This radio play is based on Yulian Semyonov’s novel “Ordered to Survive” and is a continuation of the novel “Seventeen Moments of Spring.”
These two works are united by one hero, the Soviet intelligence officer M. M. Isaev (Stirlitz). The radio play is built on a documentary basis and exposes attempts at collusion between the leaders of Nazi Germany and the most aggressive part of the U.S. military-industrial complex during the Second World War. Ordered to survive is the only order not found in regulations. Yet a life bought at the price of dishonor is no life—and for an intelligence officer this is a law of conscience.
Plot:
“…Spring 1945. The days of the Third Reich of fascist Germany are numbered. By order of the Center, Soviet intelligence officer Colonel Maksim Isaev returns once again to Berlin. Isaev carries out the mission brilliantly, but such is the fate of spies: a sudden arrest, an escape, a grave wound, a forced move to Italy, and then to Spain for many long months separate him from his victorious homeland and from the great triumph of his Soviet country’s Victory..”