On April 10, 1943, Allied troops landed in Sicily, catching Hitler's army off guard. A decisive event for the end of World War II that has its origins in the deception designed by British intelligence, and in which the appearance of the corpse of the false English officer William Martin, on the shores of Punta Umbria (Huelva) on April 30 of the same year, is transcendental. The choice of this corner of southern Spain, among other reasons, is due to the presence of the German Clauss family. Photographer María Clauss, the granddaughter of the story's protagonists, carried out a documentary to reveal the family secret.

‍

Photographer Maria Clauss recalls that it all started with the pile of more than forty letters that she begun to read, which she kept from her grandfather Luis Clauss Kindt, the last German consul in Huelva. The missives were addressed to her great-grandmother (who was also called Maria Clauss), during her grandfather's confinement in Caldes de Malavella (Gerona). He had been confined after appearing on a list of 104 Germans classified as Nazi spies claimed by the countries allied to Spain and were to be deported to Germany after the end of World War II.
As a justification for why she began to work on a job in which documentary journalism is mixed with the personal need to know who her grandfather really was, the photographer and granddaughter stated: "It seemed like he was writing to me". After reading the letters, Clauss said: "I found a man who during the three years of confinement wondered daily, in every letter, why he was in this situation." She added: "In my head, the question 'was my grandfather a spy?' repeated over and over."

‍

‍

To seek the answer, Maria Clauss goes back to the date that serves as the trigger for a story built on many stories, decisive in the outcome of World War II: April 30, 1943. That day a corpse appeared, dressed as a fake British officer on the shores of Punta Umbria (Huelva, Spain). The dead man deliberately carried with him the made-up identity of William Martin. He was placed with a briefcase handcuffed to one of his hands, which contained false documentation about the landing that the Allies were going to make in Europe.
The aim was to make Hitler believe that the invasion would occur on Kalamata beach (Greece) instead of Sicily, which is how it actually took place on July 10 1943. The troops led by U.S. Commander Dwight Eisenhower, in collaboration with British General Harold Alexander, and the spearhead intervention of the army led by General George Patton, easily obtained the goal of what has become known as Operation Husky. Contributing in this way, led to the fall of fascism in Italy and the turn in the world's strife.
The lack of foresight of the German army which had been deployed, mainly in Greece, Peloponnese and Sardinia, as it appeared in the documents provided by William Martin, is primarily due to the success of Operation Mince Meat. Therefore, the deception in which Luis and his brother Adolfo Clauss play an essential role, as recipients of false information and transmission channels to Germany, is a success.

‍

The confinement

In the Clauss family, as Maria explains, no one understood why they confined their grandfather and not their great-uncle. Mostly since according to the photographer's opinion: "Great-uncle Luis Clauss was the one who ran the consulate in addition to his business, while his brother Adolfo was the actual executor of the espionage plots after the end of the conflict." According to Maria Clauss, the reason behind this taking place is the fact that her uncle participated as an interpreter for the High Command and the combat tank officer of the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War; this allowed him to count on the favour "to include him in a new list, which urged the Spanish Government to be protected". This was corroborated by photographing one of the declassified documents kept by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in their archive in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid).
‍

‍
During the confinement, Luis Clauss tries to understand the reason behind his predicament. In a letter dated on September 14, 1945, from the Soler Hotel of Caldes de Malavella (the main establishment where the Germans who arrived from various parts of Spain were confined), written with a typewriter in blue ink to a lawyer friend said: "As I have never offended or compromised Spanish neutrality, there is no doubt that I owe my confinement to the words of the English." And he insists to his friend that he understands that "our Government (Spain) cannot do anything to help this, since he knows that it is common for his name to appear on the English's lists". However, he adds that "It is natural for the English to persecute me, I was blacklisted by them from the beginning, for having gone against their wishes when it came to the handling of their information; but the very sad thing is that that I am at the same time a victim for the Spaniards". To which he adds, hurt by the treatment he receives, "I was not admitted to the party (in reference to the Nazi party), because I have always criticised and opposed myself publicly, which I understood was not right. Unfortunately for us, I have been right about a lot, but as a German, I do not shy away from the consequences of disaster."
The rest of the letters, ranging from 1945 to 1947, repeatedly speak of feeling victimised and of suffering a banishment that he did not deserve; of the deportations of his compatriots to Germany, of the daily life of the town that took him in, like during the harvesting times. Letters mix the anecdotes and stories of his day-to-day life and entertainment, especially that of his worries of having his children, some very young, alone in Huelva. Finally, the most anticipated news came, and he was able to return to Huelva and reunite with his family on August 20, 1947.

‍

The Clauss brothers

Luis and Adolfo Clauss were born in Huelva. Still, at 5 and 8 years old respectively, they were sent to study in Germany in the progressive elite schools of the current 'home-schooling in the countryside' regime driven by the pedagogue, Herman Lietz. The first part of their training is carried out in Haubinda and later at the boarding school of Bierbesntein. This boarding school was an abbey built more than 300 years ago by the Abbot princes of Fulda. In it, you get the impression that time seems to have stopped. The photographer went there in September 2019 in search of her relatives' steps, but she did not have an appointment.

The boarding school's current director Michael Meinster accompanied Maria through the boarding school searching for the spaces photographed during her grandfather's stay; which were kept in the family album that accompanies the granddaughter on this journey through the biography of Luis and Adolfo Clauss.

‍

One of their stops is on the same balcony where her grandfather was photographed with his companions, from which you can also see immense meadows. The next one, through corridors laden with stories, is in the boarding school dining hall. A space with the same layout and furniture as the photo from 104 years ago pasted into the family album; the photographer cannot help but look at that same photograph. Upon returning to the director's office, his secretary has located the logbook and the handwritten page of Luis Clauss' arrival in 1906. However, no reference to the great-uncle Adolfo appears, although family accounts claim that they were in the German boarding school until World War I when schools were closed, and young people joined the war. "My grandfather would be taken prisoner by the Russians and deported to Siberia, managing to escape from there," says the photographer Maria Clauss. After the War, Luis resumed his studies in Chemistry in Leipzig (Germany). Once he returned to Huelva, his father was very old, so he assumed the consulate's management and started his business as a consignee of vessels and owner of fishing boats. Huelva researchers Jesús Copeiro and his colleague Enrique Nielsen, (son of German press and propaganda service delegate in Huelva), describe Luis Clauss as "an enterprising man, as he bought the first refrigerated trucks to bring seafood and fish to Madrid". And they add frankly that "he never belonged to the Nazi party". They were the authors of the books The Mystery of William Martin, unravelling the plot (2014), and William Martin; Operation Mince Meat (2017) and Clauss (2019).
‍

World War II

The outbreak of World War II (1939 to 1945) caught the Clauss family in Huelva. According to Copeiro and Nielsen, who based themselves on interviews with Sigrid and Araceli Clauss (daughters of Luis), the family home was used as a meeting point for German soldiers dressed as countrymen. They came there to telegraph about British activity, especially that of the mining company of 'Rio Tinto Company Limited'. During this period, the photographer's great-uncle joined the German espionage structure led by Canaris, the head of German intelligence (Abwehr). Adolfo Clauss was a very active agent, known by the name 'Carolus'; he had already participated in sabotage and espionage during World War I. The Clauss had a vast network of collaborators both in the port and in other key locations of Huelva. According to local researchers, Adolfo used his estate, located in La Rábida (Huelva), to track the transit of English ships that lowered the ore from the Port of Laja (El Granado) by the Guadiana River. Working under the orders of Adolfo were a group of German divers, Copeiro and Nielsen recounted, they were not permanently in Huelva. Still, they came on the occasions that a sabotage operation had to be carried out. Adolfo Clauss organised them, gave instructions, and his team executed them. With glued magnets, the divers usually placed explosive charges of about 3 to 5 kg to the hull of the English ships so that once the fuse was blown, it would make a hole and disable the ship. "There is no record of my grandfather participating, nor that he knew about his brother's actions," says Maria Clauss.

‍

MINCEMEAT
Operation MINCEMEAT changed the events of universal history, as well as the personal history of Maria Clauss' grandfather. Operation MINCEMEAT was made known to the British through an authorised version published from February 1 to March 8, 1953, as weekly stories in The Sunday Express. Later, Ewen Montagu himself, a member of British Naval Intelligence and mastermind and Iam Fleming, wrote the book The Man Who Never Was in 1953, which became a best-seller. His son, Oxford University Emeritus Professor of Music, Jeremy Montagu, claimed not knowing the story of 'The Man who Never Was' until its publication. "It remained a secret for a long time because it was not known whether the deception would need to be re-performed." He argues that in his more than 90 years, he has become the living and direct memory of the ruse developed by his father and his colleague Fleming. Montagu, who sits in a living-room surrounded by musical instruments from five continents and with his father's book at a small side table, says: "The choice of Huelva is due to the knowledge of the existence of the efficiency in her uncle's espionage." This statement matches with that held by the investigators from Huelva, who added that another reason for Huelva's election was that it coincided with England's aerial route, and the allied headquarters in Algiers because of the supposed neutrality of Spain in the war. The German researcher Tabea Golgath recalls that their success depended on several factors: "The time had to be just right, the corpse found, and the German spy had to photograph the letters where it was believed that the invasion would take place through Greece."

April 30 1943

Maria Clauss took photographs in the archive of Kew (London) of the documents recording the Seraph submarine's movement on April 10, 1943, at the Scottish Holy Loch base; and how on the 30th it expelled the corpse that would reach the coast of the city. Once there, the dead man is picked up by the local fisherman, José Rey, who takes him to the gates of a fisherman's hut. Francis, currently aged 82, says he was 6 years old, and his brother Carmelo 16, when the event occurred. In the family, known in the town as 'los rifeños', it is recalled that when the grandfather referred to the story, he mainly highlighted the quality of the boots of the British officer.
The body was guarded by local authorities. That morning coroner Eduardo Fernando del Torno was asked to perform the autopsy at a marble table in the cemetery of La Soledad de Huelva. As seen on the documentation recorded, the coroner determined that the officer had fallen into the sea alive and suffocated and that he had been at sea for 8 to 10 days. However, he also expressed some doubts about the reason behind his death because the corpse had no fish bites, something commonly found on a drowned body.
The dead body's relevance is twofold: one, that it is a British officer, and the second that he carries a briefcase with crucial documentation. The documentation is brought, along with his nameplates, personal documents etc., before the Navy's investigating judge and the British Vice- Consul, Francis Haselden, who, according to all the sources consulted, was the sole person with knowledge of the deception. By having access to the navy command, Adolfo Clauss photographed the documents and sent them to the German secret services. Shortly after that, the original documentation is urgently sent to the Navy General Staff in Madrid, where the Abwehr chief in Spain, Gustav Leissner, is notified. There, they are re-photographed and sealed for the second time at the German embassy. "Everything seemed to indicate that my relatives had already sent it to Berlin, specifically to the Zossen's high-command communications bunker in the German capital", says Maria Clauss while recalling that "there is no record, no documentation, that endorses this theory. They are based on rumours or the opinions of Haselden's daughter, who says that her father, upon entering the consulate, saw the photographs of the documents".

‍

William Martin
As already explained, to achieve this success it was necessary to invent the biography of the false officer William Martin: a captain, born in Cardiff, stationed at the Headquarters of Combined Operations, and expert in landing tasks. A character who, thanks to the false clues scattered in his uniform's pockets (which the photographer has recreated by visiting the sites in present-day London), came to life when he was found dead by the fisherman and handed over to local authorities. The corpse carried various shopping receipts from his fake biography consisting of: firstly, the exclusive Phillips jewellery, located on the second floor of a building on Bruton Street in whose interior a newspaper clipping today recalls this story, and where he buys the engagement ring for his girlfriend Pam. Not far away is the Gieves & Hawkes store where, according to the receipts found, he purchased two shirts. During his time in London, he sleeps for six nights at the Naval and Military Club; today the building is abandoned. He even has time to attend a performance of the comedy' Strike a New Note' at the Prince of Wales theatre. In order to make it even more believable, he had a notice from Lloyds Bank warning that he had to settle an overdraft of £80. He also carried key paperwork, as they appear in the declassified file of 'Operation MINCEMEAT" which can be found in the British National Archive, composed of: a letter from General Sir Archibald Nye, deputy chief of the General Staff, addressed to General Harold Alexander, responsible for the British forces stationed in Tunisia, in which he referred to the possible allied landing on the beaches of Kalamata and Cabo Araxos in Greece; as well as a letter from Lord Louis Mountbatten, head of Combined Operations, in which officer Martin was given explicit explanations of his mission.

Drowned plane pilot
However, there would be no plot and no deception if there was no body, so the main challenge was to get hold of a corpse. The first beliefs were that the body of the fake William Martin was that of a drowned plane pilot after an accident; Ewan Montagu himself later speaks in his book of the corpse of a beggar killed by pneumonia. According to Montagu's son, "the fact that a body was stolen is another reason why this story was kept a secret". However, in 1995, former London City Council official Roger Morgan, discovered among declassified paperwork, the existence of a death certificate dated January 28, 1943, at Michael Glyndwr's St Pancras Hospital in London, which belonged to a homeless man who died from the intake of rat poison. "In file no.23, named MINCEMEAT, there was a long type-written sheet where I saw the name, halfway down the page," says Roger Morgan right in front of the bunker where Churchill, government officials and all British senior military commanders worked and sheltered during World War II. This theory, recalls Maria Clauss, is the one that the British Government has maintained. This does not convince the Scotsman John Steele, who links the corpse was that of sailor John Melville, who died after the also mysterious sinking of the ship The Dasher, on the same dates when Montagu is supposed to be on his way to Holy Loch's cove. Melville has also been researching for years and providing data on a theory that hides a tragic and dark episode of English naval history, which remains as of yet unresolved. "379 of 528 crew members died, of which only 23 bodies have been officially buried. The rest of the bodies were never given up, and their relatives were forced to remain silent," he says in a quiet voice due to illness, as he fills the table with paperwork and press clippings. "Montagu came across a fresh corpse," the Scottish investigator says.

‍

The man who never was

Wanderer or sailor, Michael or John, cease to exist. By the time the body reaches the coasts of Huelva, it had already officially become William Martin; and popularly the man who never was. While on the tombstone of the cemetery in Huelva, without certainty that there is a body in it, you can read: "William Martin. Born March 29, 1907, died April 24, 1943. Beloved son of John Glyndwyr Martin, and the late Antonia Martin of Cardiff, Wales. Sweet and honourable is dying for the country." A tomb known in the city as the tomb of the Englishman, upon which no flowers have been missing, thanks to Isabel Naylor (passed away in 2019), on every November 11, a date on which Britain celebrates the end of the war. Naylor, who was recognised as a Member of the British Empire for her fidelity to the unknown soldier in March 2002 by the English Government, was remembered for this gesture. Every year she did this she would recall that "there was a man in the cemetery who changed the outcome of World War II."
Maria Clauss puts on a table, in her grandfather's house, all the letters for one last photograph. She looks at the picture of her as a child, laughing with Luis in the garden. "I still can't say my grandfather was a spy. I think his role as consul led him to fulfil his obligations, and that fate made him be part of a small story that served to change history and bring about the end of the war. Surely, today, the only thing clear is that I remember him as my grandfather."

https://mariaclauss.com

‍