MÜLLER AND OTHERS
Early in 1915 the Germans began to organise spy-receiving offices in
Holland. Usually they pretended to be legitimate commercial agencies.
Sometimes one member of a not too prosperous firm of commission agents
would lend his offices for the purpose; sometimes a ‘business’ was
opened in some upper room, where a few samples of cheap cigars and
other goods were on view. Quite early in the year it was discovered
that some foreigner who could write fluent English was sending regular
communications to one of these addresses in a simple secret ink, and it
was evident that he was the sort of person who would find out something
which might at any time be of great use to the enemy. The letters were
posted at various places in London, and there was no clue at all to
the sender’s address. Like all spies, he was continually demanding
money, and it was hoped for some time that a remittance from Holland
would disclose his identity, but in the end the _dénouement_ came
about in quite another way. A letter was intercepted in the Censorship
which disclosed secret writing. It was not in the usual hand, and the
incriminatory words said that ‘C’ had gone to Newcastle, and that the
writer was sending the communication ‘from 201’ instead. I remember
very well the morning when this sentence was shown to me. The postmark
was Deptford. ‘201’ might or might not be the number of a house. We
rang up Deptford Police Station and asked for a list of the streets in
their area which ran to 201 houses. There was only one--Deptford High
Street--and the occupant of that house had a German name, ‘Peter Hahn,
Baker and Confectioner.’
No one was more surprised than the stout little baker when a taxi
deposited a number of police officers at his door. He proved to be a
British subject, and to have been resident in Deptford for some years.
While he was being put into the cab a search was made of his premises,
and in a back room the police found a complete outfit for secret
writing neatly stowed away in a cardboard box.
When seated in my armchair Hahn was not at all communicative. He
professed to know nothing of ‘C,’ and when further pressed he refused
to answer any questions, but patient inquiry among his neighbours
produced a witness who remembered that a tall Russian gentleman had
been visiting Hahn at frequent intervals. His name was believed to
be Müller, and his address a boarding-house in Bloomsbury. This
limited the field of search. The register of every boarding-house
was scrutinised, and within a few hours the police found the name of
Müller; the landlady of the boarding-house confirmed the suggestion
that he was a Russian, and said that he had lately gone to Newcastle
to see some friends. The search was then transferred to Newcastle, and
within a few hours Müller was found, arrested, and brought to London.
He was a tall, spare, worried-looking person, anxious only to have an
opportunity of clearing himself. He had never seen Hahn; had never been
in Germany, and could not even speak the language. For some time he
adhered to the story that he was a Russian. An inquiry into his past
showed that he was one of those cosmopolitan, roving Germans who are
hotel-keepers in one place, commercial travellers in another. At some
time they have all been motor-car agents and touts. He spoke English
with scarcely any trace of a foreign accent. With his glib tongue he
had gone through the usual spy routine of making love to impressionable
young women, and winning acquaintance by the promise of partnership in
profitable speculations. He had some claim for registering himself as
a Russian, for he had been born in Libau and spoke Russian as well as
Flemish, Dutch, French, German, and English. Hahn, on the other hand,
was merely a tool. He had been born in Battersea, and was therefore a
British subject. In 1913 he was a bankrupt with assets of £3 to meet
liabilities of £1800. His object, no doubt, was purely mercenary. As
a British subject he had the right to be tried by civil court, and
therefore, as it was not desirable to have two trials, both he and
Müller were indicted at the Old Bailey in May 1915. Both were found
guilty of espionage. Müller was sentenced to death, and Hahn to seven
years’ penal servitude on the ground that he had been acting under
Müller’s influence. Müller appealed unsuccessfully against his sentence.
On 22nd June 1915 Müller was removed from Brixton Prison to the
Tower in a taxi-cab, and by a curious fatality the cab broke down in
Upper Thames Street. It was the luncheon hour, and a crowd formed
immediately. A foreigner seated between two military policemen and
going up the street towards the Tower was not lost on the crowd, which
raised a cry of ‘German spy!’ Another taxi was quickly found, and the
journey was resumed without further accident. The condemned man was
highly strung, and he broke down on the night before his execution.
On the following morning he pulled himself together, and insisted on
passing gravely down the firing-party and shaking hands with each
man. The Germans did not hear of his death for some time, for letters
containing remittances continued to be received.
About the middle of 1915 we learned that on a steamer bound from
Rotterdam to Buenos Aires was an Argentine citizen named Conrad Leyter,
who was believed to be carrying dispatches from Berlin to the German
Embassy in Madrid. Leyter was removed from the steamer and brought to
London. He said he was a shipping clerk, that he had come to Europe for
a holiday, and was now on his way back to Buenos Aires. He gave a long
and rather wearisome account of his holiday adventures in Germany and
Holland, and nothing could be done until the clockwork had run down.
Then we said, ‘But why were you going to Spain?’ There was another
burst of eloquence, but no reply to that particular question. Whenever
he paused for breath he was asked, ‘Why were you going to Spain?’ At
last he could bear it no more. He jumped from his chair and said,
‘Well, if you will know, I am going to Spain, and if you want to know
why, I am carrying a dispatch to Prince Ratibor, the German Ambassador
in Madrid.’
‘Thank you. And where is the dispatch?’
‘I have not got it. It is sewn up in the life-belt in my cabin.’
That was all we wanted to know. Leyter went to an internment camp, the
wireless was got to work, and in due course the dispatch was found in
the life-belt, as he said. It was quite useful.
Every now and then doubtful persons captured at sea came to us from far
afield. In October 1915 a boarding officer in the Mediterranean, who
was examining passengers on board the blue-funnel liner _Anchises_,
found a man who was carrying a false passport believed to be forged.
He was detained and sent to Egypt. In Cairo the luck was against him.
While he was being interrogated and his imagination was soaring in full
flight, a British officer who had known him in former years chanced
to pass through the room and recognised him. ‘Hullo, von Gumpenberg!’
he cried, slapping him on the back. After that it was useless to
dissemble, and he gave his name as Baron Otto von Gumpenberg, and said
that he had been squadron commander in the Death’s Head Hussars, and
had been involved in a scandal for which he was arrested and imprisoned
for seven months. On his release he became a vagabond adventurer. In
Constantinople he was aide-de-camp to Enver Pasha; later he attached
himself to Prince Wilhelm of Wied in his futile attempt to govern
Albania. When war broke out he was called back to Germany to serve as
a trooper, and, according to his own account, he served for eighteen
months on the Russian Front with such distinction that when he returned
wounded to Germany his commission was restored to him and he was posted
to the command of a troop at the Front; but at this moment there
happened to be a scheme for stirring up the tribes in North Africa,
and he was dispatched to see what he could do with the Senussi. About
that time the Senussi had captured a number of Italian prisoners, and
von Gumpenberg accounted for being on the _Anchises_ by saying that he
was being sent to the Senussi to obtain the release of these prisoners.
We were impolite enough to express entire disbelief in this story.
Unfortunately, in return for his confession made in Egypt he had been
promised that he would be treated as an officer prisoner of war, and
he had to be interned at Donnington Hall. His real object, no doubt,
was to direct the hostile movements of the Senussi and other tribes
against the Allies.
The Germans now adopted commerce as the best cover for their agents.
England was to be flooded with commercial travellers, especially
travellers in cigars. The Censor began to pick up messages containing
orders for enormous quantities of cigars for naval ports such as
Portsmouth, Chatham, Devonport, and Dover. The senders turned out to be
furnished with Dutch passports, though their nationality was doubtful.
Now something happened to be known about their supposed employers
in Holland, who kept one little back office in which a few mouldy
samples were exposed, and yet here they were with a traveller in the
Southern Counties and another sending orders from Newcastle. Naval
ratings are not abstainers from tobacco, but they are not known to be
in the habit of consuming large quantities of Havana cigars. One of
the travellers named Haicke Petrus Marinus Janssen and the other named
Wilhelm Johannes Roos were found doing the sights of London. Janssen
was questioned first. He was a self-possessed person of about thirty
years of age, and he claimed to be a sailor. He knew no German, in fact
he had never been in Germany, and, being a Dutchman, he had a dislike
for Germans. Why, he was asked, did his employers, Dierks & Co., engage
a sailor to travel in cigars? To that he had no answer except that he
had been unsuccessful in obtaining a berth as officer on a steamer. A
friend had introduced him to Mr. Dierks because he could speak English
and was looking for work. He said that he was the only traveller that
Dierks had in England. We asked him whether he knew a man named Roos.
‘No,’ he said, he had never heard of him. He was then sent to another
room while Roos was brought in. He, too, was a seaman, a big, powerful
man with the cut of a German seaman. He, too, said that he was a
traveller for Dierks & Co.; that Dierks had two travellers, himself
and Janssen. Would he know Janssen if he saw him? Certainly he would.
Janssen was brought again into the room. He made a faint sign with his
eyes and lips to Roos, but of course it was too late. ‘Is this the man
you say you know?’ he was asked. He nodded, and Janssen was silent. On
the way over to Cannon Row Roos suddenly dashed at a glass door which
opened into the yard, smashed the panes, and jabbed his naked wrists
on the jagged fragments of glass in the hope of cutting an artery. He
was taken to Westminster Hospital to be bandaged, and later was removed
to Brixton Prison, where he was put under observation as a potential
suicide.
The code used by these men was simple enough. They would send telegrams
for 10,000 Cabañas, 4000 Rothschilds, 3000 Coronas, and so on. A
message telegraphed from Portsmouth of this kind would mean that there
were three battleships, four cruisers, and ten destroyers in the
harbour, and these messages, so interpreted, corresponded with the
actual facts on the dates of the telegrams. Neither man could produce
any evidence that he had transacted _bona fide_ business with his
cigars. They could not produce one genuine order. They were brought
to trial for espionage and were convicted. A few days later both made
confessions. Janssen actually gave some useful information about the
German spy organisation in Holland. He said that his sympathies were
really with us, and he could not understand how he had been tempted to
serve the other side. It appeared that in 1913 he had actually been
granted a silver medal by the Board of Trade for life-saving on the
immigrant steamer, _Volturno_, which was burnt at sea with the loss of
400 lives. Her wireless call for help was responded to by the vessel in
which Janssen was serving, and he, among others, was instrumental in
saving 500 lives. Roos feigned insanity in prison, and it was one of
the pleas put forward by his counsel. There was, however, no medical
support for this plea, and it was arranged that on 30th July both men
should be executed in the Tower. They met their end stoically. Janssen
was shot first. Roos asked as a last favour to be allowed to finish his
cigarette. That done, he threw it away with a gesture as though that
represented all the vanities of this world, and then he sat down in
the chair with quiet unconcern. The news of the execution soon reached
Holland, and the Germans began to find it very difficult to obtain
recruits from neutral countries.
[Illustration: WILHELM JOHANNES ROOS. AGUSTO ALFREDO ROGGIN. FERNANDO
BUSCHMAN. GEORG BREECKOW.]
During May and June 1915, in about a fortnight, no less than seven
enemy spies were arrested. The most spectacular were Reginald Roland,
whose real name was Georg T. Breeckow, and Mrs. Lizzie Wertheim.
Breeckow was the son of a pianoforte manufacturer in Stettin, and he
was himself a pianist. It is curious to reflect that professional
musicians should have formed a respectable proportion of the detected
spies. One would have thought that it was the last class that would be
able to report intelligently on naval and military matters. Breeckow
spoke English fluently, and knew enough Americanisms to pose plausibly
as a rich American travelling in England for his health. Before he
left Holland he was furnished with the address of Lizzie Wertheim, a
German woman who had married a naturalised German and had thus acquired
British nationality. She was a stout and rather flashy-looking person
of the boarding-house type, and she had been in England for some
years. She was separated from her husband, but on terms that made her
independent. She was equally at home in Berlin, the Hague, and London.
Breeckow, who appeared to be possessed of a considerable sum of money,
was at once accorded a warm welcome. The pair hired horses from a
riding-school, and rode in the Park during the mornings. They took
their luncheon at expensive restaurants, and Lizzie Wertheim became
intoxicated with this kind of life and waxed so extravagant that
Breeckow had to expostulate and report the matter to his employers. She
would no longer travel without a maid.
It was decided between the two that the best working arrangement would
be for the woman to do the field work, and for Breeckow to work up her
reports in London and dispatch them to Holland. Mrs. Wertheim went to
Scotland, hired a motor-car, and drove about the country picking up
gossip about the Grand Fleet. Her questions to naval officers were,
however, so imprudent that special measures were taken; Breeckow’s
address was discovered, and in due course the two were brought to New
Scotland Yard for interrogation. The artistic temperament of Breeckow
was not equal to the ordeal. His pretence of being a rich American
broke down immediately, and he was aghast to find out how much the
police knew about his secret movements. Though he made no confession,
he returned to Cannon Row in a state of great nervous tension. Lizzie
Wertheim, on the other hand, was tough, brazen, and impudent, claiming
that as a British subject she had a right to travel where she would.
She declined to sit still in her chair, but walked up and down the
room, flirting a large silk handkerchief as if she was practising a
new dancing step. Further inquiries showed that, unlike the previous
American passports carried by spies, which were genuine documents
stolen by the German Foreign Office, this passport was a forgery right
through. The American Eagle on the official seal had his claws turned
round the wrong way, and his tail lacked a feather or two. The very red
paper on which the seal was impressed did not behave like the paper on
genuine documents when touched with acid, nor was the texture of the
passport paper itself quite the same. It also transpired that Breeckow
had been in America continuously from 1908, that he had got into touch
with von Papen’s organisation, which had sent him back to Germany for
service in this country. For this purpose he became an inmate of the
Espionage School in Antwerp, where he was taught the tricks of the
trade, which were quite familiar to us. He had also a commercial code
for use when telegrams had to be sent.
Breeckow had maintained throughout that he knew no German, but his
assurance began to break down in the loneliness of a prison cell. He
had a strong imagination, and no doubt the thought that his female
accomplice might be betraying him worked strongly on his feelings. One
morning I went over with a naval officer to see how he was. There was a
question about signing for his property, and he was sent into the room
for the purpose. When he found himself alone with us he said suddenly,
‘Am I to be tried for my life?’
‘I understand that you are to be tried.’
‘What is the penalty for what I have done?’ (Up to this point he had
made no confession.) ‘Is it death?’
‘I do not know,’ I said. ‘You have not yet been tried.’
‘I can tell from your face that it is death. I must know. I have to
think of my old mother in Stettin. I want to write a full confession.’
I told him that of course he was free to write what he pleased, but
that anything he did write would almost certainly be used against him
at his trial. ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘I have carried the secret long
enough. Now I want to tell the whole truth.’
So paper and ink were supplied to him, and he wrote his confession.
As Mrs. Wertheim was a British subject and could claim trial by civil
court the two were tried together at the Old Bailey on 20th September
before three Judges of the High Court, and were found guilty. Breeckow
was sentenced to death and Mrs. Wertheim to ten years’ penal servitude,
as it was considered that she had acted under the man’s influence.
Breeckow appealed unsuccessfully, and his execution was fixed for 26th
October at the Tower. The five weeks that elapsed between the sentence
and the execution were extremely trying to the persons responsible for
his safety. He had broken down completely, and was demented by fear. On
the morning of his execution he was almost in a state of collapse. At
the last moment he produced a lady’s handkerchief, probably the relic
of some past love-affair, and asked that it might be tied over his
eyes instead of the usual bandage, but it was too small. It had to be
knotted to the bandage and then tied. He was shivering with agitation,
and just before the shots were fired there was a sudden spasm. It was
believed afterwards that he had actually died of heart failure before
the bullets reached him.
Lizzie Wertheim was removed to Aylesbury Convict Prison to undergo her
sentence, and there she died some two years after the Armistice.
Of all the spies that were convicted and executed the man for whom I
felt most sorry was Fernando Buschman. He was a gentleman by birth,
he had no need of money, for he was married to the daughter of a rich
soap manufacturer in Dresden, who had kept him liberally supplied with
funds for his studies in aviation. He was quite a good violinist, and
he had all the instincts of a cultivated musician. He was of German
origin, but his father had become a naturalised Brazilian, and he
himself had Latin blood in his veins. He was born in Paris, but his
boyhood was spent in Brazil, where he attended a German school. He
had invented an aeroplane, and in 1911 the French Government allowed
him to use the aerodrome at Issy for experimental purposes. For the
three years before the War he had been travelling all over Europe,
and when hostilities broke out the German Secret Service got hold
of him. He had been to Spain, to Genoa, and to Hamburg, and in 1915
he was in Barcelona and Madrid, and then in Flushing, Antwerp, and
Rotterdam. It speaks volumes for the stupidity of the directors of the
German Espionage School in Antwerp that they should have selected as a
disguise for such a man as Buschman the role of commercial traveller.
The imposture was bound to be discovered at once. He was far too well
dressed and well spoken, and he knew nothing whatever about trade. He
arrived in London with a forged passport, and put up at a good hotel
with his violin, not usually part of the luggage of a commercial
traveller. After a few days he moved to lodgings in Loughborough
Road, Brixton, and thence to lodgings in South Kensington. This he
thought was enough to fit him for moving about in England. He visited
Portsmouth and Southampton, and from certain minute notes found among
his papers it became evident that his one qualification--his knowledge
of aeronautics--was not to be turned to account: he was to be employed
as a naval spy. Unfortunately for him he ran short of money, and was
compelled to write to Holland for fresh supplies. He was arrested at
his lodgings in South Kensington, and was found to be quite penniless.
When the detective arrived he said, ‘What have you against me? I will
show you everything.’ Then he reeled off his lesson. He was in England
for the purpose of selling cheese, bananas, potatoes, safety razors,
and odds and ends, and in France he had sold picric acid, cloth, and
rifles. He implied that his employers did a miscellaneous business
almost unrivalled in commercial annals, but when he said that they were
Dierks & Co., of the Hague, we pointed out that they occupied one room
and were cigar merchants. Moreover, it was found that his passport was
written in the well-known handwriting of Flores, who used to instruct
German spies in Rotterdam. This man had been a schoolmaster, and his
characteristic handwriting was well known. There was also a letter from
Gneist, the German Consul General in Rotterdam, from Colonel Ostertag,
the German Military Attaché in Holland, and from two persons who were
known to be active in recruiting for the German Secret Service. He
was tried at the Westminster Guildhall on 20th September 1915, the
day of the trial of Breeckow and Mrs. Wertheim at the Old Bailey, and
was sentenced to death. I know that persons who were present at the
trial were impressed by his manly bearing and his frankness. After his
sentence he was not separated from his violin. It was his great solace
through the long hours of waiting. He asked for it again on his removal
to the Tower on the night before his execution, and played till a late
hour. When they came for him in the morning he picked it up and kissed
it, saying, ‘Good-bye, I shall not want you any more.’ He refused to
have his eyes bandaged, and faced the rifles with a courageous smile.
How differently the artistic temperament works in men and women!