Joan Pujol Garcia מגישים: נדב נגרין, יואב צדוק, עידו צוק כיתה: י’1

Juan Pujol García MBE was born in barcelona, spain on 14 february 1912, he died in 10 octeber 1988 in the age of 76 in caracas Venezuela. He was a Spaniard who acted as a double agent with loyalty to Great Britain against Nazi Germany during World War II, when he relocated to Britain to carry out fictitious spying activities for the Germans. He was given the codename Garbo by the British; their German counterparts codenamed him Alaric and referred to his non-existent spy network as “Arabal”.

After developing a loathing of the fascist regime in Europe during the Spanish Civil War, Pujol decided to become a spy for the Allies as a way to do something “for the good of humanity”. Pujol and his wife contacted the British and American intelligence agencies.

Undeterred, he created a false identity as a fanatically pro-Nazi Spanish government official and successfully became a German agent. He was instructed to travel to Britain and recruit additional agents, instead he moved to Lisbon and created bogus reports about Britain from a variety of public sources, including a tourist guide to Britain, train timetables, cinema newsreels, and magazine advertisements. Although the information would not have withstood close examination, Pujol soon established himself as a trustworthy agent. He began inventing fictitious sub-agents who could be blamed for false information and mistakes. The Allies finally accepted Pujol when the Germans spent considerable resources attempting to hunt down a fictitious convoy. The family was moved to Britain and Pujol was given the code name “Garbo”.

Pujol and his handler Tomás Harris spent the rest of the war expanding the fictitious network, communicating to the German handlers at first by letters, and later by radio.

Eventually the Germans were funding a network of 27 agents, all fictitious. Pujol had a key role in the success of Operation Fortitude, the deception operation intended to mislead the Germans about the timing, location and scale of the invasion of Normandy in 1944. The false information Pujol supplied helped persuade the Germans that the main attack would be in the Pas de Calais, so that they kept large forces there before and even after the invasion. Pujol had the distinction of receiving military decorations from both sides of the war—being awarded the Iron Cross and becoming a Member of the Order of the British Empire.

 Bibliography: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol_Garc%C3%ADa