Hans-Thilo Schmidt

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The German key machine Enigma
Key instructions for the Enigma - The key M

Hans-Thilo Schmidt (born  May 13, 1888 ; †  September 19, 1943 in Berlin ), code names "HE" , "Asché" and "Source D" , was a spy who during the 1930s kept secrets about the German key machine Enigma sold to the French secret service .

Life

During the Weimar Republic, Schmidt was an employee in the encryption station of the Reichswehr Ministry . There he had access to secret documents, such as the instructions for use ( H.Dv. g. 13 = Army Service Regulations, secret, No. 13) and the key instructions (H.Dv.g.14) for the Enigma. For financial reasons he decided in early 1931 to contact the " Service de Renseignement ", the French secret service . The head of this position, which was nicknamed "Bolek", was the French Capitaine (captain) and later Général Gustave Bertrand . He was initially suspicious and feared that Schmidt could be a double agent . Nevertheless, he did not lose contact with Schmidt, whereby one of his employees, the French agent Rodolphe Lemoine with the code name "Rex" was mainly responsible for this. Rex also served as an interpreter between Schmidt and Bertrand as Schmidt did not speak French.

Hans-Thilo Schmidt received the code name "HE". In French pronunciation, this combination of letters resembles the word " Asché ", which consequently became Schmidt's code name. In October 1931 he delivered the instructions for use and the key instructions to the French. In addition, he revealed secret key tables containing the roller position, ring position and plug connections for the months of September and October 1932. This was particularly valuable because it covered two different quarters , because at that time only three rollers (I to III) were in use at the Enigma and the roller position was not yet daily (this only happened from October 1936), but only quarterly changed.

The French secret service forwarded the documents to British and Polish authorities. While the French and British were only able to make little use of these documents, they were very valuable for the Polish code breakers around Marian Rejewski to break into the Enigma encryption in 1932. So they succeeded in retrospectively deciphering a large number of intercepted encrypted German radio messages and, what was even more important, in using them to open up the wiring of the key rollers of the Enigma .

Schmidt worked until 1938 in the department, which has since been renamed the Reich Ministry of War. The material he made available enabled the Polish Biuro Szyfrów (German: "Chiffrenbüro") to break the first generation of Enigma machines . The Polish working group was evacuated to France after the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Your contribution laid the foundation for the deciphering of the German radio messages encrypted with the Enigma by the British during the Second World War in Bletchley Park, England .

Schmidt was betrayed by Lemoine to the Gestapo on March 23, 1943 and arrested in Berlin on April 1, 1943. He died of suicide on September 19, 1943 while in custody from poison that his daughter Gisela had smuggled into his cell.

His older brother Rudolf Schmidt was a German officer (most recently Colonel General ) who had been withdrawn from his command on April 10, 1943 in the course of the espionage affair and sent to Germany.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ High Command of the Navy: The Key M - Procedure M General . Berlin 1940. Accessed: Nov. 4, 2013, p. 23. PDF; 0.7 MB
personal data
SURNAME Schmidt, Hans-Thilo
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spy who sold secrets about the German Enigma key machine
DATE OF BIRTH May 13, 1888
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 1943
Place of death Berlin