| Kronsteen | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Name: | Kronsteen |
| Affiliation: | SMERSH |
| Nationality: |  Russian
|
| Rank: | Colonel |
| Occupation: | Chief Planner of SMERSH |
| First appearance: | From Russia, with Love |
| Last appearance: | From Russia, with Love |
Kronsteen (Кронстейна) is a fictional character from the James Bond novel From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming. In the novel Kronsteen was the head of the planning department for SMERSH.
History[]
Kronsteen holds the rank of Colonel and is the head of the Planning Department at SMERSH. He had been the chess champion at Moscow for 2 years, and when he was first introduced, he was playing the final round of what could be his 3rd win. He was near the end of the game against the Georgian champion Makharov, when he received a letter saying "You are required this instance".
When Kronsteen read the note from SMERSH, he was only moments away from winning the championship, but he knew that he could be killed by SMERSH if he didn't obey the note immediately. With sweat coming down his brow, he disobeyed the order and took three minutes to win the tournament, later telling SMERSH that the public would have been suspicious of him if he had left with only a few moves away from a win.
Kronsteen thought of all people as chess pieces, and he was constantly planning ways to manipulate them and use them to his advantage. Good and bad meant nothing to him, and human life, even that of his own children, was a mere tool, with no significance.
The letter Kronsteen received summoned him to a meeting with the head of SMERSH, General Grubozaboyschikov and the Head of Operations, Rosa Klebb. The General wanted Kronsteen to devise a plan to create a scandal and kill a British agent, humiliating both him and the whole of MI6. Kronsteen ignored Klebb's condescending tone while she outlined her choice of men to bring in on the mission. Although he was skeptical of her choices, her opinions satisfied him.
Kronsteen decided that he would lure an agent into Turkey with a beautiful Russian girl, by having her send a message to MI6, asking to be brought back to England in exchange for a Spektor decoding machine. He would then kill the agent and the girl, and steal the decoding machine back, making a fool out of MI6 and accomplishing his objective.
He decided that the agent should be James Bond, because his high reputation would humiliate the British even more. He had a watch put on Bond and realized that he was off a mission and would be perfect for the trap. He choose Istanbul, Turkey as the meeting point because of its weak MI6 base and its strong MGB base.