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Aleksey Kozlov, our illegal spy in South Africa. At home among strangers: declassified moments from the life of Vyatka Stirlitz - Alexei Kozlov Kozlov scout biography

Only in "MK" the last confessions of the most famous Soviet illegal intelligence agent

The other day, including after it was declassified.

The legends are leaving, but one cannot even believe that Kozlov has left. He's so ... in a word, iron! He was always sincerely sad when he saw how people betray and kill for money. As if he guessed that he would be betrayed in the same way one day. The illegal immigrant spent two years in an African prison, where he was starved, where people were killed in his presence, and he himself was taken out to be shot almost every week. And he survived. Later, the Soviet intelligence officer was exchanged for 11 foreign spies.

Any superhero would envy his track record: nuclear developments, industrial secrets, political secrets. Alexey Kozlov gave his last interview to the MK columnist.

Alexey Kozlov

Suitcase. Railway station. Intelligence service

We met on the set of a movie about him. After the command "Stop! Taken!” Aleksey Mikhailovich went deep into his memories, twirling his invariable cigarette. By this time, he had already decided for himself that he would no longer give interviews. However, they could be counted on the fingers. Although I can’t say that Alexei Mikhailovich is taciturn. Against. Throw any topic to him, and he will talk for hours in one breath, without repeating himself, without stopping. But as far as state secrets are concerned... Here the attitude is different and the conversations are special. About ten years ago, when Kozlov himself had just been declassified, he could tell about his work very sparingly. What now?

I sat down next to him. We are silent. And suddenly Alexei Mikhailovich takes the conversation into his own hands.

For starters, you ask me how I came to Moscow from a wooden box.

And like this. I didn't have a suitcase. It was a rarity back then. But how could this stop a youngster who has so many plans for the future? So I tied up the box and put my things in it. Yes, there were few of them. And I attached a padlock outside. I felt almost like Lomonosov and had no intention of returning home.

With this box on his shoulder, Alexei Kozlov came from Vologda in 1953 to enter MGIMO. I passed the competition the first time, impressing the examination committee with an amazing German language. He says that all this is the merit of his school teacher, the Pole Zelman Pertsovsky, who was simply in love with German and passed that love on to his students. Well, in the final year of the institute, after practice in Denmark, serious people in civilian clothes approached Kozlov and offered to work in intelligence.

I didn't think for a second. Just immediately asked for the work to be operational. Not related to writing. But where is it! I even had a bump on my finger from "operational work."

Kozlov was prepared for illegal intelligence for three years. During this time, he traveled to the GDR, and to Denmark, and to other countries. Language perfected to the limit, that's just picked up in the Saxon accent. Then it almost played a cruel joke on him - the criminal inspector doubted his personality, recognizing him as a Saxon.

Got out! exclaims Kozlov. - He said that the mother is really from Saxony, but the father is an Austrian. I was lucky that this policeman was more interested in talking about girls. And then there was another case in Tel Aviv. The barmaid offered me, as a true German, goulash with potatoes and beer. And it so happened that a guy from the Union sat next to me. And he, like a true Russian, was served a herring, an onion, black bread and a misted decanter. I nearly choked on my saliva when he began to crunch and drink vodka. So I wanted to ask! But... you can't. A scout must be perfect in everything, because he is always and everywhere on a mission.

This "always and everywhere" is the same as "here and now". Ultimate composure, the ability to feel every moment and squeeze the maximum out of it - this is the main thing for a scout. Kozlov also had his own “horse” - he knew how to join any company and immediately become “one of his own on the board”. Here it looks like a simple one. And when he smiles, takes the right pose, speaks - and in front of you is a successful businessman, or a wealthy traveler, or an intellectual draftsman. Kozlov tried on a dozen professions and destinies.

The first and main "legend" was just that I was a technical draftsman, - says Alexei Mikhailovich. - I could not stand this profession. Although, without false modesty, I admit that I mastered it to the highest standard. In three months in Denmark he graduated from the institute, the program of which is designed for three years. I did not sleep at night, but I passed all the exams externally.

Algiers was one of the first business trips. Kozlov (he then had a fake German passport) got a job in an architectural bureau where the Swiss worked. God knows: either he had a nose for the right people, or the center gave him a hint, but it turned out that these Swiss are part of the secret political council of Algerian President Ahmed ben Bella. So Alexei Mikhailovich learned a lot of interesting things from his colleagues.

A year later, Ben Bella became a Hero of the Soviet Union, - says Kozlov. - And you know, it was also our and my merit. Why - guess for yourself.

The Soviet intelligence officer learned to penetrate any closed doors, and those people who always keep their mouths shut could not resist his charm and gave out all their secrets themselves. He, of course, pretended that he, a simple draftsman, was not interested in all this, and in general he had little faith in all this. The more he pissed off! And what others learned through incredible efforts, spending a lot of time, Kozlov could find out by “just chatting” in some bar somewhere on the edge of the earth.

I think everything worked out because I never even allowed the thought “I can’t, I can’t cope, it won’t work,” says Kozlov. - And I always knew that one intelligence officer can often do what a hundred military or politicians cannot. And not just a spy. The main thing is that he believes that he really can do everything, including saving the world.

No one specifically taught Kozlov's psychology. But he himself studied dozens of books and learned to see the motives of people's actions. He knew how to cheer up or, conversely, instantly demoralize the interlocutor.

Scout and stamps

Throughout his life, Kozlov had only two passions: intelligence and stamps. And he can enthusiastically talk about brands for hours. He began to collect them back in the USSR and until the last days he does not part with this hobby of his. Marks helped Kozlov a lot in his work. With many necessary people I approached precisely on the basis of philately. In addition, any of his departure, his unexpected disappearance and strange behavior could be explained by the fact that he was producing an amazing stamp. After all, everyone knew that a philatelist was ready to sell almost his soul for a successful find. And also, when the “Russian German” Kozlov got into an emergency, he concentrated, imagining how he was leafing through albums with his stamps, how he was examining them. It helped even when he was brutally tortured. So the stamps also served the Motherland.

Alexei Kozlov with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

I had a lot of them, - Kozlov laughs. - Among them were those for which philatelists are literally ready for anything. But history is important to me. I'm looking at the brand and I see something that you will not see. Historical events, countries, characters. If you only know when and under what circumstances it was published, you will already have a whole novel.

About his first passion - exploration, Alexei Mikhailovich speaks sparingly. But if it starts to tell - the stories are breathtaking. For example, when Kozlov worked in Belgium, he made a dizzying career. But not the scout that you are. Starting as a laborer, "our man in" became the CEO of the largest dry cleaner in the country! Aleksey Mikhailovich likes to repeat that, even working in a dry cleaner, one could get up-to-date information. He knows exactly what he's talking about...

It's not scary when they hit. It's scary when they betray

When Kozlov was arrested, he heard the following verbatim: “You are accused of terrorism. This means that you do not have the right to a lawyer, to communicate with the outside world and to receive any information.

It's good that I can name the person whom I consider a traitor, - says Kozlov firmly. - Oleg Gordievsky. We studied together at MGIMO, were in the Komsomol committee. Then he, just like me, got into intelligence. Was our resident in London. But he secretly worked for British intelligence. His love for money, for a beautiful life, ruined him. Escaped in 1985. By that time, it became clear to everyone why I was arrested in South Africa.

Aleksey Mikhailovich was sent by the center to South Africa back in 1977. His task was to find confirmation of South Africa's secret ties with the West. Officially, England and other Western countries announced an economic boycott of South Africa, but in reality it turned out that America was buying here, for example, uranium. There were also rumors that South Africa had developed an atomic bomb (a flash similar to an atomic explosion was recorded near Cape Town). Kozlov got hold of evidence that there was a bomb, managed to hand it over to the center. Kozlov was arrested in South Africa in 1980. Right on the day of the detention of the illegal intelligence officer, his father died of a broken heart. Coincidence?..

I was tortured day and night. They beat me, didn't let me sleep - they woke me up every hour and took me out for a check. There was a loudspeaker in the cell, and terrible screams and groans of people could be heard from it. My interrogator had a portrait of Hitler hanging in his office. He himself was a real Nazi, for whom people were meat. I stood my ground that I was a German and did not understand what I was being accused of. And then somehow during the interrogation they give me my photo. I turned it over, and there I see "A.M. Kozlov." After that, I said: "Yes, I am a Soviet officer, intelligence officer." They never heard from me again for two years. They searched for me in the center, sent telegrams. The counterintelligence of South Africa accepted them, demanded that I decipher them. And I lied that I destroyed the cipher pad.

Kozlov himself did not know what was going on in the world all these two years. The Olympics-80 died down in Moscow, people said goodbye to Vysotsky - but you never know the events in the carefree life of "developed socialism".

And in a prison in South Africa - no newspapers, no radio, no dates. “The food was so bad and so little that I dreamed about food all the time. Steamed potatoes, cucumbers, herring ... I lost weight from 90 kg to 58.

Kozlov spent six months on death row in a Pretoria prison. The last words of those who sat there and who were hanged were scrawled on the walls with blood and a nail. Every week on Fridays at five in the morning he was taken to the executions.

The gallows is on the second floor, there is a hatch under it, - Kozlov recalls. - The hatch went down, the man fell. And below stood Dr. Malheba. He made an injection in the heart of the hanged man. Control. And every day I could see how the corpses were carried along the corridor. The shutter that closed the peephole in my cell from the outside was torn off ...

In May 1982, Kozlov was released. More precisely, they were exchanged for eleven spies who were in the GDR, and one South African army officer caught by the Cubans in Angola. He recalls that a whole bus with things was following them (some of them had two or three suitcases). And Kozlov himself was with a knapsack, where there was a belt from prison pants, a piece of green soap and a machine for rolling cigarettes, which the prisoners gave him.

In parting, the investigator firmly shook my hand, - says Alexei Mikhailovich. - He asked for forgiveness for everything that happened to me. He said that I was a normal man and a real guy. After shaking hands, I found in my hand a badge of the South African Security Police with the right of arrest.

Returning to his homeland, Alexei Kozlov worked for some time at the headquarters of the Foreign Intelligence Service. Then he could not stand it, called Yuri Drozdov (at that time the head of illegal intelligence) and said: send me on a mission. It was unthinkable! So that the scout who was discovered and served time went again and again along the illegal line! The risk was huge, and it was necessary to take it not only for himself, but also for his leader. Drozdov took a risk. And Kozlov disappeared from sight for another 10 years. What was he doing? Oh, there were a lot. I worked mainly in those countries with which we did not have diplomatic relations and where crisis situations arose. Kozlov says he has acquired valuable new connections. And yet he did everything himself. Was very careful. Colleagues from the Foreign Intelligence Service say that Alexei Kozlov often did the literally impossible. And the information he got is still relevant today. Kozlov was awarded the Order of the Red Star and given the title of Hero. And he was engaged in the training of young employees until the last.

When we talked with him, he could suddenly ask something about music or painting. It turned out that he is well versed in both. And so in everything! He is generally like a walking library, unique. It seemed to me that, if something happened, he could cure himself in no time, and with just the right attitude. I still believe in it.

By the way, Gordievsky is still alive. According to rumors, he is also seriously ill. Only, unlike Kozlov, on difficult days he cannot even set foot on his native land (he was sentenced to death in absentia for treason). And he never amassed any special wealth, he lives on a modest pension, which is barely enough for medicines.

But Alexei Mikhailovich, until his last breath, was in the center of attention of friends and relatives. They all believed that he would cope with the disease, because he was iron ...

USSR →
Russia, Russia Type of army Years of service Rank Awards and prizes

Alexei Mikhailovich Kozlov(December 21, Oparino - November 2) - Soviet and Russian intelligence officer - illegal immigrant. Hero of the Russian Federation.

Biography

Alexei Mikhailovich Kozlov was born on December 21, 1934 in the village of Oparino in the Kirov Territory (now the Kirov Region). In the family, besides him, there were four children, and since 1936 Alexei was raised in Vologda by his grandmother and grandfather.

In 1943 he entered the Vologda School No. 1, which he graduated with a silver medal. At school, his German teacher was the famous teacher Zelman Shchertsovsky. He entered, where he studied German and Danish. A classmate of A. M. Kozlov was the future First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Yu. A. Kvitsinsky. In the last year of the institute, he was sent to practice at the consular department of the Danish Embassy.

After graduating from the institute in 1959, he received an offer from the First Main Directorate (foreign intelligence) of the KGB of the USSR and, after a short immersion, was sent to Denmark to acquire the profession of a technical draftsman. Starting in 1962, he worked as an illegal intelligence officer. He remarried his wife for cover in Germany in 1965, the same year his son and daughter were born. Posing as a German who lived in Algeria for a long time, he managed to obtain German citizenship for himself and his wife. Worked undercover as a dry cleaner and entrepreneur selling next generation dry cleaners in Europe, Africa and Asia. After the death of his wife in the 1970s, leaving his children in the USSR, he worked alone at crisis points. Arriving in the country of interest to the USSR, he was engaged in collecting information. The vast majority of these countries did not have diplomatic relations with the USSR, which made it impossible to organize permanent residencies there.

In 1979, he received the task of establishing the fact that South Africa was conducting secret tests of its own atomic bomb and the fact of developing enriched industrial uranium in then-occupied Namibia. The task was completed in full, after which he was arrested in South Africa by counterintelligence on charges of terrorism due to the betrayal of Oleg Gordievsky, who had fled to the UK. The article "terrorism" under the laws of South Africa deprived the right to legal defense and legal proceedings, forbade any communication with the outside world and the receipt of information.

For two years he was in the counterintelligence prison in Pretoria in solitary confinement and was subjected to interrogations and sophisticated torture. He spent six months on death row, during which even his execution was staged. Prime Minister Peter Botha only made a statement in December 1981 that Alexei Kozlov was in the counterintelligence prison in Pretoria. In May 1982, with the participation of the intelligence services of the FRG, Alexei Kozlov was exchanged for ten intelligence officers of the FRG arrested in the GDR and the USSR, and one serviceman of the South African army captured in Angola. When arrested, he weighed 90 kilograms, after imprisonment and torture - 58. He did not disclose any information during the two years of imprisonment.

In 1982-1986 he worked in the central office of the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR. Then he asked for a second assignment on a permanent business trip for illegal work. Being a discovered illegal immigrant, he worked abroad from 1986 to 1997. Information about this period is still secret. After retiring, he continued to work in the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, was engaged in teaching, advisory and analytical work (he spoke German, English, Danish, French and Italian). Lived in Moscow, was declassified in 2005.

The documentary evidence collected by Alexei Kozlov in South Africa of atomic bomb tests in 1979 jointly with Israel and the development of enriched industrial uranium in occupied Namibia made it possible for the USSR to persuade the United States and a number of Western European states to strengthen the regime of international sanctions against South Africa. The result of the work of Alexei Kozlov was the announcement of the South African embargo by all countries, which led to a change in government. Thanks to the work of Alexei Kozlov, South Africa became the first state to voluntarily give up nuclear weapons.

Family

Father - Mikhail Alekseevich Kozlov, before the war he worked as the director of the machine and tractor station (MTS), in the war he was the commissar of a tank battalion in the 5th Guards Tank Army of General P. A. Rotmistrov and participated in the Battle of Kursk. After the victory, he returned without a leg, was appointed deputy head of the POW camp for political affairs in Vologda. After the disbandment of the POW camp, he worked as the head of the construction department at the Volga-Balt-stroy, then the head of the transport department for the construction of the Severstal Iron and Steel Works in Cherepovets, after that he worked at MTS, and, having retired, became the director of the oil depot in Sheksna. He died on the day Alexei Kozlov was arrested in South Africa from a heart attack.
Mother - Lidia Vasilievna Kozlova worked as an accountant at a state farm.
Wife - Tatyana Borisovna Kozlova, an illegal intelligence officer, taught German in Belgium at a school for children of UN employees. She died in the 1970s.

Awards and honorary titles

Films about A. M. Kozlov

Books about A. M. Kozlov

Trial by death or Iron philatelist. Maria Arbatova, Shumit Datta Gupta - M. Astrel, 2012 - ISBN 978-5-271-40565-5.

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An excerpt characterizing Kozlov, Alexei Mikhailovich

The lights lit up and the voice became louder. Captain Tushin, having given orders to the company, sent one of the soldiers to look for a dressing station or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by the fire laid out on the road by the soldiers. Rostov also dragged himself to the fire. Feverish shivering from pain, cold and dampness shook his whole body. Sleep irresistibly drove him, but he could not sleep because of the excruciating pain in his aching and out of position arm. He either closed his eyes, or glanced at the fire, which seemed to him ardently red, then at the stooping, weak figure of Tushin, who was sitting beside him in Turkish style. Tushin's large, kind and intelligent eyes fixed him with sympathy and compassion. He saw that Tushin wanted with all his heart and could not help him in any way.
From all sides were heard the steps and the conversation of those passing by, passing by and around the infantry stationed. The sounds of voices, footsteps and horse hooves rearranged in the mud, near and far crackling of firewood merged into one oscillating rumble.
Now the invisible river no longer flowed, as before, in the darkness, but as if after a storm the gloomy sea was laying down and trembling. Rostov senselessly looked and listened to what was happening in front of him and around him. An infantry soldier walked up to the fire, squatted down, put his hands into the fire and turned away his face.
“Nothing, your honor?” he said, addressing Tushin inquiringly. - Here he strayed from the company, your honor; I don't know where. Trouble!
Together with the soldier, an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came up to the fire and, turning to Tushin, asked to be ordered to move a tiny gun in order to transport the wagon. After the company commander, two soldiers ran into the fire. They swore desperately and fought, pulling out some kind of boot from each other.
- How did you raise it! Look, clever, one shouted in a hoarse voice.
Then a thin, pale soldier with a bloody collar tied around his neck came up and in an angry voice demanded water from the gunners.
- Well, to die, or something, like a dog? he said.
Tushin ordered to give him water. Then a cheerful soldier ran up, asking for a light in the infantry.
- A hot fire in the infantry! Happily stay, countrywomen, thank you for the light, we will give back with a percentage, ”he said, taking the reddening firebrand somewhere into the darkness.
Behind this soldier, four soldiers, carrying something heavy on their greatcoats, walked past the fire. One of them stumbled.
“Look, hell, they put firewood on the road,” he grumbled.
- It's over, why wear it? one of them said.
- Well, you!
And they disappeared into the darkness with their burden.
- What? hurts? Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper.
- Hurts.
- Your honor, to the general. Here they are standing in a hut, - said the fireworks, approaching Tushin.
- Now, dove.
Tushin got up and, buttoning his overcoat and recovering, walked away from the fire ...
Not far from the fire of the artillerymen, in a hut prepared for him, Prince Bagration was sitting at dinner, talking with some of the commanders of the units who had gathered at his place. There was an old man with half-closed eyes, greedily nibbling at a mutton bone, and a twenty-two-year-old impeccable general, flushed from a glass of vodka and dinner, and a staff officer with a personalized ring, and Zherkov, uneasily looking around at everyone, and Prince Andrei, pale, with pursed lips and feverishly shining eyes.
In the hut stood a taken French banner leaning in the corner, and the auditor, with a naive face, felt the fabric of the banner and, perplexed, shook his head, perhaps because he was really interested in the appearance of the banner, or maybe because it was hard for him. hungry to look at dinner, for which he did not get the device. In a neighboring hut there was a French colonel taken prisoner by the dragoons. Our officers crowded around him, examining him. Prince Bagration thanked individual commanders and asked about the details of the case and about the losses. The regimental commander, who presented himself near Braunau, reported to the prince that as soon as the case began, he retreated from the forest, gathered woodcutters and, letting them past him, with two battalions hit with bayonets and overturned the French.
- As I saw, Your Excellency, that the first battalion was upset, I stood on the road and thought: “I will let these ones pass and meet with battle fire”; did so.
The regimental commander so wanted to do this, he was so sorry that he did not have time to do this, that it seemed to him that all this had definitely happened. Maybe it even really happened? Was it possible to make out in this confusion what was and what was not?
“Moreover, I must note, Your Excellency,” he continued, recalling Dolokhov’s conversation with Kutuzov and his last meeting with the demoted one, “that the private, demoted Dolokhov, captured a French officer in front of my eyes and especially distinguished himself.
“Here, Your Excellency, I saw the attack of the Pavlogradites,” Zherkov, looking around uneasily, intervened, who did not see the hussars at all that day, but only heard about them from an infantry officer. - They crushed two squares, your excellency.
Some smiled at Zherkov's words, as they always expected a joke from him; but, noticing that what he said was also leaning towards the glory of our weapons and of the present day, they took on a serious expression, although many knew very well that what Zherkov said was a lie, based on nothing. Prince Bagration turned to the old colonel.
- Thank you all, gentlemen, all units acted heroically: infantry, cavalry and artillery. How are two guns left in the center? he asked, looking for someone with his eyes. (Prince Bagration did not ask about the guns of the left flank; he already knew that all the guns were thrown there at the very beginning of the case.) “I think I asked you,” he turned to the staff officer on duty.
- One was hit, - the officer on duty answered, - and the other, I cannot understand; I myself was there all the time and took orders, and I had just left... It was hot, really,' he added modestly.
Someone said that Captain Tushin was standing here near the village itself, and that he had already been sent for.
“Yes, here you were,” said Prince Bagration, turning to Prince Andrei.
“Well, we didn’t get together a bit,” said the officer on duty at the headquarters, smiling pleasantly at Bolkonsky.
“I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing you,” Prince Andrei said coldly and curtly.
Everyone was silent. Tushin appeared on the threshold, timidly making his way from behind the generals. Bypassing the generals in a cramped hut, embarrassed, as always, at the sight of his superiors, Tushin did not see the flagpole and stumbled on it. Several voices laughed.
How was the weapon left? Bagration asked, frowning not so much at the captain as at those laughing, among whom Zherkov's voice was the loudest.
Tushin now only, at the sight of the formidable authorities, in all horror imagined his guilt and shame in the fact that he, having remained alive, had lost two guns. He was so excited that until now he had no time to think about it. The laughter of the officers confused him even more. He stood in front of Bagration with a trembling lower jaw and barely said:
“I don’t know… Your Excellency… There were no people, Your Excellency.”
- You could take it from cover!
That there was no cover, Tushin did not say this, although it was the absolute truth. He was afraid to let the other boss down by this and silently, with fixed eyes, looked straight into Bagration's face, just as a student who has gone astray looks into the examiner's eyes.
The silence was quite long. Prince Bagration, apparently not wanting to be strict, did not have anything to say; the rest did not dare to intervene in the conversation. Prince Andrei looked at Tushin from under his brows, and his fingers moved nervously.
“Your Excellency,” Prince Andrei interrupted the silence with his harsh voice, “you deigned to send me to Captain Tushin’s battery. I was there and found two-thirds of the men and horses killed, two guns mangled, and no cover.
Prince Bagration and Tushin were now equally stubbornly looking at Bolkonsky, who spoke with restraint and excitement.
“And if, Your Excellency, allow me to express my opinion,” he continued, “the success of the day we owe most of all to the action of this battery and the heroic stamina of Captain Tushin with his company,” said Prince Andrei and, without waiting for an answer, immediately got up and walked away from the table.
Prince Bagration looked at Tushin and, apparently not wanting to show distrust of Bolkonsky's sharp judgment and, at the same time, feeling unable to fully believe him, bowed his head and told Tushin that he could go. Prince Andrew followed him.

Faces of Intelligence

Alexey Kozlov

Fate brought Alexei Mikhailovich Kozlov with intelligence in 1959. Once he was invited to the Lubyanka - then st. Dzerzhinsky, house 2. They asked: where would you like to work? Only at operational work - so that there is less writing. They offered to become an illegal intelligence officer. After some deliberation, Alexei Mikhailovich gave his consent.

After graduating from high school, Alexei Mikhailovich entered the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) to study. In 1958, he had an internship in Denmark, in the consular department of the USSR Embassy. After graduating from the institute, he was offered to go to work in the state security agencies. Offered to many, but not all agreed. “For example,” recalls A. Kozlov, “Yuliy Kvitsinsky, the future First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, well-known future ambassadors, studied with me in the group. But I remember when, in 1984, for the first time after many years of working abroad, I came to Yasenevo (the headquarters of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation), I hugged and greeted almost everyone I met, because I knew them from my studies at MGIMO in Moscow for several years.

So, Alexei Kozlov, who was born back in 1934, after appropriate special training in a complex individual program, was ready to work as an illegal intelligence agent abroad.

For an illegal intelligence officer, knowledge of foreign languages is the foundation. This is their second weapon. Alexei Mikhailovich spoke German, French, Italian and Danish. In 1962, A. Kozlov went to combat work in one of the Western countries. Previously, according to a special program, he prepared in the GDR. While in Leipzig, he quietly mastered the Saxon dialect. And soon, already in West Germany, sitting in a cafe, I got into a conversation with a criminal police officer. Suddenly he asks the scout: are you, he says, not from Braunschweig? No, answered the illegal, I am an Austrian. The policeman shook his head: strange, he would give his head for cutting off that you are a Saxon. Kozlov had to convince the criminalist that his mother was a Saxon and his father was an Austrian. Fortunately, the young criminologist at that moment was more interested in the young and charming young ladies sitting at the next table.

For some time A. Kozlov was sent to Denmark. Every illegal intelligence agent must have some kind of cover profession. Before going abroad, he could quickly be made a car mechanic, a master in setting up and repairing household appliances, and the like. Kozlov was trained as a draftsman, although he hated this profession with every fiber of his soul. In terms of mind, he was a humanitarian. But there was no getting away, and he had to agree to become a draftsman.

In Copenhagen, A. Kozlov came to a technical institute, where, among others, draftsmen were trained. The term of study at the institute is three years. In a conversation with the rector, he said that he would like to complete his studies in three months. He looked at Kozlov dumbfounded, but the illegal immigrant calmly explained to him that he could draw and that he needed only a diploma.

Then the rector invited some teacher, they talked among themselves and decided this: Kozlov would have to pay for all three years of study. But if he manages to pass all the exams in three months, he will be given a diploma of graduation from the institute. Kozlov conscientiously visited the institute every day, and sometimes several times a day. He regularly completed all the tasks and received a Danish diploma.

Further, Kozlov had to make a run-in in several countries, choose one of them, in which he allegedly lived for several years and where, according to legend, he could earn decent money as a foreigner. According to his passport he was a German, but his passport was fake. First, he was offered to go to Lebanon. He went there by boat from Naples. On the way, I met a girl who spoke English perfectly. She then taught him the language for six months, and everything turned out pretty well.

In Lebanon, a scout noticed that the Lebanese-Arabs treated the Germans quite well. As for Denmark, where he came from, few people knew about the existence of the Kingdom of Denmark there.

Then, on the instructions of the Center, the illegal immigrant went to Algeria. It was necessary to settle down for a long time in this country. French troops were still there, but Ahmed Ben Bella was already president.

In this country, they knew almost no English, no German, and even more so Danish. Through a French acquaintance who spoke German, he got a job as a technical draftsman.

In Algeria at that time, the vast majority of Arabs spoke only French. It came to curiosities. When President Ben Bella decided to rename all the streets and put their names in Arabic script, the mess started amazing. After all, many Algerians could not read Arabic script. And Kozlov had to learn French in Algeria, and a little later, Italian. Alexei Mikhailovich still speaks all these languages without problems.

To the joy and happiness of Alexei Mikhailovich, his wife came to Algeria. They got married in Moscow just before the business trip. In Moscow, the wife underwent special training. Upon her arrival in Algiers, a legend was prepared for her.

A. Kozlov had good acquaintances, elderly Frenchmen. Some of them left, some died. And the scout had an address where his wife supposedly could live at one time. My wife arrived as a German, and learned French already in Algeria. I must say that the intelligence officer Kozlov was lucky in this country: two years after gaining independence, the Algerians began to destroy documentation on all foreigners who had lived there before. Then Kozlov could easily say, being in other countries, that he had lived in Algeria for 20 years, where he earned a lot of money.

Soon the wife of Alexei Mikhailovich became pregnant and they were asked to leave for West Germany in order to finally document their marriage there. They both had fake passports. First they went to Tunisia, then to Holland, then to France. After such a journey, A. Kozlov arrived in West Germany, the city of Stuttgart. And his wife had to be left at the border in the French city of Strasbourg, because he did not know how things would turn out for him there.

He had to find a job in Germany in order to then register in this country. Stuttgart is a big city, there are dozens of institutions in it. But it was August, the height of the summer holidays. Kozlov had to get a job as a laborer in a dry-cleaner: they took him there. Moreover, they promised to pay as a skilled worker and, with a conscientious attitude to work, transfer them to such. And so it happened.

Fortunately for our scouts, at that time there was a fairly free regime in this city. They easily obtained internal identity cards and officially got married. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Munich, where A. Kozlov again got a job in a dry cleaner. During their stay in Munich, the couple had a son, then a daughter.

After the birth of their children, instead of internal certificates, they received real West German passports.

After some time, the scouts were recalled to Moscow. After a two-month stay, A. Kozlov was given the task of leaving for a long-term settlement in one of the Benelux countries. Upon arrival at his destination, he began looking for work - both as a draftsman and as a dry-cleaner. It took six months. It was quite difficult to get a job. Finally, he found a place in one of the hotels - in a dry cleaning company.

By the way, by that time A. Kozlov had become a really skilled worker, and soon he was appointed head of the company. The scout found a suitable apartment and his wife came to him with two children. The son was placed in a kindergarten, and the daughter was placed in a nursery. The children spoke only French among themselves, and only German with their parents. They did not know Russian. So it was necessary for that period.

In the meantime, A. Kozlov's wife got a job as a teacher of German in a school accredited to NATO. Mostly the children of NATO employees studied there.

Soon A. Kozlov was offered the position of general director of a dry cleaning company. Through his connections, the intelligence officer obtained valuable secret information, including on the NATO bloc. He was greatly assisted in collecting information by his wife.

It so happened that in 1970 Kozlov's wife fell seriously ill and they had to return to their homeland. After a severe and prolonged illness, the wife of A. Kozlova died. The position of the scout has changed to some extent. For some time, the scout carried out responsible assignments at the Center. But soon he was offered to work independently on crisis points. These are the countries with which the Soviet Union did not have diplomatic relations and where crises periodically arose. In the 70s, these were mainly the Near and Middle East - Israel and the Arab states. A. Kozlov was legalized for residence in Italy.

The illegal immigrant soon managed to establish good ties with companies that produced materials for dry cleaning - chemicals, cars ... After a while, he was offered to become a representative of the company in many countries, except for Italy itself. Kozlov was quite satisfied with this. This expanded its operational capabilities. He was registered in Rome, but stayed there for two or three months. The rest of the time was spent on trips to other countries, these are: Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and other countries.

Certain difficulties often arose for traveling around the regions. If, say, at that time a person had Israeli marks in his passport, affixed at the checkpoint to enter this country, he would not have been allowed into any Arab state. In this case, our intelligence officer had to go to the German embassy and somehow solve this problem. At the embassy, he was given a new duplicate passport, with which Kozlov traveled around the Arab East. That is, one passport was for Israel, the other for the Arab world.

In many Arab countries, the intelligence officer had very useful connections - relatives of ministers, including those in Lebanon, officers of the Israeli army, politicians in Israel and Egypt.

During his trips to the regions, Kozlov also had funny cases. Here is what he himself said: “It was in Jerusalem. I go to a cafe in the evening. I take 50 grams of vodka, or rather, 40 - they have a double portion, and a mug of beer. I looked around, I saw three old men sitting at the table and one empty seat. I approached, in German I asked: can I sit with you? Jews generally know German. They say please. They ask me: “German?”. I answer yes. And one of them tells me: you know, during the war I served in the Soviet military intelligence, and one day I was thrown into the German rear. And I, he says, gave you bastards a light! And with such nostalgia, with such respect for Soviet intelligence...

Or here's another episode. Somehow I go to a restaurant in Tel Aviv at 5 pm to eat. I ordered goulash and a glass of beer. Immediately next to me sits down a guy in jeans, in a cowboy shirt, it is clear that their client, because they bring him without an order a 200-gram decanter with a light liquid from the refrigerator, which immediately begins to fog up. Then they put a plate in front of him with two pieces of black bread and another one with finely chopped herring, and all this under circles of white onions. And so this bastard began to appetizingly crunch all this next to me ... The stay was not useless. Much was achieved then, which I still have no right to talk about. I received the Order of the Red Star for this work.

In 1974, A. Kozlov first arrived in Iran. I had to come there even under the Shah. Iran was of great interest to us. In this country, Kozlov could travel quite calmly. He had a lot of friends there - both among the police and in other circles. From them, he received the information we needed about this country and the region as a whole.

Since A. Kozlov acted alone, he transmitted his information mainly through hiding places in the form of an undeveloped film. And the most urgent - in letters, in secret writing to certain addresses, which were given to the intelligence officer at the Center. Three or four days, and the letter arrived where and to whom it was addressed.

Until 1974, we had no diplomatic relations with Portugal. But there is a revolution in this country. And Kozlov, even under the fascist regime, had to go there and collect very interesting information. When the “red carnation revolution” began, Kozlov again arrived in Portugal and lived there for a couple of months. During this time he traveled almost all over the country. Through his connections, he managed to collect a lot of interesting material.

Abroad, the work of a scout is not sweet. It is even more difficult when he is alone, away from his family. Therefore, by decision of the intelligence leadership, they are sometimes allowed to come on vacation (and this is also a rather complicated operation).

Once Kozlov also managed to get a vacation. Came to Moscow. My wife is in the hospital, the children lived in a boarding school. Aleksey Mikhailovich spent the whole vacation with them. My wife was sometimes allowed to go home from the hospital.

Meetings abroad were also infrequent. For example, when Kozlov was in Italy for 10 years, during this time he had only two meetings. Representatives of the Center came. In general, personal meetings are most often held on the neutral side.

Once, going on vacation, Kozlov arrived from Tehran to Copenhagen, where a meeting with a Soviet resident was scheduled. The meeting took place. We exchanged passports. Kozlov gave the resident his “iron”, with which he traveled around the world, and the resident handed him another one, which could then be destroyed.

The resident congratulated the illegal immigrant on the New Year and on being awarded the badge "Honorary State Security Officer". And he adds: “Another mutual friend who is here congratulates you. This is Oleg Gordievsky. Kozlov asked: “How does Gordievsky know that I am here? Didn't you tell him? Or did they show him this new passport of mine?” By the way, Gordievsky was then the deputy Soviet resident in Copenhagen. There is an ironclad rule that you can't reveal an illegal, unless absolutely necessary, even to your own illegals. When this rule is not respected ... failure follows. What happened to Kozlov. O. Gordievsky betrayed him when he fled to England, and not only him.

In 1977, Kozlov was first ordered to travel to South Africa - then the country of apartheid. On all the benches in the parks, on the streets there are inscriptions: "Only for whites." Shops are for whites only, nothing for blacks. Blacks at 6 pm sit down and leave for their townships. Then the Soviet Union helped the African National Congress. Intelligence was interested in something else: secret ties with the West. When Kozlov first visited Namibia, it was the German South-West Africa, a colony of South Africa. He traveled all over the country. Contacts were needed everywhere. At that time, South Africa was producing 80 percent enriched uranium. And all this uranium went directly to America. But officially the United States, England and other Western countries by that time declared an economic boycott of South Africa. In Namibia, Kozlov spoke only German. Because there even the blacks spoke German no worse than the Germans themselves. And there were a lot of Germans there. All hotels are German. The names of the hotels are purely German. And German farmers are everywhere.

In 1978, A. Kozlov made a trip to the border, front-line states - Zambia, Botswana, Malawi. They seemed to be helping the South African Congress, but all the same, the South Africans ran the economy there. In Botswana, for example, the diamond mines were in the hands of De Beers.

In South Africa, Soviet intelligence was primarily interested in whether there were atomic weapons there or not. In the research laboratory of Pelendab, research was conducted in the nuclear field. Both we and the Americans had suspicions that an atomic bomb was being created there too. Because once in 1978 it was possible to fix a flash similar to an atomic explosion in the Southern Hemisphere near Cape Town. Then Kozlov was sent to Malawi - after all, it was the only African state that established diplomatic relations with South Africa. Alexei Mikhailovich arrived in the city of Blantyre. All whites in these states converge very quickly among themselves. A fresh European appears, especially a German, he will be accepted with pleasure and absolutely everything will be told.

“Somehow we started talking about the atomic bomb,” Kozlov recalls. - I'm saying, wow, they thought that South Africa had it, but it turned out not. And suddenly one elderly woman perks up: how is it not, we washed her production with champagne in December 1976. I immediately reported this to the Center. As I was later told, at night they even called the heads of departments and departments and discussed my information. But this could not be documented. By the way, this woman introduced herself to me, said that she worked as a secretary to the general director of the Pedendaba base, retired and moved to Malawi. This information was later confirmed.

In 1980, Alexei Mikhailovich was again sent to South Africa. Then he arrived in Namibia. And in the city of Windhoek he noticed outside surveillance. Kozlov decided to immediately fly to South Africa. After landing in Johannesburg on the plane, he was shown a South African counterintelligence document, handcuffed, taken to the airport, to a special room, forced to undress to his underpants. Then they dragged things, dressed them and took them to Pretoria. He spent a month in the internal prison of the security police (this is South African counterintelligence). The interrogations went on day and night. In the first week he was not allowed to sleep for a second. He fell asleep standing upright, sometimes even fell. In the investigator's office, Kozlov noticed a portrait of Hitler hanging on the wall. And the investigator himself was a fan of Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Interrogations were conducted mainly in the basement.

A week later, they suddenly decided to let Kozlov sleep. However, the cell where Kozlov was supposed to sleep was filled with the sounds of human voices. As if someone was being tortured nearby. People were yelling, gnashing their teeth, crying as if they were being beaten. Every half an hour a guard came into the cell to inspect the situation. The arrested person must stand in front of them.

The interrogation was conducted in English. At the next interrogation, Kozlov's suitcase was opened. They got a radio receiver that could be bought at any store. They took out a notebook in which there were copy sheets. On one sheet they found a crush. And the pressure was in Russian.

Kozlov is brought in for another interrogation. These two Germans from West Germany are sitting in the room and they ask: "Why don't you ask someone from the West German consulate?" Kozlov replied that he was always asking for a representative, but no one had come yet. The Germans ask the illegal further: “Do you know why you were arrested?”. Answer: "I don't know, I didn't do anything." Then they give Kozlov a photograph of his wife: “Look, do you know this woman?” - and then a photograph of the scout himself. The German turned it over, and on the back it says: “A. M. Kozlov. After that, the intelligence officer said: "Yes, I am a Soviet officer, a Soviet intelligence officer." And that's it. He did not say anything else to them during the entire time he was in custody.

A month later, Kozlov was transferred to the central prison in Pretoria. They were put on death row. There were several compartments of the so-called star type. And each has 13 cells. But in the place where Kozlov was placed, he was alone. The other cells were generally empty. And next to the gallows. On Fridays at 5 am there were executions. Several times Kozlov was taken to see how it was done. In prison, by the way, there was also apartheid: a prison for blacks, a prison for whites. They just hung both of them together. But even then they made a difference. For the last breakfast before the execution, the blacks were given half a fried chicken, the whites were given a whole one. They executed on the second floor, then the hatch fell, the executed fell there. And below stood the greatest scoundrel Dr. Malheba. He made the last injection in the heart of the hanged man, so that the man would die completely. Then the body was taken out.

Here is what A. M. Kozlov himself told about the prison days:

“The worst thing for me was that the Center did not know where I was. It turns out that they sent me telegrams for another three months. I spent six months on death row. Parasha, bed and chair. The room is three steps by four. The last words of farewell of those who sat there and who were hanged before me were scratched on the walls with a nail. The only thing they brought me was food. Breakfast - at 5.30 in the morning: a mug of liquid, reminiscent of either coffee or tea, and more often water, in which the dishes were washed, two slices of bread and a bowl of porridge. Lunch - at 11.00; dinner is at 3 pm. A total of 4 slices of bread, a slice of margarine, jam and a bowl of soup. The lights were turned off at 22.00. By this time, from hunger, I already had visions. He remembered boiled potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers. I remember when they released me and weighed me, it turned out to be 59 kilograms. And it was - 90. No newspapers, radio - nothing. I didn't know what was going on in the world."

A. Kozlov was accused of terrorism, Article 9. This meant that he was not required to tell the reason for his arrest. He was told that he had no right to a lawyer and to communicate with the outside world.

Finally, on December 1, 1981, after 6 months, the head of the prison came to Kozlov and stated that Prime Minister Botha had officially announced on television and radio that the Soviet intelligence officer Alexei Kozlov was in prison under arrest. The head of the prison informed Kozlov that now, after Bota's official report on the Kozlov case, he was allowed half an hour of walks under guard around the prison yard, and was also allowed to smoke.

The German gentlemen were also interested in the personality of A. Kozlov. At first they came for interrogations every three months. Then every six months. They will come, mumble, look confused and leave.

And our scout continued to sit in the same cell. And somewhere towards the end of 1981, the skin on Kozlov's hands began to burst. They invited the same doctor Malheb. The doctor examined the scout and prescribed artificial leather gloves for him. But even with gloves, the skin continued to burst. This time they did invite the head of the prison hospital. There was such a Major Van Roen. He examined the patient and said that it was from a lack of chlorophyll. The fact is that in Kozlov's cell there was a single window under the very ceiling. Therefore, almost no daylight entered the chamber. And the doctor, in all likelihood, recommended that Kozlov's camera be changed. And our intelligence officer, a year and a half after his imprisonment, was settled in the so-called penal section of the Pretoria prison. There were solitary cells there too. But at least Kozlov was not alone there. In other neighboring cells there were people who were swearing, laughing, swearing. But there was always sunshine in this cell, and the skin on the hands gradually began to heal.

So Kozlov spent time in prison until May 1982. One day, the head of the prison came, brought a suit, a pretty decent one, a shirt and a tie. Kozlov dressed, and he was taken to the deputy chief of counterintelligence, Major General Broderick.

Here is how A. Kozlov later recalled this episode:

“There was such an interesting, imposing man sitting in front of me. He immediately told me: I will transfer you for an exchange. And he warned: you will first be handed over to our national intelligence service. Don't show them you know about the exchange. After that, my investigator, Colonel Gloy, whom I have already mentioned, shook my hand warmly and said: you are sorry for what happened to you here; now we know you're a normal, good guy. He shook my hand again, and the badge was in my hand. I saw him on the plane. It was the badge of the South African Security Police with the right of arrest..”

They brought Kozlov to a huge rock, where there is a monument to the pioneers of South Africa - the Boers, next to the site of a bloody battle between the Zulus and the whites. Here, they say, we will shoot you. Kozlov stood for some time in thought. Then they stuffed him into the car and took him to the airport. In the Boeing-747 Jumbo, only eight people were flying - intelligence officer Kozlov and his guards. Arrived in Frankfurt am Main in Germany.

There they transplanted our illegal immigrant into a helicopter of the department for the protection of the borders of West Germany and flew on. After some time, we landed near the Herleshausen checkpoint. There the exchange began.

A. M. Kozlov:

“First, they brought those for whom I was supposed to be exchanged. Eleven people - 10 Germans and one officer of the South African army, who at one time was captured in Angola during a raid there by the South African army. All eleven with suitcases. But they didn’t give me my things: I have a small bag in which there was a piece of green soap. Why I took him out of prison, I don't know. Then another cloth belt from prison trousers. I rolled it up and put it in a bag when they took me out of prison. The only thing that was valuable to me there was a cigarette rolling machine, it was given to me by South African prisoners.

They took me to some hangar. I look, two figures are looming inside - Viktor Mikhailovich Nagaev, now a retired major general, and Boris Alekseevich Solovov, head of the security department at that time. They put me in a car and drove to Berlin. Kilometers 30 drove in deathly silence. We drove up to the city of Eisenach. We are silent. And I suddenly spoke: “Viktor Mikhailovich, I returned to my homeland.” He agrees: “Yes, so what?”. I told him: “So what? Is it necessary to mark this case? He slaps himself on his bald head: “But I can’t understand what is missing and why we are silent.” And to the driver: “Come on, let’s go to the first tavern that comes across a hundred grams, a mug of beer.” As soon as they shied away, after that they didn’t stop talking until Berlin.

In Berlin, my comrades prepared a good table: caviar, salmon. But I ground all the boiled potatoes and all the herring. For me, then, our KGB representative at the MTB of the GDR, Vasily Timofeevich Shumilov (now deceased ), said: “You, Lyoshka, ate our entire representative monthly supply of herring ..”.

My friends gave me money to buy some presents for the children. I haven't been home for a long time...

The question arises and begs itself: how for a long time no one could understand why I was arrested. They traded me in 1982. And when Oleg Gordievsky fled to England in 1985, then everything became clear.

Gordievsky was acting resident in London. And with Oleg, I studied together at MGIMO. He was two years younger, they worked together in the Komsomol committee. I finished before him, and he didn't know where I ended up. But then he worked in our documentary department - that's why it happened. It's all about betrayal."

After the exchange, Alexei Mikhailovich returned home, rested for a couple of months, and went to work. For some time he worked in the Central Intelligence Agency. Then he called Yuri Ivanovich Drozdov (at that time the head of the Department of Illegal Intelligence ) and asked to work abroad. Drozdov to him: “And how do you actually imagine it? You are known to everyone. How can I send you somewhere again? Then Yuri Ivanovich thought about it and said: “Actually, you are not on the wanted list anywhere, because you were given to us. And then, what a fool would think that a person, having just taken his head out of the noose, is again going to stick it in there. Go."

This time Kozlov received a different passport than before. And after that, the intelligence officer worked for an illegal woman away from home for another ten years ...

A. M. Kozlov: “In 1997 he returned for good. But I'm still working. I meet young people. I visited exactly 30 regions of Russia - Vladivostok and Nakhodka, Murmansk and Omsk, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Blagoveshchensk, Khabarovsk ... I have 5-6 business trips a year. I was awarded the Star of the Hero of the Russian Federation in 2000. The wording was as follows: for courage and heroism in the performance of special tasks.

Kozlov Alexey Mikhailovich, Kozlov Alexey Mikhailovich Romanov
December 21, 1934(1934-12-21)

Place of Birth

Oparino, Oparinsky district, Kirov region, RSFSR, USSR

Date of death Affiliation

USSR USSR →
Russia, Russia

Type of army

KGB of the USSR, SVR RF

Years of service Rank

Colonel

Awards and prizes

Alexei Mikhailovich Kozlov(December 21, 1934, Oparino - November 2, 2015) - Soviet and Russian intelligence agent - illegal immigrant. Hero of the Russian Federation.

1 Biography
2 Family
3 Awards and honorary titles
4 Films about A. M. Kozlov
5 Books about A. M. Kozlov
6 Notes
7 Links

Biography

Alexei Mikhailovich Kozlov was born on December 21, 1934 in the village of Oparino in the Kirov Territory (now the Kirov Region). family, besides him, there were four children, and since 1936 Alexei was raised in Vologda by his grandparents.

In 1943 he entered the Vologda School No. 1, which he graduated with a silver medal. At school, his German teacher was the famous teacher Zelman Shchertsovsky. He entered the Moscow Institute of International Relations, where he studied German and Danish. A classmate of A. M. Kozlov was the future First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Yu. A. Kvitsinsky. In the last year of the institute, he was sent to practice at the consular department of the Danish Embassy.

After graduating from the institute in 1959, he received an offer from the First Main Directorate (foreign intelligence) of the KGB of the USSR and, after a short immersion, was sent to Denmark to acquire the profession of a technical draftsman. Since 1962, he worked as an illegal intelligence officer. He remarried his wife for cover in Germany in 1965, the same year his son and daughter were born. Posing as a German who lived in Algeria for a long time, he managed to obtain German citizenship for himself and his wife. Worked undercover as a dry cleaner and entrepreneur selling next generation dry cleaners in Europe, Africa and Asia. After the death of his wife in the 1970s, leaving his children in the USSR, he worked alone at crisis points. Arriving in the country of interest to the USSR, he was engaged in collecting information. The vast majority of these countries did not have diplomatic relations with the USSR, which made it impossible to organize permanent residencies there.

In 1979, he was tasked to establish the fact that South Africa was conducting secret tests of its own atomic bomb and the fact that enriched industrial uranium was being developed in then-occupied Namibia. The task was completed in full, after which he was arrested in South Africa by counterintelligence on charges of terrorism due to the betrayal of Oleg Gordievsky, who had fled to the UK. The article "terrorism" under the laws of South Africa deprived the right to legal defense and legal proceedings, forbade any communication with the outside world and the receipt of information.

For two years he was in the counterintelligence prison in Pretoria in solitary confinement and was subjected to interrogations and sophisticated torture. He spent six months on death row, during which even his execution was staged. Prime Minister Peter Botha only made a statement in December 1981 that Alexei Kozlov was in the counterintelligence prison in Pretoria. In May 1982, with the participation of the intelligence services of the FRG, Alexei Kozlov was exchanged for ten intelligence agents of the FRG arrested in the GDR and the USSR, and one serviceman of the South African army captured in Angola. When arrested, he weighed 90 kilograms, after imprisonment and torture - 58. He did not disclose any information during the two years of imprisonment.

In 1982-1986 he worked in the central office of the First Main Directorate of the KGB of the USSR. Then he asked for a second assignment on a permanent business trip for illegal work. Being a discovered illegal immigrant, he worked abroad from 1986 to 1997. Information about this period is still secret. After retiring, he continued to work in the Foreign Intelligence Service of Russia, was engaged in teaching, consulting and analytical work (he spoke German, English, Danish, French and Italian). Lived in Moscow, was declassified in 2005.

Family

Father - Mikhail Alekseevich Kozlov, before the war he worked as the director of the machine and tractor station (MTS), in the war he was the commissar of a tank battalion in the 5th Guards Tank Army of General P. A. Rotmistrov and participated in the Battle of Kursk. After the victory, he returned without a leg, was appointed deputy head of the POW camp for political affairs in Vologda. After the disbandment of the prisoner of war camp, he worked as the head of the construction department at the Volga-Balt-stroy, then the head of the transport department for the construction of the Severstal Metallurgical Plant in Cherepovets, after that he worked at MTS, and, having retired, became the director of the oil depot in Sheksna. He died on the day Alexei Kozlov was arrested in South Africa from a heart attack.
Mother - Lidia Vasilievna Kozlova worked as an accountant at a state farm.
Wife - Tatyana Borisovna Kozlova, an illegal intelligence officer, taught German in Belgium at a school for children of UN employees. She died in the 1970s.

Awards and honorary titles

Honored Foreign Intelligence Officer of the Russian Federation (1999).
Order of the Red Star (1977)
Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 4th class (2004)
Medal "For Military Merit" (1967)
Badge "Honorary State Security Officer" (1973)
Sign "For Service in Intelligence" (1993)
Hero of the Russian Federation with the award of a badge of special distinction - the Gold Star medal (No. 713)
Honorary citizen of Vologda (2009).

Films about A. M. Kozlov

2007 - "Illegal Career" - a documentary. Director Sergei Mnatsakanov, screenwriter Nikolai Dolgopolov, Lavr Studio.
2010 - Fights. Death Trial is a feature film. Director Vladimir Nakhabtsev, screenwriters Maria Arbatova, Shumit Datta Gupta, Artel studio.

Books about A. M. Kozlov

Trial by death or Iron philatelist. Maria Arbatova, Shumit Datta Gupta - M. Astrel, 2012 - ISBN 978-5-271-40565-5.

Notes

Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of December 7, 2000
1 2 Dolgopolov N. Went into exploration for 30 years. // Newspaper "Sovershenno sekretno".
Bogdanovich N. Zhelezny Zelman // Premier newspaper, No. 30 (721) July 26 - August 1, 2011.
Kozlov Alexey Mikhailovich. Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation. Retrieved 4 November 2015.
Biography of A. M. Kozlov on the official website of the Vologda Administration
Description of the film "Illegal Career" on the website of the TV channel "5"
Description of the movie "Fights. Trial by death" on the website of Channel One TV

Links

Kozlov, Alexei M. Site "Heroes of the Country".

Biography of A. M. Kozlov on the website of the Foreign Intelligence Service
Dolgopolov N. Went into intelligence for 30 years - an interview with M. A. Kozlov to the newspaper "Top Secret".
Arbatova M. Alexei Mikhailovich Kozlov

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Kozlov, Alexey Mikhailovich Information About

In 1978, Alexei Kozlov, an intelligence officer who worked on crisis points and countries with which we did not have diplomatic relations, managed to find out that an atomic bomb had been manufactured in South Africa.
I bring to your attention the memoirs of the Soviet illegal intelligence agent Alexei Kozlov about his work in South Africa and his stay in the prison there on death row.
The memories are taken from an interview with him in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the full version of the interview can be viewed here - http://www.rg.ru/2009/12/17/kozlov.html

champagne bomb

I came to Blantyre. This is Malawi, the only African state that has recognized South Africa with its apartheid. The whites living there quickly converge among themselves, it seems as if their club, closed to the rest, appears. And a fresh face, and even a German from Germany ... absolutely everything can be told to this, the secrets are yours. Therefore, I somehow accidentally started a conversation that, they thought, South Africa also had an atomic bomb, but it turned out that it didn’t. And one elderly woman, almost dozing, opens her eyes and mouth: why not? Back in December 1976, together with people from Israel, we washed her trials here, with us, with French champagne. The woman gave me my first and last name. Before retiring and moving to Malawi, she worked in South Africa as the secretary to the director general of the nuclear research laboratory in Pelendaba. I immediately reported to the Center. Then I was told that at night even the heads of departments and departments were called in and discussed.

There have been successes.

Hello from Gordievsky

I'll tell you something like this. My vacation began in January, and I arrived after Tehran just before the New Year in Copenhagen. There, at a meeting with a resident, I gave him my iron passport, with which I traveled all the time, and received another one from him. The resident congratulates me on the New Year and the badge of the "Honorary Chekist". And he adds: "Another mutual friend who is here congratulates you." I ask: who is this mutual friend? He says: Oleg Gordievsky. I told him: how does Gordievsky know that I am here, because I myself learned that I should be in Denmark three days ago. Did you tell him? Or what, showed him this document of mine? Oleg Gordievsky was then his deputy in Copenhagen. Here you are: an illegal immigrant is not allowed to communicate with his colleagues from the residency. For a long time I could not understand why I was arrested. They exchanged him in 1982, and the traitor Gordievsky fled to England in 1985. Then we multiplied two by two and got the desired result.

They tortured me hard. In Pretoria, interrogations immediately began - they were conducted for five days absolutely without a break. I sometimes even fell asleep under scuffle. They had some interesting fun. It was not for nothing that the investigator had a portrait of Hitler hanging on the wall - a solid one, with a well-drawn mustache. Beating, torture for them is a normal phenomenon. My hands were handcuffed behind a chair with a concave back. And it was enough to poke a finger at me, as I fell. And the floor is concrete. And on the fifth time, when you fall, you lose consciousness. Or forced to stand, once I stood for 26 hours. Stop - and that's it, don't lean against anything. Then they took me to the toilet, and there I collapsed, lost consciousness. I didn't say a word to them, but somehow they showed me a photograph. I'm on it with my wife. They shout, do not turn it over, but managed to turn it over: the signature in Latin "Kozlov Alexei Mikhailovich". And then I made my first and last confession: "I am a Soviet citizen. I will not say anything more."

Gordievsky worked for the British. On their tip, he was arrested. They interrogated me relatively correctly, although harshly, but in a civilized manner, without beatings, but for a long time, how long. Americans, Italians, Frenchmen came - always well dressed. Zhora from Odessa arrived from Israel with his lie detector. Started with a slap in the face. In South Africa, by the way, to him with contempt. They all left with nothing.

I then sat on death row. On the walls of the cell are the last words of the doomed. Here I read a lot. On Fridays at five in the morning they took me to the executions. Before death, the white was given to eat a whole chicken. Black is half. Apartheid. The gallows on the second floor, then the hatch was lowered, the man fell.

Exchange is inevitable

There was not a single case, starting with Abel-Fischer, that a comrade was not rescued. And when I was in training for a long time, my first leaders, former commanders of partisan detachments, underground groups on enemy territory, they told me: no matter what happens to you, mind you, you will return home safe and sound.

In 1982 I returned. I was exchanged in Germany for a whole bus - eleven spies who were in the GDR, plus a South African army officer caught by the Cubans in Angola (Major General Yuri Drozdov: if they knew who they were exchanging for, they would ask for more. - Auth.). Behind them was a whole bus with their things, some of them had three suitcases. I'm light. Really easy. When arrested, he weighed 90 kilos, during the exchange 57 plus a plastic bag with a belt from prison pants and a machine for rolling cigarettes, the prisoners gave it to me.