This is an IHeart podcast.

Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosity's, A production of IHeart Radio and grim and mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable. And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's.

A lot has been made of the brave soldiers who prove themselves in epic battles to defeat Hitler and the Nazis in World War II, and rightfully so. But just as important were the people

working behind the scenes to undermine the German army.

You may have heard of the English codebreakers at Bletchley Park, who cracked the Enigma

Code and saved England from German U-boats.

But there was another behind-the-scenes agent who completely deceived the Nazis, working

with the English to trick the Germans into thinking that the Allied invasion would land

somewhere other than Normandy. And, curiously enough, he wasn't even... the English to trick the Germans into thinking that the Allied invasion would land somewhere

other than Normandy. And, curiously enough, he wasn't even an Englishman.

Juan Puyo Garcia was never cut out to be a soldier. He was skinny and awkward, with

pointy ears that stuck out from both sides of his head. He was always a handful as a child.

His mother sent him to boarding school when he was just six.

As an adult, he became a poultry farmer right before he was caught up with the rest of the

country in the Spanish Civil War between the liberal Republicans and the fascist nationalists.

And although Juan began as a Republican and defected to the nationalists, who were

ultimately victorious, he regretted it almost immediately, especially when he saw how they

supported the Nazi regime in Germany, which quickly began to spread authoritarianism across Europe

in the late 1930s. Juan wanted to do his part to stop the rise of the Nazis. But again, he wasn't really a soldier.

But he felt like he was also pretty sneaky. He had successfully defected from one army to the

...