Alexis Baron Von Roenne

Executed 12 October 1944, Plőtzensee prison

Colonel Baron Alexis von Roenne, in charge of Fremde Heere West (FHW), the western intelligence arm, who had built his reputation on predicting Allied behaviour early in the war, was wrong on almost every important count other than to discount an invasion of Norway.

He was fooled by the fantasy invasion of the Pas-de-Calais and was convinced that the fictitious British Fourth Army in Scotland existed and was about to be redeployed to Kent.

“Von Roenne was a secret but committed opponent of Nazism, living a double life. He detested Hitler and the uncouth thugs surrounding him. He was an old-fashioned monarchist with a military cast of min. His Christian conscience had been outraged by the appalling SS terror unleashed in Poland. Quietly, but with absolute conviction, he had turned against the Nazi regime.

From 1943 onward, he deliberately and consistently inflated the Allied order of battle, overstating the strength of the British and American armies in a successful effort to mislead Hitler and his generals.”