# Why was German intelligence so crap in WWII? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 6, 2014, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627 "2014-02-06T00:57:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2014, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/41 "2014-02-06T20:33:04Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > A good part of it may have been that this guy fucked them up so badly intelligencewise: [Joan or Juan Pujol Garcia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Pujol_Garcia), a Spaniard who based himself in Lisbon and fed the Nazis a stream of misinformation from a spy network that existed entirely in his imagination. …all of whom were being paid by the Nazis! 27 completely bogus spies, including the “widow” of one “spy” being paid a pension. My favorite bit was Garbo’s bogus reports being encrypted, transmitted to Spain, decoded, re-encrypted with an Enigma and being re-transmitted to Berlin. Which provided a huge quantity of plaintext for decryption. He was the greatest bullshit artist who ever lived. BTW, he started in Lisbon, but the bulk of his work was in England with Tommy Harris. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/42 "2014-02-07T02:54:48Z")
Yes, Joan or Juan Pujol Garcia is my hero. You can take you Audie Murphys and your George Pattons and all your other war heroes. They’re okay. But Joan or Juan Pujol Garcia is who _I’d_ like to be. And then just sort of disappear after it’s all over, leaving the legend behind. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/43 "2014-02-07T13:41:11Z")
As I understand it there was no CIA at the start of WW2, nor at the time of US involvement in WW2. The US had effectively zero extra-US capability. ‘Allied’ intelligence was British Intelligence, with a lot of help from mainland Europeans who made it to the UK, and also from those who remained in their home countries in some resistance capacity. Bletchley Park, for example, was home to a number of important European mathematicians. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/44 "2014-02-07T14:21:12Z")
There was no CIA, but that didn’t mean the US didn’t have any intelligence capability. Even today the CIA is just one of the civilian branches of the US intelligence community. Each of the military services had its own intelligence branch ([SIS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signals_Intelligence_Service) in the Army and [OP-20-G](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OP-20-G) in the Navy, respectively). It’s true that the US had no (MI-6 style) permanent human intelligence establishment with a mandate that allowed it to operate overseas, which was rectified by the formation of OSS during the war. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/45 "2014-02-07T14:27:04Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > The Allies had their own blunders. They could have invaded “Fortress Europe” as early as 1942, if they had the materiel. I shudder to think what would have happened if this had been attempted; in 1942 most American army units were still training in the continental US and the Brits were still struggling in Asia and Africa. In early 1943 the Germans gave the US a baptism of fire at Kasserine Pass. > [@BrokenBriton](#): > > As I understand it there was no CIA at the start of WW2, nor at the time of US involvement in WW2. The US had effectively zero extra-US capability. > > ‘Allied’ intelligence was British Intelligence, with a lot of help from mainland Europeans who made it to the UK, and also from those who remained in their home countries in some resistance capacity. > > Bletchley Park, for example, was home to a number of important European mathematicians. Say what? The CIA’s predecessor, the OSS, had some impressive successes, in both Asia and against the Nazis - operating [Fritz Kolbe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Kolbe) (one of the unsung moral German heroes during the war) who among other things aided D-Day and passed on info about the V1s and V2s and the ME262. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/46 "2014-02-07T14:52:15Z")
Fritz Kolbe does sound an interesting character, and of value from early 1944. I can understand why he was important to a newly established OSS, though I’m not sure what his overall contribution might have been given the range and depth of information available from a range of other sources. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2014, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/47 "2014-02-07T14:55:56Z")
Germany proper was surrounded by annexed states with a cross local population and long borders, which makes getting agents in and out easier, plus the agents would have local resource to hand (hiding places, repairs etc). Getting German agents into Britain would have been harder, and you don’t have the same support from the locals which means the German agents would have been much more isolated and less effective. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/48 "2014-02-08T03:34:03Z")
> [@Wallenstein](#): > > Getting German agents into Britain would have been harder, and you don’t have the same support from the locals which means the German agents would have been much more isolated and less effective. From what I’ve read, Britain had a 100% success rate finding German agents - either turning them into double agents or executing them. This might be history being written by the victors, but the apparent effectiveness and size of the Garbo/Arabel network meant that they gave up trying to place any more agents once it was running. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/49 "2014-02-08T05:04:19Z")
Heh. Both Kolbe _and_ Garbo were initially rebuffed by MI6 when they came offering the veritable keys to the German intelligence kingdom. ---
**Author:** ![Anondragon2012](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc79bd/32.png) [@Anondragon2012](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anondragon2012)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/50 "2014-02-08T10:34:16Z")
German intelligence was “crap” because it was staffed from the start of the war by Germans who despised the Nazis and generally wanted to thwart the war effort. They were extremely smart as to how they were acting and didn’t arouse suspicion until the end of the war. This was the Abwehr. The Sicherheitsdienst (SS Intelligence) was initially not as effective as the Abwehr as it was a new office. However later in the war it was highly effective. Reinhard Gehlen and his organization was at least as good as collecting info on the Soviet Union as the Soviets were on Germany. ---
**Author:** ![BrokenBriton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@BrokenBriton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrokenBriton)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/51 "2014-02-08T12:08:56Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Heh. Both Kolbe _and_ Garbo were initially rebuffed by MI6 when they came offering the veritable keys to the German intelligence kingdom. Yep, the British would have been lost without Kolbe telling them what they already knew from x number of sources. On the other hand, he validated the OSS. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/52 "2014-02-08T15:28:58Z")
There was also a lot of “empire building” within the Abwehr and SS/SD/Gestapo. Moreso under Himmler’s organizations. Which lead to pessimistic reports being creatively misfiled or under emphasized. The more subordinates one has in one’s “empire”, there’s more people to be blamed for failures. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/53 "2014-02-08T19:08:26Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > Yep, the British would have been lost without Kolbe telling them what they already knew from x number of sources. On the other hand, he validated the OSS. This interpretation conflicts with reality. [MI6 belated recognized Kolbe as “the prize intelligence source of the war”](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-finally-honours-the-traitor-spy-who-gave-nazi-secrets-to-america-6160887.html) and acknowledged that the British blundered badly in not following up on his offers to pass on information. \*“As a bureaucrat in Adolf Hitler’s foreign ministry, he smuggled 2,600 secret Nazi documents to American intelligence in Switzerland from 1943 onwards, continuing his task undetected until the war ended.” “No other German damaged the Nazi regime to such an extent. Kolbe supplied the Americans with vital information about where the Germans expected the allies to land in Normandy, crucial facts about the Nazi V1 and V2 rockets and Japanese military plans in south-east Asia. He even exposed a butler working in the British embassy in Istanbul as a German spy.”\* ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2014, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/54 "2014-02-08T23:40:03Z")
> [@BrokenBriton](#): > > As I understand it there was no CIA at the start of WW2, nor at the time of US involvement in WW2. The US had effectively zero extra-US capability. > > ‘Allied’ intelligence was British Intelligence, with a lot of help from mainland Europeans who made it to the UK, and also from those who remained in their home countries in some resistance capacity. > > Bletchley Park, for example, was home to a number of important European mathematicians. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > There was no CIA, but that didn’t mean the US didn’t have any intelligence capability. Even today the CIA is just one of the civilian branches of the US intelligence community. Each of the military services had its own intelligence branch ([SIS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signals_Intelligence_Service) in the Army and [OP-20-G](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OP-20-G) in the Navy, respectively). It’s true that the US had no (MI-6 style) permanent human intelligence establishment with a mandate that allowed it to operate overseas, which was rectified by the formation of OSS during the war. > [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Say what? The CIA’s predecessor, the OSS, had some impressive successes, in both Asia and against the Nazis - operating [Fritz Kolbe](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Kolbe) (one of the unsung moral German heroes during the war) who among other things aided D-Day and passed on info about the V1s and V2s and the ME262. **BrokenBriton** did say “… there was no CIA at the start of WW2, nor at the time of US involvement in WW2.” I see from Wikipedia that the [OSS wasn’t formed until mid-1942](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_strategic_services). Before that, the link doesn’t seem to think much of US intelligence capabilities. Just to mention, my uncle, whom I’ve referred to on the Board before, was OSS. Stationed in London and working under the legendary Hollywood film director John Ford. My uncle was sometimes flown behind enemy lines to take aerial photos. Mostly he was involved in film development, I think. He was among the very first to see the photos from the liberated concentration camps and never had any patience with Holocaust deniers. (My father and his siblings all grew up in Hollywood, and my uncle had already worked with movie studios as a camera expert before the war.) ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2014, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/55 "2014-02-09T04:51:29Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > It is notable that there was no recorded instance of a successful German spy in Britain for the whole of the war. There was one who was turned very effectively, but that is it. Theoretically, shouldn’t that mean there was possibly a German spy so good he wasn’t detected? It seems unlikely, of course - we know how WWII turned out and the lack of significant engagements won by the Germans thanks to information which could have only come from UK-based espionage etc. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2014, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/56 "2014-02-09T05:32:16Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > This leads us to a more general observation: the Nazis really weren’t bad at spying. You just don’t hear very much about their successes because they weren’t widely publicized in the former Allied states. > > For the most part, the Nazis are only credited for things that they were _obviously_ very good at, and the Allies weren’t - like building rockets and jets. Yea, I think this hypothesis is a case of the victor writing history. ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2014, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627/57 "2014-02-09T11:21:11Z")
Also keep in mind that the German military and other government agencies were usually able to destroy their sensible files and archives before they could fall into the hands of the enemy. A notable exception was the aforementioned [Reinhard Gehlen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Gehlen): > [@](#): > > Realizing early on that Germany would ultimately be defeated, Gehlen made preparations to ensure his own survival after the fall of the Third Reich. He ordered the microfilming of the holdings of Fremde Heere Ost and had them placed in watertight drums, which he buried in several places in the Austrian Alps. He had fifty cases of archives buried at the Elendsalm in the mountains of Upper Bavaria, planning to sell them after the end of hostilities. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-german-intelligence-so-crap-in-wwii/680627.md?page=2)