This chapter concerns a facet of my espionage career which does not really fit in neatly anywhere chronologically, so it must appear as an independent story on its own. The chapter heading refers to that most essential adjunct of any well-conducted spy ring- the forger. In the jargon of the Centre, a forger of passports was known as a "shoemaker" or "cobbler" and we had a very able and efficient one working for us in Switzerland.
The disadvantage of most forged passports is the very fact that they are forged. That may sound obvious but it is a very real difficulty. However good the forger may be and however complete the technical aids at his disposal, there is always the risk that some small change or some foolish mistake may land the carrier of the document in trouble. Despite the boasted efficiency of the German Secret Service and their undoubted technical ability, their forgeries during the war were often beneath contempt and were veritable death warrants to the unhappy holders. Our network avoided this difficulty completely by arranging to have our Swiss passports made by the Swiss themselves.
In the latter part of 1941 the Centre put me in touch with one Helena Schmidt (cover name "Anna") in Basle. She was an old hand, as she had been in the net for some twenty years. Before the war she had been in touch with another Soviet network which had been in existence in the country; but ever since the outbreak of war she had been out of touch with the Centre and had received no orders. I do not know exactly which network she had been working for, but suspect that it was one which had been run by the resident director who preceded Rado. Anna was a motherly old soul who looked like a superior charwoman, and I have little doubt that in the past she had acted as one. Her looks belied her; and, respectable old body as she appeared, she was deep in the network and had one most useful contact in the country. She was the cut-out between the network and a corrupt official in the Swiss Passport Office in Basle.
"Max" (I never knew his real name and in fact never met him) had also been working for the network for many years, supplying the Centre with passports for its agents. The procedure was as simple as it was easy. It would work in any country where passport office staffs are venal, and I have little doubt that it was worked by the Centre in other countries in a similar way. The Centre would supply to Max the physical details of the person for whom the passport was required. Max would then consult the files of various Basle citizens and choose a suitable identity for the new passport holder. I do not know whether he chose identities of living or dead persons, or on what principle he selected the candidate for the dubious honour of acting as Doppelgaenger for a Soviet spy, but it was obviously somebody who was never likely to apply for a passport himself.
This identity was then sent back to Moscow. The details naturally included date and place of birth, parentage, profession, etc., in fact all the details that are normally required for a passport in any country. The Centre then prepared a fake Swiss birth certificate. This presented little difficulty, as the invaluable Max had supplied them with the requisite forms and rubber stamps and also specimen signatures of the various registrars who had signed birth certificates over suitable years.
A completed passport application form (also of course supplied by Max) with the signature of the person requiring it in the name that Max had chosen together with his real photograph and the forged birth certificate attached were then returned to Max. He, in the normal way and in the normal course of his duties, prepared the passport and passed it for signature to the chief of police (Swiss passports are issued by the cantonal authorities). Max always took care to present the passport only when there was a large batch of them for signature and would slip the fake one in the middle of the bunch. This made it less likely that the police chief would remember who had presented the passport for signature in the improbable event of its ever being discovered to be a fake.
These false passports could of course be prolonged at any Swiss Consulate abroad. If the consular authorities were for any reason suspicious and queried it back to Basle, then the particulars, tallying in every detail, were on the passport records there. There was a gentleman's agreement between the Centre and Max that no holder of such a false passport should ever live in Switzerland on the strength of it. For his labours Max received a hundred and fifty francs a month retainer and a further hundred francs for every passport issued. Anna for her services as a cut-out received four hundred and fifty francs a month. Max was used only to supply passports. At one period the Centre instructed me to use him to obtain information, but the material that he passed to me through Anna was of no value and I did not press him on the matter, as he obviously preferred, like all good "cobblers," to stick to his last.
For the two years that I was in contact with Max the Centre never asked us to provide them with a new passport. However, one passport provided by him was due to expire in Italy. Unfortunately this one could not be renewed in the normal way as it was being used by a different agent from the one to whom it had been originally issued. As a result the signature on the renewal form would not correspond with that in the police records in Basle. The passport was brought to Switzerland through Rado's network in some way and I had it passed by Anna to Max with a request that he prolong its validity. This he did and it was returned to its owner, also via Rado.
The passport was in the name of Schneider (no connection with the Taylor of Rado's network) and I learnt later that he had been arrested and shot in Italy for espionage.
In addition to Max, Anna had another contact in the shape of her brother Hans. At the time that I re-recruited Anna into the network Hans was living in Freiburg (Germany) and like his sister was inactive. Towards the end of 1942 the director ordered me to instruct Anna to tell her brother that he would be contacted by a certain female Soviet agent, "Inge," whom the director was sending to Germany via Sweden. Also another agent would be visiting him and would hand over a short-wave transmitter, which was in turn to be handed over by Hans to Inge. This caused some difficulty to Anna as she had no secret means of communication with Hans and so had to write through the open post, giving the information in guarded language, and hope that it would escape the notice of the German censor.
Shortly afterwards I had occasion to go to see Anna again. When I got there her little flat was empty and no one knew where she had gone. I managed to contact the lawyer who had dealt with some of her affairs in the past and he told me that she had received a telegram from her brother asking her to come to Freiburg, as his wife was dangerously ill. In fact this telegram was a fake and had been sent by the Gestapo in order to lure her into Germany. After a time, as she did not turn up again, the Swiss authorities presumed that she was dead and appointed a trustee to look after her little property in Switzerland.
What had actually happened was that the radio transmitter had been found in Hans's house and he had been arrested and executed. He was known to have been in communication with Anna and I assume that the German censors passed to the Gestapo then, if not before, the cover letter from Anna to Hans. As a result the fake telegram was sent and Anna arrived in Freiburg to walk straight into the arms of the Gestapo. I learnt later in Moscow that they had questioned her without getting any result. Anna was too old a hand to talk - even under such pressure as the Gestapo could apply. In the end they threw her into a concentration camp, where she languished for the rest of the war, only to be released by the Russians when they overran it. On her release she returned to Switzerland and, for all I know, is back at her old trade. I do know that on her release the Centre paid her nothing in compensation for the years of hell that she had endured in the camp and turned her loose without a penny - not even back pay for the period of imprisonment. Sic me servavit Apollo.