Peter Novopaschenny

Peter Novopaschenny ( Russian Пётр Алексеевич Новопашенный Pjotr ​​Alexejewitsch Novopaschenny ) (born March 18, 1881 in Novgorod , † in October 1950 near Orsha in Belarus ) was a Russian naval officer and commander of various naval officers before and during the First World War. During the Second World War he worked as a cryptanalyst for the German armed forces and successfully deciphered the encrypted Soviet communications.

Life

Gunboat Siwutsch (1908)

After graduating from the Naval Cadet School in 1902, Peter Novopaschenny served as a naval officer on various Russian warships, such as the old Monitor Admiral Greig ( Russian Адмирал Грейг ) in 1903 and a year later on the ship of the line Sevastopol . In the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) he took part in the battle with the Japanese fleet. He fell into Japanese captivity, from which he was released after a short time. He then served on other ships, such as the Siwutsch gunboat . In 1910 he graduated from the Nikolayev Naval Academy in Saint Petersburg . During the Hydrographic Expedition of the Arctic Oceans , the archipelago Severnaya Zemlya discovered commanded, he from 1913 to 1915 the icebreaker Waigasch ( Russian Вайгач ) and during the First World War modern for Nowik type belongs destroyers as 1915, the Desna and 1916, Constantine . For his services before and during the war he was awarded the Imperial Russian Order of Saint Anne ( Russian Орденъ Святой Анны ) (4th stage on May 5, 1904, 3rd stage on August 12, 1907, 2nd stage on 12th May 1904) November 1915). After the October Revolution he served briefly in the Red Fleet and in April 1918 took part in the negotiations between the German Navy and the Baltic Fleet in Helsinki as part of the Zentrobalt (Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet) , which culminated in the Hangö Agreement .

Shortly afterwards he emigrated from his homeland, which was becoming Soviet , which was marked by civil war and the Red Terror against old elites. He went into exile first to London and then to Germany in 1921 . In the spring of the same year, Peter Novopaschenny met the German Wilhelm Fenner , who was ten years his junior and who, like him, was born in Russia and spoke fluent Russian . The two hit it off right away. Novopaschenny asked Fenner for help with the planned move to Berlin and confided to him that he had worked successfully against the German Baltic Sea fleet as director of the Russian cryptanalytic service during the war and that he now intends to make his experience available to the German general staff . In the same year, Fenner established the connection and thus came into contact with cryptanalysis for the first time . He worked now, under the guidance of his "master" Novopaschenny and together with him successfully on breaking Russian military ciphers. Their excellent knowledge of Russian was useful to both of them.

In the autumn of 1922, Novopaschenny and Fenner were officially taken over as employees of the Chiffrierstelle (Chi -stelle) of the Reichswehr . Both remained in this organization for the next two decades and also during the Second World War, which was renamed the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW / Chi) encryption department in 1938 with the establishment of the Wehrmacht High Command (OKW) . While Fenner rose to Ministerialrat (Min.Rat.) And head of main group B (cryptanalysis) of the OKW / Chi , Peter Novopaschenny headed the Russian department and thus the successful deciphering of Soviet radio messages.

After the war in 1945 he was arrested by the Soviet secret service in Ringleben in Thuringia and detained and interrogated in Berlin until 1946. He died in 1950 in a camp near the Belarusian city ​​of Orsha .

literature

• Friedrich L. Bauer : Deciphered Secrets. Methods and maxims of cryptology. 3rd, revised and expanded edition. Springer, Berlin a. a. 2000, ISBN 3-540-67931-6 .

Web links

• CV on the Russian Navy website (Russian). Accessed: May 6, 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://alex-lw-65.livejournal.com/34660.html
2. ^ German-Russian Treaty of Helsinki (English translation) signed by Novopaschenny. Retrieved May 12, 2016.