Wolfgang Gans zu Putlitz

Wolfgang Gans Edler Herr zu Putlitz (* July 16, 1899 in Laaske, today part of Putlitz; † 3 September 1975 in Potsdam) was a German diplomat. He resisted the Nazis and provided information to the British Secret Service. After the war he became a communist and settled in the German Democratic Republic, whose nationality he assumed in 1952.

UK passport photo of Wolfgang zu Putlitz under the name William Putters, 1938

Life

Gans zu Putlitz came from a noble family in the Prignitz district of Brandenburg. He was the heir to Laaske Castle, which included extensive agricultural land.[1] Gans zu Putlitz studied agriculture and economics in Berlin, where he received his doctorate in 1924.

Gans zu Putlitz entered the diplomatic service and was first posted to the German Consulate General in Poznań, Poland.[2] In 1928 was transferred to the Embassy in Washington, DC and then, in 1934, to Paris and then London, where he was appointed First Secretary[2] in charge of the Consular Section.[3]

Gans zu Putlitz became an agent of the British intelligence services because he did not approve of the war plans of the German National Socialists. On 1 November 1935 he joined the NSDAP, according to the records of German Foreign Service, and he also was a member of the SS. When war broke out in 1939 Gans zu Putlitz was the second highest diplomat at the German embassy in the neutral Netherlands.[2] From here he gave the British information on deployment plans and strength of the German troops. For the British intelligence officer Klop Ustinov (who was previously also a German diplomat) Gans zu Putlitz was one of the most important sources. It was, alleged MI5 Assistant Director Peter Wright, "priceless intelligence, possibly the most important human-source intelligence Britain received in the prewar period".[4]

The German Abwehr recruited an agent within the MI6 office in the Netherlands, Folkert van Koutrik, who supplied a list of British agents in the Netherlands. Gans zu Putlitz was shown this list and knew he had to seek asylum.[5] In October 1939, he fled from the Netherlands to England, then to Jamaica, Haiti and the United States.[6] Germany sentenced Gans zu Putlitz to death for high treason in his absence. From January 1944 to April 1945 he was assistant at Soldatensender Calais in England, a propaganda radio station.[7]

With the war's end in 1945 Gans zu Putlitz returned to Germany on behalf of MI6. The British occupation authorities had him appointed senior executive officer and personal assistant to the Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein. But as a known confidant of the occupying power, he was not tolerated in this position on a permanent basis. Via Switzerland and Paris, he returned to Britain. In 1948 he became a British citizen. Gans zu Putlitz acted as a witness for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials, testifying against war criminals in the German Foreign Service.[8]

Gans zu Putlitz opposed the division of the country and the creation of the Federal Republic. Gans zu Putlitz returned to East Germany in January 1952. He worked as a freelance writer and editor for the publishing house Verlag Volk und Wissen in Bad Saarow and Berlin, which until German reunification published almost all textbooks in the GDR. He was a consultant for the East German Foreign Ministry and the Arbeitsgemeinschaft ehemaliger Offiziere, the association of former officers of the National Committee for a Free Germany (NKFD). He was a member and political associate of the National Council of the East German National Front.[9]

Gans zu Putlitz in his later years was disappointed with the GDR as it became a totalitarian state. After his death in 1975 he was buried in the cemetery of Grosskreutz at Potsdam.[1]

Publications

Awards

References

  1. 1 2 Auf unserem Kirchhof in Groß Kreutz ist ein sehr prominenter Toter, Wolfgang Gans Edler Herr zu Putlitz, begraben. Inge Hammerström, Kulturförderverein Groß Kreutz (Havel)
  2. 1 2 3 Maria Kiepert (Ed.): Biographisches Handbuch des deutschen Auswärtigen Dienstes 1871–1945.(Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871-1945) Published by the Auswärtigen Amt, Historical Service. Volume 2: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: G–K. Schöningh, Paderborn. 2005, ISBN 3-506-71841-X.
  3. ↑ London, Louise (2000). Whitehall and the Jews, 1933-1948. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 64. Retrieved 2014-10-14.
  4. ↑ Peter Wright, Spycatcher, 1987, p. 87
  5. ↑ A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. Ben Macintyre 2014. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 12
  6. ↑ The Defence of the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5. Christopher Andrew. Oct 2009. London: Allen Lane
  7. ↑ MI6. Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service. Stephen Dorril. The Free Press, New York NY 2000, ISBN 0-7432-0379-8 , p. 408.
  8. ↑ The Putlitz dossier. Wolfgang Gans zu Putlitz, London: London Wingate; First Edition 1957
  9. ↑ Bernd-Rainer Barth : Wolfgang Gans zu Putlitz. In: Wer war wer in der DDR? 5th Issue. Volume 2, Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4.

External links

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