PETER HANSEN (251-LIFE-1987) spent time working for the ABWEHR (the German Secret Service) during WW II and he has information that is known to a mere handful of people. He gives this secret information especially to SHARKHUNTERS. Here he tells us:

I never knew anybody named Paul Bochen. While I was familiar with several merchant ships harbored Vigo and Cadiz, used sometimes as floating refueling and torpedo depots mainly in the time from 1940 to 1943, rarely thereafter, I don’t recall any U-Boat such as you described. Please remember however, I was a line officer first and a security/Abwehr man and investigator secondly. Undoubtedly there were matters I never did get involved in or was introduced to, much less consulted on, thanks to the old ‘need to know’ basis – or because I really did not wish to get involved with for particular reasons, including personal ones – especially if there were political implications and pressure by Nazi fanatics to beautify facts and polish undesirable details!

But because I was likewise not familiar with a Korvettenkapitän Jakobi or Kapitänleutnant Gruß, I looked into my copy of the secret rank list of the Kriegsmarine dates September 1st, 1944, the last issue ever printed, and neither of these names is reflected there. For that matter, they are likewise not included in the list of officers that commanded U-Boats, active or reserve or any type during the time from 1935 to 1945.

Consequently, they definitely can’t be active duty officers, though they made have been reserve officers of course, as these are NOT included in the KM rank list with the exception of so-called Wartime Duty officers only, most of them former long serving senior petty officers who were converted into officers because of qualified personnel shortages in subaltern officers, contrary to an excess of senior officers such as captain and admirals…..

Again, while I know nothing of any 18 or whatever number of German contact stations in the USA, though these are not specified as radio contacts or personal safehouse type of contacts or what? I don’t recall ever having heard of even one, but again the above mentioned factors might well apply here too!

I do distinctly remember that I commented some time ago about the ‘Ultra’ thoughts and ideas of Mr. Jude Stackpole and if you manage to dig up the letter in question, you will surely find that I do NOT agree with many of his generalized observations on probably the most important subject connected not only with the Battle of the Atlantic, but the entire Second World War.

EDITOR NOTE – Professor JUDE STACKPOLE (1334-+-1990) was doing intense research into the U-Boat codes and in particular, the Triton code which he learned that the British had – but never broke the code themselves. It was his conclusion that someone in the Kriegsmarine had given or sold this code near the end of the war, and he was looking particularly at Admiral Wilhelm Canaris as this person who gave or sold the code to the Brits.

One Saturday morning some years ago, JUDE was riding his motorcycle, enjoying the day, when someone blew through a stop sign and killed him. When we received this sad news, we wrote to his son, a lawyer in his mid-30’s, and asked if we could have his father’s research note. He told us that he thought it was all junk and threw it all out!

Apparently Mr. Stackpole seems to be another of those academics who simply know better and who fit their thesis and ideas to the facts as they see them or suit them. Otherwise, they make a big deal out of a few specifics and particular details, taking them out of context and re-interpreting them by hindsight differently from how they were looked at during the actual wartime and based upon the then prevailing conditions! I don’t mean to imply that old tired excuse of so-called superior officers or worse, politicians in positions of influence that always screamed whenever conclusions did not fit their preconception or were contrary to their often wishful thinking:

‘That these non-conforming, critical analysts and folks who told them otherwise, just did not know and understand the bigger picture and lacked both the knowledge and brain to do so properly!’

One can take any number of books and pick a section from this one combining it with a part of another etc., etc. and eventually you do get a ‘new’ book, which is the way some ‘authors’ work, jazzing up the often a bit dry facts in the process of ‘rewriting’ the story or even history. This is seemingly what keeps people like the publishers of the National Enquirer and such in business especially if they do manage to present provocative headlines with large question marks. Thereby the truth and the often boring factual details are bulldozed under the carpet that way.

As previously mentioned, it would almost call for a book by itself to cover the entire ULTRA situation from all sides. Obviously this would impractical and also too time consuming. Thus I can only comment upon some points raised in that clearly partial and incomplete copy that you mailed to me.

These ‘selected’ approaches also lead in my experience frequently to the well known inability to see the woods for the trees in the way, because it is preferred to only accept, see and believe what one personally wishes to accept and digest! As you know in any intelligence related matters one usually finds out more by listening and observing keenly compared to talking or worse, making speeches to convince any doubters. Therefore, discussions regarding subjects such as religious matters, extreme political opinions and wishful thinking type of fantasies are generally a total waste of time unless it involves preaching to the already converted and that is of course, more in the line of propaganda than analysis of facts!

Mr. Stackpole is indeed correct to state that there were some payola type of traitors and unquestionably some so-called ideological left-wingers and camouflaged Communists that worked for the benefit of Sowjet Russian interests. After all, there were almost four million people who voted in 1932 for the Communists, plus another very substantial number for the Socialists in addition. While a lot of them decided to join the Nazi Party & the S.A. 1933 or shortly afterwards, they were also known as ‘beefsteaks’ being Brown on the outside and remaining red or pink on the inside.

EDITOR NOTE – PETER means Brown for the brownshirts of the SA (Sturm Abteillung or Storm Troopers) and red for the Communists.

It is not inconceivable that SS Gruppenführer “Gestapo” Müller somehow belonged into that category. After all, it was not rare that policemen, whose job it was to ferret out Communist activities, got turned around and converted to the aims and ideas of those they were supposed to investigate and keep under observation. Müller, a former criminal police officer in Bavaria, was grabbed by Heinrich Himmler and his SS and SD precisely because he was ‘familiar’ with Communists and their way of operating above and below the ground.

I do remember that Admiral Wilhelm F. Canaris believed this was indeed the case and I recall that his dossier at the Abwehr had simply disappeared almost entirely, to the consternation of the higher-ups who had access to such secret files, but sometimes relegated such matters to subalterns and junior staff because they were either too busy or sometimes also too lazy, while people like “Gestapo” Müller could feed the Sowjet Union a lot of information

This certainly did rarely if ever include anything connected with naval matters, much less U-Boat warfare and the coding systems of the German Navy. Furthermore, both the various SS organizations as well as the police forces had their own Enigma systems and coding arrangements as well as radio and teletype circuits entirely separate from the Armed Forces. Apart from secondary old type of letter and number hand coding systems still in effect for lower grade communications, the original Army type of Enigma #One machine was used by these outfits, later on partially upgraded to the #Two improved system. However, they never had the Navy’s #Three and #Four Enigma machines at all.

Admiral Wilhelm F. Canaris also had the personal conviction that Reichsleiter Martin Bormann was a Sowjet Russian agent but again, nothing of concrete evidence was ever obtained to confirm this and anybody who had such proof would have hardly lived and remained about for any length of time. But again, somebody like Bormann had comparatively little interest and limited opportunity to stick his nose into Navy affairs and matters until 1943 though once Karl Dönitz became Navy Chief, he offered Bormann at various times cooperation and assistance that even the Luftwaffe refused indignantly to provide for the Party Organization schemes pushed by Bormann. Bormann surely had no technical understanding or background to even understand what was technically involved as far as the Enigma systems were concerned.

EDITOR NOTE – could it be possible that Martin Bormann, the Number Two man in the Party, was indeed a Soviet Agent? If so, is it quite possible that Admiral Canaris was tried, convicted, sentenced and executed not because of the bomb attempt on Hitler’s life, but because he might expose Bormann – if indeed, Bormann was a Soviet plant. This is interesting history.

This continues in KTB #177 next month. PETER has been with us during our various “Patrols” in the past and quite possibly will be with us in 2004 as well. Will YOU be there to meet him?