by Nigel West
The infiltration of agents into Great Britain was a priority for the Madrid KO, but so was the targeting of Gibraltar, the strategically vital British territory dominating the entrance to the Mediterranean that fulfilled several important roles. As well as a base for British intelligence operations conducted by MI5, SIS, SOE, MI9, RSS and NID, the Rock accommodated a substantial Royal Naval dockyard and a recently constructed RAF airfield, and effectively controlled access to and from the Atlantic. From the German perspective, Gibraltar was a major nuisance, the subject in 1940 of a planned invasion, code-named FELIX. Although this particular scheme was abandoned, the Abwehr continued, with scarcely disguised Spanish support, to devote considerable resources to monitoring the Rock.
One of Kuhlenthal’s most important operations was COSMOS, the establishment of observation posts at Tarifa and Algeciras equipped with infra-red apparatus designed to track Allied shipping in the Straits of Gibraltar at night. Given the Rock’s strategic importance, and its influence across the Mediterranean, this information was a top priority for the Abwehr’s Eins Marine, which made a massive investment in the ambitious joint project with SIM, which code-named their contribution SIRENE. COSMOS reports were sent daily by a Spanish officer, code-named CHICO, over a radio link to JUAN at a dedicated office at Calle Reina Victoria 16 in Madrid.
Although the KO’s activities were concentrated in Madrid, the remainder of Spain was divided into Inspektion Nord, encompassing Bilbao, Vigo, Coruna and Gijon; and Inspektion Sud, including Seville, Almeria, Malaga, Cadiz and Huelva. Inspektion Ost covered Barcelona, Cartagena, Alicante, and Valencia. Within the KO there were competing priorities, but Referat I was unquestionably the senior branch, answerable to Abt. I in Berlin, where Hans Piekenbrock headed the intelligence division until his transfer to the eastern front in March 1943. He was replaced by Georg Hansen, who survived only until his arrest in the aftermath of the 20 July assassination plot. Urgent Abteiling I reporting to Berlin was transmitted over its own separate channel, handled from early 1942 by Colonel von Bahrfeld, who operated under the alias von Bentheim. Once received in Berlin, the traffic was relayed to Zossen by teleprinter over a landline.
Initially, from April 1941 to May 1942, Eins Heer (I-H) in Madrid was in the hands of Otto Kurrer,8 who was replaced by Dr Schoene, and assisted by Admiral Canaris’ nephew Joachim, who was interned at the end of the war in the Catalonian spa town of Caldas de Malavella before being transferred to the Yeseras prison in Madrid in April 1946.9 A month later he was flown in an American aircraft to Asperg for interrogation conducted by a US Third Army Counter-Intelligence specialist, J.G. Parkes, and supervised by George Wenzel, which resulted in a report indicating that he had co-operated fully:
In October 1939 through the personal initiative of his uncle, Admiral Canaris, head of the Abwehr, Canaris was transferred to the KO Spain. KO Spain, at that time a small organisation, was under the direction of Kapitan Leisner alias Lens. Leisner was assisted by Sonderdführer Karl Kuhlenthal, who ran agents. Canaris, though a civilian attached to the army, received the pay of a private. Canaris at first performed general duties assigned to him either by Leisner or Kuhlenthal. On the basis of Canaris’s experience with the Kondor Legion as a trainer for the Spanish Army, as well as reserve with the Wehrmacht, he gradually began to work with incoming intelligence reports concerning enemy forces. In the summer of 1942 Canaris received the title of Sdf K which allowed the pay of a captain, but not the privileges of that rank.
Referent I-H. KO Spain
Owing to the volume of intelligence information coming into KO Spain, Berlin, in the Spring of 1940, established Referent I-H, under the direction of a retired Major Fohleison. Fohleison remained in Spain until the summer of 1941, at which time he was replaced by Oberstleutnant Otto Kurrer. Oberstleutnant Eberhard Kieckebusch, who relieved Kurrer in the spring of 1942, remained as chief of I-H until the end of the war. Hauptmann Philipp Schoene was appointed as assistant Referent of I-H.
The operating procedure of I-H was as follows; The I-H chief received all incoming intelligence information and mail, arranged for its handling and disposition, and determined what was to be sent to the I-H Evaluation Section in Berlin. It was Canaris’ task to process all military information, to check its credibility and value, to compare it with collected intelligence information on hand, and to combine information suitable for transmission to Berlin over the signature of the I-H chief. Reference material consisted of books published by the German General Staff on enemy armies, along with numerous other German handbooks. I-H received a regular monthly report from the German High Command on the status of the British and American armies. In order to aid Canaris in the evaluation of the intelligence reports which Kuhlenthal submitted to him, Canaris requested from Kuhlenthal brief personal descriptions of the agents which Kuhlenthal ran or was familiar with. Canaris states that these personal descriptions were always very superficial, since Kuhlenthal did not want to divulge the identity of his agents or sources to Canaris.
Shortly after his arrival in Spain, Canaris requested permission from Kapitan Leisner to recruit and run his own agents. Leisner turned this request down on the grounds that Canaris, as a nephew of the Abwehr chief, should not be smeared in the running of agents and expose himself to possible compromise through enemy agents.
Since Canaris had had some training in the use of secret inks, he was called upon by Kuhlenthal in the Spring of 1940 to give instructions to two or three of Kuhlenthal’s agents. This took place in a house in Madrid. Canaris did not learn the names of the agents, but remembers that they were Spaniards or Portuguese. In the Spring of 1940, Canaris himself developed a few reports written in secret ink submitted by agents in France. Shortly thereafter the training in secret inks became a part of the newly formed Referat I-G, and from that time on Canaris never came in contact with agents.
Sources and Types of Intelligence Information
The closest source of information to Kieckebusch was Kuhlenthal who ran agents from Madrid. Kuhlenthal’s agents supplied intelligence information to Referats I-H, I-K, and I-L, and were presumed to have been mostly Spaniards or Portuguese. Since Kieckebusch and Kuhlenthal worked together very closely, Canaris believes that not all intelligence reports reached his office. Furthermore, personal antagonism had arisen between Canaris and Kieckebusch. Kieckebusch was for submitting to Berlin everything that came into the Referat I-H, whereas Canaris, as evaluator sometimes discounted the reliability of certain information which I-H received.
One of the main fields from which intelligence information was gathered was France. From 1939 until the middle of 1943, I-H received a great deal of information from Eastern and Northern France, which originated at the mobillzation centres of the French Army. Intelligence reports contained information on troop concentrations, formations of armies and army corps, names of leading officers, troop morale, and fortifications. I-H had a good picture of the location of embarkation points, ammunition dumps and supply depots, of old and new fortifications and strong points, including the Maginot Line, and of troop concentration areas over the rest of France, including names of battalions, regiments, and divisions, and their armament.
The majority of agents were Loyalist Spaniards who were employed by the French Army in factories and in the construction of fortifications.
The information secured by these agents on the British forces, east of Paris, was unsatisfactory. On the one hand the agents lacked sufficient knowledge of the British forces, and on the other, British security measures proved very effective.
From the middle of 1940 to the end of 1943, intelligence operations in France, so far as they concerned the Referat I-H, were comparatively static. Occasional reports were submitted to Berlin about French and British parachutists who were dropped over France along with sabotage material destined for the French Resistance. Reports about secret ammunition and weapons dumps were sent to the German Armistice Commission. The results of ensuing checks by the Armistice Commission d
id not become known to the Referat I-H.
Beginning with the autumn of 1943 I-H began to receive a large amount of reports which were concerned with possible invasion areas of the Continent by the Allies. Reports were so numerous and speculative that Berlin instructed I-H to submit only information with a sufficient degree of plausibility. The exact invasion area in France could never be determined by KO Spain. After the invasion of Normandy, intelligence reports from France became less and less frequent. KO Spain was able to penetrate neither the front nor the rear areas. Canaris recalls having received a few reports concerning the arrival of American troops at Marseilles and the unloading of war materials at several French Mediterranean seaports.
Canaris also had much to say on the KO’s collection of intelligence and its reliance on its Spanish liaison:
From November 1942 KO activity in North Africa was increasingly centred on the activities around Gibraltar. The large Allied convoys which were passing through the Straits led Berlin to press for information on possible Allied invasion forces. Canaris claims that the ensuing information received from native agents in North Africa was inadequate since they were not sufficiently familiar with the American and British armies. Gradually, a few experienced native agents were able to submit fairly adequate reports of Allied troop units and their equipment. Canaris was further able to supplement and evaluate this information with his own reference material, such as the German General Staff publications on the U.S. and Allied armies, as well as by the use of a copy of the National Geographic magazine (issue of approximately June 1942) which pictured division insignia, of the U.S. Army until the Allied invasion at Salerno. I-H had information on the presence in North Africa of from fifteen to twenty Allied divisions, including their numbers and arms of service. Eastern Algeria and Tunisia, according to Canaris, proved of negligible value to KO Spain since their distance from Spanish Morocco was too great.
After Pantelleria had been taken by the Allies, I-H received increasing reports that Sicily would be the next invasion goal. Numerous reports to that effect were sent to Berlin by I-H, but Berlin discounted the validity of such information. After the invasion of Sicily had actually taken place, Berlin reprimanded KO Spain for having failed to submit adequate data.
According to Canaris, KO Spain had no advance information on the Roosevelt–Churchill meeting at Casablanca, the one thing which it had noticed had been the sudden closing of the border between Spanish and French Morocco and a complete lack of incoming intelligence reports from that area. The Spanish Intelligence Service maintained that it did not have any advance information on this meeting between the two Allied leaders.
Between 1935 and 1945 I-H received a great deal of information from Gibraltar. Information pertaining to troop transports and defences of Gibraltar were submitted to Berlin. Although it was generally known how many troops had passed through Gibraltar, I-H never knew exactly the types of units. Reports on the standing garrison of Gibraltar were more accurate, and I-H possessed quite accurate figures on the numbers and types of units defending it.
From 1940 until 1945, particularly after Dunkirk, the British lsles became one of the main objectives of KO Spain for the gathering of intelligence information. Kuhlenthal had connections with England and received usable reports from England; Canaris maintains again that he never learned who these agents were. The earliest intelligence reports concerned themselves with the air raids on London and Southern England during the summer of 1940. Numerous reports came into I-H on fortifications along the Southern Channel coast, including minefields, barbed wire obstacles, pillboxes, and visible weapons designed to ward off a German invasion, with some specific English towns mentioned.
Further information was received on the location of ammunition and material dumps in England, and on manoeuvres of troop units in Southern England and Scotland. In 1943 I-H received the first reports on the presence of American troops in England and their concentration within specific areas of the British Isles.
Canaris states that when, at the beginning of 1944, the invasion of the European Continent was imminent, he was suddenly given only very few reports on England for evaluation. He further claims that Kiekebusch and Kuhlenthal chose from this point on to evaluate the above information themselves. Neither Kiekebusch nor Kuhlenthal knew in advance the precise invasion area on the continent, nor the exact time it was to take place.
Canaris claims that attempts made by I-H to establish reliable connections in the United States and Canada were a failure. Canaris states that his office received terse reports, by way of Lisbon, [which] supposedly came from people on Spanish ships plying between the Iberian Peninsula and ports along the American Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico. Information received this way proved negligible and was always out of date. Central and South America were also of negative value to I-H. Information on the purchase of war material by Portugal from England and the United States was several times forwarded by I-H to Berlin.
Co-operation with the Spanish Intelligence Service
Canaris minimises the importance of the services which the Spanish Intelligence Service rendered to the KO. Although the SIS made many of its own reports originating in French North Africa, France, and Gibraltar, available to the KO, the information which the extensive agent net of the KO were able to obtain very often led the KO to dispense with routine information which might have been available from Spanish Morocco. Nevertheless, a suspicion existed that the SIS withheld from the Germans, occasionally, some very important information such as, for example, the Roosevelt–Churchill meeting at Casablanca and the Allied invasion of North Africa. Kuhlenthal and Kieckebusch maintained personal contact with representatives of the SIS. Canaris maintains that the relationship grew somewhat cooler after North Africa had been invaded by the Allies.
Co-operation with the Italian Intelligence Service
I-H received a great deal of intelligence material about North Africa from the Italian Intelligence Service. Canaris claims, however, that much of the material received was already out of date and that it appeared to have been bought from the KO’s own agents. Kuhlenthal and Kieckebusch maintained personal connections with representatives of the U.S.
Post-War SIS Plans in Spain
Canaris has no knowledge of any SIS post-war plans for Spain. He supposes that the Abwehr would gradually have lost out and its activities would have been taken over by the SD and Gestapo.
Stay-Behind Service
Since there had been some speculation about possible Allied landings in Spain, certain agents were selected to remain in Spain in the event of such a move by the Allies. Berlin also suggested that those Germans who desired to do so should acquire Spanish citizenship and remain in Spain.
Given Joachim’s family connection, and his long experience of the KO in Madrid, he was considered an important catch, and his information was ‘deemed reliable’, although there was some lingering doubt about whether he was quite as ignorant about the identity of agents as he protested. His father, Carl, was the admiral’s brother, and he had three brothers and one sister. His brother, Constantin, was an SS-Sturmbannführer and leader of the Sicherheitsdienst in Brussels.
Born in Pegli, near Genoa, and aged 37 at the time of his arrest, Joachim would not be contradicted by other witnesses, and he was released from American custody. Before the war he had worked in a bank and then as a book-keeper, before undergoing military training and serving with the Kondor Legion in the Spanish Civil War. He spoke Spanish fluently, and had some French and English.
While in Madrid Joachim had been accompanied by his wife, Irmegard Otte, who worked in the KO as a secretary, and at one time they shared an apartment at Calle Fortuny 45 with Eberhard Kieckebusch. ISOS revealed that in March 1942 he had been posted temporarily to Tangier to replace the head of the local stelle, Hans Krüger.
The KO’s Referat I also included an Eins Luft (I-L) contingent, headed by Major von Busch. The Luftwaffe’s technical intelligence branch (I-TLw) was probably
the KO’s least productive department, and had been founded in January 1942 by Dr Theodore Schade, code-named SCHUBERT in his voluminous ISOS traffic, who returned to Berlin briefly in March 1943.10 Schade, a former Siemens engineer, developed links with his Spanish counterparts and arranged to have access to all Allied aircraft that were forced to land on Spanish territory. In February 1943 I-TLw pulled off a significant coup by supplying Berlin with details of airborne radar when a four-engined US Army Air Force B-24 Liberator of the 92nd Bombardment Wing flying to RAF Old Catton in Norfolk from Port Lyautey made a forced landing near Tiztoutine in Spanish Morocco. The fifteen crew and passengers were detained, and eventually released in June, but this episode had given I-TLw the opportunity of copying a quantity of classified equipment manuals recovered from the aircraft by a senior Spanish officer.
The Abwehr’s counter-intelligence branch, Abteilung III, was headed in Berlin by Franz von Bentivegni, and in the KO by Kurt von Rohrscheidt, who had joined the Abwehr in 1934 and had served in Bucharest before moving to Madrid in January 1941. During the Spanish Civil War he had headed the Kondor Legion’s Abwehr section, and he was interned in Segovia in May 1945 and repatriated to Germany in May 1946 for interrogation.11 Von Rohrscheidt had been born in Metz in March 1893, was educated at Berlin University’s Commercial College, and was badly wounded in the First World War while serving with the 5th Grenadier Regiment, losing his right eye. He had joined the Abwehr in 1934, having resigned his membership of the Nazi Party. The report of von Rohrscheidt’s interrogation revealed his professionalism and the very comprehensive scale of Abt. III operations in wartime Spain:
