Recruiters and Trainers

Abstract

Since no Abwehr special-forces units were deployed in Persia during the Second World War, our interest in them is limited in this book to the role they played in the recruitment and training of individuals destined for clandestine insertion by air, land, or sea in the Persian theatre. This is not to say that there were no plans to include Brandenburger units among the German forces poised to invade Persia in early 1943.² However, those military plans were negated by the German defeats at El Alamein, Stalingrad, and Kursk. While discussion of the archival records pertaining to the German invasion that never happened might be fascinating, it would be largely irrelevant in this context. Instead, this chapter examines specific instances of recruitment and training experienced at first hand by individual operatives in preparation for deployment in Persia, together with a discussion of some of the associated problems encountered by both recruiters and trainers. After surveying the Abwehr II training establishments, this chapter provides an overview of the way in which the recruitment of Persian nationals and others was handled by Abwehr II. It then shows how Abwehr recruits were transitioned into a training process facilitated by the Abwehr II special-forces establishments at Meseritz (now Mie˛dzyrzecz, Poland) and Quenz (Brandenburg).

The majority … had already proved their worth in battle …, but they did not necessarily possess those characteristics which make a good agent. (Franz Mayr and Ernst Köndgen)¹