in Zurich. As a vice consul in the German consulate (code names dr.
berndt, dr. schlich, and gustav), Gisevius attempted to establish
foreign contacts on behalf of the resistance. Whereas the British
Secret Intelligence Service suspected he was a double agent, Allen
Dulles, station chief of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services in Bern,
found Gisevius credible, especially after learning from him that the
legation code system had been broken by the B-Dienst of the German
navy. Assigned the code names luber and 512 , Gisevius met often
with Dulles beginning in January 1943, reporting on the German
resistance and on the early development of the V-1 and V-2 rockets
and ballistic missiles in Peenemünde.
Briefed in advance, Gisevius returned to Berlin to participate in the
conspiracy of 20 July 1944, hoping also that he might be appointed
foreign minister in a future German government. The failure of the
assassination attempt compelled him to go into hiding until late Janu-
ary 1945, when, using forged papers provided by Dulles’s office, he
escaped to Switzerland. After the war, he testified before the Interna-
tional Military Tribunal in Nuremberg against Hermann Göring and
for Hjalmar Schacht and Wilhelm Frick, and he published his two-
volume memoirs, Bis zum bitteren Ende (To the Bitter End). Unable
to find an important postwar role in Germany, Gisevius eventually
settled in Switzerland after living for some years in the United States
and West Berlin. He died on 23 February 1974 during a trip to Müll-
heim (Baden).GISKES, HERMANN (1896–?). An Abwehr counterintelligence
specialist who later served in the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND),
Hermann Giskes was the son of a tobacconist. After serving in World
War I, Giskes became a wine salesman in the Rhineland. He joined
the Wehrmacht in 1934 and was transferred to the Abwehr four years
later. His greatest success during World War II was Operation Nord-
pol, which neutralized Allied intelligence and covert operations
in occupied Holland. After the war, Giskes was among the original
recruits for the Organisation Gehlen and made the transition to the
BND in 1956. His wartime exploits were recounted in Spione über-
spielen Spione (London Calling North Pole).
GLEIWITZ INCIDENT. See TANNENBERG.
GLEIWITZ INCIDENT • 141