Operation Buche

beech tree

'Buche' was the German clandestine receipt by the Abwehr of Soviet secret transmissions (1942/43).

The two components of this undertaking were 'Buche-Pascal' and 'Buche-Bob'. The former was a Soviet army captain who reached Belgium in 1937 with a false Finnish passport, and operated as 'Erich Jernstroem' to transmit material from Brussels and Liége, and was induced in November 1942 to work for Germany, but then did not receive the payment which had been agreed. The latter was another Soviet officer, in this instance working under cover in Paris and was again induced by the Germans to work for them from November 1942 until July 1944.