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To: Osnome
Concerns were raised from time to time about possible breaches of Enigma, and there were several formal inquiries by German armed forces that bore those concerns out. Yet these were suppressed by General Fritz Erich Fellgiebel, the brilliant and capable head of the German Signals Service — and a dedicated member of the German resistance to Hitler and the Nazis.

Fellgiebel did not survive the war because he was implicated the July 20 plot and fell into the lethal hands of the Gestapo. Even without the benefit of Fellgiebel’s account, there is is reason to believe that he deliberately maintained Enigma as a compromised signals system in order to help bring down the Third Reich.

In addition, some of the apparent operation and security errors that helped made Enigma signals readable by the Allies were likely the deliberate work of other anti-Nazi German officers. A substitute for Enigma would have been vulnerable to such honorable sabotage and errors in signals security.

Moreover, a mere change in machines would not have transcended the fundamental limitations of German code technology and practices or counteracted the scope and sophistication of Allied code breaking efforts. Unrealized by the Germans, the Allies had attained analytical and computational advances that far outpaced Germany;s ability to develop and adopt secure code systems.

In the end, whether Nazi Germany used Enigma or some substitute machine, the Allies would probably have read German's wartime signals.

2 posted on 07/08/2009 8:13:16 AM PDT by Rockingham
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To: Rockingham
>>Fellgiebel did not survive the war because he was implicated the July 20 plot and fell into the lethal hands of the Gestapo. Even without the benefit of Fellgiebel’s account, there is is reason to believe that he deliberately maintained Enigma as a compromised signals system in order to help bring down the Third Reich.

In addition, some of the apparent operation and security errors that helped made Enigma signals readable by the Allies were likely the deliberate work of other anti-Nazi German officers. A substitute for Enigma would have been vulnerable to such honorable sabotage and errors in signals security.

Moreover, a mere change in machines would not have transcended the fundamental limitations of German code technology and practices or counteracted the scope and sophistication of Allied code breaking efforts. Unrealized by the Germans, the Allies had attained analytical and computational advances that far outpaced Germany;s ability to develop and adopt secure code systems.

In the end, whether Nazi Germany used Enigma or some substitute machine, the Allies would probably have read German's wartime signals.
<<

I think you are overstating the case there.
How did this ‘Fellgiebel’ even know that the Enigma had in fact been compromised?
Furthermore there were three separate inquiries into the the cryptographic security of the Enigma(to see if the German secret communiques had been breached, which many Nazis had suspected) and concluded that the Enigma was not at fault.

The British did not invent the Computer-—Colossus was not a computer. Just a pile of digtal circuitry dedicated to one purpose: Juxtapositioning of Lorenz code characters.

Finally I think you are grossly overstating the magnitude and effectability of the German Resistance.


There are many many reasons why the Germans/Nazis wholly adopted the Enigma to the exclusion of all else(Lorenz Cipher machines were only used by the German Army High Command)

Go read David Kahn’s book. It is a good read and very detailed.

4 posted on 07/09/2009 3:45:49 AM PDT by Osnome (Moderation in all things)
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To: Rockingham

6 posted on 07/09/2009 3:50:47 AM PDT by Osnome (Moderation in all things)
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