V-man

The Oxford Companion to World War II | 2001 | 700+ words | Copyright

V-man (V-Mann or Vertrauensmann, trusted man), or V-Leute (trusted people) in the plural, were agents recruited by the Abwehr and the Nazi security service, the Sicherheitsdienst or SD (see RSHA). The recruits, who were primarily used to maintain surveillance of the civilian populations in Germany and in occupied countries, then organized their own network of sub-agents and informers who often had no idea whom they were working for. According to an SD instruction issued in 1937, V-men were to be recruited among those having as little culture, common sense, objectivity, and logic as possible. But as they included individuals such as Henri Déricourt, and one V-man was able to penetrate the MI6 network in the Netherlands (see Venlo incident), this instruction was obviously often ignored. The word was also used to describe a confidential agent on a much higher plane, such as the individuals employed in the attempted SS abduction of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in July 1940 (see Schellenberg). See also spies.

Cite this article
Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

MLA
Chicago
APA

I. C. B. DEAR and M. R. D. FOOT. "V-man." The Oxford Companion to World War II. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. 11 Feb. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

I. C. B. DEAR and M. R. D. FOOT. "V-man." The Oxford Companion to World War II. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. (February 11, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O129-Vman.html

I. C. B. DEAR and M. R. D. FOOT. "V-man." The Oxford Companion to World War II. 2001. Retrieved February 11, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O129-Vman.html

Learn more about citation styles