How Monopoly helped save allied soldiers during WW2
Nov 21st, 2007 by admin
Submitted by Gaming Briefs and Nostalgia Bits
Just like Debbie Schlussel, Monopoly was one of my favorite board games during childhood. And now, thanks to Mental Floss magazine (available to subscribers only), we learn that special editions of the famous and classic game were used to help allied forces to escape from German prison camps during WW2. As the Wall Street Journal’s Informed Reader blog says:
The board game Monopoly served allied prisoners as a real-life tool to get out of jail during World War II, says Brian McMahon in Mental Floss, a magazine devoted to intellectual esoterica.
In 1941, the British Secret Service asked the game’s British licensee John Waddington Ltd. to add secret extras to some sets, which had become standard elements of the aid packages that the Red Cross delivered to allied prisoners of war. Along with the usual dog, top hat and and thimble, the sets had a metal file, compass, and silk maps of safe houses (silk, because it folds into small spaces and unfolds silently). Even better, real French, German and Italian currency was hidden underneath the game’s fake money. Departing allied soldiers and pilots were told that if they were captured they should look out for the special editions, identified by a red dot in the Free Parking space. Any sets remaining in the U.K. were destroyed after the war. Of the 35,000 prisoners of war who escaped German prison camps by the end of the war, “more than a few of those certainly owe their breakout to the classic board game,” says Mr. McMahon.
The game also played a role in the Cold War, with communist countries declaring the game capitalist propaganda and banning it. Despite such edicts and Marxist-inspired alternative games such as Hungary’s “Save” or Russia’s “Manage,” smuggled versions of the capitalist diversion were hits behind the Iron Curtain.
Wow! One more reason why I’m so glad to have my family’s edition of Monopoly still around. The whole article by McMahon, as I’ve discovered, may be available on PDF over here (and here’s the HTML version, via Google cache). The guy from New Jersey who invented Monopoly is to be honored for coming up with one of the best games of all times that helped serve important missions in the Second World War as well.
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