Pers Z

Pers Z was the abbreviation and at the same time the code name of the cipher service of the Foreign Office , i.e. the cryptanalytic department of the Foreign Office (short: AA) of the German Reich during the time of the Second World War . Similar to OKW / Chi, the encryption department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW), the so-called B-Dienst of the Navy , the Research Office (FA) of the Air Force , the Inspection 7 Group VI (short: In7 / VI) in the General Army Office (AHA) , i.e. the cipher group of the High Command of the Army (OKH), or its successor, the office of the General of Intelligence (GdNA) in the OKH or the Office VI E in the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), it was one of the German offices at that time that dealt with the Deciphering enemy communications.

history

The American strip pusher M-138-A embodies one of the methods that could be broken

The AA's encryption and decryption service was founded shortly after the First World War in 1919 as Department  I Z, disguised as Sub-Department Z of Department I ( Roman One ), apparently responsible for staff and budget. In 1936 there was a reorganization and the name was changed to Pers Z. The group that dealt specifically with the encryption system within Pers Z also called itself Sonderdienst Dahlem after the Berlin district where it was based in a former Jewish school on Im Dol (see also photo under web links ).

Around the middle of the war, the workforce was around 200 and later grew to around 300, including a good 50 cryptanalysts , half of whom were linguists or mathematicians , such as Willi Jensen , Werner Kunze , Hans Rohrbach , Erika Pannwitz , Helmut Grunsky and Annelise Hünke . To break transposition ciphers , they developed special cryptanalytic machines, such as the so-called “special comparator” and the “bigram evaluation device”. This achieved some successes, such as the break of the American strip cipher system M-138 (see picture). At the end of 1944, the Dahlem special service had to flee Berlin from the bombings and went to Hirschberg in Silesia . From there they had to flee from the advancing Red Army .

literature

• 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 .
• David Kahn : The Code Breakers - The Story of Secret Writing . Revised and updated. Scribner, New York, NY 1996, ISBN 0-02-560460-0 (English, first edition: Macmillan, New York, NY: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1967).
• Michael van der Meulen: The Road to German Diplomatic Ciphers - 1919 to 1945 . In: Cryptologia . tape 22 , no. 2 , 1998, ISSN  0161-1194 , pp. 141–166 , doi : 10.1080 / 0161-119891886858 (English).

Web links

• Historic photo (1938) School building Im Dol 2–6, Berlin-Dahlem. Retrieved May 30, 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Michael van der Meulen: The Road to German Diplomatic Ciphers - 1919 to 1945 . In: Cryptologia . tape 22 , no. 2 , 1998, ISSN  0161-1194 , pp. 141 , doi : 10.1080 / 0161-119891886858 (English).
2. ↑ 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 , pp.  398 .
3. ^ The forgotten Jewish forest school , Berliner Zeitung of June 16, 2000. Accessed: May 27, 2016.
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 , pp.  282 .