Execution
Richard Sorge was hanged on November 7, 1944, at 10:20 a.m. Tokyo time in Sugamo Prison; Hotsumi Ozaki was hanged earlier in the same day. The Soviet Union did not officially acknowledge Sorge until 1964. It was argued that Sorge's biggest coup led to his undoing, because Stalin could not afford to let it become known that he had rejected his intelligence data about the German attack in 1941. However, it should also be mentioned that nations seldom officially recognize their own spies.
Sorge was survived by his mother, then living in Germany, and he left his estate to Anna Clausen. He was buried in the Sugamo Prison (Zhogaya) graveyard, but his remains were later relocated to Tama Cemetery in Fuchū, Tokyo. His lover Hanako Ishii continued to visit his grave until her death in 2000.
Read more about this topic: Richard Sorge
Famous quotes containing the word execution:
“The application requisite to the duties of the office I hold [governor of Virginia] is so excessive, and the execution of them after all so imperfect, that I have determined to retire from it at the close of the present campaign.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“If I were asked to chose between execution and life in prison I would, of course, chose the latter. It’s better to live somehow than not at all.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“I am gradually drifting to the opinion that this Rebellion can only be crushed finally by either the execution of all the traitors or the abolition of slavery. Crushed, I mean, so as to remove all danger of its breaking out again in the future.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)