A Review of 'The Spy and the Devil' by Tim Willasey-Wilsey
"Who is Baron de Ropp?" asked a British journalist in 1954 while pursuing revelations in the latest release of ‘Documents on German Foreign Policy’. Seventy years on, this gripping and masterly account by former diplomat Tim Willasey-Wilsey provides the answer. For his spy is Baron Wilhelm Sylvester von der Ropp, born in 1886 as a Baltic German in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. In 1914, after an adventurous early life, Bill de Ropp, as he became, acquired British citizenship, serving his new country through the First World War before becoming an agent of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), popularly known today as MI6. In 1930, based in Berlin under journalist cover, he began penetrating the highest levels of the Nazi party, consolidating this access across the rest of the decade with perhaps a dozen personal meetings with Adolf Hitler himself, to deliver political and military intelligence of unique value.
Although de Ropp’s intelligence role has been known for more than fifty years, and features more recently in Keith Jeffery’s authorised history of MI6’s early decades, previous references have been fleeting. They downplay his significance and hint at divided loyalties, implying Germany gained as much from him as Britain. Through painstaking research, involving de Ropp’s descendants, family papers and meticulous scrutiny of British and foreign official archives, Willasey-Wilsey provides a comprehensive picture of de Ropp’s personality, life and intelligence career. As he stresses, "great spies don’t just happen" but are shaped by background and experience. De Ropp moved seamlessly between German, Russian and English language and culture, and was adept at leveraging relationships and listening. Wartime work in Lord Northbrook’s propaganda department equipped him for journalism. A period in the embryonic Air Intelligence section introduced him to MI6 and helped him later represent the Bristol Aeroplane Company in Germany.
Inevitably, given his background, de Ropp was initially tasked on the new Soviet target, MI6’s priority in the 1920s. And Willasey-Wilsey’s research places him as a central character in the notorious Zinoviev letter affair – a revelation that will oblige historians to take a fresh look at this murky saga. Following a brief sojourn in East Africa to lower his profile, a shift to Germany in 1926 suited both de Ropp and MI6. The interwar MI6 did not practise sophisticated targeting, so it was opportunism not strategic design that subsequently brought de Ropp friendship with a fellow Balt, Alfred Rosenberg, chief Nazi theorist and eventually Minister of the Occupied Eastern Territories 1941–45. Rosenberg provided access to Hitler, as yet only a rising party leader, who anointed de Ropp his informal ‘British adviser’. Rosenberg’s patronage and Hitler’s blessing gave de Ropp exceptional access to exploit over the rest of the decade as Hitler seized and consolidated power. They also provided protection against those who viewed de Ropp’s British links with suspicion. Tellingly, before his execution for war crimes by the Allies in 1946, Rosenberg sought unsuccessfully to call de Ropp as a witness in his defence.
Access was one thing but turning this into policy-relevant intelligence another. MI6 in the 1930s lacked experience in running a strategic case with multiple strands in the most demanding security environment imaginable. De Ropp was not only intelligence collector but also facilitator and potential agent of influence. His leadership connections and role with the Bristol Aeroplane Company enabled him to orchestrate privileged visits to German air force bases and factories by MI6’s air expert Frederick Winterbotham and Bristol’s legendary aircraft engine designer Roy (later Sir Roy) Fedden between 1934–38. Both yielded important coverage of the fast-developing German air capability. The influence role proved trickier to manage since British policy was often ill-defined and de Ropp’s German contacts had their own expectations of what he could offer them, posing risks to his safety and to privileged British information. By 1938, safeguarding intelligence collection was MI6’s dominant concern.
While only a fraction of de Ropp’s intelligence reports survive, Willasey-Wilsey has found sufficient to confirm the quality of his insights into both German high-level intent and growing air potential through the last half of the 1930s. Here, the author’s background as a senior diplomat and appreciation of how British government really works are invaluable in showing how this intelligence influenced policy, bringing detail and precision to an MI6 contribution previously only sketchily outlined by intelligence historians covering the appeasement era. Specifically, he analyses the origin, drafting and impact of the September 1938 MI6 assessment ‘What should we do?’ (about Germany). As with two further assessments issued before the end of the year, this was dominated by de Ropp’s reporting. These papers were highly regarded by Whitehall customers and the influence they exerted on the Chamberlain government - in justifying the Munich settlement but subsequently in defining the limits to appeasement and reinforcing rearmament - demands more recognition.
Willasey-Wilsey is scrupulous in balancing these significant successes with some striking gaps in de Ropp’s reporting record. As Claude Dansey, MI6’s wartime deputy chief, rather acidly noted, he gave little warning of the occupation of the Rhineland, the invasion of Czechoslovakia, or the Nazi-Soviet pact although he underlined the scale and potential horror of Nazi ambitions in the East as early as 1932. Willasey-Wilsey convincingly dismisses the possibility that de Ropp worked for Germany as well as MI6, but his political intelligence reflected Rosenberg’s limitations as a source, within the Nazi leadership circle but outside the key decision-makers. That so much was nevertheless achieved is a tribute both to de Ropp’s courage and qualities as an agent operating under extreme risk and MI6’s ability to find ways to make the case work. It is noteworthy that, throughout the 1930s, contemporaneously with de Ropp, MI6 also ran an outstanding German naval source, Karl Krüger (codename TR 16). In addition, it pioneered covert aerial reconnaissance and managed the Government Code & Cipher School signals intelligence effort which between 1937 and 1939 provided crucial coverage of Japanese attitudes and intentions, especially their unwillingness to translate the Anti-Comintern Pact into a full Axis military alliance. The interwar MI6 faced many challenges but was not composed of incompetent amateurs as often painted. De Ropp’s story, so brilliantly told in the Spy and the Devil, is a significant part of MI6’s evolution and success against Britain’s primary enemies at this time, and an example of the evolution of British intelligence efforts to focus on the intentions of adversaries (rather than just military reporting) to gain decision advantage. Indeed, the intelligence dimension to British policy in the late 1930s now requires fresh appraisal.
Image shows from right to left: Alfred Rosenberg, Bill de Ropp, SS officer Riemer, and an unnamed member of Rosenberg's staff in Austria, 1938.
Andrew Boyd CMG, OBE, DPhil, FRHistS was educated at Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth and St John’s College, Oxford. He served as a submariner in the Royal Navy before joining the British Diplomatic Service. He received his DPhil from the University of Buckingham in 2015 where he is a senior research fellow. He has written three books including British Naval Intelligence through the Twentieth Century now released in a new paperback edition.
