eventual residence in Cairo. With the outbreak of World War II, he
had to return to Budapest, where he was recruited by Nikolaus Ritter
of the Abwehr. Not only had the 1939 German translation of his book
The Unknown Sahara come to the attention of Abwehr officials, but
Almásy appeared convinced that a revolt against British rule might
be sparked among a group of younger Egyptian military officers.
Government officials in Budapest further agreed to his temporary
transfer from the Hungarian air force reserve to the Luftwaffe. Af-
ter an initial briefing in Hamburg, he was given the rank of captain
and assigned to Tunis as second in command of Ritter’s special
unit. Later in Tripoli, Almásy advised the quartermasters of Erwin
Rommel’s Afrika Korps about the topography of the Libyan desert,
although Rommel turned down his request to lead a German battalion
to Upper Egypt. The initial plan to spark a rebellion in the Egyptian
army had to be abandoned when the key figure, General Aziz el
Masri, failed to materialize at the prearranged spot. When two sub-
sequent attempts by Ritter to infiltrate agents into Cairo misfired, he
transferred the command to Almásy.
According to the revised directives of Operation Salaam, agent
John Eppler and radio operator Hans-Georg Sandstede were to be
transported by automobile through enemy-held desert terrain by a
seven-man team headed by Almásy. Despite encountering a number
of obstacles, the mission fulfilled its objective, and Almásy was
promptly promoted to major and awarded the Iron Cross First Class
by Rommel himself. The sequel, however, proved to be a double
disappointment. In September 1942, Eppler and Sandstede were ar-
rested in Cairo by the British, while Rommel showed no interest in
Almásy’s plans for a unit specializing in unconventional warfare.
In summer 1942, suffering from an acute form of amebic dys-
entery, Almásy left North Africa for medical treatment in Nazi-oc-
cupied Athens. The following year, after his return to Budapest, his
brief memoir of the North African campaign—Rommel seregenel
Libyaban (With Rommel in Libya)—appeared, although it had been
heavily edited by the Abwehr and made no mention of Ritter or Op-
eration Salaam.
At the end of the war, Almásy served briefly as a translator for
the occupying Red Army but was soon imprisoned and interrogated
at length by the NKVD (Soviet People’s Commissariat of Internal
ALMÁSY, LÁSZLÓ • 9