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1996-01-24 - Re: SS Obergruppenfuhrer Zimmermann (NOT!)

Header Data

From: “Perry E. Metzger” <perry@piermont.com>
To: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Message Hash: 750672fb0808cebba5670e2259dad6a4b2c5d56e9d650f63a5d4fc85cad8e863
Message ID: <199601240336.WAA11471@jekyll.piermont.com>
Reply To: <m0tevYq-0008y2C@pacifier.com>
UTC Datetime: 1996-01-24 05:42:08 UTC
Raw Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 13:42:08 +0800

Raw message

From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 13:42:08 +0800
To: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Subject: Re: SS Obergruppenfuhrer Zimmermann (NOT!)
In-Reply-To: <m0tevYq-0008y2C@pacifier.com>
Message-ID: <199601240336.WAA11471@jekyll.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



jim bell writes:
> Maybe this is common knowledge, but the name "Zimmermann" and crypto had 
> another relationship, in World War I.  If anybody knows more about this 
> incident than my vague recollection of the famous "Zimmermann cipher" would 
> you care to tell the story?

It was the Zimmermann Telegram, actually, and it was a dispatch from
the Germans to the Mexicans trying to promise them most of the
southwest in exchange for being allies against the U.S. (which wasn't
yet in the war). The Brits intercepted and decoded it and released it,
which forced the U.S. into World War I.

Perry

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