Wolfgang Lotz

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Operative Wolfgang Lotz
Operative Wolfgang Lotz

Wolfgang Lotz (6 January 1921 - 13 May 1993) was an Israeli spy.

[edit] Biography

Lotz was born at Mannheim, Germany in 1921 to a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish German father. Lotz's father was a theater director working alongside his mother who was an actress. His parents were non-religious to the extent that Lotz's mother did not even care to have her son circumcised at birth, contrary to Jewish birth rituals. Later on, this turned out to be to his advantage in his career as a spy; the fact that Lotz hadn't been circumcised enabled him to convince his lovers that he wasn't Jewish. His parents divorced in 1931 and in 1933 after Hitler came to power, Lotz and his mother emigrated to Palestine.

Lotz and his mother settled in Tel-Aviv. He adopted the Hebrew name Ze'ev Gur-Arie, and started to study at the agricultural school at Ben Shemen. In 1936 he joined the Haganah and was engaged in a number of security duties.

After the outbreak of World War II in 1939 Lotz was recruited into the British Army because of his knowledge of the German language. He was stationed at Egypt where he joined an intelligence unit and mostly interrogated German POWs. After the war he returned to Israel and was involved in smuggling weapons for the Haganah.

In 1948 Lotz married Rivka and they had a son, Oded. At the outbreak of the Independence War in 1948 Lotz joined the newly formed Israel Defense Forces and served at the rank of Captain. He took part at the battle around Latrun. During the Sinai War in 1956 he already rose to the rank of Major and commanded an Infantry brigade.

After the war Lotz joined Aman. His superiors planned to send him to Egypt to gather intelligence on Gamal Abdel Nasser's armaments plans. Aman also hoped that because of Lotz's command of the German language and his Aryan appearance, he could infiltrate the circle of German scientists who worked at the Egyptian armaments programs.

Lotz was sent to Germany in 1959 in order to base his cover story as a German business man, ex-Wehrmacht officer who served in North Africa and an ex-member of the Nazi Party who after living for 11 years in Australia where he worked on breeding horses, came back to Egypt in order to establish a riding club. The North Africa cover was made because Lotz, who had interrogated hundreds of the German POWs in World War II, was familiar with their way of life and could easily tell war stories about his "comrades", and the riding club cover was made in order to allow Lotz to have contact with Egyptian high society.

Lotz arrived in Cairo in 1960 and began immediately to form friendships with high ranking Egyptian officials and military personnel.

Lotz traveled to Paris in June 1961 for a meeting with his operators (he was in the meantime transferred to the responsibility of the Mossad) , where he received large amounts of money and a transponder for sending secret messages. During the train travel from Paris, Lotz met a German woman called Waltraud and decided to marry her, despite the fact he was married to another woman in Israel and didn't discuss it with his operators. The Mossad was horrified by this and even considered calling Lotz back, but in the end the Mossad allowed Lotz to continue his mission and his wife was allowed to join him. While she soon discovered his real occupation, she was told Lotz worked for NATO and she began to help him.

In Cairo Lotz finally opened his riding club and continued to befriend the elite of the Egyptian society. He managed to persuade them to show him the Egyptian missile launch sites and he gathered intelligence of the Egyptian military and its industries. He also composed a list of German scientists that worked for the Egyptians and in September 1964 he sent a letter bomb to some of them, threatening them to cease their work.

In 1965 the GDR head of state made an official visit to Egypt and as a gesture to the East Germans, the Egyptians arrested 30 citizens of West Germany. Lotz was one of them. Thinking he was exposed, Lotz confessed to being a spy but stuck to his cover story and claimed he was tempted by the Israelis to spy for them in exchange for them giving him funds to establish his riding club.Some speculate that was the Mossad spin on the events that took place. According to his biography,The Champagne Spy,Lotz was captured after wireless set was discovered(hidden inside bathroom scale)that he used to transmit Egyptian target coordinates for inmpending Israeli attack of 1967.

The Egyptians believed Lotz even when evidence arrived from Germany which pointed to his true identity. Lotz and his wife were put on trial and the Mossad managed to get him represented by a German lawyer and ensure a German observer from the embassy who oversaw the fairness of the trial.

Lotz was sentenced to life imprisonment on 21 August 1965 and his wife was sentenced to three years in jail. Lotz and his wife were released in the prisoner exchange in 1968 following the Six-Day War. He resided in Israel until the death of his wife, Waltraud, in 1973, who died at the hands of the Egyptian intelligence. After that he spent time in the USA and resided in Germany until his death in 1993. He was buried in Israel with full military honors.

[edit] References

  • Gordon Thomas. (1999). Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad. St. Martin's Griffin.
  • Wolfgang Berkowitz/Zev Barak (Fiction, 1993). "The Hope". Little, Brown and Company.

[edit] Further reading