MI5 uncovered a plot by Nazi leaders to smuggle plundered jewellery, gold and other valuables in a submarine to Argentina two years before the end of the Second World War, according to newly released secret files.

The details emerged from 30 days of interrogating an “unprincipled ruffian” called Ernesto Hoppe, a naturalised Argentinian of German birth, who was an agent of the German Intelligence service and was to have played a key role in the “unique mission”.

Hoppe, codenamed “Herold”, was arrested in Gibraltar in 1943, while on his way by ship from Bilbao in Spain to Buenos Aires, after a tip-off from an MI6 informant in Argentina. He was taken to MI5’s interrogation centre at Camp 020 in Ham, Surrey. The MI5 file on Hoppe, one of more than 180 released yesterday by the National Archives in Kew, West London, said: “The adventures of Hoppe would run well in serial form in the servants’ penny weekly. Espionage, loot, U-boats, clandestine landings, wireless transmitters, passwords, fast cars, pregnant wives, Spanish brothels, denunciations, forgeries, secret service prisons, escapes in hospital blue, all these things and more have come under consideration during the official investigation into the life of this man.”

At first, Hoppe refused to cooperate with his MI5 interrogators, proving to be “one of the most obstinate cases ever handled at Camp 020”. He even escaped from a secure hospital where he had gone for treatment and tried unsuccessfully to contact the Argentine Embassy in London before being grabbed by Special Branch.

Back at Camp 020, Hoppe, a rotund individual in his early fifties, decided to tell all, and the story of the Nazi smuggling plot began to unravel. He claimed that he had never intended to go through with his part in the plot, but admitted he had been approached by a German Luftwaffe colonel named Rosentreter, who had outlined his secret mission. The Nazis appeared to be planning for a quick exit to Argentina once Germany was defeated and the submarine cargo, estimated to be worth ten million German marks, was to be their nest egg.

The MI5 file disclosed that the plan was for Hoppe to travel to Buenos Aires – he refused to go in the submarine – to receive about 40 boxes filled with the Nazi contraband, which were to be delivered at a coastal landing point by the crew of the U-boat and then loaded into a three-tonne lorry. “Cases marked A were to be handed [by Hoppe] to a bank [in Buenos Aires], B [boxes], marked ‘Vorsicht’ (with care), were to go to Villa Balestero outside Buenos Aires owned by two Nazi brothers, and C [boxes] were to be delivered to an address in BA,” the Hoppe file said.

The MI5 file added: “The contents of the cases marked C were politically the most dangerous, Rosentreter said, and would be of corresponding value to the British.”

On arrival in Argentina with his pregnant wife, Hoppe was to have been met by a man using the password: “Vengo para toma leccion, deme la hora” (I have come for a lesson, give me the time).

Hoppe told his MI5 interrogators that he intended to reveal the Nazi plot to the Argentine Government once he reached Buenos Aires and had hoped to get a reward. He denied the claim by MI6’s informant, a German named Enrique Jurges living in Argentina, that he was a trained spy and had been engaged in espionage in Poland and also in the brutal treatment of Dutch citizens in Groningen in 1940.

MI5 had been warned that the informant was unreliable and a letter Hoppe was supposed to have written, boasting of his exploits, proved to be a forgery. But he was picked for the secret submarine mission after he became friends with a German major who guarded the estate of Hermann Goering, commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, and used to go out visiting “women friends” with him.

MI5 remained unsure of how serious a spy Hoppe was, and suggested feeding a story about him to the press with a headline, “Nazi leaders on the run”. It was reckoned that the story would have a “profound effect on world opinion at the present time”.

MI5 concluded: “Patriotism means nothing to him as he is willing to work for the Argentine, Germany and England. Money means everything to him. Yet it would be unchivalrous to deny that he has been a doughty opponent and it would be untrue to say he is devoid of courage and resource.”

Hoppe was deported to Argentina after the war, in October 1945.

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