Better Axis intellegence

HMS Erin

Banned
With a POD after the rise of the Nazis, is it possible for any of the Axis nations to develop intelligence agencies that are equal to, or superior than, the intelligence networks of the Allies? Compared to things like armaments and natural resources, intelligence is comparatively independent from economic power. The Axis will never build their own atomic bomb, but if they somehow developed their spy networks and penetrated the Manhattan Project to the same level the Soviets did, they could plausibly sabotage it. Or maybe it's the Allied codes that get cracked, and Axis ones that stay secure for the duration of the war. It probably wouldn't change the outcome of the war too much, but there are plenty of interesting butterflies.


So what do you say? Can it be done? Can the Axis have better spy networks, code crackers, and intelligence agencies?
 

Deleted member 1487

With a POD after the rise of the Nazis, is it possible for any of the Axis nations to develop intelligence agencies that are equal to, or superior than, the intelligence networks of the Allies? Compared to things like armaments and natural resources, intelligence is comparatively independent from economic power. The Axis will never build their own atomic bomb, but if they somehow developed their spy networks and penetrated the Manhattan Project to the same level the Soviets did, they could plausibly sabotage it. Or maybe it's the Allied codes that get cracked, and Axis ones that stay secure for the duration of the war. It probably wouldn't change the outcome of the war too much, but there are plenty of interesting butterflies.


So what do you say? Can it be done? Can the Axis have better spy networks, code crackers, and intelligence agencies?

Probably not due to their ideology. It alienated their head of intelligence, who already wasn't that good, so he started passing intelligence to the British!
Not only that, but the intelligence analysis was often faulty despite good information, and what good work was done was often disregarded because of ideology. Its hard honestly.
First get rid of Canaris and replace him with a true nazi with skill, like Reinhard Heydrich. Then actually focus intelligence assets on Britain and Russia instead of neglecting them because Hitler said he would never fight them. When the Germans focused on Poland and France with their intelligence services prewar, they did very well. Britain was neglected until right up to the war. Russia was a different animal, as there were some intelligence successes, but at the time the Russians had the best intelligence in the world, so its very unlikely that the Germans will ever best them or make inroads, because the Soviets have a universal ideology that they could appeal to, while the Germans had a national supremacist ideology that turned off most people, especially the so-called 'untermenschen' marked for death.
 
It's not asb

The Germans would have to consolidate their code breaking into one agency instead of the LW, KM, foriegn ministry (which had a really good operation and cracked the diplomatic codes of more than 40 nations) army, abwehr etc each having their own agency and sucking up a percentage of the pool of smart people in that field. Canarais would have to be replaced with someone loyal to the government (Richtoffen or Heydrich are the usual suspects when this is discussed)

The Germans (particularly Rommel) almost stumbled on to Enigma being compromised several times; they just have to get lucky in an operation a la what I had happen during operation full moon in Manstein in Africa

The Italian coding system was unbreakable; they used 1 time cypher pads of the sort loved by the KGB in the 70's and 80's; so if that became the axis standard, their signals would be very secure
 
The Italian coding system was unbreakable; they used 1 time cypher pads of the sort loved by the KGB in the 70's and 80's; so if that became the axis standard, their signals would be very secure

Shows the Italians were good for something in World War II. :D
 
Shows the Italians were good for something in World War II. :D

It was one of the stranger events; everyone kind of knew the italian system was unbreakable (albeit time consuming and annoying and probably made their signals people borderline suicidal) but the Germans regardless thought the Italians where compromised and made them use Enigma which allowed the British to start reading their signals, locating their merchies and sinking them; whereas previously they never even had a wiff of cracking the Italian 1 time ciphers :rolleyes:
 
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