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Johnny Foreigner
Nov. 12th, 2023 12:12 pmBook Review: Double Cross - The True Story of the D-Day Spies, by Ben Macintyre
Macintyre's cast in this human history is an interesting collection of characters. It's a strong claim to make that all of the German spies operating in Britain during World War 2 were caught, but it seems to be backed up by evidence. Those who were committed to their cause didn't survive. But some were turned by MI5 to operate against the Germans. And some arrived in Britain and proactively sought out British intelligence, in order to become double agents. Of course, they were all foreigners, a curious mixture of French, central and eastern Europeans, Hispanics and South Americans, and treatment by the British establishment was variable.
With hindsight it seems all the more incredible that the Germans swallowed the whole thing, but then again, they (possibly with the exception of Dönitz) also thought Enigma was impregnable; and plenty among the Germans, including among the Abwehr, didn't care for the Nazis or the war anyway. Neutral Portugal and Spain seem to have been, perhaps inevitably, a major espionage crossroads, though it does seem surprising the ease with which it appears to have been possible to travel between there and the UK. As Enigma decrypts showed the material being fed to the Germans was received positively, the push for deception gathered pace. Operation Fortitude inflated the size of the British and American forces preparing for the invasion of Europe, and placed them not only on the south coast of the UK facing Normandy, but also in the south-east looking towards Calais, in Scotland preparing to re-take Norway, and thanks to an Australian actor, Montgomery was "seen" by Spanish intelligence in Gibraltar, apparently preparing for an invasion of southern France to take place from Algeria. Ironically, another German agent in Portugal just made up stories, in the manner of Our Man in Havana, but occasionally those stories were by chance correct and made the British authorities nervous.
This dangerous work took its toll, and Johnny Jebsen was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo. Yet it seems he gave nothing away. Bureaucratic bungling meant that an attempt to communicate with the British in the final months of the war in 1945 wasn't followed up, because the receiving authorities had no record of his name. Technically his fate was uncertain, but it seems almost certain he died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Macintyre's cast in this human history is an interesting collection of characters. It's a strong claim to make that all of the German spies operating in Britain during World War 2 were caught, but it seems to be backed up by evidence. Those who were committed to their cause didn't survive. But some were turned by MI5 to operate against the Germans. And some arrived in Britain and proactively sought out British intelligence, in order to become double agents. Of course, they were all foreigners, a curious mixture of French, central and eastern Europeans, Hispanics and South Americans, and treatment by the British establishment was variable.
With hindsight it seems all the more incredible that the Germans swallowed the whole thing, but then again, they (possibly with the exception of Dönitz) also thought Enigma was impregnable; and plenty among the Germans, including among the Abwehr, didn't care for the Nazis or the war anyway. Neutral Portugal and Spain seem to have been, perhaps inevitably, a major espionage crossroads, though it does seem surprising the ease with which it appears to have been possible to travel between there and the UK. As Enigma decrypts showed the material being fed to the Germans was received positively, the push for deception gathered pace. Operation Fortitude inflated the size of the British and American forces preparing for the invasion of Europe, and placed them not only on the south coast of the UK facing Normandy, but also in the south-east looking towards Calais, in Scotland preparing to re-take Norway, and thanks to an Australian actor, Montgomery was "seen" by Spanish intelligence in Gibraltar, apparently preparing for an invasion of southern France to take place from Algeria. Ironically, another German agent in Portugal just made up stories, in the manner of Our Man in Havana, but occasionally those stories were by chance correct and made the British authorities nervous.
This dangerous work took its toll, and Johnny Jebsen was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo. Yet it seems he gave nothing away. Bureaucratic bungling meant that an attempt to communicate with the British in the final months of the war in 1945 wasn't followed up, because the receiving authorities had no record of his name. Technically his fate was uncertain, but it seems almost certain he died in Sachsenhausen concentration camp.