The piece of paper that fooled Hitler

[sabra]

Source: BBC

It was an audacious double-cross that fooled the Nazis and shortened World War II. Now a document, here published for the first time, reveals the crucial role played by Britain's code-breaking experts in the 1944 invasion of France.

All the ingredients of a gripping spy thriller are there - intrigue, espionage, lies and black propaganda.

An elaborate British wartime plot succeeded in convincing Hitler that the Allies were about to stage the bulk of the D-Day landings in Pas de Calais rather than on the Normandy coast - a diversion that proved crucial in guaranteeing the invasion's success.

An intercepted memo - which has only now come to light - picked up by British agents and decoded by experts at Bletchley Park - the decryption centre depicted in the film Enigma - revealed that German intelligence had fallen for the ruse.

The crucial message was sent after the D-Day landings had started, but let the Allies know the Germans had bought into their deception and believed the main invasion would be near Calais.

It was an insight that saved countless Allied lives and arguably hastened the end of the war.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12266109

[myrna minx]

1. Fascinating! K&R n/t

[hobbit709]

2. The Man Who Never Was.

Led up to that by fooling them in Sicily. Of course the Brits had been reading Ultra for years.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

3. Alan Turing saved everybody's sorry ass.

Search about his life to see how the Free World demonstrated its gratitude.

[Angry Dragon]

5. I believe he was gay

[DearAbby]

4. Ohhhhhh I love History

And I love finding out fascinating facts. Thanks for the post. :)

[GSLevel9]

6. well....

so fun to play "what if".

Germany figures out the invasions are at Normandy, could they have stopped it?

They had lost air superiority and couldn't have brought their armor towards the beach in advance.

1) Had the Germans stopped the D-Day invasion however unlikely, they could not have re-attempted until 1945. Germany would have sent Atlantic Wall forces EAST to Russia to counter the Soviet "Operation Bagration" in July. That might have slowed the Russian armies a bit, but not much. Even with a German victory in July, defeating Bagration... the Germans had no ability to follow up a tactical victory at that point in the war.

At best, for the Germans... a victory at D-Day may have prolonged the war by 6 months. But the greater importance is that Russia would have captured ALL of Germany, Austria and the Iron Curtain may have had a larger darker shadow.

2) Most likely even with advanced intelligence the Germans couldn't have stopped the invasion. By throwing their forces directly and rapidly at the Allied forces and being destroyed much faster, the Allies may have crossed the Rheine faster than they historically did. It is even possible to say that the D-Day ruse saved lives in June but may have cost the Allies lives in December-January.

[cemaphonic]

7. You would think that the Nazis would be expert at sneaky, dishonorable, underhanded spy stuff,

but they really sucked at it.

Even aside from technological coups, like breaking the Enigma (and keeping that fact secret), the Nazi spy network was so thoroughly compromised that pretty much every agent that wasn't killed or imprisoned was either a double agent, or was unwittingly feeding incorrect information deliberately planted by British agents back to Berlin.

[unblock]

8. why would you think that?

being rotten, immoral, viscious and violent has little to do with being competent or smart or expert.

the nazis gave people power and authority based on loyalty and ruthlessness rather than competence and smarts, and put many of their competent and smart people in concentration camps.


the most intersting "why if" game is to wonder what would have happened if hitler had managed to rise to power with all the violent hegemonic nationalism but none of the divisive hatred of jews, gays, socialists, communists, roma, and so on. had the nazis had full access to all the wealth of talent in germany and austria, it might have been a very different story. but of course, the hatred was not an insignificant factor in his rise to power....

[david13]

9. I do not believe it was one message or one thing. I believe the

allies carried out an elaborate and extensive scheme to confuse the Germans about when and where the invasion would take place. And to mask the true timing of it.
dc

[jobendorfer]

10. Yes --

The allies did in fact carry out a massive operation to convince the Germans that the main allied effort
would land at Pas De Calais, so that that the Germans would interpret the Normandy landings as a
diversionary tactic that they could (relatively speaking) ignore.

As I read the article, the main import of the letter was it showed the Allies that the deception was
working, that their Normandy attack -- the only one actually planned -- could proceed at full speed,
while a large German Army sat sidelined a few hundred miles away along the Calais coast. Which is
in fact what happened.

By the time the Germans figured it out, the Allies had captured the Normandy peninsula and built up
a huge force there. By early August, the British had managed to thoroughly pin down the Germans at/near
Calais, and the American Army had broken out of Normandy. The main German Army in France was encircled,
and the liberation of France was just a few weeks away.

The plan was so successful that by the end of September, Allied forces had advanced to German border,
350 or so miles east, where they stalled -- not due to German opposition, but simply because they
could not ship gasoline up to the front fast enough to keep the divisions at the front lines moving.

J.

[MisterP]

11. mostly Poles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biuro_Szyfr%C3%B3w

[Broderick]

12. Fascinating.