by Nigel West
At the end of January, letters were intercepted showing that undoubtedly one Charles Wagener was a German agent and during the year investigation and enquiry into this case took place, and also that of William Klare at Portsmouth.
In February the Second Class Stoker in the navy, Fred Ireland, mentioned before, came under more positive suspicion because it was known that his uncle (Otto Kruger) was an agent residing in the United Kingdom and in the pay of the German Secret Service. It was found he was endeavouring to acquire information as to certain secret experiments that were being conducted, with the objective of communicating it to a member of the German Secret Service. He was arrested on 21 February and dismissed from the Royal Navy as it was not considered advisable to place him on trial owing to the nature of the correspondence which would have to be produced in court. Kruger, who played an important part in this affair, at first fled the country, but returned, and observation kept upon him, his correspondence intercepted and examined. He was one of the German agents arrested on the outbreak of war.
Another case which became suspect at about this time and which was of importance was that of Gunner Parrott, a warrant officer RN employed on shore duties at Chatham. With him were implicated Karl Hentschel and Mrs Emily Riley. This was a long and interesting case and is set forth in full detail. After being dismissed from the navy in August 1912, Parrott was eventually tried in January 1913 and condemned to four years’ imprisonment and on release, interned under Defence of the Realm Regulation 14B. An intercepted letter from John James Hattrick of Plymouth to the ‘Head Intelligence Department, War Office, Germany’, offering information and giving the wording of an advertisement to be placed in the Daily Mirror if the offer was accepted induced MO5G to take action, Melville impersonating a German agent. In March also a German Secret Service agent was discovered at Southampton but he left for Germany before any steps could be taken to arrest him.
In April the division of the bureau became more definite and Captain Drake late the North Staffordshire Regiment, who joined on the 1st was placed in charge of the investigation of cases (i.e. G Branch) of espionage.
In May MO5 took steps to find out which agents Heddy Glauer and Armgaard Graves had been in touch with. Graves was quietly released to act as an agent for MO5.
A very large number of suspected cases of espionage had been investigated though the only ones that had been brought to trial by the end of 1912 were Heinrich Grosse, Frederick Ireland, Otto Kruger and Armgaard Graves.
Notes of the methods employed by foreign secret service agents in the work of counter-espionage had been printed and were being issued to all Chief Constables so that they might have every opportunity of co-operating with Captain Kell. Contact had been made by Lieutenant Ohlson with six steamship lines trading between British and Continental ports, including those in Norway, Russia, Germany, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean.
In December 1912, Captain Eric Holt-Wilson DSO was transferred to the bureau from the Royal Engineers in succession to Captain Stanley Clarke, taking over the organisation of the Preventive Work, the correspondence relating to the routine supervision of the ‘possible suspects’ and German Institutions, the interior administration of the bureau’s record and indexing system, and the financial accounts.
In this year, 1913, the bureau developed into three branches identical with the F, G and H of February 1918, the G being that of the detective branch.
Owing to a remittance of £10 sent via August Klunder at the end of February, MO5G got on to the track of Heinrich Schmidt (or Henry Smith) of Devonport. During his absence his room and property were examined and though there was clear proof of his intention to spy there was not sufficient evidence to secure conviction.
During the year a new form of attack by the German Secret Service came to the notice of MO5, in the shape of incitement to treason. It was chiefly directed against the navy and action was taken by the Admiralty to counteract it. The method was attempts by foreign agents (living for the most part in Denmark) at the wholesale perversion of naval personnel and others by pretended, literary work. It was brought to notice that communications were being received by naval officers and others requesting them to contribute technical articles to publications which it was alleged were being started abroad in the interest of professional naval and military circles. The attempt was on the whole one which might well have succeeded as the writers disclaimed any wish to obtain confidential information and merely posed as being desirous of producing a review which should be interesting to sea-going or engineering circles as the case might be.
On 26 June William Klare was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for attempting to obtain a secret naval work and Karl Hentschel was remanded on 24 October, on his own confession, for inciting the commission of offences for which George Parrott was undergoing four years’ imprisonment.
During this month Karl Hentschel, who had returned from Australia gave himself up to the police, signing a statement embodying accusation against George Parrott. The exposure was very inconvenient and forced the hands of the police with whom MO5 were keeping in close touch over the case. Investigations followed as to Robert Tormow, Captain Friedel Fels, Captain Steinhauer and Max Dressler.
During July, arrangements were made to test the scheme for the arrest, search or observation of the known agents whose names were in possession of the Chief Constables. Before this could be carried out the precautionary period was proclaimed and the messages, instead of being sent out as a mobilisation test, were despatched in earnest. Of the twenty-two German agents in England, all were arrested with the exception of one, Walter Riemann, who escaped a few days before the declaration of war. Of the others, as it was not considered advisable at this stage to try them, they were all held in detention under an order from the Home Secretary. The effect of this order was that they were imprisoned as securely as if they had actually been sentenced. The following is the list of those agents arrested, together with the centres of their activities:
1. Rummenie, Antonius J. London
2. Stubenwoll, Karl. Newcastle
3. Meyer, Carl. Warwick
4. Kuhr, Johann. Newcastle
5. Buchwaldt, Oscar. Brighton
6. Hemlar, Carl. Winchester
7. Apel, Fred. Barrow
8. Laurons, Max. London
9. Lozel, Franz. Sittingbourne
10. Hegnauer, Thomas. Southampton
11. Schneider, Adolf. London
12. Von Wilier, Karl. Padstow
13. Kronauer, Marie. London
14. Rodriguez, Celso. Portsmouth
15. Diederich, Fred. London
16. Klunder, August. London
17. Heine, Lina. Portsmouth
18. Schutte, Heinrich. Weymouth
19. Sukowski, Fred. Newcastle
20. Kruger, Otto. Abercynon
21. Engel, Johann. Falmouth
*
In January 1912 the check on Gustav Steinhauer brought evidence that he was in treaty with a man writing from Grimsby and Hull.
Walter Rimann (alias Gustave Friese, alias Germanikus), of Roslyn House, 24 Spring Street, Hull, sent in two reports answering test questions. One of these questions had involved some enquiry concerning Mildred Burkinshaw of 3 Cleethorpe Road, Grimsby. She was, Rimann said, the owner of a cheap sweet-shop which catered for seafarers. She had been there seven months, lived a most retired life and consorted only with foreign sailors and the crews of British torpedo-boats. Among other articles she sold ‘piquant if not exactly indecent postcards’. This circumstance recalls the cases of Charles Wagener and of Solomon and Abraham Eisner.
In February, Rimann was summoned to Hamburg and engaged at a salary of £3 a month, if his reports were worth it. His ostensible work was to write articles for a well-known German periodical dealing with literature and art on behalf of ‘Professor Kluge’, a well-known Germanic philologist. This cover he was most precise in keeping up, even when it involved patent absurdities. His own reports he s
igned ‘Gustav Friese’.
Rimann was instructed to report on the Humber defences; the Germans were especially keen to locate the minefields, and the base of the mine-sweepers, and to obtain any information about new methods and equipment connected with mine-laying and sweeping.
Rimann’s reports cover much ground; he deals with the coal situation, the strike and hampering dearth of coal-wagons, the coal tonnage imported into and exported from Hull, and the amount carried in coast-wise traffic. He reports about the East Yorkshire Territorial Association, the batteries at the mouth of the Humber, the Admiralty works at Killingholme, Imningham Docks, negotiations connected with alterations and additions to the works, and any new project mooted.
Steinhauer insisted upon getting the results of personal observation and objected to accounts of the visits of important people since these were reported in the press. He instructed Rimann to get into conversation with naval men and to ascertain from them details relating to the special exercise of the Naval Reserve.
In October 1913, Steinhauer is particularly pleased with Rimann’s three last reports. One of these had given particulars of the Fleet manoeuvres: the names of the ships forming the invading Squadron and of the troops on board them, details of an attack on Immingham and of the disguise of repair ships and transports. Attempts to ascertain the disposition of the trawlers or anything material about the verdict of the umpire had, however, failed.
The two other reports dealt with fleet manoeuvres near Spurn Point, and their intimate connection with the fleet manoeuvres; the details comprised an account of two floating-docks, of hydroplanes coming from Yarmouth, of wireless attached to hydroplanes, of the altitude of the flight, etc. Afterwards Rimann sent a picture postcard of the Hydroplane Station at Bridlington.
The correspondence lasted from January 1912 until the outbreak of war during this time Rimann went once to Germany for Christmas 1915, and had at his own request, an interview with Steinhauer at the railway station at Berlin. It is worth remarking that Steinhauer never once seems to have visited Rimann in Hull, although he and other German agents seem to have entered England frequently by that port. The passage runs: ‘I too have been there several times and had always intended to visit you, but then there came unforeseen delays, and the visit did not come off.’
Rimann seems to have been the only German agent resident in or near Hull, but others may have come and gone to his house. There is evidence that Steinhauer would have letters of instruction to Rimann posted locally by an agent passing through, and that one at least of Rimann’s visitors travelled back to Germany on some merchant ship.
‘John Moreenstern’ wrote to warn Rimann of the date at which the Helen Heidmann would reach Immingham and of the time of her probable departure so that ‘Mr Bode’ could go on board. Mr Bode was a young man of about twenty-five, a student of philology and theology in the University of Kiel and he had been spending some weeks with Rimann. The next letter showed that Rimann had still not been able to locate the mines at the mouth of the Humber, a task with which Bode’s journey may have been connected.
Rimann’s nervousness is apparent: in August 1912, he begs Steinhauer to avoid using ‘direct expressions’ if possible; and Steinhauer replies complaining of the too obvious care with which Rimann’s letters are sealed. However, a few months later, Steinhauer veiled questions as to the position and movements of the 7th Flotilla under the guise of discovering the whereabouts of a nephew, whose prolonged silence caused anxiety. The excuse however may have been genuine as the incitement to treason attack had by then begun.
The correspondence about the 7th Flotilla continued during March and April and ended with Rimann sending a plan of Immingham’s deep water dock on which the moorings of the torpedo-boats were marked in pencil.
The anxiety caused by the arrest of Gould in February 1914 led to fresh precautions. Rimann had explained a long interval in his reports by the fact that the names ‘St.’ and ‘P…m’ had figured too prominently in London and begged Steinhauer to give him a fresh address and to avoid posting letters of instructions in Potsdam.
Steinhauer conceded the fresh address: Rimann was to post to any name at Brauerstraase, Potsdam, an hotel and receiving centre for Steinhauer’s correspondence; it was also agreed that instructions should be sent in envelopes printed ‘Zeitschrift fur Literatur & Kimatgeschichte’.
Steinhauer, meanwhile, had enquired in various quarters for dangerous press-cuttings where his own name may have been printed in full, and as none were produced, he was reassured and concluded Rimann had been mistaken. He then told Rimann to write to either Braueratrasse or to Allee Sanssoucci. The correspondence also shows that, from the very beginning, arrangements had been made for communication at the outbreak of war and it would seem that, in that event, Steinhauer contemplated Rimann remaining at his post.
In the letter of March 1912 accepting the engagement, Rimann says he will start on his article dealing with Friesian roots and asks for the name of the ‘K. correspondent’. The answer came that he was to write to: Miss Henny Deininger, c/o Mrs T, Steinhauer, etc. But in May ‘Kluge’ was at last able to send the name of Herr Paul Eisner, Dr Priemeseg 10, Copenhagen, who was engaged on philological research, and to whom Rimann was to apply in case of urgency. No use was made of this address and it was not again referred to until just before the outbreak of war.
Professor H. Julius warned Rimann that ‘next month’ would be a favourable time for writing his article on Friesian roots: E was helping and it would be sufficient to send letters to E in K. Fjordsallee 23, or to the writer’s own address. If the telegram was sent, Rimann was to begin wiring in conformity with the agreement.
On 1 August a wire came from ‘Ewald’ Guhrau, near Breslau, Rimann’s home, informing him that he had not been called up and that money was on the way. Rimann replied by wire to Eisner, Copenhagen, asking for an explanation of the telegram. This, however, he did not await this, but he borrowed money and left for Zeebrugge on 1 August. £4.17s.6d which had been telegraphed from Guhrau, was received in Hull on 3 August and sent after him.
On 19 and 22 February wires were despatched to Steinhauer, Allee Sanssouoi 4, Potsdam, from the Beverley Road Post Office, Hull. The address of the sender, which was not to be telegraphed, was 34 Spring Street. The sender was making an appointment for Sunday morning. As Germanicus had written a few days before from Hull saying; he could travel on 22 February the telegrams were attributed to him and so his name and address were discovered.
The first paper relating to the enquiry, is, however, dated 23 April 1913, and this shows that MO5 had, in the interval, ascertained many particulars about the sender. He was a teacher of languages, who pretended to be an ardent promoter of the Anglo-German entente. MO5 wrote informing the Chief Constable of Hull of these facts, and of their suspicions and asked for cautious enquiries with, if necessary, observation of the man.
In reply, the Chief Constable sent a careful description of Rimann, whom he described as a foxy looking person. Late in September 1913, Lieutenant Ohlson went down to investigate. He took lessons of Rimann, whom he found willing to discuss naval and some military matters but not to be drawn into confidence.
Through Lieutenant Ohlson the following details also came to hand: Rimann had served in a German pioneer regiment and visited Germany every year; he had been in Hull eighteen years and owned property there but in spite of his long residence he was an obvious German and spoke with a German accent. He was one of the best teachers in the town and had plenty of pupils there. He had formed an association for the purpose of studying German literature and had induced some of the local notabilities, including the postmaster, to serve on the committee.
Some of these statements, about Rimann’s annual visits to Germany and his owning property in Hull, seem not altogether borne out by other papers in the file. It is probable that Rimann was about forty-five years of age and had reached the stage of biennial military training. Also, as regards his means, on the outbr
eak of war he was badly off. He was renting a house at £25 a year and had to borrow money for his journey.
Lieutenant Ohlson reported that he had asked only two questions relating to the Service: one had references to the discussion then raging about the shortage of men; the other was about the strategic importance of Hull.
Enquiry was renewed in April 1914 when Rimann wrote regretting that he could not supply certain information as his informant had been ordered south. The word used was, ‘Gewahrsmann’, which means informant. The translator seems to have confused it with ‘Gewehr’, or gun, for enquiry was limited to ascertaining the name of any man, ‘supposed to be a gunner’, Royal Garrison Artillery, who had recently been transferred to the south of England from Stallisborough Battery or other defences round Hull. Only one such name was returned and no action seems to have been taken.
Walter Rimann had been placed on the Possible Suspect List in 1911 and in 1912, on the SWL, heading ‘Arrest’. But when action was to be taken he had already escaped. As he had gone to Zeebrugge he was put on the Special War List for Belgium with the note: ‘Wanted if in Great Britain’ and, as his wife remained on at Hull, the Chief Constable was informed that it was desirable she should be removed under the Aliens Act. She went to London.
In September, her daughter wrote from Germany, where she had found refuge in the family of Countess Bernstorff and was staying at Hintenburg-bei-Lassaim, Lauerriburg. Rimann had found his way back to Silesia but had not been then called up. The daughter had tried every conceivable means of getting letters through but the obstacles seemed to have been as great in Germany as here.