Helen Fry
Spies, Intelligence and Secret Listeners
Helen Fry | Spies, Intelligence and Secret Listeners
- So welcome to today’s session. I want to give you some more insights into the secret war, spies, and espionage of the Second World War, a very secret war. Some of this will be familiar to you, you will have heard it before. There’ll be new material in here. But what I’m going to talk about was so important for the outcome of World War II that I felt it really, really important to do this session today. And as a treat about halfway through, we have a new nine to 10-minute video where I go underground in one of these secret sites and film for the very first time. So this is very exciting, and I’m going to share that with you shortly, a bit later on. But I’m going to give a sort of backdrop to this very secret war. Because by the summer of 1938, our intelligence services knew that war was coming, just didn’t know exactly when. And all kinds of preparations were being made a year before the outbreak of World War II. So the summer of 1938, we purchased Bletchley Park, and we know what happens there. It goes on to do the most incredible code-breaking work, cracking the enigma machines. Unbelievable work of the men and women, two-thirds of the workforce, women, of course, at Bletchley Park. So that legacy’s known, but that autumn of 1938, we were also looking at other intelligence units that would leap into action the moment that war was broken out.
And we knew that it wasn’t just the signals intelligence we needed, that work at Bletchley Park, but we also needed the human intelligence. And a branch of military intelligence, British military intelligence, called MI9, that would help our guys back from behind enemy lines was also working on a secret project in the UK outside London. And MI9 believed that one of your most valuable sources of information are your prisoners of war. But how to get the information out of them? You cannot be roughing them up in interrogation. You know, it’s against the Geneva Convention. We’re going to have to find clever ways to gain the secrets of the Nazi regime. And at the heart of it will be the German Jewish, German and Austrian Jewish secret listeners. It’s an exciting story, and we’re going to hone in on one particular site about halfway through today’s lecture that’ll link into this new film and will give you a sense of just how significant. And it is a very proud part of our Allied history. American intelligence was involved as well. Next slide, please. And the German Jewish secret listeners, so a very important part of Jewish history as well. So very relevant to today’s talking on the Secret War. And you’ll have seen a photograph of this man before on the left. He’s Thomas Joseph Kendrick, one of my heroes, utterly inspirational. Some of you will remember that I’ve talked about him before. He’s pictured here in Vienna. From the 1920s and ‘30s, he was our top spy master in Europe working for what today we call MI6. So very charismatic. Do you think he looks like a spy?
I definitely think he does. Anyway, I wrote his biography, “Spymaster,” which some of you may have read. And he would sort of charm his way with the cocktail parties. They would attend the Royal Opera House in Vienna. And we don’t have time to talk about it today, but in March, 1938, when Hitler annexed Austria, he embarked on a humanitarian mission that across the next six months until he was expelled by the Gestapo and by the Germans in August, 1938, he went on with his staff to save up to 200 Austrian Jews a day. It’s a huge legacy. Still trying to get him recognised at Yad Vashem. He broke the boundaries of his work technically under the quote-unquote Foreign Office and saved thousands of Jewish lives as well as those at political risk of the Nazis. So he’s expelled in August, 1938. Fortunately, the Germans don’t bump him off. I think they would’ve if it’d been any later. And he comes back to London, and he just disappears from the public eye. And that’s when our intelligence services put him in charge of creating a new unit that had never been done before.
And this would be a unit to bug the conversations of German prisoners of war and some Italians, but I’m just going to talk about the German prisoners of war today. And the first place, anniversary was yesterday because yesterday was the 3rd of September, the outbreak of World War II. And already on the day that Poland was invaded, on the 1st of September, 1939, Kendrick arrived here at the Tower of London. This is one of our nation’s most iconic tourist attractions and one that, you know, tens of thousands, I think they have over a million, possibly more, visitors a year from all over the world. I don’t know about you, but it’s one of my favourite places in Central London. I love the Tower of London, with that long history of royalty and traitors. So where are you going to take your first German prisoners of war? Here to the Tower of London. And that’s exactly what happened. Kendrick set up a unit to bug the conversations of German prisoners of war. It started here. The photograph in the bottom there is the salt tower. This is one of the towers at the far end of the Tower of London. And he had a whole kind of area, the hospital block and these little towers where he could hold German prisoners of war. And they must have wondered of course what on earth was going to happen to them because it has a bit of a history. Well, nothing sinister. And what he arranged was to have a phoney interrogation. The prisoners would then go back to their room, sharing with their mates, two or three of them in a room, like this one in the salt tower. In fact, this room was used.
And they would start boasting to the interrogating, what they hadn’t told the interrogating officer, started to boast to each other. So clever because what they didn’t realise was that the walls had ears. And there were tiny microphones in the light fittings and the fireplaces. Next slide, please. We started to gather lots of snippets of information. And we will come to the two other sites shortly. Well, three others in total. But this is a photograph outside a later site, Latimer House, and that’s the one where the video takes place. We’re going to show you about halfway through. And Latimer House becomes really important as the headquarters of the whole eavesdropping programme from 1941. This rare photograph, the Ministry of Defence seems to have lost all their photographs. So this has come from various private archives. It’s been collected over nearly 30 years of my research. A very rare photograph of the German and Austrian Jewish secret listeners. With the exception of one or two of those listeners who were anti-Nazis, all of these were secret listeners. The women were not secret listeners. I’ll come to them shortly. But it’s an enormous legacy that had significance nationally and internationally that’s now recognised by our body Historic England here in England. But what happened at these sites. The work completed by those secret listeners was, quote, “of national and international significance on a par with the code breaking at Bletchley Park.” Extraordinary.
And every one of those German Jewish, and I mean, Austrian as well, I’ll just say German Jewish, secret listeners play their part across three sites. And the women, you can see one in the row immediately behind the front row, but all of them in the front row there, are emigres. They are German Jewish refugees who fled parts of Germany. I think pretty much all of them are from Germany rather than from Austria. And they played their part in important intelligence operations at these sites. So there were male secret tell in the files as they’ve been declassified at the moment. And these all survive in our national archives at Q in London. None of the women were secret listeners. It was only the men. And they were based in a special room called the M room, which stood for… And they recorded conversations, thousands of conversations, of German prisoners of war across the war. Now, how did German Jewish secret listeners come to be at these sites, working at the heart of an operation that was so top secret that knowledge of its existence didn’t come out until by 2024? Sorry, 2004, sorry. 20 years ago, exactly, to this day. Between 1999 and 2004, it took five years. Been declassified are all the ones we’re going to get. And it’s been a 20-year or more journey to uncover their incredible stories.
So how did they come to be there? Well, as many of you probably know because you had this touch, may touch on your own family history, there were 10,000 German Jews who fought for Britain during the Second World War. There’s a parallel story of around 14,000 German Jews who fought in the American forces. And there were a handful of seven or eight of them we know about from the American forces, German Jews in American uniform, who came and worked at these UK sites. So if we bear that in mind as well, we did have, they’re not in this photograph, but we do have a small number, no more than 10, of German Jews. Everything you hear about today on the programme, there were American personnel, some of them not Jewish actually, as officers, others as secret listeners, but no more than around 10 Americans that were secret listeners. Former emigres. But for the British ones, until 1942, '43, they could only serve in the Pioneer Corps. So they were digging for victory in that part of the British Army constructing coastal defences, doing forestry work, and thoroughly frustrated. This was their war, and they wanted and putting up coastal defences. So the the secret listeners, actually by 1943, our man Kendrick put out a call to the Pioneer Corps. We need fluent German speakers. Next slide, please. And that’s where the, we could call for around 103 German Jews that were in British Army uniform. These are some of them. And they were transferred across three sites.
On the left hand corner, the bottom there is George Pulay. He and his family have been saved from Vienna by Kendrick. He’s the uncle of Roger Lloyd-Pack. Roger Lloyd-Pack, the late actor who played Trigger in “Only Fools and Horses,” a British sitcom that, I don’t know if it went viral in America as well. And in the middle there, Fritz Lustig. He was the one who got me started on the story and said, “Did we do anything that made any difference to the outcome of the war?” What about us secret listeners, Helen? You’ve told everyone’s story about the other 10,000 Germans who fought for Britain, but what about us? What about us secret listeners? And then on the right, Eric Mark, who was the last surviving secret listener who’s now passed away. And they made an extraordinary contribution. They were all serving in the Pioneer Corps when they were transferred and made one of the greatest contributions that they could possibly make in defeating the Nazi regime. Next slide, please. And one of the sites after the Tower of London, the key site that was used after the Tower of London, was this place, Trent Park. This is at the end of the Piccadilly Line at Cockfosters, beautiful country estate that was requisitioned and taken over by Kendrick.
And then for the next two to three years, thousands of German prisoners of war came through this site. They used mainly the stable block, but also the house. In the top there, you can see the remnants of some of the wiring that can still be seen in places on the site. The whole house was wired for sound. It took five months for special engineers to do that and to wire the stable block. And in the bottom there you can just see one of the original microphones that I donated to a military museum. And this is an RCA 88 pressurised microphone, which came from Radio Corporation of America. And it’s a bit like a sort of broadcast that you see on television, like a BBC would use. These came from America, and they would take them apart. And in the middle of the main part, the microphone, you can see in the middle of that photograph, on the end there is a tiny, tiny microphone. And that was dismantled and hidden behind skirting boards, behind fireplaces. And then in 1942, when we had some very special guests arriving, next slide, please. Hitler’s generals started to arrive at Trent Park. And this was reserved for them. And the microphones now were extended across the house, in plant pots, the billiards table. I don’t have time to tell you some of the very funny stories about the German generals and their relative life of luxury in Trent Park. That’s Kendrick in the top there arriving. That’s at his desk at Trent Park. This was taken in around 1940. And in the bottom there you can see some of those generals and senior officers arriving. This is General von Arnim arriving at Trent Park in May, 1943. The whole of the Africa campaign’s collapsed.
The German forces have surrendered. And General von Arnim, who’s in charge of all these forces, arrives at Trent Park with his senior officers. He’s given a salute. He’s being treated with utmost respect. He’s been greeted by an American Air Force officer who’s working in intelligence. And they’re about to have an incredible, next slide, please. Nearly three years in some cases until the end of the war. And this is General von Arnim there arriving, different view, arriving at Trent Park. You can see the site is guarded, you know. It’s got the barbed wire, double layer barbed wire fence. You have General von Thoma who was already there. He was captured in North Africa in 1942. You have General Cruwell. He was the first general. He was an ardent Nazi. Cruwell was an ardent Nazi. Von Thoma was an anti-Nazi. Cruwell was captured in North Africa in May '42. Von Thoma in November '42. And so they were already at Trent Park. And the place had been wired further for sound. And we captured all of their conversations until the end of the war. And those German Jewish secret listeners were at the heart of it. Next slide, please. And by 1941, because we knew we were going to capture those German generals, Kendrick started to prepare this place. The German generals don’t arrive till 1942, but we’re already getting another site ready because we’re going to have to process the lower ranks at a different site. And Trent Park will be reserved for the German generals.
And they will be taken out for posh meals and all kind of elaborate ruse to get them to speak to those hidden microphones, to be so relaxed. Latimer House, which I want to focus on today. This has been a fair bit about Trent Park, but Latimer House is one of those untold gems. It became the headquarters of the whole bugging operation of World War II. It opened in 1942. It took a year to make it operational. Next slide, please. And there are some wonderful shots around the site. Today, it’s a hotel you can go and visit. Yeah, that’s the driveway up to it. It was owned by Lord Chesham. And when it was requisitioned, he was told, you know, “Could you kindly move out? You’ll get it back.” Well, he didn’t because it became a joint services training centre after the war and during the Cold War. But you can still today see remnants of its wartime history. Not many survive. You need to know where to look. And when Trent Park became full, particularly after D-Day, there were too many generals. There were 100 senior officers, 59 of them generals, in Trent Park. And so Latimer House starts to be used for them as well as the lower rank prisoners. And you have a special area at the back of the site, constructed one-story buildings where the secret listeners were. But on that window on the right there, you can just see some of those white bars. That’s remnant of World War II.
And these are on a couple of the windows above the entrance. So either side, on the first floor above the entrance, there is still the remnants. And because that building is listed, they’re not allowed to take those rails down. But those luxury rooms in the mansion house was where we held some of Hitler’s generals because Trent Park was full. Next slide, please. The other remnant on site, there are two World War II gates. Now, you’re going to think we’re mad as we say this story, and I’m going to get very excited about these gates. Well, why am I excited? Because this was such a top secret site. It was such a top secret place in the middle of the countryside. It’s not far from Amersham, around 20 miles, 20, 25 kilometres outside of London. And this was one of, this was the main gate, actually. It was one of the gates that was used because at this top end of the site, you can still see these gates today. That was where the whole complex of buildings were, where the secret listeners worked and where the Jewish emigre women worked. And through these gates, the prisoners were brought, the lower-ranked prisoners. The generals were taken to the main house. But the complex at the back of the site, the lower ranked prisoners were brought. And there were thousands of them that came from 1942 until just beyond the end of the war. And they would come through these gates in closed vans at night. They were always well treated on site, but they weren’t to know where they were being held. Next slide, please. We’ve now got an aerial view of Latimer House coming up. Yep. The naval intelligence block on the far left there. Beautiful stately home.
But as I said, you can visit today. You can just walk in. You can visit and stay, but you can also walk into the library, and you can have drinks, you can have coffee, you can have a light bar snack. And there’s a photograph of Kendrick at his desk at Latimer House. Next slide, please. And we also requisitioned the third site down the road. Wilton Park at Beaconsfield. So, again, that’s roughly about 20 kilometres from London and just about eight or nine miles from Latimer House. So these two sites, now Latimer House became headquarters. Wilton Park and Latimer House together would, on the whole, process over 10,000 German prisoners of war for incredible amount of intelligence, the same principle as during the Tower of London. You give them a phoney interrogation, they go back to their rooms, their cell, where they start to boast to their mates what they haven’t told the interrogating officer. We’ve got volumes of intelligence across the war. Next slide ,please. And so important were these sites. And don’t forget, Trent Park was being reserved primarily for the German generals. This is an aerial view of Latimer House just at the end of the war. And the naval intelligence block on the left of the house is already gone, but this is pretty much as it is today.
And that sort of garden in the centre of the photograph with the path going through, that’s leading to that whole area, the secret area, where the secret listeners were, that single story complex of buildings that was known as The Spider. The path going up through the middle is The King’s Walk. It’s still there today. And on the left is, today it’s a car park. But there we have Lord Aberfeldy, the fake aristocrat, that Kendrick created to charm the generals and any important prisoners. He would make them feel relaxed and that they were sort of on his side. He would accompany them for posh lunches in Central London. We have lots of stories in my book “The Wolf Have Ears” about Lord Aberfeldy. He was in fact an intelligence officer, Ian Munroe. He’s quite young, he was in his 20s, and they gave him a nickname, or actually termed him Aberfeldy, named after a whiskey distillery. So I love this sense of humour. And that photograph of him, it’s a rare photograph of Ian Munroe, senior intelligence officer, who became AKA pseudonym, Lord Aberfeldy. He literally played the part of the lord. And the German generals believed he really was a lord with estates in Scotland. That photograph was taken at Latimer House, that now we know. Next slide, please. And The King’s Walk is coming up just today as it was all those 80 years ago, where some of those German generals, they’d come off the battlefields of Normandy, were walked up and down here and a casual chat with, they didn’t know it was intelligence officer. Well, you’ll see in the film a little bit more about that.
Next slide, please. But Latimer has all kinds of secrets that still haven’t been revealed. And there are rumours of a secret tunnel. What site doesn’t have a secret tunnel? That there’s a secret tunnel that runs from the house possibly to the church, which is just a few hundred metres. It’s actually within the estate. Wonderful little chapel this. And it’s thought that it’s accessed from a plinth outside. It’s difficult, one couldn’t do it today without, you know, permission and some specialist help, but extraordinarily this secret tunnel is supposed to come out here. Some say it goes even further to Bovingdon Aerodrome, which is about two to three miles to the north of Latimer House. And that became, during the wartime, partly an American air base actually. And it serviced lots of secret sites in the area as well as regular forces. And also personnel from Latimer House would be flown in and out. So what about Latimer House itself? Next slide, please. I want to show you what lies beneath. Yeah, what lies beneath. Because today it’s not possible for health and safety reasons to go into the tunnel. But the current owners, the De Vere Estate that runs the hotel, gave us a bit of access. So I hope you enjoy this video that’s around 10 minutes, and then we’ll talk through a little bit more. But it gives access to areas we’ve never seen before. Welcome to the De Vere Latimer Estate in the Buckinghamshire countryside. Today, it’s a luxury hotel, but back in 1942, the guests weren’t here for a weekend break.
They were German prisoners of war. And this grand estate was known as the spy house. These German prisoners never knew that they were being tricked into divulging Hitler’s most closely guarded secrets. Come with me underground to the cellar’s beneath this house as we discover the espionage world of the secret listeners. In the 17th century, Latimer House was the home of the Cavendish family. During the Second World War, it became one of the most important espionage sites run by British intelligence. It was here that thousands of German prisoners of war came alongside some of Hitler’s top generals. The prisoners were brought daytime or at night in closed vans, and they were taken to a specially-constructed area at the far end of the estate. But for Hitler’s generals, they would be staying in the house itself. There were even rumours that Rudolf Hess was here. This very clever wartime operation was the brainchild of this man, Thomas Kendrick. He was an MI6 spy master who had been running spy networks right across Europe. Like the German businessman, Oskar Schindler, Kendrick saved thousands of Jews. Here at Latimer House in wartime, he knew that if you treated Hitler’s generals like prisoners of war, they would behave like prisoners of war. They wouldn’t give anything away. So Kendrick devised an entirely different plan. What was he up to? The generals were given a phoney interrogation.
And unlike the other prisoners, they were brought to a lovely room in the main house. Today, it’s a luxury hotel. Kendrick even went so far as to create a fake aristocrat, Lord Aberfeldy. And it was his job to befriend the generals to make them feel very relaxed in their surroundings. But in fact, he was an intelligence officer, Ian Munroe. So what was Kendrick doing here? What plan had he devised? There are just four words for this. The walls had ears. Here we are in the secret tunnel. I’ve been given exclusive access to this area, and this is an original World War II cell. From 1941 to 1945, down here there were tonnes of hidden microphones, and they were all wired back to the M room. The M room, which stood for mic room, was where the secret listeners were based with their special equipment. And here they were recording the conversations of the German prisoners as well as Hitler’s generals. But surely they had to speak fluent German. Well, in fact they did because the secret listeners were German Jews who’d fled Nazi Germany, like Fritz Lustig. These secret listeners recorded thousands of snippets of information, which was so valuable for the war effort. Oh wow, look at this down here. It’s really extensive. It’s bigger than I thought it was going to be down here. Kendrick actually placed a U-boat commander with a German Air force officer, and it was hoped that they would talk about their war, that they would inadvertently give up pieces of information.
Amazing. Yeah. This was a very secret world. And this was bugging on an unprecedented scale. The King’s Walk here was ideal to take a German general for a casual stroll. An intelligence officer would be chatting to him and inadvertently trying to get that general to spill a few secrets. The general, of course, didn’t realise that the bushes and the trees had hidden microphones. To give you an idea of just how significant Latimer House was for the outcome of the Second World War, I’m going to tell you the story of the V-1 flying bomb, two paratroopers, and a German general. The V-1 flying bomb or doodle bug was part of Hitler’s secret weapon programme. On the 11th of March, 1943, two German paratroopers were brought to a cell like this in the tunnels under Latimer House. They boasted to each other how they hadn’t told the British about the site in Germany where these weapons were being developed. This placed British intelligence on high alert, and we received vital information about the V-1 programme. And one of the most important prisoners ever to be brought to Latimer House was this man, General Dornberger. He was in charge of the whole of Hitler’s secret weapon programme, the V-1, and even the V-2 rocket. It was hoped that Lord Aberfeldy would charm him into giving away those secrets with whiskey, wine, and fine food. And Dornberger did.
As a direct result of this intelligence, Winston Churchill authorised Operation Crossbow, and it would lead to the bombing of this secret site Peenemunde in Germany. And this would knock out Hitler’s secret weapon development programme for at least nine months. The first V-1 didn’t land on London until June, 1944. This was later described as war-winning intelligence. If Germany had managed to get that V-1 operational so much earlier, it could have cost us the war. Germany could have won the technological war. It’s so dark down here. Oh, and a bit eerie, a bit uneven on the surface. And gosh, look at this. That’s extraordinary, that spider’s web. That’s actually not why we’re here. We’re here to see something in this direction. Oh, this is the area I wanted to show you. The truth about Latimer House is still shrouded in secrecy. When the estate was sold by the Ministry of Defence in the 1980s, there was a clause added that this wall behind me could not be touched for 50 years. There is a secret tunnel, and we don’t know where it leads to, but now that 50-year contract has been extended again. So we still won’t know about the mystery that lies behind. Before I leave today, I’d like to raise a glass of fine whiskey to the teams of MI5 and MI6, who worked here tirelessly and helped the allies to win World War II. Cheers. What happened here during World War II is now recognised as significant as the enigma code breaking of Bletchley Park. It is now time for the De Vere Latimer Estate to step into the limelight. Lovely, thank you. Thank you. So I hope just the PowerPoint will come back up shortly. But I hope that you will get chance to visit Latimer House if you’re in the UK. If you’re visiting, next slide, please, if you’re visiting the UK, I’m afraid you won’t be able to go down to see what lies beneath because of health and safety.
But do go and visit. It will just give you a sense of place where something so important happened. And within two weeks of Pearl Harbour, so by the end of December '41, just a bit before, American Intelligence officers started to arrive at Latimer House. So this is a very important part of the Anglo-American intelligence relationship. And we can see here some of Hitler’s generals, some of them enjoying country walks, obviously with their British minders. Question, did they ever try to escape? No, 'cause we looked after them far too well. And in the bottom there, you can see a group of them arriving. They came via the Port of Plymouth in the Southwest of England from the battlefields of Normandy. There were a whole raft of them. No one’s ever asked what happened to Hitler’s generals. Were they captured, were they captured? Yes, we captured all of them. And they were spread across these three secret sites that were run by Kendrick. And some of them, because they became full, some of them we know from the files were transferred to America, and they were held at secret sites in America. So it’s an incredibly important history and one that we are still learning so much about. There is still so much to discover. Hitler’s generals as well as the other ranked prisoners gave up intelligence that made a difference to the outcome of the war, as you could tell in that video. Next slide, please. But Latimer House was tri services. So it was army, navy, and air intelligence. And the American Army Air Force were here and other intelligence officers.
This photograph I’ve shown before when I’ve talked about the Secret War of the naval intelligence teams that love to enjoy their cocktails on the balcony of Latimer House. So right there in the front, just behind where that photograph of the secret listeners was taken. And we know that Ian Fleming actually visited this site on more than one occasion. We have a photograph of him outside Latimer House. Next slide, please. And the roles of the women, I’ve spoken a little bit about this before on the roles of the women, we’ll see them here. Catherine Townshend there, who in the end she worked out of Wilton Park, went on to marry an American interrogator. She was in charge of the of the whole of the M Room technology. She was also overseeing and recruiting the male secret listeners with Kendrick. So Fritz Lustig talked to me about how he went for this mysterious interview, had no idea what it was going to be, but at a site, Marylebone Road Hotel interviews. And at the end of the day, he was sent back to the Pioneer Corps, had no idea what was going to happen. And then it was two or three months later that he got this letter in the post, which told him to report to Chalfont Latimer Underground Station. It was actually, but it’s part of the metropolitan line. And he had no idea that he was going to work at Latimer House. And he struck up a friendship with Catherine Townshend. He didn’t marry her. He went on to, they were not in that kind of relationship, but Fritz Lustig went on to meet his wife at Latimer House.
Susan Cohen, who was herself a refugee working in intelligence, from Breslau, originally she was. Lost her family in the Shoah, as so many of those secret listeners did. I think Fritz was one of the lucky ones that didn’t lose a single member of his family. And he was very conscious of that, very conscious of the significance that so many of his colleagues had lost their immediate family and beyond in the Holocaust. And Carol Baring Gould who went on to become an interrogator at Latimer House. You know, again, this has been discovered over the course of my research over the last 20 years. This hidden secret about what the women did. We just have photographs of them in uniform with no idea what they did until we delve into the files. And even their families are now beginning to learn exactly what they did. Next slide, please. And I thought it was helpful to give you a visual image of the kind of files that I’ve been working on, an artistic shot there of some of the transcripts of bugged conversations. Some of the files are really quite thick, some of them are thicker than this. And on the right hand side, again, you won’t really be able to read it because it’s quite small, but it’s just to give you a visual. Top secret, of course, in the corner there. And what’s actually been blanked out that you can actually read on the original document in fact, it’s a copy to British Intelligence and American Intelligence. And this particular one is a conversation in July, 1944 between General Bassenge and General Neuffer. So they were captured later in the war. They were captured in '43. So they weren’t amongst the first that were captured, but they were captured in North Africa. And they are talking about the atrocities. This is a really important part of these bugged conversations.
Because we didn’t just overhear military information, technological information. We also overheard in graphic detail, often in graphic detail, not only from Hitler’s generals, but also from the lower-ranked prisoners, details of the concentration camps, of the mass shootings of Jews in Latvia, in the forest, of the mobile gas trucks before there were the crematoria in the concentration camps. There’s so much that we were beginning to learn from these bugged conversations. And this is before it becomes public knowledge after the liberation of the camps. And Kendrick instructed those secret listeners to keep all the transcripts and all the actual original recordings which were done on acetate discs. A bit like the LPs that were used on gramophone records in the 1960s and '70s. But these were kept. We don’t know where they are. I’m hoping they have survived. There’s been a search for them, but maybe somebody in some dusty War Office building will actually find them one day. But the atrocities about the concentration camps, the mass killing of Jews, and the whole Final Solution was what they overheard was kept on these acetate discs. They were not reused. And this was to use them, next slide, please, in the war crimes trials at Nuremberg.
But that didn’t happen because dilemma of intelligence, actually. At the end of the war, we were entering a new war, a Cold War that was arguably more dangerous. In many ways, one might argue that. Therefore, we were using similar eavesdropping techniques in the Cold War. And I think that’s why these conversations have never been, these files have never been released before 2004 because sort of 1999 to 2004, it’s after the Berlin Wall comes down. So I think that’s significant. Without that, we would never have really heard about that without Fritz asking that question. What did we do? This is an example of a conversation between those two generals, the same ones I mentioned just now. This is February, 1944. And you can just see that one of them, so Bassenge has said to Neuffer, “The Russians haven’t reached the spot yet, where those large scale massacres took place.” “Were they on such a large scale?” “Yes, Russian and Polish Jews, that was what I was telling you about.” But they did away with thousands of them. And then it goes on like this. So you get an idea of the kind of conversations they’re picking up. Next slide, please. And it’s really significant for a reevaluation, I think, of what we knew about the Holocaust and when. And later in September, towards the end of the month, I’m going to be speaking with a gentleman, a historian who’s brought out a new book on evidence of the Holocaust, evidence that’s not been made public knowledge before.
So watch out for that towards the end of September. But that sort of ties in quite nicely with what I’ve just been talking about, that the intelligence services were amassing intelligence on the concentration camps with a view to bringing those Nazi war criminals to justice. But at the end of the day, at the end of the war, we’d entered the Cold War, we needed to protect the world in a new world. And we couldn’t admit to those techniques being used. In that film, you saw reference to the V-1, the flying bomb, the doodle bug. On the right hand side of the screen there you can see an example. This is from one of the sites in France. We bombed those sites as a result of the bugged conversations at Latimer House and the two sister sites of Trent Park and Wilton Park. Top of the screen there, that massive V-2. And on the bottom there, an actual diagram that’s from Kendrick’s unit. They actually drew diagrams and technical drawings of all kinds of German technology that they were uncovering via the bugged conversations. Next slide, please. And it was said in intelligent circles, without the intelligence from Bletchley Park and these three sites, Kendrick’s three sites, it could have been London and not Hiroshima that was devastated by the atomic bomb. We could have lost the war still as late as February, 1945. Germany could have won the technological war without that foresight of that commander, that Colonel Kendrick, Thomas Kendrick, who masterminded this whole operation with by now 1000 intelligence staff. But at the heart of it, those German Jewish secret listeners.
And in terms of technology at these three sites, Latimer House, Wilton Park, and Trent Park, we even overheard information about a V-3. This will be the successor to the V-1 and the V-2. And I have talked a little bit about this before in various series about secret weapon programme. This is Mimoyecques. Everything now is being constructed, deep bunkers underground. Next slide, please. And this is, we’ll see, a V-1 installation under there. This is one of the aerial photography photographs that came back from a reconnaissance mission. Mimoyecques, not far from Pas-de-Calais. You can now see this huge bunker. In fact, previously some of you have emailed being said that you’ve visited. Huge construction underground, 100 foot underground. And we only found them because of the work of those secret listeners at these three secret sites. Two in the Buckingham countryside outside London, and one of them in North London at Cockfosters. Now, if you look at that photograph, if you fly over that site, without the intelligence you have no idea what’s under there. No idea at all. How would we ever know? It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. We only were able, the Americans in a joint mission with the Royal Air Force, bombed this site because of the intelligence we got from Kendrick’s secret sites. Next slide, please. So the technological war was a very real one. It was really significant. Actually, I’ll just go back one because I want to say a bit more before we get onto Rudolf Hess.
Thank you. It’s a really, really important one because, as a result of those bugged conversations, we were also hearing about underground factories in Germany, but in the mountains in Czechoslovakia as it then was. And there are diagrams and maps with pinpoints of, we knew exactly where the entrances were to huge sort of underground factories. We could never have found this without the work of the secret listeners. And that’s just touching the tip of the iceberg. There is volumes and volumes of intelligence that we collected right across the wartime. And at the heart of it, those German Jewish secret listeners. Next slide, please. But I mentioned earlier how Latimer House was a very secret site, a very secret place in World War II. And there were rumours that Rudolf Hess was held at Latimer House. And there are rumours that there were sightings of him elsewhere as well. There are rumours that he was possibly held at Trent Park. Well, he certainly wasn’t held with the German generals because they were complaining to each other. You know, they obviously knew they had footage that, they had newspaper reports that Hess had landed in the UK on the 10th of May, 1941. So they got their news a bit delayed after that. But they were really worried. What happens if Hess is going to be put with us? He’s a traitor to Germany. Now, I have spoken about Hess before, and I won’t go into details here. You know, behind his mission to the UK, which continues to be shrouded in mystery. There are still files which haven’t been declassified.
And that’s fine, maybe one day they will. But there were always these rumours when I visited Latimer House that he was at Latimer House. Was he at Trent Park? Possibly for a short time, but that would’ve been on his way to Nuremberg. But at Latimer House, there were diverse sources that kept saying to me from people whose paths haven’t crossed that Hess was here. So what’s the evidence? Well, interestingly, the main chap at Latimer House that kept saying this to me, “Did you know he was there?” And then at some of my talks, people would say, “Did you know Hess was here? I saw him when I was a child.” And all those kind of things. And you do have to be cautious with eyewitness accounts. If you can find the paper trail. But it was the moment that that guy working at Latimer House said to me, “Do you want to see his room?” And I thought, “Oh, his room.” And I said to him, “How do you know?” And he said, “Because over the years we’ve had American veterans who have come back,” and they would’ve passed away now. This conversation was a good 15 years ago, 20 years ago. And he said to me, “Yeah, we’ve had American veterans who visited here. They’ve come back to England for the first time since the war. And they said, 'Oh, we must, while we’re in England, we must go and see the place where we were stationed, the house where we were stationed during the war.’”
Next slide. And they said, there were a number of them that said we actually had Rudolf Hess here. Next slide ,please, yes. So this is a view from the window. If we go one slide forward, and then we’ll go back again in a moment. So Rudolf Hess’s room, yeah. If we look at the right hand side of the building, love this area. This is not far from where that photograph is taken. The secret listeners. If you look on the first floor in the corner, you’ve got that bush. I don’t think it’s ivy actually, it’s something else. No, it is, I can see now it’s clearer. My screen was fuzzy just now. So yes, got the ivy growing up on the very corner there. There’s a tiny window and then around there’s a bigger window. That was Rudolf Hess’s room. And it was slightly bigger than the room that it is today. One slide back, please. And this is the view out of that tiny window, I’m going to show, showed you just now. That was the view down the Chess valley that Rudolf Hess would’ve had. And of course he would’ve had no idea where he was. But we always looked after him very, very well. We found no evidence that he was in anything other than treated in very good surroundings. The main site that he was held before he was moved around during a period when he came to Latimer House. Before that he was at Mychett Place, or Mychett Place, near Aldershot. Again, in a beautiful country estate, an old military colonel’s residence. And he was always housed with a nice bedroom and a sitting room.
And they ate good food. Kendrick was his minder for a short time. And in the room next to Hess’s bedroom at Latimer House was Kendrick’s actual office. So now from disparate sources, I think that oral tradition is correct. I personally believe that Rudolf Hess was, next slide, please, at Latimer House, probably around June, 1942. I’ve written a bit more about it in my book, “Spymaster,” if you’re interested. And I think those oral traditions are incredibly strong. And there was a period when we moved him around before he ultimately ended up in Wales, and then of course went on later to Nuremberg. So we can’t always know the secrets of this house, but I believe perhaps one day there will be references in any Hess files that are released to him having been held in this wonderful country estate. So today Latimer House is very keen to preserve the history, to remember the history. I really urge you, if you’re nearby, please do go and visit. And as a result of the research, next slide, please. And if you want a personalised tour as a bigger group, if there’s a group of you, I am happy to come out and give you a tour, but it has to be a bigger group. I can’t really do it on an individual level, and it has to be with the permission of the estate. But as a result of that, the film was made with De Vere Latimer Estate that you saw shortly just now. And it was launched only about a little over a month ago.
So about five weeks ago. And Latimer House, they said to me at one point, while the film was being finalised and edited, they said, “You know, we’re inspired by what you told us about the pink gin.” Now, for those of you that don’t know this story, it’s the last story I want to tell you today. That one of the favourite drinks of the naval intelligence team and the intelligence teams, not only at Latimer House but elsewhere, if they were going to celebrate an intelligence success, out came the glasses and the pink gin. They celebrated with cocktails, even if it was lunchtime, out came the pink gin. And so Latimer thought it would be really wonderful for the estate today to have its own pink gin. And that was launched five weeks ago at the same time as that video. And I have to tell you, that pink gin is amazing. They gave us all little bottles, but I think you can probably purchase big bottles. But if you go on site, my understanding is now behind the bar you can have Latimer House pink gin. And on the back is something I’ve written for them about the naval intelligence and the spies on site. And the photograph on the right hand side is the tray of, one of the trays of cocktails that evening five weeks ago. And the two main ingredients which we’ve taken, picked from the grounds of the site, is heather and lavender. Amazing, and it tastes amazing. Next slide, please.
So maybe you will go to Latimer House one day. Maybe you will raise your own glass to those secret listeners and to the intelligence staff, to Colonel Kendrick who worked in utmost secret here at Latimer House, but also across those two sister sites to bring war-winning intelligence. Without their work, the legacy, those heroes, those German Jews, the Austrian Jews who worked as secret listeners, the American Jewish secret listeners, the women, the emigre women that worked in intelligence on these sites, and Kendrick’s non-Jewish personnel as well that delivered incredible intelligence, the outcome of the war would, I now believe that from 20 years of detailed research, the outcome of World War II would have been very different. And I leave you with this thought, and it reinforces something that I said just now. It is said in intelligence circles that without Kendrick’s sites and Bletchley Park, we could have lost World War II as late as February, 1945.
Militarily, we are making progress on the ground. We are into Germany. But Germany could have turned the tide with its technology, with, what if the V-3 had got operational? 300 of those were going to be launched on London a month, like a mini rocket. It just looks like a ballistic missile. The V-3 was so much smaller. 300 of those on London a month. They never quite got them operational. That would have turned the tide. We could not have survived. And what if Germany, that race for the atomic programme and beyond, I don’t have time to talk about it today, but beyond World War II, the prisoners and the senior personnel from Nazi Germany were still being brought to Latimer House until November, December, 1945. And they gave up intelligence that was amongst the most important intelligence at the beginning of the Cold War. So maybe even if you don’t get chance to visit Latimer House, maybe today, maybe at the weekend, you’ll raise your own special glass to the incredible secret listeners and the legacy that they provided in World War II. Thank you.