It can’t be Thursday again, can it? Well it must be, because you’re reading a Historical Thursday post! We’re once again going back to the classic struggle of good vs evil and taking a look at another wily plan by the Allies to disrupt the Axis. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was an espionage agency formed during the war to coordinate subversions behind enemy lines. One of their more interesting projects, by more than name only, was Operation Cornflakes.
The OSS devised a plan to trick Hitler’s government into delivering anti-war and anti-Nazi propaganda to their own citizens. It all starts with the bombing of a train carrying German mail. Since information is power, especially during wartime, it became a priority for the Germans to recover the mail that was disrupted and deliver whatever they could salvage from the wreckage.
- OSS agents prepping for an airdrop.
Armed with this knowledge, the Allies realized that they could sneak in some letters of their own by airdropping custom mail on the bomb site. The letters contained mostly anti-Nazi propaganda, including copies of Das Neue Deutschland, a pro-Western newspaper written in German. But for the plan to work successfully, the mail had to blend in. The letters of course had to have correct addresses and names on them and look relatively genuine, fooling any German postman taking a cursory glance.
- ‘Broken Empire’
Originally, the OSS printed identical copies of German stamps; portraits of Hitler that read ‘Deutsches Reich’ (German Empire). But when they were feeling especially bold, the agents of espionage would attach stamps with Hitler’s face as a skull and a message that read ‘Futsches Reich’ (Broken Empire). Of course, if they did this to all the letters, the mailmen would quickly catch on and destroy them. But they used these stamps sparingly and were able to successfully deliver a good number of them.
- Das Neue Deutschland
And while many deliveries of these subversive letters were successful, their effects were not. There was no way for the Allies to measure the effect the receipt of the propaganda had on the Germans, but in hindsight it probably caused nothing but confusion and annoyance, rather than reactionary measurements against the Reich.
- The OSS office in Rome
The operation was quickly canceled when the OSS forgot to calculate the correct postage and the Reichspost delivered the letters to the return address, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC.
Pictures and Information courtesy of: Psy Warrior and Wikipedia.
As always, if YOU have an idea for a Historical Thursday, let me know at thereifixedit@gmail.com
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“The operation was quickly canceled when the OSS forgot to calculate the correct postage and the Reichspost delivered the letters to the return address, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC.”
Haha, reminds me of postcards sent to “Adolf Hitler”. The German post reasoned, well after the war, that just because someone died, they had still to deliver the postcards to the correct address. I think the postcards ended up at the German parliament. I’ll try to find a source for this later… must work.
Taste them again, for the first time.
Well, why wouldn’t they get the letters addressed to Herr Adolf to him? The Post Office *IS* all-knowing and all-seeing…
After all, 10% of the American population thinks Elvis Presley faked his death and is still alive, and 6% think if you send a letter to him addressed “General Delivery, Memphis TN” the U.S. Postal Service knows how to get the letters to him.
and 99.9% of statistic are made up.
76.4% on the spot.
And don’t forget “Miracle on 34th Street” (1947), with Maureen O’Hara and Edmund Gwenn. The Post Office said so, therefore Santa not only legally existed at that time, but lived in an “old-folks home” in… Connecticut, I believe. See what you can learn from movies?
Lol, hetalia. France and England are ‘attacking’ Italy.
To Germany. Hello It’s Italy.
I had a scary dream recently.
It’s a dream in which you forgot about me.
I’m worried that you might really forget about me.
When you become friends with Russia.
Let’s be friends forever also sausages taste bad.
Italy Veneziano
Here’s the link:
“German post delivers Hitler card
Deutsche Post said being dead was no reason not to deliver
German postal staff ensured a postcard to Adolf Hitler sent from England got to its destination, despite the Nazi leader being dead for 60 years.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4254265.stm
Wow, then I must send something to Elvis Presley. Oh wait, it’ll end up at one of these Elvis impersonators…
TL, DR
It probably took you nearly as long to post that comment as it would have to read this article. You do realise this, don’t you?
The operation was quickly canceled when the OSS forgot to calculate the correct postage and the Reichspost delivered the letters to the return address, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC.
Liberals – screwing it up for 60 years
Yeah, the OSS (now called the CIA) was a real hippie drum-circle.
If that’s a liberal screw-up, does that mean the liberals won world war 2?
are you gonna say ‘thanks’?
This is like fighting in facebook. Useless and childish.
IS NOT!
That cartoon on the front page of Das Neue Deutschland was eerily prophetic (unless that was the May 1945 edition!)
Actually the post stamp says something like “Disappeared Empire”
The german adjective “futsch” means something like “lost track” or “undiscoverable”
I just knoy “futsch” as destroyed or broken. I’m from southern germany, don’t know where you are from but here we use it as broken (if we use it, its a really old word)
Thanks for more quirky historical awesomeness, makes you wonder how many of these strange little plans were being worked on in back rooms all over America during the war.
Corn Flakes trivia: Kellogg’s Corn Flakes was originally created to prevent young boys from masturbating. It’s true. Look it up. I wonder if that explains the cereal’s mascot.
SO it was more of a rooster block, then?