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Lecture

Trudy Gold
Wolfgang Lotz: The Champagne Spy

Thursday 24.08.2023

Summary

Reckless daredevil Wolfgang Lotz was born in Germany to a Jewish mother and German father. After the Nazis took power, the family emigrated to Palestine. A blond-haired, blue-eyed German, he fought in the Israeli War of Independence and Sinai Campaign. When Egyptian President Nasser recruited German scientists for his rocket program, Lotz was sent by Israel to begin his career as a spy.

Trudy Gold

An image of Trudy Gold

Trudy Gold was the CEO of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and a founding member of the British delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Throughout her career she taught modern Jewish history at schools, universities, and to adult groups and ran seminars on Holocaust education in the UK, Eastern Europe, and China. She also led Jewish educational tours all over the world. Trudy was the educational director of the student resources “Understanding the Holocaust” and “Holocaust Explained” and the author of The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization.

Stopping, I think, look, think of the Six-Day War. What happened in the Six-Day War? Do you remember? The Israelis, look, the Israelis had to, they took a terrible chance. They left three planes guarding Israel when they destroyed the Egyptian Air Force and the Syrian Air Force. They had such good information from Lotz. They even knew which were the real planes and which were the dummies. He gave them information during a period of war. That was the point. The Jewish exodus from Egypt, Lorna, that is told, in fact, I think we’ve already had sessions on that from Lynn Julius. He was caught because, well, there are stories. He’s imprisoned because Nasser wants him in prison because he’s entertaining the East German head of state. He’d arrested some of the Germans as well. He’d arrested some of the ex-Nazis as a show of gesture, and they were going to be let out the minute the visit was over, but he thought he’d been rumbled, so that’s when he confessed.