Englandspiel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Das Englandspiel, also called Operation Nordpol (Operation North Pole), was an enormous counter intelligence operation by the German Abwehr in World War Two. German forces captured Allied resistance agents operating in the Netherlands, and used the agents' codes to fool the Allies into continuing to provide the agents with information and supplies. About 50 Allied agents were executed. Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks describes some of the British efforts to detect the ruse, which ran for quite a long time.
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[edit] The beginning
The British Special Operations Executive (SOE) was sending Dutch intelligence agents into the occupied Netherlands during the war, but the operation was penetrated by the German counter-espionage under Abwehr Major Hermann Giskes in the early stages (1942) and continued under German control. "Clandestine" radio transmissions from the Netherlands fed the British fake information. Despite the fact that the apprehended radio operator tried everything to let his superiors in London know he had been caught, the SOE’s Dutch Division, N Section, allowed agents to be dropped in the Netherlands who were apprehended upon arrival. Most of them (54 out of 59) perished in the concentration camp of Mauthausen (1944).
[edit] Suspicions
In 1943 2 Dutch agents did manage to escape from captivity, but their claims on returning to Britain were dismissed and they were arrested for suspected counter-espionage. Leo Marks, one of the SOE's codemasters was suspicious of the messages from the Dutch operation, however his suspicions were ignored.
Once the supplies came to an end, Major Giskes himself sent a clear text message to the SOE on 1st April 1944 revealing his role in the capture of the Dutch agents.
[edit] Aftermath
After the war reproaches have been made to the SOE for serious flaws in the preparation of the missions, and for ignoring warnings that agents had been caught (notably the absence of the "security key" - a change in the transmission protocol). However, it has also been argued that SOE had set up the operation for the single purpose of leading the Germans into believing that an invasion would take place in the Netherlands (rather than Normandy), and knowingly sent the operatives to their deaths.
[edit] References
- Giskes, H.J., London Calling North Pole, written by the German spy chief who ran the operation
- Leo Marks, Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's Story 1941-1945. (HarperCollins, 1998). ISBN 0-684-86780-X.
- Philippe Ganier-Raymond, The Tangled Web, (Arthur Barker 1968, Warner Paperback ISBN 0-446-65934-7, originally published in French as Le Réseau Éntranglé) one of the central stories in Marks' book, the betrayal of the SOE Dutch network, told from the Dutch and German points of view.
