The ingenuity behind the how the operation was planned and executed (the pretext of the microfilm, the use of the garage between the Sulzer company and the incinerator, the fake plane etc.), certainly carries the mark of the secret service. Is it possible that one man alone could dream up and carry out such an arrangement? The Swiss, who understood exactly what had taken place, expelled the local Mossad agent in retaliation.
It appeared that in total, out of the twenty-four crates of plans, Frauenknecht had managed to steal twenty. According to the Gazette de Lausanne, Alfred Frauenknecht sent around 2,000 drawings of thrusters, 80-100,000 descriptions of manufacturing methods, 40,000 drawings of equipment and 15,000 specifications concerning various elements and procedures. This equated to hundreds of kilos of documents.
Steve Eytan75
In fact, immediately after the Six Day War, the top priority for Israel was combat aircraft, which was intended to act as a ‘brother’ to the Mirage, but what everyone in the country called the ‘Super Mirage’.The ‘Commodore Jet’, which was built by the IAI Arava, provided them with the necessary know-how, as well as the fact that they could procure the necessary tools and equipment from Europe, particularly France, not to mention the rare material needed to manufacture special alloys. Despite the embargo, the French customs generally turned a blind eye. However, a serious problem quickly arose: it would not be enough to simply own a Mirage already and consequently work out how to build others. You also had to know what tools should be used to make each piece of equipment and where exactly those pieces needed to be fitted. This was where the business operation in Switzerland came in. Here the Israeli engineers could see how an important piece of equipment could be manufactured at a sub-contractor such as Sulzer, using a machine that was normally used for making watch cases. Despite the premature arrest of Alfred Frauenknecht, the operation had been successful and had enabled the Israelis to be nearly three years ahead of their initial forecast for production. Al Schwimmer, the man in charge of the project, had planned for the first prototype flight in 1974. By the end of 1969 he was in a position to announce to Moshe Dyan that the first one would be ready by the end of 1971.
It was a long time before western military attaches took this Israeli Super-Mirage, known as Kfir (young lion), seriously. The idea that a small country could build a supersonic and sophisticated device so quickly was neither logical nor reasonable. Yet the brilliant operation to steal the plans had clearly worked: the Israelis were able to design and build an aircraft that looked suspiciously like the Mirage III-S in record time.
As for Frauenknecht, the full charges against him were yet to be determined. He could be charged with treason for helping a foreign power, seen as the plans themselves were not Swiss but French: Sulzer, had merely been the custodian. This meant that Frauenknecht had not acted in direct violation of Swiss interests. The judges had the choice between a section of the penal code that punishes the disclosure of economic information and another that punishes espionage and the divulging of state secrets. In the first instance, Frauenknecht risked three years in prison. For the second, twenty. His lawyers obviously did their best to ensure that the first charge was maintained, but they failed.
Nevertheless, Frauenknecht did not receive a harsh punishment, as surprising as that may seem. He must undoubtedly have benefitted from some form of sympathy. After all, while he did receive some money from the Israelis, it was little in comparison to what he could have demanded.
The morale dimension of his actions was also emphasised. In this instance, his lawyers relied upon the magistrates' pride by recalling an embarrassing story for Switzerland, whereby a Swiss citizen called Gruninger had been convicted after the war for allowing more than 3,000 Jewish refugees to find shelter in the country, despite the orders of his superiors. Frauenknecht's lawyers compared the two cases by arguing that their client had acted out of necessity. The state itself was in a particularly uncomfortable position, in that its own secret services had clearly failed and been outplayed by Mossad.
Gazette de Lausanne76
One can question the relatively moderate sentence that will allow Alfred Frauenknecht to be freed in the course of 1972. It seems the court took into account that, according to the deposition, the Sulzer engineer was not an ‘ordinary spy’. Despite the considerable sum of money he received (which has now curiously been withheld by the state), Frauenknecht was not motivated primarily by greed. Nor did he want to harm Swiss interests. Finally, we can assume that the bias towards Israel that exists in our country had some role to play in the decision.
The Israelis, of course, expressed their gratitude to Frauenknecht, but in secret. Rewarding him was tantamount to recognising Mossad’s full involvement in the affair, so how to do it was difficult.They decided to unofficially invite him to Israel: an ordinary citizen wrote to him and asked him to visit, promising to cover his accommodation costs. However, it is possible that the Israelis found another way to quietly thank the man who had allowed them to build their own version of the Mirage aircraft as quickly as they did.
Chapter 14
Gabriele Gast: West Germany’s Juliet
We call them ‘Romeos', a title given by a western journalist to East German agents, who were responsible for seducing secretaries in West Germany and instead making them work for the intelligence agencies of the GDR (German Democratic Republic). It was a very successful business, which during the Cold War allowed the eastern camp to glean a great
