Louis Rivet

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Louis Rivet (born January 3, 1883 in Montalieu-Vercieu , † December 12, 1958 in Paris ) was before and during the Second World War a French intelligence officer and officer , most recently with the rank of Général de brigade ( Brigadier General ). As head of the Deuxième Bureau , i.e. the second department of the General Staff of the French military intelligence service , he made a significant contribution to the investigation of the Enigma rotor key machine , which the German Reichswehr and later the Wehrmacht used to encrypt their radio messages .

Life

Mainz was one of the cities in the Rhineland that was occupied by France in the 1920s
Polish Enigma replicas were used by the Deuxième Bureau not only to clear up German radio messages, but also for its own secret communication with the British allies, for example to exchange broken Enigma day keys .
The Zone libre , which was unoccupied until November 1942, temporarily offered the Deuxième Bureau a new location.

Born in the Isère department as the son of a carpenter , the young Louis initially worked for three years in his father's craft business before he decided to join the military at the age of 19 . In 1902 he was accepted as a recruit in the 140th French Infantry Regiment and three years later (1905) promoted to Sergent ( non-commissioned officer ). In the period from 1908 to 1909 he attended the officers' school in Saint-Maixent , which he graduated as a Sous-lieutenant ( lieutenant ). Immediately afterwards, on October 1, 1909, he was transferred to the 30th Infantry Regiment and there in 1911 promoted to lieutenant (first lieutenant ). At the end of March 1913 he came to the 2e régiment de tirailleurs algériens (the 2nd regiment of Algerian riflemen), where he witnessed the outbreak of the First World War on July 28, 1914 . On August 24, 1914, he was seriously wounded in Florennes while trying to repel the attacking German forces and was taken prisoner by Germany . He was only released in October 1918 just before the end of the war .

At the beginning of the interwar period , in 1919, he joined the Deuxième Bureau ( German "Second Office" ) , now with the rank of Capitaine ( captain ) . This was the intelligence department founded in 1871 as the second department of the French General Staff. In contrast to the Premier Bureau ( German "First Office" ), which was responsible for its own and allied troops, the Deuxième Bureau clarified the armed forces of the military opponents. Chief at the time was Colonel ( Colonel ) Fournier. In 1920, during the Allied occupation of the Rhineland , he was sent to Mainz as a liaison officer to the French Rhine Army ( Armée française du Rhin ) . From 1921 to 1924 he made his first important contacts with the Polish secret service in Warsaw , which laid the foundation for the later deciphering of the Enigma . He then moved to Germany , where he continued his espionage activities under the guise of a "search mission for missing persons" before he was recalled to France in 1926.   

After he was promoted to Commandant ( Major ) in 1929, he was assigned a command in the 35th Infantry Regiment in early 1935. In December of the same year he was promoted to lieutenant colonel ( lieutenant colonel ) and transferred to the general staff. At the suggestion of General Weygand (1867-1965) he became head of the Deuxième Bureau there .

A short time later, events precipitated. On the initiative of the Polish allies, at the end of July 1939 a crucial secret meeting took place in the Kabaty forest of Pyry (near Warsaw). The hosts were Colonel Stefan Mayer (1895–1981) and Lieutenant Colonel Gwido Langer (1894–1948) from the Biuro Szyfrów ( German  "Cipher Office" ) of the Polish secret service, together with the cryptanalysts Major Maksymilian Ciężki (1898–1951), Marian Rejewski (1905–1951) 1980), Jerzy Różycki (1909–1942) and Henryk Zygalski (1908–1978). Guests were her British allies from Bletchley Park in the person of Commander Alastair Denniston (1881-1961), Dillwyn Knox (1884-1943) and Commander Humphrey Sandwith (* 1894). From the French side, it was Commandant Gustave Bertrand (1896–1976) and Capitaine Henri Braquenié (1896–1975). Bertrand was head of the Décryptement et Interceptions section of Rivet's Deuxième Bureau and Braquenié was one of the cryptanalysts there. During the two-day meeting , the Poles revealed to their astonished allies all the methods and equipment with which they had been able to successfully decipher the Enigma- encrypted German communications since 1932 . This also included replicas of the Enigma (picture) .  

A good month later, the German attack on Poland took place and the Poles had to flee their homeland. On December 26, 1939 Rivet was appointed Colonel ( Colonel transported). In June 1940, after the defeat of France , he also had to flee. The Deuxième Bureau was officially dissolved, but actually relocated to the unoccupied southern zone ( Zone libre ) of the Vichy regime . This had to be given up in November 1942 when the Wehrmacht carried out Operation Anton and occupied all of France. Rivet fled to Algiers with his staff .

In April 1944, the officer affectionately known as "Petit Louis" ( German for  "Little Ludwig" ) by his subordinates was promoted to Brigadier General. For his services he received the American Legion of Merit and retired in the same year.

General Louis Rivet died in Paris at the age of 75.

Fonts

  • With Olivier Forcade and Sébastien Laurent: Carnets du chef des services secrets 1936/1944. Nouveau Monde Editions, 2010, ISBN 2-847-36403-X .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dermot Turing: X, Y & Z - The Real Story of how Enigma was Broken. The History Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0-75098782-0 .
  2. ^ Dermot Turing: X, Y & Z - The Real Story of how Enigma was Broken. The History Press, 2018, p. 205, ISBN 978-0-75098782-0 .
  3. ↑ National Archives : Name Sandwith, Humphrey Robert Date of Birth: 19 June 1894 Rank: Captain ... (English), accessed on March 7, 2019.
  4. ↑ David Kahn: Seizing the Enigma - The Race to Break the German U-Boat codes 1939 -1943 . Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, USA, 2012, p. 92. ISBN 978-1-59114-807-4 .
  5. ↑ Biographie du Général Louis Rivet at Amicale des Anciens des Services Spéciaux de la Défense Nationale (French), accessed on March 7, 2019.
  6. ↑ Louis Rivet, Olivier Forcade and Sébastien Laurent: Carnets du chef des services secrets 1936/1944. Nouveau Monde Editions, 2010, ISBN 2-847-36403-X .
  7. ^ Dermot Turing: X, Y & Z - The Real Story of how Enigma was Broken. The History Press, 2018, ISBN 978-0-75098782-0 .
personal data
SURNAME Rivet, Louis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French general and intelligence officer
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Montalieu-Vercieu
DATE OF DEATH December 12, 1958
Place of death Paris