Trojan Horse: 1940 Model

SCANDINAVIA

PARIS, May 1.—Scandinavia was facilely written down as ‘democratic.’ But Nazi parties were active. The case of the Altmark was an eye opener. The disastrous loss of the Scandinavian countries represented a triumph for Reich spying. Denmark was described as ‘honeycombed with spies.’ Not surprising if one bears in mind that there was a 30,000 all-Nazi minority in South Jutland: Versailles’s bequest. Danes were urged not to speak a word to a foreigner about anything to do with any ship — really the one possible safeguard. Sweden came in for the special attention of Göring, whose first marriage gave him important ties there. Not much of official Swedish reactions or intentions can escape the Marshal. Sweden also is overrun with Soviet spies, as raids throughout the country revealed.

Norway was host to spies who were found mainly along her vast coast line. Typical of these was the German consul who flashed coded radio bulletins until arrested.

May 12. — The most interesting manifestation of the Trojan-horse activities in Norway is the recipe for the conspiracy which dates back to 1936, when Major Quisling as war minister employed that post, which he had acquired for the express purpose, to seduce first the navy, then the army, then police officers and civil servants. He thus formed the tiny indispensable nucleus for Norway’s fifth column.

While the Nazi youth movement in Norway was originally launched as a decoy, key men were gradually recruited from Norwegian public servants, the law, the church, journalism, and business. Politicians were avoided. Few adventurers were taken, only solid stuff being chosen. The best recruits were the most unlikely people, such as Bishop Berggrave, who sapped indirectly. Another was Editor Rishovd, who conducted the Free Nation and is now Oslo press chief for Goebbels. It must be stressed that, if much corruption and base treachery did steal in, there was also genuine conviction of considerable depth.

Norway’s second phase developed in 1938 with the steady infiltration of Nazi agents camouflaged as diplomatic attachés, newspaper men, salesmen, merchants, agents, lecturers, refugees, or idling expatriates. These people had to be social successes as well as up to their professional jobs. Some, like Major Spendler, who was attached to King Haakon’s entourage, had to be absolute charmers. This Trojan-horse infiltration joined with the native fifth-column plotters under the auspices of the German legation. The chief characteristic of the workers was the literally marvelous secrecy among the hundreds, finally the thousands, sharing in the common conspiracy. Death was promised for chatterers in the German element, which was for the most part made up of habitually austere non-drinkers, though some were ‘cast’ as ‘good fellows.’ These two elements planned how the paralyzing machinery should operate when the day arrived. Berlin was directing constantly from the background.

The penultimate stage was reached six weeks before the actual seizure, when Norway was flooded with German tourists, mostly young, and all radiating good will. When at last the Norwegians smelled a rat, arresting and expelling a few of these visitors, the German legation promptly accredited such tourists by the hundreds, and the Norwegians at this point were too frightened to interfere with the further unaccredited hundreds. In the final stages the only slip-up was the sinking of the Bluecher, which enabled the King and the government to escape. Except for that, the wonderfully timed operation was flawless and the Nazi vanguard walked joyously in, protected by the glaring menace of German airplanes.

THE NETHERLANDS

PARIS,May 1. — Light was cast on the spy scene in Holland prior to the invasion when Dutch army officers and secret members of the Dutch Nazi party were caught with plans of the national defense which they were about to transfer to Germany. There were 20,000 German Nazis in Holland. What quantity of military and police uniforms was smuggled over to Germany, so that a host of Germans might appear in the Dutch countryside dressed as Dutch officers or police and giving orders calculated to aid the Germans in overrunning the country, may never be known.

That pro-Nazi spying in high places existed in Holland became apparent with the arrest of two leading government officials — van Hoeven of the Ministry of Social Affairs, and Bufe of the Ministry of Economics. The charge was that they had supplied information of the movements and cargoes of Dutch and foreign ships sailing from Holland, with the result of many sinkings. An incriminating list of twenty varyingly prominent Dutch names was found at van Hoeven’s house.

May 12. — Holland was unable to execute a serious spy purge before war engulfed her. The fifth column had been suffered to grow too big and too influential. Such a purge would have spread very high and very wide. The Communist element in Holland was much stronger than in Norway. The Dutch Nazi leader Mussert is a bigger character altogether than Quisling. In the last weeks and days before the invasion, martial law alternated with roundups of spies, but in reality those held by the police were the merest sprinkling. While it will never be possible to give exact numbers of the members of this fifth column, it can be said that at least 20,000 Dutch Nazis and an equal number of Germans were involved.

This column’s job during the last days was to drive the nation jittery with rumors and speculation, and to spread by whispering campaign the theory that the Allies were on the point of violating Dutch neutrality. Mussert was allowed to remain at liberty on the plea that every citizen had the right to talk or write as he chose. The Dutch fifth column was not even mildly incommoded when the German blow fell.

May 21.—It is now proved beyond doubt that the fall of Holland was due to the country’s being riddled from one end to another by German fifth columnists. Foreign Minister van Kleffens says that two days before the German invasion of the Netherlands a leading Amsterdam banker was found to be in possession of the complete plans drawn by the Dutch Government to inundate the country. It now appears that the controlling mind in the Hitler campaign for the fifthcolumn sapping of Holland was an inconspicuous attaché of the German legation, one Dr. Dutting.

Now it is glaringly clear why Hitler shifted the population of so many German communities in countries adjacent to Germany, replacing former residents by a radically new type. He supplanted the former members of German colonics in such strategic countries with ‘residents’ carefully picked and trained for the purpose of making efficient contact with descending parachutists. These virtually amounted to military organizations established to operate in countries on the German list of conquest and absorption.

In accordance with this plan, Jugoslavia has been resettled to the tune of scores of thousands. Infinite anxiety is felt as a consequence of this.

May 22. — Germanic women now known to have been operating in Holland were drawn from the following categories: —

1. Wives, daughters, and nieces of German residents. The word ‘niece’ was used extremely elastically.

2. German women who were married to Dutchmen but retained all their ardor for their birthland and usually converted their Dutch husbands.

3. Single women of the intellectual student type, as companions, in business, in hotels, in orchestras, or as cabaret performers.

4. Maidservants and chambermaids, invariably highly efficient and educated.

These feminine fiflh columnists figured prominently as receptionists to the German parachutists. They signaled the planes carrying parachute troops and guided the parachutists, when they landed, to contact with comrades and to prearranged key points. They provided the sky troops with clothes, shepherded them in many ways, packed them with information.

Good-bye to the archaic Mata Hari type of female spy! Enter the Hitlerian exemplar — the practical, athletic, trained, intelligent, strong-charactered young woman agent utterly devoted to the Füuhrer.

BELGIUM

PARIS,May 1. — Fascist-Nazi bands of spies overrunning the frontiers led to a stern struggle between King Leopold and the Belgian Rexists months before the May drive on the country. The Belgian Nazi party turned its special attention to army officers, one of whom, Lieutenant Dombret, completely revealed the national-defense plan to German agents after having deliberately worked his way from a crack regiment to that section of the general staff dealing with war mobilization.

Extreme Rexists were ready to spy on Belgium if it would hasten the advent of Fascist rule there. Such Rexists did everything to damage and weaken the Allies. The arrests at Charleroi showed Jean Bero at the head of a local band spying on the Franco-British forces massed on the frontier and handing over his reports to the mobile agents from the Reich.

Leopold tried to maintain his policy of neutrality. Yet the native Rexist spies persisted in attempting to involve Belgium. The Fascist-minded native operating in his own country is able to move about with fertile fluidity. Keen and trustworthy, not out for personal gain, incapable of double-crossing, he represents the most dangerous type of agent.

May 12. — Immediately before the Belgian invasion there was less parade of stern measures but much more effective action, even though Degrelle was left free. Several months ago, concentration camps were formed and into them went a steady procession of Rexists, Communists, and German refugees. These concentration camps and their inhabitants were controlled in a novel manner. The Roman Catholic party took responsibility for German Catholic refugees, German Socialists were the affair of the Belgian Socialist party, and Jewish organizations checked and accounted for Austro-German Jews. When war came, Belgium was faced with the problem of 400,000 foreigners, 5 per cent of her population.

SWITZERLAND

The Swiss spyland proves the truth of the German idea that it is foolish to employ doubtful neutrals when you can assure better results free of charge from native citizens bitten by ‘the cause,’ The arrest of Colonel Fonjallez and his son René, Swiss Olympics bobsleigh champion, of a Geneva publicist, de Morsier, and others, demonstrated the workings of the fifth column in Switzerland. The Colonel was the leader of the ‘Frontists’ (Swiss Nazis). He is now in Berne prison.

Information was assembled in France. De Morsier, using his correspondent’s laissez-passer, brought back information to the Colonel. The neighboring Zurich route into and out of the Reich was the least watched. Zurich became a choice listening post, especially for the tales of neutral business men exiting from the Reich.

Spy headquarters were in Berne because, just as in 1914-1918, diplomatic, neutral, and belligerent life meets there. The little hill capital was lavishly sprinkled with agents of all Europe, and the ranks of ‘special attachés’ had never been fuller. A regular visitor was General Nicolai, over from the villa he had rented in Zurich. This ex-chief of German Intelligence, supposed to be at variance with Hitler, made a specialty of keeping in touch with French Communist agitation for a peace which would leave Britain high and dry.

May 12. — General-in-Chief Guisan did not hesitate to arrest where justified. One among others was Dr. Robert Tobler, chief of the National Front (Swiss Nazis). The second spectacular Swiss arrest was Colonel Hans Trueb of the army legal department. German students have been suspended from the Swiss universities. The present probability is that Switzerland is better able than other countries to resist its fifth column because the vast majority of its large German-Italian speaking population are ardently for confederation.

JUGOSLAVIA

May 21. — Efforts against great odds have been made to rid Jugoslavia, principally Belgrade and Zagreb, of the army of Nazi and Fascist tourists who arrived ostensibly from the Belgrade Fair. A large number were reconducted across the frontier, but not before this tourist flood, carrying standard suitcases and other regulation holiday equipment, had executed the most intensive propaganda drive. The Belgrade military command opened a special department through which citizens could lodge information against suspect persons and activities. Great difficulty is attached to conducting a satisfactory fifth-column purge in Jugoslavia, inasmuch as many suspicions involve persons responsible for the maintenance of public order in the country. As an example, every move the young King makes seems to become known, though only the police are aware of his plans. There is an obvious intention to kidnap Peter and later restore him to the throne as a puppet monarch.

RUMANIA

PARIS,May 1. — Rumania is saturated with Nazi ‘attention.’ Throughout the Balkans there are literally thousands of Hitler ‘trade agents,’ ‘attachés,’ and ‘correspondents,’ either whole-time or part-time spies. Belgrade is primarily the preserve of the agent from Moscow.

May 12. — The situation in Jugoslavia as regards the young King is duplicated in Bucharest, where measures have been taken to prevent the kidnaping of Crown Prince Michael. Organized house-tohouse searches resulted in over a thousand expulsions from the country, but many thousands of Germans remain and are known to be armed. Some of these resist police search. The question is whether the police are really taking drastic measures or merely announcing that they are doing so.

THE BALKANS

HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA,May 31 (from London, deferred). — The latest Balkan development is the steady arrival in Bulgaria, by way of Danube steamers, of hundreds of young German workers. These Germans announce themselves as bent on ‘enjoying a rest and taking a holiday.’ The information is that thirty boatloads, each carrying 200 of these innocent holiday makers, are scheduled to arrive in Bulgaria before July.

TURKEY

PARIS,May 12. — Turkey has been most thorough in its efforts against spies. The result is that there is less chance for the Trojan horse to operate in Turkey than almost anywhere else. Istanbul is Turkey’s danger point, and here a broom has swept out the bulk of the Germans. Among the last to go were 160 foreign cabaret artists, including 107 Hungarian show girls.

EGYPT

PARIS,May 12. — The spy story in Egypt takes a different track. At the outbreak of the war last September, all Germans in Egypt were interned. But since then the majority have been released, and at the same time others have been allowed to come into t he country on the plea of their being refugees from the Hitler régime. An infinitely more dangerous fifth-column threat to Egypt than the presence of these Germans is the similar presence of 70,000 Italians organized under Fascist agents and protected by the Italian consuls. In the event of Italy’s joining Hitler, this Fascist multitude has already been assigned its job in Egypt. There is lively fear of sabotage.

FRANCE

PARIS,May 12. — The enormous spy risk in France was inferred when M. Daladier disclosed a questionnaire compiled by the Gestapo and found in a raid on the Soviet Trade Bureau in Paris. The Paris raid disclosed each brand of spy — Nazi, Fascist, Russian — working in the circumstances best calculated for success. M. Daladier pointed out that French ‘liberalism’ and ‘snobbism’ fostered fifth-column work, France having allowed great license to aliens.

Salon talk, valuable in information to a skilled listener and interrogator, was routed through Rome to Berlin. The drive on Aloys Aubin, once city editor of the Temps, showed how firmly Ribbentrop’s star agent, Abetz, had secured a grip on important Paris circles. Headed by Baroness von Einem, brilliant, charming, a linguist, this ring busied itself with pro-Nazi films and publications as well as in discovering and passing on military information. French spy control early became drastic. A dragnet was thrown over the Paris underworld, from which many spies were recruited. Thousands were interned.

The zone of the armies was segregated. No one in the zone could telephone, telegraph, write, or even move about without controlled surveillance. Spies were, of course, known to be in the zone. But, the French reasoned, if they could not get their information or persons across the cordon sanitaire, they were stymied.

Then came the first appearance of that new factor — the parachute spy.

[Here 56 words were cut by French censor.]

May 21.—France has rounded up every male German and every unmarried female German between sixteen and sixty-five in Paris. Premier Reynaud has announced that there will be immediate death for all parachutists who are captured. Hitler threatens that if this order is carried out he will execute reprisals on Allied prisoners of the German armies. He says that the German parachute troops are his ‘security arm.’ The parachutists are proving to be the very last word in efficient intelligence officers.

May 22. — The switch of Clemenceau’s Lieutenant Mandel to Minister of the Interior represents France’s supreme crisis effort to extinguish fifth-column activities in the country. There are countless thousands of foreigners domiciled in the vicinity of Paris alone, and the task of purging is a terrific one. The most serious handicap is the continuance at liberty of vast foreign colonies of ‘ nonbelligerents,’ who are untouchable.

ENGLAND

The possibility that totalitarian-minded Britons might pass information to foreign brother believers in contact with the enemy early led Mr. Chamberlain to tighten the law, with death for the British citizen thus willfully uncovering what he should not.

It was a three-to-one battle and I should have liked to have seen matters reversed. Three pocket-battleships versus the Repulse. My heart goes out to those on the Graf Spee — heroes fighting in the cause, every one of them. If she does get away, oh boy! It will go down as an epic for National Socialism.

This, written by one British Fascist to another, was revealed in the case at Exmouth. The six months’ sentence, as against Hitler’s prompt beheading for a like offense, proclaimed the Government’s inadequacy. If new Lodys are being shot in the Tower, nothing is said about it. Large numbers of secret agents were Communists, with orders from Moscow to stir up trouble in the war factories and to spread the theory that this is an imperialist conflict forced on others by Britain. They obtained information and blueprints from fifthcolumn brothers employed in arms factories or serving with the forces.

The Nazi-Fascists have made a specialty of getting information in higher levels of English opinion. Socially they could circulate where Communists could not. Early in 1940 it was estimated that 60,000 enemy aliens were at large in Britain and under 1000 interned. Four hundred and fifteen were interned in September. The rest have wandered for months through special tribunals. English kindliness, maybe tinged by a desire to make amends for the spy persecution mania directed at Germans and Austrians in the last war, persisted too long in a country fighting for its life. The effect was that many dangerous agents slipped through, one such being identified as he left the very tribunal that had just certified him. Britain also harbored many thousands of friendly refugees, chiefly educated Czechs and Poles who, pitiably poor, were sometimes open to bribery.

May 12. — It is to be hoped that the United States Government is better qualified to tackle the American fifth column than the British Government, in whose House of Commons the Undersecretary for home affairs announced not long ago that ‘ there is no evidence that Mosley is a member of any Nazi organization.’ This immense complacency had had its roots in the cult of ‘poohpoohing’ fifth-column danger and in the official belief that no Britons could possibly be prepared to challenge the established order with any violence. As of this date it is stated that there are 20,000 Germans working in the United Kingdom, many of them in key positions. This, added to a selection of 70,000 enemy aliens at large, plus fervent native English Fascist, Nazi, and Communist ideologists, could provide an extremely powerful fifth column.

It is difficult to measure how much the Mosley appeal, especially to the young, has grown as a result of dissatisfaction with pre-war England and the so far unsatisfactory conduct of this war. Certainly Mosley outweighs the Communists. If, as some think, the Nazi and Communist sympathizers in England are increasingly merging their interests under the Chamberlain Government, much more severe measures are certain, leading to a roundup of pivotal fifth columnists and alien enemies.

May 22. — England’s first serious measure against the fifth column was the recent internment of 3000 male enemy aliens living on the south and east coasts. In these same areas 11,000 foreigners from neutral or friendly countries must now report daily to the police and may not use automobiles or bicycles. They must stay in their houses between eight o’clock in the evening and six in the morning. Minister of War Anthony Eden has called for English recruits to make up a nation-wide militia for patrolling and watching all districts. The main object of this activity is the intercepting of parachutists and their fifth-column associates waiting on the ground to receive them.

The core of this fifth column is composed of English sympathizers with totalitarian Germany and members of the Italo-Russian colonies. Neither group can be molested as things stand now. The Communists are playing a very slight rôle in this organization. There are 20,000 Germans still working in Britain, many in advantageous key positions. A far wider and more drastic cleanup will be necessary before Britain is safe. Over 30,000 Germans between the ages of seventeen and sixty are still at complete liberty in the interior and west portions of England. Large numbers of them have established themselves near to the airdromes, the ports, and other strategic and munitions centres. As one example, 400 German and Austrian maidservants have mysteriously gravitated to households in the vicinity of Aldershot, the centre of England’s military area. Here they are in a position to act as excellent receptionists to parachutists.

Britain’s most serious handicap in dealing with fifth columnists is the fixed British disinclination to interfere with the liberty of any British subject. This situation Churchill may bring to an end by interning British citizens who are Mosleyites. [Here 28 words were cut by censor.]

May 22. — This week England interns 4000 more male enemy aliens in all parts of the country, who have up to now been at large but severely restricted. England also introduces a ‘treachery bill’ carrying death penalty for sabotage, obstructing military efforts, spying, or aiding the enemy from within. Minor roundups of native British Fascists and Communists are under way, but to date the leaders remain at liberty. Several thousand additional women will also be interned. At the moment less than 200 women are interned, but the lightning betrayal of Holland by hosts of women spies has opened British eyes to this specific danger. Perhaps too late. The immediate test question is, will Mosley be interned next?

IRELAND

HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA,May 31 (from London, deferred).—The situation in Eire is complicated and serious. Although all three political parties are now united against treason, Germans in the Dublin Legation and elsewhere have already had a rare chance to plot with the I. R. A.

It is doubtful if the Eire Defense Corps could cope with a parachute invasion of similar proportions to that which took place in Holland. De Valera is entirely capable of putting off an appeal for outside help until too late. He might, of course, ask for French help at any time, but at this date there is no sign of an immediate threatening emergency. It is probable that the Allied navies would seek to occupy the chief I. R. A. ports if collusion between the I. R. A. and the Nazis should lead to an attempted invasion of Eire.