How An SS Soldier Became IDF Officer And Egyptian Spy: The Story Of Ulrich Schnaft

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The following story, reported by Ynet, is so mind-boggling, so incredible that it almost defies belief. That the story actually happened is documented by historians, but it reveals the naivete of the nascent Jewish state, which accepted many people with dubious identities, even allowing them to serve in the IDF.

In the winter of 1955, a man named Ulrich Schnaft sat down for lunch in a modest Frankfurt restaurant with someone he believed to be an Iraqi military officer. The stranger, dressed in a pressed uniform and polished shoes, introduced himself as Captain Adnan bin Adnan. The meeting appeared ordinary, but it would mark the closing act in one of Israel’s strangest espionage stories, a tale of deception so implausible that even seasoned intelligence officers doubted it when they first heard it.

The polite German pharmacist across the table was not who he claimed to be. He had once worn the black uniform of the Waffen-SS, then passed himself off as a Jewish refugee, became an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, and later offered his services to Egyptian intelligence.

His companion, Captain Adnan, was not an Iraqi at all. He was Shmuel (Sammy) Moriah, a veteran Israeli operative posing as an Arab officer. Moriah had been sent by the Mossad and Shin Bet to lure Schnaft back to Israel, alive, to face trial.
Their conversation — calm, and even cordial — was the culmination of a journey that had begun in the ashes of Nazi Germany and wound its way through the refugee camps of Cyprus, the battlefields of Israel’s War of Independence and the secret offices of Cairo.

Ulrich Schnaft was born on October 3, 1923, in Königsberg, a city that would later become the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. His mother was unmarried and poor; his father’s name was absent from his birth certificate. The boy was placed in a state orphanage and later adopted by a working-class family.

By his teenage years, Germany was deep in the grip of Nazism. Posters of Hitler adorned classroom walls; patriotism and militarism defined public life. Schnaft studied mechanical engineering at a vocational school, graduating in 1941 as the war raged across Europe. That same year, at 18, he volunteered for the Waffen-SS, the elite combat wing of the Nazi Party.

He served on the Eastern Front, where the fighting was brutal and casualties overwhelming. Later, he was transferred to Yugoslavia, part of an SS division tasked with suppressing local resistance. In 1944, as Germany’s defeat became inevitable, his unit moved to northern Italy. When American troops advanced, Schnaft surrendered without resistance.He spent two years in an Allied prisoner-of-war camp. Interrogators found no evidence linking him to atrocities, and in 1947, he was released back into a wholly different Germany.

Germany in 1947 was a place of ruins and hunger. Cities were flattened, currency worthless and millions displaced. Schnaft drifted to Munich, where he rented a small apartment with a Jewish Holocaust survivor. The contrast between them was stark: one a former SS man, the other a victim of the system he had served.

It was in Munich that Schnaft’s second life began. He observed that Jewish displaced persons received food parcels and financial assistance from American and international relief agencies. He was destitute; they were surviving. He decided to become one of them.

Schnaft began to claim that his father had been Jewish and that he himself was a survivor from Poland. He adopted a new name — Gavriel Zusman — and applied for registration as a Jewish refugee. His language skills, discipline and blond good looks helped him pass. No one questioned him too closely.

Through Jewish aid organizations, he joined a group of refugees preparing to immigrate illegally to British-ruled Palestine aboard a ship organized by Mossad LeAliyah Bet, the underground immigration network. In December 1947, Zusman boarded a vessel in Marseille along with several hundred Holocaust survivors. Before reaching its destination, the ship was intercepted by the Royal Navy, enforcing Britain’s strict limits on Jewish immigration. Its passengers were sent to detention camps on Cyprus.

In Cyprus, Schnaft — now firmly “Gavriel” — worked to cement his new identity. He learned Hebrew, joined cultural groups and made himself useful to underground Haganah organizers who were operating inside the camps. The experience reinforced his ability to adapt. In the eyes of the other detainees, he was a fellow survivor, a European Jew determined to start anew in the Promised Land. Few could have imagined that the tall, blond man helping to plan escape tunnels had once worn SS insignia on his sleeve.

When the camps were closed following the establishment of Israel in 1948, Schnaft arrived in the nascent state as part of the final wave of released detainees. He settled in Kiryat Anavim, a kibbutz on the hills west of Jerusalem. There he learned farming, improved his Hebrew, and in August 1949, enlisted in the IDF.

The fledgling army was a patchwork of refugees and militia veterans. Few had papers; background checks were cursory. Zusman proved himself capable and eager to serve. He completed a squad commanders’ course, volunteered for the Artillery Corps, and rose quickly to the rank of lieutenant. He was known for his discipline and his ability to teach others, a trait learned during his SS training years earlier. In civilian life he joined Mapai, the ruling party, and seemed to have integrated fully into the society he had once been taught to despise.

By 1952, he was seeking a career commission — a permanent officer’s post that required a deeper security review. That review changed everything.

Military intelligence investigators began a standard background inquiry. The officer calling himself Zusman had no living relatives, no verifiable history before 1947, and spoke Hebrew flawlessly but with a distinctive German cadence. Then came a strange report: several soldiers recalled that, during a night of heavy drinking, Zusman had shown them a photograph of himself in a German uniform. When questioned, he laughed and said it had been a Purim costume, a nod to the Jewish holiday of masquerades.

The story was not convincing. The investigation concluded that the officer’s origins were “unclear.” His application was denied, and soon after, he was dismissed from the IDF.

After his discharge, Schnaft moved to Ashkelon, where he rented a room from a German-speaking couple, an elderly Jewish husband and his much younger Christian wife, Margot. The two began an affair, and when the husband discovered them, Margot left her marriage and moved with Schnaft to Haifa.

Life in Israel was harsh. The early 1950s were marked by food rationing, long queues, and military tension. Schnaft grew bitter. When news reached him of West Germany’s booming economy, he decided to return home. In 1954, he and Margot sailed for Genoa, Italy, intending to travel on to Germany. At the border, Schnaft’s Israeli passport was rejected: Israel barred travel to Germany, with which it had no diplomatic relations. Margot, holding a German passport, continued north alone.

For the second time, Schnaft found himself stranded — a man without a country.
Desperate, he approached the Egyptian consulate in Genoa. There he offered his services: intelligence about Israel’s military structure, in exchange for assistance returning to Germany.

Egyptian intelligence accepted. They flew him to Cairo, gave him the false identity of Robert Hayat, and installed him in a comfortable apartment. Over days of questioning, Schnaft described the IDF’s organization, training, and weapons. The Egyptians were impressed. They offered to send him back to Israel as a paid spy. They provided money, a new passport, and, according to Schnaft’s later account, a fountain pen rigged to release poison gas.

He seemed eager, but told them he needed time in Germany first. They agreed, arranging his flight to Frankfurt. In Germany, Schnaft found work in his stepmother’s pharmacy and began trying to rebuild a life. But Margot, now reconciled with her Jewish husband, told him everything — the affair, the deception, and the spy offer from Egypt.

Her husband, outraged, wrote a detailed letter to Israeli authorities exposing Schnaft’s real identity. The letter reached the Shin Bet late in 1955. For Israeli intelligence, the revelation was startling. A former SS soldier had fought in the IDF, spied for Egypt, and was living freely in Germany.

Isser Harel, head of both the Mossad and Shin Bet, debated how to respond. Some urged an assassination. Harel decided otherwise: Schnaft would be brought back alive, tried, and sentenced under Israeli law.

The assignment went to Shmuel (Sammy) Moriah, a veteran intelligence officer of Iraqi-Jewish origin. Fluent in Arabic and German, he was known for his creativity in the field. He took on a new identity — Captain Adnan bin Adnan, an Iraqi officer stationed in Europe. A female Mossad agent, posing as a journalist, made first contact. She met Schnaft at a Frankfurt nightclub, befriended him, and introduced him to “Captain Adnan,” who she said was interested in information about Israel.

At their first meeting, Moriah let a forged Iraqi identification card “accidentally” fall to the floor. Schnaft picked it up, examined it, and smiled. From then on, he believed he was working for Iraq. Over several meetings, he told Moriah everything — his SS past, his service in Israel, his meetings with Egyptian intelligence. Moriah listened carefully, never revealing his true identity.

Then he made an offer: Iraq, he said, was worried about reports of oil fields near Ashkelon. Would Schnaft return to Israel and investigate? The pay would be generous.
Flattered and eager to regain importance, Schnaft agreed.

Before his departure, Moriah proposed a trip to Paris for a few days of leisure. The two men spent several weeks there in late 1955, frequenting restaurants and cabarets. Moriah used the time to keep his target close while Israeli operatives in Tel Aviv prepared the final trap.

On New Year’s Eve, Schnaft went alone to the Lido de Paris, paid for by his supposed Iraqi handler. When he returned, he was tearful and drunk, speaking of loneliness and a desire to belong somewhere. Moriah listened silently. He understood that his mission was nearly complete.

On January 1, 1956, carrying a forged Israeli passport under the name David Weisberg, Schnaft boarded a flight bound for Lod Airport. Moriah sent a coded message to Israel: the guest is on his way.

When the plane landed, Schnaft cleared customs and stepped outside to hail a taxi. A black car was waiting. He got in. Moments later, two men entered from either side. One leaned toward him and spoke quietly in German:“What shall we call you — Gavriel Zusman or Ulrich Schnaft?”

The color drained from his face. The car drove directly to a Shin Bet interrogation center in Jaffa. There, under questioning, he confessed in detail — his years in the SS, his reinvention as a Jew, his time in the IDF, and his collaboration with Egyptian intelligence. He appeared genuinely unaware that the Iraqi officer who had recruited him was an Israeli agent.

The trial, held behind closed doors in Tel Aviv District Court, was brief. Prosecutors charged him with divulging military secrets to Egypt. The judges avoided broader espionage counts to protect classified details. In 1956, the court sentenced him to seven years in prison.

At Ramla Prison, Schnaft was polite and cooperative. He spent his days reading the Bible, believing that when freed he would be able to collect payment from “Captain Adnan.” After five years, in 1961, he was released early for good behavior and deported to West Germany, under condition that he never return to Israel.

After his release, Schnaft vanished from public view. Journalists tried for years to locate him. Some reports claimed he became a Lutheran pastor. Others, including testimony from Moriah, said he married, had a daughter, and became active in Jewish fundraising for Israel. According to Moriah, he visited Israel twice, once as a tourist and once with his daughter, visiting the Western Wall. He died in 2013, at the age of 89.

For Israel’s intelligence community, the Schnaft affair was both a humiliation and a triumph, a reminder of how vulnerable the young state had been, and how resourceful its security services had become. A man who began life in the SS had slipped through the cracks of postwar chaos, fought in Israel’s army, betrayed it, and ultimately been caught through a deception more elaborate than his own.
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