belonged to the SS: Döscher, Das Auswärtige Amt im Dritten Reich.
the Reich in Europe: There were veritable pro-Nazi mass movements in South Africa, like the Ossewa Brandwag and the Grey Shirts, that counted several hundred thousand members. These sects seized every occasion to give violent expression to their anti-Semitism, for example when the liner Stuttgart arrived at the port of Cape Town in October 1936 with six hundred German Jewish refugees on board. The Afrikaner nationalists denounced the “cosmopolitan network” of Jewish financiers of Cape Town, associated in their mind with the “Freemason international” and the despised big British banks.
its clearly German origins: The port of Lüderitz was built by indigenous prisoners who had survived the terrible massacres carried out by the Germans during the war against the Nama and the Herero between 1904 and 1908.
a vast colonial project: The “colonial office” of the NSDAP, directed by Franz Ritter von Epp, intended to split Africa into four zones that would have been divided among Spain, Italy, Germany, and England.
of training overseas imitators: There were even a few “Winter Assistance” (Winter-hilfswerk) centers, a kind of soup kitchen invented by the Nazis, distributing clothing and providing meals.
member of the SS: Walter Lierau was selected for the post in Windhoek after training in agitation and propaganda as consul in Reichenberg (Liberec, Czechoslovakia) in the early 1930s. Döscher, Das Auswärtige Amt im Dritten Reich.
wood in the forest: Fritz explained after the war why he had not brought his son back with him to Germany: “I did not want him to be contaminated by Nazi ideology, nor did I want him to be plunged into the chaos of Europe, which I foresaw as inevitable at the end of the war.” Autobiographical document, May 15, 1945.
refugees from Germany: Fritz says that he gave German émigrés in South Africa—political refugees and Jews—stateless person passports (or “Nansen passports,” delivered under the authority of the League of Nations), which allowed them to avoid deportation to Germany and internment as German citizens after the onset of World War II. Memorandum of August 19, 1943 (9 pages), OSS Bern, National Archives, College Park. See also the biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.
from his own country: Fritz loathed nationalism in all its forms. “The slogan ‘right or wrong, my country’ is a devil’s slogan apt to kill every individual conscience.” “The Story of George.”
“tomorrow the entire world”: In German: “Denn heute gehört uns Deutschland / Und morgen die ganze Welt,” from a song composed by Hans Baumann (1914–88) [“Es zittern die morschen Knochen”], the words of which had been slightly modified by the Nazis.
suicide after being tortured: Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.
“who never get caught”: Freely adapted from Ernst Jünger, Récits d’un passeur du siècle, conversations with F. de Towarnicki (Paris: Éditions du Rocher).
subject to severe penalties: The obligatory darkening of windows was known as Verdunkelung, and those who did not obey this order were considered criminals (Verdunkelungsverbrecher) subject to long prison terms.
from Antwerp to Berlin: Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.
considered “k. v.” (available): In German: “u. k.”: unabkömmlich; “k. v.”: kriegsverwendungsfähig.
to the Foreign Ministry: Wilhelmstrasse 76: this building of the old Prussian nobility, the “Pannewitz palace,” had once been Bismarck’s office.
dagger on his belt: Ribbentrop imposed a special dress code on diplomats on duty. The new uniforms, modeled on those of the SS, but also on those of the German navy, were designed by a stylist personally designated by the minister’s wife. Ribbentrop himself wore the black SS uniform with large leather boots that came up to his knees. This code did not apply to officials of the middle rank like Fritz Kolbe. Döscher, Das Auswärtige Amt im Dritten Reich.
more dazzling than Fritz’s: Hans Schroeder (b. 1899) had obtained the rank of “legation adviser” in 1938. A few months later, he was given the post of assistant head of personnel, with the rank of director. Schroeder was a protégé of Rudolf Hess, the head of the NSDAP, who had met him in Egypt in the late 1920s, brought him into the party in 1933, and helped him after that to quickly climb the rungs of the diplomatic career ladder. German Foreign Ministry, Berlin, Hans Schroeder file, and interview with Hans-Jürgen Döscher (Osnabrück, May 14, 2002).
“What do you think?”: After the war, Hans Schroeder confirmed in writing, in 1954, that he had indeed offered the post of consul in Stavanger to Fritz Kolbe, which some people had doubted. Personal archives of Fritz Kolbe, Peter Kolbe collection, Sydney.
never to become Pg: Pg: Partei-Genosse, literally “party comrade.”
not to accept the offer: Autobiographical document, May 15, 1945.
“do much for you”: Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.
“but not without honor”: Wehrlos aber nicht ehrlos: an expression used by the Social Democratic deputy Otto Wels on the occasion of the Reichstag vote granting plenary powers to Hitler on March 23, 1933. The 94 SPD deputies were the only ones to vote no.
“realized what that meant”: Biographical document by Gerald Mayer and Fritz Kolbe.
undying memory of the city: Two visits to Paris (March 1928 and June 1929) are recorded in the Fritz Kolbe file in the Foreign Ministry archives.
the legal affairs department: Fritz Kolbe spent only a few months in this post. “Course of Life.”
Germany for interrogation: The two agents of the Intelligence Service, Sigismund Payne Best and Richard Stevens, were to spend the rest of the war in detention in Germany. The Venlo episode led the British authorities to refuse all contact with representatives of the German resistance for the rest of the war.
settle some internal scores: Otto Strasser, an old rival of Hitler’s and brother of Gregor Strasser (one of the leading figures of the SA, who was assassinated in 1934 during the Night of the Long Knives), was accused of having conspired with the British in the Munich attempt, which made it possible to remove him definitively from the circles of power.