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How a Dachau survivor became a spy for Hitler
BY BERNARD JOSEPHS

The Jewish Chronicle



Paul Borchardt: recruited by a spy master in forties New York

SECRET SERVICE papers released by the National Archives reveal the bizarre tale of a German concentrationcamp survivor with Jewish antecedents who fooled British intelligence officers and operated in Britain and America as a Nazi spy.


Paul Borchardt had the perfect cover. He had a Jewish grandmother and anti-Nazi contacts, and had spent time in Dachau after being sacked as a non-Aryan from his job at Germany’s military - geography school.


He arrived in Britain in 1939 as a refugee, his World War One exploits as a German agent in the Middle East impressing MI5 handlers. In a report about his offer to join them “in any capacity”, they pointed out that he was “a Catholic of Jewish extraction and a German patriot”. He had close contacts with “German army antiNazi circles”.


This glowing assessment ensured that Borchardt was not interned as an “enemy alien” or placed under any of the usual restrictions. In 1941 he took advantage of his freedom of movement and travelled to America, entering the country as a Jewish refugee.


In New York he was recruited by Nazi master spy Kurt Frederick Ludwig, head of the so-called Joe K spy ring, which was already under investigation by counter-espionage officers. The ring was exposed in 1942 and, at the subsequent trial, Borchardt escaped the death penalty, but was jailed for 20 years. The fact that he had slipped through their fingers was an embarrassment for MI5. In a memo, an agent wrote: “You will notice that Borchardt represents, perhaps, the first case of a German agent coming to the UK as a bogus Jewish refugee. It is possible that he was in touch with enemy secret agents before [going] to the States.”


The importance of the case was “obvious”, he added. “Possibly, his hatred of Nazism was genuine, but in time of war his loyalty to Germany became paramount. There are a number of Germans in this country whose history and background are very similar to Borchardt’s.”


Another MI5 officer suggested that Ludwig had been able to recruit because Borchardt was short of money and had a wife in Germany “upon whom pressure could easily be brought if he refused to co-operate”.


He added: “We have taken the view that a loyal German, even though he might be a Jew and who might have been detained in a concentration camp and who was opposed to the Nazi regime, might be prepared to engage in espionage on behalf of Germany.”


Borchardt’s trial devastated his brother William, whose heartrending letter to a friend in Haifa was intercepted by MI5. He wrote: “He has done such a despicable act that we cannot forgive. He has destroyed our life. I am ashamed he is my brother. We never get over the shame that our brother is a traitor. For us, he is dead.”


MI5 ‘kept a close eye’ on refugees
HOSTILITY TOWARDS Jewish refugees in the war concerned security services, according to the National Archives.


Asked by government officials to make clear their policy on the growing number of German Jews who had fled to the UK, an MI5 position paper insisted: “We have no special attitude towards Jews as such but, as enemy aliens, they are subject to treatment under the Enemy Aliens Act.”


The paper also said: “In practice, they are brought before a tribunal and if they establish their position as bona-fide refugees their registration books are stamped ‘refugee from Nazi oppression’ and they are free from restriction.”


MI5 kept a close eye on anti-refugee sentiments in Parliament and in local authorities. One report pointed to an increase in the number of Town Hall resolutions demanding that “all aliens should be interned without exception” .


The report also recorded that a Gallup poll had shown that “two-thirds of the population thought the authorities were being too lenient with aliens”.


In an effort to help agents change public perceptions, the Secret Service called for a transcript of a BBC broadcast which had talked of the “suffering of German Jews”.


The BBC broadcast had made clear that “refugees from Nazi oppression” included scientists, artists, writers and Nobel Prize winners, and that many had joined the army’s Pioneer Corps.


An MI5 file said that the photographer Wolfgang Josephs had been defined as an enemy alien, despite being exempted from restrictions. He was “technically an enemy alien” but was “in the same position as a friendly alien or, for that matter, a British subject”.