Elyesa Bazna

A 2019 Turkish language film entitled Operation Cicero was released. This an enjoyable but highly romanticised account based on some of the original events and characters.

In March 2005 British Foreign and Commonwealth Office historians issued The Cicero Papers, an analysis of the potential consequences of the 'Cicero Affair'. In it they identified four important ways in which Cicero's intelligence could have harmed the Allied forces during World War II.

According to Mummer Kaylan, author of The Kemalists: Islamic Revival and the Fate of Secular Turkey, Bazna said he had begun spying for the Germans because he needed the money and, although he was not a Nazi, he liked Germans and disliked the British. He also alluded to involvement with the Milli Emniyet Hizmeti, which became the Turkish National Security Service in 1965.

Bazna lived in Ankara with his family for many years and obtained work doing odd jobs. He moved to Munich in 1960 and worked as a night watchman before dying in 1970 of kidney disease. In 1962, Bazna published a memoir about the Cicero affair.

In 1960 Bazna moved to Germany and worked in Munich as a night watchman. Bazna and Hans Nogly wrote I Was Cicero, which was published in 1962. It told the story of the Cicero Affair from Bazna's perspective following Moyzisch's book Operation Cicero published in 1950. Bazna died in Munich of kidney disease in December 1970, aged 66.

A film based on the book Operation Cicero by Moyzisch was released by 20th Century-Fox in 1952. It was titled 5 Fingers and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Bazna, renamed Ulysses Diello, was played by James Mason.

Bazna lived in an apartment in the European Aksaray neighbourhood of Istanbul with his family in the 1950s. He gave singing lessons and worked selling used cars and as a night watchman.

Moyzisch published his memoirs, titled Operation Cicero, in 1950. Franz von Papen and Allen Dulles suggested that there was more to the story than was published in the book, but neither provided any details. Twelve years later, in 1962, I Was Cicero was published by Cicero himself.

Throughout the war Turkey's economy was reliant on and prospered by virtue of its affiliation with both the Allies and the Axis powers. As a result, the country's gold reserve had risen to 216 tons by the end of 1945, from 27 tons at the beginning of the war.

Knatchbull-Hugessen's reputation was severely affected by the Cicero Affair, particularly as he had been previously warned about leaving his keys and document boxes unattended. On 28 August 1945, Knatchbull-Hugessen received a formal reprimand.

Bazna had also conveyed a document that carried the highest security restriction (BIGOT list) about Operation Overlord (the code name for the Invasion of Normandy in June 1944). It included intelligence that the British ambassador was to request the use of Turkish air bases "to maintain a threat to the Germans from the eastern Mediterranean until Overlord is launched." The information about the Normandy Invasion was not known by the Germans until after the war. Had it been provided in time, Operation Overlord (the preparations for D-Day) would have been compromised. He also provided intelligence that might have made the Germans believe that there was no danger of attack in the Balkans.

Once the British became aware that there was a spy operating within the British Embassy in Ankara, they investigated Bazna, installed a new alarm system, and initiated an unsuccessful sting to catch him selling intelligence. He stopped selling information to the Germans by the end of February 1944 and left the embassy within a month or so.

By August 1944 Turkey broke off relations with Germany, as its defeat began to seem inevitable. In February 1945 it declared war on Germany and Japan, a symbolic move that allowed Turkey to join the emerging United Nations.

During the first three months of 1944, Cicero supplied the Germans with copies of documents taken from his employer's dispatch box or safe. Photographs of top-secret documents were generally handed over in Moyzisch's car, which was parked inconspicuously on an Ankara street. On one occasion this led to a high-speed chase around Ankara, as someone had taken an interest in the hand-over. Bazna, who had perhaps been tailed, escaped.

The intelligence provided by Cicero included a document instructing Knatchbull-Hugessen to request the use of Turkish air bases "to maintain a threat to the Germans from the eastern Mediterranean until Overlord is launched." The document carried the highest security restriction (BIGOT list). Cicero conveyed limited information about Operation Overlord (the code name for the Invasion of Normandy in June 1944), which was not correlated by the Germans until after the war when films about Cicero were released.

Kolbe, assistant to German diplomat Karl Ritter, screened German cable messages for information to summarize and supply to Allen Dulles, who was the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) chief representative in Bern. In late December 1943 Kolbe reported that there was a spy operating out of a British Embassy with the code name Cicero. Dulles forwarded this information to MI6 agent Frederick Vanden Heuvel on 1 January 1944.

American agents in Ankara investigated Cicero's identity based upon Dulles' intelligence. British intelligence, which was asked by Dulles to interrogate Cicero, gave the impression that it believed Bazna could not speak English and, furthermore, was "too stupid" to be a spy. British Foreign Office workers, though, were concerned about Operation Overlord leaks and thought that Bazna might be Cicero. They implemented a sting in January 1944 using a false Cabinet Office document that was drafted by the chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, Victor Cavendish-Bentinck, and given the forged signature of Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. The document was planted in the embassy, but the sting was unsuccessful in trapping Bazna.

Around January 1944, Moyzisch hired a new secretary named Cornelia Kapp, also known as Nele Kapp, who had spied for the British and Americans in exchange for permission to emigrate to the US. She had worked at the German embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria, beginning in July 1943 and within a month had become a spy. In January 1944 she moved to Ankara to work at the German embassy under Moyzisch. Kapp was asked by the OSS to learn about the spy that Moyzisch met with. She was adept at gathering intelligence within the office. She flirted with Cicero when he called the office to schedule a meeting with Moyzisch. When she could, she also followed the two men to try to see what the spy looked like, but was unsuccessful at getting a good view of him. Kapp had gathered and shared a lot of information with the OSS over the months that she worked at the embassy, including all she felt she could expect to learn about Cicero.

Once the embassy had been tipped off that there was a spy operating in the facility in early 1944, Bazna found it increasingly difficult to gather intelligence. The British Field Office had warned the embassy of a security leak. Bazna forwarded the document to the Germans. The warning had come to Churchill from Roosevelt, who obtained the information given by a defector to the US. A new alarm system in the British Embassy now required Bazna to remove a fuse whenever he wanted to look in the ambassador's safe.

Bazna gave notice about the third week of January 1944 that he would be leaving the ambassador's employment. He stopped selling information to the Germans by the end of February 1944 and left the embassy at the end of the month or about 20 April without any trouble. Bazna was identified as Cicero after the war ended.

In 1943, Bazna was hired as a valet by Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, the British ambassador in Ankara, Turkey. He photographed British documents in Knatchbull-Hugessen's possession, and sold them to the Germans through their attaché Ludwig Carl Moyzisch in what became known as the Cicero affair.

The Allied and Axis powers became increasingly involved in espionage in Turkey to protect their own strategic interests beginning in 1943. There were two Allied factions, the western Allies and the Soviet Union. Germany was the third entity engaged in intelligence gathering. The Germans were able to fund their espionage, propaganda and diplomacy efforts from the profits of its banks in Turkey and through counterfeiting.

Before he worked for Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen in 1943, Bazna was hired to do some household and vehicle repairs for Douglas Busk, the First Secretary of the British Embassy. Due to Bazna's poor English, he answered all interview questions in French. Although he supplied some written biographical information, excluding having been employed and fired by Jenke, none of the biographical information was checked. The Turkish secret service apparently warned the embassy at some point about Bazna. Over the few months that he worked for Busk, Bazna secretly photographed a few documents and, with the help of Mrs. Busk's nursemaid Mara, he tried to gain access to more valuable forms of intelligence.

Busk agreed to recommend Bazna for the open position of valet to Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, the British ambassador to Turkey, who hired him in 1943 assuming that a background check had been performed. Knatchbull-Hugessen had been the British ambassador in Riga, Latvia, until 1935.

Bazna approached the German Embassy in Ankara on 26 October 1943, indicating that he wanted £20,000 for two rolls of film of the ambassador's documents. He became a spy through the connection with his former employer, Albert Jenke. Jenke was the brother-in-law of Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German Foreign Minister. Although Bazna was fired by Jenke, his wife contacted German intelligence officer Ludwig Carl Moyzisch, serving as the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) officer attached to the German embassy in Ankara, and told him of the photographs that Bazna had taken of classified information at the British Embassy. He became a paid German agent under Moyzisch and was given the SD code name "Cicero" by German Ambassador Franz von Papen due to Bazna's "astonishing eloquence". His Nazi paymasters made about one-half of his payments in counterfeit bank notes under Operation Bernhard.

Guy Liddell, who worked for MI5, recorded that there was a breach in security at the embassy on 17 October 1943, which was later reported by ISOS, Intelligence Service Oliver Strachey. The leak involved an embassy diplomat bag and two agents. On 3 November Liddell talked to Stewart Menzies, head of the British Secret Intelligence Service. From the discussion Liddell learned that the leak of the diplomatic bag occurred during or after the air attaché brought it back from Cairo, which put not-yet-deployed re-ciphering tables at risk and required the abandonment of the tables. There were also missing blueprints for a gun at the office of a military attaché. Menzies stated that there was an investigation underway at the embassy, but nothing more was said about the leak for a few months.

Copies of the developed film or summaries prepared by Moyzisch were promptly passed on to senior German leaders. Ribbentrop showed the initial set of photographs to Hitler immediately upon receipt. Hitler entered a conference with some Cicero materials in December 1943 and declared that the invasion in the west would come in spring 1944. He concluded, though, that there would also be attacks in other locations, such as Norway or the Balkans.

Starting in 1942 the Allies provided military aid, and then began imposing economic sanctions in 1943 to force Turkey to enter the war. The Allied powers wanted Turkey to become engaged in a fight against Germany's eastern flank; however, Turkey was afraid of being overrun by the Russian and German armies, both of which were led by dictators.

Bazna worked for foreign diplomats and consulates as a doorman, driver and guard upon his return to Turkey. Aided by his ability to speak French, he served as a kavass or valet, first to the Yugoslav ambassador to Turkey. In 1942, he worked as a valet for Albert Jenke, a German businessman and later embassy staff member, who came to fire Bazna for reading his mail.

Germany had significant business interests in Turkey, including banks, and beginning in 1941 it was reliant on chromite ore from Turkey for its armament production. In 1943 all of the chromite ore Germany imported for its weaponry came from Turkey.

Turkey was neutral during much of World War II, although in October 1939 Britain signed a treaty to protect Turkey should Germany attack it. Turkey maintained its neutrality by preventing German troops from crossing its borders into Syria or the USSR. During this time Turkey had lucrative trade relationships with Germany and the UK.

In 1925, Bazna moved to Istanbul, where he worked for the Istanbul Corp. in the transportation department. He then worked as a fire brigade chief in Yozgat before returning to Istanbul to drive taxis.

According to Bazna, he attended a military academy in Fatih, Turkey, before 1919. At age 16 he joined a French military unit in Istanbul. He claimed to have stolen British weapons and cars for the Turkish National Movement, which was led by Atatürk.

Elyesa Bazna (Turkish: [ˈeljesa ˈbazna]), sometimes known as Ilyaz and Iliaz Bazna (Albanian: [iliaz bazna]; 28 July 1904  – 21 December 1970), was a secret agent for Nazi Germany during World War II, operating under the code name Cicero.

Bazna was born in 1904 in Pristina, Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire (now Kosovo). His parents were of Albanian heritage. His father was a teacher of Islamic doctrine and a landowner. He later stated that his father was a Muslim mullah named Hafiz Yazan Bazna, his uncle was Maj. Gen. Kemal, and his grandfather was Tahir Pasha. Both his grandfather and uncle were Young Turks who served under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.