John Codd

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John Codd was an Irish national who after being captured as a British Army Sergeant during World War II went on to serve in the German Intelligence service (Abwehr) and German Army.

Contents

[edit] Early life

Codd was born in Dublin but emigrated to Canada in 1929. He moved from Canada to Britain in 1931 and enlisted in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. His educational background was limited but he is known to have spoken fluent Spanish, French, and Chinese.

[edit] Capture 1940

He served with this unit in the Far East until 1938 and was recalled to service in the army in 1939. Whereupon in 1940 he was dispatched with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to serve in France. He was wounded during the retreat from Dunkirk and was captured by German forces. After he had been treated in a German field hospital he was transferred to Stalag III B at Lannesdorf, and was interned from December 1940 to January 1941. Stalag III B acted as a screening camp for another camp Stalag XX A (301) at Friesack, also known as "Friesack Camp".

[edit] Recruitment to German service

Friesack Camp was a held in a special prisoner of war camp where a number of British Army POW's of Irish nationality were congregated after expressing an interest in volunteering for service with the German military. The training and selection by Abwehr II and the German Army occurred during the period 1940 - 1943. The German military was attempting to raise a fighting force of Irish volunteers, along the lines of the World War I attempt to raise an Irish Brigade involving Roger Casement. It was then hoped that suitable volunteers could engage in operations on the island of Ireland and in Great Britain. The selection process was administered by Abwehr II, a section of German Intelligence which was tasked with seeking groups in opposing nations who would assist the German war effort.

An NCO from the Abwehr II commando unit, the Brandenburgers, Helmut Clissmann, was involved in selection of the candidates for training. Clissmann explained how the proposition of working for the German authorities was phrased to the POWs:

"All Irishmen in prisoner-of-war camps were therefore invited to give their names with a view to going to a special camp which offered better conditions."[1]

Codd was one of the ten men who were eventually selected for service with the Abwehr. He received sabotage, espionage, and training in radio equipment. Upon his arrival in Friesack, Codd was visited by a Herr Bruckner who made the initial approach about volunteering for service. He was promised that he would receive "freedom, money and an eventual return to Ireland."[2] Abwehr officials/agents, Dr. Jupp Hoven, Helmut Clissmann, and dual Abwehr/Foreign Ministry representative Kurt Haller also visited and spoke with Codd in an effort to win his allegiance. Following these approaches Codd agreed to work for the Germans and he was assigned an Abwehr handler or liaison: Harold Leichtweiss. To provide a cover for all ten of the volunteers a break out was staged from Friesack Camp and the men were all transported to Berlin.

[edit] Mission assigned

Codd was assigned an Abwehr mission almost immediately after recruitment. The Abwehr war diary records for 6 October 1941 that Codd was to take part in Operation Innkeeper ("Unternehmen Gastwirt" in German).[3]

Dr. Hoven explains that on arrival in Berlin the men:

"they were given instruction at the Abwehr training establishment on the Quenzgut, in the improvised manufacture of explosives, incendiaries and such like. Also, in the district of a troop training area in western Germany, they were instructed in Abwehr radio procedure."[4]

Codd, along with the other recruits was courted by the Abwehr using a lavish expense account, fine wine and meals, a shared apartment block in Berlin, and meetings with officials in the SS and Abwehr.[5] While preparing for his mission Codd was also provided with a salary of 400 hundred Reichsmark and relative freedom around Berlin.[6]

During his training he was moved to Düsseldorf, with some suspicion that he had been neglecting his duties in favour of carousing. His training through to the summer of 1942, when the operational loss of Abwehr agents including those of Operation Pastorius changed Abwehr priorities and a decision was taken to halt operations involving personnel recruited via Friesack Camp.

[edit] Prison

Around the time of the cancellation of Operation Innkeeper, Codd was arrested in Dusseldorf by the Gestapo and thrown in prison. Unknown to Codd he was arrested because of the actions of two of his fellow prisoners in the Friesack experiment- Andrew Walsh and Thomas Cushing who had been involved in Operation Seagull I and Operation Seagull II. As a result of Walsh and Cushing all the inmates of Friesack except for Codd were sent to a farm in Silesia for forced manual labour. Speaking after the war, Hoven implied that this was a disciplinary measure to punish Codd because he had been neglecting his training in Dusseldorf just like he had previously. The indication appears to be that at this stage Codd was not considered of enough serious intent to be an Abwehr agent. [7] Codd remained in prison until he was released without explanation on 20 March 1943. During his time in prison he was visited again by Frank Ryan who was using the pseudonym "Mr. Maloney", and Kurt Haller probably in an effort to assess his intentions and willingness to work for the Reich.

[edit] Retraining with the SD

On his release Codd was sent to see an SS-Hauptsturmführer Drescher at Berlin-Wilmersdorf who informed him that he was once again scheduled for espionage work, but that he had been released from Abwehr service and was now under the command of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) the intelligence arm of the SS. Codd was given a new mission this time to Northern Ireland and was photographed for a passport issued under his new covername "Jacob Collins". Codd's previous Abwehr training was deemed insufficient and he was given a two week course in cryptography from a Frau Dr. Heimpel. His training was supervised by SS- Hauptsturmführer Schultz and he found himself posted to a ten day demolition course at Hubertusalle, near Hallensee. This consisted of a series of classes and practical exercises in the use and manufacture of explosives and booby traps followed by a light and heavy weapons course at Berlin-Zehlendorf. Rather than being sent on his mission immediately, Codd was tasked with acting as an interpreter for the SD and a group of twelve Arabs also undergoing training.[8] Around this time Codd married a German woman named Irmgard Kensky from Cologne who he had met in March 1942.[citation needed]

On 23 April 1943 SS- Hauptsturmführer Giese took over from Schultz and Codd's operational task was again reworked- with his assignment as a radio operator for a mission into Northern Ireland. Although nothing appears to have happened regarding this. He remained at Lehnitz until May 1944, and during his stay he received training from an SD agent who was a Dutch national - Mr. Bakker. By this time Codd was familiar with and moving in circles of the SD involving SS-Hauptsturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny. At the end of May 1944 Codd was again transferred to a new SD espionage school located between The Hague and Scheveningen called "A-Schule West". At this school Codd was introduced to other SD operatives, notably an agent calling himself "Koller". Koller was in fact an American called William Colepaugh who had previously engaged in minor missions for the Abwehr in the pre-war period in Latin America. Codd says that at this point Otto Skorzeny took a decision to pair him with "Koller" and send them both to America on an espionage mission. However, this was cancelled and instead Codd was dropped from the mission to be replaced by Erich Gimpel. This mission is assumed to be Operation Magpie ("Unternehmen Elster" in German ) - the mission to steal/sabotage the Manhattan Project.[9]

Students at the school were given training in demolition, sports, horse riding, swimming, radio sets, etc. At this time Codd was asked if he wanted to join John Amery's collaborator unit the British Free Corps. He refused.[citation needed]

[edit] What happened to Codd?

Codd was never used as an agent of the Abwehr or the SD.[citation needed] The invasion of Normandy in June 1944 made a nonsense of further training for espionage agents, as the fight had come home. However, Codd was again attached to the SD school at Lehnitz and along with the other personnel tried to avoid frontline service. In March 1945 he and his wife successfully infiltrated a group of French refugees and made it safely to liberated France. Codd and his wife returned to Dublin after the war. On his return to Dublin he was arrested by Irish Military Intelligence (G2) and interrogated/debriefed on his experiences.

In 1948, unable to find a job in post "Emergency" Dublin he eventually ended up writing a letter to the Secretary of the Irish Minister of Defence offering to demonstrate his ability in such areas as "small arms, grenades, patrolling." The secretary turned him down not unlike the German Intelligence services before him.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Stephan P.236
  2. ^ Hull P.219
  3. ^ Hull P.220
  4. ^ Stephan P.237
  5. ^ Hull mentions that Codd met with an SS soldier named Bruggermann along with Clissmann and Dr. Schreiber of the Abwehr. He also met with Frank Ryan a former Irish Republican Army (IRA) activist that had been located in German since mid 1940.
  6. ^ Before his move to Dusseldorf it was explained to Codd that as part of his training for the projected two year mission in USA was to receive an expense account totalling £35,000 in the form of US dollars, British pounds and Nazi gold bars.
  7. ^ Hull quotes Haller as saying that Codd found the women on the Rhine just as inticing as those in Berlin.
  8. ^ Mostly from Tunisia and Algeria See Hull P.224
  9. ^ The Magpie being a bird famous for its acts of theft. See some brief details on Elster here, and here.

[edit] Further information/sources

[edit] Notable Abwehr operations involving Ireland

[edit] See also