Page 37 - All About History - Issue 53-17

Spies That Won WWII

RONALD SETH

A double agent whose fantastic stories baffled friends and foes alike

After teaching in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, and claimed that he agreed to help the Germans
Ronald Seth volunteered to join the SOE in a bid against the Russians.
to stir up revolt against the Nazis in the Baltic His report revealed how he had worked in Paris s
States. He was codenamed Blunderhead and in and undergone training with the German secret
October 1942, parachuted into Estonia. Nothing service, Abwehr, although when the enemy lost
more was heard from him until the April of the confidence with him he was sent to a POW camp
following year when a file fell into Allied hands to serve as an informer. He maintained that all the e
detailing the capture and interrogation of a British while he was still serving the SOE. The intrigue
spy called Ronald Seth who had, apparently, was enhanced when another letter appeared
revealed everything about his SOE training and a short while later claiming that he was now
mission. The SOE’s signal office was ordered to operating in a POW camp at Limburg under the
desist from listening out for any further contact. name of Captain John De Witt.
Not long after the liberation of Paris, however, Finally, in April 1945 as the war was coming to
a document was passed to the War Office an end, he walked into the British legation in Bern n,
purporting to be from Blunderhead. It outlined and said that he was carrying peace proposals
a fantastic tale, recording how his initial landing from Himmler and should therefore be flown
had dropped him amid a group of German home. MI5 interrogated him at length and were
soldiers, whom he’d fought off before executing unable to unpick the fact from fiction. Whatever
a sabotage campaign while living off the land. He its veracity, Blunderhead’s story remains one of
was eventually captured and tortured, he said, the most fantastic ever linked to an SOE agent.
“HE MAINTAINED… HE

WAS STILL SERVING SOE” Ethnic Germans in Tallinn cheer the arrival of the © Alamy, Shutterstocl/Rex, Getty Images
Wehrmacht and the retreat of the Red Army

THE HIDDEN WORLD WAR GERMANY

Abwehr: Formed in 1920
against the terms of the
Versailles Treaty, the Abwehr
evolved under the Nazis
as the primary foreign and
domestic intelligence of
the German military high
command before and during
World War II.
UNITED STATES RSHA: Controlled directly
Office of Strategic Services: by Reichsführer Heinrich
Created by the United States in Himmler and the SS, the
the spring of 1942, the charge RSHA (Reich Main Security
of the Office of Strategic Office) ruthlessly pursued
Services (OSS) was to conduct enemies of the Third Reich
clandestine operations in both in Germany and other
foreign countries and behind occupied countries beginning
enemy lines. in 1939.
Federal Bureau of
Investigation: A domestic
law enforcement, security,
and intelligence service of the SOVIET UNION
US government, the Federal NKVD: The Soviet People’s
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Commissariat for Internal
pursued espionage cases in Affairs (NKVD) was formed
the United States in addition in 1934. Before and during
to pursuing surveillance of World War II the NKVD
suspicious individuals. exercised broad power
relating to state security both
military and civilian.
SMERSH: Constituted in
FRANCE ITALY the spring of 1943, SMERSH JAPAN
Bureau Central de Renseignements et Servizio Informazioni Militare (SIM): served as the primary Kempeitai: Officially the Kempeitai
Soviet directorate of
d’Action: The French Central Bureau of Functionally, the Italian SIM was equivalent counterintelligence, whose served as the military police section of
Intelligence and Operations (BCRA) was created in Fascist Italy to the Abwehr in Nazi aim was to root out enemy the Imperial Japanese Army; however,
by the Free French command after the fall of Germany. SIM was officially a directorate agents and subversives. Its its authority extended to espionage,
France in the spring of 1940 and later became of the Italian Army, and its cryptology acronym stood literally for counterintelligence, and secret police
the modern French intelligence service. section achieved notable successes. operations during World War II.
‘Death to Spies.’

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