SOE Gustav Siegfried Eins

SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE

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Gustav Siegfried Eins

'Gustav Siegfried Eins' was the first of Sefton Delmer's highly effective propaganda stations and - signallers German for George Sugar One - revolved around ‘Der Chef’, (The Chief). At last black broadcasting would now begin to take a positive direction.

The part of ‘Der Chef’ was to be played by a Pioneer Corps corporal named Peter Seckelmann and in mid May, 1941, as the only member of the GS1 team to then have arrived, Paul Sanders, as he was known, settled in at Larchfield, a discrete redbrick villa in Aspley Guise. This was the top secret home of Sefton and his wife, Isobel and here Peter would rehearse Delmer’s GS1 scripts.

Larchfield, where the first GS1 scripts were rehearsed

Born in Berlin, in 1902, Peter became a journalist in that city but he grew increasingly sickened by the outrages against the Jews and leaving Germany, he arrived in London in 1937. There he started a small literary agency but after the outbreak of war enlisted in the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps in March, 1940. Undergoing initial duties in France as a commando, having volunteered to be parachuted into Germany he then came to the attention of Leonard Ingrams who, having links with the Secret Service, duly informed Delmer. On first making Peter’s acquaintance, Delmer then found him working in a bomb disposal squad.

Against Delmer’s desire, initially no ‘adjutant’ was available to announce Der Chef’s broadcasts since the intended candidate still had to clear the security checks yet the need to broadcast remained imperative, so as not to lose an opportunity to capitalise on the defection of Rudolph Hess, some days earlier. Therefore, on the afternoon of May 23rd, 1941, Delmer and Der Chef, in Pioneer Corps battle dress, were consequently driven to Wavendon Towers in a black limousine and upon their arrival a blonde, aware of the purpose of GS1, as the codename for the unit, led them into a billiard room. There, with the windows shuttered and curtained, beneath fluorescent lights three chrome plated R.C.A. microphones awaited use - one on a stand, one suspended from the ceiling and the third positioned on a desk, two chairs before it.

That evening Der Chef began his first broadcast, announcing the call sign and then various code signals which, in a low grade cypher, were purposely intended to be ‘cracked’. Thereby it was hoped that agents of the Gestapo would be sent around the occupied lands, looking for imaginary suspects!

After the initial announcements Der Chef would then answer questions, as if these had been posed by a previous broadcast and - explaining that he had been compelled to lie low as a consequence - he pronounced that he had been forewarned about the Hess flight. Next he gave a ‘list’ of those under suspicion or arrested and some were actually true! The whole broadcast had been recorded and as Delmer and the corporal were about to leave, one of the recording engineers, Jim Docherty, suggested that GS1 should have an

Wavendon Towers. Here the recording studios for the propaganda broadcasts were established.

identifying signature tune, for the benefit of it’s potential listeners. Hitler’s own ‘Deutschlandsender’ featured for a callsign the first bars of an 18th . century folk song by Lugwig Holtz, ‘always practise troth and probity’ and so GS1arranged to respond with the answering phrase, ‘Until your cool, cool, grave’.