Secret papers from the National Archives have recently revealed the details of a lone MI5 spy known as Jack King, who went undercover to neutralise hundreds of Nazi sympathisers living in Britain during the Second World War. His mission, given to him by security chiefs who were alarmed at the strength of support for Hitler, was to infiltrate groups of traitors who were trying to aid the Fascist cause, a task that he achieved by posing as a Gestapo officer.
The Nazi sympathisers were easily fooled as they mistakenly believed that they were successfully passing confidential information on to Berlin, when in reality the information was being given straight over to MI5. MI5 even went as far as obtaining replica Iron Crosses so that they could ‘reward’ the sympathisers for their loyalty to Hitler, as a form of positive reinforcement. Officials even drew up badges to be worn by the sympathisers should there be a German invasion so that they could be identified to them as ‘friends’, when in actual fact they would have allowed them to be identified in order to be rounded up by the police.
The sympathisers were never prosecuted and died believing that they had been helping the Fuhrer.