and staff were eliminated. But his increasing apprehension about the
outcome of the war led him to establish covert diplomatic channels in
two neutral countries, Switzerland and Sweden (his relationship with
Swiss military intelligence head Roger Masson was particularly
noteworthy). Most startling of all was his humanitarian engagement
in the final stages of the war, as thousands of concentration camp
inmates—Jews and gentiles—were saved as a result of his interces-
sion alongside Count Folke Bernadotte representing the Swedish Red
Cross. Even Himmler’s agreement was obtained by Schellenberg in
late April 1945.
In the wake of the German military collapse, Schellenberg found
refuge with Bernadotte in Sweden, where his “Trosa Memorandum,”
the basis of his later memoirs, was written. He voluntarily returned to
Germany in June 1945 and served as a witness before the International
Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, principally against Kaltenbrunner
(their courtroom confrontation showed no diminution of their intense
mutual antipathy). His own prosecution took place before an American
military tribunal in the Wilhelmstrasse trials of 1948–1949. Schellen-
berg was found guilty on two counts: for his membership in the SD and
SS (which had been declared criminal organizations by the International
Military Tribunal); and for his complicity in the death at Auschwitz of
two Russian prisoners of war involved in Operation zeppelin. His
sentence of six years’ imprisonment (to commence from mid-1945) was
relatively lenient, largely due to the court’s recognition of his belated
humanitarian efforts. In December 1950, Schellenberg was released
from confinement on medical parole and moved to Switzerland. Dif-
ficulties with his residency permit caused him to relocate to a small
town in Italy on Lake Maggiore. He died on 31 March 1952 in Turin.
Schellenberg’s unapologetic yet not completely reliable autobiography
appeared first in an English translation (The Schellenberg Memoirs),
which was later reissued as The Labyrinth and followed by a German
version (Memorien) in 1959.SCHERBIUS, ARTHUR (1878–1929). The inventor of the Enigma ci-
pher machine, Arthur Scherbius was born in Frankfurt am Main on 20
October 1878, the son of a businessman. After studying at the Techni-
cal College in Munich, he completed his doctoral dissertation at the
Technical College in Hanover in 1903, then worked for several major
394 • SCHERBIUS, ARTHUR