GERMANY

The Interwar Period

A - F

Altenhöner, Florian. "SS-Intelligence, Covert Operations and the Slovak Declaration of Independence in March 1939." Journal of Intelligence History 8, no. 2 (Winter 2008-2009). [http://www.intelligence-history.org/jih/journal.html]

Alvarez, David.

1. "Diplomatic Solutions: German Foreign Office Cryptanalysis, 1919-1945." International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 9, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 169-185.

This article follows the work of the Z Branch of the Foreign Ministry's Personnel Division. There are a substantial number of "may haves" in the part of the article discussing interwar activities. The unit's organization during World War II is detailed. "Cooperation between Pers Z and the separate cryptanalytic services of the Army, Navy, and Air Force did not exist."

2. "Wilhelm Fenner and the Development of the German Cipher Bureau, 1922-1939." Cryptologia 31, no. 2 (Apr. 2007): 152-163.

Fenner joined the Cipher Bureau in 1922 as head of the its cryptanalytic section; he was the "effective head" of the Bureau for most of the interwar years. This article surveys Fenner's efforts to build the Bureau, to make it a professional organization, and to fend off attacks on its responsibilities from the proliferating intelligence units under the Nazi regime. In the end, Germany's cryptanalytic capabilities were undercut by "duplication of effort, understaffing, inadequate technical resources, and uncoordinated operations."

Beck, Alfred M. Hitler's Ambivalent Attaché: Lt. Gen. Friedrich von Boetticher in America, 1933-1941. Dulles, VA: Potomac, 2005.

Campbell, IJI&C 20.2 (Summer 2007), sees this work as "a careful presentation of Boetticher's ability and achievements in this very difficult environment." However, although the author "tell[s] exhaustively what General Boetticher did, the volume does not explain why he performed certain primary activities throughout his life."

For Bendersky, Army History 64 (Summer 2007), this is a "well-written, detached, and balanced biography, though one which leaves open key questions.... Beck portrays Boetticher ... as a man whose cosmopolitan heritage and education made him the kind of culturally versatile observer well suited to attaché duties in a critical time and place.... But the reader is still left with a sense of unease about whether he really understands Boetticher and his motives, particularly regarding the more controversial aspects of his relationship to Nazism and anti-Semitism and how this relationship may have affected his perspectives on America and how he interpreted the U.S. situation to Berlin."

Brissaud, André. The Nazi Secret Police. New York: Norton, 1974. London: Bodley Head, 1974.

Constantinides sees Brissaud's journalist background showing in the episodic organization of this study of the Nazi SD.

Browder, George C. Hitler's Enforcers: The Gestapo and the SS Security Service in the Nazi Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

See positive review by Grill, History 26.3.

Campbell, Kenneth J. "Major General Friedrich Gempp: German Intelligence Leader." American Intelligence Journal 25, no. 1 (Summer 2007): 75-81.

"The measure of Gempp's intelligence work is best understood in the context of German military history on the Eastern Front in World War I, where Germany initially faced an extremely dangerous situation in August 1914." Later, Gempp served as the first head of the new Abwehr, established in November 1919.

Chapman, John W.M. "No Final Solution: A Survey of the Cryptologic Capabilities of German Military Agencies, 1926-1935." Intelligence and National Security 1, no. 1 (Jan. 1986): 13-47.

Faulkner, Marcus. "The Kriegsmarine, Signals Intelligence and the Development of the B-Dienst Before the Second World War." Intelligence and National Security 25, no. 4 (Aug. 2010): 521-546.

This article "challenges the prevalent view that the Kriegsmarine had little interest in intelligence gathering and contends that the naval leadership understood the implications and possibilities" of signal intelligence. "Consequently the Kriegsmarine entered the Second World War with a well-prepared signals intelligence machinery from which it reaped the rewards in the first half of the conflict."

Felstead, Sidney T. Germany and Her Spies: A Story of the Intrigues of the Nazis. London: Hutchinson, 1940.

Flicke, Wilhelm F. War Secrets in the Ether. 2 vols. Vol. I (parts 1 & 2): to World War II; Vol. II (Part 3): World War II. Laguna Hills, CA: Aegean Books, 1977. Reprinted as 1 vol., 1994.

Denkler, Cryptolog 15.1, notes that "Flicke joined the German [signals intelligence] service at the beginning of World War I and remained through World War II.... Perhaps the most fascinating part[] is his description of the role of the service in counterintelligence operations in World War II."

According to McGinnis, Cryptolog 16.2, "Flicke gives a good account of German failures in the COMINT field during WWI, as well as their successes, such as the Battle of Tannenberg.... Flicke spent much of WWII dealing with agent and partisan communications networks operating within Germany or German occupied territories.... They did locate many of the agent transmitters.... There were so many of the transmitters, and enemy agents, that the flow of intelligence from within German territory to the Allied powers was not greatly interrupted. This is a landmark publication which deserves to be read by any serious student of COMINT.... The work has many defects, and is shallow reading in many parts, but the defects are frequently overshadowed by the author's remarks about how things should have been. He is clearly a proponent of centralized control of intelligence by a single body."

White, IJI&C 7.3, says that Flicke's "accounts of the radio intercept role in the famous engagements of both wars are fascinating." However, Pforzheimer finds some instances "where Flicke's memory is incorrect or his information is incomplete." As does Constantinides, who comments that "there are enough instances of error or incomplete information to warn that not everything Flicke says is automatically authoritative." Peake, AIJ 15.1/90, sees Flicke's work as "an informative overview," but adds that "the absence of sources and the availability of much more recent material greatly limits its utility."

Reviewing the one volume edition (1994), Surveillant 4.1 notes that "Flicke tells the story of German successes in reading the secret codes of both enemies and friends. Historians have long pondered how General Rommel knew in advance th[e] moves of the British army in North Africa. Flicke reveals the reason: the Germans had broken the U.S. secret code between Cairo and Washington."

Frank, Willard C. "Politico-Military Deception at Sea in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-39." Intelligence and National Security 5, no. 3 (Jul. 1990): 84-112.

In a contest with the two sides roughly balanced in fighting power, "[s]upply was the key to victory, and most of it had to come by sea." The focus here is on two aspects of deception: "(1) deception and maritime arms traffic and (2) clandestine naval intervention." The author finds that "German deception was the most successful of all, both in the supply effort and in clandestine submarine warfare, the result of favorable conditions, intense care and good luck."

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