Die rote Kapelle Page #4

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Every day that the war lasts longer,

brings more suffering and casualties

Each new war day increases the

debt that we will have to pay

What can we do to show our free will?

... one must ensure that he

does what he can...

... the opposite of what this state demands of him.

There were very careful with secret address books...

... with important people in it,

names removed...

... and those people were sent letters

very carefully.

Anonymously?

-Anonymoulys, of course.

Sometimes we provided a return address

Then I put the name von Adelsheim on the back.

That brought some laughter

The members of the Red Orchestra

took a typewriter...

... Typed pamphlets on it

and put everything in envelopes.

We used gloves.

It was hard to get envelopes.

And it was difficult to put so many similar items

in a mailbox...

.. because they could be noticed

in the Post.

I took the subway to the Thiel Platz,

from the Hohenzollern Platz, where we lived.

I had a briefcase

on my lap...

... which was filled with anti-government leaflets.

For my safety no-one else

knew what i was doing

So it was not possible,

should they be arrested...

... for them to say anything incriminating

Many of them did not know anyone else other

than three, four,or five people ...

... with whom they worked.

It also happened that you could,

for no reason...

...... be searched by a group of Gestapo

... and they suddenly went searching

through all your stuff

But it was part of your approach,

to not appear worried.

You did not think:

"What can happen"?

You just thought, I need to

behave as inconspicuously as possible.

Many people who received such a pamphlet,

did not read it anyway and threw it away.

Most handed them to the Police and the Gestapo.

In the Gestapo files

we find lists of recipients...

...and Post Offices

Some investigators

worked out that it was the work of

the Red Orchestra...

...but detailed investigations by the

Gestapo, in 1942 ...

... came to nothing.

At this time, the Russian Military Intelligence

had an employee in Brussels.

There was a radio message from Moscow ...

.. in the autumn of 1941,

that he had to go to Berlin.

.. because the radio traffic between

Berlin and Moscow did not work.

In that radio message

were also the coded addresses...

... of three members of the Red Orchestra,

here in Berlin.

After the Gestapo had crushed the Brussels and Paris branches of the Orchestra in 1942 ...

... they had learnt to decipher their radio messages

It was on September 12, 1942.

It was very early in the morning and I was asleep

in the room where we children slept ...

Suddenly I heard loud voices:.

Halt. Stop, or I'll shoot

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