Fritz Nebel

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Fritz Nebel (*  1891 , †  1977 ) was a German intelligence officer , who in World War I as a lieutenant of the army and in the Second World War as an officer of the Air Force served.

Course of the Western Front in 1918

He is known as the inventor of a special encryption method , called "Secret writing of the radio operators 1918" , or "GedeFu 18" for short, which was used by the Imperial Army from March 1918 on both the Western and Eastern Fronts until the end of the war on November 11, 1918 and later was also used for the secret transmission of messages via radiotelegraphy . The Allies , above all the French officer Georges Painvin (1886–1980), succeeded in deciphering the encrypted radio messages . They named the method after the only five, or from June 1, 1918 then six, letters as ADFGX and ADFGVX .

In 1966, nearly fifty years later, Fritz Nebel learned that his system had been broken during World War I and said that he had originally proposed a double column transposition as the second stage of his method. However, his proposal was rejected in discussions by his superiors and, for practical reasons, they decided in favor of a ( cryptographically significantly weaker) simple column transposition . Two years later, in 1968, Nebel and Painvin met in person, and Nebel expressed his feelings by saying that the enemies of yesterday meet as the friends of today. Painvin insisted that if it had been done as Nebel had suggested, he certainly couldn't have broken the encryption.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Friedrich L. Bauer: Decrypted Secrets, Methods and Maxims of Cryptology . Springer, Berlin 2007 (4th edition), p. 53, ISBN 3-540-24502-2 .
  2. ^ Friedrich L. Bauer: Decrypted Secrets, Methods and Maxims of Cryptology . Springer, Berlin 2007 (4th edition), p. 173, ISBN 3-540-24502-2 .
  3. ↑ George Lasry et al .: Deciphering ADFGVX messages from the Eastern Front of World War I, Cryptologia , p. 2, doi: 10.1080 / 01611194.2016.1169461
  4. ↑ Craig P. Bauer: Secret History - The Story of Cryptology . CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2013, ISBN 1-46656-186-6 , p. 206.
  5. ↑ Craig P. Bauer: Secret History - The Story of Cryptology . CRC Press, Boca Raton, 2013, ISBN 1-46656-186-6 , p. 207.
personal data
SURNAME Nebel, Fritz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German intelligence officer
DATE OF BIRTH 1891
DATE OF DEATH 1977