Hitler's Codebreakers: German Signals Intelligence in World War 2

Have you ever wondered how successful Hitler's codebreakers were at breaking Allied codes during World War 2? The wartime story of codebreaking has almost exclusively centred around Allied successes, particularly that of Bletchley Park breaking the Enigma code. However, the Germans in particular were extremely active in codebreaking and had their successes. But it was not until after the war that the extent or otherwise of their triumphs could be gauged. With the war in Europe at an end, in April-May 1945 British and American codebreaking teams hunted for their German counterparts to find out just how good they had been. There were lessons to be learned for the post-war period for Western military intelligence. This publication is a summary of the European Axis Signal Intelligence in World War II as revealed by 'TICOM' Investigations and by other Prisoner of War Interrogations and Captured Material, Principally German and completed in May 1946. This is available on the National Security Agency website. TICOM - Target Intelligence Committee - was a shadowy Anglo-American organisation set up in October 1944 whose cover name disguised its real purpose - the seeking out in the immediate aftermath of the war of German Sigint staff for interrogation. This edited volume extracts key data from the 1000 pages of the original documents to create a fascinating and technical insight into German cryptography. The book is a technical summary of the TICOM documents using the words of those who collected the data. The complex data was written for military analysis so the Allies could assess Hitler's codebreaking operation during the war. It becomes clear that Hitler's team understood that the Enigma cipher machine had weaknesses and that they had various ingenious machines either developed or under development as the war drew to a close. Lack of resources - and running out of time - put paid to any major operational deployment of this machinery, but underlines the fact that German ingenuity came close to a situation where they would have made Bletchley Park's task almost impossible. Includes a report on the interrogation of 5 leading Germans in Nuremburg, September 1945 regarding signals intelligence. They are: General Jodl, Grand Admiral Donitz, General Field Marshall Keitel, Herr von Ribbentrop and Field Marshall Goering.