B service

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The B-Dienst , also referred to as xB-Dienst , XB-Dienst or χB-Dienst , was among other things a general unit of the Naval Intelligence Service (MND) of the German Navy , which deals with listening to, recording and deciphering messages before and during the time of the Second World War with the use of radio eavesdropping stations and encryption experts.

In addition to the actual B-service (observation service), there was basically an e-service (deciphering service), which analyzes and decrypts the messages intercepted by the B-service, and an A-service (evaluation service). The A-Dienst took over the final evaluation and made the news available to the leadership.

history

As a forerunner of the so-called B-service in February 1916, the Lieutenant Martin Brown with a small number of employees in had Neumünster the B- and E-headquarters (also known as observation and Entzifferungsdienst ) of the Imperial Navy built, which marks the birth of the Navy -Fun clearance in Germany applies. After the war the office was officially closed.

At the end of April 1919, the “new” B control center of the Reichsmarine , again under the direction of Martin Braune, resumed its work. Six unskilled workers each stood by one of the main B and E clerks. Wilhelm Tranow already became one of the employees of the B control center . Influenced by a lack of money and Braune's retirement, the expansion of the B control center stalled until 1939. Until the end of 1929, the control center was only part of the administration and only then was staffed by a full-time manager. The number of employees was increased to 10 to 12 men. The control center had been moved to Kiel , where it was placed under the torpedo and mine inspection. At the end of 1933 he was relocated to Berlin to the naval command and there in the naval command office A in department A III, the so-called naval intelligence department . The radio reconnaissance with tasks of the B and E service became the department A IIIb .

The name " B-Dienst " comes from Admiral Karl Dönitz , the commander of the German submarines (BdU) in World War II. In addition to the navy, the other parts of the armed forces and even offices, such as the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) , had their own, sometimes competing, cryptanalytic services. For example, the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) had an encryption department called "Chi" . The Y service (German: “Y service”) can be viewed as a counterpart to the actual B service on the British side .

During the time of the Second World War, the radio reconnaissance (the so-called B-Dienst ) was integrated under the naval intelligence evaluation (3 / Skl) of the naval warfare management (Skl), which was carried out from the beginning to mid-1940 by the sea ​​captain Paul Wever and then until the outsourcing of the Radio reconnaissance was conducted in June 1941 by the sea captain Gottfried Krüger . Sea captain Heinz Bonatz (November 1941 to January 1944) and Sea captain Max Kupfer (January 1944 until the end of the war), who was the head of the intelligence service in the naval intelligence department (2 / Skl) in autumn 1943 Alfred Kranzfelder , Claus von Stauffenberg and the Frigate Captain Sydney Jessen had met and agreed to support them, then became chiefs of radio reconnaissance . Wilhelm Tranow, who is described as "experienced and energetic", is considered one of the most important cryptanalysts of the B service . Under his leadership, the B-Dienst succeeded in deciphering the over- encryption of the Allied merchant ship radio messages ( Merchant Navy Code ) until 1943 .

At the beginning of the war, the so-called B-Dienst (actually a B-Dienst and an E-Dienst combined) enabled the British Naval Cipher No. 1 can be deciphered. This helped the German leadership in the April 1940 invasion of Norway , as they gained knowledge about the assessment of the situation and the plans of the British Admiralty. The intention of the British Royal Navy to mine the ore port of Narvik, which is important for the German war economy, was revealed at an early stage . This could therefore be prevented on the German side.

Even during the height of the vital battle in the Atlantic , the Naval Cipher No. 2 (German code name "Cologne") initially partially, and from February 1941 to 1943 completely deciphered.

The break of Naval Cipher No. 3 (German code name "Frankfurt"), which the British used for their Atlantic convoys. This helped the commander of the submarines (BdU), Admiral Dönitz, to target the German submarines operating in the Atlantic on the Allied convoys . On the basis of intelligence findings from deciphered German ENIGMA radio messages, the British Operational Intelligence Center (OIC) finally drew suspicion, the Naval Cipher No. 3 and the British replaced the code in June 1942 with the Naval Cipher No. 5 . The Germans recognized this change in the “Frankfurt key”, but could not read the new procedure and were thus as good as cut off from this important source of news. As a result, the British convoys could be guided in a targeted manner without fear of German submarines.

With the air raids on Berlin in 1943, the B-Dienst rooms were destroyed and a large number of documents were lost. The B-Dienst moved to Eberswalde , but was not able to resume its work when necessary. From 1944 onwards, the Germans did not read a single main British traffic. The B service had become “blind”. An American machine key discovered after the entry of the Americans was no longer earmarked for decryption due to a negative effort estimate, which revealed the lack of further development of the Germans in comparison to the other secret services.

In January 1944, after the security check of the Enigma key resources had been entrusted to the B-service, a B-service employee was assigned to this task for 6 months. The expert, Leutnant zur See Hans-Joachim Frowein, attempted an attack on the Enigma's key resources, was successful and was able to present a list of the most devastating errors in the use of the Enigma in June 1944. If the everyday errors in the machine coding, which Friedrich Bauer describes in a lecture on The Comedy of Errors in the Contest of Cryptologists , had been distributed in good time in a service regulation to all radio operators who were probably not aware of the scope of their operating errors, then Bletchley Park would not have had any more success with the switch to the remote control key "M".

The US-American historian David Kahn underlined the war-historical importance of the B-Dienst, especially the deployed staff, and quoted an anonymous source: " If one man in German intelligence ever held the keys to victory in World War II, it was Wilhelm Tranow " (German: "If a man in the German Enlightenment ever held the keys to victory in World War II, it was Wilhelm Tranow").

structure

After the end of the First World War and the resurgence of the naval command, the B service including the E service only belonged to the chief of the naval command office at OKM as a general unit for radio reconnaissance of Department 3 / Skl . In addition, there were the General Units Foreign Marines and Naval Intelligence Service .

In January 1940 there was a reorganization. The Naval Intelligence Service General Unit was separated from 3 / Skl and added to the newly formed Department of Naval Intelligence Service (2 / Skl). Together with the other General Unit Foreign Marines , the new department of marine intelligence evaluation (3 / Skl) was set up.

In the course of the war, in June 1941, another reclassification took place and the radio reconnaissance was moved from 3 / Skl to the naval intelligence department (2 / Skl). The department was then expanded.

From March 1943, with the incorporation of the submariners department into the Skl, the naval intelligence service traded as 4 / Skl and the radio reconnaissance department received the name 4 / Skl III.

literature

  • Heinz Bonatz: Naval warfare in the ether: the services of naval radio reconnaissance 1939–1945 . Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn, Herford 1981, ISBN 3-8132-0120-1 .
  • Ralph Erskine : Ultra Reveals a Late B-Dienst Success in the Atlantic , Cryptologia , 34: 4, 2010, pp. 340-358. doi : 10.1080 / 01611194.2010.485412
  • David Kahn: Seizing the Enigma - The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939-1943 . Mifflin: Boston 1991; Naval Institute Press: Annapolis, USA, 2012, ISBN 978-1-59114-807-4 .
  • Friedrich L. Bauer : Deciphered Secrets. Methods and maxims of cryptology. 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin et al. 2000, ISBN 3-540-67931-6 .
  • Fred B. Wrixon: Codes, Ciphers & Other Secret Languages. From the Egyptian hieroglyphs to computer cryptology. Könemann: Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-8290-3888-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Friedrich L. Bauer: Deciphered secrets. Methods and maxims of cryptology. 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin et al. 2000, p. 449.
  2. ^ Heinz Bonatz: The German naval radio reconnaissance 1914-1945 . Wehr und Wissen Verlagsgesellschaft, 1970, p. 24 ( google.de [accessed on May 1, 2020]).
  3. ^ Fred B. Wrixon, Codes, Ciphers & Other Secret Languages. From the Egyptian hieroglyphs to computer cryptology . Könemann: Köln 2000, ISBN 3-8290-3888-7 , p. 90.
  4. ↑ Friedrich L. Bauer: Deciphered secrets. Methods and maxims of cryptology. 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin et al. 2000, p. 447.
  5. ↑ Friedrich L. Bauer: Deciphered secrets. Methods and maxims of cryptology. 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin et al. 2000, p. 221.
  6. ^ Walter Lohmann, Hans H. Hildebrand: The German Navy 1939–1945. Structure, commitment, staffing. tape 1 . Podzun, Bad Nauheim 1964, main chapter III, chapter 2 Naval Warfare 32, p. 3 , radio reconnaissance department (Skl Chef MND III) (loose-leaf collection, deliveries 1–27, 1956–1964).
  7. ↑ Friedrich L. Bauer: Deciphered secrets. Methods and maxims of cryptology. 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin et al. 2000, pp. 449-451.
  8. ↑ Friedrich L. Bauer: Deciphered secrets. Methods and maxims of cryptology. 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin et al. 2000, p. 65.
  9. ^ Fred B. Wrixon, 2000, p. 90.
  10. ↑ Friedrich L. Bauer: Deciphered secrets. Methods and maxims of cryptology. 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin et al. 2000, p. 450.
  11. ↑ Christopher Schumacher: Research, Armaments and War . Dissertation , University of Greifswald , 2004, pp. 180 + 181.
  12. ↑ David Kahn, Seizing the Enigma - The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939-1943 . Naval Institute Press: Annapolis, USA, 2012, ISBN 978-1-59114-807-4 , p. 246.
  13. ^ Helmuth Giessler: The marine news and location service: Techn. Development u. War experiences . JF Lehmann, 1971, p. 48 ( google.de [accessed on May 2, 2020]).
  14. ^ Fritz Brustat-Naval: Rescue company . Bastei Lübbe, 1970, p. 236 ( google.de [accessed on May 2, 2020]).