Immediate Context
Kathleen took place in the context of then IRA Chief of Staff, Seán Russell, being incommunicado in the United States as he pursued the propaganda arm of the S-Plan. Russell was attempting to arrange passage to Berlin (see Operation Dove), having left Stephen Hayes as Acting Chief of Staff back in Ireland.
While Russell's movements were unknown to Hayes, he sanctioned the drawing up an invasion plan to end partition and reunify the island of Ireland. The plan was written by an IRA volunteer called Liam Gaynor. Gaynor created the plan in early 1940, sometime before it was decided to send the plan to Nazi Germany via courier. Hayes had a couple of reasons for doing this; he wanted German assistance for IRA operations in Ireland, and he wanted to re-establish the IRA link with German Intelligence (Abwehr) to secure arms and money. The courier for transporting the plan to Germany was a Dublin businessman with German heritage named Stephen Carroll Held. Held left for Germany and arrived on 20 April 1940. His first call was to the door of the first Abwehr contact in Ireland, Oscar Pfaus. Pfaus then took Held to Berlin to meet with Abwehr Section-Leader, Kurt Haller. Held was instructed to produce a previous agreed means of identification that would prove that he was an emissary sent by the IRA. During this first meeting, he did not meet Hermann Görtz, an Abwehr agent who was preparing to leave for Ireland, but he was introduced to him later. Due to his nervousness, the Abwehr were suspicious and they found the plan he carried extremely amateurish.
His mission complete (delivering the plan and an invitation from Hayes for a German officer to be sent to Ireland), Held returned to Ireland two days later. The Abwehr II war diary briefly records the entire incident beginning 20 April 1940:
"A personal emissary of the chief Irish agent (Jim (Seamus) O'Donovan) has arrived in Germany."
Then on 24 April:
"The representative sent from Ireland to Germany on behalf of Abwehr II's chief Irish agent departed according to plan on April 23 for Belgium by secret route."
Read more about this topic: Plan Kathleen
Famous quotes containing the word context:
“Among the most valuable but least appreciated experiences parenthood can provide are the opportunities it offers for exploring, reliving, and resolving one’s own childhood problems in the context of one’s relation to one’s child.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“The hippie is the scion of surplus value. The dropout can only claim sanctity in a society which offers something to be dropped out of—career, ambition, conspicuous consumption. The effects of hippie sanctimony can only be felt in the context of others who plunder his lifestyle for what they find good or profitable, a process known as rip-off by the hippie, who will not see how savagely he has pillaged intricate and demanding civilizations for his own parodic lifestyle.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)