“difficulties,” he told him: Letter from Walter Bauer to Fritz Kolbe, May 21, 1949, personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.
Standard Oil or Texaco: Letter from Ernst Kocherthaler to Fritz Kolbe, June 7, 1949, personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.
Fritz’s capital of $25,000: Correspondence between Fritz Kolbe and Allen Dulles, personal archives of Fritz Kolbe; correspondence between Allen Dulles and Ernst Kocherthaler, Allen W. Dulles Papers. The CIA had offered Fritz the sum of $25,000 on his arrival on American soil (in addition to the 20,000 Swiss francs deposited by Allen Dulles in a trust account in Switzerland). Hansjakob Stehle, “Der Mann, der den Krieg verkürzen wollte,” Die Zeit, May 2, 1986.
a few months later: Letter from Allen Dulles to Ernst Kocherthaler, November 28, 1949, Allen W. Dulles Papers.
not a businessman type: Letter from Ernst Kocherthaler to Allen Dulles, January 27, 1953, Allen W. Dulles Papers.
on May 9, 1949: Personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.
based in Frankfurt: Walter Bauer had a leading position in the embryonic economic administration in the land of Hesse, and he participated in the European negotiations on coal and steel. He was an insider who knew everyone. On several occasions, Chancellor Adenauer offered him a ministerial position, which he refused. He was one of the important figures in the employers’ organizations (the BDI), where he represented the interests of the textile industry. Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Sankt Augustin, Walter Bauer file.
the Social Democratic Party: Letter from Fritz Kolbe to Carlo Schmid, June 13, 1949 (and answer from Schmid’s office, August 17, 1949); letter of application to the Marshall Plan administration, July 11, 1949; letter from the head office of the SPD to Fritz Kolbe, October 18, 1949. Personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.
be “absolutely politically clean”: Newspaper article of July 1949. The quotation from Governor Robertson was underlined by Fritz Kolbe; personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.
a member of the party: Letter from Fritz Kolbe to Rudolf Pechel, August 11, 1949. German Federal Archives, Koblenz, Rudolf Pechel file.
But me he kept: Letter from Fritz Kolbe to Walter Bauer, November 15, 1949, personal archives of Fritz Kolbe.
his house in Bavaria: In January 1948, the “Wilhelmstrasse” trial began against twenty-one former high-ranking diplomats, including Karl Ritter. He was sentenced in April 1949 to four years in prison for “war crimes” because of his decision-making responsibilities in the treatment of Allied prisoners of war. He was acquitted on other charges (notably of “crimes against humanity” in connection with the occupation of Hungary after March 1944). Karl Ritter had already served his sentence. He returned to his chalet in Bavaria and lived away from public life. (Fritz heard that Ritter was going back to Brazil in 1950 to marry a rich heiress. Morgan, “The Spy the Nazis Missed”).
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.