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Desktop Murderer & British Agent

In May 1945, several senior Gestapo officials made their way to Dahme, Schleswig-Holstein (northern Germany on the Bay of Lübeck) to prevent their arrest by the Allies. Officials at the British Field Security Post in Lübeck learned about these men and their hiding place from a captured Gestapo man. Immediately, British military police drove 31 miles to the Strandhotel and arrested five former Gestapo men ⏤ two officers and three NCOs. Taken back to Lübeck, the prisoners were turned over for interrogation at the city’s Marstall prison.

Strandhotel in Dahme, Schleswig-Holstein
Strandhotel in Dahme, Schleswig-Holstein. Photo by Google Maps (date unknown).

One of those men was SS-Sturmbannführer and Kriminaldirektor, Horst Kopkow. At the time of his arrest, Kopkow was a relatively unknown Gestapo official but as time went on and the British interrogated former Gestapo men, Kopkow’s name kept being brought up. It turned out he was the department chief responsible for counterintelligence (i.e., arresting foreign agents), the German radio program known as “Funkspiel,” and well-regarded by his superiors for his knowledge of Soviet espionage.

Former Marstall Prison on the right
On the right is a section of the former Marstall prison. Photo by Heinrich Stürzl (1 June 2021). ©️ Heinrich Stürzl. PD-CC BY-SA 4.0 International. Wikimedia Commons.

After extensive official and unofficial investigations, it became clear that Kopkow was personally responsible for sanctioning the torture and ordering the executions of foreign agents of MI6 and the British-led Special Operations Executive (SOE). I’ve written before about Hitler’s “enablers” (click here to read the blog, Hitler’s Enablers – Part One – Wannsee Conference and here for Hitler’s Enablers – Part Two – The Camps). Kopkow was an enabler but as Stephen Tyas points out in his book (see below), the Gestapo chief was a “desktop murderer.” He never personally pulled the trigger or hanged a prisoner, but he signed the Sonder behandlung, or “Special treatment” orders from his Berlin desk. In the end, he escaped justice because of the protection provided by British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), or MI6.


Did You Know?

Did you know that one individual was responsible for preparing France for the invasion of Normandy (i.e., D-Day)? During World War II, Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac (1917−2015) served as Gen. de Gaulle’s propaganda chief. As the preparations for the Normandy invasion intensified during early 1944, M. Crémieux-Brilhac was assigned the responsibility for telling French citizens how to react once the inevitable invasion took place and efforts to liberate France began. He was secretary of the Free French Propaganda Committee, and he drew up four pages of instructions to “all French men and women not organized in, or attached to, a Resistance group.” Those instructions were handed over to the French service of the BBC. Separate orders were drawn up for broadcast to members of the Maquis. (These were the famous “personal” messages read out on the BBC in advance of the invasion ⏤ click here to read the blog, Dah-Dah-Dah-Duh.)

Crémieux-Brilhac’s messages were directed to the population in general as well as specific instructions to mayors, police, factory workers, etc. The biggest disagreement about the “call-to-arms” was between the Communists and the Gaullists. Communist resistance fighters were very influential in the French Resistance, and they demanded an all-out insurrection (i.e., general worker strikes and armed insurrection) on the eventual day of the invasion. M. Crémieux-Brilhac and the majority resisted the Communists’ demands and the majority won.

The instructions to the French were that “all French must consider themselves as engaged in the total war against the invader in order to liberate their homeland.” He made it clear that the French were to consider themselves “all soldiers under orders” and “Every Frenchman who is not, or not yet, a fighter must consider himself an auxiliary to the fighters.” Citizens living within the Normandy combat zone were instructed to “disrupt using all means transport, transmissions, and communications of the Germans.”

Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac
Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac. Photo by anonymous (date unknown).

After liberation, the original instruction documents were retained by M. Crémieux-Brilhac. Upon his death in 2015, the papers were donated to the French National Archives.


Let’s Meet Horst Kopkow 

Horst Kopkow (1910−1996) was born in East Prussia, Germany (now Poland) as the sixth child of a businessman and hotel owner. His childhood city, Allenstein, was overrun by the Russian army during the first world war and two of his older brothers died in the trenches on the French battlefields. These memories heavily influenced his vision of Russia and later, the Soviet Union with Kopkow vowing to fight Communism the rest of his life. Read More Desktop Murderer & British Agent

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We’ll Meet Again

As part of my research for the blog, Rendezvous with the Gestapo (click here to read the blog), I read a fascinating book called Shot Down. It was written by Steve Snyder whose father, Howard, was a B-17 pilot who parachuted into Belgium after his plane was shot down on 8 February 1944. What made Howard’s story so extraordinary was that unlike most of the surviving downed Allied airmen, Howard did not make it back to London nor was he captured. Capt. Snyder decided to join the French guerilla résistants known as the maquisards, or “maquis.” He fought alongside these French resistance fighters until early September 1944 when Snyder and his maquis unit hooked up with Gen. Patton’s 3rd Army in Trélon, France.

Howard Snyder jumping off a jeep while fighting with the maquis. Photo by anonymous (c. 1944). Courtesy of Steve Snyder. https://stevesnyderauthor.com.
Howard Snyder jumping off a jeep while fighting with the maquis. Photo by anonymous (c. 1944). Courtesy of Steve Snyder. https://stevesnyderauthor.com.

With that background, you will shortly understand why I found the story of Pfc. Weiss so interesting and why I decided to share it with you today.

Click here to watch the video Shot Down: Howard Snyder and the B-17 Susan Roth.


Did You Know?

Did you know that Hitler ordered food rationing in Berlin almost immediately after invading Poland? As you can imagine, a black market quickly developed. Senior Nazi officials including Wilhelm Frick, Walther von Brauchitsch, and Erich Raeder were involved in and profited from the black market. Although the Nazi hierarchy was required to abide by the rules, most of them scorned Hitler’s orders.

Horcher’s Restaurant was a favorite haunt of Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, and other Nazi bigwigs. Ration coupons at this restaurant were non-existent. The Nazi regime protected Horcher’s and its staff (the men were exempt from the draft). There was always enough high-quality food to satisfy the clients. In 1943, the restaurant was threatened with closure but Göring had it re-opened as a Luftwaffe private club. (With Göring’s assistance, Otto Horcher moved his restaurant in 1943 to Madrid, Spain where it is owned and operated today by his granddaughter, Elisabeth Horcher.) Read More We’ll Meet Again