WW2: How Britain Ignored the Mother of All Secrets

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

Pushkin Industries

History, Society & Culture

4.7 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2024

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Neatly dressed in his suit, Hans Ferdinand Mayer was every inch the unassuming corporate executive. So, when he asked to borrow a typewriter from his hotel in Oslo, nobody could have guessed he would use it for one of the most extraordinary intelligence leaks in history.

Mayer's gloved fingers punched out the details of Nazi Germany's most sensitive military operations and, when he had finished, he immediately dispatched his documents to the British — who did nothing.

Why did the British ignore Mayer? Did they fail to pick out a crucial signal amid the noise of detail — or was something else going on?

This episode of Cautionary Tales is based, with permission, on Tom Whipple’s book The Battle of the Beams, which is available from all good booksellers.

For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin.
0:07.0	It all started with two federal agents who heard a rumor.
0:15.0	She mentions, well, there is this alleged murder to have taken place.
0:21.4	There is just one problem. They had no clue. There was.
0:23.0	They had no clue who the victim was.
0:26.0	We have to do our job, and we have to find out who did they kill.
0:32.0	It had been 15 years since this alleged murder. Was it still
0:39.7	possible to unearth the truth.
0:55.7	I used to watch the Unsaupt Mississippi shows and I often thought about calling because I was like this is this is not right. How can the person get killed and no one knows anything? I'm Jake Halpern and this is Deep Cover The Nameless Man.
1:05.0	Listen wherever you get your podcasts and if you want to hear the entire season right now,
1:09.5	ad free, subscribe to Pushkin Plus on our Apple podcast show page or on Pushkin.
1:15.0	F.M. slash Plus. Hello Tim Harford here. Tickets are selling fast for the special live edition of
1:37.0	cautionary tales on the evening of Tuesday the 21st of May. I will be taking to the stage in London to tell a rather
1:45.3	grisly story from 19th century Edinburgh. The actors are learning their lines and we're working on hair raising ways to keep you on the edge of your seat.
1:59.0	So don't become a cautionary tale and miss out on a top night out. Get your tickets while
2:05.1	they last. The link is in the episode description, so what are you waiting for? Once again,
2:10.0	cautionary tales live in London on, the 21st of May.
2:14.4	I can't wait to see you there. November 1939. It's been two months since Nazi Germany invaded Poland and one month since Poland surrendered.
2:35.1	France and Britain have declared war but there's not much fighting.
2:40.8	An uneasy quiet has descended over Western Europe, with neither side keen to take major risks.
2:48.0	It's obvious that the quiet won't last.
2:52.0	And a German executive named Hans Ferdinand Meyer has picked aside.
	...

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