Spy stories, fiction and non-fiction, are enduringly popular. This story of a British agent during WWII will be no exception, with all the elements to keep the reader turning pages to the end – Highly Recommended.
NAME: Double Agent Celery, MI5's Crooked Hero FILE: R2674 AUTHOR: Carolinda Witt PUBLISHER: Pen & Sword BINDING: hard back PAGES: 271 PRICE: £25.00 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: WWII, World War Two, Second World War, World War 2, espionage, counter-espionage, Abwehr, GESTAPO, double agent, triple agent, turning German agents ISBN: 1-52671-614-3 IMAGE: B2674.jpg BUYNOW: http://tinyurl.com/y728uuwa LINKS: DESCRIPTION: Spy stories, fiction and non-fiction, are enduringly popular. This story of a British agent during WWII will be no exception, with all the elements to keep the reader turning pages to the end – Highly Recommended. British intelligence during WWII was highly successful, but confusingly complex. The 'established' organizations, MI5 and MI6 were joined by new and unorthodox operations, such as SOE. Some events were never fully recorded and of those that were, papers went missing or disappeared into sealed archives. Those involved were prepared to keep their secrets and much of what has emerged has come in recent years as classified documents have become available in public archives after being de-classified as time-expred secrets. The author is the granddaughter of agent 'Celery' and has produced an absorbing story of 'Celery' that lifts corners on a grey and murky world. One of the difficulties of the intelligence world is that rarely is anything black and white and the game being played can have many surprising aspects. Little is what it seems and the story of 'Celery' displays some of these traits. It is also a fertile area for conspiracy theory. 'Celery' was intended to be a double agent, but some may suspect that he was a triple agent, whatever proofs are offered to the contrary. Perhaps this is part of the fascination and enthusiasm for histories and fictions about spies. Celery was sent to infiltrate German intelligence, send back their secrets to Britain and plant misinformation that had been created by British intelligence to mislead and destabilize the Germans. However, the Germans already knew what he was and when he was coming, but they let him escape. To some, this suggests they had turned him into a triple agent and sent him back to Britain to work for them. Although this is a credible theory, it does not allow for the ingenuity of Admiral Canaris who led the Abwehr. Canaris was a German patriot and a cunning head of military intelligence, but he supported Germany and not the Nazis, being suspected by the SS-SDP from early in the war and eventually arrested and killed. Canaris certainly maintained back channel communication to British intelligence and there is evidence that he was closely associated with known dissidents including General Beck and the other leaders of Operation Valkyrie that planed to kill Hitler and negotiate a peace with the Western Allies. It would have been within his known behaviour to allow Celery to return and act as a new back channel, even to the point of having Ab Wehr agents switch sides as new double agents turned by Celery and working for the British in support of his interests to achieve a negotiated peace. As Celery was a known crook, conspiracy theory is given fertile ground. Against that, this book presents information and draws conclusions with apparent honesty, all the more commendable seeing that the author is Celery's granddaughter. Readers must draw their own conclusions but, whatever they conclude, they will find this a most enjoyable, absorbing and exciting story that is told well and supported by some very interesting images in the photo-plate section.