Otto von Bolschwing

Otto von Bolschwing
Otto Albrecht Alfred von Bolschwing (15 October 1909 – 7 March 1982) was a German SS-Hauptsturmführer, intelligence agent and international businessman. During the Nazi-era, he served as an operative of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in Mandatory Palestine and Romania, where he was involved in instigating the Legionnaires' rebellion and the Bucharest pogrom in 1941. Von Bolschwing was also an early collaborator of Adolf Eichmann's at the Office of Jewish Affairs in Berlin. In 1945, he abandoned his prior allegiance to Nazi Germany and joined the Austrian Resistance.
Following World War II, von Bolschwing continued to work as an intelligence officer in Austria and West Germany, first for the Gehlen Organization and later for the CIA. He emigrated to the United States in 1954, where he embarked on a successful career as a corporate executive. His prior Nazi-affiliations and suspected involvement in war crimes were later uncovered by the US Justice Department and he was forced to surrender his American citizenship in 1981.
Biography
Early life & career
Otto Albrecht Alfred von Bolschwing was born in Schönbruch, District of Bartenstein, East Prussia (now: Szczurkowo, Poland) on 15 October 1909. He was the youngest of five children and was descended from the Junker aristocracy via the . His father, the Prussian nobleman Richard Otto Wilhelm Ferdinand von Bolschwing, served as an officer in the Imperial German Army during World War I and was killed in action on the Eastern Front in October 1914 when Otto was five-years-old.
Von Bolschwing attended gymnasium in Königsberg, completing his final exams in 1926. He went on to study law and economics at the Silesian Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Breslau and the University of London where he demonstrated an aptitude for finance and languages, eventually becoming fluent in English and French, in addition to his native German.
While attending the Faculty of Law at the University of Hamburg, von Bolschwing pursued a career in international commerce, working for the East Asian trading house of C. Illies & Co. from 1928-30. He was later employed in Berlin and Vienna as a manager with the Oberon Investment & Development Co. In 1931, von Bolschwing acquired ownership of a lime factory in Upper Silesia and also began acting as “Continental Representative” for a consortium of London-based investment firms, traveling extensively throughout central and southeastern Europe on business.
Mandatory Palestine
Von Bolschwing joined the Nazi Party on 1 April 1932 (NSDAP # 984.212). That same year, he was dispatched to Bulgaria as a representative of Bank für Industrie-Obligationen, a Düsseldorf investment firm, to negotiate the installation of German-manufactured telephone equipment in the Balkans and Asia Minor. He also traveled to the British Mandate of Palestine to scout potential business opportunities. At this time, von Bolschwing also began an association with the German Foreign Office, providing the ministry with valuable political and economic information gathered during his travels abroad. Following the Nazi seizure of power in January 1933, von Bolschwing became a member of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the SS security and intelligence service, and attached to Abteilung III/2 (Foreign Intelligence). It was in this capacity that he later returned to Mandatory Palestine in 1934.
As an undercover agent of the SD, von Bolschwing was tasked with collecting political intelligence regarding British operations in Mandatory Palestine. In the course of his intelligence work, von Bolschwing posed as a monk in Nazareth and later operated under commercial cover as an importer in Haifa and Jerusalem. Through his business associations, von Bolschwing established contact with Fievel Polkes, a senior commander of the Zionist militant organization Haganah. In a series of clandestine negotiations, von Bolschwing and Polkes brokered an agreement in which the SD would permit Haganah to operate recruiting and training camps in Germany where Jewish youths would receive paramilitary instruction and encouragement to emigrate to Palestine to join the struggle to establish a Jewish state. In exchange, Haganah agreed to provide the SD with intelligence regarding British political and military activities in Palestine.
Von Bolschwing's efforts were intended to serve several different elements of Nazi foreign policy. Foremost, to render Palestine an ungovernable political liability for the British. The creation of a Jewish homeland in the Middle East would also provide the Third Reich with a location where it could expel its unwanted Jewish citizens. At the same time he was bargaining with Polkes, von Bolschwing was also meeting secretly with Arab leaders in an effort to encourage them to form a united front with militant Zionists in order to stage a rebellion against the British presence in Palestine. Von Bolschwing's covert efforts on behalf of the SD were eventually uncovered by British authorities and he was ultimately expelled from Palestine in mid-1936.
Office of Jewish Affairs
Following his return to Germany, von Bolschwing went to work at the SD-Hauptamt in Berlin, where he joined the staff of SS-Untersturmführer Leopold von Mildenstein, the director of the SD’s Jewish Affairs Office (Judenreferat), as a consultant on Zionism and Palestinian affairs. In this position, von Bolschwing would author numerous reports and policy proposals outlining various punitive measures designed to eliminate the Jewish presence in Germany through a campaign of forced emigration and economic restrictions. In January 1937 he wrote a memorandum concerning Jewish emigration, referencing the anti-Jewish riots in Berlin in 1935:
Von Bolschwing's report suggested using this kind of organized, but unlawful, street violence in combination with legal bureaucratic measures such as economic sanctions, special taxes, and passport controls to purge Germany of its Jews. Heinrich Himmler was impressed with the document, and assigned von Bolschwing to work as a senior advisor to the Deputy Director of the Jewish Affairs Office, Adolf Eichmann. From 1937-38, von Bolschwing would become Eichmann's primary mentor on Jewish matters and Zionism. During his 1961 trial in Israel, Eichmann stated:
Over the ensuing years, von Bolschwing authored dozens more memos and reports detailing useful administrative methods by which to persecute Germany's Jews. His suggestions to Eichmann included the expropriation of Jewish assets and property, the labeling of their passports, and allowing Jews to leave Germany but not to return. Rather than advocating the mass murder of Jews, von Bolschwing proposed making their individual lives so onerous and unbearable that they would opt to leave Germany voluntarily and permanently. In another memorandum submitted to Eichmann, von Bolschwing stated:
Von Bolschwing would also play a central role in planning Eichmann's 1937 visit to Palestine as well as arranging two secret conferences in Cairo and Vienna between Eichmann and his former Haganah interlocutor Fievel Polkes to discuss the potential relocation of German Jews to Palestine. These events solidified Eichmann's reputation as one of the SD's foremost Judenberater (Jewish experts), creating the foundation for his later career as the administrative architect of the Holocaust. Von Bolschwing married his first wife, Brigitte Klatzendorff, in March 1938. The couple would have one child, Gisbert Otto Richard Ernst von Bolschwing, who was born in July 1939.
Following the German annexation of Austria, Eichmann was dispatched to Vienna and given the responsibility of crafting a solution to the "Jewish question" in the newly acquired territory. He appointed von Bolschwing to serve as his primary adjutant throughout the project. The two men worked together to put in place many of the policies relating to forced immigration and the confiscation of Jewish property that von Bolschwing had articulated during his earlier service at the Jewish Affairs Office in Berlin. This collaboration proved to be a major professional success for both Eichmann and von Bolschwing and led to the establishment of the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna. This agency would become the prototype for similar SS organizations used to implement the deportation of Jews in Amsterdam, Prague and many other European cities.
World War II
Romania
With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, German policy toward the Jews shifted from voluntary emigration to forced deportation. Eichmann and von Bolschwing returned from Austria and went to work for the newly-established Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), the police and security arm of the Nazi state. Eichmann assumed leadership of the Gestapo's Referat IV B4 (Jewish Affairs and Evacuation) while von Bolschwing was assigned to the Ausland-SD Amt VI (Foreign Security Service). Von Bolschwing was officially inducted into the Allgemeine-SS (SS # 353.603) on 30 December 1939 and was accorded the rank of SS-Untersturmführer (Second Lieutenant). He would once again serve as a consultant on Zionism and Palestine to SS-Brigadeführer Heinz Jost, the director of the Ausland-SD. His new superior was deeply impressed with von Bolschwing’s abilities and his aristocratic pedigree, describing him in one internal RSHA memo as:
In March 1940 von Bolschwing received a prestigious appointment to the German embassy in Bucharest, Romania as Sonderbeauftragter (Special Representative) to the autocratic government of King Carol II. In this role, von Bolschwing was tasked with directing the SD’s intelligence operations in Romania, including the supervision of all SD agents operating in the country.
In Bucharest, von Bolschwing quickly aligned himself with the ultra-nationalist Iron Guard, Romania’s foremost fascist and anti-Semitic political movement. Von Bolschwing’s efforts to promote the political fortunes of the Iron Guard initially met with great success. In September 1940 Marshal Ion Antonescu, with Iron Guard support, forced the abdication of Carol II and installed himself as dictator of Romania. Under the new regime, known as the National Legionary State, the Iron Guard played a dominant political role, with five of their members taking over government ministries, including Foreign Affairs and the Interior. A raft of anti-Jewish laws were swiftly implemented. Many of them, such as the required registration of all Jewish property, were patterned on similar edicts instituted in Austria by Eichmann and von Bolschwing.
In spite of these early accomplishments, the political arrangement between Antonescu and the Iron Guard broke down following the events of the November 1940 Jilava massacre. Acting on his own initiative, von Bolschwing conspired with Iron Guard leaders Horia Sima and Valerian Trifa to organize a violent attempt to overthrow the Antonescu government. The so-called Legionnaires Rebellion of 20-23 January 1941 was accompanied by a shockingly brutal pogrom against the Jews of Bucharest. The city’s Jewish quarter was fire-bombed and several synagogues were looted and torched by Iron Guard death squads. As many as 630 people, 125 of them Romanian Jews, were killed in the violence, with another 400 reported missing. Dozens of Jews were gruesomely murdered in a local slaughterhouse. According to US Ambassador to Romania Franklin Mott Gunther:
The revolt was eventually crushed by the Romanian military, which had remained loyal to Antonescu. In the aftermath of the failed coup, von Bolschwing sheltered thirteen high-ranking Iron Guard members, Horia Sima and Valerian Trifa among them, in the SD residence on the grounds of the German Embassy in Bucharest, much to the outrage of the German Ambassador, Manfred Freiherr von Killinger. Von Bolschwing would later arrange for the escape of the Iron Guard leaders from Romania to Bulgaria. On 30 January 1941, von Bolschwing was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain). However, his blatant meddling in Romania's domestic political affairs enraged not only the Antonescu regime, which demanded his immediate withdrawal from Bucharest, but also the German Foreign Office, which was then seeking to cultivate Antonescu as a potential ally in the impending invasion of the Soviet Union later that year.
Downfall & imprisonment
Despite the intense controversy his actions in Bucharest had provoked, von Bolschwing’s status as a favorite of Ausland-SD chief Heinz Jost shielded him from any professional consequences in the immediate aftermath of the Legionnaires' rebellion. In an effort to salvage his protege’s career, Jost issued a “post-factum” approval of the attempted coup and von Bolschwing’s part in it. While this gesture would allow von Bolschwing to continue functioning as a leading operative of the Sicherheitsdienst for the time being, it failed to mollify German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and the breach between the security services and the Foreign Office over the events in Bucharest continued to fester.
After departing his post in Romania in March 1941, von Bolschwing traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria in order to facilitate the “safe transport” of the Iron Guard leadership into exile in Germany. While there, von Bolschwing received orders from Berlin that he was to serve as chief of intelligence for the SD in northern Greece during the now imminent Balkan offensive. Von Bolschwing was appointed commander of the SS security unit Sonderkommando Saloniki and took part in Operation Marita, the German invasion of Greece, in April 1941. He established the headquarters of his Kommando in the port of Thessaloniki shortly after the city was occupied by the Wehrmacht. However, von Bolschwing’s time as the SD intelligence chief in northern Greece was extremely brief. In May 1941, after just a month in Thessaloniki, he was released from command after protesting to the RSHA that he was “not qualified for such police-military duties”.
In August 1941, von Bolschwing was reassigned to the German-occupied Netherlands as an intelligence officer. After being recalled to Berlin in December 1941, von Bolschwing discovered events at the RSHA during his absence had served to seriously undermine his position within the security services. The career of von Bolschwing’s main political patron, Heinz Jost, had fallen into disrepair. By late-1941, Jost was embroiled in a bitter power struggle with his deputy, Walter Schellenberg, who enjoyed the backing of the powerful RSHA chief Reinhard Heydrich. Jost was ousted as director of the Ausland-SD in March 1942. With the loss of Jost’s protection, von Bolschwing was removed from his position with the Ausland-SD and severely reprimanded for his alleged insubordination and disregard of diplomatic protocol in Bucharest.
While von Bolschwing was allowed to retain his rank and membership in the SS, he effectively became persona non grata throughout the organization and its security apparatus. With his once promising career with RSHA now definitively at an end, von Bolschwing went to Vienna, where he was hospitalized for an undisclosed illness from January to July of 1942. Following his release, von Bolschwing was arrested by the Gestapo in September 1942 and incarcerated in Berlin, likely as punishment for his actions in Bucharest, though no formal charges were ever filed against him. After seven months of confinement, von Bolschwing emerged from prison in April 1943 with his reputation irredeemably tarnished.
Austria
Following his release from prison, the demise of his SS career and his divorce from his first wife, von Bolschwing returned his attention to the sphere of business and commerce. Specifically, he involved himself in the expropriation of Jewish property, opportunistically seeking to apply the expertise he had gained at the Office of Jewish Affairs to reinvigorate his sagging fortunes. Von Bolschwing moved to Amsterdam, where he secured a lucrative partnership with Bank voor Onroerende Zaken, an investment house that specialized in the seizure of assets and property belonging to Jewish citizens of the German occupied-Netherlands. In mid-1943 von Bolschwing participated in the Aryanization of Chemiefirma, a formerly Jewish-owned medical supply company in Hamburg. After illegally acquiring 20 percent ownership of the company for himself, von Bolschwing also facilitated the use of Chemiefirma'''s Vienna office as a front for the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service.
In October 1943 von Bolschwing remarried, taking as his second wife Ruth von Pfaundler, an Austrian national whose brother was a high-ranking member of O-5, an Austrian anti-Nazi resistance group. In late-1944, with the tide of war having turned decisively against the Third Reich, von Bolschwing left Germany and moved with his family to Salzburg, Austria. He soon abandoned his previous loyalties to Nazi Party and the SS and, under the auspices of his new brother-in-law, von Bolschwing served as a partisan of the Austrian Resistance in the Tyrolean Alps during the closing months of the war.
Von Bolschwing was formally expelled from the Schutzstaffel in February 1945 and by April of that year he was collaborating directly with the headquarters of the US Army’s 71st Infantry Division. He quickly established himself as an extremely valuable asset, providing intelligence on German troop movements and also serving as a guide for US forces during the campaign in Tyrol. In a postwar testimonial, a senior officer of the 71st Infantry, Lt. Colonel Ray F. Goggin, lauded his efforts, stating:
Postwar
Gehlen Organization
Following the end of World War II in Europe, von Bolschwing became associated with the US Army Counter-Intelligence Corps (CIC) in Salzburg and later worked for the American military government (OMGUS) in Bavaria from 1945-46. Eager to insulate himself from possible prosecution for war crimes, von Bolschwing sought to capitalize on the emerging Cold War against the Soviet Union in order to further ingratiate himself to his American benefactors. In early-1947, he offered his services to the Vienna office of the Central Intelligence Group (CIG), the immediate predecessor of the CIA, but was rejected. In a contemporaneous assessment, US officials dismissed von Bolschwing was an unreliable opportunist, noting:
Von Bolschwing, however, was undeterred and subsequently obtained a position as a covert operative with the Gehlen Organization, an American-subsidized West German intelligence service staffed primarily by former officials of the Third Reich. He was attached to Ausodeom, the Gehlen Organization’s Austrian branch, and posted in Vienna, where he specialized in recruiting potential undercover agents and orchestrating their infiltration into Romania, Hungary and other nations of the Soviet Bloc.
With the advent of the Greek Civil War, von Bolshwing’s superiors in the Gehlen Organization became anxious for information on Soviet activities in the Balkans and directed him to mobilize his erstwhile contacts among exiled members of the Iron Guard in order to reconstruct his former SD intelligence network in Romania. In 1948, von Bolschwing traveled to Rome, Italy where he met with , the leader of a faction of exiled former Iron Guard members, and enlisted his assistance in building an anti-Soviet espionage apparatus in Romania. The enterprise, however, produced mediocre results. Few Iron Guardsmen were interested in leaving exile and returning to their homeland as spies and those who did formed an intelligence network that was regularly penetrated by Soviet agents and produced information that was often of only negligible value.
Despite this lackluster professional outcome, his employment by the Gehlen Organization was extremely beneficial to von Bolschwing personally. He had a lucrative cover occupation with Austria Verlags GmbH, a US-funded publishing house associated with the Austrian League for the United Nations. More importantly, he was also able to leverage his connections to the American and West German intelligence communities to secure a preliminary clearance of his wartime record from an Austrian denazification court. However, by 1949 the Gehlen Organization had lost confidence in von Bolschwing’s abilities and his ouster from the group appeared imminent.
CIA
Ironically, as von Bolschwing’s star was fading within the Gehlen Organization, events would produce a situation that enabled him to achieve his initial postwar ambition of working directly for US intelligence. In the autumn of 1949, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) initiated an overhaul of US-sponsored espionage activities in Austria in an effort to streamline operations in preparation for the coming end of the Allied occupation. The decision was made to dissolve Ausodeum, the Gehlen Organization’s Austrian sub-section, and to incorporate the group’s former assets that were deemed most valuable into the CIA. Von Bolschwing was prominent among the operatives to be evaluated.
In his bid to join the CIA, von Bolschwing found a supporter in James H. Critchfield, the influential chief of the CIA station in Pullach, Bavaria and previously the Agency's primary liaison with Ausodeum. Despite the middling results of his Romanian operation and his questionable abilities as an agent, Critchfield nevertheless viewed von Bolschwing as an invaluable potential asset with useful anti-Soviet contacts throughout central and eastern Europe, telling his superiors in Washington:
Whereas US intelligence agencies had seen fit to reject von Bolschwing as self-serving and disloyal in 1947, the major intensification of the Cold War over the ensuing two years had led them to see those matters as less vital by 1949. Von Bolschwing had also impressed his CIA interlocutors with claims that his previous employer, the Gehlen Organization, was likely compromised by Soviet intelligence due to its reliance on former Wehrmacht officers to fill its upper-ranks. He would later complain to US officials:
The strategy proved effective and by February 1950 von Bolschwing was working on behalf of the CIA station in Pullach as a case officer, serving under the Agency cryptonym: "Unrest". He also received ample US funding in order to establish another smaller and more secretive West German intelligence service that was intended to operate parallel to the Gehlen Organization. While continuing to direct the infiltration of CIA assets into Communist-controlled eastern Europe, von Bolschwing’s group also secretly monitored the actions and personnel of the Gehlen Organization for disloyalty or potential penetration by Soviet intelligence, reporting their findings to their American sponsors.
Cover-up
During this period, CIA knowledge about the specifics of von Bolschwing’s Nazi past was limited. One reason for this was von Bolschwing’s own deceptiveness on the matter. In his interactions with CIA officials, von Bolschwing was careful to attribute his Nazi Party membership to business considerations, particularly his efforts to obtain government approval for a cement factory that he was planning to build in East Prussia. Von Bolschwing also studiously emphasized his opposition to communism and distanced himself from the Third Reich’s aggressive German ultranationalism.Lichtblau, Eric. The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler's Men In 1949, von Bolschwing claimed to American interviewers that when he joined the Party:
US officials also appeared unwilling to closely investigate the potentially problematic past of such a seemingly valuable ally in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. In September 1949 von Bolschwing submitted a curriculum vitae to the CIA that conveniently made no mention of his work for the Office of Jewish Affairs. Similarly, a detailed background report on von Bolschwing that had been commissioned by Critchfield while evaluating him for potential CIA service, also completely omitted any information about his involvement with the Judenreferat or his association with Adolf Eichmann. No effort was made by US officials to fill in the gaps in either document.
However, even without the Eichmann information, enough was known about von Bolschwing’s unsavory past that the CIA understood that any revelation of his work on their behalf would prove a serious embarrassment. His association with the Bucharest pogrom and the sheltering of the Iron Guard leaders was widely known, as was the extent of his dishonesty. US dealings with such a disreputable figure were cause for discomfort among some CIA officials. As one Agency memorandum noted:
Nevertheless, the exigencies of Cold War politics compelled the CIA to maintain its relationship with von Bolschwing in spite of these misgivings. Typical of this sentiment was a missive from another CIA officer, who assessed von Bolschwing’s membership in the Nazi Party and the SS as being:
Matters became more complicated for von Bolschwing and his American sponsors in 1950 when the Austrian Ministry of the Interior began inquiring about the former SS officer’s presence in their country. At this time, von Bolschwing was not an Austrian citizen, had never paid taxes and was still awaiting formal denazification. Von Bolschwing continued to deny that he was ever an active member of the Nazi Party or the SS, prompting Austrian officials to request that US occupation authorities in Germany provide them with whatever documentation they had regarding his wartime activities and associations. Critchfield and the CIA officers in Pullach, however, were aware that von Bolschwing’s SS personnel records, housed in the Berlin Document Center (BDC), would not only easily discredit their agent’s claims, but also expose his previous employment with the RSHA and his connection to the Bucharest pogrom, creating a major scandal for the Agency.
With the support of Richard Helms, Chief of German Operations for the CIA in Washington, Critchfield overcame the objections of the Agency’s Berlin station chief Peter Sichel and had the incriminating files removed from the BDC. Any future inquiry from the Austrians or from another agency of the US government would now be met with the terse response: “No file available”. In a cable to the CIA station chiefs in Berlin and Karlsruhe, Helms justified he and Critchfield’s actions by emphasizing that it was imperative to maintain von Bolschwing’s ability to carry on his work for the Agency unimpeded:
However, in spite of this seeming vote of confidence, by mid-1951 both Helms and the CIA in Pullach had apparently soured on von Bolschwing and his intelligence network’s mediocre output, in much the same way the Gehlen Organization had in 1949. In an internal memorandum, Critchfield concluded of von Bolschwing, simply:
Critchfield transferred responsibility for von Bolschwing and his network to the CIA’s operating base in Salzburg, where, despite his consistent underperformance, von Bolschwing was elevated to the role of the Agency’s principal agent in Austria in January 1952. He was once again tasked with establishing an intelligence-gathering network, this time in Czechoslovakia, but the results were just as uninspiring as those of his previous attempts in Romania. By early-1953, one year into their contract with von Bolschwing, the CIA in Austria decided to close the Romanian network down permanently. With that, von Bolschwing’s career as an intelligence agent was essentially finished.
Emigration to the United States
In July 1953 the CIA’s Austrian section recommended to headquarters in Washington that von Bolschwing be granted US citizenship in order for him to resume his work in Austria as a formal CIA officer. CIA headquarters, however, balked at the notion of continuing to employ von Bolschwing and was eager to cut ties with the troublesome agent. In this, they were supported by von Bolschwing's former champion, Pullach station chief James Critchfield, who had now come to view von Bolschwing as a charlatan. Warning his superiors in Washington:
Though the CIA was unwilling to continue employing von Bolschwing as an agent, it proved amenable to the idea of bringing him to the US, viewing this as an appropriate reward for his "long faithful service to US intelligence". It would, however, prove to be a complex and drawn out undertaking as von Bolschwing’s membership in the Nazi Party and the SS made him clearly ineligible for a visa, let alone citizenship. To sidestep these awkwards facts, von Bolschwing leaned heavily on his brief service with the Austrian Resistance in his dealings with US immigration officials and also portrayed his 1942-43 imprisonment by the Gestapo, for his role in the Legionnaires’ Revolt, as resulting from his principled opposition to the Nazi regime. In a document submitted in support of his bid for immigration, von Bolschwing shamelessly maintained:
Despite this, the CIA made no effort to conceal von Bolschwing’s Nazi-affiliations, recognizing its futility. It did, however, task its Eastern European Division with coordinating von Bolschwing’s movements with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). The Agency also went to great lengths to circumvent the routine character inquiries carried out on prospective US citizens by the State Department. CIA sources in Austria provided von Bolschwing with falsified police and military background reports that contained no derogatory information about his wartime activities. They would also expedite the issuing of travel documents to von Bolschwing and his family, via the US Consulate in Munich, in August 1953. CIA headquarters in Washington would later intervene directly with the INS, falsely claiming that they had already conducted the necessary background checks on von Bolschwing and found nothing that would preclude his entry into the United States.
A major difficulty would emerge in late-1953, however, when the CIA team in Austria turned up a pair of long forgotten agent reports during a cursory examination of its archives. Both reports contained the damaging revelation that von Bolschwing had worked closely with Adolf Eichmann in the Office of Jewish Affairs. However, despite this potentially explosive detail, the CIA continued its superficial approach to investigating their former agent’s disagreeable past. A polygraph test was administered to von Bolschwing in which he was asked directly if he had ever known Adolf Eichmann. In response, von Bolschwing told an obvious lie, claiming he had met his former direct superior at the SD only twice. The polygraph registered his deception, but the Agency had already made its decision about what they planned to do with their problematic asset. The test’s administrator issued a dismissive response to his superiors, stating that von Bolschwing had only been dishonest regarding “a minor point”.
Amid preparations for his departure, CIA officials in Salzburg advised von Bolschwing that, despite INS knowledge of his Nazi past, he should avoid mentioning any association with the Party or the SS following his arrival in the United States. The Agency was fearful that, should von Bolschwing reveal his previous work for the Third Reich, the INS “would be forced, for appearances sake” to deport him, but the CIA was also cognizant of the fact that if he were to deny these affiliations completely in an official setting, it could also invite potential legal difficulties. The CIA’s Eastern European Division would elaborate on how it had counseled von Bolschwing to address his wartime history while residing in the US:
In January 1954, von Bolschwing, with his wife and son in tow, departed Genoa, Italy aboard the luxury ocean liner SS Andrea Doria bound for New York and using the pseudonym of US Army Captain Albert D. Eisner, a fictitious identity provided by the CIA. Following their arrival on 2 February, the family were hosted in the Boston home of a former military intelligence officer who had previously worked with von Bolschwing in Europe. Having brought him to the US in what it saw as a reward for his service, the CIA terminated its relationship with von Bolschwing, ordering him to break off all relations and to contact the Agency only in the event of a "dire emergency" which was a "life or death situation."
Life in America
Business career
During his initial months in the United States, von Bolschwing found work as an electrician at a power station owned by General Electric. He soon managed to parlay his skill with languages and his knowledge of international commerce into a lucrative private sector career. In 1955, von Bolschwing was hired as a taxation and foreign trade specialist with the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company Warner-Lambert. Von Bolschwing would excel at ascending the corporate ladder and by 1957 he was working as the chief assistant to the corporation’s Director of International Operations as well as consulting on several of Warner-Lambert’s commercial projects in Western Europe, traveling there numerous times to conduct company business.
Von Bolschwing also kept up his practice of amassing profitable social and professional connections with various influential personalities. During his time at Warner-Lambert, these contacts included the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the self-made multi-millionaire and close friend of then-Vice President Richard Nixon, Elmer Holmes Bobst, and the honorary president of Warner-Lambert's board of directors, former New Jersey Governor Alfred E. Driscoll. According to one of his business associates at this time:
In 1959, von Bolschwing formally applied to become a US citizen. He pointedly omitted his previous membership in the Nazi Party and the SS from the application, though was legally required to disclose these affiliations under US law and had been previously admonished to do so by the CIA. Von Bolschwing was granted citizenship later that year. With his status as an American now secure, von Bolschwing began pursuing his next professional ambition, a career in government and politics. Through his relationship with Elmer Bobst and former Governor Driscoll, von Bolschwing had established ties to the New Jersey Republican Party wherein he cultivated a collection of state and local politicians, later persuading them to lobby the US government on his behalf, with the goal of obtaining an appointment to a prominent federal office.
However, matters were complicated for von Bolschwing in May 1960 when Adolf Eichmann was abducted by agents of the Mossad in Argentina, where he had been living under a false identity for over a decade. Eichmann was subsequently smuggled to the State of Israel to face trial, and eventual execution, for his role in perpetrating the Holocaust. News of the capture of his former superior officer at the Office of Jewish Affairs caused von Bolschwing to panic. He correctly predicted that his name would be mentioned during the course of Eichmann’s trial and feared that any renewed investigation would uncover his own role in the persecution and murder of European Jews under the Nazis. Von Bolschwing contacted his former CIA handlers, claiming he feared his own abduction by Israeli authorities due to his connection to Eichmann and requested their protection. This event shocked the CIA’s Counterintelligence staff, who had heretofore been unaware of von Bolschwing’s involvement with the Jewish Affairs Office and subsequently began their own investigation to determine the Agency’s possible exposure in sheltering an alleged war criminal.
As the fallout from the Eichmann trial continued, von Bolschwing’s efforts to obtain government office in the US succeeded. In 1961, he was nominated by the US State Department to serve as the representative of the International Cooperation Administration (the precursor of the US Agency for International Development) in New Delhi, India. By this time, however, the CIA inquiry into von Bolschwing’s association with Eichmann had unearthed a wealth of unfavorable information about his Nazi-era career that the Agency was anxious to keep concealed.
In a meeting with CIA officials in New York, von Bolschwing was informed that his dishonesty on his citizenship application in 1959 was grounds for legal action against him and that, furthermore, the CIA was obligated to inform the US Justice Department of his deceit, setting in motion his probable extradition to West Germany to stand trial for war crimes. Eager to avoid the political embarrassment this would likely entail, the Agency offered to continue to shield von Bolschwing from prosecution in exchange for the withdrawal of his candidacy for the post of international development representative to India. Von Bolschwing accepted the arrangement and agreed to limit himself to the private sector. In an effort to ensure their inconvenient former agent did not violate this deal, the CIA issued a directive advising its station chiefs in West Germany that, while von Bolschwing would be making regular trips to the country, he was doing so as a private citizen and not as a representative of the Agency.
This setback, however, did not adversely impact von Bolschwing’s business career. By 1963, he and his family had relocated to Boston, where von Bolschwing worked as an executive of the Cabot Corporation, a multi-billion dollar specialty chemical conglomerate. Von Bolschwing was recruited by the company’s chairman, Thomas Dudley Cabot, to serve as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Cabot’s West German subsidiary. In this capacity, von Bolschwing was instrumental in obtaining financing from the First National Bank of Boston for the development of a $50 million industrial complex in Frankfurt, West Germany dedicated to the production of the chemical compound carbon black. During this time von Bolschwing also maintained a profitable side project importing wine from South America.
TCI scandal
In March 1969 von Bolschwing was retained as an international business consultant by the commercial technology firm Trans-International Computer Investment Corporation (TCI) and relocated to Sacramento, California. TCI held a controlling interest in various Silicon Valley-based subsidiaries overseeing the development of high-volume computer networks for businesses as well as navigation systems for oil tankers employing satellite communications. The company’s portfolio also included multiple classified contracts with the US Defense Department related to the possible military-applications of satellite technology. An internal corporate memorandum extolled von Bolschwing’s extensive international business contacts and their potential benefits for TCI:
Once established in Sacramento, von Bolschwing continued his custom of fostering close personal relationships with significant business and political figures. While at TCI, von Bolschwing’s list of influential associates included the prominent San Francisco corporate lawyer, and later US Appeals Court Judge, William Newsom, aerospace developer and Fairchild Aircraft executive Emanuel Fthenakis and Helene von Damm, the personal secretary to California Governor Ronald Reagan. Among von Bolschwing’s most advantageous connections during this time was the billionaire philanthropist J. Paul Getty Jr., an heir to the Getty family petroleum fortune and a powerful member of TCI’s board of directors. It was through Getty’s personal intercession that von Bolschwing would be elevated to the office of president of TCI in 1970.
Von Bolschwing’s continued professional success would, however, be upended later that year when the California Department of Corporations launched a wide-ranging fraud investigation against TCI. Several of the company’s major shareholders were accused of syndicating their stock and selling it off to small investors in Sacramento, an act made illegal under a 1968 law requiring that all security sales be registered. The Department of Corporations suspended the trading of all TCI stock and the ensuing scandal was denounced by the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office as:
While several of TCI’s largest shareholders would be prosecuted in connection with the scheme, von Bolschwing managed to avoid being implicated and retained his position as president. But, his efforts to arrest the company’s rapid deterioration in the aftermath of the scandal would prove unsuccessful and TCI ultimately collapsed, filing for bankruptcy in 1971.
Later life & government investigations
Following the collapse of TCI, von Bolschwing continued to reside in the Sacramento-area, never again seeking a high-profile corporate position and instead leading a quiet life as a pensioner. However, in 1978 his carefully constructed retirement would begin to unravel. That year his wife Ruth would commit suicide following a protracted illness and, in Washington, an official inquiry into suspected Nazi war criminals residing in the United States was launched by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, following pressure from the US House Judiciary Committee. Among the first targets of the federal probe was Valerian Trifa, one of the Iron Guard leaders most responsible for inciting the Bucharest pogrom, who was currently living in Michigan. Trifa was also prominent among the Iron Guard members sheltered by von Bolschwing following the failed January 1941 rebellion.
Their inquiry into Trifa eventually led INS investigators to von Bolschwing, whom they initially regarded as a potential witness for the prosecution. It was only after a review of the CIA’s files on him that the INS determined von Bolschwing was not only a probable war criminal but that he had also lied about his past Nazi affiliations on his application for citizenship, a fact that made him liable for deportation from the United States. A full-scale investigation into von Bolschwing’s immigration status and wartime activities was subsequently initiated over the objections of the CIA, which claimed that any inquiry into von Bolschwing could potentially compromise the Agency. Von Bolschwing was interviewed by INS officials in June 1979. He would deny that he had been a member of the SS or the Nazi Party and, while von Bolschwing acknowledged that he had aided in the escape of the Iron Guard leadership, he asserted that he had done so for humanitarian reasons.
In September 1979 the federal investigation of von Bolschwing was transferred from the INS to the Office of Special Investigations (OSI), a specialized unit of the US Justice Department dedicated to the identification and expulsion of former Nazis and Nazi-collaborators living in the United States. The mounting scandal broke in early-1980, when the famed Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal revealed von Bolschwing’s presence in the United States to the international media. Amid intense public scrutiny, the CIA was compelled to abandon its opposition to the case against von Bolschwing. In a communication to the OSI, the Agency’s Office of General Counsel conceded:
After further investigation, von Bolschwing was deposed by the OSI in February 1981. Under oath, von Bolschwing acknowledged his prior Nazi affiliations, but maintained that he had been directed to conceal those associations by the CIA. Von Bolschwing’s attorneys contended this claim nullified the OSI’s case against their client and declared they would fight the denaturalization in court. Nevertheless, OSI Director Allan A. Ryan, Jr. filed a three-count complaint against Otto von Bolschwing with the US District Court for the Eastern District of California in May 1981. The filing alleged:
By this time, however, the elderly von Bolschwing was seriously ill, having been diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a rare neurodegenerative disorder. His declining condition raised serious doubts about von Bolschwing's competence to stand trial. In light of the circumstances, OSI Director Allan Ryan concluded a plea agreement with von Bolschwing's attorneys.
Under the terms of the arrangement, von Bolschwing publicly admitted that he had lied about his membership in the Nazi Party, the SS and the RSHA, but was not required to disclose his involvement with Adolf Eichmann, the Office of Jewish Affairs or the Bucharest pogrom. Von Bolschwing also agreed that he would not contest his loss of US citizenship, while the OSI resolved that it would not attempt to deport him, given the dire state of his health. The plea agreement was upheld by the US District Court in Sacramento on 22 December 1981. Otto von Bolschwing died in a nursing home in Carmichael, California ten weeks later, on 7 March 1982. He was 72 years old. Von Bolschwing remains the highest-ranking Nazi war criminal ever prosecuted by the Office of Special Investigations.
References
External links
"Report des US-Justizministeriums: USA gewährten Nazis Unterschlupf", Der Spiegel, November 14, 2010
Bibliography
Klaus Eichner. Faschistische Ostexperten im Dienste der US-Geheimdienste" in: Holocaust-Täter im Dienste von BND und CIA''. Kominform. 6 April 2008
Klaus POPA. Völkisches Handbuch Südosteuropa Online Lexikon B . 3 February 2010 (pdf) p. 84
1909 births
1982 deaths
People from Sępopol
People from East Prussia
German untitled nobility
SS-Hauptsturmführer
Reich Security Main Office personnel
Romania in World War II
Adolf Eichmann
German spies
German intelligence agencies
Cold War organizations
Cold War history of Germany
Holocaust perpetrators in Romania
People from Sacramento, California
Interwar-period spies
World War II spies for Germany
American Cold War spymasters
CIA agents convicted of crimes
Espionage scandals and incidents
Loss of United States citizenship by prior Nazi affiliation