Hitler Death Head stamp: how spies infiltrated Nazi mail system

Forgeries of German postage stamps printed by U.S. Government in the 1940s. The original text Deutsches Reich ('German Empire') was maintained for the standard forgeries, but was changed to Futsches Reich ('Ruined Empire') on the

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.