Spies, Stamps, and Secret Signals
Real-life stories of postal deception
If you’d prefer to listen instead of read:
Secret codes and ciphers have long been the tools of spies, but while researching Victorian-era stamp placement as a form of romantic messaging, I discovered that postage stamps themselves have played surprising roles in espionage.
Here are a few true stories that show how stamps were used to deceive, disrupt, and deliver secret messages.
Operation Cornflakes: Mailbombing the Nazis
In early 1945, the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) found a novel way to reach German civilians with anti-Nazi propaganda.
They created fake German postage stamps that mimicked an existing Hitler design. In the forged version, a skull was superimposed over Hitler’s face, and the words Futsches Reich (“Ruined Empire”) replaced Deutsches Reich. These counterfeit stamps were placed on mail filled with demoralizing content, addressed to real German households, and stuffed into bags dropped near mail trains bombed by Allied forces. This tricked postal workers into delivering the fake propaganda as real mail.
Roughly 96,000 of these pieces were dropped before the operation was discovered. Postwar interviews suggested it had an unsettling effect on morale.
Why was it called "Operation Cornflakes?" Because most Germans received their mail with breakfast.
The Himmler Stamp - Sowing Internal Discord
British intelligence tried a different tactic: they created counterfeit stamps featuring Heinrich Himmler in an attempt to spread rumors that he was plotting to overthrow Hitler. These were distributed in neutral countries to generate buzz and suspicion. The operation was short-lived with little confirmed impact—but it showed how even a postage stamp could be weaponized for psychological warfare.
The French Resistance “Spy” Stamp
In occupied France, communication between the Allies and the Resistance was risky. British agents forged the French 1939 Mercury stamp with subtle differences known only to trusted contacts so that Resistance members knew which letters were safe and which were traps set by German counterintelligence.
The Nazi censors never caught on throughout the occupation.
Stamp Placement as Cipher
During WWII, British POWs used the physical placement of stamps to convey coded messages. MI9, the British escape-and-evasion unit, trained agents in how to overlay a grid on letters. A stamp tilted at a right angle or placed in a specific corner might point to a cipher key or signal that hidden content lay inside.
Even cancellation marks or perforation notches could contain clues, turning an envelope into a potential code sheet, right under the enemy’s nose.
Small Squares, Big Ideas
These covert techniques show how even the most ordinary objects can be repurposed for extraordinary tasks. Creativity often thrives under pressure—and real connection sometimes hides in plain sight.
SOURCES
Alexander Historical Auctions. “French Resistance ‘Spy’ Stamp.”
Eldridge, Brittany. “Hidden Messages in Stamps: The Fitchburg Historical Society Locates a World War II Philatelist’s Letter.” The Point: Fitchburg State University’s Student Newsletter, March 17, 2021.
Friedman, Herbert A. “Propaganda and Espionage Philately.” Psywar.org website:, April 22, 2006.
Hutton, Clare. MI9: A History of the Secret Service for Escape and Evasion in World War Two. Hodder & Stoughton, 2020.
Liptak, Eugene. Office of Strategic Services 1942–45: The World War II Origins of the CIA (Elite, 173). Osprey Publishing. United Kingdom. 2009.
MysticStamp.“Operation Cornflakes.” Mystic Stamp Discovery Center, 2020.
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And as the granddaughter of two Holocaust survivors this was definitely a new slice.
So interesting.