Ludwig Deubner: a professor from Königsberg and the birth of German signal intelligence in WWI

ABSTRACT

In World War I Ludwig Deubner, a professor of classical philology from Koenigsberg, became the important architect of the German radio intelligence network on the eastern front and of Russian code breaking from August 1914, and directed it until 1917 or later. From the battle of Tannenberg to the important victories of the Central Powers in 1915 and 1916, he – together with the Austrian sigint – contributed decisively to their successes vis-a-vis a Russian adversary of largely superior numbers.

This contribution of Deubner to Germany’s military effort in the east has been described in a number of articles and books, by authors like David Kahn and Heinz Höhne. Nevertheless it is time for a fresh look especially since Deubner’s diaries became accessible to research in 2002. In addition, new research on the military structures within which German radio intelligence evolved has raised our awareness of this variable and its importance for successful military application of radio intelligence as a tool of military control and command. Certain old assertions can now be adjusted, old questions can now be answered, new light shed on important remaining interrogations. The old Deubner story gains in credibility, in authenticity and in meaning, by introducing these new elements.

KEYWORDS:

• Military & strategic studies
• history of signal intelligence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ These numbers – ‘rifles’ in his parlance – given by Holger H. Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914–1918 (London: New York, 2014), 82. This view of the respective numerical strengths is generally shared by the standard works on WWI, including the Russian one by Anton Kersnovskij, Istorija russkoj armii, vol.3 (Moscow, 1994), 181. I thank Dr Jürgen Schmidt for pointing this source out to me. Ludwig A. Deubner, Diary (VI) (Berlin: Archive of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, not published), 11.10.1914, saw the proportions even more unequal in certain situations: ‘11 Russian corps confront the hardly 3 ½ of ours’ and still do not accomplish anything’. For somebody searching an opposite but untrustworthy presentation from the Russian side, see N.N.Golovine, The Russian Campaign of 1914 (Fort Leavenworth: Command and General Staff School Press, 1933), Ch. IV and the numbers 95.

² Cf. Ludendorff’s first staff officer, the later general Hoffmann, Max Hoffmann, Der Krieg der versäumten Gelegenheiten (München: Verlag für Kulturpolitik, 1923), 35.

³ Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg, “Deutsche Altertumswissenschaftler im Ersten Weltkrieg,” in Kollegen – Kommilitonen – Kämpfer. Europäische Universitäten im Ersten Weltkrieg, ed. Trude Maurer (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2006), 239–254, 240–1, reports on the numerous German scholars of classical and ancient studies who died on the battlefield already in the first year of the war.

⁴ A career ‘first as civilian with a private contract, then continued as senior official in an Intendanturrats-rank’, as he stated in his own entries for the personnel file of the Berlin University on 19 April 1933.

⁵ Gerhard Radke, “Ludwig Deubner (1877–1946),” in Festgabe für Ernst Vogt zu seinem 60.Geburtstag am 6.11.1990: Erinnerungen an Klassische Philologen, (Bologna, 1993), 157; and Christian Tilitzki, Die Albertus-Universität Königsberg: Ihre Geschichte von der Reichsgründung bis zum Untergang der Provinz Ostpreußen, Band 1: 1871–1918 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2012), 517.

⁶ David Kahn, The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing (New York: Scribner, 1996, first 1976), 629, there also the citation of Hoffmann p. 627. But this author has not understood, whether Kahn had evidence permitting him to attribute this citation expressly to the victory of Tannenberg, because Hoffmann said this also in referring to German war-fighting on the Eastern front in general.

⁷ A good account in Yves Gyldén, The Contribution of the Cryptographic Bureaus in the World War (Laguna Hills: Agean Park Press, 1978, first in 1931). Cf. also Heinz Höhne, Der Krieg im Dunkeln: Macht und Einfluss Des deutschen und russischen Geheimdienstes (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Verlag, 1985).

⁸ Cf. Hilmar-Detlef Brückner, “Die deutsche Heeres-Fernmeldeaufklärung im Ersten Weltkrieg an der Westfront,” in Geheimdienste, Militär und Politik in Deutschland, ed. Jürgen W. Schmidt (Ludwigsfelde: Ludwigsfelder Verlagshaus, 2008), 199–246, 203.

⁹ Check further down, in the paragraphs on ‘context’.

¹⁰ Especially worthwhile to read are Kahn, The Codebreakers, pp.629ff.; Tage Carlswaerd, Operationen und Nachrichtenverbindungen im Osten 1914 (Potsdam: Voggenburg, 1939), 95ff.; also Reichsarchiv, Der Weltkrieg 1914–1918, bearbeitet im Reichsarchiv. Die militärischen Operationen zu Lande, 2. Bd., Die Befreiung Ostpreußens (Berlin: E.S. Mittler & Sohn), 422.

¹¹ Volker-Detlef Heydorn, Nachrichtennahaufklärung (Ost) und sowjetrussisches Heeresfunkwesen bis 1945 (Freiburg i. B., 1985), 30.

¹² Carlswaerd, Operationen, 95. Kahn, The Codebreakers, as well mentions this transfer p.629, correctly dated on end of September, whereas Höhne, Krieg im Dunkeln, 151, misplaces it on September 5. Deubner could not any more make the acquaintance of Hindenburg und Ludendorff in the AOK8, because they had already assumed the command of the new 9th Army, on the 18th, in Posen (southern Poland).

¹³ Radke, “Ludwig Deubner,” 156–8.

¹⁴ Reichsarchiv, Befreiung Ostpreußens, 137, footnote 1.

¹⁵ Heydorn, Nachrichtennahaufklärung, 30.

¹⁶ Albert Praun, “Über Klartext und Geheimschriften,” Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau: Zeitschrift für die europäische Sicherheit 18 (1968), 404.

¹⁷ Certain important books and articles on these topics were written in the 1930s, for instance the important works of the two Swedish experts Gyldén and Carlswaerd. They mention Deubner explicitly, they consulted German sources and they may well have seen and interviewed Deubner in Berlin. But none of these texts which this author has consulted refers to such a direct contact. What he knows for sure is only the exchange which David Kahn had with two of Deubner’s sons, about additional information about their father’s war career, but taking place decades after Ludwig Deubner’s death in 1946. Perhaps the diaries of the 1920s or early 1930s contain information on those interviews.

¹⁸ The diaries are located in the archive of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and have not as yet (2018) been published. For this article, the volumes VI, VII and VIII of Deubner’s private diary for the period between July 1914 and October 1917 and the war diary were perused. They will be cited with ‘Deubner diary (no.)’ plus the date of the respective entry written in the following manner: dd.mm.yyyy.

¹⁹ This author has found no diary entry indicating the purpose of the KTB, and the reason of its discontinuation. Perhaps it was a kind of log for his deciphering jobs of which he found that it was not needed after all.

²⁰ Concerning this and the following, cf. Kunibert Randewig, “Die deutsche Funkaufklärung in der Schlacht bei Tannenberg,” Wissen und Wehr, no. 3 (1932), 128–41, 128–9; and the August-entries in Deubner diary (VI).

²¹ Cf. also Brückner, “Heeres-Fernmeldeaufklärung,” 207; in Heydorn, Nachrichtennahaufklärung one finds, p. 27, a short chronology of German radio intelligence in 1914 referring to Randewig’s remarks about the measures of the Chief of Field-Telegraphy (Chefs der Feldtelegraphie) in the Army High Command, and of the AOK 8 of 20 August 1914, concerning radio monitoring by the Large Fortress Radio Stations, and on the eastern front. One day later an entry in Ludwig Deubner’s diary notes that from ‘today’ one of the translators was to be permanently on duty in the radio station for the immediate translation of Russian radiograms, cf. Deubner diary (VI) 21.08.1914.

²² The citation in Deubner diary (VI) 06.01.1915. He realised his first autonomous codebreaking in the AOK 8 between the 4th and 15 October 1914, cf. Deubner diary (VI) of those days.

²³ Kahn, The Codebreakers, 629; and Höhne, Krieg im Dunkeln, 151.

²⁴ Mentioned in the war diary of this intelligence officer, Friedrich Gempp, of 02.09.1914: Kriegstagebuch – Entries of 1914 (Militärarchiv Freiburg). Gempp had preferred to remain in Königsberg with the vice ‘Generalkommando’ even after the first army command took its position in Insterburg. He was only posted to AOK 8 on 01.11.1914, as intelligence officer, Hilmar-Detlef Brückner, “Die Nachrichtenoffiziere (N.O.) der Sektion/Abteilung III B des Großen Generalstabes der Preussisch-Deutschen Armee 1906–1918,” in Geheimdienste, Militär und Politik in Deutschland, ed. Jürgen W. Schmidt (Ludwigsfelde: Ludwigsfelder Verlagshaus, 2008), 16–76, 52–4. There, he met Ludwig Deubner again, Deubner diary (VI) f.i. 15.12.1914. According to Höhne, Krieg im Dunkeln, however, the Austrian radio intelligence service already helped out at this point. Further down we will come back to this.

²⁵ Deubner diary (VI) 07.12.1914.

²⁶ Alexander Bauermeister (pseudonym ‘Agricola’), Spione durchbrechen die Front (Berlin, 1933), 16.

²⁷ Deubner’s diary (VI) mentions also a 4-digit (06.03.1915) or also a 5-digit key (16.03.1915), with numbers or letters, and what he called ‘Springschlüssel’ (20.03.1915).

²⁸ That corresponds to the delays also needed by the Austrians for solving Russian keys and mentioned by Albert Pethö, Agenten für den Doppeladler (Graz, 1998) 136–7.

²⁹ Cf. as example

http://wk1.staatsarchiv.at/nachrichtendienst/chiffrierwesen/#/?a=artefactgroup540, an Austrian instruction for the use of an Italian key of 1912, for deciphering Italian radiograms. For each of the 26 letters of the Italian alphabet and the 10 cardinal numbers it proposed 26 different ciphers, resulting in altogether 36 × 26 = 936 ciphers which needed to be identified for a complete solution of the key. In addition certain key words had to be found, which would trigger the use of one of the cipher sets.

³⁰ Bauermeister, Spione, 16; and Carlswaerd, Operationen, 96, who may still have interviewed Ludwig Deubner himself. Deubner’s testimony is supported by Pethö’s information about the up to two weeks needed by Pokorny for the solution of new Russian keys. Pethö, Agenten, 141.

³¹ Cf. f.i. Deubner diary (VI): 12.10.1914; 25.11.1914; 06. u. 07.12.1914. Telegraphists‘ negligence was a widespread problem concerning all warring parties.

³² Deubner diary (VII) 19.03.1916.

³³ This author has not understood if this so-called ‘Code’ (LD writes ‘Kod’) was something qualitatively different from the already-mentioned ‘Keys’. Deubner describes his method in detail, in an entry Deubner diary (VII) 17.03.1916.

³⁴ This less formalised status also sets Deubner apart from Ludwig Föppl, the important German codebreaker on the western front; cf. further down, footnote 65.

³⁵ According to the diary there was, incidentally, no official ‘transferral’, but only the informal initiative of AOK 8 staff officers, one of whom came to poach Deubner from the Königsberg station, cf. entries Deubner diary (VI) 28/29.09.1914 and 06.01.1915. Kahn is closer to the truth with ‘he was called to headquarters’ than Höhne, who took this for a formal posting with an official task. Neither does Deubner’s diary mention any such new tasks.

³⁶ Randewig, “Deutsche Funkaufklärung,” 140; the removal of Deubner to the AOK on 29.9.1914 does not appear to be only coincidental with the establishment of this new listening station, presumably LD was to exploit the output of this new listening post on behalf of the AOK 8. In any case he did forthwith often deal with its findings, f.i. in Deubner diary (VI) of 1st, 2nd and 7th October.

³⁷ Deubner diary (VI) 11.10.1914.

³⁸ This author found no indications permitting him to gauge the relative importance of terms like ‘order’ or ‘request’ on the one hand, ‘endorsement’ or ‘support’ on the other, used by these institutions.

³⁹ Two explicit cases of the kind in Deubner diary (VI): 25.11.1914 from Posen, 14.08.1915 from Breslau, the value of the latter solution however being doubted by Deubner. Other cases appear probable.

⁴⁰ Deubner diary (VI) 21.04.1915 for instance: “Königsberg sent a ‘solution’ of the 5-digiter (key) provoking the astonishment of the initiated“; cf. also 21.10.1914.

⁴¹ Czenstochau was also to receive a listening station in December 1914, but was not mentioned any more, afterwards. Cf. Deubner diary (VI) 02.01.1915.

⁴² Deubner diary (VI) 22.10.1914. Cf. also his reports 27th to 31st December 1914 about a round-trip to Ober-Ost in Posen (Hindenburg/Ludendorff/Hoffmann) and the large fortress radio-monitoring-stations in East Prussia, in the last December days 1914.

⁴³ Deubner diary (VI) 15.10.1914: In the morning ‘after the Russian key was solved in its essential parts, I could give the first important operational reports (to the staff). Major Engelien asks to keep this secret and declares himself to be (my) direct interlocutor’.

⁴⁴ Cf. Höhne, Krieg im Dunkeln, 165: ‘At the war’s beginning … the acquisition of intelligence had been separated from its evaluation … The secret service had no influence on the evaluation of information which it had acquired’ (and neither, it appears, on that which it did not acquire, as f.i. radio intelligence). But the close cooperation of Gempp’s aide Lieutenant Bauermeister with LD probably kept Gempp well informed about Deubner’s reporting.

⁴⁵ Deubner diary (VI) 25.02.1915, meeting with Lieutenant Werner of Ober-Ost.

⁴⁶ Walther Abel, “Der Verfasser des ersten rückläufigen Wörterbuchs des Russischen,” Die Welt der Slaven, Halbjahresschrift für Slavistik 27, no.1 (1982), 203–5.

⁴⁷ Carlswaerd, Operationen, 92.

⁴⁸ Wilhelm Flicke, War Secrets in the Ether. Revised and Edited Version of the Original Version of 1977, ed. Sheila Carlisle (Laguna Hills, California, 1994), 14; and Kahn, The Codebreakers, 629, has adopted this narrative as well but unfortunately without giving his source. Flicke has been considered a very unreliable source by the ‚‘Independent Historians’ Commission for the Research into the History of the German Federal Intelligence Service (Unabhängige Historikerkommission zur Erforschung der Geschichte des BND) 1945–1968’; cf. Gerhard Sälter, “Phantome des Kalten Krieges; Die Organisation Gehlen und die Wiederbelebung des GESTAPO-Feindbildes Rote Kapelle“, in Vol.2, Unabhängige Historikerkommission zur Erforschung der Geschichte Des BND 1945–1968 (Berlin, 2016), in footnote 128. All the same, Flicke served as trained military radio operator during WWI and may in this quality well have had reliable information about the occurrences in Ludendorff’s staff which he later described.

⁴⁹ Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Archive. Personalakte D 213 Bd.2, Ludwig Deubner, Blatt 8. The entries into these personnel files ‘Personalnachrichten’ of the former Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, of the 12.03.1927 were made by L.Deubner himself.

⁵⁰ Carlswaerd, Operationen, 91.

⁵¹ Kahn, The Codebreakers. For the citation cf. R.L.Trask, The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000), 82.

⁵² Cf. for instance https://www.bibelwissenschaft.de/wibilex/das-bibellexikon/lexikon/sachwort/anzeigen /details/ epigraphik-nt/ch/84f8066df0518d8bdcd7efac37ba436f/. In philology, decipherment is the discovery of the meaning of texts written in ancient or obscure languages or scripts.[1] Decipherment in cryptography refers to decryption.[2] A nice concise definition of decipherment from Wikipedia.

⁵³ I owe thanks for the reference to this important precision concerning Deubner’s philological qualification for cryptographic work, to professor Dr Hubert Cancik, long-time chair of classical philology and history of ancient religions at Tübingen university.

⁵⁴ It was perhaps because of that that the Hamburg slavist Dietrich Gerhardt called him in 1980 a ‘classical philologist and epigraphist’, cf. Abel, “Rückläufiges Wörterbuch,” 203. Almost 20 years after the World War Ludwig Deubner published an article Ludwig A. Deubner, “Ein Punkt: zum Aufbau des Carmen saeculare“ (A full Stop. The Structure of the Carmen Saeculare), Philologus 88 – N.F.42 – (1933): 469–73. He concluded his interpretation of a work by Horace by insisting that the comprehension of the work depended on having inserted a full stop in its correct position. He continued: ‘an analogy from a wholly different field comes to my mind: As I worked on enemy commands in the World War, I once happened to insert a full stop in the wrong position. An hour later I noticed the mistake and immediately telephoned the correction to the staff. It was too late. Based on the text transmitted by me, our orders had already been given and could not be modified any more. The mistaken full stop costs us a few men fallen sick or made prisoners. Such an incident may give pause to certain mockers ridiculing philological bits and pieces.’ Credit for this reference goes to Isolde Stark, Berlin.

⁵⁵ Deubner diary (VI) 29.10.1914.

⁵⁶ Deubner diary (VI) 25.10.1914.

⁵⁷ Deubner diary (VI) often after the 16.11.1914.

⁵⁸ Bauermeister, Spione, 16.

⁵⁹ Deubner diary (VI) 27.11.1914, to negotiate ‘about cutting up’ the Russian wire connections.

⁶⁰ Deubner diary (VI) 08.02.1915 and 20.03.1915.

⁶¹ Cf. Gustav Schwab, Der Reiter und der Bodensee.

⁶² Cf. once again footnote 35, further up.

⁶³ Hilmar-Detlef Brückner, “Germany’s First Cryptanalysis on the Western Front – Decrypting British and French Naval Ciphers in World War I,” Cryptologia 1 (2005): 1–22.

⁶⁴ Brückner, “Heeres-Fernmeldeaufklärung,” 213–4. Interestingly, here the intelligence officer was fully integrated into the radio intelligence.

⁶⁵ About this cf. very explicitly Brückner, “Heeres-Fernmeldeaufklärung,” 222–5.

⁶⁶ This information, not contained in the literature consulted by the author, was provided by H.-D.Brückner and by J.Schmidt, who also contributed the citation.

⁶⁷ The radio intelligence and deciphering network of the major radio stations directed by him, as well as his codebreaking activity, and his editing of the daily inflow of decrypted messages ‘according to his method’, uncontrolled by either the general staff or the intelligence officer, concluded by submitting the result of this work, the ‘Mitteilung’, to the general staff in his own competence.

⁶⁸ Höhne, Krieg im Dunkeln, 145, cites Friedrich Gempp who explicitly mentions this temporary crisis in his 1927 report on the German secret service. Brückner, ”Die Nachrichtenoffiziere“, as well mentions it, p.52. The Austrian side experienced an analogous problem, as shown in a telegram of its High Command of September 1914, published by the Staatsarchiv: ‘Our agents’ services failed almost completely, up to now. (Insofar) the intercepted Russian radiograms appear all the more valuable’. Signed by: Felsemsig, kuk AOK Operationsabteilung, 28.09.1914,

vgl.: http://wk1.staatsarchiv.at/nachrichtendienst/radioabhorchen/#/?a=artefactgroup532.

⁶⁹ Cf. for the Tannenberg battle for instance Walter Elze, Tannenberg: Das deutsche Heer von 1914, seine Grundzüge und deren Auswirkung im Sieg an der Ostfront (Breslau: Hirt Verlag, 1928); and Hermann von Giehrl, Tannenberg (Berlin: Verlag Mittler & Sohn, 1923).

⁷⁰ Cf. footnote 1; also in addition Reichsarchiv, Befreiung Ostpreußens, 45 u. 51, as cited by Höhne, Krieg im Dunkeln, 144.

⁷¹ ‘E contrario’ the importance of this point is confirmed by a remark of Brückner, “Heeres-Fernmeldeaufklärung,” 205, according to which in the ‘offensive war of movement’ of the Germans in the west ‘knowledge of enemy intentions (…) was of minor importance, because they would constantly and relentlessly be overtaken by the unfolding events’. Brückner thus shares a theory already proposed earlier by David Kahn, submitted in German in his “Fernmeldewesen, Chiffriertechniken und Nachrichtenaufklärung in den Kriegen des 20.Jahrhunderts,” in Die Funkaufklärung und ihre Rolle im Zweiten Weltkrieg, eds. Jürgen Rohwer und Eberhard Jäckel (Stuttgart: Motorbuch Verlag, 1979), 43‚ and once again in his “An Historical Theory of Intelligence,” in Intelligence Theory – Key Questions and Debates, eds. Peter Gill, Stephen Marrin and Mark Phythian (2009)‚ 9–10.

⁷² Friedrich Gempp, Geheimer Nachrichten-Dienst und Spionageabwehr Des Heeres, II.Teil: Im Weltkrieg 1914–1918, vols.3 and 4, August 1914 bis zum Frühjahr 1915. (Militärarchiv Freiburg, archive signatures RW5/41K und RW5/43, 1927), 4.Abschnitt, Der Nachrichtendienst 11 + 12/14 im Lichte des Reicharchivwerks Bd VI, p.11.

⁷³ Deubner diary (VI) 04.01.1915.

⁷⁴ Cf. his report in Deubner diary (VI) 27.12.1914–05.01.1915.

⁷⁵ For this and the following cf. Kahn, The Codebreakers, 630–1.

⁷⁶ Kahn, The Codebreakers, 630–1.

⁷⁷ Deubner diary (VI) 25.11.1914.

⁷⁸ Heydorn, Nachrichtennahaufklärung, mentions that new Central Office p.27, without referring to any primary sources, but probably inspired by an analogous account of Randewig, “Deutsche Funkaufklärung,” 140, also without more detailed sources. Heydorn asserts that thus, ‘for a first time … a large-dimensioned and centrally directed organisation for radio intelligence had been created for the entire eastern front placed under German supreme command’.

⁷⁹ Deubner diary (VI) 25.02.1915. What is certain about this is the exchange with Werner on that day and Deubner’s agreement with him about the necessity to ‘unify’ radio intelligence reporting to Ober-Ost. Which role exactly the staff officer Rück played in reporting on radio intelligence at Ober-Ost, and how exactly Deubner wished to impose a unified overall reporting is not said. But that parallel reporting seems to have been sufficiently irritating for Deubner to want to regain full control himself.

⁸⁰ Deubner diary (VIII) 01.07.1917. On that day he was ‘partially lifted out of the saddle’.

⁸¹ As Gempp’s report of 1927 finds, concerning the first part of November 1914, Gempp, Nachrichten-Dienst, 4.Abschnitt, 11.

⁸² Only one single sentence in Deubner’s diary shows that at least he knew and acknowledged the merit of Föppl’s achievements. On two occasions in 1916 he tried to establish personal contact with Föppl and his work, in January or February he invited him for consultations on the Russian Navy Code, and in May he wanted to follow an urgent invitation of the Western Army Command to help in breaking a new British Navy code. Both initiatives were blocked by Ober-Ost, and failed. Cf. Deubner diary (VII) 17.03.1916 and 01.06.1916.

⁸³ There is a sobering analogy to the truth-content of witness statements in criminal cases, discussed for instance in Matthias Jahn (2001). He insists on the numerous sources of mistakes during the intake, and the reproduction of information, which render such statements in their majority useless.

Cf. https://www.jura.uni-frankfurt.de/55029767/Glaubhaftigkeitsbeurteilung.pdf.

⁸⁴ Helmut Roewer is one of the better-known of these latter with his Skrupellos: die Machenschaften der Geheimdienste in Russland und Deutschland; 1914–1941 (Leipzig: Faber&Faber, 2004). He refers partly to Höhne, but also to other apparently more reliable sources, with very interesting additional details on A.Bauermeister on p.102.

⁸⁵ Bauermeister, Spione, published under the pseudonym ‘Agricola’; and Alexander Bauermeister, Als ich im Stabe Hindenburgs war (Lübeck, 1934).

Especially the first, ‘Spies break through the front line’ was a widely read well-written collection of spy stories.

⁸⁶ Höhne, Krieg im Dunkeln did not give sufficient source and bibliographic information for clearing up these incoherencies. Höhne himself can give no information any more about his sources, having passed away many years ago. As to the weekly ‘Der Spiegel’, of which he was a well-known staff member, it has not conserved any material pertaining to Höhne’s book in its archives, according to a declaration to this author on 30.01.2018.

⁸⁷ Höhne, Krieg im Dunkeln, 146; Deubner diary (VI) 18.08.1914.

⁸⁸ The entry is contained in a dispatch of the ‘intelligence officer in the AOK 8, captain Frantz’ to his superior ‘mob.IIIb’ (Nicolai) of 4.9.1914: ‘Lieutenant Bauermeister, previously with Volkmann, put at my disposal’, in: Gempp, Nachrichten-Dienst, 3. Abschnitt: Anlagen, Militärarchiv Freiburg.

⁸⁹ Höhne, Krieg im Dunkeln, 151.

⁹⁰ ibid.

⁹¹ Kahn, The Codebreakers, 629.

⁹² Refer to footnote 24, further up.

⁹³ Deubner diary (VI) 16.11.1914: This name has never before been mentioned in the diary. On the other hand LD’s ‘I am now … being supported by Ltn. Bauermeister’ suggests a certain familiarity with this person.

⁹⁴ Information by Jürgen Schmidt, referring to his: Gegen Russland und Frankreich (2009) (Attachment 1 on pp. 592–3 with the personnel file of Gempp in the Militärarchiv Freiburg).

⁹⁵ Bauermeister, Spione, 39; cf. the same, Im Stabe Hindenburgs, 3–4. He quit the army as Oberleutnant (lieutenant).

⁹⁶ Maximilian Ronge, Kriegs- und Industriespionage. Zwölf Jahre Kundschaftsdienst (Zürich, 1930), 128; and Kahn, The Codebreakers, 629. Unfortunately the sources given by Kahn on this point appear inconclusive to this author, rendering Kahn’s assertion unverifiable. Höhne, Krieg im Dunkeln, 146 ff. has maintained the narrative of a cooperation in codebreaking on the eastern front most resolutely. But there as well this author was unable to follow Höhne’s bibliographic indications. It is only the Austrian-Italian front, on the Adria, where a German–Austrian cooperation can be verified by the isolated account of another successful Austrian decipherer, Andreas FIGL, cf. Otto J. Horak, Oberst a.D. Andreas Figl und der k.u.k. Radiohorch- und Dechiffrierdienst. Die ‘Kryptographischen Erinnerungen’ (Graz: Ares Verlag, 2011), 168.

⁹⁷ Ronge, Kundschaftsdienst, 117.

⁹⁸ There must have been many deciphered Russian radiograms which the Austrians passed on to Ober-Ost, according to the testimony of Ronge, Kundschaftsdienst, for instance p.117.

⁹⁹ Gempp, Nachrichten-Dienst, 4.Abschnitt, 11.

¹⁰⁰ Praun, “Klartext und Geheimschriften,” 404.

¹⁰¹ Verena Moritz, Hannes Leidinger, Gerhard Jagschitz, Im Zentrum der Macht. Die vielen Gesichter Des Geheimdienstchefs Maximilian Ronge (Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, 2007); and Pethö, Agenten, cites only Höhne.

¹⁰² Horak, Andreas Figl.

¹⁰³ As Jürgen Schmidt – cf. the Bibliography – wrote this author, the intelligence services permitted nobody, not even the closest military allies, to look into their cards concerning their sources – including radio intelligence.

¹⁰⁴ Max Hoffmann, Der Krieg der versäumten Gelegenheiten: vereinigt mit Gedanken über 1914, Tannenberg, wie es wirklich war, die Frühjahrsoffensive 1918 (Leipzig: v. Hase & Koehler, 1929) 199–200; cf. also Praun, ‘Klartext und Geheimschriften,’ 403–4, who cites Carlswaerd, Operationen.

¹⁰⁵ According to Höhne, Krieg im Dunkeln, 147, however, Deubner and Bauermeister would already have submitted a first translated Russian radiogram about Samsonov’s attack-plan to the AOK 8 on August 20. But the staff doubted the credibility of the document, with the exception of Hoffmann who appeared willing to take it into account in his planning. In addition he supposedly urged Deubner and Bauermeister to forward him every new Russian radiogram they intercepted, under the heading ‘SN’, secure information. As already mentioned, Deubner has not left a single word about those histories. On 28 June 1915, he reports the ‘Tannenberg account’ of his staff colleague Zipper, former staff member of von Prittwitz, according to which the AOK 8 had adopted the plan of attacking the Samsonov army already before Hindenburg’s arrival, Hoffmann apparently playing an important role. But even then LD does not lay claim to any involvement of his own.

An explanation might be that Ludwig Deubner had only been on duty a few days in August and that Königsberg was distant from the military High Command, so that he could not yet correctly assess the importance of his own share and of the intercepted radiograms. In Königsberg he did not write anything about the content of his work either, as he would later in the AOK. Who knows? Perhaps he was still impressed by official secrecy instructions. All that changed in a matter of weeks when he had arrived in the High Command himself and could begin to appreciate the importance of his contributions.

¹⁰⁶ Elze, Tannenberg, 273–4: Befehle, Meldungen, Berichte.

¹⁰⁷ Elze, Tannenberg; cf. also Kahn, The Codebreakers, 626.

¹⁰⁸ Bauermeister, Spione, 19–20.

¹⁰⁹ Elze, Tannenberg, 190: Count Waldersee (Prittwitz’ chief of staff) had already informed Count Moltke on 15 August 1914 (i.e. even before LD entered duty in Königsberg) about intercepted Russian radiograms concerning the Russian attack plans. And for instance on 20 August 1914 – now with Deubner in the Königsberg radio station – the already-mentioned Russian radiogram had been intercepted and submitted to the AOK, which had outlined the coming movements of Samsonov’s five army corps. On this cf. also footnote 102.

¹¹⁰ For these details, cf. Giehrl, Tannenberg, 22–3; and cf. also Elze, Tannenberg.

¹¹¹ Cf. Elze, Tannenberg, 108, 289–91 and 295–6. Elze worked with official army documents and the Reichsarchiv.

¹¹² Hoffmann, Versäumte Gelegenheiten, Tannenberg, 242.

¹¹³ Cf. an officer of the staff on duty during the battle, Giehrl, Tannenberg, 88; in the same vein the reporting lists cited by Elze, Tannenberg, 108, 133–44, 289–91. Among the staff members, Giehrl was especially appreciated by Deubner as intelligent and likeable interlocutor.

¹¹⁴ Kahn, The Codebreakers, 627.

¹¹⁵ ChGstbFH, 09.05.1918.

¹¹⁶ See note 108 above.

¹¹⁷ According to own testimonies, and to German assessments, the Austrian military had indeed less fighting power than the German one. Cf. for instance T. Hadley, Military Diplomacy in the Dual Alliance: German Military Attaché Reporting from Vienna, 1879–1914 (Lanham, MD, 2016).

¹¹⁸ Above all concerning the failed Austrian opening campaign in Galicia, from 23 August 1914 (i.e. three days before the start of the Tannenberg battle), critical voices have pointed to the at first completely disorganised and spontaneous manner of interception activities by different monitoring stations, with partial ad hoc transmissions of their findings to higher command posts, but lacking an effective communication with the High Command. These findings encountered initial suspicions as to their credibility, suspicions which were only definitely overcome when a systematic monitoring and reporting procedure was established at the beginning of September, with the Austrian High Command, by Pokorny and Zemanek. Cf. Hermann Pokorny, Entwicklungsgeschichte Des Radio-Horchdienstes an der Ostfront (Handwritten note in bequest M.Ronge, Evb.Nr.22552, literal excerpt kindly transmitted by Mr A.Pethö, Vienna: 25 July 2018), and Franz Podrazil, Die Entwicklung der Fernmelde- und elektronischen Aufklärung, ihr Anteil an militärischen Erfolgen und Mißerfolgen. Militärwissenschaftliche Prüfungsarbeit für den 5.Generalstabskurs an der Landesverteidigungsakademie (Wien, 1969), 65–7. In spite of the principal superiority of its own radio intelligence infrastructure, the Austrian High Command in the East did neither open up to its findings so quickly, nor make as effective use of them, as did the German commanders vis-a-vis their radio intelligence novices.

¹¹⁹ Even if the Germans were superior in certain aspects like leadership, logistics and artillery. Cf. again, among others, Herwig, First World War; for an untrustworthy opposing view Golovine, Russian Campaign.

¹²⁰ Cf. Kahn, “Theory of Intelligence,” 9–10, citing Henderson’s The Art of Reconnaissance of 1907.

¹²¹ Pethö, Agenten, 136.

¹²² Even so the Austrian military administration rated the military value of its radio intelligence higher than the Germans their own service, concludes Pethö, Agenten, from the fact that Pokorny received the highest of all Austrian military decorations, normally destined to generals having won a battle or decided a campaign, cf. endnote 514. Deubner had to be content with an Iron Cross First Class.

¹²³ In an interview with Stockholm’s Dagblad of 09 March 1931, cited in Pethö, Agenten, 134.

¹²⁴ Deubner diary (VIII) of 01.07.1917.

¹²⁵ Citation in Deubner diary (VI) of 06.01.1915. He accomplished his first autonomous solution of a Russian code in the AOK 8 between 04.10.1914 and 15.10.1914, cf. Deubner diary (VI) 15.10.1914.