Why 1938 MI6 warning about UK's defences is as relevant today as it was then

Bill de Ropp spied on Nazi Germany for MI6 and helped provide vital intelligence before the Second World War

In a few days, on May 8, we shall be celebrating the defeat of Nazi Germany and the end of the Second World War in Europe. It is also the day that my book, The Spy and the Devil, will be published.

It is the story of Bill de Ropp who spied in Berlin for MI6 against the Nazis throughout the 1930s. His name is almost unknown and his story has never been told. He survived his dangerous assignment because he spoke German as his native language and because he befriended the Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg.

It was Rosenberg who introduced him to Adolf Hitler and these relationships protected him until three days before the war when he was advised by Rosenberg to make his escape across the Swiss frontier. Just as interesting as de Ropp’s story is how his intelligence was viewed and handled back in London.

Bill de Ropp questions a Nazi printer in Austria in 1938 as Alfred Rosenberg, left, and two SS officers look on | picture courtesy of the de Ropp family

Good intelligence dismissed as ‘nonsense’

At an early stage – 1926 – he warned London that Germany was circumventing the rules imposed after the First World War preventing them from building a new air force, the Luftwaffe. Nobody in London wanted to hear that Germany was re-emerging as a threat. Memories of the trenches were too recent and too raw, so de Ropp’s reporting was ignored.

In 1934 a German general gave him a detailed explanation of plans to invade the Soviet Union using a new form of warfare, which would later be labelled “Blitzkrieg”. Panzer (tank) divisions would be used to smash through Soviet defences and advance at great speed supported by air power. The British War Office dismissed the report as “a lot of nonsense”.

In 1931, de Ropp unwittingly set Hitler off on a rant about Jews. The man who would later become the leader of Germany vowed to annihilate them. De Ropp lived on the popular Kurfürstendamm in Berlin and was witness to the early atrocities against Jewish businesses.

He also outlined to London on several occasions that Germany wanted to control Ukraine’s natural resources – not just its vast agricultural assets but also its minerals and, above all, the oil wells in modern-day Azerbaijan.

Britain wakes up to Nazi threat

Gradually politicians in London started to take heed. In 1934, Neville Chamberlain, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, decided to double the size of the Royal Air Force. This measure, and the later expansion plans, held out a slim hope for the future.

The extra money and the brilliant engineers who invented the Rolls Royce Merlin engine and the Spitfire and Hurricane fighter aircraft enabled Britain to win the Battle of Britain in 1940.

Between 1934 and 1939, the large numbers of British people who had initially regarded Hitler as a remarkable leader started to see the light. By 1936, MI6 had begun to see Nazi Germany as a threat.

In September 1938, the Chief of MI6, Admiral Hugh Sinclair, wrote: “We should unremittingly build up our armaments and defensive measures and maintain them at the highest possible level, never relaxing. If we emerge from this crisis without war, we should take this lesson to heart.”

Beaten by the Taliban

So what does all this teach us? Britain did not take the lesson of defence to heart. The army is now at its smallest since before the Napoleonic wars. Having so recently been defeated by the Taliban using novel roadside bombs, mobile phones and 125cc Honda scooters, it is not equipped to fight the sort of war being waged in Ukraine using thousands of drones.

Too much of the Royal Navy’s expenditure is on its two huge aircraft carriers which are vulnerable to modern hypersonic missiles. Much of the fleet spends its time in dock because of both expense and technical flaws. The RAF is dangerously small. There is not enough ammunition to fight a war of longer than a few weeks.

However the bigger problem is one of imagination and delusion. Our forebears could not imagine fighting Germany for a second time. They celebrated the Munich Agreement of September 1938 when it was clear – not least from de Ropp’s reporting – that Hitler wanted more than the Sudetenland.

‘Coalition of the willing’

Now we may be on the brink of a second Munich. Having obliged Ukraine to sign a cynical deal for its mineral resources, US President Donald Trump may be able to persuade Vladimir Putin to halt the war with a ceasefire along existing frontlines and Russia given de facto control of Crimea.

However everyone knows that Putin wants more than just the Crimea and the Donbas and that no effective “backstop” will be available. The Americans have made it clear that they will not provide the military means to ensure that Putin does not breach the ceasefire.

Despite brave attempts to create a “coalition of the willing”, Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have failed to create a European backstop. And in spite of pledging to increase UK defence spending to 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product by 2027 and announcing plans to ramp up production of 155mm artillery shells, there has been no serious attempt to address the multiple failings in our defences.

The Strategic Defence Review due to be announced shortly is too restricted by the Treasury’s budgetary limits.

Admiral Sinclair’s warning, which was assisted by Bill de Ropp’s reporting from the heart of Berlin, may be 87 years old, but it is as relevant now as it was then, and worth repeating: “We should unremittingly build up our armaments and defensive measures and maintain them at the highest possible level, never relaxing. If we emerge from this crisis without war, we should take this lesson to heart.”

Tim Willasey-Wilsey is a visiting professor at King’s College London and author of The Spy and the Devil, available now online and in bookshops from May 8