Otto Lohff had rather nationalistic opinions, but he was not a Nazi. Fritz was especially close to Suzi (nicknamed Ui), Otto’s wife; in fact, she had become his mistress. After separating from his wife, Fritz had lived in the small boarding house in Cape Town run by Ui’s mother, Frau Kahlke. She thought of herself almost as little Peter’s grandmother. Fritz found “granny Kahlke” marvelous, knowing everything about his relationship with her daughter and never committing the slightest indiscretion in front of the deceived husband. As a result, he had forgiven her a good deal, starting with her naïve admiration of Hitler (“She has not set foot in Germany since 1914,” he said to himself, “she cannot understand what is happening”). Fritz had promised Ui that he would come for her after the war and take her to live in Germany.
For now, he returned to Berlin alone, because he wanted to spare his son the misfortunes of war and allow him to escape from privation and hunger, of which he still had terrible memories from his experience in Berlin after 1918. Nor did he have any intention of entrusting him to the schoolmasters of the Nazi regime. He knew that the Hitler Youth now called the shots in classrooms. There was no question of leaving Peter in the hands of some brigade, nor any question of seeing him forcibly enlisted in the “Reich labor force” to repair roads or cut wood in the forest.
Sailing toward Europe, Fritz knew that he had already crossed the line in his opposition to the Nazi regime. In Cape Town, he had committed his first illegal act: He had agreed to forge some passports at a friend’s request, to save some anti-Nazi refugees from Germany. This friend may have been Toni Singer, an engineer of Austrian origin, a company head, and member of a Masonic lodge. Thanks to him, Fritz had penetrated the secret society a bit and had begun, clandestinely, his personal initiation. He had particularly appreciated the idea that man had to reform himself before attempting to reform the world. Self-improvement should be intellectual as well as physical. “Only mastery of the body opens up the fullness of being,” according to a Masonic precept to which Fritz fully subscribed.
Fritz realized, on the ship taking him back to Germany, how estranged he had become from his own country. He was incapable of mixing with the German passengers, some of whom were noisily celebrating the losses inflicted on the British by the U-boats and singing: “Today Germany belongs to us / And tomorrow the entire world.” Alone in his cabin, frequently nauseated because of the stormy sea, he thought that there was perhaps already a Gestapo file with his name on it, like those he had personally handled in the Cape Town consulate (“unreliable element, to be watched, regularly socializes with Jews and Freemasons”). In Berlin, he would be forgiven not a single false move. In the best case, he risked being sent to the front. Fortunately, he was appreciated. The invaluable protection of Rudolf Leitner must not fail him. But Fritz was weary of pretending in order to avoid trouble.
There could be no question of fighting against the Nazis. During his preceding stay in the capital of the Reich in 1936 and 1937, he had seen up close the cost of protesting the regime: One of his friends had lost his job with the Berlin city government, two others had been sentenced to two and three years in a concentration camp, another, arrested for “illicit possession of printing material,” had committed suicide after being tortured. So many others, whose names he did not know, had disappeared into the camps.
At the same time Fritz knew that it was always possible to “do a little something” in silence and anonymity, as other Germans were doing here and there, each one according to his means. All things considered, it was perhaps better to stay in Berlin and have a foot inside the system rather than choose exile and observe events from the outside. He had spent a little time with German émigré circles in South Africa and had soon wearied of their interminable discussions and their contagious bitterness. But up to what point could he fulfill his obligations as a government official without selling his soul?
To give himself courage, Fritz recalled an expression that he had heard somewhere, although he could not remember exactly where: “Life is not like the game of chess. There are not only black and white pieces. There are gray figures, solitary knights, and equivocal characters who never get caught.”
Berlin, November 1939
At seven-thirty in the morning, on November 9, 1939, Fritz Kolbe took up his duties at the ministry. He walked shivering through the capital, a harsh winter looming, and was surprised to observe that life seemed to be going on more or less normally, though the silence on the streets of Berlin was eerie. Shortages, particularly of coal, were beginning to make themselves felt, but there was plenty of bread and potatoes, and people were dressed normally. The Nazi leaders seemed to have prepared well for their war. Submarines were engaged in a violent but distant Kriegsspiel along the British coasts and in the North Atlantic, but Berlin felt rather far from events.
What had changed in Berlin was the color of the city. Apartments and offices were perpetually plunged in darkness. It was now mandatory to cover windows with dark paper in case of enemy bombardment, even if English planes were not flying over the capital and were merely dropping leaflets over the Ruhr. Even by day, windows remained covered. Headlights of buses and automobiles were darkened with black paint except for a one-by-five-centimeter slit. “Darkening” was the key directive in wartime. Posters stuck up everywhere indicated that whoever did not obey the orders to “darken” was subject to severe penalties. Because of the literal darkness, household injuries were on the rise (objects dropped on feet, heads banging against doorways, and so on). The present and the future were also shrouded in absolute obscurity. Everything was done to prevent information from circulating. No one had the right to listen to foreign radio stations (in this case too, offenders were subject to long prison terms). The war could not be seen, but could be listened to in secret. People strained their ears to catch scraps of the BBC’s German language broadcasts.
There was no way to escape from the ubiquitous propaganda. The walls were covered with pro-war slogans. “The day when proud Albion collapses will be a day of joy for us,” were the first German words to greet Fritz Kolbe at the border, on the train trip from Antwerp to Berlin. New expressions had appeared in everyday speech: Fritz quickly learned that the male population was divided into those with a “u. k. post” (unavailable to the army) and those who were considered “k. v.” (available). He hoped with all his heart that he would be considered “u. k.”: these two letters were for him the initials of happiness.
Going to the office, Fritz did not yet know what his new assignment would be. He was a little apprehensive about the meeting that soon awaited him with the head of personnel of the Foreign Ministry. Going through Pariser Platz, across from the American embassy, he looked up at the roof of the Adlon Hotel, where an antiaircraft battery had been set up. With his head in the air, he almost collided with a group of passersby having an animated discussion. He caught a few scraps of the conversation: “attempt against the führer,” “Munich,” “hall.” He knew nothing more when he went in at Wilhelmstrasse 76, one of the three entrances to the Foreign Ministry.
One of Fritz’s colleagues, encountered by chance in a corridor, quickly brought him up to date. The night before in Munich, a bomb had exploded in the beer hall where the führer had given a speech every year to commemorate the failed putsch of 1923. Seven were dead and sixty wounded. But, contrary to his usual pattern, Hitler had left the room a little earlier than planned. The bomb had exploded at 9:20, only thirteen minutes after he had left.
At the ministry, as everywhere else, the attack was all that was talked about. The flags were at half-staff. There was word of a march in Munich in honor of the seven people killed in the attack. Radio programs were frequently interrupted by special bulletins. The nasal voice of Goebbels commented on the event on the spot and presented the official version of the facts: “Unquestionably, this ignoble act, probably committed by German traitors, bears the signature of the British secret services.”
Lost in thought, Fritz wan
dered through the corridors of the ministry. His eyes went wide when he saw at a distance a junior minister in a dark blue uniform covered with stripes and gold buttons, and wearing a ceremonial dagger on his belt. Aside from that odd surprise (“you’d think we were in an operetta,” Fritz said to himself), nothing had changed since 1937. He glanced into the dreary offices of the Foreign Ministry, and found them as dilapidated and underequipped as when he left—still the same brass lamps with green shades, old oil lamps remodeled into electric ones; the same worn carpets on the floor; the same musty odor of old documents—and yet something had changed, an apparently very minor detail: the typewriters had been replaced. They now had a new key so you could type “SS” in Gothic script.
Fritz crossed paths with several old acquaintances, who whispered a word or two about the life of the foreign ministry at war. He learned that Ribbentrop had been consumed by remorse since, contrary to what the minister had anticipated (and loudly proclaimed), England had declared war on Germany. He was told that a legation adviser, Eduard Brücklmeier, had been briefly arrested by the Gestapo for “defeatism,” before finally being released. A colleague complained about the fact that foreign diplomats had deserted the ministry. “We only see a few representatives of friendly or neutral countries,” he said. “We spend our time trying to understand what is expected of us,” added another. “Jurisdictional disputes with other ministries take up all our energy.”
After walking down long corridors, Fritz Kolbe finally arrived at the office of the head of personnel, Hermann Kriebel. In the waiting room, he came across one of his old acquaintances, Hans Schroeder, Kriebel’s assistant. Schroeder had joined the Foreign Ministry when Fritz had, in 1925. The two men were about the same age and had had their first diplomatic training together. But since then, Schroeder’s career—he was wearing the party insignia on his lapel—had been much more dazzling than Fritz’s. “Kolbe! How have you been all this time?” cried Schroeder in a sonorous voice, warmly shaking his hand. Fritz was not taken in by the familiarity. He thought he could catch a slight glimmer of satisfied contempt in the eyes of his interlocutor. Briefly, he reported on his eleven years in Spain, his two years in South Africa, and his forced return following the outbreak of the war. “Good, very good,” said Schroeder, smiling broadly. “It so happens that I’ve heard that they’ve saved a magnificent post for you: consul at Stavanger in Norway. A quiet country! No rationing, a normal life, an interesting post! What do you think?” Fritz was surprised. He had not been expecting such an attractive offer. Rudolf Leitner must have intervened in his favor, or else such a promotion would not have been offered to him. “But you see,” Schroeder continued, “there’s a small problem: You’re not a party member. A few years ago, we could have turned a blind eye to that, but now it’s no longer possible. Frankly, don’t be an idiot! All you have to do is get your card, and then make a little courtesy visit to certain people who would like to know you better. In short, it’s not very complicated: the matter is entirely in your hands, my friend!”
After having what Schroeder said confirmed by the head of personnel, Fritz was stunned. He who had sworn never to become Pg (party member) was now being offered a very handsome post on condition that he deny his convictions! He took two days to make up his mind. With a heavy heart, he decided not to accept the offer, wondering if he was not making a monumental mistake. He knew that nothing interesting would now be offered to him, and he saw himself stagnating for the rest of his life in some obscure back office in the ministry. Worse, he feared his gesture would be interpreted as an affront by Rudolf Leitner. He risked losing in him his only protector. From then on, catastrophe seemed inevitable.
And indeed a few days later Leitner called Fritz into his office. A great surprise awaited him. His former superior in Pretoria had called him in to encourage him to go to Stavanger and to try to persuade him to join the party. Fairly quickly, considering Fritz’s arguments, he nevertheless showed some understanding and even seemed to hint at his respect. One might say that he was saluting, without really daring to say it, Kolbe’s constancy. “The problem,” he said, taking the trouble to escort him to the door of his office, “is that now you are going to be offered something much less interesting, and for now I can’t do much for you.”
Reassured by Leitner’s attitude, Kolbe felt a bit more lighthearted. Staying in Berlin, he would be able to see old friends and take care of his aged mother, who detested the Nazis and could use the company. The priority was to remain himself, “defenseless but not without honor.” Walking through the Berlin streets on the way to his hotel—a temporary residence until he could get settled more comfortably—Fritz Kolbe felt torn between pride and despair, between his desire to flee to Norway and the personal integrity he prized. As he walked, he wondered about his fate. He thought with disgust about a Berlin doctor who had just divorced his wife after thirty years of marriage because she was Jewish and “he had not realized what that meant.”
Fritz had never felt so deeply nostalgic for foreign capitals. He remembered a mission to Paris in the late 1920s. He had been there for only a few days to deliver diplomatic correspondence, but he had preserved an undying memory of the city. At this very moment, he would have dearly loved to talk to Ernst Kocherthaler, his old friend from Madrid. It was too bad that it was no longer possible to see Don Ernesto. The Kocherthaler family had settled in Switzerland shortly after the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. They had not totally lost touch, of course. They continued to exchange letters, but the postal censorship in Berlin imposed a good deal of discretion. Fritz thought again of the question that Kocherthaler had asked him in the course of one of their conversations in Madrid: “Are you ready for exploits, suffering, sacrifice?” He regretted not knowing how to answer at the time. Now he knew what he would say: Yes, he was ready to make sacrifices, for example, giving up a post as consul. It might not be a spectacular act, but he had remained true to himself.
Fritz had understood, since the interrogation to which he had been subjected in Madrid in late 1935, how useful it could be to appear to be an idiot in order to preserve your freedom. Since that day, the party informers had left him relatively in peace, and suspicion toward him had faded to some degree. Rather than displaying feigned support for the established authorities (like a certain number of senior diplomats more or less opposed to the regime), Kolbe preferred to adopt an ingenuous attitude that fit well with his modest rank. He told himself that by cultivating his image as an obtuse but efficient minor official he would perhaps be left alone, and that the most insignificant post would enable him at least to maintain his dignity.
Berlin, November 21, 1939
Fritz Kolbe had been in his new position for a few days. He was now assigned to the visa and passport section of the ministry, which was under the jurisdiction of the legal affairs department. His mission consisted of delivering authorizations to leave German territory to members of the foreign ministry who had to go abroad. Kolbe had fewer and fewer regrets about the post of consul at Stavanger. Even if his new assignment was not very interesting, it enabled him to remain informed about events and to keep in contact with colleagues. The foreign ministry was a mine of invaluable information. With respect to the coming offensive in the West, Fritz had learned in the course of October 1939 that sixty to seventy divisions of the Wehrmacht had been transferred from Poland to the Rhine. There had also been rumors in the last few weeks that the SS had committed atrocities in Poland.
The name of the man who had attempted to assassinate Hitler in Munich had been made public. He was a thirty-six-year-old carpenter named Georg Elser. Arrested on November 8, the man had confessed after several days of interrogation. The bomb used in the attack was very primitive in design but effective. Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer SS, had reaffirmed that the British secret services had been behind the attack. A little later in the day, it was learned that the Gestapo in fact had arrested two high-ranking British espionage agents on November 9 near the town
of Venlo on the Dutch-German border. Posing as opponents of Hitler looking to arrange for support from London, its agents had lured the English into an ambush, killing a Dutch intelligence officer in the process. The two British agents had been brought to Germany for interrogation.
Reading this news, Fritz Kolbe was not the only one who thought that Himmler was probably the brains behind the Munich assassination attempt. He thought of a setup. The Nazis, he said to himself, know that this war is unpopular and want to distract the Germans by making them think that the English want war and that the führer is a demigod protected by supernatural powers. On the other hand, if the SS was really behind this faked assassination attempt, how could Hitler have taken the risk of placing himself next to a ticking bomb that might have gone off a few minutes too soon? Suppose Georg Elser had acted alone, as he claimed. Fritz Kolbe would have liked to talk about the event with some of his friends in the ministry. But he was soon made to understand that it was better not to speak openly on the subject, especially if you called into question the analysis authorized by Goebbels.
The Ministry of Propaganda in fact had taken advantage of the event to put on a grandiose spectacle. November 11 had been declared a “day of national mourning.” In Munich, ten thousand people had marched in silence past the Nazi-flag-draped coffins of the seven people killed in the attempt. The ceremony had been broadcast live on the radio. The event served more than one purpose, because the party had taken advantage of it to settle some internal scores. Fritz thought of Georg Elser, the young Swabian carpenter who looked like a bum. He then remembered what Toni Singer had said to him in South Africa in the course of his brief Masonic initiation. Toni Singer had spoken to him of the symbolism of the tarot and had told him that the only card without a number, hence excluded from the game, was the Fool. This card was the symbol of the authentic initiate, able to see a world inaccessible to ordinary mortals. It pictured a vagabond, holding a staff in his right hand, his pack over his left shoulder, pursued by a dog trying to bite him, with his eyes turned toward the sky.
A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich: The Extraordinary Story of Fritz Kolbe, America's Most Important Spy in World War II Page 4
