Double Cross in Cairo Read Free Page A

strict confidence) that in 1936–39 he had succeeded in penetrating the British Secret Service in the Netherlands posing as an anti-Nazi. To support this cover he had had his name struck off the official list of Party members. Claimed to be responsible for the capture of the British agents on the Dutch-German frontier.
    Holds German degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Languages: German, Italian, French, poor English. Has travelled Germany, Italy, France and the Netherlands. Private home address in 1940/41 was 10 Mariakirchenstrasse, Munich. May have moved his home since marriage in June 1941 with well-known German opera singer, age about thirty/thirty-five. Father dead, but mother still living, age about sixty-five. Has nervous trick of rubbing the tip of his nose, as though attempting to stifle a sneeze. Heavy cigarette smoker. Dresses smartly and expensively. Fond of motor-cars and women, in that order.
    Thereafter Rossetti, codenamed EMILE , appeared in ISOS traffic as being engaged in Abwehr activity in Italy between January and May 1941, and in one intercept his address was given as ‘care of the German consulate in Naples’. An ISOS decrypt dated 7 October 1941 suggested that Rossetti was then in Rome but had been ‘Leiter I Luft’ in the Munich Abstelle. After the war, when Count Scirombo was interrogated by Allied intelligence officers, he identified Rossetti’s real name as ‘Kurt Knabe’. A German defector, Wili Hamburger, would describe Rossetti as ‘the most expensive member of the Abwehr in Turkey’ and suggested that his status has been achieved because of his success in Holland where he had developed a relationship with Anton Mussert’s pro-Nazi movement. His arrival in Istanbul had been sponsored by the former head of the local KO, Walter Schulze-Bernett.
    ISOS disclosed that Rossetti 

    received frequent information from Helfferich in Rome, all of which were apparently concerned with the dispatch of agents. Thus on 3 February 1942 he was advised of Kurt Hammer’s departure from Brindisi; on 5 March 1942 of the arrival of APOLLO and OTTO in Athens; on 13 April 1942 on the arrival of Emil Tisl, and on 6 May 1942 his presence was desired for a personal discussion in Rome with reference to the agent APOLLO . In addition to this Rossetti appears to have private connections of his own in Italy, of which are also productive of agents. On 13 January 1942 Ast Paris consulted him on the provision of a wireless set for WERNER of Rome’s AFU man for Egypt; On 13 April 1942 they again consulted him on concerning the transfer of V-mann 7501, who had previously been working for I.I. Paris to ‘Rome Annabella’. Further references to Rome Annabella occur in messages of Italy of September/October 1942 which seem to suggest that Annabella was a personal agent of Rossetti’s in Italy, who was subsequently transferred to Athens in connection with the agent ARMANDO who set out from Turkey at the end of September. During the same period there were references to a visit paid by Rossetti to Rome to test two agents who were being considered as reserves for HAMLET in the Syrian undertaking; to the ‘new V-mann PAPAS ’, who was to be vetted by Rossetti in Turkey; to one Hattenkorn, apparently an untrustworthy agent who had been dismissed; to two agents HASSAN and LUPO , who arrived in Athens in early October; to ‘a Persian agent of CHARLES ’, who was to be visited by Rossetti in Sofia in January 1943; and finally to Rossetti’s agent CARPELLASO who had reported at KO Bulgarien and asked for a German passport in the name of Hoffmann and a travelling allowance to Rome for the purpose of working in Cairo.
    Rossetti also occupies himself with looking after the agents of other Stellen who are visiting Athens or are in the area in which Ast Athens works. Then on 13 December 1942 Berlin enquired whether he was in touch with the agent Hamado Amin Bey of IM Ast