Double Agent

Unlikely figures on the pages of history. Enjoy your tour through the Cabinet today!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.

(00:36):
A lot has been made of the brave soldiers who
proved themselves in epic battles to defeat Hitler and the
Nazis in World War Two, and rightfully so. But just
as important were the people working behind the scenes to
undermine the German army. You may have heard of the
English code breakers at Bletchley Park who cracked the Enigma
code and saved England from German U boats. But there

(00:57):
was another behind the scenes agent who comepletely deceived the Nazis,
working with the English to trick the Germans into thinking
that the Allied invasion would land somewhere other than Normandy.
And curiously enough, he wasn't even an Englishman. Juan Puyo
Garcia was never cut out to be a soldier. He
was skinny and awkward, with pointy ears that stuck out

(01:19):
from both sides of his head. He was always a
handful as a child, his mother sent him to boarding
school when he was just six. As an adult, he
became a poultry farmer right before he was caught up
with the rest of the country in the Spanish Civil
War between the liberal Republicans and the fascist Nationalists. And
although Jan began as a Republican and defected to the Nationalists,

(01:40):
who were ultimately victorious, he regretted it almost immediately, especially
when he saw how they supported the Nazi regime in Germany,
which quickly began to spread authoritarianism across Europe in the
late nineteen thirties. Juan wanted to do his part to
stop the rise of the Nazis, but again, he wasn't
really a soldier, but he felt like he was also

(02:00):
pretty sneaky. He had successfully defected from one army to
the other during the Spanish Civil War. After all, maybe
he could bring those stealthy skills to the war in Europe.
He decided that he would act as a spy on
the behalf of the British, but when he reached out
to them, they rejected his offer for help. He didn't
really have anything to offer them he needed to make

(02:21):
himself an asset first, and so this time he reached
out to the Germans and claimed that he was traveling
to London on business and was willing to spy for them.
They accepted, but of course he had no business in London. Instead,
he worked from Spain and Portugal, where he concocted elaborate
stories about the contacts he was supposedly making in London
and the information he was learning from them. He conveyed

(02:45):
all of this to the Germans and convinced them that
he was legitimately sending them information from within England. Now
he had something to show the English. When he reached
back out to MI five, they were interested in talking
with him. They flew him to London, where he located
his family. At least that part of Juan's story was
now actually true. The English, impressed with his ability to

(03:07):
act as different fictional informants, gave him the code name Garbo,
after the famous actress. They worked with Wan to help
him deepen his list of fictional contacts, and soon his
contacts had contacts. There was an entire imaginary web of
fake people, soldiers and civilians alike, who Juan was reporting
on to the Nazis. Soon he transitioned from letters to

(03:31):
radio communication, sending multiple messages with fake intel every single day.
It would have been exhausting keeping it all straight in
his head, and soon the stakes got as high as
they possibly could get. The Allies wanted Wan to start
telling the Nazis that there was a planned Allied invasion
of France, which was true, but they planned to land

(03:52):
at Normandy, and they wanted Wan to tell the Nazis
they were going to land farther north instead. It was
a plan that played to Hitler's ego, as he had
suspected that this was their.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Plan all along. Wan spent days spinning stories over the
radio about how his fictional contacts were seeing all kinds
of information and movement toward a more northern landing in France.
The Nazis were utterly convinced that this is where the
Allies would be headed. They placed the majority of their
forces in the north and so were blindsided when the

(04:23):
Allies attacked Normandy, far their south. It was still a
fierce battle, and had the Nazis not been deceived by Wan,
they might have actually been able to win. After the war,
Jan kept up his covert lifestyle by having Mi five
fake his death. He then went to live in South America,
abandoning his wife and children. His reasons for doing so

(04:43):
were unclear, although he was discovered by a journalist in
the nineteen eighties and reunited with his family. Then clearly
Juan was a curious and enigmatic man from the start.
It may have hurt him in his personal life, but
the entire free world is fortunate that he loved to
play spy games. Ahmed Musa wiped the sweat from his

(05:17):
brow as he stepped from the baking desert into the cool,
dry tomb. It was nineteen sixty four and Ahmed had
just gotten word that the inner sanctum of his latest
discovery was finally clear of debris. The tomb was located
in Sakara, Egypt, in a necropolis full of kings and
powerful advisors. It was time to find out just who

(05:37):
was buried there. The kerosene lamplight played against the walls,
illuminating painted scenes and hieroglyphics. As Ahmed stepped further inside
the tomb. He was one of the first people to
step foot in there in nearly five thousand years. Ahmed
stopped as his torchlight illuminated a striking illustration on a wall.

(05:57):
It was two figures standing nose to know in what
looked like an intimate pose. This wasn't uncommon for ancient
Egyptian tomb art. In fact, Ahmed had seen married couples
pictured like this before. What was unusual was that the
two figures, apparently the residents of the tomb, were both men.
In the sixty years since Ahmed's discovery, Egyptologists have exhaustively

(06:20):
studied the tomb of Numhotep and Neonkanum, examining murals, hieroglyphic records,
and objects left behind. Many of them have come to
share the same conclusion that the two may be one
of the earliest recorded gay couples in history, based on
the historical record inside the tomb. Numhotep and Neankannum were

(06:41):
incredibly important to King NEUSIENI, a pharaoh that ruled during
the Old Kingdom period of ancient Egypt. Their official titles
were head manicurists to the royal family, which was a
high position at the time. The pharaoh had a group
of aids dedicated to dressing and preparing him for public engagements,
all with very specific jobs and titles. Along with the manicurists.

(07:03):
He daily had help from the hairdressers, keepers of the
head dress, and adorners of the king. But beyond being manicurists,
Numhotep and Neonkanum also held a laundry list of other
honorable titles. Between them, they were also guardians of secrets,
confidants of the kings, and priests who purify the king
in life. Both men were married to women, and portions

(07:26):
of the tombs show them with their wives and children,
but the vast majority of the artwork pictured them together,
often with Numhotep in the position that usually indicates a
wife in similar Egyptian tumart. In one banquet scene, it's
clear that while Nyanka NUM's wife was initially part of
the illustration, she was almost completely erased at some point

(07:46):
during the tomb's construction. Because remember, ancient Egyptians were obsessed
with death and the afterlife, so much so that wealthy
Egyptians spent most of their lives building the tomb to
house themselves after they were gone. They believe that the
spirit never died, but would go on into the afterlife, or,
in some versions of belief, would be reborn anew, so

(08:07):
making your tomb a grand reflection of the afterlife you
wanted was a serious business. Judging by the arts and
inscriptions in the tomb, it's clear that Neumhotep and Neonkanum
were very close while alive and didn't intend to be
separated in the afterlife. While it's not entirely clear who
died first, Egyptologists suspect noum Hotep was the first of

(08:29):
the pair to die. Different theories have been offered over
the years for Neumhotep and neonka NUM's relationship. Initially, Egyptologists
believed that they were brothers or maybe even twins. Some
even conjecture that they were father and son who didn't
want to be separated after death. But over years of research,
it's become clear that the two are illustrated using iconography

(08:51):
usually reserved for husband and wife. Most telling is a
carving of Neumhotep smelling a lotus blossom oppose almost exclusively
reserve for women in tomb art. Today, it's accepted by
many Egyptologists that the evidence supports one theory the most
that they were a romantic couple, whether they were lovers, brothers,

(09:11):
or just best friends. Neumhotep and Neonka Num left behind
a legacy that still fascinates us today, and if nothing else,
they prove that sometimes the best thing in life is
finding someone to hold your hand, both in this world
and the next. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour

(09:32):
of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey
in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
and television show, and you can learn all about it

(09:54):
over at the Worldolore dot com.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
And until next time, stay curious. Yes