Karl wolf general ss biography. Biography. Secret meetings in Switzerland

General Karl Wolf (one of the highest SS officers), became widely known in the USSR, thanks to the writer Yulian Semenov and his novel "Seventeen Moments of Spring", which was filmed in a multi-part feature film of the same name (V. Lanovoy played the role of Wolf). The plot was based on the real events of the time when Wolf conducted secret negotiations from the Soviet Union, separate negotiations with Western representatives of the special services (although the United States, as allies, then notified the USSR, but categorically refused to allow it). In any case, any novel or film adaptation is the result of the authors' creation, and the true story and events that took place in the life of Karl Wolf will be described in this article.

photo: Karl Friedrich Otto Wolff

The full name of the SS-Obergruppenführer is "Karl Friedrich Otto Wolf", who was born on May 13, 1900, in a German town called Darmstadt, in the family of a judicial adviser. He studied at a Catholic school and at the age of seventeen, he volunteered for the front, having risen to the order-bearing lieutenant by the end of the First World War, with Iron Crosses I and II degrees.

After the end of World War I, Wolf retired from military service and engaged in commercial and banking activities. Having successfully married in 1923, the daughter of one of the major industrialists, he founded his own commercial and lawyer firm.

photo: Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler with his adjutant Karl Wolff 1933.
Like most of the regular military of the former German Empire, Karl Wolf was among the Nazis. He joined the SS and NSDAP quite late - in 1931. However, during his short service, he managed to gain a reputation as a calm, self-confident and sociable person, who was very loved and respected by his subordinates. In early September 1933, he was appointed adjutant of Heinrich Himmler himself, the Reichsfuehrer SS.

I must say that Wolf Karl never specifically studied military affairs. War itself was his school. In fact, he was more interested in banking, and in particular, the financing of the SS. It was easiest for him to do this, since he had close ties with the business circles of Germany. According to some reports, it was he who became the main initiator of the creation of the so-called Circle of Friends of the SS. This organization included both the directors of various firms and ordinary citizens who not only supported the Nazi policy, but also helped it with finances. Wolf also took an active part in the creation of the symbols of the SS, developed on the basis of Teutonic mysticism.

photo: Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Karl Wolff and others at the Wolf's Lair.
Beginning in 1936, Karl Wolf became Himmler's closest associate and confidant. It was he who for several years carried out communication between his boss and Hitler. Himmler greatly appreciated his employee and considered him his best friend. This is evidenced by the fact that Wolf accompanied him almost everywhere: on numerous trips, at meetings, and even during visits to the "death camps".

In 1943, their relationship deteriorated somewhat. The reason for their quarrel was the divorce and remarriage of Wolf. But despite this, Hitler's confidence in him was still boundless. In the autumn of 1943, Wolf received a new appointment and left for Italy. Here he becomes the supreme Fuhrer of the police and the SS, and two months later - an adviser to the fascist government of Benito Mussolini.

photo: Kurt Daluge, Benito Mussolini, Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, Karl Wolf.
Anticipating the imminent collapse of the Third Reich, Schellenberg, together with Himmler, decided to establish contact with the American intelligence services. And again, the same reliable and proven Wolf acts as a link. He manages to establish the necessary contact through Pope Pius XII. In early March 1945, Wolff first met in Swiss Ascona with a whole group of Americans led by Allen Dulles, where they discussed the surrender of the German army in the Apennines.

photo: Walter Schellenberg
In view of the fact that Washington and Moscow were allies at that time, on March 12 the Americans decided to inform the Soviet government about the negotiations that had begun. Upon learning of this, Stalin demanded that his representatives also participate in them, but was refused. Later, the American ambassador to the Soviet Union, Harriman, explained this decision by the fact that the United States was afraid of a breakdown in negotiations due to unrealistic conditions that could be put forward by representatives from the USSR.

Photo: Special Representative of the President of the United States in the UK and the USSR
Meanwhile, rumors that Karl Wolf was conducting a dialogue with the Americans also reached Bormann, who tried to use this trump card in his game against Heinrich Himmler, who, together with Schellenberg, managed to save the negotiation process at the very last moment.

photo: Martin Bormann - the Fuhrer's personal secretary.
During the dialogue, the Americans did not leave doubts about the powers of Wolf himself, as well as about the ability of the SS to organize such a large-scale event as the surrender of German troops stationed on the territory of fascist Italy. Such distrust was due to the fact that Field Marshal A. Kesselring commanded the German formations at that time.

photo: Albert Kesselring - Field Marshal of the Luftwaffe.
Surrender In order to dispel the last doubts of the Americans, Wolf had to provide his new allies with maps of the location of the Nazi troops in Italy. In the future, it was these documents that helped the United States develop an optimal plan for an offensive on the Apennine Peninsula.

At the end of April 1945, when the victorious Allied offensive in Italy began, Wolf finally received all the necessary powers in order to conclude the long-awaited truce. On April 29, together with Vietinghoff, he signs all the conditions for the surrender of the fascist troops in the Apennines.

photo: Heinrich von Vietinghoff Colonel General
Karl Wolf, contrary to common sense, after the capitulation of Nazi Germany and its occupation by the Allied forces, he did not hide, but, on the contrary, hoped for a pardon and even some compensation from the winners. Even during the negotiations in Switzerland, he made it clear that after the fall of Hitler he expected to receive the post of Minister of the Interior in the new German government. But, contrary to his expectations, he was arrested by the Americans and in 1946 convicted in Germany.

The verdict startled him: four years in labor camps. Karl Wolf was released in 1949. Despite the fact that during his imprisonment he lost almost everything, already in the early 1950s his material well-being reached the level that he had in his best years.

Richard Brightman, a historian at Harvard University, believes that thanks to participation in the negotiations that took place at the end of the war, as well as the personal intercession of Allen Dulles, Wolf was spared his life. Otherwise, the former Nazi general, as a war criminal, would have been destined for a place in the dock in Nuremberg next to his former boss Kaltenbrunner. Moreover, the allies had every reason for this.

photo: Karl Wolf
Why didn't the Americans do it? But the fact is that in this situation, Wolf could tell a completely different version, concerning both the surrender in Italy and the negotiations themselves, which could differ significantly from the official one presented by Allen Dulles. In addition, possible confessions former general could negatively affect the reputation of the American Office of Strategic Services, on the basis of which the CIA was created, and cause irreparable harm to the entire allied coalition.

photo: Allen Welsh Dulles, Director of US Central Intelligence
This thought seems to be correct, since immediately after the resignation of Dulles, which occurred in 1961 as a result of the failed American attempt to invade Cuba, Karl Wolff was again arrested. This time, the German authorities charged him with complicity in the extermination of more than 300 thousand people. Here it was about the deportation of Polish Jews to concentration camps located near the village of Treblinka. Wolf, as one would expect, of course, denied his involvement in the Holocaust, referring to his forgetfulness.

The court hearings on this case lasted for several years. In the end, in September 1964, the sentence was pronounced: 15 years in prison. However, the former Nazi General Karl Wolf was released much earlier - in 1971. The reason for early release is for health reasons. He died in mid-July 1984 in the city of Rosenheim (Bavaria, Germany).

The meeting in Switzerland in February - March 1945 was preceded by many events. Perhaps their countdown can begin at the end of 1943, when Karl Wolff was appointed Higher SS and Police Leader in Nazi-occupied Northern Italy. Having taken this post, he was able to begin to establish contacts with the Vatican.

In May 1944, Karl Wolff was received by the Pope, to whom he declared that he “extremely regrets the war against the West, as a result of which blood is shed in vain European nations which will soon be necessary for the decisive confrontation with the East and communism. It was through the Vatican, in particular with the help of Cardinal Schuster of Milan, that Karl Wolf established the first contacts with representatives of the Western powers. Then, papers on connections with the West of the “figures of July 20” arrested by the SS and the leader of the Abwehr, Wilhelm Canaris, fell into his hands.

The next stage of preparation for negotiations with the West began on February 6, 1945. That day, Karl Wolff was called to Berlin for a briefing. In addition to Adolf Hitler, the meeting was attended by Joachim Ribbentrop, Heinrich Himmler and their representatives at the Fuhrer's Headquarters - Envoy W. von Hevel and SS Gruppenfuehrer Hermann Fegelein. The Fuhrer approved the idea of negotiations, but did not say anything specific.

Karl Wolff received these instructions in a confidential conversation with Adolf Hitler the next day. He instructed him to get in touch with the Western powers with a view to achieving a "temporary truce on the Western and Italian fronts."

The powers given to Karl Wolf by Himmler's Circle of Friends were broader. They provided for the possibility of capitulation of the Nazi troops to the Anglo-Americans in order to open the last road into the depths of Germany and thus achieve the same goal (as in the case of the "Ribbentrop memorandum") - to prevent the further advance of the Soviet troops.

In fact, representatives of business circles offered the Americans the possibility of capitulating Wehrmacht units in Italy.

To establish contacts with London and Washington, Karl Wolf intended to use the channel, the existence of which was well known in Berlin. Since 1942, Allen Dulles, the special commissioner of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Europe and the future head of the US Central Intelligence Agency, was in Switzerland. According to information available in Berlin, this man was a direct representative of the US government, who had the task of dealing with European, especially Eastern European, problems.

Back in February 1943, Allen Dulles met with Prince Hohenlohe, who was close to the ruling circles of Nazi Germany, and set out to him, as a sounding board, the position of those American circles that he represented (Dulles spoke at the meeting as "Dr. Ball", Hohenlohe - as "Mr. Pauls ”), here are its main points:

“The German state must continue to exist as a factor of order and restoration, its division or the separation of Austria is out of the question ... By expanding Poland towards the East and preserving Romania and a strong Hungary, the creation of a cordon sanitaire against Bolshevism should be supported.”

Dulles agreed with the state and industrial organization of Europe on the basis of large spaces, believing that a federal great Germany (like the United States) with an adjoining Danubian confederation would be the best guarantee of order and restoration of Central and Eastern Europe.

However, he doubted that agitated public opinion in the West would reconcile with Hitler. As a result of negotiations between Dulles and Hohenlohe, rather strong ties were established between the OSS and representatives of Heinrich Himmler.

In November 1944, Dulles, who was in Bern, through Italian industrialists, in particular F. Marinotti, the general director of Italy's largest concern for the production of artificial fabrics Snia viscose, and the chief of the well-known company Olivetti, who acted as intermediaries, received from circles SS proposal to start negotiations with a view to reaching an agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Western Europe and the unification of forces against the Soviet Union.

By the beginning of 1945, Allen Dulles already had contacts with the head of the VI Department of the RSHA, Walter Schellenberg, the representative of this department in Northern Italy, V. Harster, and even the chief of the RSHA, Ernst Kaltenbrunner.

Karl Wolf and the circles behind him believed, not without reason, that it was Dulles who would be the most suitable partner for separate negotiations. At the Nuremberg trials, Kaltenbrunner testified that his intermediary in contacts with Dulles was the SS man W. Hoettl, who specialized in relations with the reactionary circles of the Catholic Church. Thus, the ground for negotiations between Karl Wolf and Allen Dulles was already sufficiently prepared.

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