Background
Fetterlein was born in Street St. Petersburg, the son of Karl Fedorovich Fetterlein, a German-language tutor, and Olga Fetterlein, née Meier.
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Ernst Fetterlein
Edit ProfileEducation
He studied a variety of eastern languages at the University of Street St. Petersburg, graduating in 1894.
Career
On 25 November 1896 he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He eventually became the chief cryptologist for the Tsar of Russia, holding the rank of "General-Admiral," an honorary title in Tsarist Russia. During World War I, he was known for a time as Ernst Popov as his German-derived name could have drawn unwanted attention.
Amongst others, he solved German, Austrian and British codes.
He contacted the British and French intelligence organisations, offering to work for whoever would pay him the most, which was apparently the British, as he was recruited to Room 40 in June 1918 to work on Georgian, Austrian and Bolshevik codes. After the end of World War I, he worked for the successor to Room 40, the Government Code and Cypher School (Government College&CS), becoming a senior assistant on 17 December 1919.
During this time he worked on Soviet Communist traffic. He was thought well of by his colleagues, one of whom wrote, "He was a brilliant cryptographer.
On book cipher and anything else where insight was vital he was quite the best.
He was a fine linguist and would usually get an answer no matter the language." He retired in 1938. Fetterlein came out of retirement during World World War II to assist Government College&CS"s diplomatic section at Berkeley Street. He worked on "Floradora", a German diplomatic code.
