Selected Historical Papers from the SNOW case. SNOW was a Welsh-born, naturalised...

Selected Historical Papers from the SNOW case. SNOW was a Welsh-born, naturalised Canadian, electrical engineer. In 1936 he volunteered to report information obtained during business visits to Hamburg to British Naval Intelligence and he was recruited as an agent by SIS. In September, 1936 a letter from him to a known Abwehr correspondence address showed that he was also reporting to the Abwehr without SIS's knowledge. Confronted, SNOW admitted that he had been recruited by the Germans, although neither then nor later did he give a convincing account of when, or of the extent of his dealings. Formally cautioned about these contacts, he nevertheless went on reporting to, and being paid by, the Abwehr by letter and visits. In January he volunteered an Abwehr radio set deposited in the left luggage office at Victoria Station. In September 1939 SNOW was interned under DR 18 (B) but quickly released as a controlled radio and correspondence agent of the Security Service. He continued to operate as such until March, 1941, when, on returning from a visit to Lisbon with the double agent, CELERY, he claimed that he had been confronted by his Abwehr controllers with his contact with the British and had admitted it. The truth or otherwise of the story was not established at the time; under interrogation after the war his principal Abwehr case officer, RITTER, alias RANTZAU, denied it, while admitting that for other reasons the case was effectively over. SNOW's explanations were sufficiently confused to justify doubts about his loyalty and he was interned until September 1944. He continued to volunteer information during his internment, some of it useful. Although in many ways a difficult agent, SNOW fully justified the significance attached to him by MASTERMAN. By their dependence on him to support other agents the Abwehr alleviated British fears of a substantial German network in place in the UK at the outbreak of war; the collection of SNOW's radio traffic contributed greatly to the development of ISOS coverage; and the information he provided on Abwehr personalities and methods was, at the time, unique.

Topics

Internment

Radio and television

Conflict

Intelligence

Navy

Operations, battles and campaigns