Agent Zigzag

by Ben MacIntyre

  Chapman returned to Nantes by plane and parachute. After taking off from Le Bourget, a Junkers bomber dropped him in a field near the town airfield. The Nantes unit had been deployed in the area as a reception committee, but Chapman made his own way to the airfield and announced himself to the sentry as “Fritz.”

  Back at La Bretonnière, von Gröning covered the dining table with hundreds of aerial photographs of potential landing spots—Britain was spread out “like a mosaic.”15 They agreed that the village of Mundford, north of Thetford in Norfolk, would be ideal, being rural and sparsely populated, but still reasonably near London. He was then shown aerial photographs of the De Havilland factory in Hatfield, pinpointing the precise location of the boiler room.

  In preparation for blending in to a country he had not seen for three years, Chapman listened to the BBC at night, and studied the English newspapers along with a London guidebook to refresh his memory of the city streets. Leo was sent to Dieppe to obtain British equipment left over from the raid, while von Gröning traveled to Berlin in person to collect English paper currency. Chapman was photographed, in a studio in Nantes, to obtain images for his fake identity cards. In the pictures he is leaning forward toward the camera, in matinee idol pose, an oddly intense look on his face. You can almost see the strain of waiting behind his eyes.

  The arrangements seemed to gather pace, the final threads weaving together. But then one evening, to Chapman’s astonishment, he was taken aside by his German spymaster and asked if he wanted to back out of the mission altogether. “Look, don’t think16 we’re forcing you to go to England, because we have other work if you don’t want to go.”

  “No,” Chapman replied, momentarily stunned. “I want to go to England.”

  Von Gröning continued: “If you feel you’re not17 confident that you can do these things, don’t go. There’s plenty of other work for you here, we can use you on other things.”

  Chapman protested that he was ready and able: “I think I can do what I was set out to do.”

  Von Gröning’s next suggestion was even more disquieting: Would Chapman like Leo to accompany him on this assignment? Chapman had to think fast. With Leo as a minder, his freedom of action would be seriously curtailed, and if the toothless little thug suspected Chapman’s motives, he would kill him, on the spot, possibly with his bare hands.

  “I don’t think that would advisable,” he said quickly. “Probably one could get through whereas two wouldn’t, especially as Leo doesn’t speak English.”

  Von Gröning dropped the subject, but it had been an unsettling exchange. Was the German warning him, or trying to protect him? He need not have worried; it was another test of his resolve. On September 24, von Gröning sent a message to Paris headquarters: “Fritz is spiritually18 and physically undoubtedly absolutely fit.”

  Like every sprawling bureaucracy, the Abwehr combined nitpicking with inefficiency: First, it obtained the wrong type of parachute; then the Luftwaffe seemed unable to locate the correct plane. A bomber was too noisy for a nighttime drop, so inquiries were made for a transport plane from Russia, or the Middle East. The repeated delays frayed everyone’s nerves. Finally, a Focke-Wulf reconnaissance plane was located, at which point somebody pointed out that several agents had been injured during parachute jumps, so perhaps Fritz should instead be taken to the coast by boat, and then rowed to shore in a rubber dinghy. But what sort of boat?

  After much argument, it was agreed to send Fritz by plane. That decision soon became bogged down in a new debate over the drop zone. If Fritz aimed for Thetford, it was argued, the plane might be shot down by night fighters operating around London. The Cambrian Mountains were suggested as an alternative by someone who had plainly never been there. Paris duly instructed Nantes: “Show Fritz photos19 of the Cambrian Mountains.” Chapman took one look at these and dug in his heels. Being dropped over the flatlands of Norfolk was alarming enough, but landing on a frozen Welsh hillside in the middle of winter was a different prospect altogether. Finally, grudgingly, he backed down, and said that if Abwehr really believed these mountains were “safer than anywhere else,”20 then so be it. The Welsh hills became the “new operational objective,”21 and Paris ordered that Fritz be “made familiar in every detail22 with conditions in the Cambrian Mountains and means of getting from there to London.” But a few days later the Paris Abwehr chief, exercising every boss’s right of irrational self-contradiction, reverted to the original idea, and Mundford was again selected as the target.

  Then, in November, just as it seemed all the wrinkles had been ironed out, the entire mission was put on hold. The war lurched into a new phase, Hitler decided to occupy the whole of France, and Chapman was suddenly drafted into the German army.

  For several months, the Nazi leadership had been observing the Vichy regime with mounting concern. Since the French collapse in 1940, the collaborationist French government in Vichy, under Henri-Philippe Pétain, had been allowed to rule the unoccupied portion of southern France as a puppet state under Nazi control. But after the Vichy admiral François Darlan signed an armistice with the Allies in Algeria, Hitler decided to violate the 1940 agreement by invading the zone under Vichy control, in an operation code-named “Case Anton.” Every available man would be drafted to aid the new military occupation, including Eddie Chapman.

  The members of the Nantes Abwehr section, now Truppe 3292 of Abwehrkommando 306, were formally attached to an SS division and ordered to head south. The spies donned military clothing. Von Gröning wore the full regalia of a cavalry officer, with double-breasted leather trench coat and forage cap; Praetorius, his SS uniform; and the others, a variety of military outfits. They looked like the cast of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera. Chapman himself was ordered to dress up in the field green uniform of a lance corporal in the German marines, with a gold-trimmed collar and a yellow swastika armband. He was faintly disappointed that his uniform had no epaulettes, but he was allowed to carry his gun.

  On November 12, 1942, Thomas and the others climbed into the Mercedes, while Chapman traveled with von Gröning in a second car, along with spare tins of petrol, food, and an arsenal of automatic weapons. As they sped south, Chapman passed lines of SS soldiers heading in the same direction and a column of troop-laden trucks that stretched for five miles. French men and women watched from the roadside. To Chapman, some of the bystanders seemed “shocked, frightened and resentful,” but most appeared “apathetic.”23 “There were no scenes24 or anything,” he noted, “they just refused to speak and looked very surly as we drove past.” At crossroads and checkpoints, the French gendarmes waved them through and saluted smartly, greeting an occupation they could do nothing to prevent. Several times, the Abwehrkommando stopped for refreshments, and by the time they reached Limoges, von Gröning’s little war party was, as always, well oiled.

  In Limoges, the troop took up billets in a small hotel and linked up with another unit under the command of one Major Reile, a Gestapo officer, who informed them they would be raiding the homes of suspected enemy agents. Armed with pistols and submachine guns, Chapman and the men followed von Gröning to an apartment building, where they knocked down the door of a flat belonging to one Capitaine le Saffre. The suspect had fled, leaving papers strewn everywhere. While the men ransacked the flat, Chapman picked up a handful of papers and stuffed them in his pocket.

  At the next house, the troop broke in to find two terrified old ladies cowering under a bed. Von Gröning was dismayed, and even more embarrassed when the women stammered that the man they were looking for had been dead for two years. The German aristocrat had no taste for Gestapo work. By the end of the evening, his troop had raided a dozen houses, most of them empty or occupied by the wrong person, and gathered a grand total of five French suspects, including a seventeen-year-old boy. The terrified Frenchmen, protesting their innocence, were locked in a hotel bedroom without their trousers. Von Gröning later released them all. “Why should I send them25 to a concentration camp?” he said.
“They may be guilty, but they may be innocent.” Back at the hotel, Chapman inspected the papers he had gathered from the flat, which appeared to be notes from a diary: “Rendez-vous with so-and-so26 at such and such an hour…” He carefully destroyed them.

  Truppe 3292’s contribution to the occupation had been insignificant: They had netted some “very small fry”27 and let them go, looted some booze, and frightened two old women. This still merited a slap-up dinner in celebration. It was Chapman’s twenty-eighth birthday. On the way back to Nantes, he wondered if his inclusion in the invasion had merely been another part of his training: “I think it was to see28 what reaction I would have to the raid.” His reaction was a peculiar one: He had thoroughly enjoyed himself. It was perhaps a sign of his moral confusion, and the effect of living among Nazis for so long, that he would later recall this episode—the midnight raids, the smashing down of doors, the terrified people dragged from their beds, the wearing of his first swastika—as “a lovely little trip.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Drop

  THE INVASION OF Vichy was Chapman’s final test. Having dithered for so long, the Abwehr now swung into action with bewildering speed: Von Gröning announced that Chapman would be leaving for Britain within days. He reported that Fritz seemed “visibly relieved”1 by the news. Paris had sent a questionnaire, a detailed list of the intelligence he might usefully supply from Britain, and together they rehearsed the details of his imminent mission.

  He would be dropped over Mundford at around two in the morning. Simultaneously, a bombing raid would be carried out “some place further inland”2 to draw off any night fighters. On landing, he should dig a hole in an inconspicuous spot and bury his parachute, overalls, helmet, jumping boots, leggings, and entrenching tool. Every item would be British made. Wearing his civilian clothes (they discussed obtaining a British army uniform, but rejected the idea), he should hide out somewhere until dawn and then, using a compass and map, make his way the thirty or so miles to Norwich and take a train to London. Once there, he should make contact with his old accomplice, the notorious Jimmy Hunt, and send his first transmission three days after landing, between 9:45 and 10:15 a.m. Paris, Nantes, and Bordeaux would all be listening for his signal. Von Gröning here remarked that “British red tape”3 would probably mean that if he were captured, it would take some time before British intelligence got around to using him for deception purposes. If there was a long delay, said von Gröning, he would suspect the worst.

  Most important, his first message, and all subsequent messages, should be preceded by five Fs. This was his “control sign,” the agreed signal that he was operating of his own free will. If the message did not start FFFFF, von Gröning would realize that he had been caught and was transmitting under duress. Naturally, if someone was pretending to be Chapman, he would not know the agreed control sign, and von Gröning would again conclude that Chapman had been captured. Likewise, if a message was preceded by PPPPP, that would be an emergency warning that he was being watched by the security services or tailed by the police.

  Thereafter, Chapman would be expected to transmit every morning between 9:45 and 10:15, on an all-mains transmitter of British manufacture taken from a captured British agent, which could be operated inside a room without an external aerial. He should transmit at a set frequency, and take five radio crystals in case of difficulties. All messages should be in English, using the same cipher system but a new code word: CONSTANTINOPLE.*1 If for any reason he could not use his transmitter, he was to insert the following advertisement in the personal column of the Times: “Young couple require4 small country cottage near Elstree or Watford with modern conveniences.” He would then send messages, using the secret ink, to a safe house in neutral Portugal, addressed to:

  Francisco Lopez Da Fonseca

  Rua São Mamede 50-51

  Lisbon

  These would be picked up by a German agent in Lisbon, and forwarded to von Gröning.

  The sabotage of the De Havilland aircraft factory (code-named “Walter,” a reference to Praetorius/Thomas) was Chapman’s primary mission, but not his sole objective. He was also to gather and send information on U.S. troop movements, particularly convoys, and note destination labels attached to railway freight cars, divisional signs, evidence of shipbuilding, and any other military intelligence he could glean. He should also send weather reports to aid bombing raids, specifically describing cloud height, temperature, wind direction and strength, and visibility. To some extent, Chapman could use his own initiative. If the De Havilland premises proved impregnable, he might attack the aircraft propeller factory at Weybridge, in Surrey, or sugar and rubber refineries, or merely do “nuisance work”5 by leaving bombs in attaché cases in tube-station luggage lockers. Von Gröning was reassuring: “Take your time.6 Think of things very quietly. It doesn’t matter if you don’t succeed. Don’t run any unnecessary risks. If you can come back we have something else for you to acquit, some other valuable task.” He could, if he wished, recruit more members of the Jelly Gang as accomplices.

  In order to pay his criminal contacts, obtain the necessary explosives, and live generally, Chapman would be given £1,000 in used notes (worth approximately $60,000 today). That should be “enough to be going on with,” said von Gröning, adding that more cash, if needed, could be provided through agents already in Britain. Von Gröning refused to identify these individuals, saying that contact would be arranged by radio. “Of course our agents7 are there. We have them, we have the connections, but we have to be very, very careful not to take any risks.” Chapman wondered if Wojch had already been sent ahead to wait for him, help him, or, quite possibly, to spy on him.

  Von Gröning continued his briefing. The day before Chapman was ready to carry out the sabotage, he should send a message stating “Walter is ready to go”8 and the time of the planned explosion. Reconnaissance planes would then monitor the effectiveness of the attack.

  If Chapman was unlucky enough to fall into the hands of the British secret services, said von Gröning, he should “give as little information9 as possible, offer his services, and ask to be sent back to France.” Then he should immediately contact the Abwehr, which would employ him as a triple agent, after staging “a number of small acts10 of sabotage” to convince the British of his bona fides.

  Chapman’s mission would last three months, after which he was to make his way back to France, in any one of three ways: A U-boat could be sent to pick him up off the English or Scottish coast, at a location to be arranged by wireless. Alternatively, he could travel to neutral Ireland, where there were “various people who11 would assist him to return.” The third—and, von Gröning stressed, the best—escape route would be to go to neutral Portugal. Once in Lisbon, he could make his way to the safe house on Rua São Mamede, introduce himself as Fritz to Senhor Fonseca, and give the password: “Joli Albert.”12 Chapman’s safe passage would then be arranged through the German consulate. Once back in France, he would receive his money, and a hero’s welcome.

  Von Gröning painted a tantalizing picture of the financial and other rewards Chapman could expect from a grateful Third Reich. After making a report in Berlin, he would be sent on an extended “holiday,”13 with visits to all the major cities in Germany. He might be asked to carry out an important mission in the United States, but he could be posted wherever he wished, and perhaps even receive his own Abwehr command. Chapman had once remarked that he would like to attend one of the great Berlin rallies where Hitler addressed the rapt crowds. Von Gröning promised that this could be arranged. Indeed, he would do more: He would get Chapman a good seat “in the first or second row,”14 even if it meant dressing him in the uniform of a high official. Von Gröning had never shown much enthusiasm for Hitler himself, but seemed only too happy to smuggle Chapman into a Nazi rally and place his spy as close as possible to the Führer.

  Chapman judged this a good moment to raise, once again, the subject of Faramus in Romainville. Von Gröning was sooth
ing. “Don’t you worry,”15 he said, “we’re going to send Faramus a parcel. I haven’t had news from him myself but I’m going to look up the question and see what’s happening about him—he’ll be well looked after.”

  If Chapman was reassured, he should not have been, for poor Faramus had by now been swallowed up by the Holocaust. No longer a hostage to Chapman’s good behavior, he was now a mote at the mercy of a murderous bureaucracy. Chapman believed that he still held his friend’s life in his hands; in fact, even if he had failed or defected, no one would have remembered to kill Tony Faramus. He had been selected for death already. At the moment Chapman was packing his bags in Nantes, Faramus was being transported by cattle car to the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald.

  Faramus had been summoned from his cell in Romainville without explanation. He was taken to a transit camp at Compiègne, and then loaded onto a cattle train with 120 other prisoners, in a truck intended for eight animals. Death came slowly, by suffocation, dysentery, thirst. After a few days, “it was hard to tell16 the living from the dead, so small had become the margin between them.” The living stood shoulder to shoulder with the dead, for there was no room to fall. Five days after leaving Compiègne, the death train drew up at Buchenwald, near Weimar. Of the 120 people packed into the truck, 65 were still alive, and those barely. Among the survivors was little Tony Faramus, who pondered, as he was led away to slavery: “It was hard to believe17 that such carnage was the work of man.”

  On December 12, 1942, von Gröning threw a farewell party at La Bretonnière. A goose was killed and roasted, and toast after toast was drunk to the success of Chapman, Fritz, Little Fritz. Everyone sang “Lili Marlene.” Von Gröning, who had drunk to excess even by his own extreme standards, was in an ebullient mood: “If you do this18 for us, you will have nothing more to worry about. Your whole future will be made when you come back. Don’t you worry, it will be quite alright. I’ll have another bottle of champagne with you.”