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

“favoring Muslim autonomy”: Kappa messages, April 15 and 18, 1944. After the invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, puppet states under the boot of the Reich had been set up in Croatia (Ante Pavelic) and in Serbia (Milan Nedic). Beginning in February 1943, the British chose to give increased support to Tito’s resistance at the expense of Mihailovich’s Chetniks, who then turned to the Germans.

“Peter,” his son’s name: Kappa message, April 11, 1944.

a few years later: Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.

comments and photograph them: “I sent undeveloped film. There were up to sixty exposures per roll and two to four rolls in each shipment…. I took the photographs in Maria Fritsch’s on-site apartment in the Charité hospital. This was where the documents were kept, which was not without danger with the bombing,” Fritz wrote in an autobiographical document in Berlin in January 1947. The sending of photographic documents did not really begin to function until the fall of 1944. Bern, National Archives.

of cables every time: See, for example, Boston document no. 163. It is one of the longest of the series: twelve pages entirely devoted to deliveries of Spanish tungsten to Germany.

the situation is ripe: Document of April 25, 1944 ( Germany in April 1944 ), based on a conversation with Fritz Kolbe, OSS Bern, National Archives.

friends in the Abwehr: Among the few regular informers of the OSS coming from the Reich, there was notably Eduard Wätjen, a colleague of Hans-Bernd Gisevius at the German consulate in Zurich, a member of the Abwehr who had been trained as a lawyer. His mother was American, and his sister had married a Rockefeller.

an occasional businessman: Notably Eduard Schulte, a German industrialist who was one of the first to inform the Allies of the existence of Auschwitz, in the first months of 1942.

the cafés of Basel: Message from OSS Bern to Washington, October 30, 1943, National Archives.

and without Festung Europa: Kappa message, April 12, 1944. Document sent to the White House: Memorandum for the President, April 15, 1944, microfilm (entry 190c, MF1642, roll 18). Document sent to the military leadership: letter from Edward Buxton to the secretary of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, April 18, 1944, microfilm (entry 190c, MF1642, roll 18), National Archives.

gaining the victory now: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. The document can be found online at: www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/psf/box4.

defense against invasion: Kappa message, April 17, 1944; Memorandum for the President, April 19, 1944. This continuation of the story was also distributed to the military leadership, letter from Edward Buxton to the secretary of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, April 19, 1944, microfilm (entry 190c, MF1642, roll 18), National Archives.

any hot invasion material: Quoted in Petersen, ed., From Hitler’s Doorstep.

“in Burma,” he wrote: Final report of Alfred McCormack on the Boston series, May 6, 1944, National Archives.

was false or incorrect: Quibble, “Alias George Wood.”

the material on Japan: Message from David Bruce, May 12, 1944, quoted by Srodes, Allen Dulles, Master of Spies, p. 296.

with his useful suitcase: Philby, My Silent War, pp. 107–08.

Shepardson, known as “Jackpot”: Whitney H. Shepardson had headed the espionage branch of the OSS (Secret Intelligence Branch or SI) since 1943. Shepardson, a businessman and lawyer, was on old friend of Allen Dulles. They had both been members of the American delegation to the Versailles treaty negotiations in 1919.

quite usual in conspirators: Kappa message, April 26, 1944.

of the Weimar Republic: The largest league for the defense of republican institutions was the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, established in 1924, which had three million members in the late 1920s.

this small underground army: There are several sources on the “militia” of Fritz Kolbe, notably a document of April 25, 1944 ( Germany in April 1944 ) based on a conversation with Fritz Kolbe (OSS Bern, National Archives), as well as the biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.

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.