Who was the best intelligence secret service in WW 2?

[Harri]

The Allied forces put together a huge deception operation called Fortitude to confuse the Germans about there real intents.

That operation was a huge success. Germans most likely had all the facts straight ahead of them but their key leaders could not make the right desicions on the right moment.

However even without all the gimmicks etc, the choice of possible landing sites was known to all sides through simple analysis of geography,geology and oceanography. The real game was to convince the Germans it wasn't the you had identified as being best.

That's why I said Rommel "knew" where the invasion will happen. When he took the command in Northern France he immediately started improving the defences in Normandy. Without his efforts the landing would have been much easier. Germans were able to conceal the calibres of some of their coastal batteries and some of their troops.

He was without doubt also well informed by German intelligence. Basically Germans had enough power in Normandy to repulse the attack but their leaders in Normandy didn't have operational freedom. Also Allied air superiority meant enormous difficulties to Germans.

My personal opinion is that if Rommel had had the freedom of locating troops in Normandy and operating in the best German way Overlord could have failed. But that is already off topic so that's all about this case.

[udar]

The problem with info gived by "Cicero"was this agent was not recruted by germans,but give this info from shes own initiative,for money.Some germans leaders believe this is posible to be just a disinformation from british IS,and dont cosider is too much,unfortunately for Wermacht.About american OSS,sorry,but in human intell.,was verry low,compared with rest of secret services(its true after war R.Gehlen help the CIA training and formation,and O.Skorzeni the Green Berets formation?).Most hard job of western allies was from british.I believe the score betwen Abwher/Gestapo and MI 6/MI 5 was equal.None of this cant have very important agents in enemy side(except mabe "Ultra"in to begining of war,unfortunately not entire period),sow intell. dont go verry well,but counter-intell yes.To other side,russians go much better.

[alephh]

However even without all the gimmicks etc, the choice of possible landing sites was known to all sides through simple analysis of geography,geology and oceanography. real game was to convince the Germans it wasn't the you had identified as being best.

Silimar analysis like, say, for example, "German forces must attack to France via low countries", "Germany needs natural resources so they will attack southern part of USSR so let's place most of the russian divisions there", "Germany won't send their u-boats to US-coast because their operational time is way too short compared to mid-ocean", "German generals are educated to destroy enemy forces, so they must attack towards Moscow during summer 42 offensive" etc...

Not all the operations in military world go by analysis. Sometimes surprise or some other single element (like landing near rockets sites, economy, oil) is much more important than several other advantages gained. Very difficult to estimate what's going on in the other side, on what their analysis will be based on...

[G. Trifkovic]

Anyone knows Cicero's real name and fate? Yesterday I took Schellenberg's memoires to remin myself a bit and in the part about Cicero he says that he eventually found out his real name.He added that he won't reveal it in the book,because "to the best of my knowledge-he is still alive"...

cheers,

Gaius

[CoffeeCake]

Well, as for me, I believe that the M16/SOE were very sucessful in their WW2 endevors, then probably the Soviets (without Sorge, the Soviets would have been continiously suspicious about Japanese intention in the East)

[Jon G.]

Coffeecake, MI6 and SOE were wholly seperate organizations, and there was some enmity between the two. Basically, intelligence gathering was not the province of the SOE, though this rule was overstepped quite often.

MI6 was subservient to the Foreign Office, and in true old-school secret service style, they didn't want any sabotage actions and other subversive acitivities to stir up things. For example, Vichy France was basically off-limits to the SOE; 'no bangs without FO approval'

SOE, on the other hand, belonged to the MEW, and they had a more straightforward mission, namely to set Europe ablaze.

[CoffeeCake]

I grouped them as one, not because of their functionality, but their origin (Great Britain). I'll make it more clear next time.

[Steady]

Anyone knows Cicero's real name and fate?

Elyeza Bazna, Albanian, b. 1905, d. 1970.

His spying was compromised when a secretary at the German embassy in Ankara who had knowledge of the Cicero operation defected to the British. Cicero escaped. His autobiographic I Was Cicero was published in 1962. Mr. Bazna was a night watchman in Munich at time of death.

Source: The encyclopedia of espionage, by Norman Polmar and Thomas B. Allen.

[Andy H]

alephh wrote:

Not all the operations in military world go by analysis. Sometimes surprise or some other single element

Agreed, however when it comes to Naval landings there is very little space to manoeuvere beyond the boundaries set by High Tide dates, tidal ranges, Storm Fronts, Sheer Cliffs, Sand Density (to support heavy equipment). shelf gradients for landing troops near to the beach, ease of access away from beachhead, enough space to land a body of troops able to substain itself in the face of enemy C/A's.
These factors and others severely limited the Allies to suitable invasion points. The Germans knew this as well.

From what I remember the spots identified were: Normandy, the Pas De Calais, a stretch of Dutch coastline, and somewhere within the Bay of Biscay.

Andy H

[G. Trifkovic]

Thanks Steady!

Gaius

[redcoat]

The Allied forces put together a huge deception operation called Fortitude to confuse the Germans about there real intents.

That operation was a huge success. Germans most likely had all the facts straight ahead of them but their key leaders could not make the right desicions on the right moment.

The reason they couldn't make the right decision was due to the failure of German intelligence. They had been fed so much false info by Allied intelligence(mainly British) that they "couldn't see the wood because of the trees"

However even without all the gimmicks etc, the choice of possible landing sites was known to all sides through simple analysis of geography,geology and oceanography. The real game was to convince the Germans it wasn't the you had identified as being best.

That's why I said Rommel "knew" where the invasion will happen. When he took the command in Northern France he immediately started improving the defences in Normandy. Without his efforts the landing would have been much easier. Germans were able to conceal the calibres of some of their coastal batteries and some of their troops.

Rommel didn't know, he only suspected, a world of difference.

He was without doubt also well informed by German intelligence.

No. German intelligence didn't have a clue where the attack was coming. D-Day saw one of the greatest (if not the greatest) failures of military intelligence the world has ever seen. Even 3 weeks after the landing German military intelligence was warning that another landing in the Pas de Calais area was still a strong possibility.
At the end of the war German intelligence was still claiming that the Normandy landings were just a diversionary landing that went so well the Allies had decided to expoite it and cancel their planned main landing at Calais.

Basically Germans had enough power in Normandy to repulse the attack but their leaders in Normandy didn't have operational freedom. Also Allied air superiority meant enormous difficulties to Germans.

Most historians take the view that while nothing is certain in war, the odds that the Germans could've defeated the allied landings were poor, even if they had reacted quickly.

[Harri]

I think Rommel "knew". Germans had enough troops in France, not in Normandy alone of course. But after re-location certain troops like Rommel had proposed there would have been enough power to repulse the invasion during its early phases. Rommel was far-sighted commander and he was once again correct. When their troops were too far away from Normandy they needed much more time to move them. In this situation all delays in desicion making were bad for Germans. And Allied air superiority prevented fast movements of stronger formations.

I don't believe that Germans wouldn't have known what was going on. The basic reason for wrong desicions was the fixed idea of the invasion coming to Calais. German intelligence supported of course that same basic idea. Not only it received all the time massive misinformation from the Allies but it was also "prisoner of the fixed thinking". Yes, it was a major failure to German intelligence but because they at the same time received also correct information there is no doubt Rommel could see what will happen.

As far as I know Rommel travelled to Germany only because the weather forecast was so bad for the coming days. Germans knew well when the invasion was possible and when it wasn't. When the Germans' weather forecast proved to be too pessimistic and Operation Overlord was surprisingly launched at the right moment it was pure luck that Germans were not fully ready. So, there was also much chance on both sides. Even Eisenhower didn't know the moment of attack until he dicided so. How could the Germans then know that?

Intelligence is just a tool for true decision makers and leaders. It is easy to blame intelligence if their own ideas prove eventually wrong.

[Andy H]

Yes, but if Germany/Rommel had decided that Normandy was the intended invasion point, Allied Int would have known this-given the disposistion og German forces (Armour) especially.
Thus maybe, just maybe either re-inforce the intial invasion force or move the invasion site altogether.

It was a game of cat & mouse of the highest order, and Germany failed in this key area of Int.

Andy H

[redcoat]

Intelligence is just a tool for true decision makers and leaders. It is easy to blame intelligence if their own ideas prove eventually wrong.

True, but in this case, the German intelligence services failed to even attempt to correct the decisions the military had come too, and even worse, had re-enforced their mistaken decisions.
In the Normandy campaign, the German intelligence services failures cost the lives of thousands of Germans troops, while the work of the Allied intelligence services saved the lives of thousands of Allied troops.

[Harri]

OK. I agree German intelligence sucked in this case. At least to me it is unclear who actually is to be blamed of the worst mistakes.

It is strange that Rommel who was on the spot had the correct foreboding while some of the guys in Paris and especially in Berlin kept on believing misinformation Allies fed to them. So, was Rommel better informed or did he just want to know more? I still have a strong opinion that some of the Germans "knew" or at least guessed correctly. That guess could be partly based on correct intelligence reports.

The reason why Germans were so badly surprised was more a chance, like it is many times in war. It was also a chance that Rommel couldn't get permission to re-locate his armoured forces in Normandy. If that really had happened just prior to invasion and Allies had noticed that too had they adjourned the attack or tried despite of it?