by Henry Landau
Of a similar order was the general belief that German spies were signalling to submarines or other craft out to sea. Boy Scouts were even sent out in some parts of England to watch for signal flashes at night; this, however, as well as other fantastic means of communication, was soon proved a bogey after the first few months of the war. The only participation of submarines in spying was that they probably landed one or two spies on the west coast of Ireland.
However, though all this war hysteria came from lack of knowledge on the part of the public, or from a tendency to credit the ‘wonderful’ Germans with secret service tricks even more fantastic than those invented by the writers of fiction, on one point at least the public had correct information: before the war the Germans undoubtedly had the finest secret service in the world. It is certain that there was very little they did not know about pre-war Allied armies and navies.
This service of theirs was organised with characteristic German thoroughness; it worked in direct contact with their Foreign Office and with the general staffs of their army and navy, who used it often to obtain all required information of a secret nature which they could not obtain through diplomatic or other regular channels; its agents were all picked men and women, who went through a special course of training before they were sent out into the field. Some were permanently fixed in a definite country; others, using Berlin as a base, were sent abroad on special missions. Graves, the German spy who was arrested in England just before the war in an attempt to get specifications and details of the new British 14-inch naval guns, at that time under construction at Beardmore’s in Glasgow, was a typical example of the well trained, intelligent German spy. He would never have been caught had it not been for the carelessness [or was it betrayal?] of the German secret service, who misaddressed a letter sent to him.
Men of this type were not chosen at random or given carte blanche as to their activities, but dispatched to secure specific data. They were picked to obtain such varied information as the design of a new engine of war, details of training, equipment, and strength of a foreign army, plans of fortifications and even topographical sketches of certain sectors of a country, or perhaps plates for the printing of accurate maps of a country in which at some future date they might be called upon to conduct a campaign. Thus, for example, at the commencement of the war, the German war maps of Belgium were far more accurate than those possessed by the British – a matter of prime importance in modern warfare, where most artillery fire is indirect, preliminary angles and ranges being measured off on a map. The gun platforms which were laid down before the war in France and Belgium by German spies, or under their supervision, although greatly exaggerated in number, were no myth, but an actual fact.
Once the war began, however, the permanent German agents in France – and especially in Great Britain – were gradually cut off from their base by the efficient control exercised at the various ports of exit and entry, and by the watchful eye of the censor’s department, which was instrumental in catching quite a number of spies. Every trick involving the use of invisible inks or chemicals, which the Germans were very fond of using, or the employment of codes in connection with letters, telegrams, or newspaper advertisements, was uncovered. One of the most crafty schemes to be defeated was the method by which the German agents received and concealed their supplies of invisible inks and chemicals. Handkerchiefs or apparently innocent supplies of extra clothing were impregnated with the material, and when ink was needed the cloth was soaked in water and wrung out. Such inks were used not only between the lines of an ordinary letter, but under the postage stamps, and on the inside, or even under the gummed parts, of envelopes.
A last precaution against German espionage was to delay letters and telegrams to neutral countries so long that any information they might have contained became worthless for any military or naval use. Even parcels were held, for it had been discovered that the German agents conveyed brief reports by a code method of long and short stitches, or some other stitching device, used on the garments or other cloth articles enclosed, and by sending packages of a shape secretly agreed upon, or wrapped in coloured paper which had a meaning for the colleague to whom it was addressed.
At length, for the transmission of their information, the Germans came to rely almost entirely on Germans with forged neutral passports, or on neutrals, a certain number of whom were allowed to travel to and from the allied countries. This was proved by the number of spies of this category who were shot.
It was no easy matter for a neutral to get to England. The sailors of neutral ships were not allowed to land, and visas were granted only to those neutrals who had pressing business to transact and whose bona fides, antecedents, and sympathies were known. In each neutral country there was an efficient counter-espionage organisation, and it would have surprised many an individual to have seen the accurate information obtained about him before a visa was accorded. The British counter-espionage organisation, located in T’s office in Rotterdam under the direction of de Mestre, was typical. No visa was granted to a Dutch subject until the applicant had been checked over by de Mestre himself. The name of every neutral who was suspected of trading with the enemy, or of being pro-German, was inserted in the British Black List, which was in the hands of all consular or passport officers. Inclusion in this list meant automatic barring from England. As to the traveller’s purposes, and the usual commercial information, it was not only obtained through recognised business channels, such as the banks, but in many cases the applicant was watched for a long time by our agents. Every movement was followed; I often laughed over the indiscretions of some of the individuals – in the hands of their wives the information would have been devastating.
Whether any of these individuals of neutral nationality ever used the diplomatic dispatch-bags of one or another of the neutral countries, I do not know, and it would have been almost impossible to find out. I know, however, that Mata Hari was suspected of this. It was a danger we had to face, but about which we could not do very much. The probable procedure in such a case would be that Smith, a citizen of Slavonia, would have a personal friend at his country’s embassy in London to whom he would hand a letter addressed to Jones, possibly a common friend in their home country. At the opening of the diplomatic bag, which of course was immune from censorship, the letter would be found and automatically posted and this procedure could then be repeated in the reverse direction. It is unlikely that a diplomatic representative would lend himself wittingly to the transmission of a spy’s report, but he might do it to oblige a pretty woman, or a friend, who would, of course, assure him that the only motive was to avoid the embarrassment of having some official in the British censor’s office read one’s private affairs.
In addition to these activities, de Mestre’s agents also kept watch on all known German agents in Holland. Through their movements and contacts, we often got valuable clues as to who were transmitting reports to the Germans. Old Haas and his niece were de Mestre’s best agents; no one could possibly have suspected this old man, or his unobtrusive niece, as being sleuths in British pay. In appearance they were so colourless that even in a small gathering they would have attracted no attention; in addition, they were good linguists, intelligent, observant, and endowed with unlimited patience – qualities which made them invaluable as CE agents.
Finally, the various counter-espionage organisations in the different neutral countries were able to check up on any individual reported as being suspect by the chief in England, or about whom information was required – for example, the person to whom a suspicious letter had been addressed. It was surprising how often a spy was caught by some small slip. I remember a case where the British censor became suspicious of a letter addressed to a man in Holland. De Mestre traced the address to a German agent. In the letter, which was, of course, written from a fictitious address in England, a message was included asking for all letters to be sent in future to a street number up in the 2000s. A check of the London streets soon showed t
hat there were only two or three streets with such high numbers. An investigation was undertaken, which promptly led to the arrest of the German agent who was acting as a letter box.
As will readily be understood the German secret service had tremendous difficulties to face during the war. Communication across the sea (a far more effective barrier than any high voltage wire), a highly efficient censor’s department, hawk-eyed passport control officers at the various ports, unceasing watching on the part of the Allied CE agents, and the absence of willing spies of their own or of allied nationality operating in their own country or in occupied territory, were obstacles greater than those I had to contend with.
From Berlin the old pre-war German secret service continued to function. It, too, had spread itself, and although it continued to send out agents direct from Berlin, many of them were recruited by its branches, which it established in neutral countries, and in the occupied territories.
The difficulty of communication was not its only problem; it had to face both a scarcity of agents and a falling-off of efficiency as compared with those of its pre-war service. No longer, could it pick its men, train them, and send them where it wished. It had to accept anyone who could fulfil the prime function of either being able to get in or out of a belligerent country, or who had some means of communication. The result was that many of its wartime agents were inefficient, careless, and stupid. Lody, who was caught during the early stages of the war, was a typical example. Arriving in England, armed with an American passport, he was able to enter the country undetected among the crowd of Belgian refugees who were then flocking into England. Carelessly worded telegrams which he sent out to a neutral country promptly gave him away. He was followed continuously for a couple of weeks in an attempt to link him up with other agents, and, when this proved futile, he was finally arrested in Ireland. In his possession the Irish police found a mass of entirely unnecessary incriminating documents which were conclusive evidence against him. However stupid he may have been, he faced death bravely, earning the unstinted admiration of everyone who came in contact with him during the few days he was confined to the Tower of London before he was shot.
The German secret service probably obtained its most valuable information either through influential neutrals living in the Allied countries, or through traitors whom they occasionally were able to bribe by means of large sums of money. People of the type of Bolo Pasha and his accomplices in France, although comparatively rare, were the most dangerous because they were the least suspected, and often had access to information which no neutral or other agent could reach.
From Holland I naturally came more in contact with the Belgian branch of the German secret service than with any of the others, though even here it was only on rare occasions. The German counter-espionage service, whose job it was to prevent spying in Belgium and with whom I was continually crossing swords, was entirely separated from the German secret service proper, whose sole function was to send agents into the Allied countries or recruit them in the countries themselves, and collect the information they secured.
The Belgian branch of the German CE service, or Secret Police, had its headquarters at a house located in the rue Berlaimont, in Brussels. In my narrative I have already described its activities; its agents dogged us at every turn, and earned our respect and admiration. During the earlier stages of the war, it was under the direction of a man called Bergan, who was formerly at the head of the German counter-espionage service in Düsseldorf. Bergan was the guiding genius whose task it was to combat each move we made, and at the same time keep watch on several million Belgian inhabitants. Strange to say, Bergan could not speak a word of French, and so in his actual contact with the Belgians, he was very dependent on his assistant R, a former German agent, who had operated in France before the war under the guise of a butcher. Little had the Parisians known, when they bought their meat from this red-cheeked, rotund individual, that he was in German pay.
The German secret service in Belgium, distinct from the German counter-espionage organisations previously described, was under the direction of a mysterious woman, known as Fräulein Doktor, and under a dozen other names. She was said to be the daughter of a noble family whose influence had secured for her the appointment. The truth about her is that she won her appointment by merit. Her real name was Elsbeth Schragmüller. At the outbreak of the war, she had just taken her degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Freiburg. Inspired by a desire to serve her country she made repeated applications for enrolment in the German secret service. Eventually during the early weeks of the war she was sent to Brussels where she was put to work reading confiscated letters written to Belgian civilians by relatives in the field. So brilliantly did she acquit herself in intelligence work that she won the commendation of General von Beseler, chief of staff of the corps besieging Antwerp, and shortly thereafter Colonel Nicolai, chief of Section IIIb of the general staff in charge of military intelligence, put her in charge of the German spy-training school in Antwerp. She was a good-looking, buxom woman, with the disposition of a tiger. From her headquarters in Antwerp she dispatched many an agent into England and France. It was said of her that she sent into a trap any agents who had played her false and whom she wished to get rid of. So confident of this were the British authorities in the case of one of her spies, whom they arrested immediately on his landing in England, that they merely imprisoned him for the duration of the war. Her policy was to make her agents so thoroughly afraid of her that fear of vengeance would deter them from treachery. Most of the information we had about her came from a Belgian who managed for a short while to enlist himself in her service. His report, in the form of a memorandum from C, was one of the first communications I read on entering the secret service.
In spite of Fräulein Doktor’s efforts and those of headquarters in Berlin, it was quite evident from the questionnaires issued to their agents, which fell into our hands from time to time as the war progressed, that the Germans were getting very little information out of England; the result was that they gradually concentrated their efforts on Russia, and probably on the United States, where the activities of Captain Boy-Ed and his satellites were fully unmasked.
This very deflection from their chief aim served them well, for it revived the belief in the omnipresence and omniscience of German power, and renewed the spy hysteria which had been an indirectly useful weapon earlier in the war. In future wars new inventions will have to be reckoned with; but not to be overlooked in importance will be the extraordinary effect of the psychology of fear and its eminently useful weapon, the dread of a net of spies.
CHAPTER 18
‘40 OB’
WAR HAD BEEN declared between Germany and England but a few hours when a group of trawlers sailed from the east coast of England in the direction of Emden, the German port at the mouth of the Ems River where the Dutch coast joins that of Germany. To any German coastal patrol boat which might have spotted them, they were just some of the many fishing boats operating in the area. A boarding party would have revealed that they were manned chiefly by cable experts. Under the cover of darkness and mist, slipping silently between the Dutch islands in the vicinity, they grappled for the German deep-sea cables. Covered with mud and seaweed these cables were eventually hauled up on deck; and one after another they were cut and allowed to sink back into the depths.
It was a brilliant coup, conceived and executed by a young naval officer who, disguised as a fisherman, had mapped out the area several months before the war and had planned every step which had now been so successfully carried out.
After fruitlessly trying to get through on their cables, the Germans at length realised what had happened. To communicate with the outside world only two channels were now left open to them: cables owned by neutral countries, and wireless communication through the air. The ether soon buzzed with German coded wireless messages, not only to their diplomatic representatives in neutral countries, but also to those of their warships cut
off in distant parts of the globe by the outbreak of hostilities.
The French immediately suggested jamming the German wireless, but the British had a craftier plan. They decided instead to intercept the messages and to use them to their own advantage. The idea was excellent. But how was this to be done? It was obvious that somehow or other the German codes had to be stolen or acquired, or some master mind had to be found who, by methods of cryptography, could break the multiple and intricate ciphers which were being used. The director of naval intelligence at the admiralty, to whom the task was assigned, quickly realised that both methods had to be used.
It is true that the art of cryptography can be developed by constant practice, but it also requires a special flair. Whence, at short notice, was the British Admiralty going to recruit the necessary personnel, and above all where was the man to be found who had sufficient experience to direct such a service? Chance favoured the British. In the admiralty itself was a man who, as a hobby, had made a life study of cryptography. This man was Sir Alfred Ewing, director of naval education, a noted scientist; and it was to him that Admiral Sir Henry Oliver, director of naval intelligence at the outbreak of the war, turned.