It was reported today in the Daily Mail (sorry for the link but they’re the only news service covering the story) that a letter written by Carl Hans Lody (1877–1914) has been unearthed, nearly 100 years after his execution.
Lody was the most famous German spy of World War One and the first out of eleven to be executed. He was shot by firing squad on November 6, 1914 in the Tower of London becoming the first person to be executed there for 167 years.
On the day before the execution, he wrote to the guard’s commanding officer:
I feel it my duty as a German officer to express my sincere thanks and appreciation towards the staff officers and men who were in charge of my person during my confinement.
Their kind and considered treatment has called my highest esteem and admiration as regards good fellowship even towards the enemy and if I may be permitted, I would thank you for making this known to them.
The letter had been stored at the Guards Museum at Wellington Barracks, but has now been uncovered as part of an exhibition at the museum on the First World War, and the role of the Foot Guards during the conflict.
Born in Berlin, Lody joined the German Navy in 1900 – serving for a year before he was transferred into the First Naval Reserve. He then went on to enter the merchant navy, where he served on English, Norwegian and American ships. After a period of working as a tourist guide on the American-Hamburg line, Lody (who spoke fluent English with an American accent) traveled to Britain as a spy at the outbreak of war in order to observe and report back on the country’s naval fleet.
From Edinburgh, posing as a tourist and using an American passport under the name of “Charles A. Inglis”, he sent telegrams and letters to an address in Stockholm which was used as a cover for German intelligence. His first coded message read:
Must cancel. Johnson very ill. Lost four days, Shall leave shortly, Charles.
He was reporting that there were four ships being repaired at the Firth of Forth dock, and that several others were about to head out to sea. The Germans dispatched an U-21 submarine which attacked the HMS Pathfinder becoming the first ship ever to be sunk by a torpedo fired from a submarine.
After this first success, Lody’s lack of training started to show, and he began to make mistakes – putting his address on his letters and writing them in German. Most significantly and unbeknownst to Lody, M15 were intercepting all of his correspondence.
In September 1914, he traveled to Dublin via Liverpool. From the Gresham Hotel, he wrote a detailed letter in German describing the military ships in Dublin Bay and useful conversations that he had overheard in the city. MI5 decided to act and ordered his arrest.
Enroute to Cobh (Queenstown),which was then the largest British naval station in Ireland, Lody stopped off in Killarney, Co. Kerry. On October 2nd, he was arrested by Inspector Cheeseman of the Royal Irish Constabulary while staying at the Great Southern Hotel.
The police discovered Lody’s true identity when they found a tailor’s ticket in his jacket bearing his real name and an address in Berlin. He was taken to London and detained at Wellington Barracks, before being convicted of espionage following a court martial, and sentenced to death.
On the morning of his execution, he was reported to have said to the officer who escorted him from his cell: “I suppose that you will not care to shake hands with a German spy”. “No,” the officer replied; “but I will shake hands with a brave man.”
He was executed at the Tower by an eight man firing squad made up of members of the 3rd Battalion, Grenadier Guards. Lody was first buried in the Tower of London and later disinterred and transferred to the East London Cemetery in Plaistow then finally to Highgate Cemetery, north London.
In May 1934, the Nazis unveiled a memorial to Lody in his northern German city of Luebeck.
A part of the memorial, embedded in the medieval Burgtor town gate, can still be seen today:
An intriguing tale of espionage in which Dublin played an important part.
For more information on Lody, check out these articles published on the BBC, M15 and the Independent.
If you want to link to the Mail, use this. http://www.donotlink.com
BTW, why is the interface of your Comments page in Turkish?
A bit confused by the letter. The typescript reads like the letter has been Google translated into German (or something) and then Google translated back again.
@Europhile
Is that what it is. So is mine. Thought it was something at my end.
Cobh was known as Queenstown, not Cork
Thanks, fixed!
There is a further Irish connection regarding the spy, Carl Lody. He was followed to Ireland by a young Kerry-born detective and member of the Special Branch, Jeremiah Lynch (1888-1953), who would later be a founding member of the Flying Squad, as recorded in Ray Wilson and Ian Adams, Special Branch (London, 2015), p.92, and in the National Archives War Office file, WO 71/1236
Further details on Lynch’s career are below:
1) THE TIMES, 15 July 1953
MR. JEREMIAH LYNCH
Mr. Jeremiah Lynch, who died in hospital at Winchester on Monday
at the age of 65, was one of the most capable members of the
Flying Squad originally formed after the 1914-18 War by Scotland
Yard to deal with racecourse gangs.
A native of County Kerry, he was a schoolmaster in early life,
but threw up his post in Dublin in 1912 to join the.Metropolitan
Police. During his service he distinguished himself on many
occasions and when he retired in 1937 he had over 50
commendations to his credit. His career was a vindication of
Scotland Yard’s policy of making an all-round efficient
detective rather than a specialist. Powerfully built and
good-tempered, he inspired respect in the criminal underworld of
London. He had, too, a subtlety of mind which he put to good
purpose in trapping spies during the 1914-18 war and he was one
of the officers who built up the case against [the notorious
confidence trickster, popular editor of John Bull, and member
of parliament] Horatio Bottomley. Since his retirement he had
lived in Alton, in Hampshire.
[Lynch married, in 1923, Ellen Margaret Dalton, daughter of
James Cornelius Dalton, Mayor of Westminster and Deputy
Lieutenant of London, and sister of Colonel Sir John Cornelius
Dalton, A.M.I.E.E., F.C.I.S., barrister-at-law and director of
companies, who was in charge of energy supplies in London and
south-eastern England throughout the Second World War. Jeremiah
and Ellen Lynch had one daughter, born 1925, and lived at St
Vincent’s Square, Westminster, until 1941, when they moved to
the south coast. Interestingly, because of his background (his
uncle was regarded as a leading Irish poet and academic, and
one of the prime movers of the Gaelic literary revival) he moved
in Irish literary circles in London. Among his close friends
were the Irish writer, and president of University College Cork,
Denis Gwynne, and the veteran Irish High Commissioner to London,
James Dulanty. After retirement, in the 1940s, he co-founded an
import-export company, Irish Industries Ltd, based in St
Stephen’s Green, Dublin. Although teetotal, he was virtually a
chain smoker and was a member of a couple of gentlemen’s clubs
in Pall Mall.]
2) DAILY TELEGRAPH, 15 July 1953
Deaths: Jeremiah Lynch
At Winchester, aged 65. Original member of Scotland Yard’s
Flying Squad. He received over 100 court commendations…
3) The following article comes from the Irish Press, but
unfortunately is undated (probably 1951):
HE WAS IN THE BOTTOMLEY CASE
Among a group of final-year arts undergraduates a friend met at
London University a few days ago was Miss M[arie Therese].
Lynch, daughter of ex-Detective Inspector Jeremiah Lynch, who
when he retired from Scotland Yard before the war was in charge
of the Flying Squad. He now lives outside London.
Ex-Detective Inspector Lynch, a native of Derreen, Cahirciveen,
and a nephew of Daniel Lynch, the scholar and poet, joined
Scotland Yard before World War 1 and his service there was
confined to the crimes branch. He was a 22-year-old school
teacher [at Artane Boys’ School] when he decided to come to
London. A sergeant, he helped the late Chief Inspector George
Mercer in securing the evidence that sent Horatio Bottomley to prison. It
was an eight-months job.
Henry Barnes Hunt, who in 1925 earned the description “the man
they cannot arrest”, was arrested by Inspector Lynch. Hunt was
wanted for practising in London as a solicitor without
authority. Tipstaff warrants were issued, but these were valid
only in London and Middlesex during the week, being ineffective
on Sundays. But eventually Inspector Lynch arrested him on a
charge of fraudulent conversion, on which he was later
sentenced.
The broad, jovial man from Kerry was more than one hundred times
commended in the courts. “You are a very lucky man to be able to
give evidence”, Sir Ernest Wilde, the Recorder, told Inspector
Lynch at the Old Bailey for his bravery in tackling singlehanded
a notorious suspect.
A last-minute change in arrangements prevented Inspector Lynch
accompanying Lord Kitchener on his last ill-fated voyage.
Matthew MacLaughlin, a Tipperaryman who took his place, went
down with the [destroyer, H.M.S.] `Hampshire’ [which struck a
mine off the Orkneys, in 1916, while taking Kitchener on a
secret mission to Russia].
4) IRISH PRESS, 15 July 1953
Mr Jerry Lynch, who retired from Scotland Yard’s flying squad in
1937 with more than 50 commendations, has died in Winchester
Hospital at the age of 65.
A native of Direen, Cahirciveen, he went to the national school
at Aughatubrid, and the Christian Brothers’ School in
Cahirciveen. He [attended Marlborough Street College, taking
honours in Mathematics, and] became a teacher in Dublin [at
Artane Boys School] but joined the London Metropolitan Police in
1912 and transferred to Scotland Yard in 1914, and as a member
of the Special Branch, he was given the task of trapping spies,
the most notorious of whom was Carl Lody who was traced to
Killarney. [Lody, alias Charles Lucas, was an officer in the
Intelligence Section of the Imperial German Navy. He was
convicted of espionage, and shot at the Tower of London in
1915.]
His most notable achievement was in building up the case against
Horatio Bottomley. One of the factors which aided him was his
acquaintance with Reuben Bigland, an old associate of Bottomley.
He also put in the dock Dr Buck Ruxton, who began practice in
Wood Green, London, and when established in Lancaster, murdered
his wife and child [in fact it was the servant girl], dissected
the bodies and after a long car journey from his home, threw the
remains, wrapped in a Sunday newspaper, into a wild valley
called the Devil’s Punch Bowl in Dumfries
near Carlisle.
It seemed the perfect crime, but the paper in which the remains
were enclosed was a slip edition with the two centre pages
devoted to pictures of a Morecambe flower show. There were only
a couple of hundred copies delivered by Lancaster newsagents,
and Mr Lynch interviewed every one of the subscribers. Thus Buck
Ruxton was trapped [and was hanged at
Strangeways Prison in 1935].
Mr Lynch was frequently commended by judges for his fearless
tackling of racecourse gangs. He was a man of powerful physique.
He was popular with the criminal underworld whose families he
befriended as a brother of the [Catholic benevolent] Society of
St Vincent de Paul. He retired to Alton, Hants. The funeral will
take place from St Mary’s, Alton, on Friday. His brother, Mr Jim
Lynch, is senior supervisor of the creed room of the Press
Association, Fleet Street.
5) THE TIMES, 16 December 1932
ARREST OF ARMED CRIMINAL – Presentations to Police Officers
Presentations were made by Sir Chartres Biron [magistrate] at
Bow Street Police Court yesterday to three officers of the
Flying Squad of Scotland Yard in recognition of their courage in
arresting an armed criminal named Devereux. Detective-Inspector
Jeremiah Lynch received Ł10 and Detective Truckell and
Police-Constable Pickett Ł5 each. Devereux tried, when arrested
in Trafalgar Square, to reach a fully loaded revolver suspended
from his shoulder, but was overpowered after a desperate
struggle. He was afterwards sentenced at the Central Criminal
Court to eight years’ penal servitude …
6) THE TIMES, 19 May 1937
Detective-Inspector Jeremiah Lynch, second-in-command of
Scotland Yard’s Flying Squad, will retire on Saturday after 25
years’s service with the Metropolitan Police.
7) THE IRISH TIMES, 15 July 1953
`On the Mat’ (Crushkeen Lawn by Myles na Gopaleen)
`Teacher went to “Yard”‘
In 1912 Jeremiah (Jerry) Lynch from Derrien [sic], Cahirciveen,
Co. Kerry, became bored with school teaching in Dublin and became
one of the original members of Scotland Yard’s “Flying Squad”. In
the first World War he trapped many spies, and appeared in many
celebrated cases. He helped to get the evidence which sent Horatio
Bottomley, M.P., to prison.
He died in Winchester yesterday, aged 65.
This is thrilling. Jeremiah Lynch is my great uncle! I would love to learn more if you have any sources to share.
Thanks, Donal.
Hi John, Thanks for your message. As it happens, I am also his grand-nephew (my maternal grandfather was his brother). How are you connected to him? I would be very interested to know.
Best wishes,
Donal
Great! My paternal grandfather was his brother John (or Jack) Lynch from Direen. Feel free to shoot me an email. I’d love to hear more about your side of the family: jplynch81(at)gmaildotcom
Hi John,
Just checking to see whether you got my email a few days ago. It didn’t bounce back so I thought it must have arrived ok, but please let me know if it hasn’t.
Best wishes,
Donal
Hi Donal,
My paternal grandfather john “jack” lynch was Jeremiah’s brother. My father was John’s son Michael.
It would be great to get in touch elsewhere to learn more. My email is jplynch81atgmaildotcom if you would like to connect.
Very best,
John
Hi Donal,
My paternal grandfather was John (or Jack) Lynch of Direen. I have picked up some other bits and pieces on the family that I would be happy to share if there is a way to contact you.
Great to meet you here!
John
Dear John,
I responded by email a few days ago but am not sure whether you received this. Could you let me know if not.
Many thanks,
Donal