The two Americans filled notebooks as they listened to Fritz. They asked him about the latest developments in the Reich’s armaments industry. Fritz mentioned the construction of new miniaturized submarines in the Baden region (“near Karlsruhe”). These submarines had a one-man crew and could threaten sea lanes used by the Allies. “The Army’s principal worry,” said Wood, “is the lack of fighter aircraft. The country cannot cope with the bombing raids, especially the daylight precision raids by U.S. planes, which are growing increasingly more successful, and this might lead to the downfall of Germany before the invasion even starts.”
And the countries allied to Germany? “Rumania is disintegrating. Antonescu is in a very low state of mind, brought on by a report he received from Rumanian intelligence, stating that completely out of hand German troops were fleeing headlong back through Moldavia, looting and raping… bartering their arms for liquor.” Among the several cables from Bucharest (signed by the envoy Manfred Freiherr von Killinger), one mentioned the conspiratorial activities of a circle of pro-Allied Rumanian aristocrats gathered around Marthe Bibesco.
Fritz then took out of his briefcase a thick sheaf of cables on Hungary. There were more than one hundred pages signed by Edmund Veesenmayer, the German proconsul in Budapest. The passage that interested Allen Dulles the most was brief and to the point: “Within the last 24 hours, I have had three long talks with von Horthy. As a result, I am more and more convinced that on the one hand the regent is an unmitigated liar and on the other he is physically no longer capable of performing his duties. He is constantly repeating himself, often contradicting himself within a few sentences, and sometimes does not know how to go on. Everything he says sounds like a memorized formula, and I fear that it will be difficult to convince him, let alone win him over.”
Reading these words and adding up everything he had just learned (from Thailand through Rumania to Hungary), Dulles suddenly realized that the dynamism of the Axis had definitively been broken. He was stunned. It is impossible to say whether he paid any attention to another passage from Veesenmayer that gave a glimpse of the fate of the Jews of Hungary: “Today, decrees were issued which indicate the government is taking steps to deal with the Jewish situation. This is being done, in fact, with a degree of astuteness not common in this country. However, some of the designated punishments are inadequate, and I shall make sure that in actual practice they are more severe.” A little further on was another document: “3451 Jews have been arrested up to April 1st. The towns of Beregszasz, Munkacs, and Ungvar, where there is an especially large proportion of Jews, have been segregated. Councils of Elders have been established in the towns. We note that the populace seems quite happy when healthy Jews are apprehended. Poor Jews are the object of pity.”
The information provided by Fritz was so copious that it all seemed to blend together. After speaking of the fate of the Jews, the subject of the effect of recent Allied bombing of Budapest came up: “The raid which occurred during daylight on April 3rd did the damage indicated below to important plants: The Donau Flugzeugbau AG airplane works at Horthy-Liget suffered severe damage. The ‘Zestörer’ Messerschmitt 210 is turned out here at the rate of 50 a month. Technical experts report that it is possible for the works to be in operation once more by May 1st, at 60% of capacity.” Fritz added that a chemical fertilizer factory and a refinery in Budapest had been destroyed. In Bulgaria, “the city of Sofia is practically in ruins, except for a few suburbs,” wrote the envoy of the Reich, Adolf Beckerle, following the huge Allied bombing on March 30. But the German diplomat pointed out that the members of the regency council, Bogdan Filov and Prince Cyril, “are still with us.”
And Yugoslavia? There too, Fritz had material to satisfy the Americans’ curiosity. Cables from Belgrade and Zagreb (Agram in German) described increasing connections between General Mihailovich’s Chetniks and the Germans. In Croatia, the population was showing increasing hostility to the Wehrmacht because of food shortages and because it suspected the Germans of “favoring Muslim autonomy.”
Fritz was in Bern only long enough for three meetings. But he gave his American friends enough to work on for a month. When he was there, the nights in Bern were short. Arriving on Tuesday, April 11, he left for Berlin on Friday, April 14. As he left, the Americans politely let him know that his “literary” variations (of the type “survey of the world situation as seen by two Germans”) were not appreciated as much as original documents. “George” was not insulted. For his part, he suggested that they now communicate with him by sending coded messages in the London Times (which he received with one week’s delay), or else in the evening broadcasts of the BBC (password, “Peter, Peter,” his son’s name).
Another precaution was taken to facilitate matters: He took with him a camera provided by the Americans. The device was of high quality, a Robot of German manufacture (with a capacity of sixty exposures). Rolls of film would be easier to get through the border than kilos of paper. With the colossal volume of documents that he was now handling, this solution should make his work easier (“otherwise, it was no longer possible,” Fritz was to explain a few years later). For the Americans, this method offered many advantages: Instead of sending manuscripts difficult to decipher because of his cramped handwriting, Fritz would now type his comments and photograph them.
After Fritz left, a feeling of excitement and frenzy continued to permeate the atmosphere in the OSS offices. Dozens and dozens of Kappa messages were cabled to Washington and London daily until the end of the month. Allen Dulles gave these dispatches the name “Kapril” (a contraction of Kappa and April) to clearly distinguish them from their predecessors—a useful and necessary precaution, for some recurring subjects, such as the deliveries of Spanish tungsten to Germany, generated kilometers of cables every time.
Washington, April 16, 1944
On April 16, two days after Fritz’s departure for Berlin, his material reached the highest authorities in the United States. For the first time since January 10, President Roosevelt got on his desk that day a report with the Boston heading, analyzed and commented on. The OSS thought that “George Wood’s” latest visit to Bern was important enough to justify sending a “Memorandum for the President” to the White House. So much for the prejudices and doubts of the experts. A copy was also sent to Secretary of State Cordell Hull, to Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall, to the commander in chief of the U.S. Navy, Admiral Ernest J. King, to the supreme commander in Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, as well as to the highest British authorities. The document was drafted by Colonel G. Edward Buxton, one of General Donovan’s right-hand men.
Of all that had just been revealed by “George Wood” in Bern, neither the file on Japan nor the one on Hungary went to the president; nothing of all that, but rather what Fritz told Allen Dulles sitting by the fire, spontaneously, about the atmosphere prevailing in Germany, the state of mind of the leaders of the Reich and the evolution of the feelings of ordinary people. “Eighty percent of the German people feel opposed to the Nazis and is waiting for the day of delivery,” Fritz had told his American friends, immediately adding, “yet active revolutionary action cannot be expected for the time being. Himmler controls by his spies and terrorists every one of the various police organizations and the key positions of the armed forces so thoroughly that the forces of opposition that exist even within the police do not risk a plot.” Fritz had added an observation that was very troubling to the Americans: “The communist organization and propaganda have been strengthened in the last few months. As parts of the Nazi SA and even the SS have changed over to the communists, Russia disposes of a good organization in order to control the revolution by their elements, when the situation is ripe.”