at war’s end, he died in London on 30 May 1949 following a collapse
at the South Kensington station.RIPPERGER, ERICH (1909–1979). An interim head of the Ver-
waltung Aufklärung (VA), Erich Ripperger was born in Albrechts
(Thuringia) on 9 April 1909. A trained toolmaker, he joined the
communist youth organization in 1923. In 1931, anxious to leave
depression-stricken Germany and help build the new Soviet state, he
emigrated and found employment in a Moscow tool factory. After
serving in two of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil
War, Ripperger returned to the Soviet Union in 1939 only to find that
his brother had died as a victim of the purges by Joseph Stalin. His
wife and son disappeared into the Gulag after 1941. Escaping arrest
himself, he underwent special training in the Soviet Union to prepare
him for a new role in postwar Germany.
Following his arrival in East Berlin in December 1945, Ripperger’s
first assignment was to help rebuild the communist party structure in
Thuringia. Two years later, his wife and son returned to Germany.
Yet his position as a political instructor for the People’s Police gave
him little satisfaction, and with the approval of the GRU (Soviet
military intelligence), he was transferred in 1955 to the VA, then
headed by Karl Linke. When the penetration by the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency forced Linke’s removal on 25 July 1957, Rip-
perger became his successor, despite feeling already overwhelmed by
the agency’s rapid growth the past two years. On 31 August, Willy
Sägebrecht took command of affairs, while Ripperger remained
charged with operational matters.
The defection of Siegfried Dombrowski the following year, led to
yet another reshuffling of the agency’s leadership. Sägebrecht remained
the titular head until a new successor was named the following year,
while Ripperger assumed responsibility for all daily business, even
though he had received a reprimand for insufficient vigilance. Because
of his weakened health, he took an early retirement in August 1963.
Ripperger died in East Berlin on 21 January 1979 and was buried in the
section for outstanding communists in the Zentralfriedhof.
RITTER, NIKOLAUS (1897–?). A senior Abwehr officer assigned
to operations against Great Britain and the United States, Nikolaus
RITTER, NIKOLAUS • 371