group, it escaped the notice of the relevant officer. After the war,
Waetjen lived in Ascona, Switzerland.WAIBEL, MAX (1901–1971). A key liaison in Operation sunrise,
Max Waibel was the head of Swiss army intelligence during World
War II and a confidant of Allen Dulles, the Bern station chief for
the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. It was Waibel who, in Febru-
ary 1945, alerted Dulles to the possibility of achieving a negotiated
cease-fire with German forces in northern Italy under the command
of Karl Wolff. Waibel initially came under sharp criticism for his
unauthorized role in helping to bring about this capitulation but was
posthumously honored by the Swiss government for obeying his con-
science and thereby preventing further wartime destruction. After the
war, Waibel was instrumental in establishing a working relationship
between Swiss authorities and the Organisation Gehlen, particularly
regarding communist subversion. His account of sunrise—1945:
Kapitulation in Norditalien (Capitulation in Northern Italy)—
appeared in 1981.
WALLI. The designation of the Frontaufkärungskommando on the
eastern front during World War II, Walli consisted ultimately of three
groups, the first having been established in Suleyovek, Poland, by
Hermann Baun in June 1941.
WANNSEE INSTITUT. A research body focused on the political, eco-
nomic, and administrative structure of the Soviet Union, the Wann-
see Institut was originally a private foundation located southwest of
Berlin that Reinhard Heydrich annexed to the Sicherheitsdienst
(Security Service) in 1936. Camouflaged as the Institute for Research
of Antiquity and lodged in the seized Villa Oppenheim, it was first
headed by Michael Achmeteli, a Georgian émigré who had earlier
been the ambassador to Germany from the short-lived Georgian re-
public. Researchers were recruited from among advanced students at
the University of Berlin, specifically those from the Baltic states or
parts of the former Russian empire with appropriate language skills.
In 1942, Hans Koch, an Austrian university professor who had
previously headed the institute, returned as its director. To protect
its valuable holdings from increased Allied bombing in the Berlin
480 • WAIBEL, MAX