confident about his future: “How full of confidence he was about the future after the war!” wrote Maria Fritsch many years later. Letter from Maria Fritsch to Peter Kolbe, May 31, 1978. Peter Kolbe collection, Sydney.
again at the ministry: Memorandum from “George Wood,” April 17, 1945, National Archives. Opinion of Fritz Kolbe on the members of the Foreign Ministry in late March 1945. Kolbe had filled several sheets of paper with the names of the principal diplomats in the ministry. A red star in front of a name meant “particularly dangerous” (besonders gefährlich). A blue star meant “not a member of the Nazi Party” (nicht Pg). A classification into four categories specified matters. The figure 1 meant “immediate expulsion desirable (sofortige Entfernung erwünscht), affecting 79 people. The figure 2 meant “expulsion in the near future desirable” (54 people). 3: “can be employed again on a trial basis after a warning” (84 people). 4: anti-Nazi (24 people mentioned, including Willy Pohle, Karl Dumont, Gertrud von Heimerdinger, and a few people in the ciphering office and the diplomatic courier service). Karl Ritter was in category 1 with a red star.
“The Story of George”: This undated document is sometimes in the first person, sometimes in the third. It recounts the principal events in Fritz Kolbe’s life as a spy. It contains the following noteworthy passage: “All these details of his adventures in fighting the Nazis we had to extract from his friends, because George himself dislikes publicity and surrounds himself by a wall of modesty.” The document is in Fritz Kolbe’s personal archives as well as in the National Archives.
banks of the Tegernsee: Eva Braun committed suicide on April 30, 1945 with Adolf Hitler, whom she had married the day before, in the underground bunker of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.
headed toward Kreuth: Memorandum of prelate Schreiber about a trip to Bavaria from June 2 to 6 with Fritz Kolbe and an American officer. See also memorandum from Ernst Kocherthaler to Allen Dulles, June 8, 1945, National Archives. The Gauleiter of Munich was Paul Giesler, designated by Hitler as the successor to Heinrich Himmler in the final hours of the war.
June 14, 1945: The circumstances of Ribbentrop’s arrest were bizarre. In Hamburg, the British had arrested someone who they were not sure was the former foreign minister. They confronted him with his sister, Ingeborg Ribbentrop, who immediately recognized him and could not help crying out “Joachim!” Hans-Jürgen Döscher, Verschworene Gesellschaft (Berlin, 1995).
the OSS in Germany: Peter Sichel, interview in New York, May 25, 2002.
time to General Donovan: General Donovan met “George Wood” several times thereafter and seemed to appreciate him. In a letter of March 16, 1949 to Allen Dulles, he wrote: “I am returning your letter from ‘George.’ I would like to see him again when he gets there.” Allen W. Dulles Papers.
the British secret services: “Usually skeptical and conservative British officials rated this contact as the prize intelligence source of the war.” Memorandum for the President, June 22, 1945, sent to President Truman by General Donovan, National Archives (entry 190c, MF1642, roll 83).
the plot against Hitler: Letter from Fritz Kolbe to Ernst Kocherthaler, July 2, 1945, Wiesbaden. Personal archives of Fritz Kolbe. Gerstenmaier was the representative of the Protestant bishop of Würtemberg in Berlin. He frequented the Kreisau Circle, one of the centers of opposition to the Nazi regime implicated in the July 20 plot. “Gerstenmaier was the kind of man who would have a Bible in one hand and a revolver in the other.” Peter Sichel, interview in Bordeaux, December 1, 2001.
hesitation in saying so: “The role played by the Protestant and Catholic Churches in the fight against Hitler was large but should not be overestimated. In no sense did the Churches have a monopoly in the combat against fascism. To grant them that role today would amount to favoring the creation of a clerical government in Germany,” Fritz Kolbe wrote in a document on the “question of the Churches” (zur Kirchenfrage) written in Wiesbaden, July 9, 1945. Personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.
of the Nazi regime: Hans-Bernd Gisevius went to live in the United States after the war. He worked for a think tank in Dallas, the Dallas Council on World Affairs. Presented as a great German resistance figure in the American press, he was considered an inveterate liar by the German press. Der Spiegel no. 18 (1960); Allen W. Dulles Papers.
US Army C-47: Letter from Fritz Kolbe to Ernst Kocherthaler, Wiesbaden, July 2, 1945, personal archives of Fritz Kolbe. See also Morgan, “The Spy the Nazis Missed.”
at the Charité hospitaclass="underline" In March and April 1945, “we lived on Scotch whiskey and Swedish crackers in the Charité shelter,” according to the memoirs of Ferdinand Sauerbruch.
in the Soviet zone: In May 1945, Professor Sauerbruch was named by the Soviets as director of health in the city administration. But in October of the same year, he was dismissed from all his political offices. In December 1949, he was removed from his medical and teaching posts in the Charité and in Humboldt University. Afflicted with a cerebral ailment, he nevertheless continued to operate almost until the end of his life. Several patients did not survive in the operating room. He died on July 2, 1951 at the age of seventy-six after publishing a book of memoirs that was a best-seller in Germany.
had returned to France: Adolphe Jung returned to Strasbourg, where he had a great deal of difficulty in reestablishing himself, because he was suspected of collaboration with the Germans. He asked for help from the Americans, but they could not do much to help the surgeon save his reputation. The wounds of the past are still very much alive in Strasbourg. Postwar correspondence between Adolphe Jung and Allen Dulles, Allen W. Dulles Papers; interview with Frank and Marie-Christine Jung and Pierre Kehr, Strasbourg, January 2003.
had not completely disappeared: Throughout 1945, Nazi commandos continued to create anxiety and insecurity in Germany. The terrorist groups were known as Werewolves. See handwritten notes of Ernst Kocherthaler, April 10, 1945, National Archives.
recalling the year 1945: Document written by Maria Fritsch in October 1972, private archives of Martin and Gudrun Fritsch, Berlin.
CARE packages containing food: CARE (Cooperative American Remittance for Europe) packages made it possible to avoid the rationing in force in Germany. They were distributed in Europe beginning in the spring of 1946.
medicine, or a job: Getting a pass required going through an obstacle course for everyone who did not have connections with the occupation authorities. To go from Berlin to Hamburg, for example, one needed an “interzone” pass, which was good for only one round trip and could not be obtained without a “favorable opinion” from the military authorities.