In January 1944, William J. Donovan — director of the OSS, America's wartime intelligence agency — signed off on one of history's most unusual documents. The Simple Sabotage Field Manual was a classified guide for ordinary citizens in Nazi-occupied territory, teaching them how to quietly undermine the enemy through everyday acts of disruption.
When the CIA declassified it in 2008, something unexpected happened. People didn't read it as a history document. They read it as a mirror. The bureaucratic tactics section — insist on doing everything through channels, refer all matters to committees, talk at great length on every subject — didn't sound like wartime sabotage. It sounded like last Tuesday's team meeting.
Citizen Saboteur was born from that recognition. We take the manual's lessons, bring them to life through animation, and ask the uncomfortable question: if these tactics were designed to destroy an organisation from within — why do they sound so familiar?
The Simple Sabotage Field Manual was produced by the Office of Strategic Services in January 1944 — the forerunner of the CIA. It was classified SECRET and distributed carefully to resistance networks across occupied Europe.
Its purpose: teach ordinary citizens how to undermine enemy operations using nothing more than the tools of everyday life. No explosives, no weapons, no special training required. Just creativity, patience, and a willingness to be deliberately, strategically useless.
Click any category below to explore the actual tactics from the original document.