Mart Männik, not unlike thousands of very young Estonian men, had spent the last year of WWII and the immediate post-war period being buffeted by forces out of his control. His fateful journey started in May 1944, when he was mobilized, as a 14-year-old by the 22 Waffen SS Division (battle-front, not concentration camp unit).
In the fall of 1944 he was fighting in the last defensive battles of the crumbling front at Emajõe river. The last day before capitulation he threw his weapon away and traveled to Kiel. In July of 1947 he made his way to the UK, where by 1949 he was a textile worker in Charley.
Väino Pärtel brought him to meet the legendary colonel Alfons Rebane, who asked if Männik was capable doing things in absolute secrecy. He then proposed that Männik join the British intelligence service, MI6 and go to Estonia as its agent. Männik jumped at the chance. Rebane promised to meet him in London in two weeks at the station in South Kensington and there he was, waiting on the platform.
Rebane took Mannik's passport promising a new one in two days in the name of Otto Vares. ”Starting now you are Otto. Forget your old name. I'm Robert, nothing else. Not colonel, not Rebane,” were the colonel's first instructions.
Männik and others were trained at London's training centre at 111 Old Church Street where they learned a.o. morse code, codes, ciphers, secret writing. They also practised tailing someone and shaking surveillance.
MI6 decided to send Männik to Estonia in September 1951. The day he left he was given his Soviet passport in the name of Oskar Vares. During the night of September 28 Männik and another agent, Ants, boarded speedboats in Hamburg and he received his last supplies, his suicide pills. Their destination was a Kuramaa beach in Latvia.
About a mile from the beach the speedboat stopped to wait for a signal from land. The men got into a rubber dinghy and started to row rapidly toward the beach. Latvian resistance fighters, Forest Brothers, met them there. Männik was escorted to the resistance fighters' camp tens of kilometres distant. This was the start of Männik's year and a half in the forest.
A week after arriving at the camp he attempted making contact with London and failed. His colleague Ants tried a few days later and received a reply from Rebane. Their equipment continued to malfunction until the Latvians brought in a radio specialist.
In February of 1952 Männik was taken to Estonia, to a deserted house in the village of Lilli near the Latvian border, where he met the leader of the local resistance group nicknamed ”Old”. In a week Männik would get his equipment. Then he was taken to a house at the edge of a forest near Suure-Jaani. Above the kitchen ceiling was a secret room in which Männik lived. In May Männik met with one of the resistance leaders named Must.
At the end of October Männik got a change of venue to a farm near Laitse. He was driven in a brand new Pobeda, which had been bought with money received from London. The floorboards underneath the living room divan in the farmhouse had been loosened so that Männik could crawl into a hiding space underneath if necessary.
Must, at the beginning of February 1953, said they would have to move once more. The Pobeda took them through Tallinn towards Rakvere. In Nõmme Must stopped the car in front of a house for a farewell party. A table inside was covered with bottles and food. Even though Männik resisted drinking any liquor he was cajoled into downing a half teacup as a farewell toast.
Soon he was dizzy, totally fatigued and felt as if he was drifting away till he heard a voice: ”Is he done……..?” Through the mist he knew he'd been caught. Next he was staring into a blinding light. He heard questions, for some reason in English. And then total darkness. He was imprisoned. He knew he'd been duped from the moment he landed in Latvia. The resistance group was a MVD/KGB team and British intelligence had been totally sucked in.
At the next interrogation, major general Moskalenko told Männik that conviction for treason carries the death penalty. ”Then there's no point in talking,” said Männik. ”There's always a reason for talking,” replied Moskalenko. Männik knew there were two alternatives: either the KGB makes a proposal to play along with Rebane and MI6 or Männik dies.
In April the general asked him once again: Are you ready to right the wrong you have done against your homeland? If you don't play straight you'll get a bullet”. It wasn't long before Männik was to make his next scheduled transmission to London. He was watched closely. Every letter had to be sent exactly as instructed. Any attempt to alert London meant death for Männik.
Over time the KGB started to trust Männik. After the second transmission he was moved from a prison cell into a normal room. He could sleep as he needed and he was fed properly. All this meant that the ‘radio game' was achieving the results the KGB needed.
(Männik's case was not unique. The KGB had successfully infiltrated some Forest Brothers groups and was able to intercept many agents sent to Estonia. By turning them, the KGB were able to entice other agents, turn them, uncover other Forest Brothers operations and eventually eliminate the Forest Brothers activity altogether. One could ask why it was necessary to turn agents and then risk contrived messages being contaminated. Every morse code sender has his own ‘signature', a personal style that is recognized by the expert receiver. Another sender wouldn't be credible.)
In February 1954 Männik was informed he would be freed from prison as one Martin Pruul. No contact with relatives was allowed. By the end of 1956 London realized they had been duped by the KGB and all contact ceased. The ruse lasted for nearly three years. Männik was now useless to the KGB and was given a job at the Kunda cement works. He couldn't contact his relatives yet. It was a full 15 years before this was allowed.
Laas Leivat
