German code breaking in World War II German code breaking in World War II German code breaking in World War II achieved some notable successes cracking British Naval ciphers until well into the fourth year of the war, but also suffered from a problem typical of the German armed forces of the time: numerous branches and institutions maintained their own cryptographic departments, working on their own without collaboration or sharing results with equivalent units. This led to duplicated effort, to a fragmentation of potential, and to lower efficiency than might have been achieved. There was no central German cryptography agency comparable to the British Bletchley Park facility.
Enigma machine indicator procedures were two of the main weaknesses that made cracking Enigma possible. One of the earliest "indicator procedures" for the Enigma was cryptographically flawed and allowed Polish cryptanalysts to make the initial breaks into the plugboard Enigma. The procedure had the operator set his machine in accordance with the secret settings that all operators on the net shared. The settings included an initial position for the rotors (the "Grundstellung"), say, "AOH". The operator turned his rotors until "AOH" was visible through the rotor windows. At that point, the operator chose his own arbitrary starting position for the message he