Schütz returned to Germany in August 1939 and was immediately activated for military service. He was assigned to "Abwehrstelle I/Wi Generalkommando" Hamburg, the branch dealing with economic espionage. As a cover, Schütz was posted to the 'translator company' for Wehrkreis X. From December 1939 he carried out a variety of tasks for Abwehr I/Wi in particular visiting Belgium, Italy and Switzerland primarily to collect letters from live-letter drops sent by German agents overseas. He was also sent to Spain periodically from June 1940 and during this period acted as handler for agent Werner Unland. In December 1940, Schütz was recalled to Hamburg and told about a mission to Ireland. His mission would be to collect and send weather information (desired by Abwehr section I-L Air Intelligence), observe British convoy traffic (for Abwehr section I-M Naval Intelligence) and conduct economic espionage against selected targets in Northern Ireland. In particular, Abwehr wanted data on the