A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich: The Extraordinary Story of Fritz Kolbe, America's Most Important Spy in World War II

by Delattre, Lucas

  Alfred Graf Waldersee: This list was transmitted to Washington in April 1944. Kappa message, April 26, 1944.

  most useful for us: “It was not easy to persuade George, and we argued it back and forth for many hours. Finally, he agreed to stay on the job, and I breathed a sigh of relief.” Allen Dulles commenting on Edward P. Morgan’s article in the anthology Dulles edited, Great True Spy Stories (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), p. 29.

  authorized to travel abroad: Autobiographical document written by Fritz Kolbe in Berlin in January 1947.

  at Pentecost in 1944: “Sauerbruch was going to Switzerland, to Zurich, to operate on a diplomat from South America who was staying there for a while. He got permission from the government to travel there by car and also received enough fuel for a round trip to the Swiss border.” (Adolphe Jung, unpublished notebooks, private archive, Strasbourg.) “Sauerbruch went to Switzerland three or four times, each time taking with him material for Bern on my behalf,” Fritz wrote in the autobiographical document of January 1947.

  to leave the ministry: Wilhelm Mackeben (b. 1892) had joined the Foreign Ministry in 1919. He had had trouble with the Nazis as early as 1933. At the time, he was representing Germany in Guatemala as chargé d’affaires. His work consisted of negotiating commercial contracts. He could not stand being challenged and even violently criticized by the parallel diplomacy of the Nazi Party, and he was forced to return to Germany. Foreign Ministry, Wilhelm Mackeben file. Fritz Kolbe considered Mackeben an “eccentric.” Morgan, “The Spy the Nazis Missed.”

  a former Norwegian consul: Boston document no. 332.

  Eberswalde (northeast of Berlin): See Boston document no. 296. Eberswalde, near Berlin, harbored an important communications center for the Navy. In particular, it provided guidance for the operations of German submarines.

  ‘are you still asleep?’”: Kappa message, May 4, 1944.

  “yet I love her!”: Letter from Fritz Kolbe to his “friends in Bern,” May 10, 1944, National Archives.

  “no cigarettes,” signed “Georg”: This telegram, received by Ernst Kocherthaler on May 20, 1944, is in the National Archives.

  philosopher Eduard Spranger: Klaus Scholder, Die Mittwochsgesellschaft (Berlin, 1982).

  Army Supply Services: Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was chief of staff of the Army Supply Services (the Allgemeines Heeresamt, in charge of supervising the arming and equipment of the Wehrmacht) and was soon to be appointed Chief of Staff of the Home Army. The unit to which he belonged was the 17th Cavalry Regiment of Bamberg, in which Peter Sauerbruch, the surgeon’s son, also served; he was supposed to participate in plans for the assassination attempt but was sent to the Russian front in February 1944. Thanks to August von Kageneck.

  decline; quite the contrary: Once again, the documents were sent on paper. Apparently, Fritz had not yet mastered the operation of the camera.

  vicinity of St. Valentin: “Lower Danube”: perhaps the Zipf camp, an annex of Mauthausen.

  days at the outside: Boston documents nos. 339 and 360. These documents were transmitted to President Roosevelt and to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Memorandum for the President, July 10, 1944, microfilm (entry 190c, MF1642, roll 18). In The Secret Surrender (p. 29), Dulles writes: “He turned in to us some of the best technical and tactical information on the V-weapons.”

  enter the production phase: Boston documents nos. 341 and 607. These details were also transmitted to President Roosevelt and to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The site in Kahla where the Me-262 plane was to be built, was an old mine (See Chapter 9, note 29).

  to have been untouched: Boston document no. 380.

  were to be executed: Several documents mention this story—for example, “The Story of George”; also “The Spy the Nazis Missed”; and the biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe. According to Edward P. Morgan, Maria Fritsch intentionally failed to inform Fritz of the meeting out of fear of the danger.

  Chapter 11

  world and of history: Henning von Tresckow, speaking shortly before the assassination attempt, quoted in Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (New York: Hill and Wang, 2000), p. 716.

  silence scorn its leaders: Albert Camus, editorial of August 24, 1944, in Camus à Combat. Éditoriaux et articles d’Albert Camus, 1944–1947 (Paris, Gallimard, 2002).

  decision had been ratified: Foreign Ministry, Fritz Kolbe file, official document sent by the ministry to the NSDAP on March 30, 1944.

  his messages to Bern: Quibble, “Alias George Wood.”

  Max de Crinis: Max de Crinis (1889–1945): a neurologist and head of the department of psychiatry in the Charité hospital, he also held a high rank in the SS. He was one of the figures behind the euthanasia program implemented by the Nazi regime against the physically and mentally handicapped (70,000 victims between 1939 and the summer of 1941). He committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule at the end of the war.

  and with Professor Gebhardt: Karl Gebhardt (1897–1948) was one of the most honored doctors in the Nazi regime and held a high position in the SS. He was head of a hospital in Hohenlychen, about one hundred kilometers north of Berlin, where he carried out sinister experiments, such as tests with sulfonamides, on inmates of the nearby camp of Ravensbrück. Sentenced to death by an American military tribunal after the war, he was executed on June 2, 1948. He was a former student of Professor Sauerbruch, with whom he was in regular contact.

  that followed the attempt: Unpublished notebooks of Adolphe Jung. Frank and Marie-Christine Jung collection, Strasbourg.

  events of July 20: Wilhelm Hoegner had been the prosecutor in Hitler’s trial after the failed Munich putsch of 1923. He had been living in exile in Switzerland since the early years of Nazism.

  dated August 8, 1944: R. Harris Smith, OSS, The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), p. 221.

  finish off the job: From Hitler’s Doorstep, p. 358.

  now the Communist group: Ibid., p. 360.

  to work with Volksmiliz: Kappa message, August 18, 1944.

  in on the secret: Letter of August 14, 1944 to Ernst Kocherthaler, National Archives.

  join in X/2 hours: Undated manuscript note of Ernst Kocherthaler (Key for Wood), National Archives.

  legality on their side: See Boston document no. 358. The Germans intended to revive politically Édouard Herriot and a few other politicians of the Third Republic.

  First Regiment of France: In November 1942, with the end of the unoccupied zone, the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon, and the dissolution of the Armistice Army, the French Army had only one remaining regiment, christened the First Regiment of France.

  his plan had failed: Memorandum of August 22, 1944 sent to the British secret services by Allen Dulles, National Archives.

  had the changes been: Bern, National Archives.

  spies had become professionals: The OSS hired the best experts from the major universities and law firms of the East Coast. It employed experts from many fields, including psychoanalysts asked to analyze the depths of the German soul, chemists working on sometimes lunatic plans (for example, adding various drugs to Hitler’s food), and even writers, particularly Germans (including Carl Zuckmayer, Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Erich Maria Remarque).

  and their new hideouts: Letter from Allen Dulles to William Donovan, September 23, 1944, microfilm (MF1642, roll 81), National Archives.

  lack of fuel coupons: Letter from Allen Dulles to his wife Clover, December 9, 1942, Allen W. Dulles Papers.

  the envoy, Leland Harrison: “This situation did not fail to provoke the diplomats’ jealousy,” according to Cordelia Dodson-Hood, a colleague of Dulles in Bern in 1944 and 1945 (interview in Washington, March 21, 2002).

  of the Weimar Republic: Miscellaneous Activities OSS Bern, undated internal document of OSS Bern, National Archives.

  the July 20 plot: Hans-Bernd Gisevius, who had returned to Berlin to participate
in preparations for the plot, lived underground for six months before returning to Bern with forged Gestapo papers fabricated by the OSS. Bern, National Archives.

  “Dulles’s prestige,” Sichel recalls: Interview with Peter Sichel, December 1, 2001, Bordeaux. After the war, Peter Sichel headed the Berlin branch of the CIA (1949–52), later directed CIA operations in Eastern Europe, and then took over the Hong Kong office in 1956.

  of narrow self-interest: Joseph Persico, Piercing the Reich (New York: Viking, 1979).

  headquarters in East Prussia: This episode has been reconstructed in part on the basis of a letter of October 4 from Fritz Kolbe to Ernst Kocherthaler, National Archives, and the biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.

  “like Wilhelm Furtwängler’s”: Letter from Fritz Kolbe to Allen Dulles, June 28, 1962, Allen W. Dulles Papers.

  to prescribe fictitious treatments: Fritz Kolbe relied more than once on the complicity of his medical friends. On one occasion, he had Adolphe Jung give him an injection causing a fever so that he could take a few days off to work on the files that he wanted to transmit to the Americans. Morgan, “The Spy the Nazis Missed,” and biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.

  of the Ost Ministerium: In the fall of 1944, the Ministry of the Occupied Territories in the East (Reichsministerium für die Besetzten Ostgebiete or Ostministerium, headed by Alfred Rosenberg), was nothing but an empty shell, as most of the territory in question had been retaken by the Red Army.

  agreement with the Soviets: Kappa message, October 7, 1944 and Boston document no. 426. The attempts at an approach to the Soviet Union by Peter Kleist had been mentioned in the American press in July 1944, but had been the subject of an official denial by the authorities of the Reich. Boston document no. 411.

  a vast agricultural zone: Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau’s plan, revealed in September 1944, was widely used by Nazi propaganda to denounce America’s “criminal” intentions toward Germany.

  prepared by Allen Dulles: Kappa message, October 7, 1944.

  I should join you: Letter from Fritz Kolbe to Ernst Kocherthaler, November 14, 1944, National Archives.

  supplied by the Americans: “With the camera, the volume of documents processed increased enormously.” Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.

  while I was working?: Unpublished notebooks of Adolphe Jung.

  confessed many years later: This episode is recounted in detail in “The Story of George” and in the biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe. Fritz Kolbe had the habit of drinking a cognac after moments of great anxiety. Morgan, “The Spy the Nazis Missed.”

  population in the neighborhood: Episode recounted in the biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe and in “The Spy the Nazis Missed.” The Blockwart’s function was to be a liaison between the NSDAP and society. There were two million of these “little führers” in wartime. They observed the neighborhood, organized informing on deviant behavior, and the like.

  caught him crossing Alexanderplatz: Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.

  in the Dufourstrasse buildings: Complete Diary of Clandestine Radio Communications in Bern, Switzerland from November 24, 1944 through the Month of June 1945, National Archives.

  carry out a search: Bern, National Archives.

  a watch to be repaired: Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.

  region for the present: Boston documents nos. 415 and 470. This information was transmitted by the OSS to President Roosevelt. Memorandum for the President, October 11, 1944, microfilm (entry 190c, MF1642, roll 18).

  for a German defeat: Boston documents nos. 475, 478, and 479.

  SS-Obersturmbannführer Eichmann: Boston document no. 471.

  forced labor and “conscription”: Boston document no. 534.

  of the Boston series: Boston document no. 542.

  amounted to 440,000 people: Boston document no. 733.

  the Jews of Budapest: In late December 1944, Fritz Kolbe informed the Americans that “Obersturmbannführer Eichmann has been ordered back to Berlin,” his mission accomplished. See Boston document no. 733.

  dated December 1, 1944: Microfilm document (MF1642, roll 18).

  the giving of guarantees: Ibid.

  best deliveries of “Wood”: Evaluation of Boston Series, December 28, 1944, National Archives.

  to his Washington colleagues: Hansjakob Stehle, “Der Mann, der den Krieg verkürzen wollte,” Die Zeit, May 2, 1986.

  courier never traveled alone: Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.

  legation in Bern, noted: Boston document no. 802.

  “personal friend” of Emil Puhl: Boston document no. 355.

  the IG Farben conglomerate: Boston document no. 804.

  political asylum in Switzerland: In April 1945, several German diplomats left the legation in Bern and took refuge with Swiss friends. They returned to Germany after the fall of the Nazi regime. Handwritten notes of Ernst Kocherthaler, April 10, 1945, National Archives.

  most of the trip: Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.

  and the People’s Court: The ignoble chief prosecutor of the Nazi regime, Roland Freisler, died that day after being hit by a projectile while crossing the building’s courtyard.

  close off the street: Unpublished notebooks of Adolphe Jung.

  of the Foreign Ministry: Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe. A large scale destruction of archives was to take place during the final weeks of the Nazi regime. Kappa message, April 5, 1945.

  had not been obtained: Kappa message, February 5, 1945, in From Hitler’s Doorstep, p. 444. The question does indeed arise as to why the Americans never bombed Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia, when Kolbe had indicated its precise location during his first visit in August 1943. According to the historian Klemens von Klemperer, the reason was the limited range of Allied aircraft, given the fact that the Soviets would not permit them to be refueled in the USSR.

  decipher crossword puzzles: Kappa message, February 5, 1945.

  Undersecretary, and President: Letter from Ferdinand L. Mayer to Whitney H. Shepardson, December 28, 1944, National Archives.

  analyze the Kappa messages: OSS document dated February 20, 1945, entitled Special Unit, Kappa Material Organization and Handling, National Archives.

  former right-hand man: Karl Wolff (1900–84) had been Heinrich Himmler’s right-hand man beginning in the mid-1930s. He was sent to Italy in 1943 to take charge of SS troops and protect what remained of Mussolini’s fascist regime. His role in the peaceful surrender of German troops in Italy in the spring of 1945 led to his being spared at the Nuremberg trials (at the time he benefited from the effective protection of Allen Dulles). He was again arrested in the early 1960s and sentenced to fifteen years in prison for his role in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Jews to Treblinka. But he was released in 1970 for good behavior.

  armed with improvised weapons: Fritz was enrolled for a few days in the Foreign Ministry brigade of the Volkssturm. Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.

  singer of light music: Morgan, “The Spy the Nazis Missed.”

  our friend D. [Dulles]: Unpublished notebooks of Adolphe Jung.

  the password ‘George 25900’: Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.

  people in the car: The presence of Margot Sauerbruch on this journey is reported by Morgan, “The Spy the Nazis Missed.” Morgan also indicates that Fritz Kolbe had proposed that Maria Fritsch come with him, but that she had refused, saying that her duty was to stay in the hospital. Margot Sauerbruch, the surgeon’s second wife (thirty years younger than he, thus born around 1905) was among Fritz Kolbe’s closest friends. Although she had been married to a close associate of Hitler in the Reich Chancellery, she was an anti-Nazi. She knew very precisely the nature of Fritz’s activities, unlike the surgeon, who was never told of the details. Autobiographical
document written by Fritz Kolbe in January 1947.

  or by SS units: This traversal of Germany is reported in a document that is probably a debriefing of Kolbe by Ernst Kocherthaler in early April 1945, a ten-page document whose first page is missing, National Archives. See also Morgan, “The Spy the Nazis Missed.”

  who was passing through: Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.

  leave without further trouble: This episode appears in several documents, notably “The Story of George.” According to this document, the arrest by the Gestapo was provoked by Fritz’s visit to the Ottobeuren monastery, which was under surveillance. See also Morgan, “The Spy the Nazis Missed.”

  long nighttime conversation: Morgan, “The Spy the Nazis Missed.”

  the war was over: These men were in the espionage department of the Wehrmacht that specialized in Russia (Fremde Heere Ost), headed by Reinhard Gehlen. He managed to sell his knowledge to the Americans, who seem to have heard of him for the first time from Fritz Kolbe. Gehlen became one of the most important figures in the cold war. He created the foreign intelligence services of the new German Federal Republic and became the first head of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). Debriefing of Fritz Kolbe by Ernst Kocherthaler, April 1945.

  nor smallpox, nor scabies: Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.

  on April 4, 1945: Kappa message, April 4, 1945.

  his conversations with Fritz: Message from Allen Dulles to Whitney H. Shepardson, April 5, 1945, National Archives.

  developments in Japanese aviation: This information on Japan was the subject of two Kappa messages on April 6, 1945. See also Boston document no. 609.

  believed in this scenario: The Germans knew that the Americans were very interested in the possibility of the “Alpine Redoubt” and succeeded in fostering their illusion for many long weeks. This maneuver had a decisive effect on the course of military operations. On April 14, 1945 (two days before Roosevelt’s death), American troops halted on the Elbe and stopped advancing toward Berlin in order to secure southern Germany. At the same time, on the night of April 15, the Russians launched their final great offensive against Berlin. See Antony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin, 1945 (New York: Viking, 2002) and Persico, Piercing the Reich.