black market racketeer he dealt with was caught by the Gestapo and named him as a spy. As soon as his interrogation became physical, the black marketer revealed that he knew a high ranking American agent. Mayer spoke only in French, and tried to convince the Gestapo that he was what he pretended to be. He was tortured to force him to talk: All that time the Gestapo kept asking where his radio and radio operator were. One Nazi noticed that Mayer was circumcised, but the other dismissed it. They refused to believe that a Jew would return as an agent for the Allies. Then the man who betrayed him was brought to face Mayer. Realizing that there was no more use pretending, Mayer began speaking German. He confirmed he was an American. However, he insisted that he worked alone. German surrender At the same time Mayer was tortured, Hermann Matull, another American agent, was being interrogated by the Gestapo. He was shown the picture of Mayer's beaten and swollen face, and was asked if he knew the man. Matull did not think long. He claimed that Mayer was a "big shot" in the American command, and that if Mayer were shot, the Americans would kill all who had mistreated him. Matull even insisted that a man as senior as Mayer could be interrogated only by the Gauleiter of Tyrol and Vorarlberg, Franz Hofer. Hofer believed that the defeat of Germany was inevitable, and was looking for a way to surrender to the Americans rather than to the Red Army. He ordered the Gestapo to bring Mayer to him. Mayer was introduced to Hofer's wife and the German ambassador to Benito Mussolini's government, Rudolph Rahn. They ate dinner and talked. Mayer initially believed that it was just a new way to make him reveal where his radio operator Hans Wijnberg was located, but he later understood that the Germans were really there to discuss their surrender. Rahn said he was going to Bern, and promised to deliver Mayer's message to Allen Welsh Dulles, the OSS man there. Mayer agreed. It was the only way to inform the center of what was going on without revealing the existence of Wijnberg. Dulles got the message and cabled it to OSS headquarters in Italy: "Fred Mayer reports he is in Gestapo hands but cabled 'Don't worry about me, I'm really not bad off'"