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← HELL Germany Pin-wheel CD-57 →
Portable mechanical cipher machine
The HELL STG-61 1 was a small hand-held cipher machine, built in the around
1961 by Rudolf HELL in Kiel (Germany) for the
post-war German Border Police (Bundesgrenzschutz, BGS) 2
as a replacement for the refusbished
Enigma machines that were used until then.
The STG-61 is one of two mechanical cipher machines,
the other one being the H-54, that were built by HELL
under license of the Hagelin Company in Switzerland.
It is a purely mechanical machine, that can easily be hidden in the pocket
of, say, a coat.
It is compatible with the Hagelin CD-57
and the CX-52.
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The machine is also interoperable with the
HELL H-54 cipher machine
that was built a few years earlier.
The image on the right shows the STG-61, which closely resembles
the Hagelin CD-57 and has identical dimensions.
Although it is a functional clone of the CD-57,
HELL managed to make a few improvements to the design.
The most obvious improvement over the original design is the presence
of a thumbwheel
to the left of the letter counter,
allowing the counter to be reset easily without using the crank.
On the CD-57 one had to write down the start position.
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The machine can be opened by pressing a small knob on top of the case.
Inside, are two circular constructions: one below the alphabet disc,
behaving like the cage of a H-54
or CX-52, and the other one in the form
of a stack of six cipher wheels. These six cipher wheels are functionally
identical to the pin-wheels of the H-54.
Each disc has a different number
of steps, using co-prime numbers to obtain the maximum possible
cipher period. The following are present:
29 31 37 41 43 47
The number of steps in engraved in white on each disc. The
wheel stack can be removed and the the wheels can be placed on the shaft
in 120 different orders (6 x 5 x 4).
For more information, please refer to our page about the
Hagelin CD-57.
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STG = Spruchtarngerät (message disguise device)).
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The Bundesgrenzschuts (BGS) was the first federal police organization
in Western Germany after WWII, permitted by the Allied authorities.
In July 2005, the BGS was renamed Bundespolizei (Federal Police) [1].
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- Spruchtarngerät STG-61, Kurzanleitung
CM-301013. CAG A-1150. Crypto AG, date unknown.
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© Crypto Museum. Created: Saturday 24 July 2010. Last changed: Monday, 06 January 2020 - 11:44 CET.
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