I am always amazed at what correspondence comes while this blog goes on hiatus. This summer is no exception. Some of these will generate a stand-alone blog, while others will lead to an update on an existing blog.
Tower of London: Royal Armouries and Historic Royal Palaces
The Tower of London is in the process of arranging a new display and asked if I would loan them a couple of artifacts. HRP would like to have a high-quality copy of Josef’s final letter to his family. The Royal Armouries would like to have his eyeglasses for their section of the display. Naturally, I said yes, and at some point before next summer, I will be making another trip to London to deliver both items. I’ll post more as the details get hashed out.
On a side note, I had a lovely email from Olivia, one of the assistant digital web producers at HRP, who thanked me for my assistance over the years with their The Tower at War page. She was moving on from HRP and just wanted to say thanks. That page seems now to have morphed into The Tower of London and the Second World War.
Ill-fated Dutch Spy – Harm Knol Bruins & his wife
I’ve done several posts on Harm Knol Bruins over the years. Ivar Borst, the great-nephew of Bruins’ wife, Anna, has been digging through the French archives and unearthing fascinating material concerning Anna’s execution at Bailleul on 27 May 1940. We now know that soldiers from the Régiment de Tirailleurs Marocains (Moroccan Tirailleurs Regiment) were escorting several groups of civilian prisoners towards Dunkirk. It was a chaotic time, with the Allies pinned on the coast and the Germans advancing rapidly. But even during that chaos, reports were made and records were kept. More info in a future blog post.
Denkmal am Ort: Lily Knips & Sylvia Paskin
Sylvia Paskin, the granddaughter of Lily Knips, reached out in April to share the news that she was presenting again at Denkmal am Ort, a program to remember those who were persecuted by the Nazis. Her presentation was taking place outside Wielandstraße 30, the former home of her grandmother. Lily Knips was a German Jew who almost purchased a black-market passport from lawyer Jürgen Ziebell, after being introduced to him by Josef Jakobs. In the end, Lily was able to escape to London via her son, who was studying there. When Josef landed in England, he gave Lily’s name to his interrogators, placing her in an extremely uncomfortable position.
The Sommerfeld Family
This past April, I also received an email from Harvey Bichkoff, the great-grandson of Erich & Amalie Sommerfeld. Harvey shared a bit about their story and how his grandparents and mother escaped to America via Shanghai. Harvey and his sister had very little information on the Sommerfeld clan and my blog series on the Sommerfelds was extremely helpful for them. I’m going to go in and add a postscript to the post on the extended Sommerfeld clan.
The Falkenburgs: Jewish Refugees
Douglas Falkenburg reached out to share some information about Ernst & Clothilde Falkenburg, who had managed to escape Nazi Germany via Cuba. I had originally written a post about them, as they were victims of Jürgen Ziebell’s black-market passport scam. I have updated the original post with a note at the bottom sharing Douglas’s info.
The Hagens: Jewish Refugees
Sometimes correspondence gets lost, mostly because I think… I need to write a blog post about this. In 2024, I received another email from Hartmut Liste, whose wife is part of the Hagen clan. Louis Georg Hagen and his wife, Viktoria, had also tried to purchase black-market passports through Jürgen Ziebell, without much success. They did manage to escape to Japan and eventually ended up in the USA. Two of their sons, Karl Victor Hagen and Louis Edmund Hagen managed to escape Germany in the mid-1930s. Both had very interesting wartime stories, Louis with the British and Karl with the Americans. Hartmut had travelled to Germany in 2024 to attend a 75th anniversary commemoration of the Berlin Airlift. He wrote a short bio about Karl Victor Hagen and I will share details about that in an upcoming post, as it contains some fascinating photographs of the Hagen clan.
The daughter of Louis Edmund Hagen also shared with Hartmut that an autobiography of her father had recently been published. Suddenly an Englishman can be purchased on Amazon. I’ve added it to my “To Read” list!
In addition, a nephew of Irene Mathews (widow of Karl Victor Hagen) is working on a graphic novel about the Hagen story.
Lt. R.W. Taylor – Doctor to a Condemned Man
In January of this year, I received a fascinating email from Chris Salmon, who said he was the grandson of Dr. Richard W. Taylor. He was able to confirm that the Richard William Taylor I had blogged about (here in 2016 and here in 2021), was indeed the doctor attached to the Scots Guards at the Tower of London. Dr. Taylor had attended both Rudolf Hess and Josef Jakobs. While Chris never met his grandfather, he did hear stories from his mother and had some press clippings. Chris was also able to put me in touch with his cousin, Owen O’Dowd, who had some excellent photographs of Dr. Taylor from his First World War service. I then applied for Taylor’s army service record and it arrived just a few weeks ago. Needless to say, I will be writing an updated blog post about Taylor.
Replica Radios of the Spies
I had another email a few months ago from my go-to spy radio expert, Thomas Hoeppe. Thanks to the excellent photographs provided by the Northamptonshire Police from the spy radio in their possession, Thomas was able to finally get the measurements he needed to recreate the SE 92/3. This was the type of transmitter/receiver used by Josef Jakobs and Jan Willem ter Braak (aka Engelbertus Fukken). More in a future blog post.
I have my work cut out for me this season!