Robert Michniewicz: “Fałszywa gra” (False Game, 2026)

The work

According to the publisher’s description, Carl von Wedel, a Pomeranian aristocrat recruited by Polish intelligence, uses his Berlin connections to get into the Abwehr, where he takes part in a secret operation against the USSR and gathers information vital to Poland’s defence. His warnings about German preparations and the German–Soviet rapprochement are met with disbelief at the “Dwójka”.¹

A copy of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact reaches the Polish resident in Berlin, and after the outbreak of war the Germans find the files of Polish agents – the description leaves open the question of what became of the Berlin network.¹

The real background

The non-aggression pact was signed in Moscow on 23 August 1939 by Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov. A secret protocol divided spheres of influence; in Poland the boundary ran roughly along the Narew, Vistula and San rivers, and the parties were to decide later whether a Polish state would exist at all.²

The Second Department of the General Staff (Oddział II) was the military intelligence arm of the Second Polish Republic (see the entry Second Department); the Abwehr was the military intelligence service of the Third Reich.

What is accurate and what is invented

The date and content of the pact and the institutional framework of both intelligence services are real. Accounts of how Polish intelligence learned of the pact do not appear in the sources we use (the PAP article on the pact does not discuss this), so we do not judge whether the thread of the copy of the pact has a real-life model.²

According to media and secondary accounts · not confirmed by official sourcesCarl von Wedel is a fictional character, as the author confirmed in connection with the first volume; his network is fictional too.³