That traitor, Blunt - Implication in Market Garden failure?

From another newspaper:

A second newspaper is not so convinced:

 

The St. James's Park underground station staff must have known all about the mob that went to St. Ermin's hotel in Caxton Street to the south and sat on benches in said park to the north. Demolition of the building neighbouring the offices of the Cambridge drunks ( and a few good chaps ) made for a photograph I've got somewhere. The Treasury Solicitor's offices were within 90 seconds walk in Storey's Gate - ( UNWCC British National Office - dealt with allegations of war crimes).

What beats me is how nobody smelt a rat. They all went to the same clubs and pubs, and Philby was walking out with barrowloads of files every night. Some of them may have queued up for 2 lbs of potatoes, or asked for some "Player's" or "Woodbines" ( possibly for the valued customer from under the counter ) in the local shops in Tothill Street and Broadway.

I could not get a Sunday Times yesterday, so attach the leader from the Daily Star ( "The Bacon Sandwich is Brown Bread" ). ( attached) I expect a British paratrooper would appreciate a bacon sandwich, but sauce may have been unavailable.

The view from Broadway and the view from the trenches - I note a very strong trend these days towards gatherings of the "college boys" as paratroopers would have it. Observe the CVs of the folk who inhabit the committees and trusts of our National Archives - I say, let's have more bacon butty munchers at the reproduction cabinet table at Kew.

As for diplomacy with the Soviets, - the above the counter stuff - an extract from UK Cabinet papers:

"C 12299/61/18

Correspondence with the Soviet Government regarding the Treatment of War Criminals

(a) His Majesty's Government agree with the view that the leaders of Hitlerite Germany and her accomplices in Europe, who in the course of the war have fallen or may fall into the hands of one of the Allied Governments, are liable to punishment, in relation to all matters for which they can be held responsible, as being among the main culprits and criminals of war. In this connexion His Majesty's Government consider it advisable, as Sir Archibald Clark Kerr informed M. Stalin on the 5th November {1942}, to distinguish between the outstanding enemy leaders and the bulk of war criminals against whom the United Nations Commission will collect evidence. In the former category His Majesty's Government would of course include enemy leaders, such as Hitler, Göring, Himmler, Ribbentrop, Goebbels, Hess and Mussolini, who either by their political decisions or on account of their individual actions or both, clearly cannot escape general responsibility either for the war, or for the crimes committed in the course of it. This category should, however, in the view of His Majesty's Government, be limited to a very few really outstanding personalities of political importance. His Majesty's Government consider that all those persons whom the Governments of the United Nations, after considering the available evidence, may decide to include in this first category should be dealt with not by legal procedure, but by the joint decision of all the United Nations. In reaching this opinion His Majesty's Government have been influenced primarily by the consideration that it seems essential to ensure that such outstanding figures shall be punished promptly and severely and without any risk of delay and public controversy which might result from procedure by formal trial, and, secondly, that their punishment shall be supported by all the authority of a solemn political decision of the United Nations designed to affirm, beyond all doubt as an example to future generations, the clear responsibility of the guilty leaders. His Majesty's Government are also anxious to deprive them of any opportunity for converting the tribunal into a forum for propaganda purposes."

 

I subscribe to The Times and made a few comments on their website about the article. One concerned this:

"At 3pm on September 17, just two hours after Allied paratrooper and glider landings had begun, two SS Panzer Divisions, the 9th and 10th, were sent immediately to engage the enemy at Arnhem and nearby Nijmegen, an order that is credited with playing a decisive role in securing the German victory. There is a strong case to be made that the speed of their deployment was as a result of the intelligence the Germans had received."

Surely the "intelligence" that led to the mobilisation of the German forces was seeing parachutes falling from the sky! There is no evidence the German's prepared defences before the operation, nor is there a "strong case" they quickly deployed due to any supposed intelligence they had received.

 

Blunt and Philby were nominally in different bit of the M.I. establishment, but M.I.5 was not far away , and M.I.9 were in Northumberland Avenue. The UNWCC had offices next door to Westminster Abbey. They must have bumped in to each other every day.

The Soviets never sat at UNWCC meetings because they wanted each of their "satellites" to have a separate vote, so they weren't allowed in to dominate proceedings. One of the leading members was Belgian, also a Dutch man who died in 1945.

Broadway ( Philby's haunt ) on the net: Fifty Broadway

 

I'm sceptical about spies with interest in the history of art talking Vermeer in Pimlico. The first rule of spying is not be noticed so the roles of the lower orders are ideal - typists, tea ladies, auditors, messengers - hence the reference to bacon munchers - or potato eaters, after Van Gogh's.

As for the UNWCC their job was to list the crimes taking place in occupied countries so they were dealing with information gleaned from the Whitehall establishment, and members were warned several times that secrets were being leaked:

Minutes { M.19} 23rd May 1944:

"Attention was called to paragraphs in the Evening Standard of May 18, 1944, which appeared to show knowledge of the Minutes of the Commission's last meeting.

It was decided that the Commission's members should do all they could to maintain the secret character of the Minutes, and that the Secretary General should once more issue a notice on the subject with the Minutes."

 

The Dutch double agent Christiaan Lindemans aka King Kong has always thought to be involved in suppling intelligence on Operation Market Garden to the Germans.

Given that the core political motivation of the Cambridge Five was to furnish the Soviets with intelligence to counter Hitler in Europe, it poses the question why Blunt would would turn his allegiance to assisting the Germans with vital information on Market Garden.

Myth: "Operation Market Garden was betrayed by King Kong" - Market Garden - Battle of Arnhem (battle-of-arnhem.com)

 

Harry,

Caveat: I am not immersed in these allegations and what is known to have happened.

Blunt was reporting intelligence to the Soviets. Did the Soviets have a motive to somehow pass this onto the Germans? Yes, I would say. To delay any Western advance into Germany, even as far as Berlin. Whether Blunt had intelligence on the planned landings is a moot point.

 

This is not exactly my sandbox, but:
even when information was leaked, it was either ignored or never reached the decision-makers in the first place.

deleted because "too stupid to read" - next time I will check the date of deployment beforehand

 

Why people still use Twitter to communicate stuff they want other people to read is beyond me.

All the best

Andreas

 

Here are a few more details from my side (Yes, my internet is working again):
The paras struggled for days against impossible odds.
They were cut off and crushed by sheer numbers.
Against a regime for whom their own losses meant nothing if the only result was a propaganda success

I have the impression that a "they lost because they were betrayed" narrative does not do justice to the achievements of these men
At least for me as a German, it turns heroes into victims - but the known sources simply do not confirm this

 

How is it a moot point? Motive isn't enough.

Also, I know nothing about changing Soviet attitudes but they had done a lot of complaining about "where is the Second Front" earlier in the war. Had that actually flipped by September 1944?