MI5 agents controlled UK Nazi network

A VAST network of Nazi sympathisers apparently working to undermine Britain’s war effort against Germany was secretly controlled by MI5, according to newly-released documents.

By The Newsroom Friday, 28th February 2014, 8:55 am

Files released by the National Archives show that the motley array of traitors and “fifth columnists” active in Britain during the Second World War was totally penetrated by the Security Service.

MI5 even drew up plans to issue them with special badges to be worn in the event of an invasion – supposedly to identify them as friends to the Germans, but in fact to enable them to be swiftly rounded up by the police.

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The service also acquired replica Iron Crosses to reward members of the network for their loyalty while adding further proof that they were actually working for the Germans.

At the centre of the operation was a MI5 agent, known by the alias “Jack King”, who was said to have a “genius” for such work.

By the end of the war, MI5 estimated that he was able to monitor and control the activities of hundreds of would-be traitors who were in fact acting as “unconscious agents” of the British.

During the course of his inquiries, he met a “crafty and dangerous woman” called Marita Perigoe. She was married to a member of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF) but had no time for the BUF, regarding them as “insufficiently extreme”.

“Marita Perigoe is not a neurotic nor feminine type; she is a masterful and somewhat masculine woman. Both in appearance and mentality she can be described as an arrogant Hun,” MI5 said.

In order to penetrate her network of fifth columnists, King managed to convince her that he was a representative of the Gestapo looking for people “a hundred per cent loyal to the Fatherland” who could be relied on to help in the event of an invasion.