by Nigel West
Our counter-espionage in Petrograd first sent in news of a spy centre in Stockholm in December 1915, together with four suspect addresses in that city. In the following March, the German naval attaché at Stockholm was said to be employing seven persons indoors and fourteen outside; the consulate-general employed nine persons, his special work being connected with trade licenses; and a man named Freiwald had been moved from Aachen, where he had been engaged in catching Dutch spies, to take charge of German counter-espionage in Stockholm with the object of getting rid of nests of foreign spies. In April, May, June and December, reports were received from ‘N’ in Copenhagen, the French War Office and the Russian Admiralty giving long lists of names and particulars of German agents in Sweden. Many of these men were journalists. The head of the naval section directed against England had an office in Stockholm but lived at Goteborg and received the bulk of his correspondence via Goteborg under cover to the addresses of women.
In November reports were received that Christiania was a centre for information with regard to the United Kingdom. Although it was not realised at the time, there were two German Secret Service centres in Antwerp – one for military, the other for naval news, but as has been already seen from the spy cases the two sometimes overlapped.
In December 1914 The Times had published some account of a spy centre at Lorrach and in September 1915 a report of a similar organisation at Antwerp placed both institutions on an equal footing; subsequently one of our agents visited the military school at Antwerp and furnished a detailed account of the locality and methods used. The centre at Antwerp was situated at 10 rue de la Pepiniere, and went through to the rue de l’Hannonie. The head of it seems to have been a woman known as ‘la femme blonde’, ‘Barone Jeanne’, ‘Madame Slaghmulder’, Frau or Fraulein Doktor.
Agents were recruited among Belgians, soldiers and women in Holland. The men were sent to join the Belgian Army on the pretext that they had escaped from internment in Holland. They were to obtain their information and if necessary to desert in order to bring in their reports. They were sent mostly via Holland to France, sometimes however they passed through Switzerland, but never through Lorrach. The spy was expected to return within eight or twelve days. Agents were also sent to Paris, Orleans and Bordeaux. The spy had to memorise questions about the coast from Havre to Boulogne and about French and British military and naval affairs. He was to wire news in a commercial code, to use interlinear writing in secret ink in his letters, and to send picture postcards to certain addresses in Switzerland or Holland as a sign that information was on its way. The instructions given to one agent in April 1915 were that he was to stop in Calais, Boulogne or Havre, or else in Amiens or Abbeville and always in a place where he could himself learn something. He was to stay in France as long as possible and, if taken as a soldier, to get a post as chauffeur and cover as much ground as he could. He was to supply information on very precise questions grouped under seven different headings and dealings with naval and military matters (only seven questions were devoted to the British Army), and the method to be followed in this case was direct interrogation of the officers and men. The naval questions concerned the warships stationed at the French ports, armoured merchantmen and neutral ships, and the cargoes carried by both classes of ships.
In February 1916 news was received of a spy school at Brussels which recruited agents in Lille and Brussels. The spies left for Holland via Esschen and then on foot to Roozendaal; they went to Switzerland via Aix-la-Chapelle and Fribourg. Letters were sent to hotels to be forwarded by the porter or manager to the German consul who would send them on to Antwerp. It was expressly stated that owing to the British counter-espionage measures the Germans had modified their methods and were interviewing their agents in Berne and Zurich to avoid their being marked down in Belgium. Moreover the agent who visited the Antwerp school reported that it was in April more difficult to pass via Holland than via Switzerland. In July the centre at Zurich was shifted to the neighbourhood of Lucerne.
About this time, too, came in a report of German espionage at Strasburg with centres at Constance, Singen and Lindau. The agents employed were unknown to each other; they were neutrals and preferably Swiss. They received a numbered paper of identification which was given up before crossing the frontier into France or Italy. They had to obtain news of a simple character and they delivered it by inserting commercial advertisements in a paper previously agreed upon, or by a message on a postcard, ‘Am sending or offering you 150 boxes of sardines’ which would moan ‘150 regiments of infantry stationed where I write’.
The Times of 5 May 1916 contained a report that the German system in Holland had been reorganised and was employing 162 men and sixty-eight women agents at Rotterdam. The Central Defence System was quartered at The Hague; it included branches for ordinary spying extraordinary spying, and the creation of discontent and suspicion of England. This information came from the Telegraaf.
In Copenhagen, too, was a school where agents would be trained for a fortnight and after being tested by other agents they would be sent to England wearing English clothing and with instructions to return in two weeks at most. About twenty agents would be sent every week to different towns in England.
A description of the organisation and methods in use in Southern Germany came to hand in June 1916. The school at Lorrach was recruited from an office at Frankfurt where the former head of a Swiss station buffet engaged waiters who were out of work and from an office at Fribourg under the management of an ex-commissioner of police.
The spies travelled to and fro under the protection of a workman’s pass, which was issued by a German officer after the first journey had been made under cover of a proper passport duly stamped and visa’d. The existence of the Lorrach centre had been known at least since March 1915 when the Chief Censor reported that letters issued through this office could be posted in France and be delivered in England uncensored.
At Munich another spy centre was established at the headquarters of the Central Police Division 16. Here neutral travellers, and also employees, musicians, governesses of French or Italian nationality who had been caught in Germany by this war, were pressed into service. On pretext of some flaw in their papers neutral travellers would be taken to the office and interrogated and, if they showed a friendly disposition, they would be told they could add considerably to their earnings; if they refused to answer Germany was closed to them; persons of French or Italian nationality were offered permission to go and see their families in their native country and, if they accepted, faked papers were given to them and 60 marks a day for expenses.
Reports of May and June 1916 deal with the organisation in Spain which was located chiefly in Madrid and Barcelona. Much correspondence was received at the offices of Roeb, a patents agent, and officer of reserve of the German Army. In June it was reported that the Germans were trying to get hold of French men and women in order to send them over the frontier with false papers. Women of Italian nationality were also enrolled for this purpose. Press propaganda was carried on at Barcelona and the German consulate was said to be in direct wireless communication with Germany. At this city there was also a depot for every sort of chemical used in sabotage of munitions, etc., and in secret writing. The convents were said to be meeting places for spies and also stations for wireless telegraphy.
In the winter of 1915-16 the Swiss took action against the spies in their midst and imprisoned agents of both sides, but the reports received show strong pro-German bias in Swiss governing circles. An agent who declared he was acting on behalf of Germany was shut up with German and Austrian prisoners and learned much from them. One German trick was to get an agent imprisoned for a few days on a trumpery charge of contraband in order that he might obtain the reports of more important agents who were in prison for some time.
Sub-Lieutenant Wright, who may have been responsible for the report mentioned, was in prison with German agents and sent in a useful account of their methods coupled with sugges
tions for the use of our service. He pointed out that the Germane used their disabled and unfit men as spies in neutral countries and that all spying was done under cover of contraband trade. The advantages of this method were that information and goods were brought in at the same time, excuse was provided for travelling and a defence for the German employer when charged with spying.
The Germans made use of Switzerland as a place of receipt for apparently innocent letters conveying information of value to Germany, such correspondence taking place on an enormous scale and unchecked by the Swiss authorities. Switzerland was also a place of arrival for Jewish German Americans who travelled in England, France and Italy and brought goods and news for Germany. It was also the recruiting ground for spies who were sent into France to buy raw materials or to sell German goods; recruiting was carried out by means of advertisement in the local papers. Such a case was reported in December 1916, when a Wurtemburg lady was condemned to three months’ prison. As counter-measures, Lieutenant Wright suggested that any individual coming from abroad who had made only a short stay in England should be looked on as a suspect and, before granting him a permit to leave, he should be required to make a signed declaration of his itinerary during the past two months and this itinerary should be checked; and that a press-cutting agency should be started in Switzerland to watch the advertisement columns and answer suspicious offers of employment.
Another method used by the German agents was that of naturalisation. As early as January 1915 reports had been received of the immense number of Germans who were taking out papers of naturalisation in Spain; in February 1916 Germans were carrying out the same policy in Switzerland and, as the Swiss passport did not state whether the holder’s nationality was by right of birth or acquired the suggestion was made that before granting a visa the British consular authority in Switzerland should insist on the production of a certificate of Swiss birth signed by the mayor of the locality in which the applicant resided.
The same informant declared the German legation in Berne to be a centre of espionage; Geneva and Lausanne to be overrun by Turko-Egyptian spies; German-Swiss to be carrying on propaganda in Egypt and Salonica, where Greek spies and Jews were also at work. He suggested that the German-Swiss in Egypt should be carefully watched; that no neutrals should be allowed to leave Salonica, and that all neutrals going to Switzerland should be carefully searched.
Through France came the news that many of the Swiss military were either the sons of Germans naturalised in Switzerland or closely connected with leading German families and that some former German officials were then in Swiss pay or that former Swiss officials were then in the German service, and that the Germans were masters of the banking world.
Besides espionage Switzerland was also a centre for German propaganda. Libellous pamphlets were printed at Zurich to be scattered among neutral nations.
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Germans were said to be obtaining information through English-speaking spies who conversed with British invalided officers in Switzerland. In August 1915 an agent at Geneva reported that the Germans were trying to get in touch with French families and so to obtain access to France through the medium of a bureau for supplying information gratis to the families of PoWs or missing men. The bureau was advertised in the press, its address was that of the German consul at Geneva. A similar case, that of an individual named Whiting, had occurred in England. Warnings were issued to GHQ I(c), the War Office, intelligence officers and Scotland Yard.
The Italian Mission declared that an Austrian was recruiting café-concert artistes and ladies of good social position as spies and that these sent messages on scraps of paper twisted in the stalks of artificial flowers which they mingled with real flowers in bouquets. Again it was said that messages were being sent into Italy from France concealed in flowers from the Riviera and that agents were passing from France to a place near Genoa under pretest of seeking a cure.
Another method of carrying letters was reported from Switzerland, sometimes by committing them to the servants of wagon-lits and restaurant cars. It was proposed to stop the running of through trains and to make the passengers go on in a fresh train, near which the officials of the first were not allowed to go.
In April a horoscope agent at The Hague named Roxroy was getting in touch with soldiers by advertising horoscopes in Le Matin and Le Rire. He was thus said to be gaining information about the armies, the places in which they were stationed, their movements and moral. Among the methods reported from Holland and Belgium were examples of a Dutch officer who collected all information of military value which came from behind the Front to men interned at Heerlen and forwarded it to Germany; men on leave returning from England to Groningen internment camp and Belgians returning from England would be cross-examined for information as to the position of camps, fortifications, munitions factories and other matters.
Another way of obtaining information was to allow a large number of letters to pass from Brussels to England and wait for the replies, picking out items of interest when they came and then forwarding them to destinations.
Towards the end of 1915 it became known that German agents were writing to various British government departments offering information, particularly about munitions and explosives in the hope of getting an official reply that would cover them in their efforts to procure information about such matters. If they succeeded they would travel as businessmen or commercial travellers, show the letter to the police, conform with all regulations, get the required knowledge and leave.
MO5 stated these facts in a circular distributed to the Director of Trench Warfare, GPO, Admiralty, Home Office, Scottish Office, Irish Office, India Office, Colonial Office, Foreign Office, Treasury, Ministry of Munitions and Inventions Committee, Local Government Board, Board of Trade, Customs and Excise, Board of Agriculture, and the Port of London Authority, mentioning that four such cases had occurred recently in which either the German agent had been arrested or had got out of the country under cover of a letter from some department or office.
In February 1916 it was made an offence under DRR 45 for a person to speak or act in such a manner as to convey the false impression that he was employed in a government department. About this time the port officer at Hull sent warning that telephones were probably being tapped, and a difficulty of control arose in the fact that certain of the employees were not under the GPO but under the corporation. The suggestion was made by MI5G that the character of the Hull telephone employees should be investigated.
The Assistant Provost-Marshal was warned of a system of collecting the visiting cards of army and navy officers with the object of selling them to men of all nationalities who might thereby locate military and naval units. A valuable haul of letters concealed in a tray of muscatels disclosed the fact that German firms were trading in Spain under assumed Spanish names and were urging their correspondents in Germany also to take cover. A number of names and cover names were thus obtained.
In August 1915, as a result of several proved cases of spying, a circular was issued to the effect that all commercial travellers coming into England for the first time since the war were to be looked upon with suspicion, and that Swedes in particular were acting as spies and engaged in procuring goods for Germany. In the same month special suspicions were being attached to the German-speaking Swiss and measures were under consideration for restricting the travel of Germans who had acquired Swiss nationality since the war. One German agent who entered the country by Folkestone and left by Hull had travelled as an officer of the Norwegian Naval Reserve, hence a circular was issued that all naval officers of neutral nationality were to be regarded as suspect and signaled to MO5.
In view of the fact that the Germans were recruiting agents among Dutch diamond workers, it was suggested that such persons should produce a guarantee from the Dutch Diamond Workers’ Union and should he allowed to settle in the United Kingdom during the war. The number of such persons was to he kept to the lowest possible. In November 1915 G
Branch had cause to suspect South American and North American travellers coming into the country from Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden on neutral ships, and a list of suspicious circumstances in connection with such travellers was drawn up for circulars to the ports. It included the inability of South Americans to speak Spanish on the plea that since infancy they had inhabited North America; passports issued by the British vice-consuls of obscure places in the Argentine, Brazil or Uruguay. Other suspicious travellers were people going to Switzerland who said that their relations were dead; second class passengers on neutral ships; and neutrals volunteering information against German fellow passengers.
Other counter-espionage measures suggested by the Special Intelligence Bureau were the refusal of visas to all persons coming from Belgium: to order that special attention should be paid to all repatriated or escaped Belgian PoWs; and to check the passage of hostile agents under the guise of soldiers by ordering that all leave-men should carry identity cards bearing their photograph as well as their leave certificate.
On other accounts it was proposed to make the possession of a certificate of identity compulsory for aliens. In order that the sender of a bogus telegram should be traced, such certificate of identity was to be produced at the post office by the sender of the telegram and it was also suggested to prohibit the despatch of picture postcards to Holland and Sweden. Experience had shown that the Germans were employing Germans over age or militarily unfit to collect information, or to act as paymasters, organisers of espionage or messengers. Such men were also believed to be organising sabotage of various kinds, peace-propaganda, and strikes, and in native territories, sedition. By the regulations in force, Germans of this class travelling on neutral ships could not be touched; four such persons who had made use of false passports had been tried and shot but a fifth, a German officer of the Reserve, a man named Gulden who travelled as Captain Frederick Dunbar, could not be brought to trial owing to lack of suitable legislation, and MO5 wished the law to be altered.
