MI5 in the Great War

by Nigel West

  MO5 suggested that the maps and charts asked for should not be sent and by adding maps to the list of contraband goods the export of such publications was stopped. But the vast majority of cases proved of little interest. Where there was definite ground for dissatisfaction with the suspect but not sufficient ground for a trial it was possible to choose one of the following penalties according to the nature of the case:

  1. Internment if the suspect was an enemy subject.

  2. Restriction as to residence and movements involving a daily or weekly report to the police.

  3. Prohibition from leaving the Kingdom.

  4. Deportation.

  5. Leave to go abroad with a no-return permit.

  The immense extension of the work in May led to an expansion and to some reorganisation of the branch. The duties were more precisely defined indicating not so much new developments as the increasing importance attaching to special features of the work. The importance of Irish affairs is proved by the formation of a section to deal entirely with them.

  Definition of duties of G Branch

  1. Investigation of all cases of suspected espionage, sedition or treachery by individuals.

  2. Co-ordination and organisation of auxiliary action by government departments, naval and military authorities, and police for the above purposes.

  3. Preparation of the cases of persons arrested at the instance of the bureau for prosecution by the military or civil authorities.

  4. Examination of censored or intercepted correspondence and communications as submitted by the Central Censorship and Investigation Branch, GPO, and decisions as to the disposal of such papers.

  5. Classification of the methods employed by espionage agents.

  6. Recommendations for amendments to legislation and regulations for the purpose of preventing espionage, sedition or treachery, or of impeding the activities of naval or military spies and agents.

  7. Employment of the Intelligence Police personnel and provincial agencies, except with the Expeditionary Force.

  8. Recommendations for first appointments of personnel to G Branch.

  9. Semi-official correspondence and first draft official letters on the above subjects.

  Staff and distribution of duties

  Eight section officers and four secretaries were employed under Major Drake. Captain Carter and Commander Henderson carried out the work of A1 (cases arising in the London area).

  A2 was reconstituted and three officers, P. W. Marsh ICS, R. Nathan CSI ICS, Captain H. S. Gladstone, 5th Bn. KOSB., dealt with all cases arising in Great Britain, without the Metropolitan area.

  To A3, Major F. Hall, General Staff, all cases of suspected espionage, sedition or treachery in Ireland were allotted. Fresh duties were entrusted to A4, H. Hawkins Turner and Lieutenant W. E. H. Cooke examined, censored or intercepted correspondence. Miss S. Holmes, Miss M. E. Haldane, Miss M. C. Robson, Miss B. Hodgson divided the secretarial duties.

  In order to check the influx of aliens into this country, in April 1915 amendments were added to the Aliens Restriction Order enacting that:

  1. Every alien landing or embarking in the United Kingdom or entering a prohibited area should carry a passport issued by the authorities of his own country not more than two years previously and, to this passport, his photograph was to be attached.

  2. At all hotels and boarding houses a list of alien visitors should be kept. This second measure was made applicable to British subjects also in the following June.

  These passports and lists proved of great value in identifying and tracing the movements of German agents sent to this country. At the same time the extension of prohibited areas so as to include a strip round the whole coast as well as some other tracts of country was under consideration. In May the government had decided upon the policy of interning or repatriating according to age all male enemy aliens who could not show cause why they should be left at liberty, and all female enemy aliens, with the exception of those held during deportation, might be repatriated. This was followed up by a measure enabling the authorities to intern dangerous persons of hostile origin and association.

  The competent military and naval authorities, including MO5G, could send a recommendation to the Home Secretary for an order of internment to be directed against any person under these categories; that person had the right to appeal against the order to an Advisory Committee. All appeals of this nature had to pass through MO5G.

  The measure proved of infinite value to the Investigation Branch in dealing with suspects against whom there was not sufficient evidence to bring them to trial. Indeed Major Drake wished to bring under the penalty of internment neutrals convicted of contraventions of DRR but against whom hostile association could not be proved. An instance in point is the case of Nideroest who had offered for publication in New York an illustrated article on the boom from Calais to Dover. He suffered merely a term of three months’ imprisonment, and the Red Cross employee who had taken photographs for him merely a fine of £25.

  During this year, much was learned as regards the German methods, spy centres, agencies, and steps were taken accordingly to counteract them. During the second quarter of 1915, the bureau learned of the existence of Hilmar Dierks’ recruiting agency at Rotterdam and The Hague, who was also known as Richard Sanderson and was said to have 150 agents working in England, in July.

  Dierks sent all his recruits to the Antwerp Adrniralstab Zweigstelle, 38 Chaussee de Malines there to be trained and to receive their instructions. Through the great spy cases reported lower down, and through the treachery of some of the Dutch agents employed, a good deal of information was acquired about the personnel and methods of the bureau.

  Ernest Melin’s confession revealed the existence of a bureau at Wesel, which acted independently of, and it would seem in rivalry with, the bureau at Antwerp.

  In April 1915 a Dutchman told of the ‘camouflage’ of an air-ship shed near Brussels; of the dogging of travellers from England by German spies; of propaganda among Dutch firms connected with German toy businesses. German newspapers in quantities proportionate to the number of employees were despatched to these firms daily and Dutch versions were sent once a week. Regarding espionage proper, the Dutchman reported that spies were using double passports, one of which had to be given up at the last station before entering Holland; that fifty or sixty German firms were doing business in London and sending information in false business telegrams piecemeal to different centres to be afterwards patched together and forwarded to Antwerp.

  Already in December 1914 it was reported that Belgian women were being sent via Folkestone to spy in France and the order was issued that such persons were to be allowed to come in but not to leave the United Kingdom.

  With the object of destroying Admiralty mines, the Germans were reported to be intending to send over spies disguised as Belgian miners and to be stealing Belgian miners’ books to provide identity papers for the purpose. Soon after, the report came that Germans were being brought in as coal-heavers.

  In April 1915, the Germans were buying the services of Dutch agents who were to live in London and Paris and report from there. The British consul at Rotterdam stated that not only was a number of Dutchmen coming to England but many Germans were being encouraged to spend the summer in Holland.

  From Washington came the report that in order to warn the U-boats of vessels carrying important stores for the Allies, Germans were taking situations with shipping companies in the United States and Canada.

  A British ship’s captain learned from a Belgian pilot of a scheme by which Belgians in England joined their army in France, then deserted, went as stowaways on a cheese-boat to Rotterdam and there consorted with Germans.

  A German named Carl Haasters, head of a firm exploiting iron ores in Holland, required his manager to sign a certificate to the effect that a person, whose name he refused to give, proceeding from Spain but at that moment in Holland and known to the North German Lloyd company at Amsterdam, was a
representative of the Iron Ore Company. As this company had in former years had dealings with the Gas Light & Coke Company the manager believed that Haasters intended to send over a hostile agent under guise of doing business with the British company and accordingly informed a representative of Scotland Yard. The ports were warned.

  From Lausanne came the warning that about twenty young persons claiming Polish nationality and with papers in order were coming from Switzerland to England and then to America as dancers of Russian ballet. The ports were warned Washington also, and in February 1916 the Russian troupe, numbering seventy-three members, arrived at Washington. Nothing further transpired.

  The following miscellaneous ways of carrying messages were reported at different dates: on gramophone records; sewn in the handle of a travelling bag, etc; in the soles of boots; in pills swallowed and recovered; under a false coating of fur covering a dog.

  Owing to the delays occasioned by Postal Censorship, the practice grew up of firms sending their correspondence abroad by a clerk who travelled regularly to and fro. An officer at Tilbury reported that an immense traffic of this kind was in progress and that one courier would carry as many as one hundred letters. By regulation, the captains of neutral ships were entitled to carry ‘ship-owner’ letters and the same officer at Tilbury sent in a report incriminating the director and an officer of the Zeeland Steamship Company.

  This complaint echoed one sent in by ‘a traveller’ in February 1915, who declared the measures taken with regard to travellers at Whitehall, Victoria and the ports to be insufficient; letters and telegrams could be sent from the steamers; clerks and journalists carrying letters for their principals were not supervised and no control was exercised over the crews of neutral vessels although there was much German capital invested in Dutch liners. As a result of Mr Barker’s report the Zeeland Steamship Company was specially warned against including private correspondence in the Captain’s box, a measure which had some effect, for in August, illicit carrying by small trading vessels was far commoner than by ordinary passenger boat. This traffic was conducted by the simple expedient of addressing letters to persons on board the ship lying in port.

  During 1915 the system of port control was gradually elaborated. Its early beginnings at Folkestone, Gravesend and Southampton have already been mentioned. The influx of undesirables and persistent illegal carrying of letters caused MO5G to make formal complaint of the divided responsibility at the ports and to procure the appointment of special representatives at Hull, Newcastle, Liverpool, Bergen and Rotterdam in order to watch the traffic carefully and suggest improvements in applying preventive methods. These officers had no executive power; it rested with the aliens Officers to prevent an undesirable from landing or to admit him and with the police to arrest and search him. Accordingly circulars indicating the line of action required in the case of an individual were issued by E Branch at the request of the Investigating Branch to the Home Office as well as to the Port Officer. But the Port Officer acted as general adviser and supervisor in these cases. By means of this control the Investigating Branch could arrange for an undesirable to be kept out or admitted, to be most carefully searched, watched, his papers sent to Scotland Yard for investigation, or to have the man arrested and sent up to Scotland Yard. Equally important was the work done in stopping an undesirable from leaving the country or from making too frequent journeys to and from the Continent.

  *

  On 26 January a Belgian refugee living at Rotterdam wrote to the War Office stating that F. Leibacher of 1 Zwaanensteeg, Rotterdam, was a German agent who received letters containing messages in secret ink and forwarded them to their proper quarters. In the course of February three men, Anton Küpferle, Carl Muller and John Hahn, were found to be in communication with this address.

  Anton Küpferle, alias Anthony Copperlee, was a German who became a naturalised American in 1913. He had been educated in the United States. At the end of 1911 he is said to have set up as a woollen draper at 1665 de Kalb Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, and to have failed in 1913. It is certain that he was employed as a salesman by two clothing firms between 1907 and 1913.

  From passages in a letter and his last confession he would seem to have served at the Front between August 1914 and January 1915, in the capacity of a German officer. On 14 January 1915, he received $100 from Franz von Papen; an American passport was issued to him on the 25th, and he sailed for Liverpool on 4 February. On 17 and 18 February, two letters were intercepted addressed to Leibacher and written on paper headed A. Küpferle & Co., Importer of Woollens, 1665 de Kalb Avenue, Brooklyn. These letters contained messages in secret ink. From the text it appeared that Küpferle was in Liverpool on the 15th, in Dublin on the 16th, and expected to be in Queenstown on the 18th.

  The bureau wired to Dublin and Liverpool police that Küpferle was to be arrested. Dublin replied giving a description of Küpferle and stating that he had left Kingdom for Holyhead on the 17th. He was supposed to be returning to America via Liverpool, The description and name were circulated to the ports and to Chief Constable Liverpool with instructions to arrest. But as the police report did not agree with Küpferle’s written statement, Dublin and Liverpool were informed that he might still be in Ireland. Search, however, was made in London in the hotels in the neighbourhood of Euston and it was ascertained that Küpferle had spent the night of the 17th in one of them. He had left for Victoria on the morning of the 18th. On the 18th, the boats for Flushing were held up owing to the German blockade and on the 19th a letter was intercepted which showed that Küpferle was awaiting further supplies of money at the Wilton Hotel. He was arrested that day. Evidence of his connection with Leibacher was found in Dublin and in London as well as materials for secret writing.

  Küpferle’s movements were traced in Liverpool. The information he had sent abroad was found to be mostly incorrect. Enquiries were set on foot in America to ascertain his nationality and business, and the American consulate were kept informed as to the case. As with regard to the postbox used, so also with regard to the judicial proceedings here, there is connection between the case of Küpferle and that of Muller and Hahn, which must now be recounted.

  John Hahn was a British subject, the son of a German who naturalised as a British subject in 1897 and returned to Germany about 1905, there to end his days. Hahn spent the two years from 1901 to 1903 learning his trade as a baker and confectioner in Germany. From 1903 to 1910 he worked as a journeyman baker in London and Dublin in which places he spent two years. In September 1910 he bought a baker’s shop at 111 High Street, Deptford, became a bankrupt at the end of 1913, and leased the shop to his wife in January 1914. It was raided by the mob in November and the business failed utterly in consequence of the war. Hahn had married in May 1912, Christine, the daughter of Richard Dorst, a German residing at 4 Osy Straat, Antwerp.

  Carl F. H. Muller, a Russian, said to have been born at Libau of German parents, had lived at Antwerp for at least eleven years. He occupied a room in the house of Richard Dorst. He combined the occupation of check-weigher of cargoes on German steamers with other employment. He was for six months in Kattendyke’s Engineering Works, Antwerp, and afterwards he was agent for a German firm dealing in motor-winches. Before the siege of Antwerp, Richard Dorst left with his family for Holland. Muller stayed behind and took charge of Dorst’s property.

  Muller had a daughter who is said to have lived in Hamburg and Bremen: she was married to a German who perished in the battle of the Falkland Islands. By his own admission Muller was on friendly terms with German officers at Antwerp.

  Muller arrived at Sunderland on 18 January 1915. He carried Russian papers and stated that he had just been released from a German prison, where he had been brutally treated. He called at the house of some English people with whom he had a slight acquaintance. They did what they could for him but Sunderland was at that time a prohibited area to all aliens and the police expelled him. He came to London to 38 Guildford Street, W.C. on the 13th and immed
iately got in touch with Hahn. On the 17th he left, returning to Guildford Street on the 21st. He went away almost immediately but came back on the 28th. He had been in Rotterdam and Roosendaal on the Belgian frontier. On 5 February he again went to Rotterdam, procured there a fresh passport, and returned to Guildford Street on the 13th. On 15 February he was signalled from Rotterdam as a German agent for the German GOC, Brussels. He was said to be receiving letters in London either poste restante or post office box addressed to the name of Leidec. Meanwhile, under the check on F. Leibacher (other forms Laibacher and Laybaker) letters had been intercepted of 3 and 4 February containing interlinear secret messages referring to military matters, signed AEIII and posted in the W.C. district.

  The signature seemed to confirm previous reports received by the bureau of a book containing the record of German agents directed against England in which each agent was entered by a number corresponding to the order of his enrolment. On receipt of the first letter, enquiries were made at the address given in the en clair message, but without result. As, however, the handwriting faintly resembled that of a German who lived at the address, it was resolved to search the house for further evidence. Before this could be done, the second letter giving a different name and address was intercepted. On receipt of the message incriminating Muller, the police were sent to Guildford Street. Muller was interviewed on 16 February without much result. A check was put on the name Leidec. This resulted in the intercepting of two letters dated 20 and 21 February addressed to Mr Lybecq, Postbox 447, Rotterdam, and posted in the W.C. district. Each contained a secret message signed AEIII written on the back of the letter. The writer mentioned that he was shortly going to Sunderland. The letter of the 21st was written on a peculiar kind of paper and the en clair message was in another hand. The bureau deduced that AEIII was probably living in the Bloomsbury district; as he always used a two pence stamp, the stamps of this value issued to a Branch office were specially marked and enquiries with regard to the notepaper were set on foot in the district.