Following two years of preliminary negotiations, on March 23, 1938 Meyer-Schwertenbach purchased Wolfsberg Castle near Ermatingen, canton of Thurgau.11 During the war, the castle served as a stage for fostering the contacts between the chief of Swiss Military Intelligence, Roger Masson, and the head of SS Foreign Intelligence, Walter Schellenberg, as Meyer put his estate at their disposal as a discreet yet stylish meeting place and transit point.12 After 1945, a number of rumors surfaced concerning the purchase of the estate, resulting in several investigations. Hans Hausamann, the head of Bureau Ha, for example, allegedly told high-ranking officers that he suspected Meyer-Schwertenbach had been able to purchase the castle after the war with funds from spying activities.13 However, it should be pointed out that Meyer purchased the estate about a year and a half before the war broke out and half a decade before he met Schellenberg.14
In 1941, Captain Meyer married his second wife.15 During the secret meetings, “la Schlossherrin” (the mistress of the castle), which was the title that General Guisan used to refer to her, acted as hostess and secretary.16
Shortly after the outbreak of the war, Meyer’s civilian jobs as a lawyer and author of detective stories, which had brought him into close contact with police authorities, helped him to be transferred from the troops to the Army Staff. On August 29, 1939, 1st Lieutenant Paul Meyer had gone on duty as a member of a reserve fusilier company that was part of the border troops.17 Just five weeks later, he was detailed to the Intelligence Section of the Army Staff at army headquarters.18 On November 7, 1939, he began working for the Security Service,19 where his direct superior was Werner Müller,20 Masson’s deputy on Army Intelligence. As the head of the Special Service,21 Meyer-Schwertenbach dealt with issues relating to the domestic Security Service. However, his terms of reference22 indicate that he had to work closely with Military Intelligence, as his tasks included:
On August 23, 1941, in a letter to Chief of the General Staff Huber, General Guisan appointed Meyer-Schwertenbach as his unofficial intelligence officer.28 From that moment on, he entrusted him with delicate special missions and gradually put him in charge of his personal security.29 On January 20, 1943, Meyer was named head of intelligence at the branch office in Zürich, as a result of which he left the Security Service.30 At the same time, for objective organizational reasons the Special Service was abolished,31 as it had become redundant following the expansion of and redistribution of a number of tasks to the Security Service. Under the restructuring plan, Masson had ordered Major Max Maurer to act as a liaison officer with the Attorney General’s office, for which Maurer had already been working as a commissioner in his civilian career.32 In an official letter to his superior Masson on January 16, 1943, Werner Müller argued:
It is therefore useless to have another liaison officer. Moreover, I prefer to deal with Major Maurer in person concerning the issues that are of interest to us.… Whenever I am unavailable, my deputy at the [Security Service] is in charge. The contacts with the cantonal and municipal police authorities have definitely become the business of the [Security Service] as a whole (headquarters, army police, counter-intelligence, police section. In special cases I go through the federal police), and the coordination activities increasingly require my own involvement.33
Also, by then the Security Service was able to communicate with Switzerland’s major police authorities directly by telex. In addition, Werner Müller had started personally verifying the transcripts of the tapped telephone conversations “in order to make clear who was responsible.”34
On the same day, in a personal letter to Masson, Werner Müller mentioned the real reasons why Meyer had left the Security Service, explaining, “[In the official letter, I] took into account the purely official, objective reasons in order to allow [Meyer-Schwertenbach] to leave [the Security Service] in a correct manner by giving him a clear explanation. However, I also no longer trust Captain Meyer.”35 The Head of the Security Service had met with Meyer, hoping to overcome a certain feeling of uneasiness that he had about him; instead, he realized:
[The meeting provided reliable evidence] that Captain Meyer had been plotting against me and Colonel Jaquillard [the head of Counterintelligence], that his role in the matter concerning the tapped telephone conversations had been anything but impeccable, that you cannot rely on him to keep things secret, and that through certain connections he has gained some detrimental influence (all the way to the top), resulting in mistrust and uneasiness. That is all the more unpleasant as Captain Meyer is responsible for hardly anything in which he thinks he has to get involved.36
Colonel Müller concluded his letter by stating with determination, “I no longer want this man to be part of the Security Service,37 however, due to his character he is not capable of serving in any other branch.”38
In fall 1942, in connection with the affair concerning the tapped telephone conversations, it had become obvious that Meyer-Schwertenbach had direct access to the Commander-in-Chief, a fact that was viewed with suspicion by Colonel Werner Müller and others. As head of the Special Service, Meyer used to receive the transcripts of tapped telephone conversations. On November 7, 1942, he was indignant, telling General Guisan about “the fact that for more than one year, the private telephone conversations of all officers on the Army Staff had been monitored on orders of Counterintelligence.”39
Without giving away the name of his informant, General Guisan ordered Barbey to get Masson “to immediately suspend, until further notice, all telephone monitoring activities that have been established in Interlaken.”40 The Commander-in-Chief did not want this matter to be trifled with because one year earlier he had personally been the victim of abusive tapping activities. The head of the Security Service had confidentially informed him “that as former head of the Communications and Railway Department, Pilet-Golaz [had] ordered that the Commander-in-Chief’s telephone conversations be monitored!” 41
At the end of November 1942, Chief of the General Staff Huber called Masson, Werner Müller, who was Masson’s deputy and head of the Security Service, the Military Attorney General, whom the Commander-in-Chief had asked to investigate whether the tapping activities were legal, and Chief of Counterintelligence Robert Jaquillard into a meeting to discuss the matter of the “tapped telephone conversations” at army headquarters. At the meeting, Huber explained, “[The Commander-in-Chief has] received complaints from an unidentified source about telephone conversations of officers being tapped by bodies of counterintelligence, which means that the concerned officers are suspected of espionage.”42 The meeting brought things into the open. It was concluded that in this instance no abuse had been committed. The monitoring activities were carried out on the basis of a security ordinance of September 22, 1939 and instructions of October 5, 1939 by the Chief of the General Staff regarding counterintelligence activities in the army. However, the meeting revealed that no one was well informed about the issue. The participants were surprised to hear that technically it was not possible to have the sworn tapping agents43 listen in only on the telephone conversations of a selected number of people. Consequently, all telephones had to be monitored, whether used by civilians or members of the military. It was therefore not feasible to monitor only suspects, as Masson had assumed. Jaquillard explained that in addition to counterintelligence, the federal Attorney General’s office and the Federal Department of Economic Affairs44 had also ordered telephones to be tapped. Chief of the General Staff Huber concluded:
Counterintelligence and the head of the Security Service are not to blame in this matter. If anyone is to blame, it is me and Colonel-Brigadier Masson, who approved the telephone tapping activities in Interlaken in early 1941. It is justified to blame us for our bad memory because we had simply forgotten about the events of early 1941. To be honest, though, the major part of the blame has to be attributed to Colonel-Brigadier Masson because as the direct superior he is responsible for supervising counterintelligence; he should be better informed about its activities than I am. However, what is unpleasant about the matter is the fact that there are anonymous cowards among the officers of the Army Staff who fail to try to settle disagreements with their superiors in a straightforward, soldierly manner by asking for a meeting or lodging a complaint, as stipulated in clause 48, paragraph 4 of the [service regulations]. Instead, they clandestinely bring their information to the attention of the Commander-in-Chief and are taken seriously by him.… One has to wonder how many of these cowards there are on the Army Staff and what their names are. The fact that the informant has not been identified leaves a serious feeling of mistrust.45
In spite of the devastating criticism that the head of the Security Service had voiced about Meyer-Schwertenbach, Masson did not want to do without him. He agreed to remove him from the Security Service, but in his capacity as Assistant Chief of Staff Id, he informed Meyer’s new superior, Max Waibel, “As of today, Captain Meyer, who has been head of the Special Service (Security Service) until now, will be at your disposal to take over the command of your sub-office in Zürich.… I reserve the right to put this officer in charge of some special missions, for which I will deal directly with him.”46 By special missions, Masson had his connection with SS Brigadier General Schellenberg in mind. Based on these instructions, Meyer-Schwertenbach henceforth reported directly to Procurement Office 147 and was assigned to the Uto outpost as a liaison officer with the Zürich cantonal and city police, particularly their intelligence services. In secret terms of reference48 dated July 16, 1943, Waibel, the head of N.S.1, defined Meyer’s tasks, which he was to accomplish at Waibel’s instructions by using his own connections. His tasks included:
Meyer-Schwertenbach was to convince people from these target groups to report their observations, or help, through their own contacts, establish new connections. These new sources of information were to be interviewed and questioned, and they were to be convinced to continue working with Army Intelligence.
N.S.1 was interested only in information on military, economic, and foreign policy matters. Matters related to domestic policy and the police fell to the responsibility of the respective police authorities, i.e. the intelligence services of the canton and city of Zürich, the federal police, and, if necessary, Counterintelligence. Meyer was to foster relations with the cantonal and city police in order for their offices, archives, and means of communication to be available to Army Intelligence for gathering information and undertaking investigations.
As an outpost of N.S.1, the Uto sub-office, to which Meyer-Schwertenbach was assigned, was procuring intelligence exclusively from the Axis countries. Nevertheless, as of summer 1943, Meyer also made attempts “to come into direct contact with the British Intelligence Service in order to establish a connection that was similar to the one [with Schellenberg].”50 In October 1943, he was successful, and as of November 1943 he regularly sent Masson numbered messages that he had received from the new connection. From the written evidence that is available today, it is not clear whether in this instance Meyer acted on his own initiative. However, it does not seem to be erroneous to assume that he had two main reasons for being interested in approaching the British Intelligence Service: he personally wanted to establish a connection with the Allies that was as unusual as the one with Schellenberg; and he may have received more or less clear hints from Eggen or Schellenberg that they were interested in entering into contact with the Allies. The following year, when Meyer-Schwertenbach began to have personal contact with Allen Dulles, the initiative had definitely been taken by both the Allies and the Swiss. On the Swiss side, Masson primarily tried to transmit Schellenberg’s wish to enter into contact with the Americans.
The Zürich city police let the Uto sub-office use two adjacent rooms at the Amtshaus III, one of the city’s administrative buildings, as its offices. Uto’s task was to question persons about foreign military, political, and economic issues. N.S.1 communicated the potential informants’ addresses to the sub-office by sending it the so-called immigration forms.51 Whenever possible, the potential informants were interviewed at their home or workplace. All reports and correspondence had to be submitted to N.S.1. On Waibel’s orders, the Uto suboffice and Meyer-Schwertenbach were allowed to communicate directly with the army command “only if they had to carry out orders that had been issued personally by the head of Group Id or his deputy.”52 The head of the sub-office, Eugen Gyr, was in charge of military and administrative matters; Meyer-Schwertenbach primarily carried out special missions in addition to liaising between N.S.1 and the police authorities of the canton and city of Zürich.53 If necessary, the sub-office was allowed to request additional army personnel for temporary or long-term assignments. Nevertheless, Uto’s administrative ex-penses were minimal; it had 100 francs available per month for its operating costs54 and ten times that amount for the actual interviews,55 which was the same amount that was allocated to the Pfalz sub-office in Basel.56
In winter 1943, Meyer-Schwertenbach felt obliged to ask to be relieved of his duty as liaison officer at Uto effective at the beginning of 1944. On December 17, 1943, Masson decided, “At your own request, I am temporarily relieving you of your duty at our sub-office in Zürich, effective Dec. 31, 1943.… I would like to thank you for the services you have rendered since the army was mobilized. You are leaving under perfectly honorable conditions, at your own request. Granting your request is possible because you have been serving as a volunteer.”57 However, Meyer was to continue working for the Intelligence Service. Masson added, “I would like to ask you to remain at my own disposal for the special mission with which I will continue to entrust you.”58
Masson’s expression, “under perfectly honorable conditions,” may make readers wonder about the real reason why Meyer quit his job at the sub-office in Zürich. Meyer’s unpublished papers indicate that there were serious frictions between him and his direct superior Max Waibel at N.S.1 that apparently began when Waibel appointed Captain Gyr as head of Uto instead of Meyer.59 Meyer commented, “W[aibel] obviously did not call me or send me a letter, nor did he make any request or issue instructions to me, so I had to interpret [Gyr’s appointment] as an act of animosity. However, I did not yet see things clearly.”60
In September 1943, a Swiss informant told Meyer that “Waibel was gathering material in order to shed light on [his] activities with the Germans, [his] finan[cial] gains, etc., and that the Commander-in-Chief had been informed61 and had been asked to receive Waibel in order to be briefed on the issue.”62 A short time later, German circles63 confirmed that Waibel had asked a German agent to collect material on Meyer’s activities. Hence, it became clear to Meyer why Waibel had been “tight-lipped”64 toward him, adding, “I complained to Masson, who confirmed to me that the Commander-in-Chief even intended to receive W[aibel]65 in order to see the file on my ‘business activities’; [Masson said that] he would speak with W[aibel] and assured me that if I could produce evidence that Waibel was also gathering material in G[ermany] on [Masson], he would be fired.”66 Meyer refused to take up Masson’s offer, telling him that Waibel was a comrade in the military with whom he had not had any other unpleasant experience.67 On the other hand, however, he refused to give Waibel any information on his activities.68
Meyer-Schwertenbach was disgruntled about Waibel’s attitude and was convinced that he was the target of a plot. Actually, he was. Lützelschwab’s comment on the Masson affair69 indicated that some people within Army Intelligence had serious reservations about Meyer’s activities on behalf of the Masson-Schellenberg connection. When discussing the alert of March 1943 later in this volume, we will examine whether Max Waibel had valid reasons to be so reticent about Meyer-Schwertenbach. Waibel was annoyed about Meyer’s private business activities because they helped maintain Masson’s risky contact with Schellenberg. However, Meyer would have been astounded to find out that, by making a comment that was meant to be positive, he was actually the one who had pointed out to Waibel that there were some questionable aspects about the channel to the Reich Security Central Office.70
As mentioned, Waibel was not the only staff member of Army Intelligence who was suspicious about Meyer-Schwertenbach.71 The fact that he was transferred from army headquarters in Interlaken to Zürich could indeed be viewed as an attempt to demote72 him by placing him in a less delicate position.73 Meyer did not fail to notice this, stating:
First they tried to make me stumble because of my private legal activities (received large sums of money—set the tax authorities on me because I allegedly made profits as a result of the war); then they removed me from headquarters in I[nterlaken] because I saw too many things.… In Zürich they continued snooping around me, and when they could not hold anything against me, [they] turned into sticklers for the rules, [asking me] why I did not obey the military orders issued by my superior in the army.74
The last remark referred to Meyer’s refusal to abide by the terms that Waibel had dictated to him for his job in Zürich.
The situation was unpleasant for both parties. Knowing that Waibel disapproved of the connection with Schellenberg, Captain Meyer kept hiding behind special missions about which he did not have to report to his superior at N.S.1.75 Major Waibel, who suspected that Meyer was involved in some dubious business activities and feared that his own connection, Viking, was in jeopardy, tried to have Meyer investigated by the military administration and removed from the army. Waibel was only partly successful; even though at the end of 1943 Meyer quit his post at the sub-office of N.S.1 in Zürich,76 he continued to be in a position of trust with Masson, keeping up, via Eggen, the connection with Schellenberg.77 From then on he reported directly to Masson, which was what he had wanted for a long time.78 In 1943, Meyer had been on duty three days a week; after that, he served only sporadically, i.e. nine days in January 1944, eight days in February 1944, and 71 more days during the remainder of 1944; according to Group Ib of the army command, from January to April 1945 he served another 41 days.79