The head of American military intelligence, William James Donovan, once rightly remarked: “If the British had sent intercepted German military orders to the Kremlin, Stalin might have understood the true state of affairs. However, the British consider the Bletchley apparatus to be completely secret. They use the intercepted information for their own purposes. " The seasoned scout was wrong. Information about all the intricacies of the work of the British "Ultra" was sent to Moscow in broad streams. Famous Kim Philby was one of the first to try to infiltrate the Enigma decryption program.
Kim Philby
The attempt dates back to 1940. Here is what the scout himself wrote about this: “I had one promising meeting with Frank Birch (Eton graduate, actor and part-time cryptanalyst), which was organized by our mutual friend. Birch was a leading figure in the public school of coding and encryption, a cryptographic institution dedicated to uncovering the codes of the enemy (and friends). However, Birch eventually rejected me on the mockery that he could not provide me with a salary worthy of my work. Later, having become one of the leaders of the British intelligence department, Kim Philby actively transferred to Russia a lot of classified data concerning, in particular, the UK cryptographic service.
In addition to his own agents in England, in 1941 in France a network of illegal immigrants was created under the leadership of Lev Vasilevsky, which was also on the topic of "Enigma". The French agents received information that Schmidt was recruited and actively collaborated with France since the early 1930s. This, of course, became a significant trump card in the hands of our specialists during negotiations with Schmidt - now he began to share information with the Soviet Union. It was his "plums" who made it clear to our intelligence that the British regularly intercept Enigma encryption and read them.
John Kencross
The most important data on the Ultra project in the USSR came from John Kencross, recruited by Soviet intelligence in 1935. Kencross worked for the British Foreign Office and was part of the well-known "Cambridge Five", which, in addition to him, featured the aforementioned Kim Philby, as well as Donald McLean, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt. From 1942 to 1944, Kencross transmitted the most important data to Russia, including those concerning Germany's plans to launch an offensive in the Kursk region. The data on the Citadel were so detailed that they even contained information about the numbers and the total number of the advancing divisions, accurate reports on the weapons of the Wehrmacht units, ammunition and logistics. It is noteworthy that through the official channels of communication with the USSR, the British seriously cut the amount of information regarding the Citadel, in particular, they did not mention the numbers of the divisions involved. The value of the data from Kencross is hard to underestimate - the military command of the Red Army was expecting a strike not in the Kursk region, but in the direction of Velikiye Luki. In fairness, it should be noted that the information from Kencross has been double-checked and confirmed through other intelligence channels. The deserved pride of one of the members of the "Cambridge Five" was the fact that he passed the ciphers to the Luftwaffe of the Red Army, which made it possible, before the Battle of Kursk, to deliver preemptive strikes against German airfields packed with combat aircraft. In total, Soviet aviation bombed 17 airfields. As a result, the Luftwaffe lost about 500 aircraft. In the future, this became one of the important reasons for the conquest of the dominance of domestic technology in the skies of the Kursk Bulge. For such significant services to the Soviet Union, Kencross was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, at the end of the war he left Great Britain (he was suspected of a double game) and returned only in 1995.
Domestic cryptanalysts did not sit idly by either. 24 hours before the start of the Battle of Kursk, they were able to decipher Hitler's order to advance. It is interesting that the signalmen fished out this radio message from hundreds of others according to the specific handwriting of the radio operator of the headquarters of the German command. Based on the assumption that at the end of the text is Hitler's signature, and their own intuition, our experts using the "open-cipher text" attack revealed the essence of the message. This was one of many confirmations of the reality of the German offensive in the Kursk direction. Before that, there were data from the aforementioned Kencross and our legendary scout Nikolai Kuznetsov. In particular, the text of the order contained the following lines: “This offensive is given decisive importance. It must end with a quick and decisive success."
The achievements of the USSR and its allies in the field of cryptography became one of the important factors in the success of the Red Army on the Kursk ledge. However, for a long time they spoke little about this and very vaguely. Here is how Marshal Vasilevsky describes the situation with those who were reconnoitered on the eve of the battle:
“At this crucial moment, the Soviet command made special demands on the intelligence agencies. And, I must say, she was at her best and helped us a lot. In the first two years of the war, we, the leaders of the General Staff, more than once listened to the supreme commander-in-chief's just reproaches against the Intelligence Directorate. In 1943, there were almost no such comments. No matter how hard the enemy tried to keep the plans of his offensive in secret, no matter how hard he tried to divert the attention of Soviet intelligence from the areas where its strike groups were concentrated, our intelligence was able to determine not only the general plan for the summer period of 1943, the direction of the attacks, the composition of the strike groups and reserves, but also to establish the time of the beginning of the decisive offensive."
This is how the marshal spoke about the work of the Soviet cryptographers and Kerncross in a not very explicit form.
Georgy Zhukov generally did not mention intelligence work in his memoirs, although there were no obstacles for this: “It became known that information received that day from a captured soldier of the 168th Infantry Division about the enemy's attack on the offensive at dawn 5 July, are confirmed … "Although in May 1943, the NKGB of the USSR sent a message to the State Defense Committee:" Our resident in London transmitted the text of a telegram sent on April 25, 1943 from the southern group of German forces signed by Field Marshal von Weichs to the operational department of the Supreme army command; the telegram refers to the preparation by the Germans of Operation Citadel (the breakthrough of our front in the Kursk-Belgorod region). " Obviously the source was Kerncross, and the information was obtained by intercepting and decrypting Enigma messages at the Bletchley Park base.
Unfortunately, Soviet cryptanalysts were unable to decipher the Enigma interceptions until the very end of the war, and for good reason. Firstly, the level of initial information we had was much less than that of the British, who inherited the experience of the Poles. Secondly, the backwardness of our industry in the development of automated data processing systems affected. We would hardly have been able to create our own "Bomb", as in Bletchle Park. But the cryptographic history of the USSR during World War II is extremely rich in its heroes and events. But that's a completely different story.
