The Defence of the Realm (170 page)

8
 SIS to Major Ball, MI5, 11 Oct. 1922, TNA KV 2/1116, s. 10a.

9
 SIS report, ‘Alleged German espionage activities', 10 March 1923, TNA KV 2/1116, s. 37a. On interwar SIS operations against Germany, see Jeffery,
Official History of the Secret Intelligence Service
, part III.

10
 SIS to Harker, MI5, 7 July 1928, TNA KV 2/1116, s. 204a. Major Ball, ‘The Deutsche Uberseedienst', 30 March 1929, TNA KV 2/1116, s. 207a.

11
 Major Ball, ‘The Deutsche Uberseedienst', 30 March 1929, TNA KV 2/1116, s. 207a.

12
 Holt-Wilson, ‘German espionage in the UK', 12 Aug. 1931, TNA KV 3/93, s. 88a. SIS to Major Alexander, 24 March 1932, TNA KV 3/93, s. 112a.

13
 MI5 did, however, identify as German spies some of the Etappe Dienst agents, without realizing what network they belonged to. Security Service Archives.

14
 
Security Service
,
p. 109
.

15
 
The Times
, 31 Jan. 1933.

16
 Kershaw,
Hitler 1889–1936
,
pp. 457
–
61
.

17
 
The Times
, 22 March 1933.

18
 G. M. Liddell, ‘The Liquidation of Communism, Left-Wing Socialism and Pacifism. Visit to Berlin, (30 March 1933–9 April 1933)', TNA KV 4/111, s. 1a.

19
 Trenchard to Polizei President Berlin, 24 March 1933, TNA KV 4/111. Unsigned copy of letter of thanks from Kell to Admiral Sinclair (SIS), May 1933, TNA KV 4/111.

20
 Diels later lost a struggle for power with the leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, who in April 1934 also became head of the Gestapo.

21
 G. M. Liddell, ‘The Liquidation of Communism, Left-Wing Socialism and Pacifism. Visit to Berlin, (30 March 1933–9 April 1933)', TNA KV 4/111, s. 1a.

22
 Ibid.

23
 Guy Liddell diary, 21 April 1940.

24
 Curry joined the Indian Police in 1907 at the age of twenty, retiring in 1932. The invitation to join B Branch came from its head, Jasper Harker, who had first met him while working for the Indian Police before returning to Britain in 1919. Security Service Archives.

25
 Security Service Archives.

26
 On Knight's earlier Fascist contacts, see above,
pp. 123
–
4
.

27
 ‘M' report, 21 March 1934, TNA KV 3/53, s. 1c.

28
 ‘M' report, 13 April 1934, TNA KV 3/53, s.1e.

29
 ‘The Revival of Fascism in Britain. Memorandum by the Security Service', Dec. 1945, TNA KV 4/331.

30
 Kell to Scott (Home Office), 18 June 1934, enclosing Report no. 1 on the BUF, TNA HO 144/21041.

31
 Anderson,
Fascists, Communists and the National Government
, chs 6, 7. Dorril,
Blackshirt
, ch. 15.

32
 Kell to Scott (Home Office), 1 Aug. 1934, enclosing Report no. 2 on the BUF, TNA HO 144/21041.

33
 Dorril,
Blackshirt
,
p. 307
.

34
 Though both the Mosleys and Hitler intended the wedding to be secret, it was quickly known to the Foreign Office. Dorril,
Blackshirt
,
pp. 393
–
4
.

35
 B7, ‘Lady Diana Mosley', 26 June 1940, TNA KV 2/884, s. 48a.

36
 Kell to Scott (Home Office), 8 Oct. 1934, enclosing Report no. 3 on the BUF, TNA HO 144/21041.

37
 Kell to Scott (Home Office), 11 March 1935, enclosing Report no. 5 on the BUF, TNA HO 144/21041.

38
 Kell to Scott (Home Office), 10 July 1936, enclosing Report no. 8 on the BUF, TNA HO 144/21041.

39
 Ibid.

40
 Kell to Scott (Home Office), 27 Nov. 1936, enclosing Report no. 9 on the BUF, TNA HO 144/21041.

41
 Anderson,
Fascists, Communists and the National Government
, chs 10, 11.

42
 Kell to Scott (Home Office), 27 Nov. 1936, enclosing Report no. 9 on the BUF; minute by Liddell, 10 Dec. 1936; minute by Harker, 10 July 1937, TNA HO 144/21041.

43
 Anderson, Fascists,
Communists and the National Government
, ch. 11.

44
 Home Office Notes on DR18b, April 1949, TNA HO 45/26018. Grant, ‘Desperate Measures', ch. 1.

45
 ‘Order of priority of foreign countries from SIS point of view', n.d. [1935 or 1936], TNA WO 106/5392.

46
 Andrew,
Secret Service
,
pp. 532
–
3
,
547
–
8
. Details of Secret Service vote in TNA T 160787/F6139/053.

47
 Vansittart,
Mist Procession
,
p. 397
.

48
 See above,
p. 136
.

49
 Security Service Archives.

50
 Vansittart,
Mist Procession
,
p. 398
.

51
 Minute, 6 May 1933, CCAC VNST 2/3. ‘Robert Gilbert Vansittart',
Oxford DNB
.

52
 Rose,
Vansittart
,
pp. 104
,
164
,
182
.

53
 Curry later recalled that Kell was initially reluctant for the Security Service to penetrate a foreign embassy for the first time, but was persuaded to do so by Vansittart. Security Service Archives.

54
 Putlitz,
Putlitz Dossier
.

55
 Security Service Archives.

56
 Putlitz,
Putlitz Dossier
, ch. 12.

57
 Kell was introduced to Ustinov on 9 August 1934 by Vansittart's private secretary, Clifford Norton (later knighted); Security Service Archives.

58
 Rose,
Vansittart
,
p. 74
.

59
 Security Service Archives.

60
 Ustinov,
Klop and the Ustinov Family
,
p. 66
.

61
 The portrait appears as the frontispiece to
The Security Service
.

62
 Bower,
Perfect English Spy
,
p. 29
.

63
 Security Service Archives.

64
 In June, however, HOWs were granted on two addresses in Hamburg with which it was known that the London office of the Auslands Organisation was corresponding.
Security Service
,
p. 110
.

65
 Curry's evidence on Kell's initial reluctance to investigate the Auslands Organisation is made more credible by the fact that he simultaneously put on record ‘the highest respect and regard for our chief'. Security Service Archives.

66
 [Curry] ‘Memorandum on the possibilities of sabotage by the organisations set up in British countries by the totalitarian governments of Germany and Italy', July 1936,
p. 11
, TNA KV 4/290, s. 2a; see also
Security Service
,
p. 111
.

67
 ‘Conference held at the Home Office on 26 May, 1936, to consider the position arising from the organisation in Great Britain of Branches of the German Nazi and Italian Fascist Parties', TNA FO 371/19942, s. 128.

68
 McKale,
Swastika outside Germany
,
p. 157
.

69
 The Foreign Office argued that banning the Auslands Organisation would merely drive its activities underground. MI5 replied that it would still be able to monitor it, and in fact the ‘squeeze' put on the underground organization would probably make it easier to watch. ‘Conference held at the Home Office on 26 May, 1936, to consider the position arising from the organisation in Great Britain of Branches of the German Nazi and Italian Fascist Parties', TNA FO 371/19942, s. 128.

70
 B2a, Note, 24 March 1939, TNA KV 4/301, s. 88b. J. C. Curry, Unpublished Memoirs, Security Service Archives.
Security Service
,
pp. 132
–
3
. McKale,
Swastika outside Germany
,
p. 157
.

71
 Security Service Archives.

72
 Kell to Sir Maurice Hankey, CID, 6 July 1936, enclosing [Curry] ‘Memorandum',
p. 5
, TNA KV 4/290, s. 2a.

73
 Security Service Archives.

74
 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938', [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16.

75
 Willans,
Peter Ustinov
,
pp. 39
–
41
.

76
 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938', [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16. The Security Service had no file on the abdication or on King Edward VIII's lover and future wife Mrs Simpson. The Special Branch, however, had a file on Simpson (declassified in 2003) which revealed that in 1936 she was simultaneously conducting an affair with a married car salesman. ‘Mrs Simpson's Secret Lover Revealed',
The Times
, 30 Jan. 2003.

77
 See below,
p. 209
.

78
 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938', [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16.

79
 Security Service Archives.

80
 Security Service Archives.

81
 Security Service Archives.

82
 Andrew,
Secret Service
,
pp. 533
–
4
.

83
 See below,
pp. 241
–
2
.

84
 Security Service Archives.

85
 Andrew,
Secret Service
,
pp. 553
–
9
.

86
 According to an MI5 report to the Foreign Office, on 16 August 1938 ‘Herr von S.', an important German ‘not unconnected with the German General Staff' ‘sent us a warning that a sudden invasion of Czechoslovakia was contemplated. Early in the second half of August we established close contact with him.' ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938', [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16. The note refers to, but does not identify, four other German informants.

87
 Ustinov,
Dear Me
,
pp. 102
–
3
. Klop's recollection of ‘Herr von S's' central message agrees with that in surviving MI5 records. On Ribbentrop's bellicose statements on Czechoslovakia in August 1938, see Kershaw,
Hitler, 1936–45
,
p. 91
. Schweppenburg had been military attaché in London from 1933 to 1937 and later became a well-known panzer commander.

88
 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938', [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16. Another MI5 report, which distinguishes less precisely between different German sources, suggests that Putlitz also supplied a copy of this document. Security Service Archives.

89
 Dilks (ed.),
Cadogan Diaries
,
pp. 94
–
7
. Weinberg,
Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany
,
pp. 394
,
396
,
421
,
428
. Vansittart later had doubts about Kordt's motives, believing that ‘what he really wanted was a German maximum without war with us. His real game was to get a free hand in expansion east . . . Otherwise he was a decent, humane man, and emphatically not a Nazi.' Rose,
Vansittart
,
pp. 136
–
8
,
222
.

90
 Rose,
Vansittart
,
p. 228
. Dilks (ed.),
Cadogan Diaries
,
p. 95
.

91
 Curry later recalled, possibly with a memory improved by hindsight, that he knew of no one in the Security Service who thought the outcome of Chamberlain's negotiations with Hitler ‘a great success'. Security Service Archives.

92
 Malcolm Woollcombe, ‘What Should We Do?', 18 Sept. 1938; Fisher to Sinclair (copy), 20 Sept. 1939, Woollcombe MSS. A copy of ‘What Should We Do?', marked ‘Views of SIS', is to be found in TNA FO 371/21659 C14471/42/18. A previous memorandum by Woollcombe, ‘Germany and Colonies', 3 Feb. 1938, had been well received by Neville Chamberlain, who at one point added the marginal note: ‘What did I say[?]'. Andrew, ‘Secret Intelligence and British Foreign Policy',
p. 24
.

93
 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938', [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16.

94
 J. C. Curry, ‘Note on the aggressive policy of Hitler and Ribbentrop: and consequent instructions to the Abwehr', Security Service Archives (no file ref.). J. C. Curry, ‘Information on Hitler's Germany's intentions in 1938 obtained from M.I.5 sources', 5 Sept. 1941, TNA KV 4/16.

95
 ‘Note on Information Received in Connection with the Crisis of September, 1938', [7 Nov. 1938], TNA KV 4/16.

96
 Security Service Archives.

97
 Andrew,
Secret Service
,
pp. 547
–
50
.

98
 Whether Hitler really did use the words attributed to him remains doubtful. One of MI5's informants may well have decided to embroider some of Hitler's actual comments in an attempt to stiffen British resolve.