In the dying months of World War II, American spies waged a unique battle against Nazi Germany — not with bullets and bombs, but with letters and stamps. Operation Cornflakes, a psychological warfare campaign, turned the German postal service into an unwitting delivery system for anti-Nazi propaganda. The plan: Allied bombers would strike German mail trains, and in the chaos that followed, they would airdrop counterfeit mailbags filled with forged letters among the scattered wreckage. As German postal workers dutifully gathered the debris, they would unknowingly collect these planted mailbags, sending Allied propaganda straight into the homes of German citizens through their own postal system. The operation earned its breakfast-themed codename because most German mail was delivered early in the morning, just as citizens were sitting down to their morning meal.
The operation, launched on February 5, 1945, was the brainchild of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) — the wartime predecessor of today's CIA. To ensure authenticity, OSS operatives gathered intelligence by bribing German POWs who had worked for the postal service with better meals, collecting details about mail procedures, cancellations, and addressing. They assembled two million German mailing addresses and established a forgery factory in Rome that churned out 15,000 fake envelopes weekly.
The crown jewel of their forgery operation was the infamous "Death Head" stamp. While the OSS produced standard forged copies of the 6pf and 12pf Hitler stamps for regular mail, they created something far more psychologically devastating for special propaganda packages. This macabre masterpiece featured Hitler's familiar portrait with a ghastly twist — part of his face appeared to be rotting away, revealing a death's skull beneath. The forgers added an extra dose of subversion by altering the text from "Deutsches Reich" (German Empire) to "Futsches Reich" (Ruined Empire). Of the 96,000 Death Head stamps produced, they were never actually posted, but instead tucked inside propaganda envelopes as shocking surprises for German recipients.
Over three months, the OSS conducted 20 missions, with bomber crews becoming unlikely postal workers as they strategically dropped over 320 fake mailbags near bombed train wreckages. The ruse might have continued longer if not for a simple spelling error that gave the game away. A German postal clerk spotted "Cassen" instead of "Kassen" in a return address, leading to the discovery of the propaganda operation. Yet even in its abbreviated run, Operation Cornflakes proved effective — post-war interviews with some 10,000 German deserters and POWs revealed they had been influenced by the campaign, which successfully disrupted Nazi postal operations and destroyed crucial mail routes.
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