Eddie Chapman

Eddie Chapman
Chapman's police photo December 1942
Born	Edward Arnold Chapman 16 November 1914(1914-11-16) Burnopfield, County Durham, England
Died	11 December 1997(1997-12-11) (aged 83)
Nationality	British
Known for	World War II British double agent
Spouse	Betty Farmer 1938-1997
Children	Suzanne Chapman

For the West Ham United player and club secretary, see Eddie Chapman (footballer)

Edward Arnold 'Eddie' Chapman (16 November 1914 Burnopfield, County Durham – 11 December 1997) was a pre-war criminal and wartime spy. During the Second World War he offered his services to Nazi Germany as a spy and a traitor whilst intending all along to become a British double agent. His British Secret Service handlers code named him 'ZIGZAG' in acknowledgement of his rather erratic personal history. He had a number of criminal aliases known by the British police, amongst them Edward Edwards, Arnold Thompson and Edward Simpson. His German codename was Fritz Graumann or, later, after endearing himself to his German cronies, its diminutive form of Fritzchen.

Background

After serving with the Coldstream Guards in the 1930s, Chapman deserted and became a safecracker with London West End gangs and spent several stretches in jail for these crimes. He had affairs with a number of women on the fringes of London high society and then allegedly blackmailed them with photographs taken by an accomplice.

Well along into his criminal career he was arrested in Scotland and charged with blowing up the safe of the headquarters of the Edinburgh Co-operative Society. Let out on bail, he fled to Jersey in the Channel Islands where he attempted unsuccessfully to continue his crooked ways.

Chapman had been dining with his lover and future fiancée Betty Farmer at the Hotel de la Plage immediately before his arrest and made a spectacular exit through the dining room window (which was shut at the time) when he saw undercover police coming to arrest him for crimes on the mainland. It was later that same night, unbelievably, that he committed the slapdash burglary for which he had to immediately begin serving two years in a Jersey prison. This proved to be an ironic twist of fate which ultimately spared him at least 14 more years' imprisonment in a mainland prison afterwards.

Second World War

Chapman was still in prison when the Channel Islands were invaded by the Germans who soon transferred him and Anthony Faramus to Fort de Romainville in Paris. Chapman, ever the consummate opportunist, offered his services to them as a turncoat agent. He was trained by the Abwehr in explosives, radio communications, parachute jumping and other subjects in France at La Bretonnière, near Nantes and dispatched to England to commit acts of sabotage.^[1]

He was dropped into Cambridgeshire on 16 December 1942 and surrendered himself to the local police before offering his services to MI5.^[1] Thanks to Ultra, MI5 had prior knowledge of his mission.^[2] He was interrogated at Latchmere House in West London, better known as Camp 020. MI5 decided to use him against the Germans and assigned Ronnie Reed as his case officer. (Reed had been invited to join MI5 in 1940 and remained until his retirement in 1976).^[1]

During the night 29-30 January 1943, Chapman with MI5 officers faked a sabotage attack on his target, the de Havilland aircraft factory in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, where the Mosquito was being manufactured.^[1][3] He made his way back in the guise of an obnoxiously unruly seaman sailing from Liverpool, England to Lisbon in neutral Portugal where he then jumped ship. Chapman then made an offer to MI5 to conduct an opportunistic suicide attack on Adolf Hitler on his return to Germany which was considered, but ultimately rejected.^[4]

Chapman was awarded the Iron Cross for his work as a saboteur, making him the first Englishman to receive such an award since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.^[1] Chapman was inducted into the German Army as an Oberleutnant or First Lieutenant. (See Macintyre, 2007, pp 231 with photo and 286.) Chapman was also rewarded with 110,000 Reichmark and his own yacht.^[5] An MI5 officer wrote in an assessment 'the Germans came to love Chapman... but although he went cynically through all the forms, he did not reciprocate. Chapman loved himself, loved adventure, and loved his country, probably in that order'.^[6]

Chapman was sent to Norway to teach at a German spy school in Oslo. After Operation Overlord he was sent back to Britain to report on the accuracy of the V-1 weapon. Here he consistently reported to the Germans that the bombs were hitting their central London target when in fact they were undershooting. Perhaps as a result of this disinformation, the Germans never corrected their aim, with the end result that most bombs landed in the South London suburbs or the Kentish countryside, doing far less damage than they otherwise would have done. After this he returned to Oslo with more false information.^[7]

Love life

Chapman had two fiancées at the same time on opposite sides of the war, Freda Stevenson in England and Dagmar Lahlum in Norway, each under the protection of and financially assisted by their respective governments.^[8] He abandoned both women after the war and instead married his former pre-war lover Betty Farmer whom he had left in a hurry at the Hotel de la Plage in 1938. He and Farmer later had a daughter Suzanne in 1954.

After the war

Chapman eventually retired with a £6,000 payment from MI5 and was allowed to keep £1,000 of the money the Germans had given him. He was granted a pardon for his pre-war activities and was reported by MI5 to have been living 'in fashionable places in London always in the company of beautiful women of apparent culture'.^[6]

MI5 expressed some apprehension that Chapman might take up crime again when his money ran out and if caught would plead for leniency because of his highly secret wartime service. He did get into trouble with the police for various crimes and more than once had a character reference from former intelligence officers who confirmed his great contribution to the war effort.

Chapman and his wife later set up a health farm (Shenley Lodge, Shenley, Herts) and owned a castle in Ireland. After the war Chapman remained friends with Baron Stefan von Grunen, his Abwehr handler (also known as von Gröning, wartime alias Doctor Graumann)^[8], who by then had fallen on hard times. Von Grunen later attended the wedding of Eddie Chapman's daughter.^[7]

Chapman died on 11 December 1997 from undisclosed causes.

In popular culture

The 1966 film Triple Cross was based on the biography of the same name co-written by Chapman and Frank Owen. The film was directed by Terence Young who had known Chapman before the War. Chapman's character was played by Christopher Plummer.^[9] The film was only loosely based on reality and Chapman was disappointed with it. In his autobiography, Plummer said that Chapman was to have been a technical adviser on the film but the French authorities would not allow him in the country because he was still wanted over an alleged plot to kidnap the Sultan of Morocco.^[10]

Actor, producer, and director Tom Hanks plans to develop a film on the subject. Mark Bomback is penning with Mike Newell set to direct.^[11]

On Tuesday 15th November 2011 at 9pm, BBC 2 will broadcast a documentary based on Ben Macintyre's book about Chapman: DOUBLE AGENT: The Eddie Chapman Story; the programme will be repeated on Saturday 19th November 2011.

Bibliography

• Edward Chapman and Frank Owen The Eddie Chapman Story, Pub: Messner, New York City, 1953 (ASIN B0000CIO9B)
• Nicholas Booth, Zigzag – The Incredible Wartime Exploits of Double Agent Eddie Chapman, 2007, Portrait, London (ISBN 0749951567)
• Ben Macintyre (2007). Agent Zigzag: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman, Lover, Betrayer, Hero, Spy. London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747587949. 
• Nicholas Reed (2011). My Father, the Man Who Never Was: Ronnie Reed, The Life and Times of an MI5 Officer, pp. 60-92. Folkestone: Lilburne Press. ISBN 978-1-901167-21-4. 

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} History: Cases from The National Archives - Eddie Chapman (Agent ZIGZAG) – Security Service MI5
2. ^ Doubleagent ZIG ZAG (KV 2/455-463)
3. ^ Eddie Chapman – The Telegraph 1997
4. ^ The spy who offered to blow up Hitler on a suicide mission by Ben Macintyre, The Times, 9 January 2007
5. ^ How double agents duped the Nazis BBC 5 July 2001
6. ^ ^{a b} ZigZag, a womaniser and thief who double-crossed the Nazis by Michael Smith, The Daily Telegraph, 5 July 2001
7. ^ ^{a b} Max Arthur, Obituary: Eddie Chapman , The Independent, 6 January 1998
8. ^ ^{a b} "Edward Arnold Chapman – Agent 0747587949 / ZIGZAG". Bloomsbury Publishing. http://www.bloomsbury.com/media/ZIGZAGdossierfinal.pdf. Retrieved 2008-01-23. 
9. ^ Triple Cross at the Internet Movie Database
10. ^ Plummer, Christopher In Spite of Myself: A Memoir 2008 Knopf
11. ^ "24 Frames". The Los Angeles Times. 28 May 2010. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/mike-newell/. 

External links

• US Defence Intelligence Agency uses Eddie Chapman case as an example by A Denis Clift, President Joint Military Intelligence College Harvard University 20 February 2003
• Eddie Chapman – The Telegraph 1997
• History: Cases from The National Archives - Eddie Chapman (Agent ZIGZAG) – Security Service MI5

Persondata
Name	Chapman, Eddie
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	16 November 1914
Place of birth	Burnopfield, County Durham, England
Date of death	11 December 1997
Place of death