Larger than Life (Stawka większa niż życie)

Today in 1939 Hitler and Stalin signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty (non-agression pact) secretly dividing Poland. To add perspective I thought I would mention a classic spy video series that is not widely known outside Poland.

Polish television, from March 1967 to October 1968 (18 episodes), told the story of secret agent Stanisław Kolicki (codename J-23), who carried a secret mission in the Nazi army as Hans Kloss. Perhaps the most famous line of the protagonist is “Mow mi Janek”:

Call me Mike
Call me Mike

The series begins in 1941, two years after the Nazis and Soviets conspired to divide and conquer Poland. Episode one shows a young Pole, Stanislaw Kolicki, escape from Konigsberg camp on the Soviet side. He begins cooperating with Soviet intelligence by providing information about German troop concentration along the border. Soviet intelligence notices a confusing similarity, identical appearance, with a captured German Hans Kloss on the German side. Codename J-23 is born and Kolicki makes a daring run into German occupied territory. He begins organizing a counterintelligence network until the Gestapo become suspicious of radio communications and hunt him. He manages to fake his own death and escape back to the Soviet side. He then convinces Soviet intelligence to allow him to return. J-23 infiltrates the Abwehr again, this time as a “real” Lieutenant Kloss posted to Nazi military intelligence.

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