Link to Part One

The Nazi state was in utter turmoil at this time, especially in matters of intelligence and counter intelligence. The Abwehr, the Gestapo, and the SD were feuding fiefdoms troubled with jealousies, hatreds and divided loyalties. Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr and Heinrich Himmler of the SD were manoeuvring for power; each had different plans for the future of Germany. Himmler correctly believed that Canaris and his followers were plotting against Hitler. Canaris was intensely anti-Nazi and regularly made contact with British authorities seeking details of future peace terms if his group succeeded in overthrowing the Hitler regime. Halina Szymanska, wife of Colonel Antoni Szymanski, the last Polish military attache to Berlin, was the intermediary in these secret negotiations. After Germany invaded Poland, Canaris gave Halina and her children safe passage to Switzerland. She was recruited by British Intelligence and became one of MI6’s most effective agents. Canaris used Szymanska as his intermediary, meeting her on multiple occasions in Italy and France up to at least 1943, to keep the British up to date about plot progress.

Armand had not cracked even after six weeks of isolation, sleep deprivation and constant interrogations by Hugo Bleicher and Oskar Reile at Fresnes prison in Paris. Roman Garby-Czerniawski and all the ensnared Interallie agents were fortunate to have been arrested before Himmler’s less subtle; more brutal and clumsy SD took over the Abwehr. None would have survived; they would have been tortured and summarily executed.

Mathilda Carre

Hugo Bleicher

Czerniawski with Hugo Bleicher in 1972

The Abwehr pieced together the damage Nazi Germany had suffered due to the comprehensive nature of the operations of Interallie, They were impressed by Czerniawski’s methods, thoroughness and leadership. Canaris authorised Hugo Bleicher and Oskar Reile to determine if they could use Amand to further their own plans. Could he be turned? From March 1942 interrogation morphed into ‘friendly’ discussions. What would be the consequences for Poland if the Soviets defeated Germany? What benefits could Poland derive if it joined the fight against Bolshevik communism?

There are different narratives on how Czerniawski was persuaded to come ‘on side’ and the specific arrangements of his cooperation. Oskar Reile in his memoirs asserted that in early July, 1942 Roman Garby Czerniawski was persuaded to act as an intermediary between the Canaris led ‘anti-Nazi plotters’ and the Polish and British governments in London. The plotters believed that the Soviet Union’s broad eastern front counter offensive, despite recent setbacks, was unstoppable in the long run and would eventually smash through Poland, destroy Germany and threaten Western civilisation in Europe. The plotters proposed to overthrow the Nazi regime, form a democratic government and sue for peace in the west. Germany, France, Britain and the US would then fight together to stop the Bolshevik invasion of Western Europe; Poland would spearhead the fight against the Russians at the Polish Russian border.

Although this scenario is probably true, there is no written evidence to support it. Czerniawski never spoke of it and Halina Szymanska’s MI6 files have either been destroyed by the British government or they have not yet been released from secrecy. Whatever the truth, Roman’s actions during the course of the war proved that:

Czerniawski was a Polish patriot . . . . . He lived for Poland and was perfectly prepared (at times almost anxious) to die for it. "His loyalty is entirely to his own country, and every problem he sees is bound up with the destiny of the Polish people," wrote one of his fellow spies. He loathed the Germans and Russians with equal intensity for carving up his country, and dreamed only of restoring the Polish nation. Every other loyalty, every other consideration, was secondary. (Macintyre P12)

Czerniawski agreed to cooperate with the Abwehr if:

 Poland would be a sovereign nation after the communists were beaten  Interallie agents would not to be executed but would be held in Prisoner of War Camps until the war ended.

Hugo Bleicher gave Agent Hubert (his Abwehr pseudonym) clothing, documents, two wireless crystals, a cyanide pill and money. On Bastille Day the 14th July, 1942 an escape was staged. Czerniawski made his way to unoccupied France. Around August 15th he contacted and updated Polish military intelligence who passed the news on to MI6. Arrangements were made and Roman was whisked to Madrid, Gibraltar and finally to London. He found his way to Hotel Rubens, the location of Polish military intelligence, and reported to Colonel Gano. Subsequently, Kenneth Benton of B1A - the counter-intelligence department of MI5, interviewed Czerniawski.

Most current historical publications speculate that during Czerniawski’s first meetings with Polish and British counter-intelligence he did NOT divulge that he was acting as double agent Hubert. He stuck to his Abwehr cover story, differing from it only by reporting that Mathilde Carre had betrayed Interallie. Mathilde had also been recruited by the Abwehr, but shortly after she was interviewed by B1A she was arrested as a double agent and spent the rest of the war in Aylesbury prison. Something doesn’t add up here because it is common knowledge that B1A had access to Enigma decrypts and knew in advance the names, landing places and times of all the agents the Abwehr tried to infiltrate into Britain; that is British counter-intelligence knew beforehand that both Carre and Czerniawski were Abwehr recruits. Czerniawski however was NOT arrested. Why had one of them been arrested but not the other?

Admiral Canaris. Most photos come from Ben MacIntyre's book "Double Cross"

Czerniawski 4th from Right & The French XX

If ‘plot intermediary’ was one of the tasks Canaris had assigned to Hubert then the British and the Poles may have been temporising to see how the proposed Canaris coup panned out? In the interim the Enigma decrypts proved that Czerniawski was doing nothing to the detriment of Britain. Since there was no coup, only the missing Halina Szymanska files can clarify what really happened at the first Czerniawski debriefings. If they showed that Oskar Reile’s assertions were true, the British and US governments would be embarrassed if the Russians learned that some or all of their WWII Allies considered turning on them. This would explain why the Szymanska files were either destroyed or have not yet been released.

After several weeks Czerniawski presented to Polish and British authorities a 64 page typewritten statement titled "The Great Game." It stated, something B1A already knew from enigma decrypts, that Roman had agreed to become double agent Hubert; the report then went on to analyse how he could be used as a triple agent to deceive the German military.

Churchill once remarked to Stalin that ‘in war truth is so important that it must be protected by a bodyguard of lies’. On January 2nd, 1941, MI5 had established a special group called the Twenty or XX Committee to intercept, turn, imprison or kill Enigma revealed Abwehr agents as soon as they landed in Britain. It was chaired by John Masterman and staffed mainly by top people drawn from MI5, MI6 and each branch of the military. The XX Committee was formed for the purpose of coordinating Britain’s Double Cross system of inventing and assembling lies to protect the truth.

Tar Robertson

Oskar Reile

Thomas Argyll Robertson (Tar) was the man in charge of the team responsible for turning incoming Abwehr agents into double agents so they could be used to surreptitiously feed into the minds of German military experts a blurred and evolving theatre of war mirage designed by the XX Committee. Each double agent over days, weeks and months would be given jigsaw pieces, some of which fitted the image, others were vague and some didn’t fit at all. A sprinkling of duplicates would be spread amongst them. German spymasters collected the pieces and delivered them to military headquarters in Berlin for assessment. They would rank their agents according to their ability to consistently supply key pieces of the puzzle. The Double Cross team, through Enigma decrypts, would know whom to feed and what to feed them. Nazi military strategists were ignorantly, in their own mind’s eye, putting together the picture the XX Committee wanted them to see. Some Germans felt proud, perhaps even arrogant, in their ability to find, collect and cleverly solve such a tough battlefield jigsaw puzzle.

Key members of the XX Committee had conflicting views on whether Czerniawski could be a useful addition to the ‘Double Cross’ team. The ‘against’s’ were worried that because the Germans knew that he had spied against them they may have sent him as a plant anticipating that he would become a triple agent, in which case they would read Hubert’s reports in reverse, thereby destroying the bodyguard of lies the Committee was ‘selling’. Those ‘in favour’ believed that Czerniawski, unlike anyone else they had, was a talented, professionally trained intelligence officer, qualities which made him too valuable to waste. They could try him out on a temporary basis under close scrutiny, allowing him to handle only minor matters to see how things worked out. Czerniawski was brought into the fold and Armand, who was identified by the Poles and British as Walenty but who the Germans turned into Hubert, was now given the pseudonym Brutus! What a brilliant decision this proved to be.

John Masterman

Garbo

The XX Committee’s ‘Most Secret Sources’ (MSS), the Enigma decrypts of the communications between Berlin and its Abwehr stations, showed that: “Brutus was becoming a trusted source of military intelligence. As confidence grew both in him, and in the Germans' belief in him, he was used more and more.” (Macintyre P135)

But just before Brutus’s role could be expanded, disaster struck. “To mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the Red Army, General Stanislaw Ujejski, inspector general of the Polish air force, attended a reception at the Soviet embassy in London. Anti-Soviet feeling was running high among Polish expatriates after the Katyn massacre . . . . Czerniawski was outraged by what he saw as Ujejski's cozying up to a murderous regime. In early June, he wrote a blistering attack on the general entitled ‘In Defence of Our Colleagues,’ ran off hundreds of copies, and distributed them throughout London.

‘The Soviets committed terrible crimes against the Poles. These Red soldiers ill-treated Polish women and bestially murdered thousands of our defenceless colleagues. It is unworthy for the head of the Polish Air Force to go to a tea party where they danced on the newly made graves of many Polish soldiers.’ Ujejski was attacked as an overpaid immoral, flattering coward who should be sacked. Within hours of distributing his ‘pamphlet,’ Czerniawski was arrested . . . . and Czerniawski was imprisoned in Scotland to await court-martial.” (Macintyre Pp136-137 )

In August 1943 Czerniawski was found guilty of gross insubordination and sentenced to 2 months imprisonment. However, he was released immediately because he had already served 6 weeks and the remainder of his sentence was postponed till after the war. The XX Committee copied Brutus’s radio style and transmitted messages to the Abwehr informing them of his problems and arrest over the Katyn matter. ‘He’ warned the Germans he would only air again when things settled down. Though this incident was a temporary setback to Roman’s deception career, it may actually have increased his long term credibility with the Abwehr, because his actions over Katyn were strongly aligned with German interests. Czerniawski soon resumed his role in forming the ‘bodyguard of lies’ and his handlers noticed that Most Secret Sources (Enigma) was showing that of all XX Committee double agents it was the Brutus reports the German military authorities trusted most. In March 1944, to expand the number, source and importance of his messages Brutus recruited Chopin, a fictional wireless operator sub-agent; a Pole whose family the Soviets had brutally murdered.

The war, trending to the Allies, had reached the point where plans were being drawn for the invasion of Nazi occupied Europe (Operation Overlord). The Germans, expecting an invasion, were making counter plans to defeat it.

The enemy must not know where I intend to give battle. For if he does not know where I intend to give battle he must prepare in a great many places. And when he prepares in a great many places, those I have to fight in any one place, will be few. (Sun Tzu)

Map of Normandy Invasion

Deception Map

The Allies and Germans knew the plans had two components: real and diversionary. The Allies aimed to deceive the Germans (Operation Bodyguard) into believing that the real invasion was actually the diversion. The Germans of course didn’t want to be fooled again as they had been when the Allies invaded Sicily (Mincemeat). The Germans were convinced that this time they were holding all the aces, because they were confident that the information they were harvesting from the dozens of agents they were running in Britain, especially Artist, Bronx, Tate, Treasure, Tricycle, Garbo and Brutus, would contain enough clues to allow German military strategists to accurately discern the real point and time of the invasion.

The German High Command (OKW) had complete faith that their Enigma encoded communications were unbreakable; they, the ‘superior’ people had tried and failed, therefore their ‘inferiors’ stood no chance. Nevertheless, three Polish mathematicians, Rejewski, Zygalski and Rozycki had done the impossible; before the start of WWII Poland passed Enigma cracking equipment and Enigma cracking methods to the British. Enigma decrypts empowered the XX Committee to intercept, turn, imprison or kill all the agents the Abwehr tried to infiltrate into Britain. The effect: The Allies controlled every single agent in Britain the Germans thought they controlled! The significance: the XX Committee not only knew what the German High Command was thinking they had the power to control that thinking and thereby influence German military strategy! Furthermore, Enigma decrypts gave the Committee feedback about what the Germans were swallowing; the double agent handlers could make adjustments as to which agents they fed the most and what they fed them. Such a feedback loop strengthened Allied influence on German strategy!!

The success of Operation Bodyguard in deceiving the Intelligence Department of (OKW) went way beyond the expectations of even the most optimistic of Bodyguard planners. On D-Day 6th of June, 1944, and for many weeks after, the Germans were deceived into believing that George Patton would lead First US Army Group (FUSAG), comprising over 1 million men, making an amphibious landing at Calais, the obvious focal point of the invasion. This ‘Schwerpunkt’ would be supported by an attack on Norway by the General Andrew Thorne led British Fourth Army. They were deceived into believing that a mixture of American, British and Other Forces making up the 21st Army, led by General Bernard Montgomery, would stage a diversionary amphibious landing in the Normandy region. In fact FUSAG and the British Fourth Army were entirely fictitious and the only real invasion force was the 21st Army which made the amphibious landings on the Normandy beaches on D-Day.

Hotel Rubens - photo Internet

The fact that the Nazis had swallowed the deception ‘hook, line and sinker’ was confirmed when British forces captured a German drawn map which showed what German military strategists perceived would be the disposition of Allied forces; the fictitious FUSAG is shown opposite Calais and the fictitious 4th Army is deployed in Scotland. The troop disposition on the map closely resembled the invasion mirage Robertson’s XX Committee had painted.

As a consequence of being fooled, on D-Day the strongest part of the Atlantic Wall (German Coastal Defences) had been built at Calais. Furthermore the German 15th Army, the most powerful and best equipped, was deployed in the Calais region and awaited the fictitious attack. Because they did not believe the Norway attack would be strong, the Germans deployed a mixture of troops totalling only about 250,000 men to defend against the fictitious British Fourth Army. The fragmented German 7th Army was deployed to face the supposed diversionary attack. The German’s also deployed the 11th and 17th Panzer Divisions to protect against a possible attack through the Bordeaux region. As events unfolded in Normandy, only the 11th Panzer division was redeployed 5 days after D-Day to support the 7th Army. 22 Divisions of the Fifteenth Army and other forces remained frozen for weeks, awaiting the fictional attacks.

Given the enormous stakes, it [Operation Bodyguard] was perhaps the most successful strategic deception of all time. (Holt P590)

There were thousands of people worthy of credit for the various contributions they made to the incredible success of this Operation. Of the German agents, however, Brutus was one of the top two. He played a key role in the Bodyguard deception code named Fortitude North; the Norway component that convinced the Germans to believe that the British Fourth Army really did exist. He played an even bigger role in Fortitude South – the Calais component. Czerniawski convinced his handlers that he had been appointed to FUSAG due to his intelligence background. He was supposed to recruit Poles working in occupied France in regions that may be overrun should the Calais invasion succeed. The confidence the Germans had in Czerniawski meant that his reports from these fictitious armies were very believable. Although Garbo and Brutus were the most important deception contributors, when British military analysts examined captured German records after the war they discovered that:

it would transpire that Brutus's contribution to Fortitude had been perhaps greater even than Garbo's, . . . . . of 208 messages in the German intelligence summaries for 1944 that could be traced to double agent reports, 91 were due to Brutus, 86 to Garbo, and only 11 to Tate. (Holt P547)

Even with the success of Operation Bodyguard, the Normandy invasion was a struggle. The allies suffered an average of almost 6800 casualties a day for about two and a half months; had deception failed, the 10,000 first day casualties from the 160,000 troops landed would have been several times higher. The history of World War II and beyond would have been entirely different.

After the war the former Polish Olympic skier who played such an important role in WWII, first as Armand and then as Brutus, settled in England and ran a printing business in Fulham. The Polish government in London appointed him Minister of Information; the British government awarded him the OBE. He died in 1985 happy in the knowledge that nearly all of his Interallie agents survived the war. He left behind a house populated by 32 cats. His son, Dr Gerry Czerniawski is an educator at the University of East London.

Felix Molski

Monique Deschamps - Czerniawski's wife

Photo Internet

Photo Internet

Link to Part One

References

Barbier, Mary Kathryn. D-Day Deception: Operation Fortitude and the Normandy Invasion. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2009

Ciechanowski, J S (ed.), Marian Rejewski 1905-1980, Living with the Enigma Secret (Bydgoszcz City Council, Bydgoszcz, 2005)

Crowdy, Terry. Deceiving Hitler. Double Cross and Deception in World War II. Osprey, London, 2008

Czerniawski, Roman. The Big Network. George Ronald, London 1961. Pp 204-205

Haufler, Hervie. The Spies Who Never Were: The True Story Of The Nazi Spies Who Were Actually Allied Double Agents. Caliber, New York, 2006

Holt, Thaddeus. The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 2004

Levine, Joshua. Operation Fortitude: The Story of the Spy Operation That Saved D-Day. HarperCollins, London, 2011

Macintyre, Ben. Double Cross. The True Stories of the D-Day Spies. Random House, New York, 2012. P18

Masterman, John C. The Double-Cross System in the War of 1939 to 1945 Yale University, 1972.

Stirling, Tessa, Daria Natecz, and Tadeusz Dubicki. Intelligence cooperation between Poland and Great Britain during World War 2: Report of the Anglo-Polish Historical Committee. London: Valentine Mitchell 2005

West, Nigel, The A to Z of British Intelligence, Scarecrow Press 2009

West, Nigel (ed.) The Guy Liddell Diaries, 1939-1945. Vols 2, Routledge, London, 2009.

Documentaries

Ben Macintyre (based on his book: Double Cross)

BBC documentary - Czerniawski is one of the five deception agents who helped to make D-Day a success. Includes a brief clip of a Czerniawski interview 59mins 03secs (In English)

Ben Macintyre talks about his book 3mins 18secs (In English)

Controversies arising from Czerniawski’s deception role

Sensacje XX Wieku - Tajna Gra - Roman Czerniawski 46mins 43secs (In Polish)

Czerniawski’s Interallie network and deception role as Brutus

Sensacje XX Wieku - Zaginione Archiwa 74mins 36secs (In Polish)