Baron William Sylvester de Ropp (Sylvester Wilhelm Gotthard von der Ropp) [1] (born 1877) was a British agent involved in dealings with Nazi Germany before and during World War II. He was described as one of the most mysterious and influential clandestine operators" of the era.[2]
De Ropp was born in Lithuania the last child of Wilhelm Edmund Karl Reinhold Alexander Baron von der Ropp [1] and his wife Lydia Gurjef. His father was from a family of Baltic barons and owned an estate called Daudzegir and his mother was a cossack from the Crimea.[3] De Ropp was educated in Dresden, Germany [4]. In 1910 he moved to England and became naturalised in 1915[4]. During World War I, he served in the RFC under the command of F. W. Winterbotham. In the 1920s, de Ropp went to Berlin as a representative of the Bristol Aircraft Company and became an associate of Alfred Rosenberg, a fellow Balt and a Nazi enthusiast. Rosenberg's function was to establish links with establishment figures in Britain for the Nazis. De Ropp had contacts with a powerful segment of the British elite who favoured appeasement, known as the "Cliveden Set", and also some of the royal family, namely Duke of Kent[5]. Through Rosenberg, de Ropp met Adolf Hitler and Rudolf Hess. According to Ladislas Farago, a close personal relationship developed between the Führer and de Ropp. Hitler used him as his confidential consultant about British affairs and outlined to him frankly his grandiose plans...a trust no other foreigner enjoyed to this extent." [6] Lulled by this congenial atmosphere, the Luftwaffe naively gave away its secrets to the British. F. W. Winterbotham had become head of Air Intelligence, part of MI6, and nurtured de Ropp over three years. While the Nazis considered de Ropp their agent in England his standing helped facilitate a visit by Winterbotham to Germany in 1934. WInterbotham met Rosenberg and Hermann Göring and obtained a considerable amount of information on the growth of the Luftwaffe.[7]
De Ropp married firstly Ruth Fisher and had a son Robert and a daughter Ruth. His wife died in the 1918 flu pandemic.[3] He married again in 1925 to Marie Woodman.[8] His son Robert de Ropp, with whom he maintained little contact, became a research biochemist and author on personal enlightenment.