The German high command’s response to the Mincemeat material showed in their deployment decisions. The specific movements most directly attributable to the deception’s influence were the repositioning of reserves away from Sicily. The 1st Panzer Division, which had been in the western Mediterranean theater, was moved to Salonika in Greece — a move that directly reflected the anxiety about a Greek landing that the Mincemeat documents were designed to create. German defensive preparations in Sardinia were also intensified.
Hitler’s personal involvement in the assessment of the Mincemeat material is documented in accounts of his deliberations in the spring of 1943. He received briefings on the documents and their implications and appears to have found them persuasive. His existing anxieties about the Balkans — the region’s oil fields, the implications of a potential Allied landing for the Eastern Front — made him receptive to evidence that the Balkans were under threat.
The May 12, 1943, directive from German high command, establishing that Sardinia and the Peloponnese should be treated as priority defensive concerns, was the kind of documentary evidence of German response that could be directly connected to the Mincemeat operation. The directive predated the Sicily invasion by almost two months and reflected a German defensive posture that was partly a product of the planted documents.
But the deception did not stop the Germans from maintaining forces in Sicily. The island was too obvious, and Kesselring was too competent, to entirely ignore. The German forces that were in Sicily in July 1943 were there because even with the Mincemeat deception operating at full effect, Sicily remained a plausible target. What the deception achieved was a reduction in the forces available to respond once the landing occurred, and a delay in the redeployment of forces once the attack began.