Hitler's Spy (7 page)

This, at least, was the story played back to MI5. In fact, Ritter already knew of Johnny’s contacts with British intelligence and approved of them to the extent that Owens remained a free
agent, rather than operating under British control. ‘Rantzau said to me, “You’re in a very nice position”,’ Owens admitted two years later, under close interrogation
by MI5. ‘He seemed to think it was an ideal position from their standpoint. I had got a free hand to do more or less what I liked with the British organisation.’

Double-cross it, for example. Despite Irene’s best efforts, Der Kleine’s tenure as Hitler’s chief spy in England remained secure. That same afternoon, Ritter entertained his
British guests in a beer garden. ‘Lily was blonde like Johnny’s wife,’ the doctor observed approvingly. ‘But that was all they shared in common. Whereas Irene was small,
quiet and mannered, his new friend Lily was large and robust, a whole head taller than Johnny, and several years younger. Gay, intelligent, and with a good deal of natural sex appeal. Johnny was
clearly infatuated.’

Unlike Lily Bade, Alex Myner was introduced to Stelle X as
promising agent material, for whom Owens expected to receive a finder’s fee. Following an initial interview
with Ritter, on Sunday the impecunious Scot was introduced to a junior officer named Leitz and told to report to the Great Eastern Hotel at Liverpool Street four days hence. ‘Leitz indicated
that he would give me some business,’ Myner explained in a subsequent statement, careful to avoid self-incrimination. ‘Nothing further of interest happened. I returned to London on
Monday night, leaving Owens and the girl behind.’

Owens and Lily stayed on in Hamburg for a week, during which Irmgard kept the pretty dressmaker amused while Ritter fettled Johnny as a wartime spy. Owens spent much of his time at the main
Abwehr signals centre at Wohldorf, a short distance from Hamburg, where he got to grips with the new model Afu transmitter, technically superior and far more robust than the older klamotten, and
brushed up on coding techniques. One such was based on the word CONGRATULATIONS and utilised simple numbers and squares; another made use of a best-selling novel by Alice Hobart,
Oil for the
Lamps of China
. Photography and sabotage also featured on the curriculum, as well as instruction on basic meteorology. In the event that war broke out between Britain and Germany, A.3504 would
buzz across daily weather reports, enabling the Luftwaffe to select optimum conditions for the destruction of London.

Still more sinister, Owens learned of new forms of chemical warfare, after a Nazi scientist with a double chin let slip details of ‘a concentration of acid vapour’ that was highly
lethal. Owens, as Ritter well knew, possessed a degree of skill as a chemist, and for the right price might be persuaded to deploy a doomsday weapon. ‘Being heavily concentrated this vapour
hung around indefinitely, and had extraordinary corrosive powers which not only ate away the flesh of sheep in a very short time, but disintegrated metals.’

Right hot.

Blind to such frightfulness, Lily purchased a small blue hat with a veil. On 18 August, a Friday, the odd couple left Hamburg for Berlin, where Owens may have been formally
presented at the Abwehr’s central headquarters on the Tirpitzufer. ‘Arthur was with me all the time in Berlin and nothing happened of particular interest,’ his mistress fibbed
later. ‘Nothing happened in Hamburg which aroused my suspicions. I had no idea that he was engaged other than with business connected with the Expanded Metal Company Limited.’

Beguiling Lily Bade was hardly so naive. On Sunday the lovers left Berlin for a three-day break at Timmendorfer Strand, the fashionable spa resort on the Baltic coast near Lübeck, a token
of appreciation from Stelle X. Despite darkening political storm clouds, the high summer of 1939 was among one of the hottest and driest on record, bringing Mediterranean temperatures as far north
as Stockholm. Better still, Arthur Owens could also now bask in the warm glow of an honorary military rank: Colonel Johnny. Soon, come
Der Tag
, antagonists such as Hinchley-Cooke might
even have to throw up an occasional salute.

No matter that his compulsive pursuit of high status and abundant wealth involved the betrayal of his country in shameful fashion. Countries, according to Owens, mattered not at all. For these
few precious, balmy days on the beach with lovely Lily, it must have seemed to the Little Man that he was on the verge of a very big win indeed.

This tainted summer idyll was destined not to last. Not content with denouncing her husband to Doctor Rantzau, Irene now repeated the trick at Scotland Yard. She had, she insisted, intended to
inform the police of ‘this despicable business’ for some time, but had held back for the sake of the children. As if to emphasise the point, Bob sat meekly beside her, tight lipped on
the subject of his own excursions to sketch aerodromes at Kenley and Biggin Hill. Now that Owens had threatened to
shoot her, and heap shame on the Ferrett family name, Irene
demanded draconian punishment – and police protection to boot.

Her lengthy statement to a Special Branch inspector named Lansby read like bad vaudeville farce. ‘Through a millionaire named Hamilton he met an American Jew named Pieper and joined the
German secret service. Owens has a very good knowledge of many British aerodromes and a wireless transmitting set with a minimum radius of 60 miles. It is alleged he is very clever and carries code
messages covered in tin foil in his mouth, or in the petrol cavity at the end of a cigarette lighter.’

Naturally enough, Irene was particularly piqued by his affair with sexy Lily Bade. ‘Owens has made her extravagant promises of reward. He said he would take her to Germany and, as far as
is known, they may be there at present, although Owens is supposed to be at the Golden Sands holiday camp, Great Yarmouth.’

In fact, Irene was no less devious than her husband, and no friend of MI5. Having informed the Branch that Snow ran a network of Nazi agents who worked to his orders, she found their names had
slipped her mind. ‘Mrs Snow has promised to communicate with me when she remembers them,’ Lansby noted patiently. ‘If she finds any correspondence or addresses which her husband
may have been left behind.’

Time was running out – for Owens, and for Europe. On 23 August came news of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, a bogus non-aggression treaty dividing Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of
influence. That Poland would be the next chunk of
Lebensraum
seized by Hitler had long been abundantly clear, and already the troubled republic had secured firm guarantees from Britain and
France to defend her territorial integrity with military support. Five months later, the totalitarian accord between Hitler and Stalin signalled that war must inevitably follow, making the dog days
of August 1939 an uncertain time
to enjoy sand, sea and sunshine on Timmendorfer Strand. From Copenhagen to Cannes to Casablanca, holidaymakers hurriedly packed their bags and
scrambled for the ports, anxious to return home before the blue summer skies grew dark with bombers, perhaps eclipsing civilisation itself.

A driver from Stelle X collected Owens and Lily from their hotel and sped them to Flushing on the Dutch coast. From there the pair crossed the North Sea to Harwich on an overcrowded passenger
ferry, though without the new Afu suitcase transmitter. Other fascist fellow travellers hastened in the opposite direction, notably William Joyce, the oily Blackshirt luminary soon to become
infamous as radio propagandist ‘Lord Haw-Haw’.

As Owens and Lily hastened home from the Baltic, Irene twisted the knife still further. ‘Have received information that the two parties mentioned are now in Hamburg,’ she told
Scotland Yard in an unsigned letter. ‘No doubt they will return via Ostend, the latter part of the week. I also have the address of the man who is able to get any kind of passport, which a
certain party may be travelling on as man and wife . . . That is all for now. You will know who this is from.’

Among several enclosures was a visiting card for ‘passport agent’ Alex Myner, which confirmed his address as 12 Parklands, Surbiton. These details were noted, only to be overlooked
in the chaotic run-up to war. On arriving in London the previous day Owens and Lily went directly to Parklands, certain that hotel registrations would now be monitored. Rogue Agent Snow could, and
should, have been detained immediately by the Branch on behalf of MI5. Instead, at 04.30 on the morning of 28 August, his temperamental klamotten installed in the bathroom at Parklands, Colonel
Johnny made his debut test transmission to Germany. Trautmann and Wein, the wireless operators (‘
funkers
’) assigned to A.3504, stood by at Wohldorf, paying close attention as
this historic first signal buzzed in through the ether.

‘Ein Glas Bier!’

A glass of beer.

With these few frivolous words the Abwehr
’
s London stelle was finally on air. Ritter was ecstatic. ‘These were the only German words that Johnny knew off by heart. On
countless occasions Trautmann, Wein and myself had been amused to hear them uttered when drinking on the Reeperbahn, or in the Hofbräuhaus. Now the connection was established, and we were
ready for the imminent European emergency.’

Fortunately Owens followed his drinks order with a meaty main course.
‘Royal Navy reserve convoy leaving Portsmouth for Gibraltar today, seven-thirty.’

CONGRATULATIONS indeed.

As Agent Snow opened the batting, MI5 dropped the ball. Guy Liddell, the Deputy Director of B Division, and a talented amateur cellist to boot, chose this moment to open a war diary, which over
the next few weeks would swing unsteadily between paranoid fancy and languid inertia. With Hitler’s chief spy in England still at large, and transmitting freely to Hamburg, Liddell’s
entries at the end of August seemed somewhat complacent: ‘At the request of the Home Office we have agreed that nobody on our lists of Nazi Party members or suspects should be stopped at
ports unless we have very special reasons for holding them.’ Elsewhere, a supposedly credible source swore that Hitler had got the jitters. ‘He even suggests that if the order were now
given it is doubtful whether the Germans would march.’

Despite such woolly thinking, the Security Service hurriedly expanded onto a war footing. With space at a premium at their central London premises, however, large parts of MI5 had to be
relocated four miles west to Wormwood Scrubs, a grim Victorian prison complex in the hinterlands of Hammersmith. Evacuation of the previous occupants took several days, resulting in chaos, overlap
and no little bemusement. Several staff
stumbled upon unemptied chamber pots in the malodorous cells now requisitioned as offices, while one Registry girl spotted her
father’s solicitor among the prisoners taking exercise in the yard. ‘Don’t go near them,’ warned a vigilant warder. ‘Some of them ain’t seen no women for
years.’

The steady stream of ‘Mayfair types’ heading through the imposing Gothic gateway each morning also attracted unwanted attention. On reaching the prison, several among the more
waggish bus conductors took to calling out loudly: ‘All change for MI5.’

As August gave way to September, others inside the Scrubs were also disinclined to view the prospect of war too seriously. The ageing Director-General of MI5, Sir Vernon Kell, in post for almost
thirty years, suggested calling in Sir Oswald Mosley and Harry Pollitt for a cosy fireside chat, keen to know ‘what their attitude is’, and confident of obtaining their help in
‘dealing with the Fascist and Communist problem.’

Adolf Hitler cared less. At dawn on Friday, 1 September, 1939, several small commando units from the Abwehr’s elite Brandenburg battalion crossed the Polish border, followed by almost 2
million troops and 2,000 combat aircraft. Two weeks later Stalin’s Red Army joined in the pillage from the east. Polish resistance was heroic and fierce, but would crumble in just four
weeks.

The Second World War had begun.

3

On the morning of Saturday, 2 September 1939, again at 04.30, Colonel Johnny buzzed Wohldorf from the bathroom at Parklands, encrypting his message in CONGRATULATIONS code, and
using a highly apposite call-sign: OIK.
‘Situation in England extremely serious. Planes loaded Biggin Hill, Hornchurch. Blenheims. Will radio during day. Stand by day and
night.’

Wohldorf stood by, but no updates followed, and as the day developed the atmosphere grew increasingly sultry and oppressive, conveying to many a sense of impending doom. On Saturday night a
series of violent thunderstorms swept the country, cutting power and communications, and causing panic in Portsmouth when four barrage balloons were struck by lightning, lighting up the night sky
with clouds of eerie, floating flame. Quite literally, war was in the air. Although Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny, tension continued to mount as cathedrals and churches filled to
overflowing, the nation hoping against hope for a miracle, some small retreat from the edge of the precipice.

As Arthur Owens fiddled nervously with his wayward klamotten most listeners tuned in to the BBC. The first news bulletin at 07.00 confirmed that Hitler had failed to respond to the Allied
ultimatum issued two days earlier, and that German forces remained inside Poland. Finally, at 11.15, the Prime Minister
addressed the nation. Now a frail old man of seventy,
racked by terminal cancer, Neville Chamberlain’s voice sounded weary, even sepulchral. Britain, he announced, was again at war with Germany. ‘You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to
me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. It is evil things that we shall be fighting against – brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution. And against them I
am certain that right will prevail.’

Chamberlain’s downbeat speech was followed by the national anthem, for which not every citizen stood. Eight numb minutes later came the dread sound of air raid sirens, a banshee wail that
carried across London like a great cry of pain. Gas masks in hand, the population filed towards the shelters and ‘bogey holes’ in orderly fashion, some regarding the sky expectantly,
others staring glumly at their feet. Three years earlier moviegoers had been horrified by scenes of urban apocalypse in
Things to Come
, glimpsing fact in science fiction. Now, with war a
reality, most expected to emerge from underground to find their homes reduced to cinders and rubble, and the streets choked with corpses and poison gas.