WWII Double Agent, Spy for the British and the Nazis

• published: 07 Apr 2015
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Juan Pujol Garcia was a Spanish double agent during WWII, acting as a spy for both the Axis and the Allies. In 1940, during the early stages of WWII, Pujol decided that he wanted to make a contribution “for the good of humanity.” Pujol offered his services to the British three different times, but was turned down repeatedly. He decided to become a German agent instead before reapproaching the British to offer his services as a double agent. Pujol created a fake identity as a Spanish government official with Nazi sympathies with the ability to travel to London on government business. He created a fake diplomatic passport by fooling a printer he worked for the embassy in Lisbon, Portugal. German Intelligence accepted his offer to work for them as an agent and they trained him in secret writing, providing him a bottle of invisible ink, a codebook, and 600 pounds for expenses. He was to move to London and establish a network of British agents there. Pujol moved to Lisbon instead of London and using a tourist’s guide to England, books from the Lisbon public library, and newsreels he saw at cinemas, he wrote reports back to the Nazis that seemed to be coming from London. He even submitted traveling expenses based on fares listed in a British railway guide. Pujol created a whole network of fictitious agents that he claimed to have recruited across Britain. His reports were so credible that when the British intercepted some of them they launched a counter-intelligence spy hunt for him through MI5. In 1942, after the United States entered the war, Pujol contacted an American naval officer in Lisbon who recognized Pujol’s potential. The Americans contacted their British counterparts in support of Pujol. Pujol was relocated to Britain in April 1942 and was later provided the code name of Garbo. Pujol and a Spanish speaking MI5 agent, Tomas Harris, maintained Pujol’s fictitious spy network that he had created, writing over 300 letters to the Germans. Nazi intelligence made little effort to recruit additional spies in the United Kingdom during the war because of this. The information they delivered included real information of little military value, valuable information intentionally delayed, and bits of complete fiction. Pujol later began communicating with the Germans via radio. His codename within the German intelligence service became Arabel and the sophisticated encryptions they provided him were in turn supplied to British codebreakers. In early 1944, the Germans informed Pujol that they believed a large scale invasion of Europe was approaching and wanted him to discover information about its planning. He became an integral part of Operation Fortitude, a code name for the Allies’ military deception strategy in the build up to the Normandy landings. Pujol sent over 500 radio messages between January 1944 and D-Day in June to mislead the Germans about where the landing would be occurring. Pujol’s transmissions were carefully delayed on D-Day, so that the real information he sent arrived too late. Three days after D-Day, Pujol sent a message to the Nazi high command that reached Adolf Hitler. He provided the Allied order of battle, showing exaggerated numbers of soldiers still in England ready for an additional invasion. The deception was supported by inflatable tanks and bogus radio chatter. The deception paid off and the German high command trusted Pujol’s reports. After the war, it was discovered that no less than 62 of Pujol’s reports were included in German military high command intelligence summaries. The Germans had paid their agent, Arabel, $340,000 U.S. dollars to support his spy network. Adjusted for inflation, this comes out to over $4.5 million in 2015. At the height of his reports, Pujol’s fictitious spy network totaled 27 individuals. In July 1944, the Germans awarded Pujol, as Arabel, the Iron Cross for his services to the Nazi war effort. This award was one of great honor and required Hitler’s personal authorization. He was presented the award via radio and later received the physical medal after the war had ended. As Garbo, Pujol received a Member of the Order of the British Empire from King George VI in November 1944 for his service as a double agent. The Nazis never realized during the war what Pujol was really doing. Pujol, or Garbo, was one of the very few people to have received decorations from both the Axis and Allied powers during WWII. More about Garbo at the MI5 Security Service website: https://www.mi5.gov.uk/home/about-us/who-we-are/mi5-history/world-war-ii/agent-garbo.html