Churchill's German Spy: Revelations on Appeasement, Operation Torch and Nazi Intelligence from Double Agent Harlequin

By David Tremain

Compared to many of MI5's other double agents, HARLEQUIN’s career was very short-lived, lasting only for a few months in 1943. However, during that time he provided insights into the various parties involved in the Appeasement process in 1938; the Czech crisis of 1939; the enterprises of a Franco-American businessman who hosted the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s marriage in France; the espionage activities of an aristocratic German family; Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr – many of the Abwehr’s personalities with whom he had come into contact or had known about and the agents he employed – as well as relations between the disparate organisations of the German intelligence services – the Abwehr, Gestapo, and Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence arm of the SS. Furthermore, he revealed the German Armistice Commission’s involvement in espionage and their links to the Abwehr. MI5 shared this intelligence with the FBI and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) before HARLEQUIN requested that he be returned to American custody where he remained for the rest of the war. His effectiveness as a double agent will be examined using newly-released official files as a primary source.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pen and Sword
• Release date: Dec 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781399053860

David Tremain

DAVID TREMAIN is a retired paper conservator and museum security specialist. He has contributed book reviews to the Canadian Association for Security & Intelligence Studies (CASIS), published articles on conservation for the museum and conservation professions, and taught workshops on emergency preparedness and museum security internationally. Born in Britain, he now lives in Ottawa, Canada.

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CHURCHILL’S

GERMAN

SPY

In loving memory of my mother, Barbara

Tremain née Tricker (1934–2023)

CHURCHILL’S

GERMAN

SPY

Revelations on Appeasement, Operation Torch and Nazi Intelligence from Double Agent Harlequin

David Tremain

First published in Great Britain in 2023 by

PEN AND SWORD HISTORY

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire – Philadelphia

Copyright © David Tremain, 2023

ISBN 978 1 39905 384 6

ebub ISBN 978 1 39905 386 0

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The right of David Tremain to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Contents

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

Dramatis Personae

Glossary

German Ranks

Introduction

Chapter 1 An Important Prize

Chapter 2 The Bedaux Affair

Chapter 3 Revelations

Chapter 4 Their Man in New York

Chapter 5 The Prince and the Appeaser

Chapter 6 Hitler’s Special Envoy

Chapter 7 ‘Dr Sedgwick’

Chapter 8 HARLEQUIN on Canaris

Chapter 9 The Belgian Prince

Chapter 10 Pop Goes the Weasel!

Chapter 11 HARLEQUIN and U.35

Chapter 12 A Family of Spies

Chapter 13 Other Revelations

Chapter 14 The Party’s Over

Chapter 15 ‘The Curtain Has Fallen’

Afterword

Appendix 1 Description of Georges Aubry

Appendix 2 HARLEQUIN on Secret Inks

Appendix 3 German Armistice Commission

Appendix 4 Abwehr Terminology

Appendix 5 Abwehr Organisation

Appendix 6 Names Revealed by Westerlinck

Appendix 7 HARLEQUIN’s List of Agents

Notes

Bibliography

Author’s Note

Unless otherwise specified in the Notes, all quotes and extracts have been taken from files at the National Archives at Kew (TNA) or the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). When quoting from these files some minor formatting changes have occasionally been made to ensure the text flows better, and accents added to French, German and Spanish words where they were missed out in the original text because the typewriters of the time lacked those keys; otherwise, no changes have been made to the original punctuation or spelling. The terms ‘MI6’ and ‘SIS’ are frequently used interchangeably to mean the British Secret Intelligence Service. Unless it is specifically used in a quote or a bibliographic reference, the term ‘SIS’ will be used in this book. Codenames or aliases are prefixed using the symbol @. Some names have been redacted from the original documents, but where possible these have been identified and inserted in square brackets, thus: [John Smith].

Acknowledgements

All files in the National Archives are © Crown Copyright and are reproduced with permission under the terms of the Open Government Licence. Quotes from Hansard contain Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0. Every attempt has been made to seek and obtain permission for copyright material used in this book. In certain cases, this has not been possible. However, if we have inadvertently used copyright material without permission/acknowledgements we apologise and we will make the necessary correction at the first opportunity. The author and publisher would like to gratefully acknowledge the following for their assistance or for permission to reproduce copyright material: Kellen Cutsforth, Denver Public Library; Keith Ellison; Cesar Estornes; Alan ‘Fred’ Judge, Military Intelligence Museum, Chicksands; Dr Steven Kippax; Marina Piza; Dr Michael Weatherburn, Imperial College, London.

Dramatis Personae

MI5

Maj. H.J. Baxter (B1d)

Capt. Septimus Brooke-Booth Assistant Director, E Branch (ADE)

Maj. Victor B. Caroe (B1h, LRC)

Joan Chenhalls (B1d, post-war)

J.G. Craufurd (B4b)

Capt. Eric B. Goodacre (B1e, Camp 020)

John Gwyer (B1b)

J.L.S. Hale (SLA)

H.L.A. Hart (B1b)

John Irvine (B1d)

John Marriott (B1a)

Maj. John C. Masterman (B1b)

Capt. Guy Maynard Liddell Director, B Branch (DB)

Cyril Mills (B1a)

Helenus ‘Buster’ Milmo (B1b)

Peter Ramsbotham (E1a)

Sir Edward Reid (B1b)

Lt. Col. Thomas Argyll ‘Tar’ Robertson (B1a)

Edward Blanchard Stamp (B1b)

Lt. Col. Robin ‘Tin Eye’ Stephens (B1e, Camp 020)

Jona ‘Klop’ Ustinov (Agent U.35)

P. Van Dyck (B1d)

D.J. Vesey (B1d)

Dick White Assistant Director, B Branch (ADB)

D. Ian Wilson (B1a)

MI6/SIS

Maj. J. Felix Cowgill, head Section V

Nicholas Elliott

Henry Desmond Verner Pakenham (Section Vd)

H.A.R. ‘Kim’ Philby (Section Vd)

Maj. Derric John Stopford-Adams (Section V)

Patrick Reilly

Maj. Hugh Trevor-Roper

MI19

Maj. C.M. Rait MI19(a)

Lt. Col. A.R. Rawlinson MI19(a), head of MI19

Maj. Alexander Scotland OC, PWIS

Glossary

German Ranks

Feldwebel (Sergeant, Wehrmacht)

Freegatten Kapitän (Commander, Kriegsmarine)

Hauptmann (Captain, Wehrmacht)

Kapitänleutnant (Lieutenant, Kriegsmarine)

Kapitän zur See (Captain, Kriegsmarine)

Korvetten Kapitän (Lieutenant Commander, Kriegsmarine)

Leutnant (Lieutenant, Wehrmacht)

Major (Major, Wehrmacht)

Nachrichtenbeschaffungsoffizier (NBO – intelligence officer)

Oberst (Colonel, Wehrmacht)

Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel, Wehrmacht)

Rittmeister (Riding Master)

Sonderführer (lit. Specialist Leader)

SS-Brigadeführer (Major General)

SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel)

SS-Sturmbannführer (Major)

Introduction

I first came across the name HARLEQUIN listed in J.C. Masterman’s The Double-Cross System.¹ When intelligence historian Nigel West mentioned during a podcast at the National Churchill Library & Center at George Washington University, Washington, DC, to publicize his book Churchill’s Spy Files² that, to date, no books had yet been written about HARLEQUIN, let alone being mentioned elsewhere, it seemed like a good opportunity to amend the situation by making him the subject of this book. Indeed, West devotes a whole chapter in his book to the report MI5 prepared on HARLEQUIN for Churchill’s eyes only, and in his book Spies Who Changed History.³ But that is not the full story.

Compared to many of the other double agents employed by MI5 as part of the Double-Cross System, HARLEQUIN’s career was very short-lived, lasting only for a few months in 1943. However, during that time he was able to provide insights into various parties involved in the Appeasement process in 1938, and the Czech crisis which had arisen in 1939; the enterprises of a Franco-American businessman who hosted the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s marriage in France; the espionage activities of several members of the aristocratic Hohenlohe family; Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr; and many of the Abwehr’s personalities with whom he had come into contact or had known about; the many agents he employed; as well as relations between the disparate organisations of the German intelligence services – the Abwehr, Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the intelligence arm of the SS. Furthermore, he revealed the German Armistice Commission’s involvement in espionage and their links to the Abwehr.

MI5 shared HARLEQUIN’s intelligence with the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), but to quote Agent U.35, ‘once the orange had been squeezed dry’ HARLEQUIN chose to be returned to the Americans, in whose custody he had originally been when captured in late 1942. He would spend the remainder of the war in captivity in America and was repatriated to Germany in 1945. And there the trail goes cold as I have been unable to find any trace of what happened to him after that.

David Tremain

Ottawa, 2023

Chapter 1

An Important Prize

From 8–16 November 1942 Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa, was underway. It was primarily an American effort, as the French were very sensitive about British forces being involved, particularly since on 3 July 1940 the Royal Navy had attacked the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, near Oran, Algiers, and destroyed a number of French warships, to prevent them from falling into German hands, with the loss of 1,297 killed and 350 wounded, including a handful of Royal Navy personnel. The operation came at the closing stages of the Second Battle of El Alamein, 23 October to 11 November 1942, which ultimately resulted in the defeat of Rommel’s Afrika Korps and the Axis powers being driven out of North Africa.

The Western Task Force under Major General George S. Patton, US Army, consisting of the US 3rd and 9th Infantry Divisions, and two battalions of the US 2nd Armored Division, invaded Morocco; the Central Task Force, under Major General Lloyd R. Fredenhall, US Army, consisting of the 2nd Battalion US 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, the US 1st Infantry Division, and the US 1st Armored Division, plus a contingent of British commandos and infantry, invaded Oran; and the Eastern Task Force under Major General Charles W. Ryder, US Army, consisting of the British 78th Infantry Division, and the US 34th Infantry Division, together with the British 1 and 6 Commandos and the RAF Regiment, invaded Algiers. Contingents of the French Army also invaded Morocco and Algeria. All areas were supported by elements of the US Navy.

About 150,000 prisoners (110,000 German and 40,000 Italian) were captured. Among the Germans taken prisoner in November 1942 was Major Richard Ernest Heinrich Wurmann, later codenamed HARLEQUIN by MI5, a German officer who had become disillusioned with Germany’s defeat in 1918 and captured by British troops while trying to escape into Tunisia, claiming to be a member of the Waffenstillstandskommision, WAKO (German Armistice Commission):

Dressed in French Army uniform, he headed for Tunisia hoping to escape the advancing American and British Forces. He successfully bluffed his way through several roadblocks until he was unmasked by French soldiers who had switched to the Allied side. The British soon discovered that they had an important prize in their hands … He had extensive knowledge of Germany’s military set-up throughout Europe and America … What he told them, coupled with the Enigma decrypts, enabled British Intelligence to penetrate the Abwehr so deeply that no important activity remained unknown to them for long. One commentator concluded that it was probably not an exaggeration to maintain that, as a result, Allied intelligence understood the Abwehr better than its own high officials did.¹

But as Hugh Trevor-Roper of SIS informed MI5’s Herbert Hart (B1b) on 21 January 1943, Charles Harborne Stuart of SIS² had identified Wurmann as the Leiter (head) of the Abwehrstelle in Algiers ‘of whom we know a great deal from ISOS at the time when he was Verbindungsoffizier [liaison officer], BIARRITZ’.

A question in the House of Commons posed by John Martin, Member of Parliament for Southwark Central, on 19 March 1941 had asked the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, R.A. ‘Rab’ Butler, about the ‘numbers of German personnel now in French North Africa and the avocations in which they are known to be engaged?’ to which Butler replied:

Delegations of the German Armistice Commission are established in Algeria, Tunis and in the French zone of Morocco. The delegation which has recently been sent to Casablanca is said to consist of about 60 men. These include members of the German army, navy and air force, and it may be assumed that technical experts of various kinds are also included. No details are available of the numbers of the German Commissions elsewhere in North Africa. Their ostensible, though not, I am sure, their only, object is to supervise the execution of the Armistice terms.³

However, a CIA file on Oberstleutnant Franz Seubert, Leiter of Referat 2 of I H West, provides information on the German Armistice Commission being a source of intelligence:

Another source of information that came to Referat 2 from Africa were the Abwehr officers attached to the various detachments of the German Armistice Commission. They were located in Algiers, Oran, Tunis, Casablanca and the officer attached to the latter detachment was Kapitaen UNTERBERGER. Those reports were channelled through the Armistice Commission at Wiesbaden where they were partly evaluated and screened. As a result, reports that did not suit the taste of the Armistice Commission were withheld, others forwarded with comments and deletions. They were not considered very reliable for these reasons …

Reports on North Africa which came via Spain were usually reliable and frequently of a pessimistic and alarming nature. The strong influence of the high-ranking officers of the German Armistice Commission at the High Command in Berlin caused these reports to be considered as exaggerated. In one instance, a report obtained through high Moroccan personalities, via the outpost at Ceuta, pointed out that British or American landings were expected in the Casablanca region, and that preparations lead to believe that these landings were planned for a certain period not far off. This report was ridiculed, torn up, and thrown away in the I-H office; the Allied invasion did take place at the predicted time and location.

Thus, the sureness and stupidity of the members of the Armistice Commission in North Africa contributed greatly to the unpreparedness of the German defense in that area.⁴

Seubert later became Leiter of KO Bulgaria in 1943. Further information on the German Armistice Commission is included in Appendix 3.

*

Wurmann’s army career began in 1914 when he was commissioned into the Wehrmacht. During the First World War he was wounded five times and decorated with the Hohenzollern E.K.1. (Eisernes Kreuz, First Class) and the Verdienstkreuz (Cross of Merit) for bravery in the field. After the war, in 1920, he joined Der Stahlhelm (‘The Steel Helmet’), a German First World War veterans’ organisation, and was an active member until he went to Chile in 1929 where he was employed in Valparaiso, and other South American towns, by Mannesmann A.G. and Siemen-Schuckert, but denied any political activities.

In 1920/1 he was recalled to the military and acted as a liaison officer to the British Armistice Commission in Berlin. He qualified as a chartered accountant and in 1933 became a member of the Nazi party when Der Stahlhelm was incorporated into the party. Franz Seldte, its leader, declared it to be subordinate to Hitler on 27 April 1933; in 1934 it was almagamated with the Sturmabteilung (SA) – the notorious Nazi ‘Brownshirts’ led by Ernst Röhm.

In 1937 he was recalled to the reserve and acted as a company commander in a machine-gun regiment. According to Hart, he had been connected with the Abwehr since December 1937, although his file states that

In 1938 he was transferred to the Abwehr and participated in the 1938/39 manoeuvres as an officer of Ast. Wehrkreis V MUNSTER [Military District V]. At the outbreak of war he was mobilised, and served in the Abwehrstelle KOLN until May, 1940, when he was lent to the Headquarters of the Army Group VON KLEIST for the interrogation of British prisoners. He served in that capacity until DUNKIRK, and after the Franco-German Armistice was first sent for three weeks to PARIS, then to BIARRITZ to organise an Abwehrstelle, where he was stationed until November 1941 … from December 1941 until March, 1942, he worked in BERLIN. Before being transferred to ALGIERS he was sent to PARIS, where he was employed until the end of May, 1942.

Politically, he represents in its entirety the view of the German General Staff, i.e. that while they are grateful to the Party for having rebuilt the German armed forces, they dislike the excesses committed by the Party. If they could find a strong enough man amongst the General Staff, they would speedily eject HITLER and his satellites. The man chosen for this part was BRAUCHITSCH, but since his disgrace there is no one strong enough.

It is of interest to note that many of the intimate and highly secret details in this report concerning the Abwehr have been furnished by [Wurmann] despite the fact that he is a Major in the German S.I.S. and an officer of many years’ standing.⁵

While in Biarritz he collaborated with the Spanish authorities in slipping Abwehr agents and personnel across the Franco-Spanish border.⁶ In December 1941 (Hart says October) he was transferred to Berlin, remaining there until March 1942. He then spent two months in Paris before being transferred to Algiers in June 1942 where he became Leiter of the Abwehrstelle, although Hart states he was Nachrichtenbeschaffungsoffizier (NBO) or intelligence officer: ‘His means of knowledge, therefore, about Abwehr matters were good and we believe he is endeavouring to tell the truth.’ He remained there until November 1942 when he was captured.

The MI5 report describes the reason for his co-operation:

HARLEQUIN is a doubly disappointed and disillusioned man. His early hopes and expectations of a military career culminating in his becoming a general staff officer were shattered by the defeat of German arms in 1918. Like many others of the Prussian officer class, to which he belongs, he disapproved of much that the Nazi regime represents, but he saw in its rise to power the agency through which Germany could shake off the shackles of Versailles and achieve her aggressive ambitions. It was on this basis that he was prepared to, and did, support the new Party. With the failure of the German summer offensive on the Eastern front in 1942 to achieve decisive victory, he realised that the war was lost. Lacking the moral courage to face internment and the bitterness of defeat for the second time he found it consistent with his none too rigid conscience to convince himself that it was in the interests of humanity in general, and the German people in particular, that the termination of the war should be accelerated, and aided by our inducements, decided to do what he could to assist this end. So far he has played well by us and it is anticipated that provided we hold to our side of the bargain he will continue to do so. Moreover the letter which he has written and which is referred to above puts him completely in our power; and he is fully aware of that fact.⁷

In a letter to Hart on 21 January 1943, Hugh Trevor-Roper stated that ‘the following are my chief reasons for identifying P/W with [Wurmann] @ BLANCO who is known from ISOS as the officer-in-charge of the Nebenstelle BIARRITZ’:

1) M.I.9 give [Wurmann’s] full name as Major [Wurmann] and he himself has referred to this alias. The Christian name of the ISOS Hauptmann [Wurmann] is also Richard.

2) [Wurmann] states that he was Verbindungsoffizier BIARRITZ from August 1940 till November 1941. WEISS is mentioned as Verbindungsoffizier in ISOS from October 1940 (when our ISOS records began) till November 1941, after which we lose sight of him.

3) [Wurmann] mentions as one of the facts obtained by him at BIARRITZ that a pro-Axis member of Spanish society there is Serge DININE, a White Russian. On 6 November 1940 [Wurmann] in ISOS sent a request to Lisbon to seek out Serge DININE who was staying there at a known hotel. ⁸

Hart’s letter to Patrick Reilly at SIS on 13 February 1943 states that Wurmann was at the Biarritz Abwehrstelle from July 1940 to October 1941 as Verbindungsoffizier (liaison officer).⁹

The MI5 file on 33-year-old former Belgian Sabena airline pilot Leon Ernest Jude, considered suspect by the Belgians in May 1941, describes Captain Richard Weiss as taking care of him in Biarritz: ‘Age about 35; height about 5ft 3–4 ins; medium build; thin fair hair; big head; blue eyes; cleanshaven; always wore plain clothes – blue-and-white check coat and grey flannels; lived in a villa taken over by the Germans, opposite a large block of buildings near the corner of the Avenue de Londres and the Rue de Falaises.’¹⁰ However, the file on Kraatz @ Kreitz also mentions a Dr Weiss in Switzerland:

WEISS, Dr (no cover-name)

Age early fifties; height medium; fairly well built; face rather broad, oval-shaped; cleanshaven; hair very fair, short; eyes blue. Married, but trying to get a separation in 1943.

Was one of the most able officers in the German Service and went to SWITZERLAND in connection with a new organisation. Once he knew exactly what was required, he worked quickly and efficiently, without making a fuss. He was amost certainly known to the Western Powers, because he had a house in BIARRITZ and also because of the way in which he compelled the Spaniards, almost all of whom were playing a double game, to cooperate with him. Despite the difficulties involved, his methods of distributing agents (Schleusungen) were first-rate. In view of the great amount of material that passed through his hands, he is a very interesting personality.

Whereabouts: Must be in either the English or American Zone. Was taken prisoner at TUNIS, but is said to have escaped.¹¹

Ironically, in HARLEQUIN’s own file, the name ‘WEISS, Dr’ has been redacted. A note on this entry states ‘PF.65649 WURMANN @ WEISS’ (i.e. HARLEQUIN); however, this description does not completely jibe with that of Jude’s (above) as the age and height are way off.

Given that his name was Weiss (German for white), BLANCO would appear to be synonymous with the identity of the Major or Hauptmann in 1) (above). This also tallies with Korvetten Kapitän Erich Pfeiffer’s file which mentions ‘an officer on detachment from I H, who used the covername BLANCO or NEGRO.’ Trevor-Roper reported on 31 January 1943

There is very little evidence in ISOS of [Wurmann’s] day-to-day work as Abwehr Liaison Officer at BIARRITZ. Apart from 2/147, which was first published at the end of August 1941, no messages originating from BIARRITZ were published as ISOS while [Wurmann ] was there, and since 2/147 was only a cross link to BILBAO with the specialized purpose of reporting the movements of ore-ships it makes no mention of him. The only evidence available is, therefore, in relayed messages on other services.¹²

The first Abwehr hand cypher was not successfully broken until 8 December 1941 (and issued on Christmas Day) by Alfred Dillwyn ‘Dilly’ Knox, Oliver Strachey, Mavis Lever and Margaret Rock at the Government Code & Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, and named ISOS – Intelligence Service Oliver Strachey, and ISK – Intelligence Service Knox respectively – which would explain why there is a dearth of evidence from ISOS prior to that date. The following ISOS traffic in HARLEQUIN’s file dating from the end of October 1940 mentions his name @ BIANCA a number of times in:

EMILIO was identified as being George Helmut Lang (see Chapter 14).

Trevor-Roper reported that Serge Dinine @ Augusto was ‘anti-British and connected with the Germans. In fact, we know from ISOS that DININE was [Wurmann’s] own agent under the covername AUGUSTO as early as October 1940, and that as late as the end of May 1941 he was applying for payment from [Wurmann]’.¹⁴ Wurmann had recruited him and sent him to Lisbon in November 1940 where he intended to use him to transfer money to Carlos Vejerano @ Charly [sic], although this proved unsuccessful as his journey was delayed¹⁵ (see below).

An extract from [Wurmann’s] instructions to him shows that he was to stop in Lisbon at the Avenida Palace or Palacio (Estoril) Hotels, where he would be contacted by the Abwehr organisation there to arrange his reporting routes (See 2/6 6.11.40 bis ISOS 1554, 1555). His area of operation is not mentioned nor the type of his assignments. Finally in May 1941 he was reported by MADRID to be asking for a payment of 2,000 pesetas, on which point [redacted] was to decide. (See 2/123 28.5.41 ISOS 5843).¹⁶

A report in Wurmann’s file – ‘Agents Employed and Agents Mentioned (excluding the Algiers net)’ – mentions that Serge Dinin [sic] worked for Wurmann in Biarritz:

DININ [sic] comes from Odessa and is half Jewish. [In] Madrid, DININ is in contact with an old friend of his called Mrs. WALLACE, wife of the British Press Attaché. [Wurmann] thinks it possible that Serge DININ works for the British. He finds corroboration for his suspicion in the fact that DININ reported a Polish division at Crete which never existed. DININ did not receive any money.¹⁷

But Jimmy Burns’s biography Papa Spy states that the British press attaché in Madrid from 1940–4 was his father, Tom Ferrier Burns, and his mother was Mabél Marañón.¹⁸

Trevor-Roper’s report on ‘VEJARROVO’ [sic] notes that

This character is also listed by among those "connected