Intelligence

Secret files reveal WW2 problem of Nazi nobles

Scotsman.com News - Secret files reveal WW2 problem of Nazi nobles

NICHOLAS CHRISTIAN

NEWLY-RELEASED papers show the scale of suspicion and fear around the British High Command during the Second World War.

It has emerged that intelligence chiefs faced a dilemma over how many aristocrats with Nazi sympathies they should arrest, amid fears that interning too many would inflate their importance.

Documents released today at the National Archives in Kew show MI5 spied on a god-daughter of the late King George V, Dowager Viscountess Dorothy Downe, noting her as a "most fanatical admirer of Hitler" and intercepting her mail.

She was a high-profile British Union of Fascists official, but was not arrested despite concocting a plot to get herself detained which included having a letter written to The Times in 1940 demanding her arrest. However, the security service said there were "indications" she was anxious to become a martyr.

In addition, the intelligence services kept the folk singer Ewan MacColl - father of pop star Kirsty MacColl - under surveillance for years because of his communist sympathies. As a result, MI5 tried to get the BBC to stop using him on their programmes.

Documents also reveal how the sighting of a top German agent led to fears that Britain's "double-cross" strategy to intercept German agents might be compromised.

The sighting prompted a trawl of nightclubs, hotels and bars in a desperate attempt to locate Wilhelm Morz, "one of the cleverest secret agents the Gestapo has". The double-cross system meant MI5 was in a position to monitor and pick up German agents who were then "turned" and began working for Britain. The authorities feared Morz would figure out what was going on.

Unfortunately for MI5, the trail went cold.

March 5, 2006 at 04:40 AM in MI5 | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home