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Rotor
Enigma
K
  
UKW-D →
    
Enigma KD
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] .

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.
  

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).

A
×
A
1 / 3
1 / 3
A
2 / 3
2 / 3
A
3 / 3
3 / 3

Rotor wiring
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.

Rotor ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Notch Turnover #
ETW QWERTZUIOASDFGHJKPYXCVBNML      
I VEZIOJCXKYDUNTWAPLQGBHSFMR ACGIMPTVY SUYAEHLNQ 9
II HGRBSJZETDLVPMQYCXAOKINFUW ACGIMPTVY SUYAEHLNQ 9
III NWLHXGRBYOJSAZDVTPKFQMEUIC ACGIMPTVY SUYAEHLNQ 9
UKW 1 KOTVPNLMJIAGHFBEWYXCZDQSRU      
  1. 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].

Specifications
  • 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
References
  1. David Hamer, Geoff Sullivan and Frode Weierud
    Enigma Variations: An Extended Family of Machines

    Cryptologia, July 1998, Volume XXII, Number 3.

  2. Försvarets Radioanstalt (FRA), Sweden (National Defence Radio Establishment)
    Enigma KD from private collection of FRA.
Further information
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Sunday 13 September 2009. Last changed: Sunday, 21 July 2024 - 09:31 CET.
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