VII
‘This was the best Cipher in our experience used by the Germans during the war. It was evidently used for very special purposes.’
DR RICHARD J. HAYES
Outside of Arbour Hill Görtz’s arrest was causing all sorts of trouble for his colleagues and fellow conspirators. His radio 12 March 1942 at operator Anthony Deery was arrested on 47 Upper Clanbrassil Street after a tip-off from an undercover soldier, and Hempel and the legation were left fielding embarrassing questions from the press in the wake of his arrest. Deery was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was found in possession of a wireless set belonging to Hermann Görtz, which was seized, as was a series of enciphered messages that had been hidden inside a piccolo. These were brought to Dr Hayes, who studied them in detail and soon broke the code used to encipher them. Although Deery had been able to communicate with Germany, the Abwehr didn’t rate his messages very highly, and regarded his reports as over-exaggerated nonsense. In truth they only entertained them on the basis that while they continued they could maintain some link to Görtz.
As Hermann Görtz sat in his cell in Arbour Hill he began to formulate a story to tell the intelligence officers that wouldn’t jeopardise any ongoing Abwehr operations. Suddenly the door of his cell opened, and in walked a small, unassuming man who introduced himself as Captain Grey.
Accompanied by Commandant Éamon de Buitléar and posing as a Nazi sympathiser, Dr Hayes questioned Görtz in German about how he had arrived in Ireland. The initial exchange went on for a few hours. Görtz was impressed by his interrogators’ fluency in his mother tongue, and slowly but surely he began to open up to them. Hayes sat opposite Görtz and smiled at him gently as the German recounted his journey, telling a story that was a mixture of fact and fiction. He recounted to Hayes that Jim O’Donovan had first learned of his presence in Laragh from a broadcast he had made from Northern Ireland, and that the operator of the set had heard that he had arrived in Co. Tyrone and instructed him to inquire for him at three addresses, one of which was Mrs Stuart’s.
In an effort to exonerate his lover, Görtz insisted that Iseult Stuart had not told O’Donovan about him. He further elaborated that the fictional radio operator (a student from Belfast), who was in no way connected with the IRA, had visited him a few days after his arrival and helped him with his radio set, which was too weak to broadcast to Germany. Görtz insisted that if he had been dropped in Northern Ireland the man would have been able to contact Germany for him. Hayes listened intently to Görtz, jotting down various observations in his diary.
He asked if the messages he sent were in code, to which Görtz replied, ‘Of course,’ adding that he had received the code in Germany and that he and the Belfast student aiding him had met there. Görtz said he thought the Belfast man posed so much of a threat to his mission that his transmitter would have been discovered and his plans ruined. He told Hayes that he advised the Belfast man to discontinue transmissions, and for him to join the British Armed Forces in order to draw attention away from his illegal activities.
He explained that he was to install a wireless transmitter in Northern Ireland to be codenamed ‘Gustl’. This would then be used to communicate with a station in Germany called ‘Irene’ at stated times every week. Hayes asked Görtz how he planned to replace the wireless set that he had lost during his initial parachute jump. Görtz explained that a replacement was to be sent once the German High Command had proof that he landed safely. In order to inform the Abwehr that he had arrived safely, he continued, he had been instructed to send two postcards to addresses in Spain which would then be forwarded on to Germany. The stamps were to be strategically placed on the postcards, acting as a signal to the Abwehr that he had safely arrived on Irish soil. If this failed he would get in touch with the German Legation through Mrs Stuart, and the High Command would sort out any issues with the Foreign Office.
Hayes noted Görtz’s observations before asking him if he had made any transmissions in the south. Görtz replied that he hadn’t, and to his amazement Hayes took out a sketch of a transmitter from his notes, saying that it had been seized in a raid of IRA leader Stephen Hayes’s house. He asked Görtz if he could explain the origins of the sketch to him. Staring at the drawing in disbelief, Görtz explained that he had drawn the sketch for the IRA when asked for advice about the setup of communications between Éire and Northern Ireland, and that he had known it was illegal to be in possession of a wireless set in Ireland. He told Dr Hayes that he had asked the IRA leader about the legalities of owning a wireless set, but that he had been misinformed.
Görtz also explained that the IRA had selected the Dingle Peninsula as the base for the landing of arms as the IRA had indicated they had good men there, and that a U-boat would not be able to cruise close to the rocky coast so they would need a motorboat to ultimately bring the arms ashore. Dr Hayes listened to Görtz’s story, all the while picking holes in the narrative. Instead of confronting him, Hayes thanked Görtz warmly for his time, smiled and excused himself.
Görtz was delighted with himself, thinking his ruse had worked and that he had done enough to avoid getting himself in further trouble. But Hayes had other plans for him. During the raid on Stephen Held’s house in Templeogue, many pages of ciphers had been recovered. Hayes decided to bring one in to Görtz for him to solve. Eager to convey the idea that he meant no ill will towards Ireland, Görtz began work on the cipher in his cell. Little did Görtz know that Hayes had already solved the cipher, and was merely testing Görtz’s trustworthiness. Görtz began to scribble his own censored version of the cipher onto a page for Hayes: ‘HE (O’DONOVAN) FEARS I SHALL BE DISAPPOINTED WITH CHIEF… KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT RATHLIN.’
Dr Hayes was fully aware that Görtz was being duplicitous, that the message had no mention of Rathlin and that Görtz had changed its contents, which dealt with Irish coast and air defences. Despite Görtz’s many untruths Hayes was able to gain a good indication of the kind of individual he was dealing with. While he didn’t agree with Görtz’s politics and thought him to be a rogue, the relationship between the men was pleasant. This was essential, as Hayes wished to maintain this for as long as possible, since he knew he would need to get more information out of Görtz at a later stage.
Meanwhile Hempel was severely agitated about what to do about Görtz. He feared Görtz would be tried in an open court, which would have been an embarrassment for the legation. However, Görtz was instead interned in Arbour Hill, and it was here that Hayes began to work on breaking his code. G2 had informed MI5 of Görtz’s imprisonment and trial, although the details were kept intentionally hazy. Guy Liddell noted in his diary that ‘Dr Görtz has been tried by military tribunal condemned to death and reprieved. We have not heard this officially, but we understand this to be the case as a pretext for pressing the Eire government to forgo its neutrality and turn the Germans out. There is fairly conclusive proof that Görtz was working in close conjunction with the IRA.’
It was clear to Dan Bryan that they would have to yield a positive result from Görtz’s arrest in order to appease the British. As G2 and MI5 quarrelled over the issue, the German High Command instructed Hempel to make an official statement about Görtz to the Irish government. Hempel approached the Taoiseach directly though the Department of External Affairs in which de Valera was the minister in situ. Hempel assured the Taoiseach that the German government had never sent anyone to Ireland with political motivations, and that no action had ever been taken against Ireland. He also gave assurances that the German government regretted that more attention had been given to this case than was necessary.
Hempel stressed that Germany’s attitude towards neutrality was in no way changed by recent events, i.e. the entry of the United States into the war. He went further, stating that ‘the attitude of the German government is exactly as it was stated by the Taoiseach at the outbreak of the war’. Hempel was eager to preserve the status quo, and in many ways his own role in Ireland, at all costs. However, Görtz was growing increasingly frustrated with being in prison, and began to concoct an escape plan. He decided to try and smuggle messages out to his supporters, such as the Farrell sisters and the wife of republican Austin Stack, hoping that a plan could be conceived to help him escape.
Görtz tried to win the favours of military guards in the prison to try and smuggle out his messages. He approached Sgt Power and Cpl Lynch, who were working in the prison, and offered them money to carry his messages. The men refused, and brought the messages to Dr Hayes, who copied them and immediately began working on deciphering them. Despite the fact that he had seen samples of Görtz’s cipher the previous year, after the Held raid, Hayes felt that in order to break the cipher he would need to gain some knowledge as to what the keyword was, or get a better idea of the intricacies of the system Görtz was using.
Hayes decided that Görtz should be approached directly about his enciphering system. He and Commandant de Buitléar asked Görtz how his system worked, and Görtz decided to go along with them to a certain degree. He told the two intelligence agents that he would show them how his system worked, but refused to give them the keyword. Görtz asked Hayes if he could see some of the messages that had been seized during the Held raid, and began to decipher them. Hayes keenly observed Görtz, and after the messages had been decoded he privately said to de Buitléar that they should go through Görtz’s possessions to see if they could find a clue to what his keyword was. Hayes reasoned to de Buitléar that in most cases agents kept keywords in their heads, but that there was always the chance that Görtz might have slipped up and written something down. It was a chance both men were willing to take, but the question remained as to how they could search Görtz’s possessions without his consent.
Hayes decided that he would chat to Görtz to try and get a clue. He was eager to break the code as he had become suspicious that Görtz was smuggling messages successfully out of the jail, though he was unable to prove it immediately. He was concerned about the very real danger that Görtz’s messages posed to Ireland’s neutrality, as well as the greater war effort. He knew that if any information, no matter how insignificant, was leaked by Görtz out of Ireland, it could have a disastrous effect on the outcome of the war.
The British had been using the German agents they had working under the Double-Cross system to strategically deceive the German High Command about the location of the Normandy landings, which had been in preparation since the Americans entered the war after the attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941. The Germans were being led to believe that the main attack was to come along the Pas-de-Calais, which was almost within sight of England.
Instead the plan was to land troops in Normandy, designed so that the German High Command would think that the Normandy attack was only a feint, and that the main assault was to come at a later stage. If Görtz was able to communicate this plan in any way with the Abwehr it could upset the very delicate strategic picture. Hayes knew that the fate of the country and potentially the outcome of the war rested on his shoulders. His apprehension was well placed, as Görtz had finally convinced an Irish soldier with republican sympathies to smuggle messages out of his cell. The clock was ticking, and only Dr Hayes stood in Görtz’s way.
The soldier who was paid a small amount of cash by Görtz to smuggle out messages was Cpl Joseph Lynch. He brought letters from Görtz to the wife of republican Austin Stack, who had died on hunger strike in 1929. She, much like Caitlín Brugha, harboured a deep hatred for the British, and as a result was willing to aid German spies in Ireland. Lynch’s failure to alert military intelligence to his activities created a serious security situation; G2 would later discover Lynch’s deception, and questioned him on the matter in 1944.
Lynch suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of the discovery of his betrayal, and admitted fully to his part in smuggling the messages. Dr Hayes had been suspicious of Lynch, but since he had no proof, and due to his status as a civilian seconded to military intelligence, he was unable to do anything about it. Despite the setback Hayes was confident that he had come up with a novel way to figure out Görtz’s keyword. He would have to act quickly; time was running out.
Hayes continued visiting Görtz in his cell, where the men chatted in a friendly nature, maintaining their good working relationship. On one visit Hayes noticed that Görtz was carrying a considerable bunch of papers with him in his trousers. Görtz was permitted to have papers in his cell which he used to pass the time by writing. During his incarceration he translated into German several stories by W.B. Yeats and wrote drafts of a play. He also kept a diary of his observations and experiences in prison.
Hayes knew that the papers most likely contained a clue to the keyword, but he would have to figure out some way of seeing them without Görtz finding out. He searched Görtz’s cell regularly when he was out on exercise, but he never found anything that was of any use to breaking the code. Such was the importance of the papers that Görtz had been taking them with him to the exercise yard. Although Hayes could have confiscated the papers from Görtz, he didn’t want to spoil the relationship he had built with the spy, as he was mindful that such a relationship could be useful at a later stage. Hayes would have to find another way. During one of his many conversations with Görtz an opportunity presented itself that Hayes knew he could take advantage of.
Görtz had complained to Hayes about a pain he was suffering from. It stemmed from trouble with a duodenal ulcer, which he had been treated for by a doctor in Blackrock while on the run. However the pain had returned, and Görtz was suffering considerable discomfort from his complaint. Hayes reassured Görtz that he would get him seen by a doctor, and made arrangements with the prison doctor for him to be examined. Görtz was delighted that such attention was being paid to his health, and gladly obliged. The doctor who examined Görtz told him he would need x-rays, and Hayes planned to follow Görtz to the hospital and go through his clothes to find the papers while this was done.
The next day Görtz was transferred under armed guard to St Bricin’s Military Hospital in Arbour Hill. Hayes travelled there in advance and hid in the doctor’s private room downstairs so that Görtz wouldn’t see him. Görtz was taken upstairs to a waiting room, where he changed into a dressing gown. Hayes crept into the room when Görtz went for the x-ray, planning to copy the documents and replace them while Görtz was being seen by the doctor. But to his dismay Hayes couldn’t find them. Then he realised that Görtz must have forgotten to take the papers when he changed into a different suit to come for his x-ray. Hayes rushed to his cell and to his relief found the papers in Görtz’s other clothes.
Hayes hurried to the GPO on O’Connell Street, where there was machinery for copying documents. The process was slow and arduous, involving first making a negative from which a print could then be made. Hayes had 15 pages of documents to copy, and time was running out before Görtz would be back from his X-ray. In haste Hayes arranged with the doctor to stall Görtz until Hayes gave him the signal that he could be safely let back into the waiting room. However the process had taken much longer than expected. The telephone rang in the GPO and Hayes answered it.
On the other end was the doctor in the hospital, who advised Hayes that Görtz had been X-rayed in every position known to medical science, and that in some positions he had been X-rayed twice. He told Hayes that Görtz was blue with the cold, and asked that he hurry back before his patient became suspicious as to the delay. Hayes told the doctor to delay Görtz for another 10 minutes and the doctor obliged. Hayes then ran to Görtz’s cell to place the papers back in the trousers, then took the copies to his desk in McKee Barracks to see if they could yield any clues to Görtz’s keyword.
Amazingly Görtz returned to his cell totally unaware that anything out of the ordinary had happened. Hayes and Commandant de Buitléar studied the papers, and while they couldn’t find any clues as to the keyword they did find a complete plan drafted by Görtz about how he intended to escape from Arbour Hill. Hayes was shocked at Görtz’s ingenious plan, which would likely have succeeded were it not for his intervention. Arbour Hill prison was a two-storey building, and Görtz was being held in a store room with barred windows on the first floor, as opposed to a conventional cell. Immediately above Görtz was an attic, and the ceiling between them was made of plaster.
Görtz had conceived the idea of breaking through the ceiling and moving a few slates before climbing out the roof and sliding down to the parapet on the end of the roof. This was a distance of about three feet, and the parapet was also roughly three feet high, which could conceal him from any of the outdoor sentries posted around the prison. Görtz then planned to crawl behind the parapet right round the prison and jump into a field at the back, where he hoped to be picked up by an IRA contact.
He would then make his way to Laragh to find Iseult Stuart. He had arranged for a signal to be left to indicate if it was safe for him to enter the house at Laragh. Iseult would walk to a clearing in the wood and drop a red handkerchief to indicate to Görtz that the coast was clear and that he could enter the house safely. If Gardaí were in the house someone would drop a white handkerchief instead, and Görtz would wait in the clearing in the woods until the time was right.
Thanks to Hayes’s quick thinking the prison authorities were now aware of Görtz’s plan, and put in place a series of measures to thwart it. The day after his plan had been discovered by Hayes the commandant of the prison called Görtz to his office. He explained to him that he was embarrassed by the state of the room in which he was imprisoned, and that he would like to repair it. He offered to repaint it, which he said would take about two to three days, and asked Görtz if he would mind going to an ordinary cell adjacent to other prisoners’ cells while the repairs were being carried out. Görtz was delighted with the attention that was being paid to him and agreed to move temporarily, thanking the commandant warmly. After Görtz was transferred to the first-floor cells his room was repainted and the upper side of the plaster on the roof was reinforced with sheets of galvanised iron laid across the length of the ceiling. These were fixed to laths with two-inch screws. Görtz was then brought back down to his cell, and nothing out of the ordinary happened for about a week.
One morning the military police came in with Görtz’s breakfast only to find him blushing and sitting on his bed with white plaster on the ground beside him. One of the military policemen fetched a brush and pan to sweep up the plaster while Görtz ate his breakfast. Nothing was said of the incident by either Görtz or the policemen. He had clearly broken through the ceiling during the night only to be greeted by the sight of the galvanised iron, and so had abandoned his escape attempt.
The incident left Görtz feeling paranoid and suspicious as to how his escape had been thwarted. Desperate to escape, he made a last-ditch attempt to gain his freedom, heating a poker to burn the wood around the lock of his cell door, but he fainted when the smoke overcame him. Hayes decided to keep an eye on Görtz in case he made another escape attempt, and to see if he could ascertain any more clues to his keyword. In June 1943 luck was on his side.
De Buitléar noticed that Görtz had burnt something in the grate of the fireplace in his cell. Thinking that they might be of use he gathered the remnants of the message and brought them to Hayes to see if he could find out what information the message contained. Hayes took the burnt fragments to the Garda technical bureau in Kilmainham for examination, and while he was examining the fragments someone banged a door shut and a gust of wind blew the fragments away.
Incensed by the carelessness of the staff, Hayes gathered the fragments and brought them to Trinity College. Hayes had a friend on the chemistry faculty whose discretion and expertise he felt he could rely on, and together they decided to chemically treat the particles using a specific method. Hayes, who had an amateur interest in chemistry, suggested they procure a bottle of blue-black Swan fountain pen ink, which they used to determine the iron content in the fragments. The fragments were then placed on glass plates, and Hayes used an eyedropper to apply a potassium ferrocyanide solution onto them, pouring off any surplus solution after fully immersing the fragments. The chemist then added a few drops of hydrochloric acid, and as a result the fragments turned a bright shade of blue.
They were now much easier to read. Hayes rearranged them on the glass plates in the correct order, and began to read the message contained within. While some of the particles were missing, the burnt fragments allowed Hayes to piece together Görtz’s keyword. The burnt cipher message contained 126 letters, and after much study and testing of various possibilities using frequency analysis, Hayes deduced that the keyword was CATHLEEN NI HOULIHAN. This allowed Hayes to write out the message in plain English: ‘Ask –EGP-X whether prepared to put money at disposal immediately after success the more chances X IRA must not know of it X discreet X. Way up to you XX.’
Hayes also reconstructed Görtz’s other keywords, which were: ELLEN WIEBKE, ROLF UTE, GERTRUDE MATHIESSEN, DEPARTMENTS OF STATE and AMATEUR THEATRICALS. Hayes continued working on the messages and once he had deciphered them he came to a conclusion that filled him with dread. Someone outside of the prison knew the code word, and Görtz had been successfully getting messages out to them. The message referred to somebody named Andrews, who could have replied to Görtz through a carefully worded insertion in the Irish Times.
Hayes immediately informed Commandant de Buitléar of his discovery and the details of how he had broken the Görtz cipher, insisting they immediately inform Dan Bryan, but de Buitléar, acting as his superior officer, overruled him, saying that Bryan would ‘only run hotfoot to the British with it’. De Buitléar clearly held a very different viewpoint than Hayes and Bryan, who felt that it was of paramount importance to inform the British of the breaking of the code, despite the likelihood that there would be scant reward in return for their information. They believed that the security of the Irish state would be better served by keeping the British informed of any developments that G2 made in the field of cryptanalysis. But because Hayes was a civilian he was overruled by de Buitléar, and it would be more than a year before Bryan learned that the code had been broken.
During the course of the war relations between Bryan and de Buitléar were often strained. Not only did the men hold opposing views in relation to sharing information with the British, they disagreed to the extent that Bryan viewed de Buitléar as unsuitable for intelligence work given his nationalistic views.
When Bryan eventually discovered that the code had been broken and he hadn’t been informed for over a year he was apoplectic with rage, and he remonstrated with Hayes over this tardiness. Hayes understood Bryan’s anger, and explained to him that he hadn’t been able to inform him as he had been overruled by de Buitléar. In any case de Buitléar’s apprehension was correct, as Bryan passed on knowledge of the breaking of the Görtz code to the British, receiving very little in return for his efforts. At all times Bryan’s focus was on protecting Irish security interests; he was never concerned with being classed as pro-British. He saw his role as to get on with his British counterpart as best he could in line with government policy. By contrast Bryan considered de Buitléar, who had perfected his German in pre-war Berlin, to be ‘anti-British to the point of irrationality’, while de Buitléar held the complete opposite view regarding Bryan.
The disagreement was unfortunate, as both men were loyal officers and great servants to Ireland during the war who unfortunately had different ways of looking at things. Indeed such a clash of personalities was common in intelligence agencies at that time. There were similar disagreements within MI5 and MI6, as well as within the Abwehr and the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. Despite his actions de Buitléar was never censured, even though as an act of disloyalty it merited such a sanction. His reprieve was likely down to Bryan’s admiration for his work as an interpreter and fluent speaker of German, thus making him a valuable asset to the army.
The breaking of the Görtz cipher was one of the greatest achievements during the war of both G2 and MI5, as the cipher was the most sophisticated one used by German agents in Ireland, and was clearly reserved for very special purposes by the Abwehr. Despite the fact that the code was in existence since early 1940, Görtz was the only German agent who had been entrusted to use it for the purposes of espionage.
Indeed such was the esteem in which it was held due to its intricacy and difficulty to break that it was later described by staff at Bletchley Park as ‘one of the best three or four codes used in the war’. Hayes compiled a complete breakdown of the code cipher, which he noted for its similarities to a cipher the IRA had received from Soviet Russia in the 1920s. He observed that
[t]he Görtz Cipher was the best in our experience used by the Germans during the war. It was evidently used for very special purposes because although the Germans knew of it in 1940 no agent except Görtz was trained in its use and other agents were sent out with third class ciphers when this one was available. The Görtz cipher required no book or equipment. The whole system with the keywords could be memorised. A keyword is written into a twenty-five letter square. This forms a basis for turning the clear text into numbers of two digits. The set of numbers are then transposed on the basis of the original keyword. The transposed vertical columns of figures are then substituted into letters by the original square to give the cipher text.
Hayes’s success was to be short-lived, however, as Görtz’s messages while in prison were prolific and the damage they may have caused was incalculable. There also remained the issue of someone outside the jail knowing the keyword, thus being able to use the code themselves. Hayes, knowing that he and G2 would have to intercept all of the messages in order to avoid them being used, concocted a ruse where G2 would intercept Görtz’s messages to the outside, leading him to believe they had successfully reached Berlin. In reality the messages were only getting as far as Hayes, who would reply to Görtz pretending he was the German High Command. In one message Hayes asked for Görtz to give a complete account of his mission in Ireland to date. Convinced he was talking to Berlin, Görtz replied by compiling an 80-page coded report listing all his activities and contacts since his arrival in Ballivor the previous year. G2 even went as far as employing a handwriting expert to mimic Eduard Hempel’s handwriting, such was the level of their deception. In order to win Görtz’s confidence and perhaps in many ways to poke fun at him, G2 fictitiously promoted Görtz to the rank of Major in one exchange. Görtz was delighted at his promotion, believing that it was in recognition for his exemplary work as an agent in Ireland. In reality the Irish authorities were building up his confidence in case they needed to rely on him for help at some stage in the future.
In Berlin the OKW requested updates on Görtz’s condition in prison. The German authorities wished him to know that his wife and children were well, and that if he so wished he could send a message to his wife or mother through the Red Cross. They eventually forwarded a message to him from his wife requesting that he let her know that he was all right. Görtz’s mother, who had contacted Hempel in the legation in a state of distress asking for any information on her son, also wished to hear from him, and would not accept any assurances about his wellbeing unless it came in the form of a handwritten letter from Görtz himself.
Hempel placated her by informing Frau Görtz that her son had kept his rank despite his capture, that he was being well looked after by the Irish authorities and that he was enjoying the comfort of his own quarters, entertainment and company. Hempel was concerned at the prospect of Görtz using the Red Cross to send letters to Germany, fearing that the letters could be intercepted by the British authorities, who were aware of him from his previous spell in prison there. In the end his fear was unnecessary, as Görtz showed no interest in communicating through the Red Cross. Görtz was concerned about his family, however, as Lübeck was the first German city to be attacked in substantial numbers by the RAF.
The attack on the night of 28 March 1942 created a firestorm that engulfed the historic city centre, with bombs destroying three of the main churches and large parts of the built-up area. It led to the retaliatory ‘Baedeker’ raids on historic British cities, such as York, Bath and Canterbury. Although a port, and home to several shipyards, including the Lübecker Flender-Werke, Lübeck was mainly a cultural centre, and only lightly defended. The bombing on 28 March 1942 was the first major success for the RAF against a German city, and followed the Area Bombing Directive issued to the RAF on 14 February 1942 which authorised the targeting of civilian areas.
Despite receiving assurances that his family were safe, Görtz worried incessantly about them, and blamed himself for the failure of his mission. He fell into a spiral of depression which would characterise much of the rest of his stay in Ireland. Hempel grew concerned about Görtz’s mental health, and made contact with Berlin to see if they would make some sort of acknowledgement of Görtz’s efforts in order to raise his spirits. The German High Command responded by awarding Görtz the Order of the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class. Tributh and Gärtner also received the awards, which were given in recognition of their conduct in very difficult circumstances. Hempel was instructed to pass on his congratulations from the High Command to Görtz when informing him of his honour. Hempel gave the information to the Irish authorities, who instead of informing Görtz held the information back for two years, till a time when they felt it would be more useful to tell him in order to make him more cooperative in other matters.
Despite the fact that he was behind bars, Görtz was causing huge difficulty in the Irish political scene. Senator Desmond Fitzgerald, father of future Taoiseach Garret Fitzgerald and a veteran of the Rising, addressed the ‘Görtz case’ during his campaign for re-election:
I hope we did something about the parachutist who came here with an invasion plan. As far as I can tell, this was a case where a foreign government sent a man to establish contact with criminal elements to work at overthrowing the present government. Does neutrality mean we don’t do anything about things like this? The fact that a man of foreign country, sent here by a plane of theirs, was left with an invasion plan has been used as a reason for jailing people who belong to an organisation which is responsible for many murders. I want to know more, though. Which steps did we undertake against that foreign government? We have protested against American troops in Northern Ireland but not against the bombing of Belfast.
Hempel was furious when he heard Fitzgerald’s speech, voicing his displeasure to the Irish authorities.
Escape of course was always foremost in Görtz’s mind, and as well as using his code he tried in various ways to contact his supporters on the outside. He was paranoid that the Irish would hand him over to the British and feared that if this were to come to pass he would face execution. He even went as far as throwing messages out of his cell window to passers-by, encouraging them to get in contact with the Farrell sisters, who he hoped could furnish him with the means for escape. In one message he asked for a glass cutter, wire cutter, hacksaw blade and cash to be left in a Dublin café for him.
The Farrell sisters were to put a message in the obituary section in the Irish Independent that would allow Görtz to know that they had received his message. Görtz continued to try this method of sending messages several times, often requesting that receipt of messages be acknowledged through advertisements in prominent newspapers.
And while G2 were able to keep abreast of Görtz’s messages, they were still perplexed about the individual referred to as Andrews in some of the messages. They suspected this person was operating as an agent in Ireland using Görtz’s code. In 1943 MI5 contacted G2 to confirm their worst fears.
In February 1943, cryptographers at Bletchley Park decoded a message for the SD (the Sicherheitsdienst, intelligence branch of the SS) and the Nazi Party in Lisbon. It confirmed receipt of a message from an Irish crew member named Christopher Eastwood, who was travelling on board a ship called the SS Edenvale. MI6 reported to their colleagues in MI5 that they had intercepted a message from a Portuguese worker named ‘Tomas’, who was supposed to take the message to the Abwehr but had instead taken it to MI6. Tomas, it turned out, was a double agent for MI6 who took messages to them before delivering them to the Germans.
Through this connection the mystery of who had been using Görtz’s code was solved. The name ‘Andrews’ referred to an Irishman named Joseph Andrews – the same Joseph Andrews with whom Görtz had become acquainted during his time on the run in Ireland, and who had informed on him while staying in Clontarf, where he was eventually apprehended along with IRA leader Pearse Paul Kelly. Andrews, a tall, fair-haired man with piercing blue eyes (who was described by MI5 as an opportunist), lived at 95 Seafield in Clontarf at the time that Görtz was in Ireland. He first became associated with Görtz and his radio operator, Anthony Deery, in September 1941, when Görtz was finding securing shelter in Dublin difficult. Deery had stayed in the house of a friend of Andrews, who introduced them both and eventually arranged for him to meet Görtz.
Andrews quickly won Görtz’s confidence despite the fact that others were suspicious of Andrews’s motives. He introduced Görtz to his wife, who MI5 described as ‘more unscrupulous and able than her husband’. The security service also noted about Andrews that ‘he does not appear to have any visible means of support and has been trying to obtain a job. Both he and Mrs. Andrews have for a number of years lived a rather high life and will probably undertake any activity in order to gain money.’
Andrews’s unscrupulous nature was clear. He had been employed by B.J. Fitzpatrick and Co. Wholesale Jewellers at 6 Grafton Street, and prior to this had worked for the Irish Hospitals Trust, but had been fired for dishonesty. He had been in charge of all monies of the foreign department for the purposes of purchasing sweep tickets abroad, and mismanagement of this fund led to his dismissal. Andrews had also worked with a number of women in the hospital trust who had dealings with Görtz, and it was through this connection that he first became aware of Görtz’s presence in Ireland. He eventually became a driver for Görtz, and obtained his trust to the extent that Görtz authorised him to use his code in the event that he ever got captured.
Andrews’s wife Norah, whose maiden name was O’Sullivan, had become quite taken by Görtz, and the two shared a close relationship to the extent that she also gained access to Görtz’s code. Andrews had visited the United States prior to the outbreak of the war, where he had become acquainted with members of Clan na Gael, an Irish republican organisation in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The group served as a successor to the Fenian Brotherhood and a sister organisation to the Irish Republican Brotherhood.
During his time in the United States Andrews had met with Joseph McGarrity, an IRA member originally from Carrickmore, Co. Tyrone, who had emigrated to Philadelphia in 1892 at the age of 18. McGarrity was a vehement opponent of de Valera and supporter of the S-Plan and subsequent IRA bombing campaign in England during the war. He had allegedly travelled to Berlin in 1939 prior to the outbreak of the war, and was said to have met with Luftwaffe Commander Hermann Göring in an effort to seek arms and ammunition in support of the IRA. He and Jim O’Donovan crossed paths with each other in Germany briefly.
Such was McGarrity’s influence in republicanism that the IRA signed all its statements ‘J.J. McGarrity’ up until 1969, when the organisation split into the ‘Official’ and ‘Provisional’ movements. Thereafter the term continued to be used by the Officials, while the Provisional IRA adopted the moniker ‘P. O’Neill’. Shortly after his trip to the States it was believed that Andrews himself had visited Berlin, although this couldn’t be proven conclusively by either the Irish or the British authorities. MI5 had reason to believe that the German Legation in Dublin had made enquiries into Andrews’s reputation and character, with a view to employing him as early as March 1939. They had done so through both official and unofficial channels.
Andrews had also made several visits to the UK, the last in 1940, when he was granted an exit permit to return to Ireland in May of that year. Ever the opportunist, Andrews had travelled to the UK to sell to the authorities there the names of IRA members in the United States, defrauding the US treasury through the Hospital Sweepstakes. This was not followed up by authorities, however, and he successfully sold the names to the US Consul in Dublin, who imposed heavy fines on those involved. Andrews had been involved in trying to establish an alternative channel with Germany but Görtz had been arrested before the system could be set up properly.
Andrews also held strong anti-Semitic views, and was a card-carrying member of both the People’s National Party and Córas na Poblachta, which both espoused extreme anti-Semitic views. His reputation as an opportunist was one that was confirmed by many of those who came into contact with him. In an internal memo, Dan Bryan described him as ‘an astute and plausible rogue without any fixed convictions and mainly actuated by a desire to obtain money rapidly without due regard as to the honesty of the methods used to secure his ends’. Indeed such was the subterfuge he was involved in that once he obtained the Görtz code he took it to the American Legation seeking money in return.
MI5 were able to keep a close eye on Andrews, as one of his associates, a man named Thomas Joseph Maginn of Church Avenue, Drumcondra, worked as an informant for the Ministry of Defence. Andrews had been arrested in November 1941 and interned in the Curragh due to his connection to one of Görtz’s lovers, Maisie O’Mahony. Andrews readily admitted he was working for the Germans, and that he knew Hermann Görtz. He agreed to give information that would lead to the arrest of Görtz, although the authorities were unaware that he had knowledge of Görtz’s code.
As a result of his information he was to receive immunity from trial. After he was released Andrews approached a member of the German Legation for material on a lecture he was giving on Germany, and using his wife as a courier sent the official coded messages. When this proved to be of no use to him he began using the route through Christopher Eastwood on the SS Edenvale.
The Lisbon route had its difficulties, owing to the fact that the sea route from Dublin to Lisbon was limited to once a month, and on certain occasions the ship didn’t call at Lisbon at all. Therefore the messages were often subject to delay. Also, Eastwood himself, much like Andrews, was not a very reliable character. He eventually lost his job on board the ship when he arrived for work one day late and heavily intoxicated. Only for the fact that his workmates insisted he be given a second chance was he able to resume his duties on board the ship.
His dismissal would have scuppered Andrews’s communication link. When Andrews’s messages did arrive in Germany the Abwehr had considerable difficulty reading them, as they didn’t have the keyword. Andrews’s messages were boastful in their nature. He claimed that he was a member of Görtz’s personal organisation, which in itself was independent of the IRA. He asked that he be picked up by U-boat and taken to Germany, or that another agent be sent to Ireland, along with a new radio and money to be given to him upon arrival.
He also claimed that Gen. Eoin O’Duffy was ‘willing to co-operate in active work, especially in occupied Ireland’, and that ‘General Hugo Mc Neill was sympathetic to the German cause’. Andrews had also seemingly sent the Germans landing instructions for Dublin. The series of coded messages read, ‘From Lambay Island go in the direction of mainland, south of Island and go on to the headland coast about 400 metres south of the asylum buildings between water tower and round tower. Land on beach one hundred metres from tower on the northern tip. Avoid one rock obstruction.’
Meanwhile von Ribbentrop at the German Foreign Ministry dismissed his suggestions as impractical and any help from O’Duffy as mythical in nature and to be discounted, reasoning that if such help existed it would be impossible to transport. Despite the Abwehr’s lack of interest, the British security service were faced with a problem. They had successfully intercepted Andrews’s messages but were unable to read them and break this particular kind of hand cipher – the same cipher that had baffled staff working on ISOS ciphers at Hut 9 in Bletchley Park.
Alan Turing had broken the Enigma and Lorenz codes in Hut 8 during the course of hostilities, but this particular hand cipher proved to be a conundrum beyond the capabilities of the huge staff working at Bletchley. When Dan Bryan shared information with the British they turned to Richard Hayes for help in unscrambling the messages. The British had discovered the Görtz keyword, but they needed Hayes’s help in deciphering the text of the messages. Bryan invited the Liddell brothers to Dublin, where they met with Richard Hayes, who explained the workings of the Görtz cipher to them. Guy Liddell was hugely impressed by Dr Hayes and the fact that he had managed to break the Görtz cipher single-handedly while an entire hut at Bletchley Park had difficulty with the same task. To Liddell, Hayes was a one-man army who he later described as having ‘gifts in this direction that amounted almost to genius’.
The British were concerned about the messages, as they didn’t want to reveal the secrets of their ISOS intercept system, which was how they initially became aware of the keyword. With Hayes’s help Liddell was able to read the plain text of Andrews’s messages without compromising the ISOS programme. Bryan allowed the messages to run on, letting the British read them without telling them what they might reveal or what Irish nationalists would be compromised. Indeed suspicions about Gen. Hugo MacNeill and his contacts with Görtz were later confirmed through this channel.
Once MI5 gleaned sufficient information from Andrews’s messages he was no longer of use to them or G2. He was subsequently arrested in August 1943 and held until hostilities ceased in May 1945. Christopher Eastwood was also detained. Gardaí raided Andrews’s house in Clontarf and copies of his messages were found, along with burnt fragments of paper in the grate of his fireplace. These were brought to Kilmainham Garda Station, where the Garda Technical Bureau mounted them on glass plates and sprayed them with chemicals to reveal their messages.
In August 1943 Görtz was transferred to Athlone to be housed with the rest of the German agents. He was furious at the move, and demanded he be allowed to speak to a solicitor. He was angered also because his possessions had been seized in order for the transfer to be made. He was particularly upset about his books and papers being taken, and he demanded that the authorities treat him like an officer instead of a common criminal. Hempel, on the other hand, was relieved at Görtz’s transfer, believing it would allow the furore around him to settle down.
The OKW only learned of Görtz’s transfer in late 1943. Before leaving Dublin Görtz was able to pass a secret message to them protesting his transferral on the grounds that it conflicted with ‘his internationally guaranteed rights as an officer of a country at war’. Such was Görtz’s anger that he threatened to go on hunger strike in order to see the matter rectified. Hempel was angered at such a proposal, and confided in Berlin that if ‘Görtz wished to choose this method of dying for his country it did not matter when he expired’.
In any case Hempel felt that Görtz’s suggestion of such a drastic course of action was proof of his fragile mental state. He toyed with the idea of visiting Görtz to try and lift his spirits, but in the end he decided against it. Hempel was determined to have no other contact with Görtz for the remainder of the war, and was quietly glad that all the publicity the case had brought ended once Görtz was successfully transferred to Athlone. However, as many had come to learn, the future could never be easily predicted when dealing with Hermann Görtz.