Unternehmen Elster

Unternehmen Elster (Operation Magpie in English) was a German espionage mission intended to gather intelligence on U.S. military and technology facilities during World War II. The mission commenced in September 1944 with two Nazi agents sailing from Kiel, Germany on the U-1230 and coming ashore in Maine on November 29, 1944. Within a month they were arrested and the operation ended, resulting in espionage convictions for the agents. Operation Magpie was one of only two times the Germans landed agents on American shores by submarine during the war. Despite a number of claims and speculations that the mission was intended to sabotage the Manhattan Project, no supportive evidence exists in the official investigative records.

The idea of landing spies in the United States originated with Nazi Germany's foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and this particular operation was developed by the Schutzstaffel (SS). Originally intended to gather information gauging the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda in the United States, the objective was later widened to include the gathering of technical engineering information, generally from public sources. Of particular interest was intelligence on shipyards, airplane factories, and rocket-testing facilities.

The mission was intended to last for 2 years, and called for information to be communicated to Germany by morse code radiotelegraphy using a shortwave radio transmitter the agents were expected to build. In the event they could not transmit by radio, they were to send the information via postal letters written in secret ink and addressed to a number of "mail drops", which included both American prisoners of war and intermediaries in Spain. It was thought that the agents would eventually build additional shortwave radio transmitters for use of other German agents sent to the United States in the future.

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