by Nigel West
BRITISH EMBASSY IN MADRID
Admiral Canaris has a number of very special and trusted agents who work direct to him. Amongst them is Prince Maximillan von Hohenlohe, who was Lord Runciman’s host during the Czechoslovakian negotiations prior to Munich. This man is used for matters necessitating penetration into high diplomatic or social circles abroad. In February, 1941, Hohenlohe, on the instructions of Canaris himself, took steps to have the Prince’s villa at Biarritz derequisitioned in order that the Prince might take up his residence there. The Prince later confided to HARLEQUIN that he had gone to Madrid to see Sir Samuel Hoare, who had asked him if he would be prepared to act as intermediary between the British and German Governments for certain proposals which might be forwarded. Whether Prince von Hohenlohe went to Madrid by invitation or at Canaris’s instigation HARLEQUIN does not know, but he is certain that Canaris knew in advance of the proposed meeting. Hohenlohe agreed to Sir Samuel Hoare’s request and Sir Samuel saw him off at the station and told him ‘You will be hearing from me sometime in April, 1941, and I want to have your promise that, no matter where you are, as soon as you receive a telegram from me you will come to Madrid at once.’
To this proposition he assented but heard nothing more from Sir Samuel Hoare, and the Germans thought that this was because the British Government had advance knowledge of the impending attack upon Russia.
PASSING OF AGENTS OVER FRANCO–SPANISH FRONTIER
HARLEQUIN arranged with the Spanish Consul at Bayonne for facilities for helping agents across the frontier. These facilities were on a basis of reciprocation, i.e. HARLEQUIN agreed to persons being passed into occupied France at the request of the Consul in exchange for facilities granted by the latter for the entry of German agents into Spain. In addition, the Spanish frontier Control had orders from above to pass well-known German personalities – HARLEQUIN himself would come into this category – without question and also anyone accompanying them and their servants. Thus the Germans were able to pass in the guise of a chauffeur or servant any agent to whom they did not wish attention to be directed.
BEDAUX
HARLEQUIN had strong reason for suspecting that this notorious American citizen had links with the Abwehr, although he was definitely not working as an agent of HARLEQUIN himself. Well knowing HARLEQUIN to be an Abwehr officer, Bedaux had deliberately supplied him with information picked up in the household of Mr Murphy, the American Consul General. Further, when he had failed to enlist the support of the French General Juin in connection with a commercial enterprise in which he was interested. Bedaux got the German Armistice Commission to communicate with Wiesbaden in order that pressure should be put upon Vichy to compel Juin to give him the assistance which he required. In November of 1942 Bedaux was receiving preferential treatment in North Africa from both the Vichy authorities and the Germans. In a conversation with HARLEQUIN, Bedaux stated that he knew Admiral Canaris, and displayed an acquaintanceship with other German notabilities including the Leiter of the Paris Abwehrstelle.
He claimed to HARLEQUIN that he had been granted German nationality and the rank of Sonderfuehrer (B), the equivalent of Major, in the German Wehrmacht. HARLEQUIN does not reject the possibility that Bedaux may be one of Admiral Canaris’s special agents.
* * *
The French businessman Charles Bedaux was controversial before the war because of his apparent sympathy for the Nazi cause, and of course for his friendship with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, to whom he had lent his house, the Château de Candé, for their wedding in June 1937. He had also arranged their honeymoon in Germany and their meeting with Adolf Hitler. Although he was arrested in Algeria by the US Army in January 1943, little was known about the extent of his collaboration until the Abwehr prisoner Richard Wurmann, code-named HARLEQUIN, supplied a detailed, first-hand account, which resulted in an MI5 report prepared in May 1944 in anticipation of the interrogation of Hans Scharf,2 who had actually participated in what had become known as the Bedaux mission:
The history of Charles Bedaux from the time of the collapse of France is one of out and out collaboration. As early as 1937 he is known to have stated that he believed in the social superiority of the Nazi system over that of the Democracies. His attitude in 1940, when he supported the reorganisation of France on Axis lines, is therefore hardly surprising. He associated with all the leading members of the Vichy Government, and is also alleged to have been in contact with Otto Abetz, the German ambassador in Paris. He was afforded full facilities for travel between the occupied and free zones of France and priority passages in aircraft. He was further in charge of the organisation building the Trans-Saharan railway, and visited North Africa every two or three months.
In the autumn of 1941 it is known from ISOS that Bedaux visited high Abwehr officials in Berlin. This visit was carried out at the request of the German embassy in Paris, and apparently with the full knowledge and backing of Oberst Rudolf, Leiter Ast Paris. The precise purpose of this journey is not clear from the ISOS traces, but according to Bedaux’s own statement it was to discuss the preservation of oil refineries in the Persian Gulf. A certain Dr Bensmann of Nest Bremen also travelled to Berlin to partake in these conferences, and Bedaux was introduced at the same time to a Professor Endrou of Berlin.
A short while after these meetings took place, ISOS shows that Bensmann journeyed to Paris to discuss the ‘Caudron affair’. This is presumably a reference to the manager of the French Bedaux Co. who has also been mentioned by Scharf.3
Between this time and September 1942 Bedaux busied himself with a scheme to build a pipe line from the Niger river, in Central Africa, to Colomb Bechar in northern Africa, This pipeline was to be used to bring water through the desert, thus assisting in the construction of the Trans-Saharan pipeline, and it was also to carry peanut oil from the Mossi country for shipment to Marseilles where it would be refined into edible products.
Bedaux stated that he sold the idea of the pipe line to the French authorities on the theory that it would unite French Colonial Africa and avoid dissidence on the part of the African peoples. This was not without considerable effort and took some time to ratify. The acquiring of German approval was, however, considerably more difficult, though it was eventually secured. To obtain the necessary support for his mission Bedaux enlisted the help of many highly placed French and German officials, amongst them Pierre Laval and the Militarbefehlshaber Stulpnagel. In spite of this considerable influence in governing circles, Bedaux was arrested on 24 September 1942 together with all other male American citizens between the ages of 16 and 65, and interned at Compiègne. He secured an early release, however, and succeeded in completing his plans and setting out for Algiers on 27 October 1942.
At this stage there is a further relevant trace in MSS and a detailed account of his activities has been given by HARLEQUIN, who was at that time attached as an Abwehr officer to the Verbindungkommando, a detachment of the German armistice commission in North Africa.
ISOS shows that on 7 November 1942 Oberst Rudolf was informed of the various difficulties Bedaux was encountering with the French military authorities, who were proposing to supply him with less powerful wireless sets than those which it had been agreed he should have. Scharf is referred to in this message by his @ d’Huillier, and it is evident that he was to have been one of the W/T operators attached to the mission.
In support of this, HARLEQUIN states that at the beginning of November 1942 Scharf presented himself at the headquarters of the Verbidungskommando with a certificate from the Vichy Government bearing the stamp of the German military commander in Paris, which informed all French authorities in North Africa that they were to give all possible help and protection to Bedaux in his undertaking. Bedaux explained that this undertaking consisted of investigating and developing the possibilities of extracting vegetable oils from plants growing in those parts of French Africa which still belonged to the Vichy Government, and also the transport of these oils to the coast of French North Africa w
ith, as far as possible, the aid of the Trans-Saharan railway, which was still under construction, The expedition consisted of a dozen or half a dozen people, some of whom had already arrived in Algeria and the rest (presumably including Scharf), were still expected.
These persons were to be left behind at different points along the route taken by the expedition, from where they would separately take up their work of investigation. They were to have wireless communication with each other and with a coastal station, eventually Algiers. (It is here, presumably, that Scharf was to figure and the inference appears to be that the Abwehr regarded Bedaux’s undertaking as affording ample opportunity for the establishment of a reporting service, in an area which was of particular interest at the time and which in ordinary circumstances it would be difficult to penetrate).
Bedaux apparently told HARLEQUIN that the Abwehr was interested in his organisation, and mentioned that he knew Admiral Canaris and Oberst Rudolf, and claimed for himself the membership of the German Wehrmacht as a Sonderführer.
HARLEQUIN declared that he was sceptical of all this and states that he was far from convinced that Bedaux was seriously considering placing his expedition in the service of the Abwehr. He is inclined to believe that if Bedaux did do so, it was only either to get himself out of internment, or to gain the support of the German military commander in bringing pressure to bear on the French authorities to make them assist him in the matter of lorries and motor fuel for the expedition. HARLEQUIN’s arguments are based on the following facts:
Bedaux arrived in Algeria without wireless sets. These would have been essential for the use of the expedition by the Abwehr. Furthermore if the objective, from an Abwehr point of view, was the obtaining of information from the frontier areas occupied by de Gaulle or the Allies, any sets which were to be used would have had to be of considerable strength. These, however, would have aroused the suspicions of the Deuxieme Bureau officials working at entry and customs control points, who were on good terms with the de Gaullists. Bedaux appeared to have no idea how to obtain sets which would have been suitable for Abwehr work or how to get them through the customs. The Oberkommando was openly mistrustful and would only supply him with French military sets of short range and with incompetent operators. HARLEQUIN therefore, on his own initiative, tried to have suitable sets despatched by courier plane and also sent a similar suggestion by wireless to Ast Paris. He received no reply to any of these requests however and therefore remained forever in doubt as to the authenticity of Bedaux.
Bedaux with his exceptional intelligence and experience should have foreseen these difficulties and, considering the seriousness of his project, should have endeavoured to dispose of them before landing. This could easily have been done with the help of the Abwehrstellen in Algiers, Oran or Casablanca. These Stellen could have supplied suitable W/T sets, with the necessary camouflage, and also could have acted as relay stations for the further transmission of messages.
HARLEQUN’s final impression was, therefore, that Bedaux succeeded in interesting the Abwehr in his scheme, whilst cleverly avoiding any close ties, and that he never proposed placing the expedition in the service of the Abwehr or acting himself as a German agent. Furthermore, none of the other members of the mission in Algiers knew anything about his relations with the Abwehr, though more staff, amongst them Abwehr agents, were supposed to be arriving later.
This memorandum, drafted by MI5’s Jean Leslie, was intended as a summary for Scharf’s interrogator so the gaps in the chronology could be filled in. However, although Scharf proved entirely cooperative, Bedaux took a drug overdose while in the FBI’s custody in Miami and died in February 1944.
28
GARBO
MI5 prepared a report for the Prime Minister on the GARBO double-agent case, arguably the most important and successful of its kind ever, and the original draft was cut by some unknown hand, perhaps Anthony Blunt, so a slightly abbreviated version could be presented in late 1944. The two excisions are marked [ ].
[If confidence is ‘a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom’, its development in the suspicious minds of the German Secret Service is even slower and more hazardous. Usually in the early days of double-agents we were compelled to tend and nurture this delicate plant: we allay the suspicions of the Germans with apparently candid and forthright messages; we assuage their appetite with true and easily verifiable information; only gradually and at length do we sometimes create in them a robust faith in their agent. The case of GARBO among all double-agent cases, is unique in that he himself, rejected by our officials abroad and playing a lone hand, imposed himself upon the Germans and himself successfully performed the difficult operation of creating and establishing his own trusty and trusted espionage agency. He came therefore to us a fully-fledged double-agent, with all his growing pains over – we had only to operate and develop the system which he had already built up.]
GARBO is a Catalan industrialist, equally hostile to Communism and Fascism. During the civil war he was compelled to hide, remaining inured in one house for a period of two years. When the World War started it occurred to his inventive mind that he might obtain employment as a British agent in either Germany or Italy. His offer was rejected in January 1941 and he therefore conceived the bolder project of offering himself to the Germans with a view to double-crossing them. Once recruited by them, his value to the British, so he argued, would be sensibly increased. The event was ultimately to justify his expectations. He was well received, by the Germans in the Embassy in Madrid, and after characteristically lengthy and involved negotiations, he persuaded them that he could contrive to be sent by the Spaniards on a mission to England. To this end he forged a Spanish diplomatic document and departed from Madrid in July, 1941, with a questionnaire, secret ink, money, cover addresses and the German blessing, notionally en route for England.
But for nine months he did not go to England at all. Instead he remained in Lisbon, whence he edited long and colourful letters to his German friends, supposedly written in England, conveyed by courier to Portugal for posting and containing his espionage reports on the British Isles. He worked with indifferent tools; a Blue Guide, a map of England, an out-of-date railway time-table formed his stock-in-trade, supplemented by the meagre gleanings of Portuguese bookstalls. But fiction, when governed as in this case by a vivid and correct imagination, is more easily credible than truth, and it was not long before the Germans came to trust his reports and to appreciate them highly. Moreover, GARBO played his cards with masterly skill, when his railway time-table told him that some line was important, owing to the amount of traffic passing along it, he would defend that line with newly erected wire and pill-boxes, cunningly camouflaged; when the Germans asked him to find out if armoured units had been observed moving south in Herts and Beds, he did not forget a little later to report just such units passing southward through Guildford. To assist him he created three sub-agents, who reported to him from the West Country, from Glasgow and from Liverpool. Since he always reported what the Germans expected to hear, and since much of his information was startlingly near to the truth, he was more and more readily believed.
None the less, GARBO’s existence was precarious in the extreme. He had so little knowledge of English ways and English habits that he remained permanently poised on the edge of a precipice, over which some blunder or other must, as it seemed, soon impel him. He could, for example, not convert pence into shillings or shillings into pounds, and so the early expense accounts of his sub-agents present a problem to students of the curious; again, he knew almost no English names, and so his post-box in Lisbon carried the all-British legend ‘Mr. Smith-Jones’. But such trifling difficulties as these did not unduly alarm him. Once his correspondence was in full swing he made further attempts to offer his services to the British authorities only to experience again the cold rebuffs of officialdom. But his wife did succeed, in December 1941 in getting into touch with an American Assistant Attaché, and in February 1942 some account of
GARBO’s activities percolated to this country.1 At about the same time secret sources revealed that the Germans were making elaborate preparations to intercept a large convoy which was supposed to have left Liverpool for Malta. We later established the fact that GARBO was the sole inventor and begetter of this convoy and thus responsible for a vast expenditure of useless labour on the part of the enemy.
It became clear to us at this stage that GARBO was more fitted to be a worthy collaborator than an unconscious competitor. In April 1942, therefore, he was smuggled across to England and continued from this country the work which he had notionally already performed from here since July of the preceding year. [His wife followed him in June, and indeed it was necessary that she should, for she was about to become the mother of a second child. Had she met any of her German patrons almost a year after her husband was supposed to have left for England, they would hardly have retained their confidence in both GARBO and his wife.]
Since GARBO’s arrival in England the case has developed enormously and he now has an active and well-distributed team of imaginary assistants, some of whom write direct to the Germans, though all receive the answers, orders and questionnaires through the head of the organisation. Among the three original sub-agents there has been one casualty. When Operation TORCH was pending it seemed that Agent No 2, who lived in Liverpool and from whom GARBO had received notice of his Malta convoy, was in a position to see more than was desirable. Accordingly he became afflicted with a lingering malady and ceased to send in his reports.2 Much perturbed, GARBO hurried north and from there informed the Germans that the poor man had died. An obituary notice inserted by us in the Liverpool Daily Post was duly conveyed to the Germans, who expressed their profound sympathy with the widow. The other two sub-agents of this original creation remain, and to these four more have been added – a Gibraltarian waiter; a brother of Agent No. 3 who is now to go to Canada; an FSP who was sent to North Africa and has written from there some ten letters to GARBO for transmission to the enemy; and a seaman whose main use has been to arrange notionally for such documents and espionage material to be conveyed to Lisbon as have in fact travelled in the SIS bag.
