The Defence of the Realm

by Christopher Andrew

  4 Johann Engel

  German naval veteran who had settled in Falmouth; discovered in December 1911 to be receiving quarterly payments from German naval intelligence; correspondence intercepted. Arrested on 4 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

  5 Karl Gustav Ernst

  Identified by postal intercepts late in 1911 as Steinhauer’s most active postman (see above, p. 38), as well as carrying out other intelligence missions. Arrested on 4 August 1914 and discovered to be a British citizen (previously thought to be German); charged under Official Secrets Act and sentenced on 12 September to seven years’ penal servitude

  6 & 7 Lina Maria Heine and her husband, Max Power Heinert

  Language teachers in, respectively, Portsmouth and Southsea. Mrs Heine’s correspondence with German intelligence was intercepted and in May 1914 she was observed in Ostend meeting ‘a known German Secret Service agent’. She was arrested on 4 August in the company of Heinert, not on the original arrest list or previously identified as her husband. Unable to ‘give a satisfactory account of himself’, he was also arrested. Both were later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

  8 August Wilhelm Julius Klunder

  Discovered from letter interception in 1912 to be involved in distributing correspondence to German agents. Arrested on 4 August 1914, later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act

  9 Frans Heinrich Lozel

  Though long suspected of being a German agent, no proof was obtained until he was identified by Hentschel (see above, p. 46) on 18 October 1913. Believed to have been well paid by the Nachrichtendienst for photographing naval installations, he was arrested on 4 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

  10 Adolf Schneider

  Intercepted correspondence revealed that he was used by Steinhauer to forward correspondence to agents in Britain. Arrested on 4 August 1914, later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

  11 Major Enrico Lorenzo Bernstein (various aliases)

  Involved in various attempts to traffic in intelligence before First World War (uncertain whether some of these were detected by letter checks). Arrested on 5 August 1914 when he approached Naval Intelligence Department with offer to supply information on German intelligence; later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act on 12 August but released in September to work for Cumming. Bernstein’s case remains confused. Though Cumming appears to have trusted him, Cumming’s biographer concludes that, before the war, Bernstein was ‘possibly also in touch with Germans’ (Judd, Quest for C, p. 230). Kell seems to have shared that suspicion.

  12 Frederick William Fowler

  Hairdresser at Penarth, married to sister of Otto Kruger (Arrest no. 13); intercepted correspondence with German intelligence in Hamburg through Klunder (Arrest no. 8). Arrested under Official Secrets Act on 5 August 1914; severely cautioned and discharged on 19 August.

  13 Otto Moritz Walter Kruger

  Hairdresser at Abercynon, Glamorganshire, working for Steinhauer; correspondence with Steinhauer presumably intercepted but no specific reference in the one surviving case summary (of only 100 words). Admitted persuading his British nephew, Frederick Ireland (Arrest no. 14), to enlist in the Royal Navy to collect information for German intelligence. Arrested on 5 August 1914 under Official Secrets Act as ‘a known agent of a foreign Secret Service’; imprisoned on 13 August under Aliens Restriction Act.

  14 Frederick James Ireland

  Arrested in February 1912 for passing information to German naval intelligence while in the Royal Navy but not tried because of ‘undesirability’ of revealing intercept evidence in court (see above, p. 45); rearrested on 5 August 1914. Released on 19 August; subsequent surveillance revealed ‘nothing . . . to suggest that he was in any way working against British interests’.

  15 Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Schutte

  Intercepted correspondence revealed that he was sending information (much ‘not of great value’) to German intelligence. Arrested on 5 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

  16 Heinrich Charles Grosse

  After correspondence intercepted, convicted of espionage under Official Secrets Act in February 1912 (see above, pp. 39–40); believed after his release from prison on licence in May 1914 to have renewed contact with German intelligence. Arrested on 6 August and later interned.

  17 William Francis Brown

  British subject of German origin, discovered through letter intercepts to be in communication with Steinhauer in October 1911; subsequently aroused suspicion by applying for jobs in aircraft factories. Arrested on 7 August 1914 but later discharged when no incriminating evidence was discovered during a search of his house.

  18 Marie Kronauer

  Widow of the German agent Wilhelm Kronauer; intercepted correspondence revealed that she renewed contact with Steinhauer after her husband’s death. Arrested on 8 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

  19 Hauptmann Kurd von Weller

  Former Prussian officer, reported to Kell by Royal Irish Constabulary in December 1913 after visiting Ireland; arrested on 10 August 1914 in possession of ‘information which might be useful to an enemy’ and subsequently imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act. Though he attempted ‘to convey information to the enemy’ (probably not of much significance) from prison, he was exchanged for a British officer POW in October 1915.

  20 Heinrich Schmidt

  Intercepted correspondence in March 1913 revealed that he was in contact with German intelligence via August Klunder. Arrested on 12 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

  21 Harold Dutton

  Former army clerk discovered to have copied classified documents on Portsmouth defences. When arrested at request of Kell’s Bureau on 15 August 1914, at first denied, then admitted possessing the documents. Later sentenced to six months’ hard labour for breach of the Official Secrets Act.

  22 Robert A. Blackburn

  Nineteen-year-old former merchant seaman discovered through letter check in June 1914 to be in contact with German intelligence via August Klunder. When arrested on 16 August 1914, admitted sending information about the Mersey defences to the Germans. Later sentenced to two years in a Borstal (young offenders’ institution) for breach of the Official Secrets Act.

  The correct list of arrests in August 1914 on which this reconstruction is based was drawn up in 1931 from files which no longer exist (see note 111 above). Further details of the evidence against each of those arrested are given in the file summaries in ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112. Very few original records of pre-First World War counter-espionage were retained after the war.

  Several other surviving lists of arrests in August 1914, like Dr Farrar’s, also contain a mixture of those arrested on Kell’s instructions and suspects arrested on the initiative of local police forces. A 1915 DPP list of twenty-four ‘German spies . . . arrested on the outbreak of war under the Official Secrets Act, 1911’ contained nine police cases but omitted seven of Kell’s. These lists have come to light as a result of the pioneering research of Dr Nicholas Hiley. I do not, however, share Dr Hiley’s conclusion, based partly on an examination of these lists, that Kell’s claim to have ‘masterminded the arrest of 21 out of the 22 German agents working in Britain’ on the eve of war was ‘a complete fabrication’ and a ‘remarkable lie’, which Kell and Holt-Wilson ‘stuck to . . . for the rest of their careers’ (Hiley, ‘Entering the Lists’). All but one of the twenty-two August 1914 arrests listed above followed pre-war investigation by Kell’s Bureau.

  113 AR (L. F. M Edmonds), minute to DCDS, 12 May 1931, TNA KV 4/114.

  114 See reconstructed arrest list in note 112 above.

  115 ‘Rimann, Walter @ Friese, Gustav @ Germanikus’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  116 In several cases local police forces believed that the main credit for a German agent’s arrest belonged to them rather than to Kell’s Bur
eau. A 1915 report by the DPP gave the ‘instructing authority’ in the cases of Marie Kronauer and Frans Lozel as, respectively, the Met and the Kent Police, rather than the War Office (Kell); Hiley, ‘Entering the Lists’, pp. 60–61. Kronauer’s correspondence had, however, been monitored by Kell’s Bureau, which had also been centrally involved in the Karl Hentschel case which led to the detection of Lozel. In these and other cases, it is difficult, if not impossible, to estimate the relative contributions of Kell’s Bureau and the police. Both were important. When the revised list of August 1914 arrests was being compiled in 1931, Holt-Wilson instructed: ‘Do not worry whether they are “M.I.5 Cases” in any narrow sense. Action taken by our colleagues, or agents, or the police counts as bringing them within the above definition [those ‘officially penalised for some action prejudicial to Defence Security’] from the national point of view.’ Holt-Wilson to AR (L. F. M. Edmonds), Minute 10 [May 1931], TNA KV 4/114.

  117 Cases 1–8, 10, 12, 14–18, 20, 22 in the reconstructed arrest list (note 112 above) largely depended on letter checks under HOWs mainly (if not wholly) obtained by Kell. Letter checks were probably involved in case 13 to monitor contacts with Steinhauer, but there is no specific reference in the 100-word case summary (all that survives). Case 11 may well have involved letter checks but direct evidence does not survive. Case 7 (Heinert) did not involve letter checks but his wife’s (case 6) did, and it was this which led to his arrest. There is no evidence that case 9 (Lozel) involved letter checks but Lozel was discovered as a result of the Hentschel case, which did. There is no evidence that case 19 (von Weller) involved letter checks but there is no doubt that Kell played a central role in it; the case was referred to him by the Royal Irish Constabulary. Though there is no evidence that case 21 (Dutton) involved letter checks, it was Kell who ordered the arrest.

  118 See below, p. 53.

  119 Possibly misled by the Home Secretary’s statement on 5 August that the arrests had already been carried out, Steinhauer believed they must have taken place before Britain’s declaration of war.

  120 Steinhauer, Steinhauer, p. 37.

  121 Holt-Wilson, ‘Security Intelligence in War’, 1934, p. 17, IWM Kell MSS.

  122 Trumpener, ‘War Premeditated? German Intelligence Operations in July 1914’, pp. 58–85.

  123 Nicolai, Nachrichtendienst, Presse, und Volksstimmung im Weltkrieg; English trans.: Nicolai, German Secret Service, pp. 52–4.

  Chapter 2: The First World War:

  Part 1 – The Failure of German Espionage

  1 According to Thomson, ‘Throughout the War the Special Branch was combined with the Criminal Investigation Department’; Thomson, Queer People, p. 47. The size of the Special Branch early in the war is given in a minute of 20 Nov. 1914; TNA MEPO 2/1643/ON 856720. Thomson said later that during the war, ‘Special Branch and the Central Branch of the CID were combined,’ Morning Post, 24 April 1919.

  2 Thomson, Queer People, pp. 36–7. Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 264–7.

  3 Parl. Deb. (Commons), 5 Aug. 1914.

  4 See below, pp. 871–3.

  5 Security Service Archives.

  6 Security Service Archives.

  7 Bird, ‘Control of Enemy Alien Civilians’.

  8 Kell’s mobilization orders, dated 4 August 1914, ‘as an attached officer at the War Office’ and his 5 August 1914 appointment as a general staff officer (GSO2) and ‘competent military authority’ have been preserved in his record of service in Security Service files.

  9 ‘Historical Sketch of the Directorate of Military Intelligence during the Great War of 1914–1919’, TNA WO 32/10776.

  10 ‘The Women’s Staff’, p. 26, TNA KV 1/50.

  11 The Times, 15 Oct. 1915.

  12 Security Service Archives.

  13 Le Queux, German Spies in England.

  14 Hazlehurst, Politicians at War, p. 146. Gillman, Collar the Lot, p. 10. Over the next thirty years Simon became home secretary (twice), foreign secretary, chancellor of the exchequer and lord chancellor.

  15 In 1915, there were also sixty-three departures (twenty-one male, forty-two female). Security Intelligence Service Seniority List and Register of Past and Present Members, December 1919.

  16 ‘Outbursts from Waterloo[se] House’, printed for private circulation, 1917.

  17 Security Service Archives.

  18 Security Service Archives. Hinchley Cooke’s alertness to the use of secret inks probably derived from his scientific education in Germany which, Kell believed, was ‘of special value in the detection of enemy agents’. Though no details survive of which cases Hinchley Cooke helped to resolve, Sir Archibald Bodkin, the main prosecutor in espionage trials and courts martial (later DPP), paid tribute to the importance of his ‘translation and examination of numerous documents in foreign languages and in code and occasionally in “secret inks” ’. Security Service Archives.

  19 Security Service Archives.

  20 Lady Kell, ‘Secret Well Kept’, pp. 110, 122, IWM. Interwar MI5 Who’s Who.

  21 ‘Historical Sketch of the Directorate of Military Intelligence during the Great War of 1914–1919’, TNA WO 32/10776.

  22 Dansey to Major Van Deman (US military intelligence), 1 May 1917; lecture by Dansey, 4 May 1917, NAW RG 165, 9944–A–4/5.

  23 F Branch Report, part II, ch. 5, section XVII, pp. 116–20, TNA KV 1/35.

  24 Ibid. The secret MI5 classification handbook added:

  It will be appreciated that an actively hostile person may fall under several of the above special classifications. Such cases are designated thus: e.g. Class: SI/BL. BEFHKJ France. To a Special Intelligence Officer who has memorized the standard classifications this abbreviation conveys the following information:

  ‘Is considered an enemy (prefixed BL [Black List]); already expelled from allied territory during the war (B); considered an active enemy agent (E); who has been known to carry false papers (F); is suspected of trading with the enemy (H); was formerly a German official (K); and French S.I. is anxious to hear of his present whereabouts and actions (J).’

  MI5f, ‘Notes on Preventive Intelligence Duties in War’, April 1918; copy in NAW RG 165 11013–21.

  25 F Branch Report, part II , ch. 5, section XVII, p. 118, TNA KV 1/35.

  26 Security Service Archives.

  27 ‘Report on Women’s Work’, 1920, p. 26, TNA KV 1/50.

  28 Ibid.

  29 Ibid., p. 13. Three of MO5(g)’s seven clerks at the outbreak of war had been male.

  30 Ibid., p. 16.

  31 Security Service Archives.

  32 Their names and dates of service appear in Security Intelligence Service Seniority List and Register of Past and Present Members, December 1919.

  33 Of Miss Lomax and the transformation she wrought in the Registry Constance Kell wrote: ‘Miss Lomax was for many years the head of this section and her work was so excellent that Kell could rest assured that whatever she and those working with her, and under her, were asked to do, would be quickly and eagerly carried out.’ Lady Kell, ‘Secret Well Kept’, p. 148, IWM.

  34 Security Service Archives.

  35 H Branch History, ch. 2, p. 38, TNA KV 1/49.

  36 Security Service Archives.

  37 ‘Report on Women’s Work’, 1920, p. 54, TNA KV 1/50.

  38 Security Service Archives.

  39 Like most officer recruits, Marsh, who joined MO5(g) in May 1915, was also fond of sports and outdoor pursuits, listing his recreations as polo, shooting, fishing, golf and lawn tennis. Security Service Archives.

  40 See p. 62.

  41 ‘Report on Women’s Work’, 1920, p. 19, TNA KV 1/50.

  42 See p. 62.

  43 ‘Historical Sketch of the Directorate of Military Intelligence during the Great War of 1914–1919’, TNA WO 32/10776.

  44 Unpublished Hall memoirs (ghostwritten by Ralph Strauss), draft Chapter C, CCAC HALL 3/2. Hall claimed he had been responsible for persuading Asquith to found the War Trade Intelligence Department (later subsumed by t
he Ministry of Blockade) whose first head was Freddie Browning.

  45 ‘Historical Sketch of the Directorate of Military Intelligence during the Great War of 1914–1919’, TNA WO 32/10776. For details of wartime censorship, see TNA KV 1/73–4.

  46 Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, pp. 89–90.

  47 ‘Lody, Carl Hans @ Inglis, Charles A’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  48 Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, pp. 98, 102.

  49 Hiley, ‘Counter-Espionage and Security in Great Britain during the First World War’, p. 639.

  50 See below, pp. 248ff.

  51 Lady Kell, ‘Secret Well Kept’, p. 144, IWM. Thomson, Queer People, pp. 122–6. Felstead, German Spies at Bay, ch. 3.

  52 Lady Kell, ‘Secret Well Kept’, p. 150, IWM.

  53 F. B. Booth (MO5(g)), memo for Kell, 27 July 1915, TNA HO 45/10741/263275. Carsten, War against War, p. 56.

  54 Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, p. 106.

  55 Ibid., pp. 81–2.

  56 G Branch Report for 1915, pp. 59ff., TNA KV 1/42. Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, pp. 106–7.

  57 ‘Kupferle, Anthony’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  58 Thomson, Queer People, pp. 126–9. Felstead, German Spies at Bay, ch. 3.

  59 See below, pp. 70, 71–2.

  60 ‘Muller, Carl Friedrich Heinrich @ Leidec [and] Hahn, John’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112. Dr Boghardt’s researches identify Müller as a Baltic German. Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, p. 96.

  61 W. E. Hinchley Cooke to DG (Petrie), ‘Motor-car purchased by MI5 out of German Secret Service Funds during the 1914–18 War’, 29 June 1943, TNA KV 4/200.

  62 Though Müller’s MI5 file was destroyed after the war, summaries of the bogus reports sent in his name survive in German archives: RW 5/v. 48 – Geheimer Nachrichtendienst und Spionageabwehr des Heeres – von Generalmajor z.V. Gempp (1939), 8. Abschnitt: Die Ergebnisse das Nachrichtendienstes der mobilen Abt Illb in westen vom Fruhjahr 1915 bis Ende 1916, IV: Die Kriegsnachrichtenstelle Antwerpen Anlage 5: Meldungen der Kriegsnachrichtenstelle Antwerpen vom 25.3.15–14.6.15, Bundesarchiv Militararchiv, Freiburg. I am grateful to Dr Emily Wilson for this reference.