Luftwaffe Personnel spying for Allies?

[olefebvre]

I recommend having a look at this website :
http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/index.htm
Which at a time ran a challenge of deciphering vintage cripted enigma messages. You'll also find the enigma simulator there if you wish to have some fun with it.

[Tony Jones]

Over the past few months I have been working through HW 5 files at the PRO. there are many instances of "source" reading papers on people's desks and even taking documents out of briefcases, so there were definetely some spies at work here.

Tony

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Tony Jones

Over the past few months I have been working through HW 5 files at the PRO. there are many instances of "source" reading papers on people's desks and even taking documents out of briefcases, so there were definetely some spies at work here.

Tony

Intelligence officers tell lies, it's a big part of the job! If the Germans ever got to see one of the items that are now in HW5 then they would have tied themselves in knots looking for spies in their own ranks while still happily broadcasting in their breakable code.

As I said the front of each file has pages cross-referencing the various messages to the communications nets they were received from (see attached sample) each of which was given a code name by Beltchley Park.

Re John's comment. I saw recently that there is a book coming out from someone who worked on the Luftwaffe traffic at Bletchley:

http://fm.greenhillbooks.com/greenhi...d=33921&-find=

Every other one I've read devotes most space to the U-boat war, so this could be interesting.

[RodM]

Hello One & All,

Nick's answer is ultimately just common sense. The simple fact is that if information was coming via humint it would not need to be decoded at Bletchley Park and would have been processed via other channels.

That is not to say that information from a variety of sources was not analysed to aid the code breakers. As Nick points out, even the decrypted messages weren't neccessarily cleartext and thus messages had to be further decoded. Sometimes the information was on hand to do this, sometimes it couldn't fully be done for weeks (if at all).

In terms of protecting the ULTRA secret, an example is with Operation Gisela; the British first learnt of this operation in December 1944 but it wasn't until after the capture of aircrew personnel who 'spilled the beans' a month later that lower Commands were warned and defensive measures taken.

Cheers

Rod

[Flitzer]

There's another humint that's not mentioned too often, I just ran across a great example today reading Impact - the history of Germany's V-Weapons in World War II.

The following quote is from the book:

"On March 22, 1943, MI recorded a conversation between German Generals Ritter von Thoma and Ludwig Crüwell, who had been captured in Africa. The two men, obviously aware they were being monitored, spoke in hushed tones, and parts of their conversation went unheard even by the sensitive microphones in the room. Crüwell had been captured in May 1942 and von Thoma in November. In bringing Crüwell up to date, von Thoma told of a large rocket he had seen tested, presumably at Kummersdorf, with F.M. von Brauchitsch. The weapon, according to von Thoma, went into the stratosphere and had unlimited range."

And that reminded me of the classic from "The One that Got Away", where the two German POW pilots leaned out of the window to have a discussion -- there was a microphone under the window sill!

[Nick Beale]

There are thick files of these transcripts in the National Archives, both in the original German and in translation. They are called the CSDIC (UK) SRA reports and I quoted from some of them in Kampfflieger Vol. 4 (Classic Publications, 2005).

For examples, look at the online NA catalogue from about AIR40/3069 to AIR40/3101. Plus there are other files on Army and Naval personnel, Italian servicemen and so on.

Another sneaky trick was apparently to install one microphone that could be found with a bit of effort and a second that couldn't. After they'd found the first one, prisoners felt secure and talked freely.

[Boomerang]

Interesting that the original post refers to Dec 1944 ULTRA decrypts related to Bodenplatte, yet the Bodenplatte attack still maintained the element of surprise (while recognising the detection of some of the attackers by conventional means). Does this point to the limitations of UlLTRA?

As mentioned earlier, it is interesting to compare the ability of the codebreakers to successfully attack Luftwaffe Enigma, compared with the complete failure to break Gestapo Enigma messages, or the Kreigsmarine's Barracuda Enigma cypher:

http://www.uboat.net/technical/enigma_ciphers.htm

No doubt the Gestapo/Kreigsmarine attitude to radio security was different from the Luftwaffe's.

Cheers

Boomerang

[Dennis Peschier]

There seem to be a lot of N.A. research buffs involved in this discussion and I wonder if they can help me with the following; in “Sea Eagles” by Francis L. Marshall the author frequently refers to the British radio interception Service A.I.4. The book gives no source for this information but I think this must be the National Archive in Kew.
One of the things I would be interested in would be the intercepts of Luftwaffe night fighter radio communications for 8/9-3-1945.
I wanted to ask if anyone of you has com across these intercepts an knows in what folder they are stored?

Thanks in advance,

Dennis

[RodM]

Hi Dennis,

I have never seen the original intercept logs at TNA so I don't now believe that the raw data exists. However, there are a range of reports compiled from the raw data -

1. In AIR 14/3745 - Interception & Tactics Col. VIII (these are typically several pages long and contain a route map).

2. In AIR 40/2370 - Bomber Command: signals intelligence and radio countermeasures reports (these are typically two pages of text and one large map)

3. AIR 22/503 - Air Ministry W/T Intelligence Service Daily Summaries: nos. 1948-2076 Vol.28 (these are several pages long, covering a 24 hour period. The last 1-2 pages covers reaction to night raids)

Cheers

Rod

[Dennis Peschier]

Hello Rod,

Thanks for the tips!

The reason for asking is that Marshalls information is rather detailed i.e. for Sunday September 26 1943:
Several patrols undertaken by Jasta Hegoland were heard by the British radio interception Service A.I.5 Some time after one o’clock in the afternoon four fighters set off from Hegoland on a patrol, apparently for convoy protection. Later, at 16.25 hours, three more aircraft set out, followed twenty minutes later by a single Bf 109T.
I will be in the NA next month, and will follow your leads,

Thanks,

Dennis