Secret Alliances
Page 15
There was also Eigil Dag Robr, who arrived in Britain in September 1941, having been given a priority seat to get him out of Sweden, accompanied by warnings from the British military attaché Colonel Reginald Sutton-Pratt and others that he was very suspicious. Robr stated that he had been held in prison by the Germans, but this was not substantiated. During his initial reception at the RVPS Robr’s teeth (which he claimed had been badly bashed) were checked, but little evidence was found of any damage. Moreover, Gleditsch reported on 14 October that he had given sixteen people away to the Germans, all of whom had been arrested. He was sent to Camp 020, where Stephens’ conclusion is worth producing in full:
Over two years many evil people, both traitors and spies have been through here, but I doubt whether there has been a character more vile than that of Eigil Dag Robr. His record is almost beyond belief, for he has confessed to us the names of nineteen fellow Norwegians whom he betrayed to the Germans for a total of NOK 700, or 35/- a head.¶¶¶ The total number may be even greater, but due to pressure of time, and having regard to the fact that we have put the halter 19 times round the neck of this quisling, and the fact that the Gestapo background of this case has been cleared to our intelligence satisfaction, we deem it wise to call a halt to the enquiry. The enquiry was a war of attrition, and for a time Robr was in fear of consequence, but with the resilience of the true gutter-snipe he regained his poise and as quickly turned to duress as an alternative defence and his attitude changed from aggression to that of martyr. He was completely lacking in remorse.
Robr was interned.
Another possible case involved Inge Karl Furre, the son of George Furre, who worked for the Abwehr for over four years and was involved in a number of operations to bring Norwegians over to Britain. He was the subject of much ISOS reporting. Inge Karl was an uneducated seaman who worked for his father and escaped into Sweden in order to avoid compulsory labour under German orders. The Norwegian consular authorities facilitated his travel to Britain as a prospective candidate for the Norwegian Navy. He was identified once he arrived at the RVPS, and transferred to Camp 020. Confronted with the evidence, he confessed and made many admissions about his father’s work, including that he had been the nominal owner of a German boat in a fleet of six which coasted in Norwegian waters, with German operators and transmitters on board. The authorities concluded that his admissions gave evidence of the extent to which his father had been a spy. They further judged that at that stage of the war, as an espionage case it was of no interest to them.29 From a treachery point of view, however, it would be of interest to the Norwegians, who could deal with it in due course.||||||
If we also include two double-agent cases which are described below, then there were nearly twenty cases which could be considered as serious German attempts to plant an agent in Britain. This was a remarkably high number compared with those sent from elsewhere in Occupied Europe. Although the Security Service was probably justified in their disparaging assessment of the quality of some of the first Norwegian agents who were despatched by the Abwehr, a number of the later arrivals were more determined and of a higher calibre. They could have done considerable damage if not uncovered by a mixture of careful investigation and, sometimes, luck.
Double agents
Many readers will be familiar with the Double-Cross operation, where a wide variety of double agents were used to plant misleading intelligence on the Germans, and a celebrated Norwegian example is worth consideration, too. But the Germans also tried it.
Tor Gulbrandsen (Anchor) was trained by SOE and sent back to Norway, through Telavåg, in February 1942. He was surprised by the Germans in Drammen on 3 May, attempted to escape, but was badly wounded and left temporarily paralysed from the waist down. In the course of a lengthy interrogation by the notorious Gestapo chief Siegfried Fehmer, when already weak from his injuries, Gulbrandsen was gradually worn down. Fehmer impressed on him the advantages of collaboration and allowed him to meet an elderly Swede whose life had been spared because he agreed to work for the Germans.30 Gulbrandsen agreed to collaborate, and provided a considerable amount of information about the identities of members of the resistance (which led to widespread arrests in Drammen in July) and operations as well as details of SOE, its organisation and its training facilities. He then agreed to return to Britain, having participated in a staged escape, when he was purportedly showing the Germans the location of an arms dump in the woods outside Oslo. He made his way to Sweden and was returned to London.
In the meantime, SOE had been alerted to some of the errors which Gulbrandsen had made before his capture. A refugee in Stockholm stated that Gulbrandsen had made many serious mistakes: he had lived partly with his parents, whose neighbour was a notorious German sympathiser; he got in touch with his fiancée; he dealt with things which were outside his province, even though sometimes successfully; he insisted on using his real name rather than his cover name with direct contacts, and he wrote down their names in a pocket book which was on him when he was arrested.31 In September, Wilson wrote to Tronstad about Gulbrandsen, observing that although he did not know ‘Stor Tor’ himself, he had noted reports that he was an intelligent and brave man – but that he suffered from a feeling of self-sufficiency, which made him inclined to resent the advice and warnings of others. He pointed out that this had implications for the selection and handling of others being sent to the field.32
When Gulbrandsen returned to London and was interrogated about what happened, there was probably a greater degree of willingness to believe his story in view of the injuries which he had suffered. He maintained that he had managed to destroy his notes and his codes, and had given away only a few names. Wilson was convinced that Gulbrandsen was not withholding information, and Christopher Harmer in the counter-espionage section B1B informed both SIS and SOE that ‘one is bound to consider the possibility that this may be a cleverly designed cover to facilitate the entry of an enemy agent into this country. I am however convinced that this is not so in this case.’33 However, he gradually became less certain and noted that he was unable to avoid the impression that Gulbrandsen was holding something back. But without an admission from Gulbrandsen, it looked as though the case would be closed, and the Security Service would simply recommend that he should not be sent back to Norway. Their investigation was temporarily confused when adverse information was received about someone called Gulbrandsen who appeared to have been operating in another area. On 27 June 1942, Liversidge informed Nagell that SIS had received reliable information that their Bergen operation and some of its agents were in grave danger of imminent arrest, because it had been penetrated by ‘an employee, Gulbrandsen, who has reported all their movements to German intelligence’. He suggested that all communication with the organisation should be stopped.****
However, the answer was provided by the return of Ernst Kirkeby Jacobsen (Crow), an SOE wireless operator who had been arrested in Østfold in July 1942, and who had been persuaded by Fehmer to continue to operate his set. SOE knew that he had been arrested, and went along with the Abwehr attempt at deception, so as to help Jacobsen. Remarkably, he was sufficiently trusted by the Germans to be released in November and allowed to live with his family, though he was kept under observation. He took advantage of the Christmas holiday period, when he knew that German vigilance would be lower, to escape with his family to Sweden and was brought back to Britain. Jacobsen informed the Security Service that the Gestapo had told him that Gulbrandsen had given information to them, and that he had been allowed to escape. Confronted with this at a court of enquiry, Gulbrandsen quickly confessed and admitted the extent of the information which he had given up.34 The ordeal which he had suffered no doubt contributed significantly to his lenient treatment, and Gulbrandsen was not interned. He continued to be employed by SOE. Although some historians believed that Gulbrandsen was interned for the duration,35 for much of the rest of the war he was employed as an instructor at STS 26, the Norwegian training school in the Scotti
sh highlands. Indeed, he was so trusted that in July 1944, Bjarne Øen the head of FO.IV, the Norwegian military office which worked with SOE, wrote on behalf of the Norwegian High Command to ask whether he could be used in a scheme to protect hydro-electric facilities in Rjukan and nearby valleys, and whether he could be allowed to leave Britain for such a purpose before Norway was liberated. Although Wilson supported the idea, SOE decided reluctantly that it should not be pursued because it would not be acceptable to the Security Service.36 There is a curious footnote to this story. In July 1946 Asbjørn Bryhn wrote to the Security Service, asking whether the Norwegians could have a copy of the report of the Court of Enquiry about Gulbrandsen. They were planning to prosecute him and needed the report to help prepare their case. A copy was provided, on condition that it was not published or used during his prosecution. In the event, there was no prosecution and Gulbrandsen went on to enjoy a long career in the Norwegian military.37
This was not the only known instance when a captured agent was turned by the Germans and allowed to escape and return to Britain, there were others from France and elsewhere. So it was to be expected that any further agents who claimed to have escaped from German custody would be the objects of extreme suspicion. Herluf Nygaard, who worked for the Lark organisation in Trondheim, was captured on 16 December 1943 and escaped three days later. Despite the absence of any proof, the Security Service, which had had its fingers burned by Gulbrandsen and knew of other unsuccessful cases, was extremely reluctant to accept that he had not cooperated with the Germans. This led to a protracted disagreement with SOE.
Nygaard underwent a series of interviews over a period of several months with members of both SOE and the Security Service. Internal minuting demonstrates the extent to which the latter were determined to find evidence which would show that he had indeed come to some arrangement with the Germans, and that even if this proved impossible, to ensure that he should not be allowed to return to active duty with SOE. This culminated in an interview with Geoffrey Wethered, a Security Service officer on secondment to the security section of SOE, who adopted a bluff technique to try to elicit an admission from Nygaard. It did not work – but the Security Service nonetheless concluded that there remained a sufficient element of doubt in the case to justify their suggesting that he should be posted elsewhere. This proposal incensed Wilson, who wanted to retain Nygaard’s services as an adviser for the Trondheim area, believing that it was not for the Security Service to decide how Nygaard should be employed. He added that there was no news of anyone having subsequently been arrested, even some six months after the original capture of Nygaard. At this, the Security Service relented, and Nygaard was permitted to return to training for a future deployment.
However, that was not the end of the matter. In September 1943, Øen obtained a list containing names of people allowed extra rations from the Trondheim Vinmonopolet (to the present day the only Norwegian organisation permitted to sell wines and spirits), which appeared to be a reward for services to the Germans. Nygaard’s name was included. This provided grounds for further Security Service investigation, and put Nygaard under the spotlight again. He was suspended by SOE. Nygaard, not surprisingly, was unable to provide a sufficiently plausible explanation for the appearance of his name on the list to enable him to be exonerated. SOE’s station in Stockholm provided explanatory details, including the fact that the list was dated after March 1943, by which time Nygaard was in England, and that the security police used cards in the name of arrested people in the Vinmonopolet as a matter of course. Moreover, the Norwegian High Command pointed out that his family had been arrested and were still detained – unlikely treatment if Nygaard was working for the Abwehr. Despite repeated representations from Wilson, these arguments were insufficient to persuade the Security Service to change its mind.
In early July 1944, Wilson obtained some further evidence in the form of a report from Reidunn Havnevik Årsæther, who had met the Nygaard family in prison and stated that Nygaard’s father and brother had been sent to Nordland to do hard labour. Faced with this additional information, Wethered gave in and replied that the security case would now be closed, and that they would no longer oppose Nygaard’s employment in a confidential capacity. He asked how Nygaard would be used. After consulting Øen, Wilson replied that he wished to send Nygaard to reinforce the Grebe party who were covering the railway in the Østerdal valley. The Security Service agreed to this plan, but requested that the officer in charge of the reinforcement should be told to give Nygaard special attention, and to see that as far as possible he was not sent to make local contacts. In the event, he did not go on this mission. Nygaard instead accompanied Tronstad, as leader of a section in the Sunshine party, which was deployed to prepare to protect Norwegian strategic installations, and which left Britain on 4 October 1944. There is nothing to show that Wilson informed the Security Service of this change of plan. Nygaard did have some further contact with the Germans: he was staying in a hotel in Høydalsmo in the west of Telemark in April 1945 when they raided it. Nygaard was forced to shoot his way out, and escaped unharmed.38
Compared with the number of attempts they made from elsewhere in occupied Europe, it is remarkable that the Abwehr tried only twice to organise double-cross operations from Norway.†††† There is no evidence either that they made any attempt to use captured SIS agents for this purpose. There were however a number of cases when SIS agents were captured and managed to escape. A notable example concerned Otto Olsen, responsible for the Otto and Sol networks, who had been involved in setting up all the SIS stations around Stavanger and had much knowledge of operations in the area, who was arrested in September 1944. An SIS attempt to organise his release (Operation HUGORM) proved not to be feasible. A later SIS report noted that Olsen had broken down and was ‘furnishing the Gestapo with much assistance’ and that the whole SIS organisation from Egersund to the southern approaches to Bergen had collapsed.39 It is not clear where this information came from: some time after their arrest Olsen and his colleague Ragnar Mack were put in the same cell, and developed a plan to win the trust of the Germans by appearing to cooperate with them so that they could then escape. Someone may have been taken in by their artifice and reported it. They persuaded the Germans to take them out to search for cached equipment and escaped, with Mack even managing to remove the crystals from their radio set which had originally been confiscated, and to take them with him. They spent most of the rest of the war out in the mountains: frozen, ill-clothed and half-starved. They managed to make contact with a member of the Sabor station, and asked him to pass a message to London that they had escaped and were in hiding. SIS replied asking for more information, warning that they were highly suspicious of the genuineness of their escape. So Olsen and Mack received no help.40 They took no further part in resistance activities until shortly before the liberation.41
Mutt and Jeff
The activities – and the very significant achievements – of the XX Committee (or the Twenty or Double-Cross Committee), have been well described in a range of wartime histories. They do not need to be rehearsed again here,42 beyond mentioning that the committee worked closely with the Security Service and SIS, and depended heavily on intercept material so as to be able to monitor the progress of their operations, and to adapt them if necessary. The only successful Norwegian agents were John Moe, nicknamed Mutt, and (briefly) Tor Glad, nicknamed Jeff. Mutt was born in London, and was British by birth. Jeff was recruited as an Abwehr agent shortly after the invasion, to do counter-espionage work. When working in Oslo in the censorship department, he met Mutt and got him a job, too. Both agreed that they wanted to pass information to the Allies, though were uncertain about how this could be done. They were recruited to go to England and given training in communications and sabotage. Arriving in Scotland in April 1941, they gave themselves up straight away. On interview, Mutt made a good impression, but Martin Linge, with some prescience, thought that Jeff showed instability and lacked any sustai
ned purpose. Nonetheless, they were judged to be suitable for use together in a deception operation, and the Security Service wrote to the Home Office in May asking for their detention orders to be suspended. In order to prevent their conscription, it was decided to tell the Norwegian government that they were working for the British, but without going into details.
However, Mutt and Jeff did not operate in tandem for very long. Jeff’s continued indiscretions caused increasing concern, particularly after an incident in a pub in Aberdeen which led to the police being called. This led to the decision to intern him in August 1941, as it was not judged essential to the continuation of the case that Jeff be at liberty and there were recordings of his wireless transmissions and style of operating. He ended up in Dartmoor, and was returned to Norway in June 1945. He was detained for a further six months, but the case against him was dropped for lack of evidence. It has been suggested that British intelligence intervened to ensure that this happened,43 but there is nothing in British files which confirms this.‡‡‡‡ Mutt carried on alone, and his Security Service handlers devised a series of reasons to explain Jeff’s absence to the Germans, based on his notional postings to other parts of the country and to places where he could not keep in touch with Mutt.