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Leopold Trepper

Leopold Trepper was a Polish-born Jewish communist and Soviet military intelligence officer who ran the espionage network the Germans called the Red Orchestra.

1904 to 1982Leading the Red Orchestra networkSoviet military intelligence workWarning of the 1941 German invasion

Born: 23 February 1904, Nowy Targ
Died: 19 January 1982, Jerusalem
Occupation: journalist, spy, resistance fighter, communist
Party: Palestine Communist Party, Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Education: Communist University of the National Minorities of the West
Founded: Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company (1938)

Leopold Trepper was born in 1904 in Nowy Targ

Trepper was born in 1904 in Nowy Targ, then part of Austria-Hungary, to a poor Jewish family of 10 children. His father, a traveling merchant, died in 1917. He went to high school in Lwów and joined Hashomer Hatzair.

He studied history and literature in Kraków but left for lack of money. He joined communist youth circles, took part in a workers' strike in 1923, was arrested, and could not find work afterward.

In Palestine he joined the Palestine Communist Party and helped found the Ihud group, which sought to unite Jewish and Arab workers. He was arrested several times and left for France. In Paris he was active among communists, then moved to Moscow in 1932 to study and work for a Yiddish newspaper.

Recruited by Soviet military intelligence, he went to Belgium in 1938 and set up an espionage network using a raincoat company as cover. The network warned Moscow of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. He was arrested on 24 November 1942, agreed to work with the Germans, and escaped on 13 September 1943.

After the war he was imprisoned in the Soviet Union for 10 years, then returned to Poland. In 1974 he moved to Israel with his wife and three sons. He died in 1982.