But things were not that simple. It took three years of effort on Fritz’s part before he could go to America. His departure was delayed at first because of his divorce, the proceedings for which were still going on. But the principal difficulty lay elsewhere. In accordance with the instructions given by President Roosevelt before his death, Fritz had been given no guarantee about his future by the American authorities. Generally speaking, Germans were suspect in the eyes of the American immigration authorities. Obtaining a long-term visa came up against huge administrative difficulties. There was always a piece missing from the file. “Details are lacking on how contact with you was established, through whom and under what guise. No statement concerning George’s ideology, his reasons for entering into what is otherwise a traitorous relationship with the Allies…. Particularly important is your assessment of George’s motivation for having cooperated with the Allies, including an attestation of his sincere desire to overthrow the Nazi regime and in the end to serve his own country by contributing to the establishment of a democratic German government.” These were some of the questions to which Allen Dulles had to respond in the course of 1947.
On January 15, 1948, Dulles testified to the good faith of Fritz Kolbe in a notarized affidavit he submitted in New York. The affidavit explained that Fritz had taken “incalculable risks” in order to help the Allied cause. “Kolbe worked entirely for ideological reasons…. He refused any monetary reward for his work…. After the war was over, when Kolbe volunteered to continue to do difficult and dangerous work for us, I set aside, with General Donovan’s approval, a trust account in the amount of Sw. Fcs. 20,000. This was intended largely to protect a minor son in case any accident should befall him. I understand he has not touched this money. It was set aside for him without his having requested it…. I volunteered that I would do everything in my power to protect and assure his future…. I have no hesitation in saying that Fritz Kolbe is a brave man of high principles and a sincere believer in what this country stands for. He deserves well of us.” A few months later, in another notarized affidavit, Allen Dulles committed himself to Fritz’s financial support in the event of any difficulties.
Fritz was not yet authorized to enter the United States, but he was determined to leave Germany. In early April 1948, Fritz and Maria moved to Switzerland, where other tedious formalities awaited them. Because of the suicide of Otto Köcher, the former envoy of the Reich in Bern, the Swiss federal authorities suspected Fritz of having played a dubious role in the final days of the war. He was subjected to extensive questioning by the Swiss police before being allowed to move freely. For a few months he worked for the Commercial Development Corporation, an import-export business that his friend Ernst Kocherthaler had just established in Zurich. When his divorce from Lita Schoop became final in July, nothing further stood in the way of his departure. The atmosphere in Germany was becoming very unpleasant. The blockade of Berlin was in full swing. But the wait lasted months longer. Fritz and Maria had the time to get married in December 1948. Finally, on March 16, 1949, they took a liner for America sailing from Cuxhaven.
New York, spring 1949
Peter Sichel was in New York to greet the couple as they got off the boat. The weather was extremely hot. In their little hotel near Washington Square, without air conditioning, the atmosphere was stifling. From the outset, the “new life” of Fritz and Maria bore no resemblance to any illusions they might have had. The State Department obviously had no position to offer to this minor German official. With only limited mastery of the English language, Fritz did not feel at all as comfortable as he had hoped. In April 1949, Allen Dulles wrote to Fritz that he was looking for a job for him at Yale or the University of Michigan, “as a librarian or a research assistant.” But these leads, modest as they were, led to nothing. By the month of May, Fritz was writing to his old friend Walter Bauer to tell him that he intended to return to Germany. Bauer advised him to stay in the United States. “In your place, with your possibilities, I would not come back at the first difficulties,” he told him. Ernst Kocherthaler sent him the same message, advising him to “get hired by Standard Oil or Texaco.” But Fritz disliked American society and its appetite for unbridled consumption (“People never stop eating,” he observed scornfully).
Nevertheless, he tried his hand in business, thinking he had accumulated enough entrepreneurial skills working for the Commercial Development Corporation of his friend Ernst Kocherthaler. With the small nest egg he had put together with the help of Allen Dulles, he set up a small business selling asbestos. An old acquaintance from South Africa had suggested that they go into the business together. But his partner turned out to be a swindler, and he disappeared with Fritz’s capital of $25,000. This was too much. Fritz and Maria decided to return to Germany immediately. They had been in the United States for barely three months. In July 1949, the couple settled near Frankfurt. “His trip here did not work out as well as one might have expected,” Allen Dulles observed bluntly a few months later. As Ernst Kocherthaler said, to sum up the whole affair: “George is not a businessman type.”
Frankfurt, summer 1949
The blockade of Berlin by the Soviets had just come to an end when Fritz and Maria returned from the United States. They had been away from Germany for a year, dreaming in vain of a “new life.” They had lost a substantial part of their savings. They had no prospects for the future. In order to survive, Fritz did some sales work for his old friend Ernst Kocherthaler, who was involved in all kinds of business in Zurich. At his request, Fritz looked for markets for all kinds of products (diesel engines, reinforced concrete, steel, printing machinery). Preoccupied by material concerns, he had not yet tried to see his son, who was still in southern Africa and who was desperately waiting for his father to deign to take an interest in him. Peter Kolbe, who was in his early adolescence (he had his thirteenth birthday in April 1945), felt toward his absent father a mixture of indifference and resentment.
When he was still in the United States, Fritz had responded to a notice of an employment opportunity in the administration of the new Federal Republic. The new German government did not yet have an autonomous diplomatic service, but it had the right to open consulates or commercial offices abroad. Dozens of positions were beginning to open up. In his first letter of application on May 9, 1949, Fritz explained that he had the necessary language skills, the required experience, and a “political past” that made him fit for an assignment in the new consular services. To support his candidacy, he asked for help from Walter Bauer, who knew many people in the embryonic future German administration. Bauer for the moment had only an economic post and was based in Frankfurt.
That summer, Fritz sent out many unsolicited letters of application. He wrote to the SPD deputy Carlo Schmid (who did not have time to see him), to the administration of the Marshall Plan, to the foreign policy department of the Social Democratic Party. In his letters, he did not hesitate to mention the fact that he had never been a member of the Nazi Party, specifying that he had maintained close “contacts” with the Americans during the war, and that he had been a part of the “other Germany.” He believed that these elements would strengthen his chances of being selected. Had he not read in a German newspaper in July 1949 that the British military governor, Sir Brian Robertson, demanded that future German diplomats be “absolutely politically clean”? Fritz Kolbe’s file was probably too clean: Not only had he never joined the NSDAP, but he had never been imprisoned for acts of resistance. Imagine his surprise when he learned that his interlocutors at the Marshall Plan “did not understand why he had not been a member of the party.” Walter Bauer went out of his way to help Fritz. But when he questioned the heads of the Frankfurt administration, they answered that pieces were missing from the file. “Could Fritz Kolbe name more ‘references’ to support his candidacy? Could he in particular provide the names of former members of the Foreign Ministry?” he was told in November 1949. Fritz Kolbe complied with the request and provided a list of people whom he hoped would speak in his favor. Among these putative “sponsors” were found Hans Schrœder (former chief of personnel of the Foreign Ministry under Ribbentrop), Count Welczeck, and Karl Ritter in person. He had to dare to use that name. The necessities of the moment required that he compromise his convictions. Fritz was convinced that Karl Ritter wished him no ill (“He changed subordinates as he changed shirts. But me he kept”). Fritz Kolbe resumed contact with him in late 1949. Ritter had just gotten out of prison after serving a sentence of four years for “war crimes” and was living in solitude in his house in Bavaria. Fritz felt that he could count on him (“We are corresponding, and he writes to me in a very friendly way”).