I am fairly sure that this whole episode was a ruse as all these communications took place late August thru September 1943.My investigations at the P.R.O at Kew using the navies red lists for this period have Vascama marked 'allocated foreign service' as early as late June or early July(i don't the records to hand as i type).So the deal was already cut and dried.All the communications and 'threats' in my opinion, were for German intelligence to digest,Lisbon being a hotbed of spies.