Eric Erickson ( spy ) Eric " Red " Erickson ( 1890 – January 1983 ) was a Swedish oil executive . Background . Erickson was born in Brooklyn , NY , the son of Swedish immigrants . He claimed to have fought in the U . S . Army in World War I , although this was not true , and graduated from Cornell University in 1921 . He attended Cornell at the suggestion of oil magnate Walter C . Teagle . Erickson moved to Sweden in 1924 and became a Swedish citizen in the mid - 1930s . Career . Erickson spied on German synthetic oil plants for the American OSS in World War II . At the outbreak of World War II , Erickson offered his services to the United States . Pretending that he was a Nazi , Erickson visited Germany more than 30 times between 1939 and 1945 . Alexander Klein wrote a 1958 book about Erickson ' s World War II exploits , " The Counterfeit Traitor " , which was made into a 1962 movie of the same name , starring William Holden in the role of Red Erickson . Details . In the beginning of World War II , Erickson began to publicly express feelings of devotion to Hitler and his cause . Ultimately , he was disowned by his family in America , and shunned by everyone else . In the past , Erickson worked for numerous oil fields in Texas and Europe . In Sweden , Erickson set up an oil exporting business . Sooner or later the security division of Gestapo contacted Erickson , and easily influenced him to help out Germany . Erickson swiftly brought great improvements to Germany ' s synthetic oil industry . At the time , every oil refinery in Germany was built underground , and were filling every oil need for Germany . Soon enough , in 1942 , Erickson managed a meeting with Himmler himself . Here , Erickson proposed the construction of a massive synthetic oil industry in Sweden as to be able to support all of Germany in the case that the underground refineries were destroyed . Erickson also proposed the personal investment of Himmler himself as to benefit him if things went downhill . Both ideas were fully embraced by Himmler , and Hitler himself ; so the project was taken into action immediately . In order for Erickson to reproduce a refinery in Sweden , he had to become familiar with all the refineries in Germany . So he was given a pass signed by Himmler that gave him unlimited access into anywhere in Germany , and into all data he needed . If that wasn ' t enough , Erickson also received an order signed by Hitler , providing all vehicles he needed and unlimited petrol coupons . After a time , Erickson had visited every refinery in Germany and mapped out in complete detail of their location . In the weeks to come , every refinery was persistently bombed during the precise times that return raids came , and bombed again when more return raids came after the refineries repair . In 1944 , the synthetic oil production in Germany had dried up completely . What was considered most surprising and shocking was that it just so happened that the synthetic plant in Merseburg - Leuna — just so happened to be next to a building in which experiments , which were highly advanced much further than anywhere else , were being conducted for the atomic bomb . Therefore , when the Merseburg - Leuna synthetic plant was bombed , the German ' s atomic bomb project was diminished in an instant . Soon after the end of World War II , what Erickson did was cited by General Dwight D . Eisenhower as an integral part of the Allies ' victory in Europe , and he was later also honored by President Harry S Truman for such . References . 3 . " Details " / " Place of Birth " : The Final Summit by . Andy Andrews