6 Insane Stories of a Magician Who Helped Win WWII | Part 5

#2.

 

Fritz Fakery

In January 1943, a German agent code-named Fritz radioed his contact in the German army to report that he had successfully detonated a bomb inside the Royal Aircraft powerhouse. The German army didn't believe him, no doubt crossing their arms and pouting at the thought of being Maskelyned again, but flew a reconnaissance mission that confirmed that the factory, in fact, had a lot of holes in the roof and lots of debris scattered about. Even an Royal Air Force mission over the area confirmed the explosion.

Fritz was welcomed home by the Nazi intelligence agents, briefed on his next mission and sent back into the fray. What the Nazis didn't realize was that "Fritz" was also "Agent ZigZag," also known as Eddie Chapman, the most successful double agent in history. And that the so-called bombing Fritz pulled off was actually nothing more than Jasper Maskelyning the hell out of the building with some painted canvas and fake bricks. The man had created a perfect illusion of a destroyed building -- just like he did in North Africa.



That allowed Chapman to spend the rest of the war playing the Germans like a sexy violin. They gave him a yacht, 110,000 reichmarks and an Iron Cross and promoted him to first lieutenant, all while he was slipping German secrets to the British.

All of the above is true, too -- you can read the official documents at the MI5 website. Well, notice that they don't mention Maskelyne. They don't say he didn't work on the project, but they don't give credit to any specific people for setting up the illusion. All we have are a lot of other people repeating the story and, of course, Maskelyne himself.


To be continued...