Hitler's Codebreakers: German Signals Intelligence in World War 2 - Softcover

John Jackson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 095571642X ISBN 13: 9780955716423

Publisher: BookTowerPublishing, 2012

Synopsis

TICOM - Target Intelligence committee: An Anglo-American organisation set up in 1944 whose cover name disguised its real purpose - to seek out German Sigint staff for interrogation. Mission: Send British and American codebreaking teams to find out just how successful their German counterparts had been.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The wartime story of codebreaking has almost exclusively centred around Allied successes, particularly that of Bletchley Park. However, the Germans in particular were extremely active in codebreaking. It was not until after the war that the extent or otherwise of their triumphs could be gauged.

With the war in Europe at an end, in April-May 1945 British and American codebreaking teams hunted for their German counterparts to find out just how good they had been. There were lessons to be learned for the post-war period for Western intelligence.

The material in this book is based on European Axis Signal Intelligence in World War II as revealed by `TICOM'(Target Intelligence Committee) Investigations and by other Prisoner of War Interrogations and Captured Material, Principally German and completed in May 1946. TICOM was a shadowy Anglo-American organisation set up in October 1944 whose cover name disguised its real purpose - the seeking out in the immediate aftermath of the war of German Sigint staff for interrogation.

This fascinating insight into German cryptography shows how they understood that the Enigma cipher machine had weaknesses and that they had various ingenious machines either developed or under development as the war drew to a close. Lack of resources - and running out of time - put paid to any major operational deployment of this machinery, but underlines the fact that German ingenuity came close to a situation where they would have made Bletchley Park's task almost impossible.

Edition details

• Publisher: BookTowerPublishing
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 095571642X
• ISBN 13: 9780955716423
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 230
• Editor: John Jackson