Disaster at Stalingrad: An Alternate History by Peter Tsouras Read Free Book Online Page B

attachment] for the standard Lorenz teleprinters. It is far more complex than even the Enigma machines. They are already being installed to communicate between OKW and its major commands and should be operational any day now. This was planned some time ago.
    But we lose a priceless opportunity to turn the tables on our enemies if we suddenly stop using Enigma. Yes, we can change the codes, but we must continue to use Enigma and feed the enemy false information to manipulate him into putting his head into a noose. You remember it was your approval of our plan to trick Stalin into purging his generals that paid such dividends. I ask you now to listen to the Grossadmiral describe the noose he has in mind.
    Hitler leaned over to give Dönitz his complete attention.
    56–58 Am GroBen Wannsee, Berlin, 26 May 1942
    Heydrich convened a meeting of the Wehrmacht and services chiefs of communication and intelligence as well as the finest minds in German cryptology. The lovely villa, set in a leafy Berlin suburb, was the perfect out of the way setting for a conference. He had used it in January for another conference on the Jewish question. He expected this conference to go as well.
    He surveyed the room with a stare that most men could not meet. He needed to exert a moral ascendancy over the lot of them. He began. ‘Meine Herren, we are here to discuss the extent of the Enigma compromise and the outline of Operation Waterloo. The Führer has entrusted me and the Sicherheitsdienst with complete authority in this matter.’ Not a peep from the faces at the table.
    ‘You will see in Grossadmiral Dönitz’s report the distressing number of coincidences that have occurred involving the loss of U-boats and other ships.’ He looked at the Luftwaffe’s communications chief and went on,
    The Luftwaffe has its own record of coincidences as you can see in the Reichsmarschall’s report, the most damaging of which have been the evasion of our fighters by Bomber Command’s raids. Then there is the steady loss of transport aircraft shuttling troops and vital cargo to Rommel’s army in Africa. You will also note that the Italians, who use the much simpler commercial version of Enigma as their naval code machine, have suffered very heavy naval losses, for example at the battle of Cape Matapan and in their shipping convoys to North Africa, where in each case the enemy seems miraculously to appear.
    He looked now directly at the chief of Fremde Heere Ost (FHO, Foreign Armies East), the Wehrmacht’s chief of intelligence for the Eastern Front, Colonel Reinhard Gehlen. Heydrich knew that Gehlen was in the midst of a major reorganization of the FHO to which he had just succeeded as chief having been its deputy for most of the last year. He was drawing in a stream of very talented men - linguists, geographers, anthropologists, lawyers and able junior officers. Here obviously was a serious man. Fortunately, he did not know how serious. Gehlen was a member of the group planning to assassinate Hitler. ‘Herr Oberst, we have not heard from OKH on this matter.’
    Gehlen stood:
    Herr Obergruppenführer, the Amis [Western Allies] and the Soviets may be allies, but a deep gulf of suspicion divides them. All of these instances of compromised intelligence, these coincidences of losses, involve only operations conducted by the British and Americans. We see no such pattern with the Soviets. If, and I say if only conditionally the Amis were providing the Russians with critical intelligence derived from Enigma, they certainly have made no use of it.
    We have scoured our records of Enigma messages sent by OKW and the Army and have found a number of instances where, had the Russians known of the intelligence contained in them, compromise would have provided them splendid opportunities to disrupt our operations seriously. In no instance do we see them doing so. It is our conclusion that the Amis are not sharing operational or strategic intelligence based on any