Rolex founder suspected of being World War 2 spy
British secret service agents believed that Rolex’s German founder Hans Wilsdorf was a Nazi spy.
This is the extraordinary allegation discovered in formerly classified documents, as revealed by The Telegraph.
The WW2 papers show that MI5 believed Wilsdorf to be “most objectionable” and “suspected of espionage.”
Although a 1941 letter from the Ministry of Economic Warfare stated it was desirable to review blacklisting Wilsdorf, they also noted that it might not be in the nation’s best interest at that moment because his blacklisting may have hurt Rolex and a large amount of overseas trade, the papers reveal.
Arguably even more controversially, the papers also suggest that Wilsdorf’s offer of Rolex watches to British prisoners of war was for publicity, rather than for altruistic or patriotic reasons (Wilsdorf lived in England between 1903 and 1919).
None of this provides concrete evidence of any foul play, and is unlikely to have any significant effect on people’s attitude towards Rolex today, whatever the truth.
