Can ordinary people play a major role in making the world a better place?
How did Juan Pujol Garcia, a most ordinary man, become a spy that played a leading role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II?
Should we be discouraged when we are ignored?
In life sometimes the only solution is to do the best job you can, month after month, year after year, in the hope that one day your efforts will be valued.
YouTube video for this blog: https://youtu.be/-ccnaGxrAWA
JUAN PUJOL GARCIA IN THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
Who was Juan Pujol Garcia, the ordinary man whose imagination played a major role in defeating Nazi Germany? How did his background prepare him for his remarkable role in history?
His father owned a cotton factory, and he was educated at a Catholic boarding school, where he learned animal husbandry, and after he graduated he managed a poultry farm, among other jobs. But his family lost everything when, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, his father’s factory was taken over by the workers.
The Spanish Civil War was fought between the Nationalists, headed by the fascist general Juan Peron, and the rebel Republicans. At the beginning of the war, the Republicans were an alliance of Socialists and Communists, but early in the conflict there was a war within the war, as the Communists seized control of the Republican movement. Both sides were guilty of mass executions, the Catholic Church supported the traditionalist Nationalists because the Republicans slaughtered priests, monks, and nuns. But the fascist Nationalists instead massacred public school teachers, which meant that each side slaughtered civilians by the thousands.
Pujol was compelled to serve in the Republican forces, whom he opposed because of how they treated his family. He was able to defect and join the Nationalist forces, who also mistreated him. Like George Orwell, his Spanish Civil War experiences caused him to detest equally both fascists and communists.
Spanish Civil War and the Catholic Church
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/spanish-civil-war-and-the-catholic-church/
https://youtu.be/ozEioe6yyY8
JUAN PUJOL GARCIA, AMATEUR GERMAN AGENT ALARIC
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.
Our independent double agent Alaric surpassed expectations, sending a steady stream of intelligence, and successfully recruiting several other agents. However, these were actually fictional agents, existing only in his imagination, as Alaric himself instead traveled to Lisbon, Portugal! He based his espionage reports on a tourist guide to London and reference books and magazines from the Lisbon Public Library. He submitted expense reimbursements for his travels based on published London railroad schedules. His existence was revealed to the British in the decrypted German Ultra communications intercepted by the Allies. The British MI5 counter-intelligence agency even launched an unsuccessful search for Alaric, the master spy!
JUAN PUJOL GARCIA, BRITISH DOUBLE AGENT GARBO
When the Americans entered the war, Pujol contacted the American naval attaché in Lisbon, once again offering his services as a double agent. This time his credibility was enhanced when he sent the Germans on a wild-goose chase for a nonexistent convoy supposedly crossing the Atlantic, per the intercepted German transmissions. The navel attaché convinced the British that Pujol’s services were, indeed, quite valuable.
Juan Pujol Garcia was sent to London, the British soon moved his family as well. He was assigned to the Spanish-speaking case officer, Tomas Harris, they both spent their days swamping German intelligence with partly fictional, partially true intelligence reports from an ever-expanding network of dozens of fictional agents. So voluminous was their intelligence that the Germans decided they need not recruit additional agents! His codename was Garbo, named after the famous actress Greta Garbo.
To convince the Germans of his loyalty, Garbo often supplied accurate intelligence too late for the Germans to act upon. His reports on the Operation Torch landings in North Africa were postmarked well before the operation, but their delivery was delayed by British intelligence. Once when his Liverpool fictional agent failed to report on troop movements, Garbo told the Germans he was deathly ill, later furnishing them his obituary printed in the newspaper. He then convinced the Germans to pay his imaginary widow a pension for his valuable service!
His early reports were mailed to a post office box in Lisbon, but the Germans felt this method was too slow. The Germans provided him with the means to communicate by radio, these transmissions were also helpful in breaking the Enigma code the Germans used to encrypt their messages.
DOUBLE AGENT GARBO’S ROLE IN THE INVASION OF NORMANDY
The Allies were planning their invasion of Europe, and needed to deceive the Germans on where the invasion would occur. The most logical place to stage the invasion was near the Pas de Calais, the shortest route from England in the Straits of Dover, though the actual invasion would occur on the beaches of Normandy. Garbo played a major role in Operation Fortitude, the effort to deceive the Germans. The Allies could not hide their activities from German airplanes, so they instead decided to amass inflatable tanks and airplanes near Dover, with dummy radio traffic and General Patton making appearances to lead this dummy army.
Garbo sent over five hundred radio messages in the months leading up to the invasion, with as many as twenty a day. To deceive the Germans, Garbo sent them accurate information on the morning of the invasion, transmitting it at 3 AM. The Germans were not expecting the invasion at this time due to the bad weather, they were chewed out by Garbo when they did not respond until 8 AM, saying “Were it not for my ideals I would abandon the work.”
The German were so fooled by Garbo’s reporting that they kept two Panzer tank divisions and nineteen infantry divisions in the Pas de Calais area, expecting that this would be where the real invasion would occur, suspecting that the Normandy invasion was a decoy, as Garbo told them. This enabled the Allies to establish a beachhead on Normandy, enabling them to liberate France and invade Germany itself.
Ironically, Pujol’s performance during the Normandy Invasion enhanced his reputation with his German handlers, who spent a total of $340,000 during the war supporting Garbo’s fictional network of agents. He was awarded both the Iron Cross by Hitler, and the MBE, or Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by King George VI in 1944.
After the war, fearful of Nazi retaliation, he traveled to Angola, where MI5 helped him fake his death. He then emigrated to Venezuela, where he lived a quiet life running a bookstore until a persistent journalist tracked him down in the 1980s after considerable detective work. Pujol was coaxed to travel to London, visiting his former colleagues, and was received by Prince Phillip at Buckingham Palace. He passed away in Caracas in 1988.
DISCUSSING THE SOURCES
Our major sources were the accounts by Dr Wikipedia, which references several books written about Garbo and other spies during World War II, and also the MI5 British Intelligence website.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol_Garc%C3%ADa
https://www.mi5.gov.uk/agent-garbo
Our other videos discuss what it was like to live as a Christian under fascism before and during World War II, in the Spanish Civil War ear, in Vichy France, in Mussolini’s Italy, and in Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
Spanish Civil War and the Catholic Church
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/spanish-civil-war-and-the-catholic-church/
https://youtu.be/ozEioe6yyY8
Mussolini’s Fascist Regime and the Catholic Church
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/mussolinis-fascist-regime-and-the-catholic-church/
https://youtu.be/LvNynEdZFuM
Vichy France Regime, Blog 1, Pro-Life, Pro-Catholic, and Fascist
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/vichy-france-regime-blog-1-pro-life-pro-catholic-and-fascist/
Vichy France, Blog 2, Collaborating with the Germans in the Early Years, 1940-1942
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/vichy-france-blog-2-collaborating-with-the-germans-in-the-early-years-1940-1942/
Vichy France, Blog 3, The Tide Turns, Resistance and Collaboration
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/vichy-france-blog-3-the-tide-turns-resistance-and-collaboration/
Vichy France, Blog 4, Christianity in Vichy France
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/vichy-france-blog-4-christianity-in-vichy-france/
Vichy France in WWII: Pro-Fascist, Pro-Catholic, Pro-Life, Anti-Semitic
https://youtu.be/yYpNrhpmsYw
Christians Under Hitler’s German Nazi Regime
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/christians-under-hitlers-german-nazi-regime/
How the Catholic Church and the Confessing Church Survived Under Hitler’s Pagan Nazi Regime
https://youtu.be/QP9UR8fqfvs
Pope Pius XXII: Back Channel Between Hitler and the Pope
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/world-war-ii-back-channel-between-hitler-and-pope-pius-xii/
https://youtu.be/6xdxvchkWyY
Pope Pius XII, Wartime Pope, Axis Powers March Across Europe
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/pope-pius-xii-wartime-pope-axis-powers-march-across-europe/
https://youtu.be/L1bkOQNrlzg
Pope Pius XII, Wartime Pope, Allied Powers Turn the Tide of War
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/pope-pius-xii-wartime-pope-allied-powers-turn-the-tide-of-war/
https://youtu.be/pjMa3JdjW48
Pope Pius XII, Wartime Pope, Could the Pope Have Done More To Save the Jews?
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/pope-pius-xii-wartime-pope-could-the-pope-have-done-more-to-save-the-jews/
https://youtu.be/ONnAcLLBNog
We would also like to correct a popular misconception of the fascinating story of how the Allies broke the unbreakable Nazi Enigma code during World War II. Although Alan Turing, the brilliant mathematician, played a crucial role in breaking this code, designing a mechanical analog computer that greatly accelerated the needed computations, he was not solely responsible for this effort.
Several brilliant Polish cryptographers had obtained an early version of the Enigma machine and deduced its secrets in the years leading up to the war. When Poland’s defeat was imminent, this work was provided to the Allies, providing the British with the foundational knowledge needed to break the Enigma code. Also, many other brilliant team members contributed to this effort.
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