What are some secret codes the Germans used in World War II?

Question: What are some secret codes the Germans used in World War II!?
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

Not sure, but I know they had an encoding machine called the "Enigma", that was super top secret!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Chapter I: 1926-1939
Two words describe the German WWII fighting machine successes: organization, and communication!. Their lightning "blitzkrieg," which allowed them to roll over Europe almost unopposed, was a well-coordinated operation employing panzers (tanks) and Stukas (dive bombers)!. At sea, their efforts were aimed at cutting England's supply line from North America by well-directed submarine "wolf pack" attacks on convoys!. For communications, the Germans relied almost entirely on messages sent by radio!. These messages could be heard, of course, by anyone equipped with receiver!.

To ensure that the enemy would not intercept vital information, they used an electro-mechanical device called Enigma to encode the data!. They believed that even if the enemy were to capture a machine, it would be useless unless both sender and receiver were also in possession of the same "key" which described how the message was encoded!. The Poles proved them wrong!.

The Germans used different radio frequencies and keys for messages sent to their various units!. This ensured that messages meant for the Luftwaffe (Air Force) were not readable by the Kriegsmarine (Navy)!. By assigning different keys to different units, communication could be directed to the appropriate unit!. Not only would there be no point in a submarine decoding a message meant for a panzer unit, but some ultra-secret messages (for example to the SS) were confidential!.

What Went Wrong!?

Enigma codes could have been unbreakable, at least with the methods available at the time, had the machine been used properly!. The biggest mistake the Germans made was their blind belief in the invincibility of Enigma!. Procedural errors in using the machine, combined with occasional operator laziness, allowed the Poles and, subsequently the British, to crack the "unbreakable" codes!.

In addition to the general key, a "message key", unique to each message, was part of the transmission!. Each army unit had two enigma operators, one to work the machine, the other to write down the lit-up letters on the lampboard!. Often these men were not properly trained in the use of the machine!. They were allowed to pick their own message keys, at times making some very poor choices!.

The navy had better safeguards; only officers were allowed to set up the machines!. The message keys were specified and carefully chosen to minimize the possibility that they could be deduced by the code breakers!. The code lists were printed with water-soluble inks and kept under lock and key at all times!. The navy's extra precautions were effective; the Allies were unable to crack the naval codes until two years after they had broken the army's!.

Communication

To send information from one place to another some form of communication system is necessary, whether it be by voice, waving flags, firing guns, over telegraph wires, or by radio!. As early as 170 B!.C!. Polybius described a system using a number of torches placed in various positions to represent letters of the alphabet!.

There are three reasons to use codes for message transmission: 1) to make transmission more efficient; 2) in case the transmission medium cannot carry voice (the telegraph can only transmit dots and dashes); and 3) to hide the meaning of the message from prying eyes!. An example of the first is a scheme to save toll charges on international telegrams (which are charged by the word) by having a single word represent a whole sentence!.

There are two methods of preparing a message for transmission: 1) Coding, in which words or phrases are represented by symbols, and 2) Encipherment, in which letters in a plain text message are represented by other letters or characters according to some scheme!. In Superencipherment, the message is first coded and then enciphered, making it doubly hard to crack!. Cryptology is the two-part science of Cryptography, encoding; and Cryptanalysis, the breaking of codes!.

Codes

A code relies on a list or book of phrases and words, which might be:

0001 alert
0002 all gone
0003 ammunition
0004 antitank
0005 attack
0005 attention

Thus, "antitank ammunition all gone" would appear as 0004 0003 0002!. Solutions to this type of message are greatly complicated if the code groups are not arranged alphabetically, of course!. This type of system was used extensively by both sides during WWI!. The code was compromised if the codebook was captured!. In fact, this is precisely what happened when in 1914 the German warship Magdeburg went aground in the Baltic!. Due to a series of errors, the Russians were able to recover the codebook and the Imperial German Naval code was an open book!. Worse yet, the Germans did not know (or chose not to believe) that their code was no longer secure!.

Another method involved printing a number of "one time pads!." Each page had an abbreviated code printed on it!. After each use, one page was torn off and discarded!. The Germans soon realized that the size of their forthcoming military operation precluded printing up the number of pads that would have been required!.

Ciphers

The simplest of all ciphers uses mono-alphabetic substitution!. The alphabet is written out, and under it, a second alphabet consisting of all the letters at random:

a b c d e f g h !.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!. z
ZRNFTQMA !.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.!.

In this example, the word "face" is encoded as QZNT!. The recipient refers to his copy of the cipher to turn the message back into plain text!. Note that with this scheme, "face" will always be encoded as QZNT!.

Mechanical Ciphering Machines
Mechanical ciphering rings and rotating cylinders have been with us since antiquity!. L!. B!. Alberti described a cipher disk in the 15th century A!.D!. Thomas Jefferson invented a ciphering device consisting of a number of rings on a common shaft!. All of these were purely mechanical!. The first electro-mechanical rotor device was invented almost simultaneously by three men!. Edward Hugh Hebern, in the United States, was the first, coming up with a machine in 1918 which was used by the U!.S!. in World War II!. In 1919 Hugo Alexander Kock in the Netherlands invented another version, assigning his rights in 1927 to Arthur Scherbius, whose improved model was the basis for the German Enigma!. also in 1919 Arvid Gerhard Damm in Sweden came up with his own machine!. Boris Caesar Wilhelm Hagelin bought Damm's company, and continues to produce improved rotor machines in Switzerland!.
The Machine
In 1918 Arthur Scherbius patented a ciphering device which allowed businesses to communicate confidential documents without having to resort to clumsy and slow codebooks!. His invention consisted of a number of rotors turning on a common axis!. The rotors had the numbers 1 to 26 marked on their edges, which were visible through the front panel of the machine!. Thumbwheels connected to each rotor protruded above the panel!. The operator could set a "starting position" for each rotor by means of the thumbwheels!.

Each rotor was equipped with 26 electrical contacts (one for each letter of the alphabet) on each side!. The contacts on one side were randomly connected by wires to the contacts on the other side!. An electrical current obtained by pressing a key on a typewriter-like keyboard entered the first rotor on one side, and exited on the other side at the terminal determined by the cross-wiring!. Which output terminal was energized depended on both the position of the rotor and its cross-wiring!.

If the rotor did not turn, each of the 26 input letters would always have the same encode, determined by the rotor wiring!. In the Scherbius machine, however, the first rotor turned 1/26 of a revolution each time a letter key was pressed!. Thus, inputting the letter "a" might be encoded as any one of the 26 letters, depending on the rotor wiring and starting position!. Typing in a text consisting of nothing but the letter "a" would result in a string of 26 garbled letters, until the rotor returned to the starting position, when the string of garbled letters repeated exactly!. But the Scherbius machine had more than one rotor, all connected mechanically like the odometer on an automobile!. Transposition with one rotor repeated after 26 letters!. With two rotors it occurred after 26 x 26 = 676 letters, with three 26 x 26 x 26 = 17,576!. Note that unlike the mono-alphabetic scheme, this is a poly-alphabetic system, using a different encoding alphabet each time a key is pressed!.

Scherbius' machine was not a commercial success, and in 1918 he offered it to the German Navy, suggesting a seven rotor device (6 billion combinations) or one with thirteen rotors (100 trillion possibilities)!. Scherbius calculated that even if an enemy possessed 8-rotor machines and messages in both plaintext and cipher, it would require 1,000 operators working 24 hours a day 14!.5 years to find the key!.

The military at first rejected Scherbius' machine!. He and his associates continued to improve the device!.

Birth of Enigma

The rotors were modified so they could be removed from the machine!. This meant that the rotors (each with different cross-wiring) could be placed in the machine in a different order!. Another modification was made to the rotors!. A rotatable ring which could be locked into any one of 26 positions was attached to each rotor, marked with the numbers 1 to 26 that had previously been on the rotors!. (In the naval model of Enigma, letters were substituted for numbers)!. The operator referred to a table on the inside of the lid to translate letters into numbers, for example J=10)!. Instead of an indicator letter representing a particular position of the rotor, the two were no longer related, and the position of the alphabet ring on the rotor had to be known to the decipherer!. The notches that caused the next rotor to move ahead one step were moved from the roWww@QuestionHome@Com