Victim of kidnapping or an unfortunate defector? The strange case of Otto John

ABSTRACT

Dr Otto John was a controversial choice as head of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, West Germany’s domestic counter-espionage agency. After attending a commemoration of the victims of the resistance plot against Hitler, on 20 July 1954, John disappeared from West Berlin in the company of his friend Dr Wolfgang Wohlgemuth. This article explores available evidence from Central Intelligence Agency and Stasi files to assess whether John was abducted or went freely as a would-be defector. An examination of his mental state is crucial in determining this.

KEYWORDS:

• Espionage
• defection
• Cold War Berlin
• CIA
• KGB
• Stasi
• BfV
• German resistance
• Adenauer
• National Socialism
• communism
• German unification

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Rudolf Diels, Der Fall Otto John: Hintergründe und Lehren (Göttingen: Göttinger Verlagsanstalt, 1954). Diels had been an early head of the Gestapo. Cf. Gérald Gohier, L’espion aux scrupules (Paris: Gallimard, 1958); Willi Frischauer, The Man Who Came Back: The Story of Otto John (London: Frederick Muller, 1958); Otto John, Zweimal kam ich heim: Vom Verschwörer zum Schützer der Verfassung (Düsseldorf: Econ, 1969).

² Arthur L. Smith, Kidnap City: Cold War Berlin (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2002); Susanne Muhle, Auftrag: Menschenraub. Entführungen von Westberlinern und Bundesbürgern durch das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit der DDR (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015).

³ Bernd Stöver, “Der Fall Otto John. Neue Dokumente zu den Aussagen des deutschen Geheimdienstchefs gegenüber MfS und KGB,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 47, no. 1 (1999): 103–36; Cf. Erik Gieseking, Der Fall Otto John: Entführung oder freiwilliger Übertritt in die DDR? (Lauf an der Pegnitz: Europaforum-Verlag, 2005). Although containing new material, notably John’s papers at the Imperial War Museum, Hett and Wala generally support Stöver’s argument that John crossed the border voluntarily. Benjamin Carter Hett and Michael Wala, Otto John: Patriot oder Verräter. Eine deutsche Biographie (Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2019), 338.

⁴ Hett and Wala, Otto John, 59.

⁵ Otto John, Twice Through the Lines: The Autobiography of Otto John, translated by Richard Barry (London: Macmillan 1972), 188.

⁶ Delmege Trimble, “The Defections of Dr. John,” [CIA] Studies in Intelligence 4, no. 4 (1960): 1–26.

⁷ Reinhard Schiffers, Verfassungsschutz und parlamentarische Kontrolle in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, 1949–1957; Mit einer Dokumentation zum ‘Fall John’ im Bundestagsausschuss zum Schutz der Verfassung (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1997); Constantin Goschler and Michael Wala, ‘Keine neue Gestapo’: Das Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz und die NS-Vergangenheit (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2015).

⁸ Bernd Stöver, “Ein Widerstandskämpfer als Verfassungsschutzchef,” in Konspiration als Beruf: Deutsche Geheimdienstchefs im Kalten Krieg, ed. Dieter Krüger and Armin Wagner (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2003), 160–78.

⁹ Manfred George, “Chief of Bonn’s Secret Service: An Interview with Dr. Otto John in Cologne,” New York Herald Tribune, 17 January 1952.

¹⁰ Trimble, “The Defections of Dr. John.”

¹¹ Klaus-Dietmar Henke, Geheime Dienste: Die Politische Inlandsspionage der Organisation Gehlen 1946–1953 (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2018), 433–57, 447; Hett and Wala, Otto John, 123f.

¹² Rolf-Dieter Müller, Reinhard Gehlen, Geheimdienstchef im Hintergrund der Bonner Republik: Die Biographie (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2017), vol. 2: 1319–20, 1324, 1327. Gerhard Sälter, “Kameraden: Nazi-Netzwerke und die Rekrutierung hauptamtlicher Mitarbeiter,” in Die Geschichte der Organisation Gehlen und des BND 1945–1968, Jost Dülffer et al. eds (Marburg: Unabhängige Historikerkommission, 2014), 41–52.

¹³ “From Bonn to Foreign Office,” 23 July 1954, FO 371/109323, UK National Archives [Kew].

¹⁴ Trimble, “The Defections of Dr. John.”

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Over 800 people were interviewed as witnesses, having seen John in the previous days.

¹⁷ “Dr. John gab eine ‘Erklärung’,” Berliner Morgenpost, 24 July 1954.

¹⁸ “Dr. John ‘Lured’ to East Berlin,” Times, 27 July 1954.

¹⁹ Allen W. Dulles, “Memorandum,” 6 December 1954. The full CIA file on John has not been released.

²⁰ Sefton Delmer, “Nazis Plot for Power,” Daily Express, 24 July 1954.

²¹ “Bonn Official Missing: Believed to be in East Zone. Abduction Feared,” The Times, 23 July 1954.

²² MfS AP 11263/56, Band 16, 90, Federal Commissioner for Stasi Records (Berlin: BStU) ; Cf. “Text of the Statement alleged to have been made by Otto John,” 24 July 1954, FO 371/109323, UK National Archives.

²³ Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Secret World: Behind the Curtain of British Intelligence in World War II and the Cold War (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014), 195.

²⁴ Otto John, “A ‘Traitor’ Speaks,” New York Times, 15 December 1971. For his part, John argued that Gehlen’s actions in handing over all his files to the Americans at the end of the war hardly fulfilled the moral precepts of the Wehrmacht.

²⁵ Norbert Frei, Adenauer’s Germany and the Nazi Past: The Politics of Amnesty and Integration (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002).

²⁶ Curt Garner, “Public Service Personnel in West Germany in the 1950s: Controversial Policy Decisions and their effects on Social Composition, Gender Structure, and the Role of Former Nazis,” Journal of Social History 29, no. 1 (1995): 25–80 (27, 33–4).

²⁷ Stöver, “Der Fall Otto John,” 112. Cf. Hett and Wala, Otto John, 253–4.

²⁸ Bundesgesetzblatt, 13 May 1951.

²⁹ Christian Mentel and Niels Weise, Die zentralen deutschen Behörden und der Nationalsozialismus: Stand und Perspektiven der Forschung (Potsdam: Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung, 2016).

³⁰ “Dr. John ‘Lured’ to East Berlin.”

³¹ Hugh Trevor-Roper, “Why Otto John Defected Thrice,” Spectator, 11 April 1997, 14–15, (15).

³² “Secret U.S. Spy War on Britain. Dr John Tells Why Agent Killed Himself,” Daily Worker, 31 July 1954.

³³ “Verbatim Translation of John’s Statement August 11” (1954), FO 371/109323, UK National Archives.

³⁴ CIA, Memorandum for the Director, 12 August 1954.

³⁵ Hett and Wala, Otto John, 232.

³⁶ This is contrary to the report, “Vague d’arrestations occidentaux en zone soviétique à la suite de la disparition d’Otto John,” Le Monde, 24 July 1954.

³⁷ MfS AP 11263/56, Band 2, 26, BStU.

³⁸ Trimble, “The Defections of Dr. John.”

³⁹ “Auskunftsbericht Dr. Otto John” (Berlin, den 3.11.1955), MfS AP 11,263/56, Band 4, 6f, BStU.

⁴⁰ Observation Report, 6 July 1955, MfS AP 11263/56, Band 3, 9, BStU.

⁴¹ A 47-page book in German was published. Otto John, Ich wählte Deutschland (East Berlin: Ausschuss für Deutsche Einheit, 1954).

⁴² “Gedanken zum Fall John,” no date, MfS AP 11263/56, Band 12, 10, BStU.

⁴³ “Dr. John ‘Lured’ to East Berlin.”

⁴⁴ As cited by Stöver, “Der Fall Otto John,” 110.

⁴⁵ Harry Söderman to Otto John (13 August 1954), MfS AP 11263/56, Band 1, 188, BStU.

⁴⁶ “Revolver-Harry zum Fall John. ‘Flucht war Irrsinn’,” BZ, 7 October 1954.

⁴⁷ “Auskunftsbericht Dr. Otto John.”

⁴⁸ Letters from Mielke to Ulbricht, 18 November 1955 and 13 December 1955, BStU as cited by Keith R. Allen, Interrogation Nation: Refugees and Spies in Cold War Germany (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), 82.

⁴⁹ Report (20 July 1955), MfS AP 11263/56, Band 3, 15f, BStU.

⁵⁰ “Bericht über die Zusammenkunft ‘Keller’ mit der M.” (Berlin, den 2.2.1955), MfS AP 11263/56, Band 2, 128f, BStU.

⁵¹ MfS AP 11263/56, Band 23, 2, BStU.

⁵² “Bericht: Begleitung Johns am 12.12.1955” (Berlin, den 14.12.1955), MfS AP 11263/56, Band 4, 77f, BStU.

⁵³ “So entwich Otto John seinen Beobachtern in Berlins Ostzone” [translation of an article by Henrik Bonde-Henriksen], MfS AP 11263/56, Band 9, 219, BStU.

⁵⁴ Hochverrat und Staatsgefährdung (Karlsruhe: C. F. Müller, 1958), vol. 2: 77–156.

⁵⁵ “SPD: ‘Ein Fall für Psychiater’ Bonn kommentiert John-Rückkehr. Adenauer: Nachricht löst Heiterkeit aus,” Spandauer Volksblatt, 14 December 1955.

⁵⁶ “Dr John Drugged or Drunk?,” Manchester Guardian, 12 December 1958.

⁵⁷ “Precis of report by the Federal Ministry of Justice on the present state of investigations in the John case issued by the Press Office, Bonn,” 15 September 1954, FO 371/109323, UK National Archives.

⁵⁸ See for example Neue Deutsche Wochenschau 257, 31 December 1954. Many of these photographs were designed for propaganda purposes. Others were more personal and private.

⁵⁹ “So entwich Otto John seinen Beobachtern in Berlins Ostzone.”

⁶⁰ “Eidesstattliche Erklärung” [no date]; “Aussprache” (27 July 1954), MfS AP 11263/56, Band 1, 13, 24, BStU.

⁶¹ Stöver, “Der Fall Otto John,” 114–15.

⁶² Ibid., 116, 121.

⁶³ David E. Murphy, Sergei A. Kondrashev, and George Bailey, Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 195.

⁶⁴ “From Bonn to Foreign Office,” 27 July 1954, FO 371/109323, UK National Archives. For a full elaboration of the Mindszenty case, see Susan L. Carruthers, Cold War Captives. Imprisonment, Escape and Brainwashing (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), 136f.

⁶⁵ “Direktor des Verfassungsschutzamtes entlastet. Das Verhalten des Angeklagten im Ostsektor hat den vereinbarten Spielregeln entsprochen,” Der Kurier, 16 November 1956.

⁶⁶ Dominic Streatfeild, Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2006).

⁶⁷ “Entführt oder verführt?,” Der Spiegel, 20 September 1993.

⁶⁸ On Dr Güde’s membership of the NSDAP, see “Vorführung empfiehlt sich Bonn. Generalbundesanwalt,” Der Spiegel, 11 July 1962.

⁶⁹ Judgment of 22 December 1956 against Otto John, B Rep 058 vorl. 152801h, Landesarchiv Berlin.

⁷⁰ In particular, John’s references to secret clauses in the European Defence Community negotiations, governing allied access to defectors, were diplomatically damaging; Allen, Interrogation Nation, 83.

⁷¹ The former KGB officer most willing to reveal ‘secrets’ about the John case was in financial difficulties and had a wife who required round-the-clock medical care. He gave several, conflicting accounts of what he knew. Murphy et al., Battleground Berlin, 196.

⁷² “Vorermittlungen wegen vermutlicher Verbringung von Dr. Otto John, geb. 10.03.1909, 1954 nach Ostberlin,” B Rep 058 vorl. 152801h, Landesarchiv Berlin.

⁷³ “Entführt oder verführt?”

⁷⁴ Mark A. Tittenhofer, “Intelligence in Recent Public Literature” Studies in Intelligence 17, no. 4 (Winter, 1973).

⁷⁵ Murphy et al., Battleground Berlin, 196, 198.

⁷⁶ Hans Frederick, Das Ende einer Legende: Die abenteuerlichen Erlebnisse des Towaritsch Alexander Busch (Munich: Politisches Archiv, 1971).

⁷⁷ Report by Pitovranov transmitted via secure telephone to KGB Chairman Ivan Aleksandrovich Serov, SVRA file 76863, vol. 1, p. 68 as cited by Murphy et al., Battleground Berlin, 191.

⁷⁸ Murphy et al., Battleground Berlin, 192.

⁷⁹ Ibid., 193.

⁸⁰ Gieseking, Der Fall Otto John, 408.

⁸¹ “Entführt oder verführt?”

⁸² John, Zweimal kam ich heim, 259, 274f.

⁸³ “Untruths Dr John Told Russians. Clash with Judges,” Manchester Guardian, 20 April 1956. Although no truth serum has been proven, both sides in the cold war were searching for one. John Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The Story of the CIA’s Secret Efforts to Control Human Behaviour (London: Allen Lane, 1979).

⁸⁴ Hett and Wala, Otto John, 335, 338.

⁸⁵ Alfred Paumier, “Inside Darkest John,” Studies in Intelligence 5, no. 2 (1961), 45–50.

⁸⁶ John, “A ‘Traitor’ Speaks.”

⁸⁷ Trevor-Roper, “Why Otto John Defected Thrice,” 14.

⁸⁸ Stöver, “Der Fall Otto John,” 120.

⁸⁹ “Johns Flucht war ‘Wahnsinn’,” Spandauer Volksblatt, 7 October 1954.

⁹⁰ “Erklärung des Präsidenten des Bundesamtes für Verfassungsschutz,” Neues Deutschland, 24 July 1954.

⁹¹ Trimble, “The Defections of Dr. John.”

⁹² Murphy et al., Battleground Berlin, 183.

⁹³ “Entführt oder verführt?.”

⁹⁴ Stöver, “Der Fall Otto John,” 119.

⁹⁵ Sylvia Conradt and Kirsten Heckmann-Janz, Der Fall Otto John: Don Quijote im Kalten Krieg (Munich: Der Hör-Verlag, 1999).

⁹⁶ Don Cook, “West Allies Approved Appointment of John,” Herald Tribune, 23 July 1954.

⁹⁷ Hett and Wala suggest that West Germany did ultimately shift closer to John’s position. Hett and Wala, Otto John, 339.

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Mark Fenemore

Mark Fenemore studied East German youth, subcultures, moral panics and schooling before branching out into the history of Cold War Berlin. His latest monograph, Behind Enemy Lines, covers multiple aspects (economic and cultural as well as geopolitical and espionage) of the Cold War as fought in Berlin.