Posted on 07/07/2009 3:35:26 AM PDT by iowamark
Desperate for a glimpse into Adolf Hitler's unpredictable mind, British spies hired an astrologer during World War II to match the forecasts of the Nazi leader's personal astrologers, documents declassified Tuesday show.
They soon regretted it....
Agents complained de Wohl's flamboyantly gay demeanor was destroying their carefully constructed cover story that his hotel apartment was paid for by a wealthy female patron and that his special operations liaison officer was a mistress. Agents also complained of his boasting about connections to the War Office and Naval Command.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill didn't believe in astrology, but in mid-1941 he sent de Wohl to the U.S. to persuade Americans that the Nazis would lose within months if they entered the war.
A U.S. convention of pro-German astrologers had predicted Hitler would win the war, giving the U.S. more reason to stay out. Billing himself as The Modern Nostradamus, de Wohl proclaimed the same stars showed the opposite - that Hitler would lose....
His services no longer needed, he was called back to London in February 1942. He told an MI5 officer that he was astonished when he returned to find his hotel apartment stripped bare and his department disbanded.
His handlers did not contact him. He knocked on doors looking for Hambro - wearing the uniform of a British Army captain. The rank was assigned to him temporarily for his U.S. mission and withdrawn afterward. But to MI5's dismay, that wasn't explained to de Wohl.
Behind the scenes, MI5 correspondence shows his handlers at a loss. Senior officers offer a number of proposals on how to dispose of de Wohl, including interning him in a camp or moving him to a remote corner of the country. Two other options are blanked out in the file....
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
If he were the Modern Nostadamus, one would think he would have anticipated his demise from MI5’s pleasure.
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