Global InformationResearch Office of the Reich Air Ministry information
The Research Office of the Reich Air Ministry (German: RLM/Forschungsamt (FA), English: "Research Bureau") was the signals intelligence and cryptanalytic agency of the German Nazi Party from 1933 to 1945. Run since its inception by Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring, the Research Bureau was a Nazi Party institution rather than an official Wehrmacht-run military signals intelligence and cryptographic agency (headed up by the German High Command's OKW/Chi).[1]
Described as "the richest, most secret, the most Nazi, and the most influential" of all the German cryptoanalytic intelligence agencies,[2] its existence was well known to French intelligence (Deuxième Bureau, Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action) via the efforts of the spy Hans-Thilo Schmidt[3] but little known to other countries within the Allies.
The organization was described by the historian, Dr Wilhelm F. Flicke, a German veteran cipher officer, who was commissioned by General Erich Fellgiebel, to write a history of German cryptography and cryptanalysis during World War II in his book War secrets in the ether as:
calculated to give the government and the [Nazi] dominant party such far-reaching insight into the thoughts, feelings, and aspirations of the German people as had been known in all history. Compared with this plan, the informer methods of Metternich and the French Minister of Police, Fouché had been amateurish experiments.[4]
Other names for the FA included Hermann Göring's Research Bureau and Hermann Göring cipher bureau. Its official full name in German was Forschungsamt des Reichsluftfahrt Ministerium, and in English the "Research Office of the Ministry of Aviation",[5](Luftwaffe)
Late in the war the FA relocated out of heavy combat zones in the north[6] to the safety of southern Bavaria, setting up at the Kaufbeuren Air Base. Upon seizure of its abandoned files in May of 1945, the trove was taken over by TICOM, the U.S. effort to seize military assets after the end of World War II in Europe.[7] The existence of the FA had been unknown by TICOM at the start of the war, and the chance discovery came as some surprise to TICOM Team 1.[6] Upon investigation TICOM produced a large archive of documentation.[a]
- ^ Alfred Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz, S. 63. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1986. ISBN 3-486-53122-0
- ^ David Kahn, Hitler's Spies. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1978 p. 180
- ^ Ernest R. May (28 July 2015). Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp. 162–. ISBN 978-1-4668-9428-0.
- ^ Wilhelm F. Flicke (1994). War Secrets in the Ether. Aegean Park Press. pp. 219–232. ISBN 978-0-89412-233-0.
- ^ "European axis signal intelligence in World War II as revealed by "TICOM" investigations and by other prisoner of war interrogations and captured material, principally German, Volume 7, Goering's "Research" Bureau" (PDF). NSA. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
ticomFAwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "OKW/Chi (High Command)". ticomarchive.com. Ticom Archive. Retrieved 7 January 2014.
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