In the United
States the Army and Navy codebreakers solved many Japanese cryptosystems and
used this advantage in battle. The great victory at Midway would
probably not have been possible if the Americans had not solved the Japanese
Navy’s JN25
code.
On the other
side of the hill the codebreakers of Germany, Japan, Italy and Finland also
solved many important enemy cryptosystems both military and diplomatic. The
German codebreakers could eavesdrop on the radio-telephone
conversations of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, they could
decode the messages
of the British and US Navies during their convoy operations in the Atlantic and
together with the Japanese and Finns they could solve State Department messages
(both low and high level) from
embassies around the world.
Radio intelligence
and codebreaking played an important role not only in the military and
diplomatic fields but also in the shadow war between the Allied intelligence
agencies, the European Resistance movements and the German security services.
In the period 1939-41 German troops conquered most of continental Europe and the
occupied countries were forced to contribute to the Axis effort by sending raw
materials, agricultural products and forced labor to Germany. Thanks to the
blockade of German occupied Europe by the Royal Navy and the harsh demands of
the German authorities life in the occupied areas was bleak. Discontent over
German occupation led many people to join resistance movements and oppose the
authorities, either by printing and distributing anti-Axis leaflets and books,
by sabotaging war production or by directly attacking the German troops and
their collaborators in the government and the civil service.
The British intelligence services SIS - Secret Intelligence Service and SOE - Special Operations Executive helped organize and fund the resistance movements and they even supplied them with weapons through airdrops. Besides sending their own intelligence teams into occupied Europe and working together with the home grown resistance movements they also collaborated with the intelligence services of the European Governments in Exile, most of whom where based in London during the war.
The British
agencies SIS and SOE were not the only Allied organizations sending spies into
Europe and supporting the growing resistance movements. The American OSS - Office of
Strategic Services also conducted its own operations in occupied countries
and so did the intelligence
department of the Polish General Staff.
The German
security services and the Radio Defense Corps
The German
agencies tasked with securing the occupied territories and opposing the Allied
intelligence agencies and resistance movements were the military intelligence
service Abwehr, the
political security service Sicherheitsdienst,
the regular police Ordnungspolizei, the secret military police Geheime Feldpolizei
and the Radio Defense departments of the Armed Forces and the Police.
The OKW
Funkabwehr
The High
Command of the Armed Forces – OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) had a radio
defense department tasked with signals security and the interception of illicit
radio transmissions. The department was part of the OKW signals directorate and
its designation was OKW/WFSt/WNV/FU III. WNV/FU III was a militarized
organization and cooperated closely with the Army’s signal service. Apart from
fixed intercept and direction finding stations they also had five mobile units,
the 612, 615, 616 Intercept Companies and the 1st and 2nd (GAF) Special
Intercept Companies (1).
The OKW Funkabwehr was responsible for the monitoring of illicit radio transmissions in Northern France, Belgium, Southern Holland, Italy, the Balkans and parts of the Eastern Front. Regional branch offices (Aussenstellen) were established at Paris, Lyon, Brussels, Oslo, Vienna, Warsaw, Rome, Prague, Athens, Belgrade, Bratislava, Klagenfurt and Varna.
An undercover
Funkabwehr station operated
in Madrid, Spain and cooperated with the Spanish intelligence services.
The Order
Police Funkabwehr
The civilian
police force Ordnungspolizei
(Order Police) set up its own radio defense department in the late 1920’s and according
to postwar reports there were fixed intercept stations (Beobachtungsstellen) at Berlin-Spandau, Cologne, Constance, Vienna,
Nuremberg and Oldenburg plus mobile units called Polizei Funkaufklärungskompanien. During the war the organization was
expanded in order to counter the rising numbers of Allied agents and Orpo
Funkabwehr units were responsible for the monitoring of illicit radio
transmissions in Southern France, Holland, Norway, Germany and parts of the
Eastern Front (2).
Both the OKW and
the Ordnungspolizei Funkabwehr departments cooperated with the security
services (3) and although there were rivalries and duplication of effort it
seems that there was regular exchange of information, at the top level, on
agents’ details and cipher systems (4). On the other hand cooperation between
WNV/FU III and Orpo field stations depended on the local conditions (5).
Breaking
Allied agents codes
The Radio
Defense departments of the OKW and Ordnungspolizei monitored the airwaves for
unidentified radio traffic and used direction finding equipment in order to
locate the sites of agents transmissions. The technology of that era could not
pinpoint the exact location so the fixed intercept stations were used to
identify the general area and then mobile units were dispatched to find the
exact building housing the agent. In some cases it was necessary to use even
more advanced means such as the gürtel snifter,
which was worn by German personnel over a coat (6).
Allied agents
kept in contact with their controlling stations abroad through the use of
undercover radio stations. The information they gathered as well as their
orders from HQ were transmitted over the airwaves. Messages were enciphered
with a variety of systems in order to protect the contents from the Germans.
According to information available from British and German reports the main
system used by Allied agents in Western Europe was the double transposition,
using a poem as a ‘key’ generator (7).
The German
security services tried to arrest enemy radio operators and capture their
cipher material. Then it was possible to decipher past and current traffic and
even attempt a ‘radiogame’. By having access to the agents radio procedures and
cipher systems it was possible, at times, to continue their transmissions and
thus learn of the plans and operations of the enemy intelligence services. The
‘radiogame’ could be conducted either by the captured agent (provided he/she
was willing to cooperate with the Germans) or by experienced German radio
operators who could mimic the agent’s radio ‘fingerprint’ (8).
Apart from
physical compromise agents systems could also be solved cryptanalytically,
however analysis of agents ciphers was in some ways more difficult than with
Allied military and diplomatic systems. Large organizations used specific
cipher systems and followed certain rules. This made the work of enemy codebreakers
easier in the sense that they already knew what they were up against (an
enciphered codebook, or a transposition cipher or a strip cipher etc). Large
organizations also generated lots of traffic that could be used to find errors,
repetitions and ‘depths’. When it came to agents codes however these rules did
not apply. There were few messages to analyze, the cipher systems were not
fixed but underwent changes and each Allied agent used his cipher systems with
slight modifications that made solution very difficult.
Despite these
conditions it was still possible for the Germans to solve a substantial amount
of Allied agents traffic through cryptanalysis. Originally the OKW Funkabwehr
relied on OKW/Chi - (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht/Chiffrier Abteilung) Signal
Intelligence Agency of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces for the analysis
of agents ciphers but it seems that since OKW/Chi was primarily engaged with
the solution of diplomatic and military attaché ciphers the agents messages
received only scant attention (9).
The Ordnungspolizei
Funkabwehr cooperated with Goering’s
Forschungsamt on Russian agents codes but this also seems to have been a
limited effort on behalf of the FA (10).
Things
changed in early 1942 when the analysis and solution of agents traffic was
taken over by a new department of the German Army’s codebreaking agency
Inspectorate 7/VI. Department 12 (Referat 12) was created to work on agents
systems and pass the results to the security services and the radio defense
departments.
Inspectorate
7/VI - Referat 12 (Agents Section)
During WWII
the German Army made extensive use of signals intelligence and codebreaking in
its operations against the Allied powers. German commanders relied on signals
intelligence in order to ascertain the Allied order of battle and track the
movements of enemy units.
The German
Army’s signal intelligence agency operated a number of fixed intercept stations
and also had mobile units assigned to Army Groups. These units were called KONA
(Kommandeur der Nachrichtenaufklärung) - Signals Intelligence Regiment and each
had an evaluation centre, a stationary intercept company, two long range signal
intelligence companies and two close range signal intelligence companies (11).
The Army’s
KONA units were primarily engaged with the interception and analysis of Allied
military traffic but in some areas they also covered agents/partisans traffic.
In the Soviet
Union KONA
6 monitored partisan traffic and from mid 1943 was able to read their
enciphered communications with Moscow. In the Balkans KONA
4 intercepted and decoded (with the assistance
of Inspectorate 7/VI’s Referat 6) a large volume of Tito, Mihailović and
British agents traffic.
The KONA
units did not have the ability to solve complicated Allied cryptosystems.
Instead they focused on exploiting low/mid level ciphers and even in this
capacity they were assisted by material sent to them by the central
cryptanalytic department. This was the German Army High Command’s Inspectorate
7/VI.
Inspectorate
7/VI had separate departments for the main Allied countries, for cipher
security, cipher research and for mechanical cryptanalysis (using punch card
machines and more specialized equipment).
The War Diary
of Inspectorate 7/VI shows that in the first half of 1942 the solution of
agents traffic was officially taken up by the department, with a summary of
work on Agents systems filed under the progress report of Referat 1 (12). In
August the new Department 12 was created to deal exclusively with agents
systems.
Available
sources on the work of Referat 12
Information
on the work of Referat 12 is available from its monthly reports, included in
the War Diary of Inspectorate 7/VI and from postwar interrogations of German
personnel that either worked at Referat 12 or were acquainted with their
operations.
The reports
of the period April 1942-February 1944 are available from the War Diary of
Inspectorate 7/VI but unfortunately the rest are missing (or are included in
the files of OKW/Chi). Obviously the most reliable sources are the reports from
the War Diary, however these are not always easy to interpret since they use
codenames for the intercepted agents radio links.
Regarding the
postwar interrogations of German personnel, the most useful are:
1). TICOM report I-115 by
Major Mettig (head of the army’s signal intelligence service in the period
1941-43).
2). CSDIC (UK)
SIR 1106 by Miersemann (a member of Referat 12).
3). CSDIC/CMF/SD
80 by Lentz and Kurfess (members of Referat 12 detached to Aussenstelle
Paris).
4). TICOM
report I-180 by Keller (a member of Referat 12).
5). Chapter ‘Radio
Counterintelligence’ of Foreign
Military Studies P-038 'German Radio Intelligence', written by Lieutenant
Colonel de Bary, head of the OKW Funkabwehr in the period 1942-45.
6). Part
3 of ‘War Secrets in the Ether’ by Wilhelm Flicke (member of the OKW/Chi
intercept department).
According to the NSA FOIA office they do not have any postwar
interrogations of dr Vauck.
Overview
of important cases
Using the
monthly reports of Referat 12 it is possible to give an overview of its
successes:
Eastern networks
Red
Orchestra – Rote Kapelle
From the
1920’s the Soviet Union financed and organized the creation of spy networks
throughout Europe. These penetrated military, economic, political and
diplomatic circles. Many of the agents were devoted communists who thought they
were working for the creation of a better world. Germany was a major target of
the Soviet spies, especially after power was seized by the NSDAP party. The
Germans called these networks the ‘Red Orchestra’.
Inside
Germany there were three main spy networks in Berlin. The ‘SENIOR’ network
under Luftwaffe officer Harro Schulze-Boysen, the ‘CORSICAN’ network under
economist Arvid Harnack and the ‘OLD MAN’ network under writer Adam
Kuckhoff. These groups were well placed to
provide important intelligence to Moscow. Harnack had a high ranking position
in the economics ministry and Schulze-Boysen was assigned to the liaison
staff of the Luftwaffe Chiefs of Staff.
From Harnack
came information on the German economy such as investments abroad, foreign
debt, secret trade agreements with other countries, currency deals etc. His
network also controlled an Abwehr officer assigned at OKW headquarters and a
lieutenant in German naval intelligence. Boysen’s position gave him access to
classified reports prepared for the Luftwaffe high command.
After the
German attack on the Soviet Union, in summer 1941, the closure of the Soviet
embassies meant that the intelligence networks could not communicate with
Moscow through the embassy personnel but instead had to use their undercover
radio facilities. Their overreliance on radio communications means that too many
messages were sent from the same stations and thus they attracted the attention
of the Radio Defense Corps.
One such radio
center was raided on 12 December 1941 in Brussels. With the aid of captured
cipher material messages were decoded and names were identified. This was the
beginning of the end for the Soviet spy networks in Western Europe. In June and
July 1942 more cipher documents were retrieved by the Germans and the names of
members of the Berlin Rote Kapelle decoded. Overall in 1942 130 members of the
Berlin Rote Kapelle networks were arrested and 49 of them executed. The leaders
of the organization Leopold Trepper and Anatoly Gurevich were arrested in
December 1942 and November 1942 respectively. Henri Robinson, head of the
French and UK networks, was also arrested in 1942.
The reports
of Referat 12 for May - September ‘42 show the investigation of messages of the
‘Kapelle Etterbeck’/’Kominternsender Brussels’ (Brussels radio station), their
solution, the identification of individual agents and cooperation with Sicherheitsdienst
officials on a ‘radiogame’.
May 1942 
July 1942
September
1942
The solution
of these messages showed that the
Rote Kapelle even had two agents inside Referat 12!
Operations
Eiffel and Mars
After dismantling
the Rote Kapelle networks the Germans initiated a ‘radiogame’ whereby their own
personnel would prepare reports and send them using the Russian cipher systems.
Anatoly Gurevich, who was second in command of the Rote Kapelle network,
cooperated with the Germans and thus messages and orders were exchanged between
the Germans and Moscow.
These
operations were called ‘Eiffel’ (for the radio station in Paris) and ‘Mars’
(for the radio station in Marseilles) (16).
Report of
March 1943
In the period 1941-42 not all Rote Kapelle networks were dismantled by the Germans. In neutral Switzerland a spy group headed by Alexander Rado was able to gather intelligence on political, economic and military developments and transmit reports to Moscow via three radio stations. Two of the transmitters were in Geneva and one in Lausanne. The Germans called this network the Red Three (Rote Drei) and made attempts to penetrate the organization with their agents, since they couldn’t attack them directly due to Swiss neutrality.
In the second
half of 1943 the Germans were finally able to convince the Swiss authorities to
take action against these unauthorized transmitters and the Swiss radio
security service located two of them and captured members of Rado’s
organization. Then they initiated a ‘radiogame’ using the captured radio
stations and cipher material (17).
The Red Three
group had access to valuable information and it is possible that they had
sources inside the German High Command. It seems that from 1941 till late
1943-early 1944 around 4.000 -5.000 messages were sent to Moscow (18). The
Germans investigated this traffic but solution came relatively late in April
1943.
The reports
of Referat 12 and the files of Erich Hüttenhain, chief cryptanalyst of OKW/Chi,
show that in February 1943 both departments started investigating this traffic
(Swiss WNA net with transmitters 3112, 3106 and 3116) and both were able to
solve messages in April ’43 (19).
TICOM D-60
Referat
12- February 1943
Referat
12- April 1943
Messages
continued to be solved in the following months with the report
of February 1944 saying:
‘65 messages of the Rote Drei were decrypted, so that now 382 broken
messages are available. The order for a cipher change — transition to fixed
mixed Caesars — was detected in mid-December. The change of the cipher key book
happened already at the beginning of August 42. The key for the Sissy-messages
resulted in the solution of a message from December 42.’
According to
the Center for the Study of Intelligence article: ‘The Rote Drei: Getting
Behind the 'Lucy' Myth’, there are 437 decrypted messages available from German
sources.
Czech mbm
network
The Czech
resistance movement and the Czech intelligence service caused serious problems
for the German authorities with their most audacious operation being the
assassination of Reinhard
Heydrich, protector of Bohemia and Moravia and former head of the
Reich Main Security Office. However after this episode the Germans took many
security measures and were generally able to keep the resistance activities
under control. Keeping the Czech areas pacified was particularly important
since Czechoslovakia had a developed heavy industry sector which produced
weapons for the German armed forces.
In their
counterintelligence operations the Germans benefitted from having the ability
to read a substantial amount of the traffic exchanged between the Czech IS in Britain
and the Czech resistance in the occupied territories. This case has been
covered in detail in Svetova
Revoluce and the codes of the Czechoslovak resistance.
Polish PS
networks
In WWII
Poland fought on the side of the Allies and suffered for it since it was the
first country occupied by Nazi Germany. In the period 1940-45 the Polish
Government in Exile and its military forces contributed to the Allied cause by
taking part in multiple campaigns of war. Polish pilots fought for the RAF
during the Battle of Britain, Polish troops fought in N.Africa, Italy and
Western Europe and the Polish intelligence service operated in occupied Europe
and even had agents inside the German High Command.
Although it
is not widely known the Polish intelligence service had spy networks operating
throughout Europe and the Middle East. The Poles established their own spy
networks and also cooperated with foreign agencies such as Britain’s Secret
Intelligence Service and Special Operations Executive, the American Office
of Strategic Services and even the Japanese
intelligence service. During the war the Poles supplied roughly 80.000
reports to the British intelligence services (20), including information on the
German V-weapons (V-1
cruise missile and V-2 rocket) and reports from the German High Command (though
the agent ‘Knopf’) (21).
The
communications of the Polish IS became a major target for the German
codebreakers and messages of their military
attaché service, intelligence
department and resistance
movement were read throughout WWII. The reports of Referat 12 show that the
Polish networks were called PS nets by the Germans and after investigation of their cipher
procedures in July and August 1942 the first messages of line 22 (polnischer Agentenfunk) were solved in September
’42. 
In November
’42 the solved cipher material was sent to the Vienna ABP office (Ausland Brief
Prüfstelle – Postal censor office) so that that spy case ‘olczyk’ could be
solved and members of Referat 12 visited the Warsaw Abwehr office in order to
teach their personnel how to decode messages of the line 22. According to the next
report the Abwehr was only supposed to decode messages using the material
provided by Referat 12, they did not have permission to do cryptanalysis on
their own. In December changes in the additive procedure made solution
difficult and there was cooperation with OKW/Chi. In 1943 the traffic continued
to be solved despite changes in the cipher procedure. Messages of the line 22
network ‘Martha’ operating from Lyon, France were solved in February and in
June the line 21 was also solved. In the second half of 1943 the reports show
the solution of messages from the lines 6521, 6508 (Bucharest-Istanbul), 6003,
6008, 6509. In November the team processing the Polish material remained in
Berlin and came under the control of OKW/Chi.
According to
Major Mettig, the solution of Polish systems (especially on the link
London-Warsaw) was the outstanding achievement of Referat 12 (22).
The Western LCA networks
The efforts
of Referat 12 were split between Eastern and Western spy networks. In the
Western areas of Europe the traffic of the LCA networks (radio links from the
UK to France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway) was intercepted, processed and
decoded. These groups were controlled by the British intelligence services SIS
and SOE or by the intelligence services of the European governments in Exile.
The main
cipher system used by Allied agents was the double
transposition, using a poem or a book as a ‘key’ generator. This system
offered adequate security, provided it was used properly but was vulnerable to
mistakes in encipherment and transmission errors. According to Leo Marks, head of the SOE’s
cipher department, in July 1942 a quarter of all incoming messages were
indecipherable due to ‘careless coding or
acute Morse mutilation’ (23). The German codebreakers also faced the same
problems against these messages with the report of May 1942 mentioning
transmission and encryption errors:
‘Im westnetz wurden Agentensprache des Lca -
netzes in französischer, englischer und holländischer sprüche entschlüsselt und
übersetzt. Die schlüsselunterlagen lagen vollständig oder doch teilweise vor.
Erschwert wurden die arbeiten einmal durch hörfehler, dann aber auch haufig
durch verschlüsselungsfehler seitens der
Agenten, die sich bei dem Doppelwürfelverfahren besonders unangenehm
aussichten. Im Monat Mai wurden 51 entzifferte sprüche von 7 verschiedenen
sendern an WNV/FU abgeliefert.’
In the period
July-August ’42 work continued on the call-sign system of the LCA nets and the output
of messages increased substantially, with 158 messages solved in June, 146 in
July and 136 in August. In September important documents of the Belgian
intelligence service were captured and decoded.
In November
’42 the unit examined cipher material captured during operation ‘Donar’
(Funkabwehr radio finding operation in Vichy France, that took place in September
1942) and messages from the cases ‘Oppidana’ and ‘Mark-Luc-Baumann’. The
December ’42 report mentions spy cases ' Voltaire entrepreneur' and ‘Le Chene’,
with the latter concerning an English officer.
In June the
ciphers of the spy networks in Paris and Corsica were clarified and information
was uncovered on the codebooks used by the Belgians IS. In July the large
number of arrests of Resistance members in France required the participation of
members of Referat 12 in the interrogations and the examination of the captured
cipher material. These operations led to the solution of agents systems and the
decryption of a large number of messages. The spy cases mentioned are ‘Vichy -
Welle’, ‘Nilo’, ‘Copa’, ‘Johannes’, ‘Baron-Stir’.
In August ’43
the continued expansion of the LCA networks led to an increase in the number of
Referat 12 personnel detached to work in Southern France. The output of the
Berlin office regarding the LCA-nets was 152 messages and the spy cases
mentioned are ‘Nilo’, ‘Orleans’, ‘Hermes’, ‘Vichy-welle’.
From
September ’43 the reports do not have as much information on ongoing operations
but instead give a short summary of the characteristics of the spy cases and
lines of the LCA nets. Output of solved messages increased, with 166 decoded in
September, 538 in October, 352 in November, 277 in December.
There is no
report for January ’44 but the
one from February says:
‘In the O.U. Zinna were processed the traffic
of the LCA network with the agent callsigns QYZ, WOS, RCJ, SFY, PYM, ROY, SIA,
OIN, REF, furthermore the lines 9171 (SAM), 9811 (VY, RQ), 175 (SPE), 9853 (RGE
) and 9815 (without Ag.Z.). Among the latter, cipher documents were received
from the colleagues detached to the branch control centre in Paris
(Aussenleitstelle Paris). Further, in the case "Normandy" address
material that turned up was deciphered and the courier cipher (Playfair) was
reconstructed. 8 courier letters of the Belgian ND (Nachrichtendienst —
intelligence service) and further address material were deciphered (ez.mäßig — entziffungsmäßig gelöst).
The
department itself deciphered 372 messages from the LCA network. In the ongoing
8 Gv plays (Gv — Gegenverkehr, counter traffic, radiogame) in the region of
Paris 101 messages were deciphered and enciphered.’
Unfortunately
the use of codewords for the spy cases makes it impossible to know which Allied
country’s networks and agents were compromised by Referat 12. Still some
information is available from the interrogations of German intelligence
officers who served in occupied France. The Abwehr officer Hugo Bleicher
mentions the cases ‘Grossfürst’ and ‘Oppidana’ in his postwar interrogation
(24). Regarding ‘Grossfürst’, in 1943 Bleicher was able to penetrate the French
DONKEYMAN network, headed by Henri Frager and controlled by SOE. Since this
case appears in the May ’43 report of Referat 12 it is possible that through
his agents he was able to get access to the group’s cipher material.
Case ‘Oppidana’
concerned the Belgian resistance movement. According to Bleicher the Germans
learned that in November ’42 the leader of a resistance group would travel by
train from Brussels to Liege to meet the local district commander. Both were
arrested, the leader’s wireless radio set found and about 10 arrests were made
in Brussels.
Belgium
In the period
1940-44 Belgium was occupied by German troops and ruled by a Military
Administration. According to the reports of Referat 12 important documents of
the Belgian intelligence service were captured in September 1942 and after
solution of the cipher they revealed the addresses, activities, camouflage and
means of communication of an organization (Ardennen
Kapelle) operating throughout the country.
In June 1943
more information was uncovered on the codebooks ‘Marius No. 4’, ‘Agua’, ‘Mort’,
‘Go’ of the Belgian IS.
In July the
Belgian IS codes ‘Jendel’ and ‘Vinci were solved analytically and in September
and October more Belgian messages were decoded, revealing addresses. The report
of February 1944 says: ‘8 courier letters of the Belgian ND and further
address material were deciphered’.
Denmark
Danish agents
traffic is mentioned in the reports of September and October 1942 which mention
the transmitter gud:
September ’42
says ‘Der dänische Agentensender g u d ,
der die Arbeit des vergrämten Senders o n b weiterführte, war ausgehoben
worden; die von ihm vorliegenden Sprüche konnten beschleunigt entziffert werden’.
The report of
March ’43 mentions the clarification of the traffic of the Danish Communist
Part: ‘Ein nach berlin gesandter, durch
Schlüsselmängel entstellter Rest von Sprüchen des Senders der dänischen
kommunistischen Partei wurde geklärt erledigt’.
Norway
The solution
of Norwegian agents traffic is mentioned in the reports of November-December
1942 and February 1943. In November the cipher of the transmitter nzyn was
solved and due to difficulties with the Norwegian language assistance was
received from a member of Referat 2 (UK ciphers) who was fluent in Norwegian.
In December
processing of the nzyn material was continued and in February 1943 the report
says that the messages of the spy lines xq, zbr and gob were turned into
plaintext.
Balkan networks
British
liaison officers in the Balkans
The British
authorities kept in contact with the Resistance groups in the Balkans (Tito,
Mihailovic, ELAS movements) through liaison officers sent by the intelligence
services SIS and SOE. These small teams transmitted traffic by radio to their
controlling stations in Cairo, Egypt and Bari, Italy. The cryptosystems used
were double transposition and the War Office Cypher, enciphered with one time
pads.
Some of the
encoded radio traffic of British officers in the Balkans was exploited by the
Germans. They were able to read messages both through captured material and by
cryptanalysis.
The reports
of Referat 12 for June and July ’43 mention the solution of British Balkan
traffic to Cairo with indicator GESH.
June 1943
The solution
of British liaison officers traffic seems to have been taken over by Referat 6
(Balkan department) since their reports of the period June ’43 – November ’44
mention the decoded British messages from Yugoslavia and Greece.
Greece
Greece was
occupied by the Axis powers in April 1941 and in the period 1941-44 many
resistance and spy groups were formed to oppose the German, Italian and
Bulgarian authorities. In April 1943 messages of the Greek spy lines 5303,
5324, 5329 were solved.
In May 168
messages were solved and in June-July the lines 5300, 5364, 5337 were processed
with 61 messages decrypted. The report of August 1943 says that 8 Greek
messages were solved.
It seems that
some of the compromised traffic belonged to the SOE’s Prometheus network. According
to British and German sources in 1943 the communications of captain Koutsogiannopoulos
net (agent Prometheus II) were compromised and the Germans were able to set a
trap for members of his group (25). 
This event is
mentioned by Colonel de Bary in FMS P-038 'German Radio Intelligence', p206
‘Here is an example of the procedures which
had to be used in radio counterintelligence: A Greek officer landed
surreptitiously from a submarine in the vicinity of Athens in order to obtain
military information. He attempted but failed to establish radio contact with
the British central control station in Cairo. German radio counterintelligence
intercepted his calls, sent a fake reply pretending to originate from the
British central control station, and instructed the officer to switch to an
emergency frequency. The officer was assigned a new mission with the promise
that a submarine would pick him up at a specific place. The officer and four
companions unsuspectingly climbed aboard a motor boat of the German Navy which
was disguised as a submarine!’
Bulgaria
During WWII
Bulgaria tried to remain neutral but the German conquest of the Balkans led to
a shift towards a pro Axis policy. Still Bulgarian troops did not take part in
the invasion of the Soviet Union and when in December 1941, under German
pressure, the Bulgarian government declared war on the United Kingdom and the
United States this was mostly a diplomatic gesture.
Since
Bulgaria and the Soviet Union were not at war there was a large Soviet embassy
in Sofia that served as the centre for Soviet intelligence activities in the
country. The German radio defense agencies monitored the traffic of Soviet
agents and of the Soviet consulate in Varna.
The reports
of Referat 12 show that Bulgarian illicit radio traffic was investigated since October
1942 (including the traffic of the Soviet consulate in Varna) and messages of
the spy lines 3136, 3135, 3111 were solved in April 1943.
More messages
were solved in the following months, with 27 decoded in May, 21 in June and 5
in August 1943.
According to Wilhelm
Flicke the Soviet intelligence service had several spy groups operating in the
country, gathering intelligence from Bulgarian military and government sources.
In 1943 the illicit Bulgarian traffic was decoded and through direction finding
operations the station was tracked to the outskirts of Varna. Then with the
cooperation of the Bulgarian police it was possible to arrest the spy group,
whose leaders were the Bulgarian citizens Stoinoff and his wife Milka (26).
Conclusion
In the course
of WWII the German authorities had to combat countless resistance groups in
occupied Europe. If that wasn’t enough the intelligence services of Britain, Soviet
Union, USA, Poland and of the European Governments in Exile were also sending
spy teams and supporting the resistance groups in every way possible. In this
shadow war the German security services came to rely more and more on signals
intelligence and codebreaking. In the period 1939-45 the radio defense
departments of the Armed Forces and the Order Police were expanded and a new
agents section was created in the Army’s codebreaking department Inspectorate
7/VI. Referat 12 was a small unit and had to use unorthodox methods in order to
solve Allied agents codes and ciphers but from the available reports it’s clear
that they were able to process a lot of material each month and thus played a
big role in the German counterintelligence efforts. In May-December 1942 their
monthly output averaged 159 messages and in 1943 this went up to 630. The only
available report for 1944 says ‘Total output of the unit in the month of
February 819 messages’.
The
department never had more than 30-40 people and some of them were always
detached to the regional offices. Yet they were able to solve the ciphers of
the Soviet networks Rote Kapelle and Rote Drei, they helped neutralize the
Czech resistance by solving the messages of the mbm net, they read messages of
the Polish resistance movement and intelligence service and in the West they
decoded lots of traffic from several Allied groups in France, Belgium, Holland,
Denmark and Norway.
These
achievements are impressive, considering the small size of the department. In
1944 it is possible that they continued to solve a large volume of agents
traffic since the OKW/Chi activity report for the period January-25 June 1944
says that 6.000 agents messages had been handed over to WNV/FU III (27). 
On the other hand our knowledge of OKW/Chi activities versus agents ciphers is limited and it is possible that these numbers refer to their own separate effort (28).
More research
is necessary in order to identify the cryptosystems used by Allied agents, the
work of the German agencies OKW/Chi, Inspectorate 7/VI and Forschungsamt versus
agents codes and the effect they had on German counterintelligence operations.
Notes:
(1). British
national archives HW 34/2
'The Funkabwehr’, Seabourne
Report IF-176 ‘Operations and Techniques of the Radio Defense Corps, German
Wehrmacht’
(2). British
national archives HW 34/2 'The Funkabwehr’, TICOM report I-91 ‘POW Interrogation Report
- General Major Robert K.H. SCHLAKE, Chief of Communications in the Main Office
of the Ordnungspolizei, Ministry of the Interior'
(3). British
national archives HW 34/2 'The Funkabwehr’ , p8 says: ‘The normal channels of contact for
intelligence and executive operations were, in the case of WNV/FU III, Abwehr
III and the GFP, and, in the case of the Orpo units, the SD and the Gestapo.
This liaison appears to have worked sufficiently well for normal operational
purposes.’
(4). British
national archives HW 34/2 'The Funkabwehr’, p7 says: ‘During the year 1943 the
Orpo established complete independence of the control of the OKW and this
resulted in a fairly strict division of responsibility between the intercept
services of the police and those of the OKW…….A distinct central discrimination and control centre was at the same
time set up by the Orpo in Berlin-Spandau, the chief of which was responsible
to the C.S.O., Orpo, and from then on the theoretical independence of the two
organizations was complete. Coordination was maintained by a Joint Signals
Board in Berlin, under the chairmanship of the chef WNV, which dealt with
matters of general organization. It would appear that in practice, however,
reasonably close liaison was maintained between the two headquarters; it was at
least sufficiently close for a common block of numbers to be retained in
referring to commitments, for, although such numbers were nominally issued by
the Joint Signals Board, in practice they must have emanated from WNW FU III.’
In pages
10-11: ‘The main reorganization of the
Orpo Intercept service took place during 1943. The post office work of the
Radio Control Centre at Berlin was expanded into an independent discrimination
and control centre known as Funkmessleitstelle Berlin. This nevertheless
continued to cooperate closely with the WNV/FU III and, through the latter,
with the cryptographers of Referat Vauck.’
(5). British
national archives HW 34/2 'The Funkabwehr’, p6 says: ‘At the outbreak of war the police monitoring units, while separately
administered, were controlled operationally by the central discrimination
department of the WNV/FU III. This unity at the centre, the result of a
specific order of the Fuehrer, was not, however, accompanied by cooperation at
the outstations’
In page 10: ‘The part played by the Aussenstellen of
WNV/FU III in the work of the Orpo companies varied considerably from place to
place. In Norway the Oslo Aussenstelle played an active role; it received all
reports of the Orpo company and arranged cooperation for it from the fighting
services….On both the western and the eastern fronts however, the Orpo units
operated quite independently of the Aussenstellen’
(6). British
national archives HW 34/2 'The Funkabwehr’, cdvandt.org article: ‘Some aspects of the German
military “Abwehr” wireless service, during the course of World War Two’, FMS
P-038 'German
Radio Intelligence', p203, Cryptomuseum.com
(7). SOE
codes and Referat Vauck, War Diary In 7/VI - April 1942 mentions the double
transposition cipher: ‘Agentenverfahren.
Beim Westnetz waren die verfügbaren Kräfte
auch weiterhin vorwiegend mit der Bearbeitung von verfahren beschäftigt,
deren Schlüsselunterlagen bekannt sind
(individuelle Doppelwürfel)…………… Die
analyse der kenngruppen führte bereits zu Erkenntnis über die unterteilung der
Verkehre sowie über die Art der schlüsselunterlagen (Erstellung der
würfellosung aus einem Buch oder einem gedicht).’
(8). Radio
‘fingerprint’ means the distinct way that each person taps the Morse code. For
an example see ‘The
German Penetration of SOE: France, 1941-44’, p51
(9). British
national archives HW 34/2 'The Funkabwehr’, p7 (it is possible that this is not
the whole truth)
(10). TICOM
report I-91 ‘POW
Interrogation Report - General Major Robert K.H. SCHLAKE, Chief of
Communications in the Main Office of the Ordnungspolizei, Ministry of the
Interior', TICOM report I-162 ‘Report on Interrogation
of Kurt Sauerbier of RLM/Forschungsamt
held on 31 August 1945’
(11). ‘European
Axis signals intelligence’ vol4, Overview
of KONA units
(12). War
Diary In 7/VI – months of April-July 1942
(13). Ph.D. Technische
Universität Dresden 1924
(14). For
example CSDIC/CMF/SD 80, p37 , CSDIC (UK) SIR 1106, Supplement - Appendix
1 and TICOM I-115, p5
(15). TICOM
I-115, British national archives HW 34/2 'The Funkabwehr’, ‘European Axis
signals intelligence’ vol3
(16). CI
preliminary interrogation report (CI-PIR) No120 – Richter, Rolf Werner, War
Diary of Inspectorate 7/VI, CSDIC/CMF/SD 80, p18
(17). British
national archives KV 3/349 ‘The case of
the Rote Kapelle’
(18). Center
for the Study of Intelligence article: ‘The
Rote Drei: Getting Behind the 'Lucy' Myth’
(19). TICOM D-60
‘Miscellaneous Papers
from a file of RR Dr. Huettenhain of OKW/Chi’, War Diary In 7/VI – months
of February - April 1943
(20). Journal
of U.S. Intelligence Studies article: ‘England's Poles in the Game: WWII
Intelligence Cooperation’
(21). War in
History article: ‘Penetrating Hitler's High Command: Anglo-Polish HUMINT,
1939-1945’
(22). TICOM
report I-115 'Further
Interrogation of Oberstlt METTIG of OKW/Chi on the German Wireless Security
Service (Funkuberwachung)’
(23). ‘Between
Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War, 1941-1945’, p192
(24). British
national archives KV 2/166 ‘Hugo Ernst
BLEICHER, alias VERBECK, CASTEL, HEINRICH and other aliases: based mainly in
Paris’
(25). British
national archives HW 40/76 ‘Enemy exploitation of SIS and SOE codes and
cyphers: miscellaneous reports and correspondence’, FMS P-038 'German Radio
Intelligence'
(26). ‘War
Secrets in the Ether’ part 3, p215-229
(27). TICOM report DF-9 ‘Captured Wehrmacht
Sigint Document: Translation of Activity Report of OKW/Chi for the Period 1st
January, 1944 to 25th June, 1944’
(28). Helmuth
Mueller, head of the French department of OKW/Chi said in TICOM report I-174 ‘Preliminary
Interrogation Report on O.R.R. MUELLER of OKW/CHI’ that he worked on the
traffic of underground movements in Europe. Also ‘European Axis signals
intelligence’ vol3, p69 says about the OKW/Chi activity report: ‘It is not clear whether the 6.000 agents'
messages, which, deciphered and translated, formed a portion of the production
claimed for OKW/Chi in the Kettler report of June, 1944, were actually turned
out by OKW/Chi or by Vauck. It is much more likely, however, that Vauck had
nothing to do with these messages and that they were actually part of the work
of Kettler's own organization’.
Sources: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies
article: ‘England's Poles in the Game: WWII Intelligence Cooperation’, ‘War
Secrets in the Ether’ vo2, CSDIC SIR 1719 - 'Notes on Leitstelle III West Fur
Frontaufklarung', HW 34/2 'The Funkabwehr’, Seabourne Report IF-176 ‘Operations
and Techniques of the Radio Defense Corps, German Wehrmacht’, HW 40/76 ‘Enemy
exploitation of SIS and SOE codes and cyphers: miscellaneous reports and
correspondence’, TICOM I-91 'POW Interrogation Report - General Major Robert
K.H. SCHLAKE, Chief of Communications in the Main Office of the Ordnungspolizei,
Ministry of the Interior', CSDIC/CMF/SD 80 'First Detailed Interrogation Report
on LENTZ, Waldemar, and KURFESS, Hans', CSDIC (UK) SIR 1106 'Report on
information obtained from PW CS/495 Uffz MIERSEMANN', TICOM I-115 'Further Interrogation of Oberstlt METTIG of
OKW/Chi on the German Wireless Security Service (Funkuberwachung), TICOM I-174
- Preliminary Interrogation Report on O.R.R. MUELLER of OKW/CHI, TICOM I-180
‘Homework by Uffz. Keller of In 7/VI and WNV/Chi’, TICOM DF-187B ‘The
cryptanalytic successes of OKW/Chi after 1938’, War diary of OKH/Inspectorate
7/VI, ‘European Axis Signal Intelligence in World War II’ vol 8, FMS P-038
'German Radio Intelligence', Cdvandt.org article: ‘Some aspects of the German
military “Abwehr” wireless service, during the course of World War Two’,
Cryptomuseum.com, ‘The German Penetration of SOE: France, 1941-44’, ‘European Axis signals intelligence’ vol3, ‘European
Axis signals intelligence’ vol4, Center for the Study of Intelligence article:
‘The Rote Drei: Getting Behind the 'Lucy' Myth’, KV 3/349 ‘The case of the Rote
Kapelle’, TICOM D-60 ‘Miscellaneous Papers from a file of RR Dr. Huettenhain of
OKW/Chi’, War in History article: ‘Penetrating Hitler's High Command:
Anglo-Polish HUMINT, 1939-1945’, TICOM report DF-9 ‘Captured Wehrmacht Sigint
Document: Translation of Activity Report of OKW/Chi for the Period 1st January,
1944 to 25th June, 1944’
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