Marie von Gronau was generous with her favors. When Jebsen arrived in Lisbon, she was already the mistress of the Italian air attaché and being courted by an SD officer named Volbrecht. One evening Volbrecht told Marie that Jebsen was a macaco, a Portuguese term of abuse meaning “monkey,” and the Baroness passed the insult on to Jebsen. “Although he had not the slightest idea what a macaco was, he did not like the sound of the word and challenged Volbrecht to a duel with pistols.” Volbrecht refused, “saying his department did not allow duels.” (At some point in this period, Jebsen’s wife, Lore, came to Lisbon to see her husband, a visit that seems to have done nothing to slow down his extramarital liaisons.)
Jebsen was spiraling into a most volatile frame of mind. Lily Grass, he declared, was still “infatuated” with him and passing on useful tidbits from the correspondence of her boss, Aloys Schreiber, the head of counterintelligence: “Schreiber has written to Berlin that in his opinion Tricycle is absolutely reliable and should be given the biggest and most secret tasks for big money,” she told him. This was reassuring, yet “Jebsen’s nervousness and excitability” was a headache. In late January, Charles de Salis telephoned Jebsen’s villa in Estoril to find that he had vanished. A discreet but intensive manhunt was launched. After three days British intelligence was starting to panic, when Jebsen reappeared, none the worse for his disappearing act save for a hangover: he had been on an almighty binge with his new best friend, Hans Brandes.
Hans Joachim Brandes was one of numerous shady characters loosely attached to the Lisbon Abwehr station. He was twenty-four years old, fair haired, half Jewish, Swiss educated, and so overweight that he had been declared unfit for military service. His father had owned a large machine tool factory in Berlin, and on the outbreak of war Brandes and his brother, principally through bribery, had successfully registered themselves as non-Jewish. Brandes spent money liberally wherever he went and was “known to give as much as 30,000 marks to reserve officers whose salary is only some 700 marks monthly, merely to make things easier for himself.” A shareholder in a Berlin armaments firm, he won a contract to supply arms to the Portuguese government.
Arriving in Lisbon in 1943, Brandes set himself up as a trader in platinum, diamonds, and shoe leather and an occasional spy. “He is personally befriended by Canaris who has sent him here to be out of harm’s way as he is partly Jewish,” reported Jebsen. “He is supposed to report through Von Karsthoff but he does practically nothing” and seemed to have some sort of “hold over” the Abwehr station chief, almost certainly financial: “His bribes go a long way and he is certainly a specialist in that art.” Brandes claimed to be running his own espionage network, including an IRA spy in Ireland, agents in Switzerland, and a Frenchman in North Africa named Barinki d’Arnoux. Brandes liked to boast: “With a great deal of cunning and craftiness I have succeeded to settle down here in Lisbon for the duration of the war.” He shared Jebsen’s tastes and, it seemed, his politics. “He made no secret of the fact that he is not only very anti-Nazi but very pro-British and hoped England would win the war.” Together they roistered around Lisbon with secretaries in tow. “Relations between Artist and Brandes seem to have grown very close,” MI6 reported. Early in January, Brandes told his new friend that he was going to Berlin and would “try to persuade Canaris to cancel his order against Artist’s return to Germany.” Jebsen did not tell Brandes about his work for the British, but he believed his new chum could easily be recruited as another double agent.
In fact, MI6 had been tracking the mysterious Brandes ever since his arrival in Lisbon and had come to the conclusion that, like Ostro, he was a hoaxer. Kim Philby, the head of the MI6 counterintelligence Iberian desk, followed the progress of Brandes through Most Secret Sources and concluded “the organisation he claims to run is fictitious.” Brandes was perpetrating a “deliberate fraud on the Abwehr,” which made him susceptible to blackmail. “He is only twenty-four and half-Jewish,” wrote Philby. “It is certain, therefore, that if he fails to maintain his position he would find himself fairly rapidly on the Eastern Front. He is strongly anti-Nazi and has never made any serious attempt to provide the Abwehr with genuine information. He would have a positive motive for accepting our proposition.”
Brandes knew Jebsen had secret agents in Britain, but he assumed that Jebsen’s reports to Berlin, like his own, were what he called “constructive fantasy.” He even offered to back up anything Jebsen might be sending to Berlin with his own inventions. Jebsen told de Salis he had “enough confidence in Brandes to reveal to him that he was working for the British” but “had not done so and would not do so without agreement.” Brandes was a “slippery opportunist,” said Jebsen, but he could be a useful ally: “If he knew the truth he would probably want to join the game.”
MI6 decided to keep a close eye on Jebsen’s new friend; if and when the time seemed ripe, he could be brought into the game. “I think Brandes might develop into a useful straight agent if he has any guts and strong anti-Nazi convictions,” wrote Frank Foley of MI6. Jebsen was certain Brandes would persuade Admiral Canaris to “lift the veto for my return which was made for my safety, as the Gestapo does not want anything from me any longer. I myself will be able to leave shortly.”
But before Canaris could do any such thing, he was toppled. Early in February, an Abwehr officer named Erich Vermehren slipped out of the Abwehr station in Istanbul and defected. He and his wife were smuggled to Britain via Cairo and Gibraltar and took up residence in a South Kensington flat belonging to Kim Philby’s mother. Vermehren’s defection was the excuse the enemies of Canaris were waiting for. Hitler was enraged. Canaris had long been suspected of being disloyal (which he was) and of working to undermine Hitler (which he probably was too). He was dismissed, given a meaningless job, and finally placed under house arrest. The Abwehr would soon be taken over by the SD and subsumed into the Reich Main Security Office under the control of Himmler and Kaltenbrunner, and then abolished entirely. Jebsen had been predicting “the downfall of Canaris” for some time. His ousting brought with it an orgy of chaotic score settling and internecine feuding: some Abwehr officers demanded to be sent to the front; others were dismissed; those remaining in place did so in an atmosphere of crippling paranoia and uncertainty. “Further dismissals will probably take place,” Jebsen reported, “together with a weeding out of unsatisfactory double agents.” The British (and many Germans) would continue to refer to “the Abwehr,” although the old organization was effectively obsolete.
The chaos within German intelligence and the SD’s power grab at the expense of the Abwehr sent a shudder of anxiety through the Double Cross team. The Abwehr officers were the devils they knew. There was now a danger, as Masterman observed, that “new brooms would sweep away much which we had tried to preserve.”
Jebsen had been at university in Freiburg with Erich Vermehren and had helped him get a job in the Abwehr. The Vermehren family, from Lübeck, was ardently anti-Nazi. Erich’s mother, Petra Vermehren, a distinguished German journalist, had come to Portugal early in the war in order to get out from under the Nazi regime. Jebsen knew her well, and on hearing of Vermehren’s defection, he rushed to her home to find Petra packing. She explained that she had been recalled to Germany to explain her son’s defection. “Jebsen tried to persuade her not to go,” telling her “he was on friendly terms with Lord Rothschild who has asked him to come to England”—a hint that he could help arrange her defection. Petra insisted she was not afraid and caught the next plane to Berlin, knowing that under the Nazi system of collective punishment she was probably doomed. She was arrested at the airport and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Her husband, son, and two daughters were also interned in concentration camps.
Vermehren’s defection made Jebsen’s own position more vulnerable. His friendship with the family was well known, and he was sure to be tarred by association. Canaris, “the old fox,” was no longer on hand to protect him. The “younger and more energetic” Georg Hansen wa
s appointed head of counterintelligence and set about merging the remnants of the Abwehr into a new, unified intelligence service. “He is not a Nazi,” reported Jebsen, “but he is determined to prevent Germany’s defeat. There is no doubt that Hansen means to reform the Abwehr completely.” This new intelligence service would bear little relation to the dozy, dishonest, and partly disloyal organization Jebsen had joined back in 1939. Many of his supporters had been swept away with the fall of Canaris, replaced by men not at all to Jebsen’s liking. “The new officers have no experience of intelligence work, but they are keener and more active than their predecessors and will probably succeed in tightening up the organisation.” One of these new appointees in particular made Jebsen “a little uneasy.”
Major Wilhelm Kuebart was one of the stiffest new brooms in German intelligence. A professional soldier from East Prussia, he had fought on the eastern front before transferring to the Abwehr in July 1943 as Hansen’s deputy. Kuebart was twenty-eight, “wide awake,” ruthlessly proficient, and “the most intelligent man in the Abwehr,” Jebsen reported. The young major swiftly concluded that German intelligence was composed of “elderly men with little or no idea of military organisation.” The Lisbon office in particular was “discharging its functions most unsatisfactorily.” Kuebart paid a visit to Portugal and was “shocked at the general immorality.” Half the staff appeared to be sleeping with the other half. At least two of the secretaries were passing information to Jebsen. Von Karsthoff might insist that Jebsen was “an extremely able man,” but Kuebart smelled something “rather fishy.” On returning to Berlin, he drew up a damning report recommending that von Karsthoff be “removed and replaced” and the “sleeping secretaries” fired. “This brothel must be shut,” Kuebart declared.
Ludovico von Karsthoff, Popov’s indolent, charming, corrupt spymaster, was reprimanded for “indiscretion and inefficiency” (which was putting it mildly), sacked from his post, and sent to the eastern front. Dr. Aloys Schreiber was now, in effect, the head of German intelligence in Lisbon.
Schreiber was a puzzle. A forty-four-year-old Bavarian with an oval face and graying hair, he was a First World War veteran with a doctorate in law from Erlangen University. He had been the personal courier to his close friend Canaris before being sent to Lisbon to take over from Jebsen’s archenemy, Kammler, as head of counterintelligence, although he spoke not a word of Portuguese. “His specific duties were obtaining intelligence information concerning enemy armies,” gathering information about “the possibility of Allied invasion, and in particular the time, location and strength of such a proposed landing.” Bookish and serious, Schreiber was openly disdainful of his dissolute colleagues and had a reputation among the Abwehr roustabouts and layabouts for being “pedantic and ambitious.” Jebsen was unsure what to make of this clever, sober, antisocial man: “Schreiber is not a Nazi, but nor particularly anti-Nazi,” he reported.
In fact, Schreiber was not only anti-Nazi but a conspirator in the spreading plot to topple Hitler. Like some others in the Abwehr, he nursed a quiet but profound hatred of Nazism. In 1942, on the orders of Hans Oster, the deputy head of the Abwehr and a significant figure in the German resistance, he smuggled a Jewish couple named Weiss and their children to Switzerland and was arrested “on suspicion of aiding, abetting and camouflaging the illegal departure” of Jews. He was exonerated after his Abwehr bosses intervened. Before he left for Portugal, Colonel Georg Hansen, another key conspirator, quizzed him closely about “his general political attitude.” Schreiber was left in no doubt that the conspirators were sounding him out: “Something was being planned and he was under the impression that they wished to ascertain exactly who belonged to them in sentiment, so they would know on whom they could count.” They could count on Schreiber. As defeat loomed, a determined band of officers, led by Claus von Stauffenberg, began planning Hitler’s assassination in the attempted putsch code-named “Valkyrie.” These were not softhearted liberals but ruthless military men determined to salvage German honor by destroying Nazism, making peace with the Americans and British, and then turning, with full ferocity, on the Bolshevik menace in the East. A postwar investigation concluded that Schreiber “belonged to the group of militarists who sponsored the attempt of 20 July 1944” and that “he was sent to Portugal by the 20 July conspirators to ensure having a dependable man in a strategic position who could be called upon.” Schreiber would soon receive the call, with calamitous consequences for the Double Cross plot.
Marie von Gronau, Jebsen’s latest “sleeping secretary,” reported that Berlin was demanding “the names of Abwehr members who are believed to be in touch with the British.” Jebsen relayed this disquieting news to de Salis: “We must reckon that they will in future pay special attention to us. Even greater care is necessary with regard to meetings.” The danger was reflected in Most Secret Sources. “Berlin has ordered that a close watch be kept on Artist, presumably on account of the flight of the Vermehrens as he is known to be a friend of theirs,” wrote Tar. “Artist’s friends are not now in Berlin, and his enemies are going to make things unpleasant for him.”
Jebsen was confident: Brandes had been to Berlin and reported that he had “defended him strongly”; the secretaries were keeping him fully informed of the correspondence with Berlin; Schreiber did not seem particularly hostile, and the order to keep an eye on him was probably just a routine response to the defection of his friend, Erich Vermehren. “The clouds are nearly over,” he told de Salis, who reported back to London: “Artist in extremely good form, owing to fact that suspicions against him have died down due to prompt action by his allies, including Brandes.” Jebsen’s confidence rose further with the news that he would soon be reunited with Popov.
Popov landed at the now-familiar Lisbon airport on February 26, bearing with him another large slice of Operation Fortitude, including photographs of admiralty documents, notes on aircraft types, information on rationing, and a doctored parliamentary speech. Within Popov’s cache, as Jebsen had advised, lay a wealth of smaller details that, when put together, would reveal a mighty army assembling in the southeast. Popov had been told to take Jebsen aside as soon and as discreetly as possible and “exert his influence over Artist to prevent the latter from getting nervous or excited and doing foolish things or taking any avoidable risks.” If Jebsen raised the idea of bringing Brandes into the plot, he should be urged to “take no steps whatever to bring this about, although we would welcome suggestions as to how it might be possible to recruit Brandes.” Above all, Jebsen should be encouraged to find out whether the deception was working, by obtaining “up-to-date details of the German knowledge of the British Order of Battle.”
Popov’s reception was very different from the sort of welcome laid on by von Karsthoff. This time he would be debriefed by Aloys Schreiber, a man who, Jebsen warned, “had a very great experience of interrogating prisoners.” Schreiber asked Jebsen to sit in on the debriefing, which was as intense and penetrating as von Karsthoff’s had been cheery and perfunctory. For two days and nights, pausing only for beer and sandwiches, Schreiber grilled Popov. Jebsen chipped in from time to time with his own sharp questions. Popov later reported that his friend had “assisted him cleverly during his interrogation while deliberately appearing to be rather hostile, with the result that Schreiber is satisfied there is no collaboration between Artist and Tricycle.” Popov put on a dazzling performance. Indeed, as he later told Wilson, “he was sure he was definitely on top and, as he modestly put it, being the younger man he stood the strain better than Schreiber.” The German station chief seemed utterly convinced by Popov’s report and immediately dictated a telegram to Berlin stating that he was “an excellent agent and he had no suspicions.” Marie von Gronau passed the note on to Jebsen, who gave it to de Salis, who sent it on to London, where the news was passed to Churchill: “His first interview with his spymasters passed off in a most satisfactory manner.” Popov’s confidence was validated when Bletchley Park decoded a message to t
he German High Command noting that Agent Ivan had furnished “particularly valuable information about the British formations in Great Britain. The report confirmed our own overall operational picture.”
After the debriefing, Popov and Jebsen hit the town, hard. Jebsen was “in funds, having managed to wangle authority to transfer some gold he has put by in Paris,” and had bought himself a Rolls-Royce, which he could not drive. Jebsen did not seem unduly anxious for his own safety and spoke of maintaining “long-term contact with the British secret services” and wanting “to be regarded by them as a reliable agent even after the war.” Popov was confident his own high standing in Berlin would protect his friend. They were joined in their carousing by Hans Brandes, Jebsen’s new friend. Brandes seemed wary of Popov. Jebsen later suggested why: “He is afraid that he [Popov] will report the date and place of the invasion and thus prolong the war.” It was an odd thing to say. Brandes often made overtly anti-Nazi remarks, as if fishing for a reaction. De Salis reported: “Although convinced that Brandes is not trying to trap him, Artist always reacts to such suggestions as a good German should.”
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