170-775: The Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht ( German : Amtsgruppe Wehrmachtnachrichtenverbindungen, Abteilung Chiffrierwesen ) (also Oberkommando der Wehrmacht Chiffrierabteilung or Chiffrierabteilung of the High Command of the Wehrmacht or Chiffrierabteilung of the OKW or OKW/Chi or Chi ) was the Signal Intelligence Agency of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces of
340-428: A Verlässliche Nachricht . Therefore, if an item seemed important enough to be issued as a VN and if it was translated correctly it was issued as a VN. Each VN bore in the heading the designation OKW/Chi and VN, also an indicator whether sent by radio or cable. Then a note of nationality since language alone was not enough. Egypt, for instance, employed a French code. Furthermore, each VN had to contain data which made it
510-465: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it
680-402: A second language , and 75–100 million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90 million people, or 16% of
850-612: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become
1020-562: A bona fide document; Date of message, and if present, the Journal number, or issuing office. Finally, each VN had in the lower-left corner a Distribution mark, e.g. Abw. 4 x. . This meant that a total of four copies had been supplied to the Abwehr . This mark remained long after Chi ceased to be a part of the Abwehr, even when other offices were supplied copies. No exact list of recipients was on
1190-655: A conservation area. Bletchley Park Trust was set up in 1991 by a group of people who recognised the site's importance. The initial trustees included Roger Bristow, Ted Enever, Peter Wescombe , Dr Peter Jarvis of the Bletchley Archaeological & Historical Society, and Tony Sale who in 1994 became the first director of the Bletchley Park Museums. Admiral Hugh Sinclair was the founder and head of GC&CS between 1919 and 1938 with Commander Alastair Denniston being operational head of
1360-401: A different section. This process was separate from diplomatic intercepts, and involved evaluation of Call signs , the attempt to find some periodicity in the scheduling of call-signs and wavelengths; with preliminary evaluation, updates to the card index registry, the actual evaluation of the message and final evaluation resulting in an appropriate report. Good translation was the task that had
1530-559: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from
1700-413: A house there. The estate of 581 acres (235 ha) was bought in 1883 by Sir Herbert Samuel Leon , who expanded the then-existing house into what architect Landis Gores called a "maudlin and monstrous pile" combining Victorian Gothic , Tudor , and Dutch Baroque styles. At his Christmas family gatherings there was a fox hunting meet on Boxing Day with glasses of sloe gin from the butler, and
1870-506: A lack of paper meant the available supply became worse and worse as the war progressed. Not until 1944 did Fenner obtain permission to use Wachsplatten , a device created to print multiple copies. As soon as the copies were made they were sent to Leutnant Kalckstein who was changed with all further details. He kept the one copy which ultimately went to the Archive. These copies were inserted in binders, ordered chronologically and delivered to
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#17327978571382040-614: A limited scale. On 13 April 1945, Chi partially dissolved when Colonel Hugo Kettler dismissed all staff who wanted to go home. All remaining personnel of Chi again moved on 14 April by military train to Werfen station in Austria . It ceased to exist the next day. All papers and machinery were destroyed by burning in anticipation of the American forces, the American Ninth Army arriving in the next few days. All burnt material
2210-857: A long time, the British Government failed to acknowledge the contributions the personnel at Bletchley Park had made. Their work achieved official recognition only in 2009. Properly used, the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers should have been virtually unbreakable, but flaws in German cryptographic procedures, and poor discipline among the personnel carrying them out, created vulnerabilities that made Bletchley's attacks just barely feasible. These vulnerabilities, however, could have been remedied by relatively simple improvements in enemy procedures, and such changes would certainly have been implemented had Germany had any hint of Bletchley's success. Thus
2380-529: A mathematician of some distinction, and his assistant, he was also moved to England to be interrogated by TICOM after the war. Walter Fricke was then considered the official historian of OKW/Chi. Colonel Hugo Kettler was an administrator who had commanded OKW/Chi from October 1943. His intimate knowledge of the working of OKW/Chi, enabled him to provide information to TICOM that the OKW/Chi archive papers had been moved to Schliersee . Lieutenant Colonel Metting
2550-458: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained
2720-530: A number of sections: Air Section "3A", Military Section "3M", a small Naval Section "3N", a multi-service Research Section "3G" and a large liaison section "3L". It also housed the Traffic Analysis Section, SIXTA. An important function that allowed the synthesis of raw messages into valuable Military intelligence was the indexing and cross-referencing of information in a number of different filing systems. Intelligence reports were sent out to
2890-451: A particular VN, as were even less significant items, it was usually due to the cryptanalyst attributing some additional significance, perhaps from personal information, that the eventual end reader of the VN, in the High Command did not know, as they were less informed, and ultimately less prepared. The question: What was the most important information? was, of course, never correctly answered, as
3060-550: A particular agency had influential Nazi party members in their leadership. The Army had close ties with OKW/Chi but other classifications, for example, the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe proved more difficult to control and were never subordinate to OKW. Agreement was needed to ensure common process, control and cipher machinery. The Waffen-SS was considered a third classification. OKW had no control over it and special orders had to be issued to enable liaison to start. OKW/Chi
3230-696: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In
3400-453: A question mark. However, in the view of the multitude of newly appearing technical terms ( German : Fachausdrücke ) with one or another, may not have been correctly rendered. The deciding factor was always the grammatical sense and word structure of the VN, and any attempt at free elaboration of an incomplete reliable report was strictly forbidden. Personal remarks made on the VN were also strictly forbidden, otherwise it would have ceased to be
3570-483: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it
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#17327978571383740-908: A section named the Newmanry after its head Max Newman . Bletchley's work was essential to defeating the U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic , and to the British naval victories in the Battle of Cape Matapan and the Battle of North Cape . In 1941, Ultra exerted a powerful effect on the North African desert campaign against German forces under General Erwin Rommel . General Sir Claude Auchinleck wrote that were it not for Ultra, "Rommel would have certainly got through to Cairo". While not changing
3910-439: A service agency, but instead set policy and became the primary jurisdiction for all work done on cipher development, message decryption and associated machinery design and construction. The organisation changed significantly, with new commanding officers, more focus for Chi IV function and increased staffing levels. OKW/Chi classified the manner of how they would work with other agencies. How they were classified depended on whether
4080-557: A similar type, the inherent independence of agencies, and agencies vying for power and favour from Hitler, it was inevitable that the three military branches of German forces operated independently. In total eight organizations operated within the forces, each operating on its own terms, even though OKW/Chi was considered the premier organization controlling both cipher creation and decipherment of enemy crypts. These eight bureaus which practiced cryptology were split between military and civilian control: Although OKW/Chi continually pushed for
4250-551: A systematic study of the code. Fenner stated that he did not think any clever cryptanalyst was allowed to work on more than two plain codes unless solution had reached a point where only decoding was involved. When messages were decoded the selection began. The practiced cryptanalyst can quickly determine whether a message contains a political or political, military-political news, administrative messages or those messages with content that could be used to provide intelligence. So called Passport messages, i.e. those messages sent to confirm
4420-619: A teacher-training college and local GPO headquarters. By 1990 the huts in which the codebreakers worked were being considered for demolition and redevelopment. The Bletchley Park Trust was formed in February 1992 to save large portions of the site from development. More recently, Bletchley Park has been open to the public, featuring interpretive exhibits and huts that have been rebuilt to appear as they did during their wartime operations. It receives hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. The separate National Museum of Computing , which includes
4590-620: A translator who worked mainly for the Italian air forces Section, and Cicely Mayhew , recruited straight from university, who worked in Hut 8, translating decoded German Navy signals, as did Jane Fawcett (née Hughes) who decrypted a vital message concerning the German battleship Bismarck and after the war became an opera singer and buildings conservationist. Alan Brooke (CIGS) in his secret wartime diary frequently refers to “intercepts”: For
4760-595: A working replica Bombe machine and a rebuilt Colossus computer , is housed in Block H on the site. The site appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as part of the Manor of Eaton . Browne Willis built a mansion there in 1711, but after Thomas Harrison purchased the property in 1793 this was pulled down. It was first known as Bletchley Park after its purchase by the architect Samuel Lipscomb Seckham in 1877, who built
4930-662: Is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and
5100-601: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as
5270-612: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German
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5440-558: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic
5610-478: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German
5780-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25 million speak it as
5950-535: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in
6120-611: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as
6290-565: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are
6460-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and
6630-597: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as
6800-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German
6970-525: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c. 1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period
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7140-578: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish
7310-433: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers
7480-689: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to
7650-639: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as
7820-557: The Chef der Heeresarchive , located in 8 Hans von Seeckt Strasse, Potsdam , whenever it was assumed that Chi no longer had an active interest in them. All VNs up to about 1930 were delivered there. Before distribution, the most important passages in the messages were underscored by Kalckstein and his assistants. Fenner objected to this predigestion owing to the danger that the reader would scan these valuable documents just as fleetingly as he did others. They maintained that VNs should only reach
7990-537: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share
8160-531: The Enigma cipher machine, but an important minority were produced by the even more complicated twelve-rotor Lorenz SZ42 on-line teleprinter cipher machine used for high command messages, known as Fish . Five weeks before the outbreak of war, Warsaw's Cipher Bureau revealed its achievements in breaking Enigma to astonished French and British personnel. The British used the Poles' information and techniques, and
8330-533: The Enigma clone sent to them in August 1939, which greatly increased their (previously very limited) success in decrypting Enigma messages. The bombe was an electromechanical device whose function was to discover some of the daily settings of the Enigma machines on the various German military networks . Its pioneering design was developed by Alan Turing (with an important contribution from Gordon Welchman) and
8500-417: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language
8670-486: The German Armed Forces before and during World War II . OKW /Chi, within the formal order of battle hierarchy OKW/WFsT/Ag WNV/Chi, dealt with the cryptanalysis and deciphering of enemy and neutral states' message traffic and security control of its own key processes and machinery, such as the rotor cipher ENIGMA machine . It was the successor to the former Chi bureau ( German : Chiffrierstelle ) of
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#17327978571388840-522: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout
9010-746: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in
9180-666: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c. 765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in
9350-606: The Reichswehr Ministry . The name "Chi" for the Chiffrierabteilung ("cipher department") is, contrary to what one might expect, not in reference to the Greek letter Chi, nor anything to do with the chi-squared test , a common cryptographic test used as part of deciphering of enciphered message, and invented by Solomon Kullback , but simply the first three letters of the word Chiffrierabteilung. From
9520-631: The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6 ), bought the mansion and 58 acres (23 ha) of land for £6,000 (£484,000 today) for use by GC&CS and SIS in the event of war. He used his own money as the Government said they did not have the budget to do so. A key advantage seen by Sinclair and his colleagues (inspecting the site under the cover of "Captain Ridley's shooting party") was Bletchley's geographical centrality. It
9690-688: The Spanish Civil War the Italian Navy used the K model of the commercial Enigma without a plugboard; this was solved by Knox in 1937. When Italy entered the war in 1940 an improved version of the machine was used, though little traffic was sent by it and there were "wholesale changes" in Italian codes and cyphers. Knox was given a new section for work on Enigma variations, which he staffed with women ("Dilly's girls"), who included Margaret Rock , Jean Perrin, Clare Harding, Rachel Ronald, Elisabeth Granger; and Mavis Lever . Mavis Lever solved
9860-427: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung
10030-422: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit. ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this
10200-470: The US National Archives for viewing. A Combined British and American team combed the VNs for Intelligence after the war and it was known that Churchill read a number. All traffic intercepts were written out as a telegram card and sorted in the telegram registry. The telegram registry was a very large card index system that was designed to be as comprehensive as possible. The telegram was assigned various property values which uniquely defined it. The telegram
10370-400: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German
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#173279785713810540-408: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from
10710-501: The "Golf, Cheese and Chess Society". Among those who worked there and later became famous in other fields were historian Asa Briggs , politician Roy Jenkins and novelist Angus Wilson . During a morale-boosting visit on 9 September 1941, Winston Churchill reportedly remarked to Denniston or Menzies: "I told you to leave no stone unturned to get staff, but I had no idea you had taken me so literally." Six weeks later, having failed to get sufficient typing and unskilled staff to achieve
10880-457: The 1930s. They were more interested in diplomatic communications than foreign military communications, which were in short supply, and viewed the diplomatic communications as a way to train staff during peacetime. With the rise of the Nazis , the unit grew from 10 people in 1937 to almost 200 people by the outbreak of World War II in 1939. By the end of the war, it had almost 800 individuals working there, and its focus had changed to strategy. It
11050-444: The Army when World War I started, eventually joining the Tenth Army , serving as an intelligence officer. After the war, Fenner met Professor Peter Novopaschenny , a former Tsarist cryptanalyst who taught Fenner the Black Arts of Cryptography , and who went on to become Chief of the Russian subsection of OKW/Chi. They both joined the Cipher Bureau in autumn 1922, initially working in temporary positions. The following year, Fenner
11220-407: The Bletchley Park Trust. A spokesman for the Trust noted the film's existence was all the more incredible because it was "very, very rare even to have [still] photographs" of the park and its associated sites. The first personnel of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) moved to Bletchley Park on 15 August 1939. The Naval, Military, and Air Sections were on the ground floor of
11390-614: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In
11560-414: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of
11730-412: The German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. The GC&CS team of codebreakers included John Tiltman , Dilwyn Knox , Alan Turing , Harry Golombek , Gordon Welchman , Hugh Alexander , Donald Michie , Bill Tutte and Stuart Milner-Barry . According to the official historian of British Intelligence , the " Ultra " intelligence produced at Bletchley shortened the war by two to four years, and without it
11900-417: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of
12070-399: The German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of
12240-681: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by
12410-673: The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), moving to Eastcote in 1946 and to Cheltenham in the 1950s. The site was used by various government agencies, including the GPO and the Civil Aviation Authority . One large building, block F, was demolished in 1987 by which time the site was being run down with tenants leaving. In 1990 the site was at risk of being sold for housing development. However, Milton Keynes Council made it into
12580-655: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are
12750-865: The Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ), the Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German
12920-461: The Italian section for advice, and he suggested asking Lord Lindsay of Birker , of Balliol College, Oxford , S. W. Grose, and Martin Charlesworth , of St John's College, Cambridge , to recommend classical scholars or applicants to their colleges. This eclectic staff of " Boffins and Debs " (scientists and debutantes, young women of high society) caused GC&CS to be whimsically dubbed
13090-518: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c. thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c. 1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy
13260-528: The Naval Section. The female staff in Dilwyn Knox's section were sometimes termed "Dilly's Fillies". Knox's methods enabled Mavis Lever (who married mathematician and fellow code-breaker Keith Batey ) and Margaret Rock to solve a German code, the Abwehr cipher. Many of the women had backgrounds in languages, particularly French, German and Italian. Among them were Rozanne Colchester ,
13430-672: The Secret Intelligence Service, the intelligence chiefs in the relevant ministries, and later on to high-level commanders in the field. Naval Enigma deciphering was in Hut ;8 , with translation in Hut 4 . Verbatim translations were sent to the Naval Intelligence Division (NID) of the Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre (OIC), supplemented by information from indexes as to
13600-483: The armed forces were free to submit their system for testing, but were under no obligation to do so. In October 1943, OKW/Chi gained control for cipher development across all military agencies by an order of Field Marshall Keitel, Chief of Staff of the Supreme Command Armed Forces (OKW). The organisation and mission of OKW/Chi changed significantly in the summer of 1944, principally centered on
13770-483: The attempted assassination of Hitler . Whereas OKW/Chi had supposed jurisdiction over all cipher agencies within the Armed Forces, after Summer 1944, Director Wilhelm Fenner persuaded Generalleutnant Albert Praun , General of the Communications Troops of the need to centralise all results and efforts within OKW/Chi, and to issue an order to that effect. After the order, OKW/Chi no longer acted like
13940-618: The beginning of 1945, Chi had begun to disintegrate. Increasing bombing and difficult working conditions in Berlin forced Chi to transfer to Army Signal School ( German : Heeresnachrichtenschule ) (LNS) Halle (Saale) in Halle on 13 February 1945, with the cryptanalytic machinery left lying in the cellar of the Haus des Fremdenverkehrs , Potsdamer Straße, in Berlin. Message decryption continued on
14110-489: The breaking of the cipher, leading to some gains early in the war. Although the Germans worked to ensure its cryptologic services were effective at the outbreak of the war, the service offerings fragmented considerably among the German armed forces. OKW/Chi had jurisdiction over all the military cryptologic bureaus, chairing the executive committee. However, for several reasons, including specialisation against opposing forces of
14280-410: The building of additional accommodation. Often a hut's number became so strongly associated with the work performed inside that even when the work was moved to another building it was still referred to by the original "Hut" designation. In addition to the wooden huts, there were a number of brick-built "blocks". Most German messages decrypted at Bletchley were produced by one or another version of
14450-469: The consequences of publication of a VN. When Ambassador Walter Page published the Zimmermann Telegram after World War I , the unit used this to prove how important exact decipherment is and how important it was that every cryptographic system was to be tested before being put into use. Friction in day-to-day activities occurred between Fenner and other personnel and military agencies, and
14620-401: The copy which remained in the section, and was only understood by the section anyway. A VN was not considered genuine without all these identity indicators. On many VNs, the initials of the responsible worker was written, and sometimes Fenner added his own initials that were added later, since it was impossible to read all VNs. VNs were reproduced using a typewriter and using Carbon paper , and
14790-718: The cryptanalysts in the Testery (named after Ralph Tester , its head) worked out the logical structure of the machine despite not knowing its physical form. They devised automatic machinery to help with decryption, which culminated in Colossus , the world's first programmable digital electronic computer. This was designed and built by Tommy Flowers and his team at the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill . The prototype first worked in December 1943,
14960-458: The daily naval Enigma key. Initially, a wireless room was established at Bletchley Park. It was set up in the mansion's water tower under the code name "Station X", a term now sometimes applied to the codebreaking efforts at Bletchley as a whole. The "X" is the Roman numeral "ten", this being the Secret Intelligence Service's tenth such station. Due to the long radio aerials stretching from
15130-474: The day after war was declared, along with John Jeffreys . Later-recruited cryptanalysts included the mathematicians Derek Taunt , Jack Good , Bill Tutte , and Max Newman ; historian Harry Hinsley , and chess champions Hugh Alexander and Stuart Milner-Barry . Joan Clarke was one of the few women employed at Bletchley as a full-fledged cryptanalyst. When seeking to recruit more suitably advanced linguists, John Tiltman turned to Patrick Wilkinson of
15300-513: The deadline. As Dr Hüttenhain stated: OKW/Chi managed to keep up a continuous stream of VNs even when conditions started to become intolerable, primarily due to the continual bombing. OKW/Chi had been bombed out of its regular headquarters in the Tirpltzufer section in Berlin by November 1943, close to the Abwehr headquarters. From that point it was moved to temporary buildings which were unheated and sometimes without doors and windows. During
15470-482: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with
15640-456: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in
15810-472: The direct opponent of OKW/Chi, which had almost 12,000 personnel working at the end of the war. It had a singular focus on cryptanalysis services and an integrated strategy across all the services from the start of the war. OKW/Chi was one of the primary targets of TICOM , the operation by the United States to seize military assets after the war. This article consists in part of material from those reports (See: Notes ). The most important individual at OKW/Chi
15980-634: The early 1930s to the start of the war, Germany had a good understanding of, and indeed a lead in, both cryptoanalytic and cryptographic cryptology services. The various agencies had cracked the French–English inter-allied cipher, the Germans with some help from the Italian Communications Intelligence Organization stole American diplomatic codes, and codes taken from the British embassy in Rome, that enabled
16150-519: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of
16320-413: The end of the war and they were never interrogated by TICOM. The Lauf station started life intercepting diplomatic traffic in 1933, but was also subordinated by OKW/Chi in 1939 and expanded considerably. It had three small intercept stations on its own. These were branch stations at Lörrach with eight intercept sets to track Swiss traffic, Tennenlohe was a backup/emergency station with five sets and there
16490-562: The events, " Ultra " decrypts featured prominently in the story of Operation SALAM , László Almásy 's mission across the desert behind Allied lines in 1942. Prior to the Normandy landings on D-Day in June 1944, the Allies knew the locations of all but two of Germany's fifty-eight Western-front divisions. Italian signals had been of interest since Italy's attack on Abyssinia in 1935. During
16660-474: The first to be read in quantity. The German navy had much tighter procedures, and the capture of code books was needed before they could be broken. When, in February 1942, the German navy introduced the four-rotor Enigma for communications with its Atlantic U-boats, this traffic became unreadable for a period of ten months. Britain produced modified bombes, but it was the success of the US Navy Bombe that
16830-500: The following daily. Chi II achieved these results in spite of having to work since the outbreak of the war without pause in day and night shifts, and since August 1943, owing to bomb damage, in a deep cellar and in cramped quarters. The number of encrypted intercepts that were solved, over the life of the Chi IV unit: 12.5% of this amount was due to traffic intercept received from Hungary . Around 33% of solutions to diplomatic traffic
17000-439: The foreign language specific to that desk and German well enough too, such that in doubtful cases the translation could be shown to him for checking. It was expected that e.g. the language differences as the following should be handled directly: Designations of offices and officials had to be translated correctly as well. Missing words or garbled messages were replaced by dots. Doubtful translations were enclosed by parentheses with
17170-429: The greatest importance attached to it within OKW/Chi. Translation was necessary due to the number of different languages used in intercepted messages. It was inconceivable that the officers engaged in dealing with the solved intercepts would be able to understand them all, especially since the grammar in messages often departed from normal conversational usage. At each desk, there was at least one translator analyst who knew
17340-427: The hands of those who had time to read them and most importantly understand them. Publication of VNs was strictly forbidden. Each VN was classified as secret (German:Geheime Kommandosache) and was marked with the highest security protection. It was forbidden to speak about the VN outside the cipher bureau itself, and only inside with the immediate group a particular individual worked with. Every serious cryptanalyst knew
17510-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,
17680-478: The house was always "humming with servants". With 40 gardeners, a flower bed of yellow daffodils could become a sea of red tulips overnight. After the death of Herbert Leon in 1926, the estate continued to be occupied by his widow Fanny Leon (née Higham) until her death in 1937. In 1938, the mansion and much of the site was bought by a builder for a housing estate, but in May 1938 Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair , head of
17850-402: The identity of an individual seeking a passport, were quickly spotted, likewise those only reporting press reports. Very few messages were of objective interest. Moreover, nothing was so apt to reduce the value of a particular VN, than to publish trivial information. Hence in selecting the VN's it was considered important to give: Occasionally instructions were received regarding information that
18020-481: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of
18190-519: The integration of all five military services, it was last blocked in Autumn 1943 by Ribbentrop , Göring , and Himmler . It was not until 9 November 1944, that OKW/Chi was formally made responsible for control of all signals intelligence activities across all forces, by the order of Hitler. The OKW/Chi was one of the highest military agencies of the Wehrmacht, but with a dual focus: on cryptography , creating Germany's own secure communication systems, and
18360-548: The intelligence Bletchley produced was considered wartime Britain's " Ultra secret" – higher even than the normally highest classification Most Secret – and security was paramount. All staff signed the Official Secrets Act (1939) and a 1942 security warning emphasised the importance of discretion even within Bletchley itself: "Do not talk at meals. Do not talk in
18530-537: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley , Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire ), that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War . The mansion
18700-451: The largest consisted of two large fixed signals intercept stations at Lauf , one at Treuenbrietzen , and outstations at Lörrach , Tennenlohe and branch stations at Libourne , Madrid , Sofia . These stations were subordinated to Chi I. The Treuenbrietzen station was created in 1933 and used to pick up diplomatic traffic before the war. It was subordinated by OKW/Chi in 1939, but little is known about it since staff escaped to Werfen at
18870-627: The last three years of the war a continual thinning of the ranks reduced active personnel in Main Group B down to about 321 from a peak in 1941. All intercepts were centrally controlled by the unit in order that it did justice to the requirements of the recipients and the technical demands of deciphering at the same time to remove unnecessary duplication. The monthly averages for the period of January 1944 to June 1944 were as follows: OKW/Chi ran two distinct interception networks, which included legacy systems from previous agencies. The first system that
19040-451: The linguists, was the translation of decoded traffic into a product called Reliable Reports ( German : Verlässliche Nachrichten ), and were classified as Top Secret (German: Geheime Kommandosache). The principal recipient of the most important VNs was General Alfred Jodl , Chief of Operations and Hitler , with a copies being sent to other agencies and archives and used for additional processing, for example, cribbing. That material which
19210-592: The machine was engineered by Harold 'Doc' Keen of the British Tabulating Machine Company . Each machine was about 7 feet (2.1 m) high and wide, 2 feet (0.61 m) deep and weighed about a ton. At its peak, GC&CS was reading approximately 4,000 messages per day. As a hedge against enemy attack most bombes were dispersed to installations at Adstock and Wavendon (both later supplanted by installations at Stanmore and Eastcote ), and Gayhurst . Luftwaffe messages were
19380-613: The mansion, together with a telephone exchange, teleprinter room, kitchen, and dining room; the top floor was allocated to MI6 . Construction of the wooden huts began in late 1939, and Elmers School, a neighbouring boys' boarding school in a Victorian Gothic redbrick building by a church, was acquired for the Commercial and Diplomatic Sections. After the United States joined World War II, a number of American cryptographers were posted to Hut 3 , and from May 1943 onwards there
19550-409: The meaning of technical terms and cross-references from a knowledge store of German naval technology. Where relevant to non-naval matters, they would also be passed to Hut 3. Hut 4 also decoded a manual system known as the dockyard cipher, which sometimes carried messages that were also sent on an Enigma network. Feeding these back to Hut 8 provided excellent "cribs" for Known-plaintext attacks on
19720-519: The monitoring of enemy broadcasts and news analysis. As far as cryptanalysis was concerned, OKW/Chi tended to act as troubleshooter, providing the highest service to the Wehrmacht, instead of setting policy as its power to set military SIGINT was limited. The unit began as the cipher section of the German Defense Ministry ( German : Reichswehrministerium ) in 1922. The Cipher Bureau ( German : Chiffrierstelle ) followed later in
19890-508: The most serious of these was that Bletchley Park had been infiltrated by John Cairncross , the notorious Soviet mole and member of the Cambridge Spy Ring , who leaked Ultra material to Moscow. Despite the high degree of secrecy surrounding Bletchley Park during the Second World War, unique and hitherto unknown amateur film footage of the outstation at nearby Whaddon Hall came to light in 2020, after being anonymously donated to
20060-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted
20230-653: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from
20400-452: The north-west (subsequently the A5 ) was close by, and high-volume communication links were available at the telegraph and telephone repeater station in nearby Fenny Stratford . Bletchley Park was known as "B.P." to those who worked there. " Station X " (X = Roman numeral ten), "London Signals Intelligence Centre", and " Government Communications Headquarters " were all cover names used during
20570-543: The organization from 1919 to 1942, beginning with its formation from the Admiralty 's Room 40 (NID25) and the War Office 's MI1b . Key GC&CS cryptanalysts who moved from London to Bletchley Park included John Tiltman , Dillwyn "Dilly" Knox , Josh Cooper , Oliver Strachey and Nigel de Grey . These people had a variety of backgrounds – linguists and chess champions were common, and Knox's field
20740-579: The outbreak of the war, personnel were increased by about 30%. In 1939, OKW/Chi was called The Cryptologic Bureau (German: Chiffrierstelle ) and was a part of the Inspectorate of the Signal Troops. At the start of the war The Cryptologic Bureau was commanded by Oberstlt (Colonel) Fritz Boetzel as Director of Operations with his deputy being Major Andrae. He was replaced by Colonel Hugo Kettler during summer of 1943. The organization of OKW/Chi
20910-436: The outcome of the war would have been uncertain. The team at Bletchley Park devised automatic machinery to help with decryption, culminating in the development of Colossus , the world's first programmable digital electronic computer. Codebreaking operations at Bletchley Park came to an end in 1946 and all information about the wartime operations was classified until the mid-1970s. After the war it had various uses including as
21080-458: The period of 1 January 1944 to 25 June 1944, Chi II, the evaluation of foreign language transmissions section, processed an average of 253 broadcast transmissions and 234 wireless news service reports were dealt with daily. Apart from the daily Chi reports, i.e. military, political, economic situation and commentaries, a further P/W report was issued on an average daily, and an espionage report nearly every day. In addition, special reports were sent to
21250-643: The productivity that was possible, Turing, Welchman, Alexander and Milner-Barry wrote directly to Churchill. His response was "Action this day make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me that this has been done." After initial training at the Inter-Service Special Intelligence School set up by John Tiltman (initially at an RAF depot in Buckingham and later in Bedford – where it
21420-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation
21590-532: The routines of the nearby homes at which most staff lodged. The work was tedious and demanded intense concentration; staff got one week's leave four times a year, but some "girls" collapsed and required extended rest. Recruitment took place to combat a shortage of experts in Morse code and German. In January 1945, at the peak of codebreaking efforts, nearly 10,000 personnel were working at Bletchley and its outstations. About three-quarters of these were women. Many of
21760-506: The sheet, so it was decided to write Abw ... x .. In the lower right hand corner, also on the last sheet, was a brief indication of the system, e.g. F 21 . This meant France, system 21, i.e. the 21st system solved by OKW/Chi since World War I . The notation was sometimes more explicit, i.e. the entire formula for the code or cipher was given, e.g. P4ZüZw4 meaning Polish 4-digit code enciphered by an additive sequence ( Zahenwurm ), fourth system solved. Later these notations were usually made on
21930-541: The signals revealing the Italian Navy's operational plans before the Battle of Cape Matapan in 1941, leading to a British victory. Although most Bletchley staff did not know the results of their work, Admiral Cunningham visited Bletchley in person a few weeks later to congratulate them. On entering World War II in June 1940, the Italians were using book codes for most of their military messages. The exception
22100-546: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,
22270-500: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in
22440-518: The transport. Do not talk travelling. Do not talk in the billet. Do not talk by your own fireside. Be careful even in your Hut ..." Nevertheless, there were security leaks. Jock Colville , the Assistant Private Secretary to Winston Churchill , recorded in his diary on 31 July 1941, that the newspaper proprietor Lord Camrose had discovered Ultra and that security leaks "increase in number and seriousness". Without doubt,
22610-545: The war. The formal posting of the many "Wrens" – members of the Women's Royal Naval Service – working there, was to HMS Pembroke V . Royal Air Force names of Bletchley Park and its outstations included RAF Eastcote , RAF Lime Grove and RAF Church Green. The postal address that staff had to use was "Room 47, Foreign Office". After the war, the Government Code & Cypher School became
22780-406: The whole process was a subjective one. What seemed important and intensely interesting one day, in two years’ time could be unimportant and vice versa. Hence, Fenner and his colleagues took the view that it was better to issue some unimportant VN's than to fail to include some important ones. Fenner's attitude in this matter, could best be described by TICOM as When army radiograms were solved, there
22950-862: The wireless room, the radio station was moved from Bletchley Park to nearby Whaddon Hall to avoid drawing attention to the site. Subsequently, other listening stations – the Y-stations , such as the ones at Chicksands in Bedfordshire, Beaumanor Hall , Leicestershire (where the headquarters of the War Office "Y" Group was located) and Beeston Hill Y Station in Norfolk ;– gathered raw signals for processing at Bletchley. Coded messages were taken down by hand and sent to Bletchley on paper by motorcycle despatch riders or (later) by teleprinter. The wartime needs required
23120-410: The women came from middle-class backgrounds and held degrees in the areas of mathematics, physics and engineering; they were given chance due to the lack of men, who had been sent to war. They performed calculations and coding and hence were integral to the computing processes. Among them were Eleanor Ireland , who worked on the Colossus computers and Ruth Briggs , a German scholar, who worked within
23290-555: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during
23460-600: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching
23630-603: Was papyrology . The British War Office recruited top solvers of cryptic crossword puzzles, as these individuals had strong lateral thinking skills. On the day Britain declared war on Germany , Denniston wrote to the Foreign Office about recruiting "men of the professor type". Personal networking drove early recruitments, particularly of men from the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. Trustworthy women were similarly recruited for administrative and clerical jobs. In one 1941 recruiting stratagem, The Daily Telegraph
23800-643: Was Chief Cryptologist Director Wilhelm Fenner , who was the Head of Main Group B, including Group IV Analytical cryptanalysis working with Specialist Dr. Erich Hüttenhain . A German by birth, Wilhelm Fenner went to high school in St Petersburg . His father was an editor of a German language newspaper. He moved back to Germany in 1909 to study at Berlin Royal Institute of Technology but was drafted into
23970-404: Was Head of Main Group A. The following information was prepared by TICOM agents, by comparing the interrogation documents of Colonel Hugo Kettler, Director Wilhelm Fenner, Dr. Walter Fricke and Dr. Erich Hüttenhain. TICOM believed that the information was correct. OKW/Chi passed from peace to war without change to its organization. Preparations had been made in 1938 to define staff numbers but at
24140-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of
24310-594: Was a signals officer who worked up to command the Germany Armies cryptologic centre, Inspectorate 7/VI from November 1941 to June 1943. After working in the Signals Battalion on the Eastern Front for several months, he was assigned second in command of OKW/Chi in December 1943. After the war he was considered such a high-value target that he was moved to England to be interrogated by TICOM. He
24480-455: Was a small station at Libourne in France , operating nine sets from 1943 and used to track Swedish and Turkish Traffic. Lauf had between 200 and 250 people running it, including outstations with over 80 women after January 1944. It used around 90 receiving sets. TICOM primary witness to the running of Lauf was Specialist Flicke, who stated: German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] )
24650-460: Was almost immediately adjacent to Bletchley railway station , where the " Varsity Line " between Oxford and Cambridge – whose universities were expected to supply many of the code-breakers – met the main West Coast railway line connecting London, Birmingham , Manchester , Liverpool , Glasgow and Edinburgh . Watling Street , the main road linking London to
24820-547: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially
24990-494: Was asked to organise a crossword competition, after which promising contestants were discreetly approached about "a particular type of work as a contribution to the war effort". Denniston recognised, however, that the enemy's use of electromechanical cipher machines meant that formally trained mathematicians would also be needed; Oxford's Peter Twinn joined GC&CS in February 1939; Cambridge's Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman began training in 1938 and reported to Bletchley
25160-542: Was broken down into four groups which were named Group I to Group IV. In 1938, OKW/Chi had no mechanical aids to use for the quick decryption of enemy messages once the cipher was broken. Although major attempts were made to mechanize the process, it was realized only in late 1943 that additional specialist personnel would be needed, and they were not available. OKW/Chi was primarily an intelligence gathering organization at this point, with its only commitment to develop ciphers for Military Intelligence ( Abwehr ). Each branch of
25330-566: Was changed in October 1942, ensuring that no new ciphers could be introduced by the Armed Forces unless they were first checked by the OKW. OKW/Chi made some efforts to set up an additional section in section IV, but this work was buried within the organization with OKW/Chi remaining an organization that produced military intelligence. Contrast this with Bletchley Park , the UK Government Code and Cypher School during World War II,
25500-721: Was close co-operation between British and American intelligence. (See 1943 BRUSA Agreement .) In contrast, the Soviet Union was never officially told of Bletchley Park and its activities, a reflection of Churchill's distrust of the Soviets even during the US-UK-USSR alliance imposed by the Nazi threat. The only direct enemy damage to the site was done 20–21 November 1940 by three bombs probably intended for Bletchley railway station ; Hut 4, shifted two feet off its foundation,
25670-448: Was considered of no importance was discarded. The linguistic section produced an average of 3000 VNs per month. Statistics on a month per month basis demonstrate the number of VN's produced, after sorting and rejection of unimportant texts. Note: the following statistics do not include the 6000 agent messages handed to the Funkabwehr (FU III). TICOM seized most of the VNs which represent the traffic of 29 countries and are now available at
25840-410: Was constructed during the years following 1883 for the financier and politician Herbert Leon in the Victorian Gothic , Tudor and Dutch Baroque styles, on the site of older buildings of the same name. During World War II , the estate housed the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers – most importantly
26010-446: Was cryptanalysis of foreign government communications, the development of mechanical cryptanalysis devices including training in such devices. Group X's assignment was the scanning and forwarding of deciphered telegrams to suitable offices including the keeping of a day book recording the most important data. It also conducted practical decoding of codes and ciphers of foreign governments, military attaches and agents. By end of 1944 and
26180-520: Was delivered as quickly as possible to the section head of the appropriate country desk. There the telegrams were divided according to four points of view: The telegrams containing solved codes were stripped of encipherment and decoded at once. Messages enciphered with a code or cipher that was not solved was assigned to a cryptanalyst. Unknown telegrams were stored in the telegram registry, and observed for like types, frequencies, frequency of message intercept that Chi would like to be cleared before starting
26350-406: Was delivered to Bletchley Park in January and first worked operationally on 5 February 1944. Enhancements were developed for the Mark 2 Colossus, the first of which was working at Bletchley Park on the morning of 1 June in time for D-day . Flowers then produced one Colossus a month for the rest of the war, making a total of ten with an eleventh part-built. The machines were operated mainly by Wrens in
26520-427: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which
26690-450: Was known locally as "the Spy School") staff worked a six-day week, rotating through three shifts: 4 p.m. to midnight, midnight to 8 a.m. (the most disliked shift), and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., each with a half-hour meal break. At the end of the third week, a worker went off at 8 a.m. and came back at 4 p.m., thus putting in 16 hours on that last day. The irregular hours affected workers' health and social life, as well as
26860-459: Was made chief of the Bureau. He worked there until just after the war, discharged on 19 June, eventually working as a car and cycle mechanic in Straubing . Chief Cryptanalyst Specialist Dr. Erich Hüttenhain was a mathematician hired in 1937 to create a specialized cryptanalytic research unit to investigate enemy cryptologic systems and to test Germany's own cryptologic systems and processes. Together with Dr. Walter Fricke , Chief evaluator, also
27030-419: Was no hard or fast criteria for evaluation. A seemingly irrelevant message in which some new unit was named might, under certain circumstances, be more important than an order to attack, of which one already had knowledge from other sources. For this reason, deciphered army radiograms were never included in the daily VN's. They were termed VN's but followed a different process and given the appropriate attention in
27200-404: Was not considered satisfactory from an efficiency standpoint. Neither the head of Abwehr, nor indeed the head of OKW/Chi really understood the difficulties involved in cryptanalysis, nor the operational resources required for a specific task. A directive was issued to Fenner to break a particular American strip system by a particular Sunday. This was completed, purely by chance and hard work, and met
27370-527: Was of a particular or special interest and effort was focused but such instructions regularly coincided with what Fenner generally knew about current event. Fenner gave his colleagues as much leeway as possible in their choice of selection and it was possible since most cryptanalysts were professionals and professional objectivity was expected of the role. The many passport messages and messages containing information of an economic nature were of no interest to German High Command, and if they were included sometimes in
27540-430: Was organised into four principal groups headed by Colonel Kettler, with his deputy Major Mettig. These were the personnel section, Main Group A, Main Group B and Group X. Group A contained Section I, Section II and Section III. Group B contained Section a, Section b and Section c. Group A's assignment was the development of their own cryptographic systems and the interception of foreign radios and cables. Group B's assignment
27710-519: Was received from the Forschungsamt . Rejects amount to 0.25%. Forty-one European and extra-European countries were monitored on a regular basis as well as Allied agents' codes and ciphers. Government codes and ciphers of 33 European and extra-European countries were worked on and solved. Damage to working materials, e.g. burnt one-time pads , reciphering, and cipher texts, caused by air attacks were regularly made good by copies that had been safely stored elsewhere. The final output from Chi IVb, i.e. from
27880-418: Was subordinated to Chi I, intercepted inter-state wireless traffic of enemy and neutral stations, that included enciphered and unenciphered telegraphic communications of diplomatic and military attache messages sent in Morse code and most messages were encrypted and received from enemy and neutral states. Messages picked up on this system were sent to OKW/Chi for decipherment. The second network's mission, which
28050-450: Was subordinated to Chi II and Chi III, was to monitor foreign wireless news broadcasts, with all traffic sent in clear text, and included such news agencies as Reuters , and Domei , picture transmission as well as multiple enemy Morse code wireless transmissions, also of illicit transmissions, agents' messages and the secret press in Europe. The second system was also used for testing of new or special equipment. The first network and by far
28220-400: Was the Italian Navy , which after the Battle of Cape Matapan started using the C-38 version of the Boris Hagelin rotor-based cipher machine , particularly to route their navy and merchant marine convoys to the conflict in North Africa. As a consequence, JRM Butler recruited his former student Bernard Willson to join a team with two others in Hut 4. In June 1941, Willson became
28390-433: Was the main source of reading messages from this version of Enigma for the rest of the war. Messages were sent to and fro across the Atlantic by enciphered teleprinter links. The Lorenz messages were codenamed Tunny at Bletchley Park. They were only sent in quantity from mid-1942. The Tunny networks were used for high-level messages between German High Command and field commanders. With the help of German operator errors,
28560-400: Was thrown into the River Salzach next to the Werfen station. No Verlässliche Nachrichten's (V.N's) (described below) were thrown into the River Salzach. V.N's from 1922 to 1939 were deposited in the archive of the Chef des Heeres in Potsdam . The V.N's for 1940-1943 were deposited at the Tirpitzufer 38–42, later renamed the Bendlerblock . The V.N's for the last year were all burnt. During
28730-400: Was true that a certain amount of development and security work was always done. The original charter was obscure, but since the Army, Navy and the Air Force was each responsible for its own security development, the only defining commitment of OKW/Chi was to develop ciphers for the agents of the Abwehr. The separate branches were free to submit their own systems to OKW for security scrutiny. This
28900-583: Was winched back into place as work inside continued. Initially, when only a very limited amount of Enigma traffic was being read, deciphered non-Naval Enigma messages were sent from Hut 6 to Hut 3 which handled their translation and onward transmission. Subsequently, under Group Captain Eric Jones , Hut 3 expanded to become the heart of Bletchley Park's intelligence effort, with input from decrypts of " Tunny " (Lorenz SZ42) traffic and many other sources. Early in 1942 it moved into Block D, but its functions were still referred to as Hut 3. Hut 3 contained
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