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- The Prosper Network, also called the Physician Network, was the most important network in France of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in 1943. SOE was a secret British organization in World War II. The objectives of SOE were to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe and Asia against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE agents in France allied themselves with French Resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from Britain. An SOE network in France (also called a circuit or a reseau) usually consisted of three agents: an organizer and leader, a courier, and a radio operator. However, Prosper, based in Paris, grew to be much larger. The Prosper Network began in September 1942 when Andrée Borrel parachuted into France, followed by leader Francis Suttill a few days later. Based in Paris, Suttill had early success in finding French supporters willing to oppose the German occupation of France. Prosper soon had links from the "Ardennes to the Atlantic" in northern France with 30 SOE agents and hundreds of French associates. The destruction of Prosper began with the capture by Germans of Suttill and others in June 1943 and continued for months afterwards. SOE French Section headquarters in London, headed by Maurice Buckmaster and Nicolas Bodington, was slow to recognize that Prosper had been destroyed and that its radios were controlled by the Germans. Most of the captured SOE agents and many of their French associates were executed. SOE agents captured by the Germans were customarily treated with the Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) policy by which they disappeared without a trace into German concentration camps or were executed with no records being kept as to their fate. The literature about the Prosper network is large and theories, often conspiratorial, abound about the reasons for the fall of Prosper and its aftermath. The conclusions of M.R.D. Foot in his official history of SOE's F (French) Section were that the disaster was caused by the incompetence by SOE agents in France and gullibility by SOE leaders in London, plus the work of a "turncoat" (Henri Déricourt). Sarah Helm's conclusions were that the errors were due to "terrible incompetence and tragic mistakes". Mark Seaman cited also the "efficient practices" of the German security forces. The opposing theory is that Prosper was deliberately sacrificed by the British intelligence services as part of Operation Cockade to mislead the Germans about allied plans for the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. The reasoning behind the deception was that if the Germans anticipated an invasion of France in 1943, they would maintain or expand their occupation forces in western Europe, rather than sending resources east to combat the advancing Soviet Army. (en)
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