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Rotor Enigma K UKW-D →
Commercial Enigma (K) with UKW-D
- wanted item
The Enigma KD was a standard commercial Enigma K cipher machine,
but had differently wired rotors
and a rewirable reflector called UKW-D.
Furthermore, the rotors each had nine turnover notches.
It was used by the Militärisches Amt
(Mil Amt) on the Berlin - Madrid - Lisbon link.
It first appeared on 3 December 1944 and remained in use
throughout the rest of the war.
Mil Amt was a department of the German secret intelligence service
and the successor to the Abwehr
[1]
.
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The Enigma KD was supplied to Mil Amt with six different cipher rotors
that each had nine turnover notches. Three of these rotors would be
placed in the machine at any given time. The wiring of the Enigma KD
used by Mil Amt is currently unknown (see wiring info below).
In 2009 an Enigma KD machine was discovered in the archives of the Swedish
Intelligence Service FRA. It is currently not known whether this machine
was used by the FRA or that it was confiscated after the war,
but it appears to be identical to the Enigma KD used by Mil Amt.
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The machine has three rotors, numbered I, II and III, each with nine
turnover notches. The notches appear in the same position on all three
rotors. The wiring of the rotors is given below.
During the Enigma Reunion 2009
we were able to see the Enigma KD for the very first time, when it
was brought to the event by FRA staff.
The photographs presented on this page were made during that event.
The FRA has also been helpful in recovering the rotor wiring.
The origin of the machine's name (KD) is unknown. It is suggested
in [1] that it might be related to Kommando des Meldegebietes
(KDM), which was the new name of the Abwehrstellen (Ast) after
they were incorporated into the Reichssicherheitshauptamt
(RSHA) on 1 June 1944.
It is also possible that it was the merger of the machine's model
(K)
and the rewirable reflector (D).
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Below is the wiring if the first three rotors (I, II and III) of the Enigma KD
that was found in the archives of the FRA [2]. This wiring might be identical
to the first three rotors of the Enigma KD used by Mil Amt during WWII, but
this is currently uncertain.
The column marked 'Notch' shows the physical position of each notch on the
circumference of the rotor, whilst the next column, marked 'Turnover', shows
the letter that is visible through the window at the time of the turnover.
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Rotor
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ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
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Notch
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Turnover
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#
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ETW
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QWERTZUIOASDFGHJKPYXCVBNML
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I
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VEZIOJCXKYDUNTWAPLQGBHSFMR
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ACGIMPTVY
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SUYAEHLNQ
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9
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II
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HGRBSJZETDLVPMQYCXAOKINFUW
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ACGIMPTVY
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SUYAEHLNQ
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9
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III
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NWLHXGRBYOJSAZDVTPKFQMEUIC
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ACGIMPTVY
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SUYAEHLNQ
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9
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UKW 1
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KOTVPNLMJIAGHFBEWYXCZDQSRU
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Note that due to the nature of the (rewirable) UKW it does not have a
fixed wiring. The table above shows the wiring of the UKW when the machine
was (re)discovered at the FRA [2]. The actual wiring was probably changed
frequently.
Furthermore, the wiring as recorded by the FRA followed a different
notation, starting with the contact at the top. For convenience, it
has been converted to the official BP-notation.
During WWII,
Mil Amt changed the order of the rotors and the Ringstellung
daily, whilst the Grundstellung (and probably also the wiring of
UKW-D) was changed every three weeks [1].
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Device Cipher machine Brand Enigma Type K Model A27 (modified) Designator Ch.11b Manufacturer H&R Country Germany Years 1944-1945 Customer Mil Amt Rotors 3 Turnovers 9 per rotor Reflector UKW-D (configurable) Wiring Modified by the Swiss Stepping Standard (Enigma stepping) Plugboard no
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Sunday 13 September 2009. Last changed: Sunday, 21 July 2024 - 09:31 CET.
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