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

Washington, April 16, 1944

On April 16, two days after Fritz’s departure for Berlin, his material reached the highest authorities in the United States. For the first time since January 10, President Roosevelt got on his desk that day a report with the Boston heading, analyzed and commented on. The OSS thought that “George Wood’s” latest visit to Bern was important enough to justify sending a “Memorandum for the President” to the White House. So much for the prejudices and doubts of the experts. A copy was also sent to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, to Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, to the commander in chief of the U.S. Navy, Admiral Ernest J. King, to the supreme commander in Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, as well as to the highest British authorities. The document was drafted by Colonel G. Edward Buxton, one of General Donovan’s right-hand men.

Of all that had just been revealed by “George Wood” in Bern, neither the file on Japan nor the one on Hungary went to the president; nothing of all that, but rather what Fritz told Allen Dulles sitting by the fire, spontaneously, about the atmosphere prevailing in Germany, the state of mind of the leaders of the Reich and the evolution of the feelings of ordinary people. “Eighty percent of the German people feel opposed to the Nazis and is waiting for the day of delivery,” Fritz had told his American friends, immediately adding, “yet active revolutionary action cannot be expected for the time being. Himmler controls by his spies and terrorists every one of the various police organizations and the key positions of the armed forces so thoroughly that the forces of opposition that exist even within the police do not risk a plot.” Fritz had added an observation that was very troubling to the Americans: “The communist organization and propaganda have been strengthened in the last few months. As parts of the Nazi SA and even the SS have changed over to the communists, Russia disposes of a good organization in order to control the revolution by their elements, when the situation is ripe.”

The Allies were fond of this kind of information, because they had no way of knowing what was going on inside the country. Germany in early 1944 resembled an impenetrable fortress. Only a very few people, one of whom was Fritz Kolbe, enabled the veil to be lifted a little. Apart from him, there were Hans-Bernd Gisevius and his friends in the Abwehr, an occasional businessman, and a few boatmen who sailed on the Rhine and whom OSS agents questioned in the cafés of Basel.

The memorandum to President Roosevelt stated, in part:

The enclosed dispatch from Bern and the accompanying evaluation of its source should, it is believed, be brought to your attention as early as possible. This cable is the evaluation by our principal Swiss intelligence representative of two hundred enemy documents (four hundred pages) that have just come into his hands…. A cable has been sent to the author, requesting him to review it carefully to see whether he wishes, on reflection, to modify any of its language and to report here by cable immediately. It would seem that the author, thanks to the sudden receipt of more than 400 pages of material all at one moment, finds himself in a position where he can see the whole picture rather than any single part.

The OSS then quoted at length a Kappa message written by Dulles on April 12:

Sincerely regret that you are unable at this time to view Wood’s material as it stands without condensation and abridgement. In some 400 pages, dealing with the internal maneuvering of German diplomatic policy for the past two months, a picture of imminent doom and final downfall is presented. Into a tormented General Headquarters and a half-dead Foreign Office stream the lamentations of a score of diplomatic posts. It is a scene wherein haggard Secret Service and diplomatic agents are doing their best to cope with the defeatism and desertion of flatly defiant satellites and allies and recalcitrant neutrals…. Already Canaris has disappeared from the picture, and a conference was hastily convoked in Berlin at which efforts were made to mend the gaping holes left in the Abwehr. Unable now to fall back on his favorite means of avoiding disconcerting critics by retiring to his bed, Ribbentrop has beat a retreat to Fuschl and retains a number of his principal aides at Salzburg. The remainder of the Foreign Office is strung out all the way between Riesengebirge and the capital. Practically impossible working conditions exist in the latter, and bomb shelters are being permanently used for code work. Once messages have been deciphered, a frantic search begins to locate the specific service or minister to which each cable must be forwarded; and, when a reply is called for, another search is required to deliver this to the right place….

The final deathbed contortions of a petrified Nazi diplomacy are pictured in these telegrams. The reader is carried from one extreme of emotion to the other, from tears to laughter, as he examines these messages and sees the cruelty exhibited by the Germans in their final swan-song of brutality toward the peoples so irrevocably and pitifully enmeshed by the Gestapo after half a decade of futile struggles, and yet at the same time also sees the absurdity of the dilemma which now confronts this diplomacy both within and without Festung Europa.

This message was considered exceptional by the heads of the OSS, because most official analyses up to that time had concluded that the Nazis were still solidly holding onto power. On April 3, 1944, General Donovan had sent a letter to President Roosevelt characterizing the morale in the capital of the Reich in these terms: “As though they were under the influence of morphine, with no sign of collapse and yet a general despair of ever gaining the victory now.” While it seemed that the war was likely to last for a long time, Dulles’s message of April 12 for the first time suggested that the end of the tunnel might be in sight.

On April 20, 1944, a new message from the OSS landed on President Roosevelt’s desk. He was informed that Allen Dulles was sticking with his analysis: Germany, he said, was at the end of its rope, even if nothing had yet been won by the Allies:

The message from Switzerland (transmitted to you on 12 April 1944) ‘should not be read as indicating that the morale of the Nazi Army is nearing collapse (excepting probably the so-called Grossdeutscher, Slav and other non-German elements.)’ Nor does our Swiss representative think that any important Nazi military officials are ready and willing to let us come in through the West unopposed. He believes, rather, that fierce opposition may be given to any invasion attempt. A collapse of Germany might follow, however, a few months after the establishment of a firm toe-hold in the West. He concludes: ‘the timing of the invasion attempt may be all-important. The German people are war-weary and apathetic, and even in Nazi circles the same kind of psychological depression can be seen as appeared last August and September. Yet if they could stabilize the Russian front once more, they may catch a second wind, and put up an even stronger defense against invasion.’

Washington/Bern, April 26, 1944

On Wednesday, April 26, 1944, Washington sent Allen Dulles an encouraging message: “Particular felicitations for the Japanese data. The military people are most appreciative…. Far Eastern information is the most highly desired next to any hot invasion material.” The American generals in Asia were now informed of the principal Kappa revelation concerning their theater of operations. A few days later, Colonel Alfred McCormack presented his final report on “George Wood,” overall cautious and reserved, but laudatory with respect to Japan: “They contain a certain amount of new information which, if true, is useful—notably the identification of a number of divisional commanders in Burma,” he wrote.