Juan Pujol García
The Infamous Double-Crosser of World War II
by
Aerdir
When Juan Pujol García was born in Barcelona, Spain, the country was just recovering from weeks of rioting and worker strikes. Houses, churches, convents, businesses were burned, and political influencers urged protests in the streets, which turned into riots. García wrote that in particular, “Barcelona was the scene of frequent street battles, strikes, attempts on people’s lives, and revolutionary coups.”[1]
Juan adored his father, and wrote that his father was a man of virtue and honesty who never hesitated to help people in need. He was apolitical, but was very deep into liberalism and believed in economic freedom and freedom from oppression. As a child, Juan was an avid reader and an eager listener of the stories that his father would tell whenever they went out together. This probably fueled his creativity and helped him later in life, where he would need ingenuity in order to craft believable fake informants to fuel his false information.
In 1936, early one morning, Juan learned from his radio that there had been an attempted military coup. As the day went on, the situation got worse. No one realized it would evolve into the 3-year conflict called the Spanish Civil War. Armed militia roamed the streets, and workers unions had called an indefinite strike. The Nationalist rebels started killing people who were Republicans, who were people who wanted a dictatorship and totalitarian regime. Throughout these events, García still remained true to his apolitical stances, as he was taught by his father to “respect the individuality of human beings.”[2]
One night, Juan failed to hear a knock at the door by the police, and he was arrested. He was soon, however, broken out of prison by a helper disguised as a revolutionary. After that, he had no choice but to go into hiding if he was to survive. After some time, Juan was able to obtain false identity papers that stated he was too old to serve in the army. He went to work on a poultry farm, but this did not provide any profit whatsoever. He became desperate to leave Spain and flee to France, but the strength of the border guards were rising. He then went to join the Republican army, thinking that if he were sent to the front, then he could easily desert.[3] His false papers did not hinder his joining the army at all.
While in the army, Juan was assigned to the Signal Corps, and was later sent to the front. However, the food was scarce, and the Rebels kept on trying to convince the Republican soldiers that they had multi-course meals, while the Republicans were only given lentils to eat. Juan was desperate for food, and he crossed from Republican to Nationalist lines. He was held in a Nationalist university, and was then sent to join Nationalist troops, where he remained until the end of the civil war.[4]
When the Spanish Civil War had ended, the feelings of nationalism, revenge, and hatred still lingered. These attitudes were very similar to Nazi Germany's way of thinking, which Juan abhorred. As these feelings continued, Juan felt a sense of duty to uphold justice and fight oppression, so he went to apply for a position to work for the British, but they turned him down. His replies in the exit visa interview were very vague, and the British could not seem to have any use for him.
After his rejection, Juan presented himself to the German Abwehr so that he would have a way into Britain. They accepted him as a spy, and Juan went back to the British embassy in Spain to show them his training and the German information he had. However, he felt that there was nobody that he “could reach who was of any importance whom I felt I could trust at the British embassy.”[5] He was sent to Portugal by the Abwehr to try and get a visa into Britain there. During this time, he was deliberately giving the Germans false information in order to confuse and sabotage their war efforts.
During this time, the British were working on the MI5 spy system, which was meant to catch and apprehend German spies in Britain. The MI5 actually succeeded in catching all of the Abwehr sources in Britain, and they now had German spies at their disposal to deceive the Germans and gain information about the German military. Since García was now technically a German spy and willing to work for the British, they decided to hire him. He was also unique in the sense that “he had specifically set out to become a double agent.”[6] By this time, the MI5 was in full swing, with teams of cryptanalysts deciphering German codes and predicting future ciphers, and military analysts piecing together the hierarchy system of the German army.
When García was hired by the MI5, he already had a ready-made espionage network in his mind; it was entirely fictional, and he had complete control over his "agents". He was transferred to work with a Spanish-speaking agent named Tomás Harris. Harris was very imaginative, and worked as an artist and sculptor before being hired by the MI5.[7]
Tomás Harris and García worked side-by-side as a well-oiled machine. The details of each "agent" were thought up by García , and recorded in a logbook by Harris. During this time, he was given the name "Garbo", due to the fact that it was the name of a female actress. This would increase the likelihood that the Germans would think he is a woman, and thus be thrown off his trail should his cover be blown.
Pujol's fake spy network was known to the MI5 and the Abwehr as two very different things. The Abwehr was unaware that García 's spy network was fake, and they referred to the agents by personalized code names[8] instead of the numbers that the MI5 used. This shows the amount of detail that García put into creating his fake spy ring.
Garbo had a great amount of influence with the Germans. At one point, he convinced them to cease firing in certain civilian areas. For example, a British Overseas Airways Corporation flight was shot down on its way from Lisbon to England by inexperienced German pilots. Garbo complained to the Germans that the shooting of the civilian aircraft “jeopardised the lives of members in his network”[9] with Portuguese "agents". The Germans investigated the incident, and stopped all attacks on civilian aircraft between Portugal and England.
Although García was lucky that the Germans believed his stories about his connections in Portugal, Harris was worried that his luck would run out. He obtained permission for Garbo to recruit a fake agent called J(3), who would hold a position in the British Ministry of Information. J(3) was Arabel’s “first source of of any significance, and was entirely the first product of the Harris/Pujol collaboration.”[10] Arabel also fed the Germans false information that he had made a connection with a Spanish republican who had obtained a radio, and that he would now be able to transmit and receive messages through the radio. All of these actions further cemented García as a reliable source of information in the eyes of the Abwehr.
In the year 1943, the main focus of the Allied forces was to go on the defensive in order to plan for landings in France that would occur in 1944. Garbo and Harris were tasked with making the Germans believe that the Allies were planning three amphibious landings in the summer. One, called Starkey, was going to be in the Pas-de-Calais region. Another called Wadham was going to be an American attack on Brittany, and the third was Tindall, an invasion of Norway. All three of these landings were known collectively as Cockade, and were designed to “bottle up German troops in Norway and keep the enemy guessing about the exact target of the landings in France.”[11]Another goal of Cockade was to draw the Luftwaffe into air battles above the English Channel, where the RAF would lead them to believe that an Allied invasion of Germany was imminent.
As the development of Cockade and other deception plans progressed, it quickly became clear that deception was a critical part of warfare. Leading the enemy to believe false information resulted in confusion for the enemy, as well as blame throughout the ranks. However, Cockade was not as successful as it could have been. An example of this is that only 8 of 14 planned raids being mounted and only one actually making contact with the enemy. The deception team learned a lot of valuable lessons from this failure. It is critical to get all of the military services aware and involved with the planning at the earliest stage possible. This way, they will be able to allocate the proper resources, as well as have a hand in detecting any logistical issues that may occur. Tomás Harris also concluded that “there was no point in exaggerating the Allies’ strength unless there was some genuine military build-up.”[12]
Many say that the biggest operation that the MI5 team planned was Operation Fortitude. Fortitude was meant to address the problem of the German forces at Normandy. The plan was to lead the Germans to believe that the real invasion was happening at the Pas-de-Calais, instead of Normandy. This way, they would not send as many forces as they would have if they had known that the landing at Normandy was going to be the main goal for the Allies. Since Garbo “enjoyed the highest standing in Berlin”[13], much of the responsibility of making sure the Germans were adequately fooled fell on him.
Operation Fortitude was divided into multiple parts. Fortitude North concentrated on the build-up of troops. Fortitude South “promoted the ‘shortest-route assault’ assault.”[14] However, the Allies were delayed in launching an invasion across the English Channel to Normandy. This was a handy period of time for Garbo, as it allowed him to come up with more deceptions so that the Germans could be drawn farther away from the beaches of Normandy.
In order to set up a reasonable claim that would lead the Germans to believe that the Pas-de-Calais was the real target, García and Harris set up numerous fake informants, like they did in Cockade. Garbo made sure to emphasize the amount of forces in the eastern and southeastern theaters heavily. He also made sure that the Abwehr receiving stations were alert well after the time when they normally closed. “MI5’s motive for obtaining longer hours lay in a controversial plan to warn the Abwehr that the Normandy invasion had begun shortly before the landing craft really did hit the beaches.”[15] This way, the Germans would be more inclined to believe that the landing at Normandy was fake and that the real attack would occur at the Pas-de-Calais.
Garbo also had to find ways to distract the Germans from paying any serious attention to the various Allied air activity and airfield construction. To accomplish this, he told the Germans that the airplanes were converging to carry out a coordinated attack on northwest France, where Pas-de-Calais was located. This way, the Germans would believe that the planes were not for an attack on Normandy. This was Garbo's main job, as it was critical to the operation for the bulk of the German forces in the area not to engage. “Every day that the Germans could be persuaded to not send additional reinforcements to the Normandy front gave the Allied troops a greater chance of victory.”[16]
Operation Fortitude was a major success, and it was critical in helping the Allies carry out the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. However, it exposed García as a double agent, and he could not carry out any more double-crossing duties for the MI5. García moved to Caracas, Venezuela at the end of the war, “where employment was found for him as a language teacher for an international oil company.”[17] On October 10, 1988, 44 years after Operation Fortitude, Juan Pujol García died in Caracas.
Sources
Footnotes
[1] Juan Pujol García, Nigel West, Operation Garbo: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Spy of World War II, (Great Britain, Biteback Publishing Ltd, 2011), 7.
[2] Ibid., 1.
[3] Ibid., 30.
[4] Ibid., 35.
[5] Ibid., 60.
[6] Ibid., 66.
[7] Ibid., 89.
[8] Ibid., 107.
[9] Ibid., 109-110.
[10] Ibid., 113
[11] Ibid., 117.
[12] Ibid., 121.
[13] Ibid., 132.
[14] Ibid., 133.
[15] Ibid., 148-149.
[16] Ibid., 168-169.
[17] Ibid., 218.
Juan adored his father, and wrote that his father was a man of virtue and honesty who never hesitated to help people in need. He was apolitical, but was very deep into liberalism and believed in economic freedom and freedom from oppression. As a child, Juan was an avid reader and an eager listener of the stories that his father would tell whenever they went out together. This probably fueled his creativity and helped him later in life, where he would need ingenuity in order to craft believable fake informants to fuel his false information.
In 1936, early one morning, Juan learned from his radio that there had been an attempted military coup. As the day went on, the situation got worse. No one realized it would evolve into the 3-year conflict called the Spanish Civil War. Armed militia roamed the streets, and workers unions had called an indefinite strike. The Nationalist rebels started killing people who were Republicans, who were people who wanted a dictatorship and totalitarian regime. Throughout these events, García still remained true to his apolitical stances, as he was taught by his father to “respect the individuality of human beings.”[2]
One night, Juan failed to hear a knock at the door by the police, and he was arrested. He was soon, however, broken out of prison by a helper disguised as a revolutionary. After that, he had no choice but to go into hiding if he was to survive. After some time, Juan was able to obtain false identity papers that stated he was too old to serve in the army. He went to work on a poultry farm, but this did not provide any profit whatsoever. He became desperate to leave Spain and flee to France, but the strength of the border guards were rising. He then went to join the Republican army, thinking that if he were sent to the front, then he could easily desert.[3] His false papers did not hinder his joining the army at all.
While in the army, Juan was assigned to the Signal Corps, and was later sent to the front. However, the food was scarce, and the Rebels kept on trying to convince the Republican soldiers that they had multi-course meals, while the Republicans were only given lentils to eat. Juan was desperate for food, and he crossed from Republican to Nationalist lines. He was held in a Nationalist university, and was then sent to join Nationalist troops, where he remained until the end of the civil war.[4]
When the Spanish Civil War had ended, the feelings of nationalism, revenge, and hatred still lingered. These attitudes were very similar to Nazi Germany's way of thinking, which Juan abhorred. As these feelings continued, Juan felt a sense of duty to uphold justice and fight oppression, so he went to apply for a position to work for the British, but they turned him down. His replies in the exit visa interview were very vague, and the British could not seem to have any use for him.
After his rejection, Juan presented himself to the German Abwehr so that he would have a way into Britain. They accepted him as a spy, and Juan went back to the British embassy in Spain to show them his training and the German information he had. However, he felt that there was nobody that he “could reach who was of any importance whom I felt I could trust at the British embassy.”[5] He was sent to Portugal by the Abwehr to try and get a visa into Britain there. During this time, he was deliberately giving the Germans false information in order to confuse and sabotage their war efforts.
During this time, the British were working on the MI5 spy system, which was meant to catch and apprehend German spies in Britain. The MI5 actually succeeded in catching all of the Abwehr sources in Britain, and they now had German spies at their disposal to deceive the Germans and gain information about the German military. Since García was now technically a German spy and willing to work for the British, they decided to hire him. He was also unique in the sense that “he had specifically set out to become a double agent.”[6] By this time, the MI5 was in full swing, with teams of cryptanalysts deciphering German codes and predicting future ciphers, and military analysts piecing together the hierarchy system of the German army.
When García was hired by the MI5, he already had a ready-made espionage network in his mind; it was entirely fictional, and he had complete control over his "agents". He was transferred to work with a Spanish-speaking agent named Tomás Harris. Harris was very imaginative, and worked as an artist and sculptor before being hired by the MI5.[7]
Tomás Harris and García worked side-by-side as a well-oiled machine. The details of each "agent" were thought up by García , and recorded in a logbook by Harris. During this time, he was given the name "Garbo", due to the fact that it was the name of a female actress. This would increase the likelihood that the Germans would think he is a woman, and thus be thrown off his trail should his cover be blown.
Pujol's fake spy network was known to the MI5 and the Abwehr as two very different things. The Abwehr was unaware that García 's spy network was fake, and they referred to the agents by personalized code names[8] instead of the numbers that the MI5 used. This shows the amount of detail that García put into creating his fake spy ring.
Garbo had a great amount of influence with the Germans. At one point, he convinced them to cease firing in certain civilian areas. For example, a British Overseas Airways Corporation flight was shot down on its way from Lisbon to England by inexperienced German pilots. Garbo complained to the Germans that the shooting of the civilian aircraft “jeopardised the lives of members in his network”[9] with Portuguese "agents". The Germans investigated the incident, and stopped all attacks on civilian aircraft between Portugal and England.
Although García was lucky that the Germans believed his stories about his connections in Portugal, Harris was worried that his luck would run out. He obtained permission for Garbo to recruit a fake agent called J(3), who would hold a position in the British Ministry of Information. J(3) was Arabel’s “first source of of any significance, and was entirely the first product of the Harris/Pujol collaboration.”[10] Arabel also fed the Germans false information that he had made a connection with a Spanish republican who had obtained a radio, and that he would now be able to transmit and receive messages through the radio. All of these actions further cemented García as a reliable source of information in the eyes of the Abwehr.
In the year 1943, the main focus of the Allied forces was to go on the defensive in order to plan for landings in France that would occur in 1944. Garbo and Harris were tasked with making the Germans believe that the Allies were planning three amphibious landings in the summer. One, called Starkey, was going to be in the Pas-de-Calais region. Another called Wadham was going to be an American attack on Brittany, and the third was Tindall, an invasion of Norway. All three of these landings were known collectively as Cockade, and were designed to “bottle up German troops in Norway and keep the enemy guessing about the exact target of the landings in France.”[11]Another goal of Cockade was to draw the Luftwaffe into air battles above the English Channel, where the RAF would lead them to believe that an Allied invasion of Germany was imminent.
As the development of Cockade and other deception plans progressed, it quickly became clear that deception was a critical part of warfare. Leading the enemy to believe false information resulted in confusion for the enemy, as well as blame throughout the ranks. However, Cockade was not as successful as it could have been. An example of this is that only 8 of 14 planned raids being mounted and only one actually making contact with the enemy. The deception team learned a lot of valuable lessons from this failure. It is critical to get all of the military services aware and involved with the planning at the earliest stage possible. This way, they will be able to allocate the proper resources, as well as have a hand in detecting any logistical issues that may occur. Tomás Harris also concluded that “there was no point in exaggerating the Allies’ strength unless there was some genuine military build-up.”[12]
Many say that the biggest operation that the MI5 team planned was Operation Fortitude. Fortitude was meant to address the problem of the German forces at Normandy. The plan was to lead the Germans to believe that the real invasion was happening at the Pas-de-Calais, instead of Normandy. This way, they would not send as many forces as they would have if they had known that the landing at Normandy was going to be the main goal for the Allies. Since Garbo “enjoyed the highest standing in Berlin”[13], much of the responsibility of making sure the Germans were adequately fooled fell on him.
Operation Fortitude was divided into multiple parts. Fortitude North concentrated on the build-up of troops. Fortitude South “promoted the ‘shortest-route assault’ assault.”[14] However, the Allies were delayed in launching an invasion across the English Channel to Normandy. This was a handy period of time for Garbo, as it allowed him to come up with more deceptions so that the Germans could be drawn farther away from the beaches of Normandy.
In order to set up a reasonable claim that would lead the Germans to believe that the Pas-de-Calais was the real target, García and Harris set up numerous fake informants, like they did in Cockade. Garbo made sure to emphasize the amount of forces in the eastern and southeastern theaters heavily. He also made sure that the Abwehr receiving stations were alert well after the time when they normally closed. “MI5’s motive for obtaining longer hours lay in a controversial plan to warn the Abwehr that the Normandy invasion had begun shortly before the landing craft really did hit the beaches.”[15] This way, the Germans would be more inclined to believe that the landing at Normandy was fake and that the real attack would occur at the Pas-de-Calais.
Garbo also had to find ways to distract the Germans from paying any serious attention to the various Allied air activity and airfield construction. To accomplish this, he told the Germans that the airplanes were converging to carry out a coordinated attack on northwest France, where Pas-de-Calais was located. This way, the Germans would believe that the planes were not for an attack on Normandy. This was Garbo's main job, as it was critical to the operation for the bulk of the German forces in the area not to engage. “Every day that the Germans could be persuaded to not send additional reinforcements to the Normandy front gave the Allied troops a greater chance of victory.”[16]
Operation Fortitude was a major success, and it was critical in helping the Allies carry out the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. However, it exposed García as a double agent, and he could not carry out any more double-crossing duties for the MI5. García moved to Caracas, Venezuela at the end of the war, “where employment was found for him as a language teacher for an international oil company.”[17] On October 10, 1988, 44 years after Operation Fortitude, Juan Pujol García died in Caracas.
Sources
- Ben Macintyre. Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies. United States: Crown Publishers, 2012.
- García, Juan Pujol, Nigel West. Operation Garbo: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Spy of World War II. Great Britain: Biteback Publishing, 2011.
- Stephan Talty, “‘Agent Garbo’, The Spy Who Lied About D-Day.” National Public Radio. Author Interviews. July 7, 2012, 4:41 pm ET. https://www.npr.org/2012/07/07/156189716/agent-garbo-the-spy-who-lied-about-d-day
- "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. MI5. Who We Are." History. Agent Garbo. https://www.mi5.gov.uk/agent-garbo.
Footnotes
[1] Juan Pujol García, Nigel West, Operation Garbo: The Personal Story of the Most Successful Spy of World War II, (Great Britain, Biteback Publishing Ltd, 2011), 7.
[2] Ibid., 1.
[3] Ibid., 30.
[4] Ibid., 35.
[5] Ibid., 60.
[6] Ibid., 66.
[7] Ibid., 89.
[8] Ibid., 107.
[9] Ibid., 109-110.
[10] Ibid., 113
[11] Ibid., 117.
[12] Ibid., 121.
[13] Ibid., 132.
[14] Ibid., 133.
[15] Ibid., 148-149.
[16] Ibid., 168-169.
[17] Ibid., 218.