Wolfgang Lotz

Wolfgang Lotz was born in 1921 in Mannheim

Lotz was born in Mannheim, Germany, in 1921 to a Jewish mother, Helene, and a non-Jewish father, Hans, both in the theater. He was not circumcised, a fact that later helped his cover. He moved with his mother to Palestine, took the Hebrew name Ze'ev Gur-Arie and studied at the Ben Shemen agricultural school.

He joined the Haganah as a teenager. In 1939 the British Army recruited him for his German, and in Egypt he questioned German prisoners of war. After World War II he smuggled weapons for the Haganah, and in 1948 he served as an IDF captain near Latrun.

Military intelligence sent him to Germany in 1959 to build a cover as a former Wehrmacht officer and horse breeder. He reached Cairo in 1960, opened a riding club and befriended Egyptian officers, gathering information on missile sites and the arms industry. He married a German woman, Waltraud Neumann, who helped him, and he sent letter bombs to German scientists working for Egypt.

He was arrested in Cairo on 22 February 1965 and kept his German cover story. He was sentenced to life in prison and his wife to 3 years. Both were freed in a 1968 prisoner exchange after the Six-Day War.

He lived in Israel until Waltraud died in 1973, then moved to Munich, where he wrote paperbacks and worked at a department store. He died in 1993 and was buried in Israel with military honors.