The Magdeburg Sting 1936

Personal recollections of Lieutenant Jan Kowaleski about the beginning of his code breaking carrier during Polish-bolshevik war of 1919-20.

"One time my friend, Lieutenant Sroka, had to go to the wedding of his sister. For that reason he asked me to replace him in Polish Army headquarters. The work was simple, I had to sort out intercepted soviet radio messages and send it to corresponding destinations. At that time I got a pile of encoded soviet radio messages. One of the radio receivers was operated by an ex-radio operator of Austrian "Abhoerdienst" who was transcribing all intercepted messages. It is difficult to imagine but during that time Polish Army headquarters did not have any decoding facility and encoded messages were accumulating unread. I decided to try my luck and started to decode some messages. The only help was Allan Edgar Poe's novels. I spent the whole night and in the morning I had decoded messages of communications between soviet commanders in Minsk and so called Mozyrska Group, which was filling the gap between soviet Northern Army commanded by gen. Tukhachevski and the Southern Army where the head commissar was J. Stalin. In decoding two things was helping me - the word "division" which in Russian has three "i" and the fact that messages were sometime signed in code and other time in open text.

The next day, a sensation exploded in Polish Army headquarters - someone is able to decode soviet messages! Immediately, I was given responsibility to create decoding unit in Polish General Military Headquarters. I developed the network of eavesdropping radio stations. My luck it was that radio emitters were using a spark gap interruption, and were received over large distances. The network of radio receivers was connected with headquarters by Hughes automatic telegraphs. In my unit I employed professors and assistants of mathematics. This way we worked.

Now, I will tell you about our experience with Budienny's Cavalry which in 1920 broke through front line and started Polish Army retreat. The first sign of appearing of this Cavalry Army in action was encoded message about overtaking of Polish blended train - of which personnel were cut down with sabres by bolsheviks. From then, Budienny was our steady client. He changed codes, conferred his divisions precious stones names - zwiezda bleszczyt (the star is shinning) signified that his Cavalry is pushing forward. Piłsudski recalled: "The presence of soviet Cavalry Army we neglected". He admitted that our information was not used.

The commander of soviet Mozyrska Group, holding the gap between Northern and Southern soviet Armies, was sending alarming message to his superiors that he has to hold a gap constantly increasing in length. The direction for Polish counteroffensive was evident.

Before attack, which started the Monday 16 August 1920 from Wieprz, we had a choice - or to listen to soviet radio messages or to obstruct them by emitting on the same frequency a strong signal. We choose the last alternative. The interruption in soviet radio communications lasted 3 days, from 15 to 16 of August. It was so effective that soviet armies could not communicate. Gen. Tukhachevski's Northern Army was asking help from Southern Army. During that time Stalin was dreaming about bringing the revolution to Hungary and southern Europe. At the end the headquarters of Southern Army realised that Northern Army is in trouble. Budienny's Cavalry went to help gen. Tukhachevski. We knew about his planned movement and near Zamość a trap was set for him. The "bottle cork" was 2nd Division of Polish Legions commanded by gen. Zymierski. We were unhappy that Budienny's "drived through" his division and escaped the trap, but Budienny lost all his supply train and to the end of war was eliminated from action.

After the war, Tukhachevski and his people were blaming leaders of Southern soviet Army with Stalin included. Later, in 1937, Stalin accused Tukhachevski of spying and complotting against Soviet Union and sent him for execution.

I can say, no matter when Budienny will initiate his movement to help Northern soviet Army, we knew about his plans from eavesdropping on his radio communications and were ready to trap him.

Later, I met few times Budienny in Moscow during diplomatic receptions. He probably suspected my role in his defeat, but we applied the rule: "we were fighting then, now we will drink". "

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