Churchill's Spy Files

by Nigel West

  When first questioned Blaum, aged 34, was cooperative and explained that before the war he had been employed by Nord-Deutsche Lloyd shipping line, and for five years had been in Cristóbal, Panama. He had been drafted into the Brandenburg Regiment in February 1940, and posted to Madrid in March as deputy to Hans Kreuger in the KO’s Abwehr II branch. He remained in Spain until February 1945, when he was expelled and flown to Italy on a new assignment. Part of his very extensive knowledge was attributed to the fact that his brother, Rudolf Blaum, had headed the Abwehr II branch in Portugal.

  Blaum’s interrogation covered the activities of Abwehr II in several regions, and revealed his connections with ZIGZAG, known to the Abwehr by the code name FRITZCHEN:

  1. North Africa

  Possibilities for sabotage in North Africa appeared after the Allied invasion of November 1942. In January 1943 Hummel went to Spanish Morocco and contacted Krueger, who had recruited two Arabs for sabotage work in Algeria. Hummel instructed the new agents in the use of British materials he had brought from Spain, and accompanied them to the border, which they crossed illegally. One of the men was caught by the French. The other returned with claims of having blown up railway tracks in several places. Further details are not known to Blaum, since Kreuger’s Tangier office was directly responsible to Berlin and not under KO Spanien.

  2. Central Africa

  Berlin sought to send agents to Spanish Guinea for the purpose of using that colony as a base for operations in Guinea and Central Africa, with the ultimate aim of sabotaging the extensive British communication lines in the Near East. Berlin did not realise, however, that these Spanish possessions were not accessible from other parts of North and Central Africa.

  Two volunteers were found for the mission. One was the brother of Gregorio Moreno Bravo, well known for his Abwehr work in Barcelona. Both men were trained in sabotage work. Carrying sabotage materials disguised as food parcels, a secret code and invisible ink, and other equipment, the two agents began their expedition in summer 1941. The first man returned in 1942, and Moreno Bravo in late 1943. Neither could report success. The information they had – transmitted by mail, the only available means of communication – had been worthless.

  Despite Blaum’s suggestion in 1942 that both agents be recalled because of the high cost of maintaining them and of the technical impossibility of setting up a radio station in Guinea, Berlin, which prided itself on having men in key locations all over the world, had refused to do so.

  3. Mexico

  In 1940 Rakowski left for Mexico via Russia and Japan to make contacts in the US regarding the Irish affairs section of Abwehr II. Late the same year KO Spanien was ordered to dispatch an agent to Mexico to meet Rakowski. Thereupon Ernesto Pena was sent to Cuba with his wife for the ostensible purpose of visiting friends and relatives. Obtaining a Mexican visa in Havana, Pena went to Mexico City and delivered money and instructions in invisible ink to Rakowski. Ordered to return with a detailed report from Rakowski, Pena was delayed until summer 1941, when he arrived in Bilbao aboard a steamship of the Ybarra line.

  Another opportunity to contact Mexico arose with the arrival in Spain of Carlos Cuesta. A Mexican citizen, Blaum met Cuesta through Dr Dietrich of the press section of the German Embassy in Madrid. Cuesta claimed to be leader of a chauvinistic and pro-German group of Mexican students. This was confirmed by Dietrich, who had known Cuesta in Mexico for many years. Abwehr II decided to utilize Cuesta’s group, establishing a W/T net in Mexico as a first step toward initiating Abwehr operations in that country. It was also decided that some sympathizer should come to Spain from Mexico with a report on conditions there, especially the possibility of II and even I work. This person had to be able to return to Mexico after reporting to Spain. Cuesta claimed that were he to return he was certain to be arrested by the Mexican police. A fanatical anti-Semite, Cuesta received a scholarship to the Frankfurt Institute for Race Research in 1943. Nothing was ever heard of him after his return to Spain in 1944.

  Finally chosen to make the trip was Carmen Fonseca, a Mexican citizen who had inherited money in her homeland but lacked the foreign exchange necessary for a trip to Mexico. Miss Fonseca was to contact Cuesta’s organisation by using the password ‘Juan Diaz’, and was to deliver a secret code with invisible ink for future correspondence with Spain, as well as a schedule for the operation of the planned W/T station. Miss Fonseca was then to break off connections with the Cuesta group, after sending coded cables to Spain announcing the success of her mission. Only one such cable arrived in Spain, and no further news was ever received from the Fonseca woman, in spite of repeated efforts by the IJ (monitoring) department of KO Spanien to contact her.

  4. South America

  Following urgent orders from Berlin to begin operations in South America, the following project was started by II KO Spanien in early 1943:

  Bernardo Carrasco (or Cassascal), who was being repatriated to Argentina by the Spanish Falange in recognition of his service during the Civil War, was engaged by Referat II to work his way into Brazil and Uruguay and investigate sabotage possibilities in those countries. In Brazil inflammable cargoes were to be sabotaged before being loaded onto Allied vessels. Carrasco was to recruit agents, using Buenos Aires as a base. He was instructed in the preparation of home-made incendiaries and given several British fuses. His reports were to be written with invisible ink. Leaving Bilbao on a Spanish ship in January 1943, Carrasco passed the British control at Trinidad and arrived at Buenos Aires safely. No more was ever heard of him.

  5. England

  FRITZCHEN, a fabulous figure in Abwehr II operations, related the following account of his activities in England to Blaum: He was serving a prison term on the isle of Jersey when the German Army landed there in 1940. Imprisoned after his conviction for a minor theft, FRITZCHEN was also suspected by the British police of heading a criminal gang. His original plan had been to go to South America, but until German forces arrived he had reason to expect a prison sentence of ten to twenty years.

  Offering his services to the Abwehr, FRITZCHEN was released on orders of Ast Paris, trained in sabotage and operation of W/T sets, and in 1942 parachuted into England. He was to blast the huge transformers of the Mosquito aircraft plant near London, for which he was to receive 100,000 DM. FRITZCHEN, claiming complete success, reported by W/T communication that he had personally witnessed the explosion and that confirmation of his success had been obtained from other sources. Leaving England for Lisbon, FRITZCHEN carried papers provided by friends which identified him as a member of the crew. A secret agency (not Abwehr II) in Lisbon gave him a German passport, enabling him to cross into Spain. Paris was his ultimate destination. Although his subsequent whereabouts are unknown to Blaum, it was rumoured that he was to return to England on an Abwehr I assignment.

  FRITZCHEN also offered to sabotage the boat aboard which he had travelled from England to Lisbon. Blaum doubts the truth of some of FRITZCHEN’s claims, and suspects he may have been a British Counter-Intelligence agent.

  6. Wales

  In 1940 Berlin ordered an agent sent to Wales to contact Williams, of the Welsh National Party. In autumn 1940 Miguel Poernavieja left Spain in the role of a representative of the Institudo de Estudios Politicos, a cover arranged for by Angel Alcazar de Velasco, Kuhlenthal’s chief agent. Poernavieja was therefore to work for both Abwehr I and II.

  Poernavieja’s assignment for Referat I primarily concerned air attacks on England (details unknown). For Referat II he was to deliver money and pass on suggestions for J-work (insurgierungsversuche) to Williams. Upon his return he was to report on the Welsh National Party. Poernavieja’s assignment was in line with the German programme of propaganda for a Welsh independence movement.

  Poernavieja returned to Spain early in 1941 after a quarrel with Alcazar de Velasco, who had followed Poernavieja into England as a press agent with the Spanish Embassy. The reason for Poernavieja’s expulsion from England is not known. Blaum considers it possible
that Williams was a British Counter-Intelligence agent. Nothing more was heard from Berlin regarding the Welsh National Party.

  7. Eire

  From 1940 to 1942 the Abwehr attempted to establish contact with anti-British elements in Eire and to set up an espionage net there. In 1942 all Abwehr functions in this field were assumed by the German Foreign Office.

  In May 1940 Blaum was instructed to contact Frank Ryan, an Irish citizen.3 Ryan had commanded an Irish volunteer brigade with the Loyalist forces in the Spanish Civil War until his capture and imprisonment. Abwehr II in Berlin became interested in Ryan, who had formerly been a leader in the Irish Republican Army. With the aid of Jaime Michels de Champourcin, Ryan’s lawyer, Blaum was able to see Ryan at the prison, and he persuaded Ryan to go to Germany if he were released. Blaum agreed to Ryan’s stipulation that he go to Germany as a free man, and not as a paid German agent.

  His release was obtained through Admiral Canaris, who saw high Spanish authorities while visiting Spain in Summer 1940. The Spanish officials insisted, however, that Ryan’s release be disguised as a prison break.

  Taken by car to Hendaye, Ryan was there turned over to a representative of II Berlin. Ryan was well treated during his stay in Germany, according to information received by Blaum. Eventually he was taken over by the Foreign Office, which planned to parachute him into Eire. However, Veesemeyer, then in charge of Irish affairs at the Foreign Office, reported that Ryan’s physical condition was deteriorating rapidly, and that the parachute project would have to be abandoned. Ryan was instead placed on a German submarine in a Spanish port, with the cooperation of Kerney, Eire minister in Madrid. Ryan died en route to Eire. Veesemeyer then considered parachuting Clissmann, long a university lecturer in Eire, into the country. Blaum knows no further details.

  In summer 1940 Berlin ordered that a man be found to travel to Eire and establish contact with certain Irish Republican Army officials. Through Champourcin Blaum met Mary Mains, an Irish citizen known to be an Anglophobe and Irish Republican Army sympathizer. She agreed to go to Eire, not as a paid agent, but as an Irish nationalist. Departing from Lisbon in September 1940 aboard a Japanese vessel, Miss Mains went directly to Dublin, where she was to give a message and money to a Jim O’Donovan and receive a message for Abwehr II from him. Since the messages were written in invisible ink which could be made legible only in Berlin, Blaum is not acquainted with any details. He believes it was intended to drop a W/T operator with wireless equipment into Eire, with time of arrival and landing place to be arranged through Miss Mains. She was also to check the whereabouts of Leutnant Goetz, of Abwehr II, who had landed in Eire in spring 1940 but had failed to establish a W/T connection.4

  One particular area of interest for MI5 was Blaum’s knowledge of sabotage operations in Gibraltar, Spanish ports, and the extent of the Spanish government’s collusion with these activities:

  The order to proceed with German sabotage of Allied shipping was received from Berlin in 1940. By 1942 the sabotage program was well under way, and it had reached its high point in 1943 when an explosion in a Spanish harbour led to a cease-action order from Berlin.

  The first actions, in 1940 and 1941, were directed by Heinrich Schomlier, who was later killed in Russia. In Seville and Huelva, two five-kilo explosive charges were to be camouflaged as chunks of iron ore and smuggled aboard Allied freighters. The fact that the explosions never materialized was attributed to two possible reasons: either the Spanish sub-agents did not place the charges in the loads of ore, or the German time fuses broke when the ore was loaded into the hatches. Later Schomlier attempted to have home-made mines, each holding about 15 kilos of explosives in an iron container with chain and shackle, fastened near the keel of allied ships by Spanish divers, once at Seville, twice at Melilla, and once at Huelva.

  At the time, however, there had been no technical research to establish how and where the bombs could be most effectively attached, and the pull exerted by the moving ship had not been correctly estimated. Thus the early attempts were merely the work of enthusiastic amateurs, and showed doubtful results.

  One Spanish agent insisted that, outfitted in a Draeger diving suit, he had dived more than 12 metres to attach a charge to the bottom of the British freighter Greenwood. It was later learned that diving with the Draeger hood required extensive training as well as courage, and it was therefore considered doubtful whether the mine, if fastened, ever exploded. It was definitely established that the Greenwood had gone down off Melilla at the exact time predicted by the agent, in December 1944, and Major Rudolph immediately reported the success of the mission to Berlin. The Navy later announced that without doubt the Greenwood had been sunk by a submarine’s torpedo.

  Other mine-laying undertakings were reported to Berlin by the II chief during 1941, but the ‘sabotaged’ ships reappeared repeatedly with no signs of damage. These false claims of success finally led to the recall of Rudolph and his specialist assistant, Schommer. This ended the first phase of German sabotage activities against Allied shipping.

  The experience gained from the failures of 1941, together with the efforts of Hummel, who had taken charge of Referat II in early 1942, were the main factors leading to the decision to intensify the sabotage program. A new type of mine, intended to be fastened to a ship’s ‘Schlingerleiste’, was designed in Berlin according to instructions prepared by Hummel. The mine was constructed in three separate parts, thus facilitating its handling and transportation. The air contained in the empty head of the mine kept it afloat. The middle part held 15 kilos of explosives, and the rear part consisted of a fuse, set for distance rather than time, which could be adjusted to a maximum distance of 80 miles. The fuse was simply a small wheel, kept revolving by the current produced by the motion of the ship. Several pincers were welded onto the mine so that it could be easily fastened to the ‘Schlingerleiste’. If it was discovered that the mine could be used successfully only if diving and fastening of the device were repeatedly practiced by the agents who were to execute the operation.

  The German freighter Lipari, anchored in Cartagena bay, was selected by Hummel as the location for a sabotage diving school. At first only Hummel was able to swim and dive with the Draeger outfit, since II-T in Berlin had failed to provide the necessary aids, such as artificial flippers to be fastened to the swimmer’s feet and adequate weights to counteract the updraft of the Draeger mask. In summer 1942 Hummel and Waber, assisted by Memmel and Alejandro Mejlas, made numerous attempts to fasten the mine to Allied ships docked at Seville. At that port it was possible to guide a rowboat underneath the piers and thus to approach to within a few feet of the target without being detected. Hummel would dive silently while Waber held a thin guide and emergency rope.

  Many of the first attempts failed because of the diver’s physical exhaustion and the danger of discovery of the mission. Finally a mine was attached to a freighter, the Imber (Blaum is not certain of the name). The freighter later turned up in Gibraltar as scheduled.

  In September another graduate of the Lipari school, Francisco Lopez of Melilla, succeeded in attaching a mine to a British vessel. Not only did the mine fail to explode, but the I-M observation post in Algeciras reported that a British diver had been observed removing the mine from the ‘Schlingerleiste’. Thereupon all training at Cartagena ceased, and it was decided that the sabotage of ships from the outside would be abandoned.

  It was then attempted to smuggle explosives aboard British ships at Seville. In late 1942 two successes were reported. In both instances, orange crates loaded on barges awaiting transfer to Allied freighters had been partly filled with explosives fitted with time fuses. The operations were performed at night from rowboats. In both cases, 15–30 kilos of explosives were packed into each of several orange crates. One ship, the Ravonspoint, was blown up at Gibraltar, while the other, The City of … had to put in at Lisbon because of the heavy damage it sustained.

  A similar project was started in late 1943. Explosive charges had to be
planted in crates farther upstream, along the banks of the Guadalquivir river, instead of Seville harbour, since the British anti-sabotage organisation was maintaining a close watch over the orange barges in the harbour. Three crates were filled with sabotage materials of British origin and loaded onto one or possibly two vessels. The results of this operation were never discovered by the Germans, although they made extensive efforts to learn of the fate of the two vessels.

  At Valencia sabotage along similar lines was committed. Onion and orange crates were filled with charges at night along the road leading to the harbour where the cargo ships were docked. A serious blunder was made when German fuses were used in several bombs instead of the usual British fuses, of which there was a temporary shortage, ‘The sabotaged orange ships’ were widely publicized by the Allies, who in this case had definite proof of German complicity. Further evidence of German origin came to light when several crates exploded aboard a British cargo ship in Valencia harbour, following an unexpected postponement of the ship’s sailing date. (Once the charges were placed inside the crates it was impossible to regulate the time fuses.)

  No further sabotage of this sort was attempted in Spanish ports. Numerous investigations by Blaum and his associates showed conditions everywhere to be adverse. Very few Spaniards were implicated in the sabotage of orange ships, Hummel and Blaum having both planned and executed this project.

  Two final attempts to sabotage Allied ships were made in Seville and Huelva respectively. Bombs camouflaged as chunks of coal were thrown in the coal bins of two freighters. Neither attempt was successful.

  Sabotage of Italian Ships in Spanish Harbours after Italy’s Surrender

  Shortly after Italy’s surrender it became known in Berlin that Spain, under Allied pressure, was to deliver to the Allies Italian ships which had remained in Spanish harbours. KO Spanien was thereupon ordered to prevent these ships from sailing to Allied ports. As a result the following sabotage missions were undertaken: