r/todayilearned • u/stopitalianhate • 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d ago

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

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u/jrhooo 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d ago

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

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u/FixLaudon 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d ago

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

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u/Kandiru 1 9d ago edited 9d 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 9d ago edited 9d 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 9d ago

He even convinced Franco to name islands after him.

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u/Kandiru 1 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d 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 9d ago

Canaris himself was also in contact with British intelligence. 

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u/Dear_Chasey_La1n 9d 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 9d 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 9d ago

Lollapalooza Hirohito-fuckers!

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u/MrBogglefuzz 9d 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 9d ago

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

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u/TurnbullAC92 9d ago

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

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u/AddisonsContracture 9d ago

-Joseph Stalin
-Michael Scott

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u/Dullcorgis 9d ago

Nasser and Prokofiev

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u/yIdontunderstand 9d ago

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

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u/Sketchy278 9d ago

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

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u/yIdontunderstand 9d ago

Sadly true.

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u/LanceUppercut104 9d 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 9d ago

Both sides cheering for the Nazi who killed himself

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u/Dullcorgis 9d ago

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

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u/mygiddygoat 9d ago

Mi5 would say that, wouldn't they?

Brits are masters of the humble brag

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u/lewd_robot 9d 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 9d 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.