Hitler's Lost Spy (19 page)

Difficult as it may be to create a character portrayal of Annette, extracts from her file offer some interesting insights advised by those who had monitored her movements.

In November 1938, the month following her revealing Port Stephens visit, a report on Annette was issued by the Newcastle headquarters of the Australian Military Forces, 2nd Military District. Under the title 
‘Movements of Aliens', comments on Annette included:

She is described as being ‘about 30, clever, smart,
attractive, good talker and game and makings
generally of a good spy'.

Then there is the Military Intelligence report referred to previously:

Annette is quite a person in authority. She has been heard telephoning and speaking to people, particularly German men. She does not make requests, she orders.

A report dated 14 February 1939 includes a commentary on Annette's friendships with other residents at
The Manor.

She speaks to no one except Jean Morton and Miss Maddox. Lately she includes a third friend amongst those she talks with, Miss E Caspers who lives at No. 
2, a daughter of the late Judge Caspers. She was in MI5 during the War. Miss Caspers will attend to getting her the job with Horderns. She does not like Annette but thinks her above ordinary intelligence and also suspect. Annette is very attractive, soigné, and well dressed … Is very competent, downright,
good organizer.

Picking through the above extracts, Annette appears to have been mature, assertive, confident, controlled, well organised, energetic, sharp and private. From these characteristics it is not difficult to envisage Annette producing three more qualities, essential for a highly competent female spy: modesty, discretion and discipline.

But when we talk of Annette as being
downright
,
confident
and
controlled
, we may expect an interjection. It would be fair to ask, ‘Wait – how do those personal characteristics line up with someone whose final decision in life was to commit suicide by jumping out of a window? How “controlled” is that?'

The answer is the pervading ghost of Annette's immediate past – the likelihood that her life was largely dictated by a blind dedication to a lost cause. Annette fitted the mould of a true believer – so regulated by Nazi ideology that its defeat probably left her, like millions of others, with disillusionment in her existence and saddled with a black-hole future.

As the inevitability of losing the war seeped home to the Nazis, suicides abounded. These resulted from a dread of the anticipated vengeance by the Allies – 
particularly the Russians – a fear of national retribution, public humiliation in war crime investigations, the need to confront an obliterated economy and the erroneous conviction that the destroyed National Socialist system supposed that after Hitler, there was little to live for.

That Annette Wagner committed suicide more than a year after the end of the war in Europe suggests it was the last of the above reasons by which she was most influenced.

There is an accompanying ingredient to the above – 
and it reaches into Annette's private world. When the war in Europe concluded, whom could she turn to? 
What associates or friends were readily available to communicate with and to rely upon? What were her private emotions and feelings for others? In 1946 
positive answers to these questions were imaginary. Her parents and ‘adoptive' parents in England had all passed away, she claimed her marriage had failed, she had few friends in Australia, and probably less elsewhere, she did not have children and visits to her two brothers, who she said lived in Geneva, were rare – if they happened at all. 
Any friendships with others in German intelligence would have dissipated as Paris was liberated and the German retreat set in. And she may have adopted a new identity. This all sums up to the likelihood that at the war's end Annette was a very lonely woman.

Added to the loneliness was the impact of isolation as she secreted herself in her escape from those who now sought to settle old scores. The woman in control – the woman who did not ask questions, but gave orders – 
was, when she walked across the bridge to the Île de la Cité in July 1946, likely to have been friendless and living with a profound sense of abandonment and hopelessness. As with her spying days in Australia, establishing new contacts always carried a risk, and supporters were difficult to find, and usually suspect – 
her intelligence experiences would see to that. Added to all this was Annette's residency in a country of which she was legally a citizen, but which she had betrayed through her work with its occupiers.

For Annette, the dynamics at work in 1946 were light years away from the relative comfort of her radio broadcasting in Australia. Would she have had regrets? 
Would she have spent time contemplating the past and bemoaning the decisions that resulted in her departure from Australia? Probably not. Annette's spying energies were directed to other immediate demands and this, from 1938 until her death, dominated her way of life. 
Like millions of others at the time, she worked and lived for a future that now lay in ashes.

While it is not difficult for posterity to review her final act and suggest there was another way for her – anything, except what occurred – Annette's suicide was not the result of a hurried, poorly calculated, and possibly regrettable decision. The elements of her resolve were complex. They came from a convoluted era when basic and decent personal choices were often influenced by political and social forces difficult to fully comprehend.

Public opinion in France in the wake of Germany's withdrawal in the months following D-Day necessitates a brief reference. Much anger from the people flared following the early release from detention of many collaborators and other ‘undesirables' who went without restriction as internment camps closed. Prisoners of war returned home in large numbers. Revenge was in the air, and justice was often little more than arbitrary. 
Intensifying these community stresses was the return of concentration camp inmates from Germany, many bent on the settling of scores against those fellow citizens who may have been complicit through treachery with the enemy – real or imaginary.

Finally, there was the effect of the contacts between the German occupiers and French women (the 
‘horizontal collaborators'). Whatever the reasons for these relationships – and there was generally more than one – vengeance against the women was often swift as each population centre was liberated. For some women, fleeing from their hometown was the only opportunity to avoid humiliation or to ensure their personal security, or both. Should some form of punishment be deemed fitting for those who slept with the enemy, what could Annette expect for
working
with the enemy? Her activities were treasonous and she could expect a far worse fate at the hands of a vengeful population than the women experiencing the degradation of having their heads shaved in a public square.

This was the vulnerable backdrop to Annette's isolated existence from the time she shed her German intelligence credentials until July 1946. And this, united with her pre-war experiences, produced the tangled atmosphere in which lay the decision to end her life shortly after her thirty-fourth birthday.

FOOTNOTES

16
 Annette's relative with whom she lived near Newcastle. Clearly, the female agent who obtained this information had successfully accessed the household.

Before attempting to gauge the scope of Annette Wagner's espionage role in Australia, there are five central questions inviting a brief re-examination.

1. Which spy agency specifically was Annette's employer and who were her controllers – i.e. 
   what organisation did she allegedly spy for and which individuals were her contacts?
   
2. What was to be her role in Australia?
   
3. Did the Australian authorities
   believe
   that Annette Wagner was a spy, or was she, like many others, only a suspect?
   
4. What were the known essential errors she committed during her period in Australia?
   
5. Was Annette recruited as a spy before arriving in Australia, or following her arrival?
   

The full answers to these questions would place Annette's activities into complete perspective, and together would neatly sign off her case. The remaining unknowns could have then been estimated with some accuracy and slipped into the program of events. There are, of course, other questions, the answers to which would complete the full history of the lady. But her entire story will never be told, due partly to the clandestine nature of espionage and partly to the universal practice of protecting field agents like Annette as the need arises.

So we will use what we have to answer the important questions of interest and leave the remainder to our imagination and reasoning.

Addressing the above questions:

1. Identifying Annette's controllers may have been the most valuable information Security officials could obtain following her unveiling. Had this occurred, the potential for the revelation of further exposures of spies, the spy agency and operational techniques that could determine both current and future undertakings may have been possible. However, spies themselves may have no idea who their ultimate employer is – 
   and for good reason. In some instances, a spy may suspect – but not know – which country he or she is working for. They usually function on a 
   ‘need to know' basis and their vital communications are often with individuals about whom they know very little. It may also be in the interest of a spy's personal safety, not to mention their employer's, to know any more details than are necessary. Annette knew she was working for Nazi Germany, but she may not have known which organisation within Germany's huge intelligence industry was the final recipient of her data – and nor would anyone on the other side attempting to find the answer. 
   The surveillance placed on Annette may have yielded a satisfactory result, but it apparently failed to provide solid leads to identify the next level in her spying management structure – her controllers. Most importantly, the monitoring of Annette destroyed the strategies to have her positioned for spying activities following the commencement of the war.
   
2. There was nothing known about Annette that gave any signals about her future spying intentions. It is highly likely that her services were centred on providing shipping information and espionage resources to other spies who were unable to safely carry out an assignment. But just 
   ‘being there' in case of need was an espionage advantage and good insurance for the future. Her radio programs were a bonus and would almost certainly have been used for safely conveying her clandestine messages.
   
3. Did Military Intelligence know what she was doing in her spare time? With the exception of a few well-monitored events, such as the Newcastle flight, the answer is no. However, evidence that Military Intelligence understood her spying objectives will no longer come to light. But, did they know that Annette was a spy? 
   Yes. There was too much vital information collected to suggest otherwise.
   
4. What were Annette's critical mistakes? A spy's illicit activities are usually discovered through carelessness, poor task assessment, being a victim of betrayal, the undertaking of a mission beyond the spy's capabilities, the result of a vigilant opposition, some bad luck, or a blend of two or more of these possibilities.
   

Regardless of being an intelligent and highly competent performer, Annette committed four crucial errors. These were:

• Drawing attention to herself at Port Stephens. Without the ensuing surveillance, her activities may have completely evaded suspicion.
  
• Being unaware of that surveillance. Perhaps she was careless, or overconfident, or the surveillance may have been particularly effective. Maybe all three, but the result for Annette was the same. She very strenuously safeguarded against contact disclosure, such as avoiding recognition of Arnold Kaemper on the morning ferry rides across the harbour; however, her communication plan was unknown, but whatever strategy she devised to ensure the avoidance of suspicion, it had holes in it. Her revealing meetings at
  The Manor
  were monitored by the sheltering agents on the outside, and equally dangerous for Annette, information was obtained from the
  inside
  as well. At close quarters, the spy was herself spied upon.
  
• The CIB interview was the finale in closing the loop on Annette's security status. Her denials to questions, the answers to which were already known to authorities, completed the case against her.
  
• Leaving Jack Clancy in the aeroplane at Newcastle airport within sight of her meeting with other German agents was a blunder that exposed her miscalculated overconfidence in securing a friend for the mission. Details of her spy flight in Newcastle were in the hands of Military Intelligence within a few hours of Jack's return to Sydney.
  

Following the CIB interview, Annette's case was now at a new juncture: what to do with her? 
From what is known of her activities, she did not break the law. In peacetime, taking photographs of harbours and steel mills is hardly a criminal offence. In Annette's case, her activities were highly suspect, but they were not illegal. In the circumstances, the most effective option for Security would be a three-stage procedure of having her ‘voluntarily' removed from the country, forwarding an assessment of her activities to the authorities at her destination, Madagascar, and monitoring her possible re-entry into the country, which she was legally entitled to do. This is precisely what occurred.