area, the institute moved to Schloss Plankenwart near Graz, Austria.
In this period, members of the institute worked closely with the staff
of Operation zeppelin, often causing them to be confused with
one another, especially since Zeppelin’s Berlin detachment came to
occupy the old premises of the institute. The surviving material of
the Wannsee Institut was transferred to Organisation Gehlen after
the war.WANZE. A colloquial expression for a hidden eavesdropping device, a
Wanze is normally powered by tiny batteries or tied to the building’s
electrical circuit. A small transmitter then allows any conversations
or activities in the room to be monitored and recorded.
WASSMUSS, WILHELM (1880–1931). A diplomat who attempted
to foment a Muslim uprising against the British in the Middle East,
Wilhelm Wassmuss was born in Salzgitter-Ohlendorf (Lower Sax-
ony) on 14 February 1880. He joined the German Foreign Office as
a translator in 1906 and became the consul in Bushire, Persia (Iran),
six years later. Because of his fluency in Persian (Farsi) and Arabic,
his travels among the tribes of southern Persia, and his hardened
personality, Wassmuss was selected for a joint Turkish and German
mission designed to bring Persia and Afghanistan into World War I.
His role was to lead the German group—numbering several dozen
men—and handle the diplomatic negotiations with the Afghans.
Second in command was Oskar von Niedermayer, who had also
traveled extensively in the region. To disguise their expedition as
it passed through neutral Romania, they posed as a traveling circus
troupe, although their equipment was detected by a customs inspector
and had to be replaced.
In January 1916, after dissension arose between the Turks and the
Germans as well as in the ranks of Wassmuss’s team, he handed the
command to Niedermayer and departed on his own, clad in Persian
garb and posing as a Muslim. His objective was to reconnect with
tribal leaders he knew in southern Persia and convince them to em-
bark on a holy war, forcing the British to commit their limited troops
to that region. On 5 March, he and two companions were captured by
a group of horsemen in the pay of the British. Wassmuss escaped but
had to leave behind a crucial German diplomatic codebook, which
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