German Encryption & Code Systems

[Carl Schwamberger]

Can anyone point to or provide a summary of the variation of the Enigma machines and by who & when they were used, and the other encryption encoding systems as well. Having such a summary or link here would be handy for quick reference.

The question came up this afternoon as I was picking through Macintyres 'Double Cross' book. In several passages he refers to the Brits tracking the effects of their deception ops via Enigma decrypts. That got me wondering what versions the Abwehr, SD, Gestapo & other used, which might have been more vulnerable & other details. Unfortunately the dozen or so books on the shelf here have no coherent description of the many variants of the Enigma machine or how they were used. For detail there is some on the naval use & thats about it.

Thanks to anyone who has the time and ability to answer this.

[paspartoo]

Always happy to help out

The German Army and AF used the 3-rotor Enigma with plugboard since the 1930’s. The Navy used initially the same cipher machine but from late 1941 started to introduce the 4-rotor Enigma with plugboard.

The military intelligence service Abwehr used a small number of Enigma G machines. These were similar to the commercial version in the sense that they lacked a plugboard but had a different stepping system. I think that sometime during the war they introduced the military version. I’m not sure.

The security service Sicherheitsdienst also used some Enigma machines. They obviously had some military versions since those couldn’t be broken by Bletchley Park (TGD key). They used some commercial versions but again I don’t know the full story.

German police Ordnungspolizei received a small number of Enigma machines in 1944.

The German railways organization used a small number of commercial Enigma machines (with rewired rotors).

The book you mentioned probably refers to decrypts from the Abwehr Enigma, called ISK in Bletchley Park.

Here is a page from ‘European Axis signals intelligence’ vol2

[Carl Schwamberger]

The military intelligence service Abwehr used a small number of Enigma G machines. These were similar to the commercial version in the sense that they lacked a plugboard but had a different stepping system. I think that sometime during the war they introduced the military version. I’m not sure.

From other books I've seen remarks that the traffic from the stations using these types of machines were much more vulnerable to decryption. As usual specifics are not given.

The security service Sicherheitsdienst also used some Enigma machines. They obviously had some military versions since those couldn’t be broken by Bletchley Park (TGD key)....

This would explain the attention to finding known text used in encryption with these machines. There are multiple remarks in the literature about verbatim encryption of text already known allowing the key to be recovered for messages that would otherwise be extremely difficult.

German police Ordnungspolizei received a small number of Enigma machines in 1944.

The German railways organization used a small number of commercial Enigma machines (with rewired rotors).

The book you mentioned probably refers to decrypts from the Abwehr Enigma, called ISK in Bletchley Park.

Very likely. The Double cross organization found it could use the radio messages to track the effect of its various operations. They were suprised to find some of the 'spies' messages repeated verbatim in the intelligence reports sent by radio. Both "Abwehr" and the military HQ at "Zossen" are referred to or implied at several points in Mcintyres text as the origin of these messages. Maybe I can make time to check some of the other books here for similar remarks I recall, and to see if their sources are the same as Mcintyre.

Thanks