Hitler's Lost Spy (11 page)

The Port Stephens Naval Prospects

Regardless of the apparent pre-World War II disregard for developing Port Stephens and its immediate hinterland, it had not been ignored by defence planners. 
In 1910, the same year that Korea was formally incorporated into the Japanese Empire, a report on Australia's future naval requirements noted:

Port Stephens is a very good harbour. My proposals
only suggest using it as a submarine base for the present, but it should be surveyed and examined thoroughly, and land reserved, with a view to
possible requirements of future naval expansion
⁹
.

In 1912, a further naval development report highlighted the strategic significance of Port Stephens and the southern New South Wales port of Jervis Bay:

Quite apart from their naval importance, these two flanking ports must be strongly held – Jervis Bay as the port of the Federal Capital and Port Stephens as the door to the coaling centres and the valley of the Hunter, a district so rich in supplies as to be capable of sustaining an enemy's force of considerable numbers and consequently a part of Australia to be specially guarded
¹⁰
.

The submarine base did not eventuate, but the strategic potential of the area had been acknowledged prior to World War I. It is difficult to imagine that this was not also recognised by the Japanese during that nation's intense intelligence gathering in Australia. In 1938 it could have been the army activities of interest to the Japanese, and Annette received the call.

To The Manor Drawn …?

Considering the covert possibilities that lay ahead of Annette following her arrival at
The Manor
in Iluka Street, Clifton Gardens, it is clear how these premises offered her a superb geographical location.
The Manor
presented a leisurely access for the viewing of shipping movements 
through the harbour. It was a short ferry ride to the city, and with those who shared the premises, it offered Annette the prospect of interaction with interesting people – to converse with, learn from, cultivate, to exchange (selective) information and explore employment prospects. For the residents who were not so interesting, Annette had the option of having little to do with them – and it seems that's what she did.

More important than the above, there was another benefit certifying that this location for Annette was almost too good to be true. Iluka Street overlooks Taylors Bay and is separated from the shoreline by a narrow strip of national park. In 1938 this strip of land was reserved for possible defence purposes, but public usage was permitted. Annette's room was at the rear of the building and had direct access from across a lawn overlooking the bay. The shoreline could be accessed by a short walk down a series of steps adjacent to the property, with protection offered by the surrounding bush in the reserved area. 
The significance of her room's location is that it offered a concealed approach. Visitors to most other residents obtained their access through the front door directly opposite the street. Annette's visitors had the option of the front door, or a more discreet approach at the rear of the building.

Due to the large size of the property, built on five standard blocks of land each of one-quarter acre,
The
Manor
adjoined the bush on one side, and the next-door neighbour would be unable to see Annette's room or the entrance thereto. Only garden and bush occupied the rear of the building and the split-level street in front offered some limited protection to front-door visitors, if so desired. Being the first house in the street also allowed guests to enter the premises without the need to pass other properties and so remain almost entirely out of sight of the neighbours.

A report in Annette's file confirms the importance of
The Manor's
location:

… Position of the Manor is matter of some importance, its grounds slope down to the waters of Taylors Bay and it is quite simple for someone to land from a boat and walk up through the garden to the house.

The significance of Annette's room location was evident. The report continued:

Annette occupied a room separate from the rest of the house, opening on the garden and bay. Adequate evidence can be obtained that when German ships were in port and they anchored in Athol Bay, she received, at night, visits from men who entered from the garden. There is a suggestion that she signalled to them with a blue torch light, presumably that the way was clear for them to come up. There was never any suggestion that they visited her for immoral purposes.

So, if the reason for men from the German ships calling on Annette was not for
immoral purposes
, who were they and why the clandestine rendezvous? An entry in her file provides the answer:

(Question). Is it possible that Cordes, who is interned, might have something to say about Annette? Cordes was ship trooper on the ‘Aller' and the men from the ‘Aller' and ‘Strassburg' were those, it is believed, who most frequently visited her.

For Annette's information sources, the supreme location of
The Manor
is clear. When German merchant ships anchored in Athol Bay (see map), visitors to her room required only a small boat to round Bradleys Head, across Taylors Bay, then a climb up the short distance to the garden of
The Manor
and into her room. It is difficult to imagine a more convenient location for undercover meetings with people from ships at anchor in Sydney Harbour. The need for a motor vehicle or public transport is dispensed with, thus eliminating the possibility of an unwelcome observation by the usual means. The entry to Annette's room is direct – thus avoiding the front door and possible prying by other residents. Further, the sloping terrain leading to the room was sheltered and consisted of easily manageable bush and garden.

It is likely that should Annette have been shown a map of the Sydney metropolitan area, and asked where she would prefer to reside, her choice may well have been a property on the harbour foreshores with a similar outlook and direct access to the water. Most properties in this category are expensive, and to rent one – even on a shared arrangement – would likely to have been beyond her apparent means. But a large residence offering an up-market location to several individuals might have been cost effective. So how did Annette manage to obtain this accommodation at
The Manor
, owned by the Theosophical Society, who had a policy of offering temporary accommodation only to members of the Society, when she was not a member?

Annette could only have gained residential access to
The Manor
through a special invitation, and this was her pathway subsequent to meeting Jean Morton at Alliance Francaise.

But was this simply a coincidence? Could Annette's Sydney accommodation have been arranged on her behalf? Did her German contacts in Sydney know she was travelling to Australia, and that she would be requiring housing in Sydney? But it had to be
suitable
accommodation to provide her with maximum assistance for her future responsibilities. Being lodged out in the suburbs would increase the likelihood of suspicion, as communication with her contacts would be more exposed. Living on the edge of the harbour with a short ferry ride to the city offered an ideal location for those who preferred to live in relative obscurity. Also, shipping movements on the harbour could only be observed, first-hand, from the foreshores and vantage points in the immediate area. Gerald Healy's
The Book of
Sydney Suburbs
describes how the harbour may be observed from an area close to
The Manor.

A short walk from Clifton Gardens is Bradleys Head, which commands unsurpassable views of the harbour and North and South Heads.

From Bradleys Head, a ship entering the Heads may be visually tracked to the Harbour Bridge – an immense range.

Another consideration for Annette was her gender, and with it she carried both an attractiveness and respectability. The lady travels first class and this was the late 1930s, an era when social conventions ensured that women, unlike today, did not usually have to command respect from men – it was automatic. Her gender warranted an added effort to ensure Madame Wagner was housed appropriately. Had ‘she' been a male, a 
‘rough area' quarters in the harbour vicinity may have been acceptable, but not for a woman. Female spies often possessed gender advantages over their male counterparts, but having a broad range of suitable foreign residential options was not one of them.

However, an espionage advantage such as Annette's accommodation occasionally tenders a benefit to both the spy
and
the other side. While
The Manor
offered Annette an ideal housing setting, it also provided the agents assigned to her surveillance an equally ideal location for monitoring her movements and visitors.
The
Manor
is the first property on the street overlooking Taylors Bay. The dense bushland adjoining the property would have provided excellent cover for an agent assigned to survey Annette. This bushland afforded an effective observation point for both the front and rear of the building, including Annette's room. The normal observation choices of remaining in a parked vehicle that would attract unwelcome notice from neighbours, or commandeering a nearby property as a base, were therefore avoided.

While the agents checking on Annette may have enjoyed excellent observation sites, they would also have experienced exposure to the elements, and rain during a winter's night would not have been welcome.

Mixed Company at The Manor

Annette developed few friendships at
The Manor.
Her working hours may have contributed to this, but the reports on her movements and social activities suggest she had a limited number of friends and shared little in common with other residents. But there may have been unrelated reasons why Annette kept her distance from most others. An intelligence report dated 1 March 1939 
includes:

… Another resident at The Manor is Mrs Eula Maddocks a fanatical Communist and a worker in the Party offices in Sydney.

A few more residents sharing Eula Maddocks' 
political beliefs would undoubtedly explain Annette's disinterest in mingling with too many others. But fewer close friends equated to fewer disruptions, ineffective diversions and time-wasting idle chatter. Annette did not have any interest in unproductive socialising – and there were always possible risks in meeting people with unknown backgrounds. The spy's domain may be very lonely, but for a good reason.

Friendly Neighbours

During her residency at
The Manor
, Annette received very few visitors who entered through the front door. At night, and through the back garden, was another matter. 
But two friends who knocked on the front door to regularly visit Annette had both received attention from security officials prior to their association with her.

Dinah Marshal was a languages teacher who lived in David Street, Clifton Gardens, a short distance (about 400 metres) from
The Manor
. She travelled to Germany in 1937 and returned with an apparent enthusiasm for the Nazi regime. Putting aside the less palatable of Hitler's policies moulding the new Germany in that year, it was not unusual for foreign visitors to return home with a glowing admiration for the Third Reich. Dinah subsequently caught the attention of Military Intelligence due to her friendship with Arnold Kaemper.

Arnold Kaemper was born in Westphalia, Germany, in 1907. A hairdresser by trade, he arrived in Sydney in August 1937 and established a ladies hairdressing salon (‘Ceciles') in King Street, City. There is no evidence that he had any Nazi affiliations in Germany, but his associations with known Nazis in Australia placed him on the Military Intelligence watch list. He was interned in September 1939, released five months later and re-
interned in June 1940, possibly as a consequence of Hitler's invasion of France.

The security assessments of Kaemper do not provide a consistent portrayal of what suspicions existed in his connection with known Nazis – but there was a link. For example, in a report connecting him to Annette:

He apparently had unhealthy interest in oil tanks and makes notes of oil storage and supplies and was apparently a friend of Skerst.

In a September 1944 report by the Commandant of Kaemper's internment camp in Tatura, Victoria:

He has never shown any interest in political affairs or expressed any opinion thereon as far as is known. 
Carries on his trade in the compound barber's shop. Does not mix to any great extent with other Internees. He is considered however to have Nazi persuasions. His behaviour during internment has been very good. Does not appear as being very reliable or
trustworthy.

Marshal and Kaemper had met in Germany, and Kaemper had lived at the Marshal family home in Clifton Gardens prior to his internment.

The association between Marshal and Kaemper may be accounted for, but what was the relationship that brought them together at
The Manor
? Apart from meeting Annette, we don't know – for sure. What we
do
know is that Annette and Kaemper, who both worked in the city across the harbour, often travelled by ferry from Clifton Gardens to Circular Quay. When observed travelling on the same morning ferry together they acted as complete strangers – each ignored the other. So why the secrecy? 
What was it between them that remained so utterly private?

Notes in Annette's file confirm the relationship: