Mikhail Makarov

Mikhail Varfolomeevich Makarov (2 January 1915 – c. 1942) was a Russian national and career Soviet GRU officer with rank of lieutenant, who was one of the organizers of a Soviet intelligence network in Belgium and Netherlands, that was later called the Red Orchestra by the Abwehr. His aliases were Alamo, Carlos Alamo and Chemnitz. He initially worked as a translator. and after the first delivery of the Polikarpov I-16 fighter planes to the Spanish Republic on 31 October 1936, Makarov was sent to Spain to be employed as an interpreter in the Spanish Republican Air Force. He was trained as gunner and took part in combat operations. In Brussels, he married Alexandra Petrowa, née Schmidt or Schmitz. but Trepper's assistant Léon Grossvogel, had recruited Abraham Rajchmann, a known criminal, informer, a specialist in forging and the most unreliable of agents. Makarov was trained in wireless telegraphy and cipher techniques by Johann Wenzel. In November 1939, Rajchmann was assigned to work with Makarov, as the forger. Trepper arranged for Makarov to become managing director of a branch of the Foreign Excellent Raincoat Company in Ostend as means of providing cover, while Makarov established a radio transmitter, to communicate with Soviet agents in Great Britain. In Trepper's absence, Soviet agent Anatoly Gurevich took over leadership of the Belgian network with Makarov, now established in Brussels at his radio operator, who had returned to Brussels when his building containing the business was bombed.

In the summer of 1941, Belgian communist and Soviet Red Army Lieutenant Anton Danilov became an assistant radio operator to Makarov in a base the group had established in a house at 101 Rue des Atrebates in Brussels. It took some months of work for the Funkabwehr to identify where the transmitter was located, but on 30 November 1941 the close range direction-finding teams moved into Brussels and almost immediately found three transmitter signals. The Abwehr chose a location at 101 Rue des Atrébates, that provided the strongest signal and on 12 December 1941 2pm, the house was raided by the Abwehr. Arnould became an informer, Poznanska committed suicide in Saint-Gilles prison after being tortured. The next day Makarov turned up at the house and was arrested. Trepper also visited the house, but his documentation was so authentic that he was released.

According to Belgian police records, Makarov was imprisoned in Saint-Gilles prison, sentenced to death and executed in 1942 in Plötzensee Prison. In another report, Makarov was sentenced to death by court-martial but his execution was stayed as he was the nephew of Vyacheslav Molotov. His fate is unknown.