Mechelen Incident - Deception

Deception

The Belgians decided to try tricking Reinberger into believing that the papers had been destroyed and give him the opportunity to pass this information on to the German authorities. There were two parts to the deception, in the first the Belgian investigators asked Reinberger what was in the plans and told him that he would be treated as a spy if he did not tell them. Later Reinberger testified saying: 'From the way this question was asked, I realised he could not have understood anything from the fragments of the documents he had seen'. The second part of the plan was to let Reinberger and Hoenmanns meet the German Air and Army Attachés, Wenninger and Rabe von Pappenheim, while their conversations were secretly recorded. During this meeting Reinberger informed Wenninger that he had managed to burn the papers enough to make them unreadable. This act of deception was fairly successful, at least in the short term. After the meeting at the police station, Vicco von Bülow-Schwante, Germany's ambassador to Belgium, telegraphed his superiors: 'Major Reinberger has confirmed that he burnt the documents except for some pieces which are the size of the palm of his hand. Reinberger confirms that most of the documents which could not be destroyed appear to be unimportant.' This appears to have convinced General Jodl. His diary for 13 January included the entry: 'Report on conversation of Luftwaffe Attaché with the two airmen who made forced landing. Result: despatch case burnt for certain.'