Agent Zigzag

by Ben MacIntyre

  Back in Bletchley, the codebreakers charted Zigzag’s meandering route as he crisscrossed Europe from south to north. They passed on Chapman’s new passport names, Norwegian and German, and noted that the supposed sabotage of the City of Lancaster had “certainly raised his stock”13 with his German bosses.

  There was only one hitch: The bombs had not gone off, and though the Germans did not appear to suspect Chapman, they were becoming impatient. “The Germans have shown14 the greatest interest in the City of Lancaster and are naturally anxious to discover if the act of sabotage actually took place,” Masterman warned. Anita, the prostitute from George’s Bar, reported that Jack, an indigent black beachcomber who lived under a nearby bridge, had been approached by two Germans who offered him 2,000 escudos for information about sailors from the British ship. The Abwehr had broken all the rules to smuggle the bombs aboard the City of Lancaster, but the ship was still intact: Canaris wanted results. Ewen Montagu, the naval representative on the Twenty Committee, the panel ruling what information might safely be passed to the Germans, issued a warning: “There must either be an explosion15 or Zigzag is blown.”

  Some sort of incident would have to be staged on board the ship. Thus, Operation Damp Squib was born.

  Victor, Lord Rothschild, was a little disappointed to be told he could not blow up a “perfectly good merchant ship,”16 but he settled for “as big a bang17 as possible, together with a lot of smoke.” The prospect of even a moderate explosion aboard the City of Lancaster sent his blue blood racing: “A good decent bang18 would be a good idea. I do not know how much of a bang one can make without doing damage. I suppose it depends where the bang takes place.”

  Together, Rothschild and Reed cooked up an elaborate scenario. When the ship docked in Britain, Reed would go aboard, disguised as a customs officer, accompanied by another agent in similar disguise carrying an explosive device in an attaché case. This agent, “who will previously19 have been to MI5 head office for tuition in working the bomb,” would pretend to search for contraband, plant the bomb in the bunker, light the fuse, and then get out of the way, quick. When he heard the explosion, the agent would “fall down and pretend20 he has hurt his arm, which will be bandaged by the master.” He would then explain that “he was poking the coal in the bunker when there was a hissing noise, followed by an explosion which blew him over.” The crew would then be interrogated and sailors’ gossip would do the rest. “The story of the sabotage will get back to the enemy through some members of the crew,” Reed predicted.

  The operation required a special bomb that would make plenty of noise and smoke without killing the MI5 agent who set it off, igniting the coal, or sinking the ship. Rothschild turned to his friend and fellow explosives enthusiast, Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Wood of the War Office Experimental Station, who duly produced a device guaranteed to make a “sharp explosion,21 accompanied by a puff of reddish smoke, approximately three minutes after ignition.” Wood sent a parcel to Rothschild by courier: “Herewith your three toys22: one for you to try yourself, not in the house! The other two for your friend to play with.”

  Operation Damp Squib was a very silly plan. It was complicated, risky, and involved far too much playacting (“binding up a notional23 injury is fortuitously introducing unnecessary ‘business’ of a dangerous kind,” warned Masterman). Damp Squib was vetoed, much to Rothschild’s annoyance, and he vented his frustration by blowing up all three toys himself.

  Instead, the bomb would have to be “discovered” when the ship reached Glasgow; this would be followed by a full interrogation of everyone on board. “When the City of Lancaster24 next touches at Lisbon, German sub agents will certainly try to get in touch with members of the crew and will get the impression (probably in most cases from some intoxicated seaman) that something curious had happened on the voyage because there was a formidable inquiry when the ship returned to the UK. This is all that is necessary in order to build up Zigzag.”

  Sure enough, when the ship put in at the Rothesay docks on April 25, a small army of Field Security Police clambered aboard and began rummaging through the coal bunkers, tossing the coal over the side, piece by piece. The gawping crew noticed that “as each piece of coal25 was thrown into the dock they all ducked.” Finally, after some five hours, an officer, “who was very dirty26 and smothered in coal dust,” was seen emerging from the bunkers, triumphantly “holding in his hand27 an object which looked like a lump of coal.” Every member of the crew was then interrogated, with particular emphasis on the voyage to Lisbon and the disappearance of Assistant Steward Hugh Anson.

  Autosuggestion worked its magic: Sailors who had noticed nothing out of the ordinary about their former shipmate now declared that they had suspected Anson was a German spy from the moment he came on board. They recalled his gold cigarette case, his wads of cash and “swanking”28 manner, his general incompetence at sea, his good manners, and his apparent education “beyond his station.”29 Under interrogation, all sorts of sinister details emerged: the way he had boasted of his crimes, bought drinks for everyone, and then slipped away from George’s Bar. Why, he even wrote poetry and read books in French. One of the crew produced Chapman’s poem as conclusive proof of the man’s fiendish brilliance. “The standard of the poetry30 does not come up to the flattering adulation of the crew,” one of the interrogators remarked dryly, but to the men of the Lancaster, the accumulated evidence pointed to one conclusion: Anson was a multilingual, highly educated Nazi spy who had tried to murder them all with an “infernal machine”31 hidden in the bunkers.

  As “a spur to rumor-spreading,”32 the crew was solemnly sworn to secrecy. The gossip raged through Glasgow docks like a brushfire, to Reed’s delight: “Approximately 50 people33 now regard Zigzag as an enemy agent and know about this bomb business, and it will grow in the telling, which is precisely the result [we] wish to have.” The rumor was passed to other seamen, and from there, through countless bars, to different ships and other ports, and from thence across the seas. It even reached the ears of the owner of the City of Lancaster, who was livid: “He has no objection34 to helping put agents on board, but he thinks it is going a bit far when they leave explosives around on the ship.”

  From the lowest bars of Europe, the story of how a top German spy had tried to sabotage a British ship reached German High Command, the FBI, and the highest levels of the British government. A copy of the Zigzag file was sent to Duff Cooper, the former minister of information now supervising covert operations, who in turn showed it to Winston Churchill. Cooper reported that he had “discussed Zigzag35 at some length with the prime minister who is showing considerable interest in the case.” MI5 was instructed to give the case the highest priority and to inform Churchill immediately “if and when contact36 is reestablished with Zigzag.”

  J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI chief, was also watching Zigzag’s trail. Through John A. Cimperman, the FBI liaison officer based at the American embassy in London, Reed and Rothschild channeled “comprehensive memoranda”37 on the Chapman case to the American government. “I promised Mr Hoover38 that I would let him have appreciations of the sabotage aspects in return for their co-operative attitude,” wrote Rothschild. Chapman was fast becoming a secret star worldwide: In Washington and Whitehall, in Berlin and Paris, his exploits, real and unreal, were discussed, admired, and wondered at.

  But then Zigzag/Fritz, the most secret spy in the Most Secret Sources, vanished from the wireless traffic, abruptly and completely.

  Rittmeister Stephan von Gröning (alias Doctor Graumann), Chapman’s aristocratic German spymaster. Courtesy of Ingeborg von Gröning

  Stephan von Gröning as a young officer in the White Dragoons, ca. 1914. Courtesy of Ingeborg von Gröning

  Oberleutnant Walter Praetorius (alias Thomas), Chapman’s principal German minder and a Nazi fanatic with a taste for English folk dancing.

  © National Archives

  Franz Stoetzner (alias Franz Schmidt), the German agent with the cockney acce
nt who spied in Britain before the war while working as a London waiter. Courtesy of MI5

  Karl Barton (alias Hermann Wojch), the principal sabotage instructor at La Bretonnière. Courtesy of MI5

  Colonel Robin “Tin Eye” Stephens, commander of Camp 020: interrogator, martinet, and inspired amateur psychologist. © BBC

  Lord Victor Rothschild: peer, millionaire, scientist, and head of MI5’s wartime explosives and sabotage section. Rothschild and Chapman discovered a shared passion for blowing things up. © Topfoto

  John Cecil Masterman: Oxford academic, thriller writer, sportsman, and spymaster; the intellectual behind the Double Cross operation. National Portrait Gallery, London

  Jasper Maskelyne, the professional conjuror employed by the War Office to baffle and deceive the Germans. © British Library, London

  Major Ronnie Reed, the unobtrusively brilliant BBC radio engineer who became Chapman’s first case officer. Courtesy of Nicholas Reed

  Reed operating Chapman’s German radio set. Courtesy of Nicholas Reed

  Dagmar Lahlum, the Norwegian girlfriend unofficially recruited by Chapman into MI5.

  Courtesy of Bibbi Røset

  Freda Stevenson, pictured here with baby Diane, her daughter fathered by Chapman. This was possibly the image sent to Chapman in Jersey prison. KV2 462 © National Archives

  Betty Farmer, the woman Chapman abandoned at the Hotel de la Plage in 1938. “I shall leave, but I will always come back.”

  © News International Syndication

  Graffiti in the attic at La Bretonnière, the German spy school in Nantes, including what appears to be a likeness of Betty Farmer, Chapman’s girlfriend, probably drawn by the apprentice spy himself. Courtesy of the author

  Hitler caricatured as a carrot in the attics of La Bretonnière: evidence that von Gröning may have actively encouraged a disrespectful attitude toward the Führer. Courtesy of the author

  La Bretionnière. This photograph, taken by Stephan von Gröning in 1942, remained in his wallet for the rest of his life. Courtesy of Ingeborg von Gröning

  Chapman after the war.

  © News International Syndication

  Chapman pictured in a West End drinking den with Billy Hill, crime baron and self-styled “King of Soho,” and the boxer George Walker (right). © News International Syndication

  Chapman protesting in 1952 after his attempts to serialize his memoirs in a newspaper were stymied under the Official Secrets Act.

  © Topham/AP

  Hamming it up for the camera in full SS uniform, an outfit he never wore in real life.

  © Popperfoto.com

  The Iron Cross awarded to Chapman by a grateful Führer for his “outstanding success.” No other British citizen has ever received the medal.

  Courtesy of Nicholas Reed, photo by Richard Pohle

  Chapman in his pomp, posing with his Rolls-Royce. As honorary crime correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph, Chapman specialized in warning readers to steer clear of people like himself. © Daily Telegraph

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Ice Front

  STEPHAN VON GRÖNING never spoke of the horrors he witnessed during his second stint on the eastern front, but he was “deeply affected”1 by the experience. He recalled one episode only: being sent to reopen a church that had been closed by the Communists, in some small town that the Germans had overrun. He remembered how the village people entered the building and fell to their knees. Von Gröning was not a religious man, but he had been moved by the expression of profound piety in the midst of a pitiless war. In the last few months, he had aged by several years. His hair was now gray, his face more sallow and drooping. His hands shook until stilled by the first drink of the morning. Much of his dissipated hauteur had dissolved in the freezing winds of Russia. At the age of forty-five, von Gröning had begun to look like an old man.

  But the erect figure in the military greatcoat waiting behind the barrier at the Oslo airport was still instantly recognizable. “Thank God you are back,”2 said von Gröning. “He appeared really moved.” As for Chapman, he was genuinely delighted to see “the old man,”3 his affection undimmed by the months he had spent betraying him, and his intention to continue doing so. Von Gröning introduced the chubby, balding figure in naval uniform beside him as Kapitän Johnny Holst—his real name, for once. The man grinned cheerily and welcomed Chapman to Norway in execrable English.

  As they drove into the city, von Gröning explained that Chapman would soon be free to “enjoy a well-earned4 holiday,” but before that, he must be interrogated one last time, and a full, definitive report had to be sent to Berlin.

  Von Gröning had arrived only a few days earlier and taken up residence in a smart “bachelor flat”5 at 8 Grønnegate, near the presidential palace, where he now opened a bottle of Norwegian aquavit to celebrate Chapman’s safe arrival. The party began. An attractive young woman named Molli was the first guest to arrive, then a tough and shrewd-looking German called Peter Hiller, and finally Max, a Pole with long hair and flashy jewelry. Chapman remembered little of his first night in Oslo, but he recalled that the guests seemed “pleased to see him and were very enthusiastic about his success in England,” and none more so than von Gröning. When Chapman asked for news of the rest of the Nantes team, the German was vague. Walter Thomas, he said, was currently in Berlin, and would shortly be traveling to Oslo to resume his duties as Chapman’s “companion.”6 Inwardly, Chapman groaned; the young Nazi with the passion for English country dancing was such grim and earnest company. The “hard-drinking Holst,” currently dissolving into the sofa to the strains of a German drinking song, seemed a far more jovial chum. Soon afterward, a fight broke out between Holst and Hiller over Molli’s charms, and Chapman passed out.

  The interrogation started the next morning, despite the seismic hangovers of both interviewer and interviewee. Von Gröning was a masterful inquisitor. For a start, he knew his subject intimately and the best ways to feed Chapman’s vanity, ignite his anger, and prick his pride. Behind the heavy lids, he seemed half asleep at times, but then he would dart a question under Chapman’s guard that would leave him scrambling. The interrogation continued for two weeks with every word recorded and transcribed by Molli Stirl, the woman at the party, who was secretary of the Oslo Abwehr station. Von Gröning was unrelenting and meticulous, but there was something different about the way he questioned Chapman, something far removed from the harsh grilling in Spain, France, and Berlin. Von Gröning wanted Chapman to get it right; when he made an error, of chronology or fact, he would gently lead him back, iron out the inconsistency, and then move on again. Von Gröning was on Chapman’s side; he was willing him to succeed, for Chapman’s sake, but also for his own.

  Chapman sensed the shift in their relationship. In Nantes, he had been dependent on von Gröning’s goodwill, eager for his praise, flattered by his attention. The roles had not quite been reversed, but equalized. Chapman needed von Gröning to believe him, and von Gröning needed Chapman to succeed, forging a strange, unspoken complicity. At times, the older man seemed almost “pathetically grateful”7 to Chapman, without whom he might still be wading through the slush and blood of the eastern front. Von Gröning was “proud of his protégé,”8 but he was also reliant on him, and that, Chapman reflected, was his “best security.”9 Von Gröning’s status had plummeted when Chapman disappeared; his return had raised von Gröning’s stock in the Abwehr once more. Chapman was more than just another spy: He was a career investment, the “man who had ‘made’ him10 in the German Secret Service,” and they both knew it.

  The mutual dependence of spy and spymaster was not peculiar to Chapman and von Gröning; it was the central defining flaw of the German secret service. The Abwehr’s decentralized structure allowed individual officers to control their own networks of spies. Wilhelm Canaris sat in judgment over all, but the separate branches, and even individual officers within the same branch, operated with a degree of independence, and in competition. In the Br
itish secret services, case officers shared responsibility, since a spymaster whose self-interest was bound up with the success of his own agent could never see that agent clearly. “Absolute personal integrity11 and the exclusion of all personal considerations is the first and fundamental condition of success,” insisted Masterman. In the Abwehr, by contrast, each spymaster was ambitious for his own spy to the point where he might suppress his own suspicions and insist on the loyalty or efficiency of an agent despite evidence to the contrary. Even when a spy was useless, or worse, the spymaster would be unwilling to admit the failure, on the assumption, logical but fatal, that it was “better for selfish reasons12 to have corrupt or disloyal agents than to have no agents at all.”

  Did von Gröning see Chapman clearly through those watery blue eyes? Several times, Chapman noticed his “watchful”13 expression and wondered if his yarn had been unraveled by this man who knew him better than any other. As one associate put it: “Stephan made up14 his own opinion, he was secretive, and he did not tell people what he was thinking unless they asked.” If von Gröning suspected he was being lied to, that the entire tale of sabotage, heroism, and escape was a monstrous fabrication, he said nothing, and the heavy-lidded eyes chose not to see.

  Chapman was installed at the Forbunds, a large and comfortable wood-built hotel in the Oslo city center, which had been commandeered by the Abwehr and the Luftwaffe. Von Gröning handed over 500 kroner as spending money and told him he could have more “as and when he15 required it.” The reward would be paid when the report had been written up, taken to Berlin, and approved.