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The two men examined here were very different, with very different paths to Britain. Hans von Meiss Teuffen was a Swiss national with Austrian connections, who appears to have agreed to work for the Germans with the sole aim of defecting to the British. In contrast Hans Zech-Nenntwich was a pre 1933 Nazi who served in the SS, and escaped to Sweden in somewhat murky circumstances, then requested to be allowed to come to Britain.
The book takes a somewhat unusual approach to both cases. We don’t get much of an introduction, but instead are dropped right into the documentary trail, and from then on the story is mainly told through contemporary sources – reports, letters between parts of the intelligence service etc. This gives us an idea of the complexities of dealing with defectors and the number of different agencies involved,
The first man studied, von Meiss Teuffen, came into British hands in a rather adventurous way. He was an experienced sailor, and was given a small yacht by the Germans, which he sailed single handed along the west coast of Africa. His arrival was greeted with suspicion, and he almost immediately confessed all to the British and claimed that he had always intended to hand himself over the moment it was safe to do so. He was taken back to Britain, considered to be genuine, and released, although he wasn’t used in intelligence work, and soon became somewhat discontent. In the post-war world he became something of a minor celebrity, continued with his solo sailing and exaggerated his wartime service to Britain massively!
The second, Zech-Nenntwich, was a bit more complex. He had been serving on the Eastern Front and claimed to have become sympathetic to the Polish cause. He was caught, arrested and rescued by colleagues in the German military opposition to Hitler, escaped to Sweden and once there asked to be brought to Britain. This led to a certain amount of suspicion about him, with the Poles in Britain considering him to be a double agent at first, sent by the Abwehr. He appears to have been accepted as genuine and put to work for British intelligence. Other sources suggest he fled because he had been charged with rape. One big problem for me in this part of the book is that we never get an analysis of the accuracy of his intelligence. His stories about how he escaped custody seem inconsistent, and his account of a secret opposition to Hitler within the ranks of the Waffen S.S. improbable. Ironically he was used for counter-intelligence, including with the Political Warfare Executive and then to interrogate POWs. Post-war he returned to Germany, but his career was damaged when his past with the SS emerged. He was later put on trial for war crimes.
I would have liked more of a narrative framework – the book really needs more of an introduction explaining a bit about who the two men were, the approach being taken etc – and in particular in the second section a more detailed analysis of Zech-Nenntwich’s reliability. However as a selection of source materials relating to two rather different defectors this is a valuable piece of work, as long as you know that’s what to expect.
Author: David Tremain
Edition: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Publisher: Pen & Sword
Year: 2024