Nazi Intelligence Operations in Non-Occupied Territories: Espionage Efforts in the United States, Britain, South America and Southern Africa by Christopher Vasey

Author:Christopher Vasey [Vasey, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2016-07-14T04:00:00+00:00

Arthur Owens

Arthur Owens specialized, as the manager of a family-owned business, in the manufacture of battery accumulators. As discussed earlier he was, fortuitously for British intelligence’s purposes, a frequent visitor to Nazi Germany, beginning in 1935, because of business transactions. The British Admiralty had requested that Arthur Owens hold conversations with their representatives and divulge any pertinent information about expeditions to Berlin and other cities and to retrieve, if possible, technical and defense information as demonstrations of his loyalty. During a 1936 foray to Germany, Owens was introduced to a Luftwaffe lieutenant, Nikolaus Ritter, who adopted the pseudonym of Dr. Rantzau and was seconded to Abwehr’s Hamburg station concerned with aviation intelligence.

Operational security measures observed at that time attempted to ensure that Owens should never discover the genuine identity of Rantzau. Ritter treated Owens to a luxurious dinner in Hamburg, no expense spared, and they ended the evening in a succession of attractive local nightspots. The campaign of recruitment had begun. Ritter appealed to Owens’ apparent Welsh nationalist bitterness toward the English as appropriate reasoning for turning as a secret agent for Germany and reneging on prior commitments or sentiments towards his resident government. He outlined fully the lucrative financial reimbursement Owens should anticipate receiving for collaboration with military intelligence. That was a satisfactory incentive for Owens, who resolved to confirm his agreement. In conversations with Ritter during that Hamburg sojourn and on subsequent occasions Owens revealed his own personal reasons for the purpose of authenticating trust, with considerable synergy to Ritter’s own comments regarding his staunch willingness to become a spy. Financial motivations and various other personal experiences were implied as explanations for his treachery.54 His double life as an Abwehr spy began in 1936 after being inducted as an agent. For eight months previously agent Snow had engaged in sporadically passing to the British Naval Intelligence Directorate (NID) information obtained on routine business excursions to Germany’s interior as advised. This mutually favorable and generally unhindered arrangement commenced after Owens was introduced to the deputy director of naval intelligence and during lunch at the Army and Navy Club found himself invited to furnish the Admiralty with any useful fragments of information should the appropriate sources be acquired in Germany.

Seduced by adventurous notions of secret agents and their lifestyle Owens’ first undercover mission occurred in January 1936, when he returned with information of value on coastal motorboats operated by the German navy. Having requested to be classified as a regular agent he was transferred to the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), which evaluated Owens as deserving of further scrutiny for missions abroad. SIS assigned Owens a case officer named Colonel Edward Peal and welcomed the Welshman into the closeted espionage world with minimal reservations or doubts expressed. His business credentials theoretically, from Peel’s perspective, provided a convenient and unobtrusive entrance into sensitive regions on the European mainland. Agent Snow’s next assignment was a discreet journey to Holstein and Kiel, where he clandestinely photographed several Kriegsmarine warships.55 Owens admitted with full disclosure his ongoing relationship with Abwehr officers and Dr.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.