JOHNS, PHILIP• 275of assassinating John. However, Cramer himself nurtured anti-Nazi
sympathies and instead of carrying out the murder, he tipped off SIS
and allowed them to negotiate John’s release into British safekeep-
ing. Once freed by PIDE, John was flown to London, where he was
employed by the Political Warfare Executive preparing radio propa-
ganda broadcasts for theSoldatensender Calaisstation atWoburn
Abbey, where he worked alongsideWolfgang zu Putlitz, a man he
later described as ‘‘an odd political crank.’’
After the war John returned to Germany and acted as an interpreter
during the Nuremberg trials. In 1950 he was nominated by the British
as the first director of the Bundesamt fur Verfassungsschutz, the
Commission for the Protection of the Constitution. Among his tasks
was the cultivation of sources in East Germany, and one of his con-
tacts was zu Putlitz, whom he regarded as unreliable. While still head
of the security agency, John disappeared in July 1954, either the vic-
tim of an abduction or a willingdefectorto the East. Soon after his
arrival in East Germany, he gave a press conference in which he an-
nounced his adherence to Communism and left the distinct impres-
sion that his performance was voluntary. Later, though, he
reappeared in the West, insisting that he had been kidnapped and that
his previous public statements had been made under duress. Accord-
ing to the Soviet defector Piotr Deriabin, John had been blackmailed
by the Soviets, who had discovered evidence of John’s secret contact
and collaboration with the Nazis during the war.
After his unexpected reappearance in December 1955, John was
arrested and in December 1956 sentenced to five years’ imprison-
ment in solitary confinement for treason. Released from Munster
prison at the end of July 1958, he spent his retirement at Hohenburg,
near Igls in the Austrian Tyrol. In his 1965 autobiography,Twice
through the Lines, he explained the background to his involvement
in the anti-Hitler plot.JOHNS, PHILIP.In the autumn of 1939, as a newly arrived member
of the Naval Control Service in Antwerp, Commander Philip Johns,
RNVR, was invited to join the local station of theSecret Intelligence
Service(SIS). ‘‘There was no application form to join the Secret Ser-
vice,’’ he recalled. ‘‘There was no written examination or personal
interview with any board.’’ Instead he was invited to volunteer for