After Operation Sea Lion, the German plan for the invasion of the United Kingdom, was
written out by the German High Command, they realized they barely had any intelligence
officers in Britain, and they weren’t sure what was going on across the English Channel.
They thought up Operation Lena, and its purpose was to establish a network of Abwehr agents
in Britain.
It would be one of the most disastrous intelligence missions the Nazi regime would undertake during
the Second World War.
-intro-
When the invasion plan of Britain, codenamed ‘Unternehmen Seelöwe’ or ‘Operation
Sea Lion’, was established, most senior German military commanders weren’t exactly
thrilled, especially the navy.
Many ships were lost during ‘Operation Weserübung’, the invasion of Denmark and Norway, and the
Royal British Fleet outmatched the Kriegsmarine in virtually everything.
Furthermore, the Wehrmacht voiced complaints that in order for troops to cross the English
channel, both air and sea protection was required to hold back imminent British attacks.
Hermann Göring’s Luftwaffe ought to obtain absolute control over the skies before Sea
Lion could be launched, according to the Kriegsmarine and Wehrmacht.
Göring accepted the task, though the Luftwaffe wasn’t suited to wage battle on its own,
and Hitler voiced his complaints that “while the occupied territories were divided from
Britain by a twenty-three mile channel, they did not even know what was going on there”.
The lack of accurate intelligence could be fatal, and a plan was devised by the Abwehr
to send secret agents to Britain.
In july nineteen-forty, Wilhelm Canaris, head of the Abwehr, Heinz Piekenbrock, a Wehrmacht
general and Erwin von Lahousen, a high ranking Abwehr official, attended the conference that
outlined Sea Lion.
Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and Hitler himself pressed the men to find spies to gather intelligence
in Britain, which Canaris thought was a suicide mission, as he could not suddenly conjure
up agents.
Resisting the orders wasn’t an option, and as such, men were recruited to become Abwehr
Spies in what would become known as Operation Lena.
The London Brothel
Captain Herbert Wichmann was the head of the department that organized Operation Lena.
In order to keep the operation as secret as possible, an extra department under Dr. Praetorius
was set up in Hamburg, and the logistics of parachuting agents into Britain required a
special squadron under Luftwaffe Captain Karl Gartenfeld to be created.
The whole operation was under the command of Nikolaus Ritter, who had theoretical experience
of intelligence work, but the practical side would prove to be much different than the
books.
To begin with, Ritter proposed that a brothel in London ought to be financed by the Abwehr,
the Green House run by Mrs. Erikson and an Italian lady that called herself Countess
Montabelli de Condo.
Ritter reasoned that pillow-talk could provide useful intelligence, after all, the infamous
Salon Kitty in Berlin proved to supply Reinhard Heydrich’s Sicherheitsdienst with intelligence.
The two women accepted Ritter’s offer, much to his joy.
There was just a tiny problem that Ritter wasn’t aware of...
The Green House was run by MI-Five, and the two ladies were double agents.
The Green House would serve as a cover for multiple agents sent to Britain by the Abwehr,
and, as you can probably guess, they got off to a rather poor start as MI-Five was fully
aware of their identity, movements and purpose, before they even set foot on shore.
Agents
These recruits were gathered from wherever they presented themselves, and quality wasn’t
necessarily a priority.
An example is Vera von Schalburg, a Russian whose brother, Christian Frederik von Schalburg,
died not just fighting alongside the Schutzstaffel on the Eastern Front, but he actually was
the second commander of Free Corps Denmark.
Vera first appeared on a radar working for the NKVD, the Russian secret service, while
in Paris.
At the same time she had close contacts with the SIS station head, Commander Wilfred ‘Biffy’
Dunderdale.
She switched to become an Abwehr agent, however, once she became the lover of the head of the
Abwehr marine intelligence section, Hilmar Dierks.
Now, Vera was tasked to enter Great Britain, together with two other Abwehr Agents, Werner
Walti and Karl Drücke.
The trio attempted to land on the Scottish coast in September nineteen-forty, but because
of the weather they had to return to their base in Norway.
Four days later, they attempted to cross the sea another time, and managed to land near
Inverness.
Werner went to Glasgow on his own and Vera and Karl left via the Portgordon train station,
taking the train towards London.
Vera and Karl both arrived at the train station with wet clothes and suitcases, which did
arouse some suspicion among the people at the station.
All we know is that a person phoned the police and policeman John Grieve arrived shortly
after.
When asked for their identity papers, he noticed they had no immigration stamps in their passports
and Karl didn’t even speak a word of English.
The duo was arrested and sent to the police station, where police inspector John Simpson
carried out the investigation and interrogation.
The duo was carrying a torch, made in Bohemia and three-hundred-and-twenty-seven pounds
sterling, which equals to about a year's worth of wages.
Both were formally arrested as German spies, and Vera decided to testify against Karl,
who was executed shortly thereafter.
Walti managed to reach Edinburgh on his own but aroused suspicion on the way, and someone
contacted the Special Branch, after which Chief Constable William Merrilees arrived.
What happened as Walti was approached is unclear, except that Walti and Merrilees got in a struggle,
in which Walti attempted to draw his Luger pistol but was overpowered by Merrilees, and
subsequently arrested.
Walti, just like Karl, was hanged.
In contrast: Vera, after testifying, became an agent for MI-five.
She survived the war, living until nineteen-ninety-three.
Another Abwehr agent was Karl Richter, he was parachuted into England in nineteen-forty-one
and was immediately captured.
He claimed he was innocent and would do so, until his final moments before he was hanged.
Such was the absolute disaster of Operation Lena.
Double Agents Jeff and Mutt
The Norwegian agents Tor Glad and John Moe were recruited by the Abwehr station in Oslo.
Glad appeared to be a loyal Nazi, and Moe was fluent in English, they seemed like perfect
candidates.
After one failed attempt, the second time they did manage to land on the coast in Scotland
in nineteen-forty-one, and it didn’t take long for both of them, cycling through the
landscape, to be apprehended by a police car.
However, the men didn’t really make a secret of who they were and what their objective
was, they told the police officers they were Abwehr agents and handed over their guns.
They were subsequently taken to London by the Aberdeen police and ended up at MI-five
headquarters for interrogation.
Colonel Robin ‘tin eye’ Stephens interrogated the men, who argued they should not be executed,
and perhaps could even be of use to MI-five, they obviously weren’t diehard spies as
they voluntarily surrendered.
John Moe even brought up the Norwegian minister of Foreign Affairs, Tryggve Lie, who was in
exile in Britain, as he could supposedly vouch for his good character.
Stephens decided the men could be of use and they were, under MI-five supervision, prepared
as double agents.
In a London flat, the codenames Jeff and Mutt were born.
They had to transmit fake messages to the Abwehr station in Hamburg.
After Glad went on a drinking spree with his MI-five minder, Phil Rea, and broke his curfew,
he was shipped of to an internment camp anyway.
The night out wasn’t necessarily the problem, it was the fact that Glad started getting
rather nosy about SIS operations the more drunk he got.
Moe, however, continued to send bogus messages to the Abwehr for multiple years, under the
codename Agent Ja.
First, Moe sent reports about sabotage raids he participated in, which were believed by
the Abwehr, after which the Abwehr requested information about British plans regarding
assaults on Europe.
Moe made up a story about a fleet being prepared to invade Norway, and..
This report contributed to the German failure to detect Operation Torch, the landings of
the allies in North Africa in nineteen-forty-two.
The fake transmissions to Germany went on for months and in February nineteen-forty-three,
the British launched their so-called operation oatmeal, an attempt to get the Abwehr to resupply
Moe with money, a new transmitter and other supplies.
Once the German aircraft dropped the items requested, the British discovered it was filled
with supplies they themselves had dropped to the French and Dutch resistance.
The Germans, with twisted humour, made it known they knew Moe had been compromised.
Moe would eventually join the British army and interrogate German prisoners of war and
former Nazi agents.
These are just a few stories of Abwehr agents in Britain under Operation Lena.
The double cross system MI-five maintained, in order to turn Abwehr agents such as Mutt
and Jeff and have them work for Britain, was used extensively during the war, but that’s
a story for another time.
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