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Guido Zimmer 1911-1977
Guido Zimmer was a mid-level SS officer involved in the Holocaust in Italy and in Nazi espionage. His notebooks, which are translated in the CIA's file, offer insight into Nazi intelligence activities the last year of World War II, particularly Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) efforts either to negotiate a separate peace with the West or to divide the Allies.
Zimmer's notebooks (the original in German shorthand), which covered his activities from May 1944 until March 1945, contain new information about the intelligence contacts that led to the surrender of German forces in northern Italy arranged by Allen Dulles (May 2, 1945). Dulles's negotiations, codenamed "Operation Sunrise," saved some lives and certainly added luster to his achievements as head of the OSS office in Switzerland. The story of the secret American-German negotiations in Switzerland in March and April 1945 was revealed in 1947 in a series of magazine articles in the Saturday Evening Post. Although the purpose of this publicity was probably to counteract tendentious and inaccurate Italian accounts of the surrender of German forces in Italy, stories about Dulles's wartime successes helped him later to become director of the CIA. Therefore, new evidence about the background of Operation Sunrise is historically quite significant.
Another significant element of Zimmer's file is that he was able to escape prosecution as a war criminal partly through exploiting his wartime intelligence contacts and dealings with OSS officials, who spoke up for him after the war. In that sense his history mirrors the experience of some other Nazi officials.
Born on November 18, 1911 in Buer, Westphalia, Guido Zimmer was a slim, athletic man of average height with dark brown hair and a high-pitched voice.1 He joined the Nazi Party in 1932 and the SS and SD in 1936. By 1940, as a member of Foreign Intelligence branch of the RSHA, he was assigned to Rome. After Zimmer's cover was blown through a slip, he was recalled to Berlin.
In September 1943, after Mussolini was overthrown and a new Italian government tried to sign an armistice, the Allies landed troops in southern Italy. Germany intervened with its own troops and SS and police, taking control of most of the country. Killings and deportations of Jews in Italy began.
Zimmer was assigned to Genoa, where he tracked Jews down, then to Milan. His commander in Milan was the infamous SS Colonel Walter Rauff, head of the Security Police and SD for Group Northwest Italy (Gruppe Oberitalien West). (Years earlier in the RSHA criminal-technical institute, Rauff had designed gassing vans to poison Jews and other victims.) Zimmer led a small team in Milan that seized Jewish property and lived well off the proceeds. He also obtained political information from abroad and built up a network of agents who could supply Germany with intelligence if the Allies overran Italy. Like Rauff, Zimmer was involved both with war crimes and with espionage in Italy.
After the war because of their contacts receive lenient treatment from the Allies.
Until 1955 sought by the authorities of Dortmund. Entered the country on October 22, 1949 on the steamer Toscanelli Paolo, from Genoa, as permanent.
Declared to be a farmer.
In 1977, when he died in Villa General Belgrano (Arg), Guido Zimmer was a stranger among his neighbors.