Rudy de Mérode

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Rudy de Mérode, born Frédéric Martin on 28 December 1905 in Silly-sur-Nied, was a French collaborator with the German occupation during World War II. His family came from Luxembourg and became French citizens in the 1920s. He studied engineering in Strasbourg and then in Germany, where he joined the German military intelligence, the Abwehr, in 1928. In 1934 he helped build the Maginot Line and secretly passed the plans to German intelligence. He was exposed as a spy in 1935 and sentenced in 1936 to ten years in prison and twenty years of exile from France.

During the chaotic days after the 1940 invasion, he escaped from Clairvaux prison with other prisoners and returned to the German side. In July 1940 he went back to Paris and worked at the German intelligence HQ in the Hôtel Lutetia, using the cover of a supply office at 18 rue Pétrarque. He spied for the Abwehr alongside the Dutch agent Gédéon van Houten. He trained a team of about thirty fugitives to gather money and property, using apartments and luxury houses as bases. His main activity was moving funds: gold, silver, jewels, art objects, and other valuables.

In 1941 he settled in Neuilly-sur-Seine, but in 1942 he separated from van Houten after a disagreement. With help from the Devisenschutzkommando (DSK) he raided bank vaults, buying valuables at low prices or forcing owners to sell. Jewish-owned property was confiscated and owners were often deported. The Neuilly group seized more than four tonnes of gold, and the network accumulated huge sums of silver, with over 500 people arrested or deported.

In early 1944 the Abwehr ordered him to set up a base in Spain. He moved from Saint-Jean-de-Luz to San Sebastián, and then Madrid, using the name “the prince de Mérode.” By 1953 he was living in Spain, in a brickyard about 60 km north of Madrid. He was sentenced to death in absentia but was never captured. His date of death is unknown, though 1970 has been suggested.