Interrogating the Gestapo: SS-Sturmbannführer Horst Kopkow, the Rote Kapelle and Post-war British Security Interests

ABSTRACT In 1945, the British arrested Horst Kopkow, a Gestapo Referent, or desk officer, tasked with countering British and Russian sabotage in Hitler’s empire. Despite being co-responsible for the demise of hundreds of Allied parachute agents, the British Secret Intelligence Service faked Kopkow’s death and gave him freedom in exchange for his unrivalled understanding of Soviet espionage in Western Europe, particularly the famed Red Orchestra. The value of Kopkow’s information is still being debated, but it was sufficiently important for SIS to protect Kopkow from war crimes investigators. Western intelligence agencies have, since the 1980s, been censured for utilising ex-Nazis in the initial Cold War, precisely because their wartime roles were still unclear. With the partial release of MI5 records on Kopkow in 2000, some attempt to gauge the value and degree of his collaboration is possible.