GERMAN SPIES IN FRANCE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2826, 18 July 1916, Page 6

GERMAN SPIES IN FRANCE

THEIR METHODS OF OPERATION SOME AMAZING TRICKS (By Georges Prade, in the London "Times.") Every Gorman is a potential spy. The servile character of the race, its profound contempt -for all self-respect, makes it consider espionage us a service to tho State, honourablo because it is useful. Tho German idea of the police ?£ s k-!? • was explained h-eforo the Reichstag - by Herr von Puttkamer, Secretary of State for tho Interior. Herr Richter, chiof of the Opposition, had reproached him with having recruited secret service agents among members of Parliament, wives of Deputies, 'Ministers, members of tho Court, and the'wife of tho Prefect of Police; had mentioned the subventions accorded by the police to establishments like that of tho woman Ivrausse, whore traos WO laid for. magistrates and foreign diplomatists; and'/ had asserted that Police Magistrate Rump . was responsible for all these suspicious manoeuvres.' Herr Puttkamer replied in these vr-rds: "Tho Stato has the right, and it is its duty to use extraordinary methods. Besides, evcu if Police Magistrate Kumpff, an - honest and estimable functionary, had used tho methods with which ho is reproached to secure for tho State- vscfnl information, 1 would hero publicly express my satisfaction and my ibanks." These words give the measure of tho race, and explain its mentality. I Am not familiar with tho methods of German spies in England, but, in the course of various investigations carricd out in Prance, I havo had opportunities of noting tho working of tho Oivfman spy system in this country. I suppose their methods are the s*n\o in England. The characteristic of German espionage, which before tho war employed abroad more than 60,000 men, is that it utilised almost exclusively agonts established in tho country where they were to operate. t Our naive Governments were m tho habit of/sending to Germany travellers of a kind who promptly unmasked, and whoso slightest questions during their rapid, passage excited suspicion. The German spy lives in tho' country. He is generally engaged iu business, which explains his presence, - justifies his journeys, his absences, the money he receives, and the letters he 6onds. One of his most convenient protensions is that of insurance agent. < In the course of an inquiry I conducted into the affairs of the German insurance company the Viktoria zu Berlin, the most important concern of its kind in noRS?' premiums representing over *£80,000,000 all oyer the world—of which . nj"«ons are in France—l discovered ill its offices in the Avenue de l'Opera, tans, a peculiar^organisation, known its tho Special Buro. In this office the employees were all Germans, young men between 25 and 30 years of age, officers »n the German reserve, who spnt fivo or six months in France. Ther received a uniform pay of .£lO a montii, with an allowance for travelling expenses. They spent . their timo motoring all over France. Their favourite region was the oast of France and tho Alps. A few days before tho mobilisation in July, 191t, disappeared having crossed the frontier. One of- them bas since been reported acting as police magistrate at Baden-Baden.

Work of Insuranrs Companies. This organisation ia typical. Insurance companies, even when conducted apparently in honest fashion, constitute a writable danger. Not only do they establish an exact estimate of the public fortune—a useful element in assessing war taxation and indemnities—but they are able to furnish other yaluablo information. The Viktoria, for example, offered special terms to lyrericli officers. It insured them, ; without extra charge, against war risks, and through the medium of visiting agents, advanced, money at very favourable terms on thoir policies. The Berlin office df the Viktoria thus secured the names of all the irench. officors who owed it money It will be admitted that'this was an excellent arrangement oil which to ba6e an organisation for espionage. Here i s an example of German methods applied to important French industrial organisations. Take, for instance, Lo Creusot \\ orks. It is very difficult and very dangerous lo (attempt to find out' from day to day what they possess i n material and workmen and their capacity of production, m time of war. A spy passing through the town' is quickly tomarked. Hero i's a much simpler plan, -the .1 ranch companies wit]l w]licll Creusot is insured receive a .visit from the representative of the German insurance company, the Munich. He offers to reinsure them against, the risks of their principal clients.. His proposals aro very tempting. Thj-y mean absolute security for the French companies, and are accepted. Among the risks insured aro those of Lc Creusot. The German company thus, obtains from day to day n list of the material (insurance against, fire), and the number of workmen (insurance against accident claims). There is no need for further espionage; it has m its possession official documents kept up to date by the company itself, which never " imagines that they ' have left France.

-. Purchase of a Special Motor. .'■When I was organising . motor-boat meetings at Monaco, I myself observed two or three acts of direct espionage. Here is one of the latest, which dates irom'April, 1914, . a fow months before tho war, and which is especially interesting to England. That year a motor glider, extremely powerful, with a motor of 100 h.p„ attained the prodigious speed of a hundred kilometres (62 miles) an hour. ■ Boat'and motor were built by M. Despujols, a Paris manufacturer, and tho glider was piloted by M. Soriano, a Spaniard. Oil the last day'of tho races we heard that the boat would not tak« part ill the trials, as the motor had already been taken to pieces and sent 8-way. On inquiring the namo of the Luycr who had paid ,£2IOO for a specialised motor which could only be used in racing, and withdrew it from the contest the day he bought it, wo learned that tho motor had been sent to Lyons, and from there immediately .forwarded to tho well-known electrical and dirigible manufacturing firm of Siemciis-Schucfcen: at Biesdorf, near Berlin. Later, >n. (he course of anothor inquiry with which I was officially entrusted, I asked M. ,Despudiols for the details of this affair. This is what ho told me. An individual, M. Schmidt, who pretended to he a Russian, but who always steered German motor-l.oals and raced under the Gel-man (lag, was to have competed against M. Despuiols' boat. Instead of doing so ho bought tho motor. Implicated iu this strange affair we also discover an engineer of the famous, firm of Bosch, tho magneto manufacturers, v-rto represented tho German house of Siemens. i Even tho workman hired at .£8 a month by the committee to repaint the boats which had suffered through contact with seawater took a. hand in this peculiar business, distributing tank notes lavishly.

According to If. Despiijols, l;ho motor, which reached Berlin at the en<l of April, 1914, was destined lo form part of a curious molor-boat-torpedo, filled with explosives, and running automatically, the steering apparatus being controlled from a distance by Hertzian waves. This explains Hit; role in the affair of the firm of fiii'inens-Schuckerf. Such an engine, 3ind it neon perfected,-might in a naval buttle have been, directed from tho skies by a Zeppelin, and sent to attack a British warship. The engine of Uiis motor-boat, extremely light for it's power, was offered lo tho' French air service in .Tuly, 1015. Put the Germans had secured it in April, 19M. . - This curious story, with every detail of which I am familiar, shows bettor than any treatise tho methods of what is known as Gorman industrial espionage. It is assuredly a bolder plan than the furtive copying of designs and sketches. Copying Inventions. . One method, however does tint prevent the other. At tho present time a, good deal is heard of three German aeroplanes

—the L.V.G., the Aviatik, and the i'okker. All three are copies of French machines. The Dutch-made Fokker is an imitation, made before tho war, of the Jloraue-Saulmcr, built of metal. In April, 1914, the two brothers Wroblcsky constructed a similar machino at Lyons. One of the two killed himself whilo testing it. Home time after a German traveller arrived and took a room in the house of tlie surviving brother. He showed great interest in the invention, and disappeared with the plans a few days before the outbreak of war. I'or the last three yoans the L.V.G. Company has been direoted by a Swiss, named Schneider, formerly foreman and friend, even confidant, of tho celebrated Iklouard Nieuport, the creator of the entirely coveredill apparatus.

A few .weeks after the death of Nieuport, Schneider crossed the frontier into Switzerland, and shortly after arrived iii Berlin. .T. visited his works iu 5913, and recognised about three-fourths of the workmen I had known in Paris. In 19U they were all dismissed and replaced by Germans.

The Avintik factory was also directed by a French engineer, M. Descamps. He was formerly a draughtsman at the Es-nault-Peltorie and Voisin works. The German Headquarters Staff were so polite as to write to him in French. A fewdays before the declaration of war, M. Descamps, who 'saw how things were going. escaped from Germany an<l returned tn 1 ranee to perform his military service. ...

a Iu the course of 1914 I published in "I.e Journal" a series if articles concerning Dr. Cousin, an original French inventor,, who believed lie had discovered entirely novel principles of flight, and J. expressed regret that France had not given him the means of realising his invention. I immediately received offers of all the capita] necessary from several important 'Genua n aeroplano factories. I replied to them evasively. It is unnecessary to describe the familiar methods of minor spi&s operating on tlie front of tho Army; hucksters, pedlars, and shepherds. .But I may mention a curious spy agcncy established in Switzerland since the war, under the guise of a tobacco business. It operated in the following manner. The firm dis- 1 patched 1(1,000 circulars to as many <liffcrent addresses in offering tobacco to tho soldier's.

"Desirous of manifesting our Tvarm affection for France," the circular ran, "we should feel obliged if you would send us the address of a 'soldier to whom wo could forward jjratis a few packets of cigarettes and cigars/' Tho Swiss firm in this way received addresses .of soldiers tit the front, with the indication of the TOfiiment, of the division, aud of the postal sector. Such are sorao of the noro remarkable methods of German espionage in France.