Hitler's Lost Spy Page 2
When questioned in Australia about her husband, Annette did not refer to his political predisposition.
Madagascar – Robert in Good Company
The German invasion and occupation of France in 1940 created two principal geographical and political zones – the area under direct German military control, and the smaller ‘free’ zone centred on the town of Vichy and being, in varying degrees, allied to Germany. The activities conducted in these zones during the Occupation are well documented. Less familiar are the political responses in the French overseas territories to the German invasion. They were far away from the direct influence and control of both the Germans and a French national government, which effectively no longer existed.
In Madagascar, as with all of the French territories, the colonial government was confronted with the problem of deciding from whom to take their orders – the pro-German Vichy regime, or the Free French headed by General Charles De Gaulle in London. The authorities in Madagascar chose to support Vichy. In fact, most of the French colonies did the same2. Robert Wagner would have been at ease with the choice.
There was a possible, and serious outcome for the strategic regional interests of the Allies following the induced decision in Madagascar to recognise the Vichy ‘government’. This was the possible intrusion into the western Indian Ocean of a military outsider – Japan. In the months following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Germans had attempted to coerce the Japanese to occupy the island. This would have created an Axis base capable of intercepting Allied shipping crossing the Indian Ocean. The British had already concluded that the Japanese would attempt to do this and planned an invasion of the island that was to be designated The Battle of Madagascar.
The historian, Martin Gilbert, described in his book, Second World War:
May 7 (1941) saw the climax of Operation Ironclad, a British landing at the Madagascan port of Diego Suarez, an operation aimed at denying the Japanese a base from which to dominate the Indian Ocean. The troops of Vichy France, driven from the port, still resisted, however, any further British advance across the island, and plans had to be made to renew the operation in the autumn.
The British operation was difficult, but finally succeeded five months later. Gilbert describes why the British had their fears of Japanese incursion in Madagascar confirmed (he had earlier referred to the midget submarine attack in Sydney Harbour on 31 May 1942):
That same day, more than six thousand miles to the west (of Sydney), other Japanese midget submarines, reaching Madagascar, sank the British merchant ship British Loyalty in Diego Suarez harbour, and damaged the battleship Ramillies. All the Japanese submariners were killed: as at Sydney, theirs had been, in effect, a suicide mission.
The midget submarines were carried by the large ‘I’ class submarines and launched outside the port – in similar fashion to the Sydney attack3.
So what is the relevance of the Battle of Madagascar to Annette Wagner? The British were absorbed in a military conflict with a colony of an occupied ally, and supporting the Vichy government’s decision to fight the British was undoubtedly the Nazi-sympathiser, Robert Wagner. This was the man Annette Wagner married in late 1936 when Hitler was revitalising Germany, the economic results of which were internationally admired. Had Annette not been an enthusiast for Hitler prior to her marriage, it would have been difficult for her not to be so after her marriage when she lived with Robert in Madagascar, socialising with others possessing similar political bearings.
The British author, Richard Vinen, describes in his book, The Unfree French, the political affiliations of the colonial administrators of Madagascar in 1940
French people in the overseas empire were often very Petainist. An English report suggested that Leon Cayla, Governor of Madagascar, was more pro-Vichy than Petain4.
This was the mood of the political environment in which Annette Wagner lived during 1937 – the year prior to her arrival in Australia.
FOOTNOTES
* * *
1 Singular in this context meaning ‘odd’ or ‘unusual’
2 In the French territory of New Caledonia, off Australia’s east coast, the administration was extremely pro-Vichy and offered territory to the Japanese for submarine bases. The French settlers, however, supported de Gaulle. For several months in 1940 there was the possibility of civil war on the island.
3 Three midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour, one of which was retrieved from Taylor’s Bay, about 50 metres from Annette Wagner’s residence during 1938–39.
4 Marshall Philippe Petain was the distinguished World War I army commander who headed the Vichy government.
2
Spying for Hitler and Hirohito in Australia
Operation Sidestep – Returning Home
In late June 1939, the leader of the Nazi Party in Australia, Walter Ladendorff, said his farewells to the party faithful and sailed back to Germany. Hitler’s war was imminent, and Ladendorff, with many others like him in allied nations, would be more useful back home.
He had joined the Nazi Party – membership number 2844505 – and was later elevated by Berlin to head the Party in Australia through his appointment in 1937 as Landeskreisleiter (Land Circle Leader, or country leader). He relished the post, often posing as ‘first contact’ on important consular issues.
Ladendorff was not alone in leaving Australia as war approached in Europe. There were people who needed to be removed, as little service could be offered to the Führer from a foreign internment camp. Others remained, and a meeting of the Nazi Party Council in Sydney on 18 August 1939 – two weeks prior to Hitler’s invasion of Poland – discussed preparations to remove senior Nazis from Australia, and to locate ‘special places of concealment’ for others. A ‘Nazi Sabotage Squad’ had previously been established, and a map of Sydney, retrieved from Ladendorff’s former office, had blue pencil markings against strategic installations.
Other active Nazis in Australia were not deemed to be of sufficient importance to be trusted with advanced warning of Hitler’s war. Of these the most publicly recognized, and unpredictable, was Arnold von Skerst.
He had previously ingratiated himself into Nazi circles, which included editorial responsibilities for the Nazi newspaper, Die Brücke (The Bridge). He was interned on the outbreak of the war.
The Japanese leg of Operation Sidestep commenced in January 1941 by which time any serious internal opposition to Hirohito’s planned war with the West had long been removed. Transfers, extended annual leave or ‘tragic family news’ brought Japanese consular or business personnel home – where they remained. The Pacific War had been locked in, with only the commencement date outstanding.
The Spy War, Phase One – The Aggression Countdown
The practice of nations spying on their neighbours has been a feature of modern international affairs. When aggression is planned, the intensity and focus of spying conduct changes to redirect resources according to new priorities.
By the late 1930s, the German intelligence branches had developed sophisticated information structures with global operations. They received and processed immense volumes of intelligence facts and figures conveyed to Berlin from internationally based agents. Data flowed into the Abwehr, the German army’s intelligence branch, or the smaller bureaus in the navy and air force. In addition, both the Foreign Office and the Nazi Party had intelligence sections gathering information for their own purposes. Collections through these agencies were often shared with commercial enterprises and research institutions.
Within the Abwehr structure, a Foreign Information Division was created for the purpose of worldwide data accumulation. This was the central point for the collection of foreign military and economic information forwarded by German embassy and consular staff, military attachés and the large array of individuals comprising the spy network. The material received could originate from a sensational source such as a compromised foreign government official, or through more mundane activities such as gleaning potentially usefu
l articles from foreign newspapers, magazines and scientific journals.
In addition to the Foreign Information Division controlling foreign espionage activities, the Nazis created the Auslands-Organisation to embrace Germans living abroad. The objectives were to encourage, wherever possible, ‘overseas’ Germans into the Nazi Party, and to sponsor internationally the marvels of the ‘new’ Germany under Adolph Hitler. Programs were devised to work within these communities to ensure that German interests were suitably shored up at every opportunity. Information collected by German foreign offices was regularly dispatched to Berlin. This included reports earmarking Germans as being ‘difficult’, i.e. anti-Nazi, and whose families back home may be recorded for possible future harassment.
A problem for the Auslands representatives in foreign countries was that many of the German-born residents did not cooperate. Anti-Nazi sentiments were common, and frequently ‘uncomfortable’ information suppressed in the Reich was available to German citizens living abroad. The rave reviews from the Western media describing Hitler’s economic progress could be seen less enthusiastically by many German residents in foreign countries who understood the background politics hastily neglected by impressionable journalists. But Nazi propaganda would always attract an element of approval and support, and from here the successful recruitment of spies was only a short step away. Spying for the Fatherland was a privilege. Travel prospects plus cash payments to lift one’s living standards were a bonus.
Wherever groups of Nazis were formed under the auspices of party headquarters in Berlin, the Gestapo was sure to follow. A Gestapo representative was often found a part-time job within German embassies or consulates, and they reported directly to headquarters in Berlin. If espionage had a gutter branch, the Gestapo held the aces. Spying on other Germans, threats, extortion, physical violence and using intimidation as methods of obtaining information sources were Gestapo specialties.
The Japanese spy services also operated globally, but their methods and structures in Western countries needed to accommodate the difficulties not shared by their German counterparts. In the United States, Canada and Australia, German influences had been enhanced by a history of immigration and the successful integration of broadly common cultural values. The Japanese were relatively new in the immigration experience and culturally were poles apart from Westerners. This necessitated a significant distinction in spying tactics in the West, compared to those practised in Asia. Spying in Australia would be predominately limited to consular officials and employees of Japanese trading companies. But for the Japanese, spying in the West would always be both structurally and operationally different to that of the Germans.
In 1930s Australia, German and Japanese spies were consistently active, and the security services were also vigorous in attempting to monitor them. The Germans presented the traditional challenge of European-style espionage, but the foundation of Japanese intelligence gathering was very different. Japan was the new emerging world power, and by 1935 the country’s interventionist plans were not clearly understood in the West. In Australia, the security services had been mistrustful of Japanese expansionism since the formal integration of Korea into the Japanese Empire in 1910.
In the early months of World War I the German Pacific territories were snatched by the Japanese navy, later resulting in a mandate over the islands granted by the League of Nations. In later years, the mandate’s requirement for the exclusion of military bases on the islands was simply ignored by Japan. The strategic balance in the Western Pacific had been swiftly and unexpectedly altered – and not in Australia’s interests. Japanese aggression in China from 1931 added to fears of Japan’s ‘peaceful’ intentions in Southeast Asia, and probing by the security services of Japanese activities in Australia increased.
A difficulty for Australia’s intelligence services in the 1930s was to differentiate between traditional spying and the less intrusive term, ‘information gathering’. This was particularly so with the Japanese. Entering the twentieth century with its industrial and scientific knowledge far behind the West, Japan encouraged its travelling citizens, including naval personnel, to study, observe and note unknown or vaguely known facts about other nations. Initially this was part of the Japanese initial ‘catch-up’ process, but the fact-finding methods inaugurated procedures suitable for future espionage. Consequently, the geographically large and diverse Australian continent received huge attention from Japanese diplomats, businessmen, tourists and sailors from visiting merchant and naval vessels. This ‘information gathering’ intensified in the 1930s, and suspicions of Japanese motives grew with it.
The Economic Spy – Stockpiling the Strategy
The popular portrayal of the World War II spy favours the exploration of secret methods to acquire enemy documents, designs and strategic data. However, ‘war economy’ espionage played a major role in both German and Japanese military intelligence. This branch of espionage collected information from a broad front. From the agents collecting secret material in foreign countries, to the troops in the field observing the enemy, anything judged to be useful to the war effort was transmitted back to intelligence headquarters. This would then be accumulated into banks of statistics and records and filed away for possible future use.
Understanding the economic potential of the enemy played a crucial involvement in military planning and deployment. To obtain economic data in foreign countries, intelligence networks were structured to absorb a huge range of contributions. These were dispatched not only from spies, but also from economic research institutes, consulates and embassies, and included interesting data from enemy government and private publications. Anyone, anywhere, sympathetic to the cause could forward apparently ‘dreary’ information which may well prove to be worthwhile later.
The process began with the assembly of strategic objectives, after which monitoring would begin. The meticulous collection of appropriate information in peacetime may prove to be critical following the commencement of hostilities. Knowing your enemy is vital. But knowing what your enemy is capable of producing is essential.
High Seas Trade – A Wartime Lifeline
During World War II, the Germans and Japanese both applied a significant priority on obtaining detailed information on enemy merchant shipping. For the Germans, the commencement of hostilities meant that the monitoring of international merchant shipping became a major consideration for intelligence work by Nazi spies around the world. A ship’s identification, ownership, position, its ports of embarkation and destination, and cargoes were determined where possible by informants operating in ports of trade. Berlin collated the information and monitored the movements and directed, where possible, U-boats and surface raiders to the projected paths of these ships.
German intelligence on shipping movements was particularly active in South America where so-called ‘neutral’ countries such as Argentina and Chile allowed almost total freedom of operation for Nazi spies.
Following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese interest in merchant vessels was more geographically limited, and for a different reason, as a Japanese economic blockade of the United States west coast was not viable. Sinking Allied merchant shipping, where possible, was an obvious objective, but of greater significance was the deployment of naval vessels to assist the safe passage of Japanese merchant ships carrying critical supplies from the conquered territories to the home islands. The German and Japanese strategic priorities in Allied merchant shipping were therefore very different. The Germans consigned importance to the sinking of foreign merchant ships, while the Japanese were primarily concerned with protecting their own.
Sleepers: The Spies-in-Waiting
Moving people into the right places prior to the outbreak of war is a key objective in the intelligence process. Factories, defence establishments, government departments and organisations or individuals deemed as suitable cultivation points were selected as avenues for strategic information or securing influence. Successfully emplo
yed agents would be advised to work well, avoid trouble, keep their eyes open, and wait for the time. In a sense, many of these planted agents were anything but ‘sleepers’. The financial benefits they received usually required substantiation, and this would ideally be in the form of knowledge passed on regarding organisational structure, operational contacts, technical developments and susceptible individuals who may potentially offer suitable information on one basis or another.
Occasionally the ‘sleeper’ may already be in place. Hermann Lang migrated to the United States from Germany in 1927. In 1937 he worked in the factory producing the nation’s most secret military device at the time – the Norden bombsight. Contact with a German field agent resulted in the designs for the bombsight being secreted out of the American factory and into the offices of Herman Goering’s Luftwaffe. This was a huge coup for Germany with the end result that the accuracy of future German bombing would dramatically improve.
The Japanese introduction of ‘sleepers’ into Southeast Asia during the 1930s was vigorous and widespread. This vast movement of spies accompanied the migrants, trading company personnel and Japanese government agencies as they increased their presence around the products of planned importance – the sources of oil, coal, rubber, tin and food that were destined for Japanese control following the outbreak of the Pacific War.
Annette Wagner was a ‘sleeper’. Her prime role was to remain in Australia, above suspicion, and absorb herself into the local community – which she did amazingly well – and prepare for her role when the war commenced. The spy plan, however, so remarkably successful in most respects, would be neutralised by one event in October 1938.