What do you think?
Rate this book
La Orquesta Roja
La orquesta roja narra la historia de una organización única en el espionaje mundial: la red de espías soviéticos que causó estragos en las filas nazis durante la segunda guerra mundial. implantada en el corazón mismo del imperio nazi, extendiendo sus redes sobre toda la europa ocupada, jugó un papel decisivo en la derrota de alemania. la orquesta roja estaba dirigida por un hombre cuyo apodo dice lo suficiente sobre su envergadura: el gran jefe, un judío polaco, nacido el 23 de febrero.
366 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
15 people are currently reading
349 people want to read
About the author
Gilles Perrault
98 books32 followersPseudonym of Jacques Peyroles, a left-wing French enlisted writer and journalist. He attended the Collège Stanislas de Paris and then studied at the Institut d'études politiques, eventually becoming a lawyer, a profession he worked in for five years.
After the success of his essay 'Les parachutistes' (1961), inspired by his military service in Algeria, he became a journalist and wrote articles about Nehru's India, the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the problems of African Americans in the United States. He then investigated less well-known aspects of World War II.
Le Secret du jour J (1964) (Secrets of D-Day, 1974) won a prize from the Comité d'action de la Résistance and was an international bestseller. L'Orchestre rouge (1967) was even more successful. In 1969 Perrault published a spy novel, Le dossier 51. In 1978, Gilles Perrault published Le Pull-over rouge, a novel in which he expressed his doubts about Christian Ranucci's guilt (murderer of an 8 years old girl), a French criminal executed by guillotine on July 28, 1976. He was condemned twice for his claims and papers about this case: in 1990 for having talked in a TV-program of "abuse of authority" about the policemen in charge of the investigation (fined 40,000 francs to each person defamed at first instance, and 70,000 francs to each of the five plaintiffs on appeal, as well as the presenter); and in 2008 he and his publisher Fayard were found guilty of defamation toward the Marseille police in the book L'Ombre de Christian Ranucci (fined 5,000 euros and his editor an equal sum, a decision confirmed on appeal in 2009 and granted 10,000 euros in damages to each of the four policemen defamed).
In 1990 Perrault published Notre ami le roi (Our Friend the King, 1993) about the regime and human rights abuses of Hassan II, at the time king of Morocco who had until then been reported positively because of his close relations with the Western world. Perrault's book Le Garçon aux yeux gris (2001) was adapted by André Téchiné for the film Les Égarés.
After the success of his essay 'Les parachutistes' (1961), inspired by his military service in Algeria, he became a journalist and wrote articles about Nehru's India, the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the problems of African Americans in the United States. He then investigated less well-known aspects of World War II.
Le Secret du jour J (1964) (Secrets of D-Day, 1974) won a prize from the Comité d'action de la Résistance and was an international bestseller. L'Orchestre rouge (1967) was even more successful. In 1969 Perrault published a spy novel, Le dossier 51. In 1978, Gilles Perrault published Le Pull-over rouge, a novel in which he expressed his doubts about Christian Ranucci's guilt (murderer of an 8 years old girl), a French criminal executed by guillotine on July 28, 1976. He was condemned twice for his claims and papers about this case: in 1990 for having talked in a TV-program of "abuse of authority" about the policemen in charge of the investigation (fined 40,000 francs to each person defamed at first instance, and 70,000 francs to each of the five plaintiffs on appeal, as well as the presenter); and in 2008 he and his publisher Fayard were found guilty of defamation toward the Marseille police in the book L'Ombre de Christian Ranucci (fined 5,000 euros and his editor an equal sum, a decision confirmed on appeal in 2009 and granted 10,000 euros in damages to each of the four policemen defamed).
In 1990 Perrault published Notre ami le roi (Our Friend the King, 1993) about the regime and human rights abuses of Hassan II, at the time king of Morocco who had until then been reported positively because of his close relations with the Western world. Perrault's book Le Garçon aux yeux gris (2001) was adapted by André Téchiné for the film Les Égarés.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 9, 2011
If reality could ever be more gripping than fiction at its best and wildest, this would be the story. Amazing to the point that, if the stroy of the Rotte Kotelle were not true, it would seem like the wilest of spy fictions. By telling the story of how Trepper, a man forged in the early years of international bolshevism, and the many heroes from Belgium, Holland and Germany that formed his orchestra in penetrating the German lines, from its command in Berlin to its supply lines in France, Perrault has captured a singular episode of WWII, which my be one of the very few cases in history of a field agent "going triple", to the extent that he may very well have caused decisive victories as the red army marched on Europe. A gripping tale of history which outreads the finest spy novels.
August 19, 2023
Een enorm mooi en goed boek. Ikhad nog niet gehoord van 'Het Rode Orkest'. De cover van het boek nodigt niet uit tot lezen. Het is ook al een iets ouder boek maar zeker meer dan het lezen waard het geeft een duidelijke weergave van de Russiche spionage gedurende WOII en ook de contra spionage 'Funkspiel' die er op volgt door de Duitsers. Het boek boeit zodoende ik het bijna elke avond ter hand nam om een stuk te lezen en het verhaal van de 'Grote Baas' volledig te leren kennen. Het geeft een heel andere kijk op een oorlogsboek. Voor liefhebbers van WOII is dit een Must Read. Opmerkelijk een deel speelt zich ook af in België namelijk in Brussel.
February 24, 2016
Libro bastante interesante en cuanto a la trama. Siendo el espionaje un tema apasionante, no deja de atraparte en la intriga y en la telaraña de las redes de espionaje. Sin embargo, la redacción y la forma que esta escrito me resultó bastante cansada y es fácil perder el hilo de la historia.
May 28, 2025
Interesantísimo libro sobre la Orquesta Roja, la organización ultra secreta de espionaje creada por la Unión Soviética en toda Europa a partir del ascenso de Hitler al poder y que rindió sus mejores frutos durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, especialmente tras la invasión alemana de Rusia.
Relata con gran detalle cómo se formaban las redes que operaban en distintos países europeos como Belgica, Holanda y, sobre todo, Francia, e incluso en la propia Alemania, en el corazón del gobierno nazi en Berlín.
Interesante conocer tanto la actividad de espionaje rusa como la de contraespionaje alemana por medio de la Gestapo y la Abwehr (el servicio de inteligencia militar alemán). Un extraordinario juego de inteligencia y engaño, de sutilidad y brutalidad.
Si adolece de algo es que no termina de quedar claro si se trata de una novela - con una trama absolutamente atrayente - o de un estudio de investigación tirando a ensayo histórico, por la exhaustividad, la cantidad de personajes que aparecen, el nivel de detalle hasta el que se profundiza, en fin, las idas y venidas de una época a otra.
Puestos a elegir, dado el interés del tema, prefiero que haya sido exhaustivo.
Tampoco me convence mucho el tono elegido por el autor para dirigirse al lector rompiendo la “cuarta pared”, que utiliza sobre todo al principio del relato, y me parece bastante superfluo: quiza era un alarde de modernidad en la época (1965 es la fecha de publicación), pero queda bastante demodé en la actualidad. Luego, parece que se calma un poco y se limita a narrar los hechos.
Hay que decir en su favor que parece bastante ecuánime en el retrato de los personajes, evitando hacer parecer a unos muy malos y a otros unos héroes impolutos.
Por último, además de conocer a esta organización, de la que sólo hacía oído el nombre por una oscura banda new wave de los primeros ochenta aunque no tenía ni idea de a qué se refería, digo que también me he llevado la que probablemente sea una de las más impactantes cartas de despedida escritas por un condenado a muerte, Walter Husemann, a su padre. Una carta escueta, comprometida hasta el final con unos ideales, llena de entereza, sosiego y aceptación de lo que ya está ahí esperando. Algo por lo que tuvieron que pasar muchos de los personajes de este libro.
Relata con gran detalle cómo se formaban las redes que operaban en distintos países europeos como Belgica, Holanda y, sobre todo, Francia, e incluso en la propia Alemania, en el corazón del gobierno nazi en Berlín.
Interesante conocer tanto la actividad de espionaje rusa como la de contraespionaje alemana por medio de la Gestapo y la Abwehr (el servicio de inteligencia militar alemán). Un extraordinario juego de inteligencia y engaño, de sutilidad y brutalidad.
Si adolece de algo es que no termina de quedar claro si se trata de una novela - con una trama absolutamente atrayente - o de un estudio de investigación tirando a ensayo histórico, por la exhaustividad, la cantidad de personajes que aparecen, el nivel de detalle hasta el que se profundiza, en fin, las idas y venidas de una época a otra.
Puestos a elegir, dado el interés del tema, prefiero que haya sido exhaustivo.
Tampoco me convence mucho el tono elegido por el autor para dirigirse al lector rompiendo la “cuarta pared”, que utiliza sobre todo al principio del relato, y me parece bastante superfluo: quiza era un alarde de modernidad en la época (1965 es la fecha de publicación), pero queda bastante demodé en la actualidad. Luego, parece que se calma un poco y se limita a narrar los hechos.
Hay que decir en su favor que parece bastante ecuánime en el retrato de los personajes, evitando hacer parecer a unos muy malos y a otros unos héroes impolutos.
Por último, además de conocer a esta organización, de la que sólo hacía oído el nombre por una oscura banda new wave de los primeros ochenta aunque no tenía ni idea de a qué se refería, digo que también me he llevado la que probablemente sea una de las más impactantes cartas de despedida escritas por un condenado a muerte, Walter Husemann, a su padre. Una carta escueta, comprometida hasta el final con unos ideales, llena de entereza, sosiego y aceptación de lo que ya está ahí esperando. Algo por lo que tuvieron que pasar muchos de los personajes de este libro.
April 11, 2023
El diseño y la traducción son muy chotas. No se entiende muy bien todo el contexto, y eso que yo suelo leer cosas de estas y hasta más complicadas.
Agradezco ya haber conocido la historia, porque sino un garrón conocerla con este libro.
Agradezco ya haber conocido la historia, porque sino un garrón conocerla con este libro.
July 16, 2013
Thirty years ago, I watched the BBC miniseries "Smiley's People" for the first time. I've watched it over 50 times since then. Little did I know that a key scene in it (having to do with Karla stealing cigarettes) was lifted from "The Red Orchestra" (p. 487, second full paragraph). That's how highly the experts regard this book.
Halfway through, I almost put the book down. There is a obliqueness to the book that is sometimes off putting. Perhaps it's because it was originally published in French. Or because there are so many characters--dozens of them. Or maybe it's a deficiency of the author's writing skills. But putting the book down would have been a mistake. Soon thereafter, it became a complete page turner, one of those books that you want to get back to while doing other things, that call to you to return to.
Leopold Trepper is a superb hero, charismatic, calm under the pressure, and the smartest person in every room he's in. He is the Big Chief who directs the vast network of hundreds of Soviet spies planted in Hitler's Europe, aka the Red Orchestra. The pianists are the radio operators who transmit intelligence back to Russia. Trepper is the conductor. The Red Orchestra made a great difference in the ultimate resolution of World War II, although there is debate about that, since Trepper's intelligence was so badly mishandled and mistranslated by Moscow Center.
I am vitally interested in the life-and-death consequences of espionage, being the author myself of an espionage novel, "What Happens to Us" http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DSSN5SU, which follows a young American woman named Cat, who is being chased by a stranger who turns out to work in government surveillance. She can't use her cell phone, email, or other electronics without giving away her location and intentions. She's a recovering alcoholic, and since she called in many false alarms to the police during drunken binges, the police don't believe her now that she's truly in trouble. So she's forced to disappear, along with a man she meets named Dante.
Gradually, Cat realizes that she must have met the ill-intentioned stranger during a drunken blackout, and that in order to regain her life, she must discover who he is. The only way to do that is to get drunk again, the very last thing she wants to do, because whenever she gets drunk again, she remembers everything that happened during her blackouts (an actual neurological phenomenon).
There are many riveting and shocking stories in "The Red Orchestra." When Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated (he was the Nazi chief detective in Prague, dubbed the "Angel of Evil"), Nazi retribution was quick and severe. Goebbels had 500 Jews arrested in Berlin, of whom 252 were later executed, and 300 arrested from Theresienstadt. In Prague, over 3,000 were arrested and 1,331 were executed. In the countryside, 5,000 villages were searched and 657 people shot. In Prague prisons, 1,700 were shot, and in Brunn prisons, 1,300. And on June 10, several hundred people–the entire population of the village of Lidice–were completely massacred (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice#M...).
Heinrich Muller of the German High Command was another fascinating figure. Muller had a dream. “His great ambition,” according to historian W. Hoettl, “was to have a central index containing a card for every living German, on which would be entered every ‘suspicious incident,’ however trivial.” (The Red Orchestra, p. 438 – 439)
There is another character in this book who was saved only because of his ability to make funny faces. Robert Christen had been owner of the Florida Hotel, but when his part in the Red Orchestra was revealed, he was sent to a concentration camp. The guards organized shows put on by the more talented prisoners. Christen couldn't sing or dance or do magic, but he could make funny faces that left his guards in stitches. Because of his duty in these shows, he didn't have to engage in much of the hard labor that killed many of his fellow prisoners, and he survived to the end of the war and beyond.
It looks like more recent books have been written about this episode, but this is the original. It's well worth reading.
Halfway through, I almost put the book down. There is a obliqueness to the book that is sometimes off putting. Perhaps it's because it was originally published in French. Or because there are so many characters--dozens of them. Or maybe it's a deficiency of the author's writing skills. But putting the book down would have been a mistake. Soon thereafter, it became a complete page turner, one of those books that you want to get back to while doing other things, that call to you to return to.
Leopold Trepper is a superb hero, charismatic, calm under the pressure, and the smartest person in every room he's in. He is the Big Chief who directs the vast network of hundreds of Soviet spies planted in Hitler's Europe, aka the Red Orchestra. The pianists are the radio operators who transmit intelligence back to Russia. Trepper is the conductor. The Red Orchestra made a great difference in the ultimate resolution of World War II, although there is debate about that, since Trepper's intelligence was so badly mishandled and mistranslated by Moscow Center.
I am vitally interested in the life-and-death consequences of espionage, being the author myself of an espionage novel, "What Happens to Us" http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DSSN5SU, which follows a young American woman named Cat, who is being chased by a stranger who turns out to work in government surveillance. She can't use her cell phone, email, or other electronics without giving away her location and intentions. She's a recovering alcoholic, and since she called in many false alarms to the police during drunken binges, the police don't believe her now that she's truly in trouble. So she's forced to disappear, along with a man she meets named Dante.
Gradually, Cat realizes that she must have met the ill-intentioned stranger during a drunken blackout, and that in order to regain her life, she must discover who he is. The only way to do that is to get drunk again, the very last thing she wants to do, because whenever she gets drunk again, she remembers everything that happened during her blackouts (an actual neurological phenomenon).
There are many riveting and shocking stories in "The Red Orchestra." When Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated (he was the Nazi chief detective in Prague, dubbed the "Angel of Evil"), Nazi retribution was quick and severe. Goebbels had 500 Jews arrested in Berlin, of whom 252 were later executed, and 300 arrested from Theresienstadt. In Prague, over 3,000 were arrested and 1,331 were executed. In the countryside, 5,000 villages were searched and 657 people shot. In Prague prisons, 1,700 were shot, and in Brunn prisons, 1,300. And on June 10, several hundred people–the entire population of the village of Lidice–were completely massacred (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice#M...).
Heinrich Muller of the German High Command was another fascinating figure. Muller had a dream. “His great ambition,” according to historian W. Hoettl, “was to have a central index containing a card for every living German, on which would be entered every ‘suspicious incident,’ however trivial.” (The Red Orchestra, p. 438 – 439)
There is another character in this book who was saved only because of his ability to make funny faces. Robert Christen had been owner of the Florida Hotel, but when his part in the Red Orchestra was revealed, he was sent to a concentration camp. The guards organized shows put on by the more talented prisoners. Christen couldn't sing or dance or do magic, but he could make funny faces that left his guards in stitches. Because of his duty in these shows, he didn't have to engage in much of the hard labor that killed many of his fellow prisoners, and he survived to the end of the war and beyond.
It looks like more recent books have been written about this episode, but this is the original. It's well worth reading.
October 8, 2019
La historia es buena y, en general, está bien escrita. Hay diversos momentos en que el estilo es demasiado años 60 con exceso de expresiones y juicios machistas. También hay un exceso a ratos de patriotismo francés.
Con todo y con eso este es un libro necesario que cuenta una historia seguramente no lo bastante conocida. Y se agradece que no ahorra detalles a la hora de expresar las diferentes injusticias, a menudo letales, que muchos resistentes sufrieron no solo durante la guerra a manos de las fuerzas nazis o colaboracionistas sino también antes y después y de manera indiscriminada.
Y la edición es deplorable:
- La tipografia no tiene serifa y es agotador leer casi 700 páginas con una tipografia en la que cuesta distinguir la o de la a.
- No hay capítulo que no tenga diversos errores de edición: palabras repetidas, nombres equivocados, errores tipográficos menores.
- Debido a los claros errores de edición hay momentos en que se duda si los errores de concordancia son fruto de la edición o de una mala traducción.
Con todo y con eso este es un libro necesario que cuenta una historia seguramente no lo bastante conocida. Y se agradece que no ahorra detalles a la hora de expresar las diferentes injusticias, a menudo letales, que muchos resistentes sufrieron no solo durante la guerra a manos de las fuerzas nazis o colaboracionistas sino también antes y después y de manera indiscriminada.
Y la edición es deplorable:
- La tipografia no tiene serifa y es agotador leer casi 700 páginas con una tipografia en la que cuesta distinguir la o de la a.
- No hay capítulo que no tenga diversos errores de edición: palabras repetidas, nombres equivocados, errores tipográficos menores.
- Debido a los claros errores de edición hay momentos en que se duda si los errores de concordancia son fruto de la edición o de una mala traducción.
June 17, 2023
Entré muy entusiasmado, al principio parecía una lectura prometedora por lo que me alegró que sea un libro de casi 600 p. Pero debo confesar que voy por la mitad y ya me aburrió completamente. No se profundiza demasiado ni en los protagonistas principales ni en el funcionamiento preciso de la organización conocida como La orquesta roja. En cambio se presentan un montón de personas, nombres, cargos y términos que me parecen irrelevantes y solo contribuyen a confundir y vuelven todo un poco tedioso. Parece un trabajo muy bien documentado pero creo que peca de querer abarcar mucho, lo que no es algo malo en sí, pero en este caso no está bien logrado. Un aproximación más personal de los protagonistas, sus motivaciones y formas de trabajo, hubiese funcionado mejor.
July 16, 2016
A must read book!
Sometimes it's difficult to understand due to complex narrative and multiples protagonists. Can be complemented with Leopold Trepper "The Big Game" and V. E. Tarrant "The Red Orchestra".
Nearly 30 years ago I began to read it and I still love it...
Sometimes it's difficult to understand due to complex narrative and multiples protagonists. Can be complemented with Leopold Trepper "The Big Game" and V. E. Tarrant "The Red Orchestra".
Nearly 30 years ago I began to read it and I still love it...
January 31, 2023
This is the only book on Red Orchestra where the writer was able to meet many of the participants. The amount of research he has done dwarves those of later writers. The present edition adds 20 more years of information that has been trickling out of state archives.
I have read this book several times, as well as several other books on the subject (the master book is, of course, the autobiography of Leopold Trepper himself, Le Grand Chef). I can't help being very moved every time, by the figures of heroism cut by so many (hundreds) participants, tortured by the Gestapo and later killed, or, for the lucky few, barely surviving concentration camps, sometimes with lifelong conditions.
The most bitter irony is that of those agents who went back to the Soviet Union to be jailed and sent to the Gulag for many years, because of Stalin's post-war purges.
I have read this book several times, as well as several other books on the subject (the master book is, of course, the autobiography of Leopold Trepper himself, Le Grand Chef). I can't help being very moved every time, by the figures of heroism cut by so many (hundreds) participants, tortured by the Gestapo and later killed, or, for the lucky few, barely surviving concentration camps, sometimes with lifelong conditions.
The most bitter irony is that of those agents who went back to the Soviet Union to be jailed and sent to the Gulag for many years, because of Stalin's post-war purges.
June 12, 2018
Un tableau d'Histoire aux couleurs éclatantes ; nul n'aurait pu mieux que Gilles Perrault jeter sur les pages un portrait si vivide de l'Orchestre rouge.
May 26, 2022
Interesante la historia que cuenta sobre la red de espías y recomendable de leer, eso sí, se me hace a ratos difícil de seguir entre tanto personaje y también espeso en la narración
January 8, 2008
To quote from the back of the bk: "Gilles Perrault's tense and dramatic documentary history depicts the rise and fall of the notorious Soviet spy ring the Germans called the Red Orchestra, which operated within the highest circles of the German General Staff from 1941 to 1944." It's mind-boggling to think about the courage that some people have during wartime. The 'Red Orchestra' threw parties for SS staff where they plied them w/ women who fucked them to glean their military secrets & got funding from them by selling black market goods. Interestingly, the technique of triangulation was supposedly developed by the nazis to find hidden radios of resistance groups.
July 30, 2013
es la recopilacion de informacion veraz de como en 1.939 leopold trepper organizó el espionaje en europa ,para informar a moscú sobre las actividades naziz en la II guerra mundial.gilles perrault recopiló durante mas de 15 años la informacion oculta o no de la formacion del espionaje sovietico antes, durante y despues de finalizada la guerra .detalla a cada uno de los integrantes de la increible labor realizada por estos hombres.fascinante e imprescindible la lectura del libro y luego ver la pelicula.laocrates..
April 19, 2007
This book is expertly written and reads more like historical fiction than a journalist's meticulous review of how a small cadre of communist-supported Polish Jews were able to spy on Hitler's operations. This is one book I definitely plan to finish!
September 18, 2012
A wonderful book which brings its characters to life. Truth is stranger than fiction indeed. The story of intrigue and the communist spy networks is rivetting.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews