British Intelligence and Hitler’s Empire in the Soviet Union, 1941-1945

271 Pages·2017·22.368 MB·English

by  Ben Wheatley

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British Intelligence and Hitler’s

Empire in the Soviet Union,
1941– 1945
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British Intelligence and Hitler’s

Empire in the Soviet Union,
1941– 1945
Ben Wheatley
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY
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Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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www.bloomsbury.com
BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published 2017
© Ben Wheatley, 2017
Ben Wheatley has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior
permission in writing from the publishers.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on
or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can
be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author.
British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978- 1- 4742- 9722- 6
ePDF: 978- 1- 4742- 9721- 9
ePub: 978- 1- 4742- 9723- 3
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Cover design: Adriana Brioso
Cover image: In northern Lithuania a Tiger 1 of the 1st Company, Schwere
Panzerabteilung 510 counter-attacks with infantry of the 21.
Luftwaffen-Felddivision, August 1944. © Bridgeman Images
Typeset by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India
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For my dear children, Joshua and Lottie
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Contents

List of Figures ix
List of Maps x
Acknowledgements xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
Prologue: British Pre- war Policy towards the Soviet Union
and the Baltic States, 1917– 1941 19
PART ONE The Restricted Services, British Covert Intelligence
and Subterfuge in the Baltic States 29
1 SIS, SOE and the NKVD 31
PART TWO The Central Role of British Open Source Intelligence
in the Ostland 49
2 The Importance of the Foreign Press to British Intelligence,
1938– 1941 51
3 The Stockholm Press Reading Bureau 77
4 The Foreign Research and Press Service Baltic States Section,
1941– 1942 87
5 The Foreign Office Research Department Baltic States Section,
1943– 1944 105
PART THREE Case Studies of the FRPS/F ORD Baltic States
Section’s Intelligence 119
Introduction to the Case Studies 119
6 Economic Conditions in the Ostland 121
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viii Contents
Planning Economic Control 121
Establishing German Economic Control: The Conflict between
Exploitation and Reform 123
The Day of the Hardliners: Göring and Backe Halt Agrarian Reform 132
Infrastructure and Transport 134
Industry 137
Industrial Trade 140
Fiscal and Banking Policy 143
7 German Population Policy in the Ostland 147
The General Plan Ost and the Ostland 147
Structural Planning for a Baltic March 151
Creating the New Order: Population Transfers in the Ostland 154
The ‘Evacuation’ of the Jews 154
Colonization Actions 160
The Germanic Brethren 167
Military Collaboration 169
PART FOUR Post- Hostilities Planning 181
8 The Foreign Office Research Department and Post- Hostilities
Planning 183
Conclusion 193
Notes 201
Bibliography 233
Index 243
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Figures

2.1. Head of the FRPS/ FORD, Professor Arnold Toynbee, 1947 52
2.2. Balliol College, Oxford, the FRPS’s headquarters, 1930 54
2.3. British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, 1943 65
3.1. The Deutsche Zeitung im Ostland, the most important source
of OSINT, 1943 79
3.2. The Mosquito bomber nicknamed ‘the wooden wonder’, 1943 81
4.1. Elisabeth Pares, head of the FRPS/ FORD Baltic States Section, 1946 88
6.1. Hinrich Lohse, Reichskommissar for the Ostland, 1941 124
6.2. Reich Minister for the Occupied Eastern Territories Alfred
Rosenberg and his subordinate Generalkommissar for Lithuania,
Theodor Adrian von Renteln, 1942 129
7.1. Himmler and Hess visit the ‘Planning and Reconstruction of the
East’ exhibition, 1941 150
7.2. Jewish women in Vilnius marked with a ‘J’, 1941 156
7.3. Lithuanian national guards search for Jews and Communists, 1941 157
7.4. Lithuanian RAD ‘volunteers’, 1942 171
7.5. A mass demonstration in Riga by over 100,000 Latvians against
the Moscow Conference of Allied Foreign Ministers, 1943 173
7.6. Members of a Latvian SS division, 1943 179
8.1. Sir Gladwyn Jebb, chairman of the Post- Hostilities
Planning Staff, 1945 184