Schellenberg, Walter

Schellenberg, Walter (1910–52),SS and police Brigadeführer (brigadier) who ran the Foreign Intelligence Service (Amt VI) of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt or RSHA.

In November 1939 Schellenberg, who was then head of the RSHA's counter-espionage section (Amt IVe), organized the Venlo incident which brought him promotion to Standartenführer (colonel). The following July he was dispatched by Ribbentrop to Spain to organize the kidnapping of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor who had escaped from France and were about to embark at Lisbon for the Bahamas. But word got back to the UK and Schellenberg's plot failed—Willi will nicht (‘Willi won't play’) he wrote in his diary when the royal couple sailed as planned.

In late 1941 Schellenberg moved to the RSHA's Foreign Intelligence Service (Amt VI) as its de facto head, a position in which he was confirmed in February 1943, and was a prime mover in uncovering the European-wide Soviet espionage network, the Rote Kapelle. When Germany surrendered in May 1945 he was in Sweden trying to negotiate peace terms through Count Bernadotte. He was extradited and became a witness at the Nuremberg trials before being sentenced to six years' imprisonment by a US military tribunal in January 1948. He was released in 1951.

Bibliography

Bloch, M. , Operation Willi: The Plot to Kidnap the Duke of Windsor, July 1940 (London, 1984).
Schellenberg, W. , Memoirs (London, 1956).