Eavesdropping on Hell: Historical Guide to Western Communications Intelligence and the Holocaust, 1939-1945(Dover Military History, Weapons, Armor)

This recent government publication investigates an area often overlooked by historians: the impact of the Holocaust on the Western powers' intelligence-gathering community. A guide for researchers rather than a narrative study, it explains the archival organisation of wartime records accumulated by the U.S. Army's Signal Intelligence Service and Britain's Government Code and Cypher School. In addition, it summarizes Holocaust-related information intercepted during the war years and deals at length with the fascinating question of how information about the Holocaust first reached the West.The guide begins with brief summaries of the history of anti-Semitism in the West and early Nazi policies in Germany. An overview of the Allies' system of gathering communications intelligence follows, along with a list of American and British sources of cryptologic records. A concise review of communications intelligence notes items of particular relevance to the Holocaust's historical narrative, and the book concludes with observations on cryptology and the Holocaust. Numerous photographs illuminate the text.

Table of Contents:
Preface and Acknowledgments A Note on Terminology Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Background The Context of European and Nazi Anti-Semitism Previous Histories and Articles Chapter 2: Overview of the Western Communications Intelligence System during World War II Step 1: Setting the Requirements, Priorities, and Division of Effort Step 2: Intercepting the Messages Step 3: Processing the Intercept Step 4: Disseminating the COMINT From Intercept to Decryption - the Processing of a German Police Message Chapter 3: Sources of Cryptologic Records Relating to the Holocaust The National Archives and Records Administration The Public Record Office Miscellaneous Collections Chapter 4: Selected Topics from the Holocaust A. The General Course of the Holocaust and Allied COMINT B. Jewish Refugees, the Holocaust, and the Growing Strife in Palestine C. The Vichy Regime and the Jews D. The Destruction of Hungary's Jews, 1944 E. Japan and the Jews in the Far East F. Nazi Gold: National and Personal Assets Looted by Nazis and Placed in Swiss Banks, 1943-1945 Chapter 5: Some Observations about Western Communications Intelligence and the Holocaust What was Known from COMINT When the COMINT Agencies Knew Some Further Observations Regarding the Available Archival Records There are limited COMINT agency records about the Holocaust There are significant differences between the archival records holdings of the cryptologic agencies of the United States and Great Britain The Western communications intelligence agencies collected many more intercepts than they finally processed during the War There are pertinent uses for the available records from the COMINT agencies related to the Holocaust Appendix 1: Selected Allied Monitoring Stations (MS) and Designators Appendix 2: Annotated Sample of Diplomatic Translations and German Police Decrypt Appendix 3 Attached Documents Vrba-Wetzler Cable, 26 June 1944 German Foreign office message to Buenos Aiers regarding a pension applicant's Jewish wife, 13 January 1943 Spanish diplomatic message referring to Raoul Wallenberg VN 1260: German translation of intercepted U.S. Department of State message from embassy in Bern, Switzerland, 19 October 1944 [DOS Nr. 6927] Regarding the status of interned Hungarian Jews German report of results of deportation of Hungarian Jews, 30 December 1944. From O.S.S. source "George Wood." Bibliography Glossary of Terms, Abbreviations, and Acronyms Index

About the Author :
Robert J. Hanyok is a researcher and historian with the Center for Cryptologic History of the National Security Agency.