German code breaking in World War II German code breaking in World War II German code breaking in World War II achieved some notable successes cracking British Naval ciphers until well into the fourth year of the war, but also suffered from a problem typical of the German armed forces of the time: numerous branches and institutions maintained their own cryptographic departments, working on their own without collaboration or sharing results with equivalent units. This led to duplicated effort, to a fragmentation of potential, and to lower efficiency than might have been achieved. There was no central German cryptography agency comparable to the British Bletchley Park facility.
The World That Never Was as "intriguing, provocative and written with a novelist’s eye for detail ... an engrossing journey". In "The Guardian", anarchist writer Stuart Christie noted the relevance of the book's themes to contemporary tactics in policing and the Metropolitan Police Service's reluctance to make public files from the 1890s. Francis Wheen, writing in the "Financial Times", wrote that the book was "exhilarating" and questioned whether "the world that never was – one ignoring borders, and divisions of class and religion – [might] resemble the world as it might one day be"; while Peter Preston of "The Observer" described Butterworth's story as one