1923, attracted by the country’s economic prospects, Engels left for
Brazil as a employee of the Siemens firm. Other positions soon ma-
terialized, including chief engineer for the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-
Gesellschaft (AEG; German General Electric) for South American
operations. He not only became a naturalized Brazilian citizen but
was appointed in 1939 to the AEG board of directors with special
responsibilities for South America. During a European vacation that
summer, he was recruited in Genoa by a former friend, Jobst Raven,
who worked in the Abwehr section charged with gathering economic
data on foreign countries. From Rio de Janeiro, Engels (code name
alfredo) sent reports detailing U.S. industrial and military produc-
tion and American trade with Latin America, drawn primarily from
business associates and open sources.
Engels’s apparatus—known as the Bolívar network—quickly
expanded. He made contact with the Abwehr operation in Mexico
headed by Karl von Schleebrügge (code name morris) and Georg
Nikolaus (code name max) and found several radio technicians,
notably Beno Sobisch and Ernst Ramuz. Other important recruits
were a Brazilian business acquaintance, Herbert von Heyer, and a
Portuguese immigrant with a deep hatred of the British, Antonio
Gama Pinto. Also working closely with Engels was Hermann
Bohny, an assistant naval attaché in the German embassy who sup-
plied funds along with the use of the diplomatic cable and pouch.
Besides collecting their own data, Engels’s group functioned as
a relay station and coordinator within the western hemisphere,
especially for agents based in the United States, Ecuador, and
Argentina. Discord arose, however, with the arrival of Abwehr of-
ficer Joséf Starziczny, who began his own rival operation in Rio
de Janeiro.
Although Engels enjoyed a reputation for reliability, discretion,
and resourcefulness, his network came under greater scrutiny follow-
ing Brazil’s decision in January 1942 to back the United States and
break relations with the Axis countries. Through radio intercepts and
the joint surveillance of the British Security Coordination and the
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, various Abwehr agents were
apprehended, including Engels, who voluntarily surrendered to au-
thorities on 18 March 1942. The Brazilian National Security Tribunal
sentenced him to 25 years in prison.98 • ENGELS, ALBRECHT