32 • BAD SALZUFLEN
BAD SALZUFLEN.Postwar headquarters of theSecret Intelligence
Servicein Germany immediately after the surrender in May 1945,
headed byHarold Shergold.
BADEN-POWELL, SIR ROBERT.The founder in 1908 of the inter-
nationalBoy Scout movement, Robert Baden-Powell used his out-
doorsman skills as cover for his spying activities. In one famous
instance, while posing as an amateur lepidopterist and equipped with
only a net and a paint box, he succeeded in climbing to a vantage
point over the fortress of Cattaro in Dalmatia and completing an ac-
curate diagram of the citadel’s defenses, drawing the details in a
notebook covered with his sketches of butterflies. Similarly, he mas-
queraded as a fisherman after mountain trout when surveying moun-
tain passes in southern Germany and as a landscape artist when
watching troop maneuvers. Another time, he famously pretended to
be a drunk when challenged inside a naval dockyard. Baden-Powell’s
1915 memoirs about his clandestine work during theBoer War,
Baron: My Adventures as a Spy, served to inspire many and make
the occupation of espionage almost respectable.
Born in 1857 and educated at Charterhouse, Baden-Powell had
been commissioned into the 13th Hussars and served in Afghanistan,
Zululand, and Matabeleland before commanding the Mafeking Fron-
tier Force in 1899. The following year he was appointed inspector-
general of the South African Constabulary. He was ennobled in 1922
as Baron Baden-Powell of Gilwell and died in January 1941. His
1903 handbook,Scouting for Boys, remains the world’s best-selling
book after the Bible and the Koran.
BAKER STREET.The main headquarters ofSpecial Operations Ex-
ecutive(SOE) was accommodated at 64 Baker Street, and the name
of the street became synonymous with the organization, which
quickly outgrew the building and spread into neighboring requisi-
tioned offices, including the former head office of Marks & Spencer
at Michael House, 82 Baker Street; Norgeby House, 83 Baker Street;
221 Baker Street (SOE’s technical laboratory); Chiltern Court, Baker
Street (SOE’s Scandinavian Section); Montagu Mansions in York
Street; Bickenhall Mansions in Bickenhall Street; Orchard Court in
Portman Square; 1 Dorset Square (formerly the office ofCyril Mills,