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Jules Crawford Silber (Breslau, Silesia,[1] ca.1870 - Germany, ?) was a German spy who worked as a postal censor in the United Kingdom during the WWI. He was never arrested.
Biography[edit]
Based on Silber's autobiography, which was published in Germany in 1932[2], Ronald Seth wrote The Spy Who Wasn't Caught, an astounding documentary relating the exploits of this fabulous master spy who has been forgotten because he was probably the most intelligent spy of all.[3]
Silber's presence in the ranks of the censure services was attested to by Major-General Lord Edward Gleichen, Chief of the Secret Service in the Ministry of Information during the war. Gleichen admitted that, though Jules C. Silber's personal file had been destroyed, a person named Silber had indeed been employed by the censure services at the time Jules Silber was supposedly present, adding that this Silber was well-regarded by his/her surviving colleagues for the way he/she played his/ her role.[4]
At the time Seth's work was published (1968), little information was available about Silber's early life, his parents' names, or his date and place of birth, and this appears to be the case today as well. He was probably born sometime around 1870, as at the time of his conscription into the British Army in 1915, he declared “he was much older than thirty years of age”.[citation needed] As an adolescent, he departed Germany for South Africa where he learned to speak English, Afrikaans, and Zulu.[citation needed]
During the Second Boer War, the British employed Silber as an interpreter and censure agent. 1,500 prisoners of war were sent to Ceylon and India, and Silber accompanied them as a censure agent for 18 months. He was stationed in the garrison-city of Abbottabad, not far from the Afghan border. Following the Treaty of Vereeniging, repatriation of the freed prisoners began and Silber returned to South Africa, where he resided for two years.[citation needed]
He later emigrated to the United States and lived there for several years. In 1914, when war was declared between the United Kingdom and Germany, Silber felt compelled to help his native country. To do so, he decided to travel to the United Kingdom, where he could offer his services to the post office as a censor and thus obtain information useful to the German war effort. While in New York, he received the address of a post office box from the German ambassador himself.[citation needed]
As he did not have a passport authorizing him to debark in London, he was obliged to travel through Canada, where security was not as strict because Canadians were considered to be British citizens. Carrying official British documents that showed his service in South Africa and India, none of which mentioned his nationality although they were in his real name, he spent some time in Montreal trying to pass as French Canadian in the eyes of the British.[citation needed]
Silber set sail for England on September 19, 1914, arriving 10 days later without a passport and was therefore held for interrogation upon his arrival in Manchester. Eventually he was permitted to enter the United Kingdom and traveled to London later that evening. As a German national who had managed to enter the United Kingdom in wartime, he had already carried out an exploit. But the most difficult task remained: that of gaining the the trust of the British officials in order to be able to access strategic information that would be useful to the Germans.[citation needed]
After avoiding investigation by the MI5, Silber was hired by the censure office after an interview with an elderly colonel who had served in the Punjab region, during which Silber and the colonel discovered they had several common acquaintances. Silber began his job with the censure office on October 12, 1914.[citation needed]
Using pre-stamped window envelopes, he provided the German strategic services with microfilm or letters filled with information that became increasingly important as Silber was regularly promoted until he reached the highest position of chief censor, which authorized him to examine all suspicious documents.[citation needed]
After the war, Silber had to wait until 1925 and the easing of restrictions on travel to the continent before he could return to his home country. Silber spent the rest of his life in Germany, where he wrote his autobiography The Invisible Weapons in 1932.[5]
Notes[edit]
- ^ Campbell, Christy Band of Brigands p39
- ^ Silber, Jules C., Die Anderen Waffen : Mit Zwei Faksimilies, Korn, Breslau, Germany, 1932. D639S8S48.
- ^ This article contains information from the French version of Silber's book that was published in 1968 under the title The Most English of the German Spies (Le Plus Anglais des Espions Allemands.)
- ^ Seth, Ronald, The Most English of the German Spies, p.11.
- ^ Silber, Jules C., op. cit.
Sources[edit]
- Jules C. Silber, The Invisible Weapons, Hutchinson, 1932, Londres, D639S8S5.
- Jules C. Silber, Die Anderen Waffen : Mit Zwei Faksimilies, Korn, Breslau, Germany, 1932. D639S8S48
- Jules C. Silber, Les Armes invisibles. souvenirs d'un espion allemand au war office de 1914 a 1919, Payot, Paris, 1933, In-8 broché de 219 pages non coupées + documents. Préface du brigadier Général R. F. Edwards. Collection de mémoires, études et documents pour servir à l'histoire de la guerre mondiale.
- Colonel Walther Nicolai, Der Deutsches Nachrichtendienst
- Lieutenant Général Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, Die Weltkriegespionage