The Red network

Keys:

• October 28, 1939 traffic

Introduction

The Red network corresponds to the general traffic of the German Air Force (Luftwaffe). Although as the war progressed, other networks associated with the Air Force appeared, all important communications were encrypted on this network.

At the start of the war, Hut 6 was able to break the Green (army) networks, and the Red and Blue air force networks. The blue network turned out to be a training network.

From May 1940 with the evolution of German procedures, the use of Zygalski sheets which allowed German messages to be broken became obsolete. Hut 6 (before to use Bombes) developed manual methods but which were based on the errors of German operators. Only the Red network turned out to be attackable by these methods. But because its traffic was very interesting, it alone legitimized the very existence of Hut 6. The breaking of this key divined the soul of Hut 6 which succeeds almost every day until the end of the war to break it.