According to TICOM interrogators it evinced an extraordinary degree of competence, primarily driven by a consistency of development not found in any other German signals bureau of the period.
The field covered by Pers Z S, over 25 countries for a period of 25 years, stymied the TICOM as few interrogators were available, and they also lacked experience in cryptographic diplomatic system.
In May 1945, the usual approach by the TICOM was to force captured personnel to write "homework" describing processes used in a particular intelligence unit under interrogation, but this method was not fully developed.
[8] The only document prepared as "homework" was one dated 6 August 1945 by Professor Dr Hans Rohrbach, along with several of his Pers Z S colleagues, which described the cryptanalysis of the American O-2 strip cypher, which was considered a most significant piece of work.
On November 26, 1940, Pers Z S submitted a list of problems to high command, primarily due to staff shortages, including 17 major countries which were neglected.
Pers Z S underwent no major changes until November–December 1943 when the unit was split into three groups and partially evacuated from Berlin due to continuous bombing by the Allies.
[24] Wanting to return to the Turkish group, but unable to do so, he transferred to the translations unit (Foreign Office Document section) until September 1944.
In November 1940, he was listed as a Specialist in Balkan languages, handling Bulgarian, Croatian, Polish, Slovakian and possibly Finnish cyphers.
[31] While holding a low rank, she was however, one of the leading personalities of Pers S Z, she joined in September 1940 after studying at the Sorbonne and the America University in Sofia.
They specialized in difficult systems and complex message encryption, and those problems which required a large outlay of expenditure of both time and personnel, or the applications of technical devices.
Working on the Chinese and Japanese desk, Dr Hans Rohrbach commented: ...definitely lower grade personnel and had come here to be trained[39] Professor Dr Cort Rove stated in letter with Dr Otto Leiberich and Jürgen Rohwer that his team of linguists and cryptanalysts, solved on a daily basis, the Japanese PURPLE diplomatic cipher[40] Pers Z S has a single intercept station, called the Landhaus in Dahlem, that was used to cover priority communications, e.g. between Berlin and Ankara or Berlin to Lisbon,[41] however for message intercepts Pers Z S received the bulk from OKW/Chi, Hermann Göring's Research Office of the Reich Air Ministry (FA) and the German Post Office (German: Reichspost).
Selchow was preoccupied with the bureaucratic intrigues of the ministry and left the substantive work to Paschke, Schauffler and Kunze, who ran their subsections affairs as they saw fit.
To further confuse the chain of command, Miss Ursula Hagen stated in interrogation that she received her instructions direct from "Secretary", Undersecretary Gustav Adolf Steengracht von Moyland.
[51] Pers Z S had no evaluation unit with each desk chief deciding which of his or her groups decrypts would be circulated (without comment or interpretation) to higher authorities.
[6] Since Pers Z S suffered from chronic staff shortages, it forced the chiefs to lend a hand with practical cryptanalysis as well as translation, leaving scant time for the selection process.
If all these statements are to be taken at face value then at least five people were involved in determining the distribution of decodes, with the consequent disadvantages of divided responsibility and possible loss of continuity.
[54] The military historian, David Alvarez stated: Occasionally, Ribbentrop would forward a decrypt to the Führer's HQ for Hitlers attention, but in the highly competitive world of wartime German intelligence, where knowledge and control of resources was power, there was little incentive to circulate the product to a wider audience and it is unlikely that Ribbentrop shared his decrypts with other departments.
[55] Where a messages solved by the OKW/Chi was not also in the hands of the Foreign Office, then a copy of the decrypt in the form of a Reliable Report (German: Verlässliche Nachrichten) (abbr.
Desk chiefs, who took pride in the linguistic abilities of their staff and set high standards for translation, might hold a decrypt until every nuance of meaning and intention has been uncovered.
This subsection that was managed by Dr Paschke consisted of a number of small linguistic groups, organized along semi-linguistic or semi-geographical lines.
It is believed it had a loose internal organization which enabled personnel to focus full concentration on the most important problems as they arose[60] It was assumed by TICOM from a document captured on January 18, 1941, that the subsection had six groups: England, America, Japanese Diplomatic, Japanese Military, Greece and a study of German systems and their own procedures (German:eigene Verfahren).
[115] As regards Inspectorate 7/VI, (OKH/Chi), the cipher department of the German Army (Wehrmacht), and the concomitant unit that grew out of the In OKH/GdNA, there were few examples of collaboration between it and Pers Z S at the senior administrative level.
As with the Army, the Navy B-Dienst had few occasions to work with Pers Z S. Their operation and tactical problem domain's were too dissimilar to stimulate effective collaboration.
[121] It may, perhaps, not have occurred to Hagen that the cyphers would have been of no interest to B-Dienst, as Pers Z S cryptanalysts were never exposed to the intelligence value of intercepts, in the same manner that other agency staff sometimes were.
Similar to the other agency, the Luftwaffe cipher bureau, Luftnachrichten Abteilung 350, earlier called chi-stelle, was primarily interested in intercepts emanating from its Allied counterparts.
Suggestion: LIV or he head of the OKW/Chi should arrange for Paschke for the already planned collaboration of Pers Z S with the OKL-Stelle OBdL actually to come into force.
Military historian David Alvarez stated[6] that the reason the cooperation deal collapsed was that Voegele had made disparaging remarks about Dr. Kunze's work.
[125] The statement might have been motivated by his professional competitive and aversion to Joachim von Ribbentrop, the diplomat and foreign minister under the Nazi regime but also that both agencies covered the same field and that there was unfortunately almost complete duplication.
[127] Paschke, in homework for TICOM stated: I may loyally affirm that the workers of the FA collaborated with us openly and honorably, withheld nothing from me and this furthered our work.
[131] Sauerbier of the FA stated that liaison with the unit ... was handled by a single representative, and never involved any exchange of visits by operations personnel[132] When the Pers Z S was interrogated by TICOM Team 1, they first learned the existence of the FA from the foreign office cryptanalysts, who knew the names of many of the section heads in Department IV in which their work was related[133] The Yearly Report for 1942 from AA/Per Z S inter alia, reveals an exchange of code book recoveries.