Showing posts with label Solf Circle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Solf Circle. Show all posts

Sunday, September 10, 2023

Friday, September 10, 1943. Betrayal.

Prime Minister Badoglio and King Victor Emanuell III made their way through German lines to escape to Allied held Italy.

Twenty-two Italian ships arrived at Malta.

The Vatican closed the doors of St. Peter's Basilica and blocked the Sant'Anna Gate at noon to give sanctuary to Italians who had fled there.

The Berliner resistance movement the Solf Circle was betrayed by an uncover Gestapo agent, Dr. Paul Reckzeh, following a tea party attended by the group.  Reckzeh was a Swiss physician.  The groups downfall would ultimately lead to the downfall of the Abwehr as the group had connections with it.

Most of the members of the group, although not all of it, would later be executed.  Reckzeh was arrested by he Soviets and held after the war until tried by them in 1950.  He was released in 1952 and lived in East Germany, where he betrayed his daughter Barbara to the East German authorities when she tried to flee to the West. He died in 1996 in Hamburg, having spent most of his adult life in Germany and having had a role in two hideous acts for two hideous regimes.

P-39 Airacobra  at Berry Field, Tennessee, September 10, 1943.