KARMASIN, FRANZ (1901–1970). A German nationalist leader in
Slovakia and later spy for Hungary, Franz Karmasin was born in
Olmütz (now Olomouc, Czech Republic) on 2 September 1901. One
of the founding members of the Karpatendeutsche Partei, he served
in the Czechoslovakian parliament from 1935 to 1938. Following
the German invasion and the establishment of a separatist Slovakian
government, President Jozef Tiso appointed Karmasin state secretary
for German affairs. In 1947, however, he was tried in absentia by the
Czechoslovakian government for his wartime activities and sentenced
to death. Fleeing via Austria, Karmasin resettled in the Federal Re-
public of Germany under the alias Franz Dibak and took a prominent
role in the activities of the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft, while
at the same time working as an agent for Hungarian intelligence. He
died on 25 June 1970 at Steinebach am Wörthersee (Bavaria).
KASISKI, FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1805–1881). A former Prus-
sian army officer responsible for a major cryptographic break-
through, Friedrich Wilhelm Kasiski was born in Schlochau (now
Czluchow, Poland) on 29 November 1805. After retiring from active
duty in February 1852, he published his slender but famous work
Die Geheimschriften und die Dechiffrierkunst (Secret Writing and
the Art of Deciphering), 11 years later. The book contains a proce-
dure for breaking polyalphabetic substitution ciphers, especially the
hitherto impregnable Vigenère cipher, by analyzing the gaps between
repeated fragments in the cipher text. The “Kasiski test” proved a
milestone in the art of codebreaking. A contemporary of Kasiski,
Charles Babbage, appears to have discovered a similar method but
never made his results public. Kasiski died on 22 May 1881 in Neus-
tettin (now Szczecinek, Poland), seemingly unaware of the contribu-
tion he had made.
KASTNER, HERMANN (1886–1957). A prominent East German
politician who spied for the Organisation Gehlen, Hermann Kastner
was born in Berlin on 25 October 1886. A professor of constitutional
and administrative law and a member of the Saxon provincial as-
sembly prior to 1933, he maintained contact with resistance circles
during the Third Reich and was arrested several times by the Ge-
stapo. His political career resumed after the war as head of the newly
KASTNER, HERMANN • 223