Josef Jakobs - 1898-1941

As 2017 wraps up, there are a few books that I've ordered/pre-ordered and hope to read in the next month or so. While they are all only tangentially related to the Josef Jakobs story, I've long since discovered that tangential stories are often a great source of information!

Cargo of Lies - Dean Beeby - 1996
I came across this book and, while the cover looks a bit hokey, the book would seem to touch on a great topic. Did Germany send any spies over to Canada during World War 2? Who trained them? Was it our friends at the Hamburg Abwehr Stelle? How did the spies make out? Were they captured shortly after landing, as was the case in England? The write-up on Amazon indicates that there was at least one German agent who made it onto the shores of Canada, but who was captured shortly after landing. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police convinced the agent to become a double agent but... it would seem that the agent may have played them and become a triple agent! Intriguing!!

An Amazon r…

It would seem that Clara Bauerle will forever be linked with the mysterious Bella in the Wych Elm story. There is a lot if interest in the Bella story, and Clara's name always seems to swirl into the space as a viable identity for the woman found stuffed in a Wych Elm in Worcestershire in 1943. For those who are coming late to the story, I have a blog page on this site that outlines the story of Clara and lists all of the blog posts that I have written which touch upon her story and Bella in the Wych Elm.

Given that Clara Bauerle was rather closely connected with Josef Jakobs, I have written several blog posts in which I seek to present the facts around Clara Bauerle. At least as much as can be discovered from fragmentary historical sources. I have, for a while now, been meaning to do a blog post that outlines the references to Clara contained within the MI5 interrogation records of Josef Jakobs and his fellow spy, Karel Richter.

Richter was a Czech citizen (an ethnic German born …

During his interrogations at Camp 020, MI5's secret wartime interrogation centre southwest of London, Josef Jakobs shared information about the black market passport business in which he was involved. One of the other characters in Josef's account was Egon Rammrath, son of Franz Rammrath. While not of great interest to MI5's interrogators, Rammrath's existence was confirmed by Frau Lily Knips, a Jewish woman who had briefly considered procuring a passport through the services of Josef Jakobs. She eventually managed to make it to England through her own means. She was questioned by MI5 and confirmed that an Egon Rammrath existed, although she rather thought he might be a member of the Gestapo and did not warm to him at all!

We've taken a look at what we could glean from Egon's background in the previous blog post. Here, I want to add some "colour" to Egon as seen through the lens of Josef Jakobs. It's most helpful to read the first post and then ta…