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

The visits had accomplished nothing but to worsen the position of Otto Köcher in the eyes of the Americans. They did everything to ensure that the German diplomat would not receive asylum in Switzerland after the surrender of the Reich. Köcher had strong friendships in Swiss political circles and he had been promised that he could stay in Switzerland and not be handed over to the Allies. But the combined pressure of the Allies and a portion of Swiss public opinion caused the Federal Council to give in, and he was deported to Germany in July 1945. The former head of the German legation in Bern was placed in an American internment camp in Ludwigsburg, north of Stuttgart. The Allied military authorities began to question him about the secret relations between the Reich and Switzerland during the war. But they were unable to complete their investigation: On December 27, 1945, the body of Otto Köcher was found hanging in his cell. The “Köcher file,” so promising for the investigators assigned to dissect the machinations of the Third Reich, maintained all its mysteries.

Inside the Ludwigsburg internment camp, the death of Otto Köcher provoked lively discussions among the German prisoners, some of whom were former employees of the Foreign Ministry. One of them started a rumor that would spread and cause Fritz Kolbe great harm. He said that Köcher had been betrayed by a German. A scum. A traitor who had been working for the Americans for a good while. “His name: Fritz Kolbe.”

Hegenheim, May 1945

Fritz stayed in Bern until the middle of May 1945. It was there while he was staying with Allen Dulles that he learned of Germany’s surrender. He did not celebrate the event as it deserved, because everyday concerns had already come to the fore again. Fritz’s visa had long since expired, and he had to leave Switzerland. Allen Dulles had his agent secretly taken to an OSS barracks in Hegenheim, in Alsace, very near the Swiss border. Even though he was confident about his future, Fritz was growing bored and felt isolated far from his friends. To keep himself occupied, it was no longer enough to exercise and go running. He took English lessons and wrote various reports and memoirs for the Americans.

In April, Allen Dulles had asked him to supply a description of the state of affairs in the Foreign Ministry. The file was accompanied by a commentary by Fritz on each of its members, with good and bad marks (“This one is an out-and-out Nazi, that one might possibly be employed again at the ministry”). Before leaving Bern for Hegenheim, Fritz had been asked to write down a summary of his own history. The result was a seven-page document written in English by Ernst Kocherthaler, with the title “The Story of George.” Allen Dulles placed this document in his personal archives with the intention of using it one day. In Hegenheim, Fritz continued writing, throwing down on paper more details of his life as a spy, speaking of friends who had helped him during the war, giving their names and addresses in order to recommend them to the American administration.

But Fritz wanted action. He was soon given a new mission by Dulles: He was to go to Bavaria in search of Karl Ritter and especially of Ribbentrop, both of whom had disappeared and were actively sought by the occupation authorities. He was also asked to track down the secret archives on Russia whose existence he had revealed a few weeks earlier. The Americans provided him with a jeep and a driver. Fritz left on his assignment in early June. He was helped by the prelate Schreiber, who went with him for part of the trip. But he brought back no solid information and he even unknowingly relayed some useless tips (“Eva Braun was recently arrested on the banks of the Tegernsee”). He saw the Gauleiter of Munich fleeing (“He was seen on foot, with a knapsack, near Wiessee. He then headed toward Kreuth”). Beyond that, there was no trace of Ribbentrop or of Ritter, nor of the secret archives on Russia. Fritz Kolbe thought that the former foreign minister of the Reich had taken refuge in Italy, but he was mistaken. Ribbentrop was found by the British in Hamburg and arrested on June 14, 1945.

Wiesbaden, June 30, 1945

Even though he was no longer a spy in the strict sense of the word, “George Wood” continued to be useful to the Americans. In fact, he was considered a “person of reference,” whose opinion could be asked at any time to guide the actions of the American occupation authorities. In the context of the establishment of the international tribunal that was going to judge the Nazi criminals, the OSS asked him to give evidence to Judge Robert H. Jackson, who was preparing the cases for the prosecution. The meeting took place in early July in Wiesbaden, on the premises of the Henkell company (champagne, wines, and spirits), chosen more or less by chance as the new base for the OSS in Germany.

On entering Judge Jackson’s office, Fritz Kolbe was introduced for the first time to General Donovan. Donovan was eager to meet the celebrated “George Wood,” who had just been called “the prize intelligence source of the war” by the British secret services. “I was introduced by Allen Dulles with very warm words,” Fritz wrote to his friend Kocherthaler. The discussion concerned war criminals. Judge Jackson questioned Kolbe about the personalities of Ribbentrop and his closest collaborators. Fritz told what he knew of the actions of the former minister and described the climate that prevailed in the ministry during the war. He thought that Ribbentrop’s first crime had been to “persuade Hitler to invade Poland, while assuring him that Great Britain would not react.” He then spoke about Karl Ritter, whom he presented as a yes-man whose role had been to encourage Ribbentrop in his worst initiatives (notably the inhuman treatment meted out to prisoners of war, especially Soviet prisoners).

Fritz Kolbe was not the only representative of the German resistance in Judge Jackson’s office. Next to him was Eugen Gerstenmaier, a leader of the Protestant Church, who had barely escaped a death sentence after the plot against Hitler. Gerstenmaier was questioned about the place of religion under Nazism. He answered by saying that the churches had been the principal center of opposition to Hitler. Fritz did not at all agree with him and had no hesitation in saying so.

What was beginning to annoy him intensely was the incredible number of German figures who claimed to have played an important role in the fight against Hitler. “Whose turn is it now?” he said to himself as he met one or another of them in the corridors of the Henkell company. He had a great deal of difficulty standing for Hans-Bernd Gisevius, who was also in Wiesbaden. He thought that this preferred informant of the Americans was a veritable impostor. He had not forgotten that Gisevius had begun his career in the Gestapo in the early years of the Nazi regime.

Berlin, July 1945

On July 17, Fritz returned to Berlin on board a US Army C-47. He finally saw Maria again, from whom he had heard nothing for three months. She was in a state of total exhaustion. She had not for a moment given up her work at the Charité hospital. It was a burdensome mission: the hospital was constantly full of the wounded, refugees dying from exhaustion, and victims of the typhus epidemic that had just broken out in the capital. Professor Sauerbruch held a high office in the administration of Berlin, in the Soviet zone. Adolphe Jung had returned to France. Maria told Fritz about what was happening in the Soviet zone: widespread rape, dismantling of factories, and systematic pillage of all property. The chaos was complete. Fritz could hardly believe his ears, he who thought that the Russians—who had not bombed German cities—would be greeted as liberators by the Germans. At that very moment he realized that the page of Nazism had finally been turned. Even if the Nazi “death squads” had not completely disappeared, the danger had changed its character and was now located in the East. On July 20, 1945, there was a celebration of the failed plot against Hitler. The press was full of praise for Count Stauffenberg and his friends. Fritz was stunned at the speed with which the wheels of history were turning.