Sigismund Payne Best Captain Sigismund Payne Best OBE ( 14 April 1885 – 21 September 1978 ) was a British Secret Intelligence Service agent during the First and Second World Wars . He was captured by German Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst ( SD ) men on 9 November 1939 in what came to be known as the Venlo Incident . Biography . Best served in the First World War as an intelligence officer on the British Army General List . In 1915 ‘ C ’ , Mansfield Cumming sent him to set up an intelligence network in the Netherlands where he controlled agents in German - occupied Belgium . He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire ( OBE ) and awarded the Belgian Croix de Guerre . Following demobilization he settled in the Netherlands but in 1938 was recruited into Claude Dansey ' s ‘ Z ’ organization , a new branch of the SIS . Best ' s operations in the Netherlands stood at the crosswinds of a political storm . He had , on the orders of London but against all tradecraft , combined his NOC operations with those of Major Richard Henry Stevens , a less - experienced operative who operated from the British Embassy as the head of a notional " Passport Control Office " . The PCO ( which , like Section Z , operated throughout Europe ) was compromised before its operations were combined with those of Section Z , and thus it was a simple matter for the Germans to mount sting and counterintelligence operations against British agents throughout Europe . A young Nazi lawyer , Walter Schellenberg , had joined the SD in August 1939 , and the ambitious SS - Sturmbannführer later became head of the SD counterintelligence department of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt . In that capacity , he proposed a false flag operation against Best and Stevens . Best was approached by a Dr . Fischer , a double agent in the employ of the SD , who pretended to represent a disaffected cadre of high - ranking military officers . Best , Stevens and Dutch Lieutenant Dirk Klop ( pretending , for neutrality ' s sake , to be a British national ) began a series of meetings , which , despite Best ' s misgivings about Fischer and his putative friends ( who were in fact SD agents ) , culminated in what pretended to be an agreement to form , post - Hitler , a united German - British front against the Soviet Union . The agreement included a period in which Adolf Hitler would be kept as a figurehead , then a restoration of democracy and legal protection for Jewish citizens . In London , Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain , having seen Hitler violate the Munich agreement by seizing Czechoslovakia , was more than ready to foment a German coup . However , Best ' s suspicions that their German contacts might be double agents had been passed up the intelligence chain and the operatives were warned to stay away from the German border . In Britain , the top secret talks were seen by many — including the new First Sea Lord of the Admiralty , Winston Churchill — as another Munich . In any case , not only were the talks a complicated German bluff , but the entire operation was brought to an abrupt end . Reichsführer - SS Heinrich Himmler had decided , over Schellenberg ' s objections , to have the British operatives abducted ; the attempt by Georg Elser to assassinate Hitler at the Bürgerbräukeller , believed by Himmler to be the result of British machinations , forced the matter . The next day , in a daring and violent abduction , Best and Stevens were kidnapped from the Café Backus — Klop was fatally wounded in the shootout with German agents — and rushed to Berlin . Under interrogation , Best and Stevens gave up detailed information on British espionage activities . Worse , Stevens was carrying on him a plain text list of SIS agents in Europe . Imprisonment . Best and Stevens were imprisoned at Sachsenhausen , and later at the Dachau concentration camp . During his imprisonment , Best came into contact with a number of famous figures , including not only Elser , but also the famed theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer , whose last message he relayed to Bonhoeffer ' s friend Bishop George Bell . Bell and Bonhoeffer ' s efforts to interest the British government in supporting German anti - Nazi forces failed in large part because of Churchill ' s distaste for Chamberlain ' s actions and the fear of another Venlo Incident . In late April 1945 Best was on the transport to Tyrol where he was liberated by regular German troops under the Command of Wichard von Alvensleben . Best died in Britain , in 1978 , having written a bestselling account of his war experiences .