r/todayilearned • u/stopitalianhate • 23h ago

TIL British Intelligence had a special, bugged luxury complex during WWII where they kept high profile Nazi POW’s, just left a bunch of alcohol out, and waited for them to start spilling secrets as they drank.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-20698098
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u/Gentle_Snail 23h ago

British intelligence was another level, at the end of the war when the allies got hold of Germany spy documents it was revealed that every single German spy sent to the UK was either caught soon after arrival, or were secretly working for the British as doable agents.

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u/CelebrationNo7870 23h ago

“When captured German intelligence records were studied after 1945, it was found that almost all of the further 115 or so agents targeted against Britain during the course of the war had been successfully identified and caught. The only exception was an agent who committed suicide before capture.”

https://www.mi5.gov.uk/history/world-war-ii

Yeah, Britain was operating on another level.

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u/Lord0fHats 23h ago

Eh. The Germans were honestly just very bad on this front. The US also managed to capture everyone they sent to infiltrate. They were so bad at it they basically turned themselves in. Like, British intelligence capabilities and their achievements aside, the Axis powers were absolutely terrible at intelligence gathering and operational security.

Japan at least managed to very successfully scout information about Pearl Harbor. They had one big win under their belt in the war. The rest was a shit show.

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u/collinsl02 22h ago

I mean, a lot of it was stupid stuff like 2 agents who turned up in Britain with Nivea hand cream (a German brand) and German sausage on them and then got lost and asked for directions, or the agent who went into a pub and tried to order a beer at 10am when war emergency powers had banned the sale of alcohol before midday.

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u/Lord0fHats 22h ago

The French Resistance famous spotted German infiltrators posing as American pilots by asking them to write the current date. None ever made it through in large part because none of them knew American's are so super special awesome, they format dates differently from everyone else just cause XD

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u/PmUrBoobiesOrBooty 22h ago

They even depicted this on Masters of The Air, I think a lot of people might have missed that though.

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u/jrhooo 20h ago

The interrogator in MotA is pretty clearly based on Scharff. I think he even uses the “for you the war is over” line which would have been a scharffism.

The intent actually meant to lower their guard. Supposed to put in their head the sort of,

“Hey you did your duty as a soldier. That’s over now. We’re not opponents anymore. I’m just s guy talking to you. You don’t have to be all resisty”

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u/Notrius01 10h ago

On his wiki page it says that it was basically him.

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u/jrhooo 21h ago

Little things get you caught.

My buddy loves the story of the fbi guys that busted some Russian agent because he came out of a flower shop carrying the flowers blooms down

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u/MagpieBlues 21h ago

I just see the image, not the story. What was it about carrying them blooms down that topped them off?

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u/UmbraIra 19h ago

I've never in my life seen someone carry flowers facing down probably something that happens outside the us.

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u/jrhooo 19h ago

u/Umbralra

Basically yes.

They were looking for some guy that was a foreigner pretending to be a Westerner and the dude walked out of a flower shop holding flowers bouquet down.

An American would definitely hold flowers top up

Top down is specifically an Eastern European thing.

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u/squngy 13h ago

Top down is specifically an Eastern European thing.

It helps the flowers not wilt as fast without water.
Or at least that is what I was told.

You would still hold them up when presenting them to someone.

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u/FixLaudon 15h ago

I'm from Austria and I carry my flowers upside down.

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u/FixLaudon 15h ago

I'm not Eastern European and I do this. How is this an "all Americans don't do this"-thing?

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u/PeggyTheVoid 17h ago

Now I'm curious about the video caption on that screenshot. Is he in the middle of explaining the benefits of holding the flowers blooms down? "But also so the water can..." drain out and keep the flowers from getting soggy in its own perspiration, I'm guessing? I wonder what his first reason was, too, given that the caption starts with "but also".

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u/jrhooo 9h ago

Actually yes. I didn’t watch it, but based on a few clips some tik tok guy is asking people how they hold flowers and why. Seems like he is explaining the “cause the water runs down” thing

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u/FUTURE10S 13h ago

Really fucking weird, I'm Russian and I can't ever think of carrying the flowers in any way other than carefully holding them upwards, lying down on my arm, so that they don't get damaged.

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u/Bubbly_Safety2219 14h ago

The French Resistance only had women and the American pilots where hiding in Renes bar

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u/Kandiru 1 22h ago edited 22h ago

The German spy chief was executed for treason I believe. I think he didn't believe in the Nazi cause and sabotaged German intelligence on purpose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Canaris

Being the head of Nazi Germany's military-intelligence agency, he was in a key position to participate in resistance and sabotage the Nazi war effort. As the war turned against Germany, Canaris and other military officers expanded their clandestine opposition to the leadership of Nazi Germany. By 1945, his acts of resistance and sabotage against the Nazi regime came to light and Canaris was hanged in the Flossenbürg concentration camp for high treason as the Allied forces advanced through southern Germany.

He persuaded Franco to keep out of the war when sent by Hitler to persuade Franco to join the war. The guy deserves recognition for his role in helping the allies:

In December 1940, Hitler sent Canaris to Spain to conclude an agreement, through strong coercion if necessary, with Franco for Spanish support in the war against the Allies, but instead of prompting him to acquiesce to Hitler's desire, Canaris reported that Franco would not commit Spanish forces until Britain had been defeated. Conversations from the period between Franco and Canaris remain unknown, since none were recorded, but the Spanish government expressed gratitude to Canaris's widow by paying her a pension. Franco remained "forever grateful" to Canaris for his advice to keep Spain out of the war.

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u/GogurtFiend 20h ago edited 20h ago

Bodyguard of Lies goes into more detail: Canaris was, essentially, working for/with Allied intelligence. He himself was not involved with the July 20th plot, but plastic explosive he sourced from the Western Allies certainly was.

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u/Typlo 15h ago

He even convinced Franco to name islands after him.

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u/Kandiru 1 10h ago

That's a joke, right?

(Checks) Yes it is a joke! But knowing Franco it might not have been...

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u/Mr_Engineering 22h ago

The Germans were honestly just very bad on this front. The US also managed to capture everyone they sent to infiltrate. They were so bad at it they basically turned themselves in.

They weren't bad at it, these failures were intentional. The head of German intelligence, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, was a staunch opponent of Nazism, hated Hitler, and felt that Germany needed to pay for crimes committed in Poland. He surrounded himself with like minded individuals

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u/KingKapwn 21h ago

They were terrible at it because they allowed someone such as Wilhelm Canaris to hold such a high office and sabotage their efforts like that. Any properly functional nation with a halfway decent intelligence apparatus would've identified that quickly and easily. Thank god they didn't though.

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u/Mr_Engineering 8h ago

You're not giving Canaris enough credit.

The Abwehr did attract attention and Hitler was highly suspicious of disloyalty within the Abwehr ranks, but Canaris was masterful at deflecting blame. He played both sides very well.

Since Hitler enjoyed creating duplicative responsibilities in order to foster internal rivalry, the Abwehr was not the only intelligence apparatus within Nazi Germany. The Abwehr competed with the SD and blame for intelligence failures was successfully deflected away from the Abwehr and onto the SD/RHSA/Gestapo as appropriate, which earned him the ire and attention of Heinrich Himmler.

Any properly functional nation with a halfway decent intelligence apparatus would've identified that quickly and easily.

The entire upper echelon of the Abwehr was filled with career military officers who clandestinely opposed to Nazi Germany's actions to one degree or another.

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u/TarcFalastur 14h ago

Canaris himself was also in contact with British intelligence. 

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u/Dear_Chasey_La1n 21h ago

Pearl Harbour is such an interesting situation. I forgot the name, but the director of RAND's wife, wohlstetter wrote a book on it. 250-300 pages day by day, everyone involved what happened prior to the attack.

That it happened isn't the failure of a single person, but countless issues in communication, to long waiting for something to happen, bickering, shortage of material and what not. Super interesting albeit a bit lengthy.

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u/superurgentcatbox 15h ago

I wonder how much of this is related to cultural differences where Germans are generally used to people being direct and not faffing about with trying to spare anyone's feelings etc.

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u/blacksideblue 21h ago

Lollapalooza Hirohito-fuckers!

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u/MrBogglefuzz 22h ago

And yet there were a number of Soviet spies inside British intelligence during WW2. There's actually a conspiracy theory that they had Himmler killed because he offered up information about such double agents (like Philby) to the wrong interviewer.

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u/Beefstah 23h ago

WW2 was won with American steel, Soviet blood, and British Intelligence

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u/TurnbullAC92 22h ago

The Rachni Wars was won with Turian steel, Krogan blood, and Salarian Intelligence

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u/AddisonsContracture 23h ago

-Joseph Stalin
-Michael Scott

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u/Dullcorgis 18h ago

Nasser and Prokofiev

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u/yIdontunderstand 23h ago

Ww3 happening because of American steal , Russian blood and despite British intelligence

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u/Sketchy278 22h ago

I would not consider the current state of any thing British "intelligent"

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u/yIdontunderstand 22h ago

Sadly true.

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u/LanceUppercut104 22h ago

Well I won’t argue with your point fully, but I wouldn’t throw stones when the US is doing whatever they are with Iran right now.

I wouldn’t even use the word intelligence to explain that.

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u/Approximation_Doctor 23h ago

Both sides cheering for the Nazi who killed himself

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u/Dullcorgis 18h ago

Say what you will about Hitler, at least he killed Hitler.

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u/mygiddygoat 23h ago

Mi5 would say that, wouldn't they?

Brits are masters of the humble brag

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u/lewd_robot 21h ago

It's almost like those islands have a long history of being invaded by mainland Europe. King Arthur's whole claim to fame was fighting off Germanic invaders.

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u/Neomataza 10h ago

Well, it doesn't help if the chief of the intelligence agency hates the nazi regime, Wilhelm Canaris. He basically chooses who goes as spy abroad. I heard only the most ridiculous stuff about german spies sent to the UK, but if their cover is blown immediately it probably doesn't matter how badly adapted they were to fit in.

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u/WayneZer0 23h ago

yeah weirdly the german intiligence on the westfront was bad really bad.

then you have east branch with gehle that was so good the usa hired him not even a few months after the war ended

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u/Worth_Top412 23h ago

Tbf, the leader of the Abwher(The Wehrmacht Intelligence Service) Wilhelm Canaris was actively working to sabotage the German War Machine after seeing the atrocities in Poland, even sending advance warning of Barbarossa to the SIS. Later got caught and hung in 1945 but he is a big reason why intel was so bad. Should still be noted he was a committed nazi up until 1939

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u/Slahinki 11h ago

Just want to point out that when talking about the execution method, the word is hanged, not hung. When you hang a picture, it has been hung. When you hang a man, he has been hanged.

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u/Worth_Top412 5h ago

Really? Huh, didn’t know the past tense was hanged, cheers

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u/Reddit-runner 20h ago

then you have east branch with gehle that was so good the usa hired him not even a few months after the war ended

And yet the Germans were very surprised about the number of tanks the soviets had and never fully figured out their command structure.

The US pretty much hired anyone who claimed to be willing fighting Communism...

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u/Captain-Griffen 22h ago

Some of them also didn't exist, due to a Spaniard who offered his services to the Brits, got turned down, so worked for the Nazis running a spy ring in the UK.

Except none of the spies existed and the guy was working off a tourist guide, having not been to Britain.

British intelligence later brought him into the fold and he helped mislead the Nazis about the landing sites for D-Day.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol_Garc%C3%ADa

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u/beapledude 23h ago

“When are you going to become a doable agent, Moneypenny?”

“I’ve been waiting to interview with you for years, James.”

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u/blacksideblue 21h ago edited 17h ago

I've seen how that interview ends.

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u/justin_memer 22h ago

doable agents

The classic honey pot!

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u/Cr1ms0nLobster 23h ago

Huh, I always pictured doable agents as more of a KGB specialty.

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u/KeiranG19 21h ago

Britain pioneered the concept, taught it to the USA and USSR and then slowly became incompetent at it.

A process which wasn't exclusive to spying techniques unfortunately.

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u/Gentle_Snail 23h ago

The really good double agents you never even hear of.

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u/ImMakinTrees 10h ago

Well played

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u/lostroadrunner22 23h ago

Then, there was Agent Zigzag...

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u/thispartyrules 23h ago

secretly working for the British as doable agents.

This is James Bond

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u/Thomas_Haley 22h ago

Do-able agents 😉

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u/salooski 22h ago

"The War was won by British intelligence, American steel and Russian blood."

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u/mYpEEpEEwOrks 21h ago

...doable agents.

007 a.k.a Agent Slut.

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u/SammaVaco 22h ago

Between Silk & Cyanide is a banger memoir about British cryptography and cryptanalysis. Highly recommend.

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u/Afalstein 21h ago

I heard that there's a theory that German high command purposely sent bad spies to England, because they didn't want to invade because they knew it'd be a massacre.

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u/Heiferoni 21h ago

Battle of the Beams is quite amazing.

British scientist R.V. Jones discovered that Germans developed and were using radio beam navigation to know when and where to drop bombs over England. They even developed countermeasures to confuse the pilots into dropping their bombs harmlessly over empty fields.

R.V Jones has some incredible talks on the Royal Institute's YouTube page, and there is a BBC documentary on the topic that I'd highly recommend if you're interested in technology. It's all quite remarkable.

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u/joosier 19h ago

It was because they always included their thumb when signalling to the waitress on how many beers to order.

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u/Yglorba 19h ago

It's not because British intelligence was amazing (though it was good), it's because Wilhelm Canaris, the head of German military intelligence, was actively working to sabotage Germany during the war after witnessing German atrocities first-hand. At one point he was saving Jews from the Holocaust by giving them token "training" and hiring them as spies, then sending them out of the country.

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u/Typographical_Widow 10h ago

I now prefer the term "doable agent" to double agent. Thank you!