RAF strength reports

I added RAF strength reports for Far East Command and Middle East/Mediterranean Command both in Google docs and Scribd.

Kurt Jahnke German saboteur, Soviet spy?

Mr Jahnke was a colorful individual whose adventures certainly rivaled James Bond. He was born in Gnesen  in 1888 and after enlisting in the German navy he worked for the International Customs Service based in Peking. During his time there he made contacts with the Chinese secret service.

In 1909 he immigrated to the United States. There he became a naturalized citizen and actually served in the Marine Corps. He was posted to San Francisco, Pearl Harbor and the Philippines before being discharged for medical reasons.

From San Francisco he operated a shipping and smuggling business. According to Walter Schellenberg (head of the Sicherheitsdienst foreign intelligence department) Jahnke made a lot of money by smuggling back to China the bodies of dead Chinese immigrants. It seems that the Chinese community wanted to bury its dead back in Chinese soil and they were willing to pay big bucks for it.

Jahnke not only made money but he gained the confidence of powerful Chinese families.

Then with the break of WWI he turned into a spy and saboteur for Germany. He managed to sabotage American shipping and may have been involved in the explosion at Black tom island in 1916.

After the war he returned to Germany in 1921 and took part in anti French sabotage activities in the Ruhr. During the 1920’s he was also involved in the secret cooperation between the German and Soviet armies.

He also created an amateur intelligence service called the Jahnke-Büro which became connected with the Nazi statesman Rudolf Hess.

Eventually Jahnke’s backdoor dealings and the Hess affair led to his downfall and he retired to his estate in Pomerania.

During the war however Walter Schellenberg of the SD gave him another chance and used him as an advisor and intelligence source.

In 1945 Jahnke was arrested by the Soviet SMERSH agency. SMERSH meant ‘death to spies’ and in this case they lived up to their name as Jahnke was executed.

Why did I mention in the title that Jahnke could be a Soviet spy? For that we need to take a look at another individual, mr Krivitsky.

Walter Krivitsky (real name Samuel Ginsberg) was head of the Soviet military intelligence agency’s network in Western Europe. He defected in 1937 and managed to get to the USA where he wrote articles in newspapers attacking Stalin. Things did not turn out well for Krivitsky. The General was found dead in a Washington DC hotel on February 10, 1941. The death was deemed a suicide but was that the truth or a coverup?

Krivitsky knew many secrets and he was invited by the British intelligence service to share his information with them.  In 1940 he came to the UK and was questioned about Soviet spy activities.

How is Krivitsky connected to Jahnke? In one of these interrogation reports he mentioned that Jahnke had been a Soviet spy in the 1920’s. This is very interesting information considering Jahnke’s shadowy background.

Here is the relevant part of that report, Krivitsky is referred to as mr ‘Thomas’:

Was Jahnke a Soviet spy in the 1920’s? Perhaps.

Did he continue to work for the SU in the 1930’s and 40’s ? This is an interesting question…

Sources: KV 2/804 ‘Walter J. KRIVITSKY’ , Historical dictionary of German intelligence , Hitler's Last Chief of Foreign Intelligence , Wikipedia.

Update

I uploaded TICOM report I-172 ‘Interrogations of Hagen and Paschke of Pers Z S’. It mentions German work on British diplomatic codes.

Also added the following reports by Wilhelm Fenner ,head of the cryptanalysis department of OKW/Chi : DF-187 A-G, I-206 ‘Extracts from homework written by Min. Rat Wilhelm Fenner of OKW/Chi’ and I-200 ‘Interrogation of Min Rat Wilhelm Fenner of OKW/Chi’. 


I have to thank Rene Stein of the National Cryptologic Museum for the DF-187 files and I-206 .Also Frode Weierud for editing them.

Bletchley Park histories

I uploaded volume 1 of ‘The History of Hut 6’ and parts of volumes 2 and 3 in scribd. This is a postwar history of Hut 6 of Bletchley Park, the British codebreaking organization. Written in 1945, declassified in 2006.

Hut 6 attacked German army and airforce Enigma keys.

The files can be found at British archives HW 43/70-2.

Similar studies for Hut 8 which was responsible for the Naval Enigma can be found at www.ellsbury.com :

Cryptographic History of Work on the German Naval Enigma by C.H.O'D. Alexander

The History of Hut Eight by A. P. Mahon

Compromise of Iranian codes in WWII

Considering events in the Middle East it is safe to assume that the codes of Iran are undoubtedly a target of Anglo-American agencies. However even back in WWII the Iranian codes were targeted by the Great powers of that era. The codebreakers of the German foreign ministry were able to read Iran’s confidential messages.

Details of the German effort come from ‘European Axis Signals Intelligence' vol 6 - The foreign office cryptanalytic section and vol1 - Synopsis. 

From EASI vol 6 p29 :

The group head for Iran, Afghanistan and Arabic states was Dr Benzing. According to him all Iranian systems were read.

Iran (Persia): Dr Benzing stated that all the Iranian systems were read. The Iranians used three letter, 12.000-13.000 group, one-part or reverse alphabetic, enciphered code books.

From EASI vol1:

Also from TICOM I-22 'Interrogation of German Cryptographers of Pers Z S Department of the Auswaertiges Amt', p20

166. All the Persian systems were read. They used a three letter book with substitution tables, which often changed. The Persians however always indicated in clear which table was in use.

 

The Germans were not the only ones who were reading Iranian codes. EASI vol1 mentions that the United States Army Security Agency (predecessor of the NSA) had acquired copies of the codes and most ‘keys’ were read.

Update

I uploaded file Ticom I-203 'Interrogation of Herbert MARINIOK and Herbert Korn, Former Members of the Reichspost and OKW/CHI' .It mentions the A-3 descrambling device and also makes a reference to the 9 channel Soviet teleprinter system.

Leaders of the Rote Kapelle

The Red Orchestra was the name given by German intelligence to the Soviet spy networks operating in Europe during WWII. These networks had been set up much earlier and had managed to infiltrate government departments and business circles of every country in Europe.

Through their spying activity they kept Moscow informed of important events in Europe. Their means of communication was the radio and it was this means that led to their downfall. The German Radio Defence agency (Funkabwehr) was able to locate the sites used for radio transmissions in 1941 and by apprehending the cipher clerks and their code material they broke their code.

By decoding messages they uncovered the names of many Rote Kapelle members and of course these were arrested, interrogated and more people were incriminated. By 1942 the main networks were destroyed. All in all it was a great success for the German intelligence agencies.

The top people of the Rote Kapelle were Leopold Trepper and Victor Sokolov. Trepper was arrested on the 5^th of December 1942 and cooperated in feeding Moscow with disinformation. In 1943 however he managed to escape from his guard and went into hiding.

Sokolov was arrested on 12 November 1942 . He also cooperated in the radio game organized by the Germans and the information he passed on to Moscow was deemed so important that he was given the order of Lenin in 1943. This success however ended in February 1944 when Moscow learned that he was under German control. Still they did not cut contact with him.

Here are the personality cards for these two Russian spies from British archives KV 3/351 ‘The case of the Rote Kapelle’.

Leopold Trepper -  Grand Chef

Victor Sokolov - Petit Chef

Sources: KV 3/350-1 , CI-PIR 120 ‘interrogation of Richter, Rolf Werner’ , ‘Deadly illusions’

NSA breakthrough ?

According to author and journalist James Bamford the NSA is up to no good...