by Nigel West
Later Mrs Smith wrote describing the aerodrome at Hendon; she said that she had fulfilled Hildegard’s wish and hoped soon to find to find a situation at the seaside. With this letter an obscure card to ‘Rita’ was enclosed.
Other letters showed that Mrs Smith had a hope of getting her marriage declared illegal, recovering her German nationality and returning to Germany, but she was in close touch with her step-daughters. The police interviewed her and perhaps from loyalty to Florrie and Clara, Mrs Smith mentioned only the imbecile, Nelly. Dr Smith had died in March 1917, and after spending some weeks in hospital, Mrs Smith had stayed six to eight weeks at Blackpool, then four weeks at Manchester and early in August had come to Hampstead. As she did not wish to touch her capital invested abroad, she was earning her living as a cook. She was somewhat embarrassed in answering questions about the letters.
Arrangements were made to interrogate Mrs Smith at Scotland Yard. She came on 17 August and admitted the code in the letters but declared that her intention was to discourage the Germans. She also admitted having sent the parcels to South Africa. She was arrested on suspicion of having conveyed information to the enemy. Her papers contained a number of addresses mostly on the coasts and evidence of her pro-German sympathies, also a letter dated 9 September 1917 signed Hildegard and asking for her opinion on the fish-breeding in which Werner was so deeply interested. While in prison, Mrs Smith wrote to Manchester to a solicitor named John Crofton, asking him to act for her; he refused and at the same time informed the authorities that she had been in his service as cook in July and early August, and during that time had asked him about birds and sport.
The bureau suggested, and Sir Archibald concurred, that on the evidence afforded by the parcels and letters, charges could be framed against Luise Smith under DRR 24B, 18 and 48.
As a British subject she would have the right to claim trial in the civil court and this would have necessitated obtaining the consent of the Attorney-General. In order to simplify proceedings, and as the case at first sight did not appear very grave, there were some questions as to whether it might not be dealt with in a summary court. The summary court could inflict merely a penalty of six months’ imprisonment, or a fine, or imprisonment coupled with a fine. The competent military authority of London decided that a summary court was not adequate to try the case.
The original parcels which had to be produced in evidence arrived on 3 January, by and on 10 January; Mrs Smith was served with a generally worded notice of the charges which would be preferred against her, and at the same time with a notice that she could claim to be tried in the civil court. She signed her claim on 12 January. Following the usual practice in these spy cases, the bureau arranged to take a summary of evidence as though the case were to be tried by court martial. This no doubt enabled the branch to keep a firmer hold on the preparation of the case. While in prison, Mrs Smith admitted to C. Gallagher that she had communicated with her brother Werner, captain of a submarine stationed at Kiel, through Madame Pasquier; also that she had visited Rhyl while troops were in training there; Colwyn Bay, Cornwall, Devon and Bournemouth; also that she had conveyed news to Switzerland concealed in her husband’s clothes and that the parcels were sent to her brother at Grootfontein. She also stated that her youngest step-daughter, Florrie, was a Spanish translator at the War Office. It would also appear that at some time a message had been sent to her by submarine. Reference to a German peerage showed that Mrs Smith was related to Werner von Zastrow, her brother, married to a Countess Moltke; Max Rudolf von Zastrow, brother, staff officer in the German Army; Mathilde Asta, sister, wife of Count Alfred Eugen Bethusy Hue, imperial vice-consul at Copenhagen; Hildegard, wife of Hans Bareuther-Nitze, a civil servant in Saxony. Her family had been well-known to King Edward.
Intercepted letters showed that Smith would continue her foreign correspondence through Clara Smith and even possibly extend it. She had in Lugano a great friend, named Baroness Blum, who it was thought might be the wife of Baron Blum, the German agent. To the original indictment, further graver charges were added and it was decided to try the case in camera.
On 4 March, Smith was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. Florrie Smith then treated her step-mother with coldness and pretended to have been driven from home by her, which was untrue. Clara, on the other hand, kept up friendly communications with Luise Smith through Florrie. On 7 March she sent a message to the effect that 200 francs had been received for Kelly. Florrie thereupon wrote ‘to open her sister’s eyes’ Madame Pasquier also wrote to Florrie Smith, saying she knew where Mrs Smith was housed and was not surprised. While in prison, Mrs Smith declared that she had a brother named Werner, a captain of a submarine stationed at Kiel, and that she wrote to a brother in South Africa.
In May Axel Damn, a Danish advocate, cabled to ask about the charges on which Luise Smith had been committed and the length of the sentence, and he offered every help ‘whether legal or economic’. Other attempts to elicit information about the case came from Weuchatel, Germany and an Enquiry Bureau in Berlin.
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In reviewing the foregoing account of German centres in Holland and the spy cases of 1917 from the point of view of MI5, it is evident that British counter-espionage had broken the German military and naval organisation. During 1917, the consequence of the revelations in New York made themselves felt; in Norway also a great spy centre was destroyed. On the other hand, the weight of the German attack was transferred to attacks upon the political and social fabric of the British Empire. Peace, propaganda, strikes, addition and revolution take the first place in their effort.
Those spies who were caught by MI5 appear to be isolated individuals, except where they travel in couples. The cases however are of great interest from the legal point of view. Towards the end of December, the case of a Belgian deserter travelling under a false name and smuggling rubber for the German Bureau at Antwerp, caused a reconsideration of DRR 18A. The man admitted part of his connection with the Germans, but stated truly that he had furnished reports to the Belgians concerning his dealings with the Antwerp Bureau. The experience of MI5 showed that communication of information by word of mouth was on the increase; the Germans had always made use of reporters on board ships, and after the discovery of their latent secret writing, when it became too dangerous to use that method, spies were sent out carrying addresses and instructions in their heads, and returned similarly without recording a syllable of the information they had acquired. There was no provision to meet this state of affairs, therefore DRR 18A was redrafted so as to make it an offence to visit the address of or to consort with a spy under suspicious circumstances.
A further difficulty arose in the case of Patrocinio who, after accepting a mission against this country, changed his mind, confessed on board ship to a Belgian agent, and was arrested on landing. The only wrong he had committed had taken place outside British jurisdiction, which made it difficult to bring charges under DRR 18, 18A and 48. Moreover, amplification of proof was required in cases where persons were sent over to collect information and transmit it by word of mouth, DRR 1BA was therefore amended so as to include as an offence certain actions that had taken place outside the United Kingdom in its altered form the alteration runs.
For the purposes of this regulation but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provision:
1(a) A person shall unless he proves the contrary be deemed to have been in communication with an enemy agent if (i) he has either within or without the United Kingdom visited the address of an enemy agent or consorted with an enemy agent, or (ii) either within or without the United Kingdom the name or address or any other information regarding an enemy agent has been found in his possession or has been supplied by him to any other person or has been obtained by him from any other person.
The remaining clauses were altered in the same sense, and address was made to Luise von Zastrow’s case too is interesting as furnishing an illustration of certain gaps in the defence against evasi
on of the Censorship, and the flooding of this Kingdom with peace and other propaganda.
Details of defence worth mentioning are the value of getting a signed declaration that a man will not desire or attempt to leave the country; if the man breaks that pledge, there is presumptive evidence against him.
From the counter-espionage point of view it is worth noting that a legation recommendation is procured somewhat easily and affords but little guarantee of character. Also that as soon as the Christiania police began to move, the Germans tried to recall their spy, Alfred Hagn.
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In 1916 to 1917 the German centres of espionage directed against England and France were summed up by the French Intelligence Service:
1. The Antwerp Bureau collects and co-ordinates the work of the agents recruited in occupied territory and intended to operate in France and England. In Holland it also recruited agents for maritime espionage for the naval base at Zeebrugge and also in exceptional cases, when the opportunity offers but without in any way seeking it, to act the part of spies in Allied countries.
2. The Sammelstelle Nord at Wesel and its offshoot at Dusseldorf, with the help of the Kommandatur at Cologne, co-ordinates espionage against Holland, France and England, with the help of mobile agents recruited in the Netherlands. It also sends spies to Italy and finally undertakes the collecting of maritime news.
3. Above these two organisations there is a directing authority whose headquarters is at Berlin, at least for purely military questions, and thither intelligent agents are sent at the end of their course of training.
At this time, Antwerp was said to be recruiting principally natives of occupied territories and taking care to compromise them up to the hilt before sending them to the Allied countries. Such persons were recruited by the police at Brussels which kept touch with the bureau at Antwerp and Villa Arcadia in Scheveningen. Agents for sea espionage in the Dutch ports were recruited on the spot. The German consulate at Amsterdam sent out two couriers daily, who exchanged papers with persons belonging to the German legation, and then went on to Koosendaal by train, and thence by motor to Antwerp.
The Wesel branch directed its activity against Holland and England mainly. It had sub-offices at Cologne, Munster and Dusseldorf. Its activities included sea espionage on ships leaving the Dutch ports and the corruption of Dutch officials in the army, police and on the staff of various ministers. The agents were denoted by the letter ‘L’ followed by a number of thee figures. Its recruits were sent to Dusseldorf for training. The work in Holland was under the direction of Paul Daelen, ex-captain of the Hamburg-Amerika line, living at Stadhouderstraat, Amsterdam, a very active individual. Connection between Wesel and the German counter-espionage service in Holland was maintained by Dr Hagn who had an office at Villa Arcadia, 106 Badhuisweg, Scheveningen. Reports coming from Rotterdam were carried through to Wesel via Cleves, by a woman; other reports were collected at Arnhem. Pressing information collected by Dutch marine officers in German pay was telegraphed to the railway station on the Elk frontier and telephoned on to Wesel. Vollrath, arrested at Rotterdam in 1916, had permission to telephone direct to Wesel night and day, on the grounds that he was a correspondent of the Hamburger Fremdanblatt.
Active work in Holland was conducted from offices in the German legation itself and in June 1917 from passport inspection offices of the German legation established at 106 Badhuisweg, Scheveningen, where von Behr was then head of the counter-espionage section.
The Berlin branch exercised control at Antwerp and Wesel. It trained Wesel recruits and awarded special recompense to Antwerp agents. Captain Bodenheimer was at the head of the service at 37 Grollmannstrasse in Berlin, where agents were trained. He had a delegate, Lieutenant Wouter at The Hague who received the reports of women agents when they returned to Holland.
It was the Villa Arcadia which seems to have supplanted the Antwerp Bureau to a great extent. In May, Frans Schmidt, first secretary of legation at The Hague, and Gleichmann, were working for this office and Schmidt was recruiting spies to act against England, France and Russia. Tinsley wrote from Holland that Schmidt was most anxious to get men over to England and that at least twelve had passed through his hands recently. He was most anxious to keep in touch with these men and to pump them but MI5G refused to send information to be transmitted to men whom they had never seen. At that time, the Germans had very few men in England.
Schmidt was wanting especially news about the political situation and the food supply in England, and to guide him on these points he asked for cuttings from obscure provincial newspapers. The reports and cuttings were to be conveyed across by a sailor as the English were on the watch for secret ink, and they were to be delivered by hand at 13 Snellinkstraat at a price of 100 marks per letter.
There was besides an important centre in the Warmoestraat, Amsterdam. One of its sections was under the direction of a Boer, L. van Ryn, a British subject who had repeatedly tried to get in touch with the Admiralty. He posed as head of the passport office of the German legation but his real task was to control the counter-espionage service and watch the commercial relations of England, Holland and France. He travelled frequently in Germany and employed his nephew, Eskens, to collect information for him. Eskens also kept touch with Max Josephson.
Max Josephson, designated A-87, was a German reserve officer who, since November 1915, had been suspected of recruiting spies destined for England. He recruited and trained spies in Holland. In July 1917 he was said to have an office, full of British shipping journals and statistics, of ship-building in England. He was said to photograph the documents which were required in a hurry.
Johann Jacobus Verbrugge, formerly a pilot in England who afterwards worked at Antwerp and Flushing, was employed to collect reports from officers and seamen of Dutch ships and received letters under his wife’s maiden name. Between 16 December 1916 and 22 January 1917 a number of commercial letters and wires addressed to Verbrugge were submitted to the bureau but only one or two coming from a suspected person were stopped. Instructions issued to the German Intelligence Service in Scandinavia state that the only method by which reliable information can be obtained is by means of persons travelling from enemy countries on enemy or neutral ships arriving in Scandinavia. Knowledge of minefields, mine-free channels, the waters where sea marks have been allowed lo required for U-boats operating enemy waters. Through shipping alone can knowledge be obtained of the enemy guard service for the protection of their shores and commercial routes.
The personnel of merchant ships and especially the captain, to whom more liberty of action is accorded in an enemy country than to others, are the most valuable givers of information. Next come the mates, and lastly, stokers, freight-agents and provision agents. Five hundred kroner a month is paid to captains and mates of enemy merchantmen, 300 to the same class of officer on neutral passenger ships to England, 100-110 kroner to mates on neutral merchantmen trading uninterruptedly in English and French ports, or else 25 to 50 kronor for every piece of news. Fifty kroner a month was the lowest rate of pay to the humbler members of a ship’s crew.
Information inaccessible to seamen but of great importance was obtained through pumping travellers returning from enemy countries. Harmless conversation with educated travellers was invaluable in this respect. Personal relations with representatives of the neutral press also gave excellent results.
The above recommendations form an instructive commentary on the evidence afforded by the Antwerp roll of spies and by the American journalists’ affair. But even more interesting from the point of view of counter-espionage is the following:
Reliable persons were needed to go to enemy countries on special intelligence missions, and of these the best were educated persons who had already travelled abroad for their firms. All agents sent to the enemy countries were of course obliged to do real business and it was desirable that the neutral firms who were willing to engage ‘our commercial representation’ should be informed of the principal motive for
his trip. In selecting a firm thus willing, the point to observe was that the sending of such a commercial representative should appear natural. Agents should be able to justify a prolonged stay in the country. Waiters, barbers, nurses, metal-workers for shipyards and munitions factories were the classes of agent most required for work in England. Intelligent women were in urgent request for experience showed that where men were suspected a woman would arouse little suspicion. The great danger for all such agents was the transmission of news, but German chemical science had reduced that to a minimum and chemical means had been developed to arouse no suspicion.
It is worth noting that most of the information contained in this authentic document was already known to MI5 by deduction from the evidence supplied by the cases, or from notices sent in by MI-1(c).
At the end of the summary for 1916 mention was made of certain measures taken to detect the payments made to spies through the banks. Other measures were mentioned in the first half of this report (1917). A fourth check on incoming remittances was added in 1917.
Early in 1917 it was suspected that agents were being paid from America and the Censor was asked to keep special watch on sums coming from American sources. The following month the Censor was asked to note advices of any remittances of £50 and upwards which might occur in the correspondence of neutral banks with their agents here. At that time some system of forwarding money to persons here through the German consul at Rotterdam seems to have been discovered by Tinsley. The Censor sent in his lists and G2 prosecuted enquiries about the recipients, through the police when the remittance was made directly by post to the individual concerned, through the Bankers’ Clearing House when it was paid through a bank.
