I picked up a cover that caught my eye because of the bisect Huelva local. As I normally do when I receive a letter/post card I researched the sender and receiver. I looked up L. Clauss of Huelva and found this was a firm that was an agricultural product processor. Another source says that the company made a fortune supplying industrial supplies to the Rio Tinto mines in the province of Huelva. Ludwig is in the center of the photo and the man to his left looks like his son Adolf.
L. Clauss was founded by German immigrant to Spain Franz Ludwig Clauss Röder ( Leipzig , February 12, 1862 - Huelva , April 15, 1954). Good old Mr. Clauss was the honorary consul for Germany in Huelva 1915-1945. Yep, consul. He moved to Huelva in the 1890s, met and fell in love with a María Kindt Merino a Mexican in Spain. They would have four children-two boys Ludwig and Adolf, and two girls-Rafaela and Araceli. With another German he founded the L. Clauss company. Son Adolf below.
Ok, to say they were sympathetic to Germany-Nazis is an understatement. Franz and María’s two sons Ludwig and Adolf were German intelligence agents in Spain during the war.
In 1947 the Allies requested Ludwig along with 104 other Nazi agents be turned over to them because of his activities. Of course good old Franco refused to do so.
Ludwig wasn’t the star of the German intelligence service (the Abwehr), no the star in the family was brother Adolf who was the head of German intelligence in all of Andalusia at first then Madrid after the war. During the Guerra Civil he was a member of Adolf Hitler's "volunteer" Condor Legion. During the Second Word War he organized sabotage and spying operations against Allied shipping in the straits of Gibraltar. by often pretending to watch butterflies off the coast of the "Rock". He also bought off various Spaniards. I haven't been able to find out what happened to the company or to Adolf after the war, but you can see him above in old age.
Ah, but Adolf was the patsy of one of the most important intelligence operations in history, Operation Mincemeat. Operation Mincemeat was designed by the British to cover the Allies intention of invading Sicily. Instead, the operation led the Germans to think that the Allies were going to invade Sardinia and Greece. OK, pretty standard right? Well, the big part of the deception was the depositing of a real cadaver in the ocean to make it appear to be a British officer. In real life the cadaver was Glyndwr Michael, a “tramp” who died by eating rat poison who had no family. Below is the fake I.D card planted on Mr. Michael.
The “officer” then had papers placed on him to trick the Germans. Which of course it did. Poor Mr. Michael’s body washed up on the Spanish coast and the papers, at least copies taken by German sympathizers, were delivered to guess whom in Madrid-yes, Adolf.
The account of the operation was detailed in the non-fiction book The Man Who Never Was (1953) by Ewen Montagu. Of which a movie was later based-having watched the movie and read the book when I was much younger-I found it to be fascinating. Father Clauss' tombstone is below.
So there ya have it, you never know what you are going to find.
No comments:
Post a Comment