6. The English Criminal Who Hoodwinked the Germans
Eddie Chapman led a rollicking and adventurous life – most of it on the wrong side of the law – whose highlights included becoming the only Englishman ever awarded a German Iron Cross. He was a thief, safebreaker, crook, and all-around career criminal, who was recruited by German intelligence during WWII. Unbeknownst to them, Chapman was actually working for the British. He fed his German handlers false information that wrecked the effectiveness of Hitler’s “Vengeance Weapons” assault on London, and saved the lives of thousands of Londoners.
Chapman was raised in a dysfunctional family, and was a delinquent from the start. He enlisted in the British Army at age 17, but deserted after a few months. When the army caught up with him, he was convicted, sentenced to prison, and given a dishonorable discharge. Upon his release, Chapman turned to crime to support a gambling habit and a taste for fine drinks. In 1940, the Germans captured the British Channel Islands, where they found Chapman in a prison, serving a two-year sentence for burglary. He volunteered to work for them, so the Germans freed him, and trained him in explosives, sabotage, and other clandestine skills. They then parachuted him into Britain in 1942, with orders to destroy a bomber factory. Things did not turn out the way Chapman’s German handlers had intended.
