by Helen Fry
At the end of the month, Lieutenant General Frantz was discharged from hospital and brought back to Trent Park. The nurses told the British officer that they had tried to discharge Frantz earlier and they had never come across ‘such an unpleasant, domineering and thick-skinned patient’. On his return, Frantz seemed happy with the medical treatment but complained bitterly that he had been insulted by having a sentry posted outside his room at all times. He complained about the quality of the food, which for him was an indication that the war was not going well for the British.
SNAKE IN THE GRASS ACTIVITIES
During August 1943, the generals seemed as disunited as when they first arrived. After Sunday lunch on 15 August, von Arnim gave another of his ‘pep talks’ and warned the others against defeatist talk. He announced that he suspected a British army officer of listening into their talk from his window – why else had he moved to a room in the middle of the first floor? He also declared suspicions that their conversations might be overheard by the establishment. The speech created uproar amongst the other generals who thought him mad to believe the British could be listening in to their conversations. Even the pro-Nazis objected to the tone and language of von Arnim’s rhetoric.
The following day, von Arnim added more fuel to the fire when he said that all he was trying to do was save the defeatists from court-martial when they finally returned to ‘the glorious Fatherland’. The other senior officers objected strongly to what they termed ‘the Gestapo-style methods’ contained in von Arnim’s speech which resulted in them suspecting von Arnim of suffering from psychosis.24 Crüwell too was deemed to be unbalanced. They speculated whether the British army officer assigned to talk to them was in fact part of the British secret service, but concluded that he could not possibly be engaged in intelligence because his manner was not subtle enough.
Crüwell began to work against von Liebenstein to have him deposed as deputy camp leader, perhaps hoping that he himself would be selected.25 When this did not happen he was bitterly disappointed and continued to vent anger and to harbour a hatred of von Thoma, but the other officers no longer showed any interest.
The generals continued to be supplied with literature. Crüwell complained that the anti-Nazi books had been supplied by the British authorities and should in no way be distributed in wartime without being censored by the German authorities.26 The other generals quickly responded – who did he mean by the ‘German authorities’? British intelligence commented in a report, ‘He [Crüwell] probably meant himself!’
General von Arnim tried to veto listening to broadcasts in German as being secret British propaganda. Bassenge, for one, threatened to ignore von Arnim’s veto, and von Thoma questioned whether, under the terms of the Geneva Convention, it was legal for von Arnim to ban listening to radio broadcasts.
On 20 August, Frantz, Schnarrenberger, Heym and Drange were informed that they were being transferred the following day to an American camp.27 The other generals could not resist commenting on the reasons for the unexpected transfer. Frantz bizarrely decided he was being exchanged for some American machinery and that he had been chosen because he was the senior Luftwaffe general in the camp and the Americans wanted him for reasons of prestige. Heym decided he was being exchanged for forty old destroyers. Drange suggested that he and Heym were on the American ‘Black List’ and shouldn’t be transferred. Then the M Room listeners overheard an extraordinary comment which gives an insight into the brain-washing of the Nazi regime: four senior officers feared that they were victims who might fall into the hands of the Jews in America and be paraded through the streets of New York.28
Intelligence reports occasionally mentioned mail that the generals received from Germany – all censored by MI9. On 29 August, von Thoma received a letter from a retired general in Germany who wrote at length about the marvellous morale of the German home front. Von Thoma’s reply was short: ‘Please write only about personal matters and nothing else!’29 Another intelligence report narrated how Colonels Reimann, Köhncke and Wolters had a drink in their room and invited a British army officer. ‘A very pleasant evening was in progress when von Arnim appeared with six bottles of beer and asked if he could join the party,’ it reported.30 Von Arnim was accepted by the others, but with the firm suspicion that he was only there to spy on them.
That autumn of 1943, the generals reacted with concern to news about the Moscow Conference in which Allied leaders discussed ways to shorten the war and how to deal with justice and war crimes.31 The Moscow Agreement provided for the trial and punishment of individuals suspected of war crimes in the country where the atrocities had taken place. The intelligence reports at the time mentioned: ‘Our guests are still all very worried by the war criminal clause in the Moscow Agreement. Vain and violent efforts at counter propaganda are being made by our guests to a British army officer.’32
By November 1943, General Cramer’s health was sufficiently bad that MI19 considered repatriating him before the end of hostilities. After his medical examination, he was quite open with a British army officer and discussed how he would be interrogated by Hitler on his return. He assured the British officer that he would tell Hitler how confident the British were of a victory, and that he had been well treated as a POW. He planned to tell Hitler, ‘There is no hope of peace as long as he [Hitler] and his gang form the government’.33 The subsequent MI19 report stated that on his return, Cramer would ‘try to find out what is being done to overthrow the Nazi regime. We can rest assured that any attempt will have his full support and that of his friends.’34
Cramer believed he would still have significant influence in Germany as a ‘kommandierende General’. He reassured the British officer that he had a good friend in General Korten, the German air force Chief of Staff, whom he would tell after his repatriation that the recent raids on London were a waste of time and petrol.35
During this period, the generals enjoyed raised morale, largely due (in their minds) to the German offensive towards Kiev, the slow and difficult progress of the Allied advance through Italy, and the belief that much of November had passed without any crack in Germany’s home front. There were comments, too, about the bombing of Berlin which von Thoma and Reimann believed ‘served the Berliners right, as they were not sympathetic enough when the Ruhr and Rhineland were being bombed’. British intelligence noted: ‘On the majority of our guests, the raids on Berlin have not had as great an effect as expected.’36
WINTER FESTIVITIES
As Christmas approached, British army officers turned to plans for festivities at Trent Park. On 9 November, the ‘guests’, as the generals were politely referred to in intelligence reports, had group photographs taken, sitting on a bench in the grounds. The photograph was to be sent to their wives and families in Germany as a Christmas card.37 In a move which surprised intelligence staff, the generals organised themselves along political lines for the official photograph. Clustered in one group were von Arnim, Crüwell, von Hülsen, Meixner, Schmidt, Buhse, Egersdorff, Borcherdt, Boes, Glasow and Hubbuch. The other group was composed of Sponeck, Broich, Liebenstein, Bassenge, Neuffer, Krause, Reimann, Wolters and Köhncke. Von Thoma refused to have his photograph taken at all because he did not want a reminder of his time in a prisoner-of-war camp or to be seen with ‘old Blimps’ as he termed his colleagues.
A short time later, a British army officer stumbled across an advertisement for Trent Park written by one of the generals. Its tongue-in-cheek humour perhaps brought a smile to British minders and reads in translation:38
PARK SANATORIUM
First class accommodation, running hot and cold water at all hours of the day, also baths on the premises. Four generous meals daily, first class English cuisine.
Regular walks under expert guidance.
Large library of carefully chosen literature of all countries.
Table-tennis tournaments, billiards, chess and bridge circles.
Instruction in art and handicrafts.
Alcoholism
cured without extra charge.
Moderate terms, varying according to social position.
Best society assured at all times!
Internal rivalry continued unabated. Crüwell endeavoured again to have the deputy camp leader von Liebenstein removed from post, proposing to have him replaced by Bassenge in the hope of bridging the rift between the pro-Nazis and defeatists (anti-Nazis). His strategy was aimed at isolating von Thoma and giving the Nazis more influence in the camp.
Towards the end of November, Generals von Broich, Sponeck and von Liebenstein were informed by a British army officer that the Führer was sending a gift of money to all prisoners. Their response to Hitler’s generosity was, according to the intelligence files, ‘uncomplimentary and unprintable’.39
Christmas celebrations began after afternoon tea on Christmas Eve. That evening, the generals and senior German officers sat down to Christmas dinner. Afterwards, the various groups retired to their rooms to celebrate quietly. Only von Thoma spent the remainder of the evening alone. Major Boes, one of the most violently pro-Nazi officers in the Camp, received news from his wife by letter that he had been promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. The intelligence report for that week noted that his ‘Anglo-phobia gets more marked each day’.40 The festivities were marred only by von Arnim who, even on Christmas Eve, felt it his duty to annoy British officers by raising complaints about their treatment of prisoners. However, Bassenge took a firm stand and told the British that the others were only too grateful for what had been done for them in their ‘Park Sanatorium’.
On Christmas Day, the generals gathered around a wireless set to listen to the King’s Speech.41 Cramer commented to a British army officer how impressed he was with the speech and how the King was a figurehead which a nation could rally around in times of crisis. He blamed the removal of the Kaiser for all Germany’s subsequent ills. The other generals said little.
The pampered generals were rather profligate with electric light and water and at last the British minders brought this to the attention of von Arnim who discussed the matter with Cramer. Both agreed it would be better to limit consumption than have the British retaliate by cutting rations.42
New Year’s Eve saw no particular celebrations in the house. The generals gathered in the common room to listen to the German wireless broadcast at midnight. Goebbels’s speech and Hitler’s proclamation did nothing to lift their sombre mood, except inspire a rare unified agreement, even amongst the defeatists, that they would support their motherland to the bitter end. The generals were wished a happy new year by their British minders, which elicited the response from General von Thoma: ‘It might be a happy new year for you, but it’s not for us!’43
CHAPTER 8
Secret Listeners
By 1943, a vast volume of intelligence had been amassed through the M Room. What emerges from reading the transcripts and reports today is the sheer amount of information that was gathered about Nazi Germany. Events were taking a dramatic turn on the Eastern Front, too. At the end of January 1943, German Field Marshal von Paulus, in charge of the German 6th Army trying to take Stalingrad, had surrendered to the Soviets. The city of Stalingrad finally fell on 2 February 1943. The tide began to turn for the Allies and would soon bring with it more prisoners of war. The RAF and US Air Force continued to hammer the enemy’s industrial centres in successful air raids across Germany. At Latimer House, Kendrick faced a problem. He needed to urgently increase the number of secret listeners to cope with the extra workload, influx of prisoners and the technical nature of the conversations.
Until 1943, the majority of the secret listeners were British-born men who had fluency in German. There were exceptions, like Jan Weber, who was born in Berlin but had fled to England prior to the war and submitted an application for British nationality, which he finally secured in August 1942. He was able to gain a commission and enlisted into CSDIC through the ‘old boys’ network’ – in this case, via a cousin by marriage. Weber later described his experience as a listener:
My job, and that of the junior army officers at the time, was to listen to and record conversations between inmates of possible intelligence interest. By the time of my arrival, most German army prisoners caught in North Africa had been dealt with, but to my amazement I saw the name of Wolf Breitling on the list of prisoners for interrogation. He had been the driver batman of a Luftwaffe officer, and I was convinced that he knew nothing. His own rank was that of a corporal but he was sent for interrogation because he spoke several languages and was used as an interpreter by the British. I told Wing Commander Felkin (the head of our air force wing) of my acquaintance with Wolf and went to see him in his cell. He plainly knew nothing but it was an enjoyable experience to speak to him – the only German friend I met during the war, other than fellow refugees.1
By early 1943, the German dialect and specialist technical information being picked up via the microphones was too difficult for British-born linguists. The listeners needed to have an extensive knowledge of service slang, conditions and technical gadgets. In a memo to intelligence chiefs, Kendrick wrote: ‘The difficulty of finding suitable M Room personnel cannot be overstressed.’2 He needed native German speakers to monitor the thirty bugged rooms at each of the sites, and turned to the German-speaking refugees serving in the Pioneer Corps.3 They had fled Nazi Germany and Austria prior to the outbreak of war and wanted to make a difference to the outcome. For some of them, their chance came in 1943.
From her office at MI19(e) at Wilton Park, Catherine Townshend spent much of her time during the autumn of 1942 and 1943 arranging interviews at the War Office in London for Kendrick’s recruitment drive for new secret listeners.4 She processed the paperwork for new intelligence staff, whom Rawlinson then appointed officially as officers, but lower ranks were recruited direct by her and she coordinated all clearances from MI5. It meant travelling to London several times a week for the interviews, but the other office work needed attention during her absence. She was given an assistant, ATS officer Margaret Morley, and they became firm friends. They shared an office with ATS officer ‘Tigger’ Agar-Robartes whose job was to censor prisoners’ letters and search for any small clues or information that could be useful for intelligence.
The demand for new secret listeners was pressing. Townshend wrote:
German linguists were in greater demand than ever for listening posts in the various M Rooms. Rawli suggested that I investigate a source that had not yet been tapped: Jewish refugees in the Pioneer Corps. Sons of bankers, lawyers, doctors, and other professions, well educated, hounded from the country in the 1930’s, these young men had found sanctuary in England.5
Kendrick ran the recruitment interviews with Major Corner, Major Le Bosquet and Townshend. She recalled:
I attended the interviews, sought security clearances through MI5 afterwards, and in the weeks that followed, sent successful candidates their instructions to report to Beaconsfield or Latimer. The long and careful questioning by Lt. Col. Kendrick prepared me for the role of interviewer, a task that I had to assume in the year ahead.6
Around a hundred male German-speaking refugees were eventually transferred to CSDIC as secret listeners. One of them, Frank Stevens, wrote to a fellow ‘alien’ Pioneer Hans Francken after his interview and told him: ‘I only want to tell you that I had my interview yesterday and I think I passed it alright. Anyway, out of 14 we were only three who were asked to come back in the afternoon, when we had our interview with MI5. I guess that it will be the same sort of job as yours. Of course I don’t know anything about it, and shall not ask you either.’7 Their respect for secrecy is clear, and neither did Stevens know what special duties he was being interviewed for. That would be revealed eventually by Kendrick, who became his new commanding officer.
It is ironic that many of these ex-refugees were once mistrusted by the British government as ‘enemy aliens’ and not even permitted to carry a camera at the outbreak of war, and had spent several months behind barbed wire in inter
nment camps on the Isle of Man in the summer of 1940. Then they had sworn allegiance to George VI and enlisted in the Pioneer Corps where they carried out manual jobs for the war effort.
FRITZ LUSTIG
One such secret listener was Fritz Lustig. Lustig’s background was quite typical of the émigrés who went on to work for MI9 and MI19. After Kristallnacht (the ‘Night of Broken Glass’) in November 1938, when the Nazis smashed Jewish businesses and shop windows across the country, Lustig had to find a way to flee Nazi Germany. The SS and Gestapo were rounding up male Jews and sending them to concentration camps. The city of Berlin where he had been born in 1919 had become an alien place. Securing visas to leave was difficult, but he finally succeeded in emigrating to England in April 1939. His parents later fled to Portugal and his elder brother Ted had already left for America where he fought in the US forces.
Lustig was in England on temporary work when war broke out. In the summer of 1940, as an ‘enemy alien’, he was arrested and interned on the Isle of Man in Churchill’s policy of ‘Collar the Lot!’ that saw the mass internment of nearly 30,000 German refugees behind barbed wire.8 On one level, life in internment could have seemed idyllic, far removed from the dangers of war. But many of the internees like Lustig felt a deep resentment at being unable to fight. This was their war and they did not want to sit back while others did the fighting.
In September 1940, he was released from internment to join the Pioneer Corps. As an amateur cellist, he was posted to its orchestra and commented, ‘It was not my idea of fighting the Nazis’.9 A bitter-sweet revelation was the discovery that the only unit open to him as an enemy alien was the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps – essentially an unskilled labour corps. Still without British nationality, Fritz donned British army uniform, swore allegiance to George VI and received the King’s Shilling. He was one of around 6,500 German-speaking refugees to enlist in the Pioneer Corps between 1940 and the end of 1941. They became affectionately known as ‘The King’s Most Loyal Enemy Aliens’ and, as their individual war records show, they served Britain with total loyalty and were prepared to die for the country that had saved them.10