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).Alfred Kube, Pour le mérite und Hakenkreuz, S. 63. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1986.
Described as "the richest, most secret, the most Nazi, and the most influential" of all the German cryptoanalytic intelligence agencies,David Kahn, Hitler's Spies. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1978 p. 180 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 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.
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",(Luftwaffe)
Late in the war the FA relocated out of heavy combat zones in the north 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 British-U.S. effort to seize military assets after the end of World War II in Europe. 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. Upon investigation TICOM produced a large archive of documentation.
Emergence The office of the RLM/Forschungsamt emerged with the events of the Reichstag Fire Decree. With Adolf Hitler's seizure of power by the Enabling Act of 1933, all postal, telegraph and telephone democracy was suspended. The Reichstag Fire Decree Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich were suspended until further notice. The article inter alia stated the secrecy of correspondence. It read:
The privacy of correspondence, postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications shall be inviolable. Exception may be only made by the Kingdom Act. See the §§ 99-101 of the Criminal Procedure Code from 1 February 1877 (RGBl. S. 253) in the version published on 4 January 1924 (RGBl. I. p.15)
By § 1 of the Reichstag Fire Decree, 28 February 1933 (RGBl. IS 83) was the Article 117 set "until further notice" overridden in conjunction with Article 48 para. 2 sentence 2.
History Founding
Hermann Göring was a high ranking Nazi Party member who founded the party-run FA along with Gottfried Schapper in April 1933. Schapper had worked in the Reichswehr Ministry from 1927 to 1933 and been dissatisfied by both the scope of monitoring work and the incompetence of the methods employed there. He along with some colleagues, including Nazi, Hans Schimpf, his predecessor and a personal friend of Göring, resigned in 1933 and proposed to Göring that a separate office be created that would be free from department ties. Schimpf had previously organized a National Socialist cell within the Reichswehr without any word having leaked out about it. Schapper requested, due to both limited scope of operations and incompetence in the signals office of the Reichswehr Ministry, that the new agency be independent of the ministry. Göring consented and later stated during TICOM interrogations that he wanted an organization of his own which could handle all phases of monitoring under one central control.
Göring ensured it was camouflaged under the title Reichsluftrahrtministerium-Forschungsamt to confuse its role within the Nazi hierarchy, though in reality it was not connected to the Aviation ministry. Göring also ensured by 1935 that it was not subordinated to the Reich Air Ministry, by having its own administration, with financing directly from the Treasury by 1938, and bore no relation to the research division of the Luftwaffe technical office, or the Luftwaffe's military intercept or cryptologic unit. By then it was known as Hermann Göring's Research Bureau.
The FA was a Nazi Party civilian organization, unlike complementary organizations that existed at the time, e.g. OKW/Chi, which were military in nature. For security purposes, a small number of individuals, who were civilians, were ordered to wear German Luftwaffe uniforms. This was to ensure fruitful communication between signals intelligence.
The original unit consisted of eight men when it was established on 10 April 1933. Later, as the agency expanded, an additional 33 cryptographers, most with Nazi leanings, would be "poached" from the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces, the OKW/Chi cipher bureau, at the time when OKW/Chi itself was facing a severe personnel shortage. This caused considerable friction between the two agencies. The FA was located in an attic in Göring's Air Ministry building and later moved to a building in Behrendstrasse, Berlin. It then moved again in late 1933 to the Hotel am Knie in Charlottenburg. In 1934 and 1935 it occupied a converted housing complex called the Schiller Colonnades at 116-124 Schillerstrase. Forced to evacuate Berlin due to the heavy Allied bombing, by January 1945 most of the unit had moved to Breslau and Luebben (site of an intercept station) and Jueterbog. By March, the remnants were sent to Kaufbeuren with a small group moving to Rosenheim. By this point the FA had shrunk from around 2000 personnel down to 450 with 100 at Rosenheim. At Kaufbeuren it occupied a block of six buildings at the airfield barracks on the local airfield, secured by the 289th Combat Engineers. The FA had been disbanded and all documents burned shortly before the arrival of the American Army. A small handful of documents discovered after an extensive search provided confirmation of the existence of the FA and provided a basic outline of its organization.
Surveillance Whereas the operational scope of the Foreign office and the Reichswehr were organized to monitor foreign communications, the Forschungsamt was designed to monitor interior communications, to collect all communications throughout Germany, and from Germany to foreign countries. The press, all printed material, the surveillance of personal letters, and the interception of conversations were undertaken. Intercept stations were distributed all over Germany, postal districts and cable junctions all had surveillance points. All telegrams sent by anybody were copied and sent to the unit.
Interception of telephone conversations of high ranking government officials, Nazi Party members and state officials were of particular importance. Gradually, an enormous spy net was created that spanned all of Germany. No officer, no official, no party functionary and no person of importance could telephone without the conversation being monitored. The FA paid particular attention to the Reichswehr personnel and commanders of military districts. A system of confidential agents was established to pass it to the FA. Surveillance of general delivery letters formed a large part of the FA.
At the outset, the FA tried to work with the Reichswehr cipher bureau and Bureau C of the Foreign Office, but the relationship quickly soured, due to the nature of the FA always to be the receiver and never the giver. Eventually, cooperation was undertaken in a purely formal manner.
Objectives A number of objectives came into being, in the first phase of the FA operation.
The Officer Corps of the Reichswehr, and the armed forces, in general, were put under surveillance. The leading figures of the Nazi Party were put under surveillance. The Catholic Church, the Vatican with all its institutions and leading personalities were put under surveillance. Anybody in Germany who had been active in political life, e.g. trade union movements, labour organizations, Freemasonry. For this objective, there was close collaboration with the Gestapo.
Conflict The nature of the work that the FA undertook, inevitably brought the agency to the notice of Heinrich Himmler, who attempted on his own initiative to gain control of the unit and its activity. This led to an intense rivalry between Göring and Himmler. In time, Himmler succeeded in getting a stronger influence on the unit, so that gradually power in respect of the FA passed from Göring to Himmler.
Ernst Röhm affair The first major operation of the FA was the surveillance of Ernst Röhm, the co-founder of the Sturmabteilung (SA; Storm Detachment), the Nazi Party's militia, and later was its commander. Röhm and his SA associates had been watched continuously since the end of 1933. Every telephone conversation, letter written, and conversation that Röhm had uttered was reported to the FA. For many of the associates of Röhm, microphones had been placed in their private lodgings. These were concealed in their telephones, table lamps, chandeliers, electric clocks and other locations. The evidence collected was collated and evaluated in the evaluation centre of the FA. This evidence led directly to the Night of the Long Knives, which took place from 30 June to 2 July 1934 in which 85-200 members of the SA and others were assassinated. During this action Schimpf was promoted to ministerial rank (), which ensured for himself a position of great power.
Tukhachevski affair The second major operation of the FA was the Mikhail Tukhachevsky case.
Housecleaning affair The third major operation of the FA was a "housecleaning" undertaken by the FA in 1938, when significant numbers of personnel from the Ministry of War were forcefully removed. Two major figures were Werner von Blomberg and the aristocrat Baron Werner von Fritsch and a number of very high ranking officers who had to leave the field. Flicke considered this Göring's revenge, and the revenge of the FA for the death of Hans Schimpf.
During this time, the Foreign Office, which was controlled by Joachim von Ribbentrop, was wired with microphones without any ministry official noticing.
Austrian affair The FA played a very important role in the intercepting communications of the government of the Federal State of Austria before the Anschluss occupation in March 1938. A special subsection in the FA was formed, and subsequently the entire communications system of Austria was intercepted. They were increasingly aided in their operation by sympathetic Austrian officials. All telephone conversations carried out in Austrian ministries, the content of all telegrams sent abroad, and many important documents were sent to the Forschungsamt. The Austrian officials even went as far as to provide all the cryptographic systems used by the Foreign Office in Vienna, by the Austrian Armed Forces and by the Austrian Police. The Austrian telephone and telegraph cables leading through the Berchtesgaden areas were tapped by the FA.
Himmler takeover By 20 July 1944, Heinrich Himmler had firmly gained control over the FA.
TICOM