Churchill's Spy Files

by Nigel West

  (a) on 7 January 1944 he provided a report of a conversation of two journalists who had connections with Gaulliste military circles, relating to the Allied landings expected in France, giving as places the following points:

  1 between St. Raphael and Nice,

  2 Saulac,

  3 Arcachon,

  4 places unspecified in Brittany and further North.

  (b) in April 1944, he seems to have got into contact with some British agent in Paris and this fact was communicated to Ast Stuttgart, who requested instruction. The inference is that in making contact with this British agent Golenko was acting on behalf of the Germans.

  In June 1944 Golenko was asking urgently to be provided with a revolver. Attempts were made by his masters in Paris to provide this.

  In July, 1944, Ast Stuttgart instructed Paris to give Golenko 20,000 French francs to pay for an operation on his daughter.

  The most important evidence from Most Secret Sources relates to the Germans’ intentions with regard to Golenko after the occupation of Paris. This evidence, which flatly contradicts his assertions that he was ordered back to Germany but had eluded the Germans, may be summarised as follows:-

  (a) The last transmission known to us of Russian intercepts by Golenko was made on August 7th, 1944.

  (b) On 9th August, 1944 Berlin HQ inquired from Stuttgart whether Golenko could send reports on industry and production, and an affirmative answer was given from Paris on 11th August.

  (c) On 10th August Paris informed Stuttgart that certain agents in Paris, among them Golenko, needed sums of money to carry on after occupation, if Paris were occupied. Stuttgart replied on 11th that they had asked Berlin to provide a million francs and meanwhile ordered Paris to pay out to Golenko some money then available in Paris.

  (d) On 16th August, Stuttgart was considering where its Paris network should go in the event of the Allies’ occupying the city, and suggested Brussels. Stuttgart also added that this might be done possibly by arrangement through Golenko and other agents.

  (e) On 18th September, Stuttgart were making enquiries as to what had happened to Golenko and were attempting to get into contact in Paris with the offices of the newspaper Soldatim Westen, where according to Stuttgart Golenko was employed. On 28th September, Stuttgart had still failed to find Golenko, and described his dropping out as very disturbing.

  It appears from RSS evidence that Stuttgart, throughout September 1944 was calling Golenko in Paris without any reply.

  Golenko, of course, had absolutely no idea that the British had been monitoring his traffic and were therefore in a position to know where he had been less than candid about his Nazi collaboration, and that he had concealed the true nature of his stay-behind mission. In fact the cryptographic evidence amounted to 309 messages exchanged between 17 September 1942 and 29 June 1943, and 110 messages sent between May and September 1942 concerning R.4927, which was GUSTAV’s alternative. The fact that Golenko had an ‘R’ prefix was significant because the Germans referred to stay-behind networks as RICHARD and assigned the membership R numbers.

  When Golenko was arrested by two Special Branch detectives he was staying with Norman Holmes Pearson, a senior OSS X-2 officer, and MI5 concluded that the most expedient solution to the problem of his continued detention was to release him into American custody so he could be taken to the United States. Nevertheless, MI5 remained determined to extract the truth from Golenko, and was suspicious that his pre-war ‘hobby’ had involved an intensive study of sixty Soviet stations, and his denial of any knowledge of German or such notorious White Russian intriguers such as Generals Vlassov and Anton Turkul unconvincing. Traces in MI5’s Registry identified Betticher as Major Bohrer of Abwehr IIIC, Miller as Müller, and von Schulte as an Abwehr officer dismissed for embezzlement.

  Ultimately OSS was persuaded of Golenko’s duplicity, and he remained in Camp 020, unaware of the weight of incontrovertible evidence against him.

  * * *

  Born in April 1914 in The Hague, Antonie Damen was arrested in Weeyr at the end of September 1944 by an SCI unit attached to the US 82nd Airborne Division, detained at St Gilles prison, and then on 12 October flown to Northolt for transfer to Camp 020 for interrogation. Damen attracted considerable attention from MI5 because in his role as an Abwehr III penetration agent he had been deployed to insinuate himself into MI9 escape lines and into SOE’s resistance networks. Evidently he had performed these tasks with great efficiency, and his evidence would be of the very considerable interest to those organisations, which were still largely unaware of the scale of the German success in investigating, and even controlling, the Allied circuits.

  In his confession Damen described how he had been recruited in September 1941 for a mission to report on Allied shipping from Lourenço Marques but then was briefed for a different assignment in Montevideo. He had undergone a training course in Hamburg and, having failed to obtain a visa for Uruguay, was told in April 1942 his new destination would be the Dutch East Indies. Instead, following the Japanese occupation of the region, he was transferred to Abteilung III with the task of penetrating the Dutch resistance movement. This was of particular relevance to MI5 because several suspects had been detected while attempting to reach England along well-established escape lines. That some of the ‘underground railroads’ should have been compromised in this way would have severe ramifications, as would Damen’s assertion that the Dutch government-in-exile was riddled with German sources, among them the former police chief François van ’t Sant who, incidentally, had long been regarded as a loyal SIS asset. Yet, according to Damen, van t’Sant was really an important German agent.

  Before the war Damen had completed his compulsory military service in the Royal Netherlands Navy and then had worked as an engineer officer on several ships in the Far East. He had married a German woman, Wilhelmina, but his ship, the Nantau Panjung, had been sunk by the battlecruiser Admiral Scheer in February 1941 while on a voyage from Durban to Singapore. He was placed aboard the Ermland as a PoW and disembarked seven weeks later at Bordeaux. During his subsequent internment at Stalag Xb at Sandbostel he had been employed as an interpreter by the Germans to communicate with Javanese seamen, and then was recruited by the Abwehr and released from captivity.

  In January 1943 he took German nationality and later was sent to Utrecht to attend a wireless course and be trained as a stay-behind agent. At the time of his arrest he had been attempting to cross the Allied lines on a mission to report on the Allied airborne landings in Arnhem. His testimony, combined with his colleague Cornelis Verloop, led to the exposure of Christiaan Lindemanns, described by Helenus Milmo as ‘one of the most important captures of the war’. They also incriminated several other Abwehr penetration agents who had insinuated themselves into SOE’s trust, among them Nicolaas de Wilde, Suzanne Marteau4 and a mysterious figure known only as Arnaud, who were all still active, and the notorious George van Vliet, who had been responsible for betraying dozens of French, Dutch and Belgian patriots, as well as numerous escaping Allied airmen.

  Damen’s statements caused consternation. ‘Arnaud’ was actually Richard Christmann, a German from Alsace who had served pre-war in the French Foreign Legion and was an accomplished Abwehr agent who made a very plausible French refugee.5 It was Christmann who had wreaked havoc when he gained access to the PROSPER network in France, bringing SOE’s F Section to the point of collapse. Similarly, van Vliet was Mattis Ridderhof, another skilled and experienced Abwehr agent provocateur.6

  In September 1943 Damen had impersonated a member of the resistance and had been passed down the famous VIC escape line from Paris to Perpignan, compromising everyone he had encountered. Named after its founder, Victor Gerson, the VIC line was a chain of safe houses stretching from Paris to Barcelona managed by Jews, which made the organisation extremely vulnerable.

  When in November 1944 SOE’s John Delaforce was informed by MI5’s Mark Johnstone of the scale of the treachery uncovered, he was aghast, but also slightly
defensive, insisting that apart from three identified traitors, Hendrikus Knoppens,7 Kas de Graaf and Nicholaas Celosse,8 the only SOE agents who had returned to England had been dispatched by SOE in the first place, and any refugees recruited for missions back to the Continent had been provided and vetted by the government-in-exile. Clearly Johnstone did not regard this as much of a guarantee of integrity.

  A pre-war Royal Netherlands Air Force wireless technician, Knoppens had arrived in England in September 1943, having travelled along the VIC line from Brussels with help from Arnaud. When in November 1944 Arnaud’s true identity was unmasked, MI5 investigated Knoppens, who was about to go on a mission, but concluded that he had not been a conscious spy. This view would later be contradicted by Hermann Giskes, but in the meantime Knoppens was promoted within the Dutch intelligence service.

  Kas de Graaf, accompanied by his fellow food inspector Celosse, had used the VIC line in November 1943, travelling from Paris where they had been entertained by Christiaan Lindemanns. However, de Graaf was considered so compromised (but not initially an espionage suspect) that he was given a senior Dutch Intelligence staff post, while Celosse returned to Holland in March 1944 but was arrested two months later and shot. De Graaf would later interview Lindemanns and clear him of suspicion.

  Damen demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of Dutch Nazis and other collaborators who were employed by the Germans. If he was to believed, and Blanshard Stamp concluded that he was ‘essentially unreliable but on the other hand he is in the position in which he has probably discovered which side his bread is buttered and is likely to wish to give us as much information as he can and would be unlikely to pass wholly unreliable information’, then the implications for SOE were grave indeed. More of their escape routes had been compromised, and from a much earlier period, than had been contemplated hitherto. Specifically, Damen recalled the circumstances in which Arnaud had arranged in early June 1943 for Knoppens, code-named SERGEANT, to travel to England. This had been requested by a respected Dutch resistance leader and air force officer, Colonel Leonardus Koppert, who had vouched for Knoppens and communicated with London over two different radio circuits, one of which was run by an SOE agent code-named FRANS.

  In reality, FRANS and his three companions had been arrested upon their arrival in Holland, and the Germans had substituted Damen as FRANS for their supposed escape to the Pyrenees. In the event, the Germans had skilfully manipulated both wireless circuits, arrested everyone involved in the escape line, and sent Knoppens to England on a mission to penetrate SOE.

  Damen represented the first account, from the enemy’s perspective, of one of the most damaging German counter-intelligence operations of the war. By September 1944 both SOE and SIS realised that virtually all Allied resistance organisations in the Netherlands had been severely compromised, but Damen’s knowledge proved that the damage inflicted was far greater than anyone in London had imagined. The magnitude of the disaster would be spelled out by Guy Liddell in January 1944, although even he was far from certain about how many Germans had penetrated the VIC line, and had not yet grasped Damen in the role of ANTON and a possibly notional ‘Nicolaas de Wilde’:

  I have read Blanshard Stamp’s note on the activities of Abwehr IIIF The Hague, against SOE. It is purely factual, and worded in moderate terms but is an appalling indictment of SOE methods and intelligence.

  The story began in June 1942 when a certain JOHANNES9 and a radio operator were dropped in Holland. JOHANNES had been sent to contact the Orde Dienst, an indigenous loyalist organisation. He was to tell its leaders that he had come on a joint Dutch–British mission and was to disclose to them the plan for Holland which had been worked out. He was to obtain their comments on the plan and emphasise that the Dutch government in London had approved it in principle and expected it to be accepted in substance. After introducing himself to the leaders of the OD, JOHANNES was to make contact with its various sub-groups operating throughout the country. He would report back to London, who would send out a trained organiser and instructors to the groups as and when JOHANNES reported they were ready to receive them. For the purpose of carrying out this mission JOHANNES had to organise reception committees, weapons and supplies and for the additional personnel which were to be sent. The indications are that JOHANNES never operated except under the control of the Germans or that he was certainly under control in November if not in August of that year. SOE were informed on a set which was obviously under control that JOHANNES had been arrested on 8 November 1942. It is astonishing that this arrest did not indicate to SOE that it was quite hopeless to continue the undertaking if the chief organiser with all the plans was under German control. To act upon the assumption that a captured agent has not been broken is to court not only mortal peril for those concerned but disaster to the whole enterprise.

  After 8 November 1942 the part assigned to JOHANNES by the Abwehr was carried out in the name of KALE, his successor who had been sent out from this country as his number two.10 Upwards of twenty-five receptions were arranged over KALE’s radio set and no less than ten wireless operators were despatched from this country. As SOE had failed to get back JOHANNES owing to his arrest, KALE was asked to send to England some other person thoroughly well informed about the progress of the secret organisation. In the face of this requirement the Abwehr determined to go through all the motions of supplying such a person. On the one hand this would serve the purpose of allaying any suspicion which might be felt in London and on the other hand SOE should be made to disclose the method by which agents could be evacuated from Europe. On 14 March 1944 SOE was therefore informed that KALE would send his chief assistant who was called ANTON. The Germans were asked for particulars about ANTON and gave his name as Nicolaas de Wilde of a certain address at The Hague. Damen, who we subsequently captured, was in fact the occupant of the address and on instructions from the Abwehr was to say, if anyone called, that de Wilde was away and would return in a few days.11 When SOE decided to arrange for ANTON’s evacuation through Belgium and Holland, someone was found by the Germans to fill this part and he left Holland about 12 May 1943 and travelled to Paris. The spurious ANTON was accompanied by a certain Arnaud who has been an Abwehr IIIF agent since 1940 and who we also know was recruited by SOE as a passeur of theirs. In Paris ANTON and Arnaud made contact with another SOE agent, MARCEL.12 As soon as they sat down in the café with MARCEL three German soldiers came in and started to examine the cards of those at the back of the café. ANTON got up and walked out. Arnaud said ‘They have arrested ANTON’. MARCEL looked out and saw ANTON crossing the road with a man in civilian clothes. Such was the account given by MARCEL when he arrived in this country of ANTON’s disappearance. A great deal of trouble was taken to decide whether ANTON had been arrested because he had been followed or whether it was sheer bad luck as the result of a snap check for identity cards. A great deal of trouble was also taken to stress the dangers which would fall upon the organisation as a result of this arrest, regard being had to the fact that ANTON, according to MARCEL, had been carrying compromising papers. It never occurred to anyone that ANTON was nothing but a German agent and that Arnaud was lying when he said that ANTON had been arrested. Arnaud’s stock inevitably rose in the eyes of London and MARCEL was sent back to the continent to fall into the enemy’s hands. The problem raised of SOE’s request for the sending to England of a man who was well acquainted with the secret army had been answered by the Abwehr with striking success.

  Liddell’s version of the Paris café rendezvous, which had taken place on 9 June, was flawed, for he even then had not appreciated that ANTON was Damen and he had been accompanied by Arnaud to meet an SOE agent code-named GLAZIER. This account had been supplied by GLAZIER when he reached London in July, who had added that he had been told the next day by Arnaud that ANTON had been arrested. The story could not be verified because soon afterwards GLAZIER, code-named MARCEL, who was Jack Agazarian, returned to France on the night of 22/23 July and was captured. Liddell
then completed the saga:

  SOE then requested the field to send another man who had full knowledge of the secret army and the reply came back that a man in close touch with the Orde Dienst would be sent. Instead of choosing a fictitious individual or someone who might by chance be known as a German agent here they chose a man against whom nothing adverse was known in London, who was in fact a bona-fide patriot. This man was Knoppens. He had been approached at the end of 1942 or the beginning of 1943 by the IIIF agent van Vliet. Knoppens had been doing resistance work and had been in contact with a certain Colonel Koppert when van Vliet, representing himself as a member of the resistance, asked him if he might use Knoppens’ address as a letter-box. Thereafter Knoppens continued to see van Vliet regularly until he finally left Holland. Van Vliet gave himself an excellent build-up and got thoroughly into the confidence of Knoppens. On 20 June 1943 he asked Knoppens if he would travel to England and return with instructions for the resistance organisations. As Knoppens understood it the idea was that several resistance movements needed coordination and central direction and official recognition and support from London. This could best be obtained by sending an emissary from Holland and securing his return as a liaison officer with London credentials. Knoppens went via Paris, where he stayed some weeks and was finally brought out by SOE channels over the Pyrenees to Spain. For the purpose of facilitating Knoppens’ mission he was provided with documents purporting to come from resistance circles. These included a note to the Dutch and British authorities concerned suggesting the desirability of establishing an escape route over which important Dutch intellectuals, industrialists and officials in Holland who without themselves acting in a rash manner had assisted in the sabotage of the German war effort, might be got out of Holland. When Knoppens arrived here there were certain discrepancies in his story and that which had been put over on the German-controlled wireless from Holland, and when the investigation was still proceedng information which had been in the possession of SIS for many months but which had not been distributed by them, was brought to our notice. This showed that van Vliet, if not a German agent, was at least highly suspect. We came to the conclusion that Knoppens had been planted by SOE on van Vliet and that the wireless agent in Holland was under control. Arnaud however, escaped suspicion and the suggestion that the SOE escape route from Paris onwards might have been blown was not accepted. According to KALE, who was supposed still to be in charge of SOE’s activties in Holland, one STEAK,13 recruited in the field, had taken ANTON’s place as second in command, ANTON having been reported as arrested when attempting to reach this country. SOE were determined to get STEAK over here. He was also told to bring two other agents with him. The Germans had all these people interned and were placed in the position of having either to make excuses for the failure of the SOE field officers to bring out the four men or to announce the arrest of these people in circumstances which would inevitably suggest that the SOE organisation had been blown. They decided to create four substitutes for the four SOE agents. They were taken to Paris where they met the fourth man. There they were handed over to Arnaud with instructions to find out by what route they would be evacuated from France. Arnaud handed them over to a member of the VIC espionage organisation and they were accepted for what they pretended to be. The last stage of the journey was in a lorry across the frontier. Before they reached this point two of them jumped off. A little later the third jumped off and hailed a car belonging to the Feldgendarmerie, showing his papers. He made this car follow the lorry and in due course his partner was arrested. The four German agents returned to Paris and made their report to Arnaud. Subsequently SOE was informed by a member of the VIC organisation that the four agents had been arrested while attempting to escape in the Pyrenees. This was accepted as sufficient explanation. As van Vliet was under some suspicion the Germans decided to make strenuous efforts to build him up. It so happened that the SOE agent APOLLO14 was dropped in Belgium with BRUTUS15 on 18 October 1943 with instructions to use the route taken by Knoppens in reverse and to go to Holland. APOLLO reached his contact addresses in Brussels, the house of a certain Madame Mertins, and was there visited by van Vliet. The latter successfully played the part of a patriot and assisted his return to this country. APOLLO gave a tolerably good account of van Vliet upon his arrival back here. The night after APOLLO was dropped a Lieutenant John Hurst, an American airman, made a forced landing in Holland.17 Hurst, by devious means, was put on to van Vliet, who facilitated his escape. This story was also regarded as a reassuring incident in proof of van Vliet’s bona-fides. In August 1943 two of the captured SOE agents CHIVE and SPROUT18 escaped. They reached this country in February 1944 and at some stage the Germans became aware of this. They almost immediately closed the traffic by a message on all lines addressed to the two SOE officers by what in fact were their correct names, thanking them for their long mutual cooperation and promising them that if they came to the continent they would be received with the same care as their agents. Had the whole of the wireless traffic been under review in the light of all the known facts; trick questions been put to the agents; had each mishap been examined with a view to appreciating its possible implications on the position of themselves and the organisation as a whole; had each returning agent been meticulously questioned not because he was suspect but with a view to obtaining all possible information from him; above all, had a record been kept which set out in chronological order all the known facts regarding the enterprise and the sources from which such facts were known, a record which would have been readily available for consultation in considering all the above matters; had all this been done there is very little doubt that the SOE organisation in Holland would not have met the fate that overcame it.