Eccentric Spanish Fabulist Hoodwinks Hitler
Much of the success of Operation Bodyguard, which hoaxed Hitler out of resisting the Normandy invasion with all available resources, is owed to Juan Pujol Garcia (1912 – 1988). Pujol was an eccentric Spaniard who, out of a desire for adventure and excitement, hoaxed Hitler with fictional spying during WWII. The hoax grew into the greatest deception operation of the war, and helped ensure Allied victory on D-Day and the Normandy Campaign.
Spain was a neutral country during WWII, and its fascist government was actually quite friendly to Hitler. Pujol, unlike his government, hated fascists, and when WWII began, he decided to help the Allies “for the good of humanity”. However, when he offered his services to British intelligence, he was rejected. Undeterred, and wanting to get into the action anyhow, Pujol pretended to be a Nazi sympathizing Spanish government official, and offered his services to the Germans. They accepted, and ordered him to Britain, with instructions to recruit a spy network.
Pujol went to Lisbon, instead. From the Portuguese capital, he made up reports about Britain with content culled from public sources, embellished and seasoned with his own active imagination. He then sent the reports to the Germans as if he had written them in Britain. His handlers believed it, and begged for more. So Pujol invented fictitious sub-agents, and used them as sources for additional fictitious reports.
In the meantime, the British were intercepting and decoding secret German messages about reports from a spy in Britain. The information in the reports was ludicrously wrong, so the British realized that somebody was hoaxing the Germans. When they discovered that it was Pujol acting on his own, the British belatedly accepted his offer of services. Giving him the codename GARBO, they whisked him to Britain. There, they built upon his imaginary network, transforming it into an elaborate operation that carefully fed the Germans a massive amount of often true but useless information, mixed in with half truths and falsities.
The flood of reports from Pujol and his steadily growing network of fictional sub-agents, caused him to be viewed by the Germans as their most successful spy in Britain. The moment for cashing in on that trust came during the buildup to D-Day and the subsequent Normandy campaign. The ultimate aim was to convince the Germans that the Normandy landings were but the first in a series of planned invasions, with an even bigger one planned against the Pas de Calais.
Pujol’s credibility with the Germans was strengthened by having him send a message alerting them to the invasion a few hours before it began. British intelligence knew that by the time it worked its way from German intelligence to commanders in the field, the invasion would have already taken place. The warning would thus do the Germans no good, but it would enhance Pujol’s reputation.
Pujol and his British handlers then went in for the kill. Building upon the years of trust, Pujol told the Germans that the Normandy landings were diversions, and that the real invasion would strike the Pas de Calais a few weeks later. Pujol’s warning supported what the Germans were already inclined to believe, because of other deceptive Allied intelligence measures, such as a fictional First US Army Group supposedly massed across the English Channel from the Pas de Calais. So the Germans kept powerful formations in reserve, instead of rushing them to Normandy. By the time the Pas de Calais formations were finally released, the Allied position in Normandy was invulnerable. Allied forces in Normandy not only defeated German counterattacks, but then went on the offensive, and broke out of the beachhead to sweep across and liberate France within a few months.
Pujol was decorated by both sides. The Germans awarded him an Iron Cross, and the British made him a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). After the war, he faked his death then moved to Venezuela, where he ran a gift shop and book store. He led an anonymous life until 1984, when he agreed to be interviewed for a book. After its publication, Pujol was lionized in Britain, and was received at Buckingham Palace. On the 40th anniversary of D-Day, he travelled to Normandy to pay his respects to the dead. He died in Caracas 4 years later.
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Sources & Further Reading
Brown, Anthony Cave – Bodyguard of Lies (1975)
Encyclopedia Britannica – The Eiffel Tower
Hastings, Max – Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 (2011)
Mountbatten, Louis – Combined Operations: The Official History of the Commandos (2007)
Roberts, Geoffrey – Victory at Stalingrad (2002)
Royal Air Force – Bomber Command No. 617 Squadron
The Daily Express – How Charlie Chaplin Defied Nazi Death List
Timothy Ashby – The German General Who Told Hitler to go Screw Himself