Fritz crossed paths with several old acquaintances, who whispered a word or two about the life of the foreign ministry at war. He learned that Ribbentrop had been consumed by remorse since, contrary to what the minister had anticipated (and loudly proclaimed), England had declared war on Germany. He was told that a legation adviser, Eduard Brücklmeier, had been briefly arrested by the Gestapo for “defeatism,” before finally being released. A colleague complained about the fact that foreign diplomats had deserted the ministry. “We only see a few representatives of friendly or neutral countries,” he said. “We spend our time trying to understand what is expected of us,” added another. “Jurisdictional disputes with other ministries take up all our energy.”
After walking down long corridors, Fritz Kolbe finally arrived at the office of the head of personnel, Hermann Kriebel. In the waiting room, he came across one of his old acquaintances, Hans Schroeder, Kriebel’s assistant. Schroeder had joined the Foreign Ministry when Fritz had, in 1925. The two men were about the same age and had had their first diplomatic training together. But since then, Schroeder’s career—he was wearing the party insignia on his lapel—had been much more dazzling than Fritz’s. “Kolbe! How have you been all this time?” cried Schroeder in a sonorous voice, warmly shaking his hand. Fritz was not taken in by the familiarity. He thought he could catch a slight glimmer of satisfied contempt in the eyes of his interlocutor. Briefly, he reported on his eleven years in Spain, his two years in South Africa, and his forced return following the outbreak of the war. “Good, very good,” said Schroeder, smiling broadly. “It so happens that I’ve heard that they’ve saved a magnificent post for you: consul at Stavanger in Norway. A quiet country! No rationing, a normal life, an interesting post! What do you think?” Fritz was surprised. He had not been expecting such an attractive offer. Rudolf Leitner must have intervened in his favor, or else such a promotion would not have been offered to him. “But you see,” Schroeder continued, “there’s a small problem: You’re not a party member. A few years ago, we could have turned a blind eye to that, but now it’s no longer possible. Frankly, don’t be an idiot! All you have to do is get your card, and then make a little courtesy visit to certain people who would like to know you better. In short, it’s not very complicated: the matter is entirely in your hands, my friend!”
After having what Schroeder said confirmed by the head of personnel, Fritz was stunned. He who had sworn never to become Pg (party member) was now being offered a very handsome post on condition that he deny his convictions! He took two days to make up his mind. With a heavy heart, he decided not to accept the offer, wondering if he was not making a monumental mistake. He knew that nothing interesting would now be offered to him, and he saw himself stagnating for the rest of his life in some obscure back office in the ministry. Worse, he feared his gesture would be interpreted as an affront by Rudolf Leitner. He risked losing in him his only protector. From then on, catastrophe seemed inevitable.
And indeed a few days later Leitner called Fritz into his office. A great surprise awaited him. His former superior in Pretoria had called him in to encourage him to go to Stavanger and to try to persuade him to join the party. Fairly quickly, considering Fritz’s arguments, he nevertheless showed some understanding and even seemed to hint at his respect. One might say that he was saluting, without really daring to say it, Kolbe’s constancy. “The problem,” he said, taking the trouble to escort him to the door of his office, “is that now you are going to be offered something much less interesting, and for now I can’t do much for you.”
Reassured by Leitner’s attitude, Kolbe felt a bit more lighthearted. Staying in Berlin, he would be able to see old friends and take care of his aged mother, who detested the Nazis and could use the company. The priority was to remain himself, “defenseless but not without honor.” Walking through the Berlin streets on the way to his hotel—a temporary residence until he could get settled more comfortably—Fritz Kolbe felt torn between pride and despair, between his desire to flee to Norway and the personal integrity he prized. As he walked, he wondered about his fate. He thought with disgust about a Berlin doctor who had just divorced his wife after thirty years of marriage because she was Jewish and “he had not realized what that meant.”
Fritz had never felt so deeply nostalgic for foreign capitals. He remembered a mission to Paris in the late 1920s. He had been there for only a few days to deliver diplomatic correspondence, but he had preserved an undying memory of the city. At this very moment, he would have dearly loved to talk to Ernst Kocherthaler, his old friend from Madrid. It was too bad that it was no longer possible to see Don Ernesto. The Kocherthaler family had settled in Switzerland shortly after the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. They had not totally lost touch, of course. They continued to exchange letters, but the postal censorship in Berlin imposed a good deal of discretion. Fritz thought again of the question that Kocherthaler had asked him in the course of one of their conversations in Madrid: “Are you ready for exploits, suffering, sacrifice?” He regretted not knowing how to answer at the time. Now he knew what he would say: Yes, he was ready to make sacrifices, for example, giving up a post as consul. It might not be a spectacular act, but he had remained true to himself.
Fritz had understood, since the interrogation to which he had been subjected in Madrid in late 1935, how useful it could be to appear to be an idiot in order to preserve your freedom. Since that day, the party informers had left him relatively in peace, and suspicion toward him had faded to some degree. Rather than displaying feigned support for the established authorities (like a certain number of senior diplomats more or less opposed to the regime), Kolbe preferred to adopt an ingenuous attitude that fit well with his modest rank. He told himself that by cultivating his image as an obtuse but efficient minor official he would perhaps be left alone, and that the most insignificant post would enable him at least to maintain his dignity.
Berlin, November 21, 1939
Fritz Kolbe had been in his new position for a few days. He was now assigned to the visa and passport section of the ministry, which was under the jurisdiction of the legal affairs department. His mission consisted of delivering authorizations to leave German territory to members of the foreign ministry who had to go abroad. Kolbe had fewer and fewer regrets about the post of consul at Stavanger. Even if his new assignment was not very interesting, it enabled him to remain informed about events and to keep in contact with colleagues. The foreign ministry was a mine of invaluable information. With respect to the coming offensive in the West, Fritz had learned in the course of October 1939 that sixty to seventy divisions of the Wehrmacht had been transferred from Poland to the Rhine. There had also been rumors in the last few weeks that the SS had committed atrocities in Poland.
The name of the man who had attempted to assassinate Hitler in Munich had been made public. He was a thirty-six-year-old carpenter named Georg Elser. Arrested on November 8, the man had confessed after several days of interrogation. The bomb used in the attack was very primitive in design but effective. Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer SS, had reaffirmed that the British secret services had been behind the attack. A little later in the day, it was learned that the Gestapo in fact had arrested two high-ranking British espionage agents on November 9 near the town of Venlo on the Dutch-German border. Posing as opponents of Hitler looking to arrange for support from London, its agents had lured the English into an ambush, killing a Dutch intelligence officer in the process. The two British agents had been brought to Germany for interrogation.