by Len Deighton
‘Traitorously holding correspondence with the enemy (Germany) … having traitorously given intelligence to the enemy … traitorously given information to the enemy.’ The difference between those was too subtle for me. I read on, ‘having been made a prisoner of war he voluntarily aided the enemy by joining and working for an organization controlled by the enemy and known as the British Free Corps … failing to report his arrest to the C.O. of the establishment where he was born for pay as directed by Naval Pay Regulations Article 1085.’
The white spaces in the dossier had diagonal blue ink-lines across them to prevent insertions. As I read on, the scene came alive. The first winter after the war, the assembly hall with its kitchen tables covered with naval blankets, the senior officers in their shiny buttons, the accused in a newly issued uniform; Bernard Thomas Peterson, a volunteer reserve officer captured by the Germans during ‘human torpedo’ attacks on the Norwegian coast in 1943. The prosecution called as first witness Lt James who, as a member of the S.I.B. (Special Investigation Branch) attached to 30 Corps, arrested Peterson in Hanover on 8 May (V.E. Day). Lt James said that an order issued by the Montgomery H.Q. on 6 May made the use of German transport illegal. Acting on information received by phone, Lt James and two S.I.B. sergeants went to an address in suburban Hanover and there found Peterson. On his person Peterson had a Reisepass and a Wehrpass in the name of Herbert Pütz, and 200 R.M. These were produced in the court. In suitcases in the room where Peterson was found were another 19,568 R.M., a sable coat, and a 9-mm. MP18 Bergmann automatic machine-gun with ammunition. Lt James said that these could be made available to the court. The Judge-advocate, after consulting with the President of the Court, said that they would not be required but should be held available.
After the arresting officer discovered a blood-group number tattooed under his arm, Peterson was put under close arrest as a suspected member of an illegal organization: the S.S.
The S.I.B. went on, ‘In the garage adjoining was found a Mercedes staff car with WM (Wehrmacht-Marine) registration. There were 108 litres of petrol in the garage and car. The car (which was the object of the visit) was handed over to the German Command Organization under Field-Marshal Busch in Schleswig-Holstein.’ It also could be made available to the court. Lt James, in answer to a question, said that Peterson’s only comment on being placed under close arrest as a member of the S.S. was that ‘the battle started in Seville in 1936 and it’s not yet over’, or words to that effect. Lt James said that in spite of Peterson’s excellent English he did not suspect him of being anything other than a member of the German Armed Forces. He had encountered many German soldiers who had lived and worked in England and as a consequence spoke good English.
I turned the discoloured pages of the dossier. Peterson after capture by the Germans had been approached by two members of the ‘Legion of St George’ (later renamed the ‘Britische Freikorps’). Its members were mostly English or Irishmen who had been in the British Union of Fascists before the war. Many of them had what are now described as personality disorders, and all were of the opinion that England would soon see sense and join a German-occupied Europe on a ‘crusade’ against Russia. The verbatim record said:
PROSECUTOR: You never uttered a treasonable word?
PETERSON: On the contrary, England was much loved. The name of Nelson was invoked on every side, as were the names of all Britain’s heroes.
PROS.: You felt that Britain was being deliberately misled by its leaders.
PETERSON: I did sir.
PROS.: Even though these leaders were elected by public free ballot?
PETERSON: Yes.
PROS.: A ballot which your German masters never thought it expedient to institute in Germany or any of the small nations it conquered.
PETERSON: France wasn’t a small nation.
PROS.: No further questions.
The defence requested permission to offer as evidence the details of Peterson’s task in the Norwegian operation but this was denied. He admitted joining the Britische Freikorps and going to their training unit at Hildesheim. The transcription said:
PROS.: And what were you wearing at this time?
PETERSON: The uniform of the B.F.K.
PROS.: I put it to you that you were wearing the uniform of the Nazi S.S., a uniform that the members of this court have cause to remember with disgust and loathing.
PETERSON: It was …
PROS.: A uniform which had the notorious Death’s Head symbol as its cap-badge, did it not?
PETERSON: Yes, but we wore a Union Jack armband.
PROS.: In other words, you wanted to serve two masters at once, you wanted the best of both worlds. You wanted to be on the winning side – a Hauptsturmführer SS and a Lieutenant R.N.V.R.
PETERSON: No, certainly not.
PROS.: The court will no doubt form their own opinion. I shall be returning to that point later.
Much of the trial dealt with the technical knowledge that Peterson put at the disposal of the German Navy, who came to the frogman and human torpedo scene very late in the war.
The German Navy had first seen a ‘frogman style’ demonstration at the Olympic swimming pool, Berlin, in the spring of 1943. Peterson was screened after his capture and went to a block of flats that the German Navy had in Berlin. There he met Loveless, John Amery, and Joyce (Haw-Haw), ‘but they considered themselves Germans’, while ‘we were loyal Englishmen anxious to convert our fellow-countrymen into allies of Germany’. Peterson was persuaded by Loveless to give his services to the Germans as a frogman-instructor. He said O.K. soon enough to be at Heiligenhafen, at the eastern end of Kiel Bay in the Baltic, when the first of K force (Kleinkampfmittel-Verband: Small Battle-Weapon Force) was formed in January 1944. Peterson translated the British Commando Regulations and other textbooks for them and taught them how to pronounce English swear-words with impeccable accuracy to throw sentries off their guard. By this time Peterson had a German naval officer’s uniform and, since K force had discarded rank badges to foster good relations, he was accepted by newcomers as a German naval officer.
PROS.: I put it to you, that you at this time had become a German naval officer.
PETERSON: No.
PROS.: You were wearing a German naval officer’s uniform. Yesterday you said that the German Navy ‘relied on you’. I am quoting: ‘relied on you in their training of K force’. Did you say that, or didn’t you?
PETERSON: Yes, but …
PROS.: You said it. Very well. As an officer of the Royal Navy you were drawing pay. That is to say that you knew that pay was being credited to you.
PETERSON: Yes.
PROS.: Furthermore, this pay was not just the pay of a Lieutenant R.N.V.R. of the Executive Branch, but included an extra allowance payable to you in respect of the hazard of undersea warfare and the technical nature of those duties.
PETERSON: (No answer.)
PROS.: Is that not so?
PETERSON: I suppose so.
PROS.: The same technical knowledge that your new German masters were so anxious to learn. Knowledge that they ‘relied on you’ to impart.
PETERSON: Yes.
PROS.: What is the name given to citizens who grant reliable aid with the declared aim of overthrowing their own lawful government?
PETERSON: (Inaudible.)
PROS.: Speak up, Herr Hauptsturmführer Pütz, or should I say Lieutenant Peterson?
PETERSON: Traitor, I suppose you mean.
PROS.: That’s right, Sub-Lieutenant Bernard Thomas Peterson, R.N.V.R., it’s called Constructive Treason.
The result was penal servitude and cashiering. I flipped through the accompanying documents; a certified true copy of the sentence signed by the President of the Court; and the confirming officer’s letter after agreeing the sentence.
I closed the file.
THE IPCRESS FILE
Len Deighton
‘A stone cold, cold war classic’
Guardian
When a
number of scientists mysteriously disappear in Berlin, what seems to be a straightforward case rapidly becomes a journey to the heart of a dark and deadly conspiracy. It is a conspiracy that takes Len Deighton’s working-class hero on a journey that will test him to the limits of his ingenuity and resolve, and call on him to prove himself as a spy at the very top of his game.
The Ipcress File was not only Len Deighton’s first novel, it was his first bestseller and the book that broke the mould of thriller writing.
‘Deighton has written a spy thriller which out-bonds Bond’
Daily Express
‘Deighton in top form … the best kind of action entertainment’
Publishers Weekly
‘Deliciously sharp and flawlessly accurate dialogue, breathtakingly clever plotting, confident character drawing … a splendidly strongly told story’
The Times
978 0 586 02619 9
FUNERAL IN BERLIN
Len Deighton
‘A ferociously cool fable’
New York Times
In Berlin, where neither side of the wall is safe, Colonel Stok of Red Army Security is prepared to sell an important Russian scientist to the West – for a price.
British intelligence are willing to pay, providing their own top secret agent is in Berlin to act as go-between. But it soon becomes apparent that behind the facade of an elaborate mock funeral lies a game of deadly manoeuvres and ruthless tactics. A game in which the blood-stained legacy of Nazi Germany is enmeshed in the intricate moves of cold war espionage …
‘Funeral in Berlin is splendid’
Daily Telegraph
‘A most impressive book, a chronicle of one sad aspect of our times, in which the tension, more like a chronic ache than a sharp stab of pain, never lets go’
Evening Standard
‘Deighton really is something special’
Julian Symons, Sunday Times
978 0 586 04580 0
BILLION-DOLLAR BRAIN
Len Deighton
The classic thriller of lethal computer-age intrigue and a maniac’s private cold war
General Midwinter loves his country, and hates communism. In a bid to destabilise the Soviet power block he is running his own intelligence agency, whose ‘brain’ is the world’s biggest supercomputer.
With his past coming back to haunt him, the un-named agent of The Ipcress File is sent to Finland to penetrate Midwinter’s spy cell. But then a deadly virus is stolen, and our hero must stop it falling into the hands of both the Russians and the billionaire madman.
‘So far in front of other writers in the field that they are not even in sight’
Sunday Times
‘Such credibility, such accurate line-by-line beaming of a sheer sense of the actual … a glittering, wintry entertainment’
Guardian
‘Worthy of Raymond Chandler … intelligent, inventive, constantly entertaining’
Sunday Telegraph
978 0 586 04428 5
BOMBER
Len Deighton
Bomber is a novel war. There are no victors, no vanquished. There are simply those who remain alive, and those who die.
Bomber follows the progress of an Allied air raid through a period of twenty-four hours in the summer of 1943. It portrays all the participants in a terrifying drama, both in the air and on the ground, in Britain and in Germany.
In its documentary style, it is unique. In its emotional power it is overwhelming.
Len Deighton has been equally acclaimed as a novelist and as an historian. In Bomber he has combined both talents to produce a masterpiece.
‘A massively different novel … the effect is – quite literally – devastating’
Sunday Times
‘A massive and superbly mobilised tragedy of the machines which men create to destroy themselves … masterly and by far Mr Deighton’s best’
Douglas Hurd, The Spectator
‘A magnificent story … the characters lean out of the pages’
Daily Mirror
978 0 586 04544 2
SS-GB
Len Deighton
The war is over. And we have lost.
In February 1941 British Command surrendered to the Nazis. Churchill has been executed, the King is in the Tower and the SS are in Whitehall. For nine months Britain has been occupied – a blitzed, depressed and dingy country. However, it’s ‘business as usual’ at Scotland Yard run by the SS when Detective Inspector Archer is assigned to a routine murder case. Life must go on.
But when SS Standartenfuhrer Huth arrives from Berlin with orders from the great Himmler himself to supervise the investigation, the resourceful Archer finds himself caught up in a high level, all action, espionage battle.
This is a spy story quite different from any other. Only Deighton, with his flair for historical research and his narrative genius, could have written it.
‘A brilliant picture of Britain under German rule’
Sunday Telegraph
‘One of Deighton’s best. Apart from his virtues as a storyteller, his passion for researching his backgrounds gives his work a remarkable factual authority. With Bomber and Fighter he established himself as an expert on a period … the authority of these books seem absolute.’
Observer
‘Len Deighton is the Flaubert of the contemporary thriller writers … there can be little doubt that this is much the way things would have turned out if the Germans had won the war.’
Michael Howard, Times Literary Supplement
978 0 586 05002 6
XPD
Len Deighton
A private aircraft takes off from a small town in central France, while Adolf Hitler, the would-be conqueror of Europe, prepares for a clandestine meeting near the Belgian border.
For more than forty years the events of this day have been Britain’s most closely guarded secret. Anyone who learns of them must die – with their file stamped:
XPD – expedient demise
‘A stunning spy story … Deighton remains the incomparable entertainer’
Guardian
‘Exciting and well made’
Daily Telegraph
‘Deighton in top form … the best kind of action entertainment’
Publishers Weekly
‘Deliciously sharp and flawlessly accurate dialogue, breathtakingly clever plotting, confident character drawing … a splendidly strongly told story’
The Times
978 0 586 05447 5
GOODBYE MICKEY MOUSE
Len Deighton
Goodbye Mickey Mouse is Deighton’s fourteenth novel and a vivid evocation of wartime England, the story of a group of American fighter pilots flying escort missions over Germany in the winter of 1943–4.
At the centre of the novel are two young men: the deeply reserved Captain Jamie Farebrother, estranged son of a deskbound colonel, and the cocky Lieutenant Mickey Morse, well on his way to becoming America’s Number One Flying Ace. Alike only in their courage, they forge a bond of friendship in battle with far-reaching consequences for themselves, and for the future of those they love.
‘It is a novel of memory, satisfying on every imaginable level, but truly astonishing in its recreation of a time and place through minute detail. Deighton has written well of the air before, non-fictionally, and he informs us in an afterword that it took six years of research to do this novel. It shows. The only way you could know more about flying a P-51 Mustang, after reading this book, is to have flown one’
Washington Post
‘He writes, as usual, with authority and a superb sense of period’
Daily Telegraph
‘The sheer charge of the writing swept me into another world all the while I was reading, and now that piece of the past is a piece in my mind.’
HRF Keating, The Times
978 0 586 05448 2
ACTION COOK BOOK
Len Deighton
‘Len was a great cook, a smashing coo
k. I learned a lot about food from playing Harry Palmer’
Michael Caine
Before becoming famous as the thriller writer of his generation, Len Deighton trained as a pastry chef. If you look carefully at Harry Palmer’s kitchen in the classic film The Ipcress File you will notice a newspaper pinned on the wall. This is one of Deighton’s classic cookstrips, the series that ran for two years when he was the Observer food writer.
The Action Cook Book was once an instructional book for the bachelor male – a guide to sophisticated cooking for the would-be Harry Palmer, collecting together 50 of his best one-page illustrated recipes and numerous demystifying tips. It now has a great following as a fabulous piece of nostalgia as well as retaining real credibility as a genuinely useful cook book.
‘[Len Deighton’s cookbooks] have attracted a cult following for their brilliant design as much as for their comprehensive approach to cooking …’
Guardian
‘They showed the idiot novice male how to dice an onion without it falling apart; how to fine-cut parsley by rocking the blade rather than chopping it; how to sauté mushrooms without them yielding the water that would turn them into a gelatinous glop’
Simon Schama
978 0 00 730587 2
About the Author
Len Deighton was born in 1929. He worked as a railway clerk before doing his National Service in the RAF as a photographer attached to the Special Investigation Branch.
