Sauerkraut missions
The Sauerkraut missions (Operation Sauerkraut) were
The idea of utilizing German prisoners of war as agents arose after the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944. By exploiting this unexpected psychological advantage, the deployment of apparently German soldiers in Wehrmacht uniforms was considered particularly suitable for indoctrinating the enemy without much delay.
In a
After initially selecting 16 trustworthy prisoners of war, they were first transported to
Of particular importance were the forged documents that were given to the agents. Since the German side was constantly changing certain recognition features for security reasons, the US side had to regularly improve them, which apparently succeeded brilliantly. Although agents of the operation were later reportedly checked by German military police on several occasions, there was only one case in which such an agent was exposed. While the forged documents had to look as perfect as possible - and this included forged party books along with the party fee stamps - the propaganda material provided was deliberately printed in a much coarser quality. This was to avoid the impression that the stickers, leaflets or magazines were material produced abroad by the enemy using high-quality printing presses.
In total, about 13 missions of Operation Sauerkraut were carried out. For this purpose, small groups were smuggled behind the German lines from July 25, 1944, until at least March 21, 1945.
Since
References
- ^ "SGM Herbert A. Friedman (Ret.):Operation Sauerkraut". psywarrior.com. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
Further reading
- Traussnig, Florian (2017). Geistiger Widerstand von außen. Böhlau Wien. ISBN 978-3-205-20382-7.
- Clayton D. Laurie. "The Sauerkrauts": German Prisoners of War as OSS Agents 1944—1945, p. 49, at Google Books
External links
- "Operation Sauerkraut", codenames.info, 5 February 2022