born in Munich on 1 February 1903. Joining the Bavarian police
in 1919, he subsequently worked alongside Heinrich Müller as a
mid-level official. In 1937, a promotion brought him to the Gestapo
office in Berlin, and two years later, he joined the SS. From January
1941 to July 1944, Panzinger headed Group IV A of Branch IV of
the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), specializing in communist
subversion. His most notable assignment was to direct the special
commission charged with interrogating members of the Rote Ka-
pelle. Based in Riga from September 1943 to May 1944, Panzinger
additionally served as commander of the Sipo and Sicherheitsdienst
in the Baltic states. The flight of Arthur Nebe following the failure
of the 20 July 1944 conspiracy gave him responsibility for the crimi-
nal police division within the RSHA.
Following his arrest in Linz, Austria, in 1946, Panzinger was sen-
tenced by the Soviet Union to a 25-year prison term as a war crimi-
nal. In 1955, however, an agreement with the KGB allowed him to
return to the Federal Republic of Germany. Yet rather than seeking
to penetrate the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) as instructed,
Panzinger revealed his mission to authorities, who then decided to
use him as a double agent in Operation panoptikum (Collection of
Curios). This attempt to infiltrate the Soviet service failed because
his case officer, Heinz Felfe, was himself a KGB mole. Moreover,
the Bavarian Justice Ministry wanted to press charges against Panz-
inger for the mass murder of Russian prisoners of war. Although the
BND had interceded on his behalf, a miscommunication resulted
in his arrest, and Panzinger committed suicide in his jail cell on 8
August 1959.PAPEN, FRANZ VON (1879–1969). A prominent German politi-
cian involved in spy operations during both world wars, Franz
von Papen was born in Werl (Westphalia) on 29 October 1879,
the son of an old Catholic noble family. Papen served in a cavalry
regiment and was later appointed to the Army General Staff. In
1913, he was designated military attaché at the German embassy
in Washington, D.C., and at the legation in Mexico City. His main
efforts in Mexico were designed to bolster the dictatorship of Gen-
eral Victoriano Huerta. With the outbreak of World War I, Papen
established a clandestine office in Manhattan, which undertook a
PAPEN, FRANZ VON • 339