Richard Sorge And Agent Sonya: A Legendary Spy's Unusual Recruitment In 1930S Shanghai

I’m currently reading Ben Macintrye’s Agent Sonya: Moscow's Most Daring Wartime Spy. 

One of the most interesting historical characters in his book on espionage history is Richard Sorge (seen in the above photo).

CrimeReads.com offers an excerpt from Agent Sonya about Richard Sorge.

Ian Fleming once described Richard Sorge as “the most formidable spy in history.” Despite being German and communist, and approaching middle age, in 1930 Sorge bore a distinct resemblance to the fictional James Bond, not least for his looks, appetite for alcohol, and prodigious, almost pathological, womanizing. Even Sorge’s sworn enemies acknowledged his skill and courage. After China, Sorge would move on to Tokyo, where he spied, undetected, for nine years, penetrating the innermost secrets of the Japanese and German High Commands and alerting Moscow to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. When he met Ursula, Sorge was just setting out on his espionage career in the Far East, a journey that would lead, eventually, to a place in the small pantheon of spies who have changed the course of history.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:    

 https://crimereads.com/a-legendary-spys-unusual-recruitment-in-1930s-shanghai/

Another interesting book on Richard Sorge is Gordon V. Prange's Target Tokyo: The Story of the Sorge Spy Ring.