Psychiatrist
A Lies and Detection Episode
Featuring an interview with Soviet Spymaster, Leopold Trepper
Jonas Chartogaro is the pseudonym of a recently retired Federal Agent. During his career, he served as a government polygraph examiner with over 25 years of experience. Prior to his Federal service, he worked as a New York police officer, investigating arsons, robberies, and murders. He possesses a Masters degree in American History and now teaches Cryptologic Security at a regional university.
Appaloosa Radio offers stories from his docudrama series LIES and DETECTION. He uses his skills to interview historical people to determine the truth and expose lies. In this mini-series, Jonas interviews Leopold Trepper.
Leopold Trepper was the so-called “Big Chief” of the extremely successful ‘Red Orchestra” network of Soviet spies which operated in Nazi occupied countries during World War II. At its height, Trepper’s “Red Orchestra” group of spy networks operated in Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, England, and the Netherlands. Hitler regarded the “Red Orchestra” as his principal clandestine threat and assigned an elite group of senior counter-espionage agents (i.e., the Special Detachment for Red Orchestra) to track down and eradicate it.
The ”Red Orchestra” network was only broken by turncoats from within. Of the nearly 300 agents that Leopold Trepper controlled, only 63 survived the War. The others were captured, tortured, and murdered. Nonetheless, the “Red Orchestra “conducted many of the boldest clandestine missions of the War.
Trepper reported that the “Red Orchestra” was able to complete nearly 3,000 coded radio transmissions to Moscow, of which only about 250 were ever decoded by the German code-breaking teams.
The name “Red Orchestra” was a name applied to the spy networks by German counter-espionage agents. They chose the name because they learned that Trepper’s spies called their radio operators “pianists.”
Interview based on:
Leopold Trepper. The Great Game. McGraw-Hill, 1977.