On the morning of June 6, 1944, a small amount of German troops at Normandy beach were pulling security not expecting any action in their corner of the world. The German's had heard planes and bombs which was not unfamiliar in those days of WWII. What the Germans on the beach did not know is that most of the planes they had heard over the night were Allied paratroopers who were preparing for the beach landings which were about to start. As the Germans looked out upon the English Channel they could not see much other than rough seas and overcast skies until they could finally see the landing craft coming into view. The allied landing force was the largest amphibious invasion force ever to storm a beach in history. The Nazis believed that this invasion force was simply a distraction from the real invasion force that was coming much farther north than the beaches of Normandy. 

Nazi soldiers believed that the invasion force was coming in a different spot because of the in-depth deception used by the allied forces. Completely unknown to the Germans the British had cracked the Nazis coding machine known as the Enigma. A man by the name of Alan Turing built a machine that was able to read messages sent by the Enigma. Being able to read these messages gave the allies the ability to plan around what the Germans were planning. They were also able to understand if the attempts at deception by the allies were actually successful. Using spies in the Nazi forces the Allies were able to give false information that coincided with the deceptive actions that the Allies were taking. The spy known by the code name Knopf was in Hitler’s high command and, was unknowingly to Hitler, working for the Allies.

The British spy Knopf and the British cracking of the Enigma ensured the success of the deception used by the Allies in the Normandy invasion. To set the full deception the allied forces set a fake invasion force in England across the English Channel from Calais. This fake force included inflatable trucks and tanks that were moved around, fake outpost buildings, silhouettes that look like soldiers and fake radio traffic. This fake invasion force made sense because it sat across the narrowest point of the English Channel making the possibility of invasion even more likely. The confidence of the Nazis that the invasion was not happening at Normandy added to the surprise of the Nazi soldiers at Normandy that the invasion was coming straight through their lines. Even though the soldiers were well armed, well protected with a well-planned defense that Allied forces were able to successfully secure a foothold on the beaches of Normandy.

British Spy Knopf: http://www.vosizneias.com/49351/2010/02/14/london-vital-secrets-about-top-hitler-secret-agent-uncovered/

Cracking the Enigma: http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-alan-turing-cracked-the-enigma-code

Patton’s Fake invasion force: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5913Yy7LqI