Sunday, August 07, 2005

Secret Nazi Messages Decoded

Gen. Friedrich von Rabenau
Murdered by the Nazis
Many of Adolf Hitler's enemies were found within his own ranks. Some of his most important senior officers were members of the Wiederstand, the secret opposition against Nazism, or could not accept Hitler's policy. After the attempt to assassinate Hitler, many of them were arrested. Some of them were executed instantly,

Field Marshall Rommel, the dessert fox, was forced to commit suicide, and others were transported to concentration camp Flossenburg. On April 8, 1945, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris and General Hans Oster, the highest officers of the Abwehr (German Secret Service) and several others were executed by the SS. On April 15, General Friedrich von Rabenau was executed. Since many of them were very high placed and well respected, these executions were kept secret.

Frode Weierud and Geoff Sullivan, two members of the Crypto Simulation Group (CSG) are busy breaking a large number of secret messages, encrypted with the famous German Enigma cipher machine. Amongst those messages they found secret correspondence between Berlin and camp Flossenburg. It is by decoding these messages that they found the true story on the executions and how the SS tried to cover up things.

The historically important Flossenburg Messages and some decrypts are found on Frode Weierud's Cryptocellar. If you would like to try decoding some messages with the secret machine key settings, retrieved by CSG, you can download my Enigma simulator or one of the many Enigma sims on Frode's Crypto Cellar.

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