5
DECISIVE ENCOUNTERS
Berlin, February 1943
In early 1943, Fritz Kolbe awaited a call from destiny. He did not know what to do and yet he wanted to take action. He sensed a reason for existing. He was no longer satisfied with “peddling his principles without taking the trouble to, or even dreaming of, put them into practice…. Great things are not done only on impulse, and they are a sequence of little things combined into a whole.”
Others than he had for a long time been attempting the impossible. Resistance networks had been set up. Kolbe had no precise knowledge of the existence of these little groups, even though he was vaguely aware of the fact that “actions” were being plotted here and there. Allied bombs were now threatening all of Germany. The reign of violent death had been decreed everywhere. Sirens were now heard night and day in Berlin. At the Foreign Ministry, their sinister wail was blended, oddly, with the sound of a large gong that was used during every air raid (after the war, Fritz would not be able to hear the sound of a gong without shivering in fear).
During this time, far from the bombs, another war was going on, much less noisy, much more discreet, and yet decisive: the intelligence war. Fritz was waiting only for the opportunity to join it. He imagined it in a rather fuzzy way, not knowing what the “great game” looked like. What he knew boiled down to two or three simple ideas: neutral countries (like Switzerland, but also Sweden, Ireland, Portugal, and Turkey) were, as between 1914 and 1918, hotbeds of espionage. If you had good information in wartime, you had more power than an ambassador. Whether you were a banker, an industrialist, or even an obscure nonentity, you had every likelihood of influencing the course of events.
The time was, less than ever, one for hesitation. Fritz Kolbe felt in the air a call for the impossible and the incredible. Eager to act, he felt prepared to commit unprecedented deeds. “Treason? So be it,” he said to himself after a point that cannot be precisely located (probably late 1942 or early 1943). Fritz described this personal transformation in a document written just after the war: “I had reflected inwardly on this question (treason or Verrat) and I had ended by overcoming it. Hitler had come to power through force and deception and had plunged Germany and the entire world into war. From my point of view, no one was obligated to loyalty and obedience to the Hitler regime.”
From the beginning, Fritz had thought that the only way of acting effectively was through intervention from outside. The Allies had the power necessary to get rid of the regime. This force, he told himself, must be supported by well-placed elements at the heart of the system.
This prospect was beginning to give him the strength to act, because he, the solitary minor official, could now make himself useful, if he was able to make contact abroad, to gather trustworthy friends around him, and above all if he was lucky. From chess, Fritz had learned two lessons: A straight line is not necessarily the shortest path between two spaces, and a pawn used advisedly can sometimes transform a game.
While Allied bombs were raining on Berlin, a strange feeling of serenity took hold of Fritz Kolbe. He was happier and happier, and ever more relaxed, as though he were flourishing because of the inner anger that inhabited him. Taking advantage of the air raids, he spent a good deal of his time chatting with his colleagues, in the corridors of the ministry or in its underground bunker, one of the safest in the city, located under the Adlon Hotel a few steps from Wilhelmstrasse, not far from the Brandenburg Gate. With bombing becoming more frequent, the Adlon had been transformed into a kind of salon that favored encounters. It was one of the only shelters in Berlin where one did not have to fight to get in. No crush or excessive panic; these were civilized people, though of course you had to be careful to avoid indiscreet ears. “The enemy is listening to you” (Feind hört mit!) could be read on matchboxes of the time—an expression that had to be taken literally in all circumstances. However, it was easier to exchange confidences there than elsewhere, even if in an undertone.
Berlin, spring 1943
Thanks to his perpetual comings and goings during this time between his office, underground shelters, and the Charité hospital, Fritz Kolbe had some encounters that would soon have a decisive effect on his plans. He met up again with Karl Dumont, formerly posted to Madrid, who was now in charge of relations between the Foreign Ministry and the Wehrmacht’s weapons procurement organization. Long-standing friends, Dumont and Kolbe completely trusted each other.
A little later, probably in the spring or summer of 1943, he met Count Alfred von Waldersee at Professor Sauerbruch’s. Major Waldersee was almost the same age as Fritz (he was born in 1898). He had been posted to France and then fought in the battle of Stalingrad, from which he had had the good fortune to be evacuated because of a wound. Waldersee had close ties to the aristocratic and military circles that were the most ferociously opposed to Hitler. His friends, Fritz knew, had no hesitation in using the words “assassination attempt,” “coup d’état,” and even “revolution.”
We know almost nothing about this connection, except that Count Waldersee made the first move toward Fritz, with the obvious aim to get firsthand information from the Foreign Ministry. Waldersee seems to have been important for Fritz, and presented him in various documents written after the war as a close friend, even an accomplice. A minor official a friend to an aristocratic officer: war, like sports, breaks down many social barriers.
Since late 1942, Fritz had also been in contact with a surgeon from Alsace, Professor Adolphe Jung, whom he had met at the Charité hospital. Professor Jung was one of Professor Sauerbruch’s colleagues. He had had to leave annexed Alsace to serve in the hospitals of the Reich, which were flooded with patients and wounded soldiers and suffering from a severe shortage of qualified personnel. He lived in a small room in the Charité’s surgical clinic, just below Maria Fritsch.
Fritz made the first move toward Dr. Jung. His approach was a little provocative. “Do you have courage? Are you daring?” he said at their first meeting (probably in late 1942). Jung said nothing, afraid of falling into a trap. Then Fritz revealed something, as though to test him: “Warn your friends in France. Otto Abetz, the German ambassador to occupied France, wants to arrest Cardinal Gerlier, the archbishop of Lyon.” Just in case, Jung decided to transmit the message through his brother, the manager of a large store in Strasbourg, but he was mistrustful. Who is this Fritz Kolbe? he wondered. Jung later wrote:
Because of my functions and in the milieu to which I was transplanted I was brought into contact with the most notorious anti-Nazi elements, and I had the opportunity in particular to meet K., a fierce enemy of the regime and a secretary in the Foreign Ministry…. When I arrived in the capital of the Reich, alone in enemy country, how could I know whom I was dealing with? When an individual uttered threats against the Nazi authorities, how could I know whether he was in good faith or whether he was only an agent provocateur for the Gestapo endeavoring to discover enemies of the regime? I knew nothing about him. He was German, and he had a very visible position in the Foreign Ministry. He told me that he was not a member of the National Socialist party. And yet, I said to myself, he keeps his official post! Shouldn’t I be doubly distrustful? I observed him during the visits he made to an employee of our clinic whose fiancé he claimed to be. He told me that he had lived abroad for a long time, had learned to like and admire the English, the Americans, and the French. He loathed militarism and uniforms. He was sensible, level-headed, and cautious, although bursting with energy. Gradually we came closer together. Suddenly, after a few months, we were decided. We had to help one another, we had to work together.