Kurt Sitte

Kurt Sitte
Kurt Sitte, witness for the prosecution, at the Buchenwald War Crimes Trial, Dachau, 1947, April 16
Born1 December 1910
Reichenberg, North Bohemia, Austro-Hungary
Died30 June 1993
Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Occupation(s)nuclear physicist
convicted spy
Spouse(s)1. Kheda Kraus
2. Judith Krymokowski
Children1. Martin Sitte
2. _____ Sitte

Kurt Sitte (1 December 1910 - 20 June 1993) was a nuclear physicist, originally from northern Bohemia.[1]

As a result of frontier changes, he grew up, after 1919, in Czechoslovakia, and from 1938 found himself a citizen of an enlarged Germany. It was primarily because of his political activism that he was detained at the Buchenwald concentration camp between September 1939 and April 1944. Having survived this internment, his scientific skills opened up a range of career options internationally: between 1945 he lived and worked successively in Scotland, England, the United States, Brazil and Israel.[2]

Kurt Sitte was arrested on espionage charges on 15 June 1960 and, as Israel's first convicted spy,[1] spent the next three and a half years in prison.[3] Early release, in March 1963, resulted from his "good behaviour",[2] at which point he was quoted as saying that he would be "glad" to continue to work in Israel,[3] but shortly after this he took West German citizenship and relocated to Freiburg where he pursued his academic career at the university.[2]

  1. ^ a b "Israel / Sitte-Prozess: Spion im Weltraum". Der Spiegel. Der Spiegel (online). 11 January 1961. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
  2. ^ a b c Ami Dor-On (20 October 2013). "Kurt Sitte – A Russian "Sleeper Agent" in Israel". IHLS. Retrieved 26 August 2016.
  3. ^ a b Alexander Zvielli. "50 years ago". Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 8 October 2016. Retrieved 26 August 2016 – via HighBeam Research.