War Secrets in the Ether (Cryptographic Series) [Paperback]

Wilhelm F. Flicke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1992 | ISBN-10: 0894120212 | ISBN-13: 978-0894120213

Shortly after World War II, the U.S. Government commissioned Wilhelm F. Flicke, because of his "inside" knowledge of German radio-espionage and "code-breaking" efforts, to write War Secrets in the Ether. Translated from German, the contents of this book are so startling that the book remained classified until the late 1970s. Now unclassified, this book tells the story of German successes in reading the secret codes of both enemies and friends. Historians have long pondered how General Rommel knew in advance the moves of the British army in North Africa. This book now reveals the reason: the Germans had "broken" the U.S. SECRET code between Cairo and Washington. This is a fascinating and revealing book.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 124 pages
• Publisher: Aegean Park Pr (June 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0894120212
• ISBN-13: 978-0894120213
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,019,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected, nor what is claimed ..., October 5, 2011

By 

Richard T. Leitner (Bellevue, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: War Secrets in the Ether (Paperback)

Because the book is fairly detailed (though mostly this is because of the many anecdotal stories told by the author), I opted to give it three stars. I was tempted to give it two stars, and here is why: Flicke certainly delves into the nitty gritty of the German Signal Intelligence forces, providing stories and examples from virtually every front in Europe and most countries Allied and Axis alike. He deftly tells how he believes that this SIGINT affected the surrounding battles and campaigns. But I was hoping for a more technically oriented documentation of exactly WHAT crypto systems were broken and at least a brief treatment of how they were broken. This is not to be found in Flicke's tome. I'm not looking for a mathematically rigorous treatment of codebreaking, but Flicke speaks virtually not at all about what types of systems the Germans broke, whether friend or foe.

To be fair, he is very objective in pointing out the failures of both the senders and interceptors of signals, making a point about the fact that the very mistakes which the Russians made on the eastern front and allowed the Germans an advantage were repeated by the Germans on the western front. He also makes a good case for the development of integrated intelligence evaluation, something the Allies (grudgingly, in some cases) accomplished but which the Nazis utterly failed to do.

Be forewarned that this book is not exclusively focused on WWII. It also covers the First World War and the period between the wars, though not in as much detail. Another complaint is that much of the more "amazing" revelations in this book are actually covered far more extensively and rigorously in other books. As an example, the Zimmerman Telegram which was widely credited with bringing the US into the First World War is better documented in Barbara Tuchman's "The Zimmerman Telegram" or Paul Gannon's "Room 40". And as to the claim which appears on this book's Amazon page about the "broken Top Secret" code between the US attache in Cairo and Washington, DC ... well, you didn't have to wait until the 70's when this book was apparently "declassified" for that tidbit. David Kahn tells the story quite well in the classic book about secret writing, "The Codebreakers" which was written in the 1960's.

Bottom line: If you want to read a ton of stuff about various spy radio nets operating in Europe during WWII, you will likely enjoy this book. But for the "big stuff", or for actual technical details about how SIGINT and codebreaking are done, pass on this one.