The film Five Fingers was a spy film by American 20th Century Fox and was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Otto Lang in 1952. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards; Best Director for Mankiewicz, and Best Screenplay for Wilson. They both were also nominated for awards by the Directors Guild of America. Mankiewicz was nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures, and Wilson was nominated for Best Written American Drama. Wilson also won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay and the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Screenplay.
With all these wonderful achievements in the world of film, people often fail to recognise the man that was the inspiration for all of this work. Elyesa Bazna. Elyesa Bazna was a former Albanian-born juvenile delinquent turned-spy of World War II. Before working for the Nazis, he was a fireman and a locksmith. He worked for the Nazis from 1943 to 1944, all whilst he was employed as a valet to the British ambassador in Turkey; Sir Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull-Hugessen. His employment with the British ambassador commenced in 1942, after serving as a valet for the Yugoslavian ambassador for Turkey, and later to a German councillor who fired him for reading his mail. Principally motivated by a feeling of power, he would photograph top-secret documents and turn the films he sold information to the Germans in Ankara, Turkey, in what became known as the Cicero affair through their attaché Ludwig Carl Moyzisch, a Viennese who had been a member of the Nazi party since 1932. Moyzisch had worked in a number of positions for the Nazi Party and had been turned down for membership in the SS because he could not learn the identity of his mother’s father and thus prove he was 100 percent Aryan.The information that he leaked is believed to be some of the most potentially damaging disclosures ever transmitted, if it hadn’t been for conflict within the German government which prevented the release of such information.
Bazna cherished no illusions; he admitted that he came from poverty and was virtually uneducated. His lack of imagination perhaps would have been forgiven if he had been blessed with dashing good-looks, but he had an unprepossessing appearance. However, with all this said, he knew what he was doing, and where he wanted to go, and he had the drive to make it happen. He was full of courage, and took chances. He was not a proud man, and was able to remove himself from situations that he knew would fail. Cicero claimed that his hatred of the British and his longing to see them fail developed after his father was killed by a Briton. This information was not true, and his father died peacefully at home. His real motive may have been money, power, or perhaps that he was working for the British, and needed an excuse.
The British embassy in Riga in which Cicero worked, shared a building with the ambassador’s residence, and Sir Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull-Hugessen developed a habit of taking secret papers into his home, and locking them away in a small black dispatch box in his bedroom. When Sir Hughe left the room for one moment, Bazna began taking wax imprints of the key to the black box. His friend made keys form the impressions. Bazna began photographing the documents with a Leica camera together with a 100-watt light bulb for illumination in Ankara on 21st October 1943. He kept the camera stationary by using an arrangement of four rods and a round support ring. Armed with 56 photographs, he then approached Moyzisch indicating that he wanted £20,000 for fifty-six documents that he initially photographed. The German Embassy in Ankara soon handed over the payment requested and did not haggle over the price. Why should they? The English money was counterfeit and manufactured in the Sachesenhausen concentration camp. He became a paid German espionage agent in October 1943, when he began using his newly appointed codename; Cicero.
Cicero got several more payments in exchange for his valuable information, and hid the counterfeit notes, unbeknown to Cicero, in the carpet in his living quarters. He turned over his documents and film to Moyzisch generally, inside his car. This arrangement ran smoothly for several weeks until they were interrupted by two conspirators, which developed into a car chase through the streets of the Turkish capital. Due to this dangerous and narrow escape, they devised a new method for Bazna to hand over his information.
It wasn’t long before senior German officials were captivated and intrigued by this Albanian’s work for the country. Franz Von Papen was the first high-ranking German representative in Turkey to see the documents that were supplied by Cicero. He was a former military attaché whohadbeenexpelledfrom Washington in World War I forSpying, andwas no strangertoespionagework. He used the Cicero documents to keep Turkey from yielding to allied demands and ending its neutral status. Some of the documents that Bazna provided revealed evidence that the British wanted to use Turkish airfields as staging points in their attack of Romanian oilfields, and Cicero helped the Germans end this attempt. Over the coming months, Cicero’s documents proved to be very valued within the Nazi hierarchy by Joachim Von Ribbentrop, who was foreign minister of Nazi Germany, and Adolph Hitler.
Ribbentrop had the honour of bringing the glossy prints of the photographs to Hitler for reviewing. The outcome of this was that Cicero’s documents were regarded as precise intelligence. The material arrived in Germany either by telegram or as film in the diplomatic pouch. Walter Schellenberg who would later become head of Nazi foreign espionage and other Nazi officials tried to use the documents as a basis from which the English code could be broken. Their attempts in this were unsuccessful.
Franz Von Papen concluded that the documents that Cicero provided them with allowed Germany to win the first battle over Turkey’s entry into the war. On one occasion, Hitler entered a conference room with a collection of Cicero’s documents in December 1943 and announced that, following the review of the documents, the attack in the west would come in the spring. He also talked about deception attacks in Norway and in the Balkans.
Despite the authenticity of the Cicero documents, Hitler persisted in his belief that the allies would attack somewhere in the Balkans. Cicero’s documents at no point gave no indication of an attack in the Mediterranean region. Despite Cicero being a trusted spy, Hitler could not risk potential disasters to the German military based on the interpretation of a word or phrase picked up from a document.
During the first months of 1944, Cicero continued to supply the Germans with copies of documents taken from his employer’s dispatch box. The money continued flowing, and it seemed as if Cicero would have all the wealth he dreamt of since he was a poverty stricken child. In fact, when the Cicero documents predicted an allied air raid on Sofia in Bulgaria, it was proved to be true, and Moyzisch told Cicero that Hitler intended to give him a villa in rewards for his valuable service. In the meantime, however, Bazna found it increasingly difficult to carry out his activities of photographing the documents due to the new alarm system which required him to very carefully remove a fuse whenever he wanted to access the ambassador’s safe. In addition to this, Moyzisch hired a new secretary called Nele Kapp, who fled to America in early 1944. Fearing Miss Kapp would pinpoint his operation; he left Sir Hughe’s service.
By April 1944, Nazi forces in the Crimea were in full retreat. Worried they might face advancing Russian forces alone if they did not reach some accommodation with the allies, the Turks replaced their pro-German army chief with one that was pro-English.
In August 1944, Turkey severed diplomatic relations with Germany and by February 1945 declared war on Germany. Cicero’s usefulness thus ended in 1945. All in all, Cicero was paid £300,000 in counterfeit notes. The spy’s retirement plans collapsed when the forgeries were discovered after the war. He sued the German government but without success, and therefore never experienced his dream of total financial independence.
ROSALIA GRACE
02-08-13
References:
Take Nine Spies by Fitzroy Maclean, published in 1965
L’affaire Cicéron by François Kersaudy
Der Fall Cicero by L. C. Moyzisch (Palladium Verlag, Heidelberg, 1952)
Chief of Intelligence by Ian Colvin (Gollancz, 1951)
The Cicero Spy Affair by Richard Wires (New York: Enigma Books, 2009)
The Double Cross system in World War II 1939-45 by John Masterman
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