German orthography
Compound words, including nouns, are written together, e.g. "Haustür" (Haus+Tür; house door), "Tischlampe" (Tisch+Lampe; table lamp), "Kaltwasserhahn" (Kalt+Wasser+Hahn; cold water tap/faucet). This can lead to long words: the longest word in regular use, "Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften" ("legal protection insurance companies"), consists of 39 letters; while the longest German word ever published ("Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft", "Association for subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services") has 79 letters.
Wahlwort
By introducing wahlworts of different lengths at the beginning or the end of the sentence, sometimes both the beginning and the end, the length of the messages differ, which prevented or at least hindered the enemy from accessing it. The length of a wahlwort was usually between four and fourteen letters. The German code book gave as examples; “Wassereimer (bucket), Fernsprecher (telephone), Eichbaum (oak tree), Dachfirst (roof ridge), Kleiderschrank (wardrobe).” Wahlworts with only three letters occasionally appeared in the code, such as ABC or XXX, but also very long compounds, such as .