Afterward Bleicher took Mathilde to lunch. “You see how easy it is,” he said. Unable to eat, she caught sight of herself in the mirror, with “a strangely haunted look in my eyes.” She began passing names to Bleicher, and “one by one” all her former comrades were picked up and interrogated: Madame Gaby at La Palette, Maurice the radio operator, “Rapide” the courier. Some broke down and implicated others. “A few men proved their mettle, but in comparison women showed better spirit,” Czerniawski later wrote. A week after the first arrests, more than sixty Interallié agents and subagents had been rounded up. Mathilde revealed every aspect of the network she had helped to build, enough evidence to ensure Roman Czerniawski’s death many times over.
Bleicher was delighted. Another man might simply have smashed the network and killed everyone in it, but Bleicher was cleverer than that. Ostensibly for her own safety, Mathilde was moved into Bleicher’s home, a large mansion in the elegant Paris suburb of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. “We have decided to continue the messages from Interallié,” Bleicher told her. “We’re going to play some fine tricks on the British. We shall inform them that Armand [Roman Czerniawski] and Violette [Renée Borni] have been arrested, but you are going to stress in a message to London that you managed to save the third [wireless] set and that you will continue with your principal agents. No one in the network knows you are in our hands.” This was the German version of Double Cross.
Mathilde claimed that Bleicher treated her with perfect courtesy during these weeks. Refined and teetotalist, in the evenings he would play the piano for her. Soon they became lovers. Later, in overwrought prose, Mathilde struggled to explain why: “I had felt the icy breath of death and suddenly found warmth once more in a pair of arms. I hated myself for my weakness, and as a result of my abasement I hated the Germans even more.”
At the Hôtel Edward VII, Roman Czerniawski was subjected to an exhausting interrogation, but no violence. He told Hugo Bleicher nothing. What annoyed him most was the small, fat Gestapo officer who rubbed his hands with glee as Roman was marched in, and “started to laugh contentedly.” The Pole had expected to be tortured and then killed. Instead, he was transferred to Fresnes Prison, south of Paris, and left in a dank cell.
Czerniawski had been in prison for six weeks, and was rather surprised to still be alive, when he learned of Mathilde Carré’s treachery. He had been “treated severely but without brutality,” questioned repeatedly, denied exercise, and fed scraps, yet no one had laid a finger on him. German and Vichy newspapers predicting imminent Nazi victory were left in his cell. Bleicher appeared from time to time, but instead of issuing threats he was full of flattery, remarking that he was most impressed by the Interallié organization and “the completeness of the records which they found at his HQ.”
Roman did not know what to make of this red-faced man with the thick glasses who, though “intelligent and quick-witted,” was “always boasting.” He was nettled to see the German was wearing his pullover, stolen from his flat, but he conceded that there was something impressive about the Abwehr counterespionage officer. “He is a man of great ability and ingenuity and a specialist in running double agents,” he noted with hindsight. “Also a man of great personal ambition.”
One morning, Renée Borni appeared in Roman Czerniawski’s cell, ushered in by a warder. The last Roman remembered of his lover was her “terrified eyes” as she was frog-marched away from the Montmartre flat. Renée quickly explained what her jailers had told her: that Mathilde had “given everything away”; the Interallié network was destroyed. Even so, “the Germans felt an extraordinary admiration for our methods,” she said, suggesting that Roman “might exploit this favourable circumstance.” Renée was certainly a plant—whether willing or otherwise—sent to weaken his resolve. Roman’s first response was to try to make sense of Mathilde’s betrayal. “It is possible she acted under German blackmail,” he reasoned. “When working in this terrain one cannot apply any rules concerning the trust one may place in individuals. The only value is a man’s character and his resistance in moments of crisis and his loyalty to ideals.” Many years later, he was still pondering her behavior, and his own.
Roman’s morale improved after Renée’s visit. He had been contemplating suicide, fearing interrogations “by force,” but now Czerniawski was once again plot hatching, his favorite activity. As one of his spymasters observed, “a firing squad did not fit in with his grandiose and dramatic ideas of his own destiny.” Renée’s visit had suggested a way out of this predicament. Which was, of course, precisely what Bleicher had intended.
On November 29, Roman Czerniawski handed his jailers a letter addressed to General Otto von Stülpnagel, Germany’s military commander in France. For sheer gall, it was remarkable even by Czerniawski’s standard: “No collaboration which might be proposed to me could come about unless I was convinced that I was working for the good of the Polish nation,” he told Stülpnagel. “If the German nation has amongst its plans the reconstruction of the rights of the Polish nation, in this case alone discussions about my collaboration could take place. Any such discussion must take place with an officer of the General Staff who knows these problems and is authorised to discuss them with me.”
No one had actually asked Czerniawski to collaborate. He was making an offer, but in such a way that it sounded as if he were accepting one.
The next day, a man in the uniform of a colonel entered the cell and saluted. Czerniawski bowed. The fellow was middle-aged and “lantern-jawed,” with “thick grey hair and an intelligent look.” He introduced himself as Oscar Reile, chief of counterintelligence for the Paris Abwehr station. Roman noted his “manicured” fingernails. This man was a negotiator, a fixer, not a fighter.
Without preamble, Reile launched into a lecture on Nazi history. The National Socialists were the new Romans, he explained. The Führer did not wish to oppress Poland and asked only for Polish support to counter the Bolshevik threat from the east: “We do not deny the rights of the Polish nation, but we ask its cooperation.” In defying Germany, Poles like Czerniawski were opposing the tide of history. “You have tied yourself on one hand with capitalist-Jewish England and, on the other, with Communist-Bolshevik Russia,” the colonel continued. “By joining us you will contribute to our programme to advance Europe by several centuries in one leap.” General Sikorski, he said, was backing the wrong horse: “Whatever collaboration Poland might have with Great Britain would be merely to help the selfish aims of Great Britain. All things considered, the best solution would be to come under the cultural protection of Germany, since German culture is preferable to barbarian culture.”
It was an extraordinary performance, revealing an “excellent knowledge of Polish history” and perfectly pitched to appeal to a patriotic anticommunist Pole weakened by hunger but fattened up on a diet of Nazi propaganda and fearful that his country might fall under Soviet rule. Above all, it played on Roman Czerniawski’s abundant vanity, suggesting that he alone could “raise the Polish nation on the side of Germany.” Thus began what Czerniawski described as the “war of nerves.” He would later claim that he had merely played a part, pretending to discuss collaboration, “as though I had really swallowed their propaganda,” when it is unlikely he ever had any such intention. He was determined, however, to keep fighting for Poland, and in order to do that, he needed to get out of prison. As the German officer rose to leave, Czerniawski dropped an unsubtle hint: “In my opinion England is leading us, Poles, up the garden path.”
When Oscar Reile returned a few days later, he was in civilian clothes. The propaganda lecture continued. “The Germans were at the doors of Moscow.… The war against England would certainly be won.” If Roman Czerniawski sided with Germany and persuaded his compatriots to do likewise, he would “be working for the good of the Polish nation.” The Pole responded hotly that “he would never under any circumstances work against my countrymen.” Colonel Reile smiled broadly.
Czerniawski composed another le
tter. “The future of Poland lies in German hands, the British will do nothing for us, and deliver us to the Russian barbarism,” he wrote. “I am prepared to discuss placing myself at the disposal of Germany while at the same time being of use to my own country, Poland.” If the Germans could smuggle him into Britain, he said, he would spy for Germany. Once in place, he could gather information on British aircraft and tank production, troop deployments, and, above all, “preparations for, and the possibilities of, a second front.” In short, he would “do for Germany what he had been doing in France against them.” He promised great things: “I will group around me persons dissatisfied with the British alliance and thus create a powerful fifth column” ready to rise up “the moment that Germany attacks England.” He made just two demands: “That the agents of Interallié captured with him were not to be put to death and were to be set free at the conclusion of the war [and that] Germany would, after winning the war, assist his country and people in a manner commensurate with the valuable work he would no doubt have achieved.”
Much of this was posturing nonsense, but some was undoubtedly genuine. With his reignited self-confidence, Czerniawski truly believed that he could negotiate on behalf of Poland and change the course of the war. It was, Reile admitted, “an extremely odd situation: a captured spy was laying down conditions.”
The effect of the letter was instantaneous. Two new German officers appeared in his cell and, “in unusually polite and friendly terms, expressed their pleasure at the fact that, after all, I had come to realise the good brought by National Socialism to the ‘New Europe.’ ” If Roman Czerniawski could deliver all he promised, then he would find Germany “highly appreciative.” But how, they asked, could they be sure he would not betray them? The Pole’s response was indignant: “I told them I could carry out my mission successfully only on condition that I enjoyed their absolute trust.” But Reile knew better than to rely on the word of a man who had already amply demonstrated his talent for subterfuge. Czerniawski’s mother was in occupied Poland, he pointed out; his brother was in a German POW camp; his lover sat in a nearby cell; and dozens of members of his network had been rounded up. “Your companions are in prison,” Reile remarked pointedly. “You know yourself what the sentence will be, if the courts have to impose a punishment for spying in wartime.”
Czerniawski responded hotly: “If I work for you, it will be for ideological reasons. There will be no need for reprisals.” But the German did not need to spell out the threat: if he should double-cross them, his friends, colleagues, and family would be killed.
The Pole had long considered himself as a prime candidate for martyrdom, but more than his own life was now at stake. “Should I fail, the fury of the Germans would know no bounds,” he reflected. “I knew that the fate of my former colleagues was practically a foregone conclusion, but now I was involving my mother and my brother. This time I had no right to commit any mistakes.” On the afternoon of July 14, 1942, two Gestapo noncommissioned officers entered Czerniawski’s cell and ordered him to put on his shoes. One was small and pudgy. The other looked tough and cunning, “like an intelligent boxer.” Czerniawski wondered for a moment if he was about to be killed. He was led out of the prison gates and driven to a flat on the Rue Dufrenoy where Colonel Oscar Reile was waiting. Reile handed over a set of civilian clothes, false papers taken from him at the time of his arrest, ten thousand francs in ration coupons, and some money to “enable him to go to the barber and have a shave.” Reile laid out his instructions: Czerniawski should make his way to unoccupied France, reestablish contact with the Polish underground, and get himself smuggled to Britain. Bleicher would shadow him in the Vichy zone in case of difficulties. Czerniawski should tell Polish intelligence that he had given the Germans the slip while being transferred between prisons. “The prison would be notified that I had escaped en route to the car.” His new German code name would be “Hubert.”
Canaris himself had approved the plan to woo Czerniawski, play on his patriotism, recruit him, and then send him to Britain, but Reile was fully aware of the dangers. “The English knew that Armand had fallen into our hands,” he later wrote. “Our English opposite numbers would quite obviously assume that he had been released from prison by us, and sent over with secret orders. There was the risk that the enemy Intelligence Service would then attempt to transmit misleading information to us.” But Reile was confident that if Czerniawski began feeding him falsehoods, he would spot the deception and be able to pick up important clues as to the real intentions of the British by reading Roman’s messages “in reverse.” “If the enemy attempted to mislead us we could, under certain circumstances, gather important information.” Czerniawski could hardly believe his “fantastic” luck. He went to a barber on the Rue Pigalle to have his prison beard removed and then ate in a Russian restaurant. Walking back to the flat, he stopped from time to time to check if he was being tailed. No one seemed to be following him. He was free, after a fashion.
4. Coat Trailing
Elvira de la Fuente Chaudoir, boredom-prone good-time girl and aspiring spy, was perched at the roulette table in a Cannes casino, when she was approached by a Frenchman named Henri Chauvel, a wealthy Nazi collaborator, who asked her out to dinner. She had no hesitation in accepting.
Elvira had spent several weeks “coat trailing” through the south of France, spending time in casinos and expensive restaurants while maintaining her “cosmopolitan cover as a society girl mixing in the very top circles,” without so much as a sniff from German intelligence. Cannes was an oasis of self-indulgence. In her diary Elvira described the “small class of unscrupulous millionaires” living it up in southern France while war raged. “People who get all the food they want, who wear lovely clothes, and who, though dancing is forbidden even to them, spend their nights gambling in the casinos.” There was nothing she liked better than dancing and gambling. But having spent the funds provided by MI6, she was almost broke again. Her existence was “altogether more agreeable than enduring the Blitz in London,” but Elvira was beginning to feel guilty. “I felt I was doing little to justify Dansey’s investment in me.” She needed someone to pick up her coat. Henri Chauvel seemed like a good start.
Of the millionaires enjoying life in the south of France in the spring of 1941, few were more unscrupulous than Chauvel, a property owner and entrepreneur who had discovered that currying favor with the Germans was a most effective way of making money. He took Elvira to dinner at the Carlton Hotel, which he owned, and ordered champagne. Chauvel was “obviously rolling in money.” At the bar, a group of men was getting noisily drunk. One stood out from the others, “very tall, with pitch-black hair.” He spoke French, but even from a distance Elvira could hear his strong German accent. “The German seemed very interested in me and looked at me all the time,” she wrote. “He was young and good-looking.” She asked Chauvel if he knew him.
“I’ll introduce you to him, but in the end he’s just a pig like the others,” said the Frenchman, piqued at Elvira’s interest in another man. She pressed him for a name. Chauvel shrugged: “He is a secret agent of Goering’s and changes his name every day.”
A few days later, Elvira was at the bar of the Miramar Hotel, drinking a whiskey, when the German appeared at her shoulder, bowed, and introduced himself as “Bibi.” His real name was Helmut Bleil. He had arrived in unoccupied France in 1940 as part of the commission enforcing the terms of the Franco-German armistice, but his role as an economic expert was a cover. Like Johnny Jebsen, he was a freelance spy. But unlike Jebsen, he had no formal role in the Abwehr, having “been recruited personally by Goering.” Bibi bought Elvira another drink and then invited her to dinner at “one of the most expensive black-market restaurants.” He seemed an odd but intriguing fellow. His hands shook and he drank heavily, but he had the most “graceful walk” and was “obviously a gentleman.” He appeared deeply anxious. Elvira wondered if he might have an “inferiority complex.” Later he confessed that he feared he might
be “spotted as a German,” and shot in the street by the resistance.
At first, Bibi “seemed to want to keep the conversation to ordinary things.” When she asked him what he did, “he laughed and said he was supposed to be attached to the Madrid Embassy as an ‘economic specialist.’ ” He didn’t elaborate. Elvira explained that she was separated from her husband and visiting her parents in Vichy. Casually, she remarked that she had run out of money and would soon be returning to England. After dinner, he said he would like to take her to the casino. Despite his peculiar combination of swagger and paranoia, Elvira found him a “pleasant fellow.”
Elvira and Bibi met again the next evening, and the next. One moment he was full of laughter, and “enjoyed everything like a child,” the next he would be saturated in alcoholic gloom, telling her: “The war was very silly and such a pity and the Russians were awful and it would have been much more sensible for England and Germany to unite against Russia.”
“Why are you going back to England?” he asked. “You could have a much better time in Paris, and London is going to be bombed worse than ever.”
Finally, Bibi made his move, but tentatively. Apropos of nothing at all, he observed that “his Portuguese banker had told him there were packets of money to be made in England at the moment.” There was a pause. “We might do some little business together.” Elvira sensed that here, at last, was “an opportunity to start justifying my SIS salary. I pricked up my ears.”
“How much does a woman like you need to live really well in London?” asked the German.
Elvira told him she would be quite happy with “anything over a hundred a month.”
“That is very little,” said Bibi, looking relieved. “And very easy to make.”
“How?” asked Elvira.
They sat talking on the deserted Cannes seafront until three in the morning. Bibi explained that he had “friends” who would pay generously for political, financial, and industrial information about Britain. “After the war, everyone will be very poor so it is up to each one of us to try to make some money now. After all, that is the only thing that counts.” He was “rather vague” about exactly how she should obtain this information. As Bleil stared out over the dark Mediterranean, he said soberly: “You will have to be terribly careful and never tell a soul about it. Because, if you do, you will be the first to pay.” The words hovered somewhere between a warning and a threat.
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