The OSS Morale Operations Branch in Action, 1943-1945

The OSS Morale Operations Branch in Action, 1943-1945

Chapter 10 of The Propaganda Warriors: America's Crusade Against Nazi Germany, by Clayton D. Laurie, University Press of Kansas (1996)

The OSS Morale Operations Branch, unlike the U.S. Army or the OWI, practiced covert strategic and tactical morale operations based on deception and subversion. The types of campaigns conducted and the methods used supposedly closely resembled Nazi fifth-column activities of the 1930s and early 1940s. The OSS used whatever means gained results, and its members believed that Nazi psychological warfare had been extremely successful. The belief in the efficacy of Nazi methods indicated how firmly OSS policymakers supported a propaganda of realpolitik in which, as in Nazi Germany, scruples, ethics, and universally accepted agreements and decencies were morally relative if not totally discarded to obtain national goals. As MO output was covert, it could act without fear of damaging America's reputation or moral standing.
The MO Branch commenced operations relatively late in the war. Yet between 1943 and V-E Day it implemented campaigns of a scope and level of sophistication beyond any propaganda ever practiced by the Nazis. MO output was unofficial and disclaimed by federal authorities and was covertly disseminated to make it appear to be of enemy origin. The members of the branch hoped not only to aid the U.S. Army by demoralizing the Wehrmacht but also to undermine the Germans' beliefs in Hitler and Nazism and their faith in political and social institutions. They sought to unravel the very fabric of German society by creating the impression that a fifth column was at work within the Reich.
In July 1944 PWD's Gen. Robert A. McClure instructed OSS's David Bruce that MO was to create the impression in Germany "that internal rot has set in ... that effective controls are breaking down.... That others ... accept defeat as in the best interests of the nation." MO was to use all means available to encourage desertion, dereliction of duty, and surrender within the Wehrmacht and to create divisions, frictions, and suspicion within the German civil administration and population. 1
Although the primary mission of MO was to attack Germany, it also attacked Nazi allies. The branch had a job wherever Axis military and civilian populations were found, and its personnel eventually participated in all PWD campaigns after D-Day. 2
In the early days rumors were used to disseminate MO propaganda which consisted of simple, brief, concrete, and vivid stories, purporting to come from inside sources concerning familiar persons and events. Successful examples were easy to remember, had a plot, concerned current events, and appealed to emotion and sentiment. Rumors were intended to subvert and deceive, to promote fear, anxiety, confusion, overconfidence, distrust, and panic. Once created and cleared by the OSS and PWE, up to twenty rumors were disseminated each week by agent, radio, and leaflet and through plants in enemy and neutral newspapers. Success was gauged by a "comeback," or mention of the rumor ill the foreign, neutral, or Allied press or by Allied or enemy intelligence services. According to OSS tallies of comebacks, rumors were extraordinarily effective. 3
Rumors were more strategic than tactical in nature, and pains were taken to hide their origin to make them appear homegrown. As a covert service, however, MO was not required to adhere to official U.S. policies; thus MO rumors in June 1944 included stories that British paratroopers had landed in Berlin, German sailors in Wilhelmshaven had shot their officers, Field Marshals Rommel and von Rundstedt had been captured, Luftwaffe pilots were refusing to fly, foreign workers had taken over the Krupp factory in Essen, former Nazi leader Rudolf Hess was leading a detachment of Allied troops in France, and Wehrmacht rations had been found to have been poisoned. 4
Even after MO developed more sophisticated distribution methods and grander subversive schemes, rumors continued to be a favored means of attacking enemy morale. Post-D-Day rumors stressed tensions between the SS and the army and between Nazi Germany and her allies. Anti-Nazi rumors were a staple and included stories claiming that Nazi leaders were making plans to flee to South America, were enjoying foods and luxuries other Germans could not obtain, and were intentionally ordering the military to kill refugees because adequate food, housing, and evacuation areas could not be found. MO created stories about Wehrmacht generals martyred for their actions in the plot against Hitler and emphasized the selfishness of the Nazis who intended to make the people fight to the death while they fled to Japan. When V-weapons began to appear, MO started the rumor that launch crews were soldiers undergoing punishment who were required to fire a quota of the unstable and explosion-prone missiles. Rumors concerning anarchy in Germany were a favorite and were passed with stories about the Nazicontrolled black market. 5
Although most rumors fit the criterion of being plausible, on occasion some were deemed incredible. Such was the case when MO agents in Stockholm were told not to spread atrocity stories about human sausage, human skin decorations, and canned human meat because they were too fantastic to be believed. MO however, unlike the OWI, did not have to avoid atrocity stories and considered any rumor for dissemination-the more heinous examples were deemed most memorable and therefore more likely to be passed on. Rumor operations were halted in late April 1945 because OSS planners concluded that their highly volatile rumors were impossible to control in areas under Allied occupation and could do as much damage to friends as they had to Nazis. 6
The MO Branch made use of leaflets, news sheets, and newspapers, but unlike the materials of their overt counterparts, theirs purported to originate from enemy sources. MO-printed materials were crudely designed and hurriedly produced with cheap paper and ink to create the impression that they were made by clandestine groups with small budgets and scarce supplies, operating one step ahead of the Gestapo.
The first major black-leaflet undertaking was the "Wie lange noch?" or "How much longer?" campaign, an operation consisting of sixteen different leaflets implying origins from an anti-Nazi resistance group. The leaflets, stickers, and posters, delivered by agents, were identified by a red circle and three extended fingers forming a W. Each one consisted of a captioned cartoon asking how much longer Germans were going to tolerate a certain situation before rebelling or quitting the war. Examples included cartoons showing crosses or other appropriate drawings and such captions as "How much longer will they deny that the East Front is a common grave?" or "How much longer shall our soldiers be forced to fight side by side with the dregs of Europe?" or "How much longer are we left behind while the party bosses flee the bombs?" 7
One success toward the end of the war in Italy, according to MO, involved the dropping of safe-conduct passes allegedly from partisan groups in the vicinity of Italy's Fascist Monte Rosa Division, which held a vital sector of the front. Within one week over 1,000 Fascists deserted, carrying MO leaflets ensuring good partisan treatment. Further desertions were limited only by partisan refusal to accept the mobs of surrendering Fascists. 8
Black leaflets covered a variety of situations adapted to local circumstances. Leaflets distributed to the Wehrmacht in Italy, for example, contained lists of bombed streets in German cities, instructions on how to desert to Switzerland or fake an illness, and false proclamations and orders from Wehrmacht officers as well as counterfeit leave passes or leaflets claiming that the wives, sisters, and sweethearts of soldiers were at the sexual mercies of foreign workers and Nazi party members at home. Other clearly pornographic materials were dropped to enemy soldiers to reinforce themes suggesting that women, boys, and girls were being forced to submit to all sorts of Nazi sexual perversions. 9
The MO Branch developed the League of Lonely German Women campaign to heighten the anxieties of enemy soldiers over the women left behind. A leaflet instructed soldiers to place a small red heart on their lapel or glass the next time they were on leave or in a restaurant or tavern. The badge identified them to the League of Lonely German Women who were eager to do their part in boosting morale through sexual promiscuity. The leaflet continued, "Don't be shy. Your wife, sister, and sweetheart is one of us. We think of you, but we also think of Germany." Widely distributed, the leaflets were picked up by Allied intelligence agents and mentioned in the neutral media and in Stars and Stripes, Toronto's Canadian Tribune, and Time magazine. Many captured soldiers possessed both the leaflet and the heart-shaped lapel badge. 10
Considerable effort was expended undermining the morale of Axis allies and enemy forces in occupied nations. Frequently the OSS air-dropped MO kits to partisan groups in Yugoslavia, France, Greece, and Italy containing leaflets, pamphlets, stickers, rubber stamps, and posters. Special aid was given to Tito's partisans by a two-man MO team dispatched to the island of Vis. Between June 1944 and April 1945 the team distributed over 3 million pieces of propaganda. Other MO agents disseminated leaflets and rumors seeking to undermine the pro-Nazi governments of Hungary, Bulgaria, and Rumania. 11
Teams of agents, in addition to spreading propaganda, organized distribution networks and gathered intelligence behind enemy lines. The first such OSS MO operation, code-named Apple, consisted of six men who were delivered by British torpedo boat to enemy-occupied Crete. Their mission, lasting from May to July 1944, sought to confirm reports of low German morale and increasingly strong partisan activity. After landing, the team successfully accomplished their missions and determined in the process that enemy morale on the island was so low that only 3,000 of the 15,000 troops there were likely to resist an Allied attack. 12
A further Greek mission, code-named Ulysses, was launched in June 1944 after reports were received that guerrillas on the island of Evvia and in Thessaly were willing to help Allied agents. MO thus decided to establish a local base to take advantage of the situation, sending a four-man team from Cairo to Evvia on 13 June 1944; due to enemy activity, however, the group went to the island of Volos. Once ashore, they distributed their stocks of newspapers, pamphlets, and poison-pen letters, printed nearly 37,000 leaflets, sabotaged bridges, trucks, and locomotives, and avoided detection until Greece was liberated in October 1944. 13
The OSS conducted similar operations in Northwest Europe. Leaflets illforming German troops of the creation of soldiers' committees such as those of November 1918 were MO favorites in 1944. The most famous such committee was Soldatengruppe West, the subject of a score of MO leaflets. Other leaflets were dropped to Austrian divisions informing them of anti-Nazi groups such as, the Democratic United Austrian Front. 14
One operation, undertaken in 1944, was based on the 1918 incident of' Field Marshal Erich Ludendorff's flight to Sweden to avoid capture following the armistice. Bogus leaflets of Ludendorff's explanation for his actions, addressed to officers on Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) stationery, were re-created in which officers were instructed to convince themselves, and then their troops, "that it is more important to save officer personnel for future wars than to die in a battle already lost. Soldiers are easily found, but officers are a rarer commodity." Enlisted men were to fight to the last because without the officer corps, the text read, Germany was kaput.
The purpose of the five-page pamphlet was to foment disobedience and suspicion among enlisted men and to facilitate mutiny and the creation of soldiers' committees. As similar incidents had actually already taken place, most not ably at Cherbourg in July 1944, it was believed that the Ludendorff campaign could have a devastating effect on morale and discipline. The materials were distributed in summer and early fall by MO infiltration teams and fighter aircraft of the Ninth Tactical Air Force. Comebacks of the campaign's effectiveness came via the British House of Commons, where the pamphlet was introduced as a genuine OKW document, and in Time magazine. The story was also picked up by New York Herald Tribune reporter Joseph Driscoll and reported in September 1944, thereby making the story available for use by the OWI and BBC official broadcasters. 15
Perhaps the most successful MO-Twelfth Army Group campaign, according to MO, was the Skorpion West operation, named after the Wehrmacht military propaganda unit created by Field Marshal Walter Model to bolster troop morale following the 1944 Normandy campaign. The Skorpion West unit attempted through a series of leaflets to appraise the mistakes of the summer and to en courage troops with morale-boosting descriptions of secret weapons, additional drafts of manpower, and Nazi Germany's adoption of total war. The leaflets, however, did not receive the wide distribution desired and Skorpion West began to air-drop them over the lines. MO quickly obtained copies of the leaflets and began making black facsimiles that were distributed as the genuine article. The first MO leaflet claimed that Nazi leaders doubted Wehrmacht resolve to hold against Allied attacks and encouraged soldiers to scorch the earth before dying in a last stand for National Socialism. The second encouraged enemy soldiers to eliminate defeatist officers who attempted to surrender or retreat; they were to question all orders and shoot suspected officers without hesitation. A third leaflet ordered troops to aid civilian evacuation of every village, by force if necessary. This move, MO hoped, would clog roads and slow the movement of enemy supplies and troops as well as harry already overburdened civilian authorities. In rage and desperation, Model and OKW denounced all Skorpion West leaflets as forgeries, ordering troops to ignore the contents of any leaflet they found. To MO their response "was the crowning admission of defeat, since it was denouncing the whore from the pulpit and thus trebling her business." Skorpion West, having denounced their own campaign in order to stop MO's, soon halted leaflet production. 16
Forged documents, letters, and poison-pen letters were MO staples and were used to create dissatisfaction, anxiety, and confusion, to intimidate collaborators, to terrorize soldiers and civilians, and to harass the Gestapo. In one operation, based on the 1944 capture of Generalmajor Karl Kreipe by British commandos, MO hoped to convince enemy soldiers that their officers were surrendering to save themselves. When Kreipe, the German commander of Crete, was captured, MO began a rumor, leaflet, and radio campaign claiming he had given up to prevent further useless slaughters resulting from Hitler's laststand orders. Later, when Generalmajor Franz Krech was killed by Andartes guerrillas near Sparta, MO spread stories via the media that his death came at the hands of the Gestapo, who had allegedly shot him as he attempted to escape aboard a British submarine. Krech, according to MO, left a letter declaring that the war was lost and that further sacrifices were futile. The letter was distributed in cafes and taverns throughout Greece and the Balkans. 17 Concomitant with the Kreipe and Krech campaigns, MO began Operation Hemlock, which involved poison-pen letters. The Greek operation was later repeated throughout Europe and consisted of anonymous letters that were sent to the Gestapo implicating collaborators in pro-Allied behavior or threatening traitors with assassination or other dire consequences. Other poison-pen letters in the form of death notices were sent to the families of German servicemen, as were letters informing them that their recently deceased loved ones were victims of mercy killings by army doctors or that wounded soldiers were robbed of valuables by Nazi party officials while they lay dying in hospitals. 18
One novel poison-pen letter, created in December 1944, was sent to soldiers from Lichtenau, Germany. Allegedly a Christmas greeting from the Nazi mayor, it informed the troops of local events. Although meant to boost morale, the letter contained many none-too-subtle indications that disaster was striking the community on a daily basis. The mayor cheerfully wrote that civilians had been armed and drafted into the Volkssturm, that youngsters aged fifteen to seventeen were being trained as pilots and would be in combat after only a few weeks of training, excepting three who had crashed on the town itself, killing themselves and five others, that several specifically named streets had been bombed without Luftwaffe opposition and with heavy loss of life, that wives, sisters, and sweethearts were sacrificing their health, lives, and beauty for the cause and were working overtime denouncing traitors to the Gestapo, that food, water, and electricity were not to be had, and that five births had been reported among town residents, one to a women whose husband had disappeared in France twelve months before. The letter closed with a Merry Christmas and a Heil Hitler. 19 MO excelled at producing black newspapers and developed La Ricossa Italiana and Marc Aurelio for Italians, Das neue Deutschland and Nachrichten fur die Truppe for Germans, and Der Oesterreicher for Austrians. Forged copies of the SS paper Das Schwarze Korps were printed as were issues of the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung. By March 1945 MO was printing black versions of Wehrmacht unit papers, but the speed of the Allied advance made delivery haphazard. 20
One paper, Der Oesterreicher, purported to represent a resistance group and sought to split Austria from Germany by portraying the former country as a Nazi-occupied nation. The paper was produced in Washington, printed in Rome, and delivered after October 1944 by agents and air-drops. 21 Supposedly the most successful MO newspaper operation in Europe was Das neue Deutschland (DND), a campaign initiated by MO in Italy. DND was a fictitious, clandestine peace party, allegedly organized in Germany in April 1944 whose goal was an anti-Nazi revolution and the re-creation of a liberal democratic Germany. MO created DND to offer the widest appeal, promising everything to everybody in its political platform, and membership applications were dropped to enemy soldiers and civilians throughout Europe. Its official organ, the newspaper Das neue Deutschland, had an initial average run of 75,000 copies and later increased to 1 million per issue. It was printed in Algiers and later ill Rome and Caserta, Italy. 22
Nazi reactions and Allied comments indicated DND's success. Himmler's Das Schwarze Korps denounced the movement in December 1944 and February 1945, as did the DNB, and Wehrmacht bulletins warned that troops found ill possession of DND literature were liable to court-martial or even execution. Nu merous soldiers possessed DND newspapers when captured and copies were found in Berlin, Pilsen, the Rhineland, and the Dachau concentration camp. DND's news was reported by the Washington Times Herald (12 April 1945), the Washington Post (9 August 1944), and surprisingly, by members of the OSS R&A Branch, who thought DND genuine. It was even the subject of correspondence among top OWI members, who instructed OWI outposts to watch "for any material published about the German underground, especially the Neues Deutschland." Once DND's existence was picked up in Allied circles, MO had help in spreading its message through the official news reports of the BBC, ABSIE, and VOA. 23 MO produced scores of black magazines and newsletters for delivery to the Reich itself after determining that even the most educated Germans were familiar with no more than thirty or so publications and were unlikely to recognize a fake journal. In addition, special issues of Time and Life were printed for Axis forces, many of whom eagerly sought English publications. These magazines contained feature stories by fictitious POWs describing the luxuries of American captivity and encouraging others to quit the war and join them in Canada and America . 24
One other unique operation, the Harvard Project, was started by Lt. (jg) William Casey, USN, for implementation by the MO Sioux Mission in Stockholm, Sweden. The clandestine two-man team was one of the first MO units to begin operations abroad in March 1944. Under State Department cover and with OWI-supplied equipment, the Sioux Mission began producing rumors and more than 250,000 pamphlets, leaflets, stickers, and letters subsequently disseminated by OSS-SO agents throughout Europe. 25 The Harvard Project itself consisted of a four-page, letter-sized, weekly business publication, Handel und Wandel, that purported to be a factual analysis of world economic news of European interest. Its purpose was to convince German businessmen that if they threw out the Nazis, Allied business interests would cooperate with them in creating a capitalist bulwark against bolshevism. The operation aimed at splitting industrialists from the Nazis and pushing business groups to press the army to surrender before everything was destroyed. Limited distribution of the newsletter, about 1,000 copies each, was carried out by SO agents or was sent through the mails. 26
The weight and bulk of printed materials always made agent distribution risky. MO's solution was to produce pregummed stickers and precut stencils that looked handwritten. Agents could quickly attach stickers to any surface with little risk, and stencils came with an easy-to-use paint pen specially developed by the OSS R&D Branch. Stickers and stencils consisted of simple anti-Nazi or defeatist slogans such as "When Hitler dies-Germany lives ... .. We quit," "Capitulate," and "Must you be the last one to die?" 27
MO produced posters as well, but their weight and bulk limited their use. Examples included a depiction of cemetery crosses, one bearing the epitaph "Killed on the last day of World War 11. Will you be the last one to die?" Another showed a view from the bottom of an open grave with the caption, "'Where the German soldier sets his foot, from there he never leaves.' A. Hitler, 7 Oct. 1942." Other posters relied on symbolism: a German soldier crucified on a swastika or Hitler's face superimposed on a skull and crossbones. 28
Distribution problems spurred MO to develop new methods. Two operations in Italy, code-named Sauerkraut and Ravioli, used uniformed and armed German and Italian POWs who were provided fake identity papers and who then infiltrated the lines to gather intelligence and distribute propaganda. The first operation involved fourteen POWs who crossed the line near Siena on 21 and 25 July 1944 to distribute 3,000 pieces of material about the 20 July assassination attempt on Hitler. The initial foray was so successful that twelve more missions, involving a total of fifty POWs, were undertaken in and around Bologna before May 1945. 29
The Sauerkraut and Ravioli missions exemplified perfectly the willingness of the OSS leadership to use whatever means were necessary to defeat the Nazis since these operations were in violation of the 1929 Geneva Convention and the U.S. Army Rules of Land Warfare, both of which applied to the OSS. William Casey was a major proponent of using expendable POWs for MO work and for equally dangerous SO and SI missions. He assured OSS member J. Russell Forgan of the full cooperation of the U.S. Army's provost marshal's office, which had guaranteed the OSS an unending supply of POWs. 30 The idea of using POWs, partisans, and Allied agents for OSS work spread to Northwest Europe after D-Day. The most famous infiltration teams there were commanded by Maj. Paul Mellon, a relative of OSS leader David Bruce and heir to the Mellon family fortune, and Maj. Stacey Lloyd; both men were U.S. Army officers attached to the OSS. MO field teams operated in France after August 1944 and initially consisted entirely of Americans divided into three teams of eight officers, seven enlisted mew and six civilians. One team was eventually attached to each army of the Twelfth Army Group. The teams conducted sixty operations behind the lines, disseminating rumors, leaflets, stickers, stencils, and forged letters in mailboxes, under the doors of dwellings, in railroad cars and stations, in taverns, and by word of mouth. On one mission, eighty agents delivered over 15,000 pamphlets. 31 Major Lloyd later reported to General Donovan that teams of the French resistance had also delivered MO materials near Chartres and Rheims. One group actually secured a truck, filled its spare tires with MO propaganda, and drove to Paris two weeks before the August 1944 liberation, distributing Ludendorff leafets along the way. Another team was sent to Metz and Nancy to operate with -he U.S. Third Army, and a further twenty agents were sent into Germany and Belgium after Luxembourg City was liberated. A third MO team assisted Dutch resistance forces. In ten months, teams attached to the Twelfth Army Group inFiltrated enemy lines with 150 agents; of this number, one was killed by U.S. troops, fifteen disappeared, and one was captured. 32
The Morale Operations Branch was constantly on the lookout for new ways to deliver propaganda, and one method was adapted from a Hungarian operation conducted by MO's John Fistere. Code-named Cornflakes, it was developed by branch members Jan Libich and Jack Daniels in late 1944 and involved the participation of twenty-one MO members. After Libich investigated the workings of the German postal system, replicas of mailbags were made, complete with official markings. The bags were then stuffed with propaganda: poison-pen letters, black newspapers, leaflets, and posters bearing forged and canceled postage stamps and actual addresses gleaned from prewar German telephone directories. Aircraft of the Fifteenth AAF and Fourteenth Fighter Group then dropped the bags during the course of routine bombing and strafing missions of rail yards and trains in Germany between February and April 194SCare was taken to ensure that the targeted areas were on the actual routes where the mail was addressed, and postage stamps were canceled to coincide with the date of the raids. The planners reasoned that Germans finding the bags would assume they were from destroyed mail cars and return them to postal authorities, where their contents would be distributed with the is million other pieces of mail handled daily, solving MO's distribution problems. 33
The operation was described as a stunning success. MO personnel claimed that Cornflakes weakened civilian and military morale, added more confusion to an already chaotic communication and transportation network, and convinced many Germans, through MO material on their doorsteps, of the existence of bold and brazen anti-Nazi groups within Germany. Twenty such missions were conducted, delivering 320 bags of propaganda materials. Postwar POW interrogations revealed that many soldiers received copies of Das neue Deutschland via Cornflakes mail, resulting in Gestapo investigations and prosecutions. 34
Air dissemination was key to MO's distribution problems, but air corps cooperation was not always forthcoming. Late in the war, MO decided to drop millions of issues of Das neue Deutschland from strategic aircraft to supplement the normal 75,000 copies distributed through agents. PWB/AFHQ immediately protested that if MO's material was found in the same proximity to PWB's white propaganda, it would have a deteriorating effect on both. MO's solution, revealed in Operation Pig Iron, was to miniaturize the newspaper and label each with the message that it was a reprinted issue of the original product captured by Allied troops. This 10-by-6.5-inch version was initially dropped over Germany at the rate of I million copies per month, later increasing to I million per week. Over 10 million such small newspapers were eventually disseminated. 35
Forgeries were always a staple of OSS black propaganda. MO developed postage stamps bearing the likeness of Himmler rather than Hitler, to give Germans the impression that der Fuhrer had been ousted in a secret coup d'etat. In conjunction with PWE, MO produced counterfeit ration cards and forged civil certificates, forms, vouchers, military travel orders, and sick leave and furlough passes. The OSS Planning Group even considered counterfeiting German currency to destroy the Reich's economy. In another plan, to increase the likelihood of troops picking up MO material, it was suggested that propaganda be printed on the back of counterfeit banknotes or that special offers of rations or privileges be guaranteed to a person bearing the note when surrendering. 36 In cooperation with the OSS R&D Branch and Britain's PWE, MO developed a variety of unusual gadgets intended to lower morale, such as the exploding ink pen. At one point, Jack Daniels suggested producing ammunition in enemy calibers that contained high explosives rather than smokeless powder, which could then be smuggled into the Wehrmacht supply system. When the device was fired, the resulting explosion would destroy both weapon and owner. 37
Another operation, code-named Braddock 11, allegedly caused untold problems for Nazi security forces. It involved dropping 4 to 5 million small, powerful time-fuse incendiaries in areas where heavy concentrations of foreign workers were found. Planners hoped the recipients of the devices would use them to set fires and sabotage enemy industry as well as keep already harried police busy. intelligence reports, rumors from neutral capitals, and DNB press releases suggested that police units had devoted considerable time to monitoring foreign workers and tracking down arsonists responsible for a rash of suspicious fires blazing through the Reich in spring 1945. 38
The value of radio was clearly recognized, and it became the primary medium for disseminating OSS propaganda. The first MO radio campaign was Station Italo Balbo in spring 1943, but operations began in earnest in January 1944 when seven MO members began a black radio station code-named Morse. The 250-watt facility broadcast four times nightly in clear Morse code, in German to Germans, from Cairo to the Balkans. The purported source of the transmissions was a Wehrmacht radioman in Greece who gossiped with other radiomen between 10:45 and moo P.M., discussing news and the latest rumors. The method introduced propaganda in an easily disguised form that did not require genuine German-accented broadcasters, program scripts, news bulletins, or features. Between May and October 1944 Radio Morse conducted 16g broadcasts and was thought so successful by MO personnel that its audience was expanded to include partisan groups and anti-Nazi civilians in Greece, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Rumania. The broadcasts carried news and stories to bolster partisan morale while demoralizing Germans and collaborators. 39
Initial radio successes in the Mediterranean prompted the OSS Planning Group to order the development of a further station, code-named Boston, that broadcast from neutral Turkey near Izmir. Once Turkish permission was obtained in August 1944, Boston was on the air in ten days. The 100-watt voice transmitter broadcast to enemy garrisons and collaborators in the Balkans, claiming to be a group of deserters and contrite traitors who stressed the hopeless German military situation and who encouraged resistance. Its six ten-minute daily broadcasts ran from 8:00 to 9:30 P.M., seven days a week, and consisted of commentaries by former traitors and enemy soldiers, news broadcasts, highlights of the day in Germany, and underground reports, closing with late news at 9:15. The broadcasts were frequently jammed, and MO reported that the station was the target of repeated enemy sabotage attacks before it closed in October 1944." 40
Radio operations conducted by MO in Northwest Europe were even more sophisticated. The most popular gray propaganda station of the war, Soldatensender Calais, was a joint MO-PWE venture that began in 1943 and for which the OSS provided twelve writers and six musicians. The program, supposedly coming from Calais, France, actually was beamed from a PWE radio transmitter in Woburn, England. The station broadcast news, music, nostalgic stories, and anti-Nazi propaganda to enemy troops and civilians, many of whom suspected the broadcasts were of Allied origin but whose suspicions were never confirmed. 41
By April 1944 PWE had expanded to the point that they lacked the personnel to produce the quality entertainment thought necessary to hold an audience. MO therefore agreed to produce entertainment in an operation codenamed the Muzac Project. MO recruited Hollywood writers, an eight-piece orchestra, and big-name talent such as Marlene Dietrich. The branch opened a music department in New York City, used the services of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, and wrote and recorded black lyrics for 312 German and American songs as well as specially written pieces. A typical twelve-hour broadcast day included news from the fronts, air-raid warnings and bomb damage reports, POW political commentaries, and German domestic news. 42
The RMVP and OKW issued repeated warnings to civilians and soldiers not to listen to Soldatensender. Even Joseph Goebbels recognized its potentially negative effects, acknowledging that its clever job of propaganda was a cause for worry. Soldatensender did not just provide good music, however. After the 20 July 1944 attempt on Hitler's life, it broadcast the names of hundreds of Germans supposedly involved in the plot, seeking to implicate both the guilty and the innocent in order to eliminate Germany's leadership and intelligentsia. Postwar reports indicate that the Gestapo took Soldatensender's reports seriously. The Twelfth Army Group claimed that the station "was especially popular and that go percent of POWs taken in the summer of 1944 listened regularly," and similar testimonials were obtained from officers "driven to distraction" trying to prevent soldiers from tuning in the broadcasts, which continued until May 1945. Postwar interrogations revealed that even enemy civilians regularly followed Soldatensender West. 43
An outgrowth of Soldatensender was the joker campaign conducted in 1944 after the fall of Aachen. MO resurrected Gen. Ludwig Beck, former German Army chief of staff, who was killed following the failed 20 July plot against Hitler but whose death was never officially acknowledged. Beamed by mediumwave transmitter from England, joker used a broadcaster with a voice like Beck's that shrilly claimed that Nazi amateurism had lost the war and demanded that Germans rise up, kill Hitler, overthrow the Nazis, and sue for peace, thus saving Germany from total annihilation. Rumors planted in advance of the broadcasts reinforced the idea that Beck was still alive. The first broadcast, made in October 1944, was picked up in Sweden and reported in other neutral nations. The Nazis, caught completely off guard, jammed Joker's second broadcast and continued jamming that frequency and many others every night for three weeks to prevent joker's return. 44 The Joker broadcasts not only produced consternation among the Nazis but also within PWD as well. Nazi jamming prevented joker's return, but it also interfered with the transmissions of other Allied propaganda programming. This development caused a major row, especially when it appeared the Joker broad casts did not have prior PWD authorization. General McClure told David Bruce that although he had been assured by OSS members Oechsner and McLachlen that the Joker broadcasts had been cleared in principle, he could find no such approval. lie warned Bruce that MO had better adhere scrupulously to SHAEF directives and gain prior approval of all operations. MO chief Howard Baldwin, McClure maintained, was responsible for the actions of his subordinates and was to ensure their compliance with PWD directives. 45 Following the liberation of Paris and Luxembourg City, twenty-six MO agents took black radio to the Continent. The Volkssender Drei programs, approved by PWD in September 1944, came from a station at Villebon, near Paris, and broadcast between 10:00 and 11:00 P.M.. The programs purported to come from an anti-Nazi garrison commander named Hoffmann, allegedly the son of the general who had signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty in 1918. Hoffmann, who lived in a mountainous region of Germany, had liberated his town from the Nazis and was waiting to turn it over to the Allies.
Capitalizing on civilian fears of Nazi scorched-earth policies, Hoffmann's actions were meant to offer hope and encouragement. Indeed, he asked other German leaders to flow his example and establish anti-Nazi civil administrations. Volkssender Drei programs consisted of talks by deserters, workers, housewives, youth leaders, and trade unionists, all citizens of Hoffmann's village. These people, as well as Hoffmann and his colleagues, a junior officer named Weber and a trade unionist called Karl, provided sabotage instructions, read the text of leaflets, stickers, and pamphlets, and gave faked coded messages to underground groups. Hoffmann and crew, who claimed to be a part of a German Freedom Party, provided advice to civilians on subverting the war effort, gave information from the fronts, and as time went on, reported brief and exaggerated news. The Volkssender Drei programs continued until late October 1944 when the Allies supposedly liberated the city. 46
The programs were reported in French newspapers and were known to at least 2,000 POWs, who, in the words of one, "believed it meant the end of Germany." The Nazis repeatedly jammed the broadcasts, yet Volkssender Drei was so secret and convincing that Twelfth Army Group radio-monitoring personnel, unaware of the operation, awakened Gen. Omar Bradley on the night of the first broadcast to give him the news of Hoffmann's actions. Bradley put a parachute regiment on alert to aid with the liberation and ordered around-the-clock monitoring of the frequency in hopes of pinpointing Hoffmann's location. 47
A similar program, Operation Capricorn, broadcast from England, repeated the Volkssender Drei theme in March 194S. The sixty-one broadcasts were created by nineteen MO members and ran until 27 April 1945. The program purported to originate with a German underground group led by a man named Hagedorn, who appealed to his compatriots to abandon the Nazis and avoid annihilation. He called for mass surrenders and a nationwide revolt and encouraged officials to rid their villages of the Nazis as he had done in a small, undisclosed Bavarian town. After the first broadcasts, a Swedish newspaper reported Hagedorn's existence. In June 1945 MO interrogated three former Wehrmacht officers who were members of the anti-Nazi Bavarian Freedom Movement and who had listened to the BBC, ABSIE, and Soldatensender West. They admitted listening to Hagedorn as well and informed their interrogators of the differences between the genuine Capricorn station and the obviously faked Soldatensender West. Hagedorn, whom they quoted verbatim, accurately reflected their views and the feelings of all anti-Nazis. As far as they knew, he had not been captured by the Nazis, and they asked that the OSS find him since he could be of postwar use to Germany. 48
The capture of Radio Luxembourg in September 1944 gave MO access to the most powerful radio transmitter in continental Europe. The radio facilities at Luxembourg City were used by the Nazis until just before their capture and no preparations had been made either to destroy the station or to jam its broadcasts. Thus, the station was not only left intact but was also outfitted with the most up-to-date equipment then available.
In cooperation with the Twelfth Army Group, MO received approval in early December 1944 to run a black campaign from Luxembourg code-named Operation Annie or Radio 1212. Annie broadcast from the same station, although on a different frequency, that was used for PWD-OWI daytime white broadcasts and special care was exercised to prevent any connection being made between the two. Radio 1212 ran nightly from 12:00 to 6:30 A.M. and purported to come from a Rhineland anti-Nazi group. Its news and information were addressed primarily to Rhinelanders, who were then in the immediate path of the Allied advance. Programs consisted of Rhenish music, news, and emotional features using speakers with Rhenish accents. Its chief announcer, MO's Benno Frank, addressed both enemy soldiers and civilians, talked of military events and air raids, gave extracts from OKW communiques, and read news on ways to evade Nazi party orders. Instructions and addresses were given to fictitious underground groups as well as information on how Germans were faring under the benevolent Allied occupation. 49
Operation Annie had a subtle and clearly subversive mission. Although a black operation, Radio 1212 was not entirely subversive at the outset and coil, centrated on providing truthful, factual information to build trust. The station even claimed that its news was accurate enough for Wehrmacht commanders to maintain their positional maps. Once trust had been established, however, and after the Allied breakthrough in the Moselle region, Radio 1212 began inserting false reports, evacuation and mobilization orders, rumors, and exaggerated information, thereby creating chaos. After the Rhine defenses were breached, Radio 1212 invented a resistance movement within Germany and encouraged everyone to join. 50
Reports from POWs, civilians, and the Swedish press indicated that Annie's audience was large for the 125 rights that it abed, ending on 25 April 194S. Even members of the Nazi party, who did not listen to the VOA, BBC, or ABSIE, allegedly listened to Radio 1212. One Swedish newspaper reported that the organization responsible for 1212 had branches in all towns and villages west of the line Hamburg-Bremen and Braunschweig-Jena-Munich and was organized to prevent scorched-earth policies. Other sources also maintained that 1212 was a legitimate station, one man believing it was run by renegade Nazi Otto Strasser. Overall Nazi reactions to 1212 indicated to MO that it was among the most successful campaigns of the war. 51
MO planners anticipated further clandestine radio operations in spring 194S, but the rapid Allied advance and the chronic shortage of personnel, who were now being transferred to the Pacific and Far Eastern theaters, led to the deferment of plans for future campaigns. 52
A final operation in which MO personnel took part, in, cooperation with PWE, was the "ghost voicing" of German radio broadcasts. The project involved using the 6oo,ooo-watt Aspidistra. transmitter at Woburn, England, literally to overpower radio signals and break into German broadcasts with anti-Nazi slogans, satirical comments, or sarcastic replies. Such an operation was carried out on 27 January 1945 when the Koenigsberg German Home Service was interrupted and a speech by Nazi Hans Fritzsche was heckled. Later, between 24 and 25 March and again on 30 March 1945, Aspidistra broke into broadcasts heard in Cologne, Berlin, Frankfurt, and Hamburg. During the Frankfurt broadcast the ghost voice announced the approach of a fictitious Allied tank force, ordered mobilizations of Red Cross and women's auxiliary groups in areas surrounding Frankfurt, and ordered police, Volkssturm, and other security personnel to detain the occupants of a gray car containing four uniformed impostors near the city. Goebbels recorded the operations in his diary, noting that the Americans were "trying to play the same game with the German people as we played with the French during our western offensive in the summer of 1940-" "Almost hourly," Goebbels wrote, "they put out false reports of the capture of towns and villages, thus creating the greatest confusion among the German public." 53
The Nazis quickly denounced the interruptions but could not jam the airwaves without ending their own programs carried on the same frequencies. They found themselves at the mercy of Allied propagandists, uncertain as to when and where the next intruder operation would take place. It was admitted by one official that "considerable misunderstandings and great unrest were caused among the population by the intrusion of enemy wireless announcements on the German wireless." The success of the operations convinced General McClure that they had "caused the enemy considerable anxiety which should be exploited to the full." The broadcasts continued until April 1945. 54 As with other MO covert activities, black radio operations ceased in late April and early May 1945, just before Nazi Germany fell. PWD sent word to the OSS that all operations would cease on I May 1945. 55
It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of OSS Morale Operations accurately. The relatively small scale of branch activities, when compared with propaganda campaigns carried out by the U.S. Army and the OWI and with the United Nations' conventional warfare efforts, seems insignificant. MO, unlike the army, lacked the personnel to conduct major postwar studies, and few surveys were completed describing the number of Germans who were exposed to or influenced by MO work. Perhaps the best indication of success is found in the official OSS history, which reported that MO carried on its efforts despite great handicaps at home and abroad and that by the war's end Allied military and political agencies had accepted the principle of morale operations. Most significantly, the branch

had brought to the attention of American authorities a weapon which the United States had not heretofore systematically and effectively employed. It drew attention to the advantages of a specialized type of intelligence-information on the morale, social cleavages and underlying worries of foreign peoples, and how these could be used for national advantage. 56
The Morale Operations Branch eventually became just the type of organization that Edmond Taylor and William Donovan had envisioned in 1941, and it clearly succeeded in its mission of fighting fire with fire, attaining a degree of sophistication never before imagined.

Footnotes:

1. Memo, PWD/SHAEF to Smith, Chief OSS MO ETO, 13 July 1944, Sub. Op. Dir. to MO Branch OSS, Box 79, Entry 148, RG 226.
2. Memo, Donovan to JCS, 13 Sept. 1945, Box 16, Entry 99, RG 2.26; see also Personnel Strength Rept. OSS, Box 120A, Donovan Papers; and Summary of MO Operations, 23 Apr. 1945, Box 123, Entry 136, RG 2,26.
3. OSS Planning Group Over-All and Special Programs for the Employment of Rumors Against the Germans, PG. 79/1, 24 May 1944, Box 23; PG 28 Doctrine re.: Rumors, Box 12, and Rumors, Box 79, all in Entry 144, RG 226. For comebacks see Production METO-Istanbul (Ames), Box 83, Entry 144; and ETO-MO-Comebacks, 1943-45, Box 15, Entry 99, both in RG 226.
4. Rumors disseminated from Cairo, 15 June 1943 to 10 Oct- 1944, METO, Box 79; rumors for the Balkans, Box 78; rumors for Turkey, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, I Box 82; all in Entry 144, RG 226.
5. Creedy to Wintle, 12 March 1945, Box 15, Entry 99, RG 226. The rumor about V-weapons appeared as a comeback in the 12 March 1945 issue of Stars and Stripes.
6. Letter, Creedy to Sioux, 27 Apr. 1945, and Creedy to Wintle, 12 Mar. 1945, both in Box 15, Entry 99, RG 226. In his 27 April letter, Wintle wrote that "the planning staff in Washington used to cut out most of the best human sausage meat and human skin decorations stories as implausible. And yet, reading the Belsen concentration camp account, I noted some women had made a lamp shade out of pretty tatoo [sic] marks, having preserved the skin of victims. So once again we've turned out to be nearer the truth with our wildest flights of imagination than with some of our more modest creations."
7. ETO MO Operations, 1944-45, Box 16, and Monthly Progress Report, NATO MO, 1 June 1944, Box 86, both in Entry 99; Production-MO-German 1-Cairo MO Operations, Box 31 Entry 154; Production METO-Steinberg Cartoons, Box 83, Entry 144; all in RG 226; see also Kermit Roosevelt, War Report of the OSS, 2 vols. (New York: Walker, 1976), 2:93.
8. MO War Diaries, Box 5, Entry 91; and Monthly Report, Feb.-Mar. 1945, Box 94, Entry 99, RG 226.
9. Project MTO, Box 31, Entry 154, and Box 67, Entry 144, RG 226.
10. Roosevelt, War Report OSS, 2:97-98, and Anthony Cave-Brown, The Secret War Report of the OSS (New York: Berkeley/Medallion Books, 1976), 222.
11. For leaflets to Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria, see Box 42; for MO aid to Tito, see Summary of MO Operations, 23 Apr. 1945, Box 123, and Black Propaganda for Tito, Box 126, Entry 136, all in RG 226; see also Roosevelt, War Report OSS, 2:131.
12. Apple Mission Rept., Box 42, Entry 136; memo, West to McGlasson, 26 Apr. 1944, Box 7% Entry 144; Summary of MO Operations, 23 AN 1945, Box 126, Entry 136, all in RG 226.
13. For Ulysses, see Ulysses Project, Box 42, Entry 136; Project METO-Ulysses parts 1, 2, 3, 4, Box 84, and Project METO-Ulysses, Box 86, both in Entry 144; Summary of MO Operations, 23 Apr. 1945, Box 123, Entry 136; Project METO-Ulysses, Plans Re ports, Box 8, Envy 144, RG 226.

14. For leaflets of the Democratic United Austrian Front, we Box 71 Envy 9% an (I Stockholm-MO-Propaganda, Box 100, Entry 139, RG 226.
15. For the Ludendorff campaign and Driscoll's New York Herald Tribune article, see Box 75 and Summary of MO Operations, 23 An 1945, Box 123, both in Entry 136 andBox 16, Entry 99, all in RG 226; Roosevelt, War Report OSS, 2:301-2.
16. Roosevelt, War Report OSS, 2:301-2; see also U.S. Army, Twelfth Army Group, Report of Operations: Final After Action Report, Twelfth Army Group, vol. 14, P&PW Section, (n.p., 1945), 188-89; and MO-PWD-ETO Black Operations-Skorpion, section 1,3 Leaflets; Annex A for MO Skorpion leaflets, Box 15, Entry 99, RG 226; and Daniel Lerner, Sykewar: Psychological Warfare Against Germany, D-Day to V-E Day (New York: Stewart, 1949), 239.
17. Production METO-Kreipe-Krech, Boxes 75, Entry 99, and Boxes 79, 8 1, 1 144, RG 226; see also Roosevelt, War Report OSS, 2:122.
18. MO Poison Pen Selection, Box 75, Entry 99, RG 226.
19. Folder 470, Box 31, Entry 154, RG 226.
20. OSS Operations, June 1944, MEDTO, Box 93, and OSS Activities, May 1944, Algiers, Box 92, both in Entry 99; Project MTO "Miami," Box 87, Entry 144, RG 226.
21. Propaganda Techniques, Box 75, Entry 99, RG 226.
22. Project ETO DND and Caserta, DND, Box 50, and DND materials, Box 31, all a Entry 154; Production MTO Rome (German), Box 83, Entry 144, all in RG 226; see also Roosevelt, War Report OSS, 1:218.
23. Excerpts MO/MEDTO Field Reports-Apr. 1945, Evidence of Effectiveness of )ND, 9 July 1945, Box 75, and Boxes 16, 86, 89, all in Entry 99; for newspaper coverage, see Project MTO DND, Box 50, Entry 154, all in RG 226. For OWI interest, see dispatches, Sherwood, Jackson, Carroll to London, 8 July 1944; Thomson to Carroll, 16 July 1944; Carroll to Outposts, 6 July 1944; Box 108 Entry 358, RG 208
24. MO War Diaries, Box 5, Entry 91; OSS Monthly Activities, MEDTO, Mar. 1945; Background Report, 29 February 1944-METO MO; and ETO MO Operations, 1944-45, Box 16, Entry 99, all in RG 226.
25. Report on Sioux Mission, IS Mar. to I Sept. 1944, Box 79, Entry 148; Box 75, Entry 99; and Leaflets, Box 83, Entry 144, all in RG 226; see also Roosevelt, War Report OSS, 1:218, 2:266, and Cave-Brown, Secret War Report, 108-9; for Casey's wartime activities, see William Casey, The Secret War Against Hitler (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Gateway, 1988), 181.
26. Report on Sioux Mission, IS Mar. - 1 Sept. 1944, Box 75, Entry 99, and Box 79, Entry 148, RG 226.
27. Many examples of stickers survive (see MO Black Stickers, Box 75, Entry 99; MO War Diaries, Box 5, Entry 91; Box 31, Entry 154; and Box 100, Entry 139, all in RG 226).
28. MO poster in MO War Diaries, Publications, Box 5, Entry 91; and Propaganda Techniques, Box 75, Entry 99, RG 226.
29. Information on the missions is extensive (see Clayton D. Laurie, "'The Sauerkrauts': The OSS and German Prisoners of War as Secret Agents in Europe, 1944-1945," Prologue 26 [Spring 19941: 49-61); see also Boxes IS, 32, 69, 86, 87, 92, 93, 94, 123, all in Entry 99; Project-MTO-Sauerkraut 1-9, and Report on Missions in Box 51, Entry 154; German POWS as Agents, Box 126, Entry 136; memo, Linder to Chief MO, 2 May 1945, sub.: MO Agent Gustav Preuss, Box 67, Entry 144, all in RG 226; and Story of the Sauerkrauts, Box 102A, Donovan Papers.
30. Summary of MO Operations, 23 Apr. 1945, Box 123, Entry 136, and memo, Casey to Donovan, 12 Oct. 1944, Box IS, Entry 99, RG 226. The operation was not well known even after the war. During the writing of the MO War Diaries there was a debate about whether to include Sauerkraut and what to tell the JCS should they learn of the operation (see Report for War Diary, Box 32, Entry 99, RG 226).
31. Project-MTO-Hors d'oeuvre, Box 87, Entry 144; and Washington Branch Progress Reports, 1 Oct. - 1 Nov. 1944, MEDTO/ETO, Box 88; OSS Activities, Nov. 1944, Box 93; Washington MO-PWD-ETO Black Operations, section 2 Agents, Box 15; and Report MO-ETO July 1944-Jan. 1945, 3 Feb., Box 16, all in Entry 99, RG 226,
32. Report, Lloyd to Donovan, 23 May 1946, Box 67A, Donovan Papers; see also Agent Infiltration of Front, Box 126; Summary of MO Operations, 23 Apr. 1945, Box 123, all in Entry 136, RG 226; see also Report of Operations Twelfth AG, 14:187-88.
33. Reports, Libich to Warner, 21 Aug. 1944, and Libich to Warner, 28 Nov. 1944, Production-MO "Cornflakes," all in Box 50, Entry 154; MO Progress Report, 16-28 Mar. 1945, Box 67, Entry 144, all in RG 226; see also Walter Skrine and Peter Collins, "Operation Cornflakes," Philatelist (May 1970, 250-51; Roosevelt, War Report OSS, 2:98-99; and "The Story of Cornflakes, Pig Iron, and Sheet Iron," 3-9, Box 72B, Donovan Papers. For sites of Cornflakes raids, see Skrine and Collins, 254.
34. OSS Activities-ETO, Feb. 1945, Box 94, and MO Forgeries, Box 69, Entry 99, RG 226.
35. "The Story of Cornflakes, Pig Iron, and Sheet Iron," Box 72B, Donovan Papers. For the smaller version of DND, see Box 75, Entry 99, RG 226.
36. For stamps, see Skrine and Collins, "Operation Cornflakes," 250-51. Donovan sent FDR several forged stamps for his collection (see letter, FDR to Donovan, 5 Oct. 1944, PPF 6558, Donovan, Gen. W. J., FDR Papers); for forged ration cards, see Black Operations, Box 35, Entry 88, RG 331; for forged documents of all sorts, see Production MTO-German 2 Cairo, Box 31, Entry 154, and Washington MO Exhibits, Box 75, Entry 99, both in RG 226. For plans to counterfeit German currency, see Box 21, and for money leaflets, see Project MTO Banknote, Box 87, both in Entry 144, RG 226.
37. Daniels's idea was quashed because the ammunition might fall into Allied hands and be used with disastrous results by partisan groups or Allied soldiers who, contrary to regulations, often used captured German weapons (see letter, Daniels to Bari MO Chief, and reply, Warner to Daniels, 7 February 1945, Project-MTO-"Brunswick," Box 87, Entry 144, RG 226).
38. Plans Continued, Box 25, Entry 95, RG 331, NARA; see also Daniel Lerner, "Braddock II," in A Psychological Warfare Casebook, ed. William E. Daugherty and Morris Janowitz (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1958), 416.
39. Production, METO Broadcasts, Box 84; Production, Broadcasts Morse German I and 2, Box 85; and memo, Vanda to Ames, 6 May 1944, re: Schedule for Morse Broad casts, Box 79, all in Entry 144. For further Project Morse documents, see Boxes 16, 69, 86, 87, Entry 99, and Clandestine Balkan Morse, Box 126, Entry 136, all in RG 226.
40. Project METO Radio Boston and Production METO Broadcasts German Voice, Box 84; memo, Ames to Warner, 14 Mar. 1944, Box 78; Smyrna, Box 79, all in Entry 144; Clandestine Balkan Radio, Box 126, Entry 136; and Cairo MO INT 3, News Service Greek, Aug. 1944, Box 77, Entry 144; Greek Newscasts, Box 45, Entry 136, and Boxes 16, 45, 69, 86, 87, Entry 99, all in RG 226.
41. Gray propaganda was a term used primarily by the British to denote an operation that was half black and half white. Soldatensender Calais was later called Soldatensender West after Calais was liberated.
42. Summary of MO Operations, 23 Apr. 1945, Box 123, Entry 136; Report MO-ETO, July 44 to Jan. 45, 3 February 1945, Box 16, Entry 99; MO Radio, Soldatensender, 1, Box 5, Entry 91; all in RG 226. Marlene Dietrich received letters from Herbert Little and William Donovan thanking her for her MO work along with the recordings she made for the OSS (see letters, Little to Dietrich, 31 Aug. 1945, and Donovan to Dietrich, 23 Aug. 1945, Box 123, Entry 136, RG 226).
43. MO War Dairies, Box 5, Entry 91, RG 226. For Nazi warnings and reactions, Sefton Delmer, Black Boomerang (London: Secker and Warburg, 1962), 123-24, 205-206; and Casey, Secret War Against Hitler, 28. For overall effectiveness, see U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, The Effects of Strategic Bombing on German Morale (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1948), 1:1-2, 27, 99, M.
44. For Joker, see Box 16, Entry 99; MO Radio, Box 6, Entry 91; and Summary of MO Operations, 23 Apr. 194S, Box 123, Entry 136, all in RG 226. A letter between MO agents in London and Sweden suggested that news of Beck's existence be planted in Swedish newspapers, which meant that rather than hearing the broadcast itself, the Swedes reported a planted OSS rumor, thereby raising doubts as to actual radio-audience size. In any event, neutral newspapers picked up the gist of the story, and it subsequently appeared in official Allied propaganda (see Cable, 899 to 965, 14 Oct- 1944, Box 136, Entry 148, RG 226).
45. Memo, McClure to Bruce, 11 Nov. 1944, Box 2, Entry 87, RG 331; see also Roosevelt, War Report OSS, 2:300.
46. Directive from PWD to Smith, MO, 11 Sept. 1944, Box 79, Entry 148; and Clandestine German Radio, Box 126, Entry 136, RG 226; see also memo, Harris to McClure, 9 Oct. 1944, sub. Black Radio Programs, 10-20 Oct.; memo, Harris to Oechsner, PWD, 30 Sept. 1944; memo, McClure to MO, 26 Oct. 1944; memo, McClure to MO, 11 Sept. 1944, Box 2, Entry 87, all in RG 331. For transcripts, see Broadcasts Voice of SHAEF, Box 4, Entry 87, RG 331, and Box 6, Entry 99, RG 226.
47. MO Radio, Box 5, Entry 91; for Bradley's reaction, see Box 16, Entry 99, RG 226.
48. For Capricorn, see Directive, McClure to MO, 19 February 1945, Box 35, Entry 88, RG 331; Summary of MO Operations, 23 Apr, 1945, Box 123, Entry 16; and Interrogation from Progress Report, 1-30 June, 1945, 30 June 1945, Box 16, Entry 99; see also Bows 94 and 9% Entry 9% all in RG 25; and History 4 PWD, 54-55.
49. Annex F, Box Is; Annex E, Plan for Covert PW Operation on Radio Luxembourg; Annex G, transcripts; and Section 4, Radio, Box is, Entry 99, all in RG 226; see also memo, Harris to CO, PWD, n.d., sub.: "Black" Operation on Radio Luxembourg, Box 2, Entry 87, RG 331; and Brewster Morgan, "'Operation Annie': [The U.S.] Army Radio Station That Fooled the Nazis by Telling Them the Truth," Saturday Evening Post, 9 March 1946, 19.
50. For a 1212 Broadcast, see Report of Operations Twelfth AG, 14:190-95.
51. Reaction to 1212, 7 Mar. 194S, Annex K, Box 15, Entry 99, RG 226, and memo, Paley to McClure, 6 Apr. 1945, sub.: Final Broadcast of Operation Annie, Reply, 13 Apr. 194S, Box 2, Entry 87, RG 331; see also H. H. Burger, "'Operation Annie': Now It Can Be Told," New York Times Magazine, 17 February 1946,12-13, and William H. Hale, "Big Noise in Little Luxembourg," Harper's, April 1946, 377-84. The perception regarding Strasser could have resulted from the earlier British attempts to use the former Nazi to foment revolution in Germany (see Robert H. Keyserlingk, "Political Warfare Illusion: Otto Strasser and Britain's World War II Strategy of National Revolts Against Hitler," Dalhousie Review 61 [Spring 1981]: 71-92).
52. One radio operation code-named Woodland was intended to appeal to Bavarian and Austrian separatist groups (see memo, Baldwin to McClure, n.d., Box 2, Entry 87, RG 331).
53. Goebbels quoted in Joseph Goebbels, Final Entries, 1945: The Diaries of Joseph Goebbels, ed. Hugh TrevorRoper (New York: G. Putnam's Sons, 1978), 223, entry for 28 March 1945; see also memo, McClure to Chief of Staff, SHAEF, 31 Mar. 194S; memo, Hodgkin to Alms, G-3 (Forward), 26 Mar. 1945, sub.: Aspidistra, Box 35, Entry 88, RG 331. For example, see Transcript, Box 75, Entry 99, RG 226.
54. First quote from memo, Hodgkin to Alms, G-3 (Forward), 16 April 194s; McClure quote from memo, McClure to Chief of Staff, SHAEF, 31 Mar. 1945; see also memo, Hodgkin to Alms, G-3 (Forward), 26 Mar. 1945, sub.: Aspidistra, all in Box 35, Entry 88, RG 331. For Nazi jamming efforts, see William D. Bayles, "England's Radio Blitz," Reader's Digest, April 1944, 61.
55. Memo, McClure to G-2, SHAEF, n.d., sub.: Covert Propaganda Operations, Box 2, Entry 87, RG 331.
56. Roosevelt, War Report OSS, 1:222-23.