Uittreksel uit An International Spymaster and Mystery Man: ABWEHR OFFICER HILMAR G. J. DIERKS (1889-1940) AND HIS AGENTS by F.A.C. Kluiters and E. Verhoeyen
3.5. HD recruits wireless operators
In September 1938, two Jews who had fled from Germany to Holland, informed the British consul in Amsterdam about one Leo H. Abas, manager of Nederlandsche Vliegtuigmodelbouw, Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 316 in Amsterdam. One of these Jews had known Abas, a Dutch half Jew who was born in Hamburg in 1905, when they were both living in Hamburg. Before leaving for Holland about mid-1938, Abas must have been recruited by HD. In September 1938, he became the manager of the Nederlandsche Vliegtuigmodelbouw, a firm meant to be used as a cover by HD. One of Ihe Jews became an assistant of Abas. When Abas was away, he was in Charge of his correspondence and must have leamed some interesting things that he judged worth telling to the British consul in Amsterdam, hoping to obtain some easy money. The consul noted that the Wiegtuigmodelbouw was “a cover under which the German secret service is organising a bureau in Holland for transmitting information obtained in the UK concerning Air Defence. L.H. Abas is the chief of the Organisation in Holland and is in direct communication with Dr. Hans zum Stuhreck of Davidson and Mercier, Spaldingstrasse 4, Hamburg. (...) On November 1 [1938] zum Stuhreck will become a partner in the Dutch firm and will deposit Fls 1000 therein. Abas has already made one trip to England and sent or brought with him plans of the air defences of Portsmouth, which have been handed to zum Stuhreck. A further trip to the UK‚ with zum Stuhreck, is contemplated. Eventually offices will be established in the UK, ostensibly for legitimate business purposes, but in reality to control agents there”. The consul added that the firm Nederlandsche Vliegtuigmodelbouw, although claiming to be of Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris, was not entered in the Commercial Register at Amsterdam. His first hand information was quickly sent to MI 6, who transmitted it to MI 5. The address in the Spaldingstrasse was at that moment already known to MI 5 as an Abwehr cover address‚ since MI 5 learned in April 1938 that it as used by one ‘Hans Lorenz’, who actually was Hans Lips from Ast Hamburg, but the cover name ‘Hans zum Stuhreck’ must have been a new piece of MI 5’ s puzzle about Ast Hamburg .
The Abas affair popped up again in the beginning of 1940. On 26 February of that year, Meldekopf Leer, an Abwehr outpost where HD’s brother Gerhard was busy organising a Grenzgängemrganisation, reported to Ast Hamburg that agent RR 3076 had been arrested te night before by the Dutch police at the small border town of Bourtange on a retum trip from Germany. The agent told the police that he was connected to ‘Dr. Hans zum Stuhreck’ of whom he now gave an address, Papenhuderstrasse 1, Hamburg, where HD actually lived when he was in Germany, but which was also used as a cover address or mail drop. There is practically no doubt that agent RR 3076 was indeed Abas. This can be concluded from information of the Politieke Recherche Afdeling of the Amsterdam police, which mentions the arrest of Abas in Bourtange exactly during the night of 26-27 February 1940. He declared that he had made an agreement in 1939 with ‘zum Stuhreck’, who according to Abas, was a ‘judicial adviser’ to the Heinkel aeroplane constructions. The agreement stipulated that he‚ Abas, would become Heinkel’s representative in Holland. It was found after his arrest that Abas possessed a wireless set, and it is most probable that he was part of a scheme of Ast Hamburg to establish wireless Operators in Belgium and Holland who would send meteorological information to Hamburg. In July 1939, Abas hired a house in the Michelangelostraat 13 in Amsterdam, where Heinkel Nederland, which was still to be founded, was - so to speak - to be established. The rent was paid by Heinkel, even after September 1939, when it was decided to discontinue the Heinkel project in Holland.