''Funkspiel'' (german: radio game) was a German term describing a technique of transmission of controlled information over a captured agent's radio so that the agent's parent service had no knowledge that the agent had turned and decided to work for the enemy. It was a standard technique in radio

counterintelligence Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ...

and was used throughout the world.

Definition

The German term ''Funkspiel'', ''Playbacks'', the British term or the American term, ''G-V Game'', was the transmission of controlled information over a captured agent's radio so that the agent's parent service had no knowledge that the agent had been turned and decided to work for the enemy.

France

Captured radio operators in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

were forced to send false messages to British intelligence. That allowed Nazi intelligence to intercept Allied military information, convey

disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the ...

to the enemy and actively fight

resistance movement A resistance movement is an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to withstand the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability. It may seek to achieve its objectives ...

s. By doing so, Nazi intelligence made the pretense of being the

French resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

with a script written for the enemy by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

or the

Abwehr The ''Abwehr'' ( German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', but the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the '' Wehrmacht'' from 1920 to 1944. ...

. Operations were conducted at

84 Avenue Foch 84 Avenue Foch (german: Avenue Foch vierundachtzig) was the Parisian headquarters of the '' Sicherheitsdienst'' (SD), the counter-intelligence branch of the SS during the German occupation of Paris in World War II. Avenue Foch is a wide res ...

, the headquarters of the

Sicherheitsdienst ' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the '' Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization ...

in Paris. The last false message exchanged with London in the operation was "Thank you for your collaboration and for the weapons that you sent us". However, Nazi intelligence was not aware that British intelligence had known about the stratagem for at least two weeks prior to the transmission. From May 1944 onwards the operation was not a success. A similar Funkspiel technique, called

Operation Scherhorn Operation Scherhorn (in English sources) or Operation Berezino (original Soviet codename) or Operation Beresino (in East German sources) was a secret deception operation performed by the NKVD against the Nazi secret services from August 1944 – Ma ...

, was executed by the Soviet

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

against Nazi secret services from August 1944 to May 1945. Funkspiel also referred to a technique used by

U-boat U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare ro ...

radio operators in which the frequency of transmission was changed consecutively to confuse Allied intelligence with the objective of picking up enemy transmissions on the original channel.

References

Counterintelligence Battles and operations of World War II involving Germany World War II deception operations Gestapo Abwehr operations Disinformation operations {{World-War-II-stub