Famous Shanghai World War II Personalities, 1937 to 1949

The following individuals either did not live in Shanghai prior to the Japanese occupation in World War II or did not rise to prominence until after hostilities began. As with previous listings, in the case of Western or ‘foreign’ individuals, the surname is given first and in capitals; Chinese and other Oriental individuals’ names have been left in their more recognisable form (to Western readers) but with the family name capitalised for reference. None of these people are fictional.

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KAHNER, Major Gerhard

“[Germans in Shanghai] ‘who were not satisfied with the way things were going’ simply ‘disappeared’ and later their bodies were found floating in the Whangpu River. The rest of the German community believed – not without reason – that Kahner had them kidnapped and killed.”

-German Intelligence in China & Japan,

US Strategic Services memorandum, 9 August 1945

The German ambassador to Japan found Kahner to be dishonest and a liar, “sexually dissatisfied” and with an “inclination to sadism”. Kahner arrived in Shanghai in 1940 and took over as the local head of the Gestapo.

Kahner’s main role was to examine the influx of Jews into the French Concession in Shanghai and to conduct counter-espionage against the British apparatus in play there. Here, he trod on the toes of the German Ministry who claimed that the first objective was already in their jurisdiction; Heinrich Himmler insisted that Kahner be accommodated and included as part of the Embassy Press Office. Kahner’s role was to be a shadowy cat’s paw, especially after the arrival of Meisinger who took over the Gestapo upon his arrival.

MEISINGER, Colonel Josef; aka ‘The Butcher of Warsaw’ (1899-1947)

“A frightening individual, a large, coarse-faced man with a bald head and an incredibly ugly face”

-Walter Schellenberg, The Labyrinth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg (1956)

Meisinger arrived in Shanghai in 1941, complete with a cast-off mistress of Himmler’s as his (estranged) wife, and proceeded to take over the Gestapo operations there from Kahner. Kahner was philosophical at first about the arrangement, but resented being shipped to Tokyo in 1943 on Meisinger’s say-so. Meisinger immediately ran into the same diplomatic issues that had beset Siefken concerning the Embassy community and determined to do something about it. He began to spy upon his fellow countrymen more than the other forces in the area and in the end alienated everybody. He ran an efficient thug machine, largely relying on the sadism of Kahner.

Meisinger’s speciality was the exposing of homosexuals and investigations into abortionists, a role in which he had been frighteningly successful in Poland; he managed to get a few German officials in Shanghai - including Siefken, perhaps his greatest coup - removed on this score, but on the whole his efforts at information-gathering were abysmal, leading to an official rebuke from the Nazi foreign minister, von Ribbentrop.

Instrumental in hiring Erben and having him committed to internment, Meisinger provided him with no assistance upon his release. Rather, he told Erben to see Eisentraeger about compensation. In the meantime, Meisinger vainly attempted to commit suicide by slashing his wrists only to be saved by US forces and later, shipped to Poland to face charges as a war criminal. He was executed in 1947.

EISENTRAEGER, Colonel Lothar; aka ‘Ludwig Ehrhardt’

“He is a jolly fellow and likes a good drink, good food and to enjoy life. His house was open to everybody who wanted to have a drink and was willing to keep him company. He hated to be alone and therefore he was almost always out or had somebody at his place. He [was] very talkative, especially when he had drunk one too many. He invited almost the whole of the German community. During the first two years in Shanghai he went very often to the night club Hungaria in Yu Yuen Road. He urged me to come with him. I went there twice, but I disliked the place.”

-Gerda Kocher, Eisentraeger’s secretary, post-war interrogation report

Rushing into Shanghai just moments before the Soviet Curtain fell over the Trans-Siberian Express, Eisentraeger, a Major in the Abwehr at the time set up base there to begin his mission. He was to conduct business transactions with the Kuomintang government in Chungking for the purchase of tungsten, zinc and rubber; however, the recognition by Nazi Germany of the Japanese puppet government in Nanking put paid to all thought of this. Instead, he devoted himself to information-gathering in Shanghai and his first goal was to oust his predecessor, Siefken, before whom he had to submit all of his communiqués to Berlin before transmission. Siefken was having similar difficulties with the German consulate in Shanghai, who insisted that all radio transmissions placed before them for sending should be initially uncoded; Siefken objected and began to send all his intelligence to Berlin via the Italian Embassy. Having constructed a network of radio bases across China, and having refused to disclose its operation to the Japanese after they discovered one of the relay stations, Eisentraeger used this impasse to formally accuse Siefken of economic collusion with the Japanese Naval Intelligence leader in Shanghai, Otani.

Siefken fled to Peking, shutting down all of his operations in Shanghai. Shortly thereafter, he succumbed to typhoid fever and an eye infection which landed him in hospital. Eisentraeger used Meisinger’s skills to accuse the Abwehr chief of homosexuality and was able to get him recalled to Berlin: Siefken managed to burn all of his notes and files first - a severe blow to the German intelligence network in China - and was able to plead ill health to prevent his return and spent the rest of the War in China.

Eisentraeger set about dismantling the Siefken Bureau and replaced it with the Ehrhardt Bureau, after his alias ‘Ludwig Ehrhardt’, and received funding to the tune of RM25,000 per month. In contrast to Siefken, ‘Ehrhardt’ was paranoid, garrulous and a drunk, suspicious of everyone beneath him and intolerant of failure. He was gloatingly proud of his dismissal of Siefken but he had committed a fatal error: by black-balling Otani, he had cut off all support from the Japanese occupying force; thereafter, his ability to gain intelligence on the ground in Shanghai was reduced to naught.

His one achievement in the War was to establish listening stations in Peking and Canton with which to intercept Allied communiqués. These were usually broadcast en clair, despite the sensitive nature of their material, and even the codes, when they were used, were pathetically easy to break, hallmarks of the naïveté displayed by the British Oriental Mission. ‘Ehrhardt’s’ Bureau was soon intercepting up to 2,000 transmissions a day. After the War, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Bavaria (mainly on the evidence of Siefken) but was released in 1950 after an inquiry by the US Army.

MILES, Lieutenant-Commander Milton ‘Mary’; aka ‘Trout’; aka ‘O.610’

Nicknamed ‘Mary’ after a silent movie star, Miles came to China in 1942 on behalf of the OSS and was stationed at Chungking with the Kuomintang Government forces. His main contact there was Tai Li, the Kuomintang’s information officer, known as the ‘Himmler of China’. Miles was fated to fall completely under the spell of this sinister individual.

Vain, easily-flattered and naive, Miles was slowly bought with gifts and positions of standing within Tai Li’s organisation. He instinctively distrusted the elitist atmosphere of the Keswick brothers but was quick to respond to the flattery of the Chinese. Consequently, relations between the Americans and the British intelligence networks reached an all-time low. Several times, Miles’ superiors warned him against the machinations of the Chinese and even General Stilwell, in charge of the Asian theatre operations during the War, thought Miles was being “played for a sucker”.

After the liberation of Shanghai, Miles - now a rear-admiral - and Tai Li journeyed to the city to celebrate. Having been censured by his superiors in the meantime, Miles prepared a statement to the effect that he thought his commanders were not eligible to question his activities; he admitted in his memoirs later that he was “all wound up” and “a little off my rocker”. He was greeted by a squad of medicos before he could make this announcement in public and taken away for psychiatric assessment. The Chinese awarded him Medal no. 90 of the Order of the White Cloud & Golden Banner, and promoted him to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Chinese Army; the Americans busted him down to the rank of Captain.

TAI Li; aka ‘O.601’; aka ‘The Himmler of China’ (1897–1946)

Lieutenant General Tai Li was born Tai Chunfeng to a lower calss family in Chekiang Province. His father died when he was only four and his mother raised him alone. He showed great promise as a student throughout his school life; however, at age 16 his family was unable to send him on to tertiary studies, so he moved to Shanghai and lived rough on the streets, where he made a living by gambling. His skill and luck attracted the attention of the Green Gang and he was allowed to meet “Big Eared” Tu Yue-sheng in a casino; this led to a later introduction  to Chiang Kai-shek in 1922, when Tai was 24.

A slump in his fortunes caused him to return home temporarily at which time he applied to join the Whampoa Academy in Canton, after hearing that Chiang was in charge there: he procured a letter of introduction from Tu Yue-sheng to facilitate this process. While there, he changed his name to Tai Li, a reference to the veiled hood worn by assassins, and was tasked by Chiang to spy on and inform against his fellow students, trying to ascertain which of them held Communist sympathies. His endeavours in this regard helped considerably during the infamous Zhongshan Warship Incident.

During the Northern Expedition, Tai Li was placed in charge of military intelligence and formed the “Clandestine Investigation Section” which would later become the Chinese Investigation and Statistics Bureau. As head of this shadowy organisation, Tai Li became one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the country and became known as the “Himmler of China”. He was also the leader of the infamous Blue Shirts Society, a group of ultra-fascist idealists who performed security and intelligence work for Chiang Kai-shek. With the power of these two agencies behind him Tai Li was able to penetrate deep into the heart of both the Chinese Communist party and the puppet organisations run by the Imperial Japanese Army.

Tai Li courted the US military and worked closely with them during World War Two. He traded information with the US High Command selling them Japanese troop movements, maps and offering safe havens for US soldiers. In return, Tai gained more than fair payment, having subverted most of the US intelligence agents with bribery and flattery, using them to do his own dirty work, as in the case of Milton Miles. By this time Tai commanded a force of over 70,000 trained guerrilla fighters and intelligence operatives; after the signing of the SACO Treaty in 1942, he was made head of Sino-American intelligence activities.

Tai Li maintained an aura of mystery about himself at all times. Outwardly buttoned-down and unreadable, he was known to live a lavish private lifestyle and parties at his house or headquarters were rumoured to be extreme in their bouts of drinking and excess. He died in a plane crash in 1946 which, rumour has it, was arranged by his opposite number in the Chinese Communist Party, Kang Sheng; the fact that it took place onboard an American aeroplane also raises speculation that the Office of Strategic Services may have had something to do with it.

KESWICK, John H.; aka ‘O.113’; aka ‘AD/O’ (died 1982)

“[John had] a remarkably pronounced back to his head which so resembled the statues of the Chinese god of happiness, Fu Shen, that in the country Chinese often touched him in the belief that some of his happiness would rub off. It usually did.”

-Dictionary of National Biography entry by John Swire, 1980-1985

A taipan of the ‘old muckle house’ Jardine, Matheson’s, John Keswick and his older brother ‘Tony’ were approached early on in the War to become agents for the British secret service. They encountered fierce resistance from the American OSS whose agent, Lieutenant Milton ‘Mary’ Miles, found them to be too ‘old money’ for his liking. John Keswick left Cambridge with fairly dismal scores, but he spoke several of the local dialects fluently, including Mandarin, Wu and Cantonese. During the Japanese occupation he became the head of SOE operations in Chungking where one of his major tasks was the training and equipping of the Chinese Commando Group (CCG), an effort which stalled abysmally. He stayed in Shanghai after the war until 1946 before removing to Hong Kong ahead of the Communist takeover in 1949.

KESWICK, W. J.; aka ‘Tony’; aka ‘AD/U’ (died 1990)

“...to...Tony Keswick, who got the rook rifle for me...”

-News From Tartary, from the Foreword, Peter Fleming, 1936

Head of the Shanghai Municipal Council, older brother of John Keswick and, like him, a taipan of the trading house Jardine, Matheson’s, ‘Tony’ Keswick was leader of the SOE operations in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation. While undercover, he took a hardline accommodationist stand with the occupying forces, seeking to minimise losses to British trading concerns. He was shot at and wounded by a madman at a rally to air Japanese grievances about the composition of the ‘Council representatives, even though he was willing to give the Japanese greater representation on the ‘Council board. He recruited many ‘old China hands’ to positions in the Shanghai SOE but their usefulness was limited by their naiveté and the unwillingness of the Americans to recognise their capabilities

He stayed on in Shanghai until 1946 before moving the assets of Jardine, Matheson’s offshore to Hong Kong and to the Bahamas before the Communist takeover He died in 1990.

KILLERY, Valentine St. John; aka ‘O.100’

Appointed the head of ‘Oriental Mission’, the chief of all espionage activity in the Asian region, Killery got off to a poor start. Firstly, there was a man already in place for the job who got displaced to Singapore and who resented the relocation; second, Killery’s expertise in spying activities read like it came out of a ‘Bulldog Drummond’ novel and had nothing to do with the sordid realities of the Gestapo or the Kempeitai. He recruited an initial crew of renowned British agents in Shanghai, each of which had seen service in previous wars, but didn’t count on them being easily targeted by the Japanese by virtue of their being white and famous.

Learning from this mistake, he instructed John Keswick to create a Chinese guerrilla force at his position in Chungking using the assistance of Chiang Kai-shek’s militia; this effort was undercut by corruption in the supply lines, exposed in 1942, and the entire effort was dismissed by the Generalissimo. After this failure, Killery was sacked by the SOE and the Oriental Mission was shut down. Killery returned to England to become the head of the ICI Corporation.

BERRIER, ‘Count’ Hilaire du; aka ‘Abdullah du Berrière’

“The trouble is trying to decide who to tie up with. My old friend Colonel Schmidt, who was with me in Addis Abeba, Paris, and Spain, once said: ‘Make your friends on one side of the river, Hal, make them good and strong...’ Well, Schmitty was right, only the difficulty is knowing which side of the river. It’s like a parachute jump. You have to be right the first time.”

-Hilaire du Berrier, letter to his sister, 1937

Du Berrier’s inability to decide with whom to ‘tie up’ was to cause him a few anxious moments. An adventurer and an aviator, he originally came to Shanghai to sell aeroplanes. He invented his spurious title of ‘Count’ after encountering others in Shanghai who partied on the strength of an equally dubious nobility. He moved in the same circles as ‘Princess’ Sumaire, ‘Dr’ Erben and Dr Albert von Miorini – a notoriously sadistic German doctor and white slave trader - and dabbled in everything from intelligence bartering, to prostitution to white slavery. He eventually chose a side becoming a notable informant, selling information to the Japanese.

After the War he escaped punishment by becoming an informant for the US counter-intelligence authorities in Shanghai, working under the pseudonym ‘Abdullah du Berrière’. He spilt his guts about all of his wartime contacts, most notably his former lover, Sumaire. He was last seen working as an advisor on Viet Nam to the Geneva Conference of July 1955.

ERBEN, ‘Dr’ Hermann; aka ‘Alois Ecker’ (1847-1985)

“As for being a German agent, he stated that Dr Erben would probably make the worst agent in the world for any nation, since they have a finger on him in every port of the world. He explained that by this he meant that in a great many places Dr Erben had been guilty of some minor infraction of local rules, such as not having the proper papers at the proper time, or saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.”

-FBI Investigation Report, obtained from Errol Flynn

Erben was born in Austria and studied medicine at the Vienna University although he dropped out before concluding his degree. He worked thereafter as a doctor’s assistant until winning a Rockefeller Fellowship to study psychiatry in New Jersey. He took US citizenship in San Francisco in 1930 but led a wandering life, signing on as ship’s doctor with various shipping companies. He met up with Errol Flynn in 1934 in New Guinea while searching for gold and they spent the next few months ‘bumming around’ together. In 1935 he was arrested in Calcutta while taking part in a trans-Asiatic motor expedition on suspicion of opium smuggling; he was eventually charged with possession of an unlicensed pistol and ammunition, fined 300 rupees and deported to the US. His arrival in New York was heralded in the press by the fact that he had with him 1,100 monkeys on board his ship, another 100 of which had died en route and upon which he had performed autopsies.

He travelled extensively in the next few years meeting up with Flynn again in Spain during the Civil War. He was arrested for trying to inspire a mutiny on board one ship (charges were dropped) and was noted for wiping his hands on the American flag and for giving Nazi salutes to German ships as they passed by. He joined the Nazi Party in 1938 shortly before taking up a medical position in Nanking. In 1940 he presented himself at the German Embassy in Mexico as an “agent for hire” and was issued with a new passport in the name of ‘Alois Ecker’. With this document in hand he made his way to Shanghai, to his old friend Albert von Miorini, a classmate from his university days.

The Ehrhardt Bureau considered Erben a buffoon and tricked him into two-and-a-half year’s internment in the Allied containment facility in the Pootung area, on the pretext that he was there to determine and undermine any Allied contacts taking place. After the liberation by Allied forces at the end of the War he presented himself to his old controllers – Eisentraeger and Meisinger - who both gave him the brush-off. He gained employment working in an anti-malaria unit under US control but became obsessed with the circumstances surrounding his old friend Miorini’s death and went to extreme lengths trying to identify his murderer, bashing and extorting ‘likely suspects’. Deported to an American detention centre in Germany, he was eventually released and took up medicine once more, working in exotic locations such as Iran, Iraq and Indonesia. He was found dead of exposure in his unheated flat in Vienna in 1985.

SUMAIRE, ‘Princess’ (Rajkumari Sumair Apjit Singh)

Upon her arrival in Shanghai, Sumaire claimed to be a daughter of the Maharaja of Potiala, one the most powerful and wealthy maharajas of the Indian sub-continent. This immediately piqued the interest of the British powers and they set out to discover the truth of her claims. They determined that she had arrived from England, bound back to her homeland. She had spent several years in Europe, in Paris and Rome, with her mother, working as a successful mannequin for Schiaparelli, but fears for her mother’s health had forced her to return. Sumaire’s stopover in Shanghai was to become an arrival with no departure: her mother was conveyed onwards to India but ‘Princess’ Sumaire had found a spiritual haven.

Sumaire booked a sumptuous suite upon her arrival and began a wild round of parties and other events: in no time at all she was the talk of the town with suitors and attendants hanging on her every word. She was by no means a glamorous beauty - she was short and dark with drooping eyes and a button nose - but she had more than enough charisma and elegance to overcome any physical limitations. Her liaisons and soirees soon became scandalous: the British investigators, still trying to determine her origins, asked the Maharaja of Potiala whether or not he knew if his daughter was creating a sordid sensation in Shanghai? “It is quite possible”, he replied. “I have twenty-three daughters”.

Maintaining her lifestyle was Sumaire’s prime concern and she did this by attracting the wealthy and powerful to her as her lovers; over time she also resorted to blackmail to keep the funds rolling in. British files of the time classed her dismissively and prudishly as a lesbian but it seemed that she had no particular preference. Eventually and almost inevitably especially after her liaison with du Berrier, she began to trade in information, passing military secrets to the highest bidders and those who could pay her exorbitant rents. Her partners were almost exclusively Japanese before the War ended.

Towards the end of her stay in Shanghai, she was imprisoned several times for questioning in the infamous Ward Road prison. On her last visit she was brutally kicked and beaten, suffering terrible internal injuries which required dangerous surgeries afterwards to correct. Possibly because of these incidents, she faded into the background and became lost to history. Sumaire’s identity was never revealed and the closest that British intelligence came to identifying her was a tenuous theory that she was the Maharaja of Potiala’s niece. Whatever her origins, it’s clear that her greed and her expensive tastes drove her to dabbling with forces with which she was ill-equipped to deal.

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