Sepp, Paul, Adam, Niki, Irmin, Emil and Neuninger: A Steganographic Code from the Second World War
In 1942, a German soldier thought up a code to use for hidden messages to his lover.
My book “Hidden Messages – The Fascinating History of Steganography” talks about a U.S. soldier in World War II who sent letters to his family. Since he was not allowed to mention his whereabouts in them, he had previously agreed on a code with his relatives.
Quelle/Source Dpunkt-Verlag
Where is Nutsi?
The soldier’s code said that his family should take the first letter from each letter. When strung together, the result was the name of the current location. The corresponding letters in the first five letters were T-U-N-I-S, so the soldier was in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia.
However, the soldier did not pay attention to the fact that the letters had different durations, and he also omitted a date. Therefore, some time later, his parents sent a letter asking: Where is Nutsi?
In my book there are several other stories of this kind. In most cases, the senders were not interested in espionage, but only in telling their relatives things that the censors did not allow. Soldiers who used such a code took a considerable risk, because it could be construed as betrayal of military secrets, which was often severely punished. However, I am not aware of any case where such an action had negative consequences for the person involved.
The Gamber Code
Blog reader, crypto-book expert and comedy hacker Tobias Schrödel has now brought another example of this kind to my attention. It is again about the letter of a soldier from World War II. Here is the envelope:
Quelle/Source: Schrödel
The sender is one Otto Gamber, who was stationed in Brno (now Czech Republic) in 1942. He apparently had the rank of Flieger, which was the lowest rank in the Luftwaffe. The recipient’s name was Else Rothmaier and she lived in Niederlustadt between Karlsruhe and Mannheim. The title “Fräulein” reveals that Else and Otto were not yet married. Here is the letter:
Quelle/Source: Schrödel
Quelle/Source: Schrödel
So Otto proposes a code to Else and gives an example for it:
Liebe Else, falls wir ins Ausland kommen sollten und dir unseren Standort nicht schreiben darf, so möchte ich dir gleich meinen Schlüssel dazu bekannt geben. Nehmen wir mal zum Beispiel Spanien. Da schreibe ich dir folgendes: Einige Kameraden aus meiner engeren Heimat sind bei mir. Darunter auch Sepp, Paul, Adam, Niki, Irmin, Emil und Neuninger.
The first letters of the comrades result in SPANIEN. I find it interesting that Otto obviously does not fear that a censor is looking at this letter. Did he not send this letter by field post, but by normal mail? But then what does the purple stamp on the envelope mean? Maybe a reader knows more.
Unfortunately, I do not know whether Otto Gamber ever used this code in practice and what became of it. Maybe my readers know more about this here, too.
If you want to add a comment, you need to add it to the German version here.
Follow @KlausSchmeh
Further reading: Zwei Verbrechen, bei denen Steganografie zum Einsatz kam
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13501820
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/763282653806483/
Letzte Kommentare