Hoodwinking Hitler: The Normandy Deception

Despite the mighty invasion force the Americans and British mustered in England in early 1944, a top Allied general warned: If the Germans have even a 48-hour advance notice of the time and place of the Normandy landings, we could suffer a monstrous catastrophe! For his part, Adolf Hitler planned to inflict such a massive bloodbath on the invaders that the Allies would agree to a negotiated peace with Nazi Germany. Hoodwinking Hitler is the account of a colossal and incredibly intricate deception scheme created and implemented by ingenious and diabolical minds, machinations intended to bamboozle the Germans on true Allied invasion plans. Facets of the global chicanery included electronic spoofing, double agents, diplomatic deceit, whispering campaigns, femmes fatales, camouflage, strategic feints, the French underground, murder plots, phony military installations, misleading bombing raids, sabotage, propaganda, traps, fake codes and kidnap schemes. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies gained total surprise, mostly because of what Winston Churchill called the greatest hoax in history . But not until two months later, when the Allies broke out of Normandy, did the deception scheme pass into history. By that time, ultimate Allied victory in Europe was assured.