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The Third Reich Is Listening

Inside German Codebreaking 1939-45

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The Third Reich Is Listening

By: Christian Jennings
Narrated by: Simon Shepherd
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About this listen

The codebreakers at Bletchley Park have been immortalised in films such as The Imitation Game and Enigma, but the Germans were also breaking Allied ciphers. The Third Reich Is Listening is the comprehensive account of the successes, failures and science of Germany's codebreaking and signals intelligence operations from 1935 to 1945.

This fast-moving blend of modern history and popular science is told through colourful personal accounts of the Germans at the heart of the story, including a former astronomer who worked out the British order of battle in 1940, a U-boat commander on the front line of the Battle of the Atlantic and the woman from the foreign ministry decrypting Japanese and Italian signals.

It investigates how and why a regime as technologically advanced as the Third Reich both succeeded and failed in its battle to break their enemy's codes and to use the resultant intelligence effectively, and why they failed to recognise the fact that the Allies had cracked the enigma code.

©2018 Christian Jennings (P)2018 Audible, Ltd Europe Germany Military War U-Boat Submarine Imperialism Royalty Middle Ages United Kingdom Air Force Interwar Period

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All stars
Most relevant
I enjoyed it, well read and a great topic. some of the acronyms got a bit much but ok apart from that

A bit heavy in places

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very detailed and really interesting to know that germany were actually far more technologically advanced within code breaking. if you like the stories of the war you will enjoy hearing it from a german perspective

interesting having an opposite view point

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A fascinating story if that's your thing, but it almost seems like they uploaded a draft copy of the audio by accident. Words are repeated and mispronounced, and at one point mid sentence the narrator audibly sighs and then starts over again. Long story short: Good book, bad editing.

Good book, bad editing.

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Rather broader than the title suggests, with an excellent introduction and comprehensive view. I learnt a very great deal about Axis efforts and allied failures. I strongly recommend this for anyone interested in the subject or even just the second world war in Europe.

There are two small niggles in an otherwise brilliant book. The narrators describes printed tables etc that needs a PDF to accompany the book, this is a significant issue. The narrator has not been taught/learnt how to pronounce a number of names, appreviations etc. Examples are reading U-Boat type VIIA as type Vee Eye Eye Aay, rather than Type Seven A. Also the German Battlecruiser KMS Gneisenau with a hard G like gnu, rather than a soft G like gnat.

Excellent, needs a companion PDF

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very well read but some reading errors were not spotted and made it into the production

Interesting but quite technical

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