During World War II, one man waged a secret and sinister war on behalf of the British government. His name was Sefton Delmer.
British forgeries were so successful that the Germans put out a leaflet warning about British forgeries. Britain's response - to forge their anti-forgeries leaflet. The original had a picture of Hitler on the front. It was decided to forge a leaflet that would mock and ridicule the Führer, and his Nazi bureaucrats. Delmer hired Marion Whitehorn an innocent 22-year-old art student for the job:
I was ushered into the Brigadier's office, I don't know who he was, but he had red tabs, so I guess he was a Brigadier or some such and he said to me that I'd come into a highly secret organisation and if I ever divulged a single word or talked to anybody about it, it would be at least ten years hard labour. So I said - I promise I wouldn't dream of doing so.
Lots of people, some in uniform, some not and they were terribly serious, you know, and not even a sort of cough or anything. They passed round a postcard like that in total silence until it got to me. And it was a postcard of Hitler with his hands folded like that and the caption read: 'what we have, we hold' - translation from the German. And I looked at it and I looked up and he said: 'Marion I want you to put a penis between his fingers and his hands were placed in the right place. No, I just looked down and didn't know where to look. I mean today of course I would have laughed like a drain. Then - it was over sixty years ago - you know, one didn't behave like that. So I looked up and he said: 'But not too big, Marion.'
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