Born in Bavaria and trained as a lawyer, Karl Ritter had been the undisputed specialist for economic questions in the Foreign Ministry since the 1930s. Since the beginning of the war he had headed a key department in the ministry, political-military affairs (Pol I M). He had a typical title for the time: he was an “ambassador on special mission,” which meant that he was there to bypass on an ad hoc basis the traditional decision-making networks of the ministry. Although he was a career diplomat, he enjoyed Ribbentrop’s complete confidence. Ritter dealt in particular with the “economic aspects of the war,” as well as high-level relations between the Foreign Ministry and the Wehrmacht. Since the beginning of the war he was almost always away from the ministry. This skilled professional negotiator was known for his unscrupulous intelligence, cold cynicism, and strength of character, all qualities that made him able to impose himself on Wehrmacht generals, even though he himself had no military experience.
A party member since 1938, but never having been in the SS (nor in the SA, like Luther), Ritter had no illusions about the criminal character of the regime. He had nevertheless chosen to serve the Nazis out of professional conscience, with an attitude of indifference. “Here, at least, you travel,” he said one day in Fritz Kolbe’s presence. He held Ribbentrop in contempt, although he never showed it openly (on the contrary, he behaved toward him with almost obsequious deference, which caused extreme annoyance to his subordinate Fritz Kolbe). Appointed ambassador to Rio de Janeiro in 1937, he had been expelled in 1938 by the dictator Getulio Vargas, who considered him a dangerous pro-Nazi agitator.
On his return from Rio, Ritter had wanted to resign on the grounds of age—he was slightly under sixty—but Ribbentrop, who needed his talents, had insisted that he remain in the service. Karl Ritter had finally agreed because he had been offered a key post endowed with broad responsibilities. From that moment, he had been at the heart of his country’s principal diplomatic negotiations, like the Munich agreements of September 1938, but above all the Nazi-Soviet pact in August 1939. This agreement between Hitler and Stalin, which was unexpected, to say the least, had in part been drafted by him, in close cooperation with Friedrich-Wilhelm Gaus, the ministry’s chief lawyer and another Weimar man who had learned to adapt to circumstances.
Like Gaus, Ritter had complete command of the science of treaties. He knew Russia well from his experience supervising major German industrial programs there in the 1920s (following the 1922 Rapallo agreements). In order to follow through on the Hitler-Stalin pact, and in particular to monitor the exchange of raw materials and armaments between the two countries, he had even lived in Moscow between October 1939 and March 1940. When he spoke of Stalin, with whom he had been in close contact on several occasions in connection with that mission, Karl Ritter did not conceal his very great admiration for the man.
Fritz Kolbe had been Karl Ritter’s personal assistant since late 1940 or early 1941. This promotion had been due to the intervention of Rudolf Leitner, the former head of the German legation in Pretoria, who had been a member of Karl Ritter’s cabinet since his return from South Africa. Rudolf Leitner had never let Fritz drop, and Fritz was deeply grateful to him for making it possible for him to leave the “German” department and its stifling atmosphere. But now, he found himself assistant to the chief of political-military affairs in the midst of the war! “It’s really farcical,” Fritz had been telling himself since he assumed his new duties. “I hate the Nazis and I can’t manage to get out of the highest circles of power!”
The work for Karl Ritter was interesting. Instead of stamping passports and visas, every morning Fritz Kolbe received dispatches from German diplomatic posts abroad, sorted them according to their importance, and summarized them for his boss. Kolbe was to destroy the documents already read by Ritter. Summaries of conversations between high officials of the ministry with foreign diplomats posted to Berlin also came across his desk. Finally, Fritz received and read the foreign press (with a few days’ delay, because the English and American press, for example, came through Lisbon) and summarized its content for Ritter. “In a short time, I became one of the best informed officials in the ministry,” Fritz wrote a few years later. By early 1941, Fritz was one of the first to know of the secret preparations for the Russian campaign: Karl Ritter’s role was specifically to prepare the movement of German troops toward Russia through its allied countries in central Europe (Finland, Hungary, Romania).
In personal terms, Fritz had no complaints: Karl Ritter was not very likable, but he was fair to his subordinates. And he was a man of the world, not at all like the coarse Luther with his brutal manners. Ritter had always been at the heart of German social life and besides, he clearly had panache, with his twinkling eye, his careful language, and his elegant hands (Luther had often had dirty fingernails). Ritter spoke most European languages, he knew most of the big industrialists in the country, he frequented art openings, he went to the opera.
The relationship between Ritter and Fritz Kolbe was essentially professional, and since both men were workhorses, they got on fairly well together. Both were short, a detail not without importance. On a few occasions, their conversation took a personal turn. When Kolbe had joined Karl Ritter’s staff, Ritter had let him know that he knew of his reputation as a “hothead.” He tried to reassure Fritz by telling him that here, what counted was above all competency and work done well. To set him at ease, he said that the Nazis didn’t like him either. “You know I have a reputation as a democrat in this house. The authorities know that I drafted almost all the commercial treaties of the Weimar period. I spent all my time in the Reichstag. Since my drafts were passed by the SPD or the Zentrum, that was enough to sabotage my reputation in some eyes.”
A little later, Ritter had questioned Fritz Kolbe briefly about his experience in South Africa. “I too know Africa well,” he had said. “Some of my studies were at the Colonial Institute in Hamburg, where I learned many fascinating things: tropical hygiene, applied botany, colonial law, and even Swahili. Just before the Great War, I was appointed to a position in the imperial government in Cameroon. The war put an end to that adventure, and I had to return to Berlin.”
When Karl Ritter had learned where Fritz’s family came from, he had spoken to him spontaneously of the Pomeranians of Brazil, entire families of whom had gone into exile there to escape famine and poverty. Though Brazil might seem unlikely, in fact there were already German colonies in the south of the country, established early in the nineteenth century.
Fritz Kolbe recalled these scraps of conversation as he headed for the führer’s headquarters on the night of September 18, 1941. This mission was something new for him. Ritter wanted his mail to be delivered personally. The ambassador had lost confidence in the diplomatic mail services. At the end of August 1941, he had complained about the careless way in which confidential documents were sent to him. “My mail was found in the headquarters kitchen, another time at the telephone switchboard!” he had informed his Berlin office. As a result, he wanted his subordinates to be their own telegraph operators.
Fritz was not overjoyed with this trip. Of course, it gave him an opportunity to leave Berlin, but he had no desire to get closer to Hitler, Ribbentrop, and the top generals of the Wehrmacht. He had been dreaming of exile for months now, but not to the East. He pined for Spain and South Africa (sometimes he thought of Switzerland, which had the virtue of being a neutral country and seemed to have been spared by events). From time to time, he looked out the window of his compartment. The German-Polish plain with its endless birch forests exuded melancholy, despite a splendid sunset shining through the woods. Autumn and the climate of war enveloped the landscape in matchless sadness.