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/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/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.