Otto von Bolschwing

Otto Albrecht Alfred von Bolschwing (15 October 1909 – 7 March 1982) was a German SS-Hauptsturmführer, intelligence officer and international businessman.

Otto Albrecht Alfred von Bolschwing was born in Schönbruch, District of Bartenstein, East Prussia (now: Szczurkowo, Poland) on 15 October 1909.

He was the youngest of five children and was descended from the Junker nobility via the untitled on the paternal side and the baronial on the maternal side.

His father, the Prussian aristocrat Richard Otto Wilhelm Ferdinand von Bolschwing, served as a cavalry officer (Rittmiester) in the Imperial German Army during World War I and was killed in action on the Eastern Front in October 1914.

Von Bolschwing attended gymnasium in Königsberg, completing his final examinations in 1926.

He went on to study law and economics at the Silesian Friedrich-Wilhelm University of Breslau and the University of London where he demonstrated an aptitude for finance and languages, eventually becoming fluent in English and French, in addition to his native German.

During his time in London, von Bolschwing worked as a clerk for the shipping agency of MacAndrew & Co.

While attending the Faculty of Law at the University of Hamburg, von Bolschwing pursued a career in international commerce, working for the East Asian trading house of C. Illies & Co. from 1928-30.

He was later employed in Berlin and Vienna as a manager with the Oberon Investment & Development Co. In 1931, von Bolschwing acquired ownership of a lime factory in Upper Silesia and also began acting as “Continental Representative” for a consortium of London-based investment firms, traveling extensively throughout central and southeastern Europe on business.

Von Bolschwing joined the Nazi Party on 1 April 1932 (NSDAP # 984.212).

That same year, he was dispatched to Bulgaria as a representative of Bank für Industrie-Obligationen, a Düsseldorf investment firm, to negotiate the installation of German-manufactured telephone equipment in the Balkans and Asia Minor.

He also traveled to the British Mandate of Palestine to scout potential business opportunities.

At this time, von Bolschwing also began an association with the German Foreign Office, providing the ministry with valuable political and economic information gathered during his travels abroad.

Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, von Bolschwing became an agent (Vertrauensmann) of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the SS security and intelligence service, and was attached to Abteilung III/2 (Foreign Intelligence).

It was in this capacity that he returned to Mandatory Palestine in 1934.

As an undercover agent of the SD, von Bolschwing was tasked with collecting political intelligence regarding British operations in Mandatory Palestine.

In the course of his intelligence work, von Bolschwing posed as a monk in Nazareth and later operated under commercial cover as an importer in Haifa and Jerusalem.

Through his business associations, von Bolschwing established contact with Fievel Polkes, a senior commander of the Zionist militant organization Haganah.

In a series of clandestine negotiations, von Bolschwing and Polkes brokered an agreement in which the SD would permit Haganah to operate recruiting and training camps in Germany where Jewish youths would receive paramilitary instruction and encouragement to emigrate to Palestine to join the struggle to establish a Jewish state.

In exchange, Haganah agreed to provide the SD with intelligence regarding British political and military activities in Palestine.

Von Bolschwing's efforts were intended to serve several different elements of Nazi foreign policy.

Foremost, to render Palestine an ungovernable political liability for the British.

The creation of a Jewish homeland in the Middle East would also provide the Third Reich with a location where it could expel its unwanted Jewish citizens.

At the same time he was bargaining with Polkes, von Bolschwing was also meeting secretly with Arab leaders in an effort to encourage them to form a united front with militant Zionists in order to stage a rebellion against the British presence in Palestine.

Von Bolschwing's covert efforts on behalf of the SD were eventually uncovered by British authorities and he was ultimately expelled from Palestine in mid-1936.

Following his return to Germany, von Bolschwing went to work at the SD-Hauptamt in Berlin, where he joined the staff of Leopold von Mildenstein, the director of the SD’s Jewish Affairs Office (Judenreferat), as a consultant on Zionism and Palestinian affairs.

In this position, von Bolschwing would author numerous reports and policy proposals outlining various punitive measures designed to eliminate the Jewish presence in Germany through a campaign of forced emigration and economic restrictions.

In January 1937 he wrote a memorandum concerning Jewish emigration, referencing the anti-Jewish riots in Berlin in 1935:

"A largely anti-Jewish atmosphere must be created among the people in order to form the basis for the continued attack and the effective exclusion of them...The most effective means of depriving the Jews of their sense of security is the wrath of the people that expresses itself in riots. Even though this method is illegal, it has, as shown by the 'Kurfürstendamm Riot', had a longstanding effect[.] The Jew...fears nothing so much as a hostile atmosphere which can spontaneously go against him at any time."

Von Bolschwing's report suggested using this kind of organized, but unlawful, street violence in combination with legal bureaucratic measures such as economic sanctions, special taxes, and passport controls to purge Germany of its Jews.

Heinrich Himmler was impressed with the document, and assigned von Bolschwing to work as a senior advisor to the Deputy Director of the Jewish Affairs Office, Adolf Eichmann.

From 1937-38, von Bolschwing would become Eichmann's primary mentor on Jewish matters and Zionism.

During the Nazi-era, he served as an operative of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) in Mandatory Palestine and Romania, where he was involved in instigating the Legionnaires' rebellion and the Bucharest pogrom in 1941.

Von Bolschwing was also an early collaborator of Adolf Eichmann's at the Office of Jewish Affairs in Berlin.

In 1945, he abandoned his prior allegiance to Nazi Germany and joined the Austrian Resistance.

Following World War II, von Bolschwing continued to work as an intelligence agent in Austria and West Germany, first for the Gehlen Organization and later for the CIA.

He emigrated to the United States in 1954, where he embarked on a successful career as a corporate executive.

During his 1961 trial in Israel, Eichmann stated:

"Herr von Bolschwing would often drop in at our office to talk to us about Palestine. He spoke so knowledgeably...that I gradually became an authority on Zionism. I kept in touch with Herr von Bolschwing...because no one else could give me firsthand information about the country I was most interested in for my work."

His prior Nazi-affiliations and suspected involvement in war crimes were later uncovered by the US Justice Department and he was forced to surrender his American citizenship in 1981.