Dr. Robert Wagner was an industrial chemist who became an S.D. and

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one or ...

officer in Vienna, Austria, during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. He was the figure behind the " Von Pott Group", organised by the sculptor

Lisa von Pott Lisa Louisa Elisabeth von Pott (18 February 1888 – ?) was an Austrian espionage agent, sculptor, secretary to the poet Rabindranath Tagore in the 1920s and 30s, and in 1928 the first instructor in sculpture at Kala Bhavana in Bengal. With the o ...

, to spy on anyone suspected of helping the Allies or having pro-Allied sentiment in Vienna and the ultimate destination of intelligence collected by the group.

Career

Wagner was employed by Chemosanwerken and later by Heilmittelwerke, both of Vienna. He subsequently became an SD and Gestapo officer in the city during the Second World War. As part of his duties he funded an espionage operation in Vienna that was organised by the sculptor Lisa von Pott and later known to the British as the "Von Pott Group". The aim of the group was to spy on anyone in the city suspected of helping the Allies or expressing pro-Allied sentiment."re the "VON POTT" group", 22 January 1946, i
Susan Dorothea Mary Therese HILTON
KV 2/423, National Archives. Records of the British security services describe some of his activities carried out in conjunction with von Pott: * He introduced Frau Schoen to the economist Dr Kogerer for whom she worked as a secretary. Kogerer and his wife were both subsequently denounced to the Gestapo and interrogated with information that the British thought could only have come from Schoen. They were sent to

Mauthausen concentration camp Mauthausen was a Nazi concentration camp on a hill above the market town of Mauthausen (roughly east of Linz), Upper Austria. It was the main camp of a group with nearly 100 further subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany ...

and not heard from again. * His friend Hans Kaufman, a member of the Nazi party, posed as a communist. * He and von Pott recruited

Susan Sweney Susan Dorothea Mary Therese Hilton (née Sweney, 2 February 1915 – 30 October 1983) was a British radio broadcaster for the Nazi regime in Germany during the Second World War. Born in India to a family with Irish connections, she was act ...

, a British pro-Nazi broadcaster and journalist, to work for them spying on targets they selected in Vienna. Wagner met Sweney weekly at her lodgings with the pro-Nazi Luze Krimann and paid von Pott who then paid Sweney."re Susan HILTON" i
Susan Dorothea Mary Therese HILTON
KV 2/423, National Archives. The Gestapo interrogators Foppelt, Berger,

Eduard Tucek Eduard Model Accessories is a Czech manufacturer of plastic models and finescale model accessories. Formed in 1989 in the city of Most, Eduard began in a rented cellar as a manufacturer of photoetched brass model components. Following the succ ...

, and Scmiedel were closely associated with von Pott and Wagner.

References

Gestapo personnel Austrian chemists Year of birth missing Year of death missing SS personnel {{Austria-bio-stub