Eddie Chapman

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Eddie Chapman bigraphy, stories - English spy

Eddie Chapman : biography

16 November 1914 – 11 December 1997

Edward Arnold "Eddie" Chapman (16 November 1914 – 11 December 1997) was an English criminal and wartime spy. During the Second World War he offered his services to Nazi Germany as a spy and a traitor and subsequently became 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 or, later, after endearing himself to his German cronies, its diminutive form of Fritzchen.

After the war

Chapman had his wartime memoirs serialised in France to earn money, but he was charged under the Official Secrets Act and fined ₤50. A few years later, when they were due to be published in the News of the World the whole issue was pulped. However his book The Eddie Chapman Story was eventually published in 1953.

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 including smuggling in North Africa and more than once had a character reference from former intelligence officers who confirmed his great contribution to the war effort.

In 1967 Chapman lived in Italy and went into business as an antiquarian.Pierre Dumayet (Journalist: Pierre Dumayet, Eddie Chapman, ex-gangster, ex-espion. Serie: Cinq colonnes à la une. Producer.: JP Gallo. Broadcasted January 6th, 1967,) Eddie Chapman, ex-gangster, ex-espion. Producer: J-P Gallo. January 6th, 1967.

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), who by then had fallen on hard times. Von Grunen later attended the wedding of Eddie Chapman’s daughter.

Chapman died on 11 December 1997 from heart failure.

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. 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. He had told Dagmar at the time he was a British agent. However, Dagmar served a six-month prison sentence for consorting with an apparently German officer: thinking that Chapman was dead, she was unable to prove that he was a British agent. They met again briefly in 1994.

Second World War

Chapman was still in prison when the Channel Islands were invaded by the Germans. In prison he met Eric Pleasants and the two became friends. They were later transferred, together with Anthony Faramus, to Fort de Romainville in Paris. Chapman offered his services to them as a turncoat agent. Under the direction of Captain Stephan von Gröning, head of the Abwehr in Paris, he was trained 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.

On 16 December 1942, Chapman was flown to England in a Focke-Wulf bomber, converted for parachuting, from Le Bourget airfield.Max Arthur, , The Independent, 6 January 1998 He was equipped with wireless, pistol, cyanide capsule and £1,000 and, amongst other missions, was tasked with sabotaging the de Havilland aircraft factory at Hatfield. After an uncomfortable flight, during which he suffered a nosebleed due to poorly tightened oxygen mask, Chapman became stuck in the hatch as he tried to leave the aircraft. Finally detaching himself, he landed some distance from the target location of Mundford, Norfolk, near the village of Littleport, Cambridgeshire.