SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE, 1940-1946
SUBVERSION AND SABOTAGE DURING WORLD WAR II
Series Three: SOE Operations in Eastern Europe

Part 1: Czechoslovakia, 1939-1945 and Hungary, 1939-1945
Part 2: Poland, 1939-1945
Part 3: Russia, 1941-1945

Publisher's Note - Part 3

SOEs activities in eastern Europe were limited by distance and the difficulties of finding aircraft which were capable of carrying agents and supplies to the required destinations. This was particularly true in the case of Poland, even after the establishment of bases in the south of Italy after 1943. Czechoslovakia, divided into Slovenia and the German protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, also presented additional difficulties. The virtual incorporation of the Protectorate into Germany, including the security arrangements imposed by the SS, meant that agents faced heavy odds against survival, as the early failures of the Czech section missions showed.

SOEs relations with the Soviet Union were uneasy and always qualified by suspicion and a realistic assessment of Soviet motives prompted by observation of Soviet tactics in eastern Europe during 1944-45. Although an SOE mission was maintained in Moscow from 1941 and an agreement on mutual cooperation was reached with the NKVD, SOE believed that the Soviet Union had failed to fulfil the terms of the agreement which is also the attitude the NKVD took of SOEs performance. The papers concentrate on the despatch of Russian agents to occupied Europe, relations with the NKVD and the political ramifications of SOEs work in eastern Europe on Anglo-Soviet relations.

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