Walter Kopp

Who is Walter Kopp?

Walter Kopp was Lieutenant Colonel of the Wehrmacht under the Third Reich. After the Nazi defeat in 1945, he became the chief of one stay-behind networks in West Germany, code-named KIBITZ-15. The British and US intelligence services had set up clandestine anti-communist organisations supposed to "stay-behind" in case of a Soviet invasion. Walter Kopp was described by his own North-American handlers as an "unreconstructed Nazi," and the KIBITZ-15 network as "a group with Nazi tendencies" in CIA documents released in June 2006.

In May 1950 Kopp wrote a letter to High Commissioner McCloy stating that he and a group of his friends were concerned over what might happen in case of a Russian invasion of Germany and wished to place themselves at the disposal of the Americans. The offer must have appealed to the CIA since Walter Kopp was made chief agent of the KIBITZ stay-behind network.

In May 1953 Kopp's contract with the CIA was terminated "on the friendliest terms".