Lucas Delattre - A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich

The Café Kottler was a place of relative freedom. It was possible to have quiet discussions there because the tables were set in alcoves and discreetly lit with candles. The privacy of discussions was ensured by the music of the zither player who livened up the atmosphere every evening. In short, it was a safe place. The owner was a trustworthy man, a Swabian who pretended to admire the regime but had his own opinions. Above the bar he had hung a sign intended to lull the Gestapo’s curiosity: Der Deutsche grüsst mit ‘Heil Hitler!’, next to an ad for Dörnberg liqueurs.

When he reached the café, Fritz went directly to the table in back, in a little quiet corner where he usually sat. The table had been reserved, as always, in the name of a more or less fictitious “sports association” created by Fritz Kolbe—a method enabling him to avoid awakening the suspicion of the authorities, particularly because Fritz truly was an exercise enthusiast and he trained several times a week in various individual and team sports. The “association” assembled old childhood friends, most of whom he had met on Wandervogel hikes, with whom Fritz now played chess at the Kottler when they were not running in the Grunewald or Wannsee woods. Among them was Walter Girgner, his closest friend, a bon vivant with a talent for business (he had founded a clothing company that was now obliged to work for the Wehrmacht), Kurt Arndt, a police captain, and Kurt Weinhold (nicknamed Leuko), an engineer at Siemens. Even though he had set up house with a certain Lieschen Walter (about whom nothing is known), Fritz was leading the life of a confirmed bachelor.

“What’s gotten into you, Fritz?” said Walter Girgner, seeing his friend’s distressed look. “This time, the war has entered an irreversible phase,” said Fritz. “We are in Holland and Belgium. And then what? France? England? Where is all this going to end? What revolts me is the knowledge that my own ministry has put the cream of its intelligence at the service of this new offensive. For months, the jurists of the Foreign Ministry have been assembling so-called evidence to demonstrate that Holland and Belgium are not maintaining their neutrality. Did you hear Ribbentrop’s press conference this morning? To make sure that our neighbors do remain neutral, we invade them! What cynicism! They call it a ‘protective measure’! If I had been consul at Stavanger, God knows what role that would have had me play in this history of madmen.”

Fritz and his friends agreed that enough was enough and that something had to be done, but what? Since they had renewed their acquaintance in November 1939, they had asked themselves this question every week, and they always ended up feeling as though they were going around in circles and about to go mad (“Sometimes I was doubting who was mad, whether all the others or myself,” Fritz explained after the war).

“Speaking for myself, I can no longer tolerate these lies,” said Fritz. “We have to do everything to prevent this band of assassins from continuing to act. Have you read the latest news? A couple has just been taken away by the Gestapo after being denounced by their own daughter! A chicken thief has been sentenced to death by a special court, in the name of the new provisions of war legislation and the fight against ‘parasites of the people.’ But it’s the Nazis who are a band of vermin and crooks. Everyone agrees, speaking like me and saying that this war is insane, so why doesn’t anyone do anything, why?”

There was an awkward silence. Fritz had an idea. The group ought to distribute anonymous leaflets, write counter-propaganda to denounce the official lies. Tomorrow, he would set to work at home. Writing with his left hand and wearing gloves, in capital letters, he would set down expressions like the ones that circulated in the Café Kottler at night: “What is pessimism? Not winning the war and maintaining Nazi power. What is optimism? Losing the war and seeing the Nazis go.” Or else, inspired by a popular song: “Everything flees and everything leaves / Soon the end of Hitler and the party.” These little squibs would be sent to big companies, big stores, and other places likely to ensure that their content was widely disseminated. They would be accompanied by a little note along these lines: “If you don’t agree with this message, please bring it to the nearest police station.” The idea was to stir up trouble in people’s minds. Above all, they could not get caught. They would have to multiply precautions when carrying the leaflets, never send them more than once from the same place, learn to hug the walls at certain late hours.

Pleased with his resolution, Fritz did not talk about it immediately to his friends. He preferred to wait until there were fewer customers in the room and he had only familiar faces around him. While waiting, he began to recite aloud a few words by Friedrich Schiller: the knights’ song from Wallenstein’s Camp, which he knew by heart because he had sung it often when he was a Wandervogel: “Till life has been staked for the rise or the fall / Your life will never be won at all.” Fritz noted with satisfaction that these words had a certain effect around him. He knew that Schiller was looked on favorably by the Nazis (unlike Goethe, whose Masonic inclinations made him suspect), and he was taking no risks by quoting some lines aloud. He called to the zither player to ask if he could play the melody of the knights’ song. The musician agreed for a small tip. The little group, followed by the whole café (including policemen in uniform who were among the customers that evening) intoned the martial air, too well known to be suspected of the slightest subversiveness: “Freedom has vanished out of the land, / Only masters and slaves will you find; / Deceit and treachery now command / Among craven humankind.”

While the rest of the café continued singing happily, Fritz’s small group of friends drank a toast in their corner, whispering conspiratorial words: “for the king,” instead of “to your health,” and “devil take them!” Going home that evening, Fritz had the impression that he had become the leader of a little seditious group. His friends had enthusiastically welcomed his plan to distribute leaflets. They would soon meet at Fritz’s apartment on Klopstockstrasse to write them. The danger of underground action was exciting. “In battle, man still has his value,” Fritz said to himself, thinking about a line from Schiller.

Berlin, June 1940

German troops entered Paris on June 14, through the Porte Maillot. Hitler had won his bet and now had himself called the “greatest general of all time.” The order to hang out the flags came to all the cities of Germany two days later. The triumphal display was extraordinary. Each parade was succeeded by another, and brass band followed brass band. The voices of children could be heard singing songs with joyous refrains. The people thought that the war was over and saw that Hitler had gotten everything he wanted: Danzig, Memel, the western regions of Poland, Alsace-Lorraine, Saarland, Eupen, and Malmédy, not to mention Austria and Sudetenland. The shame of the Treaty of Versailles had finally been washed away. It would finally be possible to live in peace. Even the most skeptical generals had come to believe in the führer’s genius. For all those like Fritz Kolbe who had hoped for a gradual weakening of the regime, this incredible victory over France meant dismay and profound bitterness.

After eight months at the ministry, Fritz observed with a mixture of satisfaction and dread that he provided complete satisfaction to his superiors, in professional terms. He was beginning to feel like a little soldier caught up in an immense war machine. “Am I meant, finally, to work with them?” he asked himself in anguish. He remembered a hurtful remark by Ernst Kocherthaler: “You could have been a Nazi!”