PETER HANSEN (251-LIFE-1987) spent time working for the ABWEHR (the German Secret Service) during WW II and he has information that is known to a mere handful of people. He gives this secret information especially to SHARKHUNTERS. Here he tells us:

In KTB #177, PETER told that Großadmiral Dönitz threatened Captain Bernhard Rogge with court martial if he ever again mentioned the possibilities that the Kriegsmarine Schlussel M (the Enigma) code had been broken by the Allies. We pick up there….

Nevertheless Karl Dönitz finally agreed to three different ‘thorough’ investigations of Enigma Security by Communications Expert Admirals at OKM (Naval High Command). The first one was retired by Dönitz after he became Navy Chief on 30 January 1943 and his former Chief of Staff put in his place. However he likewise now promoted to Rear Admiral concluded the Enigma Key System can’t be broken, even if the enemy captured some machines and even some encoding tables, as these were printed on water soluble paper and never more valid than for limited time periods, so that even with a capture, at the most a temporary cracking was a remote possibility but as soon as those tables, if recovered by the enemy, expired – the British would be blind again immediately!

EDITOR NOTE – As early as 1940, OTTO KRETSCHMER (122-+-1985) believed that the radio traffic was being read by the British and he often refused to reply to calls to his boat. He even got his butt chewed once by Dönitz for not replying, but he defended his silence by saying that his primary responsibility was to his boat and his crew, and that he would not jeopardize them by chattering on the radio.

There were likely to be traitors and enemy agents passing information, something almost impossible to avoid in French or Norwegian ports, thus further tightening of security arrangements was suggested, but the Enigma system simply was unbreakable and not endangered! Having been involved in some of these renewed reinvestigation of U-Boat Command officers and staff and every person somehow involved in the various communications networks, without ever turning up even a possibility of traitors somewhere along the line, apart from some individuals who had gotten drunk and talked too much or wanted to impress girls while bombed, or visits to bordellos, underground dancing activities and such like things that one had to expect from mainly younger and horny males, no evidence of any sort was ever found, so that even Karl Dönitz finally concluded after further reductions had been made in the number of officers and petty officers who had any access or connections with U-Boat Operations and communications while then working already in Berlin Am Steinplatz when reading over the various investigative reports discussing the situation with EBERHARD GODT (344-+-1987), the former Chief of Staff and now Operational Head of the Submarine Command.

“Nothing has been uncovered whatsoever, no traitor has been ferreted out so it appears it has to be me or you, so which one of us is going first on furlough so that we can pick out and find the culprit?”

GODT, a man about as humorless and totally unable to think in round about ways, did not even crack one of his exceedingly rare smiles or smirks and shrugged his shoulders about such disappointing results, finally answering,

“Well, it seems these confounded investigators just are incompetent. It seems there just have to be leaks somewhere!”

Little did they dream that the U-Boat Command was the big open spot that leaked all its operational orders directly to the British who often read these signals, instructions and directions quicker than the actual U-Boats, as these were often dived and could only pick up the signals with delays once operating close below or on the surface again. The British really did not need the often detailed information furnished by the French or Norwegian underground agents. At the most, these were just confirmations of facts long known already and directly from the horse’s mouth, so to speak!

While rotors were captured from the harbor patrol boat KREBS, from U-33 and from some other auxiliaries, Bletchley Park really could only use them for training exercises but no signal solutions until they decided to grab and capture some of the smaller German weatherships MÜNCHEN, LÜNEBURG and WRIEDT but while they did not capture actual Enigma machines, they got some solution tables & were able to reconstruct their first Navy message solutions in March of 1941 and increasingly in April of 1941, primarily U-Boat situation and fuel status reports that were standard type messages, always of the same format and thus easier to break. However, the secret capture of U-110 on 9 May 1941 was the real event and door opened where not only the Enigma machine and attachments was captured, but also solution tables, instruction handbooks, Atlantic grid charts, maps of the mine free entry channels to French submarine bases etc. etc.

Nothing can describe the importance of this event better than the words of King George V when he decorated Sub lieutenant David Balme, the head of the capture group and the engineering officer of one of the destroyers that had depth charged U-110, stating: “The award that you earned was for the most important single action of the entire War at Sea and of immense value for Great Britain!”

This was so correctly stated during a special medal reward session at Buckingham Palace in the fall of 1942

EDITOR NOTE – During conversations with OTTO KRETSCHMER (122-+-1985) in the early 1990’s, OTTO showed great contempt for Fritz-Julius Lemp, the Skipper of U-110. KRETSCHMER said that all the Skippers knew that the Type IX boats had a tendency to ‘hang’ on the surface while diving and so Lemp should have known that opening the sea valves would not send his boat down quickly, giving the British ample time to board and secure the boat. U-110 was being towed back to England when they allowed her to founder and sink because if the boat was towed into any British port, German agents would quickly notify U-Boat Command that the boat – and her codes – were in enemy hands.

Later on, additional new documents, papers and equipment were captured from U-353, U-559 and also U-505, to overcome solution delays and technical complications.

Mr. Stackpole brings up again the same old tired comments like those German admirals – the mathematic possibilities involved, but the breaks were only partially depending upon and made by way of any mathematical calculations, apart from those done by the mentioned ‘bombs’ employed in ever increasing numbers.

While the German B-Dienst used the Hollerith machine system, consequently never managed to break into any of the higher-class British message systems, only the lower graded ones. Furthermore, the Bletchley Park managers encouraged individual ideas and solutions, regardless how remote but in Germany the password was CONFORMITY to rules and regulations. Deviations from strictly prescribe procedures was considered punishable and discouraged!

After extended and closely maintained secrecy on the whole ULTRA operations and Bletchley Park connected matters, pressure developed in the late sixties, early seventies, to recognize the tremendous contribution and formidable achievements of Bletchley Park and reluctantly guided restricted and tightly directed pieces of information were authorized for publication starting with Frederick Wintherbotham’s books. Even though only a limited part of the cat was let out of the secrecy bag, the waves that this created within a few years were unexpectedly high and the conclusions reached so upsetting because they were indeed correct and called for a complete and total reevaluation of the entire war activities from 1940 onward, that the inside boys on the know got so scared about the logical conclusions of this that they promptly tightened up again and stopped all further informational releases once more enforcing the 50, 75 and 100 year secrecy rules rigidly. These older surviving fellows fears rightly, that the history books would have to be almost entirely rewritten and the high brass would stand exposed in many respects less as wonderful generals and admirals, but largely as pre-informed and ULTRA directed men who had been told what happened and was to occur on the other side of the mountain, as Marlborough phrased it. Thus it was considered both unthinkable as well as unacceptable for these people to permit such adjustments and changes, and they even put out disinformation and false stories that ULTRA was not as successful and decisive at it actually happened to be. With other words, the “Old Boys Networks” quickly realized that when opening that jar, even slightly, the Genie escaped and could not be put back into the bottle again and put to rest!

EDITOR NOTE – It was ULTRA intercepts and directions that sent (then) Captain Dan Gallery and his USS GUADALCANAL task force with five destroyer escorts, directly to U-505. It certainly was NOT a chance meeting on the high seas. It was deliberate and definitive.

As you mention the ‘conspiracies that folks like Mr. Stackpole and apparently quite a few other Sharkhunters Members see in so many places and things, here is a classic one indeed, even if it only developed when these behind the scenes chaps furiously backpedaled after they miscalculated the extent of, in their view, the damage already done. As you know, the Truth is rarely popular, especially if it does not suit and fit in with preconceived expectations of the ‘brasshats’ and politicians, all of whom have their own personal axes to grind! I am of course, only too painfully aware that such conspiracies are not only facts of life and more prevalent than the average taxpayer realizes, but also that they are increasingly practiced nowadays with the steadily growing flood of electric and other types of rapid informational onslaughts. A lot of it chaff to cover and hide what is really taking place or attempted and planned!

I am not even thinking about the many different ‘true stories’ of the J. F. Kennedy assassination and the considerable speculation involved here, there are examples everywhere, not only in Washington DC or Hot Springs Arkansas!

EDITOR NOTE – PETER mentions ‘Mr. Stackpole in this text. That was Professor JUDE STACKPOLE (1334-+-1990) who was doing extensive research into the TRITON code of the U-Bootwaffe. He stated England did not break the code, but they had it, concluding that some German traitor had given or sold the code to the Brits. His research was beginning to focus on Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, once head of the Abwehr before being denounced, tried, convicted and hanged with a length of piano wire. OTTO KRETSCHMER (122-+-1985) was quite interested in this study as well, as he too believed, that the advanced codes got to England far too easily. The research came to a sudden halt one sunny Saturday morning – JUDE was enjoying a ride on his motorcycle when a car flew through a red light, and killed JUDE on the spot. His son, an attorney (not a very bright one!!!) assumed that all of JUDE’s papers were trash, and tossed them in the garbage. This research stopped with his death.

Just read a Clive Cussler book ‘Sahara’ where Abraham Lincoln was captured by Southern forces and shipped to Mauritania aboard the vessel TEXAS and survived in the desert as a mummy, telling the reader in the theater in Washington was a hoax and the victim a double! Take it from there!!!!

EDITOR NOTE – this organization does not take Cussler very seriously at all!

Yet, I know all too well how governments lie and higher-ups cheat to get their way, often regardless of consequences, but this must not cover up the ULTRA story again!

The interrogation methods, ways and procedures of the British of German PoWs were both extremely successful as well as outstandingly handled by top professionals, not amateurs and second-rate people. Unquestionably, many of the important factors were obtained that way in addition, some of them in support of the efforts made in Bletchley Park also. This surely includes the interrogation of all captured crewmembers of U-110 naturally, excluding the main villain Fritz-Julius Lemp, the impatient gambler who lost and caused the death of thousands and the loss of hundreds of U-Boats both directly as well as indirectly too!

This is powerful stuff! Nobody knows the SPOOK game like PETER. More will follow in KTB #179 next month.