Funkspiel

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Funkspiel (radio game) was the name given to a delicate counter-espionage operation carried out by the Gestapo during the Second World War. It consisted of using captured clandestine radio operators in the unoccupied Vichy France to send false messages back to the enemy (the United Kingdom in particular), and allowed the German intelligence services to intercept Allied military information, transmit disinformation to the enemy and to root out other secret radio-operators.

The last faked message that the Germans would have exchanged with London in this operation was this: "Thank you for your collaboration and for the weapons that you sent us". However, the Germans did not know that the British intelligence services had realised the truth of the German stratagem at least two weeks before this transmission. Thus, if the Germans had been able to gain certain benefits from the operation, the strategy was later used against them and from May 1944 onwards the operation was no longer a success.

[edit] Source

• Jacques Delarue, Histoire de la Gestapo, Paris, Fayard, 1962, p. 521-523.