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.
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma Knox (a veteran of World War I and the cryptanalytical activities of the Royal Navy's Room 40), worked on decipherment he had only the messages he generated himself to practice with. After Germany supplied modified commercial machines to the Nationalist side in the Spanish Civil War, and with the Italian Navy (who were also aiding the Nationalists) using a version of the commercial Enigma that did not have a plugboard, Britain could intercept the radio broadcast messages. In April 1937 Knox made his first decryption of an Enigma encryption using a technique that he called "buttoning up" to discover the