Operation Bolívar | |
---|---|
Part of the American Theater of World War II | |
Location | |
Objective | Establishment and operation of clandestine communications between Latin America and Europe [1] |
Date | 1940 – 1945 [1] [2] |
Executed by | Nazi Germany |
Outcome | Nazi strategic failure. Panama Canal remains open, sabotage of Chilean copper mines thwarted. [3] Majority of Latin American nations join the Allies, Argentina does not join the Axis. |
Operation Bolívar [1] was the codename for the German espionage in Latin America during World War II. It was under the operational control of Section D (4) from the Foreign Security Service (Ausland-SD), and was primarily concerned with the collection and transmission of clandestine information from Latin America to Europe. Overall, the Germans were successful in establishing a secret radio communications network from their control station in Argentina, as well as a courier system involving the use of Spanish merchant vessels for the shipment of paper-form intelligence.
Argentine authorities arrested most of the German agents operating in their country in mid-1944, ending all effective Bolívar activity. Furthermore, the information collected during the operation is believed to have been more useful to the Allies, who intercepted much of the secret transmissions, than to Germany. [1] [2] It also had the effect of swaying key power brokers of the region out of neutrality and into the American sphere, namely Mexico and Brazil, but also strategically positioned nations producing much needed goods such as Venezuela (oil), Chile (copper), Peru (cotton) and Colombia (platinum).
Johannes Siegfried Becker (codename: Sargo) was the main figure in the operation and the man personally responsible for organizing most of the intelligence gathering in Latin America. Becker was first sent to Buenos Aires in May 1940, originally with orders to commit sabotage, along with his partner, Heinz Lange (Jansen), who arrived in the country shortly thereafter. After protests from the German embassy in Argentina in August 1940, the objective of the operation was revised to one of espionage only. Becker and Lange were soon discovered by Argentine authorities, so they moved their operations to Brazil, where they met with Gustav Albrecht Engels (Alfredo), another German spy and the owner of the General Electric Company in Krefeld. Engels was originally recruited by the Abwehr, the German military's intelligence agency, in 1939 to collect and transmit economy-related intelligence from the Western Hemisphere to Germany. Engels established a radio station in São Paulo, the CEL, and used a radio transmitter owned by his electric company to relay information acquired by agents in both Brazil and the United States. When Becker arrived in São Paulo, he transformed Engels' operation into an organization that reported on all subjects of interest to German intelligence. This meant that, in addition to collecting economy-related information, the agents collected information about shipping, war production, military movements in the United States, and political and military affairs in Brazil. [1]
Although Bolívar was a Security Service project in origin, many of the agents responsible for collecting information were part of the Abwehr. One of the Abwehr spies in the United States that frequently traveled to Brazil to speak with Engels was Dušan Popov (Ivan), who was one of the most successful British double agents during the war. Other important Bolívar spies included the German naval and air attaché in Chile, Ludwig von Bohlen (Bach); the naval attaché in Rio de Janeiro, Hermann Bohny (Uncle Ernest); the military attaché in Buenos Aires, General Niedefuhr; and the naval attaché in Buenos Aires, Captain Dietrich Niebuhr (Diego), who headed the espionage organization in Argentina. In mid-1941, Herbert von Heyer (Humberto) joined the organization to provide maritime intelligence. [1] [2]
Significant German espionage activity in Brazil ended in March 1942, when Brazilian authorities rounded up all suspected enemy agents. Becker was not in country, having returned to Germany to meet with his superiors. During this time Becker was put in charge of all German espionage activities in South America, which centered around radio communications, and ordered to make Buenos Aires his control station for communicating directly with Berlin, while also opening up smaller stations in other South American countries, which would relay information to the control station. Heinz Lange, who had escaped Brazil to Paraguay before the arrests, was ordered to organize a spy network in Chile, and Johnny Hartmuth (Guapo), a Department VID 2 agent who had also escaped Brazil, was sent to organize a network in Paraguay. An agent named Franczok (Luna), was put in charge of the radio network that was to be established. [1]
In February 1943, after considerable difficulty, Becker managed to return to Argentina as a stowaway on a ship traveling from Spain to Buenos Aires. Lange, Hartmuth, and Franczok, who airmailed one transmitter to Paraguay before leaving Brazil, established a temporary station at Asunción, and reestablished contact with Berlin. After receiving Becker's orders, Franczok moved to the new control station in Buenos Aires in May 1943, Lange proceeded to Chile, and Hartmuth was left in Paraguay. Becker hoped to establish clandestine radio stations in every South American republic, but was successful only in Paraguay, Chile, and Argentina. [1]
Engels's group was not the only one active in Brazil. Three other clandestine radio stations, each serving a different spy net, began operating in the country in 1941. In May, Rio de Janeiro's LIR radio station started communicating with MAX in Germany. The LIRMAX group, as it was called, eventually expanded to operate in Brazil and in Argentina, Uruguay, and Ecuador. It was centered on a commercial information service, the Informadora Rapida Limitada (RITA), which was managed by Herbert O. J. Muller (Prinz). The radio station was run by Friedrich Kemper (Koenig). Von Heyer, who also worked with Engels' CELALD group as Humberto, was Vesta in the LIRMAX group.
There were other overlaps of personnel as well, because both groups cooperated extensively with each other. Von Heyer's cover was his job with the Theodore Wille Company, several of whose employees were involved in another spy net centered on station CIT in Recife. The CIT group began operations in June 1941, but was only active in Brazil. A third smaller group, consisting of two agents, Fritz Noak and Herbert Winterstein, was located between Santos and Rio de Janeiro. It communicated with Germany's LFS station, but was only operational from September 1941 to January 1942. It was also not connected with the CELALD-LIRMAX-CIT groups. [1]
When Lange went to Chile, there was already an agent organization and radio station in operation, so Lange fitted himself into it as an independent operator with his own sources. The station, using callsign PYL to communicate with REW in Germany, had been established in April or May 1941, apparently by Ludwig von Bohlen and Friedrich von Schulz Hausman (Casero). By February 1942, reports were being passed from agents in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States. The major figures in the organization were von Bohlen in Santiago; Bruno Dittman (Dinterin), the actual head of the network, in Valparaíso; Friedrich von Schulz Hausman, in Buenos Aires; and George Nicolaus (Max), in Mexico[ where? ]. The PYLREW net's tie with Operation Bolívar was revealed through intercept, particularly in July 1941, when von Bohlen was instructed by radio to contact von Heyer in Rio de Janeiro to obtain a supply of secret inks and developers which von Bohlen had ordered from Germany. [1]
The PYLREW organization was centered on the Compañía Transportes Marítimos ("COTRAS"), formerly a branch of Norddeutscher Lloyd. Von Schulz Hausman had been the manager of the Norddeutscher Lloyd Shipping Agency in Chile before moving to Argentina, and had been succeeded in that job by Dittman. Other PYLREW personnel who had been associated with Norddeutscher Lloyd were Hans Blume (Flor), a radio technician at PYL, and Heinrich Reiners (Tom), who had worked for Norddeutscher Lloyd in Panama before opening a maritime freight office in Valparaiso. Reiners' sister was married to Blume, and Reiners' wife was the drop for the agents of the net. [1]
As result of information collected by American counter-intelligence agencies and given to the Chilean government by the State Department, a number of the more active agents of the Chilean ring were arrested in the fall of 1942. Enough escaped to permit von Bohlen to rebuild another network, known as the PQZ group. When von Bohlen went back to Germany late in 1943, his group was sufficiently well organized so that he could leave it, as well as a large sum of money and equipment, in the hands of Bernardo Timmerman, who carried on until his arrest in February 1944. When Timmerman was arrested, the espionage rings in Chile were "smashed," but again some Germans managed to escape to Argentina, where they continued operating. [2]
George Nicolaus was the head of the spy ring in Mexico before his arrest in the spring of 1942. A competent individual, he had served with distinction in the German Army during World War I, spent many years in Colombia, and returned to Germany in November 1938. In January 1939, he was re-commissioned in the Heer and assigned to the Abwehr headquarters in Hanover. Late in 1939, before Operation Bolívar began, Nicolaus was sent to Mexico to establish an espionage network there. [2]
Between 1940 and 1942, Nicolaus organized an extensive network which maintained contact with other spy rings in South America and attempted to obtain information from the United States. While technical data from American publications was extracted or photographed and some general information obtained from contacts in the United States, there is no evidence that Nicolaus was successful in obtaining any vital military secrets. He was successful in leaving behind the nucleus of an organization which was able to maintain some activities throughout the war, although it was of little value to the German war-effort, other than its nuisance value in occupying the attention of Allied counter-intelligence agencies. [2]
German espionage activity in Cuba was minor, despite the country's importance to the Allied war-effort, and was eliminated by Allied counter-intelligence forces before it could become an effective part of the Bolívar network. To establish a clandestine radio station in Cuba, the Abwehr sent Heinz Lüning to Havana. Lüning was an incompetent spy because he failed to master the basics of espionage. For example, he was never able to get his radio working correctly, he did not understand how to use the secret ink he was supplied, and he missed drop boxes. [4] [5]
In spite of his lack of competence, after his premature arrest in August 1942, Allied officials, including President Fulgencio Batista, General Manuel Benítez, J. Edgar Hoover, and Nelson Rockefeller, attempted to fabricate a link between Lüning and the German submarines operating in the Caribbean, claiming that he was in contact with them via radio, to provide the public with an explanation for their failures early in the U-boat campaign. Accordingly, Allied officials elevated Lüning's importance to that of a "master spy," but there is no evidence that he ever encountered a single piece of important information during his tenure in Cuba. Lüning was found guilty of espionage and executed in Cuba in November 1942, the only German spy executed in Latin America during World War II. [4] [5]
The first clandestine information passed from Argentina to Germany concerned finances, the organization of the South American net, Argentine politics, and the establishment of a courier system between Argentina and Spain using crewmen aboard Spanish merchant vessels. Once the network entered full operation, traffic volume increased to as much as fifteen messages a day. In January 1944, the Argentine government arrested several German and Spanish agents, and Becker and Franczok were forced into hiding. Communications between Argentina and Germany were interrupted for about a month. When communications were reestablished, Becker asked Berlin for radio equipment, money, and secret ink materials. This request resulted in Operation Jolle, which eventually turned into a mission not only to resupply Becker's network in South America, but also to establish additional clandestine radio stations in Mexico, the United States, and Central America, which would pass information to Germany via the South American network. [1]
The plan was to have two agents named Hansen (Cojiba) and Schroell (Valiente) deliver the supplies to Buenos Aires via ship, and then travel to Mexico, where they would build a transmitter for communicating with the control station in Argentina. From Mexico, Schroell traveled to the Southwestern United States, where he was supposed to find work in a war plant, and then send the information collected to Hansen in Mexico. Additionally, Schroell and Hansen were to recruit new men for the expansion of the network into the Central American countries. Allied intelligence knew of the plan through intercepts, so in August 1944, shortly after Hansen and Schroell arrived in country, most of the German agents were arrested by Argentine authorities, permanently ending all effective espionage activity by Department VID 4 in the Western Hemisphere. The Germans that managed to escape continued to conduct minor espionage operations in Latin America until the end of the war in 1945, but never again did the amount of clandestine radio traffic return to its former level. [1] [2]
Commander L. T. Jones, the head of the United States Coast Guard cryptologic operation in South America, wrote an evaluation of the Allied signals intelligence effort against Operation Bolívar in 1944. He pointed out that the type of information transmitted by an enemy agent depends largely on what happens to be available at his location. Bolívar agents were able to provide reports on the movements of merchant shipping and on local political developments, but the traffic was probably more useful to the Allies than it was to the Germans, because it did reveal the identities of collaborators in the South American countries, including a former Argentine minister of marine and the head of the Paraguayan Air Force. The Allies also were able to obtain from clandestine traffic the details of planning for the December 20, 1943 revolution in Bolivia and another in Chile which was "nipped in the bud." Both of these were backed by Germans working through the Argentine government. [1]
In addition to revealing the identities of German spies and sympathizers, the interception of clandestine traffic allowed the Allies to maintain continuity on the agents operating in the Western Hemisphere. This information led to a number of arrests, the most celebrated at the time being that of Osmar Alberto Hellmuth on November 4, 1943. An Argentine naval officer, Hellmuth, unbeknownst to Argentina, was a German collaborator. His control, Hans Harnisch (Boss), claimed to be the personal representative of Heinrich Himmler and had extensive contacts in the highest reaches of the Argentine government. As a result of negotiations between Harnisch and various Argentine officials, including President Pedro Pablo Ramírez and various cabinet ministers, Hellmuth was appointed Argentine consul in Barcelona. This appointment served to cover his actual mission: to proceed to Germany to assure that country that Argentina had no intention of severing relations with her. He was also to confer with the Security Service and other German officials on matters of mutual interest and was to obtain German permission for the return to Argentina from Sweden on the Argentine tanker Buenos Aires, carrying a load of German-supplied weapons. [1]
Most of the details of this planning were known to the Allies through intercepted Bolívar radio traffic. As a consequence, when the SS Cabo de Hornos, aboard which Hellmuth was traveling to Spain, made a routine stop at Trinidad, British authorities arrested him. Argentina made a formal protest to Britain. When the ramifications of the affair were learned, however, there was a change in position. The Argentine minister of foreign affairs instructed his ambassador in London, on December 17, 1943, to inform Great Britain that Hellmuth's appointment had been cancelled and that if the British would release Hellmuth, his letters patent would also be cancelled and the British could then do with him as they saw fit.
In early 1946, when the State Department was preparing a case against the Peronista government of Argentina regarding its wartime support of the Axis, it requested permission to use clandestine Bolívar information, which had been intercepted by Allied intelligence, as part of its evidence. The United States Navy, which was in charge of Allied counter-espionage in South America during World War II, refused to give blanket approval for such usage but a compromise was reached: information from clandestine communications was fused with information from other sources in preparing the indictment. This was Operation Bolívar's final contribution to the Allied war effort. [1]
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence). A person who commits espionage is called an espionage agent or spy. Any individual or spy ring, in the service of a government, company, criminal organization, or independent operation, can commit espionage. The practice is clandestine, as it is by definition unwelcome. In some circumstances, it may be a legal tool of law enforcement and in others, it may be illegal and punishable by law.
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branches of the United States Armed Forces. Other OSS functions included the use of propaganda, subversion, and post-war planning.
Operation Condor was a campaign of political repression involving intelligence operations, CIA-backed coups, as well as assassinations of left-wing sympathizers, liberals and democrats and their families in South America which formally existed from 1975 to 1983. Condor was formally created in November 1975, when Pinochet’s spy chief, Manuel Contreras, invited 50 intelligence officers from Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil to the Army War Academy on La Alameda, Santiago’s central avenue, which comprised the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America. The Archive of Terror documents revealed that there were at least 763 people kidnapped, tortured, raped, and murdered during Operation Condor.
ODESSA is an American codename coined in 1946 to cover Nazi underground escape-plans made at the end of World War II by a group of SS officers with the aim of facilitating secret escape routes, and any directly ensuing arrangements. The concept of the existence of an actual ODESSA organisation has circulated widely in fictional spy novels and movies, including Frederick Forsyth's best-selling 1972 thriller The Odessa File. The escape-routes have become known as "ratlines". Known goals of elements within the SS included allowing SS members to escape to Argentina or to the Middle East under false passports.
British Security Co-ordination (BSC) was a covert organisation set up in New York City by the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in May 1940 upon the authorisation of the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.
The Special Intelligence Service was a covert counterintelligence branch of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) located in South America during World War II. It was established to monitor the activities of Nazi and pro-Nazi groups in Central and South America. The organization was a forerunner to the Central Intelligence Agency.
Secretariat of Intelligence was the premier intelligence agency of the Argentine Republic and head of its National Intelligence System.
The American Theater was a theater of operations during World War II including all continental American territory, and extending 200 miles (320 km) into the ocean.
Erich Vermehren, also known as Erich Vermeeren de Saventhem or Eric Maria de Saventhem, was an ardent anti-Nazi, an agent of the Abwehr, the German military intelligence organization, and later a leading Catholic Traditionalist.
Operation Sea Eagle sometimes referred to as Operation Dove II was a German Foreign Ministry plan conceived in May 1941 after the collapse of planning around Operation Whale.
Clandestine HUMINT asset recruiting refers to the recruitment of human agents, commonly known as spies, who work for a foreign government, or within a host country's government or other target of intelligence interest for the gathering of human intelligence. The work of detecting and "doubling" spies who betray their oaths to work on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency is an important part of counterintelligence.
Foreign relations between Argentina and Germany have existed over a century. The free city-state of Hamburg was the first German state to establish diplomatic relations with Argentina in 1829. The first ambassador of Germany to Argentina was sent on 7 May 1871.
The Honor Bound series is a World War II thriller book series by W. E. B. Griffin, whose latest three volumes were co-authored with his son, William E. Butterworth IV. It takes place mostly in Argentina, but also deals with internal struggles in the Nazi Party as the war escalates. Griffin based the books on historical events and his own experiences in Argentina.
The Abwehr was the German military-intelligence service for the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht from 1920 to 1945. Although the 1919 Treaty of Versailles prohibited the Weimar Republic from establishing an intelligence organization of their own, they formed an espionage group in 1920 within the Ministry of Defence, calling it the Abwehr. The initial purpose of the Abwehr was defense against foreign espionage: an organizational role that later evolved considerably. Under General Kurt von Schleicher the individual military services' intelligence units were combined and, in 1929, centralized under Schleicher's Ministeramt within the Ministry of Defence, forming the foundation for the more commonly understood manifestation of the Abwehr.
Operation Long Jump was an alleged German plan to simultaneously assassinate Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the "Big Three" Allied leaders, at the 1943 Tehran Conference during World War II. The operation in Iran was to be led by SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny of the Waffen SS. A group of agents from the Soviet Union, led by Soviet spy Gevork Vartanian, uncovered the plot before its inception and the mission was never launched. The assassination plan and its disruption have been popularized by the Russian media with appearances in films and novels.
Guillermo "Bill" Gaede is an Argentine engineer and programmer who is best known for Cold War industrial spying conducted while he worked at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Intel Corporation (Intel). While at AMD, he provided the Cuban government with technical information from the semiconductor industry which the Cubans passed on to the Soviet bloc, primarily to the Soviet Union and East Germany. In 1992, Gaede turned himself over to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which placed him in contact with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI began working with Gaede in a counter-espionage operation intended to penetrate Cuban intelligence using his contacts on the island. During this time Gaede obtained work at Intel Corp. in Chandler, Arizona. Intel Security discovered the nature of his activities at AMD and terminated him, but not before Gaede filmed Intel's state-of-the-art Pentium process from home.
Christiaan Antonius Lindemans was a Dutch double agent during the Second World War, working under Soviet control. Otherwise known as Freddi Desmet, a Belgian army officer and SOE agent with security clearance at the Dutch Military Intelligence Division of the SOE (MID/SOE). He was known by the soubriquets "King Kong" or in some circles as "le Tueur" as he was reportedly ready to shoot at the slightest provocation. There is speculation that Lindemans was a member of Colonel Claude Dansey's Z organisation.
Spying, as well as other intelligence assessment, has existed since ancient history. In the 1980s scholars characterized foreign intelligence as "the missing dimension" of historical scholarship." Since then a largely popular and scholarly literature has emerged. Special attention has been paid to World War II, as well as the Cold War era (1947–1989) that was a favorite for novelists and filmmakers.
During World War II, a number of significant economic, political, and military changes took place in Latin America. The war caused considerable panic in the region over economics as large portions of economy of the region depended on the European investment capital, which was shut down. Latin America tried to stay neutral at first but the warring countries were endangering their neutrality. In order to better protect the Panama Canal, combat Axis influence, and optimize the production of goods for the war effort, the United States through Lend-Lease and similar programs greatly expanded its interests in Latin America, resulting in large-scale modernization and a major economic boost for the countries that participated.
Werner Alfred Waldemar von Janowski,, was a captured German Second World War Nazi spy and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's first double agent. He is believed to have been a triple agent by some, underscoring the RCMP's inexperience in espionage. Due to power struggles between the Canadian and British intelligence agencies during the Second World War and the RCMP's inexperience, Operation Watchdog was a failure. Janowski provided little significant intelligence to the Allies: no Abwehr agents were arrested and no U-boats were captured, despite his apparent cooperation. Within a year the operation was shut down and Janowski was sent to a prison in Britain.
This article incorporates public domain material from Cryptologic Aspects of German Intelligence Activities in South America during World War II (PDF). National Security Agency.