Military Career
Fellgiebel was born in Pöpelwitz, near Breslau, Silesia. At the age of 18, he joined a signals battalion in the Prussian Army as an officer cadet. During the First World War, he served as a captain on the General Staff. At the war's end, he was assigned to Berlin as a General Staff officer. His service had been exemplary, and in 1928 he was promoted to major.
Fellgiebel was promoted lieutenant colonel in 1933, and became a full colonel the following year. By 1938, he was a major general. That year, he was appointed Chief of the Army's Signal Establishment and Chief of the Wehrmacht's communications liaison to the Supreme Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht). Fellgiebel became General der Nachrichtentruppe (General of the Communications Troops) on 1 August 1940. Adolf Hitler did not fully trust Fellgiebel, considering him too independent-minded, but needed Fellgiebel's expertise.
He was the first to understand the use that the German military could have of an encryption machine called Enigma, and worked to have it adopted by the Wehrmacht.
As head of Hitler's Signal services, Fellgiebel knew every military secret, including Wernher von Braun's rocketry work at Peenemünde.
Read more about this topic: Erich Fellgiebel
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