Paul Borchardt

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Paul Borchardt (* 1886 in Munich ? † 1957 ) was a German colonial geographer , geologist , theosophist and spy .

Life

Borchardt was already interested in geography in his younger years and also turned to theosophy . His publication in 1910, a commentary on Isis Unveiled by Helena Blavatsky , identified him as a member of the “ Theosophical Society ” and the “ Society for Geography in Berlin ”. Borchardt was a participant in the First World War under Colmar von der Goltz in the Middle East , worked as an aviator and probably as an agent. He served in the German army from 1913 . In 1929 he received a professorship in Munich. As a researcher, he complained in 1926 because of hisTunisian excavations in the ruins of Gabès the Triton Lake as the site of Plato's Atlantis .

On the basis of the law to restore the civil service of April 1933, he was dismissed from civil service because of his Jewish descent . Arrested in the course of the Reichskristallnacht in autumn 1938, he was taken to Munich prison and later to the Dachau concentration camp , where, according to later information from MI5 , he was mistreated.

exile

On the intervention of a relative of the head of the Abwehr , Admiral Canaris , the Abwehrstelle in Munich was released. From this he received travel documents with which he arrived in Great Britain in 1939. Here he allegedly converted to Catholicism . The British secret service MI5 had already had a file on him since 1920 (Az. KV 2/2429), but it was undecided how to deal with Borchardt, who offered himself to the Secret Service as a “Jewish anti-Nazi”: “[E ] t is perhaps the first confirmed example of a hostile agent entering this country as a Jewish refugee. ”He was neither interned nor restricted in his freedom of movement and was presumed to have been offered a return because of his non-Jewish wife.

In 1940 Borchardt traveled to the USA and also offered his services here. He was found as contact person "Robert" in March 1941 in the German notebook of Major Ulrich von der Osten, which the "Abwehr IH West" had sent under the code name "Don Julio Lopez Lido" as a messenger from the Spanish embassy to the USA and who was with died in a car accident on Broadway. When the German Consulate General in New York burned its files in the fireplace shortly before the USA entered the war , a porter who worked for the FBI secured a part for his client. Borchardt was identified from the documents as the member "Robert" of the Joe K spy ring around Kurt Frederick Ludwig . The British Security Coordination played a decisive role in the flying of the ring . On March 13, 1942, Borchardt was sentenced by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York for conspiracy and espionage "before the war" to 20 years in prison instead of death.

Borchardt was fluent in several languages ​​and, as a member of the Royal Geographical Society, had many acquaintances in the USA. During the trial he kept silent about the names of the German officers who had helped him out of the concentration camp and to escape. With the support of the Foreign Office , a former Abwehr officer in Munich obtained Borchardt's early release and a pension after the war.

Publications

  • A commentary on the work The Unveiled Isis by HP Blavatsky. Theosophical publishing house Dr. Hugo Vollrath, Leipzig undated [1910] (56 pages).
  • Plato's island of Atlantis - An attempt at an explanation, with 3 sketches and 2 maps. In: Dr. A. Petermann's communications from Justus Perthes Geographical Institute. Vol. 73, issue 7/8, 1927, pp. 19–32 and plate 3.
  • North Africa and the metal riches of Atlantis. In: Dr. A. Petermann's communications from Justus Perthes' geographical institute. Vol. 73, 1927, pp. 280-282.

literature

Single receipts

  1. ^ Winfried Meyer: Company Seven. A rescue operation for those threatened by the Holocaust from the Foreign Office / Defense in the High Command of the Wehrmacht. Hain, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-445-08571-4 , p. 201.
  2. ↑ webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk , under: German Intelligence Agents and suspected Agents (accessed: March 15, 2019)
  3. ^ Gert Buchheit: The German secret service . List, Munich 1966.
personal data
SURNAME Borchardt, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German spy and geographer
DATE OF BIRTH 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH unsure: Munich
DATE OF DEATH 1957