Arnold Deutsch

Arnold Deutsch (21 May 1904 – ) was an Austrian-born chemist who worked in London as a Soviet spy, best known for having recruited Kim Philby.

Early life Deutsch was born into a Jewish merchant family in Austria-Hungary: either in Vienna, :82 Many details about Deutsch's personal life remain unclear or contradictory; he is variously described as having been of Czech, :170 Slovak, :73 and Hungarian origin. He was a cousin of Oscar Deutsch, the proprietor of the Odeon Cinemas chain. :311 When Purpis' successor Ignace Reiss was expelled from the UK in 1935, the illegal rezidentura was left in the hands of Deutsch and Alexander Orlov. :57–58 This strategy produced many well-placed agents, especially the Cambridge Five, the first of which was Kim Philby, whom Deutsch recruited directly.

When Philby and Litzi Friedmann, who had just married in Vienna, arrived in London in 1934, Edith Suschitzky suggested to Deutsch that the NKVD should recruit Friedmann and Philby as agents. Deutsch recruited Philby in Regent's Park, London, on 1 July 1934.

Deutsch told Philby that he must break off all communist contacts and establish a new political image as a Nazi sympathiser. "You must become, to all outward appearances, a conventional member of the very class you are committed to opposing," Deutsch told him. "The anti-fascist movement needs people who can enter into the bourgeoisie." Deutsch gave him a new Minox subminiature camera and gave him a codename (Sohnchen). He began to instruct Philby on the rudiments of tradecraft: how to arrange a meeting; where to leave messages; how to detect if his telephone was bugged; how to spot a tail, and how to lose one. His first task was to spy on his father, Harry St John Bridger Philby, as it was believed he had important secret documents in his office.

Deutsch then went on to recruit Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess in 1934. Using the code name Otto, Deutsch was the controller for the Cambridge Five spy ring from 1933 to 1937, when he was replaced by Theodore Maly. Whilst in London, Deutsch also acted as handler for Percy Glading, who was operating a spy ring within Woolwich Arsenal, which obtained blueprints of Britain's brand new—and highly secret—naval gun.

During his time in the United Kingdom, Deutsch was given the task of evaluating an American recruit, Michael Straight, who did not impress him. Deutsch's evaluation of Straight was to be borne out almost thirty years later, in 1963, when Straight decided to voluntarily inform Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., a family friend, about his communist connections from his student days at Cambridge University, a confession which led directly to the exposure of Anthony Blunt as a recruiter and member of the Cambridge Five spy ring.

In September 1937, in the midst of Joseph Stalin's fatal purges in the Moscow show trials, Deutsch was recalled to Moscow. At that time, Deutsch was at great risk of being discovered in Western Europe because of the defections of the highly placed Soviet operatives Ignace Reiss and Walter Krivitsky; he had been familiar with some elements of their operations.

Back in Moscow, Deutsch was extensively debriefed, and managed to escape execution – which, at the time, was the fate of many completely loyal Communists. He was employed as an expert on forgery and handwriting, and was not allowed to go abroad again until the early 1940s.

Fate unknown Deutsch's final fate is uncertain. Among theories which have been proposed by various authors, Deutsch was said to have been captured and shot by the Nazis after parachuting into Austria; or as having drowned when his ship was sunk by a U-boat while en route to New York, where he was supposed to work with NKVD recruits.

Kim Philby's fourth and last wife, Rufina, cites the drowning story, but says that the Russian sources are divided on where Deutsch was headed when his ship, the Donbass, was sunk on its way to the United States. She says that Volume 3 of the KGB History states that Deutsch's eventual destination was Latin America, but then says that Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vasilliev, citing KGB files, write, in Haunted Wood, that Deutsch was headed to the New York residency to expand its operations.

Portrayal in fiction In the 2003 four-part BBC television drama about the Cambridge Spies, Deutsch was portrayed in the first two episodes by Marcel Iures.