The Defence of the Realm (162 page)

101
 The information contained in this section is derived from a 1929 account by Mrs L. F. Edmonds of the Registry filing system as it then existed, with some additional notes on its beginning. Such was the quality of this account that Vernon Kell described it as ‘An extraordinarily interesting report. The most complete we have yet had on the subject, without being in too much detail. I am glad to have seen it. Mrs. Edmonds is to be congratulated.' His deputy Eric Holt-Wilson noted, ‘I congratulate Mrs. Edmonds and your staff. I consider this a
monument
of common sense in the practical development into an easy routine system of conflicting elements which might have led to inextricable chaos.' Major Phillips observed, ‘I think this note will supply a “long felt” want and the writer has set out the details very clearly.' Security Service Archives.

102
 
Security Service
,
p. 68
.

103
 Kell, ‘Report on Counter-Espionage from December, 1911 to 31 July, 1912', TNA KV 1/9.

104
 ‘The letters of a spy',
The Times
, 24 July 1912.

105
 ‘Steinhauer, Gustav', ‘Game Book', vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

106
 Steinhauer also claimed, not very plausibly in view of the arrest of his agents in August 1914, that he used his letters to Britain in order to deceive the British authorities with bogus information. Steinhauer,
Steinhauer
,
p. 6
.

107
 ‘Steinhauer, Gustav', ‘Game Book', vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

108
 Steinhauer,
Steinhauer
,
pp. 18
–
24
.

109
 F Branch Report, vol. 1,
pp. 54
–
6
, TNA KV 1/35. Hiley, ‘Entering the Lists',
p. 49
.

110
 Lady Kell, ‘Secret Well Kept',
p. 140
, IWM.

111
 The names of the seven suspects arrested by local police forces without instructions from Kell appear on a list of twenty-one arrests included in a draft wartime history compiled in 1921 by an MI5 historian, Dr Lucy Farrar (whose PhD was in literary history); G Branch Report, vol. 1,
pp. 48
–
9
, TNA KV 1/40. Farrar, however, failed to realize that this list, mainly composed of the first suspects to be arrested, was a mixture of arrests ordered by Kell and others arrested by local police forces. The chronic post-war lack of resources in MI5, which had only thirteen officers at the end of the 1920s, prevented the draft history (prepared for purely internal use) being either checked or, in all probability, much read. But the error was eventually noticed and a correct list of the twenty-two arrests ordered by Kell in August 1914 compiled in 1931 (again for internal use); AR (L. F. M. Edmonds), minute to DCDS, 12 May 1931, TNA KV 4/114. As Edmonds noted, Farrar's list contained ‘several names which were not M.I.5. cases'. The fact that all the arrests in the 1931 list actually occurred can be corroborated from other files.

112
 Arrests in August 1914 of German agents identified by Kell's Bureau:

1 Alberto Rosso (aka ‘Rodriguez' and other aliases)

Language teacher in Portsmouth, whose correspondence with German intelligence office in Brussels, which sent ‘lengthy questionnaires on naval matters', was first intercepted in March 1914. Arrested on 3 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

2 Frederick Apel

First detected by letter interception in May 1913 sending information on Vickers Shipyard at Barrow to German intelligence in Antwerp. Arrested on 4 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

3 Commander Friedrich von Diederichs

Espionage mission to Medway, Sheerness and Chatham on eve of war discovered through intercepted correspondence. Arrested on 4 August 1914 and subsequently imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

4 Johann Engel

German naval veteran who had settled in Falmouth; discovered in December 1911 to be receiving quarterly payments from German naval intelligence; correspondence intercepted. Arrested on 4 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

5 Karl Gustav Ernst

Identified by postal intercepts late in 1911 as Steinhauer's most active postman (see above,
p. 38
), as well as carrying out other intelligence missions. Arrested on 4 August 1914 and discovered to be a British citizen (previously thought to be German); charged under Official Secrets Act and sentenced on 12 September to seven years' penal servitude

6 & 7 Lina Maria Heine and her husband, Max Power Heinert

Language teachers in, respectively, Portsmouth and Southsea. Mrs Heine's correspondence with German intelligence was intercepted and in May 1914 she was observed in Ostend meeting ‘a known German Secret Service agent'. She was arrested on 4 August in the company of Heinert, not on the original arrest list or previously identified as her husband. Unable to ‘give a satisfactory account of himself', he was also arrested. Both were later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

8 August Wilhelm Julius Klunder

Discovered from letter interception in 1912 to be involved in distributing correspondence to German agents. Arrested on 4 August 1914, later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act

9 Frans Heinrich Lozel

Though long suspected of being a German agent, no proof was obtained until he was identified by Hentschel (see above,
p. 46
) on 18 October 1913. Believed to have been well paid by the Nachrichtendienst for photographing naval installations, he was arrested on 4 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

10 Adolf Schneider

Intercepted correspondence revealed that he was used by Steinhauer to forward correspondence to agents in Britain. Arrested on 4 August 1914, later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

11 Major Enrico Lorenzo Bernstein (various aliases)

Involved in various attempts to traffic in intelligence before First World War (uncertain whether some of these were detected by letter checks). Arrested on 5 August 1914 when he approached Naval Intelligence Department with offer to supply information on German intelligence; later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act on 12 August but released in September to work for Cumming. Bernstein's case remains confused. Though Cumming appears to have trusted him, Cumming's biographer concludes that, before the war, Bernstein was ‘possibly also in touch with Germans' (Judd,
Quest for C
,
p. 230
). Kell seems to have shared that suspicion.

12 Frederick William Fowler

Hairdresser at Penarth, married to sister of Otto Kruger (Arrest no. 13); intercepted correspondence with German intelligence in Hamburg through Klunder (Arrest no. 8). Arrested under Official Secrets Act on 5 August 1914; severely cautioned and discharged on 19 August.

13 Otto Moritz Walter Kruger

Hairdresser at Abercynon, Glamorganshire, working for Steinhauer; correspondence with Steinhauer presumably intercepted but no specific reference in the one surviving case summary (of only 100 words). Admitted persuading his British nephew, Frederick Ireland (Arrest no. 14), to enlist in the Royal Navy to collect information for German intelligence. Arrested on 5 August 1914 under Official Secrets Act as ‘a known agent of a foreign Secret Service'; imprisoned on 13 August under Aliens Restriction Act.

14 Frederick James Ireland

Arrested in February 1912 for passing information to German naval intelligence while in the Royal Navy but not tried because of ‘undesirability' of revealing intercept evidence in court (see above,
p. 45
); rearrested on 5 August 1914. Released on 19 August; subsequent surveillance revealed ‘nothing . . . to suggest that he was in any way working against British interests'.

15 Heinrich Christian Wilhelm Schutte

Intercepted correspondence revealed that he was sending information (much ‘not of great value') to German intelligence. Arrested on 5 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

16 Heinrich Charles Grosse

After correspondence intercepted, convicted of espionage under Official Secrets Act in February 1912 (see above,
pp. 39
–
40
); believed after his release from prison on licence in May 1914 to have renewed contact with German intelligence. Arrested on 6 August and later interned.

17 William Francis Brown

British subject of German origin, discovered through letter intercepts to be in communication with Steinhauer in October 1911; subsequently aroused suspicion by applying for jobs in aircraft factories. Arrested on 7 August 1914 but later discharged when no incriminating evidence was discovered during a search of his house.

18 Marie Kronauer

Widow of the German agent Wilhelm Kronauer; intercepted correspondence revealed that she renewed contact with Steinhauer after her husband's death. Arrested on 8 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

19 Hauptmann Kurd von Weller

Former Prussian officer, reported to Kell by Royal Irish Constabulary in December 1913 after visiting Ireland; arrested on 10 August 1914 in possession of ‘information which might be useful to an enemy' and subsequently imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act. Though he attempted ‘to convey information to the enemy' (probably not of much significance) from prison, he was exchanged for a British officer POW in October 1915.

20 Heinrich Schmidt

Intercepted correspondence in March 1913 revealed that he was in contact with German intelligence via August Klunder. Arrested on 12 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

21 Harold Dutton

Former army clerk discovered to have copied classified documents on Portsmouth defences. When arrested at request of Kell's Bureau on 15 August 1914, at first denied, then admitted possessing the documents. Later sentenced to six months' hard labour for breach of the Official Secrets Act.

22 Robert A. Blackburn

Nineteen-year-old former merchant seaman discovered through letter check in June 1914 to be in contact with German intelligence via August Klunder. When arrested on 16 August 1914, admitted sending information about the Mersey defences to the Germans. Later sentenced to two years in a Borstal (young offenders' institution) for breach of the Official Secrets Act.

The correct list of arrests in August 1914 on which this reconstruction is based was drawn up in 1931 from files which no longer exist (see note 111 above). Further details of the evidence against each of those arrested are given in the file summaries in ‘Game Book', vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112. Very few original records of pre-First World War counter-espionage were retained after the war.

Several other surviving lists of arrests in August 1914, like Dr Farrar's, also contain a mixture of those arrested on Kell's instructions and suspects arrested on the initiative of local police forces. A 1915 DPP list of twenty-four ‘German spies . . . arrested on the outbreak of war under the Official Secrets Act, 1911' contained nine police cases but omitted seven of Kell's. These lists have come to light as a result of the pioneering research of Dr Nicholas Hiley. I do not, however, share Dr Hiley's conclusion, based partly on an examination of these lists, that Kell's claim to have ‘masterminded the arrest of 21 out of the 22 German agents working in Britain' on the eve of war was ‘a complete fabrication' and a ‘remarkable lie', which Kell and Holt-Wilson ‘stuck to . . . for the rest of their careers' (Hiley, ‘Entering the Lists'). All but one of the twenty-two August 1914 arrests listed above followed pre-war investigation by Kell's Bureau.

113
 AR (L. F. M Edmonds), minute to DCDS, 12 May 1931, TNA KV 4/114.

114
 See reconstructed arrest list in note 112 above.

115
 ‘Rimann, Walter @ Friese, Gustav @ Germanikus', ‘Game Book', vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

116
 In several cases local police forces believed that the main credit for a German agent's arrest belonged to them rather than to Kell's Bureau. A 1915 report by the DPP gave the ‘instructing authority' in the cases of Marie Kronauer and Frans Lozel as, respectively, the Met and the Kent Police, rather than the War Office (Kell); Hiley, ‘Entering the Lists',
pp. 60
–
61
. Kronauer's correspondence had, however, been monitored by Kell's Bureau, which had also been centrally involved in the Karl Hentschel case which led to the detection of Lozel. In these and other cases, it is difficult, if not impossible, to estimate the relative contributions of Kell's Bureau and the police. Both were important. When the revised list of August 1914 arrests was being compiled in 1931, Holt-Wilson instructed: ‘Do not worry whether they are “
M.I.5 Cases”
in any narrow sense. Action taken by our colleagues, or agents, or the police
counts
as bringing them within the above definition [those ‘officially penalised for some action prejudicial to Defence Security'] from the national point of view.' Holt-Wilson to AR (L. F. M. Edmonds), Minute 10 [May 1931], TNA KV 4/114.

117
 Cases 1–8, 10, 12, 14–18, 20, 22 in the reconstructed arrest list (note 112 above) largely depended on letter checks under HOWs mainly (if not wholly) obtained by Kell. Letter checks were probably involved in case 13 to monitor contacts with Steinhauer, but there is no specific reference in the 100-word case summary (all that survives). Case 11 may well have involved letter checks but direct evidence does not survive. Case 7 (Heinert) did not involve letter checks but his wife's (case 6) did, and it was this which led to his arrest. There is no evidence that case 9 (Lozel) involved letter checks but Lozel was discovered as a result of the Hentschel case, which did. There is no evidence that case 19 (von Weller) involved letter checks but there is no doubt that Kell played a central role in it; the case was referred to him by the Royal Irish Constabulary. Though there is no evidence that case 21 (Dutton) involved letter checks, it was Kell who ordered the arrest.