The Greatest Spy in History: "Garbo the Spy"

Forget Bourne. Forget Bond.

The Story:

Juan Pujol is the most successful double agent in the history of the world.  His actions helped end World War II earlier, saving countless lives on both sides.  And all he used was his imagination.

This is his story.


Juan Pujol wanted to make a difference in World War II.  Living in Spain, he approached the Nazis about having connections in England, and willing to share that information with the Nazis.

They happily agreed, and Juan was on his way to becoming the greatest spy Nazi Germany ever employed.  His only problem?

He had no connections in England, so he just made stuff up by reading newspapers and going to the library and guessing.  He began creating an elaborate network of spies.

All fictional.

But his messages to the Nazis, they were so elaborate...so passionate... so believable. 

Juan approached the British, letting them know that he was spying for Germany, and he wanted to be a double-agent.  They turned him away.

Several times.

Then they decoded one of his messages where he had made up a fake convoy of ships heading to Greece.  There was no convoy, but the Luftwaffe sent a squadron of planes out to find them.

That's when the British realized that perhaps this Spaniard could be of service.

They brought him to England, code named him Garbo and they let him continue his spy operation.  He would be given false information, old information, true information and he was able to have his network send tons of messages all over the European theatre.

Remember the Nazis had the unbreakable Enigma Device.   Garbo's long, intricate messages were encoded with the Enigma Device.  Since the Allies had the already spelled out message, they were able to reverse-engineer the Enigma and break that code!

Then came Garbo's biggest triumph: Operation Overlord: The D-Day Invasion.

It was Garbo who kept telling the Nazis that the REAL invasions would happen at Calais or in Norway.  If anything happened at Normandy, it would just be a diversion.

So the Nazis waited and never reinforced.

The morning of D-Day, they even let Garbo send a message that the D-Day invasion was on its way, with enough time for the Germans to be unable to do anything about it.

There was nobody in the office that morning to receive his message, so when they finally found it, again, Garbo looked to be even more brilliant in his efforts at spying than ever.


The documentary uses footage from World War II and tons of different Hollywood productions to illustrate what was happening, but it's the interviews with historians that provide the meat and potatoes of this documentary.

It's fascinating what he was able to do, and I highly recommend watching this for any History Buff, World War II enthusiast, spy lover, or someone with a pulse who likes movies.

Available for Streaming on Netflix as of this viewing.

Final Grade: A-

Would I Own This One: This film would make a worthy addition to fine World War II documentaries & films.