Fritz Menzer

Ostwin Fritz Menzer (* 6. April 1908 in Herrendorf at Niederschöna ; † 25. October 2005 in Bad Homburg ) was a German cryptographer , who before and during the Second World War, first in the Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW / Chi ) and later in the Abwehr , the military secret service of the Wehrmacht , was involved in the development and manufacture of cryptographic devices and procedures as well as the security control of their own methods.

Life

Fritz was born on April 6, 1908 in Herrndorf, a settlement in Saxony between Chemnitz and Dresden . At 18, he joined as a mechanic in the realm resistance and was a motorized battalion with location Leipzig allocated. After his inclination and talent for cryptanalysis had been recognized, he was transferred to the encryption department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW / Chi) in May 1935 , where he was instructed in the art of deciphering , among others by the head of main group B , Min. Advice. Wilhelm Fenner . A year later, in 1936, he had developed cryptanalytic method, the C-36 , a rotor cipher machine of Sweden Boris Hagelin to, break . In addition, he developed a cryptanalytical method to break the ENIGMA machine used by the Wehrmacht . As a result, he was commissioned to lead his own department within OKW / Chi, which had to deal with the cryptanalysis of third-party cryptographic methods as well as the development and security checks of own procedures and cryptanalytical aids.

His service as a soldier ended on May 31, 1938. He stayed with OKW / Chi, now as a civilian . Two years later, in 1940, he was promoted to senior government inspector and was entrusted with the management of Section IIc of the OKW / Chi , which is responsible for the development and production of special encryption for government agencies such as the RSHA and the Abwehr , as well as for the German industry concerned. The extent to which Fritz Menzer can actually be regarded as the “ inventor ” of various, sometimes innovative key machines, such as the key device 39 and the key device 41 , also known as “Die Hitlermühle”, is controversial, “because the weapons offices were always in charge of the Wehrmacht ” and not OKW / Chi. Presumably, however, he was at least involved in the design of the machines and entrusted with their technical inspection.

Werfen an der Salzach was the last location of part of OKW / Chi and Fritz Menzer during the war in 1945

In 1942, the chief of defense, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris , charged him with the security control of their own cryptographic procedures. Menzer recognized blatant cryptographic weaknesses in the methods used and, in the summer of 1943, revised all manual procedures used by the defense. He remained as a consulting cryptologist with the defense until the end of the war, which he did not experience in Berlin, but together with part of the OKW / Chi under the direction of Fenner in the south of the Reich , in Werfen . On April 23, 1945 OKW / Chi was officially dissolved and the staff was subordinated to the General of Intelligence (GdNA). Shortly before the American army reached their location about 40 km south of Salzburg , they burned their documents or threw them into the Salzach . With the surrender of the Wehrmacht on May 8, 1945, the employment relationship for all former OKW employees expired. Menzer was captured and interned at Camp Neufeld near Munich in the United States .

On June 17th he was released and went to the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ), first to Leipzig and on September 22nd to Zschopau , where he worked as a teacher from January 1946, but a short time later, due to his past in the Wehrmacht, as was dismissed inappropriately. In the turmoil of the early Cold War, he came on September 8, 1947 in Berlin again in contact with the Americans and was to Oberursel to Camp King in Frankfurt am Main , brought. After he was back in Zschopau on September 12, he was arrested there by the Soviet Russians on September 20 and imprisoned in Dresden and interrogated about his contacts with the Americans. Finally, on March 13, 1948, he was released after agreeing to spy for the Soviets. In April 1949 he decided to flee the Soviet Zone and went via West Berlin to the western occupation zones . His name last appeared in documents in 1951.

In a death notification from the Frankfurt am Main area, his death at the age of 97 is reported. Accordingly, he was buried on November 5, 2005 in Bad Homburg in front of the height .

literature

• David P. Mowry: Government Chief Inspector Fritz Menzer: Cryptographic Inventor Extraordinaire . PDF; 1.1 MB Cryptologic Quarterly, Vol. 2, Nos. 3-4, Fall / Winter 1983-84, p. 21-36. Formerly a TOP SECRET document of the NSA (English). Retrieved August 17, 2017.
• Michael Pröse: Encryption machines and deciphering devices in World War II - the history of technology and aspects of IT history , dissertation at Chemnitz University of Technology, Leipzig 2004. PDF; 7.9 MB . Retrieved May 12, 2015.

Web links

• Army Security Agency: Notes on German High Level Cryptography and Cryptanalysis . PDF; 7.5 MB European Axis Signal Intelligence in World War II, Vol 2, Washington (DC), 1946 (May), (English). Retrieved May 12, 2015.
• David P. Mowry: Government Chief Inspector Fritz Menzer: Cryptographic Inventor Extraordinaire . PDF; 1.1 MB Document of the NSA formerly classified as TOP SECRET (English). Retrieved August 17, 2017.
• German Cipher Machines of World War II . Publication of the NSA (English). Retrieved May 12, 2015.
• The Cryptology of the German Intelligence Services . Formerly a TOP SECRET document of the NSA (English). Retrieved May 12, 2015.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ David P. Mowry: Government Chief Inspector Fritz Menzer: Cryptographic Inventor Extraordinaire ( Memento of the original from July 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . S 21. Document of the NSA formerly classified as TOP SECRET (English). Retrieved May 12, 2015. 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Notification of death in the Höchst Kreisblatt issue 252, October 29, 2005. Accessed: May 18, 2015.
3. ↑ David P. Mowry: Government Chief Inspector Fritz Menzer: Cryptographic Inventor Extraordinaire ( Memento of the original from July 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Formerly a TOP SECRET document of the NSA (English). S 21. Accessed: May 12, 2015. 
4. ^ Army Security Agency: Notes on German High Level Cryptography and Cryptanalysis . European Axis Signal Intelligence in World War II, Vol 2, Washington (DC), 1946 (May), p. 92. Accessed Nov. 4, 2013. PDF; 7.5 MB ( memento of the original from June 11, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ^ Hitler's last machines . Article by Klaus Schmeh, 2004. Retrieved May 12, 2015.
6. ↑ Michael Pröse: Encryption machines and deciphering devices in the Second World War - the history of technology and aspects of the history of computer science , dissertation at Chemnitz University of Technology, Leipzig 2004. PDF; 7.9 MB ( Memento of the original from September 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . P. 62. Accessed: May 12, 2015. 
7. ↑ Randy Rezabek: TICOM and the Search for OKW / Chi . Cryptologia. Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Taylor & Francis, Philadelphia PA 37.2013,2 (April), p. 151. ISSN  0161-1194 .