In the dead of night, using lock-picks, he breaks into the office where they are kept but is disturbed by the foreman. Reilly throttles the man to death before completing the theft. In making his escape, he is intercepted by a night watchman, but knocks the man out and ties him up before walking out of the factory with the plans.
From Essen, Reilly took a train to Dortmund where he had a safe house, changed into his Savile Row suit and tore the plans into four pieces, mailing each one separately. If one was lost, the other three would still reveal the gist of the plan.
The fact that this tale is nothing more than an entertaining yarn can be clearly established by reference to the substantial archives of the Krupps Company in Essen. The index of files alone amounts to over 100 pages and indicates that comprehensive records have survived which cover the development of the plant and the personnel of the works fire brigade. After a disastrous fire in 1865 Alfred Krupp decided to found a fire brigade for his factory, which on foundation consisted of thirty-six men, organised in six companies of six.5 It is clear from the records that the Krupps fire brigade was a professional fire brigade, and was not organised on the basis of the British model for works brigades that were made up from volunteers from among the workforce.6 Reilly’s story describes such a scenario whereby Hahn responds to a factory notice calling for volunteers to join the works brigade, hardly in keeping with the reality of a professional brigade.7
Service in the fire brigade was based on the principle that members lived on the factory site, or nearby, in houses provided by the Krupps Company. By 1900 a lack of space put this policy in jeopardy. The following year, however, measures were taken to ensure that housing for all members of the brigade was available. New accommodation in Altendorferstrasse, Bunsenstrasse and Harkortstrasse provided 214 flats by 1902.8 There is no record of a Karl Hahn living in any Krupps property. Likewise, there are records of those who served on the brigade from 1873 up to 1915.9 Again, the name Karl Hahn is noticeable by its absence.
Interestingly, it would seem that the fire brigade also acted as a security service for the plant.10 Security records and correspondence for the period 1878–1915 again make no reference to a Karl Hahn. Could it therefore be that, although not a member of the fire brigade, a Karl Hahn was employed as a welder at the plant? The card index of employees11 by the name of Karl Hahn working at the plant, from the turn of the century to the outbreak of the First World War, indicates the following persons:
Karl Hahn, born 16 June 1889 at Bielefeld, lathe operator (employed 1903–45)
Karl Hahn, born 10 November 1875 at Beuren, mason (employed 1912–36)
Karl Hahn, born 12 December 1887 at Demerath, machinist (employed 1912–27)
Karl Hahn, born 20 June 1878 at Schoeneberg, labourer (employed 1906–26)
Of the four, only one was actually working at the plant at the time Lockhart sets his account. More conclusively, all four workers were still employed at the plant when Reilly died in 1925, and by implication could not have disappeared one dark night in 1904 clutching secret company plans. Ironically, there is one brief reference to Sidney Reilly in the Krupps archive – a press clipping from the Chattanooga Times, dated 1 August 1981, reviewing Edward Van Der Rhoer’s book Master Spy!
APPENDIX FOUR
THE BATTLESHIP BLUEPRINTS
Reilly worked behind locked doors in his flat in Potchtamsky Street. He spent hours with a hot iron and layers of blotting paper, placing the blueprints between sheets of glass and making Photostat copies. For three vital years before the outbreak of the First World War, the British Admiralty were kept up to date with every new design or modification in the German fleet – tonnages, speeds, armament, crew and every detail down to cooking equipment.
The story of how Reilly supposedly made a fortune from Blohm & Voss warship contracts in 1911 through ‘Medrochovich and Chubersky [sic]’, while at the same time obtaining German warship blueprints, is pure fantasy.2 According to this story, he used his position as agent for Blohm & Voss to request, on behalf of the Russian Ministry of Marine, design specifications of the latest German warships. Before passing them on to the ministry, Reilly photographed them and sent the copies to the Admiralty in London.
We already know that, despite his subsequent claims, Reilly had little connection with Mendrochowitz and Lubiensky, and was in no way responsible for their status as agents for Blohm & Voss. We also know now that he had no connection with SIS or NID before 1918. The diary of Mansfield Cumming (C) is understandably silent on Reilly before this date, for the two did not know each other or even meet until March 1918. C’s diary is particularly helpful, however, in that it indicates how SIS were actually obtaining German naval designs at the very time Reilly claimed to be obtaining them in St Petersburg.
Hector Bywater, a British journalist and naval expert living in Germany, was recruited as an SIS agent in 1910.3 He spent the best part of the next three and a half years penetrating German dockyards and the Berlin Navy Office.4 Working with a small group of other agents he managed to obtain photographs, silhouette drawings and design details of virtually every German warship then in commission. Had Reilly actually been a British agent at this time, and obtained the blueprints as Lockhart said, there would have been little purpose in Bywater and his colleagues risking their lives. The most charitable view one can take of this story is that it was a device to explain away his seemingly intimate pre-war relationship with the Germans. Just after the First World War, when most of his story telling was done, would hardly have been the best of times to admit to such a close association with the old foe.
APPENDIX FIVE
RESCUING THE TSAR
In late 1917 and 1918, behind-the-scenes helpers such as Charles Crane, Karol Yaroshinsky the Polish-Russian banker and close friend of the Romanovs, as well as Sidney Reilly, the erstwhile Russian double agent, who was operating on Britain’s behalf, were involved in the formulation and execution of various attempts to snatch both Russia and the family from the Bolsheviks.
The proposition that a successful and audacious rescue actually took place and has remained hushed up for over eighty years is, in this author’s view, straining historical credibility almost to breaking point. Determining whether or not such an attempt was ever contemplated or pursued by the Allies is not, however, the purpose of this book; although Shay McNeal’s claim that Sidney Reilly was at the heart of such a plot most certainly is. According to McNeal, Reilly was sent to Russia in early 1918 to undertake a special secret assignment, which involved rescuing the Tsar and his family.2 So secret was this mission to be that all mention of it in official correspondence was apparently forbidden. An extract from a cable dated 28 May 1918 from Gen. MacDonough, the Director of Military Intelligence in London, to Brig.-Gen. Poole in Murmansk, is quoted in support of this view:
The following two officers are engaged on special secret service and should not be mentioned in official correspondence or to other officers unless absolutely unavoidable, Lieutenants Mitchelson and Reilly.3