China in WW2

German Spies in China (2)

• By Peter Harmsen
• 16 October, 2016
• 2 Comments

German intelligence operations in China were thoroughly reorganized in the fall of 1942, and a new top spy was put in charge. His name was Ludwig Eisentraeger, but he called himself Ludwig Ehrhardt (not to be confused with post-war German politician Ludwig Erhard). Reflecting the priorities in Berlin, which was consumed by the gigantic struggle on the Eastern Front, a large part of Ehrhardt’s operations in China were directed towards the Soviet Union.

Especially the intelligence network in Japanese-occupied north China focused its attention on developments in the Soviet Union. Headquartered in the ancient capital of Beijing, the network used various sources, including anti-Bolshevik White Russians who had lived in China since the 1917 Russian Revolution, to keep track of developments in the Soviet Far East, as well as in Soviet Central Asia, bordering on the provinces of Northwest China.

Germany’s espionage network in north China “was able to obtain information of great interest to Berlin,” a US intelligence analysis concluded after the war. One major focus of the network’s activities was the number and quality of Soviet troops in Siberia, and their possible deployment to Europe. Allied supplies to the Soviet Union via the port of Vladivostok was also of major interest to the Germans, as was information about the state of the Soviet economy in Siberia, whether it was harvest statistics or information about the infrastructure.

It was not a foregone conclusion that the German spies would be allowed to operate in Beijing and elsewhere in north China. Despite the Axis alliance, the Japanese were deeply suspicious of the Germans, and they only allowed the Beijing spies to commence activities in April 1944, after a year of talks. The Japanese were tough negotiators, and they only agreed to the German demands after they obtained a promise that the Germans would share any intelligence that might be useful for the Japanese war effort. The northeast Chinese provinces then known as Manchuria remained off-limits to the Germans, as the Japanese military forces there would not allow them to sniff around.

By April 1944, the Italians had long since left the Axis, and a powerful radio station in Beijing run by the Italian Navy had been occupied by the Japanese, while the Italian operators had been thrown into detention camps. Now, with the opening of German espionage, the Italian radio operators were released from detention and set to work again, focusing on monitoring Soviet radio communications and telegrams.

The eventual success in the German negotiations with the Japanese was to large extent due to one man: Sigfried Fuellkrug. Prior to the war, he had been employed in East Asia by German dye manufacturer in Deutsche Farbenhandelsgesellschaft Waibel & Co. For a period of time, Fuellkrug had been posted to Japan and had become conversant in the Japanese language. In 1941, he was sent by blockade runner from China to Germany as part of a group of German citizens expected to join the German armed forces. However, two years later, he made the trip back, again by blockade runner. Probably, his superiors had decided that due to his language skills, he would be of more use in Asia than in Europe.

(This is the second in a series of articles.)