The Spy in Hitler's Inner Circle: Hans-Thilo Schmidt and the Allied Intelligence Network that Decoded Germany's Enigma

by Paul Paillole

Overview

This thrilling account of WWII espionage by the former French secret service chief chronicles an Allied spy’s actions in the German Cipher Office.
 
A spy for the French Secret Service during World War II, Hans-Thilo Schmidt was embedded in the nerve center of the Third Reich. From deep within Hitler’s most sensitive operations, Schmidt created an intelligence network between France, Poland, and England. In The Spy in Hitler’s Inner Circle, France’s former secret service chief, Paul Paillole, offers a revealing chronicle of how Schmidt helped the Allies infiltrate German agencies and crack their encryption system, the Enigma machine.
 
Paillole details how Schmidt delivered intelligence to France right from the source of the German Cipher Office. Revealed here are the most secret aspects of the so-called war of numbers that led to Alan Turing’s historic codebreaking achievement at Bletchley Park. From information about Germany’s rearmament and the reoccupation of the Rhineland to fundamental technical intelligence about the Enigma machine, Schmidt’s contributions were key to the Allied victory in the intelligence war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612003726
Publisher:	Casemate Publishers
Publication date:	01/10/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	772 KB

About the Author

Paul Paillole joined the French army in 1925 and was transferred to the Secret Services in 1935. Although initially reluctant to be desk-bound he rapidly excelled at the job. At the outbreak of the war Paillole was prominent in the active counter-espionage branch, the 5th Bureau. After the defeat of France in 1940 he led a clandestine counter-espionage network which operated from Marseille under the codename ‘Travaux Ruraux’, whose role was to arrest German collaborators, though the reality may have been murkier. Operating at the heart of the Vichy regime, he was a key figure in dealings between the Vichy government, the Germans, the Allies, and the French factions vying for post-war power. He wrote two books, one about his own experiences, and this one about the Hans-Thilo Schmidt affair which he witnessed at first hand. He died in 2002.