Richard Sorge place of death Sugamo Prison
Death
Sorge was hanged on 7 November 1944, at 10:20 Tokyo time in Sugamo Prison and was pronounced dead 19 minutes later. Hotsumi Ozaki had been hanged earlier in the same day. Sorge's body was not cremated because of wartime fuel shortages. He was buried in a mass grave for Sugamo Prison inmates in the nearby Zoshigaya Cemetery.Sorge was survived by his mother, then living in Germany, and he left his estate to Anna Clausen, the wife of his radio operator, Max Christiansen-Clausen.After hounding the American occupation authorities, Sorge's Japanese lover, Hanako Ishii (石井 花子 Ishii Hanako, 1911 – 1 July 2000), located and recovered his skeleton on 16 November 1949. After identifying him by his distinctive dental work and a poorly-set broken leg, she took his body away and had him cremated at the Shimo-Ochiai Cremation Centre. She kept his own teeth, belt and spectacles and had made a ring of his gold bridgework, which she wore for the rest of her life. After her death, her own ashes were interred beside his. A white memorial stone at the site bears an epitaph in Japanese, the first two lines read: "Here lies a hero who sacrificed his life fighting against war and for world peace".The Soviet Union did not officially acknowledge Sorge until 1964.It was argued that Sorge's biggest coup led to his undoing because Stalin could not afford to let it become known that he had rejected Sorge's warning about the German attack in June 1941. However, nations seldom officially recognise their own undercover agents.
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