Hermann Görtz Hermann Görtz ( 1890 – May 23 , 1947 ) was a German spy in Britain and Ireland before and during World War II . First trip to Broadstairs . Hermann Görtz ( also Goertz in English ) arrived in Britain on the 29 August 1935 with a secretary , Marianne Emig . They spent a few weeks in Suffolk and eventually moved to Broadstairs and rented a house . There they befriended British airman Kenneth Lewis and through him began to collect information about the RAF Manston air base . Emig asked for letters of the Air Force stationery and photographs of the planes and aerial views . When Lewis became concerned that he might be passing military information , she assured him that Britain and Germany would be on the same side in the next war . Lewis later testified that he was surprised at how much the couple already knew about the RAF . Near the end of their 6 - week tenancy , Görtz visited Germany and telegraphed his landlady Mrs Johnson that he would be gone for two days and asked her to take care of his belongings in the outhouse , including his " bicycle combination " . Görtz had meant his overalls , but Mrs Johnson thought he was referring to his Zündapp motorcycle . Mrs Johnson checked the outhouse , did not find the motorbike and reported to police that it had disappeared . When police investigated the apparent theft , they found sketches and documents about Manston airfield . When Görtz returned to Britain three weeks later , police arrested him at Harwich . Emig had stayed behind in Germany . Görtz was detained in Brixton prison . Police accused him of offences against the Official Secrets Act ( effectively for espionage ) . The trial at the Old Bailey began in March 1936 and attracted much publicity . Görtz pleaded not guilty and claimed the documents were part of his research for an intended book about the enlargement of the British Air Force . He intended to write the book to pay off his creditors . Marianne Emig refused to come to Britain to testify for Görtz ' defence , fearing that she would be tried as well . According to evidence , including letters Görtz had sent his wife , it appeared that Görtz had been acting independently , possibly to impress the German intelligence service . He had already unsuccessfully applied for a position in the German Air Ministry . Further evidence also showed that he had been involved in the interrogation of Allied prisoners at the end of World War I . Görtz was convicted and sentenced to four years of prison for espionage and sent to Maidstone Prison . In February 1939 , he was released and deported to Germany . German military intelligence eventually did employ him and he reached the rank of major . Plan Kathleen . In the summer of 1940 , Görtz parachuted into Ballivor , County Meath , Ireland in an effort to gather information . He moved in with former IRA leader Jim O ' Donovan . His mission was to act as a liaison officer with the IRA and enlist their assistance during a potential German invasion of Britain . However , he soon decided that the IRA was too unreliable . On landing , he lost the ' Ufa ' transmitter he had parachuted with . Goertz , attired in a Luftwaffe uniform , then walked to Dublin . He was not apprehended despite calling into a Garda barracks in Co Wicklow , asking for directions to Dublin . Goertz made it to Dublin and a “ safe - house ” at 245 Templeogue Road , Templeogue . He also stayed in a number of other properties during his 19 months at liberty . These include houses in Spencer Villas , Glenageary ; Charlemont Avenue , Dún Laoghaire ; Nerano Road , Dalkey ; Winton Avenue , Rathmines ; and a period house in Shankill , Co . Dublin . He stayed for a month at Brittas Bay , and more briefly at Laragh Castle , Glendalough , Co Wicklow , Fenit , Co Kerry and Mount Nugent , Co Cavan . In May 1940 the Irish police raided the home of an IRA member of German descent , Stephen Carroll Held , who had been working with Görtz , at his house at Blackheath Park , Clontarf . They confiscated a parachute , papers , Görtz ' s World War I medals , and a number of documents about the defence infrastructure of Ireland . The confiscated papers included files on possible military targets in Ireland , such as airfields and harbours , as well as detailed plans of the so - called " Plan Kathleen " . This was an IRA plan for the invasion of Northern Ireland with the support of the German military . Held had brought this plan to Germany prior to Görtz ' s departure but his superiors had dismissed it as unfeasible . Görtz went into hiding , staying with sympathizers in the Wicklow area and purposefully avoided contact with IRA safehouses . He remained at large for a total of eighteen months . When another IRA member , Pearse Paul Kelly , visited Goertz ' s hiding place in Dublin in November 1941 , police arrested them both . Görtz was interned until the end of the war . He was first detained in Mountjoy Prison but later moved to Custume Military Barracks , Athlone with nine others . Hermann Goertz was released from jail in Athlone in August 1946 . He went to live in Glenageary and became secretary of a charity called Save The German Children Fund . He was rearrested the following year and served with a deportation order by the Minister for Justice . He claimed to have been in the SS rather than a lieutenant in the Luftwaffe in an attempt to prevent his deportation but this claim was disproved by Irish Military Intelligence ( G2 ) which also “ promoted ” him to Major when sending him messages allegedly from Germany . On Friday May 23 , 1947 he arrived at the Aliens ’ Office in Dublin Castle at 9 . 50am and was told he was being deported to Germany the next day . Although it had been stated to him that the Irish government had specifically requested that he not be handed over to the Soviets , he committed suicide . " The Irish Times " reported that he : “ Stared disbelievingly at the detective officers . Then suddenly , he took his hand from his trouser pocket , swiftly removed his pipe from between his lips , and slipped a small glass phial into his mouth . One of the police officers sprang at Goertz as he crunched the glass with his teeth . The officer got his hands around Goertz ’ s neck but failed to prevent most of the poison – believed to be prussic acid – from passing down his throat . Within a few seconds , Goertz collapsed . ” He was driven to Mercer ’ s Hospital and died there shortly after arrival . Görtz was buried three days later in Dublin Cemetery . In 1974 his remains were transferred to the German Military Cemetery at Glencree , Co . Wicklow . In 1983 , RTÉ made a dramatised television series " ( " Caught in a Free State " ) " about German spies in Ireland written by the poet , playwright and screenwriter Brian Lynch ; Görtz was played by the actor Peter Jankowsky . One of Lynch ' s advisers was Colonel Dan Bryan , head of Military Intelligence .