MI5’s Fake Gestapo Office Collected the Secrets Meant for Hitler

British Nazi sympathisers trying to send military secrets to Germany delivered them to an MI5 listening post. The supposed Gestapo office occupied a flat on London’s Edgware Road. Its German representative was a British officer, and MI5 had installed microphones.

Eric Roberts had worked at Westminster Bank’s Hampstead branch and lived near Epsom racecourse. When the security service requested him for important wartime work in 1940, the bank struggled to understand what distinguished this apparently ordinary employee. An MI5 note supplied the answer: he knew Britain’s pro-Nazi organisations, and senior agent-runner Maxwell Knight valued his abilities.

In early 1942, Roberts became Jack King, supposedly the Gestapo’s representative preparing a network for a German invasion. A forged identity card supported the disguise. His instructions prohibited encouraging hostile acts; he was to identify people already willing to help the enemy.

The intelligence arriving at his flat included details of WINDOW, the aluminium-foil countermeasure designed to confuse German radar. Other contacts offered jet-propulsion research, the locations of fuel dumps and information about an amphibious tank. Those carrying the secrets believed Roberts would forward them to Berlin.

Associated Press reporting on the released files describes one contact hoping Germany could copy a secret British tactic and turn it against British cities. Roberts intercepted the offer. The information remained in British hands.

The operation created a problem for prosecution. MI5’s account says consultations with police concluded that defence lawyers would raise provocation before a jury. The service used the network to identify dangerous contacts and prevent further leaks.

Roberts’s identity emerged publicly in the October 2014 release of security files. His bank’s doubts survived in the paperwork alongside the evidence of his success. According to AP, the material had been used to monitor active Nazi sympathisers; two named subjects in its report had never been charged.