Hugo Bleicher Hugo Ernst Bleicher ( 9 August 1899 - August 1982 ) was a German senior non - commissioned officer of the Abwehr who worked against French Resistance in German - occupied France . Bleicher was born in Tettnang . He served as a private soldier in the First World War in the pioneer gas corps and was captured near the Somme . He was held as a Prisoner of War in 165 POW Camp near Abbéville and succeeded in escaping four times , although he was never able to return to the German lines . He is misreported as having been taken prisoner by the British in Belgium as a spy when wearing a British uniform . After the war he became a businessman but was recruited into the Abwehr during the Second World War because of his knowledge of French and Spanish . However , he never rose above the rank of Feldwebel . Bleicher was ruthless in his pursuit of anyone in France who opposed German domination . He disabled the Franco - Polish " Interallié " network , and captured both Polish Air Force Captain Roman Czerniawski and some of his headquarters staff , one of whom was Mathilde Carré , who had contacts with the Vichy 2nd Bureau . She reportedly became Bleicher ' s lover , betrayed everyone she knew in the network , and agreed to act as an Abwehr agent . Subsequently , she changed sides again and betrayed her dealings with the Abwehr to MI5 , who used her radio link for deception purposes for a period in conjunction with the Poles and the SIS and then imprisoned her when her usefulness had ceased , until the end of the war . In March 1943 , Bleicher arrested André Marsac , a member of the resistance organisation known as Carte . Masquerading , on his own initiative , as a German intelligence colonel attempting to defect the Allies , he deceived Marsac and his associate Roger Bardet , and in April 1943 succeeded in capturing SOE agents Peter Churchill and Odette Sansom . Both Churchill and Sansom were subjected to brutal treatment and torture during interrogation before being transferred to a concentration camp , although none of this was carried out by Bleicher himself . Bleicher persuaded Bardet to work for him . As a result of this , in July 1944 Bleicher captured Henri Frager , another former Carte member who had been commissioned by the SOE as leader of its Donkeyman circuit . He was also associated with SOE agent Henri Dericourt ( Farrier ) , who was a double agent as well for the Sicherheitsdienst . Hugo Bleicher , together with two of his French Abwehr agents Jean Rocquefort and Francois Barbier , was arrested in Amsterdam on 15 May 1945 by the Dutch NBS , who interrogated him for two weeks on his activities in the Netherlands before handing him over to the 1st Canadian Army , who interrogated him for a further period , also on his operations in the Netherlands , before handing him over to the British authorities , who transferred him on 16 June 1945 to the UK for longer term interrogation at Camp 020 , where he co - operated willingly with his MI5 interrogators . He was handed over to the French government on 12 October 1945 , and they subsequently placed him on trial and imprisoned him , as they also did with Mathilde Carré . In 1954 , he published his memoirs , " Colonel Henri ' s story " . Bleicher ( sometimes misreported as Bliechert ) actively employed the aliases Jean Verbeck and Colonel Henri ( often misreported as Colonel Heinrich ) . He held , but never used , identity papers in the name of Jean Castel . He landed in the UK under the Canadian supplied alias of Charles Davidson , and has been misreported as using the names von Stahlen , Henri Bothereau or Gottschalk . He was decorated by the Abwehr with the War Merit Cross 1st Class for his services .