by Nigel West
The police considered that Rosenthal’s action in reporting the call proved his genuineness as he could not know that they were watching. They also suggested that some trustworthy naval man should be introduced to Klare as the person who could obtain the book. But this was not thought desirable. Observation was to be continued, corroborative evidence collected if possible and note taken of Klare’s associating with naval men for the purpose of obtaining information.
Klare anticipated Rosenthal and called again at the shop on 10 January 1913, to ask whether Rosenthal had seen the man and when the book could be procured. There would be £25 to £30 for the man and £100 for Rosenthal and Klare. The book wanted was not about submarines but about the working of torpedoes. Klare would write to Germany for the money, and his letter must go via London which would involve a delay of a few days.
Rosenthal reported to Inspector Savage who, in spite of instructions received, did not think it advisable to bid Rosenthal break with Klare, as it was obvious that the only way to catch Klare was to trap him.
Captain Kell saw the DPP and, with his consent, went to Portsmouth to confer with the Admiral Commanding-in-Chief about taking measures which would lead to the arrest of Klare. Charles John Bishop, a pensioned naval writer, then employed as office-keeper of the C-in-C’s office, was introduced to Rosenthal as a go-between and the police carefully rehearsed with each the part he was to play. The same evening Klare called on Rosenthal to say he had received £30 but more would not be sent until the book had been procured. The following day Rosenthal definitely promised Klare that a naval man would obtain the book and, after careful enquiry by Klare as to the qualifications of the go-between Rosenthal arranged for a meeting, which took place the same night, between Bishop and Klare. Klare then told Bishop that the book wanted was the very latest edition of the Annual Report of Torpedoes and he described the look of the book exactly. Afterwards he warned Rosenthal that Bishop must be careful not to show the notes received in payment. He asked that the book should be delivered in time for him to cross to Rotterdam by the Great Eastern Railway boat. Although confirmation had thus been obtained of Rosenthal’s accusation, the police urged that the business should be completed and Klare arrested as he left 71 Queen Street with the book in his possession.
But, as will have been seen from Klare’s letters to Germany there was a hitch on the question of money. Klare had to put off the final meetings until 5 February and then, as the money had not come, he wished Bishop to act without previous payment. Bishop declined and Klare said he would write to his employer’s wife and arranged to see Bishop on the 12th. On the 11th, as he was still without money, he wrote out a telegram, addressed to Nakpatus, Berlin. He asked Rosenthal to send it and allow the reply to be sent to his shop, for he himself was afraid to be seen at the post office. Eventually however he was too nervous to allow Rosenthal to send the wire.
Then on the 17th Klare called on Rosenthal with a telegram he had received in answer to one he had himself sent. The next day he put this telegram and the form he had written out for Rosenthal in the fire; on the 19th at 10 a.m. he called with the letter from Berlin, which confirmed the telegram, and as Bishop came in, the letter was shown to him by Klare and translated by Rosenthal, and then burned.
On the 17th Inspector Savage had telephoned to MO5 that Klare had received a wire agreeing to his proposal to take the book over at his own expense. Sir O. Matthews, being referred to, agreed that the money transaction between Klare and Bishop might be foregone. Accordingly at the meeting between Klare, Rosenthal and Bishop on the morning of the 19th, it was arranged that Bishop should hand over the book at 4 p.m. Klare said it would be easy enough to convey it out of the country, the difficulty lay in getting it back past the Customs, but he would wrap it in underclothing and put tobacco on the top, then declare the tobacco and the book would pass unnoticed.
The delivery of the book was carried out as arranged and Klare was arrested soon after leaving Rosenthal’s shop. Klare was brought up on 20 February, and evidence of arrest having been given he was remanded for a week. The charge was that to the prejudice of the State he had in his possession a book containing valuable information contrary to Section 8 of the Official Secrets Act. He was told that other charges would be made of inciting Rosenthal and Bishop. On hearing the charge he accused Rosenthal of having incited him. Klare appeared before the magistrates on 20 February and was remanded till 27 Feburary. On behalf of some German calling himself Schwartz, Mr Gordon Cummings wired Klare offering to send his solicitor to defend him and Klare accepted. The solicitor was a Mr Adrian de Fleury, of French descent, who had married the niece of a German hotel proprietor settled at Marie Kerke in Belgium.
On 27 February Klare was further charged with inciting Charles John Bishop to obtain the book and with unlawfully receiving it. Some cross-examination took place about the telegraphic code address ‘Nakpatus’ and the police afterwards applied to MO5 for information on the subject; but they had none to supply.
The defence also tried to elicit from Inspector Savage the name of the first informant in the case throwing out a hint that it was someone in the Secret Service; but counsel for the Crown pointed out that the case was limited to the period between 18 October 1912 and 19 February 1913, and the magistrates upheld him. The hearing was resumed on 6, 15 and 20 March. The defence was concentrated on the cross-examination of Rosenthal.
Rosenthal was born in Prussian Poland and his parents brought him to England and settled at Hull when he was two or three years old. Then they moved to Newcastle. Rosenthal learned his business as a hairdresser, went to New York for some years, returned to Newcastle in 1876 and then worked in several hairdressing shops in London. He then took up business on his own account in Portsmouth, where he had been for about twenty-one years. He had occupied the premises in Queen Street for eighteen or nineteen years. He could not read and he could only just sign his own name.
The defence wished to prove that Rosenthal had frequently met Klare before October 1912, had begged Klare to get him work for the German Secret Service, had said he could get anything from the dockyard, and had admitted procuring a signal book for a German officer two years before. Rosenthal denied these charges, he held his own with counsel, but made no attempt to explain why a man whom he had seen only once before should have asked him to obtain a confidential book. Oddly enough, counsel did not press the point.
Bishop’s evidence was definite: it was Klare, and not Rosenthal, who had asked for and described the book, and Klare who had received a letter in German accepting a meeting at Bristol (for Brussels). Inspector Savage gave evidence that a book of paying-in slips of the Capital & Counties Bank in Southsea, had been found in Klare’s room and contained the following entries:
– 1 March 1912 £10 in notes
– 2 March 1912 £9 in gold
– 16 March 1912 £20-10 in notes
– 18 May 1912 £25 in notes
The defence persisted that the prime mover in the plot was not before the Bench and put Klare into the box to make a statement about his relations with Rosenthal. Klare said that Rosenthal first mentioned spying at the end of February or beginning of March 1912. He had known him for five or six years and he asserted that Rosenthal had incited him to procure the book. It was a case of allegations and counter allegations and Klare broke down badly in cross-examination about his intended journey, the letter from Germany and the telegram to ‘Nakpatus’. Besides points that had a direct bearing on the procuring of the book, counsel for the Crown laid stress on Klare’s private life and his wife’s movements. Inspector Savage was recalled and again cross-examined on the evidence of immoral living, but not necessarily of spying, which had been collected against Klare in the nine months preceeding October 1912.
Klare was committed for trial on all four counts and the case came up on 26 June at the Winchester Assize. The question of incitement was brushed aside and Klare was found guilty of having, for a purpose prejudicial to England, obtaine
d a book which would be useful to an enemy. Before sentence was passed, Savage was called to make a statement. The facts that Klare did little work, spent the greater part of the day in public-houses with servicemen, that his wife’s clientele consisted of the same class of person, and that he was much in her company, were interpreted in one way - that he used her as a source of information.
Klare was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. He was amazed at the sentence and attributed it to the judge being a German-hater. He had been condemned on the word of a Jew who would have been only half believed in Germany. He expressed the intention of petitioning for a reduction of sentence and suggested to his sister (Mrs Clara Schneider) that she should approach Baron Speyer, if opportunity served.
To a fellow prisoner Klare made statements about German methods of spying and their policy on the outbreak of war. The Germans relied on their spies who swarmed in every rank of life; through them they would get the upper hand. They counted besides on the treachery of Englishmen, whom they had in their pay. They made a point of knowing the private circumstances of officers, officials, secretaries and ministers, and bribed gamblers or those in difficulties. For two or three years running Klare had got from two officers stationed on one of HM ships the loan of the Annual Report of Torpedoes and the Manual of Torpedoes and had gone with them to Ostend and Brussels. Besides, the secretary of an English minister kept the Germans informed of the intentions of the British government.
On the outbreak of war every move would be wired to America while the British authorities should be watching only the cables to Germany. A policy of terrorism would be adopted; reservoirs would be poisoned, churches, railways, viaducts blown up, important officials would be shot or kidnapped. Moreover landings would be made on the west coast of Ireland and on the Isle of Wight. The submarines would play a most important part in the war.
The statement was written down by Newton and handed to the prison governor after the outbreak of war. An attempt to procure from Klare the name of the secretary failed as he did not know it, and he refused to give the names by which he had known the two officers whom he had accused of treachery.
Klare was kept in prison till practically the end of his sentence. He was then served with a deportation order and repatriated. He was blacklisted on 1 November 1918. In connection with this successful prosecution £10 was given to Bishop, £20 were distributed among the dockyard police and £20 went to Rosenthal.
In February 1914 Rosenthal appealed for help on the grounds that his action as informant had materially injured his business and he was then in straits and receiving threatening letters. Enquiry was made by the police, who believed his story. He was granted a further sum of £10 on condition that he signed a document to the effect that he had been liberally rewarded already for his services to the police, that the present payment was an act of grace, and that he understood that no further application for assistance would be entertained. Levi Rosenthal accepted the conditions and signed the document.
The case of Klare showed that the Germans had scored a considerable success, whether by their agents at Portsmouth or elsewhere, and comparison of the files of Charles Wagener, William Klare and Abraham Eisner throws a little light on the existence of a gang of spies at Portsmouth.
As regards Klare, he was introduced obviously by a man of some authority. ‘W. H.’ may be identical with W. Herpers who afterwards posed as an editor. He may have been a travelling agent: at any rate he wrote twice from Southsea spontaneously and at an interval of fourteen months. On the second occasion he guaranteed that Klare’s hopes were well-founded and that the money must be sent, it was no doubt he who added a postscript to Klare’s second urgent letter. In order to give this guarantee ‘W. H.’ must have known and approved of Rosenthal’s share in the business.
As regards any possible connection with Wagener: during the first seven months of 1918, Wagener was trying to obtain the exact titles of confidential books on wireless, submarines and torpedoes and possibly also some of the books themselves; Klare on the other hand was from the beginning trying to obtain a book (‘the patient was to rest twelve to eighteen hours after the journey’ to Ostend) but it was not till October, after Wagener had dropped out, that he mentioned a book on submarines, and this he corrected in January 1913 to the Annual Report of Torpedoes.
The exact title of this book was the Annual Report of Torpedo School. In asking for it Klare showed such accurate knowledge of its appearance as could only have been obtained in an authorised manner. While Wagener corresponded with Henri Adams in Brussels, Klare wrote to Richard or ‘Richard Hugo Dinge’ in Berlin and later on to an address in Hanover and one in Potsdam. The two men therefore aimed at a similar objective, simultaneously, but they sent reports to different centres.
But after Wagener dropped out, Klare seems to have had at his disposal the special information which Wagener was instructed to collect. Technical evidence at the trial showed how difficult this was to obtain as the books were printed under secret bond and none but officers might even see them. How then was this information procured?
Was it through the indiscretion of printers, for German agents cultivated the acquaintance of printers, and had Klare got in touch with such men through his intercourse with the stationer? The question of Klare’s connection with Abraham Eisner has been dealt with in that case. Suffice to say here that in 1919, when the recession of the order against Eisner was under discussion, it was dismissed on the grounds that there was no mention of it in Klare’s file and that the police had kept the man under constant observation before his arrest. This sounds plausible, but the Klare file is imperfect as there are at least three police reports missing. The case dragged on for fifteen months, and continuous observation was impossible. Moreover neighbours and business connections sometimes know even more than the police.
Levi Rosenthal plays a doubtful part. His story was that he had met Klare once five or six years before: Klare said that Rosenthal, whom he already knew, had come to him in the end of February or beginning of March, and begged to be enrolled as a German agent. Does this explain why at the end of March Wagener called upon Rosenthal and finally used his address as a postbox? It must be remembered Klare took no risks: nothing incriminating was found on him or at his house; he was clever, he sent his wires unnoticed; is it likely he would have approached a man of whose past and sentiments he knew nothing on so dangerous a business as stealing a confidential book? Klare, no doubt, did incite Rosenthal; at the same time it seems at least probable that Rosenthal had, as he himself said, ‘done the thing before’.
Lastly, there is the man Hammel, who knew both Rosenthal and Klare, and knew where Klare was to be found. The defence called him as evidence that Rosenthal had lied about his movements.
The determination of the Germans to get the confidential book was evinced by their pursuing this object at Portsmouth and Chatham simultaneously. In October 1912, Frederick Gould was offered £200 for the Gunnery and Torpedo Manual of 1909, with Addenda and £200 for the Annual Report of Torpedo School for 1912; and in January 1913, a bait of £400 was offered him for the 1911 edition of the Annual Report of Torpedo School.
The German agents were supposed not to know each other and to act independently but it is impossible to believe that the vultures gathered round a carcass do not recognise each other, there must have been a scramble to get there first.
As a last comment, the dangerous use to which the Germans put their exact knowledge of the aspect of Secret Books was illustrated in the case of HMS Queen when a signals book was stolen and replaced by a dummy exactly like the original.
*
Karl Paul Gustav Hentschel (alias Atlantis, alias ‘Ch. G. Hills’) of 96 Invicta Road, Sheerness, was probably of German descent. In 1913 when concealment was no longer possible, he claimed German nationality, stating he had served one year in the German Navy and had then gone into the German Merchant Marine and knew every port on the German seaboards. He gave William Melville the fo
llowing account of his engagement as a spy.
While in Berlin in 1908 he had advertised for a situation as a correspondent, and was engaged by letter by Robert Tornow, member of a foreign correspondence bureau, to go to London, mix with people, and hear what was going on. This was at a time of crisis – no doubt the Moroccan crisis which lasted from about September 1908 to February 1909. A few weeks later he was sent to Devonport as a clerk to assess the situation and report what was going on.
He received £10 a month for reports on the movements of warships which were posted to Max Dressler, a confectioner, who also let rooms at 22 rue de l’Ouest, Ostend. Hentschel found himself hampered as a foreigner at Devonport and the salary was too low. He left and went to Essen and reported this through Dressler to Tornow. Tornow then offered him £15 a month and £15 bonus to go to Sheerness. He was to watch the movements of ships, mine-laying etc. Then a secret code was sent him and he was told to obtain the naval signal code. He went to Sheerness in April 1909. In June he distributed circulars as a teacher of languages. He taught French, German and Italian and also navigation. At first he had as pupils a good many naval officers, lieutenants and commanders, and through technical conversations with them he would find out anything he wanted to know. From a petty officer of HMS Diamond whom he met accidentally at Sittingbourne, he learned about mine-fuses and the newest mine-sweepers, and a fitter gave him some drawings. But his own pupils explained to him the working of range-finding and fire control instruments. He also learned about the lights inside and outside the harbour and other information required by his employers. In October 1909 Hentschel again advertised at the school at Sheerness and stated he would also visit Sittingbourne and other places. Within five months of his setting up as a teacher, MO5 sent Melville to investigate. Hentschel told Melville he was born in Holland and brought up in Germany. He objected to giving any references but could produce good ones from the Freiderich Wilhelm Gymnasium, Berlin, and he referred Melville to the Reverend Mr Tozer, minister of the Congregational Church at Sheerness.
