Читать книгу Secrets of German Espionage - Bernard Newman - Страница 5

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Espionage is a dirty business. Colonel Nicolai, head of the German Intelligence Service during the war of 1914-18, used to declare, “spying is a gentleman’s job.” He was correct in so far as it generally demands extreme patriotic devotion from the men and women who undertake it. But not even the sacred cause of patriotism can disguise the fact that espionage is a profession without law or scruples. A spy with scruples could scarcely expect to produce startling results.

Maybe Colonel Nicolai’s dictum was accurate a generation ago, when spying was at least a straightforward business. Then Germany sent agents into France seeking information about French defences: at the same time, of course, France sent equivalent agents into Germany. To-day activity has developed far beyond these limits. A spy is not a mere seeker of information: he is a saboteur and—perhaps more dangerous—an agent provocateur whose business it is to stir up strife between peoples. Quite recently I came upon the track of a German agent operating in Corsica. His task was not to gain information about the defences of Corsica—he was endeavouring to rouse the Italians in Corsica against the French—to cause bad blood between France and Italy, a feeling which might ultimately react to the benefit of Germany by plunging these two neighbours into war.

I can recall dozens of espionage episodes within my own knowledge which could scarcely be classed as pretty. Yet the dirtiest of them all dates from the first days of the present war. Germany, as we shall see, has been well served by her minority in Poland—men and women who could, of course, go freely throughout the whole of the land. In the first week of the war a clerk came into a post office near the Ministry of War at Warsaw and handed in an enormous sheaf of telegrams. They were all written on the correct form, and the telegraph clerk, after a startled glance, gave them priority over the rest. A few hours later yet another bundle of telegrams was handed in; then another, till some thousands had been dispatched. Except for the name and address the telegrams were almost identical—they carried a message which is all too familiar in the stricken Europe of to-day, to the effect that a son or a husband had been killed in action.

Not until several thousands of these telegrams had been dispatched was it discovered that the clerk who delivered them was not sent from the Ministry of War, but was a German agent. The sons and husbands named had not been killed at all—this was a German device to attempt to lower the morale of the Polish population. Imagine the anguish in thousands of hearts as those telegrams were received! I wonder, would Colonel Nicolai class such work as a gentleman’s job?