and arrogant like all Jews and he thought it was safest to follow their
suggestions. The Egyptians seemed to accept his story of a not-very-
clever ex-German soldier. They checked to see if he was circumcised
to make sure he was not a Jew and found that he was not circumcised.
The Egyptians went further and asked him for all of his contacts—
who had trained him, where he had been trained, and so on. After sev-
eral days of questioning, he succeeded in convincing Egyptian Intel-
ligence that Waltraud’s parents were uninvolved, but they did not
believe that Waltraud herself was innocent.
Lotz pretended to cooperate fully by volunteering all kinds of in-
formation, but his information was only partially true. He succeeded
in keeping secret his true identity. The Egyptians believed he was a
German spying for Israel; they never discovered that he was really an
Israeli. He even made a televised broadcast to the German people
urging anyone who considered spying on behalf of Israel not to do so
and expressed remorse for his own actions. The Egyptians were de-
lighted with the propaganda—but the Israelis were even happier.
Lotz’s cover was obviously still not blown.
He and Waltraud were tried in an Egyptian court. The Mossad se-
cretly arranged for Lotz to have a German defense lawyer and an ob-
server from Germany was even present. At his trial, Lotz continued
to use his expert mix of truth and deception to convince the Egyptians
that he was really a German. They believed him. There was a scare
when a letter arrived from Germany, sent by a German lawyer repre-
senting victims of the Israeli threatening-letter campaign. The lawyer
accurately reported that Lotz’s mother was Jewish, that he had immi-
grated to Israel in the early 1930s, and that he had even served in the
Israeli army. But Lotz swore the information was false, and the court
still believed him. On 21 August 1965 he was sentenced to life im-
prisonment with hard labor. Waltraud was sentenced to three years
imprisonment. General Gahourab was reduced to the ranks and given
a prison sentence for allowing Lotz too much access to strategic in-
formation on Egypt.
In prison, Lotz managed to win exemption from hard labor. He was
allowed to see Waltraud from time to time. Other prisoners cleaned
his cell, and Lotz even ordered meals from a Cairo restaurant. In Feb-
ruary 1968 Lotz and Waltraud, together with the prisoners of the Jew-
ish espionage network in Egypt involved in the Bad Business, wereLOTZ, WOLFGANG• 16706-102 (03) H-P.qxd 3/24/06 7:25 AM Page 167