Dossier KV-2-4210 de l'expedient Garbo

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D, 71118 'IVt. 5098' / 4115378 20m 12/1111Jt.O,lf, Op. 9911 (1381)

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© Crown Copyright

The National Archives' reference KV-2-4210_024 .jpg

_p :Uo..jor J.iasterman .

B. l. A.

I set out below a brief outline from August 1944- to ]larch 1945 inclusive the third instalment of your swrmary .

of the activities i n the GARBOcas e which you may wish to incorporate in

1.

It is not surprising that same of the incredible adventures of GARBO of whispers amongst the members of the German should have become the subject decret Jer vice .

GARBO's spy master in Madrid had achieved no smal l degree of fame throueh the succesful enterprises of his protege .

The tricks by which he had contrived to evade detection were being talked about; rtnnours were spreading that he had comtri ved through negotiating in the financial black market to transfer funds to the U. K. , a problem which had proved insurmountable to many a spy master .

That he had concealed a lar g e and important document i n a home ma.de cake and sent it with this camoufla,ee by an innocent seaman to the Peninsula , had become the subject of an Abwehr j ok e .

"Our agent in Eneland is also a cook .

He maYes cakes which are unp leasant to eat in spite of the fact that their contents are excellent ."

Stor ies of this sort were filtering back to us through our counter espionage a.gents abroad.

Peop le who had associated themselves with the Gennan Secret Service were begi nn i ng to show increasing si~s of making preparat ions to change sides and betray their masters .

What better bait could they offer us in exchange for pardon than information about a spy rine; in Enl!land?

Sooner or later we would be botmd to accept information on which we would be expected to effect GARBO's arrest .

Failure to do so would compranise the cover plan and disclose the techn ique which we had used to deceive the enemy .

GARBO's notional arrest would disrupt the case , at least for a long time .

There was one possibility of averting the risk of having to put this unfittini::r end to his work and it is with this problem in hand that we embarked on this new phase of GARBO's career .

that if we could contrive to put GARBOinto 2.

It wo.s decided therefore hi.dine, far removed from the re ach of the British l olice, we would be in a position to accept any information about Gi\R ,0 which might be offered to us by ex-Gennan a,~ents without compromise to the case, as, in the absence of a clue as to ~JIR_70's whereabouts we would be unable to take action against him .

We knew that no one could lead us to the detection of the rest of the organization since the identity bf all the notional agents had always been withheld from the Germans as GARBOhad a lways expressed his view that it would be imprudent to disclose this information even in secret writing .

3.

Having thus prepar ed the ground we invited a certain Roberto BUEHAGA , who had been offerin g to sell us information about a German spy rin g operating in the U. K., to cane forward with his inf'ortnl!tion .

Whilst making our plans to interview BUEl~AGAGA.."RBO ' s notional courier, who is supposed to have influential contacts in Lisbon, learnt that the Brit ish Se cret Service there had made contact with an ex-member of the German Secr et Service v,ho had so far disc l osed the address to which secret information was being sent from the U. K. to the Germans in Lisbon .

1:e quickly realized that he too would be implicated if further information were disclosed and so it was f ar efully timed that he sent a warning The courier ' s warning re ached GARBOjust to GARBOof what was taking p lace . before BUENAGA ' s infcrmation filtered t hr ough to London .

GARBO , very much ai'raid that further d.isclosures would be farthcoming , immediately went into hiding after vrarninrr the Germans by wireless that their agent BUENAGAwas attempting to betra,y him.

GARBOleft the service in the hands of his Deputy , Agent No. 3, with whcm he continued to maintain contact frah nis hideout through another member of the or gan i za tion .

4.

In f act BUENA.GA gave us not only information about GARBO's activities but also his full name and that of his wife .

Thus GARBOwould have had to have been arrested had it not been far the i.mnediate measures he adopted on receipt of the first warning fran the courier .

Through the courier GARBOwas kept infor~d of all the negotiations which took place in Lisbon between the British 3ecret Service and BUENAGA .

He , in turn , passed all the information to the Germans by Yf/T through his Agent No. 3 and by secret letters carr i ed by th e

c ouri er . /

Š Crown Copyright

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courier .

The fact that GiJThO continued t6 write was, in Ger man eyes , conclusive proof that his ingenuity had beaten the British Po li c e, and eventually the Ger ans wnrned BUENAGAto cease c ontact with the Br it ish if he valued his life .

!Ii.

BUEJTAGA , o..fter receiving peymeu t f'rom the British far the information he ~a ve , heeded the Germans ' warning .

To round off the incident a protest i7M 1aa.de by the British :Embassy in J.fadrid to t he :;,'panish I.:inistry of Foreign Affairs demanding the expulsion of GARBO 's spy master in Madrid frcm Spanish territory .

His name had been given to us by BUEl!AGAand it waa made clear in the protest that the British Security authorities were unable to put a stop to certain espionage activities in this country and were therefore desirous of remo vi n~ the source of these activities , the spy master in Spain .

The Spanish Uinis try of li'oreign Affairs replied to say that they ,vould talce the action requested but so far no action has been taken .

6.

In spite of the fact that GARBOhimself was tnus removed f'rom active service the rest of the or gani zation continued to operate as hitherto .

Since l' ARBO maintained contact with his Deputy Chief the Germans continued to write _personal letters to him which were mainly intended to bolster up his morole and lessen the hardship of his isolation .

Instructions to the rest of the organization were also contained in these letters to GARBO .

In addition a regular wireless service continued to operate direct between Agent r.o . 3 and the Germans in Madrid .

7.

Lengthy correspondence was exchanged betvreen GARBOand the Germans as to how he was t o escape .

GARBOgrew· a beard and made all preparations to take over a new identity m.th doC\.Ullentation which should be furnished by the Gernians and brm..ieht from the Pe ninsula here by the courier; alternatively he proposed obtainin g documentation by various complicated r ~uses which he set out in detail .

The present state of these ne.n-otiations is th at the Germans have promised to furnish GARBO with the documents of a Spanish national who had been in France until r ecently .

They have promised to supply the full story of the man ' s history so that G.ARBOcan better adopt his persona l ity .

They ha v e undertal:en to supply him with clothing of continental make and in exchange GARBOhas su11.ilied them with the necessary photographs of hims elf with 11beard fo?" the documentation . ·/hen these promises have been fulfilled , the means of escape f'ram the u. K. having meanwhile been prepared, a meetin oetwe en GA."ll :,O and the Germans in the Peninsula wil l be arran g ed.

8.

During this period there has been little call on the organization to assist the activities on the Front by means of deception .

At SUAEF "s request every effort has been made to keep the GARBOorganization in position to be able to implement deception in France .

It will be recalled that to implenent the OVERLORDdeception it had been necessary to create t wo notional .Armies in order to maintain the threat aeainst the Pas de Calais area .

Thes~ Armies and the formations under them had appeared in captured German documents and there was no doubt that their existen c e was believed in by the German J-Ii.~h C011Dnand. With an active or g anization here these \rm ies could not be lost sight of and it was essential to dispose of them in a reasonably plausible vro:y.

Under SHAEF' s direction the 14th U. S. Arrey was disbanded and the troops · under its Canmand were gradually absorbed into other fonnations overseas .

The 4-th .Arrl\Ywas split up, one Corps coming under the command of the War Office , the other was absorbed into Northern Cormnand.

Thus, over a period of several months these .Armies were vt.ritten off to the entire satisfaction of the German Intelligence Service .

From the persis t ent questionnaires which continued to reach us there is no doubt that the German Intelligence Service had considerably ov erestimated our strength and had been onticipating a new amphibious ope r ation based on our east coast and it has not been without some diff i culty that we at first tried to convince them that this is n6t in fact the case , Prior to the offensi v e 1

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© Crown Copyright

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increa.sin 3 fre quency in order th at a reserve fund of up t o £1 0, 00 0 may be built up for the use of GARBO's organization after he escapes f r om The Germans have novr parted wi th app r oximat ely .£3"Q,OOO for t he U. IC. the maintenance of the G-ARBOor g anizati on and a further sum of £5 , 000 or i£ , 000 is promised in the n e ar future .

13.

Even since GARBOwas premised the Iron Cross in recognit ion of his activities -we have tried to g et the Germans to send on th e medal .

They have naturally objected on the grounds that it would be a most canprcmising object for GARBOto have in his possession .

I t now appears that complications have arisen in Berlin with regard to the grant i ng of a German military decoration to a Spanish civilian .

The following MSS messa~e from J.Iadrid to Berlin i s an int er esting insight into the attitude of GARBO ' s masters in their feelings tmvards him :-

29 . 1 2. l.,li.. In re award of Iron Cross II to GARBOand the discussions in Berlin.

In our,message of the 17. 6. we app l ied for award of Iro11 Cross II to GARBOemphasising that he was a Spanish National , but g ivin g as justific at ion the fact that activity of C:.A RBO in England constantly at the price of hi s l;i.f'e was just as important as the ser v ice at the front of the Spanish members of the Blue Division .

We were informed in yo ur message of the 24. 6 that award ,vas agreed to and that the submission of the prescribed proposal had been p u t fo r war d .

On the basis of this information we at this end were 1.mder the impression that no difficulties were to be expected in ( obtaining) the eventual award , and this was rep ar ted to GARBO, who was at that time , as a result of v ery great difficulties, in a st ate of mental depression for psychological reasons .

The communication of this news about the award had the expected result and evoked f r om GARBOa written expression of his special pride at the distinction .

Difficulties in maintaining and extending the GARBOnetwork have been const.antly increas i ng recently , but were mastered by G,\RBOwith an utter disregard f ar all per3onal interests and by g ivin g all he was capable of .

GARBOhas himself been in hiding for weeks, separated from wife and children .

The extraordinary successes of GARBO have been made possible by his constant , compl et e and express confidence in the Fuehrer and our cause .

He re g ards the award of the Iron Cross II , as reported to him , as final and as coming from the Fuehrer . rt seems psycho l ogical l y impossible now to inform him that the award "IVill not be made without exercising the most adverse effect on him and his or gan ization .

For the reasons stated please support the award from yo ur end with all possible means .

Would it not be possible to classify GARBOretrospective l y as a member of of the Blue Division?

Please report to us by 17/T results your efforts , as GARBOhas already asked for the decoration in ques tion to be sent to his next of kin to be kept for / him.

J.4..

A sidelirte in GARBO ' s activities has been an attempt to discredit a powerful 1.mcontrolled age nt ope r at in g in the Pe ninsula, who has for a long while been feeding the German Sec ret S ervi ce with information mostzy invented by himself, some of which, not unnaturally, was qamaging , not only to our orm work but also to the interests of security .

It would :i.ppeor from the latest appreciation received

by Madrid from Berlin that we have to some degree succeeded in this .

The message ran :1,iilitar y reconnaissance by the GARBOnetwork produced clear picture in the most :important areas (10 missing)

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