Frank Foley - Joining Secret Service

Joining Secret Service

By the time he returned, the story of his escape from Germany and his language skills had been noted by someone at the War Office. He was encouraged to apply for the Intelligence Corps. In July 1918 he became part of a small unit which was responsible for recruiting and running networks of secret agents in France, Belgium and Holland. After a few weeks he was sent to France, where after the Armistice he served for a short time in the Inter-Allied Military Commission of Control in Cologne. After the running down of the Commission, he was subsequently offered the post of passport control officer in Berlin which was in fact a cover for his main duties as head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) station. During the 1920s and 30s, Foley was successful in recruiting agents and acquiring key details of German military research and development.

Foley is primarily remembered as a "British Schindler". In his role as passport control officer he helped thousands of Jews escape from Nazi Germany. At the 1961 trial of former ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann, he was described as a "Scarlet Pimpernel" for the way he risked his own life to save Jews threatened with death by the Nazis. Despite having no diplomatic immunity and being liable to arrest at any time, Foley would bend the rules when stamping passports and issuing visas, to allow Jews to escape "legally" to Britain or Palestine, which was then controlled by the British. Sometimes he went further, going into internment camps to get Jews out, hiding them in his home, and helping them get forged passports. One Jewish aid worker estimated that he saved "tens of thousands" of people from the Holocaust.