Certain liabilities notwithstanding—his impulsive, passionate
nature, his unfamiliarity with secret radio codes and techniques, and
his conspicuous role in organizing anti-Nazi resistance efforts—
Soviet authorities selected Schulze-Boysen (code name starshina)
along with Arvid Harnack in the Economics Ministry to head the
espionage apparatus in Berlin at the outset of World War II. Later
based at the Luftwaffe installation at Wildpark Werder near Potsdam,
Schulze-Boysen was privy to all the diplomatic and military reports
originating from the air attachés in German embassies and legations.
Although lax security facilitated his large collection of confidential
information—ranging from new developments in weaponry to offen-
sive military plans in the Soviet Union—Gestapo officials learned
of his affiliation through Abwehr radio intercepts and arrested him
on 30 August 1942. Under interrogation, he and his wife, Libertas,
revealed the names of other members of the Rote Kapelle. They
were executed on 22 December 1942 at Plötzensee Prison. In the
postwar period, a sharp division of opinion emerged over whether
Schulze-Boysen should be viewed as a courageous resistance fighter,
as assiduously depicted by the German Democratic Republic, or as a
zealous, uncritical spy in the service of Joseph Stalin.SCHULZE-GAEVERNITZ, GERO VON (1901–1971). An assistant
to Allen Dulles of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS), Gero
von Schulze-Gaevernitz was born on 27 September 1901, the son of a
distinguished political scientist and liberal politician. During his early
years, he traveled to Russia and worked in the United States, lured by
the stock market boom of the 1920s. Through his American mother, a
daughter of the wealthy financier Otto Kahn, U.S. citizenship proved
easy to obtain. At the outbreak of World War II, possessing little ex-
perience in diplomacy, Gaevernitz offered his services to American
authorities in Bern, Switzerland, in the struggle against Adolf Hitler.
His initial assignment was as a liaison to German exiles in the U.S.
legation, where he was a friend of military attaché Barnwell Legge.
He also made numerous trips between Germany and Switzerland
prior to Hitler’s declaration of war on the United States.
The arrival of Dulles in Bern marked the beginning of an unusu-
ally fruitful wartime collaboration. At their first meeting in No-
vember 1942, Gaevernitz impressed Dulles (who had earlier known
SCHULZE-GAEVERNITZ, GERO VON • 407