicked out of the factory ... for absenteeism! And in 1938 he suddenly finds himself in a cell of the Sverdlovsk NKVD, where he spends several months. Operational combination? Someone's development? Verification within the framework of the guidance in the "order organs by Beria?" Who will say now ... In any case, in 1938 Kuznetsov was found in the apparatus of the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Komi ASSR Mikhail Zhuravlev. It is from there that his real take-off begins, and straight to the very top - to the central office of the NKVD of the USSR, to Moscow. Zhuravlev hands over the talented operative personally "from hand to hand" to the head of the Main Directorate of State Security of the NKVD Leonid Raikhman. He, having quickly considered what kind of nugget they managed to fish in a distant province, uses the newcomer with maximum efficiency. Kuznetsov receives the status of a special agent, equal to the operational operative of the central office. At that time, a career was simply incredible.

From this moment, in fact, the life of the Soviet citizen Nikolai Kuznetsov ends and his activity begins in the incarnation of Rudolf Schmidt - a German from the "colonists" who settled down quite well in the USSR. The legend turned out to be so tenacious that it subsequently leaked even into some of the scout's biographies. By the way, one of the moments that played a very important role here was Kuznetsov's absolutely exclusive possession of German. No one to this day can convincingly explain - where and how he mastered it in such perfection. Someone writes about "a smart boy who became interested in languages ​​while still in college," but this sounds somehow unconvincing. Smart, smart, but the ability to speak six (!) Main dialects existing in Germany so that even the indigenous people of the respective regions did not feel the trick? In addition, in addition to German, Kuznetsov “sparred”, as if he was a family, in Permian Komi, Polish, Ukrainian and, in addition, Esperanto. Most likely, he was simply a linguistic genius, endowed with outstanding abilities from birth and who managed to multiply them many times over by his own labor. By the way, the image of Schmidt was far from the last reincarnation of our hero. He will be destroyed by the invader under the name of Paul Siebert, and in the secret sabotage school of the NKVD he will appear under the name of Petrov. I wonder if there was also a certain Boshirov among her cadets ?!

Operative or liquidator?

A lot of controversy regarding our hero is conducted on the topic of his, so to speak, professional talents. Intelligence, pardon the banality, is a delicate and multifaceted matter, it is a mechanism consisting of many complex and most closely related "details". This is the acquisition of information, and its verification, and special operations, including those related to the elimination of enemies of the state - especially during a war. It just so happened that Nikolai Kuznetsov went down in history thanks to the latter. However, if we consider that he began working for the NKVD long before the war, then it should be admitted that he also reached considerable heights in the matter of obtaining secrets, rotating in the image of Rudolf Schmidt in the circles of German diplomats, technical and military specialists. The reincarnation was so complete that "signals" rained down on the scout in his own NKVD. By the way, even during the Great Patriotic War, having transferred to the 4th NKVD Directorate headed by the legendary Pavel Sudoplatov, which specialized primarily in "force" actions in the enemy's rear, Kuznetsov not only engaged in daring liquidation of the invaders, but also obtained the most valuable intelligence.

At least three of his reports - about the construction of Hitler's Werewolf headquarters near Vinnitsa, about the preparation of Operation Big Leap to eliminate the leaders of the Big Three in Tehran, and about the Nazis' plans for an offensive on the Kursk Bulge are already in themselves "For the title of Hero. Nevertheless, in addition to all this, acting in the guise of the chief lieutenant of the Wehrmacht Paul Siebert (at first, for greater importance, they wanted to be legendary as an officer of the Luftwaffe, but after undergoing an "internship" in a camp for German prisoners of war, they came to the conclusion that he would play a logistician more convincingly), The scout was able to personally send 11 representatives of the highest circles of the Nazi military machine, special services and the occupation authorities of the “Reichskommissariat Ukraine” and “Galicia district” to the next world. Acting as part of the special unit of the NKVD "Victors" under the leadership of Dmitry Medvedev in the "capital of the" Reichskommissariat "Exactly and, subsequently, autonomously - in Lvov, Kuznetsov inflicted fatal blows suddenly and carefully, sometimes acting on the verge of suicidal risk. The only goal that he never managed to reach was Reichskommissar of Ukraine Eric Koch, whose destruction, in fact, was the main task set before him by the "center".

Death shrouded in mystery

Alas, this fact will later become the basis for many speculations and conjectures. Some "researchers" will try to build "versions" on him that Kuznetsov and his associates, who were killed on March 9, 1944 in the village of Boratin by UPA bandits, were in fact "liquidated by order from Moscow" for failing to complete the assignment, or that even more phantasmagoric "in connection with work for Polish and British intelligence." This, of course, is complete nonsense. Regarding the possible recruiting - first of all, Kuznetsov was a patriot of his homeland of the highest standard, which he fully proved with his whole life and his own death. In addition, as I said above, the most valuable information regularly received from Kuznetsov more than compensated for his failures with Koch. And in any case, such an action would definitely not have been carried out by the hands of Bandera thugs. By the way, a fair amount of confusion in the history of the death of the intelligence officer was introduced by his military comrade-in-arms Medvedev, whose account of the tragedy was based on the "emerging" later report of the nationalists to their masters from the Abwehr. In accordance with it, Kuznetsov was captured by them and shot. However, later it turned out that the version set forth in this dispatch was a lie, as it basically was in all cases concerning the infamous "liberation organization".

People like Kuznetsov tried not to fall into the hands of either the Nazis or their servants alive. The scout blew himself up with a grenade along with the Bandera people who were trying to capture him, and this fact was later confirmed by the examination of his remains. Another thing is that the question of how the group that was leaving for the front line, led by him, ended up in a trap and why the Banderaites, as if they knew for certain who and where to look for sure, came to it with such incredible accuracy, did not receive an exhaustive answer. Some (in particular, another colleague of Kuznetsov, Nikolai Strutinsky) were inclined to see the reason for this betrayal among the underground organization Rovno, including even some of its leaders. In particular, the mysterious story of the death of two women, Lydia Lisovskaya and Maria Mikota, who played a very significant role in the activities of the Rovno underground (and, in particular, Kuznetsov himself), makes us not hastily discount this version. They were shot dead in October 1944, according to eyewitnesses, "people in Soviet military uniforms." Moreover, this happened in the process of women traveling to Moscow to be awarded the Orders of the Patriotic War. The investigation of the incident was under the personal control of Pavel Sudoplatov, but it ended in nothing. There is evidence that Lisovskaya had previously said that she had "sensational information about the work of the underground", upon the announcement of which "big heads will fly."

It so happened that the ashes of Nikolai Kuznetsov, most of the monuments dedicated to him and the settlements named in his honor after 1991 ended up on the territory of "non-existent" Ukraine. The nationalists, who felt complete freedom, began to denigrate and try to mix with dirt his bright memory back in the 90s. Memorials to the intelligence officer in Lviv and Rivne were destroyed in 1992 at their request on the grounds that Western Ukrainian "patriots" declared Kuznetsov a "terrorist" and "murderer of Ukrainians." This is for the information of those who believe that this country went crazy in 2014 ... The scandalous intelligence officer killed by the Bandera was a hundredfold slandered by their vile aftermaths. The issue of transferring the ashes of Nikolai Kuznetsov to Russia has not been resolved to this day due to the categorical refusal of the Ukrainian "authorities" to release the remains of the hated hero to their homeland.