Giskes, H. J.

Hermann Josef Giskes (28 September 1896 – 28 August 1977) was a German intelligence officer of the Abwehr, the military intelligence department of the German military forces during World War II. He is best known for being the head of the counter-intelligence department of the Abwehr in the Netherlands from 1941 to 1944. He carried out an operation called Englandspiel or Operation North Pole which resulted in the capture of more than 50 agents of Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the confiscation of tons of military equipment, including weapons, which SOE had parachuted into the Netherlands to arm Dutch groups resisting the occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany. Most of the captured agents were executed after being forced to participate in a disinformation campaign which led SOE to believe that its agents were being successful in organizing and supplying the Dutch resistance.