The Bomb, unearths a gripping true story of espionage at the core of the British-American

Atomic Research programmes. Find out more in Season 2 of The Bomb, a podcast from the BBC

World Service, available now.

Hello and thank you for downloading this episode of the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service.

We're taking you back 49 years to when the Soviet Union's most successful TV series was broadcast.

It was a spy series called Seventeen Moments of Spring.

The main character was a secret agent known as Max Otto von Steilitz,

who infiltrated Nazi High Command during World War II.

He was Russia's answer to James Bond.

Elianora Shashkova, who played Max's wife, Alexandra,

spoke to Dean in Human in 2017.

In the 1970s, the USSR needed a hero, brave with impeccable communist credentials,

the strong and silent type.

Steilitz would inspire many young Russians, even as we will show later one Vladimir Putin.

Every broadcast was quite an event.

The streets were deserted, and people rushed home from work to watch the latest episode

and to find out what would happen next.

From the first episode, the storyline just drew you in.

An estimated 50 to 80 million viewers watched Steilitz and undercover Soviet agent

disrupt secret peace negotiations between the Nazis and the Americans in the spring of 1945.

Elianora Shashkova played Steilitz's wife.

The film showed the importance of secret agents, highly respected people in our country.

...