SPYING ON THE REICH

Analytical study of the work of British, French, and other intelligence services to attain accurate information on Hitler’s regime.

While the governments of Britain and France pursued appeasement to attempt to contain Hitler’s ambitions, they—along with Czechoslovakia and Poland—also launched complex programs to place spies on the ground inside Germany to gather particular bits of information. One spy learned, for instance, that Germany’s vaunted Luftwaffe was unprepared for war as late as 1938, though at home in London, British military planners nonetheless agonized over questions such as whether German efficiency and the availability of skilled labor and raw materials, including rubber and steel, could speed the military buildup. Historian Howard notes that the “constantly evolving” relationships among the prewar allies meant that information and its interpretation were not efficiently shared. Furthermore, due to shifting diplomatic arrangements, Czech spies were disinclined to work with the French. For their part, writes Howard, the French were very good at detecting German spies on their turf and at turning them into double agents, even if the Gestapo was also quite adept at ferreting out those agents and providing them with false information. Some of Howard’s cases in point are dashing, in the manner of movie spies, such as one British officer who had “a keen interest in fast cars, amateur dramatics, and poetry.” Wowing his peers but sometimes offered doubtful assertions, he did provide solid data on the increasingly bellicose turn of public opinion inside the Reich. Howard’s narrative plods along—he’s certainly no Alan Furst—but there are useful observations throughout, particularly when he speculates about whether a stronger coordination of efforts among the allies “could have exploited the specific vulnerabilities of the Third Reich and perhaps averted war.”

Profitable reading for students of spycraft and the early stirrings of the war in Europe.