Cross-cultural communication （45）　

45）Double-cross
The term 'double-cross' refers to the double agents who, during World War II, were originally recruited by German intelligence to spy on Britain and then turn their allegiance to the British side. This existence was proven by diplomatic documents that were revealed after the war, and it has become the subject of not only non-fiction but also fiction. In Japan, a series of novels by Osaka Go about Japanese espionage activities in Spain during World War II also deal with this topic in part.

The title of the book in which the British journalist Macintyre describes this topic in detail in non-fiction is “Double Cross”. The first Japanese translation was published in 2013. The German army was played around with by the false information spread by Double Cross, and the greatest operation in history, the Normandy landings, was a great success. How the information was spread is the main topic of this book, but that is not the main topic of Dr. Kido's cross-cultural communication skills.

The members of this double agent army had a diverse range of cultural backgrounds, and their personalities were no less than extraordinary. There was a Serbian playboy, a French woman who could only love her own dog, and a Polish man with a frail constitution who was double-crossed by the Germans but did not give in to torture. The way in which the cultural backgrounds of these double agents are portrayed is an excellent teaching resource for cross-cultural studies. The book also describes the character of the British people at the time and the nature of the German military on the enemy side, based on thorough research. The British were under considerable pressure from the German air force's daily raids on London and V2 rocket attacks, so they planned the Normandy landings as a last-ditch effort to turn the tide. In order to ensure the success of this operation, they came up with the double-cross plan, which was a calculated risk, but it seems that the British are very good at this kind of logical thinking. The Germans seemed to value rules and past experience over logic. The elaborate German-language false official documents created by the British side seem to have fooled the German army to a considerable degree. In addition, the information that the German army would believe based on past experience was easily accepted when it was passed on by multiple double agents.

I once wrote on a blog for doctors that it is a good idea to have a general idea of the national character of each country when it comes to cross-cultural understanding. However, I soon received a response from a reader who argued that such stereotypical ideas of national character are of no use whatsoever in terms of personal interactions between people. While there is some truth in this response, as can be seen in the non-fiction book “Double Cross” and the diplomatic documents it is based on, national character does indeed exist in a loose sense. I myself have experienced this first-hand through living and traveling in various parts of the world. Otherwise, there would be no such thing as cultural anthropology. So, what I wanted to say most this time is that historical spy stories, whether fictional or non-fictional, can be good teaching materials for cross-cultural exchange.

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