words in scarlet ink

I listened to two books by Ben Macintyre earlier this year. I first listened to Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal and then listened to Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies. It should have been done in reverse order but hindsight is 20/20. For clarity’s sake, I’ll explain them in the order I should have read them.

Double Cross was a detailed look at how a series of spies and double agents were crucial to the success of D-Day, widely considered to be the turning point in the war, and about how the Double Cross program is easily one of the most effective espionage operations in history. Basically, the Abwehr (German intelligence) never figured out that the Allies had cracked the code for their Enigma machine and MI5 had very little trouble picking up the spies that arrived in the UK. The spies were captured, and were usually easily persuaded to spy for the Allies instead.

There is a full but not complete list of double agents on the Double Cross Wikipedia page: either their information is still classified or nobody knows much about them. But the book focuses mainly on these spies in particular:

Johnny Jebsen (Artist)
Roman Czerniawaski (Brutus)
Juan Pujol Garcia (Garbo)
Mathilde Carre (Le Chat)
Nathalie Sergueiew (aka Lily Sergeyev) (Treasure)
Dušan Popov (Tricycle)
Eddie Chapman (Zigzag)

The book details how the spies were recruited, turned, and maintained by their case officers. All of them were eccentric, and in some ways very needy and needed careful handling by their case officers. They were originally used for less important tasks, but as the war went on, British Intelligence came up with the idea of using the spies to mislead the Third Reich high command about an Allied invasion of Europe. Through a carefully orchestrated, escalating series of falsehoods the spies informed their German contacts that an entire army (a large portion of which didn’t actually exist except in the reports sent through the spies) were probably going to land in northern France somewhere, probably mostly at Pas de Calais. The spies reported minutia, but accurate minutia (such as insignia on uniforms) and details that gave their German handlers confidence in their information.

As we all know now, when the D-Day invasion finally came, the bulk of the Allied forces landed at Normandy. Because of the false information the spies were able to pass to German intelligence, German forces were spread too thin to hold off the full scale Allied attack at Normandy, and afterwards, the Allies quickly advanced through France and into Europe.

Of all the spies mentioned in the book, Popov was probably my favorite to hear about. At the start of the war he was a lawyer, but he was a promiscuous playboy from a wealthy family and staunchly anti-Nazi. Germans considered him important because of his family and business connections in France and so recruited him, and he became a double agent not long after that. He’s considered one of the primary inspirations for Ian Fleming’s James Bond character, throwing money around and womanizing during his missions.

The book makes clear that while most of these recruits were very strange, they were also very brave and, in their own ways, rather smart. Most of these people were in great danger of being found out. Jebsen was picked up on what is assumed now to be an unrelated charge (he had some shady financial dealings), tortured, and (presumably) executed by the Nazis, but never cracked about the Double Cross program to save himself. Some of the agents did their jobs so convincingly they were awarded the Iron Cross by Germany.

The book also explains that one of the reasons the Third Reich was so susceptible to this false information was because, in addition to a real lack of organizational structure – or maybe because of it – there was an internal power struggle going on between the German military/intelligence services and the German secret police. Hitler apparently didn’t entirely trust the German military, as he (correctly) believed the commanders weren’t entirely loyal to him. Loyal to his home country of Germany but not Hitler or the Nazi Party, the book particularly details the efforts Admiral Wilhelm Canaris to subvert Hitler’s plans, including (IIRC) approaching the British about peace negotiations. Spoiler alert: Canaris was eventually humiliated and brutally, grotesquely executed.

It also seems that Germany never really took intelligence as seriously as the Allies did, believing their forces and weapons superior. Their arrogance was a major part of their downfall.

Agent Zigzag, as you may have guessed, takes a more in depth look at Agent Eddie Chapman, who was something of a conman and petty criminal with an honorable streak. He was captured by Germans and volunteered to be a spy. He quickly became a double agent so he could see his former girlfriend and their daughter, but he remained good friends with his German handler after the war and didn’t much like betraying them.

He was motivated by both love and money and was quite difficult for his handlers to deal with. One of the reasons he became a double agent for Britain was he didn’t believe the Germans were paying him enough. His case officer, Ronnie Reed, was one of the very few people who knew how to deal with him effectively.

Chapman was part of a scheme devised to make the Germans believe they’d blown up an aircraft factory but the explosion was entirely faked. Chapman also frequently reported back to Germany that their bombs were hitting their central London targets but the bombs were actually missing by miles, causing far less damage than they should have.

I really enjoyed both of these books. Macintyre is an engaging storyteller and I like his subject matter. Don’t you feel like all the heroes of the war should be recognized?

After the war, the British government more or less discarded these people. They deserve a lot more credit than they get. Macintyre does a really good job introducing them and getting the audience to care about them, getting into their natures and characters.

Macintyre has another book called Operation Mincemeat, but I haven’t read it yet. I will add it to my list, as these two books were both so interesting.