# Were the German codes broken by the Enigma machine coherent German? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 3, 2025, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367 "2025-12-03T14:58:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/121 "2025-12-08T14:08:12Z")
So in very large measure the Navajo codetalkers were one of modern history’s few successful implementations of “security by obscurity”. And probably one of the very last ever. At least before the fall and later rebirth of human civilization. If that is to be our destiny. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/122 "2025-12-08T14:19:03Z")
I suppose someone could try Basque. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/123 "2025-12-08T15:11:41Z")
> [@JacobSwan](#): > > There’s the apocryphal case of a German officer reading about the Allied conference being held in Casablanca and ignoring it as he translated it as White House and thought it was being held in Washington DC. If they’d realised the truth they could probably have taken out the entire Allied leadership with one bombing run. > > Snopes says it’s unlikely to be true, but it’s so easy to believe. Snopes is wrong on this one. We had a discussion on this issue before and traced the story back to original German cites from during the war. Somebody really did mistakenly translate Casablanca as White House and the Germans really did think Roosevelt and Churchill were meeting in Washington. ---
**Author:** ![Humbagger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/db5fbb/32.png) [@Humbagger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humbagger)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/124 "2025-12-08T16:45:08Z")
Can you still find that discussion? I tried searching for “casablanca white house” but found nothing useful. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/125 "2025-12-08T16:51:05Z")
> [@Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 1)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3072): > > During WWII, Germany was seeking information about rumors that Churchill and Roosevelt were planning on meeting. They obtained a snippet of information that the meeting place was Casablanca. But a translator who was translating the information into German somehow assumed this was the Spanish words casa blanca rather than a reference to the city in Morocco. So he had the report saying they were meeting at the White House. Follow the replies, there is a whole chain of them. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/126 "2025-12-08T17:02:44Z")
One reason that the Germans studied the languages of Native Americans in the period between World War I and World War II is that modern linguistics was invented by academics in Germany and the nearby countries of Europe around that time. Modern linguistics began with the publication in 1916 of the book _[Cours de linguistique générale](https://www.google.com/search?q=Cours+de+linguistique+g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale&rlz=1C1UEAD_enUS1138US1138&oq=book+published+in+1912+by+Swiss+author+which+began+modern+linguistics&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCjM3ODk4ajBqMTWoAgiwAgHxBa_qVhTx5Gdl8QWv6lYU8eRnZQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&mstk=AUtExfDIWmP8nNj_3nz9jLln635Sp9J09mzbFIe2ceSXjps6yigA3NN2A3vwUfgXUOdXDQCH-gWjLfFWNrnWybPnjKWlfzRPivPldTneMJLAEbX-i3P6inR9Xmka5dm_NIfSvSE&csui=3&ved=2ahUKEwjmjKbQt66RAxVKFlkFHSGwKIgQgK4QegQIARAD)_ (_Course in General Linguistics_) by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. Before then there was some study of the history of particular languages. However, linguists didn’t spend much time trying to understand the structure of languages with little contact with European people. They didn’t try to understand the languages of North American, South American, African, Asian, Australian, New Zealander, and Pacific Islander countries. Often they would colonize those countries and try to eliminate the speaking of the native languages of those places by their own people. They believed that Latin and Greek were the ideal languages and modern European languages were close to it. They didn’t really understand how to understand the structures of other languages. In the early twentieth century they finally began trying to understand the native languages of other peoples of the world. They began to realize that their structures were vastly different. They began to understand the vast numbers of structures that existed in the vast number (perhaps about 7,000) of languages in the world. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/127 "2025-12-08T17:24:54Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > One reason that the Germans studied the languages of Native Americans in the period between World War I and World War II is that modern linguistics was invented by academics in Germany and the nearby countries of Europe around that time. Another, more trivial, reason was that westerns were surprisingly popular in Germany. German authors like Karl May, Friedrich Gerstacker, and Balduin Mollhausen wrote popular adventure novels centered around American Indians. Hitler, among others, was a fan. ---
**Author:** ![Humbagger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/db5fbb/32.png) [@Humbagger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humbagger)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/128 "2025-12-08T19:55:32Z")
Thanks! This is quite off-topic now, but it seems most of the thread has left the OP behind…. I’m not convinced by those posts. There are two supposed sources: The first is an indirect citation of the book “Roosevelt and Churchill : men of secrets” by David Stafford which contains this claim of mistranslation but doesn’t give a source for it. The second are the diaries of Joseph Goebbels, who does indeed complain on the 28th of January 1943 that the “Nachrichtendienst” was unable to ascertain the place of this meeting beforehand, and states that it had been expected to take place in Washington. However, he crucially does not mention the White House or an error in translation. Given that he writes voluminously and twice in that entry abuses the Nachrichtendienst for being expensive and useless, I think he would have mentioned it. To me, it seems much more likely that Washington / the White House is an obvious, logical place for such a meeting and someone later confabulated a translation error to match the trope of the stupid Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2025, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/129 "2025-12-08T20:46:03Z")
> [@Humbagger](#): > > To me, it seems much more likely that Washington / the White House is an obvious, logical place for such a meeting Especially since that was where the previous one took place. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2026, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/130 "2026-02-20T13:38:36Z")
I am currently reading _“My Secret War”_ by R V Jones, in which he describes how he and others fought a metaphorical duel with the Germans over RADAR. There was much resistance to using countermeasures like “Windows” on the grounds that they would find a countermeasure, making it ineffective. There was also considerable concern about not revealing that we could decode their communications - both army and naval. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/131 "2026-02-21T04:42:12Z")
BTW, Professor Newton-John, Olivia Newton-John’s father (Olivia of Grease, Xanadu fame), was at Bletchley Park to read/translate/advise on the Deutsch vernacular in use in the messages. > **[Brinley Newton-John](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brinley_Newton-John)** > > Brinley "Brin" Newton-John (5 March 1914 – 3 July 1992) was a Welsh–Australian university administrator, professor of German literature, intelligence officer, and Wing commander during the Second World War. Newton-John took part in the top-secret project founded to decipher the German Enigma machine and arrested Rudolf Hess, who had fled from Germany. He was the father of singer Olivia Newton-John. > Newton-John was widely popular as a professor, being respected and beloved by his students. His ... ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/132 "2026-02-21T08:13:45Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > Olivia Newton-John And her mother Irene Helene Born was the daughter of a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/133 "2026-02-21T08:54:56Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > I am currently reading _“My Secret War”_ by R V Jones I’m assuming you meant Most Secret War. That is an all time favourite. The TV series of the same name and content was broadcast in the 70’s and was also superb. The issue about any hint that codes were being broken leaking was a thorny one. Little mentioned at the time, the entire reason the Germans developed such sophisticated encryption technology was that Churchill had revealed that the British had broken the German codes during WW1 in his memoirs. History is written by the victors. If the allies had lost, history would record that Churchill had been incredibly stupid and the Germans had succeeded in developing such superior encryption that it took insane effort, time and technological advances to crack. The Germans were clearly very wary about the possibility of Enigma being cracked. The whole saga of the naval machines having an additional rotor (and taking a full year of more work to crack) is one part. Development of the Lorentz cipher machines for the high command another. The Most Secret War book and series came about before the declassification of the Colossus machines and the breaking of the Lorentz ciphers. But there were hints around. This time there was an understanding that post war it would be a good idea to let other nations think that similar machines were secure, unaware that the capability to crack them existed. At the end of the war most of the Colossus machines were smashed up, burnt and buried. But one or two were trucked out of Bletchley Park and no doubt installed in a new location and role, watching Cold War traffic. I would love to think that at least one still survives, perhaps in a classified museum. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/134 "2026-02-21T09:53:53Z")
The National Museum of Computing, located at Bletchley Park, has a rebuilt Colossus machine in the National Museum of Computing. [Rebuilding Colossus — The National Museum of Computing](https://www.tnmoc.org/rebuilding-colossus) ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/135 "2026-02-21T11:08:21Z")
Another museum is this: > **[National Cryptologic Museum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cryptologic_Museum)** > > The National Cryptologic Museum (NCM) is an American museum of cryptologic history that is affiliated with the National Security Agency (NSA). The first public museum in the U.S. Intelligence Community, NCM is located in the former Colony Seven Motel, just two blocks from the NSA headquarters at Fort George G. Meade in Maryland. The motel was purchased, creating a buffer zone between the high security main buildings of the NSA and an adjacent highway. The museum opened to the public on Dec The... ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/136 "2026-02-21T13:25:30Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > The National Museum of Computing, located at Bletchley Park, has a rebuilt Colossus machine I know. It still isn’t a real one. Fabulous that they could find enough documentation to get it done. But it breaks my heart that they deliberately destroyed the originals. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/137 "2026-02-21T14:28:07Z")
On the subject of the Navajo Code Talkers using real Navajo but in a nonsensical way, I learned recently that the Japanese did something quasi similar. They had their own “code talkers” who spoke in a northern dialect that’s impenetrable to even other Japanese speakers. So the Americans who spoke Japanese couldn’t make heads or tails of it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/138 "2026-02-21T14:56:43Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > The National Museum of Computing, located at Bletchley Park, has a rebuilt Colossus machine in the National Museum of Computing. You re-used a crib in your plaintext, there: That’s bad for security. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/139 "2026-02-21T19:04:41Z")
Yeah, that’s a fascinating place to visit ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2026, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367/140 "2026-02-21T19:55:48Z")
Now the forces of Ignorance will break our codes! May be that’s why it’s taking longer than we thought. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-german-codes-broken-by-the-enigma-machine-coherent-german/1025367.md?page=8)