World Espionage Famous Spy Secret: KGB Steals "Rattlesnake"

KGB steals "rattlesnake"

The spy's eyes do not stop at military intelligence, but also spy on the enemy's latest weapons and equipment. There was an interesting incident in the history of espionage during the Cold War, when the KGB stole a German Sidewinder missile, which became a sensational espionage incident. The task was carried out by a three-person team of Joseph Linnowski, Manfred Lampinger and Wolf Dessard Nopp.

Joseph Linnoski is a Polish who is an experienced locksmith who is proficient in picking locks. In 1941, he was arrested by the Nazis and thrown into Auschwitz, where he was subjected to inhuman torture. Luckily, he miraculously survived. In 1951, Linnowski applied to polish military representatives in Berlin to visit relatives in Warsaw. After obtaining approval, he came to Warsaw, where Polish intelligence discovered his lock-opening skills and recruited him to work in the intelligence services, and then asked him to return to the Federal Republic of Germany as a spy. At that time, the Polish Intelligence Service was controlled by the Soviet KGB, so it can also be said that Linowski became a kgB member.

Manfred Lampinger, an architect in the Federal Republic of Germany, was a playboy who pursued a thrilling life and his greatest hobby was racing cars in Nuremberg. When Linowski met him in 1963, he felt that he must be more interested in the exciting and dangerous life of espionage, so he recruited him to do intelligence work at the KGB. Later, Lampinger became the leader of the three-man group.

Wolf Desser Nuope, a 33-year-old pilot in the 74th "Star" fighter squadron at Zell Air Base in the Federal Republic of Germany, is well versed in the armament of the air base. He was introduced to the KGB by Lambinger. In February 1967, When Lambinger met Nopp while playing cards at a club in Gorlstadt, the two liked to pursue exciting, fun lives, and fun, and soon became good friends. Nopp was not elected secretary at the local horse riding club, and he was bitter about it. Lampinger set up a club that played against that club, with Nopp as president.

A three-person team, the first to build a miracle

Nopp often ridiculed the poor protection of Zell Air Base, telling Lampinger, "Any night you can just go in and steal a 'Star' fighter." After this information was passed on to the KGB headquarters by Lampinger, the KGB thought that it could use Nopp as a pawn to steal something.

Moscow gave Lampinger a large sum of money to try to meet the demands of his friend Nopp. Lampinger knew that, apart from riding and riding horses, Nopp's greatest interest was in women. So Lambinger rented 3 luxurious apartments for Nopp in Nuremberg, which were all places for him to have fun. For the pilot, it was enough to provide him with an exciting plan of action and to ensure that he lived a life of luxury, and there was no need to blackmail or trap him at all. Nopp has no patriotism or sense of national responsibility, and a stimulating and interesting life is important to him. So when Lambinger explained to him that he was a KGB spy, he thought it was cool. When Lambinger asked him if he would like to join, he agreed without hesitation. Since then, Linoski, Lampinger and Nopp have formed a three-person team.

In the spring of 1967, the KGB had already spent a lot of effort and money on Nopp, and Lanminger wanted to see what he was capable of, so he arranged his first mission to get a set of passes to enter zell Air Base. Noppe was sure to have a good idea and quickly completed the task. Linnoski used these passes to enter the Zell Air Base. The Pole used his unlocking skills to enter a top-secret warehouse and stole a Lyton LMIII navigator. This navigator was the most responsible of its kind in the West at that time. After the three stole the instrument, they hid it in a shipment of miniskirt cargo and smuggled it to Moscow.

The "level of business" of this spy group is indisputable, and the KGB leadership is satisfied with their performance. Soon after, the trio was again instructed to steal an inertial guided cruiser from an industrial exhibition in Hanover. This instrument is worth more than $10. With the tacit cooperation of the three people, the instrument was unknowingly transported to the Soviet Union. The complete completion of this task once again proved that Nopp's personnel relations and Linosky's technology in unlocking were trustworthy.

In March 1967, inside the KGB headquarters in Moscow on the side of Lubyanka Square, The head of the Science and Technology Bureau (the KGB's department specializing in stealing advanced technology) Hadegin had just been reprimanded by his superiors, and he frowned and walked back and forth in his office irritably. His boss's stern rebuke echoed in his ears: "... Last August, the Israelis blatantly stole our MiG-21, but you didn't get even a screw in the United States! Onegin secretly vowed to get the most advanced weapons in the West! He decided to have a three-man team lurking in the Federal Republic of Germany steal a complete "ghost" plane. The three-person team has repeatedly built up miracles and has great hopes to complete the task, and when he thinks of this, Onegin, who is full of sorrow, reveals a rare smile.

At that time, Zell Air Base had ordered 80 advanced F-4E fighters, which would arrive within a few months. The F-4E is the latest modification of the F-4 Ghost fighter, with a maximum combat radius of 1200 km and a variety of advanced equipment. Moscow left the three-man team on standby in hiding, waiting for an opportunity.

One afternoon, Lanminger was pondering the plan of action when Nopp suddenly burst in. "Hey! Manfred, good news for you. Nopp shouted with unusual excitement. Then he spoke incessantly... It turned out that the 74th Fighter Squadron had recently been equipped with a batch of AIM-9E Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. The Sidewinder missile is a close-range combat air-to-air missile jointly developed by the American Company Of Ryción, Ford Aviation Communications and Renault. The AM-9E is an improved version of the AIM-9B and is the most advanced air-to-air missile used by the Federal Luftwaffe. The missile's thermoelectrically cooled lead sulfide detector increases its seeker's tracking angular velocity to 16 degrees per second and the seeker's viewing angle reaches 40 degrees. In addition, it features new electronic components and a fuze system. These improvements have greatly increased the low-altitude strike range of the Sidewinder missile. Of course, Nopp, who was a pilot by training, knew the value of AIM-9E, so he impatiently told Lampinger about this information.

"Manfred, what do you think of getting a missile?" I don't think it should be a problem at our level. We're just going to take the lead and it won't affect the stealing of planes. Nopp, who was born adventurous, was unusually excited by the idea and looked at Lampinger hopefully.

Lampinger also liked to do adventurous and exciting things, and after a short thought, he felt that this event would definitely bring a lot of surprises to the leaders in Moscow. Therefore, the KGB team led by Lanminger did not ask the superiors, and formulated a plan to steal the Sidewinder missile without authorization, and immediately began the preparatory activities. This reckless decision led to the identity of the three people being exposed and eventually being arrested and imprisoned.

September 1967, Zell Air Base, Federal Republic of Germany. Warm sunlight poured generously into the earth, while the guards lazily leaned against the wall to bask in the sun. On the runway 200 meters away from them was quietly parked an F-104G Star fighter, and several ordnancers were nervously attaching aim-9E Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. At this time, a middle-aged man was sneakily "cat" in the weeds near the runway. He is of medium stature and unassuming, wearing a modest base overalls on his upper body. This person is the lock expert Joseph Linnoski. He first observed the surrounding environment of the missile depot, and then sneaked into the warehouse without anyone to carefully study the situation of the various door locks.

For the sake of convenience, Nopp gave Linoski a pass to approach the missile depot. In the days that followed, Linoski and Nopp traveled to nearly every corner of the Zell base, spying on its security measures and the situation.

The opportunity finally came. Due to the flood of rats at the Zell base, which seriously affected the normal work and life of officers and soldiers, the base decided to launch the "all-army rat eradication campaign" on the evening of October 7, and uniformly released poison to eliminate rats. In order to prevent the police dogs from mistakenly taking rat poison, all the dogs had to be closed and fed that night. So the three-man team can take the opportunity to get out of the base without worrying about the highly vigilant dogs. This afternoon, Linnoski first entered the base with a pass. Nopp hid him until dark. When it was dark, Nopp sneaked over to the fence surrounding the base, quickly cut a piece of pre-selected barbed wire, and then loosely put it back in. Under the cover of night, if you do not check carefully, you can not see that the barbed wire has been manipulated.

It was an autumn night without a moon, and the night was gloomy and I couldn't see my five fingers. The officers and men of the Zell base, which had been noisy for a day, had gone to sleep, while the three-man team had gathered their spirits and begun to act. Nopp picked Linowski out of the hiding spot, and the two of them took brisk steps like cats and quietly touched the missile depot... Just as they approached the door of the storeroom, suddenly, a bright and dangling pillar of light shot straight from behind. Linoski, who was walking ahead, was spotted, and he "giggled" in his heart, knowing that he was in trouble. After all, he was an experienced old spy, and he immediately faced the wall and pretended to be untied.

The flashlight-wielding guard spotted Linnoski in the base uniform, but did not let his guard down and asked, "Dude, what are you hiding here?" ”

"I drank too much beer and I thought... Just now I..." Linnoski replied, while quickly taking out a small wine jug from his backpack and pouring all the dark beer in it over his thigh. The guard immediately smelled a smell of wine, looked at the delirious drunk in front of him, shook his head helplessly, and turned away.

The guard's back faded away, disappearing into the dark night. Linnoski froze for a moment, quickly pulled out the tool to pry the lock, and quickly opened the door of the storeroom. Nopp arrived. Upon entering the warehouse, they found that all the "sidewinders" were firmly locked on the carriers. Nopp knew that the KGB needed a seeker at the front of the missile, not a massive propulsion system (i.e., a projectile), but neither of them could dismantle the seeker, so they had to steal the behemoth. Linnoski immediately took action, knocking on the lock of a missile. They laboriously pushed the 3-meter-long, 74.5-kilogram Sidewinder missile out of the warehouse, locked the gate, and wiped off all fingerprints from the door.

When they transported the missile to the gap in the barbed wire, they saw Nopp's Madillassee car parked there, and Lampinger had been waiting for a long time. Three people worked together to load the sidewinder into the car. Because the projectile body was too long, the Madillasai car could not fit at all, and Nopp had to break the glass of the rear window and let the warhead stick out of the car. Then they found a blanket and wrapped up the 15-centimeter-diameter warhead that stretched out.

An hour later, Nopp's Madilla traffic had left Zell Air Base and was galloping on the spacious highway. Along the way, Lampinger always felt that this "missile transport vehicle" camouflaged with a broken blanket was too eye-catching. He was not sure in his heart, thinking: "If we are on the road during the day, there will be many people who will pay attention to us!" ”

After a long journey of more than 300 kilometers, they came to an apartment in the small town of Crefelde. This was rented in advance by them for the operation. They unloaded the missile from the vehicle and then split it into two parts and packed it in two large wooden boxes. In order to hide his eyes, Nopp also labeled the outside of the box as a "commercial sample". Afterwards, Nopp rushed back to the base as quickly as possible. Lambinger and Linosky continued their drive to an airport called Düsseldorf. There, the two of them checked in the wooden boxes to Moscow via Copenhagen, while Lampinger himself flew there.

But when Lampinger flew to Moscow, he was surprised that the two treasure chests were missing. Lampinger suddenly tensed up, if someone opened the box, it was over. He immediately flew back to Germany to see what was wrong with the competition. It turned out that after the wooden box was sent to Copenhagen, it was sent back, because there was an error in the cargo document, and the airport staff politely asked him to fill in the missing details. After a good toss, the "goods" were finally delivered to Moscow.

Receiving the "gift" from the three-person group, the Moscow leaders were indeed surprised and delighted. Although Soviet scientists copied the AA-2 "Atoll" close-air combat missile as early as 1958 (1959), the performance of this fake "Sidewinder" was greatly reduced. Now, a new type of Sidewinder missile was in front of the Soviets. Onegin was so excited when he saw the "rattlesnake" that he couldn't speak for half a day. The Lanminger group's action did save the KGB enough face, so headquarters specially rewarded the group with $34,000 in "activity funds.".

However, this unknowing theft operation still revealed flaws. Shortly after the stolen Sidewinder missile, a surgeon serving at the base took a walk along the fence around the base while picking wild vegetables. He accidentally found the barbed wire that had been cut and immediately reported the matter to the relevant authorities. After a quick inspection, the base soon discovered that a Sidewinder missile had been stolen. After investigation, the Federal German spy agency listed Nopp as the number one suspect and immediately arrested and interrogated him. Noppe was originally a playboy, and although bold, he could not stand the test, and confessed to the other two accomplices without waiting for the torture. The three-man team was swept away. All three were charged with espionage, with Nopp being sentenced to 3 years, Linowski to 4 years, and Lampinger to 7 years in prison for being the team leader.

Most people think that this is a spy operation of "picking sesame seeds and throwing watermelons". If they hadn't been in a hurry to steal missiles and revealed their identities, they might have managed to steal a latest "Ghost" fighter.

The KGB, though dissatisfied with Lampinger's assertive behavior, did not abandon him. In August 1971, the Soviet Union exchanged six Federal Germans sentenced to lengthy prison sentences for political offenses for 12 Eastern spies, of which Lampinger was one