Red Three

As an essential part of the Red Orchestra, the Red Three (radio stations) (de: die Roten Drei (Funkstellen)) were outside the reach of German security forces, located in Switzerland.

It was headed by Alexander Radó (code name: DORA), a Hungarian émigré, Communist, and geographer.

After the imprisonment of Leopold Trepper (code name: GRAND CHEF) by the Gestapo in 1942, Radó's group became the most effective part of the Red Orchestra espionage network.

Perhaps most importantly, Radó was also in touch with the Lucy spy ring, which had very valuable contacts inside Germany, and was linked to British intelligence.

Some people have speculated that the Lucy ring was used by British intelligence to pass Ultra information to Soviet intelligence without revealing the codebreaking operation that was its source, but most historians do not agree with this theory.

Organisational diagram of the core members of the Red Three in Switzerland