In November 1939, the Nazis used the so-called Venlo Incident as a pretext for invading the Netherlands. Following orders from Himmler, two British intelligence officers, Sigismund Payne Best and Richard Stevens, were captured from the Café Backus in the town of Venlo. Best had been trying to contact German officers plotting against Hitler. The Netherlands had been an ideal ground for operations, because of its proximity to Germany and the fact that Dutch Intelligence was badly funded. When Best met the three agents – including Walter Schellenberg – he was carrying with him a list of British agents who were working in Europe. hen he arrived at the café, which was just over the Dutch border, he realised he had walked into a trap. A Dutch intelligence officer who accompanied them, Dirk Klop, was fatally wounded. Best and Stevens were taken into Germany. After their Berlin interrogation and torture they were taken to the notorious Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Hitler used the incident – together with the Elser bomb plot – as an excuse for war with the Netherlands, claiming their involvement with Britain violated their neutrality. As Nigel Jones explains, the incident was crucial in making the British suspicious of dealings with anti-Hitler resistance.

The author of GCHG describes covert missions that “are worthy of spy fiction, but the entire book is utterly fascinating and informative. Brilliant!” (Books Monthly) Written by the renowned expert Nigel West, this book exposes the operations of Britain’s overseas intelligence-gathering organization, the famed Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, and traces its origins back to its inception in 1909. In this meticulously researched account, its activities and structure are described in detail, using original secret service documents. The main body of the book concerns MI6’s operations during the Second World War, and includes some remarkable successes and failures, including how MI6 financed a glamorous confidant of the German secret service; how a suspected French traitor was murdered by mistake; how Franco’s military advisors were bribed to keep Spain out of the war; how members of the Swedish secret police were blackmailed into helping the British war effort; how a sabotage operation in neutral Tangiers enabled the Allied landings in North Africa to proceed undetected; and how Britain’s generals ignored the first ULTRA decrypts because MI6 said that the information had come from “a well-placed source called BONIFACE.” In this new edition, operations undertaken by almost all of MI6’s overseas stations are recounted in extraordinary detail. They will fascinate both the professional intelligence officer and the general reader. The book includes organizational charts to illustrate MI6’s internal structure and its wartime network of overseas stations. Backed by numerous interviews with intelligence officers and their agents, this engaging inside story throws light on many wartime incidents that had previously remained unexplained. “[An] extraordinary book.” —The Daily Telegraph “Fascinating reading.” —Firetrench

"With a combination of personal interviews including several with leading Nazis and with Himmler's daughter, Gudrun Burwitz, and the use of previously unseen documents, Allen presents the whole Nazi high command in a fresh light, demonstrating how Hitler was often manipulated and sometimes sidelined. But perhaps of equal interest is the inside story of secret operations conducted by the Political Warfare Executive, empowered by Churchill to fight a war with weapons of destabilisation and misinformation in support of the oven military campaigns. Allen portrays Himmler's ever more desperate efforts to secretly negotiate his political survival with the Allies, as Hitler's war machine collapses. This book has one more revelation to make, as Allen rewrites history with his account of the true circumstances of Himmler's dramatic death."--BOOK JACKET.

This report was prepared for the Working Group on the Crime of Aggression at the 8th session of Preparatory Commission, held in September-October 2001. The paper consists of four parts relating to: the Nuremberg tribunal; tribunals establish pursuant to Control Council Law number 10; the Tokyo tribunal; and the United Nations. Annexes contain tables regarding aggression by a State and individual responsibility for crimes against peace. The paper seeks to provide an objective, analytical overview of the history and major developments relating to aggression, both before and after the adoption of the UN Charter.

Gaining a foothold -- Rising star -- Intelligence man -- Office VI and its forerunner -- Competing visions: Office VI and the Abwehr -- Doing intelligence: Italy as an example -- Alternative universes: Office VI and the Auswärtige Amt -- Schellenberg, Himmler, and the quest for "peace"--Postwar