Spies, Lies and Deception

Excellent, comprehensive exhibition at the Imperial War Museum on intelligence and deception.

The show set out its aim to look at how intelligence is collected and how and why deception is used. It was gently themed, mixing stories from different conflicts. There seemed to be a concentration on the first half of the last century although it did come up to date.

There were lots of fascinating stories and I made lots of notes of things and people to look up later such as the German double agent Wulf Schmidt and Vera Atkins who investigated why over 100 secret agents in Europe in the Second World War didn’t return.

Favourite objects included this dummy head to draw sniper fire to establish the enemy position in the First World War trenches, a fascinating room on decoy information on D-Day and a section on Karl Fuchs, who always fascinates me as my father worked at AERE where he was arrested. You also had to love the false footprint you could put on your feet so it looked like you were walking the other way!

Closed 14 April 2024


Review

Telegraph


 

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