MI5 in the Great War

by Nigel West

  Ries was impersonated by a man named Paul Hensel who landed at Liverpool on 4 July with a forged passport dated 30 March to travel in Holland and Denmark; his ostensible mission was to collect new clients in Great Britain and elsewhere for three American firms, two of which dealt in hay and corn. He registered at Liverpool, stating he was going to London. Instead of this he went to Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh, returned to Liverpool and thence reached London on 28 July. Between the 28th and 31st he went to Brighton, returning afterwards to town.

  On his tour in the north, he visited only three or four firms, and he approached a few others by letter after leaving the localities in which they were situated. In no case did he do any business. On 8 August, he booked a passage from Hull to Copenhagen and approached the American consulate for a visa to get his permit. The American consulate discovered the forgery and impounded the passport. Ries then would seem to have destroyed incriminating documents in expectation of his arrest which took place on 10 August.

  Meanwhile he had been the object of enquiry since 5 August. On the 3rd, the GPO had reported that he had received £20 by telegraphic money order from a Madame Cleton in Rotterdam, and the sum was suspect. This news was followed by news from Rotterdam to the effect that a telephone message passing between German GHQ Wesel and the German consulate in Rotterdam had been tapped and decoded. It conveyed instructions to pay Madame Cleton, 70 Provenierstraat, Rotterdam, certain sums of money for the mission of Irwin Guy Ries, Hotel Cecil, and to continue to pay a tenth of this sum weekly.

  Seventy-two Provenierstraat was a known accommodation address of the agent Sanderson, alias Dierks, and had been on check since May 1915. Madame Cleton was a name assumed by Sanderson’s wife when her husband was taken into custody by the Dutch. No doubt existed as to Ries’ connections and the wording of the message induced the belief that he was responsible for the destruction of the Ardeer Factory which blew up on 30/31 July 1915. After his arrest the bureau traced his connections in the States.

  Of the three firms mentioned by him two were genuine but he did not represent either of them although he had applied to do so. A partner in one of these firms showed nervousness when he was interviewed. The third firm of Wackerow-Belcher did not exist but a man named Richard Wackerow was traced. This man stated that he had been American consul in Austria for eleven years and admitted knowing Ries, who was in the grain, wheat and flour business in Chicago, but refused to say more and avoided an office interview which he himself had arranged. Money orders received by and for Ries were as follows:

  – 10 July £40; 31 July £20; 3 August £20 (before his arrest)

  – 16 August £40; 21 August, £30; 21 August £39.10s (after arrest)

  Ries was charged with: 1. Committing an act preparatory to collecting without lawful authority information, etc.; 2. Having been in communication with a spy; 3. Being found in possession of a false passport; 4. Having falsely represented himself to be a person to whom a passport had been duly issued.

  He was tried by court martial and sentenced to be shot on 5 October. The sentence was carried out on 27 October. In proving the charges it was thought necessary to show that Ries had not done any genuine business but the evidence showed that he was competent to open business negotiations. Subsequently it was learned that the State Department at Washington had been unable to procure evidence of Wackerow’s connection with Hensel, but owing to his having admitted that he knew Hensel he was arrested and interned in April 1917. Wackerow had been the US vice-consul at Breslau from 1902 to 1911.

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  On 9 June, the British consul-general at Rotterdam reported that David Stad had come over on the 1st and that Cornolis Marinus den Braber was shortly coming to this country. Both were Dutch seamen, purporting to act as representatives of von Brandwijk & Company for the sale of a custard powder. The firm was supposed to have a branch at 18 Lindley Street; Stad had a sister named Liebfreund, whose address was not known. Orders were issued that these two men were to be watched and their movements reported. They were traced to the house of his sister, Mrs Liebfreund, 16 Lindley Street, and den Braben to the house of a Russian named Carlishe or Kalische, 18 Lindley Street.

  Stad had wired to Brandwijk for money and £7 was sent to den Braber by Ipers on the 26th. Stad had arrived on 9 June, bringing business cards of von Brandwijk; Braber arrived on the 18th. Neither of the men had done any business.

  The police searched their rooms, found dummy cases of custard powder but no samples, and ordered the men to report daily to the police station. On the 23rd Stad and den Braber were arrested for having neglected to give proper particulars to their landlords, and Liebfreund and Carlishe were arrested for having failed to keep a proper register of their lodgers. The charge against Stad and den Braber failed on a technical point and they were liberated on 14 July 1915. There was, however, no doubt they had come over to spy and they were interned under DRR 14B. Meanwhile the ports had been warned to arrest and search any persons travelling for von Brandwijk.

  The case against Liebfreund and Carlishe resulted in a fine of £5 for Carlishe, and in six months’ hard labour for Liebfreund. Liebfreund was a Russian tailor who came to England in November 1914, married Anna Stad on 2 May 1915, and found Carlishe’s lodging for den Braber. Moreover, letters referring to D. Stad’s business in England were sent directed to Liebfreund from the address of M. Stad.

  The bureau had no doubt that Liebfreund had come to England for the purpose of helping the German Secret Service and on the expiry of his sentence procured an order for his internment. The Advisory Committee, however, refused to sanction the order. In 1917, Liebfreund returned to Russia to serve as a soldier and his wife went back to Holland with a no return permit. Den Braber was deported in October 1919. There is no record that Stad was deported.

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  In July van Zwol, chief officer of the SS Caledonia was reported to be associating with German agents and bringing over information to Volbrath. On the 25th he was said to be carrying information by means of marks on apples and pears. The full story was not known until October 1917, but as it explains some of van Zwol’s action in England it is worth inserting here.

  In June 1915 the Dutch authorities summoned Hochenholz on suspicion of his having enlisted Dutch seamen for espionage in England. He confessed to having several Dutchmen in his employ and the police discovered that J. van Zwol was one of them. Van Zwol was arrested on 24 August and confessed that he had given information about the British fleet to Hochenholz; his cabin was searched and in it were discovered a slip of paper bearing the names of several British men of war, and apples and pears marked with ciphers and letters. Van Zwol was allowed to go but photographs of the slip of paper and of the apples were forwarded to England.

  On receipt of the report from Rotterdam dated 25 August, orders were issued to arrest van Zwol on his arrival at Hull. This was done and his cabin searched; apples and pears were found in it but nothing incriminating. Van Zwol, however, in his interrogation at Scotland Yard admitted that he had been approached by Hochenholz who asked him for information saying that it was required for publication in a newspaper. Van Zwol stated that he had once told Hochenholz the number of ships in the Humber and for this had received 24 gulden. He admitted his connection, with Harry Vanderberg, his nephew, who had been signalled as a spy on 30 January, and with Valkenburg, a publican who had served a term of three months’ imprisonment on suspicion of espionage for Germany.

  There was no evidence that van Zwol had committed an offence on British territory; he was therefore interned under DRR 14B on the grounds of hostile association and ordered for deportation in October 1919.

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  The third group of enemy spies dealt with by the bureau in 1915 consists of a number of agents who were sent out apparently by the Berlin centre, or by some centre not identified. These were Robert Rosenthal, Ernest W. Melin, Josef Marks and Albert Meyer.

  Simultaneously with the letters written by Meyer to Goedhardt, certain lette
rs signed Johanesco and Erikssen, addressed to Goedhardt, containing secret writing and posted in northern ports were intercepted. The writer was never traced with certainty, but as a result of investigation and of some information received from Holland, a Swedish sailor named Per Gustav Erikson was interned under DRR 14B (in November 1915) and a Danish sailor, W. H. Möller, was deported.

  Robert Rosenthal, a German, made three journeys to England on behalf of Captain von Prieger, Chief of the Admiralty Secret Service in Berlin. It is very probable that this was the Berger whose presence became known to the branch owing to their enquiry as to cheques paid into the German banks from abroad. In the middle of November 1914 he came to London via The Hague and Folkestone with orders to go to Plymouth, Portsmouth, Weymouth, Dover, Grimsby and Newcastle. From London he despatched on 19 and 23 November telegrams giving information with regard to ships at Edinburgh and Portsmouth. He embarked for Holland at Folkestone on 11 December after staying at Portsmouth from 4 to 7 December 1914.

  On 9 January 1915 he arrived at Hull from Copenhagen, and wired on the 9th and 11th news about His Majesty’s ships. From Hull he went to Newcastle and Liverpool, where he embarked on the 16th and went via Cardiff to Spain and Italy, and so to Germany. For these two journeys he used the cover-address George Haeffner, Christiania, Kirkegatan 30.

  A third journey took place in mid-April again via Copenhagen and Hull. He went to London, Birmingham, Glasgow and Edinburgh sending wires to Salomon, Vestervoldgade 10, Copenhagen, from those cities on 22 April, 5 May and 11 May respectively and letters on 9, 10 and 11 May. The story of Rosenthal’s passports is complicated. From 1908 to 1913 Rosenthal was in the United States, having left Germany on account of forgery. He returned to Germany in November 1913. In June 1914 Rosenthal had urgent reasons for wishing to leave Germany and with the connivance of a friend he obtained at Hamburg a consular certificate of American nationality. With this he obtained an emergency passport in Berlin, where for a time he worked for the Relief Commission. In October he was sent to The Hague to get a genuine American passport, but was given instead a consular certificate and an affidavit to say he had lost his passport in Berlin. He was given a new emergency passport and with this he made his two first journeys to England but on the second occasion it seems to have aroused suspicion at Newcastle and he was frightened out of the country. For the third journey he procured a passport issued at Washington on 26 January 1915. Von Prieger had shown him apparatus for fabricating American documents and had offered him a passport and a birth certificate, but these he had refused.

  Rosenthal’s ostensible reason for coming in November and January was to dispose of a patent with regard to smoking. His arrest on the third journey was due to a happy accident. On 8 April, Rosenthal wrote from the Hotel Bristol, Copenhagen, to Franz Kulbe, Berlin Schöneberg, Belzigerstrasse 10, a letter containing a secret message to the effect that he was going to start work in England under the pretext of selling a patent gas-lighter. He signed his letter Robert Rosenthal. Through some mis-sort the letter came to England; the censor thought the en clair message suspicious, tested the letter and found the secret message. The letter was submitted to MO5, the head of which section handed it on to MO5G on 3 May. The address of Franz Kulbe was already known to the bureau as that of Captain von Prieger and orders were at once issued for the arrest of any traveller in a patent gas-lighter. Late at night on 11 May he was arrested in the act of embarking at Newcastle for Bergen.

  Being interrogated and led to admit the facts of his passage at Copenhagen, he was then confronted with his letter when he immediately gave up the fight and confessed his true nationality and mission. Among Rosenthal’s effects were found Fleets of the World 1915; a new map of Glasgow; a Scotch road book; field glasses; some flags; eau de Cologne and violet powder. He had been given 2,500 marks to last till the middle of May. Of this £100 was in gold.

  Five of Rosenthal’s telegrams dated 19, 23 November, 9 and 11 January, and 16 April, were produced in evidence and proved to contain substantially accurate information. He was court martialled on 6 July and hanged on the 16th.

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  Josef Marks carried an American emergency passport which had been issued in Berlin on 1 February 1915, without the production of any identification papers but on the personal identification of the American consul Thompson and the vice-consul Heinrich Guadflieg both of Aix-la-Chapelle. The passport bore visas from the Aachen police, 13 February 1915; the German consulate in Rotterdam, 15 June 1915, object: journey to Germany; the American Legation in The Hague, 21 June 1915; object: journey to England; the British consulate in The Hague, 15 July 1915; object: business with the Safety Chemical Company, 1 Eagle Street, High Holborn.

  The American minister at The Hague believed the passport to be a forgery and warned the British consulate and on 25 June, Rotterdam reported to the bureau that Marks was coming to England as an independent spy sent out by GHQ Berlin. Orders were issued to the ports for the arrest, search and conveyance to Scotland Yard of Josef Marks.

  He was signaled as crossing on 15 July. Recognised and accosted on the boat by PC Billett he at once asked to see an intelligence officer to whom he would give important information. He added that he was being shadowed by a German agent. In various interviews he gave the following story: he was born in Germany but was educated in the States and became an American citizen. He returned to Germany and married and set up in business there. In August 1914 he and his wife were arrested by the Germans and after pressure he entered the German Secret Service. He was trained by the Antwerp Bureau, had to make two trial trips in Holland and then was allowed a short holiday in Germany. He was coming to England to find out about munitions, was to use a book of stamps as code and received £45 for the trip. He made up his mind to give information to the British authorities and on the way over wrote a letter to the Minister of Munitions.

  The letter was actually written on the ship’s notepaper and was delivered up by Marks. The codebook and about £37 and letters that he had written from prison in Germany to the military authorities to complain of his treatment were found upon him; also a registration certificate proving that he was born at Munich and was a civil engineer. Investigation proved that Marks was in all probability a German subject, as he had once possessed American citizenship but had allowed it to lapse. Moreover he was identified as Multerer, the former fraudulent managing director of the Safety Chemical Co., who had lived in England as a German subject from 1911 to about June 1915 and had left owing many debts. While in residence here Multerer had business notepaper printed for his wife under the name of Marks. He would visit Germany two or three times a year. Marks was charged under DRR 18 and 46 with an act preparatory to committing an offence, embarking upon and voyaging to Tilbury by ship with the intention to act as a spy. The question was at what precise moment he abandoned that intention and whether he was sincere in his confession.

  Two officers went to the prison but Marks then stated he thought the German espionage system was best and refused to give any information. A month later he offered to obtain the formulae for the new German gas and its re-agent. He was tried by court martial on 28 September 1915 and was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. In December 1919 he was deported.

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  Ernest Melin was a Swede, the son of a former managing owner of the Thule Steamship Company, and had been for many years manager of that company. He left it in 1906 and after some years of idleness obtained a post at Nikolaieff, which he was forced to leave on account of the war. He went to Hamburg, was recruited for the German Secret Service by Hilmar Dierks and was engaged by the Antwerp Bureau.

  He came to England on about 15 January, spent a fortnight in London and returned to Holland on 29 January. The Antwerp Bureau insisted that he should make the rounds of the English and Scottish ports and this he refused to do. He was then taken on by the Wesel Bureau at a salary of £50 a month. He was sent to London on or about 26 February with instructions to report to Katie Smith, Huize St
. Joseph, Lent near Nijmegen. His reports were made on the fifth page of a newspaper. Between 2 March and 12 June, he sent off twenty-nine such reports. He had also a telegraphic code in which the names of Dutch banks stood for various classes of ships. This he had to learn by heart. His salary was paid by cheques forwarded by Schwedersky & Company and drawn on the Union of London and Smith’s Bank, on advice from the Rotterdamsche Bankvereeniging. These cheques were dated 15 March, 12 April, 22 May. Other cheques dated 15 June and 12 July were paid by the Banque Beige pour l’Etranger, acting for S. van Dantzig. The three first cheques were cashed by the British and Northern Shipping Agency at the request of Melin.

  On 16 March, the bureau was informed that E. W. Melin, of 23 Upper Parkway in Hampstead, was attached to the German Secret Service. The check put on his name resulted in intercepting Schwedersky’s cheque on 15 April. Enquiries were then made at Melin’s address and it was ascertained that he was living at a boarding-house, was fond of drink, went to the City every day, and spent the afternoons at the Café Monico. On 12 June, two envelopes containing three letters signed Kate and addressed to Melin were intercepted. Between the lines of an affectionate family letter were questions about British ships in secret writing. The envelopes had been posted at Tilbury.

  The house was searched, a bottle of lemon juice, a pen and toothpicks were found as well as a Baedeker, with the names of various British ports and hotels marked in pencil. Also between the pages of an English and Swedish dictionary was a slip of paper bearing the names of some regiments and other military terms; Melin also had four other dictionaries. Melin was arrested on the 14th; he was interviewed on the 15th and acknowledged having received money through Schwedersky of Rotterdam. Through the case of Trebitsch Lincoln, Schwedersky was already known to the bureau as a German agent. Efforts were made to trace Melin at the ports but without avail; he declared he had never left London. The letters of 12 June had not been delivered to him, but it was important that he should acknowledge they were for him. On 26 July, he was shown the envelopes of the letters containing the cheques of 15 June and 12 July. He asserted that he was expecting a cheque from Rotterdam, was then shown the envelopes and the signature of the three letters containing secret writing; these also he acknowledged as being meant for him. The letters were then unfolded and the secret writing which had been developed stood revealed. Melin confessed his connection with the German Secret Service and gave the details mentioned above. He signed a receipt for the cheques and the money was impounded by the War Office.