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

Madrid, September 1935

It was ten in the morning in Madrid, and the city was bathed in the soft light of late summer. After eating his breakfast while reading the papers, Ernst Kocherthaler left home and headed for the German embassy. It was some distance, about three quarters of an hour away, but Kocherthaler walked quickly. As he walked beneath the locust trees, passing in front of still-deserted cafés, he could not stop thinking about the article he had just read in ABC: “Nuremberg, 15 September 1935: The National Socialist Party is going to pass several laws depriving Jews of full German citizenship. One planned law provides that marriages between Jews and German citizens will be prohibited. Extramarital relations between Jews and German citizens will also be prohibited.” Phrases like “protection of German blood and German honor,” and “survival of the German people” were repellent to Kocherthaler. He was extremely tense when he reached the embassy. He had the slight consolation that he did not yet have to see the swastika hanging in front of the building. The façade still displayed the traditional flag of the Reich (black, red, and white), but not for much longer. The Nazi Party had just decided in Nuremberg that its emblem would become the flag of the entire nation.

At the entrance, he asked for the consular service. His papers were not even checked, since he was known as a friend of Count Johannes von Welczeck, the ambassador. Count von Welczeck and Ernst Kocherthaler met often, publicly and privately. Sometimes they even spent summer vacations together, in San Sebastian, Biarritz, or Hendaye. The ambassador lobbied the Spanish authorities in support of his friend’s investment proposals and liked to talk with him about economics, politics, and business. Kocherthaler owned shares in the copper mines of Andalusia and handled major energy concerns. He represented the interests of large hydrocarbon companies in Spain and was the co-president of the national federation of oil traders. Kocherthaler knew many people and was one of the most prominent figures in the Spanish capital.

Kocherthaler was led through the high-ceilinged corridors of the palace, a beautiful building that had been the Prussian embassy in the nineteenth century, to the visa and passport office in the consular section. He was shown to a seat in a waiting room, next to a little table with newspapers on it. There were a few copies of the Frankfurter Zeitung, still a relatively respectable paper, and certainly less painful to read than the Völkischer Beobachter, also available for visitors, along with various pamphlets by Joseph Goebbels. “How can Welczeck allow this propaganda in the embassy?” thought Kocherthaler, who, despite his personal friendship with the ambassador, resented him for giving in to the dictates of the Nazi Party.

By May 1933, all German diplomatic offices abroad had received a detailed document from Berlin designed to answer questions about the fate of Jews in Germany. German diplomats in Madrid had been seen at evening receptions launching into long arguments on the “Jewish question,” explaining the specifically German concerns involved, and trying to put together arguments about its “universal character.” The party and its ideas were infiltrating everywhere, including the German-Spanish Chamber of Commerce, where, as a non-Aryan businessman, Kocherthaler was already no longer welcome.

Leafing through the paper, Kocherthaler lifted his head and looked around. He saw an old engraving of the Brandenburg Gate. There was also a poster of the “Strength through Joy” organization, depicting two young blond women sitting on the white sand of a Baltic beach. The picture reminded him of Rügen Island, where he had spent all his childhood summers. Finally, there was a portrait of the führer with a little girl giving him a huge bouquet of flowers.

The door of the office facing him opened a few minutes later. A short official, only about five feet three inches tall, appeared in the doorway. He had a round face with prominent ears. His bald crown was as smooth as his perfectly polished shoes. The man did not have a typically German appearance, looking more like a Slav or someone from southern Europe. He was soberly but elegantly dressed. The tone of his voice was clear, and his elocution as distinct as the text of a Prussian law. His general appearance was quite pleasant, and he seemed to have a certain charm.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Kocherthaler?” he asked, pointing to a chair. Kocherthaler remained standing. The consular agent, much shorter than his visitor, was forced to look up in order to talk to him. His politeness surprised Kocherthaler, who had noticed a certain decline in German good manners since the Nazi accession to power. Minor embassy officials, most of them already Nazi Party members, seemed to have taken advantage of the new state of affairs to adopt authoritarian airs or unwelcome and excessive familiarity. This man was different.

The businessman, still standing, spoke with the solemnity of an officer of the Imperial Guard: “I have come to take the necessary steps to renounce my German citizenship.” Ernst Kocherthaler asked the official to inform the authorities in Berlin that he was withdrawing from the national community and that he had taken steps to become, immediately, a Spanish citizen. “This decision is irrevocable,” he added after a brief pause, his eyes downcast and his voice slightly trembling with emotion.

A little taken aback by the tenor of the statement, the consular agent seemed not to understand. He asked the visitor to explain the reasons for his action. Kocherthaler mentioned the persecution of the Jews in Germany, the daily humiliations to which they were subjected, the boycotting of Jewish shops, the constant undercurrent of terror. “The Jews have been excluded from all professions and from all public places. The only thing they have left is their driver’s licenses. This Germany is no longer mine!” said Kocherthaler.

The laws that had just been adopted in Nuremberg had finally convinced him: He could no longer be a citizen of a country in which he was relegated to second-class status. He himself had converted to Protestantism before 1914, but both his parents were Jewish, and his family tree was officially considered “impure.” “I am a citizen of the Reich, and nothing else,” he said, clenching his fists. He had volunteered during the war, and, he told the official now, he maintained his status as a reserve officer. The black, red, and white ribbon on his lapel indicated that he had received a distinguished war medal. “Did you fight? Do you know what it was like?” Kocherthaler asked.

The consular agent, a little surprised by the question, answered that he had been too young to fight, that he had not been recruited until the very last months of the war, into a Berlin battalion that had never been sent to the front. Ernst Kocherthaler had already been in his office for more than half an hour. In the waiting room, other visitors were growing restive. Among them was a young Spanish Falangist who wanted a visa for Germany, and who now made a noisy display of his impatience. But the businessman was in no hurry. He spoke of his love for Germany, that he had left well before the rise of National Socialism. “After the war,” he recalled, “I understood that there was no longer a place for me in Germany. I was considered with contempt either as a nasty banker or a wicked Jew, or both at once.”

After three-quarters of an hour, he handed his passport to the consular employee and asked him to tear it up. A few seconds went by. The passport remained on the table, an old one without a swastika. The silence, barely disturbed by noises from outside, became almost oppressive. Finally, the consular official spoke. “You should maintain your nationality,” he said to his visitor in a decisive tone. “There may be a way of not giving up your status as a German citizen. Your war medal could be used as an argument. In any event, here the Nazis can do nothing against you. I’m going to find out what can be done…”