If you're not that great in German vocabulary, don't panic! This page will help you strugle through the messages. With only a few basics, you will be able to understand most of the message. This will also help you to cut the text in pieces and if there are still unknown words, you can run them through an on-line translator.

Since the Enigma can only produce letters, we know that all numbers are spelled. So, these are easy to find in a message.

1 EINS
2 ZWO
3 DREI
4 VIER
5 FUNF
6 SECHS or SEQS
7 SIEBEN
8 ACHT or AQT
9 NEUN
0 NULL

00 CENTA
000 MILLE
0000 MYRIA

Sometimes, they spell out letters. Here's the German military phonetic alphabet:

Anton Bruno Cäsar Dora Emil Fritz Gustav Hans Ida Jota Karl Lucie Max Nanni Otto Paula Quatsch Ricard Sophie Toni Ulrich Victor Wilhelm Xanthippe Ysop Zet

If a letter is important, it could be repeated three time, for instance U-255 can be written out as UUU ZWO FUNF FUNF

Often, names of large combat units are numbered with Roman figures. The XII Armee (12th Army) will be written as ROMANEINSZWOARMEE

For special names or expressions, they used the letter J as stressmark, as in OPERATION JHERCULESJ

For more details or abbreviations, read Enigma Procedures

And here are some often used words or expressions: