IV
‘Ciphers have been of far greater importance in the present war than ever before in history.’
DR RICHARD J. HAYES
On 23 August 1939, representatives from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had met to sign the Nazi–Soviet Non-Aggression Pact, which guaranteed that the two countries would not attack each other. In ensuring he would not have to fight a war on two fronts, Hitler was left with one logical enemy standing in the way of his domination of Europe: Britain. Following the fall of France, Hitler hoped the British government would seek a peace agreement, and he considered invasion of Britain only as a last resort, if all other options failed.
By late May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force had been driven to the sea at Dunkirk by Hitler’s Panzer Divisions, and the British War Office made the decision to evacuate British forces on 25 May. In the nine days from 27 May to 4 June, 338,226 men escaped, including 139,997 French, Polish and Belgian troops, together with a small number of Dutch soldiers, aboard 861 vessels, 243 of which were sunk during the operation. The last of the British Army left on 3 June, and in a spirit of solidarity Churchill insisted on coming back for the French. The Royal Navy returned on 4 June to rescue as many as possible of the French rear guard. Over 26,000 French soldiers were evacuated on that last day, but between 30,000 and 40,000 more were left behind and forced to surrender to the Germans. With Britain in a weakened state Hitler felt now was the opportune time to strike. The planned invasion of Britain was to be codenamed ‘Operation Sea Lion’, and given its close proximity, Ireland was to be of huge strategic importance to the success of the operation.
In order for Operation Sea Lion to be a success, weather reports were crucial, meaning Ireland once again became of significance to the Führer. Any information from spies such as Görtz would have been a huge asset to German preparations. In order for the plan to proceed smoothly, Hitler put two of his most trusted lieutenants in charge of preparations. Großadmiral Erich Raeder of the German Navy and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring of the Luftwaffe were given primary responsibility for Operation Sea Lion, and the planned invasion of Ireland, ‘Fall Grün’, or Operation Green, was a major part of its remit. Implementation of Operation Green was the responsibility of Leonhard Kaupisch, commander of the 4 and 7 Army Corps. The instigator of Operation Green was the newly promoted Field Marshal Fedor von Bock of Army Group B, who compiled Operation Green into five separate volumes which looked at Ireland from every conceivable military viewpoint.
One volume, entitled Militärgeographische Angaben über Irland, contained 78 pages of military and geographical data on Ireland, including historical data as well as information on Irish industry, transport, infrastructure, climate and weather. It also included 17 pages of maps and sketches of major Irish cities and towns. Chillingly, some of the detail included was more advanced than the contemporary Ordnance Survey maps of Ireland. The information was intricate enough to include details of hotels, important buildings and petrol stations in many towns. In addition to this, a highly detailed map at a scale of 1:250,000 was drawn up. Tourist photographs were included alongside the maps to give visual representations of some of the towns identified. Operation Green also included details on spring tides, geographical formations and projected invasion beaches.
The Germans identified Wexford as the most ideal point of invasion, as the west coast had a largely unsuitable coastline for carrying out a successful sea landing due to rocky inlets and islands obstructing landing points. As part of the reconnaissance for the plan, the Luftwaffe carried out surveillance flights over Ireland, taking photographs from 30,000 ft. Such was the level of detail in the photographs that individual houses could be identified. Much of the reconnaissance work had been relayed by members of the German community who had lived in Ireland in the years leading up to the outbreak of the war, helping to paint a vivid picture of Ireland for the German High Command.
In response to the perceived threat from a German invasion of Ireland, both the Irish and the British governments designed a series of contingency measures known as ‘Plan W’. The first meeting on establishing a joint action plan in the event of a German invasion was on 24 May 1940. The meeting was held in London and had been convened to explore every conceivable way in which the German forces might attempt an invasion of Ireland. At the meeting were Joe Walshe, Irish Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, Col Liam Archer of G2, and officers from the Royal Navy, the British Army and the RAF.
By May 1940, Irish troops were already organised in mobile columns to deal with parachute landings. By October 1940, four more regular army brigades had been raised in the State and Local Defence Force, and recruiting figures were increasing. While the Irish and British governments attempted to curb the growing threat, a new German agent arrived by U-boat in Co. Kerry in June 1941. Nazi Germany now had everything working in its favour in Ireland, and it would take all of G2’s resources to thwart it.
The man who landed in Kerry was far from a typical German spy. Walter Simon was born on 12 December 1881 and was almost sixty years of age when he was sent as an agent to Ireland.Simon had a background in seafaring and could boast a considerable amount of experience to his superiors in this area when the gaunt well-built German was selected to be sent to Ireland. Simon spoke in a very harsh and rough tone due to an operation on his larynx in his youth. Wearing the uniform of an officer in the German Navy, Simon arrived on board U-boat U-38 in Dingle harbour on the night of 12 June 1940.
Using the alias ‘Karl Anderson’, Simon rowed ashore on a dinghy by bright moonlight. When he reached the shore he buried a small suitcase containing his wireless set. He planned to travel to Dublin to find an adequate location from which to operate the transmitter and send reports back to Germany. He hoped to return to Dingle to pick up the wireless set at a later date. Simon was tasked by the Abwehr to report back to Germany on British escort vessels and any other incidental items that might be of interest.
After burying his wireless set, Simon marched on foot towards a disused railway. Not realising it was out of use, he asked two local men what time the next train was at. Trying to contain their laughter, the men informed him the railway had been out of operation for 14 years. Simon’s next move would prove to be a costly one. One of the gentlemen who Simon asked about the train was a publican, and he asked him back to his establishment. With a few hours to wait until the next train to Dublin, Simon thought this a welcome way to spend the time, and followed both men to the public house.
After several glasses of whiskey Simon began to curse Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill, and remarked to the bewildered patrons of the pub ‘that the poverty of Ireland will change when Hitler comes to this country’. The patrons of the bar were understandably alarmed as Simon finished his drink and left, making his way to Tralee railway station. As he walked to the platform he noticed that he was being observed by a number of gentlemen he believed to be special branch detectives.
The men were in fact plain clothes detectives; sensing something was up, they struck up a conversation with Simon and eventually boarded the train with him. One of the detectives jokingly asked Simon whether he knew anyone in the IRA. Simon drunkenly asked the men if they were in the IRA. While one of the detectives kept Simon busy with idle conversation, the other quietly slipped away to place a call to Dublin. When the train arrived at Kingsbridge (Heuston) Station, Simon, in the company of the two detectives, was met by Gardaí and promptly arrested.
Simon was brought before a sitting of the Special Criminal Court in Collins Barracks in Dublin. One of the detectives on the train had noticed that Simon was carrying a paper bag with him on the train, and when this was examined it was found to contain 120 one-pound Bank of England notes which on further examination were discovered to be counterfeit. Along with other currency Simon had in total £215 on him. He was also carrying fake identity papers in the name of Karl Anderson. Simon told the court and the arresting officer conflicting stories, maintaining to the detectives that he was a British national.
In another exchange, he claimed that he was visiting a sister in Annascaul, Co. Kerry, who he said had the surname O’Sullivan, but that he had a fight with her in the middle of the night and was making his way home to his wife and children in Dublin. In another bizarre story, he told detectives he was a Swedish native who having grown tired of life in Nazi-controlled Europe had boarded a fishing boat in Dover and given the skipper £50 to take him to Ireland. Owing to his conflicting stories the authorities suspected Simon of being involved in espionage, and decided to hold the proceedings against him in camera. Much like Weber-Drohl, the court believed his story despite the fact he gave differing accounts. It looked as though he might be released when information came from England that turned his many alibis on their head.
When he eventually appeared before the court Simon was accused of entering Ireland illegally, and during the case a police officer gave evidence that Simon had been convicted of a similar offence in England in 1939. Also detectives in Kerry had noticed his footprints on the beach in Dingle and had subsequently dug up his transmitter, which was transported to Dublin and used in evidence against him in court. Acting on information supplied by MI5, Commandant Éamon de Buitléar of G2 held up a picture of Simon in prison in England for his previous offence.
With a considerable amount of evidence against him, Simon pleaded guilty to illegally entering Ireland. He was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment and was transported to Mountjoy Prison to serve his sentence. Simon was the first German agent to be detained in an Irish prison, and despite his attempts at evasion he had given G2 plenty of material to study. His wireless set was examined thoroughly, and the authorities now had a much clearer picture of how German agents were going about their business in Ireland. This would come in useful for G2 when the Germans sent another agent a few weeks later to the same location as Simon, near Dingle.
Up until this point Dr Richard Hayes had been busy working on the German Legation transmitter code. However a much graver situation now presented itself. German Abwehr agents were being equipped with hand ciphers known and ISOS3 ciphers, which they used to communicate in paper-based messages. G2 knew that these posed a very significant threat to the security of the state, and Dr Hayes was tasked with breaking them. Such was the threat posed by these codes that Bletchley Park, the location of the British Government Code and Cipher School, had an entire hut with 16 staff working on breaking these messages. Ireland would have to survive with just Dr Hayes to attempt to break the codes. It was a seemingly impossible task, and one which became graver when Walter Simon’s successor arrived in Kerry.
Wilhelm Preetz was a far more nefarious character than Walter Simon. An unapologetic Nazi, Preetz was a native of Bremen in north-western Germany. Born there in 1906, he worked as a crewman on a private yacht in New York in the early 1920s, where he met a young Irish girl named Sarah Josephine Reynolds, known as Sally, from Tuam, Co. Galway. By 1933 Preetz had returned to Bremen and joined the Nazi Party when Hitler took power in Berlin. Preetz was taken with the policies of Hitler’s NSDAP, and in 1933 he also became a member of the SA, Hitler’s brownshirts.
Preetz married Sally Reynolds in Bremen in 1935, and the couple travelled to Tuam to meet her parents in 1937. Having married an Irish girl, Preetz was approached by the Abwehr, who sensed an opportunity to use him as an agent. He entered Ireland on board a U-boat, arriving at Minard near Dingle, and unlike Simon he didn’t make his way to the nearest railway. Instead, he chose to wade through shallow water in the dead of night once he had disembarked from the U-boat. He walked across the beach and traversed a few roads before he found a secluded place and fell asleep behind a stone wall.
When Preetz awoke he buried his transmitter before making a plan to get to Dublin, where he planned to blend into the large population and avoid detection. Given his intimate knowledge of Ireland he knew that it would be market day the next morning when he woke up. He waited until a cattle truck was passing by him, and when nobody was looking he climbed aboard. Having spent some time in Ireland with his wife, Preetz was dressed in typical Irish clothes, and therefore did not arouse any suspicion in the driver or anyone else he interacted with.
Preetz was also smart enough to speak in an Irish accent and use some colloquialisms native to the area in order to avoid attracting unwarranted attention. Prior to his visit Preetz had obtained a false Irish passport which identified him as ‘Paddy Mitchell’ of Eyrecourt in Co. Galway. In later investigations G2 came to the conclusion that a member of Preetz’s wife’s family in Co. Sligo had helped in the forging of the passport. When Preetz and the farmer reached the next small town they parted company and Preetz went to a local pub for a drink before making his way to Dublin by taxi.
Arriving in Dublin he hid around the port before eventually renting a small shop at 32 Westland Row which he planned to live above. He returned to Minard by train, staying overnight in Limerick, and picked up the transmitter before returning with it to Dublin. From his flat above the shop Preetz sent messages back to Berlin undetected for several weeks. During his time in Dublin he drew a considerable amount of attention to himself, soliciting prostitutes and at one stage buying a flash Chrysler saloon sports car, which he drove around Dublin city centre at speed.
Preetz’s indiscretions, as well as the frequency of his broadcasts from Westland Row, were to prove to be his downfall, and G2 soon triangulated the area from which his transmissions were being made. For a period of a few weeks they listened in to Preetz’s broadcasts from a listening station at Collins Barracks, and such were the frequency of his transmissions that G2 put staff at the listening station on 24-hour duty to record his messages. A smarter agent would have made more infrequent broadcasts in an effort to thwart the security services, but Preetz’s arrogance had gotten the better of him.
Detectives made notes on the messages, as they were not able to fully decipher them. However, the authorities were able to estimate that Preetz was transmitting 14 words per minute, and that he was making frequent mistakes with his use of Morse code, which required him to make multiple broadcasts in order to convey his information to Berlin correctly. This gave G2 a second opportunity to record Preetz’s transmissions. They also noted that he frequently used the call sign LMR, as well as other call signs composed with the letters of his name. The net was closing in on Preetz, and when G2 and Gardaí raided his Westland Row lodgings they found a treasure trove of incriminating material including a Morse key, a transmitter and a receiver.
Sensing that time was up for him, Preetz immediately disclosed his real identity to detectives before giving himself up for arrest, and he was brought to Arbour Hill prison for interrogation. Detectives had also found pages of notes in the apartment that Preetz had used for enciphering, and these were immediately brought to Dr Hayes for deciphering. After studying the documents carefully for several days Hayes began to break Preetz’s system:
Preetz’s cipher was a transposition in a cage twenty spaces wide based on the pages of a novel. The page was determined by adding the day of the month, the month and a constant. The preamble to his message was based on a numbering of the letters on the first unindented line of the page and the letters at the beginning of each line for twenty lines down from the top formed the keyword for the transposition of the cage. A certain number of X’s were also used as nulls placed in a pattern in the cage. This letter was also employed as a full stop and an emphasising sign with names.
Confident in his fluent German, Hayes was able to break the Preetz cipher without much difficulty, noting that the use of the letter ‘q’ was the key to breaking the code:
This kind of Cipher is not difficult to break. If the language is German the c’s and the h’s and the c’s and k’s can be tested in different links. In fact an even easier method was available because of a few of the messages contained the letter ‘q’ in the word ‘frequenz’. The fact that ‘q’ was present made it clear that unless ‘q’ was a null it must form part of the sequence ‘equen’ as was in fact the case. Preetz made the foolish mistake of ending all his messages with the same word ‘gruesse’.
Hayes was able to decipher Preetz’s coding system, theorising that it was simple in its origins. Using frequency analysis4 he was mathematically able to extrapolate one of Preetz’s keywords, ‘ANALECTA HIBERNICAMUR’. Once Hayes had figured out the keyword he was able to read all of Preetz’s messages.
Hayes also discovered that Preetz was carrying an emergency cipher to be used if he lost his codebook. It was based on a transposition derived from a keyword which he carried in his head. When Preetz’s messages were deciphered most of the material was disappointing, consisting mainly of requests from Preetz to change broadcasting signals and for information to be repeated. Foolishly Preetz based himself in Dublin in order to live a flash lifestyle, not realising that this would affect the quality of the broadcasts he made. Hayes was able to prove that the German High Command had contacted Preetz asking him to communicate weather and tactical reports back to them.
Having no means of obtaining accurate meteorological data, Preetz used reports from English newspapers and observations made from looking out his window, and sent these back to Berlin. Having obtained a sophisticated reading of Preetz’s enciphering system, it was decided that Hayes would personally interrogate Preetz in order to extract more information out of him. In order not to endanger himself or his family, G2 had given Hayes the alias ‘Captain Grey’, a humorous reference to his reserved demeanour. It was a moniker he would use in any interactions with German agents he was interrogating.
Dr Hayes was a master tactician, figuring that the best approach was not to appear aggressive with captured German agents, and that by bringing agents on side with him he could extract the maximum amount of information possible. After several initial conversations with Preetz, Hayes deduced that he was of ‘junior clerk mentality and not altogether too bright’. When Preetz’s messages were fully deciphered it was noted that he had made references to an accomplice named ‘Bates’, but there was nothing further to ascertain if this person existed.
When the interrogation was concluded Preetz was convicted of entering Ireland illegally, and having in his possession an illegal wireless transmitter. The authorities believed that Preetz had communicated to Berlin the effect of Luftwaffe raids in England and made considerable efforts to investigate this. Following his conviction Preetz was taken to Mountjoy Prison in Dublin. When he entered the prison yard for the first time one of the first people he met was none other than his Abwehr colleague Walter Simon. Preetz rushed up to Simon exclaiming joyfully, ‘Walter, are you here too?’ In his rough intonation Simon barked ‘Idiot’ at Preetz before continuing on his way.
Thanks to Richard Hayes’s innovations in the field of codebreaking, Bryan and G2 were having considerable success in their work against Abwehr agents. Hayes was effectively a one-man army, and proved himself to be an invaluable resource in the battle with Nazi Germany. However matters were to become further complicated with the arrival of further agents to Ireland. The continuing problem of Hermann Görtz being at liberty also plagued G2. It was believed that he was being harboured by elements in Irish society in political and social spheres that were in some ways sympathetic to his cause. Unbeknownst to G2 other German operations for Ireland were already underway and more agents were preparing to land on Irish soil.
By late June, with France defeated, Churchill was extremely anxious that Ireland could be used to land German troops by sea or air. The Northern Irish Prime Minister, Lord Craigavon, had suggested an All-Ireland defence policy in the event of a German invasion, something that was rejected by the Taoiseach, who was eager to preserve Irish neutrality at all costs.
Sensing an opportunity to take advantage, Abwehr Chief Admiral Canaris decided to send saboteurs to England via Ireland, beginning their missions in Norway and northern France; the clandestine mission was given the codename ‘Operation Lobster’. The agents would use surface craft and depart from their start-off points without the use of prearranged contacts. World-famous yachtsman Christian Nissen, better known as ‘Hein Mück’ from his days in the Royal Ocean Yacht Club in London, was selected to transport the spies. A thin, fair-headed, tall man, Nissen had served in the German Navy in World War I, and had his ship torpedoed by the British off the coast of Cork. He had been interned in Templemore, Co. Tipperary and Oldcastle, Co. Meath as a result.
Nissen was approached by the Abwehr for the mission in June 1940, and received training at the Sabotage School in Brandenburg. There he was instructed to find a vessel suitable for carrying three agents. Nissen travelled to France to source an appropriate vessel, eventually finding one in Brest. He commandeered a 36-foot fishing vessel which, on closer inspection, had no motor. Undeterred by this, Nissen chose to use the vessel, hoping that wind power alone would suffice for the mission. He was instructed to transport two South African Germans and an Indian national to Ireland. The Abwehr were confident that Nissen’s reputation as a noted yachtsman would provide sufficient cover for him to complete his mission.
The South African agents were Dieter Gärtner and Herbert Tributh. Both men were unusual choices for spies, given that they were both students with little knowledge of English and no experience in espionage. Nissen described them as young and idealistic and perhaps unsuitable for such a mission. The Indian man accompanying them was Henry Obéd. He was to act as their interpreter and alone out of all three could boast of experience working for the Abwehr. Obéd had an open and sometimes volatile dislike of all things English, and prior to the war he had lived in Antwerp in Belgium, where he had owned a pet shop and dealt in Indian spices.
None of the three agents had any sailing experience, so in order to make the crossing safely Nissen asked the Abwehr for an assistant. He was supplied with a Breton fisherman who, though old, proved an able companion. With all the crew on board the party set sail for Fastnet Rock, 13 km off the Cork coast. Nissen had twice sailed in an ocean race from Cowes on the Isle of Wight to the rock, and so was familiar with the area.
The party left Brest harbour at midnight on 3 July. The vessel was 45 miles west of Fastnet Rock when the Breton seaman spotted two British cruisers. Tributh, Gärtner and Obéd were all asleep in their bunks, having been suffering from seasickness since they left Brest. Fearing that they would be boarded, Nissen became apprehensive. However, at the last moment the cruisers turned away. Clearly their cover had worked. Later that day a British flying boat flew low overhead, observing the vessel by doing multiple low circles. The Breton fisherman had raised the French tricolour on board prior to their departure from Brest, and the ruse worked. The flying boat continued on its flight path, eventually leaving the area. A Portuguese steamer also passed close by, but the agents and their vessel failed to raise its suspicions.
Shortly after sunset Nissen docked in Baltimore Bay, and the agents bade him farewell. He would have to wait almost a day for the wind to pick up so that he could sail away from Ireland. En route to France he encountered a British patrol boat and calmly sat and peeled a potato on board as the British boat eventually sailed on. When he reached France Nissen contacted the Abwehr office in Brest to inform them that his mission had been success. Nissen then travelled north-west to Brittany, where he stayed and from where he would later attempt to take on more Abwehr missions to transport German agents to Ireland.
As Nissen sailed away, Tributh, Gärtner and Obéd climbed into a dinghy and rowed ashore. Before they left the landing site they buried their wireless transmitter and tried unsuccessfully to hide the dinghy they had rowed ashore in. Hiking in the rain across a beach to a nearby road, the men were nothing but conspicuous in the West Cork countryside. While Tributh and Gärtner carried suitcases, Obéd in particular is alleged to have stood out due to his insistence on wearing a silk Indian suit and a straw hat. However, the veracity of this account is disputed, and photographs taken shortly after the men’s arrest show him wearing a double-breasted suit and white hat. Complete in their unusual attire the men trekked to Skibbereen, arriving late in the evening.
In Skibbereen they hoped to get a bus to Dublin, but due to the late hour of their arrival they had missed the last one. They got a lift on a creamery truck from Skibbereen to Drimoleague, where they boarded a bus to Cork City hoping to catch a train to Dublin once they arrived there. Obéd’s appearance and demeanor attracted considerable attention, and a local Garda became suspicious of the trio. The Garda rang ahead to Union Quay Garda Station in Cork to alert them to the arrival of the three strange men.
It wasn’t long after the men arrived at the station that Gardaí driving in a patrol car noticed them and stopped to question them. The trio maintained that they were students on a sight-seeing trip. When Gardaí opened their suitcases they became immediately suspicious and promptly arrested the men. One of the officers placed a phone call to alert military intelligence and G2 were immediately dispatched to Cork to investigate. In Dublin, Hempel panicked when he heard the news, and claimed that the agents were probably provocateurs sent by the British to provoke a dispute in German–Irish relations.
When G2 examined the agents’ suitcases they were shocked at what they found. The trio were carrying eight incendiary bombs eight ounces in weight, four tins of gun cotton and six detonators, along with six fuses which were 2½ feet long stored in the belts of Obéd and Gärtner for safe keeping. The men were also carrying two reels of insulating tape, two sets of cutting pliers and £839 in cash, as well as a book that G2 speculated could have been used for enciphering messages. Obéd had an alarm clock, which detectives speculated was going to be used as a timing device for their explosives.
Despite the youth and naïvety of Tributh and Gärtner, they refused to answer any questions when interrogated by both the Gardaí and G2. Obéd proved to be more talkative, especially since he was isolated from the rest of the group on racial grounds while incarcerated. In the midst of his interrogation he admitted that he intended to link up with German invasion troops in England. Obéd, Tributh and Gärtner were all convicted under the Emergency Powers Act and the Emergency Powers Order on 25 July 1940.
Each of them was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for landing in Ireland illegally. They were also given a seven-year sentence under the Explosives Act, which was to run concurrently with the three-year prison term. Tributh and Gärtner pleaded guilty, but Obéd maintained his innocence, and attempted to appeal his sentence through the Court of Criminal Appeal. All three men were transported to Athlone to serve their sentences for the remainder of the war.
Meanwhile Görtz, who was still at large, was furious that the three agents had been sent to Ireland. He felt they were undermining him and his mission. Scathingly he wrote to his superiors:
I was assured by the High Command before my flight that no other officer nor any other person would be landed in Ireland unless requested by me. This agreement was to remain in force as long as I was entrusted with my mission. Actually nobody was sent by the High Command but unfortunately a subordinate department did so. I did not know why it had happened. As soon as I had contact with the High Command, I complained bitterly about it. The answer I received was that nobody knew anything about these arrangements. From the very beginning the help these Germans could render was not comparable to the harm that they could do, my comrades did not know why they were sent to Ireland – the responsibility for this lay with others. But now they had to pay the penalty for it – as ‘war criminals’, ‘suspects’ or whatever they were called by our enemies.
The capture of Tributh, Gärtner and Obéd had further complicated Görtz’s mission in Ireland and made it almost impossible to carry out his duties efficiently. He was without money and a safe roof over his head, and G2 were closing in on him at every turn. With Görtz at his wits’ end and with the IRA–German link severely compromised, the Abwehr would have to think quickly in order to restore any hope that Görtz’s mission would succeed. In the interim they had been busy with an unexpected Irish visitor who they felt might help provide a solution.
The former IRA Chief of Staff Seán Russell had made his way back from the USA to Germany and was eager to resume his role as the head of the organisation. Russell had been living in the country outside Berlin, where he was being protected by an Austrian non-commissioned officer who acted as his full-time bodyguard. The Abwehr planned to instruct Russell in the use of materials for the purposes of sabotage, and he was taken to an Abwehr laboratory that specialised in the use of sabotage techniques in Tegel in north Berlin.
Russell was trained in the use of Abwehr explosive materials, particularly the use of chemicals to produce explosives. The Abwehr planned that, given the approval of the Kriegsmarine, they would transport Russell back to Ireland via U-boat and equip him with two operators who were trained in wireless communication. Having gained the approval of the Navy, Russell was to be transported to Ireland once a U-boat became available. When he landed at a suitable location in Ireland he was to bury the sabotage equipment, transmitter and other materials in an appropriate location before returning to collect them with his IRA men once he had them mobilised.
Despite the Abwehr’s best intentions and careful planning it was to take more time before Russell could embark on his mission, as there was some apprehension about sending him. During this period IRA man Frank Ryan, who had been on the left-leaning side of the IRA, had made his way to Germany. Ryan had volunteered to fight with the international brigades in the Spanish Civil War, and had recently escaped from captivity in Burgos Prison. He was transported to Berlin, and met up with Séan Russell on 4 August 1940.
On his arrival in Berlin, Ryan was introduced to SS Colonel Dr Edmund Veesenmayer. Veesenmayer, as part of his SS and German Foreign Ministry brief, was involved in the planning of all Abwehr operations to Ireland until 1943. The day after arriving, Ryan was asked by Russell to accompany him to Ireland as part of ‘Operation Dove’, the codename given to Russell’s mission. Both Russell and Frank Ryan departed aboard U-65 from Wilhelmshaven in lower Saxony on 8 August. Russell became ill during the journey, and complained of stomach pains. U-65 was not equipped with a doctor, and he died on 14 August, 100 miles short of Galway. He was buried at sea and the mission was aborted.
Following the return of the submarine to Germany an inquiry by the Abwehr was set up to investigate Russell’s death. This inquiry included the interrogation of U-65’s crew and Frank Ryan. The conclusion drawn was that Russell had suffered a burst gastric ulcer and, without medical attention, he had died. Rumours soon began to circulate that Russell was poisoned, as he had become too much of a threat to the Abwehr. However Russell’s brother maintained that it was more likely that his death was due to the ulcer, as he had suffered with the problem for many years prior.
Ryan was dropped as a possible agent in further covert Abwehr and German Foreign Ministry plans and operations. He was approached in late 1943 for his opinion on the feasibility of a secret transmitter propaganda operation in Ireland for broadcast to the United States, but the plan never reached fruition. Ryan died in June 1944 at a hospital in Dresden. His funeral in Dresden was attended by Helmut Clissmann’s wife Elizabeth and Francis Stuart. Clissmann eventually forwarded details of Ryan’s fate to Leopold Kerney in Madrid, who forwarded them to his family in Dublin. According to Stuart and Clissmann, the cause of Ryan’s death was pleurisy and pneumonia. Ryan’s body was eventually repatriated to Dublin and buried in the republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery.
Meanwhile, back in Ireland, Hermann Görtz remained unaware of the operation relating to Russell, and was growing increasingly paranoid and distressed at his situation. With things going from bad to worse, Görtz began more and more to place his faith in some of the many women with whom he was romantically involved. Some of these women were fervent nationalists, whose prowess at safeguarding Görtz when he was at large was remarkable, given that IRA Chief of Staff Stephen Hayes was unable to guarantee his safety.
Most of the women involved with Görtz were hardline supporters of the IRA who had taken the Anti-Treaty side in the Civil War and who had not joined de Valera in his foray into constitutional politics with the formation of Fianna Fáil in 1926. In many ways they regarded de Valera as a traitor for having taken the oath of allegiance to the British Crown upon his ascension to power in 1932, and some openly despised him for this. The republican pedigree of Görtz’s many female associates was without question.
One of the foremost leaders in the Irish War of Independence had been Cathal Brugha. Brugha served as Minister for Defence from 1919 to 1922, Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann in January 1919, President of Dáil Éireann from January 1919 to April 1919 and Chief of Staff of the IRA from 1917 to 1919, and served as a TD from 1918 to 1923. Brugha was also active in the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War, being involved in fighting in the Four Courts during the Civil War. In the midst of this battle he approached Free State troops brandishing a revolver, and sustained a bullet wound to the leg which ‘severed a major artery causing him to bleed to death’. He died on 7 July 1922, 11 days before his 48th birthday.
Brugha’s wife Caitlín served as a Sinn Féin TD from 1923 to 1927. She established a drapery business, Kingston’s Ltd, in 1924, and following her exit from politics devoted much time to the venture. She also harboured Görtz, and aided him financially. Given her open animosity towards England, it was felt by the Irish and British Authorities that her sympathies very much lay with Nazi Germany in the fight against British Imperialism.
Two of the most important female contacts for Görtz while he was at large in Ireland were sisters Mary and Bridie Farrell, who lived at 7 Spencer Villas in Glenageary in South Co. Dublin. The sisters, both republicans, gave Görtz lodgings and financial aid.
Unbeknownst to Görtz and G2 a secret meeting was taking place in Berlin between Lt Gartenfeld, the Heinkel pilot who had flown Görtz to Ireland, and high-level agents in the Abwehr in which was discussed the feasibility of sending more spies to Ireland. Gartenfeld was asked whether dropping another agent by seaplane was the correct method, or whether they should be dropped onto inland lakes in rubber rafts. During the meeting Gartenfeld and the Abwehr conferred on the location of a suitable lake for such an endeavour, but the idea was soon dropped.
By mid-1940, the Abwehr felt that the time was right to send another agent to Ireland on a similar mission to Görtz. He was to arrive by parachute into Co. Wexford carrying an illegal transmitter and a substantial amount of cash. This new agent was carrying with him an ingenious coding system that the Germans thought would be unbreakable. After a few technical problems his mission to Ireland was cancelled in July 1940, but rescheduled in September 1940. The first attempt to drop him in Ireland failed when the Heinkel He111 was forced to return to base in Amsterdam on 5 March 1941. However one week later the planning for his mission began again. With Hermann Görtz still at liberty, G2 and Dr Hayes now faced another ruthless foe.
3Illicit Services Oliver Strachey. The section derived its name from Oliver Strachey CBE (3 November 1874–1814 May 1960), a British civil servant in the Foreign Office who was a cryptographer from World War I to World War II. During World War II he was at Bletchley Park, and headed the ISOS section deciphering various messages on the Abwehr network involving turned German agents (part of the Double-Cross system), with the first decrypt issued on 14 April 1940. Initially codenamed Pear, the decrypts became known as ISOS.
4In cryptanalysis, frequency analysis is the study of the frequency of letters or groups of letters in a cipher text. The method is used as an aid to breaking classical ciphers. Frequency analysis is based on the fact that, in any given stretch of written language, certain letters and combinations of letters occur with varying frequencies. Moreover, there is a characteristic distribution of letters that is roughly the same for almost all samples of that language.