Ulrich Schnaft

Ulrich Schnaft was born in 1923 in Königsberg

Schnaft was born in Königsberg in 1923 to a single mother. He was placed in an orphanage and later adopted by a German family. He trained as a mechanical technician at a vocational school and finished in 1941.

He joined the Waffen-SS and fought on the Eastern front, where he was wounded. He later served in Yugoslavia and in northern Italy, where the US Army captured him. He was released in 1947 after no evidence of war crimes was found.

In Munich he posed as a Holocaust survivor to receive aid. In 1947 he joined Jewish refugees bound for Palestine, but the British sent the ship's passengers to Cyprus, where he joined the Haganah. He reached Israel in 1949 and studied Hebrew at kibbutz Kiryat Anavim.

He was drafted into the IDF in 1949 and became an officer in the Artillery Corps. A security check in 1952 raised doubts about his identity, and he was discharged. In 1954 Germany refused him entry, so he offered Israeli military information to Egypt and was questioned in Cairo.

Back in Germany, he told a former lover about his past, and her husband informed Israeli security in 1955. Mossad agents posing as Iraqi intelligence lured him back, and he flew to Israel on 1 January 1956.