The Spanish officials who found the body and took custody of the briefcase made a judgment. The Abwehr operatives who pressed for access to the documents made a judgment. Karl-Erich Kühlenthal, who traveled personally to Berlin to deliver the material, made a judgment. The German intelligence analysts who assessed it made a judgment. Hitler, who issued orders based on the assessment, made a judgment.
Each judgment was shaped by what the judgment-maker already believed and expected. The Germans believed, on independent grounds, that the Balkans were strategically important to the Allies. Hitler was genuinely worried about a Balkan invasion. The Mincemeat documents did not create German anxiety about Greece and Sardinia from nothing. They confirmed and amplified an anxiety that already existed.
The personal details in Martin’s wallet were important because they made the confirmation feel authentic. A real person’s financial difficulties and engagement ring receipts and love letters were harder to fabricate convincingly than official documents, which a professional forger could produce. The very ordinariness of the personal material was its strength. Nobody builds a deception operation around a fake bank overdraft demand, unless they do.
The identity of the real man matters for reasons beyond historical justice, though historical justice is reason enough.
Glyndwr Michael was a Welsh laborer who died in poverty in a London hospital at thirty-four. He had no choice in what happened next. His body was used because he had no relatives to notice or object, because a coroner with intelligence contacts found him suitable, and because the cause of his death was forensically convenient. He did not serve. He did not volunteer. He did not know.