In the DDR an East German postage stamp commemorated spy maestro Richard Sorge
In May 1933, the GRU decided to have Sorge organize an intelligence network in Japan. He was given the codename “Ramsay” (“Рамзай” Ramzai or Ramzay). He first went to Berlin, to renew contacts in Germany and to obtain a new newspaper assignment in Japan as cover. In September 1931, the Japanese Kwantung Army had seized the Manchuria region of China, which gave Japan another land border in Asia with the Soviet Union (previously, the Soviet Union and Japan had shared only the island of Sakhalin).[18] At the time, several Kwantung Army generals advocated following up the seizure of Manchuria by invading the Soviet Far East, and as the Soviets had broken the Japanese Army codes, Moscow was aware of that and caused a “major Japanese war scare” in the winter of 1931–1932.[18] Until the mid-1930s, it was Japan, rather than Germany, that was considered to be the main threat by Moscow.[19]
