The double agent who made fiction a strategic weapon
On 9 June 1944, he told German commanders that the Normandy landings were only a diversion.
Juan Pujol García was a Spanish double agent who penetrated German intelligence while remaining loyal to Britain during the Second World War. From Lisbon, he built a fictitious network in Britain from public sources and won the confidence of his German handlers. After joining British intelligence, he combined invented agents with carefully timed real information to shape German decisions. In Operation Fortitude, his reports reinforced the story that Normandy was a diversion and that the main assault would come at Pas-de-Calais.
Career Timeline
- 1931Compulsory service in a Spanish cavalry and artillery unit
- 1936–1939Served on both the Republican and Nationalist sides in the Spanish Civil War
- 1941–1942Operated from Lisbon as a self-created Abwehr agent
- 1942Recruited as a British double agent under the codename Garbo
- 1943–1944Ran the fictitious network with Tomás Harris
- 1944Spread the Pas-de-Calais main-attack deception in Operation Fortitude
- 1944Appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire