The spy who couldn't be bothered

A BUNGLING German spy posted to Britain to get RAF secrets sent back only "entirely worthless" information, his MI5 file shows.

Swiss-born Werner Strebel became involved in espionage because he thought it would be an easy way of getting money to fund a comfortable lifestyle, his Nazi controller complained.

After being trained and given a stock of secret ink, he was told to obtain an RAF pilot training manual and to report in detail on the RAF station in Dunstable, near Luton, Bedfordshire.

Posing as a Swiss journalist, Strebel, 42, arrived in London just before the Second World War. But he sent back only three secret messages – all considered "quite useless" by his Nazi spy chiefs.

He told his controller that he went to Luton and "saw the aerodrome in the distance" but could not reconnoitre it because of the "strict guard".

Strebel, born in June 1897 in Lucerne, was recruited as a spy in Bremen, Germany, in July 1939 by Heinrich von Wenzlau, a field officer with the German military intelligence agency Abwehr.

Strebel told von Wenzlau he followed the motto "good food, good drink and easy living", but agreed to take on a spying mission for 7 or 8 a week.

He was tasked with finding out everything about Dunstable RAF station, including its the length of the runway, how many airmen were based there, how it was illuminated at night and what types of planes flew from it.

One of his letters, written in mid-September, warned of a "great air attack" on the Leuna chemical works in eastern Germany "within the next few days" – but the message did not reach Germany until November.

By December 1942 he was working as a waiter in a restaurant in central London.