Double Agent Garbo: The Ordinary Person Who Played a Major Role in Defeating Nazi
History

Double Agent Garbo: The Ordinary Person Who Played a Major Role in Defeating Nazi Germany

After Nazi Germany invaded Poland, then France, Pujol decided the best way he could contribute was to serve as a spy against Nazi Germany. He visited the British embassy in Madrid three times in early 1941 offering his services. He was rebuffed out of hand.
How could our Spanish friend burnish his spy resume? By volunteering at the German embassy, playing the role of a fanatic Spanish fascist who could travel to London on official business! The Germans gave him a crash course in espionage, secret writing with invisible ink, a codebook, cash for expenses, giving him the codename ALARIC. His instructions were to move to England and recruit a network of British agents. […]

History

Pope Pius XII, Wartime Pope, Allied Powers Turn the Tide of War

When do the Italians first realize that Mussolini and Hitler might possibly lose the war? Our beloved author gives us a hint exactly halfway through his book, The Pope At War, when, “late on the night of October 22, 1942, wave after wave of British bombers swooped below the clouds over Genoa, Italy, and released hundreds of bombs.” Later, Milan and Turin would be bombed. Soon after, Rommel’s Afrika Corps would be defeated, and American soldiers waded ashore in North Africa in Operation Torch. […]