occurred shortly thereafter. To establish his credentials with the new
regime, Kegel jointed the Nazi Party in 1934 and was assigned to the
commerce division of the German embassy in Warsaw the follow-
ing year. The outbreak of war in 1939 caused his brief return to the
Foreign Office in Berlin before his new appointment at the German
embassy in Moscow. Kegel (code name kurt) was among those who
warned Soviet leader Joseph Stalin of the impending German attack
in 1941. In addition, many confidential documents from the embassy
were delivered to his control officer, Pavel Petrov.
Following his return to Berlin, Kegel established contact with the
GRU’s chief representative there, Ilse Ströbe, but was inducted into
the Wehrmacht in 1943 and sent to the eastern front as a translator.
Although his defection to the Red Amy in January 1945 resulted in
his captivity and interrogation in Moscow, he was allowed to leave
for Germany six months later. Besides resuming his journalistic work
and serving as an editor of the Berliner Zeitung under Herrnstadt,
Kegel became closely associated with the regime of Walter Ulbricht
and represented the German Democratic Republic at the United Na-
tions in Geneva between 1973–1976. His formulaic autobiography,
In den Stürmen unseres Jahrhunderts (In the Storms of Our Century),
appeared in 1984. Kegel died in Berlin on 16 November 1989.KEMPTER, FRIEDRICH (1904–?). An Abwehr agent who headed
a small but effective espionage network in Brazil, Friedrich Kempter
was born in Constance (Baden-Württemberg). After completing
his studies at Tübingen, he left for Brazil in the wake of the 1923
inflation. He worked at various odd jobs until his 1938 appointment
as manager of a minor information agency owned by a Swiss im-
migrant. The outbreak of war the following year and the resulting
British blockade led to his dismissal due to a slump in business activ-
ity. Kempter applied to one of the agency’s former clients based in
Hamburg and Cologne, not knowing that it also served as a recruiting
front for the Abwehr. Enrolled officially on 1 March 1940 despite
the absence of any formal espionage training, Kempter (code name
king) established a radio communications station and sent detailed
reports on shipping activity in the Rio de Janeiro harbor. Within a
short time, however, U.S. officials learned of Kempter’s activity
through radio intercepts, and in a joint operation with Brazilian au-
226 • KEMPTER, FRIEDRICH