Abstract: Abstract This article presents the original draft of the Zimmermann telegram from 1917 in facsimile. Its various annotations provide interesting insights, such as the idea to promise California to Japan and instructions concerning transmission and encryption. Further documents clarify how the telegram was sent and put various alternatives suggested in the literature to rest. The political background and fallout in Germany are discussed, as well. Keywords: codebookcryptanalysisFirst World WarRoom 40Zimmermann telegram Acknowledgments The author is grateful for kind permission by the German foreign office to publish the draft telegrams, and to Maria Keipert for her help with obtaining important material from its archive and for correcting several errors. Many thanks for help with transcribing the text, identifying the initiallers, and interpreting the sequence of the initials go to Bernd Mütter and Klaus Saul. Peter Freeman kindly sent me his manuscript, the British 13040 codebook, and interesting insights into German cryptographic procedures. I enjoyed interesting discussions with Joachim von zur Gathen, my father. Jamshid Shokrollahi helped with the photographs, and Claudia Jakob and Martina Kuhnert worked tirelessly on procuring documents and typesetting the text. Reinhard Doerries provided helpful comments. Very special thanks go to David Kahn for encouragement, careful reading, and many useful suggestions, in particular bringing me together with Peter Freeman, who was simultaneously writing his article, and Thomas Boghardt.
Publication Year: 2007
Publication Date: 2007-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 9
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