Churchill's Spy Files

by Nigel West

  Velasco, the man who recruited Chambard, was a very familiar figure to MI5, and for a long period was the most active authentic German spy in London, although he was surrounded by MI5 informants and most of his sources were actually double-agents. He was appointed to the post in January 1941 and succeeded Miguel Piernavieja del Pozo, code-named POGO by MI5, and thoroughly compromised by an MI5 double-agent, G.W., who supposedly ran a network of Nazi-sympathising Welsh Nationalists.1 This bogus organisation, created by MI5, had established a link between the Abwehr and the Spanish embassy, and had incriminated POGO and a Spanish journalist, Luis Calvo. However, during the few weeks Velasco was in England, before his departure at the end of February 1941, when he was under intense technical and physical surveillance, he was not spotted engaging in espionage, although more would be heard of him from both German and Japanese sources.

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  Lieutenant Knut Brodersen of the Norwegian army had been recruited by the Abwehr in Norway after his arrest for dealing in black market cognac and sent to Spain with a cover story of an escapee from the Todt Organisation in southern France.

  Born in 1904 and educated in Oslo, Brodersen had completed his military service with the 3rd Infantry Regiment and then travelled to France to learn the wine trade. He then worked for the Croft port business in Portugal until August 1926, when he travelled to Rio de Janeiro to join the Calorie Oil Company. By August 1931 he was back in Norway, as a tennis coach, and had several different jobs until he was recalled by the army in April 1940. His unit surrendered to German troops five days later, and in September 1941 he was employed as a bookkeeper by the Luftwaffe. Two years later, in November 1943, he was posted to Bayonne in France, and on New Year’s Eve he crossed the Spanish border, reaching Madrid on 12 January, where he approached the Norwegian legation.

  By this time the Norwegians had developed reservations about Brodersen and alerted SIS, which matched him to FRANK in the ISOS traffic. Since November 1943 thirteen messages about ‘V-Mann FRANK of Stelle Norway’ had been decrypted. He remained in Spain until March while his case was considered, when he was sent to Gibraltar by SIS, the decision having been reached by Helenus Milmo that he ‘would be a valuable acquisition to our intelligence sources at Camp 020, more particularly in view of his connection with Bayonne where he must have been in a position to know about the large number of German agents who have been decanted into Spain by this method’. Three days later, he travelled on the SS Norefjord to Leith, and on 8 May he signed a confession at Camp 020, disclosing his cover addresses, in Oviedo, Spain, and Bergen, Norway, to which he was to communicate in secret writing. His instructions were to be concealed in numbers spoken over conventional radio broadcasts, concealed in prearranged transmissions three times a week. Eventually, he was supposed to acquire his own transmitter and establish a direct radio link.

  Compromised by ISOS references to ‘V-mann FRANK’ long before his arrival, Brodersen had actually been recruited as a spy in Bergen in September 1943, and thereafter had been escorted by a German intelligence officer to St-Jean-de-Luze and seen safely over the frontier into Spain. His intention was to establish himself in England where his younger sister Cero was married to a London stockbroker, Billy Bennett.

  His secret writing material was found concealed in a tooth and under a toe, and because Brodersen had not taken the opportunity when questioned in Leith to reveal his espionage mission, the decision was taken in June to charge him under the Treachery Act. He was remanded at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court to Brixton prison and sent for trial at the Old Bailey, but in preparation for the hearing Brodersen’s solicitor demanded that Captain Torgersen, the Norwegian master of the SS Norefjord, should be called as a witness, together with the four unnamed MI5 interrogators who had questioned the prisoner at Camp 020. Both requests caused the greatest anxiety because Torgersen was by then in Baltimore, and Petrie would not allow any of his staff to be subjected to cross-examination about Camp 020. The central problem lay in the threat made by Major Samson when he first met Brodersen on 8 May, the morning after his delivery to Ham:

  This is the British Secret Service prison, to which all German spies are sent for investigation. The British Secret Service has a great deal of information obtained from Germany and from countries occupied by Germany. That information is obtained from various sources. One is people like yourself who have been sent over here and have come to this place – they all come here. The other is from our own agents in Germany and in German-occupied countries, many of them are Germans themselves, who are always willing to receive money to betray their own cause. That is why so many people come here. We do not bring people here without good reason and on mere suspicion; when they come here it is a very serious matter. It is a matter of life and death. We have had hundreds of people here, and many of them have been executed. I have here a few obituary notices about people who have come through here: ‘Spy hanged’, ‘German agent executed’; ‘Dutch refugee, Nazi spy executed’; ‘German spy executed in London’, ‘Traitor’s end’, and so on, many of them. You must understand we are at war, and we have no compunction with anyone who tries to hinder our effort. Anyone who does that is liquidated pitilessly. On the other hand, we do not execute people out of simple inhumanity. Our object here, our main objective, is to obtain information which may help us in the war. Now you are in as dangerous a position as any man might be and I make no promise to you, but what I do say is that you can help yourself by helping us. Have you anything to say?

  The prosecuting authorities considered that this explicit threat rendered his subsequent confession inadmissable and, combined with the reluctance to discuss Camp 020 in a courtroom, resulted in the withdrawal of the charge. In order to prevent Brodersen’s solicitor, a Mr Head from Ludlow & Co., from realising that it had been his demand for witnesses that had led to the collapse of the case, the court was informed that the Norwegian captain was unavailable:

  Colonel Hinchley Cooke explained that the DG had instructed him to say that a witness from Camp 020 could not be made available either for the prosecution or for the defence, and that in the circumstances, the case must be withdrawn. Colonel Hinchley-Cooke suggested that the withdrawal could be accomplished fairly easily without in any way putting Mr. Head wise to the fact that the real difficulty lay in calling evidence from Camp 020; the whole burden of the withdrawal could be placed upon the captain of the Norwegian vessel from whom a statement would be taken at the earliest opportunity.

  The Attorney-General, Sir Donald Somervell, somewhat reluctantly gave his consent to entering a nolle prosequi, which effectively dropped the case, leaving MI5 to apply for Brodersen’s detention in Dartmoor so as to prevent him returning to 020, as was explained to the Home Office:

  At Camp 020 Brodersen made a confession which he subsequently repeated under caution. In this he admitted to a Quisling background and to the fact that he was recruited by the German Secret Service in Bergen in September of last year. He was subsequently despatched to this country via the Peninsula with instructions to communicate information in secret writing to cover addresses in Spain and Norway respectively. An abundance of secret writing material was found concealed on his person and amongst his belongings. He was also instructed to procure a radio receiving set with which he was to pick up broadcasts sent to him in code from Norway. A watch has been kept on these broadcasts which show that the German Intelligence Service are still attempting to contact him. We have independent evidence from a most reliable but delicate source confirming Brodersen’s confession.

  Brodersen’s defence to the charge under the Treachery Act was disclosed for the first time at the close of the case for the prosecution at the Police Court. He then contended that it had been his intention all along to tell the British Secret Service everything about his recruitment and mission. This defence was ingenious and there was a considerable amount of material to substantiate it. It is, in fact, quite possible that had the prosecution continued the Jury would have been left w
ith a sufficient element of doubt to justify them in returning a verdict of not guilty. There is however little doubt in our minds that if this man had not gone to Camp 020 where it at once became apparent to him that he was known to be a spy he would have said nothing and probably endeavoured to carry out his espionage assignments. In this connection it is significant that the story which he told to the Security Officer at the port of his arrival after having been warned in express terms that this was the time when he should tell everything that he knew, was precisely the cover story which his German master had instructed him to tell …

  The next question which arises is the place of detention to which Brodersen should be sent. In the ordinary way we would strongly recommend that he should be returned to Camp 020, but since he has been in touch with a solicitor, namely the gentleman who was appointed to look after his interests under the Poor Persons Rules, we feel that it would be taking an undue risk to send him back there. Were he to ask to be allowed to communicate with this solicitor he would probably have to be allowed to do so and although I do not think that any great harm would be likely to occur in this particular case, were such a communication permitted it would undoubtedly come to the knowledge of other internees and probably involve us in a spate of correspondence and possible litigation. In the light of these considerations we feel that Brodersen should be sent to Dartmoor assuming that accommodation is available for him in the special wing of the prison.

  Thus Brodersen became the only German spy ever to have a prosecution withdrawn. Suitably impressed, he subsequently pressed a claim for compensation for the loss of his possessions, which had been tested to destruction in a search for secret writing material, plenty of which was found. He never knew the full weight of the case against him, or of the ISOS intercepts that had heralded his arrival in Spain. His only utility to MI5 was the assistance he gave to the cryptanalyst Denys Page in solving an Abwehr triple transposition code used over a broadcast station for Norwegian seamen. He had been directed to listen to the transmissions on Oslo Radio for his instructions, but the messages had defeated the Radio Intelligence Section, requiring him to seek further guidance through a letter to one of his cover addresses. This was duly accomplished, although the only message addressed to him, sent by his Abwehr handler HENRY, consisted of complaints about the lack of contact.

  The extent to which Brodersen was prepared to cooperate with MI5 was always open to doubt, and Robertson’s B1(a) section rejected him as a potential double-agent. There was also concern about Brodersen’s insistence that he had been required to report on Allied invasion plans by his secret writing channel, as this method of communication could entail a delay of up to six weeks. This obvious inconsistency suggested he was not entirely candid. As Colonel Stephens pointed out on 26 May 1944:

  What has exercised all of us is Brodersen’s insistence that he had to report invasion movements by secret ink. This story, due regard being had to the inefficiency of the German Secret Service, is not necessarily false, but it does give rise to the possibility that Brodersen might have been instructed by radio to report to some other contact in this country with a W/T set of his own. Some colour is lent to this theory by the fact that code messages of the type indicated by Brodersen are being received at the present time and that they may be intended for some other agent.

  In September 1944 he was interviewed by Norwegian Security Service officers, who recommended his continuing internment, and his case was referred to Colonel Roscher Lund, head of the Norwegian Security Service. Brodersen was later transferred to the Isle of Man and, upon his return to Norway with fifteen other detainees in June 1945, was sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment in May 1947.

  Soon after the German surrender several Abwehr officers who had worked in Bergen were questioned by the Norwegian authorities and a Leutnant Franger was identified as Brodersen’s Eins Heer recruiter and handler, whom he had known only as HENRY, According to SIS, Franger had previously served at the Abstelle in Algeciras between February 1942 and January 1943 under the alias Henry Bender.

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  Aged 27, Sergeant Jean Fraval was a French Air Force pilot from Brittany who had qualified as a pilot in 1936 and had been posted to 38 Squadron at Metz. After his demobilisation, by which time he had accumulated 800 hours of flying experience, he had moved to Paris where, in July 1943, he had been recruited by Werner Unversagt, an Abwehr officer whom he knew only as WERNER, who gave him a refugee cover story and a mission to steal an aircraft in England, preferably a Typhoon, Thunderbolt or Spitfire. His instruction in secret writing and espionage was conducted by Unversagt at the Abwehr office on the third floor of 29 rue Royale in Brussels between August and November. That address was familiar to SIS analysts as it had been described by another pilot, Georges Feyguine. During this training he lived with Unversagt, who had previously been mentioned by José Pacheco and Waldemar Janowsky, at 54 rue Dautzenberg, an address already compromised by the Belgian spy Pierre Neukermans, and was supplied with several cover addresses in Barcelona, Brussels, Brabant and Geneva.

  Upon his arrival at the British consulate in Barcelona in February 1943 he was interviewed by an SIS officer, to whom he confessed that he had been recruited as a German agent. Initially he had tried to peddle a completely false cover story about his escape from France over the Pyrenees that, under cross-examination, he admitted was untrue. Nevertheless, he continued to Lisbon on 29 February under SIS’s sponsorship and was accommodated by the Belgian legation at a pension in Santa Amara, and four days later was flown to Bristol on an Imperial Airways flight.

  Once landed in England he was escorted to Camp 020, where he remained for the rest of war, and was then delivered to the French authorities in May 1945 by air. At the conclusion of his interrogation, MI5 reported that:

  On presenting himself to the British Consulate in Barcelona, Fraval carried out the orders of his German masters, and tried to make the authorities believe that he was a genuine refugee.

  Fraval’s own story of his interview with the Consul differs entirely from the report made by the Consulate, but although it is not clear how much pressure was brought to bear on him before the truth was extracted, Fraval’s account cannot be accepted. The extract from the Consul’s report reads as follows – ‘The story was obviously false and under cross-questioning he admitted that he had been recruited by the Germans for their services in England.’

  It can safely be assumed that Fraval never intended to fulfil his mission for the Germans. On the other hand, his claim that he was resolved to make a complete disclosure to the British authorities is totally inadmissible. It is most probable that, true to form, he intended to take the middle way, committing himself as little as possible to either party, while trying to retain an advantage to himself. Thus, while it may be in a measure true that he intended to deceive his German masters, in that he was not prepared to carry out the work entrusted to him, to give full information to the British would have meant for him the forfeiting of the advantage he had gained, namely, the monthly payment to his wife. It would therefore seem that Fraval took a chance with the cover story as outlined to him by the Germans, but, on seeing that it was being received with scepticism, gave up the attempt and made a deposition as described in the Barcelona report.

  In his favour, however, it must be stated that when he found himself forced to tell the truth, Fraval made no attempt to go back to his German masters and tell them this, or suggest that it would probably be wiser to send him back again to France, as he was obviously a suspect case. He decided rather to tell them that his story had been believed implicitly, and to continue his journey to this country.

  Fraval is a very weak character and thoroughly unreliable. He certainly does not inspire sufficient confidence to allow him to join the Fighting French Air Force especially in view of the instructions he received from WERNER that he was to try to fly back to France the latest type of Allied aircraft.

  Although intelligent and willing to give all the infor
mation possible, he is definitely not a man to be trusted, especially in view of coining operations. It is strongly recommended, therefore, that he be detained.

  MI5’s submission was accepted and Fraval spent the remainder of the war on the Isle of Man. This episode brought to an end what might have looked like a very specific tactic adopted by the Abwehr involving French and Belgian airmen who had been recruited to masquerade as refugees and for some, having joined the Allied air forces, to steal an aircraft and fly it to Axis territory. This strategy was the common denominator in the cases put before Churchill, such as FATHER, FIDO, SNIPER, Feyguine, Creteur, Jude and Neukermans.

  More light was shed on this in July 1945 when Werner Unversagt was detained and interrogated about his role in the HAMLET case (Chapter 2). He had been named by a captured colleague, Julius Hagemann, and several Trupp 121 stay-behind agents, identified as a sonderführer or oberleutnant, although he never wore a uniform. Actually, he had been born in November 1908 and attached to Eins Heer from Wiesbaden. In the opinion of Waldemar Janowsky, who had known him in Brussels, he controlled about 150 agents and was extremely hard working.

  Before the war Unversagt had been a professional dancer and had performed across Europe with his wife, Ula, visiting Paris, Brussels and Spain. According to one report, his mother had run a health sanatorium near Cologne, and he had given an exhibition in St Moritz as a dance champion. By April 1945 he was thought to be in hiding in Amsterdam or Rotterdam, very conscious that the Allies were searching for him. He was caught on 25 May in Bad Ems by the US Counter-Intelligence Corps acting on a tip from Julius Hagemann, who had revealed his mother’s address, the Villa Balzer in Bad Ems, and his ownership of the Hotel Metropole in Wiesbaden. In fact, Unversagt had turned himself in to American troops when they occupied the town at the end of March, but had been told to go home and await instructions.