Hey Connor - you are asking really intelligent questions, as usual You need to understand, that in the years leading up to 1940, Britain already had a large number of refugees who had fled Europe, many were jewish, but there were also Poles, Czechs, French fighters, as well as scientists, intellectuals and so on who had fled the Nazis - some among those would have been German spies
Alan Turring was but one many. The computers were designed abd built by knowledgable PO engineers. Other mathematicians helped to devise methods to systematically break the enigma and other codes.
@@alanmon2690 VERY TRUE< FAR TOO MANY PEOPLE HAVE ASSUMED THAT TURING WORKED ALONE AND EARNED ALL THE CREDIT, THANKS TO THAT STUPID HOLLYWOOD FILM, ''THE IMMITATION GAME'' IT WAS A GAME ALRIGHT THAT DID A GREAT DISSERVICE TO THE 10,000 PEOPLE, WHO WORKED ON THE PROJECT, TO BREAK THOUSANDS OF NAZI ENCRYPTED CODES. WE COULD READ THE NAZI MESSAGES FROM HITLER'S GENERALS, BEFORE THEY EVEN REACHED BERLIN.
@@tonibaker3823 You know it is mine too, it was such a good story and I believe a true one, it had everything going for it and it was so well acted too
There are some good entertaining WW2 spy films. One was "Five Fingers " which was a film based on a true story with the excellent James Mason also known for playing Erwin Rommel in a couple of films. Another also based on a true story was "The Man Who Never Was " which also gives a look into how the Germans discarded true information for British trickery .
Agent Zigzag, who’s mentioned in the video, was Eddie Chapman, a prewar crook and safecracker who was serving a sentence in the prison on Jersey when the Germans occupied the Channel Islands. He volunteered to spy for the Germans, received training, and was parachuted into England in December 1942; MI5 knew he was coming through decoded Ultra transmissions, but he got stuck leaving the plane and was dropped quite some distance from the target - a search for him was organised, but was unnecessary as he immediately turned himself in to the police and MI5 decided to use him as a double agent. At the end of January 1943, with MI5 agents he staged a fake sabotage attack on the DeHavilland aircraft factory in Hatfield - faked “damage” was sufficient to fool German photo reconnaissance planes. Afterwards he travelled to Portugal on a merchant ship to return to his German handlers, and eventually ended up teaching in a German spy school in Oslo, Norway! He was paid 110,000 Reichsmarks and his own yacht. After D-Day he was sent back to Britain to report on the accuracy of the V-1 flying bombs, reporting that they were hitting central London when actually they were falling short. He also got back in contact with his old criminal friends, and was involved in doping greyhounds. He was indiscreet about his sources of income, so MI5 fired him in November 1944, giving him a £6000 payment and allowing him to keep £1000 of what the Germans had paid him. MI5 were concerned that after his retirement he would go back to his criminal ways after his money ran out, and that he’d plead for leniency because of his valuable wartime service if he was caught, and on several occasions former intelligence officers had to give him character references!
As for names, MI5 = domestic counterintelligence, so roughly like FBI, MI6 = foreign intelligence, so more like CIA. In the original Secret Service Bureau, created in 1909, counterintelligence was the Army’s business, while foreign intelligence was the Navy’s job (this is why in the original books James Bond is a Commander in the Royal Navy). At various times there have been up to around 20 MI organisations, but the organisations were only officially known as MI5 and MI6 for a few years in the 1920s - officially they are “The Security Service” and the “Secret Intelligence Service” respectively, and their existence was not officially acknowledged until the 1990s.
A common technique MI5/MI6 agents use to remember which is which is to imagine if they are travelling home to the UK, or away from it. When they are going home "Yay we made it home safe! High five!" (MI5). When going abroad "Urggh this long journey into the unknown has knocked me for six." (MI6).
The tall blond nazi was Heydrich, who was assassinated, in 1942 I think. He was one of the worst, and that's saying something, there was no such thing as a nice nazi!
Just as an important addition re the the use of British codes, perhaps the most widely known to the citizens and Resistance groups of the occupied countries, was the letter "V" which stood for Victory; but there were varied ways in the way it could be transmitted_ the palm foward 2-fingered V sign; the "V" painted on a wall or written on a slip of paper. "V" also meant the number 5 in Roman Numerals, which could be transmiited in Morse Code, viz dot, dot, dot, dash, by radio, or tapping on a door or table. Similarly, Five could be transmitted by a piece of music - specifically Beethoven's 5th Symphony which most people knew - the first four introductory notes was identical to Morse in its timing - dot, dot, dot, dash. All very simple, but also quite clever, and could be played by the music, a drum or any other intrument! The Double-Cross Committee had a slightly different Code with the Double "X" as two crosses, but with Roman Numerals again, 2 times X = Twenty - the name of the Committee! Perhaps the second most famous WW2 code was the line "Wound my heart with a monotonous langour" which was the signal to start the D-Day Landings. Many good agents were lost during the war, perhaps the most well-known (later), being Violet Zsabo who was caught, tortured and executed at Ravensbruck by the Nazis. But undoutedly the most famous agent of all was man named Garbo - worth your while reading on his exploits! The British were exceptionally good at subterfuge - The D-Dayrubber tanks as an example (and also used to foil Rommel in N Africa.They also "constructed" false airfields a,d lighted unpopulated areas to confuse German bombers. False radio communications were used much of the time to convey information that might throw the Germans into making worthless moves. Perhaps the most famous misinformation to come out of the war was the story known as "The man who never was!" This was a case where the Brit's searched for a recent cadaver, made it look as though he had drowned, provided him with a false ID with letters and photo of his imaginery wife, dressed him in an officer's uniform and dropped him from a submarine close to the shores of Spain/Portugal. His briefcase gave full details of the Normandy Landings - except that the plans were not of Normandy! The ruse worked!
Yes, the spies often had codes to indicate they caught. But the controllers often ignored this. The Gemany spy controllers often had a personal interest in accepting the information and passing in on to gain prestige. The Abwehr captured an allied spyring in the Netherlands who then sent their warning codes but they were ignored.
Hehehe "It's like a spy movie" Just where does everyone think all those movies come from. Half the time they dimm things down because people will just think pure fiction Oh my god, if you haven't already seen it, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Holy shit, what a movie, came out the start of this year.
The German state ran the war with a very different mindset to the British, the Germans missed the way the British used eccentric people to plan and to break codes. Eccentricity was frowned upon in Germany.
Connar, distinguishing Germans by accent, both in the 1940’s and now (like many European nationals), is quite difficulty. Many wealthy European elites, sent their children, male and female, to British Public Schools (Private Boarding School) from a young age. They grew up as British (in culture, mannerisms, and accent from childhood), and indistinguishable, from any upper class British person. Except for the nationality and passports. So just going off somebody’s spoken accident, is NOT going to tell you who they are. Just think how easy it is, for UK people to do American accents, and assimilate into USA society - in adulthood. If you are German child, going to school in the UK, surrounded all your life in British culture. You may have a German passport, but you are essentially British, and will be perceived as such by British people. The issue then, is to which country, you give your loyalty: Britain or Germany?
@@petersone6172 there are idiots in every age. Plus back then people were not as exposed to accents as they are now. I can tell a Czech from a Lithuanian fairly easily as ive been exposed to both. But i get your point.
My grandparents lived next door to a Dutch family who were always having the police check on them, as they also had family in the Netherlands. I always thought, as a kid, that they worked for Mi5.
Another was caught using the wrong ration book. Ration book numbers started with certain letters all depending on whether the holder was male or female, this particular agent tried using a female ration book so was caught within a few hours of entering Britain. The Germans were poor at keeping up to date with British documentation.
This is a bit about how they knew who was living in Briton in 1939 as Simon mentioned at the beginning. When war broke out on 1st September 1939 the government had a short census on 29th September 1939 called “The 1939 Register” it consisted of where people live their name date birth and occupation. This was used to provide identification cards, Ration books and call up papers that is how they knew who lived in Britain at the time. Some people on the register are still closed because their information is still less than one hundred years old other like when women married and change their name it has been changed on the register. For me this has been a great genealogy resource.
I've read Zigzag, the history of MI5, but if someone could recommend a book that covered WW2 espionage, either Europe and/or N. Africa it would be appreciated. nice work, Conner as always
British Intelligence was quite paranoid about some of it's agents. Agent Zigzag mentioned in this was one of those they were never quite sure of - a playboy from a neutral country who had such access to German senior officials did seem suspicious - but it seems likely that very few were actually turned and those that were got spotted quickly. Though it'd be fascinating to learn how much of this got back to the Soviet Union as there were certainly Soviet agents in British Intelligence at this time.
1. Regarding trying to get German agents with English accents- two points. Firstly, then, as now, people from all over the world sent their sons to boarding schools such as Oxford and Cambridge. Particularly prior to WW1, as the high societies of the two countries were linked and intermarried. So yes, there were Germans who'd mastered the accent. Secondly, we had absorbed a lot of immigrants from all over Europe. Not only Jewish populations but free-thinkers, academics etc. Including native-born Germans and Austrians who were genuine, German-speaking refugees. So while someone with a German accent in Britain would have been treated with appalling suspicion by locals regardless of their allegiance, a spy with an accent could try to pass themselves off as a refugee (or claim to be a neutral Swiss). 2. This video vastly underplays the role of Enigma, and to a lesser extent radar. After Enigma was cracked, and with radar to see the planes coming before they even reached our shores, we were literally there with a welcoming committee for each agent dropped into Britain. Can you imagine, in a world that radar was top secret and Enigma supposedly unbreakable, "sneaking" into a country and them being there to meet you, knowing everything about you and your mission? It was like witchcraft. I suspect the threat of "we know everything you're up to, even when you're abroad, but we won't tell you how we know that" was enough to make agents think twice about double crossing the English. Also, I don't doubt some of them were just happy to be out of the war. Sending false messages from a radio set in a cosy London apartment had to be better than facing a firing squad right? 3. Some Germans realised that they needed to be sceptical about information coming from their own agents, but it was surprisingly uncommon. There was a feeling at the time that the Germans thought in "straight lines" (still the butt of many jokes lol) while the British had mastered "corkscrew thinking". We could see around corners with logic and underhand double crossing, whereas radicalisation/ extremism/ compartmentalising/ brainwashing (whatever you want to call it) had kind of robbed the German people of that mindset. The British were worn down, starved, blown to smithereens, hosting a lot of foreign soldiers and refugees on top of our own population... and basically bankrupt. Our brains were all we had to fight the war with, and we played it like a grand master in chess.
One of my favourite "chess moves" during the war was when Germany started using V2s. We hadn't mastered unpiloted flight and were struggling to intercept them in the early days. So how do you solve a problem like that without spending a fortune on new science or weaponry? The British put out newspaper reports out stating that the new German rockets were overshooting London and landing 30 miles west. The Germans (as usual, thinking in straight lines and not wondering why were were suddenly publishing reports about stuff that was usually censored) recalibrated the V2s so they would fly 30 miles less distance. It took them quite a while to work out that their recalibration meant their shiny new expensive rockets were just plopping harmlessly into the English Channel. Zero money spent, zero lives lost. Just by publishing some newspaper reports.
A war film set in the North African desert “Ice Cold In Alex” includes a character who is a German spy, how long will take you to identity that character and why. Remember British and Commonwealth forces were active in theatre and women didn’t serve in combat.
Unlike today when we have boat loads of illegal immigrants, with no documentation coming across the English channel and we have no idea who they are 🙄 Also Connor , you asked some very intelligent questions 👍
Movie of 'operation mincement' - successful British deception operation of the Second World War to disguise the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. Movie 'the ministry of ungentlemanly warfare - operation to disrupt the submarines attacking ships travelling between the usa and the uk.
This chap’s style of presentation is very annoying with his faux upper class voice. Whilst he tries to sound learned, he is just reading someone else’s words. It would be far more instructive to read some of Ben MacIntyre’s books such as Agent Zig Zag or Double Cross, about the D Day spies.
WELL THST WAS AWFUL LISTENING TO THIS GUY TALKING SO QUICKLY TO ABSORB AL WHAT HE WSS SAYING , TAKING DEEP BREATHS IN BETWEEN SENTENCES 😩FOR THE LIFE OF ME WJY YOU LIKE THIS SORT OF NARRSTION IS A PUZZEL EHEN THERE ARE HEAPS OF EONDERFUL HIDTORIANS THAT COULD FO A FINE JOB , NECT TIME I WONT BOTHER TO LISTEN IF HE APPEARS ON THE HORIZON 🤣ILL DUCK FOR COVER . GREAT TOPIC THOUGH 🤷♀️
