Who was the Portuegese spy working for the Allies..?

I was hoping someone knowledgeable about these things might help.

I would like to know the name of the "semi-famous", Portuguese spy, that aided the Allies during WW2.

He was initially refused admittance to service, and I believe he struck out on his own and created his own web of subterfuge, leading the Germans on for some time.
I saw a little documentary some time ago, and would like to know more.

Anybody know?

Thanks

L

 

I'm not sure about Portugese but one of the most influential agents was a Spaniard called Juan Pujol Garcia (codename GARBO)...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/special_report/1999/01/99/wartime_spies/263301.stm

 

I found the following about a Portuguese diplomat of incredible courage and virtue, who was not a spy but should be remembered with honour.

Aristides de Sousa Mendes
Aristides de Sousa Mendes

Just an excerpt from within the middle page of this site:

...Then came the fateful month of September 1939. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, and Great Britain and France declared war two days later. Life as the Sousa Mendes family knew it was over, for Europe's darkest night was suddenly upon all. One of the consul's first acts was to take his children to the safety of the homestead in Portugal, where they were cared for by relatives and servants. Two adult sons, Pedro Nuno and Jose, remained in Bordeaux with the parents .

Within days of the new orders, Sousa Mendes was taken to task for having granted a visa to a Viennese refugee, Professor Arnold Wizrntzer. Called to task by his superiors, Sousa Mendes answered:

"He informed me that, were he unable to leave France that very day, he would be interned in a concentration [read, detention] camp, leaving his wife and minor son stranded. I considered it a duly of elementary humanity to prevent such an extremity:"

The infraction was only the first. By April 1940, he had violated regulations often enough to earn a stem official reprimand. The Portuguese border patrol. an arm of the PVDE, kept watch for his transgressions and reported them to his superiors.

As the month of May wore on, besieging the consulate day and night were army officers from occupied Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia; French, Belgian and Luxembourgois anti-Nazis; intellectuals and writers who had denounced fascism; artists and journalists; priests and nuns and countless Jews, all seeking to evade the Nazis' murderous grasp. Each refugee carried his own fear, and each shared in the collective panic. Some were old, and some were sick. There were pregnant women, and many children who had seen their parents killed on the roads by German gunfire.

Too prudent a father to disregard service orders heedlessly, Sousa Mendes fired off hundreds of telegrams to Lisbon, assisted by his 20-year-old son Pedro Nuno. Each telegram had to be written in code, detailing 'he individual visa requests. Pedro Nuno carried the stacks to the telegraph office, and ensured that they were expedited.
From Lisbon there was mostly silence.

By the second week of June, with talk of an impending Franco-German armistice in the air, tensions increased and law officers had to be posted in and around the consulate. Aristides and Angelina had opened their home to as many of the neediest as the walls could hold. Angelina cared for them. Of these, one was a 10-year-old Belgian boy, still clutching tightly to a little bag of diamonds; his parents had vanished. Another was a renowned Sorbonne professor, whose home the Nazis had already plowed through. Disabled by fear, he stayed in his pajamas all day long.

And there was a rabbi, Chaim Kruger, with his wife and five children. The Krugers had fled from Poland to Belgium, then from Belgium to Bordeaux. The consul and the rabbi became friends.

More and more, as the siIence from Lisbon continued, Aristides and Angelina were living the disaster with the victims. Twice, the consul cabled his superiors requesting authority to deal with the emergency. He was tersely referred to the directives that were already in place. He had his orders, and only Lisbon could approve visas. All told, Sousa Mendes was to remain marooned amidst thousands of the "shipwrecked"-his word to describe the refugees-and he was to accommodate the Nazis who were virtually at the door.

On June 12, Franco changed Spain's status from "neutral" to a more menacing "non-belligerent." Salazar depended on Teotonio Pereira, his ambassador in Madrid, to keep a finger on Franco's pulse. The Germanophile envoy opposed any change in policy regarding refugees, and warned that sheltering "the scum of the democratic regimes" would bode ill for Portugal in the eyes of Spain.

The effect that Lisbon's unremitting silence had upon Sousa Mendes was recorded in an extant account by his student nephew, Cesar, the son of his twin. Cesar Mendes Jr. had left Paris where he attended the university and taken refuge in Bordeaux. He wrote:
"All the rooms in the consulate building were full of people. They slept on chairs, on the floor, on the rugs. Even the consul's offices were crowded, with dozens of refugees who were exhausted. dead tired, because they had waited days and nights on the street, on the stairways, and finally in the offices."

"They could not take care of their needs, they did not eat or drink for fear of losing their places in the lines, which happened nevertheless and caused some disturbances. My uncle fell ill, and had to take to his bed... He got up, impelled by a "divine power"-These were his own words-and gave orders to grant visas to everybody."

The three days of Aristide's confinement, June 14.15, and 16 bear precious witness to Angelina's valor. She became the rock, bearing up under the pressure and sustaining her husband as he lay prostrate, rent by anguish. One son, Sebastian, later heard the father speak of a night spent entirely in prayer, together with his wife. It was during those three days that his father's hair turned white, wrote Sebastian.

What is certain is that on June 17, Aristides de Sousa Mendes was a man free of all diplomatic constraints, who worked thereafter exclusively to rescue refugees by the thousands, and who could not be intimidated.

The work started immediately. It was an assembly-line operation. Passports were gathered in stacks. and in bags. One person stamped them, others filled in the required wording, and the consul signed them. To save time, he often abbreviated his signature to simply "Mendes." No fees were collected, and no entries made in the consular registry. Rabbi Kruger, the consul's two sons, and some refugees assisted on the assembly line. To the countless numbers who had no documents, visas stamped on pieces of paper were handed out

The work continued all through June 17 until well past midnight, and hardly a dent was made on the crowds: Marshal Henri Petain's radio address, that day, which left no doubt that an armistice between France and Germany would be signed, on Germany's terms, had brought new waves to the Quai Louis XVII.

The marathon recommenced on the 18th. That day, Henry Count Degenfeld entered the consulate with 19 passports for the imperial family of Austria. Otto of Habsburg's name was at the top of Hitler's blacklist. The count was told to return later that night. The woes of the Habsburgs weighed no heavier on Sousa Mendes than those of the people who had waited days and nights.

After 10 p.m., the count returned and received visas for the Archduke of Austria and his entire household. Then, the archduke went himself to the consulate and obtained a large quantity of visas, stamped on paper, for Austrian refugees in hiding.
Otto of Habsburg and his retinue crossed Spain undisturbed, and entered Portugal on June 20. Not long after, the archduke was informed by Salazar that Hitler had demanded his extradition. The demand would be refused, the Portuguese ruler told him but hinted that his safety was precarious. The Habsburgs departed for the United States.

Unaccountably, Sousa Mendes was not picked up for the presumed quasi-incident. In all likelihood, Salazar's move was preemptive. But the Nazi behemoth went its evil way, and did not interfere with the torrent of humanity that had begun to flow through Spain and into Portugal.

Although he did not use force, Salazar did recall his stray consul, on June 24, by way of telegram. Sousa Mendes made full use of his freedom of movement. He remained In France until July 8, and spent himself in saving the endangered. He had initiated an exodus, and as long as his name and his consular stamp could compel the Spanish border patrol to let refugees through, he would not stop.

The thousands of visas emitted by Sousa Mendes were honored at Irulan, on the Spanish border. because the consular stamp made them an official request from one country to another. The Pacto Iberico provided for such niceties between the two nations. But passage through Spain was one way only, with no stops; on that point the Spanish were adamant. As the trains of refugees pulled in at Vilar Formoso, on the Spain-Portugal border, the PVDE raged. The Spanish replied that if they had honored the visas out of courtesy, the Portuguese certainly were bound by them. And the refugees were allowed in.

Sousa Mendes' stand was a fait accompli to which Salazar and his political police had to bow. A mechanism had been set in motion; once the refugees crossed the bridge at Hendaye-Irun and were granted passage through Spain, there was no return. Sousa Mendes had forced open an escape route for many......

 

Aristides 7ore the brunt of Salazar's anger and was banished from diplomatic and civil service, dying destitute. His memory was only restored some 20 years ago, and his name and family are now honoured. He was recognised a Righteous Among the Nations.

As for a big name, nope, I'm not aware of a Potruguese big name, unless we're thinking of dicatator Salazar himself who led a very realistic and sinuous policy, going full-bore but coyly pro-Ally when he saw the wind change at Stalingrad.

Portuguese economic and political interests had always been aligned with Britain, but the far-right winger Salazar had great sympathy for the French Right movements (Maurras etc). Hitler and Il Duce were looked at with distrust for their Left (!!) tendencies for after all Nazis were Socialists of a kind besides being Godless Heathens, slightly less bad than Communists. So it was a relief to Salazar that Merry Old England was shown to start prevailing after all, and it was with some glee that S. allowed his arm to be twisted in shutting down official shipments of tungsten etc. to Germany.

We had what we called a testicular policy: "we cooperate but do not participate"