TheCodeBreakers
to a colleague, warning that the Germans had the Russian cipher key.
The Russians had captured a German cipher key, and they apparently
assumed that one of theirs had likewise fallen into German hands. A new
key was instituted—and this time the entire set of cipher equivalents was
changed. A curtain of silence descended upon the Eastern Front.
Feverishly, Deubner and Pokorny, who was assisted by Lieutenant
Colonel Heinrich Zemanek and Lieutenant Viktor von Marchesetti,
grappled with the new key as the intercept posts sucked in every scrap of
Russian wireless. The moment could not have been worse. The battle
around Lodz raged at its peak, and just as Ludendorff was about to
consummate his envelopment with his inferior forces but his superior
intelligence, that intelligence was abruptly blanked out. Deprived of his
eyes and ears, he did not know °f the Russian reinforcements that began
to cut off the
annaabi.ee 
