THE KAISER'S SPIES.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16520, 12 May 1919, Page 10

THE KAISER'S SPIES.

CONFESSION'S OF MEN IN A

BRITISH PRISON

A former commandant at the Wandsworth Detention Prison has gathered remarkably interesting impressions of the German spies who have passed through his hands. . "Most of the Kaiser's secret service agents," said the ex-commandant to a London. "Daily Express" ' representative, were refined, well-educated, polished, and highly-trained men. They were widely travelled, and wero accomplished linguists. In addition to Germans, they included Dutchmen, Swedes, Norwegians, Peruvians, and South Americans of German extraction. While in England they lived luxuriously at the best 'hotels, ana moved about in high circles. . i "An astonishing feature of their activities was that they never troubled much about military movements in Great Britain, and were at no pains to discover whether we had one million or I twenty million soldiers in training. It I was naval information that they I sqnght, and many of them gladly sacrificed their lives to obtain the smallest scrap of news regarding the disposition of the Britisn Grand Fleet. "The news which they thus endeavoured to collect was not for the purpose of a German invasion, but, as they confessed, for the protection of their own country against an Allied attack. The Geiman Admiralty lived in terror of the invisible movements of the British naval units, and for this reason they prized naval information above everything. , , "1 recall many of the Kaiser s leading agents who fell into my hands. One of them was a Guards officer, _ a haughty, swaggering fellow. 'Yon know, commandant.' lie remarked to me before he was shot, ''your English

intelligence system is very inferior to the German —in fact, sir, it is damned rotten.' "'Really!' I answered. 'Botten as it,is, it has brought you here, and that, perhaps, is tho finest testimony to its efficiency.' "Rosenthal, who was arrested as he was about to board a steamer at Hull, was the greatest coward I have over met. He came direct to London from Berlin, where he committed some offence, and the Wilholmstrasse gave him his choico of imprisonment or« a job in the Secret Service. From the moment that he landed hero all his ; movements were known, and nobody was moro surprised than Rosenthal when Scotland Yard officers apprehended him at Hull. "While at Wands- 1 worth he repeatedly tried to commit suicide. The morning of his execution (he was hangod) he broke down like a child and collapsed on the scaffold. "Markes was anothor active emissary from Berlin. He had a good run while in England, going from one port to another, and finally lie only received fivo years' penal servitude. He doservod to be shot, for be was a dangerous German. An officer named Rowlands was another coward. He wept, and was overcome when led before the firing squad. "Karl Bushmann, a naval lieutenant, was the bravest of the party. When I read his death sentence to him he did not move a muscle, and faced his exo- ; cutioners a true man. He made one ' request to mo before he was shot. 'May I I smoke?' he asked, and of course I . agreed. • "One of the most interesting personalities I encountered was an officer of high rank who was arrested in the East and brought to London. To this day I cannot understand why the fellow did. not share the fate of his brother spies. It will astonish you to ( learn thait not only was his life spared, but he was actually repatriated— why. heaven alone knows! "There woro many German women spies, but one only was caught to my knowledge. She lived with the man Rowlands, and was sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. "Earlier in the war a Swiss and an Englishman were brought to me, and it was alleged against th,em that they had signalled from a city restaurant to ' - The allegation, of course, j was stupid, and the men were released. ! "The master mind' of the German Secret Service was a Dutchman named Deirck. who had his headquarters at Brussels. He never ventured to visit England, but his subordinates were i scattered over neutral ports. | "None of tho spies worked a code or j keDt notes. They carried all their ; information in their heads. Ostensi- . bly they posed as commercial travellers, ' and in this way worked their passages . to London. tn 1915 commercial _ let-; ters were not vigilantly scrutinised, and thus the spies were able, bv means ' of trade terms, to explain their where- i, nbohts and communicato information to j their headauarters.'' !

- I A curious sign of tjie times is to bo 1 seen in a petition presented to the Pope bv the Cardinals resident in Rome, who ' ar<> asking .for an improvement of their £ financial status to meet the very heavy «■ ircreaso in.the cost.of living. It is mi- ] flr.ubtedly the {-ii.se that some of the - j Cardinals have been obliged to give up ji their carriages or motor-cars. - • s