50 Facts About Elyesa Bazna

In 1943, Elyesa Bazna was hired as a valet by Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, the British ambassador in Ankara, Turkey.

Elyesa Bazna photographed British documents in Knatchbull-Hugessen's possession, and sold them to the Germans through their attache Ludwig Carl Moyzisch in what became known as the Cicero affair.

Elyesa Bazna had conveyed a document that carried the highest security restriction about Operation Overlord.

Elyesa Bazna provided intelligence that might have made the Germans believe that there was no danger of attack in the Balkans.

Elyesa Bazna moved to Munich in 1960 and worked as a night watchman before dying in 1970 of kidney disease.

In 1962, Elyesa Bazna published a memoir about the Cicero affair.

Elyesa Bazna was born in 1904 in Pristina, Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire.

Elyesa Bazna's father was a teacher of Islamic doctrine and a landowner.

Elyesa Bazna later stated that his father was a Muslim mullah named Hafiz Yazan Bazna, one of his uncles was Major General Kemal.

Elyesa Bazna claimed to have stolen British weapons and cars for the Turkish National Movement, which was led by Ataturk.

Richard Wires, author of Cicero, stated that Elyesa Bazna was not motivated to steal for political or patriotic reasons.

Elyesa Bazna reportedly worked at the Berliet motor company after he left the labor camp.

In 1925, Elyesa Bazna moved to Istanbul, where he worked for the Istanbul Corp.

Elyesa Bazna then worked as a fire brigade chief in Yozgat before returning to Istanbul to drive taxis.

Elyesa Bazna spoke Albanian, Turkish, Serbo-Croatian, and French, the latter of which was the standard language of diplomacy at that time.

Elyesa Bazna knew a little German from singing Lieder and said that he could read basic English but had difficulty speaking it.

Elyesa Bazna married twice; with his first wife, whom he later divorced, he had four children.

Elyesa Bazna had several live-in mistresses, one of whom, Mara, was a nursemaid to the children of Douglas Busk, a British ambassador.

Elyesa Bazna left after his pound notes were determined to be counterfeit.

Elyesa Bazna married for a second time to a woman named Duriet and had four more children.

Elyesa Bazna worked for foreign diplomats and consulates as a doorman, driver and guard upon his return to Turkey.

In 1942, he worked as a valet for Albert Jenke, a German businessman and later embassy staff member, who came to fire Elyesa Bazna for reading his mail.

Elyesa Bazna dressed him in an imposing blue uniform, gave him a peaked cap, and used him as a guard to the door of his study; Bazna excluded visitors when Sir Hughe was thinking or napping.

Sir Hughe paid him more than the 100 Turkish lira that was standard for a valet, and quietly turned a blind eye to the fact that Elyesa Bazna was having an affair with Lady Knatchbull-Hugessen's nursemaid in the servants' quarters.

Elyesa Bazna gained access to documents in the ambassador's document box and safe using his locksmithing skills, including making impressions and then copies of the key for the document box.

Elyesa Bazna began photographing secret documents about war strategy, troop movements and negotiations with Turkey to enter the war.

Elyesa Bazna took the photographs while the ambassador slept, took a bath or played the piano.

Elyesa Bazna approached the German Embassy in Ankara on 1943, indicating that he wanted two rolls of film of the ambassador's documents.

Elyesa Bazna became a spy through the connection with his former employer, Albert Jenke.

Elyesa Bazna became a paid German agent under Moyzisch and was given the SD code name "Cicero" by German Ambassador Franz von Papen due to Bazna's "astonishing eloquence".

Elyesa Bazna alluded to involvement with the Milli Emniyet Hizmeti, which became the Turkish National Security Service in 1965.

British historian Richard Wires wrote that Elyesa Bazna was motivated entirely by greed, as he had dreams of becoming rich by selling secrets to the Germans.

Elyesa Bazna concluded, though, that there would be attacks in other locations, such as Norway or the Balkans.

Brown states that "Elyesa Bazna was indeed under British control within a short time after he started to photograph the documents", and he was a participant in Plan Jael and Operation Bodyguard.

Mummer Kaylan states that through his personal knowledge of Elyesa Bazna, he thought that Elyesa Bazna supported Turkish interests and was not guided by British Intelligence.

Further, he says that Elyesa Bazna having passed on "genuine", "important" intelligence and the codeword for Operation Overlord to the Germans supports his theory that Elyesa Bazna was not a double agent.

Walter Schellenberg, too, wondered if Elyesa Bazna passed on intelligence to the Turkish Secret Service.

British Foreign Office workers, though, were concerned about Operation Overlord leaks and thought that Elyesa Bazna might be Cicero.

Elyesa Bazna had worked at the German embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria, beginning in July 1943 and within a month had become a spy.

Elyesa Bazna was adept at gathering intelligence within the office.

Elyesa Bazna flirted with Cicero when he called the office to schedule a meeting with Moyzisch.

Once the embassy had been tipped off that there was a spy operating in the facility in early 1944, Elyesa Bazna found it increasingly difficult to gather intelligence.

Elyesa Bazna gave notice about the third week of January 1944 that he would be leaving the ambassador's employment.

Elyesa Bazna stopped selling information to the Germans by the end of February 1944 and left the embassy at the end of the month or about without any trouble.

Elyesa Bazna passed on the details for the Tehran Conference plans.

Elyesa Bazna lived in an apartment in the European Aksaray neighbourhood of Istanbul with his family in the 1950s.

Elyesa Bazna gave singing lessons and worked selling used cars and as a night watchman.

Elyesa Bazna contacted the West German government to be reimbursed for the counterfeit money that he received.

In 1960 Elyesa Bazna moved to Germany and worked in Munich as a night watchman.

Elyesa Bazna died in Munich of kidney disease in December 1970, aged 66.