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

the new Germany: Personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.

Federal Chancellery in Bonn: Fritz Kolbe had never officially left the ministry, as he had a life appointment; he was simply “on a leave of absence.” He was waiting for a new administration to be put in place. In 1950, the Foreign Ministry had still not been authorized by the occupying authorities to rise from its ashes. In September 1945, the Allies had officially put an end to the existence of the ministry, the embassies, and the consulates and other German representatives abroad. However, at the Chancellery in Bonn, a new diplomatic apparatus was being set up. “In late 1949 and early 1950, three months after the establishment of the federal government, the organization of the ministry and above all the attribution of positions was essentially settled…. The former Wilhelmstrasse diplomats occupied all the key positions in the ministry. Döscher, Verschworene Gesellschaft. The Allies did not try to influence appointments, except for the German embassies in Washington, London, and Paris. The Foreign Ministry of the new German Federal Republic was established in March 1951, and Chancellor Adenauer appointed himself head of the German diplomatic service.

the chancellery in Bonn: Letter of application from Fritz Kolbe to Hans-Heinrich Herwarth von Bittenfeld, October 15, 1949, personal archives of Fritz Kolbe. Herwarth was chief of protocol at the Chancellery in Bonn. His past was spotless: because he was one-fourth Jewish, he had had to leave the Foreign Ministry in 1939. He was not a member of the Nazi Party and he owed his life to the protection he enjoyed in high places. To thank all those who had helped him during the war, he used his position of power after 1945 to distribute certificates of good conduct to his friends, most of whom were former Nazis. Döscher, Verschworene Gesellschaft.

Chancellor Adenauer, Herbert Blankenhorn: Herbert Blankenhorn (1904–91) probably played a major role in blocking Fritz Kolbe’s career after the war. In March 1950, when Fritz was trying to get hired by the new German consul general in Washington, Ernst Kocherthaler wrote to Allen Dulles: “George is trying to get included into the staff of the new Consul General to Washington, Herr von Schlange-Schöningen, but I doubt that Herr Blankenhorn, who is Adenauer’s actual manager for foreign affairs, might tolerate him. Blankenhorn was one of Köcher’s assistants and Köcher attributed his personal catastrophe to George, who therefore is considered something like a traitor by this special group.” Letter from Ernst Kocherthaler to Allen Dulles, March 28, 1950, Allen W. Dulles Papers. Herbert Blankenhorn was the “strong man” of the new Foreign Ministry (director of political affairs from 1951, he was subsequently ambassador to NATO, Paris, Rome, and London). But he was not a man without a past: he had been in charge of culture and propaganda at the German legation in Bern between 1940 and July 1943. He had of course been a member of the Nazi Party. But above all he had worked every day with Otto Köcher, whose hatred for Fritz Kolbe dated at least from the early days of May 1945.

this interview in Bonn: Letter to Fritz, May 20, 1950, Peter Kolbe collection. Ludwig Erhard (CDU) was Adenauer’s economics minister from September 1949 to October 1963.

activity during the war: Personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.

“my favor,” he explained: Ibid.

“me more about this?”: Letter from Walter Bauer to Fritz Kolbe, Fulda, July 30, 1950, personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.

out of the conversation: Letter from Fritz Kolbe to Walter Bauer, August 4, 1950, personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.

position in the ministry: “Perhaps it’s just as well that I was not rehired by the ministry, because I might have greeted people in the corridors by saying ‘Heil Hitler!’ to them,” Fritz is supposed to have said. “ Der Mann, der den Krieg verkürzen wollte. ” There is no document in the archives in which Fritz was told that he would not be rehired by the ministry.

plans to publish them: “It seems that great things are afoot. Allen has asked me to speak at a little greater length about my motives…. You can imagine how little pleasure I take in continuing this exercise, which consists of talking about myself.” Letter from Fritz Kolbe to Ernst Kocherthaler, May 29, 1945, personal archives of Fritz Kolbe. In the books that he published after the war, Allen Dulles mentioned “George Wood” several times.

(“The Story of George”): “Allen Dulles asked me for a ‘story’ about George. He says that you are too modest to write it yourself.” Letter from Ernst Kocherthaler to Fritz Kolbe, July 4, 1945, personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.

in the German resistance: Letter from Fritz Kolbe to Toni Singer, September 30, 1946, personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.

Ernst Kocherthaler in July: Letter to Ernst Kocherthaler, written in Wiesbaden, July 2, 1945, personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.

enterprise of collective mystification: “Everybody and his brother, it seems, are writing their memoirs of the Hitler era.” Morgan, “The Spy the Nazis Missed.”

film or a book: In the late 1960s, Gerald Mayer began working seriously with Fritz Kolbe on a proposed book. He had the CIA in Washington send him a complete file on the activities of “Wood” during the war. Fritz’s death in 1971 put an end to the work. “I have seen George Wood in Bern on several occasions. He looks very fit and I hope to be of help to him in the writing of his memoirs,” Mayer wrote to Allen Dulles on July 14, 1968. Allen W. Dulles Papers. In October 1972, Maria Fritsch wrote a memo in which she said that “death struck Fritz down at a time when he was ready to write his memoirs as he had hoped to do for a long time.” Private archives of Martin and Gudrun Fritsch, Berlin.

for the magazine True:Correspondence between Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe, September 1949 to January 1950, personal archives of Fritz Kolbe. True was an abundantly illustrated mass market men’s magazine owned by the Fawcett group. Edward P. Morgan later had a career as a political journalist and television commentator.

Game of a Diplomat: Personal archives of Fritz Kolbe; Allen W. Dulles Papers.

unsuccessfully attempted to prevent: “I am sorry about George’s article as I fear the publication in Switzerland at this time will do him a good bit of harm and this is really very tragic.” Letter from Allen Dulles to Ernst Kocherthaler, April 20, 1951, Allen W. Dulles Papers.

major intellectual, Rudolf Pechel: Rudolf Pechel had been arrested in 1942 because of an article that had displeased Goebbels. He was born in Güstrow in 1888. He had been a naval officer before the First World War. Close to Moeller van den Bruck in the 1920s, he had later moved away from nationalism. During the war, he frequented the most active members of the German opposition (Carl Goerdeler, Wilhelm Leuschner). In 1947, Pechel wrote a book titled German Resistance (Deutscher Widerstand ) in order to prove that there had been forms of rebellion in his country. He spent the end of his life in Switzerland, where he died in 1961.

journal circulated in secret: German Federal Archives, Koblenz, Rudolf Pechel file.