“In this connection a reference to interstate organizations and exchange organizations is relevant.”—I particularly want you to note these next lines:
“It has been proved that these often use harmless activities as camouflage and are in reality to be regarded as branches of the Foreign Intelligence Department.”
Witness, doesn’t that exactly describe the way in which the Auslands-Organisation was carrying on its business? Read it again:
“It has been proved that these often use harmless activities as camouflage and are in reality to be regarded as branches of the Foreign Intelligence Department.”
Doesn’t that fit in with the directions that this Landesgruppenleiter of yours has been writing to his members in this document?
BOHLE: On the contrary, I find that this is clear proof of the fact that the organizations mentioned here were in a foreign espionage service and not in the German espionage service. My interpretation is the exact opposite of that of the British Prosecutor.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Are you not giving instructions here, or is not your Landesgruppenleiter giving instructions, to carry out counterespionage—the work that is carried on by the intelligence service? Isn’t that what the writer is writing about so far?
BOHLE: The letter, with which I am not personally familiar, apparently instructs Germans abroad to turn in a report whenever they encounter the intelligence service at work. I do not think that any objection can be raised to that in time of war.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: Very well. We will not go on arguing about it. I understand that you know nothing about the instructions which are contained in that letter. This is the first you have ever seen or heard of it; is that right?
BOHLE: No, this letter is new to me, and I do not know whether it is true, for there is no original here.
LT. COL. GRIFFITH-JONES: May I take it then that, of the countries around Germany in which your organization worked, you have no knowledge of the activities that they were carrying out in Belgium? You have no knowledge of the activities that they were carrying out in Norway, none about what they were doing in Spain, and not very much about what they were doing in Romania either; is that correct?