SHOT IN THE TOWER

Evening Star, Issue 18137, 29 November 1922, Page 5

SHOT IN THE TOWER

VIGNETTES OF HUN SPIES. SIR BASIL THOMSONS RECORDS. Quito, a number of Gormans were shot in the Tower of London during the war, ®o many in fact that, from time to 'time, there were reports of “ wholesale elocutions,” followed by semi-official statements to the effect that the English were not executing anybody, but were merely holding even the most dangerous of the convicted spies in clods imprisonment. Sir Basil Thomson, Chief of the Criminal Investigation 'Bureau of Scotland Yard, throughout the war has collected the short, and simple annals of a few of the spies who died in the Tower. In one case, at least, a convicted spy was not considered worthy' of dying “like a gentleman,” in front of a rifle squad,' but was iguominiously hanged. The Gorman authorities, it appeared, at first recruited their spies from their own people, but the mortality among them was so considerable that Berlin soon turned to South America. Sir Basil proceeds thus in Ma account in the Chicago ‘ Daily News.’ Too largo Gorman colony in Central and South America wan an excellent recruiting ground. In Juno, 1915, two post cards -addressed to Rotterdam attracted the Attention of the postal censor. They announced merely that the writer had arrived in England and was ready to begin work. The postmark was Edinburgh. The police in Scotland were set to work, and a few days later they detained at Looh Lomond a native of Uruguay, who gave his name as Auguste Alfredo 'Hoggin. Ho waa a neat, dark little man. not at nil like a German, though he admitted that his father was a German, naturalised in Uruguay in 1885, and that he himself was married to a German woman.

Unlike many of the spies, he did not pretend that his sympathies were with the Allies. His account of himself was that bo had come to England to buy agricultural instruments and stock; that his health was not very good, and that Looh Lomond had been recommended to him as a health resort. He spoke English fluently. According to his admissions he Imd been in Hamburg -as late as March, 1914, and was in Switzerland juso before the wir broke out. In May he was sent to Amsterdam; and Rotterdam, probably to receive instructions in the school for espionage. Ho arrived at Tilbury from Holland on May 30, and after staying five days in London, whore ho asked quotations for horses and cattle, ho wOfit north, go far ho had transacted no busi-

As a spy he was one of the most inapt that could have been chosen.

Even on the journey north from King’s Cross ho asked so many questions of casual acquaintances that they became suspicious, and took upon themselves to warn him not to go anywhere near tho coast. In fact, they wore so hostile that he left the compartment at Lincoln, and spent the night there. Nor was his reception in Edinburgh any more auspicious. When ho camo to register with the police, he was put through a Searching inquiry. H«e was very careful to tel! everyone at Loch Lomond that ho had come for the fishing, but it chanced at that moment that certain torpedo experiments were being carried out in tho looh, and the presence 'of' foreigners at once gave rise to suspicion. The sending of the two post cards was quite in accordance with ordinary German espionage practice. In order to divert suspicion tho spies were instructed to send harmless pest cards in English address to different places. Moreover, a bottle of a certain chemical ink was found in his luggage. Ho was tried on August ZO, found guilty, and executed at the Tower on September 17. He went to his death with admirable courage, and declined to havo his eyes bandaged when ho faced the firing party. About the same time a well-educated and well-connected Swede of between fifty and sixty years of ago, named' Ems® Waldmar Malm, arrived in England. His story runs: He had been a rolling stone all his life. At one time he managed a steamship company at Gothenburg, in Sweden, and then on the breakdown of his health he began to travel all over the world. Ho had found casual employment in London, Paris, and Copenhagen, and at the beginning of tho war ho found himself in Hamburg without any means of subsistence. Ho applied, without success, to his relatives, and then, hearing that there was plenty of remunerative work to be had in Antwerp, ho went to Belgium with One genuine desire to obtain honest employment. Thera at a cafe he came into touch with one of the espionage recruiting 'agents, who were always on the look-out for Englishspeaking neutrals. At first, according to Ms own account, ho resisted the temptation, but at last, being utterly penniless, he succumbed, and was sent to tho espionage schools in Wesel and Antwerp. At Rotterdam he received his passport and tho addresses to which he was to send hie communications.

He put up iu a boarding-house In Hampstead ad a Dutchman whoso business had been ruined by tho German submarine campaign, and who was anxious to obtain employment in a shipping office. He made himself agreeable to his fellow-lodgers, who fully accepted his story. He was under police suspicions from the first, but there could he no confirmation until ho began to write. His first communications were written on the margin of newspapers, a method which tho Germans had then begun to adopt. He took his arrest quite philosophically. Fortune had dealt him so many adverse Strokes that she could not take Mm unawares. A search of his room brought to light tho usual stock-in-trade at that time—the materials for secret writing ond a number of foreign dictionaries used as codes, as well as a Baedeker. Ho made a clean breast of his business, protesting that be had no real intention of supplying the Germans with useful information. All ho meant to do was to send some quite valueless messages that would procure for him a regular supply of funds.

He was tried by court-martial on. August 20 and 21. Hisl counsel urged that ho bad sent nothing to tE« enemy which could not have been obtained from newspapers, but ho could not, of course put forward the plea that ho was not a- spy. Mclbi took this" last stroke of fortune like a gentleman. Ho gave no trouble, and when the time oatne he shook hands with the guardd, thanking them for their many kindnesses, and died without any attempt at heroics. Irving Guy Eies was a German-Amiericen who had been recruited by the Germans in New York. Ho landed at Liverpool in the guise of a. com merchant, though in private life ho was actually a film operator. After a fow days spent at a hotel in the Strand, he visited Newcastle, Glasgow, and _ Edinburgh, and went through the routine of calling upon a number of produce merchants as an excuse for hia journey; hut, like other spies, ho did no genuine business witli them. He returned to his hotel in London on, July 28, after a fortnight spent in the north. He was more careful than most of the other Uples, for he preserved copies of every business letter ho wrote. Unfortunately for liim, his employers had not kept him properly supplied with money, and by illohanoe the censor intercepted 1 a loiter addressed to him from Holland., which contained the exact amount of the remittance usually made to spies. Ries carried .an American passport, and the first step taken was to adk the American authorities to withdraw from him his passport, in order that it might bo examined 1 by experts. It proved to Be forged, and on August 19 late at night the police went to Reis’s hotel and arrested' him just as he was going to bod. Bo was) a gravo and measured person, who answered all my questions very deliberately and thoughtfully. On one point he refused altogether to be drawn. He would not tell his true name, but he explained that this was only because if the name over came to be published it would give pain to iris relations. About his movements ho was frank enough. He explained that ho would havo already left for Copenhagen if the Americans had not required him to Surrender his passport. Among his effects was found a letter from Rotterdam directing him to meet a certain person in Copenhagen, and report to him the result of his investigations in England. Rios was asked to .account for this, and ho immediately dropped all the pretence that he was in ’this country on genuine^business. "I am in your power,” be said; "do wbat you like with me. There was no doubt whatever that he was a spy, but his case differed 1 from tiro others in the fact that it could not bo fibown that he bad ever sent information to the enemy. In fact, it seemed clear that the Germans were adopting new tactics, and that they intended in future to send spies on flying visits to Englang and get them to come and report the residt of their observations verbally. He was tried on October 4, was found guilty, audi sentenced to death. _ He took his condemnation with perfect philosophy. He spent all Us iilne in reading, and he gave Ids guards the impression that he was a man who bad divested Jiimself of all earthly cares and felt himself to fa under the band of fate. If ho' expected that the American Governmant would, jjeefis &w a (reprieve and

would bo successful, ho never showed it. On October 20 ho was removed to the Tower, and aa Til on as ho knew that a date was fixed for his execution, ho called for writing materials, and made _ a full confession, giving at the same time his true name. This, of course, cannot be published in view of the considerations that had made him conceal it when he was arrested. He was permitted to shake hands with the firing party, and he said; “You are only doing your duty, as I have done One German, agent was discovered through tire purest accident. Sir Basil writes of this incident in the following paragraphs; It was' apparently the practice at that time for the Germans to make use of excriminals on condition that they undertook espionage in an enemy country. It chanced that some postal official in Denmark had missorted a letter addressed from Uopenbagen to Berlin, and slipped it by mistake into the bog intended for London, and this letter was written in German by a man who said he was about to start for England under the guise of a traveller in patent gas livhters, in order to collect military and naval information. The letter was already some weeks old, and there was no clue beyond the fact that some person might be m the country attempting to sell gas lighten?. , , A search of the landing records was at once instituted, and it was found that at Newcastle at that very moment a young man named" Rosenthal was on board a steamer about to sail for Copenhagen, after making a tour with his gas lighters! in Scotland. In another hour he would have been outside tho three-mile limit, and out ot roaoh of tho Ja w. He proved to bo a young man of excitable temperament.^ Ho was very glib in bis denials; ho had never lived in Copenhagen, he was not a German, he know nothing about the hotel from which the letter had boon written. It was growing dusk, o-ud so fur the Ictici had not been read to him, but he had given mo a specimen of his handwriting winch corresponded exactly with that of tho letter. Then I procured it and read it to him. While I .was there was a sharp movement from the chair and a click of tho heels. I looked up, and there was_ Rosenthal standing to attention liko a soldier. I confess everything. 1 am a German soldier.”

But the remarkable part of this story was that be was never a soldier at all. On a suden impulso he had tried to wrap his mean existence in a cloak of patriotic respectability. When he found that acquittal was hopeless, ho tried to carry off the pretence of patriotism at his trial, but after 'his conviction he made two unsuccessful attempts to commit suicide. Unlike the other spies, he was sentenced to be hanged, ana was executed on July 5, 1915. The next spy to be arrested in England was a Peruvian, whose father was a bean dinavian. The writer recites tbs short and simple annals of this man to the following effect:

Ludovico Hurwitzy Zender was a genuine commercial traveller, though far belter educated than most men of his calling. In August, 1914, be went to the United States, with the intention of coming to Europe on business, for he was already the representative of several European firms in Peru. Probably it was not until hie arrival in Norway that he got into touch with tho German rß'Cret service agents, who were then offering high pay for persons with the propar qualifications who would work for them m England. It happened that ill® cable censor began to notice messages addressed' to Christiania ordering largo quan Litem of sardines. Now, it was the wrong season for sardine canning, and inquiries were at onoe made in Norway about the bona flies of the merchant to whom the messages were addressed. He turned out to bo a person with no regular business, who had frequently been seen m conversation with the German Consul. Tno messages were then closely examined for some Indication of a code. They had been despatched by Zender. t On July 2 Zender was arrested at Newcastle, whore ho had made no secret of his presence. Ho professed great surprise that there was any suspicion against Mm, and freely admitted that ho had been at Newcastle, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. In none of these places did he appear to havo transacted any real business, and on account of the season the expert's in sardinc-a laughed to scorn his suggestion that his order for canned fish was genuine. When all arrangements had been made for ms trial by courtmartial, Zender demanded that certain witnesses should be brought from South America for Ms defence. The proceedings were, therefore, postponed for eight months, and it was not until March 20, 1916, that it was possible to bring him to trial. The witnesses that had been brought at great trouble and expense _ could' really say nothing in Ms favor, and in due course he was found guilty and executed in the Tower on April 1, nine months after the date of Ms arrest.