__NOTOC__ Major Karl-Erich Kühlenthal (1908 – October 25, 1975) was a German spy and one of the most senior agents in Spain during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Although the head of German intelligence in Spain was then Wilhelm Leissner, alias "Gustav Lenz"codename "Heidelberg", Admiral Wilhelm Canaris had taken a shine to Kühlenthal to the extent that Leissner was effectively superseded. Kühlenthal's reports were very well received in Berlin, albeit that (from a British point of view) Kühlenthal was so easily duped that he "was the ideal spy to pass (dis)information, because he was worse than useless".Ben MacIntyre ''Operation Mincemeat'' page 168 Kühlenthal was a ''

Mischling (; ; ) was a pejorative legal term which was used in Nazi Germany to denote persons of mixed " Aryan" and "non-Aryan", such as Jewish, ancestry as they were classified by the Nuremberg racial laws of 1935. In German, the word has the general ...

''—"a half-blood Jew" with a Jewish grandmother—but Canaris had managed to secure an

Aryan certificate In Nazi Germany, the Aryan certificate or Aryan passport () was a document which certified that a person was a member of the presumed Aryan race. Beginning in April 1933, it was required from all employees and officials in the public sector, ...

for him in 1941. In 1943, when the body of " Major William Martin"—a

Royal Marine The Royal Marines provide the United Kingdom's amphibious warfare, amphibious special operations capable commando force, one of the :Fighting Arms of the Royal Navy, five fighting arms of the Royal Navy, a Company (military unit), company str ...

attached to Combined Operations—had washed up on a beach in Spain after a possible plane crash, Kühlenthal thought he had found important classified documents on the British major's body. In fact, the documents were false and the body part of a fake persona to lend credibility. These were part of

Operation Mincemeat Operation Mincemeat was a successful British disinformation, deception operation of the Second World War to disguise the 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily. Two members of British intelligence obtained the body of Glyndwr Michael, a tramp who die ...

, a plan to convince the Germans that the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...

planned to invade Greece and Sardinia instead of Sicily. It is not certain if Kühlenthal was convinced by the documents, but he passed them on to his superiors, who "swallowed Mincemeat whole".

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History of Dienz family
(in German) Does not cover Kühlenthal's spy activities. 1908 births 1975 deaths Abwehr personnel of World War II German people of Jewish descent Operation Mincemeat World War II spies for Germany {{Germany-bio-stub