Die Rote Kapelle plot
Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War: Leopold Trepper, a colonel in the Red Army, travels to Belgium under a false name and sets up a spy network there. Together with his associates Viktor Sukulow-Gurewitsch, Johann Wenzel, Hillel Katz, and Mikhail Makarov, he succeeds in establishing a spy network throughout Belgium and France in a very short time. With the help of his front companies—a chain of raincoat shops and later the import-export company Simexco—Trepper is able to gather information from the economy and the Wehrmacht, regarding Atlantic Wall construction sites and railway lines, and send it to Moscow. The agents also receive help from patriots who want to liberate their country from the German occupation.