Telegraph, the vehement reaction brought about Masson’s early re-
tirement in fall 1945. Afterward, however, Masson remained loyal to
Schellenberg by assisting both him and Eggen in their legal travails.MAST, HEINRICH BARON VON (1897–?). An Abwehr officer
with multiple later affiliations, Heinrich Baron von Mast served as
an Austrian counterintelligence officer on the Piave front beginning
in 1917. Also associated with the Viennese secret service during
the interwar period, he transferred to the Abwehr in 1938 and was
posted to the Abwehrstelle in Nuremberg. His major function, how-
ever, was to protect Abwehr head Wilhelm Canaris from the rival
Reichssicherheitshauptamt. Beginning in 1943, it was the task of
Mast and other former Austrian intelligence officials to hide incrimi-
nating documents collected by Canaris for use in a projected trial of
Adolf Hitler. Although the papers found their way to Austria and
then Slovenia, Mast and his associates were captured by the Gestapo
and placed in the Mauthausen concentration camp.
Following their release in 1945, Yugoslavian leader Josip Tito
gave them the Canaris archive—disguised in a British diplomatic
pouch—with instructions to proceed to French-occupied Tyrol. De-
spite being made a colonel in the French Deuxième Bureau, Mast
established a connection with the U.S. Army Counterintelligence
Corps in early 1948 and took part in several missions. Under its
sponsorship, he opened an oriental rug store in Linz, where the pa-
pers were then secured. A further intelligence affiliation developed
with the Organisation Gehlen (OG). Working in conjunction with
Wilhelm Höttl and heading the Linz station—under the cover of the
Nibelungen publishing house—he supplied the Pullach headquarters
with much valuable information based on sources as distant as Ru-
mania, Bulgaria, and Italy. In January 1952, Mast and Höttl left the
OG in favor of the service headed by Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz, yet
their vast informant network made them feel quasi-independent of
any intelligence overseer. When Heinz’s service foundered shortly
afterward, Mast resumed his connection with the French, which
lasted well beyond their departure from Austria in October 1955.
MATA HARI (1876–1917). A Dutch dancer and spy executed as a
German agent during World War I, Margaretha Zelle was born in
288 • MAST, HEINRICH BARON VON