Richard Henry Stevens

Richard Henry Stevens ( 9 April 1893 - 12 February 1967 ) was a major in the British Army and from 1939 Head of the Passport Control Office (PCO) of the British Secret Intelligence Service in the Netherlands. His name is closely associated with the Venlo Incident in 1939.

In 1939 Stevens was transferred to Europe from India where he was an Intelligence Officer. He spoke excellent German, French and Russian, Greek was his second language and he also mastered Arabic, Hindustani, and Malay, but he had no specific training or experience of intelligence gathering in Europe.

In November 1939 he was abducted to Germany in the Venlo Incident with Captain Sigismund Payne Best and it has been suggested that he may then have revealed vital secrets about the Secret Intelligence Service under interrogation. Nazi propaganda portrayed Best and Stevens as the alleged masterminds of the Beer Hall attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler by Georg Elser. The two officers were then imprisoned for over 5 years in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps before their release in April 1945. Stevens left the army as a lieutenant colonel, having been promoted to that rank during his captivity. He then worked as a translator at NATO in Paris and London between 1951 and 1952. He died of cancer in 1967.

References

• Best, Sigismund Payne : The Venlo Incident , London 1950 Best, Sigismund Payne : The Venlo Incident, London 1950
• Brown, Anthony Cave: Bodyguard of Lies , New York 1975 (Deutsch: Die unsichtbare Front, München 1976) Brown, Anthony Cave: Bodyguard of Lies, New York 1975 (German: The invisible front, Munich 1976)
• Deac, Wil: The Venlo Sting , World War II Magazine 1/1997, New York 1997
• Deacon, Richard/West, Nigel: Spy! , London 1980 Deacon, Richard West, Nigel: Spy!, London 1980
• Haag 1949 Enquêtecommissie Regeringsbeleid 1940-1945, 8 parts of 1949-56, Part 2 a, b, c, The Hague 1949
• Graaff, Bob de: The Venlo Incident , World War Investigator 13/1990, London 1990
• Kessler, Leo: Betrayal at Venlo , London 1991 Kessler, Leo: Betrayal at Venlo, London 1991
• Meyjes, HC Posthumus: De Enquêtecommissie is van oordeel - een Samenvatting van het onderzoek naar het parlementaire de regeringsbeleid in oorloogsjaren, Arnhem / Amsterdam 1958
• Nater, Johan P.: Het Venlo incident , Rotterdam 1984 Nater, Johan P.: Het Venlo incident, Rotterdam 1984
• Peis, Günter : The Man Who Started The War , London 1960 Peis, Günter : The Man Who Started The War, London 1960
• Schellenberg, Walter: The Schellenberg Memoirs, London 1956 (German Records, Munich 1979)

Source

• This page is a translation of its German equivalent.