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Codebooks Enigma
Doppelbuchstabentauschtafeln fur Kenngruppen
- wanted item
During WWII, the German Kriegsmarine (Navy) used a variety of
codebooks
in combination with the Enigma M3
and later the Enigma M4 machine.
The German Naval message procedures were extremely complex and caused the
code breakers at Bletchley Park many headaches,
especially after the introduction of the M4.
Below is an example of a real German naval bigram table.
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When encrypting a naval message on the Enigma cipher machine,
the message was first converted into a much shorter one, using a series
of so-called short message books. The operator then had to pick a
message key for its encryption, as described in the Naval Procedure of 1940
[B].
This involved the use of a wide variety of code material, including
Schlüsseltafel M Allgemein, Zuteilungsliste, Tauschtafelplan,
Kenngruppenbuch
and the Doppelbuchstabentauschtafeln (bigram table) shown here.
More information about this procedure on our
Enigma M4 page.
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The codebooks of the U-Boot department of the German Kriegsmarine were
printed with red water-soluble ink on pale red paper. They could be wiped
simply by throwing them into the water.
A warning to this effect is printed on top of the page that is shown
in the image above:
Vorsicht! Wasserlöslicher Druck!
which means: Careful! Water soluble print!. The slightest trace of water
immediately caused the ink to start bleeding.
When left behind in a sinking U-Boot, the codebooks would wipe themselves
automatically, which is why it was so hard to capture them during World War II.
The bigram tables and associated documents shown here,
are from the collections of Arthur Bauer [1] and Glen Miranker [3].
Many thanks for allowing us to make some photographs
and high-resolution scans of it [A].
The exact keying procedure that was used by the German Kriegsmarine
is described in great detail by Belgian historian
Dirk Rijmenants on his
website [2].
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Document kindly provided by Arthur Bauer and scanned by Crypto Museum [1].
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Document kindly provided by Manfred Kienzle.
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Document kindly provided by Glen Miranker and scanned by Crypto Museum [3].
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Friday 19 September 2008. Last changed: Monday, 12 February 2024 - 14:39 CET.
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