Demoralization is not a new phenomenon and during World War II, both the Allies and the Axis Powers used tactics to try and undermine the morale of citizens. One covert operation created by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the American spy agency during World War II that later became the CIA, became known as "Operation Cornflakes." Sounds delicious, doesn't it? A Kellogg's campaign during which you get a knock on the door in the morning and someone hands you a bowl of cornflakes? Well, it's not.
One of the stamps, issued by the Germans was the Hitler head series. So what did the OSS do? They took the stamps (specific values and you will soon understand why) and forged them! Instead of the usual Hitler head, the fakes showed Hitler's head as a skull or "death head." One of the stamps printed the name of the country as "Futsches Reich" which means "ruined empire" instead of "Deutches Reich".
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| With permission from SGM Herbert A. Friedman |
Just as matter of interest, it is documented that Hitler was paid to be able to use his portrait on postage stamps. It was paid for by something called a Cultural Fund. This is also where he was paid the money from hi book, "Mein Kampf"
Our OSS friends led by General "Wild Bill" Donovan, had to learn everything about the German postal service. So what did they do? German Prisoners of War who were former postal workers, were interrogated on every slither of information, from the postage stamps to methods of packing and sealing mailbags. For this work, they received benefits like tastier meals and so on. Anti-Nazi spies and residents, collected samples of cancellers, postage stamps, mailbags and envelopes. They even took German phone books with addresses of the residents. Today with our smartphones, who remembers the piles of phone books next to our telephone that was connected to a wall!
Now they have addresses, fake stamps, mailbags, knowledge of methods, so what's the next step? Writing the letters themselves. The letters were written, full of anti-Nazi propaganda, to as many citizens as possible, using the forged stamp and fake postmark. In each letter they placed the Hitler skull parody stamp. But they then encountered a problem. Without asking anyone, and without informing the OSS, the Germans changed the laws and only allowed mail from legitimate businesses. No problem, the sender's address will carry the addresses of legitimate businesses that they of course took from the phone number. In the interim they duplicated the mail bags and every other detail of the German postal service. What an operation.
The question now is how to insert these letters into the German postal service? After much thought they came to the conclusion that the best way is to bomb mail trains from the air. Once the bombers managed to stop the train, they had to drop the false mailbags into the rubble. Thus, the Germans would find the mailbags and assume that they belonged to the damaged train and transferred them for further treatment and thus reach their destination. This type of propaganda is called black propaganda. Black propaganda is a type of propaganda designed to create the impression that it was created by someone who is supposed to discredit it.
A beautiful story, no? So speaking of letters, why was it called Operation Cornflakes?
In those days, in the United States, cornflakes was a very popular breakfast food and in Germany the mail was delivered at breakfast, so the Allies felt that if German citizens received their demoralization propaganda at breakfast, they would feel that the German Reich was indeed "falling apart." A covert operation named after food!
On February 5, 1945, a German train traveled to the city of Linz. The Mail Car held mail delivered to several towns in northern Austria. Suddenly, Allied planes attacked, dropped bombs, and dropped the mailbags. Eight mailbags hit the ground around the train with a thump. Inside each bag were about 800 propaganda letters, all directed to homes and businesses along the train route and properly addressed. When the train was discovered, German postal workers exchanged bags and forwarded the letters without knowing anything about their contents or origins. The operation had begun.
During the operation, 20 missins of counterfeit mail, with about 320 mailbags and over 96,000 propaganda letters were dropped. Although there was a considerable amount of mail, I have not seen many for sale. A friend sent me a photograph as an example, and it is depicted below.
What is interesting about the story is that the items are relatively difficult to obtain, and therefore there are forgeries on the parody, so you need a certificate to show that it is genuine. Can you imagine a forgery of the forgery? Before you start looking for letters like, remember one thing, the stamps on the letters were not the ones with the skull because people would immediately recognize that it was not real, but most of the time they were inside the letter with the propaganda page. Remember, this is black propaganda!
No one knows how successful the operation was but at least it gave us something to enjoy. The story is based on an article by another colleague of mine. And here's a link.
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Outstanding
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