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The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht was the high command of the armed forces of Nazi Germany. Created in 1938, the OKW replaced the Reich War Ministry and had oversight over the individual high commands of the country's armed forces: the army, navy, and air force.
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Fritz Erich Fellgiebel was a German Army general of signals and resistance fighter in the 20 July plot to assassinate Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. In 1929, Fellgiebel became head of the cipher bureau of the Ministry of the Reichswehr, which would later become the OKW/Chi. He was a signals specialist and was instrumental in introducing a common enciphering machine, the Enigma machine. However, he was unsuccessful in promoting a single cipher agency to coordinate all operations, as was demanded by OKW/Chi and was still blocked by Joachim von Ribbentrop, Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Göring until autumn 1943. It was not achieved until General Albert Praun took over the post.
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Erich Hüttenhain was a German academic mathematician and cryptographer (Cryptography) and considered a leading cryptanalyst in the Third Reich. He was Head of the cryptanalysis unit at OKW/Chi, the Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht.
Peter Novopashenny was before and during the World War I, a Russian Marine Officer and who worked as a cryptanalyst during World War II for the German Wehrmacht (OKW/Chi) cipher bureau, working on the Russian desk, deciphering enciphered Soviet communications.
General der Nachrichtenaufklärung was the signals intelligence agency of the Heer, before and during World War II. It was the successor to the former cipher bureau known as Inspectorate 7/VI in operation between 1940 and 1942, when it was further reorganised into the Headquarters for Signal Intelligence between 1942 and 1944, until it was finally reorganised in October 1944 into the GdNA. The agency was also known at the OKH/Gend Na, GendNa or Inspectorate 7 or more commonly OKH/GdNA. Inspectorate 7/VI was also known as In 7 or In/7 or In 7/VI and also OKH/Chi.
Ostwin Fritz Menzer was a German cryptologist, who before and during World War II, worked in the In 7/VI, the Wehrmacht signals intelligence agency, later working in that was the cipher bureau of the supreme command of the Nazi party, and later in Abwehr, the military intelligence service of the Wehrmacht. He was involved in the development and production of cryptographic devices and procedures, as well as the security control of their own methods.
Otto Buggisch was a German mathematician who, during World War II, was a cryptanalyst working in the cipher bureau, the Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW/Chi) responsible for deciphering of the opposing forces Communications. He also dealt with the security control of own key procedures. Through research and revelations exposed by two Polish officers, late in the war, he recognized the true cryptographic weaknesses of the Enigma rotor cipher, key machine used by the German armed forces to encrypt their secret communications, in World War II.
Alexander Aigner was number theorist and a full university professor for mathematics at the Karl Franzens University in Graz, Austria. During World War II he was part of a group of five mathematicians, which was recruited by the military cryptanalyst Wilhelm Fenner, and which included Ernst Witt, Georg Aumann, Oswald Teichmueller and Johann Friedrich Schultze, to form the backbone of the new mathematical research department in the late 1930s, which would eventually be called Section IVc of Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht.. The group was led by the German professor of mathematics Wolfgang Franz.
German Army cryptographic systems of World War II were based on the use of three types of cryptographic machines that were used to encrypt communications between units at the division level. These were the Enigma machine, the teleprinter cipher attachment, and the cipher teleprinter the Siemens and Halske T52,. All were considered insecure.
References
- ↑ David Kahn (5 December 1996). The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet. Simon and Schuster. p. 481. ISBN 978-1-4391-0355-5 . Retrieved 20 March 2021.
- ↑ Rezabek, Randy (3 April 2013). "TICOM and the Search for OKW/ Chi". Cryptologia. 37 (2): 139–153. doi:10.1080/01611194.2012.687430. S2CID 37039981.
- ↑ Jager, Benedikt (2019). Seehundspeck und Hundeschlitten: Alfred Otto Schwede als Übersetzer des skandinavischen Nordens. Skandinavistik--Sprache, Literatur, Kultur (in German). Vol. 13. LIT Verlag Münster. p. 29. ISBN 978-3-643-91189-6. OCLC 1197629264.