by Nigel West
De Bournonville was tried on 18 and 19 January 1916. The originals of her letters were produced in court and, although she laid stress on the fact that she had reported only what the man in the street could find out unaided, the jury found her guilty of attempting to communicate information which might be useful to the enemy with intent to assist him. She was sentenced to death and the sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life.
In court Eva de Bournonville stated that she had been recruited for the Germans by a man named Schmidt, whom she had known in 1912. She met him in a restaurant in July 1916, and being pressed by debt, she accepted work at a remuneration of £1 a day. He instructed her in the use of ink and gave her the three names to which she addressed letters to 35/37 Birger Jarlsgatan, Stockholm, and the two names of British PoWs.
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Johan Christian Zahle Lassen aged fifty, married and father of three children, had been a tobacco-planter in Sumatra and afterwards employed in the iron, steel and machinery business in Copenhagen, had twice started ventures on his own account and failed, and in 1911 had gone to Panama. There he worked first in American steamship companies and then in the Panama Banking Company. Owing to ill-health he left Panama in December 1914 and returned via New York, Liverpool and Hull to Copenhagen, which he reached on 1 January 1915. On the passage to England, he made friends with a Mr Challoner, agent for Messrs Sandeman, wine merchants of Pall Mall, and with Miss M. A. Pole of Wallasey, to whom he suggested marriage. He entered into correspondence with Challoner from Copenhagen hoping to obtain work in England as a linguist.
Mr Challoner is said to have applied for a post in the Censorship on behalf of Lassen, who knew Danish, Dutch, German, English and some French and Spanish. As there was no vacancy in the Censorship, Mr Challoner mooted the question of Lassen taking up an agency for Messrs Sandeman, and Lassen came to England via Bergen, to continue negotiations. He landed at Newcastle on 9 September and was met at King’s Cross by Challoner, who accompanied him on the 10th to the Home Office. The port officer had doubts about Lassen’s passport, which had been issued on 2 September and endorsed by the British consul ‘to London to visit Mr Challoner on a personal matter of business’. Lassen saw Mr Haldane Porter, satisfied him as to his credentials and received back his passport. On 11 September he went to Liverpool and called upon Mr Richard Watson, brother-in-law of Mr Challoner. He also saw Miss Pole on that evening and spent Sunday and part of Monday with her, returning to town on 13 September. Before the journey to England, Lassen had spent twenty-four tours in Berlin at the request of his friend Dr Katz who wished Lassen to buy food for Germany in Denmark. This Lassen refused to do. Mr Challoner thought Lassen’s information would be interesting, so the two men called at the Foreign Office where Lassen made a statement of no particular value. Lassen being anxious to return quickly to Denmark, applied for a special permit at the Home Office, called there and gave some further information with regard to affairs in Germany and offered his services to England. He then got his passport from the Foreign Office and sailed for Copenhagen on 20 September. He had ordered and paid for five dozen bottles of whiskey which he intended to dispose of in samples to private persons. He had also expressed the wish to get a post in the Foreign Office or Home Office. From Copenhagen Lassen wrote to Challoner on 3 and 27 October and on 2 November 1915, on which date he ordered twelve dozen bottles of whiskey. In every letter he spoke of returning to England for a short visit and asked Challoner to obtain travelling facilities from the Home Office; in the third letter he showed a desire to come over immediately without prejudice to yet another visit at some future date. He also communicated with another firm about ordering consignments of cigarettes.
Lassen landed at Hull on 12 November and stated afterwards that he had written from Hull to Mr Haldane Porter asking for permission to leave the country again in a very few days but Captain Haldane Porter never received the letter.
Lassen had been signalled as a spy from Copenhagen on 9 November and orders were issued to watch and report his movements and to have him taken to Scotland Yard. He was met at King’s Cross, interviewed at Scotland Yard, searched and detained in custody. He carried about £90. In his interview he made no mention of his connection with Germans. Then, after three days in prison, he made a voluntary statement regarding his visit to Dr Katz of Berlin, a man known to the bureau as the recruiting agent and organiser of espionage directed against this country from Sweden, Denmark and Norway.
Two days later Lassen insisted that he had important information to give. Two officers from MI5 saw him and he stated that before and after his visit to England in September he had seen Count Ranzow, German ambassador at Copenhagen, that he had told the Count his impressions of England and that the Count had said that a great Zeppelin raid was to take place over London on a particular date. Lassen stoutly denied that he was a spy saying that he had come over to give this information but his story did not stand cross-examination.
Verifications were made of some of the addresses found on Lassen. One of these, R. Emmecee & Co., Gothersgade 91, Kobenhavn, was that of a firm dealing in agricultural machinery, provisions, groceries, and doing a large trade with Germany. Two other addresses on slips of paper were identified by a censor as addresses in Copenhagen but, in contrast to procedure followed in the case of Dutch addresses, no enquiries were made in Copenhagen itself.
A search of telegrams showed that, in September, Lassen had wired the day of his departure and ship and had asked for news to be wired c/o the Danish consulate at Hull; in November he had wired the date of his arrival. Both these wires had been sent to Lassen’s permanent address. Nothing more resulted from the enquiry prosecuted through the GPO. No trace could be found of Challoner’s application to the authorities for a post to be given to Lassen in the Censorship. Equally unsatisfactory was the examination of various scents and medicaments in Lassen’s possession. They were identified indeed by the expert, but he made no suggestion that they could be used as secret ink.
It may be worth noting that on the back of a letter from Percy Robinson, the solicitor employed in Lassen’s defence, there is a draft in Lassen’s handwriting of a series of six telegrams, all dealing with the same journey in variants suggestive of code. A summary of evidence was taken on 16 December and Lassen was tried on 27 January 1916 on two counts under DRR 48 and 18 of having come to England on 9 September and on 12 November 1915 for the purpose of collecting information etc., with the intent to assist the enemy. He was acquitted and sent back to Denmark with a no return permit. He returned to Copenhagen on 30 January and his description with orders that he was not to be allowed to re-enter the United Kingdom was circulated a few days after. Meanwhile from Copenhagen came the news that Lassen was a German spy and had been to Caen several times via Holland. A few days later, Mr Challoner sought advice as to whether he should have any further dealings with Lassen and was recommended not to do so.
Then Lassen was reported to be coming to England again and to be boasting that he had learned all he wanted from the officer in whose charge he was. Finally Lassen, who had made acquaintance with officials at four government offices and the inside of a British prison, wrote asking for compensation for his imprisonment and loss of business, and suggesting that he should be put into communication with some ‘trusted agent’ of Major Drake in Copenhagen.
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Emil Brugman, a partner of van Spanje and Visser, dealers in motor trucks and lorries, landed in England on 14 October 1915 for the ostensible purpose of laying before the Minister of Munitions a process for making gun-cotton from raw material plentiful in Russia. Accompanied by a Russian engineer named de Mazia, to whom Brugman carried a letter of introduction from the Russian military attaché at The Hague, Brugman called at the War Office, saw the Director of Military Operations, who sent him to the Superintendent of Research at Woolwich, where he was referred to the Ministry of Munitions.
Brugman received two letters from Lord Moulton dated 18 and 26 October. Lord Moulton
stated that the government would consider the process and asked for samples. With Lord Moulton’s letter, Brugman obtained a permit to go to Holland to fetch samples and returned to England on 26 October. No licence to trade in munitions had been given to him. On both visits he had spent some days at Woolwich. Through some error, when Brugman first landed in England, his papers were sent direct to the Ministry of Munitions and not as they should have been to MO5E or Scotland Yard.
In November Brugman was reported to the bureau as associating with German agents, travelling frequently to England and carrying a letter from Lloyd George. He was also said to be passing contraband rubber into Germany together with van Haestert, J. Rutlin and de Brugge. Enquiries made by the bureau failed to establish that any letter to Brugman had been written by or on behalf of Lloyd George. In the following March Richard Tinsley reported that Brugman, who was known to have been engaged in smuggling goods for Germany, was coming to England and might be using letters written by Mr Lloyd George.
A British agent ‘R’, acting as double agent in Holland, then met Brugman in London accidentally and reported him to the bureau as a friend of Alexander Blok, adding that he had been sent to England against the wish of G. Elte and in all probability to ascertain whether ‘R’ had come to England. Brugman and ‘R’ had recognised each other but had not spoken. Soon after this, Visser wired to England to ascertain whether Brugman were still at the same address.
Brugman was at once arrested; in his possession were found three tall-pointed nibs, permanganate of potash and various other toilet accessories, and his luggage showed that he had travelled extensively in Germany. He admitted knowing Blok and Ekte. ‘R’, who was asked for particulars regarding Brugman’s character and financial status, his dealings with Blok and Blok’s nationality, his connections with van Spamje, and with Germans, was unable to discover anything definite about Brugman’s business, but his character was no better than that of his associates van Spanje, L. H. A. Visser, Willem van Baleu, Van dem Hucht, Rutten and van Suchtelen, and van den Haere. Moreover, Brugman had relations with Blok, Philip Dikker, Frank Greite and Helene de Lemaitre. Van Bale (not Baalen), had with Blok engaged the spies de Bie, Pannebakker and Peter Steunebrink.
Meanwhile, the police ascertained that a pass for the Ministry of Munitions, carried by Brugman and dated 16 October 1915, was in all probability a forgery, and that de Mazia might very well be his accomplice. De Mazia had come to England from Brussels in August 1914 and had possessed two passes allowing him to leave the country without examination. One of these had been recovered, the second, dated 25 August 1915, he had retained until 11 May 1916 when he called at Scotland Yard to find out why Cohen was on the Black List. De Mazia was signalled with instructions that he was not to be allowed to leave the country.
One of Brugman and Cohen’s guarantors was a David Mayer Cohen, a somewhat shady character who had been intimate with John Hahn of the Carl Muller and Hahn case. Brugman himself wrote from prison suggesting that he should be allowed to go to Holland for a few days with a sergeant and promising to obtain there information of the greatest importance. No satisfactory medium of secret writing could be made from any materials in Brugman’s possession and there was no direct evidence against him. MI6(d), the department engaged in countering illicit traffic in munitions, might have prosecuted him under DRR 30A for offering to deal in munitions without a license, but in view of Lord Moulton’s letters and the encouragement the men had received from the Ministry of Munitions, it was unlikely that conviction would be secured, therefore it was decided to deport Brugman and de Mazia. Tinsley’s reports showed that Brugman’s friends abroad were anxious about him and attributed his arrest to the action of an enemy whom they declined to name. They may have been referring to Elte, it was however possible that ‘R’ was indicated. In order to safeguard ‘R’, Brugman was told that he was suspected of having traded with the enemy and ‘R’ was sent back to Holland some fourteen days before Brugman in order to discredit Brugman. It was arranged that he should be specially searched at the port and rumours of his intended betrayal of the Germans set afloat. Yet after this Brugman was noted on the Antwerp List as A-32 for renewed employment.
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Adolfo Guerrero was the son of a Spaniard of good position and a Philippine, brought up by an uncle. He was educated partly in Switzerland and there imbibed German sympathies. He qualified for the bar but never practised and soon dissipated his fortune in riotous living. In 1909 he was teaching dancing in Paris, afterwards he may have attempted some journalism in Spain. For some years he had lived with Ramona Amondarain (this is the form which she herself used), a Spanish dancer known on the stage as Aurora de Bilbao. She had obtained her parents’ consent to their marriage but there was opposition on the part of Guerrero’s mother. From June to September 1915 the pair stayed together in a hotel at 8 rue Fromentin, Paris, and there earned a bad character. Then for a while they separated. In October they were in Spain, Guerrero going there from Bayonne, and they spent from 24 to 27 January 1916 in the Hotel Barcelona at Madrid. On the 28th and 29th they travelled together to Paris, via San Sebastian, and there asked for visas for England. Guerrero obtained his without difficulty, Amondarain’s was refused as she was not his wife, and she was told that to procure a visa she must produce a certificate that she had work to come to here.
Guerrero landed at Folkestone on 1 February. On 30 January the Admiralty had telephoned to the bureau that in all probability Spanish journalists would be coming to act as German spies. This warning was issued to Folkestone, Southampton and Falmouth on the 31st. Accordingly the port officer at Folkestone signalled the arrival of Adolfo Guerrero, correspondent for El Literal, and bound for the Regent Palace Hotel. A specimen of Guerrero’s handwriting was obtained.
Comprehensive checks were put on all letters and telegrams to and from Guerrero, and the Censor was asked to keep special watch on all letters coming from Spain with a view to detecting secret writing. Guerrero was also kept under close observation, and the police made arrangements to see his correspondence before it reached him. They supplied particulars of two addresses to which Guerrero had written and the information that on 3 February he had rented the offices of F. Palan, cork importers, Woodman’s Yard, Minories. Guerrero moved to 23 Lisle Street on 5 February. Between 2 and 8 February inclusive Guerrero wrote six letters to as many different addressees. The sixth was addressed to Don Antonio Arregui, Calle de Velasquez, Madrid, and was followed by a postcard giving the number as ‘66’. In this last letter, Guerrero stated that he had written two letters to ‘our friend Louis’ and another two to ‘Frederic’, and he asked the addressee to tell his manager to order his banker to send money between 27 and 30 February. All these letters were tested for secret ink without result, but certain marks before certain initials were noticed. The letters were photographed and sent on and the addresses were recorded. Guerrero on 14 February moved again to 24 Charlotte Street. Five more letters written by Guerrero were intercepted, one of these being a letter to the bank of Spanish America asking for a draft of £30. He was arrested on 18 February and in his papers was found a slip of paper bearing three addresses; Sr. Don Luis de Riquer Juan Luque 12, Madrid; Frederick Skjellas, Minde Bergensbanen, Norway; Guanta 154, Spain.
Frederick Skjellas had been known to the bureau since 26 January 1916 as a spy address, and consequently these addresses were correctly interpreted as representing the two centres to which Guerrero’s reports were to go, and his own spy denomination. As early as 5 February a Postal Censorship examiner was prepared to make an affidavit that Skjellas, an ex-German consul, was currently talked of in Norway as a German spy, and was in constant contact by telephone with Bauermeister, who was known to be a German spy.
Another damning document in Guerrero’s possession was a forged identity card, his ‘piece de justification’ as correspondent of the Liberal. Guerrero had landed in England not knowing a word of the language, a hindrance indeed to a foreign correspondent but also to a sp
y. Guerrero made the most of this point in his defence. In his second interrogation, Guerrero was accused of having received a letter from Hans von Krohn, head of the German organisation in Spain. This he strenuously denied. He asserted that he knew Skjellas ‘a Frenchman’ but denied having written to him. One Nainanoto who had written from Madrid he stated to be a dancer. Enquiries made of Ramona Amondarain and Palan seemed to prove that Guerrero himself had tampered with Palan’s letter engaging Amondarain, and the editor of the Liberal at Madrid denied all association with Guerrero. It was decided to try him and the necessary verifications were made in London as a spy and in Spain. The most interesting of his associations in London was Paul Gil, a waiter at the Spanish Club in Charlotte Street, and formerly coachman to Guerrero at Santander. Paul Gil, who had induced Guerreo to become a member of the Spanish Club, had seen Guerrero on the morning before his arrest. Guerrero’s rooms had already been searched and he had been told to present himself at Scotland Yard. Anticipating the worst Guerrero begged Gil to write and inform Arregui in case arrest should follow. Gil carried out his request but the letter was intercepted. The police procured and submitted a complete list of the members of the Spanish Club in Whitefield Street, Soho. Sergeant Tausley was sent to Spain to verify persons and facts with regard to Guerrero’s case. His report was damning. There were two Luis Riquers. The younger Riquer admitted having received a postcard from Guerrero (date disappeared) but stated that he had dropped acquaintance some time before owing to Guerrero’s way of living. The elder Riquer was pro-German but had sold copper both to France and Germany. Antonio Arregui, engineer, had been brought up in Germany, had visited Germany repeatedly since the war, had spent a fortnight there in April, and had up to 1 April occupied besides the room in his mother’s house, one in a flat at Fortuny 3, which flat was undoubtedly a spy address. Guerrero’s account in the Spanish American Bank showed that Arregui had paid him £24 at Lisbon on 23 July 1915. But all the money in Guerrero’s account had been paid in by himself. Tausley produced evidence that Guerrero had never been connected with the Liberal, which was pro-Ally, and demonstrated how the identification card had been forged by Guerrero himself. Guerrero however had in January arranged to send articles to the pro-German paper La Accion but he had not sent any articles. On the other hand, one of Guerrero’s relatives said that he had been to Norway some eighteen or twenty months previously. Further evidence was required as to Guerrero’s previous history and as to the personality and associates of Arregui, who was said to be an associate of Hans von Krohn, the German naval attaché. This information was asked of the French Service.