A beach in Huelva, Spain, near where the corpse of “Major William Martin” washed ashore. The false documents transmitted to the Germans during Operation Mincemeat were probably a key factor in German troop withdrawals from Sicily ahead of the Allied invasion in July 1943. (Wikimedia Commons/Mark Ryckaert)

How a Dead Body (Sort of) Defeated Nazi Germany in World War II

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“Operation Mincemeat”—a plot to trick the Nazis by dropping a false set of invasion plans attached to a corpse—remains one of the most audacious intelligence operations in history.

The corpse of a British military officer washed ashore near Huelva, Spain, on April 30, 1943. Chained to the body’s wrist was a locked briefcase containing secret plans for the upcoming Allied invasion of Greece. Local Spanish officials took possession of the corpse, then arranged for the plans to be leaked to Germany, which was informally allied with Spain despite the latter’s neutrality in World War II. After the Germans photographed the documents, the Spanish returned them to the corpse, which was turned over to British consular officials. They identified him as Major William Martin of the Royal Marines and gave him a military funeral in Huelva, none the wiser to what had transpired.

It was one of the greatest intelligence coups of World War II—but it was an intelligence coup for the British, not the Germans. “Major William Martin” never existed; the body, identity, and documents were all faked, part of an elaborate British intelligence operation to deceive the Nazis into diverting forces away from the Italian island of Sicily, the real target of the upcoming attack.

In 1943, Sicily Was the Key to Europe

In May 1943, the Allies defeated the Axis in northern Africa—compelling the surrender of General Hans-Jurgen von Arnim and the roughly 250,000 remaining soldiers in the famed Afrika Korps. By securing the whole of Africa, the Allies opened a southern pathway to........

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