Decent German intelligence services in WW2

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
  • Start date

Deleted member 1487

What if the Germans actually had a decent intelligence service? This would mean that Canaris wouldn't be the head of the service for obvious reasons. Who would be in charge instead of Canaris? I really am not familiar with the personalities behind the scenes. Perhaps Heydrich? While ultimately this wouldn't change the course of the war, Hitler being who he was, it might have interesting effects. First off, is it possible that Blechtly Park (sp?) might be infiltrated and the cracking of enigma found out? Would the sabotage of Allied factories be possible? How about assassinations? I don't know much about the capabilites of the intelligence services in OTL, but everything that I have ever read about it has been negative.

Personally, I feel that unless the Abwehr was truely a stellar service, at most they would be able to sabotage some infrastructure in Allied countries and maybe sabotage a few production lines. Maybe more minor nations would stayed out of the Allied camp and several rebellions would occur in the British empire, probably in the Middle East and in Africa. Perhaps their maybe minor unrest in India, as the Abwehr is able to develop and train Indian nationalists to a higher degree than the stillborn attempt in OTL. If they are lucky, maybe they can discover the routes of convoys coming from America and vector a few wolfpacks in their way. Later in the war either the Abwehr helps assassinate Hitler or discovers the plot before it goes off. This may mean that things are much the same as OTL , or several assassinations take place that remove the most powerful Nazis to lessen the blow of a power struggle so late in the war. Counter intelligence would pick up several Allied spies in Europe, which may severely hamper Allied intelligence gathering. Imagine if Rote Kappelle and that general, whose name I forget, who was passing information to the Soviets was caught? Again the war would still be an Allied victory, but it may take longer and The Russians may not get as far west by the end of the war if their intelligence assets are picked up.

What are your thoughts?
 
I think infiltrating Bletchley Park would still be out of reach, but it would help them already if they found out that the Brits found a way to crack the enigma code. With a better code, the German u-boats can cause much more havoc, and that won't be all.
 
the germans did have a good intel but canaris didn't want hitler to win so he gave him false info and he told franco that hitler couldn't invade spain if he denied him away to attack gibralter
 
Frankly I've always thought all this stuff about Canaris not wanting Hitler to win was crap but never mind. The real problem as far as I can see (and I'll admit I'm no expert in this field) was the governmental structure of the Third Reich, the incredible multiplicity of competing agencies, not helped by Hitler's old "divide and rule" routine. Who's going to run things? The SS, the Foreign Ministry, the Army, the Armed Forces, the various ministries for this that and another that suddenly appeared? The competing rivalries ruled out any overall intelligence co-ordination. Dear God, British Intelligence was bad enough, and as for the German! Not to mention the old question (which tends to be overlooked) ,just how important is Intelligence anyway outside a few limited situations?
 
Prunesquallor said:
Not to mention the old question (which tends to be overlooked) ,just how important is Intelligence anyway outside a few limited situations?

Which intelligence and which situations?

Intelligence can be as simple as how many troops does the other guy have over that next ridge to how far along is the enemy with developing their new super weapon?

In terms of the second world war, superior intelligence gave the allies a huge advantage over the axis forces. The battle of the atlantic was won because the allies could tell where/when the u-boats were going to attack and in what strength. The battle of britain was won partly because Britain had an effective early warning network (the other reason being, Hitler was a raving looney who decided bombing civilians was going to win a war).

On the german side of things. If they had an effective intelligence service and weren't being ruled by someone with a severe megalomania, it could have been nasty for the allies in any attempt to retake Europe. An effective intelligence service would have seen through Operation Fortitude, and combined with effective leadership, could have seen the assault on Normandy being met with Panzer divisions moved down as soon as the assault was launched.
 
Cranos- you're confusing various things here. The thread was about "intelligence services" which excludes things like radar. The effect of code breaking on the Battle of the Atlantic has been exagerated- for ten months in 1942 the Ultra source dried up when the Germans introduced a new code and even when this was finally broken the British found themselves unable to handle the level of information. This bit about "retaking Europe"! There was this lot called the Russian Army... "Operation Bagration" was more important than "Overlord". The German Army, the main opponent in WWII, whenever possible, used landlines rather than radio, especially for important material, and this, of course, could not be intercepted. And this stuff about if Hitler hadn't been a megalomaniac, etc. If he hadn't been, we wouldn't have had the war as it developed anyway. Think of "intelligence" as being rather like a bit from a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Tom is told that a 15 ton anvil, released by Jerry, is about to hit him on the head. Possible reactions- "there's nothing to be done about it." "that makes seven consecutive warnings about an anvil you've passed on." "Jerry doesn't have the capacity to drop a 15 ton anvil, you're being alarmist and trying to cover your arse." "Nonsense. I'm on good terms with Jerry. This is disinformation spread by Spike to make trouble between me and Jerry."
 
I don't know, but there were certain situations when the germans still had a chance to act decisively if they were warned beforehand. Landings are a delicate thing if the enemy is waiting for you at the right place, maybe not Normandy but Torch or Husky, when the germans still had an air force. In the east, the soviet offensives of 1943-1945 were succesfull not only because of their superior forces, but of their superior intelligence and the maskirova. A much darker WWII for the allies.
 

blysas

Banned
Have the germans break the Allied codes, get some symphisers in the USA nad we could ned up with the war dragging into 1948, anyone like a hot radio active europe anyone ?
 
It's alive!:eek::p
If they are lucky, maybe they can discover the routes of convoys coming from America and vector a few wolfpacks in their way.
Don't need Abwehr for that. B-Dienst was reading the convoy cyphers. Why nobody compared the Admiralty sub-warning plot (which B-Dienst copied) against BdU's deployments & got 4, i.e. Enigma's being read, is the big question. Of course, the Brits didn't believe the convoy cypher was being read, either...:eek::rolleyes:
 
I don't know about Bletchley Park - for one thing, the Brits captured or turned all the German spies on the British Isles pretty much right off the bat, and for another the paranoia surrounding ULTRA MEGA was almost absurd. Discovering the existence of Bletchley would take one hell of an effort all on its lonesome (and that's just to discover it, never mind ULTRA MEGA). If they figured it out it would be because of Cryptonomicon-style Yamamoto-assassinations and going ten for ten on milchcows, sort of thing. (And even then believing Enigma is broken is a whole other issue.)
 
I doubt that given the nature of the Nazi state they could have had very effective intelligence.

Even if they had the guy in charge would simply have ignored any information which did not suit his beliefs.

Hitler was nuts as well as evil and he was in charge.
 
I think the Nazis had a decent intelligence network, better then the allies and the Soviets prior to WWII. They had recon on where they where supposed to go and what they where up against, it's hard explaining their good results without it.

Their problems where twofault. Their networks where consentrated to their own territory after their initial sucess and they had a big analysis problem. Hitler took a big role in that regard. In fact, I think the lack of German intelligence in English controlled territory was a result of the later, Hitler didn't want that war.
 

Deleted member 1487

The Soviets by far had the best system in the world for intelligence. They could and did appeal to people's ideologies to gather intelligence, especially in research projects, where people were often sympathic to the Soviets.
 
I doubt that given the nature of the Nazi state they could have had very effective intelligence.

Even if they had the guy in charge would simply have ignored any information which did not suit his beliefs.

Hitler was nuts as well as evil and he was in charge.

It is somewhat true... There was an incident where after recieving correct information about the ENTIRE Soviet disposition and plans for the 1945 Vistula-Oder offensive, and then Hitler didn't like what he heard, so he ordered the person who came up with it to be locked in a lunatic asylum! Though in 1940 he would not have been quite so stupid.
 
There are several forms of intelligence - its not all James Bond wiking!

Fremde Heere Ost didn't do the most sterling job in the beginning underestimating the Soviet strenght and no. of divisions but they caught on and there is reason as to why the US wanted Gen. Gehlen! If you look up the US handbook on Soviet forces just post WWII you see why.

But if you only look towards the operations carried out on foreign soil they seem to come off badly.
Still I remember reading something about Operation Doublecross and the German response in the Netherlands and nobody really being sure about who fooled who.

Thing is operations shouldn't be known; those that do usually do so due to failure.
Intelligence gathering like Fremde Heere Ost is for a large part tedious work of piecing information together, gained from all kinds of sources. Not much James Bond in that.
And you need some analyst's to make an educated guess at what to do or expect.

If the Germans - Abwehr/RSHA ect. had been better at doing their job well they might just have done better.
How much is quite guesswork.
 
The Soviets by far had the best system in the world for intelligence. They could and did appeal to people's ideologies to gather intelligence, especially in research projects, where people were often sympathic to the Soviets.

Well, their Western Europe spy networks lacked radio transmitters which caused them great problems and their intelligence services where purged so they had certain problems. And Stalin had the same problems as Hitler, he was his own intellignce analasyst. (And they missed Barbarossa).

I belive that the problems with use of political organisation for espionage far outweight the benefits. First of all, they are more likely to be known by the local counter-intelligence. Second, it creates networks where the members have at least some idea of who the other members of the group is. (They had that problem during WWII and the cold war). Using local parties for espionage also reduce their efficency as political parties.

On a deeper level, using a ideological group for espionage create a bias in their reporting and that bias would be even worse if the group and the agency have the same ideology. That would create a feedback loop where the bias multiply for every itteration in the intelligence cycle. (Brittish used non communist leftist groups during WWII and they would have less problems.)
 
Well, their Western Europe spy networks lacked radio transmitters which caused them great problems and their intelligence services where purged so they had certain problems. And Stalin had the same problems as Hitler, he was his own intellignce analasyst. (And they missed Barbarossa).

I thought that Stalin was warned and ignored it.
 
I thought that Stalin was warned and ignored it.

I belive he was. It was just a strange way of putting it on my part. I just don't belive Soviet Intelligence live up to the hype and avoiding getting suprised, Barbarrosa style, is the main purpose of a intelligence service. Hence a epic fail.
 

Deleted member 1487

I belive he was. It was just a strange way of putting it on my part. I just don't belive Soviet Intelligence live up to the hype and avoiding getting suprised, Barbarrosa style, is the main purpose of a intelligence service. Hence a epic fail.

I don't think it had anything to do with an Intelligence failure, rather a leadership failure (so often it throws away excellent intelligence.....)
 
Top