9-Nov-39: Germans Claim British Behind Hitler Assassination Attempt; South Africans Uncover German Espionage; Finns Refuse Soviet Military Base Demand; British MI6 Agents Kidnapped by Germans at Venlo
Today is 9-Nov-1939, the 40th day of World War II; there are 2,123 days left in the conflict.
German press and radio reports claim that the British were behind the planting of a bomb in Munich’s Bürgerbräukeller which was aimed at assassinating Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler.
The South Africans claim that a German plot to sabotage vital war industries in the cities of Pretoria and Johannesberg has been uncovered and prevented.
With border/territory revisions still under negotiation, as well as a Soviet demand that the Finns allow a Red Army base on Finnish soil, the government of Finland in Helsinki issues a statement reaffirming its position: Finland “cannot grant to a foreign military power military bases on her territory and within the confines of her frontiers.”
After a series of intelligence successes, the British suffer their first serious setback of the war. In what will come to be known as the “Venlo Incident,” two British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) officers, Major Richard Stevens and Captain S. Payne Best, are kidnapped by the German Geheime Staatspolizei (Gestapo). The kidnapping is ostensibly ordered by Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler in retaliation for the Bürgerbräukeller assassination attempt.
The two MI6 officers attempt to contact members of the German resistance; they have been meeting at Venlo, Holland, five miles from the German border, with man using the pseudonym “Major Schaemmle.” The man claims to represent a group of German Army officers who are plotting a coup d’etat against the National Socialist government. In reality, “Major Schaemmle is a Gestapo officer named Walther Schellenberg. Their meeting today is scheduled to be at a cafe situated just a few yards from the border at Venlo. But on their arrival via car, Stevens and Best are hit by machine gun bullets and overpowered by Gestapo agents and taken into Germany.
The damage from the incident is immediate and severe; one of the two officers is carrying a list of British agents. From the list, the subsequent interrogations and their own loose talk, the two MI6 officers enable the Germans to arrest a number of British undercover agents throughout German-occupied territory. Stevens and Best will remain prisoners of the Germans until the final collapse in April 1945.