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). Described as "the richest, most secret, the most Nazi, and the most influential" of all the German cryptoanalytic intelligence agencies, 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
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