he again returned to Germany, dying impoverished in Berlin on 29
November 1931.WATTENWYL, FRIEDRICH MORITZ VON (1867–1942). The
head of Swiss military intelligence who cooperated with the Central
Powers during World War I, Friedrich Moritz von Wattenwyl as-
sumed his position in 1909. With the outbreak of war, the German
military attaché stationed in Bern, Busso von Bismarck, called on
Wattenwyl to implement an intelligence-sharing agreement that
had been concluded in 1906. A profuse exchange of high-level
information—primarily concerning France, Great Britain, and Rus-
sia—soon resulted. Alerted by a Swiss Francophile cryptanalyst, the
government first sought to terminate this violation of the country’s
declared neutrality by quietly reassigning Wattenwyl and his col-
league Karl-Heinrich Egli. Yet the press managed to learn of the
so-called Colonels’ Affair, and a major public scandal erupted. To
quell this discontent, Wattenwyl and Egli were tried before a mili-
tary court in Zurich in late February 1916, but owing to a paucity of
hard evidence, the verdict was mild: 20 days in jail and an honorable
discharge for both officers.
WEBER-DROHL ERNST (1879–?). An Abwehr agent apprehended
in Ireland, Ernst Weber-Drohl was born near Edelbach, Austria.
Employing the name “Atlas the Strong,” he developed a career in the
United States and Ireland as a professional wrestler and muscleman
performer. His familiarity with Ireland—coupled with his passable
English—attracted the attention of the Abwehr office in Nuremberg,
and in early 1940 Weber-Drohl was selected to convey money, in-
structions, and a radio transmitter to contacts in the Irish Republican
Army (IRA). After arriving via a U-37 submarine in Killala Bay on 8
February, Weber-Drohl proceeded to make his delivery, despite hav-
ing lost the radio transmitter when his rubber boat capsized.
On 24 April 1940, Irish authorities arrested Weber-Drohl in
Dublin for illegal entry in violation of the Aliens Act. Concealing
his Abwehr affiliation, he concocted a farfetched tale of an ill-fated
romance and managed to escape conviction by the district court. Yet
his rearrest occurred promptly thereafter through the invocation of
the Emergency Powers Act. Weber-Drohl responded by going on a
WEBER-DROHL, ERNST • 483