But this wasn’t enough for Isser, who decided to launch his own all-out campaign to disrupt the Germans’ activities in Egypt.
On September 11, 1962, at ten thirty A.M., a swarthy stranger with a Middle Eastern cast to his features entered the Intra offices on Munich’s Schillerstrasse. The clerk who ushered him into the office of the company director, Dr. Heinz Krug, heard him say he had been sent by Colonel Nadim, an Egyptian officer who maintained close contacts with Krug. Half an hour later, the Egyptian left the building with Krug. A United Arab Airlines stewardess saw the two men go by the airline ticket office. She was the last person to see Krug.
The following morning, Mrs. Krug informed the police that her husband was missing. Two days later, the police found Krug’s white Mercedes abandoned on the outskirts of Munich. The car was covered with mud, and its tank was bone-dry. An anonymous phone call to the police announced: “Dr. Krug is dead.” But some information from other sources made the police believe that Krug had been abducted by Mossad agents and taken to Israel. Today, there is no more doubt that Krug is dead.
On November 27, Hannelore Wende, Pilz’s secretary at Factory 333, saw a thick envelope in the morning mail; the sender was a well-known Hamburg lawyer. Hannelore opened the package. A deafening explosion shook the office. Gravely wounded, Pilz’s secretary was taken to the hospital, where she was to spend a few months before leaving blind, deaf, her face badly scarred.
The next day, a big package marked BOOKS arrived at Factory 333; when an Egyptian clerk opened it, the package exploded, killing five people. The sender’s address, a Stuttgart publisher, turned out to be false.
The explosive packages kept arriving the following days. Some of them had been sent from Germany, others from inside Egypt. Some blew up, causing casualties, others were defused by Egyptian army experts alerted by 333 officials. The identity of the senders wasn’t officially established, but the Egyptians and the journalists were certain that the bombs were prepared and sent to Cairo by the Israeli Mossad. Much later, it was established that several of the letter bombs had been mailed by the “Champagne Spy.” This was an Israeli agent, Ze’ev Gur-Arie, who operated in Egypt under the cover of “Wolfgang Lutz,” a German owner of a horse farm near Cairo. Posing as a former SS officer, he had settled in Cairo with his German wife and established close relations with Egypt’s high society and its military leaders.
The letter bombs deeply disturbed the German scientists, who now felt their lives were in danger. Many of them got anonymous phone calls threatening them or their families if they kept working on Nasser’s project. Strict security measures were applied at the three “factories” in Egypt and at the sister companies in Europe. When visiting Europe, the scientists had to move in large groups, accompanied by German security officers. This practice probably saved Professor Pilz on his trip to Europe in late 1962. A group of strangers followed him in Germany and Italy but didn’t get the opportunity to come near him.
Isser spent the fall and winter of 1962 in Europe, directing several Mossad operations intended to obtain more accurate and updated information. Rafi Eitan succeeded in penetrating a diplomatic mission that handled the German scientists’ mail. Such operations were his favorite. “That’s much better than recruiting agents,” he said. “When you recruit an agent you have to train him, build him a foolproof cover, put him in place, and give him time to establish contacts . . . But reading your enemy’s mail is much better—you get immediate results and first-class material.”
For his unconventional operations, Eitan needed some very sophisticated electronic equipment, but did not know where to get it. The equipment, used by the CIA and other intelligence agencies, could not be found in stores. While reading his newspaper in his Paris office, Eitan noticed a short item about the notorious Jewish mobster Meyer Lansky, who was the mob boss of Miami. In his scheming mind, that seemed like an opportunity. He called the operator: “Find Meyer Lansky in Miami!”
Three minutes later, Lansky was on the line. “Shalom, Meyer,” Eitan said. “I am an Israeli, operating in Paris, and I need your help for the Zionist state.”
“No problem,” Lansky answered. “In a month I shall be in Lausanne, in Switzerland. Let’s meet there.”
Eitan met with Lansky in Lausanne, and told him what he needed. Lansky gave him the address of a certain man in Chicago. “He’ll get you what you want,” he said. A week later, Eitan landed in Chicago and headed for the man’s address. “The electronic equipment we got from this guy served us well all through our operations against the German scientists,” Eitan summed up.
One of these operations brought a new name to Isser Harel: Dr. Otto Joklik. According to the source material, Joklik was an Austrian scientist specializing in nuclear radiation. Dr. Joklik was allegedly employed by a top-secret Egyptian project to obtain nuclear weapons in record time. The Egyptians intended to establish a front company, Austra, for Joklik in Austria, which would purchase radioactive materials for Joklik’s project and ship them to Egypt. Austra would be separate from Intra, to avoid being investigated by the German authorities. Joklik was to carry out two nuclear tests for Egypt and produce several atom bombs that would be fitted into the missiles’ warheads.
All this indicated that Joklik was a very dangerous man, perhaps the most dangerous of the German scientists. An urgent order was sent to all the Mossad stations in Europe: Find Joklik!
But Isser was in for a stunning surprise. On October 23, 1962, a stranger rang the door of an Israeli embassy in Europe and asked to see the security officer: “My name is Otto Joklik. I am ready to give you a full report about my activity for the Egyptian war effort.”
Two weeks later, in utter secrecy, Joklik landed in Israel.
Many months later, when the Joklik defection came to light, European reporters wrote that Joklik probably contacted the Israelis because of the disappearance of Intra director Heinz Krug. Joklik had maintained close contact with Krug, who was among the few in the know of Joklik’s role in Egypt’s “special military programs.” When Krug disappeared, Joklik panicked. What if Krug had been abducted by the Israelis? He might talk and reveal Joklik’s secret tasks. And then, Joklik knew, he was as good as dead. Therefore, he decided to cross the lines and surrender to the Israelis; that way, he hoped, he at least would save his life.
Joklik spent four days in Israel. He was kept in strict isolation, in a top-security facility of the Mossad. Isser decided to use him for two main tasks: as a source of intelligence about the Egyptian project and as a double agent who would return to Egypt and work there for the Mossad.
Otto Joklik told the Israelis that he had been recruited by a senior German clerk in the United Arab Airlines who introduced him to General Mahmoud Khalil, nicknamed by the German scientists “Herr Doktor Mahmoud.” His meeting with the Herr Doktor resulted in two projects: Ibis and Cleopatra. The secret of those projects was shared only with Professor Pilz and Dr. Krug.
Operation Ibis was to provide Egypt with a radiological weapon that could spread dangerous nuclear radiation. Joklik took it upon himself to obtain large quantities of radioactive isotope cobalt-60 and to experiment with it in Egypt. If the experiments succeeded, Joklik would try getting more cobalt, which would be placed in the missiles’ warheads and spread deadly radiation on impact.
The goal of the second project, Cleopatra, was to produce two atomic bombs. Joklik suggested an ingenious method for manufacturing the bombs: buying uranium enriched to 20 percent in the United States or in Europe; enriching it up to 90 percent by special centrifuges developed in Germany and Holland by the scientists Dr. Wilhelm Groth, Dr. Jacob Kistemaker, and Dr. Gernot Zippe; and building the bomb with the enriched uranium.
Joklik flew to the United States and tried to get the enriched uranium there; he also met with several German scientists and invited them to build centrifuges in Egypt. Simultaneously, he purchased some cobalt-60 in Europe and dispatched it to a gynecologist in Cairo, whose name was Dr. Khalil—the siste
r of Herr Doktor Mahmoud . . .
When Joklik’s debriefing in Israel was over, his testimony was sent to several experts for review and assessment. For some reason, their reports didn’t get the proper attention. Concerning the Cleopatra Project, the experts said there were almost no chances that Joklik would get 20 percent enriched uranium. Even if he did, Egypt would need at least one hundred of the best centrifuges in order to harvest the necessary uranium for assembling one bomb within two to three years. And even if they managed to build a bomb, it wouldn’t go off, for Joklik’s formulas were incorrect. The experts dismissed Ibis and the radiological weapons, whose impact, they said, would cause no more damage than an ordinary bomb.
The soothing tone of the reports didn’t calm the nation’s leadership. They were even more alarmed by the reports that the Egyptians were also developing chemical weapons. On January 11, 1963, their fears were justified when the Egyptians used poison gas in their war in Yemen. Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Golda Meir met with President John F. Kennedy and talked to him about the danger that the Egyptians would arm their missiles with unconventional warheads; she asked him to intervene, but Kennedy did not.
The unconventional warheads were indeed very dangerous, but the first priority was given to disrupting the development of the missiles’ guidance systems.
In the winter of 1963, the Factory 333 guidance expert, Dr. Kleinwachter, was spending some weeks in Germany. On the evening of February 20, he left his lab in Lorrach, and drove his car to the narrow lane leading to his home. The lane was dark and deserted, covered with deep snow. Suddenly, in a shrieking of tires, a car emerged from a cross street and blocked the way. A man got out of the car and walked toward Kleinwachter. The scientist glimpsed a third man in the car.
“Where does Dr. Shenker live?” the man demanded. Without waiting for a reply, he drew a revolver equipped with a silencer and fired. The bullet shattered the windshield and lodged in the scientist’s woolen muffler. Kleinwachter groped in the glove compartment for his own revolver, but his assailant ran back to a second car, which darted out of sight.
The police found the first car abandoned about one hundred yards from the scene of the attack. The three men had made their escape with another car. They had left behind a passport in the name of Ali Samir, one of the heads of the Egyptian secret service. It turned out, however, that this was a red herring; on the day of the attack Samir was in Cairo and had been photographed with a German journalist.
The men who had attacked Kleinwachter were never found. Yet the unanimous opinion of the press was that the assassination attempt had been carried out by the Israelis, and had ended in failure.
A few weeks later, the Mossad tried again—this time going after German-born Dr. Paul Goerke in Switzerland.
Goerke, like Kleinwachter, was working on a guidance system for the Egyptian missiles in his lab at Factory 333. He was deemed very important by the Egyptians—and by the Mossad as well. His daughter Heidi lived in Freiburg, a German town close to the Swiss border. Shortly after the attempt on Kleinwachter’s life, Dr. Joklik called Heidi and told her that he had met her father in Egypt, where he was working on the development of terrible weapons intended to destroy Israel. Joklik hinted that if Goerke didn’t cease his activities, he would be exposing himself to frightful risks. If, on the other hand, he were to leave Egypt, he would not be harmed.
“If you love your father,” Joklik concluded, “come on Saturday, March 2, at four P.M., to the Three Kings Hotel in Basel, and I will introduce you to one of my friends.”
Heidi, scared, immediately contacted H. Mann, a former Nazi officer who had been charged by the Egyptians with the scientists’ security. Mann alerted the Freiburg police, who notified the Swiss authorities. And so, when Joklik and his friend entered the Three Kings Hotel, several police cars were waiting behind the building, detectives were stationed in the lobby, and tape recorders were installed close to the table where Heidi Goerke was sitting.
Joklik and his friend—Mossad agent Joseph Ben-Gal—walked right into the trap. They suspected nothing, and talked with Heidi Goerke for an hour, careful not to make any direct threats but alluding to the danger for her father if he kept building his terrible weapons. They offered Heidi a plane ticket to Cairo so that she could persuade her father to return to Germany where he and his family would be safe.
The meeting over, the two men left the hotel and took the six o’clock train to Zurich, where they went their separate ways. But while Joklik was waiting for another train on the platform, he was arrested by plainclothes policemen. Ben-Gal was apprehended near the Israeli consulate.
That evening the German police asked the Swiss to extradite the two men who were suspected of threatening Heidi Goerke and also of having participated in the attack on Dr. Kleinwachter.
From his headquarters in Europe, Isser activated his contacts and tried to persuade the Swiss to release Ben-Gal and Joklik, but they refused because of the German extradition request. Isser then flew back to Israel and met with Minister of Foreign Affairs Golda Meir. Lately, they had become very close and shared the same hostility and suspicions toward Germany. Golda suggested that Israel approach Chancellor Adenauer and demand that West Germany withdraw the extradition request.
Isser immediately drove to Tiberias, where Prime Minister Ben-Gurion was vacationing. He urged Ben-Gurion to send a special envoy to Bonn, West Germany’s capital. The envoy would present Adenauer with proof of the atrocious activities of the German scientists in Egypt, and demand the withdrawal of the extradition request.
Ben-Gurion refused.
Isser didn’t let go. “You have to decide what to do if the arrest is made public. Then the entire affair will blow up.”
“What do you mean, blow up?” Ben-Gurion asked.
“As soon as Ben-Gal’s arrest becomes known, the entire affair of the German scientists in Egypt will also come to light. Israel will have to explain why Ben-Gal acted as he did. We shall also have to disclose that the Egyptians have been buying equipment for their rockets and other military projects from Germany.”
Ben-Gurion thought a moment and finally said: “So be it.”
That was the beginning of the rift between the two men.
In the evening of Thursday, March 15, 1963, United Press International announced the arrest of Joklik and Ben-Gal “on suspicion of having threatened the daughter of a German scientist in the employ of Egypt.” Isser Harel called a secret meeting with the editors in chief of the daily newspapers; at the meeting he described the background to Ben-Gal’s arrest. He particularly stressed Joklik’s part in the affair, the kind of work he had been doing for the Egyptian project, and the fact that he changed sides voluntarily and was trying to repair the damage.
During the next few days, Isser’s aides secretly briefed three Israeli journalists: Naftali Lavi of Haaretz, Shmuel Segev of Ma’ariv, and Yeshayahu Ben-Porat of Yedioth Ahronoth. They were given all the facts, and the addresses of Intra, Patwag, and the Stuttgart Institute. The three men then left for Europe to gather data on the German scientists and cable it to their papers in Israel. News about the German scientists’ project would be more credible coming from Europe, Isser thought. Other Mossad men were sent abroad to brief pro-Israeli journalists.
Isser Harel didn’t realize that the German issue was one of the most sensitive topics in Israel. His unbridled attack on Germany started an avalanche that couldn’t be stopped, a deluge of accusations against the scientists that provoked real panic in Israel.
By March 17, the Israeli and foreign press were floundering in a sea of sensational headlines: German scientists, most of them former Nazis, were producing deadly weapons in Egypt. They were preparing biological, chemical, nuclear, and radioactive weapons. They were developing poison gas, terrible germs, death rays, warheads equipped with atomic bombs or radioactive waste that would spread lethal radiation. The newspapers competed with one another by publishing reports that seemed plagiarized from the Flash Go
rdon comics: the death ray, hissing and scorching everything in its path . . . the air over Israel that would be poisoned for ninety years at least . . . the germs spreading atrocious plagues, et cetera. The campaign also accused the government of the Federal Republic of Germany of refraining from putting an end to the devilish activities of its subjects working for Egypt, and actually following in Hitler’s footsteps. The reporters sent to Europe added more fat to the fire, by “discovering” every day new details about the scientists’ diabolical plot.
Ben-Gal and Joklik’s trial in Basel ended with light sentences for the two men—two months in jail, with time served. But it had a secondary result with enormous implications.
During the trial, the judge suddenly noticed that one of the spectators was carrying a gun.
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