Seventeen Moments of Spring (compilation)   Julian Semenov

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Title: Seventeen Moments of Spring (collection)
  Author: Julian Semenov
  Year: 1967, 1969, 1982
  Genre: Books on War, Political Detectives, Soviet Literature, Spy Detectives

About the book "Seventeen Moments of Spring (collection)" Julian Semenov

The Soviet writer Yulian Semenov was almost the only author in the USSR writing in the genre of a military-political detective. War is just a continuation of politics, and of course, in his books, the theme of achievement is in the first place. The novel “Seventeen Moments of Spring” relates precisely to such a work. In the USSR, he was in great demand. This book was created from archival documents and looks very realistic and believable.

The style of the story of the novel “Seventeen Moments of Spring” is characteristic only for Julian Semenov. In the work, for example, there are many dialogues that alternate with deep reflections of the author himself about the events of that time, and, of course, there are many bright personalities. The heroes of the novel are not fictional people, but the officers and generals of the German army and Soviet intelligence who really existed at that time. The image of a scout was taken from a man who had devoted many years of his life to serving in counterintelligence and had been in the rear of fascist Germany. But still the main character is a collective image. The author allowed himself to generalize the exploits of many people working behind enemy lines, into the exploit of one hero Isaev.

The novel by Julian Semenov “Seventeen Moments of Spring” is a story about 17 days of the dangerous work of the Soviet intelligence officer Isaev behind enemy lines. He had the officer rank of the German army and directly communicated with the senior officers of Germany. Communication with the homeland was established through the radio operator Kat. Isaev worked behind enemy lines under the name Stirlitz. He will have to overcome many dangerous moments to achieve his goal. The book is very interesting and is only one part of a whole cycle.

The book of Julian Semenov “Seventeen Moments of Spring” was created on the documented events of the war of the forties. The plot is related to the disclosure of the attempt of some senior officers of the German army to agree with the American and British representatives of military intelligence on the conclusion of peace, without waiting for the complete defeat of Germany. Thus, the West wanted to strengthen its position against the USSR.

The work “Seventeen Moments of Spring” is written in a concise, accurate language, but is read very easily. The author is the only one of the writers of the USSR had access to the KGB documents and therefore the book is full of truthful information. Of course, Julian Semenov was not allowed to write everything in his books, unfortunately, censorship of the USSR was at the highest level. Much is still under the stamp of secrecy.

For the younger generation, the novel “Seventeen Moments of Spring” will give an example of courage and courage. Each reader will see here a story of duty, honor and responsibility. And you can also try to think logically yourself, like Stirlitz. Surely this can be useful in our life.

On our website about books, you can download the website for free or read the online book “Seventeen Moments of Spring (collection)” by Julian Semenov in the formats epub, fb2, txt, rtf, pdf for iPad, iPhone, Android and Kindle. The book will give you a lot of pleasant moments and true reading pleasure. You can buy the full version from our partner. Also, here you will find the latest news from the literary world, learn the biography of your favorite authors. For beginning writers, there is a separate section with useful tips and tricks, interesting articles, thanks to which you yourself can try your hand at literary mastery.

Quotes from the book “Seventeen Moments of Spring (collection)” Julian Semenov

A small lie gives rise to great distrust.

In my opinion, betrayal is scary, but even more terrible is the indifferent and passive observation of how betrayal and murder take place.
  “In that case, there can only be one part in this: ending the murder.”
  “This does not depend on you.”
  - Does not depend. What do you call betrayal?
  - Betrayal is passivity.
  - No, passivity is not a betrayal.
  - This is worse than betrayal ...

Words are strong only when they are formed in the Bible or in Pushkin’s poems ... And so - they are garbage, and that's all.

Oil is blood pulsing through the arteries of war.

“... Aren't you a German patriot?”
  - I am. But what is meant by the "patriot of Germany"?
  - Fidelity to our ideology.
- Ideology is not a country yet.

Nothing is more valued than helping to justify villainy.

The character of a person is best recognized in a dispute.

Stirlitz tuned the receiver to France - Paris was broadcasting a concert by a young songwriter Edith Piaf. Her voice was low, strong, and the lyrics were simple and unsophisticated.
  “A complete decline in morals,” said the pastor, “I do not blame, no, I just listen to her and always remember Handel and Bach.” Earlier, apparently, people of art were more demanding of themselves: they walked alongside faith and set themselves super tasks. What about this? So they say in the markets ...
  - This singer will outlive herself ... But you and I will argue after the war.

SEVENTEEN MOMENTS OF SPRING

"WHO IS WHO?"

  At first, Stirlitz did not believe himself: the nightingale sang in the garden. The air was icy, bluish, and although the colors were spring, February, cautious, the snow still lay dense without the inner, timid blue that always precedes night melting.
  The nightingale sang in a hazel, which descended to the river, near an oak grove. The mighty trunks of the old trees were black; it smelled freshly frozen fish in the park. Last spring there was no strong smell of last year’s birch and oak, and the nightingale was in full swing — it clicked, scattered with trill, brittle and defenseless in this black, quiet park.
  Stirlitz remembered his grandfather: the old man knew how to talk with birds. He sat down under a tree, lured a tit, and looked at the pichu for a long time, and his eyes also became birdlike - fast, black beads, and the birds were not at all afraid of him.
  “Pin-pin-tararah!” The grandfather whistled.
  And the tits answered him - confidentially and cheerfully.
  The sun was gone, and the black trunks of the trees fell over the white snow with violet even shadows.
  “It will freeze, poor,” thought Stirlitz, and, smelling his greatcoat, returned to the house. “And you can’t help in any way: only one bird doesn’t believe people - the nightingale.”
  Stirlitz looked at his watch.
  Klaus is coming, Stirlitz thought. “He's always accurate.” I myself asked him to go from the station through the forest, so as not to meet with anyone. Nothing. I'll wait. Here is such a beauty ... "
Stirlitz always took this agent here, in a small mansion on the lake - his most comfortable safe house. For three months he persuaded the Obergruppenführer SS Paul to allocate money for him to purchase a villa from the children of the Opera dancers who died during the bombing. The children asked a lot, and Paul, who was responsible for the economic policy of the SS and SD, categorically refused Stirlitz. “You are crazy,” he said, “take off something more modest. Where does this craving for luxury come from? We cannot throw money right and left! This is dishonorable to a nation bearing the burden of war. ”
  Stirlitz had to bring his boss, the chief of political intelligence of the security service, here. The thirty-four-year-old SS brigadefuhrer Walter Schellenberg immediately realized that it was impossible to find a better place to talk with serious agents. A bill of sale was made through the dummies, and a certain Bolsen, the chief engineer of the Robert Ley Chemical Company, got the right to use the villa. He hired a watchman for a high fee and a good ration. The Bolezen was the Standartenführer SS von Stirlitz.
  ... Having finished serving the table, Stirlitz turned on the receiver. London broadcast fun music. The American Glan Miller Orchestra played a composition from the Sun Valley Serenade. Himmler liked this film, and one copy was purchased in Sweden. Since then, the tape was often watched in the basement on Prince Albrechtstrasse, especially during the night bombing, when it was impossible to interrogate the arrested.
  Stirlitz called the guard and, when he came, he said:
  - Man, today you can go to the city, to the children. Go back to six in the morning and, if I have not left, brew me the strongest coffee, the strongest you can ...

  12.2.1945 (18 hours 38 minutes)

“- What do you think, pastor, what is more in a person - a person or an animal?”
  - I think that one and the other in a person are equally divided.
  - That's impossible.
  “It could be just that.”
  - Not.
  - Otherwise, one thing would have won a long time ago.
  - You reproach us for appealing to the base, considering the spiritual as secondary. The spiritual is truly secondary. The spiritual grows like a fungus on the main leaven.
  - And this leaven?
- Ambition. This is what you call lust, and I call a healthy desire to sleep with a woman and love her. This is a healthy desire to be the first in your business. Without these aspirations, the entire development of mankind would cease. The church put a lot of effort into slowing down the development of mankind. Do you remember what period of church history I'm talking about?
  - Yes, yes, of course, I know this period. I know this period very well, but I know something else. I cease to see the difference between your attitude towards a person and that which the Führer preaches.
  - Yes?
  - Yes. He sees in man an ambitious beast. Healthy, strong, who wants to regain their living space.
  “You cannot imagine how wrong you are, for the Führer sees in every German not just a beast, but a blond beast.”
  - And you see in every person a beast in general.
  - And I see in every person that from which he came out. And the man came out of the monkey. A monkey is an animal.
  - Here we disagree. Do you believe that man came from a monkey; You have not seen the monkey from which it came, and this monkey did not say anything in your ear on this subject. You did not feel it, you cannot feel it. And believe in it, because this faith is in line with your spiritual organization.
  “Did God tell you in your ear that he created man?”
  “Of course, no one told me anything, and I cannot prove the existence of God,” this is unprovable, you can only believe in it. You believe in a monkey, and I believe in God. You believe in a monkey, because it corresponds to your spiritual organization; I believe in God because it corresponds to my spiritual organization.
  - Here you are a little juggling. I do not believe in a monkey. I believe in man.
  - Which descended from a monkey. You believe in a monkey in a person. And I believe in God in man.
  “And God, is he in every person?”
  - Of course.
  “Where is he in the Fuhrer?” In Goering? Where is he in Himmler?
  “You are asking a difficult question.” We are talking with you about the nature of man. Of course, in each of these villains you can find traces of the fallen angel. But, unfortunately, their whole nature so obeyed the laws of cruelty, necessity, lies, meanness, violence, that practically there was nothing human left there. But in principle, I do not believe that a person who is born into the world necessarily carries a curse of monkey origin.
  - Why the “curse” of monkey origin?
  “I speak my language.”
  “So you have to accept the divine law on the destruction of monkeys?”
“Well, why so ...”
  - All the time you are very morally moving away from answering questions that torment me. You do not give the answer “yes” or “no”, and each person who seeks faith loves concreteness, and he loves one “yes” or one “no”. You have “yes no,” “no,” “probably no,” and other phraseological shades of “yes.” This is exactly what deeply repels me, if you like, not so much from your method as from your practice.
  “You dislike my practice.” I see ... And yet you came running from a concentration camp to me. How to connect it?
  - This once again testifies to the fact that in every person, as you say, there is both a divine and a monkey. If only the divine was present in me, I would not turn to you. I would not run away, but would have accepted death from the SS executioners, would have turned their second cheek to awaken a person in them. Now, if you had to get to them, I wonder if you would turn your second cheek or try to avoid a blow?
  - What does it mean to turn the second cheek? You again project a symbolic parable onto the real machine of the Nazi state. It’s one thing to turn the cheek in a parable. As I told you, this parable of human conscience. Another thing is to get into a car that does not ask you whether you turn the other cheek or not. To get into a car, which, in principle, has no conscience in its idea ... Of course, with a car, or with a stone on the road, or with a wall that you come across, there is nothing to communicate the way you communicate with another creature.
  “Pastor, I'm embarrassed, - maybe I touch your secret, but ... Have you been to the Gestapo at one time?”
  “Well, what can I tell you?” I was there…
  - Clear. You do not want to touch this story, because for you this is a very painful issue. But do you not think, pastor, that after the end of the war your parishioners will not believe you?
  - You never know who was in the Gestapo.
  “And if they flock to the flock, that the pastor, as a provocateur, was put in cells to other prisoners who did not return?” And there are only a few of those who have returned, like you ... Not so many flocks will believe you ... Who will you preach your truth to?
  - Of course, if you act on a person by such methods, you can destroy anyone. In this case, I can hardly fix anything in my situation.
  - And then what?
  - Then? Disprove it. To refute, as far as I can, to refute until they listen to me. When they don’t listen, die inwardly.
- Internally. So, you will remain a living, carnal person?
  - The Lord judges. I will stay so stay.
  - Is your religion against suicide?
  “That's why I won't kill myself.”
  “What will you do, deprived of the opportunity to preach?”
  “I will believe without preaching.”
  - And why do not you see for yourself another way out - to work together with everyone?
  - What do you call "work"?
  - To carry stones in order to build temples of science, - at least.
  - If a person who graduated from the theological faculty, society needs only then to carry stones, then I have nothing to talk about with you. Then it’s really better for me now to return to the concentration camp and burn there in the crematorium ...
  - I just ask the question: what if? I am interested in listening to your supposed opinion - focusing your thoughts forward, so to speak.
  “Do you think that a person who addresses the flock with spiritual preaching is an idler and a charlatan?” Don't you think this is work? Your work is the carrying of stones, but I believe that spiritual work is not enough to say equal with any other work - spiritual work is especially important.
  - I myself am a journalist by profession, and my correspondence was ostracized both by the Nazis and the Orthodox Church.
  - They were condemned by the Orthodox Church for the simple reason that you misinterpreted the person himself.
  - I did not interpret the person. I showed the world of thieves and prostitutes who lived in the catacombs of Bremen and Hamburg. The Hitlerite state called it a vile slander of the higher race, and the church called it a slander of man.
  - We are not afraid of the truth of life.
  - Afraid! I showed how these people tried to come to church and how the church repelled them; it was the flocks that repelled them, and the pastor could not go against the flock.
  “Of course he could not.” I do not blame you for the truth. I do not blame you for showing the truth. I disagree with you in forecasts for the future person.
  - Do not you think that in your answers you are not a shepherd, but a politician?
  “You just see in me only what fits into you.” You see in me a political circuit that is only one plane. In the same way, as you can see in the slide rule, an item for hammering nails. With a slide rule, you can hammer a nail, it has a length and a known mass. But this is the same option in which you see the tenth, twentieth function of an object, while using a ruler you can count, and not just hammer in nails.
- Pastor, I ask a question, and you, without answering, hammer nails into me. You somehow very cleverly turn me from asking to defendant. You somehow immediately turn me from a seeker into a heretic. Why do you say that you are above the battle, when you are also in the battle?
  - This is true: I’m in a fight, and I’m really in a war, but I’m at war with the war itself.
  “You argue very materialistically.”
  - I argue with the materialist.
  “So you can fight me with my weapons?”
  - I have to do it.
  “Listen ... For the good of your flock, I need you to contact my friends.” I will give you the address. I will trust you with the address of my comrades ... Pastor, you will not betray the innocent ... "

Stirlitz finished listening to this tape recording, quickly got up and went to the window so as not to meet his eyes who asked the pastor for help yesterday, and now smirked while listening to his voice, drank cognac and smoked greedily.
  - Was the pastor ill with smoking? - asked Stirlitz without looking back.
  He stood by the window - a huge one, all over the wall - and watched the crows fight in the snow over bread: the local watchman received a double ration and was very fond of birds. The watchman did not know that Stirlitz was from the SD, and was firmly convinced that the cottage belongs to either homosexuals or trade tycoons: not a single woman came here ever, and when the men gathered, their conversations were quiet, the food was delicious and first-class , most often American, drink.
  - Yes, I was tortured there without smoking ... The old man is a talker, but I wanted to hang myself without tobacco ...
  The agent's name was Klaus. He was recruited two years ago. He himself went for recruitment: the former corrector wanted a thrill. He worked artistically, disarming the interlocutors with sincerity and harsh judgments. He was allowed to say everything, if only the work was efficient and quick. Looking closely at Klaus, Stirlitz every day they met experienced an increasing sense of fear.
  “Or maybe he is sick? - once thought Stirlitz. - The thirst for betrayal is also a peculiar disease. Interesting. Klaus completely beats Lombroso - he is worse than all the criminals I have seen, but how handsome and sweet ... "
  Stirlitz returned to the table, sat opposite Klaus, smiled at him.
  - Well? - he asked. “So you are convinced that the old man will establish a connection with you?”
  - Yes, this is a resolved issue. Most of all I like to work with intellectuals and priests. You know, it’s amazing to watch a person go to death. Sometimes I even wanted to say differently: “Wait! Fool! Where to?!"
“Well, that’s not worth it,” said Stirlitz. “That would be unreasonable.”
  - You do not have canned fish? I'm going crazy without fish. Phosphorus, you know. Nerve cells require ...
  - I will prepare you good canned fish. Which do you want?
  - I love in oil ...
  “I understand that ... What kind of production?” Ours or ...
  “Or,” Klaus laughed. “It may be unpatriotic, but I really love both food and drink made in America or in France ...”
  “I will prepare for you a box of real French sardines.” They are in olive oil, very spicy ... A lot of phosphorus ... You know, I looked at your file yesterday ...
  “I would give dearly for looking at him with just one eye ...”
  “It's not as interesting as it seems ... When you say, laugh, complain about a pain in the liver, it’s impressive when you consider that before that you had a puzzling operation ... But your dossier is boring: reports, reports. Everything was mixed up: your denunciations, denunciations against you ... No, this is not interesting ... Another interesting thing: I calculated that according to your reports, thanks to your initiative, ninety-seven people were arrested ... And all of them were silent about you. All without exception. And they were pretty famously processed in the Gestapo ...
  “Why are you telling me this?”
  - I don’t know ... I’m trying to analyze something ... Did it hurt when people who gave you shelter were then taken away?
  - And what do you think?
  - I dont know.
  “The devil will understand him ... I, apparently, felt strong when I entered combat with them.” I was interested in the fight ... What will happen to them later - I don’t know ... What will happen to us then? With everyone?
  “That's right, too,” Stirlitz agreed.
  - After us - at least a flood. And then, our people: cowardice, baseness, greed, denunciations. In each, simply in each. Among slaves you cannot be free ... This is true. So is it not better to be the most free among slaves? All these years I have enjoyed full spiritual freedom ...
  Stirlitz asked:
  - Listen, and who came to the pastor the day before yesterday?
  - No one…
  “About nine ...”
  “You are mistaken,” Klaus answered, “in any case, no one came from you, I was there all alone.”
  - Maybe it was a parishioner? My people did not make out faces.
  “Have you watched his house?”
  - Of course. All the time ... So, you are convinced that the old man will work for you?
  - Will be. In general, I feel the calling of an oppositionist, tribune, leader. People submit to my pressure, the logic of thinking ...
- Okay. Well done, Klaus. Just don’t boast beyond measure. Now about the matter ... For several days you will live in one of our apartment ... Because after you will have serious work, and moreover, not for my part ...
  Stirlitz was telling the truth. Colleagues from the Gestapo today asked to give them Klaus for a week: two Russian “pianists” were captured in Cologne. They were taken at work, right by the radio. They were silent, it was necessary to plant a good man for them. Better than Klaus, you will not find. Stirlitz promised to find Klaus.
  “Take a sheet of paper in the gray folder,” said Stirlitz, “and write the following:“ Standartenfuhrer! I'm dead tired. My strength is running out. I honestly worked, but I can’t do it anymore. I want a rest ... "
  - Why is this? Klaus asked, signing the letter.
  “I think it’s good for you to go to Innsbruck for a week,” Stirlitz answered, handing him a wad of money. - There are casinos there, and young skiers are still skating from the mountains. Without this letter, I will not be able to recapture a week of happiness for you.
  “Thank you,” Klaus said, “only I have a lot of money ...”
  “It won't hurt anymore, huh?” Or hurt?
  “Yes, in general, it will not hurt,” Klaus agreed, hiding the money in the back pocket of his trousers. - Now they say gonorrhea is quite expensive to treat ...
  - Remember again: no one saw you at the pastor?
  - Nothing to remember - no one ...
  - I mean our people.
  “Actually, yours could see me if they watched this old man’s house.” And that is unlikely ... I have not seen anyone ...
  Stirlitz recalled how a week ago he himself dressed him in the clothes of a convict, before staging a play with the prisoners running through the village where Pastor Schlag now lived. He remembered Klaus's face then, a week ago: his eyes shone with kindness and courage - he had already entered the role that he was to play. Then Stirlitz spoke differently with him, because a saint was sitting next to him - his face was so beautiful, his voice was mournful and the words he spoke were so precise.
  “We will omit this letter on the way to your new apartment,” said Stirlitz. - And sketch one more thing - to the pastor, so that there are no suspicions. Try this yourself. I won’t bother you, I still make some coffee.
  When he returned, Klaus was holding a piece of paper in his hands.
“Honesty means action,” he began to read with a chuckle. “Faith is based on struggle. The preaching of honesty with complete inaction is a betrayal of both the flock and himself. A person can forgive himself dishonesty, offspring - never. Therefore, I cannot forgive myself for inaction. Inaction is worse than betrayal. I'm leaving. Justify yourself - God help you. ” Well how? Nothing?
  - famously. Have you tried writing prose? Or poems?
  - Not. If I could write - would I become ... - Klaus suddenly cut himself off and furtively glanced at Stirlitz.
  - Go on, eccentric. We are talking openly. You wanted to say: if you could write, would you really work for us?
  - Something like that.
  “Not like that,” Stirlitz corrected him, “and that is what you wanted to say.” Not?
  - Yes.
  - Well done. What is your reason for lying to me? Drink whiskey, and the throne, it’s already dark, soon, apparently, the Yankees will arrive.
  - Is the apartment far?
  - In the forest, ten kilometers. It's quiet there, sleep until tomorrow ...
  Already in the car, Stirlitz asked:
  “Was he silent about the former chancellor Bruening?”
  - I told you about this - I immediately locked myself in. I was afraid to reap on him ...
  “They did it right ... And was he silent about Switzerland too?”
  - tightly.
  - Okay. We will pick up from the other edge. It is important that he agreed to help the communist. Ah yes pastor!
  Stirlitz killed Klaus with a shot at the temple. They stood on the shore of the lake. There was a restricted area here, but the security post - that Stirlitz knew for sure - was two kilometers away, the raid had already begun, and during the raid a pistol shot was not heard. He calculated that Klaus would fall from the concrete site - they used to fish from here - right into the water.
  Klaus fell into the water silently, kulom. Stirlitz threw a gun into the place where he fell (a version of suicide based on nervous exhaustion lined up accurately, letters were sent by Klaus himself), took off his gloves and went through the forest to his car. There were forty kilometers to the village where Pastor Schlag lived. Stirlitz calculated that he would be with him in an hour - he foresaw everything, even the possibility of presenting an alibi in time ...

  12.2.1945 (19 hours 56 minutes)

(From the party characterization of a member of the NSDAP since 1930, SS kruppenführer Krueger: “A true Aryan loyal to the Führer. His character is Nordic, solid. With friends he is even and sociable; merciless to the enemies of the Reich. He is an excellent family man; he did not have any connections that defamed him. In proved to be an indispensable master of his craft ... ")

After the Russians broke into Krakow in January 1945 and the city, so carefully mined, remained intact, the head of the imperial security department Kaltenbrunner ordered the chief of the Gestapo Kruger, the eastern department, to be brought to him.
  Kaltenbrunner was silent for a long time, peering at the heavy, massive face of the general, and then very quietly asked:
  “Do you have any justification — objective enough that the Führer can believe you?”
  A manly, outwardly innocent Kruger was waiting for this question. He was ready to answer. But he had to play a whole gamut of feelings: for fifteen years in the SS and in the party, he learned acting. He knew that it was impossible to answer right away, just as it was impossible to dispute his guilt completely. Even at home, he found himself becoming a completely different person. At first, he occasionally spoke with his wife, and even in a whisper, at night, but with the development of special equipment, and he, like no one else, knew her successes, he stopped speaking aloud at all what he sometimes allowed himself to think. Even in the woods, walking with his wife, he was silent or talking about trifles, because the RSHA at any moment could invent an apparatus capable of recording a voice at a distance of a kilometer or more.
  So gradually the old Kruger disappeared; instead, in the shell of a person familiar to everyone and outwardly unchanged, there was another general created by the former, completely unfamiliar to anyone, afraid not only to tell the truth, no, afraid to allow himself to think the truth.
  “No,” answered Kruger, frowning, suppressing a sigh, very sensible and hard, “I have no sufficient excuse ... And it cannot be. I am a soldier, war is war, and I do not expect any indulgences for myself.
  He played for sure. He knew that the more severe he would be in relation to himself, the less weapons he would leave in Kaltenbrunner's hands.
  “Do not be a woman,” said Kaltenbrunner, lighting a cigarette, and Krueger realized that he had chosen the absolutely exact line of conduct. “We need to analyze the failure so as not to repeat it.”
  Kruger said:
  - Obergruppenführer, I understand that my guilt is immense. But I would like you to hear the Standartenfuhrer Stirlitz. He was fully aware of our operation, and he can confirm: everything was prepared in the highest degree thoroughly and conscientiously.
  - What did Stirlitz have to do with the operation? - shrugged Kaltenbrunner. - He is from intelligence, he was engaged in other matters in Krakow.
“I know that he dealt with the missing FAA in Krakow, but I considered it my duty to devote him to all the details of our operation, believing that when he returned, he would report either to the Reichsfuhrer or to you about how we organized the case.” I was waiting for some additional instructions from you, but I never received anything.
  Kaltenbrunner called the secretary and asked him:
  - Please find out if Stirlitz from the Sixth Directorate was included in the list of persons admitted to the Schwarzfire operation. Find out if Stirlitz attended the reception after returning from Krakow, and if so, who. Ask also what questions he raised in the conversation.
  Krueger realized that he too early began to expose Stirlitz to blow.
  “I alone am responsible,” he spoke again, bowing his head, squeezing deaf, heavy words out of himself, “it will hurt me very much if you punish Stirlitz.” I deeply respect him as a dedicated fighter. I have no excuse, and I can atone for my guilt only with blood on the battlefield.
  “And who will fight the enemies here ?!” I?! One?! It is too simple to die for the homeland and the Fuhrer at the front! And it’s much more difficult to live here, under the bombs, and burn foul with hot iron! Here you need not only courage, but also the mind! Great mind, Kruger!
  Kruger understood: there would be no dispatch to the front.
  The secretary, inaudibly opening the door, laid several thin folders on Kaltenbrunner's table. Kaltenbrunner leafed through the folders and looked expectantly at the secretary.
  “No,” said the secretary, “upon returning from Krakow, Stirlitz immediately switched to identifying a strategic transmitter working for Moscow ...”

Current page: 1 (total for the book is 19 pages) [available passage for reading: 11 pages]

SEVENTEEN MOMENTS OF SPRING

"WHO IS WHO?"

At first, Stirlitz did not believe himself: the nightingale sang in the garden. The air was icy, bluish, and although the tones were spring, February, cautious, the snow still lay thick and without that inner, timid blue that always precedes night melting.

The nightingale sang in a hazel, which descended to the river, near an oak grove. The mighty trunks of the old trees were black; it smelled freshly frozen fish in the park. Last spring there was no strong smell of last year’s birch and oak, and the nightingale was in full swing — it clicked, scattered with trill, brittle and defenseless in this black, quiet park.

Stirlitz remembered his grandfather: the old man knew how to talk with birds. He sat down under a tree, lured a tit, and looked at the pichu for a long time, and his eyes also became birdlike - fast, black beads, and the birds were not at all afraid of him.

“Pin-pin-tararah!” The grandfather whistled.

And the tits answered him - confidentially and cheerfully.

The sun was gone, and the black trunks of the trees fell over the white snow with violet even shadows.

“It will freeze, poor,” thought Stirlitz, and, smelling his greatcoat, returned to the house. “And you can’t help in any way: only one bird doesn’t believe people - the nightingale.”

Stirlitz looked at his watch.

Klaus is coming, Stirlitz thought. “He's always accurate.” I myself asked him to go from the station through the forest, so as not to meet with anyone. Nothing. I'll wait. Here is such a beauty ... "

Stirlitz always took this agent here, in a small mansion on the lake - his most comfortable safe house. For three months he persuaded the Obergruppenführer SS Paul to allocate money for him to purchase a villa from the children of the Opera dancers who died during the bombing. The children asked a lot, and Paul, who was responsible for the economic policy of the SS and SD, categorically refused Stirlitz. “You are crazy,” he said, “take off something more modest. Where does this craving for luxury come from? We cannot throw money right and left! This is dishonorable to a nation bearing the burden of war. ”

Stirlitz had to bring his boss, the chief of political intelligence of the security service, here. The thirty-four-year-old SS brigadefuhrer Walter Schellenberg immediately realized that it was impossible to find a better place to talk with serious agents. A bill of sale was made through the dummies, and a certain Bolsen, the chief engineer of the Robert Ley Chemical Company, got the right to use the villa. He hired a watchman for a high fee and a good ration. The Bolezen was the Standartenführer SS von Stirlitz.

... Having finished serving the table, Stirlitz turned on the receiver. London broadcast fun music. The American Glan Miller Orchestra played a composition from the Sun Valley Serenade. Himmler liked this film, and one copy was purchased in Sweden. Since then, the tape was often watched in the basement on Prince Albrechtstrasse, especially during the night bombing, when it was impossible to interrogate the arrested.

Stirlitz called the guard and, when he came, he said:

- Man, today you can go to the city, to the children. Go back to six in the morning and, if I have not left, brew me the strongest coffee, the strongest you can ...

12.2.1945 (18 hours 38 minutes)

“- What do you think, pastor, what is more in a person - a person or an animal?”

- I think that one and the other in a person are equally divided.

- That's impossible.

“It could be just that.”

- Otherwise, one thing would have won a long time ago.

- You reproach us for appealing to the base, considering the spiritual as secondary. The spiritual is truly secondary. The spiritual grows like a fungus on the main leaven.

- And this leaven?

- Ambition. This is what you call lust, and I call a healthy desire to sleep with a woman and love her. This is a healthy desire to be the first in your business. Without these aspirations, the entire development of mankind would cease. The church put a lot of effort into slowing down the development of mankind. Do you remember what period of church history I'm talking about?

- Yes, yes, of course, I know this period. I know this period very well, but I know something else. I cease to see the difference between your attitude towards a person and that which the Führer preaches.

- Yes. He sees in man an ambitious beast. Healthy, strong, who wants to regain their living space.

“You cannot imagine how wrong you are, for the Führer sees in every German not just a beast, but a blond beast.”

- And you see in every person a beast in general.

- And I see in every person that from which he came out. And the man came out of the monkey. A monkey is an animal.

- Here we disagree. Do you believe that man came from a monkey; You have not seen the monkey from which it came, and this monkey did not say anything in your ear on this subject. You did not feel it, you cannot feel it. And believe in it, because this faith is in line with your spiritual organization.

“Did God tell you in your ear that he created man?”

“Of course, no one told me anything, and I cannot prove the existence of God,” this is unprovable, you can only believe in it. You believe in a monkey, and I believe in God. You believe in a monkey, because it corresponds to your spiritual organization; I believe in God because it corresponds to my spiritual organization.

- Here you are a little juggling. I do not believe in a monkey. I believe in man.

- Which descended from a monkey. You believe in a monkey in a person. And I believe in God in man.

“And God, is he in every person?”

- Of course.

“Where is he in the Fuhrer?” In Goering? Where is he in Himmler?

“You are asking a difficult question.” We are talking with you about the nature of man. Of course, in each of these villains you can find traces of the fallen angel. But, unfortunately, their whole nature so obeyed the laws of cruelty, necessity, lies, meanness, violence, that practically there was nothing human left there. But in principle, I do not believe that a person who is born into the world necessarily carries a curse of monkey origin.

- Why the “curse” of monkey origin?

“I speak my language.”

“So you have to accept the divine law on the destruction of monkeys?”

“Well, why so ...”

- All the time you are very morally moving away from answering questions that torment me. You do not give the answer “yes” or “no”, and each person who seeks faith loves concreteness, and he loves one “yes” or one “no”. You have “yes no,” “no,” “probably no,” and other phraseological shades of “yes.” This is exactly what deeply repels me, if you like, not so much from your method as from your practice.

“You dislike my practice.” I see ... And yet you came running from a concentration camp to me. How to connect it?

- This once again testifies to the fact that in every person, as you say, there is both a divine and a monkey. If only the divine was present in me, I would not turn to you. I would not run away, but would have accepted death from the SS executioners, would have turned their second cheek to awaken a person in them. Now, if you had to get to them, I wonder if you would turn your second cheek or try to avoid a blow?

- What does it mean to turn the second cheek? You again project a symbolic parable onto the real machine of the Nazi state. It’s one thing to turn the cheek in a parable. As I told you, this parable of human conscience. Another thing is to get into a car that does not ask you whether you turn the other cheek or not. To get into a car, which, in principle, has no conscience in its idea ... Of course, with a car, or with a stone on the road, or with a wall that you come across, there is nothing to communicate the way you communicate with another creature.

“Pastor, I'm embarrassed, - maybe I touch your secret, but ... Have you been to the Gestapo at one time?”

“Well, what can I tell you?” I was there…

- Clear. You do not want to touch this story, because for you this is a very painful issue. But do you not think, pastor, that after the end of the war your parishioners will not believe you?

- You never know who was in the Gestapo.

“And if they flock to the flock, that the pastor, as a provocateur, was put in cells to other prisoners who did not return?” And there are only a few of those who have returned, like you ... Not so many flocks will believe you ... Who will you preach your truth to?

- Of course, if you act on a person by such methods, you can destroy anyone. In this case, I can hardly fix anything in my situation.

- And then what?

- Then? Disprove it. To refute, as far as I can, to refute until they listen to me. When they don’t listen, die inwardly.

- Internally. So, you will remain a living, carnal person?

- The Lord judges. I will stay so stay.

- Is your religion against suicide?

“That's why I won't kill myself.”

“What will you do, deprived of the opportunity to preach?”

“I will believe without preaching.”

- And why do not you see for yourself another way out - to work together with everyone?

- What do you call "work"?

- To carry stones in order to build temples of science, - at least.

- If a person who graduated from the theological faculty, society needs only then to carry stones, then I have nothing to talk about with you. Then it’s really better for me now to return to the concentration camp and burn there in the crematorium ...

- I just ask the question: what if? I am interested in listening to your supposed opinion - focusing your thoughts forward, so to speak.

“Do you think that a person who addresses the flock with spiritual preaching is an idler and a charlatan?” Don't you think this is work? Your work is the carrying of stones, but I believe that spiritual work is not enough to say equal with any other work - spiritual work is especially important.

- I myself am a journalist by profession, and my correspondence was ostracized both by the Nazis and the Orthodox Church.

- They were condemned by the Orthodox Church for the simple reason that you misinterpreted the person himself.

- I did not interpret the person. I showed the world of thieves and prostitutes who lived in the catacombs of Bremen and Hamburg. The Hitlerite state called it a vile slander of the higher race, and the church called it a slander of man.

- We are not afraid of the truth of life.

- Afraid! I showed how these people tried to come to church and how the church repelled them; it was the flocks that repelled them, and the pastor could not go against the flock.

“Of course he could not.” I do not blame you for the truth. I do not blame you for showing the truth. I disagree with you in forecasts for the future person.

- Do not you think that in your answers you are not a shepherd, but a politician?

“You just see in me only what fits into you.” You see in me a political circuit that is only one plane. In the same way, as you can see in the slide rule, an item for hammering nails. With a slide rule, you can hammer a nail, it has a length and a known mass. But this is the same option in which you see the tenth, twentieth function of an object, while using a ruler you can count, and not just hammer in nails.

- Pastor, I ask a question, and you, without answering, hammer nails into me. You somehow very cleverly turn me from asking to defendant. You somehow immediately turn me from a seeker into a heretic. Why do you say that you are above the battle, when you are also in the battle?

- This is true: I’m in a fight, and I’m really in a war, but I’m at war with the war itself.

“You argue very materialistically.”

- I argue with the materialist.

“So you can fight me with my weapons?”

- I have to do it.

“Listen ... For the good of your flock, I need you to contact my friends.” I will give you the address. I will trust you with the address of my comrades ... Pastor, you will not betray the innocent ... "

Stirlitz finished listening to this tape recording, quickly got up and went to the window so as not to meet his eyes who asked the pastor for help yesterday, and now smirked while listening to his voice, drank cognac and smoked greedily.

- Was the pastor ill with smoking? - asked Stirlitz without looking back.

He stood by the window - a huge one, all over the wall - and watched the crows fight in the snow over bread: the local watchman received a double ration and was very fond of birds. The watchman did not know that Stirlitz was from the SD, and was firmly convinced that the cottage belongs to either homosexuals or trade tycoons: not a single woman came here ever, and when the men gathered, their conversations were quiet, the food was delicious and first-class , most often American, drink.

- Yes, I was tortured there without smoking ... The old man is a talker, but I wanted to hang myself without tobacco ...

The agent's name was Klaus. He was recruited two years ago. He himself went for recruitment: the former corrector wanted a thrill. He worked artistically, disarming the interlocutors with sincerity and harsh judgments. He was allowed to say everything, if only the work was efficient and quick. Looking closely at Klaus, Stirlitz every day they met experienced an increasing sense of fear.

“Or maybe he is sick? - once thought Stirlitz. - The thirst for betrayal is also a peculiar disease. Interesting. Klaus completely beats Lombroso 1
Lombroso Cesare (1835 - 1909) - Italian psychiatrist and forensic scientist, founder of the anthropological trend in bourgeois criminal law.

  “He is worse than all the criminals I have seen, but how handsome and sweet ...”

Stirlitz returned to the table, sat opposite Klaus, smiled at him.

- Well? - he asked. “So you are convinced that the old man will establish a connection with you?”

- Yes, this is a resolved issue. Most of all I like to work with intellectuals and priests. You know, it’s amazing to watch a person go to death. Sometimes I even wanted to say differently: “Wait! Fool! Where to?!"

“Well, that’s not worth it,” said Stirlitz. “That would be unreasonable.”

- You do not have canned fish? I'm going crazy without fish. Phosphorus, you know. Nerve cells require ...

- I will prepare you good canned fish. Which do you want?

- I love in oil ...

“I understand that ... What kind of production?” Ours or ...

“Or,” Klaus laughed. “It may be unpatriotic, but I really love both food and drink made in America or in France ...”

“I will prepare for you a box of real French sardines.” They are in olive oil, very spicy ... A lot of phosphorus ... You know, I looked at your file yesterday ...

“I would give dearly for looking at him with just one eye ...”

“It's not as interesting as it seems ... When you say, laugh, complain about a pain in the liver, it’s impressive when you consider that before that you had a puzzling operation ... But your dossier is boring: reports, reports. Everything was mixed up: your denunciations, denunciations against you ... No, this is not interesting ... Another interesting thing: I calculated that according to your reports, thanks to your initiative, ninety-seven people were arrested ... And all of them were silent about you. All without exception. And they were pretty famously processed in the Gestapo ...

“Why are you telling me this?”

- I don’t know ... I’m trying to analyze something ... Did it hurt when people who gave you shelter were then taken away?

- And what do you think?

- I dont know.

“The devil will understand him ... I, apparently, felt strong when I entered combat with them.” I was interested in the fight ... What will happen to them later - I don’t know ... What will happen to us then? With everyone?

“That's right, too,” Stirlitz agreed.

- After us - at least a flood. And then, our people: cowardice, baseness, greed, denunciations. In each, simply in each. Among slaves you cannot be free ... This is true. So is it not better to be the most free among slaves? All these years I have enjoyed full spiritual freedom ...

Stirlitz asked:

- Listen, and who came to the pastor the day before yesterday?

- No one…

“About nine ...”

“You are mistaken,” Klaus answered, “in any case, no one came from you, I was there all alone.”

- Maybe it was a parishioner? My people did not make out faces.

“Have you watched his house?”

- Of course. All the time ... So, you are convinced that the old man will work for you?

- Will be. In general, I feel the calling of an oppositionist, tribune, leader. People submit to my pressure, the logic of thinking ...

- Okay. Well done, Klaus. Just don’t boast beyond measure. Now about the matter ... For several days you will live in one of our apartment ... Because after you will have serious work, and moreover, not for my part ...

Stirlitz was telling the truth. Colleagues from the Gestapo today asked to give them Klaus for a week: two Russian “pianists” were captured in Cologne. They were taken at work, right by the radio. They were silent, it was necessary to plant a good man for them. Better than Klaus, you will not find. Stirlitz promised to find Klaus.

“Take a sheet of paper in the gray folder,” said Stirlitz, “and write the following:“ Standartenfuhrer! I'm dead tired. My strength is running out. I honestly worked, but I can’t do it anymore. I want a rest ... "

- Why is this? Klaus asked, signing the letter.

“I think it’s good for you to go to Innsbruck for a week,” Stirlitz answered, handing him a wad of money. - There are casinos there, and young skiers are still skating from the mountains. Without this letter, I will not be able to recapture a week of happiness for you.

“Thank you,” Klaus said, “only I have a lot of money ...”

“It won't hurt anymore, huh?” Or hurt?

“Yes, in general, it will not hurt,” Klaus agreed, hiding the money in the back pocket of his trousers. - Now they say gonorrhea is quite expensive to treat ...

- Remember again: no one saw you at the pastor?

- Nothing to remember - no one ...

- I mean our people.

“Actually, yours could see me if they watched this old man’s house.” And that is unlikely ... I have not seen anyone ...

Stirlitz recalled how a week ago he himself dressed him in the clothes of a convict, before staging a play with the prisoners running through the village where Pastor Schlag now lived. He remembered Klaus's face then, a week ago: his eyes shone with kindness and courage - he had already entered the role that he was to play. Then Stirlitz spoke differently with him, because a saint was sitting next to him - his face was so beautiful, his voice was mournful and the words he spoke were so precise.

“We will omit this letter on the way to your new apartment,” said Stirlitz. - And sketch one more thing - to the pastor, so that there are no suspicions. Try this yourself. I won’t bother you, I still make some coffee.

When he returned, Klaus was holding a piece of paper in his hands.

“Honesty means action,” he began to read with a chuckle. “Faith is based on struggle. The preaching of honesty with complete inaction is a betrayal of both the flock and himself. A person can forgive himself dishonesty, offspring - never. Therefore, I cannot forgive myself for inaction. Inaction is worse than betrayal. I'm leaving. Justify yourself - God help you. ” Well how? Nothing?

- famously. Have you tried writing prose? Or poems?

- Not. If I could write - would I become ... - Klaus suddenly cut himself off and furtively glanced at Stirlitz.

- Go on, eccentric. We are talking openly. You wanted to say: if you could write, would you really work for us?

- Something like that.

“Not like that,” Stirlitz corrected him, “and that is what you wanted to say.” Not?

- Well done. What is your reason for lying to me? Drink whiskey, and the throne, it’s already dark, soon, apparently, the Yankees will arrive.

- Is the apartment far?

- In the forest, ten kilometers. It's quiet there, sleep until tomorrow ...

Already in the car, Stirlitz asked:

“Was he silent about the former chancellor Bruening?”

- I told you about this - I immediately locked myself in. I was afraid to reap on him ...

“They did it right ... And was he silent about Switzerland too?”

- tightly.

- Okay. We will pick up from the other edge. It is important that he agreed to help the communist. Ah yes pastor!

Stirlitz killed Klaus with a shot at the temple. They stood on the shore of the lake. There was a restricted area here, but the security post - Stirlitz knew it for sure - was two kilometers away, a raid had already begun, and during the raid a pistol shot was not heard. He calculated that Klaus would fall from the concrete site - they used to fish from here - right into the water.

Klaus fell into the water silently, kulom. Stirlitz threw a gun into the place where he fell (a version of suicide based on nervous exhaustion lined up accurately, letters were sent by Klaus himself), took off his gloves and went through the forest to his car. There were forty kilometers to the village where Pastor Schlag lived. Stirlitz calculated that he would be with him in an hour - he foresaw everything, even the possibility of presenting an alibi in time ...

12.2.1945 (19 hours 56 minutes)

(From the party characterization of a member of the NSDAP since 1930, SS kruppenführer Krueger: “A true Aryan loyal to the Führer. His character is Nordic, solid. With friends he is even and sociable; merciless to the enemies of the Reich. He is an excellent family man; he did not have any connections that defamed him. In proved to be an indispensable master of his craft ... ")

After the Russians broke into Krakow in January 1945 and the city, so carefully mined, remained intact, the head of the imperial security department Kaltenbrunner ordered the chief of the Gestapo Kruger, the eastern department, to be brought to him.

Kaltenbrunner was silent for a long time, peering at the heavy, massive face of the general, and then very quietly asked:

“Do you have any justification — objective enough that the Führer can believe you?”

A manly, outwardly innocent Kruger was waiting for this question. He was ready to answer. But he had to play a whole gamut of feelings: for fifteen years in the SS and in the party, he learned acting. He knew that it was impossible to answer right away, just as it was impossible to dispute his guilt completely. Even at home, he found himself becoming a completely different person. At first, he occasionally spoke with his wife, and even in a whisper, at night, but with the development of special equipment, and he, like no one else, knew her successes, he stopped speaking aloud at all what he sometimes allowed himself to think. Even in the woods, walking with his wife, he was silent or talking about trifles, because the RSHA at any moment could invent an apparatus capable of recording a voice at a distance of a kilometer or more.

So gradually the old Kruger disappeared; instead, in the shell of a person familiar to everyone and outwardly unchanged, there was another general created by the former, completely unfamiliar to anyone, afraid not only to tell the truth, no, afraid to allow himself to think the truth.

“No,” answered Kruger, frowning, suppressing a sigh, very sensible and hard, “I have no sufficient excuse ... And it cannot be. I am a soldier, war is war, and I do not expect any indulgences for myself.

He played for sure. He knew that the more severe he would be in relation to himself, the less weapons he would leave in Kaltenbrunner's hands.

“Don't be a woman,” said Kaltenbrunner, lighting a cigarette, and Krueger realized that he had chosen the absolutely exact line of conduct. “We need to analyze the failure so as not to repeat it.”

Kruger said:

- Obergruppenführer, I understand that my guilt is immense. But I would like you to hear the Standartenfuhrer Stirlitz. He was fully aware of our operation, and he can confirm: everything was prepared in the highest degree thoroughly and conscientiously.

- What did Stirlitz have to do with the operation? - shrugged Kaltenbrunner. - He is from intelligence, he was engaged in other matters in Krakow.

“I know that he dealt with the missing FAA in Krakow, but I considered it my duty to devote him to all the details of our operation, believing that when he returned, he would report either to the Reichsfuhrer or to you about how we organized the case.” I was waiting for some additional instructions from you, but I never received anything.

Kaltenbrunner called the secretary and asked him:

- Please find out if Stirlitz from the Sixth Directorate was included in the list of persons allowed to conduct the Schwarzfire operation. Find out if Stirlitz attended the reception after returning from Krakow, and if so, who. Ask also what questions he raised in the conversation.

Krueger realized that he too early began to expose Stirlitz to blow.

“I alone am responsible,” he spoke again, bowing his head, squeezing deaf, heavy words out of himself, “it will hurt me very much if you punish Stirlitz.” I deeply respect him as a dedicated fighter. I have no excuse, and I can atone for my guilt only with blood on the battlefield.

“And who will fight the enemies here ?!” I?! One?! It is too simple to die for the homeland and the Fuhrer at the front! And it’s much more difficult to live here, under the bombs, and burn foul with hot iron! Here you need not only courage, but also the mind! Great mind, Kruger!

Kruger understood: there would be no dispatch to the front.

The secretary, inaudibly opening the door, laid several thin folders on Kaltenbrunner's table. Kaltenbrunner leafed through the folders and looked expectantly at the secretary.

“No,” said the secretary, “upon returning from Krakow, Stirlitz immediately switched to identifying a strategic transmitter working for Moscow ...”

Kruger decided to continue his game, he thought that Kaltenbrunner, like all cruel people, is extremely sentimental.

- Obergruppenführer, however, I ask you to let me go to the forefront.

“Sit down,” said Kaltenbrunner, “you are a general, not a woman.” Today you can relax, and tomorrow in detail, in detail, write me everything about the operation. We’ll think about where to send you to work ... There are few people, but many things, Kruger. A lot of work.

When Kruger left, Kaltenbrunner called the secretary and asked him:

“Pick me all of Stirlitz’s affairs for the last year or two, but so that Schellenberg doesn’t find out about this: Stirlitz is a valuable worker and a brave man, you should not cast a shadow over him.” It’s just an ordinary comradely mutual check ... And prepare an order for Kruger: we will send him the deputy chief of the Prague Gestapo - there is a hot spot ...

The book "Seventeen Moments of Spring", written by Soviet writer Julian Semenov, is almost at everyone's ears. Many have repeatedly watched the eponymous series, telling about the Soviet scout Stirlitz. Jokes are written about this person, people argue about who could become his prototype. Moreover, it is known that the plot is based on real events that took place in the spring of 1945. This book includes three novels about Stirlitz.

In the novel “Major Whirlwind”, the author reflects the events that took place at the end of 1944. The main plot line is the struggle of the Soviet reconnaissance group behind enemy lines. Stirlitz himself does not take on the first roles, but his family members are well described. The main role here is played by Major Whirlwind, who is able to analyze the situation and make decisions. The writer reflects the intellectual struggle of Soviet and German intelligence, which unfolds more fully in subsequent works.

The novel “Seventeen Moments of Spring” is already more telling about Stirlitz himself, who is in Berlin and wants to prevent the opponents of the USSR. The time period of February-March 1945 is described here. The war will soon end, Berlin will be bombed, the Allies are negotiating behind the USSR, which Stirlitz must prevent. At the very beginning, they begin to suspect him of espionage, but he manages to maintain confidence. However, he was left without contact with the Moscow leadership.

The book "Ordered to Survive" tells of the return of Shtritlits to Berlin after the successful operation. But now everything is not so simple, it has long been suspected that he is a Soviet agent, the ring around him is narrowing more and more. He falls into a trap and is cut off from his people. But the Soviet leadership understands that their agent is disclosed, and therefore his data is not too worth trusting.

On our website you can download the book "Seventeen Moments of Spring" Yulian Semenovich Semenov free and without registration in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format, read a book online or buy a book in an online store.

The novel of the Honored Artist of the USSR, State Prize Laureate of the RSFSR Yulian Semenov, who became the basis for the famous television series “Seventeen Moments of Spring”, describes attempts to conspire Nazi leaders with part of the US military-industrial complex during World War II.

The novel is partially built on a documentary basis. The main character of the novel is Maxim Maksimovich Isaev (Stirlitz), to whom a whole separate cycle of Semyonov’s novels is dedicated.

Chronologically, the novel takes place between the books "Major Whirlwind" and "Ordered to Survive."

Excerpt from the book

At first, Stirlitz did not believe himself: the nightingale sang in the garden. The air was icy, bluish, and although the tones were spring, February, cautious, the snow still lay thick and without that inner, timid blue that always precedes night melting.

The nightingale sang in a hazel, which descended to the river, near an oak grove. The mighty trunks of the old trees were black; it smelled freshly frozen fish in the park. Last spring there was no strong smell of last year’s birch and oak, and the nightingale was in full swing — it clicked, scattered with trill, brittle and defenseless in this black, quiet park.

Stirlitz remembered his grandfather: the old man knew how to talk with birds. He sat down under a tree, lured a tit, and looked at the pichu for a long time, and his eyes also became birdlike - fast, black beads, and the birds were not at all afraid of him.

“Pin-pin-tararah!” The grandfather whistled.

And the tits answered him - confidentially and cheerfully.

The sun was gone, and the black trunks of the trees fell over the white snow with violet even shadows.

“It will freeze, poor,” thought Stirlitz, and, smelling his greatcoat, returned to the house. “And you can’t help in any way: only one bird doesn’t believe people - the nightingale.”