page_title: General der Nachrichtenaufklärung
section_title: France
hierarchical_section_title: General der Nachrichtenaufklärung / Signal intelligence operations / Inspectorate 7/VI operations / German offensive May–June 1940 / France
caption_attribution_description: Svenska: Boris Hagelin
context_page_description: The GdNA was the signals intelligence agency of the Heer, before and during World War II. It was the successor to the former cipher bureau known as Inspectorate 7/VI in operation between 1940 and 1942, when it was further reorganised into the Headquarters for Signal Intelligence between 1942 and 1944, until it was finally reorganised in October 1944 into the GdNA. The agency was also known at the OKH/Gend Na, GendNa or Inspectorate 7 or more commonly OKH/GdNA. Inspectorate 7/VI was also known as In 7 or In/7 or In 7/VI and also OKH/Chi.
context_section_description: With the opening of the offensive in May 1940, the French began to use ciphers in increasing quantities. Germany at this point suffered an acute shortage of forward cryptographers and was therefore unable to undertake much work on the French forward ciphers. As a result, the forward units concentrated on the two French cipher machines, the B-211, which was an elecromechanical cipher machine, designed and built by Boris Hagelin for use by the French Army and the C-36. Progress was slow, but as the result of the research on two captured C-36 machines, Army Group C was in a position, by July 1940 to undertake satisfactory reading of the traffic. Likewise, it was impossible to break the B-211 machine in time for that information to be of any value. Nevertheless, the research undertaken during this period was to justify the results later.
caption: Boris Hagelin working on a cipher machine
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