Wolfgang Gans zu Putlitz (diplomat)

ID photo of Wolfgang Gans zu Putlitz under the name William Putters, 1938

Wolfgang Gans Edler Herr zu Putlitz (born July 16, 1899 in Laaske , today a district of Putlitz , † September 3, 1975 in Potsdam ) was a German diplomat. He resisted National Socialism and provided information to the British Secret Service (MI6 / SIS). After the war he became a communist and moved to the GDR , where he took citizenship in 1952.

Life

Gans zu Putlitz came from the Brandenburg noble family Gans zu Putlitz in the Prignitz . He was the heir to Laaske Castle, which also included extensive agricultural holdings. He studied agriculture and economics in Berlin . He received his PhD in 1924 at the University of Hamburg for Dr. rer. pole. Then he entered the diplomatic service , first he worked at the German consulate general in Poznan . In 1928 he came to the embassy in Washington . His next stations were in 1934 at the embassies in Paris and London , where he headed the consular department. There he was recruited by the British espionage service because he did not approve of the war plans of the German National Socialists. On November 1, 1935, he joined the NSDAP . According to the files of the Foreign Office, he was also a member of the SS . At the beginning of the war in 1939 he was the second highest diplomat at the German legation in the neutral Netherlands . From here he provided the British with information about the deployment plans and strength of the German troops. For the British spy Jona Ustinov , called Klop (he was also a German diplomat before), Gans zu Putlitz was one of the most important sources.

The Gestapo soon got on him, so Gans zu Putlitz had to leave the Netherlands. In October 1939 he fled from Holland to England, then to Jamaica , Haiti and the USA. In Germany, Gans zu Putlitz was sentenced to death in absentia as a traitor . From January 1944 to April 1945 he worked for the West Soldier Broadcasting Station in England, better known as Calais Soldier Broadcasting Station .

At the end of the war in 1945, Gans zu Putlitz returned to Germany on behalf of the British intelligence service MI6. Nothing is known about his intelligence service. The British occupation authorities paved the way for von Putlitz, however, and he became a senior councilor and personal advisor to the Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein . But as a well-known steward of the occupying power, he was not well in this position in the long run. He returned to Great Britain via Switzerland and Paris. In 1948 he became a British citizen. As a witness for the prosecution, he testified against war criminals in the Foreign Office in 1948 before the American military tribunal in Nuremberg .

Gans zu Putlitz could not finally gain a foothold in England either, which is probably due to political reasons. He stood up for a pact-free, demilitarized Germany and against the division of the country and NATO membership of the Federal Republic. His political positions in the early 1950s corresponded in some ways with the outwardly represented policies of Josef Stalin . And it was probably the Soviets who organized his relocation to the GDR in January 1952. This move by the former British spy could be used well for Soviet and East German propaganda. He worked as a freelance writer and editor for the Volk und Wissen publishing house in Bad Saarow and Berlin. He worked in an advisory capacity for the GDR Foreign Ministry and for the working group of former officers . He was also a member and political assistant of the National Council of the National Front .

Gans zu Putlitz was disappointed that the division of Germany consolidated and the GDR developed into a totalitarian state. After his death in 1975 he was buried in the cemetery of Groß Kreutz near Potsdam.

Publications

• Large and small farms in agriculture under the devaluation with special consideration of the conditions in the Prignitz . Grabo, Hamburg 1924. (Hamburg, law and state science dissertation from March 21, 1924)
• On the way to Germany. Memories of a former diplomat. Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1956. (18th edition 1976) Table of contents
• The Putlitz dossier. Wingate, London 1957. (Translation from Unterwegs nach Deutschland )
• Laaske, London and Haiti. Historical miniatures. Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1965.

Collaboration:

• Brown book. War and Nazi criminals in the Federal Republic. State, economy, army, administration, justice, science . Edited by National Council of the National Front of Democratic Germany and Documentation Center of the State Archives Administration of the GDR, Berlin 1965 (Putlitz provided articles on former Nazis in the service of the Federal Foreign Office.)

Awards

• Ernst Moritz Arndt Medal 1963

literature

• Putlitz, Wolfgang Gans, Noble Herr zu . In: SBZ biography . 3rd edition. Deutscher Bundes-Verlag, Berlin 1964, pp. 273-274.
• Maria Keipert (Red.): Biographical Handbook of the German Foreign Service 1871–1945. Published by the Foreign Office, Historical Service. Volume 2: Gerhard Keiper, Martin Kröger: G – K. Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2005, ISBN 3-506-71841-X .
• Stephen Dorril : MI6. Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service . The Free Press, New York NY 2000, ISBN 0-7432-0379-8 , p. 408.
• Bernd-Rainer Barth :  Putlitz, Wolfgang Gans Noble Herr zu . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Wolfgang Gans zu Putlitz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Wolfgang Gans zu Putlitz 'relationship with Klop Ustinov's espionage network

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On the way to Germany , p. 37.