Kurzsignale

The Short Signal Code (Kurzsignale) was a short code system used by the German navy during World War II to minimize the transmission duration of messages. A copy of the Kurzsignale code book was captured from German submarine, U-110 in 9 May 1941.

Aware of the danger presented by High-frequency direction finding, the Kriegsmarine developed various systems to speed broadcast. The Kurzsignale code system condensed messages into short codes consisting of short number sequences for common terms like "convoy location" so that additional descriptions would not be needed in the message. The resulting "kurzsignale" was then encoded with the Enigma machine and then transmitted as rapidly as possible, with times on the order of 20 seconds being typical.^[1]

A similar coding system was used for weather reports from U-boats, the Wetterkurzschlüssel, (Weather Short Code Book). A copy of this had been captured from U-559 on 29 or 30 October 1942.^[2]

The fully automated burst encoding Kurier System could send a Kurzsignale in only ½ a second. This would make conventional RDF techniques essentially useless for tracking these signals accurately, but nowhere near short enough to avoid detection by huff-duff.

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