In a secluded old house in the Luxembourg forests, twelve men were hard at work. Now & then, an ample Frenchwoman served food and hot coffee. A Luxembourg police officer shivered outside in the cold rain. His job: guarding "Operation Annie," the most dramatic underground radio station in wartime Europe.
The story of radio's slickest war role was told for the first time this week by Czech-born film director Hans H. Burger (Crisis) in the New York Times. As an Army intelligence sergeant, he was the chief military writer and editor for Operation Annie, a psychological warfare project of the Twelfth Army Group during the war's last five months. Annie's objective: to win the enemy's confidence by giving him aid & comfort, the better to dupe him later.
Annie broadcast a four-and-a-half-hour program each night, using the call letters Nachtsender 1212. The program included authentic war reports, accurate pictures of life at the front and at home, Viennese waltzes and German folk songs. The station pretended to be inside the Reich, also warmly pro-German, sadly and desperately honest about every lost Nazi position. For Nazi field commanders, it was often the only way to learn how things were going.
Subtly, Annie became bolder as more & more Nazis accepted her authenticity. Soon, she appealed for help from other sectors to rescue surrounded party leaders. More men & equipment were thus lured into capture. On other occasions, Annie would innocently report "facts" that troubled civilians. Example: the Reich's cartographical institute, said Annie, was short of maps numbered 315 to 318; they were badly needed for national defense. Why, the Germans asked themselves, did the high command need maps of Westphalia, still 300 miles inside the Reich?
Or Annie would send housewives raiding grocers' shelves by reporting that the Allies had dropped fake ration stamps. Once the station described a celebration honoring German railroad workers—most of them slave laborers. Said Annie: "At the end of the celebration, speeches were translated into Polish, Hungarian and Slovak—for the benefit of the assembled . . . workers."
Annie's biggest day came soon after the Remagen bridge was taken. Another Allied force had secured a bridgehead near Andernach. Between these two points, Nazi troops in the Eifel mountains had ample room for retreat. Yet because Annie hinted that there was only one way out, most of the remaining Wehrmacht marched right into an Allied ambush.
As Germany's death approached, Annie, realistic as always, realized that she, too, must fall. For several days, the crew sadly reported approaching Yanks. On the fatal night, grave messages came over 1212 with disturbing frequency. Suddenly the broadcast was interrupted by excited voices, a scuffle in the outer room, shouts and shots. The hated Allies were seizing the transmitter! "Put on the record, the RECORD!", a German voice shouted. And as Annie began, so she died, with the reedy, recorded Rhenish tune:
There lies a crown,
Deep down at the bottom of the Rhine.