Wilhelm Fenner

Wilhelm Fenner (* 14 April 1891 in Saint Petersburg † after 1946) was a German cryptanalyst, before and during the time of World War II in the OKW/Chi, the Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, working within the main cryptanalysis group, and entrusted with deciphering enemy message traffic (Cryptography). Wilhelm Fenner was considered an excellent organizer, an anti-Nazi, an anti-Bolshevik and a confirmed Protestant and was known by colleagues as someone who was keen to continue working in cryptology after World War II. To quote military historian David Alvarez: Wilhelm Fenner was the central figure in the evolution of the German Cipher Bureau between 1922 and 1939, and a major personality in the history of German communications intelligence in the interwar period. Under his direction, the Cipher Bureau evolved into a highly professional communications intelligence service, which scored impressive cryptanalytic successes against the diplomatic and military systems of many countries. Wilhelm was born on 14 April 1891 in Saint Petersburg. He was the sixth of seven children of Heinrich Gottlieb Fenner and Charlotte Georgine Fenner, born Michaelsen. His father was the chief editor of the St. Petersburgische Zeitung, a German language daily newspaper published in Saint Petersburg, then the capital of the Russian Empire. The sixth of seven children, he was home schooled for two years before he attended the Evangelical Lutheran Anne School in St. Petersburg from 1899, and completed his final examination with distinction in May 1909. In the autumn of 1910 he matriculated at the Royal Institute of Technology in Berlin (TH) in Berlin-Charlottenburg and studied construction engineering, chemistry and metallurgy. In the summer of 1914, he passed his final examination. Wilhelm Fenner was married on 11 January 1922 to Elise Sophie Katharine von Blanckensee, a daughter of the former Prussian Major General Peter von Blanckensee.