On October 6, 1943, a person with over 50 photographs knocked on the door of the German embassy in Ankara and asked to sell them for 20 thousand pounds. The relevant official verified the photographs and although the price seemed high, he paid the person and told him to come whenever he had such photographs.
Thus began his career as a paid spy for the Albanian Iliaz Bazna, or “Cicero,” as the Nazis codenamed him. In 1942, he began working as a valet for the British ambassador in Turkey. He had previously been a valet for the Yugoslav ambassador.
Bazna, a short man in his forties, discovered that the British ambassador kept important documents in a metal box in his room. On one occasion, when left alone, he managed to copy the key to the box in wax; and soon began photographing secret British documents.
Over the months, the “Cicero” documents began to be valued within the Nazi hierarchy, including Ribbentrop and Hitler. During the first three months of 1944, Bazna continued to supply German intelligence with copies of his British employer’s documents.
The Nazis paid well and “Cicero” had begun to make plans to retire. In August, Turkey broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. In February 1945, it declared war on Germany and Germany no longer needed Bazna.
With around 300,000 British pounds saved, he retires to live in peace, but not so quickly.
The war was drawing to a close. Allied troops entered Germany, freeing hundreds of thousands of people held in concentration camps. In one of these camps, the Allies also discovered a factory for the production of counterfeit money, as part of "Operation Bernhard" to weaken the British economy.
The Nazis had also paid Iliaz Bazna with such fake sterling, who after the war filed a lawsuit against the German federal government "for back payments", but without success.
Bazna spent the rest of his life in Istanbul, giving music lessons or selling used cars.
Born in Pristina on July 28, 1904, Iliaz Bazna died on December 21, 1970, in Munich, Germany. Some say that he had been a double agent. Iliaz Bazna himself does not reveal anything in his book "I Was Cicero", perhaps because this book was part of a British intelligence operation to keep the double agent system top secret for a long time after the Second World War.
In 1952, the "Bazna" case also inspired filmmakers to make the film "Five Fingers" with the famous actor James Mason in the role of the unfaithful servant. ©LAPSI.al
