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The Enigma still arouses associations of the mysterious, whether in films or in reality, when, as recently, several of these German cipher machines from the Second World War are fished out of the Baltic Sea.
What has been forgotten, however, is that these suitcase-sized machines had a successor in the GDR, albeit in a closet format: the T-310 of the State Security (Stasi).
Two of these devices even ended up in the federal government's bunker.
These four Enigma encryption machines were recovered from the Baltic Sea in January 2021
Source: dpa
A new book by two of their developers throws a spotlight on this little-known German-German episode.
One of the two authors, the mathematician Winfried Stephan in St. Augustin near Bonn, says: "In the period of transition the police networks of the FRG and the GDR should be connected." In 1990, two of the GDR T-310 devices were also used by the former West German class enemy At that time the government bunker was set up in the Rhineland-Palatinate Ahr valley.
Since the East German state was still a member of the Warsaw Treaty at the time, no NATO encryption devices were allowed to be used as counter-devices in the territory of the former GDR.
So two of the refrigerator-sized, olive-green T-310 encryption machines for telex connections found their way under the vineyards of the Ahr Valley near Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler.
About 30 kilometers south of the then federal capital Bonn there was a kind of bunker town for the federal government in the event of war.
According to Jörg Diester, author of several books about this once secret huge structure, the two T-310s were again in a secret room to which only a few employees had access.
This encryption technology is still classified as secure by experts today.
The Stasi encrypted it with the T-310
Source: dpa
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Two T-310s were also set up in what was then the GDR government bunker in Wandlitz-Prenden in Brandenburg.
Thus, from May 1990 onwards, there was an encrypted telex connection between the interior ministries of the two German states, which united on October 3rd of that year.
Referring to an ex-department head in the GDR interior ministry, Stephan and his co-author Wolfgang Killmann write in their book “The GDR Cipher T-310: Cryptography and History”: “According to his information, at least until the end of 1990, peak times until 500 messages a day transmitted over this connection. ”In 1990 there was also encrypted communication with T-310 devices between the two defense ministries on Bonn's Hardthöhe and in Strausberg near Berlin in Brandenburg.
The aerial photo shows the western exit of the former West German government bunker in the Ahr valley
Source: dpa
From 1983 to 1990, 3800 of these encryption machines were in use in the GDR, for example by the Stasi, SED, police and FDJ (Free German Youth): “At that time, there was a high need for security at the interface between the two social systems,” says Stephan.
If Corona allows it again, the two authors are planning lectures on the T-310 in today's museum of the ex-government bunker in the Ahr valley and on a former Stasi bunker site near Gosen-Neu Zittau in Brandenburg.
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While German Enigma encryption was cracked in painstaking detail by Allied specialists in World War II, a sober administrative act ended the decades of development and use of the T-310 in reunified Germany.
The responsible federal authorities rely on NATO-wide standardized encryption technology - there was no longer any need for the Stasi devices, they were destroyed.
Wehrmacht Enigma cipher machine
Source: picture alliance / dpa
One of the fathers of the T-310, the mathematician Stephan, was involved.
According to his own statements, after reunification he had to core out hundreds of the devices in a truck garage in Dahlwitz-Hoppegarten in Brandenburg.
Only a few T-310s survived.
The Bonn Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) refers to the NVA exhibition in Harnekop, a district of the Brandenburg municipality of Prötzel.
The operator of this museum, Jens Raeder, says: “I have five copies.
When there are visitors, I run two T-310s as a demonstration. ”The former NVA sergeant still praises the machines today:“ They were much easier to operate than their predecessors. ”But they were big, bigger than the cipher machines of the big one Brother's Soviet Union: "We called the T-310 'the green monster'."
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Winfried Stephan / Wolfgang Killmann: "The GDR Cipher T-310: Cryptography and History". (
Springer, Heidelberg / Berlin. 248 p., 37.99 euros)
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