In their book dedicated to the history of the KGB, Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky40 state that Penkovsky was arrested on 22 October 1962, after the camera that had been installed in the ceiling of his apartment showed him supposedly manufacturing fake passports. Fearing that he may have been planning to escape to the West, the KGB had thus decided to arrest him.
Chapter 8
Nasser’s Rockets
This is probably one of the most extraordinary spy stories of the last century, not to mention one of the most audacious.
In July 1962, Egypt, which at the time was led by the hot-headed Colonel Nasser, test-fired four rockets. The rockets varied in range from 60 to 120 km, which meant that they were capable of hitting Israel. In the meantime, the Israeli authorities obtained further worrying information: the Egyptians were collaborating with former-Nazi German scientists.
This was seen as a great threat to the young Jewish state: no one had forgotten the famous secret weapons that Hitler had claimed to possess - weapons that might have allowed him to change the outcome of the Second World War, had he had time to use them before Germany's surrender in 1945.
As usual, the Israelis reacted swiftly to counter this threat. The scientists were identified, located and threatened. Some even disappeared altogether. What is more, on this occasion, the Israeli services forged some very strange alliances...
After the Second World War, Arab countries became a natural refuge for many Nazi supporters. Indeed, the Third Reich had maintained good relationships with the Arab world and its leaders, such as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Yet many of these countries were still British and French protectorates. However, under the cover of denouncing colonialism, the Germans had secretly pursued an active policy of propaganda and agitation. In Egypt, for example, the nationalists and future colonels who overthrew King Farouk had had contacts with the Nazis. This is why many exiled German war criminals chose to settle in Arab countries where they had generally been previously well received. This was even more evident after the establishment of the State of Israel, because they shared the same anti-Semitism as many of the local political leaders.
Both before and after the fall of Farouk, former Nazi officials were given the responsibility of reorganising the Egyptian Army and security services. Consequently, men such as the sinister Alois Brunner, or high-ranking SS officers like Hartmann Lauterbacher, who was responsible for the extermination of the Jews in Hannover, arrived in Egypt. Otto Skorzeny, a former SS-Obersturmbannfuhrer, would also arrive in Cairo and would act as Colonel Nasser's advisor for more than a year.
What is less known is the fact that these officers did not just help the Egyptian authorities: they also worked for the BND, the secret service of the German Federal Republic [East Germany]. General Gehlen, who had created this organisation (with a little help from the CIA), was never opposed to recruiting Nazis and war criminals. He had been the head of intelligence on the Russian front, and thanks to the valuable information he could provide on the USSR, this is the main reason why the Americans were quick to embrace him.
However, this Nazi recruitment policy was in complete contradiction with the official doctrine of West Germany, which called for full de-Nazification. It even placed strict laws on public services hiring former Nazis.Yet in the fight against communism, scruples were a superfluous commodity. Meanwhile, in other eastern European countries, the special ‘talents' of former Nazis were recognised and put to use and the German Stasi in particular recruited several intelligence specialists from the former Third Reich.
For his part, Gehlen was determined to go all out and built up a very efficient network throughout the Arab countries. He used veteran associations in particular to recruit suitable members and the veterans of Rommel's Afrika Korps still enjoyed huge prestige among the Arabs, thanks to their training.
Colonel Nasser was defeated after the Suez Crisis in 1956, with Israel emerging victorious for the second time in its history. The Egyptian leader then decided that his country needed to manufacture more modern weaponry, but his country was still under-developed and lacked the engineers and technicians needed for such a task. They needed to find specialists and so Cairo turned primarily to Germany. One of the reasons for this was due to the excellent relationship between the authorities and the German officers who had helped to establish the Egyptian military. What is more, the German scientists who had previously served Hitler , had no sympathy for the Jews and so the State of Israel remained the enemy of Egypt. Finally, these scientists often found themselves out of work. Not only did they consequently have very little money, but the Allies had forbidden the Federal Republic from conducting research into missiles and nuclear weapons. So, for those who had not been corrupted by the Americans, Russians or the French, there remained the option of joining the Egyptians, especially considering the outlandish salaries they were offering!
Nasser created a special project for the defence services and put his relative, Mahmoud Khalil, in charge with the former military man becoming Nasser's missi dominici. Khalil was charged with hiring German scientists and first looked for aircraft manufacturers, including the famous Willy Messerschmitt, the engineer who had built Hitler's famous combat aircraft and had also developed the first operational jet. When Khalil first made contact, Messerschmitt was very keen, although any collaboration between his company and the Egyptian state could embarrass the authorities in West Germany. Instead, he suggested that they go through one of his subsidiaries in Spain and use that as a ‘mask'. An agreement was subsequently reached and Messerschmitt
