Alfred Frauenknecht

Mirage III in the Israeli Air Force Museum

IAI Nescher in the Israeli Air Force Museum

Alfred Frauenknecht (* 1926 ; † June 8, 1991 in Aadorf ) was a Swiss engineer and spy .

background

After the Six Day War , France imposed an arms embargo on Israel, and Dassault Mirage 5 aircraft that had already been ordered could no longer be delivered. Since the embargo also affected spare parts deliveries for the Dassault Mirage III in service and the Israeli air force urgently needed new aircraft, Israel was forced to procure the necessary parts independently of France. Using the construction plans and reverse engineering procured by Alfred Frauenknecht in Switzerland , Israel Aircraft Industries developed the IAI Nescher fighter aircraft .

Life

Frauenknecht worked for Sulzer AG from the beginning of the 1950s , from 1962 as an authorized representative and technical manager and from 1967 as an authorized signatory . Switzerland began building the Mirage III under license at the beginning of the 1960s. Frauenknecht worked in the department that was responsible for building the SNECMA Atar 9C engines . In 1968 he officially met the Israeli military attaché on behalf of his superior , who finally persuaded him to obtain secret construction plans for the Mirage. Frauenknecht demanded an agent wage of $ 200,000 and provided 200,000 documents and technical drawings that had been entrusted to him for destruction. Instead, he exchanged them for newspapers in a rented garage, which were then burned instead of the originals. A woman servant's helper took the drawings to Germany in 24 boxes, where they were handed over to the Israelis. Frauenknecht was caught in September 1969 and sentenced to four and a half years in prison on April 23, 1971 after five days of trial. It was the largest espionage trial in Switzerland after World War II .

literature

• Gerhard Mauz : Between Cain and Gantenbein , in: Der Spiegel 18/1971, p. 107ff, PDF
• Peter Steinmüller: The Mirage and the Mossad , in: VDI nachrichten 23/2018 (archive)
• oV: Espionage: hot goods , in: Der Spiegel 41/1969, p. 135ff. (Archive) ( PDF )

Web links

• Obituary in the Los Angeles Times
• Obituary in the New York Times
• The Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 1971 about the process
• Marcel Gyr: A Swiss man smuggles two tons of secret plans into Israel. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from April 30, 2018.
• Alfred Frauenknecht in the Dodis databaseof diplomatic documents in Switzerland

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Four and a half years in prison", in Pforzheimer Zeitung of April 24, 1971, p. 6