Chapter Eight
A Nazi Hero at the Service of the Mossad

On a stifling hot day in August 1963, two men entered the offices of an engineering company in Madrid and asked to meet the owner, an Austrian by the name of Otto Skorzeny. They introduced themselves to Skorzeny as NATO intelligence officers and told him they had come on the recommendation of his estranged wife. They had for him an offer he couldn’t refuse . . .

Very soon, the respectable businessman realized that his visitors knew all about him and his past. During World War II, SS officer Skorzeny had been one of the great heroes—if not the greatest—of Nazi Germany. A tall, charismatic athlete, his face scarred in a fencing duel, he had become a daredevil commando officer who carried out spectacular operations. On September 12, 1943, he had landed, with a paratrooper battalion carried by gliders, on top of the Gran Sasso, the highest peak in the Italian Apennines, and stormed the Campo Imperator Hotel, where former Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini had been jailed by a new, anti-Nazi Italian government. SS Captain Skorzeny rescued Mussolini and brought him to a grateful Hitler, who showered Skorzeny with medals and promotions. In the Battle of the Bulge, in late 1944, Skorzeny—now a Waffen SS colonel—snuck through the front lines with two dozen of his men, dressed as American soldiers, and caused disorder and confusion in the Allied ranks. His operations earned him the reputation of “the most dangerous man in Europe.” Found not guilty at the Dachau trials after the war, he moved to Spain where he enjoyed the protection of Fascist dictator Franco, and established his company.

His visitors that day in 1963 didn’t waste time on small talk. “We are not exactly from NATO,” one of them admitted in perfect German. “Actually, we belong to the Israeli secret services.” The two men were Rafi Eitan and the head of the Mossad station in Germany, Avraham Ahituv.

Skorzeny paled. Barely a year ago, the Israelis had hanged Adolf Eichmann. Were they after him now? He had been cleared at the war trials, but some claimed that he had taken part in burning Jewish synagogues during Kristallnacht, in November 1938.

But the short man sitting in front of him dispelled his fears. “We need your help,” he said. “We know you have good connections in Egypt.” He then proceeded to tell the SS colonel why the Jewish state needed his assistance.

 

On July 21, 1962, only two weeks after the triumphant return of Yossele to Israel, Egypt amazed the world by launching four missiles. Two were of the Al-Zafir (The Victor) type, with a range of 175 miles, and two of the Al-Qahir (The Conqueror) type, with a range of 350 miles. The huge missiles, draped in Egypt’s flags, were proudly paraded in the streets of Cairo on Revolution Day, July 23. President Gamal Abdel Nasser boasted to an ecstatic crowd that his missiles were capable of hitting any target “south of Beirut.”

South of Beirut, Israel’s leaders were seized with astonishment and anxiety. Nasser’s missiles could indeed hit any target in Israel. That came as a complete surprise to Israel, and in the corridors of power angry words were addressed to Isser Harel. While Nasser was building his deadly rockets, the critics said, Little Isser was busy chasing Yossele. While terrible dangers threatened the very existence of the Jewish state, Isser’s best agents were running from one yeshiva to another, disguised as ultra-Orthodox Jews. A worried Ben-Gurion summoned Isser Harel, who promised to get all the information about the Egyptian project as soon as possible. Back at his headquarters, Isser sent his best men on a mission, and activated his moles and informants in Egypt. And indeed, on August 16, less than a month after the launching of the four missiles, he came back to Ben-Gurion with a detailed report.

The missiles were being built by German scientists, Isser reported.

In 1959, Nasser had decided to establish a secret arsenal of unconventional weapons. He had appointed General Mahmoud Khalil, a former Air Force Intelligence commander, head of the Bureau for Special Military Programs, to develop these ultrasecret modern weapons—jet fighters, rockets, and missiles, as well as chemical and radioactive substances. The bureau was allotted a huge budget.

Khalil’s first task was to find the men to make these weapons a reality. And he knew where to look.

His agents started to recruit hundreds of German experts and scientists, most of whom had been employed in the rocket and aviation research institutes and testing grounds of Nazi Germany. More than three hundred Germans, tempted by high salaries, bonuses, and myriad privileges, clandestinely trickled into Egypt, and helped Nasser build three secret installations.

The first was Factory 36, where genius aircraft builder Willy Messerschmitt was assembling an Egyptian jet fighter. Messerschmitt was the father of the deadly fighter planes of the Luftwaffe, the Nazi air force, during World War II. Mahmoud Khalil had signed a contract with him on November 29, 1959.

In the second plant, known by the code 135, an engineer named Ferdinand Brandner was building jet engines for Messerschmitt’s aircraft. Brandner had spent several years in Russia; after his return to Germany, Khalil had got in touch with him with the help of Dr. Eckart, a director of Daimler-Benz.

But the most secret was Factory 333, hidden in a remote area in the desert. There, Hitler’s former wunderkinds now built Nasser’s wonder weapons, the intermediate-range missiles.

According to Isser’s sources, the Egyptian project had shifted to high gear in December 1960. That month, an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft had photographed a huge building site in Dimona, Israel, that seemed to be a nuclear reactor. The world press announced the discovery with banner headlines; nobody believed Israel’s stilted statements that the structure was a textile factory. Egypt and several other Arab nations issued furious threats against Israel. But threats were not enough, and Egypt hoped to neutralize Israel’s secret nuclear project by developing its own unconventional weapons.

The head of the German rocket scientists in Egypt was Professor Eugen Sänger, the director of the Institute of Research on Jet Propulsion in Stuttgart. After the war, Sänger had spent a few years in France, where he built the Veronique rocket, a mediocre replica of the German V-2 rocket. He came to Egypt with his assistants—Professor Paul Goerke, an electronics and guidance expert, and Wolfgang Pilz, formerly an engineer at the Peenemünde installation, where the brilliant Wernher von Braun had developed Nazi Germany’s V-2 rockets. Another guidance and control expert closely collaborating with his colleagues in Egypt was Dr. Hans Kleinwachter, whose lab for developing missile guidance systems was in the picturesque German city of Lorrach, close to the Swiss border. The chemistry department was headed by Dr. Ermin Dadieu, a former SS officer. The Germans and the Egyptians established several front companies—“Intra,” “Intra-Handel,” “Patwag,” and “Linda”—that purchased parts and materials for the missile project. The administrative director of “Intra-Handel” was Dr. Heinz Krug, who also managed the Institute for Jet Propulsion in Stuttgart. Hassan Kamil, an Egyptian millionaire living in Switzerland, was also enlisted as a façade and liaison man. With his help, the Egyptians established two dummy companies in Switzerland, MECO (Mechanical Corporation) and MTP (Motors, Turbines, and Pumps), whose task was to acquire basic materials, electrical apparatuses, and precision tools; they also recruited specialists and experts. The three directors of these companies were Messerschmitt, Brandner, and Kamil.

In 1961, Sänger and many hundreds of engineers, technicians, and local Egyptian employees had started building the Egyptian missiles. But at the end of that year, the German government discovered the secret connection between the Egyptian project and the Institute for Jet Propulsion in Stuttgart. The German authorities forced Sänger to resign, return to Germany, and cease all activity. Professor Pilz succeeded him as head of the Egyptian project.

By July 1962, Factory 333 produced thirty missiles. Four of them were launched with great fanfare before a select crowd of government guests and journalists; twenty others (some of them dummies), draped with the Egyptian flag, were paraded through Cairo’s streets.

 

When Isser Harel came to Ben-Gurion in August, he produced a letter from Pilz to Kamil Azzab, the Egyptian director of 333, which Rafi Eitan and his men had succeeded in copying. It was a request for 3,700,000 Swiss francs for machine parts and other equipment needed for building five hundred missiles of Type 2 and four hundred missiles of Type 5.

Nine hundred missiles! Isser’s report caused deep anxiety in the defense community. The Israeli experts were certain that the Egyptians had no intention of loading the missiles’ warheads with conventional explosives; they wouldn’t have spent millions of dollars building them merely for the missiles to carry a half-ton of dynamite. A bomber could do that with more precision. It was clear that Egypt would load the warheads with atomic bombs or some other substance forbidden by international law, such as poison gas, bacterial cultures, or deadly radioactive waste.

According to Isser, the German scientists were working on a devious plan to destroy Israel: they were developing doomsday weapons, huge missiles, radioactive warheads that could “kill any living thing” and poison the air in Israel for many years; they were even working on death rays and other kinds of hellish contraptions.

“We took them too seriously,” General Zvi Zur, the chief of staff at the time, admitted later. “Our scientists were amateurs and didn’t know how to handle the information.” Still, the Israelis discovered the Achilles’ heel of the Egyptian project—the Germans hadn’t succeeded yet in developing a proper guidance system to direct the missiles to their targets. As long as that obstacle wasn’t overcome, the missiles couldn’t be used.

 

Isser Harel was no longer the same man his people knew and admired. Since Eichmann’s capture, he had undergone a profound change. This coolheaded man, who was known for his nerves of steel, now regarded Germany as the eternal enemy of Israel and the Jewish people. He staunchly believed that the current German government was supporting the scientists in Egypt and secretly helping them in their efforts to destroy Israel. The ramsad asked Ben-Gurion to alert Germany’s chancellor Konrad Adenauer and demand that he act immediately to stop the scientists’ activities. Ben-Gurion refused. Quite recently, Germany had given Israel a huge loan of $500 million to develop the Negev desert; Ben-Gurion and Adenauer had established personal relations of trust and mutual respect; Adenauer and his minister of defense Franz Josef Strauss supplied Israel with huge quantities of modern weapons worth hundreds of millions of dollars—tanks, cannons, helicopters, aircraft—all of this for free, in a secret effort to atone for the Holocaust and Germany’s crimes against the Jewish people. Ben-Gurion trusted the current German government, and didn’t want to jeopardize Israel’s relations with it by hurling accusations and demands to intervene in the Egyptian crisis. He instructed Deputy Minister of Defense Shimon Peres to write a personal letter to Strauss and discreetly ask for his help.

But this wasn’t enough for Isser, who decided to launch his own all-out campaign to disrupt the Germans’ activities in Egypt.

On September 11, 1962, at ten thirty A.M., a swarthy stranger with a Middle Eastern cast to his features entered the Intra offices on Munich’s Schillerstrasse. The clerk who ushered him into the office of the company director, Dr. Heinz Krug, heard him say he had been sent by Colonel Nadim, an Egyptian officer who maintained close contacts with Krug. Half an hour later, the Egyptian left the building with Krug. A United Arab Airlines stewardess saw the two men go by the airline ticket office. She was the last person to see Krug.

The following morning, Mrs. Krug informed the police that her husband was missing. Two days later, the police found Krug’s white Mercedes abandoned on the outskirts of Munich. The car was covered with mud, and its tank was bone-dry. An anonymous phone call to the police announced: “Dr. Krug is dead.” But some information from other sources made the police believe that Krug had been abducted by Mossad agents and taken to Israel. Today, there is no more doubt that Krug is dead.

On November 27, Hannelore Wende, Pilz’s secretary at Factory 333, saw a thick envelope in the morning mail; the sender was a well-known Hamburg lawyer. Hannelore opened the package. A deafening explosion shook the office. Gravely wounded, Pilz’s secretary was taken to the hospital, where she was to spend a few months before leaving blind, deaf, her face badly scarred.

The next day, a big package marked BOOKS arrived at Factory 333; when an Egyptian clerk opened it, the package exploded, killing five people. The sender’s address, a Stuttgart publisher, turned out to be false.

The explosive packages kept arriving the following days. Some of them had been sent from Germany, others from inside Egypt. Some blew up, causing casualties, others were defused by Egyptian army experts alerted by 333 officials. The identity of the senders wasn’t officially established, but the Egyptians and the journalists were certain that the bombs were prepared and sent to Cairo by the Israeli Mossad. Much later, it was established that several of the letter bombs had been mailed by the “Champagne Spy.” This was an Israeli agent, Ze’ev Gur-Arie, who operated in Egypt under the cover of “Wolfgang Lutz,” a German owner of a horse farm near Cairo. Posing as a former SS officer, he had settled in Cairo with his German wife and established close relations with Egypt’s high society and its military leaders.

 

The letter bombs deeply disturbed the German scientists, who now felt their lives were in danger. Many of them got anonymous phone calls threatening them or their families if they kept working on Nasser’s project. Strict security measures were applied at the three “factories” in Egypt and at the sister companies in Europe. When visiting Europe, the scientists had to move in large groups, accompanied by German security officers. This practice probably saved Professor Pilz on his trip to Europe in late 1962. A group of strangers followed him in Germany and Italy but didn’t get the opportunity to come near him.

Isser spent the fall and winter of 1962 in Europe, directing several Mossad operations intended to obtain more accurate and updated information. Rafi Eitan succeeded in penetrating a diplomatic mission that handled the German scientists’ mail. Such operations were his favorite. “That’s much better than recruiting agents,” he said. “When you recruit an agent you have to train him, build him a foolproof cover, put him in place, and give him time to establish contacts . . . But reading your enemy’s mail is much better—you get immediate results and first-class material.”

For his unconventional operations, Eitan needed some very sophisticated electronic equipment, but did not know where to get it. The equipment, used by the CIA and other intelligence agencies, could not be found in stores. While reading his newspaper in his Paris office, Eitan noticed a short item about the notorious Jewish mobster Meyer Lansky, who was the mob boss of Miami. In his scheming mind, that seemed like an opportunity. He called the operator: “Find Meyer Lansky in Miami!”

Three minutes later, Lansky was on the line. “Shalom, Meyer,” Eitan said. “I am an Israeli, operating in Paris, and I need your help for the Zionist state.”

“No problem,” Lansky answered. “In a month I shall be in Lausanne, in Switzerland. Let’s meet there.”

Eitan met with Lansky in Lausanne, and told him what he needed. Lansky gave him the address of a certain man in Chicago. “He’ll get you what you want,” he said. A week later, Eitan landed in Chicago and headed for the man’s address. “The electronic equipment we got from this guy served us well all through our operations against the German scientists,” Eitan summed up.

One of these operations brought a new name to Isser Harel: Dr. Otto Joklik. According to the source material, Joklik was an Austrian scientist specializing in nuclear radiation. Dr. Joklik was allegedly employed by a top-secret Egyptian project to obtain nuclear weapons in record time. The Egyptians intended to establish a front company, Austra, for Joklik in Austria, which would purchase radioactive materials for Joklik’s project and ship them to Egypt. Austra would be separate from Intra, to avoid being investigated by the German authorities. Joklik was to carry out two nuclear tests for Egypt and produce several atom bombs that would be fitted into the missiles’ warheads.

All this indicated that Joklik was a very dangerous man, perhaps the most dangerous of the German scientists. An urgent order was sent to all the Mossad stations in Europe: Find Joklik!

But Isser was in for a stunning surprise. On October 23, 1962, a stranger rang the door of an Israeli embassy in Europe and asked to see the security officer: “My name is Otto Joklik. I am ready to give you a full report about my activity for the Egyptian war effort.”

Two weeks later, in utter secrecy, Joklik landed in Israel.

Many months later, when the Joklik defection came to light, European reporters wrote that Joklik probably contacted the Israelis because of the disappearance of Intra director Heinz Krug. Joklik had maintained close contact with Krug, who was among the few in the know of Joklik’s role in Egypt’s “special military programs.” When Krug disappeared, Joklik panicked. What if Krug had been abducted by the Israelis? He might talk and reveal Joklik’s secret tasks. And then, Joklik knew, he was as good as dead. Therefore, he decided to cross the lines and surrender to the Israelis; that way, he hoped, he at least would save his life.

Joklik spent four days in Israel. He was kept in strict isolation, in a top-security facility of the Mossad. Isser decided to use him for two main tasks: as a source of intelligence about the Egyptian project and as a double agent who would return to Egypt and work there for the Mossad.

Otto Joklik told the Israelis that he had been recruited by a senior German clerk in the United Arab Airlines who introduced him to General Mahmoud Khalil, nicknamed by the German scientists “Herr Doktor Mahmoud.” His meeting with the Herr Doktor resulted in two projects: Ibis and Cleopatra. The secret of those projects was shared only with Professor Pilz and Dr. Krug.

Operation Ibis was to provide Egypt with a radiological weapon that could spread dangerous nuclear radiation. Joklik took it upon himself to obtain large quantities of radioactive isotope cobalt-60 and to experiment with it in Egypt. If the experiments succeeded, Joklik would try getting more cobalt, which would be placed in the missiles’ warheads and spread deadly radiation on impact.

The goal of the second project, Cleopatra, was to produce two atomic bombs. Joklik suggested an ingenious method for manufacturing the bombs: buying uranium enriched to 20 percent in the United States or in Europe; enriching it up to 90 percent by special centrifuges developed in Germany and Holland by the scientists Dr. Wilhelm Groth, Dr. Jacob Kistemaker, and Dr. Gernot Zippe; and building the bomb with the enriched uranium.

Joklik flew to the United States and tried to get the enriched uranium there; he also met with several German scientists and invited them to build centrifuges in Egypt. Simultaneously, he purchased some cobalt-60 in Europe and dispatched it to a gynecologist in Cairo, whose name was Dr. Khalil—the sister of Herr Doktor Mahmoud . . .

When Joklik’s debriefing in Israel was over, his testimony was sent to several experts for review and assessment. For some reason, their reports didn’t get the proper attention. Concerning the Cleopatra Project, the experts said there were almost no chances that Joklik would get 20 percent enriched uranium. Even if he did, Egypt would need at least one hundred of the best centrifuges in order to harvest the necessary uranium for assembling one bomb within two to three years. And even if they managed to build a bomb, it wouldn’t go off, for Joklik’s formulas were incorrect. The experts dismissed Ibis and the radiological weapons, whose impact, they said, would cause no more damage than an ordinary bomb.

The soothing tone of the reports didn’t calm the nation’s leadership. They were even more alarmed by the reports that the Egyptians were also developing chemical weapons. On January 11, 1963, their fears were justified when the Egyptians used poison gas in their war in Yemen. Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Golda Meir met with President John F. Kennedy and talked to him about the danger that the Egyptians would arm their missiles with unconventional warheads; she asked him to intervene, but Kennedy did not.

The unconventional warheads were indeed very dangerous, but the first priority was given to disrupting the development of the missiles’ guidance systems.

In the winter of 1963, the Factory 333 guidance expert, Dr. Kleinwachter, was spending some weeks in Germany. On the evening of February 20, he left his lab in Lorrach, and drove his car to the narrow lane leading to his home. The lane was dark and deserted, covered with deep snow. Suddenly, in a shrieking of tires, a car emerged from a cross street and blocked the way. A man got out of the car and walked toward Kleinwachter. The scientist glimpsed a third man in the car.

“Where does Dr. Shenker live?” the man demanded. Without waiting for a reply, he drew a revolver equipped with a silencer and fired. The bullet shattered the windshield and lodged in the scientist’s woolen muffler. Kleinwachter groped in the glove compartment for his own revolver, but his assailant ran back to a second car, which darted out of sight.

The police found the first car abandoned about one hundred yards from the scene of the attack. The three men had made their escape with another car. They had left behind a passport in the name of Ali Samir, one of the heads of the Egyptian secret service. It turned out, however, that this was a red herring; on the day of the attack Samir was in Cairo and had been photographed with a German journalist.

The men who had attacked Kleinwachter were never found. Yet the unanimous opinion of the press was that the assassination attempt had been carried out by the Israelis, and had ended in failure.

 

A few weeks later, the Mossad tried again—this time going after German-born Dr. Paul Goerke in Switzerland.

Goerke, like Kleinwachter, was working on a guidance system for the Egyptian missiles in his lab at Factory 333. He was deemed very important by the Egyptians—and by the Mossad as well. His daughter Heidi lived in Freiburg, a German town close to the Swiss border. Shortly after the attempt on Kleinwachter’s life, Dr. Joklik called Heidi and told her that he had met her father in Egypt, where he was working on the development of terrible weapons intended to destroy Israel. Joklik hinted that if Goerke didn’t cease his activities, he would be exposing himself to frightful risks. If, on the other hand, he were to leave Egypt, he would not be harmed.

“If you love your father,” Joklik concluded, “come on Saturday, March 2, at four P.M., to the Three Kings Hotel in Basel, and I will introduce you to one of my friends.”

Heidi, scared, immediately contacted H. Mann, a former Nazi officer who had been charged by the Egyptians with the scientists’ security. Mann alerted the Freiburg police, who notified the Swiss authorities. And so, when Joklik and his friend entered the Three Kings Hotel, several police cars were waiting behind the building, detectives were stationed in the lobby, and tape recorders were installed close to the table where Heidi Goerke was sitting.

Joklik and his friend—Mossad agent Joseph Ben-Gal—walked right into the trap. They suspected nothing, and talked with Heidi Goerke for an hour, careful not to make any direct threats but alluding to the danger for her father if he kept building his terrible weapons. They offered Heidi a plane ticket to Cairo so that she could persuade her father to return to Germany where he and his family would be safe.

The meeting over, the two men left the hotel and took the six o’clock train to Zurich, where they went their separate ways. But while Joklik was waiting for another train on the platform, he was arrested by plainclothes policemen. Ben-Gal was apprehended near the Israeli consulate.

That evening the German police asked the Swiss to extradite the two men who were suspected of threatening Heidi Goerke and also of having participated in the attack on Dr. Kleinwachter.

From his headquarters in Europe, Isser activated his contacts and tried to persuade the Swiss to release Ben-Gal and Joklik, but they refused because of the German extradition request. Isser then flew back to Israel and met with Minister of Foreign Affairs Golda Meir. Lately, they had become very close and shared the same hostility and suspicions toward Germany. Golda suggested that Israel approach Chancellor Adenauer and demand that West Germany withdraw the extradition request.

Isser immediately drove to Tiberias, where Prime Minister Ben-Gurion was vacationing. He urged Ben-Gurion to send a special envoy to Bonn, West Germany’s capital. The envoy would present Adenauer with proof of the atrocious activities of the German scientists in Egypt, and demand the withdrawal of the extradition request.

Ben-Gurion refused.

Isser didn’t let go. “You have to decide what to do if the arrest is made public. Then the entire affair will blow up.”

“What do you mean, blow up?” Ben-Gurion asked.

“As soon as Ben-Gal’s arrest becomes known, the entire affair of the German scientists in Egypt will also come to light. Israel will have to explain why Ben-Gal acted as he did. We shall also have to disclose that the Egyptians have been buying equipment for their rockets and other military projects from Germany.”

Ben-Gurion thought a moment and finally said: “So be it.”

That was the beginning of the rift between the two men.

 

In the evening of Thursday, March 15, 1963, United Press International announced the arrest of Joklik and Ben-Gal “on suspicion of having threatened the daughter of a German scientist in the employ of Egypt.” Isser Harel called a secret meeting with the editors in chief of the daily newspapers; at the meeting he described the background to Ben-Gal’s arrest. He particularly stressed Joklik’s part in the affair, the kind of work he had been doing for the Egyptian project, and the fact that he changed sides voluntarily and was trying to repair the damage.

During the next few days, Isser’s aides secretly briefed three Israeli journalists: Naftali Lavi of Haaretz, Shmuel Segev of Ma’ariv, and Yeshayahu Ben-Porat of Yedioth Ahronoth. They were given all the facts, and the addresses of Intra, Patwag, and the Stuttgart Institute. The three men then left for Europe to gather data on the German scientists and cable it to their papers in Israel. News about the German scientists’ project would be more credible coming from Europe, Isser thought. Other Mossad men were sent abroad to brief pro-Israeli journalists.

Isser Harel didn’t realize that the German issue was one of the most sensitive topics in Israel. His unbridled attack on Germany started an avalanche that couldn’t be stopped, a deluge of accusations against the scientists that provoked real panic in Israel.

By March 17, the Israeli and foreign press were floundering in a sea of sensational headlines: German scientists, most of them former Nazis, were producing deadly weapons in Egypt. They were preparing biological, chemical, nuclear, and radioactive weapons. They were developing poison gas, terrible germs, death rays, warheads equipped with atomic bombs or radioactive waste that would spread lethal radiation. The newspapers competed with one another by publishing reports that seemed plagiarized from the Flash Gordon comics: the death ray, hissing and scorching everything in its path . . . the air over Israel that would be poisoned for ninety years at least . . . the germs spreading atrocious plagues, et cetera. The campaign also accused the government of the Federal Republic of Germany of refraining from putting an end to the devilish activities of its subjects working for Egypt, and actually following in Hitler’s footsteps. The reporters sent to Europe added more fat to the fire, by “discovering” every day new details about the scientists’ diabolical plot.

 

Ben-Gal and Joklik’s trial in Basel ended with light sentences for the two men—two months in jail, with time served. But it had a secondary result with enormous implications.

During the trial, the judge suddenly noticed that one of the spectators was carrying a gun.

“How dare you carry a gun in my court?” he indignantly asked.

The man answered: “I have a permit to carry a weapon at all times. I am the security officer of the German scientists in Egypt.”

He identified himself as H. Mann—the man who has been contacted by Heidi Goerke after Joklik’s phone call, and who actually had alerted the German police.

An undercover Mossad informant left the courtroom at once and reported the incident to his superiors. As he heard the report, veteran Mossad agent Raphi Medan jumped aboard the first train to Vienna and hurried to the home of the famous Nazi hunter, Simon Wiesenthal. Wiesenthal immediately agreed to help the Mossad.

“Do you know anything about a German named H. Mann?” Medan asked.

Wiesenthal went to work in his overflowing archives. After a few hours, he returned to Medan with a file in his hands. “He was an SS officer during the war,” he said. “He served in a commando unit under Colonel Otto Skorzeny.”

Medan brought the information to the omnipresent Rafi Eitan and to Avraham Ahituv.

A balding, sunburned man with mustache and glasses, Ahituv was born in Germany as Avraham Gotfried and immigrated with his religious parents to Israel at the age of five. At sixteen, he already was a member of the Haganah; and at eighteen, one of the founders of the Shabak. Extremely intelligent, he had completed his studies during his service, and graduated from law school summa cum laude. In 1955, he had caught the most important Egyptian spy in Israel, Rif’at El Gamal, who operated under the Israeli identity of Jack Bitton. Ahituv turned El Gamal, making him one of the Mossad’s best double agents, who fed the Egyptians expertly doctored information for more than twelve years. In 1967, on the eve of the Six-Day War, El Gamal would inform the Egyptians that Israel would launch a ground attack before sending its aircraft into battle; the resulting laxity of the Egyptian Air Force facilitated its destruction on the ground by the Israeli jets. In the future, Ahituv would become one of the best Shabak directors, mostly appreciated for his efforts to integrate Israeli Arabs into the mainstream of Israel’s society.

On this evening in May 1963, Ahituv listened to Medan’s report about Mann and Skorzeny, then turned to Eitan: “Why don’t we try to recruit Skorzeny?”

The idea seemed bizarre at first, but it had its inner logic: if Skorzeny turned on Mann, he had a chance to obtain highly classified material from his former subordinate. Now the question was how to contact Skorzeny. A quick check revealed that Skorzeny’s estranged wife had stayed very close to him; she was now managing a company that specialized in metal trading. The Mossad agents found an Israeli businessman, Shlomo Zablodovitch, who was in the same line of business, and contacted him. Yes, he said, he knew Ms. Skorzeny. He introduced them to the lady, who told them all they needed to know.

That was how Eitan and Ahituv showed up in Skorzeny’s office in Madrid. They now asked the former Third Reich hero to become their agent and provide the Mossad with information about the activities of the German scientists in Egypt. Besides H. Mann, Skorzeny knew quite a few leaders of the German community in Egypt, many of whom were his former fellow officers.

“How can I trust you?” Skorzeny asked. “How can I be sure that you won’t go after me later?” He feared that Israeli avengers would find him as they found Eichmann, and his fate would be the same.

Rafi Eitan found the solution right away. “We are authorized to offer you freedom from fear,” he said. He took a sheet of paper and wrote Skorzeny a letter, in the name of the State of Israel, which guaranteed him “freedom from fear” and assured him that he would not be subject to any kind of persecution or violence.

Skorzeny perused the document, then fell silent. He got up and paced back and forth, immersed in thought.

He finally turned to the Israelis. “I agree,” he said.

In the following months, Skorzeny brought to his Mossad handlers priceless intelligence about the activities of the German scientists in Egypt. With the help of H. Mann and his other former cohorts, he obtained detailed lists of the German scientists and their addresses, reports about the progress of their projects, plans, and blueprints of the missiles, correspondence about the failures to assemble a guidance system for the missiles.

But Isser Harel wasn’t there anymore to read Skorzeny’s reports.

 

In the meantime, the Israeli media had been set loose. Shrieking headlines, editorials, cartoons, and even poems announced that Germany of 1963 was the same as Germany of 1933; and the same Germany that had massacred 6 million Jews was now helping Egypt prepare a new Holocaust. In the Knesset, opposition leader Menahem Begin shouted at Ben-Gurion in an inflammatory tirade: “You are selling Uzis to the Germans, and they are sending germs to our enemies.” In a speech, Isser’s ally Golda Meir accused the Germans in Egypt of producing weapons “whose aim is to destroy all living things.”

These accusations were exaggerated, almost totally detached from reality. Amos Manor, head of the Shabak and a close friend of Isser, would tell us later: “During this period, when Isser directed the campaign against the German scientists, he was an unbalanced man. It was much deeper than obsession. You couldn’t have a normal conversation on this subject with him.”

Deputy Minister of Defense Shimon Peres, who returned to Israel on March 24 from a trip to Africa, immediately perceived the tremendous danger that could arise from Isser Harel’s crusade. He also realized that the stories about the weapons “that kill any living thing” were simply ludicrous. Aman, the IDF’s intelligence branch, presented him with a totally different estimate. “We gathered all that we could collect,” said the IDF intelligence chief, General Meir Amit, “and slowly a picture emerged: this story had been blown out of any proportion . . . Our people said that this couldn’t be true; it couldn’t be something serious.”

Amit’s people didn’t find any indication that the German scientists were developing chemical or bacteriological weapons; the stories about doomsday weapons seemed borrowed from science fiction; the quantities of cobalt brought to Egypt were infinitesimal. It was also established that Dr. Otto Joklik, whose testimony had played a major part in the whole business, was no more than an opportunist who could not be trusted.

The Aman report reached Ben-Gurion’s desk on March 24. He immediately summoned Isser Harel and questioned him about his sources. He demanded full and accurate answers. Isser admitted having sent reporters to Europe, after a thorough briefing; he also admitted that he had no information about poison gas, radiology, or cobalt bombs.

The next day Ben-Gurion met with Shimon Peres, who came with the chief of staff and General Amit. The Aman chief made a detailed report that painted a clear picture: the scientists working in Egypt were mediocre, and they were building obsolete missiles. Their activities were dangerous indeed, but the panic that had spread in the governing circles in Israel, including the Ministry of Defense and the IDF, was utterly out of proportion.

Ben-Gurion summoned Isser again. Their conversation was tense, and Ben-Gurion expressed doubts as to the accuracy of Isser’s reports and assessments. The total trust that characterized the relations between the two men was replaced by an angry debate that also touched upon the other aspects of German-Israeli relations. Isser, furious, returned to his office and dispatched a letter of resignation to Ben-Gurion.

Ben-Gurion tried to talk him out of leaving, but Isser was adamant. I resign, he said, and that’s final.

This was the end of an era.

Ben-Gurion then asked Isser to stay until a replacement was found. Isser refused. “Tell Ben-Gurion to send somebody right away and take the keys,” he said to Ben-Gurion’s secretary. The prime minister had to find a replacement for the legendary ramsad right away. “Get me Amos Manor at once,” he said to his secretary, who rushed to the telephone.

But the head of the Shabak was unreachable; he was on his way to kibbutz Maagan in the Jordan Valley to visit relatives, and cell phones had yet to be invented.

“Then get me Meir,” Ben-Gurion said impatiently. General Meir Amit was on a tour of inspection in the Negev, but was reached by radio and summoned to Tel-Aviv. On his arrival, he learned that he was being appointed acting Mossad director until a new chief took charge of the organization. A few weeks later, Amit’s appointment became final.

 

Following Peres’s discreet letter to Franz Josef Strauss, Germany charged a respected expert, Professor Boehm, to devise the means of bringing back the scientists from Egypt. Germany indeed succeeded in tempting many of the scientists by offering them employment in research institutions on its territory. The others gradually left Egypt. They didn’t finish building missiles, their navigation systems failed, the missile warheads were not filled with radioactive materials, and even Messerschmitt’s plane never took off.

One of the authors of this book traveled to Huntsville, Alabama, and met there with NASA’s blue-eyed boy, Dr. Wernher von Braun. Von Braun went over the lists of German scientists in Egypt and their alleged projects and concluded that there were very slim chances that these second-rate scientists would have ever been able to build effective missiles.

Herr Doktor Mahmoud’s Egyptian endeavor ended in complete failure.

The affair of the German scientists brought about the fall of Isser Harel and the rise of Meir Amit. Harel developed a deep loathing toward his successor, and bitterly fought him during his years as ramsad. The affair of the German scientists also undermined Ben-Gurion’s political power, and he resigned from office a few months later.

In Cairo, the Egyptian secret services unmasked Wolfgang Lutz, the “Champagne Spy,” and arrested him in 1965. Yet they failed to crack his German cover; he was sentenced only to jail and released after two and a half years.

The end of the affair was also the end of the Mossad’s work with Otto Skorzeny, the most improbable agent who ever spied for the Jewish state.