main target, using information gathered in the south and working
directly with the banned Irish Republican Army (IRA). Görtz (code
names gilka and brandy) parachuted into Ireland in May 1940. Yet
mishap followed mishap, from the loss of his radio at the outset to the
arrest of his principal IRA contacts. His accomplishments nil, Görtz
repeatedly attempted to return to Germany but was apprehended
by Irish authorities in late November 1941 and imprisoned for the
duration of the war. His intercepted messages from prison led to the
arrest of at least a dozen others connected to his activities. The Irish
government later decided to turn over all captured German spies to
the Allied forces in Germany. Convinced that death awaited him in
his homeland, Görtz took his own life on 23 May 1947, the day of
his scheduled departure, and was later interred at the German military
cemetery in Ireland.GRAMSCH, WALTER (1897–?). The first major agent of the
Organisation Gehlen (OG) in the German Democratic Republic
(GDR), Walter Gramsch had been a senior employee of the state
railways prior to World War II. A captain in the army reserve and
a member of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD),
he also participated in the conspiracy of 20 July 1944 and was ar-
rested by the Gestapo. After the war, despite his appointment as a
high-level civil servant in the provincial government of Saxony-An-
halt, the forced merger of the SPD with the Kommunistische Partei
Deutschlands in the Soviet occupation zone proved a bitter blow and
led to his recruitment by the OG in 1947 under the self-selected code
name brutus.
Due to his extensive knowledge and quick grasp of a situation,
Gramsch made a favorable impression on Ernst Wollweber, then
chief deputy of the GDR’s Shipping Ministry. Beginning in 1949,
appointments occurred in rapid succession until Gramsch headed
the section on the use of shipping and ports. Yet a primary task of
Wollweber continued to be the sabotage of enemy ships (the British
were a particular target), and to that end, a training school was es-
tablished in the former university area of Ladebow near Greifswald.
Gramsch’s close proximity to Wollweber allowed him to submit
reports not only on the operational details of these commando activi-
ties (ultimately dictated by Soviet authorities) but also on his political
GRAMSCH, WALTER • 147