Читать книгу Secrets of German Espionage - Bernard Newman - Страница 26

Considering the patient organization, it is surprising that the mass-production of German spies has achieved so little in the higher phases of espionage. In the lower grades it has been effective, but it can produce few masterstrokes to compare with the brilliant individualist feats of British, French or American Secret Service (U.S.A. entered the World War with practically no Intelligence Service at all, but within two years had improvised one of the most effective in the world).

Certainly the graduates of the German schools have not always done honour to their alma mater. Probably the method of recruiting is the prime cause of failure. A gentleman named Marks was enlisted by a threat of blackmail. He was given a “thorough” instruction (in eight weeks!) and sent off to England. Certainly the role with which he was equipped was ingenious enough in its simplicity. He carried a collection of foreign stamps, and posed as a brainless hobby-rider. In England he was to frequent naval ports: if he posted a letter in Portsmouth to a fellow collector in Holland and enclosed a few duplicates, say three Martinique stamps, two Peruvian, four Chilian and three Columbian, that would indicate that on the date the letter was posted there were three battleships, two battle-cruisers, four light cruisers and three destroyers in Portsmouth harbour.

It was a good scheme, quite likely to escape the notice of the censor. Unfortunately for his persecutors, Marks never posted any letters. Immediately on landing in England his nerve failed, and he promptly gave himself up to the police!

Yet the failure of the spy schools is perhaps comprehensible. They teach the pupil how to face given situations. When a certain situation is encountered, he reacts as he has been taught, and promptly betrays himself to the local counter-espionage officers, who know the curriculum of the school as well as he does. And, of course, there are dozens of situations which no spy schoolmaster can foresee. They cannot be met by methods of the mass mind, but only by individual initiative and brilliant improvisation.

Since German spies form the subject of this book, there may be a tendency to regard their work as an overwhelming menace to the democratic cause. Without underrating the menace of espionage—particularly in the shape of underground subversive action—let me insist again that the German spy system is not supernatural or all-powerful. In another chapter the reader shall learn how the efforts of one of its most famous spy schools were completely defeated—by a little Belgian boy playing marbles!