THE CODEBREAKERS

by DAVID KAHN

  422 dimensions: NA, Microcopy T-78, Roll 153, Frame 6085796.

  422 top Army and Air Force system, signal officers’ views: Colonel Herbert Flesch, retired signal officer of the Luftwaffe, letter, March 22, 1964.

  422 patent 52,279: The operation of this patent can be best understood from General Cartier, “Le Secret en Radiotélégraphie,” Radio Electricité, VII (January 10, 1926), 6-10. It is also described in H. Stålhane, Hemlig Skrift: Coder och Chiffrermaskiner (Stockholm: Lindfors Bökforlag, 1934), at 217-220. The corresponding U.S. patent is 1,502,376.

  422 Damm biography: Yves Gyldén, interviews, April 28, 29, 30, 1962; C. A. Lindmark, untitled manuscript of recollections of his work as an engineer with Damm, March 12 and 15, 1959. I am grateful to Bertil R. Gustring for his oral translation.

  424 Craig: assignment of his patent rights, June 8, 1915, filed at the patent office, Stockholm (information supplied by Dr. Käärik).

  424 founding of firm: Gyldén interviews; Lindmark; Bertil R. Gustring, “Ciphers and Ciphering Machines,” The Bulletin of the American Society of Swedish Engineers, XXXVI (October, 1941), 6-9, at 8; Boris C. W. Hagelin, interviews, May 8 and 9, 1962.

  424 machines: Lindmark; Stålhane, 217-229 (with illustrations); Aktiebolaget Cryptograph [an illustrated advertising pamphlet] (Stockholm, 1922). U.S. Patent 1,502,376 incorporates the influence letter; 1,484,477 for codewords; 1,644,239 for links; others are 1,233,035, 1,540,107, and 1,663,624.

  425 business difficulties: Lindmark.

  425 Hagelin enters: Hagelin interviews; Gustring, 8.

  425 Swedish Army: Hagelin interviews.

  425 B-21 and B-211: Stålhane, 242-246 (with photographs); U.S. Patent 1,846,105; The Hagelin Cryptographers: Ciphering Machines, type B-211 and C-36(Stockholm: A. B. Cryptoteknik, 1936), at 4-5; Eyraud, 200-201.

  425 purchase of firm: Gyldén interviews.

  426 most compact, French request: Gustring, 8.

  426 adding machine: Hagelin interviews.

  426 C-36: The Hagelin Cryptographers, at 6-7.

  426 5,000: Philip Lorraine, “Miljonar pa Chiffer,” Allt, No. 6 (1956), 48-50 at 49.

  426 turning point, time not ripe: Gustring, 8; Hagelin interviews.

  426 Gyldén analyses: Yves Gyldén, Analysis, from the Point of View of Cryptanalysis, of “Cryptographer Type C-36” Provided with 6 Key Wheels, 27 Slide Bars, the Latter Having Movable Projections, Single or Multiple (Stockholm, May 9, 1938), and Yves Gyldén, Analysis of the “Model C-36” Cryptograph [5 keywheels, 25 slidebars] from the Viewpoint of Cryptanalysis (Stockholm, February 26, 1936). Both are typewritten documents marked “Translated from the French” and annotated by Friedman.

  427 American negotiations, “a normal visa”: Hagelin interviews; Philip L. Lorraine, “The Cipher No Spy Can Crack,” Industria, LI, No. HE, (1955), 62-63 at 63; Harris, 335.

  427 M-209, division to battalions: United States, War Department, Converter M-209, M-209-A, M-209-B (cipher), Technical Manual 11-380, March 17, 1944 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1944), at 1; Harris, 335-336.

  427 400 a day, 140,000, Italian Navy: Hagelin interviews.

  427 royalties: 84th Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Hearings on H.R. 2068 (Friedman bill), testimony of Stuart Hedden, Hagelin’s lawyer, at 17.

  427 operation: machine itself.

  431 M-209 solution: Howard T. Oakley, The Hagelin Cryptographer (Model C-38)—Converter M-209: Reconstruction of the Key Elements (mimeographed, May 12, 1950); Gyldén analyses. NA, Microcopy T-501, Roll 322, Frame 108, reports a German M-209 solution; so does Harris, 90-91.

  432 “with my earnings”: Lorraine, 63, corrected by Hagelin.

  432 move to Zug: Hagelin interviews.

  432 factory: visits during Hagelin interviews.

  433 machines: pamphlets issued by Crypto AG: II 3011-a, Cryptographer Type C-52 (January, 1958); II 3096, Pocket Cryptographer Type CD-55 (August, 1959); II 3076c, Auxiliary Devices for Teleciphering (Telecrypto) Series T-55 (October, 1959); 3052b, Keyboard Attachment Unit Type B-52 (December, 1958). Prices and total costs from Boris Hagelin, Jr., interview, November 3, 1961.

  433 customers: Hagelin interviews.

  434 “tremendous number,” “not good business practice”: Crypto AG pamphlet V. 7002e, Usage of Hagelin Cryptographer C-52 (October, 1962), at 1, 3.

  Chapter 14 DUEL IN THE ETHER: THE AXIS

  In this and succeeding chapters, citations in the form “T-175:477:7334380-411” refer to captured German World War II records published on microfilm by the National Archives. T-175 is the microcopy number, which varies for different groups of records; 477 is the microfilm roll number; 7334380-411 means microfilm frame numbers 7334380 to 7334411. A citation to “Guide 39” will refer to No. 39 of the Guides to German Records Microfilmed at Alexandria, Va. (Washington, D.C.: National Archives, 1958-), an indispensable series of mimeographed finding aides. “Churchill, IV, 200” will mean page 200 of volume IV (The Hinge of Fate) of his The Second World War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1948-1953).

  I want to thank Miss Katherina (Bucha) Frowein for her researches on my behalf amongst the interminable spools of German microfilm.

  PAGE

  435 prewar Polish solution: Wilhelm F. Flicke, War Secrets in the Ether, trans. Ray W. Pettengill (Washington, D.C: National Security Agency, 1953), 128.

  435 message of August 31: Birger Dahlerus, The Last Attempt (London: Hutchinson & Co., [1948]), 106; William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), 587-589; Mario Toscano, “Probleme particolari della storia della seconda guerra mondiale,” Rivista di Studi Politici Internazionali, XVII (July-September, 1950), 388-398 at 397. Dahlerus says that the message was received at 12:45, but I cannot credit that it was cryptanalyzed, translated, and delivered in less than an hour.

  436 Selchow: Flicke, 81; Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunal under Control Council Law No. 10, Case 11: United States of America vs. Ernst von Weizsaecker, et al, Nuernberg, October, 1946-April, 1949, testimony of Kurt Selchow, September 8, 1948, 20458-20484 at 20460. This transcript is mimeographed. Referred to henceforth as Selchow.

  436 Referat I Z, Pers Z: German Foreign Office organizational charts at T-120: 247:183913, T-120:1029:406770, T-120:1780:406640, T-120:236:170704.

  436 Ribbentrop takes Chifferbüro: Selchow, 20464.

  436 two groups of cryptanalysts: Hans Rohrbach, interviews, May 2 and 3, 1962.

  436 Kunze: interview, May 4, 1962.

  437 Paschke: interview, May 3, 1962.

  437 Schauffler: interview, May 6, 1962. Schauffler received his doctorate in mathematics with a dissertation involving cryptanalytics—Eine Anwendung zyklischer Permutationen und Ihre Theorie (Marburg: mimeographed, 1948); it has been translated by Hardie.

  437 Schauffler’s studies for Pers Z: See bibliography in Hans Rohrbach, “Mathematische und maschinelle Methoden beim chiffrieren und dechiffrieren,” FIAT Review of German Science, 1939-1946: Applied Mathematics, Part I (Wiesbaden: Office of Military Government for Germany: Field Information Agencies, Technical, 1948), 233-257. This article is of primary importance for a knowledge of modern cryptology. Bradford Hardie has made an excellent translation. Several other translations exist, including a French one; to facilitate reference I cite the paper by section instead of by page, and as Rohrbach FIAT to distinguish it from his interviews. As for the papers listed in the bibliography: Pers Z hid them under the eaves of Burgscheidungen Castle when the Americans captured Pers Z. But when Schauffler and Rohrbach sent one of Rohrbach’s students to bring the box back from the castle, which was in the Soviet zone of occupation, the caretaker of the castle tipped off the Russians. They confiscated the box as the student was waiting with it at the railroad station.

  438 Langlotz, Hoffman, Scherschmidt: T-120:247:183913.

  438 recruiting: Miss Asta Friedrichs, interview, August 15, 1963.

  438 Rohrbach: interview; Wer
Ist Wer, XIV.

  438 Köthe: interview, May 21, 1964; Wer Ist Wer, XIV.

  438 Deubner: Friedrichs.

  438 locations: Rohrbach interview, Friedrichs, Köthe.

  439 von der Schulenberg: Not Count Friedrich Werner von der Schulenberg, German ambassador to Russia at the time of the Hitler attack, nor Count Fritz von der Schulenberg, both of whom were executed in connection with the July 20 attack on Hitler, on November 10 and August 10, 1944, respectively (Shirer, 1072).

  439 security measures: Friedrichs.

  439 Selchow a Nazi: Selchow, 20460-1.

  439 statistics, information group, language bonuses: Friedrichs.

  440 machines: Rohrbach FIAT, §F.

  440 Krug: Rohrbach interview, Friedrichs.

  440 difference method: Rohrbach FIAT, §G3; Rohrbach interview; Eyraud, 240-245. My example is adapted from one provided by Bradford Hardie, to whom I am indebted for it. A rudimentary but precocious form appears in Kerckhoffs, 57.

  443 translucent paper: Rohrbach FIAT, §F2.

  444 Italian, French, English 40,000-additive codes: Kunze, Köthe.

  444 Japanese code: Rohrbach interview.

  445 von Papen message: T-120:1768:028378.

  445 Woermann memo: T-120:598:001669-70; Rohrbach interview. Ribbentrop took into account British knowledge of Italian cryptograms in a memorandum of April 21, 1941 (DGFP, XII, 593).

  445 “This is good to know”: Count Galeazzo Ciano, The Ciano Diaries, 1939-1943, ed. Hugh Gibson (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1946), entry for May 25, 1941.

  445 small countries’ codes: Friedrichs.

  445 Selchow distribution: Selchow, 20472.

  445 green F, “Kann nicht”: Friedrichs.

  446 Brown as Bundy: Rohrbach interview, Köthe.

  446 nations whose codes Pers Z solved: affidavits of Paschke and Selchow (they are identical, Selchow’s being based on Paschke’s), respectively Exhibits 55 and 54 in Trials of War Criminals …, Case 11. Originals in NA, RG 238.1 have substituted “Dominican Republic” for their “Santo Domingo.”

  446 Forschungsamt: Flicke, 103-109; Walter Schellenberg, The Labyrinth: Memoirs of Walter Schellenberg, trans. Louis Hagen (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956), 254-255.

  447 Prince Christoph of Hesse: Almanach de Gotha, 1941.

  447 Braune Blätter: Guide 17, 45; T-77:661:1863503. These were evidently so called because the solutions were distributed on sheets of light brown paper.

  447 27 recorded conversations: [United States], Office of the United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946), V, 628-654.

  447 milk-marked ballots: Shirer, 273-274.

  449 diplomatic telegrams, telephone conversations: Guide 32, 128; Guide 33, 6.

  449 RSHA: invaluable outline of its administrative history by Robert Wolfe in preface to Guide 39. Amt 1 was personnel; Amt II, organization, administration, and law.

  449 Austrian cryptanalytic documents: Schellenberg, 31.

  449 Höttl and Figl: Wilhelm Hoettl, Hitler’s Paper Weapon, trans. Basil Creighton (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1955), 132. Höttl’s chronology is telescoped but may be straightened out by the dates that Jost headed Amt VI (1938 to early 1942).

  449 plaintext telegram: Guide 33, 4.

  450 Spanish code: Himmler File, Box 402, Folder 65, German Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. I am indebted to Maxwell W. Bowers of Clarksburg, West Virginia, for a tentative reconstruction of the code, which varies in some particulars from mine.

  450 Ominata: Robert Boucard, Les Dessous de l’Espionnage, 1939-1945 (Paris: Editions Descamps, 1958), 130.

  450 Schellenberg and Heydrich requests: Schellenberg, 237, 235.

  450 Schellenberg sees Göring: Schellenberg, 254-255.

  450 Amt VI secret communications department: Schellenberg, 364. Dr. Otto-Ernst Schüddekopf of the Anglo-American branch of Amt VI prepared an elementary treatise on cryptology which is preserved in the RSHA archives, T-175:458:2974805-25.

  450 digraphic cipher: T-175:477:7334380-411.

  450 RSHA cipher machines: receipts at T-175:60:2576855-70.

  450 “Every three weeks”: Schellenberg, 361-362. He names Fellgiebel and Thiele.

  450 Göring raid on Pers Z: Selchow, 20464.

  451 Operation Cicero: L. C. Moyzisch, Operation Cicero, trans. Constantine Fitzgibbon and Heinrich Fraenkel (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1950), esp. 50, 52, 111; Eleysa Bazna, I Was Cicero (New York: Harper & Row, 1962); Schellenberg, 337, 340; Kunze, Paschke.

  452 Höttl and Hungarians: Hoettl, Hitler’s Paper Weapon, 132-138. The mid-1944 date is fixed by the dates of Sztojay’s premiership (March 22 to August 24, 1944).

  453 Abwehr: Paul Leverkuehn, German Military Intelligence (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1954), 1, 28-31, 41; T-175:470:2991464; Shirer, 1026.

  454 Buschenhagen cryptanalytic service: Flicke, 81.

  454 “In order to cultivate”: T-79:65:211. Hardie translation.

  454 German military communication intelligence in the 1920s and 1930s: Flicke, 85-99, 115-117.

  455 Fellgiebel: personnel file in NA, World War II Records Division. These records are cited henceforth as NA, WW2.

  455 Amtsgruppe WNV: “Auszug aus den Dienstanweisungen und Arbeitsplänen von Chef WNV, Ag WNV und den unterstellten Abteilungen,” September 28, 1944, in NA, WW2.

  455 Thiele: personnel file in NA, WW2.

  456 Kempf and Kettler: personnel files in NA, WW2; Flicke, 293, 151.

  456 Chiffrierabteilung and officials: “Arbeitsplan der Abteilung Chi der Ag WNV” [1944], in NA, WW2. 1945 organization deduced from OKW telephone directory listing for Chi, T-78:43:6005283. Schellenberg, 113, for description of Madrid intercept post.

  457 Fenner, Novopaschenny: Flicke, 291-293.

  458 Stein: telephone interview, August 25, 1964.

  458 superencipherment-stripping device: Rohrbach FIAT, §F2.

  458 locations of Chi: Gisbert Hasenjaeger, a mathematician who was on the staff, interviews, September 24 and November 21, 1964; T-78:43:6005283.

  458 Fellgiebel and Thiele removals: personnel files; Shirer, 1057, 1072.

  458 Praun: personnel file in NA, WW2.

  458 German Army ciphers: Hagelin interviews; T-78:158-6085796; T-311:134: 7108488-9, 7179071, 7179122, 7179138-9 (latter for “Tarntafeln …”). Sacco, §46c; U.S. Patent 1,912,983; Hans Rohrbach, “Chiffrierverfahren der neuesten Zeit,” Archiv der elektrischen übertragung, II (December, 1948), 362-369, at §13 (translation by Howard Oakley), for Siemens machine.

  459 Fernmeldeaufklärung 7: Colonel Karl-Albert Mügge, “Die Deutsche Heeres-Fernmeldeaufklärung in Mittelmeerraum,” Fernmelde-Impulse, VII (May, 1964), 9-17, translated by Hardie.

  460 Yugoslav solutions: Flicke, 140-141; Wilhelm Hoettl, The Secret Front, trans. R. H. Stevens (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1954), 165.

  460 German solution of M-209: T-501:322:108; Dr. K. A. Hirsch, letter, September 1, 1962, conveying information from Dr. Rudolf Kochendorfer; Harris, 90-91.

  460 52nd Anti-Aircraft brigade, grid square 43835, no firing: T-501:321:575, 329; T-501:322:219.

  461 wadi bombing: Mügge, 16.

  461 Carrocetto factory: quoted in Peter Tompkins, A Spy in Rome (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962), 119-120. 461 “Yet the actual attack”: Major General F. W. von Mellenthin, Panzer Battles, trans. H. Betzler (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956), 325.

  461 Nachrichten-Verbindungswesen: organizational chart of Luftfahrtministerium, 1944, T-177:1: frame unknown; organizational chart of O.K.L., T-321:75: frame unknown.

  461 Luftwaffe cryptosystems: Flesch; T-321 :R70:4820996-1001; T-321:75: frame unknown.

  461 Funkauf klärungsdienst: Notebook Concerning the Organization and Equipment of the Funkaufklärungsdienst of the Luftwaffe, Miscellaneous German Air Force Collection, Box 501, German Papers, Library of Congress Manuscript Di
vision; T-321:75: frame unknown.

  463 Syko: Howard K. Morgan, Codes and Ciphers: Prepared for aircraft flight and ground crews (Washington, D.C.: The Infantry Journal, 1944), 58-59, for early Syko; Eyraud, 192-194; Sacco, §29; Charles Eyraud, interview, May 14, 1962; Tompkins, 119; Alexander d’Agapeyeff, Codes and Ciphers (London: Oxford University Press, 1949; rev. ed., third impression, 1960), 117-119.

  464 Ploesti: James Dugan and Carroll Stewart, Ploesti: The Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943 (New York: Random House, 1962), 86-87.

  465 B-Dienst early successes: Captain S. W. Roskill, The War at Sea, 1939-1945 (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1954—), I, 19, 267; Duncan Grinnell-Milne, The Silent Victory: September 1940 (London: BodleyHead, 1958), 133.

  465 Norway invasion: Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, My Life, trans. Harry W. Drexel (Annapolis, Md.: U.S. Naval Institute, 1960), 307; Grinnell-Milne, 134.

  465 “completely outwitted”: Churchill, I, 600.

  465 Atlantis: Wolfgang Frank and Captain Bernhard Rogge, The German Raider Atlantis, trans. R. O. B. Long (New York: [Pocket Books, Inc.] Ballantine Books, 1956), 68, 40-42, 49, 68, 86; Roskill, I, 281, 283.

  466 BAMS code: Great Britain, Admiralty, Signal Department, Merchant Ships’ Signal Book, I: Visual Signalling Code and Instructions’, II: Merchant Ships’ Code’, III: Wireless Signalling Instructions (various dates).

  466 value of merchant solutions: Harald Busch, U-Boats at War, trans. L. P. R. Wilson (New York: [Pocket Books, Inc.] Ballantine Books, 1955), 40.

  466 “The Battle of the Atlantic”: Churchill, V, 6.

  466 Western approaches messages: Roskill, I, 468.

  468 “These situation reports”: Admiral Karl Doenitz, Memoirs: Ten Years and Twenty Days, trans. R. H. Stevens (Cleveland, Ohio: World Publishing Co., 1959), 325, 242; Roskill, II, 364.

  468 March convoys: Doenitz, 326-328; Roskill, II, 365-366.

  468 “It was the greatest”: Doenitz, 328.

  468 darkest hour of the war, “The Germans never”: Donald Macintyre, The Battle of the Atlantic (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1961), 181.

  468 Italian naval cryptanalysts: Franco Maugeri, From the Ashes of Disgrace, ed. Victor Rosen (New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1948), 31. Maugeri was director of the Servizio Informazione Segreto.