Career
He is best known as one of the leading lights behind the Englandspiel operation. Giskes" activities were responsible for supplying a great deal of disinformation to British intelligence services for much of World World War II, and for the arrest of more than 50 Allied agents. Giskes first succeeded in gaining the partial cooperation of captured British agent Hubertus Lauwers, who sent encrypted messages (but missing security checks) back to British SOE at Giskes" direction, under duress.
Then dozens of agents parachuted in succession, and were captured by the Germans, along with tons of equipment.
When it became apparent that the penetration had been uncovered, Giskes on 1 April 1944 sent the following message in clear to London (in Marks, p499):
At the end of the war Giskes was interrogated by Robert Maxwell at Camp 20, Iserlohn, before release. He then worked for United States intelligence services in Europe.