Our wartime espionage correspondent Angus Young unveils a fascinating tale of deception, misidentification and model ships.
Max Schultz was born in Hull while his emigrant parents were heading to America from their native Germany. Perhaps his arrival changed their plans because they decided to stay in Hull where his father eventually opened a shoe shop. Little is known of his early life but Schultz developed a successful career as a shipbroker and owner, reflected by the fact that, along with his wife Sarah and five children, he lived in a large house in fashionable Coltman Street where several master mariners and other prominent figures of the day also lived.
Through his work, Schultz spent much of his time at ports on the continent and because of this he came to the attention of the newly-formed Secret Service Bureau of the British government. What would become MI6, the bureau was created in 1909 in response to British concerns over the rapid expansion of the German Navy. Schultz’s occupation was a perfect cover for frequent visits to Germany to gather information on vessels being built for the Imperial fleet.
For two years he managed a team of four paid informants working in various shipyards, reputedly obtaining a large collection of drawings which were brought back to London. However in 1911 he was arrested in Hamburg by the German authorities along with two accomplices, convicted of spying and jailed for seven years. While he spent the First World War behind bars, back in Hull his wife Sarah was forced to revert to her maiden name of Hilton as anti-German hostility swept the city as a result of deadly Zeppelin raids. Street riots broke out and shops owned by Germans or with German-sounding names were attacked while stones and abuse were hurled at the family’s house in Coltman Street by attackers unaware of Schultz’s secret spying missions on behalf of Britain. It’s also likely some had confused him with another Max Schultz, a German arrested in Portsmouth for spying on British naval shipping.
On his release from prison after the war the Hull-born Schultz also changed his name to Hilton and resumed working for the Secret Service, returning to Germany after a brief spell back in his home city, Sadly, his marriage collapsed and he died a premature death in 1924 at the age of just 49 reportedly an alcoholic.
His remarkable story was given a new lease of life in 1999 when a model ship was bought at a flea market in Hamburg. The ship in question was the 1912 ocean liner SS Imperator, once the largest passenger ship in the world and flagship of the Hamburg-America shipping company. The man who made it was Max Schultz.
The model’s new owner found a hand-written note hidden beneath one of the ship’s funnels. It said: “Oct 6, 1913, To whom so ever find this may know, that this is placed inside of the model of the Imperator H&A line 828 ft long, 87 ft beam and 48 ft depth. The model is built to scale by the writer in Fuhlsbuttel Hard Labour prison with very odd & rough tools despite it not on account of roughness, it is a labour of love and helps pass the time. I am here now two and a half years, having been sentenced in Leipzig to seven years for espionage for the dear old English government. I am an English man and a ship owner residing in Coltman Street, Hull, Yorkshire. Wife a Hilton good and true, five children. Max William Schultz.”