Talk:Englandspiel

Untitled

Note: Article merged with Operation Nordpol: see old talk-page Operation Nordpol

Uncertainty

The certainty with which this article is written seems to me a little misplaced. We now know that throughout the war, Philby, Blunt and others in the UK and US were passing massive quantities of Ultra intercepts (and other intelligence) to the various organisations within the USSR for whom they worked.

I have found no book that I can read (having a very limited ability in languages) which details the espionage relationship between Hitler and Stalin, but it would seem most unlikely, bearing in mind the sheer volume of activity from both of them in other theatres, that there wasn't massive effort being put into espionage and counter intelligence by both sides in the war in the east.

So when Philby knew of activity in Holland, Stalin knew, and when Stalin knew, who knows whom he told and under what cover story?Drg40 (talk) 22:09, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Fate of the captured agents

I feel the fact this article doesn't prominently report the number of captured agents executed (as opposed to being imprisoned) is a flaw which needs rectifying. Does one assume that the fact Giskes wasn't himself imprisoned, or executed, after the war implies that most captured agents weren't shot ? --JustinSmith (talk) 21:11, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

A TV documentary said the agents were sent to the Mauthausen camp and were either worked to death or shot in a mass execution in 1944, except for Lauwers (the agent who first sent messages for the Nazis back to SOE) and the one woman who was captured. Giskes was interrogated, but according to a ref added to his own article, went right to work for US intelligence at war's end. Edison (talk) 21:58, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Giskes probably received no punishment for the executions because what he did was standard operating procedure for all countries involved, in regards to captured spies. The British executed by firing squad all German spies who refused to turn double agent, the Americans executed half a dozen German spies in the electric chair. That's just the way this game was played. 71.189.63.217 (talk) 21:34, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Also known as "Operation North Pole"

The main page of this article would be improved considerably if some light were cast on the means of penetrating German air space (that is, by aircraft - what kinds of planes were actually used?), and the means of dropping agents in German controlled territory (that is, by parachuting), and, finally, the means of contacting SOE (that is, by deliberately misspelling words in the Dutch language, in only specific places [in the first and last lines of the communications actually transmitted by radio - were there any specific hours that radio frequencies were being monitored?], and in words that only the Dutch would recognize instantaneously) - which words were they? Chlor? As in Chlorine? That was a word that admitted to difficult pronunciation by some Germans because the 'ch' sound in certain places such as the Frisian Islands is very "retroflex." Anyway, this subject of introducing spelling errors where there shouldn't be any, was touched on by Professor Rebecca West in her book, "The new meaning of treason." (Viking Press, 1964, 1966). Pages 328-329. It is sad that SOE kept ignoring the spelling errors, which the agents dutifully supplied them, as had been agreed on. The agents had agreed to type the spelling errors in, confident the Germans would not notice them. Unfortunately, the SOE kept missing the spelling errors.

Also, the whole article in the English version of Wikipedia should be parented under "Operation North Pole" - in addition to being parented under "Englandspiel" - if that is at all possible. Dexter Nextnumber (talk) 07:11, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Sources?

I came across this page via google, using my memory of Herr Giskes and the Netherlands operations as related by Leo Marks in "Between Silk And Cyanide".

My memory may be faulty, but this article seems to just be a summary of that exact same book. There are very few sources in the text. OK, it was classified, and sources may be hard to come by, but this page reads like it was written by somebody who just read "Cyanide" and didn't check it.

Great book, BTW, highly recommended. But authoritative? Not sure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.3.220 (talk) 23:46, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Englandspiel/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

"Purposefully sending Dutch agents to their deaths, to save some of their own troops. Similar to what they did with Polish troops during Operation Market Garden." The Polish troops were dropped on the south side of the river, across the river from the british troops. Though it has been some time since i've done any major reading on Market-Garden the Polish brigade, if i recall correctly, was delayed by bad weather, then the drop zone was adjusted from the south end of the arhnem bridge to a ferry at driel in an attempt to relieve/reinforce the bridgehead on the north side of the river. To say that the polish troops were simple sent to their deaths is inaccurate to say the least. Someone with a greater knowledge of this operation should review it as a whole for similar inaccuracies. Mattwitt2009 (talk) 16:09, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Last edited at 16:09, 28 July 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 14:31, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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