Castillo Montealegre

Midday, April 8, 1943. Following France's armistice in World War II, the European colonies in Africa had acquired enormous strategic value. The conflict continued, though now in the South Atlantic… Just over two hundred miles from Freetown, the German submarine U-123 torpedoed a Spanish merchant ship in broad daylight. The ship was returning with timber from its colony in Guinea. In a matter of minutes, the Castillo Montealegre sank. The young German commander cared nothing for any possible survivors, shipwrecked and adrift, nor did he care that the ship was flying a neutral flag… The truth, sometimes, lies hidden in the deep waters of the ocean. Mateo Schütz had to disappear. He could pose a problem not only for General Franco's Spain, but also for the Germans themselves. Sent to Spanish Guinea in 1941 by British intelligence, he held the key to the course of the war in the colonies, on the island of Fernando de Poo and in the Spanish territories of the Gulf of Guinea.