Wesemann’s most notorious act was aiding in the abduction of
Berthold Jacob, a fellow exile journalist based in Strasbourg. Yet
when the incident took place in Basel in early March 1934, not only
did the Swiss police promptly arrest Wesemann, but the Swiss for-
eign minister managed to secure the release of Jacob by threatening
public exposure of Gestapo activities. After completing a three-year
prison sentence, Wesemann obtained a German passport and went
to Caracas with his Venezuelan fiancée in May 1938. While the
Gestapo severed all ties to him—quite contrary to his own wishes—
Venezuelan authorities forced the couple to resettle in Nicaragua
in 1940. An exposé by ex-Nazi Otto Strasser further compounded
his problems, and he spent the remainder of the war years in U.S.
internment camps. Avoiding deportation to Germany after 1945,
Wesemann eventually returned with his wife to Caracas, where he
died on 23 October 1971.WESSEL, GERHARD (1913–2002). A former intelligence offi-
cer during the Third Reich who became the second head of the
Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Gerhard Wessel was born in
Neumünster (Schleswig-Holstein) on 24 December 1913, the son of
a Protestant pastor. In 1932, he joined the Reichswehr and was serv-
ing as an infantry staff officer when World War II commenced. After
finishing his training at the General Staff College and working briefly
as an intelligence analyst, he was transferred in 1942 to Fremde
Heere Ost (FHO), the division responsible for monitoring all So-
viet military activity. When Reinhard Gehlen was appointed the
new head of FHO and began his reform of the failing organization,
Wessel counted among the few officers retained. He rose to become
Gehlen’s assistant and eventual successor in April 1945, despite hav-
ing written the bleak assessment that had provoked Hitler’s ire and
caused Gehlen to be removed from office.
The working relationship between the two men resumed in June
1946 with the establishment of the Organisation Gehlen (OG).
Wessel not only assumed the direction of the analytical branch but
used his rhetorical skill in staff meetings and social occasions to bol-
ster his more reclusive superior. Even though Adolf Heusinger (the
later inspector general of the Bundeswehr) took over his position sev-
eral years later, Wessel remained one of the dominant OG figures. In
WESSEL, GERHARD • 489