Vincent Kraft (born 1888) was a German

double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organ ...

in South-East Asia during World War I who was extensively involved in British counter-intelligence in the

Hindu–German Conspiracy The Indo–German Conspiracy (Note on the name) was a series of attempts between 1914 and 1917 by Indian nationalist groups to create a Pan-Indian rebellion against the British Empire during World War I. This rebellion was formulated betwee ...

Biography

Kraft was sent to South-East Asia during the war by the German high command as a part of the larger

Indo-German Conspiracy German-Indian, Indian-German or Indo-German may refer to: *Indo-German languages, alternative name for the Indo-European languages *As an adjective, anything pertaining to Germany–India relations *Indians in Germany The community of Germans ...

and turned a British double-agent at Singapore in 1915. A German planter from

Batavia Batavia may refer to: Historical places * Batavia (region), a land inhabited by the Batavian people during the Roman Empire, today part of the Netherlands * Batavia, Dutch East Indies, present-day Jakarta, the former capital of the Dutch East In ...

, Kraft enlisted in the Imperial German Army at the beginning of World War I and served in France. Various accounts indicate he was either wounded in battle or faced courtsmartial due to his activities in France for which he faced a possible death penalty, against which he was given the option of returning to Batavia and help organise for the secret shipments or arms to be transferred to the Indian revolutionary underground agreed between the

Ghadar Party The Ghadar Movement was an early 20th century, international political movement founded by expatriate Indians to overthrow British rule in India. The early movement was created by conspirators who lived and worked on the West Coast of the Unite ...

, the Berlin Committee, and the

German Foreign Office , logo = DEgov-AA-Logo en.svg , logo_width = 260 px , image = Auswaertiges Amt Berlin Eingang.jpg , picture_width = 300px , image_caption = Entrance to the Foreign Office building , headquarters = Werderscher Mark ...

. Kraft returned to Batavia to coordinate with Knipping, the German Consul to Peking, but at the same time established contact with the British mission. The intelligence passed on by Kraft, along with that of another agent named ''

Oren Oren ( he, אורן) is a masculine given name, meaning 'pine' or 'ash' in Hebrew. In the Book of Chronicles, Oren is one of the sons of Jerahmeel, the first-born of Hezron, along with Ram, Bunah, Ozem and Ahijah. Oren, as a given name or surna ...

'' were instrumental in uncovering parts of the

, especially the plans to ship arms to India on board the and the ''Henry S'' in June 1915. Kraft's information was also key in uncovering the proposed sites on the coast of

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line betwee ...

where the arms were to be shipped, the operations of

Jatindranath Mukherjee Bagha Jatin (; ) or Baghajatin, born Jatindranath Mukherjee (); 7 December 1879 – 10 September 1915) was an Indian independence activist. He was the principal leader of the Jugantar party that was the central association of revolutionary ...

's agent

Narendranath Bhattacharya Manabendra Nath Roy (born Narendra Nath Bhattacharya, better known as M. N. Roy; 21 March 1887 – 25 January 1954) was an Indian revolutionary, radical activist and political theorist, as well as a noted philosopher in the 20th century. Roy ...

with German ministers in South-East Asia, as well as details of Jatin Mukherjee's plans for insurrection in Bengal in August in August 1915. Kraft leaked details of the plans by German consul at Shanghai, Knipping, to raid the penal colony of Andaman Islands on Christmas Day 1915 and raise an expeditionary force to raide towns on the Indian coast including Madras and Calcutta. His own bogus plans for the raid were in the meantime revealed to Beckett by "''

''", but given the successive failures of the Indo-German plans, the plans for the operations were abandoned on the recommendations of both the Berlin Committee and Knipping. Vincent Kraft was also responsible for passing on to British intelligence detailed information of the Berlin Committee and details of its activities in Washington D.C, in Siam, Dutch East Indies, and in Persia. Kraft later fled through Mexico to Japan where he was last known to be at the end of the war. Kraft, like

was not identified in intelligence reports and was only known by the codename "''Agent X''". His true identity was only uncovered in 1950s when secret India government archives were declassified.

Notes

References

*. *. *. *. *. * . {{DEFAULTSORT:Kraft, Vincent 1888 births World War I spies for the United Kingdom Double agents German people of World War I Hindu–German Conspiracy Year of death missing World War I spies for Germany