Kurt Sitte
Kurt Sitte | |
---|---|
Austro-Hungary | |
Died | 30 June 1993 |
Occupation(s) | nuclear physicist convicted spy |
Spouse(s) | 1. Kheda Kraus 2. Judith Krymokowski |
Children | 1. Martin Sitte 2. _____ Sitte |
Kurt Sitte (1 December 1910 - 20 June 1993) was a nuclear physicist, originally from northern Bohemia.[1]
As a result of frontier changes, he grew up, after
Kurt Sitte was arrested on espionage charges on 15 June 1960 and, as Israel's first convicted spy,[1] spent the next three and a half years in prison.[3] Early release, in March 1963, resulted from his "good behaviour",[2] at which point he was quoted as saying that he would be "glad" to continue to work in Israel,[3] but shortly after this he took West German citizenship and relocated to Freiburg where he pursued his academic career at the university.[2]
Life
Provenance and early years
Kurt Sitte was born in
At some point around 1938 Kurt Sitte married Kheda Kraus, a nurse working in Prague. The marriage would end in divorce.[2] His wife remarried in 1958.
Buchenwald
In March 1939, soon after
Early in 1942 Sitte began working in the
As the end of the war approached, on 11 April 1945 Kurt Sitte was one of those freed from the Buchenwald concentration camp by members of the United States Army.[7] His wife had also survived Buchenwald.[2]
After the war
Between 1946 and 1948 Sitte and his wife lived in Britain where he was employed as a university research fellow at Edinburgh and Manchester.[7] Their son Martin was born in 1946.[10]
Starting in April 1947 Sitte appeared as a witness at the
In 1948 he relocated to the
Israeli espionage conviction
By 1954 Kurt Sitte had become widely respected as an expert in nuclear physics, and in October he accepted a post at the Israel Institute of Technology ("Technion") in Haifa, where he set up the Nuclear Physics department and became its head. Further official recognition followed in 1955 with his appointment as the president of the Israeli Physics Society. Because of his various offices and duties he also acquired knowledge of research projects in nuclear physics at the Weizmann Institute just outside Tel Aviv and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[2]
Sitte was also entrusted with overseas research contracts, including space projects of the US Air Force. In 1959 he became deputy chief of the supervisory council of the research institute which was dominated by US, British and Canadians, and in this way he became familiar with the practical evaluation of the space research that was undertaken there. Because of his exposed position Sitte was subject to surveillance by the Israeli Intelligence Services.[2] He drew suspicion through his visits to communist Czechoslovakia and because of two stays in the Soviet Union. More brazen still, from the start of the 1960s, was a series of conspiratorial meetings with a blacklisted (by Israeli intelligence) Czechoslovak diplomat in various cafés.[1] Early in June 1960 Sitte asked his staff to produce written reports on their research projects.[2]
In the end Sitte was arrested at his villa in Haifa on 15 June 1960 and the property was searched. His arrest was based on the allegation that he had betrayed state secrets to an (unnamed) foreign power.[14] In the interrogation that followed Sitte admitted to his contacts with Czechoslovak diplomats. His sister and aging mother were still living in Czechoslovakia, and he testified that he had been keen to protect their positions, and that conversations involving scientific matters had simply involved the free exchange of information among scientists. The Israeli intelligence services reported that Sitte had been afraid that his research on cosmic rays as a potential energy source could lead to a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was in order to prevent such an outcome that he had divulged information to the Soviets. The actual trial was launched in the Haifa district court on 5 November 1960.[15] The public were excluded, but it is known that the secret trial involved crimes against the Israeli National Security Act of 1957.[1] On 7 February Kurt Sitte was sentenced to a five-year jail term for passing on secret information to a foreign power. The sentence was appealed, but without success. However, because of "good behaviour" he was released early, on 26 March 1963.[2]
Professor in Freiburg
In 1963 Kurt Sitte married, as his second wife, Judith Sitte-Amon (born Judith/Yehudit Krymokowski) and the couple relocated to West Germany.[2] The couple had a son.[4]
Between 1963 and 1971 Sitte was a professor (initially a visiting professor) at the Albert-Ludwig University of Freiburg in the southwest of the country. He combined this, between 1964 and 1967, with work at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg.[4] Between 1970 and 1983 he belonged to the scientific committee of the Cosmo-Geophysical Laboratory of the Italian National Research Council, based in Turin, where he had been employed as a teaching professor between 1966 and 1970.[16] He was also the author of numerous scientific papers.[4]
References
- ^ a b c d "Israel / Sitte-Prozess: Spion im Weltraum". Der Spiegel. Der Spiegel (online). 11 January 1961. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Ami Dor-On (20 October 2013). "Kurt Sitte – A Russian "Sleeper Agent" in Israel". IHLS. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
- ^ Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 8 October 2016. Retrieved 26 August 2016 – via HighBeam Research.
- ^ ISBN 3-7950-2013-1, p. 1292
- ISBN 978-80-246-3182-0.
- ISBN 3-486-58742-0, p. 285
- ^ )
- ISBN 978-3-412-04102-1, p. 386
- ISBN 978-3-406-47598-6.
- ^ "Transcription of Births registered in England and Wales 1837-1983: Sitte, Martin S.K." FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
- ISBN 978-3-412-10693-5, p. 128
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8135-2893-9.
- ISBN 0-8135-2892-5, p. 298
- ^ "Spy Charge" (PDF). AJR. Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain. September 1960. p. 12. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 October 2016. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
- ^ "Trial in Haifa" (PDF). AJR. Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain. December 1960. p. 16. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 October 2016. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
- ^ Kürschners Deutscher Gelehrten-Kalender, Vol 3, Walter de Gruyter, 1992, p. 3526