History of Kilburn and West Hampstead

Gustav Steinhauer was the German spymaster before and during the First World War. He had worked for the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Chicago and had been the Kaiser’s bodyguard when he visited London in 1901 for Queen Victoria’s funeral. In disguise, Steinhauer travelled to England several times to set up a spy network before the War.  Gustav Steinhauer in Naval Uniform He recruited three German hairdressers, Karl Gustav Ernst, Wilhelm Kronauer and Otto Kruger, who acted as intermediaries to receive and forward letters from his agents. Ernst had a shop at 402a Caledonian Road, Kronauer was at 31 Fortune Green Road (near today’s famous Nautilus fish restaurant in West Hampstead), and Kruger was at 334 Kilburn High Road. During the Kaiser’s visit to England in May 1910 to attend the funeral of King Edward VII, Special Branch followed a senior German officer to Ernst’s shop where he stayed overnight. This was suspicious, so a Home Office Warrant (HOW) was issued, and the GPO intercep...

On 3 September 1939 the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, announced on the radio that Britain was now at war with Germany . People expected air raids, but nothing happened until the Blitz began in September 1940. This was the period that came to be known as the ‘phoney war’, but while Britain waited there was considerable public concern and rumours about German spies. A German Spy Ring On the 30 Sept 1939 , 27 year old Wilfred Ronald Ward who lived with his parents at 187 Heathfield Road , Handsworth, appeared at the Birmingham Police Court. He was charged with demanding £500 from a man, never named but referred to as ‘Mr X’ throughout the proceedings. Unless the money was paid, Wilfred had threatened to expose Mr X as a German spy. Mr X had received a letter on 5 September signed by ‘Jim Rickards’ and had gone to the police. They had listened in when Ward, using the name Rickards, telephoned and repeated the threat but Mr X had lost his temper and the call was ended...