Security Service release

German camouflage for sabotage equipment (KV 4/283-285)

These three files draw together records from particular cases showing the method and type of disguise used by German agents to conceal various devices intended to be used for sabotage purposes. All the items listed below are shown in photographs in these files, some of which have appeared before in files relating to the particular cases they featured in. The camouflage items include:

German propaganda leaflets (KV 3/210-212)

This release includes three files of collections of German propaganda material, issued (i.e. brought together in The Security Service) in 1942, but covering a much longer period, including much pre-war material. The material in these volumes is likely to have been derived from several varying sources, which are not now evident from the file, though some has clearly been recovered from intercepted mail, given the manuscript inscriptions on a few of the pieces.

The collection is arranged in three files, of which the third (KV 3/212) contains material relating to Hitler, including volumes of his speeches translated into English (and some into Italian) and other leaflets relating to Hitler's thoughts and policies. The second volume (KV 3/211) is arranged alphabetically by topic, and covers a variety of subjects, including laying blame for the war on 'British warmongers'. It includes for example several copies of a flimsy newsletter, the Berlin Weekly; a leaflet extolling the high standard of living for children in Nazi Germany, compared to the privations suffered by children in the immediate post-First World War period; and one leaflet seeking to highlight the Jewish appearance and origins of Minister for War Leslie Hoare-Belisha. The first volume (KV 3/210 is a miscellaneous volume containing material that does not readily fit into the other two. It includes: several copies of a 'Christian Fascist' newssheet, Salutatio In Christo; an illustrated pastiche of Uncle Tom entitled Hitler's Pledges and All That Tommy Rot; and one peculiar document claiming to have been issued by supporters of Hitler in Whitehall, the Naziministerium des 3ten Deutschen Reich, Whitehall, London, that sets out the fate of England after it is defeated - a few quotes taken from the text give the flavour: "All women 16 to 45 will submit to my Troops as Whores…the whole Jewish race I will slaughter…Archtraitor Chamberlain I will hang in Whitehall…" The document is undated but from internal evidence must be from the first half of 1940. Much of the tone of this material is, of course, violently and virulently racist, anti-Semitic and unpleasant. Seemingly out of place, KV 3/210 and 212 each contain half of a copy of a 1940 book in German, Die Deutsche Polizei by SS Brigade Commander Werner Best.

Hugh McDairmid (KV 2/2010)

The Security Service file on Christopher Murray Grieve, aka Hugh MacDiarmid, covers the period 1931-1943, and begn when MacDiarmid was mentioned as a Communist in reports of meetings of the Fleet Street Local by member and novelist John Summerfield. From this point the Service started to collect material on MacDiarmid, including reports on his speeches and his intercepted correspondence with the Communist Party and others. Included among his reported speeches are ones stating his view that Lancashire was the proper southern border of Scotland, and advocating a Celtic Union. The file includes a copy of his 1934 application to join the Communist Party. Much of the correspondence with the Party (in London and Glasgow) relates to his expulsion from it. The file also includes much non-party correspondence of MacDiarmid, for example from 1940 extracts from a letter to Miss F MacNeill where he complains about the Tory attitude of his publishers Macmillan: "they wanted me to modify [the introduction to his edition of The Golden Treasury of Scottish Poetry] in various ways, in particular, to excise the anti-English and anti-Imperialist slants. But I stuck to my guns." (serial 45a). The file also includes traces of the censor's interest in his letters, with comments from relevant police forces (e.g. at serial 58a: "This man is a menace"), and a copy of his passport application and photograph. Overall, the Service's attitude to MacDiarmid was that, while he needed careful watching, it was not necessary to take any action against him.

SIS report of enemy secret services in France, 1944 (KV 3/153)

This 1944 file contains a very detailed Secret Intelligence Service report, attributed on the file to Captain Day of Section V, although the report itself is not credited, giving details of SIS's understanding of the organisation and operation of enemy intelligence services in France prior to D-Day. It deals with the Abwehr, the Sicherheitspolizei, the Sicherheitsdienst and the Italian, Japanese and Spanish intelligence services, as well as the French police and various French groups and agencies being used by the Germans as recruiting or intelligence organisations, or which the Germans had attempted to use. The file also includes an updated summary report, probably by the same author, of July 1944. The main report includes maps showing the assumed distribution of enemy intelligence bases and offices across France.

UK-Irish intelligence liaison (KV 4/279-281)

Following the establishment of the independent Irish Free State, MI5 soon began considering the best means of obtaining information from the south of Ireland, and ensuring effective co-operation on security matters with the government in Dublin. The matter was first considered in 1922 (KV 4/279, 1929-1939), when initial proposals were shelved because of the continuing instability of the new state. There are indications in the minutes sheet that Churchill was advised of the proposals, but there is no trace of his reaction to them on the file. In the absence of any formal liaison arrangement, any dealings with the Irish authorities were done through usual open police or Colonial Office channels, but these were highly unsatisfactory. The file records how the question was reopened in 1924, and repeatedly at intervals over the years. The minutes record that Ulster (meaning the MI5 agency based in Northern Ireland) "does run agents in the South". For several reasons, discussed on the file, it was never thought appropriate to approach the Irish with a suggestion of setting up a formal liaison procedure. In 1926, the file records that "there was clear evidence that espionage on behalf of the Irish Free State was being conducted in this country", and this led to a debate with Special Branch as to which body was responsible for countering this. No proper liaison was in fact established until September 1938, and that was at the instigation of the Irish, who approached the British for help in setting up an MI5 style organisation from scratch as they were becoming concerned at the activity of German agents in Ireland. Details of the assistance given by the Security Service are on this file, which includes frank assessments of the weakness of the organisation set up by the Irish Director of Intelligence, Colonel Liam Archer, and contains Vernon Kell's handwritten note of the situation (serial 71a). The file concludes with details of the coastwatching arrangements being set up in Ireland.

The second file (KV 4/280 covering 1940-1945) details the wartime arrangements and covers some of the key themes, including OVERLORD security and the treatment of cases of German espionage in Ireland (though not in great detail) and includes regular intelligence reports on developments in the South. A historical note covering wartime liaison is at serial 171A of KV 4/281 (1945-1953), which largely covers post-war arrangements.

Measures to counter Nazi and Fascist activities in the UK pre-1939 (KV 4/290-292)

In 1936 the Security Service prepared a memorandum setting out the threat it perceived from German and Italian organisations with branches operating in Britain or the colonies, and recommending steps necessary to counter the threat. These three files trace the history of this memorandum, and record the Service's frustration at the bureaucratic delays it encountered in securing its implementation.

KV 4/290 contains the original June 1936 draft, which gives details of the threat and much analysis of the methods and personalities of Hitler and Mussolini, and had clearly been some time in preparation. The file shows how the Service circulated it to key players, particularly the directors of intelligence of the three armed services, before it went to the Committee of Imperial Defence, and the memorandum itself acknowledges some of the misgivings which the Foreign Office and the Home Office had with the proposals. The main recommendations were that: Germany and Italy should be asked to liquidate their party organisations in Britain and the Empire; the Service should continue working on the problem; German and Italian nationals should be restricted from acquiring British or joint nationality; detailed plans should be drawn up for internment and deportation of Italian and German nationals; employment of German and Italian nationals in the armed forces, military establishments and in civilian firms working on munitions and other contracts should cease; and that the colonies should be warned to take similar precautions. The memorandum eventually went to the Joint Intelligence Committee in February 1937, where the recommendations were accepted in principle, but no instruction was issued. The file includes papers showing the reactions of the various services to the memorandum, notably the relaxed response of the Naval Director of Plans. Service frustration at the delays in issuing instructions becomes evident in KV 4/291 (1937-1938), for example in minute 41 of September 1937 which complains "the matter has now been before the JIC Committee [sic] for a year and that as far as we know no final memorandum or instructions have yet been produced…things seem to have got badly hung up in the Admiralty." Much of the rest of the file concerns Service efforts, eventually successful, to get the memorandum issued as an instruction. KV 4/292(1938-1941) records the final planning to implement the policy, including the drafting of instructions to chief constables to arrest suspect Italians and Germans in their areas.

Double Agent "Elvira Chaudoir", code name BRONX (KV 2/2098)

Elvira Chaudoir, the name under which BRONX carried out her agent role and in which she consented to be identified post war, was the daughter of a South American diplomat working in Vichy France, but she herself had lived in London from 1939, and she was given a secret mission by the British when she visited her parents in July 1942. During this visit she was approached by a member of German intelligence, who recruited her as an agent to pass information on industrial affairs in Britain after her return. She reported these contacts to the British authorities, who after some consideration, decided to use her as a double agent, using the secret writing method taught by her German handler. She went on to pass information to the Germans, including some related to operation FORTITUDE, the D-Day deception operation, and her contribution is credited by Masterman in his account with having played a part in delaying German reinforcements being sent from south-west France to Normandy. Still trusted by the Germans, she was asked after D-Day to report on further expected Allied invasions.

The Chaudoir file gives the full details of her wartime activities, from the first time she came to Security Service attention (when she was reported as having been heard speaking about being trained as a secret agent), through her first mission to Vichy France, through the suspicions held by the Security Service, to her eventual establishment as a double agent, with the messages that she sent, and her financial dealings with both the British and German intelligence agencies. The file includes information concerning her first mission to Vichy, her reports of her visit and mission, detailed physical descriptions, the summary of her case produced in November 1942 for the XX Committee, examples of secret writing and detailed correspondence on the handling of her case.