Talk:Richard Sorge

Background discussion

So sorry there's no discussion on this item. The story of Sorge is just one of many thousands of fates of Stalin's era but this by a flick of chance became known widely. (If you don't aware of how this happened - Nikita S. Khrushchyov once saw a French movie of the Sorge group - because one of his guy was a French - and he - Mr. Commie General - was very much astonished because even he was unfamiliar with such name.He quired his KGB brass, they said this was not their field so he switched to his Soviet Army Headquarters Intelligence Dept. (GRU - the 2nd General Dept. of the HQ) and they confirmed: "Yes, Sir! There was such intelligence battle station (non-legal,as this is called in Russian) "Ramzai" in Tokyo before WWII,uncovered by the police, all arrested, sent to trial etc. So puzzled and surprized Maiz Disseminator awarded The Ramzai with the medal "The Hero of The Soviet Union" with the "Order of Lenin" - the highest both military/civil honor in the former USSR.).

Here we encounter with a problem unseen at first sight. What for? What he was praised for?

--This: "Before the battle for Moscow, Sorge transmitted information that Japan was not going to attack Soviet Union in the East. This information allowed Georgy Zhukov to redeploy Siberian troops for the defense of Moscow." seems worthy of high praise, don't you think?

Official Soviet propoganda claimed that Sorge's battle group was operating on the territory of the sovereign foreign state (the Japanese Empire) just with the peaceful intentions to prevent the war between the USSR and Germany so, in other words, their its activity was not aimed at Japan but against the third party - Fascism.

Good'n'clever so far. If only this would not be a lie!

Does anyone have the citation for the award to Sorge of the decorations "The Hero of The Soviet Union" with the "Order of Lenin"?--Marktunstill 17:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

This is not really a lie. It appears in the documents remaining in Japan from the interrogation of Sorge. It is what he claimed, and his defense. He was claiming that the information retrieved were general knowledge to the Japanese public. It was his only chance of escaping. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dorum (talk • contribs) 11:39, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Movie Content?

anyone knows the content of the 1960 movie "who are you, Dr. Sorge ?" ? ... also published as a book in Germany.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055350/ says it is a 1961 production written by Hans-Otto Meissner. Dr Meissner became Third Secretary at the German embassy in Tokyo in 1936 according to Target Tokyo The Story of the Sorge Spy Ring by Gordon Prange with Donald M Goldstein and Katherine V Dillon.--Marktunstill 17:49, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

---

Question for any Dr. Sorge experts: I am presently working on a list of members of the Sorge ring. Two questions: (1) What would be considered the proper name of the "Sorge ring", and (2) what names could all be included. (I have four thus far). Thank you. nobs 15:49, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

---

What about including the title as "honorary Hero of the Soviet Union" in the intro with journalist, etc. It is, after all, very unusual in any society for a lowly covert spy to recieve such high recognition. Nobs01 16:35, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps, at least I should agree. BTW, he was not unique to be awarded this title. Some other Soviet agents did, e.g.: L.Manevich, I.Kudrya, K.Vaupshasov. Cmapm 18:41, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Likewise in the Whittaker Chambers article, his Presidential Medal of Freedom award is at the bottom of the page. Incredibly high honor for someone who at one time betrayed his own country. Perhaps we can work out a uniform format for all these articles. Nobs01 18:51, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I would defend such things to be on top only for rare/unusual cases, like these two ones. General policy in Wiki, as I understand, is to place awards and honors after the main content, and I think it's reasonable. Cmapm 19:47, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Also, what about putting Sorge in [Category:German journalists], that would link him with Hede Massing, who evidently met him & wrote about him. Nobs01 21:14, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely. I thought, that either a [Category:German journalists] or [Category:Journalists] was already added into the article. I have a book mostly with articles, which he wrote for German newspapers about Japan. I can say, that in my view, he was a very talented journalist. I'll add the category right now. Cmapm 23:31, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Agnes Smedley

Please note Agnes Smedley is not written into the narrative yet. Thank you. nobs 18:54, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

For purposes of guilt by association, I presume.--Jack Upland (talk) 10:54, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

KGB or GRU

The intro and the closing "conspiracy theory" section" says Sorge worked for the KGB & "continuned to work for the KGB"; the body of the text says he was transferred to GRU in 1930. This needs to be clarified. nobs 01:17, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

• Sorge worked for the Red Army's Fourth Department (Intelligence) from 1929 onward. --Marktunstill 01:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Dates

How Sorge could transmit information related with Stalingrad siege if he was arrested in 1941? :-)--Nixer 14:04, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
That's the job of the spy, isn't it to find out the information about what is about to take place. He also predicted the invasion by Germans of the USSR (Operation Barbarossa).

Uncle or grandfather?

His uncle had been a secretary for Karl Marx.

Uncle or grandfather? --Morpheios Melas 07:29, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I can confirm it was his Uncle, despite Sorge himself thought it was is grandfather, but he made the same mistake as most investigators did. 81.243.161.236 20:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I read version that it was "brother of grandfather" in rusian it named "двоюродный дед" ("брат деда", или "дядя отца"). In english it "grand uncle" ("great uncle") or not?--Morpheios Melas 11:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

In English it's "great uncle", yes. Not "grand uncle". Binabik80 (talk) 22:12, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Prange's book

I've reffed Gordon Prange's book; 550 pages but very readable. If read with Whybrant's book, the English-speaking novice will find out all the grey areas.Stamboul 12:48, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Ph.D. contradiction

The article says, "In 1920 he graduated with a Ph.D. in political science." in Richard Sorge#Early_life. Later, in Richard Sorge#Posthumous_comment_and_analyses, it says, "However, Sorge never studied for a doctorate." Obviously there is a contradiction here, but I do not know which is true so I cannot correct it. --Danny Rathjens 15:24, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

In Target Tokyo The Story of the Sorge Spy Ring by Gordon Prange with Donald M Goldstein and Katherine V Dillon, the Chronology in the Appendix records "August 1919 Sorge receives Ph.D. in political science at University of Hamburg."--Marktunstill 17:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Survived by his mother, still living in Germany?

"Sorge was survived by his mother, still living in Germany." That's very bad wording. How could his mother be still alive if he was born in 1895? --193.6.17.39 (talk) 12:46, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible source for the information supplied concerning the launch date of Operation Barbarossa

"[...] Sorge alerte: « 170 divisions allemandes massées sur frontière soviétique attaqueront sur ensemble frontière le 21 juin - STOP - Direction effort principal Moscou. » [...] Churchill, « Lucie », Sorge, etc. Staline n'a cure de ces mises en garde. Aucune ordre, aucune directive ne mettront l'Armée rouge en état d'alerte. Partout, elle sera surprise par Barbarossa.

MONTAGNON, Pierre. La Grande Histoire de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (Volume II) De l'Armistice à la Guerre du Désert, pg. 306-307. Plastic Racoon (talk) 01:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

How did Sorge send info about Battle of Stalingrad if he was in prison at the time?

Battle of Stalingrad began in July of 1942. Sorge was arrested in October of 1941. That was during the Battle of Moscow, around the time when it was widely believed that Moscow will fall and hence any war in the south would be a non-issue. So how exactly could Sorge say find out and transmit any useful info about Stalingrad-related events if at the time (in 1942) he was in Japanese prison? 76.24.104.52 (talk) 07:27, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I can't believe I missed noticing that nonsense. Time for some editing. Whyman's very good book on Sorge mentions Stalingrad solely as follows: "Sorge's joy was boundless on the day in November 1942 when he heard of the Soviet counter-offensive at Stalingrad. This, he perceived, put paid to Hitler's hopes of vanquishing Russia." - Salmanazar (talk) 13:57, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Removal of "Conspiracy Theory" section

In reading this article, I came across this text at the bottom, under the heading "Conspiracy Theory":

An interesting but rather little-known conspiracy theory of the Cold War held that Richard Sorge had only been "mock-executed" by the Japanese and had actually been returned to the Soviet Union where he continued to work for the KGB. Though many mysteries of the Cold War have been solved since the fall of communism in the USSR, no proof of this theory has emerged. In one of his novels, M.E. Chaber (pen-name of Ken Crossen), an American writer who penned the Milo March detective series, has his hero meet an unnamed Russian master-spy who, the book hints, is none other than Richard Sorge.

So basically, this is a conspiracy theory that is "interesting" (to whom?), but without any proof whatsoever, and seems to be only notable in that it was used as a minor plot device in a spy novel. I can't see any reason why this should be included here beyond possibly mentioning that he's been popular as a fictionalized character in spy novels. Certainly, the reprinting of an already admittedly "little-known" crank conspiracy theory in a biographical article is totally inappropriate. siafu (talk) 23:24, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

External links modified

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Father's dates

@Charles01: Regarding your edit where your edit summary says:

I never understood why you removed Dad's dates. If your father is 43 when you're born you are a different person from the person you would be if he was 23. Ditto if he dies when you're 12 rather than when you're 2 or 20 or 40. It's all part of you. Or am I missing something obvious?

I am fine with your restoring both birth and death dates. Originally it just had "(d. 1907)", which makes it like an incident that is part of the chronology of Richard's life, and based on where it is in the text that date makes the chronology confusing. So I removed it and said in my edit summary that restoring his life was fine, as you have. By giving the full length of his life, it's not so confusing.

In summary, I'm fine with your edit and the issue is settled unless other editors have different ideas.

While I have your attention, I did create a Wikipedia article for his father (Gustav Wilhelm Richard Sorge) based on the German article and information and sources from this article. If you would like to help me improve that article, and look for any errors I might have made, please come on by. Do you speak German? I studied German 4-5+ years, but at times I still have trouble deciphering the exact meaning of the German writings.

I have one more question below about sources. --David Tornheim (talk) 18:53, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Sources

(1) The first line of Richard Sorge's early life reads:

Sorge was born on October 4, 1895 in the settlement of Sabunchi, a suburb of Baku, Baku Governorate of the Russian Empire (modern Azerbaijan).

References

Those sources don't look great. My feeling is they probably are not reliable--although I have not checked carefully into them. Maybe we can do better. Thoughts on this?

(2) A significant number of the sources (especially in Richard's early life) are books and quotes (Richard_Sorge#References). With regard to the father (Gustav Wilhelm Richard Sorge), much of the material from the father's German article (copied here to the English article) doesn't attribute which source goes with each line. And, unfortunately, I don't have those books. It would be nice to be able to look at the source text that is cited and/or provide additional sources that can be read online that have the same information. It's hard to verify the information is accurate if you don't have easy access to the source material. Any help with either would be appreciated. Anyone who speaks German is a plus. I have studied it 4-5+ years.

--David Tornheim (talk) 19:05, 1 May 2019 (UTC) [revised for clarity and wikilinks 19:18, 1 May 2019 (UTC)]

Noted. And no further questions. I already noticed and took a look at the entry you started on his father - thank you - and I may well, since you mention it, take a longer look in the future. Though it can become a little bit complicated if two (or more) people set about "improving" the same entry simultaneously. Do I speak German? Well, my mother tongue is English, but I have lived in Germany for a bit and my wife is Dutch, so I cannot plead complete ignorance of that family of languages and dialects. But no, I don't find it so easy. At university (in England) I took a paper which involved being sent to the University Library to read German government cabinet minutes from the 1920s. Nope, not an easy language unless you grew up in it! Especially the more formal variants. But there is quite often a propensity to know the rules of the language and follow them. In that way, it can be more relaxing than the anarchic way we do English! Charles01 (talk) 19:12, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

@Charles01: Thanks. Yes, I know what you mean about having two people work simultaneously on an article. You could always just make comments on the talk page, and I'll look for them. Or put a current copy of the article in some draft space and then work on the draft, and I can take a look and tell you what I think. It's hard for me to predict how long I will stay actively interested in the Sorge articles. As long as editor's like yourself are actively showing interest, commenting or making changes, I'll try to stay in contact, review work, and want to discuss possible changes and improvements, and maybe even do some more research. But if others lose interest, I eventually I will too. Hard to know. If a week goes by and I don't edit on any of the Sorge articles, that probably means I won't get back to them again until it comes up again on my watchlist or an editor pings me. If you prefer to wait to make changes until I have reduced editing, that's fine with me. Whatever is easier for you. I'm not expecting we'll be stepping on each other's toes. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:03, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

As for German, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Knowing the grammar certainly is a huge benefit. The hard part for me is seeing words whose definition I do not know. For example, this article says Die warmherzige Mutter bedauerte ihre Internatssprößlinge innig. Google translate says that means The warm-hearted mother sincerely regretted her boarding-school sprouts. I suspect "linge" does not mean "sprouts" in that context. :) I have asked my German friends what Internatssprößlinge means. You have any idea?

I was equally amused by this translation from the same article It was later to betray his fatherland, but in favor of his motherland. Took a second to figure out what the original was saying. My translation: Sorge's spying had the effect of betraying his father's nationalism and loyalty towards Germany, but not his and his mother's birthplace of Azerbaijan or something along those lines. However, the sentence fails to address that Sorge's apparent loyalty was less towards nation-states (especially the imperialism and racism of the temporary controlling leadership of Nazi Germany), but instead towards international communism. Pretty bad sentence original and translation, but interesting nonetheless for its clever construction using Vaterland and Mutterland that is somewhat poetic. :) --David Tornheim (talk) 20:03, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Yikes, you wrote more while I was looking the other way. I'm afraid I depend, for the most part, on google for sources. But google is a devious little bleeper. He won't necessarily show me the same "hits" that he shows you. Anyway, I'll happily click around in a day or so and see if I come up with anything. Regards Charles01 (talk) 19:12, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Sorry. LOL.  :) I have the feeling the sources in the article are better than what Google will provide, but I haven't really hunkered down to check thoroughly. If you do, please tell me what you find, even the sources that at first look promising and you decide have problems. It will help us not have to duplicate the same search for good sources.

I do have the feeling there are some historians and/or experts on the Sorge's who have edited some of these articles, and it would be lovely to hear from them.

Regardless, thanks again for your interest in the Sorge article. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:03, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Agreed ... probably. I googled round a bit last night and several of the less unpromising hits were in Russian. Which alas gives me practical problems. Though google translate deals better with Russian than it used to. Experts on Richard Sorge, whether on wiki-en or wiki-de, might indeed have come across more stuff on Gustav Wilhelm Richard Sorge than has yet made it to wikipedia. (As you maybe noticed already, the Russian article on Richard Sorge (Рихард [Густавович] Зорге / Richard Gustavovich Sorge) simply - till now - links his father's name to the entry in German wikipedia which we know about! This does risk getting unhelpfully circular.) Otherwise we're back to experts/sources on the nineteenth century history of coal mining who are, I suspect, shamefully rare among English-language wiki-contributors and, maybe, scholars more generally. Hmmmm Charles01 (talk) 05:35, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Trials

The WP:LEDE mentions a trial, and there is a section Arrests and Trials. However, there is no mention of any trial(s) in the actual text of the WP:BODY. In the Comments about Sorge section, one quote comes from "Mitsusada Yoshikawa, Chief Prosecutor in the Sorge trials who obtained Sorge's death sentence." So I think it safe to say there was at least one trial. It would helpful to have more text on that--with WP:RS of course. The same paragraph of the WP:LEDE that mentions a trial also mentions one count of espionage. Is it just one? One cannot really tell what exactly he was formally charged with in the body either. --David Tornheim (talk) 07:47, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Good point - and nearly 2½ years later (and a time when many people have had unlimited free time to search, read and contribute because of the pandemic), there is STILL not a word about the contents of any trial, even in the section named "Arrests and trial"! ^_^ I figure no doubt the trial was held behind locked doors, but it's still an amazing omission in such a high-profile article about a legendary master spy. We can safely assume that there was some kind of trial and a proper death sentence, the guy didn't just "disappear". 188.150.64.57 (talk) 21:10, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Intro

The introductory section veered off into details, and debate about those details, which are more appropriately covered in section 2.4 of the article:

Various writers have speculated that this information allowed Stalin to transfer 18 divisions, 1,700 tanks, and over 1,500 aircraft from Siberia and the Far East to the Western Front against the western Axis Powers during the Battle for Moscow. However, Soviet code-breakers had broken the Japanese diplomatic codes, and Moscow already knew from signals intelligence that there would be no Japanese attack on the Soviet Union in 1941.

Then there's this seemingly tacked on information about something else entirely, which is no where mentioned in the main article:

While his message and the decoding of the Japanese diplomatic codes may have facilitated the Soviets knowing Japan's intentions, Richard Sorge can still be credited for his spy ring which helped an American, James "Jack" Turner Stephens, Jr., conduct a phone call between Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt. Jack was sent to facilitate the connection between the United States and directly to Soviet telephone networks. This was the only secure passage for a phone call for Roosevelt to talk directly to Stalin without having to cross Nazi Europe. It was this phone call that Roosevelt gave Stalin his bond allowing for Stalin to move his divisions from Siberia to rescue Moscow from German forces.

I removed both these from the Intro.

- - Zulu Kane (talk) 04:33, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Награды Зорге

Просьба сведущим исправить полнейшую белиберду, записанную как награды Рихарда Зорге. 95.31.164.29 (talk) 17:38, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Награды Зорге

Просьба сведущим исправить полнейшую белиберду, записанную как награды Рихарда Зорге. 95.31.164.29 (talk) 17:39, 29 May 2022 (UTC)