The previously mentioned Rudolph Lemoine (a participant in the recruitment of Schmidt, who merged some of the Enigma secrets with France) fell into the hands of the German counterintelligence for the first time in 1938, but was released for lack of evidence. In France, Lemoine was believed that he held himself like flint during interrogations in Nazi dungeons, but contacts with Schmidt were still banned. After the Germans seized the French archives of the General Staff and the police, which were "prudently" left on a silver platter for the invaders, the threat of exposure hung over Schmidt. Analysis of archival documents showed that the Enigma leaks came from the cipher bureau of the Ministry of Defense of the Third Reich and the Research Department of the Ministry of Aviation. Several employees who worked first in the cipher bureau and later in the Research Center came under suspicion. Among them was Schmidt, but it was not possible to calculate him then, but the Gestapo attacked Lemoine's trail and began to actively search for him. It was possible to arrest him only in 1943 in the southern part of France. Why the British did not evacuate such a valuable carrier of information about the Enigma leaks remains a mystery. Lemoine quickly split, and on March 17, 1943 in Paris he began to testify, including about Hans Schmidt. The German "mole" was quickly captured, but because of the intercession of Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering, they did not prosecute.
Colonel General Rudolf Schmidt, whose career went downhill due to his brother's betrayal
The fact is that Hans-Thilo Schmidt was the brother of Colonel General Rudolf Schmidt, whose brother's betrayal broke his entire military career - he was accused of insanity and was dismissed. Hans Schmidt was reportedly allowed to commit suicide in prison in 1943. Lemoine remained in German custody until the end of the war and died in 1946. The most interesting thing is that information about the regular "leak" of data on the "Enigma" to the enemy did not sow any doubts in the leadership of Nazi Germany about the stability of the main encoder. A series of upgrades, a constant change of keys - and the military elite calmed down.
Meanwhile, in the French estate of Fusen in the south of the country, there was a small decryption center, which for some time was located on the territory unoccupied by the Germans. The French and Poles worked here, they did not gain much success, but they were aware of some of the specifics of what was happening in Bletchley Park. German intelligence agencies missed the opportunity to uncover the British Ultra program here too. When, in November 1942, Hitler decided to completely occupy France, the cryptanalysts from Fusen managed to destroy both equipment and documentation, becoming illegal. The British, in turn, worried about the carriers of classified information about the hacking of "Enigma" outside the country, and did not constitute an attempt to evacuate them.
Heinrich Zygalsky
So, on January 29, 1943, Marianne Rezhevsky and Heinrich Zygalsky were able to illegally cross the Franco-Spanish border and reach Foggy Albion through Portugal. But not everyone was so lucky. In February 1943, A. Palltach, who actually was the first to create a copy of Enigma in Poland, and in March, on the border with Spain, the Nazis took a group of Poles, which included Guido Langer.
Guido Langer in his youth.
Left to right: Polish Lieutenant Colonel Guido Langer, French Major Gustav Bertrand and British Captain Kenneth "Pinky" McFarlan (October 1939 - May 1940)
The Germans had in their hands almost the entire group, capable of revealing the cards regarding the developments regarding the Enigma, but … Firstly, Palltach had fake documents, so the Gestapo was not aware of who they had tied. Secondly, Palltach, together with his colleague E. Fokczynski, was killed under Allied bombs in the Sachsenhausen camp on April 18, 1944. Another outstanding Polish cryptanalyst Jerzy Rozicki did not fall into the hands of the Gestapo - he died in 1942.
Jerzy Rozycki
The Germans kept the remnants of Langer's group and him for a long time in one of the concentration camps, also not knowing who was in their hands. But in March, through some channels, German counterintelligence officers were still able to "identify" such valuable prisoners, and endless interrogations began. It is surprising how naive the Germans were then: the Poles managed to confuse them and convince them that the cryptanalytic successes in pre-war Poland were very modest. On January 5, 1944, the Nazis arrested Gustave Bertrand himself, the chief coordinator of the Enigma hacking program in French intelligence. And again the Germans blundered and believed in the tales of the experienced intelligence officer - Bertrand convinced the invaders of their readiness to cooperate. For the sake of solidity, he even sent an encrypted message to the British "Center" with a request to meet with a messenger. German counterintelligence planned to tie him up in contact with Bertrand, but even then the prisoner twisted them around his finger, insisting on canceling the operation. Say, the French underground will immediately reveal the plans of the Nazis, and everything will go to dust.
Gustave Bertrand with his wife.
As a result, Gustave Bertrand fled from the Germans altogether, contacted the Resistance and canceled the meeting with the liaison. Such an easy release could not pass unnoticed in the eyes of British intelligence, especially since the scouts were tense as never before - they were preparing major disinformation about the landing site of the Allied forces in Operation Overlord. And if we assume that Bertrand handed over all the developments on deciphering the Enigma, then all the radio games with the Germans went down the drain. As a result, Gustav was transported to England, but until the end of the landing operation in Normandy he was kept under house arrest. Following the success of Overlord, all charges were dropped, Bertrand was reinstated, and he quietly retired in 1950.
The current state of the museum complex at Bletchley Park
A feature of Operation Ultra was a legendary secrecy regime, but the British had to eventually share with their allies their achievements in decryption. The first, as expected, were the Americans, who at the end of 1940 learned about the existence of the program and after a couple of months sent their specialists to England to train. It is noteworthy that the games were not one-sided - the cryptanalysts of the United States brought with them the best practices for decrypting the Japanese "purple" cipher machine. We can say that the British, all the time of cooperation with the Americans, gritting their teeth, shared the results of their labors, but they did this not because of natural greed, but fearing leaks from the frivolous Yankees. Special obligations were taken from American specialists concerning the non-disclosure of information about the "Ultra" - it was allowed to share only with the heads of the decryption services of the army and navy. Winston Churchill was one of the main adherents of expanded cooperation with the Americans, in many ways his aspirations were contrary to the opinion of the British special services. One of the motives for a full-fledged exchange of information with the United States was the attitude of an overseas ally to independently decipher the Enigma. Of course, the Americans, with their potential, would have succeeded quickly enough, but then the priority of the British would have melted, and relations could have deteriorated. As a result, from the end of 1942, all information from Bletchley Park went through a separate channel to the American special services. Moreover, Great Britain handed over to the United States all the details of the "Bomb" device, and they set up their own production of these machines, being able to independently decipher the radiograms of the Germans. The result was an interstate structure for deciphering "Enigma" with two think tanks - already at that time the German encryption industry had no chance of survival. This work also bore fruit in the form of technical innovations - in 1942, improved decoders, which received the names "Spider" and "Bronze Goddess", went into series. The American work on deciphering the Enigma could also be classified as "ultra-secret" - Franklin Roosevelt personally oversaw the operation, and Eisenhower did not share the source of information even with his closest subordinates. England helped the United States with their "brains" not only in decryption - at the end of 1942, Alan Turing was sent to America to help his colleagues in assessing the strength of the SIGSALY encoder.
A separate page in the history of Operation Ultra was cooperation with the Soviet Union and numerous exposures of German intelligence agents operating on the territory of the Allies.
