among the Czechs anticipated by Beneš never materialized. Even
after the war, Beneš, embarrassed by the scale of the reprisals,
categorically denied his involvement in the assassination to former
resistance leaders. It was not until 1964 when Moravec gave an
unapologetic public lecture that many of the details of Anthropoid
became known.AQUILAR. A rescue operation disguised as an Abwehr mission, Aq-
uilar was conceived in 1941 by two officers stationed in the Neth-
erlands—Karl Heinrich Pannhorst and Walter Schulze-Bernett—who
successfully transported 176 Dutch Jews to safety in neutral European
countries. See also BLOCH, ERNST; DOHNÁNYI, HANS VON.
ARCO. The German code name for the Soviet spy ring operating
behind German lines on the eastern front, Arco had been dubbed
Michal by the Russians and consisted of two Polish officers, Miko-
lai Arciszewski and Jozef Meier. They had been flown to occupied
Poland by Soviet aircraft in August 1941 and operated successfully
from February to May of the following year. The Funkabwehr,
however, determined their location, resulting in their capture and
presumed execution.
ASCHER, GABRIEL. A German journalist and informant for the
Abwehr, Gabriel Ascher immigrated to Stockholm in the early
1930s. Following his conversion from Judaism to Catholicism, he
arrived in Rome in 1935 and secured a position as secretary to Fried-
rich Muckermann, an anti-Nazi Jesuit. Ascher resigned his position
several years later and resumed his journalistic activity as the Vatican
correspondent for the Basler Nachrichten, but the prospect of the
new Italian racial laws convinced him to return to Stockholm.
Acting on behalf of Joachim Rohleder, Hans Wagner, the chief
of the local Abwehrstelle, recruited Ascher in early 1941 to return to
Rome and utilize his extensive ecclesiastical contacts. Although his
arrival on 3 May was met with considerable suspicion, he obtained
knowledge of the secret mission of Josef Müller to the Vatican.
Ascher’s damaging report was suppressed by Abwehr head Wilhelm
Canaris in order to protect Müller, while Ascher became the object
of close surveillance by Stockholm police. Despite the decision not to
14 • AQUILAR