The Woolly-Headed Nincompoop?
The different perceptions of a true spy.
On May 1, 1945, a Heinkel He-111 medium bomber crash landed in Spain. The pilot was a Major (Flieger-Stabsingenieur) Theodor Schade, and he had the usual number of servicemen with him for a plane of this type, making up a compliment of four. But this was no ordinary bomber crew lost and way off course, drifting into neutral Spanish airspace by accident. Because Major Schade worked for the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, and his flight back to Spain, as the Americans and Russians closed in to finish off the German forces surrounded with their Fuhrer in Berlin, was anything but a mistake.
Heinkel He-111 medium bomber – the type of plane Major Schade flew to Spain in May 1945 [credit]
Dr. Theodor Schade, alias Schubert, code-name “SASTRE”, was thirty-seven when he crash-landed his plane and escaped Germany to Spain at the end of the war. The German officer is described in official records as having a ruddy complexion, very fair hair and appears to have been a fit and healthy man, portrayed as ‘sun-tanned’, and weighing in at 12 stones (168 pounds) for all of his 5’11’’ frame.
British and American interrogation of detained German prisoners of value and interest, particularly ex-intelligence officers, continued for many months after the war. In notes of these interrogations, we learn that in 1941 Herr Schade received German businessmen travelling between Germany and Spain and Portugal, both neutral countries, on several occasions at his office on the Turpitz Ufer, Berlin, at the very centre of Hitler’s Nazi regime. It was Major Schade’s job, as an Abwehr officer working out of the Kreigsorganization at the Madrid Embassy, to leverage all contacts German businessmen had, as well as those of other German nationals living or working in neutral countries, to gain any and all information and intelligence they could.
Germany maintained Abwehr intelligence offices, known as Kreigsorganization (KO), in neutral (as opposed to occupied) countries until the 1944 reorganization of the German Intelligence Services. During the war KO were to be found in Bulgaria, Finland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and of course in Spain, Major Schade’s primary theatre of operations.
But exactly who was this Abwehr spy? His UK Security Service and SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces) records include this intriguing comment in a memo from a Major M. N. Forrest to 21st Army Group:
“There are conflicting reports on SCHADE: some, including SCHELLENBERG, state that he is a woolly-headed nincompoop; others say that he is a first-class Intelligence officer, both keen and energetic.”
SS-Brigadeführer Walter Schellenberg was a very senior officer in the SD (Sicherheitsdienst), the intelligence service of the SS. Ultimately after the fall of Abwehr chief Admiral Canaris, following the July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Hitler, the Abwehr was absorbed into Schellenberg’s SD Amt VI department, and he effectively became head of the German foreign intelligence services. So, he should know full well the capabilities of Major Schade, shouldn’t he?
I would say not. Schade wouldn’t be the only “first-class Intelligence officer” to deliberately throw a smoke screen around themselves and their operations, by among other things deliberately engendering perceptions of themselves as foolish or foolhardy, and spreading misleading and preposterous gossip. Canaris was reportedly a master of this type of subterfuge.
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris - Major Schade’s ultimate boss as head of the Abwehr [credit]
Relations between the Abwehr and the SD were often strained throughout the war, Canaris fighting to keep control of his Abwehr military intelligence organization out of the clutches of Himmler’s Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA). Would Schellenberg have had much first-hand contact with Major Schade before 1944, when Schade was establishing his operations and agent network in Spain, from his KO office at the German Embassy in Madrid? It seems highly unlikely.
In fact, Schade had, according to official Allied military records, been a very busy intelligence officer indeed. His SHAEF index card includes that Dr. Theodor Schade was posted to K.O. Spain as “Leiter of new IT/LW section, working in German Embassy, Madrid (Jan ’42)”. As leader of Abwehr section ‘IT/LW’ (or as it was sometimes known ‘I T/W’ section) Schade was responsible for ‘Technik-Luftwaffe’ espionage, that is technical espionage in the aircraft industry.
SHAEF seem to acknowledge Schade’s efficiency in his new job, stating that “His section recruited a certain number of agents for overseas” as well as conducting the day-to-day work of obtaining from the Spanish technical details of Allied aircraft forced to land or crash-landing in Spanish territory. Eisenhower’s intelligence officers also record that Schade was planning to set up an agent network using German industrial and commercial circles in Spain, “independently of German Embassy (July ’44)”.
Decoded radio messages between Madrid, Berlin, Barcelona, Lisbon, Las Palmas, Paris and Tangier dated from November 1941 to June 1943 indicate exactly how busy Major Schade was. Almost always using his alias SCHUBERT, the radio intercepts give away the scope and scale of Schade’s intelligence work. In all there are fifty-six decoded messages in this time period, carried under a TOP SECRET ‘U’ protective marking, indicating their ‘ULTRA’ origin, and the work of the now famous, but then extremely secretive, codebreakers at Bletchley Park.
But perhaps most indicative of the fact that Flieger-Stabsingenieur Schade was a diligent and competent German military intelligence officer is the fact that the British took the trouble to pursue diplomatic efforts with the Spanish authorities to have him removed from the country in July 1945. And this despite the fact German representatives had signed the unconditional surrender of its forces in Europe on 8 May 1945.
Official British intelligence records dated July 20, 1945, include that:
“Dr. Theodor SCHADE @ SCHUBERT, Shaef 49620/21, is now in Spain and may be evacuated under Allied pressure.”
Earlier in the same memo the reason for the value Allied intelligence officers placed on Schade is made clear: “We are extremely short of full-blooded information from interrogations on I T/LW.” At this time the Allies were very worried about ‘stay-behind’ German agents and the formation of groups of Nazis abroad, especially in places like fascist Spain, who could seek to organise and carry on the work of Nazism, even after the death of their Fuhrer and the conclusion of formal hostilities.
The Allies, at least, were more than aware of the potential intelligence dividend that could be gained from the interrogation of experienced Abwehr officers such as Major Theodor Schade, even if Schellenberg, and his SS security office were not.
Author’s note: I hope you liked the first of the iSpy-uSpy monthly short stories. I would be very interested to read your comments. And if anyone has any record of what happened to Flieger-Stabsingenieur Theodor Schade after July 1945 I would be extremely glad to hear from you. In the meantime you may want to check out my latest spy novel, “Volodymyr’s Tears”, the third Alexander Danilov thriller, published December 2022 and available at:
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Comments are open to every reader. Let me know your thoughts: was Major Schade a "woolly-headed nincompoop", or did Schellenberg and the SD get that wrong? Does anyone know what happened to Schade after WW2? That would be fascinating to know.
Excellent article, Mark! The Major made use of Lao Tzu's ancient advice of playing the fool in order to fool others!