Initially, all the German naval high command knew of "U-570"s situation was her radio message, saying she was under air-attack and unable to submerge; they only learned of her capture from later British press reports. They were concerned for the security of their communications and "Vizeadmiral" Erhard Maertens, the Director of the Naval Intelligence Command, was ordered to report on this. He concluded that in the worst-case scenario—that is, the British had secured "U-570"s codebooks and Rahmlow had revealed to them his memorised, secret keyword—communications would be compromised until a new list of Enigma machine settings came into force in November. However, he believed this worst case to be unlikely and that "U-570"s crew would have almost certainly destroyed their secret material. Even if they had not, the additional security of the commander's secret keyword would defeat British cryptanalysis.