They say knowledge is power, and this is especially true in war. Knowing who your enemies
are, where they are, how many of them there are, and what their plans are is crucial, obviously. In
the Second World War, intelligence was everything, and the intelligence-gathering
or espionage conducted in those war-torn years laid the foundation for intelligence organisations
as we know them today. As by the very nature of the job, the names of many of the spies who risked
their lives behind enemy lines remain unknown. Some names, however, were later declassified by
the various intelligence agencies of the world, and the impacts of their clandestine activities
were, at least in part, laid bare. In this video, we're going to turn the spotlight on three
World War II-era spies who influenced the outcome of the bloodiest clash in human history.
When the original leader of the French resistance spy network "Alliance"
or "Noah's Arc" was arrested about a year into the German occupation of France,
command of the network fell into the capable hands of French resistance fighter and secret agent
Marie-Madeleine Fourcade **[Text: Fourcade herself went by the codename "Hedgehog."]**. Alliance was
one of the largest and most successful spy networks of the Second World War,
and under Fourcade, it's primary objective was to gather intelligence on German troop movements,
naval movements, gun placements, and weapon programmes *inside of* France. They would
then relay this information to Britain via covert radio networks and couriers.
Under Fourcade, Alliance grew to include some 3,000 agents, who were hiding in the shadows and,
even better, *plain sight* in every large town in France. Fourcade's contributions to
the Allies were many, but the following two were perhaps her most significant.
Some three months prior to the Allied D-Day landings early in June 1944,
Fourcade's spy network provided Allied command an incredibly comprehensive, 55-feet long,
hand-drawn map of German fortifications on the Normandy shore, which proved vital to
the ultimate success of the Allied landings and victory in the war. Also, an agent under Fourcade
by the name of Jeannie Rousseau — another female French resistance fighter — managed to trick some
German officers into disclosing information about the development of the V-1 flying bomb
and V-2 rocket, with which Hitler intended to raze London to the ground. Using this intel, the
Allies were able to raid German rocket development facilities and disrupt the V-1 and V-2 programs.
As for Fourcade herself, the father of her unborn child was killed,
and she gave birth on the run. She was arrested not once but twice by the Gestapo, and the second
time, she managed to escape by stripping down and squeezing her naked body through
the window bars of her cell. Later, expecting to be captured and tortured to death by the Gestapo,
and as a devout Catholic, she asked her priest if committing suicide by munching cyanide pills
would consign her soul to hell. The priest reassured her that it would not,
as her suicide would be a means of resisting the enemy. Fortunately,
it never came to that. Fourcade survived the war, and passed away in 1989 at the ripe old age of 80.
A German journalist and Soviet spy, Richard Sorge was active before and during the Second World War,
playing the role of a German journalist for the Soviets in Germany, Japan, and elsewhere in the
world. He was born to a German mining engineer and his Russian wife in the Russian Empire,
though his family moved to Germany with his father's contract expired.
In 1924, Sorge joined an intelligence-gathering arm of the Soviet secret police. Five years
later, he joined the Red Army's military intelligence and worked as a spy in the UK,
China, and Germany. In Germany, he was assigned the terrifying objective of infiltrating the Nazi
Party. He was then assigned to Japan, where he carried out the majority of his clandestine work.
Before Sorge left Germany, however, he acquired a false newspaper journalism assignment as a
cover for his trip to Japan. As a side note, his infiltration into the Nazi inner circle had been
so successful that Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels attended his farewell feast.
Setting foot in Japan, Sorge started to establish his shadowy web,
infiltrating the German embassy and gaining the trust of high-ranking German diplomats,
namely one Eugen Ott, who soon became ambassador. Sorge grew quickly into one of Ott's most trusted
advisors, because Sorge, as it turned out, knew a *tonne* about Japan as well, having befriended
a Japanese man who worked as an advisor to the Japanese Prime Minister Konoe Fumimaro.
All the juicy intel Sorge pocketed in Japan he radioed back to the USSR.
Among Sorge's greatest contributions to the Soviet cause were his continual warnings about
a German invasion of the USSR, and, conversely, his assurance that Japan would *not* invade. As
early as spring 1936, Sorge had been sending intel about negotiations for an anti-communist
agreement between Germany and Japan, which was an early hint at Hitler's intentions to march
his armies into the USSR. Sorge continued to send intel like this back to Russia
until literally a *day* before Hitler put Operation Barbarossa on the ground. He also
informed the Soviets that, while the Germans would invade the USSR, the Japanese had opted
instead to invade the British, French, and Dutch colonies in Southern Asia. This allowed Stalin to
move his forces stationed in the far east to the west, where they could face the German invasion.
As for Sorge himself, he was arrested in 1941, when one of his Japanese operatives
spilt his beans. Sorge was judged as a spy and sentenced to death,
and he was made to wait three years before they finally executed him. It wasn't until
two decades later that Sorge's contribution was recognised by the Soviet Union at large.
Spaniard Joan Pujol García served in the Spanish Civil War on both the Republican and Nationalist
sides, though he proudly remembered never firing a bullet for either. After the civil war,
he developed a deep hatred for totalitarianism, and when World War II broke out, he wanted
to do his part to prevent its spread. In his efforts, he became a game-changing double agent.
Initially, Pujol went to the Brits in London and offered them his clandestine services, but they
sent away emptyhanded. So he took matters matters *into his own* hands, assuming the identity of
a Nazi-loving Spanish government official who travelled to London on official business, and,
using this identity, contacted a German *Abwehr* agent in Spain's capital, Madrid. The *Abwehr*
took him in, gave him the codename "Alaric," and tasked him with going to London and setting up a
spy network of British agents. If they knew only *half* of what this menace was up to.
Pujol, the sly devil, instead moved to Portugal, from where he sent credible reports back to the
*Abwehr,* making it out as if he were in London, carrying out his Nazi mission.
He created an entirely fictional network of spies across Britain, which was codenamed
"Arabal" by the *Abwehr*. After providing the Germans misinformation and causing the
*Kriegsmarine* to waste valuable resources on the hunt for a non-existent Allied convoy,
Pujol's work came to the attention of the British intelligence agency which
had earlier rejected him. They took him on as a British agent and stamped him with the codename
"Garbo." He caused some serious trouble after that.
Pujol's/Alaric's/Garbo's principal way of screwing with the Germans was to supply them with sound yet
*delayed* intelligence so it couldn't be used effectively and he wouldn't blow his cover.
To further secure his cover, Pujol would often blame the delay on his fictitious British agents.
On one occasion, he reported that one of his British agents had fallen ill and perished,
and to support his claim, he even had an obituary published in the local British newspaper.
The Germans were so convinced that they paid a pension to the dead, *fictitious* agent's widow.
This is all gold, but Pujol *ruined* the Germans in the lead-up to Operation
Overlord and the D-Day landings. As part of the Allied deception codenamed Operation Fortitude,
Pujol sent some 500 radio messages to the Germans, misinforming them about the coming Allied invasion
and causing them to divert precious troops and resources from Normandy to Calais,
where — wink wink, nudge nudge — "the landing would take place."
This deception was so effective that the British king awarded Pujol with a membership in the "Most
Excellent Order," while the Germans, ironically, awarded him the Iron Cross.
As for Pujol, he'd put a serious stick in the spokes of the German war machine, and so,
with the help of British intelligence, he faked his own death to get away from it all.
Until 1988, Pujol soaked up the sun in a beach town in Venezuela,
knowing full well that he was the king of World War II trolls.
Through deception and sabotage,
these three secret agents altered the course of the Second World War and human history.
But what do you think? Would you like us to make more videos about spies and stuff? Can you
think of any agents who changed the course of the war. Please share your thoughts in the comments.