Synopsis We remember from KTB #150 that ERICH had been transferred home to Germany and his shipboard romance with Karen was sadly coming to an end. He reported then to M. I. School for training.

CHAPTER 3: TRAINING AS A SPY IN GERMANY

My mind was a blank as I walked the long, aggressively clean corridors in the four-storied building of Tirpitzufer 80, distinguished by no official marking outside. The building was too old to rank as a modern structure and too new to look old-fashioned. It smelt of turpentine. In this building Canaris had his office. To the right of the main entrance a guard-room had been installed, then up a few steps and you came to the door-keeper’s desk, I gave my name.

EDITOR NOTE - He refers to Admiral Wilhelm Canaris who as a Leutnant in WW I, sailed aboard the light cruiser DRESDEN and charted many secret passages and places to hide ships all through South America. During WW II, Canaris was head of the Abwehr but after the bombing attempt on Hitler in 1944, he was arrested and put into Camp Flossenberg. When the Allied army was only a couple days away from Flossenberg, Canaris was hanged with piano wire.

“One moment please,” the man said. He had been expecting me although I had not been told to come on any particular day. He picked up the telephone, and two minutes later someone came for me. A man in civilian clothes introduced himself rather hastily and led me silently through the building.

On the third floor we turned to the right. It was very quiet in the ‘fox-hole’ as the headquarters of the German M. I. were called. My companion knocked on a door. I walked in. A colonel, tall and slim, in well-cut Army uniform came towards me and shook hands.

“Colonel Schade,” he introduced himself. He took a good look at me. I was surprised to find he was in uniform. I was above all surprised to find how peaceful, how normal the ‘fox-hole’ seemed to be. The Colonel offered me a cigarette. He had long, white, and very well cared for hands.

"I know you already,” he smiled. “You have been highly commended to me by the former German Embassy in Peru.” He offered me a light. “You’re looking very well,” he continued. “It’s quite clear that you’ve got better times behind you than ahead of you.”

We chatted about America. It was an entertaining hour. Colonel Schade was head of the American division. He was greatly interested in the general feeling in the United States. He was courteous and urbane. He thought quickly and talked slowly in cultivated High German.

“Actually you should now report for military service,” said Colonel Schade, “but perhaps I know of something else for you. I believe that with your experience abroad you could be greater use to us in another sphere. Of course, we shan’t compel you.”

“I shall be very pleased to help you if I can,” I replied.

“Then we shall take you in hand,” he went on. “You are now called Jakob Springer, and you are going to Hamburg. You must say nothing about this to anyone. You must go to the Four-Seasons Hotel. That is all. You will never come here again, at any rate through the main entrance. We have never seen each other, but I don’t need to tell you that. Mark carefully the way by which you will now leave this building.”

We shook hands. My silent companion came with me once more, and in front of the porter’s desk we turned off into the opposite direction, crossed a yard, went through a hall across a backyard and then through a tenement building. I was then standing on the street that ran parallel with the Tirpitzufer. I took the train to Hamburg.

I breakfasted in the Four-Seasons Hotel. The sun was shining on the river and I was just thinking how strange it was that one could live so comfortable in Germany in the midst of the war, when a man came up to me.

“Are you Herr Springer?” he asked.

“Yes.” I replied.

“My name is Jürgensen,” he said. He was unobtrusive in every way. His face, his bearing, his manner of speaking were all thoroughly middle-class.

“Go today to Mönckeberg Strasse.” He gave me a number which I have since forgotten. “You will find there on the first floor an import and export firm. Give two short rings and one long one.” He pushed a photograph across the table. “Take a good look and get that face well into your mind. Report to this man. Just give him your name.”

“Right,” I answered. I went on foot. At that time Hamburg had been only slightly damaged by air attack and no one there had any idea of the fate which lay in store. Girls were walking about in gay summer dresses. They looked chic, and they smiled at you if they felt like it. There were few men, at least at this time of the day. The barracks did not empty until six o’clock in the evening.

A fair, virile-looking civilian of about thirty received me in Mönckeberg Strasse. We went into an adjoining room. He pointed to a Morse apparatus. “Let me see what you can do.”

“Much too slow,” he said when I had reproduced the first test piece. He was called Heinz, and he lived as men usually live during an interval between two spells of service at the front. He carried a heap of girls’ photographs in his pocket and always looked as if he hadn’t had enough sleep. Within a few days we were on intimate terms and spent our nights on the tile together.

I don’t know when I first noticed the man who was following my every movement. It was the fact that he always wore the same suit that put me on my guard. Either he was a beginner or he was going out of his way to look like a beginner. When I felt sure I was being watched I went to Jürgensen. (This was not his real name.)

“I’m being shadowed,” I said. “I’m not anxious, but it’s beginning to get on my nerves a bit.”

Jürgensen smiled. “You’re seeing things,” he said. “Show me your shadow.”

I left the hotel foyer to look for him, but he had disappeared.

“You see?” said Jürgensen.

“I’ll show you the man,” I replied and took my mentor back with me to Mönckeberg Strasse. We went up to the 4th floor and sat there for ten minutes. Then I made to leave the house. In the hall stood my watch-dog, still wearing the same suit. Jürgensen smiled.

“I’ll call it off now,” he said. “It was a little test we always put new men through. If you had not noticed that you were being shadowed you could have come and collected your ticket to the eastern front in the course of a few days. The next thing we will practice is how to shake off a pursuer. Now pay attention to what I am going to tell you. Supposing you take a taxi. You must never give an address as you get in. You must change taxis three times. From today onwards you must never go to your destination direct. You must get out at least three blocks before and complete the journey on foot. Always take your time. If you don’t give yourself enough time you’ll lose your head one of these days one way or the other and it’s a poor look-out without a head.”

“It must be,” I said.

“Now let us imagine that you go into the street,” continued Jürgensen, “and become suspicious that someone is following you. You must never turn round. You must never stand still. You must never change your direction. You must give absolutely no sign that you have become suspicious. You must neither slow down your pace nor quicken it. And of course you will want to see the man. How are you going to do it?”

“Don’t ask me,” I replied. “You stop in front of a shop window. You look at the window display. Resist any temptation to squint to the right and be equally careful not to look to the left. You are interested only in hats and coats. Then comes your moment. The man must pass you. Look carefully into the glass. His face will be mirrored there. You have only a second’s time. Mentally photograph him but take no notice of him. Ah well, you’ll soon learn how to do it....”

I certainly learned how to conduct myself when in danger. How to swallow back the shock, the fear, the horror of it all. How the mind can work feverishly while the hands remain still - quite still. How the eyes can look quite unconcerned as if one were thinking about a rendezvous which had misfired or an unpaid gas account, or what to choose from the menu. It was good that I had learned how to conduct myself when in danger, but I was to realize this only years later - in America..............

For three weeks I tapped out Morse signals in Hamburg under Heinz’s direction. I was too slow. I had to learn to do it more quickly, much more quickly. In the odd import-export firm in the Mönckeberg Strasse I met practically no one. It also ran quite a normal business and I was, so to speak, only a member of the secret sub-section, Springer, the private pupil. Shortly before the end of my radio training I had to transmit a long text three times over, one after the other, the meaning of which was incomprehensible to me.

“Now we have your hand-writing,” said Heinz.

“How do you mean?”

“Every operator has a quite individual style of Morse transmission,” my teacher explained. “With one the pauses are longer, another may give the dots rather too abruptly or make the dashes a trifle too long. Every individual ‘hand-writing’ is recorded on wax discs. We have specialists who, when they have compared them, can say at once if it was actually our man at the transmitter or whether it was someone else.”

Without realizing it, I had undergone the wax disc test, which is international practice. More than eighty per cent of all agents sent abroad were caught and in practically every case the opposing secret service tried to make capital out of the capture. They continued to use the apparatus which had been seized and to transmit bogus messages. In Germany these messages were received and compared with the recordings. If they did not coincide exactly with the original “hand-writing” one was put on one’s guard.

The Hamburg M.I. School for secret agents was scattered all over the town and one never saw a fellow pupil. I was sent to a radio repair works near what was then called the Adolph Hitler Platz. I learned how a transmitter is made. Then I went to the cipher department in Baumwell.

At a chemist’s in the Rödingsmarkt, I learned to write with invisible ink. The man who taught me the process had invented the ink himself. He was a qualified chemist and was very proud of his discovery, which was, however, to be superseded later by a preparation of I.G. Farben. The invisible ink was a colorless fluid.

EDITOR NOTE - I. G. Farbenindustrie was a huge German conglomerate that had ties to Standard Oil. When the Luftwaffe was bombing England, they got their fuel from Standard Oil. When the Royal Air Force flew to intercept the Luftwaffe, they got their fuel from Standard Oil - and because of this arrangement between the two companies, some of the money the RAF paid for fuel to protect their own homeland went to the Hitler Government by way of Standard Oil to I. G. Farben and then to the German Government.

One wrote with a toothpick around the point of which a tiny wisp of cotton wool was wound so that the paper should not be scratched. The writing became visible when a warm iron was passed over the paper.

In the photographic department of the school for secret agents I was initiated into dot photography. One could photograph a whole page of manuscript in such a way that it appeared as only a tiny dot. Dots of this kind were introduced into normal letters, and many pieces of information crossed the frontiers until the F.B.I. at last discovered the trick.

After my training in Hamburg, which lasted several months, I did a few weeks’ practical service in naval radio.

After that I had to go through other naval departments. Then the Reich Air Ministry took me in hand. The overriding interest at the time was radar. I was shown aircraft types of every kind. I picked things up quickly and enjoyed my strange schooling. Everyone with whom I was put in touch to receive the final polish for my later activity abroad, had learned to hold his tongue. No one asked me where I came from or where I wanted to go. I was asked absolutely nothing, and I soon learned to keep my own mouth shut. I was not allowed to keep one single written note. My memory was systematically trained. I learned how to store important information in my head. Even the code had to be memorized, and retained only in the head. The greatest effort, the most service strain and the most difficult task demanded of the spy is the struggle with his own memory.

In Berlin, I received my practical training: shooting, boxing, ju-jitsu. In the Alexander Platz, Berlin, I was further trained in high school standards in smuggling, stealing, lying, cheating and similar arts.

Herr Krause, Commissioner of the Berlin Criminal Police, had a quite unusual method of teaching and it was his contribution to initiate me into the art of evading capture. He took me every day through his office in the Alexander Platz to demonstrate his points with practical examples. I can still remember Benno. He weighed nearly three hundredweight, had a fat, red, good-humored-looking face and something about him which radiated friendliness. Benno was a bank robber.

He sat on a chair in the interrogation room and groaned.

“Good day, Benno,” said Krause, bringing me forward. “Now give the gentlemen your hand nicely and tell him why they caught you.”

“Because I was a fool,” said Benno.

“That’s right,” said the Commissioner. “And why were you a fool?”

“Because I didn’t keep my mouth shut.”

“And why didn’t you keep your mouth shut?”

“Because I was drunk.”

“And why were you drunk?”

“Because of a woman.”

“You see,” said the Commissioner, and turned to me again. “There you have a story from real life.” He took my arm and walked along the corridor with me. “Here you have practically everything there is to be learned,” he continued. “It’s really quite simple. First, keep your mouth shut. Secondly, keep away from drink, and thirdly, keep away from women. If all criminals observed there rules, we policemen would have to be better paid because there would be much more need for us.”

We went to a little pub together, just by Exchange station, which the spies and gaol birds (jailbirds) used as a meeting place when they had not been picked up for national service - fences, pickpockets and similar types. The Commissioner knew them all, greeted them intimately and was similarly received by them.

He told me each one’s story, sharing with me quite freely all the police force’s inside knowledge of their methods. He did not know the real purpose of my presence there; as far as he was concerned I was a sort of lawyer who had completed his theoretical training and was now taking the usual practical instruction. He was very amusing and I enjoyed his company.

But I enjoyed even more the company of Ingrid whom I had met during my training. She was dark, petite and elegant. She liked to drink and dance and we often went out together. I could hardly wait till the evenings came around. I never dreamt that Ingrid was to give me one of the worst shocks of my life.

My training was nearly complete when Jürgensen once more appeared on the scene.

“You have been a model student,” he said, “and now you must put what you have learned into practice.”

“Splendid!” I said, “When do we start?”

“At once,” he replied.

“And what have I got to do?”

“You are to go to Holland,” he replied. “There is a city in Holland called The Hague, a very lovely city. It is occupied by our forces.”

“I know that,” I said.

“Good. Go there and see what you can bring back. Anything of military interest. The name of the Commandant, how many troops are stationed there, what armaments they have. This is only a test piece.”

“And what if I’m caught?”

“Then it will be just too bad.”

“And how do I get through?”

“Just as you please,” answered Jürgensen. “ I would say with a special plane and a parachute. Just tell me tomorrow what you need, what sort of uniform, how much money and what papers. Then get on with it and radio three days later what’s happening. If you are not caught at the job you are all right and the people there are dunderheads. Well, off you go. Enjoy yourself!”

He was quite serious. I soon realized that. It was serious for me too, though I must admit that I approached the adventure with a certain feeling of pleasurable anticipation. I had not given a thought as to whether my training had been for the good or the bad. I left one day later. Agent 146 of the German M. I. had reached the first station of his Via Dolorosa.

I sat in the Berlin-The Hague train, traveling second-class, of course. I had given myself some everyday German name. According to the papers I carried I was going to Holland on business, something to do secret installations. The journey out was paid for by the German War Department. For my return I had to rely on good luck.

Apart from a service passport, I had a whole bundle of Dutch guilders. My task was to find out all about the German occupying forces in the Dutch capital within three days and to radio the information to Berlin. I had a two-fold aspiration: I wanted to do it in two days, and I wanted to get by without spending any money. It was only a test assignment; a quite innocuous affair. Shortly beforehand one of our men had come to grief in Bordeaux on a similar mission. Either he had raised his hands too late, or the military policemen’s gun had gone off too precipitately.

In his case the War Department had borne the cost of his training to no purpose. His relatives were responsible for the epitaph “Fallen for Führer and Fatherland.” I learned of this incident only after my return to Berlin.

In the event of my being caught, my instructions were quite clear. First, keep silent; secondly, wait; thirdly, hope. The third point was in fact not an official instruction but the private codicil of my tutor, Jürgensen. Agents captured by their own people often had to wait weeks and months until the M. I. got them out again. It happened only rarely that a man was entirely forgotten. But the lack of co-ordination between the M. I., part of the War Department, and the Reich Security Central Office, the Espionage Headquarters of the SS, often led to devilish complications.

The train traveled slowly. There had been an air attack and the lines had only been provisionally patched up. Next to me sat an Army judge and two other officers. They were chatting together about this and that, nothing of any special importance.

At one station a military police patrol entered the compartment. A squat sergeant carefully scrutinized my service passport and looked me up and down suspiciously. The train traveled on.

“Haven’t you ever been a soldier?” one of the officers asked me.

“No,” I answered.

“But you’re very young.”

“Yes.”

“Is there something wrong with you, then?”

“No.”

Then they left me alone. They ate sandwiches and drank Schnapps out of the bottle, including the judge.

The train arrived at The Hague one minute later. On the station I once more underwent a thorough scrutiny. My papers survived the test. Civilians were not in favor here. I deposited my suitcase, which had my transmitting apparatus concealed in its false bottom, in the cloakroom. I took the view that the more nonchalantly I treated this piece of luggage, the safer I should be.

I went on foot to find accommodations. This had to fulfill certain quite definite requirements. There had to be a minimum of iron in the building to avoid interference with my radio transmissions. It had not to be over-full but at the same time it should not be too sparsely occupied. Then in addition I needed a room the walls of which would deaden the sound of the Morse keys.

I found a pension which fulfilled these conditions. I fetched my suitcase and took it up to my room. The apparatus was all dismantled but I was able to get it ready for service within thirty minutes. I went down into the dining room. Two German-officers were drinking gin with three service girls. They took me at first for a Dutchman, and greeted me boisterously when I made myself known as a German. I learned a few inconsequential things from the officers which I could make use of if necessary.

There was, however, no necessity. The city was full of German soldiers and there was plenty of Schnapps about. All soldiers carry their heart on their tongue if you treat them to a drink. In one of the bars I met a group of fellow-country-men who were celebrating the acquittal of one of their comrades before a court-martial. He was a lance-corporal with a cheeky face.

They were all talking together until eventually the corporal succeeded in getting an ear for his story.

“This is how it was,” he reported. “I was standing in front of the court-martial with my tail between my legs. I had been given away by a farmer because I had shot his cow. The thing in itself was nothing serious, but many more harmless cases have had a more serious outcome.”

The others drank and laughed again together. I called for another round of drinks. The corporal went on with his story.

“And why did you shoot the cow?” the Judge Advocate had asked him.

“I was on sentry duty.”

“Well, and..........?”

“The cow attacked me. If a German soldier is attacked he must defend himself.”

“And then of course he has the cow to eat?”

“Well, the soldier is responsible for seeing that no food is wasted.”

They got more and more hilarious. I called for another round. They should now have been on their guard. Every soldier learns in his elementary instruction that civilians who treat him to drinks must be regarded with the greatest suspicion. But every soldier snaps his fingers at his instructions when he’s got a free pass.

My friends belonged to a battery which was trying out some new mortars. This contrivance, which was later to be put extensively to use on the Russian front, was on the secret list. Needless to say I got to know everything there was to know about it.

I went back to my pension. I had a good look at the anti-aircraft positions and marked them on to a map of the town which I had bought. The number of troops, the names of the Commanders and similar things I had already known for some time. Every Dutchman knew them, of course.

At midday I had my report ready. I coded it. I carried the code in my head. In a foreign country one should as far as possible transmit reports over short distances between the hours of three and five in the afternoon. These are the peak hours for radio communication and the solitary transmitter does not arouse so much attention as he might at other times. The agent must avoid stretching his transmitting time above four minutes. It normally takes about ten minutes to locate a secret transmitter. Four minutes doesn’t give anyone much chance to take bearings. I made my report as short and precise as possible.

The transmitter stood on the table beside my bed. Above my bed hung an unprepossessing still life in oils. The sole chair had only three legs and the table wobbled. I looked at the clock. Ten minutes to go. I was feeling nervy. Just as one feels when one’s sitting for the first time at the wheel of a newly acquired motorcar. Or introducing one’s girl friend to one’s parents. Really I was enjoying the sensation. Fool that I was............

I gave three, four signals to Berlin. The answer came at once. I got my report through in three minutes fifty-one seconds.

“Understood,” answered the Morse voice from out of the ether. “We will be in touch again at five o’clock tomorrow morning.”

I went out, my mission forgotten. It was finished. I did not drink much. I felt a vague tension inside. I went back into my room, put the earphones on and lay down on my bed. I could not sleep. From the dining-room came the sound of voices of women Luftwaffe auxiliaries again. At four o’clock all was quiet. I had to wait another hour. I wondered whether the answer would come before the military police called on me. Yes. Then answer ran: “Well done. Return to Berlin at once.”

I reported to Berlin to Jürgensen. He was positively radiating good will. “Excellent,” he said. “We’ll report to The Hague today. They will be pleased!”

There were endless conferences that day at the War Department. The officers were discussing one of the strangest cases to come out of the war. A German flight sergeant - I will call him Fritz Söldner, had been shot down over London. He fell from the burning machine but succeeded at the last moment in opening his parachute. He landed on an apple-tree and was brought down by three oddly-armed members of the Home Guard. He had been injured in the course of his descent and was taken to hospital. Thus far the story was, by wartime standards anyhow, nothing unusual.

However, the nurse who was deputed to look after the German flight sergeant was placed there by the British Secret Service. Her name was Maud Fisher and she was a secret service agent. She knew her job. The German flight sergeant fell in love with her. Head over heels in love with her. They went out together. Söldner was given far more freedom than was usual for a prisoner-of-war. He asked Maud to marry him. She did not actually refuse, but said she could not marry an enemy of her country. Söldner declared himself willing to go over to the other side and was put under training as an agent.

Söldner was sent to Berlin with instructions to get hold of the drawings for a particular apparatus from an electrical firm. The R.A.F. appeared over the Reich capital with two hundred aircraft. As the bombs fell indiscriminately, Fritz Söldner jumped out of a Lancaster. This time he made a smooth landing, burned his parachute equipment and presented himself with false papers to the electrical firm. He was given employment there.

A few days later, however, he fell under suspicion and was arrested. He broke down under interrogation and admitted everything. He appeared very distressed and said he could not imagine why he had let himself be talked into doing such a thing. He now wanted to place himself at the disposal of the German M. I.

The whole day was spent discussing whether he we should accept his offer. Opinions were divided. Meanwhile Fritz Söldner sat in handcuffs in an adjoining room and awaited his fate. A high-ranking officer of the M. I., later involved in the events of the July the 20th and subsequently shot, was against sending Söldner back to England as an agent.

“It is quite ridiculous,” he said. “At the moment no doubt he has the best of intentions, but as soon as he sees the nurse again, he will get soft and capitulate. We can’t possible make use of him.”

Söldner was shot.

WOW! That is a high price to pay for love, but in wartime this changing of allegiances cannot be allowed. In KTB #152 next month, we go into Chapter 4 of this exciting history.

Spy for Germany

Chapter 3: Training as a Spy in Germany (KTB # 151)
Chapter 4: Spain and My First Mission (KTB # 152)
Chapter 7: To America by Submarine (KTB # 156)
Chapter 8: The Landing in America (KTB # 157)
Chapter 9: Tricked by Billy in NYC (KTB # 158)
Chapter 10 (I): I Work Out My Own Situation (KTB # 159)
Chapter 10 (II): I Work Out My Own Situation (KTB # 160)
Chapter 11 (I): Billy Betrays Me to the F.B.I. (KTB # 161)
Chapter 11 (II): Billy Betrays Me to the F.B.I. (KTB # 162)
Chapter 12 (I): Love -- and then Arrest! (KTB # 163)
Chapter 12 (II): Love -- and then Arrest! (KTB # 164)
Chapter 13 (I): Grilled by the FBI (KTB # 165)
Chapter 13 (II): Grilled by the FBI (KTB # 166)
Chapter 13 (III): Grilled by the FBI (KTB # 167)
Chapter 14 (I): In the Shadow of the Hangman (KTB # 168)
Chapter 14 (II): In the Shadow of the Hangman (KTB # 169)
Chapter 15 (I): Sentenced to Death (KTB # 170)
Chapter 15 (II): Sentenced to Death (KTB # 172)
Chapter 15 (III): Sentenced to Death (KTB # 173)
Chapter 16 (I): Sized Up by the Hangman (KTB # 174)
Chapter 16 (II): Sized Up by the Hangman (KTB # 175)
Chapter 16 (III): Sized Up by the Hangman (KTB # 176)
Chapter 17 (I): Germany's Capitulation Saves My Life (KTB # 177)
Chapter 17 (II): Germany's Capitulation Saves My Life (KTB # 178)
Chapter 18: The Final Chapter (KTB # 179)