A Spy at the Heart of the Third Reich

About this book

"In 1943 Fritz Kolbe, an official from the German foreign ministry, arranged to meet with Allen Dulles, then the head of the OSS in Switzerland and later the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Kolbe was the assistant to a highly placed official, Ambassador Karl Ritter, and privately detested Nazism. He had long agonized about staying in his post, until finally, faced with the reality of the Nazi program, he reluctantly concluded that the most valuable service he could provide to Germany, if not the Party, was to assist the Allies. While Dulles was skeptical, he was soon convinced that Kolbe was a vital source of intelligence - the location of munitions factories and Hitler's headquarters; diplomatic reports on Germany's relations with other Axis nations like Romania and nominally neutral countries like Spain; Germany's intelligence and who in the Allied effort was working for the enemy. Though a staunch patriot and one of the few Germans to take such risks, after the war he was viewed by many Germans as a traitor and his contributions were largely forgotten." "Drawing on government documents only declassified in 1998 by President Clinton and Kolbe's personal archives, this is the first time his story has been told."--Jacket.