Before the attack on the Soviet Union, the Nazis conducted a large-scale operation to prepare sabotage and reconnaissance groups to disrupt communications between the units of the Red Army. Historian Yuri Dolgopolov writes:
“From the very beginning of the war, sabotage groups of the Germans, joining the wire communication lines and using their radios, transmitted false orders to the command of our units on behalf of the higher Soviet commanders, which disorganized the command and control of troops. This activity became so widespread that the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on June 24, 1941 adopted a special resolution to combat saboteurs in the frontline zone."
Confirms the words of the historian Georgy Zhukov:
"A little later it became known that before dawn on June 22, wire communication was disrupted in all western border districts … The agents and sabotage groups abandoned on our territory destroyed wire communications, killed communication delegates … A significant part of the troops of the border districts was not provided with radio means."
As a consequence of this, Zhukov describes the constant delay in information about the operational situation at the fronts, as well as frequent cases of communication disruptions even with the General Staff.
Soviet signalman soldier, armed with PPSh, receives a telephone message
There were incidents with the ingress of domestic encryption technology to the Germans. Wolfgang Young, piloting a night fighter, shot down a Soviet transport plane that was flying to besieged Leningrad. On board was a group of generals and a cipher machine, which fell into the hands of the enemy. It is still unknown what kind of manipulations the German specialists performed with the captured equipment.
In another famous case, the Germans were helped by their Finnish comrades when the Soviet submarine S-7 was sunk on October 21, 1942. The attack was carried out by the Vesikhiisi submarine in the Aland Sea. Of the 44 crew members, five escaped along with the ship's captain Lisin. A little later, on November 5, the Vesikhinen submarine rammed Sch-305 to the bottom.
In 1942, the Baltic Fleet lost 11 submarines at once, which became a sad anti-record among all the country's fleets for all the years of the war. The careful work of the special services on this issue gave reason enough to believe that the German and Finnish "hunters" had decryptions of the negotiations of the Soviet naval command at their disposal.
Finnish submarine Vesikhiis, which sank the Soviet S-7
C-7, torpedoed by the Finnish submarine Vesikhiis on October 21, 1942 on the surface while charging the batteries
Interrogating one of the prisoners, the counterintelligence officers found out that the commander of the Finnish Vesikhiisi, in a conversation with the commander Lisin, boasted of his knowledge of the location of the S-7 submarine and the time of its departure from Kronstadt. In addition, on May 22, 1942, the U-2 disappeared, which followed from Novaya Ladoga to Leningrad. He delivered the ransomware with all the documentation regarding the organization of special communications. The crash site was never found. As a result, a few days later the fleet codes were changed. Already in 1945, the surviving cipher officer from the ill-fated U-2 told during interrogation that he managed to destroy all the documentation before being captured. But the fact remains - at least one employee of the cipher bodies fell into the hands of the Germans in 1942, which increased the likelihood of an enemy "breaking" the existing ciphers of the Baltic Fleet.
Finnish "Vetekhinen", which rammed the Sch-305 "Lun" on November 5, 1942
Places of death of Soviet boats of the Baltic Fleet. It can be argued with high probability that they were the victims of decryption of the radio exchange of the Soviet fleet by the Germans and Finns.
The lack of encryption equipment for coding radio communications with the Leningrad Front by the end of 1941 raised the question of conducting HF communications. The only possible solution was to lay a cable along the bottom of Lake Ladoga. All the work of the signalmen was, of course, heroic: the enemy was firing incessantly. As a result, it was still possible to establish a stable "air-submarine" HF communication between Moscow and Leningrad through Vologda, Tikhvin and Vsevolzhsk. Already in 1942, signalmen and cryptographers again had to establish government HF communications under bombing and shelling, only much further south - on the Voronezh front. In Povorino, one of the nodes of such a line was founded, which was built between the strikes of Hitler's aviation. A participant in those events, communications officer PN Voronin writes: “Once, returning from the shelter, we saw the wreckage of the buildings where our units were located. All equipment was also lost. There were "claws" and a telephone set. We climbed onto a pole with preserved wires. A. A. Konyukhov and I reported to our leaders about the incident. But by this time the situation had changed, and HF communication was deployed in the village of Otradnoye, where the front headquarters soon moved. Soon I was ordered to urgently leave for Stalingrad."
Crossing to the other side. Signal operator pulls the cable
The battle of Stalingrad became a test for all branches and types of troops of the Red Army, and signalmen with cryptographers were no exception. The trouble was that all communications with Moscow went along the right bank of the Volga, which, after the Germans reached the river, was blocked for communications. Signalers, under hurricane fire and bombing, had to evacuate all special equipment to the left bank at the end of August 1942. A communication center was organized in Kapustin Yar, the line from which went to Astrakhan and Saratov. At the same time, there was no working communications center in Stalingrad itself, and the front headquarters was on the right bank. Front signalmen began to lay the line along the bottom of the Volga. But first, we checked the possibility of using a ready-made cable passage near the Market. Under fire, the signalmen crept up to the cable booth and assessed the serviceability of the cable.
Soviet signalmen are laying a telephone line in the Stalingrad area. Winter 1943. Photo: Natalia Bode
He turned out to be quite working, but at the other end of the line the signalmen were answered … by the Germans. Now it only remained to pull the communication along the bottom of the river to the besieged city. There was no river cable in the supplies of the signalmen, so for the first time they decided to use the PTF-7 field cable, which was blocked on the second day. In addition to constant mortar shelling, oil barges pierced by shells, slowly sinking under water and regularly cutting communication cables, presented a huge problem. In fact, until a special river cable arrived, signalmen were laying new bundles of HF lines every day. The river cable that came from Moscow, together with the drum, weighed more than a ton, and all the vessels suitable for it were long ago smashed to pieces. I had to build a raft and at night set off on a dangerous voyage to the other side of the Volga. In the very first exit, the Germans sank the raft with mortars. The coil with the cable was somehow pulled out and from the second run it was pulled to the right bank of the Volga. When the ice rose, an air line was drawn along it on frozen poles.
The moment of difficult everyday life of the signalman of the Red Army
The command of the Red Army at various levels made every effort to preserve the secrecy of the HF communications. So, in the first hours of the war, one of the commanders said: “We are under fire. What should we do?" The answer came: “You’re out of your mind! Why isn't the message encrypted? " As a result, on the third day of the war with Germany, a directive of the NKGB of the USSR was issued, in which special attention was paid to the safety of the ciphers in order to avoid them getting to the enemy. Due to the lack of encryption radiotelephony, orders had to be transmitted in clear text using a pre-coded card. Each settlement, ravine, hollow and hillock were pre-designated with a conventional number, which introduced the Germans into a stupor when listening to radio interceptions.
Leaders of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition during the Tehran conference
But not only the enemy violated the lines of communication of the Red Army. The harsh weather was often the culprit. The example of the organization of communications on the route of Stalin to the Tehran conference was illustrative. Joseph Vissarionovich, according to his old habit, traveled to Baku by train and used HF communication at the stops. But due to the adhesion of snow and icing, the line was constantly torn. As a result, it was only in Ryazan that Stalin was able to contact the headquarters, but in Stalingrad, Armavir and Mineralnye Vody it turned out to be impossible. Responsible for special communications Lavrenty Beria in hysterics demanded to punish the guilty, but here his capabilities were not enough.
