Juan Pujol García (; 14 February 1914 – 10 October 1988), also known as Joan Pujol i García (), was a Catalan spy who worked as a double agent loyal to the United Kingdom against Nazi Germany during World War II, when he relocated to Britain to carry out fictitious spying activities for the Germans. He was given the codename Garbo by the British; their German counterparts codenamed him Alaric and referred to his non-existent spy network as "Arabal".
After developing a loathing of totalitarianism during the Spanish Civil War, Pujol decided to become a spy for Britain as a way to do something "for the good of humanity". Pujol and his wifeSeaman (2004). p. 56 "Pujol's wife called upon the US Embassy without informing her husband" contacted the British Embassy in Madrid, which rejected his offer.
Undeterred, he created a false identity as a fanatically pro-Nazi Spanish government official and successfully became a German agent. He was instructed to travel to Britain and recruit additional agents; instead he moved to Lisbon and created bogus reports about Britain from a variety of public sources including a tourist guide to Britain, train timetables, cinema newsreels, and magazine advertisements.Seaman (2004). p. 56 "This imaginary espionage material he constructed with the aid of the following reference documents..."
Although the information would not have withstood close examination, Pujol soon established himself as a trustworthy agent. He began inventing fictitious sub-agents who could be blamed for false information and mistakes. The Allies finally accepted Pujol when the Germans expended considerable resources attempting to hunt down a fictitious convoy. Following interviews by Desmond Bristow of Section V MI6 Iberian Section, Pujol was taken on. The family were moved to Britain and Pujol was given the code name "Garbo". Pujol and his handler Tomás Harris spent the rest of the war expanding the fictitious network, communicating to the German handlers at first by letters and later by radio. Eventually the Germans were funding a network of 27 agents, all fictitious.
Pujol had a key role in the success of Operation Fortitude, the deception operation intended to mislead the Germans about the timing, location, and scale of the invasion of Normandy in 1944. The false information Pujol supplied helped persuade the Germans that the main attack would be in the , so that they kept large forces, including the Fifteenth Army, lead by Hans von Salmuth, there before and even after the invasion. Pujol had the distinction of receiving military decorations from both sides of the warbeing awarded the Iron Cross and later becoming a Member of the Order of the British Empire.
Early life Pujol was born in Barcelona to Joan Pujol, a Catalan who owned a cotton factory, and Mercedes García Guijarro, from the Andalusian town of Motril in the Province of Granada.Pujol (1985). p. 10 The third of four children, Pujol was sent at age seven to the Valldemia boarding schoolPujol (1985). pp. 12–16 run by the Marist Brothers in Mataró, from Barcelona; he remained there for the next four years. The students were only allowed out of the school on Sundays if they had a visitor, so his father made the trip every week.
His mother came from a strict Roman Catholic family and took Communion every day,Pujol (1985). p. 10 "Her parents were strict Catholics who received Holy Communion every day". but his father was much more secular and had liberal political beliefs.Seaman (2004). p. 42. At age thirteen, he was transferred to a school in Barcelona run by his father's card-playing friend Monsignor Josep, where he remained for three years.Pujol (1985). p. 17 After an argument with a teacher, he decided that he no longer wished to remain at the school, and became an apprentice at a hardware store.
Pujol engaged in a variety of occupations prior to and after the Spanish Civil War, such as studying animal husbandry at the Royal Poultry School in Arenys de Mar and managing various businesses, including a cinema.Seaman (2004), p. 30.Seaman (2004), p. 8.
His father died a few months after the Second Republic's establishment in 1931, while Pujol was completing his education as a poultry farmer.Pujol (1985), p. 18 Pujol's father left his family well-provided for, until his father's factory was taken over by the workers in the early stages of the Spanish Civil War.
Spanish Civil War
In 1931, Pujol did his six months of compulsory military service in a cavalry unit, the 7th Regiment of Light Artillery. He knew he was unsuited for a military career, hating horse-riding and claiming to lack the "essential qualities of loyalty, generosity, and honour".Pujol (1985). p. 19 Pujol was managing a poultry farm north of Barcelona in 1936 when the Spanish Civil War began. His sister Elena's fiancé was taken by Republican forces. Later, she and his mother were arrested and charged with being counter-revolutionaries. A relative in a trade union was able to rescue them from captivity.Pujol (1985), p. 24
He was called up for military service on the Republican side (in opposition to Francisco Franco's Nationalists), but opposed the Republican government due to their treatment of his family. He hid at his girlfriend's home until he was captured in a police raid and imprisoned for a week before being freed via the Traditionalist resistance group Socorro Blanco. They hid him until they could produce fake identity papers that showed him to be too old for military service.Pujol (1985). p. 25 "Meanwhile my girlfriend got in touch with one of the units of Socorro Blanco, a secret organization which endeavored to assist those who are being persecuted for idealistic or religious reasons. One of their girl helpers posed as a revolutionary and arranged for me to be let out of prison at dead of night. Free, I join the ever-growing number of those leading a clandestine existence. I went into hiding again." He started managing a poultry farm that had been requisitioned by the local Republican government, but it was not economically viable. The experience with rule by committee intensified his antipathy towards communism.Pujol (1985). p. 29 "I was not prepared to keep being told off while they did nothing to put the business on a sounder economic footing."
He re-joined the Republican military using his false papers with the intention to desert as soon as possible, volunteering to lay telegraph cables near the front line. He managed to desert to the Nationalist side during the Battle of the Ebro in September 1938.Seaman (2004). p. 9 . "He was a reluctant participant in the Spanish Civil War, being persecuted by the Republicans in his native Catalonia and feeling little sympathy with the Fascist ideology of the Nationalists." However, he was equally ill-treated by the Nationalist side, disliking their fascist influences and being struck and imprisoned by his colonel upon Pujol's expressing sympathy with the monarchy.Seaman (2004). p. 43.
His experience with both sides left him with a deep loathing of both fascism and communism, and by extension Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. He was proud that he had managed to serve both sides without firing a single bullet for either. After his discharge from the Nationalist army, he met Araceli González in Burgos and married her in Madrid; they had one child, Joan Fernando.Pujol (1985). p. p. 93.
World War II
Independent spying In 1940, during the early stages of World War II, Pujol decided that he must make a contribution "for the good of humanity" by helping Britain, which was at the time Germany's only adversary. Starting in January 1941, he approached the British Embassy in Madrid three different times, including through his wife (though Pujol edited her participation out of his memoirs), but they showed no interest in employing him as a spy. Therefore, he resolved to establish himself as a German agent before approaching the British again to offer his services as a double-agent.
Pujol created an identity as a fanatically pro-Nazi Spanish government official who could travel to London on official business; he also obtained a fake Spanish diplomatic passport by fooling a printer into thinking Pujol worked for the Spanish embassy in Lisbon.Seaman (2004). p. p. 46. He contacted Friedrich Knappe-Ratey, an agent in Madrid, codenamed "Frederico". The accepted Pujol and gave him a crash course in espionage (including secret writing), a bottle of invisible ink, a codebook, and £600 for expenses. His instructions were to move to Britain and recruit a network of British agents.
He moved instead to Lisbon; using a tourist's guide to Britain, reference books and magazines from the Lisbon Public Library, and newsreel reports he saw in cinemas, he created seemingly credible reports that appeared to come from London. During his time in Portugal, he stayed in Estoril, at the Hotel Palácio.Exiles Memorial Center. He claimed to be travelling around Britain and submitted his travel expenses based on fares listed in a British railway guide. Pujol's unfamiliarity with the non-decimal system of currency used in Britain at the time was a slight difficulty. At this time Great Britain's unit of currency, the pound sterling, was subdivided into 20 shillings, each having twelve pence. Pujol was unable to total his expenses in this complex system, so simply itemised them, and said that he would send the total later.Seaman (2004). p. 59 .
During this time he created an extensive network of fictitious sub-agents living in different parts of Britain. Because he had never actually visited the UK, he made several mistakes, such as claiming that his alleged contact in Glasgow "would do anything for a litre of wine", unaware of Scottish drinking habits or that the UK did not use the metric system. His reports were intercepted by the British Ultra communications interceptions programme, and seemed so credible that the British counter-intelligence service MI5 launched a full-scale spy hunt.
In February 1942, either he or his wife (accounts differ) approached the United States after it had entered the war, contacting US Navy Lieutenant Patrick Demorest in the naval attache's office in Lisbon, who recognised Pujol's potential. Demorest contacted his British counterparts.
Work with MI6 The British had become aware that someone had been misinforming the Germans, and realised the value of this after the wasted resources attempting to hunt down a non-existent convoy reported to them by Pujol. He was moved to Britain on 24 April 1942 and given the code name "Bovril", after the drink concentrate. However, after he passed the security check conducted by MI6 Officer Desmond Bristow, Bristow suggested that he be accompanied by MI5 officer Tomás Harris (a fluent Spanish speaker) to brief Pujol on how he and Harris should work together. Pujol's wife and child were later moved to Britain.
Pujol operated as a double agent under the XX Committee's aegis. Cyril Mills was initially Pujol's case officer, but he spoke no Spanish and quickly dropped out of the picture. Mills suggested that Pujol's code name should be changed as befitted "the best actor in the world", and Pujol became "Garbo", after Greta Garbo.Holt (2010). p. 210. "Mills was initially BOVRIL's case officer; but he spoke no Spanish and quickly dropped out of the picture. His main contribution was to suggest, after the truly extraordinary dimensions of Pujol's imagination and accomplishments had become apparent, that his code name should be changed as befitted 'the best actor in the world'; and BOVRIL became GARBO." Mills passed his case over to the Spanish-speaking officer Harris. Together, Harris and Pujol wrote 315 letters, averaging 2,000 words, addressed to a post-office box in Lisbon supplied by the Germans. His fictitious spy network was so efficient and verbose that his German handlers were overwhelmed and made no further attempts to recruit any additional spies in the UK.