TheCodeBreakers
effort in the field. These new agencies were staffed by World War I
veterans who were now rejoining the German Army; most had been
officers in the signal corps but had no great exprience in or aptitude for
intercept or cryptologic work. By mid-193 9, the German
communications-intelligence services had 18 times as many people in
them as they had had in 1932, but useful results had in no way kept
pace.
Six days before Hitler fell upon Poland, Major General Erich Fellgiebel,
52, who had been in communications since he joined a telegraph
battalion upon enlisting in 1905, was named head of the O.K.W.
communications organization. His title was Chef,
Wehrmachtnachrichtenverbindungen
("Chief, Armed Forces Signal Communications"), or Chef W.N.V. His
superior was the O.K.W. chief, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, whose only
superior was Hitler. Keitel wrote in FellgiebeFs fitness reports: "In his
annaabi.ee 
