Kirchenstein, Rudolph Martynovich (1891-1938)

Rudolph Kirchenstein

Rudolph Kirchenstein

One of the leaders of Soviet military intelligence in the 1920s and 1930s and a close friend of its long-time head, Jan Berzin. Operational pseudonym “Knyaz’” (“Prince”).

Kirchenstein was born into a peasant family in 1891 in the township of Zageburg, in Liflyandskaya gubernia of the Russian Empire (now part of Latvia).  While there is no reliable information about his early years, it is known that he received a higher education and joined the Bolshevik party in 1907.  He fought in World War I and graduated in 1916 from an officer training school.  He also fought with the Red Army’s Lettish rifle regiment in the Russian Civil War.  He graduated in 1920 from an intelligence qualification course and  served in the Red Army’s field intelligence during the Russian Civil War. Then, from 1920 to 1922, he was first assistant head and then head of the intelligence department of the Petrograd (the name of St. Petersburg at that time) military district, and from 1922 to 1924 he was the head of the intelligence department of the staff of the Caucasus Red Banner Army.

From 1924 to 1926, Kirchenstein was posted as an intelligence resident in Germany, and from 1926 to 1930 he performed various intelligence assignments in Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Great Britain. After graduating from an RKKA intelligence qualification course in 1930, he was posted as an illegal resident in Great Britain from July 1930 to June 1931.  He then worked at the Moscow headquarters of the military intelligence service as assistant head of its 2nd department. In 1935 he graduated from the Special Department of the Red Army Military Academy, and in 1936 he was promoted to the rank of colonel and awarded the Order of the Red Banner.  Despite his distinguished career, he was arrested in December 1937 in the wake of purges in the Red Army. He was sentenced to death in August 1938 and executed on the same day. He was rehabilitated in 1957. 1

  1. V.M. Lurie, V. Ya. Kochik. GRU. Dela i Ljudi. Moskva: Olma Press, 2003, s. 158. (GRU. Deeds and People, by V.M. Lurie, V.Ya. Kochik. Moscow: Olma Press, 2003, p. 158.