Fuhrer's
obscenity provoked Britain MI5 papers: How
secret service goaded Chamberlain,
tried to bribe Irish nationalist's gay
lover - and recruited birds.
By Paul Lashmar and Chris
Staerck
MI5 DELIBERATELY provoked Neville
Chamberlain into taking a harder line
against Nazi Germany by revealing that
Adolf Hitler had derided the Prime
Minister with a "schoolboyish
obscenity," accoding to newly released
MI5 files. They show that Chamberlain
was so infuriated he brought forward
the introduction of conscription.
The story is revealed in the
Security Service's internal history
from 1909 to 1945, released yesterday
by the Public Record Office in Kew.
It reveals MI5's growing frustration
with Chamberlain in the run-up to the
Munich crisis of 1938. MI5 pushed
Chamberlain to take a stronger line
with Hitler by disclosing that the
Fuhrer respected only men prepared to
stand up to him and thought the Prime
Minister was weak. "The Fuhrer was very
fond of making jokes about 'umbrella
pacifism', of the once imposing
'British World Empire' and referred to
Mr Chamberlain in terms of schoolboyish
obscenity."
Several First World War files have
also been released,including those
covering the activities of the
glamorous spy Mata Hari and the Irish
nationalist Sir Roger Casement, both
executed for helping Germany.
British agents plotted to entice
Casement's 24-year-old gay lover into
betraying him. Mansfeldt de Cardonnel
Findlay, the ambassador to Norway,
wrote an undertaking to pay Adler
Christiansen, £5,000 in return for
the capture of Casement as he plotted
an uprising in Ireland with German help
in 1915. The documents proved for the
first time the claims that were denied
by the British Government of the day.
Christiansen was a double agent and
news of the plot, which was never
carried out, was quickly leaked to the
press.
The files also tell the story of
Hitler's deputy, Rudolph Hess, who flew
to Britain in 1941 during a bizarre and
unauthorised attempt to negotiate a
peace deal between Britain and Germany.
MI5 considered using a "truth drug" on
him to force him to disclose Nazi
secrets.
The British were not impressed with
Hess although a War Office official did
write to MI5 with a suggestion for "the
picking of whatever brains that
gentleman may still possess".
The files give detailed accounts of
MI5's greatest Second World War coup -
the double-cross system. Most Germans
agents sent into Britain fell into the
hands of MI5. One by one they were
"turned" and persuaded to feed false
information back.
The centrepiece of the double-cross
system was the agent codenamed Garbo.
Hewas a Spaniard whose real name was
Juan Pujol Garcia.
For the D-Day landings in 1944 the
Allies wanted to fool the Germans into
thinking the main point of the invasion
was the Pas-de-Calais. The Garbo ring
was a key part of the D-Day deception
plan.
The Germans did not discover Garbo's
treachery. The MI5 files show that
after D-Day, "Himmler . expressed his
appreciation of the work carried out by
the Garbo organisation".
Mata Hari Revealed
The glamorous female spy passed
through England in 1915 and was of
great interest to MI5. Born Marguerite
Gertrude Zelle, she found fame across
the Continent for her erotic "Hindu
dances", complete with coiled snakes.
She was arrested at Folkestone in
December and interrogated by Captain
Dillon of MI5. "Under cross-examination
although she had good answers to every
question, she impressed me very
unfavourably but after having her very
carefully searched and finding nothing
I considered I hadn't enough grounds to
refuse her embarkation." In Paris she
was watched by MI5 and the file lists
her associates. Mata Hari's undoing was
Captain Ladoux of the French security
service. He revealed to MI5 he thought
her guilty of spying. In 1916 Ladoux
had her arrested. She was later tried,
found guilty and shot.
Undercover
conflictMind wars: The wills of
German spies were broken, without
physical violence, at a centre where
the "omniscience and omnipotence" of
the British security service was
displayed.
In the few cases where suspects held
out, they were shown obituaries of
executed prisoners. None the less, 14
spies were executed because of
information they gave.
Feathered fiends: Nazi
commanders hatched a plan to use
pigeons to spearhead an invasion of
Britain. Lofts in occupied Belgium and
the Netherlands were identified as
bases for the feathered squadrons
before they were sent with agents
heading to Britain. Security officers
believed use of the birds, which would
be sent back with messages, had the
blessing of the SS head, Himmler,
identified by MI5 as a "life-long
pigeon-fancier". The Army trained
peregrine falcons to intercept enemy
birds, two of which became "prisoners
of war".
Sign language: A crackdown on
the defacing of telegraph poles was
ordered by security chiefs during the
1940 invasion scare, because it was
feared the marks may have helped enemy
paratroopers. The signs on the poles
were in fact the result of a survey in
the area by an American oil company.