The classic account of how British intelligence penetrated and practically operated Nazi Germany’s spy network within the British Isles With great imagination, care, and precise coordination, the British were able to identify Nazi agents, induce many to defect, and supply completely false information to Germany about bombings, battles, and even the D-Day invasion. Told by the man who masterminded the entire, unbelievable four-and-a-half-year scheme, and filled with extraordinary stories and dazzling tidbits, The Double-Cross System is a testimony to Britain’s skill in the fine art of counterespionage.
THE DOUBLE-CROSS SYSTEM is not the only document to describe double agents and deception. It is simply the best. Masterman gives us a world of stratagems, inhabited by characters like SNOW, ZIZAG and TRICYCLE. They were known only by these cover names and in them they lived and operated, Nuance became all. Even the methods of communication between the agent and the enemy, whether by wireless, by secret writing, or by personal contact in neutral countries, required empathy on the part of the case officers and planners. The details of a man's wireless style, for example, the warning signals, the very rhythm of the key in sending messages must be mastered so that if the agent should die or for one reason or another be removed, a substitution could be made but not recognised. 'A game played with dynamite in which those who couldn't play were executed. . . . . Should on no account be missed by anyone who enjoys a good thriller. ' Anthony Price, OXFORD MAIL.
J.C. Masterman was chairman of the Double-Cross Committee at the height of World War Two. This is his account of the double agents, deception and counter-espionage which were key to the victory of D-Day. Written as an official report for MI5 in 1945, originally published with the permission of the British Government over twenty years later, The Double-Cross System details the Allied handling of enemy agents and the British infiltration of Nazi spy-rings. Telling the stories of the agents codenamed Zigzag, Tricycle, Garbo and Snow, Masterman also tells the story of a triumphant operation in the Second World War’s intelligence effort.
"Monumental." --New York Times Book Review NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From one of the foremost historians of the period and the acclaimed author of Inferno and Catastrophe: 1914, The Secret War is a sweeping examination of one of the most important yet underexplored aspects of World War II—intelligence—showing how espionage successes and failures by the United States, Britain, Russia, Germany, and Japan influenced the course of the war and its final outcome. Spies, codes, and guerrillas played unprecedentedly critical roles in the Second World War, exploited by every nation in the struggle to gain secret knowledge of its foes, and to sow havoc behind the fronts. In The Secret War, Max Hastings presents a worldwide cast of characters and some extraordinary sagas of intelligence and resistance, to create a new perspective on the greatest conflict in history.
This is the first volume of Nigel West's acclaimed presentation of these fascinating diaries from the heart of Britain's Second World War intelligence operations. 'No intelligence buff can be without this volume and anyone interested in British twentieth century history needs it too.' M.R.D. Foot, The Spectator 'Regarded by historians as the most important military intelligence documents from the whole of the Second World War.' Irish Independent '[A] unique insight into the espionage secrets of the Second World War. Its historical importance is enhanced by the editing of Nigel West who, apart from decoding several obscure references to the secret war, persuaded the Security Service to break their rule of maintaining an agent's anonymity.' BBC History Magazine WALLFLOWERS is the codename given to one of the Security Service's most treasured possessions, the daily journal dictated from August 1939 to June 1945 by MI5's Director of Counter Espionage, Guy Liddell, to his secretary, Margo Huggins. The document was considered so highly classified that it was retained in the safe of successive Directors General, and special permission was required to read it. No other member of the Security Service is known to have maintained a diary and the twelve volumes of this journal represent a unique record of the events and personalities of the period, a veritable tour d'horizon of the entire subject. As Director, B Division, Liddell supervised all the major pre-war and wartime espionage investigations, maintained a watch on suspected pro-Nazis and laid the foundations of the famous 'double cross system' of enemy double agents. He was unquestionably one of the most reclusive and remarkable men of his generation, and a legend within his own organization.
“Ben Macintyre’s rollicking, spellbinding Agent Zigzag blends the spy-versus-spy machinations of John le Carré with the high farce of Evelyn Waugh.”—William Grimes, The New York Times (Editors’ Choice) “Wildly improbable but entirely true . . . [a] compellingly cinematic spy thriller with verve.”—Entertainment Weekly ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Entertainment Weekly ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. In 1941, after training as German spy in occupied France, Chapman was parachuted into Britain with a revolver, a wireless, and a cyanide pill, with orders from the Abwehr to blow up an airplane factory. Instead, he contacted M15, the British Secret service, and for the next four years, Chapman worked as a double agent, a lone British spy at the heart of the German Secret Service. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona ended and the other began. Based on recently declassified files, Agent Zigzag tells Chapman’s full story for the first time. It’s a gripping tale of loyalty, love, treachery, espionage, and the thin and shifting line between fidelity and betrayal.
This official government publication investigates the impact of the Holocaust on the Western powers' intelligence-gathering community. It explains the archival organization of wartime records accumulated by the U.S. Army's Signal Intelligence Service and Britain's Government Code and Cypher School. It also summarizes Holocaust-related information intercepted during the war years.
This book describes and analyzes the history of the Mediterranean "Double-Cross System" of the Second World War, an intelligence operation run primarily by British officers which turned captured German spies into double agents. Through a complex system of coordination, they were utilized from 1941 to the end of the war in 1945 to secure Allied territory through security and counter-intelligence operations, and also to deceive the German military by passing false information about Allied military planning and operations. The primary questions addressed by the book are: how did the double-cross-system come into existence; what effects did it have on the intelligence war and the broader military conflict; and why did it have those effects? The book contains chapters assessing how the system came into being and how it was organized, and also chapters which analyze its performance in security and counter-intelligence operations, and in deception.
This book presents the biographies of 115 Luftwaffe officers who reached the rank of general and who were awarded the Knights Cross, and higher grades of the award during their career. This study brings together the highest ranking recipients of this special award from the Luftwaffe, the German air force: men like fighter aces Adolf Galland and Werner Mlders; one of the most successful field commanders of the war Albert Kesselring; paratroopers like Kurt Student and Eugen Meindl; Field-Marshals Erhard Milch, Wolfram von Richthofen, Robert Ritter von Greim, Hugo Sperrle, and of course Hermann Gring the Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe.
