Richard Sorge is considered to have been one of the best Soviet spies in Japan before and during World War II, which has gained him fame among spies, and espionage enthusiasts.
In October 1914 Sorge volunteered to serve during World War I. He joined a student battalion of the 3rd Guards, Field Artillery.
During his service in the Western Front he was severely wounded in March 1916 when shrapnel cut off three of his fingers and broke both his legs, causing a lifelong limp.
After being fired from a teaching and mining job, he fled to the Soviet Union where he was recruited as a spy and using the cover of being a journalist was sent to various European countries to assess the possibility of communist uprisings taking place.
In 1922 the Communists relocated him to Frankfurt, where he gathered intelligence about the business community.
In May 1933 the Soviet Union decided to have Sorge organize a spy network in Japan. On 14 September 1941 Sorge advised the Red Army that the Japanese were not going to attack the Soviet Union.
Sorge was arrested on October 18, 1941 in Tokyo, in the house of his lover after a policeman picked up a note that he threw on to the road instead of destroying, warning him that he was being watched.
Sorge was not exchanged for Japanese prisoners of war, because the Soviet government as well as Sorge himself denied that he was spying for USSR.
He was hanged on November 7, 1944, 10:20 a.m. Tokyo time. The Soviet Union denied all knowledge of him until 1964.
