Konstantin Jeffremov

Konstantin Lukitsch Jeffremov (born 15 May 1910), also known as Konstantin Yeffremov, was a Soviet GRU intelligence officer, known as a scout in Soviet intelligence parlance, with the rank of captain.

Jeffremov, an anti-Semite.

was an expert in chemical warfare.

Jeffremov used the aliases Pascal and Eric Jernstroem to disguise his identity in messages He had been working for Soviet intelligence since 1936.

and the alias Bordo.

The couple were Comintern agents who has been working for Soviet intelligence since late 1936.

Prior to that, they had been running safe-houses for persecuted Comintern officials.

Germaine Schneider was the most important of the two, working as a courier that involved extensive travel across Europe and was Henry Robinson's contact to Soviet agents in Great Britain.

While she worked from Jeffremov, she couriered between Brussels and Paris.

Franz Schneider was also a courier, but only to Switzerland.

In 1937, he finished the academy with the title of military technician with the rank of First lieutenant (Russian:Starshy leytenant) and started to work for the GRU, dealing primarily with military technical reconnaissance.

Jeffremov, a relative newcomer to a professional career in espionage, had been subject to accelerated training.

In 1938, Winterink had established a network that was part of the Rote Hilfe, that would be used by Jeffremov, in the capacity as his supervisor.

Winterink was trained as a radio operator by Wenzel.

At the same time he recruited the married couple, Belgian Germaine Schneider and Swiss Franz Schneider.

In September, 1939 Jeffremov using the alias Eric Jernstroem, arrived in Brussels from Zürich via Budapest and Odessa, travelling as a Finnish student.

Upon arrival, Jeffremov enrolled in the École Polytechnique to study chemistry, assuming the veneer of an ordinary student.

During the late interwar period, he was likely employed in the collection of technical information relating to chemical and chemistry, heavy industry.

With the outbreak of World War II, Jeffremov was retasked with organising variously disparate groups in the Low Countries, into an effective espionage network that could collect political, economic and military intelligence.

Jeffremov immediately made contact with Johann Wenzel, a German communist and radio specialist based in the Netherlands, who would act in the role of technical advisor to Jeffremov.

Wenzel had recruited the Communist Party member Anton Winterink at the beginning of 1939 and later, also recruited Dan Goulooze, the director of the Dutch Communist party.

Both would become part of Jeffremov's network in Brussels.

Although Jeffremov initially used the Dutch Communist Party to transmit intelligence to Soviet intelligence, by December 1940, Wenzel had established a connection to Moscow.

Jeffremov ran his espionage network independently of other Soviet networks in the Netherlands in the period of 1940 and 1941.

Trepper was the technical director of a Soviet Red Army Intelligence in western Europe and had been instructed by Soviet intelligence to employ Jeffremov as the new leader of the Belgian network, in the absence of Anatoly Gurevich who had run the network in Belgium from July 1940 to December 1941.

According to Daniël Goulooze, Jeffremov was in communication with Soviet Intelligence via Wenzel since 1940 but on an infrequent basis.

Jeffremov was frequently admonished by Soviet intelligence for his lack of activity and slow production of quality intelligence.

However, Germaine Schneider was considered a proficient courier.

It had been severely damaged, when several members of the group had been arrested by the Abwehr on the 12 December 1941.

The people were arrested during a raid on a house on Rue des Atrébates, that was being used a transmitting safe-house.

Gurevich himself had hid in the house of Nazarin Drailly, a member of the group, to evade the Abwehr, before leaving for Paris.

Trepper gave Jeffremov 100,000 Belgian francs for daily expenses and made several recommendations on how the network should be run, which Jeffremov accepted.

Trepper had ordered all radio transmission to cease for at least six months and to rely on couriers only to deliver intelligence.

Probably the most important aspect of Jeffremov's work was the continued transmission of the intelligence provided by Harro Schulze-Boysen, that was couriered from Germany.

In June 1942, Trepper ordered Jeffremov to begin transmitting as six months had passed since the raid on Rue des Atrébates on 12 December 1941.

He was the organizer of a Soviet espionage network in the Netherlands and the Low Countries In 1942, Jeffremov took over the running of a number of networks in Belgium and the Netherlands, that had been damaged in the months prior, after several members were arrested by the Abwehr.

These networks was later given the moniker, the Red Orchestra ("Rote Kapelle") by the Abwehr.

Jeffremov was arrested in July 1942 and agreed to work for the Abwehr in a Funkspiel operation, after being tortured.

After completing seven years of schooling including attending the Labor Faculty in Tula, he attended the Moscow Chemical Technical College.

In May 1942, during an arranged clandestine meeting, Jeffremov met with Leopold Trepper in the house of the Schneider's in Brussels.