By 1945, the Allies had tried nearly everything to undermine Nazi Germany from the inside. Leaflets dropped from planes. Radio broadcasts. Forged documents. And then someone in the Office of Strategic Services — the forerunner to the CIA — had an idea that was either brilliant or completely unhinged, possibly both.
What if they weaponized the mail?
This week's Sidequests covers Operation Cornflakes: the Allied psychological operation that used bombed mail trains, counterfeit Nazi postage stamps, and fake German newspapers to slip anti-Nazi propaganda directly into the hands of ordinary German citizens — delivered, unknowingly, by actual German postal workers.
","author_name":"Keith Conrad"}