'Skorpion-West' (ii) was a US successful propaganda undertaking by the Office of Strategic Services' Morale Operations branch and Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley’s US 12^th Army Group (autumn 1944/May 1945).

This propaganda campaign was named after the German 'Skorpion-West' (i) resulting from Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model’s programme to bolster the morale of the German forces fighting on the Western Front after their defeat in the Normandy campaign following 'Overlord'. 'Skorpion-West' (i) was designed to use a series of leaflets to reassess the German operational mistakes of the summer and to encourage troops with morale-boosting descriptions of secret weapons, additional manpower and Germany’s commitment to total war. The series of leaflets did not receive the wide dissemination intended, and the 'Skorpion-West' (i) team organised air-drops over the German front-line positions.

The Morale Operations branch soon obtained copies of these German leaflets and started to create 'black propaganda' facsimiles for distribution as the real items. The first of the Morale Operations leaflets claimed that Nazi political leadership doubted the resolve of the German armed forces to hold their positions against Allied attacks, and encouraged soldiers to adopt a 'scorched earth' policy before dying in a last stand in support of the Nazi cause. The second leaflet encouraged German troops to eliminate defeatist officers who attempted to surrender or retreat: to this end, German soldiers were urged to question all orders and to shoot suspected officers without hesitation. The third leaflet ordered troops to aid civilian evacuation of every village, by force if necessary, in a move which the Morale Operations branch hoped would clog roads and thereby serve to slow the movement of German troops, weapons and supplies, and also exacerbate the tasks of the already overburdened German civilian authorities.

Model and Oberkommando der Wehrmacht denounced all the 'Skorpion-West' (ii) leaflets as forgeries, and ordered troops to ignore the contents of any leaflet they found. To the Morale Operations branch, the German response to its 'black propaganda' leaflets represented the Germans' crowning admission of defeat 'since it was denouncing the whore from the pulpit and thus trebling her business'. The 'Skorpion-West' (i) group, with its own propaganda effort denounced in order to stop that of the Morale Operations branch, soon halted leaflet production.

Forged documents, letters, and poison pen letters were staples of the Morale Operations branch’s armoury, and were used to create dissatisfaction, anxiety and confusion, to intimidate collaborators, to frighten soldiers and civilians, and to harass the Gestapo. In one operation, based on the May 1944 'Bricklayer' capture in Crete of Generalmajor Karl Kreipe by British special forces, the Moral Operations branch hoped to convince German troops that their officers were surrendering to save themselves. When Kreipe, the German commander of Crete, was seized, the Moral Operations branch started to implement a carefully fabricated rumour, leaflet and radio campaign claiming that Kreipe had given up to prevent further useless slaughters of the type which resulted from Adolf Hitler’s last-stand orders.

Later, when Generalmajor Franz Krech was killed by Greek resistance forces near Sparta, the Morale Operations brach disseminated stories that his death was in fact at the hands of the Gestapo, who had allegedly shot him as he attempted to escape aboard a British submarine. Krech, according to the Morale Operations branch, had left a letter declaring that the war was lost and that further sacrifices were futile. The letter was distributed in cafes and taverns throughout Greece and the Balkans.

At the same time as the Kreipe and Krech campaigns, the Morale Operatios branch launched 'Hemlock', which was based on the use of poison pen letters. The Greek operation was later repeated throughout Europe and consisted of anonymous letters sent to the Gestapo and implicating collaborators in pro-Allied behaviour, or alternatively threatening traitors with assassination or other dire consequences. Other poison pen letters, in the form of death notices, were sent to the families of German servicemen, as were letters telling them that their recently deceased loved ones had been the victims of mercy killings by army doctors, or otherwise that wounded soldiers had been robbed of their valuables by Nazi party officials as they lay dying in hospital.

One novel poison pen letter, created in December 1944, was sent to soldiers from Lichtenau in Germany. Allegedly a Christmas greeting from the Nazi mayor, it informed the troops of local events. Although meant to boost morale, the letter contained many nicely conceived suggestions that disaster was striking the community on a daily basis. The mayor wrote that civilians had been armed and drafted into the Volkssturm; that teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17 were being trained as pilots and would be in combat after only a few weeks of training, excepting three who had crashed on the town itself, killing themselves and five others; that several specifically named streets had been bombed without Luftwaffe opposition and with heavy loss of life; that wives, sisters and sweethearts were sacrificing their health, lives, and beauty for the cause and were working overtime denouncing traitors to the Gestapo; that food, water, and electricity were not to be had; and that five births had been reported among the town’s residents, one to a women whose husband had disappeared in France a year earlier. The letter closed with a 'Merry Christmas' and a 'Heil Hitler'.

The Morale Operations branch excelled in the production of 'black propaganda' newspapers and developed La Ricossa Italiana and Marc Aurelio for Italians, Das neue Deutschland and Nachrichten für die Truppe for Germans, and Der Oesterreicher for Austrians. Forged copies of the SS paper Das Schwarze Korps were printed, as were issues of the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung.

By March 1945 the Morale Operations branch was printing 'black propaganda' versions of armed forces unit papers, but the speed of the Allied advance made delivery haphazard.

Der Oesterreicher purported to represent a resistance group and sought to split Austria from Germany by portraying the former country as a Nazi-occupied nation. The paper was produced in Washington, printed in Rome, and delivered after October 1944 by agents and air drops.

The most successful Morale Operations newspaper operation in Europe seems to have been Das neue Deutschland, which was a campaign initiated by the Morale Operations branch in Italy. The DND was was a wholly fictitious, clandestine peace party, allegedly organised in Germany in April 1944 with the goal of creating an anti-Nazi revolution and re-creating a liberal democratic Germany. The Morale Operations branch created the DND to offer the widest appeal, promising everything to everybody in its political platform, and membership applications were dropped to soldiers and civilians throughout Europe. Its official organ, the newspaper Das neue Deutschland, had an initial average run of 75,000 copies, later increased to 1 million copies, per issue. It was printed in Algiers and later in Italy at Rome and Caserta.

The German reactions and Allied comments indicate the overall success of DND. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler’s Das Schwarze Korps denounced the movement in December 1944 and February 1945, as did the DNB, and German armed forces bulletins warned that troops found in possession of DND literature were liable to court martial and execution. Many soldiers were found to be in possession of DND newspapers when they were captured, and copies were found in Berlin, Plzeň, the Rhineland and the Dachau concentration camp. The DND’s news was reported by the Washington Times Herald and Washington Post and even by members of the Office of Strategic Services who thought the DND to be genuine. It was even the subject of correspondence among senior staff of the Office of War Information, who instructed its outposts to watch 'for any material published about the German underground, especially the Neues Deutschland'. Once the DND’s existence was picked up in Allied circles, the Moral Operations branch had help in spreading its message through the official news reports of several Allied new outlets including the British Broadcasting Corporation.

The Morale Operations branch produced large numbers of 'black propaganda' magazines and newsletters for delivery into Germany after deciding that even the most educated Germans were familiar with no more than some 30 publications and were therefore unlikely to recognise a fake journal. In addition, special issues of the Time and Life magazines were printed for Axis troops, many of whom eagerly sought English publications, and these contained feature stories by fictitious prisoners of war describing the luxuries of captivity in US hands and encouraging others to abandon the war and join them in Canada and the USA.