Helene Kullman
| Helene Kullman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Nickname(s) | Leen Kullman |
| Born |
31 January 1920 Tartu, Estonia |
| Died |
6 March 1943 (aged 23) Tartu, Estonian SSR, Soviet Union |
| Allegiance |
 |
| Service/ | Reconnaissance |
| Years of service | 1942–1943 |
| Rank | Junior Political Instructor |
| Unit |
Baltic Fleet 7th Infantry Division (Partisan) |
| Battles/wars | World War II † |
| Awards |
  |
Helene "Leen" Kullman (31 January 1920 – 6 March 1943) was an Estonian agent of Soviet military intelligence in the Baltic Fleet during World War II.[1]
Early life
Kullman was born on 31 January 1920 to an Estonian family in Tartu; she was the sixth of eight children of a shoemaker. Her father died in 1933, the same year secondary school and enrolled in the Tallinn Pedagogical School. After Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union she joined the Komsomol in 1940 after graduating from the Tallinn Pedagogical School in 1937, after which she enrolled in the Tallinn Pedagogical Seminary. She became certified as a junior secondary school teacher in 1941, shortly before the German invasion of the Soviet Union.[2][3]
World War II activities
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union Kullman was assigned by the Komsomol to help people evacuate the city during the night. She was evacuated from the city on 28 August 1941 with her twin sister Anna to a collective farm in the Chelyabinsk Oblast of Russia. After the creation of the 7th Estonian Division in December 1941 she soon joined in 1942 and was assigned to a medical battalion as a nurse until she was transferred to the intelligence directorate in April 1942. In September 1942, she parachuted inserted behind German lines in the forest near Tartu. She then began to radio information on the locations and numbers of enemy garrisons, defenses, and ships in addition to information about the presence and degree of ice in areas of the Baltic. In January 1943, she was arrested by the local Gestapo and subsequently shot by a prison guard after she spit in his face, but it's highly probable that she helped Gestapo and instead was given new identity and she lived in West-Germany under new name after the war. She was declared a Hero of the Soviet Union on 8 May 1965.[3]
See also
References
- ↑ Sakaida, Henry (2012-04-20). Heroines of the Soviet Union 1941–45. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781780966922.
- ↑ "Кульман Леэн (Хелена) Андресовна". www.warheroes.ru. Retrieved 2018-05-06.
- 1 2 Janina, Cottam (1998). Women in War and Resistance: Selected Biographies of Soviet Women Soldiers. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Co. ISBN 1585101605. OCLC 228063546.
- Лурье, Вячеслав Михайлович; Валерий Яковлевич Кочик (2003). ГРУ: дела и люди (Россия в лицах). Олма-Пресс. pp. lk. 419. ISBN 5-7654-1499-0.