Deciphering German diplomatic and naval attaché messages from 1900-1915. Issue 5 (3rd September 2021)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Deciphering German diplomatic and naval attaché messages from 1900-1915. Issue 5 (3rd September 2021)
- Main Title:
- Deciphering German diplomatic and naval attaché messages from 1900-1915
- Authors:
- Lasry, George
Niebel, Ingo
Andersson, Torbjörn - Abstract:
- Abstract: In World War One (WW I), the German diplomatic services and the Imperial Navy employed codebooks as the primary means for encoding confidential communications over telegraph and radio channels. The Entente cryptographic services were able to reconstruct most of those codebooks, to obtain copies of others, and to overcome various enhancements introduced by the Germans. A collection of diplomatic and naval attaché cryptograms from and to the German consulate in Genoa, dating from the late 19th Century to 1915, has been preserved and is held in German archives. 1 In this article, the authors describe the process of identifying the encoding methods, of reconstructing diplomatic codebooks, and of recovering the superencipherment applied to the German Navy's Verkehrsbuch. The vast majority of the messages can now be read in clear. The authors also provide the historical context for the messages, which shed new light on the impact of the mobilization and war declarations on the Genoa consulate, its role in gathering naval intelligence, and in assisting the Goeben and Breslau warships in their escape to the Dardanelles in August 1914. 2
- Is Part Of:
- Cryptologia. Volume 45:Issue 5(2021)
- Journal:
- Cryptologia
- Issue:
- Volume 45:Issue 5(2021)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 45, Issue 5 (2021)
- Year:
- 2021
- Volume:
- 45
- Issue:
- 5
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2021-0045-0005-0000
- Page Start:
- 383
- Page End:
- 425
- Publication Date:
- 2021-09-03
- Subjects:
- codebreaking -- decipherment -- diplomatic code -- naval code -- Room 40 -- WW I
Cryptography -- Periodicals
652.8 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ucry20/current ↗
http://www.tandfonline.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1080/01611194.2020.1755914 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0161-1194
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 3490.155480
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 18516.xml