Codeword Overlord

by Nigel West

  The plan was to send agents across the front lines or to parachute them in the vicinity of hidden dumps. Thus future Abwehr missions, once arrived behind enemy lines, would be assured of adequate supplies. Approximately 30 small crates were buried at a depth of about 30cm, at locations calculated to be both easily accessible and close to future sabotage targets. These crates were corrosion-proof and contained five to ten charges of different types and sizes, such as incendiaries, demolitions, and camouflaged coal, all of British origin. Instructions for use were attached to each charge.

  The location of the dumps was described in great detail by means of a series of charts and photographs, of which three sets were made. One set was kept at II headquarters in Berlin, one sent to Ast Paris, and one to the Iberia Abw Trupp, a unit set up at the same time as the E-organization for employment in the event of an Allied invasion of the peninsula. None of the charts or photographs remained in Spain. The three existing sets were destroyed before the end of the war. The copy in Paris disappeared in 1944, coincident with the rumored desertion of a member of the II staff of Ast Paris.

  Also in line with the reorganization, Referat II began in late 1943 to train ten to 15 Spaniards in the handling of S-materials. These men were to be left behind enemy lines. However, when all S-operations in Spain were discontinued on orders from Berlin in early 1944, this plan had to be abandoned. Of the participants in this sabotage course, Blaum remembers Francisco Borjabad, the recruiting agent, and Ricardo Zusaet and Emilio Diaz, both students. Since the training had to be suspended in its early stages, the Spanish agents never received any sabotage materials.

  KO Spain envisioned another possibility for R-work in the support of a clandestine right-wing Falange group led by Perales, one of the earliest Falangists and a sincere idealist. Perales’ political activities were of little interest to Abwehr II, which, despite its new designation, Mil Amt D, had regained a purely military organization. It was suggested to Berlin, however, that as a demonstration of goodwill 20,000 pesetas be allotted to Perales’ organization for its propaganda program.

  Perales and his followers were in opposition to Franco’s foreign policy, which in their opinion had become increasingly favorable to the Allies. Perales was also a fanatic Catholic, a rabid opponent of Communism, and a thorough Germanophile.

  Perales’ group consisted of old Falangists who had supposedly remained honest and not joined in the frequent attempts by Falange leaders to enrich themselves. They considered themselves the ‘Falange autentica’, as opposed to the regular Falange organization founded by Primo de Rivera.

  Perales, known as a very secretive person, never divulged more than vague information regarding the composition of his organization. Moreover, it was felt by KO Spain that his tremendous enthusiasm caused him to exaggerate the importance of his group. He claimed that such military leaders as Generals Yague and Munez Grande supported his movement, and that even Serrano Suner was sympathetic to his cause. It was considered doubtful, however, whether these important figures would openly ally themselves with Franco’s enemies.

  Despite suspicions of wishful thinking on the part of Perales, Referat II was agreed that he could be of value in R-operations in the event that Franco should break diplomatic relations with Germany, or that Spain should be invaded by the Allies. In July 1944 a plan for making use of Perales was submitted to Berlin. Since approval was not immediately forthcoming and Perales needed time to round up and brief his collaborators, little progress was made in 1944. The project was still in its preliminary stages when Blaum left Spain in February 1945.

  The first step of the plan was to set up a W/T net which would assure permanent contact with Perales after a break between Germany and Spain. This net would have been the basis for future II work. The remainder of the plan, including S-training, could not be carried out because the blanket order prohibiting all S-activities was still in effect.

  Three W/T stations were to be established, at Madrid, Barcelona, and Seville. The procurement of personnel and appropriate sites for the stations was entrusted to Fernando Alzag, head of the anti-communist department of the Falange Information Services. It had also been decided to turn over to Perales a set of the documents revealing the location of the S-deposits mentioned above. Since the documents were not available in Spain, a set was requested from Berlin. They were to be given to Perales just before the contemplated diplomatic rupture or invasion. In February 1945 this had not been done.

  Only a minimum of news and opinions were exchanged between Referat II and the other sub-sections. Information of I and III interest which was gathered along with II material was merely passed on to the interested sections. There were, however, some exceptions to this policy:

  In Seville, Captain Antonio Ojeda and Patricio Drexel, neither of whom were connected with II, were used in sabotage activities. Ojeda, a member of the Spanish Intelligence Service, volunteered information on maritime traffic to and from Gibraltar. Most of his reports came through Referat I. Drexel, a German resident of Seville, contributed reports on the internal political situation, police records, etc, some of which were used by III.

  Referat II obtained an especially valuable item of information for I-TLw through Drexel. A Spanish Air Force colonel supplied a complete description of a U.S. four-engined bomber which had made an emergency landing in Southern Spain. Various technical manuals were included in the report. At the time (summer 1943) the Abwehr was looking for such material, and was anxious to obtain data on radar equipment, which was supplied in this report.

  Some III-F functions were taken over by the II office after all S-operations had been forbidden by Berlin. Perfecto Brioseo, a Falange Information Services agent, had contacted Baldwin, of the U.S. Embassy. Brioso, who had been engaged by the Spanish III-F service, had offered his services to the II office without the knowledge of III-F. Thus Blaum was able to learn what questions Baldwin had asked Brioso and what cover answers Brioso had been furnished by his own intelligence service. In one case, when Baldwin screened a number of Germans with Brioso’s aid, Brioso’s cover answers were supplied by the II office. Brioso’s activities came to an end when Spain decided to discontinue III-F connections with the U.S. Embassy and Brioso refused to carry on without the shield of his own organization.

  Enrique Zabala, a Spanish friend of a member of the II staff, claimed to have established III-F contacts with the British Embassy through certain left-wing and anarchist circles, who in turn claimed to know Varela, a Spaniard in the service of the British. KO Spain had always been extremely interested in the results of Allied measures to gain support from the Spanish leftist parties. Zabala, however, was arrested by the Spanish police and admitted having worked as a III-F agent for the Germans.

  Another III man, Fernandez-Fernandez, was engaged by Referat II. A Spanish police agent in Seville, Fernandez-Fernandez worked in a III-F capacity with the British Consulate, supplying British Intelligence with lists of arrivals and departures of aliens. He had also been asked to investigate suspect German agents. Necessary answers were of course supplied by the II office.

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  In Portugal an entirely separate KO operated from an apartment building that was an annex to the embassy in the rua Buenos Aires, headed by a portly Austrian, Ludwig Kramer-Auenrode, who lived in some style at the Villa Ki-Ana at Estoril. He would be succeeded as head of the Lisbon KO by Colonel Rolf Friderici, formerly of Abt. III in Berlin. In charge of the KO’s Gruppe III was Fritz Cramer, code-named CIRO, formerly the manager of the Adlon Hotel in Berlin who was credited with having broken into the safe of the OSS chief in Lisbon,13 Robert Solborg. Much was learned about Cramer through two of his contacts, DARIEN and VIPER, who were both SIS double agents, and ISOS. His SIS dossier revealed that he lived in a house behind the German embassy, and that his secretary, Ingeborg Evert, was also one of his two mistresses.

  Cramer was a formidable opponent and employed a well-connected socialite, the Baroness Marie von Gronau, whose father was the ai
r attaché in Tokyo, and a veteran spy, Wilhelm Gossmann, who had worked for the French, Polish and Czech Deuxieme Bureaux, for more than twenty years. He would become notorious, but with a degree of protection provided by the PVDE’s Captain Catela, acted with apparent impunity. Among his coups was the acquisition from the senior Czech intelligence officer in Lisbon, Colonel Pan, of two British SIS transmitters, fully equipped with codes, supposedly for onward delivery to what turned out to be a pair of non-existent resistance networks in Marseilles and Paris. Both entrapment operations resulted in many arrests in France, and accolades for Gossmann and Cramer.

  Gossmann, who often adopted the alias Alexander, was also in touch with the British and Americans, but he was compromised by ISOS in September 1942 before he could do lasting damage. Nevertheless, when Cramer was repatriated to Germany and interrogated in September 1946, he detailed the information about Allied intelligence agencies supplied by Grossmann, who denied the allegations and was described by his CIC interrogator at Ludwigsberg as ‘wholly unreliable’.

  The KO’s I-H branch was not established until September 1943, with the appointment of Dr Aloys Schreiber to the KO to replace Otto Kurrer, alias Kamler, a pre-war businessman and chemist who had lived in Wimbledon with his Swiss wife, Natasha. Schreiber’s role was to manage and relay intelligence reports, without any analysis:

  Schreiber’s only contact with Berlin was through the diplomatic courier service, or in urgent cases, the KO radio. He had nothing to do with the operation of either, but turned his reports over to whichever facility he deemed appropriate for the transmittal of a particular report.

  Orders from Berlin stated that there was to be no evaluation made at Schreiber’s end of any information received from his sources, but that all the evaluations would be made in Berlin. From the heterogeneous conglomeration of opinions, facts and fantasies the agents turned in, Schreiber’s only task was to sift out that which did not pertain directly to the military and pass this on to the Referat concerned, either air or naval intelligence. Schreiber, however, did not always conform to these instructions from Berlin, in many instances throwing out entire reports from agents because they were obvious figments of the imagination.

  According to his post-war interrogation, Schreiber had been in contact with eight principal agents in Portugal, one of whom was Paul Fidrmuc:

  The contacts and sources of I-H were almost entirely in the form of personal relationships between Kurrer and members of various industrial and trading circles both Portuguese and foreign. Because of their personal nature, they could not be contacts when Schreiber assumed command of the referat. Most of the remaining contacts soon proved to be unreliable and poorly suited for the accumulation of military information and were dissolved.

  In his search for new contacts Schreiber soon discovered that his almost negligible knowledge of Portuguese was a decided handicap and brought this to the attention of Admiral Canaris and Colonel Hansen, requesting a transfer. The reasons for his request were recognized by Canaris, but he was never transferred.

  In February 1944, after Hansen had succeeded Canaris, Schreiber was told definitely that he would remain at his post in Portugal in spite of his handicaps.

  It was then that Schreiber finally became actively concerned in acquiring contacts and agents. At that time the most important question from Berlin concerned the possibilities of an Allied invasion and requested in particular the time, location and strength of such a proposed landing. Reports reaching Schreiber from his agents concerning the time of landing vacillated between March and August of 1944 and the locations most often mentioned were the Bay of Biscay coastline, especially Bordeaux, and the coastline along the Gulf of Lion in the vicinity of Marseilles, although points along the entire coast of German-occupied territory were mentioned at some time or other. Numerous reports mentioned combined operations, with simultaneous landings in Norway or Denmark. Schreiber cannot recall the actual contents of any specific reports, nor can he recall the exact sources of such reports.

  Schreiber’s Agents

  During the course of his two years as chief of Referat I-H in Portugal Schreiber acquired the services of seven Portuguese who were either Germanophiles or strongly influenced by pecuniary incentives. Some of these agents also had sub-agents working for them, with whom Schreiber never came in contact and whose names he never knew. Schreiber also gleaned occasional bits of information through purely social contacts in business or diplomatic circles, but these sources cannot be considered as agents.

  The following is a list of the names and a brief outline of the activities of each of his agents:

  (l) COSTA SILVA, Maximo had the cover name RADIO, was an ex-sailor and radio operator, worked for a radio firm near Rossio, was a member of the Portuguese Legion and quite in accord with the Axis aims. He organized 4 or 5 sub-agents who in the event of an Allied invasion of Portugal, were to remain with him as a stay behind organization and report by radio on Allied activities, ie, ship movements, loading and unloading of supplies, troop locations and concentrations, weapons and other activities. The organization was not expected to function for much more than two or three months, because of the uncertainty and undependability of Portuguese agents. The organization was finally dissolved in February 1945 because the Allies invaded France.

  (2) NASCOUCSLHOS, Antonio had the cover name FRUTA and was employed by a coal mining concern in Ponta Delgada on the island of Santa Maria in the Azores. Since the islands were being used by the Allies as an air and naval base, activities there were of extreme interest to the German Intelligence Service. Foreigners were not permitted on the island and even natives had difficulty observing anything because of effective Allied security measures. The main difficulty encountered by Nascoucslhos was the lack of radio communication, so that by the time the information arrived by ship it was often out of date and useless. His activities ceased when the firm for which he worked transferred him to the Lisbon branch.

  (3) MACHAEO, Jose Carlos had the cover name JOCCA, and was a fairly good linguist. He was rather down and out, however, and peddled newspapers, magazines and pornographic pictures. In this capacity he was an ideal contact man and also excellent for picking up bits of information in hotels and cafes, particularly from crews of Allied planes which had made forced landings, etc.

  Quite often his information was obtained while his unsuspecting informants were under the influence of alcohol. He was quite a capable agent and furnished a fair amount of valuable information. At the beginning of 1945 Machado went to Lourenco Marques, Mozambique, ostensibly to go into business with his brother.

  (4) NOG UEIRA, Eduardo was employed in the Ministry of Public Works, was an extreme Germanophile and expected to obtain a job in a German firm after the war. Occasionally he supplied valuable information concerning the arrival of war materials in Portugal. Most of his information was not obtained through his own observation and efforts, but gleaned from friends of his who worked on dock installations, warehouses, transports, etc. His services ceased abruptly toward the end of 1944 for unknown reasons.

  (5) PERUGI, Carlos was referred to as MOEOKKANER, and was a capable and versatile person, but of somewhat dubious character. He had served for several years in the Spanish Foreign Legion and maintained many connections in Morocco. His reports were mostly concerned with troop movements in the posts along the coast of Portugal. After several obvious errors and exaggerations were noticed in his reports, he was dismissed in the early part of 1945.

  (6) de BREUILLE, Alice, was a French emigrant and her cover-name was BLANCHE. She was acquainted with a number of persons in Allied diplomatic circles, and besides reporting on general Allied attitudes and opinions, she also gleaned occasional bits of information which were of military interest.

  She was also in frequent contact with Allied air and military personnel passing through Lisbon and obtained information from them which proved of interest to Referat I-H. Her activities ceased in March 1945 when she allegedly married a Brazilia
n.

  (7) PEREIRO, Alberto had the cover name MAGISTER. He was supposedly a distant relative of the Portuguese politician Dr Armindo Monteiro and consequently had access to Portuguese political circles and their discussions of foreign opinions and activities. Their discussions also touched upon military matters, and since Monteiro was oblivious of the fact that much of the subject matter of these discussions was falling into German hands, it was valued all the more highly. Schreiber was never quite sure of Pereiro’s trustworthiness, however. He became ill in late 1944 but Schreiber thinks that his activities ceased because the situation was becoming a little too risky for him.

  (8) In the case of Paul Fidrmuc, Schreiber received orders from Berlin to contact Fidrmuc and give him a sealed envelope, and was told that he was to receive similar sealed envelopes from Fidrmuc at intervals. These were to be labeled by a certain code designation and sent by courier to Berlin. This code designation changed occasionally; the one which was used for the longest period was probably OSTRO, while others used were MAX and ERNST. Schreiber claims that he was told that these letters pertained only to business and economic situations and were out of his field. Consequently, his position was simply that of a middleman with no interest in the subject matter at all.

  Schreiber did not consider Fidrmuc as one of his agents, but only as an added duty which might just as easily have been given to any of the other Referat of the KO. Schreiber believes that for some time prior to his arrival in Portugal, Fidrmuc turned in similar reports directly to the embassy in Lisbon which were then sent by diplomatic courier to Berlin.