Talk:Elyesa Bazna

Later Life and Death

In the Jan 11, 1971 issue of Time magazine, they report that he died of kidney disease; in Munich. They also state that "in 1960, Bazna emigrated to Germany, where he most recently worked as a night watchman in Munich."

Found it!  Done, thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 09:34, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Discrepancy

Bazna published his book I am Cicero in 1962. The film 5 Fingers was made in 1951 and released in 1952. It used another book, Operation Cicero, by L.C. Moyzisch, published in 1950. Orbicle 11:16, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

@Orbicle:  Done, thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 09:37, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Ethnicity/Nationality

Searches on Google for "Elyesa Bazna" +Turk return about 14 hits, while "Elyesa Bazna" +Albania return about 650. The situation would appear to be that he was born to a Moslem family in Pristina, Kosovo, in 1904, which at that time was still part of the Ottoman Empire, and that his family moved to Istanbul after the Ottomans' defeat in the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, so it would appear that "Turkish" is the appropriate description of his nationality, and would certainly account for his employment at the British embassy in Ankara. -- Arwel (talk) 22:48, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The mere fact that he had Moslem parents that moved to Turkey after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire does not mean that he is a Turk. Based on my research, the Bazna family is a Kosovar-Albanian family that was forced to move by Serbs in 1913. Most of the old Pristina families maintain a strong Turkish influence to this day but very few of them identify themselves as Turks. I guess that the more appropriate description would have been "Turkish national of Albanian origin!" [DZH, Pristina, Kosovo]

According to the Manual of Style: "In most modern-day cases this will mean the country of which the person is a citizen, national or permanent resident, or if notable mainly for past events, the country where the person was a citizen, national or permanent resident when the person became notable."

In that case, it seems quite clear that he should be identified as Turkish. I did update the Nationality section, though, to show parenthetically that he is of Albanian descent.--CaroleHenson (talk) 09:48, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Abwehr effectiveness

Back on 1 December, Kraxler's additions included "Furthermore, the Abwehr, when asked to evaluate the material, pronounced it unreliable, because until the fall of Wilhelm Canaris the Abwehr was secretly working against Hitler and collaborating with the English secret service to make the German government swallow any type of deception, like Operation Mincemeat and Operation Fortitude." What is the justification and citation for this statement? As far as I'm aware the Abwehr was doing its best and was simply deceived by the British secret services. I'm commenting this out unless/until citations can be shown. -- Arwel (talk) 19:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I suggest to read: Chief of Intelligence by Ian Colvin (Gollancz, 1951; republished as Canaris - Hitler's Secret Enemy by Pan Books) and Spy/Counterspy, the memoirs of Duško Popov to get more insight in the Abwehr. Colvin was quite an expert on the subject, and Popov's memoirs are first-hand evidence, in print! The Abwehr's Old Guard were pre-Nazi army officers and diplomats who did its best against Hitler until the downfall of Canaris, his successor Schellenberg really was a Nazi and things changed. Kraxler 18:45, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, just because one person who was moving in the same circles says aye and a spy writer in the early 1950s makes the claim, doesn't make it a true or safe statement. There are no supporting documents, interviews or traces of decisions here. Popov was clearly a guy who liked to impress people by telling them stories that might be less than half true, or sheer invention - compare his claim that he'd warned the FBI about a coming attack on Pearl Harbor four months in advance - and Colvin´was writing in 1951 and may have overstated his story. Moyzisch gives the much more credible explanation that the Abwehr was split in factions and did not realize the importance of Cicero's documents. besides, he doesn't seem to have been as specific about the invasion as some people think. The documents mentioned the codename Overlord, and Moyzisch says he realized this meant the invasion, but says there was nothing much specific in the way of dates, locations or technical eqiuipment. And Berlin knew irrespective of agents that the Allies would attempt an invasion in the West.

The claim that Abwehr were wholesale blocking intelligence they themselves recognized could be vital to the German war effort sounds like a tall tale, and something designed after the war. No one doubts Canaris was against Hitler, but he was not trying to be a Brit agent! Strausszek 00:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Removed some slag from the article including Kraxler's unfounded comments and the claim that Cicero actually revealed the area where D-Day would take place - he did not. According to Moyzisch, who is probably quite reliable, the documents did not even say openly what Overlord was - and why should they? Anyone who wants to claim that Abwehr deliberatly tried to have Hitler and the army misled should presnt sound sources for this, not just tall tales.Strausszek (talk) 00:39, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Contradicts Operation Bernhard

This article states that her suit against the German government regarding the counterfeited money resulted in a "modest recompense", while Operation Bernhard says that she "unsuccessfully sued the German government". A citation of a reliable source should resolve that contradiction. (Now I noticed that Operation Bernhard has already been marked with the template, see also Talk:Operation Bernhard#Contradiction.) --Mormegil (talk) 11:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I've not seen anything that says that Bazna (a he) received any restitution for the counterfeit money. It seems that has been deleted since this message. I'm guessing this is no longer an issue, unless someone has a good source.--CaroleHenson (talk) 09:55, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Death

Is there any reference for used car dealing in Istanbul for later life? Besides, his death isn't written. How did he died and when. It's not mentioned at the end.--Kafkasmurat (talk) 18:34, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

@Kafkasmurat:,  Done, thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 10:06, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Double Cross

The following information seems to be WP:OR / speculation, so I've moved it to the talk page.

British Intelligence had an operation known as "Double Cross", which used double agents and fake documents to mount a series of deception operations to confuse the OKW, OKH and Hitler about Allied plans. In 1943, it needed to conceal the target of the first Anglo-American landings on continental Europe. Sicily was the obvious target, as it was well within range of British fighters based in Malta and a short distance from North African ports for landing craft. Cicero's role in Turkey, another neutral country with some pro-German members of the government and armed forces, appears to fit into the Double Cross strategy, with many of the same patterns. Franz von Papen, the German ambassador was close to Hitler, whilst not a Nazi. Moyzisch, an Austrian Nazi, was known to be diligent and effective. Documents leaking out of the embassy would quickly find their way to Hitler. 'Cicero' perhaps unwittingly played a supporting role in the deception over Sicily. His papers suggested that the invasion would be in Greece and that the British ambassador was involved in attempts to persuade Turkey to join the Allies in the attack.

I'm not finding anything that specifically ties Dazna to Double Cross, although I understand why it's a speculation. Does anyone have a source for this information?--CaroleHenson (talk) 19:21, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

I could not find good/consistent sources for the following, either:

This book was part of a British intelligence operation to protect the Double Cross System and the Ultra Secret long after the war. Sir John Masterman's The Double Cross System, revealed that Bazna was a British agent from the first, controlled by the group under Masterman that ran Eddie Chapman, Dusko Popov and Juan Pujol Garcia (Garbo). Masterman, an Oxford history don, had been an exchange lecturer at Freiburg University in 1914 and spent the Great War in prison.--CaroleHenson (talk) 08:29, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

I went back a second time to double-check that I'm not missing something, I couldn't even find any mention of Bazna or Cicero in The Double Cross System" book by Masterson.--CaroleHenson (talk) 10:13, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Operation Jubilee

This discussion is quite interesting - and a good point - but it appears to be WP:OR / speculation. I could not find a source that even had Operation Jubilee and Banza in the same document.

The biggest wartime deception was over Operation Overlord, where the use of a British naval officer, apparently embittered into becoming a turncoat, (but the son of von Ribbentrop's doctor and so personally known to him during his pre-war stint as ambassador in London), helped to persuade Hitler that the actual attack would come in the Pas de Calais. In this case, some of the true information provided to the Germans seems to have concerned the timing and placing of the disastrous raid on Dieppe (Operation Jubilee) by Canadian forces in 1942. If 'Cicero' were in fact a trusted double agent, he could have been deployed as a supporting actor in this dramatic delusion also. With the British aware from Ultra and Miss Kapp (Moyzisch's new secretary) that he was working for the Germans, he would only have known about Overlord, about which the British ambassador to Turkey would never have been informed, just what Department XX of MI6 wished to reveal. British Intelligence believed that the repeated presentation of many clues in multiple locations served to increase the illusion of authenticity.

Regarding the who? tag: the British naval officer was a fictitious naval officer. If a source can be found, I'm sure the fictitious name could be found. If nothing else, there's a wonderful documentary about this to clarify some of the info. (oops, mixup) I don't understand the parenthetical comment.

Perhaps I'm not using the correct search terms, though. Does anyone know of a published source for this information?--CaroleHenson (talk) 06:36, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

I struck out the information that is due to a mix-up.--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:50, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments for GA Review regarding copyright detectors

Here's feedback regarding the results of the Copyvio Detector:

• Someone seems to have copied a large part of the article to Facebook - 73.0%
• CIA - 52.2% - This is primarily because of the quote box with text that starts out: "One of the best known spy stories of our time is that of Operation Cicero, a textbook exercise in tradecraft set in neutral Ankara...". Some are common terms like "the German Embassy in Ankara", "end of the war", etc. that no matter how it's reworded, it's going to be a hit in the detector for one book or another.
• National Archives - 32.4% - two quotes were used: ""It [Bazna's intelligence] provided the Germans with streams ..." and "The tale has become a popular (and frequently mis-told) war story."
• "The Kemalists: Islamic Revival and the Fate of Secular Turkey" - 5.7% - the duplicate info was the name of the book, "The Kemalists: Islamic Revival and the Fate of Secular Turkey".
• "The Kemalists: Islamic Revival and the Fate of Secular Turkey" - same thing, citation for a different page
• "The Kemalists: Islamic Revival and the Fate of Secular Turkey" - same thing, citation for a different page

--CaroleHenson (talk) 21:51, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Abwehr assessment of value

It is only a third-hand anecdote, but one story is that while officially the Abwehr regarded Cicero as likely disinformation, individual Abwehr officers did not. For example, when the Tehran conference discussed moving the Polish borders and establishing the different Allied occupation areas in Germany, they moved their families and assets westwards to take account of what would happen if Germany was defeated. 2A00:23C7:7B18:9600:C907:69F3:EEE6:73E9 (talk) 12:11, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Better sources

I was unable to find better sources for either of these

A Turkish film about Bazna, Çiçero, was released in 2019.

Cicero appears in the WW2 grand strategy video game Hearts of Iron IV as a secret agent for the German Abwehr.

References

I had hoped that the official site for the Hearts of Iron IV game would drill down to Cicero/Banza, but no luck. I was unable, too, to find a better source for the 2019 Turkish film. Neither the forum, nor imdb had editorial and fact-checking controls.

Does anyone know where reliable sources may be found?–CaroleHenson (talk) 17:59, 20 May 2021 (UTC)