Newly opened papers contain startling evidence that in the postwar scramble to secure information about Russian communists, British Intelligence “turned” Horst Kopkow, faked his death and used him to fight the Cold War. Posted on 05/14/2005 11:03:18 PM PDT by M. Espinola
ONE of Hitler’s top intelligence officers, who ordered the murders of more than 100 British secret agents in concentration camps, was spared execution as a war criminal and selected to work for MI6.
Newly opened papers contain startling evidence that in the postwar scramble to secure information about Russian communists, British Intelligence “turned” Horst Kopkow, faked his death and used him to fight the Cold War.
Evidence emerged in the 1980s that Britain had become a refuge for suspected war criminals, but few would have believed that the Government had gone even further and put a man like Kopkow on its books. Details of how MI6 snatched Kopkow, 35, from war crimes investigators, inventing his fake death from “bronchopneumonia”, are revealed in private papers made public only now. The papers belonged to Vera Atkins, a senior officer of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Britain ’s secret wartime body. After the war she mounted a one-woman investigation into the fate of her agents behind enemy lines.
The Atkins documents have been corroborated by newly declassified secret papers in the British and American National Archives. MI6 declined to comment on the Kopkow case. However, intelligence sources indicated yesterday that the service itself was taken aback by the evidence. To date, Britain has denied that it engaged in the dark arts used by the Americans, whose employment of Nazis to catch Communists has been well-documented. British intelligence sources pointed out that Kopkow was not in the league of “the butcher of Lyons”, a reference to Klaus Barbie, the most notorious war criminal employed by the Americans.
The Kopkow case is uniquely chilling because the MI6 men who spared him were colleagues and “handlers” of his victims. Among those whose torture and death he sanctioned were men and women of the SOE and MI6 agents.
While Kopkow’s information may have been considered valuable, it was in fact useless. The head of MI6’s Russian desk when Kopkow was captured was Kim Philby, exposed as a Soviet spy more than 15 years later.
Precisely how long Kopkow was employed by British Intelligence remains murky. German records state that he adopted the name Cordes and died in Gelsenkirchen in 1996.
SPY AGENCY
# Set up in 1940 in London, the SOE grew to number 10,000 men and 3,000 women. Senior staff went to public school and Oxbridge, but agents included a former chef, an electrician and a car dealer’s daughter # Life expectancy of a wireless operator in occupied France was six weeks # Of 39 women agents sent to France, 13 were killed # The Secret Intelligence Service chief called the SOE amateur, dangerous and bogus
Our Germans were better than their Germans.
God will deal with him later. I am glad that I have faith in God because without it/him/her the world would be a bleak and unjust place.
The result is always the same. Lay down with dogs, get up with fleas. (Now, if the prize is worth the fleas...then go for it...but if not, then you're an ass who screwed up)
Espionage appears to be a dirty business. If Laverenty Beria had defected to the West, we would have welcomed him.
Try the Gehlen organization.
Those suffering under the communism of Cuba, North Korea and repressive Islamic dictatorships really defect in order to assist those still languishing in their former captive nations.
These Nazi SS killers remained hardcore Nazis. some of them even working for Arab régimes hoping to 'finish the job'.
Tortured? Put into extermination camps?
My, aren't we the real moral relativist today.
Actually, the article states he "sanctioned" their deaths, and they were Killed "in" concentration camps. The whole thing is rather vague. More info is needed for me to get worked up about it.
Under the Geneva Convention, spies, and fighters out of uniform can, and were, executed. The SOE agents were spies.
As for torture, won't defend that except to say the Japanese, Russians, Germans, etc. all tortured spies for info.
I hope we, and the British, didn't. But I notice today some people are in favor of the USA using torture against terroists.
I don't expect you to get worked up about this or anything else. However, it seems that much of the history of WWII has passed you by, otherwise you would not have needed "more info" to understand what "killed in concentration camps" meant.
Whether the US pardoned known war criminals or not is neither here nor there. One should, however, note the fact that the use of Nazis in the cold-war backfired and actually in many instances let the Soviets carry out successful intelligence and counter-intelligence operations against the West.
I will stop this exchange here, to stop me from using language that will make me liable to expulsion from FR.
ScaniaBoy
Awww it not like they hired the nazi to build rockets for NASA er something ..........< /sarcasm>
Well, did he commit war crimes or not? If so, what were they?
The article is vague. If all he did was execute SOE agents, so what? SPIES WERE SHOT BY BOTH SIDES.
And if we could ally ourselves with Stalin and turn a blind eye to his crimes, I don't see anything wrong with using a few nazi's after the war to help us fight communism.
We gave the Japanese doctors who experimented on thousands a people a pass - now that upsets me.
You wouldn't perchance be referring to Sturmbannfüehrer SS Wernher von Braun?
Was he a nazi or downgraded to just a german ?.........:o)
That sir, qualifys as the understatement of the evening.
I understand, nobody's hands are clean.
Thanks for the info on the book 'Between Silk and Cyanide' by Leo Marks & the poem. I will check into the book.
You're welcome.
I hadn't noticed your tag-line before. Very good. Something rcocean should ponder.
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