Agent in Berlin, page 31
* * *
Jack Miller shuddered when he thought of the damage the profile of Hans von Tschammer und Osten would do to his reputation. However carefully the article was written there was no hiding its main purpose: to appeal to the Reichssportführer’s vanity. He was amazed Ted Morris had managed to place it in a dozen newspapers: he wondered if he was paying them to run it.
But it worked. His accreditation duly came through for a match billed – not least by himself in an article breathless with enthusiasm – as part of an unofficial World Cup. The Germans could not have been more confident: they’d just thrashed Hungary 7–0 in Cologne. Little Switzerland surely wouldn’t present much of a problem.
Thirty journalists were flown to Bern on a special charter flight on the Wednesday before the match and taken by coach to the Schweizerhof on Bahnhofplatz. The group was accompanied by half a dozen officials from the DFB, the German Football Association. Three of them, Miller guessed, were Gestapo – there to ensure the journalists kept in line and avoided contact with people who had nothing to do with football.
Basil Remington-Barber knew how closely Jack Miller would be watched. He’d told him not to contact him, just to act normally and do everything the group did. He’d find him.
On the Friday they were taken to watch the Swiss team train at the Stade de Suisse and then attended a lengthy press conference where the proceedings were conducted in German, Swiss German, French and Italian. The Swiss coach said he was confident but taking nothing for granted.
The journalists had no commitments that afternoon. There was a walking tour of the old town or they could return to the hotel but were told if they left it they’d need an escort. For your own safety.
In Bern, perhaps the safest place in Europe.
He was resting in his room that afternoon, checking his notes from the training sessions and press conferences and wondering whether to file anything that evening. He decided against it, he doubted anything would run before Sunday’s match. He answered a knock at the door and let in a man from housekeeping who’d come to fix a leaking tap. The man turned it on and the bath tap too and then beckoned Jack towards him.
‘Someone wants to see you. When I leave the room, I’ll check the corridor and if it’s clear, follow me to the service lift. We’d better get a move on. Don’t forget to turn the taps off.’
Five minutes later he was sitting in a suite on the top floor admiring the views over the old town with the River Aare behind it. Basil Remington-Barber was fussing over something in the drinks cabinet while explaining something about one of the bridges.
‘You realise the Gestapo is all over your group?’
They were sitting in a lounge area, nursing the very large measures of whisky that Basil had served. Jack nodded.
‘Hence my having to spend London’s money on this room and disgracefully over-priced malt and bring you up here in a goods lift. Barney tells me you’re a bit uneasy about things? Perfectly understandable. Gets to us all and you’re in—’
‘It’s not so much me, it’s our Japanese friend.’
‘In what way? We got his chum to England safely enough… surely he’s happy with that?’
‘Indeed: he wouldn’t be passing all these documents on to us if he wasn’t. But he’s worried that there doesn’t seem to be much reaction to what we’re sending over. I’ve another film for you here.’ He handed an envelope over. ‘It’s first-class material, apparently, Basil, brimming with evidence of Japanese plans to attack the United States and drag Britain into it to. I think his worry is that he’s risking his life and yet the material is being ignored.’
‘Just because he sees no evidence it’s being taken account of doesn’t mean it is being ignored.’
‘I tried to tell him that too, Basil. It’s very difficult in Berlin, Basil, which I know is stating the obvious, but the atmosphere is very intimidating. People live on their nerves and I sometimes wonder how much longer I—’
‘Look, Jack.’ Basil shifted his chair closer to the American’s. ‘How can I put this? I’m a pretty important chap: I fought in France throughout the Great War and ended up as a major in a Guards Regiment. I joined the Service soon after that and have run our operations in some important places including Cairo and Paris. Bern was meant to be my last posting before retirement, which is now a distant prospect. I’m also well-connected: it may not mean a lot to you but my family are aristocracy – there’s an Honourable in front of my name. Half the people who run the country went to the same school as me. In Britain that counts for a lot.
‘I tell you all this not to impress you but to make this point: notwithstanding everything I’ve just told you, I’m just another cog in the wheel, I barely matter. I’ve had to accept that when I pass on intelligence or get an agent or one of our aircrew back home, I don’t hear any more about it. That is how it is. As much as I may think I’m important, in the great scheme of things I’m just someone else in the crowd. We all have to accept that, I’m afraid, which isn’t to say that what we do isn’t important. The fact we may sometimes feel ignored should not lead us to be disheartened. You need to understand this and Tadashi should too. I hope you catch my drift; I do rather ramble at times. Something to do with age. You mustn’t feel disheartened.’
Jack said he was very grateful for all that but he did nonetheless have a nagging concern that maybe… he wasn’t sure how to put it… but that possibly London was overwhelmed and perhaps some vital intelligence was stuck in an in-tray?
Basil said he quite understood and he promised to put these concerns to London but in the meantime, Jack really wasn’t to worry and nor should Tadashi. The relationship between Britain and the USA was an absolute priority and therefore anything to do with it was bound to be acted upon.
‘It’s quite evident that it’s treated as first-class honours material, Jack. Neither you nor our Japanese friend should worry. It’s giving Winston all the ammunition he needs.’
‘And Tadashi wanting to come to England?’
Basil Remington-Barber shook his head. ‘That clearly isn’t going to happen while the war’s on, is it, Jack? Not that we tell him that of course. I can’t see him passing off as an SS officer, can you? He’ll stick out like a sore thumb wherever he is. Just assure him it is indeed our intention to reunite him and his friend, but don’t promise when.’
* * *
The game between Switzerland and Germany turned out to be a great sports story and Ted Morris managed to place it in virtually all their newspapers in the States. Against all the odds Germany were beaten 2–1 by the Swiss and Jack wrote it up as one of the greatest ever upsets in international soccer.
And as one of his editors would have described it, the story had legs. The reaction in Germany was furious. Goebbels threatened to sack Hans von Tschammer und Osten and take on the post of Reichssportführer himself. There would, he declared, be no more international sporting events where the result was in any way unpredictable. The German team was told that one more performance like that and they’d all be sent to the Eastern Front.
Jack Miller knew how they must feel.
Chapter 33
Berlin
June 1941
Oberstleutnant Ernst Scholz retired in June 1941.
His work as a Luftwaffe officer at the Air Ministry in Berlin continued – in fact, it flourished. But his retirement was as a British agent, something he’d been contemplating for a while.
There was no single reason for his retirement. Although he was opposed to the Nazis and wanted revenge for his wife’s death, he didn’t see himself as a traitor, even though he knew full well what he was doing was treason. It was a tricky paradox to live with but he rationalised it by believing it wasn’t in Germany’s interests to be ruined by the Nazis.
Then there was Magda. After his wife’s death he’d found it hard to imagine he’d remarry, but he’d met Magda at a New Year’s Eve party and they’d become very close. She worked as a nurse at a psychiatric asylum just outside Berlin and although he didn’t love Magda in the intense way he did his late wife, she was very sweet and pretty, even if a bit quiet at times. She avoided any discussion related to politics – that was common in Berlin, even between lovers and within families – but she clearly wasn’t a Nazi. He soon realised she’d be a good companion and maybe in time – who knows, he may even grow to love her. Their wedding date was arranged for July and she’d then move into his apartment on Düsseldorfer Strasse.
But perhaps the main factor was the increased risk at work. A new head of security had arrived at Wilhelmstrasse at the start of the year and had soon made his mark. Even the most senior person was liable to be searched when leaving or entering the building. Scholz’s modus operandi with documents he was providing for the British was to identify those where multiple copies had been made, which applied to ones where more than one department was involved and extra copies had been made before they were sent to Registry.
The American had tried to persuade him to take a camera into work, but he was having none of that. Instead, he’d wait until he found a ‘spare’ document from one of these FW190 files and slip it into his coat. He’d only done this once since the new security regime and that had been nerve-wracking enough. But one night at the end of February he’d stayed late at work and was just about to check the FW190 files when a team of security officers came in and explained this was a routine check and please could he remain where he was and not touch anything. They made notes of everything on all the desks and then went through all the contents of his. They checked his jacket, coat, briefcase and desk drawers.
Everything is in order, Oberstleutnant. Thank you for your understanding and apologies for the disturbance.
Ernst Scholz said not at all, he was pleased to see they were being so diligent.
He realised his time as a British agent was coming to an end. He’d done his bit. The FW190 was due to start flying operationally any time now, just a matter of weeks, and it appeared the British were beginning to react to his intelligence. There’d been a series of RAF bombing raids on Bremen since the end of 1940 and some particularly heavy raids early in January, which had hit the Focke-Wulf factories. The American had even asked him if he could request a site visit to the factories and take some photographs while he was there. He’d responding by suggesting while he was at it should he could take a camera crew?
It was a meeting at the beginning of May that proved to be the final straw.
He’d arrived early at work on a Monday morning and the general-major in charge of his department took him aside and said he was being attached to another unit for a few weeks. He must have looked concerned because the general-major told him not to worry.
‘You’ve done a first-class job, Ernst, but there’s something big going on and we need senior officers with your grasp of organisation and logistics – and who we know we can trust.’
In a secure room on the fourth floor, where he was relieved to find himself in the company of a dozen fellow officers of similar rank, the lights dimmed and a slide show began and the first slide said: ‘Operation Barbarossa’.
The presentation lasted over an hour. Any day now, they were told, Germany would begin its invasion of the Soviet Union. Three Army groups would attack along a border stretching from the Baltic in the north to the Carpathian Mountains in the south. Seven German armies, four Panzer groups, three Romanian armies under German command. It was a formidable force and the aim was to conquer the Soviet Union in a matter of weeks.
Their role, they were told, was to assist with planning the Luftwaffe’s part in Operation Barbarossa. They were to identify and prioritise Soviet airfields to be attacked. Air supremacy was the priority, they were told. Each officer was then handed a folder with details of the sector they’d be looking after.
Ernst Scholz’s sector was in Army Group Centre under the command of Generalfeldmarschall von Bock and specifically the 4th Army, commanded by General von Kluge. He would be looking at targets and objectives in the area running from Brest to Kowel.
One of Scholz’s colleagues asked how imminent the invasion was and the general taking the briefing repeated what he’d said at the beginning: any day now. Another Oberstleutnant said it had better be imminent and the general asked what he meant.
‘It’s what… six hundred miles from Brest to Moscow? Across hostile terrain. Sure, we’ll have the benefit of surprise and of course the Luftwaffe will ensure we have air superiority, but the Red Army is tough and it’s enormous… and if we move too fast there’ll be problems with supplying our front line. If we leave it much longer then before we know where we are it will be winter and…’
* * *
Their concern turned out to be justified. By the time the invasion began on 22 June, they knew they’d be facing a familiar enemy, the Russian winter. But Ernst Scholz didn’t mention a word of this to the British. He was aware that if there was any suspicion about information being passed to the British about the FW190 and Barbarossa then he’d soon be spotted as the man who’d worked on both. Instead, the night after that first briefing at the beginning of May he went straight to the basement under his apartment on Düsseldorfer Strasse and pulled out a dusty red rug from the back of his storage cage and placed it over the box of paints at the front.
When the American saw that he knew it meant danger.
Oberstleutnant Ernst Scholz had retired.
Chapter 34
London and Berlin
November 1941
Endless meetings in dimly lit and stuffy rooms, the attendees invariably distrustful of each other, the proceedings like a complicated Greek drama, with obscure speeches apparently setting the scene for what was to follow.
By now Barney Allen was resigned to the fact a good deal of his life was destined to be spent in such meetings. The meeting this afternoon was at the Foreign Office and the two officials from that great department of state were the head of the Political Department and a man called Brookes who’d been two years above Barney at school.
‘We have a request, Piers… your chap in Berlin.’
‘Barney has a number of chaps in Berlin.’
‘Ah yes, his famous wolves… we know one runs a highly placed source at the Japanese embassy and we are exceedingly grateful for the intelligence gathered from that source. It corroborates everything else we see in connection with Japan’s intentions vis-à-vis the United States – and us of course.’
As he spoke, Barney remembered Brookes had been a very convincing Cordelia – lipstick and all – in a school production of King Lear. It was hard to disassociate him from that role.
‘Without wishing to involve you any more than is necessary in the unpleasant world of international diplomacy we would like you to request this source do something that would be of immense benefit to this country.’ Cordelia held out his hand for his colleague to pick up the baton.
‘Would we be right in assuming your source has the ear of Ambassador Ōshima?’
Neither Allen nor Devereux responded.
‘We are of the view – assisted in no small part by the intelligence you pass on to us – that a Japanese attack on the United States and a subsequent declaration of war by them on both us and the USA is now a matter of timing. I am of the view it will be by the end of this year at the very latest.’ The head of the Political Department spoke in an over-mannered way, as if delivering a sermon. ‘It would be of enormous help if your source could prevail upon his ambassador to persuade the German government that when that happens it would be in their best interests to join Japan in declaring war against the United States, ideally with minimum delay.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really, Piers. This is the view of the prime minister who’s in daily contact with President Roosevelt and they are very much in agreement regarding the approach of both countries. The issue of how Germany will react to a Japanese declaration of war on the United States has been a constant topic of conversation. The question is: in the event of a Japanese attack will the president be forced to declare war against Germany? This will be problematic for him as a majority of Americans currently oppose such a war. This dilemma will be solved if Germany declares war against the United States first. It would also be the preferred option of this country: having the United States drawn into a war against Germany means we will no longer be alone in our struggle against them.’
‘You mean it is in the interests of the United Kingdom for Japan to attack the United States?’
‘We are saying we believe that to be inevitable and therefore it is incumbent upon us to ensure the outcome of such an attack is in the best interests of the United Kingdom.’
‘The intelligence from Berlin,’ said Barney, ‘is gathered at considerable risk. We would hope it is being used to prevent war rather than increase its chances.’
The head of the Political Department waited a while before responding. ‘The intelligence you are gathering from Berlin is being used for the benefit of the United Kingdom, Barnaby. How the British government chooses to use that intelligence is a matter for the government. Gathering the intelligence is not an end in itself, is it? It is part of a bigger picture. We are asking you to get a message to your source and prevail upon them to make out the case for Germany to declare war on the United States.’
‘Do you have any suggestions?’ Piers Devereux leaned back in his chair, looking confused. ‘After all, it’s hardly in Hitler’s interests to declare war on such a powerful country, is it?’
‘Maybe not, but the Germans need Japan to enter the war and engage us and Russia. I would imagine the Japanese diplomatic position would be that they are hesitant in doing this if they cannot be sure they won’t be acting alone.’
