Simple Sabotage Field Manual

by U.S. Office of Strategic Services

Instructions to the common citizens on how to obstruct a military occupations. Prepared by the Office of Strategic Services and printed January 17, 1944. The book contains suggestions for causing trouble to military occupiers. Instructions include methods for damaging vehicles by ruining fuel lines and damaging engines, brake systems, etc,; causing power short-circuits in buildings; suggestions for being a poor employer or work supervisor.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Military Fiction, Politics, War, Psychology, Reference

106 pages, Paperback

First published January 17, 1944

Reviews

[Sarah Cavar]

You should be reading this right now. It's free, so download while you still can:

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/...

[Rick Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the greatest text on organizational psychology out there. Essentially the government figured out in the 40s that one of the more effective ways to cripple an organization was through small acts of sabotage. Things like, acting like an asshole in meetings. Disrupt people who are lost in thought. Unplug the coffee maker. Demand written orders. Walk into the boiler room and twist a couple knobs. Drop sand everywhere. Essentially a lot of little acts of subversion add up over time and create massive deficits in organizations.

So next time Tyler in accounting says “I’m gonna need to run the budget projections for the fiscal quarter against a five-year rolling average for similar expenses“ you can tell him to “Die fascist scum, quit trying to use your Nazi mind games against me! I’m going to buy a tequila powered slip and slide for the company picnic and you’re gonna like it.” Then you can proceed to beat your chest and chant “America! Americaaa!” Until they drag you from the conference room.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Do you have a fellow employee who fits these criteria:

a) Give lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when questioned.
(b) Report imaginary spies or danger to the Gestapo or police.
(c) Act stupid.
(d) Be as irritable and quarrelsome as possible without getting yourself into trouble.
(e) Misunderstand all sorts of regulations concerning such matters as rationing, transportation, traffic regulations.
(f) Complain against ersatz materials.
(g) In public treat axis nationals or quislings coldly.
(h) Stop all conversation when axis nationals or quislings enter a cafe.
(i) Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, especially when confronted by government clerks.
(j) Boycott all movies, entertainments, concerts, newspapers which are in any way connected with the quisling authorities.

[Adam McPhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential guide to the modern workplace. Available free online at Project Gutenberg.

[Katherine Cowley · Rating 5 out of 5]

What should you do to fight foreign invaders who have taken over your country if actual fighting is not an option?

This is the question explored by this actual World War II manual: the idea is that an average, ordinary citizen can significantly handicap the enemy through simple acts of sabotage, with minimal fear of punishment or retribution.

The manual posits that small actions, like making faulty decisions, can make a huge difference when compounded by thousands of individuals. The manual details everything from intentional stupidity to how exactly to go about setting fire to an enemy warehouse. Key principles include "commit[ing] acts for which large numbers of people could be responsible" as well as "damag[ing] only objects and materials known to be in use by the enemy or to be destined for early use by the enemy" (so, for example, it's rarely wise to destroy food, but largely useful to sabotage heavy industry). Key areas that are good to target are transportation and communication.

Some of my favorite suggestions include setting loose moths during propaganda films (they'll congregate on the projector, making it impossible to see the film) and using an old sponge to ruin a sewage system (you'll have to read the manual to find out the details on that one). I'm also now well-informed on how to ruin an engine by introducing certain impurities into gasoline.

This was a fascinating read which provides an interesting historical perspective, and while some of the sabotage techniques would no longer be effective, many would work just as well today. I'd be interested to know how much this manual was put into practice, and how much sabotage was used against foreign occupiers in Europe during World War II.

I read this book for free on my Kindle, and I'd definitely recommend it. It truly is a manual--so a fairly quick read.

[kamonegix · Rating 4 out of 5]

i swear to god ive met people who mustve been time travelling saboteurs from fucking 1944 because this level of incompetence takes skill and dedication

[Alex Chiang · Rating 5 out of 5]

I READ THIS FOR PURELY INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES AND NOT BECAUSE I HAVE BECOME CONVINCED THAT ADMINISTRATIVE AND ORGANIZATIONAL SABOTAGE MAY BECOME A NECESSARY STRATEGY FOR CIVIL SERVANTS TO DISRUPT A PRESENTLY FASCISTIC GOVERNMENT FROM EXECUTING AN ETHNIC CLEANSING CAMPAIGN AGAINST ITS CITIZENS AND RESIDENTS THIS IS NOT AN ADMISSION OF GUILT I WANT TO SPEAK WITH MY ATTORNEY NO FURTHER QUESTIONS

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, albeit somewhat outdated text on simple sabotage to be executed by ordinary individuals under occupation. Written for the context of ww2 but many of its techniques are still applicable and its broader theory can be applied to new technologies and settings. The basic idea here is that even tiny acts of sabotage are beneficial to the opposition if done in large numbers. Essentially anything of value to a government can be sabotaged, but doing so requires a little boldness and a little reversal from the normal, social, conservative habits which pretty much everyone has. One thing which surprised me in this text was how much feigning stupidity, laziness, overcaution, or other mental states can aid in sabotage. There is actually a fair amount of humor or implicit humor in this text. Suggestions such as " issue two tickets for the same seat in the train, so that an interesting argument will result; or "Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion,especially when confronted by government clerks." come to mind.

[Luca Vertongen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Working for a boss you don’t like? A unethical business? A fascist regime? Here’s a how to guide to clog the wheels of the oppressors system.

Start your sabotage today with this CIA manual made for resisting Nazis.

Free from Gutenberg library: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26184

[Петър Стойков · Rating 5 out of 5]

Кратка брошурка, изготвена от доброволци в САЩ и предназначена за военновременна Европа. Целта е гражданите на завладените от нацистка Германия държави да саботират по всякакъв достъпен им начин функционирането на икономиката, производството, транспорта, пропагандата и каквото изобщо им е достъпно. Така те ще затруднят, па дори и малко, германската военна машина и ще подпомогнат съюзническите войски (вкл. и включващияте се по-късно във войната САЩ) във войната им.

Освен, че е любопитно да се видят различните начини, с които може да се прецакат най-различни машини, автомобили, производствени линии и т.н. само с помощта на всекидневни материали като шепа пясък, отвертка, пирон, чаша вода и т.н., основното (според мен) достойство на съвременния прочит на брошурката е нематериалният саботаж и приложението му в днешния ден.

Практически, описанието осветява като с прожектор колко много пречат разни личности на всички останали в работата. Днес те са си такива - приказливи, заядливи, мързеливи: всеки има подобни колеги. Които все не разбират нещо, все трябва да им се обяснява и повтаря. Които обичат да правят срещи, мийтинги и видеоконференции, на които да се изказват надълго и нашироко без особена забележима цел. Които все задават въпроси и се отклоняват от темата, искат безкрайно да обсъждат, да разискват.

И така мислим и за тях - като за дразнители. Доста е отрезвяващо да видим, че точно такова поведение е описано като индустриален и административен саботаж, целящ да намали административния и управленски капацитет на държава във военно време...

[Veronica Turlington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feels disingenuous to log this on an app owned by Amazon but…oh well.

Get in loser, we’re fucking over billionaires and fascist governments! 💅🏻

[Malum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty outdated (in a world of computers the act of destroying physical files becomes less important, and with security cameras almost everywhere now many of the suggestions in this book would get you busted pretty quickly) but still an interesting read.

The most important thing about this book, however, is that it lets you know that you aren't helpless. If you were under the thumb of an oppressive power then there is always something you can do to gum up the works and make your tormentor's lives harder, no matter who you are or what skills you might have or lack.

Clog toilets, blow fuses, suck at your job, waste your tormentor's time and energy and, when in doubt, pour sugar into a machine to bust it.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outdated, sure, but in coming days probably invaluable.

[Bia Holmes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and sweet! Some of the content is outdated, but suggestions for sabotaging organizational processes are on point. I love the overall concept that any of us can disrupt things in inconspicuous ways if we wish, because it’s empowering to those who are typically powerless.

[Luke Arthaud · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool piece of history. Too dated to be of much practical use now.

[Doradea]

Interessant wäre eine Version, die an die heutige Zeit angepasst ist. Einige Hinweise sind aber universell.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super short read. An interesting time capsule of recommendations for how to sabotage axis war efforts as an ordinary citizen saboteur in occupied territory during WW2. A lot of this book is too dated to be useful now - focusing largely on industrial sabotage. Though the sections on administrative and office worker sabotage tactics still hold up. A lot of this reads like comedy: how to create a big exciting fire, how to act like an idiot, sobbing uncontrollably as a demoralization tactic. Pretty awesome.

The administrative portion can also be flipped as a pretty succinct way to identify unintentional inefficiencies in a corporate setting. As examples: turning every decision into a committee of 5+ people, relitigating finalized decisions, discouraging decisions by causing anxiety of higher leaderships interpretations of a chosen path - these can all be used to infer what not to allow to happen if you want your org to be effective.

I wish there was a modern equivalent of this that could serve today. I imagine a lot of sabotage today would be harder given how surveilled and traceable everything is now. I also imagine there’s a lot of new and creative ways you could sabotage authoritarian organizations since this was originally published for use during WW2.

[Darius · Rating 3 out of 5]

A simple little book, aimed at allies occupied by Germany, explaining simple things that citizens can do to hamper the Nazi war effort. Not an exciting book, but the implicit lesson is sabotage does not have to be flashy -- blowing up ammunition trains, etc. It can be about shorting a power-line, putting sand in some machine, and so on.

[Kai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Found only the last part about organizations actually relevant in our modern world. That last part made the book an interesting read though.

[persy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone relates to this manual in terms of modern office work, inefficiencies of bureaucracy and y’know what: they’re right. But for some reason this was an incredibly satisfying read and sadly, a good way of keeping your job: pretending to be busy, causing problems and then taking your own sweet time to solve said problems that were never an issue to begin with; never teaching your skills to others; rewarding incompetence; being inefficient without looking to be so.

My favourite bit has got to be 5(b)(2): soak a sponge in a thick starch or sugar solution, dry it into a hard balls flush it down the toilet so it’ll clog up the sewage system when it gets wet and expands. Absolutely diabolical.

[Makalah]

This book title has been making the rounds, and I was curious what it included from WWII.

Good recap: https://www.cia.gov/stories/story/the...

Free to read via Project Gutenberg

[Sophia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an entertaining extended pamphlet offering advice on how the average citizen under enemy occupation could create as much mayhem and disruption as possible without themselves getting into trouble. It read a lot like a report that one poor guy in the secret service had to generate over night, and it is quite specific to that time period, but it is overall an amusing walk through all the ways you can be as annoying as possible.

[Billy Pritchard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating read. Advice that the precursor to the CIA issued about how to enact small acts of plausibly deniable resistance that would slow down occupying forces or fascist governments.

[Maren]

hmmmmmmmmm

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

(only using this for my writing…)

[Tatiana Alejandra de Castro Pérez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manual repleto de ideas de cómo joder al enemigo haciendo pequeños gestos que pueden pasar por incompetencia, uso de malos materiales o la casualidad. Nunca se sabe cuándo te puede ser útil.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for research, not for any specific book, though it could fit into my Realm Agents series easily enough.

This is a formerly classified manual which doesn't seem to know whether it's for citizens of occupied or despotic enemy countries or for their OSS (predecessor of the CIA) handlers. It gives a lot of advice, much of it specific to the technology of the time but some which is timeless, about how to degrade the efficiency of a country, not only by actual physical sabotage of machinery (whether by maintaining it badly or actually introducing foreign substances which will make it break down), but by being generally obstructive and officious and inefficient in a way that can be passed off as just being kind of an idiot. Unfortunately, some of the advice is very recognizable as the behaviour of colleagues and managers we've all had, who weren't (presumably) trying to sabotage the organization but who were doing so quite effectively anyway:

'(11) General Interference with Organizations and Production

(a) Organizations and Conferences (1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.

(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.

(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible—never less than five.

(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.

(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.

(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.

(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.

(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision—raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

(b) Managers and Supervisors

(1) Demand written orders.

(2) “Misunderstand” orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.

(3) Do everything possible to delay the delivery of orders. Even though parts of an order may be ready beforehand, don’t deliver it until it is completely ready.

(4) Don’t order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown.

(5) Order high-quality materials which are hard to get. If you don’t get them argue about it. Warn that inferior materials will mean inferior work.

(6) In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines.

(7) Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw. Approve other defective parts whose flaws are not visible to the naked eye.

(8) Make mistakes in routing so that parts and materials will be sent to the wrong place in the plant.

(9) When training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions.

(10) To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.

(11) Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.

(12) Multiply paper work in plausible ways.

Start duplicate files.

(13) Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.

(14) Apply all regulations to the last letter.'

Because of how dated and specific much of it is, and because it's not an amazing example of a piece of technical writing, I'm giving it three stars, but it's an interesting document.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

This manual originally piqued my interest because it's being distributed and recommended for application in the current Ukrainian-Russian conflict.

But there's a really interesting section regarding general interference with organizations and production, it describes small acts of sabotage for organizations, and surprise surprise! most of them are fairly common in the work place i.e. decide everything in meetings/conferences, bringing up irrelevant issues, re-open closed action items or questions, asking for written orders, multiply paperwork, multiply procedures, spreading rumors, etc.

So next time you run into Toby from HR, tell him to stop being a saboteur.

[Squeasel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting overall, but I absolutely loved the parts on how to sabotage businesses, and I finally understand where the highest echelons at large silicon valley companies must be getting their leadership inspiration:

(11) General Interference with Organizations and Production

(a) Organizations and Conferences (1) Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.

(2) Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments.

(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.

(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.

(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.

(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.

*****

(10) To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.

(11) Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.

*****

(13) Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.

****

(Also available at project Gutenberg in various formats, and on YouTube read aloud.)

[Luis Fernando Franco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Si alguien escribiera un libro hoy en día con estos mismos tópicos, se pensaría que es sátira, porque va muy en línea con un libro como 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings: How to Get By Without Even Trying.

Se trata de cosas tan sencillas que pueden sabotear totalmente una organización sin el menor esfuerzo. El problema es que en muchas organizaciones altamente burocráticas es precisamente lo que ocurre, sin la intención de que ocurra.

Este manual tendría que ser leído por todos los MBA como una serie de recetas de los "don't" en las organizaciones. Ojalá algo cambiase.