He is believed to be the only German spy who ever evaded capture in Britain during World War II, and newly released records that were kept secret for decades show how this country panicked when Gestapo agent Wilhelm Morz suddenly surfaced in London in 1940.
Britain's secret service had been watching Morz operate in continental Europe for two years, first in Czechoslovakia, then Holland, and both countries fell to German forces not long after he vanished, leaving London worried that Morz worked as a front man for Nazi invasions.
One of the documents released last week by Britain's National Archives under the Freedom of Information Act is a 1939 Secret Intelligence Service report that says Morz was suspected of being involved in the disappearance of British agents. The document also says he is "well-known to our organization as a very dangerous double-crosser."
In June 1940, Morz, 34, was spotted in Britain for the first time -- on Regent Street in central London -- and the newly released documents about the futile search for the spy would read like a cops and robber comedy, if Britain had not been in such bad shape in World War II then.
Early that year, rationing had begun in Britain, and the Germans had bombed one of its naval bases. By April, the Nazis had invaded Denmark and Norway, and by the next month the victims included France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Winston Churchill became the British prime minister in May 1940 and many assumed Britain would be the next to fall to Adolf Hitler.
The Battle of Britain occurred in July, and in August, Hitler declared a blockade on the British Isles and began air raids on central London.
A frenzy of activity ensued in the search for Morz, with Security Service staff being dispatched to the post office to secure copies of the photograph they had of the spy so that it could be copied and sent to police nationwide.
Police searched many hotels, nightclubs and bars in London where Morz, a ladies' man, was believed to have been sighted.
On Sept. 4, 1940, a letter on the stationery of the Metropolitan Police says of Morz: "His appearance in London was thought to be significantly connected with the making of arrangements for the landing of enemy troops here and the MI5 (Britain's domestic spy agency) asked that every possible effort be made immediately to locate and arrest this man."
Another letter by police during that period says: "If Morz could be captured it might mean that we should obtain thereby the means of breaking up a large part of the German network before it had a chance to operate."
The two Secret Service files contain numerous reports of sightings of Morz. Dance hostesses are questioned about having met with him, and a letter he wrote is circulated containing his signature. But on each occasion the Gestapo agent evades capture.
In September 1940, one document says: "The police have detained and questioned about a dozen people in the belief that they had caught him. Nevertheless if he is here, he still evades us. ... He is in fact one of the cleverest secret agents the Gestapo has."
The files include photographs and a description of Morz and lengthy lists of the clubs and bars that were closely watched by British agents and police in case he should appear.
By 1941, British agents conclude that he had evaded capture and left Britain, but the search for the Gestapo agent, and comments about him, continue in bits and pieces as late as 1955.
No one in Britain seems to know what happened to Morz, and Germany's modern governments do not comment on such cases.
But an April 28, 1955, letter in the Secret Service files from a man identified only as J. Russell King seems to suggest that the spy may have returned home.
"We did not find him and have had no information on him since that time," King wrote.
But King quotes a letter to the editor in a German daily on March 30 saying that Wilhelm Morz is now living in Frankfurt.
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