Neither Stephenson nor Wiseman had official recognition. The case had to be presented directly to President Roosevelt, who put a stop to the deportation proceedings.
Wiedemann’s explanation for talking so freely in America was that he represented a monarchist German movement that wished to overthrow Hitler. This tallied with reports from a German informant known as “Johnny Herwarth,” still described in some postwar histories as a mysterious figure who cannot be identified for security reasons. He was in fact Hans Heinrich Herwarth von Bittenfeld, a career German diplomat who later became West German ambassador in postwar London. He first began to keep the United States government informed on the Führer’s plans for Russia in 1936, when he was stationed in Moscow. By 1940, he was in Berlin and communicating through the remarkable Texan Sam Edison Woods, who passed his information to FDR. Johnny provided collateral for Wiedemann, who was eventually given safe-conduct from the United States to the place where it seemed he could do least harm—China.
In one of his last disclosures, dated November 3, 1940, Wiedemann outlined what he said were Hitler’s plans for closing the Mediterranean at both ends. He was specific in describing how German forces would move into the Balkans as a preliminary to the invasion of Russia. A possible obstacle was Yugoslavia, whose armed forces were the largest and best equipped in what was left of “neutral” Europe.
Fortunately, in this matter, Wiedemann was taken seriously. He had indicated a potential military trap. If the Nazis met resistance in the Balkans, a long-drawn-out guerrilla war would bleed Germany. The possibilities were examined by British secret intelligence in Belgrade in that same month of November. By the end of the year, the President had agreed to put Bill Donovan at Churchill’s disposal “to upset Hitler’s timetable.”
Before leaving London for East Europe, Donovan had encouraged the impression that his purpose was to look into British problems in the eastern Mediterranean. Knowing that German intelligence watched his movements, he once again skillfully misdirected newspaper speculation. Drew Pearson announced in his column that Donovan’s real mission was to confer with French commanders in North Africa. The New York Post offered the “exclusive” revelation that he was seeking a new understanding with Vichy France. He told the New York Times: “I said I found the British ‘resolute and courageous’ in August. Now I would add ‘confident.’ ” The fiction that he was only measuring British resolve on behalf of the Roosevelt administration was maintained. The Anglo-American deception plan was underway. Like all good cover stories, it closely resembled the truth.
Donovan began with a tour of the battle fronts where Mussolini’s forces were calling for German help in Greece and Albania, and then left suddenly for Sofia. He carried with him secret documents purporting to be a combination of British military plans to support resistance to a Nazi invasion of Bulgaria and draft plans for American military aid. He was surprisingly open in cabling President Roosevelt that he was having talks with King Boris of Bulgaria, who was anxious to avoid any head-on collision with Germany.
BSC historians reported: “He did not dissuade the Bulgarian leaders from their pro-German policy, but he did implant in their minds a measure of doubt as to the wisdom of that policy. In result, they hesitated before implementing their proposed intervention on Germany’s side, which would have allowed German troops unrestricted passage through their country. Mr. Churchill had intimated that he would be content with a delay of twenty-four hours. Donovan secured a delay of eight days.” He did this by suggesting that King Boris think twice about letting German forces pass through to attack British troops trying to safeguard Greece. “If the United States comes into the war, we will be guided in policy toward Bulgaria by what you do now,” he said. King Boris hesitated—not long, but long enough.
Nazi agents kept hard on Donovan’s heels in Sofia. Publicity was handled in such a way that newsmen still thought they were penetrating a security blackout. In Berlin, the Nazi propaganda mills spoke of Donovan abusing his status as the representative of a neutral power. During a final audience with Boris, Donovan’s clothes were rifled by German agents in the Royal Palace. Documents were taken. Among them were “highly confidential” notes on American proposals for military intervention in the Balkans if Hitler went too far. Later it was reported that Donovan “got himself into a state of complete drunkenness.” The canard came from Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister. The implication was that Donovan lost some personal papers through carelessness. The truth was that Donovan, who was a teetotaler, pretended to accept royal alcoholic hospitality out of courtesy. The “notes on military intervention” were for German eyes.
The personal documents that Donovan had been carrying since his departure from New York were skillful forgeries from a small unit Stephenson had organized in Toronto. It occupied the basements of the ramshackle houses adjoining the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s headquarters on Jarvis Street, at the heart of the red-light district, where prostitutes and bootleggers had been joined by black-market traders in rationed commodities. The false papers appeared to be joint Anglo-American notes for East European leaders in addition to purely American military contingency plans. The net effect was to convince the German High Command that the United States was conspiring with “the British Secret Service,” the phrase by which German leaders knew British intelligence. The Secret Service was regarded with a mixture of fear and hatred by Hitler, impressed by grossly exaggerated accounts of British genius in espionage. The forged documents seemed to prove that Donovan was stirring up trouble on a British Secret Service mission that combined a survey of the political and military conditions that might await any American intervention with an Anglo-American diplomatic offensive in the area.
The success of Donovan’s mission could be followed step by step by Churchill, reading the exchanges between the German High Command and German diplomats, between German intelligence and Hitler. Most of this material came through Bletchley, and the highlights were read to him directly by telephone. Another source was also being tapped: a Communist international radio network run from Moscow, in which some material came from Yugoslavia.
When Donovan arrived in Belgrade he found Prince-Regent Paul preparing to join the Axis, after being summoned to Hitler’s presence. Hitler had imposed upon Paul the full force of the intimidating Nazi presence, subjecting the Prince to a display of military power, totalitarian efficiency, and the whole range of the Führer’s histrionic talents.
Churchill, reading the blow-by-blow reports of Nazi leaders, including Hitler himself, commented to Roosevelt that “Prince Paul’s attitude looks like that of an unfortunate man in a cage with a tiger, hoping not to provoke him while steadily dinnertime approaches.”
The President replied through INTREPID that he would apply what counterpressure he could. Perhaps Yugoslavia would dig in her heels? Deliberately using the commercial cables that he knew the Germans tapped, Roosevelt wired Donovan: “Any nation which tamely submits will be regarded less sympathetically when the United States comes to settle accounts than any nation resisting the Nazis.” Informed of this, Prince Paul told Donovan that any German move into Yugoslavia would be merely to secure Hitler’s flank for an imminent attack on Russia. Hitler had told him so.
This was the kind of reasoning that Churchill most feared. Prince Paul was anti-Bolshevik. “Patriots may be robbed of any reason to rally to a resistance army,” Churchill had already warned Donovan. “A mass uprising can result only from some violent Nazi action.”
There was one group in Yugoslavia capable of resistance: Tito’s Communists. Tito was then only a name. Some said he did not exist at all. He had returned from the Soviet Union a year earlier, disguised as Spiridon Mekas and carrying a British passport issued in Canada. How this came about is still classified information. Tito had been deeply disturbed by Stalin’s treatment of other East European Communist leaders. (“When I went to Moscow I never knew whether I would come back alive,” he said later.) While othe
r Communist leaders followed Moscow’s policy of placating Hitler, Tito had spent the past few months preparing for war. He was getting no guidance from Stalin. He did get guidance through intermediaries from Donovan. Regardless of political allegiances, said Donovan, anyone resisting fascism would get outside support. Yugoslavia must not collaborate with the Nazis. A sellout would relieve Hitler of the need to tie down security forces in the Balkans, and thus both the Balkans and Russia would be lost. The message was quite clear: “If Prince Paul kneels to the Nazis, revolt.”
By the time Donovan left, the Germans were nervous and trigger-happy. In this uncertain atmosphere, British intelligence put pressure on the Yugoslav Air Force chief, General Dušan Simovič, also secretly visited by Donovan.
On Saturday, March 22, a German ultimatum was presented to the Yugoslav government. Hitler had followed the softening-up process with a touch of the lash. During the next two days, while Prince Paul and his advisers rationalized surrender, senior officers mounted a short-lived palace revolt. In the background, lacking arms and unable to bring his extensive organization into the open, Tito had to bide his time. “But the detonator,” he said later, “had been exploded.” The officers’ rebellion overthrew the Prince-Regent.
Donovan had flown back to Washington, where he added fuel to the fire. In a nationwide broadcast on March 25, 1941, cast in the form of a report on his mission, he talked of the courage of those resisting Nazi aggression in the eastern Mediterranean.
The speech was guaranteed to throw Hitler into an angry fit. The Führer was known to blunder when his tantrums were unpremeditated, and not staged for effect. The Donovan speech was filmed, appeared on newsreels all over Britain as well as the United States, and received unprecedented publicity, considering Donovan’s officially modest role. It was produced a week after an early-morning breakfast with Roosevelt and Stephenson, following a message from Churchill thanking FDR “for the magnificent work done by Donovan in the Balkans.” The President at once arranged that U.S. Navy warships would protect British supply ships sailing into this theater. He proclaimed the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to be no longer combat zones from which American vessels were excluded by the Neutrality Act. Stephenson was credited with accomplishing this significant step by suggesting it could be taken legally, while Roosevelt was still enjoying the success of Donovan’s mission. The new U.S. Navy duties were tremendously important to the British, but it was Donovan’s speech that inflamed Hitler. Its provocative nature makes it worth quoting at some length, as it appeared in a newsreel transcript distributed from London:
I have been given an opportunity to study at first hand these great battles going on in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean, in Africa, in Greece and in Albania. From my observations I have been able to form my conclusions on the basis of full information. These conclusions I will submit to my country for its use in furtherance of our national defence, an essential part of which is our policy of aid to Great Britain.
We have no choice as to whether or not we will be attacked. That choice is Hitler’s: & he has already made it . . . not for Europe alone, but for Africa, Asia & the world. Our only choice is to decide whether or not we will resist it. And to choose in time: while resistance is still possible, while others are still alive to stand beside us.
Let us keep this in mind—Germany is a formidable, a resourceful, & a ruthless foe. Do not underrate her. If we do—we deceive ourselves. Her victories have brought her new military & industrial strength. . . . She got the jump at the start of the war and has kept it; but not yet has she made a full test. And until this test comes, it is better . . . not to overrate her. But her greatest gains have been made through fear. Fear of the might of her war machine. So she has played upon that fear, & her recent diplomatic victories are the product.
But we must remember that there is a moral force in wars, that in the long run is stronger than any machine. And I say to you, my fellow citizens, all that Mr. Churchill has told you on the resolution & determination and valour and confidence of his people, is true.
The speech reached Hitler and, as intended, sent him into a dangerous and this time uncalculated rage. A week later, on April 6, the Orthodox Good Friday, German bombers began to raze Belgrade. It had been declared an open city. There was no declaration of war. The bombers destroyed the Palace, the university, hospitals, churches, schools, and most dwelling places. After four days of what the Germans code-named OPERATION PUNISHMENT, some 24,000 corpses had been recovered from the ruins. Untold numbers were never found.
The devastation was a consequence of intelligence operations in which long-term advantages had to be weighed against short-term losses. After the war, Belgrade—though separated by the Iron Curtain between Communist and capitalist worlds—was “twinned” with Coventry. The public explanation was that the citizens of these cities had suffered and should work together in peace to prevent a recurrence, despite political differences. The real explanation was never publicized: each city had suffered from secret-warfare dilemmas to which there seemed no solution free from human sacrifice.
On April 7, with the bombing of Belgrade in full swing, the German Foreign Office announced in its usual self-pitying way that German troops had crossed the frontier to defend German civilians. Thereafter all happened as Roosevelt and Churchill had foreseen. ULTRA signals revealed how Nazi forces closed in upon Yugoslavia. German commanders announced that the Yugoslav Army had capitulated, then shot every Yugoslav soldier who surrendered.
“The news that Hitler had been defied by Yugoslavia travelled like sunshine over the countries which he had devoured and humiliated,” wrote the English author Rebecca West at the time. It was the first wave of hope, the first promise that Nazi supermen were fallible, even though the price of this defiance was human suffering on an unprecedented scale.
The resistance of Yugoslavia, unexpected by the Germans, diverted Nazi forces and prolonged their advance through Greece. They had meant to use their divisions in Bulgaria against Turkey as a preliminary move before the attack on Russia. “OPERATION BARBAROSSA will have to be postponed up to four weeks,” complained Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the German Chief of Supreme Command. In reality, the delay was six weeks, and Hitler’s order to launch OPERATION PUNISHMENT with “merciless harshness” against the Yugoslavs led him into a four-year quagmire of guerrilla warfare.
Churchill was emphatic that the fatal delay in Hitler’s invasion of Russia resulted from this. The United States had employed operational intelligence to destroy an unwelcome political situation abroad—a successful essay in what would be called later “destabilizing” a foreign country. British intelligence had considered overthrowing Prince Paul’s regime five months earlier, but could not.
The Nazi operation MARITA, against Greece, was overshadowed by the fearful onslaught against Yugoslavia. The British also paid dearly. When Greek resistance to the German armies collapsed, 62,000 British troops were trapped. Exactly three weeks after the Belgrade revolt, fewer than 50,000 men of this expeditionary force could be evacuated; all their guns, tanks, and transport were left behind. Coming on top of defeats and confusions in the desert, the seemingly ill-conceived attempt to rescue Greece helped diminish confidence in Britain among her critics in Washington. Unfortunately, they could not be told the facts, about either the ULTRA warnings or the grim calculation that even if British intervention failed, it would nonetheless help provoke Hitler’s angry and ill-considered plunge into the Balkan quagmire.
Tito’s handwritten order at the height of Yugoslavian resistance to the German invasion and during a series of bloody engagements known as “The Battle for the Wounded.” The message reads:
Division I
The wounded must not be left there. We will be going far. They must be transferred through Mlinište and Glamočko Polje, and they’ll go on from there. Issue orders that this be done immediately. Speed up your march. Koča should come here first for a consultation. I am close by.
TITO
February 3, 1943
“Churchill’s decision to reinforce Greece was not the romantic gamble of an amateur,” Stephenson said later. “It was essential that Britain demonstrate undiluted loyalty to her allies. The effect on American public opinion would have been worse if we had failed to make the effort.”
FDR signaled Churchill: “You have done not only heroic but very useful work in Greece. The territorial loss is more than compensated for by the necessity for an enormous German concentration and resulting enormous German losses in men and material. . . . You have fought a wholly justifiable action.”
Donovan and Stephenson were together in Washington when the vast diversion of Nazi forces began. They felt no sense of triumph. There was no sign that Stalin yet understood he had been given only a brief reprieve. On the contrary, the Soviet Union continued to disbelieve the warnings.
Hitler, who talked of winning a tactical surprise against Russia, achieved both this and total strategic surprise—the hobgoblin of all intelligence services. At first light on Sunday morning, June 22, 1941, his warplanes caught 1,400 Russian aircraft dozing on the ground. This Nazi aerial artillery rolled forward, clearing the way for German troops to advance 400 miles in four weeks. What saved the Russians was the fact that the first strike failed to reach its distant goal before the onset of winter.
Tito later wrote: “Hitler’s Command was forced to postpone the attack on Russia by 38 days. . . . Every ninth Yugoslav lost his life fighting the enemy in the aftermath.” This estimate of thirty-eight days falls modestly short of the U.S. and British intelligence estimates at the end of the war.
A Man Called Intrepid Page 26