Churchill's Spy Files

by Nigel West

  BARINKI d’ARNOUX @ DANNEMANN. A Frenchman who was in Vichy in March 1943, awaiting a visa for the USA where he was to take up the position of secretary to the representative of the Swiss Mercantile Marine in New York.

  2. No actual reports from any of Brandes’ agents have so far appeared on secret sources. There is not the same positive evidence, therefore, as there is with Fidrmuc, that the organisation which he claims to run is fictitious. There are, nevertheless, reasonable grounds for supposing that this may in fact be the case. The following facts may be cited:

  3. Endeavours to identity BUNSEN and AESCALAP were attended by wholly negative results, though in each case the facts available should have been sufficient to produce, if not an identification, at least a short list of possible candidates;

  4. Similar attempts to identify DANNEMANN failed completely, even though we were informed of his real name. According to the FBI, no application was made in Vichy at the material time for a U.S. visa by anyone named d’Arnoux, nor did any alternative candidates suggest themselves;

  5. According to both TRICYCLE and ARTIST, Brandes is not only anti-Nazi but positively pro-British and has, according to his own statement, been a party to at least one deliberate fraud on the Abwehr.

  6. These facts afford at least some reason for supposing that Brandes might accept a proposition along similar lines to that suggested above in connection with Fidrmuc. The method of approach would be broadly the same with, however, these qualifications. There is no evidence that Brandes is an adventurer of the same type as Fidrmuc. His motives, to judge from what he said to TRICYCLE, are not so much to make money as to keep himself in safety in Lisbon. It appears probable that his outlook is, broadly speaking, similar to that of JUNIOR. It would not, therefore, be appropriate to put the matter as bluntly to him as to Fidrmuc. On the other hand, two powerful arguments can be advanced in his case which would not be applicable to Fidrmuc. In the first place Brandes is fit and of military age. He is, in fact, only 24. He is also half Jewish. It is certain, therefore, that if he fails to maintain his position and still more if any fraudulent practice of his were exposed, that he would find himself very rapidly on the Eastern front. If he were offered a straight choice between comparative security under our control and the Pripet marshes, it is not to be supposed that he would hesitate very long. It is true that we should find even greater difficulty in exposing Fidrmuc. There is, however, no reason why Brandes should realise this. However, though it would be difficult to expose him, it would be comparatively easy to dislodge him from Portugal, since he is engaged in various black-market and smuggling activities on behalf of Sonderstab HWK. Unlike Fidrmuc, Brandes would regard the threat of being expelled from the Peninsula as a very real one. Secondly, there is Brandes’ political outlook to be considered. If the reports of TRICYCLE and ARTIST are to be trusted, he would have a positive motive in accepting our proposition as a means towards defeating the Nazis and bringing the war to an end.

  7. In the event of Brandes rejecting the proposition, the same arguments apply as were noted above in connection with Fidrmuc. The only difference is that the possibility of Brandes’ network actually existing is higher and must be reckoned with. It does not necessarily follow, however, if Brandes’ political attitude has been correctly reported, that this would cause him, as it would almost certainly cause Fidrmuc, to reject our proposition. If he did so, and if he informed the Abwehr of what had occurred, no greater danger to secret sources would be involved than in the case of Fidrmuc. The Abwehr’s suspicions would naturally tend to fall. It is true that some suspicion might also attach to ARTIST and TRICYCLE. This could be mitigated, if not wholly removed, by a careful planning of what was actually said to Brandes in the first place. If it were made plain to him that we knew not only of the agents whom he claims to have in England, but also of the agent whom he claimed previously to have in North Africa, it would be difficult for the Abwehr subsequently to lay the blame for the leakage on either ARTIST or TRICYCLE. They are not (I understand) aware of any of the details of Brandes’ organisation except in so far as ARTIST has been concerned with Brandes’ Swiss connections. It might well be possible at the same time to leave Brandes under the impression that the ultimate source of much of our information was Erich Geweyer, on official of Ast Berlin, who is now one of Cramer’s assistants in Lisbon. This man, though new a member of Gruppe III KO Portugal and not associated with Brandes’ work, is connected with him through VIPER and through Werner Deussen who acts as an intermediary between Brandes and VIPER. As a late member of Ast Berlin, it is reasonable to suppose that Geweyer is, or could be, familiar with the nature of Brandes’ work. He was before the war a receptionist at the Savoy Hotel in London. Although we are not, in fact, in contact with him, it is reasonable and probable that we should be.

  At one point, early in January 1944, consideration was given to the idea that Klop Ustinov should travel to Lisbon and approach Brandes, but in the end the proposal was dropped, partly because of the growing complexity of the situation with ARTIST and TRICYCLE speculating on the extent to which Brandes was simply inventing his network’s reports from English newspapers. The ramifications, as D-Day approached, became apparent when in April 1944 Popov’s MI5 case officer Ian Wilson circulated an assessment that compared TRICYCLE’s standing to GARBO:

  In discussion with Kuebarth, Hansen, Bohlen, Weiss and Kammler about the valuation of the various England connections by ‘Fremde Heere’ in Berlin, Brandes has learned the following:

  The only connections working really well are the Red-Spanish Group and the IVAN group. The correspondence with a number of other agents, amongst which are presumably also Sostaric, CAIS, IVAN II etc, has even before the cancellation of the postal traffic not been very productive. In Brandes’ opinion there are no other wireless connections. He said, however, that possibly only connections carried on from the Iberian Peninsular were discussed with him, and that perhaps there are other connections from Sweden or from Switzerland. However, he thinks that the latter is very unlikely, as in the long discussion with him a comparison would surely have been drawn between the performances of these people as against IVAN and the Spaniards.

  It can therefore be said that, as I reported previously, from the Iberian Peninsular, and probably from anywhere, only these two really good connections exist, after OSTRO has dropped out. The valuation of these connections has, however, altered considerably lately as IVAN is now considered to be by far the best connection, and the Spaniards as regards quality of their reports are following a long way behind. Lately there has been the strong suspicion as regards the Spaniards that they are being controlled by the British. IVAN, about whom similar doubts existed until the last report, is still not considered to be 100% safe, but the confidence in him has grown very much and it is thought very probably that he is genuine. Brandes told me to advise IVAN for the time being only to give reports which he has checked himself and not to rely on stories. If he would give a few more reports, which later are proved to be correct, there would no longer be the slightest doubt in his genuineness, and if he wanted to become a little lazy later on he could do so and also once in a while report rumours or indulge, in his fancies. Brandes told me these things with the intention to help my friend and thus me. It can therefore be assumed that his remarks reflect Berlin’s opinion fairly accurately. If therefore IVAN would bring two to three bits of really good information, it can be counted upon with certainty that any doubt in his genuineness will be removed.

  As regards the Spaniards, however it will mean considerably greater efforts to regain the full confidence of the ‘Abt. Fremde Heere’, although, of course their reports are still being given attention.

  The above valuation is in contrast to my former reports (sources: Karnap, Wiegand, etc.) There can, however, be no doubt that Brandes’ report is reliable and that the valuation in Berlin has changed completely since my last reports. The KO Spain nevertheless still maintain that their people are doubtless genuine and IV
AN, to say the least, is suspicious, and that this too is Berlin’s opinion. This point of view of the KO Spain is, however, probably based on jealousy.

  In a further report dealing with KO Spain, containing information obtained by ARTIST from Franzbach, ARTIST writes as follows: ‘The Red-Spanish group which is working in England for the KO Spain and which according to Kuhlenthal is now 17 men strong, will shortly also open a wireless station in America. The payment for this group for the next nine months.

  ‘Mention has made with £7,500, for which 750,000 pesetas were paid in the way reported previously. If I remember rightly, the amount of this payment was at variance with the details given me by the same source previously. As I assume that in London there is exact knowledge of this group I have made no further enquiries, but can do so if required.’

  With access to ISOS, but unable to share the intelligence derived with either ARTIST or TRICYCLE, MI5 and SIS found themselves powerless as Brandes manoeuvred in Lisbon and Abwehr III’s counter-espionage experts in Berlin came to distrust both men. Although Brandes seemed sympathetic to the Allies, he submitted adverse reports on ARTIST, apparently motivated by a desire to shorten the war and prevent him, as he saw it, from helping the Nazis. He also seems to have been concerned about his own status when he was unable to comply with a directive to send his agents to France for training. His inability to produce them on demand heightened suspicions, not just in London but apparently shared in Berlin, that they were imaginary. ARTIST was warned in general terms by SIS not to trust Brandes, but the need to protect the ISOS source prevented his case officer from spelling out the precise nature of the danger he was in, and in April 1944 Jebsen was abducted in Lisbon, leading to recriminations between the SIS station commander in Lisbon and MI5 in London. The loss of such a well-placed agent was hugely disappointing for SIS, and after the war efforts were made to learn his fate. The interrogation of various prisoners suggested that Jebsen had been lured to the Abwehr office in the rua Buenos Aires where he had been overpowered, drugged, and driven in a box across Spain to the French border. There the Gestapo had taken him into custody and placed him in a concentration camp, never to be seen again. One of those captured was Wilhelm Kuebart, who was questioned at Camp 020 in August 1945 and provided his version of events.

  Kuebart, described to Dusko Popov by Johnny Jebsen as ‘the most intelligent man in the Abwehr’, had been detained by the Americans in Michelau in April 1945 and transferred on 24 May to Camp 020. There he made a lengthy statement in which he described having encountered the Abwehr for the first time in September 1941 when he was transferred to Fremde Heere Ost at Mauerwald as a staff officer to work on intelligence from Turkey, Persia and Iraq.

  In August 1943 Kuebart had been sent to Brussels to look into a request to send RM50,000 to an Abwehr agent, Dr Johann Koessler, who had established himself with his wife in Lisbon. Kuebart had expressed doubts about Koessler’s loyalty to his senior officer, Georg Hansen, who ordered Koessler to be dropped. He was also briefed on a network in England headed by IVAN and managed from the KO Madrid by Johannes Jebsen, whom he said he ‘instinctively distrusted’. In mid-September 1943 Kuebart had visited Lisbon, and later the same month he accompanied Admiral Canaris to Madrid for talks with Spanish ministers. They then travelled to Lisbon, where he was briefed on three agents: IVAN, a woman in England code-named IWI ‘who appeared to be of little use’ and a Portuguese, MARINO, who reported on shipping movements in Lisbon. He also met an Abwehr agent, von Wolff, who introduced him to a journalist, Paul Fidrmuc, who had been to England and the United States. Fidrmuc’s role was to produce information on:

  a)Aircraft production in England and the USA (this was considered reliable information by the I Luft since it was greatly appreciated by the evaluation section of the Luftwaffefuehrungsstab). This at that time was Fidrmuc’s main activity.

  b)Allied convoys, shipping movements and tonnage. (Although this was sent to IM Kuebart does not know whether it was regarded as reliable).

  c)Reports on troop identification, divisional signs and/or numbers in England. (Those were judged inaccurate by IH on checking with Fremde Heere).

  Channels of Fidrmuc’s Information. Kuebart claims that he was unaware of the precise channels through which Fidrmuc derived his information. When it was put to him that he, as Fidrmuc’s chief, should surely know this, he replied that he purposely did not burden himself with such details as he, in his capacity as head of Abwehr IH, had little time for complete knowledge of these.

  Kuebart’s opinion of Fidrmuc. Kuebart was not prepared to say whether he considered Fidrmuc’s work good or bad. In some ways, such as the IH information from England, it was unreliable but in others it more than balanced the information sent to IH. In the whole he was inclined to feel that the balance stood in Fidrmuc’s favour.

  Naturally, Kuebart’s MI5 interrogators gave him no clue that all these individuals were well known to the Allied counter-intelligence authorities, but his recollections threw new light on Jebsen’s abduction and the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler. According to Kuebart, Jebsen was suspected of preparing to desert, and had been embezzling money from the SD, so therefore he ‘deserved everything he got’, although he was uncertain about his ultimate fate. He was informed in May that Jebsen has been summoned by Alois Schreiber to the Lisbon KO with one of his friends, an I Wi agent named Molderhauer, where they were overpowered, placed in a trunk and driven to Biarritz. They were kept in military detection in Wunsdorf for ten days and then, on orders from General Keitel, handed over to the SD.

  Kuebart also described how in March 1944 Georg Hansen had begun to confide details of the plan to overthrow the regime. This knowledge led to his arrest by the Gestapo, but he would be acquitted on charges of his complicity in October for lack of evidence. Nevertheless, he was dismissed from the Wehrmacht in November and eventually found a job on a farm near Michelau owned by Klaus von Stauffenburg’s cousin. It was here that he encountered US troops and made himself known to the occupation forces. He was detained on 27 April at Bamberg and then Wiesbaden before being flown to England on 24 May for interrogation at Camp 020.

  After the war Brandes remained in Portugal but he was repatriated in March 1946 and was detained briefly in December 1946 by the US 7th Amy Counter-Intelligence Corps in Berlin. He gave them a very limited account of his activities in Lisbon, confirming only that he had operated there as a representative of his mother’s machine-tool manufacturing firm, Fritz Werner AG, selling armaments to the Portuguese government. Although he acknowledged a friendship with Dr Alois Schreiber of the Lisbon Abwehr, he denied ever having worked for the organisation. Accordingly, the CIC released him, causing great consternation in London where the FBI’s Win Scott was aghast. Nevertheless, Brandes received a clearance and went back into the arms dealing business, apparently with the support of the West German Bundesnachrichtendiest. He died in April 1971 in Schaftlarn, Bavaria.

  * * *

  Born in Valencia in December 1919, José Polo was interned at the end of the Spanish Civil War and then released. In July 1941 he volunteered to join the Blue Division to fight in Russia but was returned to face a court martial for insubordination in May 1942, although he never stood trial. In November 1942 he accepted a job offer in Germany and was employed until May 1943 as a pay clerk at a factory in Kiel assembling U-boats.

  While on leave in San Sebastian in July 1943 Polo approached both the German and British consulates to offer his services as a spy. To the Germans he declared that he had already been recruited by the British, who had instructed him to penetrate the German organisation, and to the British he claimed to be willing to collect information while travelling through Germany. He also said that his uncle owned a fruit business in Covent Garden.

  In March 1944 Polo went through the same routine in Barcelona, offering his services to the British and German consulates and being paid by both, but on this occasion a German named Hampler suggested a mission to Gibraltar, requiring him
to surrender upon arrival and pretend to be a double-agent. However, a Section V officer, Captain Matthews, spotted that one part of this scheme had appeared in an ISOS intercept on the Paris-Madrid circuit, which referred to him as ‘a swindler and has apparently invented the whole affair’. Polo’s activities in Spain attracted the attention of Kim Philby, who alerted MI5’s Herbert Hart to him:

  Apart from contacting our Barcelona representative Aparicio also approached the Vice-Consul at San Sebastian with an offer of service. He stated that he had information about sabotage operations based on Algeciras. At the same time as Aparicio presented himself at the San Sebastian Consulate, the following report was received from an independent source:-

  José Aparicio Polo, a Spaniard who lives in Hotel Arana in San Sebastian where he has an account, was a member of the Blue Division, but he was demoted for some unknown reason. The head of the German organisation took a great interest in this man because, some time ago apparently he, Gensorowski, was approached by subject, who offered to work for him. Subject told him at the same time that he was in contact with an Englishman living in Valencia, named Sheldon, and said that this was in order to obtain information about Russia and the situation concerning the Blue Division. Gensorowski gave subject some money on various occasions, although he apparently produced information of very little importance. Gensorowski suspected that subject was connected with the Allied I.S. and that he should be watched; he went so far as to send someone to the Hotel Arena to watch subject, but so far nothing has been discovered.

  In view of this, it was thought that Aparicio was working as an ‘agent provocateur’ for the Germans and nothing than mild encouragement was given him. This, I think, confirms our view that Aparicio will prove an interesting character.

  Accordingly, when Polo was smuggled into Gibraltar by boat from Seville on 9 April 1944 by SIS he remained under Section V’s sponsorship until, after ten days of embarrassment and debate, he was taken into custody and flown to Whitchurch for transfer to Camp 020 for interrogation.