Emperor of spies

Craig McKay has written a book on General Onodera, the Japanese military attaché to Sweden during WWII, and his intelligence gathering activities.

Like all the neutral capitals in Europe, Stockholm became a natural hub for intelligence activities during the Second World War. One of the chief participants in the search for critical information was the Japanese Military Attaché, Makoto Onodera. In this limited edition of 100 numbered copies, Dr. C.G. McKay, an acknowledged expert on the history of intelligence activities in Northern Europe and the author of  the now classic historical study From Information to Intrigue (Cass,1993)  and the co-author with Bengt Beckman of Swedish Signal Intelligence 1900-1945  has given a concise, stimulating and elegant account of Onodera's "intelligence bourse".  Based on archival sources in many countries and equally on McKay's own knowledge gained through conversation and correspondence with a generation of intelligence officers now dead, his book entitled Emperor of Spies, apart from being a book-collectors item of some value, deserves a place in the library of professional students of the history of intelligence. Price £25 plus postage.

To purchase email the following link:

suzy@spiegl.co.uk     

Cryptology files on Elizebeth Friedman and Coast Guard Unit 387

Interesting reports on Elizebeth Friedman and Coast Guard Unit 387.

Uploaded to archive.org by mr Jason Fagone.

The Abwehr’s Enigma G cipher machine and Procedure 63

The Cryptologia article Mr. Twinn’s bombes is available from the Taylor and Francis website and it has some very interesting information on the Enigma G cipher machine, used in WWII by the German military intelligence service Abwehr.

The Enigma G was different from the version used by the German military since it did not have a plugboard. Also its stepping was more frequent due to the many notches in the rotors.

According to the article it was used by the following Abwehr networks:

1). Berlin, Madrid, Lisbon, Paris, Bordeaux

2). Berlin, Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia, Salonika

3). Berlin, Vienna

4). Berlin with stations in Turkey

The device was issued with 3 rotors only (while the military version used 3 rotors from a set of 5). In some networks the rotors were rewired during the war.

Several indicator systems were used in the period 1941-44. Up to August 1942 the message key was enciphered twice on the Grundstellung (basic setting). The 8 letter sequence was the indicator at the start of the message. This was the same procedure used up to 1938 by the German Army and Airforce.

From August 1942 the double encipherment of the message key was dropped and instead it was enciphered on the Grundstellung only once.

In the period late 1943-early 1944 a new indicator procedure was introduced. This was part of new security regulations called Procedure 63 - ‘Verfahren 63’. The new system used two basic settings. One for the network and one for the station. The cipher clerk first enciphered the message key twice on the network’s basic setting and then enciphered the 8 letters again at the station’s basic setting.

It is interesting to note that an OKW/Chi report dated August 1944 says that Procedure 63 was not secure:

D) Agentenverkehr

Die Vorschrift Nr.63 genügt nur dann zeitgemässen Sicherheitsansprüchen, wenn auf jeder Linie nur wenig Verkehr auftritt. Es soll versucht werden eine bessere Vorschrift auszuarbeiten.

Es wird dafür gesorgt werden, dass alle anderen mit Enigma-Maschinen arbeitenden Behörden usw. nur die vom Ausschuss geprüften und zugelassenen Vorschriften benutzen.

Google translation:

D) Agent traffic

Regulation No.63 only meets current safety requirements if only little traffic occurs on each line. A better regulation is to be worked out.

It is necessary to ensure that all other authorities working with Enigma machines, etc., use only the regulations audited and approved by the Committee.

Intelligence operations in Switzerland - Hans von Pescatore, Captain Choynacki and General Barnwell R. Legge

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 (1), 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’) (2). In occupied France the intelligence department of the Polish Army’s General Staff organized several resistance/intelligence groups tasked not only with obtaining information on the German units but also  with evacuating Polish men so they could serve in the Armed Forces (3).

Compromise of Polish codes

Poland’s role in WWII is well known, especially the success of Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki during the 1930’s in solving the Enigma cipher machine, used by the German Armed forces. It is important to note that countries with large cryptologic staffs such as France and Britain had not managed to solve this device, in that time period.

Although the Poles were successful in the offence they neglected their defense. Their diplomatic, military attaché, resistance movement and intelligence service codes were read by the Germans during the war. Especially important for the Germans was the solution of the cipher used by Major Szczesny Choynacki, Polish deputy consul in Bern, Switzerland.

The telegrams of Major Choynacki

Choynacki regularly communicated with the Polish intelligence service in London and transmitted valuable reports from his agents/contacts in Switzerland and throughout occupied Europe. 

His cryptosystem consisted of an enciphered codebook. The codebook contained 4-figure groups and was enciphered with a version of the British Stencil Subtractor Frame. The codebreakers of the Signal Intelligence Agency of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces - OKW/Chi (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht/Chiffrier Abteilung) were able to solve this system in late 1942-early 1943 and from then on his voluminous traffic to London was continuously decoded (4).

Details about the content of these messages are available from the postwar interrogations of German intelligence officers, specifically Willy Piert and Hans Von Pescatore (5). They were both members of the German Legation in Bern and they conducted intelligence operations against the Allied agencies and even the Swiss IS.

The decoded messages revealed that Choynacki had well placed agents numbered in the 500 series.

According to the Germans the most damaging agent was No 594, Isidore Koppelmann, a Jewish banker living in Basel. One of Choynacki’s decoded messages was used to uncover his identity.

It is up to historians to research this case further and identify the full extent of the damage caused to the Polish networks from the compromise of their communications.

The German spy in the US embassy and the messages of General Legge

Another interesting German operation, mentioned in the interrogations of Piert and Pescatore, was one directed against the US embassy in Bern, Switzerland. In 1941 the Germans were able to recruit a Swiss national who worked in the US embassy. This person, named Fuerst, had access to the office of the US military attaché General Barnwell R. Legge and he was able to take documents plus the used carbon paper and give it to the Germans. These documents revealed some of Legge’s sources:

Although Fuerst was apprehended in March 1942 the information he provided, coupled with decodes of US traffic (6), gave the Germans an insight into the sources and operations of the US intelligence agencies.

Notes:

(1). Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies article: ‘England's Poles in the Game: WWII Intelligence Cooperation’

(2). War in History article: ‘Penetrating Hitler's High Command: Anglo-Polish HUMINT, 1939-1945’

(3). ‘War Secrets in the Ether’, p230-1

(4). Polish Stencil codes and secret agent ‘’Knopf’’, Major Choynacki’s Ace: the Solution to an Old Puzzle of Wartime Intelligence, KV 2/1329 ‘Willy PIERT / Hans Von PESCATORE’

(5). KV 2/1329 ‘Willy PIERT / Hans Von PESCATORE’

(6). The compromise of the communications of General Barnwell R. Legge, US military attache to Switzerland

Acknowledgments: The credit for locating the very interesting Piert/Pescatore report goes to Craig McKay, author of Major Choynacki’s Ace: the Solution to an Old Puzzle of Wartime Intelligence.

Allied agents codes and Referat 12

In the course of WWII both the Allies and the Axis powers were able to gain information of great value from reading their enemies secret communications. In Britain the codebreakers of Bletchley Park solved several enemy systems with the most important ones being the German Enigma and Tunny cipher machines and the Italian C-38m. Codebreaking played a role in the Battle of the Atlantic, the North Africa Campaign and the Normandy invasion. 

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.

Operation Overlord and the secret messages of the BBC

During WWII resistance movements in German occupied Europe were organized and supported by the British intelligence services SIS and SOE. Messages to their agents in Europe were sometimes transmitted through the radio program of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Agents were told to listen to the BBC at a specific time and wait for a prearranged message whose meaning would be known only to them.

For example:

The German intelligence agencies however knew of this arrangement and through their agents in the Resistance were able to learn of the meaning of some of these messages. In the run up to the Normandy invasion, the Germans were able to deduce from the BBC‘s messages that the Allied invasion was imminent and that the Resistance had been given orders to attack the German forces in France.

Source: British national archives HW 40/76 ‘Enemy exploitation of SIS and SOE codes and cyphers: miscellaneous reports and correspondence’

The codes of the Polish Intelligence network in occupied France 1943-44

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 (1), 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’) (2).

In occupied France the intelligence department of the Polish Army’s General Staff organized several resistance/intelligence groups tasked not only with obtaining information on the German units but also  with evacuating Polish men so they could serve in the Armed Forces. These networks obviously attracted the attention of the German security services and in 1941 the large INTERALLIE network, controlled by Roman Czerniawski, was dismantled.

Another large network was controlled by Zdzislaw Piatkiewicz aka ‘Lubicz'. The book ‘Secret History of MI6: 1909-1949’, p529 says about this group: ‘Some of the Polish networks were very productive. One based in the south of France run by ‘Lubicz' (Zdzislaw Piatkiewicz) had 159 agents, helpers and couriers, who in August and September 1943 provided 481 reports, of which P.5 circulated 346. Dunderdale's other organizations were rather smaller’.

From German and British reports it seems that the radio communications of the Polish spy groups in France (including the ‘Lubicz' net) were compromised in the period 1943-44. Wilhelm Flicke who worked in the intercept department of OKW/Chi (decryption department of the High Command of the Armed Forces) says in ‘War Secrets in the Ether’ (3):

The Polish intelligence service in France had the following tasks:

1. Spotting concentrations of the Germany army, air force and navy.

2. Transport by land and sea and naval movements.

3. Ammunition dumps; coastal fortifications, especially on the French coast after the occupation of Northern France.

4. Selection of targets for air attack.

5. Ascertaining and reporting everything which demanded immediate action by the military command.

6. Details regarding the French armament industry working for Germany, with reports on new weapons and planes.

The Poles carried on their work from southern France which had not been occupied by the Germans. Beginning in September 1942 it was certain that Polish agent stations were located in the immediate vicinity of the higher staffs of the French armistice army.

In March 1943 German counterintelligence was able to deal the Polish organization a serious blow but after a few weeks it revived, following a reorganization. Beginning the summer of 1943 messages could be read. They contained military and economic information. The Poles in southern France worked as an independent group and received instructions from England, partly by courier, and partly by radio. They collaborated closely with the staff of General Giraud in North Africa and with American intelligence service in Lisbon. Official French couriers traveling between Vichy and Lisbon were used, with or without their knowledge, to carry reports (in the form of microfilm concealed in the covers of books).

The Poles had a special organization to check on German rail traffic to France. It watched traffic at the following frontier points: Trier, Aachen, Saarbrucken, München-Gladbach, Strassburg-Mülhausen and Belfort. They also watched the Rhine crossings at Duisburg, Coblenz, Düsseldorf, Küln, Mannheim, Mainz, Ludwigshafen, and Wiesbaden. Ten transmitters were used for the purpose.

All the Polish organizations in France were directed by General Julius Kleeberg. They worked primarily against Germany and in three fields:

1. Espionage and intelligence;

2. Smuggling (personnel);

3. Courier service.

Head of the "smuggling service" until 1.6.1944 was the celebrated Colonel Jaklicz, followed later by Lt. Colonel Goralski. Jaklicz tried to penetrate all Polish organizations and send all available man power via Spain to England for service in the Polish Army.  The "courier net" in France served the "Civil Delegation", the smuggling net, and the espionage service by forwarding reports. The function of the Civil Sector of the "Civil Delegation" in France was to prepare the Poles in France to fight for an independent Poland by setting up action groups, to combat Communism among the Poles, and to fight against the occupying Germans. The tasks of the military sector of the Delegation were to organize groups with military training to carry on sabotage, to take part in the invasion, and to recruit Poles for military service on "D-Day". The "Civil Delegation" was particularly concerned with Poles in the German O.T. (Organisation Todt) or in the armed forces. It sought to set up cells which would encourage desertion and to supply information.

Early in 1944 this spy net shifted to Northern France and the Channel Coast. The Poles sought to camouflage this development by sending their messages from the Grenoble area and permitting transmitters in Northern France to send only occasional operational chatter. The center asked primarily for reports and figures on German troops, tanks and planes, the production of parts in France, strength at airfields, fuel deliveries from Germany, French police, constabulary, concentration camps and control offices, as well as rocket aircraft, rocket bombs and unmanned aircraft.

In February 1944 the Germans found that Polish agents were getting very important information by tapping the army telephone cable in Avignon.

In March 1944, the Germans made a successful raid and obtained important radio and cryptographic material. Quite a few agents were arrested and the structure of the organization was fully revealed.

Beginning early in June, increased activity of Polish radio agents in France became noticeable. They covered German control points and tried to report currently all troop movements. German counterintelligence was able to clarify the organization, its members, and its activity, by reading some 3,000 intercepted messages in connection with traffic analysis. With the aid of the Security Police preparations were made for the action "Fichte" which was carried out on 13 July 1944 and netted over 300 prisoners in all parts of France.

This, together with preliminary and simultaneous actions, affected:

1. The intelligence service of the Polish II Section,

2. The smuggling service,

3. The courier service with its wide ramifications.

The importance of the work of the Poles in France is indicated by the fact that in May 1944 Lubicz and two agents were commended by persons very high in the Allied command "because their work was beginning to surpass first class French sources." These agents had supplied the plans of all German defense installations in French territory and valuable details regarding weapons and special devices.

Flicke’s statements on the solution of Polish intelligence codes in 1943 can be confirmed, in part, by the postwar interrogation of Oscar Reile, head of Abwehr counterintelligence in occupied France. In his report 'Notes on Leitstelle III West Fur Frontaufklarung' (4) he said about the Polish intelligence communications:

CODE-CRACKING BY FUNKABWEHR

107. Leitstelle III West also benefited from the work done by the code and cipher department of Funkabwehr, which studied all captured documents connected with codes and ciphers, with the object of decoding and deciphering the WT traffic of agents who were regarded as important and could not be captured. 

108. Valuable results were often obtained by Funkabwehr. During the winter of 43/44, the above-mentioned code and cipher department succeeded in breaking codes used by one of the most important transmitters of the Polish Intelligence Service in FRANCE. For months thereafter WT reports from Polish agents to ENGLAND were intercepted and understood; the same applied to orders they received from ENGLAND. The Germans also learnt that important military plants were known to the Allies, and a considerable number of names and cover names of members of the Polish Intelligence Service were discovered.

Flicke also said ‘Early in 1944 this spy net shifted to Northern France and the Channel Coast. The Poles sought to camouflage this development by sending their messages from the Grenoble area and permitting transmitters in Northern France to send only occasional operational chatter’. This statement can also be confirmed by other German and British reports.

The monthly reports of Referat 12 (Agents section) of the German Army’s signal intelligence agency OKH/In 7/VI (5) mention spy messages from Grenoble in May and July 1943 as links top and 71c (9559, Grenoble), so it is possible that these are the Polish intelligence messages that Flicke says were solved in summer 1943. Unfortunately these reports are difficult to interpret since they use codewords for each spy case.

More information is available from messages found in the captured archives of OKW/Chi (since Chi also worked on Polish military intelligence codes). The British report DS/24/1556 of October 1945 (6) shows that messages on the link London-Grenoble were solved and these were enciphered with the military attaché cipher POLDI 4.

The same report mentions that in August 1944 the British authorities became aware that decoded Polish military intelligence messages from Grenoble were sent from Berlin to the Abwehr station in Madrid, Spain:

‘In August 1944, a series of decoded Polish ‘Deuxieme Bureau’ messages between London and Grenoble were seen by us in ISK traffic being forwarded by Berlin to Abwehr authorities at Madrid. The time lags varied between 5 and 43 days. S.L.C. Section at headquarters informed us that this was a properly controlled leakage, and that no cypher security action was necessary or desirable.’

Some of these messages can be found in the British national archives (7):

It is interesting to note that the response of the higher authorities was ‘this was a properly controlled leakage, and that no cypher security action was necessary or desirable’, without however giving more details.

Conclusion

During WWII the Polish intelligence service operated throughout Europe and was able to gather information of great value for the Western Allies. These activities were opposed by the security services of Nazi Germany and in this shadow war many Allied spy networks were destroyed and their operatives imprisoned or killed. In their operations against Allied agents the Germans relied not only on their own counterintelligence personnel but also signals intelligence and codebreaking. Fixed and mobile stations of the Radio Defense Corps (Funkabwehr) monitored unauthorized radio transmissions and through direction finding located their exact whereabouts.

The Agents section of Inspectorate 7/VI and OKW/Chi analyzed and decoded enciphered agents messages, with the results passed to the security services Abwehr and Sicherheitsdienst. Both agencies solved Polish intelligence communications including traffic from Switzerland, France, Poland, the Middle East and other areas. The Polish intelligence networks in France were an important target for the Germans not only because they were a security risk but also because they would undoubtedly assist the Allied troops in their invasion of Western Europe in 1944. In that sense the compromise of the communications of the Polish military intelligence network was an important success since it allowed the Germans to dismantle parts of this group and also learn of what the Allied authorities wanted to know about German strengths and dispositions in France.

According to Flicke the success started in summer 1943 and from the British reports we can see that they continued to solve the traffic till summer ’44 (when France was liberated). It is not clear of when the Brits first learned that the Polish communications had been compromised and what measures they took to prevent the leakage of sensitive information. It is also not clear of whether they chose to inform the Poles about all this…

Notes:

(1). Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies article: ‘England's Poles in the Game: WWII Intelligence Cooperation’

(2). War in History article: ‘Penetrating Hitler's High Command: Anglo-Polish HUMINT, 1939-1945’

(3). ‘War Secrets in the Ether’, p230-1

(4). CSDIC SIR 1719 - 'Notes on Leitstelle III West Fur Frontaufklarung', p15

(5). War Diary of OKH/In 7/VI - May and July 1943

(6). British national archives HW 40/222

(7). British national archives HW 40/221

Sources: ‘Secret History of MI6: 1909-1949’, Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies article: ‘England's Poles in the Game: WWII Intelligence Cooperation’, ‘War Secrets in the Ether’, CSDIC SIR 1719 - 'Notes on Leitstelle III West Fur Frontaufklarung', HW 40/221 ‘Poland: reports and correspondence relating to the security of Polish communications’, HW 40/222 ‘Poland: reports and correspondence relating to the security of Polish communications’, War in History article: ‘Penetrating Hitler's High Command: Anglo-Polish HUMINT, 1939-1945’, War Diary of OKH/In 7/VI

Update: German decodes of the London-Grenoble traffic can be found in pages 793-877 of ‘KODY WOJNY. Niemiecki wywiad elektroniczny w latach 1907–1945’. They date from July 1943 to October 1944 and are signed ‘Szef II Oddzialu Sztabu’, ‘Marian’, ‘Alfred’, ‘Szef Ekspozytury II Oddzialu Sztabu’, ‘Lubicz’, ‘Vox’, ‘Los’, ‘Rawa’, ‘Klemens’, ‘Major Zychon’, ‘Mikolaj’, ‘Bernard’, ‘Biz’, ‘Zenon’.

Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle and the radio network of the French Communist Party

The Soviet Union was a secretive state convinced that the capitalist world was plotting to invade and destroy it. In order to avert such a development the Soviet government 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 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 in the 1920’s 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 one of the sites used for radio transmissions in 1941 and by apprehending the cipher clerks and their cipher material they were able to read this traffic. 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 late 1942 the main networks in Western Europe were destroyed.
 
However after exposing and dismantling these networks the Germans took measures to continue their transmissions to Moscow, so that they could pass false information to the Soviets and also receive information on new spies sent to the West.

The unit tasked with dismantling the Rote Kapelle networks and handling the radio deception (funkspiel) was the Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle, headed in 1943-44 by Heinz Pannwitz.

Operations Eiffel and Mars

In the period 1943-44 the Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle/ Sonderkommando Pannwitz was based in Paris and handled the radio-games between captured Soviet agents and Moscow. The Germans had managed to capture the leaders of the organization Leopold Trepper (Grand Chef) and Anatoly Gurevich (Petit Chef).

After a short period in captivity Trepper managed to escape but Gurevich was used by the Germans to report disinformation to Moscow and convince them that their spy networks were operating normally.

Radio messages were sent from Paris (operation Eiffel) and from Marseille (operation Mars).

The radio network of the French communist party

Another success of the Sonderkommando Rote Kapelle concerned the undercover radio network of the French communist party. According to a recently declassified CIA report, written by Pannwitz, the French CP had prepared a network of undercover radio stations, ready to be used when the party leadership ordered it.

 

These stations had been located by the Germans and they were eliminated thus preventing direct communications with Moscow. However Pannwitz knew that eventually the communists would replace these stations with new ones and risk exposing his operations in France. In order to preempt such a move the Sonderkommando established a new French CP radio network that was in reality under its complete control.

Using the cover of the Rote Kapelle, the resistance leader Paul Victor Legendre was persuaded to set up this radio network. The Germans managed to build up this organization and inserted their own men as radio operators. By operating this network they got a large number of daily espionage reports and were able to keep track of the resistance and stop acts of sabotage.

 

According to Pannwitz an added benefit of running this network was that during the Normandy campaign some of the radio stations continued to transmit information, this time on the strength and operations of the Allied forces.

 

The operations of the network concluded in the summer of 1944 when the Germans had to evacuate Paris. Till that time however the German intelligence agencies got information of great value through the French CP radio network.

Sources: CIA Report - PANNWITZ, HEINZ   VOL. 2_0042, CSDIC/CMF/SD 80 - 'First Detailed Interrogation Report on LENTZ, Waldemar, and KURFESS, Hans'

Svetova Revoluce and the codes of the Czechoslovak resistance

At the end of the First World War the multiethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed and out of its ruins emerged several new countries. One of these was Czechoslovakia, containing the Czech areas of Bohemia and Moravia together with Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia in the east.

In the interwar period Czechoslovakia followed a foreign policy supportive of France and was part of the Little Entente. The country had a stable democracy and its industrial resources were large (based on the Skoda works) for such a small country. However there were two important problems affecting Czech national security. On the one hand the rise of Nazi Germany and its rearmament was a clear security threat. At the same time there were serious problems with the German and Slovak minorities that resented Czech rule.  

Czechoslovakia contained a large number of minorities that were dissatisfied with the ruling Czech establishment. Especially the German minority made up roughly 23% of the population (according to the 1921 census) and a large part of it was concentrated in the border with Germany called Sudetenland. Many of the Sudeten Germans wanted for their areas to be unified with Germany and in the 1930’s Hitler’s Germany supported the demands of the Sudeten German Party. These claims were rejected by the Czech government of Edvard Beneš and as the Czech crisis threatened Europe with a new war a conference took place in Munich between the governments of Germany, Italy, Britain and France.  

Without support from Britain and France the Czech government was forced to cede the Sudeten territories to Germany and also lost other disputed areas to Hungary and Poland. Even though Germany had succeeded in absorbing the Sudeten areas and in weakening Czechoslovakia that did not stop Hitler’s offensive plans and in March 1939 German troops invaded and occupied the rest of the country. From then on the country was ruled by Germany and special attention was given to its heavy industry which produced weapons for the German armed forces.

During the war the Czech Government in Exile, headed by Beneš, was based in London and had regular communications with the Czech resistance. The most daring operation of the resistance was 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. In this area they took advantage of the insecure communications between the resistance and the Czech intelligence service, operating from Britain.