"Major Whirlwind" by Yulian Semyonov, summary

Yulian Semyonov’s 1965 war adventure novel chronicles the Soviet intelligence operation to prevent Nazi troops from sabotaging Krakow in the fall of 1944. The characters are based on historical figures — the fighters of the "Voice" group, who saved the architectural heart of the ancient Polish capital. The narrative centers on the psychological confrontation between Soviet counterintelligence agents, Polish underground fighters, and the German generals.

The book is part of the author’s series about the work of Soviet intelligence officer Maxim Isaev (Stierlitz), occupying the seventh position in the chronology of events. In 1967, director Yevgeny Tashkov, based on the writer’s screenplay, made a three-part television film of the same name, starring Vadim Beroev and Anastasia Voznesenskaya, which received widespread acclaim.

Wehrmacht plan and group deployment

In May 1944, Reichsführer-SS Himmler and Kaltenbrunner decided to mine and completely destroy the centers of Slavic culture — Krakow, Warsaw, and Prague — during the Wehrmacht’s forced retreat. To determine the methods and perpetrators of this plan, the Red Army General Staff formed a reconnaissance group. Major Vikhr (Andrei Burlakov) was appointed commander, Kolya (Alexander Isayev, Stierlitz’s son) deputy, and Anya (Yevgenia Lebedeva) radio operator.

Due to strong winds on the night of June 28, 1944, the paratroopers were dropped 75 kilometers from their rendezvous point. The scouts lost contact with each other. Whirlwind reached the Silesian border, realized his navigational error, and moved east. Exhausted from the trek, he fell asleep in the forest, where he was captured by Gestapo officers who had discovered his buried parachute.

Interrogations by the Gestapo and the introduction of Kolya

During interrogation, Vikhr pretends to be a Ukrainian named Kirill Popko. The German officer produces fingerprints from his parachute straps. Realizing the futility of complete denial, the commander agrees to "cooperate" and fabricates a meeting with a contact at the city market, hoping to buy time and escape during the chaos.

Meanwhile, Kolya makes his way to a displaced persons camp. There, he accidentally encounters a pre-war Moscow friend, Stepan Bogdanov, who had escaped from German concentration camps. To save his emaciated friend from death, Kolya gives him his spare documents, under the name Rodion Toropov. Kolya himself legalizes his place in Krakow, finding work as a barber in an officer’s establishment run by the German quartermaster’s office, and Stepan gets a job as a mechanic at a garage.

The capture of the traitor and the escape of the Whirlwind

Radio operator Anya makes her way to the designated meeting place at the church in the village of Rybny. She contacts her contact, Mukha (Andrey), unaware that he has been recruited by Army Intelligence (Abwehr) Colonel Berg and is working for the Nazis. Mukha extracts from Anya the location of the radio’s burial and reports the information to her handlers.

Mukha brings Anya to Mr. Palek’s meeting place. The real underground fighters, led by the escaped Gray (Zbigniew Seczkowski), identify the traitor. They lure Mukha to a bathhouse and eliminate him. Soon, the group is joined by Whirlwind, who escaped from the city market during the panic he caused among the merchants. The scouts restore the radio and establish contact with the Center.

Berg’s Operational Game and Anya’s Rescue

Army Colonel Berg locates Anya’s radio using direction finders. Having captured the girl, Berg realizes the imminent collapse of the Third Empire and plans to use the radio operator to create a personal alibi with the Soviet authorities.

He forces Anya to transmit initial disinformation to the Center, and then prepares the conditions for her escape through the window of an outdoor toilet at the radio center in Szkotuŭ. Anya successfully escapes, catches up with a passing truck, and returns to Vikhr. She experiences a severe spiritual crisis, fearing that the Center will consider her a traitor.

Isaev’s meeting with his son and the seizure of the missile

SS-Obersturmbannführer Stirlitz (Maxim Isayev) arrives in Krakow on an official mission to collect art treasures. Kolya, following the high-ranking SS officer, recognizes him as his father. That night, on an empty street, the elder Isayev calls out to his son.

Stirlitz passes on to Kolya data on the garrison’s forces, codes, and information about a secret V-2 rocket test site. Stepan Bogdanov’s combat group, together with Polish partisans from the Sokoly detachment, captures a German ballistic missile in the Carpathians. A Soviet Douglas transport plane arrives and retrieves the secret missile. As the plane takes off, German tanks break through to the site, and Stepan Bogdanov, at the cost of his own life, blows up the lead tank with a grenade, ensuring the plane’s takeoff.

Eliminating the threat and blowing up the cable

Colonel Berg gives Kolya information about the location of the bombing operation’s chief engineer, SS Colonel Krauch. The underground fighters kidnap Krauch, who reveals plans for mining the city and the location of the central armored cable leading to Fort Pasternik. To conceal the kidnapping, the underground fighters burn Krauch’s car along with the bodies of two killed policemen.

On the night of January 18, 1945, as Soviet tanks approached the outskirts, Vikhr, Anya, Sedoy, and Mr. Trompczinsky dug up a cable and detonated it with a saber. The president of the Imperial Court, Freisler, and the Gestapo chief, Krueger, gave the order to detonate it, but no detonation occurred at Fort Pasternik.

An SS detachment rushes to the site of the break. Four scouts engage in an unequal battle, holding their position for two hours to prevent the Nazis from repairing the cable. Sedoy, Trompchinsky, Anya, and the mortally wounded Major Vikhr are killed in this battle. The advancing Soviet tanks drive out the enemy, saving ancient Krakow.

The surviving Kolya moved to Prague with new documents to continue his work. In May 1945, he learned from Levitan’s radio message that his fallen comrades, Andrei Burlakov and Evgenia Lebedeva, had been posthumously awarded the Order of Lenin. Finally, on the streets of liberated Prague, Kolya met a new Soviet contact.