Found an abandoned German intelligence school in the forest. #89
Excursions in Kaliningrad and the Kaliningrad region 8-90-22-50-44-08
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Hello friends. With this review I will tell you about one very interesting place where spies were previously trained to fight against the Soviet Union.
By the beginning of World War II, an intelligence school was organized in the area of the village of Domnau. After the successful summer offensive of the Soviet army in 1943, anticipating the further retreat of the Germans from the territory of the Soviet Union, the Abwehr decided to introduce qualified spies in advance in the occupied territory, trained from local residents who could disguise themselves well and successfully carry out the task of German intelligence to collect and transmit spy information about the Red Army. The school recruited mainly prisoners of war, as well as Belarusians, Ukrainians, Latvians and Lithuanians from members of nationalist organizations. The recruitment and preliminary screening of agents for the school was carried out by recruiters from local leaders of nationalist organizations. The agents were taught how to cross the front line, how to behave in the rear when carrying out a task, and in the event of detention, what to do during interrogations and in places of detention. The agents were instructed that it was necessary to offer armed resistance when detained, and to commit suicide in a hopeless situation. If captured, under no circumstances should they confess to involvement in German intelligence. In the event of offers to re-recruit, they were to agree, and upon returning, they were to report this. The spies studied the structure of the organization of military units of the Soviet army, insignia, the basics of topography, i.e. the ability to use a map, navigate the terrain with a compass, determine distances, and draw a schematic map from memory. They also underwent marksmanship, physical, tactical, and drill training. In addition to the general discipline of intelligence or sabotage schools, radio operators studied radio operations, the ability to work on a key by ear, the rules for establishing contact with an intelligence center, and methods of encryption and decryption of radiograms. A radio operator was considered trained if he could receive and transmit 70 characters per minute without errors. Intelligence schools had a set daily routine for agents' studies and rest. Students were allowed to communicate freely with each other and were strictly prohibited from communicating with the civilian population outside of schools. Leaving school for the city was permitted by school directors and only in exceptional cases. Before graduating from school, agents were introduced to the rules for filling out fictitious documents and using them while in the Soviet rear. The most common fictitious documents that the Germans issued to their agents were the identity cards of the command staff, various types of travel orders, payroll and clothing books, command staff books, food certificates, extracts from orders on transfer from one unit to another, powers of attorney to receive various types of property from warehouses, and so on. In addition, agents were given various blank forms of military and civilian documents and sometimes stamps and seals of military units of the Soviet army. Agents were also supplied with Soviet money, the amount of which depended on the length of stay in the rear and the type of tasks performed, from 500 rubles to 150 thousand and sometimes even more.
Not far from the barracks there is a technical unit, where German garages with German inscriptions are still preserved. During the military actions, the main object was not damaged after the war, there was a boarding school for orphans on the territory, and in 1986 the school was closed by the sanitary and epidemiological station, later a departmental hunting farm with limited access was organized on the territory. They say that in the 90s there was a tourist center here, now the territory is mostly abandoned, but people still live in some houses. For the sake of fairness, I want to note that I cannot say with one hundred percent that there was an Abwehr school on the site, since there is no data on the purpose of the object in public archival materials, but most local historians agree on this version. There is also an opinion that a Hitler Youth camp or German Werewolf partisans was located on this territory and was also engaged in training and preparation of personnel, and the technical zone acted as a factory for the production of ammunition. If you have any information on this matter, write in the comments, it will be very interesting to read. Music: Jason Tai - Queensland (Alice. Madness Returns OST)
Abandoned German intelligence school in the forest. #89 • Нашли заброшенную разведшкола немцев в лес...