觀點：愚弄希特勒的人 (1/2)

Recently CNN news on-line reported the following:

Opinion: The man who fooled Hitler (1/2)

CNN - Opinion by Tim Naftali

 9-minute read

Updated 11:30 AM EDT, Sun June 16, 2024

(Editor’s Note: Tim Naftali is a CNN presidential historian and senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. The views expressed here are his own. Read more opinion on CNN. The CNN Original Series “Secrets & Spies: A Nuclear Game” airs on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT.)

As we remember and celebrate the heroism of the Allied troops on D-Day 80 years ago, it is worth mentioning that even more of them would likely have died had it not been for a group of spies working on behalf of the Allies.

The odds of D-Day succeeding were never overwhelming. Approximately 50,000 Nazi soldiers defended the five beaches targeted by Allied troops on D-Day. Although eventually 160,000 Allied troops would enter France through those five beachheads that day, the very first to reach the shore were vastly outnumbered and outgunned. But getting past those first Nazi defenders, protected by bunkers and other fortifications of the so-called Atlantic Wall, was only the first challenge.

The second was what would happen once the Germans figured out that the Battle for France had begun. Hitler’s 15th Army was stationed in the Pas des Calais — where the English Channel is at its most narrow — while tank divisions were kept in reserve in northern France and Belgium, all ready to swoop in and destroy any Allied forces that breached the Atlantic Wall. To increase their chance of success, Allied leaders turned to inhabitants of the secret world.

These were unusual spies. First of all, their main job was to get false information to Adolf Hitler — rather than to steal Nazi secrets. And, secondly, some of these spies didn’t actually exist — they were completely made-up creations of British intelligence. A half-century before the internet was widely available, they were the forerunners of fake Facebook and Instagram accounts.

These spies were known to British and US intelligence as the Double-Cross network. They were agents employed by the Nazis, who either turned themselves in to the British or were captured by them in the first years of World War II.

Counterespionage is the most arcane of the dark arts. In its simplest form, it is the way a government protects its secrets by studying the activities of foreign governments who want them. But World War II would see a dramatic expansion of the offensive use of counterspies — not simply to prevent the enemy from knowing things but to actively deceive the enemy by planting disinformation. And although strategic deception, as it was called, would be used a number of times in World War II, the most dramatic and consequential example was part of the planning for D-Day.

The British used members of the Double-Cross network who were doubled back against Berlin to deceive Hitler’s military intelligence service, using radio transmissions from the UK or letters sent from neutral capitals about when and where the Allies planned to launch their anticipated invasion of occupied France.

Central to this deception operation was Juan Pujol García, a Spanish national who was codenamed Garbo, after the great actress Greta Garbo. As it became clear that the Germans not only believed Garbo, but considered him unusually effective, the British began to create fictional sub-agents for him. With the help of his British handler, Garbo would feed disinformation about these completely made-up agents who were supposedly placed in the British government and US bases in the United Kingdom. The British coordinated with the US military and its Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and they bolstered the disinformation Garbo was feeding to Berlin. This included transmitting radio signals from non-existent US military units in Britain and creating “ghost armies” — complete with inflatable tanks, fake radio traffic and sound effects — to deceive German air reconnaissance and divert their attention away from the activities of real units.

Starting in January 1944, Garbo and his “agents” began to build a fake picture in German minds of a D-Day that would occur in July 1944 in the Pas de Calais. According to the fake intelligence created and spread by the Double-Cross network, the big invasion would be preceded by one or more feints — smaller invasions designed to distract the Germans. To make this two-punch scenario plausible, Allied deception officers worked to make the Germans think that there was a massive buildup of Allied troops in the UK preparing to pounce on the Third Reich, including a completely fake “ghost army” commanded by the real General George Patton from across the Pas de Calais.

A key objective of this deception was to convince Hitler to keep the 15th Army and tank divisions in reserve, away from the Normandy beaches for as long as possible, so as to give Allied soldiers a fighting chance to secure a beachhead. Led by Garbo, the Double-Cross network sang in chorus.

As the real D-Day approached, the Allies could tell that the deception was working. Hitler was uncharacteristically talkative with the Japanese ambassador to Berlin, whose encrypted dispatches to Tokyo were routinely broken and translated by US intelligence. Hitler told the Japanese that the allies intended two attacks across the English Channel in the summer of 1944 and he wasn’t about the be fooled by the first one.

Remarkably, as hoped, the deception held. The Nazis did not divert all of their resources to Normandy, since their military intelligence continued to believe that the big one was still imminent. As late as July 8, 1944, a month after D-Day, Hitler still believed that Normandy was a feint. As such, he refused requests from his generals to throw everything at it. “The enemy has succeeded in landing in Normandy,” Hitler wrote to his commanders. “In spite of the attendant risks, the enemy will probably attempt a second landing in the 15th Army’s sector…”

(to be continued)

Translation

當我們懷緬和慶祝80年前諾曼第登陸日盟軍的英勇行為時，值得一提的是，如果沒有一群代表盟軍的間諜，可能會有更多的人喪生。

諾曼地登陸成功的可能性從來都不是壓倒性的。大約 5 萬名納粹士兵保衛了諾曼第登陸日盟軍瞄準的五個海灘。儘管那天最終有 16 萬名盟軍通過這五個灘頭陣地進入法國，但最先到達海岸的部隊在數量和火力上都遠遠落後敵方。但去越過第一批受到掩護體和所謂大西洋牆其他防禦工事保護的納粹防禦者, 只是盟軍第一個挑戰。

第二個問題是，一旦德國人發現法國之戰已經開始，會發生什麼事。希特勒的第 15 集團軍駐紮在加來海峽 - 英倫海峽最狹窄的地方 - 而坦克師則保留在法國北部和比利時作預備隊，隨時準備突襲並摧毀任何突破大西洋壁壘的盟軍部隊。為了增加成功的機會，盟軍領導人轉向活在機密世界的人。

這些都是不尋常的間諜。首先，他們的主要工作是向希特勒提供虛假信息，而不是竊取納粹機密。其次，其中一些間諜其實並不存在 - 他們完全是英國情報部門捏造出來的。在未有網路廣泛普及的半個世紀前，它們是虛假 Facebook 和 Instagram 帳戶的先驅。

這些間諜被英國和美國情報部門稱為「欺騙網路」。他們曾是納粹僱用的特工，他們要么已向英國自首，要么在二戰初期已被英國俘虜。

反間諜活動是黑暗藝術中最神祕的一環。最簡單的形式是，政府透過研究那些希望獲得機密的外國政府的活動, 來保護自身機密。但在第二次世界大戰中，反間諜的進攻性使用急劇擴大 - 不僅僅是為了阻止敵人了解情況，而是透過散佈假訊息來積極欺騙敵人。儘管所謂的戰略性欺騙在第二次世界大戰中被多次使用，但最戲劇性和最重要的例子是諾曼第登陸計畫的一部分。

英國利用 欺騙網路 的成員來欺騙希特勒的軍事情報部門，成員利用來自英國的無線電傳輸或從中立首都發送的信件來透露出盟軍計劃何時何地對被佔領的法國發動預期的入侵。

這次欺騙行動的核心人物是西班牙人 Juan Pujol García，他的代號是“嘉寶”（Garbo），以出眾女演員 Greta Garbo 的名字命名。隨著德國人不僅相信嘉寶，而且認為他異常高效，英國人開始為他虛構一些副特工。在英國負責人的幫助下，嘉寶將提供有關一些完全虛構的特工的虛假信息，訛稱這些特工被安置在英國政府和美國駐英國基地。英國與美國軍方及其戰略服務辦公室（OSS）一起協調，支援嘉寶向柏林提供的假資訊。這包括從英國境內不存在的美軍部隊發射無線電信號，並創建「幽靈軍隊」 - 配備充氣坦克、虛假無線電通訊和聲音效果 - 以欺騙德國空中偵察，並將他們的注意力遠離真實部隊的活動。

從 1944 年 1 月開始，嘉寶和他的「特工」開始在德國人的腦海中塑造一幅 1944 年 7 月在加萊海峽發生的諾曼第登陸的虛假畫面。由「欺騙網路」製造和傳播的虛假情報顯示，大規模入侵之前會進行一次或多次佯攻 - 旨在分散德國人注意力的較小規模入侵。為了讓這種前後拳的場景變得可信，盟軍的欺騙官員努力讓德國人相信，在英國有大量盟軍集結，準備突襲第三帝國，其中包括一支完全假的 「幽靈軍隊」” ，由真有其人的巴頓將軍向加萊海峽 (Pas de Calais) 作出指揮。

這次欺騙的一個主要目的是說服希特勒將第15集團軍和坦克師保留為預備隊，盡可能長時間地遠離諾曼第海灘，以便為盟軍士兵提供奪取灘頭陣地的戰鬥機會。在嘉寶的帶領下，「欺騙網路」重複多次虛假情報。

隨著真正的諾曼地登陸日的臨近，盟軍發現欺騙正在發揮作用。希特勒與日本駐柏林大使一反常態地健談，日本駐柏林大使發往東京的加密電報常被美國情報部門破解翻譯。希特勒告訴日本人，盟軍打算在 1944 年夏天渡過英吉利海峽發動兩輪襲擊，他不想被第一輪襲擊所愚弄。

令人驚訝的是，正如所期望的那樣，欺騙成功了。納粹並沒有將所有資源轉移到諾曼底，因為他們的軍事情報部門仍然認為大攻勢仍未來臨。直到 1944 年 7 月 8 日，諾曼第登陸一個月後，希特勒仍然認為諾曼第是佯攻。因此，他拒絕了將軍們把一切力量都調動出去的要求。 希特勒在給他的指揮官的信中寫道: 「敵人已經成功登陸諾曼底」; 「儘管有隨之而來的風險，敵人多半會嘗試在第 15 集團軍的防區進行第二次登陸…”

（待續）