Explanation: After a masterclass of deception in the lead-up to D-Day in WW2, invading to liberate France from Nazi occupation, Allied troops overcame the fortified beaches of Normandy with relatively little trouble - casualties were significant, but well-within the expected range for the operation. Allied forces then had to expand and consolidate their position, so the Nazis couldn’t push them out of France entirely with a sudden, concentrated strike.

While it probably wouldn’t have changed the overall course of the war, so much as managed to buy the Nazis a little more ‘success’ in the form of time and dead Allied soldiers, Hitler held off on committing troops in reserve against the D-Day landings. Why?

… because false Allied plans fed to Nazi intelligence had Hitler still convinced, even after the overwhelming force of the Normandy landings was apparent, that the Normandy landings were just a diversion for the real invasion a few hundred miles up the coast at Pas-De-Calais.

… they were not a diversion, and by the time Hitler let Nazi units perform a counter-attack, the Allied forces had had time to prepare, regroup, and land even more troops and equipment. For obvious reasons, the counterattack was not a success, and the Allies continued the liberation of France, eventually leading them into Nazi Germany and the end of WW2 in Europe with the fall of the Nazi regime.

Joan Pujol, a Spanish spy acting as a double agent, but loyal to the allies, convinced hitler that the D-Day was a diversion. His story is unbelievable and I recommend that everybody checks it out. The nazis were so close to stopping D-Day and this foreigner convinced them otherwise.

Oh and he made the nazis fund a spy group which did not exist. He forged travel expenses and reports and made the nazis pay for like a dozen people’s salaries.

Incredible story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Pujol_García