Stigga, Oskar Ansovich (1894-1938)

An officer of the Soviet military intelligence who served as its resident in Germany in the early 1930s and headed its military technical intelligence operations throughout the 1930s.

Stigga was born in 1894 in Liflyandskaya gubernia of the Russian Empire (now Latvia). He fought in the Russian Army during World War I and served in the Red Army beginning in 1918. He had been a Communist Party member since 1917. He began working for Soviet military intelligence (then the Intelligence Directorate [RU] of the Staff of the Red Army) in November 1922. Until 1929, he performed intelligence tasks in Latvia, and from 1929 (or early 1930) to 1934 he was posted as an “illegal” resident in Germany. His closest assistant was one Robert Zelms, a former American Communist Party functionary who operated in Europe under the name of Robert Elmston.

Upon his return to Moscow, Stigga was head of the 3rd department of the Red Army Intelligence Directorate from January 1935 to November 1937; from April to November 1937, he was simultaneously the head of its 1st department.

Stigga was awarded a gold watch in 1935 “for exceptionally diligent work on most important assignments” and was given the Red Star Order in 1937. He was arrested on November 29, 1937, at the height of the purges in the Red Army, and executed on July 29, 1938. He was rehabilitated posthumously in 1956.